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3. Eating for Satiety & Longevity in Perimenopause & Menopause with Gretchen Spetz, RD
162 Plays1 month ago
"I’m eating exactly the same way I always have, but I’m gaining weight." If this sounds like you, you aren’t alone—and you aren’t broken. In this episode, Dr. Rachel Pope sits down with registered dietitian Gretchen Spetz to explain why the traditional "calories in, calories out" model fails women in perimenopause and menopause.
As estradiol declines, our bodies undergo a profound physiological shift. Our basal metabolic rate can drop by up to 300 calories, our "fullness" hormones become less sensitive, and our cells become more resistant to insulin. The result? Frustration, fatigue, and the "midsection creep" that seems to happen overnight.
Gretchen Spetz is a registered dietitian who specializes in integrative and functional nutrition. She joins the show to provide a "food-first" roadmap to navigating these changes. We move past the grim statistics to focus on the silver lining: the specific tweaks you can make today to outsmart your biology.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The 300-Calorie Gap: Why your metabolic rate shifts and how declining muscle mass is the primary culprit.
- The Satiety Struggle: Why you might feel hungry all the time and how to trigger your "fullness" hormones (GLP-1 and CCK) naturally through your diet.
- Insulin Resistance 101: The "Taxi Cab" analogy for blood sugar and how to avoid the mid-afternoon energy crash.
- Muscle-Centric Nutrition: Why 30g of protein per meal is the "magic number" for stimulating muscle protein synthesis and protecting your bones.
- The Fiber "Pick Two" Rule: How to hit your 25g daily fiber goal to lower chronic inflammation and support gut health.
- Creatine & Supplements: Why creatine is no longer just for bodybuilders and how it can help women with brain fog and strength.
- The "Soil Quality" Reality: How modern farming impacts the nutrients in your vegetables and how to source the best produce.
About Our Guest:
Gretchen Spetz, MS, RDN, LD, IFNCP, is the founder of The Functional Kitchen. She uses a functional medicine approach to help women in midlife address the root causes of chronic disease and weight management through nutrition and lifestyle.
Connect with Gretchen:
- Website: gretchenspetzrd.com
- Free Guide: Protein & Fiber First Guide
- Instagram: @gretchenspetzrd
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Transcript
Varying Definitions of Healthy Eating
00:00:00
Speaker
how many times I have a conversation with my patients who tell me that they are eating well, they're eating clean, they're eating healthy, but I don't really know what they mean by that. And I think everyone's definition is
Introduction to Gretchen Spetz, Dietitian Nutritionist
00:00:11
Speaker
different. So I've been dying to find a nutritionist to come on to our Womanity to talk to all of you who are listening about the nuts and bolts of actually eating properly, appropriately during your midlife and beyond. So I'm thrilled today to to have Gretchen Spetz,
00:00:27
Speaker
She's a registered and licensed dietitian nutritionist who specializes in integrative and functional nutrition. She uses a food first approach to address the food and lifestyle related root causes of chronic disease and weight management, specifically with women in midlife. She's worked at our local academic hospital programs for years prior to launching her private practice, the Functional Kitchen. I love that name. Thank you. Isn't talking about the benefits of a healthful diet. She can be found at CrossFit, walking the trails next to her local beach on Lake Erie or cooking new dishes for her family. Gretchen is the proud mother of two girls who love to eat, cook, and stay
Challenges of Dieting During Menopause
00:01:00
Speaker
active. And Gretchen, thank you so much for being here today. Oh, thank you for having me, Dr. Pope. I'm delighted to be here.
00:01:05
Speaker
Absolutely. And you can call me Rachel, please. All right. So I wanted to have you on really because of that. My patients who are going through perimenopause and menopause, they notice that things are changing for them with their body. They can't eat the way they ate before or the way that they think is healthy. They are not seeing the same results from that sort of healthy lifestyle. And so I wanted to find out from you, what is the way women should be eating? What do we need to know? Is it different or, you know, what are we missing here?
