In this episode of Life Intended, host Kelly Berry sits down with Kelley Maple, board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Medical Anti-Aging, to discuss the complexities of perimenopause and how women can embrace this life stage with confidence. Kelley shares her expertise on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), lifestyle changes, nutrition, and the science-backed strategies to mitigate symptoms like weight gain, mood swings, and sleep disruptions. Whether you're navigating this transition or preparing for it, this conversation is packed with actionable insights.
Kelley dispels common misconceptions about HRT, highlighting its benefits when initiated at the right time. She discusses the safety of bioidentical hormones and explains how HRT can help alleviate symptoms like night sweats, low libido, and mood instability while protecting long-term health.
Strength training and prioritizing protein intake are crucial for women during perimenopause to maintain muscle mass and bone health. Kelley emphasizes the importance of sleep hygiene, mental health practices, and reducing alcohol consumption to support hormonal balance.
From personal care products to processed foods, Kelley sheds light on how endocrine disruptors can impact hormone health. She shares practical tips for reducing exposure, like choosing clean products and filtering drinking water, to support overall well-being.
Kelley shares her go-to supplements, including vitamin D, creatine, collagen, and magnesium glycinate, to support cognitive function, muscle health, and sleep. She also highlights the importance of personalized nutrition and supplement plans based on individual needs.
Kelley (00:00)
You know, and I think also to make that even more complex, some of the metabolic changes that happen during perimenopause, including weight gain and body composition changes. So weight redistribution, particularly mid abdominal weight gain. Women come to me all the time saying that I'm eating the same, I'm working out the same and my body is changing and I feel like I can't stop it. And you feel out of control. So now you're irritable. You're feeling depressed.
Kelly Berry (00:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (00:25)
anxious. Now your body's changing, you're gaining weight, which causes this whole cascade and especially for women we tend to body and our weight we're very sensitive to those changes and so you're just tackling all these things on that there's struggle and it's difficult and that's why we that's why that I love Mary Claire Haver's word the zone of chaos because you just feel chaotic.
Kelly Berry (00:41)
Yeah. Yeah.
Hi friends, you're listening to Life Intended, a podcast that explores what it means to be true to yourself and live an authentic and purposeful life. I'm your host, Kelly Berry, and each episode of Life Intended explores my guests' version of personal growth, self-discovery, and the pursuit of becoming the best version of themselves. Our conversations are designed so that you can take what you need and incorporate it into your life to live with more intention and authenticity.
Whether you're seeking to develop your leadership skills, overcome challenges, or simply live a more fulfilling life, you will find guidance, motivation, and practical strategies to help you navigate your unique journey. Today, I have an expert in a topic I think so many of you are gonna find relevant, informative, and interesting, and I can't wait to have this discussion. Kelly Maple is a board certified family nurse practitioner and the co-founder and chief medical officer of Medical Anti-Aging.
a regenerative medicine practice dedicated to helping men and women navigate aging with confidence through tailored hormone, peptide, and aesthetic treatments. She is also the founder of the KM Health Collective, an educational platform dedicated to redefining midlife health for women. An active member of the North American Menopause Society, Kelly is committed to advancing a new standard of menopause care rooted in science, compassion, and personal experience.
empowering women to take charge of their well-being through paramenopause and beyond. Welcome, Kelly. I'm really just so excited to have you here and have this conversation.
Kelley (02:25)
Thank you, Kelly. I'm so excited to be here also, and this is my favorite topic of discussion. So I'm grateful to be here. Thank you so much for having me as your guest.
Kelly Berry (02:34)
Yeah, definitely. tell us, I know I just mentioned this, we were chatting right before we started recording and I told Kelly, she helped me prepare for interview, pointing me towards some resources. And so I told her, I'm like, now I'm in this topic. I feel like the kid in college who just took a class and I'm like, now I need to change my major because I need to know everything about this topic. So maybe you had the same experience, but how did you get so interested in this topic and kind of like really
Now this is the path that you're on in your career.
Kelley (03:07)
You know, obviously...
It's a multi-factorial things that happen. I would say, I like to tell this little brief story all the way back to 25, 30 years ago, when I was a teenager, early twenties, I remember my parents going and getting their hormone treatments and talking about how great they feel and wanting to age well. And they have this thriving sex life. And now fast forward, they're close to 70 and they're amazing. They're happy, they're healthy, they feel great. And so I would say that was probably the small little flame that started way back
Back then, my mom had been struggling with perimenopause and really struggling and it was affecting her relationship and affecting us and she sought help and found a really, I would say at that time, progressive provider who really changed her life. So that was always in the back of my mind. And then leading, I worked as a nurse, I'm a nurse, I'm a nurse practitioner now, but my career as a nurse began in the CBIC, so cardiovascular intensive care.
Kelly Berry (03:55)
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (04:04)
did that for about 10 years and I just became so frustrated with this reactive medical model and seeing especially women.
suffering with heart disease. Heart disease, just a quick side, is the number one killer of women, not breast cancer, not other things but heart disease. so during that time in the CVICU, my mind was just going like, can't we figure something better? Let's figure out a way to prevent these illnesses. So that's what kind of was my catalyst to go to nurse practitioner school and then do my board certification. And then when I started looking for my rotations, I specifically wanted to find a practice that specialized in not totally functional medicine, but just
Kelly Berry (04:17)
Thank you.
Kelley (04:43)
thought outside the box and who offered more than just traditional primary care. So was so grateful to find a mentor, nurse practitioner there and also a doctor who are just so open minded and were providing hormone care at that time. And I learned that's where I started. So I did my rotations as a student there and then they hired me. So yeah, it was so cool. And I got some certifications in hormone replacement therapy and I just saw the impact it had on
Kelly Berry (05:00)
nice.
Kelley (05:09)
a patient's life, both men and women. But at that time, really the focus was more on just menopausal hormone therapy, not so much on women and perimenopause. And I really hadn't made that... I was unaware really of what before menopause, what perimenopause was truly, and what women were going through until I started going through that myself. And I then really just started doing a deep dive and became passionate on
Kelly Berry (05:16)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (05:38)
helping women not just at the menopause transition before and that's really where all this has come about.
Kelly Berry (05:45)
Yeah, so that's awesome. And an interesting tie to what you experienced and saw through your mom and then kind of like where that has led you. So there's so many layers to this, I know, and you can kind of decide where's the best place for us to start, can we talk about hormone therapy and kind of like...
the history of that and what has gone on with that? like, can you define paramenopause for us and what that looks like? Cause I think that there's just like, you you just mentioned being unaware. I think there's just a great unawareness and I'm 43. Like I don't, I don't know anything about this either. So talk to us like which one of those things comes first and where's the best place for us to start.
