Navigating Perimenopause: Metabolic Health, Brain Fog & Belly Fat – with Dr. Carrie Jones

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I am bringing you not only a hormone expert that is like what I call the OG of hormones. She has been educating the world about hormones for decades, but I’m also blessed to call her a friend, and I really want you to know this woman, because she can provide not only incredible tools to you for helping your hormonal journey, but she’ll do it with a whole lot of laughter. So you’re about to hear my conversation with Dr Carrie Jones. And Dr Carrie Jones is a naturopath. She also used to be the Medical Director of the Dutch test, which is a hormone test, and you’re going to hear us talk about that, because this is important to this conversation, because she saw hundreds of 1000s of hormone tests, and she saw some similarities in those tests. She saw lifestyle changes that needed to happen. She has a very unique lens when it comes to hormonal education. Now mix that with the fact that she has been educating on social media hormones for almost two decades before any of us were on educating. In fact, you’ll hear it in this in this conversation, she was one of the people as I was trying to put the hormonal picture together for my patients and for myself. Carrie was an advisor that I leaned into often. She was pivotal in helping me come up with the fasting cycle idea. If those of you that have read fast like a girl, so she’s wise, and I wanted to bring her to you to specifically talk about the perimenopausal journey, and I wanted to talk about it through the lens of our metabolomix system, because this is where so many of us get tripped up if we go into our 40s with poor metabolomix health, our menopausal journey becomes very wild, and there’s multiple factors for that. So you’re going to hear in this conversation Why metabolomix health is the most important health and the most important system for perimenopausal and menopausal women to work on. It’s also going to lead to that conversation that so many of you have, which is around belly fat. What is that? And what about our brains? Let’s talk about our brains. Where does our metabolomix health translate to brain fog. So what you’re about to hear is a beautiful conversation about the perimenopausal journey through the lens of metabolomix health, and then we end on what I think is a beautiful place, which is, where are we going to in this menopausal journey? What’s the destination? We keep talking about the turbulence of the journey, but where is the destination? And that’s at the back half of the conversation. So I’ll let you hear both of us hypothesize about what the post menopausal years are meant to be, and what they should look like, and how we can use our perimenopausal journey to end up in perhaps the most beautiful place that we have ever seen so dr Carrie Downes, enjoy. Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back. This is the podcast for you.

Okay, well, my sweet, sweet friend, Dr Carrie Jones, I think this might be the third time I’ve brought you onto my podcast. I

Carrie Jones  

think so too. Yeah, I’m here for it. I love it. Third time’s a charm.

Dr. Mindy  

Here’s what’s interesting and why I wanted to bring you back is, Well, for starters, I need to publicly make sure that everybody knows that you were instrumental in putting the fasting cycle together for fast like a girl. I know you were excited about the acknowledgement in the back, but it was way more than that, and I loved collaborating with you from a lens of lifestyle, what we were both seeing clinically and like being able to put for people that didn’t know. I literally drew out the fasting cycle on a whiteboard, and then I zoomed with Carrie, and I was like, What do you think of this? How? You know, am I thinking this through? And so she geeked out on the fasting cycle with me for a for a good month before I was brave enough to put it in the book. So I have to give you credit for that. And thank you. Oh

Carrie Jones  

my gosh, any time. And now hundreds of 1000s of copies later, fast like a girl. Of course, is super globally famous, and I love when people go, how do you read fast, like a girl? Are you familiar with the book like I am? Actually, I’m in the acknowledging this. Let me just hair, toss that.

Dr. Mindy  

But this is why I love having a conversation with you. Is because, when it comes to hormones, you and I, because of our background, because of the way we were trained, we see things from a very holistic lens and mix that with I mean, I you and I were talking just before you came on, like you were, like one of the OGS that were teaching lifestyle and hormones on Instagram for years. I mean, when I was a newbie, just understanding hormones, you were my go to, like I went to everything on your Instagram to learn what I couldn’t find in textbooks. So when did you just out of curiosity, when did you start your Instagram? Oh

Carrie Jones  

my gosh. Well, I honestly, truth be told, I started an Instagram that I lost the password. So it was a dead Instagram for a little while, and then I could do the password reset and got it all figured out. But gosh, when did I 2014 2015 maybe way back. Playback back. I had no idea what I was doing,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, but you had a lot of Dutch tests. So talk maybe a little bit before we dive into the good stuff. You You got to see women’s hormones through, like, I don’t know, hundreds of 1000s of Dutch Yes. So it started out, which is a really big lens, huge and

Carrie Jones  

global, too. That’s what was so neat. It started out in an integrative clinic I live outside of Portland, Oregon. So it started there. So I got to see firsthand, you know, boots on the ground, all the women that came through my clinic. And then it expanded out to the Dutch test, where I became their medical director. And very quickly, is the from the beginning, when the Dutch was startup, but very quickly, hundreds of 1000s globally. And they, we have, they had accounts in Australia and South Africa and Hong Kong and all through Europe and China and et cetera. And so I got to see not only what’s happening in United States and Canada, but all across and it was very, very, very similar, even though those countries rules around hormones or rules around testing or how they approached, it might have been different, the symptoms women were having, the outcomes women were having. It was really interesting to see, and again, predominantly first world countries, how women were experiencing PMS, PCOS, fertility, perimenopause, menopause, and get that feedback, and do all the consults with all the practitioners all over the world. Gave me that huge lens on how to educate for hormones.

Dr. Mindy  

And were there some like commonalities that you saw, like things that you were like predictable for all women going through menopause, stress

Carrie Jones  

and sleep, probably over and over and over again, yes, and I would say nutrisense, but I think stress and sleep, because that’s what the test also evaluates, stuck out the most. I can remember being in a conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, and the doctor brought me and OBGYN brought me a Dutch test, and said, look at her hormones. What would you do? And her cortisol was off the chart. And I said, Okay, before we get to her hormones, estrogen, progesterone, what’s going on with her stress? And the doctor waved her hand, and she said, Oh, she’s very stressed, but everybody is tell me what to do with their estrogen, progesterone. I was like, No, even here, anywhere, we have to work with the woman’s stress. It’s going to impact her hormones. And unfortunately, I don’t remember the age of the woman, but it’s probably early 40s, if I recall and how that can really impact sleep, weight gain, energy, brain fog, the whole thing so, and I just saw that globally,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, and you know, it’s interesting, because I’m at where I’m at, I’m about a year and a half without a cycle, and when I go back and I look at my 40s, I think if I could have told her one thing, I would have told her, just chill the fuck out, like your stress is causing more hormonal problems than need be. And so I really, really resonate with that. The The other thing I’ve thought about, and again, we’re gonna get into some really meaty topic here, but one of the other thing that I’ve thought about is the way we use HRT across the globally, and the most current statistics that I can see is that actually in Japan, they like 4% of women going through menopause use HRT, whereas We’re now approaching 50% of women. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but that was the most recent I saw of Americans going through menopause that are using HRT, and I’m not, I mean, we can dive into the pros and the cons of that, but my concern is that as HRT is making its comeback, that we are losing the language of lifestyle and women. Are going through this process, and they are saying to themselves, Oh, okay, it’s horrible. I just need to find the right doctor with the right HRT for me, and this will all go away. Whereas the lens that I think through is actually, I think the process ultimately is a is happening for you, and we can talk about that. And in that perimenopausal process, you have an opportunity to change your lifestyle. You have an opportunity to come back to a more authentic version of yourself. You have the opportunity to heal some traumas that maybe you know needed attention. And if we start lathering creams on ourselves and patches, we lose that opportunity. Does that? Does that feel? Does that resonate 100%

