speaker-0: Welcome to Barely Balance, the podcast that's mostly healthy with a side of chaos.

speaker-2: We're your hosts, Catherine Hay and Shelly McKenzie, both qualified nutritionists and mothers. And around here we're all about finding the sweet spot between green smoothies and wine nights, kids' lunchboxes and grown-up dreams, wellness hacks and real life mess.

speaker-0: Whether you're knee deep in motherhood, navigating hormone trying to remember where you left your coffee

speaker-1: Or just try to coffee, this is your space. Expect real talk.

speaker-0: Expert tips, valley laughs and the occasional overshare.

speaker-2: So grab your matcha or margarita and let's dive in.

speaker-0: We have got an incredible guest here today with us, Nat Green Grudis. We've had you on the podcast before and we absolutely love talking to you about health in general. But today's episode, Nat, we really want to get into the nuts and bolts of perimenopause because for good reason and thank God it's becoming a hot topic in the health space.

speaker-1: It's a hot topic.

speaker-0: And you have been so vocal on your social media about perimenopause in this, you know, season of life. And we would love to pick your brain more about perimenopause. But first of all, tell our listeners who you are, what you do. I'm sure most of them know who you are, but anyway, we'll do a refresh.

speaker-1: That's too kind. They probably do not know, but you did a great job of my surname because everyone blanks at that point. And I think that's probably why people remember. They're like that woman with the the surname that looks like Snuffelopagus from sex industry. Sorry, I'm coming off the back of a cold and the coughing is special. All right. ⁓ well I'm a women's health expert. I've been in the industry for over 20 years. My background is actually in Chinese medicine, but ⁓ very quickly made our mark around women's health and hormone health. And it wasn't by choice. It was just what I continue to see in clinic. And and so that really do did propel ⁓ and position us. ⁓ just that, you know, doing something for a very long time tends to lend you to be able to see what a lot of others maybe can't see at that point in time. But nowadays, ⁓ it's really beautiful because we really did start out in fertility. But now all those women that were coming into the clinic for fertility are now back and they're 40 plus, they've got teenagers. So it's like full circle. They're bringing their children in. We're treating them through their 40 plus years. And ⁓ so you know, you just grow with your clientele, right? And and I think that's sort of what's landed me in this space now. And also when you're starting to go through something yourself, ⁓ you get really curious about, okay, what does this mean for me? So it's sort of twofold at this point in time.

speaker-2: So can you tell us, Nat, for anyone who is listening and let's just start the basics. Like what is perimenopause? When will women expect perimenopause to begin for them? And let's go from there.

speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I actually love this question because I th I have so many women say, Do you think it's perimenopause? And like, you're 40 years old. It's absolutely perimenopause. Like, it's like asking a sixteen-year-old, do you think it's puberty? It's like, yeah, it's definitely puberty. ⁓ we can have symptoms at any phase or stage. I think that I love that we're talking about it, but I don't I'm not quite on board with how we're talking about it just yet. It's all about the doom and gloom, how bad it's gonna be. And so every woman is expecting. A terrible time. And I'm really here to flip that script. I absolutely do not buy that at any point in time you have to feel your worst all the time. And I don't think that's how our bodies are designed. So, you know, ovarian decline begins from our mid-30s. And therefore, perimenopause, you know, pretty much from that point in time, we start to see hormonal shifts as a result of that decline. Now For some women it happens more loudly than others. For some, it's, you know, a very gentle transition. I think the main thing really is that your body will show you all the discrepancies that have always been there. It's just that the buffer's not there anymore. We once were able to burn the candle at both ends. We could get away with eating lettuce leaves. Like we can't do that anymore. And the biggest thing that our body needs at this time is safety. So And we're often we don't feel safe because of all the noise, because of what our body's showing us, like we we are feeling the most dysregulated. So it is a phase from I'll actually say 30 mid-30s through to when you actually stop menstruating. That could last 20 years potentially. It I cannot sit here and subscribe to the fact that it's going to be 20 years of hell. Like that is not happening. And so this is where I'm at right now. I'm like, okay, what do I need to consistently do to course correct? To feel my best. But shouldn't we be doing that all the time? Like not just now. And and nobody sits there and goes, ⁓ far out these fertile years of mine are a challenge. Like no and even if you are having fertility struggles, nobody's speaking a it's like this we've we've sp pulled out this section and we're like, we're gonna go ham on this and it's all bad. And I just it's not the way that it works.

