Episode 274: Supporting the Perimenopause Transition

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Perimenopause is a significant shift in a woman’s life, and brings with it a mix of mental and physical changes that often comes with little support. On today’s episode, Erin sits down with Lauryn Mohr, the newest member of Team FN and FNA student, to dive deep into this transformative time. Lauryn’s unique background in integrating functional health modalities within a conventional health model makes her the perfect guest to shed light on navigating perimenopause. By the end of this conversation, you’ll know how to accurately identify perimenopause, ways to approach it holistically, and strategies for an empowered journey in this phase of life.

Lauryn Mohr is a nutrition practitioner with over a decade of experience. After earning her Bachelor’s & Master’s degrees in Exercise Physiology & Advanced Nutrition, she held various roles for a prominent health club corporation. With a passion for educating along with her clinical experience in functional medicine, Lauryn is another headhunted practitioner of Erin’s Funk’tional Nutrition Academy.

In this episode:

Conventional and functional approaches - can they coexist? [5:53]

The perimenopause timeline and epigenetics [9:59]

Common physical and emotional symptoms of shifting hormones [16:44]

Tools to reconnect with your body [20:42]

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT): what it is and why it’s heavily debated [30:53]

Foundational strategies to balance hormones [41:00]

Resources mentioned:

The Funk’tional Nutrition Academy™

Carb Compatibility Project™ (Available for free within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)

Your Hormone Revival™ (Only available within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)

Kion Aminos (Get 20% off monthly orders and 10% off one time orders)

Ned Natural Remedies (Get 15% off your order with code FUNK)

Organifi supplement powder (Save 20% on your order with code FUNK)

LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase)

Learn more about Hormones

Related episodes:

206: Weight Gain in Menopause: What Gives??

165: Hormone Lab Testing, Estrogen Dominance & Balancing Hormones at Home

187: Metabolism Series Part 1: High Blood Sugar, Insulin, & Weight Loss

• TRANSCRIPT

  Erin Holt [00:00:02]:

  I'm Erin Holt, and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast, where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us but functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect, so I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school and mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing, you'll get things here that you won't get other places. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review, and share, because you never know whose life you might change and, of course, keep coming back for more. Now give me the mic so I can take it away. All right, friends, I am so excited about today's show because I have Lauryn Mohr with us. She's a nutrition practitioner with over a decade of experience, and this is why I'm so excited. She's also the newest addition to our TFN collective. So she sees Your Hormone Revival clients, she sees one on one clients. And Lauryn will also be teaching a class for us in September's Carb Compatibility Project. So what's cool about this is that if you're listening to today's show and you have any follow up questions, definitely jot them down. Write any of your hormone questions down, take notes, and then bring them to class in the CCP. Lauryn can answer all of them. So as a reminder, CCP is open, but it's the last week to enroll, so you want to get in. We kick things off on Sunday. So let me tell you a little bit about Lauryn. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degree in exercise physiology and advanced nutrition. She's held various roles for very prominent health club for a very prominent health club corporation. She also has a passion for educating. I think that's where her and I are in lockstep, and you'll definitely hear that on today's show. So she likes to educate people based off of not only her education, but also her clinical experience in functional medicine. So Lauryn is another one of our headhunted practitioners from the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy. We plucked her right out of FNA because we just loved what she was doing and what she was about and her vibe that she brings to our clients. And I will say that FNA enrollment is officially open for our fall cohort and Lauryn, first of all, welcome. Thank you for being here.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:03:01]:

  Yes, I am so pumped. Thank you so much.

  Erin Holt [00:03:04]:

  And I'm curious to hear your thoughts. What would you say if there was a practitioner who's kind of on the fence thinking about enrolling in FNA? What would you say to them?

  Lauryn Mohr [00:03:14]:

  Short story, do it. Take the chance on yourself. That's really the biggest thing that I know. When I was contemplating it, going back and forth, I got to have a onboarding call with Rachel, who was able to answer a lot of my questions as well, too. But I think more than anything, it was taking the leap of trusting in yourself and knowing that you have a team and a community of people around you is so invaluable. Right. And I think a lot of times with us and more of a functional nutrition or practitioner field, it can feel pretty isolating, like you're working in just, like, your small niche. And so if you're on the fence about it, jump in, because it's not just the clinical pearls. I came in, obviously, with a lot of formal education, but the amount of clinical knowledge that I've gained is invaluable. But I think what really attracted me was the combination of the business coaching with the clinical practice, and that's something I didn't get any education on when I was going through my formal education, is the business stuff. So it's really an experience like no other. And so I'd say, if you're on the fence about it, do it, because it was definitely the best investment I've made in my personal development, but also my career development as well.

