Empowering Women Through Menopause: Nutrition Tips and Real Food Stories for Midlife Wellness Journey

Are you aware that nearly 75% of women experience disruptive symptoms during menopause, yet many feel unsupported and misunderstood in both their personal and professional lives? In this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories, host Heather Carey welcomes Amita Sharma, co-founder of NourishDoc, a groundbreaking holistic wellness platform designed specifically for women navigating the often-overlooked challenges of perimenopause and menopause. Amita opens up about her own struggles in a male-dominated corporate environment, highlighting the critical need for awareness and resources tailored to women’s unique experiences during this transformative phase.

Join us as we delve into the stigma surrounding menopause and perimenopause health, where many women find themselves grappling with symptoms in silence. Amita passionately advocates for self-care and awareness, emphasizing how the NourishDoc app strives to provide culturally sensitive and affordable resources that empower women to take charge of their health. This episode is packed with valuable insights on how to manage hormonal changes and symptoms through holistic approaches, including nutrition advice, healthy eating tips, and alternative therapies.

We explore the various symptoms of perimenopause, such as mood swings, weight gain, and sleep disturbances, along with the hormonal imbalances that can lead to chronic conditions if left unaddressed. Amita shares her personal food journey and offers practical advice on incorporating mindful eating practices and sustainable eating into daily life. Discover the importance of nutrition for perimenopause, including how a Mediterranean diet can support hormonal balance and overall well-being.

As we navigate the complexities of midlife health, this episode aims to empower women to embrace body positivity and overcome the diet myths that often plague our understanding of weight management. Learn about the seven pillars of abundance and how they can transform your relationship with food and your body. Whether you’re seeking to understand menopause better or looking for practical cooking techniques to improve your health, this episode is a must-listen for women 40 and beyond.

With Heather’s expertise as a culinary nutritionist, you’ll gain insights into cooking for wellness and how to nourish your body during this pivotal time. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that not only highlights personal food stories but also encourages vulnerability and emotional resilience in the face of midlife changes. Let’s empower your menopause journey together, one nourishing bite at a time!

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to Real Food Stories. Today, I am with Amita Sharma, who is the co-founder of NourishDoc, which is a holistic wellness platform and app that’s focused on empowering women in perimenopause and beyond. The app is in the process of getting developed. I think by the time this goes live, it will be up and running. And it was developed to be culturally sensitive, affordable, and with a focus on self-care. Now, Amita brings her own personal struggles as a perimenopausal woman in corporate America and challenges she experienced in the workplace, which were basically a lack of resources at the time. So welcome, Amita. And I’m really glad for you to be here today because I wanted to start out talking about women in… perimenopause and menopause in the workplace and just hear your story and how that inspired you to then create a platform called nourish doc and how that can help women because the topic of perimenopause and menopause is getting to be big and i’m all for it i am i’m here for it and i’m And I’m ready for it because I know like my own personal story. When I went into perimenopause in my 40s, I was clueless. I mean, I was literally clueless and my doctors were clueless too. I had, I know no one told me about perimenopause and it was a real struggle. So why don’t you just tell me a little bit about your story, just being in corporate. I mean, so not only are you in perimenopause, but you were like in corporate America, which I know that even though half of… the workforce is women. It’s so male dominated with its focus on menopause being kind of taboo, right? Can we safely say that? So why don’t you just tell me about your story and then we’ll sure this will spark a lot of conversation.

Speaker #1
Sure, sure. Well, thank you so much for inviting me and talking, opening up on this taboo subject, right? So you rightfully said, mentioned that we know more menopause. you know, because we are taught in the biology, but we, nobody talks about or educated enough about the perimenopause. So perimenopause, even if you go to the doctor or you talk to, I’ve talked to so many hundreds of women and they say, what is, what do you mean by perimenopause? Right? So the definition of perimenopause is some, something that needs so much awareness. Forget about the workplace. If we women don’t even understand what perimenopause is, How do we expect our male counterparts at the work list to understand that? So I am not going to say, oh, my God, I did not get any support. There was no awareness because nobody knows about what perimenopause is.

Speaker #0
Much less ourselves, right? I mean, we as women don’t even really know a lot about it.

