Dr Keiron Lord : Fertility, Pregnancy after 35 and What Every Woman Needs To Know

00:00 Meet Dr Kieran Lord
00:19 NHS Nights And Strikes
01:06 Maternity Death Rates Explained
02:57 Birth Plans And Reality
03:53 Older Motherhood Pressures
08:28 Late Babies And Menopause Myths
09:10 Health Optimization And Bone Banking
12:26 Training For Your Future Self
16:59 Sauna Science And Heat Shock
19:20 Cold Plunges Done Right
22:14 Online Persona Versus Reality
24:36 Why He Built The Womens Hub
27:34 Perimenopause Starts Earlier
28:01 Holistic Menopause Support
28:34 Bioidentical Hormones Debate
29:58 Early Symptoms at 40
30:50 Why Not Start HRT Now
32:48 Lifestyle Pyramid First
35:53 GLP-1s as Top Layer
39:15 Fasting and Protein Basics
42:05 Supplement Quality and Safety
48:22 Skincare Simplified Barrier First
51:05 CO2 Laser Risks and Trends
53:25 Microneedling for Prevention
55:24 Collagen Science and What Works
56:23 Liposomal Absorption
56:48 Source and Molecular Size
57:57 Real World Results
59:13 Scientific Validation
01:02:36 Mens Brand Spinoff
01:03:57 Business Reality Check
01:08:27 Longevity Made Simple
01:12:17 Sleep Hygiene Hacks
01:15:45 Outsource for Sanity
01:17:19 Rapid Fire Health Takes
01:19:54 Age Gracefully Debate
01:22:17 Closing Thanks

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Hormones aren’t JUST anything. They make you who you are and control everything – your energy, mood, weight, confidence, hunger, motivation, outlook, libido the list goes on. The impact of hormone imbalance on our psychology and behaviour has been dismissed – until now. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back to the Else R podcast. And today I'm joined by Dr. Kieran Lord. Now, Dr. Lord uh is a gynecologist, he's also an aesthetician, uh, and he's also just come here after been working nights all night. So thanks so much for coming in. I know it's brutal working nights, and you've got up and you've come in the past.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

It's all right, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

We should say it's junior strikes at the junior doctor strikes at the moment, so you're covering for them.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah, five nights. I've not done five nights, I don't think ever.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Really?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Um and they get harder now. So yeah, it's gonna be a tough one, but it'll be alright.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

And what is the state of the NHS like these days? Has it been busy these nights?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, I think this is just a lot more. I work in mostly maternity, I do maternity in gynaecology. Maternity, you know, everyone's getting uh we're getting a lot more complex cases coming in. A lot of women um who are older or have other medical conditions, so therefore they're more complex in pregnancy, therefore they have more problems. Um there's obviously a lot of push towards safer maternity care. So again, that puts a lot of pressure on it's the right thing to do, but it's more pressured. Um, and there's a lot more senior decisions that need to be made. So yeah, it just it just causes problems, and and the strikes are just an added problem.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Yeah. Um interestingly, and this wasn't even on my list of things to talk about, but you know, I've just remembered it. So interestingly, in the news, I was reading last week um about maternity care and like UK has got some of the highest maternity death rates in the UK. Why is that?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Multiple things, and I'm not uh the most, you know, I'm not up on all that as necessarily, but I think um I think it's probably just a system that's stretched. I think it's just you know, that there are if the system's so stretched, it's very hard to uh have an efficient system that works, you know, yourself if you're busy, if you think about your business, you know, if you've if you haven't got the staff there, if you haven't got the the systems in place, messages are coming in, there's no system to sort of organise them and get the deliveries out, things start to fall apart. And I think it's it's getting a bit like that in the NHS. I still say, you know, I still love the NHS job. I do that because I enjoy it. Um that isn't where the money comes from. Like I I do that because I enjoy it, and my girlfriend laughs at me about it because she's like, Oh, you need to stop talking about it, you've got that look on your face again. But it genuinely is my favourite job. Um, and I think anybody who you know obviously needs to go to the hospital for any reason, they need to trust it, it does work. It's just a shame because it's 95% there. Yeah, it's just them little bits that if we could fix them, I think it'd be a much better system.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

I was an older mum and uh 37 when I had Grace, and yeah, I I thought the care in the NHS was amazing. I mean, dealing with me in pregnancy must have been horrendous. I wasn't I was I mean, I'm abrasive at the best of times, so you can imagine what I was like then. And I was in labour for like 48 hours because I would just wouldn't give in. I was just like, no, I'm gonna breathe this baby out, and she wasn't coming. They were like, give it up, epidural time, c-section time. And I'd got to nine and a half centimetres on my own. I was like, I can do this, but I was exhausted by that point.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah. And I think, you know, I do think one of the biggest things with uh maternity care in terms of that like labour and is kind of explaining what's gonna happen. Because I think what tends to happen is in maternity care, you book in with your midwife, you get the this is the plan, oh you want a home birth, you want a pool birth, and all that by the way. Anybody who the longer your birth plan is, I find the more likely you are to end up with a C-section. Because when you've got this perfectly planned birth plan, it often doesn't necessarily go the way you want. And I think if we have them discussions when people are pregnant and say, look, this is what we want, this is what we're gonna aim for, might not go that way. You know, one in three first-time mums need some sort of assistance, either forceps, font twos, something like that. And if we've never discussed it, all of a sudden I come in at three in the morning, yeah, baby's heart rate's down here, I'm clanging a set of forceps together.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

And it's all a panic. And people whereas actually, if you can discuss it earlier, look, it might happen. If it happens, this is what what it'll look like. It kind of prepares people a little bit. And I think that would make a difference to sort of the outcomes and how people feel about it. Because you were 37, by the way, did you get called a geriatric mother? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Well, I've got that in it. I don't think it's bad, it's just reality.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I'm I've literally have just said a better name for it though.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Yeah, well, no, let's call a spade a spade. I'm I'm totally like like let's fertility is it highest in your 20s. Listen, societal pressure, life, everything's more expensive, people aren't getting on the housing ladder, whatever. People aren't finding the people that want to have a baby with, or they're not mature enough to I wasn't, I was really not mature enough at all until about 34 when I thought, oh, and I hadn't even met anyone that I would want to have a baby with. In fact, you know, there's plenty of people who would have had a baby with me, and I was like, I am never having a child with you, you know, and you're in these long-term relationships, and it's difficult, but um yeah, so then I didn't honestly didn't deem anyone worthy enough to have a child with me at that point. So, and then even when I got pregnant, I was so unsure about it. I just started my business, I was a year in, we were growing really successfully. I thought, what's gonna happen? I've got no staff, I don't know, but I I just thought I'm gonna I'm gonna go with it. I didn't find out the sex or anything like that, I just thought I'm gonna go with it and and see. But even even my friends would have conversations saying, you're just not connecting with this pregnancy. Even at like six, seven, eight months, and even when I was in labour, I was like, it was all about me still. I still wasn't really thinking about it that way, but then it all changed as soon as she was born. Whatever that miracle that happens to a mother and that baby's born, it is that's how the human race has survived, doesn't it? That massive dump of hormones that says that this is it.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah, but during pregnancy, that's important though, because during pregnancy, a lot of people get that pressure from societal pressure, even before that. You know, oh you're married, you're having kids, oh you've had one, you're having another one. Yeah, like it's not for everyone. A lot of people are choosing not to anymore. Yeah, and actually it's normal during pregnancy. If you're not feeling that connection, that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

I think I was just so busy.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

I was like, I wasn't really planning and but what doesn't help is then people saying to you, that's not that's that's weird, isn't it? Yeah, like so. I I think um we need to not do that to people.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

True, and everyone will tell you their birthing story, which is always horrendous as well. And I did everything, like I did all the breathing, what's what's it called? Hypnobirthing, hypnobirth, and did all that before it. Because I really had this vision of like, yeah, I'm gonna like David Goggins this labour, and that's why I was probably hung in there so long. And I just remember one comment off my daddy came around just before I went into Labour, and it was like because he's a medical negligence solicitor, he's seen a lot of births go wrong, and he was like, Don't be a hero, just have a c-section if you need to, get the baby out, you know, don't mess about. I know what you like, Alyssa. And I said, I'll I did leave it a long time before I was like prepared to do a C-section, because in the back of my mind I was thinking, I really want a vaginal birth, I want those those germs and microbes and stuff all over the baby. That was what was running through my mind, genuinely.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah, uh so But then they're the conversation, that's what I mean. We should have them conversations intimately. You've got nine months there to have them conversations to go, just think about it. What if you have to do this? Yeah, like at what point do you call it? What when do you and and when you're not in pain with drugs on board, sleep deprived, you can kind of make them decisions in advance, but I don't think we talk about it. I think we just go down the route of it'll all be fine. Yeah. Um I've got a funny maternity story about my friend basically. Um he him and his wife were having their second baby, um, and they were planning a home birth and they had the pool and everything, you know. And he said to me, um, he asked me one night when he'd we'd been out for a couple of drinks, so I thought, oh, leave him. The next day he repeated it when he was sober. I was like, he goes, um, when Hannah's having the baby, he said, um, you know, we'd get the midwives round. He said, Would you mind just being there, just in the living room, just in case? I said, as much as I'm flattered, yeah. One, like without a theatre, I don't know what I'd do. Yeah. Two, I've known Hannah since she was three, it'd probably be a bit awkward. And three, imagine when the midwives do come round for that home birth, and it's like, this is mum, this is dad, this is the obstetrician, it'll just be sat in the corner.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

But in the end, he ended up pretty much delivering that baby, who's now my goddaughter, um, on the downstairs bathroom floor. Because as every woman who's had a baby knows, but every bloke doesn't know. When they say they need to go to the toilet, they don't need to go to the toilet, there's a head coming out.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

But he carries her to the downstairs toilet, sits her down, and a baby comes out. Wow. Don't know if she'll like me telling you that, but it's said now, innit?

