From Scalpels to Wellness A Surgeon's Journey to Menopause Mastery & Lifestyle Medicine

Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week I am joined by Dr. Michelle Gordon to discuss about her shift from surgery to focusing on menopause management and lifestyle medicine, influenced by her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Gordon highlights the importance of addressing hormonal changes, nutrition, and mindset to help women navigate menopause. She advocates for small, sustainable lifestyle changes and offers insights into the impact of diet on health, showcasing her holistic approach to wellness and healthcare.

Dr. Gordon managed a multi-million dollar surgical practice from 2005 to 2020 and expanded it to include 5 surgeons. The relentless overnight ER calls, sleepless nights, and the corporate medicine environment, which often showed a lack of empathy towards doctors, along with a generalized discontent with the medical profession, led to her severe overwhelm and burnout. Her life, as she knew it, became unsustainable. Then came Covid... Working in medicine grew even more challenging and dangerous, not just for her but also for her family. Simply entering the hospital became a complicated ordeal. She made the difficult decision to close her successful practice to focus on recovery. As she healed, she discovered that bouncing back quickly from such adversities was possible with access to the right tools. In her journey to overcome burnout, she delved into brain science and behavior change—specifically, the power of minor incremental improvements in habit change and the significant impact of behavior on outcomes.

0:00 Introduction to Dr. Michelle Gordon
0:40 Journey from Surgery to Menopause Management
3:36 Impact of COVID-19 on Career and Personal Life 
6:52 Developing the Four Pillars of Menopause Management 
9:21 Venturing into Obesity and Lifestyle Medicine
11:18 Dietary Changes and Weight Loss 
13:17 Mindset and Behavioral Changes for Health
16:25 Consultation Services and Meno System Program 
20:10 Overcoming Challenges with Incremental Improvements
23:30 Closing Thoughts and Contact Information

Connect with Dr. Gordon
Email: support@drmichellegordon.com
Website: drmichellegordon.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drmgordon
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctormichellegordon/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmichellegordon/

Connect with Dr. Reller
My linktree: linktr.ee/kerryrellermd
Podcast website: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClearwaterFamily
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clearwaterfamilymedicine/
Clearwater Family Medicine and Allergy Website: https://sites.google.com/view/clearwaterallergy/home

Subscribe to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, iheartradio, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Pandora.

Transcript

Kerry: 0:28

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller. And today we have a very special guest, Dr. Michelle Gordon. Welcome to the podcast.

Michelle: 0:38

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Kerry: 0:40

So excited to have you. Why don't you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?

Michelle: 0:46

Well so I'm Dr. Michelle Gordon and I'm a retired general surgeon and I've spent the last, like, 3 years trying to figure out who I want to be when I grow up and when COVID hit, I had grown my surgical practice to multi million dollars and four surgeons. And when COVID hit four surgeons on top of myself, so five total you know, just all the changes that happened. So suddenly it was almost like walking into a prison, going to the hospital. It was really awful. And then I'm in New York and we had like a first wave and our whole hospital was filled with COVID patients. Nobody was surviving. It was really demoralizing. And I realized that I just did not want to do surgery anymore. And I had brought my son home, my son's immunocompromised. I had brought him home. I was like, am I gonna, you know, kill him by going to the hospital and coming home? And, you know, I come home, take all my clothes off, run through the house in my underwear, trying to figure out, you know, how to make sure I didn't infect my family. So by July of 2020, I was like, I'm done. And I closed the practice. And I thought that I was completely over medicine, and I've spent the last four or five years kind of helping women with menopause. Menopause has been, it was a big challenge for me, and I put together some programs to help women understand, there's, there's like four pillars, there's like what's happening hormonally, how to eat, how to move, you know, because a lot of women in menopause get the meno belly, they call it. And I got that. And then how to think about menopause instead of looking at it as kind of a miserable time, but to look at it as the privilege of a long life. And so, so those are the four pillars that I talk about and And I had some success and I was, you know, able to really bring in a lot of people, but then I thought, how can I help more? I'm a doctor. I have like all this medical knowledge. It doesn't mean just because I chose to stop operating because all surgeons stop operating eventually. And they don't tell you that in surgery school. How can I help people? And so in October, I became boarded in obesity medicine and lifestyle medicine, and that has given me a lot of options because not only can I help women kind of manage their menopause, but I can prescribe things like GLP 1 agonists, right? So I can prescribe Ozempic and Wegovy, that's the same thing, but Terzepatide and, and those things, and any other drugs. But I can also kind of give you a lifestyle prescription. And on top of that, I'm sort of a certified coach, so I can help you change the way you think about almost anything. And so those are the things that I've really worked on as I've rediscovered and reinvented myself over the past few years.

