What Are Peptides and Why Is Everyone Talking About Them?

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the latest wellness trends like peptides and the pressure to conform to springtime dieting? Join host Heather Carey in this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories as she navigates the seasonal shift into spring and its profound impact on our eating habits and health. As a seasoned nutritionist and chef, Heather shares her personal food journey, reflecting on the confusion surrounding peptides and their growing popularity in the weight loss and anti-aging arenas.

Women, especially those in midlife, often grapple with the anxiety of changing bodies and the relentless tide of food fads and trends. Heather empathizes with this struggle, recognizing the emotional turmoil that can accompany the search for effective solutions amidst the noise of diet culture. She urges listeners to slow down and make intentional choices about food, steering clear of quick fixes that often lead to frustration and disappointment.

In her candid discussion, Heather opens up about her own health challenges, including a recent hip surgery, and emphasizes the importance of respecting our bodies’ unique paces. She advocates for a return to simpler, nourishing eating habits, highlighting the joy of cooking and eating without the burden of overthinking. This episode is a gentle reminder that embracing real food and mindful eating practices can empower women to reclaim their health and well-being.

With insights on peptides and their implications for women’s health, Heather also delves into the myths surrounding weight loss, menopause health, and the Mediterranean diet. Listeners will gain valuable nutrition advice, learn about healthy lifestyle choices, and discover how to cultivate positive food beliefs that resonate with their personal journeys. Through her expertise, Heather offers practical cooking techniques and encourages sustainable eating habits that honor family food traditions and cultural influences.

Whether you’re navigating the complexities of midlife nutrition, exploring hormone therapy and nutrition, or simply seeking to enjoy the pleasures of cooking, this episode is packed with empowering insights. Join Heather as she champions body positivity, emotional resilience, and the importance of nourishing our bodies with real food. Tune in to embrace your agency in health decisions, and let go of the diet myths that no longer serve you. It’s time to celebrate the beauty of food, the joy of cooking, and the power of nourishing our bodies in a way that feels authentic and fulfilling.

Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your relationship with food and discover the joy of healthy eating. Listen to Real Food Stories and embark on a personal nutrition journey that prioritizes your well-being and happiness. Remember, it’s not just about the food you eat; it’s about the stories you create around it.

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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. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Real Food Stories podcast. I hope you’re all well and feeling good this spring. Now before I get into today’s episode, a few housekeeping notes that I just want to share with you. I want to mention something I am doing on April 15th, 2026, because it actually ties directly into what I have been thinking so much about lately. I’m hosting a very casual talk in my well-nourished woman community called Spring Eating, What Works and What Doesn’t. And the reason I wanted to do this is because spring always feels for me like a time when we’re supposed to switch things up with how we’re eating, how we’re moving, our energy. There’s this natural feeling of wanting a do-over, right? I mean, we’ve been in like, I don’t know. about you, but I have been in like the longest winter of my life where I live. The weather starts to warm up, the light changes, and then almost immediately there’s this underlying pressure though that like creeps in, whether we want to admit it or not about getting back into bathing suits, wearing shorts, just feeling a certain way in our bodies again, right? And there can be a ton of pressure around this. I believe me, I’ve lived this for years. And right on cue, all the messaging starts showing up in social media and on the internet about detoxes and juice cleanses and clean eating resets, and all those plans to get you back on track, usually pretty radical and totally unreasonable. And believe me, in my lifetime, I have done all of it. I have tried it. I have experimented with it. I’ve even taught versions of these things over the years. And while I do think there are moments where being more intentional with how you’re eating can be helpful, a lot of what’s out there right now just adds more rules and more pressure to get it right. And honestly, it just adds to a lot of confusion, which we just don’t need more of right now. Because what starts as, I just want to feel better. quickly turns into overthinking every meal or questioning every choice and wondering if you’re doing enough or you’re doing it right and never feeling like you