(00:01):

Hi, I'm Corinne. After a lifetime of obesity being bullied for being the fattest kid in the class and losing and gaining weight like it was my job, I finally got my shit together and I lost 100 pounds each week. I'll teach you no bullshit weight loss advice you can use to overcome your battle with weight. I keep it simple. You'll learn how to quit eating and thinking like an asshole. You stop that and weight lossbecomes easy. My goal is to help you lose weight the way you want to live your life.If you are ready to figure out weight loss, then let's go. All right, everybody, welcome back. So today I am bringing you a topic that I swear to God all of you write in all the fucking time pestering me to start talking about. So here we are, everyone. I have brought on Dr. Anna Garrett.

(00:53):

She is going to talk to us about perimenopause and menopause. And the reason why she's here is because she happens to be my doctor. I reached out to her, I don't know, a few months ago. I've been tired. I think just random symptoms and I kind of had done everything that I thought I could do on my own and really wantedto just bring someone on my personal, a team who could help me just get my shit together, see if I could get some more energy, feel a little bit more in balance and a little bit like my old self. Now I'm not trying to snow myself that I'm going to be feeling like my thirties again, but I started noticing for me personally as a type personality, someone who has a lot of get up and go and can drag their sorry ass through life kicking and screaming to get things done.

(01:46):

I started having a real hard time with it. I started having where I needed days off, Iwould have to sometimes cancel some meetings and just start reprioritizing things and I'll tell all of you I'm very glad that I'm the kind of person that when I know something's out of whack. So in tune with myself, I will pay attention to it and thenI will go to work on solving it. And then also, I like for all of you to hear what I said when I really started noticing I couldn't do, I used to, the first thing I did was start cutting back some stuff without a lot of guilt and shame. Sometimes I felt a little bad about it, but not every time. Sometimes I was just like, this is what we got today and we're going to have to roll with it. So I got recommended to Dr. Garrett through somebody else who's been on the podcast, Lisa Smith from the Peaceful Parent.

(02:41):

She was interviewing me for her podcast and she was like, I keep hearing you in the membership bitching and moaning about how tired you are. You've got to call her. I will recommend her a hundred percent. So I'm going to let her introduce herself and give her a more formal introduction. But I just wanted all of you to know that the reason why she's here is because I wouldn't bring someone on the podcast that I didn't trust, that I didn't think could give us some good advice, and that's why she's here. All right. Tell us all about yourself, Dr. Garrett. You may. I don't even call you Anna. I don't think I'll call you anything when we talk. How would you like to be called? Dr. Anna?

(03:22):

Why don't you just call me

(03:23):

Anna? Okay. Well, my mama's name is Anna, so that's hilarious. Oh, I didn't

(03:27):

Know that.

(03:28):

Oh, yeah, spelled just the same.

(03:30):

Yeah, I'm Dr. Anna on the internet, but I don't like it when people call me Dr. Garrett. It just sounds like, okay, well, I'll call you friendly sort. That will be super easy.

(03:41):

Well, I don't like when people call me, I'm like, look, please, are we already in that land?

(03:47):

But we're southern, so we kind of have to just sort of roll with it.

(03:51):

Yes, we do.

(03:53):

Well tell

(03:53):

All about you.

(03:55):

So I am a doctor of pharmacy by training, and I have been for more years than I did the math on that not too long ago. And I was horrified. And I have had this business since 2011.

(04:11):

So

(04:12):

Before I got into this, I've worked in a lot of different practice settings in pharmacy, but my last real job as I put it, was as a manager at our local hospital. And one of my responsibilities was running our employee wellness program. And in that program I did health coaching. I personally did the health coaching and so completed a coaching certification. And I had planned to go start a business that was just coaching women in midlife because that's a time when a lot of us are trying to figure out who the hell we are and what we're doing next. And I was square in the middle of it, but then I was like, you know what? It took me six years to get this pharmacy degree, and it's really stupid for me to walk away from that. And so I have a friend who's a compounding pharmacist in Durham, North Carolina. And so I went and spent the day with her and she was doing hormone consultations and helping people get back on track, men and women. And by the time I left, I was like, that's the missing piece. I'm putting these things together and Dr. Anna was born. So there you go. That's the quick and dirty.

