The ABCs of Metabolic Mastery for Midlife Women

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. In this episode, we break down the levers for metabolic mastery, starting with the definition, in such easy terms that it is my prediction that you will want to listen to this episode again. Not because it's confusing and not because you're going to have to go back in order to quote unquote "get it." Not that at all. Honestly, but that my guest so smoothly coaches us through unique messaging around this topic like I've never heard before, with examples and with specifics. There are no platitudes or lists or ABCs outside of what we talk about here in this episode. This information will stick. We talk about habit formation, but not in the way you've heard it, not in the way even of, say, James Clear's infamous book Atomic Habits. We talk about habits and why we fail at them and how she's working to help women specifically get a better handle on our habits and our desire to change them. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50, where I address your top struggles and concerns and we share how to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so that you can have the energy and vitality that you want, need, and deserve in the second and better half. My guest today is Ellie Kempton, founder of Simply Nourished, and at her very core, she is a lifestyle architect empowering women to reclaim their wellness. As a registered dietitian with a master's degree in functional nutrition from Bastyr University and a biochemistry degree from the University of Virginia, Ellie curates simplicity out of complex health information and provides care calibrated to support transformation. Ellie's care is underpinned by functional medicine and catalyzed by behavior design. And if you read that again, after listening, you would say yes, yes, and yes. So I can't wait to dive in. I think you're going to love this. So if you happen to see this posted on some social account, will you let me know? Ellie, thank you so much for joining me today.

Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Well, and we were talking in the quote unquote green room, you know, about the topic of the day and how this is really I think a topic that all of you listeners resonate with, it's always antennas go up. I, I know, I don't know if that's women only or that's men too. Maybe it's men after a certain point a little bit more, but I think it's women their entire lives. And it's really whenever we talk metabolism, metabolic mastery, we're diving into that, it's a very, uh, antennas go up. I need to pay attention to this. I think that's what happens. But before we unpack all of this, let's talk about you and why it is you're doing what it is you're doing. I mean, what, what called you to this, and was it what you always thought you would do?

Oh, what a perfect place to start. And I think your listeners will be maybe a little bit surprised to know that my journey began at the bottom of a swimming pool. I found what I do now by really pushing my body to its breaking point as a high-performance athlete. Specifically a swimmer. So I was staring at that blue line on the bottom of a swimming pool since I was 4 years old. And like many of us, I started to feel and see these blinking lights on my body's dashboard. And they were whisperings at first. As a little girl, I would say that my stomach hurt or that I felt achy. But it was 2 weeks before Olympic trials as a collegiate athlete that I broke. I broke from cell to soul, and I hit this point where I just couldn't keep swimming. And so I finally, the little stubborn me, finally started to look for medical care and found out that I had Crohn's, which was this just turning point in my wellness. Because no, to answer your question, I had no interest in anything wellness related, to be honest. I'm one of 5 children and I was the worst eater comically the worst in my family. And even on every sports team, I just kind of gravitated toward what was quick and easy, and speed was my drug of choice. So, you know, if anything would make me a faster swimmer, I very much was in it to win it with that, which ended up being, you know, Power Bars, Gatorade, and that kind of fuel that was not usable information to my body. So it was this breaking point for me, this rupture that came before the radiance that I now feel, which is this realignment. And having experienced that firsthand, I am so committed to just being that gentle guide toward other women on their journey back to realignment.

Wow, very cool. So you scared me for a moment there, say, the bottom of a pool. I was like, where— what?

Okay, in the way The splishy-splashy waves of a swimming pool. I'll start there.

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so now I want to unpack— I mean, this expertise in this topic of the day, obviously we'll— we won't bury it, everybody. We're gonna dive right in. So define this for me. So what is metabolic mastery? How do you approach it as a functionally trained dietitian and get somebody to it? And How does somebody know if they've got it? Because I think— paint the picture for listeners. What does that look and feel like?

