473: Midlife Health Secrets: From Autoimmune to Fitness Overhauls

The stronger we are, the bigger our insurance policy is for taking care of ourselves. Even if the unforeseen happened, Even if you had a horrible, debilitating accident or like the stronger you are, the more likely you are to recover. The stronger you are, the more able you are to take care of yourself.

Welcome to Midlife Conversations. I'm your host, Natalie Jill, and I'm passionate about having amazing conversations that matter to us midlife women. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated health topics and breaking them down simply so that we can optimize aging together. I share actionable steps to help you thrive in what I believe are our best years to come. Join me as I interview the most inspiring people living their best midlife years and dive into essential topics like hormone changes, health optimization, weight management, blood sugar, emotional well being, relationships, beauty, and so much more. Today on Midlife Conversations, I'm doing something a little bit different.

Different?

I'm turning the mics in an opposite direction and I'm having my friend Helen Fritz interview me. Now, Helen is not only an author, but she is in her 60s and she's the host of Age is Irrelevant podcast. And she's living proof of that. In her mid-60s. Not only is she a flight attendant working full time, she also is a competitor living her best fit life. She's navigated all kinds of struggles in her own life, health challenges, all the things. We had a fascinating conversation, but we turn the mics around. She was asking me the questions, all the questions about aging, about diet, about nutrition, about my injuries, about what I think it takes for women to be healthy and happy and thriving in midlife, past menopause, and beyond. So I hope you enjoy this. We originally aired on her podcast and we have edited it down to share on mine as well. So we're getting to the chase here. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Natalie, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

I'm so glad for you to be here. I know you've been going through a lot lately. You just had surgery a couple of weeks ago. So thank you so much for taking the time to chat. We spoke before on our on my podcast back in December of 2019. So it's been six years. A lot has happened since then and I just wanted to have you back on the show to help share your journey. But also too, you've kind of.

Since you're 53 now. That's right.

Yeah.

You have. You had a pot. We have a podcast, but you've changed the name of your podcast. You've somewhat reinvented and really am focusing on midlife conversations. That's the name of your podcast with midlife women. So we can start with that. You've been through so much as far as your personal journey and resilience, lots of surgeries. You and I have something in common. We both had breast explant surgery. You recently had a spine disc replacement. You have torn bicep surgery. What was the turning point that made you prioritize rebuilding your body and health from the inside out?

Gosh, it's a big question.

I don't. I think I've always been focused on health and fitness and they just meant different things to me over the years. So if I think back to, you know, gosh, my 20s and 30s, it was.

Was.

It was always a priority to me. I just look at the things I did for it or the way things I considered healthy and fit then are different than I do now. And I would say in my 40s, I really started to focus on unprocessing your diet and body weight movements. And I think I did a lot of that out of my own need to fix myself. Meaning in your 20s and 30s, honestly, like, for most people, it doesn't really matter. You could work out hard and you can pretty much eat what you want. You're not going to have many issues. But in my 40s, a lot of things started to catch up to me. Like I had an autoimmune disease. I have. I have two autoimmunes, actually. And I started to have a lot of pain in my body just from various. It started with degenerative disc disease in my low. In my back. A lot of people have degeneration in their back that creates inflammation. Yeah. And if you were to do an MRI on everybody in midlife, we would see it pretty commonly. But not everybody feels pain from it. Some do, some don't. We're all different body mechanics. But I started in an effort to feel better, have to relearn and recreate not just my nutrition, but my movements in for my workouts. Meaning what might work for somebody that doesn't have back issues was not any longer working for me. So I had to find workarounds. So, and then same with inflammation in our body. It becomes really important if you feel, if you experience pain or if you have autoimmune to clean up your diet in a different way. So, you know, sometimes I'll see these post on Instagram or wherever TikTok and it's like these extreme, like, everybody should eat this way like everyone should be vegan or everyone should be carnivore. Everyone should be this. And I don't believe that there's an everyone should anything. Like we're all such unique individuals. But I do think one common ground, no matter how you choose to eat, is the power of unprocessing and eating as much natural, real food as you can, whether you're a carnivore or vegan. You know, like, how can we eat more natural, real food? But then also looking at what creates inflammation, and what I really figured out was that there's three main culprit ingredients that create inflammation, and I'm one processed food. That's just in general like when you have heavily processed food, but when you look at just ingredients, sugar, high sugar content is going to create inflammation. Dairy is going to create inflammation, and grains can create inflammation. So somebody might listen and go, well, I'm fine with all those. Well, that's great. If you're fine with all those, you don't have to listen to me. But for people that have inflammation in their bodies, it makes a big difference to cut those out. So I sort of moved into the camp of I've got to figure these things out. And that's why I was very vocal about those things in my 40s. In my 50s, things started to change a little bit more. And I know you're in your 60s, Helen, as we, as we age, toxic load compounds. So where we're all exposed daily to toxins, whether it's in our food, our environment, our skincare, whatever, as we age, it starts to compound and our organs, everything is older, everything is older. So they don't quite work how they did in our 20s. So toxic load starts to matter. That's why you'll hear somebody in their 30s with breast implants that says they have no problems. And all of a sudden in 50s and 60s they might have problems because it's all toxic load. So when you asked about health and fitness, that's a big question. When they start prioritizing, I think it's changed over the years. 20s and 30s, it was very much about appearance. 40s is about being functional, getting out of pain, being out of inflammation. 50s, it was really more about understanding toxic load and figuring out what longevity means.

To me, it's funny that you mentioned that because I got my raw DNA analyzed.

Me too. Yeah, you did, yeah. And it's fascinating.

