I'm Hormonal | Hormone balance, gut health & nutrition insights

Uncomplicating Wellness: Foundations, Biohacks, & How to Define Health for Yourself | Ep. 148

• Bridget Walton, Women's Hormone Coach • Episode 148

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I'm Bridget Walton, a Women's Hormone Coach helping ambitious women ages 25-40 naturally restore hormone balance, fix irregular periods, feel confident in their fertility, and resolve gut health issues without restrictive dieting.

If you struggle with missing periods, PCOS symptoms, bloating, or unpredictable cycles, this women's health podcast will teach you how to support your hormones through strategic nutrition and lifestyle changes that actually fit your busy life.

On I'm Hormonal, you'll discover natural solutions for period problems, learn how gut health impacts your hormones, and get practical hormone balance tips from a functional nutrition perspective - no more guessing what your body needs.

👉 Download her free resource: It's not what to eat, it's how to eat
👉 Buy the book, Uncomplicating Wellness

In today's episode, Jenn Trepeck and Bridget talk about Jenn's new book, Uncomplicating Wellness! Listen to their thoughts on wellness trends, foundations of health, and more. Catch part 2 of this conversation on Ep 149. 

Jenn is a health coach, host of the Salad with a Side of Fries podcast, business consultant and the author of Uncomplicating Wellness. 

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SPEAKER_01:

You probably do not need me to tell you that wellness and health can be a little bit complicated sometimes. If you are anything like I am, if you're anything like my clients or my friends, we all can find ourselves at one time in life or another really overcomplicating things because there's so much information out there. How do I know what is best for me? How? Well, I'm excited to bring you this conversation that I had with Jen Trapeck. She has just released a book called Uncomplicating Wellness, and she covers so many great topics, really good staples, and really focuses also on the mindset of wellness and how to really make it work for you so that you're not just on this never-ending, you know, hamster wheel of how do I improve my health? What works for me? So we had a really fun conversation that I think you are going to love listening to. And I will get there in just a moment. But real quick, I want to say again, welcome to the I'm Hormonal Podcast. I'm Bridget Walton, your host, of course. I am a women's hormone coach and I work with busy, ambitious women offering personalized coaching and science fact solutions. So whether you are working with me one-on-one or you are listening to the podcast here, my goal is the same, which is to help you to stop guessing about your hormone health and start seeing real progress. So we are going to get into it here shortly. This is actually going to be a two-part episode because our conversation ended up being a little bit longer than expected. You can hear us, or you can expect to hear us talk through some kind of quizzes, getting each other's opinions on different topics and trends. And overall, we touched on a lot of different topics from the carnivore diet to gluten-free to, you know, how do we put, you know, create good habits that can stick with us. So this is going to be a good one to help you flex this must muscle in your brain of, you know, what is right for me, what feels good to me, and give you a little bit of context on a lot of different topics. You will hear Jen introduce herself in just a minute here, but in the meantime, know that Jen is a health coach. She is also a podcaster. Check out her podcast, which is called Salad with a Side of Fries. She has been doing this for a long time. She has so much great insight from all of her work one-on-one with clients. And she was really just a pleasure to talk to and to chit-chat back and forth with. So, with that, I will let you um start listening to this first half of our conversation. And you can check the show notes for links to listen to her podcast, connect with her on social. Um, or if you want to check out her book, I know that you are going to love it. So here you go, and I'll see you on the other side.

SPEAKER_00:

Jen, welcome to the I'm Hermannal podcast. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I know this is not our first chat, which makes it even more exciting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, not our first chat. We are both, you know, 248 Southeastern Michigan gals. Um, also, right, you're a health coach. Um, you're a podcaster. We have those things in common, but um, you're also an author now.