(05:20):

Well, that's amazing because before we even started this podcast, we were kind of joking around about my take on menopause for a long time, which I still believe all of you, I still totally believe this, that a lot of us want to blame our weight, gain blame a lot of things on menopause when we actually have all these other things that we can control going on in our lives. And one of the things I've loved about working with you is when we first started talking, you've taken a really slow approach to giving me, I haven't even started taking any kind of supplements yet, but the first thing you said is it seems like you're really stressed out. When are you going to be able to cut back some of this stuff? Because we can't just throw pills at everything. And so we were talking about that before we came on, and I just really respect that because I think that with you having a pharmacy background, it wouldbe really easy. I mean, I'm sure it'd be really easy to try to fix a lot of things with pills, but only so much with our hormones can be right?

(06:30):

And so the latest thing I did was get a functional medicine certification. And in thatcertification we are looking for root causes of things. We're not trying to replace a pill for a supplement. I mean, basically you're just doing the same thing. You're justusing something different. And this is my opinion, I think stress is the root cause ofhormone imbalance for almost all women. And we have managed to talk ourselves into believing that the level of stress we experience is normal, but our bodies are not getting that message and our bodies are much smarter than we are. And so at some point your body just goes, well, fuck this shit. We're just going to revolt and when you start taking care of us, we will respond and we'll get back to normal. Andso any symptoms that people experience really are just your body's cry for help and you can pay attention or you cannot.

(07:35):

And so a lot of women really, really get thrown off their game as they go through menopause, and a lot of them don't have anybody to talk to about it. And that's part of the problem. There's been so much shame in hiding behind menopause and we need to talk about it and we need more people talking about it than Gwyneth Paltrow and Oprah. And now all of a sudden it's a celebrity thing to talk about, which is great, but not all of those people have any sort of medical background to really kind of put all the pieces together and look at the research and come up witha plan.

(08:18):

Well, I love that you said the root cause because that's how I teach the weight loss side of it, is that most of us don't need tons of macro counting and calorie countingand all this other stuff. You clean up the root cause, which is usually, for most women, they are stress eaters. It manifests there. And when you're in menopause and your body's already going under stuff and you're chronically stressed, I think one of the early signs for most of us that something is going on is our stress eating picks up

(08:49):

Now

(08:50):

It feels like we're constantly craving sugar, we're constantly looking for an energy fix. We can't settle down at night without food. For a lot of my people, that's one they can't unwind at night because they're so used to pressure, pressure, pressure,pressure. The only way to shut it down is with food. So I loved how you said your body will only take so much and then it starts crying, uncle, it needs help and an early smoke signal for all of you, especially people listening to my podcast is overeating is usually the symptom of something going on on the inside of your brain. People pleasing. I'm saying yes to everyone. I have a ton of shoulds that I should be doing this. I should be a better mother. I should have a cleaner house. Every towel should be perfectly folded, whatever that crap is, we put all this pressure on ourselves and overeating is a huge indicator. You've got a problem. So let's talk about hormonal changes that do happen to women as we start entering this midlife. What are the things that are happening to us?

(10:01):

So just for your listeners, perimenopause can start like it's early as your mid thirties, and most women just go, I'm too young for that. And so the first thing that happens is your progesterone starts to fall and it falls because you're not ovulating every month unless you're Corrine and you can be 49 and ovulating.

(10:26):

We keep joking that my ovaries are still cranking it out, and it's like, are you sure you don't want anymore? It's like, I'm sure.

