Life is Delicious- Mindset Mastery, Midlife Empowerment, Joy, Purpose, Vitality, Inspiration, Women's Health

15: Reclaiming Your Hormonal Health with Chelsea McLeod

• Marnie Martin- Happiness Expert, Vitality Coach, Mindfulness Mentor, Best Selling Author • Season 1 • Episode 15

Share episode

Send us a text

What if those persistent symptoms you've been struggling with – the stubborn weight gain, disrupted sleep, skin problems, or irregular periods – aren't just "normal aging" but signs your body is desperately trying to communicate with you? In this eye-opening conversation, certified integrative health practitioner Chelsea McLeod reveals why four out of five women battle hormone imbalances and, more importantly, how these issues can be resolved by addressing their root causes.

Chelsea shares her personal journey from corporate executive to hormone health expert after discovering that what she thought were inevitable "female problems" were actually fixable imbalances. Her transformation was so dramatic that colleagues, friends, and family members began seeking her help – leading to her current mission helping high-performing women recover their health, energy, and vitality.

You'll discover why those well-intentioned health habits might be working against you: morning coffee on an empty stomach, frequent small meals, excessive cardio, and even staying hydrated too close to bedtime. Chelsea breaks down simple yet powerful adjustments that can dramatically shift your hormonal landscape without deprivation or complicated protocols.

Most compelling are the stories of transformation – women who not only shed weight quickly (often 5-10 pounds in the first two weeks) but also experience profound improvements in sleep quality, skin clarity, joint pain, and overall energy. As Chelsea poignantly notes, "Women come to me to lose 15 pounds but often leave with 15 more years on their life."

This conversation is especially valuable for women navigating perimenopause and menopause who've been told their symptoms are just an inevitable part of aging. If you're tired of feeling like your body is working against you, Chelsea's practical wisdom offers a refreshing alternative – a path to not just surviving midlife but truly thriving through what should be one of life's most vibrant chapters.

Ready to reclaim your hormonal health? This episode provides the roadmap you've been searching for.

https://www.LifeIsDelicious.ca/bookshelf ( Happy Is Not An Accident)

Find Marnie Martin here: 

Website : https://www.LifeIsDelicious.ca ( Podcast) and          

 https://www.MarnieMartin.com ( Voice Over )

Email: marnie@marniemartin.com

Join the FREE Facebook Community here:

Life Is Delicious Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/lifeisdelicious

Work With Chelsea McLeod:

Free ebook with first steps you can take to move the scale and alleviate perimenopause symptoms:
https://chelseamcleod.com/busy-girl-guide

Instagram @healthywithchels

JOIN CHELSEA"S 21 DAY SLEEP RESET CAMPAIGN

https://chelseamcleod.com/healthy-hustle?am_id=marnie2741

JOIN CHELSEA"S HEALTHY HUSTLE PROGRAM HERE:

https://chelseamcleod.com/healthy-hustle?am_id=marnie2741

Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-not-you-its-your-hormones/id1799354267
https://open.spotify.com/show/6SLHmrkPMHteCOOxu134nJ

Speaker 1:

Hey, beautiful friend, it's Marni. Today we're talking about hormones, Specifically imbalances that can wreak havoc on our skin, our sleep, our well-being, our eating habits and so much more. Did you know that four out of every five women struggle with some type of hormone imbalance, but that, although it's quite common, it's definitely not normal, and that hormone imbalance is often a symptom of something more complex going on? Today we're talking with Chelsea McLeod, a certified integrative health practitioner and the founder of the Healthy Hustle Method, a holistic health coaching program designed to deliver rapid results by fixing the root causes of these imbalances in the body that are very common in high-performing women and women in stressful roles, which is almost all of us. Her clients literally drop multiple dress sizes, sleep through the night for the first time in a long time, clear their skin, reverse autoimmune conditions, heal adrenal fatigue and reverse diagnosed conditions such as PCOS and endometriosis. So if you've ever struggled with or wondered about any of these concerns, then stick around, because you're not going to want to miss this.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of Life is Delicious. I'm Marni Martin and I'm so glad you're here. And if this is your first time here, welcome to the Life is Delicious family. This podcast isn't about surviving midlife. It's about crafting your next chapter, life overflowing with purpose, joy and delicious possibilities. Listen, midlife doesn't have to be a crisis. It can be a beautiful invitation to remember who we are, to rediscover a new version of ourself, or to completely reinvent our life to reflect who we are becoming now.

