423: Seed Oils, GLP1’s, Alcohol and Protein: Discussing All the Juicy Midlife Topics with Bestie Keri Glassman

The reason these have gotten a bad name and the reason I do avoid and I do like clients of mine and people that follow me to avoid them is for two main reasons. The first is that the way we consume our seed oils are highly processed refined seed oils. We're getting them highly processed. We are not with with with unhealthy chemicals that have been treated to be processed. We are not getting cold pressed quality seed oils for the most part.

Hi, I want to welcome you to Midlife Conversations. I'm Natalie Jill, your host and I help midlife women redefine and rebrand aging. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated information and conversations around aging that are relevant to us now and breaking it all down simply with actionable steps that you can implement to level up your life because your best years are yet to come. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring people living in their best midlife years. On this show, I cover topics about our health, hormones, navigating weight, blood sugars, our mood, focus changes, even our relationships, career changes, beauty, and more.

How much protein should we actually be having in midlife? Are GLPs safe, trendy or dangerous? Can they be helpful seed oils? Do we really need to be worrying about these or is that just a gimmick? And alcohol? Is this really dangerous? Does it cause cancer and cause heart disease or are we overreacting? We were once told that it could help us with our heart. Today we're talking about all of the things. I've got one of my best friends here, Keri Glassman, and this is going to be a fun conversation. The reason she is on and we're airing this actually on both of our podcasts. So it's on my podcast, Midlife Conversations. It's also on hers, Living a Nutritious Life. What I love about this conversation is at the time of this recording, she's 52, I'm 52. We are in the throes of midlife and yes, we're living to be over 100, so that's midlife to us. But here's what's really cool is I am a licensed master sports nutritionist. She is a celebrity dietitian. So she's in the traditional like registered dietitian. I went a different route with being a master sports nutritionist, but we have so much in common and we have a few things we differ on. So we wanted to have a real conversation about midlife women, the changes that are happening and all the trendy topics. All the trendy topics and what's really, really real behind them. And what's the fluff?

I love it.

So before we even jump in, just a little backstory on how we met, we're both. We both are. I will say we're. We are ADHD entrepreneurs, which we look as a blessing. It's a superpower that we have. But it was, gosh, it was. How many years ago did we meet Carrie?

So I was trying to think about this before. I think. Well, it was before your first book. We know that. I think it was like two years before your first book. Was it like 10 years ago?

Yeah, it had to been almost 10 years ago. So about 10 years ago, Carrie saw me on, I think, Facebook doing fitness stuff. That's, that's what happened. And I happened to be in New York meeting with my book agent and she sent a message. I'll never forget it. I remember you sent a message through my support, by the way.

Very first time I had ever done that. It was Instagram. You were doing your, you were on Instagram, your at home workouts, your at home body weight workouts.

Okay.

And that's what I connected to. I remember so specifically because I was like, I've never done this before. This was, again, it was 10 years ago. I hadn't reached out to people on Instagram like that that I didn't know, so I'll let you continue. And then, so what was wild?

So I was focused on fitness, you were focused on nutrition. You were also more traditional media. So you had a lot of published books. You had been on all the main shows. You were like traditional media. I was like doing everything on social media, Internet. It was a different kind of path. But you messaged us. And I remember somebody on my support team messaged me and they're like, hey, you might want to pay attention to this email. And it was from you personally. And you were, I don't know, you were sharing who you were and you were following me and you said, if you're ever in New York, I'd love to connect or let's just meet over, talk, get on, get on the phone. And I happened to be in New York, so it all worked out. I remember we had like one hour that worked for both of us and I went to your boyfriend's office with my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time. And I remember, I remember meeting you and it was like an hour of like, we just couldn't.

We like our whole life, everything, everything. And it was, there was so many funny coincidences from you, you know, from Our daughters being almost the exact same age to even your daughter Penelope. I was like, that's what I was gonna name my son. I mean there were so many, so many funny coincidences. And I remember the reason I connected with you and I wanna mention this because I think that you still have this superpower. You connect with people so well because you're so real and so real and raw and just you on most amazing way that again I had like, I, like you already mentioned, I really came from this more traditional media side. I was doing tv, I was writing books, I was had columns and magazine. I had a traditional practice nutrition practice in New York City. But I wasn't as into the social media thing that wasn't doing as much of that. The whole digital media thing wasn't as much in my wheelhouse. And I was just on Instagram like a regular. I mean I guess I had an Instagram account but I was just more of a consumer on there.

Yeah.

And I was seeing you doing your at home body weight workouts and I thought to myself, and you'd mentioned maybe your daughter and I thought to myself, I so get this woman. She's busy, she's an entrepreneur, she's squeezing in those workouts. Like they are just, these workouts are for me because they just. I really like you spoke to me and I really related to it and I thought to myself, you know what I do, I want to be doing more of this digital media stuff and I should connect with her and see how we could maybe collaborate or or at very least like we would be friends. Like, yeah, we are just speaking the same language. And so I, instead of. I don't. You're right, I didn't dm. I don't even know if I knew a DM one.

I think you messaged that at that point.

I did. 100%. I exactly. I did. I then looked you up. I remember this now. I took the time, I looked you up, I looked up your website and then I messaged you through your website. You're 100% right. And I said who I was. I'm like, I'm not a crazy because I didn't even know Again. Now people DM each other all the time to do things like this. But back then I just, I had never done that. And so I was like, I need to connect with you. But I also want to add one other thing. When we met, when we met that first time and we were just like da da da da da again, we could have talked for 20 hours. Remember we did a handstand. Yeah, I was just going to say dances.

We have to find that picture.

We have to find that picture. I have it somewhere. I. Seriously. Because I know it has popped up on my phone before, but we did handstands. We're like. Because something came up with that. We're like, let's do handstands now. Meanwhile, we were both, like, in heels, and we're like, let's do a handstand.

And our boyfriends thought we were crazy. And, like, I don't think they got a word in edgewise. We just, like, completely.

Definitely not.

And we've been close friends ever since. Like, so. So not only have we done some work stuff together, but we're really. We're really good friends, and we're really in the same stage of life. And what's really wild is a lot of times. And I'm going to generalize here for a minute, but it's important. A lot of times in the registered dietitian community, they have strong opinions about nutritionists and, like, because they're nutritionists also, but they have a strong opinion as a generalization of what nutrition should look like. Where traditionally, like, a lot of people that are not registered dietitians, like me, that went a different way of learning nutrition, we have strong opinions of our way, so there's usually this, like, disagreement. Carrie and I have never disagreed. We literally have never disagreed. We have the same views around nutrition. So it'll be interesting today to see how that's evolved and change in 10 years later. But because we're going to go over all the hot topics right now, and I don't even know where you stand on some of these things, so it's going to be a really fun conversation.

Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait. This is going to be so much fun and always just fun to chat with you. I just wish we were in real in in person right now. I know we're on a couch sipping some tea together as opposed to being on our computers, but she lives in.

New York City, and I'm in.

This will have to do.

This will do for today. This will have to do.

All right.

Okay. So where do we want to start? Which topic? There's so many topics. Which one are we going to start with?

Okay, I am going to start with, let's say, seed oil.

Okay. Let's see.

Let's get this one done.

Yes. Yes.