Kerry: 3:36

We don't usually hear of too many surgeons going into like obesity and lifestyle medicine and I just wanted to comment on the fear that you might have been having like giving your son, you know, getting, giving him COVID possibly like with immunocompromised and that was something that we had in our office because we have a lot of immunodeficient patients and we were very nervous about bringing COVID people in and still now we're like, please test at home so you don't come into the office with that. So I mean, COVID in general, like give everybody this You know, giant fear, but I mean, I can see why you would be like, I'm done with this. I don't want to, and even being in New York, like how terrifying, you know, in the hospital and everything. So I, I can imagine that it would be very difficult and fearful of like giving your son

Michelle: 4:21

it was, it was really, it was really scary. I mean, my son is, um, He's disabled. He had leukemia as a baby. And so as I was going through medical school, he was completing his chemotherapy. And so he was born normal and now he's got some cognitive difficulties because he had a central nervous system disease, but he lives in a, in assisted living facility up in Cape Cod and we brought him home for COVID just because we didn't know anything about the disease back then. And we were able to get him back there, we took him back like a year after COVID or something, but and he's living independently, he's 30 years old and doing, he'll be 31 in April and he's doing great, but it was. It was really hard trying to figure out because it was so scary. Nobody knew what was going on and the conflicting information and not, not knowing. But it was a good opportunity for me to sit down and reinvent. And deciding that I don't have to reject my education, I can actually use my education to help people. And I'm licensed in 17 states and one of them is Florida.

Kerry: 5:28

okay. Did you ever, like, you had four other doctors working with you or for you did you ever consider just not you operating and like managing the business? Like why did you end up closing the whole thing?

Michelle: 5:42

Well, so I did actually, and it was really funny because leading surgeons is hard. Surgeons are a difficult breed. And what I wanted to do, what I was trying to do is, you know, what you're taught to do when you grow a business is to replace yourself. So I hired these people, and I was trying to kind of step out of being a surgeon. And that bred a lot of resentment among some of my employees. And one of them who was pretty resentful, I had to fire for breach of contract. And it was just, those sorts of things were just really frustrating, and I didn't enjoy the HR side of it. Also I had one die by suicide. So before, well before COVID and that was, that was in November of 2019 and that had nothing to do with the job. It had to do with his personal life, but it was, it was really difficult and it made me think, like, why am I spending my life doing something I don't want to do anymore? And luckily I'm privileged enough, I put away enough money that I could, like, not work for a while. And, well, I figured out what I wanted to do.

Kerry: 6:52

Wow. So how did you overcome that fear and uncertainty that comes with significant change of like shutting down that business?

