Weight Loss, Hormones and Perimenopause with MixHers Owner/Founder Cody Sanders [Ep. 96]

0:00 This is the wellbeing. Well podcast, I'm Lisa Salsbury, and this is episode 96, weight loss, hormones, and perimenopause with mix hers, owner and founder, Cody Sanders. You guys, I got to chat with Cody Sanders. This was so. Exciting. If you haven't heard of mix hers, you are missing out. It is a great line of supplements in drink form that I have been using for some time. Now I don't talk about supplements very often on the podcast, but I definitely do use supplements in my regular routine. It's something I chat about directly to my clients, but just because it's not broad, broad generalization information, I don't generally talk about it on the podcast, but some of the mixers products have become.

0:43 Part of my regular supplement routine. Cody though is not just a brilliant drink mix maker, but she is a board certified holistic health practitioner, functional nutritionist, and women's hormonal health expert. Today. She is sharing with us some of the fundamentals of weight loss. How her new product metabolic balance can be another tool in your arsenal for effective fat loss. We also chat about hormones, perimenopause, and listening to your own body. Cody is an absolute delight. And I know you will love this episode. I do have a mixer is discount code to share with you. So grab that in the show notes. If you want to give any of these products, a try.

1:25 Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. Welcome back to the eat well, think well, live well podcast. I am more than delighted to have Cody Sanders with me today. She is the owner and co founder of MixHers, which I have started to use in the last probably eight months. Absolutely delighted with a lot of the products that I have tried from MixHers.

2:08 So I'm so, so excited to speak with Cody today. So welcome, if you could introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. I'd love to. And I'm so happy to be here, Lisa. Thanks for having me. and I'm happy that you've tried some of our products. I'll get into that, a little bit too, what MixHers actually is, but a little background on me is I'm a holistic. I'm a holistic health practitioner and a functional nutritionist, and I had a private practice. I worked with one on one clients and then, you know, through telehealth for about 25 years. And I worked with women mostly, but also men who were trying to, whether it was weight loss or whether it was trying to find the right tools to help them through a health challenge, whether it was cancer, diabetes, things like that.

2:55 And it eventually, my practice just kind of, you know, Organically kind of shifted into working with women and their hormonal health. And so, that became obviously something that I became passionate as well, because I am a woman. And as I started getting into my forties and so on, I started noticing, All of the crazy things that can happen as your hormones start to shift and the changes that come with that, whether that's with your metabolism, your energy levels, your, you know, all the things, the moods and all of that. And so I just made it my mission to try to learn everything I could about women's hormonal health and. One of the things that led to MixHers is that as I was working with women, time and time again, I'd have these women come and sit down and talk with me and share with me some of the symptoms that they were experiencing, maybe once a month when it was their time at the period, but like all month long, they're having these crazy symptoms that were associated with hormone imbalance.

3:50 And a lot of these symptoms were. extremely debilitating. And so of course they were going to their trusted, you know, position and, you know, trying to seek answers and help and support. and oftentimes, you know, they were frustrated because they felt dismissed. They felt like they were being told that this is just what it means to be a woman. You know, these are symptoms that just come with the stage of life and this, the, Options that they were given as solutions were things that were more of like band aid approaches, like birth control pills, and even as extreme as like hysterectomies and, you know, taking organs out of the body, to try to get the, the symptoms to quiet down. And I am all about that.

4:31 Like, I do agree that we need to help. calm symptoms down. But my background in my training is, taking a root cause approach when it comes to disease. And I do that through nutrition and lifestyle. and so when I, you know, when somebody is presenting their symptoms to me, I just keep asking questions and I try to find. Where, where is it that the body is trying to scream from? Like, cause symptoms are just simply our body's way of trying to communicate with us. And, and once our, once we listen and we address what our body's trying to tell us, then those symptoms will disappear. And so a lot of times these, these solutions in air quotes that they were being offered, were things that.

5:13 Weren't addressing the root cause and then we're also causing long term health consequences and other uncomfortable side effects. And so, so yeah, so I, I know that the number one root cause of hormone imbalance symptoms is nutrient deficiency. the others, the other root causes that are right there close by it are chronic stress as well as poor detoxification, in the body. And so I knew that in order to. To take care of the body in the way that it needed to, we needed to address those three main root causes. And so, I created a, a product that's known as her time now, but it uses, all natural ingredients like roots and herbs and things like that, that, contain the nutrients that we are often missing in a healthy diet.

5:57 Even if we're eating just the most perfect diet, it's really hard for us to get all of the nutrients that we need. And so this particular product. does provide those key nutrients that are known to nourish our endocrine system, our hormone system. And, and with that, then a lot of the symptoms like. PMS or bloating or, you know, stubborn weight that won't budge or moodiness. I mean, the list is endless truly when it comes to hormone imbalance. There's over a hundred symptoms that are associated with just PMS alone. And so, so yeah, so we, we went about, creating this, Supplement and I'm helping to just give women at the tool, in their hands to be able to take care of their health and be able to feel like their very best selves every single day, no matter what day of the month.

