Growth, Impact, and the Truth About Health Shortcuts

In this episode, I'm getting real about what it takes to build lasting health—and why there's no magic pill that replaces the fundamentals.

Key Takeaways:

The Growth Journey

• How my Instagram grew from 9-10K to 42K followers in less than a year
• Why I prioritize long-form podcast content over Instagram snippets
• The importance of nuance and education in hormone health
• The Truth About "Quick Fixes"

I break down the reality of GLP-1s, peptides, and HRT—and why I'm not against any of them, but why they're bridges, not foundations:

• Why GLP-1s make nutrition and muscle maintenance even MORE important
• The truth about HRT: it won't automatically restore your 20-year-old metabolism
• Why taking hormones on an unhealthy body increases your risk factors
• What happens when your liver isn't healthy and you're taking HRT

No matter what supplements, medications, or treatments you use, you still need:

• Quality nutrition and blood sugar balance
• Adequate protein and strength training
• Good sleep and stress management
• Healthy digestion and liver function
• Movement that builds and maintains muscle

Real Talk on Common Misconceptions

• Why "not eating past 7pm" alone won't make you lose weight
• The difference between walking and muscle-building exercise
• Why you still need a calorie deficit to lose weight (yes, even with perfect blood sugar)
• How eating 5-6 times a day can keep insulin elevated despite "clean eating"

Resources Mentioned:

• Dr. Amy Killen's practitioner course on HRT
• Empowered by Food: Heal Your Hormones, Balance Stress, Become Unstoppable by Ciara Foy

Free Resources:

• The Insulin Advantage Quick Start Guide - https://ciara-foy.mykajabi.com/insulin-quick-start
• The Digestion-Metabolism Reset Guide - https://ciara-foy.mykajabi.com/digestion-guide
• The Perimenopause Guide to Hormone Balance - https://ciara-foy.mykajabi.com/peri-guide
• Everything Thyroid: The Complete Guide - https://ciara-foy.mykajabi.com/everything-thyroid

Say Hi to Ciara:

Ciarafoy.com 

@ciarafoyinc 

Don't forget to leave a rate & review!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Empowered Feminine Podcast. I'm your host, Kira Foy, mother, author, nutritionist, and women's health expert. I've designed this podcast to help you discover strategies to tame your hormonal chaos, balance stress, and become unstoppable. We'll explore all the things holistic health, success, mindset, motherhood, and creating rock solid boundaries. Each week, I'll inspire you to level up. Not by always doing more, but by being unapologetically you and stepping into your feminine power. As women, we can't always do, force, and push our way through life. That approach always leads to burnout. Join me on my mission to help high achievers like you do less, feel more, and become unstoppable. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Welcome back to the Empowered Feminine Podcast. I am your host, Kira Foy. Today we are gonna talk about growth and impact and exciting things happening in my world. And one of those is you know the amount of people in my world. So I have grown my Instagram account and my email list by tens of thousands of people. Okay. So last spring I was probably around nine or 10,000 followers, and now I'm at like 42,000 followers. I am constantly, you know, attracting new people into my world. And with a greater impact, also comes a lot more questions and a lot of people who are finding me because of you know small little snippets of information. And that is why, you know, if somebody follows me, and this might be you, on Instagram, we send you episodes of my podcast because long form content is so much more beneficial to you and educational, and it's gonna have a greater impact on you than something on Instagram, right? So Instagram is just like attracting the people, but then I really want to help you understand the nuance. I want you to understand your hormones. I want to empower you. That's why this podcast is called The Empowered Feminine. It's why my book is called the or is called Empowered by Food. Heal Your Hormones, Balance Stress, Become Unstoppable. And to me, empowerment is all about knowledge. The more knowledge you have, the more you are able to take action to feel better. Now, what gets in the way of that action? Noise, too much information, right? And that is why I do this long-form content because it is very, very easy to get led down all sorts of rabbit holes on Instagram. And so I am your hormone bestie here, and I want to tell you the truth. And, you know, I practice what I preach, and I get so many questions about like, well, you know, I'm thinking about doing your program, but I'm also thinking maybe about doing, you know, some HRT or a GLP one or something like that, right? So I just want to clear something up, and that is there will never be a pill that is going to replace the you know fundamentals and the foundation that you need to build to be healthy. There just isn't. In fact, taking a GLP1 makes it even more important that you are eating really well, that the food that you are taking in, because many people are, you know, eating very, very little if they're on a high dose of GLP1 for weight loss, and that's why they lose so rapidly. You want to make sure what you were eating is really nutrient dense. You want to make sure that you optimize your gut health. You want to make sure that you are in the gym working to maintain your muscle because the faster you lose weight, whether it's a GLP one or otherwise, the more risk, the higher risk of losing more muscle. Okay. You are always going to lose some muscle when you lose weight. It's not just a GLP one, but if you're doing it properly, if you're exercising, if you're actually nourishing your body, if you're eating enough protein, you can minimize those things. So that's just one part of the picture, right? So, you know, you still need to know how do you support your body? How do you support your body through the aging process? How do you keep your bones strong? How do you keep your brain sharp? How do you reduce cardiovascular risk factors, right? So, you know, think of things like HRT or a supplement or GLP1 or a peptide as bridges, but also understand that the bridge has to be solid. The foundation underneath has to be solid, otherwise, it's not gonna work. And that doesn't, I'm talking about all of these things, peptides, GLP ones, HRT, and I'm not against any of it. Okay. So, first of all, I'm in Canada. We don't really have access to GLP1s. Okay, there has been so many, I get so many requests for collaborations, and you know, so many from multi-level marketing people wanting to get me on board to sell their peptides. I can't do that because I am in Canada, first of all. Second of all, if you know me, you know that, you know, if you are a client working with me, I'm not even making money on supplements. I'm giving you a discount on the supplements. So, you know, I am not somebody who would do, you know, something like that. Because for me, it comes down to like, I don't know, like standards of care. I really believe in us building our health from the inside out. And I've always been very high touch with people. I want to know what's going on. I want to look at your blood work. I want to, you know, understand where you're at, where your body is at. So a lot of information is collected when you work with me. Okay. So all of those things are not for me. I've never done multi-level marketing for supplements. Again, I give discounts. I, you know, have never done, you know, any kind of collaborations