Your liver is running the show??

I’ve been thinking about the liver a lot lately, and it’s funny because for years I barely paid attention to it unless something showed up on labs or it came up in a very textbook kind of way.

Now I can’t stop seeing it in everything.

It shows up adjacent to the categories people usually come to me with...

Someone comes to me tired all the time and we end up looking at what the liver is doing with blood sugar overnight, especially that 2–4 AM window when it’s quietly releasing glucose so your brain and body don’t dip too low while you’re asleep.

Someone else is dealing with PMS or PMDD and suddenly we’re not just talking about hormones in isolation, we’re talking about estrogen metabolites, liver processing pathways, bile flow, and whether the body is actually clearing estrogen through the liver and gut at the same pace it’s producing and recycling it.

Someone is stuck on fat loss and we’re in insulin signaling, liver glycogen storage, and the constant decision the liver is making between using fuel now, storing it, or holding onto it for later.

It’s rarely the same starting point they thought they were walking in with. And that keeps happening often enough that it starts pointing to something bigger.

We’re taught to think of the body in separate boxes. Hormones in one box. Gut in another. Metabolism somewhere else. Cholesterol off on its own. Most experts are still trained this way.

But when you look at enough real people over time, that separation doesn’t make sense. The liver sits in the middle of everything. It’s constantly reading insulin signals, blood sugar levels, amino acids, fats, cortisol rhythms, estrogen shifts, inflammation, and even time of day, all at once.

Then it makes decisions about whether to store glucose as glycogen or release it, whether to make more glucose overnight or slow it down, whether to produce cholesterol or export it, whether to make bile, whether to break down hormones, and how to move things through detox pathways.

It’s doing prioritization work allllll day and allllll night.

Symptoms don’t usually show up as one clean signal from one clean system. They show up as clusters.

Skin changes that don’t make sense. PMS that feels different than it used to. Fatigue that doesn’t match sleep. Bloating after foods that used to feel fine. Cholesterol shifts that feel random. That vague “something is off but I can’t even explain it” feeling.

Bile is one of the clearest ways to see this. Most people think of bile as something that helps digest fat, which is somewhat true. But bile is also one of the main ways the body moves hormone waste out after the liver has processed it (especially estrogen that’s gone through phase I and phase II detox pathways).

Once those estrogen metabolites reach the gut, the system is still working on them. Certain gut bacteria (called the estrobolome), can change estrogen metabolites before they leave the body. Some get pushed out. Some get reactivated. Some get pulled back into circulation through enterohepatic recycling.

So what looks like blanket 'hormone levels' is actually a this collection of liver processing, bile flow, gut bacteria, fiber, transit time, and clearance speed.

That loop explains a lot of patterns people call hormonal imbalance, because often the issue isn’t hormone production, it’s how well production, processing, transport, and elimination are working together.

This is also one reason I pay attention when women report worsening PMS, PMDD, breast tenderness, heavier periods, or symptoms that seem to intensify despite hormone levels that don't look very different on paper. Hormones don't exist in a vacuum. The body has to process, package, transport, and eliminate them efficiently.

The thyroid is part of this conversation too! Thyroid hormones influence metabolism throughout the body, including processes that affect cholesterol handling, bile production, energy expenditure, and liver function itself.

This becomes even more obvious during perimenopause and menopause.

Estrogen doesn’t just drop in a straight line. It becomes more variable, and that variability changes how hard the liver has to work across multiple systems at the same time.

The liver is involved in cholesterol production, bile production, blood sugar regulation, and fat metabolism. Estrogen interacts with all of those systems directly. When estrogen patterns become less predictable, liver workload shifts with it.

Blood sugar regulation is a big piece of this that often gets missed.

The liver is one of the primary organs responsible for maintaining blood glucose between meals and overnight. When insulin resistance develops, the liver often becomes less responsive to insulin's signal to slow glucose output. As a result, it may continue releasing glucose even when blood sugar is already elevated. This is one reason fasting glucose, fasting insulin, triglycerides, fatty liver patterns, and cholesterol changes so often travel together. 

So then ... during perimenopause and menopause, when fluctuating estrogen can make blood sugar regulation less predictable, some women notice that the same foods, workouts, or routines that worked for years suddenly stop producing the same results. And it can be SO frustrating. Often the answer is improving insulin sensitivity and reducing the amount of metabolic pressure the liver is being asked to manage.

What I see in my work is often women getting told their labs look “normal,” or maybe being told one or 2 things is flagged as if those are standalone markers, while their actual experience of their entire body is clearly changing.

Energy that used to feel endless becomes less predictable and finite. Digestion feels a lot more reactive. Body composition shifts despite effort. Skin gets weird. Sleep feels less restorative.

Liver enzymes like ALT and AST are part of the story. I pay attention to them, and I tend to like seeing them quite a bit lower than the upper ranges of "normal" on the lab ranges because I often see that alongside systems that seem to be handling metabolic load with less background irritation.

But enzymes only tell a small part of the story. They don’t show blood sugar timing, bile flow, gut recycling patterns, or how the liver is communicating with muscle, gut, hormones, and circadian rhythm. So they’re clues, but not the whole story.

One common example of this is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). I don’t think of it as just a liver issue. I think of it as a metabolic pattern that shows up in the liver.

The liver is one of the body’s main energy decision centers. It decides what gets used for fuel, what gets stored, what gets converted, and what gets exported. When insulin signaling becomes less efficient over time, and energy intake and energy use stop matching cleanly, the liver is often one of the first places where that mismatch shows up. Fat in the liver is often the result of a longer pattern involving blood sugar swings, lower muscle uptake of glucose, poor sleep, chronic stress load, lower movement, and hormonal changes over time.

The liver is reflecting that environment and participating in it at the same time. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with the liver?,” the question becomes, “What is the liver being asked to manage right now?”

Because -- thankfully -- the system is adaptable! It responds.

Strength training improves how muscles handle glucose, which lowers pressure on the liver. More muscle mass gives glucose somewhere else to go. Sleep improves how the liver regulates glucose overnight. Circadian rhythm affects how it handles fat, sugar, and detox processes across the day. Fiber helps carry hormone waste out through the gut so less gets recycled. Even a short walk after meals changes blood sugar in a way that reduces liver workload almost immediately. And of course, greatly reducing or eliminating alcohol is a biggie. These days I probably have about 4 drinks a year or less. I'm just not interested and really respect my body more and more, the older I get.

The system is always responding to input.

Some of those inputs can be really simple. Bitters before meals, dandelion root tea, adequate protein, sufficient fiber, blood sugar management, regular bowel movements, and strategic use of certain supplements can all support the pathways involved in digestion, bile flow, and elimination. Castor oil packs are another tool many people find helpful, although the research is still evolving and I tend to view them as supportive rather than foundational. The fundamentals usually move the needle the most.

It's also worth mentioning that more is not always better when it comes to supplements. Over the last several years, liver injury linked to supplements has increased significantly. Sometimes it's contamination, undisclosed ingredients, megadosing, concentrated extracts, or interactions between supplements and medications. The liver is responsible for processing much of what we take in, which is why quality, dosing, and context matter.