6:45 It is I love that. It's so exciting to just really address the root cause and, and just so frustrating because we know that our medical doctors, as good as they are at acute care, which I'm always like, I, I love the medical system, like they're doing, they're doing great, but they just, Don't actually have the training or the knowledge about nutrition and even exercise and the way to apply those as medicine, because that's not their job. And I'm like, I can't be mad about that, that they only had, you know, three hours of instruction on nutrition. Like, that's okay. That's not their job. That's why we have people like you. That's why we have. Holistic nutritionist that can help us look at these root causes that have training on this kind of nutrition and these kinds of imbalances that we have.

7:33 So I'm always like, don't get mad at the doctors. It's not their job. no, we're not about that. Is there part of the team? They're part of the team, you know, and when I started in private practice, I know there were a lot of physicians who were a little intimidated by the things that I was teaching people. And. I help, I love to help, the people that I work with become their own best health advocates. So I would prepare them with the right questions to ask their doctors and things like that. not to dismiss what the doctors are telling them whatsoever. Eventually, as you know, time went on, I worked very closely with doctors and I love that there are so many. So many incredible doctors out there who are understanding the power of food and movement as medicine.

8:15 And, and so they, they, they admit that they don't have that kind of training when they go to medical school, unless they're in some type of functional medicine, you know, field, but they, they don't have that. And so, and they don't have a lot of time to tell somebody, you know, this is what they have to do as the followup. So, you know, a lot of. them will tell their patients, this is what you are dealing with. And then they would send them to me and say, okay. And then I would tell the patient, now, this is what we do. This is what we need to start adding into your diet. These are some of the things we need to start adding into your lifestyle, to help support your overall health and healing. Yeah, good. Well, let's talk a little bit about weight loss specifically.

8:58 We definitely, your background in hormones. I mean, I actually first wanted you to come on to talk about menopause and perimenopause, but now you have a new product out. So we might have to have you back for that, or maybe we'll touch on it a little bit when we're getting into some of this weight loss stuff. But, your new product is focused on weight loss. How does that, Kind of go with some of your other products as well as, you know, just the general like Root cause health just tell us a little bit about that and what it does different than some of your other because okay What i'm getting at here. Sorry Move back up. I feel like a lot of the hormone kind of balancing Things that we do with some of the other products and the other lifestyle and nutrition management that we're doing to balance our hormones You Can affect our weight.

9:50 So how is this new metabolic balance product different than some of your hormone balancing products? Right. Well, it's all connected, first of all, and I hope we talk about perimenopause and menopause because I feel like these are stages of life for women specifically, where maybe they do start, if they haven't had any weight issues in their path, this is when all of a sudden they, they need to, they start feeling the need to, look for a little extra support. and so, but let me talk about metabolic balance and then we can kind of go into like how it's a little different than some of our other products. are. All of our products, MixHers is designed to be, hormone friendly supplements that you sip. Okay. Meaning that every product that we have in our line is formulated to support our hormone health.

10:35 It only uses the ingredients that are considered hormone friendly because there are a lot of supplements out there that they have the right nutrients, but the source of those nutrients aren't always something our body recognizes that a lot of synthetic nutrients are added into supplements. And so on the, on the nutrition label, they look like they're fantastic, but the body doesn't recognize and it can sometimes taking those supplements can actually create hormonal havoc. So that's something that sets us a little bit apart, too. The other thing is, is that our supplements are in a drink form. There are powders that you mix into your water or any kind of liquid form. And what this does is. It allows those nutrients to enter your body, at a much higher rate.

11:17 So it's higher, there's higher absorbency. So, for instance, to compare to other supplements, when our supplements are in a pill or a capsule form, your body's only, absorbing around 30 percent of the nutrients that are found in that capsule or pill. And when it's in a liquid form, your body's able to, depending on your gut health and so on, but around 90 to 95 percent of the nutrients you absorb. And so it makes these supplements much more effective. So now with that being said, when I've worked with clients, for many, many years, it's all, it's all connected. So if they are going through perimenopause, for instance, and all of a sudden they notice that their metabolism has changed, We have to address the metabolic health as well.

12:00 I mean, everything is connected to the hormones, hormones control, whether our metabolism is going to be functioning optimally or not as well. And so I've worked with so many people that have, they know all of the right things that they should be doing. They know the foods that are healthy. They know that they should be, you know, trying to get 10, 000 steps every single day. They know that, especially as they go into perimenopause and menopause, that it's to their benefit to be getting in more protein, to try to maintain that precious muscle, which muscle is, you know, it is our metabolism, truly like the more muscle we have, the better and healthier. Oh my gosh. So much protein lately. My clients are like, could we talk about something else? Yeah.

