PART 4 OF 8 — THE BLOOD SUGAR & CGM SERIES. You can listen in any order, though they do build. Find the full series here.

For three episodes I've been ending on the same unsatisfying note: none of this tells you what's happening in your body specifically. This episode is about the thing that can.

A continuous glucose monitor doesn't measure glucose. It measures yours.

Researchers at King's College London fed around a thousand people — including a lot of identical twins — identical meals. The responses varied enormously. And when they worked out what drove the differences, less than a third of the variation came from the food itself. The rest was the person eating it.

Read the full blog post and complete show notes — every study linked in one place.

In this episode:

• What the device physically is, and why it's far less invasive than most women imagine
• Interstitial fluid, lag, and why the line doesn't move the moment you eat
• Two days of data painted out loud — rolling countryside versus a mountain range
• Why the afternoon crash and the sudden craving are a sequence, not a character flaw
• The four things worth watching in your own data
• Why a number on its own tells you nothing, and what to write down beside it
• Why how fast you recover matters more than how high you spike
• How much of your glucose response is genetic — and how much isn't

Chapters:
00:00 The question I keep leaving you with
02:26 What a CGM actually is
03:50 What it measures, and why it lags behind
04:54 Two days of data, painted out loud
06:28 The spike, then the crash, then the craving
07:50 The four things worth watching
11:01 Why a number on its own tells you nothing
13:12 The one that matters most, and it is not the peak
14:52 Two people, one muffin, different results
16:07 How much of this is genetic
18:19 What to do this week

Resources:

• The Metabolic Five — my free guide to the tests worth asking for, including the fasting insulin nobody offers you.
• Clarity — my program for reading your own real-time glucose data.
• The Inner Circle — my monthly membership.
• Free Community — come and join us, no cost.
• Fullscript — my practitioner dispensary, 15% discount.
• AG1 — the greens powder I use daily.

AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely use and trust.

Sources: every study is linked in full on the blog post. Key papers include Berry et al. 2020 in Nature Medicine (the PREDICT study) and Hall et al. 2018 on glucotypes. Device mechanics from Karen Kennedy's Hack Your Blood Sugar.

I'm a certified nutritionist and menopause specialist, but I'm not your doctor — this podcast isn't a substitute for personalized medical care. Always check in with your team before making changes to your diet, supplements, or lifestyle. Take what serves you, leave what doesn't, and trust yourself.

PART 3 OF 8 — THE BLOOD SUGAR & CGM SERIES. You can listen in any order, though they do build. Find the full series here.

Three years ago Diane's A1c was 5.4. Then 5.5. Then 5.6. Every year she was told it was normal.

This year she got a phone call, the word prediabetic, and some advice about losing weight. And she was stunned — because from where she was sitting, nothing had happened.

Nothing had. It was just the year she crossed a line somebody drew.

Here's what almost nobody tells you: for women sitting exactly where Diane was, somewhere between 1 in 20 and 1 in 4 went on to develop diabetes within five years — starting from a result they were told was normal.

Read the full blog post and complete show notes — every study linked in one place.

In this episode:

• What an A1c actually measures, and why it's an average rather than a snapshot
• What the research says about a "normal" A1c of 5.6
• Why there's no cliff at 5.7, and how that line was arrived at
• Why the system detects thresholds but not trajectories — and why the warning arrives when it's worth the least
• What's actually happening underneath a rising A1c
• Why two women with the identical A1c can be in completely different situations
• Insulin is a hormone, and it's missing from the midlife hormone conversation
• Two things that can make your A1c read falsely high, both relevant in perimenopause
• The ten-minute exercise that does what the system cannot

Chapters:
00:00 Diane's lab results, three years running
02:26 What your A1c actually measures
04:41 What the research says about a “normal” 5.6
06:18 Why there is no cliff at 5.7
09:11 The system detects thresholds, not trajectories
13:52 What was actually happening underneath
17:11 Insulin is a hormone. Nobody is discussing it.
19:07 What can make your A1c read falsely high
21:24 What to do this week
23:28 What you still cannot see

Resources:

• The Metabolic Five — my free guide to the tests worth asking for, including the fasting insulin nobody offers you.
• Clarity — my program for reading your own real-time glucose data.
• The Inner Circle — my monthly membership.
• Free Community — come and join us, no cost.
• Fullscript — my practitioner dispensary, 15% discount.
• AG1 — the greens powder I use daily.

AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely use and trust.

Sources: every study is linked in full on the blog post. Key papers include Zhang et al. in Diabetes Care, DeFronzo 2009, De Paoli 2021, and the ADA Standards of Care.

I'm a certified nutritionist and menopause specialist, but I'm not your doctor — this podcast isn't a substitute for personalized medical care. Always check in with your team before making changes to your diet, supplements, or lifestyle. Take what serves you, leave what doesn't, and trust yourself.

PART 2 OF 8 — THE BLOOD SUGAR & CGM SERIES. You can listen in any order, though they do build. Find the full series here.

Your eating hasn't changed. The weight has, mostly around the middle, and it won't come off the way it used to.

The weight is a symptom, and a late one. What changed years earlier was invisible: your body quietly got worse at handling sugar. Insulin climbed to compensate — and insulin is a storage hormone, so you started spending more of your life in storage mode without eating a single thing differently.

If you get an afternoon energy crash, sugar cravings, 2am waking, brain fog after meals, or genuine irritability when a meal runs late — those aren't separate complaints and they aren't aging. They're all blood sugar.

Read the full blog post and complete show notes — every study linked in one place.

In this episode:

• Why the weight shows up last rather than first
• The four forces that all attack the same system — estrogen, sleep, stress and muscle
• The fifth one, which came from outside and has nothing to do with your age
• Why neither your scale nor a standard blood panel could show you any of it
• The one free measurement worth adding this week

Chapters:
00:00 What we get wrong about women and weight
01:03 The symptoms nobody told you were blood sugar
02:54 Why the weight is a late symptom, not a first one
04:25 The pantry analogy: what insulin actually does
05:22 What falling estrogen does to your blood sugar
08:50 What four bad nights do to insulin sensitivity
09:17 The blood sugar spike that has nothing to do with food
13:37 Why muscle is where your sugar goes
15:35 How ultra-processed food gets past your appetite
17:28 Why your scale and your labs both missed it
20:38 The one measurement worth adding this week
24:37 What you still cannot see, and what changed

Resources:

• The Metabolic Five — my free guide to the tests worth asking for, including the fasting insulin nobody offers you.
• Clarity — my program for reading your own real-time glucose data.
• The Inner Circle — my monthly membership.
• Free Community — come and join us, no cost.
• Fullscript — my practitioner dispensary, 15% discount.
• AG1 — the greens powder I use daily.

AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely use and trust.

Sources: every study cited is linked in full on the blog post. Key papers: DeFronzo & Tripathy 2009 on muscle and glucose disposal, Broussard et al. 2012 on sleep and insulin, De Paoli et al. 2021 on estrogen and insulin resistance, Greendale et al. 2019 on body composition in menopause, Lovejoy et al. 2008 on visceral fat, and Hall et al. 2019 on ultra-processed food.

I'm a certified nutritionist and menopause specialist, but I'm not your doctor — this podcast isn't a substitute for personalized medical care. Always check in with your team before making changes to your diet, supplements, or lifestyle. Take what serves you, leave what doesn't, and trust yourself.

You have been told your labs are normal. You are still exhausted, still foggy, still carrying weight that will not move. This episode is about the gap between those two things.

Normal on a lab report means your number falls inside the range of the population that got tested. It does not mean optimal, and it does not mean well. I walk through three numbers that tell a more honest story — including one you can calculate tonight from bloodwork you already have.

Read the full blog post and complete show notes — every study linked in one place, plus the printable version.

PART 1 OF 8 — THE BLOOD SUGAR & CGM SERIES. An eight-part series on blood sugar, continuous glucose monitors, and getting back in the driver's seat of your own health. You can listen in any order, though they do build. Find the full series here.

