Aging with Purpose and Passion

Reclaim Your Health After 50: Andrea Nakayama’s Functional Formula

• Beverley Glazer • Episode 141

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Your body isn’t broken—it’s trying to talk to you.
But are you listening?

When Andrea Nakayama’s husband was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer while she was seven weeks pregnant, her world shattered. What happened next would spark a global movement in functional nutrition—and a new approach to midlife health and healing.

In this powerful episode of Aging With Purpose and Passion, Andrea shares how deep grief led her to reimagine wellness, build resilience, and teach thousands to trust their body’s wisdom.

You’ll learn:

🔹 Why one-size-fits-all health plans fail (and what works instead)
🔹 Andrea’s “3 roots, many branches” framework for lasting change
🔹 How to decode symptoms as messages—not flaws
🔹 What women over 50 can do right now to restore energy, balance, and clarity

Andrea’s story proves healing isn’t about perfection—it’s about partnership, personalization, and paying attention.

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🔗 Resources & Links

For similar episodes on health and empowerment, check out episodes 87 and 93 of Aging With Purpose And Passion and, if you love podcasts for older women, The Late Bloomer Living Podcast inspires you to find joy, embrace change, and live playfully at ANY age. Every Wednesday, Yvonne Marchese interviews inspiring guests, who’ve dared to reinvent themselves and experts who provide valuable guidance on navigating the unique challenges of midlife and beyond. 

Andrea Nakayama

✨ Connect with Andrea Nakayama
🔗 andreanakayama.com
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🎓 Functional Nutrition Lab
📩 andrea@andreanakayama.com

✨ Connect with Beverley Glazer
🔗 reinventimpossible.com
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📸 Instagram | 💼 LinkedIn

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Have feedback or a powerful story that's worth telling? Contact us at info@Reinventimpossible.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host. Psychotherapist coach and empowerment expert Beverley Glazer. Therapist, coach and empowerment expert Beverley.

Beverley Glazer:

Glazer, Imagine you're six months pregnant and your husband has only six months to live. Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast for women over 50 who are ready to live life on their own terms. Each week, you'll hear raw conversations, inspiring stories and get practical tools to help you reignite your own fire. I'm Beverley Glazer and I'm a transformational coach and therapist for women ready to reclaim their voice and break free from what's holding them back, and you can find me on reinventedpossiblecom. Andrea Nakayama is the host of the 15-Minute Matrix podcast. She's the founder of Functional Nutrition Alliance, and Andrea leads thousands of students and practitioners around the world to offer better solutions for the chronic illness epidemic. She highlights systems, biology, root cause methodology and therapeutic partnerships and helps underserved people to reclaim ownership of their own health. If you're a woman who feels burdened by life, you get ready to be uplifted. Welcome, Andrea.

Andrea Nakayama:

Thank you, Beverley. I'm so excited to be with you and I love your mission Really. You know, as I turn 59 and really enter a new cycle of life, I'm excited to be in the conversations that you are hosting and leading.

Beverley Glazer:

Wonderful Welcome to the club. Here we are. When you were very young, you always felt like you didn't belong. Why is that?

Andrea Nakayama:

That's such a good question. I think I was quiet and shy and a creative and I didn't really find my place in the world. I felt more comfortable with my thoughts and my stories and my creations and I had a very active inner imagination and I couldn't really find the place for it in the world around me. And you know, there's a piece of that little girl as there is with all of us as we age that I really am enjoying returning to with a different light, a different sensibility.

Beverley Glazer:

It's true. So my grandparents spent all their summers in the.

Andrea Nakayama:

Berkshires. They were Jewish immigrants of a certain generation. A lot of their friends were Holocaust survivors. They were music lovers, but they had gone through quite a lot of hardship, not just in being immigrants to this country as children but really striving through the Depression era, finding their way in their retirement or near retirement. They bought a tiny little cottage in the Berkshires. So I grew up in New Jersey, they lived in New Jersey, but they bought this little cottage with all their savings in the Berkshires.

