Menopause Diet Secrets: How to Support Your Body with Louise Digby

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. They're afraid that eating more will gain more fat, and that's the only thing they're worried about.

00:31But they don't think about actually internally what's happening to our body, to our cells, to the function of everything that's making everything work for you to get you the results that you want on the outside. I always say you've got to heal the inside before you can worry about the outside. What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show. And today, we are super excited to have a special guest on. Her name is Louise Digby. And I hope I'm pronouncing that last name right.

01:02You can correct me if I'm not. She is a registered nutritional therapist. And her team specializes in helping women reignite their spark and fully enjoy life through personalized nutrition and lifestyle strategies. So get ready, everybody listening in and tuning in today for a very insightful conversation on wellness, on all the things vitality and reclaiming joy with the Louise Digby. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. And you did get my surname correct.

01:32Amazing. Amazing. Okay, good. So let's just kick it off and explore. Tell me what inspired you to specialize in the craft that you are specializing in and helping women reignite their spark and embrace life to the fullest. Well, I think when I first started practicing nutrition, I was working with everyone and anyone with all sorts of ailments and goals. And what I found was that for women, this life stage of perimenopause, menopause, and that transition was something that really threw them off track, even despite their best efforts and best intentions.

02:19And, you know, it was an area where there's just so much conflicting information, so much noise. And, you know, when you look like 10 years ago, it wasn't a trendy thing to be talking about, but now it's suddenly really trendy. And if anything, that makes it even worse because there's even more noise around it. And, you know, celebrities are getting involved and talking about menopause and hormones, but not necessarily giving the best information.

02:52So I think it's an area where there needs to be much more clarity and much more support and much more understanding around, you know, what's actually happening during this phase and what you can do about it as well. Because so many women are told by their doctors, oh, well, you're just menopausal and, you know, you just kind of got to get through it. And there's nothing you can do. You could take HRT and, you know, that's kind of all they're told. And it's really frustrating because there's so much that you can do to really start thriving through that phase.

03:28Yes, I can really piggyback off of that too. It's super, super frustrating when we are wanting to coach our clients through nutritional habits, working on nutritional habits, working on fitness habits. And then their doctors say X, Y, and Z. You shouldn't be eating this many carbs. You shouldn't be eating this many protein. And, you know, I had to Google and, you know, no shade to that like industry. But I think that there needs to be a little bit more education on these specific topics to these professionals because they only spent, I had to Google this, 10 hours of education on nutrition in their whole rest, their whole education and the residency.

04:04So, yeah, just to kick that off right at the beginning of the podcast, everyone. But it just, yeah, people know that I talk about that a little bit in many, many episodes. We had Dr. Cabral on the podcast too as well, and we kind of kicked it off about traditional methods right out of the gate. So, yeah, that's definitely a little frustrating when we're trying to work on building better habits through other ways that will serve the outcome rather than just trying to treat something at the symptom level rather than the root level, right?

04:35So share a little bit with the audience that's listening. What exactly do you do and how do you work with your clients? So I work with all my clients online and we start off with doing tests to find out what's actually going on in their bodies, what imbalances they have, what their specific nutritional needs are, because it's so interesting. You know, everyone that comes to me are really in a very similar position in that they're all in that age range of like 35 to 55-ish.

05:08And they all have the same problem, which is that they are struggling to lose the stubborn weight. But they all have very different nutritional needs and very different underlying causes of their, you know, stubborn weight, but also fatigue and cravings and all the other things that tend to come along with that. And, you know, when you start looking into it, one person might need to work on their gut and someone else might need to work on inflammation and someone else might need to work on hormones and toxic load and so many different things.

05:43Some people need to work on all of those things. And that's why we test to make sure that we're actually taking steps that are going to be effective. Because, you know, when you start reading up on things, there's a million different things that you could do or supplements that you could take. But actually, you're probably only going to benefit from like 1% of the things that are out there. So we get the information.

06:14And then from there, we build a really personalized action plan, which is looking at food, lifestyle, so stress and sleep and energy management. And we also look at supplements as well in the short term for correcting imbalances and also dipping into the mindset side of things as well. Beautiful. Love that. That's what the industry needs more of. It's no longer these one size fits all approaches or PDFs to download and follow this said calorie or nutritional guidance that like one of that you're following the same plan that 50 other people are following.

