Calm Anxiety and Boost Energy in Women 35+, with Nutritionist Sally-Anne Kearns

Anxiety that won’t lift, brain fog that makes you feel flat, and energy that crashes by mid-afternoon can make you question everything, including your willpower. We’re not interested in more guilt or more complicated rules. We want simple, doable health rhythms that work for real mums with full calendars and a heavy mental load.

I’m joined by functional nutritionist Sally-Anne Kearns, who helps women 35+ calm anxiety using stackable microhabits that stabilise blood sugar, clear brain fog, and support steady energy. Sally-Anne shares her personal story of leaving a high-pressure career, navigating severe postnatal depression and anxiety, and rebuilding her health by learning how the body communicates through symptoms. We talk digestion basics you can start today, why “protein first” at breakfast can change your whole day, and how ultra-processed foods and modern oils can quietly add to inflammation and overwhelm.

We also get practical about family life: easy protein options, simple meal structures, and meal planning systems that reduce fight-or-flight when the kids ask what’s for dinner. Along the way we touch on perimenopause, the stress “bucket” that fills over years, and why you don’t need to spend a fortune on testing and supplements to start feeling better. If you’re in a season where you need hope and a next step, this chat will meet you there.

Follow Sally-Anne on Instagram @sallyannekearns or on Facebook: Sally-Anne Kearns.

Subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, share this with a friend who needs calmer days, and leave a review to help more women find the support. What’s one microhabit you’re willing to try this week?

Transcript

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Welcome To Beyond Organised

Mel 0:18

Welcome to Beyond Organised, the podcast that helps you simplify your life and amplify your purpose. I'm Mel Schenker, life coach, speaker, founder of She's Organised, but, more importantly, a wife and mum of four little kids. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, like you're constantly juggling everything but never quite catching up, this is the place for you. Here we go beyond just the tidying up and creating systems. We're talking about real life strategies that bring order to your life, but also we talk about the things beyond the organising, the things that really matter, like your parenting relationships and so much more. So grab your coffee and let's dive in. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Organized. I have Sally- Anne Kearns with me today. And she is a functional nutritionist who helps women 35 plus calm anxiety using stackable microhabits that clear brain fog and stabilize energy. Sounds like my needs right now. She's the host of the Nutrition Gateway podcast and the creator of the Healthy Reset. Simple, doable rhythms that bring women back to calm, clarity, and confidence in their body. Welcome, Sally Ann. It is so good to have you, and I'm sure I can learn a few things from you today. Thank you. Yeah, it's such a blessing to be here. Lovely. So I'm going to just jump straight in because I have a feeling we're going to end up talking for a while. Because I am your demographic of women. You're over 35. All right. Cool. That's it. I am. So I'm I'm ready to

Sally-Anne’s Postnatal Turning Point

Mel 1:54

learn here. So I want to hear firstly a bit about your story and background and what inspired you to get into doing the functional nutritionist role.

Sally-Anne 2:01

It was never a thing that I thought I was going to do. Um, health was never really my laneway. I was very much stuck in the conventional system. But when I became pregnant with my first son, I had a birth of my own self at the same time, unbeknown to me at the time. And prior to health, I actually ran a commercial real estate business in Sydney for 25 years. And I was a the go-getter. Like I was doing some pretty amazing things in that space. And I felt pregnant. And the biggest question on my heart was, how am I going to do that at that pace where I'm getting that my all? And then really nurture myself and my baby. So I decided to sell the business. And then what came after birthing my son was the most severe postnatal depression and anxiety that I've ever experienced. And I just became a fragment of myself, my former self, you know, this woman that was really dynamic and abled to suddenly just feeling just really hopeless. And so anxiety overtook my soul. And I was looking for solutions. The conventional system just wasn't hitting it. And even I started turning into that holistic lane way, but there still weren't solid answers. There was no one really giving simple steps for a mum that was like in total overwhelm. So I got put in my path, the Nutritional Therapy Association, Australia and New Zealand, and I rang them up and I said, look, I'm really gravitating towards her studies. And she said, Great, because that's exactly the sort of people that we need. And so I went on this journey of really understanding not only food, but how our bodies respond to food and how we just have a signaling system of communication that when I look back now, it makes so much sense. You know, in hindsight, of course, you know, they say it's a wonderful thing. And but the clues were there all along, the menstrual discomfort, the addictions, the bulimia at one stage, like these are all clues of nutritional deficiency. And I kept just getting told that that's just kind of normal or given a pill. And my body just fell apart, if I'm honest. And so I had to really reclaim myself and rebuild my identity as Sally Ann now mother. Yeah. And God put me on the path. I can't say that it's been the easiest one. I'm very blessed to have a husband that's been incredible in partnership and really good. Yeah. Yeah.

