Dr. Amanda Tracy Talks: How to Thrive in Perimenopause & Menopause

In this episode, Mic engages in a dynamic conversation with Dr. Amanda Tracy, delving into holistic health and focusing on the intricate phases of menopause and perimenopause. Dr. Tracy candidly shares her journey in the realm of women's hormonal health, unraveling the nuances between menopause and the often-overlooked yet crucial stage of perimenopause. Tune in as she explores nutrition's pivotal role, gut health's impact on hormonal balance, and her unique approach to decoding hormone archetypes. Wrapping up the discussion, Dr. Tracy emphasizes the significance of not merely enduring perimenopausal symptoms but actively seeking guidance and adopting a comprehensive approach to well-being that seamlessly blends Western and holistic medicine. Whether embarking on your hormonal health journey or supporting someone through menopause, Dr. Tracy provides invaluable insights and practical advice to navigate this transformative phase gracefully.

Takeaways

• Addressing perimenopause symptoms early can make the menopause transition easier and shorter.
• Nutrition plays a crucial role in hormone balance; certain foods can help or hinder hormone production.
• Gut health and digestive changes are common during perimenopause, and addressing gut issues can improve overall health.
• Dr. Tracy takes a personalized approach to hormone balance, considering individual hormone archetypes and lifestyle factors.
• Recognizing red flags and seeking medical help is important to ensure any abnormal symptoms are properly addressed.
• Dr. Tracy's practice offers a six-month membership program with comprehensive testing and personalized treatment plans.

Learn more about Dr. Tracy’s practice at www.dramandatracy.com
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn @amandatracynd

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Transcript

Mic (00:01.815)
Welcome Dr. Amanda Tracy to our show. Hey Amanda, how are you?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (00:07.942)
I'm wonderful, I'm happy to be here.

Mic (00:10.271)
Thank you so much for being here at the Kindling Projects. So Amanda, you take a holistic approach to menopause and perimenopause and you help women master their metabolism so they can reclaim their body, mind and mojo. I love that. I mean so needed. I mean I checked out your website honestly Amanda and I felt like how does she get in my head?

you say something like, do you ever feel irritable or anxious or do you have trouble sleeping and wake up during the night? Do you forget things? Do you have brain fog? Are you gaining weight? Not loving how you feel? I'm like, girl, she is living my life. How does she get in my world?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (00:50.51)
Yeah, I love working with women going through hormone changes and all of the symptoms that causes. And I've been practicing for 18 years actually. At this recording yesterday was my practice's 18th birthday, I realized. Thank you. So I think part of it is seeing so many women over the years of going through these symptoms and then my own hormone journey myself.

Mic (00:58.255)
Yeah.

Mic (01:06.651)
Congratulations, congratulations.

Mic (01:13.371)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (01:19.387)
So wait a minute, how did you celebrate 18 years? That's not nothing girl, that's a lot. That's amazing, congratulations.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (01:26.626)
Thank you. It just kind of funny, the date popped into my head and I realized, oh wow, this was the date that I first saw my first patient in private practice 18 years ago. And I really celebrated really by just marking the moment and thinking of how my practice has evolved over the years and how things have changed and thinking about...

putting myself in that space of 18 years ago and what I thought it was going to look like and what my vision was and then what I'm doing today and how it's similar and how it's different. So it was a good point for reflection.

Mic (01:51.123)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (01:58.103)
Yeah. So take me back. Yeah. Take me back. What's happening. 18. What's Amanda look like and feel like 18 years ago.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (02:06.951)
Well, I was so excited to start my practice. I just graduated naturopathic medical school after doing undergrad, and I decided to go back to Massachusetts and start my practice there. And I really wanted a holistic general practice focused on women's health, but I would see all sorts of patients. There weren't many naturopathic doctors in the area at the time, so I was really kind of like a family doctor for...

the area I was in, but always focusing on women's health issues because of my own interests and health history. And I really was waiting or feeling like my specialty would speak to me. Because after years of practicing, some doctors would say, oh, I started seeing all these patients with this condition and I decided to prioritize and focus on that. And I really, I think one of the struggles for me was I'm not really interested in disease.

Mic (02:39.728)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (02:59.818)
I'm not interested in how the body breaks down. I'm not interested in infections and things like that. And even as a doctor, I'm interested in healing and helping the body balance itself and helping the body heal itself. But because I wasn't necessarily interested in any disease, I thought I wouldn't have a specialty when I started my practice. And then I realized that my specialty was women's hormones and health. It's not a disease, even though...

Mic (03:00.083)
Hmm.

Mic (03:06.649)
Okay.

Mic (03:19.173)
Oh, that's interesting.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (03:27.83)
conventional medicine treats women that they have an inherent disease often because they have cycles. It's not a disease. It's a natural part of life and helping women manage those changes and balance things so that they feel their best is really my niche. And so it was wonderful when that kind of like revealed itself over a few years.

Mic (03:32.076)
Yes, yes.

Mic (03:48.035)
Oh my gosh, so I'm curious, we at The Killing Project, we're always talking about the little inner fire inside of us and that a lot of that fire really begins when we're young, like at a very young age. Did you ever, did you always want to go into medicine?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (04:02.654)
I was always interested in science and didn't have much exposure to medicine. Luckily, everyone in my family was pretty healthy. We went to the doctor once a year, but that's about it. I didn't really have much introduction into that world, into the medical world. But when you're interested in science, and then I became interested in nutrition because I started becoming vegetarian at an early age and educating myself on nutrition, that's sort of where...

Mic (04:04.455)
Uh-huh.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (04:31.926)
the medicine came in. I decided to do biochemistry in undergrad and thought maybe I would do research. But then I really wanted to work with people, so that led to finding naturopathic medicine.

