Episode 48: Why Your Best Friend is Sailing Through Perimenopause and You're Still Struggling

The Estrogen Dominance solution that makes all the difference and the new tools to help you thrive!

You know her. The woman who barely notices perimenopause. 

She did not gain weight. She did not lose her mind to brain fog or anxiety. She just kept glowing, kept going and will emerge (or perhaps she already has) on the other side looking and feeling better than ever. 

If you have a friend or family member in your life like this, I am willing to bet you have quietly wondered, why her and not me? What does she have that I don't?

You might think it all comes down to genetics, but you would be wrong. Genetics of course do play a role but it isn't the major player in the game. 

So what does make the difference?

Well this episode answers that question, and the answer might surprise you.

In this final episode of the June series, Joanne Willis, Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Certified Metabolic Balance® Coach, reveals the single factor that most determines whether a woman thrives through perimenopause or struggles every step of the way and why estrogen dominance, and specifically your body's ability to metabolize and clear estrogen effectively, sits at the very centre of it all.

This is the episode that brings everything together and it comes with two genuinely exciting announcements about new game-changing tools that are now available to take the personalization of your health to a level that simply was not possible before.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why some women sail through menopause while others struggle and what the research is now telling us about the role of estrogen dominance in determining that difference
• A complete, clear recap of the full estrogen dominance picture — what it does to your brain, your gut, your weight, your mood and your long-term health trajectory
• Why personalization is not optional, but is the only approach that actually works long term for women in midlife and why generic advice keeps failing you
• Three specific, practical action steps you can start today to begin reducing estrogen dominance or your risk of it
• A deeper dive into GutID microbiome testing and the patented Titan-1 technology that makes this an absolute game-changer in in gut analysis and may help explain why everything else has only worked temporarily
• The announcement of a brand new partnership with Medcan, Canada's largest executive health provider, and the extraordinary suite of proactive health assessments now available to Joanne's clients, including the Galleri multi-cancer early detection test, enhanced heart health and genetic screening, longevity biomarker testing, and much more
• Why the combination of Metabolic Balance, GutID testing and Medcan creates the most comprehensive and personalized approach to midlife health available to Canadian women right now

You do not have to be the woman who struggles through perimenopause and post-menopause. You can be the woman who thrives. It all starts with understanding exactly what your body needs and giving it precisely that.

Article referenced in this episode: "8 Trends Redefining Women's Health in 2026" — Coral.ca:  https://coral.ca/learn/2026-womens-health-trends/

Learn about GutID: Strain-Level Microbiome Analysis | Titan-1 Science | GutID
Learn about Medcan Here. 

Ready to get clarity on what's going on inside you? Book your Complimentary Health Audit with Joanne Here. We'll look at your unique situation, identify where your key metabolic imbalances might be and create a roadmap for reclaiming your energy and health — naturally and sustainably. No obligation. Just real answers.

Want to learn more about The Metabolic Balance Program - the program I use in my practice to get my client real results that last? 

Discover what everyone is talking about! The world's leading personalized nutrition and hormone-balancing system with the highest global success rate for sustainable weight loss and health transformation without pills, shakes or expensive proprietary foods.

One nutrition plan based on YOUR bloodwork. No deprivation. No one-size-fits-all diet. Just real food matched to your own biochemistry for real, lasting results.

