In episode 264 of the Full Frontal Living podcast, Lisa and special guest Ciara Foy dive deep into the nuances of valuing and embodying good health, with a focus on women's hormonal balance. They discuss the crucial role of lifestyle choices in supporting bodily functions and share their personal experiences with bioidentical hormone therapy and the impact of breast implants on health. From tackling stress and managing blood sugar to the cultural influences on body image, they cover the foundational aspects of nutrition, rest, hydration, movement, and mental well-being. Tune in for an honest conversation about aligning actions with values, understanding the importance of self-care, and making conscious decisions to foster resilience and overall well-being.
Key Takeaways:
Introduction – Lisa welcomes listeners and introduces her guest, Ciara Foy, noting Ciara's dedication to guiding women in managing their hormones and championing the union of nutrition and hormonal balance.
Embracing Personal Responsibility – Ciara jumps into the deep end, shedding light on why taking personal responsibility is crucial for hormonal health and for supporting our bodies through the choices we make daily.
The Foundation of Health – Rest, hydration, movement, and mental well-being aren't just buzzwords; they are pillars for hormone regulation. Listen as both Lisa and Ciara open up about their journeys with bioidentical hormone therapy and their reverence for the body’s natural healing powers.
Committing to Self-care – Ciara underscores the daily commitment to self-care as a stepping stone towards building a confident and respectful relationship with oneself, a topic both she and Lisa are passionate about.
Stress and Its Pernicious Effects – Chronic stress isn't a badge of honor. Ciara dissects the damaging impact of stress on weight and body issues, a challenge too many women face.
The Mindset Work – Addressing cortisol and insulin isn't just about biology; it’s about mindset. Tackling core beliefs and wounds is just as important as any nutritional strategy.
Societal Beliefs and Learned Behavior – Lisa shares a compelling anecdote illustrating how societal influences can shape our children's body image and how essential it is to question and redefine these inherited views.
Nutritional Harmony – Ciara champions the holistic approach to nutrition, advising a departure from junk food in favor of whole foods for balancing blood sugar, enhancing sleep, and optimizing digestion.
Sleep and Overall Health – Before addressing conditions like autoimmune diseases or thyroid issues, Ciara suggests focusing on the bedrock of good health: sleep.
Gratitude and Moving Forward – Lisa shares her heartfelt appreciation for Ciara’s presence and insightful conversation, reminiscing about times spent together.
Realizing True Health – Reflect on the journey of Lisa and Ciara as they confront the reasons behind their breast implant decisions and how they ultimately found alignment with their health values.
Eating for Success and Sleep Strategy – Discover how nutritious, balanced eating can dramatically improve your sleep and, subsequently, your life success strategy.
The Power to Choose – In conclusion, Lisa and Ciara reinforce the overarching theme: our phenomenal power to choose. Each decision we make reflects our commitment to health, showcasing that it’s not about reaching perfection but about consistently choosing self-care and well-being.
Connect with Ciara – For more wisdom from Ciara Foy, check out her "Empowered Feminine" podcast and follow her on Instagram to continue the conversation on women's health and empowerment.
Ciara Foy, a renowned Women’s Weight Loss and Hormone Expert, guides high-achieving women to prioritize self-care, fueling the energy and passion needed to live their dreams. Author of the Amazon Bestseller "Empowered by Food" and host of “The Empowered Feminine” podcast, Ciara transformed her own struggles with weight, burnout, and mindset into a mission to empower women towards health and happiness.
From her clinical evaluations to her influential podcast, Ciara reaches women globally, from Bay Street to Wall Street and beyond, sharing insights on self-care, health, and empowerment.
Featured in ELLE, FLARE, and on ET Canada, discover more about Ciara’s impactful work at www.CiaraFoy.com and follow her journey on Instagram @ciarafoyinc.
Transcript
Speaker A [00:00:02]:
Hey. Hey.
Speaker B [00:00:02]:
Thanks for tuning into another episode of the full Frontal Living podcast. And today I have got my good friend Kara Foy on with me and we are going to talk about why valuing your health over the long term is so important and just really what it means to really embody this value around health and wellness. Her and I have, course, have been living these values for years and years and years. But before we dive in, I'm going to let Kira introduce herself to you and tell you how she shows up and serves in the world. So, Kira, thanks for joining me. I know we're going to have a great conversation today.