Kelley (06:30)
Sure. So I think just some basics of really, let's say, what is menopause and what does that look like? So the average age of menopause in America is 51. Now that can be anywhere say 45 to 55. That's still considered normal. But what we know and what we're learning more about is that the perimenopause transition can begin even seven to 10 years before that. So a woman in her late 30s, early 40s can really be beginning to experience symptoms of perimenopause.
And the reason that this occurs is that we're born with a finite number of eggs. And once we start ovulating and having our cycle, we go through those eggs pretty rapidly. And as we get closer to this mid-30s, late-30s, early-40s, the quantity and quality of our egg production is declining. And our brain senses that.
So what used to be this really nice rhythmic pattern of hormone secretion and that's led to our menstrual cycle becomes really, really chaotic. And probably one of the podcasts that I had spoken to you, there's an incredible educator, Dr. Mary Claire Haber, who really coined the term the zone of chaos for perimenopause. And that's exactly what it is. Our brain is sensing something's not right here. I'm given the same signal to the ovary to make those hormones and it's not responding the same. What's happening? So those hormonal changes then start
Kelly Berry (07:31)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kelley (07:51)
causing changes in our metabolism, in our mood, and in a whole host of other things that we start seeing, like I said, sometimes in the late 30s, and women just aren't aware of are in a really incredible time to be a woman in perimenopause because this is becoming, I say perimenopause is having its moment, a long overdue moment as well as menopause. Women's Health Initiative study came out in 2002, and at that
time it was a flawed study, which we know now, but at the time came out basically said hormones cause cancer, take all your women off of hormones. So for the next 20 years, the last 20 years after that, really providers became very scared to prescribe hormones for women. Where we're at now, fast forward in the most up-to-date literature is that most of the data, we have good data from there that we utilize, but the data that was very scary about hormone therapy has all really been refuted and we have much better information.
now that we did that. But that's how it's kind of like we're coming back around to say, okay, we need to start over and get accurate data and move forward with accuracy instead of the fear that we've had for the last 20 years.
Kelly Berry (08:49)
This is it.
Yeah, yeah, from my understanding from Dr. Mary Claire, you know, was like probably the wrong sample used in that study combined with like some really just like inaccurate interpretation of the findings. And so when people went back and looked at it, they realize, you know, what we were told about hormone replacement therapy and why we've not given it is not really accurate. And so this whole almost a generation of women
Kelley (09:17)
Yep.
Correct.
Kelly Berry (09:32)
who were going through paramenopause and menopause during that time have kind of suffered.
Kelley (09:37)
suffered immensely. So what happened in the Women's Health Initiative study is that hormone therapy was initiated all on women over the age of 60. In addition, they were given synthetic estrogen. was derived from horse urine and synthetic progestins. So our body makes estradiol and our body makes progesterone. Those are body identical or bio identical hormones. They were given synthetic estrogens and synthetic progestins. In addition, the age being a factor. Where we are now,
Kelly Berry (09:39)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (10:07)
And what we kind of talk about in understanding menopause care is that the initiation of replacing those lost hormones after menopause within the first five years of the last menstrual cycle, and then we even go up to those 10 years after the menstrual cycle, is the safest and really best window to reintroduce hormones. So if you just look at those little things right there, age, synthetic estrogen, synthetic progestins, you're starting with a flawed sample in a flawed study.
Kelly Berry (10:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kelley (10:37)
Right? know, estrogen has incredible anti-inflammatory effects on the body, on the brain, on the heart, on the blood vessels. But it has that effect when the body is still healthy because it's had estrogen, right? So we've had all this estrogen in our body. If we wait a long time after our last menstrual period where we're no longer making estrogen, we lose some of that anti-inflammatory protective effect.
So to then reintroduce it so much later, there's still quite a bit of unknown. We don't see the same protective benefits of that. And so that's where we stand now is that we've really identified this window of opportunity and safety really for women to use estrogen therapy. I tell women all the time, estrogen is something that has been absolutely vital to our functioning since we were basically born. And then especially from the time of puberty on, estrogen itself is not carcinogenic.
Kelly Berry (11:01)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (11:28)
It is not something that causes cancer. Estrogen is in our body forever. Why? All of a sudden, all of a sudden the last menstrual period comes and now estrogen is going to cause cancer. know, and estrogen levels during pregnancy are sky high higher than we'd ever get when we're giving hormone therapy. So it's just kind of, I think, a really great time of just getting facts and truth about how our bodies work and about how estrogen in particular functions in our body so that we can really break that cycle of fear for women.
Kelly Berry (11:33)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think one of the things I had never heard and was so enlightening for me is what you're talking about, like all of the protective benefits of estrogen. And you can speak to these more, but like all of the, I guess the substitutes I'll say for estrogen that women are getting when they're not on hormone replacement therapy to address mood, cholesterol, all of these things that estrogen, to my,
as I understand it, would be a better option for. So can you talk some about what I heard and kind of give the expert version of that?
Kelley (12:31)
Sure. So let's start with, you know, I think that we can kind of take some of the perimenopause symptoms and then talk about them. And you had mentioned substitutes and so we see a 40 % increase in antidepressant prescription use during women during perimenopause, late 30s, early 40s. SSRI use increases by 40%. And what we know is that that
Kelly Berry (12:37)
Okay, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (12:53)
absolutely has a connection to a decline in estrogen. Our neurotransmitters are highly sensitive to our sex hormones, meaning all those hormones that our ovaries produce. So, you know, we're kind of thinking like, wow, we've just been putting all these women coming in who are saying, I'm depressed, I'm irritable, I'm anxious, I don't feel like myself. well, you must have depression, you must have anxiety. Let's slap a pill on, you know, give you an antidepressant or an anxiety medication and that's going to take care of it. And oftentimes, it's a little more complex than that.
Kelly Berry (13:17)
Yeah.
Kelley (13:23)
I am a-
absolute firm believer in mental health medications and proper try. I'm not at all saying that that's a bad thing, but I think that we're seeing that perhaps other treatments could also be beneficial, even cognitive behavioral therapy. I think some of it too is just a woman hearing that what they're going through is normal and that they're not crazy and that other women are going through this. mean, just yesterday had a consultation with a woman in her early 40s and she said,
Kelly Berry (13:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelley (13:54)
just don't feel like myself. I've never been depressed. I've never had such anxiety. I'm irritable. I'm reactive to my children. And I don't know what it is. And I said, well, probably a lot of it is perimenopause. And even just hearing that brings such relief to women. and I'm not crazy. You're not crazy.