Watch the information video here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey there! If you're exhausted, foggy, or stuck in a body that just does not feel like yours anymore, you are in the right place, my friend. My name is Joanne Willis. I am a registered holistic nutritionist, cancer survivor, and fellow parametopause warrior. And I am here to help you understand what's really going on inside that body of yours so you can finally figure it all out, put the pieces together, and feel better again naturally. Every week on the Midlife Vitality Project, we'll dig into the real reasons behind midlife weight gain, fatigue, mood swings, and all those other weird and wacky symptoms of perimetopause, and all the things your doctor might have told you are just aging. We'll explore how to rebalance your metabolism, support those hormones, and bring your blood chemistry back into alignment so you can feel vibrant, clear, and confident in your body once again. Because midlife isn't the end, my friend. It's the beginning of your strongest, healthiest, most powerful chapter yet. Are you ready? Let's go. Well, here we are, the last episode of June. And honestly, I have been looking forward to recording this one because this is the episode where I'm going to be bringing everything together that we've been talking about this month and make sure that no questions are left unanswered in the realm of estrogen dominance. Everything we've been talking about this month. Plus, I also get to share some news with you that I am genuinely so excited about. Now, if you caught my last episode, I already alluded to some of the amazing news about the new services that I'm now able to offer my clients, but I'm going to be going further into that, explaining a little more about just how amazing this is going to be. And we have some additional amazing news to share with you as well about just another way in which we can support you on your health journey and really help you to get to the root of what is going on inside your body. So you're gonna want to stick around for this one, ladies. But before I get into all of that, I just want to check in with you for a second to ask if you have been following along with the June series. Because if you have, if you listen to episodes 45, 46, and 47, I really hope that something has landed for you. I hope there was a moment where you stopped and thought, oh, okay, so this is why this has been happening and that has been happening, and why these symptoms never seem to want to shift, or why I think I'm getting better and then they come back. That is the connection that I'm hoping these episodes have made for you. Because I hear from so many women that when they're going through this stage of life, that they are struggling to connect the dots. Things are feeling confusing or frustrating and sometimes even a little frightening. But then once we have a chance to talk and I'm able to walk them through, and I like to pride myself on my ability to be able to simplify these things. I get told that a lot, that you know, you've explained things to me in a way that nobody else ever had, and now it finally makes sense. So I'm hoping that these episodes so far this month have done that for you as well, because that to me is all is essentially what I believe I am on this planet for, to give you that moment of clarity in a way that it's going to break so many limiting beliefs that you have about your ability to control your health. And I want you to know that perimenopause, postmenopause, whatever stage you're in, your health, you have so much control over it. So that's what these episodes are all about. Okay, so here's what I also know understanding the why, which I spend a lot of time trying to simplify, is one thing and is absolutely essential because any type of changes that you want to make in your life, if you're doing them from a place of not quite sure whether or not it's actually going to be what works, not quite sure if it's what your body needs. When you have a bad day or you slip up and you just feel that maybe it's harder than it should be, you're going to talk yourself out of it and end up back at square one. So you do need to understand the why, why you're doing something, why this will work and why it may take time, and why it's not likely linear. Knowing what to do though is another thing. And again, I do touch on this and I always offer some simple action steps in each episode to that are foundational, but are often very commonly missed and is a great starting point. So if you've been listening this month and you're thinking, okay, Joanne, I get it. I understand now that estrogen dominance is a real deal, and that my gut and my hormones are connected, and that all these symptoms are a part of the same picture, but I still am not clear on exactly where I should start or what my next steps look like beyond the steps that you have shared. Then this is the episode you're going to want to listen to. We're pulling everything together, and I'm also going to share, as I said, some genuinely exciting news about what is now available to support you on this journey in a way that it simply wasn't there before. So stick with me. There's a lot here, and I do not want to miss a single piece. All right, so here's what we're covering today. First, I'm going to do a quick but powerful recap of everything we have covered this month, the whole estrogen dominance picture from start to finish, because I want you to leave today with the full picture clearly in your mind, not just fragments of it that you might have picked up from the different episodes. Then I'm going to talk about what the solution actually looks like in the real world, not in a vague general way, but specifically. What does it take to actually address estrogen dominance at the root? And why does a personalized approach approach make such a profound difference compared to anything generic? Then we're going to talk about two pieces of really exciting news. The first I alluded to in the last episode. I'm going to be sharing more information with you about the gut ID microbiome testing that I am now able to offer to my clients. I talked about it, I introduced it briefly last week. Today I want to go a little deeper on that specific technology behind this next level of microbiome testing. And I'm going to talk about why it is so particularly relevant for women just like you who are dealing with symptoms that often don't feel connected, may very well be associated with estrogen dominance. So we're going to talk about all of that as well. The second piece of news is about a brand new partnership that I am also genuinely thrilled about, one that takes the level of support I can offer to the women I work with to a whole new level. And it is predominantly for my lovely Canadians out there. So just a quick caveat there. If you are listening from another country, this second piece of news may not be as specific for you, but certainly you're going to want to hang out and listen to the information I have to share about the gut ID because this is available to anyone anywhere that works with me inside the Metabolic Balance Program. But you lovely Canadians are going to also get something out of this amazing second announcement. So stick with me. Of course, as I said, I will then also leave you with three practical takeaways from this entire month that you can start implementing today. All right. Now I love to read. So whenever I find an article that I think is really worth sharing, I will definitely share it here with you. And I want to start this episode with exactly that. There was an article that I recently read that reflects exactly what we've been talking about all month, and it is happening right here in Canada. There was a 2026 Women's Health and Wealth Summit. And this was essentially a conversation that was happening nationally about where women's health is headed in this country in particular. And in all honesty, probably very similar in other countries as well. And they shared some data that I think is both alarming and really truly validating. They found that one in five women had considered leaving the workforce because of unmanaged hormonal health symptoms. That's shocking. A quarter had experienced increased absenteeism, and a third said their career had been significantly impacted by the onset of perimenopause symptoms. Now that is alarming to me. But here's the part that I really want you to hear why this article stuck out to me. When these same women received personalized care, care that looked at their unique biochemistry, their hormone health, alongside their specific metabolic health picture, and also took into consideration their unique lifestyle, 84% of them ended up sleeping better. 