Beth is a 43 year old mom of 3. A former trail runner, avid exerciser, business owner and passionate gardener. She generally maintained a lean physique, but that was changing. Beth thought she was doing everything right--but she was sprialing further and further out of control.
She was EXHAUSTED. Not all of the time, just when life seemed to become overfilled and stress became too much to juggle.
Each time life became flooded with stress, Beth could feel the change in how her clothes fit. Her rings felt tight, the scale climbed between 5-8 pounds and her mood shifted to agitated with EVERYTHING.
Life with teenagers who teeter on the emotional edge all of the time became her greatest struggle. Oh, and an added bonus was that Beth's usually limber joints became stiff and sore during this time as well.
So, what do you tell Beth...here are some of the suggestions she heard:
antidepressant
do some yoga or meditate
cut carbs to lose the water weight
plant based diet
cycle in Ozempic
MY FAVORITES:
Train harder
Get use to it, you are in perimenopause...this is the new normal.
When Beth came to me, I was not concerned with Beth's weight gain.
WAIT .... don't stop reading!!
I was more concerned with her periods of exhaustion, overwhelm and coordinating:
joint pain, loss of muscle strength
lack of sweating with exercise
feeling flat after a training session instead of energized
SNAPPY with her kids and feeling overwhelmed and frustrated
Energy production MUST precede weight loss attempts for a sustainable solution.
Digging deeper, Beth and I talked about how she hid stressors very well. She talked about how just sustaining the pace of her lifestyle were keeping her constantly STUCK in fight or flight! She no longer felt true hunger, it was always just a feeling of low energy. Sometimes, the fatigue was SO intense that she could not keep her eyes open in the carpool line at school every afternoon around 3:30pm.
STRATEGY needed to look a lot different than a macro plan and training schedule that drove her further down the path of energy depletion!
STEP ONE- we ran Beth's HTMA
Her depletion showed exhaustion in her HTMA that was not a new development! The depeltion that showed wasl long and lasting. It had increased since the previous HTMA that she ran with her last practitioner. Her sodium had dropped further, the magnesim went from a loss pattern to a true low pattern and the calcium dropped even further. Beth felt like her stress response were so extreme that she lived in guilt from snapping at her kids and flying off the handle at her husband. She was constantly bloated and constipated. Beth felt hungry right after she ate but never felt like she fully digested her food.
STEP TWO: IMPROVE DIGESTION
Beth's phosphorus and sodium were both low showing issues with digestion. Although HTMA confirmed an issue, we really only needed a conversation with Beth to fully understand the significance of digestive issues.
Bloating after meals
Constipation
Feeling full but hungry
Craving sweets after every meal
Beth did not have the resources to run a full stool test and we honestly did not need it. The symptoms above, HTMA results and her food log showed we have plenty to work with and do not need an in-depth protocol! Here is a sample day from her food log:
Breakfast--Coffee with caramel creamer and a protein bar of some type
Snack--handful of nuts, dark chocolate and another cup of coffee to make it through the morning.
Lunch--big salad with fat free dressing, chicken breast and a fat free yogurt (I really have to cram this in- lunch time is so so busy!)
Dinner--rarely eat dinner, no time with the kids practices, usually grab a Core Power shake or a peanut butter and jelly
Comment--my big problem is after the kids go to sleep, I snack mindlessly on the couch with my husband and typically have 1-2 glasses of wine. "I think I am doing it to stay awake".
Beth thought she was checking all of the boxes when it came to her health for years. She ate sufficient protein, trained her body to build and retain high quality muscle and thought she was protecting her gut from bacterial imbalances by taking a multivitamin and "expensive probiotic". Now she was stuck!
INTERVENTIONS for Beth were about "life" strategy instead of dense protocols or adding in a multitude of supplements. Beth had to identify triggers that were impacting her digestion...rushing through lunch, getting in the habit of cramming meals even when she had time to sit and chew. Beth also struggled with eating alongside her kids after practice. She found herself still eating on the run and trying to cram her dinner in while also feeding the kids.
We did add in some supplemental support to assist with her digestion but much of her actions were behavioral and bringing down her nervous system to help improve stomach acid production. Digestive bitters before meals and digestive enzymes with a lipase added in for after meals was a huge support!!
STEP THREE: REPLETION AND REFRAMING MEALS
Repleting minerals was a HUGE priority for Beth! She needed to provide her body with the raw materials to run body repair processes and hormone conversion. The combination of eating scant amounts of micronutrient dense foods, relying on a multivitamin for her nutrients, increase in stress and poor digestion began showing up in Beth's abiltiy to tolerate stress. Stress resilience comes from our ability to supply the body with the raw materials to calm the nervous system after an acute stress response.
STRATEGIES included Beth taking a custom mineral powder that I designed based off her HTMA results. She also began to look at food more as information and less of checking a box. The checking the box mindset allowed Beth to give herself a pass on seeking out the most nutrient desnse food available. She looked more for grams of protein than fiber and micronutrients. This one switch had her look at each meal as an opportunity to BUILD her health instead of a strategy to help her body shrink. Understanding where to find these micronutrient rich foods began building an arsenal of tools for Beth!
Outcomes:
The wellness industry has led us all to believe that the only outcome we are looking for with health is weight loss. The light rarely shines on the individual who can operate with good energy at 3PM AND 6AM! Beth came to me with a goal of losing weight and returning to her original level of body composition, but like I said in the begining...this was NOT my main concern.
ADDITIONAL INTERVENTIONS FOR SPECIFIC GOALS:
I was more concerned with her periods of exhaustion, overwhelm and coordinating:
joint pain, loss of muscle strength -- I wrote her a specific program to improve strength AND joint health. Beth followed it using my app and LOVED having a task to do each day.
lack of sweating with exercise -- This is burnout! If the body lacks the energy to generate perspiration to cool itself during an increase in temperature, you know metabolism has greatly slowed. We did not take out exercise, in fact we kept it in and added some more intensity...but RECOVERY strategies became her mission!
feeling flat after a training session instead of energized-- Same strategy as above with adding in a consistent and well-designed training program. BUT!! I also added some strategic nutrition and made sure that she was aiming for leucine rich protein following her morning sessions. We took out the pre-training stimulant and added in amino acids and minerals. SLOWLY, about 6 weeks in, she began feeling that really nice sharpness after training!
SNAPPY with her kids and feeling overwhelmed and frustrated--This happened as her depth of sleep improved. She decided (THANK goodness) to completely cut out alcohol and focus on her sleep hygiene. Beth found the eating strategy that worked best for her was circadian meal timing where she would eat her last meal of the day at 430 or 5 pm on the way to the kids' practice and then went for a walk while at the field, listening to her audiobook. Beth went to sleep around 930 pm feeling sated, sleepy and quicky fell into a deep sleep. She realized that her frustration with the kids was actually projecting her frustration with herself and the bad habits she had fallen into each night.
REMEMBER!!!!
We have SO SO much control over our health outcomes! Sometimes the answers are in our own behaviors. The sticky issue is that we, as mothers, have SO much on our plate at all times! There is a never-ending stream of to -dos that make behavior change so difficult!
The cycle of stress and inflammatiion that arises during our early 40s now has become a key target for monetization! I would GREATLY encourage you, BEFORE looking into adding in strategies that you have to pay for, to look at your day to day and what you can change. You may just find yourself discovering your own root cause!
I hope this post and Beth's story have empowered YOU!! I love working with moms to help them feel strong, vibrant and clear minded each day! If you are ready to take the next step or need more guidance, feel free to fill out my coaching application and learn more about what functional lab testing and mineral balancing can do for you!
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