  Erin Holt [00:04:32]:

  And I think it's interesting because not everybody, you're somebody who really loves to work as part of a team and thrives in that environment. Rachel is the same exact way. She never had any desire to go out on her own and start her own company, her own business. And so it's so cool to hear your perspective, too, because not everybody who goes through FNA needs to start their own business. Some people do have that very clear goal, and some people are just looking to enhance their clinical skill set so that they can maybe be hired by a functional medicine clinic somewhere down the line. So thank you for sharing that experience. Talking about your experience, you've had sort of a unique opportunity where you've been able to practice and implement functional health modalities within a conventional model. And so you've said that this offers you an insider's perspective, and that's what I really want you to speak into today, especially as it relates to perimenopause and menopause that turbulent transition. You've noticed that there's kind of a rift in women's health care in terms of what people's options are. And so I'm super excited because we haven't really got into the nitty gritty of this on this show before. And so I'm really excited for you to speak into that today.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:05:53]:

  Yeah, for sure. It's been very unique opportunity to be more in a functional minded role, but get to practice within a more conventional or western medicine. Private practice is where I was at more recently. And with that, working in partnership with a DO, a doctor of osteopathy, working with nurse practitioners. And within that model, we did a lot of things with the pharmaceutical model, right? We saw individuals that were struggling with thyroid issues. We saw individuals that were struggling with gut issues or hormonal imbalances. And a lot of it tended to be around prescriptive therapies, whether it was utilizing some thyroid medications, utilizing some hormone replacement, or just kind of sticking in that conventional field, I got to really see, okay, how does that side of medicine treat these types of conditions and treat these types of individuals, specifically women? I mean, obviously our practice wasn't all female based, but can be kind of largely skewed that way. A lot of times when we're approaching that more perimenopause transition in life and women are seeking relief, they're seeking answers, they're looking all over the place. And a lot of times they tend to land on more of these conventional medical clinics that are more private clinics. And what I saw firsthand was a little bit of a gray area, right? A lot of these places, hormone treatment clinics are calling themselves functional medicine. And you Google them and they come up under functional medicine practices within their area. And it's kind of a little bit of a no man's land in my opinion, a little bit of a gray area. And I think it's been a really cool experience getting to see that side because in today's world it's so dichotomous, right? There's such a split. We have these people that are very functional medicine minded and that's what they believe is true outside of any pharmaceutical intervention. And then you have the more conventional Western medicine side of things that is very open minded to prescriptive therapies and doesn't necessarily always respect or see what the functional side has to offer. And so with that, it was a really unique perspective where I get to see firsthand how honestly both sides can impact people's health and it doesn't really have to always be a one or the other. And how can these two fields start to respect what each other does, but also respect how they can both coincide for each individual patient to really get them the best results?

  Erin Holt [00:08:39]:

  Yeah, I've been saying a lot lately, we don't have to throw out a whole paradigm in order to adopt another one. It can be and both and I think what happens when it's like when different beliefs or philosophies start kind of pitting themselves against each other? What happens is that the client or the patient or the person struggling is the one that suffers because they're just left being given an option of, like, it's either this or that. Pick your lane. Which way are you going to go? And I know so much of your work is it's like an and both like, you can have this and you can have this. Let's just educate people. Let's talk about both sides of the spectrum and let's figure out where we can place them so that they get the best results so they feel the most support. And I like how you said it's no man's land, because I think that's just like, perimenopause in a nutshell. It's just like the wild, wild west. It's like no real clear cut answers. It's kind of like anything goes. People are just trying to figure out, how do I feel better? What's going on with my body? What's happening? And so hopefully today folks will walk out of this conversation having a little bit more of a clear understanding of what's going on and what their options are in terms of feeling better. So let's just take it from the top. Kind of high level. How do we define perimenopause? What are signs, symptoms, struggles? How does somebody know? Like, oh, I'm actually in the perimenopause phase.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:10:07]:

  Yeah. So for women, we have that perimenopause transition that tends to occur in what we would consider midlife. Right. You hear a lot of that midlife cycle for women being very questionable. Right. So when we think about peri, peri means around. So it's a time around menopause. It's that transition between our fertility years into our more full menopausal state. The hard part is it is a little bit of a gray area. It's not clearly defined. Symptoms can start as early as age 35 all the way to an average age of 45. Right. And symptoms can last anywhere from five to ten years before a woman is considered fully through that menopausal transition. So I think this is where a lot of women get lost in between these worlds of my fertility years and wanting to focus on my menstrual cycle health and wanting to focus on childbearing. And then they get lost before they're fully menopausal. And we're having conversations around osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease and some more longevity topics. What do we do with those women that are in between, right? They're not necessarily they're done with the phase of their life, maybe of having children, but now they're raising children. They're also taking care of maybe aging parents. And it's just this kind of again, like I said, no man's land in between where there's not a clear defined practitioner that they go to. Some of them stop seeing their OBGYN because they're not worried about their fertility anymore. And they try to seek out a primary care provider that may or may not be full on interested in helping them through that perimenopause transition. Some primary care providers are more open to options, and some are more like it's an act of life. It's part of womanhood grin and bear it. So I think that's where in that perimenopause time it's difficult because it's not clearly defined. And I think even a lot of our environmental and even some epigenetic factors we're finding are starting to change how and when that perimenopause really shows up.

  Erin Holt [00:12:27]:

  Can you speak into in case somebody's not familiar with the term epigenetic, can you speak into more of what that means and what that looks like specifically to perimenopause?

  Lauryn Mohr [00:12:37]:

  Absolutely. So when we think about different epigenetic factors, we think about all of the things that could potentially turn on or turn off certain genetic predispositions that we have. Right. Of course we're going to have genetics from our parents, but then lifestyle factors, the foods that we eat, the toxins that we're exposed to, the stress that we're under, sleep cycles, inflammation, gut health, there's so many different things outside of our bodies that act on us. And then genes are either turned on, turned off in response to that. And so we're even seeing how the whole, I guess, more older belief system around, oh, when did your mom go through menopause? Or what was her experience like? May not always hold true anymore because we don't have the same lifestyles as maybe our mothers or our grandmothers generations did. We see more women having children later in life. How is that impacting the perimenopause transition? We see more women working full time outside the home to provide another full time income. There's just different stressors and asks of the woman's body these days. And so it is changing our hormones and is changing how we present in that perimenopause phase. And so that means that our treatment strategies and our options for these women need to rise to that challenge as well, too.

  Erin Holt [00:14:05]:

  Such a solid point. What are common symptoms that somebody going through? Perimenopause? Obviously it can shift and change based on the person, based on the individual. But kind of like your classic symptoms.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:16:48]:

  A lot of those symptoms are going to be related to the fluctuating levels of estrogen and progesterone during that time. So usually the first signs are going to be irregular cycles. For women they'll start to notice that their cycles are becoming closer together, are becoming farther apart. It's outside of their norm. Right. Other times we'll start to see things like night sweats creep in. Those night sweats then can also even contribute to feelings of insomnia, can feel like heart palpitations, can lead to anxiety, irritability, mood swings, low libido. Then when we start to get more into, when estrogen kind of joins the equation, we can get hot flashes, we can get vaginal dryness, which also then sometimes displays as like reoccurring bacterial infections with that low estrogen and vaginal dryness just changing even the vaginal microbiome, right. Painful intercourse, breast tenderness, brain fog, difficulty focusing, those tend to be a lot of the major symptoms. And women get the runaround from either different primary care providers or shuttled off to different specialists because these symptoms sometimes don't seem related. Right. And in the conventional medicine model they go see one doctor because they're starting to have heart palpitations and they go through a full cardiovascular workup only to find that it comes back completely normal, which is great, we need to check those big things off the list. But then that cardiologist doesn't have a conversation with that woman about estrogen and how that might be something that's changing for her and impacting these types of symptoms. Right. Or things like the brain fog and the difficulty concentrating. That's a big one. Especially, like I said, with more women in the workforce and women holding more high positions within companies, and they want to have that performance edge. And a lot of times women then are going through the whole channels around psychiatric medications. Do I have adult onset issues with my brain fog and difficulty concentrating? It's like, or is it just your hormones? And not really having that connection piece? And it just floods them into the conventional medicine model where they continue to get pieced apart and sent 50 different directions to five different specialists and come back without answers.