72% felt more productive at work, and 76% had much better concentration. And this was just after following up with them 12 months down the road. So not a decade later, 12 months of consistently working on all the right things to address the actual root cause. Now I also want to point you to a brilliant piece from a Canadian women's health platform, which is called Coral, not C-O-R-A-L. And they have an article recently published called Eight Trends Redefining Women's Health in 2026. And I will link that here in the show notes as well. Because one of the biggest trends that they identified is this shift from women not just wanting to survive the menopause transition, but to actually mastering what they call your health span. And personalized proactive care is at the absolute center of that shift. So the fact that we need to personalize our approach even more so when we are in our 40s, our 50s, and beyond, because our body needs a different level of care. This is not a fringe idea anymore. This is where women's health is going. And you deserve to absolutely be in the know and know all the relevant information about how you can personalize your care, how you can really truly identify what is going on inside your body and what your biochemistry is telling you. It's screaming at you in ways you may not even realize and you may not know you need to listen to. And these are symptoms, this is blood work, this is other important tests that we can run that we're going to be talking about here that are going to really help us understand you. And when we understand you, then your plan, your lifelong plan, is going to be able to be completely targeted, and that changes the game. Now, I always like to debunk myths out there when we're talking about something like this. As I said, there's a lot of articles and the menopause and perimenopause, and all of this is getting so much airtime now, which is a very good thing. It is long overdue. There were many years. I mean, you know, if we think back to the generation prior to us, um, what am I? I'm Gen X. Um if you look back at the baby boomers, for example, women really were left to fend for themselves. And were there was almost this level of um embarrassment about being in perimenopause and menopause, and it that it somehow said something negative about you and how you lived and your habits and things like that. And that ultimately it it was not it was a topic that was off limits. We did we didn't talk, they didn't talk about it as much. And it's took a long time for it to get the airtime it is. Thankfully, it is, but along anytime something starts to all of a sudden become mainstream, we also start to see the negative side of that as well. And that's where parts of a story are shared as you know, gold standard advice when a lot of the context is missing and it may not actually be the gold standard advice that you think you're getting. So anytime I see a myth that has just become so commonly believed, I'd like to break it down. So there's one here that I wanted to address, and it's that it's one that sits underneath everything that we've been talking about again this month. And it's that doing a proper, thorough, personalized, deep dive into your health, to your unique health, it must be complicated, it's going to be overwhelming, and is probably out of reach for most women. And I hear this belief all the time too. And I understand where it comes from because women have been managing symptoms for so long with generic advice and temporary fixes that they have started to believe that a truly personalized root cause approach is either not realistic or maybe is just not available to them. And if it is, what does that actually look like? How do you really truly know what it is that your body needs? So I want to dismantle that belief today, too, because what I'm about to share with you, the tools, the testing, the program I coach my clients through, the partnerships that I have now become a part of, these are not reserved for select few. They are available to you and they are more accessible and more exciting than you have probably been led to believe. So I'm going to quickly pull together everything we've covered this month. As I said, we're going to recap June 1st because I want you to have the full picture in your mind before we then move into what the solution actually is. So the point one that I made earlier in the month in our first episode, episode 45, was to explain, hopefully, in much more clarity than you may have had before, what estrogen dominance actually is. So we started by establishing something really important, and that's that estrogen dominance is not about producing too much estrogen. Your body is not overproducing anything in perimenopause. We know that. In fact, it's producing less. What estrogen dominance is really is about two things. First, it's the ratio of estrogen to progesterone, and the fact that progesterone tends to decline faster and earlier, leaving more estrogen relative to progesterone, even as your overall falls or levels are falling. That's essentially the definition of estrogen dominance. But secondly, and this is a piece most people miss, it also comes about based on how efficiently or not your body is at actually clearing out the used estrogen. Because once estrogen has done its job in the body, it needs to be packaged up and it needs to be removed quickly and completely. And when the systems responsible for doing that, which are and the organs, primarily your liver, your gut, and your lymphatic system, when they are under pressure or out of balance and just working harder than they should, that used estrogen doesn't get flushed out quickly and completely. Instead, it gets recycled back into the bloodstream instead of having the chance to leave the body as it should. And the problem is then that when it recirculates, it behaves like excess estrogen even when your levels are of production are no longer high. And that is what drives conditions such as PCOS and fibroids and endometriosis, heavy periods, and even an elevated breast cancer risk. Now, many women they may be struggling with estrogen dominance and conditions related to it even before they get to perimenopause. But for women who haven't experienced this before, it can very often show up by the time we get to perimenopause, which is why this is something we absolutely need to understand and know how to take care of. So then in episode 46, we talked about something that I think surprised a lot of you, and that's based on some responses that I got and some questions that came through to me after people had listened to that episode. And it is just how deeply estrogen is wired into your brain. Estrogen is not just a reproductive hormone. We think about it as that and solely that sometimes. But what we need to understand is it also has a