Carrie Jones  

and I’ve seen this posted before in social media, and I love it. I see practitioners say, Yes, we love estrogen less, yes, we love progesterone. But it’s not going to tell you to go to bed and stop scrolling mindlessly. It’s not going to tell you to put that second glass of wine down. It’s not going to tell you or encourage you to lift the heavier weight, or get your steps in for the day, or say no, set boundaries, schedule the therapy appointment. And I thought, yeah, we need we need both. We need the best of both worlds to really help women thrive through this, because I definitely see the benefit, of course, of the hormone therapy I see in the 1000s of comment sections about it changed my life. I feel so much better. I, you know, mood and hot flashes and what have you. And I also see that women are like, yeah, it helps some things, but I still can’t sleep that well, or I’m still I’ve still have 20 pounds on me I can’t get rid of, or I’m still in an unhappy relationship, or whatever it may be. And I definitely think taking the 360 approach to the perimenopausal transition is ultimately where the pendulum needs to go. We’ve gone from no hormones. We’ve swung way to the no hormone with the Women’s Health Initiative, and now we’re swinging all the way to the other side of we need to put it in the water, pass it out like Oprah gives out cars. Everybody needs hormones, you know, completely forgetting all the other lifestyle, important things that we need as women to get the 360 you know, not just survive, but thrive.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Do you Where are you in your menopausal

Carrie Jones  

Well, I don’t, yeah, when you said you’re a year and a half out from your cycle, I almost said to you, did you get a medal? Do I get a watch? No, somebody’s wearing a party.Nobody threw me a party. Nobody gave me I was waiting for you. You were my hormone sent you the Rolex, right? Congratulations. No more bleeds. So I’m 47 I am technically, by definition, there are two stages of perimenopause, early and late. And that drives me crazy, because early is classically defined as your cycles are off by seven days, and late is defined as your cycles are off by 60 days. And I’m like, Well, I’m not really either, but I’m 47 so I would describe, if I could redefine it, I’m in the middle. I’m in middle perimenopause. They definitely have symptoms, but I still have regular cycles. They’re shorter than they used to be, and, you know, labs are starting to change. So I feel like I’m right in the middle.

Dr. Mindy  

And at 47 you know, you and I have been chatting for close to probably 10 years now, where, let’s just say, at 47 Do you have a personal different perspective on perimenopause compared to your 40 year old

Carrie Jones  

self when I was in my late 30s scene patients, and I’m sure you had the same thing, I would have women older than me go, you just wait, and they would laugh, right? You just wait. You just wait. On your 45th birthday, you won’t be able to sleep, you won’t be able to accomplish your task looks like you used to, or you have to write everything down. You won’t be able to drink wine like you used to. Your liver can’t handle it. And I was like, no, no, I’m a functional and a grade of doctor. I’m sure I No, no, that none of that was true at all. It’s I definitely remember the day I went to open a tab on my computer, and I thought, what was I doing? What? What tab was I just gonna open? And I thought, Oh no, it’s starting. And same for names. It’s somebody I’ve known a long time. And I thought, what was their name again? Oh, right, it’ll come. It’s very stuttery. The sleep for sure. By the 4344 years old, I could tell I was starting to wake up a lot. My hormone testing was showing my progesterone was down. I wasn’t creating it like I used to the alcohol, not my friend, interferes with sleep gets in the way my stress, heart rate variability. So all the things the women ahead of me told me were true. Now, I will say, at 47 years old, and I don’t think it’s genetics, I feel like I’ve had a fairly good time of it. Even my husband has pointed that out. But like you, I have an in depth lifestyle degree. You know, I’m in a lot of debt for what I know about diet, nutrisense, exercise, silence, and all the things. And that’s what I’m very right. That’s I’m trying to like, like you get out there for education to help everybody else. But yes, I’m not as sharp as I. Used to be, I get probably tired. I don’t handle stress as well as I used to. Oh, and here’s another one leading up to my periods. I feel like my moods are a lot more labile. In fact, I looked up the definition, the DSM five definition of premenstrual dysphoric disorder this last cycle, because I thought, Oh no. I think this is, this is not just every day needs chocolate. PMS, I think this is the next level, and I need to evaluate this. Yeah, yes.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh my god, so well said. So here’s why I asked you that question. Just so you know, I noticed your posts started changing. Oh, yeah. And I was like, and I think this is a really important one. This is honestly why I am not a fan of men talking about menopause, because I don’t walk around and talk about erections. I don’t know what it’s like to have an erection, so I don’t it’s not my it’s not my thing. So why would you be coming in as a man teaching women hormones? It never makes sense, because you have to only teach it from your educated brain. You can’t teach it from your experience. So when I look at your posts right now, I mean, your posts have always been good, but they’re really good right now, because I’m like, oh, Carrie’s teaching from experience now, like she’s having that experience. And all your tools that you’ve been teaching forever have to now you have to lean into and apply, which you can see in the depth in which your your stuff is on Instagram. I’m like, Oh yeah, she’s she’s there, which is so beautiful. I think that’s, that’s what we should do as women. Is like, I’m having this experience. Here’s how I’m doing it. And if you’re having an easier menopause, then shoot. Let’s share it with the world. I

Carrie Jones  

and I say this all the time. You and I’ve talked about this, like, why this wasn’t taught at some point? Why didn’t we have some sort of refresher? Could you imagine if we all had some sort of really good, cool refresher at like, 3540 years old, assuming you haven’t had surgical menopause, you didn’t, you didn’t have a hysterectomy, because so much of what you and I know is not difficult to comprehend. It’s just not talked about. But if I knew it at 40, if the average woman knew it at 40, I feel like their perimenopausal transition, this whole journey, would just be that much easier for them. They wouldn’t be slammed into it. They wouldn’t be so confused, lost, concerned, depressed, anxious. They’d have tools to work with, whether or not they do choose to go on hormones or not, or they would know how to ask for hormones, or what even a hormone is, you know, and I feel that is start that cruise ship is starting to change in the education world, so I’m really grateful for it. But if you’re not on social media at all then, or you’re not on a very often, or you don’t know what you’re looking for, then, you know, I still see it in the comments. Women are really floundering. And I thought, man, there’s a huge disservice. We need this education out there. So I just give it freely on Instagram. I’m like, Here, take it. Yeah, with this, this what I learned. Good luck.

