So Here For It - Episode 1
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Amy Mingin: [00:00:00] All right, I am so excited to be here. It's the So Here For It podcast. Here I am, Amy Mingin, your host. And today I will be talking all things health, women's hormones specifically. This is one of my most treated areas that I've treated in my years as a naturopath. I've been a naturopath for over 16 years.
I absolutely live and breathe this stuff. And that's why people get results. That's why people come back to me to ask specific questions. And the big thing about what I'm here for is this. I'm here for people being able to make their own healthy decisions. I'm here for women being able to be discerning with their health and being able to take control of their health and being able to actually Say [00:01:00] no, say no, if it doesn't feel good and say yes to the things that feel great for them to do for their own health and wellbeing as, as we age.
So let's jump into today's topic. Today's topic, I'm going to be talking about the female metabolism, because this is something that once you get it, there ain't no going back to all the confusing stuff that's out there on the internet. That maybe you've heard from a fitness influencer or maybe you've heard about counting macros or maybe you've heard about this from like somebody else who claims to be a health expert.
And the truth is a lot of this stuff does work. I'm not here to bad mouth all the different diets or whatever it is that you've trialed in the past. What I am here to do is to is to help shine a light on what is real so that you can actually tune into your own body to make your own decision. Sounds good, right?
So let's [00:02:00] start with Female Metabolism 101 because it goes very much hand in hand with our gut health, with our emotional well being, with our mental health, and it also goes hand in hand with stress levels. I would go as far to say your metabolic rate, how balanced your hormones are and how you're showing up in the world as a woman is heavily influenced by your nervous system.
Now, you might not realize, but the choices that you make are chosen unconsciously. Most of the time And they're chosen unconsciously, because that's the way you've always done it. That's the way people in your life have always done it. And that's the way that your unconscious mind feels safe to do it. So there's going to be some mindset shifts throughout this podcast today that I'm sure that you're just going to be like mind blown about.
And you're welcome.
This is my unique view on [00:03:00] what might seem to be a common topic, but it's not often spoken about the way that I speak about things. So here we go.
The female metabolism goes a little like this. It goes in sync with our monthly cycles. Now, I know there are gonna be women who listen to this podcast who are well into perimenopause and possibly postmenopausal, and we, I'll get to you guys soon, okay?
Because the cycle does go a little awol the closer we get to 50 years old, and I will talk into that area of life really soon. But let's talk about the women who are in their twenties and thirties and even forties. Where we are at is this. How our metabolism is when we're in our 20s, usually, unless there's a heap of stress, it's actually usually pretty darn good.
Now, here's the interesting thing. There's always these extenuating circumstances that happen during our 20s. So if you think [00:04:00] about living circumstances, this is still that time of life where a lot of women are still getting to know who they are. A lot of women are pushing things way further. They're still in their people pleaser era and they're still learning to say no. They're still learning boundaries. They're still learning a whole lot of things in their twenties. And then I don't know about you, but if you've already turned 30 and you go into your thirties, the thirties for me, has been all about establishing boundaries, really getting to know myself and knowing what it is that I really want from life.
Like yes, I got lots of experience when I was in my twenties. Yes, I made lots of mistakes. Yes, I failed forward. And also, the 30s was all about breaking down and deconditioning from all the things that I learned before. So, that's where a lot of my stuff comes from. It's just like, just because somebody says to eat low carb, doesn't mean you should.
Just because keto worked for somebody, it doesn't mean that you should. Just because someone's [00:05:00] paleo or someone at the gym says to count your macros, doesn't mean you should. Like it took me, I would say a good decade. Let's say I got serious about my health when I was in my 20s. And I probably got a little too serious because guess what happens when you get too serious, it's stressful on the nervous system, isn't it?
So add the stress to the nervous system and then what ensues after that is some hormonal imbalance. So I was, I can tell you now, I was in my mid twenties with thyroid issues, and a lot of inflammation and feeling puffy. And so I thought that the only way to change my metabolic rate was to eat less and exercise more.
