180 Modern Life and Its Impact on Women's Health with Amanda Hinman

Join me and Amanda Hinman in our striking conversation about Modern Life and Its Impact on Women's Health.

Amanda Hinman, a functional medicine health coach, discusses her journey and the principles of functional medicine. And in this conversation, we talk about:

🌱 Amanda's Personal Journey and Transformation

🌱 Understanding the Root Causes of Health Issues

🌱 The Comprehensive Approach of Functional Medicine

🌱 Modern Lifestyle Impacts on Health

🌱 Intentionality and Values in Health

🌱 Understanding Chronic Illness and Body Signals

🌱 The Role of the Immune System in Autoimmunity

🌱 Transforming Menopause into a Gift

🌱 Overcoming Nutrition Challenges and Health PTSD

Amanda’s Links:

Website: https://hinmanholistic.com

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

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On Demand Masterclass 2 hours] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine 

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£447]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/rapid-transformational-therapist

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

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via What’s App - https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Transcript

So my guest today is functional medicine health coach and bestselling author Amanda Hinman. Amanda specializes in helping successful women between the ages of 40 and 60 who are struggling with hormone, mood and gut imbalance to heal naturally and gain an extra three hours of energy every day so that they can feel fantastic.

Amanda is the founder of the thyroid and hormone solution program, which has helped hundreds of women beat Hashimoto's hypothyroidism, insulin resistance, anxiety, hypertension, brain fog, and weight gain and more. So Amanda, welcome to the podcast today. How are you doing?

Amanda Hinman (01:27.054)
Thank you, Sally. Fantastic. I'm excited to be here with you and to have hopefully a very inspiring conversation.

Sally (01:34.818)
Absolutely, I can't wait to talk about these issues because these issues typically, you know, we think of as when we're diagnosed with these things, that's it, we're lumbered, we've got to take medication for life, but you're saying there's a different way. We don't need to be sort of locked into and trapped into that sort of way of being forever. There is a way through if we're willing to approach it differently. But before we dive into all of that,

Amanda Hinman (01:58.542)
Yes.

Sally (02:00.246)
I would love to find out from you and also for our listeners that are not quite sure what a functional medicine health coach is. Can you start from that point, please?

Amanda Hinman (02:09.645)
Certainly, yes, great question, because sometimes there's a lot of different health practitioners and different names and so on and so forth. So as a functional medicine health coach, what I help do with my, what I help collaborate with my clients is really act as an educator, a partner who's going to help understand at a root cause the interconnectedness of the systems, the different systems in our body, right? When we're talking about our endocrine system for hormones and our digestive system for gut health.

and our neurological system for how our mood is balanced, all these different things work together in the body. And so the science of functional medicine is really looking further upstream at the interconnection of these different bodily systems and using a scientific approach to uncover where is the blockage or the impairment or the depletion that's taking place that then later downstream is creating some type of unwanted symptom.

or dynamic. Anytime you have a diagnosis, the kind of crazy thing is a diagnosis is just simply a name that's put on a collection of symptoms that an individual could be experiencing. For example, anxiety, know, general anxiety disorder or hypothyroidism. This is just describing a collection of symptoms and kind of states in the body, if you will. It doesn't

really give us any useful information about understanding why those symptoms or that experience is happening in the body. And that's where functional medicine comes in. It's really looking further upstream to put the puzzle pieces together and look at your lifestyle factors, look at your genetics, look at your individual daily habits and choices, and really get an understanding of what is that, what is that precipitating circumstance that has created.

Sally (03:47.542)
Hmm

Amanda Hinman (04:04.44)
the dynamic, the unwanted symptoms.

Sally (04:06.756)
That's interesting, isn't it? we think... So what you're saying is that the diagnosis is like the end result. It's like the destination. This is where we've landed because of all of these things that are upstream. And if you don't pass those things that are upstream, you might not get that diagnosis. So in a way, it's tracing it back, like you say, root cause.

Amanda Hinman (04:13.559)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hinman (04:28.586)
Yes. Yes. And I always love to use, I use a little simple story, what I call like broken boats and bodies analogy. And so imagine if you went to work every day and your job was to help fix and repair bodies and boats that are at the side of a river that are always like flailing around. All these people have broken arms and scratches and gashes that need to be stitched up. And then you find these boats that are capsized and have holes in them and have been

you know, washed ashore and every single day you go to work and you're like, man, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people who are injured here, a lot of boats that need repair and you're working diligently and working diligently every day. And yet the problem never seems to improve. There's just more and more broken boats and bodies each day that you show up at work. Well, that's kind of what, when we, when we have a diagnosis or when we have an acute situation, a chronic disease state, it's kind of at that.

point in the river where things have already gone awry. And the analogy of functional medicine is like, well, what happens if I start to walk, you know, 200, 500 yards upstream and see what's the cause of these broken boats and bodies that I'm seeing every day? And all of a sudden I noticed there's a waterfall. And when I'm watching more closely, some of the people coming to the edge of the waterfall, because there was no signage and no warning, they get to that edge of the waterfall and they don't have adequate skill training.

Sally (05:29.348)
Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (05:53.848)
They don't have a helmet. They don't have a life vest. They don't have the adequate boat to navigate over this waterfall. And so those are the people who end up at the other side with the broken boats and the bodies. But as I'm watching, I noticed that some people actually are doing this for fun and adventure. They have completely different skills. They have different equipment. They're actually enjoying themselves and they're eagerly plunging over the waterfall because it's part of sport. And they're navigating that with great exhilaration and

Sally (06:03.501)
I see.

Amanda Hinman (06:23.352)
fun and safety, right? So and that's, that's kind of the analogy available when we work with a health coach like myself or somebody who can help you to understand the dynamics that are taking place in your life or in your body and how you can work together to have the right skills, have the adequate preparation and the training and then navigate kind of the bumps in life or the bumps in our health with more grace and more ease and more fun even.

Sally (06:26.224)
you

Sally (06:50.19)
Right, so I've got this image in my head of the waterfall being the menopause transition.

Amanda Hinman (06:56.502)
Yes, that's a great way to look at it. It is because our bodies physiologically go through a tremendous change. So it's like that waterfall is kind of like, my gosh, if I'm not prepared and I'm not knowledgeable about how to set myself up for success, can be really uncomfortable.

Sally (07:14.64)
Yeah, yeah. Perfect. What a brilliant way to start the conversation. So tell me a little bit about you and how you got into this. Cause I think every functional medicine practitioner, every therapist, every healer has a story. You know, you don't, mean, the younger generation might wake up and go, yeah, I want to be a health coach. Cause you know, we sort of more evolved, the kids are more evolved now, but how did you get to the position that you are in today being a functional medicine health coach?

Amanda Hinman (07:45.3)
Again, I think Sally that this was kind of a divine redirection in my life. And just like you said, most of us have a story and that's why we're so passionate about it. For me and my situation, I was 31 years old and in my fourth pregnancy, so I have four daughters now that are all teens, 13, 15, 17 and 19. So really fun. But when I was pregnant with my youngest, was diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

And I remember being, this is gonna sound funny, but I remember being so angry and almost in denial when I received that diagnosis because I was not very connected and in tune with my emotional wellbeing and how much that played a role on my physiology. was, at that time, I prided myself in being very healthy because I ate salads and smoothies every day.

I went to group fitness classes and in fact was a cardio kickbox instructor. You know, I thought that's all that health entailed was physical activity and eating, you know, low fat foods. And nevermind the fact that I was struggling with chronic anxiety and just a massive amount of hypervigilance in the way that I approach life, trying to control everything, a lot of fear.

Sally (08:46.341)
Wow.

Amanda Hinman (09:10.646)
and then had received this diagnosis. And I was told that I would have autoimmune, you're gonna have it for life, you will be required to take medication for the rest of your life. And likely once you have one autoimmune condition, others will follow in the future because the immune system is just attacking itself. And every, I was like, that doesn't seem right. How is that possible that I just have to take medication and there's nothing that can be done?

So started working with a naturopathic doctor and that was informative. That was eye opening to start to be introduced to the idea that there's more at play that can affect health. And also kind of dove right into like, okay, I'm going to solve this. I'm going to fix this and got discouraged when I paid thousands of dollars and took a whole bunch of really expensive tests to be given a list of 20 supplements and a food elimination list and say, cut out these foods, take these supplements.

and then come back and we'll retest you in three months. And then when I came back and they didn't improve again, I was discouraged of like, okay, I'm doing all the things feeling really deprived in my food elimination and like, can't be enjoying my life the way I normally had been, and still taking all this expensive supplements and it still wasn't improving. So that was really frustrating. And then about around that same time, my oldest daughter was eight at that time.

And she had always been a highly intelligent, very sensitive child. And she started to have anxiety to the point of where she was having seizures daily. And Sally, when I tell you there's nothing that just brings you to a halt and brings you to your knees as a parent to see your child struggling. I she was having anywhere from 10 to 15 episodes and seizures in a 24 hour period.

Sally (10:48.334)
Wow.

Sally (11:05.264)
So this was an epilepsy, not epileptic seizures, was it? Was it different kind of seizure?

Amanda Hinman (11:08.974)
It was, she was actually diagnosed with epilepsy. And so technically again, going back to this whole idea of what a diagnosis is, technically a diagnosis of epilepsy happens when you have two or more seizures in a period of time. So it doesn't tell you anything about why they were happening. It's just the classification of the symptoms. And I remember she was on four different benzodiazepines and we're working with the best.

Pediatric neurologists and she's having all the testing done and they told us that there's no tumor. There was no, you problem in the brain that sometimes these things are genetic and she will likely have to be on medication to manage and not be able to drive a car when she turned 16 like this is just gonna be her life and every fiber in my being as a parent was just like this cannot be her future. This is not

there's got to be something as to why these are happening, right? And again, it kind of, it's interesting because hers was more neurotransmitter balance, but it's all connected to our hormones, our endocrine system is connected. It's the interconnection, right? Of the neurology and the endocrine system and the, you know, just our digestive system. that's, that inspired me to go back to school.

Sally (12:10.8)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (12:18.095)
Right.

Amanda Hinman (12:26.798)
And that's when I started to study functional medicine science and really learn about the interconnectedness and see the pieces of the puzzle that were creating the depletion and the impairment in her unique body. And then also what was happening in my body. So through that self discovery, through that learning and making changes and modifications to some of the things we'll talk about today, we were able to radically.

I mean, do a 180 for a whole entire family. She weaned off of all of her medication, has been episode free, seizure free ever since, and now she's on a full ride scholarship as a sophomore in college, doing exceptionally well, right? Yeah, I was able to wean off of my medication, have been managing, and really had my Hashimoto's in remission for, I mean, I don't even know how many years ago that was now, it was over 12 years ago. And it's living, right? It's having an awareness of how to meet your body's needs.

Sally (13:01.186)
Wow.

Amanda Hinman (13:19.896)
so that you can thrive.

Sally (13:21.87)
Yeah, okay. Wow. Okay. I'm so impressed and curious about what, especially for your daughter, because we think of something like epilepsy as, you know, there's no cure for it. You hear that a lot. And I know people with epilepsy. How did you get your daughter to a position where she didn't have to take the medication? What was the protocol?

Amanda Hinman (13:51.978)
Right. it's a lot of it's about bringing the body into balance, right? Because our body, our nervous system is simply going to respond and react to the environment that's being created inside internally. And in her specific situation, there was a variety of factors. And I'll talk about some of them. Part of it's nutrient. It was nutrient depletion. So we know that essential amino acids, which are found in certain foods, particularly protein, are

necessary for our gut health to synthesize different neurotransmitters. For example, serotonin, 90 % of our serotonin levels are created in the gut, but they must come from the foods that we eat and the environment that we create in the gut. If we don't have intake of adequate nutrients and or a parasympathetic balance in the nervous system, instead of that fight or flight sympathetic stress response,

then you're not going to be able to synthesize some of the necessary neurotransmitters to maintain calm, balance, peacefulness, right? So that's just one element. Another factor is the detoxification pathways. So for example, in both her situation and in my scenario, we were high adrenaline producers, meaning we had a lot of norepinephrine, epinephrine, two of the hormones that are created in the adrenals when the body is perceiving some type of stress or a threat.

Even if, Sally, even if it's not actually a real threat, it's just something because of the way you're thinking about your situation in your life. I'll give you an example. At the time of my diagnosis and leading up to the diagnosis, had my internal family was struggling with some alcoholism and just very tumultuous family dynamics from my core family unit.

And I was very involved in that scenario. And so spent a lot of my time, you know, feeling really anxious and really worried about my brother and different scenarios. So my body, even though my physical health was not in jeopardy, my brain, my hypothalamus was interpreting fear chronically, which was then signaling to the nervous system, this is not a safe environment. You have to be.

Sally (16:07.567)
Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (16:13.688)
hypervigilant and on high alert. it's creating that adrenaline, which then makes a higher demand to be able to have the nutrients to remove it from the body. And we weren't doing that.

Sally (16:24.098)
I see. So the more adrenaline you have, better your detoxification pathway needs to be.

Amanda Hinman (16:32.364)
Yes. Otherwise, well, what happens like, so for example, if the body, the liver is our primary area where we can help to like through bile, but the liver creates a substance called bile and bile then it helps to, you know, kind of move through the digestive system, gathers different hormones and, you know, toxins that are meant to be excreted out of the form of a bowel movement. If we don't have adequate fiber,

to bind with the bile and move it out of the body. It just gets recirculated, reabsorbed back into the blood supply. So part of it was me personally and my daughter, we were not consuming enough fiber. We were not consuming enough amino acids. We were not consuming enough of the core nutrients in order for those systems to do their job, especially not at a high level that we were demanding to take place. Does that make sense?

Sally (17:22.456)
Yeah, it does make sense and it's very interesting what you said about environment because I think the environments that we're in, even if it's not our own stress, if the environment is stressful, so we are in close proximity to people who are having a lot of stress and maybe they're our nearest and dearest like you know family, we will absorb that.

because of the energy exchange, especially if we're highly sensitive. know, we have had sensitivities in the past, maybe we've been raised in a traumatic environment, which is going to make us more sensitive. Maybe we've been born highly sensitive because of that genetic advantage that we have. 20 % of the population are born highly sensitive. So maybe we come under that as well. And then if we have a diagnosis of something,

Amanda Hinman (17:50.029)
Yes.

Amanda Hinman (17:54.155)
Absolutely.

Amanda Hinman (18:09.112)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (18:16.366)
that's going to make us more sensitive as well because that in and of itself will create more adrenaline and cortisol, I would imagine, as we're just trying to exist in our daily life, in the stresses of our daily life. So it's a lot, isn't it, that environment is so much of it. So functional medicine, nutrition is one branch. What other branches are encompassed in functional medicine?

Amanda Hinman (18:43.296)
Yes. So actually I can take you through it. This is a proven process that has worked, like I said, for hundreds of women. This is exactly what I write about in my book, the thyroid hormone solution is really looking at five different pillars. That first pillar is understanding the root cause. taking some time, and this is where, again, it's a little bit different working with a coach, somebody who can...

really helped to uncover some of the more esoteric or different pieces of your history and your life and your lifestyle than a medical doctor. Oftentimes when you go in for a medical doctor's appointment, it's a 20 minute appointment, they're looking at your symptoms and a couple of quick physical measurements and then you're out the door. So working with a coach in the sense of getting a more comprehensive understanding of what are all of the different dynamics

physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, circumstantial relationship, you know, all the different pieces that are contributing to that environment that you just mentioned, Sally. So understanding the root cause in your unique situation and your unique body is step number one. Step number two is then identifying which specific nutrients, we talk about replenishing nutrients, which nutrients your body in particular likely has

some depletion because that's usually almost universally as we have some depletion in certain areas. So that's why the cells can't do their job as designed. The next step is restoring what I call digestive fire or digestive capacity. And this is gut health because our gut is so foundational to all of the different systems in the body in terms of how the microbiome is functioning, how we're able to bring in and then to adequately

Digest and break down and then be able to absorb nutrients. So it's one thing if you're eating healthy foods or the foods that that are optimal for your body It's another thing entirely to have those foods be broken down appropriately and actually make those nutrients accessible to the cells because sometimes for example Myself I was eating very healthy foods but I was chronically in that fight-or-flight state and when you're in that state your body is purposefully

Amanda Hinman (21:04.952)
suppressing or I should say, deprioritizing digestion and absorption. It's getting ready for you to fight and for you to flee and save your life. It's not prioritizing, hey, let's do a really good job in the stomach and break down with hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes, break down this food. Let's just get it out of the way so that we can be ready to fight, right? So it's that digestive capacity is the third step.

Sally (21:10.298)
Yeah.

Sally (21:27.214)
I see.

Amanda Hinman (21:31.052)
The fourth step is resetting your thinking. And this is where I use a lot of neuroscience, honestly, to help explore, uncover, and open up our past beliefs and perceptions about the way we understand our lived experience. Because oftentimes if we are holding onto resentments and fear or judgments,

and we continue to have those same beliefs, we're actually hurting ourselves because it's the beautiful opportunity to create some unconditional love and look at it from a different lens to build a bridge and release and let it go. And that's where we do a lot of inner work with the mental emotional piece. And then that fourth step is removing toxins, whether it be, you know, a external toxin from makeup or

Sally (22:03.472)
Mmm.

Amanda Hinman (22:28.504)
household exposures or more of a toxic relationship that's continuously putting you into a fight or flight response or something. So really looking at what is that capacity to on an ongoing basis, not overburden your body's toxic threshold so that you can maintain homeostasis, you can maintain balance. So yeah, so it's a very comprehensive approach and when we take it one step at a time, your body transforms into a completely different place.

Sally (22:57.518)
Yeah and it's long haul as well isn't it? It's a longer transition. I think we live in a culture where we want an instant fix. We take a pill, we feel better which I'm not knocking those. God, thank God for ibuprofen that's all I can say. Right when I've needed it I've needed it and brilliant. However it's not a long-term solution and I think really understanding that

Amanda Hinman (23:05.944)
Yes

Amanda Hinman (23:13.238)
Right?

Sally (23:25.166)
this comprehensive long-term approach is what's going to be the ultimate fix. And something that you said actually about mindset, I wrote down mindset can be toxic. So our mindset, you know, and the harsh hurtful critical comments and statements that we say to ourself creates another level of toxicity in the body that the body is trying to kind of battle with or negotiate with or,

Amanda Hinman (23:31.692)
Yes.

Amanda Hinman (23:44.002)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (23:53.616)
trying to deal with, it's trying to, the body is always trying to find homeostasis. Yet if you're loading it with these toxic thoughts, it's gonna have a harder time trying to find that homeostasis. So I'm really glad you brought that up. And it sounds like a really thorough comprehensive approach. Something that I wanted to ask you about was the parasympathetic nervous system. And I think a lot of us, especially in 2025, are...

Amanda Hinman (24:05.262)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (24:22.01)
constantly jacked up in the sympathetic state because of phone use, the demands on life. How much of our modern day lifestyle is having an impact on women, especially women going through the menopause or people I should say, going through the menopause and that inability to find that parasympathetic state which we know is so healing for our body.

Amanda Hinman (24:42.606)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hinman (24:49.518)
Mm hmm. Yes, absolutely. And I'll give us three numbers that are really powerful numbers in our current 2025. I mean, this is in the end of 2024 and into 2025. It's 2.95 and 30,000. And why these numbers matter for women our age, women like ourselves. 2.9, 2.9 seconds is the average attention span.

Sally (24:50.842)
Could you speak to that a little bit?

Amanda Hinman (25:18.52)
for adults right now. 2.9 seconds Sally, it's so short. And it is partially, mostly as a result of this digital information overload world that we live in. So why does that matter when it comes to our health? Well, the reality is if we are not intentional and aware of this and consciously navigating how to...

counterbalance that, then lack of focus is going to be one of the biggest contributors to health decline. Think about it. When you're thinking about even planning, being intentional about what food selection you pick up for your week, when you're going to the grocery store or when you're thinking about meals, or even simply being clear minded and focused in your job.

Being present with your loved ones when you're relaxing and actually instead of thinking about to do is that you have to be doing later You're actually enjoying the moment. This is all part of what's become conditioned to have such a short attention span that our lack of focus really creates more overwhelm which drives the nervous system into that sympathetic state So what can we do about it part of it is being aware that that's just in the world around us, right?

Sally (26:34.863)
Mm.

Amanda Hinman (26:40.712)
And if we allow ourselves to just be swayed by and almost like trained by what we see evidence of around us, then we're gonna get sucked into that kind of conditioning, a very low attention span, very disconnected way of living in the world. So that's the first one. The next number is five, five pounds. recent study showed that the average woman in her 40s and 50s gains at least five pounds annually.

simply just because of the way that our bodies are changing. Well, that creates a metabolic hormone storm in the body. Usually it's because of loss of lean muscle and increase of adipose fatty tissue, which is essentially when we think about fatty tissue that gets stored up, it's the body's way of handling excess toxicity. And it's either excess toxicity from these hormones that are not being excreted.

when they're being generated from the fight or flight response or other toxins that are just kind of accumulating and the body's trying to do its best job and say, hey, we don't want these toxins to keep floating around. So we're gonna bubble wrap them in a fat cell and kind of put it off to the side, right? So just knowing that that increase, that's the average is the increase of five or more pounds annually for women. And then the third number I gave you was 30,000.

Sally (28:02.308)
Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Hinman (28:06.286)
30,000 is the typical number of convenience, highly processed food items that are available in our grocery stores. Now these are not real whole foods with a beneficial nutrient profile. These are the ones that have been packaged in the pretty packages and maybe say, you know, low fat or all natural, but they have a whole bunch of processing and things that have gone into it. So.

just simply the exposure and the volume of external toxins and chemicals and additives and things that are in our food really confuse ourselves because they're like, I don't know what this is. How do I, am I supposed to do with this? So being aware of that 2.9, that five and that 30,000 makes us already more informed so that we can then be in a place of choice. How do we want to respond to the environment? That's just become our world.

Sally (28:45.85)
Yeah.

Sally (28:59.289)
Yeah.

Sally (29:03.746)
Yeah, very powerful words. Yeah, thank you for sharing all of that. And I love this idea of intentionality. I've been thinking a lot more recently about intentionality because I'm creating a workshop in March for values. You know, what are your values? Because our values are our guiding light. You know, they're our North Star, they're our compass. And if we don't intentionally choose what we value and

Amanda Hinman (29:03.852)
where we live today.

Amanda Hinman (29:11.426)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hinman (29:22.446)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (29:34.093)
use those values to inform our decisions will be dictated to by our unconscious.

trauma responses, those unconscious coping strategies, those unconscious patterns, someone else's, what someone else wants for you. And I think that's what we really have to be careful with tech is that actually every time we pick up a piece of technology is someone else's influence, whether that's the influencer or whether that's the tech company itself or the advertising, it's an external influence and just being really mindful.

Amanda Hinman (29:42.019)
Yeah.

Sally (30:05.324)
of that every time we pick up a phone, you know, are we still driving the bus here or is someone else driving the bus for us? So that's, that's been really, really helpful, but I didn't know it was 2.9 seconds. So if you're still listening to this podcast, you are doing really well, especially if you haven't scrolled off and come back. Cause I know that's the thing as well. And then in terms of, you know, gaining five pounds annually, when we get to this,

stage in our life, that's quite a wake up call. And I think, you know, even if you don't want to think about weight loss per se, maybe think about how can you avoid gaining those five pounds every year? So how can you maintain would be a really, really good plan if you...

Amanda Hinman (30:37.038)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (30:56.248)
don't want to think about deprivation or changing anything drastically. Think about how you can maintain. I think that would be a good place to start. And then processed foods. I completely agree. mean, even a loaf of bread, a sliced loaf of bread that you go and buy from a supermarket that looks healthy, they call it sun-blessed, it's just processed food. It's not actual food.

real bread. It's got so many different additives in. I think when they create it, I think I heard that it looks like a foam, so it's foamy product that is actually not bread. Like real bread has only got three ingredients in, flour, yeast and water. I think that's pretty much it. absolutely, and you know nature recognizes nature doesn't it? So when we're putting in foods that have been really

Amanda Hinman (31:34.36)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (31:52.44)
stripped and then put back together again in a different way. Our bodies don't recognize it as you've said. So yeah, thank you so much for reinforcing all of that. think it's so powerful. Yeah. So let's talk about chronic illness. So chronic illness really is on the rise and we can end up with a chronic illness kind of without even knowing that it's coming.

Amanda Hinman (32:03.074)
Yes.

Sally (32:20.184)
What are some of the telltale signs so that we can perhaps avoid being blindsided by a chronic illness? What would you advise people to kind of look out for?

Amanda Hinman (32:20.61)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hinman (32:31.928)
I love that you asked this question, Sally, because this is one of the things that I talk about most frequently is tuning in to your body's signs and cues because nothing actually comes out of the blue, even though in my experience, it felt like it came out of the blue because I was so disconnected to my own cues and clues. But our body will show us through symptoms.

where to start to pay attention, where to become curious and where to lean in and learn more and understand what the body, because the body can't talk to us through language like another individual can, it talks to us through symptoms. So in fact, one of my favorite ways for women to start to be intentional and notice these cues and clues is to create a

quarterly habit. So four times a year, put a little reminder on your calendar and do a symptom checklist. I have as a I'm happy to give it to your listeners, a complimentary free hormone health assessment. It's a series of questions that will have you think about different symptoms like headaches, for example, bloating, insomnia, all sorts of things, dry skin, all sorts of different symptoms that we can have.

and it just has you rank them. So starting to pay attention to where is my body getting a little bit louder? Where is it speaking to me? And then seeing that trajectory over time. So this hormone assessment will give you clues and cues about your six top metabolic hormones. When we think about thyroid hormone, cortisol, insulin, estrogen, progesterone,

testosterone for females in particular especially over 40 these are the six hormones that are going to talk to us quite a bit when our body starts to be imbalanced it'll you'll have some some of these unwanted symptoms peek up and then starting to kind of put the piece of pieces of the puzzle together and say oh wow is this really showing up to indicate maybe really low testosterone for example low energy brain fog can't focus

Sally (34:39.3)
Hmm.

Amanda Hinman (34:51.578)
Or is this showing up as insulin resistance? Because I have, know, where I feel shaky at times, I feel headaches. depending on how the symptom pattern is showing up, it may prompt you to lean in the direction of one of these different metabolic hormones to have it further explored. And that's the thing being proactive, because oftentimes we don't notice the signs when they're subtle.

until they become screaming loud. And that's when you go to the doctor and all of a sudden you have the diagnosis of the chronic condition. But if you set on a calendar reminder once a quarter, so January and do it again in April, do it again in July, you know, once a quarter, just take this little checklist and see like, are things moving in the right direction? Are they staying static? Are they increasing? Now you can, again, be in the driver's seat and be more empowered in your health journey.

Sally (35:45.528)
Yeah, yeah brilliant. So looking for those little things before they get too big to manage or too difficult to come back from. What were some of your symptoms then with Hashimoto's thyroiditis?

Amanda Hinman (35:54.413)
Yes.

Amanda Hinman (36:00.214)
Yes, I would say some of my greatest symptoms are insomnia. I had a racing, like I said, my brain was wired but tired. Like I was exhausted because I wasn't sleeping well, but I was like, my brain felt like it could not relax and be calm. So brain fog, racing mind, insomnia. I also had terrible acne. I was really, really moody.

Sally (36:15.184)
Hmm.

Amanda Hinman (36:25.762)
to the point of, I now look back and I'm like, my poor family. I was just very short tempered, like my fuse, my bandwidth, my margin. Anytime if the girls were like talking loud, I'd be like, quiet, quiet, you know, like really short fused and quick to anger type of things, irritable. I also struggled with constipation. So that was something where it's just the bowel movement activity felt like it was straining and it just was very erratic and unreliable.

Now, in my particular experience, weight gain was not a primary factor, but for many women that I support, weight gain, again, that's gonna be a sign that your body is showing you headaches are another one that I was experiencing fairly regularly. it was just kind of a collection and it seems like I was rationalizing the insomnia as like, I have young kids and my...

I'm always just waiting and listening for them to wake up or for them to cry in middle of the night. But a lot of times we can kind of justify the reason for some of the signs and symptoms. But again, I encourage all women to do better than what I did is to notice and pay attention sooner before it escalates.

Sally (37:38.318)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And find out how the symptoms might be linked. Because I think if you as woman go to the doctor with all these different symptoms, they don't really have the knowledge about how the symptoms are linked systemically. They might, some of them might do, of course. But I think with a functional medicine practitioner, that systemic...

Amanda Hinman (37:45.347)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (38:06.818)
training that you have really helps you to kind of look more, I'm sort of getting this this image of looking across rather than lots of separate lines. Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (38:19.182)
Yeah, it's like seeing the whole picture rather than just this discomfort, manage this, this discomfort, manage this. Because oftentimes women are discouraged when they're told, you're feeling anxious, you can't sleep, here's an anxiety medication, here's a sleep aid, here's non-steroidal anti-inflammatory for

Sally (38:28.794)
Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (38:46.624)
joint pain, like they're giving all these different things, but it's not actually, like you said, it's not actually getting to the root of why are these all showing up.

Sally (38:53.648)
Yeah, yeah exactly and we become really annoying at menopause because we want to know why, why why why why and and the answer oh it just happens to some people just makes me angry, it really does. So Hashimoto's is it a hormone problem or is it an organ problem just out of curiosity?

Amanda Hinman (39:05.208)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hinman (39:17.386)
Actually, it's an immune system dysregulation. what happens, and just like any autoimmune, it's interesting because we tend to think about the, whether it's Crohn's disease or Hashimoto's with the thyroid or, you know, different autoimmune dynamics tend to MS with the myelin sheath of the nerve cells. People tend to focus on the area of the body that is being damaged when in reality, what's dysregulated is the immune system.

Sally (39:19.664)
okay.

Amanda Hinman (39:45.358)
And so much of our cortisol response is critical to have a balanced, appropriately balanced immune response. For example, the natural 24 hour rhythm for our cortisol levels is to peak rise. You get this, what they call a cortisol awakening response in the early part of the day in the morning. That's what helps you to wake up and kind of have your get up and go for the day. And then it naturally tapers off throughout the afternoon and then lowest point in the evening when it's time to go to bed and you.

kind of melatonin rises and you can sleep ideally. Well, when some women like myself don't have a strong enough cortisol awakening response, that cortisol awakening response does a lot to actually regulate our immune system. And when we don't have that because we've had chronic fight or flight, so it's kind of just working hard all day long, it doesn't have the natural rhythm, that can cause the immune system to

no longer be able to effectively identify what is a true invader, what is a true foreign threat to the body versus what is intrinsic to the body. And that's when we can have destruction of certain organs or certain body parts like the thyroid and Hashimoto's. It's actually because the immune system has been dysregulated because of one option is because of imbalanced cortisol levels. It's not about the thyroid necessarily itself.

Sally (41:00.493)
I see.

Sally (41:10.956)
I see. A lot of it traces back, doesn't it, to stress and early life stress and how those imbalances kind of got triggered and how that pattern of stress gets triggered. Because a lot of the time we don't even feel stressed, but that's because the stress has become so normal, it's become normalized. And what is normal we tend to get used to, thank goodness, because if we're in chronic pain...

Amanda Hinman (41:12.622)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hinman (41:23.192)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Amanda Hinman (41:29.87)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (41:35.856)
I remember because I had a slipped disc many, years ago, 15 years ago, and it was like level 10 pain, which I got used to until I had my surgery. And that pain in my mind sort of went down to a six and then a five, and then I had my surgery and, you know, went down to zero. So that's why the mind kind of does that, I assume, so that we can be robust and resistant to pain. But the downside of that...

Amanda Hinman (41:42.894)
Mm.

Sally (42:04.68)
is we get used to pain, chronic pain, that is not actually good for us, which can then start attacking the system because everything's gone topsy turvy, the rhythms are not there. As you say, I never got that actually, that link between the cortisol and the circadian rhythm and the immune system and the inflammatory response. I think there's a whole science around that that I'm just kind of starting to get my teeth into.

I've been in very much into like the whole parasympathetic nervous system, polyvagal theory and all of that, which has been dictating my direction for a while, but starting to get into this fascinating immune system response, which really links up that mind body, you know, the mind body connection, I guess. Yeah. And how that immune system works. Go on.

Amanda Hinman (42:56.01)
I love where you're going, Sally. And this is something I share with my clients all the time is that I actually believe for many women who experience a heightened level of symptoms and discomfort through the menopausal transition, right? Because when our body naturally starts to decline in its estrogen and progesterone levels, those hormones, those sex hormones are somewhat protective.

And they're designed to be because during our reproductive years, we kind of need a little bit of extra buffer to be able to like grow another human being as a possibility in our amazing bodies, right? But once those wind down and we don't have a little bit of that buffer, that protection from the same level of sex hormones, now exactly what you just described, oftentimes those earlier past experiences that have created

a more chronic sympathetic activation in the nervous system are no longer being buffered. So they're going to come to show up in a much more profound way. And that's when the symptoms tend to be escalated during that transition. I actually often tell my clients, listen, it may not be what you anticipate and it may not be always easy. However, we could choose to look at this physiological

Transformation as a gift an opportunity to go back and from a spiritual center from a soul perspective really like come to terms and release and forgive and Almost just like Love unconditionally love the challenges from earlier Life lived experiences. I truly believe it's almost like our body

Sally (44:41.861)
Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (44:44.47)
is really beautifully, it's like beyond this beautiful orchestration because it's kind of giving you that buffer when you got your kids and when you're raising them and when it's like, yeah, we need you to kind of be focused on them more. But then when we do step into that season of life where those hormones, that buffer starts to diminish, and if we're still running the same sympathetic trauma response programs in our brain,

It doesn't really matter. I don't want to say it doesn't matter, but the foods that we eat are going to be such a small factor to really help you thrive. It's not until you can really step into the deeper layers of work, the neuro logical work and the soul work. And it can be a gift. It can actually be really beautiful to forgive and to release and to accept and to love, learn to love yourself. So yeah, we, it's like this whole conversation of approaching

Sally (45:36.9)
Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (45:41.312)
the menopause transition as a gift and an opportunity, even if it's not always easy, but it's beautiful what comes on the other side of it.

Sally (45:51.436)
Yeah, you really are talking my language, Amanda. You really, really are. And yeah, everything you've said, just absolutely second. The menopause transition is a gift to go within. And as you say, we've been buffered by these hormones. Now the veil is thinning. And I love how all the conversations that I ever have on this podcast always end up in, know, nutrition's really important. Nervous system's really important. But if you don't address those

Amanda Hinman (46:07.982)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (46:19.002)
poor wounds that happened at the beginning, you're still going to be operating under the illusion that those wounds, those traumas are still happening. We have to let go, we have to forgive. First of we have to see what those wounds were. And many people think, I haven't had any traumas. But what we don't understand is that trauma is not just bad things happening to you. Trauma is the good things that didn't happen to you. So the physical touch, the emotional regulation,

sense of autonomy that you might not have had, like maybe a controlling parent or a parent that was really anxious themselves or an alcoholic parent, you know, that maybe shut down and you didn't get that emotional reciprocity that you needed. all of these kind of attachment wounds, they contribute to our health as well. The quality of our attachments.

will contribute to our health as we go through perimenopause, menopause and beyond. So they have to form part of the spectrum that you as a functional medicine practitioner will be dealing with as well. So I'm so glad that you brought it up. Thank you.

Amanda Hinman (47:28.28)
Yes, absolutely.

Sally (47:29.744)
So I mean there's quite a few other questions here but I'm conscious of time. Right, right let me have a quick look. Yeah okay so let's just there's a couple of things I want to talk to you about I think the others we've addressed so what is the most common challenge women you support face around nutrition particularly so we've talked about the past let's go to nutrition what are they?

What's the common problem that they face around that?

Amanda Hinman (48:01.064)
Yes, I think the common problem is what I call why bother syndrome. And see if you can relate or maybe your listeners as they're listening, see if any of this at all is relatable in the sense of, you know, perhaps you've had, you know, three or more interrupted sleep nights in the last month where you've woken up where you didn't feel fully rested. You didn't feel eager and ready to go for the day and yet you

Sally (48:06.576)
Okay.

Amanda Hinman (48:30.774)
aren't sure what to do to shift that. It doesn't feel like that's something within your control to have consistent good sleep. Or at least once in the last week, have you grabbed a meal, a food item for convenience, just for self-soothing, for some type of just almost mindless eating, rather than being thoughtful and intentional about your choices and then later regretted it, later felt.

kind of guilty or shaming yourself like, I shouldn't have eaten that last night, right? Or another thing is have you had a series of unwanted symptoms, bloating, weight gain, headaches, like I said, dry skin, low libido, and part of you has thought to yourself like, hmm, I really would like to understand this or like I've asked my doctor, my doctor said it's fine, maybe I could have some additional functional testing or something, yet you haven't prioritized.

And invest in the time and energy to do so like you kind of just put it off if any of those things are relatable There's some level of why bother syndrome happening and that is usually because there's a part of lack of self-belief We don't actually believe it's possible for us to experience the true vitality and the health that we desire so The easy path is to come and be like a whole I've tried that before or you know, my body is different

or I've already invested so much time and energy and I've been so diligent with tracking my food and tracking all this stuff and it still didn't work. It wasn't sustainable. It didn't last. Maybe I was okay for two or three months, but then it fell right back off the wagon. So when it comes to nutrition, I actually think it's more a function of some type of health, what I call health PTSD. We've tried things. It's not that these women are not trying, right? It's not for lack of attempts or effort.

And it's not even a sense of self-blame or feeling like a failure. It's really conditioning ourselves to believe that it's not actually possible where I want to go. And that leads to disengagement and lack of ownership around how we nourish ourselves.

Sally (50:40.944)
Wow, health PTSD, been there, done it, didn't work, can't be bothered to try again, it was such an effort. How do you help people that are in that position?

Amanda Hinman (50:53.632)
A first part of it is identifying it. We can't change what we're not aware of, right? So just like you're talking about trauma, we have to be aware of like, this is actually a legitimate real thing. We actually do have some trauma around our health experiences. That's the second thing. The next one is to really tap into a new way of approaching it where we're building momentum by recognizing all of the small wins, all of the small things that we're doing and making a, almost like a ritualization around

Sally (50:57.166)
Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (51:23.03)
the yeses, yesing yourself more. It's like, hey, you know what? I really intentional with my hydration today. Noting that, taking note of all of the little things that are going in your favor and starting to tip the scale of your conscious recognition of more of the things that contribute to your health than beating yourself up and blaming and shitting yourself about what you didn't do or what you shouldn't have done, right?

So we get to tip the scale. So it's a practice. And that's why, again, in work with my clients, there is this loving accountability and this relationship in this community because that's a game changer for women. We succeed in communities so much more powerfully than when we're trying to do it in isolation. And then that third piece is, honestly, it's the neural reprogramming. So we utilize some techniques like hypnosis and emotional freedom technique to really change the wiring in the brain.

Sally (52:06.479)
Yeah.

Amanda Hinman (52:18.36)
so that you have a new relationship with your health journey. You give meaning to some of the past things that have happened that previously you identified as failure or didn't work. Now you can see what was actually gained and what you learned and how they advanced you to where you are now. So it's an evolution. Like I said, this is why it's not a, hey, let's have one session and then things are all where you want them to be. It's really, that's why I work with women over a period of several months.

Sally (52:36.336)
Mmm.

Amanda Hinman (52:47.33)
to help them navigate through this permanent transformation.

Sally (52:53.028)
Yeah, love that. So many takeaways for me as well. love doing these podcasts. Every time I interview someone, I get like a reset, different paradigm, a different way of thinking. hopefully the listeners will feel the same. Absolutely love what you've said. So do you have a membership then? What services do you have that people can take advantage of?

Amanda Hinman (53:13.74)
Yes, absolutely. My thyroid and hormone solution program is the most popular way. That's how women work with me. And like I said, it's really designed. I would encourage anyone who's interested to check out the book first. I've been doing this for over a decade and all of the steps and a lot of the tools that we use with all of our clients is in this book. And when you go to that free hormone health assessment, that link I'll share with you on my website.

There's a whole portal of resources that are available as well for somebody who wants to access some of the free trainings and the hypnosis and different things like that. I mean, my mission is to help as many women as possible to know that it is possible for them to feel really fantastic. And anyone who wants to learn more can definitely connect with me through my website and through the book and so forth.

Sally (53:58.625)
Yeah

Sally (54:08.186)
brilliant. It's so important, isn't it? It's so important for women to feel that there is a solution, to know that other people have gone through it themselves and come out the other side and are now

collecting and curating all of this information to give to others and sharing in community as well, which is so valuable. I love a good community Zoom call where we're just vibing off each other and it's like that whole, my God, me too. Like, God, you as well. That's like, it's bonkers that we both have the same thing and it could be something really, really subtle and it just makes you feel seen, makes you feel supported, makes you feel like you're not alone. And all of that reduces cortisol, reduces stress.

Amanda Hinman (54:30.904)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Hinman (54:34.925)
Yes.

Sally (54:53.644)
activates the parasympathetic nervous system. So even the container itself is good for your health. So where are you most active on social media?

Amanda Hinman (54:54.125)
Yes.

Amanda Hinman (55:05.313)
Instagram.

Sally (55:06.232)
Instagram. What's your handle on Instagram?

Amanda Hinman (55:09.11)
It's Hinman Amanda.

Sally (55:10.976)
okay, Hinman Amanda, perfect. So I'll be following you. Listeners, if you've enjoyed Amanda's conversation with me, go follow her, give her a follow, download her freebie, check out her website, work with her. She's amazing. You won't regret it. Thank you so much, Amanda.

Amanda Hinman (55:28.162)
Thank you, Sally.