Hormones Under Pressure

You can look “fine” and still be running on empty and your body will keep sending signals until you finally listen. I sit down with Dr. Alicia Newsome, physician, speaker, and women’s health advocate, to talk about what’s really happening when high-achieving women feel exhausted, overwhelmed, moody, and disconnected from their bodies, especially as hormones start shifting in perimenopause. 

We dig into functional medicine and why it focuses on root causes instead of quick fixes. Dr. Newsome explains her “test, don’t guess” approach, including advanced labs that look at how your body is functioning, from cortisol patterns and stress hormones to nutrient status and gut health. We also unpack the cycle basics many of us were never taught and why painful periods, crushing fatigue, and extreme PMS may be common but not normal. Her check engine light analogy makes it clear: covering symptoms without asking “why” only delays the breakdown. 

We also get practical. We talk savory breakfast and protein for steadier glucose and energy, small daily movement that improves insulin sensitivity, and why maintaining muscle matters as we age. Dr. Newsome shares simple stress resilience habits you can actually do with a full life, plus a smarter view of detoxification and everyday toxin exposure.

Finally, she connects health to leadership through her integrated framework of business, body, and belief and gives a preview of her book "Worthy of Rest: For the Woman Tired of Being the Strong One."

If you’ve been told your labs are “fine” but you don’t feel fine, this conversation will give you language, next steps, and hope. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest signal your body has been sending you lately.

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Everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors!

Music by Deli Rowe: "Space to Move"
Logo by Kaylin Talley

Transcript

Who This Conversation Is For

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today's episode is for the woman who looks like she has it all together on the outside, but on the inside, she's exhausted, overwhelmed, and wondering why her body just won't cooperate. I'm joined by Dr. Alicia Newsome, a doctor, a speaker, an author, and an advocate for women who are done settling for surface level answers when it comes to their health. Through her own journey of burnout, health struggles, and rebuilding her life, she's become a powerful voice helping women uncover the root causes behind what they've been told is quote unquote normal, but isn't. In this conversation, we're getting real about hormones, stress, high performance burnout, and what it actually looks like to become powerful in your body again. Because let's be honest, too many women are surviving instead of thriving and calling it success. If you've ever felt dismissed, disconnected from your body, or like you're running on empty, trying to keep up with your life, this episode is going to speak directly to you. Let's get into it. Hi, I am your host, Leonette Talley, and you are listening to Virago 24-7. Virago is Latin for female warrior, and 24-7 is for all day, every day. Virago 24-7 is a weekly podcast that brings diverse women together to talk about life and our experiences in this world, which share our views on self-love, mental health, marriage, children, friendships, and really anything that needs to be talked about. Here you will find everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors. We've got this.

Burnout Sparks A New Path

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Well, today, guys, we have Dr. Alicia Newsome. And man, I was reading a lot about you. There's you're you're a doctor, obviously. Uh, an international speaker. You are a best-selling author. You are an advocate for women, you're a trainer, you're a coach. I read all these things. And so welcome. I can't wait to get into it and see like what knowledge you can give us today.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Thank you. I'm just a regular person.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Really? Nah, you have a lot of titles. You have a lot of titles. So, what um let's start with the the your medical background. Let's start with why you got into medicine. I was reading, I think you have um, well, no, you do have a YouTube um on your website that I listened to, and it kind of gives your background and your history with your medical issues. So let's um start there.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Okay. Well, my journey into really functional medicine, because that's where it really took the turn, was when my my kids were both in diapers. I had a two and a three-year-old, and I was exhausted all the time. I had just had, you know, two babies back to back, and I was leaving a very volatile marriage. So I was just stressed out. I was seeing patients and private practice, and I would go to work all day, come home, you know, pick the kids up from daycare, feed them, and want to get them in bed so I could go to sleep. Like mama needed to go to sleep. And on the weekends, I may head to a friend's house, but as soon as I sat down on the couch, I would fall asleep. I ended up meeting a functional medicine doctor who ran some advanced lab tests on me to help figure out what was going on with me because I had low energy. I had like this neck pain, back pain, I had irregular periods, like all types of different kinds of like issues going on. And ended up finding out what was going on with me and was able to reverse everything, all without drugs or surgery. And I was able to get my energy back, my menstrual cycles regulated. But more importantly, I got my life back. You know, it was it's hard when you don't have energy to get through the day, or it's two o'clock and you're like, I gotta get some coffee, you know, Starbucks run, all of those different types of things. So it was really impacting me on like being a good mom, being a good friend, progressing in my career, all the things. So that's where my career changed, where I started doing things more from a functional medicine standpoint. And then at that time, I also, because you know, us as entrepreneurs, we're always doing a lot, um, I launched another business where I was doing consulting work in the pharmaceutical industry. So the areas that I worked in were fibroids, endometriosis, women's health, um, infectious disease. And I did that for many, many years. And I had always told myself, well, once I like get myself together, um, I'm going to go back and open up another practice doing functional medicine. And I launched this practice five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

So I've never heard of functional medicine. What does that mean exactly?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah.

