Episode 4: Nourished in Midlife: Mind, Muscle, and the Microbiome ft. Cara Wheatley-McGrain

"Stop fighting your body and start fueling your future."

In Episode 4 of the MMB40 podcast, we go deep into the "engine room" of midlife health: the gut. If you’re a woman over 40 struggling with energy crashes, stubborn bloating, or that frustrating perimenopausal brain fog, this conversation is your roadmap to feeling like yourself again.

I’m joined by Cara Wheatley-McGrain, author of The Mindful Gut, who shares her journey from a life-threatening health crisis to becoming a leading voice in gut-health advocacy. We discuss why a resilient microbiome is the secret to staying strong, sharp, and vibrant in your 40s and beyond.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Estrobolome: How your gut bacteria manage your hormones.
• The 30-Plant Rule: Why diversity is the key to energy and balance.
• The Vagus Nerve: Connecting your mental resilience to physical strength.
• Self-Compassion as Biology: Why "gut-kindness" beats "gut-restriction."
• A 5-min gut check: Follow along as Cara takes us through a compassionate 5-min exercise to check in with your gut and prepare your body for food.

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📖 CARA’S BOOK: Find The Mindful Gut by Cara Wheatley-McGrain here: https://amzn.eu/d/0aNoH7h4

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction to Gut Health and Midlife Resilience 

01:30 The Importance of Gut Health for Women Over 40 

04:29 Cara's Journey with Ulcerative Colitis 

09:26 Listening to Your Body: The Role of Intuition 

10:32 The Unique Gut Microbiome of Women 

12:06 Navigating Dietary Trends and Confusion 

17:21 The Impact of Fiber and Hydration on Gut Health 

20:29 Movement and Its Role in Digestive Health 

23:53 Managing Inflammation and Stress in Midlife 

27:47 The Importance of Self-Compassion for Women 

32:59 Understanding the Vagus Nerve and Gut Health 

39:17 Mindful Eating vs. Restrictive Eating 

46:30 Do a gut-check with Cara & Anneli

52:13 Incorporating Diversity into your Diet

Thank you for listening. Be sure to hit the SUBSCRIBE button if you enjoyed the episode and share it with friends wherever you're listening.

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Transcript

Introduction to Gut Health and Midlife Resilience

SPEAKER_06 0:02

Welcome to the Mind and Muscle Beyond 40 podcast. I'm Annalee, founder of MMB40, weight training junkie, motivational speaker, dog mum, certified menopause movement coach, and proud South African. If you're a woman navigating your 40s or beyond, and you're ready to reclaim your energy, build strength, and create a lifestyle that helps you thrive as you age, you have found your podcast. On this podcast, we're all about empowering you to take control of your health and wellness journey. And to do that, we focus on the five pillars for aging strong: mindset, muscle, nutrition, biohacking, and managing menopause. On this podcast, you can expect practical tips, myth busting discussions, Q ⁇ A's, and even some follow-along content. All of this designed to help you age with power and feel amazing. Welcome back to the Mind and Muscle Beyond 40 podcast. Now, we spent quite a bit of time talking about mind and muscle on this podcast, but today we're going to focus on the engine room that powers both your guts. If you're a woman over 40 and you are battling symptoms like menopause, bloats, brain fog, energy crashes, you might be missing the most critical piece of the performance puzzle. Joining me today on the podcast, very exciting, is the wonderful Cara Wheatley McGrain, the author of Mindful Gut. Now, Cara actually transformed her own life-threatening battle with Crohn's disease into a blueprint for midlife resilience. And she's here to show us how a mindful gut is the key to building a stronger mind and a leaner body after 40. Cara, welcome. Thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Hello, I'm really happy to be here. So hello to everybody out there watching.

SPEAKER_06 1:49

So Cora and I first met um last year at the Mind Body Festival at Olympia in May, was it?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Yeah. Yes, yeah, we did. Yeah, we had a lovely catch-up after my talk and um yeah, compared notes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:02

She had a wonderful talk, and I just remember thinking to myself, when I launched the podcast, Cora needs to come into the podcast. So here we are, almost a year later. Um, but yeah, thank you for joining me. And I want to kind of just jump straight in. Can you tell us why the gut and not just the gym is a really key element of the front line for women in perimenopause in this particular phase of their lives?

SPEAKER_02 2:25

I love that question. And my approach is always holistic. So I love that we're talking about the gym and the role of the gym, and I know that's a lot of your work is around that. But the gut is such an extraordinary area of discovery at the moment. There's so much emerging. And one of the really exciting things about um gut health in the last few years is that the conversation has really opened up to the differences between the male and female digestive system, and in particular, around the impact of our fluctuating hormones on our overall digestive health, and particularly our gut health. And we also know that there are significant changes happening to our, I like to call it our inner ecosystem, our gut garden. Love the gut garden. I love that term. I remember last year I thought, the gut garden, isn't that so beautiful?

SPEAKER_06 3:15

Love it.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah, yeah. And so there's things happening to our uh gut garden, our gut microbiome during perimenopause and menopause that start to have a real impact on our overall health. And this is an important piece of the puzzle that we weren't really aware of 10, 20 years ago. But new research is really opening up this aspect of women's health that I think is really important for many women of our generation, younger, older, to be aware of.

SPEAKER_06 3:46

Exactly. And I and I think one of the key things that I come across with the women that I work with is you can't really even talk about the strength training element or hitting the gym if your gut is not functioning properly and if you're not feeling yourself. And I remember listening to a podcast a couple of years ago where um they were talking about the gut brain axis, and we'll get into that in a little bit. But our guts as women, your gut is the center of your being. And if your gut isn't functioning properly, then everything else feels off, doesn't it?

Cara's Journey with Ulcerative Colitis

SPEAKER_02 4:18

I really agree with you. I really and I think we know that I think our language reveals how powerful the gut is. We have gut feelings, we have gut instincts. I think as women, we have stronger gut intuitions. I think we're wired to have more sensitivity to how our those gut feelings drive our responses and our behaviours. And yeah, I think to some degree in our culture that's been kind of oppressed or forgotten. And I think it's a really exciting time to be bringing the gut more centrally to our health, our well-being, and also our innate wisdom. That's it, that's it.

