From Health Chaos to Radiant Wellness, Part 1 with Eileen Franco

In today's episode I'm visiting with Eileen Franco, wellness menopause coach. She works with women entering perimenopause and menopause to help rebalance their hormones and relieve the symptoms (including weight gain) of the menopausal transition.

When you're in perimenopause and menopause, your body is producing its hormones from a different axis than before. That makes it all the more important to control stress levels . Eileen recommends doing whatever you can for your emotional wellbeing, so that you can avoid adrenal fatigue and "insulin belly" weight gain.

Eileen has an ebook that she's offering at https://radiantwellnessco.com/rebalancing-hormones/

Connect with Eileen:
https://linktr.ee/radiantwellnessco
https://radiantwellnessco.com/rebalancing-hormones/
https://www.instagram.com/radiantwellnessco/

Connect with Magic:

A Magical Life Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amagicallifepodcast/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholisticnaturalhealth/

Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au

A Subito Media production

Transcript

Magic Barclay: 0:59

Welcome back to a magical life. I'm your host magic Barclay. And today I'm joined by Eileen Franco. Eileen is a certified holistic wellness coach from international association of wellness professionals. She helps business women to solve their challenges with perimenopause and menopause. As a business woman, herself, having gone through this transition, she knows how it impacts our daily lives and our career. She ended up on short term disability based on her experience. She is uniquely positioned to help women reverse their current state of wellbeing. She uses the same natural tools and strategies with her clients to transition them to a healthier diet and lifestyle that will better serve them. Kickstart their metabolism so that they can lose weight and create a physical transformation. She's been a guest on several podcasts. Speaking about how to navigate menopause successfully and letting go to find your flow. She's been featured as a holistic wellness coach in the ultimate guide to becoming your best self from the international association of wellness professionals, monthly newsletters and social media events. Eileen has three children and worked in corporate America for 36 years after experiencing a health breakdown, eight months into her transition to Perry menopause and having to reclaim her own health. She resigned from her corporate job to align with her heart and help other women during this transition to educate them on what is happening during this natural process and what they can do to recover their body with natural solutions. She's also working with organizations who are willing to create. Space to support women transitioning into this new phase of their lives. Welcome Eileen.

Eileen Franco: 2:57

thank you magic. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for being here today.

Magic Barclay: 3:01

Thanks for joining me. And just off air, we were talking a little about menopause and all the little gifts that it gives us women and you know, who knew that in this day and age menopause. Would be such an issue because certainly in previous eras, you know, it was just a, a point in time where women weren't having any more babies and now it's such an upheaval in our lives. What do you think is behind that? Is it that we are consuming so many exogenous estrogens? Is it our lifestyle? What do you think is really making that change so awful for some people? Well, magic,

Eileen Franco: 3:46

I think there is a several factors that is contributing to the Situation that is happening with menopause and why it's being talked about more now than ever. Although there still seems to exist a stigma in society about menopausal women, nonetheless, these, symptoms and health issues that arise have a lot to do. Most basically what you've mentioned, all of it, your lifestyle. How is your lifestyle? Are you constantly a woman on the go, um, stressed out, overwhelmed, piling on more stuff on your plate with an inability to say no. Stress not only contributes to our health issues, but it contributes to the symptoms of menopause and it also contributes to not helping us lose weight. So stress is one of the underlying, one of the major underlying causes of the menopausal symptoms that we experienced. And it contributes and that is because of our lifestyle. Our lifestyle has a lot to do with it. The current lifestyle that you had up until you started transitioning. No longer serves you. I learned that the hard way and ended up in short term disability due to being under a lot of stress for several years and not sleeping because of stress. It took a toll in my body. I also believe that, uh, our agricultural practices. The pesticides, the chemicals that is being sprayed on our food heavily contributes to that. We are ingesting toxins every day, even through the co through the lid of a coffee cup, because that coffee, that lid is plastic and that contains toxins in it. So. Those two things are huge. We're constantly eating outside of restaurants, we're socializing. And, uh, we do that mostly through food and unfortunately the agricultural practices and the farming, are using chemicals that are really not, are heavily sprayed. And then you have the estrogen V food that mimic estrogen that can contribute to, giving us additional diseases. So we have to be very careful with what we're eating and take care of our body even more so

Magic Barclay: 6:24

couldn't agree more. And hasn't soy become I guess everyone's wonder food. You know, we're going for soy lattes and you were talking about the estrogen mimics. Soy is just so bad for you. How did it become this fake hero?