What Functional Medicine Really Means

SPEAKER_00 5:47

So functional medicine, think about it this way: if you get a headache, and let's say you take some Tylenol or Advil or Motron, whatever your favorite thing is to take, you take that and your headache goes away most times, unless there's other things going on. Your headache goes away. Your headache did not go away because you had a Tylenol deficiency. It's not because your body was lacking that. So in functional medicine, what we do is we look underneath the surface to see like what's really going on, what's causing the headache or the brain fog or the low energy or issues with your period. And we resolve those issues without drugs or surgery.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

What did you do that was helpful for you? Like what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah. So I'm a big advocate of tests. Don't guess. There's a lot of advanced testing out there to find out exactly what's going on inside of your body. Now, this is not going to be the traditional testing that you get from your medical provider during a wellness visit or anything like that. Usually insurance does not cover, not usually, insurance does not cover these types of tests. Um, it's just a totally different model of care that insurance is not a part of. So we ran advanced lab testing on me looking cortisol was one of my main issues. So that's the stress hormones. Um, but we looked at them throughout the day and we looked at them in the urine. You can look at them in the urine or the saliva. If you look at them in the blood, typically they're looking more for like pathology, like uh autoimmune Addison's Cushing's disease, things like that. But when you're looking at it in either the urine or saliva, you're looking at it more from like how are you functioning? So think functional medicine, like how is your body functioning? So I did those types of testing. That was a major game changer for me. And there's other types of testing women can do. You can do testing to on your gut to see how well you're digesting your food. So imagine eating this healthy, amazing diet, but then your food, your body isn't actually absorbing those nutrients. We can check and see what's going on there. Or some women may have an overgrowth of candida or some type of fungus or bacteria in their gut. We can see all of that. Instead of guessing what type of probiotics you should have, we can see what strains you're actually low in. Uh, we can do nutrient testings where we're looking at like all of your vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antioxidants. So there's a lot. The thing is in uh functional medicine is that we can test for days. Yeah. Uh so what I try to do with my clients is we we just test like what's specifically needed. And I do that through my intake forms and looking at your health history and everything like that. So in functional medicine, there's lots and lots that we can look at genetics, all types of lifestyle things.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

So then if we're not prescribing, being prescribed like medication, so is it like in

Test Don’t Guess With Labs

SPEAKER_01 8:44

our food, the the way we eat? Like what are the changes that once we find out, okay, this is what the issue is, what's the next step? Like what treatment?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

A plan would include targeted supplementation. So instead of like guessing, like, should I be taking magnesium or omegas or ashwagandha, we're able to create very targeted protocols for you. So you're taking exactly what your body needs of supplements. It includes nutrition of what you need to be eating, maybe some things that you need to avoid. There, um, exercise, what kind of exercise you need to be doing, because not it, not everything's for everyone. Some things could be working against your body and your hormones, depending on what's going on with you. And then the other things would be like lifestyle management. I do a lot around stress resiliency because life is gonna life, right? There's there's gonna be arguments with the spouse, there's going to be stress at work, there's gonna be financial things, kids are gonna be kids, you know, whatever it is, uh, your flavor of stress, maybe all of them and sometimes maybe all of them at the same time. But what I do is I help clients improve their stress resiliency. So, what that means is let's say that you're going by water rafting and you're like going down the river, right? And the riverbank's like this wide, and you're like bumping up against the the sides, right? You don't want that. But that's what can happen with stress, right? It's just like everything's hitting you. So, what I do is I help women increase their zone of resiliency so we widen it. So when life still does what it's gonna do, you're able to ebb and flow through that better. And it doesn't impact your health and your hormones as much.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Nice. Did you have to like go back to school to learn that part of things?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

The functional combination of things because I have certifications on top of certifications. Um, but yes, functional medicine, learning like all the science, everything going on with the body holistically, and all the different types of treatments and interventions we can do. And then the stress part is really a component that I have developed over the years, a framework for through other coaching modalities too. So I've done just a lot of work. Like when I went through my divorce, I did something called conscious uncoupling. And it looks at like, how did I co-create this toxic dynamic? You know, or how am I showing up um in this relationship and does a lot of things to like heal things from the past because sometimes we may be wounded and then we choose partners from that wounded place. So I've done that certification and other things that are very similar as well. So I've combined that work with what I do now.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

That's awesome. Yeah, I was gonna that was my question. What with all the things that happened to you, what like what was it where you're like, I gotta change? Like something has to give, because I feel like we all get to a point where some people don't listen to that little voice, but some of most of us are like, all right, something has to change. So what did that look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

I feel like I've had that happen a couple of times in life. You know, we get a little hard-headed and then, you know, there's like, whoo, okay, I need to change some things. I would say my initial one was when I went through my divorce, though. That was very painful. It was very, it just impacted me in so many different ways. But it was also the biggest healing experience of my life. I got to heal from just a lot of things from my childhood and past and past relationships. Um, so it became an empowering experience for me with that. So I think a lot of the work that I did with just healing myself and my body and my heart, like all of that came from it helped propel me into all of that. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

It's interesting how sometimes the dark, like, not sometimes, most times our darkest moments, we think, wow, this is the end. How are we gonna come back from that? And man, we just blossom into something so different. And I love, I love to hear stuff like that. I really do. I wanted to know, like, how do we how do we find a functional doctor? Like, am I saying that right? I've never heard that word before. So I'm like it's okay. Function functional medicine. Functional medicine. Yeah, how do we find that? And then how do we know that that's the right move for us versus like traditional medicine?

