I’ve been following the research on burnout, PTSD and resiliency for a few years because I find adaptive changes in the brain and nervous system so fascinating. Getting real results with patients often involves us recognizing the impact of their mindset, nervous system regulation and level of burnout/resilience as we construct a plan.    We can easily see how a patient would find it hard to do a particular part of their plan if they couldn’t afford it, if the resources were too far from their house or if they were downright allergic to the suggestion. But when we think about resiliency, we often have preconceived ideas about what that means, and how “resilient” we are or aren’t.    Dr. Jenny Liu is a Postdoctoral Associate with the MacDonald Franklin OSI Research Centre and an Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Schulich School of Medicine, Western University. Dr. Liu’s background is in the science of stress and resilience. She works with stakeholders to identify the determinants of resilience in different communities and support efforts to promote or build resilience using a number of evidence-informed strategies and approaches.   In this amazing episode, we talk about the definition of resiliency, how you need to reframe the way you consider yourself and your support systems and how you can change how you feel about your stressors just by focusing on the pillars of resilience.    Her free self-assessment app is available online at https://twitter.com/resilient_u and is a great place for people to start to understand what is influencing their ability to show up as their best selves every day.    You can follow Jenny on Twitter at https://twitter.com/resilient_u   

If you haven’t listened to our past episodes with Dr. Erin Ley, you’ve missed out on a lot of ranting, a lot of practical solutions and a lot of laughing.  Dr. Erin Ley is one of the Naturopathic Doctors at Clarity Health, serving people all over Ontario Canada. Erin sees both our adolescent patients and our male patients (in addition to patients looking for nutrition support and hormonal health) which gives her amazing insight into the challenges of working with this unique population.  Whether you’re a young person yourself or have a young person in your life, this episode will give you insight into why the discussion around nutrition has become so complicated, the role of social media and belief systems in choosing nutrition for a young person and how parents can put down the responsibility of being the expert in their young adult child’s life.  We cover additional topics such as Why Jordan finds working with parents and teens so challenging.  Why Erin loves it! What basic nutritional “truths there are”, and how learning these truths can make nutrition feel easier (for everyone).  How to think about the pattern of your eating patterns and how they fit into your life.  Why influencing a young person’s nutrition has a lasting impact on their life.  Erin is accepting new patients at Clarity Health for late spring 2023 and beyond. You can submit a web request for a new patient onboarding call at www.clarityhealthburlington.ca. You can follow Dr. Erin on Instagram @drerinnd

We know you’ve likely had information about protein shoved down your throat (pun intended) but do you really understand the WHY?   Things change during ageing and the menopause transition that affect how people’s bodies incorporate dietary protein, and the impact on this is far-reaching. From lower muscle mass, changes to change in satiety (how full you are) and a reduction in energy expenditure (how much we burn in a day), protein affects a lot.    We review what catabolism is, and how eating the same protein you’ve always eaten doesn't provide enough building blocks to prevent muscle breakdown as you age.  In this episode we’ll talk through:  Why is protein the most important macronutrient in menopause? What happens if you don’t hit your targets (and it has to do with appetite)? The impact that both aging and menopause have on metabolism and protein needs (they aren’t the same) Why women have different needs than men.    We’ll also cover how to increase your protein intake to meet your needs and what you might notice if you increase your protein levels up to the targets we discuss.    We’ve released our new Women’s Health Unplugged App on the App Store and Google Play this month, with our first on-demand course being on endometriosis and menstrual cramps. You can download the app and get ready for our subscriber-only content for the Women’s Health Unplugged podcast when we release it later in 2023. 

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus (again!) to talk about sex and how to have a thriving sex life. We outline how little people know about what contributes to positive libido and desire (so they don’t know what they were doing right) and then have NO IDEA what is getting in the way when their desire or drive changes. This feeling of a lack of control leaves people feeling powerless and like the solution lives outside of themselves.   This episode is for you if you are curious about How to learn the difference between arousal and desire.  How to use your erotic brain, even if you’ve been married for 25 years.  Why crumbs on the counter and full dishwasher ruin your libido in your 50s, and not your 20s.  How to think about the complexity of libido and sex, with SIMPLE solutions.  If you want to know if we prefer Speed Keanu Reeves or The Matrix Keanu Reeves ;)  Bat Sheva explains the factors that give you ‘points’ (fantasy, connection and hormone levels) and ‘take points’ away (some medications, fatigue, pain and more).  This episode is a great way to start to explore this part of your health and get some ideas for how to change.  Here’s more about our guest, and how you can grab her book, Satisfaction Guaranteed: How to have the sex you’ve always wanted.  Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus, a certified sex therapist, is the author of Satisfaction Guaranteed: How To Have the Sex You’ve Always Wanted. She has spent her life dedicated to bridging the gap between the medical and the psychological in women’s sexual health.  For nearly 25 years she served as the clinical director of one of the largest sexual health centers in the US. Dr. Marcus earned a master’s in public health as well as a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality as well as a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University.   

This week we are diving into the vault and bringing back our most downloaded and listened-to episode in 2021! We will be back next week with a brand-new episode.  Is your morning routine part of your secret sauce or are you a roll-out-of-bed-and-run kind of person? My morning routine has been an important part of my life for years and I’ve spent a lot of time testing various strategies to make the most of my day. In this episode I give you some ideas of how to create your own routine by talking about: Coffee and caffeine and whether it’s helping you or not (spoiler: it’s helping me!) Creating calm by “deciding” how you want your day to go.  How I delegate tasks and projects. How my partner and I troubleshoot what our pain points are for the day.  Not waking up with an alarm, and how this affects me.  The importance of my morning of coffee (worth talking about twice!) The overall theme is that my morning is a CHOICE and in this episode I want you to get inspired to choose your morning and your day. It’s a practical episode (not just a conversation about mindset) and I tell you exactly what my routine looks like.