Mel 4:36

Yeah. Makes a difference.

Sally-Anne 4:37

Oh, look, I I feel so grateful that that's the part of the journey too, because I feel like from that space, we yeah, we can just do more.

Mel 4:48

Yeah. And it can just be free to be yourself and live in and step into the purpose that God has for you as individuals and as a couple. It's I can relate. I've got a great husband like that too. So it's good.

Sally-Anne 5:00

Yeah. And they want us to shine, you know. And so what him watching me go through that transition of the this dark night of the soul, and yet still needing to go to work and create income and then coming home to me just like a mess. It wasn't easy for him. And I, you know, it it's not talked about enough. Like it's just not. And nobody really kind of gives you a heads up of how difficult that transition can be when you had a strong identity in the past.

Mel 5:28

Yeah. Identity is that identity is that keyword, isn't it? It's when your identity is wrapped up in a title or in some other part that no longer exists anymore because now all of a sudden you're mum and you're everything else. And it's like, hang on, I where's Mel or where's Cellyanne? Like in all of this, and you identified probably even as a real estate agent or whatever else, and that was part of your identity, and now it's just completely shifted again. So I I get it. I warped that too.

Sally-Anne 6:03

Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting path. And I I feel as though there's a there's a place in society where we could be better equipped for this. And look, I had my mother die when I was 22, she was 44. I'm sorry. Well, you know, it just is what it is. We can't we can't change that. Like that's the.

Mel 6:21

44 is young though. I mean, I'm not far off, really.

Sally-Anne 6:26

Look, I'm I'm 44 now. And I think to myself, imagine that. No way. You know, like that is so I feel young. Like I feel young and vibrant and healthy. And obviously, Mum, you know, had a story of trauma and and didn't really make the best health choices. So that that sort of leads me into what I do now. Because I think that anxiety, when we have a low-layer anxiety, we tend to reach for things that are no longer serving us.

Mel 6:55

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 6:56

And instead of finding constructive ways to balance our body and our nervous system and our blood sugar, actually, which is a huge driver, remove food sensitivities, which are a big trigger, we tend to lean to making those presentations of symptoms wrong and leaning for things that are not really supportive for us. And our body is designed to heal. Let's be really truthful. It just needs to be given the right framework. And that's where I just feel so incredibly passionate about giving women tools because I I feel like I went round and round and round in circles for nearly 25 years with my health.

unknown 7:32

Yeah.

Mel 7:33

Yeah. Well, I'm my health has probably been my whole life. Still I'm still going around in circles in in some ways. I'm I'm further along, I'm better, I'm I'm heading the right direction, but there are still parts of my body that I'm trying to understand and learn because you know, there's bits that are so stubborn, there's bits that flare up from time to time, and I'm and and then you add cycles and hormones and everything on top of it. And I'm still trying to figure that out even four kids later. I'm like, what is I yeah. It's a bit of a journey and it's a tough one at times. So I'm speaking as someone that is not great in this area. Um, and that's why I'm actually really excited to have you on because I feel like I could learn a thing or two.

Sally-Anne 8:20

No, this is not stuff that's taught. You know, as I went through that program with the nutritional therapy association, I was just like gasping because there was this there's these years of big food and big pharma really making profit their focus and at the cost of carrying that people. Yeah, at the cost of human health. And when I think about, you know, only recently has America turned the food triangle upside down. But everybody knows the food triangle, and we, you know, eat all these refined grains and carbohydrates, the ones that are really cheap to make and have huge amounts of additives and create havoc on our health and our inflammation, and then we make our body wrong. Yeah, we make we make our body wrong for storing fat. Yeah. You know, and so now we've got this war going on in our temple between our mind, our body, which is the house of something really special. Like we've got to be real. Our soul lives in there, and the Holy Spirit lives in there, and so now all of a sudden we're making these symptoms wrong, we're at war with our body, and that's essentially why I teach what I teach, because it doesn't have to be hard, and we make it, our brains make it so much harder than it needs to be.

Mel 9:38

You're not wrong. Because I because I also have that level of wrestling between knowing that my body is the temple for the Holy Spirit, and I should be looking after it and caring for it, and I'm doing my best, but it's not reflecting in the natural. There's the supernatural and the natural, there's this disconnect. And so, yeah, I I'm I'm like hanging on to what you're saying right now.