(10:35):

And so that lack of progesterone does a couple of things. First of all, it can cause new anxiety and it can cause new insomnia and mood swings and fatigue. Those are some of the most common things. And then the other half of that is that estrogen is running the show in your body all month, and that's where the weight gain comes from because estrogen's job in your body is to make tissues grow. So uterine lining, breast tissue weight gain. And then when you gain weight, your fat cells make their own estrogen. So that just compounds the problem. And so the real issue is that estrogen to progesterone imbalance. Then you add in increasing rates of sluggish thyroid because there's an epidemic of undiagnosed hypothyroidism in this country and 80% of that's in women. And then you are morelikely to become insulin resistant the older you get, which means that your cells don't take up glucose as well as they should for fuel, and your body has to crank out insulin.

(11:48):

And that also is associated with weight gain. And then there's our friend cortisol, which just gets cranked out. If you're chronically stressed, your insulin and your cortisol have to balance each other out. It's really a vicious cycle, and it's really hard to pluck one thing out of that combination and say, oh, this is the thing, and this is why I like doing the testing that we did. We can identify a lot of things there.And then I also do blood work that can look at thyroid and insulin levels. And an insulin level is much more likely to uncover unfolding insulin resistance before your blood sugar starts to get out of whack. So it is like hormone soup, but to me, the real underlying cause, yes, you'll stop ovulating, but if you're not chronically stressed, the likelihood is that your estrogen will start to fall in conjunction with your progesterone and you won't have this just flood of estrogen every month.

(12:59):

So it just keeps coming back to the one thing. Most of us when we're in perimenopause and menopause, and correct me if I'm wrong, the one thing we've got some control over is our stress management, really understanding how we think about ourselves. Because the way that I approach stress management is you're never going to do the massaging and the baths and all the traditional self-care. None of that can get done if the entire time you're thinking you're selfish, youdon't have time that someone's suffering while you're taking care of yourself. To me, the first level of stress management is getting your mind management unlocked, absolutely angling that. Okay, so that is something we can start working on immediately whether or not we can hire a doctor to look at us or not.

(13:58):

Well, and so many of us can't set boundaries around anything. You feel like you have to say yes to everything and everybody, and I'm like, I got over that a long time ago. And the older you get, the better you get at that, the disease to please kind of goes away and you hit menopause and you have zero fuck left to give basically. So

(14:21):

Tested better the damn truth. I was telling somebody this the other day, I don't remember who I was talking to. It was like a younger person, I think it was. I was at my event and one of my younger members, my members, they go from literally 22 years old to, I think our oldest member right now is in her mid eighties. What a great combination

(14:44):

Though.

(14:45):

Oh, it really is. It's awesome to see because they're always giving each other advice and stuff. But I was talking to this young girl and I said something about, well wait until you're my age because you just don't have any fucks to give. And she's like, what's going to happen to me? I'm in my thirties and I don't have fucks to give. Well, then she's in good shape. I was just like, well, welcome to our club. You get early attendance. Well tell a little bit more about the tests. I did. You had mentioned the test. I took the Dutch test. I'm going to tell everyone there was a lot of peeing in cups and there was a lot of putting cotton in your mouth. And I have tothank Chris Crabtree because there was a lot of timing and you had to take notes and I am not detail oriented. And so Chris literally was the manager of the whole process.

(15:38):

Well, and sometimes it takes that or you set your alarm on your phone, but we did the highest level of testing for you because you had told me in our initial conversation that your stress level was really high. And so I wanted to make sure that we got a really clear picture of what your cortisol was doing. That was a reallyimportant thing I thought was going to come up. And as it turns out it was. But the Dutch test looks at your sex hormones, so your estrogen, your progesterone, your testosterone, it looks at the way your body handles those hormones and whether they're being eliminated effectively, because if they're not, there are things that wecan do to make sure that that is happening. And then we do the deep dive into yourcortisol and then some of your vitamin markers. So I started this business before the Dutch test actually existed, but I find it to give just an amazing wealth of information that I can then take.

