Welcome to the Mastering Midlife Podcast where we talk about all the crazy fun things that happen when you are a midlife mama. I'm your host Heather London, let's dig in. I remember this time in my life a couple of years ago when I had no energy. I was so tired I was thinking there was something wrong with me for sure because I always needed to have
a nap in the afternoon and I was so tired I couldn't do anything. Usually I was so full of life and love to exercise and move my body but I just couldn't because I was so darn tired even the thought of doing something was just exhausting to me and I was like what the heck is going on and this is really a hard way to see yourself and thing to experience
when you are a physically moving energetic kind of person. So this is like your worst nightmare if you're an active athletic person and I needed to get to the bottom of this because this was just insane. This was too much for me. So guess what I did? I went to my doctor because when I was pregnant with my kids I was a nemex. So it was a very similar feeling like during my pregnancy further along I would sit on the couch and I would think oh my
god I can't even get up off the couch. I don't have enough energy to get up off the couch like to physically get up off the couch. It was the craziest thing ever and I was a nemex when I was pregnant with my kids and so we upped our iron and as a plant-based person it's hard to get enough iron from vegetables that's not as bioavailable. So the best way to get the most easily accessible iron for your body is through meat and I just didn't eat meat.
So I went on a supplement for that and it improved but I was thinking maybe I'm a nemex here. So I'm going to go see my doctor and my doctor is like okay Heather we are going to do all the tests and see what happens. So I did all the blood work and I went back
to see my doctor and my doctor said well guess what? Your blood work looks normal. Everything is totally fine but I didn't want to leave without an answer because I'm like that doesn't work for me because you're telling me that there's nothing wrong with my body and I'm saying there's something wrong with my body because I know my body. I am in tune with
my body. I'm like doctor you don't understand who you're talking with here. I am like all about my body and knowing what's going on and how it's working and what's normal and what's not. And this is not normal for me and it doesn't feel good and we have to fix it. And she's like Heather there's nothing I can do for you because this is just normal. I don't wouldn't know what to do because your blood work is coming back. You're good.
You're fine. So I left there totally frustrated and dejected it. I'm like this can't be a thing. And so being the person that I am I'm like I'm going to solve for this. I get to figure this out. But you definitely question yourself when you go to see your doctor and your doctor says technically there's nothing wrong with you because they're going by by their blood work which makes sense but I'm going by what I'm feeling in
experiencing in my body. And I always trust my body. I know that my body is always giving me feedback and answers and it's always right. I'm always going to listen to it. So I needed to figure out how to solve for this. But the side note to this is like when you're in menopause the same thing happens. And I had a woman doctor she's since retired and I really liked my doctor. But I always wanted to have a female doctor because only a female
doctor has experienced female things. But when you get into mid life and you start to go through the hormonal changes crazy things happen in your body. And when you go see your doctor a lot of the times they'll say your blood work is fine. You're good. But I don't want you to listen to them because if you're feeling things then those things are legit.
Your body is telling you the truth. I want you to always believe your body. And if your doctor doesn't believe you then go find another doctor or go find somebody else a naturopathic doctor who listens to you and who does believe you because some of these crazy mid life menopause symptoms. We don't even know about like we just all of a sudden we have these aches all
over our body. Like it's just insane the things that happen. So the moral of this story is as on my side note is always listen to your body and always trust what your body is telling you. Your body is always right. And as women we are told or taught to not trust our bodies. And I want to end that. I want to always listen and trust our bodies. Your body always knows the answer. And so for me back to my story I was determined to figure this out and heal
myself because I can't be a non-energetic person. Like I was exhausted. And so of course I turned to food. And this is where I introduce you to my little friend. Say hello to my little friend the mitochondria. Now if you know you know the mitochondria is the powerhouse of this cell. Usually that's the only thing people know about the mitochondria. But I really love mitochondria. Mitochondria are teeny teeny little organelles in your cells. And this
is where your energy is produced. Your little mitochondria, these crazy little teeny tiny little microscopic things produce ATP, the energy in your body. And ATP cannot be stored. So these bad boys just keep pumping out ATP all day every day. So that's why these are so important. And when it comes to a lack of energy it would make sense to start there.