Andrea Nakayama:

The Berkshires in Massachusetts is where the Boston Symphony spends their summer and they wanted to be around music all the time. So they were ushers and program people so they could go to all the concerts. And I spent my summers, from the time I was three years old, with them, first with my family, with my parents and my sister, and then, as I got older and my sister didn't want to go there anymore, just me going there by the age of 12 through when I was 18. Age and being older, their love for each other, really entering into a new season of life, but also being surrounded by people my friend's parents who were in the symphony doing what they loved for a living. So I can actually remember the moment that I was walking home from the lake and realizing that my friend's parents did what they loved for a living.

Andrea Nakayama:

That was a new concept to me, because work wasn't necessarily what you were most passionate about and, as a creative, I was like wait a minute, there is possibility here. I was like wait a minute, there is possibility here. So I feel like the place, the space, the relationships, seeing that season of life being something that was joyful and fill with opportunity was a huge influence on me. Beautiful story.

Beverley Glazer:

Thank you, and how did you meet your husband?

Andrea Nakayama:

I met my husband, my late husband, Isamu, and, by the way, I was seven weeks pregnant when he was diagnosed, not six months. So, yeah, he wasn't even expected to see our son born. Isamu and I met in the 90s working in a cafe in San Francisco before both of our careers took off His as a software developer during the dot-com, dot-bomb era, and me in book publishing and I didn't find my way to the healthcare field until he was sick and then more so after he passed away. But we met working in a coffee shop in the San Francisco Bay area and you know it was kind of magical from the get-go but it took us some time. I think of that nine months that we took before dating as this like very precious, magical time with each other where we were getting to know each other and fall. We were in love by the time we even started dating.

Beverley Glazer:

And then you got the diagnosis.

Andrea Nakayama:

Yes, you were pregnant. Yes, so this is after marriage. This is we were together about five years before getting married and then a little over a year before getting pregnant.

Beverley Glazer:

How on earth were you able to cope with that, both of you?

Andrea Nakayama:

I mean, I think that the answer to that was each other, like I think he I couldn't have been through what I went through with him if it weren't for him. So I feel like he was my anchor, he was my guiding light. He brought something out in me that enabled me to be who I was with him, but also who I have become, and that is it's a long time ago now. He died, in 2002. So I really am able to see what that was and what that brought out in me. But we really created a bubble during that two and a half years that he lived, almost two and a half years, while I was pregnant, while he was going through many treatments and we were doing many other adjunct or alternative or holistic modalities to support in addition to what he was doing medically. We were in this bubble that we created together. That was so sacred.

Andrea Nakayama:

It was really really a precious time together where all the extraneous stuff of life kind of fell away and we were still living and having to do the things, but we were dropped into the essence of what matters life, his life, the life that was growing within me, like it was just very, very precious and all our time was spent together, kind of weaving this way forward.

Andrea Nakayama:

So I would visit the possibility that he could die. He's likely going to die, this is a death sentence, but we didn't live there, we lived in this space together and that I will tell you, beverly, like I remember after he died I was thinking I was my best self with him. I don't know what to do. I was my best self with Isamu and I slowed myself down and realized the words I was saying and I was saying I was my best self and recognizing in that that that self is me, and so my intention was and is to be that best version of myself that he brought out in me, in the me that I am today and you were 36, and now you're a widow and a new mom.

Beverley Glazer:

Did you have any support moving forward? Because, I mean my goodness, there was so much needed at that time.