12:40 Well, I'm going to, I'm going to join you then on that because it is something that is key and you know, it's, it's even more important as we start to age. And so we know all of the right things is what I'm trying to say, but why don't we always follow through with all of the healthy choices, you know, that we need to make, and it's because, I mean, to be real, we have the best intentions, but. We're stressed. We're tired. We, we're have a lot of emotional things that are going on. And so a lot of times we eat our emotions. I like to say, you know, we, there's just a lot of things that keep us from filling that motivation to actually make the right food choices and to move our body the appropriate amount.

13:23 And so what metabolic balance does is it helps to support. The body's natural metabolic pathways. our bodies produce, you know, natural versions of a lot of the popular, weight loss drugs that are out there right now. and I don't think a lot of people realize that. And, and so I love to teach people, how do we tap in and work with your body, right? Rather than having to use, and I'm not against, by the way, I have to preface that I'm not against these weight loss drugs. I just want people to be educated. I want them to understand exactly what it is doing in their body, what the possible side effects could be, and also just learn that, guess what? Like I said before, our bodies produce natural versions of these types of medicines anyway.

14:06 So if we can tap into that, we're going to have better long term health results, for that. And so, yeah, that's what metabolic balance does is I like to call it drinkable willpower because it helps to, yeah, it helps to give your body and your brain that, support that is needed in order to recognize when your body is full. And to feel like you are a little more sensitive to your leptin, which is your hunger hormone, which tells us that we are satiated. it also balances our blood sugar and it helps us to be able to maintain muscle mass better. And so that when, if we are choosing to eat a little less that we, will be less likely to muscle waste.

14:48 So that's something just incredible. And, and this all. You know, happens just naturally with, natural metabolic pathways in our body. I know a lot of people have heard of GLP one, right? That's what a lot of like some a glutide and some a glutide, like, medications that are out there, like Ozempic and what Govi. And I mean, there's a whole list of them now, but that's what they're, that's what they're doing is they're overriding the same thing. system and they're, they're putting GLP one into the system, which then does all the things that I just mentioned, makes it so we're a little more insulin sensitive, our blood sugar stabilize, you know, and it helps us to feel full faster and for longer. And so what it's basically doing is it's causing us to have less of an appetite and, you know, it is true that when we eat less than our bodies will, Lose weight.

15:30 But most of the time when we're eating less, our bodies are sensing that there's some type of threat. And so we're losing weight, but we're not necessarily losing fat. So I just wanted to, I wanted to provide an option for people that taps into their bodies natural. Processes that isn't going to cause them in the long run to have a weaker metabolism. You know, I wanted to support long term health. I want us to go into our 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, strong, healthy and vibrant and filling our best and not having to, to deal with a lot of the unfortunate side effects that are coming from a lot of these prescription drugs.

16:10 Yeah, definitely. We want to be preserving muscle mass during our weight loss phase. I've noticed a lot of people shifting from the term weight loss to fat loss. Because I used to tell my clients like, well, we can make you lose weight on the scale by cutting off your arm, but nobody wants to do that. We really want to target the fat. And so there's a couple of ways that I generally advise to do that is to number one, it's that old protein thing. Make sure you're getting enough protein during your fat loss phase so that your body is like, Oh, we have enough protein. Let's metabolize the fat instead. And then strength training. Also to build muscles. So, with those two things in mind, adding in the metabolic balance, how does it support fat loss over muscle?

16:54 right. So basically what it's doing is it's not overriding the appetite to the point where a lot of these, these other prescription drugs are doing. So I am also like big about educating people on how to use metabolic balance as a tool. It's not a magic bullet. It's not going to go in there and like do everything for you instead. It's going to make it so that it helps you to, to kind of quiet down the food noise that often is happening in our head so that you're. Better able and actually wanting to make better food choices. And like you just mentioned, when we know, you know, like we're not feeling nauseous and, you know, feeling like we are needing to throw up or have diarrhea and constipation all the time. Like we would, if we were on some of these prescription let me just interrupt and say, I'm not sure people realize that that's what we're talking about when we're talking about side effects.

17:43 I have had clients on these drugs and I had one in particular that's like, I just can't handle the nausea anymore. Like I throw up twice a week. I just can't, I just don't want to do that. And so they cut back on the dosage, which helped a little bit, but then definitely like there was a weight loss stall there compared to, you know, the higher dose. So That's not the cause of weight loss. Like the nausea isn't the cause of the weight loss, but it's coming along with it. And I, I mean, I do have other friends that have managed to bypass those, so it's not like a guarantee that you're going to like throw up several times a week if you're on these, but they are very real side effects. So that's not just like offhand, like, Oh, this might happen. Like this is what's on the box.

18:24 yeah, this is what's on the box and it is very common. I've worked with a lot of people that are on these medications as well. And what they tell me, and just to maybe make my point in a different way, is what they often tell me is that they feel so nauseous all the time that the last thing that they want to eat is protein. Like that just sounds disgusting to them. So they don't want to do that. And it's really like anything that has fat in it. fiber, anything that has all those polyphenols that are so supportive of our natural glp1 production their bodies don't crave it. They don't crave it. And so that is where we start to muscle waste because you don't have, you're not taking in the, the needed, like building blocks of muscle.

