The I Am [Dot. Dot. Dot.] Podcast

Ep#54 Thrive in Menopause: Unlock Holistic Hormone Solutions with Jessica Green

• Kristen Werner & Mia Steel • Season 1 • Episode 54

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Welcome to this week’s episode where we sit down with Jessica Green, an award-winning integrative health practitioner and coach who specialises in helping midlife women navigate the complexities of hormonal balance and health rejuvenation. Join us as Jessica shares her transformative journey from personal health struggles to becoming a beacon of hope for women facing similar challenges.

Jessica’s Health Journey:

  • Discover how Jessica overcame autoimmune conditions, digestive issues, and hormone imbalances to regain her vitality.
  • Learn about her transition from a stressful corporate life to becoming a sought-after health coach, helping other women in their midlife transitions.

Functional Medicine Insights:

  • Jessica discusses the advantages of functional medicine assessments over standard medical tests, shedding light on thyroid issues and adrenal fatigue that often go undiagnosed.
  • Explore how personalised health strategies can uncover and address overlooked health issues, leading to better overall well-being.

Holistic Approaches to Health:

  • Delve into the practical aspects of adopting holistic health methods, including the integration of Chinese medicine and other alternative healing practices.
  • Understand how these approaches contribute to a deeper understanding of one’s body and foster better health outcomes.

Empowering Midlife Women:

  • Be inspired by Jessica’s emphasis on empowerment and positive health messaging, encouraging women to take proactive steps towards revitalizing their energy and passion.

 Don’t miss this powerful discussion that's sure to inspire and empower.

For more wellness insights: Jessica Green Wellness

Follow Jessica on social media for daily health tips and inspiration: @jessicagreenwellness

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Speaker 1:

We have a special guest we know you are going to love today. Jess Green is an award-winning integrative health practitioner and health coach. Now she specializes in helping women in their midlife, so she definitely resonated with me and I. She's all about hormonal balance, revitalizing energy and rekindling the passion for your vibrant life. She has an incredible backstory as to why she got into this space but, more importantly, the information she shares with us today is absolutely brilliant. Now, all the details about Jess are in the show notes, but we are going to jump in because this chat is something that I know you are not going to want to miss. The amount of time Mia and I were like oh yeah, that sounds like us. Oh yeah, that sounds like us. So please buckle in and enjoy this interview with Jess Absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 2:

I'm Mia, a mum of two, a former burnt out ambo who sold it all to Travel Australia in the caravan and turned a single TikTok idea into a six-figure content creation business, leveraging UGC.

Speaker 3:

And I'm Kristen, also a mum of two, with over 15 years experience in branded marketing. I went from the corporate world to being made redundant and decided to back my idea of starting a branding business and a successful wedding venue side hustle generating six figures, all whilst living on the vineyard.

Speaker 2:

One random DM between us sparked more than just a friendship. It ignited a passion to mentor women online around the world.

Speaker 3:

We know what it takes to make it work online, and we're here to show you what's possible.

Speaker 2:

In less than 12 months we built a six-figure membership together. And here's the kicker we have not met in person yet. That is a kicker.

Speaker 3:

We're here to show you the power of reoccurring revenue and how achievable it really is. We don't sugarcoat things around here. We talk about the real shit, the good shit and the bullshit.

Speaker 1:

So buckle up, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 3:

Let's go mind me. So I was going to jump straight in and introduce you to our very special guest today. Jess Green is joining us. Now. Jess is a member of the Business by Design community, which is a community that Mia and I are members of as well, and it's kind of how we connected in the first place. But what we love about, and why we brought Jess on the podcast to chat to you, is we're going to hear her incredible story, but she's talking all things transforming your midlife, rebalancing your hormones, regaining energy, restoring passions all the things that Mia and I have constant chats about in this whole potential perimenopausal stage and the fact that being a content creator and an entrepreneur is freaking hard. And, jess, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 4:

Oh, thank you so much for that introduction. I love that.

Speaker 1:

You're very welcome.

Speaker 4:

Great to be here, by the way, and I really love your energy and your podcast, so I'm so excited.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, and I think for us, first and foremost is just to ask you where your journey started and maybe what got you to where you are. So if you want to just do a quick introduction of what you do and what your purpose and your passion are, I suppose, and then we'll kind of deconstruct it in terms of where you started and why you started there, mia, and I love to understand people's why and what really drives you to do what you do.

Speaker 3:

So, if you want, to give everyone a bit of a roundup of what your business is and what you're passionate about. That'd be amazing, Sure.

Speaker 4:

Well, I'm an integrative health practitioner level two and health coach, and all that means is that I use functional medicine lab testing in my practice to help kind of put on my Sherlock Holmes hat, so to speak, and help really find out what the underlying root causes are of a certain imbalance. So you talked about perimenopause, for instance, perimenopause symptoms. There's a lot of crossover and overlap. So it could be perimenopause, it could be a thyroid issue, it could be a metabolic issue, it could be adrenal fatigue, it could be all these different things. Which one is it or are there multiple ones? Which one is it or are there multiple ones? So, instead of guessing and doing a bunch of stuff based on a guess, it's really helpful to incorporate these functional medicine lab tests so that I could get clear on it's a thyroid issue, it's not a sex hormone issue, or it's a? Oh my gosh, you've stressed yourself out so much. That's why your sex hormones have gone down. It's the stress piece which is most women that.

