A Lot On Your Plate - S6 Ep19: Holistic Health, Hormones & Self-Advocacy with Georgia Ellen Smith

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

This week on A Lot On Your Plate, we’re thrilled to be joined by Georgia Ellen Smith, women’s holistic health and hormone coach. Georgia opens up about her journey - from her experience with hormonal contraception and a PCOS diagnosis to feeling let down by the health system.We dive into everything from self-advocacy and holistic health to periods, contraception, gut health, stress, burnout, and navigating menopause. Plus, Georgia shares some myth-busting, her product recommendations, and expert advice to help you take control of your health ✨We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did! Send us your thoughts and let us know who or what you’d like to hear on ALOYP next!Make sure you subscribe over on Patreon as Georgia will be back with us for a Side Dish episode on Friday answering all of your questions! See you there piggies 💖 patreon.com/ALotOnYourPlate Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Calgary, also known as the Blue Sky City. We get more sunny days than anywhere in the country, but more importantly, we're the Canadian capital of Blue Sky Thinking. This is where bold ideas meet big opportunity, where dreams become reality. Whether you're building your career or scaling your business, Calgary is where what if turns into what's next. It's possible here in Calgary, the Blue Sky City. Learn more at Calgary Economic Development.com.

We are so excited to have Watermans back as our season sponsor. They are the perfect solution for straightforward legal advice. We know lots of you, Podpiggies, are buying your new homes, your first homes, so Watermans are the perfect solution for all of your legal advice. So for straightforward legal advice, remember Watermans. Welcome back. Happy Tuesday. It's another week of a lot on your plate podcast. The best podcast in the world, sisters.

With me, Zoe. And me, Jessica. We've got a really exciting episode for you this week. We have an amazing guest, very overdue, something we all need to learn about. And something we've promised you for a very long time. And it's going to be a good one. And she's come all the way up from London. Buckle up, sisters.

Buckle up sisters. She is fabulous. She's everything that we had envisioned to come onto the podcast. She is an absolute boss babe. She is just having fun with it. It's just not too overwhelming. It's perfect. And we have learned so much on today's episode.

And we're so excited to talk to you about it. But we have the amazing Georgia Ellen Smith on the podcast today. Unbelievable. She is a women's holistic health coach and founder of Balance Boss. She's helping powerhouse women find balance after experiencing severe burnout in her early 20s and being dismissed by the conventional medical system. Georgia took her health into her own hands. Through years of study and healing, she discovered the power of holistic wellness,

nutrition, nervous system support and hormone balance. Wow. Today she helps women reclaim their health power through root cause healing to restore their vitality and truly thrive, baby. Blending science-backed wellness with a no bullshit approach.

Balance boss is a space for support, strategies and sisterhood. Where women reclaim their vibrant, unstoppable selves. Just so we're all about. That is what this place is for. Boom, boom, boom. Oh yeah.

Let's get in and about it. Let's fucking go. Also, before we do that, remember to like, subscribe, comment. Please give us your feedback in this episode because it's really important to us and we want to share it with Georgia as well. And, and, and, and if there's any other guest

you would like us to get on, please let us know. Agree. We have honestly built this podcast for you. This is a community-based podcast and we now have access, luckily, to anyone you possibly want. We will try our very best. and please give us feedback, comment anything if it's been helpful to you or anything that you would like us to look into.

We have the access to try and get them on the pod. Yeah, Georgia also let us know, by the way, that if you want to hear about anything in more depth or if you've got your own situation, you want to chat to her about, you can DM her and she'll try and help you as much as possible. Obviously, you can actually get our services as well, but she's happy to just chat a wee bit with you all as well just because we can only fit so much in. So bloody kind. Anyway, buckle up and enjoy.

And she has also stayed over on the side dish episode as well. So if you'd like to subscribe to Patreon. She has stayed on and answered all of your burning questions. Okay, I'll stop rambling on now and I'll introduce you to the Queen herself. Georgia, welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us. I'm so excited.

It's my first pod, so be easy on me. You will be, don't you worry? How was it? How was the journey? Journey was fine. Yeah, I have my nice little setup. the train. I'm glad I went for the train because you can just get on with stuff

you don't you just... You're a bit of both. Yeah. Airport and anything. Yeah. First time to Glasgow? First time to Glasgow? Is it actually? Yeah. I've only been to Scotland. Well, I actually think I'm half Scottish. Right. I'm one of those people that says she's half anything at least. Isn't everybody in the world half Scottish?

Depends on who you're speaking too. I'm actually half Scottish. I did the ancestry DNA thing. Yeah. And I am like through the middle. I think it's half. I'm not sure if it's Scottish or Irish because my mum keeps like Changing your mind. I think she said like it all links back to this place in Ireland our side, but then that links back to this little place in Scotland. I think that's right.

I think that would make sense. And then I'm half Dutch, but my dad's actually Kiwi, but like his parents are Dutch. Right. So, yeah, my mum's English and he's Kiwi technically. What does that mean? Oh, New Zealander. Yeah, New Zealander. I've never heard that.

What? Really. Kiwi's just a fruit to me. And your sister lives here. Yes. So she lives in the South Side. So I came up last night and we went for a nice walk around Queens Park, is that right? Yes.

It's lovely. It's got so much greenery. It's lovely to see all the hills in the background. And we went for dinner at this place called Maid from Grates and I had. I couldn't believe your stories. I was like, what the... I haven't ever heard of that? It looks gorgeous.

It's very edgy. Yeah. It's cool. I liked it. There's big jars of like fermented pickles. So I was like, this is my place. Yeah. I love a pickle.

So I had a big bowl of pickles. Sardines on the toast. Sardine. Sardo toast. Sardines, underrated fish, every woman should be eating them. I love them. We should be swapping our tuna for our sardines more often. Hear that, Zoe.

I try and tell this stuff all the time. I had a smooth this morning with kiwi the skins on. Amazing. Although your boyfriend, Jason, has that and he eats it like an apple. I've done it as well. Yeah. Yeah, I eat it like an apple. Yeah.

I would do all the things. I just need direction. Yeah. Like I wouldn't think to just fling that in there. Yeah. This is why you're on the podcast. But I'm the sort of person that when I finish an apple, I'd just got that little bit that sticks out at the top of it.

Seriously? To eat all the seeds and all the... All of it. What? Okay, maybe I should start doing that as well then. It's harsh. And pears and everything. It came from a laziness of not going to go to the bin.

No, serious. You can just fling the least like, so we're not doing those. Well, I mean, you can sort of put that then and deal with it later. But like, and then I was like, actually, no, this is good. Just get all of the fibre and, yeah. Fiber is good. I said this is over a couple weeks ago because I've really been trying to switch things up and I've been focusing purely on, or not purely, mainly on fiber and protein and good fats.

And I'm switching things up a lot. I'm having cheer seeds every single day. Amazing. And just really focusing on things and helping my digestive system, you know. And how have you found it? Amazing. Yeah, exactly. I feel so much better.

And your skin's glaring. Thank you very much. So often people just think of like their digestion system when they're thinking about looking after their gut. But your gut and your liver are your detox pathways. So like if you're not looking after those, then toxins aren't getting out of your body. body correctly. So also, you know, that's going to sharpen your face, your skin, your hair everywhere like that. So, yeah. Maybe that was that skinny confidential eyes for all I was using this morning. Exactly. That will also help, yeah. Information. Tell us a little bit because

honestly, we said this a little bit in the intro, but we have wanted to get somebody to come on the podcast for years now. We can say years because it's been. Well, it's actually doing it. Because we'll tell you a little bit about it, but before I had Jensen, I was, used to speak a lot about PCOS or my fertility and I was a little bit concerned never that I I wasn't saying I was actively trying to have a child at all but I did buy a fertility test wasn't it it was like a fertility test never ended up taking it because you'll think I'm pathetic but I was too shit scared to prick my finger it was actually ridiculous so it was pinning me down in the bathroom one day anyway it never happened but when I said it on the podcast the amount of people that wanted to know about

PCOS. I wanted to know about if I ever did the test. And just in general, because I'm quite into health and food, we get a lot of questions about it. But we're not qualified. So I can say what I know in research and what I find well works for me, and then I ended up getting pregnant. But we just thought it would be perfect for to get you on because suck that knowledge out of your gorgeous, glory forehead then. Right. So how did you get into your line of work? Tell us everything. Yeah, okay. So my journey into holistic health really began in my teens. I went on the contraceptive pill when I was about 15, 16, not for contraceptive reasons, but because I was going to wedding festival and I didn't want to have a period in tent. So all us girls were like, let's go on the pill, let's get rid of it.

