The Cinnamon Effect - Supporting Women's Health, Emotional Resilience and Personal Growth

What does midlife wellness actually look like once your twenties and thirties routines stop working?

In this episode, I'm joined by Sarah Fisher, a holistic health coach, personal trainer, and yoga instructor with over two decades of experience in the health and fitness industry.

Sarah and I talk about how she built her fitness business from group training in her backyard into online workouts and a full private studio, and how her weekly juice fast fits into the way she eats today. We also get into the daily rituals that keep her grounded as a business owner and a mom.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Sarah built her business from a backyard workout space into a full studio
• Why express cardio is her go-to when clients only have twenty minutes
• How consistent exercise beats intense, sporadic workouts over time
• Why she believes midlife fitness should stay approachable, not complicated
• What her blood type diet includes, and why she built it in phases
• Why her approach to fitness has changed as she's moved into midlife
• How she talks to her son about food, sugar, and moderation
• Why she moved away from cold plunges after trying them herself
• What she does for recovery, including massage and acupuncture
• How she keeps teaching multiple classes a day without running out of energy

If you've been searching for a fitness philosophy built on simple fitness and a positive mindset, this episode is your invitation to build a routine you can actually keep.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Shop my curated collection of low-tox products for home, beauty, wellness, and everyday life here: https://shopmy.us/shop?Curator_id=914824&Section_id=3615853

Connect with Sarah Fisher:

Website: https://www.sarahfisherfitness.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/sarahfisherpfitness/

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Why does midlife often bring old family patterns back into focus, right when we think we've already worked through them?

In this episode, I'm joined by Alyssa Scarano, a licensed professional counselor and founder of Collective Therapy and Wellness, who helps clients heal from childhood trauma and interrupt generational trauma in their families.

Alyssa and I talk about how negative thoughts and self talk can keep an old story running, why boundary setting protects our emotional healing, and what it looks like to finally begin breaking cycles instead of repeating generational patterns we never chose.

Our conversation touches on:

• How to recognize when negative thoughts are running the show.
• Why self talk can keep old patterns alive or help change them.
• What boundary setting can look like in a real relationship.
• How our body may signal what we need before our mind catches up.
• Why generational trauma can show up even when we don't repeat it on purpose.
• How midlife parenting can bring old patterns back to the surface.
• What a therapy session with Alyssa focuses on early with new clients.
• Why emotional healing often has to come from within.

If you've ever felt stuck in a pattern you can't quite explain, this episode will give you a lot to think about.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Connect with Alyssa:

Website: https://collective-therapy.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/collective.therapy.wellness

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/live.collective.wellness

Products I love:

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Most of us assume that if we clean up what we eat, everything else will follow. Joseph Chammas believed that too, right up until a stage four diagnosis sent him looking for answers no grocery list was going to hold.

This episode welcomes Joseph and Tawna Chammas, founders of Gratitude Garden Farm, who spent more than a decade turning five acres in Loxahatchee into a certified organic farm and retreat space. Together we get into the treatment Joseph walked away from, the food detox center he went to instead, and the raw vegan meals that became ordinary to him. The emotional healing work is the part he never saw coming. Tawna shares the botanical medicine she makes and teaches, along with the medicinal mushrooms they now help other farms grow.

You'll learn:

• Why the emotional work can be harder to begin than changing what we eat
• How the body may respond when we never come out of fight or flight
• What can shift when we grow even a little of our own nourishing food
• Why eating vegan and eating for health can be two separate pursuits
• How healing foods may do their best work alongside things that aren't food at all
• What a midlife pivot can cost us before it gives anything back
• Why our midlife health may depend on what we're carrying as much as what we're eating
• How supporting someone who isn't ready to change can show us where our limits are

For anyone who has ever suspected they’ve been treating the wrong thing, or who needs a reminder that midlife reinvention can begin long before we know where it’s going, this is for you.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Shop my curated collection of low-tox products for home, beauty, wellness, and everyday life here: https://shopmy.us/shop?Curator_id=914824&Section_id=3615853

Connect with Gratitude Garden Farm:

Website: https://gratitudegardenfarm.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/gratitudegardenfarm/

Your old nonstick pans could be leaching chemicals into every meal. Swap them for Caraway's non-toxic cookware and cook clean: https://rstr.co/caraway/kimberlyhand

Sweat out the stress and sink into infrared heat at home. Explore Sunlighten Saunas here: https://get.sunlighten.com/cinnamoneffect

When did we all agree that bloating, low energy, and skin changes were just part of being a woman over forty?