Dr. Mindy  

Yep, yeah, right, which is why, like we, I feel like we all, we have to bring everybody into the conversation, because the, you know, there’s a lot of information out right now about how many gynecologists don’t know anything about lifestyle, and even the ones that are, you know, popular and teaching, they’re just learned it themselves, whereas the schooling you and I came from had lifestyle built into the whole thing, because the theory is, the body heals itself. So then what is going on with the body during perimenopause? Which really leads me to why I brought you today, which is I really feel like there needs to be a manual for the woman after 35 like, I want to, like, tap her on the shoulder and be like, hey, hey, I got to tell you, like, everything about your lifestyle is going to have to change. But the one place that I think is the most important outside of stress and sleep is the metabolomix system. And this is why, like I sit in awe looking at the the reviews on fast like a girl. I never read my reviews this long, but the reviews keep coming in, like all my menopausal symptoms improved when I learned how to fast like a girl. So can we start this conversation with blood sugar and what changes at 35 as those hormones, hormones,

Carrie Jones  

oh my gosh. And you and I are talking ahead of this that I was just writing an article from my newsletter about even something like stress and blood sugar. So blood sugar is glucose. They’re same, same, right? So you go get a fasting glucose some of you have a continuous glucose monitor, or you check your glucose at home with a glucometer. And we have resilience. We have the ability when we’re a lot younger, we, as my friend called it, you know, the beer and pizza diet. We can stay up late, we can handle stress, we can eat like crap. And our body tends to bounce back, not always, but it tends. To bounce back like, Okay, I got you. And then we seem to cross the threshold of 35 and because our hormones are shifting, which impacts the way that we can or can’t handle stress, which impacts the way that we even utilize glucose in places like our brain, it all starts to shift. Now, it’s not overnight, but it is this sort of subtle downhill slide if you’re not paying attention. And this can result in things such as mental fatigue. So I will people go, I’m so tired, I’ll go, can you go for a walk? Or is it studying something? Can you read a manual? And they’ll go, oh yeah, I can walk for hours. I love walking my dog. I love walking on my neighborhood. I walk the beach. Oh yeah, you’re right. It’s the long mental focus that’s hard for me, helping my kids with their homework, reading a manual, reading through a lot of slides, like, I get very distracted and tired again, brain, right? Or they go, they’re like, Well, I feel good, and then I’m hangry. It’s immediately I go, I’m hungry, I’m moody, you know, I’m quiet, or I’m got headache, and so we start to get these subtle metabolomix shifts that can also result in things such as our weight gain changes around the middle in particular, that that sort of spare tire change. And again, it can be subtle. It doesn’t mean it’s like you wake up on your 35th birthday and all this happens, but these are the changes that we start watching for. Now, the reason this is so important is because our metabolomix health impacts, just like our hormones, every single system in our body. It impacts your skeletal system, your nervous system, your immune system, your cardio cardiovascular system, I mean, absolutely everything. And so by tightening up, improving, focusing on your metabolomix health at 35 and older, it’s going to have system wide, literally system wide, benefits for the rest of your life, and that’s where it’s important.

Dr. Mindy  

So would you say, going into your 40s, making sure your metabolomix health are ready, like if you go in with your metabolomix health off, this is going to get even crazier for you, this perimenopausal journey. But if you go in with your hemoglobin a 1c around five, you’ve got the you know, you can build a fasting lifestyle like you’re going in already metabolically healthy, then it’ll be a much easier experience for you. Would you find

Carrie Jones  

it over and over? The answer is yes, I find the women who go into their 40s with those solid numbers, glucose, hemoglobin, a 1c insulin, leptin, triglycerides. So these are all easy labs that can be done. You can order them yourself. Often your primary care can order them. Insurance often covers them. And if you’re in a great optimal range, these women, it’s not that they’ll not have no symptoms, but they tend to do better. They tend to have it easier than somebody who is pre diabetic or diabetic or insulin resistant, going into perimenopause, where we become more insulin resistant by default. At that time, we tend to have better brain health if we’re metabolically healthy, compared to somebody who’s not, because glucose plays a big role in whether or not our brain does or doesn’t work. So some of things, things are absolutely everything from even like wound healing, recovering from illness. I hear this women go, I just feel flu like all the time, or I keep thinking I’m getting sick. I you know, I feel like I’m like, Ooh, yes, estrogen does play a big role in that, but so does metabolomix health, and they go hand in hand. And so it could just be a dialing up where you were at, like a level three going into it, and now you’re dialing it up to a level eight, whereas somebody who was down at a zero or one, they’re only at a four or five when they come into perimenopause. And so it’s this relative difference that I see in women with better metabolomix health.

Dr. Mindy  

So with estrogen, we know is, or let’s just call it, let’s just be more specific. I call estradiol the diva. I feel like she’s, she’s like a diva who’s like, hey, guess what magic I’ve been doing for you every month that you didn’t even know. And now I’m gonna go away, and on my exit, I deserve like, you know, the full the full pomp and circumstance, because this I’m out, and then you’re gonna notice me gone, and you’re gonna regret that I

Carrie Jones  

would that I’m gone. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So when Esther, when estradiol goes away, you become more insulin resistant, is would you? Would you agree with that? Yeah, okay, and so the message is starting at 35 really 40. But let’s, let’s, let’s say it’s now getting earlier, like it’s in your late 30s. You may notice your old tricks that used to keep you thin don’t work anymore. Is that? Would that? Would you say that? Yes,

Carrie Jones  

and I’d say you probably have heard this too. Women are like I thought I could just get away with I haven’t really had to do anything. I haven’t changed anything Mindy and everything all of a sudden changed. Yeah, like you’re right. And now it’s time to make big changes. You’re a whole different person,

Dr. Mindy  

right? Okay, so, but then as you get deeper in, now you’re 47 as you get deeper into the perimenopause experience, then there’s this strange thing that happens, where you look down, you’re doing all the your new right things. You’re, you know, you got the fasting, you’ve got the food figured out. But then you look down at your belly and you’re like, what the

Carrie Jones  

Yes, and in fact, there’s even a theory that’s, I’ve seen it a bunch in the literature, and I see it given the amount of lab work that I look at because when women have a lot of estrogen, we tend to have more estrogen receptors. And our hips, our thighs are booty, that’s often the shape, that’s where we gain our weight. If you’re going to gain weight, not as much around the middle, it doesn’t, you can’t. It just means estrogen plays a role of directing where fat goes. Testosterone and other androgen hormones, which we all have as women, likes to keep it around the center, the apple shape. And what happens is our testosterone doesn’t decline, usually at the same rate as estrogen. So we become relatively out of balance testosterone and estrogen. We become relatively higher than testosterone. Even if it is going down, it’s still out of balance relative to estrogen. So in a seesaw, testosterone is up and estrogen is kind of down, because we have this imbalance. Now, all the receptors around the belly area are getting super stimulated, and that leads to that visceral adipose tissue gain, the weight gain around all our organs that’s putting on the spare tire around the center. Now, other reasons can be for that. High cortisol, right? High insulin, like, we have other reasons, but that decline when you when you mentioned that estrogens like, I’m out, I’m out, I’m Audi best of luck. I bet you miss me. That is one of that ratio is something they’re starting to study in the literature. To go you know what? Estrogen really does play a role in relation to testosterone and where you’re going to gain weight, it tends to move up as opposed to down. And can be infuriating for a lot of women who go, I’m doing all the things, I’m doing all the things, and my body shape just changed. And their weight on the scale may not change, but they do notice everything kind of moved up versus down.

