19: The Cortisol Loop Hijacking Your Hormones with Dr. Taz Bhatia

Perimenopause brings up a lot of very specific questions. What should I actually be eating? Why am I suddenly gaining weight when I have not changed anything? Should I be fasting? Is HRT enough? And what do I do if symptoms are already showing up hard in my 40s? In this episode of The Ovary Club, I am answering four real questions women sent me about navigating this stage. I take you inside how I structure my own meals, when I eat carbohydrates, how I fuel strength training, what I pay attention to when weight suddenly becomes harder to manage, and where HRT fits into the bigger picture. I am also sharing what I am doing personally at 49, because I do not believe women should have to wait until symptoms become unbearable before they start changing how they support their hormones. There is a lot we can pay attention to now, and sometimes the smallest adjustments tell you the most about what your body needs. What's Discussed: Q&A 1 | 0:56 What should I eat in perimenopause if I have insulin resistance and strength train? Q&A 2 | 16:12 Could menopause eventually become optional? Q&A 3 | 22:45 What can women 45+ do when hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, and irregular periods are already showing up? Q&A 4 | 28:16 Why will the scale not budge at 47 even when I walk daily and eat clean? Want More of Your Questions Answered? I had way more perimenopause questions than I could fit into one public episode, so I kept going. The full Q&A is available exclusively inside The Ovary Club Insiders, where I answer more of your questions about caffeine, dietary fat, legumes and the bean protocol, melatonin, and more. The Ovary Club Insiders: Join us at alisavitti.kit.com/products/the-ovary-club

If having a baby is somewhere in your plans for the next year, there is a lot you can be doing now that most women are never told about. Fertility prep starts well before you are officially "trying," and the months leading up to conception are a chance to support your body in ways that can make a real difference. In this episode of The Ovary Club, I sit down with Lily Nichols for a much-needed conversation about what preconception nutrition actually looks like. We talk about where the usual fertility advice falls short, the things women are doing in the name of "health" that may not be helping, and what I want you paying attention to now if pregnancy is on your radar. We also get into the part of fertility prep that should never fall entirely on the woman. Lily Nichols is a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist, Certified Diabetes Educator, researcher, and author known for her evidence-based work in prenatal nutrition. She is the founder of the Institute for Prenatal Nutrition® and the author of Real Food for Pregnancy, Real Food for Fertility, and Real Food for Gestational Diabetes. Her books have reached millions of readers worldwide, are used in university-level maternal nutrition and midwifery courses, and have influenced prenatal nutrition policy internationally. What's Discussed: (6:49) Why fertility nutrition should start months before you begin trying. (11:19) Why having a "normal" period does not necessarily tell you everything about ovulation. (13:39) What blood sugar can tell you about fertility, even when your labs are technically normal. (19:54) The problem with fasting and under-eating when you are trying to support fertility. (37:06) How long an egg is actually developing before ovulation. (39:34) Why not all prenatal vitamins are created equal. (49:21) What hormonal birth control can do to nutrient levels before conception. (56:45) Why nutrition still matters if you are going through IVF. (1:03:35) Why male fertility needs to be part of the preconception conversation. (1:09:47) What to start doing now if you want to try to conceive within the next year. (1:16:28) Can you really improve egg quality in 90 days? Thank You to our Sponsors: FLO Living: Get 25% off with the code podcast25 at floliving.com Slow Down Hormonal Aging Want to be more proactive about your hormones as you get older? Start with Alisa's Slow Down Hormonal Aging resource and learn what you can begin paying attention to now: alisavitti.kit.com/77c59f219c Boost Your Fertility Trying to conceive now or in the future? Get Alisa's guide including the exact supplement protocol she used to conceive at 36 and 43, plus her essential fertility biohacks: https://alisavitti.kit.com/a2b80c30b0

