Understanding Metabolic Health with RN Sharleen Lucas EP#128

You know that feeling when you're "doing everything right" but still feel exhausted by 3 PM? Or when your doctor says your labs look "normal" but you definitely don't feel normal?

This week, I'm chatting with Sharleen Lucas—an RN who left traditional hospital nursing because she was tired of seeing people suffer without real solutions. Sharleen breaks down metabolic health in a way that actually makes sense (and doesn't make you feel like you need a medical degree to understand it).

What We Cover

• Why 93% of us feel crappy (but the good news is, Sharleen gives us practical tools to fix this!) 
• What "metabolic health" actually means (hint: think of your cells as tiny factories)
• The "naked carbs" thing that's probably sabotaging your energy all day
• Super simple food hacks that don't require throwing out everything in your pantry
• Why your breakfast might be setting you up for failure (and what to do instead)

The Real Talk

Sharleen's story resonated with me—she dealt with her own mysterious health issues that traditional medicine couldn't solve. Sound familiar? She gets that you're already doing so much right, but maybe you just need a few tweaks to feel like yourself again.

Her favorite quote from fitness instructor Betty Rocker: "All or something is just fine." Because honestly, we don't need to be perfect. We just need to start somewhere.

If This Sounds Like You...

• You're successful in every other area of life but can't figure out why you're so tired
• You feel guilty for wanting more energy when you "should be grateful"
• You're tired of being told to just "eat healthy and exercise" without real guidance
• You want to feel good in the life you've already built

Connect with Sharleen

• Website: RNnextdoor.com (book a free 30-minute chat)
• Linked in: RN Next Door
• Facebook: Sharleen Lucas
• She also does these cool 2-hour lab reviews where she actually explains what your numbers mean and gives you real action steps

Remember: You're not broken. You're not asking for too much. You deserve to feel good in the beautiful life you've created.

Transcript

Understanding Metabolic Health with RN Sharleen Lucas EP#128

[00:00:00] Bona Normandeau (Host): Welcome to The Happier You Podcast. I'm your host, Bona Normandeau. The Happier You is about encouraging each of us to connect with our unique self and figure out what our personal happiness looks like and build more of it into our daily lives. It's not what others think our happy should look like. It's about figuring out what really fills up our cup and brings us joy.

Each episode is about exposing you to new ideas, perspectives, and tools to help you build more happy moments in your day-to-day life. Join me and start living your best life today.

Hey, happy people. Welcome back. I'm excited. We have a guest again today and her name is Charlene Lucas. Charlene is the RN nextdoor freelance writer and health coach. After almost 10 years as a youth pastor and another 10 years working as a registered nurse in the traditional hospital environment, she's bringing her warmth and skill to healing people's physical wellbeing and ultimately their overall happiness.

Charlene, welcome to The Happier You Podcast. 

[00:01:03] Sharleen Lucas: Nah, you know how delighted I am to be here. 

[00:01:06] Bona Normandeau (Host): I'm excited. This is gonna be good. I invited Charlene because lately I've been hearing this term metabolic health and metabolic syndrome, and Charlene as the RN next door really focuses on this and helping people deal with it and live healthier.

So let's just shoot it out to you. Let's start there. Charlene, will you please tell us what metabolic health and Metabolic syndrome really is? 

[00:01:31] Sharleen Lucas: That super smart question because it's a new term being thrown around more in the mainstream, or not quite maybe mainstream yet, but getting there and it, it's, it's not clear.

Um, we've been using it in the, in the healthcare world for a while and in some of the well wellness world, but. For women, I think the best way to connect it is yes, it's connected to the word metabolic, uh, excuse me, metabolism. And so it does have to do with how cells burn energy, um, take food and n nutrients and create energy for the body.

So it does have to do with metabolism, but it's so much more, um, I think of it I think the best way to think of it is that it's really cellular health, so metabolic health. Is cellular health. Um, and what that means is when we're eating nutrients, any sort of food that you guys know, that the digestive system breaks it down, sends it into the bloodstream, and it gets delivered to all the cells.

Well, how does the, how do each cell take. That nutrient and turn it into fuel for the body. Turn it into fuel for its own little mechanisms. And it's really quite fascinating. So the nutrients provide fuel for sure, in particular sugar and fat. But then that's not all that's part of the metabolic health.