Okay, so I'll start. I'll just throw a couple things out here. When it comes to seed Oils. I've got lots of thoughts on seed oils, but I'm going to start with something that bothers me the most about seed oils. And this is the conversation that is being had out in social media. Now, I don't know if you're seeing this because again, you're maybe not looking at more of like the traditional dietitian world, but what really bothers me about seed oils is that it's. This has become this polarizing topic. Similar, actually, if we talk about the red dye thing at some point today, similar to this topic, it's become this polarizing topic where I think that some people that are on one side and people that are on the other side are actually not saying anything that different. But they're so like trying to, what am I trying to say? Squash the other side that the message is getting skewed. So for. I'm just going to give an example of what I'm, what I'm trying to say here. If this doesn't make sense, it drives me crazy when I see, let's say some people being so supportive of seed oils because they're trying to, you know, stand on the soapbox of. But this research and this research and this research, like trying so hard to stick by a few pieces of research and wanting to prove the other side wrong because they want to prove the side wrong of the people that are saying that they're harmful for you because you're scaring people. So they're, so they're trying to make the point of don't scare people about seed oils. And then, but in, in doing that, they're almost supporting them, I think more than they actually probably. Okay, support them. Does that make sense?

I think so. What's your, what is your personal stance on them? Are you avoiding them? Are you.

And I can get it. I will, I will. I'm going to. I want to get into them. And I'm sorry if I didn't make total.

It makes sense.

But the reason I, well, but the reason I'm saying that is I think that it's what it. All it ends up doing is confusing the consumer. It does more because you've got some people that are. That it seem like they're scaring and other people over here that seem like they're supporting when at the end of the day, I don't think the people scaring really want to scare that much. And I don't think the people that are supporting are actually as supportive as it's made. As it's made to be. So People are trying to help the net. Net.

Yes, and I help, but they're not, they're confusing more.

That's what I think. Okay, so. And by the way, we don't even. We can get rid of that whole thing.

No, it's great.

So where I stand is. Okay, so I think that there are two major reasons why I do not like seed oils. The first reason is that, well, just to clarify, so seed oils we know come from seeds. They are polyunsaturated fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fatty acids do have a role in our diet. They can play a healthy role in our diet. The reason that seed oils and the seed oils we're talking about, sunflower oil, safflower oil, canola oil, seed. Yep. The reason these, the reason these have gotten a bad name and the reason I do avoid, and I do like clients of mine and people that follow me to avoid them is for two main reasons. The first is that the way we consume our seed oils are highly processed refined seed oils. We're getting them highly processed. We are not with, with, with unhealthy chemicals that have been treated to be processed. We are not getting cold pressed quality seed oils for the most part. Obviously if we're using a cold pressed seed oil in our kitchen, that's different. But I'm saying the, the way that we, the majority of the, of the seed oils we consume are highly processed refined seed oils. So and those are inflammatory and not healthy for us. The second reason I don't like seed oils is that the large majority of the seed oils we're getting are also found in. And this kind of goes along with the first point. They're found in unhealthy foods that we shouldn't be eating anyway, highly processed packaged foods. So we're eating highly processed seed oils. Whether that's like in a bottle of unhealth of highly processed refined oil in our kitchen or, and, or we're finding them in highly processed packaged foods which we should be avoiding. So, which has other unhealthy ingredients as well. So for the most part the, these types of seed oils we're consuming are unhealthy and inflammatory and we're not reaping the polyunsaturated fatty acid benefits from them because they're not a healthy version of themselves. So that is the big reason we should be avoiding them for the most part.

With that said, if the large majority of your diet is healthy, you know, whole real foods and you have a bag of chips here and there that has a seed Oil in it. I don't think like in that small part, it's like, you don't have to be scared something's gonna happen to me tomorrow. Like, I don't want people to be scared of them. We have to look at what we're doing on a daily basis, on a regular basis, what foods are in your pantry. And then the final thing I'll say is that the quality of the. If we do have something like I don't use them at all in my kitchen, I don't find a need to use them.

Totally.

I have avocado, I have coconut oil, high quality olive oil, grass fed butter. Those are the fats that I use in my kitchen. So I don't find a need at all. But if there is a recipe or if there is a reason that you want to use, some of you can buy to use in your kitchen a higher quality cold pressed organic sunflower oil. And that would be a much better option. So there's. So you have to kind of take a look at your overall diet. I don't think you should be scared. We should be avoiding the foods that we find seed oils in for the most part anyway. But I definitely don't think we should be saying seed oils. No, they're good for us. They're polyunsaturated fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fatty acids are good for us, but not in this form.

So everything you said I love because it's very sound advice and I, and I hate the whole scare tactic thing when we go extreme on something. But that being said, I want to give my opinion on this.

Yeah.

So I do think that if we rewind to when we grew up. So talk about, we were growing up in the 70s really, seed oils were not popular yet they started to become popular. So we were, we start before us, butter, ghee, real like using, they even use lard or whatever. Now it's tallow. Like we used like real actual fats to cook. We didn't use the oil. Restaurants did. You went to McDonald's years ago. It was made with tallow. It was not done with seed oils. What happened was accidentally, and this is just history research showing accidentally seed oils were sort of discovered like it was a byproduct. If you look at how petroleum is made, if you look at how things are made, it was an accidental discovery. And so it also became this cheaper types of oil that they deemed safe for us. So the concerning part about this is it seems like almost overnight restaurants, food companies replaced normal fats. Normal fats they're really in nature with this highly processed type of oil. And unfortunately it also correlates with the upswing of heart disease, of different diabetes, of cancers. So there's a lot of variables there, a lot of variables. But when you look at a common thread and how like it almost like a light switch happened and overnight it went from these regular fats to these highly processed, dangerous seed oils. And I'm not talking about having a sunflower seed. That's not what I mean. I mean, yeah, the oils. Yes, the oils. And then this high amount of fried and processed and then eating at restaurants a lot more common and fast food, cheap. So it became this huge staple in diets. Even unintentionally, like it's almost impossible to go grocery shopping and buy products without seed oil in it.

It.

It's literally almost impossible to do it. So if you are eating, unless you're literally shopping parameters, but if you're buying. So, so what happened, I think is we had an overabundance, an overabundance of seed oils in our diet and we've got this high correlation of other stuff happening, inflammation, all these things. And a common variable is this increase in seed oil. But it, like you said, it doesn't mean that the one off little bit that you're having or this like, because I'm on an airplane and I got a snack and it looked like a healthy snack and it happened to list a little sunflower oil. That's not the problem. The problem is this huge pendulum swing towards only having seed oils. So that's where I think we need to be more aware. And I am a fan of the current administration's push on getting rid of this because I don't like that I go to a restaurant and order a steak or a piece of fish and why is it cooked in, in seed oil?

I 100% agree with you there. And I don't want, I don't want people to be scared of dining out either. If that's part of your lifestyle and you enjoy dining out, like, that's a great fun thing. But that's also why I like people keep their kitchen even cleaner. So then at least when you're home, you know that you're not getting any more of that because again, we want to reduce the amount because you said it is everywhere and it's so hard to avoid.

Yes.

So it does bother me. I totally agree. I think in restaurants. And you'd also think like you would hope that restaurants, especially if you're at a nicer restaurant would be using higher quality oils.

