October 18, 2024 • 41 mins
Ever wonder if the secret to a healthier and more balanced life lies in understanding your own body better? Join us as we engage with Shay Pascale, a certified nutrition and functional diagnostic coach, who took a bold leap from a tech career into the realm of health and wellness. Through sharing her own challenges with conventional dieting and health issues, Shay unveils the transformative power of functional nutrition and lab testing. Discover how she helps women navigate midlife transitions by crafting personalized nutrition plans that target the root causes of health concerns.
As we explore the journey of women in their midlife, Shay provides valuable insights into addressing gut and hormone issues, weight management, and more through natural solutions. This episode sheds light on the functional health approach, where we emphasize understanding the body's unique signals over quick fixes. Learn how a comprehensive metabolism assessment and functional analysis of blood work can unlock a path to optimal wellness, contrasting this method with conventional Western practices for a more tailored health journey.
Dive into the world of building a sustainable health routine, as Shay highlights the importance of muscle-building workout plans and the critical role of nutrition. From her personal health challenges to the creation of her blog, The Body Bulletin, Shay's passion for advocating women's health shines through. Be inspired by her plans to make holistic solutions accessible through an affordable membership and enjoy some light-hearted moments, including a rapid-fire round that reveals her love for mountains and audiobooks. Join us for an episode filled with empowerment, practical advice, and a touch of inspiration for your own health journey.
About Shay:
Embarking on her health and fitness journey, Shay intimately understands the challenges of restrictive diets and perpetual restarts. Having been trapped in
the cycle of trial and error with various diets, low calories, and intense workout regimens, she empathizes with 35-55 year old career women
struggling to see results of their workouts and weight
loss efforts.
Having struggled with gut and hormone imbalances most of her life, especially in perimenopause, with doctors saying “blood work looks normal” or simply prescribing birth control or antibiotics, nothing
resolved her issues.
By discovering how to eat for her metabolic needs, running functional labs, and addressing her root causes, she healed her relationship with food,
resolved chronic gut and hormone issues, and achieved better workout results in a sustainable way. Now, Shay guides her clients toward their path of
food freedom and lean body composition.Transforming their health from the root to build strength and resilience for years to come.
Website: https://thebodybulletin.com/
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Email Us: info@midovia.com
MiDOViA is dedicated to changing the narrative about menopause by educating, raising awareness & supporting women in this stage of life, both at home and in the workplace. Visit midovia.com to learn more.
The information, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images & other material contained on this website are for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Medovia Menopause Podcast, your
trusted source forevidence-based, science-backed
information related to menopause.
Medovia is dedicated tochanging the narrative about
menopause by educating, raisingawareness and supporting women
in this stage of life, both athome and in the workplace.
(00:21):
Visit medoviacom to learn morehome and in the workplace.
Visit Medoviacom to learn more.
I'm one of your hosts, aprilHaberman, and I'm joined by Kim
Hart.
We're co-founders of Medovia,certified health coaches,
registered yoga teachers andmidlife mamas specializing in
menopause.
You're listening to anotherepisode of our podcast, where we
(00:43):
offer expert guidance for themost transformative stage of
life, bringing you realconversations, education and
resources to help you overcomechallenges and reach your full
potential through midlife.
Join us and our special guestseach episode as we bring vibrant
, fun and truthful conversationand let us help you have a
(01:07):
deeper understanding ofmenopause.
Today, I'm thrilled to introduceour special guest, shea Pascal.
Shea is a certified nutritionand functional diagnostic coach
who's made it her mission tohelp professional women break
free from the cycle of dietingand food restriction.
Oh, we love that.
After a successful career insoftware, shea pivoted to follow
(01:31):
her passion for health andwellness.
She founded the Body Bulletin,a platform dedicated to
empowering women to fuel theirbodies properly regain their
energy and find balance in theirbusy lives.
Shea's approach is grounded infunctional nutrition and she
uses cutting edge lab testing tohelp her clients address gut
(01:51):
health, hormone balance andoverall wellbeing.
We are so excited to have heron the show.
Take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Hey, welcome everybody.
We have a very special guesttoday Shea Pascal.
Shea is a certified nutritionand functional diagnostic coach.
Shea, that's a lot, those arewords.
Those are a lot of words,functional diagnostic nutrition
practitioner.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
if you want to be specific, okay perfect.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I found Shea as I was looking for sort of my own
self-care and figuring out whatkind of food to eat and how to
exercise my body to give myselfsome strength, and so I was
really excited that Shay alsoagreed to be on our podcast
today.
So welcome, shay, thanks forhaving me.
Thank you.
You know we've talked a lotabout your journey in the
(02:40):
corporate world as working insoftware to becoming a certified
nutrition and functionaldiagnostic coach.
What, what motivated you?
What was that journey?
How did you get here?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, so it's been.
It's been kind of a ride.
So I started in my twenties andin, you know, out of college,
working in like the corporateworld and tech and and always
thought I would just kind of dothat and climb the corporate
ladder.
But then I started to realizethat like my office job was, you
(03:11):
know, kind of not so so greatfor my health and my waistline
and all of that, and started torealize I need to do something
about it.
So I got into working out and,um, you know, I started to
really enjoy working out.
But I kind of realized after awhile, like I'm not seeing what
I thought I should see from likeas far as results go.
(03:33):
Like I liked the mental resultsof, I liked how I felt for sure
, working out, but I was kind oflike also hoping to improve my
body composition and lose alittle bit of weight and feel
lean and strong.
That's kind of always how I hadimagined If you work out,
that's what you would get.
And I quickly realized thatthat didn't necessarily happen
(03:57):
and so it kind of led me to likethe diets right, that whole
roller coaster of tryingdifferent things, a cycle of
trial and error that a lot ofpeople end up on.
And you know I would lose someweight, I'd gain it back.
I'd lose some weight, I'd gainit back and it kind of toggled
five pounds up and down forquite a few years, like almost a
decade, where I just couldn'tquite figure out how to eat,
(04:22):
when I thought you should likejust eat less and move more.
So that's what I did.
I worked out more and more,sometimes two, three hours a day
, six, seven days a week,thinking okay, I just have to
like kind of kill myself.
How come I have to kill myselfto see the scale go down?
And it was very, it wasagonizing, it was very it was
destructive to my health in thelong term.
(04:43):
I didn't know that at the timeand so started having more
issues in my 30s and some mykind of IBS was really starting
to be be a problem.
My period issues and all kindsof different things started to
happen and I ended up having toget surgery and like all these
different things.
So I worked with a coach whokind of was like pointing like
(05:07):
out that you can, you can dosomething about this.
And then I ended up workingwith a functional nutrition type
of practitioner nutritionpractitioner that we ran some
functional labs.
For the first time I found outabout these things and I was
instantly hooked.
I was like, oh my gosh, we can,we can look under the hood, we
can see what's going on and, um,actually do something about it.
(05:31):
Oh, there's a protocol thatthey can put me on.
Okay, that's cool, we canchange our diet a little bit to
help with this.
So I started started makingthose changes and, you know, I
realized quickly that that'sthat's what I wanted to.
You know, gear my nutritionpractice Cause I was a I was
already a nutrition coach bythen was doing macros and like
more fitness based cause that'swhat I knew.
(05:52):
And, um, it wasn't gettingresults for everyone.
That's what I noticed and I wasvery confused by that.
I was like, why?
Why are some people gettingresults that other people aren't
?
And I feel like I needed to,you know, learn more.
And so I went back to school, Iwent to functional diagnostic
nutrition and I got mycertification through them.
So I'm kind of like that mixbetween functional healing
(06:16):
modalities and fitness methods,as well as a like nutrition,
just like a fitness nutritioncoach.
So it's kind of thatcombination that we use and that
has been just a game changerfor our clients in terms of,
okay, now we have a lot moretools in our tool belt and it's
just been so much more rewardingto be able to know that we can
(06:38):
help people.
I've been able to help myselfin so many different ways.
I don't even think I couldqualify for an IBS diagnosis
anymore.
You know like there's just somany different ways I don't even
think I could qualify for anIBS diagnosis anymore.
You know like there's just somany different things that it
affects in a positive way andhelping to heal the body inside
and out.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So that is it's.
It's an amazing journey in it.
It always fascinates me how ourown journeys kind of spark the
next chapter in our lives.
I love to hear that just kindof following, that passion.
I'm wondering for our listenersand you impacted us a little
bit in your intro but I'mwondering if you could just give
us a quick punch on what afunctional diagnostic coach does
(07:19):
.
So what would I come see youfor, shay?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
So it's technically, you're kind of combining the two
.
So it's like functionaldiagnostic nutrition
practitioner is my certification, so FDN P and like as a just a
health coach in general.
You could shorten it if youwant to you guys, no, someone,
someone would come to me.
(07:44):
Well, I only work with this, acertain type of person, okay.
