The MiDOViA Menopause Podcast

Episode 031: Unlocking Wellness with Functional Health Insights

• April Haberman and Kim Hart • Season 1 • Episode 31

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Ever wonder if the secret to a healthier and more balanced life lies in understanding your own body better? Join us as we engage with Shay Pascale, a certified nutrition and functional diagnostic coach, who took a bold leap from a tech career into the realm of health and wellness. Through sharing her own challenges with conventional dieting and health issues, Shay unveils the transformative power of functional nutrition and lab testing. Discover how she helps women navigate midlife transitions by crafting personalized nutrition plans that target the root causes of health concerns.

As we explore the journey of women in their midlife, Shay provides valuable insights into addressing gut and hormone issues, weight management, and more through natural solutions. This episode sheds light on the functional health approach, where we emphasize understanding the body's unique signals over quick fixes. Learn how a comprehensive metabolism assessment and functional analysis of blood work can unlock a path to optimal wellness, contrasting this method with conventional Western practices for a more tailored health journey.

Dive into the world of building a sustainable health routine, as Shay highlights the importance of muscle-building workout plans and the critical role of nutrition. From her personal health challenges to the creation of her blog, The Body Bulletin, Shay's passion for advocating women's health shines through. Be inspired by her plans to make holistic solutions accessible through an affordable membership and enjoy some light-hearted moments, including a rapid-fire round that reveals her love for mountains and audiobooks. Join us for an episode filled with empowerment, practical advice, and a touch of inspiration for your own health journey.

About Shay: 
Embarking on her health and fitness  journey, Shay intimately understands the challenges of restrictive diets and perpetual restarts. Having been trapped in
the cycle of trial and error with various diets, low calories, and intense workout regimens, she empathizes with 35-55 year old career women
struggling to see results of their workouts and weight
loss efforts.

Having struggled with gut and hormone imbalances most of her life, especially in perimenopause, with doctors saying “blood work looks normal” or simply prescribing birth control or antibiotics, nothing
resolved her issues.

By discovering how to eat for her metabolic needs, running functional labs, and addressing her root causes, she healed her relationship with food,
resolved chronic gut and hormone issues, and achieved better workout results in a sustainable way. Now, Shay guides her clients toward their path of
food freedom and lean body composition.Transforming their health from the root to build strength and resilience for years to come.

Website: https://thebodybulletin.com/


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LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/midovia
Email Us: info@midovia.com

MiDOViA is dedicated to changing the narrative about menopause by educating, raising awareness & supporting women in this stage of life, both at home and in the workplace. Visit midovia.com to learn more.

The information, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images & other material contained on this website are for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Medovia Menopause Podcast, your trusted source for evidence-based, science-backed information related to menopause. Medovia is dedicated to changing the narrative about menopause by educating, raising awareness and supporting women in this stage of life, both at home and in the workplace. Visit medoviacom to learn more home and in the workplace. Visit Medoviacom to learn more. I'm one of your hosts, april Haberman, and I'm joined by Kim Hart. We're co-founders of Medovia, certified health coaches, registered yoga teachers and midlife mamas specializing in menopause. You're listening to another episode of our podcast, where we offer expert guidance for the most transformative stage of life, bringing you real conversations, education and resources to help you overcome challenges and reach your full potential through midlife. Join us and our special guests each episode as we bring vibrant, fun and truthful conversation and let us help you have a deeper understanding of menopause.

Speaker 1:

Today, I'm thrilled to introduce our special guest, shea Pascal. Shea is a certified nutrition and functional diagnostic coach who's made it her mission to help professional women break free from the cycle of dieting and food restriction. Oh, we love that. After a successful career in software, shea pivoted to follow her passion for health and wellness. She founded the Body Bulletin, a platform dedicated to empowering women to fuel their bodies properly regain their energy and find balance in their busy lives. Shea's approach is grounded in functional nutrition and she uses cutting edge lab testing to help her clients address gut health, hormone balance and overall wellbeing. We are so excited to have her on the show. Take a listen.

Speaker 2:

Hey, welcome everybody. We have a very special guest today Shea Pascal. Shea is a certified nutrition and functional diagnostic coach. Shea, that's a lot, those are words. Those are a lot of words, functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner.