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Well, honestly, yeah. So everyone it seems to be trending towards having children later in life, and obviously that's having a huge knock-on effect. Um, I I spoke to three different women in the last few days. One was 46 with a two-year-old, one was 42 with the two-year-old, her sister was 40 with a three-year-old, and I'm 30, so I'm 40, and I have a three-year-old. So, you know, we've all all this little group of women that I've spoken to in the last three days, have all had, you know, children later in life. What's the knock-on effect then on a woman's like hormonal cycle? Because if you have a baby later in life, does that like delay like perimenopause or menopause off?

SPEAKER_00 9:05

No, it shouldn't have any impact.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

What you I would like it to have an impact.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

It won't have an impact. What you'll find is that as this naturally happens, as people get busier, more career-driven financial stresses, things like that, and it does we do have children later on in life. You probably find it's like a lot of this. Um, I'm really passionate about health optimization stuff. So I think with health optimization, it's not fad, it's not hacks and gimmicks, it's about making sure that you're in the best possible shape to encounter whatever part of life that might be. So if that is um pregnancy when you're a little bit older, or if that is perimenopause or menopause, things like that are gonna happen. The way you're gonna get through that in the best possible way and support your hormones and support your life and support your health is to kind of plan for it a little bit in advance and make sure you're the healthiest you can be to go through that if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

I said this to uh one of my friends, she's trying to get pregnant at the moment, and I was like, Well, go get fit. Do you think you need to be less fit or more fit? Carrying a baby, yeah. And also, I know you're gonna want to get back in shape quicker, so I would definitely suggest having because like I even didn't look if the back of me when I was pregnant, I didn't even look pregnant. Do you know what I mean? I had a really tight little bump, and I think it's because I had such a good core. Maybe that was a problem why she couldn't come out as well. But um I really worked on that before, you know what I mean? And it was something I was quite keen on afterwards. I really tried to get my core back in shape, and I have done that now, but I think that's a really important, and now everybody says, What's your goals? And I'm like, I'm training for my old lady body, like I'm eight, like my eighty-year-old self.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, it's it's so important. You don't think I don't think anybody ri thinks it's gonna, you know, they don't think I'm gonna be that old person who's no whatever. But you know, they probably didn't think that either, and it's it's the lifestyle choices you make now, which is really hard because we live in that sort of world where you want something now, you want to see immediate results, you want to order something nippy at your house from Amazon tomorrow or whatever. Um, so no one's thinking about doing something now that's gonna help them in 20 and 30 years' time, but it makes a huge difference. Bone density is one of the the most important things. You lay down bone density earlier on in life, and then you sustain it hopefully later in life. You can't, you know, post-menopausally and things like that, we're not laying down new bone. So what you've got up to that point is what you're gonna have. Really? And then it's gonna start losing it. If you're doing weight training, if you're eating well, you're getting your calcium, vitamin D, things like that, you're gonna be in the best possible shape for the inevitable. Um, but if you're starting off at a better position, you're gonna be better. Yeah. If you're still doing, you know, your weight training um and building that muscle mass and things like that, you're gonna have a better foundation um for when you start to lose a little bit of muscle mass as well.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

I think that's one of the most outstanding things that I've ever heard on the podcast, obviously. And I've I've obviously heard about like having more muscle tissue supports that bone density, but I didn't realise you stop laying down bone at a certain age. So, really, you need to have gathered as much bone banking as you possibly can by what age would you say? 30, 35?

SPEAKER_00 12:08

It's kind of the perimenopause stage, you know, you know, in that early life, it's it's that's when you want to be doing it. So you want to be exercising, eating well, still enjoying yourself. Yeah, yeah. But you know, doing the right things now so that when you're 60, 70, 80, and onwards, you're gonna be the fittest version of yourself you can be then. But it's so hard to do that because right now everyone lives for now. You know, you think about today, don't you? Don't think about then. So we're gonna.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Think yourself, I'm not. I'd like literally, Jesus Christ. I I I have a video on my phone, it's so impactful, and I'm gonna use it at some point. But it's a video of Danny's grandma, she's 85, and she's teaching my 13-month-old baby to walk. Both of them are struggling to walk in this video. You've got a woman at the end of her life who's just trying to be mobile, and a little girl at the start of her life who's just trying to be mobile. This is an unbelievable. I couldn't, and I didn't clock it when I first was videoing it. And then I was like, oh my god, that is what life's about. That there is the cycle, yeah, and that is why you stay fit, that's why you stay mobile, that's why you look after your joints, that's why you go weight training. Because at 85, you want to have seen the full cycle through where you're teaching now, your grandkids. And I was imagining Vale, who's Danny's grandma, someone would have taught her how to walk in the same way that she's doing at some point. Yeah, it's magic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And you still want to be doing that, you still want to be able to do them things.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

I don't want to be, I don't want to be like And if you are leaving, having kids later in life, you're gonna be an older mum, you're gonna be an older grandparent.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

And no matter what, it's gonna be harder. Yeah. The friend I mentioned before, he he said, you know, when they had the first child, it was pre-COVID, then COVID delayed the wedding and all this, and they had the second child a little bit later, and he said it was harder. And he was probably early 30s, but the difference between late 20s and early 30s, he said was harder. You know, you struggle more. I would tell you about my night shifts. Now I struggle more with nights. Um like if you're having sleepless nights with a kid, it's a bit easier when you're younger, when you're in your, you know, later on, it's a bit harder. Um, so it is always gonna be harder, but by looking after yourself and making sure your body's in the best state it can be, by doing everything you need to do, your diet, your lifestyle, your stress, your sleep, your supplements, whatever, um, you're gonna be in a better position to be able to handle those additional stresses.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

I mean, I feel like I say it every week on the pod, but it's worth reiterating because I did have a message this morning, I'm gonna give her a shout-out, which called Lynn Gaynan, right? And she sent me the most unbelievable picture. She said, because she said, What are you training for? And I was like, Listen, my old lady body, you know, I am. And she went, I wish I'd have started. Yeah, I wish I'd have started earlier because she started now. I think she said she was 59. She sent me this picture and she's a lot noticeably bigger on this picture. And now you should see her, she's got like abs.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

And she's 59, and she's like, My daughter says I'm such an inspiration. I was like, Lynn, you are an inspiration, like it's unbelievable. But she's like, I just wish. She goes, weight training four times a week now. And I was like, You're never too late to start. Never. But if you the earlier you start, the better you're gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah, and little bit's an often, you know. People sometimes get put off with looking at things and going, Oh, I can't do the gym four times a week, and I can't eat that food or buy them supplements or whatever. Yeah, but anything you can do, these little changes that are sustainable. If you the new year, new me thing happens every year, doesn't it? I'm gonna go up to the gym every day after work and it goes away after a month because no one can sustain that. So you've got to think about how things fit into your lifestyle. What can you do? If you can only go for a walk for 30 minutes three times a week, but right now you're doing none of that, then do that. Don't get obsessed with going, I can't do 10,000 steps because my Fitbit says I need to do 10,000. If you're doing 300 now and you do 5,000, you're way better off than you were. So it's like these little sustainable changes will make a big difference later on in life.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Oh, definitely, yeah. And I don't beat myself up if I don't get 10,000. I look at it as like 70,000 a week. I might do 3,000 one day, but then I think, well, what is it actually about? Yes, it's about moving, but it's also about getting my heart rates up. So if I go and do a row, a 10,000 metre row or a 2,000 metre row at pace, at fast as I can, I guarantee that will outbeat my 10,000 steps for that day. So um, but yeah, I'm all about that. And I've I fell out of love with the gym for a while um over Christmas. I think I was just stressed. I got ill, then it was like uh horrible weather, whatever. And now I'm completely back in the zone. I I don't know if a switch has been flicked in me, and it I think it really was like, what are you doing this for? That emotional pull of do you want to see your crank kids? And do you want to be able to like lift them up and take them out and do all that? Well, if the answer is yes, you need to put the foundations in now, and that actually sh shocked me and scared me into got sort this out.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, I'm I have to motivate myself, but the way I do that is go, I'll go to the gym, but I'm at a gym where they've got a sauna and a steam room and stuff. So the only way I manage to go is you know, I'll do that, then I'll sit in the sauna.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

But the sauna even's got a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Talk to me about sauna and health benefits.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

So uh loads of studies about it and um about the health benefit and looking at people in Scandinavia who use them regularly. And there probably is some degree of if you're using a sauna regularly, you know, are are you going to a gym that has a sauna? Is your lifestyle different to somebody who's not? But anyway, looking at all the studies that have been done over years and years and years, there's a significant risk, uh significant reduction in all-cause mortality. So cardiovascular disease, strokes, all-cause mortality, everything that causes death, there's a significant reduction in that in people who use saunas regularly. And it has to be something, I don't know the exact numbers. Depending on where you look, it's sort of 15 to 25 minutes, three to seven times a week. So there's lots of variables. But there's evidence for 15 minutes three times a week, um, as a significant reduction in all cause mortality. So if you can find a gym or somewhere that has one, definitely use it. It's a nice experience, it relaxes you.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Yeah, I but I believe it so much. I went to a spa day and they had a really hot sauna, and I thought, I'll do 15 minutes. Well, after about eight minutes, I was thinking, God, I need to get out of here. Anyway, I was like, keep it going, keep it going. I got to about 14 minutes and I thought I'm going to faint.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

I got out and I actually were like, couldn't even open the door to get out because I was so weak at that point and blacking out. I'd really overdone it. I thought, what the hell? Anyway, got upstairs. I was like, get me water. They gave me water and flapjack. I'm literally passing out. And um, and then my Fitbit for that day said I'd done like an hour's workout. And I was like, I've only been I've been in the car and I went to a spa day, haven't done any workout. And it was because my heart rate got so high in the sauna, and then the after effects of that coming down that it it had done the same for my watch as a workout.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

