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#100: Stephanie Miller: Root Cause Health for Better Gut Health and Hormone Balance
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In this episode of the Kate Hamilton Health Podcast, I’m chatting with Stephanie Miller i better known as Stephanie Jane Health on Instagram or The Honest Health Queen. Stephanie is an online health coach and corporate wellness expert who’s passionate about root cause health coaching, with a special focus on gut health and hormonal balance.
We dive into Stephanie’s inspiring journey from corporate life to becoming a health coach after facing her own health struggles. She shares her insights on perimenopause, managing trigger foods, reducing stress, and how everything in the body is connected - yes, even your gut and brain! You’ll also learn about her tailored coaching approach and why it’s so important to treat each client as an individual.
Plus, we explore the vagus nerve, the role of minerals, and the small but powerful lifestyle changes that can make a big difference in how you feel. Whether you’re navigating perimenopause, working to improve your gut health, or just trying to feel like yourself again, this episode is packed with actionable tips and expert advice.
Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Introduction to the Podcast
[00:13] Meet Stephanie Miller: The Honest Health Queen
[02:31] Stephanie’s Personal Health Journey
[05:26] What Is Root Cause Health Coaching?
[07:30] How to Identify and Manage Trigger Foods
[10:17] Why Gut Health Is the Foundation of Wellness
[16:52] The Vagus Nerve and Gut-Brain Connection
[22:18] How Sleep and Stress Impact Your Health
[27:21] Balancing Life, Health, and Womanhood
[28:55] Managing Career and Family Responsibilities
[29:25] Making Time for What Matters
[30:15] Finding Purpose and Fulfilment in Your Work
[33:14] Hormone Health 101
[34:56] Nutrition Tips for Hormonal Balance
[36:25] How to Make Lifestyle Changes That Stick
[41:31] Navigating Perimenopause and Menopause with Grace
[45:41] Why Minerals Are Key to Your Health
[49:28] What Health and Self-Love Really Mean
[51:16] Final Thoughts and How to Connect with Stephanie
Links & Resources:
- Connect with Stephanie Miller on Instagram here
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with friends who might benefit. For more health and fitness tips, follow me on Instagram and TikTok @katehamiltonhealth.
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Transcript
Introduction to Stephanie Miller
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the Kate Hamilton health podcast. So in this episode, I chat with Stephanie Miller. Stephanie is known as Stephanie Jane health on Instagram. She is also known as the honest health queen. She's an online health coach and corporate wellness expert. And she has nearly 15 years experience as a personal
From Corporate to Health Coaching
00:00:30
Speaker
trainer as well.
00:00:30
Speaker
So after she transitioned from a corporate investment role, she pursued a natural path diploma and completed numerous health and fitness courses driven by her journey of overcoming personal health challenges. So Stephanie specializes in root cause health coaching, gut health and hormonal balance. And that's literally what we base this whole podcast around.
Exploring Root Cause Health Coaching
00:00:52
Speaker
We chat about root cause health coaching, how it's so individualized. We talk a lot about gut health.
00:00:59
Speaker
hormone health. We talk about perimenopause as well. We talk about trigger foods. We talk about stress. We talk about the vagus nerve. We talk about how everything is so interlinked and interconnected and how lifestyle has a huge impact on all of these things and that our insides are like an orchestra and with one little thing out of tune, it can knock so many other things out of tune. I really think you're going to get so much value from this amazing conversation. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Integrative Health Coaching Approach
00:01:33
Speaker
Stephanie, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thank you for having me. This is our second time around trying to get this. so I'm really excited to sit down now and chat about all things help. Finally. yes get Yeah. Before we get into it, do you want to just tell everybody who you are and what it is that you do?
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, so I am Stephanie Miller, known as Stephanie Jane Health or The Honest Health Queen, as a bit of a subtitle. And I am an integrative health coach. So this is along the lines of nutritional therapy, helping people heal from chronic health conditions that might they might have. So it can be anything ranging from reoccurring UTIs as a popular one, hormonal issues,
00:02:17
Speaker
gut issues, gallbladder skin issues, yeah, you name it. It's unraveling people's lives really and getting to the bottom of what's going on for them. Amazing. So what got you here to this very specific type of health coaching? Yeah, so my own health journey really, um God, I'm going back 20 years, I was in my early 20s.
00:02:38
Speaker
really, really struggled with my gut, was diagnosed with IBS. I had every test. I was backwards and forwards to the GP, had been to the hospital, colonoscopy specialists, was even told that it was all in my head, various different medications and nothing.
00:02:56
Speaker
nothing ever got to the bottom of it, no pun intended. I used to be in the corporate world and when I was 27, I just quit my job, and I actually retrained as a personal trainer. In the first instance, that's what I did. So still doing a minimal amount of PT now in person and other coaching online, but that led me into the health and fitness industry if you like and I was still suffering with my gut then because that went on for about a decade my early 20s yeah into my early 30s and I know how disruptive that is to people's lives mentally and physically and everything that brings up and then i I was just curious and I think because I was just so sick of feeling the way that I did and suffering the way that I was that I then did a naturopath diploma so nutritional therapy and actually got to the crux of what was going on for me and
00:03:45
Speaker
yeah literally healed from the inside out and touch wood. I very rarely have a flare-up which usually if I know I have just overindulged and everybody's going to feel crap aren't they if they have too much rich foods or I don't know if you've had a big three four course meal a ball or something like that but yeah day-to-day living now is is not what it was.
Personalized Health Strategies
00:04:09
Speaker
So when you actually got to the bottom of it, what was causing this decade long issues that you were having with your health? So that's something you can never answer. And this is a challenge I have now with my clients. And I understand where my client's thought processes come from again, because I've been there and I've been in those shoes. And I don't know, we have this innate compass that we need a diagnosis.