In this episode, I'm joined by Anna Finck, a wellness architect and lifestyle designer, who healed her own reproductive health issues and adrenal fatigue naturally after walking away from a path to medical school.

Anna and I talk about the years she spent unwell, and what changed once she stopped treating each symptom on its own. She walks me through the chemical exposure in products we reach for without thinking, the plant based foods she eats for her liver and adrenals, and the money beliefs she traced back to childhood. Her approach is thorough and specific, and I think midlife women hear it differently.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the symptoms we've been told to expect may not be normal
• What to look for in the makeup and deodorant we use daily
• How to lower your toxic load without emptying every cabinet
• Why the liver and adrenals are the organs Anna protects as we age
• Why leafy greens and fruit can supply amino acids the body uses
• How to find your energy type and what it may say about your work
• Why the money story you absorbed as a child can still be running
• How to treat financial wellness as part of your health

If you've been searching for embodied wellness, natural healing, and radiant health in midlife, this episode is your invitation.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Shop my curated collection of low-tox products for home, beauty, wellness, and everyday life here: https://shopmy.us/shop?Curator_id=914824&Section_id=3615853

Connect with Anna Finck:

https://www.annafinck.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/iamannafinck/

Your old nonstick pans could be leaching chemicals into every meal. Swap them for Caraway's non-toxic cookware and cook clean: https://rstr.co/caraway/kimberlyhand

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What if the most important thing about your food has nothing to do with the crop and everything to do with the dirt it grew in?

I'm joined by Dr. Jeffrey Burke, the director of education for Kokora Life and host of the Honest Health podcast, who has spent more than four decades in the natural products industry.

Jeffrey and I talk about what changes when a farm stops turning its soil, and how regenerative agriculture builds on certified organic growing rather than replacing it. Soil health is the piece most of us never think about while we're shopping, and he makes a case for why it belongs on our radar. He also gets practical about supplement labels, proprietary blends, and where someone brand new to functional mushrooms can begin.

You'll learn:

• Why regenerative growing can rebuild the soil while organic stays focused on the crop
• How over tilling has put the world's topsoil at risk and what farmers do instead
• What a bottle can tell you when it carries both an organic and a regenerative seal
• Why proprietary blends may leave us paying for something we can't measure
• What Jeffrey looks for beyond the ingredient list, from glass bottles to vegan capsules
• How someone new to mushrooms can begin with reishi and build from there
• What adaptogenic mushrooms like lion's mane and cordyceps may offer beyond the obvious
• Why immune support may depend as much on rest and walking as on what we swallow

This episode is for anyone who has ever wanted to trust a label a little more, or needed a reminder that the healthy habits costing us nothing are often the ones worth protecting.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Shop my curated collection of low-tox products for home, beauty, wellness, and everyday life here: https://shopmy.us/shop?Curator_id=914824&Section_id=3615853

Connect with Dr. Jeffrey Burke:

Website: http://www.drjeffreyburke.com/

Your old nonstick pans could be leaching chemicals into every meal. Swap them for Caraway's non-toxic cookware and cook clean: https://rstr.co/caraway/kimberlyhand

Bounce for ten minutes a day and feel your energy and lymphatic flow wake up. Shop my rebounder here and use code TCE: https://www.bellicon.com/?acc=kimberlyhand&a_bid=f1c026c9

What if the thing that carries you through the highest pressure days is something you can prepare for long before the pressure arrives?

In this episode, I'm joined by Heather Lowenthal of Posh Parties, a luxury wedding planner and business owner whose work has been recognized nationally, and who’s back with me for a second conversation.

Heather and I talk about what her wedding business looks like from the inside, beyond the beautiful photos. She shares how she stays grounded on a wedding day, why staying calm under pressure is contagious, and what she tells clients who are gripping every last detail. We also get into the emotional side of this year, with her oldest leaving for college, and the ways she resets once wedding season quiets down.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How staying calm can steady the people who are counting on you
• Why advance preparation can make the difference when something goes sideways
• What to notice about your own self motivation, and why praise may matter more than money
• How hustle and heart can carry you further than the shortcut ever will
• What parenting teenagers can bring up as a college goodbye gets closer
• How movement in the morning can steady a long and demanding day
• Why a polished team can change how a crew is received at luxury weddings
• How a personal style built on timeless pieces can outlast the trends
• What to keep in perspective when one day starts to carry the weight of a whole life
• How a slower stretch can protect your energy before the next busy run
• Why live music and connection can be a genuine reset for a working mom
• What can keep you creative when a career risks becoming routine