Kelly Berry (13:56)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, like, okay, I'm not crazy. I'm not a psycho. I interviewed a therapist. It's been a couple months ago now, but we were talking about, you know, like the ways that women feel when they get to like this age 40. And a lot of it is like, you know, I am intolerant. I want to escape. You know, I just want to get away like all of the things and, you know, it's hormonal.
to find out that I'm not the only one who all of a sudden woke up one day and now feel like I'm in this life that I don't even recognize. There are ways to get out of it. So yeah, it's definitely good to know. Yeah.
Kelley (14:47)
Right.
Like I'm living in this body and I don't feel like myself. Like who am I? You know, and I think also to make that even more complex, some of the metabolic changes that happen during perimenopause, including weight gain and body composition changes. So weight redistribution, particularly mid abdominal weight gain. Women come to me all the time saying that I'm eating the same, I'm working out the same and my body is changing and I feel like I can't stop it. And you feel out of control. So now you're irritable. You're feeling depressed.
Kelly Berry (15:01)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (15:22)
anxious. Now your body's changing, you're gaining weight, which causes this whole cascade and especially for women we tend to I think that our body and our weight we're very sensitive to those changes and so you're just tackling all these things on that there's struggle and it's difficult and that's why we that's why that I love Mary Claire Haver's word the zone of chaos because you just feel chaotic.
Kelly Berry (15:39)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kelley (15:46)
and other changes that we see, big time changes in sleep, so difficulty sleeping.
joint pains, dry skin, hair changes, libido is huge, changes in libido, low libido, decline in sexual function, so even the ability to have satisfying sexual encounters, the ability to reach orgasm becomes difficult. There's about 70 symptoms that have been identified as correlated with perimenopause and menopause, things that you would never even think of. Dental changes, see dental health changing.
Kelly Berry (16:19)
Yeah.
Kelley (16:23)
losing teeth, having more cavities during menopause. mean, you name it, head to toe, our body changes and it can be challenging.
Kelly Berry (16:26)
So you can tell how that changes. definitely. much good stuff that you said in there. So let's go back to hormone replacement therapy as, I guess, a way to address all of the things that you were just talking about. So something else that I learned that I didn't know is how difficult it is to do a blood test and get a
get a good baseline for what are your hormones? know, it seems like, well, if it's all hormones and just test it and figure it out and then fix it. So talk about why it's so hard to identify and how you go about getting a patient onto a protocol that is gonna alleviate some of these symptoms.
Kelley (17:12)
Sure, and that's a great question. I get that question especially about blood work all the time. Women like, want to know where my hormones are. So it is very difficult, especially during perimenopause because of this, remember what used to be really regular and cyclical. We can check your hormones and we know exactly what we're going to expect to find. But when we're in the zone of chaos, I can check your hormones today and it would look very different a few days from now. However,
Kelly Berry (17:18)
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (17:36)
I still utilize lab testing to get an overall idea. There's a couple numbers that we look at. One of them is called FSH, follicle stimulating hormone.
And that's a signal that comes from our brain to our ovaries to tell our ovaries to make hormones. As the ovaries are slowing down their hormone production, the brain, very smart brain, is saying, hey, I need more hormones, I need more hormones. So we see this FSH level rise. And then after menopause, it rises, it rises, and then it just stays high and never goes down. But that's something that I like to look at in perimenopause just to get an overall idea of where we are. I also am a huge advocate for female
appropriate testosterone therapy for women in perimenopause, in menopause. So I will often, not often, I always check a testosterone level on my women because that's typically one of the first hormones that I like to replace during the perimenopause transition. So we'll check a testosterone level, an FSH. I will include an estradiol, a progesterone, and then I also look at other things. We want to look at your thyroid. We want to look at some vitamin levels, you know, make sure that we're also not missing something else.
that could be causing these symptoms. I also just look at general health laboratory tests. I worked in primary care as a nurse practitioner for five years, so I'm all about preventative screenings. So I do a pretty thorough workup with my patients because I'm comfortable in that space because I did primary care. So looking at cholesterol, liver, kidneys, electrolytes, and blood count. So I take a pretty good comprehensive view of overall health and then include the hormones in that. And based upon
what we find, you know, just have a really informed discussion with my women about what our findings are, what this looks like, and then what I can do to help. You know, I do say, obviously, healthy lifestyle is the foundation of health. I don't discount everything. know, hormones aren't the only answer. In other words, I look really holistically at someone's lifestyle, all the lifestyle components that we can do to maximize.
Kelly Berry (19:38)
Thank you.
Kelley (19:45)
And then we sort of begin potential hormone discussions, which I can get very granular with if you want me to. And I love talking about it. I talk numbers, I talk treatments. mean, whatever you want me to talk about, I'm happy to talk about.
Kelly Berry (19:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, let's go in that direction a little bit. And then I would like to back up because I do think that it's important for women to know what are these lifestyle things that we can do. Like if somebody is listening and they're like not quite ready to go see someone or their symptoms, they don't think they're that bad, but they want to know like, what can I be doing to set myself up for success or mitigate as much as possible? So I'm good to get granular and then maybe let's like pull it back a little bit.
Kelley (20:23)
Cool. So I will say with lifestyle, I'd say modifications or things that we want to aim for.
I cannot stress enough the importance of exercise. And in particular, as we get into perimenopause, moving away from these high impact, high stress, high cortisol, cortisol producing exercises and moving into strength training. It is something you have to think longevity for your body. You know, what, what do you want to your body in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, how do we want to show up for her? And we need to be strong for her. We need to have strong bones for her. We need to have strong muscles for her. So I am.
unbelievably passionate about strength training, resistance training, weightlifting for women, especially in perimenopause and then preparing for that menopause transition and then preparing for longevity. So that's number one for me. Being really mindful of our sleep because it becomes so difficult during perimenopause. So maybe even utilizing a sleep tracker if you need to get information on your sleep, finding some supplements, melatonin, magnesium, sleep hygiene, turning our phones off
well before the time that we're trying to go to sleep, creating a sleep schedule. And sometimes women need help for sleep with either medications or even sometimes I use, we'll get into this, but progesterone is something that affects our sleep. So sleep, hygiene, mental health, because as we just discussed earlier, in whatever that looks like for an individual, that is something that brings them peace and relief. whatever it might be, everyone's so different, but take prioritizing your mental health.