The cell is manufacturing. Trillions of actions and enzymes and hormones and proteins all day long. So it's this manufacturing machine and so metabolic refers to its ability to take nutrients and do its work. Um, and so it's more than just how well does someone metabolize calories. It's much deeper.

Um, and even sunlight actually plays in to metabolic health and the cellular work. If I may a quick example, dietary fat. Is a source of fuel for the body. It will take, the cells will take broken down fat and make fuel, but it also is a structural thing. You have to have fat for the structure of the cell membrane in particular.

And a lot of the organelles have membranes, and so they need fat in their little membranes to work. And so dietary fat is a huge piece. , Of metabolic health, and it goes beyond just fuel. These things actually affect the structure of the cell and the work of the cell, and so they need it. They need these nutrients to work.

So metabolic health is how well are the cells working. You could, you could make it that simple. 

[00:04:02] Bona Normandeau (Host): I am a simple girl and I like simple, so, so why is this coming up right now? Charlene? Like for me, it's personally, I, you know, I'm on a health journey trying to figure out what my body's going through lately.

Yeah. Why is this becoming mainstream? What's going on? 

[00:04:17] Sharleen Lucas: Yeah. Another important question because there's a, a study that was recently, uh, published in 2022 that a lot of people have heard of. Um, a lot of thought leaders in the health and wellness world have quoted it and, and I believe it was outta Tufts University, and they found in studying some symptoms of, I think it was about 55,000 people over 10 or 20 years studied their weight, their blood pressure.

Their lipid panel, their blood sugar, something else, and they found that in the state only about 7% of people were cardio metabolically healthy. So why is this a big subject? Because 90% of Americans are. Don't have the best metabolic health, and that's probably true in Canada as well, Lee. And so this is a huge issue.

And what is Cardiometabolic Health? It's really just metabolic health in relation to the cardiovascular system. So heart disease, strokes, and they also relate it, uh, metabolic health. In the, uh, healthcare world has also been used to talk about, um, diabetes over for a long time now. And now we're talking about dementia as a progression of diabetes or a progression of having too much sugar in the system over a long time.

And so that's kind of what they're referring to for Cardiometabolic Health. And that brings us to another one of your questions about, um, metabolic syndrome. And so I heard. Of metabolic syndrome 15 years ago probably, um, in nursing school and before. And what that has been traditionally in the healthcare system is a diagnoses that precedes, um, our cardio metabolic health problems, um, and all the metabolic health problems.

And I'll explain the difference here in a second, but, so metabolic syndrome is really similar to what they did in the study. It checks blood pressure, fasting, blood sugar levels, waist circumference, high triglyceride levels, and if you have low HDLs and you've got, I think it's three of those five, something like that, if you've got those symptoms, then one can be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, and that is all that is.

Is that is a hey. You're at high risk of chronic illness. Now, if you don't change, you will very likely get diabetes or cardiovascular disease. And now we know that it's also a precursor to all manner of chronic illnesses even cancer. So metabolic health. When the cells are damaged enough and they can't do their work it's, it is one of the main root causes of all of the increase of chronic illness, including autoimmune disease.

And so it's not the only thing, but it's one of the main, uh, root causes, which, and it's, it's honestly really simple to deal with, and that's why it's becoming more mainstream because it's so huge. And actually it's very. And not miserable to do. So it's, it's hard, but it's not miserable 

[00:07:23] Bona Normandeau (Host): to me. So what I heard was metabolic syndrome.

It's probably always been there, but now it's being more talked about because we, we can go online, we can do more research, have more knowledge and say, and realize we're heading towards some of these big, scary diseases, chronic illnesses. Right. And so then my understanding is then metabolic health is, that's me taking control and saying, how can I improve my.

Overall health, metabolic health, so that I'm guarding against these big things that are potentially coming if I keep going on the track that I'm going on. Yeah, and what I find interesting about this is before we hit record, I had asked you how did you end up on this path? And it's really interesting.

Can you quickly share like what took you from traditional RN work day to day in the hospital to wanting to help people really be more proactive about helping themselves? 

[00:08:21] Sharleen Lucas: My big trigger of metabolic dysfunction, if we can use that word or that phrase, was in my early twenties. I traveled to visit my grandparents actually in the Philippines.

