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Far 2 Fabulous
Join Catherine & Julie, your feisty hosts at Far 2 Fabulous, as they lead you on a wellness revolution to embrace your fabulousness.
Julie, a Registered Nutritional Therapist with over 20 years of expertise, and Catherine, a former nurse turned Pilates Instructor and Vitality Coach, blend wisdom and laughter seamlessly.
Off the air, catch them harmonising in their local choir and dancing to 80's hits in superhero attire. Catherine braves the sea for year-round swims, while Julie flips and tumbles in ongoing gymnastics escapades.
With a shared passion for women's health and well-being, they bring you an engaging exploration of health, life, and laughter. Join us on this adventure toward a more fabulous and empowered you!
Far 2 Fabulous
Could Listening to Your Body Be the Ultimate Midlife Hack?
Episode 77
Could Listening to Your Body Be the Ultimate Midlife Hack?
Have you ever felt like your body is trying to tell you something important, but you can't quite understand the message? You're not alone.
After 40, our bodies begin communicating in new and sometimes confusing ways. What's fascinating is that we've been culturally conditioned to ignore these signals – dismissing our intuition as "woo" or "too alternative" when it's actually millions of pieces of information being processed by our subconscious every second.
In this eye-opening episode, we explore the fascinating disconnect between our growing confidence as we age and the physical changes that often leave us feeling betrayed by our bodies. That unexpected weight gain? Those strange energy fluctuations? The occasional brain fog? These aren't random malfunctions – they're sophisticated communications from a body that's navigating significant hormonal shifts.
We dive deep into why strength training becomes non-negotiable after 40 (and why it makes you feel like a "badass"), how stress undermines even your best health efforts, and why supporting your gut and liver function becomes increasingly crucial during perimenopause. Plus, we share practical strategies for reconnecting with your body's wisdom without feeling overwhelmed.
Perhaps most importantly, we challenge the cultural narrative that aging means decline. The truth? Your body isn't broken – it's adapting. And when you learn to listen to what it's telling you, you unlock a level of wellbeing that no Google search or quick-fix solution can provide.
Whether you're approaching 40, firmly in your middle years, or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers a refreshing perspective on working with your body rather than fighting against it. Ready to trust yourself again? This episode is your invitation to reconnect with your most reliable health advisor – your own intuition.
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Thank you for listening.
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We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.
Welcome to Far Too Fabulous hosted by Julie and.
Speaker 2:Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candid chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered well-being. Let's dive in. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Far Too Fabulous podcast. I just I think I'm attempting to get just sillier and sillier. If you could see her now, julia's just laughing at me and shaking her head. No, I've got no words. You haven't found your words from the last podcast we did then. Eh, no, no, it scares me when you've got no words. You haven't found your words from the last podcast we did then.
Speaker 2:eh no, it scares me when you've got no words. I am more scared of you with no words than with all of the Julie words.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. I just feel like this slight nervousness about the introduction.
Speaker 2:What is going to happen, anyway? Wow, I know that keeps everybody on their toes, doesn't it? I mean, that's, that's my life in general, what is going to happen from moment to moment? So shall I tell them the truth about the title of this podcast.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? What the truth? The?
Speaker 2:truth. The truth is that, uh, we asked our um, our ai friends, our ai friends, they're no friends to have a.
Speaker 2:Well, I, I call mine a she. She's gemini. She helps me out. Okay, mark has named his. I can't remember what it is. Ai, by the way, is what we're still talking about. Yes, so Julie asked it have a look at Far Too Fabulous and tell us what we have not covered. And I actually am not 100% sure, because I think that we've probably, in lots of different episodes, covered this, but it said that we should be covering health wake-up calls at 40, what your body's trying to tell you that no one else is yeah, I think we we have actually covered this.
Speaker 2:I think it should be like wake-up calls, like beyond 40 yeah, mid, mid-age plus definitely is my favorite kind of term at the moment, but what I like about this is what your body is trying to tell you that no one else is is that it's the. The onus is on your body and and I think that actually we, even you and I still look at it the other way around that we are handing out this information about, about what you can do. You can do this, you can do that. There's this wrong, there's that wrong. Do this, do that. And actually it needs to be the other way around, like you need to be listening to your body and often, a lot of the time, you know the answer yeah, yeah, this is a big thing.