00:04:33
Speaker
and we need to know exactly what it is that's causing it as if it's just one thing and the truth of the matter is that it just never is that you know it's so multifaceted and it's so nuanced to the individual you know with anything n equals one you've lived your life and i live i've lived mine and even though systematically we might have similar symptoms we can't treat you and me the same because you will respond differently to how I will, to different approaches. And you know how we live our lives day to day will be different. The challenges we have with family, kids, husbands, work, you know running a household, all of those things are going to impact somebody's health. And so for me, it was just a process. And from my process, what I've learned is, yes, there are certain things that you can apply to everybody, but you've really just got to work with the individual and see what's coming up for them and how their body is responding.
00:05:25
Speaker
Okay, and I suppose this brings me kind of onto my question then to what exactly is root cause health coaching, which is what you do, which I presume is taking an individualist approach to a client's issues. Is that am I right in thinking that? Yeah.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And I always say like every client I work with, they're my biggest teacher because everybody is so different. You can't just do a diploma, a course, a degree, whatever it might be. And know absolutely everybody because everybody I'm presented with is different by default. So everybody really is a test and a challenge, but that's my own personal growth as well over the years. And the coaching idea is quite, I'm very methodical and the way I track and work with people how I describe it is it's the closest I can get to them without actually living with them, which nobody wants. or one But yeah, really looking at every single piece of their life and what is going on day to day and how they are responding to those things day to day. So if I was to come to you and I was having gut issues, where would you start with me?
Understanding Body Patterns
00:06:30
Speaker
So we would start by tracking what's going on for you over a week and that would be everything from the food that you're eating, what you're drinking, your sleeping patterns, your training, feelings and symptoms that are coming up for you day to day is really really important and once I've got a full week's worth of that usually things really stick out like a sore thumb but part of this process over well however long it takes it could be three, six, nine, twelve months, who knows,
00:06:57
Speaker
it's the client that actually starts to see what is going on for them and I'm there to just shine the light on it because it's not me that's being impacted by their day-to-day life and I'm not a coach that will dictate in that you need to do this you need to do that and quite often like I say these the clients do have these penny drop moments are like oh okay well I've thought this about this last week is that right and it's like yeah I thought you might do you're starting to see what's happening for your own body and for me it's really to get people to lean into themselves into their own intuition. So that's like the baseline and then from there we look at removing trigger foods, like obvious trigger foods. I'm not into restricting foods permanently because there's absolutely no need to. Foods aren't the issue, it's the individual. It's the individual's internal environment which isn't
00:07:45
Speaker
robust enough and able to digest all foods. That is where the issue comes from.
The Role of Probiotics in Digestion
00:07:51
Speaker
So the analogy I use there is a bit like hay fever, for example. So it's not the trees, the pollen, the flowers that are the problem, because if they were, we would all have hay fever. It's the individual susceptibility.
00:08:03
Speaker
to those things and it's just how depleted that individual is in certain, it could be enzymes, it could be hydrochloric acid, it could be certain minerals, which leads me on to the next stage, we would always mineral test. So we do a hair mineral test analysis that gets sent away to a lab and that comes back then with what is actually going on for that person, where they're depleted, what minerals are low and from that you can really get the folk protocol as to what supplementation is needed and what the nutritional approach needs to be for that individual. That's so interesting.
00:08:37
Speaker
The first point I love here is that obviously, you know, I completely understand that in order to figure out what trigger foods are irritating someone's system, or they need to be removed for a certain amount of time. But I love that you're saying food is not bad. No types of foods are bad. We take them away to see if it's the issue, then reintroduce or get a plan in place to dig further in in the direction that we need to dig. Yeah.
00:09:02
Speaker
Totally, yeah so there's things like coffee as an example is a massive trigger that and as i set my coffee is a massive trigger for the guts and a lot of women in particular will have a coffee on an empty stomach first thing in the morning and it's one of the worst things that you can do and then wonder why you run into the toilet because it's a stimulant at the end of the day and then the body will just want to go and just flush it out. So that's an example of a trigger food. Other ones are things like, and these are all the things that people would eat a lot of because they see them as being really healthy. So you cruciferous vegetables, the broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, cabbage, really dark green leafy veg, they can really aggravate the gut, legumes, so beans, pulses, things that are really high fiber foods.
00:09:50
Speaker
place a really high workload on the gastrointestinal tract and what we usually need to do is just give them like a breaker just give it space to just rest rest and digest and just yeah remove those foods that can be triggering for some people.
00:10:05
Speaker
That's really interesting. Like I know a lot of this in the sense that like my sister suffers with Crohn's so really high-fibre foods are very much a no-no for her and you know she works with a dietitian in relation to this so obviously you know when I work with people we work very much in a general sense you know presuming everyone's system is working fairly well. Like I tend to promote
Fiber and Gut Health
00:10:26
Speaker
a high-fibre diet. What I find interesting here is gut health.
00:10:30
Speaker
We need lots of prebiotic foods that are high in fiber in order to feed our good gut bacteria. But ah if there's something going on, more fiber is going to aggravate what's going on. So what you're saying is to remove the high fiber foods for a short period of time, figure out what's going on, reintroduce them in a different way.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, so you would remove really for around four to six weeks. That's what I would usually do unless somebody has come to me with severe gut issues, then it could be for longer. And again, when you reintroduce them, it's not going back to having them every single day. Okay. And actually before a prebiotic,
00:11:15
Speaker
When we think about digestion, we have to go back to, if we're stud making food or we're cooking and we're really hungry, we start salivating, don't we? So saliva starts being produced in the mouth and that's actually the first stage of the digestion process. so But what tends to happen now is because every life is busy, we're on a rush, quite often, lunchtime's a bad one and maybe breakfast. Eating on the run is really bad because the body can't digest, so rest and digest, it can't digest and run around at the same time. The body is then like that.
00:11:44
Speaker
because it doesn't have the energy to digest. So food drops into the mouth, amylase is produced, so digestive enzyme, that's the first enzyme that food hits, so that helps with the breakdown of food. We swallow it, it goes into the stomach and the food there will hit hydrochloric acid.