I think those would be my top, you know, my top strength training, prioritizing sleep, prioritizing mental health, and then alcohol. We have to have that discussion about alcohol because what we used to be able to do in our 20s and 30s, we can't do anymore in our 40s. And you're smiling, probably, maybe you've had a similar experience. Yeah.
Kelly Berry (22:18)
Yep. Yes. Absolutely. you know, I told I actually said this to my husband yesterday. Like, think I think it was Dr. Mary Claren, the Huberman episode. said, you know, now if I'm choosing, if I have a glass of wine, I'm choosing wine over sleep. And it is like that is so it is crazy. And it's like I went to bed one day and I could tolerate alcohol just fine. And I woke up the next day and I no longer could. And it's like
Kelley (22:37)
Yes.
Kelly Berry (22:48)
It's a beer, it's a glass of wine, it's anything. My sleep is horrendous. it takes me, you it's like, you used to say like a hangover in your 20s felt very different from in your 30s. And now it's like a hangover in my 20s feels like a glass of wine in my 40s. And, you know, I'm like in this stage right now where I'm like, it is just not worth it. Like I'm, 43 and I have a toddler. Like I can't, I already have bad sleep, you know, because of that, like I can't have bad sleep with wine also. So.
Kelley (23:14)
Yeah. Yep. We divided.
Kelly Berry (23:16)
It is really like exchanging your now for your future really.
Kelley (23:23)
It really is. And we also know too, and I talk a lot about this to my women in the 20s and 30s,
You know, excess alcohol intake will accelerate your ovarian aging full stop. Smoking, alcohol intake will cause those ovaries to age faster. And so, yeah, and then we fast forward into our forties and it's just, we just can't handle it. You do, you sacrifice, you're going to give something up. So again, I'm all about balance, enjoy your life, have fun. But you know, for the most, the 80-20 rule, right? 80 % of the time, be kind to your body. She'll be kind back to you. There's 20 % if you want to have fun, you want to do something, if it makes you feel good, you're having a celebration.
Kelly Berry (23:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Yeah.
Kelley (23:59)
go for it, but just know you're probably going to pay for it. So alcohol and then of course smoke. I think people are pretty aware of smoking these days of the detrimental effects, but even more so during perimenopause and menopause. Yeah. So I think those are kind of the basics of lifestyle, kind of lifestyle components that can help prepare you and keep you as good as you can be during that transition in preparation for then the menopause transition.
Kelly Berry (24:02)
Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. What about nutrition and supplementation? What do we need to know or what needs to change during this period of our life?
Kelley (24:37)
Yep. So protein intake becomes
even more important as we age and that ties into this strength training, having adequate muscle mass that becomes even more important. So I'm a big advocate on high, high protein intake. I have really lofty goals for my patients and not everyone has to make sure it's appropriate for your health, for your kidney health, for your lifestyle, but I have very lofty protein goals. And those are based on, there's an incredible longevity doctor called Dr. Gabriella Lyon, who is changing the face of longevity.
and really championing what is called muscle centric medicine. She's an incredible women's health advocate, but she is again, having these lofty goals that I've passed down to my patients of aiming for about one gram of protein, 0.8 to one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. So if your ideal body weight is 150 pounds, you know, aiming for about 120 to 150 grams of protein a day. It's a lot of protein. Most women aren't getting that. So protein intake, obviously five
Kelly Berry (25:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelley (25:41)
We need our gut to be healthy, so having good adequate amount of fiber intake.
And then when it comes to supplementation, know, I going back to what we look at in lab values, I always look at a vitamin D level. I look at B12 and folate. I really I'm not a huge proponent of having to take multiple, multiple supplements. I have a toolkit that I like to just it's what works for me, what we have the literature about. So I pass on to my patients. Most of us, most women are going to need vitamin D supplementation. We're just not getting enough from the sun. We protect our skin. We're not absorbing it enough in our gut and the foods that we eat.
So vitamin D supplementation. I love creatine. So creatine is something that we know is great for muscle synthesis, but it's also incredible for cognitive health. And we're seeing these benefits for women in the longevity space of using creatine. I aim for about three grams. Five would be the upper limit. I usually recommend for women, but starting at like three grams and maybe even only a couple of times a week so that you know your gut gets used to it and your body's handling it fine. Creatine monohydrate.
Collagen powder. So hydrolyzed collagen is great for our joint health and our tissue. So collagen, creatine, vitamin D. And then I work other things in based on individual, you know, patients' individual needs and things that are important. But protein is my protein fiber, creatine, collagen, vitamin D, maybe some methylated B vitamins. Magnesium glycinate is excellent for all the different types of magnesium. I like magnesium glycinate.
Kelly Berry (27:01)
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Kelley (27:16)
It's kind of a has a muscle relaxing component to it. I strength train really hard. So for me, my music lysate is good. It can be really helpful for sleep. Melatonin, well melatonin doesn't.
It's not a sleep aid that it's going to put you to sleep and cause you to stay asleep. It's something that contributes to just regulating that circadian rhythm in our brain. So if my patients are really struggling for sleep, I'll put together a little cocktail for them and say, maybe take a little melatonin, a little magnesium at nighttime. So those are probably the overview of my top supplements that I like to recommend.
Kelly Berry (27:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah. So I think Dr. Lyon was mentioned in some episode that you had me listen to. So now I'm listening to more on her. I mean, it is so fascinating. And you've probably seen this because your algorithm on social media is probably similar to mine. But you've probably seen the meme that is like, I'm sorry, I can't do that. I have to eat a bunch of protein today. Like, you know, I personally
Kelley (28:09)
Yes, I just... Somebody just sent me that.
Kelly Berry (28:14)
I have always prioritized protein, so I don't think that I have the same challenges that a lot of women do. I have protein at every meal, I always have, but I know that that is so challenging, even for friends and family who, maybe two out of three of their meals a day don't have any protein in it. So what do you advise to your patients who are like, they're going for maybe 30 grams of protein a day instead of like 30 to 50 per meal?
Kelley (28:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelly Berry (28:41)
How can they make some adjustments to that?
Kelley (28:44)
Yeah, yeah, and it's true. think women on average get maybe 50 grams a day. It's just it's not a lot. So, you know,
Kelly Berry (28:49)
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (28:53)
I personally have to, I take one protein shake a day because it helps me. I just, I'll just give you a quick overview of my, my 46 year old schedule. I'm up early. I'm up at five. I do a little creatine before my workouts, some branched-chain amino acids. I go to gym. I lift weights four to five days a week, really early in the morning. So that's when I have to fit it in. And then I come home and I make myself like a power, a power protein shake. So I use a whey, I like whey protein. It's a complete amino acid profile. I use a whey protein powder. add about
Kelly Berry (29:00)
Yeah, yeah, let's hear it, yes.