Speaker 1:I. I reckon you do know the answer. Your body is really clever and it will tell you. And actually the last few episodes where we've had guests and things, this has come up quite a few times. Hasn't it about that physical response to when you say yes to something? But deep down you know that that wasn't the right thing, that kind of stuff. But I think we all know when we're a bit off, yeah, don't we?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely, and see you said that. However, I think that we have been conditioned to not be in touch with ourselves At some point. I'd love to know when this happened in history and why it happened. I have a few theories about why it's become woo or taboo to be in touch with your body, like it's a bit hippie, it's a bit alternative to be in touch with your body, in touch with your thoughts and feelings your intuition and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, too witchy yeah I think so, and it's.
Speaker 2:It's really interesting, isn't it many, many years ago, the person that was the most intuitive would have been like the head of the clan or something I find this one comes up actually when you have your first child and you know.
Speaker 1:You don't know how you know, but you know when something isn't right. Yeah, don't you? But how many times do you get kind of dismissed because it's your first child and you're being? You're just, you're being over protective or over worried, and there is some of that, of course, yeah, but there is definitely something that goes on inside your body that says hang a minute, this isn't right, even though if you're told that it's okay by the doctor, often in that sort of case you will end up going back and saying it something's not right.
Speaker 2:You don't know what it is, but you know something's not right yeah, I've, um, I've just started my new group coaching program again and one of the intro I might be oh no, once we, once we let this recording go out, then it won't be a spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:That's fine, but one of the teaching points that I use is on any given second, you are receiving millions of pieces of information and you were only consciously aware of between five and nine of those, depending on how tired you are, depending on if you were hungry, depending on how much caffeine you're drunk I'm just thinking about me just right now.
Speaker 2:You know depending on if you were anxious or happy or sad will depend on how much information you can consciously take in. And then all of those other millions of pieces. I can't remember what the exact figure is, but it's, it's over a million of pieces of information per second that you're receiving, that your subconscious is receiving. Your conscious is not receiving it. Those are the bits of information that make up your intuition. It's not woo, it's not like I don't know magic. Those are the bits of information that your body is picking up, like you use the example of the baby, that your body is picking up from the baby and is able to then make decisions from that that's totally bypassed your conscious mind and yeah, and we don't, but we don't use it?
Speaker 1:no, no, we don't, but we can use it and we can start to listen to our bodies a bit more.
Speaker 1:And I do wonder if, once we get to that magical age of 40 and over, I mean I'm significantly over that now, um which feels weird to me sometimes, but I think that once we get past that age and we've got a better understanding of ourselves and we're a little bit more I can't even think of the word now a bit more like confident to stand up for things that we believe in, or maybe less shits given. Maybe that's the word I was looking for. Yeah, you don't you. Yeah, you don't give as much shit about things, do you?
Speaker 1:yeah basically, I think you are. There's something definitely happens, I think, once you get to 40, and you just realize, right, I'm this person, this is what I like, this is what I don't like, and the people that you, you don't want to tolerate, you don't, you don't. It's different. It's definitely something that happens. It even ramps up more when you're 50, by the way, catherine. Well, watch out world then.
Speaker 2:In that case because I mean, that was always. I said in a talk that I gave yesterday that, um, I used to live with a lovely, lovely lady called Lisa and she was always very worried about what everybody thought, and she used to kind of run herself in circles about this and um, and I I it wasn't the s word, it was the f word I said just um, yeah, lisa, don't, don't worry about what they're like, what they're doing, because they're not worried about you. They're not worried about you at all, they're. People are far more worried about themselves, like like lisa was. And uh, yeah, that was my, that was always my response then. So, god, what's going to happen in the end another four years time when I jump over that magical?
Speaker 1:yeah, five number, the magical number, yeah. So I think that we get to that stage where we're a bit better at knowing who we are and what we stand for, etc. But then things are changing in our body. So, although we're in that place where we feel more confident about who we are, we then got things going on that we don't understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, and changes, yeah, like changes in our body shape, changes in our face. There's a few more lines and wrinkles. There's a there's a few more gray hairs exactly.
Speaker 1:There's a few more grey hairs Exactly, and it's like you've got to this place and you start to. Well, I think you end up Googling the most weird things about yourself, because we can. Now, I don't know what we used to do before Dr Google came about, but any little thing that you're like is that, what was that suddenly started happening? Yeah, you just kind of put the dr google in. It usually tells you that you're going to die. Yeah, doesn't it you?
Speaker 2:know it just covers all bases and, at the end, hypersensitive death. Yeah, yeah, do you know what we did we? We talked to other women. We did so thinking about the podcast that we did with Mandy and we talked about these, talked about women's circles and she said something about that. You need these circles, like maybe in work or something when you talk about, because I said about the NCT group.