  Erin Holt [00:19:28]:

  Right. It's like compartmentalized medicine at its finest. You go to the cardiologist for your heart, you go to the endocrinologist for your thyroid, and it's like we're scattered all over the place. We forget to realize that, like, hey, all of these organs and systems actually reside all in the same body. They are, in fact, interconnected. In addition to some of those symptoms that you were talking about, body composition changes are not uncommon. And this is something that I hear about a lot. Almost like there's a little bit of shame or just embarrassment to talk about this, but it's kind of like this idea of like, whose body is this? I don't recognize this body anymore. There's changes happening. I don't really understand why. I can't explain why there's so many major league shifts and transitions on an identity level, like maiden mother crone as we move through these big archetypes. So to have that kind of going on in the background and then to also look down and be like, whose body am I living in these days? Like, it doesn't feel the same. It doesn't look the same. I want to speak into the sort of emotionality behind this period, too.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:20:42]:

  Oh, it runs deep. That's probably one of the biggest comments that I tend to hear, is, I feel out of control of my body. Right. They feel foreign. It doesn't feel like the same person that they were in their twenties or their thirties. And it is it's definitely kind of an identity shift in starting to take on that next phase of life. And I think a lot of what I get to talk to with women in this state, too, is coming to that place where it's allowing them to continuously stay curious right. And not having a set ideal for what their body might look like in different stages of life. Right. I like to usually tell women, it's like, every decade your body will probably be a little different, and that's okay. And we just need to have that opportunity to come to the table, have trusted practitioners that we can talk to about those different changes so that it doesn't take us completely by surprise. And also so that we feel back in the driver's seat of our body and the more confident we are being empowered with some education. Now our body starts to make sense a little bit, right? And it's like, oh, okay. That's why I feel that way. That's why this shift has happened. So when you put it that way, then if I can make some of these changes to my nutrition or make some of these changes to my lifestyle or insert some nervous system regulation practices that I didn't really have to think about before, or they just start to be able to see all of the things that they can control. And those things might look a little different now, and that's okay. In fact, by changing those things and allowing them a safe space to let go, let go of what the 20s looked like, that's okay, right? Those things that you're trying so hard to implement now, you're burning yourself out, right? It's okay. Just trade those tools in. We just need some new tools, and you can feel back in that driver's seat. And I think that's probably the most calming thing that we can provide for women, is just that education and that clarity of they're not crazy, right? This is not all in your head. You're not out of control of your body. You haven't lost some sort of identity. You're just in this process where you get to stay curious and explore a new identity. And how exciting is that when you learn how to work with that new body versus fight against it.

  Erin Holt [00:23:27]:

  One of my mentors, Jessica Flanagan. Now, Jessica Brown, talks a lot about this period and how eating disorders can be so rampant in the perimenopause into menopause transition. For all of everything you're talking about, it's that feeling out of control and then also feeling out of sorts. When your hormones are up, down, left, right, and sideways all of the time, you're just like, whoa. And so that could be a massive trigger. And this is just really not talked about. She's doing a phenomenal job of kind of putting words to this, but that's just something I feel like needs to be part of this conversation. And I also think it's fair to say you know, Lauryn and I are coming from a perspective where we haven't gone through this ourselves personally, but we work with a lot of people who have or are. And so we're kind of trying to give some voice into what we see and what a lot of the patterns are too so you don't feel so out of sorts, you don't feel so alone and so isolated in this experience. But because we have that perspective, we can speak into strategies to help you too. And so let's start talking about that, because let's start by talking about some options that folks going. Like, if somebody was going through perimenopause and they're like, OK, I think I'm there, I think I'm in it. I'm going to Google search what to do, what are the options being presented to them and then I also want folks to walk away with some actual strategies that you've seen in practice, really help folks in this stage.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:25:04]:

  Yeah. So to your point, if you Google perimenopause symptoms, perimenopause relief, it's going to come up with a wide variety of probably the good, the bad, the ugly. It is, to your point, a very vulnerable time in a woman's life. And so we have to recognize, because of that kind of desperate energy that is brought to the table in this perimenopause place, it leaves these women really vulnerable to a game of the extremes. Right. You'll Google and find these people being really marketed to heavily from a restrictive dieting standpoint, an extreme exercise standpoint, to feel anything, to take back control of a body that doesn't feel like theirs anymore. I mean, thousands of different hormone balancing supplements that you can find out there off the Internet. And so those will be I think some of the more ones that I would want to caution women against is like, okay, we recognize that this is a time where we're probably bringing a little bit of some frantic energy to the table, and that makes us vulnerable to want to dive into some things that we know at our core don't feel right. And it's okay to listen to that. Let's take a step back because there's probably more options out there, right? So I think a lot of women that are looking for answers, they either turn to those more extreme measures, or they tend to turn towards their doctor, right. A trusted professional that they're going to go to, hey, I'm having these symptoms, what are my options? Most of the time conventional medicine, unfortunately, can offer some pretty good band aid solutions. A lot of practitioners are talking about things like, oh, let's use some birth control to minimize symptoms until you're in that menopausal place. Right? I even had a client come to me saying that her doctor told her to continue her birth control because it was the hormones that she would need in menopause anyway. And I was like, that's a very interesting statement there because those are very much not the same thing. So we got to have a really good conversation about that being utilized as kind of a catch all strategy for these perimenopausal women. I think we also hear a lot of use of mood regulating medications in this world. Your SSRIs, your antianxiety medications, again, just perpetuating into that idea of having these women feel like it's all in your head and we're just going to go ahead and just shut that down. We'll just quiet that down for you a little bit. I've also seen a lot of these women come through being prescribed things like Gabapentin or some of those things that help from restless legs or sleep, sedatives, a lot of things like that. Instead of really talking about how is maybe blood sugar changes and hormonal shifts, circadian rhythm balance maybe playing into our sleep disturbances of this time. And then I think even more so recently, we're seeing this particular population of women being targeted towards a lot of weight loss drugs, and that being a kind of a go to with your Ozempic categories and things like that out there, too, because a lot of times these hormonal shifts, they do produce appetite changes, they do produce satiety hormone changes. And instead of empowering women with information on, oh, okay, so how do I want to shift my nutrition and my lifestyle and my exercise slightly? We just come in and act like we just want to shut the appetite off, right? As if it's not an important signal from our body trying to tell us something, right? So those would be some of the, I think, most common ones that I've seen, kind of having that experience in a practice that has options to both, right? We have options to pharmaceutical strategies, but we can also respect the concept that there can be some functional practices that can really help in these regards too, instead of just using things that shut off symptoms and not asking the bigger question of like, why? How can we come to the table for these women with more options than just pharmaceutical strategies? Which is where I think the important middle ground comes in with the concept of hormone replacement therapy. That is one of those middle ground where I don't think that functional medicine always claims it, but conventional medicine doesn't always claim it either. It's just this option for perimenopausal women. And unfortunately, I think even being in the position that I've seen, I've seen it be very powerful in terms of helping women in this stage. And I don't think that it has to be an either or approach. But since conventional medicine doesn't always claim or use or promote HRT, and functional medicine doesn't either, then sometimes women can fall between the cracks because they don't get aligned to a practitioner that offers them this as an option. So they get stuck between these two worlds, between like, well, I'm stuck with all these pharmaceuticals that I don't necessarily want to be on, but I'm only making so much progress with my nutrition or my exercise and they don't feel like there's options when I think that there are more options in the middle.

  Erin Holt [00:30:53]:

  Can you define what hormone or HRT or hormone replacement therapy is, in case somebody's not familiar with that term? And also, why do you think it is so polarizing?