Kelley (29:23)
a half a cup or so of nonfat Greek yogurt, which is loaded with protein. I put my collagen powder in there. I put some fiber powder. I put blueberries, blackberries. I like a macadamia milk or an almond milk something. And I'm getting about 50 grams of protein right there, just in my morning shake. Maybe 40 to 50 depends on how much of my protein I throw, but 40 to 50 grams right there, you know, that's a great start to your day. And that's right after my workout. I like to feed my muscles that way protein right after my workout.
Kelly Berry (29:39)
Okay.
So heavy handed you are, yeah.
Kelley (29:52)
And then I'm at my office most of the day and at my office I keep low fat cottage cheese. I keep boiled eggs. I have a $12 Amazon, the best $12 I've ever spent in my life as a boiled egg maker on Amazon. It's like you just put the eggs in, put a timer, it boils them for you because you know, egg whites are a great source of protein. So I keep those little snacks that work with me throughout the day. So I'll just have a few bites of cottage cheese or some couple of boiled eggs. And then at lunch, I make sure to have something. I personally eat animal protein. I know not everyone does.
Kelly Berry (30:10)
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (30:22)
So if you don't eat animal protein, beans and rice make a complete amino acid profile, legumes. So for me then I'll have some sort of protein and that's whatever I have. If I'm eating out, if I'm eating at the office, some sort of protein for lunch. And now I'm already at probably 110 grams for the day, 110, 120. And then at dinner, I have protein with dinner. So it can be done, you just have to be intentional and be aware.
Kelly Berry (30:47)
Yeah.
Kelley (30:49)
So a chicken breast about the size of your palm is roughly 30 grams of protein. So if you're having, you know, like I said, chicken or a cup of even chicken and some beans or something, you're getting even extra protein that way. So it's just having protein snacks around and being mindful when you're choosing your meals to choose something with protein in it.
Kelly Berry (31:01)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and why is protein so important, especially for women this age?
Kelley (31:15)
I mean, I think that the number one reason is muscle synthesis, the ability to put on muscle. Muscle, the quality and quantity of our skeletal muscle tissue is directly tied to our longevity. And as women go through the menopause transition bone...
density because of the loss of estrogen decreases and we are at much higher risk for osteopenia and osteoporosis and having adequate skeletal muscle tissue is absolutely crucial and in order to have that skeletal muscle tissue we've got to have protein to synthesize muscle. So that's the simplified version of why, excuse me, that's my version and the simplified version of why we need protein. We need to build muscle. We need to have strong bones and strong muscles.
Kelly Berry (31:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. So back to the hormone replacement therapy and we were, we were kind of going down the path of, you know, symptoms and hormone replacement therapy. So what about how that relates to, you mentioned like the visceral fat that women start to gain during that time. what does that look like? How can women address that? You know, is it something that we just accept because it's kind of what happens to us or I know it's
It's something that it's like, you even mentioned the emotional toll that it takes on women. Like, how do we handle that? And really, guess, you know, why is that fat so harmful to us?
Kelley (32:41)
Right. So we see visceral fat. let's, we'll define what visceral fat is. Visceral fat is the fat that's wrapped around our organs inside, the fat that we don't see. Subcutaneous fat is what we see when our clothes don't fit right. We see it in our arms. see that subcutaneous fat. But visceral fat is inside wrapped around our organs. And that is what long-term having excess visceral fat leads to insulin resistance. In insulin's resistance becoming the hallmark of diabetes. Cholesterol derangement. So we see cholesterol markers elevating
Kelly Berry (32:45)
Okay.
We
Kelley (33:11)
which then puts us at higher risk for cardiovascular disease. So before perimenopause, on average, know, a healthy average woman will have about 7 to 8 percent visceral fat. And we see this marked jump during this hormonal change up to into the 20s with really no change in what you've been doing. And so that's why I think it's we just have to bring this awareness to the fact that this is happening because of some hormonal changes. We're going to have to make some lifestyle adjustments, prioritizing the protein, you know,
like be more mindful of what we're doing, increasing that strength training. And then one of the reasons for this change comes a little bit from the fact that testosterone levels begin declining big time in perimenopause. So women often think of testosterone as just a male hormone. We produce a lot of testosterone throughout our lifespan. Our ovaries produce testosterone, our adrenal glands produce precursors to testosterone that convert to testosterone. Testosterone is incredibly important for women, and it's incredibly important for women
metabolic health, the ability to burn fat efficiently like we're supposed to, the ability to put on lean muscle tissue, right? The more lean muscle that we have, the better our metabolism functions. So that's why when we're getting now a little bit into the hormone discussion, testosterone is most of the time one of the first hormones that I recommend to start giving women during perimenopause. So we'll check that level before. I have, the lab gives this reference range for women of
Kelly Berry (34:34)
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (34:41)
of is normal. And that says anywhere from say two upwards of 45 or 50. And I literally have seen women come to me with a testosterone of three. I mean, nothing in the the basement. And they're tired. They're gaining weight in the midsection. They're trying to work. They can't get through their workouts, can't put on a muscle. So testosterone replacement when done safely and appropriately can be incredibly beneficial to women. We see reduced depression scores with testosterone use. We see, of course,
improvements in libido. And I say this, the libido part with testosterone with a grain of salt because really for women, libido is so complex and it's really an emotion. So, you know, just giving a woman testosterone isn't going to make her, you know, want to hang from the chandeliers like maybe she wants to. But it's again, part of the toolbox. But testosterone for women can be very helpful. It can help with if you're having night sweats. It can help you sleep a little bit better.
and just overall the health benefits. protects our brain, protects our bones, protects our breast tissue, testosterone protects our breast tissue. So that's something that I almost always for a woman who's really going through it, I will start testosterone replacement. That's personally for me, I started on testosterone about a year and a half ago and it changed my life. I had been waking up in pools of sweat at night. I was having terrible nights. I mean, waking up drenched in the bed, drenched. And I had been going through some mood changes, definitely libido changes,
Kelly Berry (35:52)
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
Kelley (36:07)
changes. for me, testosterone was absolutely life-changing and really, really helpful for me. So I usually will do, I'll talk with women about the benefits of testosterone therapy. And then sometimes we do need to utilize some progesterone during perimenopause as well. And typically during that time, I will use it in the second half of the cycle. So our cycles are typically about, you know, 28 to 30 days, that varies for everyone. But taking progesterone in what is called the luteus
Kelly Berry (36:12)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (36:37)
phase or the second phase of our menstrual cycle can be really helpful to help with sleep to help upset some of the more severe PMS symptoms that can happen. And so those are two of the things in particular for perimenopause that I find helpful for my patients and obviously for myself.