Slow Down To Digest Better

Sally-Anne 10:07

I guess if I'm talking through one of the things that really made sense to me, and I think this will make sense to your mamas too, is when we look at how we're biologically created, it is very much a north to south process, right? So digestion starts even before we've put any any food in our mouth. Right? We're just dropping into our body, giving thanks, you know. Thank you, thank you, Lord, for this beautiful food that we're about to eat. Let it nourish me. Anything that's not serving me, like let it go, move through. And yet dropping in, closing your eyes, really filling your mouth with saliva, chewing mindfully, you know, instead of like grabbing a piece of leftover toast on the bench on the way to school, you know, like hello. Well, you know, when you look at the two, sometimes it's like here we are, we're banging on about this self-love piece. And yet the biggest thing that we can give ourselves is just the opportunity to slow down to elevate our results. Yeah. Because that that saliva triggers the enzymatic processes that need to happen. It changes the pH of our stomach, it enables our acids to break down those nutrients, take them through the large intestine into the small intestine and that north to south process. And here we are cutting out organs, removing parts of our stomach. Um and I'm not making any of this wrong because when you know better, you do better. Yeah. But really, I feel as though because we've been so hoodwinked on the empowerment piece with this wellness journey, that we then make our body wrong. And that's what Ned goes, oh, well, I've got no no other option. I may as well rip out my gallbladder, you know.

Living Without A Gallbladder

Mel 11:53

Well, I have had my gallbladder removed and I fought it at the time. I really fought it. I was doing everything with like the lemon and the oil and like all his natural stuff to try and like get rid of the stones and that. But then COVID came along and having another flare-up in Endingham Hospital, and the doctor pretty much telling me for like the third time look, we don't know what's gonna happen with this pandemic. And people don't die from this because we remove the gallbladder and people live. But to be honest, if you keep leaving it and you can't get the medical attention, it could kill you. Like, hello. Yeah, and that fear, and then not knowing what was gonna happen, because this was April 2020 at that point when I got it out, and um, and not really knowing what's ahead, and me and my husband going, look, you've fought it for like two years, you've done your best, and you know, you've tried to, but it's not worth dying over. Like, and so we agreed to it. But there's unfortunately from that, there's been knock-on effects with my health. And I also had weight loss surgery, not knowing better, I know better now, and I make better choices now. But there's things that I wish I could go back on and I can't. But I also I also understand that it's a journey and it's a process. There's grace for where I mistakes that I've made, and God can restore a lot of things, even if I don't have a full stomach anymore. It's the size of a banana, and I don't have like a gallbladder. I also believe fully in the healing and restoration that can still happen even without those parts. So it's that balance, but I also have to be wise with how I how I treat and look after myself now. And yes, if I could go back to my younger self, I would have different words, but I can't. And so this is where I am now, and this is what I do moving forward. But it's it's been quite a journey and quite a roundabout, and I still haven't got it all right.

Sally-Anne 14:00

And so, yeah, you know, this formal right thing. Like we feel like, and if I was gonna give advice to anyone, it's like we have this thing where we've got to do it right, and it's like, okay, get it. We know we all know, hands up, after school holidays, it takes us a little bit of time to get re-regulated into our flow. Yeah, yep. And so as a parent, we're managing multiple tabs, kids, calendars, financial deadlines. We're trying to show up in the space that brings us joy, whether it's podcasting or you know, coaching women. And there's a lot happening on the mental load point of view. So when it comes back to when you feel better, you do better, when you know better, you do better. And then we throw in some frameworks of organization in there around okay, non-negotiable is I need to spend 15 minutes meal planning this week. And that doesn't have to be hard. You it's okay to cut up celery and cucumber sticks for the kids for dinner and give them some raw tomatoes. Like it's okay. Like, you know, that is a that is a good dinner.

Mel 15:02

She does the whole like cold meats and and veggies and it's all finger stuff. And she's got two little kids. I think they're five and two, and they love it. They just like they eat all like yeah, the carrot sticks and everything, because they can get in and they can just pick what they want. We're designed to touch our food. Yeah.

Sally-Anne 15:21

There's a can, you know, kids, there's a connection. We're told to eat with nice before.

Mel 15:25

And I'm just like, I need to do that more. I've been doing more things like that too. So yeah, I'm open to any ideas you've got for things that are quick and easy for mums to put together that's

Fast Protein Meals For Mums

Mel 15:36

healthy.

Sally-Anne 15:36

Oh, look, honestly, so my go-to's are sausages are good for natural casing, no preservatives, go to the butcher, get them made.

Mel 15:44

German sausages.