Mic (04:41.303)
Yeah. Oh, you're already a brainiac. My son who's 20, he's a junior at U of M and he's also doing like undergrad for towards medicine route. And he already comes home with some of the classes. I'm like, what are you learning? And he starts talking. I'm like, yeah, you lost me. I swear that kid, I don't know how the brain works for y'all. Because for me, it's like, huh? I just, you know, that it's so incredible to me the way a scientist really how you love that. That's incredible. So,

I think that what I love about you the most is that you lean into this curiosity of wanting to heal people.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (05:21.93)
I really love to solve problems and figure out how things work. And I think I have a little bit of that engineering mind too. So using the scientific method and trying to answer problems is one way that I like to think. But then I also like to take a step back and look at the whole picture and look at it.

Mic (05:23.783)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (05:34.436)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (05:41.214)
I think maybe that's a little bit why I'm not technically interested in infections or diseases in that way, because it's so specific and just looking at one part. Even though I'm practicing specializing in perimenopause and menopause, I deal with so many things outside of hormones in a holistic way. It's really interesting to put all the pieces together.

Mic (05:45.075)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (05:58.975)
Yeah. That's so great. Okay, so let's dive in a little bit about what you're doing on daily basis. So can we just, let's just take it back a little bit. Can you just define menopause, perimenopause, what's happening, what's going on? Tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (06:17.582)
Sure. So menopause technically is only one day of your life. Everyone's always shocked by that. Medically, medically menopause is the day that it's been a year since your last period. So we use the term menopause to describe sort of a whole process, but really it's just one day of your life. And before that, it's pre-menopause or perimenopause or after that it's post-menopause.

Mic (06:22.244)
What?

Mic (06:25.636)
What? Tell me more.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (06:48.022)
That one day that's a year since your last period is technically the pause. And then after that is post-menopause. But we tend to just talk about that just as menopause in general. You know, we're talking like in the public. And before that it's perimenopause. And perimenopause is what I really love to work with women on because that is all of the subtle changes that start happening years before menopause.

Mic (07:02.14)
Uh-huh.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (07:14.898)
So it's even years before you might notice a change in your periods or missing periods or hot flashes. In perimenopause, we start to almost go through a process of reverse puberty. So our ovaries start to respond differently to the brain and we start to produce a little less progesterone every month. That is a hormone that helps us feel calm and helps us sleep and

Mic (07:34.039)
Okay.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (07:41.482)
prevents water retention. So there's a few years where we're producing less progesterone. So we start to become lighter sleepers, a little more irritable more easily, more water retention or bloating. So those can be like small signs that add up gradually, usually in our mid-40s. Then,

Mic (07:47.975)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (07:59.235)
Okay. So, all right. So, so I'm still, I'm not gonna lie. I'm still talking, thinking about that one day. It's just one day. That's interesting. Okay. So then you're saying what I've been feeling myself, I'm going, I guess I'm already past menopause then because I've hit my one year mark. I don't know if I should be, should I be celebrating that? Because it feels like it does this ever end? Does the cycle ever end?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (08:06.668)
Okay.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (08:24.434)
It eventually settles out. So that year, so looking for you being a year plus past your last period, your body is still cycling some hormones. Our hormones come from our ovaries, our adrenal glands, and our fat cells. So your brain is still trying to get things in motion and cycle. So you are releasing hormones from different areas of your body, just usually not your ovaries as much anymore. And that can cause other symptoms because

our fat cells and adrenals aren't used to being on that cycle. So they're kind of erratic. So you're producing estrogen at random times, maybe some progesterone, and that can cause things like skin changes and hot flashes and trouble sleeping and some of the things we think of as menopause. But eventually the brain figures it out and stops trying to create a cycle. Usually that could be anywhere between 18 months or three years.

Mic (09:05.82)
Hmm

Dr. Amanda Tracy (09:19.078)
after your last period, and then things kind of settle out and you have a more consistent level of hormones and then less symptoms. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel for that.

Mic (09:26.699)
Okay. So gosh, I can take this in so many directions, but I really do want to backtrack a little bit here. Your focus on those mid forties women who are just starting to have those signs. I think from our conversation, you are trying to really hone in on this and lean on this phase. Is that correct?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (09:50.802)
Yes, and that's how I started to see it in practice. I wasn't necessarily talking about perimenopause much earlier in my practice, but I was talking about women's health and hormones and things that happen with our periods. And I noticed I was seeing a lot of women between the ages of 43 and 48 for a holistic approach to a lot of their symptoms, like trouble sleeping, being more irritable, feeling more stress, maybe weight gain, even though their diet or exercise didn't change.

And through years of practice, realizing that this was all a collection of perimenopause, but we're told to think of menopause as hot flashes in your 50s, and that's it. And maybe, you know, maybe not having your beard anymore. So starting to see more women struggling in perimenopause, particularly Gen X women because of some of their lifestyle factors too. They're having children a little later. So.

Mic (10:30.038)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (10:46.818)
years past when women were in their mid-40s and going through these changes, they didn't have as many demands on their lifestyle. Their children were older and out of the house, but Gen X women, they might have younger kids that need more attention and more effort and physical work in their 40s. So it was creating this situation, never mind also working outside of the home too, for many women. It was creating a situation for this generation that was...

Mic (11:02.053)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (11:12.466)
amplifying all the symptoms of perimenopause. And that's why I started seeing so many women for all these symptoms.

Mic (11:19.059)
Okay, but Dr. Tracy, I think there's a disconnect here. I hear what you're saying, but no one ever talked to me about this. I would have loved to have known that this should have been talked about in my 40s versus when to your point, I'm waking up in the middle of night with my sweat angels going, oh, MG, what's happening to my body? So why aren't more...

women? Why is it society? Is it, are the, are this medicine failing us and not communicating? Are women carrying a team of shame and not having conversations about it? Where's, why is there such a disconnect?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (11:55.454)
I think there's a lot of factors playing into it. One is that medicine dropped the ball a little bit, conventional medicine, partly because these symptoms don't have a direct drug or surgery treatment. So it's not an easy fix. And when you have a five or seven minute yearly appointment with your doctor, they don't necessarily have the time to dive into your sleep patterns and how you're eating and your lifestyle that may be triggering anxiety or irritability.