00:12:00
Speaker
along with digestive enzymes so things like biotin and pepsin. Now nine times out of ten people's stomach acid is depleted because this naturally decreases with age anyway so like from the age of 30 that will start reducing and with the mineral testing that will really highlight what's needed first. Is it enzymes or do we have to go basics with hydrochloric acid first. So it will just depend which way we need to do it for the individual, for example, but they come way before you prebiotics because you need those in place, like you say, to be able to digest and process all those prebiotic foods that are actually put into the stomach. Yeah, so it's a much more staged process than just each prebiotics take probiotics, and your gut health will be sorted. Sometimes you need to really dig much deeper than this.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah and I think this is what I've seen is quite a big issue now in within the wellness and health space because supplements because that's a huge industry. They're being now used like a bit of a band-aid as pharmaceuticals are so taking a paracetamol for a headache and let's take a probiotic for our gut health and just throw that in and everything will be okay but it's like can't just do that. So for example, I had a lady contact me a few weeks ago, she's like, oh, can you recommend a probiotic? So I was like, do you mind if I speak to you first just to see what's actually going on? Because I know that just growing a probiotic in can absolutely cause more harm and good. And when I spoke to her, she had a plethora of other issues going on, but one being her gallbladder and being on a wait list to have a gallbladder removed. I was like, right, okay, you need to really strip everything back here.
00:13:37
Speaker
you taking a probiotic you're going to be even more of a pickle with your gut and bowel movements than you are now because the gut, the liver and the gallbladder are all linked and I think that's what we miss as well that everything in the body is linking up to each other. So rather than looking at the gut in isolation, the liver in isolation, the kidneys, the heart,
00:13:59
Speaker
because that's what generally happens with specialists. You'll have a cardiologist, a urologist, a gynecologist. But if somebody went in and saw three different consultants, they would never speak to each other. It's like they divide us all. Yeah, we'll break bits off of people and deal with each in isolation. But actually, at some point, they're all linked. So like gut health and hormones is a definite link there. Yeah, I'm learning this now, even with my own body.
00:14:28
Speaker
just tell Everything is linked, even when it comes to kind of more on like training, kind of injury, you know, like muscles, joints, all of the connection of different, something that's going on in your heel could be caused by something going on in your shelter. yeah it just but You really realize how connected all the different systems in your body are.
00:14:47
Speaker
When it comes to probiotics, how is this harmful to throw a probiotic in if we've got other things going on? It's not harmful, it's probably a bit too strong a word, but if somebody's really struggling with digestive issues where, I don't know, they've got really bad diarrhoea quite frequently, so everything's passing through them really quick transit time.
00:15:07
Speaker
and you go and throw a probiotic in before looking at stomach acid levels, digestive enzymes and prebiotics because probiotics feed off prebiotics so if you don't have any prebiotics that pro will just go in and just come straight out so it won't actually be helping in any way.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a waste of a lot of money really. Well, yeah, it can just exacerbate the symptoms that you've got. Okay. I'll just touch on prebiotics for anyone who's unsure. You can correct me if I'm wrong. Prebiotics, we're talking about fruits, vegetables, anything that's high, ah like high fiber foods are prebiotic foods. Am I correct? Yeah. And then you've got your thing, and you know, like kimchi, kefir and those types of things as well.
00:15:50
Speaker
which are your are probiotic foods, no? Probiotics, they are, yeah. Yeah. So what kind of symptoms do you see a lot with clients that come to you? So you've said there, are you know, a lot of you know clients come to you with a lot of diarrhea, things running through them. What kind of other symptoms do you see a lot lately? um So it's interesting with gut health, because we think if we're struggling with gut health, it's They're the symptoms that we would have. So things like bloating, acid reflux is another big one. Severe constipation, severe diarrhea, so either end of the spectrum. If you've got gut health issues, it doesn't just mean that you've got digestive symptoms. So you could have skin issues like psoriasis or eczema.
00:16:29
Speaker
you could be suffering with, like I mentioned right at the start, that recurring UTI. So water infections, hormonal symptoms, hair loss, maybe really bad anxiety because you've got the gut-brain connection and that good old vagus
Vagus Nerve and Well-being
00:16:45
Speaker
nerve. So yeah, it's not all specific digestive symptoms. It can be a whole host of other things. For example of how everything's connected, let's talk about the vagus nerve and the gut-brain axis because this fascinates me, like absolutely fascinates me as someone in my early twenties who suffered with chronic anxiety. Now looking back now, you know, as ah someone in my early twenties, I was drinking every weekend, diet wasn't great, it wasn't exercising a whole lot, no wonder, like, you know, but I do find it interesting that
00:17:16
Speaker
what we eat and how we treat our court has has a really strong connection with how we're going to feel psychologically and emotionally as well as how we feel like look psychologically and emotionally has an effect on what we want to eat and I just find this fascinating. Yeah oh god it's so vast as well so the the vagus nerve is the biggest nerve within the body, so it runs straight down from the brain to the gut, so to the stomach. It's a vagrant nerve, so it actually does run to all our major ah major organs, but primarily straight down to the gut, that's the axis, the gut-brain axis. Like you said, it's just it it's got so much control over mood, you know things like anxiety, hormones as well, but also a lot of a lot what comes up
00:18:02
Speaker
with the clients that I work with is their nervous system regulation and most women are so depleted like their adrenal function is shot because they are so tired basically their adrenals are just gone but then you wonder why your mental health isn't okay and you don't have the motivation you don't have the energy But you can't have if you so deplete it, and when you so deplete it, that again, it starts in the gut. So Hippocrates, old Greek physician, his statement is all diseases begin in the gut. And so the physical and mental health have to be connected. And we know that if we go out and exercise and train, even when it's the last thing you want to do, you know within five minutes, you're actually going to feel better.