  Lauryn Mohr [00:31:06]:

  Absolutely. So hormone replacement therapy, it is a little bit of a broad spectrum term, I guess we'll say, because there's lots of different types of hormone replacement therapy. You have bioidentical hormone replacement, you have synthetic hormone replacement. It comes in lots of different forms from pills, creams, gels, sprays, insertable devices like pellets. We can use any of the major sex hormones, whether it's progesterone replacement, estrogen replacement, testosterone replacement. So the world of hormone replacement therapy, there's a lot of separate channels and directions that you can go within that umbrella. And I think the cool thing is recognizing that it doesn't have to be a one size fits all. And it's probably more polarizing because with a lot of the hormone replacement options, not all of them are recognized by the FDA having been through the full approval process. And so some of them, especially more of the bioidentical field, is needing to go through a functional practitioner who's willing to look outside the box for solutions is willing to go through maybe some compounding pharmacies and outside resources to be able to source that treatment option for their client. So hormone replacement therapy is a little bit polarizing because I think functional medicine is willing to claim it if they have the capacity to source it, and then conventional medicine will also claim it, but they tend to operate more under what's covered under a patient's insurance. So I think there's a lot of a little bit of a red tape that goes in with why it's so polarizing is because sometimes it's covered, sometimes it's not covered. Certain practitioners are all about it and other practitioners are not all about it. And so you just get a lot of mixed opinions out there. And so because of that, I think some women tend to feel a little bit paralysis by analysis, right? They get too many opinions coming in and so they just end up being like, oh, this person said yes, and this person said no. And so it's just off the table, which is unfortunate too.

  Erin Holt [00:33:36]:

  I'm so glad that you said outside the box. This is something I've been thinking about a lot. And I want to do a whole podcast episode on this because I think sometimes in order to get people relief, we have to be willing to think outside the box. And that can be so challenging from somebody who is more conventionally trained. We just had an NP reach out to us who's interested in FNA, in joining FNA, and she's like, all of my conventional training is so inside the box, but she's recognizing what limitations there are with that. And it's like if you stay inside the box, you might be able to help 50% of people, but what about the other 50%? They're still struggling and suffering. And I think we have to, never to the point where we're doing anything irresponsible, but we have to be willing to kind of play in the gray area a little bit, especially with some of these gray area topics. I think HRT is such a huge topic, and we'll definitely come back and do like a more in depth part two where we're focusing on hormone replacement therapy. But for people who are listening, you mentioned there are some strategies you could consider either in conjunction with HRT or before you get to the point of trialing HRT. You mentioned shifting nutrition and lifestyle. You touched upon blood sugar. Can you speak more into strategies that could help folks?

  Lauryn Mohr [00:37:27]:

  Yeah, for sure, which is great to understand within each provider's unique scope of practice. It doesn't have to be all from one provider. We can really come to the table and recognize that there's probably going to be a teamwork equation here, right? So just like I myself am not prescribing hormone replacement therapy, it doesn't mean that I can't help connect women to that and say, hey, have you ever thought about this road? Or to your point, having a lot more women that have been coming to me having either tried that route in the past and not felt successful with it, or women that are coming to me having dabbled with that, but it only taking them so far, and they're looking for that full circle approach. So that's where I think the benefits of HRT and really a lot of these therapies for these postmenopausal women really shine, is when we can bring these worlds together and recognize that will just HRT be the solution to all of your problems? No, probably not, right? And that's where I think providers out there who are promoting HRT under a functional medicine umbrella can mislead people. I've had some individuals who have come to me and asking them, hey, have you worked with any functional providers in the past? What has been your experience? And I've had a lot of women that come to me and they're like, yeah, I've had an experience with a functional practitioner. She ran some labs and put me on HRT and thyroid meds. I'm like, oh. So she's like, yeah, that was my experience with functional medicine, which is not functional medicine, period. Not functional medicine in the slightest. And so I think that's where, being on the inside, I got an opportunity to see, oh, so people that are claiming HRT and framing it under this functional umbrella then start to make individuals think that, oh, if I tried that, then I've tried functional medicine.

  Erin Holt [00:39:42]:

  Yeah.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:39:44]:

  And it's like, yeah, you got, like, a small opportunity to taste what outside the box might look like than a conventional model, but you essentially just got the same. I like to call it, like, greenwashed conventional medicine because it was no different than them just looking at your symptoms and giving you a prescription for said symptoms and sending you on your way. That really wasn't what functional medicine is all about. And so what I feel like is really helpful is when we can come in and help layer in the other aspects of functional medicine with these women, including nutritional changes, lifestyle shifts, more advanced testing, and all of those types of things as well.