00:01:34
Speaker
Absolutely. This is such a great question because I too hear from women saying the same thing who are so frustrated and usually they've gone to their primary care provider or somebody else and gotten one of two answers. Either this is what it means to get old.
00:01:47
Speaker
or eat less, exercise more. And they're really left feeling like, I honestly, I'm so paralyzed. I don't
Metabolic and Hormonal Changes in Menopause
00:01:55
Speaker
know what to do. and I think the first thing that we need to do is really educate women about what's happening during this long hormonal shift as our estradiol declines during perimenopause and then into the menopause transition.
00:02:11
Speaker
So it's not just like, oh my gosh, you were eating this way and we got to move over here and this other way. It's really about understanding how our pieces and parts, how they're just not quite as efficacious as they once were.
00:02:27
Speaker
So we want to start with calories in, calories out. It's not my favorite thing to talk about, but it is of a piece of the puzzle. I just like for it to be respected as a piece of the puzzle.
00:02:38
Speaker
But what we know is during the menopause transition, women's basal metabolic rates can decrease by up to 300 calories. I know it's really unfair.
00:02:48
Speaker
and the next question is, well, what the heck? Why is that happening? Part of the reason that's happening, and I'm sure you know this, is because we're seeing a significant drop in muscle mass during this time, where the same time, we're more prone to putting on that belly fat that so many women talk about. And a lot of that is visceral fat. I'm going to come back to this piece later, but when we see that drop in muscle mass, we do end up with a lower basal metabolic rate. That's how many calories you burn if you just lay on the couch all day. And you may be eating exactly the same, but that rate has shifted. So there is a mathematical equation happening.
00:03:23
Speaker
there are things we can do to change that. Even for people who are exercising too, if you have that much of a change, then your exercise is not going to do the same thing that it used to do, which is actually what people are telling us, right? if They've been doing the same things and they're not getting the same results. Yes. That is why. And even more unfair of is as estradiol drops, our sentiety hormones are not as sensitive So unfair, like double unfair. So our brain isn't getting those satiety responses. So we have to take it taste by taste. But a lot of women are just unconsciously eating more than their metabolic rate because it's dropped. And also our brain isn't as sensitive to the satiety signal. That is so interesting. i can say we're both in Northeast Ohio and we've had crazy cold weather. I don't want to go outside unless I absolutely have to. And I feel like hungry all the time. And I don't feel like I need to stop. Like it is this weird cue, you know, sometimes where you feel full, like you said, the satiety. And if if you're not getting those signals, like you don't stop because the food is there, you're inside, you're not going outside. I feel like I always gain weight over the winter, but I probably would be doing that if I lived in another climate as well.
00:04:36
Speaker
and And this is where like just being mindful about getting as many steps as you can, whether it's dressing appropriately to go out in the weather, though I'm not necessarily advocating for this today.
00:04:49
Speaker
Or if you have a treadmill or you're just walking around your house, like getting in some type of activity of daily living can be very supportive to keeping your basal metabolic rate where where we want it to be. That makes sense. And good for your mental health too. And I'm sure you see this, that there's a correlation with mental health and nutrition as well. Yes, yes. And that really stems into the other things actually that that are impacted by the drop in estradiol. And that is we see...
00:05:17
Speaker
a rise in insulin resistance, so we become less insulin sensitive. And that actually can make us feel hungrier too. So it's like triple whammy So
Dietary Guidance for Blood Sugar and Satiety
00:05:28
Speaker
unfair. And I think explaining this to women is so helpful. I always explain insulin resistance like this. Insulin is like the the taxi cab hormone that picks up sugar in the bloodstream.
00:05:41
Speaker
so sugar in our bloodstream. They come from a couple of places, but we'll keep it simple. You eat your carbs, they digest down into sugar, and then the sugar goes into the bloodstream. And what happens when your cells are bombarded, maybe they've been just getting knocks on their door, like I like to say, of, hey, there's sugar available, there's sugar available. If it's overwhelming, that they will shut their doors. And they just like become resistant. That's where that resistance comes from. And then sugar... andology The sugar's got to go somewhere. So it goes into our muscles and our liver to be stored as glycogen. It can also, this is a simplification of it, but it can be stored as fat as well. So what happens? Our cells have no energy. We're tired, right? Mid-afternoon slump is real. You wake up not feeling rested. and what do you want to You just want to keep eating.
