Health After 40: What Busy Women Need to Know

We live in a world where everyone seems to have the next miracle health hack. Cold plunges. Red light therapy. Supplements. Hormone tests. Wearables.

In this episode, we unpack how our approach to wellness has changed over the last decade—from chasing productivity and burnout to prioritizing sleep, movement, mobility, mental health, and community.

We discuss Garmin watches, Oura Rings, functional medicine, hormone testing, Blue Zones, and why personalized health matters more than following trends. Most importantly, we explore how community may be one of the most overlooked ingredients to living a longer, healthier life and why that philosophy shapes how we build affordable housing communities at MRK.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to The Triple Triple

00:00:33 Our Wellness Toolbox

00:03:50 Tracking food, macros and why awareness matters

00:04:05 The problem with social media wellness advice

00:06:10 Finding your own health formula ("N of 1")

00:07:00 Our current health philosophies

00:10:15 Wellness privilege, food access & affordable housing

00:11:42 The basics beat the biohacks

00:13:35 Burnout vs. energy, mobility and mental health

00:14:50 What Blue Zones teach us about longevity

00:17:00 Why mobility matters as we age

00:20:15 Wellness and the inconvenience and importance of friendship

00:23:40 Resident services, wellness & building real communities

00:25:06 Quote of the day: Take care of your body

ABOUT MRK PARTNERS

MRK Partners Inc. ("MRK") is a real estate development firm specializing in the acquisition, repositioning, preservation, and creation of affordable housing.

We are mission-driven and resident-centered, guided by the belief that everyone deserves safe and affordable housing. Secure homes and supportive communities are the foundation of empowerment.

By prioritizing our residents’ needs and fostering connection, opportunity, and resilience, we create environments that enrich lives, strengthen neighborhoods, and uplift entire cities.

Our approach integrates thoughtful design, purposeful amenities, resident services, sustainable practices, and operational efficiency to build affordable communities where people want to live — not just where they can afford to live.

With communities across the country, MRK continues to grow by building strong partnerships and demonstrating that affordability and excellence can coexist. 

To learn more, visit mrkpartners.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Triple Triple. Three women, three kids each, and a triple shot of Unfiltered Truth. Here we talk about all the things life, careers, raising families, leadership, and shaping communities. This podcast is equal parts, informative, inspiring, and fun. So buckle up cupcakes and let's dive in. I'm Sydney Garchik, president of MRK Partners.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

I'm Kathy Kohler, Chief Operating Officer of MRK Partners.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

And I'm Meredith Essery, Chief Revenue Officer of MRK Partners. All right, health and wellness. Sid is like so ready for the show. This is her moment to tell us all of the things that we need to be doing from her non-medical background. But she has Claude, and Claude tells her a lot of things. So we'll probably get into that here shortly. But before we do, let's talk about wellness toolbox. What gadgets apps things are you doing using tried hate, tried love, or don't try at all? So tell me, you two are more gadgety than I are.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

I'll go because I'll be quick and then you can go list off all of your. But it's mostly just for the sleep and my body battery. Um, and then I think what I also can count in my toolbox is supplements. So I'm really big on magnesium. I want to say I'm big on creatine, but then I'm the only one who didn't bring creatine here. So I'm just stealing your guys's, which I knew I could do. So um there's that. And I think I told everybody that I used all of my melatonin that I brought on my trip just last night because I'm just all about my sleep, my magnesium, and my melatonin help me sleep at night.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Go ahead. No, mine's gonna be about two seconds. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So I I do the Garmin Watch too. I I really like my Garmin watch. Um I have tried all the things. So I've tried the aura ring, I've tried the whoop, um, and just like I've never tried an Apple Watch, so so clarifying that. But I feel like the Whoop, it doesn't have a clock on it. So, like, what the how can you do anything? It doesn't show my text messages or whatever that I need. So that's was a no for me. Um, I do think it's great for certain things, and a lot of people really like them. I tried the aura ring, it's kind of annoying. Um, it also is not a watch, so I was wearing my watch plus the aura ring. It's supposedly better for sleep, but I find honestly that the garment is easier to work with and it integrates with more things. The other thing that is really important that's in my toolbox and personally is um, and I use more on the garment. So I'll track my cycle, I'll track my battery body battery, I track my sleep, I track my workouts to like my active minutes every week. Um, but the other thing I really like is tracking my food in terms of like my macros. So um actually a friend has a new app which I will share once it's ready to go live. But I've been using that um for fun. But you can use like my fitness pal or whatever. But I do feel like tracking your food um is really helpful, even if you don't use it every day. But like being able to go back and reference it if you're trying to track protein or all those, you know, all those things, if you are low in, you know, vitamin C or whatever, then tracking your food will let you go back and and analyze that. So that is my other thing. And I will say I've tried to do it on like a clot or a Chat GPT, and the problem is it doesn't track like time well, and then it doesn't give you like a summarized way to look at it. So for me, still using kind of like an app to track or like a MyFitnessPal has still been the easiest way to track food. If you want to lose weight, you track your food.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