Speaker 2:And she said you need them for, like, teenagers or when they're going off to university, and is this right? And I think that's what we did. We passed information around and, like we, really we like to be able to be helpful, particularly as women, I think, and so to be able to say, to pass a really useful piece of information on to somebody within a group of women is really rewarding, and I think that's probably what we did. I think we've become more, yeah, more insular maybe yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that kind of googling, you know some random thing that's going on. I think we do get these curveballs thrown at us. We're going along perfectly fine. We turn 40. We're feeling like, yeah, this is me, don't mess with me now, because I'm a 40-year-old woman. And then these things happen and we don't understand fully what, because we haven't changed anything. That's the thing, isn't it? We haven't done anything different, so we thought we'd go and we still think that we're 20.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we really do, don't we Inside we don't feel any different to how we did, and I remember my mum saying that to me as well. And she still says that to me. Now she gets wild if I say anything to do with her being old. Good for her, absolutely. I mean, if I want to wind my mother up, that is a surefire way of doing it.
Speaker 1:it makes her properly mad. I remember having this conversation with my nan actually, where she said what age have you got stuck at? And we had this big conversation about what age that we got to, where we felt that we'd kind of we'd done all our growth, we knew where we were at and that, in our mind, was where we were at. And I remember my nan's age was a lot younger than mine, but I think that was a sign of the times. Yeah, like I think I said to her that mine was 28. Okay, yeah, I think I got to 28 and thought, well, I know what I'm doing with you know, I've got my home and I've got my job and I know how to function and everything. So in my mind, 28 was the number oh, I wonder what I'd say.
Speaker 2:I always joked about being just very happy at like 19 or 21. They, yeah, I was quite happy I. I had an easy way to earn money. I was very confident.
Speaker 1:I was, yeah, fit, healthy, I quite liked 21 there you are, so you're 21, I'm 28, and don't let anybody tell us otherwise yeah, you dare, absolutely.
Speaker 2:What I was thinking was really interesting. So we talked about, at some point in in history, that intuition being almost, like demonized. And then you were saying about these changes, like the wrinkles, like the gray hair maybe, like the, the extra weight gain, those sorts of things, and they've been demonized as well, haven't they? They're not a sign of wisdom anymore, and I think that they used to be they are. They're almost a sign of, like, weakness yeah, that's an interesting stance on it.
Speaker 1:Actually, I think you're right. I think we we've got this image of how we should be, how we should look, and we think that we're going to stay at 21, at 28. I mean, you spoke about, um, your like that size, block on your clothes well, I was always a size 10. Why would I need a size 12? Yeah, because your body's changing. And what does it matter that you're a size 12?
Speaker 1:yeah it's that? No, because I've always been a size 10, therefore I should be a size 10, and sometimes I think that certain people that are in the media that come across as being these amazingly fit, slim, look like they did when they were 18 or whatever women. That is not the norm, and behind that, I think there's it's way more complex. I think that there's addiction things going on. I think that in some cases, someone's putting a lot of work in, but they've got someone looking after the kids and doing their food and doing the housework, and I think it's a different set of rules that they're playing by versus the rest of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely and that's it. We get that bombarded. I'm just thinking about like instagram, when everybody just shows their their best sides and now you've got no idea what you're looking at. It could be ai generated, it could be filtered. You've got literally no idea what you're looking at.
Speaker 2:No, let's learn to celebrate all of these things. I mean she said as an, as an aesthetics nurse, I mean I, I will celebrate most things, but uh, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm not going all the way. You know you can, you can keep your wrinkles, they, I'm, I'm happy not looking wise, I've got my glasses. They, they make me look a bit wise. That annoys me, though. My eyes I was, so that happened at 40. That happened at 40 my eyes and I remember a conversation lots of my girlfriends are actually about a decade older than me and I remember them saying oh, you wait till you turn 40. And I'm like, no, in way, I am not buying into that crap, and I swear, almost the minute I turned 40, my eyesight deteriorated. So it wasn't 40. I've probably I've had my glasses probably for about two years now. It deteriorated so quickly it does it was frightening.
Speaker 2:I mean, my arm is not long enough now to see my watch properly. I can have. I have to take it off and get somebody to hold it across the room for me to be able to set my alarm on it. It's not funny but and I'm gonna have to get one of those. I'm gonna have to get some chains, like for my glasses, to hang them around my neck. I'll have to find some cool ones maybe, but they are on and off and they've stretched too much now to be on top of my head anymore.