Eileen Franco: 6:44

Well, I'm not too familiar with how soy I, I was reading up on it. And, you know, there is conflicting stories about soy I myself, keep away from it because I read that the only way to consume soy is organically. You do not wanna go ahead and ingest soy that it's not organically grown because it does, um, increase and it mimics estrogen, but it does. Some people find relief in it, but some people have reported that they have have health issues with it. So it, I believe it's all based on your biochemical individuality, that 5% that makes us unique and how your body's gonna react to it. But I would need to be more versed in it, uh, magic to be able to give a more complete thorough answer.

Magic Barclay: 7:33

Sure. Maybe I should do a whole episode on soy for everyone. Yeah, I think I will. Yeah. So look, let's go on with these questions. I ask the same questions of all my guests and everyone gives me an array of answers, which is totally mind blowing. So here's your first one? What can your expertise do to accelerate?

Eileen Franco: 7:57

Well, given my transition into perimenopause and the havoc across my health, right. It took, um, I ended up in short term disability, eight months later, and that alone. Was a big traumatic event in my life. And it changed the course of my career, my life and my career. I had gone to my doctor's appoint my doctor to ASPH for alternative solutions. And she said to me, there was nothing that she could give me unless I wanted medication. And that's the way it was going to be. Going forward to get used to it. And I didn't want that for my health. I didn't want medication cuz we know that it increases the likelihood of contracting, either strokes, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease. So much more, right? So it took me about several rabbit holes and findings, uh, solution to my midlife crisis. And I became a Guinea pig in trying multiple strategies that functional medicine doctors recommend for women who are transitioning into per menopause so the solutions I found started to alleviate my most pressing issues. I then continued to implement strategy upon strategy and was able to recover my health and wellbeing after having experienced a health breakdown. So today, I created that program that I put myself through is how I'm able to also help women. Reverse their perimenopausal menopausal symptoms much faster than I was able to, because again, I was a Guinea pig at the time. I wanted to see how my body reacted, what worked, what didn't, and now having several clients gone through this and seeing their amazing results in eight weeks, I know that I'm on the right track and it's possible.

Magic Barclay: 9:56

Terrific. And so your program covers 12 areas of wellness. Can you tell us just a few of those?

Eileen Franco: 10:05

Yes. The areas that it covers are we detox the body, reducing cellular inflammation. We balance hormones, definitely our diet. We definitely build our microbiome. We improve our sleep basically areas that are very important for a woman to keep top of mind when transitioning into perimenopause or menopause because they're, they are integrated and related. And if one area is out of balance, you definitely gonna feel the effects in others. It's like a snowball effect. So my program covers 12 areas that are very important to bring the body back and balance holistically on a holistic level.

Magic Barclay: 10:54

Great. Now we do talk about wealth here and it's not just financial, but also personal and emotional wealth. So what are your top tips to creating wealth? Well, I

Eileen Franco: 11:07

believe wealth encompasses having a com complete balance in all areas of your life, but we know that's very hard to keep track of and very hard to do, right? Because we're always juggling so many hats in our lives. And there are definitely things that directly impact us and indirectly impact us. But most people tend to focus only on a few. People tend to only focus on diet and exercise, rest hydration, which is priority, but there are also other areas we must take a closer look at. How is our relationship? Is it toxic? Is it peaceful? How is our finances? Our mindset. Our spirituality. Are you waking up to your purpose and passion? Have you found it, in regards to personal, I believe we must keep our health and wellbeing. Top of mind. We have to take time to daily implement self care practices and routines that will consistently, and over time improve our wellbeing as we age, it is even more important to do so we can't continue to put ourselves on the back burner and pour from an empty cup.

