GenX Hits Menopause

Heather Reilly Hiemstra sits down with Nick Steiner — Director of Independent Retail Sales at Balanced Health Botanicals — to decode the federal regulation threatening to reshape the full spectrum hemp industry. HR 6500 would cap THC at 0.4 milligrams per container, a limit that would effectively wipe out most full spectrum products on shelves today. Nick's message: calm down, nothing is law yet, and the fight is far from finished.

If you've been wondering whether your favorite hemp product is about to disappear — or whether "hemp" and "getting high" are really the same thing — this episode gives you the insider's read, straight from someone who has been shaping federal hemp policy since the Farm Bill era.

Conversations include

• What HR 6500 Actually Says
  The bill as written would limit THC to 0.4 milligrams per container — a threshold that would decimate full spectrum hemp and gut the endocannabinoid-enriching properties that Rockstar Blends and CBDistillery's entire product lines depend on. Nick explains why it keeps getting pushed back, and what "One Hemp" is doing about it.
• The Cannabinoids the Farm Bill Forgot
  The 2018 Farm Bill addressed only Delta 9 THC and CBD — leaving CBN, CBG, CBDA and hundreds of other phytocannabinoids in a legal gray zone. Nick shares why he sees CBN as a sleep cannabinoid and CBG for anxiety and stress, maps what regulators are catching up to, and which synthesized cannabinoids (THCA, Delta 8) actually drove the crackdown.
• Topicals vs. Ingestibles: Different Lanes
  A companion rulemaking — HR 7212 — proposes separate regulatory lanes for topicals versus edibles and ingestibles. Nick explains why he sees full spectrum topicals as essentially untouchable by the current bill, and what Rockstar's RollOn users should actually watch.
• Your Body, Your Cannabinoid Profile
  There is no one-size-fits-all hemp dose — not even calibrated by size and weight the way alcohol is. Nick makes the case for treating your ECS like a personal soundboard: the right cannabinoid balance is unique to your own makeup, and getting there is a practice, not a prescription.
• From a Closet to Capitol Hill
  Four guys hand-drawing labels in a closet twelve years ago. Today, CBDistillery works hand in hand with federal government to shape hemp policy in the United States and international markets. Nick's through-line: push back ethically, bring the data, and keep going.

Tune in to get the clearest plain-language breakdown of what HR 6500 means for your shelf — and walk away knowing exactly which bill numbers to track, where to find them on congress.gov, and how to make your voice heard before the ink dries.

About Nick Steiner

Nick Steiner is Director of Independent Retail Sales at Balanced Health Botanicals, the parent company of CBDistillery — one of the leading hemp brands in the country. Since joining CBDistillery in 2018, he helped build the independent retail business from the ground up and assembled a national sales team now represented in more than 5,000 stores across the United States.

A vocal advocate for transparency, efficacy, and fair federal hemp regulation, Nick is part of One Hemp, the industry coalition — alongside Charlotte's Web and Cure Hemp — fighting for better rulemaking as Congress debates HR 6500. He has been Rockstar Blends' primary hemp source and account representative since the company's earliest days as an LLC.

On this episode, Nick brings an industry insider's read on what the proposed rule changes actually say, which cannabinoids are in the crosshairs, and why the full spectrum hemp industry is not going down without a serious fight.

Heather Reilly Hiemstra sits down with strength coach and longevity advocate Claire S. Johnson for the conversation about skeletal muscle that this show should have had a long time ago.

Muscle isn't vanity — it's the organ that manages insulin, loads the spine, and keeps midlife women out of the walker lane. As estrogen drops and muscle mass quietly walks out the door, Claire makes the case that the weight room is the most underrated piece of women's health infrastructure in menopause.

If your energy, cognition, or body composition feel like they're slipping no matter what you do, this one is for you — because Claire has spent 25 years helping women build the strength that keeps hormone shifts from becoming health crises.

Conversations include

Muscle as Metabolic Organ
Skeletal muscle isn't decoration — it's where insulin goes to work. Claire breaks down exactly how strength training fights insulin resistance, why that prediabetes window matters in perimenopause, and why the two-pound baby rattles aren't going to get the job done.