And it really sort of hijacked my body. I put on a lot of weight very quickly. I was a size, like I'm a tall girl. I was like just a slim girl. I was probably a size eight and I went out to like almost. almost a 14, probably size. Nothing wrong with that, but obviously a big change in my body overnight. And this is a matter of months, like, quickly. This is also that time when you're, like, navigating, turning into a woman anyway, and you've got all of those stresses of body image

when you're in a teens anyway. So it wasn't great. My mood wasn't great. I definitely felt difference in sort of, like, my anxiety, my moods, and I think, not that he probably even knew what uncertainty meant back then, but, you know. And I remember, like, breaking down in tears in a car park once with my mum,

just being like, because I wouldn't eat anything, so I was, like, so scared of putting more weight on. And I came off that pill and I went on a different one. It's not like I even came off, you know, because obviously they were just like, well, here's another one. Yeah, try that one. They didn't really have any answers for me. They were just like, here's another pill.

And then I did start to, like, really think about my diet and get into a better exercise routine and all this. So, like, I then started to follow the routines of Australian Instagram models because Instagram was taking off at this time. So all the – and Australia's always been a bit ahead of the curve in terms of what they were eating. So, you know, all the avocado toasts and everything that's obviously just normal now is not so much then.

But soup tasers, avocado, cheer seeds, all these sort of things are obviously more common now. And I really found a passion for it. And it was actually pretty healthy. Like, I really liked it. The weight started to come off. I really got into, like, a night. I used to go to the gym before school.

And I was getting myself into, like, a really good habit. Then I went to university. And that's when it all started to become less healthy. Yeah. So my parents broke up and went through quite a messy separation when I was at uni. I also had not the romanticised version of university. We go there and it's all just like, oh, fresh as weekend, everyone's like loads, nos of friends.

Didn't really find my feet that well. I went home quite a lot, but when I went home, it was very chaotic. So like all of the stresses of life I found, and then the stresses of just doing a degree and everything. And my mum had a breakdown and turned to addiction, so there was just a lot going on, right? And that is when I really, it became a obsession. And it was like, it was disordered eating.

Like it never got diagnosed as eating disorder, but it was masked a lot by like fitness and things like that. But yeah. I was like, then it was a bit of vicious cycle because I didn't want to go out with my friends. The few friends I did have at uni, I would be like so scared to even leave the house and have an alcoholic drink of how much of calories it was in it or whatever.

But that's why I'm sad for that girl looking back that she like lost those years. Yeah. But anyway, I was having regular periods. because I was on the pill but I was having regular period so I thought in my head so I was like

oh I'm healthy whatever it's all good when left uni went into PR which is a notoriously very stressful career made worse by the fact I was working

for like a complete narcissist and it was like you threw me deep like way in the deep end and I was like highly stressed constantly working I was travelling up from Kent to London back and forth

every day which is just a stressful commute How old are you at this point So when I've left you, 21. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, four years into that, I did come off the pill in that time, probably like maybe a year or so before I started to like investigate what was going on. I came off the pill. But at this point I was, I don't know, like 5% body fat, like very low, 8% something.

Women, just to let you all know, like women shouldn't really go below 18 before our body or hormone. hormones start to sort of dysregulate. And we need fat in our bodies to be able to reduce estrogen and our sex hormones and everything like that. So you can see where this is going. But anyway, I came off the pill and I wasn't having periods. I was also having panic attacks, like, regular. I don't know if any of you or any of your listeners had panic attacks, but like it actually

feels it going to die. So that was really scary. So I started to like look into it a little bit more. And then I went to the doctors and I was just like, look, I'm not having periods. I feel like maybe this isn't right. And they were like, oh, you're probably just too skinny. put some weight on. And I was like, right, okay, I was like, well, okay, but can you just, and also, like,

I didn't see myself as that either at the time. So that's, like, psychologically not what you should be sort of treating women as. Yeah. As if that flippant comment is just going to, you know, they're going to go and do that. But I, yeah, see, I want more tests. So they did blood tests, came back normal. And I was like, okay, well, can you, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners will be hearing that. Oh, they're all normal.

You're all fine. And I was like, okay, well, can I, I want to, like, investigate more. I'm like, okay, we'll book you in for an ultrasound, or an internal scan. And I was like, right, okay, at this point, I'd obviously, Google was my friend, or foe, probably. But I'm going to do you're talking about PCOS, so I'd read up on PCOS, and I was like, right, okay, well, this is, this was pretty much the only thing that was coming up at the time for, like, why you might have in a regular period. So I was like, right, okay, maybe I've got that, but that seems really scary, because, like, everything was just telling you really scary things if you had PCOS. you're going to really struggle to concede if you might grow body hair

in all these places you're going to put weight on and I was like oh my God like what's going on so I was like right so anyway I went out of these scans

and they just weren't speaking to me they were like the woman was doing this scan in this hospital and I was like what's going on like there's no hand holding through the whole process

so it's quite a long winded story but it's all comes at the end and she was looking and she was like right yeah okay they looks like some cysts on there so I'm a really like okay I've got piss for you know

is. And I was like, oh, well, how many, and I had questions, as you would. And she was like, don't ask me questions. Save those for your doctor. And I was like, what? And I was like, right, okay. And I was like, well, does it look like, I might have to show your ovaries? And she was like, well, yeah, maybe, but you have to discuss that with your doctor, not me. And I was like, wow. So I left, obviously, really upset, feeling even more lost. Then went to my doctor. He was like, on his laptop, or not laptop, whatever it was. he was like oh yeah probably probably 60 ovaries yeah um okay

I was like right oh yeah I was like so I started asking questions okay so what does that mean is a treatment um what's my protocols next steps etc um I've heard that it's bad for fertility I've heard this like can you help like you know and he was like uh do you want to get pregnant right now and I said no and he went well don't worry about it it then? I can't even go. No. He said, don't worry about it then. Come back when you want to. And I went, right. And then I said, well, is it going to be? Well, well, will I struggle? So maybe, but loads of people. Some people don't. Some people do. I was like, right. Because that's not

a big deal at all by the me. Right. And then I asked some more and he, and then he went, well, if you're worried, just go back on the pill. And I was like, well, none of this is quite making sense because I'm pretty sure the pill. I was like, was the pill the reason that I didn't have periods I was just so lost. We, none of us knew anything about it, right? And then he goes, anyway, 10 minutes up, leave my office, literally. I left very upset again. And my mum, bless her, was like, advocated for me.

And I'm so grateful that she was there to, like, advocate for me. Because really, we're supposed to believe everything that our doctors say. But, you know, sometimes we just, and this is part of my mission is to just empower women to advocate for themselves, ask questions and don't take no as an answer. I've actually got some tools that I give people the questions to ask when they're those environments, situations, because you can feel so lost. And obviously, also, what happens in those, they're stressful environments. So when you're in that stressful environment, your body goes into fight or flight,

and that is literally shuts off all your life sort of like thinking and everything. You're just quite often. You're just like, oh, my God, you know, when you leave those situations, you go, I should have asked this, should have asked that. It happens when you have a fight with someone. You're like, why don't I say that? And then you're like, because you were in the sort of traumatic experience. Anyway, she was like, a man will never understand, like you just said.

a man will never understand what it feels like as a woman to be told that like you might have a reproductive issue. So I'm going to prior for you to go private and I'm going to go and we found this woman who actually had a functional medicine approach, which is similar to holistic health approach. And wow, she changed my life. Could you also just explain to our list is what holistic health approach is? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So holistic health is your health like as a whole. So it's every pillar of your health. So that's your diet and your lifestyle. Your diet, your exercise, your relationships with people, your toxins, your environment, your history of trauma, like all sorts of different things that can build up you as a person and go into

your life. So people might come up to me at your sleep or stress, everything. People come to me and they might be like, right, I need to lose 10 pounds or something. And I've tried everything in the book and I'm eating this and I'm eating that. And like on paper they look like they were eating the perfect diet. But, you know, they're sleeps a mess or they've got a really stressful relationship or they hate their work or there's something even more deep rooted some like traumatic experience from childhood or something. I don't know if you've ever heard of the book The Body Keeps a Score. But it's an incredible book and I feel like it's one of those sort of, I know there's lots of book. That's a large changing one. Yeah. And we hold onto so much

repressed like emotions and trauma and that comes out in all sorts of areas. So people are struggling with gut issues and they're, you know, they're trying with pariotics, are doing this whatever, but there's other things that we need to get out. So, like, holistic health is not just what your bloods are saying or what this is saying, but what's really going on in your whole as you, as a multidimensional person and a bi-individual person as well. Your biology, your individuality is unique, and that's what we take it as. Amazing.