direct impact on your memory, your ability to focus, your ability to make decisions, and how well you can regulate your emotions and keep your mood stable, and ultimately has a lot to do with your ability to feel calm and at peace. So when estrogen fluctuates wildly in perimenopause, which we know it does, spiking and crashing, sometimes within the same day or week, all of those things get disrupted simultaneously. And when progesterone declines, at the same time, your brain loses its natural calming agent. That's what progesterone is. So this is what drives this newfound anxiety that a lot of us feel: the emotional volatility and the inability to wind down that so many women experience. So the brain fog, the loss of words, just not being able to finish a sentence or losing tracks easier than you've ever done before of what you were talking about, the feeling of not being able to think straight, the mood swings that just come out of nowhere. This is not you falling apart. They are instead neurological symptoms of a specific, very addressable hormonal and metabolic imbalance. And then lastly, in episode 47, just last week, we talked about estrogen dominances linked to the gut. And we talked about something that I think genuinely changed the way a lot of women are looking at their digestive symptoms: your gas, your bloating, potentially heartburn, how you react to certain foods. And we explained that your gut and your hormones are in constant two-way conversation. Estrogen affects the bacterial balance in your gut, and your gut bacteria affects how estrogen is cleared from your body. So it's a back and forth mechanism. When that conversation, though, breaks down in perimetopause and isn't happening as freely or as frequently or as clearly as it should, that's when you start to notice more bloating, more food sensitivities that seem to just be multiplying, foods that never bothered you before, all of a sudden you're reacting in ways that you never did before. You may be ending up experiencing symptoms of chronic inflammation, joints, um, aches and pains in the joints. If you struggle with an autoimmune condition, then you may be experiencing more flare-ups, or maybe an autoimmune condition is something new that you've just been diagnosed with. And stubborn weight, of course, is something that we all typically find is high up there on things we want to understand and address. And this the fact that we can't easily lose the weight and seem to be gaining it much easier than we ever have before, that is all related to this as well. And your gut plays an important role in this. And the most important thing I want you to carry forward from that episode is that your gut symptoms and your hormonal symptoms, they are not separate problems, so they should not be addressed separately. They are instead the same problem, just showing up in two different places. So when we address only one side of the issue by potentially just taking HRT to handle hormonal symptoms or taking a probiotic for how trying to help your gut, your gas, and your bloating, why this is why we have so many women getting temporary relief but never getting the full resolution that they're looking for, because we are troubleshooting symptoms again versus identifying the root cause that is causing symptoms in both areas. So the thread that I hope you saw that is running through everything that we have talked about so far this month, the reason that generic approaches, general probiotics, generic elimination diets, generic hormone advice, the reason they only ever get you part of the way there is that your estrogen metabolism, your gut microbiome, your specific hormone ratios, your specific hormone ratios, your inflammatory picture, and your unique nutrient deficiencies, they are all as unique as your own fingerprint. So what works for one woman to get relief will not necessarily work for another. And it's not because the science is wrong or that, you know, initially generic solutions don't start things off in the right direction by starting to correct some of the foundational issues, but it's because the science needs to then be applied to your specific body, not to a generic average. And the only way to do that is to actually look at your specific picture, your blood work, your gut, your health history. And we need to build a plan then from that that focuses primarily around nutrition, what you eat, how you eat, when you eat, but also all those other so so important holistic pillars of our health. How you live, your work schedule? Do you work shifts? That's going to affect how you sleep. How are you juggling family dinners and meals? Like how much time do you have for meal prep? How well do you manage stress? How often does stress come into play with you? What about your exercise and your movement? How are you moving and exercising in the right way to support a body that's in their 40s, 50s, and beyond, not their 20s and their 30s? And if you have limited mobility for whatever reason, then maybe exercise is hard for you, even though you may want to do it in the right way. So we need to talk about that. Everything is so individual and must be personalized to help you be able to work through all of these holistic pillars of our health in a way that is something you can continue to practice safely and is you can be consistent with it for the long term. Now, I'm gonna pause here for just a minute before we now dive into the solution of all of this, because I think this needs to be said, and I do want to say it with a lot of care. If you have been listening to this month's episodes and genuinely you are recognizing yourself in what we have been talking about, the bra, whether it's the brain fog, the gut chaos, the mood swings, the weight that will not shift, the anxiety, the conditions that are being managed but never fully resolved. I just want to acknowledge how exhausting it is to carry all of that day after day, trying different things, getting some relief, but then having the symptoms or the weight come back and not knowing why, and feeling like your body is working against you. I have been through a lot of this myself, not just in the earlier years of my perimenopause journey, but that's when things really took me by surprise, despite the fact that I've predominantly eaten healthy for the best part of two decades, but earlier in other health challenges that I've experienced in my life, I know that level of fear, I know that level of confusion, and I know how much it sucks, ladies. And I also know how important it is to have a supportive community around you of people that you can bounce off of, and just knowing that you're not alone, I hope it goes such a long way. Now, if you are still here listening to this and this is all resonating with you, then chances are you have probably been doing this for a long time. Troubleshooting, trying to connect the dots, feeling frustrated, ending up back at square one, and starting to wonder if there is any approach at all that is going to get you lifelong relief. And if the approach has been addressing one thing at a time, following generic advice, or just waiting to see what happens, then I need you to hear this clearly. This is first and foremost not a failure on your part. I hear this so much. Women come to me feeling defeated and feel like a lot of it is their fault, that they just don't have the energy anymore to care, or they just don't seem to be able to understand and follow a plan. What it is is not a failure on your part. It is a failure of the approach that you have been told to take. That's it. Because the approach, if it's too generic, was never designed to look at your full unique picture. And your full picture is what actually matters and what's going to change things and move the needle in a direction you