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Well, you can find a functional medicine doctor just like Google, you know, that's that's always a good place. A lot of us, like myself, I work virtually, so I work with women all over the country, really all over the world. I have clients in the UK, clients in Uganda. So one good thing about COVID was it created this kind of virtual space that exists now. So a lot of us, we we see work with people all over. Um and then how do you know if it's the right fit for you? So if you're like, I don't want to do things, I want to do things without drugs or surgery. I want to take a natural approach to healing my body. And there's always, there's definitely a a place for that, right? If I'm having, you know, some type of emergency situation, I broke my leg, I got in a car accident, I'm having a heart attack. Like, I want medicine, right? I'm in extreme pain. I want medicine. Uh, those those things can be very life-saving. But when it comes to the day-to-day of our health and then optimizing our health, we have to step out of the traditional conventional medical medical system to really get the the help that we need. It's it's the other system's just not set up for that.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Um, I mean, I'm 46 and I feel like I'm not really educated when it comes to like menopause or I know you said

Perimenopause Basics And What’s Normal

SPEAKER_01 14:52

hormones is like a big thing for you that you like to talk about. I know nothing about any of that. Like, let's talk about that because I want to learn about what to like what do I need to pay attention to as I'm getting older?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I think one thing to really pay attention to is all the things that pop up that get normalized. Okay. So as we're moving through perimenopause, one, our generation and generations before us were never even educated about our menstrual cycle in general, right? That our first day of our menstrual cycles is red blood, you know, not brown, not pink, not spotting, like it's bright red blood. And it should last anywhere from three to seven days, around five days. And then from there, we go through what's called a follicular phase where our body is starting to say, okay, we're gonna produce an egg here for you in case you're wanting to get pregnant or not. Um, but during that time, estrogen's going up, and then we ovulate. And those are the times of the month when we are most outgoing. It's estrogen's great, like our skin is glowing. Um, the right and left side of our brain is communicating uh more effectively during that time. It's a great time to be social. Presentations, all of those different types of things. And then estrogen goes down, and then progesterone comes up, and then it stays up until our period comes again. It drops uh right before it drops, and then our we begin to bleed. And that progesterone is there, it's very calming, it's uh natural, it's the body's natural volume, it's anti-anxiety, it's calming, it's relaxing. When both of those hormones are just doing their thing and they're in play, typically it we feel good. And it's normal to feel good throughout the month. We have normalized having like painful periods and cramping and tender breast and PMS, like we're moody. I used to be incredibly moody that week leading up to my period, and I would feel depressed, I wouldn't feel like myself, I wouldn't like myself, my kids, my husband, my wife, any of that. And it was it's pretty much like normalized, like, well, it's just PMS, right? I should feel tired and crying and wanting to eat everything and all of those things, right? It's common, it's not normal. When those hormones are unbalanced, you feel you feel really good, right? Now, take a woman who has been living a life where periods have not been good, she gets moody before her cycle comes, fatigue, all of that, and then go through perimenopause where those hormones start to decrease. They're not going up every month like they used to. It can be complete hormonal chaos. It can feel like you are losing your mind. The highest rate of suicide for women is ages 40 to 60. And I think it's because it is a time in the in our lives where it's like you feel like I'm going mad, right? Like I'm losing, I could be losing my mind, or if you're dealing with depression, like think about just compounding issues now all happening as your hormones are changing.

The Check Engine Light Analogy

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Let me give you an example of check engine light goes off in your car. Driving down the road, you're like, okay, I gotta take my car over to the mechanic. You head to the mechanic, you get there, you let the mechanic know my check engine light came on last week. I've been hearing a little rattling noise in my car. And, you know, I don't know what's going on. He's taking notes, writing everything down, and then he says, All right, ma'am, well, that's all you have to do is take this sticker and put this sticker right over that check engine light. You don't have to worry about it all. That would be crazy, right? We would not allow a mechanic to do that. That check engine light came on to let me know there's something going on with my car, right? He needs to open up the hood, run the run some diagnostic test, see what's going on with my car, right? But we do that with our bodies, and we do that before we get to perimenopause a lot of times, especially high-achieving women. We like go, go, go, go, go. So imagine a life where it's like you got low energy, 2 p.m. hits, you're you're dragging through the through the day, you've got moodiness and you're snapping off at you know your kids and all of this stuff. That's the check engine light going off. Wow. Okay. That's a great analogy. And it and it's letting us know you got to take care of this now. So imagine if you left that mechanic, you said, he gave me my sticker, put it right over there, and you just kept driving that car. It's it's gonna break down, you know, there's gonna be more issues that are created. And that's what's happening right now with perimenopause. I think our generation, we are generation like pushed through. A lot of us are the among the first to like go to college and get, you know, just like move into corporate spaces and do all of these different things where maybe our mothers and grandmothers did not, right? So we we just have a different level of compounding stress that we have experienced in our lives, along with not being educated all while growing up about anything about our menstrual cycles, when we ovulate, you know, what's going on with our cervical fluid, you know, like we we're like, we're just it's something we didn't talk about, right? And then we enter perimenopause. The thing is right now, and I'm not completely against it, but HRT is like being passed out like candy, right? You can you, it's pretty much like meals. You can go into them, say, you know, give me some hormones, right? A lot of times they're not even looking at your hormones properly, and they're putting women on estrogen or testosterone and all of these different types of things. And maybe I'm on the other side of things where I see women after the fact that are now looking for more natural approaches and the horror, horror stories I hear about it, right? Um, that can also be band-aids, right? It can still be just covering up the symptoms because there may be other reasons going on behind why you might be, you know, extremely tired or can't sleep at night and all of these things. The other thing is that with my clients and women in general, is that our bodies, when you know, I have daughters who are 13 and 14 years old, they have their cycles now, but a few years back they did not. I was not freaking out, and no one in society was freaking out saying they need estrogen, you know, like we've got to get these girls some estrogen, right? It is natural that our that we go through these seasons in life, and there's a big chunk of our lives where we have menstrual cycles, we're able to produce babies, and then those hormones go down and we're in menopause.