Speaker 3:

I work with. I feel like in this chat, mira and I are just going to be like okay, so can you just diagnose us?

Speaker 2:

And I feel like it's deeper than just what the GPs will do. Well, just look at their regular bloods and just kind of brush you off. So you go a bit further.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I'm really, you know, as a health coach and an integrative health practitioner, that's subclinical is my area of expertise. It's the mystery symptoms, the things that aren't bad enough to really put a diagnosis on. These are the things that I really love to dig into. It could just be like I can't sleep, or I just don't have energy, I wake up tired, or I just want to take a nap in the afternoon, or I'm gaining weight around my midsection, or I'm sweating at night, or, you know, it could be all these different things and you don't know until you do a little bit of digging.

Speaker 4:

And the usual lab tests, the usual blood tests that you run with your GP, doesn't always paint the whole picture. Maybe they're not testing the right things, or maybe they're just using blood and they should be using urine, waste, metabolites, or they should be using a stool sample, or they should be. You know there could be other things that they should be checking, but maybe they're not. So, yeah, the functional medicine lab tests that I use, they're my favorite, and a lot of them are also available in Australia as well, so it's not just US based, and so, yeah, that's what I do, so I help women over 40 really navigate this crazy roller coaster. Level it all out like make it easier to navigate right, rebuild that energy, get better sleep. Do all the things to help them to really thrive during this time. I mean it's crazy. So right now, you'd mentioned you have kids. I'm 50 years old. I have an eight-year-old.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 4:

I need energy for my eight-year-old and I've got aging parents and I've got a business. A lot of women in this age range will also be working a job. They'll have a full-time career. They're trying to make great advancements at this age. Your director level, senior director level, VP, and you have all the other stuff to deal with. It could be really, really stressful and when you don't have enough energy to get through it all and like really good, healthy, sustainable energy, it could just make everything so much harder.

Speaker 3:

You're speaking straight to my soul and I'm like, oh my god, I don't have energy. Give me the energy. Where's the energy? So that's why I'm so excited about our conversation.

Speaker 2:

I think, as women too, we like I don't know if we like to, we just do it. We just put more and more on our plate. You know just to, you know live up to, you know standards, or you know expectations, and next minute we just know standards or you know expectations and next minute we just keep building and building until all of a sudden we have a mental breakdown and it kind of just all comes crashing down. So I guess you sort of help women catch that before they get to that point where it's just like too much, and try and figure out what's going on now so you can implement things to, yeah, get past that.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, absolutely. I want women that I work with to have really fulfilling, happy midlifes and just really set themselves up for success as they age into the future. I absolutely want to live to be 100 and then I just want to die in my sleep like that. Absolutely want to live to be 100. And then I just want to die in my sleep like that. I want to have all the energy and the mental capacity to do all the things that I want to do the travel, the play, the energy to see grandkids one day and play with those grandkids Like I want all of that. I want to be able to chase after a toddler.

Speaker 4:

These are the things that are really important to me to really live my life to the fullest, and that means really focusing on the things that will create really great longevity healthy, happy longevity. Not just slapping band-aids on symptoms until I end up in a hospital and bedridden. That is not my plan at all. Yeah, I don't want anyone else to have to go through that either. I want us to all really thrive yeah, and so was there.

Speaker 3:

if we go back a bit, was there a a moment in your life like how long have you a done this for? And was there a moment where you decided I want to take charge of this and so I'm going to do the research and the learning to do so, or did you kind of fall into it, or did it come like where did it all start? So that because I then want to go into kind of how can we, how does somebody work with you? But I really want to understand, at what point did you go? This is my life's work, because you know I want it to and did it did you have a change somewhere, a shift to get into that?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, absolutely. It was just a series of health challenges that popped up, so, um, and it started slowly. And that's the thing with health is that these little things could pop up very slowly. And for me it started out with oh, in my 30s actually. So in my 30s my sex hormones had tanked. I had really low energy, low libido. I started gaining weight Like I had never been heavy before. That just hasn't been me.

Speaker 4:

I'm kind of a Vata body type, sort of naturally slender. So for me to put on 30 pounds, it just felt weird and I had massive brain fog. I had all of these symptoms totally brushed them off, brushed them under the rug. I went through a good portion of my days just ignoring these symptoms. I'm like I'm not exercising enough, that's it. I'm just not exercising enough. I'm eating too much calories in, calories out, so not true, by the way. And so I got to this point where you know, I'm feeling kind of so, so better than I had in my early 30s. I was in my late 30s and I found a lump in my throat and I'm like holy, fucking shit, can I say?

