What if the health advice you’ve been following wasn’t made for your body at all? In this powerful episode, women’s health coach Lauren Mallers reveals the shocking gaps in research and care that continue to leave women confused, dismissed, and underserved by conventional medicine. Drawing from her own fertility journey and data-driven wellness practice, she shares how to decode symptoms, read between the lines of your lab work, and start making real change—without a 20-step routine.
From hormone imbalances to gut issues and the pressure to "bounce back" postpartum, Lauren and host Stephanie Konter-O’Hara dive deep into how our modern lifestyle—and a lack of relevant research—has created a chronic stress epidemic for women. If you’ve ever wondered why you feel off even when your labs are “normal,” or if you’re tired of being told your symptoms are “just in your head,” this conversation will feel like the missing piece you've been waiting for.
About Lauren: Lauren Mallers is a Certified Integrative Health Practitioner and founder of Calibrate Health & Wellness, where she helps women get to the root of chronic symptoms and hormone imbalances—without the bandaid fixes.
After a 15-year career in digital media and a personal journey through IBS, fertility struggles, postpartum depletion, and hormone chaos, Lauren took her passion for data and turned it inward—using functional lab testing, nutrition, and lifestyle medicine to reclaim her health. Now, she helps other women do the same.
Her work focuses on identifying the real reasons behind fatigue, fertility struggles, gut issues, and hormonal symptoms using a personalized, data-driven approach.
When she’s not coaching clients or interpreting test results, you’ll find her chasing her two kids, cooking something protein-heavy, or at a yoga class.
Connect w/ Lauren:
Instagram: @calibratewell
Learn more about the Redefining Us Monthly Community - https://wellmindedcounseling.com/redefining-us-community
Please leave us a review or rating! These help get the show out to more women like you wanting to have these conversations.
Would you like to chat more about this episode's topic? I would love to continue our conversation over on Instagram! @wellmindedcounseling
I wrote a book! Becoming Mommy: Aligning with yourself and finding your voice during pregnancy and motherhood, available at all major retailers - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZT9P3RB?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_KFT90ZBDS48FDGG6DH5X&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_KFT90ZBDS48FDGG6DH5X&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_KFT90ZBDS48FDGG6DH5X&bestFormat=true
Where to find more from Redefining Us:
Website: wellmindedcounseling.com/redefining-us-pod
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Instagram: @wellmindedcounseling
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Redefining Us, where we explore
sexuality, identity, motherhood,and mental health to help women
thrive authentically.
Let's break free from roles thatlimit us and create a life where
you can truly be yourself.
Well, I'm so excited that you'rehere today, Lauren, to share
(00:20):
with us more about what you'reworking on and the fertility
journey and health coaching andall things like that.
So welcome.
Thank you.
I'm excited to be here.
Yes.
Let's just like dive right in.
I like to ask almost all of theguests what inspired you to do
this work because I think thestories behind why we do things
(00:41):
are just as interesting as whatwe're doing.
So yeah, I'd love for you toshare with our listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
Yeah.
So I have kind of like a I don'tknow, a 15-year health journey
of myself that really inspiredthis.
But I look back and even in myreally young days, I've always
been interested in food.
My mom owned grocery storesgrowing up, so it was always
fun.
Part of what I was thinkingabout was food and how it
(01:08):
impacted us.
But yeah, my background isactually in digital advertising.
I spent some time at an agencyand then I moved to Google on
the sales side of things, butquickly got very burnt out from
that type of work and had a lotof health issues going on that
Nobody could really tell me whatwas happening.
Like my labs looked fine.
(01:28):
My colonoscopies looked fine.
Everything looked fine, but Ifelt horrible.
And I knew that something waswrong.
I've just always been somebodyto not accept no for an answer
and dig in and find the answersthat I needed myself if nobody
was helping me.
And through, I had bouts of IBSthat were impacting me that
(01:49):
impacted my fertility journeywhen I was trying to conceive my
two kids.
I had multiple chemicalpregnancies and then
miscarriages.
And I just seemingly, I had allof this health coach
certification background and waslike, I feel like I'm doing all
of the right things.
Like why?
Why?
Why me?
Why can't I get pregnant?
Why am I having all of thesehealth issues?
(02:10):
And so I really just took mypassion for the health space,
health and wellness space, got aton of certifications.
I am a lifelong learner and justalways want to know more.
And my data background, sodigital advertising, it was all
about crunching numbers andfiguring out what was driving
the needle for my largemarketing clients.
And I kind of merged those twotogether to create Calibrate
(02:33):
Health and Wellness thattakes...
human data and crunches thosenumbers, for lack of a better
term, so that I can help womenget the answers that they need
about their body.
Very cool.
SPEAKER_00 (02:46):
Yeah.
As someone who doesn't know muchabout the numbers of health,
what are the numbers that youthink are valuable for women to
look at when they're looking atfertility?
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I mean, definitely our...
are like progesterone andestrogen numbers.
Thyroid can play a big role.
But what I've found ineverything that I do is that the
hormones are usually a symptomof other things going on.
So it's like, we can treat thehormones.
(03:17):
There are synthetic hormonesthat you can give if you're low
in one or high in another tosort of balance things out.
But usually hormone imbalance isa result of other things going
on in the body.
It could be chronic stress.
It could be gut dysbiosis.
It could just be a stressfullifestyle that you're not giving
yourself the basically theinputs that your body needs to
(03:39):
function on a day-to-day andmonth-to-month basis.
So those hormone numbers cantell us a little bit more about
what's going on underneath thesurface so that we can really
get to the bottom and createtrue healing.
I
SPEAKER_00 (03:53):
would imagine that a lot of people, when they see
their numbers spelled out forthem, they might be a little
either A, taken aback, like,wow, my numbers are so off, or
B, The other flip side of that,I feel like people wouldn't
express is this makes a lot ofsense.
I feel like these numbersreflect actually how I'm
feeling.
SPEAKER_01 (04:13):
Yeah, it's really validating.
At least that's what Iexperienced.
So my health journey startedwith my gut issues, like then
manifested into hormone issuesthat impacted my fertility.
But I remember getting my firstfunctional lab work results back
and being like, oh my gosh,feeling just so validated.
Nobody had ever looked at thosetypes of numbers.
(04:35):
In those tests, they're reallylooking at what microbial makeup
does your gut have?
Do we have an overgrowth ofcandida?
Do we have an overgrowth of badbacteria?
Are there things like H.
pylori and other chronicinfections that can wreak havoc?
And my experience just in theconventional lab Dr.
(04:56):
Anneke Vandenbroek, Ph.D.:
UNKNOWN (00:00):
:
SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
invasive of a test to see if there's something
physically wrong with you.
And most, you know, like it canbe fine.
And then you look under the hooda little bit more and you
SPEAKER_00 (05:24):
you
SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
find what's going on.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
I had another guest on and they were talking about
Western medicine has its rootsin emergency medicine.
So a lot of the Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:01):
Yeah.
I find myself getting frustrateda lot of the times.
Like, why don't we know thisstuff?
Like, why aren't doctors talkingabout it?
But you're right.
They're trained in fixing reallyacute, serious issues.
This conventional medicinewasn't set up to handle the
chronic disease epidemic thatwe're experiencing.
And it was going back to thefunctional ranges of what's good
(06:24):
and what's not good in your labwork that you are seeing, even
from your blood markers.
Somebody explained it to me.
If the ranges were so narrow,because they have this really
wide range of what's normal, andso you could be at the low end
and they'll tell you you're finewhen maybe that's not optimal.
But if our ranges were so narrowin the conventional medicine
(06:46):
space, we'd have a lot of peoplebeing treated with medication
that might not need thatmedication.
So it would cause a rippleeffect of other issues.
So I get why it's set up the waythat it is.
But I think that there's thisplace for we need conventional
medicine.
It is lifesaving.
It helps with a lot of thingsand a lot of people.
But we also need to help peopleprevent getting sick in the
(07:09):
first place.
And we don't have thatpreventative medicine world yet.
figured out yet, I don't think.
And
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
I feel like, unfortunately, it gets dismissed
often as like B2 woo-woo or newage or something.
But when you really look at thehistory of like functional
medicine or more like holisticmedicine, this is what people
were practicing in their homesas part of like their culture
and as part of their family, Idon't know, family lore or
(07:39):
something like this.
The shared culture.
information was just like passeddown from generation to
generation.
And then somewhere along thelines, we just decided that that
wasn't important anymore.
And so it just flipped over toeveryone paying attention to
conventional medicine.
I'm not a history of medicineperson, so I'm not entirely sure
(08:00):
of all the details, but Iimagine something happened that
interrupted the shared baseknowledge from being widespread.
Yeah.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (08:09):
I think it honestly goes back to like the
industrialization of our countryand people moved away from their
families and went to cities andthat family system sort of was
disrupted at the root of all ofit.
So it is really interesting.
And our lifestyles changed inthat too.
We were no longer outside homes.
(08:30):
Manning the crimps in thosesituations where underneath
fluorescent lights and insideall the time and we are grabbing
convenient.
I mean, we still like this isjust modern day life.
We grab convenient foods.
We don't spend a lot of timecooking for ourselves.
And that's where like the rootof a lot of chronic issues just
go back to comes back tonutrient deficiencies or a
(08:51):
buildup of bad things in ourbody that our body just can't
expel on their own that it wouldhave been able to do.
given the right environment.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
this is making me think of a conversation that I
had with a client of like, we asa society do these things to
move forward and progress and wepush the needle forward and we
don't always know what theresidual side effects of those
things will be.
And sometimes we're shocked bythe residual side effects of
(09:22):
them because like, wait, thiswas supposed to be a good thing.
And then now 20 years later,we're like, holy crap, that's
actually horrible for you.