When ferritin is elevated, cholesterol markers are shifting, liver enzymes begin trending upward, or imaging shows signs of fatty liver disease, I view those as signals worth investigating rather than ignoring. In more severe cases, ongoing liver injury can progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis, or liver failure. Fortunately, most people are nowhere near that point. More often, what we're looking at are early warning signs and opportunities to reduce the load before bigger problems develop.

Which brings me back to capacity!

The liver has a baseline load every day -- hormones, medications, supplements, alcohol, environmental chemicals, supplements, food additives, and normal metabolic waste.

On top of that baseline, life adds variability. Sleep changes. Stress changes. Food. Movement. Hormones. They change!

What I notice most often when we start to improve liver function is less unpredictability. Less reactivity. More recognizable energy. Predictable digestion. Better skin. And PROGRESS.

“I feel like myself again.”


That's always a great sign.

If this is connecting a few dots, this is the kind of work I go deeper into inside The Metabolic Edge, my group coaching membership where symptoms, metabolism, hormones, digestion, and physiology are all looked at as one connected system alongside workouts, meals, and lifestyle. Enrollment will open briefly on June 30th. Join the waitlist here.

I also take a limited number of 1:1 clients for deeper pattern-based work and custom plans and coaching. Learn more.

I've had a bunch of DMs this week about whether or not I offer 1-time consults. I don't typically advertise that I do, because most people do best in either group or 1:1 coaching. However, I do offer a small number of one-time consults for clarity and direction when someone just needs a map or a lab review with a plan and next steps. If you want more info on that, you can hit "reply" to this email. 

Stay wild + well,

Tara

P.S. In case you missed it:

I shared a case study recently on insulin resistance that connects directly into a lot of this physiology.


Not Standard American Way. Not Fearful Crunchy. Somewhere in the middle.

Some birthday thoughts and personal goals here.

P.P.S. What I'm loving lately:

Milk thistle for my liver



Sunrise walks, raw dogged lately -- no music or podcasts. Just me, my many many thoughts, the cute bunnies, and the pretty sky. Magnolia asked if she could wake up extra early to join me on a walk last week, which was so fun! <3


Forest sounds -- add that to the dinner jazz, classical, and spa music playlists for moments when you need some peace. Try it when walking, cooking, as background music, while you eat. Trust me, it's kind of awesome.


Our portable, low EMF sauna -- for SO many benefits, but very appropriate here for liver health as well. Infrared sauna can support liver health by improving insulin sensitivity, circulation, sleep quality, and stress resilience — all of which can reduce the metabolic workload placed on the liver. Think of it less as "detoxing" the liver and more as creating an environment where the liver can do its job more efficiently.

Some of the worst cortisol advice online sounds very convincing...

If you’ve been waking up between 2-4. AM lately feeling simultaneously exhausted and annoyingly alert while craving carbs and side-eyeing anyone who chews food near you… your physiology may be trying to tell you something.


There’s a weird thing happening online right now where cortisol has become the villain for basically everything.

And listen… cortisol is important! If you've been here a while, you know it's a big part of what I help women with. But the conversation around it has gotten SO flattened lately, and it drives me a bit nuts.

I keep seeing women being told to avoid anything remotely stressful. No fasting. No cold exposure. No HIIT. No intense exercise. No pushing themselves physically. No discomfort ever. The female body is being talked about online like it’s this fragile little thing that can’t adapt to challenge without immediately falling apart hormonally, and that’s just not true.

The problem with that messaging is women then miss out on the benefits of these things too. Better insulin sensitivity. Better mitochondrial function. Better metabolic flexibility. Better resilience. Better body composition. Better energy. Better aging outcomes. We deserve those benefits too, don't we?! (Of course we do!) We just need to understand that female physiology is different and the application may need to be different.

Cold exposure is a perfect example. A protocol built around a 24-year-old guy named Bryce who listens to OptimizeBiohackingMaxxing podcast clips while dry scooping pre-workout and sleeping 5 hours a night maybeeee shouldn’t automatically become the protocol for a 47-year-old perimenopausal woman juggling stress, blood sugar swings, poor sleep, and three kids. 😂 (Seriously ... we know we get solid adaptations at a higher temperature for cold exposure than men's equivalent, and that's just 1 variable).

This is where nuance matters, and unfortunately, nuance is dying on the internet lately.

Especially now that people can type a prompt into AI and suddenly sound wildly confident while giving incomplete, wrong, or outdated information that sounds scientific enough to convince people they know what they’re talking about.



Ugh.

Women’s physiology done well is very, “it depends.” Cycle phase matters. Recovery matters. Blood sugar. Sleep. Overall stress load and capacity. Perimenopause / menopause changes things. Nutrient status matters. Nervous system state matters. A woman doing intense exercise sprinkled into her week while sleeping 8 hours, eating enough protein, recovering well, and supporting blood sugar is very different physiologically than someone running on caffeine until 2 PM, under-eating calories and carbs, sleeping 5 hours, and watching the news 8 times a day.

Cortisol itself is not bad. Cortisol is a survival hormone. It helps regulate blood sugar, blood pressure, inflammation, energy production, wakefulness, circadian rhythm, and immune function. You actually WANT healthy cortisol. You want it elevated in the morning so you feel awake and functional and motivated to exist as a human being. Then ideally it gradually lowers throughout the day so the body feels safe enough to rest and recover later at night.

That daily rise-and-fall pattern is key.

When cortisol rhythm gets dysregulated for long enough, women often start noticing this cluster of symptoms that doesn’t always feel connected at first -- feeling exhausted but wired at the same time, waking up between 2-4 AM, crashing in the afternoons, anxiety that feels incredibly physical, feeling overstimulated by normal life, shallow breathing, poor stress tolerance, cravings, worsening PMS, belly fat that seem impossible to budge, brain fog, heart palpitations, feeling on edge constantly, workouts feeling harder to recover from, and this general sense of their body not responding the way it used to.

One of the biggest things women miss here is how connected cortisol is to blood sugar.

When blood sugar drops too low, cortisol helps bring it back up because your brain needs glucose to survive. So if someone is under-eating, skipping meals, overtraining, living on caffeine, chronically stressed, not sleeping enough, or constantly riding that adrenaline-wave energy, cortisol may stay elevated more often because the body perceives instability.

This is also part of why cortisol gets tied into insulin resistance, prediabetes, PCOS, and abdominal fat storage. The body becomes more likely to store energy centrally when it perceives stress, unpredictability, or resource instability over time.

Something else that gets missed a lot is how much cortisol impacts fluid balance + vascular function. This is a big reason women under chronic stress start feeling puffy, swollen, inflamed, or like their body composition changed overnight. Cortisol interacts with aldosterone (which regulates sodium + water retention), blood vessel tone, circulation, and endothelial permeability — basically how easily fluid shifts in and out of tissues. When stress is prolonged, you can end up with more fluid being pushed into tissues instead of staying properly regulated in the bloodstream, which shows up as morning face puffiness, tighter rings during walks, abdominal bloating, and that 'soft / inflamed' feeling after poor sleep, travel, intense training, or higher sodium meals. And a lot of women mistake that as fat gain — but physiologically, it’s often stress chemistry + inflammation + recovery debt showing up as temporary fluid redistribution. This is also where a lot of “detox” behaviors backfire (over-restricting food, dehydration, over-exercising, trying to sweat everything out), because the body responds better to stability and adequate recovery than more stress.