Well, I'm glad we're going to define it first, uh, because you're right, this, this topic, as you said, is so electric and so magnetic because you hear metabolism and you think, oh, perfect, I'll fit back in my skinny jeans. But there's just so much more to it if you define the metabolism as the song of the cell. Essentially, the metabolism is your body's capacity to take in information in from your environment and your food, anything you expose your body to, your body's capacity to take that information and make something useful out of it, i.e., energy, i.e., mood regulation, sleep, all of this information, we're counting on our metabolism to make useful information out of it. So when your metabolism is off-kilter or dysregulated, yes, you'll feel it in weight, but there are subtleties that I think get overlooked, like chronic fatigue and mood dysregulation and hormone dysregulation and even sleep dysregulation. I see metabolic dysfunction show up in skin because ultimately these are all little cries and sometimes whisperings, but they turn into cries when you don't listen to them, that the cell is having trouble turning information into useful energy and what I like to say, magic.

Very, very cool. Okay, so what elements of metabolic mastery should we prioritize as women when— well, the way you stated is so very nice. We go through soft grade or software upgrades, which means age. We age. What What do you think we need to really prioritize for metabolic mastery that is maybe very different than what we did, say, in our early 30s?

Precisely. It changes across the decades. And you're right, I love to call it software upgrades because we, just like a software upgrade, if you try to do the same thing with new software, once your, say, phone has gone through a software upgrade or your computer, if you try to go back to the old way you were doing things, you're going to feel very frustrated. But if you iterate and refine and just really transition in transition with your body, you strike this realignment that almost makes it feel like you're cooking over fire again and no longer cooking over embers. So as we age and as we try and make these software upgrades, the most important thing for me is looking at different ways that you can anchor blood sugar. And the good news is that not only are there multiple ways to do this, but you can even hone in with more precision and accuracy on different elements of this anchoring of the blood sugar as we age. So I would say when you're, when you're in your 30s and even early 40s, you can get away with eating a few plants here or there, eating some protein here or there. But once you're in your mid-40s and you transition into your 50s, 60s, and beyond, it becomes more important than ever to hone in on at least 3 different facets of anchoring your blood sugar, starting with just getting really consistent about your protein intake. I would say in working with women around the country who are in their late 40s, early 50s, and beyond, they would give their eye teeth to go back in time and really hone in on their protein well before I teach them how to, because they start to feel light-headed bulbs come back on in their brain. They're back in sync with their hunger and satiety cues. And that protein that I teach my clients to eat with consistency becomes even more important across the decades, not only because we need more of it to repair our tissue, but if we talk about metabolic health and the, the role blood sugar plays in metabolic health and this song of the cell, it becomes even more impactful in anchoring blood sugar, especially when we are exposed to many stimulants that dysregulate our blood sugar via stress, our refined food industry, and even just any type of unknown infection or chemical exposure. All of it can do it.

Wow. Very cool. Yeah. And I would have to agree with The protein one, I think a lot of women for a second reason wish they'd paid more attention to it because now it's so hard to change that habit intellectually. I think many women are understanding the connection and the goal and the— and yet now it's this internal battle of, but this is what I've thought and believed for so long, and this is so much protein that it It becomes really hard to do it in the moment when you have to make that choice.

It really has. And I'm curious, in just your health journey, have there been any nuggets of wisdom that you've been given around protein that have really just struck a chord?

You know, well, you got to picture that I'm 42 years into this, so I don't remember a lot of the early things that I was given. I do remember growing up, you know, and the inaccuracy that we now know of, you know, red meat, saturated meat is evil, you know. And finally having the research say no, that's not it at all.

Yeah.

But yet that it lingers. So this is the one of the hardest things I think that we deal with is the science has been disproven, even retracted in certain places, But that doesn't stop the damage from having been done when so many people learned it, took it on as beliefs and of habits. Because they still linger. Yeah.

