#100 The Hidden Stress Response Blocking Your Fat Loss After 40 with Brooke Kane

You’re eating “healthy.”

You’re exercising.

You’re trying harder than ever…

So why is your body STILL holding on to fat?

If you’re a woman over 40 and the scale won’t move (even though you feel like you’ve done everything), this episode will change how you see your body, and your weight loss struggle, forever.

Because what if the reason you’re stuck isn’t calories…
 and it isn’t “lack of willpower”…
 and it isn’t that you’re broken…

What if your body doesn’t feel safe?

In this episode, I’m joined by Brooke Kane (Registered Nurse + Functional Medicine Practitioner) who helps women over 40 heal gut issues and uncover the hidden root causes behind stubborn weight gain.

We unpack the truth most weight loss plans ignore:

✅ Why your nervous system is quietly blocking fat loss
 ✅ How gut dysfunction can stop you absorbing the nutrients you need to burn fat
 ✅ Why stress and “trying harder” actually makes weight loss harder after 40
 ✅ The real reason belly fat shows up during perimenopause
 ✅ Why your symptoms aren’t random — they’re signals
 ✅ What to focus on first if you want your body to finally respond again

If you’re a high-achieving woman who’s used to pushing through…
 but your body is no longer responding to force…

This conversation is your wake-up call.

This is not about eating less.
 It’s not about punishing workouts.
 And it’s not about blaming your hormones.

It’s about working with your body so weight loss becomes a natural response again.

Brook's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/theibssolution/

Brook's Website:
https://www.therootedrn.com/

Watch my The Cravings & Fat-Burning Masterclass:  https://www.neverdietagainmethod.uk/register-podcast

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/max.lowery/

Book a Food Freedom Breakthrough Call: https://www.neverdietagainmethod.uk/call-ig

Transcript

Safety Over Sheer Willpower

Max Lowery 0:00

If you're a woman and you feel like you're doing everything right, but the weight will not budge, this episode is gonna hit home. You're eating well, you're exercising, you're trying harder than ever, and yet your body still feels stuck. Maybe belly fat has crept up, maybe your energy has dropped, maybe you're blaming the periminopause, your hormones, and your age. But deep down, you actually start to blame yourself. Well, today I'm joined by Brooke Kane, registered nurse and functional medicine practitioner who specializes in helping women over 40 heal their guts and address the root causes behind stubborn weight gain. In this episode, we talk about something that most diet plans completely ignore. Safety. Your body and your nervous system is constantly asking one question. Am I safe? If the answer is no, it will not prioritize fat loss. It will conserve, it will hold on, it will protect. We break down why stress, gut dysfunction, nutrient deficiencies, blood sugar instability, and nervous system dysregulation can quietly block weight loss, even if your calories are perfect. We talk about why trying harder often makes things worse. We talk about why perimenopause does not mean you are broken. If you're a high-achieving woman who is used to pushing through in every area of their life, but your body is no longer responding to force, this conversation will change how you see your situation. This is not about eating less and training more. This is about working with your body instead of fighting it. Let's get into it. How do you create a life that allows you to lose weight, eat the foods that you love, and sustain the results? Over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands of people do exactly that. I'm Max Lowry. I'm an author, personal trainer, and weight loss coach. In this podcast, I'm going to share my top tips and tricks from within my one-on-one coaching program. It's my goal to give you the tools and the understanding so that you never diet again. Hello, welcome to another episode of Never Diet Again Podcast. I'm joined by Brooke Kane. And Brooke is actually a fellow um coach on a kind of coaching uh mentorship program which we're on. And we haven't actually met in person, but we've had quite a lot of chats and we see each other on all the group calls. And we have recorded uh another podcast before, so you should go check that out. Um but Brooke, yeah, why don't you let everyone know uh who you are, what you do, and who you help, and um then we can get into what we're gonna talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah, well, thanks for having me again, Max. I am a registered nurse, a functional medicine practitioner, and I help women over 40 with their gut issues. So very severe digestive issues, IBS issues. Um I work with women who have tried everything that they know of to get rid of those problems. I help them find the root cause of it and heal and fix it.