are doing it right. And if you’ve ever felt that way this time of year, like you’re trying to eat healthier, you’re just trying to do the right things, but you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the noise, you’re definitely not alone. So… In this talk I’m giving in a couple of days, I really just want to have a conversation about what I have been seeing, what I’ve been doing myself this spring, and what actually seems to really help so you can feel good and not feel pressured and confused. Because we are in midlife, right? We are midlife women, and there is a lot of confusion and noise out there. When things don’t always respond the way that you they used to in our bodies, right? That can even add some extra pressure. So in my talk, which is going to be super casual, I want you to come and bring your questions. I want to have a conversation. I will share also a few simple real life recipes that I actually am making right now and love. Nothing complicated, nothing extreme, just sort of to ease you back into spring eating, get us out of that heavy winter eating, and we’ll keep it casual. So I want you to make a cup of tea or pour a mocktail if that’s your thing and just have a real conversation about it. The link will be in my show notes. It is this April 15th at 7 p.m. Eastern time. So I hope that you can show up and we can meet online. Okay, it’s April. And for as long as I can remember, this time of year has always meant something very specific to me. There is a shift that happens when we come out of winter. I mean, this is just a natural shift, right? This is how we live the seasons and with the circadian rhythms and just everything that nature provides for us, right? The light starts changing, the air feels different, and I always feel this natural pull back into my kitchen to just start doing things differently. I’m letting go of the heavy winter stews. I’m into all my new spring vegetables and planting and gardening and I’m starting to think about lighter meals, fresher food, heading to the farmer’s market, cooking a little bit more, just naturally moving back into that rhythm without forcing it. And historically, this has also been a time when I feel a little more like myself again in my body. It’s just Things happen for me in April. Lots of significant things have happened for me. I’ve lost weight more effortlessly in April, or I’ve started my weight loss journey. My health just feels better. Everything just feels better for me. So not in a big dramatic way, not in a like this is the moment I fix everything kind of a way, but more like a quiet shifting. Maybe I clean things up a little bit. Maybe I lose a few pounds without trying so hard. Maybe I just feel a little lighter and more energized. There’s always been a kind of a rhythm to it for me. And the thing is, this year, though, has been very, very different for me. I went into this spring thinking I would be in a completely different place physically. I thought I would be moving more, cooking more, getting back into my normal routines, feeling stronger, feeling like I was really Thank you. rebuilding some momentum. And instead, I’ve had to slow down in a way that I really did not expect and has kind of thrown me a little bit for a loop. I had a hip surgery in December, and I thought for all reasons that I would be healed by now. I mean, I almost planned a huge trip to go away, a hiking trip. And luckily I didn’t do that yet because I just could see how my healing was going and it wasn’t going as fast as I wanted it to. I had to really slow down my brain a little bit and reshift my expectations because standing for long periods of time is still really hard for me, which means that cooking, which is usually something that feels so easy and natural to me, has felt you like a lot more effort than I want it to be. I’ve had to rely on my husband in ways that I am not used to. I am used to being in charge of my kitchen. And he has come and stepped in in a very positive and great way. But it’s all been very humbling for me. And honestly, it’s been really frustrating for me at times, because I’m not patient. I am very impatient with healing. And I have just had to learn the art of slowing down. So it. if you know me at all, you know that the slowing down is not my natural speed, especially in the spring. Spring for me has always been, let’s go, let’s get outside, let’s clean things up, let’s garden, let’s cook, let’s move, let’s feel better. It has just been my favorite time of the year. So instead, I have just had to pivot and I’ve had to ease in a lot. And I’ve had to accept that things are going to happen. more slowly than I want them to. And that just has not been that easy for me. So there’s a part of me that still wants to push, that still wants to say, okay, it’s April, let’s go. It’s time to get back on track and ready to shift my eating and, you know, really just take a hard push. And then there’s another part of me that knows that if I do push too hard, I’m going to set myself back because I’ve tried it and it’s not working for me. I’ve had to really learn a big lesson in slowing down. So I’m in this in-between space of wanting to move