In this episode:

• Where reference ranges actually come from
• Fasting glucose: what the standard range says, and where risk really begins
• Fasting insulin: the test almost nobody orders
• The triglyceride-to-HDL ratio, how to calculate it, and the limitation you need to know about
• What these three numbers can tell you, and what they genuinely cannot

Chapters:
00:00 Why "Normal" Lab Results Can Be Misleading
03:20 What "Normal" Actually Means on a Lab Report
04:30 Only 12.2% of Americans Are Metabolically Healthy
06:23 Number One: Your Fasting Glucose
08:19 The Risk Hiding in High-Normal Glucose
13:08 Number Two: The Test Almost Nobody Orders
18:26 Number Three: The Ratio You Can Work Out Tonight
22:29 Why That Ratio Doesn't Work for Everyone
23:12 What to Do This Week
25:44 What These Numbers Can't Tell You

Resources:

• The Metabolic Five — my free guide to the metabolic tests worth asking for, what optimal looks like, and a printable list to take to your appointment.
• Clarity — my program for reading your own real-time glucose data. On your own, in a small group, or one-on-one with me.
• Fullscript — my practitioner dispensary, 15% community discount.

Sources & research: every study cited in this episode is linked in full on the blog post — read it here.

Key papers: Araujo 2018 on metabolic health prevalence, Nichols 2008 on fasting glucose risk, McLaughlin 2003 on the triglyceride-HDL ratio, and Sumner 2005 on why that ratio does not apply to African American adults.

A quick note from me: I'm a certified nutritionist and menopause specialist, but I'm not your doctor — and this podcast isn't a substitute for personalized medical care. The information here is meant to inform and empower you, not replace a conversation with your healthcare provider. Always check in with your team before making changes to your diet, supplements, or lifestyle. Take what serves you, leave what doesn't, and trust yourself.

You didn't used to be like this. Twenty years ago there was cake in the office kitchen, you had a slice, and you forgot about it by three. Something changed.

It wasn't your character.

Sugar addiction expert Jenn Edden joins me to explain what actually shifts in a midlife body — why cravings get louder after 40, the research linking night sweats to insulin rather than estrogen alone, and whether moderating sugar is realistic or a trap. We don't agree on everything, which I think makes it a better listen.

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IN THIS EPISODE

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• Why breakfast decides what happens at 9pm

• What a CGM actually shows when you skip it

• The night sweats and insulin connection nobody mentions

• Can you moderate sugar after 40, or do you have to quit?

• Why 1 in 5 women aged 50–64 meet the research criteria for food addiction

• Ultra-processed food, cravings, and the cake Jenn ate out of her own garbage

• The self-talk the hardest cases all share

• HRT, GLP-1s, and why the foundation comes first

• The five-minute morning habit that costs nothing

Content note: Jenn refers briefly to her own history of abuse and of disordered eating. It is not graphic, but please take care of yourself while listening.

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CHAPTERS

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00:00 Show open

00:31 Why “I'm addicted to sugar” is the wrong story

02:08 Meet Jenn Edden

02:13 The year that tested everything

03:46 “You fall to the level of your systems”

04:41 The 90-minute morning routine that held

06:16 Inside the Sugar Freedom Method

06:55 Why breakfast is the first domino

08:38 What a CGM actually shows

09:57 When the craving is emotional

11:06 Where the passion comes from

12:43 A word from AG1

14:40 From a pint of ice cream to one cookie

15:15 There is no one pill

17:04 The cake in the garbage

17:50 Mike Collins, and where we disagree

19:20 Gut health and the microbiome

20:18 Why some people spiral up and others down

21:09 Forgiveness, and building from the wreckage

24:25 Is it easier to stay sick?

