Here is a statistic for you. The average 45 year-old woman has been on 61 diets since the age of sixteen. This brought me back to the 1980s and 90s, the era of dexatrim, Ayds Candies, and Slim Fast. As a side note, the active ingredient in Ayds Candies and Dexatrim was the decongestant, phenylpropanolamine, which can be found in many cold medicines today. I almost forgot about fen-phen. Remember all the heart and legal issues with that drug? Then there were the popular, fad diets, such as the Cabbage Soup Diet, Beverly Hills, Scarsdale, and Grapefruit Diet, to name a few.
It was actually simpler back then. Doing lots of cardio (OMG, the aerobics and step class craze) and starving yourself was the secret sauce, which we know is not a long-term strategy for anyone, especially us midlife gals. Diet culture is still alive and well, but today, we have to sift through all the stuff on social media, when all we want is the truth and straight answers in how we manage a body that we may no longer recognize. This is why I asked Jenn Huber to be a guest on the podcast.
Jenn is a Registered Dietician, Naturopathic Doctor, podcaster, and intuitive eating advocate, who provides health and hormone education to women in midlife without a side of diet culture.
She knows exactly what we are going through, and she wants to help you make peace with food, your body, and menopause so you can find the confidence you deserve in this great stage of life.
Catch Jenn Huber's podcast, the Midlife Feast, wherever you get podcasts.
Jenn's website: https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/
https://www.instagram.com/menopause.nutritionist/
I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan
Have questions about Faster Way? Feel free to reach out.
mfolanfasterway@gmail.com
Follow Asking for a Friend on Social media outlets:
https://www.instagram.com/askingforafriend_pod/
https://www.facebook.com/askforafriendpod/
Please provide a review and share. This helps us grow!
https://lovethepodcast.com/AFAF
This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Here is a statistic for you. The average 45 year-old woman has been on 61 diets since the age of sixteen. This brought me back to the 1980s and 90s, the era of dexatrim, Ayds Candies, and Slim Fast. As a side note, the active ingredient in Ayds Candies and Dexatrim was the decongestant, phenylpropanolamine, which can be found in many cold medicines today. I almost forgot about fen-phen. Remember all the heart and legal issues with that drug? Then there were the popular, fad diets, such as the Cabbage Soup Diet, Beverly Hills, Scarsdale, and Grapefruit Diet, to name a few.
It was actually simpler back then. Doing lots of cardio (OMG, the aerobics and step class craze) and starving yourself was the secret sauce, which we know is not a long-term strategy for anyone, especially us midlife gals. Diet culture is still alive and well, but today, we have to sift through all the stuff on social media, when all we want is the truth and straight answers in how we manage a body that we may no longer recognize. This is why I asked Jenn Huber to be a guest on the podcast.
Jenn is a Registered Dietician, Naturopathic Doctor, podcaster, and intuitive eating advocate, who provides health and hormone education to women in midlife without a side of diet culture.
She knows exactly what we are going through, and she wants to help you make peace with food, your body, and menopause so you can find the confidence you deserve in this great stage of life.
Catch Jenn Huber's podcast, the Midlife Feast, wherever you get podcasts.
Jenn's website: https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/
https://www.instagram.com/menopause.nutritionist/
I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan
Have questions about Faster Way? Feel free to reach out.
mfolanfasterway@gmail.com
Follow Asking for a Friend on Social media outlets:
https://www.instagram.com/askingforafriend_pod/
https://www.facebook.com/askforafriendpod/
Please provide a review and share. This helps us grow!
https://lovethepodcast.com/AFAF
This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
Asking for a Friend
Your Menopause Nutritionist: Finding Body Confidence Without Diets and Food Rules
Michele Folan
Dr. Jenn Huber, RD, ND
people, protein, body, eating, diet, food, feel, intuitive eating, conversation, find, type, midlife, talking, bone, meal, nutrition, health, restrict, blood sugar
Speaker 1 0:01
Here's a statistic for you. The average 45 year old woman has been on 61 diets since the age of 16. And that's according to our guest today. I suppose if these diets really worked, they would work the first time, right. And I was having myself a little chuckle when I was thinking about the 1980s. You know, we had DEXA trim, we had SlimFast. We also had AYDS candies. Do you remember AYDS candies, you'd see the woman on the commercial sitting down having two little candies with her cup of coffee. And the active ingredient in AIDS candies was phenylpropanolamine, which is basically a decongestant that you can find in over the counter cough and cold meds. If you think about some of the diets that there were out there, see if you remember any of these, we had the cabbage diet, we had grapefruit diet, Beverly Hills, Jenny Craig, and the Scarsdale diet. And if you think about it was probably simpler back then. Now we have to sift through all the stuff that social media has to throw at us, when really all we want is the truth and straight answers and how to manage a body that we may no longer recognize. And on this episode, we're going to do some myth busting. And my hope is that we all come away with one message. And that is we are in control of our mindset, and ultimately how we view our bodies and nutrition.