Stressors That Hijack Hormones

SPEAKER_00 21:50

The thing is, is that our bodies have been under so much stress that there's something called I the cortisol um stress hormone. That's produced by our adrenal glands. And stress can come in different forms. It can come from toxins that can be biotoxins, living things like mold, fungus, parasites, candida, uh, bacteria, viruses, all of these things. And then there can be external toxins that can be things in the environment, pesticides sprayed on your food, things in your drinking water, um, products that you're putting on your skin, medications have toxic side effects, radiation, EMFs, all of those different types of things that's stressful on the body. Then there's deficiencies. You could have nutrient deficiencies, not getting enough your vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antioxidants. You need a certain amount of protein, good fats, very important. That deficiency on the body is stressful. Gut issues. You could have gut issues going on where you have an overgrowth of bacteria, or you, you know, you have candida, or you're not even you're eating healthy food, but you're not digesting that food that's stressful on the body. Also, the gut is called the second brain because it has 10 times the amount of nerves going from the gut to your brain, then your brain going all the way out or your entire peripheral nervous system. So what's going on in your gut really affects your mood and your focus, all of those different types of things. And then also sleep, not getting enough sleep can be very stressful in the body. You might not be getting enough street sleep because there's something going on with your hormones, right? My point is all of these things are stressors on the body. And our bodies were designed to deal with stress in just a short period of time. So think that if there was a bear coming after you, you're either gonna fight or flight. So fight or run away. Uh, we're gonna just eliminate the bear, fight them, get rid of the bear, or run away. The bear is no longer in our presence. Our bodies can relax and go into what's called parasympathetic activity. But now we're in these states where there's no bear running after us, right? And there's constant mental emotional stress, but then there's these underliers, underlying stressors as well going on inside of our body. So our body is under this constant state of stress and it's producing cortisol, the stress hormone. When you go through perimenopause, typically your ovaries stop producing hormones like the estrogen and progesterone, testosterone, but then your adrenal glands they do pick up. So women, even in post, you know, postmenopausal should have adequate amounts of uh those sex hormones during that period of their time, of that period of life, but not if they've been under constant stress because the body's been prioritizing cortisol. So I say all that to say, you know, when right now we're in our 40s, I believe a lot of your listeners are around our age too. It's really important to start addressing these issues now, the other types of stressors going on so that as we're moving through perimenopause and into menopause, it's a much easier transition.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

I like that because someone actually asked me recently about hormones, and I'm like, I don't know. I've never even I had known nothing about it. And yeah, and it's good to know that that's not the only option. Like if I go to a doctor and they suggest that it's like there's uh might be other things. That's actually really good to know because I have no clue. I'm just like, I'm just gonna let my body tell me what to do. I'm like, I just, I just, I don't know. Um good to listen to our body. Yeah,

Simple Daily Stress Resets

SPEAKER_01 25:41

yeah. Um when it comes to stress, um, like what do you tell your patients? Like how, because we can't prevent things happening. What do you tell your patients like how to handle to prevent stress overcoming us and taking, you know, taking over our body and our mind and and and our life? Because a lot of us just think stress is normal. And I don't feel like it's a normal thing that we should be living with.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

No, not at all. That's how come when it comes to things like heart attacks, the first sign of the heart attack, 50% of the time is the heart attack. The other 50% of the time, there's those beginnings that check engine light going off, early signs and symptoms. But we in no way, shape, or form were created to deal with this level of stress. So there's a few things that we can do. I'm always an advocate of, you know, test on guess, find out what's going on. And there's very targeted supplementation that can help with like who-sah, you know, but you know that you're you're taking the right thing that's supporting those adrenal glands, um, those stress hormones and helping to reset everything. There's also just simple practices that we can do. And with my clients, all my clients are like high achieving go-getter women, right? Not a lot of time in the day. And if we take just a couple minutes in the morning, I recommend two things to do in the morning. One, you write out just two goals for the day. Like, what are the two main things I'm gonna get done today, or in the future, you know, so that your mind is focused forward on like where I'm headed. And then the other thing is gratitude. There's all types of research on gratitude and what it does to our brains and our bodies, how it reprograms us, how it's so good for us. And what I recommend is that you write down five things that you're grateful for, but as you're writing them, you really feel them. Okay. You like embody the experience of literally being grateful for them in the moment. So, for example, my son, I can think about how grateful I am for like his little hugs and kisses, right? And as I'm writing that, like, really like, mm, you know, like I love that, you know, and and think about those things, it really shifts the mood and it also creates physiological changes in our body, bringing us into that parasympathetic nerve or parasympathetic state. I also recommend before you go to bed, you do a brain dump. And when I say brain dump and I say to my clients, just take do it for one minute, right? Just one minute. And it's kind of like that whole concept of telling yourself to go to the gym. Like, I'm gonna go to the gym for and I'm gonna go in for five minutes, right? And then once you get there, you're like, okay, I can do this, right? So brain dump for just one minute in the evening. The goal is five, and just write down everything that's on your mind, everything that's bothering you, every your to-do list for tomorrow, all of that, because it gets it out of your mind and onto that paper so that you can rest well. And then the other thing that you can do in the evening, which I love, is binaural beats. And you listen to them with headphones. So you have to have both in because they have different frequencies that they play in both ears, and then the brain like makes it all come together as one, but it puts your um puts your brain into a state that's more relaxing, um, more relaxing so that you're able to go to sleep. And the last thing that I recommend is our bodies, that fight or flight state of just like, you know, feeling like we we've literally got to fight or run away. We we we have to sometimes embody practices that allow our bodies to get that energy out, to allow our that safety to come in. And there's just different things that you can do. Like you can do that's very practical. Some people will do like trimmers where they like have their legs like relax and then let them like shake a little bit that allows like energy to go out. You could do like wall squats. That would be something that like helps get energy out. Exercise, running, those different types of things. But we've got to allow the the stored up kind of like energy and stress to be able to move out through through our body.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

I like it. I like the the dump, the dumping, because there's times I don't do it at night, but there's times where yeah, where you're just like, I have to write it down and and and then it's gone. But I'm gonna start doing the night thing. I normally do it when I'm just like, okay, I gotta get my calendar out because I'm old school. I don't put everything on my phone. I have my my paper

What’s Broken In Health Care

SPEAKER_01 30:30

calendar. Um, so I'm gonna start doing that one. I like that. I like that. What do you think? Um, I mean, I don't want to dump on the medic medical world, but what do you think is lacking or needing to change? Or are we kind of stuck back in the you know, Middle Ages? Like what is it about medicine that we should start maybe shifting the way we look at it?