Speaker #1
Yeah. So how do we expect that someone’s going to support us if we are not going to go raise our hands and say. hey by the way this is a problem so the first step is for all of women to understand that perimenopause is a stage that can happen that can hit you 10 years before you hit the menopause button the pause button of our periods within 51 52 that being the average age and you can start experiencing the symptoms in 40 then that’s exactly what happened to me and i’m absolutely know clueless suddenly hot flash happening in the middle of a corporate meeting Things like embarrassing moments for women can happen. And then you are like thinking something is going wrong with you. You’re not able to focus. You’re not able to concentrate. Sleeping becomes an issue at night. And if you’re not able to sleep well, guess what’s going to happen the next day? You’re going to be cranky and disgruntled, not able to present yourself well. You know, all these are real problems that we women don’t, we think, oh my God, someone’s going to judge me. or we hide behind being a superwoman kind of a veil here without asking for help and that’s exactly what i did not ask for help I did not, I felt embarrassed. I said, oh my God, if I go talk to an HR or talk to anyone, they’re going to start judging me that, you know, I’m getting old, right? So I think these are the fear any woman, millions of women face working in corporate America. So I think the thing is that my experience led me that, oh, why are we not even talking about it? You know, this is so taboo. People are so scared to talk about it. Oh, my God, what if I get laid off? Right. All these and I’m sharing my experience that I felt if I go and talk to someone, they’re going to think, oh, I can do my job properly. Maybe the next day I’ll be the number one person to get laid off. Right. So I want to create something, you know, that is self-care. Self-care is so important for women that’s affordable that they can at least be aware. Step number one is that. taking care of themselves before they go to a gynecologist or any other medical professional. So that was my inspiration. And that’s what got me going into this whole area of being in a tech industry, being a product manager, to becoming like a champion of the holistic wellness for mid-age women.

Speaker #0
That sounds, that’s amazing. I mean, just coming from your own personal experience and then creating something. That can be so life-changing. I know just going back to the employment, I know that there’s been research done that says at least 10% of women in going through perimenopause or menopause actually leave their jobs. They end up leaving their jobs because they’re just struggling with physical issues. And they pass up promotions and they ended up. leaving. So perfectly well-qualified women who are smart and, you know, well-qualified to work are actually leaving because they’re not getting supported. And I know my husband is an attorney, he’s an employment attorney. So I’ve talked to him a lot about the legal aspects of just like work, you know, the workplace and menopause, and there’s no legal protection for menopause symptoms. perimenopause or menopause symptoms. So no wonder women are just frustrated and end up actually losing a significant part of their lives, like leaving their jobs because they’re just struggling. So you then in turn decide to take it a step further and take action and create something called Nourish Doc. So tell me a little bit more about that. Well, tell me what goes… you know, what’s what it is and how it helps women.

Speaker #1
Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first question we have to ask ourselves is why do we need to take care of ourselves in perimenopause, right? A lot of women don’t even understand and they end up leaving because then suddenly they start getting hot flashes. We talked about that or some of the symptoms that are debilitating. They can’t concentrate. And they said, oh, my God, they don’t go into the next detail of how can I help myself? or how do I do it, right? So the idea is that during the perimenopause, the research says approximately 34 to, I don’t know, maybe more symptoms are recorded a woman can go through. Can you imagine being bombarded with so many symptoms?

Speaker #0
I am in menopause right now. So yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Speaker #1
It’s crazy, right? So you feel like, oh my God, suddenly. an atomic bomb is hitting me every single day, no matter what I do, whether I lose weight or whether I do this, nothing is helping me. So step number one for women to understand is why that is happening, right? And perimenopause, what is happening is we need to understand the hormonal imbalance that starts happening in all of our bodies. As soon as we start hitting perimenopause, this hormonal imbalance starts creating all these strange symptoms of Mood swings, you know, they say, oh, my God, I can’t remember anything. Right. Brain fog and then heart flash and fatigue and the stress and all those things start happening because of our hormonal imbalance. So we need to understand it’s like some, you know, when at the beginning we have two female hormones that are contributing to this hormonal imbalance. And the stage number one is the first one goes down first. The other one starts going down after some time. Now, it’s the balance between these two hormones is creating all these strange symptoms. And if we don’t take care of ourselves during this phase, there is research that correlates that women. are possible to have chronic conditions like osteoporosis.

Speaker #0
I want to just pause for a second. You’re talking about estrogen and progesterone, right? I want to get on that.