19:05 And, and so that's what I'm trying to say is that what you're getting is you're getting a little bit of control when it comes to how the brain is, you know, controlling your appetite, but it's not to the point where Eating healthy food sounds like the last thing you wanted to. Instead, you have that little willpower, like I was saying, that is helping you to be able to, to get those nutrients into your body and have it taste really good. But you'll, what we've found in studies that we've done with people that have the The participants that were using metabolic balance for an eight week study is that, that they were actually craving like the healthier foods and that they were feeling more motivated, at the end of the study than they did even at the beginning, to move their body a little bit more and to exercise more.

19:49 So it was, there's a lot of things that come with GLP one, which is what. Semiglutide is, but like I said, with metabolic balance, it helps our body to produce its own GLP 1. So it's actually just supporting the body in its own natural function, and it just makes it so that we're a little bit better at it. The reason we don't produce enough GLP 1 on our own is because, GLP 1 happens when you, like, it gets produced when you are eating enough fiber and enough polyphenols, and it actually happens in the gut. But if you think about a lot of the like standard American diet, it's mostly processed food and what gets removed from processed food, it's the fiber and the polyphenols.

20:29 And so, of course, that's going to be not supporting the gut in its natural function of creating its own GLP 1. So that's what metabolic balance does. It has ingredients in there that help to support your body's natural, production of GLP 1. And does that, does that natural production of GLP 1 then increase the, the fat loss? Or like, what does that actually do? Like, then what, basically? Yeah. Well, what I was telling you is that in order for us to maintain, the muscle that is so precious, you need to make sure you're getting in enough protein. So that comes from the choices that you're making with your diet and your lifestyle. So yes, we already know that we need to move more and eat less and we need to strength train and we need to do, you know, eat enough protein and all of that in order to maintain, let me tell you this, So when we have this eight weeks.

21:21 study. We actually divided the groups into two groups. And one of the groups, I, encouraged them to just only use metabolic balance. Don't change anything about their lifestyle whatsoever. So if they were somebody that exercise great, but I just didn't want them to add anything or do anything different than they already were nothing to their diet or anything like that as well. And then we would do a questionnaire that would go out every single week. And then at the beginning. And at the end of the study, we did a DEXA scan so we could see. So we would see their full like body composition readouts and then we would, through these questionnaires kind of gather more data on their motivation levels, their energy levels, their moods, and so forth.

22:01 Okay. Now the other group, I didn't do anything extreme. I just encourage them to use metabolic balance. I encourage them to walk 10, 000 steps. I'm minimum every single day. I encourage them to strength train two times a week, and I just encourage them to eat more whole foods, and to focus on what I call PFC every three. And so it's having them make sure that they were having protein, a healthy fat and a complex carbohydrate and try to feed their bodies every three hours. Okay. So. So it wasn't anything that was like the strict, you know, protocol or anything that we're doing. I was just basically giving them the building blocks that help to support our body's natural metabolic functions, right? Those are all the things that those are all the things.

22:42 Those are all the things, but why do we do it, right? So at the end of the study, I'll just jump to that. Both groups ended up losing weight. Okay. Now the second group, the weight that they lost. Was fat loss. Majority of it. Obviously they had, they lost some muscle mass because that just comes with weight loss, but the majority of their weight loss came from fat. Now the first group, they had some fat loss, but they also had a lot of, fat loss as well. I mean, sorry, opposite of that. Sorry. They had more, they had more muscle mass loss than I would have liked. They did lose some fat, but they lost more muscle than I would have liked. Okay. Okay. Sorry, I made that a little confusing. I hope you followed along with that. So. The ones that didn't make lifestyle changes tended to lose more muscle than the group that were making the lifestyle changes as well.

23:30 Perfectly said. Thank you. So yes. And I know when I share that information, people are like, well, duh, of course, you know, that is going to happen because the one other groups eating healthier, they're moving more and you know, they're exercising, they're doing their strength training. Okay, but that's not actually what I was looking for. What I was looking for and comparing was their motivation levels. Okay, I wanted to see how both groups felt at the beginning of the study up until the end of the study. Okay, so I was looking at their motivation to move. I was looking at their motivation to make healthy choices. Okay, across the board, both groups. All reported that they felt more control that they felt like they were able to make healthier choices.

24:16 And then the biggest one that they were most surprised about is that even the group that didn't, I said, don't even worry about exercising. They all felt like they wanted to. And so at the end of the eight weeks, they were all moving more than at the beginning. Okay. So that is what metabolic balance is, is to help just give us that. Support that often is missing that sense of control that so many of us feel like we don't have and we're looking for it. And that's why we're looking for these prescription drugs, you know, because we're we're wanting the miracle pill or the magic bullet or whatever. That's going to help us to, to. Have the results of a healthy lifestyle, but that doesn't necessarily support us in the long run.