It's nothing worse than having to write down what you ate.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Like I had three red vines, parentheses. It was a really hard meeting before in parentheses. That's what usually and then three more.

unknown 4:02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

You know, it's interesting because I think I've been on, I am in the midst of my health journey. I do think that there's we talked about it last night at dinner. We went to dinner at six, and we were talking about how people are shifting dinner reservations. Like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I would never eat dinner in LA at six o'clock. You wanted an eight o'clock reservation. It was the cool reservation to have. That's when you went out. And now across the whole country, people are shifting to earlier dinner reservations because the entire country has more health awareness and you know, longevity awareness. Now, I will caveat some of my like toolbox things with I went to see an actual doctor. And I think that that part is really, really important. Just disclaimer to anyone listening to this podcast, we are not doctors and we are not giving medical advice. Um, but I think it's really important because there's so many health and wellness influencers. And we talked in a prior episode about like what gets spewed out on social media, and we have to be really careful about the information that we're absorbing and saying, like, is this real information? Is this something that I need, or is this somebody trying to sell me something or some bullshit thing about how you can put watermelon juice on instead of sunscreen? Like there's some why, yes, there's like this woman who makes yeah, really crazy shit. So I think when I think of tools, it's like I have been somewhat reluctant to get an aura ring, or I couldn't sleep in a garment because I take everything off at night, like the jewelry and all that. But I thought about the aura ring and I want to make sure that I understand what I'm trying to get out of the tool before I just start having the tools. So I think I'm at the edge of now saying, okay, I now have I go to a holistic, like functional medicine doctor. So I've done my blood tests, I'm test testing for the supplements that I need. What does my body need? What do I need to be aware of in this like early, not quite perimenopause, like pre-perimenopause phase of my life. And so now I feel like I'm like, okay, I have enough real legit information that I could start tracking and creating awareness.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yeah. I think the most important thing that I have realized is like this concept of N of one.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

So like Say that again.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

It's N of one. Like you are your own person. Yeah. It means you have your own things that are going to be like what you need to do. And it's interesting because my toolbox is based on the important things for me, which are sleep, like working out, and also like some macros because I'm focused on like protein and certain vitamins, etc. Those are really important for me. But that is actually the most important thing I've learned is that we are all different and we all need to look at what is really important to us as we like go forward on this health journey. And I'd love to get into functional medicine and all of those things. So, but I know we're we're getting there.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yeah. So, what is your current health philosophy then? And and how has it changed in the last 10 years?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah, so my current health philosophy is I am really still trying to figure out what my end of one looks like because I feel like I I've become my own doctor because I don't trust any doctors out there. This feels like bad advice. Here we're going, here's here, here we go. I also feel like while so I think that we can look at everything that's happening on social media, and there's a ton of ideas, right? There's so many things that people are pushing. And also, let's remember a lot of people are getting paid to push things, right? And so it's very different. You can wake up, you need to sauna, you need to cope punch, you then work out, but you lift first, right? You only do your lifting, then you do like your protein, and then you're fasted. And don't forget your creatine. Oh, but then you do your workout part where you get your heart rate up, and then you do all of these things, and it is not, it doesn't work, right? Like it just doesn't work. And so for me, it's about figuring out what are the most important things for me right now. And for me right now, it is working out because that helps me with my stress, anxiety, lots of high strung people, and then sleep, right? And sleep and then eating well. Because if all three of those things are happening, then a lot of other things will fall in place. And if I want to add red light, which I really do like, then I do that. But I think part of it still is figuring out what I actually need. So for example, my general like practitioner is a moron. He's 712, he's an idiot. And honestly, like I just use why do you go to him? Right. I was like, can you get a doctor? I need to change. But my but my thing is like, honestly, I'm just like, here, I need you to take all this blood and then like I get my own blood results and I put them in. Because I think functional medicine doctors are great, but I haven't seen a functional medicine doctor that looks at everything. And and I think what's really hard in this like perimenopause space is hormones, okay? And our general like OBs are not really trained to look at hormones. So it's like your general practitioner, he looked at me, he's like, Well, your hormones, you look good, so your hormones should be fine. No, you idiot. Like, you can't just look at me, right? Like, so like I asked for my hormone panel, and it's all about literally figuring out what all that is, and then I will put it into Claude. Don't worry, Claudette, my favorite person. But you know, you have to get all this stuff. So, like, for example, I've done the HTMA test, the Dutch test, all my own like hormone blood work results. And then I take all this and I put it into Claude, and then I'll it'll spit out like what it thinks. And then, like, I feel like confirming that with a like a wellness someone who went to medical school. Yeah, I mean, I've got I'm doing my at this point. She has. But but I guess like, and and we can continue, but I I guess what's so crazy about this is we all have full-time jobs, right? And what's so fucked up is that there's no one person that you can go to that can be like, okay, here's your to-do list, here's what you eat, here's all these things, and then come back and see me in a year because every six to 12 months it's gonna change. And that's like what I think I'm most upset about. Or I haven't found that person yet.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