00:18:45
Speaker
Exercise boosts gut health as well. So again, you're looking at improving your regal tone, for example, the vagus nerve can be trained, can be done through breath work, meditation, just lying, listen to frequency music, you do EDMR, which is eye desensitization movement, really, really, really basic exercise to retrain the vagus nerve. And is it true that like humming and singing as well is really good for the vagus nerve? Yeah, humming is a big one. Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
But even a good sing song in your car. No, I wonder why I always feel so great after a long journey. I have like, I love a good playlist and just sing along with all my songs the whole journey. Like rather than, you know, like people like to listen to podcasts and and I can't do that when I'm in a car. I'm like, I have to sing. I feel great. I feel like brand new afterwards that it it is, I know, obviously like meditation and chanting at home, but even just playing some music and singing along makes a huge difference.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah and I always say you can't, unless it's a really sad song, which makes you cry, you can't sing and not be happy, a bit like dancing. Yeah and you can't sing and not be present as well can't you not really? Yeah exactly, so again it's just everything is so multifaceted in everybody's life.
00:19:56
Speaker
you know in the small little things that we can do to improve how we feel. They don't really take that much effort. We just need to be conscious at first to think about doing them. It's so funny because people who've been listening to this podcast for a long time are going to think that I paid you to say these things.
00:20:11
Speaker
Because everything you're saying is literally just lining up with this healthy, balanced approach to lifestyle that I talk about all the time, you know, daily movement, good nutrition, mindset work, relaxation, stress reduction exercises, you know, that it's so, so, so important. It's hard sometimes, I think, and I know there'll be a lot of people listening that are like, oh my God, what you're saying about adrenal, my adrenals and being so depleted and I'm so tired and I don't even know where to start.
Managing Stress and Nourishment
00:20:41
Speaker
That is, I think for a lot of people, they don't know where to start, whether it is with weight loss, whether it's to do with their food quality, whether they just need a good night's sleep, whether, you know, it's like, where do I start?
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah I had a client recently who sadly lost her mother about a month and a half ago and she has a whole coaching package with me so that's looking at nutrition but also exercise as well so online training programs and when I had a call with her last week she was so frustrated at herself because she was like oh I still haven't got back into the gym and I was like the gym is the last place you need to go right now. Your priorities are restorative sleep and nourishing food. And I use that word quite a lot, nourishment. If you're depleted, you're undernourished. And that's again with women who tend to, you know, you can do everything, be everything, running a home, full-time job, over-training, under-eating, typically. They're all stressors on the body. And so for somebody like that client of mine to add that other stressor to her of making herself go to the gym,
00:21:50
Speaker
would only have a negative impact anyway. She's got a dog so she gets out and walks, so she's moving. It's not like she's not doing anything. And again, so for that individual, the approach was scrap that for now. We need to get your sleep back on track. We need to calm your nervous system down and you need some nourishing food inside you to replenish your body because it's been through such a stressful time and whether it's mental, emotional or physical stress, the body knows no difference.
00:22:15
Speaker
I couldn't agree more and I always think the place to start is sleep because if your sleep is fucked what is the point in the rest of it? It's not the rest of what's going to work out well and I know sleep can feel a little bit out of control for some people you know with small kids that aren't sleeping or you know with perimenopause symptoms which we can talk about in a few minutes but sleep can be difficult so like I think a good place to start is always sleep.
00:22:40
Speaker
if you can get good sleep, then once that's in place, we can look at the next step. But if sleep is an issue, then we have to look at stress reduction exercises and sleep routines to improve sleep. So it's kind of like one step leads you to what's next, really, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. i But like you said, I always say sleep is medicine, you can't function without it your body. And again, going back to mental health, God, if I don't have, if I have a run of a few nights of not good sleep, which isn't often because I'm generally a good sleeper, but I really feel it.
00:23:10
Speaker
I kind of become a different person. I can't cope. I can't cope with like the, the day-to-day stuff, like without being an emotional mess, like I'll just cry. I just cannot cope without, without sleep. And my smallest kid is now seven. So, you know, I'm, I'm in a good place with my kids. If anything, you know, like they stay up later than me nearly. And you know, they sleep later than me. And and you know, it's, everything's fine. They sleep twice. But I just think that we all.
00:23:35
Speaker
overcomplicate things. And interestingly, you say like that client, who, you know, is going through a really difficult time of her life. And you know, it doesn't have to even be as extreme, I suppose, of as losing a parent, it can be just, you know, difficult relationships at home, dealing with teenagers, dealing with babies, whatever, like, and the full time job or career.
00:23:52
Speaker
There can be lots of just day-to-day stressors as well. I think we need to stop as women making life even more harder for ourselves. And like you said, good sleep, good nutrition, which doesn't. And I know I talk a lot about tracking calories and, you know, increasing protein and, you know, increasing fiber and, you know, all of these different things that I talk about. but It's food quality first. It's like, just nourish your body first and move your body every day.
00:24:19
Speaker
I always say as well, you know, that we're a bit like, you know, our dog our dogs need to be walked every day. We need to be walked every day too. Even for five minutes, but just move your body a little bit every day. And that doesn't mean killing yourself in the 10K run or going to the gym necessarily. And like I said, the next step reveals itself as it's ready.
00:24:37
Speaker
Totally, yeah. And you will know when when you've got the capacity to move on and do that. And you know if someone listening is really struggling with their gut health and they're not getting to the bottom of it or you know they're struggling with their mood or that you know or is whatever symptoms they've got going on, go to the doctor as well. you know that Don't feel like you have to solve it all yourself as well. Reach out to your GP or you know reach out to Stephanie or you know to someone in your corner who who can kind of help you work through the different things. It's not something that we always have to solve on our own as well. Yeah, totally. Don't ever feel isolated. But also, again, it's only my experience, but the GP was pretty useless because they just want to medicate. And then what that does is strips the gut lining even more. Yeah.