So I don't work with everybody,I can't help everybody with
every problem out there, but Ihelp midlife women typically in
that like 35 to 55 usually agerange somewhere in there where,
um, they're, they're strugglingwith maybe some gut and hormone
issues and they can't seem toshed the inches, shed the weight
(08:05):
, and they ideally, you know,would like to do it naturally
and get to the root of theproblem without having to resort
to fad diets, medications andthings like that.
That's typically who, who weserve.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
So if I have gut health issuesor I just can't seem to lose the
weight, like you mentionedbefore, then you're a great
person to see for that.
Yes, talk to me a little bitabout how you start with clients
, if you know.
If somebody came to you andsaid I've got gut issues, I'll
(08:41):
just take me for example.
Yeah, I'm speaking for a friendof a friend, but you know, hit
midlife and never had a problemeating anything, always exercise
the same way, always I was ableto run and therefore, because I
ran and I was able to burncalories, I never had a problem
(09:03):
with weight right.
And we get midlife and then wehave this hormonal health
challenge with the imbalancesand getting used to those normal
levels of estrogen,progesterone, testosterone, and
you start to see, I started tosee problems with my gut.
I can't eat that, can't eatthis.
Why am I bloated?
Why doesn't this feel good?
(09:23):
Why is my stomach talking to meall day long?
And you see the shift in theweight to that.
You know, stomach area, area,the visceral fat.
What are some of the firststeps that you take in
diagnosing and really justdefining and uncovering, looking
under the hood Like, yeah, whatdo you do?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So it might.
It might vary per person, but ingeneral if somebody starts
working with us in our one onone coaching, we would take them
through.
We always start with ourmetabolism assessment,
essentially, and we go throughlike an onboarding orientation
process where we gather like thenecessary information from you,
(10:09):
like as a client, like somebodywho's coming on a board,
they're filling out somedocuments.
We kind of get a lay of theland of what they're dealing
with.
We have multiple questionnairesfor them to fill out and then
we're able to analyze that.
Okay, so we take thatinformation as health coaches
and we analyze that and then wekind of put together a plan for
that person to start out.
Now, without working withsomeone, I could always say like
(10:31):
, hey, if you want to run allthe labs, great, we can do that.
But a lot of people these areexpensive, you know 300, some
bucks a pop.
So you know it's not always ineveryone's budget to just like
run a bunch of labs, right?
So what we typically do is,once we have gone over and gone
through that metabolismassessment with the client,
onboarding them, analyzing theirfood, their lifestyle, their
(10:54):
digestion, if they have PMSissues or their postmenopausal
what's going on there, theirschedule, their supplement
intake, their types of workouts,all kinds of stuff.
We go line by line with themthrough their documents and say,
hey, this is what we think thismeans and this is what's going
on with you and this is probablywhat's holding you back.
We're going to start with thisplan with your food, and then
(11:15):
also it might make sense for you, if you want to move things
along a little faster, to runthis gut lab or this hormone lab
or whatever it might be, and sothen we were able to be looking
at things kind of likeinternally, or maybe you have
some blood work from your doctor, can submit that to us and
we're able to analyze that formore of this functional lens
versus the wide Western medicalkind of lens, which is like a
(11:40):
very broad what do you call it?
Just like the range of results.
Like most people, 95% of thepopulation fits into those and
they keep widening theacceptable ranges.
So it doesn't necessarily meanwe're healthier because more
people fall into it.
It means that we're not beingas strict in looking at what is
an acceptable range of, you know, this vitamin level or that
(12:02):
particular level, because youknow, we know what optimal
should feel, like it should feellike no symptoms.
No symptom is really normal.
Or yeah, like no, no, nofeeling of like okay, I get
headaches sometimes.
That's not normal, Like it'snormalized in our society 100%,
(12:22):
but it's not normal.
And so we're going to be lookingat all of these things,
creating a plan for that personand then kind of walking them
through like the next steps andholding their hand through that
process of implementation, whilemaybe running a lab and able to
like actually look at what'sgoing on hormonally or whatever
it might be going in the gut.
(12:43):
Typically, we start with gutissues because that's kind of
like our central hub, ourcommand center is what I call it
, and if we can start there,that usually like controls,
everything else.
So we want to make sure there'snothing going on under the hood
with the gut and then createprotocols there that's
appropriate for that person.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Will you talk us through what, what a functional,
what functional means inmedicine?
Helping people understand.
When you say Western versusfunctional, what does that?
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah, yeah, so I call .
So I have a slide for this,like I use it in different
presentations where think of itas, like our healthcare systems,
like like kind of the sick caresystem is what I call it.
A lot of functionalpractitioners call it.
It's you know, we test you forsomething.
You either have the problem oryou don't.
You either have disease or youdon't.
It's kind of like black orwhite, right, they're looking
(13:34):
for a diagnosis and if you donot qualify for the diagnosis
within the specified like rangesof you know, something being
too high or too low or theselevels are off the charts or
whatever it might be, then youare, you are quote unquote fine,
right, that's, that's our sickcare model.
Now, a functional health modelviews things in terms of more of
(13:59):
this continuum right, whereover in the green you are in
optimal ranges and you don'thave symptoms, over in like
complete dysfunction, youprobably have a lot of symptoms
or a lot of issues that you'reworking through right.
And then there's this likemiddle ground of like suboptimal
right.
So going from like green isoptimal, red is dysfunctional
(14:23):
right.
So going from like green isoptimal, red is dysfunctional
right.
Our goal is to to help find whatparts of the body, maybe organ
systems that are, that arereally struggling and support
the body's processes, whetherit's, you know, improving your
bile flow, improving yourdigestive capacity.
Maybe you need more enzymes.
Maybe you need to help going tothe bathroom every single day
(14:46):
because you don't go like a lotof people are constipated.
Okay, so we got to get people,we got to get the toxins out
right.
Or maybe the liver needs alittle bit more support.
You're showing signs ofcongestion.
Maybe there's heartburn goingon.
Right, there's all kinds ofdifferent things that we can
support through diet, lifestyleand supplement opportunities
(15:07):
there to help bring somebodyfrom dysfunctional or suboptimal
into more of that optimal greenplace Makes sense.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, so it's not like saying looking for where
you're sick, but trying to lookfor where maybe you might be out
of balance, to be bringingeverything back in.
What would out of balance feellike for someone who's at
midlife right now?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yeah, um, well, any one of the symptoms I've ever
had, probably I'll just I'llspeak personally Um, uh, so if
somebody is dealing with, likeheadaches and migraines, if
somebody is dealing with a lotof, um, unwanted weight gain or
inability to build muscle I seethat one all the time um,
especially around the midsection, okay, so if you're dealing
(15:52):
with, like this stubborn bellyfat that's one of the top things
we might be dealing with someinsulin issues, um, if you're
tired all the time, chronicfatigue, like sleep, doesn't
really help you.
Maybe you feel tired but wired.
Now we're looking into cortisolissues.
Um, maybe you've got, uh, somesome weird like mood, like stuff
that you didn't have before.
(16:12):
Maybe you're more anxious orhave anxiety.
Maybe you have ADHD ordepression or any kind of mood
issue, because we know thatthere's a connection between our
brain and our gut through theentire nervous system um, any
digestive issue whatsoever.
So I always think of, likethose pepto-bismol commercials
right, you know, you've all,you've all seen those um, any
(16:33):
diet like random diarrhea.
People just kind of think, oh,it's something I ate.
It's probably not that, it'sprobably that your gut has
dysfunction and and and yourbody's trying to flush something
out of you and there was atrigger, that food moves things
along, it creates that motilityand it's flushing something out
of you that it doesn't want.
Or if you have constipation onthe other side of the coin, that
(16:57):
can create more stagnation inthe body and stagnation breeds
disease.
So it could look like anydigestive issue.
Bloating is a really common one, I hear all the time Heavy
periods, heavy clotting, painfulcramps.
(17:18):
Maybe you didn't have thosebefore.
Maybe you know your doctorrecommended a hysterectomy.
This is what I often see inthis midlife place.
It doesn't mean you necessarilyneed a hysterectomy.
It might mean that you need toget to the root of why we have
these hormonal imbalances in thefirst place.
Or parasites are really common,or, um, it just, it just
depends, and that's where somelabs or some protocols can
(17:39):
really help.
But, um yeah, headaches,headaches, migraines, joint pain
, muscle pain.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, interesting, because a lot of what sleep
issues just mentioned areperimenopause symptoms as well.
So it's, you know, it's we feellike we are going crazy, right,
like what is the root cause andhow to treat it.
Yeah, which brings me toanother question.
Oh, I know a lot of yourclients are busy professionals.
(18:10):
They're, you know, we see a lotof busy professionals as well.
I'm just wondering if you cangive us some top tips for
maintaining a healthy lifestylewhen time is limited maintaining
a healthy lifestyle when timeis limited?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, that's a good question.