Speaker 3:

if you want to be specific, okay perfect.

Speaker 2:

I found Shea as I was looking for sort of my own self-care and figuring out what kind of food to eat and how to exercise my body to give myself some strength, and so I was really excited that Shay also agreed to be on our podcast today. So welcome, shay, thanks for having me. Thank you. You know we've talked a lot about your journey in the corporate world as working in software to becoming a certified nutrition and functional diagnostic coach. What, what motivated you? What was that journey? How did you get here?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it's been. It's been kind of a ride. So I started in my twenties and in, you know, out of college, working in like the corporate world and tech and and always thought I would just kind of do that and climb the corporate ladder. But then I started to realize that like my office job was, you know, kind of not so so great for my health and my waistline and all of that, and started to realize I need to do something about it. So I got into working out and, um, you know, I started to really enjoy working out. But I kind of realized after a while, like I'm not seeing what I thought I should see from like as far as results go. Like I liked the mental results of, I liked how I felt for sure, working out, but I was kind of like also hoping to improve my body composition and lose a little bit of weight and feel lean and strong. That's kind of always how I had imagined If you work out, that's what you would get. And I quickly realized that that didn't necessarily happen and so it kind of led me to like the diets right, that whole roller coaster of trying different things, a cycle of trial and error that a lot of people end up on. And you know I would lose some weight, I'd gain it back. I'd lose some weight, I'd gain it back and it kind of toggled five pounds up and down for quite a few years, like almost a decade, where I just couldn't quite figure out how to eat, when I thought you should like just eat less and move more. So that's what I did. I worked out more and more, sometimes two, three hours a day, six, seven days a week, thinking okay, I just have to like kind of kill myself. How come I have to kill myself to see the scale go down? And it was very, it was agonizing, it was very it was destructive to my health in the long term. I didn't know that at the time and so started having more issues in my 30s and some my kind of IBS was really starting to be be a problem. My period issues and all kinds of different things started to happen and I ended up having to get surgery and like all these different things.

Speaker 3:

So I worked with a coach who kind of was like pointing like out that you can, you can do something about this. And then I ended up working with a functional nutrition type of practitioner nutrition practitioner that we ran some functional labs. For the first time I found out about these things and I was instantly hooked. I was like, oh my gosh, we can, we can look under the hood, we can see what's going on and, um, actually do something about it. Oh, there's a protocol that they can put me on. Okay, that's cool, we can change our diet a little bit to help with this.

Speaker 3:

So I started started making those changes and, you know, I realized quickly that that's that's what I wanted to. You know, gear my nutrition practice Cause I was a I was already a nutrition coach by then was doing macros and like more fitness based cause that's what I knew. And, um, it wasn't getting results for everyone. That's what I noticed and I was very confused by that. I was like, why? Why are some people getting results that other people aren't? And I feel like I needed to, you know, learn more.

Speaker 3:

And so I went back to school, I went to functional diagnostic nutrition and I got my certification through them. So I'm kind of like that mix between functional healing modalities and fitness methods, as well as a like nutrition, just like a fitness nutrition coach. So it's kind of that combination that we use and that has been just a game changer for our clients in terms of, okay, now we have a lot more tools in our tool belt and it's just been so much more rewarding to be able to know that we can help people. I've been able to help myself in so many different ways. I don't even think I could qualify for an IBS diagnosis anymore. You know like there's just so many different ways I don't even think I could qualify for an IBS diagnosis anymore. You know like there's just so many different things that it affects in a positive way and helping to heal the body inside and out.

Speaker 1:

So that is it's. It's an amazing journey in it. It always fascinates me how our own journeys kind of spark the next chapter in our lives. I love to hear that just kind of following, that passion. I'm wondering for our listeners and you impacted us a little bit in your intro but I'm wondering if you could just give us a quick punch on what a functional diagnostic coach does. So what would I come see you for, shay?