Michelle: 6:58

Well, I, I just decided that I needed to do something different. And the way I had the contract set up. I mean, one had died, one I had fired for breach of contract one, I only had to give a one month notice too. That was great. And then the last one was a four month notice and it was pretty easy. And so by July, I was like, great, this is awesome. I can leave and not have to do surgery anymore. And don't get me wrong. I loved it. And I'm, I was a really good surgeon. I never had any, you know, lawsuits or anything like that amounted to anything, you know, there's always frivolous stuff, but I just got tired of the politics in the hospital. And, I'm a little bit autistic. I'm a little bit Aspergery. And so I don't have great social skills, which is probably not uncommon for most surgeons anyway. Like, like not everyone who's a surgeon has really great you know, we're not known for having great, you know, social skills, but I just realized that it wasn't playing to my strengths anymore. And I wanted to play more to my strengths. And I really enjoyed medicine when I was an intern and actually did an internal medicine internship. So I'm an osteopath, I'm a DO and I graduated back in the days when the DOs had to do rotating internship and then go on to their specialty and I enjoyed internal medicine, but I really felt like surgery was my calling because when I look back at what I was doing in my fourth year, it was like, it didn't matter what rotation I was on. I was in the operating room. And so I did family practice. And if one of their patients went to the OR, I went to the OR and you know, internal medicine and any other. So I was like, okay, it's going to be surgery. And I don't feel bad about it. I mean, surgery treated me really well, but it just, it became untenable for me. I didn't want to have to get up and, you know, go to do a schedule. And I wanted to be able to sleep through the night. I really got tired of taking call.

Kerry: 8:53

Yeah, well, we definitely hear a lot about burnout in all sorts of fields of medicine and I'm sure surgical medicine is probably way worse, but I don't, I am not a surgeon, so I never liked the smell of the OR. I thought it was freezing. I didn't like standing there the whole time. I just, it wasn't for me. But so then you're going through all this. And at the same time, you're going through, obviously, like menopause. So this kind of led you to what you're doing now. It sounds like, right?

Michelle: 9:21

It did. Yeah. As I was trying to remember what drug to prescribe because my brain wasn't working right. Even though I had prescribed it last week you know, it was like, I was trying to remember the name of an antibiotic. I'm like, why can't I remember things? And that was one of the first signs of menopause for me and then the other thing was like I was laying on my couch reading a book and all of a sudden I felt really embarrassed and when I get embarrassed, I have a flush. I've always had that ever since I was a kid. I'm like, why do I feel embarrassed? I'm not embarrassed. And then I noticed that I was gaining some weight. I'm like, what's going on? I didn't change the way I was eating and I was still kind of moving the same way. And so I realized it was menopause and I thought, okay, well, let me, let me see you know, talk to my colleagues. And they basically, almost everybody said, well, it's just, you've got to suffer through it or you can take hormones. And I wasn't willing to suffer or take hormones because I tried them, I tried hormones and I got a period and I was like, Oh no, no, I'm done with those. so I went on this quest really to fix myself and what I landed on was lifestyle management and diet primarily as the main things that, that are drivers to create a life that is by suffering free, essentially. And that's kind of what I packaged up. I have a program called the meno system. And it's those four pillars I talked about, which is really like, what's the hormonal basis of menopause, how to eat, how to move and how to think about menopause in a way that makes it kind of all come together so that you can create your own holistic, kind of strategic plan so that you can transition into it. Because without a plan, it's just a huge surprise. I mean, it was a surprise for me. And even my colleagues who are GYNs were like, Oh no, you just got to suffer through it. And I was like, well, wait a minute. Why? I don't, I don't accept that.

Kerry: 11:18

They actually didn't have a lot of training on menopause

Michelle: 11:20

was going to say that, you know? Yeah. No, I don't know about you, but for me, I mean, it was women's health was like one OBGYN rotation in, you know, third or fourth year of medical school. And there was no training about what happens in menopause. And what's really frustrating for me is that menopause is a huge transition for us. It's like a second puberty, but we don't talk about it because it's associated with being old. And then we don't, we don't, you know, do, do there's not really a whole lot of work around. I mean, there's some, I mean, there's, you know, the menopause journal and things like that. But I can tell you right now that if this happened to men, there would be drugs aplenty. And right now what we have is hormones and we have bioidentical hormones are a good solution, but you have to go to somebody who knows what they're doing. And it goes against a lot of the traditional kind of understanding about How to treat hormones, for example, When you're treating someone, you want to make them feel better, oftentimes you're going to suppress TSH, and that's going to freak out the internal medicine docs. Because if they see that TSH is suppressed, they're going to think you're doing something wrong. But, when you're using bioidentical hormones, I mean, that's just one example. And you had said that most, you know, surgeons don't usually do something else, but I actually have a podcast called Launch Your Life, and way, way back several years ago I was talking about menopause a lot, I met with a guy who is in the Orlando area, Dr. John Carozola, who's a retired orthopedic surgeon who just does hormones. He does bioidentical hormones. So, you know, most surgeons do find something else to do when they're done operating.

