Insights from the Couch - Real Talk for Women at Midlife

Ep.79: Ready for a Reboot? How Functional Medicine Gets to the Root of Midlife Health with Dr. Tracy McCarthy

• Colette Fehr, Laura Bowman • Season 7 • Episode 79

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In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Tracy McCarthy, a brilliant functional medicine physician and psychiatrist, to talk about what it really takes to heal—especially in midlife. We explored how functional medicine goes beyond symptom management and instead focuses on the root causes of chronic conditions like anxiety, fatigue, brain fog, and digestive issues. Tracy's perspective on how nutrition, inflammation, gut health, and lifestyle play into our mental and physical well-being is deeply empowering.

As someone who works with women navigating health and identity shifts in midlife, I found this conversation to be a powerful reminder that healing is possible—and it doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. Dr. McCarthy shares how small, consistent changes can lead to massive improvements and how partnering with your body (not fighting it) is the key to long-term health. If you're curious about functional medicine, overwhelmed by your symptoms, or simply want to feel better in your body—this episode is for you.

Episode Highlights:

[0:00] - Kicking off with Dr. Tracy McCarthy and the power of functional medicine.
[1:25] - Tracy shares her journey from psychiatry to root-cause healing.
[6:13] - The common symptoms Tracy sees in midlife women.
[8:04] - What the functional medicine intake and testing process looks like.
[12:06] - The importance of patient participation in healing.
[13:20] - Understanding the role of inflammation in chronic illness.
[16:56] - A powerful case study that brought it all together.
[21:27] - Gut health: the surprising link to mood and brain function.
[25:12] - The mystery behind why autoimmune issues hit women harder.
[34:14] - Prevention and aging: how much power we do have.
[38:22] - What’s really driving the health crisis in America.
[41:30] - Supplements that midlife women should consider adding.
[47:03] - Dr. McCarthy’s course and how to start your own healing journey.
[48:06] - My personal takeaway: healing starts with the first step.

Resources:

Pre-order The Cost of Quiet now! Colette’s new book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure, Lasting Love, launches February 3rd. Secure your copy today and get VIP bonuses available only before launch day. https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

🎙️ Love the podcast? Come talk about episodes with us inside The Midlife Chat. It’s a free, private community just for women at midlife who want to keep these conversations going. We’ve created this space for real talk, fresh resources, and honest connection—where you can share ideas and resources, ask questions, and get support from women navigating the same season. Come join us—we’d love to have you!

👉 Join The Midlife Chat here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/795863256460970/

Pre-order The Cost of Quiet now! Colette’s new book, The Cost of Quiet: How to Have the Hard Conversations that Create Secure, Lasting Love, launches February 3rd. Secure your copy today and get VIP bonuses available only before launch day.

Laura Bowman  00:00

Marc, we have a great episode for you today where I talk to Dr Tracy McCarthy about the benefits of functional medicine for getting to the root cause of all of your midlife health concerns. We talk about how focusing on giving the body what it needs, Whole Foods, an anti inflammatory diet, and getting the junk and the toxins out of your life can really enable the body to heal even from some of the most serious health concerns. She gives us some of the big rocks we need to focus on, as well as some of the baseline supplements that most of us need. If you love this topic, head over to our website, insights from the couch.org and check out our download that will include my list of favorite books and resources for becoming your own health advocate and kick starting your wellness journey. I am solo today with Dr Tracy McCarthy. I am so excited to bring her to you guys. She is a functional medicine doctor and also a trained psychiatrist. So we are going to hit today that intersection of the mind and the body from a functional medicine approach. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. So we were talking just a little briefly, and you said, you know, there's a way you got into this space. So I'm just so curious what drew you to functional medicine?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  01:25

Yeah, I definitely did not start here. So I went into medical school really excited to learn about what goes wrong in the human body, what causes illness, how do we fix that? In the first few years of medical school were really, you know, satisfying to me that way learning a lot of pathophysiology. But then as my training progressed, it became more and more about matching symptom patterns to a diagnosis, which, of course, makes sense, but then matching that to a pharmaceutical. And often the conversation would really end there, and I was left still often asking, Well, why? Why do people get schizophrenia, you know, why did they get bipolar? This is, you know, in my training as a psychiatrist, and often it was like, well, we don't really know End of conversation, and that was frustrating. But, you know, I went on in my training and was using all these tools that I had been taught. But what I really saw was patients becoming so frustrated with, you know the limitations of these tools. So medications that are, you know, have a lot of side effects sometimes or only partially treat symptoms or patients. Would ask me, am I going to need to take this for the rest of my life? And it felt like there was more to it that we were not looking at. And around this time that I was getting more frustrated. I was fortunate to really stumble upon the research on chronic inflammation and the role it plays in really everything, but in how we can really influence that chronic inflammation with nutritional and lifestyle changes. And I started just exploring this on my own. It was like a hobby, changing my nutrition and seeing how I felt, and then just getting so excited about what I was learning and hearing about people, for example, with autoimmune disease, having reduced symptoms or going into remission, something I'd never learned in medical school, and I just couldn't go back from that. And so I fortunately found the Institute for Functional Medicine and started training in In this approach, using, you know, these tools in practice, and finding other doctors who thought similarly, which was really wonderful for me, and then really starting to wonder, can I apply this in mental health? Because I hadn't seen a lot of examples of that, but over time, I did, and I realized what you realize as you train in functional medicine, that, geez, everything causes everything. So yes, in some people, this is going to manifest as a mental health problem, and someone else, it might be an autoimmune condition, or might be, you know, gut issue. So so I was able to train and then realized I needed to actually start a private practice to to implement what I was learning, because I was an inpatient psychiatrist, so working with hospitalized psychiatric patients, where I couldn't influence what they ate, or really, much of anything. You know. Fast forward to where I am now, so exciting. My just so grateful, really, because I get to partner with wonderful patients and empower them, educate them about what's going on in their body, and see them make dramatic improvements in a way that's you know, not just limited to a single tool like a medication. Wow.