They were there for many decades. My uncle and my aunt and cousins are still there. And I picked up, uh, a little single cell amoeba called blastocystis hominini and it's common traveler infection in the gut. And came home with that. And I had already had kind of a. You can tell high energy sensitive personality and some sensitivity to the dairy protein that I didn't really catch early on, and that caused me some challenge.

But this thing knocked me on my butt in my early twenties caused chronic fatigue. I didn't know I had it. Caused GI issues, chronic fatigue to where. I could barely get an eight hour, eight hours of work without a big nap in the middle of the day. Um, I was in a job where I could make my own schedule and joint pain.

And you know, brain fog, which is always awful. And so going to a nurse practitioner, she did some checks and yes, you know, we think you have, I think all we did was an x-ray of my hands 'cause they were really painful. And she said, yeah, we think you have rheumatoid arthritis. Take Advil for now. And so I.

Thought that seems very narrow of a treatment. Is that really all I can do? And so I ended up on my own journey. 'cause at that point then I distrusted their perspective and I wish that I had continued to seek out. A medically trained mentor and helper to help me, but I didn't know what to do. And so on my own started to really seek some natural answers to helping to heal my system.

And so I had a few mentors along the way, nutritionist friend, a chiropractic friend who was also a master's in nutrition and they helped me a ton and I owe them a lot. Um, and then I just did a ton of research and I found that. Really eating healthy and cutting out at that time, gluten and dairy, which I don't cut out gluten completely anymore, but it really immediately helped my gut and cleared up my acne, which I'd had for gosh, off and on almost a decade.

And so that really was interesting to me. And so then I started to understand that there were other things that we could do to feed the body. But then long story short, I'm in nursing school in my thirties and I still had not treated this gut infection. And so I was down to like really irritable gut, even though I had done all these changes, but it just wasn't enough.

Went to a doctor who found, um, he was an unusual doctor. He actually ran a better, more extensive stool sample. Which is a lovely thing to say on a podcast. Yeah, I love it. So he ran that and checked for Be Hominini and he found it and I am so grateful to him. We killed it with Good, good Meds, Bactrim and Flagyl.

And so I'll always be grateful for that. But then my, my gut and my. Immune system, my nervous system was all screwed up because this thing had just really nailed me hard. And so my cellular health was injured because in a big way because of that infection. And so that's another big thing for people.

A lot of people have an underlying infection that takes someone who's, who's a little bit more thinking outside the box on infections to really find, and so I help my clients actually, I help them find practitioners who will help uncover some of that stuff. Um, because it's hard for people to know how to find that.

And so that's actually where to go. Yeah. Yeah. Something important I bring to the table for my clients. I think you asked also about the hospital, what pulled you. Yeah, 

[00:11:54] Bona Normandeau (Host): I, that's the part I found really fascinating was what took you from nursing to this health coach, like, 'cause I think that's really beautiful and, and speaks to who you are.

[00:12:03] Sharleen Lucas: One of my, uh, good stories, um, just as an example of what it's like to be a nurse who, who knows that there's other things that we should be doing for our patients. I had a. Mid 30-year-old male patient who came in, he was my patient for the day, and he came in 'cause he had a second Crohn's flare up, which is super painful in the GI tract.

And it really attacks the cellular wall and inflammation and it's painful. And so he had had his diagnosis six months earlier. And so this was his second, you could call it exacerbation, where his gut really got painful. And it was the second time that we tried to calm that inflammation in. An issue in his GI tract with um, really he heavy hard IV meds that have, that do good in the moment but have some side effects.

And it is not a solution unfortunately. But nobody, I asked him, I said, so has anybody yet talked to, you've had this for six months? Um, really painful, injuring his career, injuring his new family. Um, just a hard thing to face. And I said, has anybody helped you yet with understanding what things you could do outside of just.

Hospital and like you said, Bonna at home. What can you do at home to soothe his issue, his diagnosis and his symptoms? And he looked at me really with kind of wide eyes and said, no. And I just was so, I was just so frustrated that, that we don't have a system that has time and resources. To help people with that because there are definitely things that you can do for Crohn's that helps soothe that gut and makes that life a whole lot better.