You probably pushed it a bit five to do. And probably you've probably got a lowish blood pressure anyway because you're fit and active, which then, if you are in a sauna, your vasodilate, your blood pressure drops, which is probably why you felt like you did. But um, you want to get to that point where you get in that that feel like I need to get out now, it's a bit much. That's kind of where you need to be at.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

At that point, your body releases these sort of heat shock proteins, which are the things that go around and start repairing uh your body. Um, so yeah, I love it. I love it. And it's a good excuse to just chill out for 10 minutes. I love it. Don't have my phone, don't have your phone in the salt. I'm not a cold plunger.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

I know there's lots of benefits, especially for men, but I've just I'd the idea.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

If you do it right, I did a post about this the other week.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

I'd rather, honestly, I think it works.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

We do a we go to Scotland and things like that a lot, and in Scotland, you're you're in the Highlands somewhere, you know, beautiful scenery, middle of nowhere, it might be snowing, whatever. A cold plunge there, I enjoy that because it's just like, oh, look at that.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Well, that's nature.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

But when people have got them little inflatable ones in the showers, there's no chance I'm doing that. No. But lots of benefits if it's used right. So if you're trying to support your um body and you're trying to um reduce cortisol, reduce stress and whatever, then maybe doing soreness and infrared is better. Ice baths are great or cold plunges are great, but if you're already stressed and your cortisol's already high, that's only going to add to that. So you've got to use cold plunges in the right way.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

For menopause or women, do you think it's like beneficial or not? Because that they've got high cortisol anyway.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Yes. But if that sort of background cortisol is probably more what's going on day to day with the life. So it's a good one to do. There's some evidence about it maybe not being great for muscle building. So if you're using cold plunges uh on workout days, that could limit the amount of muscle um production you get as a result of the exercise. So maybe not. But if someone enjoys doing it, um, then there's no there's no harm in doing it. Just don't do it on a day where, like, like me doing nights now. If I think, oh, I'm doing nights, I'll do four nights, and on Sunday morning I'll go to the gym and go in the cold plunge. It's the wrong thing to do because my body's already under a lot of stress.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

So you just gotta pick it at the right time.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

I uh yeah, fair enough. The mental fortitude, it probably gives you great, you know, doing hard things. But I do hard things every day in different ways. Um I thought, I'm not being a hero, I don't need to do it.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

There's a bit of me that thinks, and this isn't true, but there's a bit of me that thinks, is the cold plunge thing only good? Because if you start your day with a really cold shower or cold plunge, it can only get better. So when you get out of there, you're like, you know, that was horrible, but now I feel great because that just done.

SPEAKER_03 21:15

I feel like I've got a raft of evidence of things I've done in my life that I know I I it's not a question of could or do it. Yeah, of course I could. I could grip my teeth and get on with it. Anyone could. I don't want to. So no, I've done hard things, I do regularly hard things. Who am I trying to impress? And the only people who do it are people who put it on Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

That is literally like you're not called fungion every day unless you put it on Instagram. So don't even believe me.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

I'm a little bit guilty of putting it on Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

There you go, because otherwise, what's the point? If no one's watching, yeah, you wouldn't do it.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

But also, as well, it's the one thing that'll make me sit in there for long enough. I'm like, if I get in this and film it for Instagram and I'm in it for 10 seconds, everyone's gonna laugh at me. So I'll uh I'll stay a bit longer.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Put on a brave face.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

Oh, of course. It's interesting that concept, isn't it? Would you tap out if no And was watching. I mean, there's no way I I would have tapped out of bare grills if I thought this wasn't, you know, if this wasn't going on TV, I would have been like, oh, I'm off after three weeks. But I thought I'm not gonna wimp out and it'd be on the whole world.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

The whole world now is that, isn't it? Everyone, there's all this this online persona and then the real version of you. And I, in my aesthetics world, I do a lot of mentoring with uh people who are brand new to the industry or reasonably new to the industry, and they're looking at people who are putting this persona on online. I'm like, this isn't real. Don't worry about it I used to think it was, but it is not. You see, you know, the the big KOLs and ambassadors for certain companies, and there was a f a photograph of one of them, and they've got the laptop open, they're on a private jet, they've got a bottle of Moe there.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

But they're the ones I would never book.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Thank thank you to this company for flying me to here to talk about this.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Talking on the phone, you can clearly tell that there's nothing on it.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

I'm like, that is quite clearly. I know because I'm in the industry now, I know that you've paid to go to Manchester Airport to sit on the runway on someone in a private jet to get them photographs, and then you've flown EasyJet. So when I went to Turkey for a conference, I was on, I don't even know what hell, I never heard it in my life. I'm at the back with just me and a load of blokes going getting hair transplants, and I took a photograph down the aisle of like everything, just chaos on the plane on this tiny little seat, going, that's the reality of it. Because these people who are new to the industry, whether it's my industry and aesthetics or people out there who are just looking at other people, going, I'm not successful because they're doing all this. It's all fake. Ignore it, that isn't real.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Yeah. I look at that and I think, oh my god, you try hard. Like you in fact, the people I know who are like really killing it, they don't look like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

No.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

They don't scream about it, they don't shout about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

And keep it quiet. You shouldn't, you know.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Well, anyone who goes further further up the ladder, they don't talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Well, you even I just think again, aesthetics become a target. I think aesthetics, you are, you do. I also think with aesthetics, you are kind of insulting your clients or your patients because they're coming in paying you their hard-earned money to have treatments done or buy your products or whatever it might be. If they then see you, you know, private jet to Dubai with your brand new in front of your car like that, you fucking go public. Because they're going, hang on, I've I've spent all this money.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

And you're just living the high life looking like a playboy. It's not real. Um, but it's insulting even if it is. So just be understated.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Oh, I know, I completely agree with you. Yeah. Um my dad always used to say that you would never have a flash car, too much of a flash car. I said my clients wouldn't like it. And it's true, yeah. Uh he says I'm too flashed though. I was like, you know, I'm just glamorous, dad. Um, okay, so talk to me about the women's hub. So you've set up a women's hub. You're in the very unusual space in the fact that you're a gynecologist, you're also an aesthetics doctor, um, which I think is like the perfect perfect synergy, really, because a lot of what goes on with a female impacts them visually. So the menopause has a huge effect on them aesthetically, and you're in that perfect sweet spot of like marrying the two words together. You could turn up for a Botox appointment and also probably get some advice about the whole ones as well. So I think tell me if I'm wrong, is that the why you've set up the women's hub?

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Genuinely, yeah, that's how it works. So I started in aesthetics uh 10, 11 years ago now, alongside like I was a junior doctor, weren't earning a lot of money, and girlfriend at the time was having Botox treatments, and I was like, why are we paying somebody else to do it? I'll learn. And I started doing it, got a few more clients, carried on building it, started my obs and garney training, carried on doing aesthetics, never really had that strong passion for aesthetics at the time because it was just like Botox fillers. And then it kind of started moving to that regenerative kind of phase. And at the same time, I found that there was this gap where there was a lot of women who were not getting the services they needed out of the NHS just because of the pressures that it was under. Um, and there were the same people who were coming in, like you say. So you get these um clients who are coming in of a certain age and they're noticing changes in their skin health. So they're coming in because they want Botox, because they've seen online, I've got wrinkles, I want Botox, that'll fix it. But actually, you go, well, there's there's other things going on under the surface. And then exactly as you say, you know, with having the Garney background and the the aesthetics kind, we started going, well, how do we put this together? Because there's clearly a gap here. Um and we started looking at things a little bit more holistically. So that's when, you know, we started going, well, actually, yeah, Botox are going to help, but you know, what's your diet like? What's your exercise like? What's your sleep like? What products are you using in your skin? What supplements are you using? Um, and then it just kind of expanded from there, and there were more and more people coming to us. So then we started integrating some women's health treatments, non-hormonal treatments for certain menopausal conditions. Um, and it just built up from there. And then I worked with um a gynee nurse years ago at Warrington Hospital. Um, we got back in touch, she does aesthetics now. Um, actually, I trained her, she works at my clinic, and um we said, well, why don't we put something together? So it became the Women's Health Hub, which is kind of a dedicated space where we have regular appointments where people can come in and we do the bits that the NHS currently isn't doing um because it can't. So we're looking at things like you know, the old school where you could go and see your GP for 30 minutes and have all this. They don't have the time, it's not their fault. So, yes, they'll give you the hormones, but we'll look at everything else. We'll talk about your diet, your lifestyle, your supplements, you know, so that people can get that evidence-based input that they need. Because at the moment, you know, where are you getting your evidence from? It's it's somebody on TikTok says buy this on TikTok shop.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Yeah, and you want to look at blood work and is that what you do in blood work.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Uh blood work is important for more tracking. Um, for menopause, perimenopause, we go on symptoms.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Um and it's interesting to say why you go on symptoms.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Just because it usually starts a lot earlier than people realise. So perimenopause can start in your mid to late 30s. And menopause, people always go, right, menopause, menopause, menopause. That's one day. Menopause is one day you wake up and it's been 12 months since you had a period. That's menopause. But everything in the lead up to that and everything after that is the important bit where we need to support the body. And as we were saying earlier about the uh sort of supporting health for pregnancy, support health for for menopause and and beyond that. So um, yeah, we kind of go, let's look at everything more holistically, let's think how we can support you to go through that that menopausal phase. And it might be supplements, it might be diet, exercise, it's a lot of things. It's just unfortunate that at the moment the only option you have in the NHS often is here's some here's some gel.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Yeah, here's some estradiol or or whatever. Talk to me about then like bioidentical hormones or body identical.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

Are they the same thing?