26:43 Why midlife women are the no-BS clients

28:47 Clean eating and the fishbowl

30:57 The line outside your liver

32:55 A word from Fullscript

34:39 The one thing the hardest cases share

36:25 Mirroring, rewiring, catching the thought

38:39 The cup of tea (and Leah's beads)

40:16 HRT, GLP-1s, and doing the foundation first

44:14 Two biohacks: the vibration plate and the tub

48:03 The five-minute rule

50:02 Woman Unleashed, free

51:00 Where to find Jenn

51:40 Clarity, and one last thing

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CONNECT WITH JENN EDDEN

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Free copy of Jenn's book, Woman Unleashed

Jenn Edden Coaching

Jenn on Instagram

Jenn on YouTube

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RESOURCES

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Clarity — 5 weeks, your own real-time glucose data.

Free 5-Day Energy Reboot

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FULL SHOW NOTES, SOURCES & RESEARCH

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Every study cited in this episode, linked to the original paper: read the full show notes

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I'm a certified nutritionist and menopause specialist, but I'm not your doctor. This is not a substitute for personalized medical care. Always check with your provider before changing your diet, supplements, or lifestyle.

For two decades, women were warned away from hormone replacement therapy on the strength of a single study. In this episode, certified hormone specialist Karen Martel joins Leah to separate the headline from the data — where the fear came from, what the reanalysis actually showed about estrogen versus progestin, the benefits women were rarely told about, and how to advocate for real care when your doctor isn't trained in menopause.

In this episode:

• Where the modern fear of HRT really came from

• What the Women's Health Initiative found — and what the headlines left out

• Why estrogen and a synthetic progestin were treated as the same thing

• The bone, brain, skin, and metabolic benefits women rarely hear about

• Why so few doctors are trained in menopause — and how to find one who is

• Bioidentical vs. synthetic, compounding pharmacies, and a caution about pellets

• Podcast: The Hormone Solution | Menopause, Perimenopause, & Women's Midlife Health — 500+ episodes on hormones, HRT, and midlife metabolism. New episodes Tuesdays and Saturdays.

• Free hormone quiz — personalized results based on your symptoms and stage of life: Take Karen's hormone quiz

• Cosmetic hormone creams — 10% off for listeners with code LEAH10: karenmartel.com. The line includes a progesterone cream, a low-dose estradiol, and a Biest face cream. A companion ebook walks you through deciding whether these may be a fit for you. Ships to the US and Canada only.

Disclosure: The cream link above is an affiliate link. If you purchase through it, Leah may earn a commission at no additional cost to you — and you still get your 10% listener discount. She only shares products she'd point a friend toward.

Resources & links:

• Free 5-Day Energy Reboot — starts Monday, July 13 (runs Jul 13–17; the easiest place to start)

• Clarity: Understand Your Metabolic Sweet Spot — the 5-week coaching program that uses your own real-time glucose data. Cohort #2 starts Monday, July 20. Doors are open now.

• Inner Circle membership — the twice-monthly community

• Women Aging Powerfully on Spotify · on YouTube

• Join the mailing list: leahvachani.com

If you’ve been bloated for years and nothing has worked, this episode is for you. Most midlife bloating isn’t a food sensitivity — it’s a combination of insulin spikes, cortisol, and estrogen fluctuations that don’t show up on any food panel. In this episode I bust the seven food myths I see keeping more midlife women bloated and stuck than almost anything else — including the ones being sold to you as healthy. We get into the actual mechanism (yes, including how your kidneys are part of the story) so you can finally understand what’s happening in your body, not just follow another rule. In this episode• The 2021 study that proves your metabolism doesn’t actually slow after 40• What insulin resistance really is, in plain English — with a noise-canceling headphones analogy you’ll remember forever• Why fat was never the villain you were told it was• How estrogen decline changes your response to oatmeal (it’s real)• The kidney-sodium-water mechanism behind blood sugar bloat• Why elimination diets fail — and what to look at instead• Dr. Lisa Mosconi’s “brain energy crisis” — the menopause brain story• Why willpower will never fix stress eating (it’s a cortisol problem)

Full Show Notes here.

🔥 Resources/Links Mentioned:

Dr. Ben Bikman — Why We Get Sick

Dr. Robert Lustig — Fat Chance and Metabolical

Dr. Christopher Palmer — Brain Energy

🎙️ Submit YOUR⁠ podcast question here⁠ or via written format⁠ here⁠.