Speaker 1 1:44
Health, Wellness, career, relationships and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host Michele Folan and this is asking for a friend Welcome to the show everyone who is your supportive partner for body image success. Meet Jen Huber. This busy registered dietitian, naturopathic doctor podcaster and mom wants you to see your food as flexible forgiving fuel that moves us towards an on dieting frame of mind. Jen believes that having a scale in your bathroom is like inviting Gordon Ramsay into your kitchen. Today we're going to learn to stop wondering why it feels so hard to know what and how to eat intuitively and mindfully in menopause. Welcome to asking for a friend, Jen Huber.
Unknown Speaker 2:47
Thanks, Michelle. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. So
Speaker 1 2:49
you are across the pond right now? Yes, they say, first of all, introduce yourself. But tell us why you are in Europe for a time being.
Speaker 2 3:01
Like you said, I'm a dietician. I've been a dietician, you know, I started studying nutrition in 1995. So that always kind of tells people how long I've been at this. And I've really seen everything come and go at least two or three times. So but over the last, especially, you know, five to 10 years, my focus has really shifted away from what I would consider that really kind of conventional framework of nutrition and diet and meal plans and nutrients to really more about our relationship with food and what we need to have a healthy relationship with food that also supports our health, but primarily takes up less space in our life. Because I felt personally and professionally that we'd gotten to this point where it was everything. It was everything we thought about everything. We talked about everything that everyone wanted to do. And that at some point stopped feeling good for me personally, but also for the people that I was working with. But about four years ago, my husband was presented with an opportunity for us to what was supposed to be a three year adventure, which is now turned into a four plus year adventure of you know, kind of living this expat life I guess, for a few years, so we jumped at the chance I call it our midlife crisis and picked up the kids and rented our house and moved across the pond. And now we're in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1 4:19
Oh my gosh. So to the Netherlands, I wasn't sure where you were. I just knew what our time difference was and how we were trying to juggle the timeframe of getting this done. So you're from Canada though, correct?
Unknown Speaker 4:33
Yeah, yeah. Canadian going through?
Unknown Speaker 4:35
Yeah, where'd you go to school?
Speaker 2 4:36
I went to university at Acadia University, which is in Nova Scotia and then I moved to Toronto to study naturopathic medicine and then moved back to Nova Scotia, which is where our kind of our home bases and
Unknown Speaker 4:46
you did all this juggling children. Well,
Speaker 2 4:49
children thankfully, I don't know how people do it. I'm always in awe of people who can but I did all you know being a type a perfectionist. I did it all in order and it What I thought was the right order at the time, and did the school first and then came kids,
Speaker 1 5:04
okay? You say all the time, it's never too late on diet, your life, that really resonated with me, because I like to look at it as just a lifestyle, not a diet, this became your passion, but you kind of allude that is been part of your own experience and trying to just get a handle on your own nutrition.
Speaker 2 5:25
Yeah, so I mean, if we look back to you know, so I'm 47. I'd think about that for a minute. So I'll be 47. And if I think back to what influenced my beliefs about nutrition, food, weight, and health, Oprah comes to mind, Jenny Craig comes to mind, all of the fat free, low cow messaging around, you know, this is how you get healthy this is what you do for your health is that you know, you try and lose weight, always right, like everybody was always trying to lose 10 pounds, whether it was my mother, my neighbor, my friends, but this whole idea that in order to be happy and healthy, we needed to be thin, really kind of embedded itself into my framework of everything. As I decided what I was going to study in school, I thought, well, what better and then to become a nutrition professional. And through my own teenage experience of going through puberty changing body getting rounder, softer, as all teenagers do on their puberty journey, I developed some really unhealthy expectations of myself and my body and food, and really kind of found myself in, you know, kind of a very disordered pattern, and an eating disorder pattern that really kind of morphed into the umbrella of disordered eating through my 20s. And what I decided at some point was that I couldn't keep chasing this perfect diet, which is really in my mind, what I thought existed, I just hadn't found it yet. And that is, so much of what I hear from people is, I'm doing everything right, what am I doing wrong, something's wrong, because I'm not losing weight, or my body is changing, or I can't get a handle on this, or it always feels hard, or why does it feel so much harder for me than other people. And so I think that this idea of, there's a lifestyle that you just need to access and it won't feel like a diet felt inaccessible to me, even though I was doing everything right. Even though I had literally become a nutrition professional, and made it my life's work, I still couldn't figure it out. And it wasn't lack of willpower wasn't knowledge. It was really based on this false premise of I was trying to diet and exercise my way into someone else's body. Yeah, I was no longer living in my body, I was literally just feeding it, moving it and trying to measure and look for an outcome. And when those two things didn't line up, I felt like it was going crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1 8:06
you just have to have more realistic expectations, and be kinder to ourselves, right? And because most of the audience here, we're in midlife. And we may not recognize this body anymore with the body that we had in our 20s and 30s. Jen, I just went through my closet. And, you know, we all have those genes that were like, Oh, I might get into those again, someday, I had to just send them to Goodwill or wherever. Because I have to accept the fact that my body is not going to fit in those again. Yeah, it's okay. But
Speaker 2 8:47
How much easier would that have been? If the narrative that you had been presented and taught from day one was that it's normal for bodies to change, right? Instead of, you should always try and be and maintain the smallest version of yourself. And at 4555 or 65. That is probably not going to be your 18 year old self? No, are your 25 year old self right, normalizing that human bodies change? For all kinds of reasons, most of which we can't control, I think is how we start to make peace with not only our body but make peace with food so that when we think about what do I want to eat? How do I want to nourish this body today? It becomes so much more about how do I want to feel in my body.