Speaker 1:

So if you're tired of being exhausted, living life on autopilot and putting everyone else first, then you are in the right place. Each week, we'll bring you thought-provoking ideas and practical strategies, as well as inspiration to help you prioritize yourself again. It's time to take back your joie de vivre. So grab a notebook and pen and pop in those earbuds and let's go get it. I don't know about you, but for me and a lot of my friends, I noticed that we are all just a little more sober, curious, than we used to be, and, if you haven't met me, I am a true wine lover and I still love to drink wine. But as we get older, our bodies just don't metabolize alcohol as effectively as they used to, and for me, I'm really trying to be a bit more mindful of what I'm putting in my body. So I recently discovered Kensho cocktails. They are delicious, premium, non-alcoholic and ready-to-drink cocktails that are crafted by the RSRV Collective, and I love that. The meaning of Kensho is self-discovery in Japanese and it really reflects the brand's dedication to crafting cocktails with. The meaning of Kensho is self-discovery in Japanese and it really reflects the brand's dedication to crafting cocktails with the nuance of traditional mixology, while remaining gluten-free, vegan, non-gmo, low in calories and free of alcohol.

Speaker 1:

Kensho cocktails were recognized by BevNet as one of the best 2023 non-alcoholic beverages. They're crafted with premium botanicals Thank you, mari Channels and Italian Aperitif. These ready-to-drink beverages can be found at wwwrsrvcollectivecom, and my listeners get an exclusive 30% discount. Be sure to use my special link, delicious 2025, to get 30% off your purchase. Kensho cocktails are a fun way to enjoy responsibly, with sophistication and great taste. That's wwwrsrvcollectivecom, with the discount code DELICIOUS2025. Welcome to the show. I'm so grateful to have you here.

Speaker 1:

So good to be here. Thank you for having me, marnie. Part of the reason I wanted to have you on the show is because you work with a lot of people that are in my age group Probably most of my listeners are somewhere between 45 and 65. And I know you work with a lot of issues in regarding hormones and menopause, and I also know you have a story as to how you kind of got into this work to begin with. So let's maybe start with that Tell our listeners a little bit about you and how you came to this particular work.

Speaker 2:

So I never sought out to be a hormone practitioner. In fact, I came up through the ranks of corporate, so I'm a corporate dropout. For you know, 10 years I was heading up e-commerce teams at publicly traded companies and managing big teams, spending a lot of time on the road, and I had been struggling with hormonal imbalance since I was a teenager. I just didn't really realize it. I thought all of these symptoms of issues with energy exhaustion, skin issues, gut issues I thought they were just kind of part of being a woman.

Speaker 2:

Having irregular periods, painful periods, missing periods, I just thought that was just kind of part and parcel of being a woman, right, and what I learned later as I began to heal was that these were very common but they weren't normal. And it's just that I was surrounded by so many other high performers and high functioning women that we all had the same issues, and so we thought it was normal. But it really wasn't. And so for me it really took to the point where I went to go see a holistic skin practitioner who you know I was going for my skin but I left with a holistic plan to balance my hormones that actually resulted in me losing weight, fixing my decades long of insomnia and really fixing a lot of those root cause issues that I didn't know I could solve in the first place. So sometimes it you know, for a lot of my clients it takes going in for something very specific and getting a result that's not even related to what you originally thought, what you were going in for, isn't that something?

Speaker 1:

And I find it so interesting, even with my friends, that so often, because we're all dealing with sort of this myriad of different symptoms, but kind of all the same that you do, you feel like, oh, that's just part of going through it, right, that's just what happens, right. So we stop really looking for solutions and I think we get to a point sometimes where it's like, okay, you know what? This doesn't feel normal and I want my life back, exactly yeah. So how did you go about fixing your particular situation and how did you kind of end up working with other women?