SPEAKER_06 4:51

I love that. Um, so that, yeah. So I guess what is interesting to me is that you've been on quite a journey yourself, haven't you? So you've been on the journey of nearly losing your colon to Crohn's disease, um, which must have been I can't even imagine being in that situation. But I would you be willing to share with us, you know, the moment when you were hours away from surgery and how that sparked your shift from I suppose fighting your body, instead of fighting your body, you then turn to listening to your body. Do you want to talk us a little bit through that?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah, thank you. Um thank you for inviting the question. And um, just to just to be clear, I have um the condition I was living with was ulcerative colitis. So it's a it's the kind of a sister of Crohn's. It's a it's inflammatory bowel disease. Okay. I had systemic inflammation throughout my whole of my colon, the so the large intestine, um, this beautiful part of our digestive system where our gut microprime lives. I didn't know any of that at the time. So this was uh when I was very young, 25 years ago. And I had um, I was studying at university in London. I was kind of like a busy, quite a perfectionist, I would say. My personality was like always to do things really well and then do more.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Um, lots of stress, like that kind of like I suppose that time of like identity formation in your early 20s when you're trying to work out who you are. And um, and I was diagnosed with IBD after a long period of back and forth, back and forth to my GP. And I know a lot of people who have digestive issues, we often struggle to get a diagnosis to understand what's going on, or there's the umbrella term of IBS, irritable bowel syndrome were given, but not always clarity. So I was given uh a clear diagnosis. Um, and then very soon after that diagnosis, about a year later, the inflammation in my system was so intense I ended up going to ANE.

SPEAKER_07 6:52

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

It was it was a really, really tough time. It was a period of real fear and confusion, and when you're young, you're often not prepared for being so no, and and how old were you at that point? I was in my early twenties. Oh my goodness, and I um literally was just experiencing this um sense of being just so inflamed and so much pain. And then when I arrived in hospital, uh they made a decision to put on intravenous steroids, but because the level of inflammation was so extensive, um they basically took my mom to one side and said um if Cara doesn't respond, we will actually have to get um surgery to remove her colon because inflammation and fortunately I've responded over the next few days. I responded to the intravenous steroids. Um it was a really extraordinary time, and I had a a kind of a bit of a glimpse that I felt like I wasn't my body, a little bit of kind of almost extreme separate from my body, looking at myself and having this moment of real clarity and compassion and feeling like, oh wow, I how can I take care of myself? And when I left hospital a few weeks later, I had this real like oh my goodness, isn't it like you don't know what you've got till it's gone? I almost lost my colon. I've got it. How do I look after her? I started like treating her. How do I look after my colon? What a babe. What do I need to do to protect her, to keep Oh, I love that. And and and I knew the doctors was only part of a story. I was really grateful, really grateful medical system for doing all of that emergency care. But I knew that I needed to turn in, I needed to tune in.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

And what was extraordinary is through being so seriously ill, in the weeks that followed, um, I could just pick up food and go, no, oh yes. I would like literally feel I need this, I need this. And I started to explore uh, for example, pineapple contains this amazing something called brain lean, which is like anti-inflammatory. And it was like, oh, I feel like I need some pineapple.

SPEAKER_06 9:14

So your your gut was saying to you, I need pineapple.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yes.

Listening to Your Body: The Role of Intuition

SPEAKER_06 9:19

Well, were you? I have a quick question. Were were you before this? Were you very, how can I put this? Were you mindful about food and and were you sort of like, you know, you you you sort of sometimes you come across women women who are really led by their guts and really sort of like, you know, were you like that when all of before this happened? No.

The Unique Gut Microbiome of Women

SPEAKER_02 9:38

No, I would actually go a little bit further back. I was a very beige eating teenage vegetarian who never actually ate any vegetables at all. Really? What a combo. Wow. Okay. Vegetarian, beige, no vegetables. So you were the opposite. I was the opposite, and I thought food was not like not eating too many chips. Like I just didn't kind of toast and like very limited. Remember, I was at school, I was at university in London on a budget, I wasn't really well, I wasn't informed about my health care. Of course, yeah. So I went completely the opposite and started to really get curious about food and started nutritionists and lots of different practitioners. And then through that, I realized well, actually, my body actually can guide me. My body really knows. It knows the pineapple was one of the first things, but then it started to kind of keep developing avocado, walnuts, this, and my body was just saying all the time. And I've got to say, that there was an intensity of that, like almost like knowledge, and then it kind of, and I think as I started to heal, it quietened a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 10:43

It quietened down. So your body was speaking to you, telling you what it needed.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yeah. But I still feel now in my work, a lot of the work I do is helping people to tune in because I think we get told so much by experts like Jennifer Smice, yeah, particularly as women, because traditionally a lot of studies can be often studies that historically have been more male focused, maybe more m far more male people involved in studies. Now more and more that there's an awareness, particularly with the gut microbiome, that we need to have women in our study in studies, women at different points in their cycle in our studies to understand, and also women at different points in perimenopause and menopause. So I'm loving that we're at a point where there's a more awareness.

Navigating Dietary Trends and Confusion

SPEAKER_06 11:26

There's more awareness and there's more conversations happening around this. And I find the whole field fascinating. Um, I spent, I I bought a couple of books last year. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Mindy Pals. Yes. So, not so much, so obviously she's a massive fan of fasting, and and I think there's a time and place for fasting. Um, but one of the key things that I found through her book called Eat Like a Girl was just looking at what types of foods your body craves during different parts of your cycle. And not to exclude things, you know, women can be very fatalistic when it comes to food, especially when you're working with women who want to lose weight or they want to change their bodies. The first thing they do is A, starve themselves and B, cut out things like carbohydrates, which you know, your body needs different elements. Your body needs the nutrients, and it's being a bit more intuitive and listening to your body in terms of what it needs. So I'm glad we're talking about this. And it is, I do think it's there's a lot more knowledge now available in terms of what it looks like for you as you get older, but at the same time, there's still a lot of overwhelm and there's still a lot of confusing information out there, which is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today. Because the women, particularly women over 40, we just have so much on our minds. We need things to be simple, and we need things to return to, you know, its roots almost, which is which is you know fitting with what we're talking about. It needs to be good, whole food that really nurtures your body. Nothing, it doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be crazy, just good, wholesome food.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Yeah, I really agree with you, and I think there is a lot of noise out there that can create confusion.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

And I also think if if you look at what's happening, we often focus on a particular trend. Yes, and that trend suddenly becomes very like like everyone's talking about it, and there's a lot of marketing, and then that trends dies away, and the next trend comes.

