Why Consistency Matters More Than Motivation in Midlife Health

You don’t need more health information. You need a way to actually follow through.

In this episode of Beyond My Diagnosis, Michele Weston sits down with midlife consistency consultant Cara-Michele Nether to talk about the real reason so many women struggle with their health goals—and it’s not lack of knowledge.

It’s consistency.

Cara-Michele shares how busy, high-performing women often already know what to do when it comes to their health. The challenge is making those habits stick in real life, especially while balancing careers, family, and everything else life demands.

This conversation dives into how to stop starting over, build sustainable self-care routines, and use consistency as a source of energy instead of pressure.

Inside this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why motivation isn’t enough to sustain healthy habits
• The real reason women struggle with consistency in midlife
• How to make self-care work in a full, demanding schedule
• Simple ways to follow through without overwhelm
• How to turn self-care into an energy source instead of another task
• Why small, repeatable actions matter more than big changes
• How to stop the cycle of starting and stopping

If you’ve ever said, “I know what to do, I just don’t do it,” this episode is for you.

🔗 Connect with Cara-Michele Nether

https://strengthvitalitywellness.com/

Cara-Michele Nether is a midlife consistency consultant, owner of Strength and Vitality Wellness, and founder of the Strength and Vitality Accelerator. For over 20 years, she has worked with midlife women who don’t need more information about health—they need a way to consistently follow through.

She helps busy professional women turn self-care into a sustainable part of their lives so they can feel clear, capable, and confident. Cara-Michele is also the author of Fuel Your Engines and a sought-after podcast guest and speaker on midlife health and wellness.