Speaker #1
So yeah, correct. Estrogen and progesterone, the progesterone goes, keeps going, starts going down first. And we could have, women could have estrogen dominance. And if it’s, if the ratio properly is not maintained, the estrogen dominance, there’s enough research that correlates estrogen dominance to probably. probably breast cancer to some of ovarian cancer also to um lack of it could be osteoporosis your onset of dementia your diabetes your heart disease all these hormonal imbalance so so so it’s very important for women to understand why the heck do we need to take care of ourselves and perimenopause it’s so important don’t just leave the work i seek help or or you know go on the rooftop and start saying, hey, some… you know this is a natural phenomenon there’s nothing to be ashamed about why are you quitting this is going to happen to each and every woman so we just need to understand and that’s what at nourish talk we are trying to make women understand is that based on the symptoms how do we start giving them different holistic therapies starting with the diet you are an expert in diet and you teach people how to cook right so changing your diet is number one that we all have to do. I mean, you can speak volumes about it rather than me going into this topic. Exercise, different type of exercises. We have to incorporate that. Breathing, you know, to calm ourselves, learning how to deep breathe. It’s so important. So all these things, we have put it in the app. Aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, different type of herbs, different type of Ayurveda daily practices. So we bring… all these holistic therapies, sort of like put it in like a juicer and give you bite-sized information based on the symptom in the app so that at least you start understanding what are the symptoms, what is happening to me, and then what is it that I can start doing by myself. That’s the intention of this app, which is going to be super affordable, less than $10.

Speaker #0
So it sounds like the app… Yeah, it’s very comprehensive and right and touches on I think I’d also read that it’s not just diet, healthy eating, sleep, relationships, physical activity, stress and behavioral risk to like alcohol and smoking. Right. So these are your pillars.

Speaker #1
Is that absolutely, absolutely. Like, you know, some of the things is that alcohol, you know, when we were younger, we could take all kind of tequila shots up at 2 a.m. and no problem. Those girls night outs with tequila shots, you know, we need to just cut it out as an example.

Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. I have my own whole take on that. We can maybe talk about that. But but the but so nurse doc is it sounds like it’s it’s focuses on holistic and alternative treatments. Right. You’re not focusing on like. the medical, the traditional medical model of maybe giving hormones, right? You want the self care come, this is about self care. And it comes from learning how to take your own health in your own hands. Is that safe to say?

Speaker #1
It’s safe to say, but also we are giving a natural alternatives to hormone therapy. We are not against hormone therapy. You know, we, we are trying to teach people self-care first. But then the next step is if someone needs that personalized, individualized consultation, plus testing, plus some herbs and supplements before they go for hormone therapy, then we are going to make it available. That would be personalized consultation with probably a naturopathic doctor or a functional medicine doctor. So we are going medical, but the medical part of it would be all integrative and functional medicine or a naturopathic medicine in the second phase. And then if someone needs a medical HRT, we don’t offer it. We are giving the self-care and the natural alternatives to HRT at this time.

Speaker #0
So this is perfect for women who are maybe don’t want to go down the traditional medical route, right? There’s a lot of women that I know who have either they can’t take hormones or they have their own. feelings and beliefs around taking hormones and absolutely want to try everything natural and alternative first before they lean on that. So that sounds like it’s a really comprehensive model, you know, of looking at perimenopause and menopause. So let’s talk about these pillars a little bit. We can start with diet because, you know, healthy eating, because I know you mentioned that. Yes, I do specialize in healthy eating and I, you know, cook for a living. And my whole deal is to get people really back into their kitchens, get them comfortable cooking because your food is one of your most important assets for your health. What do you prescribe in the world, like on, you know, through your app or your beliefs? Besides, you know, we could put it under healthy eating. But is there, do you have a philosophy on eating that goes along with your, you know, your platform?