Andrea Nakayama:

Yeah, I don't live near family, his or mine. If I had raised my hand and called at any time, family would be here and they certainly were here when I put myself back through school and had to travel for opportunities opportunities but the life that my son, gilbert, our son and I created together was its own little fabric of togetherness. We figured things out in terms of being a twosome and I also feel like it would have been hard to do with another person. I'm very fortunate that Gilbert is who he is and he watched me put myself back through school, grow a business, all of the things. We were able to do that together and I feel like I didn't have a lot of support in family or friends. We were in a new city. We moved to this house when Isamu was sick. I think he really wanted to like make sure we were settled and in a home, so we moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Portland, oregon. I didn't have a lot of friends, no family nearby, but we made it work and I feel like part of that is my muscle, but I really feel like it's mine and Gilbert's muscle together and Gilbert's now 24.

Andrea Nakayama:

And this is talking about seasons. You know I've really been sitting with what it means to be kind of done with a certain role. Of course I'm not done parenting, but he doesn't need me in the same way. He's his own adult and so my role shifts. But also my commitment to Isamu in raising our child is kind of coming to an end. So I've really been facing all that I did hold, that you're asking about, all of that being so cellular to me and how I start to step back and recognize the muscle I did have to build and what I do with that muscle now I do with that muscle now, and did you get into health when Isamu became so very sick?

Andrea Nakayama:

So I was already toying with nutrition because I wasn't feeling well. I think it was the early stages of what I now know is my autoimmunity, my hypothyroidism, I have Hashimoto's. So I think the early stages were there and I was trying to quote, unquote, control what I was feeling in my body. I was also very passionate about food and cooking. So I went. I have a bachelor of fine arts in my undergraduate degree and I'm a maker, like I said as a little girl. So when I was out of art school, out of design school, food became the thing I made. It was my happiness for my hands and my creativity. So I was already into food. I was noticing symptoms in my own body, trying to manage those with what I was learning in here and there with food.

Andrea Nakayama:

The internet was not what it is today, so there wasn't a lot of information. And then when Isamu got sick, I did my research thing that I do and I started to see and there wasn't much. It was books, it wasn't Google, but I was starting to see where can we make a difference in? Not the brain tumor, but the body. The brain tumor lives in the body the interventions are being done to. So I was thinking functionally without having the language for it yet, and I think of that time of Isamu's illness as kind of my nutrition boot camp. But that's before. I put myself back through years and years of school, created a practice and a business. None of that was even on my radar yet. I wasn't even in the field of healthcare, worked in publishing, was writing, not even thinking about health except my own, and then his.

Beverley Glazer:

When did you realize you had to get out there and teach people this stuff?

Andrea Nakayama:

Yes, that's a great question. So it was still my passion for a very long time. I was the person in our community, when Gilbert was little, that made the healthy, yummy food right. I was always showing up with the desserts that people couldn't believe were refined sugar free and didn't have this and that in it. I was always creating things and looking for where there was more information. Again, like when I think about what we have available to us today in the store, in information, in blogs, in cookbooks. That was not available. But I was always stretching the boundary and showing up like that.

Andrea Nakayama:

It was when a friend of mine was diagnosed with colon cancer and I was here in Portland, had reconnected with some old friends that were here in Portland, was part of a community, and that community had a lot of naturopathic physicians in it, and so I thought, like they don't need me doing anything, they don't need my thoughts on food, but I kept wanting to do something going back and forth, and this person, who was a natural, is a naturopathic physician who had colon cancer, asked me. She said everybody's going to take care of the family. Will you create the plan for me, pre and post surgery, for how I should eat, and so I thought, okay, I'll do my research. I found a nutritionist and she was like why are you not doing this? And so I started to think, can I do this? Is this something I can do? I could, can I do this? Is this something I can do? And that's when I started to create the plan.

Andrea Nakayama:

With a financial advisor, could I put myself back through school? Cause I was a single income family with a good career in publishing. I worked at home which was great as a single parent for a company in New York, and I rebuilt. Everything started. What I thought was just going to be a practice was having results, so people were asking me to teach them. I thought I would create a little mentorship. Now I've taught 9,000 students in 68 countries. Could not have imagined that was what was coming.

Beverley Glazer:

Amazing. So everyone today is concerned about food one way or another. As you know, there are so many diets in every description. Why do they fail?