Mic (12:04.155)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (12:11.286)
Mmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (12:25.334)
there's just not enough time in conventional medicine. Then there's also, this is part of the aging process for women and society has told us that we're not supposed to be aging or if we age, we're invisible. So, I mean, depending on how you feel about that or how comfortable you are as a woman going through this process, you may not speak about it. And then also because the menopause conversation has started and

Mic (12:35.752)
Mmm.

Mic (12:46.509)
Mmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (12:53.33)
And more recently, the past few years too, there's been a lot more conversation about menopause at work and menopause in our lifestyle. But again, it is focused on that post-menopause part and not necessarily the part leading up to menopause.

Mic (13:07.795)
Right. So you really are trying to build a business in helping women navigate through this process from early on, like early onset, I guess, symptoms, if you will.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (13:20.862)
Right. And studies have shown that the healthier you are in perimenopause and the more balanced your hormones are, the easier the menopause transition is, and the shorter it is. Like I said, that could be 18 months of feeling the hormones out of whack, or it could be three years or five years. So by addressing perimenopause, it not only helps you feel better for years leading up to menopause, but it makes the transition easier for your body.

Mic (13:31.225)
Mm.

Mic (13:47.699)
Yeah. And now you're dealing with a lot of women and I assume like all women, one size doesn't fit all. We're all very different. And hence is that why you decided to do this very boutique like business where you are, it's a very specialty one-on-one working with your clients.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (14:06.906)
Yes. I mean, I think that's really the reason to use naturopathic and holistic medicine in looking at perimenopause because there isn't a one size fits all solution. Every woman's symptoms are different and there are different severity and different scale and, you know, last for a different amount of time. So I really feel like working one-on-one with a practitioner that is going to look into all the aspects of your health is the way to do it. And I know from a business standpoint

somewhat always told to make it scalable and make it fit more people. But I don't feel like my medicine can fit that model. I do work with women in group programs, but at the same time, we still have breakout one-on-one sessions where I'm able to work with them individually too. I think that that's the best way to approach perimenopause because it can be somewhat confusing if you're trying to just fit all inside like one sort of box.

Mic (14:38.554)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (15:04.771)
Hmm. Yeah, for sure. And okay, so women come to you and are hopefully you're catching them early. I think that's really important. I think that's definitely a takeaway for our listeners out there who are maybe in their forties to start paying attention and don't wait. Don't make the mistake I did personally, where I got to the point where I showed up in my doctor's office going, this is happening. And she literally said, Oh,

Don't worry about it. Just write it out." I was like, seriously? Write it out? Like that was the answer? That can't be the answer. And the more I started talking with other women, they were getting the same messages from traditional doctors. And so I started thinking, heck no. How is this possible that this is the messaging we're getting? It was very dismissive. I felt that way anyway. Like, eh, women have been doing this forever.

you'll get over it eventually. Eventually it feels like a long time and now I'm hearing from you, it could be years. And if there's an alternative way to handle this and to your point, address it early and make some small lifestyle changes to improve the process and even shorten it, I'm all in. So I'm hoping the younger listeners will heed your advice here. Can we talk a little bit about food?

how that impacts our diet impacts what's happening with our bodies.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (16:25.022)
Yeah, there's lots of things that nutrition can do to help and hinder your hormones. So one of the things, the patterns that I see often in practice is women are under chronic stress and especially that builds up by the time that they're in their 40s. And there are some foods that can amplify the stress signal in the body, such as caffeine and sugar. So one of the things we look at is like, besides healing the stress system is looking at if...

Mic (16:30.267)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (16:54.53)
there's too much caffeine or sugar at different times of the day that are amplifying stress signals and looking at replacing those things with protein and complex carbohydrates, like whole grains and beans and nuts and seeds that will help like temper the stress signals and help your body in between meals to not feel as stressed. There's also foods that we can use to help.

make more hormones. So one of the things I help women with in practice is figuring out their hormone profile with lab testing and looking at their symptoms and seeing kind of like their hormone archetype, I call it, and what we can use to amplify that at certain times we want to or, you know, temper it or modify it. There are lots of foods that help you to.

Mic (17:20.679)
Mmm.

Mic (17:29.653)
Oh.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (17:40.81)
make a little bit more estrogen if you need to, like if you're postmenopause and you're trying to balance out your estrogen levels, you can use organic tofu or tempeh or edamame, or ground flax seeds or hemp seeds. All of those things have phytoestrogens in them, which technically don't have estrogen, but they help your cells feel like estrogen levels are stable so that your cells don't freak out and start causing.

hot flashes and night sweats and anger episodes. So those are good things to have.

Mic (18:10.535)
Got it. Yeah, I love your you're sort of marrying these two things of like the science behind it and what's really happening in our lives like the craziness that we're like, oh my god, we're losing our minds. So I love how you're able to intersect both and give it to us in a really sensible advice. Because I've noticed personally that like

I now have a whole different gut sensitivity that I didn't have before. And like my ability to process food that I was always able to process feels different now. And I'm noticing that I do have to eliminate a lot of foods. Is that normal?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (18:46.79)
Well, yes, for all humans, men and women, our digestive process actually starts to slow down and change in our 40s. We start to have less stomach acid and less enzymes to break down food. And most people don't notice it immediately. They might just notice things like heartburn and digestion developing as they're getting closer to 50. But the more that you're not digesting some of that food earlier in digestion, it can cause more sensitivities further along your digestion. So...

Mic (18:49.991)
Uh huh.

Mic (18:54.137)
Okay.

Mic (19:04.268)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (19:13.718)
That's one of the things I help women with too, is rebuilding their gut and helping their digestive function improve so that they can tolerate more foods. Because a lot of the foods that do help with hormone balance are the more complex, protein-rich, high fiber foods, and they take a lot for the digestive system to break down.

Mic (19:35.911)
Hmm. Now you mentioned archetypes in your business. You've been doing this a while. How many types are there? Is that is that even a question? Can you really classify?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (19:48.015)
Well, I can, I have six that I work with. I'm sure you could take anything and expand it and make it more like that, but it more looks at the balance of hormones and what phase of life you're in. So there are some...

Mic (19:51.939)
Six. Okay.

Mic (19:57.659)
Yeah.