Speaker 1 9:35
I wasn't planning on going this route, but I wanted to say this. You know, I just interviewed a sex and relationship therapist. And we talk about being comfortable in our bodies so that we feel sexy again. And you really talk about we got to work on the mind first we got it change the narrative there before we can see success? What kind of mistakes? And I hate to say that because I don't want to make it sound like we're doing things wrong. But what are we doing that's keeping us from being truly truly successful?
Speaker 2 10:17
I think we need to redefine success. If success is measured by a number on the scale, clothing size, whatever it is, we have to realize that those aren't always under willful control. And so I like to joke that they're kind of like false prophets, anybody who, you know, has been in that diet cycle or has pursued feeling better in their bodies through weight loss, has probably looked back at a picture and thought, why did I think I needed to lose weight there, I would do anything to be that size again. And yet, we probably felt the same way, then as we do now. Recognizing that success really needs to be more flexible and more focused on how we can feel in our bodies versus about our bodies, is I think the first thing, but we tend to get overly focused on the outcome. So it's like, I'm going to do A, B, and C. And when I lose weight, get into those old jeans or whatever, then I'll feel more comfortable, then I'll feel more confident. But we're so focused on that outcome, that we don't actually spend a lot of time thinking about the process of what we're going to change or add or shift around in our priorities that might allow us to get into kind of a better headspace about our bodies. And what I often see happens is that people will get to this place where they think that they've arrived or get closer to it, and never feel that sense of peace that they're looking for. They're just kind of like, okay, all right, I might feel a little bit better when I put my jeans on. But I'm still worrying about my body. I'm not actually feeling at peace with it. And that is where confidence comes from is from just really feeling at peace in your own skin.
Speaker 1 12:13
Yeah. You talk a lot about intuitive eating. Can you describe what Intuitive Eating is and what that looks like for a midlife person?
Speaker 2 12:27
And I love talking about and dieting and intuitive eating together because I see them as you know, kind of step one and step two. So for people who have only ever known following a diet plan, set of food rules, whatever it is, if they jump right into intuitive eating, they might feel like they're kind of lost at sea, because it is such a different reality from opening an app, counting calories, measuring your food, looking to your plan to tell you what, when and how much to eat. Because Intuitive Eating relies on a foundation of this anti diet mindset. This you know that we don't have to do that in order to be happy and healthy. And it focuses on attunement, which is learning to listen to your body. So there are 10 principles. There's a wonderful, you know, set of books and workbooks by Evelyn trebling and Elise, right who are the cofounders of the intuitive eating model. But really, it's learning to listen and trust and respond to your body with kindness and respect. So if you have only ever known dieting, and you jump into intuitive eating, you're probably going to feel like you need a life preserver pretty soon, which is why I often recommend starting with the underwriting process, which is okay, let's actually take stock, let's take an inventory of what your beliefs about food are. And what do we need to change? What's the programming that needs to change in order for you to be able to listen to your body?
Speaker 1 13:52
Well, you may be unpacking stuff from back when someone was eight years old.
Speaker 2 13:57
Yeah. And often that is the case, people will tell me they remember being taken to a Weight Watchers meeting at nine and 10 years old. Or they remember having dessert with held by a well meaning aunt, or some were overtly told by family members, especially that there was something wrong with their bodies because it was bigger. It absolutely is unpacking this programming that has been there for decades. Yeah, as intuitive eating is. And it really can be. It's not as simple as not dieting. There is a process of learning that has to happen. And I think that for some people, and this is what I call a kind of the messy middle of intuitive eating. Lots of people are super excited to jump ship from diet culture. They're like, Yeah, I'm done. Let's be done with that. But they haven't really thought about that process. They just get really focused on that outcome of Yeah, I want to be an intuitive eater and just learn to feel good in my body and trust it and feed it Oh crap. How do I do that? I only know how to eat if somebody tells me what to eat. I don't know how to actually trust myself and trust myself around food. And
Speaker 1 15:10
you have said that food is food. It's not medicine. Yeah. But do you believe that having a healthy diet can prevent future health issues versus eating fast food and donuts? I'm not challenging oats. I'm clarifying. Food Matters.