I you can, and they're like in LA for $20,000. You can get your body scanned and all of those things. They're probably in LA. But I think I think the other thing, like I'm taking a pivot for one second, but I think the other thing about wellness, to your point, is like you have a full-time job, and this feels like a full-time job. And I want to talk about the inequity in like general society right now, that not everyone has the time or the resources or the access to this kind of optimal health care. And so I think it really gets down to when Kathy, you said it earlier. It's like, it is what you eat. And are we, and I'm gonna put, I'm gonna cut make this come full circle to our work, but are we creating communities that have that aren't in food deserts, right? Are we creating communities that have access to healthy foods? Are we creating communities that have walking paths so that people can naturally exercise without a gym membership? Are we creating policies at the federal level and the state level that allow for access to food? Like we just took away SNAP benefits from millions of people that no longer have access to healthy foods. And so I think that at a base level, like we can talk about optimizing and we understand and acknowledge our place of privilege in that. But I think both things can happen. Like we can do the work that we're doing and have awareness of that, like just base level access to healthy foods and walking environments, and then say, okay, what do we want to do to optimize it when we have access?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah, but I think what's so interesting about all of this stuff is that it's not really that important. Like if you go back to basics, which is eat good food, right? Move your body, walk, run, lift weights, like kind of whatever, right? Move your body and get good sleep. Like that is the basis by which 90% of it works. Correct. And all these other things, sure, they're helpful, they're optimizing, but they're not like gonna move the needle incredibly for you. And and and I would say one other thing is like access to good blood work, right? Knowing what your what blood work you want done. And and there are ways to do that in a in a reasonably cost-effective way. Um, because most of the time you can ask your like general practitioner to to to do that. So to me, like that's what's important. And we do stress those things at our communities, right? Because at our communities, the important thing is we usually have gyms, right? Like senior and family, we usually have gyms. We always have access to stuff. Right. Like our goal is always to be close to grocery and and most of the time we try to be walking to grocery stores. And the the point is not that you have to be next to a Whole Foods, it's that you have to shop on the outside of the grocery store, right? In the in the produce and the vegetable and like the dairy sections and not in the middle. And so if we're giving residents access to that and then finding ways to, you know, finding ways to to keep them active and to feel safe and comfortable in their homes, well, hopefully then people are sleeping well. And if we provide services that helps with after school care or, you know, like is a yoga class during the day, well, that's really supportive and should help their overall well-being. So, you know, I think I think that's what I've learned, which is so crazy on this whole wellness thing, other than really being able to review your blood work, it's really like back to the basics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Mine's all about energy and mobility, which I think is what you're saying. The basics are. But that's different from what I thought 10 years ago, which was all about how hard can I do something and for how long. And it's just like burnout driven, right? And I think that was pushed on us. Yeah. You know, like how who can run the marathon, who can work until midnight and get up the next morning and do it again. And that is not my focus anymore. My focus is stopping work at 7 p.m. so that I get good sleep and then waking up earlier to get back to it. I think the the food thing is really hard because I agree, shop on the outside of the grocery store, not the inside. But then you got to go back in two, three days because everything's gone bad, right? And not everybody has the time to go multiple times. I don't have time to go to the grocery store multiple times a week. Yep. So that's hard to do, but it's so important. Um, and I think all of this leads a lot to your mental health, which people ignore, and a lot of what you eat, your sleep, all leads to that. And having that and that positive energy, that grateful mindset too, everyone is struggling. And if you just think about all the struggles, yeah, then that puts you down into a spiral as well. And and it's harder to do the everyday activities.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Did either of you watch the um the Netflix special on Blue Zones?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

I didn't watch, but I listened to his podcast, and I actually bought the the cookbook. The cookbook, yeah. I haven't done one cooking from there. No idea what this is.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