(16:44):

I mean, it doesn't do thyroid specifically, but I can look at some cortisol things and go, you know what? We probably need to get some blood work to have a look at that, but I can sit down with it and say, okay, we need to address this area and thisarea. And one of the things about being a coach too is I can meet people where they are because some people want to go really slowly and they get overwhelmed very easily. And then other people are like, just give it all to me because ready to go. So we talk about all that and the approach you want to take, and obviously we can't do it, but so fast. We do have to time it around your cycle if you're still havingregular cycles. So yeah, that's my go-to test, but I have a whole laundry list of things that can be added, like a gut health test, a really important component of hormone health too. But you didn't tell me anything that made me think, oh, gut health. So that's what that initial call is for is just to kind of figure out, okay, what are going to be our best strategies to figure out what's going on with the unique person?

(17:59):

And what I want to tell all of you is because I think sometimes there's a lot of shame for women when they just can't do it on their own anymore.

(18:12):

And for me in particular, I'm really glad I don't have shame on that. But that's only because for years since I was a teenager, I've either been in therapy, I've seen psychiatrists, I have had meds in my lifetime for depression. I talk about zero fucksto give. I gave all that away a long time ago because my most important thing that I can do for me is just try to have the best life I can. And if that means reaching outfor help. But I will tell you this last year I've talked to you about it, but when I started feeling so run down, I had to pull apart why this year has been extraordinarily harder on me than other times knowing I do get coaching, I talk to all of my listeners all the time. One of the benefits of joining our membership is youget access to life coaches who we're working on your weight, but we know that your weight is a symptom of what goes on in your life. And if we work on your life, weight will come along for the ride.

(19:22):

It didn't matter how much coaching I was getting, I could not get caught up anymore. I felt like my stress levels had just between my husband being diagnosed with cancer, buying a restaurant and remodeling it all year, we moved into a new house and doing all the construction we do here. I had a lot of business stuff happen this year. Things that I have three businesses now. I used to only have one,just you name it, my mother had surgery and lived here for six weeks and God loved my mother. But when you're taking care of someone who can't use an arm, I'm not used to bathing a grown ass woman nor her dog. And especially by your mother. Yes. There was so much that happened this year. I just couldn't, it felt like there was not going to be any end in sight in terms of can I realistically outthink this problem now? And that's what I felt like when I called you. It's like this is not just me outthinking my stress anymore. Something's got to be going on. And so tellme if I'm right or wrong, but for a lot of our women, sometimes they need to take these extra steps, especially if they're battling the cortisol issue because it just feels like to me it's like my body doesn't know how to turn it off anymore. Does thateven make sense or

(20:52):

No, that is true. So what happens is your body will continue to respond and respond and respond to stress, and your cortisol levels will be high all the time, butthen your adrenal glands are communicating with your brain and it's a feedback loop. And so eventually your body is going to shut down that cortisol production. It's not supposed to be chronically high. And when you go in the other direction, then you can't get out of the bed. And so pick your poison, put your life under a microscope and do some stuff about it or figure you're going to end up on the couch because that's what's going to

(21:36):

Happen. Well, and that's where I was feeling like I was getting to, I didn't feel like I was going backwards in terms of depression, but literally I've not felt this way in ages where there were just days where I would go out for a walk, I walk every day,I talk to my best friend, and there would three out of seven walks a week, I would tell her, I'm so winded.

(22:02):

This walk's killing me. It's like everything in my body weighed more than it normally does. I felt like I was dragging something along behind me. And when I get to where I'm running out of steam to just function, that's where I feel like I wasgetting to. I felt like my body was shutting down, but I couldn't. I also, for all of you, for me personally, I was getting, it's almost, I felt like my brain was getting addicted to being stressed out. It needed that to keep going. And so I was getting caught up. Everything was a catastrophe. Everything seemed so much more magnified. Problems that I probably would've faced last year. This year seemed so much worse. It just felt like, I don't know. I've never run into this until this year. And so I'm assuming it's just the perfect storm of stressors, hormonal changes, all of it's coming together at a perfect head. And I think a lot of women go through this.