Yeah, so it's quite deep when someone comes to see someone in that projectioner because it's not just superficially, it's not surface level, it would go deeper. So anyway, I stepped into this office and this woman was like, she had all my bloods and everything in front of me oh actually sorry main point of before this to get to get to see her I had to have a referral letter from my doctor and he sent the most passive aggressive letter I've never

it was like I don't know why George is asking for this I've told her everything she needs that sort of that sort of tone and you just thought I'm actually trying to like help myself here and you're still domestic why does it affect you why is he bothered by that? Why do you care?

Yeah. Why do you care? You've had to you've had to You've had to write that you're an angry man. Like, you've had to write that. Like, your ego's bruised. I'm so sorry. That's exactly it. It's the ego thing.

It's the ego, right? His answer wasn't good enough. But again, that could have stopped me. That almost stopped me. Well, I've stopped a lot of people. Would have stopped other people. Would have stopped other people. Made them feel small again.

Yeah. But I was, my mum was like, ignore that. Like, he's just, like, again, she was like spruce ego, like we're going. And, you know, my, so this woman, I actually can't remember her name, which is really upset with me because I'd love to have given a shout out. But maybe I could follow up afterwards. She was in Kent And we had an hour together

And she didn't talk really anything about my bloods Or anything like that She'd read them before I walked in the room But she sat me down And she just said, hi, like how are you? What's going on? And before I know I'm telling her like about my mum My separation, my parent like separation

What was going on like around my life What had been going on and everything And she was just like Georgia, you don't have PCOS Everything's going to be okay And from that moment You just feel like, okay, thank you And she was like,

I'd be into the heel just by someone saying that to me. But that is the power. Yeah, she was like, it's going to be okay. And this isn't going to be a quick healing path. Like there's a few things here that we need to work together on. You know,

your low body fat. But, you know, she went through, we did then get into a bit more of the granular, but she was like, you know, we're in a bit of scary situation in some ways because I had had such low body fat for so long and messed my hormones so much

that my womb had got into like a menopausal woman. like thinness pretty much, like the, how thin it was, was about the same amount as well as when I was a woman. The lack of estrogen in my body was making my, would have affected my bone health, all these sort of things. So she was like, if we don't sort of act now and get you on this healing path, then you could be in a wheelchair at the age of 30 sort of thing. So because of like lcio-porosis and things like that, right? And I'm about 23 at this time, just give you some context. The pill that he would have sent me on was a projection only pill. So that really wouldn't have helped with it when I really needed estrogen in my body as well. So if I had just taken his

advice and carried on as normal and carried on my life, like, you know, I could have been in a quite a dangerous situation. So anyway, we got on a path of healing, which meant building my relationship better with my body, my relationship with food, all of that as well as sort of just like just finding balance again in all sorts of ways in my life. And that was in relationships. I moved to London I cut out some toxic friendships that I had I like yeah

I just started to really build a life on my own terms oh I quit that job thank God thank God I quit that job so I removed that toxicity from him

from friendships yeah from just like just rebuilt my life on my own terms and in a space that really nurtured me and it's not overnight obviously

start my own agency and then I had to navigate really the complexities of balancing this newfound self worth and wellness to also running an agency and owning a business and hiring staff and that's still being in the never sleeping quite hedonistic world of PR but it is possible so yeah now I'm here I decided as like the agency has started to like run itself to some degree like I've managed to I've got an amazing team that run the day to day and this is the PR agency yeah The peer agency, sorry that I still won't.

And I gave me the freedom or some time to go back to college, go back to school and study holistic health and then hormone health and graduate as a women's holistic health and hormone coach. And I have created balanced boss, which is my coaching and community platform for high performing, ambitious women that are looking to reclaim control of their health. but without losing their edge, without losing their spark, their joy, their ambition. Because I think nowadays, I was very, I was very sort of frustrated with the wellness industry of where it is on Instagram nowadays or social media, lots of pastel-coloured Instagram feeds and 27-step morning routines and just very unrealistic lifestyles. And really sort of encouraging this extreme, restrictive, all-or-nothing mentality as well, which high performing women are quite

have a tendency to have this perfectionism because it gives us that drive constantly to get to the next but it can also come up rear its ugly head in other ways which can be in sort of like restrictive eating patterns or all-and-I think mentalities and then a lot of that beating themselves up when they haven't been able to do everything on their wellness list when actually just doing something that still works.

Yeah, I feel like I need to take some coaching from you because I'm very all or nothing and lists for me are a nightmare. I'll write a huge list. Overwearing myself, I don't want to do any of it. It's awful. But then how good I feel

if I just actually put it down to like five things and take them off? My brain doesn't let me do it because it's like I need to offload it onto a list. And that's absolutely fine. See, I actually have ADHD as well to throw that in the mix. And I find that I have to get everything off my head.

So, like, otherwise I can't focus on the list, there'll be something that I have to do in a year's time that's like in my head I'm like, oh. So often like a tool that I use is just to do that. But then it's to take that list and put it into like a realistic one. And sometimes that might be one really small task that you can only manage that day or one big task. And that's okay if you've only managed to get that done that day and then actually celebrate that win. And then the next day you can keep adding on to it. Because otherwise we end up just doing nothing, don't we like you say? So working out how you're, and being kind to yourself and working out your own sort of rhythms as well. And listening to ourselves as well. I think, again, with the noise of Instagram, we've lost touch with our intuition and our own guide. So I help my clients as well. There's a slight spiritual side of it as well about that comes from pausing, because we never pause anymore.

And actually sit with ourselves and think, okay, what does my body need? And what does my body react well to? And what do I want as well and things like that. So, yeah. Amazing. Right. I'm so inspired everybody. Same.

Right, we'll get into some questions. We've got a lot for you. We do have a lot. So the first one being kind of hormone basics, what are some of the early signs that our hormones might be out of balance and how can we spot them before they become a bigger issue? Yeah, so there's loads of symptoms, but most of the common ones are irregular or no periods.

Headaches, extreme migraines, extreme PMS, bloating, constipation, acne. Yeah, a lot of those sort of symptoms come up a lot. And what would be your advice for if someone's feeling like they've got one or quite a lot of them, where should they go to kind of solve that issue? Yeah, so obviously go to your doctor, have your blood's taken. But the problem is with bloods is that they are quite, they only test for basic bloods. Yeah.

Basic sex hormones. So like overactive thyroid and things like that. Yeah, they will do that. And they'll do your, obviously, sex hormones like testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, estrogen, estrogen, but a doctor does a single point blood test and as you know your hormones change all the time every day so they're not, it's not very reliant on overall it's a very comprehensive so I would always do a Dutch test

with my clients and you do have to get that privately they won't do that the doctors but it's worth the investment if you do feel like something's out of balance because not only does that do a full spectrum it also does like of all hormones like cortisol as well it also does how they're metabolized throughout the body, which is really important because your body has a balance

where it will extricate like additional hormones it doesn't need. And if that's not working properly, then you can get things like estrogen dominance. And estrogen dominance is usually raised its head in PMS specifically. So if you're getting really extreme PMS, then that can be a sign of estrogen dominance. So really heavy periods, really bad mood swings and time. anxiety those sort of things yeah interesting and then you get a personalized path to

healing yeah because also don't just I'm always test don't guess because again with social media there is loads of information out there and everyone comes from a point of good like they want to help like even myself I'm really cautious not to give too much of like oh you should take this to take this like try to be a bit more generic with things or a bit of disclaimer because it's like everyone is so different yeah so and you might think and also so many symptoms overlap to so many different things so the reason I was misdiagnosed PCOS um was because the rottadam criteria which is used is that you have to have two out of three of the symptoms which is irregular periods or no periods um cysts on your ovaries and abnormal bloods so abnormal

hormones and I didn't have those the latter but I had the others but the cis actually just because I wasn't ovulating so cis aren't actually like big scary cysts they're actually just follicles on your eggs that aren't haven't you haven't ovulated and because my lack of period was because I was underweight and I was chronically stressed and we can talk about stress a bit more and the boom and how that interferes the hormone balance as well so actually I and PCOS is it doesn't need to be and I want to reassure everyone that doesn't need to be a scary diagnosis but obviously it can be So if people are getting diagnosed PCOS and it is increasing, like it's doubling the amount of diagnosis, which could be because there is an increase in awareness of it. But it also could be of this sort of grey area diagnosis.

There's a bit of like, there's a bit of medical debate about it at the minute. And the problem with sort of labelling someone with something like that, which is a complex, serious condition is that it can really send people down the wrong path. If they're not necessarily, that's not necessarily what they've got as well. So I really recommend getting these comprehensive tests done and having a practitioner, if a functional medicine doctor or someone that has a passion for women's health to sit down with you and have that compassion, that empathy and work on a personalized pan with you.