06:57Like this is I love to hear that you're doing what the industry needs more of. It's great. Let's talk about you mentioned that out of the gate, you do these testings and then you get down to finding what nutritional guidance that you need to give the women. Is it just predominantly women that you work with or do you work with women and men? Yeah, it's just women. Women. Awesome. So with that focus, what do you feel like are the most common nutritional challenges that you see from the women that you work with or deficiencies, especially coming back from maybe the testing that you acquire from them?

07:34And how can you address them through giving them the proper protocols to follow? I think on the surface level, before we even do the tests, it's often really clear to see that many of the women that come into our program are not eating enough to start with. And they're just not getting anywhere near enough nutrients, be that the macronutrients or be that the micronutrients, the vitamins and minerals. They're just not getting enough in.

08:06So while we're waiting for the test to come back, we're often just working on getting some foundations in place and getting enough protein, getting enough carbs, fiber, fats. And many of them, their minds are blown by just eating more. Talk a little bit more about that. What's the common number of protein that you see your women eating on a regular basis before when you're figuring this out with them? Yeah, I think many of them probably struggle to get 10 grams of protein into their breakfast or lunch.

08:36And then dinners, people tend to find it a lot of easier. But we're like, no, we need to be getting protein into that breakfast. If you can start your day with protein, then you're just going to feel so much better. You're going to feel so much more energized, fewer cravings, better control over your food choices and just so much more. So, yeah, protein is a really big one. Even though there's more and more awareness around it, I think it's still just something that we need to keep mentioning to people because, you know, even when you've started working with someone, the protein just seems to start tailing off.

09:15And it's like, no, you need to keep that protein up. So, yeah, that's a big one. And then once we've actually done the testing, there are some common themes that we see. So, B vitamins are not necessarily deficient. Often they can be. But so often we see that people have a really high need for B vitamins. So, they might be getting like a normal amount in the diet. But actually, they need much more than a normal amount. Because when you're under a lot of stress, like so, so many women are, if you're not sleeping properly, if your hormones are imbalanced, you need more B vitamins.

09:58So, we really often see a high demand for B vitamins. We very often see a lack of antioxidants in the diet and an increased need for those as well. And vitamin D is just so often way too low. And the doctors have often tested it, but just told them that it's fine. But, you know, what the doctors consider to be okay and what we consider to be optimal is very different. Why is that?

10:28Where are we going to fix that? It's really amazing, isn't it? Because, you know, research shows that, you know, a much higher vitamin D has so many benefits from reducing the risk of cancers to improving immunity, reducing the risk of things like COVID, improving mental health, energy, hormone balance. I mean, the list goes on. And yeah, it is so often overlooked. Wow.

10:58Yeah, definitely need to work on that. You mentioned antioxidants there. Where can people, how can they get that through dietary measures? So a good place to start is looking at really colorful fruits and vegetables. So the really rich colors. So deep blue, blueberries, dark green leafy vegetables, oranges, and, you know, the red berries as well. So all those lovely colors are a sign of antioxidants.

11:30And then you've also got things like black seeds and, you know, beans. And, you know, they're a great source of antioxidants too. Herbs and spices. So getting those, you know, ideally fresh plant-based foods into diet are going to get you a considerable amount of antioxidants. And there's also things like dark chocolate and coffee. You know, they're great sources of antioxidants as well. Nice.

12:00I eat dark chocolate every night before I go to bed. Yeah, I do. Beautiful. Awesome. A couple follow-up questions there. You mentioned vitamin D. You mentioned the B vitamins. You mentioned antioxidants, right? So if someone isn't able to get this testing done or they're still all along their journey and they're not yet ready to jump into like a program or sign up with anybody that will do testing for them.

12:32What are some, like, signals that somebody will know that they may be lacking in these areas? I think often the symptoms are quite non-specific. But, you know, if you're generally feeling like you're not 100%, you know, if your energy is not as good as it could be, if you're getting lots of aches and pains, if you're finding that you're getting a lot of premenstrual symptoms, if you're trying to lose weight and it's not happening and you feel like you're doing all the right things, that is a top, top sign.

13:10So, yeah, just, I guess, not getting the results that you would expect despite eating well and staying active. Yes, that will definitely be a big needle mover there if you can get down to a little bit more deeper into the data of the body and that's what's going on. And then the second thing that I want to circle, and I'm a little bit more selfishly for myself, how would you encourage, I'm not a big vegetable eater, right? But you're mentioning like a lot of fruits and vegetables have tons of good antioxidants and especially colorful ones.