speaker-2: Do you think though, Nat, a lot of that as well is because when our parents were going through menopause or perimenopause, often like I feel like our parents didn't even really know that that was a thing. But also our resources and what we have at our exposure in terms of medicine these days is so different, natural and Western. But it wasn't talked about in their generation so much. And so when women do finally speak to their mothers or older siblings and like, hey. what happened for you. It is all of that, ⁓ my God, it was the worst thing, blah, blah, blah. But again, like because I often say to women, like, the resources that our mothers had is so different to what we have now. Even the conversations are so different. But I feel like the doom and glooms come from an older generation who didn't have the knowledge, all the awareness of what was going on, all those conversations and tools at their fingertips. Do you kind of agree with that or where do you think it's coming from?

speaker-1: From. I do agree, but I want to ask you a question. Ask any 85 plus year old what their menopause genie was like. And they're like, what are you talking about? Like, okay, yeah, I got hot for a bit and that was it. Ask them what their this is my favorite. What was it like when they took hormone replacement? They're like, what? I didn't take any hormones. Like, so I don't disagree with you. There's a gap here. But what has happened to cause that gap. And it's our modern lifestyle, which has been the same story all along. You know, when we're having infertility issues so often, it's the lifestyle that the woman is leading that is a really big contributing factor. It's not the only factor, but it's a big factor. And so I think the same thing here. You're right, they didn't have the tools. We stopped talking about our health as women. We stopped we stopped coming together as women and having the conversations. So no one was talking about it. And I I also know that traditionally, if you rewind a hundred years, women were not really going through perimenopause because they were having babies much longer and later. So from what I understand, they would breastfeed themselves into menopause, basically. So they never had this transition period. They they kind of just went from being fertile to but not being fertile. And it was in that breastfeeding journey for a lot of women, not all, but a lot of them. So they never really saw those discrepancies. So I think there's a few reasons why, but I do really think that the missing pieces, the conversations and the modern lifestyle that really shows up the body keep score, right? It will show you. And then, you know, we're all sitting here going, This is a mystery. Why is this happening? Actually, I think the opposite. I think it's really obvious. Yeah.

speaker-0: With pet, what are you seeing the most typical in air quotes signs and symptoms in this perimenopause picture that your clients are coming to you with you now that you think are obvious but they're not necessarily connecting the dots? What does this kind of look like as a generalization?

speaker-1: I we think it's night sweats and hot flushes and it's not in perimenopause. In perimenopause, if you think about what's happening, firstly, progesterone declines. So you get this discrepancy between estrogen and progesterone, which can show up as heavy, heavier periods. ⁓ and what because of that discrepancy as well, you can start to see the symptoms very much in the lateal phase, because progesterone is proportionately lower, and that's where progesterone shines is you only make it in that. part of the cycle. So if we're seeing this discrepancy where for the first part of perimenopause we've got proportionately too much estrogen, you know, that shows up as PMS. That shows up as feeling hot and not sleeping well in the lead up to the period. But it's not all month round. It's not all of the cycle. It's generally in that later phase, the part of the cycle. But if you think about then what should be happening after that point, estrogen starts to decline, periods should become lighter. And shorter because estrogen builds your lining, more estrogen, more lining, more bleeding. So typically what should happen is we start to see that less bleeding, shorter periods. I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing women with heavy bleeding. You've got to ask where that's actually coming from. And you've also got to think about the phase that you're in of perimenopause leading into menopause. Like how far into that are you? Because the symptoms are going to vary. across the early stages, the mid-stages, and the final stages of perimenopause before you're in menopause. So I think that's a big part of the conversation that's currently missing because people women just expect that once they're in perimenopause, it's just, it's a slippery slope straight into menopause and it's about to happen. And you could be in this state for a long period of time. So I would say the most common symptoms are the ⁓ heavy periods, but I think also The changes in how women feel in their bodies and how they feel in themselves is probably the standout alongside weight gain, is the other thing that a lot of women are experiencing. And I I think that that's n far less to do with our sex hormones and so much more to do with cortisol and a dysregulated nervous system. And the more you try and fix something that's stressful that you don't understand, it's almost like you're making it worse. And so it's this spiral where women are doing everything. instead of focusing on the one thing that could move the needle the most. So they're diluting and they're getting stressed about it as well. And so I think it's the perfect storm. It's why we're seeing so many discrepancies and symptoms. But I guess to answer your question, they are the most common. Yes. The the