that are like that. I will sometimes share products that I really like and pass on a discount, but you know, it is not even like it's not, it's not part of my business. It's just not. The education piece, the, you know, the hormone testing, the actually working with people one-on-one or in my group programs in coaching, that is the bread and butter of my business. So that being said, let's get back to why Instagram is the wild, wild west and what you need to understand about all of these options. Okay. And again, I'm not against any of them. I would actually like to try out some peptides, but I'll tell you what, I'm not gonna do is I'm not gonna get a peptide from a fitness influencer or somebody who's doing multi-level marketing because you don't know where those peptides are coming from. You are you want to be working with a doctor who knows where their peptides are coming from and that they are actually like approved and not from like a research lab, because at that point you have no idea. You really don't. And you don't want to be injecting yourself or taking something that you just don't know what it is or what the quality is. Okay. So, but you know, when they are available in Canada and I can get them through a legitimate practitioner, yeah, I would try something for sure. So, but again, my point in this conversation is to let you know that the core underneath foundations of your health are not going to change, right? It's like you can't smoke and drink every day and you know, just like eat a ton of inflammatory foods and have beautiful skin because you're putting some slathering some product on it. It just doesn't work that way. It's an inside out thing, right? So there can be some great products for your skin, but they're only going to be as good as the quality of your skin, of how hydrated you are, right? And your skin and the texture is going to come out of like again, what's happening with your hormones, what's happening with your hydration, what's happening with your nutrient levels, what's happening with your digestion. When there are things off with your digestion, that's when they show up on your face. When your hormones are off, again, that's when things show up on your face. Okay. So remember that it's not about the external things. It's not about taking something, it's about looking at what your foundation is. And so whether it's again, we already just addressed a GLP one, you still need to understand your body. You still need to sleep, to eat enough, to exercise enough, to be getting enough nutrition, to be balancing your blood sugar. You need to need, you need all of those things. And especially with HRT. And I am somebody who is continually, you know, updating my own education on that. Like I'm currently taking a practitioner course that Amy Killen, Dr. Amy Killen, um has put out. That is, you know, because I want to help you to understand prescribing and your actual hormones and what is being given to you so that you can advocate with your healthcare practitioner. I will never be giving a prescription, but I have a lot of clients now who are on HRT and their levels are not necessarily great. And those are things that I am testing and I'm, you know, listening to their symptoms and we're talking about these things. So I'm constantly educating myself, pulling the studies, and giving you that information and those reference points so that you can bring them to the person who is prescribing for you. Okay. So, but what I want you to know about that is that there are people in my practice who are taking HRT. Taking HRT does not automatically put you back to like your metabolism when you're 20 or 30. It just doesn't work that way. Yes, lower levels of estrogen do increase inflammation, do increase insulin resistance, but studies have shown there is no difference between taking HRT and not taking HRT with respect to weight loss. HRT can absolutely help some of the reasons that might prevent you from doing some of the things that you need to do in order to get to a healthier body weight and to feel better, right? Progesterone absolutely could help your sleep, not for everybody, but for some women. You know, estrogen, again, can take care of those hot flashes and, you know, help your sleep so that you have the energy to meal prep, to actually have the drive and the motivation to do the things you want to do and show up at the gym, right? But taking it alone is not going to be the answer. They're supportive things, they're preventative things. And also, if you are taking HRT and you are in an unhealthy body, you are increasing your risk. Okay. If you don't have a healthy liver because you have fatty liver. And I'm here to tell you that if you have weight to lose, good chance you have non-alcoholic fatty liver, some degree of fatty liver. And, you know, this is really important to understand because your liver is, you know, responsible for fat burning, yes. But it's also what is, you know, metabolizing everything, whether that be your hormones, whether that be your supplements, whether that be your HRT. So it's really important to know that you've got to take care of your body. You want to reduce inflammation in your body. You want to be at a healthy body weight. You want to stop drinking alcohol or minimize it to a massive degree, especially if you're on HRT, because if you don't, you're increasing your risk factors. Okay. And you want to make sure that your digestion is working well. Because again, hormones and digestion go hand in hand. If you were taking hormones, you know, if you're taking