🔗 Stay Connected with Michele Weston

micheleweston.substack.com

Transcript

0:00

(Music) Hello, this is Michele Weston with Beyond My Diagnosis. I look forward to sharing a very wonderful lady, Sarah Michele Nether, strength, vitality, and fitness. And we're going to stay on point, we're going to talk about what happens with women's bodies especially as we get older. And when you have a chronic condition, that's even more so. We'll talk about that. But Cara's great because first of all, she shares my name in the middle as well. She's laughing at me. And I always enjoy my conversation with her because she really works on something very important, exercise, which I hate that word. So let's do this, energy and physical activity. You know me, I hate exercise because a lot of us, especially women, think of the gym, right? I'm going to call you Cara or Michele. It's both together, Cara and Michele. That's what I said, okay, Cara and Michele. You got it. The gym always was, I have to go to the gym. Now, going into Pilates is never that. So when I got my master's in health and wellness coaching, we had classes on physical activity. And I just stopped really using exercise because physical activity is exercise. But physical activity broadens to me what that means. That means going for a walk. That means going to Pilates. That means if you like going to the gym, hey, have at it. But living in New York, I work with a lot of people and many people, especially with chronic conditions, say,"I don't do well exercising." And I'll always say, "Do you walk?" And they'll sort of look at you like, "Well, yeah." I say, "That's exercise. That's physical activity. That's you moving in space." So you can use that as your physical activity, but we can broaden what that is. We could add sand weights to your ankles. We can speed up. We can do lots of things with that because in a city like New York, a walking city, Boston, New York, any place that you have the ability to get around crazy like that, Chicago, utilize the opportunity to walk instead of getting in a car, instead of getting always off on your stop on the subway or the bus and taking advantage of getting off a couple blocks away so that you can get extra steps in. And also, we should talk about that too. I love that we now have changed it from 10,000 steps. Not that 10,000 steps isn't a great goal, but getting 4,500 steps a day, that takes a lot of pressure off of people with chronic conditions. I mean, if I say 4,500 steps, that's an easy goal. 10,000, the best you can attain. Absolutely. But 4,500 steps is, I would say, it's more malleable. It's more edible. It's like you can digest that. You can say, "I could do that. I could do that." And I think that that's important because women, especially with chronic conditions, fatigue and all those things happen. Yesterday, I actually, Carmichael, you'll get a kick out of this. I'm helping do a research study with Mount Sinai Hospital and Hunter College with physical therapy. And the physical therapist professor at Hunter College here was my first physical therapist. And we've re-hooked up when he started to do some MS studies and some grants and some stuff like this. But this one's an interesting one. Can taking Tylenol before you exercise help the body in regards to inflammation when you're exercising, especially for neurological conditions like MS, fibromyalgia, even Parkinson's, all those things that cause that inflammation in the body, can that help? What's interesting is there's placebo. It's a study, so it's a blind study. Some will get some, some won't. And they had me walk first, which is fine. I don't run, but I walk, I have a good gait at this point, even with drop foot. But then they had me get on treadmill and I literally just my face went,"I don't do that because that's scary." So treadmill is speeding up. It has the ability for me with drop foot as I get tired for me to catch my toes. It's drop foot. You have a tendency to trip. You can catch yourself because the foot, that ankle's not flexing like it should. And they put this crazy thing on me, "God forbid I fell." I said, "Okay, now it's actually harder. I should have just not said anything because now I'm suspended. God forbid I fall over the treadmill." But what was interesting was that as you walk on a treadmill, I'm going to say,"I'm at the speed I want to go at. It's not like, you know, we're going fast." When I was walking in the hallway, it was about almost two and a half miles an hour. Not bad for me because remember I'm a slower, so it's fine. It was like 2.75. And they didn't ask me, they asked me just to do a normal gait. So that was me walking back and forth. And here, because I'm sort of caught in this harness, ridiculous harness, your step, your gait is shorter because I don't have the freedom to sort of figure out my gait on there. But you can also hear, I can hear my toes scuffing, my drop foot toes when I'm starting to get tired. So you're hearing, which was important. And even Herb Karpak, a physical therapist professor said, "That's great because that's an auditory reminder on getting tired. Lift your foot. Lift your foot. Walk through your foot. Walk through your foot." And it was interesting because about 15 minutes through, they were covering the clock and stuff like that. Like, I really care. And I stopped because what happens is because it's 25 years, I start to feel that lull of my body getting neurofitting. I'm starting to need to take a break to reboot because I'm doing something. If I was outside, if I was walking underway, underneath the subway, or doing things, I could go longer because, first of all, I'm normally outside. So I've got the air outside here. I'm in a physical therapy room. But it was just really interesting, Michele, Cara Michele, because when I got home, I was tired. I was tired. And learning your limitations, think over 50, 15 minutes of walking, walking, walking, walking on a treadmill, which is very specific. And I sped it as I want. They said, "Can we raise it? Can we raise it? Can we raise it? Can we