So I guess we could talk about,like, maybe the top few three,
three, three things, five things, something like that what I
would prioritize for somebodywho doesn't have a lot of time,
because I do.
I think a lot of people makethat mistake of trying to do too
much and that's what keeps themstuck in that cycle and they
think, oh, I need, it's notenough, I'm not doing enough,
(18:46):
and then they just kind ofoverwhelm themselves, right.
Well, I think a habit stack isone of the best tools for anyone
, no matter if they're startingsquare one, you know, from couch
potato, or they've been workingout for years or their whole
life, and they're trying to addmaybe the nutrition component.
(19:06):
So the first thing I would do isget outside and walk every day.
Honestly, just getting outsideand getting some fresh air and
some sun on your face and somevitamin D.
Getting those steps is likesuch an easy way.
You could squeeze in 10 minuteshere, 10 minutes there, you
know, maybe first thing in themorning, just a couple of times
(19:27):
throughout your workday, betweenmeetings.
Take a meeting with you on awalk, right, if you don't have
to participate in that meeting.
I used to do that all the time,right, as I would take my
conference calls and things likethat, things that I needed to
listen to with me on a walk.
So that's like an easy, likehack to get more movement and
(19:48):
get more steps and and walkingreduces stress on the body and
it also reduces that midsectionstubborn belly fat too.
Ok, so that's one, I would say.
A second would be protein, andmost women especially, are like,
afraid to eat protein.
I see this all the time.
I think it's going to make mebulky and that's absolutely
false.
(20:08):
Protein is going to make youleaner, right.
It's going to satiate you.
It's going to make you likefull and satisfied, versus
wanting to snack and eat moreand more.
That's what's making you bulky,okay, versus wanting to snack
and eat more and more.
That's what's making you bulky,okay.
Snacking and sugar and allthat's what's gonna actually add
(20:28):
to packing on the weightfeeling, right.
So high quality sources ofprotein whenever you can, would
be like animal sources.
Have some eggs in the morning,have some chicken, turkey
sausage, have some chicken wrapor something like that at some
um, you know, chicken wrap orsomething like that at lunch.
Have a meal at dinner thatlooks like a a piece of a good
(20:48):
hunk of meat, some lots ofvegetables and some sort of carb
carbohydrate source Okay, itcould be sweet potatoes,
potatoes, whatever.
Um have protein throughout theday.
I always, I always, have aprotein shake every day, because
I too am a am a busyprofessional, right, and, um,
you know, I might be a healthcoach, but I run a business too,
(21:10):
so you know I I have limitedtime oftentimes and I have to
figure out how to make it fitinto my day.
So I I personally use um aprotein shake that I just put in
water and mix it and chug itand I'm good and that's going to
help remove cravings, it'sgoing to help keep people
consistent and you're going towatch your waistline shrink when
(21:32):
you do it.
Okay, so proteins, like probablythe second one, and these are
in no particular ordernecessarily.
If I could maybe put a third,I'm not sure what would be third
, but probably some level ofstrength training.
Um, in terms of you know whatwe see in midlife, it's it's
(21:56):
muscle and bone loss, right,especially as we're like hitting
50 and beyond.
So, if we want to inhibit boneloss and muscle loss, which is
crucial to longevity.
And so we, you know, we startto see falls at.
You know, in the sixties westart to see people falling and
we know, go listen to DrGabrielle Lyon, anything she
(22:18):
says, like, once you startfalling, it's really, it's a
really morbid path, right?
So, um, start strength training, start anywhere, and this is
something we teach our clients.
Um, as soon as they'll let us,basically as soon as they're
ready, for it is doing like aprogressive overload strength
training to um, cause you startlosing muscle as soon as you
(22:40):
turn 30.
And I just want to add excuse me, I just want to add um, and
something I've been thinkingabout lately is when people,
when women right are younger,you know, we'll call it like 30
and below, they feel like I usedto feel like you said, april,
like I used to eat whatever Iwanted to eat, right, and it
(23:03):
never really, it never reallyshowed up in a negative way for
me.
I could eat what I wanted andnot really have to worry about
it too much.
And then you get to a certainage and then what's going on?
I have to pay attention to this.
Yeah, this is like the thingthat's like oh my God, and it
happens to happen to me in mytwenties, it happens to women in
their thirties, their fortiesand sometimes, if you're really
(23:24):
lucky, in your fifties.
Okay, it's common for all of us.
But why does that happen, andhave you ever thought about that
?
Why does that happen?
Right, when we're young, we'rein growth mode.
Right, we're growing and wegrow to, at least, you know, 25
(23:47):
years old or so.
Right, we're all we'redeveloping.
Still, our frontal prefrontalcortex isn't fully developed
until 25 years old, right?
So then we enjoy this littletime 25 or so of being able to
eat whatever we want.
I used to eat cookies all thetime.
I used to eat whatever I wantedwhen I was a kid Cokes,
coca-cola, I used to have popsand stuff like that all the time
, and it never showed up for me.
(24:11):
Really, I was able to stay trimand lean.
But then it came for me around25 years old and I was like,
whoa, I gotta do something andactually pay attention.
Well, we stop growing at somepoint and start the aging
process, essentially, and thisis where you no longer have that
growth factor, and we startlosing muscle, for sure by age
(24:32):
30, and we can lose it prettyquickly if we're not actively
trying to work to build it backup.
So in my case, um, I startedweight training pretty, you know
, right around that time and I'mreally glad and thankful I did
because now I have a baseline ofmuscle and so if we can do that
strength training component andand maintain that growth of
muscle because we're alwayslosing it but trying to build it
(24:56):
back up, that's going to helpset someone free from those
chains of dieting.
That's going to help setsomeone free from me having to
track every little thing, eat1200 calories a day, try to eat
less and eat less and eat lesswe get.
We got to stay in that growthmode for the, for the muscle.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, it's not the calories in, calories out, it's
the quality of the food that youknow you're putting in.
And, um Shay, you have mehaving so much protein I can
barely even keep up with myself.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I know I'm like what how much protein.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I mean, I, I am shooting for 130 right now and,
um, I'm I'm getting close mostdays and I just poured my
protein shake and getting readyto have it after this.
Good, um, and from a from ahabit stacking perspective, you
know the weight bearingexercises which I'm now in a
regular routine on feels so goodI can't like.
(25:52):
I lost myself at the gym theother day with, just like the,
how great it felt to be able todo some of these things.
So I want to talk about thebody bulletin and your community
there.
But let's just say you'resomebody and one of our friends
who you know is struggling withwhere to start.
I hear walking, I hear thinkabout the food that you're
(26:15):
putting in your body and up theprotein and, if I know, if I
understand right, eat as manygrams of protein today, a day,
is your goal.
Weight, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, that's a good start.
So like, if your goal weight is130 pounds, you know, then 130
grams of protein would be a good, a good place to start with
that.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, that's such a crazy amount of protein I'm
getting used to it, but it washard to build up.
And then, you know, startingstarting some kind of strength
training.
What's an what's an easy way todo that for somebody that's
never done it before.
Training needs to do it ontheir own yeah.
(26:53):
How do I, how do I, how do Istart on that?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
So I'll be honest with you, you're going to need
if you're, if you're juststarting in that world of
strength training, trying to doit on your own.
It's pretty confusing.
I had help, right I I there was.
You know, somebody at my workwho is like willing to like kind
of teach us.
You need to be taught, right.
It's like anything else.
If you're trying to learn somenew skill, you need someone to
(27:17):
teach you.
So you can do that a fewdifferent ways.
You could go to, like a groupstrength training class where
they have an instructor, andthat's probably a great way to
like meet people and have thatcommunity aspect.
You could hire a personaltrainer for so many sessions
until you feel comfortable doingit on your own.
You could in like like what wedo with our clients is I
(27:40):
literally teach them.
I have a very, very simpleprogressive overload training
program.
Kim, are you doing our trainingprogram?
I am, yeah.
So some people come in withtheir own versions of it and we
can approve that and let themknow if it's a good one or not.
But you know, even even thingslike certain like yoga and
Pilates can be like the start tolike a good place of of getting
(28:04):
some resistance, but I trulybelieve in order to see like if
that would be a really long road.
That'd be a really long road toget to where you want to go and
you'd really have to watch yourcalories a lot in doing
something like that.
I think of a Pilates and a yogaas a supplemental like that's
your fourth or fifth day ofexercise for the week, versus
having three quality strengthtraining sessions per week where
(28:27):
you are hitting particularmuscle groups seems to be the
fastest path forward to seeingresults.
Is what I've found.
There are probably othertrainers out there who will
disagree with me, and I'm sureeverybody has their own way to
do this, but what I'vepersonally seen is it's not
(28:47):
about like high intensity, it'snot about speeding through
something.