forward, but also needing to respect where I actually am. And I think that’s part of why this whole conversation that I want to talk about today has been hitting me the way that it has. Because while I’ve been in this slower, more limited version of myself, I somehow found myself going down this rabbit hole of wellness content, because I’ve had some time on my hands to do that, but I’ve been seeing things, and you know I have talked about this many times on this podcast, that when I see something that sounds… not right in the wellness world, I am going to do my investigating because it drives me crazy that there’s so many wellness influencers who have absolutely zero credentials and no education are selling stuff that is not regulated. Because we women are in a very vulnerable time right now. And we are very receptive to buying things that might not make sense, but can give you the quote unquote easier path out. You know what I’m talking about. You click on one person’s post in Instagram and then all of a sudden you’re stuck in algorithm hell, right? You’re getting a million other posts for this. So I know that I’m feeling impatient with my healing and here is what I also know. Millions of women are impatient with taking the slow route to losing weight and gaining muscle, anti-aging, beautiful skin, right? We all want these results. Because we’re changing so much right now. And we want these results and we want them with little effort. And we see women on the internet doing this with little effort. And I understand when you’re under pressure to be dieting and losing weight and there’s a quick fix out. I get it. I get the temptation of this. So I get this feeling. I get the confusion. Let’s pause though and slow down for a minute. Okay, so in that spirit, I started getting inundated with people’s posts on peptides. And if you have not heard of peptides yet, believe me, you will. This is the latest in wellness. I’m going to call it nonsense right now because these are not FDA approved medications. I don’t even know how people are able to sell them. Something’s going to give soon. But let me give you a little back. on what peptides are and why this is so alarming to me. Because I think that part can get really confusing, right? We don’t even know what peptides are, but these women on the internet are selling them like they are the biggest miracle to your health and your energy and all of it. Okay. Peptides are essentially small chains of amino acids. Now amino acids, I’ve talked about this in other podcasts, are the building blocks of proteins. Okay, so we have essential amino acids, all sorts of amino acids that make up together make up protein. So we can get protein, right? We get protein from foods and they’re naturally occurring in our body and they act like messengers when they chain up together and create a peptide. They act like messengers that tell your body to do certain things. Some peptides are used in medicines and are FDA approved. Now, probably the most well-known peptide right now are GLP-1 medications, right? Think Ozempic, like the ones used for blood sugar and weight loss, okay? These all fall into that category. Now, we all have the GLP-1 peptides naturally occurring in our bodies. These peptides give us the signal that we have had enough to eat, right? Our fullness and our hunger signals. But in our bodies, naturally, they occur in very tiny amounts. A GLP-1 medication like Ozempic is like a sledgehammer compared to what we naturally make, right? So if our natural GLP-1s are confused in our heart, hunger and our fullness signals are not getting the message, that’s where a medication like Ozempic can come in and help. Another example of a peptide that you definitely know about is insulin. Insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar. Insulin is needed for people if you have type 1 diabetes, right? You have to inject yourself with insulin because you are not making that peptide in your body. Sometimes you’ve… If you have type 2 diabetes, you are also taking insulin, but insulin naturally occurs in our bodies to help regulate blood sugar. So we have many different peptide chains that act as messengers in our bodies. Those are just two of probably the most well-known ones and probably ones that you recognize. So again, we have these peptides that occur in tiny amounts in our bodies. Now, these are peptides that are approved as medicines, right? Insulin or Ozempic. These are approved by the Food and Drug Administration as medications that you get as a drug from your medical doctor. And there are a lot of peptides being talked about online right now, though, that are not FDA approved, that have barely been studied in humans and are being used in a much more experimental way through longevity clinics or wellness providers, which is where things can get a little murky. Okay, I have seen nutritionists, fitness trainers, random wellness gurus, people who call themselves peptide gurus. Regular old people who are just in their 40s and 50s without a single credential are selling these peptides. It is frightening. So yes, you can find them and you can sell your own peptides on the internet right now if you