Heather's story is such a good reminder for women business owners that staying positive and steady ambition can live in the same person, and that the extra effort we put in behind the scenes is often what lets us stay present when it counts most.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Connect with Heather Lowenthal:

Website - poshpartiesonline.com

Instagram - @poshpartygal

Get dressed faster, feel more confident, and stop staring at your closet. Explore Style Society here: https://www.chelliecarlson.com/style-society-special-offer?affiliate_code=7c5771

Your old nonstick pans could be leaching chemicals into every meal. Swap them for Caraway's non-toxic cookware and cook clean: https://rstr.co/caraway/kimberlyhand

What do we actually know about the people our children spend time with? And would our kids come to us if one of those people asked them to keep a secret?

Some conversations are uncomfortable to start, and they're the ones our children carry with them the longest.

In this episode, I'm joined by Kristi McVee, a child safety and prevention educator who spent 10 years as a police officer, specialist child interviewer, and child abuse detective in Western Australia.

Kristi and I talk about the signs of grooming she saw over and over in her interview room, and why parents kept telling her they would have acted sooner if they had known what to watch for. She walks through the body safety lessons she taught her own daughter starting at age two, and how those same lessons carry over as soon as a child goes online, where online grooming starts inside a group and then pulls the child somewhere private. She also shares the dinner table test she applies before she posts a single photo of her daughter. My son is nine and has never been to a sleepover, so hearing Kristi lay out the risk factors gave me language I didn't have before.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What she asks other parents before her child sleeps at their house
• Why more than 90% of child sexual abuse in Australia involves someone the child already knows
• How to tell a surprise apart from a secret that hides harm
• Why proper names for private parts change what a child can report later
• What predatory behavior looks like in an adult who keeps finding time alone with kids
• How grooming tactics work on parents at the same time they work on children
• Why tickling can become a testing ground for consent and bodily autonomy
• What the dinner table test says about photo sharing our kids online
• How Kristi handled online safety while her daughter gamed, headphones off and all
• Why offenders in one Australian study walked away from children who pushed back
• Why abuse prevention starts at home instead of at the school gate
• How to open safety conversations with a child who's already older than two
• What surfaced for Kristi when her own childhood trauma returned as her daughter grew

This is the conversation most of us never had as kids, and the one Kristi shows us how to give ours.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Connect with Kristi McVee:

Website - www.cape-au.com

Instagram - @kristimcvee Tiktok - @tiktokcop81

Sweat out the stress and sink into infrared heat at home. Explore Sunlighten Saunas here: https://get.sunlighten.com/cinnamoneffect

Have you ever said yes to something and then realized, a week out, that you never once asked what it actually involved?

In this solo episode, I'm sharing my night in the Everglades with Trapper Mike, better known as the Python Cowboy, and what happened when it was my turn to grab a snake.

From the friend who told me about this years ago to the deposit I put down nine months early, the boat ramp in the middle of nowhere, and the conversation with my son about whether he wanted to come, none of this went the way I pictured it. I say yes to new experiences without asking questions first. Before we stepped onto an island, Trapper Mike explained how these snakes got here and why they're a problem for a place I've loved my whole life. Then the sun went down, and facing fear became the job.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why I said yes to python hunting before I understood what it involved
• How Everglades pythons took over and why they're turning up on private property
• Why the state opened these hunts to the public as a conservation effort
• What night hunting is like with gator eyes glowing on both sides of the boat
• How to grab a python by the tail and work your way up to the back of its head
• Why nobody out there wears gloves and what that does to your grip
• Why snake hunting in the dark scared me more than anything else that night
• What I said to my son when he told me he didn't want to come
• Why I dropped a 40 pound python the first time I grabbed it
• What Trapper Mike said that sent me back in for a second try
• Why a healthy fear of something isn't a reason to skip it
• What conquering fear in real time gave me the next day

If doing things that scare you has been sitting on your list, or you've wondered what building confidence actually looks like when it's happening, I hope my story gives you a push.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Connect with the Python Cowboy:

Website: https://pythoncowboy.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pythoncowboy/

Sweat out the stress and sink into infrared heat at home. Explore Sunlighten Saunas here: https://get.sunlighten.com/cinnamoneffect

Get dressed faster, feel more confident, and stop staring at your closet. Explore Style Society here: https://www.chelliecarlson.com/style-society-special-offer?affiliate_code=7c5771

Has your beauty routine stopped matching the face looking back at you?

