EPISODE OVERVIEW:

During this eye-opening conversation, double board-certified functional nutritionist and herbalist Yvonne Montoya Matthews reveals game-changing strategies for women experiencing perimenopause and menopause. Betty Wang explores how personalized nutrition can transform hormonal health. Discover science-backed approaches to navigate this transition while feeling your best, as two experts break down complex nutritional science into actionable steps.

TIME STAMPS:

[01:04] Hormonal Changes 

• Physical changes to the body 
• Making different dietary choices

[10:53] Impact of Ovulation 

• Effect on women’s health 
• Limitations to hormonal testing

[21:27] Using a Food Journal

• Tracking food intake
• Identifying nutritional gaps

[24:31] Herbal Remedies 

• Herbal treatments
• How to care for your own health

[38:15] Diet Culture 

• Social expectations on women’s bodies
• Media influences

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Nutritional challenges for women over 45: Hormonal shifts after 45 dramatically impact nutrient needs for optimal health
• Societal expectations on women’s health:Women often face dismissive attitudes about menopause symptoms, leading to delayed treatment and unnecessary suffering – advocacy and education are crucial
• Strategies for managing stress: Learn evidence-based stress management through nutrition 
• Finding balance in nutrition: Focus on nutrient density over restrictive diets – incorporating diverse whole foods while maintaining flexibility for social occasions and cravings
• Seeking reliable sources for nutritional advice: Evaluate health information sources carefully, prioritize board-certified professionals and practitioners with proven clinical experience in women’s health

GUEST INFO: 

Yvonne Montoya Matthews, Double board-certified functional nutritionist and certified herbalist

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

RESOURCES:

• Join Betty in a free consultation call for your financial goals
• Subscribe to the Betty’s Smart Friends YouTube Channel
• Follow us on Instagram
• Visit my website for more info
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Betty Wang is an investment adviser representative of BW Financial LLC, a registered investment adviser registered in the State of Colorado. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The views and opinions expressed are as of the date of publication and are subject to change. The content is for informational or educational purposes only, and is not intended as individualized investment advice. This information should not be relied upon as the sole factor in an investment-making decision. You are encouraged to consult with a financial professional to address your specific needs and circumstances.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Betty Wang 00:00:05 Low fat, high carbs. No carbs. High protein. Paleo. Keto. Juice. Cleanse. Cabbage. Soup. How many of us have tried one or maybe all of these approaches to food? I know I have. There’s so much information out there that it’s really hard to know where to start. Today we’re going to distinguish the hype from the truth when it comes to nutrition and our health. I’m Betty Wang, host of Betty Smart Friends. I’m a certified financial planner who helps women be more empowered and feel less alone in their financial lives. Here to help us today is Yvonne Montoya matthews. Yvonne is a double board certified functional nutritionist, certified herbalist, and educator with a passion for evidence based nutrition and radical self-care. Please welcome Yvonne to the podcast. Hi.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:01:00 Thanks. Hi. Thanks, Betty. So nice to be here.

Betty Wang 00:01:04 Thanks for joining us today. I can’t wait to hear more about what you have to share. I think before we started recording, I’ve talked about how my contemporaries, my friends and I were always were continuously talking about perimenopause, menopause, post menopause.

Betty Wang 00:01:19 And, you know, along with diet changes, what helps, what doesn’t help. So I’m really excited to have you here today to sort of break through the noise and tell us what the evidence is and how you work with your clients. I guess let’s start with how you got involved in this. You have a lot of letters behind your name that I could not just memorize or write down. So could you share a little bit about your background and what brought you to this, this field?

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:01:50 Sure. It’s a long story. We could probably be here all day talking about that, but I will give you kind of the quick and dirty. So I was a graphic designer and user experience designer in Los Angeles for ten years. And towards the end of my career there, which I didn’t know at the time, was the end of my career. I got off birth control for the first time after about a decade and a half of being on it. I had met my now husband at the time, boyfriend, and was talking to all my girlfriends in LA in book club about getting off birth control.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:02:21 They were all, you know, wanting to start families and get pregnant, and I had never thought about getting off of birth control before I was put on it when I was a teenager in high school because I had, you know, a horrible acne and just debilitating period issues, pain, heavy bleeds that I was missing school for every month. And, you know, parents thought that was unacceptable. I was definitely game to like, not have that issues as a teenager. So, you know, the doctor’s solution was birth control. And so I just never went off of it after that. So I went down the rabbit hole of, well, I don’t want to get pregnant, but I also now know, you know, maybe birth control isn’t great. So what do I do? What are my options? You know, before exploring all that, I just was like, well, let’s get off birth control. So I made, you know, educated myself, made a plan. Like, how do I not get pregnant without birth control? But I got off of it.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:03:14 And now, you know, I’m a professional as a graphic designer working for a corporation, going into the office every day. And I overnight pretty much had an entire face full of acne in my late 20s, and all my period issues came back. So, you know, went down that whole rabbit hole system of, okay, I went to see my doctor. He said, why did you get off birth control? Clearly it was the solution. Okay. Next. Thank you. Next person.