Yes. That neurological pathway has been dug and has been maybe traveled many times. And that's truthfully why I am now back in school, really researching as I get ready to write my dissertation on behavior design is for this very reason. And that's the reason I asked you is it's not the hurdle of actually eating the protein. It's actually changing your behavior and your thought patterns around it to make it feel effortless and to really buy into some of the cutting-edge science around the way that protein consistency and optimized amount heals the metabolism.

You know, if you could say that again, I think that's the mic drop, girl. I really think that, you know, we need to— and, and probably if we record that and just put it on replay for every one of us, for this exact reason that you just mentioned, it is that we don't struggle with having too much or, or enough information. I don't think that's the biggest thing, although many of us will say, but I'm overwhelmed, the choices are overwhelming. I don't think that's it as much as what you've just nailed it's— change is one of the hardest things that humans do.

And what you said, I just want to double-click on because you are touching on a very powerful neurochemical circuit, which is just exposure. So if you're listening to this and thinking, that feels insurmountable, I'm very maybe just intimidated by how to even make protein easy, or I don't know how much I should be consuming, Perhaps right now it's just repetitive exposure to different proteins. Don't even jump ahead too many steps, because when you look at building new neurochemical pathways and even just new beliefs around anything, be it wellness or anything, part of the journey is making sure that you have gentle and compassionate repetition daily.

I love that. That is something to remember. And I think, you know, I'm gonna do a shameless plug right now for something like the membership, right? Or a Facebook group where people gather who are doing either what you are doing or what you want to be doing more of. And I think also unplugging ourselves from places and people that are the crab pulling you back down into the bucket.

Right.

Yeah, right.

Precisely. Yes. I mean, how can you escape those claws? It will make your journey of healing twice as hard when your repetitive exposure is a pattern that you're trying to release.

So I want you to give us the ABCs. You know, our audience thrives on simplicity. If you give more than 3 steps, we're in trouble. And I say that collectively. I can say that. You can't say that about us. So we need it really easy because we're also very busy. What would be the ABCs of sustaining metabolic mastery?

Yeah, so with any facet— and we only touched on one, so think about how much potential there is because I see there as being 6 levers or facets of metabolic health. So I just want to empower everyone listening to know that you are never ever stuck. I have yet to get to a place where there's a dead end because there's always a different little gentle lever you can pull. And the ABCs of sustainment, the ABCs of metabolic mastery for life, happen to do most with who you are and what you believe in. So the A of behavior design is aligning what you're doing with your identity. Do you identify as someone who, who enjoys or even maybe thrives on protein? That alignment is going to sustain the habit because it's going to enable you to go to the store with the identity that you thrive on protein. And all of a sudden you're going to be tuned into— talk about an antenna. You're going to be tuned into what playful proteins you could grab on the run. You're going to know to reach for protein first when you are hungry. You are going to actually start talking to your friends about what difference protein has made in your life. Just like any wellness habit, say even being an active person, if you identify with being an active person, putting running shoes by the door, or maybe walking from your car a little bit further, to run an errand. All of these things add up because they align with who you are and what you believe in. So the A of the ABCs of metabolic mastery is to align whatever you choose in the name of metabolic mastery to who you are and what you believe in.

Very cool. And what is B?

B is actually identifying the behavior you you want to repeat. So this is where tuning into podcasts like this and reading books and listening to experts, and as you said, surrounding yourself with women who are on a mission to heal, that helps you really just hone in on the behaviors available to you that can sustain and buoy this new identity you have. So going back to the protein example, if you start to identify with someone who really just thrives on protein and eats more protein, then all of a sudden you're going to be tuned into a podcast like this and it's really going to stick out to you any details you can glean around what behaviors sustain that identity. And once you've identified what those behaviors are, then you can start performing the C, which is celebration. Celebration encodes behavior into our system. I, as a, as a registered dietitian, became very disenchanted many years ago in my practice when I realized that much of the wellness industry is just throwing new behavior after new behavior at their audience, when really we have to pause to celebrate what it is that we want to repeat.

Repeats.