00:06:28
Speaker
Right, right. And when we're tired, we crave carbs, right? Because that helps us to feel awake for a short amount of time, but then we crash and then we get into the cycle again. Yeah, yeah. And in another whammy, menopause transition, women don't sleep well. That it can mess even further with satiety hormones, affect blood sugar,
00:06:49
Speaker
And what's happening, we're eating, again, somewhere between 300 to 400 calories more just because of lack of sleep. So, boom, right there. think it's a lot. It's overwhelming. I kind of just want to, like, give up and just kind of be, like, um the soft, plump granny and just feel like... But, you know, we know that it's not healthy and we need muscle for our strength to even be able to stand up. We want to give ourselves the best sort of future by thinking of what we put into our bodies is so important. And I think this is an opportunity to first educate. And I tell women all the time, like, it's okay to be sad about this information.
00:07:27
Speaker
it's really, it's depressing. But there is a silver lining here. and now we know. We're not just going to keep hammering the square peg into the round hole of calories and calories out. We're going to eat to support better blood sugar.
00:07:43
Speaker
We're going eat to trigger your satiety hormones. We can do that. We're going to eat to lower chronic inflammation in the body. We can do that too. And really, it's some tweaks. It really comes down to tweaks. Okay. So what are some of those specific tweaks? What is eating to bring on that satiety or that feeling of fullness? what are Great question. So it is a magical combination I think three meals a day. I'm not big into having perimenopausal women fast longer than 14 hours. You know, then we start to talk about rises in cortisol, which is also playing into this whole picture as well. And it also becomes very difficult if you don't eat three times a day to get in your proteins.
00:08:22
Speaker
But if we want to trigger satiety and control blood sugar at our meals, we're looking at two nutrients that are real important. I'm sure some of your guests have said this before, but protein being number one. We also want to drill down even further into protein. We want to make sure that not only are we eating enough protein to help us trigger our satiety hormones that live in our gut, GLP-1, CCK.
00:08:45
Speaker
They're made at different points in the digestive tract and travel up to the brain and send the signal, hey, we're full. So we want to trigger those with protein, but we also want those three times a day to have enough of an amino acid called leucine to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Okay. So two birds with one stone.
00:09:05
Speaker
Got it. So the protein, what do you suggest is like the best way to get protein? I'm very pro-omnivore. Not that you can't be vegan or vegetarian. You can absolutely make this work.
00:09:17
Speaker
I have women all the time, maybe for religious reasons or personal ethical decisions, decide they want to be vegan or vegetarian. We can absolutely make this work. But we do get the highest and most bioavailable sources of leucine and other essential amino acids from our animal-based proteins. So I like for people to...
00:09:38
Speaker
to lean on those leaner sources of animal-based proteins. So we're talking about everything from Greek yogurt to chicken, skinless chicken, skinless poultry is always great. Lean cuts of beef and pork can be great as well. Eggs, but we want to make sure it's, I think it's also important to know for people, especially when you think about breakfast, some some people say, well, I get enough protein. ate for breakfast. Eggs only have six grams of protein. Oh, i know. So we want to be creative. Maybe we make a scrambler and we have like two eggs and four egg whites. Then we're getting, I like to see it a meal right around 30 grams of protein as a goal for most people.
00:10:18
Speaker
I love that. Okay. And I'll put in the show notes too, a couple of other specifics of how to get like a 30 gram protein. meal or 30 grams. I have a couple of different things that I've used for myself of trying to get 30 grams, but I'm sure you've got lots of ideas. Like where should people get recipes? You know, I'm not a cook. I'll put it out there. I'm not a great cook. I can follow a recipe. It feels like a huge effort.