Sally-Anne 15:45

Yeah, you know, they're an incredible breakfast, lunch, and dinner food. You can chop them up, you can throw them through salads, you can, you know, that they're they're something that brings the protein element in quite fast. You can even go the extra notch and put some organ meats in there, like a 5% profile. I know I screw my face up too, but guess what? Liver is the most bioavailable B vitamin nutrient known to women.

Mel 16:11

I'm too scared to try it.

Sally-Anne 16:12

Like you won't taste it at 5%. You won't taste it. Trust me. I am like the liver smelling queen. Um but at five, so if you've got a good butcher, just just experiment. You can do it with mints too. Okay. But more than 5% really does change the flavour, and you can taste it, and it's gross, and then no one will eat it, and you'll just waste your money. So 5% starts longer. Um poaching chicken. Like if you've got a thermo mix, that's the easiest thing on the planet. You can freeze it in snap hock bags or glass containers if you have the ability to. Yeah, and just like, you know, pull it apart. You can put it in a quick pesto with some gluten-free pasta or some zucchini noodles. Protein eggs are one of my go-to's. Lots, it's a love-hate relationship with eggs. Um, but it's got the coline in there, which really supports our brain health. It's bringing all those B vitamins through the egg yolk as close to nature as possible. Like the minute we start to open packets, that's the minute that the wheels can fall off.

Mel 17:12

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 17:12

And the framework that I teach is very much about protein complex carbohydrate, so vegetable, ideally non-starchy, and then make sure you've got a profile of healthy fat. Now, what's a healthy fat you ask? Well, most people will go avocado. Yeah. Um, but if you can make some mayonnaise, great. There is an organic brand mayonnaise that has less seed oils in it. That um if you're a BoxDivi member, you can get it through Box Divi. But it I've only recently purchased it because I was getting to the point where I was like, we love a bit of mayo in our family, but us too. It's just the fact that everything has canola oil in it now, and that elevates us getting skin cancers, right? And so when you start to put two and two together, oh, sorry, it has the highest rate of skin cancers in the world, it's like, uh, we also have probably one of the highest seed oil fruit consumers. Okay. Um so there was a study that 100% of mice that were given seed oils got 100% of skin cancer. The others given tellow extra virgin olive oil got none. So just know that for every the marketing giant that is the world is very much a problem solution model. Like we'll create this problem. Yeah, we'll create a solution, and then there's all these people in the middle that get monetized.

Mel 18:34

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 18:35

And so sickening. Look, it look, I try not to go there too much, but it does when I go through the supermarkets and I'm reading food labels, I'm like, holy crap, what are we what have we got here?

Mel 18:46

Um well the l the least amount of numbers, the least amount of ingredients, the least amount of things that are in it, usually the better. Because the whole form.

Sally-Anne 18:56

Like, honestly, how many other hats are we gonna juggle? Now we have to be, you know, food label experts because they've been greenwashed on the front of the packaging.

Mel 19:04

Like it's why I just make a salad or something that goes with dinner, like I don't need to read a packet for that. Like, you know, spinach is spinach. Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Sally-Anne 19:13

Yeah, I'm with

Meal Planning That Lowers Stress

Sally-Anne 19:14

you. So I I feel as though when I'm working with people, I get to really go into their their moments and be like, where are you getting stuck? Like, if I was to say to you, MealClan, how does that feel in your body? Um, let's come up with 12 or 15 recipes that the family love that we can put on rotation, and that's it. You just stick to those 15 and you put them on post-it notes uh if you want, all 15, write them up and then stick them on the fridge and say, kids, pick pick one each. That's your meal plan. How long is that taking?

Mel 19:49

Well, I think most I I heard something, I can't remember if it was on one of the podcasts I did or not, but where the average family only has like a maximum of three staple meals that they go to, like three or something. And I'm like, three? That's like you're gonna get sick of that pretty quick. But then you're gonna reach for things like takeaway, you're gonna reach for all these other things because you're like, oh, I don't feel like that. I don't know that, because it's just like three things. I'm like, you need to get more recipes under your belt. I don't even like cooking, but I'm I've got more than three up my sleeve.

Sally-Anne 20:22

Yes, yeah. And I think it's finding things at work because we know that, you know, if the kids have got sports on a certain night and we're gonna be out late, then there's gonna more be grab and go solutions or slow cook options or done pre-done meals or double batched, defrosted. Right. But you you do have to kind of, I think as women and organized or women that are wanting to be organized, yeah, we do need to look at that calendar and forward think. And slightly forward think. I know I don't mean like three months in advance. I'm just talking about even the morning of.