Mic (20:05.505)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (20:07.198)
Archetypes that are more predominant in perimenopause that have more to do with stress and those lowering levels of progesterone and the symptoms that those cause. And there are some that are more prevalent post-menopause that have to do with changing estrogen levels or maybe an imbalance of testosterone and estrogen because we kind of create consistent testosterone all of the time. But if we don't have the estrogen to balance it, it can cause other symptoms.

Mic (20:29.779)
Okay.

Got it. And you've mentioned stress like 10 times already here. And no surprise, we're talking about women trying to do it all. And just life is a stress. So it's not like you're trying to, you're not saying you're going to eliminate stress because that's impossible almost for so many women, but you're trying to work with their lifestyle and saying, this is why things are being heightened and your hormones are changing. So if we...

just tweak a few things here and there, but you really need access to your clients, meaning you need blood work, you need their diets. I assume that the onboarding process is quite significant.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (21:10.93)
It is. I mean, I do spend an hour, the initial visit, really going over woman's health history, recent history, family history, current symptoms, and collecting all the data. And then we do run a lot of tests. We can do blood tests, urine tests, or saliva tests because there's different hormones in different areas of the body will tell us different things. So some hormones, like thyroid hormone, is really good to test in blood.

Mic (21:37.235)
Okay.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (21:37.322)
estrogen not so much because it's changing all the time. So we might want to do a month long test of estrogen and urine to see if you're having a cycle or not. So it depends on the situation, what we're looking for in the test. But we do a lot of tests. And then I do spend another hour in the second visit reviewing the tests and fine tuning the initial treatment plan. And then we.

Mic (21:56.507)
Hmm. What's the investment in that? It's expensive to do this? I mean, I assume insurance doesn't cover this stuff.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (22:05.754)
Right. Insurance doesn't cover it mostly because insurance doesn't reimburse for the time that you spend with a patient. So having those two hours in that first month to really get to know each other and to do all the lab tests can be a bigger investment. But that's why when I start seeing women, I do a six month program because after we have that first month of the two visits and all the labs, we meet monthly for the next five months. And I price it as a membership so that the cost

Mic (22:12.262)
Mm.

Mic (22:31.731)
Okay.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (22:35.166)
is spread out equally over the six months instead of having someone pay thousands of dollars upfront the first month and have that investment right up front. So I spread it out over the six months, which helps to have women be able to afford it instead of like I said, doing all that hefty work in the beginning. We can afford to do the lab tests in the beginning, but...

Mic (22:41.689)
Mmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (22:57.182)
it's spread out and then it also encourages women to stay on track with their monthly check-in appointments and we can tweak things as we go because life changes, everything changes and as women improve we can also move on to the next layer of healing too if you already have those follow-ups kind of scheduled in the plan.

Mic (23:04.384)
Oh, I love it.

Mic (23:14.591)
Yeah, that's actually so clever that you're doing that and it feels more attainable. And also, it's like, hey, we're investing in ourselves and our bodies and it makes total sense. It's like a membership, a gym membership or anything where you're just doing something good for yourself. And that's always so important. And I have so many of my friends who are

really strict with their diets as far as organic and only eating certain things. And I always say, gosh, why is this so expensive? You know, for a lot of people, like everyday women and moms out there can't always afford this. But they always remind me, but yeah, but then what you're spending upfront for these to eat better or take better care of yourself, you will save thousands in the long run in the hospital room. When you're not, you know, from just decades of

putting poison in your body. So I get that we have to make a choice, but it's an investment that I think pays dividends, ultimately.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (24:12.23)
Yes, because we are working on hormones and your current symptoms, but we're also, through the six-month program, working on preventing other illnesses in the future. So working on preventing heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis. So a lot of the work you do around perimenopause and menopause does help your body have a better future.

Mic (24:22.639)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (24:34.807)
Yeah, so now you're plant based diet, correct? Have you always been plant based diet?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (24:41.363)
Uh, no, I was vegetarian starting in my teens and I moved to completely plant-based probably around the age of 30. By then I was vegan. I was never interested in meat or dairy.

Mic (24:44.687)
Uh-huh.

Mic (24:53.187)
Yeah. Just, you know, I'm not so far from you. This is where you and I also actually intersect, is that I've been a vegetarian for decades. And just this year, I mean, I know we're only into January, I would just say the last month or so I've been leaning into more of a plant-based diet because my body is changing. And I mean, I feel so much better. I just feel better. I don't know.

Of course, I have kids and a husband who will not stop eating meat, and I'm not trying to sort of sell anyone on a diet. I can only speak from my own experience. It just feels good not to eat animals. I don't know. It feels weird.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (25:36.57)
Yes. I mean, for me, it is a personal choice and a nutritional choice. And even without promoting a plant-based diet to patients in the past, I was always promoting increasing vegetable and fruit intake and whole grains and being 80% plant-based. And that's something that I had a business coach in the past tell me not to...

for me not to put anything about being vegan or plant-based on my website. I'll scare away everybody. And I said, well, it's not that they have to be, but that's a crucial part of my healing process. And that's something I've sort of stepped into the past couple of years is letting people know I'm plant-based. If they're plant curious, they can ask me questions. And if they're looking for a doctor to help them do it in a nutritionally sound way and make sure that they're doing in a good way to balance their hormones.

Mic (25:59.665)
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (26:24.21)
And recently there has been some research coming out showing really good things about plant-based diets, specifically for women going into and after menopause and helping with hot flashes and preventing weight gain. And so now we're starting to have some of the research behind it too. But I'm not gonna yell at a patient if they had chicken the night before they met with me, they told me about it. I mean, we're focusing on having an open, safe environment for patients to share what they're truly doing so that they can truly heal.

Mic (26:32.122)
Right.

Mic (26:43.192)
Right.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (26:53.302)
But I feel so much more confident now than I can let people know I'm plant-based, and I have to feel like it's this weirdo subculture that I have to hide.