probably have never gone through, and certainly in a direction that's going to allow for long-term results that last. And the good news, and I genuinely mean this, is that the tools that exist right now to look at your full picture, to understand it precisely, and address it in a way that is built specifically for you, they are so more advanced and more accessible now than they have ever been in the history of women's health. So this is a time to get excited, ladies. So now I want to tell you more about them. But before I do, I just want to make sure that you are seeing things in a different light now. I hope you now realize that estrogen dominance does not have to be your fate. Brain fog does not need to be your new normal. Just because you're aging, just because you are in perimenopause or postmenopause. Gut chaos does not have to be something that you will always have to manage, and stubborn weight is not a willpower problem. Anxiety that will not settle is not just down to stress. These are all symptoms, they are signals, they are your body telling you that a specific set of imbalances metabolically need to be addressed. And when we address them through a truly personalized root cause approach that is built around your specific body, it is absolutely possible. I have seen it time and time again, and I've experienced it in my own body myself. It does not require medication to begin, it does not require suffering through until things settle on their own. And it does not have to be overwhelming or complicated. If you are taking medications, it just means we need to just give you a little bit of extra nurturing to make sure that your body is getting the most out of that medication that your doctor has prescribed for you while minimizing side effects. And if you want to consider coming off of these medications later in life, whatever they are, whether it's a statin for cholesterol, whether it's a blood medication, whether it's an anti-anxiety medication, whether it's a GLP one, then I want you to be able to support your body and build a resilience, resilience enough that provided you are working with your doctor to do so safely, you may very well be able to come off of those medications because you have done the work from the ground up to rebuild a body that will be able to stand the test of time and keep itself balanced without the medication. So, what your personalized approach requires is first knowing the right information about your specific body, and then we can build the plan that is built from that information. That is essentially it. That is your solution. Now, before I go into the exciting news that's going to just be able to help you fast track that solution, I always want to make sure you walk away with some very important foundational steps. These are key practical takeaways from this entire month that you can start to do right now to begin shifting this picture so that you don't have to spend one more day where you are at right now. So action step one is about supporting your body's ability to clear estrogen every single day. Remember that is key. That's going to reduce estrogen dominance. The most impactful starting point to do this is by focusing on your nutrition and what you're eating every day. Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussels sprouts, cabbage, all those dark green leafies, you want at one meal every single day. Not all of them together. That would be quite gassy for many people, but you definitely want to make sure you are getting at least one serving of these in every meal every single day. Because these specific vegetables they contain a compound for short that we call DIM, DIM, which directly supports your liver's ability to break down estrogen the right way and get it ready for elimination out of the body. Now, approximately 25 to 30 grams of diverse plant fiber every day is also key to keep the gut moving and ensure that estrogen is being properly eliminated rather than recycling back into your bloodstream. So you're going to get a lot of this plant fiber from those cruciferous vegetables as well. Something else you need to focus on is your what we call your xenoestrogen exposure. So xenoestrogens, they are synthetic estrogens that come from things like plastics. When we heat up plastic in a microwave and it melts, for example, or drinking out of soft plastic bottles. Certainly when they're left in the sun or in your in a warm car, they break down faster, and that plastic gets into our body. They then mimic the bad estrogen in our body. We can also experience this from fragrances, synthetic fragrances, and conventional personal care products. So what we want you to focus on is doing one swap at a time. You don't have to completely cleanse out your entire bathroom and restock everything. Of course, that's not going to be cost effective. But keep in mind that the next time you need to replace something that has chemicals, um, synthetic fragrances or artificial colors or flavorings or basically anything on an ingredients label that doesn't look like something that Mother Nature intended to have in your body, then look for a more natural alternative and swap it out. Because every reduction in your total estrogen burden takes pressure off your liver and therefore also off your lymphatic system. Remember your lymphatic system being your waste removal system. So start with these three things. Be consistent. Again, consistency is better than perfection. Nobody's perfect. That makes life quite boring, but you should be consistent in your effort. So if you have a bad day, and you start again the next day, or you start again doing it better at the next meal, and watch what happens over the next four to six weeks, just with those three things. Action step number two is we need to focus on stabilizing your blood sugar levels. Now, blood sugar dysregulation and estrogen dominance genuinely feed each other in a vicious cycle. Because when our insulin levels are chronically elevated, which they will be if there is constant blood sugar in our bloodstream, it disrupts the estrogen progesterone balance even more than what's happening naturally as we go through the midlife stage. And this puts even more pressure on your liver's ability to clear the used estrogen out. So one of the most powerful things that you can do right now is to anchor every single meal with a quality protein source, and you just want one, don't combine proteins because that actually impacts how much of the amino acids in a protein you absorb. So just focus on one clean, good quality protein source at each meal and eat regularly without skipping meals. So that means three meals a day, and try to span them apart, four to five hours apart, so that you're reducing the need to snack and graze in between. Because every time you snack and graze, you will spike blood sugar. When you do this, and also focus on trying to reduce any refined sugars or processed carbs, which typically come in the form of convenience foods or boxes or packages, it's going to help to blunt what we call your blood sugar spike. And so if blood sugar is no longer spiking because you're eating all these refined sugars and processed carbs that dump blood, jump dump sugar in your blood very quickly, then you will have less crashes throughout the day. And stable blood sugar, it's not just about weight, it absolutely is a key underlying factor in people's struggles to lose weight if they don't have stable blood sugar, but it's also about giving your whole hormonal system the stable, calm, metabolic environment that it needs to start rebalancing. Action step number three: we need to think about your nervous system. We need to protect your nervous system to protect the little amount of progesterone that your body is still producing. As we talked