Are you in your midlife era and noticing weight gain? Are you struggling to lose weight now that you’re over 40? Are you considering one of the weight-loss pharmaceuticals on the market to help you battle your weight? Before you turn to weight loss pills, tune into this episode to learn a better way to manage your health for the long term. On this episode, Jenn speaks with nutrition coach, geriatric pharmacist, and fitness pro, Amy Wilson. Amy helps women work through their midlife weight gain by focusing on stress management, sleep, and eating real food. She provides some incredible tips in this episode that anyone can start doing today to work towards achieving their best health and focus on optimal aging. Amy gives her opinion on pharmaceutical drugs such as Wegovy, Mounjaro and Ozempic, talking about how they work in the body and the side effects that are being seen already. Tune in to gain a better understanding of how your body copes with stress and how to create optimal health, no matter your age. The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast is hosted by Jenn Trepeck, discussing wellness and weight loss for real life, clearing up the myths, misinformation, bad science & marketing surrounding our nutrition knowledge and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store. IN THIS EPISODE: ●  [4:38] Amy shares how she became a pharmacist and became passionate about health and wellness.●  [12:16] What gets us so stuck losing the midlife menopausal weight gain?●  [15:55] What is the connection between blood sugar and aging and how we are creating accelerated aging in the body? ●  [22:55] How does stress impact our body weight? ●  [29:44] Amy talks about dietary needs utilizing real foods.●  [33:34] How do you incorporate weights into your fitness routine? ●  [35:30] How does sleep impact our weight loss?●  [38:57] As a pharmacist, what is Amy’s outlook on pharmaceuticals for weight loss such as Wegovy, Mounjaro and Ozempic?  ●  [42:30] How can fad dieting affect our bones over time? ●  [44:00] Skinny is not healthy, skinny does not equate to happiness. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ●  [13:15] Our metabolism pretty much stays the same until we are 60-65. However what we have done to ourselves with fad diets has slowed the metabolism down. ●  [36:51] Focusing on your sleep will have huge impacts on your health. Work on creating good sleep hygiene/sleep habits by going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning. ●  [44:00] When you are on medications to treat side effects of other medications and you have no energy or don’t feel your best, that keeps you from living your life to the fullest. When you are scared to get off these medications because you are scared that you’ll gain weight back because you think skinny is healthy, that is psychological dependence. ●  [45:00] We have to stop thinking that skinny equals healthy or that being skinny will make us happy, because it won’t. If you are not happy now, getting to whatever weight you think you need to be at, that’s not going to open up the doors and make everything all better. You have to be happy with who you are now. Stop fad dieting! Instead, focus on your nutrition, health, and building muscle and see what happens to your quality of life. QUOTES: [12:21] “This is what’s happened, we have accidentally, not on purpose, caused our issues, and how we have done that is what we started doing when we were 16, and that was dieting. That was the fad diets, starving ourselves to get into the prom dress, to get to the wedding, to be the bridesmaid or now its high school reunions, or another wedding or an event, and we do all these fad diets. And every time you did that fad diet, I don't care what anybody says, you did not lose body fat, every single time you did it, you lost muscle.” - Amy Wilson[16:38] “It’s not calories in, calories out. It’s quality in, quality out.” - Jenn Trepeck[18:10] “A banana’s not bad, an apple’s not bad, it’s the other stuff that we are eating that is causing these high peaks of blood sugar. What we want is this little wave. We go up, we go down, we go up, we go down. What we’re causing is this massive roller coaster, we go up, we drop down, up and drop down, and every time we do that, we are increasing our chronic inflammation.” - Amy Wilson"We’re having diseases of age at really young ages.” - Jenn Trepeck[33:08] “It’s also working on those behaviors because we need to learn how to navigate life, not with food. We need to enjoy food. That’s a part of our experience, but it’s not our drug to go to for anxiety and depression.” - Amy Wilson[42:57] “Your body is so smart. It wants to survive. It’s going to figure it out, so it’s going to get amino acids from your muscle. It’s going to get minerals from your bones. As women, that should scare the crap out of us because now you’re looking at osteoporosis, osteopenia, sarcopenia. So what I’m saying is that we’re going to see old lady disease in 35, 45, 50 year olds.” - Amy Wilson"We have the trifecta of stress: the stress of the mental anguish of what’s going on right now…the stress of not eating…the stress of over working out without any nutrition." – Amy Wilson[44:00] When you are on medications to treat side effects of other medications and you have no energy or don’t feel your best, how is that living? When you are scared to get off all of these medications because you are terrified that you’ll gain the weight back, because you think skinny is healthy, that is psychological dependence. So not only are we looking at muscle waste and bone disease in young women, now we are looking at a psychological dependence. Yes, it’s slow to build muscle and learn how to eat and to learn to deal with our feelings, and to dismantle these belief systems, to get strong and healthy (not skinny). It’s painfully slow, but the side effects are good. The side effects are “I can live”, they are energy, vitality, longevity. That’s what’s important.” RESOURCES:Nutrition Nugget: Ultra Processed FoodsAmerica’s Fiber Problem EpisodeGMO Organic and Local Oh My EpisodeBecome A Member of Salad with a Side of FriesJenn’s Free Menu PlanA Salad With a Side of FriesA Salad With A Side Of Fries MerchA Salad With a Side of Fries InstagramGUEST RESOURCESAmy Wilson's WebsiteAmy Wilson's InstagramAmy Wilson Fitness Facebook PageAmy Wilson's LinkedInAmy Wilson's YouTube ChannelAmy Wilson’s TikTokGUEST BIO:Amy Wilson is a Board Certified Geriatric Pharmacist, a certified fitness professional, and a certified nutrition coach using the FASTer Way to Fat Loss platform, who is disrupting the diet industry and helping her clients take their health back. Amy’s mission is to empower and equip her clients to take charge of their health and find balance in their lives. With over 30 years of experience, Amy specializes in developing individualized health plans that navigate through her client’s individual barriers, allowing them to be successful in their efforts. Amy is passionate about helping people prevent and reverse diseases with nutrition and fitness. Through her personal and professional experience, she has seen first hand how diet and exercise can change a person’s life, and how the right nutritional program can be the key to improving their health and fitness. She has seen her clients reverse their pre-diabetes, diabetes, high cholesterol, and more. She is driven to help her clients feel in control of their body and mind, while no longer feeling enslaved by their scale.