Mic (27:02.427)
Right, and I think that's what I've been gravitating towards you and your messaging, following you on your Instagram and your messaging, is that you come at it honestly like one of us. Like you, I know you've got all the credentials and all the fancy things that you can do at all and you're a doctor, but you really are speaking as a woman. Like I've gone through this, I know this. I'm coming from both a science brain and also someone living through it. That's why I think you really resonate with me and a lot of women.

So thank you for being just so honest about it. And I love that you're, I want to know that you're plant-based. I want to know, I mean, if I'm going to share things with you about my life, I want to know about you too and feel like, well, what, what are you experiencing? It makes you human.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (27:48.679)
Yes, I know. I love biochemistry, but I'm not going to just post chemical structures and talk about them on Instagram. People aren't there for that. So I like to be able to share what I do personally because our lifestyles and how we heal is so personal and what we eat is very personal. I mean, I can't tell people to do things that I don't do. I like to lead by example. I think having my own...

Mic (27:57.784)
No.

Mic (28:12.465)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (28:15.874)
You know, hormone struggles and sharing my story has helped a lot of women feel more comfortable with talking to me about what they're going through. So it's good.

Mic (28:25.043)
Absolutely. Now, Dr. Tracy, I'm wondering what are some red flags you can share with our listeners? I had a friend who was going, was having all sorts of crazy symptoms, like, you know, just some discharge and bleeding. And she was really just writing it off as, oh, it's menopause. Now that I know this, it's just one day, but I'm going through the change. So clearly just kept dismissing, dismissing it.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (28:47.913)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (28:51.031)
And it really wasn't. There was other serious things going on. So how do we tell as we're going through this transition, what's normal and what's, hey, red flag, we gotta check this out.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (29:04.378)
Yeah, it can be tricky because you are going through a change and things can be unpredictable. But the first thing I tell my patients is to really know yourself and your usual cycle. So using an app to track your cycles and track symptoms so that you can see when the pattern changes because we have really busy lives. And especially if women aren't trying to get pregnant, they may not be paying attention to exactly when they have signs of ovulation or when they're having spotting or bleeding. But

Mic (29:22.096)
Yep.

Mic (29:31.034)
Right.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (29:31.55)
really using an app to track it so you know when things start to change. And some red flags that you may want to see your doctor about if they start happening would be bleeding or spotting at other times that you would not expect your cycle. Or if your period starts to become longer or heavier, so a lot heavier because you could be at risk for anemia. So if you're bleeding for

Mic (29:48.207)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (29:59.302)
instead of five days a month, if it turns to eight or nine or more and it's really heavy, that's something that you may want to see a doctor about and make sure that you're not developing anemia. It can be part of the transition, normal transition. A huge warning sign that you do need to go to the doctor right away is if you are in the position where you are in menopause, it's been a year since your last period and you have any bleeding.

Mic (30:11.372)
Okay.

Mic (30:15.082)
Mm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (30:27.562)
So if it starts up again at any point, you need to go back to the doctor because you may need to have an ultrasound just to make sure that things are okay. On the way to that year, it can be variable. Some women can go six months and then they'll start having periods for a few months, then it'll go away. But once you get past that one year mark, if you have any bleeding, you want to see your gynecologist.

Mic (30:36.051)
Okay.

Mic (30:53.495)
And so you're officially not through menopause until you've had an entire year of no periods. Is that correct? So regardless of the amount of bleeding, even if it's just a bit, it's still, you sort of reset the button and count again for a whole year.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (31:01.506)
Correct.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (31:12.297)
Yes.

Mic (31:13.379)
Okay, okay, interesting. Now you mentioned, just really quick to backtrack, you mentioned app. Is there one that you actually have yourself that you use or that you've designed or do you have one that you recommend?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (31:24.438)
The two that I recommend are the MBODY, E-M-B-O-D-Y, and Clue.

Mic (31:28.909)
Okay.

Mic (31:32.427)
Awesome. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. And then also your thoughts on the idea of, I know we talk about so much about the usual stuff, right? The night sweats, the bloating, the lack of sex drive. We have all these things we check up, but are there other things that women should be looking out for that maybe doctors don't really talk about or people just aren't referencing to that's happening to us?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (32:00.718)
I think that's where a lot of the perimenopause symptoms fall, is because they can be unique for different women. But some things can be things that you might normally have experienced in PMS, like the couple days before your period. But if they're happening two weeks before your period and lasting for half the month, that would be a sign that it is perimenopause.

Mic (32:24.324)
Okay.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (32:25.302)
like a lot of women might feel a little run down or a little achy the day before their period. But I had a patient that came to see me because she was having two weeks of feeling like she was having the flu every month. And she just couldn't function. She had a five year old daughter and she just had these two weeks of having headaches and body aches so much that she couldn't really get out of bed. And we did some testing and it was, you know, some hormone imbalances in perimenopause. And once we

rebalanced her hormones, she was able to function. And that's just something that you might think is more immune related or musculoskeletal related, but it ended up being her hormones.

Mic (33:01.073)
Mm-hmm.

Wow, fascinating. I mean, so every case that you deal with is so different, huh?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (33:09.142)
Yes, partly because I'm not the first person people see, unfortunately. So, usually women will hopefully talk to their gynecologist or primary care, and unfortunately they usually get the either they can't help you because it's too vague, you know, trouble sleeping sometimes and fatigue and they don't have a drug for that, or they say to wait it out.

Mic (33:13.662)
Oh.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (33:32.194)
So then women start, you know, trying reading things on their own online and maybe trying to improve their diet and their lifestyle. And so I'm usually not the first place people go. I'm trying to change that, of course. So usually the naturopathic doctors do get a little bit more of the mysterious and difficult cases because of that. So I think it's always, it's, my work is definitely always interesting. I mean, and having years of experience helps, you know, with knowing.

Mic (33:43.615)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (33:50.22)
Oh, yeah, I'm bad.

Mic (33:57.786)
Oh my.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (34:02.358)
my herbal remedies that I like and the lab tests that I like and things like that, but every individual case is definitely unique.