She gave the example ofasbestos, which I know is like a
silly example almost, but in TheWizard of Oz, when they're in
the poppy fields, what they'rerunning through is asbestos
because they thought it wasaesthetically pleasing to the
(09:44):
shot.
And then, you know, now we knowasbestos causes cancer.
So I don't know.
It's just so interesting tothink about things that we
weren't worried about at all inthe past or we thought were just
fine now are really hazardous toour health, including the
sedentary lifestyle thateveryone's grown so accustomed
(10:05):
to or, you know, eatingprocessed foods that we've all
become so accustomed to.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:12):
Yeah.
And you're right.
Everything's created with goodintentions to make something
easier, to make something moreefficient or to make something
even environmentally friendlything.
Like I'm thinking electric cars,for example, we think we're
doing like the greatest thingand there's just, there's a cost
to everything, right?
Like everything has this cost,whether it's obvious or a hidden
cost that you have to figure outlater on.
(10:35):
But I think like the mostimportant thing it's like be
open and willing to kind ofchange and be Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's all about, I'm
SPEAKER_00 (10:47):
going to sound cheesy here using the title of
the podcast, but it's likeredefining what's true right
now.
Yeah.
Because we can't hold the samebeliefs that we had in the past
to be successful in the moment.
So I imagine a lot of the workthat you're doing is you're
sharing new information orinformation maybe for the first
time with your clients to helpthem redefine what the
(11:10):
relationship with food lookslike or redefine what the
relationship with movement oryeah, I'd love for you to share
what the work that you do withclient looks like and how you
help them navigate thisinformation that you help them
discover.
SPEAKER_01 (11:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think one of the, if I'mfinishing up another practicum
work right now in women's healthspecifically and reproductive
hormone cycles and things, andone of the most mind-boggling
facts is that women weren'tallowed in research studies
until the 1990s.
So a lot of the research that isout there that's being practiced
(11:47):
and put into even functionalmedicine, even woo-woo and
holistic medicine is based onmen.
It's based on what happens whenwe do this diet to the men in
this.
And so the other thing too, isit takes, I don't know, I'll
(12:07):
probably botch the exact stat,but it takes anywhere from 15 to
17 years for new research to beput into medical practice or
become practiced, which maybeyou're familiar with in the in
the mental health space but it'sjust wild when we know there is
(12:28):
new research and it's just we'renot willing to practice it yet
until A hundred other studiesget published about it.
And a lot of it, especially inthe food realm, it's more, it's
common sense, right?
It's eat more whole foods.
It's make sure we're focusing onprotein first.
There's a lot of research now inblood sugar balance being really
important to how our hormonesare regulated, how our gut
(12:50):
functions, but it's not beingtalked about yet because it's
newer research within the lastfive to 10 years.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:57):
Yeah.
I just want to add to that justbecause I've been doing research
on my own for my book aboutwomen's health being studied.
So even though in the late 80s,early 90s, they began including
women in studies, most of thewomen that they included were
actually postmenopausal women.
And so there's not even a lot ofresearch about the other 45%
(13:23):
plus years of women existing andso yeah I wanted to add that to
the conversation of like yesthere is research being done but
it's just still not enough Ithink in 2023 the NIH's budget
for women's research was onlylike eight percent of their
(13:44):
entire budget I don't knowthat's just So sad to me, but...
Yeah, there's so much catch
SPEAKER_01 (13:49):
up to do.
It should be a lot more at thispoint.
You kind of, when you arelooking at the research, you
kind of have to put thingstogether for yourself and make
conclusions based on differenttypes of data that you have.
Like, you know how the menstrualcycle works, right?
We have biological scientificdata about what that process
looks like in our bodies.
And then maybe we have anotherpiece of research over here that
(14:12):
says...
I don't know, something aboutthis specific part of our cycle.
And you have to piece those twothings together and make
conclusions without more, Idon't know, without more
studies.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
Yeah.
Well, I'm glad there's peoplelike you out there putting that
information together for peoplebecause it's a lot of work, I
think, for the average woman tospend hours trying to read
through research articles to putthis information together when
they're trying to manage theirlives and their family, their
work and et cetera, et cetera.
So it's important that there'speople out there doing this work
(14:49):
to help guide women along thisjourney because it could be
really overwhelming trying topiecemeal that.
Yeah.
And
SPEAKER_01 (14:57):
even research aside, I feel like most people, for
better or for worse, get theirinformation on TikTok or
Instagram now.
I did some market research aheadof launching this company and it
was like, oh, okay, you rightnow, everything you're doing for
your health is because you sawthis on Instagram.
And there are a lot of peopledoing, you know, sharing
research and making sure thatwhat they're saying is
(15:19):
evidence-based andscience-backed.
But there's also a lot of just,this is what I eat in a day and
it has nothing to do with what Ido.
to do with anybody else or otherthan them.
And that feels so overwhelmingbecause there's a lot of
contradicting information outhere.
This person feels great on amostly plant-based vegan diet.
And this person's like, youshould have 200 grams of protein
(15:39):
a day.
And it's like, what should I do?
It's hard to sift through that.
So that's my goal really is tohelp women based on their
current lifestyle and theircircumstances and what they like
to eat and how much time theyhave to cook.
Let's put together a a plannutrition wise that works for
you so that you can seesustainable change.
(16:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:02):
Yeah.
All of this is so interesting.
When I was pregnant, I went togo see a nutritionist at the
hospital recommended because Idon't know, my husband was
worried that I wasn't gettingenough weight or what the baby
wasn't getting enough weightanyway.
So I went to go see thisnutritionist and because I My
whole undergrad was based inhealth sciences.
(16:25):
I had taken a nutrition class.
So she went over the foodpyramid with me in my consult.
And I was like, all right, Idon't want to diminish the work
that you're doing here.
Because I imagine there's a tonof people that don't even know
this information.
But I need more.
So it sounds like working withyou would maybe help people get
(16:47):
more than what the typical...
let's go over the food pyramidand what you should be eating
out of the food pyramidconversation.
Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01 (16:57):
And the food pyramid, for better or for
worse, is so outdated too.
And I know they've changed it,but it says it's just, you know,
our hands are tied with some ofthe policies that we have around
how we talk about food.
Yeah, it's more about It's moreabout the person's goals, the
woman's goals.
So for example, I work with alot of women through hormone
(17:18):
transition.
So whether they're trying to getpregnant, they're prepping their
body for pregnancy, maybe theyjust came off of hormonal birth
control and want to understandtheir cycles and what their
body's doing.
They're postpartum and they'rejust feeling like depleted and
don't know why.
All of those phases of life havedifferent needs than just an
average food pyramid diet.
(17:38):
What's good for most is notoptimal for certain phases of a
woman's life.
So yeah, it's really aboutsharing the information that's
going to help them achieve thatgoal and not sharing the basics
if that doesn't matter in thecurrent moment.
SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Again, I'm sure this woman'sexcellent at her job.
I don't want to diminish her atall.
But I walked away feeling likeprobably could have gotten more
out of that moment.
But I ended up seeking anindividual dietitian who
specifically focused on pregnantwomen's nutrition during that
(18:16):
time.
But anyways.
UNKNOWN (18:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:18):
Which I found to be much more helpful and supportive
because you looked at myspecific lifestyle and my
specific needs in that moment.
And yeah, Yeah, I imagine evenworking with you might feel
reassuring for some womenbecause I walked away from that
conversation feeling like, oh,some of these things that maybe
my doctor is saying are justinformation for me to know, not
(18:41):
necessarily things that I needto blame myself for.
In my pregnancy, my daughter wasmeasuring like below 10% on
weight.
And so they were really, theywere concerned.
I'm going to put that in airquotes for people who aren't
watching the video playback ofthis.
And they were like, well, youshould just make sure that
you're eating well.
And so I was like, yeah, ofcourse, I'm going to make sure
(19:03):
that I'm eating well as well.
That's really important to me.
And so, yeah, anyways, it wasgood to talk to this person that
was more from a holistic mindsetof what I was going through and
from a different point of viewthan maybe what the hospital
dietician went over with mebecause it didn't feel like
(19:26):
you're doing something wrongsort of conversation.
And I imagine working with youwould probably also feel like
that for women who come to workwith you in those more even
emotional times of life.
SPEAKER_01 (19:40):
We don't need, as women, we don't need like
another thing to feel bad about.
No, it's not a blame game.
And it's not like, oh my gosh,you need to be eating breakfast.
What are you doing?
You're not eating breakfast.
That's a huge thing that I seeis like, we just, we're busy.
We have, I mean, we have kidsand sometimes our needs are like
(20:03):
And that's what I see a lot frommy postpartum clients is that
they're just not taking the timeto take care of themselves, but
it's not about putting blame onthem.
It's sharing information aboutwhy that breakfast meal is so
important and brainstorming withthem on how could we set your
freezer up for more success.
Here are the frozen egg bites.
(20:23):
You don't even have to prepthem.
These are the ones you can buyat the store.
Let's just get some food in yourbody and make it work for you
and not worry about all ofthose.
I had all of the nuances thatcomes with nutrition that you
see online.
SPEAKER_00 (20:38):
It's really interesting.
I have a client that went to gosee a dietitian and she had
shared with them about herbreakfast situation.
And usually what she ends updoing for breakfast is just
eating whatever her toddlerdoesn't eat.
And according to the dietician,that's not quote unquote good
enough.
And I was like, well, what ifrather than seeing that as not
(20:59):
quote unquote good enough, youjust in the back of your mind,
if you know your toddler's goingto only eat a portion, why don't
you just make enough for him andfor you?
So have enough that's going tofuel you for breakfast.
And she's like, Actually, I'mnot a dietitian.
This is just like a therapysession.
Like, wow, that's a greatreframe rather than feeling like
(21:22):
I'm somehow a bad person or likenot helping my own health by
just eating my children'sleftovers.
Just do a little bit differentmicro change or let me just make
a little bit more.