It was fascinating and it was game changing for me because the bodybuilding competitor, my diet consisted of lots of carbs and my DNA expert Said carbs are not your friend and he need to be. He goes, and I'm not saying completely cut out carbs, but he goes. But you know, just really dial back. And it's amazing to me because I had blood work done a month later after I really made a big effort dial back. And I couldn't believe how much better my blood was, my glucose level, everything. So I thought there's so many people out there who, if they were able to take a test like that to see because just like you said, everybody's individual and unique to their own specific bodily needs. So it was fascinating and such a big game changer for me. So I'm glad you feel the same way because I, I just can't say enough great things about this whole scenario that, that I went through. Yeah.

So ever since I've talked to you last, you've had a lots of surgeries and it's like your torn bicep, your back. A few weeks ago you decided to get your explant, your, your breasts ex. Your breasts explanted.

Yeah.

How did those surgeries shape the way that you now approach fitness, aging and recovery?

Well, I was just counting another day. In fact, I just did a solo episode about my 14 surgeries and I, and I might have missed some, but I've had at least 14 surgeries and some of them are cosmetics. So I'll talk about that first. And some of them were necessary and mostly related to my back and I'll explain what that means. So when it comes to cosmetic, when I was 15 years old, I literally had rhinoplasty. So that kind of started my, my journey into plastic surgery. I mean that was literally at 15 years old I didn't like my nose. And I had the types of parents that were very enrolled in what was popular in the 70s and 80s and beauty and beauty standards. And when I said I don't like my nose, it was like, okay, let's get a nose job. It was, it was like not, not an issue. So I didn't think much of it. So I had that done at 15. And then when I was 19, I was flat chested as I'll call it, and I was super self conscious about it and I wanted a boob job. Like that's what I wanted at age 19. And I remember my par parents not really being for it. They were kind of like, I think you should think this through. But I also remember my dad co signing my loan to get them, you know, so it was kind of like it was not Frowned upon, really, in my family. And I don't blame my parents at all. I blame society and culture and my own choices, all the things. But I got my first set of breast implants. What I didn't know at age 19 is that would mean five sets over 32, 33 years, and ultimately an explant. And let me explain where this ties into injuries and back and all the things. When I had my first set at 19, they were silicone, and they ruptured. In my early 20s, one of them ruptured. I didn't know it had ruptured. What happened was one of them became super hard, like a rock, and it was a capsular contracture. My left one was. It felt very natural and real. And I remember going to plastic surgeon after plastic surgeon, like, why does this one so hard and this one feels so real? These were not. It was not talked about about ruptures and silicone dangers and all that at the time. So we decided to go back into surgery to have them replace with the idea of, I'm gonna replace the saline, because at this time, silicone had become illegal and taken off the market, and they were gonna fix the capsular contracture and put in saline. I woke up from that surgery learning that the reason the left one felt so natural is it had ruptured and I had silicone all over my body. Now, right now, if you were to think you have a rupture, they would do some imaging, whether it's a mammogram or mri, breast MRI or you can see. Or even an ultra breast ultrasound. You can see the rupture before going in. And they would take very clear precaution to not break the capsule so it all be contained. The kind of rupture I had was not contained because they just. They didn't. They didn't do a mammogram. They didn't do a. An mri. So when they went to do the incision, silicone spilled out everywhere. Although I still have silicone to this day in my lymph nodes, like from that time in my early 20s. So it is my belief that my autoimmune was triggered from that, because it's about the time where I started having issues, and I was first learning that I was celiac. So if you know much about autoimmune, it takes a trigger for autoimmune to happen. So there's a lot of reasons we get autoimmune. Number one, you have to have the gene, the DNA, to be able to even get an autoimmune 2, you have to have poor gut health. And if you have leaky gut or poor gut, you are very likely to be susceptible. And then three, you have to have trauma or stress. That happens whether that's in your body or in your life. And then that's the, that's the trifecta that creates an autoimmune, right? So I got my first autoimmune at that point. Now why is this relevant to everything else? I'm going to explain. So I had replaced to the saline and I kept getting capsular contracture. So over the years, over 30 to 33 years, I replaced my implants five times like it, it was. So when I look back now, I feel so dumb, like why would I have kept replacing them? Like it never occurred to me. Just take them out. Maybe your body doesn't want them. Side note, when you get capsular contracture, it's your body literally trying to force it out of you. When you have capsular contracture, it's your body saying, this does not belong here. Let me create, let's try to squeeze it out of your body. It's creating scar tissue to try to get it out of your body. And what we're doing is saying, oh no, I'll just keep having a surgery and fix it. Or I'll take this pill, this allergy pill to maybe, hopefully not get it. Or I'll create a new pocket to like force your body not to get it right. So essentially my last implant surgery, my surgeon did that. She said, you know what? You keep getting capsular contracture. Let's do this. Let's close up that capsule, clean it up. We're going to create a whole new pocket on top of your muscle. You'll never get capsular contracture. Great. I never got capsular contracture from that final set, but I sure had a lot of other problems. I gained 20 pounds, I got a second autoimmune. I got like, I, my pain flared up every which way. So I would have never connected it and said, this is my implants. I just thought it's midlife, it's whatever, everything else but that, right? So when I learned that I had another rupture on a fine, the final set, the guy had the gummy bears that were never supposed to rupture, never supposed to rupture. I learned that they were ruptured. I found out on an mri. I, I will not know till this day if either the MRI ruptured it because smushing it or if my infrared sauna use because There's a whole bunch there. When you go in infrared sauna, when you have a foreign object in your body like that, I don't know. But whatever reason it broke down, I'm happy to send you a picture to include in here if you want to see. But it, it completely broke down. When I went to go replace it again, my surgeon, Dr. Richard Brown, who is amazing, when I went to him, he was the first one that said to me, I think you should take him out. And I was like, thought he was crazy. I'm like, what do you mean, take them out? He's like, you've had five sets. You have like, take them out. You can always put them back in. Take them out. I took them out. And I could not believe what changed in my health. Like, it was wild how, like instantly feeling different. I'm 20 pounds and I was not obese or over, not anything 20 pounds lighter. In the year that followed inflammation, my body went back to how it was before I had that final set. It's wild. So that's kind of, that's, that's a big part of those surgeries, right? So five implant sets, an explant. So that's a lot, a lot of them. So let's talk about my back and where all this is connected here. Well, aside from that, I'm putting my body through trauma, right? Every time you do a surgery, you've got more trauma. So here I've got two autoimmunes, these implants that don't belong, all these things trifecta. And I've got degenerative disc disease, like a lot of people do. Your body can only handle so much. It's like carrying a bucket of stuff, right? You have a bucket of water, you can only put so much water in, then everything else is going to fall out and make a mess of your body. So. So this is kind of what I was operating with. Like, that's my system. You've had five implants, all this stuff. And I've got degenerative disc disease. And according to my DNA, as you just did your DNA too, I am a driver. I am the type of person, I'm a warrior. I will push my body in places that other people won't. I will push past pain. I won't, like, I don't shut off logically with like, oh, I, maybe I shouldn't do that. Like, it's, it's just, I'm missing that in my DNA, literally. So back to my back. I had back issues. I learned functional training to get around it. And what happened was I would have. If you have degenerative disc, you tend to get bulging and slipping disc. So degenerative disc disease. Your, your spine is compressing and squeezes your like a jelly donut. If you were to put pressure on the jelly donut, the jelly will poke in and out all over the place, right? That's a slip disc or a bulging disc, which creates a lot of pain when that happens. So when you have a bulging or slip disc, you have options. You can learn to manage it when it happens. You can learn to figure out what things might trigger it, right. Or you can have something called a microdiscectomy where it removes the piece that's ruptured. But you're still kind of gambling like it could happen again. Well, with mine I chose to kind of ignore it and like learn exercises, work around. And every, you know, once a month I'd have this like, oh, my back hurts. And kind of learn that. Well, I was on set doing nine hour, nine hours again, goes back to DNA. Why was I doing nine hours of stuff with not a great back jumping things that I knew were not good for my back? And I ruptured my disc. So it didn't just push out, it ruptured out. This eight years ago. So my disc ruptures out. And if you have a massive disc bulge or disrupture, it can create something called foot drop, which means it wrapped around my spinal cord. It wrapped around the nerves on my right leg. From my piriformis down, it was affecting my piriformis down and my right leg stopped working normal. So it got, it was like a delayed, like dragging my foot, could not lift my leg, couldn't walk normal. So it became pretty severe and it required an emergency surgery. And when that happens, the emergency surgery I had was something called laser endoscopic. Laser endoscopic is a minimal invasive way they can remove either a disc bulge or a disc rupture. But you go in very minimal through your back, like little laser cut, remove the stuff, they don't fuse it, they don't put a disc replacement in. You're good. And I loved that surgery. Why? Because I literally within two days was back to on pull ups like you could, it's like miracle, like right, pain's gone. It doesn't fix the problem though, because now no disc in my back collapse, degenerative disease. So if you picture that jelly donut, you take the jelly out, you might not feel pain. But over time what happens is that's going to start to close up that compression. Okay? So that being said, eight years of this.