24:57 If we're doing it in that way, what we want to do is have the motivation, build the right, healthy habits that can then carry us on to have a long term, you know, health benefit and long life, you know, feeling strong and healthy and able to, to make good choices. And, and that's what it was doing and that's what it does. And so it's, like I said, it's not going to all of a sudden turn a switch and make it so that your body only burns fat. That's not necessarily going to happen, but it's going to help you so that you can make the right lifestyle choices so that your body then understands it's safe for me to burn fat instead of having to go after the nutrients that you're storing in your lean muscle mass. Because that's what happens.

25:38 A lot of times when we lose weight is we're taking in less nutrients. Our body goes looking for those nutrients and it goes straight to the muscle because that's the easiest place to get some of those nutrients that are missing to support its many functions. And so I hope that answered the question and made that a little bit clearer on how metabolic balance works. Yeah. That's really exciting. That study. It sounds like fascinating to just see the difference there. And especially when you're like, don't worry about it. Don't make any changes. But then they just like wanted to. And I think it's one of the things about exercise too. A lot of times people want to like. eat their exercise calories, you know, they're like, well, I burned 200 calories on the treadmill, so I should, you know, add that in.

26:21 But that's not really how, it's not really how exercise calories work. But what I find is it's less about Burning 200 calories and more about the motivation and the, uptick in mood that you get from exercise. And I feel like this sounds really similar. Like you're getting that uptick in mood that tends to say, you know, I think I'm going to choose this over that for lunch. And. You know, depending on the day, maybe that's a sandwich. Maybe it's a salad. Maybe, you know, who knows what that is for you, but it's just that choice where you're like, because of the uptick in mood, not necessarily because you burned calories. And that's why exercise and, and, diet sort of go hand in hand.

27:05 And it feels like this is just another tool to, to help with that. You're exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. So, I mean, it is all connected, you know, when you look at the calorie model, you know, calories in versus calories out. I know when I was first, you know, I, I've spent a lot of my career in the fitness world, my husband and I, you know, owned to fitness studios, personal training studios. and so that was something that we are very much a part of. And I went through a stage of my life where I was, I would consider myself an orthorexic because I became so obsessed with that calories and calories out equation. I, I wore halted devices and basically, you know, Every food choice I made, even if it was like out of a package that, you know, I could read how many calories were in it, that was how I was making my food choices.

27:53 Okay, so I was kind of overriding my body's natural cues. My body's natural built in system that is there. I was kind of overriding it. And I feel like that was something that a lot of people were doing. That was just kind of the way that was what we used to teach people right now. What I'm hoping is that more and more, more of us are becoming aware of how this really works. And. Yes, calories do play a part in it, but it matters more about the nutrients. It matters more about what you're putting into your body. And when you're giving your body the right nutrients, your appetite is gonna fill in control. Your moods are going to feel balanced. You're gonna have the energy to be able to get up and, and move and play and, and do expend more energy throughout the day.

28:37 your sleep is going to be deeper. Your body is going to not feel like it's in a, a chronic state of stress. when we're in that dieting kind of mindset and calorie restriction, again, we're kind of overriding. We're putting our body into this like fight or flight state, you know, 24 seven. And so when we're in that state, then our body, our metabolism will never function optimally. So my goal is to help provide, you know, some of the tools that can help support us as we are our own best health advocates, as we are making our best choices when it comes to healthy lifestyle and nutrition strategies. Yeah, so let's talk, let's get into a little bit of the perimenopause menopause transition and how that affects weight loss and, anything that we need to be doing differently in those times.

29:26 Yeah, I love that we're talking about this because I feel like this is something that can feel very empowering for women. I wish that there was more talk about this when I was going through, you know, some of these stages. So, what's interesting, if you don't know what perimenopause is, which I feel like most of us do now, but if you don't, it's just that transition stage right before you go into menopause, I often call it the reverse puberty stage of our life. And this is when Our bodies start to produce less and less of our sex hormones, specifically estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. perimenopause now can begin as early as age 35 for women. it can last up to 12 to 15 years for some, others. It may only be a couple of years, just depending on how well your body is functioning and your hormone system is functioning.

30:12 and so a lot of times it, let me ask you a question on that. So are we having the hormone decline for like, for those like maybe 10 or 15 years, but then it's, we're only symptomatic for some people, because this is what I feel like is happening for me is that all of a sudden I'm symptomatic. Yeah. And I'm like, well, the hormones didn't just decline last February all of a sudden. It's just like, it got to the point where I'm like, Oh, Yeah. I mean, it can't, it should be the ideal way that this should go is it should be a gradual decline. Okay. And when it is, when we're in perimenopause, the first hormone that starts to decline is progesterone. That's our hormone that supports fertility.