Meet Brooke And The Root-Cause Lens

Max Lowery 2:42

I love that root cause term that you just use. And I'm really that's why I love being part of the mentorship that we're part of, because everyone else comes from the same angle. Um it is a lot of uh health professionals who've maybe felt frustrated not being able to help their patients properly and then having to go kind of uh a different route to help their patients in becoming coaches. So, because uh I love that. And we have a that's ultimately why I wanted to get you on, Brooke, is because we have the same audience and I'm always looking for ways to help my audience understand themselves better and get experts on who can who can do that. When we were talking about this discussion, we went into root causes for gut health on the last podcast, and we can for sure talk about it um today. But I I want to go straight in with what we were discussing in the DMs about what this podcast was going to be. And something called out to me. You said we could talk about if the body doesn't feel safe, it can go into protection mode and start storing fat because that's where we store nutrients. I would love for you to expand on that and give us your your take on that.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, it's uh it's a super important topic because so many women over 40 are doing everything right and they still feel stuck. So the biggest shift that happens after 40 is that weight loss stops being about effort and it starts being more about how safe the body feels. So a lot of women are eating really well, they're exercising consistently, they're trying to be disciplined, but their physiology has changed. The body has become far more sensitive to stress, inflammation, and nutrient status. And if the gut isn't functioning properly, you can eat the cleanest diet in the world and still not absorb nutrients that are required for metabolism, hormone balance, fat burning. And from the body's perspective, that looks like stress and deficiency, not nourishment. And a body that feels depleted or stressed doesn't prioritize weight loss. So gut dysfunction, especially also quietly drives inflammation and blood sugar instability, which sends stress signals through the nervous system. So instead of burning fat, the body shifts into conservation mode. This is why calorie restriction and pushing harder in the gym often backfire for women over 40, because they're increasing the stress signal rather than resolving it. So when we restore function throughout the body, nutrient absorption, we calm the nervous system, the body no longer feels like it's under threat. When the body feels safe, weight loss becomes a natural response, not something that requires constant willpower or punishment.

Max Lowery 5:33

Yeah, and this is really interesting because this is definitely something I've been aware of this for a while, but only recently really started to look into exactly what's going on. Um, and I've seen this personally, you know, I've worked with over a thousand women over the age of 40 in the last 12 years, and what worked for them before no longer works. Their bodies have changed, and a lot of them are aren't even sure of how exactly how their bodies are changing. And it can end up being this um constant guilt and blame and shame situation because they're doing all the things, as you say, but they're not getting results, and therefore they start to blame themselves, they start to think that they're not trying hard enough, and particularly if, like, there are a lot of my clients who are high achieving as well, they're trying to apply that same trying hard motivation, willpower discipline, which might work at work, um, but when it comes to your body and your nervous system, actually it has the opposite uh uh effect. And unfortunately, most of what's available for for weight loss specifically are things that are going to exacerbate and perpetuate that problem. It's restriction, deprivation, uh cutting out your favorite foods, more stress, uh, you know, hard exercise, uh, which causes a loss of problems. And I'm also really intrigued to what you said, uh the last thing that you said, because one thing I'm looking into more is the whole kind of eastern philosophy on achieving things. And what I've noticed is the Western philosophy is very much you've got to hyper focus on the outcome, use willpower, motivation, discipline, hard work to get there. And that works in certain areas of your life. When it comes to your psychology, your nervous system, your physiology, your body, um, potentially a more eastern approach, which I've I've been looking into, the Taoist approach, where if you create the right conditions, weight loss happens. So the example they use is if you imagine a tree, you don't force a tree to grow. You give it sunlight, you give it carbon dioxide, you give it water, you give it soil, and then the tree does its thing. Uh you can't stop it, in fact. Uh it's unstoppable. And I really like that framing and have been very much leaning into that more with clients. Um, so I would love to hear from you, Brooke. What conditions um are necessary for women to to feel l safer within their physiology and their nervous system in order for their bodies to function the way that they want to.