Speaker #1
Absolutely. And like I said, you are more of an expert like my, you know, than me. But on a high level, cutting out the processed food. you know, all these fried foods, alcohol, women have to cut out their triggers, all the triggers, right, during this hormonal imbalance we talked about earlier. So eating clean, plant-based is what we are talking about. We are not saying become completely vegetarian or vegan, you know, but if you’re eating meat, you know, limited to avoid the red meats, you know, focus on chicken and fish. But… basically load up on your plants, plant-based veggies and fruits. And within the veggie, you know, family, focus on foods that have natural phytoestrogens, because we talked about earlier the estrogen and progesterone are hormones, kind of going rock and roll here. So focus on some of the brassica family, like cauliflower, brussel sprouts, broccoli, these kind of foods, some bitter foods you need, you know, bitter gourd. even um daikon or some of the other bitter foods to make sure your digestion is good your gut health is good because your gut health is very important your gut health is now we already know it’s directly collect connected with the vagus nerve to our mental health so these are the things that you need to um you know load up on like healthy fats nuts and seeds protein in the mornings to give you an energy and then So, you know, all these things like ghee, ghee is another way we say, talk about ghee, avocado and ghee. Ghee is like a clarified butter, readily available everywhere now. So these are the things we talk about when the diet part is coming, is that completely get rid of all the processed foods and make sure the sugar, the white stuff, you know, the standard stuff we’re talking about and plant-based diet.

Speaker #0
Yeah, that’s definitely when I… teach women how to focus on food as a way to help them with hormone balance. Definitely, of course, right, processed foods. I like to use the words crowd out. So we’re not saying you have to eliminate everything, but let’s just push it over there and give it. And so then you can get, have space to add in, you know, some of the, some healthier foods. I definitely crowding out alcohol and eliminating alcohol is my ideal for most women. I don’t think it serves us at all physically, mentally. So it’s, you know, that would be that’s an easy one to try. I mean, I mean, easier said than done some for some people to to get rid of alcohol. But there’s some foods that I always promote to like tofu, flaxseed. Maca powder, right? These are high in phytoestrogens. These are natural estrogens that can help boost up your estrogen. And we want our estrogen to be a little boost because once it dips in perimenopause and menopause, that’s where like we get the firestorm of hot flashes. And it could also, you know, on a, you mentioned this quickly before, but heart disease, diabetes, I mean, it can, it can. Estrogen is responsible for so much in our bodies. So we really want to be supportive of replenishing our estrogen. So if we can do it in more natural ways through food, that’s fantastic.

Speaker #1
Absolutely. And, you know, our body produces three types of estrogen. So the one type of estrogen is still being produced when we get postmenopausal. The other two diminish quite a bit, but the other two are more responsible for our reproductive health, you know, when we are pregnant. So nature has, our body has a beautiful way to let it, to switch off the reproduction part of the estrogen, which is being produced when we are younger, and then still keep some estrogen, the third part. part of the estrogen alive. So it’s not like it’s dead completely, but on the other hand, it’s, it’s very low. And that’s explains the reason of why the reproduction has gone down now. And like you said, up on the phytoestrogens, the natural phytoestrogens so that, you know, our body still keeps it nice and subtle and, you know, nice and supple, right?

Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. I know. Estrogen is just responsible for our skin, our hair. I mean, just, yeah, just so much. So anyway, we can support that. I know you mentioned a couple other things in self-care that you promote yoga, hypnotherapy, even.

Speaker #1
Yes.

Speaker #0
Tell me a little bit about, I don’t, because I’m not that familiar with the relationship between yoga and menopausal symptoms or, I mean, I know, I know the overall theme of just.

Speaker #1
getting our stress levels down is so it’s vital right it’s just relaxing breathing you mentioned before is there’s research on yoga and menopause there’s a lot of research on uh pranayama which is the deep breathing uh and and the symptoms of uh so so stress is a huge symptom right um of menopause sleep We know that sleep is chronic fatigue. All these are symptoms. Sleep is huge, right? We can’t sleep at night. So some of the yoga postures and even breathing exercises can help us calm down and also help us sleep. For example, I’ll just give you an example of one breathing exercise. It’s called B-Breath. And B-Breath is nothing but you take these thumbs and you close your ears. close your eyes and then you chant om chanting om will help calm down your nervous system and help you sleep so simple breathing exercise if if women can do at night you know few an hour before and and you notice the difference and it has direct um it has research evidence all that Another practice I will share with you, an Ayurveda practice, which obviously we cannot do by ourselves at night, is that when you lie down, it’s called Shirodhara. So what they do is they pour lukewarm or hot oil onto your head right here on your forehead. In fact, not on the head right here. This is the chakra. Right. If you know the chakras. So this right there, they’re pouring the hot oil for like 45 minutes and it has direct. correlation with calming our nervous system, helping us sleep. In fact, they prescribe it for people who have issues with insomnia and sleep issues. So these are simple therapies that I don’t think a lot of women know about these therapies that I’m talking about, that we can start incorporating. There’s certain yoga asanas or postures that can help us calm down. For example, yoga nidra is another one. you’re neither sleeping you’re not awake it’s basically guided meditation you can say that right yoga nidra so so that’s another one yoga nidra is very easy to do at night or whenever you feel for 10 minutes you turn on the yoga nidra it’ll help you calm down and some of the other yoga postures are weight bearing right we are using our body weight if you think about it like you know downward dogs upward dog all those dogs right so so it Imagine when we’re doing downward dog, right? Everybody knows downward dog. So the blood flow is happening towards your head. And wherever the blood flow is there in our body, that part of the body gets, right, accentuated, helps us calm down. It’s a grounding pose, as an example. Surya Namaskar, sun salutations is composed. It has over 12 poses. You know, it’s almost like a complete exercise. So yoga is great. It has so much research. Oh my god, it’s like a ton of research on breathing exercises that I talked about. Yoga postures, in fact, a combination of yoga postures with the breathing exercises and the meditation practices can certainly help. the menopausal symptoms. There’s a ton of research on that and I’m happy to share it after our podcast as well.