And as a matter of fact when I studied holistic nutrition, one of the first things that we look at when something's going on for somebody is our mitochondria and how we're taking care of it. So there can be hundreds to thousands of mitochondria in every cell. Now think about how many cells we have in the body. This is mind blowing. Think about the trillions of cells that we have in the body. And every single one of those cells has hundreds to thousands
of mitochondria in the cell. This is mind blowing when you think about I am geeking out right now because we don't really appreciate how our body works and understand all these little things that are going on behind the scenes. So every single cell has hundreds to thousands. It depends on where they are in the body. And because the mitochondria are highest in the muscle and the nerve cells because they take up the most energy. The muscles and the
nerves use the most energy which makes sense when you think about it. And so they have the highest concentration of the mitochondria. And you get your mitochondria from your mother. So the DNA in the mitochondria, like mitochondria, each mitochondria, it has its own DNA. And that DNA is passed down from the mother's side. So the mitochondrial DNA is passed down from the mother's side which is fascinating as well. And if we are trying to get more energy
or fix a problem with the mitochondria, what do we want to do? We want to be like mitochondria. What do you need to have more energy? Just like picture me as a human, what do I need to have more energy? Well, it's what feeds me, what feeds my body, food feeds my body, what feeds my mitochondria, food feeds my mitochondria. Okay. Now we're getting somewhere, we're understanding the concept of where our energy comes from and how we can produce more of it. So you can
do two things. One is you can increase your amount of mitochondria in your cell. What? This just keeps getting better and better. And then you can improve the performance of that of mitochondria. So there's two things. First of all, here's the cellular essentials for increasing mitochondrial counts per cell. So if you want to increase your mitochondria
per cell, you want to exercise 30 minutes a day. Now the best kind of exercise to increase your mitochondria specifically are strength exercises because when your muscle gets bigger, more energy, more mitochondria, and then workouts where you sweat. So those are the hit works out. Hit works, hit workouts. That's a tongue twister. But remember when we're talking about weight loss in midlife, we don't need to do the hit workouts. So if you want to increase
your mitochondria in your cells, that's a good way to do it. But you want to exercise for 30 minutes a day. That's going to help increase the mitochondria in your cells. And then we're looking at L-Argenine, which is an essential amino acid. So you can find these in protein foods. So if you're eating more protein foods, that's going to help. Reverse a trough. You know it. We love it because of we look at it for anti-aging. And that's in your red
grapes. Corsitan, Corsitan is an unnatural anti-histamine. So when my kids were growing up, my youngest Santos, he is allergic to mosquito bites and spider bites. It's really weird. His mosquito bites are huge. And if he gets bit by a spider, his whole, like he once got bit on the face by a spider. And his whole side of his head swelled up so that it looked different than the other side. It was the craziest thing ever. And then over time, gravity
took control. And all that fluid sunk down. And his whole side of his face was misshapen. And then one time when he was going to summer camp for school, like grade five, all the kids are looking forward to it. It's the highlight of elementary school. And he had a spider bite on his leg behind his knee. So guess what that meant? His whole leg was swollen up at the knee. So he couldn't like bend his leg. And so he couldn't run around. It was
so bizarre on the poor little guy. Like he had fun anyway. But because his leg was so swollen, he couldn't just run around and play in the woods like a normal little kid. So it kind of hindered his fun. It's so strange. But my whole point to my story is when stuff like that happens, I would give him corsetin. So instead of giving him the chemical version of that, I would just give him corsetin, which is a natural anti-histamine. And it would
help the swelling go down. And you can find corsetin. It's naturally occurring in capers, onions, apples, and berries. Stuff like that is really high in corsetin. Or you could take a corsetin supplement. And lipoic acid, you can find that in red meat, carrots, feets, spinach, broccoli, potatoes. And biotin, which is B7, which is a B complex vitamin, beef liver, eggs, milk, bananas, nuts, seeds, pork chop, salmon, sweet potato, and mushrooms.