Mel 20:54

It could even be the morning of. Like when I'm helping women, I break it down like as small as they can manage, you know? And if it means looking at the week ahead is too much for you, break it down to the day. Like just morning off. And do you need to defrost the chicken breast out of the freezer or something? Like grab it out in the morning. But even if it's just the day off, like it's fine. And and as you'll have been mentioning and probably will mention the meal prep, which then you can have things done in advance, so then you can just grab it out and ready to go. But what are even your thoughts on that? Because I know for me and how I work, I don't necessarily do the meal preps on a Sunday afternoon or anything. I used to in the past, and it was just too much extra. I like double batch cook or something like that. So then I've just got leftovers. Like what are your thoughts on all that?

Sally-Anne 21:45

So I don't prep I don't but I don't batch because I feel as though I don't really want to spend an entire hour in my a whole day in my kitchen. I just don't. I'm not that I mean I don't mind I don't mind cooking, but now now my children are. Are older and we're moving away from the desired finger foods. We're starting to eat just simple things like steak. Whereas they wouldn't do that because they they couldn't chew it when they were a little bit littler. But now that we're seven and nine, they're yeah, they're a lot more open to just having a very simple form of protein, a very simple form. And some, you know, I've got two kids, they eat totally different vegetables. So it does make it really tricky. But what I've gotten to is I'm like, you know what? One likes cucumber, one doesn't. So we'll cucumber out. One likes carrots, one doesn't. One likes um, he'll eat radish and beetroot and all the rest. But the one that dislikes cucumber, just give him cucumber.

Mel 22:38

Yeah. Like it's still good.

Sally-Anne 22:40

Look, it's better than you kick in the pants. And so I think we we make it really hard and we make our children wrong for having food aversions. And I work with clients teaching them how to identify food sensitivities in three minutes without any expensive testing. And when you start to recognize that our our aversions change seasonally, our body is in a constant state of change. Like the fact that we think that, oh yeah, I'm allergic to this right now. I've been allergic to avocado and coconut oil. They were highly inflammatory for me. Yeah, but how many people do you think it's a n it's a it's a healthy food in vertical vertigomers, right? So, but that's no longer like the case. So I think for for a lot of us, it's just finding some things that we know we can do with really low energy, or on the days where the proverbial is hitting the fan, right? So I will give one tip that's been a game changer for my family because women in particular will constantly say that when the kids ask what's for dinner and they don't have a plan, that puts them into a state of fight or flight. So in my kitchen, the splashback is like a glass whiteboard.

Mel 23:56

Yes, also.

Sally-Anne 23:57

And so what I do when I meal plan, I literally will get a blank piece of paper, I'll go through the freezer, see what protein I have, I'll then see what I've got in my pantry, and I marry it up with this baseline. I start with a protein first and then the meal option. Once I've picked my um my meals for the seven days, I will put them up on the kitchen wall. So that my son comes home and he never asks me what's for dinner. He just goes and reads it, right? And for him, that his persona, he loves to know things in advance.

Mel 24:30

That's my eldest. Yeah, yeah.

Sally-Anne 24:32

My eldest is like that. And so that instead of him, he'll often jump in the car and he'll be like, Mum, are we still having blah blah for dinner?

Mel 24:40

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 24:40

So he he remembers and that gives him a space of control. Like for him, that's it. It's something that he can control. So that makes my life easier because then I don't get, oh, I don't feel like that. I've never had that.

Mel 24:55

Yeah. Or the whole, oh, well, I was thinking of this, and then you end up feeling something else, and then they have a little meltdown because in their head they're prepared to eat something the original thing you said, and you forgot about it. And if you've got more than one kid, that becomes a battle because everybody feels like something different. So I've I don't have the backsplash like that, but I've got it on the fridge with the calendar of that. I write it out there. He loves it, he can see, um, and it keeps me accountable.

Sally-Anne 25:22

Well, it just makes it easy because the night before you can look at it and go, okay, do I need to defrost anything? Yeah, defrost them in or whatever. I'll be honest, at the peak of my postnatal depression, when I couldn't even go into supermarkets, the delivery would come for carrots. And because of the meal planning structure, this was a new skill. Believe it or not, before kids, I didn't know how to cook. I didn't even know what bone broth was. This was only 10 years ago. So I had to teach myself how to nourish myself because it was so foreign. And the carrots would arrive, and if I was one short, I would have a meltdown because I was like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna make that meal or how am I gonna have to go to the shops? And I just literally couldn't function at that level. So that's how unwell I was, and I'm not there now, obviously, which I'm very grateful for. But I just want to encourage people that find someone that can help you just make these choices easier, and from that space you can start to microhabit stack, and then one little thing that you're sort of mastering becomes effortless, you know, it goes from conscious, uh con, you know, consciously doing it to to unconscious behavior. And that doesn't happen overnight.

