Ep 46 - Managing Hormones, Autoimmune Symptoms, and Perimenopause Anxiety with Leslie Duffy

In Episode 46 you'll meet Leslie Duffy.  Leslie is a registered nurse, a life coach, a functional nutritionist and a functional medicine practitioner.

Leslie shares her expertise in managing the feelings of anxiety as well as hormone and autoimmune symptoms  including perimenopause and food intolerance from a functional medicine and coaching perspective.

To connect with Leslie, you can find her
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Transcript

Welcome to the More than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito, and I'm a life coach for stressed out and anxious women who want more out of life. I'm here to help you create a life you love to live, where anxiety is holding you back. Get ready for a light hearted approach to managing anxiety through actionable steps, a lot of truth talk and inspiration to take action so you walk away feeling confident, calm and ready to live. Let's get to it. 
Welcome to Episode 46. I am so excited to have you guys here with me today, I can introduce you to my friend Leslie Duffy. Leslie is a functional medicine practitioner. She's an RN, and she's a life coach, and she helps people feel less anxious and balance their hormones through nutrition. So, guys, you're gonna love this, it's going to be so much fun. So Leslie, thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Good. Tell everybody about who you are and what you do. And how how did you get started coaching from being an RN or from being a practitioner?
Um, well, I was a nurse a long, long time ago, and I ended up staying home with the kids. And I was you know, running a household, run, shuttling kids back and forth everywhere and I joined a local CrossFit gym. And I was working out and watching what I ate. And I was gaining weight. I was like, 'What is going on," but at the same time, I also wanted to go back to work. And I live in North Carolina, and if you haven't worked as a nurse for five years, you had to basically go back to something called the RN refresher program. 
So it's like you had to take courses, and you had to do another round of clinical work just to kind of make sure that you were up to date with what's happened since you last worked as a nurse. So around that time, I started following Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School and self coaching scholars and somebody I knew suggested I, I start following that. And it's interesting because it was really early days in that in her program, and they did a pilot program and they offered free coaching to whoever was enrolled, like they kind of sent out this blanket email if you're interested to reply back. So I actually got a one to one coach from there for free. 
That is lucky.
I know. So through that, I mean, I didn't think I could finish my the nursing program. It was just like it was like an uphill battle that was like a lot of work. And anyway, along the way, I ended up finishing my refresher program and I was also diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. So which explained kind of like the weight gain and though though low energy and my thyroid not working great. And because of that I found Functional Medicine and I became a functional medicine health coach and then I went into School of Applied Functional Medicine after I graduated from FMCA. And using my nursing background I became a functional medicine practitioner and then I became a certified life coach. So now I'm combined the two and I do live coaching and and the functional medicine
So the perfect storm. This is awesome. I love it. Leslie knows everything. So for people who don't know,  for people who are like, functional medicine, what the heck is that? So what is the difference between functional and more traditional medicine?
So if you could imagine stepping on a tack and having this tack stuck in your foot, and...
 I've done that, yeah. 
Okay, so what functional medicine versus regular we call it allopathic or Western medicine. If you were to go to the doctor... this is all imaginary of course, just so you use your imagination, they would give you some Tylenol or some ibuprofen and then they might, you might even be like,  'you know what, this pain isn't going away' and they'll give you even stronger pain medication. And all the while you still have a tack stuck in your foot. So think of it as functional medicine we remove the tack. 
So okay, you do root cause what is causing your symptoms. So it's a symptom. It's more like a symptom type of medical medicine where you're you are an entire whole person there is not like one part of you that's not connected with another part of you. So like in regular medicine we have like the nephrologist who deals with the kidneys, we have the the hepatobiliary doctors that only deal with the liver or the cardiologist. And in regular medicine, it's not all connected. But in functional medicine is all connected. Yeah, they're all if you are like one whole human being, and we also take into consideration socio emotional parts that can affect what shows up with you clinically.
This makes so much sense. Like, I don't understand why everyone doesn't do that, because why wouldn't we? Why would we not do that? Why would we wait? So it sounds like maybe even getting to the point where if you know what that one thing is, like having this butterfly effect kind of on, like, if one thing is causing another thing, then you could almost prevent other things by getting to the root cause. Like if it's if it's gonna grow out that way, like, I would think of it like a shrub, or, like, it's gonna all come from the same place. Like, if we could just get to the bottom that we could just take care of all of it. This is what it sounds like.