 

Laura Bowman  04:24

And I feel like I and you tell me, but I feel like finally, the zeitgeist is here where people are understanding, you know, that functional medicine, or root cause medicine, is where we need to be or needed to be all along, and it's finally getting its day. Like, I mean, the whole good energy book, by what is it? Casey means, like, it's just finally. I think everywhere. Does it feel the same to you? You know,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  04:53

it's a little hard for me to see it because I've been in it so long, but I you know, it does always feel like it's growing and you. Know, I certainly hope, hope that's the case, that it's that we're at a kind of inflection point, because, you know, our approach for chronic illness in the conventional medicine world has not been working. It doesn't work. You know, these are multifactorial problems, and they need a multifactorial approach. So I'm excited that that seems to be the case, and that certainly that the movement is growing.

 

Laura Bowman  05:21

Yeah, I'm excited too. And I, as somebody who's been watching it, I feel like it is, it's finally and I and I hear about it constantly, even in my own practice, people are bringing it in something that's a great gene, that's good news. So right now, are you with your practice? Is it? Are you taking, like, an internal medicine approach, like, are you? Are you helping people with all kinds of things? Or do people come to you mainly for psychiatric concerns?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  05:46

I have a blend of both. Okay, often people are looking for someone who can do that combination of psychiatry and functional medicine, or look at their psychiatric issues from a mental health, I mean, from a functional medicine point of view. However, you know, usually people have a multitude of issues, and even people are coming primarily for, for example, a gut issue, usually have concurrent anxiety or depression. I mean, these things go together. So, yeah, it's, it's a it's a blend, yeah. So

 

Laura Bowman  06:13

tell me, like, where my our audience is the midlife woman. What do you see coming into your office as like the archetypal midlife client patient that you see,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  06:29

yeah, I mean, I see a lot of hormonal imbalance and triggering, brain fog fatigue, and then we see a lot of gut issues, and these are all interwoven. It's not only caused by hormonal balance, it's everything together. Everything together, but usually it's a combination of gut issues, fatigue and some kind of brain issue like anxiety or brain fog or or mood

 

Laura Bowman  06:51

issues, yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, I feel like, and I was just thinking about this the other day, is no matter where I start with a client, whether they're coming in because they have anxiety, or they come in because they've got a health concern, because I see a lot of health anxiety too, and then or just they're going through like a horrible breakup, we always wind back to their bodies and the way they feel about their bodies, and that the midlife woman is concerned about the intersection between her own health. She's probably seen, you know, a parent get in decline or die. You know, she's worried about her own viability as a sexual being. She's maybe experiencing all kinds of high blood pressure, high cholesterol for the first time. So the body is such this like place where she wants to make lots of habit change, and is very curious. So I feel like every single one of my clients would want to go through meeting with you and doing a functional medicine approach. Tell me like, What? What what does that journey look like? What's the process you take a person through?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  08:04

Yeah, great question. So it's really a process of detective work and casting a broad net to look for the various contributing factors. So I mentioned this earlier, but really chronic conditions have multiple causes, and they're not the exact same cluster of causes in any one individual. So you've got to look broadly. So the initial assessment, you know, it's a long history, taking really detail about the patient's whole health journey from the beginning, what were the exposures in utero and as a child and on, because it all contributes. And then looking at, you know, really wide array of test results. So for as a basic level, I'm going to do a broad blood panel. It's going to look at inflammatory markers, nutritional markers, hormone levels, etc. And then also a stool test evaluating the health of the gut, looking at digestion and the microbiome, which is, you know, the bacteria that we have in us, is there infection there? And then also something called a urinary organic acids test, which tells us more about the gut, about detoxification, about the health of the mitochondria. You mentioned, good energy focuses on that. So when we get that array of of test results, you know, we're really able to look at, okay, here's the areas of imbalance. There is a bacterial imbalance in the gut. There is a problem with blood sugar regulation, for example, there is a toxic issue. Maybe there's a mold exposure. So these are the, you know, the we'll find the cluster of contributing factors that are important in that person's particular case, and then prioritize treatment from there. And treatment has a lot of components, so that's going to be nutritional changes, depending on what we found. It's going to be lifestyle changes. And it's also going to to mean, you know, fixing what's missing. So with food and often, supplements are very. Important for that. Sometimes we even have to use medications to treat some type of overgrowth or something. It's a mix of things. It's really that combination of treatments that gets the person forward faster to their goal.