So it's enough for me and forhim.
And I think that's Yeah, theblack and white talk oftentimes
can really derail people intothis.
(21:43):
I'm doing something wrong or I'mnot good enough or I'm failing
or some negative headspace thatdoesn't really serve us and
actually making change.
Totally, totally.
And
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
the diet part too, I always feel like adding into the
diet, like putting more thingson your plate and kind of
crowding out some of the, Idon't want to say it, food is
bad or good.
I don't love using those terms,but crowding out the stuff
that's not as nourishing to uswith just adding certain things.
So let's add protein to ourplate first so that we're not
(22:18):
eating the chips before, beforethe meal.
Little strategies like that isall about the mindset shift.
So you're doing all the rightthings.
SPEAKER_00 (22:28):
Yeah.
Sometimes as a therapist, I findthat I put up these like mini
hats of like, dietitian orexercise coach.
Yes.
You wear all the hats.
Yes.
All the hats.
And then of course, when itbecomes something that's beyond
my scope, I'm like, you knowwhat?
(22:50):
You should go see X, Y, and Zfor this because that's outside
of my specialty.
I definitely don't try topractice outside, but yeah, I
think sometimes giving them alittle bit of a different
perspective can really make ahuge difference.
So I know you don't only focuson food in the work you do.
So maybe we should shift to talkabout what other things that you
(23:11):
tend to focus on with clients.
SPEAKER_01 (23:13):
Yeah, I was just going to say, I think food too,
it becomes the one thing we wantto focus on.
Like I think when we, any healthgoal, we're like, oh, I should
eat better and exercise more.
Those are the two things I needto do.
But there's so many things inour life that we're doing that
are not supportive to our healthand healing and allowing our
bodies to do, like our body issuper smart.
(23:34):
It does things.
During the day, it does thingswhile we're sleeping.
And if we're not giving it theright environments and the right
inputs outside of food, it canbe just as detrimental.
You can be eating all the rightthings.
And this is what I experiencedeven in my IBS journey.
I was eating all the rightfoods.
But nothing was working becausethere was something deeper going
on that I needed to figure out.
(23:55):
And I wasn't sleeping well and Iwasn't going outside and
prioritizing just getting somesunlight during my day.
I was inside and grinding at mycomputer.
So we really do take a look atyour lifestyle and what's going
on there and trying to makespace for that.
Just those things that ourbodies, I don't know if you've
seen that quote, but it's likeour bodies are just complicated
(24:17):
plans or plans with emotions orsomething like we need water and
sunlight.
And it's so true.
Sunlight is energy and you canbe eating all the right things.
And if you're inside all daylong and never seeing natural
light, it can do so many crazythings to our circadian rhythm,
which messes up differentfunctions in our body.
Yeah.
So it's a lot of lifestyle work.
(24:39):
We'll add in supplements when weneed to.
If we really don't think we'regetting what we need from our
diet and we're not going to makesomebody feel bad about not
eating certain things or notbeing able to prioritize certain
things, we can add that in withsupplements.
But we really look at all of thesymptoms that somebody has,
their lab data, how they'reliving their life and pull
(25:00):
together like a full story and afull plan for them so that they
can prioritize what makes senseto them.
SPEAKER_00 (25:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I always find it so interestingthat sleep often gets left off
as the most important thing whenit comes to wellness.
It's always so shocking to me.
It's like, You know, you caninfluence your sleep just as
much as you can influence yourdiet and exercise.
I wonder just, I'm just, what isit called?
(25:28):
Hypothesizing here.
If people think that it's easierto control food and exercise.
And so they just leave sleep outof the conversation.
But I don't know.
I feel like it needs to be apart of it.
Yeah.
Our body, I
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
mean, our body needs that rest period.
UNKNOWN (25:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:48):
I think a lot of chronic issues comes down to
nervous system dysregulation.
We wake up and we have coffee,which puts us into a cortisol
response, like fight or flight.
Whether we feel that way or notabout our morning cup of coffee,
that is what it's doing to ourbody.
That's what gives us that joltof energy.
And then we go into a reallystressful meeting.
(26:08):
Or even before that, we have toget our kids out the door.
I wear an aura ring for...
If you're not watching thisvideo, I'm holding it up.
But it's wild what my stresslevels look like, trying to get
the kids out the door in themorning and trying to get them
to bed at night.
And sometimes it doesn't evenfeel that stressful.
It just is.
Our body goes into likeprotective mother mode, I feel
(26:30):
like.
And having times in our day,sleep being the longest period
of time where we're just restingand we're allowing our bodies to
repair and relax and we're notworried and stressed.
That is so important to likebuild that in throughout the day
so that our body, when our bodyis constantly fueled with
cortisol response andadrenaline, and it's not moving
(26:53):
back down into thatparasympathetic nervous system
state,
SPEAKER_02 (26:56):
other
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
things...
Like our digestion suffers.
Our body basically saysdigestion is not that important.
We're surviving right now.
So it's going to turn offdigestion.
It also stops the production ofprogesterone when you're
constantly producing cortisol.
So that can impact hormones andcycles and fertility.
So a lot of it comes down tojust those basic daily habits
(27:20):
that we have to make sure thatwe're not running our days in a
cortisol response.
SPEAKER_00 (27:26):
I'm really curious what you would say to a woman
who maybe feels like they're notin control of their sleep
because they have a tinyterrorist that's messing with
their
SPEAKER_01 (27:40):
sleep.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
Right?
So there's only so much when youhave a tiny terrorist, whether
the tiny terrorist is, you know,in utero or...
her eye of utero.
So I say that in a very lovingway, but you know, tiny
terrorists, but they do, theyare a terrorist for sleep.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Yes.
Yeah.
And they wake you up and it istrue for a period of time.
I'm like knock on wood withinthe last six months.
So we have been out of the tinyterrorist phase and you have to
remember that period of timebecause it meeting somebody
where they're at.
Yeah, sometimes they don't getto control it.
They get a lovely nine hours.
(28:21):
And even with no nighttime wakeups right now, it's still, you
know, bedtimes at eight o'clock.
If you want to have any sort ofdowntime you time, you're not
going to bed at nine o'clockbecause that doesn't allow you
enough time to get stuff donethat you didn't get done during
the day.
So there's a couple of thingsthat I think women in that phase
(28:42):
of life could focus on.
One that I recently justdiscovered, light.
The light in our homes and thelight that we get during the day
via natural light is soimportant to regulating our
circadian rhythm.
And I think that's an obviousthing to say, but I think what
we don't think about is all ofthe blue light outside of our
(29:03):
phone.
Maybe we're blue blockers whenwe're working late at night or
something.
We think we're doing reallygood.
But the overhead light in ourhouse and even the lamps in our
bedrooms.
You can actually buy amber andred lights and keep it really
low once the sun goes down.
So after sunset, having at leastin your bedrooms and even in
(29:26):
your kids' bedrooms, it can helpregulate their sleep-wake
patterns as well.
It's one thing that you can,like, you have control over what
the light looks like when you'rewaking up in the middle of the
night so that it's not, youknow, if you have to turn on the
light to change a diaper orclean up the club or whatever
you're doing, your body's not asjolted into this, oh, I think
(29:48):
we're, you know, I think it'smorning now and then I can't
fall back asleep.
Magnesium is also this really, Ithink, underrated supplement
that I always recommend toclients.
One, it's when we're stressedout all the time.
It's just one of those mineralsthat gets depleted really
quickly when we're in astressful phase of life.
So there's a couple, there'slike some sleep ones that you
(30:09):
can like put in water rightbefore you go to bed and take
that.
And it just helps like make surethat your body is in that
relaxed state.
So I would say focusing on thethings that you can control and
being, knowing that it's okaythat we're in this season of
life where we are going to bewoken up more often or maybe
woken up at 5 a.m.
and not wanting to wake up thatearly.
(30:30):
And yeah, it's just a season andyou'll focus on, you know, what
you can control will changebased on the season.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:38):
Something I like to tell a lot of women, because I
think this is very commonpractice, is like counting down
how many hours you have left totry to sleep.
Like, oh, I need to go to sleep.
I only have...
five more hours of time that Ican sleep.
And I think even just countingthat and trying to manage that
in your mind, you're just givingtoo much space, even thinking
(31:01):
about that and just trying tofocus on what I call like a safe
place or it's very commonlanguage in EMDR.
So you visualize a calming andrelaxing place rather than
trying to manage the countdownof, okay, I put the baby down at
this time.
That means You're going to wakeup at this time.
(31:21):
And that means that I have thisamount of time to fall back to
sleep before they're awakeagain.
And all of that planning,although might feel...
somewhat soothing to yournervous system is actually more
dysregulating.
And so rather than trying tocount the hours, okay, I'm going
to visualize myself in Hawaii onthe beach.
(31:44):
I can feel the sand.
I can, the waves are crashing.
It's very soothing and visualizeyourself in that place with your
five senses because yeah, themanagement of the hour counting
is just going to prolong theamount of time that you're awake
in the middle of the night withyour kid.
100%.
(32:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:05):
The more stressed out.
I mean, I think what you can dowhen you start going down these
health rabbit holes of, oh,sleep is so important.
I need to optimize my sleep.
What am I doing?
The stress that you place onyourself trying to figure out
and optimize and manage all ofthese different things that you
know are important is sometimesmore detrimental than not doing
(32:26):
the thing itself.
SPEAKER_02 (32:27):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01 (32:28):
And so there are going to be phases of time where
sleep is just not going to bethe priority.
You can't focus on everythingfrom a health perspective at
once.
It's just not feasible.
So
SPEAKER_02 (32:41):
taking
SPEAKER_00 (32:42):
the thing that does feel within grasp.
I imagine that's part of maybethe true planning that you do
with clients.
Because I do think it'sreally...
Again, I'm going to go back toInstagram TikTok thing that I
saw.