Speaker 3:

So it's technically, you're kind of combining the two. So it's like functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner is my certification, so FDN P and like as a just a health coach in general. You could shorten it if you want to you guys, no, someone, someone would come to me. Well, I only work with this, a certain type of person, okay. So I don't work with everybody, I can't help everybody with every problem out there, but I help midlife women typically in that like 35 to 55 usually age range somewhere in there where, um, they're, they're struggling with maybe some gut and hormone issues and they can't seem to shed the inches, shed the weight, and they ideally, you know, would like to do it naturally and get to the root of the problem without having to resort to fad diets, medications and things like that. That's typically who, who we serve.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So if I have gut health issues or I just can't seem to lose the weight, like you mentioned before, then you're a great person to see for that. Yes, talk to me a little bit about how you start with clients, if you know. If somebody came to you and said I've got gut issues, I'll just take me for example. Yeah, I'm speaking for a friend of a friend, but you know, hit midlife and never had a problem eating anything, always exercise the same way, always I was able to run and therefore, because I ran and I was able to burn calories, I never had a problem with weight right.

Speaker 1:

And we get midlife and then we have this hormonal health challenge with the imbalances and getting used to those normal levels of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and you start to see, I started to see problems with my gut. I can't eat that, can't eat this. Why am I bloated? Why doesn't this feel good? Why is my stomach talking to me all day long? And you see the shift in the weight to that. You know, stomach area, area, the visceral fat. What are some of the first steps that you take in diagnosing and really just defining and uncovering, looking under the hood Like, yeah, what do you do?

Speaker 3:

So it might.

Speaker 3:

It might vary per person, but in general if somebody starts working with us in our one on one coaching, we would take them through. We always start with our metabolism assessment, essentially, and we go through like an onboarding orientation process where we gather like the necessary information from you, like as a client, like somebody who's coming on a board, they're filling out some documents. We kind of get a lay of the land of what they're dealing with. We have multiple questionnaires for them to fill out and then we're able to analyze that. Okay, so we take that information as health coaches and we analyze that and then we kind of put together a plan for that person to start out.

Speaker 3:

Now, without working with someone, I could always say like, hey, if you want to run all the labs, great, we can do that. But a lot of people these are expensive, you know 300, some bucks a pop. So you know it's not always in everyone's budget to just like run a bunch of labs, right? So what we typically do is, once we have gone over and gone through that metabolism assessment with the client, onboarding them, analyzing their food, their lifestyle, their digestion, if they have PMS issues or their postmenopausal what's going on there, their schedule, their supplement intake, their types of workouts, all kinds of stuff. We go line by line with them through their documents and say, hey, this is what we think this means and this is what's going on with you and this is probably what's holding you back. We're going to start with this plan with your food, and then also it might make sense for you, if you want to move things along a little faster, to run this gut lab or this hormone lab or whatever it might be, and so then we were able to be looking at things kind of like internally, or maybe you have some blood work from your doctor, can submit that to us and we're able to analyze that for more of this functional lens versus the wide Western medical kind of lens, which is like a very broad what do you call it? Just like the range of results.

Speaker 3:

Like most people, 95% of the population fits into those and they keep widening the acceptable ranges. So it doesn't necessarily mean we're healthier because more people fall into it. It means that we're not being as strict in looking at what is an acceptable range of, you know, this vitamin level or that particular level, because you know, we know what optimal should feel, like it should feel like no symptoms. No symptom is really normal. Or yeah, like no, no, no feeling of like okay, I get headaches sometimes. That's not normal, Like it's normalized in our society 100%, but it's not normal.

Speaker 3:

And so we're going to be looking at all of these things, creating a plan for that person and then kind of walking them through like the next steps and holding their hand through that process of implementation, while maybe running a lab and able to like actually look at what's going on hormonally or whatever it might be going in the gut. Typically, we start with gut issues because that's kind of like our central hub, our command center is what I call it, and if we can start there, that usually like controls, everything else. So we want to make sure there's nothing going on under the hood with the gut and then create protocols there that's appropriate for that person.