Yeah, with that, it will give you like really strong insights in data, the Dutch test. So yeah, so that's what I would say. If you feel like you've got in balance, then there's lots of sort of ways we can just nurture our whole. hormones, which we can go to in as well, with nurturing around the way that we eat, the way that we manage our stress, the way that we manage our sleep, our toxins, everything like that. But if you do feel like you're doing, you have quite a good life like that and you feel

like this still in balance off, then yeah, get a Dutch test. Definitely invest in that. Yeah. So talking of periods, we want to talk a little bit about cycle sinking. How can women start working with their menstrual cycle in terms of energy, exercise, productivity and nutrition rather than as all fighting against it? Yeah, I love this question and I talk about this quite a lot actually. It was actually on this morning, this morning, that they were debating whether periods, boys should be taught about periods. And I was like, yes, course. Of course. And it was really quite annoying because I was like glad that it's on Maytreen TV, that there's an awareness around it

now that it's got there. But they were, the arguments, all of them sort of agreed that there's a, there's a, their worry is that boys laugh at periods. So like they might like, they might like laughing class. And I was like, well, the answer to that is not avoidance. The answer to that is to talk about it more. Yeah, so it becomes normal. Normalised. But, um, so going on to that is that we are conditioned through school, through life to like not really, to be sort of slightly embarrassed of our periods. Yeah. And to also think of them as a, as a disadvantage when actually when we sink with them, they can be our power. Like they are a superpower, okay? Um, and And cycle's thinking, so I'll go through the four phases. Yeah. So if your follicular phase starts

the beginning of your period, it's actually day one of your period, and it overlaps slightly with the menstrual cycle, which obviously, your mental phase, which obviously starts around there as well. So your follicular phase, estrogen, at the very beginning of it, when your menstrual foot, like, so when you're just start your period, both hormones are very low. But then as you go into your follicular phase, which is about the first 12, 14 days, you are, estrogen's rising. And estrogen makes you feel pretty good. So it's a really good time here for sort of showing up your brain. So at work, particularly, like brainstorming and creative thinking. It's quite a creative time, quite sociable time. It's a really

good time for high intensity exercise. For taking on challenges. It's a good time then. Okay. So if you are going to fast, and I'm a bit apprehensive fasting sometimes, but if you, if you like fasting, intermittent fasting or anything like that, then your flicker face would be a safer time to do it. because estrogen's rising and progestions lower. Now, then you go into ovulatory phase, which is only a few days. That's obviously when you can conceive. And that is when you should be,

that's main character energy. That is when you should be, like, out there, like going for art to play. Yeah, she's out to play. And that is when you should, like, so again, that work, like that's when you should network. You should be presenting to your clients or to your teams. You should be asking for that pay rise or that promotion.

you should go for after work drinks, that sort of stuff, right? Then as you go into your lute... But use protection. Yes, we use protection. No, if you're going out for after work drinks, yeah. But if you are this, then when you go into your luteal phase, that's when estrogen starts to dip and progestion starts to rise. Now, this is a time when you're going to feel most likely a little less social,

and it's when you're going to be working a little more inward. But it's a really good time to get shit done. So like work on accounts, finance, like get work done. So you can see how this works quite nicely with working as well. So let's see you've got a new project, you're brainstorming with your team, you're being quite creative, then you can pitch that project, and then you can pitch the idea, then you can work on the project afterwards or something while you're getting stuff done.

And in terms of exercise, this is a time when you are more sensitive to stress. Because cortisol and progesterone share the same. precursor hormone, pregnant alone. So if you are too stressed, then cortisol starts to take the precursor off of progesterone and congestion isn't produced. So if you are doing too, I would advise staying away from high and fast, anything, hit workouts, high intensity cardio, fasting, any high spa, things that put your body under quite a lot of stress, especially if you have quite a stressful life anyway. So yoga, Pilates, weightlifting, walks is a great time for that time as well. Also, as you start to prepare to go into your menstrual phase, increasing your carb intake of

complex carbs, sweet potatoes are a great sort of carbure sauce at this stage to build up the energy for your menstrual phase. And then obviously menstrual phase, that's when your hormones are the lowest, but it's actually when you're right and your left side of the brain, talk to each other best ever. So it works, they communicate it, they would communicate most strongly than any other phase of your cycle. So it's a real good time for analysis, reflection, introspection. So it got, again, a time for a slight pausing. And is this when you're having your period? So everyone just thinks that's my period like this is a bit of a waste of time. But actually it's a time when you can really be like quite analytical.

Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, so it's a great time for journaling and visions and looking back on what you've done. But is that also because you kind of feel deeper in that time? Emotional. You probably feel deep. Yeah, exactly. But it's all sort of a cycle of work together, I guess. You feel deeper because of what's going on in your body.

Yeah. Moody bitch. Because I'm not really emotional ever, but I'm a bit more emotional at that time. Yeah. See, I've never really tracked my cycle to the phases before. Have you got any good apps that people can use? And actually, sorry, I forgot to say this about the beginning of it. You can't have, you can't track your cycle if you're on hormonal contraception.

Right, yeah, yeah, okay. So if you're on the pill or the hormonal coil or anything like that, the injection, you can't track it, unfortunately. If it makes you feel better to follow that cycle, And especially if you're going to go off it, then actually, if you're going to go off the contraceptive, hormone contraceptive, it's a great way of, like, warming your body into that sort of those phases, into that routine and into that structure. But, yeah, I use natural cycles, but flow is another one.

Yeah. I usually have my aura ring on, but it's out of battery. Yes, oaring. Good, good fan, a big fan of o'erring. It's great for your sleep, stress, everything. I actually got an email through it yesterday, you know, because they keep updating what you can do on it. And now it's being able to track a woman through her whole pregnancy. and, you know, gestational diabetes and everything like that, and it will track everything.

And I was like, I'm obviously not pregnant now, but I thought that would have been amazing for me to, I've actually worked a bit better with my body and been in tune about what was actually happening at each phase. And I just thought it was really interesting because I really had much time to look into it. But I haven't been on the pill now for about six, seven years. So I did used to do natural cycles, but I never really looked into the phase. And you've just explained it so clearly to me now that makes so much more sense. and how we should work with it rather than against it.

Exactly. And it's also like, look, we can't control every element of our life. Like, yeah, it'd be great if, you know, we didn't have to pitch during our literature phase or at work or if we didn't have a friend's birthday during our life. Or something like that. We can't be, like, I would never.

And again, this comes down to sort of my values of, like life is to be enjoyed. But it can be enjoyed more when you're conscious of what's going on. Yeah. Because I think so much of, so much empowerment comes in education and awareness. So when you're feeling, really low. It's not like, why, why do I feel like this? It's just understanding and letting

your body go with the flow a little bit more. And if you do have busier periods when you shouldn't, you don't really feel up to it, well then where else in your life can you slow down a little bit and nurture yourself a little bit? Because it can be so easy to be like, for example, oh, I've got, you know, I've got a friend's birthday weekend, but I'm also got a pitch in the week for work or a big client meeting or busy working week. But I also want to get the gym done and I also want to do it. And it's okay, well, what areas can you control? Maybe we'll bring down the gym a little bit and be kind of yourself it's okay to skip the gym that week

because you need to get your rest. Rest is so important so like yeah just that awareness and self-compassion a lot as well. Are you looking to buy your first home and don't know where to start? Well don't worry our friends at Watermans will do all of that stuff for you. They won't be packing your boxes for you but they'll do

everything else. So for straightforward legal advice remember Watermans. Calgary, also known as the Blue Sky City. We get more sunny days than anywhere in the country, but more importantly, we're the Canadian capital of Blue Sky Thinking. This is where bold ideas meet big opportunity, where dreams become reality. Whether you're building your career or scaling your business, Calgary is where what-if turns into what's next.

It's possible here in Calgary, the Blue Sky City. Learn more at Calgary Economic Development.com. What's your thoughts on people that take the pill to stop having their periods? You know, like you were saying you did. If they're going on holiday, what is that doing to our bodies? And should we not be doing something like that? You know, there's a pill that you can take to delay it. You take it like a week in it.

Do you know what about that? Yeah, yeah. I'm not, God, I've been on the spot with the whole science of how it works. But what I would say is that it's so, I mean, I did. it actually a couple of years ago and I really regretted it because of how empowering it is because again it will sort of bring you back it just dysregulates you again and it can take you months years for your body to get back into a rhythm sometimes and it's all about what um like fshae and all of the sort of those hormones that are released by your um hypothalamus in your brain which then

trigger a view to ovulate or not and everything like that so that's what it stops um and that process needs to follow harmony and often we get because of our lives nowadays that it's very fragile so I just feel like just to not have a period for the week of holiday it's probably not worth it but again it's up to you I mean it's totally up to you what you want to do but yeah it can take you a while once you come back off it for your body to get back into its rhythm and actually once you are in rhythm with your cycle you don't have the period planes and all of the bloating and everything at the extreme and the, and the, uh, water weight retention. I noticed that as well. I, when I came off, because I used to, I went on it because of the PCOS diagnosis, whether that

was true or not, I don't know. But when I started coming off it and having regular, almost of the day, people used to say to me that it was struggle with real PMS. I never had that. I never, and I don't know if it was because of maybe what I was eating or maybe the fact that I was just not on contraceptive pill. I was definitely not. not having, you know, dreading that month to come, ever. No, exactly. And I, yeah, I know what it feels like to be like, oh my God, my period's coming up and I'm on a holiday that week.