13:40So how would you encourage somebody that may not be a vegetable eater to start eating vegetables? There's lots of things that you can do. And one of my favorite ways to kind of sneak in some veg is to make some sauces out of vegetables. And you can really easily do this by, you know, you can just boil up some veg and blend it up. Or if you're wanting a little bit more of a deeper flavor, you can roast some veg, like some onions, garlic, carrots, celery, squash, and, you know, roast them with some olive oil, blend it up.

14:15And then you've got a sauce that you can turn into a, you know, a curry sauce, a bolognese sauce, a chili sauce by adding, you know, a few extra ingredients like tomatoes or spices or whatever. And then you've got a sauce that is just crammed full of veg. It tastes great and, you know, is going to be a lovely addition to a meal. You can eat it as a soup instead. So that's a really easy option that you can make up in a big batch.

14:45Beautiful. Okay. I'm going to add spices. I like spices. Just add spices to everything. Okay, cool. So nutrition is your thing. You do nutrition very well. So talk to the audience about what the role of nutrition does for like boosting our energy levels, boosting our mood, promoting overall when you're giving the body what it wants. Like you mentioned there that a lot of women that in the first before, like you're waiting for the testing to come back. They're mind blown.

15:15And how much they're actually under eating. And I'm sure once you actually like, you know, explore with them and educate them on nutrition. What how does nutrition boost energy? How does it boost our mood? How does it do all the incredible things that it does when you start eating more food? Yeah, it's such a great question. When we are kind of like taught nutrition, you know, not as someone who goes to nutrition school, but you know, just kind of when we grow up or at school, you know, we're told that it's calories in versus calories out.

15:50And that's all that matters. And so we kind of have this perception that if we just eat a little bit less, then, you know, we're going to be healthy and we're going to lose weight. But there's so much to be said for the quality of the food that you're eating and the actual nutrients and antioxidants and all those other things that are in food, because your body needs those things to repair and regenerate. So, you know, in terms of making energy, we make energy from our vitamins, minerals, proteins, sugars, fats, from water, from some oxygen.

16:32And there's quite a complex chemical reaction that happens in what are called the mitochondria, which are your energy factories in your cells. And this is a complicated chemical reaction that happens to make energy for us. So if we're lacking in nutrients or we're dehydrated or we're not getting enough food overall, we're just not going to be making as much energy. And that means we're not going to be repairing. We're not going to be building muscle.

17:04And that's going to start to have an impact on your production of hormones as well. Because, again, we make our hormones from our nutrients and proteins and fats, from cholesterol. And so if you're lacking, you'll start to develop imbalances in your hormones. We detox using nutrients. So if you're lacking in nutrients, you're not going to be detoxing as efficiently. And that means you're not going to be removing pesticides, pollution, hormones, and toxins that are produced in the body.

17:39And that's going to start to build up and cause damage in your system. So the role of nutrition is just massive. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more.

18:21Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results and results that last. Look, don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right. Let's get back to the show. Wow. Can we eat that? I think that's like the way that you scientifically broke that down and understanding.

18:55Like I think that's been the best way it's been delivered on the podcast and how and why nutrition is so freaking important. So I think a lot of women, what you were saying at the beginning, it's like they're afraid that eating more will gain more fat. And that's the only thing they're worried about. But they don't think about actually internally what's happening to our body, to our cells, to our function, like the function of everything that's making everything work for you to get you the results that you want on the outside. I always say you've got to heal the inside before you can worry about the outside showing with the results.

19:29So thank you for breaking it down like that. Okay. So I have to ask this on this podcast, right? Like what's your take on carbs? That's another great question. It's such an important question. And I think they're really important. I think that your typical Western diet is too carb heavy. And, you know, they are typically very processed carbs. But the typical diet approach is too far the other way and taking them far, far too low.

20:03And, you know, some people do really well on very low carb or keto. But what I typically find for women who are between 35 to 55 perimenopausal menopausal, they need some carb to fuel their thyroids, to fuel their hypothalamus. Otherwise, your metabolism is going to slow down and it can be a very stressful impact on your body and can actually inhibit your weight loss and your well-being.