Go back to that original story about that rupture when your disc ruptured, when my disruptured, it created this delay on my right side. Right brain, right side, all the way down the right, where I have a, like a half a second delay. Your spine, your nerves, your brain are all very intimately connected. Very connected. So it created this slower delay, Meaning if you and I are walking together, Helen, when my brain thinks I'm taking a step, there's a slight half second delay from when my foot is actually hitting the ground and when my brain thinks it's hitting the ground. Okay? All those injuries, I got my torn bicep, my broken foot, my toe, all on my right side, all because of that. So I didn't understand this for years. I mean, this has taken me a long time to connect the dots. But all those injuries, like bicep, all the things like my. My husband till this day is like, I don't understand how you tore your bicep. Like, we are all grabbing. You know, we're grabbing the same thing. That's why. So I did not really fully understand, but the reason I kept getting injured on the right side was that delay. So fine, was aware of it clear, kind of declaring, I'm not gonna have any more surgeries. But here I am eight years later, and as that disc was starting to seal up and collapse, the delays were getting worse. The pain was coming back. And now I'm starting to have all kinds of issues. Like, my hips start hurting really bad. My back is hurting again. My nerves in my arms are feeling weird. My leg, my right leg, sciatica again. Just lots of, like, weird things. And then the weirdest symptom was my left eye started getting blurry, like, and I. Okay, I was like, I don't. I didn't know any of this was going together, right? So my left eyes blurry. And here I'm like, in this battle of I share everything on social media. Like, I literally share everything on my podcast and social media. And I'm almost thinking, I am serious drama, because I'm, like, sharing a lesson. I'm like, I'm a lot of drama. Like, I'm always sharing, like. And people are like, you've had a lot of surgeries.

Yes, I have.

I just own it because it's true, right? So, but now I'm a detective. Like, why does all this go together? And now I understand it literally is all connected. It's all connected. So my back, I start Realizing this is a big problem now. And I'm not thinking my eyes connected or any of this, but I'm like, something's going on my back. I go do a new CAT scan, new mri, and I see the problem. The doctors all see the problem. My disc is literally starting to auto fuse because it's collapsed. So collapsed, it's auto fusing. And then when you auto fuse, some surgeons will say, if you auto fuse, it's a good thing, you're not gonna have pain. Well, if it auto fuses perfectly. But no, that's not what happens. You don't have control on what it's auto fusing, what nerves. It's grabbing. What, like, it is auto fusing and making you weird, have weird issues. So that's when I thought, I've got to do something here. And that's when I found the surgeon I went to for a disc replacement. And that's why I went through this incredibly big surgery. It's a big surgery because it is my belief and my knowing that fixing this fixes everything for me. Like, literally, like, that is the base of all of my issues here was this collapsed disc. Had I fixed that, right? Or had that not happened, I would have not had the torn bicep or the foot or the pain, any of that. Like, I would have erased all that and then take it back further. Why did that even happen in the first place? Why did I have degeneration? Why did I do all that? Well, all of that relates back to the same story with the implants. It's all image, right? Like, we get implants for a vanity thing for an image. Why does your back degenerate? We're wearing heels, walking miles in that. Like, it's. It's all connected. So it's a. That's a lot of rambling story, but that is the connection between it. All right.