And some people have claimed they've even healed their Crohn's with some. With some at home, at home stuff with his food and stress and all the things. And so that's an example of when we moved to Colorado. I just had a chance to, to do something different. And so, um. It was a, it's a brave step to go do your own little business, but there are growing number of us who are medically trained conventionally, but want to embrace a wider spectrum of therapies for people.

So I. That's how I got here. So I, I, he's kind of my example of I wanna help people before they get to the hospital and if they now have a diagnosis, I want to help them soothe those symptoms, um, as a partner to the medications when they need 'em.

[00:14:26] Bona Normandeau (Host): Yeah. And stay out of the hospital as much as possible, right?

Like Yes. Yes. It's 

[00:14:30] Sharleen Lucas: painful to be in and outta the hospital and doc and expensive. 

[00:14:34] Bona Normandeau (Host): Yeah, 

[00:14:34] Sharleen Lucas: just a miserable thing. I. 

[00:14:36] Bona Normandeau (Host): Yeah, 

[00:14:36] Sharleen Lucas: I can't even, yeah. I have some clients who are in and outta the hospital all week long and it's hard on their lives. 

[00:14:44] Bona Normandeau (Host): It's exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not fully living. Right. And, and kind of like you said in your intro there, it's like you just really wanna help people truly live their full life.

Um, yeah. You 

[00:14:56] Sharleen Lucas: know, and I put love in there because I want 'em to live and love fully because it's a lot so much about relationships. They don't get to. Be with their grandkids or their kids as much, or they're not as mentally present 'cause they're miserable, or there's just so, so much about our relationships that we lose when we're not healthy.

As far as health, do we know what to do? Not fully because we have been taught incorrectly, and I think we won't dive into it, but I think one of the best examples is the low fat craze that actually hurt us deeply because of the need for healthy fats. And because that that whole craze got us more into carbs and got us more into unhealthy forms of fat in seed oils, um, in highly industrialized seed oils.

[00:15:42] Bona Normandeau (Host): And when they took out the fat, they added in sugar. Yes. It bleeds beautifully into my first topic that I wanna pick your brain about. So the other thing I'm hearing with metabolic syndrome, metabolic health, is we really have to watch our blood sugar spikes throughout the day. And uh, and then also this term, naked carbs, which I was telling you beforehand, I'm like, I can't wait to say naked carbs on the podcast.

Um, so can you like. Help me understand what we, why this is a big deal, and what we need to be thinking about for not spiking our blood sugar. 

[00:16:20] Sharleen Lucas: Yeah, it is a big deal. And one of the things you had mentioned is, uh, you know, sugar is bad is kind of some of the messaging right now. And, uh, and the best messaging is that sugar in and of itself isn't bad.

High levels of sugar all day. Or spiked sugar levels throughout the day. Um, those on a long-term basis are going to massively damage the body. Um, and I think this is one of the best tools for people who are wanting to improve their metabolic health. Um, and so we'll explain and then give a couple of easy hacks to actually improve your, uh, your sugar spikes.

Um, and I'll explain what sugar spikes are, but I think first, what's the dnce difference between sugar and carbs? Carbs are really a nutrient we eat in our food that gets broken down into simple sugars in the system. Um, we also eat simple sugars, honey table, uh, sugar, brown sugar. Those are simple sugars.

Carbs are more of the nutrient and plant foods and refined plant foods like highly refined bread or flour. So complex carbs are gonna become important here in a second because they take longer for the body to break down. Therefore, the sugar doesn't just dump into the system. The sugar gets more slowly absorbed through the intestinal wall as it gets broken down and into the bloodstream.

So complex carbs don't spike the sugar as much as a simple refined, usually manmade man, refined carb. So complex carbs are. What we want to eat out of healthy whole plant foods. Mostly in plant foods 

[00:18:03] Bona Normandeau (Host): for sure. So like what you're saying is like our broccoli and our vegetables basically. 

[00:18:07] Sharleen Lucas: Yep. And fruit too.

Um, if we were to only eat fruit all day in high levels, that would be too much sugar in the system. Um, but. Fruit at least has fiber. And the, the problem with our processed food and our sugar intake these days is we're eating a lot of highly processed foods that are high in sugar, low in fiber.

And that's really, really important. It's not just sugar, it's the lack of fiber. It's the lack of complex sugars and, uh, integrated with fiber that slows that absorption down. So the good side of sugar is that it is fuel for our cells. We actually can live without carbohydrates and sugar. Um, we could live on fat as fuel.