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Slightly different, and it depends who you speak to. I I did a bit of research into it, and actually I don't in privately now I don't actually prescribe many hormones at all because the GPs tend to do that very well.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Um I do a lot more of the supportive stuff. Body identical, bioidentical versus standard hormones, there's a lot of these there's a lot of different opinions out there. The problem I have with the bio-identical and body identical, and a lot of people who are are big fans of this aren't going to particularly support this opinion, but I like the idea of safety, I like the idea of evidence. There are hormonal regimens out there now, are standard hormones that you can get for UGP, that if they're done in the right way, you've got the right dose with the right preparation for the right period of time, there is no increased risk of cancers and things like that. And actually, it's much more beneficial to be on them. They've been out for years, so we've done the research to know that they're safe. The bioidentical, body identical, probably are fine, but we don't know yet. Like we we we we know enough, but we don't know how we don't have as much evidence. So for me personally, I don't, but I know there's a lot of doctors who really like them, and probably because they've used them a lot more than I have. Right. So for me personally, I stick with standard hormones and I stick with with health optimization strategies.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

So I'm 40 and I think I'm starting to see some symptoms. Well definitely am. Um I've started to get like itchy skin now and again. Yeah. And I was thinking, gotta be, gotta be a symptom. I'm always like scratching the back of my neck, right, at the moment. Then uh I got a vertigo and I was like, oh great, vertigo, fantastic. Do you know what I mean? And my partner was like, Oh, something else wrong with you. I was like, oh well, can see you're gonna be a supportive guy. Um he is, he's very supportive, but he was like, Oh, don't tell me this. But um, yeah, so then I started getting vertigo, but I didn't know if it was because I went to that loud concert, um, and I was just feeling a bit ill. And then I put the kettle on top of the hob the other day, it went lit. And I was like, what am I doing? Oh my god. And I was thinking, oh my god, I'm starting to see these little things creeping in. So I'm 40. Like with anything, we say prevention's better than anything. Why couldn't I just start like hormones now? If they're dropping and they've been significantly dropping since 35, why couldn't I just go on a low dose?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, but think about blokes in the gym who are using testosterone, right? They're using high dose testosterone, and it basically interferes with your hormonal axis. So all your hormones work. So you're I'm going too science, I'm a geek with it, but like HPO axis, your hypothalamus, pituitary, ovarian axis, right? And your hypothalamus tells your pituitary to produce hormones, which tells, in turn, your ovaries to produce hormones. It's doing that all the time. And as your ovaries produce hormones, they feed back up the chain and say, right, we've got enough now, just switch off a bit. Um during perimenopause, what's happening is your ovaries are running out of their reserve, they're struggling to make the hormones. So the hypothalamus pituitary are pushing out more hormones to say, please make more hormones. While it's doing that, it's doing its job. The minute we put in the artificial hormones, like with a man who's on test doctor in the gym, you're getting rid of that pathway and you're putting a lot of the artificial hormone in, which is then going back up the pathway to say, I've got enough, I've got enough, stop making it. So you're actually then inadvertently switching it off. So what you're much better off doing is using all those health optimization strategies and certain supplements to support your natural hormones and support that cycle so you can produce your own, and then if you need to at later, you know, later, use hormones. I'm absolutely not a I'm a I'm a fan of hormones, and I think sometimes it's difficult to get people on hormones. I've had people come to me on my side in the aesthetics and need, you know, have have symptoms and whatever, and I've said, go and get some oestro gel, speak to your GP. Oh, well, they've just taken another urine sample. I said, Did it show anything? No. What do they want to do? They give me antibiotics and they're sending me for a kidney scan, but it's not an infection. You've got you've got vulva vaginal atrophy or dryness. Yeah. You need oestrogen. Yeah. But a lot of people are hesitant. I'm not that. I think use hormones when you need them.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

I'm with you.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

But it's the icing on the cake completely.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

Yeah, I'm with you. Uh start with the great foundation. I always say like the hormonal pyramid. How's your diet? How are you moving? Are you doing some resistance training? How's your sleep? All these things. Even like people, I've seen a big trend towards people taking melatonin. And I'm like, that is essentially HRT. Melatonin is a hormone. It's like, even if you think it's not, I know you can't buy it in the UK, but you can in America over the counter, gummies, whatever. But um, yeah, and I'm seeing this big trend towards like things like that. Well, everyone thinks I'm like against HRT, and I'm like, I'm totally not. No, I'm just like I'm I'm a pro woman's right to choose, is what I am. I hate people who are demonizing, oh no, you only have to use HRT. Because there's a big section of society who don't, like you say, don't want to use it.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

If your body's in the right um state to use the hormones, it can do it better, it can be more efficient at it, you know. Um so again, going back to uh the equivalent version with a man, right? If you are a bloke at a certain age who, you know, you're struggling with stress and tiredness and you're putting on a bit of weight around the middle and you're going to the gym and not seeing the results, you think, well, I need to go on testosterone. You start with your artificial injections, whatever, God knows what dose you're having. Because you've got a little bit of additional adipose tissue here, your adipose tissue, your fat tissue converts a lot of the testosterone to other things like estrogen, and then you end up with gynecomastia or man boobs. So you're worse off. So actually, what you need to do before you do that is optimise your body so that when you're giving it that little bit of hormone, it can utilise it. And it's the same with women. Um the problem we have though, probably one thing is education, people are just not understanding that because they just think we need hormones, and you know, that's what you do get at the doctors, and and that's fine. But the other side of it, probably, is that we are in that world where I want to fix now. Um, and you know, people who often say, you know, my supplements aren't working. It's like, okay, well, have you is everything else optimized before you've done the supplements? If not.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

The supplements are the cherry on top. I say this all the time. That's the top of the yeah, well, it's a yeah, there we go. There's the pyramid bang uh top is the hormones of the supplements on top of a great foundation.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

They seem to be the easy things to introduce.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Yeah, and you can't you can't out-supplement or out-hormone a terrible lifestyle, sedentary lifestyle, which is full of stress, and and and it all then is a feedback loop of well, I'm stressed because I've put on weight, because you know, I'm not feeling great, so I want to go and and they think HRT is a magic bullet, where they're just gonna lose weight, have a sex drive with a 20-year-old, and all this is gonna happen because I'm on HRT, and that is just not the reality. And then loads of people that we speak to as well will be on HRT and they'd feel worse. Why does that happen?

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Probably just again, your body not being able to utilise it properly, and like thinking that that's the the the be-all and end all. And it it usually isn't. It's you've got to do the lifestyle interventions as well, haven't you?

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Yeah, yeah. Same with GLP ones, obviously. I'm like, again, use but used with caution.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, they're a great medication for the right people, and it's life-changing for people who've got high BMIs and you know almost diabetes. Diabetes, it's life-changing. Genuinely seen so many uh cases where it has been life-changing. Um I do prescribe it privately um for certain people, and I'm a little bit more flexible. I had a lady recently who off license because she was 77, BMI 30, pre-diabetic blood pressure. I said to her lifestyle stuff, but she didn't say to me, Well, what can I do? I walk around the garden. Yeah. I get that, but for everyone who comes into me, I'll tell them, you know, I I do a full consultation with them. Lifestyle, diet, exercise supplements. I try and delay the GLP ones for a while to see if we can optimize the life versus the you know, intermittent fasting and things. Um the problem is there's always somebody at the school gates who's selling it out the back of the car, so you can't really get around it. But GLP ones are great, used again, like the hormones, the top of the pyramid. If you're stressed, sleep's rubbish, you're eating rubbish, you know, GLP ones, yeah. I mean, all you need to even do.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

I feel like you wouldn't even need the GLP one had you sorted out the first the thing in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

It's good for a kickstart for certain people. Yeah. People who've got BMIs, high BMIs, and either can't exercise because the weight is affecting joints and it's sore to exercise, or feeling self-conscious, don't want to go to the gym, you know, because um sometimes that initial kickstart of GLP one um can give them that confidence back to go and do that. So I'm okay with it, but people don't understand the risks.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

No, I know, and the other thing is the bounce-backability of that weight. I mean, I was reading some data yesterday that was like, you know, they gain all the weight back within a year. Once they stop it, within a year they put all the weight back on plus 10% more.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Without lifestyle interventions. Yeah. So I'm I'm strict with mine. Yeah. And I actually don't make a lot. When you think about what we do to do, I don't make a lot out of the GLP ones, but we do the full, you know, lifestyle consultation. First, we try and I try and put things in place like intermittent fasting, educating people about um making sensible food choices, um, so that when they come off the GLP ones, we always have a plan of we're gonna put you on it, we're gonna get you off it at a certain time, so that they go into it expecting to come off it, and they expect they're gonna potentially put a little bit of weight back on, but hopefully we put them lifestyle interventions in place so that they they don't do that. Um a lot of people I think go on it, carry on with the same lifestyle habits, come off it, are used to eating 800 calories a day. Now they're back to 1400 and they feel I'm gonna put weight on. No, no, before you were on 800 because you were trying to lose, now you're trying to maintain, you need to go up. And there's a lot of psychology about um that sort of addiction to being on their medications, I think.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

And when they're eating these 800 calories, obviously, with the best of intentions, you're probably telling them what to eat, you know, prioritised protein, you know, whole foods, all that.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Are they?