Speaker A [00:00:39]:
Yeah, I'm so excited to be so. I refer so many of my clients to your podcast, and I know friends of yours and stuff listen to mine. So I'm so excited to have this for them. So, I am a woman's health and hormone expert, and specifically what I do is help women understand how they can manage their hormones top down. So what they are doing in their life, how they're managing stress, what they're eating, the timing of what they're eating, sleep, and how all of that correlates to them feeling and looking their best. And of course, weight loss is also a big piece of that because so often, especially as we get into our 40s, things become a little bit more challenging. Maybe what we once did is no longer working. So where we could kind of cut corners or do some quick fixes, it was enough at the time.
Speaker A [00:01:40]:
Once we get into our 40s, it's really about digging deep and taking care of our body and partnering with her, as opposed to making her do more on less.
Speaker B [00:01:51]:
Isn't that the truth? So let's talk about this top down approach, because I think this is where so many people, especially as they get older, they're still chasing the wrong problem. So let's talk about that chasing the wrong problem, which is usually they're chasing weight loss. And listen, you and I both know there's nothing wrong with women wanting to lose weight. I'm pro. Whatever you want to do for your body, you do, you boo. But especially as we get older, the old strategies around what you could do to just drop a few pounds and listen, I've had many clients over the years who those strategies to just drop a few pounds never worked anyways. But as they get older, it gets even harder. So can you talk about what a top down approach? Let's talk about all the elements of that.
Speaker A [00:02:42]:
Yeah, of course. So I've been doing this work for 18 years, so seasoned like you are now. I'm aging myself. I will be 48 this summer. Blows my mind because as we've discussed, I still feel like I'm 30. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker B [00:03:01]:
I just saw a post the other day. I think it was Jennifer Aniston put out a reel. I don't know if you saw this on Instagram, but it was her birthday reel. And the underlying message of it was, it doesn't matter what age you're turning, you're still celebrating all those other years and all those other versions of you, and that we never really change how we feel on the inside. So as I've gotten older, sometimes I have to catch myself because I forget, like, oh, I'm 51, but what does that even mean? And there are things that definitely have changed as I've gotten older. So, yeah, aging is kind of a funny thing because you don't really realize it's happening, but it's happening.
Speaker A [00:03:41]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I say that because people have always said to me, and I really have specialized in weight loss because it is something that so many women struggle with. And it was part of my own journey, which until I had my first daughter, I didn't really struggle with a lot of weight, but I really struggled with my relationship with my body, which really is the root of what's going on. So I really do understand where these women are coming from. And so I had full service weight loss clinics. And so many people always say it must drive you crazy because there's always a new weight loss thing, and how do you keep on top of that? And the truth is, in 18 years, my approach has never changed. Right. There's like small tweaks that now we know that little differences, like, for example, woman over 40, there was just a recent study that we need 40 grams of protein after workout is optimal, right? So, like, small changes.
Speaker A [00:04:46]:
But at the end of the day, I've always focused on blood sugar, so managing insulin and also managing stress. So those two hormones, cortisol and insulin, are the ones that are responsible for a lot of fat storage. And those are hormones that no matter what age we are, we always have in our control. Right. So as a functional nutritionist, I understand what is going on with those and can help women to understand because, yes, there is a lot of changes going on with our hormones in our forty s and fifty s. However, a lot of women will say, well, it's my hormones, and think that's it. There's nothing that they can do when in reality, these hormones insulin and cortisol. They kind of run the show, right? They're up here at the top, and they impact your thyroid, they impact your sex hormones.
Speaker A [00:05:45]:
And so there's so much that women can do, and it's just maybe what you're doing isn't working or maybe you're not giving the right signals to your body, like, safety signals. Right. So that's really the perspective that I come at it from. And so it's always been about having the right balance of proteins, fats and carbs and making sure, like yourself, I've been focused on protein for 20 years. Like, thank goodness, because as a petite woman, if I wasn't, I would be in a really difficult place because I'd be having some major issues with muscle mass. That is really the place that I come at it from. And the truth is, as you said, it's never actually about food and it's not about weight. Those are just symptoms of an underlying problem and that we are so disconnected from our body and we don't really like eating healthy is for weight loss.
Speaker A [00:06:48]:
When we think about, we think we're healthy until the day that somebody tells us a disease, we have a disease. But eating healthy is not about weight loss. And you don't just have a disease process because your doctor says, well, now you've gone up that one extra point on your a, one c on your blood test, and so you have diabetes. You've been in the process of that for a decade. Right? So we're not just healthy or not healthy. We're either building our health or we're supporting disease.