Betty Wang 00:03:37 So helpful. Thank you.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:03:39 Right. Yes. Thank you for gaslighting me on that. Fantastic. Okay. So I went to a dermatologist thinking that maybe they’re more holistic. She. Her solution was steroids, right? Accutane, something like that. And I was like, okay, well, this is also not the solution. Ended up kind of a long way, you know, winding path down. Found actual functional medicine. Doctor in Los Angeles. This was, you know, ten, 15 years ago at this point now.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:04:04 So it was still a very new up and coming fields. I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but she did a bunch of tests that we’re going to kind of talk about today a little bit on me. We did a micronutrient blood test, we did a food allergy test, and I did one of my first elimination diets ever. And, you know, this was all new stuff to me at the time. And it changed a lot of what I was going through and solved about two thirds of my problems. And I at that point had gotten married and a few months later, ironically moved to Denver. So my husband started a business out here and we were kind of ready for a change. So we moved out here, and at the time that meant going freelance. So I was freelance designing, which afforded me time to actually go into a physical nutrition school out in Boulder called Bowman College. And I was in school for nutrition 2 or 3 days a week in a physical classroom and really enjoying it really put a lot of the pieces together that were missing and, you know, really helped myself.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:05:04 I mean, quite nearly like a 100% turnaround, like or 360 turnaround or whatever you say.

Betty Wang 00:05:09 Yeah. I mean, your skin looks amazing.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:05:11 And that was gosh, I went to school nutrition school finished in, you know, early 2016. So yeah, eight years ago. And it was a light bulb moment for me to the fact where I loved graphic design, I had no intention of leaving the field. But I knew so much about nutrition now. I was like, I can’t. I had to share this with everyone. Like anyone who needs to hear it, I have to share it with them. So I got a job in Denver at an apothecary, you know, started really learning herbs. They had a clinic space, so they allowed me to practice nutrition there with their clients. And that’s kind of how I started my own private practice and building my network of people. I mean, I still they still refer people to me to this day. And their community is just really wonderful.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:05:52 It was yeah, it all kind of happened a little bit kismet, and it’s kind of how I’ve been practicing ever since. So the letters behind my name, the BCN is, board certified holistic nutritionist. That is through the Nap, which is the National Association of Nutritional Practitioners. They are the ones who Bowman College is kind of sponsored by. So I got that a long time ago. I have to pass a board exam for that and clinic hours. And then in Covid, I decided to go back and get my masters. So I got my master’s in Clinical Nutrition and Integrative Health and got my CNS, which is very akin, very like parallel to a registered dietitians degree. So we have to have the same education as them. We are just licensed by different associations. So CNS stands for Certified Nutrition specialist. And again we have to have 1000 supervised hours. It’s identical for a registered dietitian. And we have to pass a board exam. And they also have to pass a very, very similar board exam.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:06:55 We tend to be more holistic in nature. Since we’re not registered dietitians. We’re not associated with any governmental dietary guidelines. So we tend to be more functional based, more holistic based, more integrative health, although a lot of our DDS now are coming into that area as well, understanding kind of the way that the world is going in the direction that we’re going. And then our registered dietitians and CNS can both and should both be licensed in states in which you can be licensed in. And so that’s where the LDN comes from. That’s a licensed dietitian nutritionist. And if I have a client in a certain state, I have to be licensed in that state. And so that’s where the LDN comes in. So it’s very state by state basis. And it’s a little confusing sometimes even for me. But those are all the letters behind my name.

Betty Wang 00:07:43 So you’re qualified qualified. You’re very very qualified. So what are like common challenges that you’re seeing for women over 45. You know, as I approach 50, I’m like, am I supposed to be eating high protein? You know, then I get these Instagrams and say, two eggs is not enough.

Betty Wang 00:08:04 And, you know, I’m allergic to eggs and I. So I miss them, but I can’t have them. What can I have? My generation grew up. High carbs, low fat. And so it’s sort of. And lots of cardio. So all these things that are coming out, especially with the diet stuff I have here. I just I go down a deep hole, but I don’t know. And I don’t have the expertise like you do to say that doesn’t make sense or this makes sense. Yeah. And there’s no evidence, right? It’s. Or that I can tell.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:08:38 Yeah. So yeah, you mentioned a lot of things there. So the first, the first one.

Betty Wang 00:08:42 I would say no, it’s I need to know.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:08:46 We’ll answer all your questions. The first thing I would say is it’s not all right. Age related. Although it is. It’s not like we go from 44 and then the next day we turn 45. And now we have all these problems, right? It’s definitely sometimes.

Betty Wang 00:09:00 It feels like that.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:09:01 It does feel like that for many of us. Yeah. I wish there was an age right where we could pinpoint this thing and say yes for all women over X, this is the way to live. Unfortunately, you can have even identical twins, right, that have all of these same markers, live in the same area, same age, gender, all these things, and still have very different health conditions. So it’s this thing called bio individuality. And it’s why I practice individual personalized nutrition. Right. Because we really do have to kind of dive a little bit deeper. And some of it is genetic, right? There is a genetic component to all this stuff. And we’re learning more and more about that as well, which is super exciting. But we do know there’s two phases of of perimenopause. So phase one can go from age 35 to 45. So that is still very young. But this first group is kind of marked by a different level of FSH. So that’s follicular stimulating hormone.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:09:54 And it’s a slow increase at that kind of age. And this is when we start to see cycles change a little bit right. The day before after you’re you know you’re you’re I used to be 28 days now I’m 29 now I’m 30. Period. May be a little bit heavier, actually. You’re starting to maybe not ovulate as regularly because you have lower or no progesterone at this point. Estrogen dominance. uterine fibroids, cysts. I mean, these are kind of even lower thyroid function. This is kind of what I start to see in that age range. That indicates to me that this is what’s going on. And I love relying on lab work now to actually verify, yes, this is the thing and this is how we’re going to fix it. Then we have phase two perimenopause. And that is 45 to 52 ish really up to the point of menopause. Yeah. Exactly. And again you’ll see FSH is continuing to climb at this at that point until you hit menopause. So progesterone is dropping.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:10:53 You are potentially bleeding heavier because of that. And then ovulation is stopping as well. And we know ovulation is very anti-inflammatory. So when we stop ovulating, we are now faced with cardiovascular issues because ovulation is so protective.