Speaker 2:

While I was still in my corporate job, I worked with this skin practitioner who I always say she kind of Trojan horsed her way into my life as far as wellness, because, you know, I thought I was doing all the right things right, I thought I was eating well, I thought I was doing the exercises right, I thought I was taking the right supplements. And it just turns out that, even though I was, you know, I worked at Reebok headquarters, which is known it's a fitness hub. Everyone's super healthy, we're eating salads for lunch. I thought I had it figured out, but the reality is I didn't. And once I started working with this practitioner, she kind of changed the way I thought about food. She helped me understand how to balance my blood sugar, she got me on the right supplements and I just saw results so quickly that people were asking me what I was doing.

Speaker 2:

They were like why does your skin look so good? You look so rested. Your mood has changed, your body shape has changed. You know, I was pulling out belts that I hadn't worn in years. All the clothes that kind of went away during COVID were coming out of. I didn't think I'd ever fit in them again and I was lower than you know my college weight, and it didn't make any sense, and so that's kind of where I started. And once the results started to come through, people asked me how I did it and I started helping them. And then I helped my mom who had just gone through menopause and she was carrying some extra weight around the belly.

Speaker 2:

I call it the inner tube belly you know she had these long skinny arms and this belly and I basically had her do what I did and she lost 15 pounds in three weeks and just crazy.

Speaker 2:

And so and she started fixing. You know we both been insomniacs as long as we can remember, but you know she started sleeping better and feeling better and you know her performance at work improved. And so after that happened, word got out to her friends, word got out to her friends and word got out to my friends and I started working with a lot of colleagues, a lot of my high school and college friends. I played college field hockey and some of my teammates were coming around and they would see little messages that I would post on social media of different results that some of my clients were getting. And before I knew it, I had this massive client base and I was still working full time, like I was working 60 hours a week in my corporate job in between Australia, the US and Asia in a given month.

Speaker 2:

And it just got to the point where I had too many clients where I was like I think I need to. If I'm going to really give this a shot and really scale this and help women heal, then I need to leave my job and really give this a good shot. So last July I left my corporate job, which was really scary, because you spend your whole life training for something and working towards something, and to walk away from an extremely lucrative career was really scary. But I just knew that this was something special because it was helping so many women. So I've given it a shot and I have not looked back and I have absolutely no regrets, because I always find that around the next corner is a woman who needs my help and I have the answers for her, and these women are not hard to come by because this is such a prevalent issue, and so for me there's really an endless opportunity here to help women heal women heal.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing and you know what. It is really necessary. And you're right, there's so many of us that are struggling and the more I talk with my listeners and the more I bring these topics up, I realize how many more people come out of the woodwork and go me too, and it's crazy. So what do you think is sort of the most common cause of hormone imbalance? Is that the main thing that people struggle with as they enter into menopause?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's interesting because the root cause of hormone imbalance is different for everyone, right? So hormone imbalance is kind of the symptom, but there's always a deeper reason for it in the first place. And what I typically tell women is we have to audit this from an entire full life, holistic perspective, because what happens is when you go to a doctor, they're looking to diagnose disease and there's no shade to doctors here, like they're very good at saving lives and treating disease, but what I do is I'm not looking for disease. Like a lot of the times, menopause is not a disease. You know what I mean Like it's an imbalance that explains or I shouldn't say menopause. But menopausal symptoms are just a sign that there's something in your life that's out of alignment and your body has too much of one thing and not enough of another thing.

Speaker 2:

And we have to go look at all these different pillars to say, okay, how do you? How do you rank in this one? How do you rank in this one? Like, where is this imbalance coming from? And sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's a gut issue, sometimes it's this person's nervous system has been on edge for 30 years and we need to bring that back into balance. And other times it's.

Speaker 2:

You know they think they're eating the right things but they're not, or their minerals are low, or chronic stress, like there's just so many different causes of hormonal imbalance. So we have to go like I have to get my magnifying glass out and just ask an abusive amount of questions to these women to figure out where is this coming from and why. Because that's the question that doctors won't ask is well, why are you getting the hot flashes? Why is the weight not shedding? Like this is not just inherent to getting older. Like obviously there is a hormonal shift that we work with and that we plan for. But the transition to menopause is not meant to be uncomfortable and to have crazy symptoms. It's meant to just be this time where you start losing your cycle and more time lapses in between cycles and the symptoms are really a sign that there's something going on and we have to figure out what that is.