The Body’s Safety Question Explained

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, yeah. I love what you said about the tree. That's exactly it. And when someone has these right conditions, it's actually easy. The the weight starts coming off a little more naturally. So what it what it really comes down to is that our body is constantly asking one simple question Am I safe? Anytime the body senses stress, whether that's emotional, inflammation, undereating, over-exercising, blood sugar swings, poor sleep, gut dysfunction, it interprets that as danger. And the nervous system doesn't differentiate between a real threat and internal dysfunction. To the body, a gut infection, chronic inflammation, nutrient deficiency, or stress looks like starvation or or general stress. So when that danger signal is present, the body shifts into survival mode. So cortisol goes up, thyroid output and metabolic rate go down, and fat loss becomes a very low priority. But when we zoom out, this makes total sense because if the body doesn't feel safe, it's not going to burn stored energy. It's going to conserve it. For women over 40, this gets amplified because hormone signaling becomes more sensitive. Estrogen and progesterone fluctuations actually affect insulin sensitivity and cortisol clearance. So stress that might not have caused weight gain at 25, it suddenly does at 45, especially around the abdomen. That's not a character character flaw, it's biology. So this is also why trying harder often backfires and those high achievers that you mentioned are always at the greatest risk. I have to tell my clients all the time that it's the women who are trying the hardest who oftentimes have the hardest time doing it. And it's that trying so hard that's keeping their body in a stressed state. The nervous system is like, ah, you're trying to do something. This is scary. I can sense that something's bad. And so it starts holding on to the energy reserves even more. More workouts, fewer calories, more restriction. These are all things that increase that stress signal. The body responds by holding on to weight even tighter. And once we remove those stressors and support digestion, blood sugar, nutrients, and the nervous system, the body no longer feels like it's under threat. The weight loss becomes a natural byproduct, not a battle. And this is why people like you have such great success in helping these women because you're giving the body what it needs. You're working with their body, not fighting against it. So what the environment that these bodies need comes down to calm and safety are the two biggest things. Without calm and safety, it's not going to heal.

Max Lowery 10:54

Yeah, thanks very much for sharing, Brooke. And I've personally seen this with especially kind of longer-term clients. I'm not going to name any names. Um, one of the few clients I've remained, I've got a team of coaches now. She lost a lot of weight initially in the first kind of 90 days, continued to kind of gradually lose weight for about a year, and then she had a year of complete plateau. Nothing would move. And then the back end of last year, from July, she's lost 30 pounds uh in six months. And so we were kind of talking about like what's been going on here, what's what's happened. And essentially, the period where she was maintaining the good news is, you know, she had coaching, so she was, she wasn't beating herself up. And I was like, look, you're under a lot of stress. But essentially, she was going, she was her best friend was dying of cancer. Um, she was, she changed jobs. Um, her I think one of her parents was also ill. So she was under a lot of stress, and she didn't really, wasn't really necessarily very conscious of the stress she was on she was under, but it clearly was having an impact. And so she was doing all the right things, she was, she was, she opted her exercise, she was still focusing on her nutrition, um, but it just the weight wasn't coming off. It wasn't going up, but it was just maintaining, and it was quite frustrating for her. As soon as there was some relief in all of that, the weight suddenly started to fall off. Uh, everything was much easier, her body started to react in the way that she wanted to react. Uh, I've seen this a few times now, but that's the most recent example. It's why anyone that says all you need is a calorie deficit is lying. Uh, you it's usually 25-year-old men who are saying that to, you know, plus 40 women. And don't get me wrong, I've been guilty of that in my early 20s, but I'm I'm now 35, so I'm I'm I'm mature and uh experienced. Um, but yeah, it's it's complex and it's complicated. And I think the more we say it's simple, the more women, high-achieving women, tell themselves, why can't I do this? It's not hard. Um, I should be able to do this. I shouldn't need to invest in coaches and get help. I should be able to do this by myself. And that just creates more stress, more pressure, more vicious cycles. So, Brooke, I would love to hear from you. What are kind of, without kind of you know, giving away all your all your methods, what are the kind of initial things you focus on with your with your clients? Um, what are kind of the would you say are the biggest levers to pull that have the biggest impact uh straight away?