Speaker 1:They slide off the most frustrating thing with the glasses is that now, because I need my glasses, I've got pairs around the place yeah but it's when I forget to take them when I'm going out for a meal and I can't read in a dark restaurant, especially in wagamamas. It's so small I can't read the damn thing.
Speaker 2:It's so frustrating if that they're trying to tell you you're too old to eat in wagamamas now, julie just need my glasses.
Speaker 1:But you know what? We could look at it from a different perspective. Yes, our eyes do deteriorate, but aren't we lucky that we can get glasses? Yeah, because I was thinking about this the other day, because I'm so dependent on my glasses as probably you are that I just had a moment the other day where I was just really grateful that I've got these glasses and I could see yeah, because back in the day maybe you didn't have access to these.
Speaker 2:No well, back in the day. We'd be nearly dead, though, by now. Well, you do keep saying, saying and it's. But this is what amazes me, because it's not that long ago, like 150, 200 years ago, we'd have been, you know, almost in the grave, if not there already, and that that's that completely spins my head. The fact that we've come on and over-doubled the length of our lives is totally mind-blowing.
Speaker 1:It is. But we want that last quarter to be where we're strong and we can do the things that we want to. We don't want to be in that place like dragging our ass to the grave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, equality, we want serious quality. That is definitely my aim. Yeah, I still want. I still want a. Uh, I still want a letter or a card from uh. Who did we, who did we, decide it was going to be king? Um, what's Will's first son, called George, is it? Might be Keeping up with the royals. Yeah, I want my birthday card. You want your letter, yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll still be doing these podcasts. Moan about everything.
Speaker 2:Oh, what episode will we be on by then?
Speaker 1:That would actually be really cool if we were doing that. That would be hilarious all right, let's, let's.
Speaker 2:Uh, I'm gonna set the intention, set the intention for that.
Speaker 1:Send it out there so anyway, we've gone off on a tangent again. We're not really talking about what we were intended to talk about. As per usual, that's 20 minutes of talking about something off topic was kind of on topic we were talking.
Speaker 2:We were talking about the deterioration of my, my eyesight at 40. Yes, we were yeah.
Speaker 1:So there are like this. This topic that the lovely ai gave us was this um, you know what your body's trying to tell you that no one else is about tuning into your body. There are some things that tend to happen that you want to be tuned into. So obviously we know the hormone situation is going to happen and we spoke about that. Weight gain. I think the biggest misunderstanding in that um, early menopause, perimenopause stage, which I'm still in because I've still got a regular period which I consider I'm still useful.
Speaker 1:So even back in the day I would still be alive, I think, because I'm still having a period, so I've still got a use for it, but still, you can still populate the earth at this point exactly, but I think when you get that change in oestrogen and you do nothing else, nothing has changed in terms of your exercise, your sleep, your movement, etc. And you see that weight start to change. That is just that erratic estrogen, and we've spoken about this in detail on an episode we spoke Didn't we do one entirely on estrogen? On estrogen, yeah, yeah, and what it's doing. And I think when you can understand okay, I'm in this phase, this is completely normal then you can start to help yourself by doing certain things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and also remember that, um, that the less shit's given is directly associated with oestrogen, isn't it? Because that that's the, that's the, that's that chill hormone. So, in as your um, I've got the wrong way around you've got it the wrong way around.
Speaker 1:Progesterone. I was just about to say that, okay yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, as your, as your um oestrogen starts to drop away, and if, yeah, on a good day, maybe there's some some progesterone hanging around. That's your, that's your less shit's given hormone. The progesterone got around the wrong way, yeah yeah, but remember those two on a seesaw.
Speaker 1:So when estrogen is just going up and down, up and down, up and down, it's impacting progesterone anyway and then we get into that. We become more insulin resistant and the way that we're dealing with sugars and fats changes and our energy and impacts lots of things.
Speaker 2:But I think we've got to just be aware of that and yeah, and normalize it and not just think that we can run exactly the same every single day. Yeah, and again, we've been brought up very much in a man's world that that's how it runs. Everything's the same Monday to Friday, nine to five. And we're expected to fit into that and we don't. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't work. So I think think you know there are lots of things that you can do to help support your hormones, and we've spoken at length about this. But I think we need to understand that this process of being in perimenopause, the changes that are happening, are going to be going on for quite a while and it's just, that's normal life. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And just I suppose I know that this is I know I'm talking to human beings and I'm about to waste my breath. However, I'm going to say it anyway to be able to future-proof yourself. So during your late 30s, to be able to make sure that you are in optimum health going into the stage of perimenopause, so that your symptoms are not so extreme, and really, yeah, set yourself up for a good run at it?