No, that's great. And I think. I love the way that you're so transparent. I think that your. Your openness and sharing with your audience is so beneficial because, like, you and I have so much in common. There's probably thousands of other women who are going through the exact same thing that you're going through. So to hear something firsthand, especially with your breast explant surgery, because I've been contemplating this for over, like, the last couple of years, thinking I've had some, like, unexplained bloating and unexplained chronic, you know, sinus issues and this and that, Whatever. And plus, I have leukemia, so I. I've had that for 11 years and no treatment so far. Knock on wood. But I just kept thinking in the back of my mind, it's a toxic substance in my body, and, you know, I think I should just get them out. So I did. Yeah.

It was so smart, unfortunately.

And then I was also. I moved to Scottsdale five years ago, and the house I was living in, I was detected. I diagnosed with mold last August. And come to find out, that house, it was like a little 1960s house. A lot of those are. Yeah, in the old town area where I live. And it was renovated, but the air ducts were just loaded with mold. So then I was loaded with mold. So. So.

And I had that same mold experience and what I want to share there, because it's. It's just funny. It's like if you. If you look at anyone that's had the explant, the mold, that we all have the same things. Gut health, mold, autoimmune. It's like it all goes together, and the people can go, why does this person. The reason is it's literally all connected. We could live in a house with mold. You and I, Helen, and two other people can live in that same house and never know they had mold, never have any issues. The reason we know is because we already are compromised from the other things. So we're more sensitive. And now we're testing, we're figuring it out. That's the connection. It's not that we just happen to find the drama there. When you have one. One of these things, it's like it leads to these other things. That's. There is a commonality. People that have explants, had mold, had gut health. It's like, it's literally. That's why.

No, and I agree with you, because when I had my explant surgery done, then I've been on this protocol, this mold protocol, and I just got retested mycotoxin test, and the results came back, and the mold is gone.

That's great.

And so I thought, is the mold gone because my implants are gone? I mean, you know, they tested the implants, Everything looked fine. Breast tissue looked great. But I. In the back of my mind, I'm.

Thinking, I bet you. Well, what happens, I believe, and I'm certainly not a doctor, but what I believe, it's. It's a toxic load bucket, right? So your body can only handle and process a certain amount of toxins. So if you're exposed to mold and you're healthy and you don't have an Autoimmune, and you don't have the implants in, and you don't have inflammation. Your body just gets. It processes it. It goes. It gets through you. But when you're already navigating the leukemia, like you said, and you're navigating the breast sample like you're navigating all the stuff, there's no room. So now you're exposed to mold, and where is that going?

No, you're a thousand. You're a thousand percent correct. So anyway, that's one positive. I'm thinking, okay, well, that's good. You know, some of the other issues I've had still haven't gone away, but I've had my implants for 20 years, and so it's going to take probably a couple of years for my body to detox. You know, let me ask you this. As far as that goes.

As far as body image with your implants, you know, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this new look, and I have to buy new clothes. I mean, where are you in that. That stage?

I could care less, and I'm embracing it. Like, I. I like being. Not having anything. Like, it's weird, but I'm like, I don't. I kind of. It's like I'm proud to not have them now. Like, I don't need them. I've come full circle. Like, I don't care. And it is weird. Like, your clothes fit different and stuff, but whatever. I'll wear a padded bra if I want to, or I'll put an insert in if I feel like it. But I'm. I. I don't care. Like, I'll wear little sports bras with nothing. I wore a T shirt without anything. I don't care. So something changed in me when I got rid of them. It was like I changed my ident.

Oh, that's good. Good to hear. Good to hear. Let's talk about strength training and muscle for women in midlife.

You changed the name of your podcast to Midlife Conversations. I know why you did that, but explain to the audience why. Why you did that.

Yeah, well, because I'm not the same person that started the original podcast. The original podcast was more for fun. I wanted to understand. I used to call it leveling up, and then it was listen up. And then it became Midlife Conversations. And I used for, just out of a hobby and interest, I wanted to interview people on how they created everything from nothing. Like that was just a fun project. Then I, as I started really getting more back into My health journey and wanting to understand. I started midlife conversations initially for myself. I just wanted to interview and understand all these things I'm curious about, like hormones and gut and mold and implant, like everything in midlife. So I started it really for my own knowledge initially, and it became, it became therapy and coaching for me. But people really enjoyed it and followed along. So now I'm very committed to what can I learn and teach other midlife women. And I like sharing information and I like it as a conversation because I don't. I certainly don't know anything. I'm the girl with the mic. I'll share my experiences and what I've learned. I just happen to be a really good health detective. But I love bringing on other experts to learn from them.

No, and I'm happy. I love your. I love your podcast too. And I've learned a lot also from your podcast and all your guests. So I greatly appreciate that. That. So talking about strength training and muscle for women in midlife, I know you're a huge proponent of that.

I am, too.

Why is building muscle especially important for women in midlife?

Well, I've had enough health scares, setbacks, surgeries, injuries. As you have to know, the only thing we can really count on is ourselves. Like, that's our only insurance policy. It's ourselves. Everything else can change. Like, you can think you have the most secure whatever, and that can go away with a snap. The stronger we are, the bigger our insurance policy is for taking care of ourselves. Even if the unforeseen happened, even if you had a horrible, debilitating accident or like, the stronger you are, the more likely you are to recover. The stronger you are, the more able you are to take care of yourself.

I.

