358-SYNCPodcast_LifeUpdate

[00:00:00] Well, hello my [00:01:00] friends. Welcome back to the Sync Your Life podcast. It has been a minute, and I do wanna take today’s episode just to kinda get you up to speed on what’s been going on, why the break from the podcast, a little bit of a life update, so to speak. So it’s been a minute. It has been since May that we launched a podcast, um, and that’s been intentional.

We’ve done that on purpose. As you might know, my husband started working alongside me in my hormone health business probably around 2020. Um, right around the time of the pandemic is when we really got things off the ground. And when he started working with me, we had no idea at that time that adoption would be coming so soon in our lives again a second time around, and my youngest daughter was born at the end of 2020.

So we decided, you know, for these last five or six years that we were gonna work our business while being present with our kiddos, creating the life that we love, working in pockets of time, really being able to just control our own schedule. You know, a lot of people talk about financial freedom, but not a lot of [00:02:00] people talk about time freedom.

And for us, time freedom was really what we were after, right? So when my youngest daughter, um, was born, things shifted for us. We went from, you know, me working my business and kind of just fitting it in to it being the primary thing. My husband left school teaching, he left coaching full-time. He was a cross-country and track coach.

And we went all in on family, on going through the adoption process a second time around, and on building this hormone health brand and business. And it- we really hit the ground running. We went straight into, you know, course launch and podcast launch and, you know, all kinds of things associated to bringing doctors into our program, and affiliates and certifications and things really have just been going full speed since late 2019.

Well, as you can imagine, my youngest daughter is now five and a half, and kindergarten just began for her last week. So heading into this past summer, we really did a little [00:03:00] pause and we said, “Hey, you know, what do we really wanna do, um, with this last summer of her at home?” Right? I mean, obviously you have your summers with your children.

, You know, you obviously have time with them all the time, like in the evenings or whatever. But we knew that based on my oldest daughter when she went to school, things change, right? Kids change. Life changes. Um, and we knew that was coming. So we decided very intentionally that we were going to take the summer off from the podcast.

I didn’t do any interviews over the summer. I did not do any scripting of the show over the summer. Nothing like that. We just decided to take a full break. We wanted to be able to really go all in on saying yes to our kids every day. That looked like a lot of trips to the pool, to the zoo, to the museums, right?

Uh, day dates with grandparents, trips. Like, we were able to say yes to all of that because of the business that we’ve built and because of this life that we have built together. So that’s where I’ve been this s- summer, but there’s also a lot more going on. There’s kind of a lot more going on beneath the surface.

So let me just [00:04:00] kinda catch you up to speed. I have mentioned it here from time to time on previous episodes, but in January of this year, I made a big decision for myself and my health. If you’ve been listening for a while, you know that I’m a huge believer in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, and I’ve used progesterone cream specifically for close to 15 years.

I started using it in my late 20s, and with a lot of success. Uh, it helped so much with regulating my menstrual cycle, with energy, with sleep, and most importantly, with my migraines. Fast-forward to, uh, you know, just maybe four or five years ago, I started having different types of headaches popping up. I started to have vertigo episodes.

I started to have just different headaches than I was used to, and we weren’t really sure what caused it. We weren’t sure if it came from long COVID or if it was part of the HRT being the problem. We didn’t know what it was, and so I’ve kind of been on this journey now for a few years trying to just feel better.

So [00:05:00] finally, in January of this year, which I can’t believe was eight months ago, I made the decision to come off of all of my bioidentical HRT. So at the time, I was using relatively higher doses of progesterone, uh, cream actually, and I decided to come off of it because I wasn’t sure what my body was trying to do, and it was getting ridiculous to try to guess when I had so many different factors at play.

I was taking so many different supplements. I was using the cream, and we didn’t know what was causing what. So I just decided it was time to come off. So I came off of the progesterone in January. I had a really, really rocky January, February, March. So even though you were hearing from me on the podcast, it was a, it was a lot.

It was a lot of effort for me to, to work each day because I was feeling so miserable with vertigo. Finally, after March, I started to improve. Now, there were a lot of factors there. You know, I do believe that, um, any time we’re taking hormones, whether that’s synthetic hormones through birth control or [00:06:00] bioidentical like I was taking, our body needs time to recalibrate, right?

So just like we would tell a woman to give it three months off of birth control before looking to conceive, same thing goes here, right? It takes a follicle 100 days to develop, so my body needed about 100 days to really feel better again. So I didn’t start feeling better from coming off that HRT until April.

Now, I’m gonna pause the story there to say that something else happened in January. In January, right after I made the decision to come off of the progesterone, I also threw my back out. Now, I thought I threw my back out. I’ve had that injury, um, multiple times actually ever since probably about 10 years ago.