And I'm sure you've all heard this before, and it is counterintuitive to do the opposite. And the women who I work with often say to me, Amy, that's a lot of food that you want me to eat. And I want to tell you [00:06:00] this, that in your first half of your cycle, that's the most important part for you to have more carbs with your midday meal. It's the most important time because you are producing, you're in your follicular phase, you're producing what we call endometrial tissue inside of your uterus. If you want to have a baby at some stage, or even if you want to have a healthy period, that endometrial layer, it actually sheds every single month when we're not making babies.
You want that to be really healthy. It literally is healthy blood. You'll be able to tell when you have your monthly bleed to go, Oh, you can have a look at the health of that blood. It shouldn't have a rank smell. It shouldn't have mucus or clots. There shouldn't be pain. What really should happen is, the bleed starts. And you use your pad or tampon [00:07:00] or cup or period undies and it lasts for three to five days and then that's it.
There really shouldn't be anything excessive as far as pain, as far as nausea, headaches, all of those different symptoms that most women get can be avoided by first of all looking at what we're putting into our bodies and our variations of stress in our lives. Like it is the biggest thing. So when women tell me that they've got thyroid issues, that's actually an end point.
When someone says to me, Oh, I've done all of these different things and nothing works anymore, that's an end point. I want to also let you know here that the female metabolism can certainly be healed, and I see it on the daily basis. It usually takes about eight weeks, sometimes a little bit longer, but I want to let you know, definitely, you can heal your metabolism.
And also, let me say this, whatever you've been doing in the [00:08:00] past that currently is not working, it's not going to give you the result that you're seeking if you keep doing it. Now, let me say that in a different way. You're going to need to change what you're currently doing in order to get different results.
And so if you're currently in that era of eating less and exercising more, it's time to shift it up. Now that's your follicular phase, your follicular phase, you're wanting to have this healthy endometrial tissue so that you're energizing yourself so that you're getting this blood flow. So then you're feeding your system the correct nutrients so you can create a really beautiful egg.
If the egg's already there but we're looking at the quality of the egg, the actual outer part of the egg is really really important for fertilization. It needs to be a particular quality in order to create a healthy baby. That's a whole other episode. Once that egg [00:09:00] has been released at ovulation, that's going to go and sit inside the endometrial tissue if it's fertilized, otherwise it is going to die.
And I call this, I call this the day of disappointment. You probably don't notice it if you're in your twenties, you probably notice it in your thirties, and you definitely notice it in your forties. And this day of disappointment is usually around five days after ovulation. Literally the cells in your body get a little bit of grief because the egg hasn't been fertilized. You're not making a baby that month. It's so interesting. And a lot of women might feel a little teary that day, or they might feel a little bit irritable that day, or they just don't feel that great that day. Usually that's the day of disappointment that the egg is dying. It hasn't been fertilized.
Anyway, that's just, that's a little fun fact that I wanted to share with you. It's nothing pathological. It is, it's science and it's energetics. Now, the next thing I want to say here is in your luteal phase, your [00:10:00] healthy fats are really important. So, if somebody is severely dieting, often they're cutting out fats, often they're cutting out carbs, or they're doing one or the other.
You know, I don't often hear people do a low protein diet, but usually I hear people doing like low fat or they do low carb, and the truth of it is, you need all of it. There's no whole food group that you need to cut out in order to be healthier. What is necessary is for you to have more healthy whole foods.
Now what you can do is you can actually manipulate what you eat with the timing to help repair your metabolic rate. And that's why I do this in relation to your cycle because it works so beautifully in sync. Now when you're in luteal phase, which is after ovulation, so if we're saying, ideal world day one is when you first start your bleed, by about day five you'd usually stop bleeding and then up to about, [00:11:00] so sometimes women might ovulate around day 12 anywhere up to about day 18 and then after that you're going to go into luteal phase and the corpus luteum is what helps to produce progesterone in our body and progesterone is one of those hormones that actually is anti inflammatory.
It helps to calm us down, but it's one of the things that is lowest when we start going into perimenopause. It's the thing that most women would feel rubbish if they've had a really stressful, stressful month. Now to support healthy progesterone production, we want to support a healthy ovulation, which we've already done in the follicular phase, right?