It's an insurance policy, so take it away from vanity. I want to be able to carry things and lift things and move and run away or whatever. Like. Like, to me, not being able to lift your own body weight is a danger for women. We should all be able to do a pull up. Give me a break. If you say you can't work on it.

You. To save your life, you have to be able to lift your own body weight.

Well, that's true. That's very true. Yeah.

You know, as a flight attendant, God forbid something happens. You got to help people escape. Who's going to make it?

You're right. And I see so many people. I mean, average America, you know, comes on the airplane and everybody's, you know, overweight.

It's.

It's really, it's. Yeah, you know, I'm working a 5am flight and they're having their coke and they're. They're back breakfast. So.

So it's like, it might not matter now to people, but to me, it's an insurance policy. And I'll tell you, I. This. This surgery I went through just now with my disc replacement really humbled me. I was not expecting that recovery to be like. Because I usually bounce right back on recoveries. I'm like, the girl that's like, this humbled me. I had not experienced pain like this ever. I didn't. Was not prepared for that. And the reason mine was so painful is because I was so severely collapsed and starting to auto fuse. They had to create that space which adjusted my whole spine three quarters of an inch. So it created stuff I wasn't prepared for. So I'm not. I'm not used to that. And I'll tell you, I actually, I traveled exactly two weeks after my surgery, which my surgeon was fine with it, but I wasn't able to lift anything. His orders like, you cannot lift it back. And I just felt so helpless, like, not being able to lift, like, just that thought of depending, and it just made me more determined to, like, how do I get strong so I can avoid that situation as much as possible?

Well, we take. I think we take that for granted because like you said, you were traveling. I think you went to San Diego maybe to. For a youth spoke. You spoke.

Yes.

And so you're on an airplane and you just take for granted that you're gonna put your bag in the overhead, you know?

Right.

Yeah. So I mean, I had to take two months off of work because of the lifting, and it drove me insane. I was just like, yeah, I'm just wanting, you know, sitting around for two months is a long time.

And you can't, like, you can't get on a plane and ask the flight attendant, can you lift this from. You don't have to like, what? Yeah, you have to be able to do it yourself or you can't bring it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. What are some of the biggest misconceptions that midlife women have about strength training?

They think it's too late for them. They think it's too hard, that they think it's not going to matter or really ridiculous is when they say they think they're going to get too big. Like, it is so hard to put on muscle. You have to work at it. I work at not losing muscle and trying to add it. It is not an easy thing. So, but the biggest thing is I think women are intimidated by it or they'll say that it's too late for them.

That's true. What does the typical week of strength training look like for you now? How many times a week do you strengthen?

Well, I don't have a magic number or reps or routine. I, I'm really a very intuitive, like what I feel like kind of doing. So I don't, I don't have a really great answer for that, to be honest with you. I say I'm active as much as I can be. I walk every day. I like to walk. I do not do like specific set out cardio. I'm more like just walking and that kind of stuff that I enjoy weight training, it's a mix between body weight and actual weights. But I, I'm really committed to progression and intensity, whatever that means for you. So always progressing, like how can you make it a little bit more challenging for yourself? And then the intensity means it's intense for you, so you're challenging yourself.

Right, right. Healthy eating and your metabolism. Over 40. So you mentioned earlier that in our 20s and 30s, I have a super high metabolism. I still do now. We could eat whatever we want. Now it's gone down a little bit. But I have to be really careful because I get really nervous when I don't eat and I normally eat four day and then when I go on vacation I either come back as at the same weight or I've lost weight because, you know, I'm only eating three meals a day. And yeah, it's really kind of, it really does, you know. So my approach to food has definitely changed, especially since I started bodybuilding. But how has your approach to food changed over the years?

Yeah, well, I stopped obsessing. I used to be super obsessive about the grams and the macros and the amounts and I don't do that at all. I. When we have a healthy body, when we're in a healthy state, your body is naturally regulating when you're hungry, when you're full, when you're hungry. And if you, if just imagine for a minute if you lived in. I'm not saying to go do this, but if you lived in nature, you didn't live in like you just lived outside, okay. You had no, nothing artificial, like no lights, no electronics or whatever. You would wake up at the sunrise, you would go to sleep at the sunset, you would work to get your food, meaning you would move your body, you would eat when you're hungry and you would stop when you're full and you wouldn't overeat because there would be nothing to overeat. You wouldn't have fake processed foods stimulating you to be super hungry. So when our bodies. And we're so far from that natural state, like we have wrecked that with the amount of electronics and blue light and like just we, we are not that anymore, right? We know that when you are in a healthy state, I believe that's how we should still live. Like, we should still. We don't. Shouldn't need alarms, we shouldn't need, like, there's a lot there, right? And you shouldn't have to regulate. It's time to eat. I gotta add this in. So when we're unhealthy or our body is out of homeostasis, where there's things going on and that can mean a lot of things, that can mean you've got not great gut health, it can mean you have massive hormone decline. There's a. You can have autoimmune. There's a lot of reasons that create this. Our bodies are out of whack, right? When you are out of whack, your body is going to look everywhere it can for dopamine, for serotonin, for sugar, for cortisol. It's going to start looking for things. And that's why we start having cravings and hunger and overeating. And now we gotta fight that and start controlling and going, but my body's saying, I need sugar and carbs, but I can only eat these times. So my whole thing with women is how do we get you to this state where your body's smart again and then that food stuff goes away? It's not. It doesn't become a thing. So when someone says, like, how do I eat? There's some things I'll say that are my rules. I eat on pretty much primarily unprocessed, natural, real foods. But I don't have a. Sometimes I'm eating two meals a day, sometimes I'm eating six meals a day. Sometimes, like, I. It's all over the place. It's literally how I'm feeling, how active I'm being, what my body needs. I'll tell you what, this disc replacement surgery, after I got through the first five days of the massive pain in my. My back went into a spasm from it. I wasn't very hungry. I was ravenous for four days, like, I could not get enough food in. I wanted so much food. And I just listened to my body. It was like, it's healing. It, it's hungry for a reason. Like, eat. Now that I'm like almost three weeks out, I. That's kind of settled down. And I'll also tell you, the more active I am, the more hungry I am, the less active. So. So to me, this intuitive way of eating, it's not a control thing. It's not like you should be an intuitive eater. It's, it's how do we get our bodies to a healthy state again and then this becomes less of an issue. Before I had my explant, for example, and I was living in a house of black mold. I was always hungry, always tired, always foggy headed, always controlling things. I kept thinking it was my hormones, it was this, like, I kept thinking I had the answer. It wasn't any of that. Like, I believe in all of it. Believe me, I'm on hormone replacement, all of it. None of those are the. Just the fix. It all has to work together. When I started, when I moved out of the house, when I got the explant, when I started, like, everything kind of tied together and my body went back to the weight.