Mel 26:42

No, but it's it does stick. I've I've done those little one percenters, just those one little substitutions on foods or or things like that. I still do years later because it's just so normal for me now. But it's a learned behavior, but it's just normal. I wouldn't even think to go back to using sugar or or something like that when I know better alternatives or even something like cooking using a bit of honey or something instead of the sugar or or whatever, you know, just depending on what it is, of course. But it's more once you make those little changes that it's a lot easier to do that and then you build from there because then you can move on to the next thing to deal with, and then the next thing and the next thing, and before you realize you've you've changed a lot without feeling like you've sacrificed anything, yeah, and you're missing out.

Sally-Anne 27:32

Yeah, absolutely. I I very I don't actually ever feel like I'm missing out now. Yeah, but that wasn't my journey 10 years ago, right?

Food Myths, Testing, And Shortcuts

Sally-Anne 27:40

Like that wasn't where I started in the beginning. Taking away bread, bread was like, oh my god, I'm gonna die with no bread, you know. Um, and then I, you know, as I went on the healing journey and I realized, okay, genetic testing demonstrated that we had I had three SNPs of MTFHR, so I don't methylate well. And what does that mean? It means that the folic acid in bread is a real aggravant for my detoxification pathways. And so all of a sudden, I was just like, Oh gosh.

Mel 28:08

Yeah, I don't know all that. I don't know what my body's doing. Oh now, I need to find out.

Sally-Anne 28:13

Yeah, well, look, yeah, yes and no. I mean, ultimately, the truth is you don't need to go and spend tens of thousands of dollars on testing like I did. You just don't. You can actually understand the language of your body, and that's kind of what I'm passionate about choosing. Yeah, because that's why you're the expert. We start, well, I don't know. Look, I I'm forever learning. I did a uh podcast with a woman the other day, and she's the supplement expert, and my mind got blown because the outcome was 85% of supplements are useless. Hmm. And I'm thinking play in that lane way, right? Um, but it just made me realize that we're still trying to fix the problem with a pill. Yeah. And yet on our plates, and yes, you could argue that the nutrient profiles are pleaded, etc. I just kind of think to myself, I'm like, it's another stitch up. You know, we're trying to create a short-term solution for a problem that really needs to be fixed with good foundations.

Mel 29:19

Everyone wants the shortcut though, you know, they don't like it it's hard work. It can be hard work changing habits, changing uh the way that you're used to doing things, um, taking away something that you liked, like genuinely liked, to replace it with something that is okay. Like, you know, there's a lot of work that goes into having to reframe and and even shift your perspective on things. There's a lot of work that goes into it. And for most people, they just want a quicker, easier fix. And that was partly what led me to doing the weight loss surgery, because I I'd already dealt with a bit of the mind stuff, but it wasn't really until afterwards that I realized like I needed to deal with a lot more of the mind stuff if I was gonna keep the weight off and all that kind of stuff. I I really had to get this right because this is something I've got to live with for the rest of my life. But I'm grateful for it because I feel like it was the catalyst for me to like pick my socks up and get on with it, you know? So the pros and cons. I'm I'm not against weight loss surgery, but I just wish that I'd educated myself more and just absolutely exhausted everything, every option before I went down that path. But that's okay.

Sally-Anne 30:42

I think there's lots of things that even partially educated Zalianne is like, hmm, can't probably wish I didn't do that. And yet we have to have grace because we do have a system that is actually geared against us. Yeah. And what do I mean by that? You know, a lot of people have been like, oh, well, that's genetic. Yeah, but genetic patterns, if you think about how families eat, yeah, that is also what's being repeated. So if your mum and dad ate a certain way, they're the way that we eat. And the the challenge is bread from 20, 30 years ago is not the same as the bread now. So we we keep kind of saying that, oh, you know, grandma, she lived to 103 and she did this and she did that. Yeah, but the you for 80% of her life, she wasn't poisoned by the food system. Let's be really honest and call her. Like even if she didn't, they didn't use glyphosate as a finishing product on the grain. You know, like let's be really truthful about how much the food system has changed. And the only thing that can set up it against us. Well, it is it well, I don't even know if it's intentionally against us because that's very much a victim mindset.

Mel 31:50

But yeah, no, but it's just all these things add up, don't they? Like one little thing here or there wouldn't probably be so much of a problem. But when it's every time we put something in our mouth and every meal and every food, like then it adds up.