 

Laura Bowman  10:12

And how does that like? Contrast from the conventional medicine approach. Like, what I mean, that's pretty thorough. What you described,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  10:21

yeah. I mean, unfortunately, it's very different. So most of my patients experience has been going to the doctor with their symptoms, being told that their quote labs are normal and quote which, it's really just usually very, very basic Labs, which would never show what we're talking about, and often feeling very dismissed. Sometimes, you know, even being told it's essentially in their head, you know, sometimes being offered something like an antidepressant, but often there's nothing else to be done, and they feel stuck. You know, the problem is, is that a lot of the problems I'm addressing and the root causes I'm addressing are not things that are in the toolbox of conventional medicine. So, you know, they are going to use the tools they have and what they've been trained to do and in the very small time allotted to them. I mean, these are well meaning practitioners, but it's just a very limited approach and a system that's pretty broken. So there's just not the room for the longer conversations, the investigation, and there's not the you know, awareness about how these underlying causes contribute. I mean, I'll just share with you, you know, classes I took in medical school that I thought I just have to learn this and get through this some, some of them, like biochemistry, for example. Or lately, I've been thinking about this with hematology and what we call the clotting cascade, things I just didn't need to really remember later when I got into functional medicine, these have become critically important, and they, I see how they manifest every day, like different biochemical pathways with different genetics, and you know, that's the kind of thing we are manipulating with our supportive treatments. So it's like out of mind in the conventional medical world, and because it wasn't taught, right, it wasn't taught how it's applied to patients, and now I see that, and so now I use it, I'm aware. So it's just a very, very different mindset.

 

Laura Bowman  12:06

Yeah, it is a different mindset. And it requires, does it require patients to be their own advocates in a new way? I mean, it's especially navigating conventional medicine. It's like you have to be an educated consumer. I mean,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  12:21

you definitely have to advocate for yourself in the conventional world, or you're not going to get what you need. But I would say that it requires patients to be a participant at a new higher level. If you're looking for someone to give you the pill that's going to solve it, functional medicine is not for you, because you're going to be solving it with a guide, you know, somebody helping you, point in the right direction and

 

Laura Bowman  12:43

prescribe how you put it that way, you're going to be solving it with a guide. That's it right? It isn't going to be somebody's going to hand, hand you a script, and it's going to be fine.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  12:55

No, there will be work. And also, I can recommend, you know, treatments till the cows come home. But you know, the patient actually has to take it, so in the end, it's there in the driver's seat. But it's a, I find that it's a lovely partnership. And, you know, they really engaged. Patients are so wonderful to work with. They bring me ideas and that, you know, I learned so much from from that work together. So it's just very satisfying way to practice medicine.

 

Laura Bowman  13:20

I can I can imagine. So let's just break it down. Tell me about, like, you know that we talk about inflammation as being sort of the cause of all disease, like, explain to us, like, what inflammation is and how it harms our body in a multitude of ways.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  13:38

Yeah. So when we are talking about inflammation in this negative way, we're talking about chronic inflammation, so acute or short term inflammation, that's critical, like when you get an infection or an injury, you want the body's inflammatory response because that's the healing response. The problem comes when we have this sort of simmering fire of inflammation all the time because of various triggers that we are exposed to, like toxins or microbiome imbalances, or, you know, food you know, for example, nutrient deficiencies. This can trigger this ongoing response from the body, and when we are you're going to think about it like a battle, like there's going to be a lot of collateral damage from this inflammation. It's not resolving appropriately. And you know, when we're in that state, we're not in a real repair, like increasing our organ reserve, resilient kind of place. We're in much more of a battle, fight or flight kind of situation. And so we're not restoring health. We're kind of in a stuck place.

 

Laura Bowman  14:39

So what are the signs that you might have a lot of inflammation going on in your body?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  14:46

Well, I would say it's really any kind of chronic symptom that's not resolving. This can be, you know, things like bloating or fatigue or, um, you know, depression, for sure. Um. Of skin rashes that you can a whole list, because anything that's not kind of resolving, there's something going on that's causing, I mean, that's the fundamental thing. There is a cause or multiple causes that you know are at play,

 

Laura Bowman  15:14

yeah. And then figuring out what's causing that and begin beginning to bring it down. Is it always obvious, or can it be quite nuanced, what's driving inflammation in

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  15:24

the body? It can be very difficult to find out actually, and sometimes we don't even know for sure, but the goal is to get the body systems working right so it can handle whatever the issue is. So let's say, for example, it's a toxin. We don't know what what it is, but when we support the natural detoxification processes in the body, like, you know, all the all the nutrients the liver needs to do its phase one and phase two biochemistry, you know, detoxification steps. When we support the gut in excretion and the kidneys in excretion, you know, we make sure we're not putting in a lot of toxins. We're making sure we're eating in a clean way, and our water and our air is clean, the body is going to make a lot of progress on whatever that toxic burden is. So we don't necessarily have to know exactly what it

 

Laura Bowman  16:09

is. We can just always activate the body's own abilities to heal. Yeah,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  16:14

that's really what we're always doing, is trying to harness the thing the body's already trying to do. We just have to give it what it needs and get out of its way where we're blocking it. Yeah, I

 

Laura Bowman  16:23

think it's, like, really important to say, because I think that the that's the piece people need to understand, is the body is very wise, and that if you do get out of its way and you just allow some of these natural processes to work, the body can heal and heal very quickly, right?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  16:42

Yeah. It's really remarkable, miraculous what the body can do. Can

 

Laura Bowman  16:46

you tell me about a case or just something that you've seen in your practice that it's like, wow, that sort of demonstrates this power to heal. Let me give you sort