SPEAKER_00 38:53

I I had a great one where I said to this lady, You know, it's 800 calories of ice cream. I'm gonna put you on, I will put you on it, blah, blah, blah. But I said, we need to look at this. Oh, I know all this. I said, I know, but I need to tell you. I need to tell you the risks and I need to tell you what you so she went, I'm not being disrespectful, she said, but I know what to eat. She was like in the mornings I wake up and they always have a bowl of cereal because it sets me up for the day. Right, okay, right, straight away, no. If you've been in a period of fasting, you think about how our bodies have evolved, right? You've gone through a period of fasting. We only recently, the last few hundred years, have got to a point where we can pretty much, in in this country at least, get food whenever you know. Um, we're not used to going through that. So our bodies don't know that. So what we're used to is you've not eaten for three days, here's some sugar, better store that because you don't know when your next is gonna get it. So if you've gone through your fast, whatever that window might be, if you first wake up in the morning and then go, cereal full of sugar, full of carbohydrates, whatever, you're gonna store that. So breaking your fast with a protein-based food is always gonna be eggs and avocado. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Mega.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

Every single day. Well, I try and I I usually just have a couple of supplements in the morning and then I go straight through till 12 o'clock, probably. Yeah, I do the same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

12 till eight is my eating window and I fast around that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

I wouldn't even call it fasting. I just said that's my day.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

I used to do when I used to work years ago in the hospital, if I did like a full C section list, so you'd be sort of doing a full morning of like four sections back to back or something. I'd go, I need to get up in the morning and make sure I get my breakfast because I'll be hungry otherwise. I'd come out of the first section, and and anybody who's worked in the NHS knows, you know, they have tea and toast at 10 o'clock, especially on maternity. And I'd be eating toast at 10 because I'd be starving. Yeah. Now I don't eat, I don't get hungry, and it could be one o'clock and I go, Oh, I need to make sure I'm eating.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Protein-rich diet keeps you satiated for longer. I really noticed that. And um, yeah, that's that's definitely the way I live my life, protein heavy. And I've really started noticing it, and it really is important. If you're I mean, I say it all the time, it's on blue in the face, but if you're 35 plus, you need to be prioritizing protein over 40, 1000%. Yeah, yeah, you know, um, weight training, one thousand percent.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Yeah, because it goes back to the muscle mass thing we said earlier, doesn't it? If you're not building that muscle and sustaining that muscle now, and most of us don't get that protein that we need, and it's okay to supplement it, it's better to get it from your food, yeah. But if you need to supplement it, then you should.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

I get I I only supplement it if I'm in the gym because that's my PT mix after my session. But um, otherwise, I try and hit 120 grams of protein a day, a clock for that.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Yeah. Um it's tricky to do.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

It is actually, it is. It's so easy to do carbs. I'm on a low, I'm on like 75 carbs, grams of carbs a day. But 120, if you do eggs and some chicken or whatever, and then I might have a packet of chicken for lunch or something, it's not too bad. But um and the Greek yogurt is my hero go-to in the evenings.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

I can't, I love it. Yeah, I love it. Elite level snack that.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

I I have people on that, I say, you know, if you if you're used to having you know your chocolate or your biscuits in the evening, then two painted medal dates oh, in a Greek yogurt.

SPEAKER_03 41:54

Tell me you want chocolate more than that. I don't believe you. No, incredible. Elite level snack with berries oh amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing. So uh, we should talk about supplements there. Um obviously I am a supplement brand. You have tried some of ours, haven't you?

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

And what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, so I've tried, I've tried all of them actually, now. I've not tried the golden pill, actually. I think we go off and tried that one. But um, yeah, I get a lot of people trying to push the supplements through the clinic and things like that. And I'm really fussy about supplements and about um products that I use. I'm always like, well, I'll try them and then I'll be honest because my clients trust me and I don't push things that I don't. Um and I really like them evidence-wise, but also from me actually taking them. So I think I first added the magnesium, I think. Um, because magnesium is great for sleep, um, it's a great supplement for pretty much everybody. Um and there's lots out there, and you buy them over the country. If you look at the preparations, the magnesium glycinate, magnesium citrate, whatever, the actual absorption of it is quite low. So people are taking it, you look on the back of the packet, it'll go a thousand percent of your RDI, and you go, Oh, I've got a thousand percent of what I need today. The reason it says that is because you're going to absorb that much of it. So they need to get that high dose so you get it. Um so your one's really good because it's liposomal. So you're absorbing it much more.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

And it's really liposomal. Because you wouldn't believe how many under third-party testing have got no liposomes in it whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Just say what you want. It's a supplement, it's not regulated in the same way, is it? You say what you want.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Nate, I went to a high street the other day, probably the biggest high street pharmacy in the UK. Uh, bought one of theirs, liposomal vitamin D's, sent it to the lab. I went, just check that for me. I thought, I don't know, just I'm smelling a rat on this one. They tested it. I can I've actually done a video on it, so I don't need to put it on here. But um, they said, don't take it. I said, Why? What's from where's the microbiology report? It was crawling with bacteria. It did have liposomes in, but the reason it tasted so foul is crawling with bacteria. And he was like, it's completely contaminated. Now, this was in a sealed bottle.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Yeah. They've not held the same standard, are they? No.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

And this was the biggest retailer in the UK. And I'm like, that's the shit that they're putting out.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Yeah. Is that if it's liposomal, a lot of the time, as long as an element of it is liposomal, you know, liposomal, whatever, the actual active thing that you need might not be, but it can say liposomal on the on the panel.

SPEAKER_03 44:23

No, I know. And um it's and I know the manufacturers I work with, because they're like the the leaders in that space in terms of the RD and the liposomal space, they are obsessive about uncovering these charlatans who are doing this as well. So they, I mean, I'm always testing the I send products left, right, and centre into them, and they're like, tear up, like, they'll send it to the ASA or trading standards because they're like, no.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

People are spending a fortune on supplements from online um shops or from pharmacies or whatever. And I think there's a lack of education awareness around what makes a cover supplement, what's important in a supplement. And people are spending a lot of money. Not only are they wasting money, potentially doing harm, there's increased risk or there's increased cases over the last few years of uh non-alcoholic fatty liver disease as a result of people just taking lots of supplements that your liver can't cope with.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Yeah, and they all interact with each other, high doses. Yeah, no, I I've seen that as well. Um that's the thing, everything's getting processed. Yeah, we were talking before the broadcast I just did previously. You will love this guy, by the way. If you're into health optimization, you're gonna be all over this product, won't he? He oh my god, it was we all want one. I've got one in the office actually. Um, yeah, it's I'll tell you about it later. Incredible. But um we're talking about electrolytes, and he was saying, yes, they are really beneficial, but the the stuff that you see in like liquid IV, stuff like that, he's like, There's some women out there having three of them a day, and it's absolutely ridiculous because the amount of sodium in it, it means like they're having one, two grams of salt a day, and it's just way too much. It's now giving them like kidney issues, so you you can do a lot of harm.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's why it's worth supplements, don't seem to be something you need to get guidance on. You say I'll just buy it.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Um, but it is worth getting an opinion off somebody, like what's beneficial to me. One, it'll save you money.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Um, because don't take that, don't take that. Um, you know, but from a health point of view, you know, look at certain vitamin D's, right? Vitamin D, everyone, you need to take vitamin D. The NHS this year said everyone in the UK should take vitamin D in winter because we don't get enough sunlight. Um, vitamin D on its own, um, you don't absorb it as well as you should. And the bits you do absorb um can be deposited in your arteries and increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. So unless it's packaged with vitamin K2, you don't really want to be taking it.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

At the right ratio as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

But people are buying it rightly because they go, I want to I want to look after myself, so I'm gonna take that vitamin D. And usually there's a supplement out there that might be similar price, it might be slightly more expensive, but if you're gonna do the job, yeah. Um, and it's the same with your collagen stuff, the collagen products. Um there's collagen out there on the market that that is cheaper, um, but you're wasting your money. You can't do anything.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

I mean it's just not gonna do anything. No way. It well, first of all, it's not a tripeptide, it's just a bulky collagen molecule. So it's big long chain of amino acids that your body then needs to break down, and half of that you're not even gonna use, it's never ever gonna reach your skin or wherever you were thinking it's gonna go to. And then on top of that, the absorption rate's not brilliant. And any skincare that you see with collagen in as well is pointless because the collagen molecules, it's not gonna get past. I'll tell you what was an eye-opener. I went to um Cosmoprof in um Bologna, which was like um all like the health and wellness beauty products coming out in the next couple of years, so all the I mean, Korean beauty is dominating, you and it's still dominating, it's unbelievable. And you just realize I had never seen more serums and moisturisers and everything. I I was just like overwhelmed, and I only got round a third of it. It was a joke, it was a joke. Anyway, you just realise it's all the same shit in a different packet.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Yeah, that's another thing though, to get advice on. Yeah, people buying skincare products. I I strip it back. I've had people come into my clinic with, I'm on these things and I've got this dry skin, like, take it all the way, let's start from scratch, and I give them like a three-step routine for everyone to start with, then we introduce everything else. So, you know, cleanse, use an active day and night, retinol, vitamin C usually, and then moisturize with an SPF in the daytime. Do that, that's your basic.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

After that, start adding things in. But people have got cupboards full of supplements and skincare that like they don't know what they do, they don't know how they layer in them.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

And also, I just feel like maybe we're overcomplicating it and just compromising that barrier all the time. Yeah. I'll remember on when I was did Bear Girls the Island, and I hate to bring this up every fucking podcast, but the girl there, she used she was like obsessive about being clean, and I was just like, let's just get down with it. Fucking hell, like we're in the jungle, mate, let's go for it. So she was using tampons out of the medical kit and cleansing her face with the tampons, and then what happened was she destroyed her skin barrier, and the sun's hitting her all day. You should her face was like hanging off.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

And even Bear said to her at the end, he was like, What did you learn, Emily? Because her face was like absolutely hanging off like all this skin. It was awful for her. And he was like, You've just gotta like protect your skin barrier and the against the elements, and like like there's there's um chemicals, and it actually made me think, Fucking hell, there must be so many chemicals on a tampon you don't even realise because what she was doing was putting it in the water and then wiping the tampon on her face, like cleansing it, like a makeup pad. And it had stripped it that much that you you couldn't believe it. And um, I just thought, wow, what the hell is on a tampon? And two, how important is your skin barrier?

SPEAKER_00 50:11

Your body can look after itself most of the time. I so anybody who comes into the clinic, we've got a 10-step um assessment tool we use for skin health now. And the first and most important bit is sensitivity, sensitivity and skin barrier. Because I'm not going to try and do anything else, microneedling, whatever, until that barrier's protected. Um, and the first question I ask everybody in my clinic will be um if you have a shower, wash your face and then get out and don't put moisturiser on, what happens to your skin? If you're fine for the rest of the day, your barrier's fine.