We don't have to have carbs, but sugar is fuel for the cell. And so, and it's not a bad fuel. Um, it's just got to be moderated. The dark side of sugar. Too much sugar is really what causes fat problems in the body. The body takes that over abundance of sugar and turns it into triglycerides to, um, to store it in the body and use for energy later.

I. So all long story short, when one is looking towards metabolic health and looking at their yearly lipid panel, which checks your cholesterol levels, you wanna look for lower triglycerides, high HDLs, more than you're worried about cholesterol and LDL, the supposed bad cholesterol. So that's the dark side of sugar is that it actually impacts unhealthy fats in the body.

And then the sugar spikes. The sugar spikes. The problem with those is that your body's designed to, and we'll talk about insulin in a second, insulin plays into this. Your body's designed to have some sugar spikes. We are spiking really high and most of us are spiking throughout the day. Multiple spikes a day.

That is what it's not designed for. It's more designed for, um, a general level of sugar with some kind of three or four rolling hills throughout the day of sugar spikes. The body knows exactly what to do with that. And so what happens when you have a little sugar spike or a big one? Insulin's released mostly from the pancreas, and insulin is a hormone.

And it spikes also with the glucose spikes so that it can help that glucose get into the cells so the cells can make energy out of it and use it. And so insulin comes knocking on the door of the cell and, and says, Hey, I've got some sugar for you. And the cell's like, great. Come on in. We need fuel.

We're making all these proteins and hormones and enzymes, and we're working so hard as this little manufacturing unit. We need fuel. And so insulin helps that fuel get into the cell. So it's a really powerful hormone and that kind of gets us into. Insulin resistance. I'm looking at you to make sure, are we ready to pop into insulin resistance?

Do you have any questions first? 

[00:21:04] Bona Normandeau (Host): Yeah. Why are all these spikes during the day bad? Like if you said like, our body is used to say three or four rolling hills. I love the visual. The listeners don't get to see that, but you can imagine, right, the spikes versus the ruling hills. So why are those. Like, and I think that's what you're gonna get into with insulin, right?

[00:21:22] Sharleen Lucas: Yeah. It and bad in part because it's overloading the system with sugar and with insulin. We don't want too much insulin either. And then real quick note it really impacts our, how we feel throughout the day if we eat mostly sugar in the morning or mostly carbs, not a healthy amount of protein and fat.

We're gonna have cravings in a few hours. We might have brain fatigue in a few hours. That's gonna give us a low mood. It's gonna, you know, and then that happens all day long. So symptom wise, that's what's happening. If we eat particular, start off our day with too many carbs and sugar, then it just makes us crave and go up and down all day.

'cause then we'll go and have another snack or we'll stop at Starbucks and get our venti, whatever drink packed with extra sugars. 

[00:22:06] Bona Normandeau (Host): Yeah. You 

[00:22:07] Sharleen Lucas: know, and then a high carb lunch, and then we eat another, you know, more snacks. And then we end our, our night a lot of times with a snack before bed. And it's usually a carbohydrate snacks.

Most of us are grabbing an avocado or nuts or something as an after dinner snack. Um, so that's just gonna impact some symptoms throughout the day. But then it's also gonna keep. Your sugar and your insulin levels just too high throughout the day, and pretty soon over the long haul, that makes the cells more resistant, um, less sensitive to insulin when it comes knocking on the door.

So insulin's like, oh my Lord, we got all that sugar to take care of. And so it's knocking on the doors. So eventually with high sugar levels throughout the day. Those cells just like shrug their shoulders when the insulin comes knocking and it's almost like they're couch potatoes and I, there's a few mechanisms, maybe they have too much sugar or they, they just stop being sensitive and so the insulin has to move on with the sugar trying to, find a place.

To get it into a cell and if it's got too much and the cells aren't gonna take it, it will store it as triglycerides and as fat and often fat around the liver, which is really increasing fatty liver disease really increasing these days. And that's really dangerous. And now the cells aren't. They're not operating correctly.

And so it really impacts metabolic health. And long story short insulin is a hormone and so it ha there's a lot of cascade of events. It gets complicated. So just trying to keep it simple. When you have high levels of insulin. You also don't make other hormones as well. The body's, it seems, from what I've read, the mechanism is in one way the bottom body is busy making insulin.

