The Gutsy Chick’s Guide to Eating Well (Without Losing Your Mind)

In this episode of the Gutsy Chick podcast, I’m joined by the brilliant and joy-filled Edie Hoppen—a holistic health coach, gardening enthusiast, and the creative force behind the Meno Monster Quiz—for a refreshingly fun take on menopause, food, and midlife wellness. We talk about why your old health habits might not be working anymore, how to stop obsessing over the belly bloat, and how oxytocin (a.k.a. your feel-good hormone) can be the key to making food and life joyful again.

If you’ve ever looked in the mirror and thought, “When did this stop being fun?”—this episode is for you. Let’s reframe midlife, one monster at a time.

In this Episode: 
00:00 Introduction to Gutsy Chicks and Edie's Journey
01:37 Understanding the Meno Monster Quiz
04:00 The Role of Cortisol and Fun in Health
06:00 Making Food Fun Again
11:28 The Importance of Eating the Rainbow
13:24 Addressing Sleep Issues and Nutrition
15:17 Finding Humor and Joy in Menopause
19:08 Gardening as a Source of Joy
26:18 Life as an Experiment: Learning and Growing


Here’s how to connect with Edie Hoppin:
Quiz: www.menomonsterquiz.com
Web site: www.ediehoppin.com

Other links mentioned:

The Secrets of Body Whispering Private Podcast: https://bodywhisperhealing.com/private-podcast

Watch Gutsy Chick Podcast on YouTube!

Check out more from Amanda:
Website: Body Whisper Healing
Instagram: @Amanda.G.Smith
Facebook: Body Whisper Healing
Pinterest: AmandaGSmithBWH
LinkedIn: Amanda (Ritchie) Smith

Take the Gutsy Chick Quiz to find out how your type A, high achieving mindset might be holding you back from healing your chronic health issue: https://gutsychickquiz.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Gutsy Chicks and Edie's Journey
• 1:37 Understanding the Meno Monster Quiz
• 4:00 The Role of Cortisol and Fun in Health
• 6:00 Making Food Fun Again
• 11:28 The Importance of Eating the Rainbow
• 13:24 Addressing Sleep Issues and Nutrition
• 15:17 Finding Humor and Joy in Menopause
• 20:29 Gardening as a Source of Joy
• 27:39 Life as an Experiment: Learning and Growing