SPEAKER_03 50:41

If your skin goes tight, you need to look after your barrier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Um and because then you're not, you know, if you've not got a strong barrier, you're losing water. And a lot of the chemicals and things we use do do that. It's fine to use the right things. You know, if you if you're washing, like I'm not saying don't wash your face, obviously wash your face, but don't use scented exfoliants all the time. Don't be doing regular like too many skin peels. And yeah, look after your skin barrier first and then add everything else in after.

SPEAKER_03 51:06

Another friend of mine, she had a CO2 laser recently. Oh my god, I think I don't know what happened. Downtime on that, or well, yeah, the downtime was bad, but it all got infected.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:18

She got sepsis.

SPEAKER_02 51:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

Well, like we started getting treated for sepsis, it was like absolutely awful. And I think she's too young to have it anyway. She was like 30. No, she's 33. We do think it was too young anyway to be doing it. But um, yeah, I mean, I think protect your barrier at all costs is kind of my new mantra.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

The CO2 laser, I've got one and I've got in fact, she's in the clinic now doing some treatments. Um CO2 is a great tool. If it's done properly by the right people, it's dangerous in the wrong hands, it can cause scarring and infections and all that. But in the right hands, um and Kirsty works brilliant at it, like yes, it works well, but pick the right clients. If someone's got lasers ablative, yeah, but microneedling's regenerative, if someone's got significant skin damage, uh, you know, some beds, laxity, pigmentation, sometimes the best thing to do is go look, accept the downtime, let's resurface the skin, and then get you a course of microneedling to build up that collagen. If someone's 13 and they're having every 12 months, I've seen a thing recently, every 12 months going from my yearly CO2 facial. That is too much.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

Like I thought it was like a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Yeah, but there's a trend now for regular. Um, don't know where it's come from, it's not needed. Great tool for the right people, great tool for sort of blephroplastin things when people don't want surgery, great tool for resurfacing with significant skin damage, but it's definitely not somebody who's who's you know just doing it for a quick, like, oh, my skin will look better. Do microneedling and peels.

SPEAKER_03 52:44

Yeah, I know. That that was my advice too as well. I was like, oh, you really didn't need that. Like lovely skin, beautiful girl, like, yeah, and then oh, that happened. I was like, oh my god. Um, but yeah, hopefully it's healing well. But and also you want to get a good result. And I feel like with an older customer, like 50, 55, when you've actually got deep set wrinkles, then yeah, the result's gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

But when you've hardly really got anything, especially if you're doing botox at 33, then but preventing so when we said about supplements and lifestyle and stuff and making yourself be more preventative, so when you're older, same with your skin. If you come in when you're 60, 65, 70 and go, I don't like these fine lines of wrinkles, it's quite hard, not impossible, but it's quite hard to make significant improvements. Um, starting early by doing things like micro-needling. I'm I'm banging on about microneedling all the time now.

SPEAKER_03 53:30

Oh, yeah. So I had a guy in two weeks ago who was also banging on about microneedling, and he'd given me my very first session. I'd never had a micro needling session before that. And he was like, How? How have you got to 40? Never had one. I was like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

It's one of the best things you do for your skin. Is it? Cost effective wise, it's reasonably cheap. It I think it got a bad rep because for a while a lot of people doing it without much training, and we're doing it because it's quite straightforward. So people were just having to go and going too deep, causing bleeding, which can cause scarring, pigmentation issues. So it went out of favour. But doing it properly in the right setting with the right serums and the right products alongside it, um, you can get significant improvements in the collagen production in your skin. So if you're taking your collagen supplement, great. But also trying to get it. And then on top, oh yeah. If you the way your collagen's made in your skin is you've got fibroblast cells that make collagen, it does that in response to to trauma, for example. So, and from the age of 25, you lose one and a half to two percent of your collagen every single year. Once you hit menopause, it's inevitable. In the first five years of menopause, you will lose 30% of whatever's.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

Are we talking menopause or perimenopause?

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Menopause, the first five years after menopause. So um, we can't do anything about losing that 30%. It was just we know estrogen declines and we lose that collagen. So, what we can do in the meantime is keep the collagen levels as high as we can, so we're in the best position to enter that five years post-menopause. Doing things like supplement diets, increasing your protein intake, but doing regular microneedling, which will cause micro uh micro trauma, not the same as doing CO2, a little bit of trauma, you get redness for that day. The next day, a bit of flakiness, maybe, you're back to normal. But you've traumatised the little patches of skin, the fibroblasts have gone, let's make more collagen, and you're keeping that collagen going. If you wait until you're 50, 55, 60, themselves might have been asleep since you were 25. That's 30 years. To try and wake them back up and get them to make collagen again is much more difficult than it is to start early and just keep them ticking over.

SPEAKER_03 55:24

Well, that is actually why I loved our liposomal tripeptide collagen. Because uh, when the professor was explaining it to me, he's like, your body recognises the glycine proline and hydroxyproline. That is the tripeptide it recognises in its fibroblast to say, make more. So if it recognises that, it goes, hang on a minute, we've had some collagen broken off somewhere. If it recognises that in your bloodstream, it goes, we've had it broken off, make more, make more. And it stimulates that.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

And he said, and if a product, a collagen product hasn't got hydroxyproline in it, like vegan collagen, it cannot work. No. He's like, it's just a nonsense.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Main thing I I don't push, I know I shouldn't, I'm sat here on your podcast and I don't push and go use LCRI. With any of my products, I say, here's the evidence, you make you just you make your mind up. And I tell everybody there's three things with a collagen, okay? So look at the molecular weight, look at the delivery of system, and look where it's sourced from. Um, molecular weight, less than six kilodoltons, so six thousand doltons. Anything bigger than that, your body ain't going to absorb it. It's going to break it down, it'll absorb the amino acids, and it may or may not make collagen again. Delivery system, liposomal is going to be better. Liposomal, uh, the the product is encapsulated in a lipid envelope, the same as your cells. So in your body, it can fuse with the cells of your intestines, you absorb it. Normally, when you absorb things, you're either relying on active transport transport, which is energy dependent, or at least protein channels, and they're a rate limit in step. So you're not going to absorb as much. And then finally, the product where it comes from, exactly right. I think animal-based is always gonna be better than than plant-based for that reason, the hydroxyproline. Um argument for fish versus uh bovine. Um bit of both. There's evidence that goes, oh well, is is um is fish better for skin, whereas bovine better for gut and joint. However, yeah, based on molecular size, so because yours is molecular weight lower.

SPEAKER_03 57:16

It weighs 500 Daltons.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

So that that should negate any of that. So actually, you're getting the gut health, you're getting the joint health, you're getting the skin health, you're getting the right delivery system, and it's a small molecule.

SPEAKER_03 57:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

So you say that to them, you don't have to sell it. It sells it.

SPEAKER_03 57:28

I know that was another misconception the prop prof went through to me because I was like, well, hang on a minute, what about bovine? He's like, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter the source, it matters. Can you absorb it and the molecular way, the Dalton size? Because I did a big poster that was going on the tube called and it said size matters, and it was all about the Dalton size. It got banned, didn't go out there. I was like, I thought it was so fucking clever.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

Yeah, I know I like that.

SPEAKER_03 57:51

But um, yeah, because ours is the only one that's that small.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Yeah, but it makes it does work. Like I've taken the collagen, um, and I told Kelly about this. I did uh we were I was taking it, Kate and my girlfriend was taking it, and um she I don't think had taken collagen before, so we're taking that, and she said, you know, she's like, I think I can see a difference, blah blah. But then she went to the hairdressers, hairdresser was like, What are you doing with it for your hair? Using something different. She's like, No. So it's just really thick. And she was like, just didn't even correlate it to the fact that she was on collagen. And it was between Christmas and New Year, um, and she gets her nails done, and she was getting annoyed because normally she has the nails done at Christmas, and then um they'll you know they'll last throughout the period. She's like, I'm gonna have to go and get an infill. She was like, My nails are growing really quick, yeah. And I'm like, well, actually, you know, that's think about it, the hair, the nails, it's the collagen. She's then, um, and you'll have to Kelly, I'm sure we'll message her. Um, she then was like, well, I'm gonna try another one. Um, so she switched to something cheaper alternative, really popular brand out there. And she's like, Yeah, it's not doing the job. She's like, nails. I said, How are your nails? Yeah, no, they're fine. So she saved a bit of money because she's not any nails done, but you can tell the collagen isn't working. So I said, it just doesn't, there's no point in you're wasting money. It's a cheaper product, but you may as well throw that 15 quid away, it's not doing anything.

SPEAKER_03 59:11

Yeah, I know exactly the right. I'll tell you what was the biggest kind of validation for me. Well, there's lots of different validating issues. I mean, Christ, this guy, the professor, is not wasting his time in the health and beauty space. He's really not like this guy makes cancer drugs, that's his day to day. And like he's he's got awards from Cambridge and Oxford and all around the world that could fill this entire room. He's not fucking bad. And uh, it's not just him, it was like 30 other students. So this was a university project, and it was also government funded. Again, they're looking at the science and they're going, Yeah, we're gonna fund this because this actually sounds like a really good idea. And um him he was so bowled over by the results, he gave it to his mum, and she's like what 75, 80 or something like that, and her joints were getting it were improving so much, and he was just like so delighted with with the results, really. And then I came along, I was like, okay, this sounds interesting. But the biggest validating thing that happened recently was a completely independent professor, so not part of any it I don't know him, you know, nothing to do with the product. He came along and looked at the science and was like, this is amazing, this is really interesting. So he started using it and his wife, bowled over by the results. I must have to say that this guy was the Queen's consultant, so he ain't no joke. Yeah, he's also one of the most decorated plastic surgeons in the UK and has got some wow faces behind him, like if I told you off camera. Um he said, I'm so impressed. And he told everyone in the golf club about it. So I've got like a raft of like these older men taking the collagen, right? Um, who are all from his golf club. So he said, I'm gonna publish a paper on it. And I was like, Oh, thanks very much. Like to have you and your credibility, you're completely independent, like, you know, actually like really voucher for this product. That means so much to me. So he's about to publish this paper in a medical journal, which again, like, there's not many wellness brands that can boast that and like actually cross the line between like, you know, whatever, some Instagram business to an actual proper medical journal without real credibility and scientific validation behind it of people who are in the space who demand evidence, who want ev, you know what I mean? And and that is the difference.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