00:25:23
Speaker
People just need to be aware of those things because any medication will strip the gut, but particularly things like antibiotics, antibiotic use. So a round of antibiotics, it can take up to two years to re-inoculate the gut. And I had it recently, well not recently, a couple of years ago. Stressful time in my life and had three lots of tonsillitis within 18 months. And I've never, I've not had tonsillitis since I was 15 and I'm now 44. So I was like, what is this? But my body was literally,
00:25:51
Speaker
it's your body telling you to stop so if you don't your body will and it will make you so i react really badly to meds as well they they literally just do go straight through me because your body's like no don't stop so yeah it's really fine like and i think once you can stop and just lean into yourself and your own intuition, females have great intuition, your gut intuition, your that is telling you it's talking to you, you will know what will work for you. Yeah, intuition is huge, you walk into a room, you feel energy off people, you might walk into a house and it might be a couple's house and they've had a row, it's like you'll feel it, you'll know, like the energy will just be off and that's your gut intuition talking to you. Yeah and we have got to slow down in order to actually listen more, like we really do
00:26:40
Speaker
got to slow down to feel it. That's so much easier said than done in a society that is just getting us to do more and more and more and it's something that I think that you know Covid really taught us that lockdown and we actually did you know did have time to stop and reflect and think and tune in. I really hoped it was going to be the change but I feel like we're back into this. It's literally like a treadmill going really really fast yeah that everyone's trying to keep up on and people are tripping up and falling over getting sick with all these different physical and mental health issues and it's like when do we stop and think what is the fucking point if I'm so miserable and yeah I keep getting sick? what Like why?
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah and I've done a few workshops recently it' live like in person and the women's health workshops are they're all females and I always say to them we're in this society and in this working world which was designed by a man for men so work nine till five Monday to Friday or it's probably now eight till six.
00:27:38
Speaker
day in day out and then slowly but surely women were filtered into that but we just we aren't the same physiologically women can't do more be more have more have everything your career your family or you can but there will be a price to pay for it and it will be your health and that's great for men because they have a 24-hour testosterone cycle as females we don't we're cyclical over a month so we will have those times of the month where we feel great like front end first two to three weeks and then that that real luteal phase that last week we just need to honour that, not feel guilty about slowing down.
00:28:14
Speaker
And just, that's the time to replenish and restore and just sleep more, eat a little bit more. It was a good nourishing whole food. And I know what it's like because I'm still learning that myself. It's like, I did it on Saturday. I'd been in trained in the morning, but then, you know, watch a couple of films in the afternoon. I was like, Oh God, I was really lazy yesterday. Like when I got up on the Sundays, I need to do more today. Why?
00:28:37
Speaker
Stop, ego, go away. And this is why it's so important to slow down and reflect, isn't it? Because we all do it. If that ego side of us comes out and it's like, oh, I need to do more, or did I do enough? And like, I'm a firm believer that we as women, we can have it all, okay? I'm just gonna put it out there. I really do. I think we can reach for the stars. We can achieve our dreams, whether they are career-based, whether they're personal-based, we can have families, we can not have families. I do think we can do both, but we need to do it at a slower pace.
00:29:06
Speaker
Like what is the rush? What is the rush? Like I made a career change. I was a teacher for 15 years and I moved into, yeah, obviously trained as personal trainer, health coach, nutrition coach, and built my own business. And that took like working in gyms on the side. It took a lot of time away from my kids.
00:29:22
Speaker
At the time I did struggle with a lot of guilt from this, but what I have learned through this struggle is that there's a huge difference between time spent with people and quality time spent with people. Because when I was a teacher, I was always there every afternoon with the kids, cooking dinner, doing homework, shouting at them, giving out, being generally quite miserable and tired and not particularly nice. And it was just day in, day out, like brown dog day.
00:29:49
Speaker
Whereas now it's like, when they see me sitting at this desk, they know I'm working. I'll say hello to them. I'm here all the time, but I'm like, I'm working. They're a little bit older. They can kind of, they all look after themselves. My husband works from home too, but when I'm working, I'm working. And when, then when I'm not working, I'm with them and I'm actually so happy and fulfilled that I'm more with them now. And I travel a bit as well. Now with my business, I don't feel guilty. I'm like, it's fine. They're with their dad. Every, everything's great. And I come home and then they're happy to see me. And I think.
00:30:18
Speaker
knowing that it's okay to have work time and it's okay to have family time and it's okay to switch off from work and it's okay to switch off from family and stop putting pressure on ourselves to reach goals in unrealistic timeframes as well. I think, you know, getting that promotion or, you know, watching that guy that's moving ahead of us on the ladder or whatever it is, it's like, let him, whatever. His marriage is probably falling apart at home anyway. yeah His wife isn't happy.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, those users were there for film. You were probably really unhappy in your teaching job, which is what led you to to leave. So you had that transitional phase and now you are more fulfilled and you probably love what you do. So when like you say, when you are present, you're present, but you're also a present you and you're happy and they get the best of you now. Yeah. Well, that's great. Really nice. There's a huge difference, isn't there, between working hard at something that you love and working hard at something that you don't really care about. Because working hard at something you don't care about really does, like it depletes you. But if it's something that you love, like it energizes you. To a certain point now, I've also pushed it so far that I was nearly at burnout, because you you get so enthusiastic, you overdo it and then you're like, oh my God, why do I, why can't I function? I'm exhausted.
00:31:32
Speaker
In the early days, yeah, it's like you were, I was God sends and it's like, oh my God, I can't do that anymore. But with age and wisdom, you do learn to find that balance. Yeah. And I think in our lives in different stages, whether it is, you know, the loss of a parent or whether it is, you know, raising small kids or whether it is a career change, whatever, there's going to be times when things will be imbalanced in your life and you do have to push or you have to let other things fall aside a little bit in order to survive, you know, and that's okay. As long as you always bring it back to balance. I think it's when we spend long periods of time imbalanced that it becomes hugely problematic.
00:32:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, I will always, particularly with live workshops and things like that, I will always tell my story. And I'll always say, because when I i don't know where do you find this, but in the the jobs we have, it's it's almost like you have this goblet like status. And sometimes clients might think, oh, God, like, we've got our shit together all the time. And I will always say, I absolutely don't. My life isn't perfect. Because guess what? I get clear balls thrown at me too.