00:10:38
Speaker
and to me to get all the ingredients to put it all together. I know some people love cooking and they just like relish that time. I'm a little bit more utilitarian, but I also i want to enjoy what I'm eating too. So trying to figure out how do I get that protein? Where do you tell people to go for recipes or ideas? Sure. Well, I have a great resource, Rachel, for you and your guests. If you go to GretchenSpedhRD.com slash Rebees, You can get my protein and fiber first guide, which is a recipe book, all one pan, one pot, all over 25 grams of protein.
00:11:15
Speaker
and then, of course, we haven't talked about fiber yet. We'll get there. The magic combination is when we have our meals that contain the right amount of protein and fiber. Fiber seems to get left in the dust.
00:11:26
Speaker
But that's a great resource. And I have a couple of accompanying videos about
Food vs. Supplements for Nutrients
00:11:30
Speaker
why am I always hungry? What does it mean to get enough protein? What does it mean to get enough fiber as well? Oh, that's really cool. And I mean, I should ask you if this is okay. But when when I've tried to put some of these recipes together to meet certain like number of calories or number of macronutrients or whatever I want to do, I usually go to AI and I ask Chad GPT also give me like a kid friendly add on. So like I might add a pasta so that the kids will like eat what I've put out, but then also add on some pasta or some other carbs that I might not eat. I don't know if you have any other recommendations because you do mention like kind of feeding your family. My husband's also a great cook, but trying to find something that everybody will eat.
00:12:07
Speaker
It's the never any mom challenge or parent challenge. I love the idea of assemble your own meals. So You know, so many people do Taco Tuesday, and it's such a great option to be like, hey, what do you want on your taco? Go build it over here. We've got all the pieces, parts.
00:12:24
Speaker
I do have one rule for my kiddos, and that's you got put at least a little veggie somewhere on that plate. But I like to build your own so you can build your own pasta. So maybe, you know, as perimenopausal women, what we can do we can stick with a portion size. always tell people,
00:12:40
Speaker
follow what I call the plate, where we wanna fill half of our plate with vegetables, little more vegetables than you're used to eating, but it's such a great way to get not only low calorie foods,
00:12:51
Speaker
But also we're getting the foods that have the most antioxidants, which really help to lower chronic inflammation. We also want, when it comes to protein, to be aiming for a protein that's about five or six ounces. Weight watchers drilled in our heads and we need three ounces, we can go bigger.
00:13:07
Speaker
we actually need more. Like I said, we need more of that protein now to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. And it'll also help that combo of the veggies and the protein really help keep us full. And then we got to think about our fiber because the veggies have some.
00:13:21
Speaker
And they're great. But if you look at a salad and the lettuce, maybe throw some carrots on there, we're probably topping out at about five grams of fiber. As women, we need 25 grams of fiber per day.
00:13:33
Speaker
So it's a good idea. i always tell people, pretend this is Panera. You pick two menu and you want to think of two... high fiber foods that you can include every day and be consistent with that. So my favorites are beans and lentils. You're to get somewhere between seven to nine grams of fiber for a half a cup. So that can be a great carb to put on the plate. If we're talking about pasta, they have the chickpea or red lentil pastas out there that are higher in fiber. Love that.
00:14:01
Speaker
Our portion will look more like half of a cup. especially if you're worried about insulin resistance versus maybe your kiddo who's in sports is going to have one cup more. And that's fine. You can just dig adjust portion sizes based on what everybody's needs are. Berries for fiber. i love putting chia seeds in yogurt for a good dose of fiber So we have lots of high fiber foods to rely on. They're just in addition to our vegetables.
00:14:29
Speaker
We have to be intentional about it, right? Because it's very easy to leave that out. And also, I mean, not to get like gross on people, but if you're eating a lot of protein, you need the fiber for your gut health and you're to not be constipated by the protein, right? Yes, absolutely. So balance is important.
00:14:45
Speaker
Absolutely. And women in perimenopause often start to experience changes in digestion, changes in bowel movements. We got to talk about it. Everybody goes. And that is always a direct correlation of health of the gut. And the place to start is fluid and fiber. Are we getting enough of those two things? Only 9% of American women are getting an adequate amount of fiber. So a lot of us have room to move, room to grow.