Yeah, there's so many things out there now that you need to ask about the evidence behind it and why am I taking this or why am I selling this to my clients or my patients. Um and I always start by that, like, yeah, just send me, send me the data. Yeah, send me the data, let me have a look before I'll send it. And if the data's a little bit sceptical, or they refuse to send it, or you get into it, it's it's not you don't you want to be right, you want to be selling the right thing. It doesn't matter if something's a little bit more expensive or whatever, if it's the right product, it's worth spending the money on and taking. There's no point spending money on things that are cheaper if they're not working, because it's a false economy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:08

Of course it is. I mean, I was talking about Danny's grandma before 85. She takes our collagen and do you know, with a view to I want to stay mobile, I want to feel good, my joints, I want to get down on the floor and play with my grandkids.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

Because it's not just skin health, that's the thing, we're gonna help you in every way.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:24

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

Got health, joint health, skin health, yeah, bonus, hair, nails. Um, no, I I really like it. We take it now. I think Katie's realised now that Well, do you know what?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

But it's worth a trying. It was good to try both because we have so many guys we're taking it, and obviously the emails that they get from us are like, hi ladies, yeah, we're doing a spin-off like men's version. Yeah. Um, so I'm starting a whole new brand, but that's a whole new podcast for another time. But yeah, I need to get like a focus group of men just to give me some ideas and pointers for like marketing channels. But um, I mean, I've already got the packaging done that's already airside in the UK. So it'll be the same products, just different packaging, different messaging. That's that's it. You know what I mean? So it just means if you're the partner of El Cara, then you can you take it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

Yeah, because I have some I have some men who take that and the and the magnesium as well. Yeah. And I know it's I know it's a women's health brand originally. I said, but the products are good.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

You can you can if I put that in a different packet, black packet, uh yeah, no question. Yeah, so yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna do. That's like on my bingo card for the rest of 2026, along with everything else that I've got to do. Um, but yeah, and I I love uh the beginning parts of a brand, the conceptualising and thinking about how it's gonna look and feel. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

So yeah, and then the hard work comes and the hard work comes.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

But I've learnt a lot, I've learnt a lot in the last five years that I've made a lot of mistakes that I won't definitely won't make again. I'm far and above where I'd started with this brand, you know what I mean? That's an education in itself.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

You've got to learn as you go. I I've done that with my I did aesthetics and and I did aesthetics for like 10, 11 years. I did the longevity wellness side for two or three years. Um and then I I'd always worked alongside my other roles and NHS and university roles and things, and then I went fully into this clinic last year and staff and new premises and and I'm like, honestly, it's one of the hardest things I've done.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

I think people underestimate how hard it is to run a business. Yeah. Because I I did. I just went, well, I'll just, I'll just do that more, yeah, and it'll be fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:29

And then you go, honestly, it's the hardest thing in the world, and I'm still learning, but it's like And then he if you've got two premises, I was watching Hormosy give some guy advice. I think he was in the aesthetic space actually, and this guy had had three different, he had three different premises now, and he was like, you know, this is what's happening to the business, and this and that and that. And Hormosy was like, Well, you had a great success in business number one, so you thought, yeah, yeah, we'll we'll have a the second, second space, so do that. And you probably did half as much residue revenue as you did in your first one, because now you can't you're having to split your time and look at two different ones, and then you think, oh, well, we'll just need to like open up a third, and that it like, and then the whole model starts falling down, and you're actually in a better position at some point with like one because you didn't scale it correctly, or just one and two, yeah, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

Focus on the first one, learn your mistakes, learn how to do it, get a system in place and try and replicate it. Yeah, it's hard. I'm massively under honestly. I I left the NHS for an easier life. Now I'm like, when I go in the NHS, like now, I'm at a night shift tonight. I'll go in, I'll do 12 and a half hours. When I leave, I'm done.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

Like running your own business. Like the amount of times I've messaged Kelly and gone, voice note at half nine, I've just got back from clinic. You know, don't don't don't message back tonight, just so you know. And you still get a voice note back. Yeah. And I wake up in the morning, there's a voice note. And you never switch off when you put your own business.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:49

No, of course you don't. I know, and that's like she'll message. I just message whenever I think of it. I'm like, yeah, don't message back. I'm not one of these people who's like, oh yeah, yeah, I'll send it in the morning. Morning. No, no, no. I need to send it as I'm doing it. Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

Do it later. Yeah, of course. Even on holiday. Last year, um, my girlfriend now learned that um she basically just says to me, When we get back to the room after we've been at the pool all day, she goes, you know, I'm gonna go and get a shower, get ready. Do you want to sit on the balcony and do your admin? Because she knows if I just have half an hour, 40 minutes of admin.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

Just get through your emails and you're not coming back to the show. She knows I'll be more chill. Yeah, well, that's I mean, my partner's got 10 different venues all over the UK. He's in hospitality, he's got 400 staff. Try and go out with that guy and see what happens because he is honestly this all holiday, all day, all the all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

I've got what have we got? Five staff.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:42

Yeah. And there's always a crisis. I might put your phone down.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:46

He's like, no, but if you thought having staff would make my life easier. I thought having staff would mean that I'd be more chill because they'd run the place. It's not no, it's it's ten times worse.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:54

It is ten times worse. It is difficult. It's difficult to find passionate people who want to work in your business and who are coming to you with like ideas as well. I think that's important. Yeah, they might not be the best people, but my god, can they bring ideas and different dynamic thinking sometimes as well? Um yeah, I think that's super important. I don't care if people get things wrong if they try new stuff. I'm always like, let's have a go. If it fails, whatever, we learn.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

I spent a long time picking the team. So I picked the ones that I trained a few of them. Like I've trained a lot of people, but I was like, I want that person, I want that person. Luckily, they all said yes. Um, and then the new person who started my sort of deputy clinical lead, she didn't even know. She came in for a treatment and we got chatting. It turns out she was a practitioner, and a few things she was saying were really nice, like, you know, um, oh, I trained in fillers years ago, but I've I don't really do them, I don't do enough of them, so I don't feel confident. And there was certain things like that that were just making me go, okay. And then I uh messaged her afterwards and was like, You probably didn't realise I was doing a little mini interview there. Do you want to come in for an actual chat and done that? And yeah, I think getting the team right has been hard and probably one of the hardest things I've done, but I think it's the the right the right thing to invest in and make the time to get the right team and the right people working with you to like say bring them ideas and definitely build that that brand together.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:16

I mean you're in you're in Cheshire, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Um I'm on border, so I'm basically in in Lee in Wigan.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

Um so I'm on the border of Warrington and and Wigan.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:26

Yeah, okay. And you talked about longevity, regenerative stuff. Um, you know, I feel like you know, LA is like romping ahead with like regeneration and whatever. Do you see many people in your area looking at longevity as like Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:43

I just think making it more accessible. I think people get put off because they see people like Brian Johnson in the state, not the time not the ACDC guy, like the opposite of him, like the the two million a year on supplements. And I think people go, I can't do that because I haven't got that money. No, should you do that? I haven't got that time. And I think people get put off, hyperbaric oxygen and all that. And so I think they hear biohacking longevity and go, uh, it's too much. So I think trying to make it um accessible for people is what I've been trying to drive towards so that it doesn't matter whether you've got huge amounts of disposable income or very little. There's certain things you can do, little changes you can make in your life to to improve.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

I'll say the biggest biohack, just go out with your friggin' friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

Honestly.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:26

Honestly, socialising will outbeat anything that Johnson's doing all day long. We've seen it, we've seen it with the blue zones. Anybody who's got a social group around them and a purpose to get up for will outbeat hit anybody who's sitting there re-oxygenating their blood in a hyperbaric chamber and sitting there like a miserable sod at bed in bed at nine o'clock.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

And having fun. And whether I'm like I say it or not, you know, within reason, within moderation, like go out, have a drink with your mates. Like, I know we should be oh, health optimization, longevity, don't drink alcohol, it's bad for you. But that if that's part of your social norms and you withdraw from your social stuff because you don't want to drink alcohol, and that then that's gonna have a negative impact. Yeah. So I think, yeah, just enjoy life and do things you enjoy doing within, you know, within safe limits and within reason, and then put things in there that aren't gonna take away from that but are gonna add to it. So, you know, like I say, if you're gonna be miserable because you're going to the gym six times a week and you don't want to see your friends because you're in bed at 9 p.m. because you're up for the gym in the morning, you know. That ain't gonna work.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:33

I think if you found new friends who were into the gym, you could all do a gym class together. So you've socialized and you've done your activity. Like going for walks together.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

My mate and his my mate and his wife and the two kids went out for a walk on Monday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:46

Um get your steps in, you're out in the fresh air, it's free, yeah, and you've socialized and you've seen your mate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

So do things that kind of add to your life rather than what sort of is taken away from your own.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:58

Like I I like to be in bed early. Um yeah, I just can't deal with the late night these days, or drinking really. So I'm like, can we go for a lunch or can we go for an early dinner? I still want to go out, I still want to see all my mates, and I still want to chat to them and gossip and whatever. Love all that. I still don't want to do it at three in the morning anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

No, no, it's not worth it. It just takes too long to recover from it.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:20

Exactly. So yeah, I feel like longevity has been hijacked by tech bros.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:25

We're optimising sleep, we're optimizing, you know, everything you can try and optimise. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

It's basic stuff. It's stuff, you know, you look back, it's stuff we've done for years. It is kind of sleeping, trying to reduce stress levels, trying to eat properly. They're your main pillars.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:43

I mean, that guy, what's he called? Matthew Walker, his whole message is get a good night's sleep.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:49

This is honestly, I I don't know how many more podcasts I can listen to. This guy was going out. I'm like, I could literally sum up this guy in a couple of words. Get a good night's sleep. Everyone knows that that's really good for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

