TRANSCRIPT

Speech-to-text transcription can look a little quirky. Please excuse any grammar or spelling errors.

Episode #30 - Prioritizing Health in Midlife with Elizabeth Sherman

Introduction

Eric Blake: Welcome to another episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast. I am your host, Eric Blake. During the day, I am a practicing retirement planner with almost 25 years of experience. I am the founder of Blake Wealth Management, where we focus on retirement planning so women can focus on living their best retirement life.

On this show, we discuss many issues, topics, and challenges that we see many women face along their retirement journey. So whether you're single, widowed, divorced, or simply ready to take control of your retirement, this show is for you.

To listen to past episodes, ask a question, or even suggest a topic for the show or join our weekly Simply Retirement newsletter, you can go to www.thesimplyretirementpodcast.com.

Now, onto today's episode. Today, we're joined by master certified life and health coach Elizabeth Sherman. She has over 17 years of experience where she combines her personal journey and extensive certifications, including life coaching, feminist coaching, health coaching, nutrition, women's hormonal health, and personal training, to help women prioritize their health so their health doesn't get in the way of the things they want to do in their life.

When I started this podcast, I wanted it to be more than just about money. As I tell our clients, my job as a retirement planner is to take the heavy lifting of retirement planning off your plate so that all you have to worry about is living in retirement and how you're going to spend your time. But a big part of that is making sure you can take care of your health.

We all know the statistics about women living longer, but we want to make sure it's not just about quantity of life but quality of life as well. As our guest today and I have discussed on a few occasions, there is very much a connection between your health and your wealth. Ignoring your health will at some point likely impact your wealth just like focusing only on your wealth will likely impact your health.

So, Elizabeth Sherman, welcome to the Simply Retirement Podcast.

Elizabeth Sherman: Thanks for having me, Eric. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. As you mentioned, we've been talking for like the past six months about this episode, so it's a long time coming, and I'm excited to share with your listeners.

Eric Blake: Absolutely. If there was a topic in addition to my "boring" topics that I would consider— you know, social security and taxes and all that fun stuff (I think it's fun anyway)— if there were another topic, I would really love to dive into, it is health and wellness, working out, and nutrition. I'm very excited about this.

On your website, you have the main title, "Empowering Women in Midlife to Achieve Optimal Health and Vitality through Personalized Solutions." Start there, just tell them what does that mean? What does that mean to you? And how did you get into that? How did you get to where you're at today? A little bit about your background and your journey.

Comprehensive Health Strategy

Elizabeth Sherman: Yeah, okay, so let me answer the first question first, and then we'll go into my background.

I think that for many of us, we have grown up with the idea that all we have to do is, and I'm putting this in air quotes, "eat this, don't eat that, exercise this way, don't eat that." The "eat less, move more" philosophy is embedded in our culture. If it were that simple, we really wouldn't be in the problem that many of us face, which is like women come to me all the time and they're like, "If I could just get consistent."

What I realized is that, so I started out as a personal trainer and nutritionist, and this was long before coaching was a thing. It was really frustrating for me because I would work with a client, and they would get really good results. Then, something in their life would happen, and it would pull the rug right out from under them.

I told my clients that I worked with them in the areas of eating, physical activity, sleep management, and stress management. I still do. However, the thing that was getting in their way was always stress. It was stress-related. Their job would get busy, or they would have a problem in their relationship come up, or their kid would get into trouble. They had to start taking care of their parents. Something would happen.

As a personal trainer, I didn't feel qualified to coach my clients on that, right? It's out of my scope of practice. But all of the things that we tell people to do around stress management are like, get a manicure, get a massage, breathe. Although those things are great, like as a financial planner, they're not sustainable from a wealth management standpoint. Like every time I feel stressed, I'm going to go get a massage. I mean, I would love that, but you know, there's the time and the money aspect of it.

It wasn't until I found life coaching that I realized, now I get it. We can help people. I can help people manage their stress before it happens or reframe their stress in a way that makes it so they can take care of themselves.

To wrap this up, I think that for many women, we follow this diet advice from when we were 20—eat less, move more—and it stops working as we get into midlife. So it's not just what you eat and how you move because many of the techniques that we grew up with were based on the physiology of college-aged men, which women in midlife are very different.

In addition to looking at our hormonal profile and doing things that allow us to reduce stress, and I have a lot to say about this, but I'm going to keep it here—to reduce stress and then also just manage the other parts of our lives, it becomes a more holistic approach to health. Diet and exercise programs can only tell you what to do. They don't tell you how to manage when things in your life get busy, when life starts to get in the way of the rest of your life, right? So that's kind of what that means is really helping women see how things like people pleasing and diet culture and all things like that are getting in the way of them actually taking care of themselves. Does that make sense?