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  16:56

of a classical case of, you know, where we did several things and then it moved the needle. Yeah, I'll give you a case early from my practice of a woman who had real severe anxiety. She was actually on an antidepressant and anxiety medication, which had partially treated things, but she was still having panic attacks, and she also had irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea, so she was always never knowing when she had to get to the next bathroom, and this was totally impairing her ability to live her life. She used to love to travel, and she just couldn't do these things anymore, between the panic and the bathroom needs. So when I worked with her, you know, we quickly discovered in her history that there was a key piece of information that she'd had her gallbladder removed a number of years before, and therefore really had not been eating enough fat and not absorbing the fat soluble vitamins that are so important. You know, we can really trace a lot of the symptoms to coming maybe a year after that happened. And you know, the evaluation of her gut showed imbalances like overgrowth of of yeast and some bacteria, and we saw certain nutrient deficiencies, and all we did was address these things. And in a few months, the diarrhea was gone, the Panic was gone. She was flying on airplanes again, living her life, and it was just about, okay, let's identify these different pieces. Let's improve her digestion. Let's help her nervous system. You know, it's just doing all the things together, add up, and then the body is like, now I can do what I'm trying to do.

 

Laura Bowman  18:29

You know, as you you're telling that story. I mean, that kind of client could have come to me, and we could have, I mean, this is where I get frightened a little bit about the lack of ability to tweeze out what's going on with a patient is that we may never get to that biological place. I may treat her from a perspective of trauma or behavioral approach, of let's deal with anxiety from an exposure perspective, and having sort of the intuition, or even just the the knowledge of, like, Hey, you really need to go and see what biological pieces are at play here, because very often there is that piece, right,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  19:14

yeah, and that's, I mean, that's what I feel so strongly about as a psychiatrist, you know, I absolutely know and see all the time how people need to work on their trauma and learn, you know, behavioral approaches that you we need these tools in life all the time. Yeah, but it does make me crazy that we are missing overlooking all of these pieces. I mean, all the therapy in the world is not going to correct someone's B 12 deficiency, and that's always what I think about. It's like we need all of these parts together. Yeah, that's the missing link to me. Is like that, these overlooked physical components. Yeah,

 

Laura Bowman  19:47

it drives me nuts, too, and I see it more and more as I practice. And when you get the felt sense that there is really something biologically going on with somebody, and it is not just that, you know, they. Have trauma. So I'm that's like, even more empowering for me to begin to refer people to places and know that you exist to say hey, because you never know where when you're referring out if they're going to just get sent, you know, down some weird rabbit hole or just get another medication. But what you really want is this holistic approach of, you know, hey, you got your gallbladder out, and that really changed how, you know, you're absorbing vitamins, and that's really playing into how anxiety is showing up for

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  20:32

you. Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately, there's more and more functional medicine psychiatrist being trained. There's more like fellowship programs for this, you know, for further, not like a board certified type fellowship, but additional certifications and trainings for people who are looking and I feel like that's really growing, so I'm hopeful

 

Laura Bowman  20:50

it cannot happen quickly enough. Agreed.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  20:52

I really can't crisis. I mean, people are suffering. People

 

Laura Bowman  20:56

really are and the more we can have these people, like, have this process available for people, the quicker they can get well and healthy. So there's so many pieces to this. Like, obviously, the gut microbiome is a huge thing that you hear about all the time, but and to explain to the listener, look why the gut microbiome is such a starting place, or maybe, maybe it isn't the starting place, but one of the places we begin,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  21:27

yeah, it's definitely a huge factor. Yeah, it can make an enormous difference. So it's often a very good place to start well. So the gut has a lot of jobs. First of all, digestion and absorption of nutrients, which is actually no joke, lots and lots of people I see are not absorbing things properly, so that right there, even if they're eating, you know, really nutrient dense, healthy, anti inflammatory diet, a lot of it can be passing through, and that's not good. So there's that aspect of it, then the microbiome, that's the bacteria and fungi, viruses and sometimes even parasites living in our are on and in our body, and the majority of that is in the large intestine. Actually weighs a couple pounds, if you add it all up, and you know, it's really they do a lot of jobs for us. We co evolved with these guys. And so they are making all kinds of neurotransmitters they're helping detoxify. They are a key player, and there's they're making different compounds that are signaling our immune system whether to turn up inflammation or to turn it down. So we're interacting all the time. They make compounds that are absorbed into the bloodstream that then go to the brain and the rest of the body. They also make compounds that travel up the vagus nerve. Vagus nerve, it says this thing called chemo taxes, where chemicals can actually go up the nerve. So, you know, and then, of course, the brain and the nerve are communicating with the gut. So it's this two way communication that's really, really, really important. So that is a very important place to start, when we get things working right in the gut and the microbiome balance. And, you know, the nervous system in, you know, in a calm place, the gut is working right, that rest and digest mode, and not the fight or flight mode, we can see some big changes.