Bone Density Down to the Marrow
Strength training doesn't just sit on top of the skeleton — it benefits women "down to the marrow of the bones," Claire says. She explains why progressive loading is non-negotiable for menopausal women, and why farmer carries and goblet squats are worth their weight.

Creatine and the Menopausal Brain
That wired-and-tired, forgetting-your-own-exit cognitive fog? Claire calls creatine one of the fastest-acting supplements available — sharp cognitive effect within 30 minutes — and explains why it belongs in the morning routine alongside whatever else you're doing for hormone support.

Protein, Fiber, and the Intermittent Fasting Trade-off
A menopause specialist's research shifted Claire's thinking: if a fasting window is shrinking your time to hit greater than one gram of protein per pound of body weight, the protein and fiber goals win. Body composition is the metric — not the scale, not BMI.

How to Actually Start — and Not Quit
Claire's framework for getting back to the weight room: seek one session of instruction before you load bad movement patterns, ask trainers the right screening questions, and remember that exercise has no cancellation policy. You can start at 70. You can start at 80. It's always there.

Tune in and build the muscle your hormones used to help you keep — because "strong from the inside out" is both Claire's book and the only strategy that gets you to Disney with your grandkids, the 5K finish line, and the star on top of the tree.

About Claire S. Johnson

Claire S. Johnson is a strength and conditioning coach, speaker, and longevity advocate with more than 25 years of experience helping women thrive through menopause and beyond. She is the creator of the ClaireFoJo Experience and author of the upcoming book Strong From The Inside Out.

Claire works out of a wellness center adjoining a hospital — a daily reminder of what sedentary aging looks like, and the motivation behind everything she teaches. A colon cancer survivor and mother who strength-trained through perimenopause, Claire brings hard-won personal credibility to every protocol she prescribes.

She is passionate about changing the cultural script that tells Gen X women to keep pushing through — and replacing it with a practical, progressive approach to muscle-building that works at any age, any fitness level, and any starting point.

Heather sits down with Tonya Fines — holistic health practitioner, brand strategist, and the warm, no-BS voice behind Menopause Bestie with Tonya — to talk about what it really means to stop fighting midlife and start moving through it.

Tonya's frame is simple and a little bit ruthless: there's no way under menopause, no way over it, and no invitation arrives in the mail. But there is a decision — how you want to go through it — and that decision, she argues, is one of the most powerful a woman will ever make.

If your identity has been quietly swallowed by decades of caretaking, and you've started to wonder who's left when the roles fall away, this conversation is your permission slip — and your road map.

Conversations include

Pandora's Box
Unopened Why so many women feel blindsided by perimenopause — and how the body sends quiet, early signals that go unheard when we're too busy taking care of everyone else.

Your Body Is the Best Biofeedback System You'll Ever Have
Tonya's practical framework for tracking sleep, mood, food, and skin changes before the symptoms snowball — and why a simple journal beats most diagnostics for catching the pattern early.

The Question Nobody Asks
What happens in a session when Tonya moves past "what doesn't feel right" and asks "what have you always wanted to do?" — and why that vacant look gives way to something that looks a lot like liberation.

The Two-Degree Mindset
How small shifts — dropping red wine, adding a morning walk, finally signing up for the salsa class — compound into a new lifestyle built around the woman you actually are in midlife, not the one you were performing before.

Phase Two Is a Power Role
Tonya's case for celebrating menopause the way we celebrate every other major biological passage — because a body that grew organs, birthed humans, and is now rewiring itself entirely deserves the biggest party of all.

Tune in to hear Tonya make the argument that menopause isn't something to survive — it's the moment your body finally clears the runway so you can decide what you're actually building next.

About Tonya Fines

Tonya Fines is the voice behind Menopause Bestie with Tonya, a space created to support women navigating midlife, menopause, identity shifts, confidence, health, beauty, and reinvention.

A Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, former dancer, competitive bodybuilder, model, and brand strategist, Tonya brings a warm, honest, and relatable approach to conversations about what it really means to feel strong, feminine, vibrant, and seen in this season of life.