raise it?" So it was my choice how fast my gait would be. But how do you learn to build strength, have that vitality, have that ability to use the body in space? Because it makes the difference. I think especially people who are struggling with chronic conditions, I think we forget that moving makes you feel better. Even though you're living with something that makes you tired, it's important to keep challenging yourself. So on that note, I know you are doing a new program. And I wanted to talk to you about this, this strength, vitality, and fitness program that you've been working with women. Because I thought when I read it from one of your blogs that you sent, I said, "You know what? This really is a good time for us to talk about what we can challenge ourselves with. And it doesn't matter." So pick it from there and share a little bit about what's going on with why you created it and how people are feeling and why you felt that people... Especially let's also talk about consistency because that's what I'm talking about sort of in my own way, consistency. If I get to... My goal right now is, and that's more about monetary, is to go to Pilates once a week as it's expensive. It's like 166 dollars for four sessions. So if I get there once a week for 55 minutes, that's my goal. If I get there more, great. But once a week, because I walk in New York, so I also have that with me. So that's my consistency. So what's important? What have you found that women have been learning about themselves with your program? Thanks, Michele. I'm super excited to be back on the show. I appreciate your invitation. Oh, anytime. Yeah, let me just kind of give folks a little bit of a background for me. Again, my name is Cara-Michele Nether, and I'm the owner of Strengthen Vitality Wellness Center, who are based in Pikesville, Maryland. I've been a women's health practitioner for the past 22 years now. So I'm a licensed acupuncturist, a functional nutrition counselor, and a certified personal trainer that focuses mostly on women 55 and older. What I've learned over the years is that most women that I'm working with, they know exactly what it is they need to do to take care of themselves. As a health care provider, one of my goals is to, or I think my primary goal is to help women actually live a high quality of life. Now, what that looks like and what it feels like is individual to each person. But there are some commonalities. And what I've learned over the 22 years of seeing thousands of appointments and hundreds of women is that it all boils down to energy. As you mentioned earlier, whether or not we have the mental energy and the physical energy to connect with the people that are important with us in the ways that really matter to us, whether we have the energy to walk the streets and go to the stores and go to whatever adventures there are, whether we have the energy to try new things that we haven't done before, all of that requires energy. If we're trying to be patient and thoughtful and understanding with someone that we love, that requires energy. If we want to be adventurous and try something new, it requires a tremendous amount of physical and mental energy. My practice focuses a lot on helping women generate consistent high levels of reliable mental and physical energy. I do work in office and I also have what you were speaking of earlier, the strength and vitality accelerator, which is a process or a program for a community of women that have come together because they recognize that there are some basic foundational activities, self-care activities that when we get some regularity with them, we get some rhythm and routine become consistent with those. They generate that mental and physical energy that we need. I try to remind clients, we're all busy. Everybody's running around taking care of older relatives, taking care of children, taking care of work and pushing their careers forward. There's a hundred balls that everybody's got in the air. When we think about our minds and our body, that all comes down to cellular health. All of our tissue, our eyeballs, our hormones, our bladders, our digestive system, our skin, it's all made of a collection of cells that genetically come together to make our hormones, come together to make our intestines, come together to make our hearts, come together to make our skin. Those cells need a specific environment in order to operate at optimal levels. When they do, they generate that energy we're looking for. When they don't, we don't get that energy. We have the opposite. We get more pain and discomfort. It's actually real. Self-care can get really misunderstood. That term is appropriated a lot and sometimes it boils down to getting your nails done or going out to lunch with your friends. Which is important. There are absolutely important things to do. I'm going to categorize those more as stress management type things. It's also, not just stress management, I also think it's the things that we do for ourselves. Then forget you have to take care of you. That time having your nails done or having a pedicure, that gives you a chance, as I always say, to reboot, to just be with you and just enjoy that time. I understand what you're saying. Absolutely, it is stress management, but I also would take it further and say it's important to relieve the stress by making sure you have time with you. People shouldn't be frightened with being alone, doing something singular by themselves with other people around, but for ourselves. We are always with so many other people. You're in Maryland, I'm here. There's a lot of people, but we have to just sometimes get really focused and singular and say, "I'm going to just breathe and take this time for me." Absolutely. I totally agree. I like to offer a different explanation or understanding about self-care. Self-care, what I've learned over the years, what has helped many women shift their paradigm, their thinking about self-care. Self-care is any activity that actually generates that mental and physical energy. When we're taking time for