Speaker B [00:07:21]:
That is so true. And your body is always responding to your stimuli, from the thoughts you think to the food you eat, to your environment, everything, your body is constantly responding. So when we talk about cortisol and insulin and women go into this, well, it's my hormones. What I hear is a lack of responsibility around, well, what is creating your hormones to go out of balance. And what most women turn to is, well, I'm getting older, so my hormones are shifting. Well, yes, your hormones will shift, but there is so much that we can do that we can be responsible for in terms of supporting our body as it ages, in terms of supporting our hormones running as optimally as possible. And it doesn't mean you suddenly have to turn into a total health freak. You and I have been living this lifestyle for a long time.
Speaker B [00:08:12]:
It's literally part of our identity. And I do understand for many women, this hasn't been part of their identity. And that's what they need to shift into, however, as long as they keep kind of defaulting into, it's my hormones, I'm a victim of my hormones, is really what it comes down to. There is this lack of personal responsibility around all the things that they can do to support their body. So when your body is putting on weight that doesn't want to come off, when you're not achieving the things you want, I always look at, well, are you listening to what your body's telling you? So here you are saying, I want these things, I'm going to push my body, I'm going to deprive my body, I'm going to do all these things that aren't super healthy, not to mention the thoughts that you might be thinking about your body and then wondering why your body isn't thriving when you're not providing it with optimal conditions to thrive. Like the last time I checked, if you take a plant, you stick it in a closet, close the door, don't water it for a month, it's going to die. And when we treat our bodies with a lack of reverence, when we don't feed it nutritious food, when we don't talk to it kindly, when we don't offer it care and love and movement and all the things, excuse me, it needs to thrive, of course we're going to have problems with our hormones, but then we turn around and we blame our body again for being the problem without even looking at our role in that 100%.
Speaker A [00:09:42]:
And that, in a nutshell, is the issue, right? And the truth is that what dictates our hormones, to a large extent, is our lifestyle, right? So that is also why women will go and get on HRT or BHRT, biidentical hormone therapy. And that can be great for symptom relief for a whole bunch of different things, right? However, it doesn't help with weight loss and it doesn't take care of your lifestyle and that what is actually impacting your mood and your sleep and your energy and your cravings and all of those things. So you have to look at the foundations first. And then when you layer on something like BHRT, you can a tweak it to feel even better and also to address any symptoms that are left, because there can be still additional symptoms even if you're doing all of the right things. However, just balancing your hormones with hormones doesn't take care of the majority of things that women are complaining about.
Speaker B [00:10:54]:
That is so true. So I've been on HRT now for bioidentical hormones for a while now. And I remember when I first started to have symptoms, and I never experienced things like weight gain, because I know how I eat. I make sure I get plenty of rest. I stay hydrated. I have movement, right? So all the foundational pieces were already there. I was standing on this really solid foundation, but I remember just crying for no reason. It's called the progesterone blues.
Speaker B [00:11:27]:
And feeling, like, totally out of sorts with myself. But I was able to go to the naturopath and say, okay, this is what's happening. And all the other factors that were within my control. I had already ticked the boxes of them. So then we were able to kind of explore what it would look like to go on progesterone and give my body that support. And because of all the years of coaching, I knew that something was wrong. I knew I wasn't just crying at commercials for the sake of crying at commercials, right? Like, I'd drop a pencil and I'd burst into tears, right? It was crazy. But I'm so grateful that I have this foundation of health that I start with, because it doesn't matter what happens in my life, what happens to my body.
Speaker B [00:12:12]:
I'm always standing on this kind of solid ground, which gives me this immense trust in my body's ability to continue to heal and that I'm really working in partnership with it now, you and I both recently went through explant surgery, which was really fascinating. So I went through mine first, and then Kira had hers afterwards, which is a really interesting experience for me to even watch how much faster she recovered than I did because our procedures were a little bit different. But, I mean, you didn't skip a beat when it came to your surgery. The night of her surgery, she was sitting on my bed at, like, 1030 at night. I'm like, kira, you need to go to sleep. You had surgery today. Granted, you were drugged up on that day and stuff, and I slept that afternoon.
Speaker A [00:13:03]:
And you did afternoon and a really long nap. Correct.
Speaker B [00:13:07]:
But for both of us going into our surgery, neither of us had any concerns about what recovery was going to be like, how long we were going to be off for. There was just this deep and immense trust in our body's ability to heal and this profound gratitude and reverence for its ability to heal. Like, I was so in awe. And I know that you recently had a moment around that as well. It's when the rubber hits the road, right? And things happen in your life, and you get to see that all of the work and the effort that you've put in to caring for yourself really comes back tenfold. I'd love for you to share about your experience with that.