20:34I think everyone has a different range where they feel best. So, you know, I'm not a fan of saying you need this many carbohydrates per day. And I think it varies based on where you are in your menstrual cycle. And it varies depending on how much exercise you do and the type of exercise that you're doing. So, again, it's very individual. But I am very much, you know, about finding the amount that is enough for you without it being too much that you're, you know, causing your blood sugars to be racing high and low.

21:09Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, a lot of women that listen to this podcast are implementing strength training and doing strength training best based exercises. Yet they're afraid to eat the carbs and they're afraid that carbs are going to make them fat. So I got this like hashtag role and make carbs great again. We got it going on within the community and everything because they needed to power through the workouts. They need the energy. They need the glycogen for repair and for recovery and for all those things. So I just wanted your take on carbs coming from a nutritionist.

21:40So you talked about this before, I believe, as I was like sampling upon your stuff, how hormonal changes. And you talked about a little bit here so far can impact your weight and how a lot of women will simply reduce like their calorie intake and try and burn more calories. Right. Like there's a woman inside of our program that was doing F45 classes and then doing those hot work classes now that are inside of saunas. And she was doing those back to back.

22:10And then she was only eating 700 and like 50 calories in a day. And she was wondering why she wasn't getting like she's now since cut that in half, doubled her intake, working with one of the coaches. But can you just explain how that actually makes it worse and how it can cause further weight gain? Yeah. So what she was doing, and I see this in so many people, particularly women, is under eating and over exercising. And the reason why that's a problem is because when we don't eat enough, it triggers a stress response in our body, which is an evolutionary response that comes from when we were cave people.

22:50And if there wasn't enough food around, our bodies produce more cortisol, which helps us to basically extract energy from our muscles and raise our blood sugars so that we can keep going and we have energy. But in the modern world, when we have that same stress response, we're not actually we don't actually need that energy. So we actually store it as fat, particularly around our middle.

23:25So when you're under eating, you're triggering that stress response and that kind of starvation response that makes your body want to hold on to your energy and stop you from wasting away. And then when you add in the exercise that's really intense, that drives up those stress hormones even more, which magnifies that response. And at the same time, it's also really destructive to your sex hormones, because for your body, it's really important for your body to be able to respond to stress and danger.

23:56And during that time, your body doesn't want to be reproducing because that's not safe. So your body is going to down regulate your sex hormone production, up regulate your stress hormone production so that you've got all the energy to respond to the danger. And that means that your sex hormones become imbalanced. And we also know that stress hormones suppress thyroid function. So your thyroid is really important for the speed of your metabolism. So that's why under eating and over exercising will actually stop you from losing weight.

24:30Again, thank you so much for articulating that so clearly. I think that, you know, again, a lot of women forget what's happening on internally and they're all just worried about the results that they're getting on the external side of things. They forget to stop and think about, like, am I feeling my body appropriately to get me the results that I want? But I think, you know, breaking it down and giving more education on this stuff is so important. So I appreciate that you're doing that with what you're doing and sharing more about those things that more women need to hear about.

25:02Let's talk about inflammation. What is inflammation? Hey, hey, just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it and there's so much more to come with it. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. And also it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too. Thanks so much, guys. Let's get back to the show. Well, that's a really good question. You got like an hour?

25:32Let me do a PowerPoint presentation for you. Well, inflammation, what it is supposed to be is it is supposed to be a response to your body where you increase blood flow to a certain area to encourage healing. But inflammation can become uncontrolled and it can become systemic. So it's like throughout your body. And that's when it becomes damaging and it can cause inflammatory symptoms like arthritic type pain, acne or other skin problems, fatigue, depression.

26:14I mean, most symptoms have an inflammatory nature to them. So when inflammation becomes uncontrolled, then it can basically exacerbate any problem or underlying imbalance that you have in your body. So it can be disruptive to your hormones. And certainly something that can be involved in difficulty losing weight or difficulty achieving the results that you might be expecting. Difficulty building muscle. You know, you name it, really.

26:45And can one get inflammation when they're under eating, not giving their body what it needs through food? Definitely, because cortisol is very inflammatory. Yep. And then if your cortisol is spiked and it's elevated or you have no curve, that can make you gain weight. Right. That's the number is the fast storing hormone. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And with inflammation also tends to come water retention. So not only does it make you gain weight, but it also tends to make you puffy as well.

27:20And it's interesting. It's one of the things that I see change very quickly in a lot of women that I work with in terms of like puffiness in the face and around the neck and puffiness in the hands and ankles as well. Yeah, that's a really good sign that inflammation is there. And also a good sign that inflammation is reducing when you lose that puffiness. Yeah. And then the women, my favorite is when women step on the scale and they see the number going up and we're like, hold on, wait a second.