They don't though. Sometimes they'll use grapeseed oil. So what I do personally, and this isn't going to work at like a TGI Fridays, by the way. So you can't, you can't do this there or McDonald's. But if you go to a steakhouse or you go to like a nice restaurant, you can ask what kind of oil do you cook in? And you can say could you please just use butter? Or could you please just use like you could ask for the change. I also want to just. And then we'll go into the next kind of topic here. All of our DNA is different. We're all genetically different and some of us process things different than others. So there's not a one answer. Like it's just this for everybody. But I do think we were fed a lie, fed a lie for years saying no fat. Like no avocado, no saturated fat. No, no, absolutely vegetable oil. Because we're not. That's not heart healthy. That's not making it heart healthy. We create other problems. So we have to be aware. I also want to mention there's a guest I had on my show, Carrie. I don't know if you know her, but she's got a fabulous book. If anyone wants to go.

I know where you're going with this.

Yeah, yeah. Kate Shannon, I had her on. She wrote a book, Dark Calories and she wrote it a while back. Her research is older, but if you want like sort of the history on seed oil and where this came from, I think it's just a fabulous book. She doesn't know I'm plugging it right now. But I just. It was, I sent it to you, Carrie too. It was such a, it's such an eye opening book about the history.

And I think, and I might be remembering this wrong, but I want to say that she, that it's something like a third of our calories now come from seed oils. Yeah, a third of Americans calories. And again, I might be quoting that wrong, but I'm pretty sure. And the other thing that I believe that she mentions where I know there's more research going on here, which is a whole other area of research on seed oils that I think we're going to see come to light even, even more so in the next few years is on the type of our type of body fat based on our diet and how much seed oils we're eating, that our actual body fat is different. The type of fat we have is different. Which means that some, you know, it's more inflammatory. Inflammatory than another. Than your other type of body fat you might have if you had a diet that was less high in seed oils. Again, this is me just remembering this from some of her research. I don't. I don't know the ex exactly. But I think, I think, though, regardless, like, we're going to see more on that topic and I don't think it's going to be good. So I think.

No, I think we pay attention. Also, there's another thing we didn't even talk about with diet, but you and I have a similar skin thing that I just want to point out that I think there's two things. And I don't want to go down a whole rabbit hole here, but there's two things that you and I have in common. That. And we have the same skin thing. Both of us have dark.

I don't even know where you're going.

We have those dark. The dark age spots. We've talked about it.

Yeah. Yes, yes.

Okay. But both of us were on hormonal birth control pills for years. Right. Were you on hormones?

No, I wasn't on.

You were never on them?

No, I was only on for about like two years in college. That was it.

Okay. But we were on them and we both had a higher diet and seed oil. So there is a correlation too, with those two things. Scopes, it's a whole other topic, but sometimes it's more than just what's happening inside with our bodies, like our skin. Like, a lot of people are very quick to blame. And now granted, I was tanorexic, so I overdid the sun and tanning beds for sure. So I'm not dismissing that, but I was quick to blame just that. But there's also this other component that could be contributing to the skin. The skin stuff.

Oh, absolutely. And I will tell you, I was not a tanorexic girl. My mom scared me of the sun and I did not sit in the sun. And I have all of those spots and I definitely grew up on a seed oil diet of all those other.

Things to be said there.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.

I'm.

It's just, it's interesting to see, though, where this whole conversation where this is all going to go because I think the net. Net right now for everyone listening is don't be scared, but reduce seed oils as much as possible because it is certainly not going to be harmful and it is only probably going to be very helpful for you.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay. I'M going to bring up the next one. Another kind of controversial one I'll bring up. We don't, by the way, Carrie and I have a list and we decided we're going to go back and forth and we don't even know what each other are picking on our list. So I'm going to go with GLPs here because this is a really hot topic and I think you might be surprised at my opinion. I don't even know what carries are yet. So this is going to be fun. So I'm going to share mine and then Carrie's going to share hers. So I think GLPs are groundbreaking. I think they're, they're hugely needed. And I actually get turned off when I hear a trainer or nutritionist shaming people for jumping to that. And I want to, I want to set the tone here on a few things. Number one, I don't think everyone needs them. No. 2, I do not think people are lazy that take them. That is not what I think. What I think is as groundbreaking as having insulin for type 1 diabetics. Like, this is something in many cases of obesity. This is an extreme problem. Some people more often than not actually have a real problem and their bodies are storing a lot of extra fat. They are, they don't have the same metabolism, they don't have the same hunger control, craving control. There's a lot of stuff going on there and it's not about just working out harder and eating stricter. So for some people, GLPs have been absolutely life changing. And what it does is it takes them out of that high risk mode and gets them into being able to do healthier habits like eating better, moving their bodies, all that. That being said, I do think it is overprescribed in some cases at too high of a dose for too many people. What I do think is if we would go a lot slower, start lower with people and really assess. Is this helping? Your body's already making glp, but people have like a GLP deficiency a lot of times. So in a lot of cases of people having chronic high blood sugar or having issues with their insulin and their cortisol, even having these issues here, small microdose levels, small amounts. And Dr. Tina Moore is the one who originally turned me on to this. This research can be really life changing as far as changing your metabolic markers and reducing cravings and helping. So at the extreme levels, we hear all these risks, all these like dangers you're going to have, you're going to affect your Pancreas, you're going to affect this. You're going to. You slow down your gastric emptying, but that's at a higher level, maybe more high than. Than you need prescribed. So I'm not against them. What I am a fan of is going slower, starting a lot slower on them, really being aware and then also changing your life habits so you don't chronically crush your appetite. And now you are rapidly losing muscle and you're gaunt and you're, you're losing that. So slow amounts for the right people. That's my opinion. I'm curious yours Carrie?

No, I love it. And it's funny. I think you're going to be surprised or some listeners or I have to say when people ask me my opinion on them, I think they are surprised to hear my, my thoughts on them which are very similar to yours.

Okay.

That I am not anti. Because I think they would think like that. I would say that's crazy. Not everybody should be going on these. That's like, you know, they, they really expect me to say that and I say no. I think GLP1s are a number amazing. GLP1 medication. Yes. Is an amazing tool in the right situation. It is an incredible tool. So I'll just, I want to just jump on a few of the things you said. So you mentioned like you, I. You mentioned something, I think you mentioned something with like insulin maybe like the same way that could be used like that. So I think of them as, you know, it's hormone therapy. We have to remember it's a form of hormone therapy and some people need that. We, they need that they need the help there and it's. And again it's an amazing tool. So a thing I also like to remind people is that these have been around for a long time. People are like well, the research isn't there and the like yes, there's some research in certain populations is not there yet. But we have GLP1 medications have been studied and have been around for a lot longer. It's just they've gotten just very popular in the past couple years. So we also have, we have to remember that. But I want to go back a step. One thing I like to always remind people is when I, when I have this conversation is first of all there is a big time and place and I am absolutely not anti them and they can be an incredible tool for people. So I'm right there with you with, with zero shame if you need them. Zero shame. And I don't think anybody should be against Them. If anything, practitioners should all be open minded to the possibility of using them as a tool in the right scenario. But I'll go back a step and just say that what I think many people don't realize is that GLP1 glucagon, like peptide, it is a hormone that we make, so we all have it. So when we say GLP1, that is just, that is a hormone in our bodies, right? Like we have that hormone, some of us are not producing the right amount. Some of us, you know, it's not working efficiently. Like, there's a lot of different reasons that it might not be working properly. Okay. So that is the first and foremost. If you have someone who says I've gained a little bit of weight or I'm the, or whatever might be going on, you want to take a look at, let's try to maximize your own GLP1 in conjunction with improving your diet, in conjunction with decreasing your stress and maybe improving your exercise and increasing your, your muscle mass so that you're more metabolically active. Like, there's a lot of things that people look at to do to improve people's health and to reduce their weight, but they are not, they don't necessarily look at improving their GLP1 as well. So yeah, and a lot of that relates to our gut health, right? So there's a, there's a lot we can do as it relates to our gut health that can improve our own GLP1. So what I first say is before just going on a GLP1, you want to take a look at your, over your diet, your obviously your exercise, your head. You want to look at all of these things that we would traditionally look at. And then you also really want to take a look at, well, where can I improve my own GLP1? Do I need more fiber in my diet? You know, do I need, do I need a probiotic? Do I need a specific probiotic that actually helps my own GLP1? So there's, there's a lot of things that we can do also. Certain protein, protein as when we break, when it breaks down into amino acids, some of those amino acids can help Support our own GLP1. So there is a lot of things that we can do to help Support our own GLP1 before we go on a GLP1. And with that said, if that isn't, doesn't work, a GLP one might be completely appropriate for someone. But then exactly what you were saying, looking at the dosing and looking at the right one for you is all really Important. And one thing you mentioned, microdose. I also just want to add on that one of the most impressive things with the microdosing is actually is less about the weight and more about the reducing of inflammation in the body. So that's also something that's, that's really important. And then the other thing is, though I will say for people that do go on it, I always, I also like to mention that you really have to take a very close, a very close look at your diet and like you said, body composition. Because we do not want to take someone that is maybe metabolically unhealthy. Okay. And needs to lose weight and now make them just unhealthy in a different way by losing muscle mass. So, and many people do, they lose muscle mass. So I'd say making sure that someone is eating adequate calories, getting adequate protein, getting and eating, getting, sorry, maintain. Making sure that they're weight, strength training so that they're maintaining muscle mass. All of those things are very, very important to monitor so that someone can have success on a glp. One, not just weight loss success, right. But health success.