It was this woman listing all ofthe things that people have told
her she needs to focus on as anew mom.
And there was a list of 20things.
(33:02):
And she's like, girl, I don'tgot time for 20.
I can maybe manage four to fivethings a day.
And I was like, this is a greatrepresentation of all of the
shoulds that are put on towomen.
And you just can't do 20 shouldsa day.
You can maybe do four or fivethings that you feel aligned
with or that you want to do andyou want to prioritize.
(33:26):
But yeah, I manage and that's apart of the conversation that
you have with people as well.
SPEAKER_01 (33:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And for example, we know thatmoving our body is important,
right?
That it's commonly approved assomething that's good to do for
your health.
However, the type of movementmatters.
And if you're...
Yeah.
Yeah.
(34:13):
So many women are, I mean,there's a lot of pressure to get
back to, even if it's notpre-baby weight, be functioning
at pre-baby function level.
And so they feel like they haveto get to the gym and go out to
all the parties or go out to allthe social events and prioritize
all of these different things.
Community is important forhealth, right?
There's so many things that weshould do, but it just, it
(34:37):
depends on what you've got goingon right now and what you can
prioritize because that, Extrahit class is just going to throw
yourself out of whack more thanhelp you.
do any sort of weight loss or,yeah, health goal in that way.
SPEAKER_00 (34:53):
I love that you said that about the, I feel like
there has been a shift away fromyour pre-baby body you need to
get back to.
But I do think there's stillthis idea that women are
supposed to get back to pre-babyfunctioning and quickly.
Oh, you've had the baby sixmonths ago.
You should be back.
Or like, oh, you had the baby ayear ago.
(35:13):
You should be back.
Like every time the baby...
Reaches another milestone.
It's like, well, what's wrongwith you that you're not back to
doing all of the things that youused to do?
And yeah, I think that's areally important conversation to
be had and to be acknowledgedthat maybe the pressure is a
little less with like thepre-baby body, but the pre-baby
(35:34):
functioning is in full force.
Everyone has this shared belief,it feels like, including women
who are going through it.
I should be back to where I wasbefore I
SPEAKER_01 (35:45):
had baby.
Yeah.
It's so true.
It's so true.
I mean, part of it is that weexpect women to take six weeks
off and get right back to work.
Society kind of puts thispressure on us.
The policies that we have in theUnited States puts the pressure
on us.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
I mean, some people are back to work two weeks
postpartum.
All they have is two weeks ofpaid time off that they can use.
It's really a shame.
I feel like we're justcreating...
more and more chronic stress forboth mom and baby.
Because
SPEAKER_01 (36:20):
it doesn't just end.
I mean, I say this all the time.
The postpartum period doesn'tend at six weeks after that last
checkup that you get throughinsurance.
And it doesn't just end aftersix months.
It's every time your baby hitsanother milestone or they start
talking to you or they startwalking.
There's another level of thingthat you have to figure out how
(36:41):
to incorporate into your life.
And you have to figure out yournew parenting style now that you
have a toddler who can say no toyou.
There's a lot of pressure thatwe don't
SPEAKER_00 (36:51):
acknowledge, I think.
In the transition of now, yourkids are in school full time and
you have to worry about likedrop off and pick up and after
school activities and summercamp and who's friends with who
and, you know, is this parentbeing respectful to your kid or
how is this kid interact withyour kid on the playground?
It's just a complete Mind shiftthat you have– not you don't
(37:16):
have to, but most women findthemselves in over and over and
over again.
SPEAKER_01 (37:23):
Yeah.
It's just your mental space justcontinues to shrink and shrink
because there's so many otherthings that take up our brain
space.
SPEAKER_00 (37:32):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, I know that your workbookthat you– Yeah.
My goal in
SPEAKER_01 (37:50):
creating this workbook was really to make it
so that this information wasn'tas hate kept behind.
You must go through athree-month program with a
certified health coach.
Those things are great.
And some people need thataccountability and coaching and
weekly check-ins.
But a lot of people just needthe information put to them in a
way that's not based on TikToktrends.
(38:12):
They're not trying to piece ittogether based on all these
reels that they're consuming ortheir doctor said this, their
friend said this.
And I created this because Ithink that, especially in the
fertility space and I really wasinspired by a client that I was
working with who was just a fewmonths away.
She was over 35, just a fewmonths away from starting the
IVF treatment process becausethey had been trying for almost
(38:34):
a year.
And we started working together.
And just by changing the waythat she was thinking about the
nutrients that her body needed,the way that we were supporting
her lifestyle and getting herbreakfast first thing in the
morning and prioritizing sleepand making sure that we were
regulating our nervous systemand not over-exercising when
(38:56):
we're trying to get pregnant.
She was able to conceivenaturally a month before the IVF
process was about to start.
So I really think that sometimeswe're jumping to these
interventions without doing someof the fundamentals first.
And I wanted this fundamentalinformation to be available in
an easy way.
easily consumable way.
(39:18):
So it's all about how to supportyour egg quality.
It's about sperm health and whyhis health also matters.
I think a lot of the pressure isput on us as women to figure out
fertility challenges.
But I think in 50% of cases,it's male factor when it comes
down to infertility.
So things like you know, talkingabout the numbers, what to look
(39:40):
for in the sperm analysis.
There's a big difference betweennormal, like we said, because
not every man needs to be ontestosterone or whatever
synthetic hormone treatment fortheir sperm production.
But there is a differencebetween normal and optimal when
it comes to fertility.
And so these are the things thatyou're striving for.
And this is how to...
support sperm health.
I talk about how to track yourcycles so that you're paying
(40:02):
attention to what's going on andunderstand that long cycles
could mean this and short cyclescould mean this.
Just giving everybody a roadmapof like, if you're thinking
about trying to conceive or havebeen trying to conceive and it's
just not happening, here are thethings that you need to think
about first.
Doctors, they just don't havethe time or resources to guide
(40:23):
their patients in this way aheadof intervention.
SPEAKER_00 (40:25):
Yeah.
I really love when I was lookingthrough it that you did include
the male perspective in therebecause I do think even though
this podcast and most of theguests I'm having on, we're
talking about women's issues.
Men are chronically stressedtoo.
Men have health concerns andmental health issues that are
(40:46):
not being addressed.
And that contributes to thewellness of the couple, the
wellness of men.
fertility, the wellness ofparenting, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, that cannot beunderstated though.
That also needs to be a focuswhen it comes to trying to
conceive.
SPEAKER_01 (41:06):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (41:07):
definitely.
SPEAKER_01 (41:07):
So yeah, I created it just as I really wanted this.
It's the information I wish wasavailable when I was going
through my chemical pregnancies,when I went through my
miscarriage.
Nobody told me what to focus on.
Nobody told me...
You know, for better or forworse, I think it is helpful to
have something that we feel likewe are in control of when we're
experiencing something reallyoutside of our control.
(41:30):
And to just be told, like, tryagain in a couple of months is
not helpful when you're goingthrough something like that or
when you've been trying for ayear and nothing's happening.
I just wanted people to have aguidebook to this is what I
should think about first.
And then maybe I could go getmore specific support.
But
SPEAKER_00 (41:49):
yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (41:50):
that's a starting point.
SPEAKER_00 (41:52):
Yeah, and I just wanted to add to the fertility
conversation.
I think it sometimes is...
I'll speak for myself.
I don't want to include otherpeople, but I think...
When you're hearing about otherwomen conceiving without even
trying, and then you're overhere putting all of the energy
that you have into conceiving,it can feel really defeating and
(42:13):
overwhelming.
And is there something wrongwith me?
So just wanted to put out therefor anyone that's listening,
that's going through that.
And I'm sure Lauren would agree.
There's nothing wrong with you.
You're not broken.
And so just remember that as youenter in this journey to figure
out how to conceive.
Because I think there's a lot ofshame that can be had and this
(42:35):
fear of even sharing when I'mstruggling with infertility
because you don't want to bethat person that people are
like, oh, there's somethingwrong with her or something.
UNKNOWN (42:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:46):
And I'm so thankful.
It feels like more and morepeople are sharing, but I do
think that we still have a longway to go of just normalizing
what this fertility journeylooks like for most people,
which is not a like...
get off of birth control, havesex once and like, there we go,
we're done.
It doesn't look like that.
I thought that that was going tobe my journey.
(43:07):
I was like, I'm a health coach.
I know what to eat.
I'm so much healthier than somany people.
And yeah, 12 months into tryingand two chemical pregnancies
that were like, what is this?
And nobody could explain to mewhat those were.
I was just like, yeah, it's notyour fault.
I think we all just need moreand better information about our
(43:29):
bodies so that we can support itmore
SPEAKER_00 (43:31):
effectively.
Yeah.
And the rate, I'm not astatistician, so I don't
remember everything that I read,but I know that even the rate of
miscarriages is super common.
And again, that's not talkedabout often.
UNKNOWN (43:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:45):
The stat I have in that workbook is that it was
surprising to me even that itwas this high, but it's one in
three couples over the age of35.
So I have a special, as a womanin my later 30s, I have a
special sweet spot for those ofus over 30 that have tried to
get pregnant.
I think anybody over the age of30, we experience differences
then.
in our 20s.
(44:06):
Our bodies are just differentand they need different support
later on.
But it's one in three couplesover the age of 35 will
experience some level ofinfertility or infertility
challenges.
So we're not alone.
SPEAKER_00 (44:17):
Yeah.
And I feel like it's becomingmore and more common for people
to have their first baby after30.
The economy, everything thatjust kind of leads to that being
the case for a lot of people.
Yeah.
Not
SPEAKER_01 (44:33):
ready until they gotten their career in a stable
place and they have a partnerthey feel good about.
Yeah, it's happening a lot more.
SPEAKER_00 (44:41):
Yeah.
So, well, I want to thank you somuch for coming on, Lauren.