I'm going to feel really fat. I'm going to feel really like, well, not even fat, but just bloated. I'm like heavy. I'm not going to feel like myself. And the thing is, the pill is only just masking that, really. You're not going to necessarily feel loads better. But also, once, like I say, once you get into that rhythm, that doesn't come with it. All those nasty side effects start to lean off.

And you can still have that flat stomach and that. And there's also tips of how to, like, promote your lymphatic drainage and rough flush out sort of excess water. Stress and burnout then for the high achieving women juggling career, family and everything else. What's the link between chronic stress, burnout and hormone health? Yeah, so like we touched on earlier, cortisol steals progesterone, it stills progesterone, which makes progesterone. And then that can awesome lead to estrogen dominance, which raises its head in various things like PMS.

So, yeah, I think often with high achievers, we think that we can't rest, that it's lazy to rest and that we need to need, we can never slow down. But if we don't slow down, then our bodies will make us slow down eventually. Yeah. And then with stress. so obviously our body's stress response is fight or flight and back in the day that was like a lion coming towards you and your body would release a lot of blood sugar into the system sorry blood into the it's a lot of sugar into the blood system ready to use it as ready for it to be used as energy to either fight or run away from a lion so nowadays that's just a scary email that's coming into your inbox So that sugar is just circulating in your blood, which then causes... Is that when you get like a bit of a rushy body in a hot face and a bit of a panicky...

Yeah, exactly. The heart rate goes out because that's their adrenaline. So your body releases sugar into your bloodstream, like I said. And that isn't being used. So then it gets absorbed back into the body or just hangs around in the bloodstream, which then obviously over time can lead to... Yeah, insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is one of a main trigger.

to PCOS or there's a symbiotic relationship between insulin resistance and PCOS by people of PCOS to have good blood sugar management. Stress also, it comes down to like the obvious in terms of if you had to fight a lion off, your body doesn't need to be having babies. So it will shut that off. It shuts anything else on that isn't survival in that moment. My God. So it was shut off the need to be used, like to be reproducing, to digest.

food, anything like that. That's wild. So, which is fine if it's really short, because when you used to fight that line, it didn't used to last very long, then he would go, oh, thank God that's gone. But nowadays, it's like, oh, there's an email, there's this, there's that, we're just chronically stressed all the time. Or if it doesn't even feel like stress, it's alertness. Your aura ring actually tells you that.

And I find quite interesting, is it like... It says that I'm in stress all day. Yeah. I don't know if that's because I've got a child. Yeah, they are quite stressful. It was like, you need to rest. Like, your body has been in stress. But in my head, it's strange because I don't feel like the typical, I'm stressed, I'm stressed.

But maybe it's just doing far too much and not being able to actually just rest and do nothing. Because I physically can't at the minute because I'm keeping a human alive and as well as doing everything else. But it's really interesting reading it because it's like, how does that know that I'm stressed? But I don't know if I feel it. So maybe that's why a lot of people, you know, they have no idea why they put it on this way. and why not, but it's because, yeah. I don't really ever feel overly stressed, but I know I am, if you know what I mean?

Like, I'm never, like, the... Like, frantic. Yeah. But I must be stressed because I'm in a stressful situation. Yeah. You know, when you know you're... It's a lot to do. It's a lot, so we're always a lot.

And we're a lot from my beginning... And that is an element of stress as well on the body. It's that we're already ready. Like, as soon as we wake up, we're checking our phones, and we do that until we go to bed. And it's, we're always on. So that is an element of stress as well on our bodies. Even if it doesn't feel like, oh, I'm really worried about something.

It's just being on all the time. It's so true. Yeah. I hate the fact that we all pick our phones up the first thing in the morning. I'm really trying to stop doing that. It's hard because I look at it for the time. I'm like, oh, what time it is. Then it's a notification like, oh, what's that?

And I bring back the alarm, old school alarm clock, so. But we could have them. But we don't. We don't. Like, we've still got the option to not be on our phones, but we choose the phone anyway. Yeah, it is very frustrating. And social media, yeah, you just always aren't, aren't you?

Your brain's never fully. The tabs are open. The tabs are open. And also stress obviously impacts our sleep. And that's really crucial as well for regulating our whole body. Sleep is so important. For detoxification, for processing, for repair and regulation. So in the morning, if you haven't got enough sleep,

your body's going to crave sugar more so they're going to eat worse and if you're eating worse then that's going to impact your hormones as well your metabolism and everything so what's your are you an eight hours enough or do you not believe in that yeah I'm eight hours is a good amount time and I think like seven to nine is is a good window if you're getting less than that regularly and I know it's really hard when you have a baby and sometimes there's just like just short bits of your life it's more broken sleep for me broken sleep yeah yeah and wherever you can if you can nap in the day great but yeah eight hours really is good for women because we have so many different cycles within that sleep

so if we're skipping bits of it the last part of your sleep is when you really process emotions so if you're you're that's why you find you're really touchy in the morning if you haven't got that last few hours because your body hasn't like processed your emotions properly right which is scary because a lot of women in that margaret that's just like I live on five hours sleep I'm fine it's like well that's not great that people that are quite emotionally disregulated of running the country So it's like, it's not a badge of honour to not get enough sleep. It's a badge of honour to get loads of sleep. I can be proud of it.

Yeah, because sleep literally regulates everything in our life. Because I feel like my good sleep when I feel the best is actually probably about seven hours. If I go in to like eight, nine hours, I feel overtight. Like I wake up and I'm overslept. But I think this comes back to learning what works for you as well, right? And it's like these are guidelines. So it's working what works. And even with Cyclesink and I had a client that.

other day. And we were discussing this. And she said, I've been trying to follow cycle thinking and I'm finding that I want to, I'm working against my body in some ways by trying to cycle who sync. And I was like, cycle thinking is just, if you're struggling with your hormones and you feel like something's really out of whack, it's a guide there to maybe help you get back onto path, but it's not like a Bible for us to be following. And if you feel like you feel really good exercising during your Lucille phase and going for a run or getting up at five or doing whatever it is, and that's working for you, then do that. That's fine, yeah.

Like, we have to follow our own guide and that's, we've lost that a little bit. I agree. I agree. I don't know everyone struggles with it. So if you're fine, don't try and change it. Everyone has different levels of resilience. Yeah. As well.

So some people can have more stressful lives than others. And that's fine as well. Yeah, totally. Just going back to the aura ring on the sleep, I've got a notification as well that if you wear it for a certain period of time, it's like, this is what we think is your best time to sleep. It actually works it out where you're the best. the best performing day has been from you sleeping X amount. Right, okay. So you just need to wear it consistently.

But yeah, it's quite interesting. Calgary, also known as the Blue Sky City. We get more sunny days than anywhere in the country. But more importantly, we're the Canadian capital of Blue Sky Thinking. This is where bold ideas meet big opportunity, where dreams become reality. Whether you're building your career or scaling your business, Calgary is where what if turns into what's next. It's possible here in Calgary, the blue sky city.

Learn more at Calgary Economic Development.com. The famous word that everyone talks about, and I fascinated by it, but gut hormone connection. So we hear a lot about gut health right now. We also hear a lot about cortisol. I see that all over social media. But how closely is gut health tied to hormone? own balance in so many ways. It's like our second brain. Yes. Well on that one then if we start

with that obviously there's the gut brain access. They communicate with each other via the vagus nerve and pretty much it's whether we're in rest and digest or fight or flight. So whether we're in our parasympathetic nervous state, which is a rest and digest or our sympathetic nervous state which is our fight or flight. So our stress response. If our gut is stressed, our brain will be stressed and we've just spoken about how stress impacts your hormones. So that's an obvious one. But also So our gut has a group of microbes called esterbalone, which are responsible for metabolizing estrogen. So if that's out of whack, then we are not metabolizing and excreting excess estrogen. And that can lead to estrogen dominance, which we spoke about again as well.

And also, our bodies need a diversity and abundance of minerals, vitamins, nutrients, in order to produce hormones. so that's the gateway our gut is the gateway to absorbing those nutrients if our gut is in dysbiosis imbalance we've got anything sort of concerns down there then we're not going to be absorbing those nutrients properly we're also if we've got something like leaky gut we're going to be releasing toxins into our bloodstream and that's also going to cause imbalances what's leaky gut so oh yeah so we've got um our gut if you imagine it's sort of like a pair of tights And if you imagine that we're squishing something sort of like some mushed up paper or something like sort of squishy going down it and I've got kind of like contracts and relaxes, relaxes and obviously pushes it out.