Andrea Nakayama:

Fail. Yes, they're not personalized and they can be very restrictive. So a lot of times this is what I call dietary theory. So there's a place for the theory and it might have been studied in some really not clear and concise way that isn't controlled right. So if we look at something like intermittent fasting or a ketogenic diet these very popular trends these days those are theories. When we apply them to the particular body, we're overriding what that body may need.

Andrea Nakayama:

So a ketogenic diet which is high in fat, if somebody doesn't have a gallbladder or they have difficulty digesting fat, is going to cause more harm than good. We also are using it for the wrong reasons. The study behind those diets is typically not what we're using it for. If we think about intermittent fasting, there's actually more books on intermittent fasting than there are research studies. There are benefits to it, but again, only in the right bodies and at the right time. If somebody has blood sugar issues or any other metabolic issues that aren't being managed, or they have adrenal issues or thyroid issues or they're not doing it in an appropriate way for their body, again it can cause more stress on the body, which can lead us in the wrong direction.

Andrea Nakayama:

So we have to understand the reason. We are trying a dietary theory what are we aiming to do? And recognize that a lot of times these diets are meant for therapeutic reasons, and those therapeutic reasons mean that they should be done in a therapeutic setting where we are supported. But they've become things that we hear on Instagram or social media or in the media or in books, and we're trying them and they actually, again, can do more harm than good. If our body isn't ready to make those kinds of changes, then on top of that it becomes a short-term thing. Didn't work for me. It's more problematic. And then we're on this old school dieting bandwagon. It's just has a different name that's supposed to be healthy, versus Weight Watchers or Atkins or whatever we grew up with.

Beverley Glazer:

Exactly, exactly. Yes, Now I love what you start saying, which is functional thinking. How does that verse treating a symptom?

Andrea Nakayama:

Yes. So the analogy that I like to give people to start thinking about what's truly functional is what I call three roots, many branches. And the three roots, many branches that I've designed helps us understand that any sign, symptom or diagnosis is a branch on the tree. It's an expression of what's happening deeper within and in our current medical model, which I am not disparaging, there is a place for this. For sure they're going right for the branch. How do I address the branch? What's the protocol for the branch? How do I address the branch? What's the protocol for the branch?

Andrea Nakayama:

So signs, symptoms, diagnoses, those signs or symptoms could be menopausal, they could be autoimmune, they could be related to our gut or our brain or brain fog. They could be diagnostic in some other way, something we're experiencing like cancer or neurodegeneration. Those are all branches In a truly functional approach. What we do is recognize the reality that somebody is dealing with the branch but that we as functional nutrition counselors, as patients, can focus our attention elsewhere. So down through the trunk to the roots and even more so to the soil. So the three roots for me that I always talk into, that are true of any chronic sign, symptom or diagnosis. So not getting better, chronic, not just an acute thing like a broken arm or an ischemic event with the heart, like not getting better. The three roots are always your genes, digestion and inflammation, and all three need to be addressed in some way. It's not just one root, it's those three roots. But then what gives us power as patients is to think about the soil that those roots live in.

Andrea Nakayama:

So for the genes, the soil are what we call the epigenetic factors, the factors that turn our genes on or off. Our genes are not a life sentence. We don't know what's expressed or what will express, and genomics has taught us that we thought we knew more than we do. So the epigenetic factors for our genes, our soil, our terrain, is food, movement, environment and mindset. If we just spend our time there and think what works for me, where do I need help with figuring out what's right for my body?

Andrea Nakayama:

And I have ways of helping people think into. You know, with food you can think of quality, quantity, diversity and timing right. So let's just pick one of those. Diversity Eat more of the rainbow. Eat a broader realm of foods that you know works for your body. Don't eat the things that you feel like you're not sure about. So I also have a yes, no, maybe, list, like what works for you, what do you know doesn't work for you and what are you unsure about? That also helps us talk to the people that we might be seeking help from about what our current status is around food.