Magic Barclay: 12:21

What are some of your tips to financial wealth for all the women out there? You know, obviously when we hit menopause, there's a lot changing in our lives, but maybe our purpose has changed. We're no longer raising children. We might be reentering the workforce. We might be looking at leaving the workforce and starting out on our own. Like there's a lot of changes, not just physically in our lives. So what are some tips for financial wealth? In regards

Eileen Franco: 12:51

to financial. I believe that especially when we are in midlife and we're transitioning, we have to really work with a financial advisor to help us look at our options because they are expert in the areas and they know what's available. And what. What can help us achieve financial stability and security much faster. I know that for in my situation, because I had I reclaimed my health, but also recreated my career. I was able to prepare in advance. Um, My finances, resources that I have saved is very important to make sure that you have a savings fund for a rainy day or from when you do want to make a change in your life or career. It's important to. Cross out or eliminate things that are not necessary to do. For instance, if you constantly are shopping, which is one of the things that I would do when I was feeling kind of down or depressed, I would go shopping. And once I became aware of that pattern, I stopped doing that and redirected that into something more healthier. And in turn, it helped me to save money. So those are the few tips that I can offer, but there's tons of them. And, uh, I was a financial advisor myself. You really need to be able to try to target it and get outta your debt. If you have debt, it's very important to create a plan that you can clear your debts and it's possible. And again, you can work with a financial advisor that can show you tips on how to do that.

Magic Barclay: 14:43

And how would you suggest that women approaching this transitional time in life increase their emotional wealth?

Eileen Franco: 14:53

If there's anything that I've learned throughout all these years is that people project onto you, what's inside of them. You need to be able to identify when people are coming at you projecting onto you, what is not yours, but there's instead they're projecting what's inside of them onto you. It's very important that we become emotionally intelligent because it will greatly benefit from those type of projections that are being directed at you. You're able to not take it personally. but in turn, you're able to help the person realize, Hey, this is really not coming from me. It's something that you feel inside yourself. It will help to save a lot of, tears and suffering. That's one of the things that I greatly am glad that I was able to learn because. People were projecting onto me all the time. And I always took it personal until I realized, wait a minute, this is not me. This is them. And this is how they feel about themselves. This is how they see their situation. This is something going on within them. So becoming emotionally intelligent is very important.

Magic Barclay: 16:09

It certainly is. And really understanding who you are, the fact that your body is making some changes doesn't mean that you are changing really knowing what you stand for, who you are. What's important to you. Rather than basing it on, you know, I'm getting a little fatter. My hormones are changing. I'm slowing down. That's all peripheral. That's external. That's not who you are.

Eileen Franco: 16:38

Totally agree. Magic. I always say this. Self love is really fully self acceptance. We fully have to accept ourself in whatever shape, form size we are in because that's the greatest form of self love you can give yourself. And it really doesn't warrant us any worry. Comparing ourselves to anyone else because everyone else journey, body health is totally different. We are changing and our body does change and I myself gained 20 pounds, but I wasn't worried about it. I was going through a transition that I was not aware of. And I tried to find what best way I could support my body. And, you know, when you look at things from more of a health benefit than a cosmetic one, I believe you have more success.

Magic Barclay: 17:39

Totally. And you just mentioned gaining 20 pounds. So I think in kilos, that's about 10 kilos. We do talk about weight loss here, and I guess many of us want to hear. That if you struggled with your weight, what was your trigger to losing it? And also, what did you find were the key factors in that weight gain? Was it stress? Was it hormonal changes? And how did you combat that?

Eileen Franco: 18:09

So in 2017, I started having weight gain unexpectedly without really understanding where it was coming from. I've always been one to work out and exercise. That's what I thought wellness. Of course until I had a health breakdown that led me to have learned so much more of what that encompasses, but I was gaining weight and what triggered it was that I tried to work out and changed my diet several times and my body was not budging. In hindsight, in 2019, when I transitioned into perimenopause, I understood that I was already transitioning into midlife, but was not aware of it at the time. It just became more apparent in 2019, when I started experiencing erratic symptoms and my body was just having chaos every day. So what triggered me to try to lose weight was the, how I was feeling really my hormonal imbalances due to the transition into perimenopause, the symptoms I was experiencing every day, episodic symptoms like hot flashes, sweating. And I didn't want to continue living my life like that. Um, my doctor told me to get used to it. This is the way it was going to be moving forward, but you can't call that alike living with those symptoms. So that really was the trigger for me to try to find a solution to the hormonal imbalances. And at the same time, Figuring out what was going on, how to bring balance back to my body, figuring, understanding that stress was one of the biggest, uh, underlying causes toxins in my body was the second underlying cause. And the third one was my diet that really set me up for success because understanding that those three affected my body and how. It affected my body, not only in my symptoms, but in gaining weight, that helped me to get on track with bring, bringing balance back into my body and taking, um, supplements to help, um, in that endeavor.