want to. I’m not even sure exactly how this all started, but suddenly I was seeing peptides for everything. And by everything, I mean all the fears. that women in midlife and menopause have. Okay, there’s peptides for weight loss. There’s peptides for menopause symptoms. There’s peptides for anti-aging. There’s peptides in skincare. And it just kept going on and on. There is a peptide for every problem. And all you have to do is inject yourself and your problem’s solved. And at first I thought, okay, this is interesting. I’ve heard about peptides here and there. But the deeper I went, the more I realized that this isn’t just one trend or one person talking about this. This is a much bigger shift in how we are being told to take care of ourselves. And what really struck me wasn’t even the peptides themselves, but it was the messaging. Because when you step back and listen to it, it all starts to sound very, very familiar. It’s the idea that you don’t have to struggle anymore, that we women have been in a lifelong struggle with our weight and our diets and what to eat and the confusion. It’s this idea that you do not have to struggle anymore, that you don’t have to fight your body, that if things aren’t working, it’s not because you’re doing something wrong. It’s because you just haven’t found the right injectable yet. And now, finally There’s something that can help you, something smarter, more advanced, something that gets to the root cause. One of my favorite all-time wellness lines around the root cause. And I want to say this very clearly because I think it matters. I understand why this messaging is so appealing. I really do. Because I don’t think that women have a discipline problem. I know they don’t. I think women are just… exhausted. I think they’ve spent decades being told that the answer is always to try harder, that you are doing something wrong. You have failed the diet. You can’t figure it out, that you need to just eat less. You need to move more and you need to be more consistent. You need more willpower. You need to be more disciplined. And most women I know have done that and were exhausted. I get it. They have followed the plans. They’ve tried all the… crazy diets and they’ve shown up over and over again to try again. And then midlife hits and menopause and things then can go really awry. You really feel like you are completely out of your control. Your body’s changing, your weight redistributes, your sleep is disrupted, your stress is higher, and suddenly things that used to work don’t work the same way anymore. And instead of acknowledging how frustrating and disorienting that is, the message often becomes that you just need to double down and be even more disciplined. And at some point, that stops feeling motivated and starts feeling absolutely impossible. And I understand that. That’s the moment I think that we are in right now with peptides, supplements, herbs. I mean, it’s just out of control. It’s also the moment where the wellness industry steps in with something new. Because when you’re that tired, physically, mentally, and emotionally, something that promises to make it easier is just going to land, right? Right? I mean, I understand it. I’ve been doing, I’ve been a rabbit hole of research, looking at some of these wellness influencers, and they’re saying to me, look at me, look at what I’ve done. All I’m doing is injecting myself and I have never been happier in my life. I mean, it’s really appealing. I understand it. There’s something that says you don’t have to fight your hunger all day. That’s going to land with you. Something that says your body is not broken. It just needs the right signals, the right support, the right protocol. Yeah, that’s going to resonate. And again, I’m not sitting here thinking people are crazy for being interested in this at all. I’m thinking that this is speaking directly to women who feel stuck and ready for something to finally work. But I also think it’s worth pausing for a minute and asking what’s actually underneath all of this. Because what I’m seeing is a shift. We have gone from food to control. We have gone from nourishment to optimization. And we’ve gone from simple everyday habits to increasingly complicated systems that can sometimes be very dangerous. And I notice it. Even in the language we’re speaking with each other, it’s no longer what am I going to make for dinner tonight? It’s what should I be doing for my metabolism? It’s no longer I feel like something just fresh and light and maybe a salad. It’s how do I regulate my blood sugar perfectly? Or it’s no longer I’m going to cook a meal. It’s what protocol am I following right now? What happened to food? What happened to just getting back to basics? And somewhere along this way, it just got really complicated and very clinical and very far removed from everyday life. And I think that’s where I start to feel wildly uncomfortable. Not because there isn’t a place for medical treatments or more advanced tools. There definitely is. There’s a place for GLP-1s. I’m happy for anyone who has been suffering and feel like these medications have changed their life. But the message is starting to sound