Speaker 3:

that Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

Don't cuss too much, but that was a cussing moment right there. So I'm like I have no idea. I never go to the doctors, I never need to go to the doctors. And then all of a sudden it's like I'm going to the doctors with a lump in my throat. What it was was I was diagnosed with goiter and Hashimoto's.

Speaker 4:

I'm like what the hell is Hashimoto's? I don't know what this is. What's a thyroid? What is a thyroid? I didn't know what a thyroid was. I had no clue whatsoever. So I asked the doctor. I said was Like I had no clue whatsoever. So I asked the doctor. I said well, okay, well, how do I reverse it? You know there's got to be something lifestyle diet, whatever. You know, what can I do? It's like, oh no, we're just going to wait until it gets big enough so that we end up having to cut out your thyroid. That was his answer. I kid you not. And that's how a lot of allopathic medicine works. It's like I am just waiting to the point that I need to cut something out of your body if it's bothering you enough. And I got on levothyroxine. Sure, that doesn't do anything to really heal the thyroid, right. It doesn't do anything to bring down TPO antibody.

Speaker 4:

So I did digging, I kept on digging and I became really I don't want to say obsessed, but I kind of was a little bit like every time during lunchtime. At the time, I was a sustainable building consultant. That was my previous career Cool career, right, but a lot of stress still and so I was spending my mornings doing that. I was spending my lunchtime doing all this research. I took a deep dive. I really dove deeply into the food piece too, because I was having digestive issues at the same time and figured out I had food sensitivities. I just kept on going down this rabbit hole and I spent tens of thousands of dollars on crazy therapies. I went so I, I saw so many doctors. I got into naturopathic doctors, functional medicine doctors like I just kept on going down this rabbit hole, different therapies, you name it.

Speaker 4:

I did it and yeah, and finally I just thought, oh my gosh, jessica, you know, the only thing that you haven't done is quit your corporate job, and yeah, and so I'm like, yeah, this is a source of stress. I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel. There must be something to this. And you know what, while I'm taking a break my version of a break was gutting and renovating a house at the time, you know, and that's like that's about right. Yeah, so that was my break. And it was.

Speaker 4:

It was break and at the same time decided, well, I think I'll just get certified in culinary, um, wellness, cooking, uh. So I did that. And then I'm like, huh, iin keeps on popping up on my feed and that it's a health coaching program and I'm like, yeah, this sounds perfect, health coaching. Yeah, and uh, that was a nice introduction. But then I dug a little bit more. At the time I was a part of another, you know online mastermind group and I don't know I was somehow. I was introduced into IHP integrative health practitioner program and I'm like this is really cool. This is taking a deep dive, functional medicine lab tests. I've done so many of those. I would love to be able to understand them in more depth and do my own research.

Speaker 4:

And this was a really a big turning point for me, so up to this point. So I had Hashimoto's. I kept on changing my diet, but I kept getting worse. I had pre-diabetes on changing my diet, but I kept getting worse. I had prediabetes. I had gout at one time. Didn't know what that was from. It's from oxalates. And then I lost my hair. I lost 70% of my hair due to another autoimmune condition called alopecia areata and oh my gosh, yeah, it just kept on adding up and adding up and I couldn't get pregnant and I was really trying hard and then my mother got cancer and then she passed away. And I'm like this is just dumb. Why am I not focusing all of my energy on getting better, getting healthier, making sure that I don't go down that route? What else can I do? That was um man. That was. That was years ago at this point and it was really um. It was life changing.

Speaker 4:

I put my alopecia areata into remission twice actually and got the TPO antibodies down to normal range. They came back up with mold exposure when we were living in Munich, but then I put it into remission. About six months it took me to put the alopecia areata into remission. I just I need to do a little bit of mold clearing and then I should be good on the TPO antibodies. But you know, it's been a journey and I don't have brain fog. I dropped that inflammatory weight. My digestive system is doing really well. I can't eat gluten. I probably never will, and that's okay with me. I don't really miss it. But I could eat other things now, including like black pepper and honey. You know I couldn't eat those for the longest time. Black pepper and honey.

Speaker 4:

Yeah yeah. There's so many different food chemicals, like not manmade, but like things that plants produce and or that just get produced naturally through the aging process, and some people could be really sensitive to those, and I was just sensitive to everything at one point. So that's. That's kind of been my journey. It's just been one thing piling on top of the other and it's like, oh my gosh, this is a perfect example of how your body starts sending signals that something is off. And it's not mistakes that your body is making. It's saying you need to slow down, let's make you tired.

Speaker 4:

Let's say you know you're too stressed out. You can't have babies. Your, your rain barrel is full, so to speak. We're going to make you lose your hair, we're really going to shut you down and so your body keeps sending you signals and you don't want to get up to that point.

Speaker 4:

So I love to catch people a little earlier, before their hair falls out or they get another autoimmune condition. Ideally, though, I work with women with autoimmune conditions. I love to catch women before they get there. Now let's address the stress that was big when I quit my corporate job.