Yeah, that's so interesting that you brought up the shrub, because there is there is a we call it the, we call it like a living matrix like, Okay, think about the roots of a tree. And all of that is lifestyle medicine. It's like, how do you eat? How well do you sleep? How well do you move and all of that kind of grows the tree. And from there, you get your symptoms? So it's, it's almost like intuitively got that you're like, oh, yeah, 
It's like my little spider plant here on my tiny little desk thing. 
So I'm like, Okay, I see this. I see what's going on. This is so good. And, yeah, I'm like, to water the soil, you have to water the roots, right? You have to cultivate, like this lifestyle so that you can have good health.
Yeah. It's so good. I love this analogy. I like it. Okay, so you know, like we've talked, Leslie and I met in this mastermind that we are in, or the same mastermind, we do have very similar, like, similar goals to helping people feel less anxious. And for crying out loud. You guys, we've talked so many times about how the world is more anxious than it has been, ever; like everybody is stressed out or anxious. And part of that is normal because there's, there's normal life stress, and there's normal things that would make people anxious. But right now, it's just kind of over the top. So what has been your experience with helping people who are dealing with stress or anxiety during like different phases of life? Like for me, I talk a lot about being in perimenopause, because I'm 47 and this is where I am. But you know, what there's, I mean, what about people who are, you know, different life stages and how people deal with anxiety, wherever they are? Like, how would you look at that from a functional medicine point of view?
Yeah, oh my gosh. So definitely, like, the perimenopause is like the roller coaster ride of your hormones. Right? You, it's it you are and what they don't tell you. It's like it could last 15 years, so where you're, you're working? I know, right? Sorry. But like it is you're working your way into a different phase of your life and your hormones are completely changing. And you know, what's interesting about it is that they call it the second girlhood. Where, when we're younger, we're starting to start, you know, think about how difficult it was to be a teenager. Right? Yeah. And those are the fluctuating hormones, the surges, and you're growing into womanhood. And it but you're also like, so it's very similar to like, teenage years where you're going through puberty, and it's like reverse puberty. Now, when you're in perimenopause, and when you get to menopause, you're more like an eight year old girl, because now things have settled down. Yeah, okay. And so, so for women in particular, I think that depending on the life stage, you know, if you still have a flow you're you're at the effect of the the hormones and the fluctuating hormones, and the ovulation, and then the, then the flow, And then just your, what happens is your amygdala it gets a lot more blood flow, it gets a lot more it gets a lot more activated during this really it's a lunar cycle, but it's still like very turbulent. So I think that you know, with with all my clients that I have, that I have helped mostly are they're entering their that perimenopause, 40 and up ages, who usually come to me because they are experiencing those difficulties, whereas maybe somebody who's younger might experience I think, like a hormonal you might get a lot of people who are struggling to conceive. Who are just struggling to get pregnant or... those are those are not the issues that I help with. But, um, so anyway, so people who come to me and my experience in helping people with the different phases of the anxiety. It really just kind of what I like to do is just normalize what we're going through. And it is extremely normal too. 
I have to laugh, because just read, just knowing that your estrogen is dropping, which also means your oxytocin is dropping, which is that tend and care, the caring, or not the relaxing. The you want to be with your children, you're always taking care of children, it's completely different. When you're like, suddenly, you don't have that anymore. You're like, 'I don't give a damn. Pick up your own clothes. Make your own food. And like, get out of my family.' Really, um, and menopause has this like, this. Kind of like a bad rap for being like, Oh, she's in men..., but it's a hormonal change in your life, because you don't have the estrogen, you don't have the oxytocin, which is like a, it's a it's a biologically driven idea where you're like, you want to be caring for other people. And now, you've got this beautiful time in your life where you just want to, you just want to take care of you. Now it's just now it's all internal. Now you're like, Alright, it's time to take care of me. It's my turn. 
Oh, I like this. 
I know. 
Well and there's this guilt that comes in like, 'Oh my God. I'm a bitch like a total hag to my kids. And I don't mean to but I'm like, No.Yeah. Oh, no. I'm gonna watch what I want. Like...
And like, it's okay. Like, I want to normalize that I want people to know, like, this is it you're not broken, you're not damaged. This is a definite, like hormonal change. And we should expect this. And now. Yeah, you don't have to take care of anybody anymore. You are no longer obligated. Unless you want to. But you know, most people at this stage of the life, it's like, we are really focused on purpose, meaning. And yeah, we, we, anybody, like who goes into that second phase or second career, really the best employees? We were like, we are so we're like, we're on it. We're like this is we're very, very focused, because we're like, this is my time. And we it creates a lot of purpose for us. So,
This is so hopeful, and Yeah, Ah, this is good.
Yeah. Um, yeah, it's really how we feel.
For sure, No. No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I think it's interesting, though. Like, I love the idea that there's, I mean, it's, I think it's an old fashioned idea of 'oh, well, you're almost dead now'. Like, welcome to menopause, you're on your way to death, you know? Or there's just like, oh, well, now you're gonna shrivel up and get wrinkled and yucky. But the idea that like, no, now we're focused on what we want and being really like, purpose driven. And making that be such a like second Launchpad of like a 'now I get to do all these things'. And I think it's also really cool how it kind of lines up like that, that loss of oxytocin and how it kind of winds up when your kids get to the age where they do move out. Or they do get to be teenagers, and maybe they just don't quite need you there as much. And as hard as that is because I just mentioned earlier that my oldest just moved. I mean, he didn't move incredibly far away, but there's like that weird state line in between. So you can just move like three hours away, and I'm like, Oh, that's weird that he's not close anymore. And that's it. That's where he lives. And it's cool. 
Yes, yeah. Do you notice that and so what's interesting about that is that they've done studies on rats and the little cubs and what that there is something where you have the touch. Remember like when the kids were little and like they were always on top of you? And you were... that is like a biological driver for us to take care of our children when we have touch. But when children move out of the nest, right and what to airquote, when they move away, we lose that because now not only we're losing like that oxytocin the estrogen but we're losing that, that hormonaly driven need to take care of other people. Especially if they're not in front of you. And so like they did studies on rats, where they numbed the rat in the chest area, the breast area and all the front and they found that it, that rat lost its mothering  instincts towards the Cubs. It is so important that proximity and the touch of the child, for us to kind of activate that mothering for us. Yeah. And so like, you know, just kind of going back to that, you know, changes in the hormones. We're less interested in the nuances of emotions, when when things are declining in our hormonal landscape. Where we're less interesting, interested in keeping the peace. We are more interested in meeting our own needs at this time. And we have, we don't get that dopamine rush from taking care of other people anymore. And yeah, we're not caring for little children anymore. So we really get get that kind of like now what? Yeah, I do.
Yeah, that's so funny for that, because that has been like my last two weeks. It's funny, my kids have been here, there and everywhere and having fun, and my youngest is 14. But there was even one night where my husband was like, on a fishing trip with my dad. And I have two teenagers; one of them was with their friend and the other one was working, and I had the whole house to myself. And I'm like, 'this is what it's gonna be like, I'm like, I've gotta find a hobby or some friends.' Like I like, 'wait a minute, I wanted it to be quiet and now it is way too quiet.' So that is very funny that you like, yeah, I was like, Oh, maybe I need to do something about this. Yeah.
Right. And then notice like, you're less interested about pleasing others. And that's okay. Yeah, I want to You will now you want to please yourself now. Like this is the that biological reality where we're like, 'okay, it's my turn'. And, and it's totally normal and totally okay, and nothing's gone wrong.
That is so good. So all the people who are listening who are like, Oh, but I just feel so guilty that I don't have this connection' and all of that, or 'I just feel so lost,' you're on track!
Or even What's so funny is even the husbands they're like, 'where's my wife? What have you done with her?' You know, like, 'You're so different' from her out, like, 'what the heck happened?' Like, there is literally a hormonal change that's happened where you're like, 'get your own food.' I'm not joking. Like, that has been an issue. Like, 'yeah, I'm not making dinner anymore. I've decided.' And yeah, I was like, wait, what?
Yeah, you don't We don't want to eat the same thing anyway. Yeah. Why did we do that? Oh, my gosh, it's like you broke into my house in the last month, I swear that I'm like, I'n not cooking, if it's just two of us, or what do you do that? Exactly. That's so funny. Okay, I love this. When like, with all of this, when is there anything that sticks out to you as like, the most important thing that you help people understand? Like,  that do you feel like it's really that the the shifts are normal? Or is there something that you're like, 'hey, if you're feeling this way, this is going to help you feel better,' because there is a level of, and you and I know as life coaches that it all goes back to what you think about how you feel; What do you think about wanting to take care of yourself? But is there anything that if you're talking to someone who's in that stage of life, where you're like, 'look, this is what you can do to feel I mean, I guess quote unquote better or this is what's going to help you make it through this up and down 15 year roller coaster?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I've even read studies on it where they like did had a cohort of like 80 women and most of them were like 'yeah, I can put up with the little difficulties and the struggles with parrot but like met perimenopause slash menopause. But it's, it's like when you start to feel invisible, and when you start to feel like you have no purpose when you're kind of lost and untethered. Like a family like even your relationship with your husband might be changing. So like that part, like even in the life coaching realm, that's where we normalize it. How do you want to show up in the world? What do you want, like now you get to focus on yourself. And and that's what we do. But as far as physically, we you know, dealing with the little problems like the hot flashes and the brain response to glucose, I mean, this a fluctuating the way we actually respond now to food is very different too. So, just really focusing on physically feeling as well as you can and our our metabolic needs change. We we definitely start losing muscle mass and start losing bone density. So it is it is incredible when you can tell the difference. So now like a low glycemic diet, and a lot of people are obsessed with keto, but the idea is that when you can kind of like, focus on more whole foods and naturally lower your glycemic and food, glycemic load, you'll definitely feel better. But I think the what people are missing is that like, the protein; how beneficial the protein is, for women in particular, in this phase of life. That just really focusing on the protein and the fiber to get you through from one meal to the next because it stabilizes your, your mood completely. You know, the ups and downs of your blood sugar, you, and then when you focus also on movement and, and some strength training, so you don't lose the muscle mass, but it also helps your bone density, that's huge. And feeling good in your body is really a huge part of it. So that's, that's kind of like where I come in. And and I'm like, in my program, we have two paths, you can do the health health track, or you can do the life track or combine the two.
Yeah, yeah. So you so when you say the glycemic effect on the brain.
So, so like, you are more susceptible to blood sugar drops, like that you might not even have realized. So what we have, and our organs kind of get older and age and we weren't, we aren't as responsive and resilient, our organs are not as resilient as they used to be. So things like that used to not bother you now might bother you. Like, oh, glass of wine is not the same as it was 10 years ago. So you're responding physiologically to things that, you know, you were used to be able to. Like, for example, I cannot have a certain number of carbs at lunch, because I will crash in the afternoon. Absolutely crash. So I've learned to limit my just make it a letter C type of lunch with a lot of protein. And maybe a little bit of like a complex carb, like a high, high CD type of Mary's Gone Crackers, crackers. Like you have to really when you start to actually balance your actual intake. You can notice the difference even notice you didn't realize how you were feeling should know. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's funny. Because I definitely, I know what foods that I can eat at certain times of the day. I think that was just something that I learned along the way, but I know like for me, you know, people would say, 'Oh, well, I have to get up and eat like eggs and all this stuff for breakfast. And I'm like, Oh, God, if I eat protein for breakfast, I'm starving two hours. Like, don't feed me that for breakfast. Like wait, and have that for lunch loaded up. But it's so funny that yeah, it is really interesting. And I like it that. But there's like how there's like a trial and error. And there it seems like for different people, like, different times of the day?
Yeah, definitely you do. You do have to. But I would say that in general. And I mean, I understand like, I can't eat eggs in the morning, either. So I've done other things to kind of get that protein in the right it does. It resets your circadian rhythm, it's oh, yeah, circadian clock. There's a lot of benefits to it. And depending on your genetic profile, what works best for you and but all I will say is like when you can kind of get that blanket idea of like every meal. Just try it have the purpose to see how much better you feel. Notice how you go from one meal to the next, with ease without hunger without a blood sugar drop, without cravings without like, foggy brain. And I think you and I had an offline conversation where I'm like, You know what, I don't know, when I'm hungry. I literally just get anxious. Like, yeah, all of a sudden, I'm like, 'oh my god, like nothing's working'. I get so easily frustrated. I'm like, 'oh, it's actually past lunch.'
And I get exhausted and grouchy where I'm like, 'I have to sleep or I'm going to cry and snap somebody in half'. Like I just get really tired and really grouchy. And then I'm like, 'Oh wait, I haven't eaten forever'. 
Yeah, yeah,we do. We don't we just have to treat ourselves like toddlers. Yes, snack. You need to be loving and caring to yourself to like, don't, don't skip meals.
Or remind me to tell you afterwards of what it was like the other day when I could not figure out why I couldn't wake up because, oh, I had a whole thing. But it was crazy, though. So with what you do with functional medicine, like what should someone look for? If they're trying to find someone locally for functional medicine help? Like, what? What did they look for?