Transcript

0:01

Edie Hoppin, sister, I'm so happy to have you on the Gutsy Chick podcast with me, because you're the epitome of Gutsy Chick in my humble opinion. Truly, you and I have been on an adventure together, learning how to make our businesses happen since 2018. Did you know that? Yeah. I was in the business academy with you and Mellissa Seamans. business academy back in 2018. And then I left for a little while and then I came back with a completely different business, but you've always been in the same lane. Edie is a licensed holistic health coach, lover of food, believer in abundance and an enthusiastic gardener and You are all about helping people figure out how to have fun, staying healthy with food. And that through line since 2018 has been there, has always been about food. You and I went on the gluten free adventure together and now you've got the Menno Monster quiz at MenoMonster quiz.com. oh And I just found out that I am the belly builder on your quiz. Can you tell me a little bit more about your Meno Monster quiz and tell everybody here why they should go take it? Because there is a solid chunk of gutsy chicks that listen to this podcast that are in that phase of their life. I would be happy to and thank you for asking me to come play with you today. I just, I adore you and I'm just super excited to be here and talk to your peeps and hang and do the thing. So thank you. Just over the moon. um Yeah. So, so the Menomonster quiz, know, menopause can start in our thirties and perimenopause. And a lot of the time we think we're losing our mind and we wonder what the heck is happening to our body, because suddenly what we used to do just is not happening anymore. It's craziness. So it's really cool to kind of think about the symptoms that come up as these monsters that are external that we can actually kind of boot to the curb. you know, I don't want to think that it's not inside of me, right? It's something out there I can do something about. So we just play with that as a paradigm. So in terms of the metal monsters, uh Some of the other names will sound familiar, temp twister. It's like somebody's twisting the dial, hot, cold, hot, cold. I may take this coat off and put it back on three times during our call today. I don't know. uh What else? uh The desert dryer, all the things dry up. We've been talking about sex already. So, you know, that's part of the conversation. uh Belly builder, the one that you mentioned. Most of us have some kind of uh a tummy that starts to show up when our cortisol goes up and our hormones start to shift and go out of whack. for a lot of women, it's like that's a weight gain. Well, it kind of is and it kind of isn't. There are some things we can do to kind of help mitigate that. Mostly what I like to focus on is not like pounds or physiology. It's like, how can we reduce that cortisol? How can we make life more fun? How can we move that stress out, better sleep, all the things. So That kind of fits into the fun and also uh just shout out to the gutsy chicks who are going through this stuff and let's help them and finding out what your specific symptom is means that then we can focus on specific things that help. Cause the, know, shotgun blast across the board, the Googling, all the craziness, we need to find out what works for us. And so that's what I'm interested in is the specific magic combo that works for you. I love that. Okay. So you're smack dab in my series of eight videos, six videos, excuse me, six videos, six podcast episodes, six weeks of talking about the three S's, which you already brought up cortisol. That's stress. And we're really going to dive into one of my favorites, sex. which is oxytocin, right? Get it. And then the third is sugar, insulin, which I have an episode with Amy Gallo where we dove into all things ozempic and all things, yeah, all things insulin glucose response and what's actually physically happening in the cell when it comes to insulin resistance. It was a brilliant episode, but today we're focused. a lot, not completely, but a lot on oxytocin because you're the fun haver. If you guys take her Menomonster quiz at Menomonsterquiz.com, you're going to laugh. And it's the epitome of who Edie is. So go take it and have fun with it because it really is. It's seven questions. It's super fast and super fun. And you might find out that you're like me and you're the belly builder. Okay. So as the belly builder, cause I'm going to, I've got to use that as my example. food doesn't become fun anymore. look at food in a completely different light and this it's like it happened to me at 40. 40 was this dividing line where all of a sudden this, this getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I am, I consider myself a very healthy human. But I've started to notice this psychology of, no, we can't have that. Because that's just going to make my belly even bigger. And it might be a bloat at some point, the inches are just there and they're growing and growing. And it's very frustrating. And I know some of this is hereditary. But how do I make it fun again? How do I find the oxytocin hit when I'm eating food? thinking about, I'm just getting bigger. Right? Well, and you know, you and your athlete self and your gutsy chicks that are, you know, the athlete piece, it's like, you know, now I'm getting, there's things that happening to my body that I can't control anymore. It's not fun. I get into the spiral. It's sad. Am I getting fat? You know, it's one of those, you know, let's just call it what it is. And yeah, there's some of that. But again, at this point in our lives, and I'm, I'm pushing the big six, so coming up. you know, it's like we got to do what we got