  Erin Holt [00:40:34]:

  These are all just such valid points, and sadly, they're not being discussed enough. So I appreciate you bringing all of this to the table in terms of walk away strategies or strategies people can walk away with from this episode, things that they can try on their own or with a functional nutritionist. What have you seen move the needle? I kind of joke. I'm like, everybody in perimenopause or menopause should do the Carb Compatibility Project to learn how to regulate their blood sugar, because I have seen that just makes such a massive difference. We know with these hormonal shifts and changes that can influence our metabolism, that can influence insulin signaling. And so you might just have to kind of relearn how to eat for this period of your life, things to your point earlier, things change, and that's okay. We just want to make sure that we're not trying to approach these new bodies through the same lens that we were like, 25 years ago, because what worked for us 25 years ago might not actually work now. So what are some specific lifestyle or movement or food and nutrition strategies people can use?

  Lauryn Mohr [00:41:49]:

  Absolutely. So when I see a lot of women that have either experienced the hormone replacement therapy before and felt kind of short sighted with it or a little bit disappointed, or women that are actively using hormone replacement therapy, I think all of it applies with or without it. It's really just important to recognize that you're one body. Right. And so the sex hormones are one small part of it, and there's going to be a whole interplay of different things that are going to impact how those sex hormone respond. So we want to think about how are we supporting your adrenals, how are we supporting your blood sugar balance, how are we supporting your gut or your body's ability to detoxify hormones through the liver and our stool? Right. So I think it's more coming from the foundations first and making sure these perimenopausal women understand that, hey, if we do have some sex hormone imbalances and some symptoms going on, we want to come up from the foundation first and really lift that up and not just rely on some replacement of those, but we really want to be able to put the replacement of any of those into a really solid environment. Right? So we have to kind of, I guess, nourish the body that these things are coming into in order to get the best success from any outside or ancillary hormones that we want to put in. Usually if we come in really gangbusters with supporting the foundations first, now all of a sudden, we get to experience the full benefit of what these hormones were supposed to offer for us. It's just when we put those hormones into a system that's kind of rocky soil, we weren't really ready for it. I always explain it in terms of, like, we just tried to with just the hormones. We try to sprinkle sand on top of a bonfire, and it's like, did it go out? Did we do anything? It's like, no, it didn't. Oh, okay. So it's like we just kind of like, put those things in and they just get burned right up because the system wasn't even ready for it. It wasn't in a conducive environment to even do the best that it needed to with those. So when I think about really taking these women in and taking them under my wing and what does that look like? Number one, we definitely want to start from a nutritional intervention and really look at an anti inflammatory approach when it comes to their diet strategy. And I think one of the most anti inflammatory things that we can think about and focus on when it comes to our overall nutrition is blood sugar balance. Getting these women off of the blood sugar roller coaster, of not just the highs, which is the first thing that we always want to think about, but also blood sugar lows and getting them to start to recognize how their body creates an inflammatory response, being on both ends of that spectrum. So really helping them come in and stop thinking about calories and just put that to the side, that was awesome. Great. That might have worked in our 20s, but we need to come in with a whole different mentality of relearning our relationship with food and what does that look like? To fuel ourselves in a way that balances blood sugar. Which is why I love the Carb Compatibility Project as a foundational tool for these women because I think it really helps answer a lot of those questions and a lot of the gray area there. So of course, I'm talking to these women about adequate protein intake for muscle, for insulin sensitivity. I'm talking to these women about fiber quantity, fiber diversity for our gut bacteria, and satiety hormones as well, too. Also talking about even just the importance of meal timing to support satiety and blood sugar balance as well, too. So from a nutritional standpoint, those are really the major ones. And it's helpful for these women then to learn that even that mental component, too, of like, oh, when I feel more balanced in my blood sugars, my brain fog goes away and my joints don't hurt as much, I have less inflammation, I feel more clear headed. I feel like I have lessened anxiety. I'm not as irritable, I'm not as easily triggered. It's like, oh, I didn't recognize that my blood sugar was really, really acting as a potent match for a lot of these symptoms. So that's usually from a dietary aspect where I really want to go with those women.