speaker-0: The weight gain and I mean you see it on s so many things on social media, like you've got to be doing this for weight training to support your weight gain in perimenopause, you gotta be taking this, you've got to be doing this, you've got to be doing this. And like you're saying, like that big kind of dilution of those things that we have to do to support ourselves in perimenopause. But what do you I mean, I think you just answered it, but I wanna clarify a bit more around the dys regulated nervous system. Do you think that is a starting point for women in this age bracket of perimenopause to support themselves? Or where do you think? Cause there's just so much information, it's overwhelming. It's like, where do you start? What what's the what's the start of that that time for a woman to kind of go inward and go, okay, well, I'm entering perimenopause or I'm in perimenopause, where do I start? What do I do?

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing is to not th think the worst and not because you get what you expect, right? So if you start looking for every terrible thing that you're feeling, you're gonna find it. Are you looking for all the amazing things that your body's doing? Are you looking at how amazing you are still getting a menstrual cycle and you're still cycling and so to your point we have to create calmness and the worst thing you can do is tell someone to calm down. Like that's not the solution. But I think simplifying it is actually the solution because to your point, there are so many things that you can do. And I I go I you know, with everything that I've done, I've got I've done a full 180 with patients these days. I'm like, how can I you know the least amount of information? I do not need to overload you. You need to know the very least. If you come in and you don't know much, let's say you're trying to have a baby and you don't actually know that much about your menstrual cycle, great, be naive. Do you know what I mean? Like the least you know, the better, because it's less stressful. And the minute we get in the weeds of things is I think it's really hard to get out of that. But I think that's really where the problem actually lies. Too ⁓ more information isn't necessarily better. Understanding your body is the most important thing. And to figure out what the biggest lever is for you lies within the symptoms that your body is showing you. So I do think that the nervous system is the most important. And the problem with that is. It takes time to create safety in a dysregulated body. And it's so what it means is it's a series of doing very boring things on repeat over and over and over again until your body actually feels safe. These are not, it's not rocket science. This is the eating frequently, the similar foods at similar times. Your body loves that, it expects it, it knows, it's ready, it feels nourished, it feels taken care of. No one's gonna listen to this podcast and go, ⁓ Nat said to eat regularly. Wow, revolutionary. But can I tell you how many women aren't doing it? Yeah. The majority of women are getting up, having a coffee, hitting the gap ground running, they're undernourished, they're underfed. It it's the starting point. And so if you're not eating frequently, and when I say frequently, not ridiculously, but just consistently, nourishing foods, that is where you start. Your nervous system will thank you. You're I I know personally when I you know, when I've had times where I haven't been at my best and I look back, I only recovered or healed. So long COVID, for example, I definitely had long COVID. I only recovered once I started eating regularly again. Because I was in my fasting era. I was like, This is great. I'm doing intermittent fasting. And I just wasn't getting better. And it was years. And then I started I overhauled everything and the first thing I did is I started eating. I I threw intermittent fasting out the window. Now I'm not saying it's wrong. There's a place for it, but r when your nervous system is dysregulated and your body wants to recover from something, it is the wrong thing to do. And so I think a lot of women are doing that. They're under undernourished. They're probably training the wrong way. They're they're probably stressing out their nervous system at the gym because they've gained weight. So what do we do when we gain weight? We go, ⁓ I need to eat less, I need to work out more. Wrong recipe. Like absolutely not. So if all you have to do is be consistent with nourishment, make sure you're eating. Protein and fiber are the two things that I think are are really important to look at my plate and go, okay, where are those two things? Doesn't mean to say you're not going to have fats and everything else on there. And how can you get in the gym a couple of times a week and lift so that I can support my muscle? The muscle part of it, it's not about the weight gain. That's about long-term, that's about longevity. That's about how can I set myself up so that I can scaffold into the next phase and keep my bone density, my muscle mass, my cognitive function, my Like we know that that's the recipe for longevity. So, you know, it's it's creating safety and not doing crazy things. And I don't I know you girls would see people's supplement cupboards and go, What the hell? Like, what are you doing and why are you taking all of these things? Yeah. ⁓ the majority of the time it's not necessary and it's just because we're desperate.