Betty Wang 00:11:09 I had no.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:11:10 Idea. Oh yeah. Oh my God.

Betty Wang 00:11:11 I really had no idea. All these things. I just thought it was such a month. It was just a pain. I know, interesting times.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:11:18 This is why cholesterol goes up in this group of women. I see it all the time, and the doctor wants to put them on, you know, a statin. We have bone health right issues now starting to happen as well. So bone density loss and our metabolism is slowing. All because ovulation is coming to a halt. And all these other markers in our hormones are changing. And so that’s really the bulk of the people I see. Right. And where a lot of the symptoms come from. So this can be, like you said, related to so many things diet, genetics, stress, lifestyle, you name it.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:11:53 But doctors are only testing FSH levels for this, right? That’s their main marker of diagnosis. Whereas I’m looking at all of your hormones. Sometimes I like to run something called a Dutch test, which is urine and saliva. We can look at, you know, melatonin, cortisol, you know, all your estrogens, testosterone, all of this stuff and how you’re metabolizing them. So how they’re being cleared out of your body, like is your liver working well. Right. If your liver isn’t working as well either. These hormones are now getting recycled back into your body and causing they’re acting like toxins and causing problems. So there’s a whole like science to all of that as well. And it makes things really hard for women to be test subjects for research. Right. People are like, well, you know, men get all the research studies because their hormones are more, you know, even keel. It’s on a 24 cycle instead of a monthly cycle. Us, you know, females or people with ovaries.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:12:47 We we are a, you know, still a mystery to science sometimes and they’re not studying us. And so we don’t have the markers of, okay, this is how much protein you should take or have, you know, this is the herb that’s great for you because people aren’t studying us as much. And so that’s starting to change, which is good. But I think it’s still going to be a slow road to get there. So I don’t know that it’s really hard to like, pinpoint and say, this is the nutrition thing you need to do, but we can or especially like as a general population, right? This is how much protein. But we definitely know the dietary guidelines are way too low. That’s definitely something we know for certain. And I would say protein is is definitely a good option when you’re getting into perimenopause and menopause. And then of course, depending on who you are, right. Are you somebody that is kind of an athlete, maybe moves a little bit more than somebody who has a desk job, All of those things as well will play a role into how much protein you need.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:13:48 But I would tell you, the dietary guidelines are exceptionally low.

Betty Wang 00:13:52 For most people. Okay. Yeah. And is there a better. Is it better to have meat or beings or fish because it gets confused again? Yeah. You know listening to my or Instagram knows it just sends me stuff. I’m like, oh yeah.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:14:12 First and foremost I would say, make sure you’re getting your information on Instagram from a reputable person, not just, you know, some social media influencer. So, you know, maybe a registered dietitian, maybe somebody that has their license degree in nutrition. I think that’s really important because there’s just so much misinformation out there. I even see, you know, personal trainers talking about probiotics. And I’m like, I know you’re getting paid by this company. That’s great. You need to make money. But really, you should probably stay in your lane and your scope of practice because I’m not giving. I’m not going on Instagram and saying, lift this weight and do this thing because I’m not a personal trainer.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:14:48 So I would say, that’s my little soapbox on where you get your information from.

Betty Wang 00:14:52 No, I totally agree. But it is something where I’m like, oh, it just sort of it sticks in the back of your mind like, oh, they said this and but yeah, you’re right. It’s, it’s not somebody. It’s like the same with financial advice. There’s people who are just giving it online and you’re like, that’s not quite. Yeah, that’s slightly dangerous to me. He’s saying that 100%.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:15:20 And this is the same way, right. Because from somebody’s health, this is slightly dangerous for you to be saying this. So as far as like what protein is good for you? I would say again, like you mentioned, eggs being, you know, being allergic to eggs. Great. Because you’re allergic to eggs. That food is going to be inflammatory for you. But eggs in general are not inflammatory. Right. So we could even go as far to say that like gluten and dairy, dairy can be a great protein source.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:15:48 Not a lot of people tolerate dairy very well. And if you don’t tolerate it and you can’t break it down, that thing is going to be inflammatory for you. So in general, what I say to people is not every food is bad. All food has value. What is good for your body is going to be determined by your biology. So I would say, you know, no eggs for you, Betty. Obviously, protein of any kind is great. So do you digest meat? Protein? Well, if you don’t, we might need to look. So our body doesn’t have enzymes in the mouth to break down protein. So we do have enzymes in our mouth to break down carbohydrates. It’s called salivary amylase. And we have enzyme to break down fats. That’s called salivary lipase. But no enzymes in our mouth to break down proteins. So the first way we actually can break down protein is with our teeth. So the first thing you can do, which is great because it’s free It’s to your food better.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:16:42 So that’s interesting. When we’re talking about protein. Protein is notoriously hard to digest for many reasons. So chewing your food more is always a great recommendation, something we can all do at home. It’s really hard though. So I encourage you, Betty, tonight when you’re at.