Mic (34:09.415)
So tell me, okay, someone's listening and they're interested in working with you or finding you or just having a discussion. What's the process? What does it look like? What would someone do? What is, what a typical woman, how do they find you? How do they work with you? What's, tell us about your membership.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (34:25.198)
Sure. So they can follow me on Facebook and Instagram for sure. I tend to post there a few times a week. And then my website, you can book a discovery call right from my website, and we'll have a half hour intro conversation where you can just get to know each other. And you can tell me about your symptoms and what's going on. And I'll see if I think that it would be beneficial for you to work with me. My website does have a lot of, as you mentioned,

information as far as some of the symptoms you may not have realized that were happening to you, that might be perimenopause related. And once we get started, we have that six-month hormone jumpstart is my most popular membership because that's where we look holistically at hormones, neurotransmitters, which are brain chemicals that impact our mood that are changed by hormones and stress levels and gut health. And

Mic (34:53.54)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (35:17.162)
we work to balance those things through the six months. And that includes the initial hour visit, all the lab tests, and then the monthly visits for the six months, and then we retest some of the labs at the end, depending on what we're checking in on. And that membership is 475 a month.

Mic (35:33.56)
Okay.

Mic (35:37.247)
What I love about your system too, by the way, is that ladies, you can do it from anywhere. It doesn't matter. I mean, if you live in the East Coast, West Coast, any time zone, Dr. Tracy's there available virtual. So it's really very cool. You've really opened that up, right? I don't have to be in person.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (35:56.158)
Yes. I mean, that was one of the changes I made a couple of years when moving from Massachusetts to California was transitioning my practice to be 100% online. So I see women primarily on both coasts and then in between, which does actually work out from my schedule because I can have some morning sessions and later afternoon sessions. And I have my midday break for exercise and eating a healthy lunch, which works out really well. And

Mic (36:09.683)
Okay.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (36:24.222)
All the lab tests can be done virtually. I can have a service that sends you test kits you can do at home or we send you lab orders and you bring them to a local lab. And I have a really great online platform where patients can view their labs. They can send me chat messages at any point during the six months. They can share pictures with me. And it's a really great platform that everything's just housed in one place.

I also have an online course that women do throughout the six months where all the lessons and handouts and videos are in that platform. So I'm so glad that technology has improved. When I started doing telemedicine in 2012, it was definitely not this easy. So I'm thankful for that.

Mic (36:59.171)
Yeah.

Mic (37:07.751)
For sure. And I would encourage our listeners to, hey, ladies, listen, do yourself a favor. Just check out the website, check out the work that Dr. Tracy is doing, but also her blogs are really interesting and give you awesome tips. And just at the very least, get into the ecosystem of reading some of your articles. I think that's also very beneficial. And when you're ready to have that conversation, it's not going to hurt. That's for sure.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (37:34.834)
Yes, I definitely encourage people, even if they just have a few questions or sometimes even from that beginning conversation, I have even like a better referral for them or certain lab tests that I think they need to have done before we work together. So it's always good to ask.

Mic (37:49.527)
Yeah. And is there anything else, Dr. Tracy, that you want women to know about this whole phase and what we're going through?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (37:58.654)
Maybe it's not really the best news, but that it can be years of transition. So don't accept the, you know, just wait it out strategy. Um, I mean, I don't want to say it's going to be horrible. It can definitely be a wonderful transition, but there are different phases of it and different symptoms along the way, but just to be aware that, uh, waiting it out probably isn't going to work.

Mic (38:03.611)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (38:15.526)
Mmm.

Mic (38:21.823)
Yeah, I will challenge the wonderful choice of word there, but we'll go with it. We'll go with for you. Now, okay, I want to shift gears a little bit here because for the Killing Project, we're also about women following their passion projects and doing things that they love and just feel so inspired to with meaning and purpose. And to me, the evolution of your practice has changed over the years. Is that correct?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (38:49.106)
Yes, I started as a brick and mortar wellness clinic and a family practice. And I always promoted women's health as a big part of that. And focusing on perimenopause and menopause, but in, and then in 2020, we had an opportunity to move from Massachusetts to California and as scary as that was, it seemed exciting. I mean, how often do people in their forties get to just

Mic (38:59.108)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (39:14.966)
reinvent their whole life. I mean, often that doesn't happen. So I got to think about what, if we changed everything, what would that look like? And if I changed my practice, what would I really want to keep? And what would I be able to let go? So I had to look at this opportunity of the move as a positive thing, because it wasn't planned. And it wasn't, it was for my boyfriend's job. It kind of had nothing to do with me or what I was.

Mic (39:18.871)
Right.

Mic (39:35.651)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (39:41.97)
wanting to do. So I had to turn it into something positive. So looking at what I could do with my practice was my positive aspect for it. And I just really thought about the women that I was working with and how could I serve them better and, and how much joy and inspiration I have in working with those women and what it could be like if I let some of the other stuff go. And it's been freeing. It's scary. Yes, scary.

Mic (40:05.243)
So scary though, right? Scary though. So how do you get over that fear? I mean, here you are a traditional doctor in many ways in the sense where you said you're seeing patients, you're in the office, it's a one-on-one contact, and now you're redesigning and you, I mean, really adapting to the modern times with tele doctors, but it's still scary.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (40:16.091)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (40:31.026)
Yes, I mean, as going to moving to an area that I knew nothing about and, and it was scary to let go of big portions of my practice. I mean, that at 2018, 2019, 2020 were some of the best years of my practice. I had already gone through building the building years and the burnout years and built up the staff and all the support and had other doctors. And so it was such a great place. It was a little scary to say up.

Mic (40:58.021)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (40:59.922)
I did this and now for nothing, but not for nothing, I was able to pass it on to another doctor and it's still going strong. And I think part of the part that made it less scary was maybe overly focused on the positive aspects of the transition. So of how great it was going to be in this new practice. And as I mentioned before, having that midday break to exercise, eat a healthy lunch, that was...

Mic (41:03.516)
Yeah.

Mic (41:17.319)
Mmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (41:29.066)
something, the lifestyle changes around my practice helped to alleviate the fear and focusing on more of the positive aspects of it. If I was able to change my schedule and change the number of patients I worked with and looked at how that would help my own health and my own well-being to get me through some of the scariness of the transition.