about, your progesterone levels are declining as well as we go through menopause, and they typically are the ones that decline first. So, this one I want you to really hear. Chronic stress raises your cortisol. We know that, we feel it. It's almost like an electric surge when something, when all of a sudden you feel your stress levels going up, you can feel it physically in your body. The problem is that chronically elevated cortisol will directly suppress your progesterone, whatever little amount you are still producing. And lower progesterone, of course, then is going to mean a wider gap, that ratio between estrogen and progesterone, which means deeper estrogen dominance. So we need to protect your nervous system. And we do this by focusing on healthy sleep habits, preparing yourself for sleep, having a good quality sleep routine, and allowing enough time for sleep. Conscious, of course, that sometimes we're woken up as our hormones are fluctuating in the night, but at least if you are making the effort to sleep well and you're putting that quality bedtime routine that you know to get into the mode of sleep, that can go a long way. So you need proper sleep, you need genuine rest, because this is going and you we can do this by creating a real wind-down routine in the evenings. This should not be optional, it it isn't, it is not considered selfish or self-indulgent. Instead, it's probably one of the most direct and meaningful things that you can do for your hormonal balance is to really set aside an hour or two before, well, I would say two hours before bed, but certainly within that last hour, a routine that is going to help you to wind down, get off the blue light devices, and put your body into a state of relaxation. You can also look at taking a magnesium glycinate supplement in the evening, 200 to 300 milligrams. This will also help. We are often very deficient in magnesium as we're going through the changes in perimenopause as well. And then also when you wake up in the morning, I want you to make sure that you immediately make sure your eyes are exposed to that morning sunlight with it, certainly within 30 minutes of waking up, because then this helps to anchor your cortisol rhythm for the day. So focus on your wind-down routine and focus on your wake-up routine. And the more you do this, and of course making sure that you are sleeping in as dark a room as possible at night, because darkness will trigger melatonin production. Melatonin is that hormone that helps us to fall asleep and stay asleep. So you see how working with your natural exposure to light or lack thereof is going to help you to set your what we call your circadian rhythm. And that can go a long way. Sometimes when we're switching and swapping and changing our bedtime, bedtimes, um, and when we wake up or we're lounging around in bed too long, maybe on a Sunday with the windows closed, when we need to, we need that light exposure to get our cortisol up when it should be in the morning to get us moving for the day. But then we need it dark at night as our cortisol to allow our cortisol levels to calm down as we're falling asleep. Now, of course, if you are a shift worker, this isn't as straightforward. But there again, there are ways in which you can still benefit from having a schedule, a sleep schedule, just obviously in uh reverse, or if you work alternate shifts, again, knowing what your situation is, this is exactly another reason why personalizing your plan to make sure that we are supporting your real life and where you have boundaries or limitations in how in your sleep schedule, for example, we have to take this into consideration. Again, another reason why generic advice doesn't always cut it. Okay, so you ready for the exciting news that I said I was gonna share? I've made you wait long enough, and I want to share two things with you today because both of them feel genuinely significant to me for the women that I work with, especially, and both are going to connect directly to everything we've talked about this month. So, first one, last week I already introduced you to gut ID, the at-home microbiome test that uses patented Titan 1 technology. And that's for all of you people that love science, have a look into Titan 1 technology if you wish, but I'm gonna just break it down and simplify it for you. I gave you an overview in the last episode of what this technology actually does and how it works when it comes to doing a real deep dive into the health and the balance of your gut microbiome. But today I want to go a little deeper on why this specific test matters so much for women dealing with estrogen dominance, because I feel like I did not fully do it justice last week. There just never is enough hours in a day, but it genuinely deserves more. So if you listen to last week's episode, and I touched on this word um earlier, a few episodes prior to that, too, I mentioned a word called the estrobolum. And this is the specific collection of gut bacteria whose job it is to package up used estrogen and make sure it leaves the body, that clearing mechanism. Now, the challenge with the estrobolum is that you simply cannot assess it properly through a standard gut test. Most gut tests, even the ones that you know feel pretty comprehensive, they're still only giving you a broad overview of your gut bacteria environment. So think of it like looking at a city from a helicopter. You can see that there are buildings and roads and neighborhoods, but you cannot see what is happening on the individual streets. You can't see the detail. And the detail is exactly where the answers live. So the gut ID Titan 1 technology goes all the way down to what is called the strain level of your gut bacteria. Now, in plain language, that just means it goes all the way down to the most specific individual level of identification of that big bacteria possible. It is not just telling you what general types of bacteria are present, it is identifying the specific individual strains. And trust me, ladies, that level of precision allows it to see things that almost no other gut test can see. It can identify whether the specific enzyme that reactivates used estrogen and sends it back into bloodstream, which is what we don't want, the one we talked about last week, is being overproduced, whether that enzyme is being overproduced by an imbalance of bacteria in the gut. It can tell you about your overall bacterial diversity. Remember, diversity is key in everything. Diversity, it's like the biodiversity in a rainforest. The more variety you have, the more resilient and self-sustaining your whole ecosystem will become. It can show you your inflammation markers at the gut level. It can also show you immune-related bacteria and the overall integrity of your gut environment. Now, for women who have been dealing with symptoms of estrogen dominance, the PCOS, the fibroids, the heavy periods, the brain fog, the anxiety, the bloating, the food sensitivities, that stubborn weight that won't shift. This information is not just interesting. It could genuinely be the missing piece that explains why everything else has only worked temporarily. Because now we can see exactly what is happening in your specific gut. Not in general terms, but in precise, personalized, actionable terms that are going to allow us to build an intervention that is actually targeted to what your body specifically needs. And here's the piece I keep coming back to as to why this excites me so much. When we combine your gut ID results with your metabolic balance blood work, your 36 specific metabolic markers that we test on all clients that begin the metabolic balance program, we are no longer making educated guesses about your health anymore. We are building your plan from actual raw data, from data inside