That has to have a strong wall for things to not go out of it, right? If there's breaks in the tights, some tears in the tights, then bits would come out. So that's what happens, yeah. So that could be food particles that aren't supposed to be floating back into our budget room. That makes me feel weird. Yes. How can we fix a leaky gut then? Through a protocol.

So we want to repair it. So we need to, well, first of all, again, test don't guess. Because the problem is there are so many different gut health issues out there. Gut dysbiosis, which is pretty much an imbalance. Leaky gut, which is tears in the wall. There is SIBO. There is candida. all sorts of different things.

So they all can need slightly different protocols to some degree. I used to say I had candida. Or like a badge of honour. Because I always get urine infections and someone said something like, you've got candida and I was like, what's candida? And then any time I had a urine infection in work, I'd be like, I've got candida again. Gotta go home. Well, I mean, potentially.

If you always get thrush, is a big sign of candida. I don't get thrush. Right, just a urine infection. But I get infection, yeah. all the time. Yeah, she does. Okay, well maybe we can talk about that afterwards. Okay.

Yeah, so test. So stall tests, big fan of the stall test. That will come back and that will test for parasites as well and any of those other sort of. And then the imbalance. We want to have more good bacteria than bad bacteria and we also need a diversity of bacteria. So it's all good and well having like,

let's say you hit your fibre goals. Hitting fibre goals are really important for gut health because the plants will feed the microbes in there. But it's diversity. So if you hit like 30 grams just eating rocky every single day, that's not going to be diverse enough. So eat the rainbow. It's the easiest way to get enough diversity in.

I love looking at how many colours are on my plate, and especially if you have children. It's a really exciting way of getting them involved in eating their vegetables and fruits as well. But like, how many colours have you had today and they're black greens and they all do different things as well? And all the colours do different things to our bodies as well. So I'm actually weaning genton at the moment.

And I've read a lot about the gut microbiome and everything and how important it is between six to 12 months and building that for them and giving them a real range, diverse of vegetables, everything at the beginning. And even when you're pregnant, ensuring that your bio is healthy. Although I think I live off chicken in here, but you know what? I have heard the beige diet comes in, yeah. And your gut microbes, there's trillions of bacteria. We are more bacteria than we are human cells. Yeah. We are more bacteria.

We're just living trillions of bacteria. it's quite great thinking about it, but, you know, so we need to feed them and feed them in the right ways. So repairing it as well. So things are going to help repair that leaky gut, bone broths, things with collagen, bones, broths, el-glutamine powder. Bone broth is amazing as well because it's just good for your skin, your hair, everything, protein in it.

And like I say, eating fibres, but fibre, like if you've got something like SIBO, then eating a load of raw veg and loads of fibre is just not, it's going to actually, like, cause more of, like, issues to begin with. So we have to have a different protocol for that. Lots of sort of elimination diets and reintroductions and all sort of, yeah, things like that. So, yeah, get tests, get tested, work with the practitioner to give you on a good path. 100% probiotic foods. But don't, again, I would recommend that people get fermented.

Fomented foods, yes, I had some last night, as you know, really good. So kombuchas, kaffirs, sauerkrauts, kimchi, pickles, really, really good. probiotic yogurts and then I would say get them through food before you get them through supplements if you can if you really hate all those foods then supplements are great

and again I would work do your research on them because there's so many supplements out there as well that die before they even hit your gut so. Yeah, Zoe's always been taking and the nutritionist one epitone.

Yeah, yeah cool have you felt like a difference yeah actually have yeah I've had really good things about that one actually when I started I was like on and off consistency and I think in the first couple of weeks it does kind of make you feel quite gassy and almost bloated before obviously it gets better but I've been consistent with it now

for maybe four or five weeks and I've not really had any issues and yeah that's another thing that you say with probiotics there are some ones on the market like that they're pretty safe but don't go this is why it's great to have practitioner help you with it because there's some that can cause more issues because they can be too strong for people the wrong strains and especially if you have got something quite serious going on then the wrong strains can disrupt it first And going back to that gut brain access, how to heal the gut, minimise stress. That is the biggest cause for IBS and symptoms of bloating and stress down there. Well, I was actually saying, which is so funny, that when I was still at work,

and I feel like I've got a more stressful situation now because it's my own business. But I don't know if it's because I do it in my own time and the comfort of my home and everything. I'm probably less stressed in a way still. But when I was in the office all the time, I always had the big swollen belly. really, like terrible pain, terrible pain, like all day, going home on the train and everything like constantly keeled over. Trapwind really was the main issue and that was causing that pain and I really don't get it that much anymore.

Post birth control for any of our listeners that are thinking about coming off the pill, but they're concerned because they're maybe worried, oh my God, I don't want to have acne again or maybe it's controlling their periods. There's so many reasons as to why a lot of people go on the pill. yeah um but they're too scared to then come off it for obvious reasons so for the women that are coming off the hormonal contraception what should they know about support in their body during that transition yeah absolutely so it is worth noting that and this is why it can be good to have support from a healthcare provider during this time yeah is that anything that you went on the pill

for it was masking it it has not helped solve it so acne um painful periods anything like that, they're still going to be there and they can come back worse. Okay. So be prepared for that. But again, it's having the courage to deal, like to, and the support to deal with the root cause. So I would definitely start working with someone to have a weaning off period plan. So wean off the pill period plan. Yeah.

So they can support you. I think cycle thinking is a great way to start getting yourself into that phase to begin with. So with my clients, we're like, okay, I want to come off it in three, six months. We start to work, well, first of all, hopefully we've been working on what the root cause was to begin with. So we definitely want to find out what that was. So if someone said I went on it because I had acne, we were like, okay, well, during the time whilst you're still on it, let's work on some lifestyle changes on how to help to get to the root cause of that. And then, and heal it.

And then when you're coming off it, you know, we could also start with cycle syncing and phasing and everything to support it. A lot of females in BAN is talking about concerns of vaginal health, such as periods, spotting, smells, especially symptoms, as BV, bacterial vaginosis. How and why are they impacted by our hormones? Again, it comes from usually an estrogen dominance, but it could also be gut health as well. And again, things are not getting detoxified properly. Again, you'd have to get tested, but there's no, there is no fear in this. And again, this is part of my mission as everyone needs to talk about it all more.

So, yeah, the more we all talk about it, the more that we all find the root causes of all of this. Yeah. I agree. I do just feel like tech talks doing that thing when it's like, let's all talk about the smells down there and all that. And then they give you the probiotic and then it goes overnight or something.

But loads of people are trying to talk about. So there are proverbsics specifically again with like, let's see you've got something like Candida or when you're getting kind of starched, like there's a bit of balance on that that's linked to like your gut as well. So working on a specific probiotic can help. Because isn't it when you have BV that you're basically,

there's an imbalance with the pH imbalance. Yeah. Because I used to suffer from it a lot when I was a teenager and it was never spoken about. There was nothing really around back then. So you would just be like, oh my God, like what is that a smell? And I used to be so embarrassed because, I'd over clean. So I'd use the most overly centred things and I was clean. But I was like,

I don't understand. Yes. So that's a really good point actually around the all of the microplastics and the chemicals and artificial ingredients that are in all of our beauty products and our washes and everything like that. So actually we don't need to be washing anything. We don't need to be washing it down there with anything more than water really. But it's weird because it's not like something you're taught really when you're young. obviously you're taught to wash but it's never really told yeah you could use femfresh but then all over the internet it's like don't use femfresh it's terrible for you

like as femfresh good or bad no it won't be good for you no I don't actually use that any more either I just always use something that's zero zero percent yeah I use um what's the one that I love sannics yeah sannics that's a great one is it yeah okay it's a great body wash in general but again so we need to be careful of toxic load in for balancing our hormones as well so it's worse for women because a man

And usually just, if he even uses the moisture, he uses one moisturisers. It's pretty much what he does. And maybe a bit of something in his hair and a spritz of perfume. Whereas we have, like, I've probably got about 25 products in my face and my hair right now. And then moisturizers and then perfumes and all these various different things. And they can have toxins in them that can be endocrine disruptors. So they can really interfere with our endocrine system. So I'll haul my balance.

Yeah. So again, it's being quite conscious of that. And again, I could never want to scare my clients into thinking, God, I need to, like, throw out everything and I only can have non-toxic products. But it's just being aware of the build-up of them. So if you've got a favourite foundation that you like love and it has got something, the Yucca app,

I recommend everyone gets the yucca app. You can scan the products there for things that are harmful. And let's see you've got a foundation. It comes up with like a bit of a moderate risk. You're like, oh, well then just make sure your other ones are good. Yeah, not all high risk. And that your cleaning products around your house as well. That's another one.