ourselves, the purpose of that is to regroup, give back to ourselves so that we get that energy. That's why I put that over in the self-managing category. I do. I like that you said that because I haven't thought about it that way, so you've given me an even bigger horizon for that, which is really useful. Yeah, absolutely. I can stop any of your listeners and say,"Well, what are the things that you know you need to do to take care of yourself?" Everyone will come up with the right answers. We all know that we need to move our bodies, we need to get good sleep, we have to have good nutrition. Hydration is really important and that stress management skills, whatever that looks like for us. I call those, I like to work those together and call them the foundations of health and wellness. If we had some kind of rhythm and routine with those five, then we tend to be able to generate the energy that we need. The piece that happens is that the piece that's often missing for many women is that consistency piece that you spoke about. It can cause a lot of frustration, a lot of lack of trust in oneself, a lot of negative conversation because we get started, we get excited, we get all the stuff together and it lasts for a few days, maybe a week and then... Maybe a month. ...be all kind of crumbled. Maybe a month. Like January is always one of those. It's like, "I'm going to start this, get through January," and then it's like,"Oh, this is too hard." Yeah, yeah. Right, right. I offer my clients a framework. I call it the midlife consistency framework. This is what we use in the strength of vitality accelerator to learn how to get more rhythm, more consistency with those five foundations. Here's a structure. If I could offer that, we could talk about that, the structure for the midlife consistency framework. The first piece of this is, I often put it in a pyramid. If your viewers could visualize a pyramid, the base of the pyramid is anchor your vision. Now, what I mean by that is that, as you pointed out, all the different types of exercise, they're going to be good for a certain lifestyle and then somebody else who's trying to have a different kind of lifestyle, they may need a different kind of exercise or movement pattern. Right? Yep, yep, yep. With a more consistency with it. Yeah. So being clear, taking the time to be really clear about what's your vision for yourself right now as well as in the future is very important. It's very useful. It actually gives your activities, your self-care activities, purpose. I like that. For example, I have one client who says to me, "You know, commercial, I'm about to retire and I don't really want to do very much. I've traveled, I've done it all. I want to sit on my rocking chair, in my rocking chair, on my porch and watch my grandkids play in the yard." That's basically what I want to do. I'm going to do a little bit of cooking. I may play some bridge, maybe do a little bit of tennis here and there, but I've done all the big stuff that I really want to do. That's great. Whatever, there's no judgment, there's no upset, there's no whatever. Whatever that person wants for their life. Everyone has different goals. That's right. So we can see that that person needs a certain amount of movement in their everyday life. Yeah, because of that rocking chair. Right? Yeah. It's a good visual, right? It's a good visual. Some people want rich. They just want to watch their grandchildren grow. They want to go in the kitchen and make cookies with them. But those are very more sedentary things as opposed to active things. That's right. Then I have another client who says, "You know what? I want to hit all the national parks." I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. That's been a bucket list for my husband and I for years. This is what we're going to be able to do. I love it. So you can see that these two individuals may need different amounts of movement and different types of movement in their life in order to actually be able to go and do the thing that they have written out as their vision for themselves. Love it. Right? Love it. Some people want to be really involved with their grandkids and help them babysit and help them grow and be able to be there and answer questions that teenagers come up with and other people don't. Right? So we have to get that vision clear so that we can say,"What's the effect of this? What's the effect of dose that I need for of exercise or movement or nutrition or sleep in order to be able to go and live the life that I truly want to live for myself?" Because if we just take the generic information and we just look on YouTube or we find a trainer and they're training everyone the same, then maybe the person who wants to watch their grandkids play, they're doing way more than they need to for the life they want to. Or they want to. Exactly. Exactly. Right? The other person who wants to go for those hikes is doing less than they may need to in order to be able to go do that at the level that they want to. Got it. So being clear, taking the time to be honest with oneself,"Who am I right now?" Some of the questions that your viewers could ask themselves,"Who am I right now? What's important to me now? What are my values now? Who do I want to be in the future? 