And cortisol sits pretty high up in the hormone cascade, meaning it influences a LOT downstream. Thyroid function. Sex hormones. Blood sugar regulation. Inflammation. Sleep quality. Appetite regulation. This is why women often feel like everything is suddenly off at once.



And hardly any healthcare professionals will actually connect all the dots across all systems holistically, because that's not how they were trained and that's not how the system is set up.

I had a functional doctor once tell me my cortisol was higher than she had ever seen in anyone before. Not exactly the achievement badge I was hoping to collect... EVER. 😂 Looking back though, it made complete sense. I was overtraining, under-recovering, running on adrenaline, living in chronic stress, working overnights in a clinical setting, blood sugar all over the place, constantly pushing, constantly “on,” constantly in go-mode.

At the time I was also dealing with PCOS (PMOS), insulin resistance, prediabetes, and hypothyroidism — all of which I’ve since naturally reversed to the point that I no longer meet diagnostic criteria for any of them.

But it required understanding physiology differently! And doing things counter to what the professionals said. It wasn't just eat less and move more. It wasn't just “reduce stress.” It wasn't a blanket, "balance your hormones" thing. 

I had to understand circadian rhythm, actual recovery, blood sugar regulation, nervous system state, breathing patterns, muscle mass, stress adaptation, sleep quality, and how women’s physiology responds to different inputs on a cellular level.

One of the most interesting rabbit holes in all of this is breathing and CO2 tolerance.

Most people think oxygen issues are about oxygen. A lot of the time they’re actually about carbon dioxide tolerance. CO2 helps release oxygen from hemoglobin into tissues. When people chronically over-breathe — which is incredibly common in stress and anxiety states — they can blow off too much CO2, which may contribute to feelings of air hunger, anxiety, dizziness, panic sensations, poor exercise tolerance, and poor stress resilience.

This is where the BOLT test can help. It’s a simple and accessible way to look at CO2 tolerance and breathing efficiency. It's not used as a diagnosis, but as another window into nervous system patterns and stress physiology. I shared about how to do that here in this post.

Nervous system regulation is another thing that gets turned into vague internet fluff lately when it’s actually deeply physiological. It doesn't mean, "just be calm all the time." I mean, what?! Doesn't make sense and not possible anyway (have you seen .... things?!)

Nervous system regulation is breathing patterns. Blood sugar stability. Vagal tone. Sleep timing. Light exposure. Recovery. Safety signals. How the brain interprets stress. Whether the body feels like it’s constantly preparing for threat. And if your body responds appropriately -- fight or flight when someone nearly crashes into you on the highway, but back to calm within a few minutes. THAT is nervous system regulation. Appropriate and adaptive.

And interestingly enough, short intentional stressors can often LOWER baseline cortisol over time when appropriately dosed. This is the entire concept of hormesis and adaptation. Strategic stress with adequate recovery often makes the system more resilient, not less.

Strength training can improve stress resilience. Cold exposure can improve immune resilience. Intervals can improve insulin sensitivity and metabolic flexibility. And more.



(This was oversimplified b/c geez ... I can be so freaking long-winded!)



The goal isn’t removing all stress from life. The goal is improving adaptability. That’s a very different conversation.

Now… testing. This part gets complicated because cortisol fluctuates naturally throughout the day, so a single blood draw only captures one moment in time. Salivary testing can sometimes show rhythm patterns more clearly across the day, but results can still be influenced by sleep, illness, caffeine, medications, stress, cycle phase, timing, and lifestyle variables. Urine testing may add additional context in some cases, but none of these are perfect.

And unfortunately, some functional testing isn’t always covered by insurance because it exists outside standard conventional care models.

This is also why symptoms and patterns matter so much. I’ve seen women with so-called-normal cortisol labs who were very clearly physiologically struggling. And I’ve seen women improve massively not by removing every stressor from life, but by improving recovery, blood sugar regulation, sleep, nervous system flexibility, muscle mass, resilience, and overall metabolic health.

So what actually helps here is usually unsexy consistency. Make sure you’re actually eating enough overall — especially protein at most meals (roughly 30–40g is a helpful anchor for a lot of women). No steep calorie deficits. Don’t let the day turn into caffeine + adrenaline + “I forgot to eat until 3 PM” if you’re already waking at night or feeling wired / tired. Build muscle a few times per week so your body has a reason to improve glucose handling and stop behaving like it’s in scarcity mode. Walk daily, especially after meals if you can, because it’s one of the easiest ways to improve blood sugar without stressing your system more. Get morning light fairly early in the day to help anchor your circadian rhythm. And protect sleep like it’s the ginormous foundation it is — because under-recovered women just keep digging the hole deeper. The goal is reducing the constant physiological noise so your body can stop acting like it’s under threat all the time.


Some women also find a few well-chosen support tools helpful during higher-stress seasons — just as a buffer while the foundation improves. Things like magnesium glycinate for sleep and recovery, L-theanine for smoothing the caffeine/stress response, or ashwagandha to help modulate a chronically elevated stress load can be supportive in the background. The goal is never to rely on supplements instead of physiology — it’s to give the system a little more breathing room while the bigger pieces (food, sleep, muscle, stress, recovery) are getting back in place.

This whole space — women’s physiology, metabolism, cortisol, body composition, stress adaptation, hormones, behavior patterns, nervous system regulation — is basically my Roman Empire. I love this stuff so much because when women finally understand WHY their body has been responding the way it has, everything starts making more sense and there’s so much less fear around it. Plus, they start to trust that their body has actually been on their side the whole time and that allows the most beautiful progress.

Speaking of progress, I have a membership called The Metabolic Edge. I open it once a month only. Enrollment is officially open today and tomorrow, and this is exactly the kind of work we do inside.

The Metabolic Edge is my membership community for women who are tired of trying to piece together random health advice from 42 different people online and want one place where things actually connect. Workouts. Meals. Metabolism. Fat loss. Perimenopause. Cortisol. Nutrition. Blood sugar. Nervous system regulation. Mindset. Real-life consistency. It all works together because your body works together.

And one of the things women tell me over and over inside is that it finally feels manageable.

We're not doing overwhelm 'round here, ok? Ok! We're not obsessive. Indulgences are encouraged. So are real, healthy, VIBRANT results.

Most women inside are 35-60+ and they’re rebuilding trust with their bodies again. They want energy back. They want strength back. They want to stop feeling like they’re fighting themselves all day. They want workouts that build instead of deplete and can be done in 30-40 minutes. They want food to feel simpler. They want to understand what’s happening physiologically instead of blaming themselves constantly.

And they want support while they’re doing it.