Speaker A [00:13:52]:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I did a podcast on this and I balled my eyes out through a good part of the podcast and not from a sad place. It's exactly what you're talking about. This reverence and this respect for my body and how day in and day out, I always come back to that place. Like, what does she need partnering with her, making choices about how I want to feel all the time. And it's never about a number on a scale or how I look in a mirror. It is literally about how I feel, how I show up, what my mental health is, being resilient enough to get through all the crazy stuff that comes up in my life.
Speaker A [00:14:38]:
I'm also somebody who has dealt with a lot of emotional abuse in my past relationship and is continuing through post separation, through the court system. So there's stuff being thrown at me all the time. And so when I went through this surgery, it was just another example of I always do my best by my body and does she ever have my back? And it literally just makes me want to cry because I don't think that there is any better feeling in the world than having that kind of faith and trust in your body. Right.
Speaker B [00:15:19]:
I agree.
Speaker A [00:15:21]:
It's incredible. And it's like every other relationship, it has to be nurtured and it's a day in and day out, and it's not something that you can put on a shelf because life is busy and then come back to it. Otherwise the foundation crumbles. Right? Like any relationship, whether it's our parents, our friends, our boss, our spouses, it's something that is built with trust and with love and with just deep respect. And I would say what women don't understand is that what we do for ourselves on a daily basis, to feel good, to get up, to work out, to get fresh air, to get sunshine, to nourish our body, is really building this deep love for ourselves. Right? We become the woman who we respect, who we love, who we trust, and because we respect, love and trust her, that builds that momentum. We know that she's worth the time and the effort. And that's the piece that so many women are missing, is that confidence in ourselves is built from these little things that we do every single day.
Speaker A [00:16:45]:
That adds up to this feeling of. I feel just proud of myself. I was in the mirror on the Sunday, so I had surgery on the Tuesday and you were at my house, and on the Sunday morning, I had a shower, and I was looking at myself in the mirror, and I was just so happy. I wasn't on painkillers very long. I really felt like I didn't miss a beat. The only thing that was kind of bugging me was I had to sleep on my back. So that was kind of uncomfortable for me to figure that out because I'm usually a side sleeper. But I was just looking at her, and I was looking at these boobs that have gone through so much, who had breastfed two children, one of them for 18 months, with implants, and I had had implants for 17 years.
Speaker A [00:17:41]:
And yet through all of that, here I am looking at her and looking at these boobs, and I'm like, it's like nothing happened. That's how I felt. And of course, there is. There's skin laxity and those kind of things that will get better. But I was blown away. I literally blew myself away by how good I felt and also just how my body was bouncing back.
Speaker B [00:18:11]:
Yeah, it's really amazing. It was really amazing to watch and you, and I was amazed watching myself. I'm back to doing everything I want to do in the gym again, but I think that we also need to back up a little bit and talk about the decision to have implants in the first place, because here we are talking about how much we value our health and well being, which is true. And this has also been a personal journey for both of us, because I can say when I made the decision to put my implants in, although I think I'd started so much my career back then, but I was starting to get into health and wellness, and I can say, looking back now, that I didn't have a lot of love and respect for my body back then, there was this need to want to change it and be different, and I wasn't accepting of it, but, I mean, that's true for everything in my life. I really lived with this underlying not good enough story. So you can value your health and still be constantly looking at, wow, there's an opportunity for me to love and value myself even more within that. So if you look back on your younger self, the decision to have implants, where were you in your life back then?
Speaker A [00:19:31]:
That is such a good question. So there was a lot of stuff going on in my life. The first time I'd ever gained a lot of weight, and that was a big thing for me. It really impacted my mental health, was when I had my eldest daughter because I was a gym bunny and all that kind of stuff before, and I counted calories. This was prior to me being a nutritionist, but everything I did was about how others viewed me, right? Everything I did know, it had nothing to do with me or my health or how I felt about myself or anything. It really had to do with keeping up with the Joneses, right. And so when I got pregnant, the reason I let all of those things go is like, well, I'm pregnant, so now people can't look at me sideways if I gain weight. And I let it all go.
Speaker A [00:20:24]:
And that really impacted my mental health, and it impacted my connection with my daughter when she was born, and it impacted my relationship with my husband. Literally everything in my life crumbled, and in large part because of my mental health. Garbage in, garbage out. The food that you eat, really, it's not just about your physical body, but spiritually and emotionally as well. I had to claw my way back from that. And basically, when I lost all of that weight, I felt like my acute, perky size b were kind of deflated. Right. And looking back at them now, and you've seen the pictures, there was nothing wrong with them.
Speaker B [00:21:14]:
No. That's when I look back, too, I'm like, wow, there was nothing wrong there.