Well, you said about inflammation, I don't want to skip over that. You mentioned it. But like, this is astonishing. The results that people are showing around inflammation, like high C reactive protein and the amount that, that drops, like astonishing. Like, so here's the thing. When you look at metabolic markers, it's not, it's heart, like all the cholesterol markers, the blood sugar, your A1C, all of that goes together. The danger starts happening when you see this high C reactive protein. You see these high inflammation markers. The. It is astonishing to look at. And I've looked at clients labs. Like, the amount that, that drops even from small amounts of GLP is groundbreaking. Like, we cannot do that with enough antioxidants or by eliminating fat. So this is, I think, astonishing. And for people just to dismiss it, I think is really, is really. It's bad. It's sad to me. If you've listened to my podcast for any amount of time, you know, there's been lots of guests and lots of talk where we've chatted about what to eat, getting enough protein, eating healthy, the importance of it, why we want to eat organic. But I want to share that as we age, it's not just what we eat, it's what we digest. Even if we eat super healthy, clean, organic food, we can still not have the best digestion. You see, our natural ability to digest food declines with age. This is because your body produces fewer enzymes which are the proteins responsible for digesting food. And when you have fewer enzymes, this means more difficulty digesting our food. So even organic, healthy or what you think are perfect foods won't provide enough enzymes to properly digest them. So this is especially true if you cook your food, which most of us do, because cooking kills the enzymes. So if you've ever wondered why you might have digestion problems even after having a healthy meal, it's because your body just can't produce enough of the enzymes to get the job done. So this is where supplementing with high quality enzyme supplements can be a huge help. So I personally use and recommend a specific digestive stack from bioptimizers which includes their mass zymes, which is a best in class supplement loaded with full spectrum enzymes for digesting proteins, starches, sugars, fibers and fats. So when you take this enzyme daily, and I personally take them with each meal and replace the enzymes your body is no longer producing, you're able to eat all sorts of things and digest them quickly without the bloating, without the feeling, you know, puffy, without the leaky gut issues, all of that. So when you digest your food properly, you're actually getting all of the nutrients. So I've got an exclusive offer for all of my listeners if you go to bioptimizers.com nataliejill again, bioptimizers.com natalieJill you can also use coupon Natalie Jill to save. You'll see my recommended stack which includes the Massymes, the HCL and the Probiotic.

Well, it's not being open, it's also not being open minded to where, you know, what tools we have available to us now. I also do just, I will just say so. Ashley Kauf, an incredible registered dietitian. She and I actually have a program that we've been doing with GLP1 optimization to teach people about how to optimize your own GLP1 and then also educate on the medications. But it's, it's a, it's really about learning about your own GLP1 because people don't understand how to maximize their own. And I think for many people it's about that. And then for other people, yes, the medications are tools that can, that may be appropriate.

Oh, that's so good. I didn't even know you had that, so that's amazing. Okay, where are we going next? These are, we got some hot tops here. It's your turn.

Okay. I know there's so, I know there's so many and we could go forever. So all right, let's. Let's go. It's like.

It's like the view, but it's not. It's like. It's just. It's the opinion. We'll call it the opinion. Me and Carrie's opinion.

Alcohol.

Okay.

Okay, so I'll start. I guess so. Alcohol. As you know, I've had to dramatically reduce the alcohol that I consume. I'm almost down to none. I mean, I thought about it the other day and.

How much were you drinking? Did we have a problem here?

It's. No, no, no. It's not even. I was drinking that much. I enjoyed it. I mean, I enjoyed my glass of wine. I could never really drink more than two glasses of wine. More than. I mean, two margaritas with. Would like. It would been the max.

But are you talking like a day or a week?

Okay, so then I would say how much was I starting with? I would say probably three nights a week. I was having one to two drinks. So not a lot. I never drink. I mean, not like. And that's not a lot for many people, but I would say, like, that was like, sort of my. A good part of my adult life. Okay. I drink. I mean, I think maybe I've had a half a glass of something, a half a drink in the past three months. I mean, I probably have four drinks total now a year. I mean, it's crazy how little I.

Have and what changes did you know?

And again. So. And I could easily just say I'm never having it again. I don't say that because, you know, sometimes it's just nice to order and even have a couple sips. So, you know, my. Personally. And this isn't really where we're even going here, but I'll just say I was just starting with that. I had to personally give. Give it up because of migraines. I just. They trigger migraines for me and I'm out for three days. And so I had to. And even if I didn't get a migraine, I would get major, major brain fog the next day. Like, I could not. I just. I could not. I mean, talk about, like, you know, you talk about, like, perimenopause brain fog. I mean, forget about it. Like, next level. Could not. Could not put sentences together. So anyway, it was. It does not work for me personally. So. And the only reason I'm bringing that up is that I think that this is a very common thing for. I know your audience is midlife women. Very, very, very common for midlife women. So I want to Just say, as far as alcohol goes, we know, we've known for a very long time that it is not healthy for us for many reasons. We've known for a very long time that it is linked to cancer. I think the reason a lot of people are now talking about it with the new surgeon general, you know that there's going to be the warning label on alcohol saying that it may cause cancer. So I think the big difference here is it's not that there's any there, there is more research now, but we've known this for a long time. So I just want to put out there for people the reason that I think this is now going to be out there and on. And the reason the surgeon general did do this is because let's just use cigarettes as the other example. People know, I think it's like 90% of Americans know cigarette smoking is bad for us and linked to cancer. I think it's something like 45% of Americans know that alcohol is linked to cancer. So it's not even that any new major study came out. It's like we've known this, but people don't really know it and they don't think of alcohol that same way. So how do we reconcile this? I think is really the big question. How do we reconcile this for people that are like, well, I really enjoy it. It's how I relax. I've enjoyed it for so long and what do you mean? I thought wine was good for us. I think that's the big question. So I wanted to just put out there the two things of I think for many people, midlife, it just doesn't work for you. And if it doesn't work for you, it's probably doing a lot more damage than you even realize even. Right. And then the second part is that's sort of the why on the surgeon general general you know, warning. And then. But now it's okay, how do we reconcile it? So I have thoughts on that too. I don't know if you want to jump in there and then I can give you my thoughts on that.