Speaker 2 15:28
Absolutely. But I don't think that we can 100% prevent, treat, cure all things with food, which is some of the diet wellness culture expectation around food. That if you do it well enough, if you do it right, if you do the right things, follow the right rules, that you can prevent all the bad things that could possibly happen to you. Which isn't actually true, because all aspects of health have many moving parts, one of which is food, one of which is movement, but the rest is genetics, lifestyle, environment, stress, things we can't always control. And so when I talk about food isn't medicine, what I'm telling people is don't expect to be able to cure or prevent or treat everything with food, look at food as something that is on your side. That is like a partner in your health. But it is not the cure, or the medicine and there are different things. This is I find that the moral conversations around health get really tangled up in this to where people feel like well, I should be trying harder. What's wrong with me that I can't get up at six in the morning and go to the gym and subsist on a protein shake until noon? Isn't that what I'm supposed to be able to do? That's kind of where the underwriting comes in is like what is actually true? And what's not? And how can we change the programming so that you actually feel like you're not only doing your best, but that you feel good about what you can do?
Speaker 1 17:00
I think listening to your body makes sense. It's how do I feel when I don't eat until noon. So we've got the whole intermittent fasting trend right now, which I see that there could be some benefits in terms of not eating after dinner and going a full 1214 hours if you can do that. I know for myself, Jen that if I were to try to do a full workout in the morning, at 630 my workouts suffer if I haven't eaten anything. Yeah, I'm hungry, and I get shaky. I think what you're trying to say is really start listening to those signals that you're getting. And let that be your guide. Yeah,
Speaker 2 17:50
don't let any outside rules dictate or Trump your own body's messages essentially. So if you're someone who feels like you do, and as I do, as well, that if I don't eat before I do any kind of movement, especially if it's, you know, involving a lot of intense movement, I am not going to perform the way I want to, I'm not going to feel the way I want to. And I'm gonna feel pretty awful by the end of it. And so where I think things get really messy, though, is when you have people who are maybe not qualified to give advice, but give it anyway and tell people that well, you just have to like muscle through it. You just have to like, oh, yeah, no, you're fine. This is how your body burns fat. And we know that that's not true. So this is kind of again, where the underwriting comes from, and learning to let go of other people's food rules.
Speaker 1 18:46
All right. And I told you that I had asked the listeners, hey, shoot me some questions that you would have for Jen. It was protein and protein and more questions about protein. And then of course, collagen got thrown in there as well. So I was laughing, because all my questions were pretty much the same. So there is a lot of buzz around protein right now. Yeah, how much to get? We all know we need more in midlife because of bone and muscle health. But the questions were best sources of protein. But also, what if you're a non meat eater? So how much protein that's sources? And then how do you help that person? That's the vegetarian? Actually, that's somebody I know pretty well. She asked that question.
Speaker 2 19:41
Well, and the protein conversation is one of my favorite to have because it's a great example of Yes, Food Matters, but not in the way that maybe you've been led to believe by diet wellness culture. Protein is one of the three macronutrients and I talked about building a balanced plate as like building you know, a three legged stool and protein Tina is one of the legs and you need all three legs of that stool in order for it to stand. Same is kind of true when we're trying to fuel and feed our bodies. And proteins are some pretty important roles, especially around building muscle and maintaining muscle, which does become more important as we get older for both men and women, because we tend to it's harder to build and maintain muscle, there's definitely a relationship with bone health and being able to build and maintain strong bones. But the more is better and more is always better conversation, I find tends to place unrealistic expectations on protein to the point where people feel like they should only eat protein, instead of looking at it as one of the three legs of a stool. What I tell people is that trying to aim for you know that 25 to 30 grams of protein per meal is a very achievable, evidence based, reasonable goal, that is not only going to support your health, but it's going to help you to feel full and satisfied and meet your nutrition needs. Trying to get 80 grams of protein per meal is not satisfying. You know, it means that you're essentially eating only protein unless you have a very large appetite. But it also I think tends to make us puts us in that all or nothing thinking that like if I don't get my protein goal for the day, well, then I failed. That's one of the trapdoors that keeps us in the diet cycle. So looking at protein as like one of three legs, making it a priority, but not to the exclusion of the other nutrients and having a bit of flexibility around like, okay, it's not the end of the world if like, I don't get that at a meal one day, or it's not the end of the world, if I even have like, a week where things aren't kind of in line. There's some interesting research that's come out recently looking at protein timing and dose around exercise, especially in building muscle, I think that the conversation around trying to get that 20 To 525 to 30 grams, kind of within a two hour window around movement and exercise will continue to maybe get louder. And so that's I think something for people who are trying to build muscle that might be a conversation they might want to pay closer attention to, for for the average person who's just like, I just want to know how much to eat, just aiming for that 25 to 30 grams per meal, I think is a good baseline that will support your health as well as kind of how you feel.