SPEAKER_06 13:24

Cornivore diet, keto diet.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Yeah, and and actually I suppose the other thing is to be a little bit confident that although we can offer some really good general advice, I'm always really aware that people are individuals.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

And going back to the gut microbiome, what we know is there are significant differences between the gut microbiome between men and women. Women have uh some specific tendency towards specific species like acomansia, which is a really beautiful, helpful species that lives in the lining of the gut. Okay. Also lactopacidus, so and again, a really, really wonderful species. But what we know is when we go into our perimenopause and menopause that we start to see some patterns of shift and we lose some of that diversity over time.

SPEAKER_06 14:12

And we're we're talking, when you say species, we're talking about gut bacteria, right? Yes. Just to clarify. Okay, we're talking about gut bacteria, the good gut bacteria.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, yeah. And so what we're looking for always is to have, we know a healthy gut microbiome has a lot of different range of different species of bacteria, and also a lovely balance between what we'd call beneficial, the ones that we know have health benefits, anti-inflammatory, are supporting our hormonal levels and other species of bacteria which are a little bit less helpful that might be pro-inflammatory.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Um, but I guess the point I'm making is also each one of our microbiomes is is unique to us.

SPEAKER_06 14:52

Right. Every single person has a unique microbiome. So what is good for me might not be good for you.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Yes. Yes. Um, so we're kind of always talking, I guess, in generally better like advice, but also knowing because we're being unique, that we also need to how does it, how does this if I'm choosing a certain way of eating, how does it make me feel?

SPEAKER_06 15:14

How does it make you feel? Exactly. So would you agree that there's a certain amount of experimentation when it comes to figuring out what what is good for your gut or what works for you? Because very often, um, you know, I like to eat a lot of fermented foods, so that's great. So the sauerkraut, you know, those types of things. But then I will speak to another woman who say to me, Oh, I can't eat sauerkraut, it it it wreaks havoc with my gut. And that's just it is experimentation, but it's also looking at actually being in tune with your body in terms of knowing how certain foods make you feel or how it makes you react. Because very often women just suppress we we eat the foods that we think we should be eating, but we don't pay attention to what actually happens, whether it makes you bloated or gassy or things like that. We need to actually tune into that, don't we?

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah, and I love that you brought up fermented food because we know there's overall huge health benefits to eating fermented food regularly, and that's that's clear. But you're absolutely right. Some people will really struggle to tolerate them and it will create bloating and discomfort. Um, I would often talk about if people are starting to introduce some changes to their diet, it's to start really small. Yeah. You know, you sauerkraut, you can have a tiny half a teaspoon.

SPEAKER_06 16:28

Little teaspoon, that's a little teaspoon, not not like half a jar, that's yeah. Slowly introducing it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Yeah, or a little bit of cafe or a little bit of natural yogurt, yeah, a bit of miso, just just like trying a little bit of families and then just slowly, slowly introducing because also we know that our gut microbiomes, our gut bacteria can respond and be like, ooh, that's interesting, that's something new. And imagining if you're introducing, if we go back to our gut garden metaphor, a new plant species, we might just want to kind of like just put a couple of little seeds in and see how that changes in that soil.

SPEAKER_06 17:04

Yeah. So how long does that take for your gut? So if you introduce something new to your gut, how long would it take for the bacteria to respond and go yay or nay?

The Impact of Fiber and Hydration on Gut Health

SPEAKER_02 17:13

It can be really quick. So we know the gut muscle brain can start to change literally within 24 hours, it can start to very subtly shift. It's really responsive. But in terms of people's response to introducing a new food like ferments, it can take quite a bit of time. In my experience, it can take small amounts building up, maybe like getting used to um adjusting to having that increase in uh the probiotic food, um the fermented food. Also with fibre, because fibre is a we know is a really has huge health benefits, and most of us here in the UK, where we're recording this, most of us in the UK aren't having sufficient fibre.

SPEAKER_06 17:52

Yeah. That is something that I found. When I when I generally speaking, 25 grams a day, you know, but when I when I start speaking to women and analysing what they're eating and just trying to guide them with what they should focus on, one of the big things is fibre. And when they realise, when they actually start looking at what they're eating, they realise how little fibre they're actually getting. So it's something you actually have to pay attention to.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Yeah, there is definitely being intentional. But maybe to cycle back, the reason that is so important for women in this period of time we're talking about as we're going into perimenopause and menopause, is we know um that generally one of the key differences between men and women's digestive systems is women have a slower transit time than men. Okay. Significantly slower. So from input to output, from eating to pooping, quite longer time for women. Do we do we know why that is? Well, there's a few reasons. Um one of them is that women have a slightly longer and slightly curvier colon than men.

SPEAKER_05 18:57

Okay, she's a curvy girl. We like a curvy girl, great.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

We're curvy on the inside as well. Curvy on the inside.

SPEAKER_05 19:07

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

And the reason for that is if you think about our abdominal area, we have additional organs in there that men don't have. We have a uterus, we have the womb. Of course. So we have slightly more curves and kinks. And if you imagine the digestive system is a very beautiful long tube, effectively. It's about seven and a half meters long in the average human. So imagine that you're moving food along a tube.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

And that tube is also curved and you know it within the abdominal cavity. So women have, and we have stuff slightly longer, slightly curvier is significant. And then you add in our hormone cycle, and we know during our hormones we have a tendency when um progesterone levels are higher for it to slow down utility, and then estrogen has a tendency to speed up, which is why sometimes we experience maybe tendency towards constipation, maybe a week or so before our period, and then maybe around our period, more likely to have looser bowel movements. And this is because our hormones are having this big impact on the whole of our digestive system.