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speaker-2: Matt, I'd love to hear your opinion on ⁓ Western medicine versus natural medicine. Do they both have a place? So speaking to HRT through Western medicine or you know, using something like acupuncture, Chinese herbs, naturopathic ⁓ herbs, like where in where do you sit and where do you see both of those things either coexisting or are they very separate?

speaker-1: I mean, I do think it's very individualized and I'm definitely not here to tell people they shouldn't take hormones. I think that's a conversation you need to have bes between you and your prescribing doctor. But here's what I'll say. So many women are wrongly prescribed hormones and feel worse for it. And that's I think is a slippery slope because they've gone to their health provider feeling unwell. The only tool that your health provider has is hormones, by the way. So it's not their fault. That's the tool that they have, right? You're prescribed this thinking, ⁓ thank goodness, this is gonna actually make me feel better. And women aren't feeling better, or they're feeling five percent better and going, ⁓ thank goodness, I'm that five percent, my goodness, few, like, and it's not it, right? You know, so I think you've got to figure out where you are in the phase of perimenopause, right? I actually personally would say, and this needs to be done under the guidance of a practitioner, but hormones in perimenopause, I think, are a terrible idea. Unless you are monitoring them frequently and you can see exactly where they're at. And you know, what's the biggest thing we do? We go, ⁓ your progesterone's low. Let's supplement progesterine. It's like, why is the progesterone low? And what can we do to help to support that imbalance that's currently existing there? If you've got too much estrogen, proportionate, no amount of progesterone is going to fix the fact that you've got too much estrogen, right? Like you have to look at The pathways, are you clearing it properly? Are you contributing to it? Like what are all the other things around it outside of hormones? So I'm not a massive fan of hormones, but the reason I say that also is because I'm not a candidate for hormones. I very quickly figured out, looking at my genetics, that I have certain SNPs that just are not got it's not going to be the right fit for me. It's gonna make I'm gonna be that person that feels worse because I don't clear estrogen effectively for starters, MTHFR, comp gene, like a few others. And so I needed to figure this out for myself. And in that I've become really in the weeds of it because I do think that there's a lot of lazy medicine that happens, unfortunately. Nobody is really looking at the why the hormones are doing what they're doing. And also another reason during perimenopause that you can have low progesterone is because your cortisol's through the roof and your body's prioritizing cortisol over progesterine. That's actually not a perimenopause problem. That's a cortisol problem, which comes back to the nervous system again. So I think that for some women they can be really great, but I also think that the reason that is, is because for those women we've come in much later and started treating the problem, whereas if they actually had a started regulating and supporting their hormones in perimenopause, I wonder what they would be like during menopause and postmenopause. ⁓ also I don't see the patients that come in and go, I'm so fantastic on my hormones. Thanks for seeing me today. Like they're not my patients, right? So I am ⁓ my view is skewed on this. But I just can't subscribe to the fact that we need to take hormones for the rest of our lives to be the healthiest version of ourselves. It doesn't make sense to me. When do you stop doing that? ⁓ so I guess I have a lot of questions and I'll never say never. but it just doesn't there's parts of it that just I'm really frustrated by. And I think it's a disservice to women because they're not necessarily feeling better and a lot of women are feeling worse. So I think we've got to just have more conversation around around that. And some women will say it saved their lives, and that's amazing. To your point of asking about supplements and herbs, I mean amazing. That's what we would use to individually look at somebody and recalibrate, so to speak, what your hormones are doing, what your nervous system is doing, you know, what are your adrenals doing, what's your liver doing? Like there's so many parts to this that we would use. nutrition and some supplementation. But again, it's not all the supplements. It's the right supplements at the right time. And that might not be something that you can figure out yourself. That's why people come and see people like us to figure out what that is. Because I think that this is where supplements get a bad rap is if you if it's not being prescribed and you're just seeing something on the internet and hoping that it will work. It probably won't work and then you'll be like, ⁓ I tried I tried just some some supplements and they didn't work. It's like, Yeah well they were the wrong ones. That's why. Unfortunately that I mean, I spend more time taking people off supplements than putting them on supplements. Yeah. Me too. And it's so funny and they'll come back and they'll ⁓ I feel I feel better with less and you're like, Yeah and also your nervous system looks at that lineup on the on the bench and goes, Are you kidding?