Kerry: 13:04

Well, it's good that you know, they don't just stop you want to help people. I mean, that's the nature of being a doctor, right? So I think that's really nice. Yeah.

Michelle: 13:11

yeah, yeah,

Kerry: 13:12

So what are some specific things that you change in your own life as you're going through this menopausal journey?

Michelle: 13:17

Well, the first thing I changed was, you know, when I started learning about diet was I got rid of all vegetable oils. So vegetable oils are corn, canola, cotton seeds, soy, safflower, and sunflower. Those oils are all toxic to us and they cause inflammation. They, they contribute to chronic pain. And when you get rid of those out of your diet, The inflammation goes away. It takes about two, two weeks or so. And so I tell people cook only with avocado oil, olive oil and like coconut. And the rule of fat of, of thumb is really that nature doesn't make bad fats. So if it comes out of nature, you're okay. Butter's okay. Cream's okay. You know, it's just that you've got to be careful because of calories and calories do matter. So I did that and I also really cut back on my sugar intake and processed food intake. And what happened was I lost like 50 pounds. I started feeling better and I was like, well, I must be on to something, and for me as a doctor, like we're lifelong learners, right? All we do is learn, right? We've got continuing medical education. We love to go to conferences. I mean, it's just kind of our culture. And so when menopause became this, you know, really big problem for me, I just went to look for a course. I was like, well, where's the menopause course. And I couldn't find one. I found a whole bunch of disjointed, weird, like conflicting information. I said, well, how can I synthesize this into something that makes sense? And so that's, that's what I did for me. And the other thing I have to say is that we get zero nutrition training in medical school. And what we put in our mouths is the number one thing that's going to determine how we feel without question. And so it's really important for us to pay attention to that. And remember The convenience foods, the fast foods, number one, they're all made with those terrible oils. And number two, they're created for not, not for your health, but for profit. So they're created to make you want more of them. And they're going to contribute to your inflammation and make you feel worse. And so those are two things that you can kind of do right now to help you, especially if you're feeling crappy or if you're in menopause, you're having hot flashes all the time. You know, there are a few foods that do contribute to hot flashes like, like cheese, especially cheddar cheese, red wine, and chocolate. Those things are going to create more hot flashes. We don't really know why. We don't understand the mechanism of the vasomotor symptoms that happen in menopause, but we do know that there are some foods that can trigger them. So when you pay attention to that, you know, I just, I still get hot flashes sometimes and, and I eat, I eat a lot of unsweetened chocolate. Like I'll put it in my shakes and stuff. And I'm like, okay, well. That's, you know, that's a trade off because I like the dopamine hit that comes with it.

Kerry: 16:16

Excuse me. Yes. So you also mentioned that you were a coach, right? Health coach. So how do you intertwine that into how you serve people now?

Michelle: 16:25

So I'm a certified integrated change worker, which means that I can help you change your mind, change your brain at a subconscious level. And how I integrate that is I basically say, you know, what do you want to change today? And, and I help you like look at it from a different perspective in a way that makes it make more sense. And it really works. These, these techniques really, really work because they work on the subconscious mind, which is the, I'm trying to think of an analogy. if the DNA, right, is what codes how we look. Then the subconscious mind is what codes our behavior and it comes from beliefs that we create as children, most of it. So we create all of our, all of our core beliefs up until the age of seven or eight or so. And the way we create change in our lives is to kind of challenge those core beliefs, and you're in Florida, that's part of the Bible belt. And so there's a lot of core beliefs about religion. And for me, I was raised in Southeastern Washington state, which is the Bible belt of Washington. I mean, of the, of the Northeast there was a church on every corner and I was raised as Catholic, but I kind of went to a more evangelical Protestant kind of belief when I was in high school. And I started challenging some of those beliefs just to see, you know, like, what if this, what if it's this? And I moved to a more spirituality kind of understanding, which made everything make more sense for me. But that's just an example. there's all sorts of things like when you think about just like core beliefs that we have boys don't cry, girls don't play with trucks. Similar, you know, these are the little things that We pass on to our kids. We don't even think about it.