HRT and you're constipated, it's the same as if you were 20 or 30 and you are constipated and your body is not able to use fiber to attach to estrogen and bring it out through your elimination system, what it doesn't need. And instead, it can recirculate. That can happen menopausal, you know, perimenopause. That can happen at any time. Also, if you are overweight and you are holding on to a substantial amount of body fat, your body can make estrogen in that body fat, and it's more inflammatory. So you need to get to a healthy body weight in order for these things that can be a bridge that can help you feel better, to work optimally, and to have lower risk factors in taking them. Okay. Really, really important. There is nothing that bypasses the need for a human body to take in nutrients from whole food, to move, to, you know, sleep, to manage our stress, to get enough movement, to get fresh air. It's all the same. So I really hope that you are hearing me on this. Okay. It is really exciting that there are things that we can do that can be assistance, right? That can help with some levers that can increase your health. And like I said, if I had access to some peptides, I would try them. You know, not a GLP one because I don't like I don't have any need for that. But from a perspective of, you know, other peptides, anti-aging peptides, things that can help with, you know, supporting collagen and elastin or healing or inflammation, sure, that would be cool. And at some point I might do that. But that doesn't mean that I will abandon my healthy lifestyle, right? So, you know, the good news here is that so much of how you age, how you feel, how you sleep, what your mood is, your vitality, the, you know, the motivation that you have in your life and just feeling alive, all of those things are under your control. Is it easy? No, no, but it is absolutely worth it. And you deserve to, you know, put your own time, love, and energy into yourself. Okay. Those are the things that are gonna make the big difference, right? Like when people come to me and and they're like, oh, you know, you you you must do, like, what do you do for your skin, right? Like you must be doing all sorts of things. I'm not actually, right? I have, I really do appreciate and love my skin. That doesn't mean it's not aging, of course it is, but you know, the texture of my skin, the the glow of my skin, the clarity of my skin all comes from good gut health and from exercise and from eating well and from having less inflammation because I balance my blood sugar, right? So there is so many things that I do, but like as far as like treatments, I don't remember last time I had a facial, right? Like I've done Botox twice a year, but that's it. I don't have any fillers, I don't do facials, I haven't done micronealing, I haven't done lasers, I haven't done anything. I actually am scared to do a lot of those things because I have very sensitive skin and I like the texture of my skin and I don't want to run the risk of, you know, burning it. And, you know, I want to keep the fat in my face. And there's definitely some research to show that like RF radio frequency microneedling and stuff that gets deep into the under layers can actually reduce the fat in your skin, and there can actually be scarring in there. So I'm glad that I never did that and I don't do those things. But what I do do is live a healthy lifestyle, and that does have a massive like impact on how you feel and how you age, right? You've all seen, you know, like when I was growing up, I had an aunt and she smoked all the time. And it was, it was rare because like my parents both didn't smoke, and both of them had a parent who died of cancer from smoking. So that was the reason that they were very much against it. And this aunt of mine, I remember from a young age being like, wow, like she looks so much older than like my mom, right? And it's because of the damage that that causes, the free radical damage all the time, right? So always remember that your health is so important. So you want to have good gut health, really, really important. If you start taking HRT and you're having side effects or it's not working for you, that can be because the underlying foundation is not working, right? So let's just take progesterone, for example. There's a couple of pathways that progesterone could can go down. It should be going down your GABA pathway, which is what makes it relaxing, which is why it helps some women to sleep. But if you are super stressed, if you have really high cortisols, there's a good chance it might go down a detox pathway or down your sulfur pathway. And if that happens, it can be very activating. It can actually make you feel anxious. It can do the opposite of what it's supposed to. And I've spoken to many people who that has happened to, right? And so it's not the progesterone, it's your terrain. It's what is happening in you, your body, and you know, like that is the most important part. So always look inside, right? And again, like there might be people who just can't tolerate certain, you know, HRT, progesterone, estrogen, whatever. That's totally fine. We do not all need to take that, right? You know, I am definitely somebody who is not, I don't take any medications. You know, I pride myself on the fact that, you know, my 14-year-old, almost 15-year-old has never been sick enough to be on an antibiotic in her life. And, you know, she was uh lucky, I was very fortunate that she was born vaginally, she was breastfed for 18 months, she had a really good setup with no antibiotics and