Her career began as a high school health sciences teacher before she went on to become a holistic health practitioner — a path she stepped away from, and ultimately returned to, when the women around her started having the exact conversations she was built to hold. She doesn't diagnose. She doesn't prescribe.

She listens, asks the questions nobody else is asking, and helps women find the clarity that was buried under decades of caretaking. Her mission is to help women feel less alone, more informed, and deeply empowered as they move through menopause and into their next beautiful chapter.

Find her on Instagram at @menopausebestiewithtonya.

Heather sits down with neuro-transformation coach and Timeline Therapy® practitioner Justin Sokol to ask the question midlife keeps forcing: what if the problem isn't that you haven't done enough work on yourself — it's that you're running new software on a system that was never updated? Justin's work doesn't operate at the level of behavior or insight. It goes to the layer where the reaction was encoded, long before the conscious mind even gets a vote. For women navigating the emotional volatility, relational friction, and identity shifts that come with perimenopause and midlife, that distinction is everything.

If your mood, your relationships, or your sense of self keep getting hijacked by the same one or two things — no matter how much therapy, coaching, or self-help you've absorbed — this conversation is your next move.

Conversations include

• Managed vs. Resolved — Most approaches work at the level of behavior and insight — and they help. But Justin's work targets where the reaction was originally encoded: the subconscious prediction engine that matches first and gives you a vote later. The result isn't a better coping strategy. It's the trigger losing its charge entirely.
• Memory Reconsolidation: The Science of Rewriting Reactions** When an encoded memory is reactivated, a brief window opens where what the brain *built* from that event — the meaning, the emotional charge — can be updated. Drawing on Karim Nader's lab research, Justin explains how guided recall under light hypnosis can access that window so that Timeline Therapy® can clear the six root negative emotions in sequence, from anger down to shame, and cascade the change forward across your entire timeline.
• The Alarm Is Lying — Your nervous system is still wired to the house you grew up in. When a partner goes quiet, a tone shifts, or sirens sound in the distance, the alarm fires — and it fires hard. Justin's fire-alarm metaphor lands the core insight: the work isn't to silence the alarm. It's to stop treating the alarm as proof that there is a fire.
• Step Zero: The Three-Breath Reset — Before any protocol, any parenting step, any hard conversation — there is a physiological fact you can use right now. You cannot be in a panic response and perform diaphragmatic breathing simultaneously. Justin's three-breath reset (in through the nose, hold, exhale longer than the inhale) changes your state before your story has a chance to write itself.
• Which Version of You Is Making This Decision?— The identity edit isn't about becoming someone new. It's about asking, in the moment: is it the version of me that everything happened to — or the one who survived it and has a future? That single question, paired with rating the moment against your reaction, is the entry point to everything Justin teaches.

Tune in to find out why you can't think your way out of patterns that were never created by thinking — and what it actually looks like to stop managing your triggers and start clearing them.

About Justin Sokol

Justin Sokol is a Neuro Transformation Coach, Timeline Therapy® Practitioner, and Certified Hypnotist who works with people who have already done the work — therapy, coaching, all the books — and still get hijacked by the same one or two things. Most approaches work at the level of behavior and insight. His work goes to the layer where the reaction was encoded, beneath conscious reasoning, installed long before the moments it now hijacks. The result isn't a better strategy deployed faster. It's the trigger losing its charge.

The Identity Edit Intensive is his primary private engagement for leaders, physicians, executives, attorneys, and high-performing professionals. He is also the author of *The Grounded Heart Method™*, which brings the same subconscious-level work to parents who want to stop passing down what was passed to them.

Heather Reilly Hiemstra sits down with April Hunter — pro wrestler, model, writer and host of The A Show — for an unscripted conversation that goes wherever it needs to. From World Cup visitors rewriting what they'd heard about America to the weeds we pull from our own lawns, April keeps returning to one idea: much of what keeps us well has been within reach all along.

If you've ever wondered why food you've eaten for decades doesn't sit the same way, or why the people who live longest seem to laugh the most, this one's for you. Two Gen X women, no script, and a running argument about what belongs in a 2026 time capsule.