10, 15, 20 years from now, how do I want to show up? What impact is a great question? What impact do I want to have on the people and the projects that are important to me?" Once you have that information, now you understand, "Well, yeah, I do need to do a little bit more exercise or movement and I know what it's for. I know how it can help you." There's the only reason that we're paying any attention, that we're putting time and effort into those foundations is so that we can extract energy from them to go and live the life that we really want for ourselves. We're not doing it because everybody else is doing it. We're doing it because we want that energy. Yeah. Got it. I got it. The anchor part of the anchor, your vision. That's important because how many of us have taken the time to give some thought to this and then two weeks later we can't find the paper, we can't remember what we wrote down. Anchoring your vision means that you can't get away from it. I want your viewers to think about the old fashioned ball and chain around your ankle. You want to put that, write the vision down, put it up on your bathroom mirror, put it on the refrigerator, put it at work, maybe it's on your screen saver, on your phone. I put it on my door. I put it on my front door when I walk out of my apartment because it's sort of like you said, it's a reminder. That's it. That's right. You want to see it all the time. You want to not be able to forget that you're working on something for yourself. I like the screen saver. I think the screen saver is a good one too. That would be very helpful to my listeners that think about that. How would you utilize that? Put it a couple of places because it helps you remember differently than just it always being one place. It sort of reinforces. Absolutely. When you bump into it in lots of different places, you get to refresh your mind that you're working on something and it influences the decisions that you're making right then and there. We're always deciding, am I going to go left? Am I going to go right? When you see it on the door now, okay, I'm going to go left because this is going to take me towards what it is that's really important to me. Got it. I think that helps. I really do. What made you decide this was a program right now for your clients that you developed? You've done a number of things. It's 22 years of doing this. What did you see with 50 and up that you just went, "You know what? It's time for me to address this." Yeah, thanks for asking. Again, I've worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different individuals over the years. What I see is that a lot of midlife women, when you get to a certain age, life gets busier because now your body has shifted and changed with menopause as well as we have older relatives that are starting to need some support. Life gets even busier, more full. You got a lot more things on your plate. Women are stretched thin. Because of that, they feel like they just don't have any space, mental space, physical space, any room in their lives for themselves. What happens is if we don't put time and attention into ourselves, our health and wellness goes down further and further and further as the years go by. Then when they do have time, they retire or those people no longer need their support so as much. Their health and wellness is now turned over to the medical system. They've got appointments, they've been diagnosed with things, they're in a lot of pain, they can no longer take those trips, they feel uncomfortable or unsafe, they don't trust their bodies, don't trust their minds anymore. So I just want to help women understand that that's not necessary. It will happen. That is the road that we're going down if we don't focus on ourselves. When we can focus on ourselves, put small amounts of time and energy into our own self-care, then that actually gives us more energy to put out towards the people and the projects that we care about. I love that. Now, do you work with people one-on-one in person as well as online? I do. I do both. Yes. I've had a medical office for the last 22 years and inside my office, I offer what I call the strength and vitality rebuild. That's an opportunity to help women get out of the dip that they might be in. Got it. When women come in, they're just really fatigued, they're really tired, their menopause symptoms are very high. Maybe they're having neck pain or back pain. Maybe they're trying to figure out their exercise routines, but they really haven't found anyone who can really help midlife women because that's different than working with a 20-year-old They feel like they're just in a little bit of a dip. They can't quite get themselves up and going again. That's what the strength and vitality rebuild is. I works primarily with midlife women. I do have some younger women that come through, but I love helping these women regain their agency over their lives again. That's great. Young mom work is the strength and vitality accelerator. Once we get folks back up out of that dip, they're getting their energy back, they're feeling good, then we work on the consistency. That's what the strength and vitality accelerator is all about, building consistency out of those five foundations of health and wellness. I love it because I think that people, we do, we forget about ourselves. I also am curious, how do you feel, we're having a big, I'm not going to say researchers, we're having a big moment right now these past couple of years about exploring perimenopause. Finally, we're noting that there's a time for women they don't understand or they don't connect. How about that? People don't connect. Why am I so hot? Why am I doing this? I'm too young to feel this. Well, that's time that you're going through perimenopause. Do you think that that's just an important goal for us as women and as healthcare practitioners to make sure that we can help people go through those phases? Absolutely. I love being able to work with women right at the beginning, that perimenopause when they're first starting to notice that their recovery, they're not recovering from long days as well, that their joints are starting to hurt a little bit more, that they're not able to, maybe they're gaining a little bit more weight across the middle, all the different, more brain fog. I love to help women at that stage because we can put a few things in place and help them understand the process that they're going through and that way they don't have such high symptoms, they don't suffer as much as they're going through these next couple of years. We can make some really important shifts and changes. We can add in adaptogens. We can help them with their street sleep patterns. We can look at their nutrition. All of these things make a big difference in how our hormones are fluctuating throughout those next couple of years. Then they