Speaker A [00:21:18]:
No.
Speaker B [00:21:18]:
But in my head, right? The vision I had, my body in my head, that's where I found that there was something wrong.
Speaker A [00:21:25]:
Yeah. And so where I was is that I had just separated from my husband. And so I just turned 30 and found myself single. And I just finished, was just finishing school for nutrition. So I did have an idea. I can't say that I didn't know any of the risks because I did kind of have a little freak out. Like, oh, my God, if I do this, am I going to get breast cancer? And I even went so far as I thought I had a lump and went and had that checked out at Princess Margaret. But in any case, I didn't know the extent of the risks.
Speaker A [00:22:10]:
And also, I wasn't the woman that I am now. Right. That. That was 17 years ago. And a really interesting thing. I had a conversation with my daughter yesterday that really plays into this, where we were on the phone and she said, dad asked me how you were doing. And he had said to me, before you had the surgery done, make sure you check on your mom. And this is my ex husband, who is like, a stellar guy, not the guy that I was talking about, the emotional abuse and all this stuff.
Speaker A [00:22:42]:
But anyway, my ex husband, the father of my first daughter is a great guy. And he was saying, make sure you check in on your mom, because I'm a little worried about her mental health, her getting her implants removed, not because he thought she's got to be crazy to remove them, but he was like, I know that your mom really attaches a lot of worth to how she looks, and so I think you should just check in on her and make sure she's okay. Right? And that was so interesting because I was like, here's the man. That he doesn't really know me anymore, right. But, yeah, 17 years ago or 20 years ago, I was that woman, and it would have been unthinkable for me to do something like that, to remove them and then just be okay with however it turns out. Right.
Speaker B [00:23:37]:
And I think that that goes back to where we started in this conversation. I think so many women are chasing weight loss or whatever because they have this belief around what it means about them and how other people relate to them. And if they just looked a certain way, that then they would be accepted or whatever. They would feel loved. We all have different stories that we're working from, but the reality is, if you can't love and accept yourself as you are, it doesn't really matter what you change. You still won't love and accept yourself. I mean, there were times when I had my implants in where I thought, well, maybe I should go back and get a new pair. Maybe I should get bigger.
Speaker B [00:24:13]:
Maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that, because I was so trapped in this perfectionist idea, right? If I could just look a certain way, then nobody would see how underneath the surface, how insecure I was about so many things, right, that I had this not enough story running. And the irony is, with having my implants out now I feel more me than I ever have. I've had to go through, and I talked about this on a previous podcast episode, a lot of grief around choices that I've made in relationship with my body that really didn't honor that value of health. And I think that this is important for us to talk about, because if you ask people what they value, more often than not, people are going to put health on their list of values. But the choices you make every day, day in, and day out actually show you what you truly value. So, if you have health as one of your number one values, but you're not making choices that support your body thriving, if you're not getting enough sleep, if you're not getting enough water, if you're putting crap food in your body. Those all show you that you actually do not value your health. And unless we continue to go deeper.
Speaker B [00:25:30]:
And really, what do I want to say? It's like going deeper and recognizing that we're saying one thing, but we're doing another. You're constantly going to be out of alignment with that value, and you're never going to feel really great. So the decision to take mine out was really this decision to get even more in alignment with that value of health. And I'm continuing to look at things like, what else could I do? I don't know if I can give up coloring my hair. That's probably not going to happen.
Speaker A [00:26:04]:
I'm with you on that. I don't think I can do that one.
Speaker B [00:26:07]:
Right.
Speaker A [00:26:08]:
But I have nothing on my nails.
Speaker B [00:26:10]:
I'm not even at the no nails yet because I'm such a nail biter. But it's always looking at valuing health isn't about being perfect.
Speaker A [00:26:18]:
Right.
Speaker B [00:26:19]:
Kira and I are not perfect by any means, but it is making sure that you are living by that value of health and really wanting to love and care for your body in new and better ways. And as you said, it's such a big part of being able to show up and be resilient and to be a leader, because most of the women that you and I work with are really driven go getters. They've got lots of plates. They're spinning in their lives, and if their health is suffering, their performance will suffer.
Speaker A [00:26:51]:
Yeah, absolutely. You can only do that for so long. And that is why so many women get to our age, and they have been doing that for so long, and their body doesn't feel safe and things are really going awry. And even when they're doing all of the things, they're still struggling. And that's a really tough place to be in. Right.
Speaker B [00:27:20]:
I'd love to hear how you start with women who are really at that place where they're struggling. They know that they need to lose the weight that they have to lose. They're not feeling good in their body. It is impacting their performance. Where do you start when you're dealing with cortisol and insulin, what is the number one thing that you kind of attack first as a coach?