It's not about getting my heartrate to spike through the roof.
It's not about sweating a bunch.
Okay, that's not.
That's not the goal, and Ithink that is a really difficult
thing for people to wrap theirheads around, because we don't
lose weight that way.
We lose weight through acalorie deficit, but we need to
(29:10):
build muscle to have like solidmuscle tone if you wanna look
like you're lean, right.
Otherwise we're just kind oflike losing weight and it feels
very difficult.
Remember, we have to get intothat growth, that growth mode
place for this to feel like it'snot agonizingly, you know, it's
just like a horrible tortureprocess.
So what we do is we have, youknow, maybe it's like a leg day,
(29:33):
maybe a push type day and apull day.
That's that's how I kind ofprogram through.
If I were to do just three days, I like four, but three is
enough to see change.
I see I see faster progresswhen I do like a fourth day of
like, maybe some accessory workwhere it's not as like heavy and
(29:54):
it's just a little bit morelike, you know, just hitting
some muscle groups to keep them,keep them engaged, versus
trying to like really like killyourself, you know, with some
sets of heavier sets, so likeI'll do like certain type of
squatting, one day with someextra movements to like really
get into the legs, and the nextday might be like some sort of
(30:15):
bench press or, you know, chestpress type of thing, and then
different moves to like hitdifferent angles of the front
side of the body.
And then we do like a pull daywhere I include like deadlifting
.
Some people include deadliftingin a leg day.
Some people do it in a pull dayagain tomato, tomato.
However, you want to split itup and then you can do different
(30:35):
, like rows or pull-ups, ordifferent again, pulling at
different angles to hitdifferent muscle groups.
From, like, the backside ofyour body is essentially like so
now we're hitting all aspectsof the big muscle groups and
we're making sure we fatiguethose muscles to program in hey,
muscles are important here.
(30:56):
Body, we need you to hold onand actually build more of this
stuff, because this is thestimulus we're getting and this
is how we need to progress with,with the stress that we're
putting on on those musclegroups.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, no, totally makes sense.
And I'm doing it and I'm usingheavy weights and sometimes it's
a little scary because I'm bymyself doing those weights, but
I feel kind of sassy when I'mlike I gotta go to the gym, it's
leg day, sorry, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Now you're getting all the memes right Like oh yeah
, these things Okay.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Um, so let's talk about your business.
The body bulletin, like how'dthat come to be?
How's it grown?
What impact are you hoping tomake?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah, that's great.
Um, thanks for asking thatquestion.
Um, so I started the blog inone of my previous sort of like
corporate software career jobs,and this was years ago I think.
Oh my gosh, we might be atseven years now.
Seven years ago.
I could have that slightlywrong, you might be six, but
it's been a long time.
(32:06):
And I created it because Ineeded some sort of like outlet
to be able to talk about thething I was most passionate
about, which was health andfitness, and at the time I was,
like it just finished goingthrough like a yoga teacher
certification a few years priorand I just really wanted a way
(32:28):
to kind of share my knowledge ina sense and share what I've
gone through.
I'd also gone through a lot ofyou know, health issues
personally that I kept searchingthe internet for and not really
finding a lot of answersbetween, like I had like uterine
fibroids and stuff like this,and I had different like PMS
related symptoms and things likethis that I wasn't hearing
(32:50):
about from my people out.
So I was like looking on theinternet because that's what you
do now, right?
So I was having to go to likethese forums and the depths of
the corners of the internet tofind any information about.
Is anyone else dealing withthis?
And I was like you know whatI'd really like to have some of
these things that women areexperiencing a little bit more
(33:10):
out there in the world, and sothat's why I have the body
bulletin.
It's like a bulletin board.
It's like a bulletin board forthe body, but specifically for
women.
You know from like that healthfitness standpoint and it really
you know everything from like Iused to deal with like a lot of
muscle I still do muscleimbalances and trying to manage
like different pains and achesand things like that while
(33:32):
you're trying to go through yourfitness journey.
And I started writing aboutthose things couldn't find them
anywhere online and what to doabout it.
So just varying differentthings as you go through like a
health and fitness journey andthe realities of that.
That process that I was goingthrough that's what kind of led
me to start the blog and itevolved and people seemed to
(33:53):
really gravitate toward thenutrition side of things and I
never intended to do anythingwith nutrition it was not an
interest of mine at all but itevolved that way and so I went
through my first coachingcertification there started
taking clients and then I kindof told you before like needed
(34:13):
to deepen my knowledge with,like, the functional health
principles and being able tohelp people with their guts and
hormones and you know those, allthose different symptoms that
we talked about earlier andreally helping to heal the body
inside and out and have thatfull body health.
So I guess where I see it goingis I would love to be able to
(34:37):
help more women who I feel likearen't I don't want to say it's
a forgotten part of thepopulation, but it's.
It's definitely not, as you know, readily available to see, like
every like.
You says it's perimenop, yousaid it's perimenopause symptoms
.
Oh, it's perimenopause oryou're just getting older now.
Like, this is what like peoplethink and it's like no, no, I
(34:59):
don't accept that.
Like, I don't accept that assomebody who knows what I know,
at this point I can't accept I'mjust getting older now as a
reason to have, you know,headaches around your period or
regular like migraines or like,because my migraines were
getting worse and worse andworse as I got older, acne was
(35:19):
getting worse as I got older.
I was like this doesn't makesense and so you know these
weird things that would happenand I was like you know, people
need to have this knowledge andI think that's why I started
creating it.
And you know, of course,coaching people is a passion and
we want to help as many peoplethere.
But now I'm going to belaunching soon.
I might as well tell you likeI'm going to be launching like a
lower ticket membership optionfor people who can't necessarily
(35:40):
afford coaching.
It won't include, like, all ofthe functional health components
, but ways to kind of upgradeinto it if it's something that
they're interested in, but a wayto help people in a little bit
more affordable monthly kind ofoption so we can help more
people.
That's really the goal.
That's great, awesome.
What's your website?
Thebodybulletincom.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Okay, so people can find you at thebodybulletincom.
Yes, all right.
This has been incrediblyinsightful and now we get to
have some fun because we get tomove to our rapid fire round and
get to know you a little bitbetter.
No pressure, super fun stuff,right?
Yes, yep, and I don't know youas well as Kim, so I'll start by
(36:26):
just asking if you likemountains or water.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Hmm, that's a tough one.
If I'm in Hawaii, well, I thinkit's mountains.
I think it's going to bemountains either way.
Yeah, mountain cow.
All right, I live in California.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, I like, I think I like mountains.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
I'm more of a land person, okay.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
What do you read?
Do you read a book, a Kindle,an audio book?
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
More than not, I'm probably odd audible.
Audible or like audio books.
Um, I do love to.
When I sit down and read, it'snice.
I just rarely sit down to read.
I'm usually moving, so gettingmy steps in and being able to
listen to a book just feels likea good habit.
Stack, so I do that.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah right.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, how about your favorite holiday?
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I'm going to probably say Thanksgiving.
I love a lot of the holidays,but Thanksgiving things, where
we host it whenever we can here,and I just love being able to
have everyone gather together.
I have a wonderful family.
I've been very blessed withthat and, you know, even like my
(37:43):
extended family, we have ablast and just being able to go
around and just be thankful foreveryone and thankful for that
experience in my life, I thinkthat's really important.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
That's my favorite too.
Um, okay, here's the.
Here's the piece to resistance.
What's the best piece of adviceyou've ever received ever, shay
?
It has to be like what's agreat piece of advice you've
heard?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, okay, well, uh, after thinking about this one,
so, um, so I don't know where isthe first, I don't know where
the first time I heard this, butwhat you think about most of
the time is basically what youbecome.
It becomes your reality, and somaybe it's Napoleon Hill's book
(38:27):
Think and Grow Rich,potentially.
Book Think and Grow Rich,potentially.
I know it's probably it's inthere, but I'm not sure the
first time I heard that.
But he kind of speaks about itover and over and over in his
book.
So I've actually read that book, like cover to cover, multiple
times.
It's weird because I don't readlike books, but I've read that
one multiple times and it'ssomething that I don't know.
(38:48):
If you recall, in our newidentity worksheet identity
worksheet is we have like thosequotes Do you remember doing
that worksheet, kim, where youcalled out so like we have
something like what you thinkabout is what you'll become.
We have those quotes in thereand I think that's probably the
that can apply to anything,right, it can apply to your work
in your career and it can applyto your health.
(39:12):
So there's that mind bodyconnection right where sometimes
even me, as like somebody who'svery like health practitioner,
health coach, like I could get asupplement for that.
I can do this therapy for thisa very physical, focused.
A lot of times we can forgetlike that mental side of it, of
like okay, we can tap into theinnate healing of our body by
(39:33):
kind of going inward and maybedoing some meditation and really
like visualization and stufflike that, and that can be just
as powerful as any givensupplement out there.