a lot of good food and a lot of the information that I had that she had really great immune system and microbiome, right? So that's one of the reasons why she's never been that sick to need those things. But I say that to you because I'm not somebody who pushes any kind of medication or pharmaceutical. The studies with respect to, you know, uh HRT, I think are amazing for women, right? And I do think that that is like a different category. And that is why I spend so much time researching, reading the studies, and helping my clients to understand so they can have better conversations with the people who are going to prescribe those things for them. Because like I have medical doctors in my practice, and they have conversations with me about HRT that they're not having with their practitioners. Because the truth is, a lot of people who are prescribing, A, they are just learning because this is like in the last few years that this has really become more of a thing. Because prior to that, the women's health initiative had most doctors scared to prescribe. And then the other thing is is like, how much time do they have, especially like in? I mean, in Canada, I don't think it's that different in the US, but our doctors are overworked. How much time do they have to do the research? So I think. With all things in the medical system and otherwise, we need to take responsibility and educate ourselves and be able to ask the right questions and to have a healthcare provider who's gonna have that back and forth dialogue with us, right? Because that's how you're going to get the right dosage, right? Like taking HRT, there is no particular dosage for any of us. There is nothing across the board. And it that is a challenge for doctors because there is a lot of tweaking, there is a lot of change, and a lot of it does have to do with your underlying health, right? Your terrain. So the things that I teach in my practice, you know, and a lot of it does come down to the things that impact insulin sensitivity, because high insulin, high inflammation, those are risk factors for so many degenerative diseases. It doesn't matter, like those are metabolic risk factors, right? And there's a lot of research talking about cancer as being a metabolic issue. If we're talking about, for example, diabetes, or we're talking about Alzheimer's, or we're talking about cardiovascular disease. Again, metabolic issue, inflammatory issue. Taking a medication doesn't negate risk factors. It might help to manage a disease, but what you want to do is create a healthy body. I want to have a really healthy body, great immune system, good muscle mass, good strength, good digestion, take HRT, feel great, feel vital, and have a much lower risk factor from taking the HRT because of the health of my body. Okay. Taking HRT doesn't make me fit, doesn't make me lose weight, doesn't do any of those things. Okay. It does help to reduce cardiovascular risk factors. There's even studies that show that it can reduce breast cancer risk factors, but again, it's always gonna come down to the health of your body. Okay. So, you know, there's so much that is going on on Instagram all of the time. And it's, you know, it's hard to get people's attention. And there's sometimes I think a desire to feel like there's an answer outside of ourselves, right? I had a conversation with a woman the other day. She's like, well, you know, maybe maybe it's something else. Maybe it's not my nutrition, maybe it's not my exercise that, you know, she had 50, 70 pounds to lose. Because she said, you know, I eat healthy and I don't eat past seven. And I'm like, okay, this is where the problem is sometimes, right? Like, yeah, I have a viral reel that talks about, hey, the women who don't eat past seven o'clock lose weight faster. Why? Because the science shows that not eating several hours before bed helps you to sleep better because your body is not working on digestion. It can actually lower your body temperature, it can lower your heart rate, you can get into a deep sleep and you will sleep better. Sleeping better is like the first step to managing your glucose better. Because if you have one poor night of sleep, you will wake up more insulin resistant in the morning. You will have higher glucose levels. We don't want that, okay? And you know, that causes a lot of inflammation and high glucose levels again, risk of diabetes, but not just that, risk of many degenerative diseases across the board because a lot of it is metabolically driven. Okay. So, but if you get into your head that you're like, hey, I'm walking and I'm eating healthy and I'm not eating past seven, but I still have 50 to 70 pounds to lose, or must some be something wrong with me. There's a big thing that's missing there, okay, which is are you in a calorie deficit? How much are you eating? And that is something that is obviously very important. I talk about all sorts of things, like the people who are in a calorie deficit and it's really hard for them, or you know, like they still have cravings and they're not sleeping, so they're not able to stay in a calorie deficit, or they are losing weight, but it's really slow. And one of the reasons is because they're having issues with high insulin levels, and there's so much that you can do to turn that around. Like if you turn around the high insulin, weight comes off faster. Okay. So, but that doesn't mean that you can just balance your blood sugar, eat whatever you want, not eat past seven o'clock, and you're automatically going to lose weight. If you are eating in a surplus or if