Yeah. So it's interesting. I look at alcohol a little different. So first of all, I'm actually not a drinker. Like I've never been in the. And I'm not saying this to be self righteous at all. I just, I don't like it. I just never have. So for me it's been like more a glass every twice a year. Like maybe twice a year I have a glass of champagne or when I was in Italy, I Have a glass of red wine. So, so I have this, this I'm a different wired person, that I've just never really enjoyed it and I don't like how I feel on it. That being said, being in the fat loss space for midlife women, I don't take it away from my women because I understand the need to wind down and the need to reduce stress. So when I teach nutrition and teach plans, I always work it in for those that want it because to me, people get very defensive of me taking it and I don't. I like to work with people versus like fighting and deprivation. Of course, that's the first thing. The second thing is there's two things that I do not hear talk talked about with alcohol that I really want to bring up because these are, these are a little bit. Maybe this just is my weird neurodivergent brain that goes here. I don't know. I get obsessive on some, some off things. So this is Natalie's opinion. Okay. But I look at, as we get older, so especially in our 50s, a lot of toxins start catching up with us. So we don't process toxins through our body the way that maybe we did in our 30s. So meaning you can have, get your, your toxic nail stuff put on your toxic hair color and you could have be exposed to all these products that Maybe in our 20s didn't affect us so much. But now our body is processing a lot more and we need our organs to be working completely functionally and healthy to detox us. So to me it's less important about do we avoid every toxin because we can't. But is your body optimal in, in processing and getting rid of things? So what happens with a lot of women is our liver numbers start to change. And this is important to point out because you'll go to the doctor, you'll have your routine test and they'll say your liver enzymes are elevated and they're like cut out supplements cut out. They're trying to figure out what's elevating your, your liver. But when you have alcohol, when you drink alcohol, that is going to overload your liver. And your liver gets so busy dealing with that that it is not dealing with the other things. So maybe I sound extreme saying this, but it is a dot I've kind of connected that I want people to be aware of because I'm not going to tell you, never color your hair, never get like we're going to get toxins. But what do you want your body processing first? So alcohol Takes a very big priority on your liver. So that's. That's one second I look at what drives people to drink, and I. And whether it's one a day, it's two a day, it's a bottle a day, it's one a week, whatever it is, what are we doing? What are we. What. What's the need to drink? And I'm not. Not a shaming thing. We all have our ways of wanting to wind down, but typically it's to feel better, it's to shut off our brain. It's to relax. It's to. It's whatever that is. So is the alcohol causing the disease, or is this forever issue that we have behind it that we haven't addressed or figured out how to stop causing it? So there's kind of like the chicken or the egg question. So it's just another thing to look at there. And then the third thing, it's the habits that alcohol might create when we have it. So, for instance, if I have a glass of champagne or wine, I'm gonna eat a lot more cheese and a lot more carbs and a lot. I'm like, I'm not. I'm eating the whole box bag of chips, and I'm not thinking right. So that is also contributing. So when. When you ask me, like, is alcohol dangerous? I don't think it's helping us. But I also think this has become kind of this, like, another shameful topic, like GLPs, like, how dare you want to drink? How dare. Like, I don't look at it like that. It's all, what's working for you and how do we make this fit in? That's my thoughts.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'm on the same page with a lot of that. I mean, I think. I think with alcohol, too. Again, it's sort of like, there's what we know about alcohol in general, and then there's how you're consuming it in your life and what your personal risk factors are and what's important to you and how. Right? So, yes, we know that it is a toxin. We know that it is linked to cancer. We know that.

And it goes direct to your liver like that real quick and overloads it.

And we know that it is linked to cognitive decline. We know all of that. So if you're somebody, you have to. It's a personal thing. Right. If you're somebody that eats a really super healthy diet and, you know, doesn't have any of these toxins from other, you know, uses clean beauty products and Uses clean cleaning supplies in your house and, you know, drinks. Drinks all your water and gets your electrolytes in and does all the great things. But you enjoy. You really enjoy those couple glasses of wine a week. And it actually, it helps you relax and you sleep fine after it. And you don't go, you know, for the sweets after you have the glass of wine. That might be doing even some positive things in your life. It might be. It might even just be adding to the joy in your life. Right? And it might play. It might absolutely be doing no harm. It is serving a role in your life. But if you're someone else who has, you know, Alzheimer's in the family and you have, you know, a lot of cancer in your family, and when you drink alcohol, you drink and usually drink one, then it leads to like, three or four. Then you also have the bread basket and you have sweet, and you end up having dessert that night. You sleep horribly and, you know, the next day you're starving and you're craving carbohydrates and sweets. It's not working for you in your life. That is not working for you. So it's really. You have to really take a look at. It is. I don't think it is like, it's not like cigarette smoking with the warning, like, there is absolutely zero time in place. There is a possible time in place where you can incorporate it into a healthy lifestyle. I just think you really have to look at how it affects everything from sleep to the rest of your behaviors. Like, what else you end up eating, like you said, to how much you consume to your history, your personal history, genetics, all of that. And, you know, like. Like I said, I'll just go back to what I said. Like, for me, I know I want the biggest reason. And again, even when I was saying how much I drank, that's probably like during, like, a certain little period of. I'm sure trying to think when. Because I know, like, after I gave birth, maybe during COVID Well, no, I'm trying to think like, during. After I gave birth to my daughter. No, because I'm just thinking about it. I was very sensitive to it. Also. I couldn't drink for that next year. And I think it was like a hormonal thing. I was very sensitive to it. And now it's been probably again, like five or six years that I've really, really decreased it dramatic. And every year it just gets more where I'm almost at, like I said, none. But I do think, like, for me, I know I'm so Brain foggy. This can't be good for my. For my future brain health. Like, there's no way. It just makes sense. It's intuitive to know, like, if I have this much sort of brain fog, the next day, I know this is not working for me. So you really have to take a look at how does it affect you? What is. What's your genetics? All that stuff we talked about. So. But it is definitely no shame. Shame. No shame if, like, you have it in your life. Of course not.

Okay, I'm gonna pick the next topic, and then I'm looking at our list here, and this is gonna have to be, like, four episodes I already know started.

I'm like, there's so many things to talk about.

So many things. So we're gonna pick a couple more, and then we're gonna definitely do, like, a part two and part three, because there's, like, now I'm realizing that we have so many things to talk about. So I'm gonna just. And she has no idea what I'm picking. We're like, just. We're going back and forth. I'm like, what are we picking? But I'm gonna pick right now. I'm gonna get off the diet stuff for a minute, and I'm gonna talk about. I want to talk about hrt. I want to get our opinions on this.

This. Oh, okay.

