Transcript

Hello everyone. And welcome back to the hormone hub. It is great to have you here. I have bumped into a few more women during the week who also listen to the podcast and this just gets me so excited every time. Because, yeah, the fact that you’re listening, the fact that you’re engaged and you know, you want to hear more, so nothing excites me more than hearing from, you know, the listeners, which is great.

So big thank you. And very much appreciated. Okay. So let’s jump in. The last few episodes I’ve been talking a lot about the importance of getting your blood sugar under control to, you know, switch off that fat storage hormone. We’ve been talking about resetting your metabolism. And also sort of shifting your mindset so you can, then make some, you know, some real changes that are gonna stick.

But, I also understand that, you know, a lot of this can be all words and you might be thinking, yeah, right. But how does this [00:01:00] apply to me? How do I get it to work for me? Will it work for me? I’m really busy. I don’t have time. You know, I don’t have the, the money to invest, you know, all of these things.

So, today’s episode I wanted to share a couple of client stories with you, because I think it’s important you see examples of what real success looks like. So you can kind of ground yourself in the knowledge, you know, knowing that it is possible for you too. You know, my clients are, are, you know, they’re all beautiful women.

But, you know, they’re all normal women just like us. They are, you know, busy, they’re time poor, they’re doing the juggle of, you know, partners, families, work, businesses, busy jobs, in-laws parents, you know, the whole thing. And I just want you to know that if they can do it, you can absolutely do it too. And today I’m just gonna show you, you know, what some of their results have looked like and you know, how they have, [00:02:00] how they’ve done it, you know, and how you can do it too.

All right, so let’s jump in. So we’ll start with Sally. So Sally is one of our well-balanced woman graduates. She came into the program and she thought she was eating fairly well. You know, look, and I’ve said this before, we all know what healthy eating looks like. Right. So. Sally, you know, was, was doing a pretty good job.

 She had no energy, she was exhausted. She felt bloated. She felt puffy most of the time, she had, you know, her little treats for, for those stress days. So kitkats was her thing. And that’s not the end of the world really. But the scales were working their way up. So she was having trouble sleeping, she struggled to get through the day at work, you know, without wanting to have a Nana nap. So, of course she’d been to the doctor and, you know, had all the tests done, you know, and everything came back normal. Now her blood sugar, [00:03:00] interestingly enough, was slightly elevated, but she was told that she had nothing to worry about.

We’ll just wait and see. Now I love this, you know, we’ll just wait and see like, really what exactly are we waiting for? If one of your markers is outside the optimal range or outside the normal range, you know, things don’t get better on their own. So yeah, it always sort of makes me sort of wonder what they’re thinking when they say that, what we are waiting for it to be a diagnosed condition.

 Anyway. She was also told that she was too young for perimenopause. You know, even though she was in her late forties, she ticked so many boxes, so many signs and symptoms that she was 100% in perimenopause. So, you know, so Sally was trying to do her best. So, except, you know, come Friday, she’s tired. It’s the end of the week, you know, it starts with takeout with the family and then, you know, it kind of escalates from there.

 We [00:04:00] all know, we all know what it’s like, so then she would feel guilty. And she would resolve to start over again on Monday. So, you know, no wonder nothing she felt was working for her. So after we worked with Sally, she, you know, was 10 kilos down. She felt more energized. She was sleeping better.

She was enjoying life again. And she was actually eating more than she was before. And she wasn’t having those weekend blowouts because she hadn’t been deprived, you know, feeling deprived of food, all week. So how we did this with Sally is, you know, we supported and we regulated that up and down blood sugar.

 We tweaked what she was already eating. So, you know, so Sally was busy, she was juggling two kids, her own business, plus she was still working full time. So we had to make it easy for her. So we adjusted her family favorite meals, her midweek go-tos. And we also worked on [00:05:00] changing her mindset.

So she was able to get on top of those cravings and, you know, reward herself with something other than food. And then this helped, you know, she wasn’t relying on willpower, as well. So it was just really subtle shifts that we made, you know, by changing the balance of food, she was eating by getting her to eat more food throughout the day, you know, and then her energy levels picked up. Her blood sugar was supported. She stopped storing fat and was able to lose it instead. So 10 kilos, she was pretty happy, with that result. And you know, she’s been outta the program for a couple of months now, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s continued and has lost a little bit more than that.

Okay, so that’s Sal. So the next client I would love to showcase is Nadina. So Nadina came into the program. She had been struggling for years with, you know, weight gain, and she was also experiencing [00:06:00] spiraling health conditions. So she had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, she also had been suffering from IBS for a number of years.