Speaker 3:

It was big. Did you notice a difference, like quite quickly when you quit, just in kind of a general health? Did you notice a difference in you straight away? I would say, because I think it's a stress that we don't think is there, because it's bringing in good money and it's doing all those good things for us, but the weight that we carry because it's something that we may not enjoy or something so high stress, I don't think we actually give enough weight to.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's a really good question. So for me it actually took a really long time to regulate my nervous system again, to calm my nervous system. So what can happen is that, um, you can get so dysregulated with this constant stressors, and they could be small stressors. They don't need to be big stressors. It could be little things, like people criticizing your work. It could be feeling judged. It could be feeling rejected, feeling not a part of something, feeling lonely, disconnected. It could be just doing the same thing day after day and feeling like you're just living your past again and again.

Speaker 4:

It could be loud noises, just noise pollution around you. It could be air pollution. It could be other pathogens that could cause physical stressors, like parasites, for instance and I know in Australia that's actually kind of a big thing and so it could be like these little things that keep on going. They're chronic stressors so they constantly put your body into a fight or flight mode and it could just get stuck there. Dysregulated nervous system could have trouble getting out of that. So it took me months and months and months of work to get out of that mode.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

So it wasn't a quick flip the switch and I wouldn't expect anyone to go from stress to oh, just meditate and breathe and you'll be fine in a week.

Speaker 2:

And I think, having the insight to do that, a lot of people, you know I can't quit my job. I've got the mortgage of, you know, and you push everything to the side because you push your health to the side, because you're just so focused on paying the bills and staying in your corporate career. Or, like me, I was a paramedic for years and it just, you know, when I had kids, I just had to get out of that because my I was just so wrecked from that. And I relate with so much stuff that you're saying I've got, you know, the thyroid nodules, I've got PCOS, my weight has never been, you know, this high before, and it's just like all this stuff. Just I think it just comes to a point where you just sort of got to say I've got to actually do something about this, otherwise I'm not going to be able to be there for my kids, I'm not going to be able to make money because I'm just going to be so burnt out.

Speaker 2:

But I think, as mothers too, we sort of tend to put all of our focus on being the mum and doing all the things and all that mental load that our health kind of falls behind until something happens and then you might go because you know, like you said, you're tired or I can feel a lump on my neck and they sort of brush it off and I'm the same. Oh, we'll just watch it, we'll just get biopsies every six months, just to you know, see how it's going. And I think a lot of women who aren't, you know, really intuitive with all this stuff, they just trust the doctor and say, okay, I'll just keep going with what I'm doing here. So do you sort of with your marketing and what you do with your business, do you sort of try and direct your messaging to women to try and catch them and make them realize, hey, something's going on here.

Speaker 4:

You've got to do something about it now. Is that how you market your services? Yeah, I really try to, um, I really try to. I started out pointing out like the negatives, like and you know there's so many things that you can talk about right On the negative side, you could talk about parasites. You have parasites. If you feel like this, you could have gut dysbiosis or candida overgrowth. If you feel like this, you could have gut dysbiosis or candida overgrowth. If you feel like this, if you've been on birth control, definitely candida. If you, you know, have a pet, yeah, you've got parasites. Uh, you could, you could go down that negative road and, uh, I did.

Speaker 4:

For the longest time, and more and more recently, I've been feeling like I want to have more of a positive messaging around self-care and around energy and just more awareness around what you might consider normal is not optimal. Your new normal is just, you know, you kind of went down a slippery slope, but you should be up here and I really like to paint a picture of, um, you know, a midlife woman with energy and passion, and and and also give them hope. Hope that, uh, they have total control over every single choice, total control, and so it's really up to them. I want everyone to feel empowered, and it's hard to do if somebody keeps on giving you negative messages and making you scared, and I don't like the tactic of scaring people into working with me. I think that that just feels so yucky, and when I have conversations with women, it's about you know. It's. It's more about well, what would you like to have happen? Let's think about that, paint a picture there. Yes, absolutely, I can help you with that.

Speaker 2:

And this is how I work.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, showing people and I think the power of you even saying things like I can help you get more energy. I'm like, okay, talk to me, how do I do?

Speaker 3:

that like that in itself is is magic and magnetism to. I think who you really, I assume, want to work with is those women that, like me and myself, we want to feel better. We want to, and I know our whole community would be the same. I'm not looking for what's wrong with me. I, I'm looking for wait. There's a way that I can feel more energetic, there's a way that I can enjoy this space. Tell me more so. Where does somebody come to you, your ideal customer? If you could paint that picture right now. What's the process? What happens? How do they work with you, and then what do you do? I'd love you to kind of illustrate what happens so that we can understand what's possible for us in this space.