Kerry: 18:20

Yeah, those are really good points too. What you've also, you know, kind of talked about how like mindset is everything. And it might be going along kind of what you're saying right now, but can you give me an example where you kind of changed your mindset and had a profound impact on your life and career?

Michelle: 18:37

Well for me, the biggest mindset shift I've had in the last say five years is that suffering is optional. So an event happens, the event is neutral. It's not good or bad. It's just a thing, right? It can feel really bad. Like I've got a flat tire. Or I got in a car wreck, right? It can feel really bad, but the event itself is neutral. It's when I put the meaning on the event is when I start to suffer. So if I decide that this event is going to be something that's going to cause me suffering, then I get to suffer. How, how can I reframe it to say, what is the opportunity in this? Which is one of my questions I ask all the time or even quicker for me and better is How can this positively affect my life? so for example when I was a resident I had a bunch of Christmas presents for my son that were in my Car and I was in Far Rockaway, Queens and I didn't cover it. And so somebody broke my window and took everything And I went back to my son and I said, well, I'm going to buy you more Christmas presents, but somebody else needed them more than I did more than we did. And just let it go.

Kerry: 19:52

Yeah, definitely like the way that you interpret a situation and how you think about it is kind of what you're saying. It's like super important and how to move forward from it. There's what is that move? I think. I don't know if it's Miracle Morning book, but like you get like a five minutes to whine about it and then you move on and

Michelle: 20:10

Hal Elrod.

Kerry: 20:12

that's,

Michelle: 20:12

Yeah. Hal Elrod says that he'll give himself five minutes to complain to himself about something. And then he just moves on. He wrote the miracle morning.

Kerry: 20:20

Mm hmm. But I definitely like that. And then I mean, speaking of other books and stuff, I mean, I think you talked about like incrementally changing things in people's lives or habits, right? I didn't know if that was like referencing atomic habits or something

Michelle: 20:34

Well, it's not really atomic habits, it comes from the, this incremental change really comes from the sports world and it comes from the UCLA Bruins and I, sorry, I can't remember the name of the coach, but what happens when we decide to make a change in our lives is oftentimes we'll say, okay, I'm going to lose weight. And that means that I'm going to not eat this and not eat that and not eat that. And then what happens is the only thing you think about are the things you can't have. So. What I like to say is that when you have this all or nothing thinking you can only rely on your willpower and willpower is like a battery and it wears out and you give in and then once you give in it's like ah forget it doesn't matter I'm going to eat whatever I want and that's how we get into these cycles of gain and loss and gain and loss and so if you're like me you've gained and lost the same 20 pounds 25 times and it's frustrating you. And so what I found was that, how can I just beat yesterday? I don't have to compare myself to who I was when I was 18. I'll never have that body again. That body never created a human. That body never had, you know, some of the surgeries I've had. It's never gone through a lot of the things that I've gone through. And so, To try to compare myself to my high school self or my 25 or 30 year old self doesn't make any sense. Can I beat yesterday? So it takes all the pressure off. So 1 percent improvements if you're walking 10 minutes a day, say, I love this analogy because it makes so much sense. If all you need to do is improve 1 percent every week, right? If you're walking 10 minutes a day, that's 6 seconds the next week. That's a 1 percent improvement. And 1 percent improvements, they add up, they