SPEAKER_00 30:59

You know, it's kind of like trying to put that square pig into a round hole. You know, it's like we just we have to step out of it and do something different. It's a lot of times we say that it's a system that's broken, but it's really a system that works really well for those that profit off from people staying sick and without knowledge. And that's not against like doctors or anything like that, like who practice conventional medicine, but it's it's the system. You know, the United States is only one of two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to their consumers. Other countries you have to like go to your doctor and tell them what's going on, and the doctor should like think about what they, you know, you don't just walk in and be like, I saw this on TV and I can I try that? Can I try that one? You know, and we also I we make up less than 4% of the population of the world, but we take over 65% of the medications. Wow, you know, so and there's a lot, there's a lot of profit in there. I I have a massive career in pharmaceutical research, and there's a lot of amazing things out there, but it is a for-profit system. It's it's not, you know, same thing with insurance companies is for profit. They're not they're not nonprofits. And so so there's that part. And then also when it comes to conventional medicine, we're trained to diagnose a disease. So we got to wait till it gets really, really bad. So when it comes to something like diabetes, just looking at A1C or glucose lets you know, like once you're diabetic or pre-diabetic, right? But we could be looking at fasting insulin that's letting us know how hard your pancreas is working. So your glucose numbers could be normal. So let's say glucose goes up, insulin's got to come out and it's got to lower it. Glucose goes up, got to come out and lower it. And glucose goes up from you know, sugar, carbs, stress, those different types of things can cause glucose to go up. Insulin's got to come out and lower it. Insulin's a fat-storing hormone, too. So when it's out a whole lot, it makes it very difficult to lose weight. But here's the thing is that if we look at fasting insulin, your glucose numbers could be great. You're like, my fasting glucose is 86, you know, but it took a whole lot of insulin to get that number down. We know that you're on the verge of uh diabetes when we look at those numbers being pre-diabetic. And the crazy part is that the CDC stats, we know that 88 million Americans, that's one in three American adults, are pre-diabetic, and 84% of them don't even know it. Like that's knowledge that like the CDC knows. Like, we know this amount of people don't even know that they're pre-diabetic. Wow. So it's it's just not a system to have you set up to win. And like myself, I went, you know, studied functional medicine, got additional certifications, all of these different types of things. When you go to your PCP, even if they want to help you in this way, they don't have the training to be able to do it. And they also insurance doesn't cover it. So a lot of times they're stuck in like an insurance model, and that's the way their practice runs. And then also, even if they did, they don't have the time to be able to sit and understand all these lifestyles, um, issues, and stressors and things going on in your life. So with me, my clients typically, there's actually two ways. So, uh, which I'm moving away from because I find it benefits myself and my clients more, is my consultations are like 90 minutes, right? There's a lot to learn and uncover with what's going on inside your body. I have intake forms that when you complete them, you're you're like, no one's ever asked me any of these questions before about my health or my lifestyle and my body. Um, so it takes time to do these things. And now I have it where my clients, you're just put into a private portal with me and you fill out your forms when it works for you. Cause how many people need an extra meeting on their calendar?

unknown 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

No one, no one needs another meeting. So I realize that um with myself and my clients. So now you just get put into a private portal with me. You fill out all of your forms, they're extremely comprehensive. I follow up, like if I have any follow-up questions, and then I put your plan together for you, like your action plan of exactly what you need to do. And I find that works so much better than even being like, okay, let's schedule a meeting, you know, do all of these different types of things. But all of that takes time and it takes a different, um, different type of training to be able to do that. So we'd have to completely revamp our entire medical system to have it be that way.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

That really, that's really something. Yeah, last year I my my glucose was high, my cholesterol was high, and I'm like, I don't want to be on medication. I don't want to do any of that stuff. So, and I work out too. That's the thing. Like, I I work out, I'm active. So it's just it gets frustrating when your body isn't doing like you think you're doing the right things outside of it, and then your body's telling

Cholesterol Numbers Explained Simply

SPEAKER_01 36:17

you different. So this is this is this is good information.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Um Can I say something about cholesterol really quick? So, with cholesterol, because cholesterol gets a really bad rap, but our bodies actually need cholesterol for building hormones. It's a precursor to all of our hormones. And many decades ago, before the the statin drugs came out, which are cholesterol-lowering medications, your cholesterol could be 280 and a doctor wouldn't bleak an eye at it. But once those medications came on the market, that number kept going lower and lower and lower because now if if you're over 200, they're like, you need to go on statins, right? But here's the thing is that when you're looking at cholesterol and also cholesterol medications, there's tons of research on this. It doesn't, it doesn't reduce your chance of mortality either. Like people die at the same rates of whether or not they're on these medications or not. Statin drugs do an excellent job of lowering LDLs. Okay. Excellent job. So it does what it what it's supposed to do, but does that matter as far as whether or not you're, you know, your overall heart disease and life? Here's the thing is that when it comes to HDLs and LDLs, so HDLs are like your good cholesterol, LDLs are your bad cholesterol. Think about LDLs as fire trucks leaving the fire station going to put out fires in your in your body, right? Like they're going to put out inflammation in different places. And then, and then HDLs are the fire trucks coming back to the fire station. So we want to look at when I'm looking at someone and they have really high LDLs and then low HDLs, which is the good cholesterol, I'm saying, okay, why are there so many fire trucks leaving the fire station and not coming back? So we want to deal with the root cause of why there's so much inflammation in the body, right? And then also we can look at something that are called lipoproteins that really look at the LDLs and see which ones are actually high. And there are dangerous LDLs. There's there's little ones that are like little BBs, think of them like little BBs or marbles that when they bounce around inside your arteries, they're hard, they're dense, they create damage. And then there's big fluffy ones that are like beach balls that just kind of like bounce off your wall. So not all LDLs are actually dangerous either. So we're able to look at that in functional medicine. These are more extensive blood work that we find uh we look at. And then we look at other inflammatory markers too.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