Betty Wang 00:16:57 The dinner table with your family, your kids are going to be like, what is wrong with you? You’re like, mom’s still at the table. What is. You just get weirder and weirder, mom. Right. Yeah.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:17:10 You can blame it on me. Try chewing your food, like, 20 times. But I bet you that’s going to feel like an eternity to you. And even that might not be enough. So. But it’s a good start. So that’s supposed.

Betty Wang 00:17:23 To be, like, mushy in your mouth? Yeah. Oh, okay. I will try it. It sounds kind of gross.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:17:30 You do your best, right? Even 1 or 2 chews is better than what you were doing before.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:17:34 Because then from there, the next chance protein has to break down is in your stomach with hydrochloric acid or stomach acid. Sometimes it’s called HCl. It’s all the same thing. That really helps break protein down from an enzymatic standpoint. And so when we chew we’re helping that process right. We’re facilitating that better as we age. We also know our stomach acid goes down. And a lot of us have been told, right. Especially with like things like heartburn and Gerd. Take proton pump inhibitors, you know, the prevacid or you know, what are those, bicarbonate tablets. Antacids. Tom. Thank you. That’s the word I was looking for.

Betty Wang 00:18:11 Tastes good.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:18:12 They taste good, but they also lower our stomach acid more. And the problem with that means if we already have low stomach acid and we’re continuing to lower it, we’re actually not giving our body what it needs to break these foods down. When they’re not being broken down, they pass through our small intestines, and we’re not absorbing the nutrients that we can from this food and is going to try to go out the other direction.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:18:34 And so first of all, we want stomach acid. Stomach acid is what breaks these foods down. And so part of the reason people experience Gerd and heartburn is because they have low stomach acid. They’re not digesting their food and their food has to go somewhere. So it goes up because it’s too big to go through the intestinal, the small intestines.

Betty Wang 00:18:54 This is not something. Yeah. That is not something it seems like. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:19:01 Big, big issue. I studied under a doctor to get a lot of my licensure hours, and he. This is like one of his number one things he loved to talk about. And it always blows people’s mind.

Betty Wang 00:19:12 Yeah. Because you assume that it’s too much acid and that’s why it’s popping back up. Yeah. Interesting.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:19:17 And the great news is, is we actually have some really holistic ways we can test that with, with lemon juice, you know, bitters, supplements, we can use baking soda, things like that.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:19:26 Or we can actually do home tests with clients to see how much stomach acid do they actually have? I would say nine times out of ten it’s low. Very, very rarely that one, you know, 10% person actually does have high stomach acid. And then, you know, they’re the ones that should be taking those kinds of medications or over-the-counter prescriptions. But yeah, in general, digestion and our enzyme level really, really are helping to break down not just all our foods, but proteins as well. And so that’s a big issue. And as we age it becomes more and more of an issue. So that’s one of my biggest things with people, especially with protein, is if we’re not digesting it, then we can’t use the nutrients from it. You can eat all the protein you want. We’re not really doing our body at service. So really getting that digestion working from even the basic levels of chewing our food more can be really helpful. Yeah.

Betty Wang 00:20:16 Wow. All right. I feel like not what you expected to hear, I feel like my mind is blown.

Betty Wang 00:20:21 You’re like, oh, okay. What else do you see with. I mean, there’s no magic bullet, which I think I would love, right? Yes. So let’s say someone like me or we’re coming to you for help. I mean, relatively no complaints, just basically kind of what you’re talking about, not fatigue and definitely weight gain and just feeling kind of sluggish, like, where do you start? Or how does that what does this look like with you? Hi listeners, I hope you are laughing and learning from this episode of Betty Smart Friends. Here’s a quick tip. Maintain an emergency fund. No matter how much you earn, having a financial cushion or an oh shit fund is key. Try to save 6 to 8 months worth of living expenses in a liquid, easily accessible account for the times that life unexpectedly punches you in the face. Thanks for being a listener. Now back to the show.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:21:27 Yeah, so if those are if not, what the is the person is coming to me with and symptoms, I would say I would like to do a food journal first.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:21:36 Now I also see a lot of eating disorder and disordered eating clients, and we don’t have to do a food journal, so that’s not something I require. But if somebody is willing to do it and it doesn’t bother them, a food journal is really helpful to see. And I enter it into a really fun app that dials in not just your macronutrients, because you can see that on like a Fitbit app, but all of your micronutrients as well. So every single vitamin we’re talking omega three, choline, I mean, you name it. And we can actually see, like where are some big holes in your nutrition and in your in the foods that you’re eating. So we can go that route, which is a great place to start for many people. Right? We got to have the foundational levels of meeting all your needs from a nutritional standpoint. And that doesn’t mean eating rice crackers and like, you know, boiled chicken, right? It can be eating really delicious foods too. But meeting that baseline is really foundational.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:22:31 On top of that, lab work, functional lab work like hormone panels like that Dutch test. A gut stool test is fantastic. There’s amazing markers in there. We know now how much the gut is involved in a lot of our hormones as well, including cortisol, including estrogen and all of these ways to. Especially as to how like, how is it cleared out of our liver like this is all determined by the gut.

Betty Wang 00:22:54 Is that the is that pooping in a box? It is poop pooping in a box.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:23:00 But you do it at home. Betty, you’re not doing it at my house.