Your candles, they're one of the worst for burn. Yeah, I've heard that the neon candles are the best. Neum's good, yeah. And method is good cleaning products, is that right? Well, I actually get, just to make my life easier, I go on everything now online and just get a subscription service. Right. So life supplies is a great one.

And my mind's gone blank for the others. But if you go online, there's lots of subscription models for non-toxic homeware, cleaning products, everything like that, yeah. And so you just like your dishwasher tablets, everything that just come through the door and everything about. Because it is wild because I was reading that about dishwasher tablets as well. things that wash your plates and it's so so toxic but then you think about your skin it's the biggest cell on your body and then you are rubbing so much shit into it all day you're just thinking

oh it's fine but of course it's going to go into you it somehow isn't it it's the biggest organ of your body yeah it's the biggest organ in your body so yeah um eco beer i think that's another good one yeah that's the one you get in supermarkets what do you use i use fussy oh yeah fussy so i was about to say wild i didn't really like wild too much i think it's wild is that on this world. I wasn't as fun like, but fussy, I feel like it works really well. Right, we have quite a lot of questions from our listeners over on Patreon, which we want

to bring you over to side dish with us. Especially women asking us questions about endometriosis and PCOS, so we'll save that for the extra episode if that's okay with you. But let's talk a little bit about peri menopause and beyond. So can you tell us more women are opening up about it?

What are some empowering ways to approach this stage in life rather than dreading it? it's a beautiful time for new change I think a lot of women are coming out and I like people like Davina McCall and they're saying this is like an era of where you can enter a new chapter often people are entering new chapters of their life

perhaps their children are growing up or fled the nest as well it's a time for introspection it's a time for reflection it's a time for renewal and a lot of women are saying it can be for some of the best years of your life post that

what I would say in terms of getting through it or it's not just getting through it is educating yourself it's empowering, if you educate yourself, that's empowering, to know how to nurture yourself to feel at your strongest. So that is, stress management is really important at this stage because obviously the impact of yours, your hormone is going to be all over the place. They're going coming in and out and fluctuating so much. So, and stress will heighten that. So ensuring that your stress is under management. And that will also help with hot flashes. And then there's

certain ingredients as well that you can introduce to your diet, pomegranates, maca, they will help with hot flashes. Really? Yeah. Ensuring that you're keeping up with weight training and protein to ensure that your muscles, because when your estrogen levels drop, it affects your bone health. So it's really important to weight lift because that helps with bone density and muscle. And also your muscle starts to disintegrate quicker.

That sounds like a really horrible word. Do you know what I think the issue is kind of like in the people who are going through it now probably is that they didn't have. have this information at our age. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So like they're going into not really probably, obviously this doesn't go for everyone.

There's really healthy people out there, but they've not been eating the things. We'll start eating. They're not taking care of their body. They're not going to the gym as much. All those things that probably put us in a healthier start to that stage. They are not at that. But they'll just be going to boots and reaching for that menopause packet of supplements

and be like, right, that'll be fine. But they're not. HRT, things like that. Clued up. about it. Whereas I think when it kind of comes to our time it'll probably have a shift of people can possibly cope with it better or know what to do. And just the more that the people can talk about it. It's been such like a taboo around it and some shame around people feeling like this in the workplace or in their relationships or anything and just again feeling really

lost and confused. So it's having that performance conversations. Support networks at this stage are really important. So ensuring that you're again just finding your people. Yeah. And have people to reach out to and enjoy this moment of your life with. Right, so we've got some quick-fire questions that we're going to end on. A bit more fun, but quickly, share with us your top supplements and brands that you are loving right now and ones that you think are marketing gimmicks. Ah, yes, okay. I really like this one called ZZZ, like Sleeping Zs, like Sleeping Zs, by form at the minute.

It has magnesium, citrate, altheonine, I can't remember every ingredient, but it's all helps with ageing, five HDP, all helps with like just calming. Okay. And I feel like I'm sleeping really well. My sleep's usually really good, but that one's really, really working really well.

So if you're suffering in any sleep, that can help. I am actually just becoming a brand ambassador and investor into a new brand that's launching soon called Roller Coaster. Yeah. Which is cycle-sinking bars. So they're going to be food bars that are every, there's four bars all in line. with your that's so cool yeah so that's exciting so we'll be a fan of that when it launches

um and gimmicks electrolytes really i love an electrolyte tell me now actually in pregnancy you're more dehydrated so they've actually might be like okay thank you okay fine mantra is what we take yeah so most of us if we are sitting at a desk most of the day or you know we're not exerting extreme amounts of energy we're not endurance athletes we're not hung over like if we're hung over if an endurance athlete um possibly more when you're in postnatal um or if you have some sort of kidney failure um or any sort of other health condition that you've been told you need electrolytes for the majority of us can get them through our diet especially fruits and vegetables so the minerals that we can get through that are from um so having a banana

and a glass of good water after exercise is probably going to do just as good than a fancy electrolyte, which costs you five pounds for five of them or something. Or, yeah, and the only other reason, if you're following a keto diet and you're not getting many fruits or vegetables as well, that might be another reason. But the majority of us, probably not going to need them every day. Yeah, because I feel like most people just take them because they don't drink enough water and I'm like, just drink more water then. Yeah.

Like, see, because I got some to, because everyone was buying them. them to be honest. And any time I go to put it in, I don't really like the taste so that doesn't help I think just drink just down this water without putting it in it. And careful there are some really good ones out that that don't have nasty ingredients but some of them can have loads of artificial sweetness and things like that and there's a while and you're actually doing yourself a disfavour

so like just a banana and water after workout or before workout like. What's your thoughts on creatine? I love creatine. Yeah, women actually need it more than men. Yeah. Loads of scientific studies to prove that it does help with maintaining muscle. Actually specifically through perimenopause and menopause because

You lose muscle at a faster rate So anything that you can do to help build that And taking one at the moment by a brand called Thorn Thorne, great Anything that's on health Yeah, we love it, health It's usually good, yeah Because it's been sort of verified

So anything exciting coming up for you What's next? Yeah, so what's next? So I'm really excited to build the community side Of Balanced Boss So I've got retreats on the way I'm going to be doing some group coaching In-person events, like one-day retreats, etc.

Can we come? Absolutely. Absolutely. At top of the list. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, and obviously I can let your listeners know when they're ready. And building rollercoaster. I've been involved in that business as well.

That should be cool. Should we launching that towards the end of the year. That's so exciting. And can our listeners, can you do digital, like appointments? Yes, so I do mainly virtual. So, yeah, if you would like to work at me or hear from me, I'm on Instagram, underscore Balanced Boss underscore. That's my health coaching.

If you want to see my personal life as well, and what I get up today today today. and the navigating business and health and all of that. Then it's George Ellen Smith. My website is balanced boss at balanced hyphen boss.com. And I offer a signature 12 week coaching program on there. We can also do six months or a smaller package. Yeah, and it's all one-to-one access to me every other week, reasonably every day.

So good. Yeah, resources and everything from there. We're going to finish with some really fun quick fire questions. What's the very first thing you do when you wake up? Cuddle my puppy. Serotonin. Serotonin, oxytocin. Do they sleep in your beds?

No, he doesn't. He's too restless. He sleeps under the bed at the minute. But then the second, I guess, more health. Well, yeah, I mean, it's healthy. But I get outside. Really important to get sunlight in my eyes. Nature's caffeine, so they say.

Nature's caffeine. I don't drink caffeine, so that is what I have. Oh, do you not? No, I found that just I have, my body regulates better without it. Well, that was the next question, coffee or match it? Do you drink matcha? Yeah, but it's still not until later in the day. What milk do you have?

Maybe milk do. I have almond, but only if it's pennish, which has no other artificial ingredients, no gums or anything like that. Love it. Very fancy. Favorite hormone-friendly snack. If you could pick one, watch your top snack for balanced energy. Roller coaster.

We'll be rollercoaster. But right now it's Greek yogurt with flaxseed, well, if it's my flicker face flax seeds, cheer seeds and berries. frozen berries. Frozen berries actually have more nutrients in them than fresh most of the time because they've been picked

at might be some frozen unlike, yeah. Fucking out. But what I need to I know this is meant to quick fire back but I think about this a lot and I could have just asked

before now but if I'm having because I have you at quite a lot in the morning do I need to lead my berries out then for them to defrost or they defrost quite quickly? No I mean they defrost quite quickly

but I just I like it quite crunchy so it depends what your preference is and I would be happy with that but I've always just wondering It turns like into like an ice cream, it's nice. Yeah, they can put a big frozen strawberry in that.