Speaker 1:yeah, you can. You can do so much to set yourself up for sure, um, your metabolism isn't broken. So we, we hear this thing about. Oh, your metabolism slows down and there is an element of truth to that, but it's almost a side effect of the other things that are going on, because we can influence our metabolism by looking at our muscle mass. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:How are we going to support that, catherine? Yeah, and I think that again it plays into this whole thing about getting older and almost an expectation of not being as strong. So I think there's a degree of acceptance that you're going to feel like this and we say no, no, that uh, and it's. And there's been so much research to show that we need to be lifting weights and we need to be lifting heavy weights. And since I've stopped marathon training, hallelujah, and I have properly picked up the weights again, I just love it. I just love it. I put some rock on or some dance on and I feel like a right badass in the gym with some big, heavy weights and it just it helps my confidence. I'm buzzing, it's just fantastic. And on those days when I shock horror, I am human too on those days when I don't 100 love the shape of my body, I then remember what a freaking badass I am and those weights that I've just lifted yeah, yeah, sometimes we have to remind ourselves of those things, don't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's easy to forget when we are doing that. Being down on ourselves looking in the mirror. It's not good, is it.
Speaker 2:No, no, and I'd say the same, Like when we finished a ploxing class and it's I mean, it's so much fun and we're hot and we're sweaty and it's it's full on. And I and I often say at the end of a class listen, look, when you're feeling that your body's a little bit crappy or it's a bit achy or painy or you don't feel like it's supporting you enough, remember what you have just done, because it's absolutely epic and probably within the like three to five percent of the entire world's population will be doing that, and so that's worth celebrating yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think your metabolism really likes strength. You know it appreciates what you're doing. When you do that, the same as when you eat your protein, it helps to. It helps that metabolism and you don't want that to slow down too much because then we do get that weight gain and stuff and we start to feel sluggish so yeah, we, we want the strength and the stability, yeah well, absolutely For longevity.
Speaker 2:It's so important. I was watching a video the other day about a fairly elderly couple like late 70s, maybe even into 80s, you know, starting to stoop over and I'm sure we're not doing that, but we can relate to achy pains in our knees and our hips and all that sort of stuff. And they started weight training like they were taught how to use them initially and then using heavy weights and they they're now walking unaided and the thing is, and things like impact training as well. I think we're going to get onto bones. I think that's on that list as well. Perhaps we'll, perhaps we'll start that now.
Speaker 2:Impact training, the strengthening of your bones, is really, really important and making sure that you don't end up one of those false statistics it's all interlinked, isn't it? Because you're a bit more, you're a lot more confident, because you're a badass and you're lifting weight but you're also foolproof, quite literally. So even if you do fall, that you've got lovely, lovely, strong bones and muscles and ligaments and tendons that have been working all day, every day, to protect you. They want to work. They don't they genuinely don't want to. To rest on the sofa.
Speaker 1:They like watching netflix sometimes, but not all the time yeah, yeah, it's so important, like you said, you don't want to become one of the statistics from falling. That is. I mean. That is depressing. Looking at the impact of having a fall even in your 60s, there's a huge it's it's horrible to even think about. So just make sure that you, you know you're strong so really opens a can of worms as well.
Speaker 2:I know when you start to start going down things like operations and stuff like that, it's not just your confidence, it really. It starts also like a what's the words I'm looking for?
Speaker 1:I say tumbleweed, but that's not what I'm looking for knock-on effect, yeah of all sorts of health issues yeah, so we've got to talk about stress, because I know this comes up all the time.
Speaker 2:I don't think we shout about it enough Generally, I think it's. If we could quantify it, I think it's the world's biggest killer.
Speaker 1:I think it's been classified as that now you know. But stress is not a badge of honour and this is not the time in your 40s to be wearing stress as a badge of honor. This is the time when you've really got to help your body. You can help the hormones, you can help your metabolism by supporting your stress, your stress pathways. So we say a lisp stress pathways, yeah, because we've got, you know, cortisol running the show here.