Speaker 1 22:27
There's the people who are the vegetarian that may struggle to balance way too many carbs, they're eating a lot of beans or that type of food. What kind of advice would you have for them?
Speaker 2 22:43
Well, and I think, again, we need to look at the patterns of eating. One is that a satisfying filling an adequate pattern of eating for that person. And if it is, I would say, you know, beans are a great source of protein. You know, one of the conversations around vegetarian types of protein is around adequacy and completeness. Back in the day in 1995, when I first started studying nutrition, we used to kind of learn food combining to get the, you know, the essential and the non essential amino acids, you know, together. Now we just say, as long as you're eating a variety of foods, all of the amino acids kind of go into a pool, and your body just figures it out. But that being said, with beans, which don't have are lacking one of the amino acids to make it essential, you know, complete, we do need to be thinking about what else we're having it with, if you know people want to include other grains or other types of beans and lentils are not since seeds, I can help to kind of fill that out. Some people also, you know, are really happy to look at things like soy protein powders, for example. So this often comes up when people are vegetarian or vegan, and they're really intentionally trying to support muscle growth, you know, using a soy protein powder, and soy is one of the complete vegetarian protein. So it has all the essential amino acids can be an easy and satisfying way for people to do that. But I think what we really need to be looking at is thinking about those three legs on a stool are all three legs being taken into consideration. But there is also the argument that is often kind of the counter argument to protein is that maybe not everyone needs to be reaching for those really high goals all the time when we look at studies where they have intentionally, for example, given people additional servings of protein in a community setting which is different than a research setting and that's important community is like how we're all living when they look at that. It may not make as much difference for functional strength, as we may be hope or wanted to. Now that being said, I still think it's important. I think it's reasonable to try and get more but I also don't want anybody losing sleep or stressing over counting grams of protein. You know, we can look at Bill Like balanced plates. And one of the things that I love doing is teaching methods of measuring and counting food without having to measure and count foods. So I talk about protein in my community as either a starring role a supporting role or a cameo. And I kind of have handouts around like, okay, these are starring roles of protein, animal and plant based, you want to choose one of these at most of your meals. And if you don't choose one of these, we'll take a couple of supporting roles mix and match them. If you're trying to piece together something with a bunch of cameos, you're going to need like five. So you're going to need like nuts and seeds and not butter and this and that. So really trying to look at it more as like, does it have a starring role on my plate? Or do I need to kind of build this up in other ways, is one of the ways that we can be intuitive with our food without having to like get out the measuring cup and the scale?
Speaker 1 25:53
Yeah, I tried the scale thing. Now I know what 20 grams of protein looks like. So I don't have to measure anymore, but I did. I've done the measuring. So just so you know. And
Speaker 2 26:06
as a learning exercise, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But you know, I know and meet a lot of people who are still measuring almost everything that they eat.
Speaker 1 26:18
Oh, yeah, no, nobody got time for that. I know you are seeing this as well. Is there so much buzz out there around Sugar, sugar, bad sugar evil. I really want to know what your thoughts are on sugar, and its impact on our blood sugars. And, oh, I'm gonna get diabetes. And there's just a lot of fear mongering out there. I think
Speaker 2 26:45
there is. And I think a lot of it is your mongering that is somewhat based on a misunderstanding and misinformation, sugar most of the time what we're talking about a sucrose, and sucrose is a disaccharide. And it breaks down to glucose, which is our body's preferred fuel, right. So our body prefers to run on glucose and our brain and our red blood cells, especially which impact our energy levels rely on it, they can only run on glucose for fuel. When we're talking about sugar, there's nothing inherently pathological about it as like a food. One of the I think things that gets really messy is the conversations around dietary patterns that are associated with inflammation and maybe impacts on our health versus individual foods. There are patterns of eating, which often include foods that may behind sugar may be, you know, quote, unquote, highly processed, a whole bunch of, you know, things that may and probably do have an impact on our long term health. But does eating dessert or a chocolate bar or putting sugar in your coffee on an individual day to day meal to meal basis, have this awful fear, you know, based effects that we see? No, we don't actually have evidence for that. And so what I see is a lot of people believing that there's something inherently awful about sugar itself, when in fact, it's the patterns of eating that we often see associated with higher sugar intakes, that are likely what we're talking about. We don't have any evidence that it's addictive, we know that it is pleasurable, therefore, there's a reward and pleasure response in our brain. But that doesn't mean it's addictive, like a drug. The behavior of restricting it often is what creates the craving so that people really do feel like they can't trust themselves around it. But when we can break it all down, and we can just reach this food neutrality with it, like it's something you can choose. But if you were to eat it on its own as a meal on a regular basis, a you probably wouldn't feel good. And yeah, maybe it would have an impact on your blood sugar, but it's not going to cause diabetes. But if you're a diabetic, it's certainly something you need to spend more time kind of managing and in that context of a balanced plate, but you don't need to fear it. You don't need to eliminate it. And it's not something that you need to worry about having all the time.