High Achievers, Shame, And Backfires

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I I see the same thing in the women that I work with. Uh, you know, they're coming to me for different issues, for gut issues, but this nervous system weight thing is a really huge secondary issue for a lot of the women I work with. So a lot of them will actually, some of them have very severe loose stools constantly. They're not absorbing any nutrients, and they tell me I should be skin and bones right now with you know everything running right through me. I don't know why I have all this extra weight. And so it comes back to what we were talking about. That's stressful. They've been stressed. I work with high achievers as well, who are trying so hard to feel better, and it just creates a very nervous, anxious state in their body. Um, that guilt and shame that you mentioned, of course, just adds to it. So we immediately start with nervous system regulation. If the nervous system is dysregulated, the body cannot and will not heal. It's in survival mode, it's trying to protect itself. So we try to break down that barrier and immediately focus on telling the body that it's okay now. You're here, you're getting help, you know, uh you can relax. And there's a lot of relaxation techniques, there's a lot of breathing exercises, we do a lot of breath work in my program, um, things like that. Uh, lots of different things. Self-talk is actually really important. Uh, when you mentioned the guilt and shame, we have we have to remove that. When we when we're hard on ourselves, we're blaming ourselves. Again, that's telling the nervous system and the body that you are bad, there's something wrong with you, things are bad, the environment's bad, everything's bad, everything's scary, nothing's going right. And and that's a huge roadblock. So self-talk is really, really important. I love lots of different types of breath work. I know there's a lot of apps out there that people use, but we go a lot deeper than that uh with my clients. And so um, there's, you know, exercises, meditation, things like that. That's that's kind of the gist. But even with gut dysfunction, I have to focus on helping the body feel safe before we can even start anything else. And I know that when it comes to weight loss, that's gotta be up there as well.

Max Lowery 15:41

Yeah, fascinating. So that's the thing you're gonna focus on first. You're not gonna move on to anything else until you've uh made the body feel safe.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yep, absolutely.

Max Lowery 15:49

Tell me more about the breath work. Is that something you're doing yourself? Do you have a separate coach involved as well? Like, yeah, uh tell me about it. But then also, I imagine your clients aren't expecting that first. This is something I struggle with, is they they're expecting a strict meal plan and hard workouts, and then instead we're getting them to journal and think about their feelings and be kinder to themselves and release the pressure of the of themselves. Like, yeah, tell me a bit more about the breathwork and um yeah, how do you kind of uh what's it like when when clients first join? Do you have to do any uh persuasion and uh get them to understand why they need to do this?

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, good question. So I have a breathwork coach that that's her her specialty. So she hosts group live calls, breathwork calls, and then we have some recordings, people go back and watch so that they can do it consistently daily. Uh I have people who were shocked at first, but it's always in a good way. They they come into the program, they see all that, and honestly, usually it makes sense to them. I I haven't really had anyone that comes to mind who was like, you're crazy, lady. This doesn't make sense. You know, I don't, I don't need any of this. Usually they're they're like, wow, this makes so much sense to me. You're right. I have been really stressed, you're right, you know, I'm thinking too much, I've been trying too hard. Everything is just making total sense to me. And most of my clients actually love the breath work. That's one of their most, uh, it's one of their favorite pieces of the whole program. And one thing that I remind them of constantly is that I actually talk about the nervous system and mindset more than anything else inside my program. We talk about that more than food. Because again, if if those things aren't dialed in, not nothing else is going to fall into place.

Max Lowery 17:40

Well, yeah, you could have the perfect nutrition, right? But if you are putting a ton of pressure on yourself, if you are beating yourself up to be perfect, um, if you are not recognizing small wins and you're constantly uh causing, looking at the failures, then as you said, that creates um lack of safety in in the body. And it doesn't matter how good your nutrition is, you're going to be in this fight or flight response because you're stressing yourself out all the time. And that's very much what we are leaning into as well. You know, we we have what we call the five drivers of success. So we look at their nutrition, we look at their exercise, we look at their emotional regulation, their mindset, and their identity. And most, I don't know about you, but most of the women we work with have very much only tried nutrition and exercise. They've never looked at the emotional regulation, the mindset, or the identity. And ultimately, those are the things that lead to uh feeling safer within your physiology and your psychology, but actually the consistency, your relationship with food, your behavior, how you react, how you show up, your mood, everything is impacted by those other three drivers.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah, 100%. And if those things aren't in place, if those things aren't aligned and where they need to be, then the most important thing that you came here for, the weight loss, it's not happening.

Max Lowery 18:55

Yeah, 100%. I'm interested, um, what should anyone who's listening who maybe is just starting to go through the changes of the perimenopause, um, what symptoms or signs should they be looking for to um to know if they are in that kind of fight or flight response and they are uh in that um uh their body doesn't feel safe?

Nervous System First, Then Nutrition

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yeah, there are some really clear signs. Uh heart palpitations is one, or just feeling like your heart's kind of always racing, always feeling kind of anxious, but you don't really know why. Uh, even things like bloating or constipation, loose stools, you know, in real severe cases, uh, feeling full really quickly, uh, fatigue after eating, intense sugar cravings is one that I see. Poor sleep, you know, hair thinning, brittle nails, needing caffeine just to function. All this stuff's not random. They're signs of blood sugar instability, nutrient depletion, the body not feeling safe. So it's craving, you know, the sugar and some of these other things. Uh, those are some of the biggest red flags that I see, especially in the overachievers.