That’s what this space is! You can join for $59 / month, no contract, cancel anytime, and start wherever feels most helpful for you. Doors close tomorrow night. Would love to have you inside! LEARN MORE AND JOIN HERE. <3



Stay wild + well,

Tara

P.S. In case you missed it:

My (maybe controversial?) take on how to improve the healthcare system


Update: I'll be taking my exam next month to become a Certified Menopause Practitioner through The Menopause Society and holy wow ... it's quite the monster of a vetting process to get this certification. I'm deep in studying daaaaaily and cannot WAIT to be able to serve the peri / menopause women even better. Fingers crossed!

P.P.S. Things I'm loving lately:

I love that a 6-minute session with my Pulsetto (discounted affiliate link) improves my vagal tone and helps bring me back to a parasympathetic state. It's not a necessity! There are lots of ways to do this for free (humming / singing / chanting and more), but having this device is very much appreciated and utilized. As someone who leans very sympathetically-dominant, I'll take all the help I can get!



Hear me out, this is very specific: 5 minutes of grounding and sunshine in a dress. Being barefoot on my grass, getting some vitamin D, a little sun on my legs, and not having to choose a top AND bottom to wear... sometimes it really is the little things, ya know?



L-theanine. I like taking this with coffee for a less jittery experience. It can help with nervous system regulation, cortisol, and sleep too. Just a heads up: some people develop WILD dreams or nightmares while taking this and if it's so vivid that it's troubling, you may want to consider stopping. Also, I'm loving it but that doesn't mean it's great for you. Check with your provider first.

You didn't become sensitive, your histamine threshold changed

We've got a BIG topic today, so buckle up. I didn't set out to make this a dissertation (yikes), but I can't help myself when there are dots to connect and not many people connecting them, it's practically involuntary for me.



So many women (especially those of us over 40) are walking around collecting symptoms that don’t look related on paper, but feel obviously connected in real life. Skin reacting to jewelry. Random waves of anxiety that show up with no reasonable story attached. Sleep that keeps being interrupted. Bodies and faces feeling puffy, reactive. A nervous system that just… stays on.  Asthma, eczema, seasonal allergies, hives, motion sickness. Dermatographia (where your skin basically writes back when you scratch it). Ringing ears that randomly flare. Dermatitis that seems to come out of nowhere. Even hyperemesis gravidarum during pregnancy has emerging mast cell / histamine discussions around it.



Histamine sits in the middle of a lot of that. It’s stored in mast cells, and those cells live everywhere you don’t think about until they start acting up — skin, gut lining, lungs, blood vessels, brain tissue. So when they release, it doesn’t show up in one neat category. It shows up as itching, flushing, hives, headaches, congestion, heart rate changes, dizziness, mood shifts, sleep disruption, food reactions. Sometimes all at once, which is where people start feeling like their body changed overnight.


I walked through the full breakdown in a short video here — think of it like a 9-minute podcast you can just listen to while doing other things. Then come back here for the deeper layer, because I wanted to expand on the treatment side in a more detailed way for those of you who like to really understand what’s going on.


Isn't that wild? If you haven't watched or listened yet, you won't get the context of the rest of this newsletter alright? STOP. COLLABORATE. AND LISTEN. Ice is back with my brand new invention ...



I digress (if you got the reference, we should be friends in real life).



Ok, so picking up from there (seriously, did you watch / listen? Most of the info you want is there). I want to get into what actually tends to help support these pathways in real life, beyond just trying to eliminate trigger foods or shrink the list of what you can tolerate. Of course this is all dependent on the individual. No medical advice here, just information to help you chat with your healthcare provider.



Quercetin often comes up here because it helps stabilize mast cells so they don’t release histamine as easily. Typical supplemental ranges sit around 250–500 mg once or twice daily depending on tolerance and formulation. Bromelain often pairs with it in the 200–500 mg range, partly because it supports inflammatory signaling modulation and helps quercetin absorption. Vitamin C in the 500–1000 mg range plays into histamine breakdown pathways and also lowers oxidative stress that tends to amplify reactivity. Magnesium glycinate around 200–400 mg at night supports nervous system regulation, which indirectly lowers mast cell reactivity by shifting baseline stress signaling. Vitamin B6 in P5P form, often 10–25 mg, supports DAO enzyme function in the gut.



Some people also experiment with nettle leaf or DAO enzyme support taken with higher histamine meals, especially when food patterns are obvious. And some notice shifts when alcohol is temporarily reduced, leftovers are minimized, or fresh-cooked food becomes more of a baseline for a while just to see what the system is doing underneath.


And in more complex mast cell cases, some healthcare providers may discuss mast cell stabilizers like cromolyn sodium as part of the treatment conversation.


There’s also the H1 and H2 blocker layer. Some women end up using both, sometimes daily, because symptom relief is real in the short term. H1 targets histamine receptors involved in things like itching, sneezing, skin reactions, and some neurological symptoms (ex: Alegra). H2 is more involved in gastric acid pathways and can influence digestive symptoms and systemic load indirectly (ex: Pepcid). They can absolutely help in certain windows. BUT a few words of caution: histamine itself is also part of normal physiology — involved in wakefulness, stomach acid production, immune signaling, learning, and memory. So long-term suppression without understanding why histamine is elevated in the first place can shift the conversation away from root drivers like gut integrity, hormone fluctuations, stress load, or nutrient depletion.


There are also observational studies and pharmacology discussions around long-term anticholinergic antihistamine exposure and cognitive risk signals (dementia) in certain populations. Another reason why I, personally, would not be interested in long-term H1 blockers + H2 blockers. To me, this becomes more of a “What is the system doing?” question rather than a “How do I shut this down forever?” situation.



Labs can sometimes add pieces of the puzzle. Plasma histamine, tryptase, DAO activity, 24-hour urine histamine metabolites, inflammatory markers, nutrient panels, hormone testing across cycle timing, sometimes gut testing depending on symptoms. MCAS workups or specialist evaluation in more complex presentations. But even when labs are “normal,” symptoms can still be very telling because histamine and mast cell behavior are dynamic, not static snapshots. This is where clinical pattern recognition becomes the thing that actually moves understanding forward — timing across the cycle, triggers, load stacking, response patterns, what shows up together.



A lot of what I see clinically is the body adapting to a higher background load. Stress signals, environmental exposures, ultra-processed food patterns, alcohol, sleep disruption, constant notifications, inflammation, and lower recovery capacity all stacking. Trauma history can play a role, too, because the nervous system and immune system constantly communicate with each other. Mast cells don’t exist in isolation from that. They respond to it. And over time, the threshold for activation can shift.



Anyway, this is the rabbit hole I’ve been in for a while, both personally and clinically, because once you see how interconnected it is, it all starts making a heck of a lot more sense.



If you want support with this in a more personalized way, this is exactly the kind of thing I work through with clients 1:1. We look at the full picture — body composition goals, health goals, labs when they’re available, daily life stress load, schedule, recovery capacity, and what your actual season of life looks like right now. Then I coach you through nutrition, training, lifestyle, mindset, and all the in-between pieces that tend to matter just as much as the plan itself. And we get you to where you wanna go -- that's kind of whole the point, right? ;-)


If you want to apply for 1:1 coaching, you can do that here. I’ll be in touch after you apply so we can see timing, availability, and whether it’s a good fit on both sides. I don’t always have openings, but spots do open up as clients graduate, so it tends to ebb and flow a bit.