27:50You know, in a day it went up three pounds. I'm like, it's most likely not body fat. It's just either you had a stressful workout. Maybe something was very stressful the day before. Maybe you had X amount of food late at night that your body didn't get to process. Or there's some inflammation you got going on due to stress. So, okay. How about what is toxic load? With toxic load, we all are exposed to toxins. Our body, our liver is designed to help us get rid of those toxins.

28:26So we are always detoxing. But with modern life, our livers can be under quite a substantial burden, under quite a high toxic load. And, you know, the types of toxins we're talking about are things like pesticides, pollution, hormones. It could be chemicals that are in our skincare products and fragrances and shampoos and conditioners and things that are in our carpets and sofas like flame retardant coatings.

28:59So loads of things that we are exposed to that our body has to try and eliminate. So livers can be under substantial load and that can make them sluggish at getting rid of those things, particularly if we have deficiencies or if the liver is a little bit fatty or something like that. Then we might not be eliminating those toxins very efficiently. Now, that's something that can inhibit your weight loss progress because one of the very clever ways that your body can cope with that toxic load is by actually upregulating your fat storage.

29:40Because we store toxins in our fat if we're not eliminating them. So, you know, if someone isn't losing weight, despite seemingly doing everything right, one of the issues could be a really high toxic load. And again, you know, if someone loses weight and then plateaus very quickly afterwards, it could be because their toxic load is shooting up. Because as they start to release their fat stores, they're also releasing all those stored toxins as well. Does that make sense?

30:11Wow. Yeah, that totally makes sense. How would one know that they have toxic load? I think it's safe to assume that we all have quite a high toxic load. And if we're not taking steps to support our bodies through that by, you know, looking at the things that we're exposed to and, you know, making sure we're well hydrated and we're moving our bodies and our guts are working properly. We're having a regular bowel movement every day, you know, making sure that we're just eliminating properly and giving our body that opportunity to eliminate as well as reducing exposure.

30:49If we're not doing those things and the likelihood is, is that there's going to be some sort of toxic load present. But, you know, I think if you're someone who, when you start losing weight, you feel quite unwell, you know, some people get like a bit of a almost hangover type experience when they lose weight rapidly. And that can be because of a suddenly quite a high toxic load. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. So it's removing the phthalates, removing like the things that are in your deodorants, your skin care, your soaps, where you shampoos, conditioners, like all that kind of stuff.

31:27Yeah. So phthalates are one of the main ones. There's, there's a kind of a list of things like parabens as well. But there's quite a long list of things and I'm not going to claim to remember. You don't have to. Okay, cool. So yeah, that's very, it's interesting. I've never talked about toxic load before, but totally makes a lot of sense. Especially to the point where you said about like plateauing pretty quickly. And then when you lose a lot of weight and then getting to that plateau and then trying to figure out what may be happening, why we can't break through it could be this.

32:02Interesting. Thanks for that insight. One other thing they want to pin and circle back to is you kept talking about gut health. And then you also actually, we're going to put a pin in the next thing we'll talk about and we'll circle back. But gut health, let's talk about it. Like I think it's definitely becoming more, more predominant in the space. People are talking about it. People are like, get your gut health in check. I know and understand that like our gut is like our second brain. So can you just shed light on what is gut health and what are some things people should be looking out for when it comes to making it better?

32:34So when we're talking about gut health, what we're generally referring to is the population of the bacteria and the microorganisms in the gut. So talking about having enough beneficial bacteria and not too much of the less beneficial bacteria. But also about making sure that the gut lining is healthy. You know, it's not inflamed. And also ensuring that we're actually digesting our food properly, breaking it down fully and absorbing it properly as well.

33:10And all of that's really important because it's all well and good eating a good diet. But if you're not actually digesting that and absorbing it, then what's the point? You know, you're wasting a lot of effort and, you know, a lot of nutrients are just kind of passing through. And then, you know, your bacteria do a lot of that work for you. So having a healthy balance of bacteria in your gut is key because it helps particularly with breaking down the carbohydrates and the fibers.

33:43Some bacteria actually synthesize vitamins for us and short chain fatty acids, which are really good for us. So there's a lot of stuff happening in the gut. And we know that certain species of bacteria can cause inflammation by increasing our toxic load. And they can cause hormone imbalance by reactivating some of the hormones that we're trying to eliminate.