to do to take care of ourselves. And we're coming into this next phase where we have so many opportunities, but the shift can be hard. So first of all, take yourself off the hook. Number one, again, it's that mental monster out there. So we just need to address that. So let's just, you know, make that suggestion. em I really believe in the 80 20 rule. If you're eating healthy 80 % of the time, you have that cookie in your 20%. If you want a cookie, have a cookie because the enjoyment of the cookie is worth more than beating yourself up over it. Have the freaking cookie. I like dark chocolate. have a square in the evening when I'm, yeah, right. I have a square in the evening when we're just hanging out, watching TV. I don't eat the whole bar. I don't have two bars of chocolate. I have some chocolate and chocolate is a vegetable by the way. And it does make our heart happy. Chocolate hits that heart chakra. So it's like, that's a great oxytocin hit. um I was thinking about this. I knew we had this conversation coming up. And in the shower, where I get all my best inspiration, I was reminded of, I used to live with a bunch of folks in a house back in the day after college. And when we'd all shop together, we would do spice of the month. It's just buying. any spice that's on sale and then figuring out how to use it throughout the month. So that's super fun. It's like now and back in the day, we didn't have Google. had to actually, you these things with pages that they publish. I think they're called the book. I don't know if you can tell behind me. Many of those are recipe books because that's fun for me is to look through. Yeah, right. So spice of the month or our vegetable of the week or something that is new that you haven't tried before. that challenges you to come up with some kind of fun recipes around that? One thought. um Another thought that I had is spa water. Now, generally we're all dehydrated and this is a uh tape loop that we've all heard too much. I did find that when I started putting fruits and veggies in my water, it made it more fun. So how many colors can you fit into a water bottle? Now, some people should not have glass. I'm just gonna say that. I am one of them. and that's okay, it's okay. um I discovered on our recent trip to hot climates that an insulated water bottle, you put cold water in there and put in some berries and fruit. uh It was pineapple and mango. um Really amazing. You could put a little salt, gives you the electrolytes and the hydration, maybe a little lemon, um spa water. keeps, and what that does is when you're hydrated, Your brain is happy. It's not thinking that it's going to die of dehydration. It's not sending you, you know, the brain sends you anxiety when you're dehydrated. That doesn't help. So keeping you hydrated, keeping, flushing out all the things that may be wanting to lodge in that belly area, just keep the water going. That'll be helpful. um And then I do a quarterly reset program where we do fun food. There's a bunch of sharing on Facebook. We cook together. One of my gals did the most beautiful like Sunset Magazine worthy photos. So I was thinking you could even get together with friends and come up with like how many colors of rainbow can you get into a salad? know, salad not so exciting for some people. Maybe you just do a recipe. But I was just thinking, what are the things that light me up and make it fun for me to explore new foods? Go into the grocery store. It's like, okay, I've got, you know, the rainbow colors, roy-gee-biv. See how many of those you can get in your cart. I love that, that it keeps it so simple and it's sticky. If you remember, you know, rainbow, duh. Why is it important to eat all the colors of the rainbow? What is it? Cause you hear that all the time, right? you should, you know, make sure you, you eat all the colors of the rainbow, but what is it about eating the colors of the rainbow that we're getting out of that? Nutritiously. That's a great question. So each different color of food in the vegetable department, I'm not talking about Cheetos, which I also on occasion have been known to eat, but we're not talking about those here. In the rainbow, you have different antioxidants, different vitamin combinations, different things. So for example, in blueberries, you've got a lot of really good antioxidants that come in that blue color that will help keep you healthy, keep your cells happy. um In the oranges, the beta-carotene, the vitamin A, all the good stuff that comes from that. The leafy greens, we get the chlorophyll that oxygenate our world. um Tomatoes, lycopene is good for the eyes, the red, the nightshade discussion is a whole other one. But you can get that uh in a number of other veggies. um But the concept of eating all the colors means that you're basically getting all of the different spectrum of antioxidants, vitamins, helpful things that help your body. Really what we're trying to do is decrease inflammation. So when your body has all the tools, you're doing all the good things. You don't have pain, you don't have hot flashes, you don't have sleep issues. don't, mean, anyway, inflammation can be tapped for a lot of those things. my gosh. Okay. So is there a fruit or a vegetable in a certain color that is going to help me specifically with sleep? Disturbed sleep, can't go to sleep, wake up and don't want to go back to sleep. Woke up because I had a damn hot flash. Woke up because I was too cold because I had a hot flash and I'm all wet now and it's cold in here. Sound familiar? I speak to that specifically in many of my bio, the waking up in a puddle aspect. Super fun. um Yeah. So that's, it's a great question. And that's where sort of your own biology comes into play. So looking at what you're missing and looking at what feels good to you, you know, the leafy greens are always great because they, it depends. mean, now, hot flashes, leafy greens have kind of a cooling effect. So if that's a thing, it does cool down inflammation. You don't want to do the things that heat you up. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you very much. I got a few of those. We'll do those later. um But the whole deal about heat and inflammation can be helped by the leafy greens. if you're figuring out where to get those that... There we go again. Get those leafy greens. Huzzah! I need to turn that off on my Zoom. See, we just always have fun. uh You can also put them into a smoothie. So if you're not like a salad person, then make yourself a yummy smoothie. Use some blueberries and some dates and some good stuff and throw some kale or some spinach or chard in there. That'll help. So I'm going with green. Yeah. Go green for better sleep if it has to do with needing to be cooled down. If it has to do with waking in the puddle or realizing that you made a puddle and now you're freezing. Leafy greens. I like that. How do you find humor? Cause I mean, I know some of my go-tos to finding humor to like, you know, zone out. go watch a Netflix comedian and bring myself back to happy. But how do you do that in menopause? I'm not there yet. I'm in Perry, but I'm seeing some signs and I know it's coming. If I can get it under control, then it won't be nearly as bad. Fingers crossed. Is there a? Is there a thing for that one? Come on, give us a screen thing. So Edie set off the thumbs up and the double thumbs up. If you're an Apple user, you know what's going on in her background. For those of you who are listening, those of you who are watching, I'm sure you're cracking up. But what are some things we can do to really boost our oxytocin when we're in the thick of menopause symptoms? Right, so generally I do things that amuse myself, which others find funny. So that's a good thing when we're hanging out together. If we are not in the same room, what I would recommend and what I've really found is something that's super helpful during all seasons of the year is going outside. So watching the animals, finding a flower, um know, squirrels are pretty hilarious. um There are some crow antics. that are pretty awesome. uh And there are a lot of options about uh comedians and there are some really funny books out there. There's a book on my shelf, uh The Menopause Manifesto that is, yeah, like kick butt, we say in a PG world. That's kind of cool. uh And finding community and finding the people that... can help you navigate this stuff with a light touch because in some cultures they don't have menopause symptoms. So what is it about our world that makes that happen? And I think a lot of it has to do with stress. So um when we can work with the three hormones that you're talking about in this series, because those are ones we can work on without a prescription, we can do those together, it makes it a lot easier. And yeah, I mean, one of our beloved mentors, Lindy A. Sprew talks about keep it simple, sweetie. And I think that's the key. And I think that's one of the things I love to help people figure out is what are those things for you that make you happy? I had a client that started painting again. You know, it's those pieces that you can go back to. I've been puzzling. I was going through some major stress and I went through 3,000 piece puzzles in a pretty short period of time. And it was those dopamine hits, finding a piece, it was the beauty of it that was making me happy. um I think you and your listeners may find some things in their lives that are that are good in that way. I'm not a good sitting and meditator, so going for a walk has been super helpful. Even just 10 minutes of breathing fresh air, just getting away from the screens. Nothing personal to those who love their screens. I spend a lot of time here, but put on a really great Gutsy Chick podcast and go out for a power walk. Yeah. oh I agree. They're like 20 minutes long. That's a perfect time to go for a walk. Yeah. All right. Getting outside. I love this tip and the fact that you're a gardener. Gardening, what kind of things do you garden? Excellent question. uh I have many plant friends that have come from family members. So uh I've got bananas that came, hearty bananas that came from my dad. They don't usually produce fruit, which is fun. Fuchsias, uh hostas, which grow in the shade. These are all, you know, mean, different sun and shade plants. uh I love to grow food. Since I was young, uh my dad was a master gardener. And my mom was also an excellent plant parent. And mom is, she's still here, he's not, but um she is still a great gardener. uh I love to grow lettuce. I like different colors of lettuce. So, you know, there are purple, there are red, there are spotted. Even that, I try to find something that's gonna make me excited about seeing them come up. It makes a beautiful salad. uh I grow some sweet peas that are not edible and I love the Chinese sugar peas that are edible. um I've had like 20 different varieties of edible plants in a very small space because I don't pay attention too much to how much space they need to grow. I just put them in and then we talk about it. So they do, they do. if you're growing from seed, if you're growing from plant and you happen to kill your plant, well, that never feels great. But at the same time, they figure it out. Once upon a time, I taught people permaculture. And permaculture is like the simplest way to garden as long as you understand the rules. The rules are make it as densely compact