And if 1:1 isn’t in the cards right now, mark your calendar for May 26th (next week!) — I’ll be opening doors for The Metabolic Edge for a short window. It’s my membership for women who want to support metabolic health, body composition, strength, and longevity in a way that actually fits their realistic life. Inside you’ll find workouts, meals, a full library of workshops (think Netflix-style), guest experts, and live coaching calls + Q&As with little ol' me. Most women inside are 35–60+, so wherever you’re starting from, you’re in good company. It's $59 / month, cancel yourself from the dashboard anytime, no contracts.



Stay wild + well,
Tara

P.S. In case you missed it:

PCOS has a new name!

Tongue position dictating your abs??

Making a home cable machine out of bathroom trash

P.P.S. What I'm loving:

Our countertop, homemade "allergy medicine" — this video is old (and SO cute, right??) and we are still making this


My Lumebox (43% off with this special link) — We use it every day for countless reasons, but specific to this newsletter's topic, red light therapy can help here by working upstream on what makes the body so reactive in the first place, not just the histamine itself. It supports mitochondria (your cells’ energy production), which can lower oxidative stress and inflammatory signaling — and mast cells tend to calm down when the cellular environment is less stressed. It also improves microcirculation and nitric oxide signaling, which can help symptoms like flushing, puffiness, headaches, and that warm, reactive feeling in the skin and vessels. It can also shift the nervous system slightly toward a more parasympathetic state, where mast cells are generally less likely to overreact. And if you're like me and your body it a sensitive little witch and overreacts to everything (like bug bites), this helps there too. It's not a magic cure, but a helpful tool for sure!


This tea. I keep it on hand always. I just don't steep in the tea bag itself (want to avoid the microplastics), so I rip open the bags, pour into this, and then steep. It helps me a TON with water retention. This tea supports a few of the systems sitting underneath histamine load, especially liver processing and fluid balance. Your liver helps break down histamine and estrogen metabolites, so anything that gently supports bile flow and clearance can make a difference in how backed up things feel. It also has a mild diuretic effect, which is why some people notice less puffiness or that heavy, fluid-y feeling in their face or hands. And the bitter compounds can lightly support digestion and gut movement, which ties back into how well histamine from food gets handled. It’s just helping your body clear and process what’s already there a little more efficiently.


Keeping Uno and conversation starter cards on our table. The amount of spontaneous fun and laughter that has happened over meals just because it was right in front of us is pretty wild. Highly recommend making a game or cards a part of your "center piece" too!

Your "healthy routine" is the problem

If you’re doing the work and still not seeing your body shift, there’s a reason for that.

There’s a lot of talk right now about nervous system regulation, and somehow it’s turned into staying calm all the time. THAT'S NOT WHAT REGULATION IS! Ahhhhhhh. Ok, sorry to yell. That's just my passion leaking out.

Regulation is range. It’s being able to ramp up when you train, think, respond, deal with life… and then come back down when it’s over. That shift is the real skill.

Same thing with cortisol.

Cortisol has been getting absolutely dragged online lately, and most (I'd say 99%) of what I see about it is off. We don’t want your cortisol timing, peaks, or rhythm to be dysfunctional. But somehow that turned into “don’t do hard workouts, don’t get cold, don’t go more than 3 hours b/w meals, don’t stress your body or you’ll spike cortisol and store belly fat.” That leap is wild and just .... isn’t real.

It’s like noticing that doing strength training 6 hours a day, 7 days a week would break your body down… and then deciding strength training itself is the problem. Nope. Dose matters.

Cortisol rises in the morning so you wake up. It rises when you train so you can perform. It rises when life demands something from you so you can meet it. Then it comes back down. That rise and fall is the point. THAT is healthy.

Your body is built for stress. Not constant stress, but dosed stress. On purpose.

Heavy weights that require something from you. Getting out of breath on purpose. Going 12+ hours overnight without food so your body shifts fuel sources. Cold exposure so your system has to generate heat. Heat so your body has to cool itself down. That all raises cortisol and requires your body to respond.

That response is the training.

One of the ways you build a healthier cortisol rhythm is actually by doing things that temporarily raise cortisol on purpose… and then coming back down. You create the spike, your body does what it’s designed to do, and then you return to baseline. Over time, that becomes a skill — rising when it should, clearing when it should, not getting stuck in fight or flight.



You talking like an a$$hole to yourself all day everyday? That's cortisol that stays and never leaves. Not good. You overextending yourself and never setting any boundaries with your unstable family members? That's cortisol that stays and never leaves. You being in a calorie deficit since the last episode of Saved by the Bell aired? Yup ... cortisol that has taken up permanent residence.



Those things are not good. And if you ignore those and instead try to micromanage cortisol by never sprinting or shivering another day in your life, you will continue to be stressed 24/7 but now also have to add "weak, frail, fatigued with worsening lab work and a softer body" to the mix ... especially if you're in the over 40 crowd like me!

Resilience comes from handling stressors and coming back down from them. That’s where metabolism becomes more flexible too. It's also where energy starts to feel more stable.

A lot of people are building their entire routine around avoiding stress, and then wondering why nothing changes. Comfort doesn’t create adaptation. Challenge does. Then recovery and rest lock it in.

The rhythm is the whole thing.

We're not chasing perpetual calm. A body that can handle load, respond, and come back to center without friction is the real goal.

This is also a big part of what I go into inside The Metabolic Edge. This is why today, tomorrow, the next day… the women inside are seeing their results compound in real time. And with summer coming, those compounding results are turning into confidence right on time for the long days ahead.



May enrollment for The Metabolic Edge will be here next week! Mark your calendars for Tuesday, April 28th if you want in on the method that has changed 1000+ women's bodies and lives (I canNOT believe I have served that many women ... pinch me!!!).


Overthinking your health (in a good way),
Tara

I wish I didn't see this ... because now I have to change it

So I’m sitting down to write today’s blog post and I’m like… bump the other topics. The people need to know this!

I’ve been tracking my sleep pretty closely lately and WOW. The difference is not subtle.

On nights I eat after dinner—nothing crazy, just a little something like veggies and hummus mixed with salsa—my REM sleep drops. Consistently! Like 20 minutes gone.

Same exact amount of hours in bed. Same wake-up time. And yet a completely different sleep quality.

This matters, because more REM sleep means better brain recovery, better mood, better memory, better hormone regulation… all things we as women 40+ could really use more of.

And listen, I’ve read the science. I get the physiology. Digestion, blood sugar, all of it. But seeing your own data basically call you out like this is a different story. Haha.

I usually stop eating after dinner. But this might be the thing that makes me stick to that just a little bit more often.... since my body is over here keeping receipts.

I posted a reel breaking down my new watch data here last week if you missed it and want to see exactly what I’m looking at.

So if you’ve been feeling off even when you’re technically doing 'everything right'… this might be one of those things flying under your radar too!