I man, this is I wish because like no one even explained that. I had to Google everything. I'm like, what do these numbers mean? And why that's frustrating because you're explaining it and I understand it. All they say is like they call you up and they're like, hey, it's high, don't eat sugar, no alcohol. Like it's just like I'll do my best. I'll do my best. That's pretty much oh, and then take uh fish oil pills. So I went into the CVS and got my fish oils, and I'm like, well, I love I love my wine, and I can't stop that completely. So it's just it's frustrating. And then my father, he had a heart attack at a young age in his 30s, and then it it ultimately that's what what killed him was his heart. And so I take that stuff seriously. He was 52, so young. And so anytime it comes to like cholesterol and high blood pressure and all of that, it freaks me out because I've seen in my family like what that looks like. So I love that you're saying that it's not all the numbers don't always mean what they what they are telling us they mean. I I thank you, thank you. Dang, are there more of you out there like that? We need more of you because you're explaining it beautifully.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

I plan to do a certification later this year, and I've already worked with my lab. So women that go through my program do my certification, they'll be able to order labs on their clients too. So I'm hoping to multiply that.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

You should, you need to, like, really. It's it is it's very frustrating when you're not getting the full picture and the full information. I this is eye-opening, like really. Um, and this just happened. Cholesterol was always an issue for me, but yes, last year was like when it was like a big deal, and I was just like, oh crap, I have to take this seriously. But like no one says anything. It's just like I just have to figure this crap out on my own. Yeah.

Food And Glucose For Midlife

SPEAKER_01 40:54

So, like, what are some things like that we can start doing as women to help regulate our hormones and like yeah, like what can we do? Or is that even a thing? Yeah, or is that even a thing? Like, what can I do? Okay, so let's talk about me. Yeah, high cholesterol, glucose level. I'm 46. I don't even know if I'm in perimarin pause. I've been having night sweats. I think I am. Um, what can I do to really? Because I want to, if I'm gonna grow old, I want to grow old like one of those like amazing, just bubbly women that just still has it and can walk around still and can drive still. And you know what I'm saying? That's the kind of old woman I want to be.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

What can I do to get there?

SPEAKER_00 41:38

When you're 20, you know, 20 years from now, when you're 67 or you know, 30 years from now, when you're 77, you want to be able to get on the floor with your green kids, you know, go to the park, not need anyone to take you to the bathroom or do any of those things. Like you want to be alive and vibrant. So what you're doing today impacts who you're gonna become, you know. So we want to look back 20, 30 years from now, and that version of ourselves wants to be able to thank who we are now. Like, thank you. Thank you for doing this. Yes. So knowing that you have glucose, you know, glucose issues, um, cholesterol, all of those different types of things. One thing that's gonna be really important you for you is, and we don't even know what your cortisol looks like, so we gotta look at that. But we want you to start with a savory breakfast, okay? So no dessert for breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

I but I don't even eat breakfast because I don't like to chew in the mornings. I literally don't really eat in the it depends, it depends. I I shouldn't say never, but on a regular day, I don't really eat breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

I know. Okay, but okay. The 77-year-old version of you wants you to eat breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Okay, we gotta eat breakfast. All right, savory, savory breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Savory. So savory is like dessert for breakfast, right? So no like muffins and bagels and croissants and you know, cereals, all the things we grew up on, right? Pancakes and French toast, none of that. Okay, you can have them later in the day, just not for breakfast. And what you so savory means protein, at least 30 grams of protein, and then add in some good fats. So whether you're just having like some olive oil that you cooked with, or some grass-fed butter, or um, did I say avocado? No, but I love avocado. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

So my breakfast really looks like a lunch or dinner that I have. So sometimes I'll have like lamb and some veggies and some beans for breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Okay, fascinating. Yes. Um and all the other cultures eat that way too.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

They do, and they're healthier than us. They're not taking 65% of the medications produced on the planet. So that's all right, that's right. And they they also will say, like, eat like a king for. For breakfast, um, a prince for lunch and a peasant for dinner. A lot of other cultures will. So they'll have like smaller dinners. Because when you think about food, it's nutrients for our body, it's energy for our body. And if we're about to go to bed, we don't we don't need you know all this food before we go to bed, right? And that disrupts our sleep, all types of stuff. So you really want to have a good breakfast that is has good fats in it and protein. And then if you're gonna have carbs, have some complex carbs. Like I'll have like brown rice and beans or beans. I love beans, yeah. They're great for cholesterol as well. Too.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

I'm Puerto Rican. We a lot I'm Dominican and we eat a lot of rice and beans. Yes, we love our beans.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