It always was.

Very interesting. Very interesting. Do you have any tips for boosting your metabolism naturally while in midlife?

Pretty much everything I just said. So I don't know that there's like, I don't buy, I don't buy the whole, like, if you drink this, it's going to boost your metabolic. Like, no, I think there's a, there's a whole bunch. There's so many things, Helen. So it goes, it goes in this order. Okay, I'm going to give you the whole order order number. Step number one, mindset. And I might even call it mindset, let's call it neuroscience, let's call it focus, let's call it something else. Because when you say mindset, people shut down.

So.

But when you literally make a decision that you want something different for yourself and you get clear of the vision you want for yourself, that's step one. And nothing will change until you do that. Until you knew, Helen, I'm not going to let leukemia take me. I am going to thrive into my 60s and my 70s and beyond. Like, you decided that. And you literally have a vision for what that means. I'm going to take on adding what you knew that, that step one is, that step two is we have to look at movement and diet in a more general way. So am I moving my body? Am I eating foods that nourish me? Period? Okay, There's a lot of, lot of different details in there. But are you doing those things? Are you moving your body? Are you eating foods that nourish you? Okay. And if you're sitting at a computer all day long and not working out and you're eating fat free, sugar free processed foods, no, you can't answer yes to those. So that's, that's, that's them. So those three things right there are going to start you right? Then it's the detective work. So let's talk about detective work. Detective work is a lot of areas and I'm going to put it in an order that I just happen to like, but you can go whatever order you want. Gut, health, leaky gut. What's going in my gut. Because if your gut's not working functional, nothing else is going to work, right? Your hormones aren't going to work, right. Toxins aren't going to go through your body. Right. That implant you have is not going to keep you health like all the gut health. So then gut health number one, two, we've got to look at our thyroid. Is your thyroid functional? Is it optimal? Is it not? A lot of women in life have a lower thyroid and they're right away saying hormone replacement, but they're leaving that piece out. So thyroid would be next, the next bucket I would say would be hormone replacement. And I am a huge fan of hormone replacement. I have everyone's very personal on that journey there, but I personally am a fan of not doing crazy high levels. I don't do the Wiley protocol or anything of like high amounts, amounts of cycling. I, I interview people on all the different ways. For me personally, I like to replenish in a way where I don't feel bad. So meaning like I had hot flashes 24, 7 because my estradiol, my estrogen was so low it was like 10. So I take, I wear an estradiol patch to keep it at around like 60, 70 maybe others would want it higher. That's not very high. It's kind of like the, it's just like menopausal but in a okay range, a good range. Right. So I, it's enough that I don't have hot flashes. So that's what I do. Testosterone, same thing. I take a small amount of testosterone not to bulk up or grow facial hair or change my voice, but enough where I feel myself again. And then progesterone I take every night, which helps me shut off anxiety and sleep and all the things. So I'm a huge fan of all that. So hormones are huge. Then the other pieces that we've got to talk about are DNA. There's so much good information in our DNA, in our genetics. And if you know how you're wired, it could help a lot with how we show up and how we do things. Like, I understand now a big reason I even got the plastic surgery that I got, the implants that I got, the injuries, all was because of my genetic wiring, this motive. And if I had known that a long time ago, I might have made different decisions. So things like that. So DNA is especially important. And then the. The. The final piece on all of this is everything keeps evolving. It keeps changing. And we have to be our own health detective, our health advocate. You have to be your own researcher around your health.

And so many women are not proactive in that sense.

No, most are not.

Yeah. And they will complain. And I have all this going on and. And I hear it all when I'm at work, because when I'm flying to Europe, you have hours to chat. Yeah. So, yeah.

And then people are very quick to throw out, like, one thing. Like, say one thing. Oh, like, I have a friend who's super fit. I just had her on my podcast recently. Recently. Her name is Alicia. Super fit. She, like, completely changed her life in the last few years. She used to be, like, crossfit. She was fit, but not, like, she's, like, ripped now. Like, she looks amazing.

She was. I can't be more.

Yes, yes. She's incredible. And she is on hormone replacement the way. Same way I am. Like, just to the replenishment. Right. And people are like, you're fit because you take testosterone. Like, please. Like, no, if you're. She's just bringing her hormones up to, like, if anyone thinks they could just take an injection of testosterone and be super fit, like, go for it. Then if it's that easy, just go for it. Same thing. Thing with the GLP conversation. Like, I'm a huge fan of people doing GLPs. I have no issue with it. I. Whatever you got to do to get healthy and help you. But it's not GLPs alone. You can't just take GLPs and sit there and do nothing. You have to work. You have to. You still have to. You have to maintain muscle. You have to make good food choices. There's. So. It's never just this one thing like, oh, just fix your thyroid or just fix your gut or just do this. It's. It's the whole thing. It's the whole package. And being a detective, it is.

It is. And I think. And especially me for me too. I don't know how you feel about this, but I've got my western doctors. But then I also go to a homeopathic oncologist in Scottsdale and that's game changing for me too.