Magic Barclay: 20:39

I think it needs to be noted here that as we approach menopause, We can't do the things that we used to do. So going on a low calorie diet to lose weight is one of the worst things that you can do because you are no longer making hormones from your brain over access. You're making them from your brain adrenal access at the transition time. And if you are not using that access correctly, Then you actually need body fat to make the hormones. So this is why we gain that spare tire, you know, low down, sitting on the hips and we go, oh, we'll go on a low calorie diet that is just reducing your estrogen way too quickly. And that is what will give you your hot flashes. That is what will give you your night sweats because you're not equipping your body with what it needs, which is good fat. To make your hormones. And you mentioned exercise. There's another point that going for a run when you're in menopause or going into menopause, it's probably not the best idea because your body sees that as a stress. And having just mentioned the brain adrenal access. That's your stress. Access. So if you are adding extra stress at menopause time, your body gets confused. And so it sees the stress of running as a threat. So you're much better off doing body weight exercises, resistance exercises, leisurely walks, anything you can do to bring that stress down. Do you have any other tips to bring stress?

Eileen Franco: 22:27

Yes. So stress is, uh, is the overproduction of cortisol, which is of course done by the adrenals and many women in the population. Well, at least in the us population, 66% of women have adrenal fatigue. And that has a lot to do with, of course, having the busy life. We have a hormone hierarchy and we have to take into account that hormone hierarchy. And, and that is one of the, the hormones. The top one is, think of it as an org chart, you have oxytocin, which is your number one, which is your love hormone. And then you have cortisol. Oxytocin controls, cortisol. And then you have cortisol control, controlling insulin. If you can control cortisol, your insulin will also be high causing you to store fat. and that is why stress affects your inability to lose weight. So in order to reduce stress, um, not only what you've mentioned, exercise, you can't do strenuous exercises because then your body thinks it's stressing and then Insulin will start storing fat. And this is what happens when we gain weight. Um, there are techniques that I use to address stress and it's, again, this goes to having a self care routine in place every day that you keep improving on and adding on. So for instance, doing breathing techniques, taking time in your day to close your eyes and meditate or pray, whichever your, your preferences are doing yoga. Yoga. It was my go to when I experienced my health breakdown and it really calms you down. It brings stress down, um, taking a walk, breathing exercises, listening to music, crocheting as one of my best or knitting for those that knit, really to try to get your mind off stress, any strenuous. Situation or thoughts that you're having, because stress is not meant to stay in your body. Stress is meant to pass through and when it stays in your body, that's when it creates a lot of habit. So it's very important to be able to implement routines, just the ones like I mentioned, but also. Journaling is another great one that you can do. Gratitude, prayers, meditation, focus on what you have and what you don't have. And again, say no, if you have too much on your plate,

Magic Barclay: 25:16

some great tips there, very useful tips. And I hope the listeners do implement their self care strategy. Now we love freebies here, and you can give the listeners an ebook, the top three tips to start rebalancing your hormones that can be found at www dot radiant wellness, co.com/rebalancing hyphen hormones. That is a great gift to offer the listeners. And I urge everyone to get onto that E. And really gain the wisdom on rebalancing your hormones. We've discussed how important they are. Now you can be found on Instagram at radiant wellness. LinkedIn radiant wellness co and as a Facebook group create hormone balance. Eileen, it's been fantastic having you here for episode 1 29. And in episode one 30, I'd like to ask you to come back and talk more about all things per menopause.

Eileen Franco: 26:24

Thank you magic for having me on your show. I'm very happy and grateful that you gave me the opportunity to provide value to your listeners. And yes, please grab those freebie because that's the foundation of where to begin to restart, balancing your hormones. And I look forward to, uh, coming back to the next episode to talk about perimenopause and menopause.

Magic Barclay: 26:50

Fantastic listeners. Thank you so much for your time. This was your episode, 1 29 of a magical life. And now listeners go forth and create your magical life.