Dr. Mindy  

So is there anything we can do for that? I will definitely tell you. I’m throwing a lot of lot of things at my own body right now, and it’s it. They’re reacting very differently to things like some things that didn’t really work for me before are now really working. And I we can, I can share what those are, and some things that used to work for, you know, keeping my weight where I want are not working anymore. So I I’ve like my toolbox for not just metabolomix health, but loving the body I’m living in is what I call it has dramatically changed as I’ve gone through that experience. So let’s just take the menopausal belly weight. Is there? Is there anything we can do that we know? And

Carrie Jones  

because weight gain is very multifaceted, I just wanted to point out that testosterone, estrogen ratio that they’re kind of looking at in the research, because it’s new, it’s very interesting, and it is something to keep an eye on, because some women will go, I don’t want to go on estrogen, or I’m afraid of estrogen, or I don’t think I’m a candidate for estrogen, but can I do testosterone? And then their practitioners like, Yep, let’s put you on testosterone. And poof, they gain a lot of weight, especially in the middle. And they’re like, What the heck? Where did this come from? This could be a contributing factor for that. So just Yeah, an eye out for that. If this happens to be you or your practitioner puts you on estrogen with progesterone and testosterone, and maybe the testosterone is a little higher than you need to start with, and poof, you gain weight around the middle. And you’re like, Oh, that’s not what I wanted. You know, maybe I feel better, but I don’t want all this extra weight in the middle because it’s very inflammatory. So right now there’s, like, the blanket things for the weight, right where the weight comes. We hear it all the time. It’s, are you eating enough protein that we women need a lot more protein than we think. We tend to under protein, and then going into menopause, we’ve gained weight, and so they women cut back on calories. And that could include protein two is the weight lifting, lifting heavy weights, and getting that in to stimulate the use of glucose and that, you know, to the fatty acid. So when we the what’s stored in our fat cells are fatty acids, such as triglycerides, and what happens is, when they are to be used, to be burned, when we don’t have estrogen. We don’t have estradiol. We can as women can struggle to make that metabolomix, like the fat burning factory is just not as efficient as it used to be when you were in your 30s. Yeah. And so then the fatty acid is like, well, I can’t get into the fat burning factory, so I’m going to get redeposited, like in the liver or around the center area. And that can contribute to that. So. It’s even with the weight lifting can be really helpful at improving that there are certain nutrisense such as choline, phosphatidylcholine, or foods with choline to help make that whole process work better. Same with carnitine. Carnitine, l carnitine, helps make that process a little better. For some women, then we get into stress, because stress, of course, plays a huge role when it comes to weight gain, blood sugar, all the things, and we know we become less tolerant of stress. We don’t, we don’t have the resilience we used to. We’ve often been burning the candle at both ends, leading up to our 40s, and with the change in our hormones are I call it the trampoline. The trampoline the life becomes more threadbare. So now you go to bounce on the trampoline the life, and instead your foot goes through or it’s not as bouncy as it used to be. And so that cortisol impacts your glucose and your insulin, contributing to the weight gain. So there are obviously a lot of ways we can work with cortisol and help our body feel safe, our nervous system feel safe. And then lastly, of course, is the nutrisense aspect. So fasting plays a big role in that. But then also, what do you have at the end of your fork if you’ve been living on the beer and pizza diet all the way up until your 40s, it’s probably not going to work into your 40s. If these are some goals of yours, this, this metabolomix health is a goal of yours, time to make some changes.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, my God, that was, that was a beautiful list. I The only the other thing I would add in there that I’ve noticed, two things that I’ve noticed for my own self, that I’m I’m curious about. One is definitely more fiber when I when I put protein and fiber first in my meals, and I’m like, boom, I’m gonna eat, like, just before I popped on here, I was like, I ate a ton of microgreens and a whole bunch of tofu. I’m actually bringing tofu back into my life, and soy back into my life. And so if I bring fiber in at every single meal with the protein, I feel like that tire around my waist shrinks. So

Carrie Jones  

how do you feel about huge and here’s one of the big reasons why, when we lose estradiol and progesterone, it has a negative impact on our gut health. So when we say that to change in hormones affects all 12 systems of our body, I literally mean all 12 systems, including your GI tract. So as an example, the decline in estradiol means in our in our GI tract, in your small and large intestine, we have little gates in between all the cells. They’re called tight junctions. And think of it, you know, like a toll gate or a police gate, where it will allow certain things through, and things that are bad it doesn’t let through. You’ve got it like, let’s get rid of those. Let’s poop those out. So when we have a decline in estradiol and progesterone, it can cause a dysfunctional gait, and so now think of the gate between you and your neighbor’s house, instead of a nice, tight gait that’s keeping, you know, random people out, but keeps your dog and kids in the backyard. Now the gate’s holy, or it’s falling off, or, you know, anybody can just push it, it falls over, and that’s what it can be like in your large and small intestines. So that leads to more inflammation, because now things are coming into the gate. They’re coming into the backyard you don’t want in your backyard, just like you don’t want it crossing through into your body. And now the immune system gets involved. So now the immune system is pissed, and it’s creating all of these inflammatory messengers, cytokines, is what we call them, and it where’s your immune system? Well, it’s right there at the belly area, and so it’s just going to contribute to weight gain around the middle or bloating things of that nature. Now fiber, pre prebiotics, probiotics, post biotics. Postbiotics are what our microbiome kind of poops out the food for the large intestines. Now they can keep the cells down there, the microbiome itself, the bacteria and then the cells that line the wall happier. So whether you are aren’t on hormones, even I’m an advocate for hormones, if it’s right for you, but at least fiber is a great start for supporting the whole microbiome we are. We’re more microbiome than we are human. So we want to be real nice to our microbiome. I joke all the time, we don’t want our microbiome to, you know, rise up and rally against us. We want it to work with us. And so fiber can play a huge role there. And that’s just one example of what changes in our GI so if you feel like you’re going through this transition, or of transition through into post menopause, and you’re like, Yeah, I’m having heartburn or gas or bloating, or I just feel bloated all the time, just waking around the middle, more constipation or more diarrhea, like this is a contributing factor.