Speaker 2:

Will you talk us through what, what a functional, what functional means in medicine? Helping people understand. When you say Western versus functional, what does that? What does that mean?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, so I call. So I have a slide for this, like I use it in different presentations where think of it as, like our healthcare systems, like like kind of the sick care system is what I call it. A lot of functional practitioners call it. It's you know, we test you for something. You either have the problem or you don't. You either have disease or you don't. It's kind of like black or white, right, they're looking for a diagnosis and if you do not qualify for the diagnosis within the specified like ranges of you know, something being too high or too low or these levels are off the charts or whatever it might be, then you are, you are quote unquote fine, right, that's, that's our sick care model. Now, a functional health model views things in terms of more of this continuum right, where over in the green you are in optimal ranges and you don't have symptoms, over in like complete dysfunction, you probably have a lot of symptoms or a lot of issues that you're working through right. And then there's this like middle ground of like suboptimal right. So going from like green is optimal, red is dysfunctional right. So going from like green is optimal, red is dysfunctional right.

Speaker 3:

Our goal is to to help find what parts of the body, maybe organ systems that are, that are really struggling and support the body's processes, whether it's, you know, improving your bile flow, improving your digestive capacity. Maybe you need more enzymes. Maybe you need to help going to the bathroom every single day because you don't go like a lot of people are constipated. Okay, so we got to get people, we got to get the toxins out right. Or maybe the liver needs a little bit more support. You're showing signs of congestion. Maybe there's heartburn going on. Right, there's all kinds of different things that we can support through diet, lifestyle and supplement opportunities there to help bring somebody from dysfunctional or suboptimal into more of that optimal green place Makes sense.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's not like saying looking for where you're sick, but trying to look for where maybe you might be out of balance, to be bringing everything back in. What would out of balance feel like for someone who's at midlife right now?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, um, well, any one of the symptoms I've ever had, probably I'll just I'll speak personally Um, uh, so if somebody is dealing with, like headaches and migraines, if somebody is dealing with a lot of, um, unwanted weight gain or inability to build muscle I see that one all the time um, especially around the midsection, okay, so if you're dealing with, like this stubborn belly fat that's one of the top things we might be dealing with some insulin issues, um, if you're tired all the time, chronic fatigue, like sleep, doesn't really help you. Maybe you feel tired but wired. Now we're looking into cortisol issues. Um, maybe you've got, uh, some some weird like mood, like stuff that you didn't have before. Maybe you're more anxious or have anxiety. Maybe you have ADHD or depression or any kind of mood issue, because we know that there's a connection between our brain and our gut through the entire nervous system um, any digestive issue whatsoever. So I always think of, like those pepto-bismol commercials right, you know, you've all, you've all seen those um, any diet like random diarrhea. People just kind of think, oh, it's something I ate. It's probably not that, it's probably that your gut has dysfunction and and and your body's trying to flush something out of you and there was a trigger, that food moves things along, it creates that motility and it's flushing something out of you that it doesn't want. Or if you have constipation on the other side of the coin, that can create more stagnation in the body and stagnation breeds disease. So it could look like any digestive issue. Bloating is a really common one, I hear all the time Heavy periods, heavy clotting, painful cramps.

Speaker 3:

Maybe you didn't have those before. Maybe you know your doctor recommended a hysterectomy. This is what I often see in this midlife place. It doesn't mean you necessarily need a hysterectomy. It might mean that you need to get to the root of why we have these hormonal imbalances in the first place. Or parasites are really common, or, um, it just, it just depends, and that's where some labs or some protocols can really help. But, um yeah, headaches, headaches, migraines, joint pain, muscle pain.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, interesting, because a lot of what sleep issues just mentioned are perimenopause symptoms as well. So it's, you know, it's we feel like we are going crazy, right, like what is the root cause and how to treat it. Yeah, which brings me to another question. Oh, I know a lot of your clients are busy professionals. They're, you know, we see a lot of busy professionals as well. I'm just wondering if you can give us some top tips for maintaining a healthy lifestyle when time is limited maintaining a healthy lifestyle when time is limited?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a good question. So I guess we could talk about, like, maybe the top few three, three, three things, five things, something like that what I would prioritize for somebody who doesn't have a lot of time, because I do. I think a lot of people make that mistake of trying to do too much and that's what keeps them stuck in that cycle and they think, oh, I need, it's not enough, I'm not doing enough, and then they just kind of overwhelm themselves, right. Well, I think a habit stack is one of the best tools for anyone, no matter if they're starting square one, you know, from couch potato, or they've been working out for years or their whole life, and they're trying to add maybe the nutrition component.