So blue zones are areas across the whole globe where they have the largest number of people over a hundred. People over a hundred. Like the longest longevity. Longevity. And what was interesting is they they have all these different communities. There's one in like um like Asia, and there's one in like Greece. Yeah. And in what was interesting is like, okay, in Greece, they follow a pretty typical Mediterranean diet, which we know to be really good for our bodies, but they drink alcohol as part of their culture. And then in like these other countries, there was no alcohol consumption whatsoever. So you saw big differences in things that we think of as either good or bad. And they both had really long, healthy lives. And what really it came down to was two things mobility and community. Yeah. And so, and they were most often they were eating fresh foods. That was the big thing that what there were no processed foods. It was fresh. So, but what it was, it was about mobility. And so you don't need to have a gym membership for that. That's a lot of walking, it's a lot of balance and cleaning your house. Cleaning your house, it's a lot of physical movement. But to your point, exactly, it was mental health. And they used it in the term called community. Like, who are you in community with? Are you seeing your neighbors? Are you having small, tiny interactions with people? Do you have a couple of deep friendships? Because you don't need a lot of deep friendships, you just need a few. And so those two things are really what optimized health for people was yeah, the community and mobility, and then obviously like the fresh food piece.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

But it also is like when you are dining with other people, you're just eating less, right? Like you are not like stuffing your face. I don't know. I ate a lot of stuffed ash browns last night at dinner. Supposedly, I mean, I hear you, but supposedly you're supposed to like put your your fork down and like and you're talking more. Yeah, you're talking more, et cetera.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

You're not eating a whole bag of chips in one sitting just because there's no one there and you're just like inhaling. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

The mobility thing hit me hard this year because I I have a very bad anxiety and working out is is good for me, and that means I'm like getting my heart rate up, right? And I was doing Orange Theory, and my back was hurting really bad to the point where I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sit, and I couldn't even do the treadmill at Orange Theory anymore. So I really had to think about okay, what am I doing? How do I get in my back in better health to keep moving? Because I'm only 44. Like I I want to be doing this for a lot more years. But I think it's it's very undervalued, like making sure your body can move around.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

It's so, yeah, I I totally agree. Like sometimes when I get up these days, I limp a little because I never got my ACL fixed. But that's fine. But I mean, I think I think it's very interesting because 10, 15 years ago, like nothing like that ever bothered me, right? You just get up, you go, you do all the things, and now you're like, oh man, right.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

It's a little bit harder than it used to be. But I think as you get older, a lot of people think, oh, it's harder, so I'm just gonna stop doing it. Right. And you want to stay in motion. I remember when I was pregnant, I was like, I just gotta keep moving, stay moving, because if I stop, I'll stop the whole nine months.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Right. I do think also it the community piece of it's really important, not from the mental health thing, but for me, um, I grew up in Indiana and I now live in LA, and LA's culture is active and it is healthy. And so you are around people that are moving their bodies, eating healthy foods, are are conscious and aware and can dialogue about those things. Whereas frankly, when I go home, it's like a wildly different environment. There are far fewer healthy restaurants, there's a lot of fried food, many, many, many people are overweight, not saying the whole population, but when you are in a city or a community that really supports that type of lifestyle, shout out to LA's weather because when you can be outside 365 days a year, you can move your body in very natural ways.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah. Yeah. I also think um that the community is so important. Like with all social media and and everything that we spend our time doing, like that is not connection, right? Like everyone talks about social media. That's actually that's not connection at all. That's just you by yourself. Like terrible for your mentality. Watching other people. What they found is that these communities operate like communities. Like, for example, there's a fisherman, he gets fish and he'll drop fish on your door, right? And like they support each other. It's not just that, like, you know, you're you it's really that sense of community, and they talk to each other and you have deep friendships. And and I do think that is is so important. And and I I think it's also hard because at this stage of our lives, we work full-time, we're a parent full-time, right? Like these are very hard. And then it's also very hard to continue to maintain deep friendships because you just you run out of time. Plus, you're also like trying to figure out what the heck the heck's happening with your hormones or your cortisol or whatever. And so I think like I am trying more recently to make a more concerted effort, not just when your kids are running around to say hello to the other parents, but to spend time and devote time to those, to those meaningful dinners or hangouts or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