Betty Wang 00:23:03 So, you know, I nobody has to know. That might be a hurdle for me. Okay, continue.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:23:10 So those are the nice things that I, as a licensed, you know, health care functional provider, we can do together that make it less like throwing spaghetti at a wall, which is kind of not to say that that’s what I did for the majority of the beginning of my career, but I wasn’t testing because I wasn’t licensed at that time.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:23:28 and so now that I am, it’s nice to have a very direct, clear path that says, okay, your estrogen is here. It should be here. What can we do to help that? What foods can we eat? Even hormone replacement therapy. We’re learning more and more that that is not a bad thing, right? If your body and your genetics can tolerate that, that can actually be a really wonderful and supportive way in this transitional period that we’re going through. And then obviously herbs, right. You know, I’m a clinical herbalist, so I love working with herbs and hormones for this group of people as well. So there are a lot of options there. But I love looking at the food, getting those foundational and then also lab work as well. If it can be afforded because it is expensive and oftentimes not covered by insurance to kind of really dial in. Right. That’s like the functional medicine part where we’re saying we don’t want to just cover up symptoms like brain fog, hot flashes.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:24:20 You know, you’re gaining weight for a reason, right? We want to know what that reason is. And so the lab work can be really helpful in dialing that in and helping actually make change faster. Right.

Betty Wang 00:24:31 Well, I don’t know a lot about herbalists or what does that. What does that mean? Are you making like a tea or do you make like those little like, capsules that I see at Vitamin Cottage? Like, I don’t know. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:24:49 Yeah, sure. It’s, it can be any and all of those things. I really love herbal tea. I mean, for many, many reasons. One, it’s caffeine free. Too many of us are dehydrated anyways, and it can be an extra way of like not having to drink water because I hear from so many people. Oh, I’m so it’s so boring. I’m so tired of it. Like or whatever it is, right? I don’t just don’t do it. Herbal tea can be a really nice way to to kind of tackle a bunch of different things at once.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:25:15 But when we’re talking about this group in particular, teas can be nice. Sometimes it is capsules supplementation because they’re a little bit more standardized. We know exactly like you know, we’re getting 200mg of this thing. And so that can be really helpful for symptom management helping with estrogen progesterone. Things like that. So you know, there’s typically like a couple of herbs that I really like for perimenopause and menopause. And they’re all estrogen related or progesterone related. And it’s chaste tree berry. Sometimes it’s called vortex. It’s really popular for mood swings which happen at this time. Breast tenderness happens a lot right at this time. And then pretty much you know, any it’s really great for any estrogen levels and progesterone levels and helping with that like estrogen dominance balance. So that’s a nice one I often recommend. And then black Cohosh is also another wonderful herb. This is great for hot flashes and night sweats, mood swings as well. Some sleep disturbances that happen in in this area as well, and even things like vaginal dryness all are symptoms that black cohosh can really help with.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:26:23 And you know, again, like a lot of these herbs too, they have studies behind them and research to back them. We always learn from those studies that we need more studies. There’s always that caveat, but a lot of these studies show that they have mild estrogenic effects, which is really what is happening with those symptoms and why it’s helping us transition into that period. Also, a lot of these herbs just tend to be anti-inflammatory in nature as well. So you’re getting some extra help there as well with the aging process and all the foods and the stress and the medications. Right. All the things that we inflame our body with every, every day and over time. So those are two of the key ones. There are so many different ones. But I mean, herbalism is such a wonderful toolkit to use and a little bit more individualized even than food, I think, because, you know, depending on what’s going on with someone, I may recommend a tea mixture. Some people hate capsules, right? It’s really very dependent on what that person is willing to do and and wants to do.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:27:24 So yeah, it can be really powerful medicine though.

Betty Wang 00:27:27 At what point do to the clients come to you instead. Or do they go to their doctors and find out they’re sort of getting nowhere, and they come to you with these sorts of things because, again, you know, the media is like, oh, why would you go to like, why wouldn’t you go to the doctor instead? And I think the same issues. Right. Sometimes they’re not as helpful because or they give you a pill and you might not not be comfortable with that. It’s that what you’re kind of seeing or just people who aren’t sure where to go or.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:27:58 Yeah, I often say I’m pretty much the last practitioner that they come to. Yeah, for many reasons. One is, yeah, they’re frustrated with the system. Right? They’ve seen all the people. They’ve gone to multiple doctors. Oftentimes women especially. Right. We’re gaslit. Right. Oh, it’s just this is just how you have to live. This is what it’s like to be a mom or this is what, you know, it’s like, no.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:28:20 And I still deserve to feel great, right? Like that’s not a that’s not an excuse. And then, yeah, they’ll go see I’ve had many clients that come to me and say, I’ve seen a dietitian or nutritionist, right? Some many covered by insurance. And they’re like, oh yeah, they told me it didn’t matter really what I ate. And I’m like, wow, really? So they went to school for nutrition and they’re telling you it doesn’t matter what. You okay okay, great. So, you know, a lot of it is healthcare related, I think. And just I think we’ve all been having these conversations at least I have been having these conversations a lot recently with a lot of the news that has been going on with just, you know, all of the issues with our medical system and insurance. That is not to say, right, if you break your arm, you’re not coming to me. I’m not helping you with a stitch or a broken arm or any of that.

Betty Wang 00:29:03 So you’re not like, this herb will help you out.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:29:06 Yeah. Take this. You’ll be fine.