It’s common for us to skip over an episode if we feel like a topic doesn’t apply to us, or if we feel nervous to listen.    This particular episode is for everyone, and we’re going to help you feel more confident thinking about cancer either for yourself, or in your family and loved ones.    I’m joined today by Dr. Martha Sharpe ND who focuses her practice on cancer survivorship. We discuss her personal journey with a cancer diagnosis and how she felt as a healthcare practitioner trying to navigate the system. Martha has dedicated her career to helping women understand how to reduce their personal cancer risk, but also to feel empowered in their survivorship.    In this episode we cover: The importance of feeling autonomous in your health care.  The difference between prevention and blame.  How to stack your health deck in your favour to reduce your cancer risk.  The impact of alcohol on cancer risk.  How an anti-cancer lifestyle is actually a whole-health lifestyle.  You don’t need to spend a ton of money to have an anti-cancer health plan.    Dr. Martha Sharpe, ND, is a Naturopathic Doctor in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Martha is dedicated to filling this gap and rewriting cancer survivorship with comprehensive, individualized, and holistic care.  She is passionate about helping people find the clarity and empowerment they need to step back into life post-cancer, and feel at home in their bodies again. You can find her on Instagram @marthasharpe_nd and learn more about her offers including a 4-week course on foundations for fuelling your body after cancer (and for cancer prevention) where she is offering our listeners a $100.00 promo. Learn more here https://marthasharpend.com/podcastpromo   

There are patterns that people who are successful with nutrition change adopt, and in today’s podcast, I’m sharing the 3 food categories that I want you to include in your kitchen to help you make it through tougher weeks (and help you meet your goals!). It’s common for a new nutrition plan to focus on novelty, new recipes and unique ways of incorporating unique ingredients into your diet. New nutrition plans can often feel like a part-time job for many people, 🥵 and this level of bandwidth is not often available to make the changes that many people need to make with their food quality. My 3 food categories are as follows: Aspirational. Foods that are new, recipes, and unique ways of putting foods together that bring novelty and excitement. Every Day. Foods that you need to eat every day to help you meet your nutrition goals. These are the foods you reach for in the grocery store every week that are on your plan, and that can easily be pulled together in an autopilot kind of way. Oh 💩 S*!T💩. This category of foods are the foods in our pantry and freezer that are going to SAVE us from the wheels falling off the bus when things aren’t going well, when we’re tired or when we run out of everyday foods. Enjoy the podcast and next time you’re grocery shopping, consider if you’re filling up your cart with foods from each category.

Today’s conversation is an important one. On a few levels.  When I sat down to do this podcast I was thinking about the medications for obesity (we’re focusing on Semaglutide/Ozempic today) I was going to focus on the “clinical” discussion. Does it work? Who benefits? What do we expect? Then, that very week, there was a social media explosion about weight loss drugs for adolescents.  And I realized that our conversation had to be much more emotional than that.  Should we treat obesity with medication? Should people be able to manage their medical condition of obesity without help? Shouldn’t people be able to handle this in a drug-free way? Just because some of the challenges related to obesity require changes in policy, access to nutrition, physical activity and mental health support doesn’t mean we don’t also need treatment options today to support the youth and adults that are at risk from their obesity today.  I also asked hard questions like, “why do we care what medications other people are using?” or “what are your personal triggers when you hear of someone using medication for their obesity?”.  We also dive in on some of the research in the STEP trials for Semaglutide, the longer-term data on weight regain and who benefits the most from these anti-obesity medications.  It’s a bit of a spicy episode that I think we’d all benefit from thinking about. We know someone who qualifies for these medications or who is at risk from their obesity. How we approach this conversation touches us all. 

Janette Yee, an athletic therapist who supports people after vaginal birth and c-section is a joy to listen to. She’s vibrant, excited and passionate about something that we’ve all kept to ourselves.    How freaking hard it is to recover from birth.    As an athlete herself, Janette gives us the metaphor we’ve been waiting for. Birth is a season ending injury. And yet, while most athletes get trainers, time off and rehab, we send people who have given birth home with a screaming baby expecting sleepless nights, selfless weeks and no education on how to take care of themselves.    Even if you don’t identify as an athlete, birth is a traumatic event to your body, and expecting things to just right themselves without support is a hope, not a plan.    I loved recording this episode with Janette (we could literally talk for days) because we both get fired up about how we need to empower ourselves and other women to seek out support after this major physical (and emotional) event.    You can find Janette on Instagram (@askjanette) and download her free resources from her website https://www.janetteyee.com/resources

It’s probably a bit of a stretch that an adult with ADHD who has 17,000 undread emails (at last count) is going to do a podcast about managing your email.    But hear me out.    I think we are in an opportunity to show up with leadership when it comes to both our inbox and our outbox, by breaking down some of the email culture we’re observing out there.    We’re going to talk about how our email culture is breeding:   Unrealistic expectations of each other.  To-do lists that we can’t finish.  A lack of self-responsibility and self-reliance.  Confusing channels for communicating with each other.    We also talk about solutions such as:   Muting your inbox Not caring Not responding But also real solutions that don’t compromise your relationships and your work.    I think you’ll enjoy this real and honest call out of all of our email behaviour. We all have an inbox AND an outbox.    Maybe we can slowly change the culture of email for good.