Speaker A [00:27:45]:
Yeah, that's a great question if we're talking about. And first of all, just actually, let me back up for a second before I get into that. I know that you agree with this, that we can accept ourselves and still want to improve ourselves and still want to lose weight and I just thought was, I know that you agree with that and I do too, because we can accept ourselves and say, I'm going to love and treat you well body and we're going to work on this together. Accepting ourselves doesn't mean that we shouldn't want to also improve ourselves.
Speaker B [00:28:23]:
It also doesn't mean that we've waived the white flag and surrendered. Like acceptance doesn't mean that you're just, well, it is what it is. There's nothing I can do. Acceptance is just saying, this is where I am today and I'm going to stop making it wrong. And what can I do tomorrow that's going to support me moving towards where I want to get to acceptance just allows you to be at peace with where you are today. It doesn't determine the future. It just sets you free of all the emotional baggage that you're carrying around.
Speaker A [00:28:54]:
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. So where do we start? The first thing that I start with is some mindset work because what I want to do is be able to gleam from my client what's the vision that they have? Where are they going? So look at their why? But also figure out how connected they are to the beliefs that are actually holding them back. Because we all have stories and beliefs that we are running that have created the issue that we find ourselves in, no matter what that issue is. Right. So whether we're too busy, it runs in my family. I don't have time. There's always some degree of lack of self worth that is in there, even though many women don't want to admit it.
Speaker A [00:29:46]:
Right. I mean, I can admit that you've admitted that. And I think it's really important to understand that we're all kind of born with these ideas. We all struggle with worth, like every human being does. It's a human condition.
Speaker B [00:30:02]:
Right. I actually don't think we're born with that, though. No. I think that we all come to this planet totally perfect with no issues. But what happens is we start to look around us and we start to measure ourselves against what other people are doing and what other people are saying, and we start to question the things that we believe. I had a client come to me once. Her young daughter wanted to talk to me about her weight. So she asked me if I would talk to her daughter, which was weird.
Speaker B [00:30:30]:
Her daughter was like 13. She was young, right. And she said to me, lisa, am I fat? And I said, okay, first of all, I need some context to the question. What is causing you to ask that question? And she said, well, my girlfriend, my best friend, she looks just like me, but when she gets on the scale, she says that she's fat. So it caused this girl to start questioning if she should be viewing her body differently. So that's what I mean. I believe that so many of the beliefs that we pick up around our bodies aren't really ours, but we're, like, borrowing from other people because when we're young, we are trying to maintain three pillars of love, safety and belonging. And we will do everything we need to do to make sure that we fit in so we don't get thrown out of the pack.
Speaker B [00:31:21]:
But then our jobs as we get older is to start to dismantle some of those beliefs. And so many women, and you know this, they don't even realize that that belief is just a made up story that they've told themselves. And we don't even need to figure out where it came from. But it's coming to that place of, what if this isn't true? What if you've been telling yourself this about your body your whole life? But what makes it true? It's such an important place to start because you can't really move forward if you're not willing to explore the belief that's been holding you back.
Speaker A [00:31:55]:
But.
Speaker B [00:31:55]:
So that's why I don't think people are born with it. But I think that a lot of women pick it up from friends mothers. I mean, a lot of us at our age now grew up in that their mothers were really in the diet culture. I watched something the other night. This is off on a total tangent about how women in, I think it was the 18 hundreds, because they wanted that, like, tiny corseted waist.
Speaker A [00:32:21]:
So they would take the Scarlett O'Hara days have gone with the wind.
Speaker B [00:32:25]:
They would take a tapeworm egg and let the tapeworm hatch. So the tapeworm would eat all the food, so they would lose weight. But then the problem was they didn't know how to get the tapeworm out. So this has been going on for centuries, these stories that women have about what our bodies should look like anyways.
Speaker A [00:32:48]:
No, totally. Well, I agree with you on that. All of these things are like our environment and what we learn. And what I was thinking of is kind of like our core wounds. Kind of like our core wounds that we come into this planet with, but not the influence of diet, culture and women and all that kind of stuff. Right? So that's kind of where we look at. But from a nutritional perspective, the first thing I do is get rid of all of the junk, right? Because we want things to be as easy as possible. And when you take out the foods that were manufactured to create cravings and to make you eat more of them, it gets a lot easier.