 

Laura Bowman  23:08

So what is like the leaky gut? When people say you have a leaky gut, what does that mean?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  23:14

Yeah, that does have a scientific term, which is increased intestinal permeability. It's a real thing. You know, it's not this, yeah, I think in the 80s, people would talk about leaky gut, and everyone would roll their head eyes, that that's just, you know, some alternative nonsense. But there are 1000s upon 1000s of research papers about this increased intestinal permeability, very well documented, known thing, and many things will increase that, that, you know, that porosity, that that openness of the gut. So if you think about what the guts supposed to do, it's got to decide what it lets into your body and what it doesn't, you know, it's like, tell people we're like a donut. You know, the gut is the hole in the middle of the donut that's still kind of the outside of our body. And so it's this thin lining that has a very important job, and there's a degree of permeability there so that it can absorb nutrients and, you know, bring across the right components, but keep out what we don't want. And these cells are locked together like bricks with mortar. You can think about it that way, and that mortar can open up, and that's leaky gut, where there's spaces between the cells and now different proteins, you know, part parts of food or components of bacteria or toxins can enter from the inside of the gut, in across there, between the cells, into the bloodstream. When your bloodstream is is highly monitored by your immune system, and it's trying to make sure nothing bad gets in. So if something does enter like that, it's going to react. It's going to cause inflammation. That's that attack. It's trying to protect you. It might form antibodies to some of those substances, and unfortunately, sometimes those antibodies will cross react with your own tissue in something called molecular mimicry, and that's when people get an autoimmune disease. So this gut leakiness is really. Know, important? Yeah, exactly

 

Laura Bowman  25:02

so. And women are so much more likely to be diagnosed with autoimmune diseases. That's right. Why is that? Do you have an instinct around that? I

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  25:12

don't have a quick answer for that. It is complex, and other people are, I think, a little more of an expert in that than I am, but I think there's a hormonal aspect. There's probably the issue of tolerance and pregnancy. There's a lot of components there, and then there, I wouldn't be shocked to also see there's some societal stress aspects too,

 

Laura Bowman  25:33

right? No, I think that's the work of Gabor Mate is always talking about women and caregiving and or caregivers in general, and how that really depletes the body. And a lot of people can have autoimmune diseases. Yeah, so the gut is a key piece detoxification. I feel like, the more I study this stuff, I'm inundated with, Oh, wow. Like, I need to start. I need to change the water I'm drinking. I need to get aluminum foil out of my house. I need to, like, I mean, is there no end to what you can do to intervene here, or is there a way to think about this in a more simplistic way?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  26:13

I think that's a great topic, because that can quickly become very, very stressful, and then that's working against what we're trying to do. So when I work with people on this topic, I really focus on doing the things that are easily within your control and starting with always baby stepping your way. So it's sort of like, what's the most important thing, you know? What? If you're eating a lot of junk food, that's where we would start, you know?

 

Laura Bowman  26:37

Okay, junk food is like the first thing to go, yeah. And,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  26:41

you know, again, we baby step our way through that too, you know, where are people at? Can they cook or not? And in a whip, it's just one step at a time that's doable and sustainable, and says so habits can be built, you know. And with water, sometimes it's we can just easily get just a Carbon Filter Pitcher, like a Brita filter in the fridge, that's going to still help, you know? And then over time, you can keep improving these things and you can, it's a matter of seeing what the big issues are. I mean, if you're living in a moldy home, that takes priority over everything, yeah, so it just depends on the case. And you know, it is a journey. You get more and more aware of these things, right? Like you're mentioning the foil. I mean, I remember when I got rid of all the Teflon pans, you know, many, many, many, many years ago, but things like that, you know, getting not microwaving in plastic, right? These are the things that are great places to start. But the trick is, have grace with yourself. Do not expect that you're going to change everything at once. Don't try to do that that will make you so stressed out that that will backfire and make you sicker. The stress is, is a huge one, so you want to manage it so and knowing that we can't control lots of things our environment, so just trying to focus on the things we can and then focus on our our ability to detoxify what we can't. Yeah,

 

Laura Bowman  27:55

that's a really great point, because this can become this like another thing to stress over and become fixated on and obsessive about, and really it is such a long term journey where you make just one sustainable change after another. If we're talking to someone who's ready to kind of do, I mean, sort of an overhaul on health, where is, what are the big rocks, like, where, where would you suggest somebody listening to start, besides junk after they've gotten, like, the junk food? What are some of what is the anti inflammatory diet, or way of living? Yeah,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  28:37

so I do think nutrition is a huge place to start, and there's a lot of parts to it, also basic things like sleep and movement. Can't discount those. Those are really critical. But when we talk about an anti inflammatory diet, we're talking about removing the things that we know are inflammatory to everybody. So that's the really, really processed foods because of the the type of carbohydrates in there, and also the bad fats that are in there, and just replacing those with more whole foods, things that are healthy fats and clean sources of protein and, you know, more fiber, basic things like that are a place to start. Of course, some people are reacting to certain foods that are inflammatory to them, that aren't necessarily inflammatory to everybody. You know, they may have a reaction to say dairy. So that's where it gets more nuanced, starting with the basics, like less processed food, more whole foods, is a fabulous place to start. Yeah,

 

Laura Bowman  29:30

it's just an easy first principles, like, if it was grown in the ground, start there. Yeah, right. And

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  29:37

of course, there's nuances for people. Like some people really need to be lower carbohydrate. You know, some people do great with with cruciferous vegetables. Some people don't tolerate them. You know, there's all kinds of things that can happen. But just starting with removing the junk and putting in like real foods, excellent beginning. Right?