Mic (41:48.715)
Yeah, and so early on when you first when you started, I guess, launched this, were there some days where it was like, I'm here, I'm waiting for some clients, I got no one tell me about those moments where you're like, ah,

Dr. Amanda Tracy (42:03.934)
Yes, it was a little bit interesting because I was going from such a different situation of being booked 12 hours solid multiple days a week to this new transition. But I think as I was in this transition, I decided in a weird way to not have any goals the first year. So I wasn't trying to get X amount of patients per day or X amount of patients per week. I was not having any goals. I'm just going to keep moving forward.

Mic (42:12.485)
Yeah.

Mic (42:24.253)
Hey.

Mic (42:32.051)
No goal. Okay. Wait, wait a minute. I, okay. I, you know, that we're so set up to think about business and launching and setting and scaling and goals. And you're saying you actually, what the opposite way is that just to give yourself permission or cut yourself some slack, just be like, I'm just going to try this and see what happens.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (42:32.21)
So I wasn't judging.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (42:51.49)
Yeah, right, because I was so in tune with, this is what I wanted to do, that I didn't wanna set up any, if this doesn't work, then I can't do it. If I don't get this many patients, I shouldn't do it. Or I didn't want to put that judgment on it. I had to just keep moving forward. So the first year and a half of practice, I was trying lots of different things, trying group programs in different ways.

Mic (43:09.76)
Mmm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (43:20.514)
Fall in One Day or as a weekly program, live or recorded. And I was just experimenting and just trying to stay creative and keep moving forward and seeing what was happening. And so I think that non-judgment really helped.

Mic (43:31.707)
bit. That is crazy. Okay.

I love that. It's a great approach. Now, obviously you're in a place of privilege that you can do this, right? So I'm not to dismiss other women who maybe don't have the resources to be like, ah, we'll see if it works or it doesn't. But you know, you're, you know, you're good at what you do. You know, you have a passion, you know, you have the science to back it up, but you're also sort of freewheeling it and be like, I believe in this and that's going to be enough for today. I'm not going to set any sort of goals or, or fake, um,

I suppose, affirmations of I'm making it or not. What is success? You decided to eliminate that from the equation. Yet, I love that you did it because you're really a science brain that would tell me otherwise. Like your personality would have been like, it's got to fit in a box and it's got to check all these boxes. And you said, nope, not doing that. I love that.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (44:28.446)
I think part of it was because I had been practicing for so long at that time. And I saw over the years of practice that it evolves whether, no matter what box you're thinking it's going to evolve into, it does its own thing on some ways. And so I had to let go more, I guess for me was to allow some freedom and to decrease some stress around it, knowing I was going to have so much.

Mic (44:32.466)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (44:53.17)
not knowing, but it was a stressful time to move across the country in the middle of the pandemic. And just, I felt stress was enough. I didn't need to put stress on this piece. I would just start doing what I could. And I started seeing patients from the old practice and saw how many people wanted to follow me and how many people would stay at the other practice. That was like, I just made like different levels of things I would do. Then I would start doing some group programs. Then I would start seeing patients one-on-one.

Mic (45:15.637)
Mm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (45:21.194)
just to let it grow. I mean, now I'm in going into year three of this process. So yes, I'm starting to create some goals and some benchmarks, but it's at the beginning because knowing that things evolve on their own time, it felt so arbitrary to say, Oh, I need X amount of patients the first month to be successful. They get this because I was going to work towards those things anyway of

Mic (45:30.)
Yeah.

Mic (45:44.632)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (45:50.306)
growing my patient base, whether or not I had that goal.

Mic (45:51.971)
Yeah, I feel well, right. We just launched this business this year too. And for Mel and I, a lot of it success, it's not in our finances as per se, our success is in the things we're trying and that we're betting on ourselves and we're believing in a mission driven business. And that to me feels very successful. So to your point, I always try to encourage women like, hey,

First of all, to start anything, it's always scary. It's always nerve wracking. There's so many unknowns. And to your point, you could have the best business plan. Don't matter, because shit happens. And you get diverted anyway. So you've got to be nimble and open and just allow these things to change you and happen and move with it, because eventually, you end up exactly where you're meant to be. Do you agree with that?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (46:32.328)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (46:43.338)
Yeah, I agree. And I think and you're right, there were those days where, you know, no one's calling, no one's booking and, and I mean, really, my one goal was sticking to what I set out to do is to have this boutique perimenopause and menopause practice. So yes, the first year I was saying no to a lot of patients that

Mic (46:47.92)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (47:04.406)
didn't fit into that practice. They had heard about me from other places or my old practice and things. So I did have months where I felt like I'm saying no on a daily basis, but I'm not getting the new patients yet. So it was kind of, you have those moments, but I really felt proud of myself that I was able to not falter and stick to what I had designed and saying no.

Mic (47:28.667)
Yeah, I love that too, that you're mentioning this. It's the fact that you had to say no to a lot of what you knew and that I guess in many ways would have been easy for you to lean it back into your old ways, but you kept hard nos and that meant less money at some times, I'm sure less all things, but you still believed so much in what you wanted the new, what you wanted to create that you do have to say no to a lot. That's hard.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (47:37.847)
Yep.

Mic (47:55.535)
Good job, you. Congratulations. That's fantastic. Yeah, and you still have moments? Yeah, do you still have moments of like, huh, maybe I could still do a little bit of this or a little bit of that, or you like laser focus, no, this is me. I'm a boutique in essence. I'm curating these very one-on-ones because to me, that's where the specialty, that's where your passion lies, is helping women one at a time.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (47:57.134)
Yeah, it was very hard, but I'm glad I went through it. Yes.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (48:25.438)
I think over the past few years, having that focus and that specialty, I mean, it still allows me to practice holistically in naturopathic medicine because it's such, even though it's a boutique area, it affects every part of our body as women. So I'm still doing gut health, I'm still doing skin health, I'm still dabbling in other things as far as in my treatment and working with women. So I think that helps on that aspect of still getting into all areas of medicine.

Mic (48:34.215)
Mm.