In this episode, I'm joined by Jennifer Basing and Chris Crenshaw, makeup artists at Jones Road Beauty in Palm Beach who have each spent more than 30 years in the industry, from training rooms at Mac to the chairs where they work with women every day.

Jennifer, Chris, and I talk about what changes on mature skin as elasticity goes and lids stop staying as open as they once were, and why the answer is almost always less product rather than more. They walk me through everyday makeup that takes 10 minutes, the eyeliner angle Jennifer picked up while she was working for Charlotte Tilbury, and the one step Chris does first that I never would have guessed. We also get into why natural beauty shows up in how you speak to yourself as much as in anything you put on your face. Jennifer trained me in makeup 17 years ago at the Mac office in Miami when I was a Miami Dolphins cheerleader, so having her back on this podcast brought everything full circle for me.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why makeup can work as an accessory to your own features instead of a mask
• What to reach for first when you have 10 minutes and still want to look like yourself
• Why skincare tips and hydration can do more for your face than any product on top
• How the focus feature rule keeps your eyes and your lips from competing
• Why concealer application works better in a few strategic spots than a painted triangle
• How the winged eyeliner angle Jennifer learned can open a lid that isn't as taut
• Why a smoky eye still works as you get older, and which shade to layer first
• What Chris does before anything else that saves her the entire cleanup
• Why a darker setting powder may suit fair skin better than bronzer
• How a clear lip pencil can stop red lipstick from traveling into fine lines
• Why brush cleaning every week can protect your skin more than you expect

Whether you're after makeup tips that suit aging skin or a fresh way to look at your own face, this episode is your invitation to enhance what you have right now.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Connect with Jennifer Basing: Instagram - @crystal_mystic_healing

Connect with Chris Crenshaw:

Instagram - @chriscrenshaw

Turn your skincare into a daily ritual that actually does something. Shop Wildling's facial tools here: https://wildling.pxf.io/c/5878814/907542/12462

Get dressed faster, feel more confident, and stop staring at your closet. Explore Style Society here: https://www.chelliecarlson.com/style-society-special-offer?affiliate_code=7c5771

What does a rheumatologist do when the unexplained fatigue you've been carrying for months doesn't lift no matter how much you rest?

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Monica Shah, a rheumatologist board certified in rheumatology and internal medicine, who has spent the last decade traveling the world on mission trips setting up medical clinics, and who also happens to be a working model walking New York Fashion Week this September.

Monica and I talk about the patients she sees most, and it might surprise you that women in their 40s fill more of her new appointment slots than anyone else. She explains why perimenopause fatigue gets waved off as hormones, the questions she asks every patient before she orders a single test, and why quality sleep sits at the top of that list.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Monica knows the difference between ordinary tiredness and something worth a workup
• Why the first thing she asks about has nothing to do with bloodwork
• What two ingredients belong at the top of a turmeric label before you buy it
• Why blood work gives a rheumatologist clues and never a diagnosis on its own
• How to run a 30 day elimination diet on one food at a time without overhauling your life
• What happens in your body in the hours and days after a meal that doesn't agree with you, and how chronic inflammation builds from there
• Why turmeric takes three to six months before you notice a difference in inflammatory arthritis
• How to keep moving when high impact exercise hurts, and what Monica considers enough
• Why 80 percent of autoimmune diseases show up in women, and the chronic stress connection Monica traces it back to
• What to say when someone tells you you're too young for joint pain
• Why hormonal changes send so many women in midlife into a rheumatologist's office in the first place
• What Monica does every morning and every night, and why she says none of it has to break the bank

If you've been searching for answers about unexplained fatigue, inflammatory arthritis, chronic inflammation, and perimenopause fatigue, this episode is your invitation to start tracking what your body has been telling you.

Hit play and let's grow together,

Kimberly

Connect with me:

Website: https://www.kimberlyhand.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyhand_

Shop The Cinnamon Effect Journal here: https://thecinnamoneffect.com/journal

Connect with Dr. Monica Shah:

Website - gulfcoastrheumatology.com Instagram - @dr.moniica

Your old nonstick pans could be leaching chemicals into every meal. Swap them for Caraway's non-toxic cookware and cook clean: https://rstr.co/caraway/kimberlyhand

Bounce for ten minutes a day and feel your energy and lymphatic flow wake up. Shop my rebounder here and use code TCE: https://www.bellicon.com/?acc=kimberlyhand&a_bid=f1c026c9