00:15:12
Speaker
This is not my expertise, but just to prevent colon cancer, we need more fiber too. So most of us are not getting enough fiber. We need to kind of focus on that. so yeah and And everything we're talking about, you fiber is important for heart health too. That's something that we want to make sure we're paying attention to as we age.
00:15:29
Speaker
You know, a lot of this is just education. Like if you can start throwing some chia seeds in your yogurt and five days a week you throw beans on your salad, voila, you probably doubled your fiber intake just with those two educational points.
00:15:42
Speaker
That's such a great point. It is doable. Okay, I won't give up then. Tell me more about sort of like what you think about supplements, micronutrients, all these things. Like we know calcium and vitamin d is helpful for women at this time because of their bone health. But what do you think about getting up from foods versus supplementation? How do you advise people? Absolutely. that That's such a great question because supplements in general are sort of a wild west situation. but I always like to start with the food. You know, if you start eating real foods that have fiber and protein and you start eating more vegetables, voila, you are going to get more of our vitamins and minerals that may be lacking. That said, something I think a lot of people don't realize is that since the late nineteen forty s when the U.S. s government tasked the USDA to to create an index of all of the nutrient facts of all of our common foods, because of big farming and because of really soil quality, it comes down to soil quality with farming practices, also early harvesting. So a lot of those foods that we get farmers
00:16:50
Speaker
South America, or we get even from the Southern United States, you know, they pick some early so they they don't go bad on the truck, but that impacts how much nutrition is actually in there. So we can see upwards of 50% decrease in like the vitamin and mineral content of some of our um vitamins and minerals in our in our plant foods. So for example, broccoli, i always tell people broccoli is such a great source of calcium, actually.
00:17:21
Speaker
It is, but we can see drops of about 50% just due to farming practices. So we pair that with the fact that, you know, you're going through pre-menopause, you're in your mid-40s, maybe closer to 50, and you're noticing these changes. You've lived a lot of life. Maybe you've birthed a few babies. And, you know, they're beautiful, right? But they took some nutrients from you along the way. Oh, yes, and and more.
00:17:43
Speaker
So I think it's always helpful to get some basic lab work done. Like, let's see where your vitamin D is at. Let's see where your B vitamins are at. Because some women are walking around with very low B vitamins, especially B12. And that's going to impact, if you go back to high-tech biology, that's going to impact the Krebs cycle and how much energy energy you can produce.
00:18:02
Speaker
And then we can look at magnesium. Two-thirds of the American population is deficient in magnesium. So I love for people to have a really good, at this stage in life, if we know all this stuff's going on, let's just do a good solid multivitamin as an insurance policy that I call it and then there's others that are really generally helpful for many people so omega-3s we in this country just honestly because of dining out and just processed foods we get more fats that are rich in omega-6s, which is our pro-inflammatory fatty acids, and omega-3s. That's something that contributes to inflammation. So yes, the more fish we can eat and making fish a part of your diet and beneficial, but taking it in supplement form can also be a player in preventing chronic disease as well.
00:18:53
Speaker
Or maybe when we dine out, we should always order fish. I feel like, I mean, we don't prepare a lot of fish at home, to be honest. So I feel like I do try to do that when I go out because I also like don't know how to cook fish very nicely except for salmon. Maybe that's kind of a way you could still dine out, but like get something that you wouldn't be getting otherwise. don't know. I love that idea, Rachel. Go for those scallops, right? Yum. Those are very rich omega-3s. Oh, that's good to know. What do you think about like protein drinks? I get that like there's a difference between multivitamins and then collagen. Right. Yeah. And some stuff we don't even necessarily digest, but I have to kind of get a little protein either from some of like a protein powder or a smoothie or something. I feel like it's really hard to meet all of the needs for the day without something like that. But do you think that's okay? I do. I do. You know, get into the debate about, okay, what about processed food? Should I completely avoid them? In our food environment, it's really impossible to avoid and only eat unprocessed foods. It's really just not realistic. And I don't know about you, but I don't see women who live a life of leisure. Most women at this stage in life are wearing multiple hats. They're caring for kids along with caring for their parents. They have a job. Maybe they have a side hustle. They've got this other thing going on. They're doing a home remodel. Oh my goodness. It's a feat in itself to put dinner on the table most nights.