So very much like a little puppy dog who you're teaching a new habit. Let's say you're teaching a puppy dog how to sit. If you asked your puppy dog to sit and then just walked out of the room and left it alone, what chance would that puppy dog want to sit again? So I am—

I have a little expertise in this area right now. Thank you.

What kind of puppy did you just get?

A mini Bernedoodle. A darn cute one. Yeah.

Oh, that needs to be covered in age.

But I would never for a minute tell him to sit and walk away.

You know it wouldn't dare sit again. Am I right?

Oh, you know, we've got the repetition nailed over here. Yeah.

I love it. I love relating it to sweet animals and even truly children too. And working with so many women who have nurtured children through the decades of learning new behaviors, you know very, very well that it takes little celebrations to light up what's called reward circuitry in the brain. There's a section of your brain that remembers what you were rewarded for, but it turns out that we are so tuned into really anything that could be a threat in our environment that we often remember negative consequences more than we remember celebrations, meaning it's even more important to celebrate ourselves twice as much. So I have a little journal that I give my clients called the Tiny Triumph Journal, and it is their job between sessions to come back to me with bullet after bullet after bullet of tiny triumphs. They need to come back to me with that Tiny Triumph Journal filled to the brim, and the more my clients repeat that it is unbelievable how their behaviors just take flight. Anything that they put their mind to, when they start celebrating the repetition of it, it's as though they become their own cheering squad and they don't need anybody to really fill in and maybe, uh, solidify any new habit because they've got it on lockdown.

I love that. Oh, so good. All right. So alignment, the behavior. What's the C?

Celebration.

Oh, okay. Okay. I got it. Yep. And tell me, tell me more about the celebration. Is that— so there's always that question of, is it internal? Internally needs to be a celebration or is external or has it got to be a combination of the two? Because I think sometimes Parents can identify with this, you know, like if we praise too much or the coach praises too much, you know, I think some of us begin to look at, did we giving all those M&Ms for potty training, did that backfire, right, on our young adults?

Yeah, did the bribery backfire?

Right.

Yes, um, that's a really good question, and actually, um, the trajectory that that's most, I guess, heavily researched and heavily substantiated is the movement from external and, um, uh, even you, you celebrating yourself very obviously externally to this intrinsic motivation where you start doing things really unseen to the public, where you have this little inner dialogue. But it does often start— the catalyst tends to be outside of us, which is why it's really important skill set to emulate the type of public celebration that you get from your trusted tribe. So in, you know, I have this beautiful community of women called The Table, and every week when we meet, I have our table goddesses celebrate each other, because what I'm doing is I am exposing them through repetition to that yummy brain chemical and that kind of that buoying neurochemistry that makes you feel amazing about yourself. I'm exposing them to that through external celebration from others. But my hope and my little secret seed that I'm planting in them is the capacity to then externally celebrate themselves. That could be a fist pump, that could be a whoop, anything that you really feel that little effervescent bubble of joy pop up that works. Over time, you will get so proficient at celebrating yourself that you will find even just an internal dialogue that's very celebratory does the trick, but it takes practice.

Great information. I think that really— you paint such a great picture about how to really take it on and how to not just master the, the metabolic piece of it, but to own it, you know, and feel it so that it's something that doesn't slip away when you really can do it this way. Such— so well articulated. So let's talk about this, though. Every woman listening, self-included, we've started something and we have failed at it. What's the power behind failure? Hmm.