Speaker 1:

That's interesting, yeah, for you. What do you find that you recommend for people that are going through different sort of hot flashes and things like that? Like, do you have a specific protocol?

Speaker 2:

What I always say is women come to me and they're like I'm perimenopausal, what's the protocol? And I'm like well, there is no perimenopausal protocol. There's a protocol specifically for you, based on exactly what's going on in your life, exactly what your symptoms are and exactly what we think the problem is. So for everyone, the root cause is going to be different. So, generally, if someone does come to me with hot flashes, it's a sign that their estrogen is either dropping or it's erratic, or it's missing. So we have to say, okay, let's run your functional medicine lab tests, see what's going on here, see what might be causing it, look at your estrogen levels, look at your estrogen to progesterone ratio and, based on that, you're going to get a customized list of hey, here's the food recommendations, here's the food timing. Here are some supplements that are going to help get those hormones back into balance.

Speaker 2:

And here's what I would recommend for exercise, based on where your your hormones are doing, and it's not just exercise and food. There's all sorts of other stuff, like nurturing your nervous system, making sure that you're getting enough rest. Um, if they're not sleeping through the night because of the hot flashes, there are supplements that we can use to to really improve the sleep quality and get estrogen up a little bit higher without doing HRT. Obviously, I'm not a doctor, so I don't work with HRT but there's so many natural therapies that we can use to help make sure that your body's producing estrogen in the amounts that you should be for your age, Awesome, I know.

Speaker 1:

I just went through about two and a half years of transitioning my parents not well and into assisted living and, of course, taking over their finances and then moving them from the family home and I didn't realize how much my body had gone into fight or flight, I should say until I came home after that whole session and my shoulders were aching and my joints were aching and my gut was in really weird shape and I was eating salad but I was bloated all the time and there were just so many things. So what do you advise for people who are kind of going through those really hard, stressful times and maybe you aren't in a situation where you can step away from it yet but what can you do to transition yourself, to keep yourself as balanced as possible when you're going through those things?

Speaker 2:

First of all, that's incredibly hard and I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's actually really common.

Speaker 1:

It is, yeah, we all get a turn for sure.

Speaker 2:

We all do, and sometimes it looks like transitioning parents, and other times it's having a baby and work stress and whatever it is for you it's, we have to figure out how to help you navigate that transition as best you can. And so for a lot of women we grew up in this very toxic diet culture where it's like you know it's all or nothing and it's either I'm eating kale or I'm having donuts and it's like that's so true. What I work with women on is like let's get out of that bilateral thinking where it's either one or the other and we have to look at it at a spectrum. So typically when clients come to me, weight loss is almost always an element. No one's buying a high ticket health coaching program just for fun, because you know they're having trouble sleeping, like there's typically a bigger reason. And so when they come in, we have to figure out, number one, what's what's their goal? Like what's the goal weight that they're trying to get to? But number two, what is their life actually look like right now?

Speaker 2:

Because for someone like you, who's going through something really difficult, your protocol is not going to look the same as someone who's maybe just you know they're, they've healed from a divorce. They're ready for their glow up. They have a lot of time on their hands. Maybe they've just retired. You know, I have one client who's 65. She just retired. She's got a lot of time on her hands because the kids are gone and she's like this is my year. It's like she's glowing up, she's got the time. So she, you know her protocol is more robust than someone who's like I'm just trying to get by but I want to make some layer of progress.

Speaker 2:

And for that person it's like let's set some non-negotiables Like can you get up and get some light on your face? Can you follow the nutrition plan to like maybe 70% of what you usually would and just do your absolute best? Can you do these emotional protocols to make sure that you're really feeling your feelings and allowing yourself to get clear on what your needs are during this time, because you're going to need a little bit more supplementation, you're going to need a little bit more nutritional support. You're going to need a little bit more rest when things are really stressful. So maybe we scale back the exercise but make sure that you're getting at least two out of the three meals a day are really high vibe. I call them high vibe, like. This isn't about calorie reduction, this is about adding nutrition, so making sure that that woman is getting you know.