SPEAKER_00:

Congratulations. Thank you. It is totally wild and surreal. Somebody asked me recently, like, was this something you always wanted to do? And I was like, no. Like, you know, no. And if somebody had told me years ago that this is what I would have done, you know, six years after leaving my full-time job, almost 20 years after becoming, you know, a health and lifestyle coach, I would have been like, yeah, right.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But nevertheless, here we are. And I think that's what's exciting. Here we are. Well, I'm, I put together some fun games for us that I'm not to be too into myself, but yeah, I'm, I think this is gonna be fun. This is gonna be a good chance for um the listeners out there. Hello, gals, to get to know you, right? Your book is called Uncomplicate Wellness. I'll ask you to tell us a little bit more about it in a second. Um, but we are gonna touch on a lot of different trends and a lot of different ideas or concerns that I know are floating around, certainly have floated around in my mind in the past, and perhaps many of the gals out there too. So we will see where we differ, however, slightly, or if at all, and um just to chat on our thoughts on these many different aspects of wellness. Yes, I'm super excited. I love a good game.

unknown:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I have some catchy titles for them. So we'll get to those here shortly and I'll explain a little bit more. But in the meantime, tell us a little bit more about you for folks who are just meeting you for the first time, Jen. Yeah, so hi.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, so my name is Jen Trepik. Um, my background is really business and marketing, and I came to all of this health stuff, like so many of us, through my own, I call it a saga of trying to figure out my health and my weight. I grew up a dancer and I really I sort of joke, my family probably hates this joke, and I should say something else. But essentially, like I for a lot of my life growing up, I was the skinny one. And everybody around me was kind of always on a diet. So I was hyper aware of diet culture and fad diets and all of those things. Even though, like, I mean, generally, we ate well. It, you know, I ate vegetables. It wasn't a thing. And like for so many of us, this stuff wasn't a thing until it was. And that for me was between high school and college. I stopped dancing 800 times a week. I um went on birth control, lifestyle, going to college and all of those things, like everything changed. Totally. And then I was like, okay, well, I know what to do. You do this diet and then that diet and all of the things, and you live on this roller coaster, and that just like is what it is. And yet there were times where I felt like I would just breathe and gain weight. And like something doesn't make sense. How is this possible? Right. And then worlds kind of collided for me. So I graduated from the University of Michigan, go blue, moved to New York City, and after a couple of months, I was like, okay, I don't know what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life, but I know I'm not gonna work for somebody else for the rest of my life. And so I was looking for things to do, either to make extra money and invest it and be able to retire early, or have something where like I could work for myself eventually. And then these two worlds collided because I learned about the curriculum that I've based my entire practice on. And what I heard people telling stories, their stories, who were following this approach to health, nutrition, life, all of the things. And there's one woman in particular who was telling her story of removing like 150 pounds. And she kept it off. Anything she said after that, I didn't hear. I don't even know this woman's name. Like every time I tell this story, I'm like, if you're out there, please tell me, you know. So she is telling me, you know, she literally removed the equivalent of another human, right? Like another human was attached to you. And I'm looking at this woman and I'm like, I can't see where 10 pounds could have been on your body. You know? Yeah. So I had this conversation with myself in my own head of like Jennifer, not even Jen, right? This was like, I was having a moment with myself. Yes. And it was like, they know something you don't know. Because based on everything you know, that doesn't make any sense. And so I worked with a coach, I followed the curriculum, completely changed my life. Like the only thing that allowed me to say I kicked my food issues.

SPEAKER_01:

How old were you? Like when you start, like when you met this woman. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So this was I was in my early 20s, early to mid-20s.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Super 20. I'm trying to, yeah, exactly. And I'm trying to think because so it was like 2007, late 2007. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

No clue how old you are, but that sounds like early 20s, maybe.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I was gonna say, I'm older than I look. So I was, you know, early 20s and 2007. And um, yeah, it was it was like mind-boggling to me. Two things. One, that like, this isn't what we learned. And how did all of those things come to be?

SPEAKER_01:

This being like what you learned in your curriculum.