We've made sure that we've had enough carbohydrates. enough vegetables, micronutrients, enough protein and enough healthy fats. Now in the luteal phase, what I find works really well, particularly for someone who wants to fix their metabolism, because they've probably been overdoing it in the exercise department and [00:12:00] underdoing it in the eating department, adding a little extra healthy fats like avocado, not so much nuts.
I just want to say something here. Nuts are quite inflammatory. A lot of people are like, have nuts, have, coconut have all these different forms of nuts and I'm not here for it. And mostly it's because of inflammation. Inflammation in the gut generally prevents us from being able to heal, right? So we want to take some things or have limits on some things for a period of time so it supports our goals.
So if there is inflammation, if there is what's, you know, in inverted commas, a broken metabolism, we're going to want to have a look at cutting out the nuts. Just for a period of time. Having a little more avocado. Having some healthy oils. Now, something that I'm just so not here for as well, is seed oils.
So things like canola oil, soy oil, cotton seed oil, um, what are some [00:13:00] of the others? Sunflower oil, they have one form of sunflower oil that is okay sparingly, but generally speaking sunflower oil as well. You want to try and find things that are cooked in saturated fats, so things that are actually cooked in beef tallow or coconut oil.
Olive oil is okay, I put olive oil more in a neutral category. Your saturated fats are actually far more healthy for you while you're healing. And I talk about this inside my Catalyst program, by the way, which I'll talk to you more about later on. I want to say that if you just add in a couple of extra tablespoons of avocado per day in your Luteal phase, it can be life changing.
It's high in folate, it's high in B vitamins, it's high in vitamin E, it's anti inflammatory. And the vast majority of women who do this, they're eating their food as medicine. It regulates their hormones. It regulates that luteal phase. It's very, very [00:14:00] helpful at working anti inflammatory inside the gut. And my goodness, their skin glows from the inside out.
So you're welcome. Such a beautiful health hack. And by the way, this podcast is going to be full of those. So I don't know if you've ever heard of using food as medicine before, but it's actually my version. Instead of just relying on supplements, as soon as I had learned about food as medicine, it was like everything made sense to me about food.
And then I couldn't ignore what particular foods were best to have in what situation. So of course I'm going to start utilizing those foods, utilizing different cooking methods, utilizing different resources for people so that I can pass this information on. So literally adding some complex carbohydrates in your follicular phase and [00:15:00] adding some extra fats in your luteal phase, some women are going to need to maintain a certain level of carbohydrate, particularly if their hormones are, in inverted commas, a little bit broken.
It's like anyone who has had thyroid issues, anyone with adrenal issues, anyone with cortisol or stress issues, definitely you need to maintain a decent amount of carbohydrate per meal. And I know you're probably saying, Oh, how much am I supposed to have? I would say at least a half a cup of cooked rice. Like, that's a decent amount. Or a half a cup of sweet potato or a half a cup of potato. Think about the starch, think about the complex carbs, but also think about it in a way of how can my body utilize this for energy instead of, oh, I'll quickly grab that wrap, like that's a refined version of how it occurs in nature.
And I know, I eat bread as well, but the way that [00:16:00] I eat bread is the bread with the least amount of ingredients in it. So my bread has buckwheat, like whole buckwheat, whole rice, some salt, some water. That's it. And then it's baked. So I want you to start thinking about, all right, well, what sorts of foods are in their most natural state?
And that's actually going to help you fix your metabolism as well, because we want to have healthy estrogen. We want to have healthy amounts of progesterone, but also we need these carbohydrates to help keep our cortisol levels at a stable rate. That's literally what it does and that's why so many people crave carbs, particularly in the afternoon.
They're like, I'm going to be good. I'm going to be good. I'm just going to have a protein shake for, for my breakfast. And then I'm just going to have like chicken and broccoli at lunchtime. And then they get to three o'clock and they are craving sugar, craving carbs. And they get home to have like that white bread with butter or they've cooked garlic bread or [00:17:00] they just have no self control and they go through like the drive through. It's not about you not having self control. It's about you actually providing your body with what it requires to fuel it in order to create what it is that your body so naturally creates by itself. Like that's actually what this is all about.