I feel like I've learned a lot.
Hopefully our listeners havelearned a lot.
Where can people find you toconnect with you and access the
workbook?
SPEAKER_01 (44:55):
Yeah, I'm on Instagram for better brewers at
calibrate.well.
And the workbook is on my site,calibratewell.com.
SPEAKER_00 (45:04):
Awesome.
And all of that will be linkedin the show notes as well as on
our website.
So you can find that if youweren't able to jot that down
real quick for the listeners.
So thank you so much for beingon.
Thanks for having me, Stephanie.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for tuning in toRedefining Us once again and
share with other people so otherpeople can continue to listen to
(45:28):
Redefining Us and we can getinto more listeners ears.
If you follow us or subscribe orleave a comment or review,
that'd be greatly helpful forother people to find us and also
just for me to get somefeedback.
What do you guys want to hear mesay?
What do you women care abouthearing?
I'm totally open to Thank you somuch for joining us.
(46:19):
So you can be in the know withall the things that are
happening in the Redefining Uscommunity.
Once again, thank you so muchfor listening and keep being
awesome.
Welcome to Redefining Us, where we explore
sexuality, identity, motherhood,and mental health to help women
thrive authentically.
Let's break free from roles thatlimit us and create a life where
you can truly be yourself.
Well, I'm so excited that you'rehere today, Lauren, to share
(00:20):
with us more about what you'reworking on and the fertility
journey and health coaching andall things like that.
So welcome.
Thank you.
I'm excited to be here.
Yes.
Let's just like dive right in.
I like to ask almost all of theguests what inspired you to do
this work because I think thestories behind why we do things
(00:41):
are just as interesting as whatwe're doing.
So yeah, I'd love for you toshare with our listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (00:46):
Yeah.
So I have kind of like a I don'tknow, a 15-year health journey
of myself that really inspiredthis.
But I look back and even in myreally young days, I've always
been interested in food.
My mom owned grocery storesgrowing up, so it was always
fun.
Part of what I was thinkingabout was food and how it
(01:08):
impacted us.
But yeah, my background isactually in digital advertising.
I spent some time at an agencyand then I moved to Google on
the sales side of things, butquickly got very burnt out from
that type of work and had a lotof health issues going on that
Nobody could really tell me whatwas happening.
Like my labs looked fine.
(01:28):
My colonoscopies looked fine.
Everything looked fine, but Ifelt horrible.
And I knew that something waswrong.
I've just always been somebodyto not accept no for an answer
and dig in and find the answersthat I needed myself if nobody
was helping me.
And through, I had bouts of IBSthat were impacting me that
(01:49):
impacted my fertility journeywhen I was trying to conceive my
two kids.
I had multiple chemicalpregnancies and then
miscarriages.
And I just seemingly, I had allof this health coach
certification background and waslike, I feel like I'm doing all
of the right things.
Like why?
Why?
Why me?
Why can't I get pregnant?
Why am I having all of thesehealth issues?
(02:10):
And so I really just took mypassion for the health space,
health and wellness space, got aton of certifications.
I am a lifelong learner and justalways want to know more.
And my data background, sodigital advertising, it was all
about crunching numbers andfiguring out what was driving
the needle for my largemarketing clients.
And I kind of merged those twotogether to create Calibrate
(02:33):
Health and Wellness thattakes...
human data and crunches thosenumbers, for lack of a better
term, so that I can help womenget the answers that they need
about their body.
Very cool.
SPEAKER_00 (02:46):
Yeah.
As someone who doesn't know muchabout the numbers of health,
what are the numbers that youthink are valuable for women to
look at when they're looking atfertility?
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I mean, definitely our...
are like progesterone andestrogen numbers.
Thyroid can play a big role.
But what I've found ineverything that I do is that the
hormones are usually a symptomof other things going on.
So it's like, we can treat thehormones.
(03:17):
There are synthetic hormonesthat you can give if you're low
in one or high in another tosort of balance things out.
But usually hormone imbalance isa result of other things going
on in the body.
It could be chronic stress.
It could be gut dysbiosis.
It could just be a stressfullifestyle that you're not giving
yourself the basically theinputs that your body needs to
(03:39):
function on a day-to-day andmonth-to-month basis.
So those hormone numbers cantell us a little bit more about
what's going on underneath thesurface so that we can really
get to the bottom and createtrue healing.
I
SPEAKER_00 (03:53):
would imagine that a lot of people, when they see
their numbers spelled out forthem, they might be a little
either A, taken aback, like,wow, my numbers are so off, or
B, The other flip side of that,I feel like people wouldn't
express is this makes a lot ofsense.
I feel like these numbersreflect actually how I'm
feeling.
SPEAKER_01 (04:13):
Yeah, it's really validating.
At least that's what Iexperienced.
So my health journey startedwith my gut issues, like then
manifested into hormone issuesthat impacted my fertility.
But I remember getting my firstfunctional lab work results back
and being like, oh my gosh,feeling just so validated.
Nobody had ever looked at thosetypes of numbers.
(04:35):
In those tests, they're reallylooking at what microbial makeup
does your gut have?
Do we have an overgrowth ofcandida?
Do we have an overgrowth of badbacteria?
Are there things like H.
pylori and other chronicinfections that can wreak havoc?
And my experience just in theconventional lab Dr.
(04:56):
Anneke Vandenbroek, Ph.D.:
UNKNOWN (00:00):
:
SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
invasive of a test to see if there's something
physically wrong with you.
And most, you know, like it canbe fine.
And then you look under the hooda little bit more and you
SPEAKER_00 (05:24):
you
SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
find what's going on.
SPEAKER_00 (05:26):
I had another guest on and they were talking about
Western medicine has its rootsin emergency medicine.
So a lot of the Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:01):
Yeah.
I find myself getting frustrateda lot of the times.
Like, why don't we know thisstuff?
Like, why aren't doctors talkingabout it?
But you're right.
They're trained in fixing reallyacute, serious issues.
This conventional medicinewasn't set up to handle the
chronic disease epidemic thatwe're experiencing.
And it was going back to thefunctional ranges of what's good
(06:24):
and what's not good in your labwork that you are seeing, even
from your blood markers.
Somebody explained it to me.
If the ranges were so narrow,because they have this really
wide range of what's normal, andso you could be at the low end
and they'll tell you you're finewhen maybe that's not optimal.
But if our ranges were so narrowin the conventional medicine
(06:46):
space, we'd have a lot of peoplebeing treated with medication
that might not need thatmedication.
So it would cause a rippleeffect of other issues.
So I get why it's set up the waythat it is.
But I think that there's thisplace for we need conventional
medicine.
It is lifesaving.
It helps with a lot of thingsand a lot of people.
But we also need to help peopleprevent getting sick in the
(07:09):
first place.
And we don't have thatpreventative medicine world yet.
figured out yet, I don't think.
And
SPEAKER_00 (07:17):
I feel like, unfortunately, it gets dismissed
often as like B2 woo-woo or newage or something.
But when you really look at thehistory of like functional
medicine or more like holisticmedicine, this is what people
were practicing in their homesas part of like their culture
and as part of their family, Idon't know, family lore or
(07:39):
something like this.
The shared culture.
information was just like passeddown from generation to
generation.
And then somewhere along thelines, we just decided that that
wasn't important anymore.
And so it just flipped over toeveryone paying attention to
conventional medicine.
I'm not a history of medicineperson, so I'm not entirely sure
(08:00):
of all the details, but Iimagine something happened that
interrupted the shared baseknowledge from being widespread.
Yeah.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (08:09):
I think it honestly goes back to like the
industrialization of our countryand people moved away from their
families and went to cities andthat family system sort of was
disrupted at the root of all ofit.
So it is really interesting.
And our lifestyles changed inthat too.
We were no longer outside homes.
(08:30):
Manning the crimps in thosesituations where underneath
fluorescent lights and insideall the time and we are grabbing
convenient.
I mean, we still like this isjust modern day life.
We grab convenient foods.
We don't spend a lot of timecooking for ourselves.
And that's where like the rootof a lot of chronic issues just
go back to comes back tonutrient deficiencies or a
(08:51):
buildup of bad things in ourbody that our body just can't
expel on their own that it wouldhave been able to do.
given the right environment.
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (09:02):
this is making me think of a conversation that I
had with a client of like, we asa society do these things to
move forward and progress and wepush the needle forward and we
don't always know what theresidual side effects of those
things will be.
And sometimes we're shocked bythe residual side effects of
(09:22):
them because like, wait, thiswas supposed to be a good thing.
And then now 20 years later,we're like, holy crap, that's
actually horrible for you.
She gave the example ofasbestos, which I know is like a
silly example almost, but in TheWizard of Oz, when they're in
the poppy fields, what they'rerunning through is asbestos
because they thought it wasaesthetically pleasing to the
(09:44):
shot.
And then, you know, now we knowasbestos causes cancer.
So I don't know.
It's just so interesting tothink about things that we
weren't worried about at all inthe past or we thought were just
fine now are really hazardous toour health, including the
sedentary lifestyle thateveryone's grown so accustomed
(10:05):
to or, you know, eatingprocessed foods that we've all
become so accustomed to.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:12):
Yeah.
And you're right.
Everything's created with goodintentions to make something
easier, to make something moreefficient or to make something
even environmentally friendlything.
Like I'm thinking electric cars,for example, we think we're
doing like the greatest thingand there's just, there's a cost
to everything, right?
Like everything has this cost,whether it's obvious or a hidden
cost that you have to figure outlater on.
(10:35):
But I think like the mostimportant thing it's like be
open and willing to kind ofchange and be Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's all about, I'm
SPEAKER_00 (10:47):
going to sound cheesy here using the title of
the podcast, but it's likeredefining what's true right
now.
Yeah.
Because we can't hold the samebeliefs that we had in the past
to be successful in the moment.