Speaker 2:

For someone like you, it's like can we follow the list of high vibe foods to 70% and then one meal? You're just not going to worry about it, you're just going to do do the best you can, especially if you're on the road, if you're um traveling to your parents' house, whatever that is like. You're just going to make the best possible choice, because during each phase of life, we have to make the plan make sense. So for someone who's going through high stress, it's not going to be this has to be perfect and we need to shed all this weight. It's like we just need to meet ourselves where we're at, be as consistent as we possibly can be and make the best possible choice in every scenario.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I love that, because I think so often we do feel like it's all or nothing, and I think sometimes we need to be kind to ourselves, especially when we're going through those stressful moments, because we can't always put ourselves first. We can't always put ourselves first, and that can happen whether it's somebody's dealing with an illness or, like you say, you're going through a divorce, or you're dealing with caregiving for, whether it's children or elderly parents, and sometimes you have to take a bit of a back seat. But that doesn't mean you put yourself, you know, under the pile of everybody. You have to find the balance of all of it.

Speaker 2:

I'm so glad you said that, because it's just brilliant. One of the things that we have to remember is that when we are healthy and when we take care of ourselves, everyone else benefits, and one of the consistent themes that I see with women who are experiencing perimenopause symptoms is they're not putting themselves first. They're putting everyone ahead of themselves self first. They're putting everyone ahead of themselves, including their health, and they suffer as a result. And helping a woman get to the bottom of what that's really about for them. Oftentimes it's feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness where they're just putting everyone's needs ahead of their own, and that's where I see things like estrogen imbalances or thyroid issues. I'm seeing this physical manifestation of these emotional issues in their physical body, and once they give themselves permission to rest, give themselves permission to prioritize their health, things start to change so fast.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's kind of. I always tell you know, with my listeners we talk a lot about balance and creating healthy boundaries and I always go back to that metaphor of putting your own oxygen mask on first, because you can't really help anybody if you're completely depleted.

Speaker 2:

That's right, like pouring from the overflow, not the bottom of the teacup, right Exactly. And people sense that in your energy as well, like when you're giving from a place of depletion. People know like, people can sense that, and it comes across in your behavior, it comes across in your energy. And so for women who are working and they have, you know they have a side hustle and a podcast and a full-time job and a kid and it's like when they're not replenished, their kid is very aware of that. It's just permission to heal, permission to rest, permission to nourish is one of the biggest hurdles that some women sometimes have to overtake.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because nourishment is so much more than just food. It's sleep and well-being and self-talk and all of those things, and not over people pleasing and all of those things. So I know I did look at your website and you have some really great tips on there about how to just like some of the myths that we go through, like eating small, frequent meals all the time, and how that's not something that you know we necessarily need to do if we're trying to balance things out. So what would you recommend instead?

Speaker 2:

Sometimes this depends on the body type, right, and it depends on where people are trying to go. But in general, one of the biggest mistakes I see women make, especially women who are, you know, 40, 45, 50 plus, is frequent snacking. And I think this is kind of drilled into us since the 90s where it's like let's have a special K-bar every two hours and that's how you get skinny. And the reality is, when we can eat high quality whole foods three, max, four times a day at regularly scheduled intervals, so our body knows when the food is coming, it makes such a difference and there's a couple of reasons for that. Obviously, um allows us to release more weight, more inflammation.

Speaker 2:

Um, these are not hyper palatable foods, so they're much harder to overeat.

Speaker 2:

But also when we're eating them.

Speaker 2:

You know, if we're having breakfast, lunch and dinner with a small snack and we're pulling forward dinner and making sure that dinner is our lightest meal of the day and we're getting a majority of our nutrients during the day, Like that, lunch should really be the biggest meal, right, that's where the weight starts to come off, because most women will they'll under eat at breakfast or skip breakfast.

Speaker 2:

Do a coffee, have maybe a salad for lunch without proper protein, without proper healthy fats, and then they're completely strung out by dinner. They're eating like a rat over a kitchen sink at 9 pm and opening all their cupboards and completely unraveling any progress they've made. And so what we have to do is we kind of have to flip it. We got to get that high nourishment for breakfast, making sure we're having protein, fat and carb at every single meal to balance our blood sugar. Having a nice big lunch with plenty of protein and then usually a snack in the afternoon is totally fine, and then just a nice light dinner. That's one of the best things that perimenopausal women can do for getting results.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think the balancing of the blood sugar is such an important piece and I know you also talked a little bit about fasting and is it the 12-hour fast I think you said is that?