Movement and Its Role in Digestive Health

SPEAKER_06 20:14

That's incredible, isn't it? To me, our bodies, women's bodies are just incredible, and how it all just, you know, it's it's it's so sensitive and it's so beautifully tuned. And it's I I feel like the more I understand about myself and about this journey, and particularly in perimenopause, you know, the more empowered I feel to make better decisions for my body. We'll be back with Cora in just a moment, but first, a quick question for you. We're talking today about the power of nourishing from within, but I know that in the middle of a busy week, the how can feel overwhelming. You know that you need the protein for your muscles and the fibre for your gut, but sometimes you just want someone else to do the thinking for you. And this is exactly why I created Club MMB 14. Inside the club, I provide comprehensive wholesome meal plans that take the guestwork out of healthy eating. So I've done the math for you so you don't have to ensuring you're hitting your protein targets, fueling your workouts properly, and getting that gut-loving fiber we've been chatting about. It's about more than just a diet, it's about giving your body exactly what it needs to thrive in this chapter of life without the decision fatigue. How amazing does that sound? If you're ready to stop overthinking and start fueling, head to the link in the show notes to join Club MMV40 today. Your body and your brain will thank you for it. So, but you have to really lean into being in touch with your gut or your body and how you're responding and how it what it looks like during different times of the month. Because it is like uh, you know, it's it ebbs and flows, doesn't it? And so you just need to go, well, not to be cheesy, but go with the flow of your body, you know?

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Yeah. And support that flow. And I think we've been talking, we touched on parimenopause. What's happening in a perimenopause is we're as our estrogen levels are dropping, um, we have often slower transit times that's slower movement through the gut. And sometimes when people talk about menopause, we also talk about the gut pause. So we're having this slowing down of that of that transition. And so to counteract that, to stop that kind of tendency towards constipation, it's really important as women for us to be very intentional about our fibre intake and our hydration levels. Yes. Like we really need to be more aware of that. And I think that's something to be kind of doing early on in that process to it. So in our body to have that lovely movement through our system.

SPEAKER_06 22:44

So because we know this is going, this is happening for us during this phase. So hydration, fibre, making sure you're getting at least 25 grams. What was the third thing that you mentioned?

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Talked about movement. Movement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:56

So so yeah. So the kind of the, you know, I always say, you know, go for a little walk after lunch or dinner, or if you can, just kind of like keep your body active. Um, is there a particular, are we just talking a walk? Is it just kind of being active or what would you suggest?

Managing Inflammation and Stress in Midlife

SPEAKER_02 23:12

I I think the key thing is if you think about the kind of gravitational pull of the body, just the process of moving, yes. Like it could be a gentle walk. And I I really agree with you. I think there's something about after eating, right, allowing our body to digest, like get you know, like a good 30-40 minutes, but then maybe after that, yeah, like going for a walk, which has got a couple of benefits. One, it's just helping what we call the paleostalic wave, which is the movement of food through the gut, yeah, supporting that gravitational push down. And also you're helping, as you all know, is like flatten blood sugar because we could potentially after eating, we just want to like allow just letting everything move for the system, but allowing the blood sugar to flatten. So there's a couple of reasons why there's a particular health benefit to a a walk post-meal. Definitely. But I think there's so many different forms of movement, and it's just like whatever movement is right for you and help your body to how to be active and support that natural flow of movement of food through the system.

SPEAKER_06 24:13

I actually quite like that we've mentioned this because in general, I try and encourage women to just to move more in general. You know, the non-exercise activity thermogenesis, the neat movement throughout the day, is what really makes the difference. You know, what you do in the gym is great, but then how much are you moving the rest of the day? Because a lot of us have very sedentary lifestyles. And a lot of the time you do, especially in perimetopause, experience more um gut issues because you are pretty much moving once a day if you go to the gym, or maybe you do one walk and the rest of the day you're just sitting. We are not built for sitting, you know. We do better when we move. That's what we were designed to do. Um, and one of the things we always talk about is a movement snack in the afternoon, you know, having a healthy snack instead of, you know, your usual biscuits at 4 p.m. when the sugar crashes. Having a healthy snack with protein and healthy fats, those kind of things, but then also moving. So combining those two things. So I'm glad we've touched on that.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Yeah, and I love that there's a there's that's that when that sometimes that natural energy drop-off later in the afternoon, right? There's it's sometimes a bit of fresh air, a bit of movement.

SPEAKER_06 25:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Suddenly you feel, oh well, bit of air.

SPEAKER_06 25:24

Yeah. Bit of oxygen, yes. I love this. Um, so just just to segue just literally back to what we were talking about before. Um, obviously, we know that there's a lot of, we know the tie between gut bacteria and how that helps regulate estrogen. Um, so obviously, one of the big things you talk about is inflammation. And I know in perimenopause and in this stage of our lives, there is a lot of inflammation. And can we chat a little bit about inflammation and cortisol and the fact that I feel like a lot of women in our phase of life are very, very stressed out. We have a lot on our plates, we're dealing with a lot, and how taking care of your gut links in with that and managing inflammation because all those inflammation and cortisol pretty much go together, don't they? So could you touch a little bit on that and what you would suggest in terms of how you take care of your gut to help with that, managing the cortisol or elevated cortisol levels anyway? Because we all have cortisol, don't we? But it's the elevated, perpetual elevated levels that becomes a problem.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Yes, I I think one of the ways of understanding what's happening inside of ourselves when we when we're in a stress mode, when we have elevated levels of stress in our body, is if you think about when you get a dry mouth, say you you stand up to make a speech or you're anxious about something, you literally like, oh, I need to drink some water, my mouth has gone dry. And that's a kind of a response of the body, the dry mouth. But if you imagine that dryness extending along the digestive tract, when we are stressed and we have elevated cortisol, it actually can dry out the digestive system. We're not producing the same as mucus. Yes, it's really interesting. So if you imagine that drying and that sense of almost becoming if that's happening regularly, we're becoming kind of inflamed, swollen.

SPEAKER_05 27:16

And so that's a very powerful visual.

The Importance of Self-Compassion for Women

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Yeah, it really helps if it helps me to un I think it's interesting, it helps explain, um, it helps people to understand and visualize. So, um, and I I think what you've said is right. We we're often in a very messy middle of our lives while experiencing changes in our hallmates. Yes, it's everything, yeah. Yeah, often we've got maybe generational care, like either side of us. Often, um, you know, we might be at the peak of our working lives today as women, often in our 40s and early 50s, like really peaking in like the busyness and responsibility, and yet also experiencing significant hormonal changes in our bodies. So we're navigating a lot. Um, and in turn like in terms of managing stress, um I mean a lot of my work is around mindfulness and self-compassion. Yeah. And one of the things that I love to talk about and share is that surprising to people is that when we are kinder to ourselves, when we're compassionate to ourselves, it actually has an anti-inflammatory effect in the body. And you think about that, it might be surprising, but if you imagine like the inner voice that we all have, we all speak, we all have an inner dialogue with ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

And if that inner dialogue, that inner voice that we have is negative or critical, or oh god, look what you've done now. And yeah, you know, imagine that if you had a friend in your life who was being critical or negative to you, you would cut that friend off. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, and you can imagine that it'd be quite stressful having that. Yes. Yeah. But we're not always aware of it if it's a pattern that we have adopted unconsciously. Yes. So by shifting that inner dialogue to becoming more caring, more kind, more supportive, we immediately are reducing the cortisol. We're immediately creating a karma mysteriously. Yeah. So I'm a big advocate of really simple ways of starting to become more aware of the inner dialogue. Um, create a loan in your day of just kind of being kinder and calmer.

SPEAKER_06 29:40

I I absolutely love all of what you've just said, and I do think it is a shame as a woman that we don't apply, you know, self-compassion is almost like a foreign concept to us, even though we are nurturers at heart, we take care of everyone, but we struggle to apply those rules to ourselves. Um, and it is uh it's such a powerful mindset shift because at the end of the day, if you can't, if you're not taking care of yourself, you cannot show up in the way that you really want to for your family, your friends, and for your health. So it it all links together. But um I think one of the key things that I find is that women tend to try and squeeze in a little bit of mindfulness here. They're like they don't schedule it. And I know with myself, if I am intentional and I'm usually pretty good, but not every day goes according to plan. But I try and carve out some time in the morning to spend some time just working on my mindset and quieting my mind and finding that inner calm a little bit, because then I can tolerate whatever comes the rest of the day, whatever the day brings, I feel more equipped to handle it. Um, but it doesn't always have to be that way. One of the things we always joke about in the group um coaching program that I have, you know, maybe your mindfulness is nine o'clock at night when the kids have gone to bed, whatever it is. You have to fit it into your life to make it work for you. But the point is being intentional. Because if you don't have the intention of doing that, your life will run away with you. Much like anything in this era of our lives, you have to be intentional with your workouts, with your hydration, your fibre, and your mind. And I feel like the mindset side of things sometimes gets left out of the equation because women want to know what workout should I do to get abs in five days? And, you know, um, basically, what should I eat? Should I never eat carbs again? They don't think about the mindset, and actually, I think that's the bit that's most important, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah, and I think I love what you've just said. I think that part about being intentional is so key. And almost once that foundational piece is in place, because we're being kinder, we're more mindful of those decisions, then I think the behaviors following it becomes easier because we're coming from a place of caring for ourselves. So the decisions we make around our movement and our food intake are aligned with that because well, I'm caring for myself, what would I do for a good friend? I would eat the best food to be healthy and well, I'd want them to live in ways that made them feel good. Yeah. So if we're coming from intentionally kind of cultivating that relationship of care, and I think also the point that you made really powerfully about the beginning of the day and the end of the day, they're really two powerful places of often where we can detach from our phones and social media and the noise, and we can have before we plug in to the internet or plug into all the busy responsibilities, there's often a moment in the morning, some moments in the morning.

Understanding the Vagus Nerve and Gut Health

SPEAKER_06 32:40

It doesn't have to be like five minutes of just being peaceful, just quiet bits, and it's I have this um I'm I've got this little not obsession, but I like to frame everything within a picture of how does this serve the 80-year-old version of me? The way that I show up, everything I do every day. I'm like, does this serve her? Is this gonna help her? Is this gonna harm her? What decisions am I making? And it is being kind to yourself. I'm being kind to me at 43. I'm trying anyway. I'm trying to be kind to me because I'm trying to be kind, or I am being kind to the 80-year-old version of me. And um, I spoke at an event on Friday last week for International Women's Day, and one of the ladies came up to me afterwards and said to me, I've never thought about this. I've never thought about it like that. Because we've seen, we we do think about, oh, that's a problem for another day. We don't think about the future so much or the future version of us, but the decisions we make now, and the decision to be kind to yourself is exactly that. It's something that you're doing for your future self, and it's not something you you know. I think we need to prioritize that now more than ever at the age that we're at, because you know, you're the only one that that is going to take care of yourself and your body and your mind, and I think that's a it's an immense responsibility, but it's also incredible.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Yes, and I think this piece of women in particular needing to be mindful of this is because there's a lot of cultural pressures for us to put other people's needs ahead of our own. Um, there's a lot of like kind of learning around that. So actually focusing our care towards ourselves, just because we want to be healthy, happy, 80-year-olds. I mean, that's amazing. That's a wonderful thing. Like this is what we want. We all want to do that. This is what we want.

SPEAKER_06 34:28

We want to carry our own shopping. We want it, we want to be the one running around, not worrying about, you know, being, yeah. Either way, it is a wonderful goal to kind of have in the back of your head. And I, one of the ladies, I think she's in her early 20s, and she said to me, Oh my goodness, it's reframed everything. And I was like, Great, you've got all the time, go for it, build those, put those building blocks in place now. It's great. Um, also, can we can we chat a little bit about? I know I mentioned it initially, but I want to just chat a little bit about the vagus nerve, the super highway. You you often talk about a 10-lane highway between the gut and the brain. Um, and how does can we talk about how this connection dictates sort of brain fog or midlife anxiety?

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah, so the vagus nerve is um this beautiful long wandering nerve. Uh, so it comes from the root, uh vagus comes from the Latin root, which means that from the root of vagabond or vagrant, so it's to wander. And it's this incredible cranial nerve, the longest cranial nerve in the body, and it starts up in the cortex, goes down the sides of our neck, threads through most of the organs in our body, and I think it like roots down into our gut. Wow. And what we now know is that our gorgeous, extraordinary gut bacteria can use the vagus nerve to signal between our gut and our brain. This is what we're understanding about this communication.

SPEAKER_04 35:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

And it um what we understand is we assume in our culture that obviously our head leads everything and the head is the kid and queen and blah blah. But actually, it turns out the vagus nerve and our gut are really important because most of the communication between our gut and our brain is from the gut to the brain. So if it imagine a 10-way 10-lane superhighway, four four lanes are going from the brain to the gut, and six are going from the gut to the brain.

unknown 36:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

And I again we talk, you know, we talk about gut instincts and gut feelings. Yeah, I don't know this. And we often know that those moments in our life were oh, I had a real gut feeling about me. They're usually very wise parts of ourselves. Ten lanes, I mean six lanes, six more than the brain.