💌⁠ Leah's Mailing List⁠

💚⁠ FullScript Dispensary⁠ (My community gets a 15% discount!)

💚 AG1 Greens - With my⁠ special link⁠, you will receive an exclusive subscription introductory offer worth $205 for only $79!

Connect with Leah...

✨ Follow Leah on⁠ Instagram⁠ for more value-packed content, tips, and lots of laughs! ⁠ ⁠

✨ Subscribe to Women Aging Powerfully on⁠ YouTube⁠ for more free content. ⁠

✨ Join the free Women Aging Powerfully⁠ Facebook Community⁠

✨ Listen to the Women Aging Powerfully⁠ Podcast⁠

✨ Lose that stubborn belly weight, reclaim your energy ALL day, sleep better, and feel amazing with Leah's signature⁠ course⁠

The information provided during this podcast is for educational purposes only. The speaker may be a licensed medical professional and may present case studies of actual patients or refer to patients' treatment during the program. Please be reminded that the Scope of Practice for Holistic Nutrition Professionals prevents us from diagnosing, preventing, treating, curing, prescribing, managing, or healing disease. Holistic Nutrition Professionals are not licensed in any state and work with clients, not patients.

Most women have been told their pelvic floor problems mean they're weak. Pelvic floor and Pilates expert Jana Danielson is here to set the record straight: most women are too tight, not too weak — and the kegels we've been doing for years may have been making things worse. In this conversation, Jana breaks down the real anatomy of the pelvic floor, the symptoms that connect back to it (leakage, painful sex, bloating, constipation, even jaw tension), why breath and posture matter more than another exercise, and the three-minute daily practice that can change everything. If you've ever quietly accepted any pelvic floor symptom as "just part of aging," this is your wake-up call.

Full show notes here.

→ Watch on YouTube: @WomenAgingPowerfully

→ The CGM Metabolic Makeover — my flagship program for understanding your blood sugar in real time

→ Join the mailing list at leahvachani.com — episode summaries, recipes, and the things I'm learning

→ My FullScript Dispensary — special community discount on practitioner-grade supplements

Connect with Jana

→ Website: bloombetter.life

→ Instagram: @jana.danielson

→ Facebook: The Cooch Ball

→ Substack: The Jana Danielson

→ Free download: Healthy Pelvic Floor eBook

→ Join us: 21-Day Belly Bloat Challenge (June 9–30, 2026)

Mentioned in This Episode

→ The Cooch Ball — Jana's pelvic floor fitness tool

→ Joylux vFit — red-light intimate wellness device referenced for vaginal tissue health

🔥 Resources/Links Mentioned:

🎙️ Submit YOUR podcast question here or via written format here.

💌 Leah's Mailing List

💚 FullScript Dispensary (My community gets a 15% discount!)

💚 AG1 Greens - With my special link, you will receive an exclusive subscription introductory offer worth $205 for only $79!

Connect with Leah...

✨ Follow Leah on Instagram for more value-packed content, tips, and lots of laughs! ⁠ ⁠

✨ Subscribe to Women Aging Powerfully on YouTube for more free content. ⁠

✨ Join the free Women Aging Powerfully Facebook Community

✨ Listen to the Women Aging Powerfully Podcast

✨ Lose that stubborn belly weight, reclaim your energy ALL day, sleep better, and feel amazing with Leah's signature course

The information provided during this podcast is for educational purposes only. The speaker may be a licensed medical professional and may present case studies of actual patients or refer to patients' treatment during the program. Please be reminded that the Scope of Practice for Holistic Nutrition Professionals prevents us from diagnosing, preventing, treating, curing, prescribing, managing, or healing disease. Holistic Nutrition Professionals are not licensed in any state and work with clients, not patients.

Melanie Avalon — host of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast — joins Leah to bust the myths around intermittent fasting for women over 40. They cover the infamous rat study behind most of the fear, what recent research on postmenopausal women actually shows, what really breaks a fast (it’s probably your morning coffee ritual), the protein lever most women are missing, and two supplements that pair with fasting.