don't have so severe symptoms. Some of those things, those symptoms that we have that alert us to bodies are changing, also it's fascinating that some stay. I'm always normally hot. I'm the person who will kick off the blanket, but I want the blanket so I want it light. I don't want this, but I want this. I always want it cold in here, in my apartment, in my studio. I want it 68 degree. I want it cooler because that's what my body ... I went through perimounted, pause late, menopause late. I went 54, so it was later for me. That's sort of a staid. That's what it is. It's also something that women need to be educated about, that some of those symptoms that alert us that our bodies are different with hormones need to be addressed. How do you feel about ... I know for me, because I have a chronic condition, that I take hormone replacement for me weekly because it helps my body, especially sexually. Your body down there changes, and I just needed more help protecting my uterus and protecting, enjoying having sex. It's changed, but I also believe, which you also do, in acupuncture. I do. I believe in that. What's your take on that? It doesn't always have to be medically. Sometimes it can be more holistic, more complementary. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Because I think it's both ways. Both can be in play. It doesn't just have to be one or the other. I absolutely agree with you, Michele. I think everybody needs to make decisions based on what's important to them and how they feel about it all, what's available, what's easy to have access to. For sure, all of those things are going to play a role in making those decisions for themselves. Yeah, acupuncture, many of my clients use acupuncture treatments for to help with balancing their hormones. It does a really great job. In that strength and vitality rebuild, we'll use herbs, Chinese herbs, as well as Western herbs. I mentioned adaptogens are very, very useful for helping to explain to people, deaf to kids, because we're seeing that more in literature. We're seeing that description. It's sort of like explaining to people why matcha is good for you. It's good because it has things that are helpful. Yeah, there's such a wide variety of different types of adaptogens, but in general, matcha might be one that a person might use. Ashwagandha might be another one that folks use. I use that a lot in my office. Adaptogens are herbs that help your nervous system manage external stressors better. Love that. There's a lot of pharmaceuticals that will do that, but some people want to use something that's a little bit more natural. As estrogen and progesterone changes, a lot of women will lean towards more herbals or even a whole food supplements. They might be a little bit different than what you might get at your local drug store, where I'm talking about actual food-based products that actually deliver the nutrients. They nourish the cells in the body, and that helps out a lot with hormonal changes. We'll look at the adaptogens, we'll look at nutrition, we'll look at exercise and movement, we'll look at sleep patterns. You mentioned just wanting the room to be cooler. We just have to learn that that's okay and how to make those adjustments. If you're sleeping with someone else or you're living, cohabitating with someone else, we talk about how do we make those adjustments and help that person understand and take that person's needs into consideration as well. Those five foundations of health and wellness are always going to play a huge role in how we're feeling one way or another in all the stages of our lives. I love it. I was talking about matcha. People don't understand why. It's not everyone's liking. It's a little bitter, but I like the way it helps because it's an antioxidant. It really is. It helps with alphinine. It has chlorophyll in it, which is great. Chlorophyll. I try and make sure, seriously because I live in New York, to get into Central Park every once in a while because you need the chlorophyll of the trees. You need that interior system of having the opportunity to have that interest because it helps anti-inflammatory conditions. For me, that's why it's important. It's interesting to see. The other thing that nobody understands about matcha, and I'm going a little off course, but I want people to understand because we're talking about more holistic treatments, is you'll hear the site catechin. What does catechin mean? Catechin is, you'll sometimes see it's called EGCG. Normally you see catechin on much of packages or articles, but what it does is it helps reduce the inflammation. It helps the heart. It may inhibit cancer growth, so hey, why not? That's another thing. People don't always understand why did I get an autoimmune disease, a chronic condition. The body has lots of switches in it. Why do some people get cancer? Some people get smoking, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes the switch gets turned on and off. I believe for my MS, it actually was set off by too much stress. The switch went and my body went, "You, no balance. I'm going to take you out because you have to reconfigure your life because you don't have that balance of personal and work." I'm not mad about it. It's just it's a good life lesson. Too bad it had to come that way, but it did. I think that what's important is that we think about that. When I talk about L-theanine, it helps us to relax. It helps reduce stress. When you start to see labels and you see L-theanine, know that that's what is good for it. It helps the alpha waves in the brain to sort of selcom you. You can take L-theanine as a supplement, but please make sure you're not just buying it at Walgreens or CVS. I want you to see a pharmacist or a naturopath or a person who understands using herbs and supplements the correct way. There's certain amounts of it that are better than others. You don't just start taking something. People don't understand that you don't take things for forever. I'm sure you experienced this. I love when people look, I use whenever I get a UTI infection, I