Eric Blake: Okay, so we talked about what I was going to ask you right before we even started. We kind of talked about what I was going to ask you. So I'm going to throw a curveball right off the bat if that's okay.

One of the things, if you, I know you've listened to a few episodes or watched a few of our episodes since we're on all the platforms and YouTube and all that good stuff. But one of the things we have done a number of episodes on is caregiving. As many of us know, women often take on that role. That's one of the things that I think could be so valuable in what you do.

Caregiving Challenges

Elizabeth Sherman: Awesome, bring it.

Eric Blake: We'll get a lot more of this in detail, but I think in terms of caregiving because that is just a naturally stressful position to be in because you're often worried about your own financial situation, your own life. You may even still have kids in the house, but now you've also got the responsibility of taking care of parents.

In many cases, at least with our audience, that's kind of where they fall is, you know, when you're in your fifties, your sixties, you're trying to, "Hey, I really would like to retire in the next few years, but I've got mom and dad, or just mom that I've got to be there for." It just adds such a huge amount of stress to that.

I think that's where with what you're talking about, what we're going to be talking about today, I think that's just tremendously valuable. So, as we think about that transition into midlife, can you share some of the most significant physical and emotional changes that women experience? And more importantly, how can they navigate some of these changes as you refer to it as grace and vitality?

Elizabeth Sherman: Yeah, so first of all, let's back up a little bit. I kind of alluded to this in my previous answer, but I want to expand on it a little bit more.

Women are taught, socialized to be caregivers. We say that like it's a fact, like women are just naturally caregivers. Well, not all women are naturally caregivers. Some women may feel the responsibility of taking care of their parents or taking care of their partners or taking care of kids, but, I don't want to say, feel resentment about it, but feel like it's their obligation., So they have to do this.

That right there is something that we want to look at because women are also taught not to express what it is that they want. So many women come to me and they're just like, "I don't know what I want."

I have a client right now whose partner just died. She's 68 years old, and she's eating because she's stressed out. I was just talking to her yesterday, and she doesn't know what she wants. She lives in California. She wants to move back to Texas because she has family there, and she's stressed out because her daughter, who lives in Japan, thinks it's a bad decision. She has all of this self-doubt about, "Should I do this? Should I not?" She doesn't know how to trust herself.

What's happening is she's feeling all of this anxiety, and as a result, she's eating in response to that. That being said, I think that what we really want to do is, I look to empower women and really figure out what is it that you want. Oftentimes we will use food to buffer or numb the emotion when we feel like we're not being seen, we're not being heard, we're doing all of this stuff for other people.

We're told that we can't experience pleasure. I mean, no one tells us that we can't experience pleasure, but like when you look at the Dove commercials, they're like, "Your guilty pleasure." So therefore food is guilt-inducing. Not to mention, sexual pleasure—women aren't supposed to feel that. All we do is we run to food to self-soothe when we really don't have to do that.

Health and Wealth Connection

Eric Blake: That's where I think it comes back to you again. We keep coming back to this health and wealth connection because I experience it very many of those same issues and challenges when we engage with a woman who has lost a husband or lost their spouse. You have a lot of those same issues, concerns, and when it comes to money, and again, it happens on either side, it's, "I'm going to just go all out. I'm going to spend all this money on my family. That's what I'm going to do in order to cope with the loss of my spouse because, you know, they're dealing with this as well. I want to make sure they feel okay, so I'm going to spend a bunch of money. I'm going to take them on trips. I'm going to do all these different things." Which isn't, again, not necessarily wrong, but if it's an emotional reaction, almost anything financially, if it's emotionally, if it's based on an emotional decision, it may not be completely wrong, but it may not be completely right either.

Then you have the other side of the spectrum where, "I can't spend anything. I'm not going to spend anything," you know, life insurance proceeds where you say, "I received this because my husband, my spouse passed away. I can't spend it." There's an emotional attachment to those that they're losing something else by spending the money, and they end up making their life even that much more difficult.

Elizabeth Sherman: Well, and to that point, I think that women feel very comfortable spending on others but not spending on themselves. For women to invest in coaching, which I think I can create an ROI on my coaching because of all of the medical bills and insurance payments and things like that that you won't have to pay once you're in retirement. Yes, it's an upfront cost, but it's going to save you money in the long run. Many women find that very indulgent, spending on themselves.