Like looking at like JoeDispenza's work right, like like
really, really cool stuff abouthow the brain can literally,
you know, we can think our wayto the reality we want, and kind
(39:54):
of that reality engineering, ifyou will.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I love that.
We completely agree.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Yeah, yeah, right, our thoughts are pretty powerful
.
I believe in meditation andjournaling and so great, great
advice and great reminder.
It's been really great havingyou on the show, shay.
Thanks so much for the workthat you're doing and all that
you're helping, including Kim.
Yes, and yeah, that is a wrapaudience.
(40:23):
Thank you for tuning in and wemeet again.
Go find joy in the journey.
Thanks, shay, thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theMedovia menopause podcast.
If you enjoyed today's show,please give it a thumbs up,
subscribe for future episodes,leave a review and share this
(40:43):
episode with a friend.
There are more than 50 millionwomen in the U?
S who are navigating themenopause transition.
The situation is compounded bythe presence of stigma, shame
and secrecy surroundingmenopause, posing significant
challenges and disruptions inwomen's personal and
(41:04):
professional spheres.
Medovia is out to change thenarrative.
Learn more at Medoviacom.
That's M-I-D-O-V-I-A dot com.
Welcome to the Medovia Menopause Podcast, your
trusted source forevidence-based, science-backed
information related to menopause.
Medovia is dedicated tochanging the narrative about
menopause by educating, raisingawareness and supporting women
in this stage of life, both athome and in the workplace.
(00:21):
Visit medoviacom to learn morehome and in the workplace.
Visit Medoviacom to learn more.
I'm one of your hosts, aprilHaberman, and I'm joined by Kim
Hart.
We're co-founders of Medovia,certified health coaches,
registered yoga teachers andmidlife mamas specializing in
menopause.
You're listening to anotherepisode of our podcast, where we
(00:43):
offer expert guidance for themost transformative stage of
life, bringing you realconversations, education and
resources to help you overcomechallenges and reach your full
potential through midlife.
Join us and our special guestseach episode as we bring vibrant
, fun and truthful conversationand let us help you have a
(01:07):
deeper understanding ofmenopause.
Today, I'm thrilled to introduceour special guest, shea Pascal.
Shea is a certified nutritionand functional diagnostic coach
who's made it her mission tohelp professional women break
free from the cycle of dietingand food restriction.
Oh, we love that.
After a successful career insoftware, shea pivoted to follow
(01:31):
her passion for health andwellness.
She founded the Body Bulletin,a platform dedicated to
empowering women to fuel theirbodies properly regain their
energy and find balance in theirbusy lives.
Shea's approach is grounded infunctional nutrition and she
uses cutting edge lab testing tohelp her clients address gut
(01:51):
health, hormone balance andoverall wellbeing.
We are so excited to have heron the show.
Take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Hey, welcome everybody.
We have a very special guesttoday Shea Pascal.
Shea is a certified nutritionand functional diagnostic coach.
Shea, that's a lot, those arewords.
Those are a lot of words,functional diagnostic nutrition
practitioner.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
if you want to be specific, okay perfect.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I found Shea as I was looking for sort of my own
self-care and figuring out whatkind of food to eat and how to
exercise my body to give myselfsome strength, and so I was
really excited that Shay alsoagreed to be on our podcast
today.
So welcome, shay, thanks forhaving me.
Thank you.
You know we've talked a lotabout your journey in the
(02:40):
corporate world as working insoftware to becoming a certified
nutrition and functionaldiagnostic coach.
What, what motivated you?
What was that journey?
How did you get here?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, so it's been.
It's been kind of a ride.
So I started in my twenties andin, you know, out of college,
working in like the corporateworld and tech and and always
thought I would just kind of dothat and climb the corporate
ladder.
But then I started to realizethat like my office job was, you
(03:11):
know, kind of not so so greatfor my health and my waistline
and all of that, and started torealize I need to do something
about it.
So I got into working out and,um, you know, I started to
really enjoy working out.
But I kind of realized after awhile, like I'm not seeing what
I thought I should see from likeas far as results go.
(03:33):
Like I liked the mental resultsof, I liked how I felt for sure
, working out, but I was kind oflike also hoping to improve my
body composition and lose alittle bit of weight and feel
lean and strong.
That's kind of always how I hadimagined If you work out,
that's what you would get.
And I quickly realized thatthat didn't necessarily happen
(03:57):
and so it kind of led me to likethe diets right, that whole
roller coaster of tryingdifferent things, a cycle of
trial and error that a lot ofpeople end up on.
And you know I would lose someweight, I'd gain it back.
I'd lose some weight, I'd gainit back and it kind of toggled
five pounds up and down forquite a few years, like almost a
decade, where I just couldn'tquite figure out how to eat,
(04:22):
when I thought you should likejust eat less and move more.
So that's what I did.
I worked out more and more,sometimes two, three hours a day
, six, seven days a week,thinking okay, I just have to
like kind of kill myself.
How come I have to kill myselfto see the scale go down?
And it was very, it wasagonizing, it was very it was
destructive to my health in thelong term.
(04:43):
I didn't know that at the timeand so started having more
issues in my 30s and some mykind of IBS was really starting
to be be a problem.
My period issues and all kindsof different things started to
happen and I ended up having toget surgery and like all these
different things.
So I worked with a coach whokind of was like pointing like
(05:07):
out that you can, you can dosomething about this.
And then I ended up workingwith a functional nutrition type
of practitioner nutritionpractitioner that we ran some
functional labs.
For the first time I found outabout these things and I was
instantly hooked.
I was like, oh my gosh, we can,we can look under the hood, we
can see what's going on and, um,actually do something about it.
(05:31):
Oh, there's a protocol thatthey can put me on.
Okay, that's cool, we canchange our diet a little bit to
help with this.
So I started started makingthose changes and, you know, I
realized quickly that that'sthat's what I wanted to.
You know, gear my nutritionpractice Cause I was a I was
already a nutrition coach bythen was doing macros and like
more fitness based cause that'swhat I knew.
(05:52):
And, um, it wasn't gettingresults for everyone.
That's what I noticed and I wasvery confused by that.
I was like, why?
Why are some people gettingresults that other people aren't
?
And I feel like I needed to,you know, learn more.
And so I went back to school, Iwent to functional diagnostic
nutrition and I got mycertification through them.
So I'm kind of like that mixbetween functional healing
(06:16):
modalities and fitness methods,as well as a like nutrition,
just like a fitness nutritioncoach.
So it's kind of thatcombination that we use and that
has been just a game changerfor our clients in terms of,
okay, now we have a lot moretools in our tool belt and it's
just been so much more rewardingto be able to know that we can
(06:38):
help people.
I've been able to help myselfin so many different ways.
I don't even think I couldqualify for an IBS diagnosis
anymore.
You know like there's just somany different ways I don't even
think I could qualify for anIBS diagnosis anymore.
You know like there's just somany different things that it
affects in a positive way andhelping to heal the body inside
and out.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
So that is it's.
It's an amazing journey in it.
It always fascinates me how ourown journeys kind of spark the
next chapter in our lives.
I love to hear that just kindof following, that passion.
I'm wondering for our listenersand you impacted us a little
bit in your intro but I'mwondering if you could just give
us a quick punch on what afunctional diagnostic coach does
(07:19):
.
So what would I come see youfor, shay?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
So it's technically, you're kind of combining the two
.
So it's like functionaldiagnostic nutrition
practitioner is my certification, so FDN P and like as a just a
health coach in general.
You could shorten it if youwant to you guys, no, someone,
someone would come to me.
(07:44):
Well, I only work with this, acertain type of person, okay.
So I don't work with everybody,I can't help everybody with
every problem out there, but Ihelp midlife women typically in
that like 35 to 55 usually agerange somewhere in there where,
um, they're, they're strugglingwith maybe some gut and hormone
issues and they can't seem toshed the inches, shed the weight
(08:05):
, and they ideally, you know,would like to do it naturally
and get to the root of theproblem without having to resort
to fad diets, medications andthings like that.
That's typically who, who weserve.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
So if I have gut health issuesor I just can't seem to lose the
weight, like you mentionedbefore, then you're a great
person to see for that.
Yes, talk to me a little bitabout how you start with clients
, if you know.
If somebody came to you andsaid I've got gut issues, I'll
(08:41):
just take me for example.
Yeah, I'm speaking for a friendof a friend, but you know, hit
midlife and never had a problemeating anything, always exercise
the same way, always I was ableto run and therefore, because I
ran and I was able to burncalories, I never had a problem
(09:03):
with weight right.
And we get midlife and then wehave this hormonal health
challenge with the imbalancesand getting used to those normal
levels of estrogen,progesterone, testosterone, and
you start to see, I started tosee problems with my gut.
I can't eat that, can't eatthis.
Why am I bloated?