30:54 It's also our hormone that supports like calm, healthy moods, and it can play a big part in our like sleep as well as our, like, you know, Our metabolism. So that's the first one. And that's a lot of times when women start noticing their first symptoms, it's because their progesterone drops more than their, their estrogen. And so they become, progesterone deficient and they come into a state of what's known as estrogen dominance. but there, there are times and more and more of us are Are experiencing rapid declines. And a lot of times that is because of lifestyle. you know, I talked at the beginning of our episode about the three main root causes of hormone imbalance. So it was nutrient deficiency. but the second one is chronic stress.

31:34 Okay. So our body, you know, has, it knows how to always, you know, kind of try to adjust the thermostat depending on what our body is perceiving is going on around us. And if our body is sensing that we are under stress, then it. Goes to work because it knows that it is not a good time to bring a baby into this world. And honestly, that is what our body thinks is our only job is to bring these babies into the world, right? And so what it does to do us a favor is it turns down our progesterone production. Okay, because our adrenal glands, which is where we produce a lot of our progesterone also in our ovaries, but in the adrenal glands, we produce progesterone.

32:15 We also produce our stress hormone cortisol. So if we're chronically stressed, which is honestly most of us, we don't maybe even realize that we are as stressed as we are because there's a lot of things that can stress us, you know, all the blue Light exposure that we have with our devices, staying inside too much, not getting enough natural sunshine. you know, just lack of sleep. I mean, all of the things, poor diet, all of these things can cause chronic stress. it doesn't always just have to be you in a traffic jam is all I'm saying. Yeah. Well, and this happens at the time of life where a lot of us have teenagers and we're taking care of our older parents. I know. I, I hear you and you're right.

32:55 This is the time of life where I mean, it seems kind of unfair. Like we're being picked on a little bit here. You know, it's like we're raising teenagers. We're also taking care of aging parents. We're usually at the height of our careers. You know, it just seems like we're in charge of everything. We're running the world and it's true. It's true. So of course we're going to have stress, right? And there's no way for us to avoid stress. But what we need to do is to, Try to give our body as many and our brain, as many safety signals throughout the day and night as possible. So their body recognizes that we are not in a state of stress all the time. We can kind of have that surge of cortisol and adrenaline.

33:38 but then it should diminish and we should be able to then turn back on our progesterone production. and so anyhow, with all of that being said, that is often what is going on. Yeah. During this. And so that's why more and more women are experiencing these symptoms that are associated with perimenopause much younger because they are just, they are taking on more stress, you know, and during this phase of their life, plus a lot of people are not eating the most ideal diets. so they're not getting all of those nutrients that play such an important role in hormone balance. And a lot of us have, Compromise detoxification pathways. Our bodies are designed to know how to take all of the ick that, you know, we breathe in, we eat, we are exposed to and package it up into and send it out of our body and just get it out of our way.

34:28 But the problem is, is that We're just bombarded where we're, we're filling up our buckets a lot faster than it can drain. And so, these three things really are what causes us to either have, like to have really a miserable perimenopause and then a really miserable menopause as well. So, but there are a lot of things. That's why I love to, and, Talk to about this, because there's so many things that we can do to set ourselves up for success and to kind of overcome all of this, addressing those three main root causes is the key right there. but as we start going to bring this back into metabolism and weight loss, as we start going into these phases of life, our metabolism. Naturally starts to decline as well because these, hormones are dropping.

35:10 And so we need to be able to counteract that by, maybe doing a little less, high intensity cardio, because that is another driver of stress on our body. And like chromatic stresses can be really great. Like, Exercise is a good kind of stress, but when we're already like at a high state of stress, and our cortisol is already pumping through our body like crazy, and then we go do an hour long, like high fitness or high intensity exercise, you know, class, we are just Adding to like, we're adding fuel to that fire and it's not doing our hormones any good whatsoever. And it's actually going to be counterproductive when it comes to, helping our body feel safe enough to lose fat.

35:52 Our bodies will never choose fat as its first source of fuel if it feels like we are in danger. So it will go after the fast, fuel, which is glucose. And so, so that's something that you need to consider. And then obviously, so. Kind of cutting back on the cardio. I am like, if you haven't already been doing strength training, this is, you better start, you know, this is the time that you really need to start. Hopefully you're young and you're, you start these good habits, you know, really early, but if you haven't already, then. Start now. Weight training is going to be your very best friend. you know, you talked about earlier, like how the whole like obsession with the weight and stuff like that. I always tell people you want to weigh as much as you possibly can on the scale and then fit into the smallest clothes.

36:37 And not that I'm meaning you have to have the teeniest clothes, but that's, I don't want people to be scared about the scale numbers. and especially as we start to age, we want, we don't want to see that scale. Scale number go down because that could be indicating a lot of muscle and bone loss, right? So we want to make sure that we're protecting that, as much as possible. So, so yeah, these are the times eating more protein, strength training, and maybe taking it back a little bit when it comes to the cardio, fitness. Cardio exercise is important. Just the intensity is what we need to kind of back down on. because we still want to be doing, I'm sure you have a recommendation for like zone two cardio or lists that kind of low intensity, steady state cardio. How much of that do you encourage?