34:14Some of them increase the amount of sugar that we extract from our food and so can result in us getting spikes from foods that we might not expect. Some of them will increase our appetite and our cravings. So having that healthy balance can actually make a world of difference to how we feel day to day. Awesome. How do we know if we're digesting things well? A really good way is to look at your stools and just see, is there any undigested food in the store?

34:46Is it greasy? Does it float? If it's greasy and floating, then it's probably a sign that there's some undigested fat in there. And if there's bits of food in there, then either you're not chewing properly or your gut isn't doing its job properly. I love when we talk about poop on the podcast. That's awesome. A couple of things, too. How about with digesting immediately? Like you're, you know, gassy.

35:18Like, is that a good sign? Is that a bad sign? Like, how do we distinguish that? Like, I know a lot of people always say, when I'm eating protein, I got the protein farts. Does that mean that, like, protein isn't good? Like, it's not digested well? Or is it that they just haven't yet been able to adapt or adapt their body to eating protein? Like, what is that? It's totally normal to have flatulence. You know, it's normal to be producing gas from the food that we eat. But when it is excessive or is very smelly, then it could be a sign that you're not digesting it as well. Or it could be a sign that the balance of your bacteria isn't optimal for digesting that food.

35:54Our gut bacteria is really good at adapting to the food that we eat. So most often, we can just change our diet and our guts will adapt to that. But if something is causing you a lot of bloating and flatulence, then it might be that you just need to slowly increase your intake of something. But sometimes it can be a sign that you're intolerant to something, particularly if it's causing you a lot of discomfort or if it's changing your bowel movements.

36:25These are some great, like, immediate tips for people to pay attention to. So once they're digesting their foods, those tips you just shared, and then taking a look at their poop every morning. And then how would you say, like, let's go back to the poop talk. Okay, real talk. Should you be pooping every day? Should you be pooping every other day? Should you be pooping three times? Like, what's the normal cadence with that? So the general consensus is that one to two fully formed sort of solid bowel movements per day is what we should expect.

36:56And particularly if you're eating two to three times a day, you should probably be expecting to have at least one to two bowel movements per day. If you're someone who has a less regular eating routine and maybe eating one meal a day, then you might not expect to be having as many bowel movements. But we should be eliminating every day. Cool. Good. Okay. Checkmark. Good there. All right. Awesome. So the one other thing that I wanted to circle back to is you've been talking about a couple of times here.

37:30Water, hydration. Like, what does that do for, I think, everything, digestion, hormones, like, are the cells of our body? Because, like, there's a lot of – and then what would you recommend? I'll save what I'm going to say after. What would you recommend for an intake of water on a daily basis? So the bigger you are in terms of body fat, the more water you need to drink to be hydrated. Because it's very difficult for our cells to actually retain water when we've got fat in our cells, basically.

38:01So you need to be drinking more if you're bigger. In terms of exactly how much that is, I think there's no kind of general consensus. You know, there's no – there's nothing that's kind of research that's been done that said that this is the amount that people should be drinking. I think a general rule of thumb is that if your urine is, you know, a very light yellow color, then that is a good sign.

38:32Don't necessarily want it to be completely clear all the time, but we don't want it to be dark. Amen. Let's go. I love that you went to the urine. Like, not many people say that. They're like, oh, get 128 ounces of water in a day or get half of your body weight of water in a day. And then I love that's the great answer. What is your urine telling you? What's your poop telling you? All these things are giving you answers to something. Yeah. Go ahead. And I think if you're eating a relatively clean diet, you're not going too crazy with the salts, then your body will tell you how much you need to drink.

39:11You just need to listen to your thirst. And I know that is, you know, dependent on your relationship with food as well because a lot of people mistake their thirst cues for hunger cues. But, you know, if you opt for a glass of water before you opt for the snack, if it's, you know, outside of your regular mealtimes, then the likelihood is that you're probably just dehydrated. Amen to that. Right. Because our hypothalamus controls both our hunger and our thirst.

39:41And I love that signal. You just said that just, you know, you may not be hungry. Just drink a glass of water. And that's probably exactly what it was. Love that. Okay. So you mentioned a couple of times to cortisol. So I want to circle back about talking about like self-care and stress management and like those concepts. I know the audience would love to hear your point of view on and then some takeaways to manage those things, especially through nutrition. I mean, nutrition, I feel like I like to say nutrition is king. Exercise is queen. If you can get down pat your nutrition, it's a world of a, the world opens up so much of just being living a healthy lifestyle and having a healthy body.