00:32:28
Speaker
ah guess for us it's because we're in the jobs that we've got as well that there's that real conscious awareness of what we can't let slip even though there might be all this crap going on over here it's like yeah but I really that means even more now I need to make sure I make sure I get up and out every day make sure I'm eating, nourishing foods, you know, and doing all of the fundamental things that are just daily habits, like bushing your teeth, you wouldn't leave your house without bushing your teeth really. So all of those other things become that. But yeah, just leading with that vulnerability of what has things, big life events that have come in in my life and what I've had to cope with and deal with and overcome, and the resilience and turning pain into purpose and those types of things. And yeah, there's always something to be pulled out of something like that, I think.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yeah.
Hormonal Health and Stress
00:33:09
Speaker
And it really does all stem to that slowing down and self-reflecting. Yeah. So in relation to hormone health. I thought you were like, okay, no, we're going down a huge rabbit hole, hormone hole. What are the hormones that we're mostly talking about really when, you know, things are quite dysregulated? As women, we quite think, even in progesterone, we'll mention testosterone, but then we have to remember, you know, the the endocrine system, the hormone system is large. And when we talk about adrenals, adrenaline, that's a hormone, you know, with hormones and symptoms quite often, we will blame our hormones for our symptoms.
00:33:48
Speaker
But what I always remind people is that what hormones have to be made. So if we are depleted, those hormones can't be made. And then we suffer with symptoms. And what sits behind all of that is stress. Again, go back to what we've just been talking about. So if you've got a really high stress life, you're probably going to find that your hormone symptoms are going to be worse than somebody that lives a bit of a life because stress is fleeting and again go about mental, emotional, physical stress it's going to deplete the body and I think it when I say that about hormones being made that's a bit of a penny drop moment it's like oh right okay so they're not just produced the the body doesn't just produce them there has to be
00:34:28
Speaker
nourishment and nutrition there for them to actually be made. So like progesterone, for example, you know, vitamin C foods, all those yellow, orange foods, really easy way to think about it. If you, you know, if you pass tests and your progesterone is low and you need to boost it, vitamin C and primrose oil go really well together. So that's just one example, but you can help boost your hormone levels to help reduce your symptoms. But the major one again will be nervous system regulation and slowing things down.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah and also I think a huge thing that I see from a nutrition standpoint with hormone health is women not eating enough healthy fats because they when they're cutting calories they cut fats because it's the easiest one to cut out to bring the calories down and then that can cause havoc in the body hormone wise particularly as we head into our 40s. Yeah definitely so yeah you're right healthy fats women just don't eat enough protein but I'm sure you get that all the time. And as a female, I can sit and say, I know it's hard to for that. That wouldn't be my go-to. So again, but I just have to be really conscious of the meal. Am I getting enough? you know And then things now that are going back to the old school, it's like things like bone broth, you know really high in protein, high in collagen and really high in minerals as well. yeah It was a really warming and nourishing at this time of year. Just good for everything, good for the soul.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And bringing it back to basics, like what are parents or grandparents asked like, you know, keeping it as local, it's simple. It doesn't have to be all these fancy ideas. Like just look at your plate, be like, is there a good protein source there? Have you, have I got vegetables on my plate? Are there some sort of healthy fats? Have I cooked with a bit of oil? Are there, have I got some nuts or seeds or avocado or, you know, have I got some sort of.
00:36:19
Speaker
carbohydrate source, like it doesn't even need to be this, you know, but looking at your plate and thinking, does this look well balanced? I think protein is a really obvious one now, because so many people are talking about it that everyone's like protein, protein, but then what they're doing is they're pumping themselves full, full of all these protein puddings and you know, all these processed like protein yogurts to our protein bars to get the protein up. It's like, that's not going to help your gut. And that's just going to make sure. It's going to make so much worse. The most common question I get on social media is how do I increase my protein? And I'm like, just eat a little bit more of your Greek yogurt, of your chicken, of your fish, you know, just eat a little bit more of it at each meal. I don't think a lot of women are aware of how deficient they are in fat.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah good fats and protein that and I always see like working with people like this transition of their food changing and I can see it's challenging for them to do it. I really don't know what it is. I can understand with the good fats because it'll go back to them being full of calories but with the protein I just find it quite interesting. I think it's because people love carbohydrates. Just naturally, like I could technically, even as a nutrition and health coach, I could happily give up everything else except pasta and live off, and maybe cheese, I'd eat pasta and cheese. ah I could live off pasta and cheese for the rest of my life. If I knew that I could actually live healthily off it, I would. But only that I know that I'm not getting enough protein, I'm getting no fiber. And like, cause it would have to be white pasta as well, you know, so.
00:37:50
Speaker
But you know, we can, we can always have our preferences and there's still room for a bit of pasta and cheese in my diet every now and again. I know that I need fiber. I know that I need more protein and you know, adding these things in, it does take time. And I think it's the step-by-step approach, isn't it? It's like, and this is the, any diet culture ladies listening will know this and I've done it as well. I'm sure you've done it as well, where it's like, you'll start a diet, you throw everything out. You start like, I'm just, I'm not eating any more chocolate. I'm not eating carbohydrates anymore. I'm only eating,
00:38:19
Speaker
fish and I don't know, whatever seaweed or whatever it is at the time, you know, that we try and basically that we try and change everything straight away. And we're like, I'm running three times a week and I'm going to the gym this amount of times. It's like slow down. Just start by like what you said that you do with your clients. Yeah.
00:38:35
Speaker
And just evaluate what am I eating in the week? What am I exercising in the week? And that could be quite a difficult thing for a client to see, like for a person to see. If you watch anyone listening, if you're like, I don't know where to start, start by just write getting a copy and write out exactly what you eat every single day for a week.
00:38:53
Speaker
and write out exactly what kind of exercise you do every day for a week without changing anything and what a lot of people will see is that they're eating quite a lot of processed food and they're not really getting any exercise for a lot of people and so when it comes to making changes you don't need to change your whole life.
00:39:11
Speaker
It's but take it one little piece at a time, one little step at a time. And it is challenging and change is uncomfortable. Over time you're changing and you don't even realize it. When things start to feel comfortable, step out of your comfort zone again, change something else. When that feels comfortable, step out again, rather than like throwing yourself off the cliff.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah and almost by doing that as well and everything you try to overhaul your whole life and you just set yourself up for failure because going back to that there is no perfect week is there. Life will always get in the way but on balance over a week have you done the best that you could do for yourself?