Sally-Anne 32:07

It does. And I kind of quite often talk about the bucket. Like, we've got this bucket and it's and it's okay. And this is where a lot of women get to that sort of perimenopausal age and they're like, I've changed nothing. And yet we're not we're not really educated that perimenopause menopause is managed by the adrenal system, and so it's a baton that gets passed as part of a relay. Yeah, but if you're at the point of your transitioning to menopause and your adrenals are already pooped, then going through that next phase of the leg of the race is rough.

Mel 32:39

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 32:39

And so I guess what I try to encourage 35-year-old women to do is let's really start to nourish ourselves for that five to 10 to 15 year window where we can actually gracefully go through the next layers because changing something when you're already on top of it, it it takes it takes time.

Mel 33:02

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 33:02

So my simple daily go-tos now for my own well-being is obviously not I'm not big on supplements, but I found uh three years ago as a prayer out to God was uh my husband was going through really chronic back pain. And I'd had an ex-partner suicide from back pain. And so this brought up so much for me, like watching my husband go through this. I was just like, Oh my god, what are we gonna do? And all the things all the things that would have normally worked just weren't working for him. And a girlfriend rang me and she said, Sal, you gotta check this out. My knee is fixed, and the other friend who had sciatica, that's fixed. And I was showed a light signalling technology that was divine through prayer and created by a biologist inventor who used to do technology for the Navy SEALs to keep them awake and get out of amphetamines and stimulants. Okay, and so this company is a 21-year-old company, but they're little stickers, they're patches, right? And you pop them on 12 hours a day, 12 hours off, and they signal your body to do the inner work, the repair. And so that for my husband was a game changer. Day one, we noticed these huge shifts for me. Uh, I was, oh my gosh, six weeks in. I noticed changes to energy, sleep, and just waking up feeling ready, like, you know, really ready. Six weeks mark, a postpartum hemorrhoid that I'd had for six years and tried everything to shift, got worse for a few days and then left and has never come back again.

Mel 34:34

I'm like, yes, man, and I've had I got a really nasty airpoint. Sorry, it's too much information. No, they are hell with my last pregnancy that um, yeah, they needed to fix it when I was under. Like, yeah, it was bad. And I could not sit down properly. It was just so for six years, I'm I'm imagining that for six years. I had it for like a few weeks and it was like horrible, but six years? Yeah, yeah.

Sally-Anne 35:07

And so I mean not just alive. Look, it did, and I was thinking, how can like this little band-aid-looking thing, you know, that you pop on the back of your neck, I've got mine on my belly button today, how could it really do what it did? And that's so that's part of what I incorporate into what I do now because I'm like, you know what? Sometimes when we're in overwhelm and we're feeling anxious and we just need something to help us feel a little bit better so we can even meal plan. Because sometimes we're in so much chaos in our body and mind that we can't even the thought of meal planning is too much.

Mel 35:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I've been there.

Sally-Anne 35:43

We all I think we all have. And it's you build a system, you build a system, and you sort of work at it, you chip away what's working, what's not working. But with the cost of living crisis now, without a plan, you end up spending I reckon way more than $50 more than you need to every year.

Mel 35:59

Definitely.

Sally-Anne 36:00

So I have to have a plan because I've got a very tight budget. Yeah, look, and we we're the start, I think everybody does when electricity's gone up from you know three dollars a day to ten dollars a day.

Mel 36:10

And yeah, don't even want to think about it.

Sally-Anne 36:11

And then you got my middle today and I was like, $12 a day? What there's only four of us, you know?

Mel 36:16

And I'll I just changed electricity provider recently because we get three hours of free electricity in the middle of the day, which is very helpful for me. You're like all loads of washing between the five. Well, three is not in the three hours, and I'm crank up the air con at the moment, like to cool the house down.

Sally-Anne 36:34

Let's go, baby.

Mel 36:35

I'm I'm maxing it out. The dishwashers on, the washing machine, the haircon, everything.

Sally-Anne 36:42

All right, kids, I'm gonna go blow dry my hair and straighten it right now.

Mel 36:45

That's it.

Sally-Anne 36:46

I'm just nervous out of this. I'm with you. So look, I think um as we go along on the journey, we just we do need to give ourselves grace. We need to invite God into it and just be like, you know what, Lord, what what is it that I'm not seeing? Or if you need to see your blind spots, get a coach.