Full Show Notes here.

About the guest

Melanie Avalon is the host of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast and The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, author of What When Wine, founder of the supplement line AvalonX, and creator of the food sensitivity app Food Sense Guide.

Connect with Melanie

• Website: melanieavalon.com

• Find Your IF Style — Melanie’s quiz: melanieavalon.com/ifquiz

• AvalonX supplements (code LEAH for 10% off): avalonx.us

🔥 Resources/Links Mentioned:

🎙️ Submit YOUR podcast question here or via written format here.

💌 Leah's Mailing List

💚 FullScript Dispensary (My community gets a 15% discount!)

💚 AG1 Greens - With my special link, you will receive an exclusive subscription introductory offer worth $205 for only $79!

Connect with Leah...

✨ Follow Leah on Instagram for more value-packed content, tips, and lots of laughs! ⁠ ⁠

✨ Subscribe to Women Aging Powerfully on YouTube for more free content. ⁠

✨ Join the free Women Aging Powerfully Facebook Community

✨ Listen to the Women Aging Powerfully Podcast

✨ Lose that stubborn belly weight, reclaim your energy ALL day, sleep better, and feel amazing with Leah's signature course

The information provided during this podcast is for educational purposes only. The speaker may be a licensed medical professional and may present case studies of actual patients or refer to patients' treatment during the program. Please be reminded that the Scope of Practice for Holistic Nutrition Professionals prevents us from diagnosing, preventing, treating, curing, prescribing, managing, or healing disease. Holistic Nutrition Professionals are not licensed in any state and work with clients, not patients.

Waking up at 3 AM and can't fall back asleep? You're not imagining it, and you're not alone — sleep maintenance insomnia affects roughly 40 to 60% of women in perimenopause and menopause.

In this episode, Stanford-trained behavioral sleep medicine specialist Dr. Sarah Silverman, PsyD, breaks down what's actually happening in your body, why melatonin is probably the wrong tool, and the evidence-based approach (called CBT-I) that has the strongest research behind it.

We cover the 2 AM cortisol spike, sleep apnea in fit perimenopausal women that often gets missed, chronotypes, and the single most important thing you can do for sleep — which has more to do with your wake-up time than your bedtime.ABOUT THE GUESTDr. Sarah Silverman, PsyD is a licensed clinical health psychologist and Stanford-trained behavioral sleep medicine specialist. She is a former Stanford Sleep Medicine Clinical Fellow, former Director of Behavioral Sleep Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, and former Director of Behavioral Sleep Medicine at Tampa General Hospital. Her practice focuses on helping women — especially in midlife — sleep again without medication, using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). Find her at drsarahsleep.com.CONNECT WITH DR. SARAHWebsite: drsarahsleep.comFree Sleep Masterclass — 3 Steps to Up-Level Your Sleep Confidence Get the full show notes at: https://leahvachani.com/post/why-waking-up-3am-perimenopause-sleep-055
🔥 Resources/Links Mentioned:

🎙️ Submit YOUR podcast question here or via written format here.

💌 Leah's Mailing List

💚 FullScript Dispensary (My community gets a 15% discount!)

💚 AG1 Greens - With my special link, you will receive an exclusive subscription introductory offer worth $205 for only $79!

Connect with Leah...

✨ Follow Leah on Instagram for more value-packed content, tips, and lots of laughs! ⁠ ⁠

✨ Subscribe to Women Aging Powerfully on YouTube for more free content. ⁠

✨ Join the free Women Aging Powerfully Facebook Community

✨ Listen to the Women Aging Powerfully Podcast

✨ Lose that stubborn belly weight, reclaim your energy ALL day, sleep better, and feel amazing with Leah's signature course

The information provided during this podcast is for educational purposes only. The speaker may be a licensed medical professional and may present case studies of actual patients or refer to patients' treatment during the program. Please be reminded that the Scope of Practice for Holistic Nutrition Professionals prevents us from diagnosing, preventing, treating, curing, prescribing, managing, or healing disease. Holistic Nutrition Professionals are not licensed in any state and work with clients, not patients.