Speaker 4:

Sure, well, usually we just start with booking a chat, because when we're working together and this is for working one-on-one with me especially, but booking a chat to just see if we're a good match and I love working with women who want to take action they don't have to be the type A personality where they do absolutely everything, but they just have to want to make some changes, even if it's slow and steady. It could be slow and steady, that's okay. Slow and steady, it could be slow and steady, that's okay. And they have to be willing to make changes, because if you do the same thing day after day, nothing will change at all. And so I really want to work with women who want to make some changes, but not just external changes, but also changes internally as well.

Speaker 4:

So we might talk about everything from, not just external changes, but also changes internally as well. So we might talk about everything from, not just in the chat, but working together. We'll talk about their environment Is it supportive? Are their relationships supportive? What about the food? Of course, that's really important too. And really getting over that hump and that mindset that fat is bad, carbs are good, more calories out than in, you know, all of those things that we've just been conditioned to do. I really need to be able to sort of start to shift their thinking around that, because that's not going to give them the optimum health that they really want them the optimum health that they really want. And then, with the internal mindset you know, it could be as simple as working through triggers and limiting beliefs and just creating more of a dialogue with themselves around self-love, because I've noticed a lot of high achieving women are really hard on themselves.

Speaker 4:

And they even have trouble saying I love you to themselves in the mirror.

Speaker 4:

I can't do, it Just can't do it so really starting to shift that so that they take care of themselves in a way that's very loving, instead of a way that's really forceful, like I don't want you to punish yourself. It shouldn't feel like a punishment that you're not eating ice cream every night. It should feel like, oh my gosh. No, I feel like crud, you know, eating ice cream every night. I want really good health, okay, so I'm helping them get more in tune with what their body really wants, rather than maybe cravings and things of that sort. So when a woman works with me, one-on-one especially, I also like to incorporate functional medicine lab tests, so we'll do that as a part of the practice, just so that I could get them really dialed in for a roadmap that works for them Now I'm incredibly not on that side.

Speaker 3:

Mia may understand what that means, but for everyone that has no idea what that means, could you explain to us what the process is that you do with a medical grade lab test, Because I'm creative and I don't have any medical knowledge?

Speaker 4:

Okay, okay, okay. So I had mentioned functional medicine. Lab tests check more of the subclinical imbalances. So lab tests the ones that we get from our doctor they're really designed to identify this turning point where you have a disease. So they're looking for disease markers is what they're doing. Are your cholesterol levels bad enough that we need to put you on a set? Are your A1C levels, like sugar levels? Are they high enough we need to put you on metformin? They're looking for things that might say, oh, you need this lifestyle drug or that lifestyle drug. They're doing a lot of that. What I'm saying is that these functional medicine lab tests dig much more deeply than that. Lab tests dig much more deeply than that because what we're really doing is trying to identify the whys of all of that.

Speaker 4:

So it's not that I want to diagnose anyone because I can't. That's not my field. I'm not a medical professional. I'm a health coach, essentially, and so what I'm really looking forward for is do you have gut microbiome imbalances? Are there indications that you're really sensitive to oxalates? How are your neurotransmitters doing? Do you look like you're stressed? Is that a clue? Oh, maybe you're deficient in B6 and B12. And now I know and this could also mean that you're low in magnesium.

Speaker 4:

These are all these different nutrients that your body really needs in order to detox your liver, to metabolize estrogen properly, to build up progesterone. We love these right. So there's all these things. It's not enough to say you're low in estrogen and progesterone. Let's just give you HRT. No, why? Why are you low? You're low in nutrients. Your liver is stagnant. Stress is affecting you in negative ways. Let's get to that lower level so that way we can rebalance the body as naturally as possible. And I'm not against HRT. But if you're throwing that on and your liver's not doing its job because it's missing all this other stuff, that HRT isn't going to feel good to you.

Speaker 2:

It's just a band-aid.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think the thing is when you see the doctor too, they might tell you oh, you have PCOS, or you have pcos, or you have this. It kind of just ends there. They don't tell you how to reverse it or how to feel.

Speaker 4:

It's either a prescription or let's just watch and wait and see what happens yeah, exactly, and the thing is is that pcos could be from a number of things. It could be really you have insulin resistance, because insulin resistance and PCOS go hand in hand, but doctors don't check for insulin resistance. So you might have gotten a diagnosis for PCOS, but what if it's really insulin resistance? So I like to do that digging. It's like, oh, we've got to find out exactly what is happening.

Speaker 3:

So is that through a blood test? Sorry, or is that a different way that you figure that out? How does that happen? If it's say it was us in Australia and you're all the way overseas? How does that work in the client relationship?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so I still use the same lab tests. They do ship over there. The only test that I can't do over there is a stool test, which I usually don't run anyway. But urine, waste, metabolite tests and the tests that I use for sex hormones, for cortisol levels, for insulin, for A1C, for thyroid like a thyroid panel, I include vitamin D, for thyroid, like a thyroid panel, I include vitamin D, and that is a combo test of saliva and blood spots just a finger prick. So it's sometimes it's different.

