Nikki Cheak (00:02.38)
So today my friends, I am going to share a story with you. And it might seem a little relatable, just maybe not in the way that you think it's relatable. So this past weekend, we were down in the basement, my husband and I were working out, and we were just talking about like where we could potentially move things to make a little bit more room. So I walked into my storage room and I looked down and I see water everywhere. And we have a bathroom down there and
the toilet had leaked, but we thought, you know, it was just a one and done. And we thought we had fixed it. And it turns out it had been leaking a lot. And so we had to clear everything out. We had to move everything around. And then we had to go to the bathroom, pull out the baseboards, pull out the toilet. We're to pull out the vanity and we start to see and uncover all of these problems.
And this weekend, then we thought we were done, without everything was good. And I went to go clean up some things on like the living side of the bathroom where the carpet is and noticed that the carpet was wet and the padding was wet. And so we had to pull out carpet and we had to pull out the padding. And I was like, my gosh, I can't even deal with this right now. This is so much. And so here's what I want you to hear.
Right? This toilet leak didn't just start out of nowhere, right? It didn't just like automatically flood our basement. It started as a slow leak. And it was one of these things that was like, I just don't have time to deal with this right now, right? We've got three kids, we're super busy. I didn't have time to go deal with it. And so honestly, we forgot about it because we don't use that bathroom that much. And so it was, you know, it was never really just about the toilet. It was like everything, right? And this is what-
cortisol is actually doing in your body because you're just quietly being drained when you're doing too much, right? Or when you think you're doing too much. And what happens is you're actually functioning on like zero reserves, right? And so you have the blood sugar crashes and the skipped meals and the stress and the late night wine and the 5 a.m. alarm. And that leak never stops because your cortisol is always in this fight or flight mode. And so
Nikki Cheak (02:31.468)
you're left to think that you're just exhausted all the time when really you've just been mopping up symptoms with craving, fatigue, sleep issues, but you never really turned off the valve on the cortisol leak. Okay, so today I wanna talk a little bit about what cortisol is, like we hear about it, right? It's one of these things that it's kind of like a buzzword right now, but it is so important.
and we hear about it, it's your stress hormone, and you have to manage it. But what does that actually mean? And why should you care? Because you're just trying to honestly make it through carpool or make it through the rest of the summer like me without losing your mind. And so I wanna break down what cortisol actually does for you so that you can understand how that you can manage it in a way that is going to work with your life as a mom who has a million things going on.
And I want to help you do that. And so let's talk about what cortisol is and what it actually does. So cortisol is your built in fire alarm. Okay. It, when your brain senses the stress, whether that's your screaming toddler or you skip breakfast, or you have an argument with your teenager, your cortisol kicks in. Okay. It mobilizes energy to help you handle the problem, to help you handle that alarm.
The problem is that most of us are just living in this constant stress loop, okay? And we were never meant to stay on all the time. So cortisol also keeps your blood sugar stable between meals. And if you're not eating enough, okay, and I want you to hear this, like if you're not eating enough food and you're skipping meals or you're not getting enough protein, cortisol is going to...
that stored glucose from your bloodstream to keep you going. Okay, and so if you're relying on this too often, you're gonna stay in this fat storing state. Okay, so if you're skipping your meals, that's a cortisol problem. If you're only having coffee for breakfast, it's gonna go to cortisol. If you wake up, or if you're crashing at three o'clock, your blood sugar's gonna tank and your cortisol is doing that damage control. Okay, so then it's impacting your belly fat, right?
Nikki Cheak (04:52.748)
So when your cortisol is chronically high or totally dysregulated, your body's gonna hold onto that fat. And especially like if you're in perimenopause, it's going to hold onto that fat in the midsection because it thinks you're under a threat. So when you say, swear, like my belly just came out of nowhere, this is exactly what we're talking about, right? It's that stress. And all of a sudden when you hit that perimenopausal stage, it starts to multiply, okay?
And then cortisol is also going to, if it's not regulated, it's going to disrupt your sleep cycle. And cortisol and melatonin work kind of like a seesaw. Remember those seesaws from when you were in grade school and you tried to pop everybody off? Cortisol and melatonin kind of work like that together. And if your cortisol is elevated at night, so it could be from sugar, it could be from wine, it could be from blue light, it could be from overthinking.
then your melatonin can't rise. Melatonin is what is actually produced naturally in our systems. And so when your melatonin can't rise, then that means your cortisol is like trying to do the work and then your melatonin is tanking. And so at some point, know, it's gonna like, your cortisol is just gonna crash. And so it means you like usually can't fall asleep or you're waking up at 2 a.m. Like somebody just like rang a doorbell, right? On your alarm clock and you're like, 2 a.m. Ding!