Mel 37:06

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 37:07

Because we can't, I didn't see my own blind spots. I had to seek help from so many different practitioners until I knew the way and I'd walked the path. And now I can look back and be like, oh, you're that you're where I was. Okay, great. This is the things that I did that really moved the needle. And I just love being that person because I felt like if there was someone that was teaching what I now know then, my journey would have been so much more redacted.

Mel 37:34

Like I wouldn't have been you're preaching to the choir. Yeah, I that that's why I'm a coach as well, doing what I do, because it took me like 12 years and tens of thousands of dollars and just so much time and learning to just to get to where I was that I could help fast, and I have been fast tracking women, they don't have to spend that kind of money. They don't have to spend anywhere near that kind of time. It's just get on with it. Like getting a coach is definitely worth it. And I'm I'm telling you now, Celienne, when we finish this podcast, I'm gonna be talking to you about my health journey because I you sound like exactly what I need for my health journey in this season. So yeah, yeah, totally exciting.

Sally-Anne 38:18

Well, I look, I'd love to back you. I mean, there's so many cool things that we can start to learn from the body and being able to understand its language, so its signals and being able to confidently interpret them, be like, oh, that means that. So I'm gonna do this. And I love the why piece. That's the bit that's really juicy. And if I don't get the why, I'm like, doesn't really make sense, you know? So giving giving things jobs, um, giving them an allocation as to why we're doing this, we're doing this because. So if you're out there, you're feeling just overwhelmed and anxious, and you don't know what to do next, but you need to climb out of a hole with your well-being. The first thing I would say for you is just firstly surrender it to God. That would be, and if you don't know God, invite him into your heart. Invite Jesus into your heart because guess what? He's got some plans for you.

Mel 39:08

Yeah.

Sally-Anne 39:09

And then that space of surrender, just what do you want me to know and what do you want me to do? And start your day with some protein. That is ultimately my best suggestion for any woman struggling with anxiety. It's like you have to, what, and what you think is a normal ratio, like one egg. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're gonna do two, honey, and you're finding because what that like balancing that blood sugar piece is the piece that communicates with the hypothalamus axis. It's when your blood sugar's off, it throws your adrenals, it throws your pituitary, you end up in this cycled loop of overwhelm. And then when we're in that space, we can't function.

Mel 39:47

You can't function properly.

Sally-Anne 39:48

No, and so if that means you know, finding out more about the light signal signaling technology that I'm sharing, fine, reach out to me, send me an email, call me if you need to. Because truthfully, there were so many people that were lights in the darkness to me. There were so many, like and I just remember them popping up like little daisies, you know, and I went, oh, this is the next part of the journey, this is the next part. And it's not one and done, it's we're stacking continuous. Yeah, yeah. And so I just encourage women out there to to just have hope because when we're we're in the hole, it can feel pretty horrible, but there is there is the breakthrough, and that means you restoring yourself to your former self. It's out there, you just gotta find the right person to partner with.

Mel 40:40

Yeah, I agree. Someone to help lift you out of that hole. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Oh, that is so good. Oh my goodness. Time flies. I knew it would happen. That's why I just jumped straight into it at the beginning, and here we

Contact Details And Final Takeaways

Mel 40:55

are. Um, so for those that are listening, if they want to be able to get in touch with you, where's the best place to find you?

Sally-Anne 41:01

Look, I'm going through a rebrand at the moment, but I am on Facebook under Sally- Anne Kearns. So that's uh Sally- Anne Hyphenated, K-E-A-R-N-S. If you want to binge on the podcast, it's called Nutrition Gateway. It is on Apple and Spotify. And if you do need some help, you're sitting listening to this going, I can't do this on my own. I don't know how to get out of this, then please ring me, uh 0400 203 203. And I'm serious, like that is my number. And if you need help, you call me and send me an email, Sally @Sallyanne Kearns.com.au. I'm here to back you. If I don't feel like you're a good fit, I'll be completely transparent. There's somebody else that I can refer you to. So just know that it's okay and that you are exactly where you're meant to be.

Mel 41:51

Yeah, lovely. Well, I'll make sure all those details are in the show notes to make it nice and easy. But thank you so much for coming on today. It's been an absolute pleasure hearing you and what you do. And even my mind is going, ooh, I need that light therapy stuff. That sounds great. Like, yeah, just thank you for sharing what you do and and helping us on our health journey.

Sally-Anne 42:17

You're so welcome. Thanks, Mel. Such a blessing to be here.

Mel 42:20

If you like this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want to continue the conversation, you can connect with me on Instagram @shes.organised or for some free resources, head over to beyondorganised.com/toolkit. Remember, organising is a tool to live the purposeful life beyond it. See you next time.