So I imagine a lot of the workthat you're doing is you're
sharing new information orinformation maybe for the first
time with your clients to helpthem redefine what the
(11:10):
relationship with food lookslike or redefine what the
relationship with movement oryeah, I'd love for you to share
what the work that you do withclient looks like and how you
help them navigate thisinformation that you help them
discover.
SPEAKER_01 (11:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think one of the, if I'mfinishing up another practicum
work right now in women's healthspecifically and reproductive
hormone cycles and things, andone of the most mind-boggling
facts is that women weren'tallowed in research studies
until the 1990s.
So a lot of the research that isout there that's being practiced
(11:47):
and put into even functionalmedicine, even woo-woo and
holistic medicine is based onmen.
It's based on what happens whenwe do this diet to the men in
this.
And so the other thing too, isit takes, I don't know, I'll
(12:07):
probably botch the exact stat,but it takes anywhere from 15 to
17 years for new research to beput into medical practice or
become practiced, which maybeyou're familiar with in the in
the mental health space but it'sjust wild when we know there is
(12:28):
new research and it's just we'renot willing to practice it yet
until A hundred other studiesget published about it.
And a lot of it, especially inthe food realm, it's more, it's
common sense, right?
It's eat more whole foods.
It's make sure we're focusing onprotein first.
There's a lot of research now inblood sugar balance being really
important to how our hormonesare regulated, how our gut
(12:50):
functions, but it's not beingtalked about yet because it's
newer research within the lastfive to 10 years.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:57):
Yeah.
I just want to add to that justbecause I've been doing research
on my own for my book aboutwomen's health being studied.
So even though in the late 80s,early 90s, they began including
women in studies, most of thewomen that they included were
actually postmenopausal women.
And so there's not even a lot ofresearch about the other 45%
(13:23):
plus years of women existing andso yeah I wanted to add that to
the conversation of like yesthere is research being done but
it's just still not enough Ithink in 2023 the NIH's budget
for women's research was onlylike eight percent of their
(13:44):
entire budget I don't knowthat's just So sad to me, but...
Yeah, there's so much catch
SPEAKER_01 (13:49):
up to do.
It should be a lot more at thispoint.
You kind of, when you arelooking at the research, you
kind of have to put thingstogether for yourself and make
conclusions based on differenttypes of data that you have.
Like, you know how the menstrualcycle works, right?
We have biological scientificdata about what that process
looks like in our bodies.
And then maybe we have anotherpiece of research over here that
(14:12):
says...
I don't know, something aboutthis specific part of our cycle.
And you have to piece those twothings together and make
conclusions without more, Idon't know, without more
studies.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
Yeah.
Well, I'm glad there's peoplelike you out there putting that
information together for peoplebecause it's a lot of work, I
think, for the average woman tospend hours trying to read
through research articles to putthis information together when
they're trying to manage theirlives and their family, their
work and et cetera, et cetera.
So it's important that there'speople out there doing this work
(14:49):
to help guide women along thisjourney because it could be
really overwhelming trying topiecemeal that.
Yeah.
And
SPEAKER_01 (14:57):
even research aside, I feel like most people, for
better or for worse, get theirinformation on TikTok or
Instagram now.
I did some market research aheadof launching this company and it
was like, oh, okay, you rightnow, everything you're doing for
your health is because you sawthis on Instagram.
And there are a lot of peopledoing, you know, sharing
research and making sure thatwhat they're saying is
(15:19):
evidence-based andscience-backed.
But there's also a lot of just,this is what I eat in a day and
it has nothing to do with what Ido.
to do with anybody else or otherthan them.
And that feels so overwhelmingbecause there's a lot of
contradicting information outhere.
This person feels great on amostly plant-based vegan diet.
And this person's like, youshould have 200 grams of protein
(15:39):
a day.
And it's like, what should I do?
It's hard to sift through that.
So that's my goal really is tohelp women based on their
current lifestyle and theircircumstances and what they like
to eat and how much time theyhave to cook.
Let's put together a a plannutrition wise that works for
you so that you can seesustainable change.
(16:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (16:02):
Yeah.
All of this is so interesting.
When I was pregnant, I went togo see a nutritionist at the
hospital recommended because Idon't know, my husband was
worried that I wasn't gettingenough weight or what the baby
wasn't getting enough weightanyway.
So I went to go see thisnutritionist and because I My
whole undergrad was based inhealth sciences.
(16:25):
I had taken a nutrition class.
So she went over the foodpyramid with me in my consult.
And I was like, all right, Idon't want to diminish the work
that you're doing here.
Because I imagine there's a tonof people that don't even know
this information.
But I need more.
So it sounds like working withyou would maybe help people get
(16:47):
more than what the typical...
let's go over the food pyramidand what you should be eating
out of the food pyramidconversation.
Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01 (16:57):
And the food pyramid, for better or for
worse, is so outdated too.
And I know they've changed it,but it says it's just, you know,
our hands are tied with some ofthe policies that we have around
how we talk about food.
Yeah, it's more about It's moreabout the person's goals, the
woman's goals.
So for example, I work with alot of women through hormone
(17:18):
transition.
So whether they're trying to getpregnant, they're prepping their
body for pregnancy, maybe theyjust came off of hormonal birth
control and want to understandtheir cycles and what their
body's doing.
They're postpartum and they'rejust feeling like depleted and
don't know why.
All of those phases of life havedifferent needs than just an
average food pyramid diet.
(17:38):
What's good for most is notoptimal for certain phases of a
woman's life.
So yeah, it's really aboutsharing the information that's
going to help them achieve thatgoal and not sharing the basics
if that doesn't matter in thecurrent moment.
SPEAKER_00 (17:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Again, I'm sure this woman'sexcellent at her job.
I don't want to diminish her atall.
But I walked away feeling likeprobably could have gotten more
out of that moment.
But I ended up seeking anindividual dietitian who
specifically focused on pregnantwomen's nutrition during that
(18:16):
time.
But anyways.
UNKNOWN (18:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:18):
Which I found to be much more helpful and supportive
because you looked at myspecific lifestyle and my
specific needs in that moment.
And yeah, Yeah, I imagine evenworking with you might feel
reassuring for some womenbecause I walked away from that
conversation feeling like, oh,some of these things that maybe
my doctor is saying are justinformation for me to know, not
(18:41):
necessarily things that I needto blame myself for.
In my pregnancy, my daughter wasmeasuring like below 10% on
weight.
And so they were really, theywere concerned.
I'm going to put that in airquotes for people who aren't
watching the video playback ofthis.
And they were like, well, youshould just make sure that
you're eating well.
And so I was like, yeah, ofcourse, I'm going to make sure
(19:03):
that I'm eating well as well.
That's really important to me.
And so, yeah, anyways, it wasgood to talk to this person that
was more from a holistic mindsetof what I was going through and
from a different point of viewthan maybe what the hospital
dietician went over with mebecause it didn't feel like
(19:26):
you're doing something wrongsort of conversation.
And I imagine working with youwould probably also feel like
that for women who come to workwith you in those more even
emotional times of life.
SPEAKER_01 (19:40):
We don't need, as women, we don't need like
another thing to feel bad about.
No, it's not a blame game.
And it's not like, oh my gosh,you need to be eating breakfast.
What are you doing?
You're not eating breakfast.
That's a huge thing that I seeis like, we just, we're busy.
We have, I mean, we have kidsand sometimes our needs are like
(20:03):
And that's what I see a lot frommy postpartum clients is that
they're just not taking the timeto take care of themselves, but
it's not about putting blame onthem.
It's sharing information aboutwhy that breakfast meal is so
important and brainstorming withthem on how could we set your
freezer up for more success.
Here are the frozen egg bites.
(20:23):
You don't even have to prepthem.
These are the ones you can buyat the store.
Let's just get some food in yourbody and make it work for you
and not worry about all ofthose.
I had all of the nuances thatcomes with nutrition that you
see online.
SPEAKER_00 (20:38):
It's really interesting.
I have a client that went to gosee a dietitian and she had
shared with them about herbreakfast situation.
And usually what she ends updoing for breakfast is just
eating whatever her toddlerdoesn't eat.
And according to the dietician,that's not quote unquote good
enough.
And I was like, well, what ifrather than seeing that as not
(20:59):
quote unquote good enough, youjust in the back of your mind,
if you know your toddler's goingto only eat a portion, why don't
you just make enough for him andfor you?
So have enough that's going tofuel you for breakfast.
And she's like, Actually, I'mnot a dietitian.
This is just like a therapysession.
Like, wow, that's a greatreframe rather than feeling like
(21:22):
I'm somehow a bad person or likenot helping my own health by
just eating my children'sleftovers.
Just do a little bit differentmicro change or let me just make
a little bit more.
So it's enough for me and forhim.
And I think that's Yeah, theblack and white talk oftentimes
can really derail people intothis.
(21:43):
I'm doing something wrong or I'mnot good enough or I'm failing
or some negative headspace thatdoesn't really serve us and
actually making change.
Totally, totally.
And
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
the diet part too, I always feel like adding into the
diet, like putting more thingson your plate and kind of
crowding out some of the, Idon't want to say it, food is
bad or good.
I don't love using those terms,but crowding out the stuff
that's not as nourishing to uswith just adding certain things.
So let's add protein to ourplate first so that we're not
(22:18):
eating the chips before, beforethe meal.
Little strategies like that isall about the mindset shift.
So you're doing all the rightthings.
SPEAKER_00 (22:28):
Yeah.
Sometimes as a therapist, I findthat I put up these like mini
hats of like, dietitian orexercise coach.
Yes.
You wear all the hats.
Yes.
All the hats.
And then of course, when itbecomes something that's beyond
my scope, I'm like, you knowwhat?
(22:50):
You should go see X, Y, and Zfor this because that's outside
of my specialty.