Nutrition and Sleep

Eric Blake: Right. So again, kind of continuing along those lines of that transition in midlife; obviously that incorporates, you know, there's exercise programs, but, you know, there's a lot, at least the things I've seen, things I read, is a lot more focusing on making sure you're focusing on your nutrition. So we can talk a little bit about that. What are some of those misconceptions? You talked about it from the very beginning about, you know, the concept of nutrition is based on, unfortunately, a lot of the Instagram views that people get. But what's real? What do people need to really be focused on? What do women need to be focused on when it comes to nutrition and diet?

Elizabeth Sherman: Yeah. So I have this framework that I use within my coaching. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see it all over the place. It's not a secret. It's called the "Eight Basic Habits That Healthy People Do."

I think that for many women, we are in this diet cycle that we're like, "That diet and that diet is going to work." But one of the reasons that diets don't work, and be aware that 97% of people who actually get to their goal weight within five years will regain the weight. One of the reasons why that happens is because we don't have the foundation of health in order. We're following these rules that someone else has provided for us—eat this, don't eat that.

What I do is, I help my clients see how food makes them feel. A good example of that is alcohol. Alcohol and I want to come back to the eight basic habits again, but alcohol, for example, some women will find that alcohol feels very different to them as they move into midlife. They haven't changed anything, but as we move into midlife, alcohol starts to disrupt sleep, create more anxiety in our lives, and, for some, just not feel good.

So what, and I just lost my train of thought, and so what happens is, gosh, I really just lost my train of thought.

Eric Blake: With the nutrition and how women respond to nutrition.

Elizabeth Sherman: Thank you. And so what happens is, if you go, I'm sorry. Thank you. What happens is, if I give you a diet and it says no alcohol, then you're going to go out with your partner, and you're going to be out to dinner, and it's going to be nice. You're going to be like, "Elizabeth's not the boss of me. She's not here. She's never going to know. I'm going to drink alcohol."

You have your wine, and it's lovely. Maybe you have two, maybe you have three glasses, and then you sleep like crap. The next day, you wake up all groggy because you're whether hung over or just, you know, lack of sleep. Then what happens later on in the day is that you start to get the munchies because you haven't slept well.

What I like to do is I like to have my clients connect the dots and see that when I drink alcohol, I don't sleep well. When I don't sleep well, I don't have energy the next day to exercise, or I start, you know, behind the eight ball, and then I feel like I'm trying to catch up. I find that I get snacky in the afternoon.

It's really about being able to connect the dots between what I'm doing—eating and exercising—and how I feel. Going back to the eight basic habits, the eight basic habits are a framework. They're basic things, and I'll go through them. It's drink water, eat vegetables, eat protein with each of your meals, move daily, get enough sleep, and that is different for everybody. Everyone needs a different amount of sleep, so you just need to figure out what's right for you.

Manage your stress, eat just enough, not too much, and the last one is called limit treats. I talked about the 97% of people who regain the weight. One of the reasons why I think that occurs is because we think that we need to be perfect on the way to our goal. That means not eating cupcakes, not eating Oreos, not eating Cheetos, not eating pizza, not eating burgers, being perfect all the way to our goal.

Then, once we get to our goal, we have this idea that, "Well, then it's okay to eat ice cream every once in a while," or "Then it's okay to have pizza every once in a while." But through the method that I take with the limit treats, which is the last habit of the eight basic habits, if we learn how to incorporate treats into our diet on our way to our goal, then when we get there, we're going to be more able to manage those treats instead of that inner critic coming in and being like, "Now you really screwed up. You're going to gain all that weight back," right?

Then, going into this cycle of, "My God, it was so good. I haven't had it in nine months. I'm just going to go all in," right? So those are some of the things that help with women's hormones. Our lifestyle is going to impact our menopausal symptoms like night sweats, hot flashes, joint pain, brain fog. Those are all diet-related. I'm not going to say that HRT or other medications aren't going to be helpful—they can be—but there's a lot you can do with lifestyle changes.

Eric Blake: So I definitely want you to get into the kind of exercise and working out and things like that that many women should be doing. But I want to come back to the one you touched on—sleep.

I know that, and I'm sure you've seen it a lot. There's a lot more research coming out about the importance of sleep. But for so long, it's been that it's just natural for as you get older, you just sleep less. But to me, it seems like there's a lot more to it than that, that there's more than likely you've got bad sleep habits or there's other things going on there that are resulting in you not sleeping as much when in reality, you probably do need to be trying to sleep more.