Conversations include

• The Food Has Changed — Why "I haven't changed a thing" may not mean the food hasn't — April on reformulated household brands, and Heather on the ketchup label that made her look twice.
• The Apothecary in Your Yard — Dandelion, milk thistle and stinging nettle: the plants we mow down, and the old folk tradition of using what grows outside the back door.
• Connection and Longevit — What Blue Zones communities have in common beyond the menu — laughter, daily movement and an in-person circle of people.
• America Through Visitors' Eyes — Scottish fans in kilts singing "Pretty Woman" in Boston, chips that arrive before you pay, a first plate of Texas barbecue — World Cup travelers on the country they found.
• Going Rogue with April Hunter — The first woman to wrestle for TNA, twelve-plus Playboy rejections before a friend's referral, and the lesson she kept from it: take nothing personally.

Tune in for two Gen X women trading stories, laughing a lot, and reminding each other that knowing how your own body works is still the best place to start.

About April Hunter

April Hunter is a model, professional wrestler, author and podcast host based in the Tampa Bay area. A 1999 Playboy special edition, landed after more than a dozen rejections, opened the door to wrestling: she worked WCW as a valet with the nWo, trained under Killer Kowalski, became the first woman to wrestle for TNA and the first to hold a men's tag-team title.

She holds a degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment from Full Sail University and writes short stories, thrillers, television scripts and comic books, among them her own series Code Red and the children's book Monty, A Tale of No Tail. She keeps a homestead garden, fosters rescue dogs and works the comic-con circuit.

April hosts The A Show, live on Tuesday nights on Twitch and YouTube, where Heather was her guest earlier this year. Here the two trade chairs.

Heather gets together with Dr. Shabnam Sarshar - phytopharmacist, PhD in pharmaceutical biology and phytochemistry, and certified endocannabinoid medicine specialist - to pull back the curtain on a woman’s most overlooked hormonal partner in her body: the endocannabinoid system (ECS).

Like a soundboard running beneath every organ from head to toe, the ECS doesn't just regulate sleep, mood, and pain — it's in constant, bidirectional conversation with estrogen, mirroring it receptor for receptor across the very systems that go haywire in perimenopause.

If your moods are swinging without warning, your sleep is shot, your brain feels like it's buffering, and nobody has given you a satisfying answer — this episode names the missing piece and hands you something you can actually start doing about it.

Conversations include

The Bliss Molecule You're Running Low On — Anandamide - Sanskrit for *bliss* - surges with estrogen at ovulation and crashes with it in perimenopause. Dr. Shabnam explains why the ECS, not just the ovaries, is driving the mood, pain, and sleep chaos of the perimenopause years.

Why Men and Women Don't Share the Same ECS — Receptor distribution, endocannabinoid tone, and how women metabolize THC into stronger, longer-lasting metabolites — sex-specific biology that most practitioners have never been taught.

2-AG, Orgasm, and Depression — The second major endocannabinoid, 2-arachidonoylglycerol, spikes after orgasm and is significantly depleted in women with major depressive disorder — a finding that reframes both pleasure and mental health as ECS territory.

High-THC Culture and the Overloaded System — What chronic high-dose THC actually does to ECS receptor sensitivity over time, why perimenopausal women are hitting the wall faster than they expect, and the case for never needing flower above 20% THC.

The Simplest ECS Reset You Can Start Today — The omega-3/omega-6 fatty acid ratio is the raw material your body uses to manufacture anandamide and 2-AG — and the Western diet is wrecking it. Dr. Shabnam's most practical, no-prescription takeaway.

Tune in to recalibrate your understanding of what perimenopause is actually doing — and walk away with the science that turns confusion into agency, and symptoms into signals you finally know how to read.

About Dr. Shabnam Sarshar

Dr. Shabnam Sarshar is a phytopharmacist and women's health strategist specializing in cannabinoid science and female-specific physiology. With a PhD in Pharmaceutical Biology and Phytochemistry, and certifications in Endocannabinoid Medicine and Natural Women's Medicine, she has spent over a decade across pharmaceutical research, medical advisory, and women's health entrepreneurship.