(23:03):

Well, and so you told me the other day you've ticked every box on the list of ultimate stressors, and we discovered that your cortisol production was low. So now you've told me that you've gotten some of the work stuff done. You get to take a little break. We're going to do some things to support your body. You're going to up your protein and we'll tweak it as we go along. But it's a process. I mean, you didn't get here in a couple of weeks. You got here over a long period of time and it time to get back to the other side as well. And so that's why my preference is to work with people for six months because then we have a chance to develop a relationship and really work on some things. But I'm talking to somebody this afternoon who, unless she tells me something different, I don't think she needs six months. So I'll design a program that is different than what I normally offer for people. But yeah, it's, I'll just dig it in and looking around and what can you get rid of? What are your absolute yeses? Because everything can't be, and with the holidays coming, here we go. You get to be the Christmas ferry and you and I were talking about your Christmas decorations that are already up outside your window back there.

(24:40):

Corrin did not do. I just want everybody to know. I know Corinne did not do, I did bring someone in. I was ask for help. We were having Christmas over Thanksgiving, so everything had to go up a little early this year. And my husband's definitely not going to do it, but we brought someone in to put things up so that myfamily, we could all do it on Thanksgiving together. Well, let's talk about, you mentioned I'm going to be eating more protein, which I would bet my people are like, what? Because they know I've always talked about being a me.

(25:15):

I love it. But even me, I have gotten kind of low on my protein, and as much as I liftweights, one of the important things I told her was I get worried that as I get older I'm going to lose muscle mass, which is common for women to lose muscle mass. We lose bone, we don't lift near enough. I lift a lot. But I watched my mom is prettyweak, but I watched two grandmothers who never lifted weights, one of which was a tough old bird. I mean, she probably could have been an A fighter if she wanted to be. And by the time she was in her late sixties, she had a hunch back. She wasn'tstrong anymore. I'd never seen my grandmother frail. And it was terrible to see a strong independent woman like her switch to being frail. And then my other grandmother has a hunch, also never lifted weights either. So I was telling Anna that it was really important to me. I want to be a strong woman all the way throughmy life. So can you talk to us about is there technically a best way to eat in midlife?Because I know my people are like, can we just talk about the food now?

(26:33):

Now I'm not here to talk about food. So protein is important for the reasons you just mentioned, but it's also one of the foundational blocks of healing adrenal health. And so you've got to have enough protein on board and there's some other nutrients, and we've covered all those bases for you. But as your estrogen declines,your bone mass and your bone density starts to decline really, really rapidly. And fractures are the number one reason that women get admitted to nursing homes. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to the nursing home.

(27:17):

I'm not either. Well, if I end up, I want to go to a facility that someone will care for me one day, but I don't want it to be because I slipped on something because I think that's one of my big fears. I've watched so many women that in my family andeven women in my own membership who in their sixties and seventies, a small slip turns into a life altering event. My grandmother in Alabama right now has that problem. She fell a year ago and she can't leave her house now.

(27:54):

Well, and a lot of people that have fractured hips die within a year of having that fracture. So that is something that is definitely preventable. And if you're a little skinny white woman and you smoke or you did smoke or you've taken steroids for some other condition, you are at very high risk of having osteoporosis. And so whatI tell people is go get your bone density scan when you're 50, so you've got a baseline of what your bone density looks like. If you have gone through early menopause, go earlier because that bone density is going to decline like crazy. Andso I have an awful family history of breast cancer in the women in my family, but because I wasn't sleeping and because I don't want to have osteoporosis because I do have osteopenia, I made the decision to go on estrogen replacement, which helps both of those things.