Amazing. You know, homeopathic medicine is great.

Yeah. And so I'm a huge proponent of that. You know, taking antibiotics, big no for me, unless I'm, you know, absolutely have to, just because of gut health. I've learned so much about gut health over the years and I think a lot of women in that respect also too aren't very well versed in what gut health is and how your gut has 80% of your immune system, you know, resides in your gut. So.

And homeopathic that you mentioned, that's energy. Like homeopathic medicine literally is energy. So I even lumped that into that same neuroscience conversation or that same focus or mindset piece, because it is, it's energy that helps shift, you know, so when you take like things in order to get your body to have a response, it's the same reason I'll wear a heel capsule or you sensitive to energy. So if it's frequency, so it's, it all makes sense. It all goes into that same bucket.

It's funny, it's funny that you say that too because when I'm overseas and there's like a nine hour time difference between home and work, I'll go to bed at night and I'll take my L theanine and then I might put on some like 472HZ music. On you. Yeah, on YouTube just to kind of. And it's amazing frequency how that, how your body responds so well. And a lot of people don't even, they're like, what's that?

Yeah, 528 hertz. 528 hertz? Yeah.

What? Yeah. So anyway, there's a lot of little fun little hacks and tricks that you can do. But how did menopause affect your body and your mindset and your motivation?

So originally it, it sucked. Like when I didn't know all of these things, I would say, so three years ago, before I knew all the stuff I just shared right now, I was like, this sucks. I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna do anything. I lost my motivation. I was gaining weight, I felt sick. I was like, I was in pain. Like I literally had. And I kept saying, it's menopause. I don't believe that anymore at all. I believe it all comps. I, this is My whole theory, okay, do our hormones drop in menopause? Abso freaking lutely. They absolutely drop, and it does mess with us. But it's not just that. What's also happening in menopause is we have this compounded effect of all these years compounding together, toxic load, all this stuff. And now, along with our hormones dropping, we're feeling everything. We're feeling it all. And that's why I say hormones are not just the only piece. It's a piece of the puzzle. They are an important piece. I think people are cheating themselves by not taking those seriously. Like, you don't win a cookie for, for saying, I'm doing it without hormones. Like, okay, fine, but you're making a lot harder for yourself. So I think it's an important piece, and I love that piece. Hormones and it's all of these things. So for me, menopause has been a huge blessing for me now. But, yeah, I came into a kicking and screaming. I was like, what the heck is going on? But now that I understand all this, I feel super empowered and I feel healthier now than I did a few years ago.

Yeah, no, the same. I started my, I think I went through menopause around 56 and, you know, the hot flashes and all that mess. And I started hormone therapy, and then I was weaned off hormones as I was approaching 60. And then I'm, you know, I won my IFBB pro card on my 60th birthday, and I'm competing in these.

Pro shows, and, yeah, I'm working my butt off in the gym, and I'm not putting on any muscle. So I'm like, I, I, I need to go back on HRT. Yeah, my OB GYN, who I'd been going to for 15 years, and we did a hormone panel, and she's like, well, this is where you're supposed to be. And everything was zero across the board. And I said, but I compete. And I, you know, I would like to get on some testosterone. And I said, and I've got a little bit of belly, you know, bloating, and that might, might be due to a lack of estrogen. And she said, I'm not giving you any hormone therapy. And if you have an issue with your stomach, try coolsculpting.

Oh, gosh. So you found a new doctor, I hope.

I literally just walked up and walked out. Never went back. Good. So I've been on hormone therapy, you know, ever since, you know, age 60, and it's been fabulous and wonderful. And, you know, the testosterone is Helping, but it's helping my skin and my hair and my nails and, you know, my libido, everything. So, I mean, it's just.

It helps us turn the lights. Way I describe it is it helps you turn the lights back on. So you can now focus on all these other things. Because when you don't have that and you feel down and you're not feeling motivated now, you don't even want to look at those other things.

And my original OB GYN was telling me, I'm not going to do this because of your leukemia. I'm not putting you back on. I said, but there's been so much research that that's not the case anymore. I mean. And yeah, you wouldn't listen to me. And I still see people, you know, HRT causes cancer. No.

So here's what I want to say about that. I want to kind of. I want to share something about that. And I respect somebody that does not want to do them because of that. But here's what I want people to hear.

The reason sometimes, sometimes it can create an issue with people is when you, when we're in perimenopause and before perimenopause, you have a cycle every month. So every month your body has this natural detox of getting a period and getting out out excess estrogens. Okay, so you're getting out excess estrogens. And I want to share this because this is a piece that I think is missing from a lot of the conversation. Like you interview doctors and they'll say, oh, the Women's Health Initiative was flawed. Or you know, that's not true, it doesn't cause cancer. But there is this piece that I want. It's really important if you do have the kind of DNA where your body does not eliminate excess estrogens effectively, like it doesn't know how to through detoxification, eliminate it effectively. If you don't have a period, how is your body going to eliminate it? And it will start storing in fat and tissue. So why do I bring that up? If you are unhealthy, you're eating a highly processed food diet, you have unmanaged autoimmunes, you're living in mold, you have those implants, you have all these other toxic things going on and you're doing hormone replacement therapy, especially estrogen, and you have the genetics where your detox natural pathways, it's not eliminating the estrogen. And now you don't have a period, you could have a problem. So what's the answer there? The answer is not Necessarily stay away from hormones. I mean you could. The answer I chose for me because I have that bad detox pathway is if I don't have a period anymore and I have that genetic. And I know I cleaned up all the molds and all these other things. How do I assure that my body eliminates excess used up estrogen effectively if I'm on a small amount of estradiol replacement? And it's easy, you eat broccoli sprouts which helps you eliminate. You can take dim, which if I don't do every day it would drop it too low. But once a week I do dim. Calcium deglutarate will also help. So there's other ways to clear those pathways. But it is is true that if you are toxic, you have all these other things going on and you don't have the right DNA pathways for this and you're not eliminating it could create a cancer problem. So I just want to say that because I think that conversation, that part of the conversation is missed too much.

