Episode 22: The Truth About Fertility, Lab Work, and Being Told You're "Fine" with Lauren Mallers
Why Most Lab Tests Aren’t Built for Women—and What You Can Do About It
Most women don’t realize their lab work isn’t built for them.
In this eye-opening episode, Stephanie sits down with women’s health coach Lauren Mallers, whose 15-year journey from digital advertising to functional health exposes just how flawed and outdated our current medical system can be—especially when it comes to supporting women.
After facing her own struggles with fertility, burnout, and gut dysfunction, Lauren discovered firsthand how often women are told they're "fine" simply because their labs fall within the so-called normal range. But as Lauren explains, “normal” doesn’t always mean optimal—especially for women navigating complex hormonal and physiological changes throughout their lives.
Together, Stephanie and Lauren dive deep into:
Why conventional medicine often misses the mark for women
What deeper testing can reveal about hormone imbalance, gut health, and fertility
How everyday factors like stress, light exposure, and movement impact egg quality and digestion
The difference between symptom management and root cause healing
They also unpack why so many women feel disconnected from their bodies, how we've lost touch with generational wellness wisdom, and why following blanket advice (like the outdated food pyramid) isn’t enough to support women through big life transitions like pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause.
If you’re trying to conceive, navigating hormonal shifts, or simply tired of being told “everything looks fine,” this episode offers a fresh, empowering perspective—and hope that real healing is possible. With the right tools, support, and a deeper understanding of your body, you can finally stop settling for a system that wasn’t built with you in mind.
Links & Resources
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Would you like to chat more about this episode's topic? I would love to continue our conversation over on Instagram! @wellmindedcounseling
I wrote a book! Becoming Mommy: Aligning with yourself and finding your voice during pregnancy and motherhood, available at all major retailers . View on Amazon
Where to find more from Redefining Us:
Website: wellmindedcounseling.com/redefining-us-pod
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Welcome to Redefining Us, where we explore sexuality, identity, motherhood, and mental health to help women thrive authentically. Let's break free from roles that limit us and create a life where you can truly be yourself. Well, I'm so excited that you're here today, Lauren, to share with us more about what you're working on and the fertility journey and health coaching and all things like that. So welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Yes. Let's just like dive right in. I like to ask almost all of the guests what inspired you to do this work because I think the stories behind why we do things are just as interesting as what we're doing. So yeah, I'd love for you to share with our listeners.
Speaker 01
00:47
Yeah. So I have kind of like a I don't know, a 15-year health journey of myself that really inspired this. But I look back and even in my really young days, I've always been interested in food. My mom owned grocery stores growing up, so it was always fun. Part of what I was thinking about was food and how it impacted us. But yeah, my background is actually in digital advertising. I spent some time at an agency and then I moved to Google on the sales side of things, but quickly got very burnt out from that type of work and had a lot of health issues going on that Nobody could really tell me what was happening. Like my labs looked fine. My colonoscopies looked fine. Everything looked fine, but I felt horrible. And I knew that something was wrong. I've just always been somebody to not accept no for an answer and dig in and find the answers that I needed myself if nobody was helping me. And through, I had bouts of IBS that were impacting me that impacted my fertility journey when I was trying to conceive my two kids. I had multiple chemical pregnancies and then miscarriages. And I just seemingly, I had all of this health coach certification background and was like, I feel like I'm doing all of the right things. Like why? Why? Why me? Why can't I get pregnant? Why am I having all of these health issues? And so I really just took my passion for the health space, health and wellness space, got a ton of certifications. I am a lifelong learner and just always want to know more. And my data background, so digital advertising, it was all about crunching numbers and figuring out what was driving the needle for my large marketing clients. And I kind of merged those two together to create Calibrate Health and Wellness that takes... human data and crunches those numbers, for lack of a better term, so that I can help women get the answers that they need about their body. Very cool.
Speaker 00
02:46
Yeah. As someone who doesn't know much about the numbers of health, what are the numbers that you think are valuable for women to look at when they're looking at fertility?
Speaker 01
02:57
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, definitely our... are like progesterone and estrogen numbers. Thyroid can play a big role. But what I've found in everything that I do is that the hormones are usually a symptom of other things going on. So it's like, we can treat the hormones. There are synthetic hormones that you can give if you're low in one or high in another to sort of balance things out. But usually hormone imbalance is a result of other things going on in the body. It could be chronic stress. It could be gut dysbiosis. It could just be a stressful lifestyle that you're not giving yourself the basically the inputs that your body needs to function on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis. So those hormone numbers can tell us a little bit more about what's going on underneath the surface so that we can really get to the bottom and create true healing. I
Speaker 00
03:54
would imagine that a lot of people, when they see their numbers spelled out for them, they might be a little either A, taken aback, like, wow, my numbers are so off, or B, The other flip side of that, I feel like people wouldn't express is this makes a lot of sense. I feel like these numbers reflect actually how I'm feeling.
Speaker 01
04:14
Yeah, it's really validating. At least that's what I experienced. So my health journey started with my gut issues, like then manifested into hormone issues that impacted my fertility. But I remember getting my first functional lab work results back and being like, oh my gosh, feeling just so validated. Nobody had ever looked at those types of numbers. In those tests, they're really looking at what microbial makeup does your gut have? Do we have an overgrowth of candida? Do we have an overgrowth of bad bacteria? Are there things like H. pylori and other chronic infections that can wreak havoc? And my experience just in the conventional lab Dr. Anneke Vandenbroek, Ph.D.:
Unknown
:
Speaker 01
05:17
invasive of a test to see if there's something physically wrong with you. And most, you know, like it can be fine. And then you look under the hood a little bit more and you
Speaker 00
you
Speaker 01
05:25
find what's going on.
Speaker 00
05:27
I had another guest on and they were talking about Western medicine has its roots in emergency medicine. So a lot of the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 01
06:02
Yeah. I find myself getting frustrated a lot of the times. Like, why don't we know this stuff? Like, why aren't doctors talking about it? But you're right. They're trained in fixing really acute, serious issues. This conventional medicine wasn't set up to handle the chronic disease epidemic that we're experiencing. And it was going back to the functional ranges of what's good and what's not good in your lab work that you are seeing, even from your blood markers. Somebody explained it to me. If the ranges were so narrow, because they have this really wide range of what's normal, and so you could be at the low end and they'll tell you you're fine when maybe that's not optimal. But if our ranges were so narrow in the conventional medicine space, we'd have a lot of people being treated with medication that might not need that medication. So it would cause a ripple effect of other issues. So I get why it's set up the way that it is. But I think that there's this place for we need conventional medicine. It is lifesaving. It helps with a lot of things and a lot of people. But we also need to help people prevent getting sick in the first place. And we don't have that preventative medicine world yet. figured out yet, I don't think. And
Speaker 00
07:17
I feel like, unfortunately, it gets dismissed often as like B2 woo-woo or new age or something. But when you really look at the history of like functional medicine or more like holistic medicine, this is what people were practicing in their homes as part of like their culture and as part of their family, I don't know, family lore or something like this. The shared culture. information was just like passed down from generation to generation. And then somewhere along the lines, we just decided that that wasn't important anymore. And so it just flipped over to everyone paying attention to conventional medicine. I'm not a history of medicine person, so I'm not entirely sure of all the details, but I imagine something happened that interrupted the shared base knowledge from being widespread. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 01
08:09
I think it honestly goes back to like the industrialization of our country and people moved away from their families and went to cities and that family system sort of was disrupted at the root of all of it. So it is really interesting. And our lifestyles changed in that too. We were no longer outside homes. Manning the crimps in those situations where underneath fluorescent lights and inside all the time and we are grabbing convenient. I mean, we still like this is just modern day life. We grab convenient foods. We don't spend a lot of time cooking for ourselves. And that's where like the root of a lot of chronic issues just go back to comes back to nutrient deficiencies or a buildup of bad things in our body that our body just can't expel on their own that it would have been able to do. given the right environment. Yeah,
Speaker 00
09:02
this is making me think of a conversation that I had with a client of like, we as a society do these things to move forward and progress and we push the needle forward and we don't always know what the residual side effects of those things will be. And sometimes we're shocked by the residual side effects of them because like, wait, this was supposed to be a good thing. And then now 20 years later, we're like, holy crap, that's actually horrible for you. She gave the example of asbestos, which I know is like a silly example almost, but in The Wizard of Oz, when they're in the poppy fields, what they're running through is asbestos because they thought it was aesthetically pleasing to the shot. And then, you know, now we know asbestos causes cancer. So I don't know. It's just so interesting to think about things that we weren't worried about at all in the past or we thought were just fine now are really hazardous to our health, including the sedentary lifestyle that everyone's grown so accustomed to or, you know, eating processed foods that we've all become so accustomed to. Yeah.
Speaker 01
10:12
Yeah. And you're right. Everything's created with good intentions to make something easier, to make something more efficient or to make something even environmentally friendly thing. Like I'm thinking electric cars, for example, we think we're doing like the greatest thing and there's just, there's a cost to everything, right? Like everything has this cost, whether it's obvious or a hidden cost that you have to figure out later on. But I think like the most important thing it's like be open and willing to kind of change and be Yeah. Yeah. I think it's all about, I'm
Speaker 00
10:47
going to sound cheesy here using the title of the podcast, but it's like redefining what's true right now. Yeah. Because we can't hold the same beliefs that we had in the past to be successful in the moment. So I imagine a lot of the work that you're doing is you're sharing new information or information maybe for the first time with your clients to help them redefine what the relationship with food looks like or redefine what the relationship with movement or yeah, I'd love for you to share what the work that you do with client looks like and how you help them navigate this information that you help them discover.
Speaker 01
11:26
Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the, if I'm finishing up another practicum work right now in women's health specifically and reproductive hormone cycles and things, and one of the most mind-boggling facts is that women weren't allowed in research studies until the 1990s. So a lot of the research that is out there that's being practiced and put into even functional medicine, even woo-woo and holistic medicine is based on men. It's based on what happens when we do this diet to the men in this. And so the other thing too, is it takes, I don't know, I'll probably botch the exact stat, but it takes anywhere from 15 to 17 years for new research to be put into medical practice or become practiced, which maybe you're familiar with in the in the mental health space but it's just wild when we know there is new research and it's just we're not willing to practice it yet until A hundred other studies get published about it. And a lot of it, especially in the food realm, it's more, it's common sense, right? It's eat more whole foods. It's make sure we're focusing on protein first. There's a lot of research now in blood sugar balance being really important to how our hormones are regulated, how our gut functions, but it's not being talked about yet because it's newer research within the last five to 10 years. Yeah.
Speaker 00
12:58
Yeah. I just want to add to that just because I've been doing research on my own for my book about women's health being studied. So even though in the late 80s, early 90s, they began including women in studies, most of the women that they included were actually postmenopausal women. And so there's not even a lot of research about the other 45% plus years of women existing and so yeah I wanted to add that to the conversation of like yes there is research being done but it's just still not enough I think in 2023 the NIH's budget for women's research was only like eight percent of their entire budget I don't know that's just So sad to me, but... Yeah, there's so much catch
Speaker 01
13:50
up to do. It should be a lot more at this point. You kind of, when you are looking at the research, you kind of have to put things together for yourself and make conclusions based on different types of data that you have. Like, you know how the menstrual cycle works, right? We have biological scientific data about what that process looks like in our bodies. And then maybe we have another piece of research over here that says... I don't know, something about this specific part of our cycle. And you have to piece those two things together and make conclusions without more, I don't know, without more studies.
Speaker 00
14:26
Yeah. Well, I'm glad there's people like you out there putting that information together for people because it's a lot of work, I think, for the average woman to spend hours trying to read through research articles to put this information together when they're trying to manage their lives and their family, their work and et cetera, et cetera. So it's important that there's people out there doing this work to help guide women along this journey because it could be really overwhelming trying to piecemeal that. Yeah. And
Speaker 01
14:57
even research aside, I feel like most people, for better or for worse, get their information on TikTok or Instagram now. I did some market research ahead of launching this company and it was like, oh, okay, you right now, everything you're doing for your health is because you saw this on Instagram. And there are a lot of people doing, you know, sharing research and making sure that what they're saying is evidence-based and science-backed. But there's also a lot of just, this is what I eat in a day and it has nothing to do with what I do. to do with anybody else or other than them. And that feels so overwhelming because there's a lot of contradicting information out here. This person feels great on a mostly plant-based vegan diet. And this person's like, you should have 200 grams of protein a day. And it's like, what should I do? It's hard to sift through that. So that's my goal really is to help women based on their current lifestyle and their circumstances and what they like to eat and how much time they have to cook. Let's put together a a plan nutrition wise that works for you so that you can see sustainable change. Yeah.
Speaker 00
16:03
Yeah. All of this is so interesting. When I was pregnant, I went to go see a nutritionist at the hospital recommended because I don't know, my husband was worried that I wasn't getting enough weight or what the baby wasn't getting enough weight anyway. So I went to go see this nutritionist and because I My whole undergrad was based in health sciences. I had taken a nutrition class. So she went over the food pyramid with me in my consult. And I was like, all right, I don't want to diminish the work that you're doing here. Because I imagine there's a ton of people that don't even know this information. But I need more. So it sounds like working with you would maybe help people get more than what the typical... let's go over the food pyramid and what you should be eating out of the food pyramid conversation. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 01
16:58
And the food pyramid, for better or for worse, is so outdated too. And I know they've changed it, but it says it's just, you know, our hands are tied with some of the policies that we have around how we talk about food. Yeah, it's more about It's more about the person's goals, the woman's goals. So for example, I work with a lot of women through hormone transition. So whether they're trying to get pregnant, they're prepping their body for pregnancy, maybe they just came off of hormonal birth control and want to understand their cycles and what their body's doing. They're postpartum and they're just feeling like depleted and don't know why. All of those phases of life have different needs than just an average food pyramid diet. What's good for most is not optimal for certain phases of a woman's life. So yeah, it's really about sharing the information that's going to help them achieve that goal and not sharing the basics if that doesn't matter in the current moment.
Speaker 00
17:55
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I'm sure this woman's excellent at her job. I don't want to diminish her at all. But I walked away feeling like probably could have gotten more out of that moment. But I ended up seeking an individual dietitian who specifically focused on pregnant women's nutrition during that time. But anyways.
Unknown
Yeah.
Speaker 00
18:18
Which I found to be much more helpful and supportive because you looked at my specific lifestyle and my specific needs in that moment. And yeah, Yeah, I imagine even working with you might feel reassuring for some women because I walked away from that conversation feeling like, oh, some of these things that maybe my doctor is saying are just information for me to know, not necessarily things that I need to blame myself for. In my pregnancy, my daughter was measuring like below 10% on weight. And so they were really, they were concerned. I'm going to put that in air quotes for people who aren't watching the video playback of this. And they were like, well, you should just make sure that you're eating well. And so I was like, yeah, of course, I'm going to make sure that I'm eating well as well. That's really important to me. And so, yeah, anyways, it was good to talk to this person that was more from a holistic mindset of what I was going through and from a different point of view than maybe what the hospital dietician went over with me because it didn't feel like you're doing something wrong sort of conversation. And I imagine working with you would probably also feel like that for women who come to work with you in those more even emotional times of life.
Speaker 01
19:41
We don't need, as women, we don't need like another thing to feel bad about. No, it's not a blame game. And it's not like, oh my gosh, you need to be eating breakfast. What are you doing? You're not eating breakfast. That's a huge thing that I see is like, we just, we're busy. We have, I mean, we have kids and sometimes our needs are like And that's what I see a lot from my postpartum clients is that they're just not taking the time to take care of themselves, but it's not about putting blame on them. It's sharing information about why that breakfast meal is so important and brainstorming with them on how could we set your freezer up for more success. Here are the frozen egg bites. You don't even have to prep them. These are the ones you can buy at the store. Let's just get some food in your body and make it work for you and not worry about all of those. I had all of the nuances that comes with nutrition that you see online.
Speaker 00
20:39
It's really interesting. I have a client that went to go see a dietitian and she had shared with them about her breakfast situation. And usually what she ends up doing for breakfast is just eating whatever her toddler doesn't eat. And according to the dietician, that's not quote unquote good enough. And I was like, well, what if rather than seeing that as not quote unquote good enough, you just in the back of your mind, if you know your toddler's going to only eat a portion, why don't you just make enough for him and for you? So have enough that's going to fuel you for breakfast. And she's like, Actually, I'm not a dietitian. This is just like a therapy session. Like, wow, that's a great reframe rather than feeling like I'm somehow a bad person or like not helping my own health by just eating my children's leftovers. Just do a little bit different micro change or let me just make a little bit more. So it's enough for me and for him. And I think that's Yeah, the black and white talk oftentimes can really derail people into this. I'm doing something wrong or I'm not good enough or I'm failing or some negative headspace that doesn't really serve us and actually making change. Totally, totally. And
Speaker 01
21:57
the diet part too, I always feel like adding into the diet, like putting more things on your plate and kind of crowding out some of the, I don't want to say it, food is bad or good. I don't love using those terms, but crowding out the stuff that's not as nourishing to us with just adding certain things. So let's add protein to our plate first so that we're not eating the chips before, before the meal. Little strategies like that is all about the mindset shift. So you're doing all the right things.
Speaker 00
22:29
Yeah. Sometimes as a therapist, I find that I put up these like mini hats of like, dietitian or exercise coach. Yes. You wear all the hats. Yes. All the hats. And then of course, when it becomes something that's beyond my scope, I'm like, you know what? You should go see X, Y, and Z for this because that's outside of my specialty. I definitely don't try to practice outside, but yeah, I think sometimes giving them a little bit of a different perspective can really make a huge difference. So I know you don't only focus on food in the work you do. So maybe we should shift to talk about what other things that you tend to focus on with clients.
Speaker 01
23:14
Yeah, I was just going to say, I think food too, it becomes the one thing we want to focus on. Like I think when we, any health goal, we're like, oh, I should eat better and exercise more. Those are the two things I need to do. But there's so many things in our life that we're doing that are not supportive to our health and healing and allowing our bodies to do, like our body is super smart. It does things. During the day, it does things while we're sleeping. And if we're not giving it the right environments and the right inputs outside of food, it can be just as detrimental. You can be eating all the right things. And this is what I experienced even in my IBS journey. I was eating all the right foods. But nothing was working because there was something deeper going on that I needed to figure out. And I wasn't sleeping well and I wasn't going outside and prioritizing just getting some sunlight during my day. I was inside and grinding at my computer. So we really do take a look at your lifestyle and what's going on there and trying to make space for that. Just those things that our bodies, I don't know if you've seen that quote, but it's like our bodies are just complicated plans or plans with emotions or something like we need water and sunlight. And it's so true. Sunlight is energy and you can be eating all the right things. And if you're inside all day long and never seeing natural light, it can do so many crazy things to our circadian rhythm, which messes up different functions in our body. Yeah. So it's a lot of lifestyle work. We'll add in supplements when we need to. If we really don't think we're getting what we need from our diet and we're not going to make somebody feel bad about not eating certain things or not being able to prioritize certain things, we can add that in with supplements. But we really look at all of the symptoms that somebody has, their lab data, how they're living their life and pull together like a full story and a full plan for them so that they can prioritize what makes sense to them.
Speaker 00
25:06
Yeah. Yeah. I always find it so interesting that sleep often gets left off as the most important thing when it comes to wellness. It's always so shocking to me. It's like, You know, you can influence your sleep just as much as you can influence your diet and exercise. I wonder just, I'm just, what is it called? Hypothesizing here. If people think that it's easier to control food and exercise. And so they just leave sleep out of the conversation. But I don't know. I feel like it needs to be a part of it. Yeah. Our body, I
Speaker 01
25:44
mean, our body needs that rest period.
Unknown
Yeah.
Speaker 01
25:48
I think a lot of chronic issues comes down to nervous system dysregulation. We wake up and we have coffee, which puts us into a cortisol response, like fight or flight. Whether we feel that way or not about our morning cup of coffee, that is what it's doing to our body. That's what gives us that jolt of energy. And then we go into a really stressful meeting. Or even before that, we have to get our kids out the door. I wear an aura ring for... If you're not watching this video, I'm holding it up. But it's wild what my stress levels look like, trying to get the kids out the door in the morning and trying to get them to bed at night. And sometimes it doesn't even feel that stressful. It just is. Our body goes into like protective mother mode, I feel like. And having times in our day, sleep being the longest period of time where we're just resting and we're allowing our bodies to repair and relax and we're not worried and stressed. That is so important to like build that in throughout the day so that our body, when our body is constantly fueled with cortisol response and adrenaline, and it's not moving back down into that parasympathetic nervous system state,
Speaker 02
other
Speaker 01
26:58
things... Like our digestion suffers. Our body basically says digestion is not that important. We're surviving right now. So it's going to turn off digestion. It also stops the production of progesterone when you're constantly producing cortisol. So that can impact hormones and cycles and fertility. So a lot of it comes down to just those basic daily habits that we have to make sure that we're not running our days in a cortisol response.
Speaker 00
27:26
I'm really curious what you would say to a woman who maybe feels like they're not in control of their sleep because they have a tiny terrorist that's messing with their
Speaker 01
sleep.
Speaker 00
27:41
Right? So there's only so much when you have a tiny terrorist, whether the tiny terrorist is, you know, in utero or... her eye of utero. So I say that in a very loving way, but you know, tiny terrorists, but they do, they are a terrorist for sleep.
Speaker 01
28:00
Yes. Yeah. And they wake you up and it is true for a period of time. I'm like knock on wood within the last six months. So we have been out of the tiny terrorist phase and you have to remember that period of time because it meeting somebody where they're at. Yeah, sometimes they don't get to control it. They get a lovely nine hours. And even with no nighttime wake ups right now, it's still, you know, bedtimes at eight o'clock. If you want to have any sort of downtime you time, you're not going to bed at nine o'clock because that doesn't allow you enough time to get stuff done that you didn't get done during the day. So there's a couple of things that I think women in that phase of life could focus on. One that I recently just discovered, light. The light in our homes and the light that we get during the day via natural light is so important to regulating our circadian rhythm. And I think that's an obvious thing to say, but I think what we don't think about is all of the blue light outside of our phone. Maybe we're blue blockers when we're working late at night or something. We think we're doing really good. But the overhead light in our house and even the lamps in our bedrooms. You can actually buy amber and red lights and keep it really low once the sun goes down. So after sunset, having at least in your bedrooms and even in your kids' bedrooms, it can help regulate their sleep-wake patterns as well. It's one thing that you can, like, you have control over what the light looks like when you're waking up in the middle of the night so that it's not, you know, if you have to turn on the light to change a diaper or clean up the club or whatever you're doing, your body's not as jolted into this, oh, I think we're, you know, I think it's morning now and then I can't fall back asleep. Magnesium is also this really, I think, underrated supplement that I always recommend to clients. One, it's when we're stressed out all the time. It's just one of those minerals that gets depleted really quickly when we're in a stressful phase of life. So there's a couple, there's like some sleep ones that you can like put in water right before you go to bed and take that. And it just helps like make sure that your body is in that relaxed state. So I would say focusing on the things that you can control and being, knowing that it's okay that we're in this season of life where we are going to be woken up more often or maybe woken up at 5 a.m. and not wanting to wake up that early. And yeah, it's just a season and you'll focus on, you know, what you can control will change based on the season. Yeah.
Speaker 00
30:38
Something I like to tell a lot of women, because I think this is very common practice, is like counting down how many hours you have left to try to sleep. Like, oh, I need to go to sleep. I only have... five more hours of time that I can sleep. And I think even just counting that and trying to manage that in your mind, you're just giving too much space, even thinking about that and just trying to focus on what I call like a safe place or it's very common language in EMDR. So you visualize a calming and relaxing place rather than trying to manage the countdown of, okay, I put the baby down at this time. That means You're going to wake up at this time. And that means that I have this amount of time to fall back to sleep before they're awake again. And all of that planning, although might feel... somewhat soothing to your nervous system is actually more dysregulating. And so rather than trying to count the hours, okay, I'm going to visualize myself in Hawaii on the beach. I can feel the sand. I can, the waves are crashing. It's very soothing and visualize yourself in that place with your five senses because yeah, the management of the hour counting is just going to prolong the amount of time that you're awake in the middle of the night with your kid. 100%. Yeah.
Speaker 01
32:06
The more stressed out. I mean, I think what you can do when you start going down these health rabbit holes of, oh, sleep is so important. I need to optimize my sleep. What am I doing? The stress that you place on yourself trying to figure out and optimize and manage all of these different things that you know are important is sometimes more detrimental than not doing the thing itself.
Speaker 02
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 01
32:29
And so there are going to be phases of time where sleep is just not going to be the priority. You can't focus on everything from a health perspective at once. It's just not feasible. So
Speaker 02
taking
Speaker 00
32:42
the thing that does feel within grasp. I imagine that's part of maybe the true planning that you do with clients. Because I do think it's really... Again, I'm going to go back to Instagram TikTok thing that I saw. It was this woman listing all of the things that people have told her she needs to focus on as a new mom. And there was a list of 20 things. And she's like, girl, I don't got time for 20. I can maybe manage four to five things a day. And I was like, this is a great representation of all of the shoulds that are put on to women. And you just can't do 20 shoulds a day. You can maybe do four or five things that you feel aligned with or that you want to do and you want to prioritize. But yeah, I manage and that's a part of the conversation that you have with people as well.
Speaker 01
33:31
Yeah. Yeah. And for example, we know that moving our body is important, right? That it's commonly approved as something that's good to do for your health. However, the type of movement matters. And if you're... Yeah. Yeah. So many women are, I mean, there's a lot of pressure to get back to, even if it's not pre-baby weight, be functioning at pre-baby function level. And so they feel like they have to get to the gym and go out to all the parties or go out to all the social events and prioritize all of these different things. Community is important for health, right? There's so many things that we should do, but it just, it depends on what you've got going on right now and what you can prioritize because that, Extra hit class is just going to throw yourself out of whack more than help you. do any sort of weight loss or, yeah, health goal in that way.
Speaker 00
34:54
I love that you said that about the, I feel like there has been a shift away from your pre-baby body you need to get back to. But I do think there's still this idea that women are supposed to get back to pre-baby functioning and quickly. Oh, you've had the baby six months ago. You should be back. Or like, oh, you had the baby a year ago. You should be back. Like every time the baby... Reaches another milestone. It's like, well, what's wrong with you that you're not back to doing all of the things that you used to do? And yeah, I think that's a really important conversation to be had and to be acknowledged that maybe the pressure is a little less with like the pre-baby body, but the pre-baby functioning is in full force. Everyone has this shared belief, it feels like, including women who are going through it. I should be back to where I was before I
Speaker 01
35:45
had baby. Yeah. It's so true. It's so true. I mean, part of it is that we expect women to take six weeks off and get right back to work. Society kind of puts this pressure on us. The policies that we have in the United States puts the pressure on us. But yeah.
Speaker 00
36:04
I mean, some people are back to work two weeks postpartum. All they have is two weeks of paid time off that they can use. It's really a shame. I feel like we're just creating... more and more chronic stress for both mom and baby. Because
Speaker 01
36:20
it doesn't just end. I mean, I say this all the time. The postpartum period doesn't end at six weeks after that last checkup that you get through insurance. And it doesn't just end after six months. It's every time your baby hits another milestone or they start talking to you or they start walking. There's another level of thing that you have to figure out how to incorporate into your life. And you have to figure out your new parenting style now that you have a toddler who can say no to you. There's a lot of pressure that we don't
Speaker 00
36:51
acknowledge, I think. In the transition of now, your kids are in school full time and you have to worry about like drop off and pick up and after school activities and summer camp and who's friends with who and, you know, is this parent being respectful to your kid or how is this kid interact with your kid on the playground? It's just a complete Mind shift that you have– not you don't have to, but most women find themselves in over and over and over again.
Speaker 01
37:23
Yeah. It's just your mental space just continues to shrink and shrink because there's so many other things that take up our brain space.
Speaker 00
37:33
Yeah, for sure. Well, I know that your workbook that you– Yeah. My goal in
Speaker 01
37:51
creating this workbook was really to make it so that this information wasn't as hate kept behind. You must go through a three-month program with a certified health coach. Those things are great. And some people need that accountability and coaching and weekly check-ins. But a lot of people just need the information put to them in a way that's not based on TikTok trends. They're not trying to piece it together based on all these reels that they're consuming or their doctor said this, their friend said this. And I created this because I think that, especially in the fertility space and I really was inspired by a client that I was working with who was just a few months away. She was over 35, just a few months away from starting the IVF treatment process because they had been trying for almost a year. And we started working together. And just by changing the way that she was thinking about the nutrients that her body needed, the way that we were supporting her lifestyle and getting her breakfast first thing in the morning and prioritizing sleep and making sure that we were regulating our nervous system and not over-exercising when we're trying to get pregnant. She was able to conceive naturally a month before the IVF process was about to start. So I really think that sometimes we're jumping to these interventions without doing some of the fundamentals first. And I wanted this fundamental information to be available in an easy way. easily consumable way. So it's all about how to support your egg quality. It's about sperm health and why his health also matters. I think a lot of the pressure is put on us as women to figure out fertility challenges. But I think in 50% of cases, it's male factor when it comes down to infertility. So things like you know, talking about the numbers, what to look for in the sperm analysis. There's a big difference between normal, like we said, because not every man needs to be on testosterone or whatever synthetic hormone treatment for their sperm production. But there is a difference between normal and optimal when it comes to fertility. And so these are the things that you're striving for. And this is how to... support sperm health. I talk about how to track your cycles so that you're paying attention to what's going on and understand that long cycles could mean this and short cycles could mean this. Just giving everybody a roadmap of like, if you're thinking about trying to conceive or have been trying to conceive and it's just not happening, here are the things that you need to think about first. Doctors, they just don't have the time or resources to guide their patients in this way ahead of intervention.
Speaker 00
40:26
Yeah. I really love when I was looking through it that you did include the male perspective in there because I do think even though this podcast and most of the guests I'm having on, we're talking about women's issues. Men are chronically stressed too. Men have health concerns and mental health issues that are not being addressed. And that contributes to the wellness of the couple, the wellness of men. fertility, the wellness of parenting, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, that cannot be understated though. That also needs to be a focus when it comes to trying to conceive.
Speaker 01
Yeah,
Speaker 00
definitely.
Speaker 01
41:08
So yeah, I created it just as I really wanted this. It's the information I wish was available when I was going through my chemical pregnancies, when I went through my miscarriage. Nobody told me what to focus on. Nobody told me... You know, for better or for worse, I think it is helpful to have something that we feel like we are in control of when we're experiencing something really outside of our control. And to just be told, like, try again in a couple of months is not helpful when you're going through something like that or when you've been trying for a year and nothing's happening. I just wanted people to have a guidebook to this is what I should think about first. And then maybe I could go get more specific support. But
Speaker 00
yeah,
Speaker 01
41:50
that's a starting point.
Speaker 00
41:52
Yeah, and I just wanted to add to the fertility conversation. I think it sometimes is... I'll speak for myself. I don't want to include other people, but I think... When you're hearing about other women conceiving without even trying, and then you're over here putting all of the energy that you have into conceiving, it can feel really defeating and overwhelming. And is there something wrong with me? So just wanted to put out there for anyone that's listening, that's going through that. And I'm sure Lauren would agree. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not broken. And so just remember that as you enter in this journey to figure out how to conceive. Because I think there's a lot of shame that can be had and this fear of even sharing when I'm struggling with infertility because you don't want to be that person that people are like, oh, there's something wrong with her or something.
Unknown
Yeah.
Speaker 01
42:46
And I'm so thankful. It feels like more and more people are sharing, but I do think that we still have a long way to go of just normalizing what this fertility journey looks like for most people, which is not a like... get off of birth control, have sex once and like, there we go, we're done. It doesn't look like that. I thought that that was going to be my journey. I was like, I'm a health coach. I know what to eat. I'm so much healthier than so many people. And yeah, 12 months into trying and two chemical pregnancies that were like, what is this? And nobody could explain to me what those were. I was just like, yeah, it's not your fault. I think we all just need more and better information about our bodies so that we can support it more
Speaker 00
43:32
effectively. Yeah. And the rate, I'm not a statistician, so I don't remember everything that I read, but I know that even the rate of miscarriages is super common. And again, that's not talked about often.
Unknown
43:45
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 01
43:46
The stat I have in that workbook is that it was surprising to me even that it was this high, but it's one in three couples over the age of 35. So I have a special, as a woman in my later 30s, I have a special sweet spot for those of us over 30 that have tried to get pregnant. I think anybody over the age of 30, we experience differences then. in our 20s. Our bodies are just different and they need different support later on. But it's one in three couples over the age of 35 will experience some level of infertility or infertility challenges. So we're not alone.
Speaker 00
44:17
Yeah. And I feel like it's becoming more and more common for people to have their first baby after 30. The economy, everything that just kind of leads to that being the case for a lot of people. Yeah. Not
Speaker 01
44:34
ready until they gotten their career in a stable place and they have a partner they feel good about. Yeah, it's happening a lot more.
Speaker 00
44:42
Yeah. So, well, I want to thank you so much for coming on, Lauren. I feel like I've learned a lot. Hopefully our listeners have learned a lot. Where can people find you to connect with you and access the workbook?
Speaker 01
44:55
Yeah, I'm on Instagram for better brewers at calibrate.well. And the workbook is on my site, calibratewell.com.
Speaker 00
45:05
Awesome. And all of that will be linked in the show notes as well as on our website. So you can find that if you weren't able to jot that down real quick for the listeners. So thank you so much for being on. Thanks for having me, Stephanie. I appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in to Redefining Us once again and share with other people so other people can continue to listen to Redefining Us and we can get into more listeners ears. If you follow us or subscribe or leave a comment or review, that'd be greatly helpful for other people to find us and also just for me to get some feedback. What do you guys want to hear me say? What do you women care about hearing? I'm totally open to Thank you so much for joining us. So you can be in the know with all the things that are happening in the Redefining Us community. Once again, thank you so much for listening and keep being awesome.