37:19 Yeah. You know, I feel like, just getting out and walking, especially if you can do it outside, even that's the best. Cause you're getting all of the benefits of being outside of that fresh air, and the sunshine and everything. but it's also like, if you're just in a casual pace, so that zone two, like you're talking about is where you're feeling like you're exerting yourself, but you could still hold a conversation. This is when our body is in an aerobic zone and our body in that aerobic zone is. if as long as it's in the right heart rate in that aerobic zone, your body is burning primarily fat for fuel. When we start going into those high intensity workouts, we start going into an anaerobic state, which is also great to strengthen too. But I'm just saying I was a cardio bunny. Like I was an endurance athlete and I just overdid it.

38:02 So I just, that's my best advice I can give, you know, girls that are. In their twenties and thirties is like, okay, just back down on that. Just chill out a little bit on the cardio, but yeah, trying to get in like a good, you know, 30 to 60 minute walk every single day. That is ideal. That 10, 000 steps a day. there's a lot of studies. I know that's just a random number that somebody made up at one point, but it, it works for the majority of us. And it's a good, goal for a lot of us to try to hit. I'm not against doing high intensity exercise. But I do think that it's not something that should be done every single day. And I do feel like you also, this is a whole other episode, but you, you need to learn a lot about, if you are in your fertile years and you're still, have menstrual cycles is to learn what phase of the month you're in.

38:46 So certain phases of your month. You're going to, your body's going to respond better to a high intensity workout than it does in others. So for instance, I'll just do a brief little explanation of what I'm talking about there. If you don't know. So we have four phases of our monthly cycle. We have our menstrual phase, which is the most, you know, we were familiar with that because there's the telltale sign of bleeding, right? But then you have the follicular phase and then you have the ovulatory phase and then you have the luteal phase. Okay. So if we just. Broke the month into like the first half of the month. And then the second half of the month, the first half would include the follicular and the ovulatory phase. Now, this is the time that your stress hormones are going to be a little bit lower, and this is the time that your body's starting to just rebuild some of that estrogen and that testosterone.

39:30 So your body's like. primed for this, for your body to get the results that you're working so hard for during those phases of life or of the month. And then as you start going to the second half of the month, that's when you go into that luteal and then into the menstrual phase. Well, that's when our progesterone peaks, but then it starts to Drip, to dip. And then also our estrogens already dipped. and our cortisol is already naturally a lot higher. So this isn't the time that you're going to want to do those types of cardio, exercise, because your body, it doesn't need the extra stress. So this is the time where you're going to just take it easy with those. Walks, maybe a little yoga, maybe Pilates, something that's a little less, high impact.

40:10 I noticed this with, like my energy levels in my strength workouts, because I am like In a sort of crazy perimenopause time. I, I am on hormone replacement therapy, but it's I don't know. I'm all over the place. I have like 17 day cycles. I have like 42 day cycles and we can't quite get, get it right. But, so I'm not ever sure where I am in my cycle, but some days I am. And when I'm lifting, I'm like, well, that's all I can do. Like, that's it. And I'm like, and that's okay. And then this morning I was like, that was the best lifting workout I have had in weeks. I'm like, I hit this on just the right day of like, seriously, I was like, this is just the right day of my cycle for a lifting workout because that felt good.

40:54 I felt strong and I was looking in the mirror. I was like, Oh, looking kind of swole. Like what's going on? Like it was all the good things. Right. And so even if you're not tracking, you can, or if you don't know, like if your cycles are crazy, like mine, you can just pay attention. And it's okay. If you just like scale back, like that's just not what my body needs today. That's okay. Yeah, please. Let's give everybody, all of us the permission to listen to our bodies. I think that, I mean, that's kind of the overall theme. I think of everything I'm trying to share with you guys on this episode is that let's work with our bodies. And I think for too long, the diet culture has encouraged us to.

41:36 Ignore our natural cues. And, you know, it makes so much sense, Lisa, when you're going to have one week where you're feeling like you're crushing your workout, and then the next week you might do the same workout. And then it feels like you're exhausted and you need a nap, you know, for the rest of the day. That is because. Yeah. Your body's trying to communicate with you. And so, yeah, if you aren't somebody that has, you know, a 28 day cycle that, you know, exactly what day of the month it is every day, you know, and you're completely in tune with all of that, then it's okay. You are, you can become in tune with it when you just start listening to your body and start understanding what it is that your body is trying to tell you. And then give your permission, yourself permission to slow down.