Speaker 2:

I think you said it's not intermittent fasting per se, but speak to us a little bit about that Intermittent fasting is really an interesting and quite nuanced topic because it is highly effective and I recommend it to women with caveats. Number one we have to plan it based on what's going on in your body. If someone has a known hormonal imbalance or a known insulin issue, their fasting plan is going to look a lot different than someone who's quite balanced right. And so for the average woman in America who comes to me she typically has high fasting insulin, she has high hemoglobin A1C because she's really stressed, she's probably eating too much processed food, she's not sleeping great and so her body's kind of in fight or flight all the time that's going to be a very different plan. Like I would not recommend intermittent fasting straight off the bat for a woman like that, but as she starts to heal it's a tool that we can use for more fat burning.

Speaker 2:

That said, in general a 12 hour fast is always a good idea for pretty much everyone, and I say that because that's really just fasting from 8 PM to 8 AM. Like that is very realistic. So even as a you know, a very beginner with intermittent fasting, if you could close the kitchen at you know 7 PM and then make sure, or 7 or 8 PM is pretty realistic for some people and then have your breakfast at 8 am. That's 12 hours where your body is resting, your digestion is resting. This isn't just about calorie reduction. This is allowing your body to take all the energy that it would otherwise spend on digestion and putting it towards healing and burning fat and removing stuff in the body that it doesn't need, so letting your other processes in your body work, which also has benefits to fat burning.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. I heard somewhere that when you actually stop eating several hours before bedtime, that it actually affects how I think it's something to do with body temperature and how you can get into your REM sleep a little deeper, because maybe it's because you're not digesting, I don't know. Could you explain that?

Speaker 2:

You're absolutely right. So I always tell clients three hours before lights go out should be when the kitchen is closed, so that allows your body to really digest everything before you sleep and that's going to allow you to have deeper sleep. So you're going to hit that deeper sleep, higher heart rate variability, which helps with recovery, and more REM sleep as well. And it's exactly right, because your blood sugar is not all over the place. Your food is digested, so you're spending more time repairing, resting, getting those deep levels of sleep, than you are in the actual digestion process, which requires a tremendous amount of energy.

Speaker 1:

One of the other things you talked about is having coffee after breakfast, and I'm curious about this one.

Speaker 2:

This is probably the hardest, I would say, especially in America and Australia, where people just love having their coffee, and I'm not here to tell people that they need to remove coffee.

Speaker 2:

However, if you are having a weight issue, if you don't look and feel the way you want to, one of the easiest things you can do today is moving your coffee after breakfast. So for most of my menopausal or perimenopausal clients, they'll do a smoothie for breakfast and then they'll do their coffee afterwards, and a lot of them find that you know, some of them even sign they don't, they don't need the coffee. After they get healthy, once they get their nutrients up, once they're sleeping better, they're like I like having the coffee but I don't need it, and I know that's hard to believe for most people who like wake up in zombie mode and go straight for the coffee. But for most of those women, they're spiking their cortisol straight off the bat, like they're shot out of a cannon in the morning, which is going to be really difficult when it comes to burning body fat and also with the belly fat as well. So that's a super easy one that people can change straight away.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting I never really thought about that spike of caffeine really affecting cortisol right before we even do anything else in our day. That's crazy, exactly.

Speaker 2:

And people don't know this right Like, this isn't obvious stuff, it's not stuff we're taught, and so that's why, you know, in my six month program it's these women are learning skills and stuff that they just never thought about and they're like, oh well, it makes so much sense now, but you know we don't have a health class that teaches us this, so it's almost like they're investing in outsourcing learning these kind of skills almost like they're investing in outsourcing learning these kind of skills.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think it is sometimes just those little small tweaks when we don't realize, because a lot of us are even we've talked about this on multiple episodes as well where we lean over first thing in the morning and what's the first thing we do is grab our phone, which also spikes our cortisol, and so like we're kind of shooting ourself in the foot all morning before we even get the day started. So it's not really helping Right.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. And no one likes to get that lecture where it's like you shouldn't look at your phone and you can't drink coffee, like no one wants to hear that. But generally when clients work with me they're just like take my money, take my body, just tell me what to do. And because they know they're going to get the result if they do right, because they see that the results are so good that they're like Chelsea, just tell me what to do. Like Jesus, take the wheel. Yeah, I'm willing to do it. I just I want the result. Just give me the playbook.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like here you go Well, and a lot of times, I think, when we don't realize that we're actually harming ourselves, like it's. It's not like for me, my phone. I've been very conscious once I learned that, having my phone the first thing I do. I'm really careful now not to do that, and I try not to do it right before bed too. So they are little small tweaks, but you know those little tiny things, if they add up, if you add a few of them over and over now, you start to get some real results. Right, that's right. Yeah, it's definitely a compounding thing. So another thing you mentioned that I thought was fascinating, which I've heard a few times, but there's one part I didn't. So walking first thing in the morning and 10 minutes after meals. So what is that about and how does that affect the way we metabolize?

Speaker 2:

Now this one is really important for perimenopause because as you start to produce fewer sex hormones, you are not as insulin sensitive, and so meaning that women who like, as we age, we just don't need quite as many carbs. Now this doesn't mean we go completely low carb and we cut out all the carbs that's not what this means. But it just means because we are not producing progesterone in the same volumes that we were when we were younger, we don't need as many carbs, and so for a lot of women, just adding non-exercise movement to soak up glucose after meals is really going to help with weight loss. So I always tell clients, you know, after those meals, if you have a home walking pad is a huge one, especially if it's cold or if the weather isn't good, or just taking a little walk around the block, moving around the house doing cleanup is a really good way to just kind of balance your blood sugar and make sure that you are not storing it as fat.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, I love that. Talk to us a little bit about working out and I think you talk about less cardio and more strength. So I've heard that a few times too, and the link between cardio and cortisol is huge. But maybe explain that to my listeners.

Speaker 2:

So for every woman, their workout recommendations are going to look different, right? So when someone's in survival mode, they're super stressed, they clearly need to let their body rest and their adrenals rest. We cut out the cardio, we cut out the strength, even, and we just focus on walking. So this totally depends on someone's symptoms, how they present with someone. But the goal that I would love to recommend for every single woman eventually, after they've done the deeper levels of healing and done the couple months of protocols, is we want to get to a point where we're doing two things. Well, actually three things. Number one we're building muscle.

Speaker 2:

Muscle is a metabolic organ, so the more muscle you have, the more you can eat and the faster you metabolize food right, and so obviously that's just from a weight loss perspective, but we also need that for bone density and longevity, like we need to build that muscle, and so that's through very heavy strength training where you're failing reps. So the biggest mistake I see with women is just going light little dumbbells and just doing them until kingdom come. But if they can get in and do a body pump class of you know heavy lifts where they're getting trained by a personal trainer on how to lift, um, so they're building that muscle. That's key Now, once they're healthy, depending on their body type as well, we can add some cardio, we can add some, you know, some very brief but quick kind of like sprint intervals almost is what I recommend for those women and then also just focusing on non-exercise movements. So just getting in the habit of just walking more, being more active, less sitting, more moving is what women really see results with.

Speaker 1:

Fascinating. I love that. All right, and the last one I want to talk about is sleep. Can you give the listeners some tips on how they can actually just be better with their sleep hygiene?

Speaker 2:

So I have a full kind of like protocol of what I recommend in my free ebook, which people can find on Instagram, and I'm sure it'll probably be in the show notes as well.

Speaker 2:

So you don't need to get out a pen and write all this down, but I always tell women the 3-2-1 method is foolproof. So three hours before you go to bed, kitchen is closed. Two hours before, no more water, and this is really important because I get so many clients over 30 who are like I pee every single night and it wakes me up and then I can't fall asleep. So, moving all your fluids two hours before and then one hour before cutting out blue light and that's easier said than done for some people. But if we do things like blue light blocking bulbs in our house after dark and maybe blue light blocking glasses, or just switching off any devices right before we're getting into bed and keeping the phone outside of the bedroom, it makes a huge difference in ability to fall and stay asleep.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's amazing. I have had such a good time talking with you and we could talk about.