Mic (48:42.883)
Yes, true.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (48:55.306)
we'll say laser focus on these areas, it helps me to shut out things that I don't need to do, like business courses that aren't centered around this or continuing education or conferences. It really helps me be able to like zone in on the ones that I wanna do and then not feel bad about not doing the other ones. And it's kind of saying no on another level of all these other things that we feel like we don't necessarily have to take in all of the information that's presented in front of us.

Mic (49:04.167)
Mm.

Mic (49:14.617)
Right.

Mic (49:22.915)
So true.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (49:23.498)
I mean, for me to sit for three days in a, I don't know, a prostate cancer conference, that's not going to help me even though I could use the credits towards my license. That's not going to help my vision. So it's easier to hone in on things.

Mic (49:32.385)
Right.

Mic (49:36.943)
Yeah, and how do you, by the way, your practice, you lean into homeopathic and so forth. Where's your stance on Western medicine? Is it, are you sort of more in the middle where you see a place for both or?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (49:50.354)
Oh, I'm definitely in the middle. I see a place for both. I mean, we definitely need pharmaceuticals, even hormone replacement therapy. I do bioidentical hormone replacement therapy if needed. And we, you know, I don't practice surgery, but when it's needed, it's needed. I really feel like holistic medicine and naturopathic medicine, like using herbs, nutrition, lifestyle supplements, like it helps so many of the symptoms that women are facing that really

Mic (50:04.635)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (50:16.207)
Mm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (50:18.41)
I mean, to take a drug to sleep or to have a hysterectomy when you're not having horrible periods is more to just to help with, I don't know, some other symptoms like trouble sleeping or things like that. It's maybe a sledgehammer when you don't need a sledgehammer. So I think helping women on the level where their symptoms are at is a really good application for naturopathic medicine, but I definitely have patients that are on pharmaceuticals. And I mean, I definitely...

Mic (50:31.344)
Alright.

Mic (50:36.645)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (50:48.254)
I mean, I noticed that in practice, some patients coming into the practice were, you know, oh, I take Lipitor for cholesterol. Is that okay? Are you going to tell me to get rid of all my medications? I'm like, no. I mean, we'll get you to a place where you'll lose the weight and improve your diet. You might not need to take as big of a dose or you may be able to wean off of it, but I'm not one of those doctors that tells you to drop all of your prescribed medications on day one because they're evil or something like that.

Mic (50:57.212)
Yeah.

Mic (51:10.599)
Mm.

Mic (51:14.059)
Okay, right. I mean, do you feel like maybe the medicine world? Do you do you hope that that's we're going more to that where there's this a place for both and to your point, if we can maybe get people humans just healthy by doing certain lifestyle changes, where they maybe don't need those medications. That's a beautiful thing, right? That's where we should all be striving for doesn't feel that way with big insurance and big pharma doesn't always feel that way.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (51:41.858)
Right. It doesn't always feel that way in conventional medicine and big pharma and big insurance, but a lot of the medication, the most popular medications prescribed are technically lifestyle prescriptions. I mean, looking at

acid blocking medications for heartburn or cholesterol lowering medications. Those are symptoms and things that can be healed with nutrition and lifestyle. I mean, where big pharma is going is actually away from those things, partly because they're not money makers. But the other part is because we have advances in technology and cell therapy and gene therapy. And so big pharma is really going to these gene therapies and cell therapies that are more targeted.

Mic (51:58.85)
Uh-huh.

Mic (52:12.551)
Mm.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (52:23.314)
and more effective, but for people that really need them. I mean, we can't change your genes with nutrition. We can change how some of your genes act with nutrition and supplements, but we can't give you different genes. So I think we will end up in a better place where people are using both.

Mic (52:31.786)
Mm-hmm.

Mic (52:40.459)
Okay. Yeah. And it feels like we could have an entire podcast on this conversation alone. Yeah. Okay. Well, gosh, you've been just so much a pleasure to talk to and you're so, have so much amazing nuggets of wisdom for us. Is there anything else that you'd like for our listeners to know?

Dr. Amanda Tracy (52:45.634)
Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (52:59.382)
I let them know that any little thing that you do to improve your health, that you make a habit, is beneficial. I think sometimes we think we need to do it all, we need to overall our whole health, we need to get to bed on time, we need to eat organic, we need to make a smoothie in the morning, we need to stop stressing. But really just picking one thing and adopting that first. Often I tell my patients like...

Mic (53:22.6)
So.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (53:24.578)
Drinking warm lemon water in the morning is something to adopt. That can help your whole health. It helps your liver. It helps your hormones. It, um, it's nourishing and that's easy to do. You can usually get a handle on, you know, some lemon and water and it's very nurturing and it, and even if you're just noting that's something good you're doing for yourself, it's setting up the whole day. So you don't know if to overhaul your whole diet and one day, just small steps.

Mic (53:36.312)
Yeah.

Mic (53:49.603)
I love that's lean in, lean in. I like that very much. And I think the headline here too is that, listen, ladies, we don't have to white knuckle this transition, right? We don't have to be scared or sort of sit back and take it. These symptoms can be treated. We can improve with our lifestyle supplements, herbal remedies. Dr. Tracy's available to help us sort of go through this. So it doesn't have to be so isolated and so lonely and so scary and so...

Like, I guess I just have to deal with this. There are ways to improve this, make things easier.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (54:26.942)
Yes, and it is part of a natural process that can be supported. We're not trying to reverse it or prevent it. It's something we should be embracing.

Mic (54:27.711)
Okay.

Mic (54:33.123)
Yes. Support it. Love that. Support it. Okay. So many great takeaways, Dr. Tracy. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you. And one more time, tell our listeners where to find you, your website.

Dr. Amanda Tracy (54:45.694)
My website is dramandatracy.com.

Mic (54:48.551)
Fantastic and I will be sure to include everything in the show notes, but I appreciate your time and thanks so much for being with us Yeah, well, we'll definitely have to have you back. Okay. Thanks everyone until next time. Bye

Dr. Amanda Tracy (54:55.831)
Thanks for having me. It was a great conversation.