Dr. Mindy  

So more so then you got to think through the lens of the microbiome. Like those symptoms should take you back to here’s the microbiome. We got to think about this through them that and

Carrie Jones  

we like diversity in our microbiome. We want we want the color of the rainbow. We want everything to be as diverse as possible. And so I also tell people, besides fiber, we want to increase diversity. So fiber helps with that. So we so we have lots of kinds of good microbes, but so does your food? How many people yourself included, probably eat the same. Every day, when you go get Thai food, you order the same dish every time. It doesn’t matter when you cook Monday versus Tuesday, Wednesday. You know, for a lot of people, they’re very scheduled, and they’re like, well, Monday, we have this, and Tuesday, we have this, and it never changes. They never introduce a new vegetable. They don’t eat seasonally. They just sort of do what feels good or what the family’s used to, and that lacks diversity. So experiment. Get out. Try a new vegetable, try a new fiber, try a new thing. Get out. Get out of the woods. You know, if you, if you’re a meat eater and you, you know, never eat buffalo, try buffalo. Or if you’re always chicken, try turkey. You just some of the vegetables, if you only do, you know, carrots and peas and celery, it’s like, well, there’s a whole world of veggies out there. You know, as Mindy said, even microgreens, like, really, yeah, start to diversify, and that will only help order something different at your favorite restaurant that you eat at every Friday. And people think I’m crazy, until they read the literature, and then they’re like, Oh, oops,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, I actually think variation, it is a really important concept for the perimenopausal woman, because you need diet variation. You need exercise variation. So I’m going to add to your strength training here in a second. And you need information variation, because you need to stimulate neuroplasticity. And you do that by hanging out with new people, reading, new things, traveling. So the I think that where aging starts actually happens at for women at 40, because we’re Same, same same workout, same food, same people, same road I take to work and everything, same, same, same then we get all these symptoms. And if we don’t step out and go, Okay, wait, I need to vary my food. I need to maybe vary my friends. I need to vary my exercise. Then you the brain just becomes so linear. The body starts to wither away at that moment, variation is like a key anti aging piece that I just don’t think we talk enough. I

Carrie Jones  

love that, and I couldn’t agree more, everything from even when you said, I take the same path to route every out to work every day. Think about even your exercise. You probably a lot of people listening probably only move in a forward and backward plane. So even when they’re doing, you know, a squat versus walking or on the treadmill or lunges, they’re usually forward and backward. We don’t ever often go up, down or left and right or at an angle, and even just switching up those things, focusing on balance, because our frailty increases as we get older. You know some of these fun things our muscles are like, whoa, you just did lateral. And I never go lateral. I don’t usually do this right, left. Like, that’s huge. Or, you know, jumping, jump up your stairs. Can you still jump as a 40 year old? You know, the brain is like, what are we doing? Oh, this is new, yes. And then we lay down new tracks, and it’s good for us.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I brought to my podcast. Producer is a huge fan of has been learning under Katie Katie Bowman, she came in recently, and she wrote a book called Move your DNA. And the listeners that has probably already been will have been released by the time they listen to this. And she had this pyramid that she talked about, which is that you want to make sure that the bottom of the pyramid, which is the thing you should do the most, is look at the positions you put your body in. And I and I teased her. I was like, Well, I can tell you, I put my my body in three positions, standing, sitting, lined up, yeah. And she’s like, Yeah. And you’re aging yourself very fast. I was like, Ah, okay, but it’s it got me really thinking about the importance of variation as we age. So the one exercise I would add in that I’ve started doing is, seriously, no walking. Oh, like butter, but, but I, but, yeah, because, but I’m doing it in two different ways. I’m in LA. We I split my time now between LA and Northern California, and there’s a bunch of hills here, so I’m walking hills. And then I drank the Kool Aid and decided to put a weighted vest on. I was like, Fine, I’ll just do what everybody else is doing. Wow. So walking up hills with a weighted vest. I’ve been doing that for a month now, and nothing has improved my fitness as as dramatically as that

Carrie Jones  

I have been I have I had my first weight vest ever. I bought in 2015 I bought it at the army base. My husband was active duty military at the time, and I must have seen a YouTube video or an infomercial on TV or something back in 2015 and I said, Can we go the army base? Can we go to the PX, and I want to get a weight vest. So my first weight vest, I still have it. It’s all stretched out. And then I went and bought one of the plated one of the 25 pound a rucksack. I bought a rucksack, so I have a 20. That’s a little bit too much for me. I’m not quite to that level, but yeah, wow, I’m doing. I No, no, no, you’re impressing these words. That’s that’s on a like a real good, strong sleep day, follicular face type of thing only, and then and then, because my weight vest is stretched out, I actually bought a new weight vest. But I have the arm bangles. I have the arm like the weight arm bangles from the Chalene Johnson Tai Bo type era. Like they’re that old. And I had to buy new ones because I wear them. I wear them when I clean the house, I wear them dishes, I wear them putting away clothes, I just wear it off. I’m the crazy lady walks my dog with them in my neighborhood. You know, when you’re in your 40s and 50s, you just don’t care, and all the middle school kids are looking at you, and you’re like, you just wait, you’ll do it too. Just yeah. So I love it. I agree, I bought the Kool Aid a long time ago and do it all the time.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Okay, great. Well, yeah, it’s, it’s like mine, a hot new thing. So, okay, here’s where the other part of metabolomix health that happens during those perimenopausal years that I actually don’t think it gets discussed enough is our inability for our brain to use glucose. And I had Lisa Moscone on this, on this podcast, and we talked about this, and I said to her, so as we go through the menopausal process, our is our brain more sensitive to ketones than glucose. Now she’s a scientist, and so she’s only going to give you the scientific answer. And she said, Well, we don’t have any science on that, but it does, it does appear that we are not using glucose. We are more sensitive and receptive to ketones. So I’m curious, from your clinical experience, and just knowing that you’re a lifestyle hormonal lifestyle expert. Do you feel like that’s accurate, like we need to lean a little more into ketones as a great fuel source for our brains as we go through this?