Well, I would say that functional medicine is fantastic. There are several people out there that can help. There are people in my position who would do online functional medicine, there are local doctors too. And there, what to look for is where you want good certification, like IFM Institute for Functional Medicine, and also School of Applied Functional Medicine, which would be a FMC certified. So a lot of people out there just call themselves functional medicine practitioners, and they're not, and they might have taken a couple of courses, and they're not fully certified. Or so that's what I would just say, just start looking for that. The other thing is, what about the follow up, like, find out a lot of the time, they'll might run a lot of tests, and then kind of leave you high and dry. So just make sure that there's a good follow up. And that they kind of give you a doable plan. And maybe they'll have a health coach on staff that can kind of help you through it. Because sometimes you do have like huge changes that you have to make to your lifestyle that are difficult to do. So definitely just make sure that you get what you need. And if not go out and find somebody that can help you in with that. Because sometimes they just do the the front end where it's like, Okay, here's your testing. Here's what we discovered, here's what you need to do. I'll see you in six months. And you're like what?
Yeah. So yes, you meet with, but you meet with, with clients online. So what all like if someone were to meet with you online, what would you like? What would they experience.
So if they're in my health track, we would I would get there, even their doctor's office like regular physical, yearly physical, they could send me their bloodwork. And that would be a good starting point. And then we get a really deep, deep dive history on their medical situation on their medical history. Do a timeline, I want to know when like, a lot of my my people have like gut issues. They also have like anxiety issues and hormone issues, obviously. But like, when did this start showing up? We do a big timeline, we try to connect the dots. And then I might recommend testing or ask them to go get some some more testing. And so I could order a gut test, I can order a hormone test. I can order I can order anything. And then we start to meet with kind of create a plan and then we meet every other week. And we do in between the every two weeks we get to a one week like audio check in where I send a forum where you just kind of tell them what's happening. And then I send back out a verbal response, you know, doing great, let's tweak this. Let's tweak that. And then we'll talk touch base next week.
Yeah, okay. Where do they find you? So if somebody's like, 'Oh, yes, yes, yes! I need to talk with her right now,' where can they find you?
Um, so I am on Instagram at SageLifeHealth is S-a-g-E, L-i-fe, H-e-a-l-t-h But it's, it's and I also on LinkedIn, and in I have a website, Sagelifehealth.com. And also, if people don't want to do the health track, they could do the Life Track, which is basically managing, doing life. Just goal sort of goals and creating a program for you where you can focus on prioritizing yourself, which is really hard for us, women and men, anybody really and focusing on really finding out some deeper thought, thought default thoughts that we might have that aren't really serving us. And so kind of overcoming a couple of things and changing the belief system and focusing on putting yourself first that's great. Okay,
And I will put links to your website, your Instagram, your LinkedIn and all that in the show notes. So you guys can always go check the show notes and then you can connect with Leslie there and reach out to her and talk all the functional medicine things. So this was so good and I learned so much about what the heck is  going on with myself during. And oh my gosh, this was so fun. Thank you so much for being on here. Is there anything else like, what else can you you want to share with people? Is there anything else?
I think just really, you would be surprised how much diet can make you feel good and make you feel bad. So just give that a shot to just, I think that when we don't realize how poorly we can feel, until you actually are feeling really great. And and it creates safety in your body too. That's the other thing I want to add that a well nourished, well hydrated body is not a body that is reactive, that is not in a fight or flight that you don't even know about. Your body can be in fight or flight that you don't even think about. If you're having like we I also do food sensitivity testing, if you're having food sensitivity issues, and you don't even know it. That also is going to create a heightened anxiety in your body and a heightened reactivity in your body. So I love that it's it is a big picture.
Yeah, that's incredible. And for everyone, like you guys, if you've been on any other episodes, you know I've talked about that. Anxiety is just you reacting to how your body feels. And if you're reacting because you're allergic to apples and you eat an apple every day for lunch. Hey, how easy is it just to swap out for an orange or some grapes and feel better? That's something that's simple. And Leslie can totally help you figure that out. That's amazing. I love this stuff. I love it. Thank you so so much. 
Thank you for having me. This was really fun.
You are so welcome. This was great. I will talk to you again soon. Love it. Okay, my friends. I hope you really love this interview. I had so much fun talking with Leslie and introducing her to apt if you would like to get in touch with her about how she can help you using functional medicine. To help you with hormones or your mood or anything else that's going on, you can check the show notes and I will make sure to link up her Instagram or her LinkedIn and her website on there so you can get in touch with her. And of course, if you want to talk with me about anxiety, or about stress and how I can help you through life coaching, you can also do that by going to my website or clicking the link in the show notes. And either way, I will talk to you soon if not on a consultation call the next week. Take care. 
I hope you enjoyed this episode of The More than Anxiety Podcast. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And of course, if you're ready to feel more relaxed, have more energy, more confidence and a lot more fun. Go to Megandevito.com/workwithme or just the show notes to talk to me more about coaching. See you soon