So yes, yes. So that that is great for breakfast with some protein and good fat. And then the main reason is is because you don't want to spike your your glucose first thing in the morning. Okay. So for those that are listening that might be having, you know, even if it's a Starbucks latte and you know, a muffin, you know, you're spiking that glucose first thing in the bot in the morning, and the body's gonna spend all day recovering it. So you're gonna be on this up and down roller coaster of like where your body's literally craving, like, okay, I gotta get something else now, right? And it just sets you up kind of for failure all day when it comes to eating versus having something savory in the morning. The other thing is if you're skipping breakfast, I don't know what your um functional cortisol levels look like, but that could be very stressful on your body. And even though you're not eating, that stress is causing glucose to go up. So it's still causing a glucose spike, which then insulin's gotta come out and it's gotta lower it. Insulin's a fat-storing hormone. Um, so it could be causing issues there as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Oh, and then I sometimes skip lunch, so that's not good. Don't eat breakfast, don't eat lunch. I love dinner. Dinner's my favorite meal of the day, but now I have to retrain my brain, is what it sounds like. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

And most of the women that I work with, even for them to be able to lose weight, I have to have them start eating more. Yeah. And in the beginning, they're like, whoa, you know, but then it's like also realizing it's safe to have all of this food. The body feels safe enough to have it. So then it can go out of that fight or flight state. Like physiologically, the body feels like it's starving, right? So then it's holding on to everything. So a lot of times I work with uh my women to add in more food because everyone's skipping breakfast and lunch. It's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Okay, I'm not the only one. Okay, I'm gonna shift. Yeah, I need to shift that because I am in like this the stage of my life where I'm, you know, I started yoga. I was doing CrossFit for many years, and that was fun. But now as I'm getting older, I'm like, it doesn't feel good on my body. I try to meditate, like I'm trying to do these things because I do want to be healthy. So I'm gonna start doing the food thing. Yes. Gotta do that, gotta do that. Gotta eat. Um, so exercise, obviously,

Muscle, Walking, And Metabolic Support

SPEAKER_01 47:05

that's what everyone says. The way I eat in in the mornings to start off my day is very important.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

But for us, as we're going through perimenopause, it's important that we we wanna maintain our muscle mass. So lifting two to three times a week, that's okay. Okay, you know, not like an everyday thing. And then you can mix in yoga, walking, Pilates, those types of things in between. Okay. And even if it's just you've been sitting behind your desk, or let's say when you start eating lunch, you eat your lunch, and then you go for a 10-minute walk, or you do 25 squats right by your desk. What that does is it opens up the um insulin and glucose receptors in your muscles, and it helps with the sensitivity there with that.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Okay. That's good to know.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

Okay. I can do that. I can do that. Yeah. We can do that. We can do that. Um so what are some habits that we can establish to like help us with our our mood, our energy, our metabolism besides food and exercise, like what other things? So you said gratitude in the in the mornings and and purging all of our thoughts at night. Is there anything else that we can incorporate in our lives?

Detox Without Feeling Sick

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Detoxification is really important in making sure that you are properly detoxing. So this is a good topic. Sometimes women, and I've done it myself before I, you know, have the knowledge, I'll go do a detox and then feel sick while I'm doing it. That's a telltale sign that you're the detox is pulling toxins out, but they're not getting them out of your body. So what happens is you can do a detox, it pulls toxins out, and then they recirculate into your bloodstream. And that's why you start getting sick. You start feeling fatigued and having headaches. We've kind of like normalized it, like you're supposed to feel sick on a detox, but you're really not. What should happen is we're pulling toxins out, and then we bind them with a good binder, which is like a supplement, and then you poop them out. They leave out through your body, through your poop, pee, and sweat. Um, that's really important. And one thing that in just everyday life is really to begin to look at what kind of products we're putting on our skin, what kind of uh food that we're eating. Now, I'm not a fan of like everything needs to be organic, right? There's something called um environmental workinggroup.org. It's ewg.org. And every year they put out a list of the dirty dozen, which are the 12 top foods that are most heavily sprayed with pesticides. Strawberries is usually always on that. So you can literally take strawberries and squeeze them, and it became become bug repellent, you know, like it's like that's how much pesticides and things are on it. We eat so many strawberries in this house. Oh my gosh. Okay, go ahead. So strawberries is always organic. Uh, but look at the dirty dozen list, and then there's something called the clean 15, and those are the ones that you can just say, yeah, we'll just get those however they come. They don't have to be organic. So that's a good way, also, so people can save money instead of thinking like everything has to be organic, really just focus on that dirty dozen. When it comes to meat, I highly recommend that it's it's always grass-fed, um, just because of what they do to animals conventionally, and then they're feeding them like corn, and then corn's genetically modified. Corn is genetically modified to kill bugs on contact. So imagine like what that's doing inside of your gut and what that's doing to the animals that we eat and all of that. So um, there's many reasons. You know, cows are injected with hormones and the way they're they're kept and everything. So grass-fed beef, wild caught fish, pasture-raised chicken, and eggs. That's the way that you'll want it, you want to do livestock. And then the dirty dozen clean 15.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Okay. I think I need to do, I need to, I need to fill out that form with you and get your and I I need to get on on something. I need to get on some kind of plan because this is great information. I mean, I'm like loving everything you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

I'll send you the link and if you're listeners as well, please.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Because I I really think I just need all my whole body just checked out so we can start like from from knowledge and not just guessing because I have no clue what's going on internally with me. Um test don't guess. Yes, test don't guess. I like that. That's gonna be our new motto.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

Test don't guess.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Um I wanna, I mean, I know we've been talking about a lot of like about medicine and stuff, and I know you do you like leadership talking about leadership. Like, can

Leadership Through Business Body Belief

SPEAKER_01 51:56

we shift? Can we like shift to, you know, we've talked about our bodies, but you you focus on other things too. So let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