I have had, you know, I’d say once a year or so, I get this sort of flare where my low back feels like it’s gonna give out. I have to rest. I have to do like NSAIDs or a steroid or ice and all the things chiropractic, right? To try to get that to let up. So I thought that’s what happened in January. I literally reached for the dryer doing laundry on a Monday morning, and I felt this [00:07:00] pop.

It felt like a pop in my hip and my low back. I thought to myself, “Well, I’ll just do what I usually do. I’ll have to take a couple weeks off of my workouts. I will have to take an NSAID, I will have to ice, and this will go away.” And what happened was not that. So in the journey of all the vertigo and all the crap that was happening from coming off the HRT, I was also in a heck of a lot of pain with my back and my hip.

So by the end of February, things weren’t getting any better, so I started to investigate physical therapy, I started to investigate testing. I’ll save you the long story, but you know I’m not a huge fan of modern medicine, right? And it’s with good reason. I trust modern medicine. They, they saved my dad’s life.

There is a place for modern medicine in emergency medicine, but when it comes to figuring out root cause, well, I think you know me by now enough to know that I’m not a huge fan. So it took me a journey. It was a while before I got answers. And what I found out first, in May, was that I have two herniated discs in my lumbar spine, in my L4-5 and [00:08:00] L5-S1.

And both of those herniations are pressing on nerve roots. Definitely not fun. But I knew from my symptoms and being very conscious of movement patterns of myself and also just understanding, you know, my hips felt like they were at play, I kinda pushed back. I s- I met with a spinal surgeon. Um, of course, he talked to me about having spinal fusion surgery, which I do not want at my age, and I asked him the question, you know, “Could my hips be involved?”

I’ve always had tight hips, and I’ve always had this sort of popping sensation or kind of a catching that happens in my hips when I do things like hinges or deadlifts. So he actually forwarded me on to, uh, a hip orthopedic doctor. So this is… Like I said, it’s been a journey. So by the time I got X-rays on my hip and MRI on my hip, we learned that I do in fact have a hip problem.

I have what’s called FAI. I’m not gonna try to say the word ’cause it’s really long, but it’s basically hip impingement. I have hip impingement in both my right and left [00:09:00] hips. That basically means I have extra bone around the ball and socket joints, which limits my mobility, which makes a lot of sense as to why things like mountain climbers and deadlifts have always been really hard for me.

My hip will only move so far. So what’s happening as a result of that is it’s tugging on my mechanics, right? It’s tugging on the way my body moves, and therefore putting more pressure in my lumbar spine. So I felt like I finally got in the right hands of the right PT care, pelvic floor therapy, and the right orthopedic doctor in June.

So this all happened in January. It is now August, but I feel like I’m just now on the right path. So without giving you all the details that you don’t need, basically it’s been a journey. It has been a journey. It’s been a journey where I can’t sit at a 90-degree angle or ride in the car very easily. I have to either lie reclined or stand or walk most of the day.

I haven’t been able to lift heavy weights, which if you know me, you know it’s killing me slowly. I’ve not been [00:10:00] able to get out any of my stress through exercise, um, and I’ve really had to slow down in this season, and it’s frustrating because I felt like I just went through a slowdown coming out of vertigo and coming out of the HRT rollercoaster.

So I feel like I’m finally in the right hands. I’m finally making progress with things like shockwave therapy, um, with different types of PT. I’m actually trying to strengthen things around the hip joint to try to avoid surgery, although it may be inevitable for me given that it’s a structural problem.

So all of this has been happening, right? Like coming off the HRT, vertigo, migraines, the hip and back situation, plus we were faced with our last summer at home with my youngest daughter. We just decided it was time to take a break from the podcast. 350-some episodes in, we decided it was finally time for a break.

So that’s where we’ve been. We’ve just been living in the moment. I’ve been going to probably two to three PT sessions per week trying so desperately to rehabilitate my back and my hip. [00:11:00] In this process, I have learned so, so much. As you know, anything that I learn, I like to turn around and teach. I like to turn around and help you advocate in your own health so that when you have issues like this, maybe in the case of orthopedics and functional movement, that I can help you there, too.

So you better believe that I’m gonna be sharing more with you in the future on how to navigate this stuff. I’m learning that women in particular can be prone to things like hip impingement. It can affect our mechanics. It can also be very, very, very tied into pelvic floor health.

Pelvic floor health has been a huge game changer for me, focusing on that here these last few months, which is in turn teaching me more that I can turn around and teach you. So that’s where I’ve been. I’ve been focusing on rehabilitating my, my body. I’ve been focusing on being present with my family in this season before kindergarten began, and now here we are.