Speaker 3:

So the first thing I would do is get outside and walk every day. Honestly, just getting outside and getting some fresh air and some sun on your face and some vitamin D. Getting those steps is like such an easy way. You could squeeze in 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, you know, maybe first thing in the morning, just a couple of times throughout your workday, between meetings. Take a meeting with you on a walk, right, if you don't have to participate in that meeting. I used to do that all the time, right, as I would take my conference calls and things like that, things that I needed to listen to with me on a walk. So that's like an easy, like hack to get more movement and get more steps and and walking reduces stress on the body and it also reduces that midsection stubborn belly fat too. Ok, so that's one, I would say.

Speaker 3:

A second would be protein, and most women especially, are like, afraid to eat protein. I see this all the time. I think it's going to make me bulky and that's absolutely false. Protein is going to make you leaner, right. It's going to satiate you. It's going to make you like full and satisfied, versus wanting to snack and eat more and more. That's what's making you bulky, okay, versus wanting to snack and eat more and more. That's what's making you bulky, okay. Snacking and sugar and all that's what's gonna actually add to packing on the weight feeling, right.

Speaker 3:

So high quality sources of protein whenever you can, would be like animal sources. Have some eggs in the morning, have some chicken, turkey sausage, have some chicken wrap or something like that at some um, you know, chicken wrap or something like that at lunch. Have a meal at dinner that looks like a a piece of a good hunk of meat, some lots of vegetables and some sort of carb carbohydrate source Okay, it could be sweet potatoes, potatoes, whatever. Um have protein throughout the day. I always, I always, have a protein shake every day, because I too am a am a busy professional, right, and, um, you know, I might be a health coach, but I run a business too, so you know I I have limited time oftentimes and I have to figure out how to make it fit into my day. So I I personally use um a protein shake that I just put in water and mix it and chug it and I'm good and that's going to help remove cravings, it's going to help keep people consistent and you're going to watch your waistline shrink when you do it.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so proteins, like probably the second one, and these are in no particular order necessarily. If I could maybe put a third, I'm not sure what would be third, but probably some level of strength training. Um, in terms of you know what we see in midlife, it's it's muscle and bone loss, right, especially as we're like hitting 50 and beyond. So, if we want to inhibit bone loss and muscle loss, which is crucial to longevity. And so we, you know, we start to see falls at. You know, in the sixties we start to see people falling and we know, go listen to Dr Gabrielle Lyon, anything she says, like, once you start falling, it's really, it's a really morbid path, right? So, um, start strength training, start anywhere, and this is something we teach our clients. Um, as soon as they'll let us, basically as soon as they're ready, for it is doing like a progressive overload strength training to um, cause you start losing muscle as soon as you turn 30.

Speaker 3:

And I just want to add excuse me, I just want to add um, and something I've been thinking about lately is when people, when women right are younger, you know, we'll call it like 30 and below, they feel like I used to feel like you said, april, like I used to eat whatever I wanted to eat, right, and it never really, it never really showed up in a negative way for me. I could eat what I wanted and not really have to worry about it too much. And then you get to a certain age and then what's going on? I have to pay attention to this. Yeah, this is like the thing that's like oh my God, and it happens to happen to me in my twenties, it happens to women in their thirties, their forties and sometimes, if you're really lucky, in your fifties. Okay, it's common for all of us. But why does that happen, and have you ever thought about that? Why does that happen?

Speaker 3:

Right, when we're young, we're in growth mode. Right, we're growing and we grow to, at least, you know, 25 years old or so. Right, we're all we're developing. Still, our frontal prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until 25 years old, right? So then we enjoy this little time 25 or so of being able to eat whatever we want.

Speaker 3:

I used to eat cookies all the time.

Speaker 3:

I used to eat whatever I wanted when I was a kid Cokes, coca-cola, I used to have pops and stuff like that all the time, and it never showed up for me.

Speaker 3:

Really, I was able to stay trim and lean.