(28:59):

Weightlifting is definitely one of the best things that you can do. And you're on testosterone replacement, so that helps with bone strength and muscle mass. So you're killing two birds with one stone. So a lot of women think going on hormone replacement is giving in or giving up because they think they should just be able todo this themselves, but why not protect that quality of life that you want and give your body what it needs all throughout your lifespan? And that's a whole nother conversation about should I be on estrogen replacement or should I not? Because there's a lot of fear around that. It's like estrogen causes breast cancer. Well, no, itdoesn't. So you and I could go on for days about that,

(29:50):

Tell about fiber. I can't remember exactly what you told me, but so when we were talking about me definitely getting my protein up, some, which I'm down with, and then the other, you wanted me to get 25 to 30 grams of fiber and I eat vegetables every day. But I'm going to tell you, I was real honest with her. I was like, I doubt I'm even getting close. I, and I feel like I would be a classical healthy eater if you were to. I mean, even this week I'm eating stuffed pla bono peppers with chicken and there's some quinoa in there. And then you take my lunch, which is a big ass salad. But I mean, other than that, I'm eating yogurt for breakfast. I'm like, there's just no way I'm getting plenty of this stuff.

(30:41):

So the average American takes in 18 to 20 grams of fiber a day if they're doing a pretty good job. The fiber is more about keeping things running through your GI tract so that your estrogen is eliminated effectively because estrogen is eliminated in bowel movements. So that's what the fiber is really all about, is making sure thatyour hormones are moving on through, because if they don't, they get recirculated and can become more toxic as they're recirculated.

(31:13):

So I think that was the part that I was fascinated by that I just honestly didn't know. I don't know a lot about this stuff that the more that you eliminate, if you can push things through, then those hormones, they get pushed through there. I don't know where I thought they went, but I did not realize it was going through the colon. So let me just see if this is you tell me if I'm right or wrong. The way I'm hearing you. A lot of my clients are like, I was a hundred pounds overweight, all the things. So if you have a lot of extra, cause you have a lot of fat cells, and so you've got all this extra estrogen going on, if you will clean up a little bit of your food, get more fiber in, add some fiber rich stuff, I think you recommended that I get acacia, I'm going to be adding, yeah, I'm adding that to my breakfast. But that elimination will be getting some of a lot of that estrogen out. It should aid in your weight loss, correct?

(32:18):

Yeah, because you don't want that estrogen recirculating because then it's just contributing to any issues with estrogen dominance. And estrogen dominance means that your estrogen's higher than your progesterone and we don't want that. And it also helps any toxins that you're exposed to. So pesticides that may be on your food or in your environment, fiber helps keep that moving out too. So your liver is doing part of the detox, your GI system is doing part of the detox. So that's why I said gut health is so important in the context of hormones because there is an enzyme that can basically unpackage that estrogen that's supposed to be eliminated and let it recirculate. And that is if you have poor gut health. So there's so much to it and it's just fascinating and people are probably, the eyes may be glazing over now.

(33:19):

I think a lot of my people are going to find it fascinating. If you were to give them just a bottom line summary of what we've talked about, what can they do for themselves at this point? I think I'm in perimenopause or in menopause or I know Iam, and I mean, for lack of a better word, I feel like I can't get my shit together with my health, whether that's my weight, my energy or whatever. What would yousay if you don't do anything, do these few things

(33:54):

At exercise because that will improve your brain health. It improves your overall mood, it helps you maintain your muscle mass. It helps you maintain your bone health. I mean, I could go on all day about exercise and it doesn't have to be like, I hate going to the gym, so I'm not going to do that. It can be like go out and kayak, go out and take a walk, go out in the woods because forest bathing is great for your mood and you're walking at the same time. So it can be simple things like that. And then make sure that you're getting good quality sleep. So again, this is a whole nother podcast. So when you don't sleep, you put yourself at risk for all kinds of chronic illnesses. So especially deep sleep and insomnia is one of the things that shows up in perimenopause. So that's when you need to start thinking about, okay, I may need to get some help with this. So I wear an aura ring and it tracks me the aura ring twins. It's really, it's been eyeopening for me to see how little deep sleep I got before I went on the estrogen patches and then how much deep sleep I get now that I am on them. So it's made a big difference because a data girl, I like to see what I'm doing.