Speaker 2:So, and it doesn't matter what you are doing with regards to your eating, with regards to your I don't know, maybe hrt, with regards to your exercise, if you are stressed, you are going to be blocking all of the benefits to those things at every single turn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we've spoken about how there are. You know you're going to have stress that you can't do anything about, but you can manage your reaction. But I think in this time of your life it's about recovery has got to be part of the plan. You've got to be able to put in those things that constantly. It's like a little reminder to your body. I don't need to be in sympathetic nervous system, I just need to get over here. I need to be in rest and digest. And when you get over into the parasympathetic, you do that through meditation, through breath work, through singing, through being out in nature. All of these things have got to now be part of your life, I think yeah, and like schedule them in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I was just saying to julie earlier on, I was like even by nine o'clock this morning I was climbing the walls and I was waiting for the printer to to do its stuff and it actually was working today for the first time in its life and I sat at my desk and for I don't know for the time it took to print five worksheets, I just took some big deep belly breaths and just brought myself down. And it's that awareness first of all. You know, when you're just running around, you've barely taken a deep breath all day, yeah, and just being able to just bring yourself down. And that links into what we were first talking about, about that connection with your body, because I don't think that often you think about it like you don't think about it, you're just running around, just doing, doing, doing.
Speaker 2:And I think people do this on purpose as well. I think they block these feelings, these thoughts, these feelings, because it's uncomfortable sometimes, when you sit with yourself and you sit quietly, you've got to sit with that little voice. Sometimes, these feelings, these thoughts, these feelings, because it's uncomfortable sometimes when you sit with yourself and you sit quietly, you've got to sit with that little voice sometimes in your head, and if you're not used to it, it's it's not an easy thing to do and sometimes maybe it's a it's an uncomfortable thing to do I think you can definitely be over busy in order to avoid double busy.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So yeah, putting in that time, and sometimes I'll speak to my clients about planning around the worst case scenario. A lot of the time what tends to happen with my clients is I get them to do a food diary before their first appointment and I would say that 90% of the time people will say to me that's not a typical week I had. I had, um, a work due and a birthday, and there there's always an excuse for this food diary. But actually, if you base your plan around the worst case scenario and you know that even on the very worst day you can still do some self-care or make sure that you've added some nutrition in or whatever it is drunk, all your water, then the rest of the days where it is a bit easier, you'll just smash it yeah, absolutely, and I think maybe starting off and it's always my intention to do this and I've never do you know why?
Speaker 2:because I totally procrastinate over how I'm going to do it I want to have my own version of a miracle morning. I don't particularly, I'm reading still reading the 5am Club. I haven't finished that, I don't necessarily want to get up at 5am, but I would like my own version of the miracle morning that involved very regularly meditation and movement and some sort of cold water immersion, maybe some journaling or some visualization or something like that, some gratitude.
Speaker 1:See, this is the problem you've made it into too much.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking this I want to do it all you just got to pick one thing initially.
Speaker 1:So the one thing that I always do in the morning, without a doubt, is to do the meditation. Yeah, and it's just, I just do it. Yeah, I don't even think about it. I get up in the morning and I get my phone, I get into bed, I drink my glass of water yeah, and then I do my meditation, and it's not very long, it's no more than 10 minutes. Yeah, and to some people that might seem really indulgent, but it's just become part of my. It's a habit now. It's a habit now, and so then it's not hard anymore. No, but if I then tried to, you know I do gratitude. Yeah, but if I then tried to, you know I do gratitude but sometimes I don't.
Speaker 1:But I always do the meditation and drink the glass of water. There are other things I would in an ideal world if I didn't have to get up and make packed lunches and deal with kids etc. At some point in the future that will be my life. Then I can spend an hour doing a miracle morning.
Speaker 2:But right now I've got about 10 minutes and that's what I do. Yeah, that's what you need to do. Yeah, and it sets you up for the win for the day, then, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, okay, so we must talk about the gut and the liver, because these are almost behind the scenes just running the whole show and I've been speaking to my clients a lot about the liver pathways, because this is coming up a lot with that, that client being over 40 with the hormonal changes yeah, yeah you know you've got I was explaining it to one client who had had to have her gallbladder removed that that route is now closed.
Speaker 1:So there's only one road now and you've got to make sure that that road isn't a bank holiday weekend situation. You've got to take the load off, you've got to allow the traffic to go through at a better, a better rate. So the, the liver, is going to be processing all those hormones and things, and then the gut, all of this is involved. So if you're constipated, for example, that seriously compromises your ability to function inside your body.
Speaker 1:So you've got to look at what's going on there, I mean on the most basic of terms, you know when.