00:39:44
Speaker
Yeah. And we all do this. Like it's, it's part of being human. I still like in different areas of my life will throw myself off the cliff and I'll be like, Oh my God, why do I feel so overwhelmed? And like a calm down case, take a few step back, steps back. You're trying to do too much. It's like focus on one thing. And so like, it's not a case of beating yourself up. If you're listening to this and you're like, Oh my God, that's me. It's like, okay.
00:40:03
Speaker
Like you will feel overwhelmed because you will step too far sometimes and you'll be like, no, I need to take it back a little bit. The main thing is that we don't stay in our comfort zones with change. It's like we want to make positive changes. We do need to be willing to step forward, but also knowing when to hold still for a little while. Yeah. And come about that with comfort zones.
00:40:21
Speaker
The body loves patterns, doesn't it? It loves routine, but also it likes that because that keeps us safe. So that ties into nervous system regulation as well. So the body will always want to revert to what it knows. It's just ah a mechanism that that we've innately got, but we have to, you know, push to do those things at our comfort zone and the horrible, no matter what they are. I've done a few of them this year and it's like,
00:40:41
Speaker
whoa this is awful but then you do it and you think oh yeah it wasn't as fabulous I thought it was going to be in yeah and this i suppose with the nervous system is very much like when we do deliberate things to challenge ourselves like going for a run or you know doing a workout or i don't know getting into the sea or you know like in the cold water or the making changes to our lifestyle however small they are that uncomfortable feeling is making you stronger it's temporary And then you do other things to relax. So you're stepping out of the sympathetic nervous system into the parasympathetic nervous system. You're getting good sleep. You're doing your meditations or whatever it is that you enjoy that calms you. It's the constant stress, stress, stress. That's the problem rather than the stresses we put in to make ourselves stronger.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah, chronic stress, which is, yeah, not the body. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know. Right. To finish off, I just want would love to talk a little bit around the topic of perimenopause and menopause in general, just because I know a lot of my listeners are struggling with different symptoms and it's it's always a topic
Navigating Perimenopause
00:41:43
Speaker
of conversation. So what is your advice?
00:41:45
Speaker
ah This is such a general question. What is your advice for anyone who is struggling with perimenopausal infants? My number one would be think about reducing your stress. And again, another thing that women do is they don't have any boundaries. So they overcommit as well as doing everything else in the lives that overcommit themselves, I find socially. And again, they just end up running to the ground or wonder why their hormones are just like this and absolutely haywire. Another thing I always say is go back to what I said at the start of this podcast.
00:42:11
Speaker
everything is nuanced and it's individual to you so stop worrying about what your friend Sarah is doing down the road and the five supplements she's bought and she's saying they're fantastic because they may not work for you and I think we can get so caught up in the noise of what's going on for everybody else. There's a lot of clickbait material with supplements but actually I've been there myself before I did the testing on myself is actually what I was taking was throwing me more out of balance and causing other issues in my body, because the minerals, when we look at vitamins, there's macro, macros, and then we look at minerals, it's like micro, and they all work in synergy together. But then you've also got antagonists, so you've got minerals that antagonise each other. So there's certain ones that you can't take together. And so that fine tune and that fine balance is really what helps a woman to be, or to find homeostasis within the body.
00:43:04
Speaker
yeah and for those cycles to be smooth and run how they should do so for example a lady who was only 37 actually she was offered well she diagnosed a PMDD then she was offered a hysterectomy still having periods but very sporadic very erratic her mood was awful. And what else was she offered? HRT. But she was still bleeding, she was still having cycles, so we worked on her gut. That's always a good start point as well because the gut is responsible for metabolism of hormones and actually offloading waste.
00:43:36
Speaker
rather than hormones being recycled. That links into the liver because that's also a big metaboliser and a detoxing organ as well. So her cycles previously would have been like 50 days long, but her PMT would be about two to three weeks. So it's almost like waiting, but just nothing was happening. Now she's been working on her bespoke posts for two to three months, her cycles now have hit for a few days, which is way better. But it's also said how less erratic her mood is as well, which for her, that's the bigger bit of life rock that's going on for her, like heavy pivots and things like that. But yeah, especially at the moment, something that really got my goat the other week was the whole Black Friday thing. And something posted on my Instagram, I was like, don't get sucked in to buy supplements you may not need because it's Black Friday. Don't waste your money.
00:44:25
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, supplements in general just irked me anyway, because it's, you know, yes, supplements have a place they when you know what's going on, yeah when you've got the basics down. It's like, you know, and that's another question I get a lot. What supplements do you recommend?
00:44:41
Speaker
It's like none really. I don't really recommend supplements unless I'm talking to an individual because really my supplements are sleep, food, water and exercise and sunlight. Like they're the most important supplements and most of us aren't getting them. If we're getting them and we have specific goals, it depends on the goal of the person. It depends on the specific diet of the person, what they're actually, you know, maybe not eating enough of and find difficult to get in. Then we we can add supplements in and then, the you know, the work that you do in a little bit more depth.
00:45:09
Speaker
of what's going on yeah with your minerals and you know with what's going on in your gut, it depends. and yes start And start with the basics and then you'll you'll you'll know whether you need to dig deeper. Yeah, like just don't waste your money. I mean, you know by their name supplement, it supplements your nutritional intake. And I think sadly, because of the food quality and what we have access to now and soil quality, we don't get the minerals that we need in our diet. So that's where things like bone broth are brilliant because it's so mineral dense.
00:45:37
Speaker
animal-based fats, proteins, they're all mineral dents. So what minerals are we quite often deficient in? Do you see a lot? So, oh god, there's tons of minerals, but we've got what we call the core four. So you've got calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium. Now, if they are all depleted, when I get results back and they're all depleted, it's any wonder that person is actually still alive and functioning.