Well, failure just happens to be the feedback. So I always tell my clients what feels like a mess is actually a message. So I actually, dare I say, celebrate failure because what it is, is you are pushing your edge and you're flirting with your boundaries and you're really creating a scenario where you figure out different scenarios where you can be successful, and you have to risk failure to do that. So I see the connective tissue between your failure and your success is really the lessons you learn along the way. And so I just really encourage my clients to get to a place where they try something that's so outside their comfort zone and fail at it, and then we can giggle and see where the inflection point was. Because really, when you learn to perform different skill sets in different environments through failure and success, you start to become much more fluid and much more adaptable. So let's say, let's go back to our protein habits since we really honed in on that. Let's say that you really learned how to eat protein consistently at home and you started to feel really good. You woke up to some protein, protein. You ate more protein at lunch and even more at dinner. You felt like a million bucks. Well, now you're driving around like a wild woman because it's the holidays, and I'm going to encourage you to buy protein and maybe even consume it somewhere that you've never tried. So you go to a gas station because you're running from one end of the city to the other, and you realize that there's actually No protein that even looks good to you. Well, you failed. Great. Now, you know that maybe stopping at a gas station isn't the first place to stop for protein. So next time, stop at Target. There's just different inflection points and messages you can learn from trying something so new and possibly so outrageous that it gives you information about how to do it next time. And so I almost wish that failure could be turned into a different that word like learnings or lessons, but because truly failure is the catalyst to success.

Wow. And I think everybody needs to hear that, right? I think we want the direct path, like, I just want to keep going in the right direction all the time, and we forget the value behind, okay, I learned so much What is it? It's winning or you learn a lot. Like, you're— you never fail. That's really not an option. So, so good. So thank you so much for pointing that out. What is the— what is the number one secret? So we love secrets here. Aligned wellness through the life cycles, all of them.

Yeah, well, actually, this is the perfect way to just wrap up our time together because it comes back to really what I wish I had tuned into, which is really the whisperings of the body. And I see the number one secret— dare I say there be any secrets to wellness— being self-awareness and cultivating a practice of daily reflection where you tune in to how the body's responding to some of these new behaviors. And when we're on the cusp of anything new, I see maybe one of the most powerful, um, just stumbling blocks or even just points of discouragement is not really understanding what feels aligned. And I see a daily practice of self-awareness through journaling and reflection being one of the most powerful ways to pivot and iterate and refine, because life isn't linear. Life is is so cyclical. And so to track your cyclical experience, not from A to B to C, but A to Z to D to F, you are going to be able to see what it was that you want to keep with you while you continue to refine away what no longer serves you. So I think to be self-aware is just to tune in to how you think and feel. It's noticing how you notice, and it's not really in an effort to to find what's right, but to expand yourself and to tap into what's limitless to you.

Beautifully said. Thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure. You have such a unique spin and way with words, but a handle on what I really feel like is where we're all coming from and a way to propel us forward in a way that feels really, feels magnetic. It's the word we started with when we were talking about metabolism. Metabolic health, that we're all attracted to that. But I think you put it in such a very friendly way. I can't believe you won't have a lot of people wanting to follow you. So where can they do that?

Oh, well, I love that you are magnetized by simplicity. So my business is actually Simply Nourished because I too healed through the lens of simplicity.. And so you can find me over at Simply Nourished Nutrition. And because I believe like you do that women heal in community and we need to see each other and walk beside each other and cheer each other on with those tiny triumphs, one of the best ways that you can connect with me is through my online membership called The Table, where women around the country gather to open up this conversation because chances are if you have this question, hundreds of other women at the table have it too. And so every week my table goddesses get a live call with me and I just spoon-feed them one nourishing ritual a week to try on for size as though you're trying on a golden bracelet and iterate upon that habit as you prepare for the next. And I really want to create a scenario where women find answers to their most pressing pain points and desires. Such a beautiful invitation.

I feel like we all need to RSVP.

Okay, I will roll out the red carpet.

Thank you so much, and thank you so much for your time. All right, listeners, now it's your turn, and I am just gonna guess, and I'd love to hear from you if you see are seeing this and you're kind of catching up on Facebook or on Instagram, let me know that you listened to it because I think this is one that had so many gold nuggets that it's easy to listen maybe the first time and then realize you want to know what was it. I envisioned that you will want to rewind and listen to it a second time, and I'd love to hear if you can reinforce course my thoughts, or if I was way off base, you can let me know that too. So if you want to come over to the show notes, you'll learn how to connect with Ellie, and that will be at flipping50.com/metabolicmastery. And what are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 today.