  Erin Holt [00:46:29]:

  And I just said this last week, food is a way to resource the body. And I super appreciate you talking about, okay, if we're going to be attempting hormone replacement therapy or honestly, even supplements, we didn't even get into that. But if we're taking supplements to tweak our hormones, they have to be landing in a resourced body. And food and blood sugar regulation is such a foundational way to resource a body. It's a really good place to start. Beyond just managing our diet and looking at our food and nutrition, where else do we need to go to be thinking about this?

  Lauryn Mohr [00:47:18]:

  Definitely want to be thinking about our detoxification pathways, especially when we think about the gut and the liver. So I know we hear about it and talk about it all the time, but it's exponentially important during this time period that we have to make sure we are pooping every day. That is a major part of the body's detoxification pathway, especially if we're going to be replacing things that are like testosterone and estrogen. These are more growth promoting hormones. We want to be able to use it but lose it. And a lot of that process happens by supporting the liver and supporting the gut. So with a lot of my perimenopausal women, I am also doing a lot of recommendations for the gut and microbiome diversity. We may even get into some gut and some stool testing so we can see what's happening with the good old strobalome or how our bacterial diversity in our gut impacts our body's excretion and metabolism of estrogen, which also plays into the liver. So for a lot of these perimenopausal women, we're talking about toxin exposure, we're talking about potential endocrine disruptors. Also we're talking about the fun topic of alcohol. That is a big one when it comes to thinking about supporting estrogen levels and maybe some of those erratic estrogen levels that happen in a perimenopausal place. A lot of women are starting to think about their relationship with alcohol. So we may bring in a lot of liver support here, like I said, whether that's through more advanced testing or whether we're looking at utilizing a little bit of an audit of their environmental situation, plastics, fragrances, endocrine disruptors. I may bring in a lot of your detoxification friendly foods, your sulfur rich foods, broccoli sprouts, utilizing things like castor oil packs, anything that helps us really maximize and open up our body's detoxification pathways.

  Erin Holt [00:49:16]:

  Do you have a cap that you give people in terms of alcohol? If they're drinking alcohol, and this is.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:49:23]:

  A concern normally, if they're on hormone replacement therapy, I try to educate them on the importance of making that as minimal as possible and trying to reserve it for more of a social and or celebratory setting and just getting them out of the mindset and the habit of utilizing it as a destress tool and try to get them equipped with other destress type strategies and recommending opportunities to get in some other nervous system support, so they're not turning towards the glass of wine in the evening, which is so normalized in our society, but may not be necessarily serving them very many favors.

  Erin Holt [00:50:06]:

  So interesting, and I'm not on hormone replacement therapy, but this summer I definitely did more drinking than I typically do. Like, I noticed myself just with socialization and just we had a lot going on and I had two of the roughest periods, like just really sore breasts and just not fun. So I was able to see a direct effect like, hey, you're drinking more. Your hormones are going to not really be super stoked about that. I see that we're coming up on an hour. I want to be respectful of your time because I know you have a client right after this and we're going to be getting more into the nitty gritty of a lot of this stuff in the Carb Compatibility Project. Like I said, Lauryn will be there to field questions, and she's teaching a class, which will be really exciting. I also think this was a really good, comprehensive episode. I think it would be a great idea to share this with anyone, you know, who's going through perimenopause and in that sort of gray area of, like, what's up with my body? What's going on? Like has questions, because I think Lauryn did a really great job of addressing a lot of the different things that are going on. I also just want to shout you out. You know when you were talking about meeting with clients, a word that you used pretty often was conversation. You are in conversation with people. You are asking them questions. You're listening to their lived experience. You're providing education. You're getting to know them. You're making recommendations based on their needs and where they're at and what's going on with them. You really are meeting people where they're at. And I think that is, at the core, the foundation of a root cause functional approach. And I just love your work so much, and I respect you so much. It's why I wanted to have you as part of our team, because of that, actually. Because I think you're really providing in a way that not everybody has the capacity to. So I appreciate you. And yeah come get to know Lauryn through team FN She's seeing one on one clients. We've got her in Your Hormone Revival and now in the CCP. So thank you so, so much for being here. It was awesome.

  Lauryn Mohr [00:52:14]:

  Of course. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to even be involved even more.

  Erin Holt [00:52:24]:

  Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.