Why doesn't this feel good?
(09:23):
Why is my stomach talking to meall day long?
And you see the shift in theweight to that.
You know, stomach area, area,the visceral fat.
What are some of the firststeps that you take in
diagnosing and really justdefining and uncovering, looking
under the hood Like, yeah, whatdo you do?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So it might.
It might vary per person, but ingeneral if somebody starts
working with us in our one onone coaching, we would take them
through.
We always start with ourmetabolism assessment,
essentially, and we go throughlike an onboarding orientation
process where we gather like thenecessary information from you,
(10:09):
like as a client, like somebodywho's coming on a board,
they're filling out somedocuments.
We kind of get a lay of theland of what they're dealing
with.
We have multiple questionnairesfor them to fill out and then
we're able to analyze that.
Okay, so we take thatinformation as health coaches
and we analyze that and then wekind of put together a plan for
that person to start out.
Now, without working withsomeone, I could always say like
(10:31):
, hey, if you want to run allthe labs, great, we can do that.
But a lot of people these areexpensive, you know 300, some
bucks a pop.
So you know it's not always ineveryone's budget to just like
run a bunch of labs, right?
So what we typically do is,once we have gone over and gone
through that metabolismassessment with the client,
onboarding them, analyzing theirfood, their lifestyle, their
(10:54):
digestion, if they have PMSissues or their postmenopausal
what's going on there, theirschedule, their supplement
intake, their types of workouts,all kinds of stuff.
We go line by line with themthrough their documents and say,
hey, this is what we think thismeans and this is what's going
on with you and this is probablywhat's holding you back.
We're going to start with thisplan with your food, and then
(11:15):
also it might make sense for you, if you want to move things
along a little faster, to runthis gut lab or this hormone lab
or whatever it might be, and sothen we were able to be looking
at things kind of likeinternally, or maybe you have
some blood work from your doctor, can submit that to us and
we're able to analyze that formore of this functional lens
versus the wide Western medicalkind of lens, which is like a
(11:40):
very broad what do you call it?
Just like the range of results.
Like most people, 95% of thepopulation fits into those and
they keep widening theacceptable ranges.
So it doesn't necessarily meanwe're healthier because more
people fall into it.
It means that we're not beingas strict in looking at what is
an acceptable range of, you know, this vitamin level or that
(12:02):
particular level, because youknow, we know what optimal
should feel, like it should feellike no symptoms.
No symptom is really normal.
Or yeah, like no, no, nofeeling of like okay, I get
headaches sometimes.
That's not normal, Like it'snormalized in our society 100%,
(12:22):
but it's not normal.
And so we're going to be lookingat all of these things,
creating a plan for that personand then kind of walking them
through like the next steps andholding their hand through that
process of implementation, whilemaybe running a lab and able to
like actually look at what'sgoing on hormonally or whatever
it might be going in the gut.
(12:43):
Typically, we start with gutissues because that's kind of
like our central hub, ourcommand center is what I call it
, and if we can start there,that usually like controls,
everything else.
So we want to make sure there'snothing going on under the hood
with the gut and then createprotocols there that's
appropriate for that person.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Will you talk us through what, what a functional,
what functional means inmedicine?
Helping people understand.
When you say Western versusfunctional, what does that?
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah, yeah, so I call .
So I have a slide for this,like I use it in different
presentations where think of itas, like our healthcare systems,
like like kind of the sick caresystem is what I call it.
A lot of functionalpractitioners call it.
It's you know, we test you forsomething.
You either have the problem oryou don't.
You either have disease or youdon't.
It's kind of like black orwhite, right, they're looking
(13:34):
for a diagnosis and if you donot qualify for the diagnosis
within the specified like rangesof you know, something being
too high or too low or theselevels are off the charts or
whatever it might be, then youare, you are quote unquote fine,
right, that's, that's our sickcare model.
Now, a functional health modelviews things in terms of more of
(13:59):
this continuum right, whereover in the green you are in
optimal ranges and you don'thave symptoms, over in like
complete dysfunction, youprobably have a lot of symptoms
or a lot of issues that you'reworking through right.
And then there's this likemiddle ground of like suboptimal
right.
So going from like green isoptimal, red is dysfunctional
(14:23):
right.
So going from like green isoptimal, red is dysfunctional
right.
Our goal is to to help find whatparts of the body, maybe organ
systems that are, that arereally struggling and support
the body's processes, whetherit's, you know, improving your
bile flow, improving yourdigestive capacity.
Maybe you need more enzymes.
Maybe you need to help going tothe bathroom every single day
(14:46):
because you don't go like a lotof people are constipated.
Okay, so we got to get people,we got to get the toxins out
right.
Or maybe the liver needs alittle bit more support.
You're showing signs ofcongestion.
Maybe there's heartburn goingon.
Right, there's all kinds ofdifferent things that we can
support through diet, lifestyleand supplement opportunities
(15:07):
there to help bring somebodyfrom dysfunctional or suboptimal
into more of that optimal greenplace Makes sense.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, so it's not like saying looking for where
you're sick, but trying to lookfor where maybe you might be out
of balance, to be bringingeverything back in.
What would out of balance feellike for someone who's at
midlife right now?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yeah, um, well, any one of the symptoms I've ever
had, probably I'll just I'llspeak personally Um, uh, so if
somebody is dealing with, likeheadaches and migraines, if
somebody is dealing with a lotof, um, unwanted weight gain or
inability to build muscle I seethat one all the time um,
especially around the midsection, okay, so if you're dealing
(15:52):
with, like this stubborn bellyfat that's one of the top things
we might be dealing with someinsulin issues, um, if you're
tired all the time, chronicfatigue, like sleep, doesn't
really help you.
Maybe you feel tired but wired.
Now we're looking into cortisolissues.
Um, maybe you've got, uh, somesome weird like mood, like stuff
that you didn't have before.
(16:12):
Maybe you're more anxious orhave anxiety.
Maybe you have ADHD ordepression or any kind of mood
issue, because we know thatthere's a connection between our
brain and our gut through theentire nervous system um, any
digestive issue whatsoever.
So I always think of, likethose pepto-bismol commercials
right, you know, you've all,you've all seen those um, any
(16:33):
diet like random diarrhea.
People just kind of think, oh,it's something I ate.
It's probably not that, it'sprobably that your gut has
dysfunction and and and yourbody's trying to flush something
out of you and there was atrigger, that food moves things
along, it creates that motilityand it's flushing something out
of you that it doesn't want.
Or if you have constipation onthe other side of the coin, that
(16:57):
can create more stagnation inthe body and stagnation breeds
disease.
So it could look like anydigestive issue.
Bloating is a really common one, I hear all the time Heavy
periods, heavy clotting, painfulcramps.
(17:18):
Maybe you didn't have thosebefore.
Maybe you know your doctorrecommended a hysterectomy.
This is what I often see inthis midlife place.
It doesn't mean you necessarilyneed a hysterectomy.
It might mean that you need toget to the root of why we have
these hormonal imbalances in thefirst place.
Or parasites are really common,or, um, it just, it just
depends, and that's where somelabs or some protocols can
(17:39):
really help.
But, um yeah, headaches,headaches, migraines, joint pain
, muscle pain.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, interesting, because a lot of what sleep
issues just mentioned areperimenopause symptoms as well.
So it's, you know, it's we feellike we are going crazy, right,
like what is the root cause andhow to treat it.
Yeah, which brings me toanother question.
Oh, I know a lot of yourclients are busy professionals.
(18:10):
They're, you know, we see a lotof busy professionals as well.
I'm just wondering if you cangive us some top tips for
maintaining a healthy lifestylewhen time is limited maintaining
a healthy lifestyle when timeis limited?
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, that's a good question.
So I guess we could talk about,like, maybe the top few three,
three, three things, five things, something like that what I
would prioritize for somebodywho doesn't have a lot of time,
because I do.
I think a lot of people makethat mistake of trying to do too
much and that's what keeps themstuck in that cycle and they
think, oh, I need, it's notenough, I'm not doing enough,
(18:46):
and then they just kind ofoverwhelm themselves, right.
Well, I think a habit stack isone of the best tools for anyone
, no matter if they're startingsquare one, you know, from couch
potato, or they've been workingout for years or their whole
life, and they're trying to addmaybe the nutrition component.
(19:06):
So the first thing I would do isget outside and walk every day.
Honestly, just getting outsideand getting some fresh air and
some sun on your face and somevitamin D.
Getting those steps is likesuch an easy way.
You could squeeze in 10 minuteshere, 10 minutes there, you
know, maybe first thing in themorning, just a couple of times
(19:27):
throughout your workday, betweenmeetings.
Take a meeting with you on awalk, right, if you don't have
to participate in that meeting.
I used to do that all the time,right, as I would take my
conference calls and things likethat, things that I needed to
listen to with me on a walk.
So that's like an easy, likehack to get more movement and
(19:48):
get more steps and and walkingreduces stress on the body and
it also reduces that midsectionstubborn belly fat too.
Ok, so that's one, I would say.
A second would be protein, andmost women especially, are like,
afraid to eat protein.
I see this all the time.
I think it's going to make mebulky and that's absolutely
false.
(20:08):
Protein is going to make youleaner, right.
It's going to satiate you.
It's going to make you likefull and satisfied, versus
wanting to snack and eat moreand more.
That's what's making you bulky,okay, versus wanting to snack
and eat more and more.
That's what's making you bulky,okay.
Snacking and sugar and allthat's what's gonna actually add
(20:28):
to packing on the weightfeeling, right.
So high quality sources ofprotein whenever you can, would
be like animal sources.
Have some eggs in the morning,have some chicken, turkey
sausage, have some chicken wrapor something like that at some
um, you know, chicken wrap orsomething like that at lunch.
Have a meal at dinner thatlooks like a a piece of a good
(20:48):
hunk of meat, some lots ofvegetables and some sort of carb
carbohydrate source Okay, itcould be sweet potatoes,
potatoes, whatever.
Um have protein throughout theday.
I always, I always, have aprotein shake every day, because
I too am a am a busyprofessional, right, and, um,
you know, I might be a healthcoach, but I run a business too,
(21:10):
so you know I I have limitedtime oftentimes and I have to
figure out how to make it fitinto my day.
So I I personally use um aprotein shake that I just put in
water and mix it and chug itand I'm good and that's going to
help remove cravings, it'sgoing to help keep people
consistent and you're going towatch your waistline shrink when
(21:32):
you do it.
Okay, so proteins, like probablythe second one, and these are
in no particular ordernecessarily.
If I could maybe put a third,I'm not sure what would be third
, but probably some level ofstrength training.
Um, in terms of you know whatwe see in midlife, it's it's
(21:56):
muscle and bone loss, right,especially as we're like hitting
50 and beyond.
So, if we want to inhibit boneloss and muscle loss, which is
crucial to longevity.
And so we, you know, we startto see falls at.
You know, in the sixties westart to see people falling and
we know, go listen to DrGabrielle Lyon, anything she
(22:18):
says, like, once you startfalling, it's really, it's a
really morbid path, right?
So, um, start strength training, start anywhere, and this is
something we teach our clients.
Um, as soon as they'll let us,basically as soon as they're
ready, for it is doing like aprogressive overload strength
training to um, cause you startlosing muscle as soon as you
(22:40):
turn 30.
And I just want to add excuse me, I just want to add um, and
something I've been thinkingabout lately is when people,
when women right are younger,you know, we'll call it like 30
and below, they feel like I usedto feel like you said, april,
like I used to eat whatever Iwanted to eat, right, and it
(23:03):
never really, it never reallyshowed up in a negative way for
me.
I could eat what I wanted andnot really have to worry about
it too much.
And then you get to a certainage and then what's going on?
I have to pay attention to this.
Yeah, this is like the thingthat's like oh my God, and it
happens to happen to me in mytwenties, it happens to women in
their thirties, their fortiesand sometimes, if you're really
(23:24):
lucky, in your fifties.
Okay, it's common for all of us.
But why does that happen, andhave you ever thought about that
?
Why does that happen?
Right, when we're young, we'rein growth mode.
Right, we're growing and wegrow to, at least, you know, 25
(23:47):
years old or so.
Right, we're all we'redeveloping.
Still, our frontal prefrontalcortex isn't fully developed
until 25 years old, right?
So then we enjoy this littletime 25 or so of being able to
eat whatever we want.
I used to eat cookies all thetime.
I used to eat whatever I wantedwhen I was a kid Cokes,
coca-cola, I used to have popsand stuff like that all the time
, and it never showed up for me.
(24:11):
Really, I was able to stay trimand lean.
But then it came for me around25 years old and I was like,
whoa, I gotta do something andactually pay attention.
Well, we stop growing at somepoint and start the aging
process, essentially, and thisis where you no longer have that
growth factor, and we startlosing muscle, for sure by age
(24:32):
30, and we can lose it prettyquickly if we're not actively
trying to work to build it backup.
So in my case, um, I startedweight training pretty, you know
, right around that time and I'mreally glad and thankful I did
because now I have a baseline ofmuscle and so if we can do that
strength training component andand maintain that growth of
muscle because we're alwayslosing it but trying to build it
(24:56):
back up, that's going to helpset someone free from those
chains of dieting.
That's going to help setsomeone free from me having to
track every little thing, eat1200 calories a day, try to eat
less and eat less and eat lesswe get.
We got to stay in that growthmode for the, for the muscle.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, it's not the calories in, calories out, it's
the quality of the food that youknow you're putting in.
And, um Shay, you have mehaving so much protein I can
barely even keep up with myself.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
I know I'm like what how much protein.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I mean, I, I am shooting for 130 right now and,
um, I'm I'm getting close mostdays and I just poured my
protein shake and getting readyto have it after this.
Good, um, and from a from ahabit stacking perspective, you
know the weight bearingexercises which I'm now in a
regular routine on feels so goodI can't like.
(25:52):
I lost myself at the gym theother day with, just like the,
how great it felt to be able todo some of these things.
So I want to talk about thebody bulletin and your community
there.
But let's just say you'resomebody and one of our friends
who you know is struggling withwhere to start.
I hear walking, I hear thinkabout the food that you're
(26:15):
putting in your body and up theprotein and, if I know, if I
understand right, eat as manygrams of protein today, a day,
is your goal.
Weight, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, that's a good start.
So like, if your goal weight is130 pounds, you know, then 130
grams of protein would be a good, a good place to start with
that.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, that's such a crazy amount of protein I'm
getting used to it, but it washard to build up.
And then, you know, startingstarting some kind of strength
training.
What's an what's an easy way todo that for somebody that's
never done it before.
Training needs to do it ontheir own yeah.
(26:53):
How do I, how do I, how do Istart on that?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
So I'll be honest with you, you're going to need
if you're, if you're juststarting in that world of
strength training, trying to doit on your own.
It's pretty confusing.
I had help, right I I there was.
You know, somebody at my workwho is like willing to like kind
of teach us.
You need to be taught, right.
It's like anything else.
If you're trying to learn somenew skill, you need someone to
(27:17):
teach you.
So you can do that a fewdifferent ways.
You could go to, like a groupstrength training class where
they have an instructor, andthat's probably a great way to
like meet people and have thatcommunity aspect.
You could hire a personaltrainer for so many sessions
until you feel comfortable doingit on your own.
You could in like like what wedo with our clients is I
(27:40):
literally teach them.
I have a very, very simpleprogressive overload training
program.
Kim, are you doing our trainingprogram?
I am, yeah.
So some people come in withtheir own versions of it and we
can approve that and let themknow if it's a good one or not.
But you know, even even thingslike certain like yoga and
Pilates can be like the start tolike a good place of of getting
(28:04):
some resistance, but I trulybelieve in order to see like if
that would be a really long road.
That'd be a really long road toget to where you want to go and
you'd really have to watch yourcalories a lot in doing
something like that.
I think of a Pilates and a yogaas a supplemental like that's
your fourth or fifth day ofexercise for the week, versus
having three quality strengthtraining sessions per week where
(28:27):
you are hitting particularmuscle groups seems to be the
fastest path forward to seeingresults.
Is what I've found.
There are probably othertrainers out there who will
disagree with me, and I'm sureeverybody has their own way to
do this, but what I'vepersonally seen is it's not
(28:47):
about like high intensity, it'snot about speeding through
something.
It's not about getting my heartrate to spike through the roof.
It's not about sweating a bunch.
Okay, that's not.
That's not the goal, and Ithink that is a really difficult
thing for people to wrap theirheads around, because we don't
lose weight that way.
We lose weight through acalorie deficit, but we need to
(29:10):
build muscle to have like solidmuscle tone if you wanna look
like you're lean, right.
Otherwise we're just kind oflike losing weight and it feels
very difficult.
Remember, we have to get intothat growth, that growth mode
place for this to feel like it'snot agonizingly, you know, it's
just like a horrible tortureprocess.
So what we do is we have, youknow, maybe it's like a leg day,
(29:33):
maybe a push type day and apull day.
That's that's how I kind ofprogram through.
If I were to do just three days, I like four, but three is
enough to see change.
I see I see faster progresswhen I do like a fourth day of
like, maybe some accessory workwhere it's not as like heavy and
(29:54):
it's just a little bit morelike, you know, just hitting
some muscle groups to keep them,keep them engaged, versus
trying to like really like killyourself, you know, with some
sets of heavier sets, so likeI'll do like certain type of
squatting, one day with someextra movements to like really
get into the legs, and the nextday might be like some sort of
(30:15):
bench press or, you know, chestpress type of thing, and then
different moves to like hitdifferent angles of the front
side of the body.