Can you just touch on, number one, a little bit more about what you're hearing, what you see related to sleep, and then how can we improve sleep because it is so valuable?

Elizabeth Sherman: Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny that you bring this up because, again, I think that as younger women, we actually have a bad relationship with sleep, with eating, with exercise, with all of it. It's something that we can get away with until we get to midlife. Then all of our poor sleep habits and eating habits an,d exercise habits come to catch up with us.

Like for myself, I don't want to say that I had a bad relationship with sleep, but I could sleep anywhere. I completely took that for granted. I was like, "Yeah, like sleep, whatever." So when I got to the point where I started having insomnia, then I was like, "Yeah, this is bad," right? Waking up in the middle of the night. I found that for myself, a lot of it was actually emotional.

So, going back to the stress piece, I mean, stress and sleep are like brother and sister, but they're so important when it comes to our health, but we don't talk about it. We only talk about the diet and the exercise piece, but stress and sleep are going to impact your health just as much. Anyway, so I found that I was waking up in the middle of the night with just intense anxiety. One of the things that I experienced was really becoming aware of my emotional health.

But then, the other piece to that was really taking a look at my diet. For some women, they will experience insomnia, waking up in the middle of the night. There are three different types of insomnia: trouble falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night, and then waking up early. Figuring out which one is your issue will help you to decode what the problem is.

For me, waking up in the middle of the night was actually a drop in my blood sugar. So I really needed to start looking at what I was eating in the last meal of my day and really trying to increase my protein, decrease my starches and sugars, and snacking and things like that. Then I saw that I slept better throughout the night.

The other thing I did was reduce my alcohol, so change my relationship with alcohol. I noticed that once I did that, not only was I sleeping through the night because I wasn't drinking alcohol, but there's also a relationship between alcohol and anxiety. I found that my anxiety, in general, went down as I reduced my alcohol consumption.

If you're having trouble falling asleep, then that could be a lack of exercise or it could be just a lack of, you know, how you're falling asleep and you're like, "That's right, I need to do this thing," or "I need to remember to do that." I have some techniques that I work with my clients in terms of getting all of that out of their heads and preparing themselves for the next day so they can have a restful sleep.

But yeah, sleep is just so important. In fact, I was talking to my group coaching program, the women in there, and they were asking, "Which of the eight basic habits is the most important to you?" I was like, you know if I have a client who shows up and her sleep is not on task, that's usually the very first habit that I work with them on because that habit will knock out all of the rest.

When we are sleep-deprived, when we're not having good sleep, what happens is we don't have energy to exercise. We make poor food choices. We're snappish with everyone else. There's just this relationship. Like if we have poor sleep, then the body doesn't create energy correctly. So that's when we'll start snacking and looking for either high-sugar or high-starch foods, like whatever it is that you naturally crave.

Practical Tips

Eric Blake: Well, that's why I love your eight habits so much. But I kind of, as I look through those, I always look at them as though, you know, there's kind of that first domino. And to me, that would be sleep. If you don't get that one down, none of the other dominoes are going to go down. You got to start there.

Are there maybe two or three just kind of general sleep habits? You know, we talk about sleep routines and what are the things you need to do—keep your room cool, different things like that. Are there maybe two or three habits you could share that people could start tonight with, putting into their own sleep routine? Yeah, just kind of a, "Hey, do these two or three things and see if that helps." Again, keeping the room cool at night or any other ideas that you might have?

Elizabeth Sherman: In response to sleep? Well, there's keeping the room cool at night. It's also keeping the room dark. But I'm also a fan of keeping your room clutter-free and a beautiful space. Because even though your eyes are closed, you know that stuff is around you. So using your bedroom for not working out, not having just clutter everywhere, really cleaning out your bedroom.

The other thing is making sure that you're reducing your blue light, so access to screens. The other thing that I really like to do is create a sleep routine. It doesn't have to be, you know, candles and incense and stuff like that or baths, but rather just a set of habits that you do that prepare your brain for sleep. So for myself, I put out my workout clothes, I make the coffee for the next day, you know, your personal hygiene, you know, washing your face, brushing your teeth, things like that. Then, I will do a little bit of reading in bed. So I'll use a Kindle. So yeah, those types of things.

Empowering Women

Eric Blake: Awesome. So let's talk then, let's get into a little bit about working out, fitness. Let's say there's somebody just getting ready to try to get started with an exercise routine. Where would they start? What are they, again, just the first couple of things that you would recommend?