Speaker 4:

A lot of doctors don't use saliva, or urine is also another option for testing hormones. I usually use the saliva. But yeah, you could do different modes, but it's just. It's a different bucket of information. And what I like about this is that, when it comes to hormones especially, is that sometimes you're you know how.

Speaker 4:

You put a pot in soil and say, if you have a dry pot with soil in it that's really dry and you have wet soil around it, what happens? If it's a terracotta pot, it's just going to absorb some of the water from the outside and then if it was really wet on the inside, then it'll shove water out to the dry areas around it. And when it comes to certain markers like sex hormones and cortisol levels. That's kind of what happens with the blood is that it's sort of mitigating what's in the tissue. So you don't know if it's exactly bioavailable hormones that you're checking with the blood. It could be spot on, it could be a little off and we're not talking great amounts, but it could be just a little bit off. So when we look at saliva and urine, for instance, those are just going to be giving us different information. It's going to be telling us a little bit more about what's usable in your body.

Speaker 3:

Wow, it's amazing. It's incredible and I think it's one of those things that I personally have always been a big believer in. I like to go to a doctor to find out what's wrong, but I also do believe that there's more Like. I had a Chinese medicine acupuncturist once. That was a woman, she was incredible, and I met with her once and she basically told me she's like don't write anything in this piece of paper, I want to just figure this out. And she figured it out and I was like how did you do that? She's like it's just the way that this happened and this on your tongue, and then this, this here, and I was like it blew me away because it I always believed in it.

Speaker 3:

But part of me was has always been brought up in the Western medicine that you know you go to the doctor and the doctor says and he says antibiotics, so you take antibiotics. And I'm now at that point where I'm like I just I want to feel better and I know there's a different way. And after kind of going through that process with her, it blew my mind what she could tell me about myself without having to do anything. And I think even I went there after I had my son and he was an emergency cesarean and I hadn't seen her for about a month or two and mom said just go and see her and just see how you feel. Anyway, I went there and I had told no one I lost litres of blood. Like my husband was pretty scared that something was going to happen.

Speaker 3:

And I got there and she just looked at me and she kind of run her hands over me and she did a couple of things and then she said to me you lost a lot of blood when you had your son, didn't you? And I was like, yeah, and she's like I mean a lot. And I was like, yeah, and she's like we're going to fix that because that hasn't been fixed. And I was like like nobody but him knew that. Not even mum knew that. And I was like just from what she did. And I was like okay, there's something much bigger at work here that you know. Which is what I love about what you do, because as a woman, I think we all want to feel better, but the first thing you do is just go to the doctor or I'll just get my wellness potions here and there and that'll be fine and I'll just keep on keeping on, but I love that you can actually break it down and help us solve problems in a way that we will naturally and mentally feel better.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a lot of education too. Too, I think, because we're not any of these things, we don't talk about it. You know, I think more and more menopause and that like it's, we're starting to talk about it more, but growing up, you know, I don't know, no one talks about it yeah do you have?

Speaker 4:

sharing information is really important and helpful educating but also really empowering women to know their bodies and be able to stop and say, to understand when a doctor is giving you a red flag or maybe just not getting you, not understanding. And I really want women to trust themselves, trust their bodies, but you just have to give them some tools to understand how to listen. That's it. Just to raise that awareness and to give them feedback. Yes, you are on the right track and I can see that. I could see that through the symptoms, I could see that through the testing and just that empowerment to let women know that their body sends signals all the time and when they listen and then act on it, game changer like sustainable health moving forward. And that's what I really wish for all of my clients is. When they stop working with me, all they have to do is like I got off track. I remember exactly what I'm supposed to do and they'll happily go back to it. It's like raising a baseline to a new level.

Speaker 3:

I love that, and so if there's women listening now which I know there will be, that they're curious could you give them some things to not red flags, but things to look out for that they should kind of go? This isn't normal. Maybe I'll go further, whether it's contacting you, jess, or finding somebody else in this space that they're comfortable with. Could you give us like three or five things that we, as women, should look out for? That isn't always normal, I know there's no normal, but what are some things in your time that you could say? These are things that are brought up that we should be aware of, I suppose.

Speaker 4:

Yes, oh, my gosh, okay. So the brain fogginess that's a big one. So this could feel like not remembering what you did the other day, like yesterday, like that used to be me Not connecting your mouth to your thoughts, like hearing a conversation, kind of understanding it, but not being able to get words out. That is brain fog. Oh, it's so bad. Maria and I are like okay, noted.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so that's a brain fog thing. And then the weight gain when you haven't changed anything with your diet and exercise routine. That's a. That's a shift. Something is going on in your body. You got to pay attention. Any little aches and pains that you have in your body could even be in your pinky finger, like just that chronic little weird ache or pain. That is inflammation. It's coming from something Sweating at night. You shouldn't have night sweats. It could be from parasites. It could be from hormone imbalances. It could be from your liver being stagnant. Maybe you ate too much at night or maybe you drank too much at night. So those are key things.