No, I think you're right and I think.

Women out there and stuff. I, I actually made a comment on somebody's post or something and then there was like this big long diatribe about stuff. Well, my Soso had, you know, got cancer and she has breast cancer and she was HRT and so you're right.

But all those things might have been in place.

All those things might have been in place and we don't know who these people are and what their everyday eating.

How they're moving, how, what's their light like. There's so many questions but I wanted, I didn't want to dismiss it because there is a reason. So like I have a friend, she had breast cancer, estrogen positive. She understands all of this. She does not have the great detox pathways and so she's made a decision, she's not going to go on it. That's great for her. She's found other ways to boost things. So. And I think it's just about making an educated choice on your own research for, of what's right for you.

I agree. Let's talk about mindset and motivation. How important is mindset in transforming your body?

Especially after 40. It's everything. If you can't believe that it's possible for you, there's nothing you're going to do that's going to transform your body.

That's true. Cut and dry. That's very true. Daily routines or rituals that help you stay motivated or grounded. Grounded.

I am not a daily like I Do the same exact thing every day. I always laugh at my husband. He's very routine. I can say his to the hour, to the minute, like day by day. What he's going to be doing, he's just wired that way. I am not. I'm more of a like free spirit. I've got to like. I like creativity, I like new things. So I don't have a routine. I have certain non negotiables but they happen at different times. They have. So I like to be outside, I like to walk, I have. I like to drink a lot of water, I like to eat nourishing foods. I like to have great conversations. Whether that's me interviewing somebody or me being interviewed or me having a conversation with a friend. I like to have connection and conversation. Connection is very important to me.

That would be it really. Those are my main things. And sleep. Getting good sleep.

Oh yeah, that's. That's primo for me too. As far as coaching, when you have women who are stuck in a cycle of self doubt or defeat, how, how do you help them with that?

I asked them to make a new decision. So there's a whole process there. But we are always one decision away from a very new experience. So when somebody is super stuck and they are in a funk and honestly I was literally there these last two weeks before I shifted life, things in life happen and you're going to get in a stuck replay in your brain of why something sucks or something's awful or doomsday. We are as soon as we can get to that place of I felt all that. I get, I feel it, but I want something different. And you can literally make a new decision. That's when we start to shift and show up differently. So when someone is like that, I will absolutely listen. But I'm going to also ask, you want me to validate how do you feel how you feel about it or do you want me to help you get out of that? And if they're truly ready to help help get out of that, then my next mission would be how do I quickly get them to decide. Because the sooner you decide to make a shift, the easier it's going to be and the faster you'll fix things.

You're right. And it's kind of like flipping a switch. I mean, I know for me it's like when I'm getting ready to do a contest prep or something, it's just like the switch goes on and then it's just like, okay, it's like. And nobody can flip that switch Until I'm ready. So what do you love most about working with women in midlife?

I love seeing the light bulb moment come together for them. So usually women get to me and they've tried everything they've been bought into, all the marketing of all these. This hype and these different things, it's like all over the place. But when they can.

Come full circle and see the light bulb moment and understand how this is all connected, that's. That's why I keep showing up and doing this with women.

That's great. How important is community in a woman's wellness journey?

It's critical. When we isolate, we die. Community is everything. Having that connection, having community, having people to share, having people to talk with, It's a big part of that journey.

And finally, what role does vulnerability play in healing and empowerment?

Hmm.

That's a big question. I. I would say, and it depends on what context. So I think if you're going to learn from somebody, it's important that you feel that they are, because if. If they're not with you and you don't see yourself connected in with them or their story or you're not resonating, it's hard to learn from them. And then on the other side, you have to share where you're really starting and where you're really struggling in order to have a change. When women come the opposite of that and they are really committed to what they already know, it's very hard for them to change. So it's coming with an open mind. Being willing to share where you're really struggling, being willing to look under the places you haven't looked before. I think it's all very important for that transformation.

And final question, what's your best advice for women who feel like it's too late to get healthy, strong, or start a new chapter?

You're right. If you think that.

That is awesome, that is awesome. I love that. I absolutely love that. If people want to find you, follow you, work with you, give me all.

The details, I would love that. So my podcast is Midlife Conversations, and I would love you listening there, because I. We share a lot of this, these conver conversations. On a deeper level there, if you want to go deep with me and, like, really transform over eight weeks, like learn all these pillars that we've been talking about, then I would say go to totalbodythrive.com like, it's just totalbodythrive.com and like, jump all in. Just go and be in there and you learn all this and you will come out a different person. So that would be there. And then. Do you want to follow me on Social? I'm Natalie. Jill. Fit everywhere. Okay.

Awesome. Well, an hour has flown by and it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for, for joining me today. I greatly appreciate all your time, especially since you're going through everything that you've gone through in the last couple of weeks. I've told you this before. You're. You're like this iconic.

What was the term I used? I sent you a note and I just was like your resilience and your bounce back. I mean, everything that you go through, I was so shocked. Especially like the day after your surgeries, you're, you know, sharing, you know, how you're feeling, what you're going through. I just was like, wow, that's absolutely incredible. So more power to you. Thanks. Ellen, how's. I know you were having some adjustments with.

The heat in San Diego. I mean, it's in, in Phoenix. Are you adjusting?

Yes, I have adjusted a lot. Yeah.

Thank you. That's good.

That's another decision.

Yep. Yeah, that, That's. I know. I mean, I, I love it out there. It's a little warm this time of year, but we, we. We thrive when it from October to April, so I guess that's even better. All right, well, have a wonderful afternoon and thank you again for joining.

Thanks, Helen.

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