Speaker 2:If you are const or you're, you're just brewing a urine infection or something like that it sends you mental like you can't function. You're not firing on all cylinders at all, no, exactly that's your signals, isn't it from your body?
Speaker 1:yeah, and like the skin is such a good indicator for the gut health inside. Yeah yeah, so if you've got skin flare-ups happening which often happen in those hormonal changes, don't they? You've got to look back to the gut and the liver because they're dealing with all the clean out and the processing, and if that clean out is not happening, it's got to come out somewhere and then the skin, which is the largest organ in the body. It is a part of that detoxification route.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. And you saying that just reminds me of our conversation earlier on about um, your body storing toxins and stuff in with the in, with the fat, was like a nice, nice little pug hole for it to go. Oh, I don't know what to do with this, this horrible toxin that's in your body. I'm going to, I'm just going to tuck it away with that fat, and then you want to go and get rid of the fat and the body's going no, no, no, we can't release that and it probably doesn't really want to release that into your body anyway. However, if the body is already struggling with dealing with any toxins that you've got going through, or just hormones, your hormones, your wine.
Speaker 1:Stress your cosmetics full of chemicals, whatever it may be. Yeah, all of that.
Speaker 2:So you're not actually sort of running efficiently in the first place. It's not then going to go and go. Oh yeah, let's get that extra bit of fat that Catherine once got rid of now, because it's got all that toxin in and we can't deal with that.
Speaker 1:No, it's so fascinating. I mean, this is one of the reasons why I like doing the testing is because then people can see what's going on when you do the functional testing. But that, like in blood, blood can be really beneficial for some things. But the body is so good at keeping the blood in a good state. It can't function if the blood going everywhere has got toxins in it has got an imbalance with sodium and potassium, for example.
Speaker 1:All these things are really carefully regulated. When things start going wrong in the blood, normally it's a bit more of a serious situation Quite far down the road. Yeah, so if you've got toxins going in, the body will very, very quickly want to get that out of the blood. It doesn't want that travelling about and it's got to park it up in places that are considered to be a safer environment and fat cells and tissues and joints and things. These places are ideal. But yeah, you're right if you think about it logically, if your body has parked them up to be safe and then you want to get rid of weight, you've got to process the fat out. Well, what's in the fat?
Speaker 1:it's like now I'm not, I'm not touching that with a barge, because I can't deal with the day-to-day stuff, yeah, and my liver is dealing with these hormones and the wine, and the chemicals in the food and whatever else that it does all the time really well for us.
Speaker 2:It's just like. This is the reason you don't sort your garage or your loft out, because you're dealing with your day-to-day and that is enough. In fact, that is more than enough, so you're not then going to go and empty your loft out or empty your garage out?
Speaker 1:no, and we've all got those cupboards where you just pile it in there and shut the door. Oh yeah, shut the door and then no one opens it. If someone opens, it all starts falling out, doesn't it? You're like put it back in you open it. You've got to deal with it. Yeah, yeah, so that that it's, it's a, it's something to consider. We've got to support our gut and liver, especially at this age.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, it's yeah, and I think probably this is I mean, if you listen to this, it's not new news to you but I think the gut is only just starting to get its right amount of fame and actually thinking about oh, joe Wicks has been doing his Sugar-free thing, sugar-free challenge, and what's been really interesting is I don't eat a lot of sugar but from seeing him quite regularly on my Instagram feed and so been thinking about it more, I had a very, very tasty cake thing I mean I don't know what it was like a bar thing and and I mean we could I could have fooled myself that it was relatively healthy because I think he had some cereal in it or something.
Speaker 2:And just after that I felt so bloated and I kind of almost disappeared inside myself and just thought about the pathways, like what had gone on, and I was like I'm so sorry guts, I'm so sorry for what I've just just done and that and that bloating feeling, and it was really interesting to see the signs so quickly and so obviously so we've got these bacteria in our gut that particularly like sugar, and although we've got lots of different bacteria species, some of them are not beneficial to us, but they still live there, right?
Speaker 1:These are the ones that will tend to trigger things like yeasty type issues. But what happens when you consume sugar is that they then have a party. This is how I explain it. They're like oh my, my goodness me, all the good stuff's just come in. They have a party and what they do is they consume it and then they just start belching out their disgusting gases in your gut, and that's why you get the bloating that's a really nice visual.