like you don’t have to engage with your body anymore. You don’t have to figure out what works for you. You have to participate in the process. You can just follow the right system, take the right things. Everything will be taken care of for the right price also, by the way. Okay, these are not cheap. And I don’t know that’s actually what most women really want. I think what they want. is relief. I think what they want is to feel better in their bodies without having to think about it all the time. And I think what they want is not to feel like they are constantly managing themselves. And I understand the pull towards something that promises that, especially right now when I’m sitting here in a body that’s not moving in the way I want it to, not responding in the way I want it to, and not keeping up with the pace that I am used to. There is absolutely a part of me that understands the desire to just make it easier, right? Speed things up. Let’s just get on with this. Let’s lose the weight already to fix it. But I also know from experience that there’s a difference between support and there’s a difference between outsourcing and paying someone a lot of money for unregulated supplements. And I think that’s the line that’s just getting blurry right now. Because on one hand, we have this message that says, you need more discipline, you need more effort, and you need more control. And on the other hand, we have this message that says, you don’t need to do anything. We’ll fix it for you. We have the solution, and it’s easy, and we want easy. But neither one of these extremes feels quite right. So then what is the middle ground? And the word that I’ve been thinking about, and I keep coming back to, lately is agency. It’s not discipline in the sense of forcing yourself to do things that don’t feel sustainable. And it’s not giving up your role in your own care entirely, but something in the middle where you actually feel like you have a say in how you take care of yourself. Agency looks like being able to make choices that work for your life right now, not the life you think you should be living. It looks like being able to adjust when things aren’t going the way you expected, instead of pushing harder out of total frustration. And it looks like asking yourself whether something is actually helping you feel better, or whether it’s just something you feel like you should be doing because everyone else is. And honestly, that’s the place I’m in right now with myself. I’m not moving as much as I thought I would be. I’m not cooking as much as I want to be. My husband has been taking over. I mean, I am the chef in my family, just FYI. But he has been doing a great job. But I’m used to doing the cooking. That’s my role. That’s what I love to do. So things are slower than I would like. you Instead of trying to force myself into some version of spring that I’m not ready for yet, I’m learning how to just ease into it. And I don’t love it, but I think that’s what I need right now. I know that’s what I need right now. And when I zoom back out, it brings me back to where I started. It’s April. This is the season that has always been about renewal, about coming back to life. in a way that feels natural and supportive. And maybe the most helpful thing is in adding another layer of complexity, as in going out onto the internet and buying some unregulated, non-FDA approved medications called peptides that we really know very, very little about. Maybe this is just about coming back to something simpler and enjoying. And just feeling the joy of spring. Maybe it’s going to the store and buying food that actually looks good. What do you want to eat? We still have to eat food. I just don’t see it anywhere on the internet. I mean, I’m telling you, I’ve been doing my research. It’s all about biohacking and maximizing supplements and supplement stacking and peptide stacking and… What happened to slowing down and cooking a meal when you have the energy for it? Or sitting down and eating without overthinking it? Letting things just unfold a little more slowly than you want them to. Because I don’t think we were meant to manage ourselves this much. And I don’t think taking care of ourselves was ever supposed to feel this complicated. But if you talk to somebody on the internet, this is not complicated. This is supposed to make your life so much easier. Does it? Now, peptides are not without side effects, right? They’re not without cost and they’re not without unregulation. I would personally never inject myself with something that was not fully regulated and approved of by the FDA, which is our governing body for medications and drugs. So that’s your warning. But I think this is a conversation that is to be continued. this is not going to die. Peptides are around. You are going to see them more and more. And hopefully they will get some regulation and we’ll just see what happens. But I’m definitely going to continue this conversation. And I hope to see you in my talk in a couple of days. And we can talk about this more. Please bring your questions. And I hope you have a great day, everybody. Bye for now. 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.