 

Laura Bowman  29:55

And where do you come down on like sources of protein? When you say a clean source of protein, i. And I know this is like an endless discussion, but is, you know, are you a fan of meat and in a balanced diet? Yeah,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  30:11

I am, when it's sourced well, like grass fed beef is ideal, better for our I mean, much different health profile for us and for the animal and environmentally as well. And, you know, definitely supportive of an omnivore approach, because we see that there's so many nutrients that are much, much more bioavailable in in meat. And I think that's really important. But you know, you can be choosing a lot of meat that's very inflammatory, if you're having the kind of conventionally raised to me. So being aware of that, you know, wild caught fish is a really great addition. It, you know, you can that's another one where you can get more and more, you know, refined. But I do think a broad diet

 

Laura Bowman  30:56

is important, yeah, you know, I was just listening to somebody on the internet, and they were talking about mechanics first, and then consistency, and then you begin to optimize, right? So it's like, if you can just get these basics, like more whole foods then and then, just constantly, and if you can get consistent, then you can begin to optimize from there and get into the little nuances.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  31:23

Yeah, it's all about making things be an easy habit, and then you can do the next step. Is what I find. And, you know, what I really want to emphasize is that these baby steps add up so much with health, it's like this sort of, what I call, like a positive snowball effect. Yeah. I mean, if you're taking out bad fats, and you know, when I say that, I mean, like these industrial seed oils, like soybean oil and corn oil and peanut oil, and, you know, the canola oil, like, when you when you're eating healthy fats, you get this oil change. You know, in a few months, your brain is made out of different fats, and this is really impactful in the level of inflammation in your body. So, you know, these things add up, and then, you know, they become easy once you've been doing it for a while, now you can make the next

 

Laura Bowman  32:07

step. Yeah, and how and do you support? I mean, is that part of your practice is really supporting people in habit change, or is that something that is outside of what you guys do? No,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  32:19

we build into our program, health coaching. I think it's critical for success. People need to be able to have someone that they can discuss this with. And, you know, it's a level of accountability, and not like we're policing people. But you know, we all just do better when we're we know we're going to talk about it again next week with so and so. You know, you just know you're going to try harder and to problem solve with and not feel alone. I think that's very, very important. And I do feel like, as much as this is now, like you say, in the zeitgeist, like there's it's still very easy to feel like you're alone in doing this. So you know, when you're the only one in your family making this change, you're setting the example it's you need support. So that's how we support habit changes that coaching and accountability. So

 

Laura Bowman  33:01

coaching is in addition to your program. Like you hire health coaches, or you have health coaches as a part of your program.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  33:08

Yeah, I have a nutritionist and health coach in my practice and a half, also a brain retraining coach working on mindset. I think it's all very, very important for success.

 

Laura Bowman  33:17

I agree. I agree because it's like you're only as good as your ability to implement these habits. Like, I think a lot of us know what the right things are to do, and part of us are all gung ho to do it, and then on a random Tuesday, the other part of us shows up and wants to, like, drink wine and eat pizza.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  33:38

Yeah, that's so true, and I think that that's part of when you make a commitment to do a program that just really helps you say yes to yourself and to now you're like, Okay, I'm doing it. I've got skin in the game. And then you see the results,

 

Laura Bowman  33:50

yeah. And the why behind all of this is, like, we really can live a better lifespan and health span like we don't, people don't have to die these premature or agonizing deaths. Like, if we make these changes now, we really can have quite the aging process.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  34:14

Yeah, that's totally true. I mean, I'm involved in the mastermind about reversing cognitive decline. And I'll tell you, like, these are the things that matter for Alzheimer's prevention. And you know, in the treatment protocols for people with Alzheimer's, like all these lifestyle parts are critical, and yes, they do the functional medicine work on looking at all the other root causes, but the earlier you can start intervening with this stuff, because, you know, Alzheimer's starts decades before you actually are symptomatic. You can really change your your future.

 

Laura Bowman  34:46

It's so optimistic. So what people need, like people would come to a functional medicine doctor, just the way they would go to regular internist. I'm imagining, right? I mean, what's a typical patient process with you when they come. Do they come many times a year as needed? Or how does that look? Yeah,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  35:04

great question. I mean, different practitioners do it differently, but what I have seen the most be the most successful, and I think many, many practitioners would agree with this, is to work in a program, because, you know, you're not going to, if you just do one off appointments, then you're going to fall off the wagon. You're not going to make progress. You're not going to, you know, have the structure for success. Like, often, people will think they don't need health coaching, for example, but they really do. Yeah, so it's like, the whole shebang is important. You know, if they're coming from the conventional mindset, it's hard, because they're expecting their insurance to cover it. They kind of expecting to be given a pill. And, you know, there is a mindset shift that needs to happen, which is, like, I'm in charge of my own health. And you know, is this worth it to me to invest my time and money to change my quality of life now and in the future? When they made that shift, you know, then they're ready to do the work. And so, you know, different practitioners do this differently, but, like, we have an initial Foundations program that's six months. That's how we implement the change. You know, we give testing, we're doing treatments, we have a chance for retesting, and we can start to see, like, a lot of change, and we can get ideas about better information, about what are the maybe longer term pieces that will need additional work. Because, you know, people don't end up where they are overnight. That's the other thing people don't realize. Like, there was the stage set often for decades beforehand. So, you know, there's a lot to untangle, but you can get a lot of movement quickly on symptoms, but to get, like, the real health restoration and really reduce future risk, you want to try to keep getting at all those root causes.

 

Laura Bowman  36:40

Yeah. So the way you work is that you have a program that people join, yes, and does insurance cover any of this? Or is this like a real this is like a, like a out of pocket investment. It's

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  36:51

out of pocket investment for people with a PPO insurance, sometimes they can submit what we call a super bill and get some partial reimbursement. But, you know, it's not the best way to plan on it. It's it's really a matter of deciding whether or not it's important for you and your life.