Speaker #0
Sure. Yeah. Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’m actually going to a yoga meditation class tonight.

Speaker #1
Oh, okay.

Speaker #0
And I haven’t thought it a long time. So I’m really happy to be going, really looking forward to it. But I, you know, I think my point is that I, once it goes like out of my radar, you know, the holidays were just here. And once it like kind of I mean, I’m the first to admit, I don’t have a regular yoga practice. I know it’s so beneficial, though, you know, and so my question to and maybe this is just I don’t even know if you can answer this, but, you know, like but but you did mention culture being culturally sensitive. So I know in in this country, in the United States, I mean, we are so busy, right? We were like women. We’re like busy as like a badge of honor. So we’re just running from here to there and no one who has time for yoga. And like, you know, even 10 minutes before going to bed, yoga, like might feel like too much because you’re on your computer and on your phone. And, and so, so tell me a little, I mean, so it’s just a good reminder just to like, you know, we got to, we have to slow down, really have to like, that’s probably the most important. thing that you can do, you know, while you’re in perimenopause and menopause is slowing down and just breathing and just relaxing a little bit. But talk to me about this like culturally sensitive piece of your app, because I know you’ve mentioned it once, you know, once or twice, I saw it on, you know, when I was looking up the app. So tell me a little bit more about that.

Speaker #1
Yeah, so most of us think that perimenopause, menopause is one size fit all. It’s not like that. First of all, it’s different for each and every woman. But then the other thing is, depending on your ethnic background, perimenopause symptoms and the age of the menopause, when you reach menopause, could be completely different. So I’ll just give you an example. For example, Latino and Black women, they reach menopause. in 47-48, average age, and we’re talking about average age here, earlier than most of the Caucasian women. The average age is 51-52, but Latino and African-American women reach around 47-48, could be their lifestyle is attributed to that, could be their obesity levels are a little higher on these women. And these women also have higher rate of chronic conditions, which we earlier talked about. And some of things could be, you can see that, you know, their hormones are getting depleted earlier than it should be. So that also could be a factor. I mean, the research hasn’t found a direct correlation, but there is enough research that’s talking about the chronic conditions are higher in this segment of these two ethnic groups in the United States. Right. That is one of the examples I’m talking about, the cultural sensitivity. Now, if you talk about some of the Asian women, South Asian women, the Japanese women, because you talked a bit about soyers, they have soy in their food. You know, they’re eating tofu and so much soy that they grow up with. Now, they don’t have as severe symptoms as some of the other women we are talking about because of their lifestyle and other things. Their symptoms are different. Their symptoms are not necessarily hot flashes. Hot flashes is one of the key symptoms for African-American and Latino women. And it’s not so in the Japanese women, as an example. Now, if you talk about Indian women in India, not necessarily here, I don’t have the data for United States of all the ethnic groups because it’s very hard to find. So most of these data is coming from like Japanese women in Japan, like I talked about, but Latino and African-American are here in the United States. Indian women in India reach menopause in mid-40s, like 45, 46. That’s like, oh my God, six years before an average age. So now they are more at the risk of early menopause. 10% of these women are reaching early menopause in the late 30s. That is alarming and scary because now the rate of the chronic conditions we talked about is going to be higher. Now, if you look at the United States data here, 80% of the women over 55 have one chronic condition, one chronic condition, 80% of us. So can you imagine living if you’re 55 years old and you’re going to live until 85 and you’re going to be in the rest 30 years.