speaker-2: Yeah. Not to mention all the like contraindications and things that like the patient's not even aware of. And now you'll love this. This is just like a funny little throw in. It's not a question. But ⁓ my period's always been very regular. Pre kids, post kids. It's just been like on the book, same symptoms, no symptoms, all the things. Anyway, I was eight days late this ⁓ not last cycle, the cycle before, and you'll laugh. I did a pregnancy test. My husband's had the snip. I have a one in two thousand.

speaker-1: falling pregnant.

speaker-2: eight days later by pregnant and then I was like, ⁓ hang on, I'm 39 in like three months. And then I was like, duh, this is very menopause. So even like as a practitioner, I've still had that like penny drop moment. I was like, ⁓ Shelly, you're so silly.

speaker-1: It's so cute though, but it's so funny and it's so common. And again, I think that if we can track our cycles for as from you know as early onwards as we can. And I know we all do it too. I mean, I will say to my husband, ⁓ my god, I need to go to this the shop. I've got no tampons. He's like, How what? Like, this is not your first rodeo. How come there's never any tampons in the house? I'm like, I don't know. I know it's coming. I just like, ⁓ do you know what I mean? But I do think the tracking of the cycles is particularly interesting because I'll tell the story. A couple of years ago, ⁓ I had I had what I know my patients experience. I woke up this one day and I remember just lying on my bed. I'd had a shower, got the kids to school, and it was just yuck. Like I'm lying there going, Nat, this will pass, you're fine. But I i I can't explain what it was. But I guess I felt really low. I just felt really yuck in my body, felt Probably somewhat depressed. It was an awful feeling. And I sat there for about half an hour and then I was like, you know what? It's up to you to change this. What are we gotta do? Like, I never wanna feel like this ever again. Never want to feel I'm gonna promise to myself I'm gonna figure this out because this is exactly what women are explaining to me. And so I went and did just a blood test. ⁓ I I I also was tracking my circle. This is the reason I'm telling you this. And what I'd actually I thought my aura ring was broken when it actually turned out. Well, yes, sorry, it was broken, but also I wasn't ovulating. So I was getting a regular cycle, but because it tracks your it tracks your cycle and tracks your temperature, it can tell you if you've ovulated or not. So I looked back at the last three months, I'm like, ⁓ my God, I haven't been ovulating you no better than this. I'm fixing this. And I am forty seven. Forty, I get this wrong all the time. ⁓ I'm forty seven. ⁓ and so I I did a blood test and I also went and got a coach. I'm like, I'm just gonna get a trainer, I want someone to tell me what to eat, when to eat, what to move, how to do it. I don't wanna think about it. 'Cause that's how that's what we do. We have people in our lives that help keep us accountable. And so for six months I stuck out prioritizing protein, really just eating very much the same things at the same time. And it's not boring because it actually becomes predictable and your body likes it. You feel good, you keep doing it, right? And then my my ⁓ trainer, I'd meet with her a couple times a week. And I retested my hormones ⁓ six months later, and I could see it on my aura ring as well. I could see that I was ovulating again. But my testosterone had doubled. And all I'd done is some very simple things. It wasn't a whole regime of things, it was just some very simple things, and it was a real turning point, ⁓ I have to say. So From that time on, then I continued to kind of like perfect that because that was now just something that I easily did. It was part of my routine, right? So then I could add layers to that. ⁓ I would say at forty seven now, and that's like nearly two years ago that I did that, my hormones are probably the best that they've been in a very long time. I'm very determined to hold on to this for as long as I can. But I don't really have symptoms and I don't tell you this because I think I'm fantastic and I've got it all sorted out, but I do think women need to hear that they can exist in perimenopause with very minimal symptoms, feeling very much like themselves again. ⁓ because anything less is awful. Like not feeling like yourself is awful. And I just don't want women to think that that's what perimenopause is. That story is