If you are in your 40s or 50s and travel suddenly feels harder on your body than it used to, we need to talk. You come home bloated, constipated, exhausted, starving at weird times, sleeping terribly, and wondering why one trip knocked you out for days. In midlife, your hormones are already shifting, and travel can pile even more disruption on top of that. There are five things I pay very close attention to when I travel now: my circadian rhythm, hydration, gut health, blood sugar and cortisol, and mitochondrial health. In this episode, I am breaking down what flying can do to each one, why women in perimenopause may feel those changes more intensely, and the things you can do before, during, and after a trip to make recovery much easier. And I am giving you my personal travel routine because, as I say in the episode, I am a delicate flower. 😂 I bring my food. I pack my supplements and tea. I get up and do squats and calf raises on the airplane. I have spent years figuring out what keeps me feeling like myself when I travel, especially now in perimenopause, and I want you to take whatever helps make your next trip easier on your body. Get my free Travel Cheat Sheet here so you know exactly what to pack and how to prep for your next trip: https://alisavitti.kit.com/457e61fb4c Get my Slow Down Hormonal Aging cheat sheet here: https://alisavitti.kit.com/77c59f219c

Food is one of the most powerful tools we have for hormonal health, and somehow it has become one of the most confusing. Protein targets, fasting windows, carbs, fats, blood sugar, meal timing, supplements, food quality... women are trying so hard to get it "right" that eating can start to feel like another full-time job. And somewhere in all of that advice, we have lost the part where food is supposed to taste good, fit into an actual life, and be something we enjoy. In this episode of The Ovary Club, I sit down with Giada De Laurentiis to make eating for your hormones feel practical again. We get into what happens when the way you have always eaten no longer feels like it is working for your body, why hormone health is about more than simply choosing "healthy" foods, and how to build an approach to eating that can actually survive a busy life, travel, restaurants, family, and everything else women are carrying. Most importantly, we talk about how to do all of that without taking the joy out of food in the process. Giada De Laurentiis is an Emmy Award-winning chef, nine-time New York Times bestselling cookbook author, and one of the most recognizable culinary voices in the world. Born in Rome and trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, she brings a perspective on food that has always gone far beyond calories and macros. This conversation brings that philosophy into the hormone conversation, and into the very real question so many women are asking: How do I eat in a way that supports my body without making food miserable? Get the step counter we talked about in the episode: https://amzn.to/4yAEztw

If you are waking up at 3 a.m. every night, getting enough hours but still feeling exhausted, or suddenly having trouble sleeping when you never used to, please stop writing it off as "just perimenopause." Yes, your hormones are changing. But that does not mean every sleep problem after 40 should automatically get blamed on hormones and left there. Women can have real sleep disorders in midlife that show up very differently than the symptoms most doctors were trained to look for. In this episode of The Ovary Club, Dr. Andrea Matsumura and I unpack why broken sleep after 40 is more complicated than "your hormones are changing," and why so many women are still not getting the right answers. We talk about the sleep problems that are commonly missed in midlife, what your 3 a.m. wake-up may actually be telling you, and why some of the most popular sleep fixes may not be helping the way you think they are Dr. Andrea Matsumura is a board-certified sleep medicine physician, certified menopause practitioner, and founder of the D.R.E.A.M. Sleep Method. She has built her work around something that should have happened a long time ago: looking at women's sleep through female physiology. Her framework considers daily habits, your sleep environment, emotions, circadian archetype, and the medical conditions that can quietly keep women from getting restorative sleep. What's Discussed (7:42) Why estrogen changes can disrupt the melatonin signal helping you stay asleep. (12:26) The four-part sleep pattern Dr. Matsumura keeps seeing in women entering menopause. (15:19) What may really be happening behind the 3 a.m. wake-up. (23:05) Why women with sleep apnea often do not look like the sleep apnea patient you are picturing. (46:28) Why your own melatonin production can take a major hit by midlife. (51:14) The problem with taking high-dose melatonin right before bed. (1:03:43) What to ask when you know your sleep is not normal but no one has investigated it. If you are doing all the "right" things and still waking up exhausted, this conversation will give you a very different way to look at what might be going on.