Speaker A [00:33:31]:
And when you take out the ultraprocessed things that have your blood sugar going up and down, so you're on this, like, roller coaster of, I've got energy now I'm crashing. Now I need something that's going to get me more energy because it's all sugar and ultra processed things that do that, right? So when we take somebody off the roller coaster and they start nourishing their body with whole foods and then teaching them about balance, right, with respect to having protein at every meal, having a half a plate of non starchy vegetables, that kind of stuff. So pretty basic from the start. And even just that makes a huge difference, because once you start balancing your blood sugar and once you start eating enough protein, then your sleep will get better, right? And the cravings will dissipate and your taste buds start to change. And lots of changes happen with your microbiome and your digestion and bowel movements. So women, for example, who come into my practice being constipated for their whole life, will actually start to have regular bowel movements. So that's really the starting piece. And when it comes to I have people come into my practice might have autoimmune disease and they might have issues with their HPA access, their hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal access, because they're always burning the candle at both ends, right? They might have thyroid issues, all of these things.
Speaker A [00:35:04]:
But I always work on the foundational pieces first. Like, for example, if somebody's not sleeping well, that's like, number one. That's the number one goal we got to work out, because if you're not sleeping well, you're going to be exhausted. How can you stay motivated or build any kind of momentum when you are dragging your butt everywhere? You feel horrible, right? But also, when you don't get enough sleep, that is going to increase your blood glucose levels. It is going to increase your cravings. You are going to have problems with leptin resistance, meaning your satiety signals are not going to be working properly. So you're not going to be satisfied with the food that you eat. You're going to have problems with ghrelin, which is, again, your hunger hormone that causes cravings.
Speaker A [00:35:54]:
So if you can't get sleep online, then there's a lot of challenges that come up that would stop somebody from being able to easily put a plan in place.
Speaker B [00:36:05]:
Yeah. Rest is really, like the number one success strategy. Even if you changed nothing of what you were eating and you started sleeping more, you would actually start gravitating towards eating more healthy foods. I truly actually believe that people, naturally, if given the choice, will choose healthier. But their environmental state inside their body because they're not sleeping and taking care of those foundational pieces are what drives them towards the fast food, because it's there. It's fast. You get that quick burst. And we have such an addiction to the mouthfeel of these foods and how they make us feel in the moment, but they don't give us that long lasting satiety.
Speaker B [00:36:50]:
So it's really fascinating. Everybody wants the just give me the one thing that will fix everything. And unfortunately, it has to be a layered approach. But what I love about what you're saying is how quickly the body can adapt to these changes. Everybody's body wants to be optimal. We were set to this planet with Chevy Chavez to run around in, right? Like, we've been given the most amazing piece of machinery and it wants to run optimally, but it's up to us to make decisions so that it can. And when you start to make better decisions about that, you will notice your performance change almost immediately, right? Like, within a week of changing what you're eating and getting more sleep and hydrating yourself, you will feel different, your skin will look different, your moods will be different. Everything can change quickly.
Speaker A [00:37:44]:
Everything. And that first part of my program has no calories that you have to hit, has no macros, nothing like that. It's literally cleaning everything up, looking at the quality of food and balance, as I said. And people lose weight, sleep better, have better digestion and everything in ten days, right? And that's with not telling them how much to eat. Right?
Speaker B [00:38:11]:
Which is such a huge part of it, right? Because that diet culture is about, you have to eat x number of amounts. And I don't know about you, but when I was specifically working around nutrition, one of the number one things that I saw with women was, well, one undereating protein. But undereating in general, women are constantly not eating enough. And it was such a mindbender for them to recognize that they could eat all this food, which they felt like, oh, my God, this is so much food. I would hear that all the time, and I'm losing weight. I'm like, that is how it works. When you give your car the gas it needs, it will perform its best. Your body wants to perform its best, but you've got to fuel it properly.
Speaker A [00:38:53]:
Absolutely. And the thing is, when we're eating real natural food, it's really hard to overeat. Right. It's very easy to overeat when we're eating ultra processed food, when a lot of it can fit in your stomach, but when you're eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and protein and all of this. I just had a call today with one of my groups that just started in January, and they're all like, okay, what do I do when I can't eat my snack? Because I'm too full. Yeah. And all of these women have lost weight, right? It's like, I'm too full. And that's because when you are eating properly and we're eating natural foods, then our body responds the way that it should, and we have the right signals.
Speaker A [00:39:38]:
Right. It's the problem is the food and the manufacturing and the quality of food that we're eating on top of our very sedentary and stressful lifestyles.