Kerry: 22:18

Mm hmm

Michelle: 22:19

they stack. And so that, that's how I live my life now. It's like, can I just. Can I just beat yesterday? Can I just do a little bit more? can I do a couple more steps or can I lift a little bit heavier or can I, you know, be a little more careful with what I choose to eat, that sort of thing. and once those become habits, then you can focus on something else. You can create a new skill and any skill that you have, you can always end up monetizing it if you want at the end. So a lot of times we hold ourselves back because we're saying, well, when I get this, I'm going to feel this way. Or when I do this, then I'm going to make this choice. And at the end of the day, you never arrive. I mean, I remember when I finished residency and I started my surgical practice and I was making 360, 000 a year, which was a lot more than I was making in residency, I was sitting in my office. I was like, I'm supposed to be happy. Why am I not happy? Because happiness is a choice. Happiness is not something that you get when you reach a goal. You reach a goal because you want to strive to things, not because you want to be happy.

Kerry: 23:30

No, I like that example a lot, actually, that's really good. I think that sometimes you mentioned like restricting and things like that. Sometimes I like to say, let's add this back in too, right? So you're not always like feeling deprived of things like, okay, well, you're not eating like any vegetables. Why don't we add something in and make things a little bit more healthy or just one thing at a time or something like that too, and like you were saying just maybe just lay out your clothes today. Tomorrow you actually go for the walk. I don't know, but I like that 1 percent improvement. That's really

Michelle: 24:01

I'll tell you when I got myself back into exercise after not exercising for a long time and, and you can imagine surgical residency is hard. I mean, any, most residencies are really hard. Surgical residency is one of the most difficult because we have to take a lot of call and then, you know, there's the standing in the OR and then the demoralizing of the way that the attendings treat us and so when I decided that to choose myself and start to take back control of my life and to try to feel like myself again, I realized that part of that was going to be exercise. And so I told myself, well, how, how am I going to do this? How am I going to exercise and feel okay about it and not feel like I'm losing if I don't. And so the actual thing was, all I have to do is put on my exercise clothes and that's my win. Right. So I started doing that and then I found that I would start to move more and just by wearing the right clothes, I would get up and move and that, that really helped. And so sometimes the goal has to be so small that it's like, I'm just going to put my shoes on or I'm just going to step on the treadmill and I'm just going to go for one minute. And if that's all I do, if I still feel like shit afterwards, okay, no problem. I'll stop.

Kerry: 25:19

I definitely like that approach, just kind of you know, whatever it is, starting with getting out the door or anything like that. That's good. Well, what, what else would you like to share with our audience? Like about what you do or anything else?

Michelle: 25:31

Well, I mean, I'm available for consultations. You can go to my website, Dr. Michelle Gordon dot com and you can sign up for a consultation. It's a$50 fee to consult with me. And then if you're offered a position in either the coaching or the medical practice there's an additional fee for that. But I like to meet with people because maybe the best thing for you is just to take my mental system, so you can build your own transition plan or maybe the best thing for you is a drug. But the only way to know that is to meet with me and talk.

Kerry: 26:05

And you do medical weight management treatments and you're licensed in Florida,

Michelle: 26:10

Yes, I do medical weight management. I do lifestyle medicine. I can do hormone therapy. So yeah,

Kerry: 26:17

And how do people find you? You said go to

Michelle: 26:19

Dr Michelle Gordon.com if you want to call me you can call me. It's area code 9 1 4 4 2 0 8 4 2 0

Kerry: 26:27

So surgeon turned lifestyle and obesity medicine doctor. That's great. I mean, I'm bored in an obesity as well. So we do a lot of that. And I think it's great because more people, you know, we need more people to treat everybody. So I think that's fantastic.

Michelle: 26:42

Well, that was a hard test. Let me tell you,

Kerry: 26:44

a hard

Michelle: 26:45

that was a hard, I mean, especially for somebody who doesn't understand medicine that well, like, surgeons don't do a lot of medicine. And so I had to really, I had to really study and I wasn't even sure. I mean, that was a hard test. After my last recertification for surgery, that was like, oh my God, I can't believe it. I was so excited that I passed that test.