Beverley Glazer:

And what you say is a therapeutic partnership.

Andrea Nakayama:

Yes, yes, that for me, you know, not thinking of therapy in the way that you are doing therapy, but the therapeutic and the broader sense of the word is where we're working together in partnership around what's happening with your body. So when we think about our medical model, we are often left feeling like we're, you know, a child. It's very pedantic how we go to see the doctor, and what I'm looking at is what happens not at the doctor's visit, but between the doctor's visit what are the things you're doing every single day and how do you show up even better for your medical appointments. And that's where a functional nutrition counselor is sitting, in that in-between space, in that gap, really being able to help us understand what is happening in the everyday and what are the choices that we're making that can help with our health outcomes not being bad or good, but our particular bodies. And part of that means that there are two experts in the room when you are working with a functional nutrition counselor.

Andrea Nakayama:

So I'll just say me, my expertise is in the functional nutrition and understanding your body, your labs, your everything going on in your life, and getting that out with motivational interviewing so I understand more. You, as the patient in the room, are also an expert and you have an expertise in something I can never have expertise in, and that is you. And if I don't make room for you in the room, there isn't a partnership and I'm missing key pieces of your story that are going to help me. Help you not just by making a prescription or giving you a protocol, but by truly understanding what your motivation is, where you are inspired to make a difference, what matters to you, what pace you can go at, what works for you, what doesn't, what's worked in the past? Only you, the patient, knows that. And the therapeutic partnership really manifests when we make room for the patient to be a partner in their healthcare.

Beverley Glazer:

I love that, and I love that because what I'm hearing throughout that thread is respect.

Andrea Nakayama:

Absolutely.

Beverley Glazer:

You know when you go to see the doctor. You know a lot, yes, but when you are sitting behind that desk and the white coat walks in, it's like I don't know anything. Will you tell me what to do? Yes, and so you open a window so that people can talk about their struggles? Yes, and so what you tell someone who feels but you don't understand my struggle? I've been doing this my whole life. I've struggled with weight. I've gone on so many diets. I know when clients have come to me with weight issues or alcohol issues or whatever they have come to me for it's like I have failed so many times. You know why would this work?

Andrea Nakayama:

Yes. So for functional nutrition, it's really understanding that there's more to the picture If you're trying something and it's not working, and it's not working and it's not working. We haven't sat in the pause to understand what is the what and what else is going on. So, from a functional nutrition lens, one of the systems that I use is the functional nutrition matrix. That I use is the Functional Nutrition Matrix, and the matrix is a tool where we map the entirety of the individual to see them more clearly. It's modeled after the Institute for Functional Medicine's matrix, but it's an evolution of that tool. And actually the podcast my podcast, which I'm not producing anymore right now flips the model from the person to the topic.

Andrea Nakayama:

So we might map magnesium or methylation or mindset, and we're looking at how everything is connected. We are all unique and all things matter, so I'm just going to break that down for a minute. If we're looking at something like addiction or resistant weight loss, there's usually more to the puzzle than the goal itself. So, physiologically, everything is connected, which is the center of my matrix. Everything is connected. I want to understand what else is going on in your body. Tell me about your health history. There are likely issues that are related to your gut, your immunity, your metabolism, your hormone. Everything could be not addressed, and so you're treating it like a branch, weight loss resistant, when there's something else going on, and so my job is to help you understand where are the other levers that we may be bypassing in favor of the branch and the goal that we haven't addressed. So everything is connected is an important piece of the puzzle. The gut's connected to the brain, the hormones are connected to detoxification, which are connected to the gut Systems. Biology helps us understand that picture. Everything is connected. We are all unique is where we look at the precision factors. So in functional medicine we call them the ATMs, the antecedents, the triggers and the mediators.