There's a lot to be said about like the target friend, where it's just like, hey, can you I'm running errands, do you want to come with me? Or I'm gonna pop by on the way home and stay for 20 minutes. It's the consistency in relationships that's also really important.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Because like I have a really good friend and we both have wild schedules, and it's like if we plan something, it we're looking at like 60 days out, and we're like, this is stupid. How can we not get a coffee on the calendar for 60 days? But if sometimes it's like I'm just gonna text her on the way home and be like, I'm coming over for 20 minutes and sit outside with me. Yeah. And I think that there was, I was listening to a podcast talking about the inconvenience of community, and that we we have moved so far away from that. Like, we're like, oh, well that's inconvenient. I don't want to be inconvenient to them. It's inconvenient to me, but community is convenient, inconvenience. It's saying, I have a sick kid and I need to take him to the doctor. Can you watch my other kid for an hour? Or I need to do this, can you pick up my kid? Or I just need a friend right now. Like, there is inconvenience in friendship. There's inconvenience in community, and we have to allow ourselves to do that. Otherwise, it's always like, well, I'll see you Thursday at 9 p.m. in 60 days. Yeah. Or in 2029 when you finally have time. And then we're gonna have kids that go away to college and have no friends because we didn't invest in anything.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

I don't have a lot of local friends just until just recently. Yeah, you're very popular now. Local friends moved away to Florida and uh left me stranded here. But so, but I recently have um with going to the kids going to school and such, I have much more local friends. And I think you've told me before too. So I always offer, like, oh, I'll walk your kids to school, I'll do this, I'll do that. But I never let them do that for me. And so I've done that now. Oh, that'd be great if you picked up my kid or did that. And that I think then allows them to ask you too. So I think that sometimes you want to be a friend to help somebody else, but the best feeling for them is to help you. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

And we have to let people there was a guy that said to me once, like, don't block my blessing. Yeah. And it was such a like, they get hit me. It was like, oh, you're right. Like, I'm not allowing you to give me the gift of support. And so much of and I do think for type A corporate working moms, it's like, I can do all of it. I will carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and I will carry every grocery bag from the car to the house in one trip and I will do everything myself. And sometimes it's like, even when I don't need the help, it's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let that person help right now. Because in the end, it actually does feel good to be helped. And it creates a bond between you and the individual that they got to support you and whatever it is that you needed. Like bring ice to the party. Don't bring food because it'll f up my aesthetic, but you can bring ice. Like those are the, like, do the things. Says the hoster. We're like, what?

SPEAKER_02 22:59

You're throwing a party?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Okay. These are the wines I'd like you to bring. Good. Oh my God, I got an invite from a friend whose parents are actually in the wine business, and it was like really excited for you to come to the Memorial Day party. If you want to bring food, please call me first. We are asking that you do not blink bring me certain types of tequila. Beers can only be in cans, no modello. It was like a whole list of things. They are very particular and they do have a tricky property and they didn't want glass, but I was like, oh, you're my party spirit animal. Here are the roles for the party.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

I texted my friend and I was like, I think we might do a barbecue. I'll text you later. I'm kind of busy this week. That's our planning so far. All the things. Yeah. But I think bring a kid to play with mine, really.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

I think what's interesting about this conversation too, though, is like we started out with like intensity around tracking and the creatine and the vitamins and all the things we're doing, but it really comes back to relationships too. Like and that being the foundation of a healthy environment. And I do closing out on this before we go into your quote, is the idea that like our communities, we want them to feel like communities when we build them and creating like the healthy activities, but also saying, hey, we're also gonna have a gardening party and we're gonna do the things that help you with your mental health as well. And I'm really, really proud of that work. I will tell you when I joined the organization two and a half years ago, I remember both of you being in the room and saying, we provide resident services to every building, even when it's not required. And that is that's the important part. That's the important work. That's the stuff that really matters to create health for people.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yeah, and that community is what we've really stressed, especially since COVID, when people feel lack of community. And so it's like, okay, pizza party, yoga, right? Whatever. Like, do whatever that gets you together and starts chatting because you are a community within a community. And that's so important. Just no jello shots at bingo. Oh boy. They can get a little wild too. Oh boy, seniors get a little wild with jello shots.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

So we're no, we no longer shots. I think it's a violation of our insurance policy.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

So please don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

It's not a popular opinion, though.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

I know it really wasn't. Um okay. So let's just see. Okay. My oh, this is a good quote. Okay, my quote for today is take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live. Um and it's by Jim Rohn, and he's known for his like simple practical wisdom around discipline, habits, leadership, and long-term thinking. And many self-development figures were influenced by him. And just he he like preaches consistency, not hype. And so it's just really interesting because it really is. You only have one body, like you have to take care of it. And it's not about like he I think he said this way before there was red light therapy, right? Like it was it was years and years ago. So um shout out to him for for this. I love it.