Yeah, and we're all on, you know, um uh mobile and the worst for it. I I keep saying I'm gonna put my phone in the office room. Oh, I'll never it's next to my bed.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:10

Yeah, I listen to podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

Business, business owner thing, you know. And I'll try not to, but I've got my phone there, it's on charge, I'm using it. I think getting the phones out of the bedroom or putting them away from the side of the bed, um, so you actually get some sleep, getting a decent kind of sleep hygiene system, you know, um, making sure you're not eating too late, making sure you're not being overly stimulated at night. Because that's the thing, if you think when you're scrolling, the way that's designed is to engage your brain. So if you're doing that and then trying to sleep, your brain doesn't switch off.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:41

Um you scroll more than like the length of the Eiffel Tower, I believe, in one day.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:45

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:45

I can't believe that. That shot me. I thought, bloody hell, I better do two.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:49

Yeah. But that's yeah, improving your sleep is really important. And like, you know, women who have um who struggle with sleep and menopause, we usually they come into clinic and that's one of the things, and it's dead easier to go, sleep more.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:02

Yeah, but if I could do that, so well, what's the problem? Well, it's hot flushes and stuff, and I'm waking up hot at night. And one of the easiest hacks for that, which again doesn't cost anything, it's not a biohacking, take this supplement. It's a if you're waking up or if you're struggling to sleep because of hot flushes, you need to drop your body temperature slightly to be able to go to sleep and stay asleep. So if you measure your temperature when you were asleep, it's a little bit lower than it is normally. Make sure your room's nice and cool and aired, but have a cool shower before bed. Not a cold shower, we're not doing the the cold plunges anymore, but a cool shower um before bed, and then sort of pat dry, but don't dry off completely. Wear loose-fitting clothes or whatever, you know, and let that water evaporate off your skin. As that water evaporates, it'll take some of the temperature away from your skin. Your body temperature drops, and you'll find you'll be able to sleep easier and stay asleep. And that's one of these like little biohack things that you call it a biohack, and it's like that sounds dead clever and dead expensive. It's like just having a cool shower before bed.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:00

Yeah, exactly. And I find that honestly, the simplest things are probably the easiest things. I've started reading before bed now. Yeah, nothing to do with work. I'm reading The Odyssey by Homer.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:12

Can't get more like, you know, it's enthralled readers for 3,000 millennia. I've also read it before, I did it, I did classics for an A level. Um, so I'm well, well up on it. But I thought I'm gonna reread it before the movie comes out in July because it's you know, it's written in a way that in in old language, and it's nothing to do with e-commerce or business or anything, and I can just enjoy it for what it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:38

Yeah, because we work too much. I I last week with the first, I was getting burnt out. I could feel it getting burnt out, and I was like, I need to do something different. And all I did was I've got two mobile phones because I decided I need to stop having my work phone on me all the time. That was about 12 months ago. Since then, I've always carried two mobile phones to now have a boat. And I'll sit there at night and I've got both phones on the side next to me, and I'm constantly messaging back. And I just went, it got I mean, it's still not early, but like 7 p.m. I went, right, that work phone's going away. I'm not doing it, I'm not looking at it. I'm watching TV, I'm doing something else, I'm not doing that. And I slept better just because I wasn't on that till half ten at night replying to business messages.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:15

Yeah, it's so difficult, especially because I deal with China a lot, and I have to be so you know, 11, 12 o'clock, sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll wake up and I'll speak to China, and then I'm awake, I'm overstimulated, and the messaging back, and then I get a rubbish night's sleep because of that. But I think no, it was worth it. That's pushed me forward. I needed to do that. I'll rather take some hours in the day today and sleep in the afternoon because I've done a load of work in the middle of the night. Yeah, I'm my own boss can do that, which is good, but um yeah, I feel myself getting burnt out. Adding the fact that I'm a mum to a toddler is like suicidal sometimes, really difficult. And perimenopausal.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

But now people do it. I can't look after myself. Me and a sausage dog. I don't know, like beyond that, I don't know how people have time for like kids and everything else that goes with.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:00

Hire help is my greatest biohack. Hire some fucking help. Stop trying to like and I say it to women, I'm like, if you can afford to do it, just do it. Like, don't who are you trying to re impress? No one's giving you a medal for running yourself ragged.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

Because everyone goes, How do you look so good? I'm like, Well, I outsource a lot of it. You know what I mean? I don't try not to run myself ragged. And I still am running myself ragged. But if I had to do like all the like laundry and cleaning of the house on top of that, yeah, well, one, I definitely wouldn't be with my partner because I would resent him so much at this point, you know what I mean? I'd be like, Well, we're over. So then it it's removed that resentment out of our relationship as well. Means I can spend that quality time when I do have a few precious hours with my daughter, not you know, doing a load of iron in as well. And then also I've got um she's in there three couple of days, but um, she's got a child minder that comes every week as well. Otherwise, I couldn't run a business. Well, I just couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

No, and it it wouldn't be you wouldn't be enjoying your life, would you?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:01

So it's um no, I wouldn't literally have a time to do anything for myself. So um that that's one of my biggest help hacks.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:09

Help hacks. So sleep properly and uh hire help.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:13

Yeah, absolutely. If you can, definitely, definitely, or live near grandparents and be the other one. Um let me we're about to wrap up, but I just want to check and see if we have any punchy questions I could ask you. What's the most overrated thing you think women are spending money on right now to do with their health?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:33

It's the supplements that don't work. It's the supplements that a uh that they're buying off TikTok shop and online shops that uh are just a fad. Um, just get some advice. Just speak to, you know, if your aesthetics practitioner is the right person who knows about it, they'll be able to tell you. Reach out to longevity, wellness people like what you know, do your research about supplement. So, yeah, they're spending too much on supplements that don't work.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:58

What's the most underrated?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:01

Uh long-term skin health. So everyone's spending money on Botox, fillers, whatever, but less people are spending money on their long-term preventative strategies for the skin. So the decent medical grade retinols, the microneedling treatments, um, the polynucleotides potentially, things that are gonna uh improve the skin, improve the skin's barrier, improve the skin's collagen concentration in the long term.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:28

Good one, I'd agree. Uh if you could tell any woman turning 40 one thing she won't hear from the GP, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

Um I thought we've just said it's gonna be sleep and higher help, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:41

No, why not? Yeah. No, speaks of less stress.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:44

I think it's about getting the foundations right first. So the GP will say, here's some hormones, and absolutely fine, use them, right? But look at the main pillars first. Your sleep, your stress levels, your diet, your exercise. Get those things right. They'll make a bigger difference to you than them hormones will. The hormones help, but they're the icing on top of the cake.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:02

I would say if we could tell one thing to any woman turning 40, weight training. That for me, like literally that the more muscle tissue you have, it's like a longevity hack. Muscle tissue makes you look sexy, makes you look great. Like it is gonna make you feel great. The more muscle tissue you have, the more you you're gonna burn at rest. Yeah, the more calories you're gonna burn at rest.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:24

I just think and don't be put off and think I have to do all in one go. Like, no, I've got to do weight training, therefore. I need a personal trainer and I need to go and be doing all these just just go and move some stuff around.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:35

And don't be getting weights that are as like heavy as your phone as well. Because I guarantee your handbag is heavier, your bags of shopping are heavier, you could probably lift more than you think. Like, I pick up my daughter, she's 17 kilos, and I can wing her around and dance around with her. And you you've got more strength than you think, I think. So people put off by that. Um is aging gracefully a phrase you believe in, or is it something people say when they've given up?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:00

No, absolutely. I think aging gracefully is is definitely a thing and should should be a thing. I think um prevention is gonna be better than cure when it whether it comes to supplements, whether it comes to lifestyle, whether it comes to injectable aesthetics treatments. And looking good for your age is always gonna be better than looking like you've had work done.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:18

I completely agree. But also, I'm of the opinion you can look the best. I think if you can look the best you possibly can do, i.e., don't smoke, don't have loads of late nights, don't be bashing wine every night, obviously that's gonna have a huge like du don't be going out battering your face without SPF on.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:37

If you do all those things, you're gonna ramp up aging quickly. And if you don't look good for your age, I'm telling you, you get treated different in society. Yeah. You really do. And that's just a fact of life.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:47

And you feel different. But I just think, you know, these people you see who have so much work done that actually when you look at them, you assume they are older than the arch. You go, you've had work done. Yeah, you must be older than you are because you've had work done. Whereas just doing that natural thing, where people look after the best thing is if people come in to my clinic and go, um, you know, people have said to me, What have you done different? You look different. Have you been away? What is it that's different? They can't put the finger on it. It looks like them, but they look like the best version of them, and that's what you want. So you want to age gracefully where you just look like you, but the best version of you rather than looking like somebody else.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:19

I'd tell you what I saw the other day, which I thought was super interesting, um, was a forehead lowering, right? And so obviously, as you get older, you naturally recede anyway, everybody does. And um, one of my mates had it done. She was like, it's the best thing I've ever done. She was like, I got a mini light eye lift at the same time, but basically the guy took out like a bit of her forehead there, and then like reattached it there. Two weeks, done. Like all she did was wear a headband for two weeks. Yeah. So that it's you know, like when you have a transplant and they're taking hair out the back and putting it in here, filling it in. They didn't do that, they just take the skin out and pull it forward. So there's literally an invisible scar there, and she was done in two weeks. She looks fresh, she looks young, and I was absolutely astounded by it. I was like, that's a podcast, but uh yeah, so I thought that was a bit of a hack as well. So you don't need to go the facelift route or the hair transplant route or all these things, but I thought that was really interesting. But um, Dr. Kieran Lords, thank you so much for coming in, especially. I know you're knackered because you're going, uh you've been on nights, you're about to go back on nights, you've had to trail it Liverpool entry, Grand Nationals aren't in, you've come all the way to Liverpool. So I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:31

All right, thank you for having me anytime.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:33

Thank you so much.