together as possible so that you don't have to go out there and weed and then learn about your companion plantings because some things do not like to grow next to the others. And that comes with practice, education and experimentation and talking to others who know how to garden. Yeah, I feel like that's probably like when it comes to this time in my life. I still have an 11 year old, I've still got the, you know, raising the kid thing, but gardening, getting out there, you know, once a week at least, but getting out into my garden and watching the food grow and then harvesting the food and then enjoying the food and then keeping that going and figuring out how to keep succession planting going. So you have more food coming in the fall. more food coming in the winter, if you can go there with a greenhouse. I mean, I feel like that's like on the top of the list for me when it comes to the oxytocin boost of getting outside and enjoying my food at the same time. Yeah, it lights you up, it lights me up. And I think even if you don't have uh a piece of land, you can container garden. You can grow lettuce, you can grow radishes, you can grow all kinds of things and that's the deal. And I think watching who works together and why and experimenting every year is an experiment. So yeah, I love that. garden first, actually that was my first foray into gardening my freshman year we'll call it. I had 16 pots on my deck in a third story apartment and I was growing, let's see, canning pickles. I had to learn how to can after that. I was growing lettuce. I had one particular container that was on the rail that the geese Yeah, the geese came and made their home on my lettuce beds. And so I ended up having to learn how to do netting for birds, right? And stick little flags and things and little pokers and netting. And then I learned how plants really enjoy netting and some plants really hate netting. Uh-huh. And goose poop actually is a great fertilizer as long as it's not too much in one spot. ah Yeah. I love this. Yes. I was a big, container gardener and most of those containers are just getting to the point where they're falling apart. It's so sad. And that was, let's see, that was before grace, before Patrick. So 2000, 2007, 2008 was when I was doing container gardening. It was a minute ago. I love it. you still remember it and you loved it. It was fantastic. I think that's awesome. I got to learn soil science. That was the beginning of my love for soil science because that's the key to growing anything. Have good soil and appropriate soil for where you're at. I was an Illinoisan my entire life and then I was like, okay, I'm going to use that same soil science here in Colorado in containers. Didn't work out the same. Not similar. So I got, got the friends surrounding yourself with community like minded people. got the friends who also garden and they gave me their soil recipes. And I was, I was in hog heaven for the next couple of years. And then I had my husband's apartment or house, the house he was in renting. got to play in their backyard. And yeah, that was where I was like, okay, now to figure out how to amend soil in Colorado, how to grow things. that are sustainable. I'm a lazy, lazy, lazy gardener. That's why I learned permaculture. Yeah, you too. Yeah. And that was my experiment with asparagus and garlic. those just keep growing and growing and growing on their own. I don't have to replant. I don't have to do anything. Just plant them once and plant them in the right spot and pray that they're going to grow because of the sun. Yep. Fun, fun experiments. Yeah, I've got rhubarb that I planted in 2007. Yes, yes, I tried rhubarb here. doesn't, it doesn't go very well in our clay soil. It doesn't. but it's happy. I've tried to grow blueberries here also, not something and hydrangeas. That was the other thing that I killed several times. Blueberries and hydrangeas definitely got the axe eventually. I might try again, but it's all about the acidity and I don't want to play that game. It's too much. It's too complicated. And I'm a lazy gardener. All right. and visit my blueberries and my hydrangea. They're massive. Yes, please. I've seen pictures of your garden. It's spectacular. You are. in the city. It's amazing. Yeah, it's getting your hands in the dirt and seeing results, whatever they are. And there is no failure. There is only learning. Yeah, that's one of my favorite mottos is it's neither good nor bad. It's data. Yes, my scientist friend, yes. It's all it is. It's just data. And that plays into this whole oxytocin thing, right? When the data is good, you're happy. And when the data is bad, you're sad. And yet that goes against what I just said. Isn't it crazy how that works? Yeah, well, you know, that's life and that's the living experiment that we all are in our own. We have our own soil and we have to figure out how to grow within our own contained environment. And it is all about experimentation. And when you've got people that understand what's going on and you can play with them and you can take a light as you can look at it. And you know, it's serious business and yet there are ways that we can lighten it up and have fun and enjoy each other while we're going through this crazy world of life. I love that. All right, you guys, you can find Edie at EdieHoppen.com. It's in the show notes. Go take the Menno Monster Quiz to find out where you land in the menopause world that Edie has created. Edie, thank you so unbelievably much for being on the Cutsy Chick podcast. She just gave me the hearts. Oh, Apple products, how I love thee. Thanks for having me, Amanda. This has been lovely. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you.