always use probiotics. But probiotics, there's different strains of them. People say, "I'm always taking a probiotic." What are you taking it for and what strain are you taking? Because there's different ones. I have a pharmacist who's more an apothecary type pharmacist, so he knows an enormous amount. He's not gone would. He's kept me really well for 25 years. I do take a lot of supplements and so forth, but we also come on and off them. I don't stay on all of them all of the time. Yes, certain things like fish oil, that kind of stuff, CoQ10, yes, of course, iron, those things. But we come on and off of them because sometimes the body needs a rest or sometimes it needs something different. Do you find that helping people understand that gives them a new perspective? Helping them understand that they need... Understand. Curbs, different supplements are things you don't always just keep taking something. Sometimes we take it for a period of time and we utilize it. Sometimes we take less. Do you find that that helps people? Especially we're talking about stress. We're talking about how do you manage 50 and over that midlife hump? Because I don't think you always take everything all the time. Of course. I 100% agree with you. Again, we're going through different stages of life and there are different circumstances that come. Our bodies shift, our minds shift, our knees shift for sure. There are some basic nutrition that is really important to make sure that we're getting, but we can get that nutrition in a variety of different ways and it's nice to have that variety of different types of cruciferous vegetables, different types of proteins, whether it's plant-based proteins or animal proteins. It's nice to be able to switch it up. And always do whole-based foods. We always go to whole-based foods as opposed to just taking supplements. It's always the best to get our nutrients, all of those things from whole foods as opposed to, "Oh, I take this. Oh, I drink protein shakes all the time." Whole foods are always the choice. Are protein shakes useful? Yes. I've had bariatric surgery. They're useful. I'm not getting 60 milligrams of protein because I'm just not hungry because I've had, you know, I've lost 140 pounds and I'm just not hungry, but I need more protein. I will have a protein shake, but I'm also very careful with ones that I use. You know, I'm looking for no sugar in it. I'm looking for certain things, but I really don't want to get my protein all the time from protein shakes. Yes, they're useful, but they shouldn't be the foundation."Oh, I have a protein shake every day." Why? You could just have an egg. You could just, you know, I mean, there's lots of things that you can do. You could have some tofu. You could do an enormous amount of things. Have some legumes. Have some edamame. Use whole foods. But especially going through midlife, there's also that spread we're talking about, which changes the way our bodies look and feel. You're not always going to get back to how you were in your 30s. You're just not. Your body's not going to just regroup that. It doesn't function that way, you know? I can wear a size 8, but my size 8 will be different than what it was in my 30s. You know what I mean? And how your body looks and feels is different. And that's not a bad thing. It just is the process of aging, right? Correct. Absolutely. Our bodies are going to feel different. And truthfully, Michele, I think a lot of our desires and needs and wants are different. You know, when I was in my 20s and early 30s, being able to lift a lot of weight was really important to me. But it's not that important to me these days, you know? And so when we stop to think, "What do we want to put our time, our limited time and energy into some of those things that were important in the past just they aren't now? So do we need to be... Do we need our bodies to look and feel exactly like it did when it was the 30s? We can work on that, but it's going to require a lot of time and energy to do that. Maybe there are other things that are more important to us now. I think so. I think it's important. So I think the biggest opportunity that people have listening to you today is hearing about strength and vitality. And we want to live our best lives, you know? And you'll hear your doctor say, "We're looking for quality of life." That's live your best life. It's the same thing. But you're looking for that. What words do you think you can share with people right now that they could start thinking about this? And when... I will make sure that we post on social media how to reach Cara-Michele. But I want people to start to think about the opportunity for creating more strength and mentality. I said you used to lift more weight. As we get older, we have to think about osteoporosis, osteopenia, osteoarthritis. You have to find that way that you're going to still challenge your bones. And it can be easy. It doesn't have to be involved. I have rubber bands. I go to Pilates and that gives me that opportunity to build bone strength and muscle strength. So what would you like to share that you think is important for people to really remember and think about? Yeah. You know, I'd like for you listeners just to give some thought to how they've been feeling lately. That's not just, you know, in terms of exercise or nutrition, but just in life in general. Are you excited? Are you happy with the life that you're living? Are you, are the experiences that you're having daily, are you showing up the way that you really want to in the world? Are you involved in things that are important to you? Are you living a life that is meaningful? Fix the boxes in terms of your values. And if not, maybe it's worthwhile to slow down and start to think, why not? What is it that's really missing for me? If I had, if I had a magic wand, what would, what would be different for me? How would I want my relationships to go? How would I like to show up? How would I like to feel day to day? What would I like to be involved in? Because at some point, you know, we're, we're