And for as long as she could remember, she had really debilitating, painful menstrual cycles. So all of these conditions together are quite inflammatory. So the first thing we did with Nadina is we wanted to identify these in, you know, the, the foods and the products she was using that were potentially causing inflammation.

So we did this using the food sensitivity test. So we, yeah, so things like toothpaste, deodorants, laundry powders, as well as fruits, veggies, you know, proteins, you know, things like that. So we identified rather than taking out whole food groups. We identified exactly which foods weren’t working for her.

And we just took those out. So she was left with a big, long list of things she could eat. [00:07:00] So then we wanted to make sure she was also eating enough of the right balance of foods to support her blood sugar and her hormones. So just like Sally, we got Nadina eating more food than she was before. And we started with breakfast.

So she would have like two or three coffees in the morning before any foods hit her stomach. So what we did was we reigned that in, she could still enjoy a coffee, but we needed to get some food into her body. So the wins with nadina were amazing. So, and in a relatively short amount of time, so there was an enormous improvement in her pain and inflammation to the point where, you know, they actually wondered because some of the symptoms of fibromyalgia do cross over into those peri menopause symptoms.

So those inflammatory achy joints, sore muscles, things like that. So yeah, there is a big [00:08:00] crossover with perimenopause and it was interesting that her, you know, doctor and Nadina as well, sort of started to wonder, you know, had she actually been misdiagnosed with the fibromyalgia in the beginning.

 But anyway, that’s sort of an aside, but yeah, there was an enormous improvement in her pain and inflammation. Her IBS was completely resolved. So after years of either constipation or, you know, diarrhea running to the toilet, it was resolved. So she was now doing a normal bowel movement. She was doing, you know, one to two a day, well formed, easy to pass.

There was no more urgency and no more constipation. So that was a really big one was, you know, supporting her digestive system. Her menstrual cycle was now a non-event. So we supported her hormones. We worked on, you know, clearing those excess hormones, by supporting her liver as well. So. You know, [00:09:00] her period would now just arrive.

It wasn’t painful and she didn’t need to take time off work. So she was having two to three days off work every single month, due to that heavy flow, you know, painful cramping. And yeah, all of that, we were able to, to sort of regulate her menstrual cycle, and you know, this didn’t happen overnight.

This happened over a period of three to four cycles. Okay. So it’s not a, not a, you know, you do this and then your period is fixed. It does take a few cycles and Nadina, we were lucky with her. She did respond really well to all of these things. So. You know, and if you think your body doesn’t get to this point overnight, so we are not going to fix it overnight, but we can make significant improvements in your quality of life.

 And then, you know, one thing I did get a, you know, because we’d been focusing on Nadina’s health, you know, and weight loss was one of her goals, but that [00:10:00] wasn’t our main focus and yeah, she sent me a message to say, that she had lost 34 centimeters off her body. So she was pretty happy with that.

Now, if you’d like to hear more about Nadina’s story, I actually have an interview that I did with her. So I’m gonna pop the link to that interview in the show notes. So you can actually, you know, see and hear it from Nadina’s words herself, because yeah, it was a pretty amazing sort of health transformation that we did.

All right. So the next couple of clients I am gonna showcase is, you know, where we made sort of more mindset shifts. And that was our, our key focus. So with, you know, lifestyle and mindset changes it’s always harder to measure, you know, at 10 kilo weight loss, we can measure that, 34 kilos off your body.

We can, you know, measure that, reduce time off work, we can measure that, but when it comes to those mindset shifts, it is a little bit harder. So I’m gonna sort of highlight some of the changes that, that we, we see with our clients. So one of our beautiful ladies, Nadine. So she joined us, when she started to experience anxiety for the first time. [00:12:00] Now she knew that it was a hundred percent stress related.

So she was working for the department of health, you know, during the peak of the pandemic. And to the best of my knowledge, she’s still there as well. So you can imagine it would been a pretty hectic time. So she prioritized managing her stress, you know, obviously we couldn’t change the situation, but we could change her reaction and also the way she could internally, you know, make some changes.

And at the end of the day, we can control our thoughts. We can control our actions. We can control our response, but we can’t control what’s going on outside of us. So if we sort of like, if we think of putting ourselves in a bubble and controlling what goes on in our bubble. So Nadine got better at placing boundaries around her own self care.

Okay. So she could, her own self care is something that she could control. So things like, you know, taking time [00:13:00] off, having downtime, moving her body, resting her body, you know, the way that self chatter that we all do in our own heads. So, yeah, so she got really good at, you know, putting those boundaries around.