SPEAKER_00:

And yeah, but like to me, I felt like it was the nutrition education we're all supposed to know, and no one ever taught us. Like, we all have these bodies, and then we're all just supposed to know what to do with them. Like, yeah, missed that class in high school. We all did. And then what we were taught, I was like, well, where did that happen? Like, how did all of those things come to be that that's what we were taught? And so I became this insatiable student to understand all of those pieces of like, where did those things come from? Why isn't that what you know what we learned? How did the things, all of that stuff come to be? But then also, how do we get everybody to have and understand this fundamentally human information? And small task. Right. And understand it in a way that it's actionable, not overwhelming. And so, like, I started doing this stuff on the side of my full-time job. And like I said, this was like late 2007. So it was like before health coaching was really a thing. It was before side hustles were really a thing. And it's, you know, then I also, as things would come up for me or my clients, it's like digging into all of the human behavior things and all of the, you know, just continuing to learn and grow. And I do a lot in my practice with supplementation. So, you know, learning about different nutrients and ingredients and herbs and things that they do. And so kind of this book, Uncomplicating Wellness, is not a how-to. Rather, it's a new lens through which we can then evaluate all of the wellness information coming at us. Because one of the things that's changed over the last 20, almost 20 years of me doing this is that people are savvier, we have more information coming at us, and people have never been more confused. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's so interesting too. Right. There are certain, or curious your opinion on this. There are times when we do need like more specific direction, but for the other 90 at least percent of our lives, when we're out here trying to figure out for ourselves what's best for us, yeah, unlearning a lot of those things and reflecting back in. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what will get you where you want to go. Exactly. And so this book is the companion for that. It's essentially like before you buy any how-to, before you buy the plan or the book that's or the program or whatever it is, buy this one to help you figure out which plan program book is the one that's really gonna help you move the needle. Because what I see most often is that we have like this shiny object syndrome where, you know, from every, you know, TikTok and Instagram reel to every headline 800 times a day, we have all this information coming at us. We're trying to do it all. We're making sense of doing it all. And then by extension, we're actually doing none of them. And but we feel like we are, and then we're frustrated, thinking that something's wrong with us, that it's not quote unquote working. So there's nothing wrong with you, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

The willpower piece too. I saw that in your book of the like that kind of I need a little bit more discipline, I need more willpower. I talk about this hopefully not an annoying amount, but but anyway, yeah, I saw that and I was like, yes, Jen, we are speaking the same exact language here. Yeah. Well, good. Yeah. Um, before we kind of jump into some of the games, I and you touched on this lightly, but what are some of your first, like, do you have a specific first memory where you were learning about what health or what wellness is supposed to look like? What was that for you, if you remember?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's interesting. I you know, growing up a dancer, there was sort of this piece of like a dancer's body. And then I also remember in very formative years, it was Victoria's Secret Angels. Right? Everything was very much the aesthetic. And I remember a lot of conversation around magazines and ads and how groundbreaking it was when Dove had this real women campaign. And the interesting thing is like you asked the question in terms of health, but that's not what it was. Every message was about aesthetics, health was not a part of that conversation ever. And I think part of my personal pet peeve about things now is that every conversation about health and wellness, not every, but a lot of the conversations about health and wellness, it's just the the new label on diet culture that ultimately no one's actually defining health. No one's actually saying this is wellness. Everything is the biohack, the supplement, the grams of protein, the rules or the to-dos, and the interpretation is that that's health.

SPEAKER_01:

I want to ask you in a second what um, like how do you define health? Yeah. Wellness. Um, but what that kind of made me think of as you were speaking is how there's this overlap. There's this Venn diagram of wellness or health on the one side and then status on the other. And yeah, sometimes it can be pretty confusing of which what falls into which category and or really what's the goal of what we're going through. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's a piece of how today society defines wellness that is very much if you can afford it, is it accessible to you? And by definition, if it is only for some, it is not fundamental human health. It is not fundamental human wellness. So at the beginning of the book, it asks everyone to decide for themselves what is wellness for you? What does that look like in your life? You know, for me, it's not just the absence of sickness, illness, disease, or symptoms. It covers physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, all aspects of being and having the energy and the capacity to do the things that I want to do, to be the places that I want to be, to be with the people, to do all of that stuff. To me, we're not well if any one of those pieces is missing. We're not well if our food plan that keeps us at whatever number on the scale has us not being social. Right. So I often say if your plan doesn't allow for life, it's not your plan for life. Right. Like all of those people, all of those pieces have to be included as I define wellness. But everybody gets to decide for themselves.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that the individualization or yeah, invitation for folks to reflect on what it is for them makes it probably so much easier to then accomplish whatever those subsequent goals are because they're derivatives of that main overall point. I know I'm, I know you're agreeing with me. So I'm not saying anything to do, but that just helps to reinforce everything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And the piece of that is then to say, as all of this information, and frankly, even everything and anything we're going to talk about today or in the games, feel free to ignore or leave anything that does not vibe with you. There is nothing that says you have to do every single thing that anybody says. And one of the things I talk about too in there is like how do we digest all of the information coming at us? And going back to your definition of wellness and even understanding like what's your goal? Have you paused to ask if the goal of that influencer is the same as yours? Because not for nothing, like the New York City marathon's happening. I have zero interest in running a marathon. Marathon diet is one of my favorite days in the city. It like restores my faith in humanity. But with that said, when I see people on the internet talking about what they're eating or what they're doing, that doesn't apply to me because my definition of wellness does not include running a marathon. Yeah. And it's okay to leave all that.

SPEAKER_01:

What are uh I'm I'm curious, like for you personally, yeah, what are some of those parts of wellness that, you know, are really important to you that you keep front of mind?

SPEAKER_00:

So top of my list, and this is not, I know we're gonna talk about things in a different order, you know, later, but um fun and freedom and joy and connection and are huge for me. Being able to enjoy food and allowing food to be part of how we spend time with other people, how we find joy, how you know, like I love food. I'm a total foodie, you know? So that's a big piece of things for me too. I love working out. And so sometimes those are super challenging, sometimes they're not, but having movement every single day helps me feel like me, helps me show up as a better person in the world. Um, learning is a big thing for me too. Like I'm still that insatiable student. I spend an inordinate amount of time learning, reading, researching, you know, a lot of that kind of stuff. But I enjoy that. Um I think I could go on and on and on, but like, you know, of course, sleep and managing stress and figuring out all of those things. But all of that stuff that I even talked about is part of managing that stress and showing up in the world and, you know, sleep is one. I call it the ultimate biohack. I there are a few things better for us than sleep. And I will admit it is one that I it's a it's an ongoing relationship that is um what's the status complicated, right?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly. You know, we work on it. We have our days where we are like spot on, and then we have our days where we're like, not my best work, you know. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe then on this note with sleep as your as your number one, let's transition into this kind of draft that I want us to do. Okay. Um, and as like a little disclaimer, too, for all of the like little games and questions, there are no wrong answers. Um the point is, you know, for us to just chat through our perspectives and um share with listeners out there so they can think about it too. And listeners also be, you know, like, what would you draft as first? Or we'll do some like kiss merry kill kind of ones with drums. So we'll get to it. But that being said, um, I wanted us to kind of like draft our foundations of health. So I'll run through the list really quick, which is nutrition, hydration, stress, sleep, connection, and movement, many of which you just mentioned. These are the core ones um that I pulled out from your book. So I'm gonna make a big confident guess about your number one draft, but do you have anything else that you want to add for your number one? Then I'll let you know what I've got.

SPEAKER_00:

So my number one is the sleep. And I will, it is it is tough for me between sleep and nutrition, but I'm going with sleep.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, okay, interesting. I actually went with hydration for my first one. And I put hydration as my number one draft because I think that it is well, actually, now that I'm about to say it out loud, I'm like, do I think it's the easiest? But yeah, I think it's the, it's at least in the mechanics of it all, the simplest. Like, let's fill up a little bit more water, let's grab a water bottle. And so that's why I ranked hydration for my numero uno position. Yeah, I thought of it more in terms of impact. Totally. Like, there's no wrong answers. Yeah, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's funny how our our minds work to like, you know, for that first draft pick.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. What's the second foundational area that that you want to draft? So my second is nutrition.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And then the learned the way the body works, understanding the gut-brain connection. A lot of people will try to start with the mental side. Fundamentally, I'm sorry, maybe this is a little tangent, but okay, the vagus nerve is the literal connection between the gut and the brain. Think of it like a five-lane highway. Three of those lanes go gut to brain, two go brain to gut. So you will never outthink the biochemistry of what you are putting in your body. So if we can sometimes start there, a lot of the other things become a lot easier. And then nutrition plays into energy, and nutrition plays into our sleep, and nutrition plays into our capacity to move in all of these other places and our attention. And so there's a big impact that happens when we start with that nutrition piece.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Interesting because I found nutrition towards the bottom of my list. We'll get there. I'll, I'll defend it. I'll defend it when we get there. I like it. I had um number two. I actually had stress for mine. Yeah. I thought um hydration, you're like impacting every cell in the body. Stress, I think, makes the other areas so much easier. And I'll just recap them all for listeners who don't have this list in front of them. We're talking about nutrition, sleep, stress, hydration, connection, and movement. But I thought, I just thought stress is like impacting basically every function, every system of your body. And also, I don't know, for like kind of the quality of life aspect, I said, okay, for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think stress is on there for sure. What I see is that when we start with the sleep and the nutrition, the physiological response to stress starts to change.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. Defenda number three. What you got for number three?

SPEAKER_00:

All right. So admittedly, that's where I stopped thinking. So I'm now going, you know, kind of thinking through it. So I might have sleep or sorry, I might have stress at three. Okay. Because I do agree with you in what happens when we're not managing that stress. Because I hope I'm not giving away too much. Everybody still go buy the book. The stress piece. When our body is in that stress response, any body system that is not critical to surviving the next 20 minutes shuts off. So your metabolism shuts off, reproductive system shuts off, immune system shuts off, growing hair and nails shuts off. So there's a major piece to understanding how to build into our lives the elements of managing stress and minimizing its impact or just understanding and helping the body work through stress. So I think I've stress at three.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's so interesting about stress that we all really, or many folks, at least in these United States, um, accept that stress is just a necessary evil. We're just going to be experiencing it. This is, you know, I've even said this myself where I'm like, I feel like maybe I'm at a two out of 10 on the scale, but like, is something wrong if I don't have more stress? Am I like going for stuff? So um I guess that's curious if you see any like interesting trends, or especially in New York City. I'm out here in San Diego. Things are like a little bit more relaxed, but like, what is the East Coast like city perspective on stress? Like, what would you love to see change like magically in New York City culture to address stress?

SPEAKER_00:

That is such a complicated question because it's also things that I love about this city. Like the energy in this city is magnetic. And the energy of the city is sort of a baseline level of stress. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a pace to be past your boat time. Right, exactly. There's a pace to it. And I also think because, you know, it's known as the city that never sleeps, there is always something that you could be doing that it's sort of that double-edged sword. Like maybe it would be nice for everything. There's no FOMO when everything closes. Okay. What are we on?

SPEAKER_01:

Number four now, I think. Yeah, but what was your three? Oh, um, oh, my three was sleep. Yeah, I'm here with you. Sleep, it's gonna impact every part of your body, it's gonna impact all these other systems. So yes. Yeah. What you got next? All right.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I'm going with four being just hug a person. Yeah. And it's a toss-up with hydration. But because hydration is simple, I think it ends up happening with some of the other things. But um I'm going with just hug a person because this is really about connection and community and purpose. And that is, or those are one of the most overlooked pieces of longevity. And even the research backs it up when we look at what happens with our physiology from holding hands from a hug. There is so much healing and stress management and all of the things that come from touch and connection. And I want it higher on the list because I want to draw people's attention to it. Because it's really that powerful. And it's something that I think a lot. Of us poo-poo or ignore or set aside. And it's crazy powerful.