Speaker 1 29:09
And this is kind of a good segue then because I do know a few people that are wearing CGM constant glucose monitors, one friend, there's a family history there. So I get where she's kind of trying to hone in on some things to make sure she's eating correctly. But do you see any real benefit in doing CGM?
Speaker 2 29:31
No, and actually, it's so that's a great question because I just did a big research review because we covered this topic in my community. Last month, it was actually like the theme was insulin resistance to really try and debunk some of these myths and continuous glucose monitors were originally developed and primarily used in type one or insulin dependent Type diabetics. And it wasn't to catch their blood sugar's going high it was to catch their blood sugar's going too low because that's far more dangerous. technology has certainly kind of evolved. And we might see that in type two diabetics, there may be some benefit for some people. But currently, that's actually not what the research supports. There has been studies looking at using CGM is versus just the standard monitoring. And there's no benefit most of the time, even in type two diabetics, and there's definitely no evidence of any benefit in non diabetics. And one of the biggest reasons why is that our blood sugar is supposed to go up. So if your blood sugar goes up within the normal range, meaning you're not a diabetic, whether it goes up a lot, or whether it goes up a little, doesn't have any predictive value on your health or your weight, which is the big claim. If your blood sugar is going outside of the normal ranges, you could possibly have diabetes. Right? And that is a medical conversation, not a wellness conversation. What's happening is that a lot of people are becoming overly focused on every little bite of food, how it's impacting their blood sugar, or not impacting their blood sugar. And they're making predictions and decisions based on what to eat that are not at all based on evidence. So there was a study that just came out a couple of weeks ago that found it was really interesting, because they tested a few different brands of CG PMS, and there was huge variability on the same person with the same meal at the same time. Which tells us that the predictive value in the context of non diabetics is not there. Right. Again, diabetics is totally different. But non diabetics, whether your blood sugar goes up, I'm used to Canadian values. So I'm going to say like whether it goes up to like eight, or eat and a half after you have a meal is not at all going to be helpful to you and making decisions about food.
Speaker 1 31:55
Thank you for explaining that. Because I think that's again, it sees things that I'm seeing out there in social media land. And yeah, just curious. I wanted to go back to collagen, because this was a specific question I did get from a listener. Now, I was at a women's event recently, and I asked the plastic surgeon that was there speaking, what her thoughts were about collagen. And she said, there's really not a lot of data in terms of skin, and it helping with wrinkles and all that. What about the other stuff with college and more to your thoughts?
Speaker 2 32:31
Yeah, this is another hot topic, for sure. And what I tell people is that I still think that it wears the hat of the most overrated supplement currently living on the internet. That doesn't mean it doesn't work. But it means that the hype around it is probably not well deserved, especially given the cost of it. I agree that the skin stuff is by far the weakest of the evidence. And the argument has always been well, it's a protein. And so we eat it. And our body breaks it down and just puts it into that amino acid pool. The types of protein amino acids that are in collagen, are specific for skin. But we don't actually know that our body uses it in that way, that if we put more of those skin specific amino acids into the pool, does that mean that more will go to our wrinkles, we don't know, the evidence for joint health and muscular skeletal health is a little bit stronger, still not overwhelming, still not enough for, for me personally, to put that into my mix on a daily basis. And I find that a lot of people will say, you know, I've been taking this for a while, I'm not sure if it's doing anything. That to me is really what people need to be, you know, kind of using as their frame of reference, there's no harm in it, it's considered actually an incomplete protein because it lacks one of the amino acids to make it complete. So it's not a great source of protein on its own. So if you're using it, and you're not noticing a huge difference in the amount of pain that you're having in your knees, or whatever, but you think oh, well, it's at least it's giving me some extra protein. I think it's a really expensive source of protein. Okay,
Speaker 1 34:16
because, right confession, I've been using collagen in my coffee every morning for probably four years. But now I'm at that point where I'm afraid if I stop using it, like my body parts, something's gonna fall off. I don't know. But I do have joint pain and things and so I could stop using it and see how I feel. And see if there's any impact there.
Speaker 2 34:46
If you do notice a difference. Well, then you have your answer, and then you'll feel more confident moving forward with it versus Well, I'm just gonna keep taking it because I'm afraid to stop.
Speaker 1 34:54
I just thought I better ask what are your thoughts? about alcohol.