SPEAKER_06 36:38

I mean, that's incredible. So when you have a craving, that's your gut sending a message to your brain. Yes, yes. That's what's happening. And and I've heard this before, where um the the idea is to feed the healthy gut bacteria so they send more messages to your brain saying, ooh, more of the good stuff, and to try and starve off the bad bacteria, so you get less cravings for the sugar, the sugary, the processed foods and things. Is that true?

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Yeah, I mean, I'm always a bit cautious about as like the the language we use because we're still discovering what some of these species of bacteria do, but we know that there are some bacteria, species bacteria which are really quite can be quite harmful. There's a few species that are quite harmful to human health, and some are really less helpful. Right. And you're it's a bit like if we go back to our gut garden, we want the really beautiful, healthy species that are gonna like attract the birds and the bees and the butterfly. We want all that that gonna be creating. In particular, we know that um our gut bacteria produce things like dopamine and serotonin, these beautiful, feel-good hormones, and we want them to be doing that. We want them to be creating these incredible neurotransmitters.

SPEAKER_04 37:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

So we want the species that are health benefiting for us and help us to feel well.

SPEAKER_06 37:54

And that is actually a great point because one of the big things that we experience in pyramidopause is mood swings, low mood. And if you're feeding your gut and you're taking care of these wonderful gut bacteria species that make us feel good, you will experience probably enhanced mood, you will feel a bit better within yourself. So that can also help with mood swings and those kind of things.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Yeah, I think this is a natural part of our experience, isn't it, with our hormone cycles that we're always in flow, we're always in response to this, these really important parts of our biology. And interestingly, um, there have been some studies which have shown that in countries where people naturally eat a lot of fermented foods, uh, for example, in Japan where um and South Korea, where they, you know, eat lots of fermented food products like miso and kimchi, there is less of a tendency for women to experience um hot flushes and those kinds of that is incredible. Yeah. So that again, there seems to be this relationship between the health and diversity of our beautiful gut guardian, our gut microbiome, and having these health beneficial bacteria species that supports us as we navigate through our menopause, perimenopause, and menopause.

Mindful Eating vs. Restrictive Eating

SPEAKER_06 39:12

I love that. And also it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be difficult because one of the things that comes up um regularly is, but how do I incorporate all these different things into my diet? And it's a thing that I'm a big fan of is I do most of the time, almost every day, if I'm at home and I'm not traveling, I will normally have a rainbow protein bowl for lunch, which essentially is, you know, the base is a sort of like whole food, whole grain carbs, and then there's a fair whack of protein in there. But then I just throw loads of different things in there and make it as colourful as possible. And it fascinates me that when I speak to women about this, it is almost a concept of, oh, I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could throw all these things in. And but the idea, I I quite like experimenting and I quite like colourful foods, but all of these um types of foods are readily available to us, you know, chimchi. It's not we're we're not we're not saying, you know, these are things we've never heard of before. It is just opening your mind to actually, I need to incorporate this into my diet because it has these benefits. Hey you, jumping in here really quickly. You've just heard me mention my rainbow protein bowls. If you're listening to this episode thinking I need those in my life, but you're not sure where to start, I've got you. I put together a rainbow bowl cheat sheet specifically for the MMB40 community. It's a simple pick and mix guide that ensures you're hitting your protein and fibre targets without any of the stress. And the best part is it's only£9.50 in the MMB40 shop. Literally the price of two coffees that'll help you take the guesswork out of your lunch for good. I put the link right at the top of the show notes. Go and check it out. Now let's get back to Cora.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Yes, I really agree with you, and I love the experimentation. I I think there's something about follow literally following your gut and going, oh, I've got that. And I quite fancy a little bit of that. And I'm similar to you, I'm a real kind of like bring it all together. Like whatever's like, you know, I want to get this out and just using things up. And if I find a bit of cabbage in the bottom of a salad drawer, I will take it out and I will ferment it. I'll make my own porch. Nothing posterised. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:23

Yeah. That's fabulous. I love that. Um, I now have a dry mouth, so things we talked about. I will join you. Let's hydrate. Cheers hydration. Um, oh, that's great. So, one of the big things in Mind and Muscle Beyond 40 is compassion. It's I'm I'm a big, big fan of that. And um, I had a podcast chat recently with another wonderful guest, and we were talking about consistency over perfection and how important that is because women tend to be all or nothing type mindsets. But, you know, doing one thing each day that serves you, and that actually feeds in quite nicely to our conversation. You know, every day won't be perfect, but it's trying to nurture your gut and make a good decision for your gut at least once a day. So, you know, and and seeing it as a journey and seeing it as experimentation. But your secret source with everything you do with mindful gut is literally self-compassion, and I love that. And it is the fact that I remember when you said the word uh gut garden, I just thought that is so compassionate. That is so like my gut garden. It's just it's it's beautiful. Um, but yeah, so you I mean you do focus quite a lot on mindset, and one of your um one of the things that I want to talk to you with you about today is mindful eating versus strict eating. And I I will say this, I teach women how to keep track of what they eat because I feel a lot of the time we don't understand, firstly, how much fuel our body needs, because we're all individual, we're all unique. Like I'm 5'11, I'm very different to, you know, I I have a very unique lifestyle to me, and my body needs X amount of energy to serve me for my workouts, etc. But we're all unique. So it's educating women about how much energy they need and then what types of foods will serve them better. But in terms of um intuitive eating and gut compassion, we know that this is better for us in the long run, and anything too restrictive creates these boundaries and again sets us up for failure. Um, how would you suggest that women approach, you know, straddling that line of intuitive eating, but also trying to um be mindful of you know the foods they eat and just energizing their bodies, but what I'm trying to say, I guess, is trying to give women a guideline of how they can approach this while still making progress, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Well, firstly, I think it's really helpful for periods of time to track what you're eating because then I think you can actually start to see patterns. And I'm starting to work with people where specific Things have become real triggers, and it was really obvious that you know it can also be um alcohol. I think often sometimes things we're drinking. Um so alcohol can sometimes be a real trigger for hot flushes, for example. Yeah. But I don't actually people say, Oh, I never get a hot flush until I drink, and I've noticed because I saw the pattern.