Like I'm awake, right? And it's not that you're not lazy, right? It's not that you want to do these things, but you're exhausted and you can't get the rest that you need because your body is stuck in that fight or flight system. And then the other thing that cortisol does is it creates cravings, It's gonna create these cravings that you think are like, my gosh, I need to go have this thing. But it triggers your rise in insulin.
which then triggers your drop in your blood sugar. And then your brain's like, my gosh, we need something quick, quick. Like give me anything, right? Like, and that's when you go and you're going to the pantry and you're staring and you're like, give me the chips, give me the chocolate, give me, know, like if you're at night, you're like, give me a glass of wine, I just need a glass of wine. And then you're like in this super cyclical situation of like your blood sugar crashing and your cortisol is just stuck in that firefly and it's like, my gosh.
Nikki Cheak (07:18.146)
Your body is like, what did I just do to myself? So here's the thing. This is what a lot of people are not talking about right now. And especially as a mom in perimenopause who is dealing with this and figured out how to make it work for myself so that I'm not stuck in this fight or flight stage anymore. You can eat clean, you can eat healthy. You can track your food, you can work out five days a week. But if your cortisol is all jacked up, your body is not going to let go of that.
because it's not in healing mode, it's in survival mode. And it doesn't respond to being like this perfect little army, right? Cortisol doesn't respond to that. It responds to consistency. So if that's making sure that you're working from getting your protein in the morning and doing your workouts and finding a way to manage that stress, if you're doing those things, that's what's gonna help manage your cortisol. And so you've gotta find a way to figure out
how to do that. And what I want you to do this week is I want you to do a little like plug the leak. Okay. I want you to plug the week and do like a little mini challenge. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to eat within one to two hours of waking up. And yes, I do coach intermittent fasting. I want you to know that. However, if your body is stuck in this fight or flight mode, you've got to heal that first. And so I want you to eat within one to two hours of waking up.
And that needs to be protein, it needs to be healthy fats, and it needs to be fiber, okay? So what that looks like for me most days is you're going to do, sometimes I'll do eggs and cottage cheese with some fruit, and I always do my protein coffee. Today I had chia seed, warm chia seed pudding, and it had chia seeds, which are good protein and a good source of fat.
It had almond butter and it also, excuse me, it also had some milk and protein powder, right? So things, and that took me five minutes. So it's something that you have to do and you have to make sure that you're doing it well. And so eating and making sure that you're getting the protein, the healthy fats and the fiber, non-negotiable in the morning, okay guys? And then if you are hungry around three o'clock, make sure that you're having a little snack.
Nikki Cheak (09:44.364)
right, so that you're not crashing. So that would be, again, protein and a healthy fat. So you could do a turkey and avocado or a hard boiled egg and an apple, but you've got to figure out what that looks like for you. And then I want you to make sure that you're cutting off your sugar and your wine after seven o'clock, right? I want you to, this doesn't have to be a forever thing, but you'll notice a difference. And I definitely want you to do it for three days and watch what happens. So I don't want you eating less.
I actually want you eating more because it's going to be smarter for your hormones and you've got to figure out what that right balance is for you. So if you're listening to me and you're like, yeah, I just realized this is totally me. There's a couple of things that will help you that you can do. One is, I have this cortisol quiz. It is a two minute quiz that is going to help you figure out where you are on the spectrum of needing help to manage your cortisol. So you could be,
the steady struggleer, you could be the strong one, or you could be the overload operator, which was where I was. And these things will give you specific actions that you can take to go ahead and help start the healing of these hormones so that you can lose the fat. Okay, and the next thing is, like, if you're ready to just go all in, the six week reset is where we stop trying to just mop up the symptoms and actually start time.
start fixing the source of them, okay? It's gonna be built around food and smarter movement and cortisol friendly strategies that are going to work even when you're going back to school and your life is completely chaotic. I know that for me, this year is going to be nuts, especially in the fall, and I am looking forward to continuing with all the things that I've been doing to help manage my cortisol so that I can continue with that fat loss. So.
I will drop both the reset and the cortisol quiz in the show notes. I would love for you to check them out, see what resonates, okay? See where you can take the first step to help you. And next week, we are going to talk more about cortisol, how the myths out there around it, and how you can do just a couple of things every single day to help you managing it even better. So until then, have a great week, and I will talk to you soon.