Max Lowery 20:11

Yeah. Um, and I am hearing a lot of those symptoms from my clients uh regularly. How do you think we can help stop women seeing themselves as the problem during this transition?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah. So it kind of starts with them and how much of a priority it is for them to get a grip on these things. Uh, in my experience, when it's a big enough priority, the the high achievers and the ladies who who genuinely want to fix this stuff, they're open to the things that we're talking about. And like I said, it usually makes sense to them. So I start kind of low and slow. I start with kind of explaining what you and I are talking about here, that your body doesn't feel safe right now, you know, and and I ask them if they would agree with that. And usually they would. And so uh we start with our self-talk first, you know, what what is it unpacking what they think of themselves and what they think the reason is they hadn't lost weight or that they're not feeling well, and uh immediately work on some exercises around reframing mindset and reframing our thoughts to get the ball rolling on creating that calm and safety.

Max Lowery 21:27

I find one of the biggest problems um is the lack of awareness with like all those symptoms that you just listed, for example. Lots of the clients that I've worked with wouldn't really put two and two together, that this might be changes of the perimenopause, hormones changing, and in fact, potentially equate the lack of energy um with a lack of motivation and therefore being lazy. And what's wrong with me? Why why can't I do this? What what you know I used to be able to do this, like I'm I just need to try harder. Um, is that something you've seen as well?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

I do see that, and one of Things that a lot of women in perimenopause or menopause don't realize is that it's actually not the shift in the hormones that's causing things to get worse. It's not the hormones themselves. It's that the shift is unveiling deeper issues that were already there. So hormones are actually protective. And so when they shift and now we have less, it's just unveiling a problem that was already going on. And for a lot of people, that's a nervous system issue. It's a cortisol problem because they're a high achiever and they're overthinking and they're trying so hard and things like that. So when the hormones change, it's just unveiling that they've got a nervous system problem. And so they're usually pretty open to that when I explain that part as well. Um, it's common for women to just blame perimenopause, blame their hormones, blame themselves. And so it starts with explaining that it's not something that they've done wrong. It's all about listening to your body. What is it telling us right now, and then working with it instead of fighting against it.

Max Lowery 23:05

And that's something I see constantly is uh the clients I work with, they're they're not working with their bodies, they're fighting against it. They're listening to some social media influencer um, you know, say, do this work out or follow this meal plan, um, and actually causing more problems. Really quick one for me, guys. I don't run ads on this podcast, and I do aim to give you as many high-value tips and tricks as I can for free. All I ask in return is that you help me spread the word. That way I can help as many people as I can to never die again. The way to do that is to rate, review, and share this podcast. A review will only take 30 seconds, but it would mean the world to me. But more importantly, it could help change the life of someone else. I I didn't know that that aspect that it wasn't specifically the hormones which are causing the problems. It's the it's the it's exposing what was already there and the fact that you don't have the protection for the hormones anymore. So it sounds like kind of what you're saying is um there's an opportunity for for women in their you know mid to late 30s uh and early 40s to actually start to work on these things uh and potentially uh improve uh negative uh and decrease the likelihood of negative symptoms and these symptoms we've spoken about during the perimenopause. Is that is is that fair to say?

Breathwork, Mindset, And Calm

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Very fair to say. And a lot of women think, oh, I'm gaining the weight, you know, I have all this extra belly fat or abdominal fat, you know, oh, it's perimenopause or it's menopause, and they feel like it's just a life sentence. It just is what it is, you know, because of hormones, uh, but it's a hundred percent false. Things like that are symptoms. It's your body telling you, showing you there's some kind of dysfunction in here, whether that's physical or mental, stress, you know, inflammation, anything like that that we've talked about here, the body's showing you something's wrong in here. That's all it is. And the good news is that when you understand someone like you, Max, who understands how the body works and what it needs, someone like that is able to help people tune into it, give it what the body's been asking for, when it's screaming through the extra belly fat, something is wrong in here. So I'm holding on to all this extra fat right now. When you tune into that, you unveil that dysfunction, you address those root causes, you address the mindset and and the nervous system and all of that. That's when it becomes pretty easy that it just starts falling off.