Betty Wang 00:29:08 So don’t worry about the swelling.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:29:10 There’s definitely. Right. We I think that’s the integrative health part. Right. We all as practitioners serve a role. And you you know can have multiple people helping you in different areas. But I tend to be the last person people come to and from that line of kind of like care coming down and and oftentimes just saying, okay, I guess, you know, insurance may not cover this person, me, but if I’m going to get help, it’s worth it, right? How much are you paying now versus how much do you pay in the end to solve some of these issues? And and in the end, I’m the last person they see because, you know, I help them the majority of the time. Now I have clients that pay me for services, and they expect that magic pill. And when they don’t get it, they’re like, well, oh, I have to do work.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:29:53 Okay, see you later. So they may go find somebody else. But yeah, in general, if people stick to it. Right. It’s not because I’m not giving someone medication or a shot or an injection. It takes time, right? Change takes time. And we think about how long we get to the point where we see symptoms and then we expect immediate results. It’s just not really the right frame of mind or mindset. So sometimes it takes a little bit of time to see some of the change, and sometimes it’s quite rapid depending on where someone’s coming from. Right. And how much change that they’re making. But yeah, it’s a long road. Many people come to me very frustrated.

Betty Wang 00:30:30 Can you share a success story with us of someone? I mean, without, of course, you know, compromising someone’s privacy. But, you know, especially someone, you know, in female older. And going through these things like that might be relevant to us.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:30:50 Yeah. For sure. I often get asked this question right.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:30:53 People want to hear success stories and you know that people like them have they want.

Betty Wang 00:30:58 To have a Google review. Yeah. Yeah.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:31:00 For sure. I think it’s a legitimate question. There are so many people I could pull from. There was a gal about 2 or 3 years ago that came to me. She lived in New York. She was about mid 40s, so I think she was 46 at the time, female, and she’s about £30 overweight. Her main complaints were anxiety, digestive issues, hot flashes and brain fog. Those were her main issues. If I’m recalling all of them, there might have been a few more. Typically, people come to me too, and I think, you know, you probably can understand this, but we think of nutrition, we think of weight, weight loss, weight gain, those kinds of things. And so her main thing was I want to lose these £30. And then we started going through her intake and we were like, oh, oh you have anxiety.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:31:40 Okay. Oh you have digestive issues. Okay. And we like all these things added up. And I was like, well, you’re likely going through perimenopause. So we can probably relate all of these things to something going on in some hormone fluctuation or even things like cortisol. Right. Which is still a hormone. She tried Whole30. She tried intermittent fasting. You like the list of things that you said at the beginning, right?

Betty Wang 00:32:02 Yes. Went through all those things. I did try those. Yes.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:32:07 And was frustrated. I think she ended up having a lot of food fear. Like she was like, I don’t eat this, I don’t eat this, I don’t eat this. I heard this is inflammatory, right? Like amassing all the things that we’ve already talked about. Right. Of all, of all of these things. And so she’s like, I don’t know what to eat. I eat these like six foods. You know, I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. So we ended up and I see this a lot in women especially, well, kind of across the board, but I mostly see women anyhow.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:32:34 But we did a food journal and she was barely consuming 1200 calories a day, and she thought she was eating a lot, and she was also trying to lose weight. So she also knew she was kind of wanting to restrict as well. And so, you know, I’ve heard people say, well, I don’t eat breakfast because it’s empty calories. I don’t. Well, okay. When do we need our energy? Throughout the day though? We need it when we wake up to go through our day. So if we’re not eating breakfast, we’re balancing our blood sugar, which is partly how we get energy. And we also just don’t have calories. Our literal energy for our body. We don’t have that to get through the day. And the body. Isn’t this nice math equation which I wish sometimes it was where it’s like calories in, calories out holds some water, but it’s also what are you eating and when are you eating it? And so. And how are you digesting it? Right.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:33:23 Because we even talked about if you’re not digesting well, you’re really not getting the nutrients from the food you’re eating. So we did all of those things together. We looked at all of that. And oftentimes I do see when people are trying to lose weight, they’re in a calorie restriction. When you’ve been in a calorie restriction for years, maybe decades, as some women are, our metabolism will shift and slow down not only just with time, but with what it thinks is fine with maintenance and also potentially starving. Right. Like, oh, I better hold on to this stuff. And you’re stressed. So your cortisol now, right. Loves to go around to the belly area. So you’re like you’re compounding all these things on top of each other. So I told her the thing she needed to do. And this is what I do for my clients. They calculate, you know what, how much calories do you need to be eating? And I break it down. Protein, fats, carbs.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:34:13 Right. And we talk about what those really look like for that person. And I actually asked her to eat an extra 400 calories a day, minimum. And she was flabbergasted. She was like, I don’t. I don’t want to gain weight. I don’t want to eat more food. And I tried to explain to her all of the reasons why and when she actually started eating more and giving her body what it needed, she actually started losing weight. And it took a couple of months to see that. But then she saw it and she was also feeling better. She had more energy. You know, our hormones aren’t made from thin air, so our hormones are made a lot from fat and cholesterol. And so we got to get it in our diet. And so that helped with a lot of the symptoms. Slowly adding foods back in, getting rid of that food. Fear for her. we did do a stool test, which I know you don’t want to hear.