Speaker #0
not enjoying your quality of life, but thinking about your chronic condition all the time and you can’t work. And now what kind of quality of life are you going to have? And you talked about, you know, we have a badge of honor. We’d like to be busy, but we don’t want to be busy thinking about our chronic condition after we reach a certain age,

Speaker #1
right?

Speaker #0
And that’s what the data says. 80% of us have one chronic condition.

Speaker #1
That’s yeah, that’s a That’s a great way to look at it. I didn’t even consider that, but especially from the cultural standpoint that the different ages that women, depending on their ethnic background, go into menopause. And then that opens you up for even more years of dealing with chronic conditions.

Speaker #0
Yeah, and cancer women who are unfortunately cancer survivors, you know, they have a forced menopause, right, because they have cancer. So now they can enter into menopause earlier. And they’re 40s if someone has breast cancer or any kind of cancer. So now you have to live more using, you know, living with the cancer. And then you need a natural alternative to hormones, which we were talking about earlier, because they probably cannot take hormones, especially the women who are cancer survivors. So they need natural alternatives to hormone therapy. So there’s a lot of, it’s actually very complicated, much complicated than when I started working on it.

Speaker #1
I imagine that, right, you probably had a good idea of just having the self-care app and then things. probably unfolded, right? The more, I mean, you can go down a rabbit hole of just all of the things, but I, this is, yeah, this is something really interesting to think about is just the different ethnicities and the different rates of menopause, which then opens you up to chronic conditions. So I’m curious, I mean, I happen to be. a fan of hormones, of hormone replacement. It’s helped me a lot. So I, and I know that the research now shows that it’s, you know, there was that study done back in the 2000s that showed hormones were supposedly dangerous. That’s been debunked.

Speaker #0
Yes. Yes.

Speaker #1
Do you feel, and this is, I’m just asking your opinion, you know, but that hormones have a place in. in the menopause transition?

Speaker #0
Absolutely, yes. Absolutely. If you talk to medical doctors, I was interviewing one of the medical doctors and he explained the exact same logic that we are talking about, that how the hormone depletion is leading so many women into nursing homes. You know, the fall they have as they grow older, the bone mass is going down, right? And they can’t walk, right? They can’t walk and all the assisted living. I mean, he had this whole idea of how he can eradicate this assisted living industry by giving hormones to every single woman, right? It’s the same. Yeah. So absolutely, yes. Hormones have a huge, huge place. It’s just, I think you need, there’s so many different type of hormone therapies that are available. So you need a very highly qualified person. You know, not everyone in the medical industry understands the hormones. So different type of hormones. So different hormones like regular hormone therapy, then there is bioidentical hormone, then there is body identical hormones. There’s so many layers with the hormone therapy that we haven’t reached there. Absolutely, there is a place we are just. Now on self-care, and then we are reaching to the next level of the personalized herbs and supplements. And then after that, once we come here, we want to offer the right type of hormones, not the hormones that are produced in the lab. There are hormones that use yams to produce the hormones and they’re body identical hormones. so they don’t have the issues that when the study came out in 1970s that the hormone therapy can lead to. cancer, for example, right? And at that time, also, remember, we talked about the ratio of the estrogen and progesterone. So that is also, when it’s getting administered, it’s very important. important that we maintain that balance. In other words, you just can’t take an estrogen patch and say, oh yeah, I’m cool. So there’s a lot of nuances to the hormone therapy and we as a company haven’t reached there. That’s all I’m saying. We are still in the phase one and then we are finishing the phase two. We haven’t reached, when we get to the hormone therapy, we want to make sure we go deep into it and offer the right type of hormones.

Speaker #1
Yeah, that sounds, that sounds. Great. I mean, there is so much misinformation. This is the misinformation from the medical community. I mean, like I had I had originally said that when I first started having symptoms, perimenopausal symptoms in my 40s. I mean, my my doctors really were clueless.

Speaker #0
Yeah.