Like they, they became a non-negotiable, she learned the importance of prioritizing her own wellbeing and she knew this, but she just wasn’t doing it. And I think a lot of us can relate to that. A lot of us are guilty of that. And she learned to say no. So it started off, you know, she started saying no at work, you know, for things that were outside of her sort of role and outside of her control, you know, she was one of those, people pleases, and people came to her to sort of like dump more things on her.

So she learned to say no. And the result was, she felt a lot calmer. She felt a lot more in control. Her anxiety was greatly reduced, you know, knowing that she could control her own reaction, even if she couldn’t [00:14:00] change the situation that was going on. So that was, you know, one example with Nadine. Now, now we’ve got Una. So Una was another beautiful lady we worked with, you know, And again, just coincidentally during the pandemic, she hadn’t been feeling happy with herself for a long time.

She, you know, came in the very first time that we spoke. She told me, you know, she hated her body. And she was caught up in these negative thought patterns that were just looping around in her head, she was too fat, too old, you know, nothing was gonna work for her. She tried everything. So what we did with Una is, you know, I asked her to trust me.

I asked her to just trust the process, and just surrender to the process and follow the steps. So what we did is we worked on her mindset. So we wanted to reduce that constant negative stress response. [00:15:00] So we started with, you know, how could she speak to herself differently? How could she be kinder to herself and how could she focus on her own wellbeing rather than focusing on all the things that weren’t working.

Okay. So the result was she totally flipped it around. Okay. So she sent me a message and she found that, you know, she was smiling more, she felt more relaxed. And what do you know? Her confidence grew, she was socializing more. She, you know, felt better within her own skin. And then she was back shopping for clothes again, which is, you know, something that she had previously enjoyed.

So it wasn’t that, you know, she needed to lose weight. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with her. There was nothing wrong with her. It was the way that she’d been beating herself up for, you know, for not being perfect for not being, you know, what she, she thought she needed to be.[00:16:00] So it was really powerful to watch that mindset shift with, with Una.

And then while we’re talking about mindset, you know, it’s really important to, you know, or it’s vital to feel supported. Okay. So our, you know, beautiful partners, they don’t always understand what we’re going through. You know, we, we might or might not try and explain to them, but, you know, they don’t necessarily understand. Some of them try, God love them, but not of the, all of them do. Our kids definitely do not understand, you know, the shifts and the changes that we are going through. And, you know, to be honest, a lot of our mothers seem to have amnesia or, you know, they remember perimenopause and menopause with rose colored glasses. Oh, it wasn’t that bad. You know, I remember my mum saying when my kids were babies, she’s going, oh, you guys just slept through the night.

I’m like, I’m pretty sure we didn’t. And dad’s like, you know, you never slept. So it was funny that, you know, mum has these rose colored glasses that she [00:17:00] remembers everything through. And I think the same is, you know, comes to menopause. They didn’t talk about it. So they remember it very differently.

So with one of our ladies, Maria, she came in with so much self judgment. And when she realized that she actually wasn’t the only one going through this, it was sort of like a light bulb moment for her. So she didn’t have any friends going through it at the time, work colleagues weren’t, you know, were younger and she felt like she was going crazy. So when she came in, you know, to our beautiful community of women, she realized that, hang on a second. I’m not going mad. And the beautiful thing with Maria is she had never put, wellness into her sort of framework before she, you know, always sort of been as so many of us who grew up through the eighties and nineties, you know, it was all about, you know, diet and exercise.

We had to feel deprived. We had to, you know, flog ourselves with exercise, go harder or go home, [00:18:00] that kind of thing. So what we did with Maria is we worked on, you know, being okay with not being perfect, you know, it was okay to let that go. And, you know, and know that it’s normal to have ups and downs, to have good days, bad days, you know, and that self-awareness that she, she found and also being more mindful of, you know, how she was feeling and giving herself some slack, was huge for her. So, so you can see here that, you know, the changes aren’t necessarily all measurable and it’s not all about diet and exercise. So the thing, the key thing to remember is it is possible for you to make small changes.

And these small changes have significant impacts to your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. So I hope you can sort of see that change is possible for you too. You know, these women that I’ve sort of highlighted [00:19:00] today. They are normal regular women, just like us, who decided that they had enough and they didn’t wanna live their life on the sidelines anymore.

And it’s okay to know, not know what to do. If you have, you know, what you’ve been doing hasn’t worked or things are getting worse. It’s just that your 40 50 plus year old body responds very differently to our 20 and 30 year old body. And, you know, I can help you make these simple shifts that are going to have a big impact for you.

And I’m there to support you in making these changes work in your already busy life. So, if you’ve been thinking about joining me in the well balanced woman, then take this as a sign. You know, why keep stalling? It’s time to put yourself first and enjoy the body that you are living in, because my love you are worth it.

All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and I will see you in the next one.