Her career pivot into cannabinoid science began in a Berlin-based medical cannabis company, where she led two landmark projects: a pharmaceutical compounding kit designed to improve clinical cannabis formulations (including vaginal suppositories and ocular preparations), and a research initiative investigating cannabinoid-based therapeutics for endometriosis. That work launched her deep investigation into the endocannabinoid system's role in female-specific biology.

Her work translates complex hormonal and sex-specific biological mechanisms into clinically actionable insights for research, product development, and medical education, and she advises medical and wellness companies on women-focused innovation. She is the founder of The Recalibration, a platform redefining midlife as a biological recalibration, not a decline.

Host Heather Reilly-Hiemstra sits down with Dr. Brent W. Laartz, MD FIDSA — infectious disease physician, associate professor at the University of South Florida, and, yes, bestselling spy novelist — to explore the organ that quietly runs everything behind the scenes: your gut.

Think of your microbiome as a sourdough starter (both Heather & Brent craft their own): neglect it and you get hockey pucks; feed it right and it rises to the occasion every time.

If your mood, sleep, hormones, or midlife energy feel like they've gone off the rails, this episode is your road map back — because the longevity you're hunting for is already living in your intestines.

Conversations include

• The Microbiome Footprint What your bacterial landscape says about your diet — and why a "bad footprint" sends addiction-center signals to your brain that make the Cheetos nearly impossible to resist.
• Microplastics & Menopause Hormones How forever chemicals and ultra-processed foods actively disrupt hormone health heading into perimenopause and menopause — and why the supplements those Instagram influencers are selling you may be worsening the very symptoms they promise to fix.
• Five Pillars of Health Diet, exercise, sleep, connection/creativity — and the fifth pillar most doctors skip: eliminating plastics and processed foods from your daily life, one step at a time.
• The Triathlete Bacteria Study The Lactobacillus and Veillonella species that helped world-class triathletes nearly double their sprint endurance by converting lactic acid into short-chain fatty acids — and what that means for every midlife body in the room.
• Actionable First Steps From homemade sauerkraut (no scale required — Google will guide you) to functional blood work outside your GP's office, how to start rebuilding your microbiome today without overhauling your entire life overnight.

Dr. Brent brings more than the science of what lives in your gut, including the honest admission that physicians are often the last people practicing what they preach, and one man’s practical, no-cold-turkey roadmap to meaningful change.

Tune in to start feeding what feeds you — because a thriving microbiome is the backing track behind your hormones, your mood, your sleep, and every stage of vibrant midlife ahead.

About Dr. Brent Laartz

Dr. Brent Laartz is an infectious disease physician and Affiliate Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the University of South Florida. His clinical expertise in the microbiome sits at the intersection of gut health, longevity science, and hormonal well-being — an expert guide for the midlife health questions most GPs don't have bandwidth to answer in detail.

Driven by his own journey from "I thought I was healthy" to nearly pre-diabetic, Dr. Laartz launched the “Go Unpro” podcast — a doctor's 52-week journey to an unprocessed life, available in video and audio wherever you listen. He is also the author of two bestselling spy thrillers, a poet and an avid sailor.

Dr. Brent is a firm believer that creativity, connection, and a good sourdough starter are non-negotiable pillars of a long life, and that natural prevention with diet and mindfulness can have a profound effect upon healing and overall health.

Find out more at:

• Website: https://www.drlaartz.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brentwlaartzmd/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent-w-laartz-md

Heather Reilly Hiemstra sits down with Dr. Cathleen Gerenger — chiropractic physician, acupuncturist, functional health practitioner, and the Tampa Bay area's go-to healthy living expert — to map the hormone timeline nobody handed us in our 20s.

The conversation opens a truth most women have never heard spelled out: perimenopause isn't a switch that flips at 50. It's a slow, decade-by-decade depletion of thyroid, progesterone, testosterone, and estrogen that begins before you've even had your first child — and every symptom you were told to

Heather Reilly Hiemstra has always loved rocks — and it turns out the most important ones are the ones you're built on. In this episode, she sits down with Rush Simonson, founding CEO of Juvent, a 25-year pioneer in regenerative medicine and bone science, to make the case that bone density is not a passive number on a lab report — it's a living, remodeling biomarker that GenX women can actively rebuild starting today.

