Ever feel like life throws you curveballs just when you think you’ve got it all figured out? I sat down with Maria Kang, a total fitness icon, who’s sharing her journey through something she never expected—a stage four cancer diagnosis. Maria’s story is a powerful one. She’s spent her life dedicated to health and fitness, but all of that was flipped upside down. We dive into how she handled it, the struggles she’s faced before (including her battle with an eating disorder), and how her mom’s health issues pushed her to a new level of self-awareness.
Ever feel like your blood sugar is all over the place, especially during menopause? You’re not imagining it! In this episode of Midlife Conversations, I sit down with Dr. Mariza Snyder, a women’s health expert, to break down exactly why your blood sugar is fluctuating and how your hormones are playing a major role. These midlife changes are the reason I really wanted to have her on the podcast. If you’ve been feeling a little off or just curious about how to manage these changes better, this episode has the answers. Trust me, you’ll want to tune in!
What is Metabolic Syndrome?
Metabolic Syndrome is diagnosed by five metabolic biomarkers:
Fasting blood glucose. This is your early morning fasting blood glucose. Most doctors say they want it under 100 but Dr. Mariza recommends it being under 90.
Triglycerides. Most doctors want under 150 and Dr. Mariza wants it below 80. Once it’s at 150, it’s a massive indicator of insulin resistance.
HDL (good cholesterol). We want this over 50.
Blood pressure. Normal is 120/70 but diagnosis of metabolic syndrome is 130/80
Inches around your waist. We want a woman’s to be under 35” and a man’s under 40”
If you have 3 of these 5 markers out of range, you would be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome creates cellular dysfunction and inflammation in the body. When our mitochondria get below 50% capacity, we see these biomarkers go out of range. And when this happens, it sends us on the trajectory for dementia, cardiovascular disease, PCOS, and the list goes on and on.
What is the MOST Important Test for Insulin Resistance?
Well before your A1C goes up, or well before your fasting blood glucose is close to 100, for a decade your insulin levels are resistant. The number that tells us this trajectory is your fasting insulin.
What Are Normal Blood Sugar Ranges
In an ideal world, your levels would remain between 70-120 all day long. A spike past 140 is in a diabetic range. Your fasting blood glucose should be between 70-85. Any time you eat you will have a blood sugar response, but one and two hours after your first meal, you want it to go back down to 90-110.
How to Fix Your Blood Sugar
If you are having blood sugar numbers that are high, you can still feel empowered. You CAN fix and adjust it by making a few changes like:
Stay away from processed foods
Increase fiber and protein and healthy fats
Finish eating for the day earlier
Avoid sugars, especially when they are eaten by themselves
Track your blood sugar with a CGM or finger prick test to get familiar with what affects your spikes
If you have done EVERYTHING to fix your blood sugar and are still having issues, consider cycling very very small amounts of GLP-1’s as a kickstart
Learn more in Dr. Mariza’s FREE Thriving in Perimenopause & Menopause Summit HERE
🎙️ Want to listen in on a LIVE recording of Midlife Conversations? You can listen in, hear the episode unedited prior to launch AND stay on and ask your questions to the guest! (Don’t worry! We won’t air your questions so you can stay anonymous!) Go to Join.Midlifeconversations.com to learn more
Picture this: Brooks and I are settling into Business Class on our flight to Italy, and guess who’s sitting nearby? *Russell Brand!* Yep, it happened, and the story just gets crazier from there.
We’re spilling all the fun (and a few stressful) details from our two-week adventure in Italy. From lost bags and Gatwick nightmares to Vespa rides through Rome and endless gluten-free pizza and gelato, it was a whirlwind. Want to know how we kept it together and still had a blast?
Curious about our top travel hacks that saved the trip? (Hint: AirTags are a game-changer!)
This blog is just going to give you the highlights, if you want ALL the details (like the celebrity we met on the flight over….and the crazy $189 British pound cab ride to catch a connecting flight), then you will definitely want to catch the video recap HERE.
Our trip is kind of 2 parts. The first part was with an amazing group of people through YBL, or Your Best Life Now https://yblnow.com/. We had about 36 people total including the video crew documenting the trip.
That said…we flew from Phoenix to London, London to Rome…where we stayed for 4 nights.
We stayed at the Palazzo Ripetta, and it is a BEAUTIFUL hotel in a great location that is walking distance to many great sights.
There was a rooftop dinner, a vespa tour of rome, an incredible Michelin Star dining experience, and even a PRIVATE tour of the Vatican. We learned to make pasta from scratch, we mashed grapes with our feet, and we got to REALLY experience Italy.
For all the details, watch the video here…
The next stop with the group was down to the amazing seaside town of Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast.
We stayed at a cliffside hotel whose name escapes me. The views from the cliffs were amazing, and it was an easy walk into town.
After the hustle and bustle of Rome, we had a bit more relaxation in Sorrento. Time to walk around the city and just explore.
The highlight of this part of the trip was the Path of the Gods hike along the Amalfi Coast. This hike is only about 4 miles long…but you want to stop every 100 yards and take pictures because the views are breathtaking!
There is one thing you would NEVER expect to see on a hike like this….but you’ll have to watch the video to see what it is.
After 3 nights in Sorrento, the amazing YBL part of the trip was over. Some people headed to the airport, some people stayed an extra day, some went to other part of Italy and Europe…like what we did.
We took a car back to Napoli, hopped the train back to Rome, where we had a rental car waiting…and off to experience Tuscany!
This is the part of the trip that my husband Brooks planned, and like his Portugal trip planning….he did not disappoint!
We drove for a few hours to a place in pretty much the middle of nowhere called Fonteverde. https://www.fonteverdespa.com/en/ It was in the rolling hills of Tuscany, and my husband was enjoying the twisty roads a bit too much on our way there…lol
Due to the timing and travel, we only stayed here one night. Fonteverde is a beautiful thermal spa resort in the rolling hills of Tuscany. It is a few hundred meters outside a small quaint town with two restaurants, a coffee shop, a few stores, and some nice churches.
Such a peaceful place. In a perfect world, could have stayed here 2-3 nights and explored a bit more of the rural area. The hotel, spa, and natural hot springs pools were amazing.
The next day we continued north where we stayed at Villa La Massa, an exquisite property on 25 acres that was built in the 13th century as an enchanting country home for an aristocratic Florentine family. https://www.villalamassa.com/
In 1948 it was converted to a luxury hotel, and has been that way since.
The location was perfect as it was only 15 minutes from Florence, yet seemed like it was a lifetime away. Driving through the wrought iron gates was like driving through a time machine.
It let you know you were safe, and you were ‘home’. The service at Villa La Massa was impeccable. The people were accommodating and friendly, in only a way that a special boutique hotel could deliver.
Everyone took pride in their job and were super polite and helpful.
OMG, the beds here were AMAZING! The mattresses were soooo comfortable, and the sheets were made of …. (you’ll have to catch the video to hear about the material of these incredible sheets).
Villa La Massa has a Mercedes van that does dropoffs and pickups to Florence throughout the day. We ended up doing this at some point in each of the 3 days we were there.
If you didn’t know, Florence is KNOWN for it’s leather. We learned a lot about it, including making one or two 😉 nice leather goods purchases.
Florence was an amazing city. Great walking, shopping, sightseeing….and gelato! lol
One thing you MUST do when you are there, is go see the Statue Of David. It is worth paying extra to use one of the tour company’s where you skip the line and go at a set time. Once it reaches a set capacity, they only let people in, as people exit.
The average wait time is about 2-3 hours, or you can pay a bit more, and do one of the guided tours, and our wait was about 5 minutes or so. Just had to wait for 12 people to leave, so our group of 12 could go in.
Either way…TOTALLY worth seeing!
After 3 nights of Florence, we drove back to Rome where we returned the rental car. Then we took a scenic taxi cab ride to the airport, where we stayed at the Hilton that is literally at the terminal.
That way all we had to do in the morning was wake up, and walk to the terminal to check bags and fly home. It was a super easy and painless to stay there. No need for early morning taxi rides or trains.
Made for a very easy trip back to the USA.
So all in all…another GREAT trip!
Huge ‘grazie’ to Jessie, Phoebe, Chuck, Dean, and the rest of the YBL team for curating an epic trip with epic human beings.
…and my husband for planning the second half of the trip.
Definitely watch the video for the FULL scoop, as it has a LOT more info than this blog post.
Have you been to Italy? Did you enjoy it? Where should we go next? Drop a comment and let me know!
Until next time….
– Natalie Jill
🎙️ Want to listen in on a LIVE recording of Midlife Conversations? You can listen in, hear the episode unedited prior to launch AND stay on and ask your questions to the guest! (Don’t worry! We won’t air your questions so you can stay anonymous!) Go to Join.Midlifeconversations.com to learn more
Ever wonder if hormone replacement therapy (HRT) really causes cancer? Or why there’s so much confusion around bioidentical hormones? In this episode, I’m sitting down with Maria and Kristen from Wise and Well to bust some of the biggest menopause myths out there.
Have you heard about the flawed WHI study that sparked fear around HRT? Curious about how progesterone and testosterone play a bigger role in your health than you might think? We’re diving into all of that—plus the truth about synthetic hormones, birth control, and how to make hormone therapy actually work for you.
But it’s not just about managing symptoms. This is about really understanding how HRT impacts your health and learning how to advocate for yourself with the right doctors.
If you’ve ever had questions about menopause or hormones, this is the conversation you don’t want to miss.
Does Taking Hormones Cause Cancer?
One of the most commonly asked questions about hormones is “won’t taking hormones cause cancer?” This question stems from a really flawed WHI study that didn’t pre-screen candidates for cancer, and used drugs called “hormones” but they were not hormones – they were synthetic molecules that were hormone disruptors – essentially causing DNA damage and in turn, causing cancer in six people who took the synthetic progestins.
Even in that study, the subjects using estrogen only did not develop cancer (and in fact had a lower risk of cancer). This makes complete sense because IF estrogen caused cancer, wouldn’t the majority of pregnant women develop cancer when their estrogen levels are thousands of times higher than when not pregnant? That just doesn’t happen. We now also know that truly bioidentical hormones actually HELP cancer in addition to reducing overall mortality, less aggressive tumors, and lower chance of recurrence.
Cancer isn’t CAUSED by hormones, but hormones CAN potentially be a catalyst for cancer that ALREADY exists – if it is a type of cancer that reacts to your specific type of hormone.
Can You Do Menopause Naturally (Without Hormones)?
Wanting to do menopause naturally is very aspirational. You might start off menopause being super optimistic in the early years, but down the road, it will likely be a different story. What is natural about being 70 and being on a statin and beta blocker and wearing depends? That is not natural. If your eyes were clouding over and you couldn’t see, would you deny yourself cataract surgery? Probably not.
A lot of the hangup comes around feeling like you are adding in something like a medication that is unnatural. But when you’re adding in bioidentical hormones, you are actually just “restoring” or “replenishing” something your body used to make itself – naturally!
The problem is…you can’t always FEEL the issues that are happening in menopause. Some people might not have very noticeable external symptoms while others not so much.
What Health Effects Can Menopause Cause Even With No Symptoms?
In addition to the “common” symptoms like lack of sleep and hot flashes and UTI’s and “not being in the mood”, without adequate hormones, many other things are happening inside of your body. You are not necessarily “in the clear”.
The effects of not having the right amount of hormones include things you cannot feel like: your arteries are stiffening, your bones are degrading, your liver is stopping processing and clearing cholesterol at the same rates, your cognition is changing due to proteins, your microbiome is changing, and more!
These are the things you find out LATER once you have a diagnosis of something more serious.
These and many more myths are addressed on this episode!
👉Get their new book “The Great Menopause Myth: The Truth on Mastering Midlife Hormonal Mayhem, Beating Uncomfortable Symptoms, and Aging to Thrive” here
🎙️ Want to listen in on a LIVE recording of Midlife Conversations? You can listen in, hear the episode unedited prior to launch AND stay on and ask your questions to the guest! (Don’t worry! We won’t air your questions so you can stay anonymous!) Go to Join.Midlifeconversations.com to learn more
Ready to uncover the real secret to losing menopause belly fat—and why it’s not what you think?
What if the key to shedding those stubborn pounds isn’t about eating less or logging more hours on the treadmill?
In this episode of Midlife Conversations, we dig deep into the real reasons behind menopausal weight gain. Could it be your hormones? Your lifestyle? Or maybe something else entirely? Plus, I’ll show you how to become your own health detective—uncovering the hidden mysteries of your gut, thyroid, and hormone health.
But here’s the big question: What’s the one thing you must do to finally lose that belly fat?
It’s probably not what you’re expecting. Tune in to find out!