(35:27):

What else? Make sure you clean up your gut. If you're having diarrhea, bloating, that kind of stuff, then your gut health is not clean. It needs help and just don't suffer. I mean, there's help out there. And I know a lot of people think, oh, my doctor says he or she can't do anything for me. Well, that's because they aren't trained in how to do hormone management and they're not trained in how to manage gut health. So be willing to look outside the box because there are people out there that can help you. It could be a chiropractor, it could be somebody like me, it could be a naturopath. I mean, there's a whole world of alternative practitioners that can be super helpful.

(36:13):

Well, I love the simple things that you gave them because walking to me is probably, it's the one thing that I always do this month inside of our membership, I just started walking with my members. I just said, Hey, we're going to do a mile a day.

(36:29):

And I told 'em, I said, honestly, I don't even get a mile every day, but I get out, I'm getting out every day. I tell 'em, this does not have to be a perfectionism Olympics either tomorrow. I've already told 'em this morning and I post every day about my daily reflection and this was my walk. This is what I'm doing today. And just I try toteach them something. And I was telling 'em that tomorrow I'm getting a cool pill on my face. I'm trying to keep this face looking young as fast as I can. And it starts at 8:00 AM I was like, y'all, I'm going to be real honest. The walk won't happen tomorrow, but the leg lift will. It's like I had to make a choice. Am my lifting legs oram I walking tomorrow? And I just try to always tell 'em I like to move every single day in some way. It is so good for my mental health

(37:22):

Now, especially since I broke this habit of thinking workouts have to happen a certain way. It's like I do this because I want to be the kind of person who moves for the rest of their life. On the first day I started losing weight. That's what I said. I want to be someone who moves every day. And that meant walking. It could be lifting, it could mean a lot of different things. And then the other thing that you talked about that I wanted to tell everyone is I also have the aura ring. I find it fascinating. Deep sleep is the hardest one for me to get. And when I watch it, it's OURA for anybody who's interested. When I watch mine on the nights that I don't get deep sleep, it's almost always because I eat dinner a little later than I normally do. There's some kind of factor at play.

(38:19):

And what I want to say to all of you is it's real easy for us to think, well, if I'm goingto work on my hormones, then I know what y'all are thinking, then I can't have, then I don't get to, I won't be able to give up. We are not trying to tell y'all 1,001 things to give up. And you do not need to be a perfectionist on this. You've got to open your mind to the idea of there are lots of little things that you can control andyou can try and you can do, get you some improvements. I promise you, if you startfailing a little better, you might be more willing to do a few things instead of thinking it's a big fat punishment.

(39:02):

Well, and what I tell people is if they can just stay at a 30,000 foot level and look attheir body as a lab and just do some experiments with, huh, let's see how I sleep. IfI don't drink alcohol for a couple of days, or let's see if I move my dinner time up by an hour, how does that affect how I feel the next day? And just be willing to be curious because it doesn't have to be a slog.

(39:30):

No. And there's nothing, I mean, you tell me, but I feel like there's nothing set in stone on all this either. There's lots of things to do and lots of things to try. And what will work for one person might not work for another. It really is just like the way I teach weight loss. It was like, yeah, there's these four basics, but there's a lotof nuances and we're going to teach you all the nuances on the inside of the program, and we're going to keep playing with things until you feel like this works for your lifestyle, this fits in with you. And when you start feeling better, you have your magic combination. And that's all we're really looking for.

(40:10):

And I ask people when I talk to 'em initially, do you have any lines in the sand that you're not willing to cross? Don't tell me that you're going to give up drinking wineif you're not going to. Not helpful for you or me. Exactly.