I want to. And I'll. And I'll start. So hrt, for those of you that don't know, is hormone replacement therapy. I like to call it hormone replenishment because it's. To me, it's. We had hormones, they start to decline, and I look at it as a few camps. There's the synthetic way, which is, like, hormonal birth control pills, and then. Or there's the bioidentical, which is the safer for your body because it's just mimicking your own natural production. I am a. A huge, huge, huge, huge fan of hormone replacement therapy. I feel like it changed my life. It changes many people's life. My big thing I want to say first about this is I think there's an order of operations, and I think when we go in with brain fog and we're tired and low sex drive, and, like, we have all these things that someone says, oh, that's perimenopause or menopause.

Just.

Just suck it up. Here's antidepressant. I think we're doing a huge disservice to women, but I also think it's a. There's an order of operations. And the way that I look at it is it's first your belief around aging and what you want for yourself. So that's, that's the first step. And the next step is literally cleaning up your diet. So how do. Are we eating an unhealthy, natural, real. I mean, sorry, are we eating a healthy, unprocessed, natural, real diet? And are we eating so we have our body optimal there? Then the next layer that I look at is our gut health. Is our, is your gut processing everything correctly and because how your gut metabolizes your own hormones is a big, is a big thing right there, there. And then after we are doing those things so we're eating well, we're thinking clearly. We are, we've looked at our gut health. Now I feel this hormone replenishment and it's different layers for different people could be life changing. Now I've had so many excerpts as I'm sure you have, Carrie. I've had so many experts of. On hormone replacement in my world, like on my podcast, in on my YouTube and they have very different opinions, all of them. But what I'm going to want to summarize is there, there's, there's different ways of looking at it. There's some that say I want to do it completely natural. And I, to me, I call BS because it's not. We all have braces. We all have like that is not natural just to, to let yourself decline. I'm sorry, it's just not. I don't look at that and I don't think of hormone replenishment as like a fate. Like you're doing a cheating thing. You're just bringing back up. So that's one camp. I want to do it natural. And to that I'm like okay, what I, I don't. That word doesn't work with me on that. Like you can choose not to add something, but saying that you're all natural because of it, I call, I call baloney on that because it's not natural to just decline. Second thing is, then there's the camp where I think I fall into where I like to replenish enough to not have the bad symptoms and to feel good. I'm not trying to be the levels of a 20 year old. That's not what I'm going for. For me, I didn't want to have hot flashes six an hour. I didn't want to have no libido. So I do the amounts for me based on my blood work that make me feel on point there. But Then there's a whole other camp of thought of. I've had many experts in my world and I totally respect them that really talk about going optimal levels. Like how do we go a lot higher to avoid pain? Like how. That's not me. But I respect what they teach and I feel us women need to really get educated and look at all the different methods and make sure you're working with a clinician that understands and wants to believe you and help you find the best method method for you. That's my opinion on hrt.

Wow. So much and so much good stuff. I was like, wait, wait, I want to chime in there. I want to chime in here. I wanted you to finish but I don't want to forget any of my thoughts here. Okay. So I'll just say one thing. So you said hormone replenishment therapy. It's funny, we had Dr. Lauren Straker was spoke at my Nutritious Life masterclass this past October and she says HT hormone therapy because it's not replacement. It is hormone hormone therapy because we're not replacing to what we were at the 20s. So you would actually, I think you would agree with that. So that's how she calls it, hormone therapy. The other thing that I wanted to chime in with is that I think yes, there are those people that want to go natural. I don't want to have anything. I just want to go through this whole process. My mom went through it and just sort of soared through it and was fine. I don't need anything. Okay. But I think there's also another camp of people that are scared. Oh no, no. Hormone therapy scares me. Isn't that scary? Doesn't that cause cancer? And they just are really close minded to it it because they don't. They're not really looking back because of.

A flawed study back in 2000.

Right, exactly. So I think that there's a lot of people that are just scared and not open minded and haven't done the work to go and speak to hormone experts. And I think if you go to many doctors, many doctors are sort of that they're not experts in this area. And I always say I don't care what kind of a doctor. You go to an endocrinologist, a gynecologist, a cardiologist, it doesn't matter as long as they are an expert in this area. If you're a hormone expert, that is what is most important. Because if you're not and they haven't done that work, they don't. They are not familiar enough with all types of hormone therapy to really give you your right personalized care. So you have to really go into your work and don't just go to your GP that you've been going to for 20 years and say should I do this? Like well you probably don't need it. You're fine. Right. Because if they don't know it, they're not going to get into the benefits. Right. And that's the other thing. You might not be having a lot of symptoms but. But you might not be protecting yourself from what symptoms are going to come up in 10 years. So if you don't do the work now, you could be at risk for cognitive decline fractures and poor bone health in the future, heart disease and problems in the future. So it's not now. We really have to look to the future and what we might be preventing so that we can live optimally when we are in our 70s, 80s, hopefully 90s. And I know you and I want to get to at least a hundred it so.

So if I'm all. If I'm healthy and mentally there. If I'm healthy.

Yes. So but I guess so you can tell that I am with you on. Yes. A fan of hormone therapy. I'm only on a little bit now. I still. We can get you all three. Gary. So no, so I'm, I am just on progesterone right now.

Okay.

I do all three amount because well, I still get my. I still menstruate like clockwork.

Oh wow.

So I really. Yeah. So I have not started but I am, I am absolutely open minded. I go back to the, I go to the doctor consistently to just make sure am I ready for anything else. But I am on progesterone and, and.

You'Ve interviewed the wise and well girl. So you know who I love and.

Respect and I know they have.

They're more of the optimal and they would tell you to probably start now in perimenopause. So yeah. So it's depending on who we talk to and who we interview. And I think we all got to do what, what's right for us, what feels right.

Right. So. Well so. And that, that's exactly. That's actually the perfect segue to my last thought on all of this is first of all I'm not against going on more now. I just haven't actually. My appointment's actually in a couple of weeks my next appointment. So who knows, maybe I'll start now. But we're going to see. So I just want to say Though the one thing I think I would differ with you here is that mine is bioidentical, but I am not all bioidentical. I really think that it is very personal. I think that what is going to work for you, the combo that's going to work for you of, you know, progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, the type, the. All of it is really going to be personal. And that is why you really need a doctor that is a true expert in this area. And they have to look at not only your symptoms, but your, again, your genetics, your. They have to look at a whole lot of things. Totally able to really assess what works for you. So I am not. And I used to think, oh, no, biodental, Biodental. And I definitely shifted there after. After speaking with a lot of experts and really thinking about it. And it does kind of make sense. Like, it's not. Yeah, it's not synthetic is not necessarily a bad choice for everybody. So I don't want to scare people away from that. It could be the right thing. But you have to, again, do your research, do your work, figure out the, like, the whole combo that works for you. But I think for another sort of overall statement, I would say I think for the large majority of women out there, some form of hormone therapy is beneficial and very helpful in terms of living not only longer but. But better.

So I recently interviewed Kelly Casperson. I don't know if I love her. And she really kind of blew my mind with challenging my thoughts. So I was definitely like, birth control pills bad, like synth. I was. I was on them for 20 years, I want to point out, when I was younger and I just know what that created in me. So I'm. To me, when I hear, when I hear somebody go to their ob gyn and they say I'm having all these symptoms and they say, oh, you know, here is an antidepressant, here's an SSRI and here's birth control pills. I just think, I personally think that's kind of lazy treatment. However, what she pointed out to me, which really got me thinking different, is she said birth control does its job. Like when you look at synthetic birth control pill, it's designed to make you not get pregnant. It's right. And it is amazing for that. And so she like, so to tell people that's so she said you have to really look at why someone's doing it. So if somebody's doing it for that, that it's not. It's safe for that. So she really got me thinking A little bit different because I can get very black and white in my thinking, right? So I, I, I guess I'm gonna agree with you on that. And I wanna, I do wanna share what I do because someone's gonna ask, like they, right people send me messages like, what do you take? First I want to say my levels are unique to me. Just like if I were to say what do you weigh exactly? Like your weight is unique to you. How much muscle do you have? Like how tall are you?