Speaker 2:Thanks for that, but that's that's what happens yeah, that's what it felt like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the good guys who want you to eat the soluble fiber and the insoluble fiber from the fruits and vegetables and things. They're normally dominant for you because you eat a lot of those things and they keep the party bacteria, as I like to call them, in check, in check, like there's no party here, mate. Yeah, just the fruits and vegetables coming in then when they get the sugar rush when they get the sugar rush, they go mad.
Speaker 2:The other guys are like, oh great I mean especially my I think I was probably. I think I hadn't eaten anything for a little while, so it was literally sugar just those guys doing having a party, probably with a coffee or something, whereas I know you've said that if you want that sweet treat to have it like after your decent meal yes, so that at least they can keep everything in check Exactly that. It could be a nice steady party, a nice sensible party, sensible party instead, because we all want to go to those.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, right, we've really got to wrap this episode up, so I think the final one that we should talk about really is that you are the expert of you yes, yes, yes, you are and you're in charge of you.
Speaker 2:Don't hand your power over to anybody else.
Speaker 1:No exactly, and if you feel off, you feel off, you know it, yeah, and you just gotta go find the right answers.
Speaker 1:I think I did an episode quite a while ago when I had that head trauma and I'd gone to the doctor and not got any help and it was really impacting my life and I was just so I'm not accepting this diagnosis, no, I am gonna go find another alternative. And then that's when I ended up seeing that consultant in um south end had to travel for that, yeah, but someone who knew exactly what was wrong. I'm not saying that we need to seek out consultants, but you know yourself that that wasn't right. This is not normal for me and I need to find out what's going on. And then you empower yourself. Even when you get a diagnosis, I think you can empower yourself to say I don't want to take the medication necessarily not saying that medication is a no-no for every occasion but you can then say I'm going to look at this a different way and see if I can support my body, because medications are always going to have side effects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely and even before those points like going through the, uh, the four legs of a chair. Yeah, just like, if you're not feeling as though you're firing on all this all cylinders, check through those really simple things first have I drunk enough water? Have I had some decent food?
Speaker 1:have I got outside yeah classic one. Have I got outside today, or have I just been working from home and stayed within the confines of my house?
Speaker 2:Yeah, have I just been a total stress ball and I've not moved.
Speaker 1:Have I not taken a long breath? I actually did a what do you call it? A post about this. I think yesterday.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not when this podcast goes out, but while we're recording it. I did an actual post that said if you're feeling off, check these things. And it was just that. Have I got outside today? Have I drunk enough water? Have I taken a breath that lasted longer than three seconds?
Speaker 2:yeah, have I spoken to a human? Yes, yeah, now, absolutely have I? Have I offloaded in a, in a we don't even need to give it a name like a woman's circle? Have I offloaded to my friends that sort of thing? Yeah, yeah, just totally, totally normal things, and again I feel like we move away from them. It's like what we were talking about in the beginning of the podcast.
Speaker 1:I think we've got to learn to trust ourself. That's the thing, isn't it? Because we know, if we connect to that intuition and we're connected with our body, then we do know the answers for most of the time.
Speaker 2:And get more used to getting in contact with yourself rather than striving, thriving, surviving, surviving. There we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thriving more than surviving.
Speaker 2:surviving, yeah, but I think we're used to surviving yeah, well, we're used to just like go, go, go, go, go, go go. Don't stop, don't listen, because it's going to tell us to to slow down or do something else, and I've got so much to do, I can't possibly do that I think, that's that's the narrative, isn't it? Yeah, and so people are scared of actually if they do sit and listen to their bodies what it's gonna say, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you're, you know you're listening to this and your jeans don't fit and you're shouting at the dishwasher or whatever's happening come and speak to us in a far too fabulous Facebook group.
Speaker 2:Did my dishwasher say something to you?
Speaker 1:do you know what winds me up about the dishwasher? Don't go to me about the dishwasher. What winds you up about the dishwasher when you put it on and it's got all the things that it needs the rinse aid, the salt, the tablet, everything and then you've finished, you open it up and the stuff you have to wash it up because it hasn't washed it properly, that's my idea that's because the basket breaks and then the little knives and forks go down the bottom and stop the thing spinning.
Speaker 2:There is that too. Yeah, you could see. You can tell us about your dishwasher problems as well. We're up for that too yeah, indeed.
Speaker 1:So come into the facebook group, have a chat with us and tell us what's been going on for you. Are you trusting your body? Are you connected to your intuition? Yeah, just come in and have a chat.
Speaker 2:See you there. Thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
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