00:20:18
Speaker
so I think a well-placed protein shake can be incredibly helpful. I've got my shake right here. makes you feel good. Yeah, because you can put chia seeds in there too. Amen to that. I've got berries. Here's my recipe, everybody. you ready? i like my, I'll give you some tips on not how to find the best protein powder, but I've got my protein powder. i have some unsweetened almond milk as the base. I like PB2 powder for a little bit of extra protein and a peanut butter taste. a cup of frozen mixed berries, and a tablespoon of chia seeds.
00:20:48
Speaker
There's 12 grams of fiber in this bad boy There's over 30 grams of protein. keeps me full and until 1 p.m. I love that. That's perfect. i I wake up really early and I have breakfast early and I swear by 10, 11 o'clock, I'm like, is it lunch yet? And a protein drink would be great. You know, you really have to watch the quality. we're were talking a little bit about supplements. in Supplements and I would leave protein shakes in here. You do want to pay attention to the quality of what you're choosing. so like when we think about choosing the right kind of protein powders, I always say when choosing whey protein powder, look for protein that comes from grass fed cows, you'll actually get some better omega three to omega six ratio out of that. And you'll also get more of the micronutrients. When choosing a plant based powder, looking for options that have a pea protein powder, or a pea protein
Local Farming and Nutrient-Rich Produce
00:21:40
Speaker
blend where pea is the first ingredient, that's going to ensure you get the right amount of amino acids, specifically that leucine. you So that's really helpful. And then I always tell people, look for sweeteners like stevia mung fruits. even sugar and coconut sugar and try and stay away from some of the other sweeteners, artificial sweeteners that are out there, like, like sucrilla.
00:22:01
Speaker
Other ones are okay. The first ones that you've had. Those are the ones I have my stamp of approval on for right now. You know, that's another conversation with that. Oh, and I want to come back to actually something you mentioned about the broccoli that blew my mind for a moment. And, How do you know what the farming practices are? Like, how do you choose the right broccoli that's going to give you the calcium that you want? Is there any sort of guide for that? So it's not really a guide because obviously not all farms are sitting there with a little lab, right, and testing. I got that information from studies because there are studies, of course, that have been done on this, just like picking random stuff from the grocery store. But the best thing you can do, terrible time of year to talk about this, but in the summertime, to your farmer's markets and choose foods from local farmers because they're not typically engaging in some of the large farm practices, like the big agribusiness practices that strip the soil of the micronutrients. And then if you can, seek out farms that um participate in regenerative agriculture practices. This is like growing cover crops. So there's different crops that they can grow.
00:23:04
Speaker
that will actually help to enrich the soil with those micronutrients. And we do have a local farm in Huron County here in Ohio, Farmer Jones Farm. They actually have a lab on site. Really cool, really cool. And they've repleted the micronutrients to over 100% what they were. they' on that's far from. Yeah, I know, I know. I wish I could say I got out there every week and it's not doable, but...
00:23:29
Speaker
They do have a CSA, Community you Supported Agriculture. You can get a box every week if you're interested. And there are definitely other farms in Northeast Ohio doing the same sort of thing.
00:23:40
Speaker
But how helpful just to know that, because I had no idea that that could be. And if you are using references, whether it's an app or online and trying to calculate what your
Nutritional Strategies for Menopause
00:23:50
Speaker
nutrients are, like you could be completely wrong based on farming practices. And I have good shout out Heinen's and Whole Foods, too, being two of our bigger ones. They do, again, not so much in the winter, but in the summertime, source produce from local farms as often as possible. And I think for the average consumer, and this is what I do, is just say, hey, let me see what's available locally. What's locally grown at my highlands down the street? Okay, if if it's a zucchini this week, by golly, we're going have a dip with zucchini and go from there.