You.

There's so many variables. So it's not the amount you take on your patch or on your injection or whatever, it's your blood work and then what you feel good with, what takes you out of of that. So for me personally, I do an estrogen patch which I was having, I'm not kidding, at least five hot flashes an hour before that. Like and I was doing bias. It did nothing for me. So Bias was a, is a much lower dose cream for estrogen. And actually the wise and well girls are the first ones that pointed it out to me. They're like that bias is gonna do nothing for you. For me, what was going on? So I switched to the patch. Life changing, like overnight. No hot flashes, no love it. The dose of the patch depends on my blood work. So I'm on a lower dose and it works for me. I like to be on the lower range of normal for estrogen in my age. I'm not trying to be super high. That's for me. Testosterone cream didn't do anything for me either. Injection does. So I do a weekly injection at home. When it gets a little too high, I feel frickin amazing. But I don't want it that high. So I have like lowered it down because I was like feeling on top of the world, Carrie. And then I real, I did my test, I'm like, wait, that's a little too high. I don't want to start growing man hair. I don't want that. So I, I have tiraded back down and I still feel great. So there's that and then progesterone I do nightly. Now there's different opinions on that. Some people tell you to cycle it.

People like I do cycle it. I didn't mention that I cycle.

You still have your period too? I don't.

Yes, exactly.

So when you're in menopause, there's different trains of thought whether you should cycle or not. I'm of the I, Dr. Anna Kabeca is my personal hormone doctor. And with her what she likes me to do is take a few days off a month, which I do. So. A few days. She doesn't. She's not rigorous about, like, because she's very custom to me. So that's what I do for me. But if you message me and say, well, what. What level patch? I'm not going to answer you because it really is dependent on your labs.

Right, exactly. And that's. And just like, yeah, that's like what I was saying. It's very. It's really personalized. And the other thing I'll say with. With your labs, though, too, you have to remember there's a lot of shifting going on in perimenopause, too. So if you go in. If you go in perimenopause, you can go in. But, you know, and. And my doctor will say to me, you know, you can come in today, come in next week. It's going to be different. So it's like coming back and getting it tested isn't going to really. What really matters, you know, during this time is like. Like, how are you feeling and what's going on and what are your symptoms? Like, so that's a. That's really more important because again, remember, perimenopause is a time of just massive swings in your hormones. So that's.

Anna Ka will tell you that you need to test specific days if you're in perimenopause and that you need to do a Dutch test, too. That's what she'll say. She'll say, not only do we want a serum, we want your urine test. Because we want to make sure, like, how are you now? Kelly Casperson, when I interviewed her. So, like, I don't believe in the Dutch test. It's a waste of money. Like, so everyone has.

I like the Dutch test.

Yeah, everyone has a different opinion, and it's really what's right for you. For the. If you're listening, you're like, okay, now I'm really confused. What I would advise is you just start listening and getting different opinions from experts, like on podcasts, on Audible. There's a book, Carrie, I don't know if you've read it. It's older, but it's called Estrogen Matters. So good. I definitely recommend that book. If people are like, I don't understand.

You know, like, where did that history come from around estrogen? Like, where did the cancer belief come from? Do we need it? Like, I think it's a really, really good. In my opinion, a good book on that. There's a lot of books but that one right there gave me a really solid education about estrogen to begin with.

Yeah. And again, like we said, you really just have to speak with your doctor that is. Is an expert, and if you want another opinion, get another opinion. Like, you know what I mean? Like, go, like. And also, if you, if you start doing something and you feel terrible, don't sit. Then that's not the right formula for you. Like, you really. This is. There's a little bit of trial and error here, I would say. I mean, in most, in most cases. In most, most things there are, but I would say even more so here, there's going to be a little bit of trial and error. It's not like you just start the, start this and start the patch and okay, it's all perfect. Very often there are some changes that have to be made. Like you said, you switched from one thing to the next. So that is the thing. And the other, just one thing that I want to mention is you said you were getting those hot flashes. I think sometimes people like you said that fall into that natural camp. Sometimes they think, I can fight through it, though. I can handle those hot flashes. But it's not fighting through it. What people, I don't think understand is that is not healthy for your body. When your body is having all of those hot flashes, you're putting your health at risk for the future. It's not healthy to have those. So you actually don't want to reduce them just to. Yeah, just so it could be a little more comfortable. You want to reduce those hot flashes is for your health. Yes, so. And I don't think people always connect that. They think, I can manage through it. I can suffer through it. But it's not about suffering through the actual hot flash. It's about your health in the future. And that's a, I think, an important point that I don't think people always realize.

Let me tell you what, if I had not started hrt, I would absolutely be divorced. There's no, there's absolutely no way my husband would have put up with me anyway. I mean, I, I know what I was starting to feel like and be like. And let's not even talk about libido going away. So that, that's like, it's a whole. So to me, I think HRT is. And what, here's what I feel bad about. I do think it's unfortunately become a have or have not conversation because we need HRT to be more accessible. We need it to be more affordable. There's a lot of, because I, I do believe women need access to this. It's life changing. If this was a man, a male problem, then believe me, it would be easier. So I have a whole thought process there. But this needs to be, be more readily available to women. It's, it's very important.

On that note, I will just say, we'll just say one more thing on that though. I have not used this, but I know a lot of people that I have and I know a lot of people speak highly of it. MIDI Health does take insurance and it's all virtual.

Oh amazing.

So it's a virtual platform that takes insurance and they're all hormone experts on there. So it is something that I think makes it a little more accessible for many people out there. So one kind of thing about show.

Notes, one funny thing about hormones. Okay, okay. I was hearing about vaginal. Well, first of all, vaginal estrogen does not get into your system. So if you can, if you're not going to do system systemic hormone replacement like you, for whatever reason, vaginal itself just goes there and it helps you, it helps with incontinence, it helps with sex being less painful. There's a lot of benefits to it. But I also had heard from my good friend Chalene that she was putting it on her face. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna put that on my face. So then I got a prescription for actually like it was like hyaluronic acid, methylene blue and Estriol.

I was, I was, I was using an Estriol face cream for a while.

But I stopped and let me, I was like all explaining to everyone, this is the best thing ever. I'm using this and I'm using one skin for peptides. I was like, this is amazing. Until I started getting melasma on my forehead. And I'm like, wait a minute. And then I remembered that whole birth control pill link with, with that. And I looked it up and it's a thing. So if you are prone to melasma, I do not recommend that on your face.

Yeah, I had, I was doing that for a little while. I stopped for no major reason. I didn't have an issue with it. I honestly didn't see that many differences. And I was like, and I have pretty, a pretty good skincare routine. And then I just ran out. And I mean there was no major reason I stopped. So I'm kind of like neutral on it.

Okay, so we have to do, we're going to do one, we're going to do one more and I'm going to actually pick for us because we said it at the beginning. I want to. I want to talk about protein. And here's the other thing. We have literally like 25 other topics. So we're going to do a part two and a part three, but we're going to do.