SPEAKER_04 44:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Well, um, and so I think there's something really sensible about a period of time of just observing and recording, so you actually become a little bit of a detective about be detective. Like, well, that's the thing that I'm saying. And and also that's the thing when I have it, I actually feel really energized and sate, and I feel really good. So just noticing, and I think doing that for periods of time can be super helpful because then you become your own expert. Yeah, because you you see, you go, oh, that like that led to that.

SPEAKER_04 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Um, I also just want to say though, because we often focus on what we're eating and the part about the mindful eating more is into the how we're eating.

SPEAKER_04 44:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

You can eat the same thing on two different days or in two different ways and experience very different outcomes. Exactly. And and one can be, well, I was on the go, I was rushing, I raced, I just knew I had to eat quickly because. And then actually, what we're doing is we're working against all of the signals our body needs to slow down, uh paired digestion. So sometimes by just slowing down and creating the right environment to eat, and I love when you were talking about your beautiful coloured bowl of all of all the goodness that you're kind of throwing in and experimenting with, because you're making something really beautiful and visually appealing, and that's a gift, that's an act of self-compassion. That's a gift, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 45:40

My entire camera roll is filled with that's too beautiful, not to photograph.

SPEAKER_06 45:48

But yes, you're right, you're right. I am creating and I am I am a creative as well. So somewhere that also um satisfies that sort of like creativity, you know, craving.

Do a gut-check with Cara & Anneli

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Yeah, and I love it. So the creativity and the beauty and the gift of creating food that actually is good for you. Okay, we sometimes three times a day that might be a bit challenging, and we need to plan ahead and we need to keep things simple and everything. Um, but by slowing down what we're doing and by making something beautiful, there's all by sitting at a table. Um I sometimes encourage people in the evening just to light a candle to do something really simple, not just so many of us eating in front of TV or over our laptop or we're distracted while we eat. Slowing down and then looking at our feed, um, being grateful for our food, like just a moment of grace or gratitude, all of that will start to will actually start to get the salivary glands going, and then breathing for a little bit, like taking some breaths and becoming a bit more mindful. Actually, you'll notice again your body is preparing, your digestive tract is starting to, oh, okay, something, something I'm preparing my body to eat, and that triggers something called amylase, which is a really important part of a early part of a digestive process when we're eating it, it's in saliva, and this amylase actually breaks down carbohydrates. Fantastic. So our stomach doesn't have teeth, so we have to chew here. That initial is a really important part of digestion. So there's two things happening in the mouth just straight away, and then obviously things go down into the stomach. And you just think about this beautiful, complex orchestration of our the way our body eats is responding to our environment before we even eat, and the visual cues, and the smells of cooking or of the food that we're eating, all of those things, and all of that is setting your body up to succeed, setting your body up to be able to take the absolute best nutrients from this beautiful food that you're gifting yourself.

SPEAKER_06 47:54

I mean, that is just beautiful, you know. The food that you are gifting yourself, that is incredible, and it it very often I think we are also we're in such a rush culture. Let me quickly wolf down my lunch at my desk, you know, and I and I try actively not to do that. Um, but it's almost it almost turns into a bit of a ceremony for the food that you're about to eat. I love that. So this and this is your does this feed into your five-minute gut check?

SPEAKER_02 48:23

Yeah, so this is um, you can do a short or a long version of this, depending on your the day that you're in. But um, I always invite people to really pause before eating that to become a bit of a routine, a bit of a ritual. So you talk about a ceremony of food. Um, sometimes those ceremonies are really obvious if it's like you know, someone's birthday or Christmas or a gathering, the rituals of food, the lighting, the setting of the table, the preparations. But it's like doing a smaller, simpler version of that for our regular day-to-day eating where we just slow down. Um, and I'm really happy to just kind of like give an idea of how I would do this in practice if you'd like to. So we start off by actually just um putting our feet flat on the ground where we're we're sitting. So just kind of really just adjusting our body so that we've really got like a sense of stability in the body, and the feet on the ground can really help. And then just noticing you just maybe reorientating in your chest so your spine is straight. You know, it's amazing how we can be kind of slouched. Slunged over. Yes. And what we're doing by that is we're just allowing, if you feel the front, you can feel space in the chest so that you're breathing, you're kind of allowing breath, but also in that beautiful abdominal area where our gut resides, that we have space. There's a sense of openness. So shoulders just kind of relax but open. And I'm gonna invite you to place one palm on your chest and one onto your belly if that feels comfortable, just like in a really comforting way. And we're gonna do that just to notice the breath. So I'm gonna like lower my gaze. I just invite you to either lower your gaze or close your eyes, whatever's comfortable. If you're watching or listening there to this, and then taking a deep breath into the lower Baham and letting it out. It'd be quite nice to just sigh outwardly if that feels natural. Another lovely deep breath in, letting it out. And as we do the third breath in, taking it a little bit deeper into that lower palm and letting that out, you might just notice your shoulders dropping a little bit, maybe noticing any holding. And I just invite you to find that natural rhythm of your own breath. And each time you breathe in, taking that breath a little bit deeper into the abdominal area, into that lower palm.

SPEAKER_03 51:05

Really find the natural flow of your breath. In and out.

Incorporating Diversity into your Diet

SPEAKER_02 51:24

And as we breathe in again, just really bringing your attention into the lower part of your where your hand lower hand is, into your belly. Noticing your breath there. And just connecting to the sense that beneath your hand is this incredibly wise, precious inner ecosystem that your gut garden is unique to you. And just starting to visualize if you can or imagine all the species of beautiful bacteria quietly working away, helping to digest your food, process your emotions, support your hormonal health.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

Producing these amazing chemicals that make you do feel good. Just taking a really deep breath in again. And I invite you to smile to your belly. Smile to your breath.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

How can you better care for these gorgeous bacteria?

SPEAKER_03 53:04

These precious gut bags in your wonderful garden. Breathing in curiosity and pictures or images or words that have to be And then taking another lovely deep final breath in.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

And letting your hands relax.

unknown 54:03

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

I love that. Floating around happily.