If your last doctor's visit left you with more dread than direction — or if you've never been told that your skeleton from 10 years ago is already gone and replaced — this conversation hands you a real program, not a prescription for helplessness.

Conversations include

• The Bone Bank Why your body treats your skeleton as a strategic calcium reserve — raiding it to keep your heart beating when dietary calcium runs low — and what that slow withdrawal costs you over a perimenopause and menopause transition.

 About Rush Simonson

Over 25 years of leadership and innovation in finance and healthcare have shaped a career defined by entrepreneurial success and a deep commitment to improving lives. As founding CEO and Chairman of Juvent, he brought back to market the Juvent revolutionary resonant micro-impact platform with clinically demonstrated results—including an 11% improvement in tibial bone mineral density within one year, validated through multiple clinical trials, including research from St. Jude Hospital for Children. The technology is now trusted by thousands of clinicians, athletes, and seniors worldwide.

His healthcare innovation extends across multiple ventures. He founded Noujour, LLC, one of the early regenerative medical clinics, where he pioneered Wholenomics—a groundbreaking diagnostic and treatment methodology. As founding CEO of Cytonics Corporation, a proteomics discovery startup, he led a national team of scientists from Stanford University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Scripps Institute to identify a novel protein complex linked to joint and back pain, ultimately leading to a 20% acquisition by Synthes/J&J valued at over $20 million and a drug candidate now in FDA Phase 2 trials.

Heather Reilly Hiemstra sits down with Heather Theisen-Gandara — certified divorce coach, former international diplomat, and founder of the Reignite Collective — to talk about what happens when the life you planned simply stops fitting.

Heather T. lost 90 pounds, left a 24-year career in global diplomacy, and built an entirely new identity on the other side of an unexpected divorce at the age of 48. What actually happened here? A glow up that started from the inside out.

If you've ever looked in the mirror mid-life — divorced, married, or somewhere in between — and asked who the hell am I right now, this one's for you.

Conversations include:

• "I'm Too Old to Start Over" The lie that almost stopped Heather T. cold — and the research-backed truth that more entrepreneurs launch after 50 than at any other life stage.
• Reptile Brain vs. Frontal Lobe Why survival mode hijacks your best decisions during divorce and major transitions, and how grounding practices like box breathing pull you back from the alligator.
• The Nervous System Reset How extended fight-or-flight dysregulates your body during life upheaval — and the journaling, breathwork, and mindfulness tools Heather T. built her coaching practice around.
• The Capsule Closet as Crisis Management One section of your wardrobe — ironed white shirt, clean tank, the right shoes — so that on the mornings you can't think, you still show up like a rockstar.
• Ready to Love Again? The one-line test: if you need someone to complete your life, you're not there yet. Heather T. on building self-trust, spotting patterns (not just red flags), and what "whole" actually feels like before you let someone in.
• Tune in to reclaim your glow up — whether you're navigating divorce, a career pivot, a 30-year marriage, or just a closet full of clothes that no longer feel like you. Your frontal lobe called. It's time to answer.

About the Guest:

Heather Theisen-Gandara is a certified divorce coach and the founder of the Reignite Collective, a coaching practice dedicated to helping women over 40 rebuild confidence, clarity, and purpose after divorce.

Before becoming a coach, Heather spent more than two decades in international exchange and diplomacy, working with global organizations and leading high-stakes cross-cultural initiatives. When her own 24-year marriage ended unexpectedly at 48 — pre-menopausal, youngest child freshly off to college — she project-managed her way through the legal process, then did the harder work of rebuilding from scratch. She came through it 90 pounds lighter, aligned with a new life's purpose, and focused on longevity.

That reinvention became the foundation for her book The Ultimate Glow Up Guide for Women Over 40, a chapter-by-chapter, checklist-driven field manual for midlife reinvention — covering everything from nervous system regulation and journaling prompts to capsule wardrobes and drugstore skincare. Find her at @HeatherGlowsAgain on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

Connect with Heather at:

Website: https://www.reignitecollective.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/HeatherGlowsAgain
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathertheisen-gandara