Speaker 4:

Migraines and headaches those are another thing. That is really a signal, I think. With migraines especially, people just say, oh, I have migraines, they just accept it. I have migraines, yeah, why? Let's get curious. Why do you have migraines? And then mood If your mood is chronically low or if you find yourself losing it, you know just being really impatient, having big mood swings.

Speaker 4:

Don't dismiss it. Don't let anyone say, oh, you're just hormonal. No, no, this is something that's going on in your body. We've got to find out what that is. What's going on with you, and work with that.

Speaker 4:

The last thing I want to just say I don't know if we're like on number six, but feeling like you're stuck on a hamster wheel, that every day is the same and that there's no joy in that. That is not necessarily a physical thing, that is an emotional, mental thing, and it's really important not to be in that state. I like habits Sure, I have habits, but if you're trying to feel better or get better or do more, be more, feeling stuck on a hamster wheel, like every day is the same and you're kind of depressed about it, that needs to change too. Don't let yourself slip into that, and I can help with all of those things. That's like things that I just commonly see with women, things that I've seen with myself as well. So, speaking from experience, those are things that I love to work on and women can absolutely work with. There are other integrative health practitioners in Australia, if they want to work on, and women can absolutely work with. There are other integrative health practitioners in Australia If they want to work with someone in Australia.

Speaker 4:

I work with women all over the world Functional medicine, lab tests that I brought up. They're definitely available US, australia, most of Europe. Some countries are a little off um with that, but most countries are on board with those and um, yeah. And then food digging deep into food and I am not a prescriber that one diet fits all. I really like to play around with things and I'm really big on nutrient density of foods that we eat. If you're going to eat something, it should be something of value. So I do a lot of work around that and then fine tuning based on symptoms and other things that I'm seeing in women.

Speaker 3:

And how do you find I'm curious because I know myself in terms of and I'm sure I speak for many a woman that's going great. I love this, but is this something that's going to be another thing I have to do? Am I going to be able to cope with redoing my shopping and my food habits and things like that? Or do you do it in a way that it's kind of baby steps and we'll try this and see how that goes and like, instead of that, that overwhelming thing of I have to now overhaul my entire shopping list and I have to recook everything and I don't even have time to cook for my family now is do you do it in a way that's the subtle and soft that allows us, as busy moms and busy women, to be like I can do one thing, and if I can see a difference there, I'll do two things. Is that how it works?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I pretty much start with wherever a woman is at. So, and this shouldn't be overwhelmed. So if just the thought of having sessions with me every other week and making tiny adjustments feels overwhelming, there's another area that they need to start at and I could help reduce some of that overwhelm, but it really that's a lot of pre-work to do. So if you're feeling like you know what I am overwhelmed, I'm willing to start dropping things because I need to work on this. We could definitely work in that because at least there's like an open window, it's like an invitation. I am overwhelmed, but I'm willing to take an hour of my time every other week to meet with you. I'm willing to start to make shifts. I need to know how I could do it in a way that feels sustainable For one of my clients.

Speaker 4:

She was just exhausted. She had to take a nap every day. She couldn't go out on runs. There was so much chronic pain. So where I started with her is working on that energy and that sleep, and we did that rather quickly. So those were the first keys. With more energy, she could cook a dinner. That's key and with what we did, she was able to sleep Two major switches that allowed her to not feel overwhelmed with the other things that we worked on, and now she's reduced her inflammation so much. Her back pain is gone and she had chronic knee pain as well. That's gone. So now she could. She's more mobile and then she could do more of the activities that we talked about. So these are like the little baby steps, so I look for quick wins. First, what's your biggest pain point? Let's work on that so that you could take the next step and keep going.

Speaker 3:

And that sounds ideal in terms of. I suppose, where most women are probably at is those little changes, a huge difference, like getting more energy and things like that. You have, like the what can steamroll from there is unbelievable in terms of just a little bit more energy, now I can cook a meal and I want to and I enjoy it and yeah. So I think that in itself is such an incredible way to understand your process. For those people that are like, okay, that is achievable now, if I can just get those quick wins on the board to just keep moving, I think is amazing, so absolutely unbelievable. I feel like Mia and I are going to hang up and be like so should we call Jess back and be like can we book some time?

Speaker 2:

What I was going to get into is when you know you do your first chat with your clients, what do you then offer them? Do you have a course where you have sort of these more of these one-on-one focused sessions over a few months? What do you offer inside your business and how do you make it work?

Speaker 4:

Right now I'm really focused on the one-on-one coaching. I love that so much. Quarterly, I do open up a group coaching program called Vibrant Midlife Mastery. It's not quite as deep of a dive, but if you're the kind of woman who likes to work with a group, some women like to just work one on one. Other women like to have a bit more of a community. So I do that both ways.

Speaker 4:

But when you book a call with me one on one, what I'm really trying to find out is okay, are we a good match? And also, do we need to modify my coaching program? So my coaching program is every other week. It goes on for four months and then a lot of women will re-sign with me, either meeting just once a month or continuing with the same exact package until they feel like, oh, I could. Just I could do everything. I'm all good.