I definitely don't try topractice outside, but yeah, I
think sometimes giving them alittle bit of a different
perspective can really make ahuge difference.
So I know you don't only focuson food in the work you do.
So maybe we should shift to talkabout what other things that you
(23:11):
tend to focus on with clients.
SPEAKER_01 (23:13):
Yeah, I was just going to say, I think food too,
it becomes the one thing we wantto focus on.
Like I think when we, any healthgoal, we're like, oh, I should
eat better and exercise more.
Those are the two things I needto do.
But there's so many things inour life that we're doing that
are not supportive to our healthand healing and allowing our
bodies to do, like our body issuper smart.
(23:34):
It does things.
During the day, it does thingswhile we're sleeping.
And if we're not giving it theright environments and the right
inputs outside of food, it canbe just as detrimental.
You can be eating all the rightthings.
And this is what I experiencedeven in my IBS journey.
I was eating all the rightfoods.
But nothing was working becausethere was something deeper going
on that I needed to figure out.
(23:55):
And I wasn't sleeping well and Iwasn't going outside and
prioritizing just getting somesunlight during my day.
I was inside and grinding at mycomputer.
So we really do take a look atyour lifestyle and what's going
on there and trying to makespace for that.
Just those things that ourbodies, I don't know if you've
seen that quote, but it's likeour bodies are just complicated
(24:17):
plans or plans with emotions orsomething like we need water and
sunlight.
And it's so true.
Sunlight is energy and you canbe eating all the right things.
And if you're inside all daylong and never seeing natural
light, it can do so many crazythings to our circadian rhythm,
which messes up differentfunctions in our body.
Yeah.
So it's a lot of lifestyle work.
(24:39):
We'll add in supplements when weneed to.
If we really don't think we'regetting what we need from our
diet and we're not going to makesomebody feel bad about not
eating certain things or notbeing able to prioritize certain
things, we can add that in withsupplements.
But we really look at all of thesymptoms that somebody has,
their lab data, how they'reliving their life and pull
(25:00):
together like a full story and afull plan for them so that they
can prioritize what makes senseto them.
SPEAKER_00 (25:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I always find it so interestingthat sleep often gets left off
as the most important thing whenit comes to wellness.
It's always so shocking to me.
It's like, You know, you caninfluence your sleep just as
much as you can influence yourdiet and exercise.
I wonder just, I'm just, what isit called?
(25:28):
Hypothesizing here.
If people think that it's easierto control food and exercise.
And so they just leave sleep outof the conversation.
But I don't know.
I feel like it needs to be apart of it.
Yeah.
Our body, I
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
mean, our body needs that rest period.
UNKNOWN (25:47):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (25:48):
I think a lot of chronic issues comes down to
nervous system dysregulation.
We wake up and we have coffee,which puts us into a cortisol
response, like fight or flight.
Whether we feel that way or notabout our morning cup of coffee,
that is what it's doing to ourbody.
That's what gives us that joltof energy.
And then we go into a reallystressful meeting.
(26:08):
Or even before that, we have toget our kids out the door.
I wear an aura ring for...
If you're not watching thisvideo, I'm holding it up.
But it's wild what my stresslevels look like, trying to get
the kids out the door in themorning and trying to get them
to bed at night.
And sometimes it doesn't evenfeel that stressful.
It just is.
Our body goes into likeprotective mother mode, I feel
(26:30):
like.
And having times in our day,sleep being the longest period
of time where we're just restingand we're allowing our bodies to
repair and relax and we're notworried and stressed.
That is so important to likebuild that in throughout the day
so that our body, when our bodyis constantly fueled with
cortisol response andadrenaline, and it's not moving
(26:53):
back down into thatparasympathetic nervous system
state,
SPEAKER_02 (26:56):
other
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
things...
Like our digestion suffers.
Our body basically saysdigestion is not that important.
We're surviving right now.
So it's going to turn offdigestion.
It also stops the production ofprogesterone when you're
constantly producing cortisol.
So that can impact hormones andcycles and fertility.
So a lot of it comes down tojust those basic daily habits
(27:20):
that we have to make sure thatwe're not running our days in a
cortisol response.
SPEAKER_00 (27:26):
I'm really curious what you would say to a woman
who maybe feels like they're notin control of their sleep
because they have a tinyterrorist that's messing with
their
SPEAKER_01 (27:40):
sleep.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
Right?
So there's only so much when youhave a tiny terrorist, whether
the tiny terrorist is, you know,in utero or...
her eye of utero.
So I say that in a very lovingway, but you know, tiny
terrorists, but they do, theyare a terrorist for sleep.
SPEAKER_01 (28:00):
Yes.
Yeah.
And they wake you up and it istrue for a period of time.
I'm like knock on wood withinthe last six months.
So we have been out of the tinyterrorist phase and you have to
remember that period of timebecause it meeting somebody
where they're at.
Yeah, sometimes they don't getto control it.
They get a lovely nine hours.
(28:21):
And even with no nighttime wakeups right now, it's still, you
know, bedtimes at eight o'clock.
If you want to have any sort ofdowntime you time, you're not
going to bed at nine o'clockbecause that doesn't allow you
enough time to get stuff donethat you didn't get done during
the day.
So there's a couple of thingsthat I think women in that phase
(28:42):
of life could focus on.
One that I recently justdiscovered, light.
The light in our homes and thelight that we get during the day
via natural light is soimportant to regulating our
circadian rhythm.
And I think that's an obviousthing to say, but I think what
we don't think about is all ofthe blue light outside of our
(29:03):
phone.
Maybe we're blue blockers whenwe're working late at night or
something.
We think we're doing reallygood.
But the overhead light in ourhouse and even the lamps in our
bedrooms.
You can actually buy amber andred lights and keep it really
low once the sun goes down.
So after sunset, having at leastin your bedrooms and even in
(29:26):
your kids' bedrooms, it can helpregulate their sleep-wake
patterns as well.
It's one thing that you can,like, you have control over what
the light looks like when you'rewaking up in the middle of the
night so that it's not, youknow, if you have to turn on the
light to change a diaper orclean up the club or whatever
you're doing, your body's not asjolted into this, oh, I think
(29:48):
we're, you know, I think it'smorning now and then I can't
fall back asleep.
Magnesium is also this really, Ithink, underrated supplement
that I always recommend toclients.
One, it's when we're stressedout all the time.
It's just one of those mineralsthat gets depleted really
quickly when we're in astressful phase of life.
So there's a couple, there'slike some sleep ones that you
(30:09):
can like put in water rightbefore you go to bed and take
that.
And it just helps like make surethat your body is in that
relaxed state.
So I would say focusing on thethings that you can control and
being, knowing that it's okaythat we're in this season of
life where we are going to bewoken up more often or maybe
woken up at 5 a.m.
and not wanting to wake up thatearly.
(30:30):
And yeah, it's just a season andyou'll focus on, you know, what
you can control will changebased on the season.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:38):
Something I like to tell a lot of women, because I
think this is very commonpractice, is like counting down
how many hours you have left totry to sleep.
Like, oh, I need to go to sleep.
I only have...
five more hours of time that Ican sleep.
And I think even just countingthat and trying to manage that
in your mind, you're just givingtoo much space, even thinking
(31:01):
about that and just trying tofocus on what I call like a safe
place or it's very commonlanguage in EMDR.
So you visualize a calming andrelaxing place rather than
trying to manage the countdownof, okay, I put the baby down at
this time.
That means You're going to wakeup at this time.
(31:21):
And that means that I have thisamount of time to fall back to
sleep before they're awakeagain.
And all of that planning,although might feel...
somewhat soothing to yournervous system is actually more
dysregulating.
And so rather than trying tocount the hours, okay, I'm going
to visualize myself in Hawaii onthe beach.
(31:44):
I can feel the sand.
I can, the waves are crashing.
It's very soothing and visualizeyourself in that place with your
five senses because yeah, themanagement of the hour counting
is just going to prolong theamount of time that you're awake
in the middle of the night withyour kid.
100%.
(32:04):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:05):
The more stressed out.
I mean, I think what you can dowhen you start going down these
health rabbit holes of, oh,sleep is so important.
I need to optimize my sleep.
What am I doing?
The stress that you place onyourself trying to figure out
and optimize and manage all ofthese different things that you
know are important is sometimesmore detrimental than not doing
(32:26):
the thing itself.
SPEAKER_02 (32:27):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01 (32:28):
And so there are going to be phases of time where
sleep is just not going to bethe priority.
You can't focus on everythingfrom a health perspective at
once.
It's just not feasible.
So
SPEAKER_02 (32:41):
taking
SPEAKER_00 (32:42):
the thing that does feel within grasp.
I imagine that's part of maybethe true planning that you do
with clients.
Because I do think it'sreally...
Again, I'm going to go back toInstagram TikTok thing that I
saw.
It was this woman listing all ofthe things that people have told
her she needs to focus on as anew mom.
And there was a list of 20things.
(33:02):
And she's like, girl, I don'tgot time for 20.
I can maybe manage four to fivethings a day.
And I was like, this is a greatrepresentation of all of the
shoulds that are put on towomen.
And you just can't do 20 shouldsa day.
You can maybe do four or fivethings that you feel aligned
with or that you want to do andyou want to prioritize.
(33:26):
But yeah, I manage and that's apart of the conversation that
you have with people as well.
SPEAKER_01 (33:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And for example, we know thatmoving our body is important,
right?
That it's commonly approved assomething that's good to do for
your health.
However, the type of movementmatters.
And if you're...
Yeah.
Yeah.
(34:13):
So many women are, I mean,there's a lot of pressure to get
back to, even if it's notpre-baby weight, be functioning
at pre-baby function level.
And so they feel like they haveto get to the gym and go out to
all the parties or go out to allthe social events and prioritize
all of these different things.
Community is important forhealth, right?