Speaker B [00:39:50]:
So I really hope everybody listening to this, what they walk away with is a new found perspective about how they can look at their bodies, how they can think and feel about themselves, how food is really a foundational piece of loving and caring for your body. That it doesn't have to be hard, but it does come with a tremendous amount of personal responsibility. But as you've heard me say, and I know my listeners have heard me say things we love and we value, we take care of. And if you're not willing to pour that into yourself, what does that say about the relationship you're having with yourself? So, I don't know about you. Well, I do, because I know you and I love you. I want to be on this planet for as long as I possibly can, and I want to be on this planet with as few restrictions as I can. Meaning, if you call me up and we're like 60 years old, well, you'll still be in your 50s. I'll be in my sixty s, and you're like, hey, do you want to go ride a camel across the desert in sahara? I'd be like, yeah, sure, I could totally do that.
Speaker B [00:40:56]:
Because physically, even though things might be a little bit more challenging than they were before, I do have injuries that I work around as an athlete, but I could always trust that my body would be like, yeah, we can do this. We've got this. Yeah. That's what I want for myself. That's what I want for my listeners. That's what I want for women. I want us to start to recognize that we can age on our own terms, but it does mean that we have to be responsible for what that process is going to look like and really honoring our bodies. So I would love for you to any final takeaways that you have and then let everybody know where they can go and find you.
Speaker B [00:41:35]:
Listen to your podcast, all the good stuff where they can look you up.
Speaker A [00:41:38]:
Absolutely. I think from a final takeaway perspective, if you can really make that switch from thinking that eating healthy is hard or something you have to do to something that you get to do, so that this relationship that you have with your body, that your health span is going to match your lifespan, because that's what we're talking about, right? Yeah. I want to be healthy until the day I take my last breath. I don't want to live 2030 more years of my life. Living, but not living optimally and not being able to do the things that I want to do. I really value freedom, and that also means the freedom of what I get to choose to do based on what my body's capable of. Right. So for me, that's like that switch between it's something to do to get eating healthy, to get x result to eating healthy because of my health.
Speaker A [00:42:45]:
Right.
Speaker B [00:42:45]:
Investing.
Speaker A [00:42:47]:
Yeah. And really thinking about it from that endpoint. Right. Everybody has friends and family that you think, oh, I don't want to end up there. But for whatever reason, people still think it's like a lock of the draw. They really do. And while we can't prevent everything, we can drastically reduce our risk, and that is our responsibility to do so. It is on us.
Speaker A [00:43:18]:
And when we're talking about weight loss, there was a time that I didn't even want to talk about it because it was almost like on social media, it was a dirty word. But here's the thing. What is the main risk factor for cancer? Obesity. For heart disease? Obesity. For diabetes? Obesity. Right. So those are your top killers. Right.
Speaker A [00:43:37]:
Also for Alzheimer's.
Speaker B [00:43:39]:
Well, and it was a huge factor in mortality rates and Covid as well.
Speaker A [00:43:43]:
Yes. For everything. So it is important. It is important, and it is a reflection of how you are loving and caring for yourself. So I believe that everybody is worth it, that you deserve to feel amazing and that's why you want to nourish your body.
Speaker B [00:44:04]:
I love it. This is why we're such good friends, right? Because we're just like, same around all this. Where can everybody follow you and get more of your magic?
Speaker A [00:44:16]:
So I also have a podcast that lisa's been on as well, called the empowered Feminine podcast. You can find that anywhere. You listen to podcasts, or you can search my name, Kira Foy Ciarafoy. And Instagram is the best place to connect with me. That's where most of my content and social media is focused there. And that is at Kirafoy, Inc.
Speaker B [00:44:42]:
Awesome.
Speaker A [00:44:43]:
Yeah.
Speaker B [00:44:43]:
I'm so glad you came on. It was just nice spending more time with you. Yeah.
Speaker A [00:44:47]:
I miss you.
Speaker B [00:44:48]:
I know. I got to come back to the house. I was my best life in Kira's beautiful home on the lake. It was just absolutely lovely. But I do love you, and I love the work that you're doing in the world. I love how you're supporting women really becoming the best versions of themselves. And this was a really great conversation today, and I'm sure it'll help lots of women out there. So thank you.
Speaker A [00:45:11]:
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker B [00:45:13]:
And thank you for. And thank you for tuning in. If this episode was helpful for you, please make sure that you share it. If you even just share it with one person, you might change their life. They might hear something on this show, on this episode that radically changes their life. So please share it. And if you haven't left a review on iTunes or whatever your listening platform is, make sure you do that as well. And check out all the notes in the show notes for all the links so that you can make sure you follow Kira along.
Speaker B [00:45:48]:
All right, have a wonderful day, everybody, and I will talk to you all soon.