Speaker 2 35:01
Yeah, so this is a really great midlife conversation, isn't it? Because just like food relationships with things like alcohol definitely seem to change in midlife. I know for me, and I always joke that, you know, no one loves a glass of wine more than I do. But over the last five years, especially as I went through perimenopause, and into post menopause, alcohol is not my friend 99% of the time, it really is a like glass with dinner, and very rarely, would that be worth it on a regular basis, or very rarely would it be worth it to have to, because it's gonna mess with my sleep, I'm probably gonna have a hot flash, I'm gonna regret it the next day, we're just talking about like two glasses of wine, when I think a lot of women, though, have used it, to help them get through some really busy challenging times in their lives. And so they now find themselves in midlife, with this really complicated relationship with it, where they feel like they're, it's helping them and yet it's not. I always say, try and see if it's doing for you what you think it is, is it actually helping you sleep? Is it actually helping you relax? Is it actually doing what it used to do when you were 25? And if not, then maybe it's time to redefine that too. But I also think that the conversations around cancer are more relevant, and that the more we learn about alcohol and the relationship to cancer, especially things like breast cancer and colon cancer, you know, which definitely affect us as we as we get into the second season, it becomes a is it worth it? Question?
Speaker 1 36:32
It is kind of an unpopular topic. Because every time I bring it up, people are like, Oh, do we have to talk about this, but I read the data, I am seeing it, it's in black and white. And so I'm not doing anybody any favors, if I don't bring it up. And I've been pretty clear. I'm doing sober October. Oh, I've been super curious. Since 2020. Really, and, you know, did a online three week challenge. I've done all those things, and then kind of fell off. But I'm at that point now where I started sober October a week early. I feel so good right now. I'm gonna have a hard time going back. Yeah. And I lost my taste for wine A while ago, because of the waking up at three in the morning. My crotch was Bourbon. I love just a nice glass of bourbon in the evenings. But I'll tell ya, I'm sleeping so great. I don't want to go back.
Speaker 2 37:40
Yeah, I think that's the big thing. And especially if having a drink. And if alcohol has been part of your routine, ritual rhythms of how you unwind and relax, I think it might be hard to imagine feeling better without it. Because you think that it's such an integral part of that process. But what I hear the same thing all the time from people is they're like, oh, wow, I can't believe how much better I'm sleeping. And it becomes a question of like, well, how do I want to feel tomorrow? Yeah. And you know, that behavior, activation of like, can we make the choice that your future self will thank you for more easily is I think how a lot of people change it. But stay out of that scarcity mindset, right? It's not what you're losing, it's what you're gaining.
Speaker 1 38:25
I do want to talk about having a cheat meal, or a cheat day, versus indulging in a daily tree, What's your stance on success with the cheat meal?
Speaker 2 38:39
Well, I don't love the cheat meal. Because I think that for a lot of people, that cheat meal is often kind of the start of a binge. Because if you have been restricting pleasurable eating and access to foods that you enjoy six days of the week, and you try and fit all of that satisfaction into one meal, it is never going to be able to live up to your expectations. Because satisfaction isn't in the moment experience, you cannot store it up and save it for another time. You can only experience it in the moment. And so if you have been in a pleasure deficit and satisfaction deficit all week, and then you sit down and have whatever it is that you want, you're going to feel like you're just scratching the surface of satisfaction and our brain is so hard wired to avoid pain and seek pleasure. It's gonna say, thank you. Yes, more please, right now. So a lot of people feel like, Oh, well, I can't do cheat meals because I can't stop once I start. And really, that's a great example of the restriction and permission mindset. So if we restrict access to something we enjoy, and we try and only allow ourselves to have it under certain circumstances, it's going to feel not great. Instead of planning foods that are like trees, Things I just try and talk about like having food neutrality. Don't make the dessert the treat the food, you enjoy the reward. Make it part of what you have to choose from on a regular basis and ask yourself, Do I want this? Versus Am I allowed to have this, that is such a game changer for people to be able to see that, like all food is neutral. You don't have to earn it. You don't have to make up for it. And you don't have to control or restrict it. If you learn to trust that your body can lead you to what feels good, and what nourishes you, then it doesn't have to be something that you micromanage,
Speaker 1 40:37
then I think about keto. keto is going to do the same thing. Correct, because you are restricting carbohydrate. Actually, Jen, I'm shocked at how many people still talk about keto. I mean, haven't we moved on from that yet?
Speaker 2 40:54
You would think but you're right. Lots of people are still talking about it. I mean, so if you look at somebody who is doing a low fat diet, what do they crave? Fat? Right? If somebody is doing a keto diet, what do they crave carbohydrate, they crave carbs. If somebody's doing a sugar free diet, what do they crave, they crave sugar. So it's the thing that we restrict, that creates the craving, it's the behavior of restriction. ketosis is our body's brake, in case of emergency fuel system. It is not our body's preferred fuel. So I think that when people create the rules around, well, I can't have this, it may make that restriction feel a little bit easier at first, because it's a rule. Same as intermittent fasting, it's a rule that some people find makes it easier to follow the rules. But it's not going to give you that feeling of feeling safe and trusting your body. And it's not going to make you think about food less, it's going to make you think about food more in the long run.