Betty Wang 00:34:59 Good for her.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:35:01 We found out she had some extra candida in her body, which we can see in the stool test.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:35:05 So, you know, we lowered. We didn’t do a candida free diet, but we lowered the the sugar and the fungus in her diet and added in some supplements. And really, it was kind of like night and day over about a, I would say like a 3 or 4 month period. I still see her every now and then, but yeah, she’s doing much better. She lost about £20 in that first year. And the nice thing is, is I like to tell people, I don’t want you to need me forever. Like you shouldn’t need me forever. You should need me for three months, six months, maybe a year, maybe 18 months at the maximum, depending with what’s going on and how complicated medical issues are, medications, things like that. But really, like, I’m happy to see you once or twice a year after that, I look at my client’s bloodwork from a nutritional standpoint and like, you know, they can kind of treat me like a functional practitioner of theirs in a team of people, maybe that they see.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:35:53 And so, yeah, I see her every now and then and she’s she’s doing quite well. She’s now 49 I think maybe, maybe 50. Oh. So you know, that’s all to say.

Betty Wang 00:36:03 Like poop in a box. Poop in a box. Yeah I’m kidding.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:36:08 We also did do a Dodge test with her, which I didn’t mention to really make sure we knew what was going on with her hormones, but but again, yeah, she was kind of a she’s the classic case, I think, of when I’m talking to a lot of these women and a lot of the experiences that we all kind of see, and one of the things that I didn’t haven’t talked to you about yet, but I do mention to most of this group of clients, is when we go from our ovaries, are producing most of our hormones, our especially our sex hormones, when we’re no longer using those. Right? Our adrenals take over that job. Our adrenal glands, our adrenal glands are also responsible before that for producing DHEA, cortisol, which many of us know as our stress hormone.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:36:53 Right. And so a lot of the times we come into perimenopause and menopause with our adrenal glands pretty tired because we’ve all been pretty stressed. A lot of people in this age range, right, are our mothers, grandmothers that are doing everything for everybody and not doing nothing for themselves. And so I often tell women, if we can get our adrenal glands pretty healthy and not fatigued before we go into menopause and even perimenopause if possible, then the job of taking over from the ovaries, the estrogen and progesterone out of the adrenals is much easier as a transition. And that’s where a lot of the symptoms come from is our adrenal glands are so tired they can’t produce any estrogen or testosterone. And now we’re asking them to do that as the majority gland in our body that is producing those things. So oftentimes it is managing stress right before we get to that point. And also blood sugar regulation is a massive part of our cortisol and how we manage that. So, you know, I talk a lot about blood sugar regulation to most of my clients.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:37:55 And most people hear that and they’re like, well, I don’t have diabetes. I’m like, yeah, we all have to run off of glucose. It’s like part of how our energy and our body works.

Betty Wang 00:38:04 And well, I’m advanced there because of my son has it. But yeah, right. So yeah, I do understand quite a lot about blood sugars, but I didn’t I never really thought about it for myself.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:38:15 Yeah. And oftentimes people don’t write unless there is a condition. And so that’s why I’m not a big fan of a lot of these things, like intermittent fasting and like food restriction from that standpoint. Because really blood sugar regulation in my opinion, starts when we wake up. And so the longer we delay that decision to eat a meal, the more we’re really regulating our blood sugar. There is a way too fast for women that can be okay. I also think sometimes it can be just a really restrictive lifestyle and and we can get into that whole talk too, if you want of like diet culture.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:38:51 Right. And what does the body, what does the world expect us to look like as women. Right. Small petite and stay that way forever. Right. Don’t ever change. So there’s also a whole social norms component to this that I love to talk to my clients about as well, and kind of managing expectations that it’s okay to change, right? Our hormones change. How can we expect our bodies to remain like exactly the same as they were in high school. Like, that’s just not. It’s not always possible or ideal, right? Even for our optimal health living. And so I think it’s hard because we see that stuff modeled in the media. Right. And so it’s hard to think that we would be different than those people. But we also don’t know what they’re going through as well. Right. And so it’s a very large conversation that, that I do love to have. But it warrants looking at as well.

Betty Wang 00:39:40 Yeah. I mean, I don’t think we have time for that today, but I think that, you know, I think it’d be a really interesting talk just because it is true.

Betty Wang 00:39:48 You know, when Cindy Crawford, who, you know, she was my age and she’s posting pictures of her in a bikini and she looks amazing. And you’re like, how have you had two kids?

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:40:00 And I feel like on the opposite spectrum of that too, right. Not to like, call anybody out but Tyra Banks, right. People were giving her a lot of guff about getting back on the runway. I don’t know how old she is now as well. Probably well into her 50s, I would guess. Maybe late 40s. I don’t know, but she’s gained a little bit of weight since her modeling days. Now she’s also a very tall person. But it’s interesting the treatment she got and I say interesting was really probably quite sad and a little depressing. But yeah, I think it goes yeah. Like you’re saying, like it’s kind of like a lose lose situation. Yeah.

Betty Wang 00:40:33 But yeah.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:40:33 I mean, I would love to come back always and talk to you anytime.

Betty Wang 00:40:36 Thank you.

Betty Wang 00:40:37 Well, tell, tell, tell our listeners how they can find you or what’s the best way to contact you?