There's so many things that weshould do, but it just, it
(34:37):
depends on what you've got goingon right now and what you can
prioritize because that, Extrahit class is just going to throw
yourself out of whack more thanhelp you.
do any sort of weight loss or,yeah, health goal in that way.
SPEAKER_00 (34:53):
I love that you said that about the, I feel like
there has been a shift away fromyour pre-baby body you need to
get back to.
But I do think there's stillthis idea that women are
supposed to get back to pre-babyfunctioning and quickly.
Oh, you've had the baby sixmonths ago.
You should be back.
Or like, oh, you had the baby ayear ago.
(35:13):
You should be back.
Like every time the baby...
Reaches another milestone.
It's like, well, what's wrongwith you that you're not back to
doing all of the things that youused to do?
And yeah, I think that's areally important conversation to
be had and to be acknowledgedthat maybe the pressure is a
little less with like thepre-baby body, but the pre-baby
(35:34):
functioning is in full force.
Everyone has this shared belief,it feels like, including women
who are going through it.
I should be back to where I wasbefore I
SPEAKER_01 (35:45):
had baby.
Yeah.
It's so true.
It's so true.
I mean, part of it is that weexpect women to take six weeks
off and get right back to work.
Society kind of puts thispressure on us.
The policies that we have in theUnited States puts the pressure
on us.
But yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
I mean, some people are back to work two weeks
postpartum.
All they have is two weeks ofpaid time off that they can use.
It's really a shame.
I feel like we're justcreating...
more and more chronic stress forboth mom and baby.
Because
SPEAKER_01 (36:20):
it doesn't just end.
I mean, I say this all the time.
The postpartum period doesn'tend at six weeks after that last
checkup that you get throughinsurance.
And it doesn't just end aftersix months.
It's every time your baby hitsanother milestone or they start
talking to you or they startwalking.
There's another level of thingthat you have to figure out how
(36:41):
to incorporate into your life.
And you have to figure out yournew parenting style now that you
have a toddler who can say no toyou.
There's a lot of pressure thatwe don't
SPEAKER_00 (36:51):
acknowledge, I think.
In the transition of now, yourkids are in school full time and
you have to worry about likedrop off and pick up and after
school activities and summercamp and who's friends with who
and, you know, is this parentbeing respectful to your kid or
how is this kid interact withyour kid on the playground?
It's just a complete Mind shiftthat you have– not you don't
(37:16):
have to, but most women findthemselves in over and over and
over again.
SPEAKER_01 (37:23):
Yeah.
It's just your mental space justcontinues to shrink and shrink
because there's so many otherthings that take up our brain
space.
SPEAKER_00 (37:32):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, I know that your workbookthat you– Yeah.
My goal in
SPEAKER_01 (37:50):
creating this workbook was really to make it
so that this information wasn'tas hate kept behind.
You must go through athree-month program with a
certified health coach.
Those things are great.
And some people need thataccountability and coaching and
weekly check-ins.
But a lot of people just needthe information put to them in a
way that's not based on TikToktrends.
(38:12):
They're not trying to piece ittogether based on all these
reels that they're consuming ortheir doctor said this, their
friend said this.
And I created this because Ithink that, especially in the
fertility space and I really wasinspired by a client that I was
working with who was just a fewmonths away.
She was over 35, just a fewmonths away from starting the
IVF treatment process becausethey had been trying for almost
(38:34):
a year.
And we started working together.
And just by changing the waythat she was thinking about the
nutrients that her body needed,the way that we were supporting
her lifestyle and getting herbreakfast first thing in the
morning and prioritizing sleepand making sure that we were
regulating our nervous systemand not over-exercising when
(38:56):
we're trying to get pregnant.
She was able to conceivenaturally a month before the IVF
process was about to start.
So I really think that sometimeswe're jumping to these
interventions without doing someof the fundamentals first.
And I wanted this fundamentalinformation to be available in
an easy way.
easily consumable way.
(39:18):
So it's all about how to supportyour egg quality.
It's about sperm health and whyhis health also matters.
I think a lot of the pressure isput on us as women to figure out
fertility challenges.
But I think in 50% of cases,it's male factor when it comes
down to infertility.
So things like you know, talkingabout the numbers, what to look
(39:40):
for in the sperm analysis.
There's a big difference betweennormal, like we said, because
not every man needs to be ontestosterone or whatever
synthetic hormone treatment fortheir sperm production.
But there is a differencebetween normal and optimal when
it comes to fertility.
And so these are the things thatyou're striving for.
And this is how to...
support sperm health.
I talk about how to track yourcycles so that you're paying
(40:02):
attention to what's going on andunderstand that long cycles
could mean this and short cyclescould mean this.
Just giving everybody a roadmapof like, if you're thinking
about trying to conceive or havebeen trying to conceive and it's
just not happening, here are thethings that you need to think
about first.
Doctors, they just don't havethe time or resources to guide
(40:23):
their patients in this way aheadof intervention.
SPEAKER_00 (40:25):
Yeah.
I really love when I was lookingthrough it that you did include
the male perspective in therebecause I do think even though
this podcast and most of theguests I'm having on, we're
talking about women's issues.
Men are chronically stressedtoo.
Men have health concerns andmental health issues that are
(40:46):
not being addressed.
And that contributes to thewellness of the couple, the
wellness of men.
fertility, the wellness ofparenting, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, that cannot beunderstated though.
That also needs to be a focuswhen it comes to trying to
conceive.
SPEAKER_01 (41:06):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (41:07):
definitely.
SPEAKER_01 (41:07):
So yeah, I created it just as I really wanted this.
It's the information I wish wasavailable when I was going
through my chemical pregnancies,when I went through my
miscarriage.
Nobody told me what to focus on.
Nobody told me...
You know, for better or forworse, I think it is helpful to
have something that we feel likewe are in control of when we're
experiencing something reallyoutside of our control.
(41:30):
And to just be told, like, tryagain in a couple of months is
not helpful when you're goingthrough something like that or
when you've been trying for ayear and nothing's happening.
I just wanted people to have aguidebook to this is what I
should think about first.
And then maybe I could go getmore specific support.
But
SPEAKER_00 (41:49):
yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (41:50):
that's a starting point.
SPEAKER_00 (41:52):
Yeah, and I just wanted to add to the fertility
conversation.
I think it sometimes is...
I'll speak for myself.
I don't want to include otherpeople, but I think...
When you're hearing about otherwomen conceiving without even
trying, and then you're overhere putting all of the energy
that you have into conceiving,it can feel really defeating and
(42:13):
overwhelming.
And is there something wrongwith me?
So just wanted to put out therefor anyone that's listening,
that's going through that.
And I'm sure Lauren would agree.
There's nothing wrong with you.
You're not broken.
And so just remember that as youenter in this journey to figure
out how to conceive.
Because I think there's a lot ofshame that can be had and this
(42:35):
fear of even sharing when I'mstruggling with infertility
because you don't want to bethat person that people are
like, oh, there's somethingwrong with her or something.
UNKNOWN (42:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:46):
And I'm so thankful.
It feels like more and morepeople are sharing, but I do
think that we still have a longway to go of just normalizing
what this fertility journeylooks like for most people,
which is not a like...
get off of birth control, havesex once and like, there we go,
we're done.
It doesn't look like that.
I thought that that was going tobe my journey.
(43:07):
I was like, I'm a health coach.
I know what to eat.
I'm so much healthier than somany people.
And yeah, 12 months into tryingand two chemical pregnancies
that were like, what is this?
And nobody could explain to mewhat those were.
I was just like, yeah, it's notyour fault.
I think we all just need moreand better information about our
(43:29):
bodies so that we can support itmore
SPEAKER_00 (43:31):
effectively.
Yeah.
And the rate, I'm not astatistician, so I don't
remember everything that I read,but I know that even the rate of
miscarriages is super common.
And again, that's not talkedabout often.
UNKNOWN (43:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:45):
The stat I have in that workbook is that it was
surprising to me even that itwas this high, but it's one in
three couples over the age of35.
So I have a special, as a womanin my later 30s, I have a
special sweet spot for those ofus over 30 that have tried to
get pregnant.
I think anybody over the age of30, we experience differences
then.
in our 20s.
(44:06):
Our bodies are just differentand they need different support
later on.
But it's one in three couplesover the age of 35 will
experience some level ofinfertility or infertility
challenges.
So we're not alone.
SPEAKER_00 (44:17):
Yeah.
And I feel like it's becomingmore and more common for people
to have their first baby after30.
The economy, everything thatjust kind of leads to that being
the case for a lot of people.
Yeah.
Not
SPEAKER_01 (44:33):
ready until they gotten their career in a stable
place and they have a partnerthey feel good about.
Yeah, it's happening a lot more.
SPEAKER_00 (44:41):
Yeah.
So, well, I want to thank you somuch for coming on, Lauren.
I feel like I've learned a lot.
Hopefully our listeners havelearned a lot.
Where can people find you toconnect with you and access the
workbook?
SPEAKER_01 (44:55):
Yeah, I'm on Instagram for better brewers at
calibrate.well.
And the workbook is on my site,calibratewell.com.
SPEAKER_00 (45:04):
Awesome.
And all of that will be linkedin the show notes as well as on
our website.
So you can find that if youweren't able to jot that down
real quick for the listeners.
So thank you so much for beingon.
Thanks for having me, Stephanie.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for tuning in toRedefining Us once again and
share with other people so otherpeople can continue to listen to
(45:28):
Redefining Us and we can getinto more listeners ears.
If you follow us or subscribe orleave a comment or review,
that'd be greatly helpful forother people to find us and also
just for me to get somefeedback.
What do you guys want to hear mesay?
What do you women care abouthearing?
I'm totally open to Thank you somuch for joining us.
(46:19):
So you can be in the know withall the things that are
happening in the Redefining Uscommunity.
Once again, thank you so muchfor listening and keep being
awesome.
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