Max Lowery 26:22

Yeah, and you picked up on a really good point there. It's like the the weight gain through the menopause is just socially accepted. It's a it's like it's an inevitability. And this is something I hear all the time from my clients. It's like, well, it's my age, you know, it's it's because of the menopause why I'm like this. And, you know, really it's not true for a variety of reasons, uh, for what you just listed, um, but also for what I see. I see women come in and blame the menopause when in fact they are consuming thousands of calories extra a week because they don't know how to process their emotions, they're emotionally eating. And so it can be very confronting to initially realize that, oh, actually, it's not the menopause. Yes, it makes it harder. Like, we're not going to deny that. Like the the approach you were using before is no longer going to work. You have to adapt. But actually, uh, in my experience, it's all these other issues which are causing the problem. Um, the menopause is just that, you know, the the scapegoat, as it were. And and at the end of the day, what's more empowering for women? If because if if it was the menopause, that's quite disempowering, isn't it? Because you can't do much about that. Whereas actually, if it is your emotional regulation, your mindset, um, you know, your gut health, your metabolic flexibility, then actually those are things you can potentially work on and improve. Um, on that subject, one of the biggest issues we help our clients with is metabolic inflexibility. So they're not able to shift effortlessly between, you know, body fat, glucose, and the um the glucose that they're eating and glycogen. Is that something that you work on with your clients as well?

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yeah, a little bit. We do that with some functional testing on my end, you know, looking at how the body's processing things like that. That kind of testing is not always necessary. I've found that when you start kind of low and slow and not not pushing the bar too quickly with some of that stuff, that helps. Um another thing that kind of ties into all this that I hear from women a lot is that also genetics is genetic. You know, my both my parents were overweight, you know, my sisters, whatever, my whole family's overweight. It's just genetic. And it's another way that people just decide it's kind of a life sentence. They just accept it. It is what it is, it's genetic. Um, and it's kind of the same thing as the hormones. Uh, something has to set it off. There's a deeper dysfunction that causes the weight gain. Uh, genetics might load the gun, but something has to pull the trigger, is what we say in functional medicine. And so um looking at those things and what is it that pulled the trigger, it that helps with the glucose, the insulin resistance, all of it's tied together.

Max Lowery 29:05

And in fact, that kind of story of genetics then becomes part of your identity. I am, I've always been the chubby one. We're a we're an overweight family. Then that ultimately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because you will always revert back to your existing identity. You know, if you go on a diet and you know, you you manage to follow some maybe even sensible habits, right? You follow some sensible habits, you you up your protein, you do more steps, you lose the weight that you wanted to. And I know many of um the women listening to this can probably relate to this. You lose the weight you want to, and then all of a sudden the motivation to continue disappears, and you revert back to your existing identity, which is someone who doesn't prioritize themselves, doesn't prioritize um health, doesn't apply prioritize movement, and therefore the weight comes back on. So this the stories that you tell yourself, your core beliefs, um, your identity uh all have a huge impact on your behavior, your relationship with food, your consistency in the long term. Um this is kind of the kind of the deepest layer we help our clients with is shifting shifting their identity. Um, is that something that you look at as well with your with your clients' identity?

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and and coaching them into prioritizing their health more than maybe they were before. Yeah, the identity piece is huge. I always say that hormones, genetics, you know, whatever they've been blaming these problems on, it's not your destiny. Just because women who go through perimenopause who you've seen and heard of before have weight issues, that doesn't mean that is your destiny. And just because the rest of your family might have been overweight and it runs in your family does not make that your destiny. Something has to set that off, and that something is is you, basically. You know, we we are in charge of what we eat. We get to decide how seriously we're gonna take our health. And so that identity is huge. And we want to focus on how we see ourselves. Do you see yourself as on the other side of this? You see yourself as thinner. Um, that's what I make my have my clients do is picture themselves on the other side of it. Picture yourself already there, already where you want to be. You're already feeling better, you've lost the weight, uh, you know, wherever it is you want to be versus focusing on where you are now.