Elizabeth Sherman: Yeah, I love this question because most people, when we think about exercise, we're like, "Okay, I need to exercise an hour a day, and I need to do it five days a week, or seven days a week, or whatever." If you are not doing that, if you're, let's say, a couch potato, and you're like, "I need to start exercising," going from zero to 100 is going to be really super uncomfortable.

I think that for all of these habits, as I mentioned earlier, one of the things that clients come to me about is that they're like, "If I could just get consistent." So I really like leaning into better habits. When we're talking about exercise, for my clients, what I always recommend is that whatever it is that you think that you can do, halve it or less.

For many of my clients, I'll say, "Okay, let's put your shoes on and have you walk to the end of your driveway and back." They're like, "But Elizabeth, that's not going to do anything. It's not going to get me results." Maybe that's true, but maybe it's not. I'm a huge fan of doing the bare minimum to get results. Why would you do more, right?

But here's what that does—it builds the skill of self-trust. Many of us start diets or start exercise programs, and we don't trust ourselves that we're going to make it through to the end because we rely on motivation to keep going. Motivation is an emotion, and emotions are fickle. Like, we can feel motivated one minute and then sad and then happy and then all over the place. Motivation is not going to be with us from beginning to end.

There are a lot of other emotions that can actually get the job done, like determination, like courage, like focus. What we want to do is we want to build the skill of self-trust, which means that when I say that I'm going to do something, that I actually follow through and I do it.

What happens a lot is, you know, going back to women serving other people, we'll be heading out the door for our yoga class. We've paid for the yoga class. We're going. Then someone will call us up and be like, "I need you." So we deprioritize our own needs, which we know that if I don't make it to that yoga class, I am going to be a basket case. Like, that's the thing that really keeps me grounded, and I need my weekly yoga, but we'll give it up if someone else asks.

So it really comes back to, again, building self-trust with yourself and also having your own back. What I mean by that is being good to the future version of yourself. Whether that's not spending money on a latte because you know that that's something that you really like to do and you want to save that money for a rainy day, or if it's going to the yoga class because you know that that makes you sleep better or it makes you more grounded so that you can serve the people in your life better.

Conclusion

Eric Blake: I want to make sure that before we get wrapped up today, I think there's definitely some nuggets that our audience can take from it. But I want to make sure also that you get an opportunity to share how our audience can connect with you. I know you've got a podcast as well, but how can our audience learn more about you and your services?

Elizabeth Sherman: Yeah, so I do. I'm very active on social media. You can find me on Instagram at Elizabeth.Sherman.Coach. You can find me on Facebook at Total Health by Elizabeth. I have a free Facebook group for women in midlife where every single week, we go through one of the eight basic habits. You can find that on either my Instagram or on my Facebook page.

You can find me at elizabethsherman.com, and you can download the eight basic habits guide and checklist there. Again, that is the foundation of the work that I do with my clients. I think that if you do these eight basic habits, they're simple. They're not easy, but they're simple. If you do these eight basic habits, you will be healthier than most people that you know. You probably will never have to do a diet ever again. So that's how strongly I feel about this tool. It's really fantastic. So yay.

Eric Blake: Yeah, and I just downloaded it myself, actually. I just started getting your email, so I'll keep—I passed them along to my wife as well. I read them. I passed them along to her, and so they had very, very excellent content, so I appreciate that.

Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us today. If you are looking for a coach or you're just looking for resources to help you on your health and wellness journey, please be sure to connect with Elizabeth. Again, tune into her podcast, Total Health in Midlife. She has such a passion for what she does, and I'm sure you can gain some valuable insight to help you live a healthier life.

As always, please like, follow, and share our show. We will see you again on the next episode of the Simply Retirement Podcast. In the meantime, please remember that retirement is not the end of the road; it is the start of a new journey.

Content here is for illustrative purposes and general information only. It is not legal, tax, or individualized financial advice; nor is it a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any specific security, or engage in any specific trading strategy.

All investing involves risk including loss of principal. Results will vary. Past performance is no indication of future results or success. Market conditions change continuously.

Information here is provided, in part, by third-party sources. These sources are generally deemed to be reliable; however, neither Blake Wealth Management nor RFG Advisory guarantee the accuracy of third-party sources. The views expressed here are those of Blake Wealth Management. They do not necessarily represent those of RFG Advisory, their employees, or their clients.

This commentary should not be regarded as a description of advisory services provided by Blake Wealth Management or RFG Advisory, or performance returns of any client. The views reflected in the commentary are subject to change at any time without notice.