Carrie Jones  

Yes, and I even so 2017 Dr Moscone wrote that article, published her paper on glucose and women going through the perimenopausal transition. So that’s how I found her. Was back then I thought, I don’t know who this woman is, but I need to become her best friend and follow everything she does. And sure enough, of course, she’s amazing, and I adore her, and she’s doing all this women’s brain research, but when our estradiol goes down, one of the factors is it slows down the transport of glucose up into our brain effectively. So normally we have these, these transporters. They’re called glute. So G, l, U, T, glucose transporter. Think of it like a bus. And so when we don’t have the estrogen to stimulate this, the estradiol, our busses slow down. They don’t really know what they’re supposed to do. And now we can’t get glucose up there to give us do the cycles that help make ATP, which, of course, is our energy between cells, and that’s why we feel powered down. And Dr, Casey means, described it as running by candlelight as opposed to running by full spectrum light. And I thought, yeah, when you’re trying to remember something, or you’re trying to multitask or think of somebody’s name, it’s like candlelight up there, not full spectrum light up there. And I started looking into ketones, and it’s proposed heavily, yes, that the estradiol effect of glute glucose may not be as heavy as effect on the ketones, and so leaning into the ketones is going to save us and save our brains, possibly, but anecdotally, it’s what I see when, when I do it myself, when I’m doing the long fast and getting my ketones up there, I can notice. I’m like, Whoop, there it is. I’m an n of one. I see it in your comment section, right? So I’m like, there’s an n of 52,000 so yeah, let’s roll with this,

Dr. Mindy  

which is really interesting, and why I really want to highlight this, because I feel like we’ve gone from a cultural hush around menopause to cultural chaos. Like, everybody’s like, right? Everybody’s like, do this. Don’t do that, do this. And I’m like, Oh God, these poor menopausal women are like, Who do I follow? Who do I know? And one of the things that is coming out, a lot, it just came out on Huberman, is that menopausal women shouldn’t fast. And I Yeah, and I anecdotally, see it completely opposite of that, along with the with the research. So I actually brought Stacey Sims on this podcast because I’m like, let’s all come together as hormone experts, we need to all come together and have really just deeper discussions about this. And what she was saying is that fit women shouldn’t fast before they work out. She

Carrie Jones  

said the same because she works Yes, yes, okay, but

Dr. Mindy  

what gets sliced in a 92nd reel? My new thing is, don’t base your health habits off a 92nd reel. What gets sliced in that 92nd reel that this just came out last week from Huberman was women shouldn’t fast, and I just really like it. I feel like if that message gets out there. Are more and more and more women are going to stay suffering. So what you’re saying is totally lines up with what I see as well. Like when you teach a menopausal woman how to fast you give her her brain back, yes,

Carrie Jones  

and even in a perimenopausal woman like myself, I still cycle, as I said, and I do 24 hour fasts in the follicular phase, and feel great now, like anyone listening or anyone who’s gone through your programs, you have to build into it, not you know, if you’ve never done a fast before, do Mindy’s programs, buy your book. Don’t just decide one day, you know what I’m going to do. 24 hour fast how it goes. You may hate it, and then it may ruin it for you. And I don’t want to ruin it for you. I want this to be a very positive experience for you. But I do notice one, the more I do the 24 hour fast and the follicular phase, and I just, I just keep it basic follicular phase, it works in my schedule when I do it. And the more I do it, I’m like, Oh, my brain is so by the end, as I’m getting 24 now, I’m like, All right, I need to go longer, because I can definitely tell my brain is feeling so good with all the ketones, it just

Dr. Mindy  

comes Yeah, just comes back online, and it’s like, Oh yeah, okay. Now I can think straight on the days that I work the longest I don’t eat on those days, because now my, you know, my the way I approach the fasting cycle is different, because I don’t have a cycle so, I’ll just kind of do it based off of where I need the ketones and where I don’t, so that I’m sort of still have a rhythm to it, yeah? Which, which? Which leads me to a bigger question that I had, which is, you know, how can we help women see where they’re going? Like, I feel like perimenopause is a bus stop, yeah, and we need to approach it as maybe there’s a long wait, like you might be waiting a really long it’s gonna get a little cold. You’re gonna need a jacket. Like the bus might not be coming for a whole long time. You might get a little hungry in it. You’re gonna get pissed at the other people sitting at the bus stop. But then one day, the bus is gonna come and it’s gonna pick you up, and where you’re going is an incredible place. And when we look at the research of like Lisa Moscone, and I’m geeking out right now on the grandmother hypothesis of like, how the amygdala stops shouting at you that you’re not safe, it calms down. There’s this beautiful place this menopausal bus is taking us. Do you have a sense of what that beautiful place is, and how can we start to get get out to women. Don’t worry, honey. Like, hang in there. Girl, like, it’s, it’s com, it’s, you’re going somewhere good.

Carrie Jones  

I posted recently on Instagram things that I say now that I’m in perimenopause, and it was like, no, no, thank you. You know, F that I’m not doing that. And it was very sort of no filter things with a few other you know, how old are they now? How old are your kids now? How am I so old? Mixed in, and it kind of went viral. I had so many women go, yes. Finally, I feel like I’m this stronger, better, next level, version of myself. I don’t have my anxiety. Maybe it was worse in perimenopause. It’s so much better. Now I’m confident. I cut through the BS. I know who I am or where I’m going, and I love seeing that I love just by a post of things that are coming out of my mouth now. And the the esteem in which I hold myself is resonating with women also, who are going, yep, I am I too, am there, and I’m also a doctor of and meaning I will see out there people go, Oh, you just, yeah, you just need to lean into it. You just need to lean in it. And I’m like, yeah. And we can acknowledge it sucks, like we can acknowledge, oh yeah, we should. The truth, which is, you may have a lot of mood stuff, the weight gain, you can’t sleep. You know, you may not be thrilled with your hair or your skin, hot flashes, night sweats, you know, bone pain, vaginal pain, all the things. And you’re gonna about to become this whole new, very cool person. And I think what’s missing in the and is that that education, you said, like we’re now in menopausal chaos, man, it’s definitely a movement of, gosh, there’s so much we can do. And there’s, there’s, there’s so many options. Just nobody knew were available, unless you, like you and me, we went into a lot of debt to get to get the degree, and that’s not fair, and now it’s coming out there. So yes, it can feel miserable at this bus stop and the lights, the lights of the bus are coming, and it’s going to be it is going to be awesome. There’s going to be tweaks you have to make. There’s a lot of stuff we can do, but, and it’s going to be awesome.

Dr. Mindy  

I, you know, I’m putting my next book together, and it’s, you’re hearing a lot of what’s going to go in it, because, because I really feel. We need to start talking now about where you’re going, like, where, like, it’s getting good. Like, don’t, don’t lose sight of how good this potentially could be. But I also feel like we have literally gone from this place where we’ve had no answers for women to having too many answers, and it’s becoming difficult. So where, if a woman is 45 and like listening to this podcast, you know, what do you do with all the information that’s coming at us right now? How do you decide if it’s right for you? Because you and I are both huge fans of n of one, we are both like personalized individual medicine. But how do you take this moment where all this information is coming and figure out the right path for