you were eating maintenance, you're not going to lose weight. So never did I say that you don't have to be in a calorie deficit. You know, we do know that if you are somebody who is in you're taking in maintenance calories and you are working out at the gym, you can change your body composition. This is a much longer process of years. This is what you see me do over many, many years of consistent, you know, working out and eating well, is that I can be the same weight and change the composition, meaning having more muscle but less body fat, right? So that is possible. We know that you can lose body fat and gain muscle in maintenance. But if you have 50 to 70 pounds to lose, I promise you that there's so many things that we can look at and that we have to make sure that we are getting the foundations correct, that you are sleeping, that you are pooping, that your digestion is better, that you are balancing your blood sugar, that we are lowering insulin levels because that is going to help you with your energy. It's going to help you with your recovery, it's going to help to reduce the cravings, it's going to help your motivation, it's going to help your neurotransmitters. It's going to help you to be able to do the things that you need to do, including a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. But those things are not independently going to make you lose weight. Okay. I want to be really clear about that because that is super important. And again, this is why these little, you know, tidbits of information can sometimes be, you know, misinterpreted. Let's put it that way. That's why this podcast is so important, because there is so much nuance in all of this. Okay. And it's like the same as let's take walking. Walking is very important. Having like taking enough steps to balance out how sedentary we are is very important. But it's not going to build muscle. It's not going to build your bones. It's not what I consider exercise. Okay. So I kind of look at them in two different buckets. Like walking is to reduce stress. It is to balance out how much we sit and how sedentary we are in our daily lives. Okay. And it is a bigger portion of the pie of how many calories you burn each day. And walking more doesn't exhaust you and it doesn't increase your hunger the way that, like if you were running wood, right? It's not going to push those stress levers as much. And a lot of the clients that I am working with, they're already stressed to the max, right? So they're not going to necessarily have the energy. And also just if you're doing more running and more intense activity, your hunger cues will go up, right? I've experienced it myself. So, you know, walking is important, but again, just walking alone is not going to do some of the things that are really necessary to prevent disease and to keep us strong and healthy as we get older, because that's holding on to muscle mass. And it, and you know, even the hiking is not going to do it in the same way. Okay. So, like, even if you are walking on an incline, that's great. It's going to get your heart rate up more. You know, it's like anything that you can do is awesome. But the walking and that type of like aerobic activity is very different than exercise that is geared towards your muscle mass. And the muscle mass is so important because it's the entire reason why so many women struggle as we get older, because we've been losing muscle. And now like our insulin sensitivity is lower. And how do you increase insulin sensitivity? More muscle, less body fat, a better body composition. Okay. Because the muscle is what is going to use up, sop up that glucose in your bloodstream and have it somewhere to go. Okay. So we also need to be doing that. And I know all of this sounds exhausting, but it's really about looking each day at how can you win the day? How can you just habit stack things and starting where you are? I have clients who are working with me who have personal trainers, who have been training for a long time. I have clients who come in who the very first thing that we're doing is having them walk more. Okay. Those things are important, but the thing that is going to move the needle the most when it comes to weight loss is your nutrition, how much you were eating. That is going to make a big difference. The timing of when you eat, and, you know, when I talk about not snacking and not grazing, those are things that help to better support your metabolic health. Okay. Because you can lose weight and not be significantly improving your metabolic health. I've seen this in my practice. I have seen women who lift weights four to five times a week, who do the walking and were on nutrition protocols where they were eating too many times a day, like five, six times a day, and where they were having a lot of carbohydrates with their protein, too little fat to support their hormones, to balance their blood sugar, not enough focus on fiber, and therefore were overstimulating insulin and therefore still had high A1C levels, which is risk factors for disease, right? So these are the underlying things that I'm talking about because I am not just talking about, hey, like come do this four or eight-week program and lose weight fast. I don't, I don't do that, right? Like, yes, like I have clients who have worked with me for two months who have lost 15, 18 pounds, 20 pounds. Yeah, that happens. But we are working on all of the underlying things. And there's some women that come in and in two months they've lost eight pounds. And that's also freaking amazing. But it depends on where you start and what's going on, right? Obviously, the more weight you have to lose, the little easy the easier it is in the beginning. As you know, we all know, those last 10 to 15 pounds, it means you have to make more significant changes. You know, I always say to my clients, like, I'm not constantly wasting weight or losing weight, or, you know, I'm doing all the things that I ask you and then some, because in order for me to constantly lose weight, I would be in a, I would have to be in a constant calorie deficit. I'm not in a constant calorie deficit, right? I'm usually in maintenance, maybe sometimes in a bit of a surplus when I'm trying to, I would never do like a full build because I'm not a bodybuilder and I don't want to do that or go through those things. But I, you know, do sometimes or some days that it might be a bit of a surplus and other days that are maintenance. And there's sometimes I'll go through a bit of a cut, right? So like right now I'm paying more attention. I'm not like super like tracking and stuff, but I am paying more attention because in a few weeks I'm going to Tulum. I've been working really hard in the gym and I want to, you know, see that hard work, right? So I'm talking, I want to lose like three pounds. So nothing. If I lose it, great. And if I don't, that's great too. I mean, obviously I'll lose it because it's definitely doable. But I say all of that to you guys because again, I do all of the things. I go to sleep early. I like, you know, last night I ate dinner at five o'clock. I sleep amazing. I feel great. I push myself. I have, you know, two days a week that I am with a personal trainer. I'm currently doing more intense work because I want to do a high rocks just for fun and for community and to meet people. So I'm doing some more, you know, intense endurance twice a week. And then I do weight training at my regular gym at Aquinox. So I do all of those things and I'm not gonna lose weight unless I'm in a calorie deficit. And that's not always the goal. Okay. So, anyhow, I just wanted to clear this up. If you have been thinking, like, you know, how do I do this fast? How do I do this easy? How do I do this, you know, just without putting in the work. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the truth is you don't really want those things. You are going to feel so much better physically, you're gonna look better, you're gonna have glow, you're gonna have better skin, better energy, better mood, better hair, better sleep, better life, be more successful when you put the time and energy into yourself. There is nothing that is going to take away the need to support that underlying foundation of your health. Not the GLP ones, not the peptides, not the HRT. You know, even doing those things, like I said, means that you have to even pay more attention and be more careful about your health because they do have risk factors, right? Everything has risk factors. And the best thing you can do is be taking hormones on a healthy body with a healthy liver and a healthy digestive system, right? So please keep those things in mind. And the best part is not only are you gonna have all those benefits that I said, like nice hair and bright eyes and skin, but when you put time and effort into yourself, it builds your self-esteem, it builds your confidence, it builds your self-worth. Because what you put time and energy into, right, is something you love. It takes effort. And so all of a sudden you are constantly telling yourself, I deserve it, I am worthy of my own time, love, and attention, right? And the more that you do that, and the more that you step into becoming the woman who cares about herself, who has great reverence for her body, who, you know, wants to have freedom of movement and choice as she gets older to be able to do all the things that you wanted to do, to play with your grandchildren, to do the trips, to do the hiking, to, you know, take part in the activities that bring you joy with the people that you love. This is what is actually important. And that's a big part of what I teach and what I do in my programs is to talk about mindset, to talk about identity, to talk about worth, to talk about, you know, like I talk about so often, really becoming somebody with rock solid integrity. And integrity starts with what you do behind closed doors that other people don't know, the promises that you keep to yourself. So be careful about what you were looking at on Instagram, be careful about anything that is promising super quick, you know, results or is not telling you that, hey, you've got to actually put in the work. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And I promise you that there is so much more value and you will feel so much better when your body is actually healthy. The amount of just pride and peace that I have because I don't worry about my health, and that doesn't mean that I think I'm untouchable or I something couldn't happen to me. It means that like I have practices that make me feel good and I'm very connected to my body, and I feel like if something was off, I would know, and I'm paying attention to her, and I'm like watching the signs and symptoms, and I'm adjusting. And her and I are a partnership, we're a team, right? So that is my message to you today is that there is nothing that is ever gonna replace the day in, day out, carry water, chop wood, you know, get your sleep, get your protein, make sure you're getting lots of veggies and fiber, and really just increase your standards for yourself because that is what you deserve.