Let's.

Can we talk protein? You want to talk.

Yeah, let's talk protein. Let's talk protein. Okay, so protein. So I'd say the. One of the biggest questions or one of the most common questions I get is how much protein do I need? Do I really need 30 grams of protein at every single meal? Oh, goodness. So protein. Well, I would say going way back, you know, again, and we were taught in school to become a registered dietitian, 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. And the one thing I just want to say is that is not enough protein for the majority of people. It is enough to maybe not make you deficient, but it is not enough to live optimally. It is not enough for optimal health. So then I think the trend now we have seen, gone. We've seen. And remember that kilograms is your body weight divided by 2.2. So, okay, that's not a lot.08 per kilogram is not a lot.

So, so what does that translate to? Pound? Let me just, I want to make sure. Do with the math right here. What is that? So you were taught that. But what does that relate to?

Like, so we'll just, just say. So it's about. It's a. It's less than half of a. Of a. Of a.

So if somebody weighs 140 pounds, you're saying about less than 70 grams would.

Be what you were taught.

Got it.

Yes. Yes. For just, for sort of baseline. Right? Yeah, yeah. So I, by the way, I always, even going back to 2006, the first book I wrote, I always. My whole thought was you need about 30% of your calories to come from protein, which again, the government recommendations would be 15 to 20% of your calories. I've always been, you need about a third of your calories to come from protein because that small amount was not optimal. So now I think we've seen this big swing towards a gram per pound of ideal body weight. Right. So that I think is. Is also. That's can be great and that can be especially good for women midlife. So, and if, because if you're doing that and you're lifting your weights and you're, you know, doing all that, you can maintain muscle mass, which is. We know is good for blood sugar balance as well as, you know, we don't want, we don't want sarcopenia, we don't want to lose our muscle mass for our bone health, et cetera, et cetera, etc. So that though I think can be really difficult for people to meet. Right. So the way I like to look at it is if we can look at, if you think about like a pound per. A gram, sorry, A gram per pound of body weight. So if you're £130, it'd be 130. Right.

For ideal weight.

Correct. Ideal weight. If your ideal body weight is 130 pounds, that would be 130 grams of protein. That's still a lot of protein to hit for a lot of people. So I like to think of it as more like 0.75 to 1, which again is going to come out to let's say about like 100 grams. But I think taking it even a step further, what I think is really important about, you want to think about. So let's say that's, let's just say about 100. Okay. So then what I think is more, more important or equally important is the quality of your protein and then getting that quality of your protein consistently at each meal. Meal. So you're not just getting on so that you are digesting it, you are absorbing it. So you're, you're going to digest and absorb quality protein better. You're not getting it all at one time. It's key. It's helping stabilize your blood sugar levels and you've got different opportunities throughout the day to get there. So that would, let's just say if it's that 0.75 or whatever, let's say about 100. So then that is sort of where you get to that. About 30 per meal, maybe a little bit in a snack, maybe a little bit less than a meal. And that's pretty realistic. But again, I want to say that is all still very general. It still needs to be personalized and you need to go a step further. But that is sort of the general advice. So good quality protein consistently throughout the day. You should be pretty good even if you're not calculating the grams.

So good. Okay. I love everything that you said here. So pro. I, I agree with all the things you said on protein. I'm going to add a layer to it, a couple layers. One it's gonna got. I, I brought this up, I wanted this in our topic today because it's come this like trendy topic, like just focus on protein Add in more protein. And I want to differentiate that we're all in different places with our goals. So, yes, I agree. That is the level to prevent bone loss, to prevent muscle loss, which if we lose muscle, we're losing bone. It's to keep us healthy. It's to control the cravings for all of the things. However, I want to add a layer. If you are overweight weight, you've got a lot of excess weight right now. A lot of excess weight. So I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start with 25 pounds excess. 20, 25 pounds excess weight. The priority to me right now is not making sure you're getting in 100 grams or 150 grams of protein. We need to relearn our eating habits and go to unprocessed natural food and everything sort of matters. So the reason I say this is when I start. Women on weight loss. That was loss Fat loss journey. We're going to look at measurements of protein, carbs and fats. And I don't take out any food group, as I know you don't either. But we, we're looking at measurements of that and portion control first. And my important part here is, are we making protein important in meals and are we balancing our carbs and sugars with protein and some healthy fats? So that's kind of like first priority there.

Absolutely.

And as. Yeah. And as we're relearning, I think when women think, oh, my God, I have to add, you know, 30 grams a meal, 40 grams a meal, it could be overwhelming. And then they end up still overeating.

Because of that 100%. Yeah.

So I would say, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

No, no, no. I was just going to say. Or they think, oh, I need this protein. And they grab a bar just to get the protein in. When they just had some high quality. They had chicken at lunch. You don't need that extra meal in a processed bar. There's a time and a place for that. But just get protein in. Yeah.

So what I found in with weight loss and fat loss is if we do anything too extreme, it will shut people down. And I'm not talking about the lo. The fine tuning, the five, ten final pounds. I'm talking general weight loss. Okay. We got to start a little more logical, I think, with like, let's look at measurements, look at what types of carbs were happening, what types of fats we're having, and are we having good quality protein? Are we eating whole real foods? And now let's focus on that first, once you are getting movement there and we're adding in strength training and we're adding in resistance training, then we need to uplevel it. And the reason I bring this up is it gets very confusing when you look at somebody that's super fit, super optimal, and they're talking about this high, high protein, and there's this step in between where we need to be a lot more logical and reasonable first and then think of that. Now, that being said, your type of protein absolutely matters. It really matters. And protein bars are typically garbage. They're typically no more than just candy bars. So I am a fan, just like you, of Whole Foods. And then if we need to supplement, are we using a clean, real, pure protein to supplement? Not a heavy meal replacement, not a bunch of garbage. But are we doing that? That. And I do want to touch on this because, yes, protein from quinoa and beans and all that does count. However, we are way leaning way more towards carbs when we look at that and starchy carbs, and those are not the ideal protein we're talking about.

Yep.

Love it.

Oh, my gosh, so many things.

Okay, so Carrie, we're going to have to do a part two. I'm going to. I'm going to stop this one here. You all, I'm going to link in. And these, this, this episode, by the way, is airing on both of our podcasts and, and YouTube. So it'll be on Midlife Conversations, which is my podcast. It'll be on Living a Nutritious Life with Carries. You might want to check them both out because we're going to edit them both different and we're going to have in the show notes all the things that we talked about. So if you, if you are listening to this, whether it's on her platform or mine, and you like this rate and review it and then also please let us know comments on what else you want us to discuss next. Yes, definitely, because we're going to continue this conversation. We have all things we didn't touch on, like the food color ban on keto and, and carnivore. Oh, my God.

Mitochondria.

Mitochondria. So many things. So we'll have part two and part.

Three, our own supplements that we take. All of that. Yeah, we got to stop that.

But if we miss anything you're dying to know, please let us know. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in as my guest. If you found this episode, episode valuable. Please share it with friends and on social media. Be sure to tag me and our guests so that we can find you and share the love. I'm Natalie Jill Fit on all social media platforms and the biggest thank you that you can give me is leaving a review and hopefully a nice one at that. This will help others find these episodes. We can help and reach more people. If you do leave me a review, please message us@supportnataliejill fitness.com with a switch screenshot of your view and we would love to send you a free digital download of my DSR journal as a thank you.