not going to get out of this alive, right? At some point we're all, we're all going to finish up our circle around the sun. And so why not take the time to make that an enjoyable cycle? I make that an enjoyable ride. I think that a lot of women feel like they are stuck, like they just have to do whatever it is that they're involved in now that other people are counting on them. And that means that there's no way for them to take care of themselves and feel and create a life that's exciting for them. I call that could have a life that ticks all the boxes, right? All the things that are exciting and fun and the way you want to be the, how you want to feel inside yourself, the relationships you want to have, you want to be able to tick those boxes off when those last moments come in life. Right. And so I encourage folks to do that. And the way the, the only way to do that is to have the energy to put towards whatever it is you're trying to shift and change. Change is not easy. And it requires that we be different. And in order to be different, we have to have the interview to think different and behave different. So it all boils down to energy. And so I want to offer your, your listeners the, an opportunity to learn more about this framework, the midlife consistency framework. I'll give you the link for the, uh, for the webinar that will be great. That will be super. Yeah. It's only about 50 minutes and it really goes in and shows them how this framework can really change their mind about whether they had time and room and space and what does it look like to be more consistent with those five foundations of health and wellness, um, in a way that doesn't interfere with the life that they want to have, but it actually enhances it. I think that's a very important word. Enhances it just makes it better. Look, my brother and my sister-in-law, they hike and they go for a walk in Chicago around the lake all the time or into, you know, a park, uh, the Arbor, Arboretum, um, in Chicago and their vacations have become vacations where they're hiking. They're hiking in Switzerland. They're hiking in different countries and they ha because they've been hiking and walking as much as they have as they're coming into their fifties. This is such an opportunity to enjoy a vacation differently. I love that. That's what they're doing. They don't stop and see architecture and go to museums and eat great places, but that a part of their vacation is about enjoying the ability to get out there and move together. You know, and I think that the support my brother faced cancer, melanoma cancer, and he, he was diagnosed with diabetes type one late in life in his fifties. Who the heck expected that? But he's got a great partner and they work very well together and they've turned things around. My brother's, my brother, he's the perfect person to have things like diabetes one because he's very consistent. I'm, I'm not linear. I, it will be harder for me. I would do it, but he's really good about making sure when he's eating, what he's eating, how he's living. And so his life has gotten better and you would think, oh no, it would get worse with that. No, he has taken the opportunity to utilize walking, hiking, gives him a chance to, to be less stressed. And that applies to his wife. And I think that we have to consider things that enhance, as you said, enhance our lives because you want to enjoy every moment here. Cause this is it, you know, right? This is it. And I'm not saying, right. I'm not, you know what, who the heck knows they're out, you know, looking at Mars and the moon, who the heck knows, whatever. And it's such an opportunity for all of us to really check in with ourselves as we age and aging shouldn't be a horrible thing. It's part of the process, you know? And whether or not you have a chronic condition or not, you want to enjoy your life and you always want to be able, Cara-Michele, to do it on your terms. And I think that that's what you're offering is. You can do this on your terms. I really, really think so. So we'll make sure we get that, we'll make sure we get that link on there when I put up social media and a little bit more about Cara-Michele because I love having people like Cara-Michele here to talk to. There's a lot of different practitioners. We're all different. I don't do what Cara-Michele does. She doesn't do what I do. So when we can merge together and share ideas and beliefs and opportunities to explore different ways to live our best lives, I want to share that with my listeners. And I think that, you know, I love how she said, you know, I'm so glad you have me back. Cara-Michele can come back anytime, anytime you have something new, anytime you want to talk about something, please do because you have your own voice and I am always welcome and glad to share listening to what you're doing and what you're sharing and also give my listeners an opportunity to hear what you have cooking down the pike. It's a wonderful opportunity, really. Thank you. I appreciate that. No, I really, you know, there's some people that you keep coming back to. People say, why don't you interview new people? I do. But there's the people that I love that are doing things to change how people enjoy and live their lives that makes a difference for me. So it's been great. And I'll see you around the other side of the moon or the sun. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Diagnosis. If something we talked about today resonated with you, if you're craving deeper understanding, better support, we just want to know you're not alone on this journey. Make sure to subscribe to my free substack at micheleweston.substack.com. That's where I share personal insights. Takeaways and extra resources to help you stay informed, empowered, and one step closer to the clarity you deserve. And if you found this episode helpful, leave a review or share it with someone who needs to hear it. Your voice helps this message go further. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep trusting yourself, and keep going beyond the diagnosis.