Andrea Nakayama:

My job is to sit with where you come from? Where were you born? Do you know what order you were born in? Were you breastfed? How were you delivered? When you were born? What's happened in your lifespan? Did you have a big trigger, like I did, where you lost a spouse? Or maybe you had some adverse childhood experiences or adverse adult experiences?

Andrea Nakayama:

It's not my job to address those therapeutically. It is my job to understand that those things impact your physiological function. And then your mediators are what make you feel better and what makes you feel worse. My job is ultimately to give you more of those mediators. I want you to know this works for me, this doesn't.

Andrea Nakayama:

So as we're working, we're uncovering those. So everything is connected. We are all unique. All things matter. So we're looking through the lens of sleep and relaxation, exercise and movement, nutrition and hydration, stress and resilience, relationships and networks those things also impact that branch. So I'm looking at that physiological function, the signs, symptoms and diagnoses, and then I'm understanding that we have to look at it from two different flanks of that system's biology where you came from, who you are, what got you here and what are you doing every day, and how do we make movement at the pacing that's correct for you to experience change. So we're flipping the script from you're experiencing addiction or resistant weight loss and I've got the solve for that to wait. You are Sally, julie, june who's having resistance or experiencing resistant weight loss or addiction. Let's take a step back and appreciate the whole, because there are unlocks in that more holistic and broader picture.

Beverley Glazer:

One last word to everybody listening. One last word to everybody listening every woman over 50 who feels they lack energy, they're discouraged and I don't even want to try because it's not going to work.

Andrea Nakayama:

Yes, I mean one word, One word. I want to. I think the word I'm sitting with recently is spiral from a positive perspective because there are clues. If we can tap back into the authenticity of who we are, that will give us the hope to go forward. It's never going to look like it did 10, 20, 30, three years ago, but there are little clues in there that we can bring forward with us in a new light.

Beverley Glazer:

Thank you. What I'm hearing is we can always make it better, always. So don't give up hope. Thank you, thank you so much. So don't give up hope. Thank you, thank you so much.

Beverley Glazer:

Andrea Nakayama is a functional medicine nutritionist, an educator and a speaker who pioneers a movement to transform health care into a system that works 15-Minute Matrix podcast and the founder of Functional Nutrition Alliance, leading thousands of students and practitioners to offer better solutions to the epidemic of chronic illness. Here are a few takeaways from this episode Listen to your body. Stop chasing perfect. Just make small, insistent changes to lead to your goal and believe. Believe that your body can heal and that you're not broken. You can keep growing.

Beverley Glazer:

If you've been relating to this episode, here are a few things to empower yourself right now. Just as Andrea said, choose one food just to add, like perhaps it's a glass of water, or perhaps it's a handful of greens and remind yourself that your body is not broken. It's trying to tell you something. So receive those signals, those signals For similar episodes on food choices. Check out episode 87 and 93 of Aging with Purpose and Passion.

Beverley Glazer:

And, if you love podcasts for older women, the Late Bloomer Living podcast inspires you to find joy, embrace change and live playfully at any age. Every Wednesday, yvonne Marches interviews inspiring guests who've dared to reinvent themselves and experts who provide valuable guidance on navigating the unique challenges of midlife and beyond. Andrea, where can people learn more about you your program, your podcast, everything, your courses? Where can they find you on the internet?

Andrea Nakayama:

Yes, Andrea Nakayama, in all the places. If you go to andreanakayama. com, you'll see my current writing and that'll lead you back to the Functional Nutritional Alliance.

Beverley Glazer:

Terrific, and that link and everything else that Andrea does is going to be in the show notes and that's going to be on my site too that's reinventedpossiblecom. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you living the life that you truly love? Get my free guide to go from stuck to unstalkable, and that's also going to be in the show notes below. You can connect with me, beverly Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook, women Over 50 Rock, and I want to thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe and help us spread the word by dropping a review and sending it to a friend. And remember you have only one life, so live it with purpose and passion.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website. Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, ReinventImpossible. com. And, while you're there, join our newsletter Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion and celebrate life.

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