SPEAKER_01:

I have it as number four on my list too. And I think you're right, it can be easier than we'd all like it to be for it to be kind of a byproduct or afterthought. Like once I do all of these other things that I need to do, then if I have time, I'll connect with people when yeah, just to your point, when you're connecting with people, that's going to fuel everything else that you're doing and make it all really come together. So I'm right there with you for connection at number four. Okay. What have you got for number five around and at the bottom two?

SPEAKER_00:

I know when this one's hard. I think I'm gonna go with hydration on this one because there is so much of what we experience that if we were properly hydrated, and by that token, everybody, hydration is about more than just water. That there's so much that we experience that if we were just properly hydrated, the body would function. And so again, I think it like plays into all the other things, but I think I'm going with hydration.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. This is one where we had it exactly flip-flop because I've got nutrition for this one. Yeah. Nutrition, absolutely important. And I mean, these are all foundations. Um, but I'm like, if you've got these other ones dialed in, I think you're gonna be digesting better and like absorbing those nutrients. So I had her down at number five before. I'll mention my number six actually must have the same number six too. Right. We do, yeah. Of movement. Movement. What are your yeah, how come you put her down there?

SPEAKER_00:

So I do say to everybody muscle dictates metabolism. Movement is critical. The human body was designed to move. So it's not optional. But I have it at five because people overestimate what movement is going to do when it comes to some of their health goals.

SPEAKER_01:

Hmm. Because you because I think that by, you know, running a mile, it will have a greater improvement than what they actually see.

SPEAKER_00:

Because everybody wants to undo their food with movement. True. You cannot outrun your fork. And it's not, it's also not like, you know, one wildly intense, like you can't say, okay, I played, you know, on recess once when I was, you know, seven. So like I'm good. You know, so like your one wild intense workout isn't what's gonna move the needle. Yeah. And I think it gets um overhyped as the answer to a lot of things. Although, with that said, movement, muscle, muscle is muscle is your metabolism, muscle is your longevity, you know, muscle is anti-aging. Like there's so much involved in it. It's not negotiable. Frankly, none of these are negotiable. None of them. Um, but I I have it as last to help people right size it in their plan. Yeah. I also think, sorry, I also think movement can end up as part of stress management. Movement can end up as part of connection. So there's pieces there that like it'll end up in the mix sooner. Yeah. Even if you're going in this order.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think my main walk, well, okay. I slipped that. My main reason. Um my main activity that I do though is going for walks. That is my main social connection. That's what I'll be doing in two hours with my friends. So um, yes, I'm on board. I'm on board with that. That is me too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um go ahead. I was just gonna say, like for everybody listening, ignore everything we just said. Tune into yourself. You know, which and not to say that you have to pick your order. What I mean is choose the one that you know requires a little bit more of your attention for you to see a massive change in how you define wellness. Because it's not about going on our list, like you know the answer for you of which piece is missing from your equation. Cause, like we said, there none of them are negotiable. It's making sure that we're getting them all. And so you know for you which requires your attention.

SPEAKER_01:

And hopefully a little more context now, too, about how one foundation can impact another foundation and how, yeah, it's all connected. We've got to do all of them. Um and yeah, allows you to be better informed about what are you gonna do today? What are you gonna do tomorrow? What is, you know, that realistic and sustainable plan that you can build into your life. So that is the first part of two of my conversation with Jen. I hope that you loved it. And if you did, then make sure that you come back on Thursday for the second part of our conversation. Again, you can check out the show notes for the links to connect with Jen and check out her book. And if you have any questions for me, thoughts for me, I want to hear what your takeaway from this episode was, what surprised you. And you can send me a message on Instagram at I'm underscore hormonal. As always, I'll remind you that the information I share on the podcast here is for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice, diagnosis, or a replacement for it. If this episode resonated with you, if you love the conversations that we're having here, then I would really appreciate you if you for free, for free, just a couple seconds of your time, left a review or a rating for the podcast and many, many, many things in advance. So that's it for today. I'm Bridget Walton, and I will see you on the next one.