Kelly Berry (36:53)
Mm-hmm. This is kind of a different question, I think of women my age who may or may not be going through perimenopause yet. We may be having some symptoms, but we're not really sure, but we're all still on birth control. So like I personally have an IUD, you know, I was talking to some of my friends over the past week or so, you know, some people are still on the pill. Some have been on
fertility treatments for a long time and so they've been on hormones like is there a need to kind of like stop that and get to Baseline to see like where where are we and what's going on or can you? Figure out where are you and what's going on without having to like strip away what you've been doing
Kelley (37:37)
Well, first of all, if you are still ovulating and you haven't gone through menopause, you can still get pregnant. So for pregnancy prevention, yes, absolutely. I will say personally, I love IUDs during perimenopause and then even into the menopause transition and even after, IUDs are excellent ways of preventing pregnancy. The combined oral contraceptive pills can be really helpful for people who are struggling with really erratic or heavy or dysfunctional menstrual bleeding because of this chaos.
Kelly Berry (37:43)
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (38:07)
So we don't have to just stop something to get this baseline. We can typically work around what we see in the lab results, knowing if you're on a birth, form of contraceptive. The oral contraceptive pills, do suppress ovulation. So when we look at lab results of FSH and estrogen and progesterone, we're not getting the most accurate look at that. But I can get a good look at testosterone still. And then in IUD, we can still get a good look at hormone levels,
Kelly Berry (38:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (38:36)
with that and I do tell my women they think they're far beyond you know being able to get pregnant absolutely not if you if you haven't gone through that menopause transition you cannot be like one month it's more difficult absolutely to get pregnant but so no you know the short of it is no you don't have something's working for you
Kelly Berry (38:48)
Yeah.
Kelley (38:53)
and it's working well, we can do other things to help. we know when we're looking at that, I just look through that lens of knowing what it is that you're taking. back to the IUD, it's a great tool and it's a great form of not only contraceptive, but it's a great form of really helping to level out that what could potentially become dysfunctional uterine bleeding because of the hormonal chaos. So I'm planning mine out. I think I'm on my third one. I'm like, I've got this one, then I'll be 52. I can get one.
Kelly Berry (39:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kelley (39:23)
59 I'm planning all my in the the progesterone contain like marina the IDDs that contain progesterone
Kelly Berry (39:23)
Yeah.
Kelley (39:30)
When we get into the menopause transition and we need to start talking about estrogen replacement, the IUD offers protection to our uterus when we're taking progesterone. So for some women who progesterone makes them very sleepy or they just can't tolerate it, I'll send them to their gynecologist to get a progesterone containing IUD because it offers that uterine protection without having to take the oral progesterone.
Kelly Berry (39:55)
Nice, nice. A couple of other kind of off the wall questions. So I know that you work with women, but you also work with men. So in this like midlife change, do you recommend kind of the same like nutrition, supplemental, exercise routine to men also?
Kelley (40:14)
Absolutely. So women, we go through menopause and men go through what's called andropause. Really men start their testosterone levels start declining sometimes even in the 30s and we're much earlier much earlier levels of low testosterone men than we ever had. know our life so much is just due to lifestyle and what we call epigenetic changes meaning really environmental assaults that are occurring to us all around us all the time. We live in a world of assault and it's causing these we have they were constantly
exposed to these endocrine disruptor. So even men are struggling with proper hormone production and infertility issues at a young age. So absolutely, I recommend the same lifestyle.
modifications and recommendations for men. And then it's into, I'm glad you brought up men because actually my partner, we've been together eight years. So he's been through all this with me and he hears me talk about it all the time. said, you need to have a course for men. Men need to know what women are going through and you know, tell the men come to go, go to your appointment with your, go to an appointment with your, with your wife, with your girlfriend, with your person. Because you know, he now has such a different understanding of what women go through than he ever did before, because you know, of our being in relationship with me,
Kelly Berry (41:11)
Yes.
Kelley (41:27)
funny because he's now even helping his friends saying, I know what that is. it's cute. he really brought that to my attention that men need to be educated as well as to what it is that women are going through because it's tough. You know, it's tough. so, yeah, absolutely. Men and women alike.
Kelly Berry (41:30)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, lots of changes. So my next question actually was going to be about endocrine disruptors. So this is something that I am very aware of and have been aware of for a long time. But I think that a lot of people are not. So can you talk about what is an endocrine disruptor? What are all of these things in our environment that are assaulting us? And what can we do really in our own personal space to really try to control as much of that as we can?
Kelley (42:16)
Yeah.
So, you know, we live in a toxic world and we're going to continue live. We have we can't get around it. So, you know, I don't I always preface this conversation with not it's not meant to bring fear and cause anxiety about what it is that you because you can't some of it you just can't avoid. Right. But, you know, processed foods, ultra processed foods, I think are one of the largest sources of these forever chemicals, microplastics, even in all the things that are up in an endocrine destructors. Our food sourcing is poor, period. Full stop. We have done
ourselves such a disservice and I think in our country in particular our food sourcing is just terrible. So processed foods, ultra processed foods are absolutely wreaking havoc on our endocrine system. And I think we're going to find, I think we're going to see more and more and more of this coming out, especially as the next generations coming up. You know, I was listening to, I think it was a Hugh Ribbon podcast on microplastics and this was shocking. He said that they are finding forever chemicals in microplastics in the
the first stools of babies after the mothers have given birth. So that means even in utero, even in utero, babies are being exposed to these endocrine disruptors. But plastics, microplastics, ultra-processed foods, chemicals that we're putting onto our body. I have a daughter who's 20 and she loves all the smell goods, the candles, the lotions. And I finally just had to ask the daughter, think you have to take a little deeper look into what you're putting on your skin because it's
Kelly Berry (43:19)
Yeah. Yeah.
the food.