your gut, inside your blood, and ultimately inside your body. And then at the end of the 12 weeks of eating in a way that was built specifically for you, because the metabolic balance program is structured to be delivered over 12 weeks, even though everybody's journey will be different as far as how long they stay in each phase, and that's another important reason why myself is the Coach is personalizing the plan specifically for every individual. But at the end of the 12 weeks, we will test you again. We will retest that microbiome. And you will be able to see in real data, in black and white, exactly how your gut bacteria has shifted and how it has changed in response to your personalized plan. So you're not just going to feel it, you're actually going to see it. Now, if that's not validation of all your efforts, I don't know what is. So that before and after picture of your gut, essentially, is something I genuinely believe is going to change how you understand your own health from the inside out. So, ready for the second news for all my Canadian listeners out here. This one is specifically for you. I am also absolutely delighted to announce that as part of my metabolic balance practice, I am now able to offer my clients preferred access to the services of Medcan. And I want to take a few moments to explain what Medcan actually is. I'm sure to a lot of you you've heard the term, heard the name, but I want to explain what they exactly do and why I am so excited about this particular partnership. Because I think that when you hear it, you're going to understand exactly why I'm so excited. So Medcan is Canada's largest executive health provider. And they have been around for decades. They work with tens of thousands of Canadians. Their team includes more than 130 specialists and physicians. And they actually have a collaboration with the Mayo Clinic in the United States for complex cases. And these are not just good clinicians, these are world-class clinicians who have built something genuinely extraordinary. And the reason this partnership feels so meaningful to me and so relevant to everything we have been talking about this month is that Medcan's entire approach to health is guess what? Built on the same philosophy I have always believed in back in the days where I used your own symptomatology, analyzing symptoms and identifying patterns to truly understand what the root cause issues are, but even more so now that I'm using your blood work through the metabolic balance approach. This is the best time to look after your health because you want to catch issues before they start to really go awry, or before any current dish conditions you're dealing with that maybe in the early stages are potentially going to get worse. It is the best time to look after your health before something goes wrong. It's all about being proactive, it's all about taking a preventative approach, and we do this by personalizing, not being reactive once a condition has already took hold, and not waiting until there is a diagnosis from your doctor of something that none of us want to hear. It's not about managing symptoms after the fact. It's instead about getting ahead of it with real data, real clinical assessment, and real expert advice so that you have the complete picture of where your health is right now in every aspect, and you can make truly informed decisions about where you now want to go next. So Medcan's annual health assessment, it is the centerpiece of what they offer. And it is honestly unlike anything else I have seen available to most women in Canada. In a single day at their clinic in Toronto or Oakville, you go through a comprehensive physician-led assessment that covers up to 15 different areas of your health. There are other locations, by the way, and I can't think of them off the top of my head right now. But if you are in Canada and not in Ontario and near Toronto or Oakville, reach out and I will let you know if there is a clinic near you as well. But in a single day at these clinics, as I said, you go through a comprehensive physician-led assessment that covers up to 15 different areas of your health: cardiac health, an abdominal ultrasound, a full blood and urine panel, gender-specific testing that includes a mammogram where appropriate, muscle and joint health, your hearing tests, vision tests, fitness tests, nutrition analysis, your mental health analysis, and you leave that same day with your full results. You will be meeting with a physician who will walk you through everything and with a personalized set of recommendations based on your specific picture is what you will walk away with. So think about that for a second. Like everything you might normally spend months trying to piece together from separate appointments with different specialists in different locations, waiting weeks between each one, all done in one comprehensive, well-supported day with same-day results. That alone is remarkable. And then on top of the annual health assessment, there are what Meg Cain calls enhanced assessments. And these are optional add-ons that allow you to go even deeper, if you wish, into specific areas of health based on what matters most to you. And I want to highlight the ones that feel most relevant for the women that I work with because this is where it genuinely gets exciting. So the enhanced heart health assessment and the heart health genetic screening test. I want to name this one first because I think it is the most underappreciated health risk for women in midlife. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in women, more than all cancers combined. And yet, women in perimenopause are consistently under-evaluated and under-supported in this area. And here's the connection to everything we have talked about this month. Chronic inflammation and estrogen dominance are both directly linked to elevated cardiovascular risk. So getting a thorough, enhanced picture of your heart health, including any genetic screening for heart health risk, is not just for people who already have a heart problem. In fact, it is even more important for every woman in midlife who wants to know where she stands and get ahead of any potential issues. Another enhanced test they offer is the Cancer Prevention Genetic Screening Test. Now, this one analyzes over 160 of your genes to assess your inherited risk for 45 different health conditions, including multiple types of cancer. And the gallery multi-cancer early detection test, which is what it's called. I want to speak about personally, as a 20-plus-year cancer survivor myself. The gallery test screens for over 50 types of cancer from a single blood draw, including cancers like pancreatic and ovarian cancer that are notoriously different, difficult to detect early through conventional screening, because they often have very few symptoms until they are already in the advanced stage. Now, this test is currently available in Ontario exclusively through MegCan. And I cannot tell you how much it means to me to be able to offer my clients access to something like this at an insane discounted rate. Because early detection is what saves lives. We know that. Another test that they offer is the enhanced longevity assessment. And I love this one, but for a totally different reason. It includes a longevity biomarker panel, a home sleep study, and a continuous glucose monitor. And for the women that I work with, that continuous glucose monitor piece is something I am particularly excited about because we focus so, so much on blood sugar balance as being one of the root cause imbalances that cause so many of our health issues. So when you wear a small sensor that tracks your blood sugar in real time throughout the day and night, it gives you a window into your metabolic health that is