Speaker 3:

But then it came for me around 25 years old and I was like, whoa, I gotta do something and actually pay attention. Well, we stop growing at some point and start the aging process, essentially, and this is where you no longer have that growth factor, and we start losing muscle, for sure by age 30, and we can lose it pretty quickly if we're not actively trying to work to build it back up. So in my case, um, I started weight training pretty, you know, right around that time and I'm really glad and thankful I did because now I have a baseline of muscle and so if we can do that strength training component and and maintain that growth of muscle because we're always losing it but trying to build it back up, that's going to help set someone free from those chains of dieting. That's going to help set someone free from me having to track every little thing, eat 1200 calories a day, try to eat less and eat less and eat less we get. We got to stay in that growth mode for the, for the muscle.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's not the calories in, calories out, it's the quality of the food that you know you're putting in. And, um Shay, you have me having so much protein I can barely even keep up with myself.

Speaker 1:

I know I'm like what how much protein.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I, I am shooting for 130 right now and, um, I'm I'm getting close most days and I just poured my protein shake and getting ready to have it after this. Good, um, and from a from a habit stacking perspective, you know the weight bearing exercises which I'm now in a regular routine on feels so good I can't like. I lost myself at the gym the other day with, just like the, how great it felt to be able to do some of these things. So I want to talk about the body bulletin and your community there. But let's just say you're somebody and one of our friends who you know is struggling with where to start. I hear walking, I hear think about the food that you're putting in your body and up the protein and, if I know, if I understand right, eat as many grams of protein today, a day, is your goal. Weight, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a good start. So like, if your goal weight is 130 pounds, you know, then 130 grams of protein would be a good, a good place to start with that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's such a crazy amount of protein I'm getting used to it, but it was hard to build up. And then, you know, starting starting some kind of strength training. What's an what's an easy way to do that for somebody that's never done it before. Training needs to do it on their own yeah. How do I, how do I, how do I start on that?

Speaker 3:

So I'll be honest with you, you're going to need if you're, if you're just starting in that world of strength training, trying to do it on your own. It's pretty confusing. I had help, right I I there was. You know, somebody at my work who is like willing to like kind of teach us. You need to be taught, right. It's like anything else. If you're trying to learn some new skill, you need someone to teach you.

Speaker 3:

So you can do that a few different ways. You could go to, like a group strength training class where they have an instructor, and that's probably a great way to like meet people and have that community aspect. You could hire a personal trainer for so many sessions until you feel comfortable doing it on your own. You could in like like what we do with our clients is I literally teach them. I have a very, very simple progressive overload training program. Kim, are you doing our training program? I am, yeah. So some people come in with their own versions of it and we can approve that and let them know if it's a good one or not. But you know, even even things like certain like yoga and Pilates can be like the start to like a good place of of getting some resistance, but I truly believe in order to see like if that would be a really long road. That'd be a really long road to get to where you want to go and you'd really have to watch your calories a lot in doing something like that. I think of a Pilates and a yoga as a supplemental like that's your fourth or fifth day of exercise for the week, versus having three quality strength training sessions per week where you are hitting particular muscle groups seems to be the fastest path forward to seeing results. Is what I've found.

Speaker 3:

There are probably other trainers out there who will disagree with me, and I'm sure everybody has their own way to do this, but what I've personally seen is it's not about like high intensity, it's not about speeding through something. It's not about getting my heart rate to spike through the roof. It's not about sweating a bunch. Okay, that's not. That's not the goal, and I think that is a really difficult thing for people to wrap their heads around, because we don't lose weight that way. We lose weight through a calorie deficit, but we need to build muscle to have like solid muscle tone if you wanna look like you're lean, right. Otherwise we're just kind of like losing weight and it feels very difficult. Remember, we have to get into that growth, that growth mode place for this to feel like it's not agonizingly, you know, it's just like a horrible torture process.