Speaker 1 41:55
Do you have any coaching around osteoporosis? Jen? Because I brought it up at book club recently and come to find out I am not the only one that's got osteoporosis? What do you tell your clients that are managing that diagnosis as well?
Speaker 2 42:15
Anybody who's listening who's maybe on the younger side, we need to start the Osteoporosis conversation before we get a diagnosis of osteoporosis, right. So this is kind of what I think is the missing piece of that conversation is like, it's not too late. It's never too late. But it shouldn't come as a surprise. And unfortunately, that's what happens is because we don't tend to mention it until people are menopausal. And then it's like, oh, by the way, let's check your bones. If you have a family history, or if you have some of the other risk factors, which people can look up online pretty easily, but especially the family history piece, it's important to have that conversation with your health care provider before you're in menopause, if people go into early menopause, so if they go into menopause before the age of 40, or 45, they definitely need to be talking primary bone health primary prevention with their care providers. And even if they go into a menopause at a regular age, okay, what can I do to support my bones, we know that strength training is important and is probably the most kind of gives us the best return on investment is really kind of challenging and strengthening those bones protein comes into the conversation, calcium and vitamin D and magnesium. They're all important, but the value and efficacy of supplementing with them is still up in the air. You know, we need to kind of have a big picture conversation around osteoporosis. But I like to reference Rebecca Rutstein who is buff Mons,
Unknown Speaker 43:38
oh, I've had her on my show.
Speaker 2 43:41
So yeah, and I just love how she talks about like, you know, it's not all about bone density, we need to be talking about like balance, we need to be talking about fall prevention, we need to be talking about all of those other things, not just how do I strengthen my bones. The
Speaker 1 43:57
other one is disordered eating. If you were a teen or young adult with disordered eating, that's the other one because you're laying down so much of your bone during that period of time. That can be a bit Watch out as well. Basically,
Speaker 2 44:14
after the age of like 3040 Max, it's really about slowing the rate of bone loss. We all lose bone. And it increases obviously post menopause. But like I said, it really is starting kind of from like 35 or 40 on which is why we need to have that conversation much earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1 44:33
I got. I'm a little behind the eight ball now. A little late. I would love to know what else you're working on right now. I know you're coaching clients and I want to make sure that we share that information with how people can get a hold of you. But are you working on anything new right now?
Speaker 2 44:51
You know, I'm trying not to do anything new right now. I feel like the last two years you know I've had the podcast and And the community that came from that podcast. And so I'm really just trying to be present. Like I said, I'm a type A obviously, I'm an entrepreneur, my brain is always going. And I kind of made myself a promise that at least for the next, you know, kind of year, just want to try and be present with the things that I have going on. Because I do love my work. So you have a
Speaker 1 45:23
great podcast, it's called the midlife feast. So I want to make sure we throw that out there. And I'll put the links in the show notes for that. And people can still work with you, you do your coaching, which I think is phenomenal. But I also want to give a shout out to Jan, in her Instagram posts, because that's how I found her and I find her delightful and very engaging, and funny. So make sure you follow her there. And then I would love to know what one of your self care pillars is because you being in the business, I'm sure you've got some things that you do for yourself that I'd love for you to share. Yeah,
Speaker 2 46:05
so my favorite thing to do, which my family still laughs at is that every Friday, I basically put myself to bed early, often at like six o'clock, I get into my jammies, whatever it is, I might watch a show in bed, but I really just kind of like check out and I go to bed early like my I've teenagers and like they like to stay up late. And I'm not into that anymore. So going to bed early. And getting up early are actually my self care pillar. So starting the day, for myself putting my own oxygen mask on first meeting my own needs, before jumping into the day and meeting everyone else's, are probably the things that I enjoy the most in terms of self care, and movement movement is definitely like I move because of how it makes me feel.
Speaker 1 46:54
I love that. Thank you for sharing that. And then also please share where people can find you.
Speaker 2 46:59
Well, you mentioned Instagram, I definitely hang out on there probably too much. But it is probably the place to find me most easily. And the link in my bio kind of has links to everything. But you know, the midlife ease community, which is my membership community that kind of came from the podcast is where people can learn, you know, with me and with others who are in the stage and kind of in that cozy group setting that lots of people are looking for these days is we're all looking for community. And
Speaker 1 47:26
that's one of my pillars is community. I think that's so incredibly important as we get older. Jen, this was really fun. I'd love to chat with you again, and I appreciate you being here.
Unknown Speaker 47:39
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 47:48
Follow asking for a friend on social media outlets and provide a review and share this show wherever you get your podcasts, reviews and sharing help us grow
Transcribed by https://otter.ai