Stay wild + well,
Tara


P.S. We just started a new workout program in The Metabolic Edge and the feedback has been incredible so far. TME is a (virtual) metabolic studio for women 35-60+ who want to get leaner, stronger, and healthier without the restrictive dieting. Workouts, food, group coaching calls, guest speakers. But my FAV part is the community of women sharing their tips, wins, questions, and cheering each other on. If you need support + guidance, come join us!

Whimsy is not optional

You ever notice how when things start to feel heavy, chaotic, or just… ugh, we shrink? We focus on the laundry, the bills, the appointments, the 'shoulds' that never end. We forget that we’re humans with imagination, curiosity, and this crazy-cool little spark that wants to play.

One of the best, lowest-lift ways I fight that shrinking is to add a little whimsical to my days. Tiny things that make me feel alive, silly, joyful, unexpected. The kind of things that make me stop and remember that life doesn’t have to feel so serious all the time.

Some of my favorite ideas (some I've done and do and others not yet):

• Carry googly eyes with you and stick them on random objects when the opportunity strikes.

• Play coffee shop music while you cook, even if you’re just making eggs.

• Air the house out for 15 minutes every day, even when it’s freezing. The difference in energy is wild.

• Candlelit showers. Tropical-themed baths with Epsom salt, ocean sounds, and a tropical drink.

• Weekly nail appointment with yourself — because even if you aren't going to salon, you can

• Take a class (or a free YouTube version) in cooking, ballet, salsa, guitar, drawing, whatever invigorates you.

• Write -- poetry, stories, journal

• Get a plant and give it a regal human name. Ms. Judy Moffet of Kingsington. Talk to it.

• Dress up just because. You own the clothes, why not?!

• Turn on the essential oil diffuser and pretend your apartment is a spa retreat.

• Take your coffee outside for 5 minutes of sun on your face. Bonus points if you do it barefoot.

• Natural-dye sprinkles on your yogurt or oatmeal.

• Pick up a new hobby or revisit an old one. Learn a sport, a skill, or just something silly like memorizing the fast part of the song you listened to on repeat in high school.

• Put your blanket in the dryer for 5 minutes before you cozy up to a show.

• Spend a day pretending you’re the main character in a rom-com and react accordingly. Bonus points if you also make it a no complaining day.

• Write a handwritten note, card, postcard or letter to someone.

• Invite friends over for a game night, a theme potluck, or make a fort for movie night.

• Sign up for something that makes you feel like an athlete again (or for the first time). Race, competition, team.

• Start a garden or grow a tiny thing that makes you smile on your windowsill.

• Grab a duck figurine and carry it in your purse. Take it out for photo ops anywhere, everywhere, for no reason at all.

• Look up a few dad/mom jokes and text them to people you love. Laughter truly is magic.

• Read 5 pages of a book every day. You know you wanna.

• Plan a fun 1:1 night with your spouse, partner, or kiddo.

• Pick one thing you’ve always wanted to learn more about and just start. Curiosity is a life force.

• Bedazzle an old flower pot, a boring pair of sneakers or shoes, or your phone case. This seems to be popular in the pre-teen girl population these days. They stole our high school style, so we can steal this from them.

• After your kids are ready for bed but before story time, grab a bunch of balled up socks and play dodgeball with them in their room. You will be finding them under their bed for weeks, but the belly laughs are worth it.

• Buy a pair of “dressy yoga” pants in a few colors and wear them with tanks, t-shirts, sweaters, blazers, button-downs — your new uniform, comfy year-round. Five stars. Highly recommend.
  
  

And if you feel called to add your own whimsical ritual, do it. Make it weird or playful or random. Life doesn’t have to feel heavy all the time, and when it does, we have to push back — remember who we were, who we are, and who we’re becoming. A little whimsy goes a surprisingly long way.

Go add some whimsy this week. You deserve it!


In googly eyes we trust,
Tara


P.S. If you already does some whimsical things or have ideas and wanna share, please feel free to leave a comment.

Why your "fitness over 40" plan is probably wrong

I see terrible advice for peri/menopausal women everywhere these days. Just last week I saw the IG page of a brand I like (not fitness-related at all) say that women over 40 shouldn’t do any intense exercise. And I GOL (gasped out loud) because NOOOOO.

They have a ton of followers, and I can’t stop thinking about all the women who might be worsening their health and disease risk because of this misinformation. Did the brand mean any harm? Absolutely not. I’ve had a few conversations with the founder, and I can confidently say they were just misinformed and passing along what they thought would resonate. But YIKES. Accuracy matters.

So let’s clear some stuff up. Here are three perimenopause myths that need to die, and what actually works.

1. Don’t do HIIT after 40.
   No. Just…no. Short bursts of high-intensity work are still your friend. They boost cardio, help with insulin sensitivity, and can even help your body composition. But don’t make it your main event. Strength training and daily movement are your foundation. Quick, survivable examples: 10–15 minutes on the bike, 1-minute sprints with walking breaks, or a 12-minute kettlebell circuit. Do it, feel badass, don’t die.

2. Hormones are “mean” and you’re doomed to gain weight.
   Yes, hormones are messy. Estrogen and progesterone fluctuations can shift fat to your belly and make fat loss slower. Sometimes they make you a bit insulin resistant — fancy science way of saying “carbs sometimes turn into drama.” You can feel it in bloating, energy dips, or when your jeans start passive-aggressively hinting they’re full. What actually works: lift 2–4x a week, hit 30g+ protein per meal, move daily, and time carbs around activity and sleep. Slower progress, yes. Impossible? No.

3. Pilates counts as strength training.
   I love Pilates — I even took a hot Pilates class recently and I am still sore in places I didn’t know existed. But here’s the deal: it doesn’t replace proper resistance training. After 40, muscle, bone density, and pelvic floor strength naturally decline. Pilates is the garnish; lifting is the main course. If you want a program built for women over 40 that hits muscle, bone, deep core, pelvic floor, and mobility, check out The Metabolic Edge — it literally covers all the stuff we actually want and need (plus is an entire community of women, workshops, meal guides, and everything you need to succeed with your fat loss and health goals!)
   
   
   

Perimenopause isn’t a curse. It's a challenge for sure, but with the right strategies, you (we) can feel strong, move better, and finally stop panicking over every birthday we have.

XO,
Tara


P.S. I'm 42. I fully expect some of you who are in your 50s and beyond are saying "Ok, Tara, you just wait." And ya know what? Fair! ;-) 

If your metabolism was a Hallmark Christmas movie

If your metabolism were a Hallmark Christmas movie, it would absolutely star a woman named Holly. Holly is the girl who left her tiny hometown of Pineberry Falls years ago to chase the Big City Life™. Now she has the things you’re “supposed” to want ... the job, the salary, fancy wardrobe, the view from a high-rise corner office… and exactly zero margin in her day. Breakfast is cold brew and a mint. Lunch is whatever she can inhale between Zoom calls. Workouts used to be a thing, but now her steps are mostly frantic trips between her desk and the fridge. She’s exhausted, puffy, moody, and her jeans are having a very honest conversation with her midsection. Her metabolism is basically lying face down on the floor whispering, “Ma’am…I am doing everything I can.”

So, naturally, she flies home for Christmas.