Is it going to still be ice at the end of it? Yeah, I mean, a big frozen strawberry might need a bit of thawing out. But some blueberries. Some blueberries. Movement of choice, Pilates yoga lifting on a good walk. Depends what space I'm in, but lifting, I'd have to pick. Really? Why? Because it just does your body so good.

Muscle is so important for us girls. If there's people out there like, oh, I don't care about muscle, I'll just lose loads of weight. It doesn't matter if I'm losing muscle too. Look, is there you're saggy? Saggy. Sagi, but your muscle controls your metabolism. So it's really, really important. And it controls your bone health.

Health needs to be thinking about long term. It's not just about what you look like. It's about being able to play with your grandkids and maybe grandkids and, you know, I love my life on I live as long as possible and have the best health plan. You go to the gym and you actually do, like, squats, all that jazz. Yeah, I live weights three times a week and, yeah. How many times do you play parties? Twice, yeah.

Reformer or? Reformer, yeah. But I think Matt's actually harder in some ways. Yeah, I think Matt's hard of you. Yeah. So whatever you can do at home, whatever. And then walking, actually, I do every day. I get limb steps in every day.

Yeah, I was just going to say, watch your thoughts on. Does it need to be 10,000 steps today? I think there's loads of signs in 5 to 7 as well. Fucking out, I'm taking this as gospel. No, I feel quite, see, especially if I've done a workout as well, see if I'm at 6,000, I'm happy with that. Yeah, that's great. That whole hour loop walk is 6,000 steps.

You're telling me, people have more time to do that. We ain't got times to do that. but also I've not got anything on me to track take my dog constantly out and whatever so I'm just tracking a walk yeah there's more it does help when you have purpose right like I love the fact that living in London

I need to go to the shop to get my dinner exactly a few thousand sets so yeah but if you don't have that then yeah just just oh if you haven't got time to do monthly walking stand up more sitting is what is killing us so stand up and you haven't got a standing desk to do work and put it on the ironing board

for kitchen service just stand up for a bit do some squats foster at the kettles just move your body when you can where you can five minute breaks about the day yeah love that tip guilty pleasure what's one indulgence she'll never give up reality TV yeah what do you love real house with belly hills absolutely OG um and look every year I say I'm not going to watch it but I just get so stuck into Love Island I'm sorry yeah I'm a reality TV as well

you know it is I'm so busy all day I get decision fatigue by the evening that I just can sit there and be like Decision fatigue. I love that. It's true. Decision fatigue is true. That's why Stephen Jobs. Stephen Jobs. Stephen Jobs. Stephen Jobs. Yes. Steve Jobs used to wear the same outfit every day because he had loads of other decisions to make during the day. Really? Yeah, it's a true fact. So your brain can only make certain amount of decisions.

So especially if you're in quite a high-pressured top job or anything like that or your mum, you have to make loads of decisions, whatever it might be, to make your life easier. But sometimes that also means just eating the same foods every. date in a bit of circulation, like in a bit of circulation rather than having to think all the time. Like there's certain Instagram profiles out there that I love. I won't name them because what I'm about to say is like I just feel like they're quite unrealistic sometimes. Like I save so many recipes on there and I'm like, oh, he's so amazing. And they're really good. And I just never get around because I'm too busy. So I just have my basic balance plate. You just have what works for you. And to have a balanced plate as well, if you, to rather than say I'm not a

calorie counter, but a balanced plater, portion control. Like, um, if you think about sort of a quarter of your plate being protein, quarter being, well, just under a quarter being like a complex carbohydrate, the sort of sliver that's left from that quarter being fats and the rest vegetables, then that gives you like a good idea of sort of what you should be eating. Stunning. Very helpful. What's your self-care, non-negotiable?

One thing you always make sure you've got time for, no matter how busy you are. We love products. Oh. Oh, sorry. Right. Okay, well, I am... Movement. I'm like...

Mm-hmm. product yeah this is the problem no movement was the great answer I'm quite someone actually asked me the other day they said watch your skincare routine why is your skin always so glossy I was like it's really gonna be disappointed

because I don't have one I literally barely you I wash my face with a like a usually clinic washed the day away or a vino cleanser or something like that just a cleanser

and I wear a bit of moisturise and SPF in the day that's because you're so healthy within that's it's all about looking after your gut looking after this is more of product ways So again, I'm not really a big supplement person, like a big, I think supplements are, they're a chair on top of a very robust cake. Yeah.

If you've got all of your foundations in place and then you can need them. And again, some people need more than others. And that's where the sort of testing comes in. And sometimes supplements are really needed to get yourself out of places. But really, if you're looking after yourself and doing all the boring, unsexy stuff, moving every day, then, yeah. I mean, it makes total sense. Of course it bloody goes.

She doesn't sell as well. Yeah. Have you got a favourite podcast book or social account that you think everyone else should be looking at or taking in, reading, listen to? So Dr. Hyman, he is my favourite. He was my favourite lecturer at college and have continued to listen to him since then. He's on socials. He's got a podcast. He's a functional medicine doctor and he just says it how it is. And yeah, real science-backed information. Love that. Love it. I'll check him out for sure. Well, I'll add it to the newsletter, guys. Your dream dinner guests, if you could have three women alive or historical dead, who would you choose?

And what are you eating at the dinner? Maya Jama. Yeah? Love. Okay. Helen Mirren. Legend. Just because just legend.

Um, and probably like Emma Greed, quite a little bit of her. Yeah, I like her. Boss bit, Jenna Jays. Maya for the fun, Helen for the stories and Emma for the advice. Oh, I love that. Great mix. And then what are we eating? We are eating, I mean, if this is sort of like whatever goes, right?

Yeah, whatever goes. Yeah, whatever goes. I feel out the window. Although I do, actually know I say that this is pretty healthy because I just love healthy food. And this also happens when you start just looking after yourself, your body starts, because the microbes in your gut that used to love sugar and things like that's like to die of. It all changes, didn't it? Yeah. It all changes. So to start with, I mean, I'm butter fiend, I love butter.

So really, really rich, salty butter with sourdough bread, slightly toasted. Yum. Just big chunky hunks of that. And with prawns in loads of olive oil and garlic and chili. Yeah, we love that. Right? Oh.

Then to Mains, it would be like a mix of lots of things. Like I love like a, I get quite bored of like one big dish. I'm the same. Some, like a massive grilled sea bass with loads of varieties of sides. Preferably in Ibiza at a beach club. Sorted, yes, exactly. Delivered from Ibitha. Perhaps in Ibiza, I am on a beach.

Yeah, rather than delivered from that. On a beach club. Rose A flowing. Yeah, what's your favorite rosé? No, whatever they sell, honestly. Yeah. I would say for Spring Angel. It has to be a Providence.

Yeah, no Zinfundale here. Grew out of that many years ago. So just a Provenger. Rosee, yeah. And then lots of sides. You know, you've got like your grilled asparagus. Yes. You've got your like crunchy potatoes, bit parmesan on them, grape salad, all of that. And then for dessert, just keeler shots. I'm not a dessert person, so I'd probably go straight into something like that. Would you? Or especially a martini, something like that. I'm just like dessert drink. Or what I'm obsessed with at home at the minute, and I feel like most of Instagram

is, is dates, stuffed of peanut butter, salt and chocolate. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, unbelievable. But it has to be really dark chocolate. And yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that. Let's finish on, do you have a quote or saying that you live by? Yes, it's PR, not ER. Now, this comes from my PR days where, you know, you feel like everything's so stressful. And most of the time, we are not saving lives. So we just need to take a pause and a breather and realize that, like, everything's going to be okay.

Love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having this. I really think that would be so helpful. I thought I could just speak forever and ever and ever. I know. It's mental, how fast a time? goes by the way on this podcast. Yeah, it's wild. It is wild. There's so much to talk about in this topic. Well, we've got more to talk about when move over to side dish quickly because

you have a train to catch. Make sure that you remember to follow Georgia on all of our socials. We'll make sure we add it to the news letter, but it's also in the description of this episode. Please also remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube or Spotify, whatever you listen to this podcast. And thank you so much for listening. We've absolutely loved having you on as I guess. You've been a wonderful, so knowledgeable. And we're going to be absolute balance boss. bitches. Absolutely. The BBBs. The BBs. Yay. Yay. Thank you. Welcome back any time. I'd love to come. See you on side dish. Thank you.

We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Time to check on the skies. It's another sunny day in Calgary. Forecast calls for high levels of economic activity. Late afternoon, we've got a burst of potential in a place ranked North America's most livable city. Tomorrow, blue sky thinking and the blue Sky City should hold steady, and the outlook remains optimistic throughout the week, so come grab your dreams and enjoy watching them take hold. It's possible in Calgary, the Blue Sky

City. For the full economic forecast, visit calgary economic development.com.