speaker-0: So powerful Nat, and I know that's going to resonate with so many people. So thank you for sharing that with us.

speaker-1: Yeah. We of course. I mean, this is how we we have to have these conversations. And I think the other hard hard part is Instagram's an echo chamber and if you're on an algorithm your algorithm's gonna keep showing you what you keep looking for. And if it's all doom and gloom, that's what you think it's gonna be.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Do you send people off a certain pathology testing, you know, in perimenopause in air quotes to help navigate hormones or do you more pick apart signs and symptoms, lifestyle and all of those kind of areas first?

speaker-1: Do you I always look at symptoms first. Always. But women, I think it's actually really important to have that data to be able to look back on. And you can't go back and get it, right? So it's not so much I get women in Clinique to not so much test because it's going to show us a whole lot of information. It might it will show us some information. I think a lot of women feel like if I do a test it's gonna tell me everything to do next and I like to use it more as a benchmark to compare back to once we've done some work. Where can we see the improvements? Of course you can see, like if testosterone's low, for example, that's a big one. I think a lot of women actually do have low testosterone and it fixes a lot of problems when it's within the right range or optimal. ⁓ so of course, yes, we will use it, but it's not essential to move forward and to put the wheels in motion. You can generally see from signs and symptoms. what your body's telling you. ⁓ a a test result will usually confirm what we think that is. Sometimes it throws us a curveball. I'm like, was not expecting that. ⁓ but the majority of the time, no. I think we can see that from symptoms. So yes, a combination, but getting the right testing and thorough testing is typically an out of pocket expense and not everyone can afford that. So I I would say to try and prioritize it, I think it is important if you can get it. But a lot of women will also feel disheartened because they try and get testing. They'll go to their doctor. Their doctor says no. And I think part of the reason that we need to understand why that happens, and my favorite is that you can't test hormones because they change every day. It's like, well duh. That's if you know what you're looking for, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. it's just lazy. So I think a lot of women are disheartened because their doctor says, Hey, y there's no point in testing, or but also maybe that's the wrong person to ask to get the testing done. Because if you came to me with cancer and it wasn't my area of expertise, like we've women's can some of the women's cancers we deal with in clinic, but if you came to me for a another type, I'd be like, I can run these tests for you, but I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to help you. And I think that's part of what happens. We're probably asking the wrong person for the testing. And then we're getting the wrong interpretation also. If someone's just reading a report, that is not Te that is not an interpretation. That's just reading the report that the pathology lab come up with. So, you know, if you're looking at your at ranges and you it's like, ⁓ well, your estrogen's in range and your progestrogen's in range, but if you're not looking at them against each other, estrogen can be at the top, progesterone can be the bottom of the range, and you'll feel terrible. So there's a lot of discrepancies around testing. I do think it is important, but it needs there's ⁓ there's all of those factors need to be considered. Yeah.