Kerry: 27:04

It's a four hour test, right?

Michelle: 27:06

Oh gosh, yeah. I think I took three hours to do it. It was like four, four sections of 50 questions. It was rough.

Kerry: 27:12

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if people understand that, but it is a big, a big deal and a big, you know, thing that we're learning. And I know you mentioned that we don't learn any nutrition in med school, but I do think that lifestyle medicine and obesity medicine, if you can find a physician that has those qualifications, I think they'll be able to help you a lot more, obviously.

Michelle: 27:33

Right. I mean, I think, I think that with lifestyle medicine certification there are some things about it I don't necessarily agree with. Like, I don't think you have to not eat meat. They like the whole food plant based diet, which I think is great. The problem is the convenience foods that come with that. Like I would never eat a Beyond Burger. I would never eat a Beyond Burger because of what's in it. And so I think we have to be really, really careful. And I mean, I don't have anything against tofu, but I, I just, I like chicken and I don't have a problem with it. I feel better when I eat meat and that's just me. So I'm never going to tell somebody not to eat, you know, meat. But I mean, I know that there are some ethical considerations and whatnot, but I just, at the end of the day, I don't care. And if you want to eat vegetarian, I'll help you. If you want to eat vegan, I'll help you, but we're going to help you to do it in a, like, really healthy

Kerry: 28:23

Clean. Yeah. Clean.

Michelle: 28:25

it's really hard. I mean, come on, you know, have you ever had any of that cheese with a Z? it's made cheese with a Z, so it's a

Kerry: 28:33

Oh, no.

Michelle: 28:34

stuff's not good.

Kerry: 28:35

the reason why I haven't bothered with getting lifestyle medicine boarded is for the same way that you're describing it now. I think it's a lot of crossover and then they really push plant based and I, I'm like you, I believe whatever a patient wants to do, I'm going to support them in doing. And I just, I didn't feel like I needed an extra board certification and test to tell me that. So I think, yeah, whatever, You know, diet or lifestyle plan that they choose is what I support them in, as long as it's sustainable.

Michelle: 29:06

And you can, you can, I mean, I just think the main thing is to help people choose,

Kerry: 29:10

Mm hmm.

Michelle: 29:10

find out what they want and then really figure out how it is they're feeling because that's the number one thing. Like if you're, if you're eating a certain way and you feel like crap, you're not going to want to continue that. But oftentimes we don't even know that it's our diet. When I get people to stop eating as much sugar. They start finding a lot more energy and I'm not saying don't eat sweets, that's never ever it. The problem is our pancreas never gets a rest because of the way our diet is, is built. But what I find is that just, The energy just comes back and that's one of the biggest complaints is that you know the brain fog Sleepless nights and lack of energy that comes with menopause is it's it's crazy And we can really manage that with what we choose to put in our mouths.

Kerry: 29:57

Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, you make a good point too. I mean, also like with the visceral fat around the stomach, it's like kind of what you were describing that happens more in menopause as well. You know, avoiding that sugar can be helpful, but you know, like you were saying, you can still have it. It's just a matter of moderation and

Michelle: 30:15

We have to learn mindfulness

Kerry: 30:17

Yes, exactly. There's so much more. I'm sure that we could dive into on all of these things. Maybe we can have you back on the podcast.

Michelle: 30:25

And I'd love to be back.

Kerry: 30:27

Okay. Well, anyway, thank you for coming on. And you said drmichellegordon. com, right?

Michelle: 30:32

DrMichelleGordon. com with

Kerry: 30:34

Pretty easy. Okay. Pretty easy to find you there. We'll put all that in the show notes

Michelle: 30:38

I appreciate that.

Kerry: 30:39

Awesome. All right. Well, thank you everybody for listening and tuning in today and make sure to stay tuned in for next week.

Michelle: 30:47

Yay

Kerry: 30:48

Thank you.

Michelle: 30:49

Thanks for having me