SPEAKER_06 54:09

It's so beautiful. That was so, so powerful. And just yeah, thank you for that. That was beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

So there's an opportunity just to get curious and start to build that relationship with that beautiful inner ecosystem. And I would encourage, like, a really micro way of doing that is to take three breaths before you eat. Just come just preparing your body, looking at your food before eating these really helping you to set your system up, your whole digestive system up. Prepare those lovely gut bags for what's coming as well. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_06 54:48

Oh, I love that. Um well, that was incredible. I did want to just touch on before we wrap up, I wanted to touch on your focus that you've talked about before about eating 30 plants a week. How amazing was that. Now, before we chat about eating 30 plants a week, one quick note from me. If you're listening to this and you're thinking, I know I need to make these changes, but I don't want to do it alone, I've got you. One of the biggest hurdles to reclaiming our strength in midlife isn't a lack of information, it's actually a lack of support. In Club MMB40, we don't just give you the meal plans and the high protein, fibre-rich recipes we've been talking about, but we actually give you a community of women who are on the exact same mission. Whether you're looking to get a new personal record at the gym or you just want to wake up without the bloat and the brain fog, having a roadmap makes all the difference. So if you want to move from knowing to doing, come and join us. Because it's time to stop guessing and start seeing the results your hard work deserves. Click on the link in the show notes to join the Club MP40 community. And let's finish the second half of life stronger than when we started. Now, back to my final part of the chat with Cara. Let's hear all about eating 30 plants a week. That is a lot. 30 different plants, I'm gonna assume. Really important. That's really important.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

Yeah, it's not just 30 ports of property.

SPEAKER_05 56:14

We need diversity.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Yeah, diversity. So there's really clear evidence that once we hit over 30, these are like big longitudinal, large-scale studies that show like the huge health benefits of that diversity. But the wonderful thing about that diversity is if we break down what does that mean, 30 different plants, we'll include things like spices and herbs. So straight away a sprinkle of some fresh herbs, a little jar of spices on the side, you know, putting in some cinnamon to your morning oats, sprinkling in yeah, all of these things can be so easy just to elevate towards that 30. And we are looking for that diversity. So we're talking about the rainbow plate. All these different plants will have slightly different phytonutrients, slightly different benefits for our body. So when we have that diversity, we're supporting different species of bacteria that like particular nutrients, and we're therefore helping them to be flourish and to be healthy, like all those different uh different gut bugs that we want to thrive. So 30 is the magic number. Um, I also talk about seeds and nuts, lovely ways of sprinkling a bit of fiber, a bit of extra protein, they're lovely to have. Um, we can look at different grains, so as as well as our vegetables and our fruits, does this it's just things like that.

SPEAKER_06 57:37

So there's actually quite, I mean, when you say it like that, it makes it seem much more achievable.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Yes. Yes, it really is. Yeah. You just have to think outside of the box. Yeah, quite literally.

SPEAKER_06 57:48

Yeah, and not get stuck in in a rut of eating the same thing every day, because I do think that people just get so conditioned to thinking, well, I know this works, I'm just gonna eat this every day. That's the opposite of what you should be doing.

SPEAKER_02 58:01

Well, and I think sometimes you find a breakfast that you love that really works for you, go for it. But then look at how you can just sprinkle something different on top, maybe add some slightly different seeds, you know, maybe sometimes pumpkin, flaxseed. Just thinking about that like diversity. And then again, so it's like it can be tweaks as well as whole style solutions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:22

That makes it a lot easier as well. I love that. And also I always teach women to have a list of things that you know work well for you, and then you can just play around with those things, which again is why the rainbow bowls work so well, because I meal prep things over the weekend, and then I just you know throw in a few new things, or but the base of it is always similar, so it just makes it a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

Yeah. And I think that's important in a world where sometimes we're we're talking about women being so busy, keeping it simple can really help us. So getting into routines that we know work well, but that's having that little bit of flex seasonal flexibility can be great. So we're eating fresh and we're eating eating local as well. And so yeah, or growing, I don't know, I grow berries and raspberries in my garden. It's lovely. Fantastic. Spring and summer going out and picking a few extra berries, and like I I don't do much to look after them. I make sure they get watered if it's a dry spell. But it's yeah, having the extra bit of fresh food.

SPEAKER_06 59:18

I am last summer, so I live in West Sussex, and last summer we have a lot of blackberries that grow wild all over. I'm not joking when I say that I think I foraged 20 bags last year and I stuck them all in the freezer and just kind of like, and it's I love nothing more than to make like a berry smoothie or even berry and banana ice cream at night. That's my favourite. So having those kind of things to hand is so incredible. And again, it just great fibre. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Yeah, and there's something so beautiful about like that kind of tuning into that seasonality and connecting with and I bet that you enjoyed foraging them and that you're getting so much benefits of being out there and you're getting nature and then all my friends involved as well.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:01

It became the thing. Bring a big bag.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:05

It's so good. Oh my goodness, I have enjoyed our chat so much, Cora. Thank you so much for coming on. I feel like you are an absolute, you know, fountain of knowledge. And I mean, I I could spend hours chatting with you. Um thank you for taking the time, and I hope that this conversation, if you're listening to this on YouTube or listening to it on Spotify or any of the other streaming platforms, if you're watching it on YouTube, you're in for a treat because you can watch us run through the exercise, the the five-minute gut check, which I absolutely loved. Um, but thank you for joining me. And um I'm sure that what is so where where can people find you? What is the best place for people to connect with you?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

Um, they can find me on the mindfulgut.co.uk or I'm on mindful gut project on Instagram. Those are probably my best ways of connecting with me. Fantastic. And where can they buy the book? All outlets, everywhere, all outlets, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:01

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:02

Love it. Amazing. Okay, well, um, thank you so much for listening or for watching. Um, we will see you in the next episode. Um, thanks again, Cara. Lovely talking to you. You too.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:16

What an incredible conversation. A huge thank you to Cara for reminding us that being strong in our 40s isn't just about what we can lift in the gym. It's actually about how we listen to and nourish the life within us. If there's one thing I'm taking away from today, it's that self-compassion isn't just a mindset, it's biological feel. Before you go, if you're feeling inspired to start your own mindful gut journey, don't forget to check the show notes. Whether you're grabbing the rainbow bowl cheap tea to simplify your lunch, or joining us in Club MMB40 for full nutritional support. Remember, you don't have to do this alone. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please hit subscribe and share it with a friend who needs a little midlife nourishment today. I'm Annalie and this is MMB40. Keep leaning into your mindset, building your muscle, and honoring your gut. I will see you in the next episode.