Spotting Fight-Or-Flight Signals

Max Lowery 31:27

Yeah. I mean, visualization, incredibly powerful, changing your state. That's all, yeah, things we're used as well. We we we get our clients at the very beginning to write what we call the true self-doctrine. It's like a story they write about themselves in the future, as if it's already happened. And we get ideally get them to read it every single day and just to visualize it, think about it, feel it, feel the feelings, feel how it would have feel to be in that moment in the future, rather than, as you say, obsessing, oh my god, I haven't been perfect today. What's the number on the scale say today? Oh, I'm not where I want to be now. Um, just focused on the the the future. On a slightly different note, I would love to get your expertise and opinion on this. So, like what when it comes to nutrient deficiencies, what would you say are the biggest issues for women over the age of 40?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, so uh one of the biggest issues is that uh most of the stuff that we're taught uh regarding nutrition is backwards, a lot of it's backwards. Um, we need a lot of protein, animal proteins. Uh, I see a lot of women who are focusing way too heavily on vegetables because we've been told so much that we just need vegetables on top of vegetables, on top of vegetables, more vegetables, you know, all these things. So not enough animal proteins is a huge one. I mean, that can be meat, fish, eggs, you know, good quality dairy, things like that, anything that comes from animals. Um, and then the other piece, you know, surprisingly to most people, is the mental state. It actually blocks nutrient absorption. So what we're eating is incredibly important, but our thoughts are really important and creating that calm and safety as well, because you're not going to absorb nutrients when you're not uh safe.

Max Lowery 33:12

Lots of women I work with, they know they need to eat more protein, right? And then we kind of talk to them about protein at the start of the program. They're like, I know I'm eating enough protein. And they're not eating enough protein, they are half of what they think they need. And they're all like, oh, that's how much protein I need. What would you say, just for my, you know, my listeners who maybe aren't aware or uh want to hear a different take as I have gone on about this? Why is protein so important for women over 40?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Yeah, it's uh the building block, you know, for all of our cells. It's full of amino acids in it. It's got vitamins and minerals, amino acids that we don't get from any other sources. And so that's how we build muscle tissue. Uh, it's how we fuel energy, fuel our cells without it, uh, we become incredibly depleted. And of course, weight loss is gonna be really hard because those are important nutrients. And when you're not getting them, your body's just gonna hang on to the fat because it knows it's not getting enough of the stuff that it really needs.

Max Lowery 34:16

Yeah, and then on top of that, you know, if we're just gonna like look at it really simply and uh efficient weight loss, it's the most filling macronutrient. You are going our clients, they when they opt their protein, they're like, wow, I'm eating so much food and I'm not hungry and losing this weight. Like it is a secret weapon for weight loss, on top of the fact that ideally, when you especially women, um when you lose weight, you want to retain as much muscle, as much lean mass as possible. And the higher your protein is, the uh the ratio of weight changes. Because when you lose weight, you lose um water, fat, muscle. And ideally, you want as much fat, like as high as possible to go, but the as the minimum amount of muscle. And the more protein that you consume, um, the more likely you are to retain the lean mass, especially in combination with some resistance training and strength training, because that is a huge problem for women over the age of 40, which can lead to kind of sarcopenic obesity where your muscle mass decreases so much, it has an impact on your basal metabolic rate, which makes long-term weight loss very, very difficult. And this is one of the fundamental issues with GLP1 medication is like let's be honest, they work for weight loss, right? Everyone loses weight when they take them. However, there's two key issues. Well, there's many issues. Uh, but number one is you lose a lot of muscle. Um, and so that causes a whole host of problems, especially for women, and it potentially can also lead to issues with bone density as well. And then no one takes them forever. So the weight, inevitably, the new recent study comes out, on average, the weight comes back on in one and a half years, and you have this situation where maybe you're at the same weight you were before you started Ozempic or GLP1 medication, but actually you have a higher body fat percentage and less muscle than you did before. The muscle doesn't come back, but the fat comes back, and that is really not a good situation to be in for women. Are you getting a kind of a resurgence or a higher intake of women who have kind of done the jabs and are like, oh God, I've had issues and uh maybe I need to do this differently.