Speaker 1:

I can tell there's so much more, so we will probably have you back on the show and we will go into more detail on some other topics, because this is it's a deep and complex subject and all of my listeners could really benefit from learning a little bit more from you. Could really benefit from learning a little bit more from you. Chelsea does have a program that she has available, which we will put into the show notes. Tell us a little bit about what people could expect if they decide to work with you.

Speaker 2:

The Healthy Hustle is a six-month group coaching program for women who are ready for results. These are women who are ready for the protocols, the roadmaps, to lose. I mean, the average client loses anywhere from five to 10 pounds in the first two weeks and that's not from a massive calorie reduction, that's from really working with inflammation, working with hormones, working with very targeted, very effective nutrition strategies to really move some of this weight quickly. So if you're the type of person who wants to shift weight fast, if you want to start feeling better, looking better at speed, this is the place for you. Obviously, you know, most of those results come in the first two to 10 weeks and then the remainder of the program is helping you become the person who can make those results permanent.

Speaker 2:

So this isn't you know, it's not a fad diet, it's not a cleanse, it's not a bootcamp. It's really for women who want that level of result. They kind of want the cheat codes, they want the, they want the hacks and the protocols, and then they also they want that lifestyle change to make this permanent, to live longer. I mean, I always say women come to me to lose 15 pounds, but they often leave with 15 more years on their life, just because this is the foundation of hormone balance and integrative health. It's such a game changer and I'm so passionate about it because number one the physical results are amazing and women are really happy with them. I have one client named Kate, who is 65. She is just moving into retirement and she's lost 30 pounds in three and a half months and she's still going.

Speaker 2:

And so she was about 200 pounds and now she she's down to 160. And so she's she's just keep going and she's feeling amazing. She's never been better. She's crushing it on the pickleball court, she's you know, her skin looks amazing. It's starting to tighten up. Like she's just looking incredible. That coupled with a decrease in inflammation and joint pain, and she's rolling around on the floor with her grandkids without worrying about it. Like her life looks very different than it did just three months ago. And the results for her came fast.

Speaker 2:

Like she lost the first 10 pounds actually 12 pounds in the first two weeks, so this doesn't have to take long for women who are really ready to invest in a transformation.

Speaker 1:

I just wanted to comment on. I loved earlier in the show you talked about a glow up and that's one of the things I do on this podcast is I'm trying to inspire people to not want to just, you know, go through the motions of midlife, but to thrive, and so I love that you're not only helping people feel better and look better, but to actually change everything, even from your mental state of how to create a lifestyle that is a pattern you're going to stick with for life.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. You know, this doesn't have to be something where you have to suffer and go on a crazy diet Like. This process is meant to be healing and enjoyable and you're meant to be able to see results quickly. And so there's for women who want a different experience and who are ready for that, it's not as far away as you think.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's amazing. So tell people where we can find you, give us your socials and where they can get ahold of you if they want to learn more.

Speaker 2:

You can find me on Instagram at healthywithchelse. I give tons of free tips away. I also have a podcast called it's Not you, it's your Hormones, and there's one in particular that would resonate. That's really on menopause. So if you just type in the title and then menopause, you'll be able to find that one. And I have a free ebook as well Busy Girl's Guide to Weight Loss. That really gives you those first steps to move the scale.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, we'll make sure we put those all in the show notes and thank you again for being here with me and all of our listeners, and we will definitely do this again. Thanks, marnie, I appreciate you. What a great conversation.

Speaker 1:

I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you felt the information was healing and helpful, I hope you'll share this with someone you love who might be struggling with her hormones as well.

Speaker 1:

The more we share, the more women we can help to feel better. And if you felt inspired by Chelsea's wisdom and you feel ready to want to dive deeper, I'm going to post a link in the show notes for you to get access to Chelsea's six-month Healthy Hustle coaching program, where she will help you to decode what's going on in your own body and get you on the right track to feeling better, losing weight and looking your best as you glow up from the inside out. Thank you for being here today and if you haven't already subscribed, I hope you'll subscribe so that the next time an episode drops, they'll be queued up and ready for you. And if no one has told you today, there's not one person on this planet that is exactly like you, and the world is a better place because you're here, so thank you for being here. I'll be back next week with some more great midlife conversation, and I hope you'll join me right here on Life is Delicious.