Kelley (43:46)
what you're putting into your air, these candles, it's all, they're all being, we're all seeing these as endocrine disruptors,
It's just we have to be mindful of what we're putting in our body and what we're putting on our skin and what's in our environment. And again, we can't we're never going to be away from it all. It's just the world we live in. But if we can take small steps to to avoid some of these major offenders, I recently in the last year or so, I started in particular because I do animal I do animal meat and I started ordering from a farm, this place called Wild Pastures. And I get my meat delivered once a month from this farm that it comes frozen and I
because they have pasture raised, pasture finished, grass bed. I love the ethos of how they farm and what they do. And so just little things that I do, making sure to have good water filters on your water at home. I personally, I don't drink out of plastic water bottles. Again, I'm a reasonable human, I'm not a tyrant, but for the most part, the things that I do that are the biggest portions of what I consume on a daily basis, I try as much as possible to be clean, to have clean, just make good choices on those things. Because again, it's
Kelly Berry (44:34)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Kelley (44:53)
80-20 rule, right? Like what we're exposed to kind of 80 % of the time should be as good as it can be. And then we leave that other 20 % for just life because life happens and we're not always going to be able to be perfect in what we put in our bodies.
Kelly Berry (44:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you're like me. We grew up in the Bath and Body Works era, the Victoria's Secret love spell era. And you know, now it's like, wouldn't even let those products in my house now. But I think that that's not like the most widely known thing. And I know like, friends of mine who have struggled with infertility, I know like their doctors have immediately told them like, you know, here's what you need to do. But I wish that
Kelley (45:13)
Yes.
Yep.
Kelly Berry (45:32)
you know, was something that was more widely talked about like household cleaning products, candles, lotions, all these things, you know, I became of this a long time ago, but really, I think, not obsessive, like practical about it when I got pregnant because I'm just like, you know, I have this opportunity to do this differently than I've been handling my own life or, you know, you know better, do better type of thing. And so,
Kelley (45:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelly Berry (45:58)
I've really changed all the products we use. know a lot of what you're saying, like water filters, like your refrigerator water filter is not enough, like your tap water is not free of these microplastics. Air purifiers, I think are really important. There's a whole host of them. The one that I have so much room for improvement on is drinking out of plastic water bottles. That's a 2025, like...
Kelley (46:14)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Berry (46:24)
goal of mine, but every little bit helps. And I think as you run out of products, it doesn't have to be something that you just overhaul all at once. But as you run out of replace it. And I think the EWG, the Environmental Working Group, is where I get the majority of my information on everything. And we live in Florida, so sunscreen, all of the things, they matter.
Kelley (46:24)
you
Yeah.
Kelly Berry (46:51)
they do wreak havoc on our bodies that we're like unaware of. And then we're treating these symptoms with drugs that are not really solving the problem. They're just masking the symptoms. So, yeah.
Kelley (47:04)
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I'd love to hear you sound really, you probably even are more knowledgeable than I am on that. I'd love to hear. I mean, even maybe not now, but that'd be a cool, a cool podcast. I'd love to hear from you about how you've made those changes in your, you know, in your home and for your family and for, for your daughter. because we're in an endocrine disrupted world. And what I try to explain to patients is what's happened is that it's really changed the way our genes express themselves. And so what used to
Kelly Berry (47:19)
Yeah.
Kelley (47:31)
So let's take, let's take a appetite and CTI. When we, what should happen is that we eat and we, you know, our stomach gets full. It sends a brain, a signal to our brain to turn off the hunger signal. And then we should be satisfied and just move on.
But we've really created this dysfunctional signaling between our gut hormones and our brain even. And we don't feel that that signaling doesn't work the same as it used to. In addition, because of these endocrine disruptors and epigenetic changes, you know, we're storing fat accumulation like never before. We didn't use to store fat like we do now. And so much of that is due to these literally changes in the way our genes are signaling each other express these expressions that come in. I have so much empathy for my patients who come to me
Kelly Berry (48:01)
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (48:14)
I do a lot with with medically supervised weight loss as well. And I tell my patients, you know, you this is not this isn't your choice It isn't your fault if it was as easy as Eat less and work out more. We wouldn't have the obesity epidemic that we have in this country We have altered we have altered our gene expression when it comes to to our metabolism because of really these these Endocrine disruptors we've let you that's why we have this problem. Obviously if there's more it's more complex than that, but I have so much I really have a lot of empathy
Kelly Berry (48:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kelley (48:44)
for my patients who are struggling, who are trying to do the right things and still struggling with their weight. And we're really fighting this uphill battle. So I appreciate, I love that you've had that, you've made those changes in your life as well. And your daughter will be better off for it.
Kelly Berry (48:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's not easy. And I I have spent a lot of years and a lot of time researching, you know, it is something you really have to like learn about it and invest in the knowledge, you know, to know what to look So I understand like can be very overwhelming. And, you know, we're all busy like
Life is also, we haven't even talked about stress as a part of all of this, like, you know, life is going on at the same time. so that's really, you know, one of my big goals with the podcast is just to bring awareness about these things and then to be a resource for people who want to learn more, else, I'm sure. Yeah.
Kelley (49:22)
Right?
Yeah, I'd love to hear like products that you use and what you know, because you yeah, you I would love to hear about that all that from you, you know, kind of your top products that you've been able to replace or change it enough for things.
Kelly Berry (49:42)
Yeah, yeah, well,
Yeah, so my favorite brand that I use for everything and I'll mention them because I do have like a partnership with them is Attitude. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Attitude, but they're all EWG verified products and I use that for everything. I use it for hand That's my daughter's like bath stuff, know, like bathroom cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner.
stuffed them off the floor with. don't use any candles anymore. I do follow some low tox living people on Instagram who will sometimes say, here's what you should use. But for me, just decided I'm just not going to use it. zero water filters. There are some things around that I would like to upgrade, like water filtration under sink in the refrigerator.
I kind of haven't gotten around to that yet, but to your point about not drinking out of plastics, like stainless steel, I still need to replace It's everywhere, and there's only so much you can do at one time, but I think the more you know, the better you can
I will say, I think there are two areas that I could, we could definitely as a family improve on. One is plastic water bottles for a ton of reasons, but we way overuse those. And the second one is wearing our shoes in the house. That is something that I would like to stop us from doing. It just seems like easier said than done. you know, when you think about, especially like here in Florida, you know, like we're walking and we're walking in the grass and we're walking everywhere. Everything around us is treated. Everything has.
Kelley (51:07)
Yes.
Yes.
Kelly Berry (51:20)
chemicals on it and you walk those right in your house and put them all on your floor, on your carpet and then you have little kids walking around on that. so I could talk about this forever too. But it's so important. it's a part, you're talking about like genes and all of that and processed foods. And I know like there's so much news right now about food dyes and additives and there's just so many layers to this.
Kelley (51:31)
I can tell I love it. It really is.