Carrie Jones  

you? Think of it how you if you have children. Think of it how you would approach the health of your child. Or think of it how you would approach new food at a new restaurant. Try it. Try it on for size. If you don’t like it or it doesn’t feel right, let it go. So I mentioned sprinting earlier. I said, Are you going to mention sprinting? So Stacey Sims said we need to start doing sprinting, or on the row machine, and doing cycles of like, really fast. And I thought, Holy, I hate running like, but okay, Stacy said to sprint. So I’ll go fucking sprint, see what happens. And I felt great, great. And I’m only gonna sprint once or twice a week. I don’t think my hips can handle much more than that, but I felt amazing. And I thought, well, I did it. I just tried it on, and if I hated it or I hurt, I was telling a girlfriend of mine, who’s 50 about it. She said, Oh my gosh, I could never my Achilles, my hips, my this, my that. I’m like, Yeah, see, you tried it on and you hated it. Don’t do it. And I think that same with anything. When I did my first 24 hour fast, I just kept thinking, it’s it’s a mind game. It’s a mind like, you can go 24 hours. You’re not dying of starvation. It’s okay. And now that I’ve done it several times, I’m like, I love this. This is, this is great. I feel so good when I on the days that I do this, or even longer fast. And so I think it’s like anything, and if it doesn’t fit in your budget, do what fits in your budget? You’re going to hear a lot online about this supplement or that supplement, or every woman needs. And I’m like, maybe, I Yeah, maybe. But if you doesn’t fit in your budget, didn’t, then do what does work? It’s It’s okay.

Dr. Mindy  

My, my prayer for women is that we fix the lifestyle first and we go into the light, like, go into your 40s with a different lifestyle. Like, if I could take all the women that were like, 3938 even the third, between 35 and 40, and I could sit them all down, I’d be like, Okay, here’s the here’s the deal. Everything that you’ve done is about to completely not work, and it’ll go away in small, different ways, but let’s fix your lifestyle first. Then from there, we can look at the creams, the patches. I too, am not anti all of that. I am only anti it when we think it’s going to be the Savior, just like we look at all other medications. So then we go, and we go, okay, well, let’s try that and see how how that works. And then there needs to be part of the story that I would like to start telling witches, and look where you’re going, and it looks like this. I don’t know if you have this, this thing, but I now like my filter to be able to hold back what I really think about things has completely gone and so you

Carrie Jones  

want to begin with. So,

Dr. Mindy  

no, no, it’s, it’s like, I my brain is like, literally observing itself, like I will, since sometimes look at myself and go, are you really gonna say that? Yep,

Carrie Jones  

there it goes. I’m

Dr. Mindy  

going to say that, yeah, there it goes. There it goes. Out it goes. But it feels so freeing. And I was recently told about a feminist philosopher, and my listeners have been hearing me talk about this, but I want to geek out on this with you, about how they have discovered that women lose their voice at 12 and 13. And the reason they lose their voice, well, they don’t say why. I think it’s hormonal. And I’m sure you would say the same thing. But at 12 and 13 is when girls decide to quiet themselves, change who they are, do what they need, to meet the demands of the patriarch. And I think what happens is, in the post menopausal years, when those hormones go away, actually the most authentic version of you now comes out. And for many of us, we didn’t have the possibility to fought to speak our truth, and we’re now like, I’m gonna speak my truth. And I don’t fucking care what anybody thinks of it, but it’s, it’s really a coming home to yourself and and if we look at our reproductive years as almost, we sort of lose our way. And but we’ve have a life, a lot of life experience. Yes. And now we come in our post menopausal years, that is where you deserve to be the happiest version of you, because your hormones won’t block you from living a life that actually you were meant to live. Yes,

Carrie Jones  

amen here, here to that for sure. And I see that. I see that in my friends. I see that in colleagues. I see that on speakers on stage. I’ll hear speakers on stage or in webinars, and I’m like, Well, I know how old they are is they’ll just, they’ll just say the thing. And I’m like, you, I’m a very, generally straight shooting type of person, and so I really appreciate that in somebody else. So it’s really fun to watch somebody get their voice back as they make this transition or stand up for themselves. Now it doesn’t mean it won’t come without bumps. If your friends and family aren’t used to you being your authentic, mouthy self, it can be, you know, just keep that in mind. But I agree, I and it’s, it’s also somebody said the other day they were PMSing, she was PMSing, and she’s like, I’m she’s like, I’m just saying all these things, and I think it’s hormonal. And I was like, maybe that’s really who you are. Your hormones are down exactly. TMS, is that bad? Quote, unquote, to you, but to who society, you know, maybe that’s really your authentic self. And then you get your period, and you’re thinking, Oh, thank God, I’m back to my quiet ways. But maybe the maybe the other way was the better way.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s that is exactly the conversation that I feel like the next level conversation of all this perimenopausal transition should be is that it creates like an armor. I call it the neuro chemical armor. When your hormones are in, there’s a little bit of a buffer between you and the situation and other other people, but when those hormones go down, there’s actually just you and your authentic self. And so you may feel bad for what you said in those moments, but actually maybe it was what you really wanted to say. So it’d be really interesting to tap into that. Which leads me to another deep thought I have, which is, then I know we haven’t talked in forever

Carrie Jones  

why they should be neighbors, but I think

Dr. Mindy  

the anti aging culture is actually doing a tremendous amount of harm for women. And I’m not saying that everybody needs to look old, but if we are searching to be our youthful selves, we’re all aging. We’re all going into those years. Really, what I would hope is that people would make a decision at some point in the aging process to that to really find worthiness, to really find self love that isn’t attached to how we look, and in order to fit into the patriarch, so many of us have had to think about how we look to feel love. But when we come into these post menopausal years, there’s this opportunity to love ourselves in the deepest way possible, and the more we try to freeze our face and look like our 20 and 30 year old selves, the more we potentially may be moving away from our own authenticity, our own worthiness. And the aging process is happening, whether you like it or not, so you have a possibility to get to know yourself in the aged version or try to cling to the younger version, but either way, at some point, you will find liberation in just embracing who you are and loving who you are despite how you feel or look. And that is what I think is the opportunity in those postmenopausal years. And

Carrie Jones  

I think to add to that, I always say, because I get asked, Are you an Are you for anti aging? I said, Oh, I’m okay with aging. I want to age gracefully. Because what I’m trying to do, we know I’m my family lives a long time. The women in my family tend to live a long time. So I’m gonna have decades in the postmenopausal years when I get there and I want to avoid what my girlfriend Dr Eve Henry calls the four horsemen. So we are four horse women, cancer, right? Cardio, metabolomix disease, which we’ve been talking about, heart and blood sugar, diabetes, neurodegenerative so brain dementia, Alzheimer’s, and then diseases are frailty, so break a hip, right? Trip and fall, osteoporosis. I’m trying to avoid these things, because my goal is health span. I know I’m gonna live a long time, and I’d like to do it traveling. I want to pick up my suitcase. I’m going to be able to jump up a stair if I want to. I want to continue to go hiking and interacting, playing scene and not, hopefully not shriveling away at home. And so I want to embrace getting older, but I want to do it with some flexibility. I want to do it with with, you know, with my filter off, and I want to do it as who I am and enjoying life. And I think that’s all a part of enjoying life.