So this is how you increase the number of mitochondria in your cell. So when you have more mitochondria per cell, it leads to greater energy production per cell. That just makes sense. And then we can look at the essentials for energy production for your mitochondria. It's really important that you get lots of oxygen. So that's where that exercise comes from. And clean healthy foods that can feed the mitochondria. The number one thing that feeds
the mitochondria to give it more energy is B complex. That's the number one. B complex. Then we have our lipoic acid, which is an antioxidant. It's naturally produced in the body. But you can get it from yeast, spinach, broccoli, potatoes. CoQ 10 enzyme can be found in meats and seafoods. And then you have your L carnitine, which is another amino acid. It's naturally produced in the body. But you can find it in red beet, smaller amounts of
chicken, fish, dairy, beans, and avocado. Then magnesium is wonderful for feeding your mitochondria. Pumpkin seeds, spinach, swishard, green beans, salmon, black beans. And then iron. And iron, the best kind of most absorbable iron is in meat. But if you are a vegetarian or plant-based, you can also take a supplement. Solfer is helpful to help feed the mitochondria. Eggs, of course, almonds, brazil nuts, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds, chickpeas, fava
beans, kidney beans, lentils, and peas. And then some copper. So oysters, others shellfish is high in copper. Whole grains, beans, nuts, potatoes, and organ meats like kidneys and livers. And then it comes down to your porphrine rings. So that is from chlorophyll, which is found in green superfoods. So this is like the blood of plants. And in the superfoods, green superfoods, such as clorella, spirulina, wild blue-green algae, and green leafy green
vegetables. They're all excellent sources of iron, B12, lapoac acid, and minerals. So these porphrine rings are so healthy. And this is like when you look at the chlorophyll or the spirulina, these are just like, or the blue-green algae. These are just deep, deep, deep green, dark green foods. And that is super healthy for your mitochondria. So I did this, and guess what happened? Of course, I got my energy back. I solved my
own problem. And I haven't experienced it since that time, because I've been feeding my mitochondria, these power foods. Or if it does happen, I know exactly what to do. Now, feeling low on energy, I'm like, I am going to feed these mitochondria. They are so important and so powerful when it comes to having energy and fueling our body. And the supplement, I'm okay, when it comes to supplements, my belief is you should take
a supplement based on what you're working on. So my, I have a whole cupboard with different supplements, because sometimes I'm working on this, and I need this supplement. And then other times I'm working on this, and I need that supplement. So I don't usually recommend like a daily supplement, because everybody is so different, and we're all working on different things. But so my supplement recommendation would be like, okay, what are you working on?