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:40:44 Sure. So mostly I work one on one with private clients. I do some corporate nutrition work as well. So like cooking classes and fun stuff like that. So for businesses. But pretty much the best way to find me, I, I’m somewhat active on Instagram. I do check it daily, so that’s a decent way to reach out to me. On my website. There’s a contact page that goes directly to my email, so that’s also a great place to reach me. But yeah, all my services are virtual. I have clients all over the world. I have clients in New Zealand and Europe and South America and all over. So really, you know, post, post Covid, I no longer have an office and I’m licensed in a lot of places. So I, I do a lot of work, all my work virtually except for corporate clients. I do those in person now.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:41:27 Oh.

Betty Wang 00:41:28 That’s that’s nice because I was gonna say, well, what what if they’re not in Colorado? But now that’s not an issue. No.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:41:35 No, definitely not an issue.

Betty Wang 00:41:38 And then I always ask the question these two questions of are of guests. And that is how do you maintain your own balance, your own peace when as you’re talking about we’re so we’re busy. We’re all very busy. Good question. I do I think.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:41:53 For me it’s I mean, I love what I do so and I do what I do also because I love food. So for me it’s also a balance between eating healthy. Like it’s kind of like that 70 to 80% of the time. I eat very healthy, very nutritious. and I really actually enjoy eating that way as well. I grew up with a health nut mom, and so, you know, eating the steamed vegetables and the brown rice and the chicken, like, I actually really enjoy that. I don’t eat that all the time. But then there’s that 20 or 30% of the time where I really am eating just for enjoyment, right? Going out and experiencing food, sushi making.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:42:29 My grandmother was Mexican cook at a restaurant. And so, you know, doing the fried tacos with the refried beans. So I have maintained and learned how to maintain a nice balance with my food that I really enjoy. Has taken me some time to get there. Yeah, but other than that, because I do think that keeps me balanced. Taking time for self-care. Now, I acknowledge my husband and I don’t have any kids, so there is a little bit of a luxury to that.

Betty Wang 00:42:54 Sometimes you have two dogs.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:42:57 We have one dog.

Betty Wang 00:42:58 Oh no.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:43:00 Not two dogs.

Betty Wang 00:43:02 Yeah, okay. Yeah, we went along. We just have the one now. Sorry.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:43:06 No it’s okay. It was earlier this year, so it’s been a little while, but you know it was a transition. But yeah. No, I mean we do have the dogs but lots of self care. And I think part of loving what you do and I think you can appreciate this is finding the cutoff point, especially when you do work virtually from home.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:43:22 Right. Like is it 5:00. Is it 6:00. Is it 9:00. Right. Like, when are you stopping the work? And so for me, kind of scheduling in for me, self-care is a lot of walks outside, you know, listening to podcasts, sometimes just for fun. Right. Reading books. Last year I got us on a blanket as a gift. So sometimes I’m getting in on a blanket. Oh, I love it, I eat better, I use it like 3 or 4 times a week. Oh, it’s such a great excuse to just quite literally do nothing. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s been really I mean, I acknowledge that the price tag and it was a gift, but I use it quite often. I definitely have got my my money’s worth out of it. But like little things like that, I just try to schedule in something every day. Today I didn’t work out. So today is a nice walk day. and yeah, that might be it for today.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:44:10 But yeah, just scheduling in that self-care for me I think is really big.

Betty Wang 00:44:14 And then I work a lot with women who are looking towards retirement and a lot, a lot of studies show that if you go into retirement with, you know, passions, hobbies, interests outside of work, that you’re much happier retired person. Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of work that you would like to share, or that maybe someday would be part of? I mean, I think that the what you’re doing with the the self-care is, is something huge, right? For sure.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:44:46 Yeah. well, I, I do knit. I haven’t been knitting quite regularly as I used to, but I do like to knit, and that is something that is very soothing and very meditative. I like to read. I’m a huge book nerd. I remember just spending lots of time in the library, in schools, in between activities. And so reading fiction for me, write or audio autobiographies, things like that, that I’m not, because I’ll read a lot of books for work too.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:45:11 And I do enjoy that. But sometimes I just like need to not do that. Especially try not to do that before I go to bed. Totally weird dreams about work. And then I think the big one for me is travel. Like, I think that was one of the big reasons why, you know, my husband and I decided not to have kids was because we do love to travel quite a lot, and so we haven’t been doing it a whole lot in the last five years. But we do really hope to get back to it soon on a more regular basis. I’m going to take trips here and there, but mostly in the country. So in a couple of weeks we’ll be in New York. I have to go for work, but we’re going to make a nice trip out of it, go see a show, have some good meals. But yeah, really like getting back to that international travel. And like I have a whole long list of things. So yeah.

Betty Wang 00:45:50 Yeah. You guys have been everywhere a lot of places.

Betty Wang 00:45:53 Yeah. No, I mean like amazing, inspiring places to go to.

Yvonne Montoya-Matthews 00:45:58 I want to keep keep adding to that list for sure.

Betty Wang 00:46:02 Yeah. Well thank you so much for your time I think. Well, I’ve learned a lot. So I hope That that listeners have learned a lot. And I hope you have a great day. Thank you. Thanks, buddy. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Betty Smart Friends. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation and that you learn something new. You can connect with us on social media to stay updated on future episodes. Share your thoughts and join our community of smart friends. You can find us on Instagram at Betty Financial, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! If you are feeling ready to be more empowered and less alone in your financial life, please schedule a complimentary 15 minutes with me. The link is in the show notes. Please see the show notes for important disclosures regarding BW financial planning and this episode.

Betty Wang 00:46:57 Until next time, remember you are not alone. We got you.