Enter Pineberry Falls -- a town where everyone somehow knows each other’s business, all street lamps are wrapped in garland, and at least one local shop is struggling but adorable. The second Holly steps off the bus, the snow starts falling in cinematic slow motion. Her shoulders drop a half inch. She can actually hear herself think. She sleeps through the night for the first time in months. Her metabolism perks its head up like, “Wait…is this… safety? Is this… rest? Is that… fiber?”

And then, because Hallmark has rules, she runs into him.

Nick. High school sweetheart. Former football captain. Still lives in town. Drives a pick-up truck that looks like it’s seen things. Smells like cedar, fresh snow, and car oil. He’s been working three blue-collar jobs and taking care of his sick aunt. He chops wood. He fixes things. He eats real meals, goes to bed at a decent hour, and thinks “stepping away from email” is not a radical act, but a Tuesday. He is, whether he knows it or not, the human embodiment of decent sleep, blood-sugar-friendly meals, lifting heavy things, walks in the cold, and a nervous system that gets to actually come down off the ledge once in a while.

They reconnect, obviously, at the town Christmas tree lighting ceremony (obviously). The entire town is there in coordinated scarves. Kids are running around with aesthetic mugs of hot cocoa. A local choir is singing. Someone plugs in the lights, the tree glows, they accidentally touch hands while reaching for the same ornament, and time slows down. Holly feels her shoulders drop another half inch. Her heart rate settles. Her breathing deepens. Her metabolism sits up straight like, “Ohhhh, okay, I remember this version of us.”

But because we can’t have nice things without plot first, the Big Conflict arrives right on schedule. Holly’s phone rings. It’s her Big City Boss™. There’s a crisis. A deal is falling apart. They “need her in the office immediately.” In ten seconds flat she’s back in fight-or-flight. Cortisol spikes. Cravings roar back. Sleep is gone. Her brain, which was just starting to consider safety and steady energy, goes, “Abort mission, we live in emergency mode now.” And in classic burned-out-woman fashion, she instinctively runs toward the very life that’s been slowly frying her.

She races to the airport. Of course there’s a snowstorm. Every flight is cancelled. People are camped out on the floor. Everyone is rage-refreshing the airline app under the bright, fluorescent lights. Holly sits in a hard plastic chair, bright overheads buzzing, scrolling emails she doesn’t want to answer, and thinking, “What if my entire life has been working against how my body actually functions? 

Outside, in the dark, a truck pulls up.

It’s Nick. Because of course. Somehow he has bravely navigated the blizzard with nothing but four-wheel drive and main-character energy. He finds her in the terminal, drops the line that every Hallmark male lead is contractually obligated to say: “Holly…you don’t have to go back. You could just ... stay. With me.” And she laughs, but her body hears it. Her heart rate drops. That buzzing, wired-tired feeling backs off. Her metabolism leans in like, “Say more…”

Here’s where the movie goes full-on cheesy and you can't believe you're still watching. It turns out Nick has just inherited a massive fortune from his aunt. He’s no longer the broke boy with a heart of gold, he’s the rich man with a heart of gold who wants to help Holly open her dream -- a half bake shop / half bookstore on Main Street. Gluten-free muffins by day, cozy book club by night. She can leave the corporate job that’s been aging her faster than any birthday and build a life that actually fits how a female body, brain, and nervous system work.

And that’s the twist! Turns out she was never lazy, undisciplined, or falling apart with age. She was just living in an environment and routine completely incompatible with midlife physiology. Her old life -- chronic stress, under-eating, over-working, five hours of sleep, constant pressure -- was the real villain. Pineberry Falls, with its slow mornings, real food, community, movement built into regular life, and space to breathe, becomes the metaphor for metabolic and nervous-system safety. Nick isn’t the savior, he’s a walking, flannel-wrapped reminder of what it looks like when your daily choices stop fighting your biology.

By the end of the movie, Holly is lifting weights in the little town gym, eating a full breakfast everyday, sleeping like a golden retriever after a long walk, and watching her energy, mood, and body composition shift. Her lab markers quietly transform in the background. Her jeans fit differently. Her confidence comes back. And the final voiceover says something like, “When a woman stops waging war on her own body and starts designing a life that supports it…that’s when the real magic happens.” as they kiss under the mistletoe.


So if you've been struggling, go spend some time in Pineberry Falls. That's it. That's the newsletter.


Nah, just kidding.

You don’t need a Christmas snowstorm or a half bake shop / half bookstore to get your version of that ending. You don’t have to move to a small town or quit your job tomorrow. But if Holly’s story hits a little too close to home, it might be your cue to stop treating your exhaustion, weight, and health like it's a personal failure ... and start treating them like the predictable result of a system that was never built for your nervous system, hormones, or metabolism in the first place.

This is why I coach the way I do. TRANSFORM, The Metabolic Edge, my 1:1 work ... they’re all just different doors into your own Pineberry Falls. Spaces where we stop asking, “How do I shrink myself the fastest?” and start asking, “What would it look like to build a life and strategy that my midlife body can actually thrive in?” No fake snow required. Just nerdy physiology, smart structure, nervous-system safety…and a very happy ending for your future self.


XO,
Tara



P.S. In case you missed it ...


My 2025 Holiday Gift Guide is for wellness enthusiasts with all budgets in mind. Peek the big section on free ideas and experiences.


Cozy Fiber Recipes is my brand new high fiber, balanced, WARM recipe collection b/c you don't need to eat cold leaves all Winter long.


New research -- a large Finnish cohort study (≈14,000 adults, followed for up to 39 years) found that people who used a sauna about 9–12 times per month (about 3x/week) had a lower risk of developing dementia than those who used it ≤4 times per month. This association stayed significant even after adjusting for age, sex, education, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors. Moderate temperatures (80–99 °C) and typical session lengths (5–14 minutes) looked most favorable. But here's where it got interesting ... very high temperatures (>100 °C / 212 F) were linked to higher risk in early follow-up. Because it’s observational, the study suggests sauna may be protective as long as it's not too hot (which would make sense with what we know about mechanism), but it can’t prove causation. As always, more research is needed. But we do have enough research to know sauna use is excellent for our health and metabolism in many ways!

Stop living 2 lives, start getting results with ease

Right now, there are two yous.

One is just getting through the day. Work. Kids. Head noise. Handful of snacks in the car. Drinks with your people because you need a laugh. You call it real life.

The other wants change. Steps. Lifts. Protein. Bed on time. Labs that look brand new. You call it goal life.

Keeping them apart is why it feels so hard. Sit all week, then try to cram 10k steps on Saturday. Skip breakfast, then raid the pantry at 3 PM. “Be good” till Friday, then start over Monday. It’s two lives competing. One life is no good for the other. And vice versa. It feels like you're always pulled between real life and goal life.

But you need to sew them together.

Make tiny seams. Rename today. You're not dieting. You're not just surviving either. You're "in training" ... for a life that feels good in all the ways. And manageable! I think the manageable part is a lens we usually forget to look through.

Say it out loud. You're sewing the 2 lives together, little by little. Then give it a chance to grow on you.