And then let's find the supplements for that. But if I had to recommend some daily supplements at the top of my list, like across the board, generically, which is hard to do, because everybody's so unique and so different, at the top of the list would be a multivitamin, because that just covers your ass. But next on the list would be a B complex. I love a good B complex vitamin. You can't go wrong with it. In every time I take a B complex, I'm
thinking, I'm feeding my moto-condry. These are the energy. This is the energy vitamin. And I'll take it, I don't take it every day. I'll take it on, you know, a couple times a week. Sometimes I'll take it before I go play tennis, because I know it's going to give me energy. And then the other one, and the B complex is because all of the B's work synergistically together. So they're meant to be taken together. And the B complex just means that all the
B's, all the B vitamins are included in that vitamin. Because you could just take this like B1 or B7 separately. And those are, you would do that for different reasons. But I would recommend a good B complex. And the other one that I would recommend is vitamin C, but mega-dosing vitamin C. And I do this if I'm not feeling good, if I feel something coming on or in the winter time, I'll mega-dose vitamin C. So I won't do it year-round, but
I will do it quite often. And mega-dosing vitamin C is a whole other ballgame. People are like, what, take two capsules of 1,000 milligrams? I'm like, no, take 30 or 40 capsules. Because mega-dosing is unique to everybody. And again, your body has a certain amount of vitamin C, which is different than mine. And you have a different tolerance. And how do you find your tolerance? Well, you take a vitamin C. I would start with maybe taking five vitamin
Cs. And then after that, every 15 minutes, take another vitamin C. I'm talking a 1,000 milligram vitamin C every 15 minutes with water. And then when you hit your saturation point, you'll know because you'll get diarrhea, you'll get loose tuils. And then you back off one or two. And then you have, that's your saturation point. And I guarantee you, you're going to be up around 30 or 40,000 milligrams of vitamin C. That's how, that's how deficient
we are in it. And you don't have to do that a whole year round. I think it's good to take a break every once in a while. But like I said, I do it if I'm sick, if I'm struggling with something, if I want to boost my immune system, or in the winter time, I'll do that. I'll just mega-dose vitamin C. But if I'm getting sick, if I feel something coming on, I will take maybe five of those first thing in the morning. And then every hour, I'll take
two or three. So I'll hit that 30 or 40 and I'll do that every single day. So I'm spreading it out every hour. I'm getting, I'm putting more vitamin C into my, into my body, into my system. And that's what works for me. So that is my recommendation for any kind of vitamin supplements. So I think it's important to really realize that your health is up to you. At the end of the day, your doctor doesn't care. They go home and they've forgotten
about you. And I'm sure they're lovely caring people. But you got to live with yourself every single day. You had to live in this body for the rest of your life. We got to take good care of it. Because when we're in midlife, we're going to go do fabulous things. And we don't want this body to be the reason why we can't go do fabulous things and go on eat, pray, love adventures. That's what midlife is for. So your health is up to you. And
if you're not 100%, if you're not feeling 100%, it's only one of two things. This is where we start. If I'm not feeling 100%, I know it's one of two things. One toxicity, too much of something or too deficiency, not enough of something. And that's where I start. Which one is it? And then I figure it out. So it's your job to figure it out. And then to solve for that problem. It's like, Oh, do I have too many heavy metals in my body?
Oh, do I not have enough be complex and be complex as water soluble? By the way, so and so is vitamin C. So if you're mega dosing vitamin C, the worst that will happen is diarrhea, because it's water soluble. So your body just gets rid of anything that's too much. So it's not toxic in any means. So remember, you want to be proactive with your health, because it's it's your body that's going to allow you to live a long healthy life. We want to
square the curve. Right now, the curve is like this. People get old and then they slowly live a horrible life of ill health and an unwell, not being able to live a life just struggling, just trying to get healthy. And it's like, it's like a slow, painful demise. And just squaring the curve means you're just going to live this healthiest life. And then one day you just die, but you've been living a healthy life. You haven't been in an old age home
or a hospital on life support or struggling pumped full of medicines. No, let's go live our life. And we're like, we're out at the beach. And then one day we just have a heart attack doing the thing we love. Or our our body just gives up in this in that night when we're sleeping. But we were out gardening and hanging with our friends and playing all the fun games that we liked that that's squaring the curve where you're living. You're actually
living your life right up until the moment that you pass away. Right up the last second, your life is full of fun adventures with your grandkids are traveling the world. All those things right up until every you get every drop of life. You use up every single drop of life. And that's why you want to be proactive with your health. It's up to you. When people get in the midlife, their health becomes their biggest issue. So food and mindset
are always the answer. Nourish your body and think your thoughts. Nourish your body with your thoughts and your food. And you will always come out a healthy winner. Thank you for listening. Always always always love yourself first and have an amazing day.