Speaker 3:

So what we do is we have, you know, maybe it's like a leg day, maybe a push type day and a pull day. That's that's how I kind of program through. If I were to do just three days, I like four, but three is enough to see change. I see I see faster progress when I do like a fourth day of like, maybe some accessory work where it's not as like heavy and it's just a little bit more like, you know, just hitting some muscle groups to keep them, keep them engaged, versus trying to like really like kill yourself, you know, with some sets of heavier sets, so like I'll do like certain type of squatting, one day with some extra movements to like really get into the legs, and the next day might be like some sort of bench press or, you know, chest press type of thing, and then different moves to like hit different angles of the front side of the body. And then we do like a pull day where I include like deadlifting.

Speaker 3:

Some people include deadlifting in a leg day. Some people do it in a pull day again tomato, tomato. However, you want to split it up and then you can do different, like rows or pull-ups, or different again, pulling at different angles to hit different muscle groups. From, like, the backside of your body is essentially like so now we're hitting all aspects of the big muscle groups and we're making sure we fatigue those muscles to program in hey, muscles are important here. Body, we need you to hold on and actually build more of this stuff, because this is the stimulus we're getting and this is how we need to progress with, with the stress that we're putting on on those muscle groups. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, totally makes sense. And I'm doing it and I'm using heavy weights and sometimes it's a little scary because I'm by myself doing those weights, but I feel kind of sassy when I'm like I gotta go to the gym, it's leg day, sorry, you know.

Speaker 3:

Now you're getting all the memes right Like oh yeah, these things Okay.

Speaker 2:

Um, so let's talk about your business. The body bulletin, like how'd that come to be? How's it grown? What impact are you hoping to make?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's great. Um, thanks for asking that question. Um, so I started the blog in one of my previous sort of like corporate software career jobs, and this was years ago I think. Oh my gosh, we might be at seven years now. Seven years ago. I could have that slightly wrong, you might be six, but it's been a long time.

Speaker 3:

And I created it because I needed some sort of like outlet to be able to talk about the thing I was most passionate about, which was health and fitness, and at the time I was, like it just finished going through like a yoga teacher certification a few years prior and I just really wanted a way to kind of share my knowledge in a sense and share what I've gone through. I'd also gone through a lot of you know, health issues personally that I kept searching the internet for and not really finding a lot of answers between, like I had like uterine fibroids and stuff like this, and I had different like PMS related symptoms and things like this that I wasn't hearing about from my people out. So I was like looking on the internet because that's what you do now, right? So I was having to go to like these forums and the depths of the corners of the internet to find any information about. Is anyone else dealing with this? And I was like you know what I'd really like to have some of these things that women are experiencing a little bit more out there in the world, and so that's why I have the body bulletin. It's like a bulletin board. It's like a bulletin board for the body, but specifically for women. You know from like that health fitness standpoint and it really you know everything from like I used to deal with like a lot of muscle I still do muscle imbalances and trying to manage like different pains and aches and things like that while you're trying to go through your fitness journey.

Speaker 3:

And I started writing about those things couldn't find them anywhere online and what to do about it. So just varying different things as you go through like a health and fitness journey and the realities of that. That process that I was going through that's what kind of led me to start the blog and it evolved and people seemed to really gravitate toward the nutrition side of things and I never intended to do anything with nutrition it was not an interest of mine at all but it evolved that way and so I went through my first coaching certification there started taking clients and then I kind of told you before like needed to deepen my knowledge with, like, the functional health principles and being able to help people with their guts and hormones and you know those, all those different symptoms that we talked about earlier and really helping to heal the body inside and out and have that full body health. So I guess where I see it going is I would love to be able to help more women who I feel like aren't I don't want to say it's a forgotten part of the population, but it's.

Speaker 3:

It's definitely not, as you know, readily available to see, like every like. You says it's perimenop, you said it's perimenopause symptoms. Oh, it's perimenopause or you're just getting older now. Like, this is what like people think and it's like no, no, I don't accept that. Like, I don't accept that as somebody who knows what I know, at this point I can't accept I'm just getting older now as a reason to have, you know, headaches around your period or regular like migraines or like, because my migraines were getting worse and worse and worse as I got older, acne was getting worse as I got older. I was like this doesn't make sense and so you know these weird things that would happen and I was like you know, people need to have this knowledge and I think that's why I started creating it.