Perimenopause Reveals Hidden Issues

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Absolutely. I've I've had quite a few ladies come through my program who tried those and it caused very severe digestive issues, very severe. Uh a couple of them life-threatening at one point. So we work on that, but I have a couple ladies in my program right now who uh oddly enough started losing weight pretty quickly through addressing all of these issues, and they actually lost more weight working together on the digestive issues than they did when they were taking Ozempic or, you know, Wagovi, whatever it was they were taking. And that left them a little bit frustrated that they took the shots, they messed up their digestive system, and then here they are losing weight naturally without those things, anyways. It really isn't as hard to lose the weight as people convince themselves that it's going to be. They've been doing it the wrong way. I always say you've been trying to open up a door and you've been using a whole bunch of keys that don't fit that door. So it's not shocking that nothing's been working. When you find the right key and you use the right one, it opens right up. Uh, that's how it works with weight loss, gut issues, whatever. When you address it the way it needs to be addressed, you give it what it needs, it's not that hard. We don't need shots to lose weight. If if you know what you're doing and you work with your body and give it what it's asking you for, it's not that hard. And those GLP ones are definitely not worth the digestive just dysfunction that I've seen it cause for people.

Max Lowery 38:03

Not just that. By taking essentially a quick fix and a magic pill, magic injection, you are not allowing you to then work on all these other things that we've described. And there, if you work on these other things, every other aspect of your life will improve at the same time. If you do learn how to be kind with yourself, take the pressure off yourself, uh, how to be less stressed, less anxious, let not rushing all over the place, not in this constant fight or flight response. That's gonna have a drastic impact on your relationships, your social life, your career, um, your mental health, your mood, how you feel within your body. And just taking uh an injection is not going to address any of that. You're gonna still gonna have all those problems. And again, like no judgment at all to anyone who's thinking of taking it. I completely understand why you would, right? Uh you know, the women I work with are desperate. They've been stuck in this dieting cycle for their you know, entire lives, some of them. It's impacting everything. They obsess about it, they hate what they see in the mirror. So I completely understand uh why someone would want to take it. But I think if something sounds good too good to be true, it nearly always is. Um, I think we live in this world where we're hardwired to look for the quick fix. Um, it's easier for our brains to understand quick fixes and black and white thinking. And it's a bit more difficult to understand what we're talking about today. It there's nuance, it's it's complicated, it's small changes done consistently over a long period of time. And that doesn't sell very well, unfortunately. But you know, I love the fact there are, you know, people like myself and you and yourself and others we work with within um the mentorship who are who are doing very similar things in very similar ways. Last question. If there's one thing you want listeners to get from this conversation and to remember, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah, I want I would want them to feel empowered and know that they can achieve the things they want to achieve if they're willing to put in the work. Nothing good ever comes easy. Nothing good, nothing worthwhile in life ever comes easy with a quick pill, you know, with a quick injection. Um, but this is empowering. We have everything that we need to lose weight, to heal our gut, to do whatever. We have everything that we need to accomplish these things in us. We just need to harness it, focus on it, bring it out, and be willing to do the things that we need to do. And it'll happen if we're willing to put the work in and if it's a big enough priority.

Max Lowery 40:33

And you're right. Uh you've used that word priority a few times. And I think one of the biggest blockers I see from for women who are maybe listening to this podcast and the conversations I have on a daily basis with them is the situation they're in has just become normalized. It's normal to hate what you see in the mirror, it's normal to not be able to get out in the bed in the morning with energy, it's normal to beat yourself up all the time, it's normal to not want to go out to social situations because you don't like how you look. But the more you minimize that, the more you downplay that, the more you accept that, then there's going to be no motivation to do anything about this. There's it's not going to be a priority. So you do have to get real with yourself. You do have to um be honest with yourself. And yes, everything we're talking about on this conversation might sound a lot like hard work, but the situation you're in, if you're struggling and you hate what you see in the mirror and all those things, that sounds pretty hard as well. So, really, either way, it's hard, but only one hard is going to lead you to where you want to be and potentially improve every aspect of your of your life and your health and your mental health. So, thank you very much for the conversations today, Brooke. It was uh very interesting. Um where can people find out more about you, Brooke?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Yeah, they can find me on Instagram or Facebook at the IBS Solution. They can also find my website, therootedrn.com.

Max Lowery 41:59

Excellent. Well, I'll link all those things below. Have you got your own podcast yet?

SPEAKER_00 42:03

I don't have my own podcast yet. No. I do have a YouTube channel, though. I forgot to mention that. It's a it's a new YouTube channel, but I put a lot of valuable content on there. So that one is Brooke Kane RN, the IBS solution.

Max Lowery 42:16

Right. Uh well, yeah, we'll link everything below, and I look forward to our next conversation, Brooke.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Me as well.