And then we do like a pull daywhere I include like deadlifting
.
Some people include deadliftingin a leg day.
Some people do it in a pull dayagain tomato, tomato.
However, you want to split itup and then you can do different
(30:35):
, like rows or pull-ups, ordifferent again, pulling at
different angles to hitdifferent muscle groups.
From, like, the backside ofyour body is essentially like so
now we're hitting all aspectsof the big muscle groups and
we're making sure we fatiguethose muscles to program in hey,
muscles are important here.
(30:56):
Body, we need you to hold onand actually build more of this
stuff, because this is thestimulus we're getting and this
is how we need to progress with,with the stress that we're
putting on on those musclegroups.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, no, totally makes sense.
And I'm doing it and I'm usingheavy weights and sometimes it's
a little scary because I'm bymyself doing those weights, but
I feel kind of sassy when I'mlike I gotta go to the gym, it's
leg day, sorry, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Now you're getting all the memes right Like oh yeah
, these things Okay.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Um, so let's talk about your business.
The body bulletin, like how'dthat come to be?
How's it grown?
What impact are you hoping tomake?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah, that's great.
Um, thanks for asking thatquestion.
Um, so I started the blog inone of my previous sort of like
corporate software career jobs,and this was years ago I think.
Oh my gosh, we might be atseven years now.
Seven years ago.
I could have that slightlywrong, you might be six, but
it's been a long time.
(32:06):
And I created it because Ineeded some sort of like outlet
to be able to talk about thething I was most passionate
about, which was health andfitness, and at the time I was,
like it just finished goingthrough like a yoga teacher
certification a few years priorand I just really wanted a way
(32:28):
to kind of share my knowledge ina sense and share what I've
gone through.
I'd also gone through a lot ofyou know, health issues
personally that I kept searchingthe internet for and not really
finding a lot of answersbetween, like I had like uterine
fibroids and stuff like this,and I had different like PMS
related symptoms and things likethis that I wasn't hearing
(32:50):
about from my people out.
So I was like looking on theinternet because that's what you
do now, right?
So I was having to go to likethese forums and the depths of
the corners of the internet tofind any information about.
Is anyone else dealing withthis?
And I was like you know whatI'd really like to have some of
these things that women areexperiencing a little bit more
(33:10):
out there in the world, and sothat's why I have the body
bulletin.
It's like a bulletin board.
It's like a bulletin board forthe body, but specifically for
women.
You know from like that healthfitness standpoint and it really
you know everything from like Iused to deal with like a lot of
muscle I still do muscleimbalances and trying to manage
like different pains and achesand things like that while
(33:32):
you're trying to go through yourfitness journey.
And I started writing aboutthose things couldn't find them
anywhere online and what to doabout it.
So just varying differentthings as you go through like a
health and fitness journey andthe realities of that.
That process that I was goingthrough that's what kind of led
me to start the blog and itevolved and people seemed to
(33:53):
really gravitate toward thenutrition side of things and I
never intended to do anythingwith nutrition it was not an
interest of mine at all but itevolved that way and so I went
through my first coachingcertification there started
taking clients and then I kindof told you before like needed
(34:13):
to deepen my knowledge with,like, the functional health
principles and being able tohelp people with their guts and
hormones and you know those, allthose different symptoms that
we talked about earlier andreally helping to heal the body
inside and out and have thatfull body health.
So I guess where I see it goingis I would love to be able to
(34:37):
help more women who I feel likearen't I don't want to say it's
a forgotten part of thepopulation, but it's.
It's definitely not, as you know, readily available to see, like
every like.
You says it's perimenop, yousaid it's perimenopause symptoms
.
Oh, it's perimenopause oryou're just getting older now.
Like, this is what like peoplethink and it's like no, no, I
(34:59):
don't accept that.
Like, I don't accept that assomebody who knows what I know,
at this point I can't accept I'mjust getting older now as a
reason to have, you know,headaches around your period or
regular like migraines or like,because my migraines were
getting worse and worse andworse as I got older, acne was
(35:19):
getting worse as I got older.
I was like this doesn't makesense and so you know these
weird things that would happenand I was like you know, people
need to have this knowledge andI think that's why I started
creating it.
And you know, of course,coaching people is a passion and
we want to help as many peoplethere.
But now I'm going to belaunching soon.
I might as well tell you likeI'm going to be launching like a
lower ticket membership optionfor people who can't necessarily
(35:40):
afford coaching.
It won't include, like, all ofthe functional health components
, but ways to kind of upgradeinto it if it's something that
they're interested in, but a wayto help people in a little bit
more affordable monthly kind ofoption so we can help more
people.
That's really the goal.
That's great, awesome.
What's your website?
Thebodybulletincom.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Okay, so people can find you at thebodybulletincom.
Yes, all right.
This has been incrediblyinsightful and now we get to
have some fun because we get tomove to our rapid fire round and
get to know you a little bitbetter.
No pressure, super fun stuff,right?
Yes, yep, and I don't know youas well as Kim, so I'll start by
(36:26):
just asking if you likemountains or water.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Hmm, that's a tough one.
If I'm in Hawaii, well, I thinkit's mountains.
I think it's going to bemountains either way.
Yeah, mountain cow.
All right, I live in California.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, I like, I think I like mountains.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
I'm more of a land person, okay.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
What do you read?
Do you read a book, a Kindle,an audio book?
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
More than not, I'm probably odd audible.
Audible or like audio books.
Um, I do love to.
When I sit down and read, it'snice.
I just rarely sit down to read.
I'm usually moving, so gettingmy steps in and being able to
listen to a book just feels likea good habit.
Stack, so I do that.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah right.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, how about your favorite holiday?
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I'm going to probably say Thanksgiving.
I love a lot of the holidays,but Thanksgiving things, where
we host it whenever we can here,and I just love being able to
have everyone gather together.
I have a wonderful family.
I've been very blessed withthat and, you know, even like my
(37:43):
extended family, we have ablast and just being able to go
around and just be thankful foreveryone and thankful for that
experience in my life, I thinkthat's really important.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
That's my favorite too.
Um, okay, here's the.
Here's the piece to resistance.
What's the best piece of adviceyou've ever received ever, shay
?
It has to be like what's agreat piece of advice you've
heard?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, okay, well, uh, after thinking about this one,
so, um, so I don't know where isthe first, I don't know where
the first time I heard this, butwhat you think about most of
the time is basically what youbecome.
It becomes your reality, and somaybe it's Napoleon Hill's book
(38:27):
Think and Grow Rich,potentially.
Book Think and Grow Rich,potentially.
I know it's probably it's inthere, but I'm not sure the
first time I heard that.
But he kind of speaks about itover and over and over in his
book.
So I've actually read that book, like cover to cover, multiple
times.
It's weird because I don't readlike books, but I've read that
one multiple times and it'ssomething that I don't know.
(38:48):
If you recall, in our newidentity worksheet identity
worksheet is we have like thosequotes Do you remember doing
that worksheet, kim, where youcalled out so like we have
something like what you thinkabout is what you'll become.
We have those quotes in thereand I think that's probably the
that can apply to anything,right, it can apply to your work
in your career and it can applyto your health.
(39:12):
So there's that mind bodyconnection right where sometimes
even me, as like somebody who'svery like health practitioner,
health coach, like I could get asupplement for that.
I can do this therapy for thisa very physical, focused.
A lot of times we can forgetlike that mental side of it, of
like okay, we can tap into theinnate healing of our body by
(39:33):
kind of going inward and maybedoing some meditation and really
like visualization and stufflike that, and that can be just
as powerful as any givensupplement out there.
Like looking at like JoeDispenza's work right, like like
really, really cool stuff abouthow the brain can literally,
you know, we can think our wayto the reality we want, and kind
(39:54):
of that reality engineering, ifyou will.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I love that.
We completely agree.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Yeah, yeah, right, our thoughts are pretty powerful
.
I believe in meditation andjournaling and so great, great
advice and great reminder.
It's been really great havingyou on the show, shay.
Thanks so much for the workthat you're doing and all that
you're helping, including Kim.
Yes, and yeah, that is a wrapaudience.
(40:23):
Thank you for tuning in and wemeet again.
Go find joy in the journey.
Thanks, shay, thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to theMedovia menopause podcast.
If you enjoyed today's show,please give it a thumbs up,
subscribe for future episodes,leave a review and share this
(40:43):
episode with a friend.
There are more than 50 millionwomen in the U?
S who are navigating themenopause transition.
The situation is compounded bythe presence of stigma, shame
and secrecy surroundingmenopause, posing significant
challenges and disruptions inwomen's personal and
(41:04):
professional spheres.
Medovia is out to change thenarrative.
Learn more at Medoviacom.
That's M-I-D-O-V-I-A dot com.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.