Speaker 3:

And you know, of course, coaching people is a passion and we want to help as many people there. But now I'm going to be launching soon. I might as well tell you like I'm going to be launching like a lower ticket membership option for people who can't necessarily afford coaching. It won't include, like, all of the functional health components, but ways to kind of upgrade into it if it's something that they're interested in, but a way to help people in a little bit more affordable monthly kind of option so we can help more people. That's really the goal. That's great, awesome. What's your website? Thebodybulletincom.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so people can find you at thebodybulletincom. Yes, all right. This has been incredibly insightful and now we get to have some fun because we get to move to our rapid fire round and get to know you a little bit better. No pressure, super fun stuff, right? Yes, yep, and I don't know you as well as Kim, so I'll start by just asking if you like mountains or water.

Speaker 3:

Hmm, that's a tough one. If I'm in Hawaii, well, I think it's mountains. I think it's going to be mountains either way. Yeah, mountain cow. All right, I live in California.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I like, I think I like mountains.

Speaker 3:

I'm more of a land person, okay.

Speaker 2:

What do you read? Do you read a book, a Kindle, an audio book? What do you do?

Speaker 3:

More than not, I'm probably odd audible. Audible or like audio books. Um, I do love to. When I sit down and read, it's nice. I just rarely sit down to read. I'm usually moving, so getting my steps in and being able to listen to a book just feels like a good habit. Stack, so I do that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah right.

Speaker 3:

That's good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, how about your favorite holiday?

Speaker 3:

I'm going to probably say Thanksgiving. I love a lot of the holidays, but Thanksgiving things, where we host it whenever we can here, and I just love being able to have everyone gather together. I have a wonderful family. I've been very blessed with that and, you know, even like my extended family, we have a blast and just being able to go around and just be thankful for everyone and thankful for that experience in my life, I think that's really important.

Speaker 2:

That's my favorite too. Um, okay, here's the. Here's the piece to resistance. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received ever, shay? It has to be like what's a great piece of advice you've heard?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, okay, well, uh, after thinking about this one, so, um, so I don't know where is the first, I don't know where the first time I heard this, but what you think about most of the time is basically what you become. It becomes your reality, and so maybe it's Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich, potentially. Book Think and Grow Rich, potentially. I know it's probably it's in there, but I'm not sure the first time I heard that. But he kind of speaks about it over and over and over in his book. So I've actually read that book, like cover to cover, multiple times. It's weird because I don't read like books, but I've read that one multiple times and it's something that I don't know.

Speaker 3:

If you recall, in our new identity worksheet identity worksheet is we have like those quotes Do you remember doing that worksheet, kim, where you called out so like we have something like what you think about is what you'll become.

Speaker 3:

We have those quotes in there and I think that's probably the that can apply to anything, right, it can apply to your work in your career and it can apply to your health. So there's that mind body connection right where sometimes even me, as like somebody who's very like health practitioner, health coach, like I could get a supplement for that. I can do this therapy for this a very physical, focused. A lot of times we can forget like that mental side of it, of like okay, we can tap into the innate healing of our body by kind of going inward and maybe doing some meditation and really like visualization and stuff like that, and that can be just as powerful as any given supplement out there. Like looking at like Joe Dispenza's work right, like like really, really cool stuff about how the brain can literally, you know, we can think our way to the reality we want, and kind of that reality engineering, if you will.

Speaker 2:

I love that. We completely agree.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, right, our thoughts are pretty powerful. I believe in meditation and journaling and so great, great advice and great reminder. It's been really great having you on the show, shay. Thanks so much for the work that you're doing and all that you're helping, including Kim. Yes, and yeah, that is a wrap audience. Thank you for tuning in and we meet again. Go find joy in the journey. Thanks, shay, thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Medovia menopause podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe for future episodes, leave a review and share this episode with a friend. There are more than 50 million women in the U? S who are navigating the menopause transition. The situation is compounded by the presence of stigma, shame and secrecy surrounding menopause, posing significant challenges and disruptions in women's personal and professional spheres. Medovia is out to change the narrative. Learn more at Medoviacom. That's M-I-D-O-V-I-A dot com.

People on this episode

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April Haberman

Co-host
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Kim Hart

Co-host