We’re back. We’re back. We’re better than ever. We’re ready to head into an amazing fall and winter season here on the podcast. We have some amazing [00:12:00] announcements coming your way. Uh, the first thing that I wanna share with you is kind of just where The Sync brand and where I’m headed based on all these things that I’m learning about.

Um, I do find great value in helping people understand their health is individual. You guys have heard me say that a million times. Health is individual, and in that, I can put the subheader that the future of health is genetics. I really believe as I dig deeper into my own health, my own deficiencies, you know, my own uniqueness as a body type, I’m learning how important genetics really is, and I don’t just mean things that you inherit from your parents.

I mean your specific genetics, things that aren’t being tested in modern medicine. I believe a lot of this is proactive wellness that’s just getting completely missed by our healthcare system. So how can I step in and not only help you advocate and get in the hands of the right doctor and educate yourself and know this stuff, but how can I also help you learn more about you, right?

That’s what it’s about. It’s not always about sharing the [00:13:00] science on what’s generally working for women. I’m happy to do that, and I will continue to do that because it does help us. But you are not Jane, and Jane is not you, and until you go deeper on your health, your genetic health, right, that’s when you’re really gonna start to make progress and make strides.

I am blown away by the number of women who are spending money on supplements right now that aren’t serving them, right? Because they haven’t gone deeper on their own health. It is crazy to me what we are doing in this world and we’re not serving ourselves. So this is my new mission. My new mission is to help equip SYNC certified coaches with this knowledge, with a new opportunity to partner with genetic testing to be able to offer this to you, and also to work with my clients, to work with the people listening to this show, to work with people that are in the course to really understand how to go deeper with this on their own.

So that is in the immediate future the next step. We’re gonna beat diet culture with true science. I really think that that’s the only way when women know why they will apply. So let’s teach them why. Let’s teach you how to go deeper [00:14:00] on your body. Let’s help you figure out you, because when you do that, you can’t unlearn it.

That’s when you learn that the things that diet culture is showing you doesn’t work for you, right? So we’re gonna do that with science. I’m also in the process of re-recording all of my original SYNC digital course content, which means we’re gonna be doing a really exciting relaunch at the first of the year for the SYNC brand entirely.

So you’re gonna see the amazing fitness that you’re used to with Kelsey Lenschman and Jen Zanders. You’re also gonna be seeing all the things that we already have in place, but we’re gonna update the educational content for you, and that’s all gonna be happening this fall In addition to that, I’m also learning more and more about peptides, not just GLP-1 and microdosing, but also other peptides that can be really helpful in our health.

Thanks to partnerships that we have with Dr. Meg Mill and Dr. Paige Gutheil, this is an ongoing opportunity for you as well. If you are interested in looking into this for your unique health, this is something that we can offer you with Sync. So these are all things that I’m working on. These– I’ve never stopped [00:15:00] working, even in this season of rest, even in this season of being present with my children.

I’m always looking at how I can better serve you, and I truly feel like because we were able to take this break, we’re able to step back into this more powerful than we’ve ever been, really able to help you. So it’s possible that I’ll be having surgery on my hip here this fall, that I will be, I’ll say, down and out for a short period of time.

But guess what? Just because I’m down and out doesn’t mean I won’t be here. I’ll still have a voice. I’ll still be able to record the podcast. I’ll still be able to do online magic and connect with you online. So I’m gonna do exactly that. Whenever I’m struggling through something, I have learned that the best way to do it is with other people and to help teach you.

If I can help you or your daughter with your migraine journey, with your PCOS or infertility journey, with your endometriosis journey, if I can help you with understanding the worlds of GLP-1s, if I can help you understand how to go deeper in your genetics, I’m gonna do it. In fact, it’s what wakes me up every single day, and that’s never gonna go away.

So I just wanted to give you [00:16:00] a little life update. We are back in action. We launched a podcast last week with an interview. We have more interviews up our sleeve that we recorded back in the spring. I’m super excited to bring to your– to bring your way, and we have more coming. Lots and lots of things coming our way.

Actually, let’s restart that sentence. Um, lots of things coming your way here before the end of the year. Amazing, amazing content focused more on health being individual, and I’m excited for you to tune in. So if you haven’t already, turn your notifications on for this podcast. We’re back in action. We’re launching weekly, and I can’t wait to share more.

So I hope you are getting your kids back to school. I hope you’re getting back to routine. I hope you’re getting back to you. And until next time, we’ll talk soon. Bye-bye. [00:17:00]