Speaker 4:

And in addition to that I'll add in the functional medicine lab tests. I've got two that I really love. That kind of cover almost all of the bases. Some women come to me and they're like I already did one of those. Okay, let's do the other one, let's just fill in the missing gap. I'll go ahead. I'll re-review the lab test that you already took with another practitioner. We'll just see in the missing gap. I'll go ahead, I'll re-review the lab test that you already took with another practitioner. We'll just see where you were then and then we'll run this other test and we'll build off of what you have.

Speaker 4:

So, yeah, I'm a little bit flexible in that regard. There's not, again, not one size fits all, but I do feel really strongly that meeting every other week and keeping a momentum going is really important, especially for that first four months. You can have an entirely almost an entirely new body by then, just from cellular turnover, except for your bones, and so a lot can happen in that four month timeframe. So I really like working in the package and the Vibrant Midlife Mastery. That's a shorter program, that is 10 weeks, and we just work. You know every other. Every week there's a new lesson, new module and it's online, and then we also have live calls to go along with it, so that next round will open up in January.

Speaker 1:

Beautiful.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, but I work with one on compliance year round.

Speaker 3:

That is absolutely fantastic. I think you've been a wealth of knowledge and it certainly got me thinking a lot, and I know our community will absolutely love this conversation because it's it's coming from a different place I think that we certainly haven't had conversations about before, and there's there's lots of conversations in the community around perimenopause and you know what help is out there and what people are doing. So I think having another perspective on it is really helpful for women because we are talking about it, thankfully, in a way that is more open than I know our mothers did and their mothers did, and hopefully our daughters get. Well, I've got a daughter, you know. I can have a better conversation with her and she can be a part of the process too in terms of understanding that this is normal and we're just doing our best to sort through it. So I think, yeah, conversations like this are fantastic.

Speaker 3:

So appreciate your time. So so much. Thank you so much. We will put all of your details in our show notes so people can have a look, get to know you follow, you understand it. Probably book a call after this, no doubt.

Speaker 2:

Just that nice reminder to listen to your body and like, oh okay, that's been bugging me for a while now, I've got to do something about it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and so just curious, Mia, because you're from the healthcare, but I also know that you look at this side of it with a really open mind as well. So where do you sit in this kind of space? Just out of curiosity?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm a nurse and got a paramedic background. So I think for me, especially in this, you know, when you become an entrepreneur and your business becomes everything and you know you've got a lot going on I know that I need to take care of myself and I know it all. But it's just putting that, putting everything aside to make that happen and really focus on my health, which is what I struggle with. I'll see the doctor next week. Next month turns into six months and it's just, you know, in the back of my mind and I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably feel like this, especially if you're a mother as well You've got so much going on inside your head. You know, with the business and the kids and the family and the money and everything, that yeah, it does fall behind. But I think if you don't, you know, put it on your to-do list and actually make things happen, you're going to get to a point where you know you're not as good as mum as you want to be. The business is going to start falling behind. You're just going to crumble into a big ball. So, yeah, as much as I do know it's so, so important. It is hard to just make that time and make it happen and go and see the doctor or go and book in with someone like Jess it's. You just have to do it, and I think our community we've got a really beautiful community of lots of women, you know, that are heading into their 40s and beyond that.

Speaker 2:

These types of conversations amongst entrepreneurs and business owners is so, so important, because if you don't feel like you know you can make your business work, then everything around you is going to feel disjointed and crumbling around you as well. So, yeah, I think it, you is going to feel disjointed and crumbling around you as well. So, yeah, I think it's so important to have these conversations in the business world as well, because, yeah, too often we just put our health behind us, and when I was an ambo, I did the same. It was just work. I did the shift work, I did all the big hours, I had to get the money and pay the bills, but I just wasn't listening to my body, even though I was a healthcare professional, you know, telling people that they should stop smoking and stop drinking and do all these things. So, yeah, it's been a good reminder to just listen to your body and, you know, do something about it, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, thank you so much, jess, for your time.

Speaker 3:

We appreciate it so much and have learnt so much and are going to be listening to our bodies, so don't be surprised if you hear from us very soon thank you for inviting me to come on your show and do you want to just let everybody know where they can find you and follow you, even though we'll put it in the show notes so that people can jump on right now and check you out yeah, absolutely, I'm just jessica green wellness and it's jessicagreenwellnesscom, and on facebook and instagram, jessicagreenwellness, and I also have a youtube channel, jessicagreenwellness.

Speaker 4:

That youtube channel is mostly for for talking about metabolic health and trying to flip the conversation from lifestyle drugs to lifestyle changes, lifestyle and dietary changes. But yeah, you can find me, jessica Green Wellness, beautiful.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you so much for your time. We really, really appreciate it and we no doubt will keep following you and probably be in touch.

Speaker 4:

I look forward to it so many good ones too.