40:20And sleeping well and all of the things. But what is, let's talk about the importance of self-care and especially, you know, linked to cortisol, linked to nutrition. Is cortisol something you guys are testing too on the front end? We don't always test it. And part of the reason for that is because we just don't feel it's particularly necessary. You know, you can kind of see when someone is, is someone who has probably got high cortisol because usually they are busy all the time and rarely stop and actually take time for themselves.

40:52Or, you know, there's someone who is quite highly strong and quite sensitive to, you know, changes in their routines and that sort of thing. So I think it's quite easy to pick up on as a practitioner. Yeah. So we don't test it. Okay. Interesting. Um, so, okay. How would someone manage some, some, uh, things around self-care and self and stress management to help with their, to getting the results that they want?

41:24I think you can kind of tackle it from a few different angles. You've got the trying to reduce the overall stress load, um, which is often easier said than done. Um, but you know, worth putting some energy into trying to do that. And that might involve delegating some things so that you've got less stuff on your, on your plates. Um, and it might involve adding in some time if possible to do some self-care things.

41:55And they could be quick things like doing some deep breathing, you know, it takes like a minute to just stop and do some deep belly breathing. And it, you know, there's been research done on it and it has such a profound effect on your body, on your cortisol levels. Um, things like really things that stimulate the vagus nerve. So it could be things like singing, humming, things like taking a cold shower, um, taking a cold shower.

42:28And I'm just kidding. I know that that helps. You would think it's, it's kind of protective in that, but I know. I know, right. It sounds stressful, but the effect it has on your body, the constriction of your blood vessels helps to, to stimulate that, that vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system to put you into rest and digest. Rather than fight and flight mode, which, you know, most of us are in a lot of the time. Yeah. Yeah. All great strategies there. I know for women that are listening, um, that, you know, if, if cortisol is tested, you're able to see, uh, the curve, right.

43:02And then if the curve is coming back up at nighttime, there's really good strategies for them to implement at that point. Um, where they can like, well, you're talking like some deep breathing, some shutting down the lights, you know, at night, like here, this, I have a smart apartment. I like to call it. And it's all powered by Phillips Hughes. And the lights go down to like, almost like a, like a orange color at night so that my eyes can start regulating to, um, be able to, ready to fall asleep. So that curve, if anybody has it, the, it coming back up, these are great strategies that, and that's why testing is, is, can be so beneficial because you don't know this stuff until you get the data of, you know, the hormones, the thyroid, um, blood glucose, like all of those, uh, things.

43:48So super cool. Um, well, as we start to wrap up here, am I missing anything that you want to share with the audience today? I don't think so. I think we've done a bit of a whirlwind tour of, uh, things that I usually talk about. So yeah, I think we've covered it. Amazing. Okay. One last question though, for the future of like holistic health and, and like your goals and what you're striving for, what's your vision and hoping that like this space kind of like gets a hold on a little bit more and how we can empower more women to live fulfilling lives.

44:22What's your, what's your, what's your vision for it? And my hope is that it will be more accepted that everyone is different and that we, we need to take an individualized approach to our health. And that also we need to, to start tackling that from a relatively young age, you know, before we've got problems because, you know, all of these things that we experience, all the problems that we develop, the diseases or just symptoms, they all start from many, many years beforehand.

44:58Um, and usually from, from, you know, habits that we pick up in childhood. So if we can prevent, we, we're just going to save ourselves so much time, stress, money, you name it really. I love all of that. And then actually one last question, where can everybody find you? So you can find out more about what I do by searching on socials for at Louise Digby nutrition, or you can find me on my website, louisedigbynutrition.com. And then I also have my own podcast, which is called the thriving metabolism.

45:32Amazing. Louise, thank you so much for being here again. We did go on kind of like a city tour of all the things that you are so insightful on. And I appreciate you sharing your, your insights and pouring into the listeners that are listening to this a lot of valuable stuff to take away. Um, so I'll have all of your, uh, where they can search you and find you in the description below. Um, but thank you for being here. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. It's been lovely. Of course. All right, listeners, we'll catch you in the next one. Peace out. Hey guys, real quick.

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