 

Laura Bowman  37:06

Yeah, wow. I'm hoping that this becomes more available to people and kind of the norm, rather than the exception of how we practice medicine in this country. I'm not sure that's going to be true.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  37:17

Yeah, we've done an uphill battle. But, you know, there are some centers, like Cleveland Clinic, for example, has a center for Functional Medicine where they are doing studies on this approach to show insurers and the public that actually this saves money. Ultimately, it's worth it, you know. And like Dr Terry walls is doing fabulous research on this approach for multiple sclerosis, and Dr Bredesen on neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's, and this, I'm hoping that over time, the research outcomes really speak for themselves, that this is worthwhile, that we invest in our health now so that we can, you know, not spend most of the money in the last three months of life, which is what we do currently in medicine.

 

Laura Bowman  37:56

Yeah, and just from a cynical perspective, do you think that it's going to be accelerated due to the fact that, like, we don't, I mean, there isn't a ton of money in healthy eating, right? I mean, we can't, like the way, we can sell a treatment for high blood pressure, high cholesterol. It's, you know, pharmaceutical, it's, it's not quite the same? Is it? No, we're

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  38:22

it's a real uphill battle, because the pharmaceutical interest is huge, and same with like the farm lobby, you know, the subsidized grains that are in the processed foods and the in the that are the oils are made out of. I mean, it's not easy, but it's going to come, I think, grassroots for people really fed up and caring about their health and wanting something different, that's the only way I see it happening.

 

Laura Bowman  38:46

Yeah, no, I think that people are getting there. I think I still see so much confusion in my office, like of where do I begin? Who can help me? Who's going to give me good answers? And I think that there's just not enough, enough practitioners giving that kind of service out there?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  39:03

No. And, I mean, I think because of the flaws in a conventional medical training, you know, these are the people you turn to, normally, your primary care doctor, but they get like, I mean, in my medical school, we had six weeks of nutrition education, and that was actually pretty good compared to most schools, and it didn't cover anything like about what people are actually facing. It was about extremes of vitamin deficiencies, like, historically, like, if you don't say anymore, I was gonna say no vitamin D get rickets, for example, or Berry, Berry, or these other like, obscure things now that aren't in our society. And yet, you know, years of vitamin D deficiency that is sub optimal actually does really matter, you know. And that's a total crisis in our country. Most people are low in vitamin D. And, yeah, yeah, we're not dealing with rickets. It's not that low. So these are the, you know, they're ill equipped to guide people on this. And that's, it's unfortunate. And, you know, our there's a I could talk for a long time about the problems with the, you know. The USDA being the people to recommend what we eat. I mean, why does that even make sense, right? Like, why isn't it even like the FDA? That makes no sense to me. And you know, the the food pyramid was disastrous within there's a great story on how that even came to be and how flawed that was. But I mean, the idea of eating, like, nine to 12 servings of grains a day, like that just made everybody sicker, you know? So, you know, it's a, it's, it's, there's a lot of problems with the conventional information out there, yeah.

 

Laura Bowman  40:29

And so the message is to everybody begin to educate yourself on what's out there in terms of what really is real health, real vibrant health, and how to heal. Because I think there's more information than ever if you're ready to, if you want to go find it. That's right, that's true. So just to recap, for our listener, who our average listener is a middle aged woman, probably late 40s, early 50s. I know because I talk to them constantly that they are very concerned about their health and honestly, body composition. I mean women in their weight, it's never gonna end the battle,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  41:06

no. And, I mean, I'm right in there, in that age group, and not that's all my girlfriends, you know. So I get it, yeah,

 

Laura Bowman  41:11

you hear about it, you know. Just give our our listener, the once over, like they want to start moving the oil tanker of their health in the right direction. What? What do you start with? Like, where do you what are the just, just to recap, what you would recommend to any woman in this age group? Well,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  41:30

we already talked about anti inflammatory diet, and there's lots of great resources on that. It's hard to go wrong if you're just looking for anti inflammatory diet and you look at like an omnivore approach, I think you're going to be very safe. Beyond that, though, I think there's some key supplementation that people can do on their own that will make a difference. So I'll just hit you know, a few of those points. One would be magnesium. Most people are low in magnesium for a number of reasons, and that's a huge one that makes a difference in anxiety, in sleep quality. It helps with detoxification. It's needed for energy production, so it's just vital. And there's a lot of forms, and the main thing is an absorbable form, so not magnesium oxide. The rest of them are fine. Some are going to be a little more laxative than others. So you can choose based on how your guts working. But magnesium really helpful. Omega three fats. If you're not eating fish often, like four times a week, and it's not a high omega three type of fish, like salmon or sardines, then you'll want to supplement with the high quality fish oil that's high in omega threes. That is huge for inflammation. The next thing, I would say, is B vitamins, making sure you're getting activated. B vitamins. Now you get a lot of B vitamins from meat, and also you get folate, which is a B vitamin, from dark leafy greens. But you know, if you're not getting enough, and that's a lot of people, they benefit from some additional supplementation there. So B complex, or multivitamin with a good amount of bees in it. And then the last thing I'd say is zinc. Zinc is another one that lots of people, especially with mental health issues, are low in, and making sure you're getting enough of that. So right there, those simple things added to the diet can make a big difference. Okay, so

 

Laura Bowman  43:12

even if you know, you don't even know if you're low in them or anything, but it's just a pretty good bet that those are baseline supplementations. Yeah, and most people can do. You

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  43:22

need to be careful with things like zinc, that you're not supplementing a high dose, you know, for a long time without any kind of monitoring. But yes, in general, like a multivitamin is not going to be a high dose. And it can be, if you get a good quality one, it's going to have those activated B vitamins in it. They won't have a magnesium, so you have to take that separately. And the Omega three is also they're just too big to pack into those. Yeah.