extraordinary. And you can see exactly how your body is responding to different foods, different stress levels, different sleep quality. So combining this with everything we already learned from your metabolic balance blood work, the picture we can build of your metabolic function genuinely now becomes second level. And then there is the enhanced liver health assessment. And after everything we have covered this month, I'm sure you now know exactly why this one matters so so much. Your liver is probably the most underappreciated organ in your body. It is the primary organ responsible for processing and filtering and clearing used estrogen from your body, among other things. When liver function is compromised, though, which it very commonly is in women with estrogen dominance, our ability to clear that estrogen suffers. Having a thorough, enhanced clinical assessment of how your liver is actually functioning goes right to the heart of the root cause that we have been talking about all month. So when I bring all of this together, the metabolic balance program that is built from your 36 specific blood markers, the gut ID microbiome testing that gives us the street level view of what is happening in your gut and your estrobolum, and also the Medcan health assessments for Canadians that gives us the full clinical picture of your cardiovascular health, your genetic risk, your longevity markers, your liver performance, and your cancer screening. What I can now offer to the women I work with is genuinely the most comprehensive, the most personalized, and the most proactive approach to midlife health that I have ever been able to offer. And I am so proud and excited of this. So excited about this, and I'm so excited to share this all with you. So I think that is the best way in which I can think of to end the month of June. And I just want to leave you with this. Everything that we have talked about this month is pointing to one fundamental truth, and that is that your body is not working against you despite symptoms making your life feel miserable. It never was working against you. It's just responding to the information and the environment it has been given. And of course, we know that that environment changes often against our will as we go through midlife and beyond, but it also changes based on our habits and our lifestyle factors and our nutrition choices, and that's where we have the power to make some significant change. When you give it better inflammation information, your body, through the right nutrition, through understanding your blood work, through looking inside your gut, through getting a genuinely complete picture of what is going on, it will respond in a healthy, happy way. I watched this happen in real life women in my own practice over and over for 19 years, but never more so than now, with the ability to be able to really dig deep into your individual biochemistry and your metabolic picture. I've never had better tools to help make it happen than I do right now. So if you are ready, ladies, if you are done managing symptoms and you are ready to actually understand and address what is driving them, then I want to hear from you. I would love to talk to you. I would love you to book a complimentary health audit with me. This is a genuine, free, no obligation conversation where we get to know each other, where I will listen to your story. You can pour your heart out and explain exactly why you are struggling and where you want to be. We will talk about what you have been experiencing, and then I will walk you through which combination of support, whether that's the metabolic balance program, the gut ID testing, the MedCan assessments, or maybe some combination of all three that actually makes the most sense for where you are right now. And when you book your call, I will also send you some detailed information about both the gut ID testing, the Medcan partnership, and about the metabolic balance program ahead of our conversation. Because I want you to read through everything in your own time in and full transparency, everything you will need to know, the pricing, what's included, and why these things are just amazing, amazing tools. I want you to know it all before you come to the call so that any questions you still have are very targeted and very specific, and I can make the most of your time. I want you to feel completely informed and comfortable before you make any decision to work with me. And this is about finding that right fit for you. And if it turns out that none of this is a good fit for you, I'll let you know that as well. So the link to book your complimentary health audit is in the show notes below. So please use it. Please don't sit there worried anymore. There is a path forward, and I would love to help you on that journey. You have been carrying all of this for likely too long, and there is a genuinely clear, personalized, exciting path forward, and it will start with that first conversation. Now, next month, ladies, we are moving into July, and I genuinely think you are gonna love what we have planned. We are going inside the metabolic balance program itself, and I'm going to walk you through exactly how your 36 blood markers are interpreted into your personalized nutrition plan. We're going to talk about why certain foods are chosen specifically for you, why others are not included, even when they are considered universally healthy. We're going to talk about what your markers are telling us, about your metabolic health, that a standard doctor's appointment might be completely missing, and so much more. We're also going to be diving deeper into the gut. I've had a lot of people feed back about the estrogen dominance and the gut connection episode. Loving the foundational knowledge and being able to connect the dots, but there are a lot of people that even when we get things balanced metabolically still struggle with gut issues that are more deep-rooted and therefore need a much more deeper investigation and treatment approach. So I'm going to be talking all about what your food intolerances are telling us and how we address it through the Metabolic Balance Nutrition Plan. It's going to be a month of real practical, genuinely fascinating education. And I promise you, by the end of July, you are going to understand your own body in a way that you never have before. I cannot wait to see you there. So thank you so much for being here this month. If this series has meant something to you, please share it with a woman in your life who needs to hear it because I know you know someone. And sharing this kind of information is one of the kindest things you can do for another woman in midlife right now. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you in July. Bye for now. Thanks so much for listening to the Midlife Vitality Project Podcast. Today's episode spoke to you and you're ready to take the next step in transforming your midlife experience. I would love to connect with you. Click the link in the notes below this episode to book a free discovery call and learn more about how I help women just like you to redefine midlife with clarity, balance, and confidence. And let's see if we're a good fit to work together. Or if you'd like to learn more about the metabolic balance, a personalized nutrition program I use in my practice to create nutrition plans based on your unique blood work, you'll find a second link below with all the details. Now remember, your body is not betraying you. It's simply asking for balance in a new way for this stage of life. You have so much more control over your health than you think. And this next chapter truly can be your most vibrant one yet. Until next time, take care of yourself, be kind to your body, and trust that change will begin from within. Bye for now.