And so it kind of, it kind of neglects like sex hormones. Um, and it also, estrogen levels get goofy. And so this can be a trigger in young women for like PCOS or endometriosis, or it can fuel estrogen related autoimmune diseases. It can even fuel cancer in the long run. Um, and so cancer cells do love sugar.

Uh, and so, um, there's a whole cascade of mechanisms with having too high of sugar and then high insulin. Both of those things. Gosh, it I have to like, kind of shut my brain down because the insulin levels also begin to affect our satiety and hunger hormones. So then it screws all that up. And so it, it's just got a massive cascade of events.

Um, and it's an underlying thing that we want to really manage to keep ourselves from sliding into high risk of chronic illness and symptoms. 

[00:24:46] Bona Normandeau (Host): It's really interesting because, you know, the way you described it then basically our North American breakfast foods Yeah. Are terrible, right? Yeah. Like cereal we're, we're spiking our blood sugars first thing upon getting up in the morning.

[00:25:01] Sharleen Lucas: And for those who eat cereal, a lot of us were taught to get low fat milk, and that has less fat, obviously, and it makes the sugars in the milk more quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. Whole milk. A lot of experts for when people can do dairy, they will recommend whole milk because the fat slows down the absorption of the the, um, milk sugars like lactose.

[00:25:25] Bona Normandeau (Host): Which leads into naked carbs beautifully. Does it not? Yes. 

[00:25:29] Sharleen Lucas: Yes. Good point. So what are naked carbs and what are the tools that we can do to manage blood sugar levels? And, um, I was giggling because naked carbs is actually a little new to me. But like I told you, I've been clothing my carbs now for a while.

And what does that, what does that mean? I teach my clients, if you wanna boil it down, let's start off with very rarely for, for someone who's got diabetes. We try for never, rarely or never do we eat. We find carbohydrates and sugar on an empty tummy that is a naked carb. It is gonna go right into the GI tract and the body can break it down really quickly into little sugars if it's not already a little sugar, and then it just seeps right into the bloodstream and spikes the blood sugar.

Clothing, your carb simply means. Eating the sugar and the carbs with protein, fat, um, or fiber and or and so some of the best hacks, uh, I really respect the glucose goddess Jessie, I can't pronounce her last name, biochemist, who is popularized the, her, her glucose got us hacks of how to eat sugar in a way that keeps your blood sugar more level throughout the day.

And she gets kind of lambasted by mainstream in some ways, which I think is silly because as an RN I would be tickled pink if my diabetic patients followed all of her hacks 'cause it would really help them. And so, um. So I credit her with bringing this into my brain. But so we, so naked carbs versus clothing.

Carbs is really, you eat fiber, fat, or protein either before your sugary stuff or with your sugary stuff. For example. And this is really cool if you have a good plate of veggies or a salad not a huge one, but not a tiny, tiny dinner salad, a, a healthy salad prior to your meal, and you chew that fiber up really well.

It unlocks, it breaks down, fibers gets into the, uh, intestines and it, and that fiber creates a mesh. The water kind of gets into it and it puffs up and creates this mesh. Along the intestinal wall, and that mesh slows down any sugar that you eat slows the absorption through the intestinal wall.

So here's a little hack. Eat a plate of vegetables before you go to a party where you're gonna be, you know, tempted by all sorts of delicious food. Or if you're the restaurant, don't eat bread and wine first. Eat your salad first, and then eat your bread and your drink and then your meal. And so that's.

That's clothing your carbs for sure. Um, and then the idea too on clothing, your carbs is let dessert be dessert, eat it after the meal because now you've got all this healthy it. As long as you're eating healthy, you've got fiber, fat and protein all being digested in the system, and then you have your dessert.

Which isn't evil. Mostly there's a few instances where maybe it's, but then you get it in, in a, in a time and a place in the system where it's gonna be absorbed gradually and not just dump into the system. And so that's clothing your carbs. 

[00:28:39] Bona Normandeau (Host): I like it. And uh, I always like examples too.

Right. So I wanna know like, how do people end up working with you? Like who ends up at your doorstep? 