Kelly Berry (51:47)
to this problem. you know, I think, I can't remember, I was just listening to a podcast recently and it's like, you know, like 75 % of Americans are overweight and 51 % of our youth are overweight. And that stat just breaks my heart because we are just setting this generation up for like oppression really, when you think about it, like they are going to be tied to the medical system. They are going to be tied to these drugs.
Kelley (51:58)
So, mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelly Berry (52:14)
I should stop at some point, it breaks my heart. If we would talk about our youth and instead of being like, well, they're chubby or they're holding onto some baby weight. like, what if we were like, well, actually, like they're all probably pre-diabetic. Like how differently would us as parents treat our children if that's how we thought of them? I just have a lot of like...
Kelley (52:29)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelly Berry (52:39)
empathy as you're saying because I think that there's so much misinformation and so much pressure and so much like I could go on and on and on about like food in schools and what kids are eating and exposed to but we'll just we'll stop it at that because
Kelley (52:54)
It's poison. It's yeah, we'll stop. But yeah, I'm with you. It's point where we list at us that we are living in it. We just live in a toxic world. And really, I think we're being poisoned. And I say that loosely, but it really is. It is. And it's very sad. But that's what, you know, I like what you're saying is that, like you said, you don't have to throw everything out and start all over.
Kelly Berry (52:59)
Okay.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kelley (53:14)
one thing at a time as you run out of this, replace it with something that that that resonate, that's better. Just replace it with something that's a little less toxic. And each time throw this out, replace it. I even tell my patients that with say supplements in the office. They'll ask, I don't hone in on a particular brand, whenever you have it, use what you have, but just don't don't buy that one again. We'll just replace it with this. And I love that I'm going to check out attitude. I've never I haven't heard of their products, so love that. Love those. Love that recommendation. Can't wait to look at that. But yeah, and I think this
Kelly Berry (53:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yes, I have a link. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kelley (53:43)
Okay, please give put the link, please put the link because I want the link. You know, I think there's also then we can also tie this back to this hormonal cycle and even tying it back into with let's say your daughter, for example, you want to set her up for the most success in the healthiest life that she can have because then that will tie into also having the healthiest perimenopause and menopause transition that she can have, right? You know, we're seeing even earlier ages of menopause and earlier ages of puberty and earlier ages of menopause
Kelly Berry (53:57)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelley (54:13)
because of these things that accelerate this ovarian aging. So it's all encompassing and it's having to take this holistic view of everything. So even what we're just talking about now ties back into us as women in this time, navigating this time, that giving ourselves the best tools that we can give ourselves and helping our body as much as we can instead of hurting our body. I think it goes to even the whole premise of your podcast. It's how can we be true to self and in living this
Kelly Berry (54:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kelley (54:43)
authentic life, showing up for ourselves the best that we can. It has to be full circle. has to be in every arena of our life.
Kelly Berry (54:51)
yep. And knowing will pay The things that you're doing now and getting up early in the morning and you've probably been doing it so long, you can't imagine your life without that because you know and see and feel all the benefits. But when you're not living in that, it's a hard transition to get into, it's a hard pattern to break, but the things are so worth it because they...
They just pay so many dividends for a really long time. And I think, you know, like we're women who have families and goals and we want to be around be with our families and to meet those goals and to live our dreams. And we have control over a lot of the things that will ensure that we get to do that. And so, yeah, everything you shared today was amazing. We'll probably have to have you come back on and we can have part two or three or four, but.
Kelley (55:36)
Yeah.
Yeah, I there's so much. There's so, so, so much. But I think it was a good, good, I hope that it was just a good.
Kelly Berry (55:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kelley (55:51)
you know, basic understanding so that women can understand that what they're going through is real and that their suffering is real and that struggle is real. But there are resources, there are things that we can do. And I think sometimes I just think the awareness, you know, when someone validates what you're feeling is really that alone can give you a breath of fresh air and help you get your get up one more day to say, okay, this is it's about what I'm going through is real and it's hormonal. It's not just me being crazy. I mean, that alone to me is such a powerful piece and why I love to tell that to my
Kelly Berry (56:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kelley (56:21)
women all the time when I see them. said, you are, it is real. What you're going through is real. And I think that's just the first step to, to feeling a little bit better.
Kelly Berry (56:26)
Yeah.
Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's a big, big thing to know that you're not the only one in a lot of ways. Yeah, this information has been great. I do want to give you an opportunity to talk about a little bit more what you do, how can people find you, how can they work with you if they want to have an appointment. I know you see people virtually. talked about that. So tell us all about the ways that people can find and connect with you.
Kelley (56:56)
thanks. So yeah, my clinic is called Medical Anti-Aging. We're in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am licensed to see patients currently in Florida, and then I'm working on getting my license. We're working really hard to get licensed in other states, but I can see patients virtually from all over Florida or in clinic here.
our website is medicalantiaging.com. And then I am really working hard to put out some good women's health, women's midlife health education on my Instagram, KMHealthCollective. And I hope that I can just empower women through that educational piece. I'm starting to work on collaborations. Again, just bringing awareness and education to women. But yeah, I do do virtual consults and through the medical anti-aging.
Kelly Berry (57:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, well, I need to be signed up for consults, signed up for some blood work, signed up for all the things. Yes, yes, I am ready. Yeah.
Kelley (57:47)
Well, you got the direct line here, so we're good. Yeah, and I'm just so grateful. Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Kelly. I love what you're doing and I want to also be able to support you in any way. And I think this is a really amazing time for us as women navigating midlife. Any way that we can do to help each other and support each other is really important. And I'm really grateful for what you're doing for your listeners.
Kelly Berry (58:12)
Well, thank you. Thank you. And right back at you. I think you're doing very important work. I would encourage everybody listening, go find Kelly, follow her and support her because I think the more women know this, the more we can help people who are really like going through it. And I think that's really important, help people feel more like themselves, more like they want to feel and kind of be out.
able to like go out and conquer the world again. yeah.
Kelley (58:40)
Conquer, yeah. This is not the end. I tell women, this is just our next phase. It's not the end, it's just our next phase. We're transitioning into a really cool phase. Yeah, an absolutely great one.
Kelly Berry (58:44)
Yeah. And a great one, right? A great one that we should be able to fully enjoy. So thank you for joining and sharing all of your expertise. This was great. And I know everyone's going to love it. yeah. Thanks.
Kelley (58:56)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Love it. Thank you so much, Kelly. Appreciate it.
Kelly Berry is a strategic business leader and business coach. She is known for her operational excellence and her ability to drive growth and results across multiple industries.
She is also hosting her own podcast, Life Intended.
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