Speaker #1
No one said the word perimenopause to me. No one said, let’s talk hormones or your hormone. No one. So I was very confused for a long time. So. Yes, there’s a lot of misinformation. There’s a lot of women who don’t want to get traditional hormones. Bioidentical feels safer to them. And so, yeah, it’s building. I think the recognition of just menopause in general is definitely becoming more into the mainstream. But you’re, you know… what you’re doing, focusing on the self-care is still, that’s always going to be at the base of everything. Hormones are no miracle cure. They’re not a miracle cure. They certainly can be helpful, but they’re not a miracle. So we have to hit it from all these angles, right? The diet, food, what we eat, how we sleep, exercise, all of that.

Speaker #0
Yeah. Just because you’ve taken hormone therapy, that doesn’t mean that you stop. you start eating all the junk food that doesn’t give you the you know right so so you still need self-care self-care is something that’s going to be the baseline so we decided um to start at the baseline since we are not medical doctors here uh as i as you know so we wanted to start at the baseline of self-care self-awareness as step number one then start progressing into the other steps which are, you know, quite, like hormone therapy needs lab testing, so many details. So we wanted to start with the baseline and then go to the personalized and then say, okay, what can we go next?

Speaker #1
Yeah, well, that sounds really exciting. And I know, right now, while we’re recording this, it’s you had said that it’s going to be your you will be launching in about a month.

Speaker #0
Yes, yes. Okay.

Speaker #1
So by the time I think this goes live, you will have launched already. Because we’re recording this a few weeks beforehand. So I’m really excited for this and excited to see all of the resources on your platform. And I’m sure that many, many other women will be looking forward to this, too. Because like I said, I feel like it’s just the recognition of menopause symptoms, self-care around it is like just blooming right now. So good timing.

Speaker #0
Yeah, it hasn’t been, it has been, I should say, four years in the making. So it just happens to be now suddenly people are talking about it. But when we started, you know, working on this at that time, it was quite a taboo and nobody wanted to talk about it. We started talking about it two years back. But before that, we were not seeing menopause. We were seeing holistic care. So then now we want to be very specific. So it’s good that The press is talking about it. There are entertainers, actresses who are talking about it because they’re also in the same phase. And our moms never talked about it because I think that was a different generation. So our generation is educated and they want to talk about it. They want to bring it out and open. So it’s really good timing for us to be looking at so many different options that women can start using for self-care.

Speaker #1
Yes. Yeah. Menopause does not come with a user manual, right? There’s no directions like you turn 40. Here you go. Like, so it’s yeah. So it’s people like you who are just getting word out. And, you know, and that’s what I’m trying to do on the podcast.

Speaker #0
And yes,

Speaker #1
you know, so it’s not so taboo. Right. And then hopefully that translates, you know, going just full circle back into the workplace and that people don’t have to keep it a secret or quit their jobs because they feel like they can’t. physically, you know, handle it because of their menopause symptoms.

Speaker #0
Oh, yeah. I mean, the data is quite alarming if you look at the workplace. But more than 56 percent of the women don’t feel comfortable talking about it at work. You know, they would rather suck it up in the sense like, OK, they don’t feel comfortable talking to their colleagues or the HR. So I think at workplace now I was reading an article that Microsoft has started to offer these benefits here in the United States. UK is far, far… advanced than us. UK, they’ve been working on it for the last 10 years. So most of the workplaces know about menopause, but in United States, it’s just beginning. So big companies like, you know, Microsoft and these companies, when they start talking, that’s when the smaller guys will start taking notice because the smaller guys right now, if you, I talked to so many of them. They say, oh no, menopause. Oh my God. This is not on our agenda. This is, we have more important things to do. So, you know, that is the, that is overall has been the kind of the mood, but I think things are changing because corporates, guess what? They cannot ignore 50% of the workforce they have are women over 45. Can you ignore that? No, it’s, it’s going to impact your productivity.

Speaker #1
Right. and like smart women, you know, who are, who. want to be working, you know, and not quitting their jobs because of a menopause. And so really looking for support.

Speaker #0
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.

Speaker #1
Well, Amita, thank you so much. This has been really informative. I really looking forward to your nourish doc app, and I will put all of your information in the show notes so people can also find that. And I look forward to just seeing how it progresses.

Speaker #0
Thank you so much. People like you who are helping to bring this topic out. So I really want to thank you for inviting me as a guest. Thank you so much.

Speaker #1
And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out. on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.