00:46:01
Speaker
Oh wow yeah okay. I'd say every woman that's been tested that I've worked with their adrenals are shot so they're on the exhausted state of stress but what you do also find like I'll be open about my results that came back it's over a year ago now. My calcium is really high and my magnesium and it's not high in a good way it's high that it's been stored in the soft tissue so it's not being utilised.
00:46:22
Speaker
And when those two are really high, that can be because of gastrointestinal disturbance, so muscular contraction disturbance. That wasn't a problem for me because my gut was fine, but the other symptoms were things like dry skin, something to do with hair, I think.
00:46:38
Speaker
Is this where this kind of ties in with dairy intolerance a bit then does it be with calcium, like, you know, calcium being in dairy products. You know, the way sometimes people can, I don't mean lactose intolerant, but I mean, you know, sometimes when people find it difficult to digest dairy products could be something like that as well.
00:46:54
Speaker
So if you can't digest dairy products or have trouble with it, that's to do with the digestive end of the stomach. Yeah, so it's lactase, the enzyme that's not present to break down the lactose, the sugar. So yeah, them two were really high for me. And another one was energy levels. But interestingly, I don't think I noticed that because I'm so active. But then I think, well, how much better could I actually feel?
00:47:17
Speaker
Like, where's the baseline? It's hard to know, isn't it? But I noticed a definite difference, particularly with my skin. And I did, not that I had any major hormone issues or symptoms really, but my cycles have been better. Like, I don't even get a cramp. I don't get the sort of boobs, like, nothing that comes and goes. Because they were my symptoms weren't severe, I didn't... you know it wasn't an issue for me it wasn't like oh my god my hormones are awful but i can reflect back and go yeah they are it is better like so with your calcium and magnesium being higher what did you have to change in order to like were the other was potassium and sodium low or was it they were okay and it was just those two minerals were higher
00:47:57
Speaker
Remember, were they in ref you have like a reference range and then you have high and low. I think they were just virgin on reference range, which came back to the hydrochloric acid, so working on gut and macassidone. Did you have to reduce the level of the foods with high calcium and magnesium or was it just really working on on hydrochloric acid?
00:48:17
Speaker
So it's hydrochloric acid and then I've got adrenal supplements, but that's like a whole mix of minerals. It all works synergistically together to help boost my adrenal function and thyroid function as well. And yeah, dairy, you don't have to avoid it. They just say reduce what you're having.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah, this was my point in relation to dairy that, you know, if you were feeling like you're having some skin issues and that by reducing it slightly might out even if you're not lactose intolerant might make you feel a little bit better. Yeah. So when you're holding on to calcium, it's what they call a calcium shell. And this is why the body just holds on to calcium in the soft tissue. So it's not getting to the bones where it needs to be either. So my whole protocol, for example, all the other minerals I'm taking will help balance those out, so bring and help my body release the calcium magnesium so they're actually been moving around and being utilised. Okay, yeah, so by introducing that will help balance it. Yeah, yeah, as you're Yeah, the way I describe it, I guess it's a bit like an ah orchestra, they all have to play in harmony together. And when we won't duff tune, that's it, it just throws everything out.
00:49:18
Speaker
Yeah, our bodies are so complex. That's the word, it's really intricate and we just don't give it enough credit for what it does for us day to day really. Absolutely right final question and which ties in to read what you were just saying there. What what does the word health mean to you? Oh gosh Kate. Health for me and going back to probably what I've said already is just nourishing and loving your body have self compassion. So it's probably not looking at health as in the way that everybody's thinking, you know, o eat healthily and those types of things. But self love is healthy, rather than coming from a place of actually absolutely hating yourself. Because again, health is a physical and mental and it and the two have to work in harmony together for you to feel good day to day.
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And I think it really does stem from self-love because self-love is then going to lead to you stopping, making time for yourself, seeing how you are in order to make any little changes that you need to make to improve your health. So I think it all, it all has to stem. You know, if you hate yourself, you're not going to care for yourself. And so it has to start there.
00:50:26
Speaker
Yeah, you can't but not like yourself or, you know, particularly with weight loss clients, it does come from a place of not liking themselves. And I always switch that narrative. It's like, come from a pace, you're doing this, you love yourself. Have that come back.
00:50:41
Speaker
Yeah. And that gratitude for your body, you're like, my body has carried me to where I am today, to all the things that I may have done to it over the years. And, you know, we all have in different ways and, you know, not, I'm not holding onto guilt or shame around that being like, I'm showing up now for me and giving my body the care that it needs. I think it's okay to want to make changes.
00:51:03
Speaker
as long as you're grateful for what you currently have. And that's for the body, but for any area of life, I think that's how it works. It's that balance of you like, you can always want more, but you have to be grateful for what you have as well. Anyway, if anyone is like really like, oh my God, mind blown and wants to reach out to you, connect with you, is the best place to reach you, Instagram? Yes, yeah, it will be.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah. So what is your Instagram handle again? That's at Stephanie Jane Health. So check Stephanie out on Instagram and you can reach out to her and find out more about her style of coaching and mineral testing and all of that kind of stuff if you're intrigued and be like, Oh my God, that's so me. Stephanie, thank you so much. This has been such an amazing conversation. I've learned so much. but death Thank you for having me.
00:51:58
Speaker
I just want to say thank you so much for listening to the podcast. It really means so much to me that there are people out there actually listening to what I have to say and to the conversations that I'm having with others. So thank you so much. If you are enjoying the podcast, could you please make sure that you are subscribed? And if not, if you could hit that subscribe button, it really does make that much of a difference. Also, if you would like to leave a review.
00:52:21
Speaker
on any of the episodes that you listen to that you particularly enjoy. I would love to hear what you have to say. And also, if there's an episode that you've enjoyed, please do share it on your social media, in your WhatsApp groups, with your friends. If you're sharing it on your stories, please tag myself in it and whoever I'm interviewing. This it would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you're interested in working with me and my wonderful team, please do you contact me about applying for coaching so you can contact me at Kate Hamilton Health at gmail dot.com or on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, all Kate Hamilton Health. And you will be able to apply for coaching. We can organize to have a chat and see if it's a good fit for you and get you moving towards your goals.