speaker-0: Absolutely. Absolutely. I and I think that's something I'm I'm really glad we touched on because I've seen in clinic too, ⁓ well, I went and got my hormones tested and my GP said I wasn't in perimenopause. Yeah. By how many times have we heard that? Yeah. So I'm glad we've got some clarification around that as well.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's and let's just bring logic back into all of this too. I think that's gone out the window.

speaker-0: And critical thinking. I think that's going to happen with that too.

speaker-1: Yeah. Very ⁓ Yeah. For too long.

speaker-0: I could keep going on about those. So, Nat, we'll wrap it up now, but if you had to give women in this age bracket of perimenopause just some little golden nuggets to take home with today, what would be your top three, for instance?

speaker-1: I think the first thing is to let's d make sure we're parking the idea that perimenopause is an illness, a disease, or a really terrible time about to be had. ⁓ I think that's just the number one thing. If let's not expect also you're smarter than that and you look after yourself, then you can expect your body to be kind in return. ⁓ the second thing is is, you know, more isn't necessarily better. More fixing. We love to fix things. It's like more fixing is not what it needs. It's it's actually a matter of ⁓ figuring out where to start. What's the loudest signal I like to say? What's your body telling you where to where to start? ⁓ and so with that, actually we just recently created a resource where you can go in and put your symptoms in and it can tell it sort of tells you. I'll give you the link for that. Right. And it tells you. where to actually start based on your symptoms. So for example, if your sleep is horrendous, no amount of making sure that you're eating perfectly is gonna fix that necessarily. So we start with sleep. Or if you're not moving your body at all, then you know we need to just look where is the loudest signal and what's gonna have the biggest impact. I would say probably nutrition will have the biggest impact. But, you know, at the same time, if you if you're not sleeping, then that's super important. If you're highly stressed, like you've just got we've got to figure out where to start. ⁓ and I think that's where women go wrong. They try and do everything all at once. And I think the third thing is we need to be kind to ourselves. We see our bodies as something separate to ourselves. Like i we're mean to ourselves sometimes. We're Why you doing this to me for? I hate this or I hate that about like I hate this about you. It's like, well, you are you. So you're like that doesn't even make any sense. So I think being kinder to ourselves, talking, I like to get patients to talk to their bodies, ask it questions, ask for feedback. Symptoms are clues. They're not punishment. They're just a response to the environment that we're in. And we can do a lot. It might not mean that we completely remedy something, but we can live more often than not, with less symptoms and less signals when the body is regulated and has what it needs. So it's moving closer towards that. But I think that that the really hating on ourselves, we're not doing that anymore. Like that's that's awful. Yeah.

speaker-2: Amazing that. And tell us where our listeners can find you.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ everything is Nat Krangudus. It's not original, but there's only one. Just so corny. ⁓ but there is only one. So, ⁓ Nat Krangudus on Instagram, natkringus dot com. And then ⁓ my my podcast is the wellness collective, so that is actually not anything Nat Krangutus related, but it is me that's hosting it. So ⁓ I mean in the title. So yeah, there come and c come over and I mean I love interacting with people I have so much joy in answering qu questions and just demystifying all of this to really as cliche as it sounds I think empowering women to take charge of their health because they understand it is is truly the biggest gift. Yeah. Absolutely.

speaker-0: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming back on, Nat. We always love chatting with you. You're such a wealth of knowledge. And I know this is going to resonate with so many of our audience too, because we're all in that perimetaphor.

speaker-1: Well, ⁓ thank you so much for having me guys. It's been a pleasure.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-2: Thank you so much for listening. If you have enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. That way, we can continue to inspire and educate more mamas around the globe. If you would like to get in contact, request a guest or a topic, connect with us on Barely Balanced Podcast Instagram page and send us a direct message. Otherwise, until next episode, stay same, Mama.