00:24:22
Speaker
That's awesome. Well, I have learned so much. I'm sure I will have more questions in the future. this is super informative. I so appreciate it. Is there anything you want to leave our listeners with anything just to kind of like wrap it up of anything that you want to encourage them with or tell them if they need more specific information for themselves how do they find you how do they find someone like you if they're not in ohio absolutely so gonna say a couple things i want to cycle back to we were talking about what supplements should people take don't want to go on a long list but i mentioned magnesium so it would be a good a good multivitamin an omega-3 and then i would be remiss if i did not give a heavy shout out to creatine
00:25:02
Speaker
Creatine is something that I think midlife women and honestly, people of the life stage can really benefit from for two reasons. It's going to help support muscle mass growth. So we like that. Women have 70 to 80 percent less creatine than men So taking that is going to be really helpful for maintaining or increasing your muscle mass. And then it's also really good for brain health. can really help you people with brain fog and and just cognition overall. So that's something to seriously consider. and creatine monohydrate, you can literally get it anywhere. Okay, maybe you can teach this to me too. Because so in college, i ran track. This was kind of my thing. It a Division III school. was nothing crazy, but it was a lot of my time and effort to know exercise and run. And I was a vegetarian and my time started going off and I just felt like, oh,
00:25:53
Speaker
Something is missing here. Something is changing. And so I started taking creatine then. This was a little long time ago before it was everywhere. And I did notice a difference in my performance, but I really attributed it to, I mean, I think I had researched this and looked this up. I was in biology classes and all of that. And I thought this is what I'm missing because I'm vegetarian. vegetarian, I felt like it was helpful. But I guess now at this point where I'm not a performative athlete and I've seen the creatine rage, like, do I really need that? And then secondly, like, where is it coming from? do you know? Like, is it an animal source or? it is not actually. It's just produced in a lab. I need to look into that. i'm not afraid to admit when I don't know. I don't know exactly the the process, but it's not something where a vegetarian obviously has to have it as animal
00:26:38
Speaker
I think I need it as like a non-athlete. Yeah, I think it's actually helpful for everybody, even if you are kind of in that pre-contemplative stage of, oh, I know I need to straight train, but I haven't gotten there yet. i think it's helpful for brain. You can start to see, I'll have people starting to think, man, I just feel like a little bit clearer. You know, it's it's not a drug. It's not going to like change your world and your cognition completely, but it's helpful from that percentage. Also, it has been shown to be helpful for depression as well. yeah I think there's benefits it's very well studied and extremely safe. So I feel really good about recommending it to pretty much everyone. Okay.
00:27:13
Speaker
I love that because, yeah, I felt like it was such an obscure thing that I knew about from the time and now I see it everywhere. And someone was literally just telling me at work that it's helpful for jet lag. And I was just like, but really, can it be this wonderful? You know, like my little skeptical antenna starts to go up. I mean, you know. You hear it's not magical, but yeah, helpful and safe, helpful.
00:27:34
Speaker
That's really, really helpful to know. And then finally, if people are looking for more customized information or the like, how do I incorporate this into my life? Where can they find you? Yes. So first, you know, I just want to remind every woman who's listening out there, you're feeling frustrated, you're not broken. We just need to take a slightly different approach. And at the end of the day, even though I talked about insulin resistance and inflammation and all those things, it's less scary than it appears. And lot of the nutrition interventions and the exercise interventions, they're like a two for five situation. Not only is it going to benefit your weight, but it's going to benefit your brain health
Resources for Further Guidance
00:28:10
Speaker
and your heart health. Like all these things work together to help all your pieces and parts. And they're not hard, I promise. So you can find me couple places, GretchenSpedzRD.com. And if you're interested in getting some freebies, I've got some fun freebies on there. Protein and fiber first that I mentioned. And also a five-day experience called Take Your Sugar Cravings if sugar cravings are an issue. So GretchenSpedz.com slash freebies. And then you can also find me on Instagram at... at GreshenspethRD. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time. Your expertise is so appreciated. And i look forward to putting your tips in into practice.
00:28:48
Speaker
Oh, well, this is such a joy to speak with you, Rachel. Thanks for having me on today and stay warm.