42:18 Now, the reason I say that is because for many, many years, I was the girl who was like, Go big or go home. Right? Like I am tired, but that just means I need to push harder because I was, I was looking at it like I was lazy or that I was weak or I was, you know, something like that. Instead of realizing, no, my body's trying to protect me. My body is trying to support my efforts. Your body does want to work with you. Your body wants you to be at a healthy weight. Your body wants you to feel energy. Your body wants you to have an incredible libido. Your body wants you to. Sleep like a baby every single night. if we can start working with our bodies and being more in tune with the cues that it's giving us, whether that's with our appetite or whether that's with our bodies, you know, energy moves, then we will, we're going to feel amazing through every phase of our life.

43:10 I think when I learned how to pay attention to my hunger scale, which is a core principle I teach on this podcast. So. You should all know. When I stopped tracking my calories in an app and, and looking at my app to see if I should eat more, and I started really being like, I don't know, how am I feeling? That was the first step for me into all of this. When I just was like, I guess I could just decide when I'm hungry. I could just decide that I don't have to like set a timer or ask my app or, you know, stand in front of the refrigerator eating lunch meat because I'm low on my protein macro for the day. Like, I relate so much.

43:51 Yes. Yes. Right. yeah. I'd so I just, I'm, I'm surprised at how that has extrapolated to so many more areas of my body of just being like, I can just decide how much to eat and when to stop. And It, it does make a big difference when you start to say, Hey, body, what do you think? It does. It does. And your body is just so grateful that you're like, finally, finally listening to it. It wants to work with you. I love that Lisa. That's so motivating and so inspiring. And I know it can feel very scary when you first start to enter into that area where you like, Kind of let go of control. It feels like you're letting go of control, but truly it's you're empowering yourself.

44:36 You really are. You're, you're trusting yourself and there's nothing that feels better than that. And it is amazing. I know any client that I worked with that was courageous enough to like follow what I was trying to teach them and, and learning how to have maybe that more food freedom and just, being. In tune with their natural instincts at first, it felt terrifying, but they were so grateful afterwards because they felt like they could, you know, like they'd get a good workout in. They'd feel great. They'd get all those happy endorphins that come from that great workout, but then they felt like they had energy to show up for their kids. And they're so Um, and that's what it's all about.

45:17 Why, why do we want to, you know, go through life feeling exhausted and miserable and grumpy all the time? Like if just to fit in a certain size clothes, like I just, it's not, it's, it's backwards and I'm hoping that we're changing that whole culture and that we're becoming much wiser than we have been in the past. Yeah, I totally agree. Well said. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. Is there any, anywhere you want to send people? Obviously the MixHer site. And I will say, let me interject here that I did get a discount code. So I will put that code if you want to try Metabolic Balance. I'll tell you that my, one of my favorite things to drink is the greens.

46:00 I really love the mango greens mixed with the tropical. Help me out. Tropical something. Boost. It's Oh, boost. Yep. Her boost. Yep. The herb is tropical zinc. Yeah. So that makes a really good combination. I really like that. And I find the greens really help keep me regular. And it's just that extra insurance of, you know, I just don't need enough greens in the day. I just don't. don't. We all have great intentions, right? But that's what it's all about. Supplements are just supposed to supplement your already healthy diet. And we love making it easy and fun and enjoyable. And we know that. And so like, if we can give you the right nutrients in a fun drink that tastes delicious, that you're looking forward to every single day, it can do your body all the good that you're wanting it to do.

46:47 Plus, it's just really good for us emotionally too. Cause you know, we, we often have emotional To our drinks, right? And so it just gives you a better option there, but I'm glad that you love those. we have a whole line of really great products. We try to be, you know, supporting you in all areas of your health. So yeah, go to MixHers, M I X H E R S it's mix hers. com. You can go and look at some of the products that we have there. I am. All for anybody asking any questions that they have. you can reach me on my Instagram. My personal Instagram is Cody Jean Sanders. and a lot of people will DM me. So whether it's questions about what product they should, use, or if it's questions about their hormones, I always try to do my best to be able to answer and point you in the right direction.

47:31 At least, I also have a weekly podcast that goes out every single week called the it's her time podcast. And this is where we go into all the things, you know, Concerning our health and our happiness, specifically about hormones as well, but it, it allows me to do more of a deep dive into some of these questions like perimenopause, menopause, all of the things that we, you know, we want to know more about, and we just haven't always known so that we can, again, be our best, health advocates. So I'd love to connect with you there and, and hope that, you know, I'll hear from some of you. Great. Thank you again. Thank you. If this episode has helped you in any way, all I ask is for you to share it, share it with a friend or share it on your social media tag, me and tag Cody here to.

48:13 I always get comments when I chat with new clients about how useful the free content is that I put out here on the podcast, but how it's totally different. When I'm applying it directly to them, I actually had a recent client say, I listened to so many podcasts, but coaching is like, literally, this is how you do it. The fact that it is being spoken directly to me, made me apply it better. So I thought that was interesting. And if you are looking for that extra bit of personalized help, be sure to schedule your free food planning session with me and see how much you can benefit link for that is in the show notes. Have a great week and as always, thanks for listening to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well Podcast