Dr. Mindy  

Do you have an ethos or. Around natural like, do you always look through the lens of, I want to do things naturally, or are you okay, dipping and

Carrie Jones  

I’m a gray area. I’m an and I’m an and I’m a gray area. Doc, yeah. First of all, I feel I’m definitely like, you know, you do you if that’s what you want to do. It makes you feel good about it, whatever it is, go for it, whether that applies to injections, fillers, Botox, or we’re talking about hormone replacement therapy, or you want to do nothing. You know. You know that’s it’s as long as you have the information, as long as you’ve been educated and you can make an educated decision, that’s what I’m for. What I’m not for is when you don’t have the education nobody’s told you, or they’ve tried to dictate it for you, and you don’t feel like you have a voice in the matter. That’s what I’m against, at least, to be educated about all your options, and then you can choose from there.

Dr. Mindy  

So then when you look at yourself aging, so like, let’s say 30 years from now. Yeah, you’ll let your 4777 that would be 5777 okay, I’m like, all of a sudden, wait, may I get the math right on that? Yeah, so you’re 77 you have a way you want, you want to vent. You want to prevent these four diseases, or four Horse, horse women. I thought that was really, good way to look at it. Do you have a sense of what, where, what you want your aging body to look like? Strong

Carrie Jones  

and it doesn’t. And I don’t mean wrinkle free, I don’t mean cellulite free. I don’t mean lumps and bumps free, but what I do mean is strong. I want to be able to at 77 I want to be on those European river cruises, able to carry my own suitcase as I watch Europe go by. And then I want to walk the cities, and I want to go to Christmas markets. And I want it, you know, right? Like I want to be with my grandchildren, like I want to be able so strong, strong mind. I want to be very cognitively aware. My mother in law is in her 80s, and I we just, I just saw her two Fridays ago, and she still drives, like, super cognitively, pretty sharp. And my husband and I walked away from that and and thought, yeah, at 80, like, that’s pretty phenomenal. You don’t always see that when you go to the airport or you go to Walmart, or you whatever, see the news. And so strong in all of those regards is what the word I’m looking for.

Dr. Mindy  

Do you think about your future self in today, like when you are thinking about like the day, the moment you don’t want to go strength train? Do you bring your that future vision of yourself up to motivate you do, to do the right

Carrie Jones  

I do often, only because, as I said, my family tends to live my a long time my dad and I were just talking about this on my like, of my four my four grandparents, they were 95 like 90 and 89 when they, three of them died, and I was, like, short of a bus or something catastrophic. I need to be prepared for longevity, but health span strong, that’s what I’m going for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

Dr. Mindy  

I think that should be the target. Like, I really think, you know, to sum this all up, I feel like we need a better target of where we’re going, and it’s if we don’t have a target of what we want to be like in our 80s, then it’s hard to navigate some of these lifestyle decisions today, and that’s, that’s the only reason I bring up the anti aging, because for me, one of the things that is really important is connection to humans. And so there’s many reasons why I won’t Botox, but one of them is, I want you to always know what I’m thinking when you look at my face. And I don’t, I don’t want to lose that connection with people. It’s just it’s part of my personal system. And I feel like what I want to do at 80, I want to be hanging out with my all my girlfriends, and be like, exactly like, traveling the world together and having fun. And I want to be in relationship with amazing humans. And I think sometimes you know how we look and how we show up. It really is an energy that we can play off each other when we can see what’s going on on our face, so that that’s just, that’s just me, but, and I agree, like you, like you, do you? I totally feel the same thing. Like everybody do themselves, but, but make sure you’re making an educated decision of who that 80 year old should

Carrie Jones 

And I understand now it can feel like use chaos is such a great word. You feel in the moment right now going through this transition. It’s pure chaos. So it can be hard to think about your 80 year old self when you don’t even know who your 45 year old self is, because you feel slammed into this. And that’s why, again, I love all this education. I love podcasts like yours, so we can get this information. So maybe this generation, Gen X, late millennial, is just getting it, but by the time the Gen Z comes through, they’re going to be like a whole different level of education, a whole different level of choices, a whole different level of the way they handle. Perimenopause. So, you know, us, us, Gen Xers, late millennial, will just lead the charge. Set, you know, set a good example, and then, yeah, hopefully pave the way for everyone behind us.

Dr. Mindy  

I what I think we’re doing is creating a new parent. Oh, 100%

Carrie Jones  

Yeah. We do deserve

Dr. Mindy  

the generation. Yeah, right. The generation behind us is going to get to come in. Yeah, okay. Well, I can talk to you forever, and in light of that, I’m actually heading to the dermatologist after this to go get a bunch of moles checked and things and things so but here’s my last question, and this is something that I’ve thought a lot about that has very different answers. So I’ve been asking every guest this, and that is, what is your definition of health, and how do you know when you’re healthy?

Carrie Jones  

Oh,

behind me, which you can’t quite see, but up on this board right here, I have a sign that says, healing happens at joy. And for me when it comes to health, I’m going to go back to that. It’s it’s all 12 systems, like, what is my mindset? How is my body doing? Am I able to do the things I want to how do I wake up in the morning? How do I go to bed at night? So my definition of health for me as an n of one is looking at all of those check boxes of like, yep, another good day, like you did. Good, excellent, whether it was my nutrition exercise, you know, the disciplines that I do, because I know when I build on that. Now, again, going back to that 80 year old Well, for me, it’ll probably be in the 90s, my 90 year old self, you know, she’s looking back at me, like, keep doing it. Keep doing it. Strong, joyful, good, community, able to accomplish the things you want, because you’re gonna need to do it for four more decades, right?

Dr. Mindy  

Right? Yeah. So, yeah, I love that. I love. And the reason I ask this question is because I feel like everybody’s searching for something that is uniquely defined, and we should define it for ourselves. And everybody I’ve had on this podcast this year has given me a different answer, and I think there you go. So like we’re searching for health, but you have to define it for your own self, and then you’ll know the target you’re searching that you’re trying to hit. So, yeah, yeah, I

Carrie Jones  

think, okay, how

Dr. Mindy  

do people find you? How do people find you? Instagram,

Carrie Jones  

for one, I’m at Dr dot Carrie Jones website, drccary jones.com Those are probably the two big places I have dipped my toe into Tiktok, but I haven’t. Oh, go ahead, figure that out. But I am at Dr Carrie Jones there as well.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, you’ll do great on tick tock. You should totally be there. So, you know, yeah, you’re brave. I, my team does tick tock for me, and I’m like, I can’t be on there because it makes my brain to add, like, if I scroll through my

Carrie Jones  

dopamine, I have to be very careful, very careful. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

It’s really, it’s really a toxin for me. So okay, my friend, thank you so much, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time we have you on the resetter podcast. So love you. Thank

Carrie Jones  

you.

Dr. Mindy  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it, so please leave us a review. Share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai