In this episode, we chat with Megan Ayrault, a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and Health Coach. Megan’s primary focus is on metabolic health, which she believes is at the root of many health challenges faced by individuals, especially those in midlife. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing metabolic health issues early, as they often go unnoticed until they develop into more severe conditions.
Megan explains that the body’s inner wisdom can guide individuals towards better health, but this natural guidance may get obscured by years of poor metabolic health habits, such as consuming processed foods. To counteract this, Megan advocates for a healing process, often involving expert support, to create and live into healthier habits that will promote metabolic health and overall well-being.
Throughout the interview, Megan highlights various aspects of metabolic health, including blood pressure, cholesterol levels, weight management, energy levels, brain function, heart health, gut health, and blood sugar regulation. She explains how making dietary changes, focusing on nutrition, managing stress, and adopting healthier habits can significantly improve metabolic health and overall wellness.
Jill and Megan discuss the value of proper assessment and individualized approaches to improve metabolic health, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. They also touch on the significance of metabolic flexibility and how it can impact the body’s ability to access and use stored fat for energy during fasting periods.
Megan announces that she will soon launch a new group program focusing on metabolic health. The program aims to educate and empower participants to make sustainable lifestyle changes that will positively impact their overall health and well-being. Megan also stresses the importance of fasting, which she sees as the other side of the coin, complementing a healthy diet and nutrition.
In conclusion, Megan urges listeners to become aware of their metabolic health, as it can be an epidemic affecting many people without their knowledge. She encourages them to seek natural, holistic approaches to improve metabolic health, supporting the body’s incredible ability to heal and maintain wellness with proper care and attention.
You can find Megan:
Welcome to Metabolic Health (wellnesswisdomforwomen.com)
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Transcript
Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we're speaking with Megan Ayrault
We had a little talk about her name.
Lot of extra letters.
Looks nothing like what it sounds like.
So she is a nutritional therapy practitioner and she's going to tell us all about what that looks like and how she's doing.
So welcome.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to be here.
I'm so happy that you decided to join us.
So tell us about you.
How did you get?
Started. What do you do?
Well, so, yes, I'm nutritional therapy practitioner and health coach.
I also got started in the health world as a body.
So actually, beginning with horses.
And then I got licensed for human massage and uh dog massage and been doing that for over 20 years.
Love that.
And then I.
I guess I got into perimenopause and started discovering, even though I mostly led what I thought was a very healthy lifestyle, I started to discover things going in the wrong direction.
Weight, thyroid, cholesterol, those maybe at the top of.
List some menopause symptoms perimenopause symptoms.
So I got into studying nutrition, starting maybe about five years ago, and I absolutely fell in love.
With it.
Got certified as a health coach and then as a nutritional therapy practitioner.
More recently I did training as so I'm now certified as a functional blood chemistry special.
That's really interesting.
It's very interesting studying now hair tissue mineral analysis.
So just any ways that I can bring in various tools to support my clients and my specialty within this sort of health.
Slash nutrition field is metabolic health because that really is at the root of.
So many issues, including all of my issues, including the menopause symptoms.
Hormonal imbalances thyroid.
Certainly cardiovascular, you know, cholesterol related all of that, it's really metabolic health at the root.
So that's my passion at this point.
That's really exciting.
It's interesting that you're getting into the blood and hair and mineral analysis aspect of it because it's really hard to find places where you can go and actually have.
That information available to you, I know when I've gone to get blood work done and it comes back, but it's not really the kind of blood work that would help you as far as understanding your nutritional deficits.
So how did?
And a lot of it is.
A lot of the usual blood work that people do get from their doctor.
I can actually get a lot of nutritional clues from that also, but one big difference among others is that when you get, you know, a blood lab report from your doctor.
And when I order them for clients, which I can do.
Now I get I.
Can get the same report according to.
The lab report.
But those are only flagging things if they're.
Out of range.
For diagnostic purposes of disease or significant issues, right?
And it's based on an average of what's normal and among the testing realms.
Exactly that too. That's a.
Yeah. And our population is.
So if it's normal for everybody to be really unhealthy, then you're just in the unhealthy normal range.
Right, exactly.
That's a really important point.
And so my training is looking at narrower ranges within those lab ranges.
What is optimal for this marker or that marker and what are the various things that could be going on that might raise it above optimal or lower it below optimal and then looking at the whole picture?
Including, you know what the client is experiencing.
You know their symptoms and all of that.
But looking at the whole picture to see what the patterns are so you can narrow down on how you know what might be done nutritionally or you know other aspects too related to stress and things like that infection immune function.
Can all give.
A lot of information that does not come across.
In normal medical training, I mean that the doctors aren't trained.
To look at.
It in that.
Right.
Way, yeah.
And even if they do look at it, they're looking at it in, in terms of, you know, this is the normal within the the sick population and they're telling you they're giving you information.
Right.
That's the best that they can do in a.
Lot of cases but.
Because they simply don't know so.
What? What kinds of things?
Do you help people with?
Thank you.
Thank you for asking.
Yeah, well.
So within the realm of metabolic health, it includes things like well.
Blood pressure.
I have a client right now who came to me.
I was so gratified that she came to me because she her doctor was starting to talk about putting her on blood, medication, blood, blood pressure medication.
So that's a really wonderful opportunity.
If I can work with somebody before they start on something like cholesterol.
Medication or even acid reflux blood pressure?
You know those medications to be able to work with somebody 1st and you know, help them.
Avoid it is.
If you're already on medication, it's never too late, so that's not to be discouraging that way.
But blood pressure, cholesterol, weight loss, energy just, you know, being fatigued and, you know, brain fog, because metabolic health relates to brain function too.
Heart health.
Got got issues, digestion issues with the gut microbiome and among other things, gallbladder function.
Yeah, or a whole range and blood sugar regulation often being an issue but interestingly, I mean blood sugar.
It's all related.
Regulation can be one of the well, I won't say one of the last, but you might appear to be.
Doing fine according to your doctor, with your blood sugar.
But for years before that you're gradually becoming more and more insulin resistant and by far the majority of US adults.
Are insulin resistant to some degree.
Even if your blood sugar is still normal.
It's taking more and more and more and more insulin to control that blood sugar.
And the high insulin?
Levels actually cause a lot of.
Health damage.
Anyway, that's.
And it's directly related to the quality of food and I use that term loosely in honor.
There's food and there's fake food.
Yeah, there's chemicals that are being created as food options.
But even a lot of the things that are.
Are purported to be food have.
Been when the big fat.
Avoid fat.
Propaganda thing was going on.
The ASCO, yeah, very sad.
Totally not based on science or poor science, let's put it.
That way.
Yes, poor science.
Do not be afraid of fat.
Just be afraid of the.
Wrong fats.
Yeah, well, those are not.
They're not.
Aren't actually food, they're poisons.
Right.
Highly processed.
I think it's canola oil that's actually rapeseed oil and rapeseed is poison.
Well, and for various reasons, all the vegetable oils, really.
I mean, not avocado oil, not olive oil.
Those are, those are good ones.
Some other plant oils, coconut oil, animal fats, they're good.
But the sort of artificially created man made.
Highly processed.
Seed oils like including canola, there's various.
Degrees of quality of canola oil.
Some is better than other than others, but overall the seed oils.
Are tend to be quite inflammatory, inflammatory.
And they're giving us way too many Omega 6.
Fatty acids and even though we need those.
We're getting like.
10 * 1020 times the amount that we should have and it's.
And it creates inflammation in the body out of balance.
My favorite.
The plastics that everybody likes to use, and yeah, Frisco.
Yeah, all kinds.
Of toxins in our environment that really.
Stresses our livers and our whole detox, all of our detox pathways, and they need.
They need a lot of support.
To be able just to live in our.
World today.
They do. How would how?
Would working with you look like?
What would you normally do?
With your clients.
Thanks for asking.
So there's a couple options mainly basically private coaching, which could be I work with people in either from three months to a year depending on kind of.
How much they want.
To prioritize their investment in their health.
And of course you know how, how significant their health challenges are.
But I generally work with people for at least three months if it's private.
And because, you know, he needs some time to.
I can't just dump everything on you all at once and expect you to just go on your way and be fine and so.
It happens overnight.
And there's a lot of assessment process involved and then ideally time to assess and then make some changes and then reassess and you know see how things are going.
So that's how.
In a nutshell, how I kind of work with people privately?
And it's all on.
Zoom so far.
Basically all of my coaching is on zoom, sometimes by phone.
It's I like to do zoom because we can.
See each other.
And then I have run a a group program a couple of times that I really enjoyed and I and that one is sort of available on hold, but I.
And I'm.
Very excited.
I'm going to be coming up soon here, starting a.
New group program.
So that will be an option for people.
To do a.
Group program.
And of course, and of course they can be combined.
What would it be focused around?
What was that?
What would it be focused around the group program?
Metabolic health.
Just, yeah.
And yeah, because the the things you could you do to improve your metabolic health.
Although of course there are individual differences, especially when you get into like things like supplements and things.
But the general steps to improve metabolic health it doesn't.
Necessarily have a lot of variation, whether it is in you, whether it's maybe in one person that's expressing his cardiovascular health issues and in another person that's, you know, coming out more as brain fog.
And in another one that's coming out as gut dysbiosis.
Thyroid issues.
You know, each of us partly dependent on our genetics.
We might express our poor metabolic health in different ways, have different sort of weak links.
That we're most susceptible to, but when you but the but you still can address.
Any of and all of those things.
By getting to the root of the metabolic.
Again, it's going to it's going to.
So the group program will get into certainly, you know, diet, nutrition.
There will be some on supplementation, but that, you know, takes maybe a little more assessment and individual coaching to really, but some supplements are general, you know that can be beneficial.
It'll get into gut health, digestive issues and gut microbiome, and that certainly blood sugar regulation is going.
To be a big one.
Just things that focus on really when you get down to the.
Or of it, on the health of the cells and the mitochondria within the cells that are the energy producers.
So yeah, the group program will be.
Including all of that, the group program will also I will be going into more depth with fasting.
I have coming up soon, a online workshop on fasting because as I tell my audience, you know what you put into your body with the nutrition and the hydration.
Is one side of the coin.
But fasting is like the other side of the coin.
I mean you have, it's like winter and summer.
You know, you have to have both to have a.
Healthy cycle, right?
You can't just be in summer and growing and growing all the time without running into problems.
You need the rest.
You need your body switching back and forth between.
Time for healing, which is really during the fasting phase, is when your body is doing cleanup and healing processes.
And then the feeding phase and they need to be alternated.
And there's lots of different strategies of how you can do fasting.
To suit somebody's where they are starting from and where they want to go and lots of ways to get your body ready for fasting so that it is actually a positive experience and not torture. And fasting can be as little as 12 / 12 hours overnight. I mean for some people that's.
Longer than they usually go, and that is the first step.
Towards much better health.
So it doesn't.
It doesn't have to be talking about extreme fasting, although you can get.
I'll. I'll be talking about.
Sort of a range, yeah.
I I do.
I'm tracking right along.
With you I'm.
Just sitting here shaking my head.
And it's not really a good idea to.
Just go from zero to 60 when you're not used to fasting, either because it takes a little bit of time for your body to adapt to the idea that we're not putting a bunch of carbs in there right now.
Yeah, yeah.
And.
Because if you start too soon and you are very metabolically inflexible, which again relates to those high insulin levels I was mentioning before, your body won't access the fat on your body and we all, even if you don't want need to lose weight, you still have fat on your body and that's what you're supposed to be accessing.
Your fuel when you're fasting and when you're metabolically inflexible, you are.
At a disadvantage, it's not necessarily that you can't access any, but you can't access it well enough or fast enough to fuel yourself happily.
In your bodies.
So first you got to work on the metabolic flexibility.
Yeah, being able to get into and.
Out of ketosis.
And it's the first time you.
You do it. It takes.
A minute and you need to work up to it with, you know, diet changes well before you decide you're going to.
I only know this because I used to try.
Yeah, and same with similar.
I mean a lot of overlap here, but same with if you.
Want to do a detox?
You really want to do make sure you've done the prep work first so that your body is actually ready to handle the detox process and that you're not just stirring up a bunch of toxins and having them reabsorbed and get stuck again because your body's not actually eliminating them very well. So this similar idea.
End up sick.
And back to square one.
So when people join your group program, they.
Would they would all start at.
The same time I would.
Imagine at this point I'd have this so, so this is going to be a new group, so excited about it a lot.
I have a lot of ideas about it.
It's going to start in August.
OK.
So at this point there will be a group.
Hopefully, hopefully some people will come along with me for the journey and it'll be August through January.
For a 6 month program.
OK.
And then I am hoping depending on how people find it, you know whether they're having a positive experience and giving me good feedback and participating.
Then I do hope that it can become an ongoing group where people can join us more on a on a rolling basis.
Whether or not they'll be able to join just anytime or maybe once every few months or something like that, I'm not sure, but.
It'll be.
It's still.
I'm still figuring it out so.
I totally hear you.
If anybody wants to get on my e-mail list then they will be the first to hear about the beginning of the group program and any updates with it.
That sounds fantastic. So.
What do you think is the most important thing that people need to take away from this conversation?
Oh yes. Well.
A lot of times when people ask me what I do, I say I I work with women and I do work.
I can work with men also, but most of my clients are women and work with women running into midlife health issues, basically because metabolic health and most people don't know what metabolic health necessarily means.
I mean, we've heard of metabolism.
That what is really metabolic health is just so much so midlife health issues, so.
One of the things I am very much on a.
Mission of educating people about and I do offer a lot of free education on my website too.
If somebody doesn't think they're going to want coaching and that's totally fine, I hope you'll still join me and.
Get the.
Free stuff.
Because what?
Yeah, what?
I would love people to take away from this.
Is that metabolic health is.
For again, by far the majority. I mean we're talking like 93% of the adults in the United States do not have optimal metabolic health. And many of us are very far from optimal.
And it's not it.
It stays hidden for a long time.
If you don't know what.
To look for.
So that's one of the first things that people get when they come and join me on my website is insights about how to assess their metabolic health and what to watch for.
Because you can detect it years and years and years before you get a diagnosis like.
You know diabetes or heart, heart, cardiovascular disease or anything like that?
And it's very turn around able with natural options, you know, without medications changing what you eat, what you don't eat, how you handle stress, you know, sleep all of that.
So I want people to.
Take away that metabolic health is an epidemic.
And they're probably being affected by it.
And it's there are lots of wonderful ways that you can improve it naturally and.
Your doctor is not likely to alert you to it until.
Years into the process.
Because they really only can diagnose something when it's acute.
If you, if you, if you're.
Starting to just go.
To the doctor because you're not feeling right.
You'll never get an answer.
Yeah, I had a I had a yeah.
You're lucky if you get an answer or a label.
If you something's really wrong.
I had a client just recently.
We did blood.
Work for her, her.
HBN HB A1C if people are familiar with that, it's your average blood sugar. Basically, it's a reflection of your average blood sugar over the.
Last few months.
He's pre diabetic and I look back at some old labs that she sent me from a year ago before we just started working together.
A couple months ago.
She was prediabetic even a point higher.
A year ago.
Wasn't flagged.
Her she didn't know.
Anyway, yeah, it's.
It's sad and a little frustrating.
It's the.
That's the in the parameters.
It's in the parameters of.
Normal for some people.
And you know, you're doing better than most of the people out there because you're only pre.
Which is just to say that you're not going to become a full blown diabetic for maybe another 5-10 years.
Right.
But by then you could be like totally blown out your pancreas.
Cause that happens.
Lot of damage to blood vessels and all kinds of things that are happening in.
Damage connection early as early as you can and.
The meantime, cage damage.
It's never too late.
You can improve things even if a lot of damage has been.
Done some of it.
You can reverse some of it.
You might not be able to totally reverse, but you can definitely much improve the overall picture.
My father-in-law, I'll tell you this quick story. He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
Maybe 15 years ago now, it's been a long time and at the time they told him you have about two, maybe three years to live.
That my grandpa or my father-in-law, being the stubborn old man, that.
He is.
He's like, oh, no, and I'm not taking any.
Of your garbage either.
To argue with him, to get.
Him to take any kind of pharmaceutical.
And so he set.
Out on a mission and he.
He's still around and wonderful kicking, and it was strictly from, you know, doing the things that you need to do to fix your metabolic health in order to repair.
Your organs that you know become diseased from the decisions that we make.
Yeah, that's one of the things that again that going back to the beginning, as a body worker.
For over 20 years now, I just.
Fell so in love with how amazing the body is.
The body is an amazing healing machine.
It it as long as we can stop harming it.
Right.
And give it.
You know when it needs a little extra support, give it that support.
It's whether it's about body work or it's about nutrition.
I mean, they're both.
It's about stimulating natural healing responses.
They're awesome.
It is amazing what our bodies can do and.
If we just.
Put a little bit of care into what we're doing with them.
And and recognize that you know, sometimes you do need to depend on.
Other interventions, if it's something critical and do what's required.
To get you out of the.
The catastrophe state.
But once you're stabilized, you can.
You can make changes and you can do things that.
Can totally reverse.
A lot of the damage that was done.
Unless you have organs removed and then that's kind of.
Hard to reverse that.
Maybe not impossible.
Maybe not impossible.
I've heard stories.
All right.
Yeah, there's.
Pretty wild stories out there, that's for sure.
The body never underestimate the body, yeah.
You just never know.
It's so many.
Really kind of miraculous things have happened in the world and.
Speaking of which, one of the one of the recent things that I've learned about fasting because I've been learning about fasting for a while, and this was one of the things that kind of sparked my like, I got to do a workshop on this.
So I'm going to do that soon.
One of the benefits of fasting, and there are many.
You can increase the production of stem cells.
For healing through fasting strategies.
Speaking of like regenerating.
Yeah, it's the fasting is one of those things that I think.
I'm pretty sure.
You know, Jason Fung is the man behind everybody's heard of him when it comes to fasting because.
A lot of, yeah, he's definitely a big one.
But he was.
He's all about it.
He was trying to help people get over, you know.
Diabetes the thing.
That can't be cured.
But you know a lot of people have reversed it.
That I've known personally.
I mean, I'm not saying that as a medical statement, but just antipodally.
Right.
Well, yeah.
When you listen to Jason Fung, he's reversed it.
Again quickly like.
It doesn't have to take a long time.
One thing I've realized is, I mean you can reverse.
And undo and turn around.
A lot of things, especially related to high insulin levels.
Quickly with the if you implement the right changes and especially maybe incorporate some fasting can be very helpful.
I think it it does take longer to truly heal.
The insulin sensitivity.
So so that when you do eat carbs, for example.
Your body does handle them better.
Right.
So it's two.
There's two different levels anyway.
That yeah, you can turn things around though very, very quickly.
Yeah. And you know.
At some point you just have to realize that.
Maybe you've eaten all the carbs you need to eat.
You reach a certain age, you know potato chips and candy bars just aren't your friends anymore.
Yeah, that's definitely true.
Not that they ever were, but.
And it's very individual how low carb do you need to go?
How long do you need to stay low carb, how many days a month do you need to?
Be low carb.
It's very individual.
Yeah, it it really is in different peoples bodies adapt to other things and we're so.
Poorly educated on the macros that.
You know people are.
Like, well, I'm going to be vegetarian, so I'm never eating protein again.
Sad, sad, sad, sad.
Eating potato chips might make you vegetarian, but it's really not making you anything killing you so.
Protein is very important.
It is.
You can get protein in vegetables though.
I mean, I'm not going to say that you can't.
You can't be a vegetarian and get protein because that's not true either.
But a lot of the people that I've met in my life that said they were vegetarians were really just junk.
They ate.
Chemicals that weren't really food.
And even if you're doing it right, there's a big difference between vegetarian and vegan.
I think vegetarians can absolutely be quite healthy.
As long as they're incorporating some of like, you know, things like eggs, meat, hopefully some seafood.
But I know they some do or don't do that, but at least some eggs or and or dairy or something.
I think without some animal input, I mean we did have all this omnivores, we are omnivores, we are not herbivores, and while the vegan diet can turn around health issues, also in the short term.
It's largely because you're getting away hope if depending on how it's done, it might be because you're getting away from the processed foods and all the damage, but.
You're going to have.
To be very careful about how you do it and you're going to need to supplement for long term health because the vegan diet does not give the human body everything that it needs.
For long time.
Yeah, I'm.
I'm definitely in the a little bit of everything camp except for processed foods because I don't really.
Consider them food.
Exactly. Eat real food. Eat.
Well, yeah, real food.
Plant a garden, support your local farmers.
Thanks so much for joining us.
People can get a hold.
You on your website.
Yes, the website is Wellnesswisdomforwomen.com.
Uh, you can e-mail me megan@wellnesswisdomforwomen.com and I do have a free Facebook group also that's boost energy and metabolism.
I think if you just search boost energy and metabolism, you'll find it.
Otherwise just message me and I'll send you a link.
Perfect.
And we'll put those links in.
The description below.
Thanks for joining us today, Megan.
Thank you so much for having me.