(40:28):

Yeah. You were so good about asking me that. And now I'm one of those people that's like, I'll try anything. I literally, I have taught myself, I think because when I weighed two 50, I thought I had a lot of lines in the sand.

(40:45):

There was so much about my life, I would've swore like, I'll always eat this way. I'll need ice cream every night. There were a thousand things that I would've said back then are my non-negotiables. But as I felt better, as I started changing how I thought about myself, a lot of my lines started disappearing. I started really realizing I don't want any lines in the sand. I want to try a lot of things. First I wantto figure out, the way I like to think about it is I don't draw a line in the sand until after I've tried something. If I've tried something and it didn't work or I really didn't like it, now I know I don't like to be the person who predetermines their lives

(41:24):

Before they've even tried something. But that's where the curiosity comes in.

(41:29):

Exactly.

(41:30):

I'm willing to just be curious about my body and what makes a difference and whatdoesn't.

(41:36):

Yeah. Alright, well tell 'em where they can find you. I'm sure they're going to be like, where's your magic doctor?

(41:44):

So my website is Dr. Anna Garrett, two r's in two ts.com, and I have a quiz on therewhere you can have a little, it's like, I don't think it's 15 or 16 questions, and it'll sort of stratify you as to where you might be in the perimenopause process. And then you can also download the first chapter of my book for free. My book is called Perimenopause the Savvy Sisters Guide to Hormone Harmony, and it's an easy read. It's written for people that don't have a medical background, and it'll give you some great ideas about where you can start to help yourself.

(42:27):

All right. Well, there you go, everyone. Thank you for coming on and talking to us. Thanks for having me, all this stuff.

(42:33):

Yeah, thanks for having me.

(42:34):

All right, y'all have a good week. I'll talk to you soon. Do you want to lose weight in2024 and keep it off? Well, here's something you need to know before you jump on the next diet bandwagon. 80% of people drop their New Year's resolutions by the end of the second week of February. Even January 19th is dubbed quitters day for people who start diets. Listen, I want to help you break free from diets that keep failing us. Let's focus on losing weight in a way that works for our life. The key is simplicity. A plan that you can stick to, even when life throws curve balls like a badday, last minute dinner invites, or days where your self-doubts are running on repeat in your head. You see diets fail because they don't consider our real lives. If a diet can't stand up to those tough moments, it's not right for you.

(43:27):

And that's why I created the How to Lose Weight in 2024 Workshop where you'll create a simple 12 week plan that will give you the exact steps to make weight losseasier. Imagine starting 2024 eating food you love with control instead of impulse or abandonment. Truly believing this is your year to lose the weight for good. Adopting weight loss habits that don't require an iron will to maintain setting up your kitchen and support system to help not screw up your food choices. So join me in the How to Lose Weight in 2024 workshop, and in just 12 weeks, people will be asking you, how did you do it? You'll be enjoying life eating foods you love and feeling great all while others are still chasing fad diets. In this workshop, you will set a 12 week goal that challenges you without freaking you out because it's too big or too hard.

(44:22):

You'll find your inner motivation that inspires you. When you're tired and stressed out, you'll build a 12 week plan that's easy to follow, that keeps you and keeps you going. When that initial excitement wears off, you'll prep your mind, your environment, and your support system so you're triggered to keep going instead of triggered to eat. And you'll learn how to track the right data so you can keep making improvements and losing weight. And guess what? You'll get lifetime access to the workshop replays. So if you've got plans for December 30th, no worries. You can do the workshop anytime you want. It's time to learn the secrets that traditional diet programs don't teach you. So what's it going to be? Continue with the same old bullshit. Or join me for a new way to lose weight, a way that tackles all the reasons you've struggled with before. Decide now is 2024 going to be your year of change. I'm here to show you how to do it, ready for a transformation. Head on over to no bs weightloss.com/ 2024 dash workshop for all the details, and to register for How to Lose Weight in 2024 Workshop. That's NOBS weight loss.com/ 2 0 2 4 dash workshop. See you there.