So if you can add more healthy whole foods in, and by the way, I'm going to put into the show notes the free link to my guide called The Switch. So if you're fairly new to this or even if you've been doing this for a while and you're just like, you know what, I want to do it the way that Amy recommends, the way that Amy has actually been eating for the last little while.
I go through phases. There's going to be busy phases of your life where maybe sometimes things slide a little bit and that's okay. Like I'm not here to say you have to be perfect with your food, but if you're at that stage where you're like, Oh my freaking God, I'm so done [00:18:00] with making excuses for myself or taking the easy route, or, you know, you know, when you get to that point, right.
And you're ready to look after yourself so much more because let's face it, when you're eating well, it's a form of self care. When you're prepping and you're organized, it is a form of self care. The more you care for yourself, the more you love yourself, the more you're going to be able to make great decisions, the more discerning you become, and that is fulfilling the mission that I am on in this lifetime.
So it all starts with that first decision. That first decision of you deciding to look after yourself and eating the healthier version of the food rather than the refined version. Rather than just being like well, I'm craving this so I'm just gonna have it and sometimes you need to I get it. And also let's not do that all the time.
I get that it's so healthy to have a healthy eating plan in place, but it's not healthy if you're stressing yourself out about it. So [00:19:00] that's one end of the spectrum. It's equally not helpful if you're so anti being on a plan and being structured with things that you end up like in inverted commas saying that you're doing things intuitively when really all you're doing is giving into cravings every day because you're not eating properly.
Yeah, I just said that. And sometimes I'm going to say things that probably go against the grain. I am going to say things that some people are like, that's not very politically correct. Do you know what? I've lived my life long enough now to know who I am and to form really specific opinions about what I believe about things.
And health is something that I have very strong opinions about. And also, I feel like they're super healthy opinions about health. So if you're in alignment with this, great. And if you're not, have a think about it. Have a think about what part of you is saying, [00:20:00] I can't believe she just said that. Like what part of you wants to rebel against actually looking after yourself?
Like I have some, sometimes it doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes there's people who come into Catalyst and they just are like, well, I found this recipe, can I use it? And I'm like, no, because it's not on your plan. Like everyone gets their own plan. Just an FYI, everyone gets their own plan. And as soon as somebody's looking for something different, they're looking for the way to rebel.
Guess what that actually means? That rebel inside of you, the one that doesn't want to play by the rules or wants to rebel against whatever the person is suggesting, they're actually stopping themselves from succeeding. Particularly if somebody pays me to help them, then I'm going to help them. And then they've paid me, right?
So if they ask a question that goes outside of that, [00:21:00] I'm going to keep them on track. But it's up to them to step out of that rebellious nature and to step out of self sabotage because that's essentially what it is. It's their inner child having a little stomp of the foot with the hand on hip being like, but I want it this way.
And it's like, remember. that the version of you who got you to where you are right now is exactly how you've been doing it. So if you allow yourself to do the mindset shift to outsource it for a little bit, like what if you did allow yourself to have a bit more structure around your menstrual cycle, a bit more structure around your food, a bit more structure around how you exercise and with whom, a bit more structure around your self care practices and rituals.
I wonder who is that version of you on the other side of that. Instead of the one who starts something for three days and then looks for an easy way out. Or looks for something different. [00:22:00] Or wants, you know, wants to tweak and change things because wants to have it her way. I want you to have a think about that.
Because there's one thing to feel committed to something. There's another thing to actually stick to a plan and trust the process. And this is less of a conformity thing and it's more about you performing self care and trusting the process. So your task, I'm going to give you a task, your task for this particular podcast, I'd love for you to go to the show notes. If you haven't already, I would love for you to like this podcast, subscribe, leave a review, an honest review. I would love for you, for you to leave an honest review and then share it on your social media. Now what I'm going to be doing is giving away $300 gift vouchers.
Yep. I am. So now [00:23:00] that you've listened and now that you've heard it also, what's really important is you go and download The Switch guide, cause that's going to get you started on the next trajectory of you, which is amazing. And also I will make sure that you go into the draw to get a $300 gift voucher.
I'm going to be giving 10 of these out. So if you help me, I'll help you. And it's going to be amazing. It's going to be so much fun. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I will see you on the next episode.