 

Laura Bowman  43:44

Okay, so those are some basic supplementation. And then where do we go from there? What else are the I mean, obviously sleep, and sleep is sometimes hard to come by at this age. So I mean any best practices there?

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  43:57

I mean the sleep hygiene concepts are very important. So reducing screen exposure, you know, light, being aware of the light exposure the couple hours before you go to bed you can wear, you know, light blue light blocking glasses for a few hours. That can really

 

Laura Bowman  44:12

mean you should scroll your phone for an hour before you go to bed. I know. And everyone

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  44:16

does it, and I've been guilty that too, but it does impair your quality of sleep. And then, you know, sleeping in a cold, dark room is important, yeah, you know, managing stress, as you know, I mean, it's so critical. When people are really struggling with the thoughts before bed, I like to have them journal it out and get it on paper so they don't have to keep trying to hold it in their brain for sleep. And you know, getting light in the morning, daylight in the morning, that tells your brain, hey, this is morning, because that clock gets set every day. So you know, you need the right light exposure to help manage that. And getting movement, getting, you know, exercise, but also just movement, walking, standing up, sitting down, like not the same position all the time. This is. Really important too. Yeah,

 

Laura Bowman  45:01

we had a, we had Vonda right on the podcast, and she's, you know, she's at the forefront of the whole movement and the lifting heavy at this age.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  45:12

I love that. That's what I do. I'm a huge fan of of lifting weights. It's fun, you know, I never used to think that, but I think she's right on with that. I think you get a lot of benefits, not just for your bones, for your brain, for your inflammation. It's just really great for

 

Laura Bowman  45:28

your metabolic health, right? I mean, which drives so much, yeah, so much. So lifting heavy move if and if it's just walking, that's great just a walking habit,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  45:40

well, because I think of them separately, Exercise and Movement. Exercise is like, yeah, I go to the gym and I do my, you know, my lifting workout, or, you know, I do kind of like a CrossFit style workout at a gym with people I just love and that, that's my thing, that I do, you know, two to three times a week. But the other days, you know, what am I doing just for movement. So yes, a walking habit, stretching, other things, because you need both,

 

Laura Bowman  46:06

yeah, just not sitting all day, like getting up, moving. Yeah? I totally agree. Yeah. I haven't ever thought about it that way. Exercise and Movement being different, I kind of lumping them together, but you're right. We have to just keep moving. You don't want

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  46:19

to be like a weekend warrior, where you only just do super intense exercise and the weekend and then you're not moving all week. That's still very problematic. You want to be moving, yeah, and I think there's more and more things that you don't necessarily even have to work with a practitioner, where there's, you know, like, for example, I have an online course for this natural mood solution, looking at overlooked causes, and I teach people how to do this kind of thing. You know, it's like you don't have to. There's so much you can do before you see a practitioner that's worth doing. And yes, there may be pieces that you need a practitioner to unravel, but you can make a lot of progress by doing some fundamental things on your own.

 

Laura Bowman  46:54

I love that you said that. I think that's so true. So tell us. Tell us about your program, and tell us where people can find you if they want to get in contact with you. Yeah,

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  47:03

I'm on Instagram at Dr Tracy McCarthy. That's d r t r a c y, MC C, A R T, H Y, and we'll put all this in the show notes. My website is Dr Tracy mccarthy.com, for patients in for people want to be patients who live in California. I might can see people in California, but the my online program, the natural mood solution, is for anyone, anywhere. It's educational. It's not medical advice. You know, the best way to start learning about that is to download my free guide on the top 10 overlooked causes of brain fog, depression, anxiety. That's it. Dr Tracy mccarthy.com, backslash top 10, T, O, p1, zero, and that's just to get you started thinking about, hey, maybe this is a piece of my puzzle. Maybe this is a piece of my puzzle. So that's

 

Laura Bowman  47:49

I love it. I will be downloading that, just even for my own clients, because I think that I want to make sure that I'm thinking about all of the things that could be going on.

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  47:58

That's just what I hope people will do is recognize there's these other pieces of the puzzle. They're really worth looking at. They can make all the difference. Yeah,

 

Laura Bowman  48:06

well, thank you so much. I think that this is a topic that women have an endless appetite for hearing about and are so curious about in their own lives. And I think that the big takeaway for me, as always, is just start on this journey. Just start making changes like Rome was not built in a day. Start eating real food, start moving, and you will slowly get there over time, because any sort of intervention on this front can really add up. That

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  48:38

is exactly what I see every day, the Baby Steps add up to tremendous changes in health,

 

Laura Bowman  48:44

yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. I think people will get so much out of this, and I'm really happy you're doing this work

 

Dr. Tracy McCarthy  48:52

well. Thank you, and it was a real pleasure to be here. Thanks so

 

Laura Bowman  48:56

much for listening today. As always, we want to hear from you what you're interested in, what you're struggling with, so drop us a line at info, at insights from the couch.org also head over to our website, insights from the couch.org to get the download that goes with this episode. If you like what you heard, and we hope that you did, don't forget to subscribe, share with a friend or write a review. All of this helps get our message out. Thanks, guys. We will see you next time, and Colette will be back. Take care. Bye. You.