[00:28:50] Sharleen Lucas: Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I get, I get people who are fed up, um, with trying to figure out why they don't feel great and why they can't get down to the bottom of that. And a lot of them have a lot of them have been told by their docs, Hey, your labs look great, so I don't, we don't really know what's wrong with you.

So, you know, drink some more water, eat healthy, and, uh, let's see if that helps. And that's not helping people. And so. So people have ongoing symptoms, um, not necessarily a a diagnosis yet or do have a diagnosis. Both come of all ages. So they just get to a point where they're trying to find help beyond just the medications that the system offers.

And they're trying to find also somebody who's. I got more time to listen and help them dig and work out and really personalize things because our system in North America, um, has definitely taken a lot of personalization out of healthcare, and that's hurting people because we're all different. 

[00:29:52] Bona Normandeau (Host): Well, kind of like you with your Yeah.

You know, what you had to do when they said it's rheumatoid arthritis and go home and take Advil, kind of thing. Right. Yeah. So similar concept. Well, and, but then like you said to the point where people have a diagnosis, but they're, it's, you know, even with medication, their quality of life isn't, is just not what they want it to be.

So they figure out there's something more they can do, I guess really ultimately. 

[00:30:16] Sharleen Lucas: Yeah. The meds don't solve the problem. They really deal with the symptoms, right? And people want more than that now. 

[00:30:23] Bona Normandeau (Host): Now, so, okay. So if somebody is interested in working with you, how do they find out more about you? 

[00:30:29] Sharleen Lucas: Um, I am on Facebook as kind of my main social media right now.

And then, uh, my website, I, I hope it's easy to remember. RN next door with one N. Is my our indexer.com to my website, and they can go there and do a free discovery. Click the little book, a discovery call. Um, and that's a 30 minute just free chat about this because health coaching's new and people need to know like, what is it?

What do you do? And why would it apply to me or how and do I need it? And then as you know, I started a, a new, um, smaller little offer to people doing a smaller thing of like a two hour session where I, um, study their recent yearly labs and their symptoms, um, and their diagnoses. And we do an assessment of where they are metabolically and what are three tools.

I try to send 'em off with three simple tools of what they can start doing right away to start helping. Boost their metabolic health. 

[00:31:28] Bona Normandeau (Host): Okay. Now I forgot to warn you, uh, that I always ask my guests for their favorite quote. Do you have anything handy? 

[00:31:36] Sharleen Lucas: I like Betty Rocker. She's a great resource for your people.

She's an online fitness instructor. She's really good at helping build strength for people. She says all or something. Betty rocker, all or something is just fine. So to your people, they don't have to obsess, they don't have to do absolutely everything perfectly. That just causes more stress. 

[00:31:59] Bona Normandeau (Host): I. I like it.

I often say one is better than none. So yes, because I'm very much that mindset who is like, well, if I can't do a 30 minute workout, like say a 30 minutes on the elliptical, well then I won't even get on 

[00:32:12] Sharleen Lucas: right. 

[00:32:12] Bona Normandeau (Host): But honestly, five minutes is better than not. One pushup is better than none. 

[00:32:17] Sharleen Lucas: I have a client who says, I just put on my workout clothes and then I almost inevitably go if I just say I'm gonna put on my workout clothes.

Exactly. We also say a lot in my little coaching circle that baby steps are still steps. 

[00:32:29] Bona Normandeau (Host): They are, yep. I like it. That's just 

[00:32:31] Sharleen Lucas: fun. You're delightful. 

[00:32:33] Bona Normandeau (Host): Charlene, thank you so much for coming on and doing this with me. I think we will definitely do this again and uh, 'cause there's so much in your beautiful brain to share.

So. Thank you. I'm sure we'll have you back. 

[00:32:46] Sharleen Lucas: It was such a treat. I'm honored and had a ball. Thank you. 

[00:32:50] Bona Normandeau (Host): All right. Happy people. Remember when you have a choice, choose happy and dress your carbs. Have a good one. And go get your happy on in the traditional ho hot. Okay? 

[00:33:02] Sharleen Lucas: Oh good. Okay. You'll make me feel good.

That's fine. 

[00:33:06] Bona Normandeau (Host): Yeah. How many years am MI and I still make those mistakes? Yeah, we got a lot out of that quote. Boom. I love it. Oh, so sorry for the.