So I I have what I call the in uh the integrated leadership framework where we focus on business, body, and belief. Now we've talked a lot about the body portion. That's what we do in that, like toxins, deficiencies, stress, test, don't guess, all of that's in the body portion. Business is really focused in. I also look at a lot of the women that I work with may not have businesses, but our life is our business. So when it comes to our business, we want to look at like where are we asking for help? How are we delegating things? When we do delegate things, are we releasing control so that person can actually do what we ask them to do? Are we giving them proper parameters so they have the autonomy to fulfill it on their own, right? Um, when it comes to business, like hiring and firing, I actually enjoy that that entire process. So I help my clients with those types of things, like really finding really good candidates. What we do is when we hire, we put a job listing out there and then we take them through a test project. So it's one thing to see something on a resume and someone fills out application questions and says everything the way that you know it needs to be said, especially with AI now, you know, we actually take them through a test project and it's a paid test product. We'll pick two candidates at a time and we take them through a project where there may be video components or technical components, depending on the role, to see what they can actually do. And it really helps us find like good fits. Um, so with business, there's a lot of the you know, delegating, asking for help, um, hiring, firing. Everyone that we hire should do one of three things. And great if they can do all things, all three things. They should save us time, they should either save us money or make us money, and they should reduce our stress load, like bring peace of mind to the work that we're doing. So very important. And then the belief part of the integrated leadership framework has to do with like who are we being? And we are human beings, not human doings. Okay. So a lot of times, especially for high-achieving women, we go, go, go. Like we we know how to go and do. And a lot of that comes from internal beliefs that we have that may be conscious or subconscious, where a lot of times when we're triggered, we may default into like I'm all alone. And that you might not consciously say I'm all alone, but you may say things like I always got to do everything myself, you know, or no one.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

I say that often, actually, yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Yeah. So there, you know, there's those types of things, or I'm not enough, or there's not enough, or you know, the world is not safe, or people can't be trusted, right? There we default into these things, and then, but it's not an empowering place to make choices from. So what I do is I help women really reshift and reframe what we're thinking because those kind of defaults won't ever go away, like they'll be there, but to be able to shift back into like what the truth is, you know, and that there are there's lots of people in this planet here that we can trust that are willing to help, you know. Sometimes we just have to ask, right? And you know, all things are always working out for our good. There's plenty in the universe, like all of those things, right? There's more than enough. So when we're making choices from that belief system, they are just much more empowering choices and get us, allow us to really create the life that we want when we do that. So that's that's the belief part of the framework.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

I like that. That's good. Is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you would want to share that that you are able to provide services for?

New Book On Rest Types

SPEAKER_00 55:56

Yes. Um, I have a book coming out in the beginning of June. You do? And okay. Yes, and it's called Worthy of Rest for the Woman Who's Tired of Being the Strong One.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Sounds amazing. So, what do we have to look forward to in that book?

SPEAKER_00 56:14

So it's a very practical book. It's not very like medical-based and everything like that, like saying like why you need to rest and what it does to your body. It's very practical. It talks a lot about the identity work that I just brought up, with where we'll, you know, we say, like, I got to do everything by myself, those types of things. And then it also talks about the different types of rest. So a lot of times we just think physical rest, like I need a nap, I need to go lay down, you know, I need to go to bed earlier. But there's sensory rest that if we're behind a computer all day or with screens or work in a place that has really bright lights, we need sensory rest. We may need emotional rest where there may be something that we haven't processed and grieved, or something that we're angry about, you know, that we need to be able to process. There's spiritual rest that we may need, there's mental rest, there's different types of rest. So I go into the different types of rest and then how to like know if like which one you need, and then how you can practically implement them into your day-to-day life.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

That's wonderful. And what was the title again? Worthy of rest. And when is it coming out? June. June. Okay. I listen, I gotta read all the things, all the things to get to get my mind right. Like, listen. We're gonna get you there. Listen, we've been on a long journey. We want to continue on this journey and do it the right way. So I'll look forward to getting that book. I just um did a podcast this morning and I read her book too. So it's just like I when I say I'm gonna read it, I'm gonna read it. So I do like knowledge and information and wisdom, and you know, we can always learn from each other. And absolutely um, I do want to, I like for real, I wanna be your client. I I I like when it comes to my physical, like with my body. So figure out like what's happening and what I can do differently. Yep, 100%. Well, Dr. Alicia Newsome, thank you so, so, so much. You are so weird. You you explained stuff and I like analogies because you can understand that better. Um, you know, for for the way my brain thinks, mine is more creative or like languages and science is, you know, is one of those things that I'm like, you know, you kind of like gloss over, but the way you explained it is like wonderful. It's like something it's a way that I can understand it. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Doctor means teacher. Yes, yes. But not everybody, you know, wears that the way they show because my husband's a dentist, he's a doctor and he loves to teach, loves it. But I found that not all dentists are created equal. So just because you have that doctor in front of your name to say that we need to secure wisdom, knowledge, or teachings, you know. So yeah, good for you. Good for you. I appreciate you coming on. I really do. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so, so much. Yes, and thank you. Um, on a private level, you and I will be talking and okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:09

I'll send you, I'll send you that link. Okay, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Yeah, I appreciate you too. All right. This is good. Yeah, this is good. You asked me some good questions.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

Really? Well, I was like, okay, what can we ask to get, you know, and selfishly, I want to know for myself. So, what questions pertain to me and my life?

SPEAKER_00 59:28

You're like, well, my cholesterol is high and my glucose. She's like, What do I need to do?

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Let's get a free consultation while we're on this podcast. Let's see what we can do.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

But it can help other people. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Yes, yes, yes. All right, we'll be talking soon. I'll leave you all with this. Your body is your home. Strengthen it with movement, feed it with love, recharge it with rest, treat it with kindness, honor it daily.

Closing Advice And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

Thank you so much for listening to Virago247. If you haven't done so already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and please give us five-star ratings. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Virago24 underscore seven and on Facebook at Virago24 slash 7. And just connect with us and share your story. We'd love to hear from you.