Order PFF at restaurants and skip the drinks. Or choose one indulgence like a lil dessert or a drink or some apps every once in a while. But not every time you hang out with friends or family. Your social calendar was never meant to dictate your indulgence calendar. No guilt, deprivation or food drama. Just choices.


Think about sometimes catching up with friends and family in a different way other than eating out or drinks. I love a good restaurant meal and someone else doing the dishes, don't get me wrong! But maybe sometimes you can do other activities with your people instead?


Pair joy with structure. If you're loving your murder mystery podcast series or girly audiobook, listen during a walk or while in the kitchen. Pleasure and progress at the same table.

Move inside your life, not just around it. Walk during a call. Ten squats while coffee brews. Take the stairs once on purpose. Let the scraps add up on top of the scheduled walks and workouts.

Set one boundary that buys you energy. Lights dimmed at eight. Phone charges + sleeps in the kitchen. A 20-minute block on your calendar with your name on it.

Do it just for 24 hours. Then again tomorrow.

One fabric. No costume changes. The two yous sewn together into the version of you who can be BOTH the one who is living a real life and the one who is upleveling wherever she wants to uplevel.

You’re not two people. You’re one person learning to live as a whole. And whole people get where they’re going.


XO,
Tara


P.S. If this hit a nerve, follow it. The Metabolic Edge. You'll find coaching, community, and clear next steps for results sewn together WITH real life.

Are carbs helping or hijacking you?

Let’s talk about carbs ... not because you need to cut them, but because how much and when you include them can make or break your energy, cravings, mood, and metabolism.

Most of the women I work with feel better, stronger, and more in control once they figure out their personal carb sweet spot. And spoiler: it’s usually not “as little as possible.” But it IS often more than the low carb people are used to and less than the Standard American Diet people are used to.

When you eat meals that are too carb-heavy -- especially fast-digesting ones without enough protein, fat, or fiber to anchor them -- you spike your blood sugar fast. Then your body releases insulin to shuttle that sugar into your cells. But if it overshoots (which happens often), your blood sugar drops hard. And suddenly you’re exhausted, cranky, and craving more food… even if you just ate. That crash is what pulls you back to the pantry again and again.


When undereating carbs becomes your whole personality, you run the risk of energy crashes, hunger and fullness cues getting wonky, thyroid slowing down, sleep thrown off and worsened moods and anxiety.


So ... Goldilocks.

Most women feel best starting with around 25–35 grams of net carbs per meal (that’s total carbs minus fiber). It’s not about precision or counting everything. It’s about balance and just being informed about how to put together balanced meals without obsession.

Here’s what that might look like in real food:

• 1 medium sweet potato

• 1/2 - 3/4 cup cooked rice or quinoa

• 2 small corn tortillas

• ¾ cup cooked lentils or beans

• 1 banana or a small apple + some squash

• 2 slices of sourdough

• 1 cup cooked, unsweetened oatmeal

• A protein smoothie that includes 1 cup fruit
  
  

Some women do best with carbs at two meals a day instead of three -- especially during fat loss phases, post-menopausal or if they’re more sedentary or insulin resistant. Others need more if they’re lifting heavy, nursing, or rebuilding from burnout. It's very individualized! But this range? It’s a strong starting point for feeling more stable and less snacky all day long.

Inside The Metabolic Edge, every single recipe in the meal guides is built with this balance in mind. The carb load, the fiber, the protein, the fat -- it’s all designed to keep your blood sugar steady, your metabolism supported, and your energy more predictable. And I update the meals every month, so there’s always something new to try without overthinking it.

You don’t have to obsess over numbers. You don’t have to eliminate carbs. And you definitely don’t have to keep wondering why you’re tired, foggy, or reaching for snacks when you’re supposedly “eating healthy.”

This stuff matters. And when your meals are working with you instead of against you, everything else gets easier too.

XO,
Tara

Overheard at my daughter's gymnastics meet

Two weeks ago, I was at my daughter’s gymnastics meet. Sitting on one of those painfully tiny bleachers, you know, the ones that make your hips go numb after five minutes. I was alternating b/w sipping on my coffee and smoothie, trying to keep one eye on the floor routine and the other casually eavesdropping on the group of moms behind me.

And wow, the spring diet chatter was in full bloom.

I’m talking:

"I just signed up for that new fasting app. It says I can’t eat past 6 PM, but honestly, I sneak a little peanut butter at night because, like, I’m not a robot."

"I’m back to keto for swimsuit season but I’m still having wine. So basically keto-ish?"

"I lost 12 pounds on Ozempic, but now I’m stuck, so I’m thinking of adding Orange Theory 4 or 5 days a week. I hate running, but I gotta speed up this weight loss."

I mean… I’ve heard versions of this every single year since I can remember. It hits 70 and sunny here in New York, and suddenly everyone’s panicking and trying to outsmart their metabolism.

And listen, once upon a time, I too was desperate to make my body (cells) respond. I wanted results that didn’t feel like pulling teeth. I wanted to feel strong, energized, like my body was actually working with me not against me.

But sitting there in the bleachers, all I could think was:
One, Magnolia is crushing it!
And two, no one ever told them what’s really going on under the hood.

So, I’m going to tell you.

Here’s what your body does when you start another diet.

Not what your calorie tracker says.
Not what Instagram influencers tell you.
What your biology actually does:

Your thyroid dials down, slowing energy output like your body’s trying to conserve battery life.

Leptin, your "burn fat" hormone, drops like a bad habit, telling your brain to pump the brakes on fat loss and start hoarding.

Your muscle breaks down first because muscle is expensive for your body to maintain while fat hangs around like an uninvited guest.

Your mitochondria, the little energy factories in your cells, go into low-power mode. They’re underfed, underpowered, and not exactly firing on all cylinders.

It’s not sabotage.
It’s survival.
Your body is trying to keep you alive.

And whether it’s Ozempic, Noom, Weight Watchers, or macro tracking (which is basically cutting calories with a fancier calculator), it’s the same plan with different packaging: eat less, burn more.

The problem? Your body adapts. Every single time.
It gets smarter. It gets stingier with energy.
And eventually, what used to work doesn’t (especially in perimenopause and menopause!)

Here’s what no one is telling you and why so many women feel stuck:

Your body’s leptin sensitivity needs to be rebuilt so fat loss can even happen again.
Your metabolic adaptations need to be reversed, not ignored, so your body feels safe to lose weight.
Your mitochondria need to be trained to make more energy, burn more fat, and actually keep you feeling good while doing it.

This is why fat loss feels harder the more you try. The diets and coaches are not helping you with the above. So that'll look like very little progress or just temporary progress.

And this right here is why I built TRANSFORM: Body + Mind, my 28-day metabolism course. Not to hand you another list of what to eat and how to move (let’s be honest, you could Google or ChatGPT that). But to guide you through a full and COMPREHENSIVE metabolic reset that fits within your full and busy life. The stuff no app or one-size-fits-all plan is covering.

I pour so much into this course and my clients! As such, I only run it a few times a year.


Doors open in 3 days. The waitlist peeps get a discount code.

I’m not saying you need to be on the list. But if you’ve ever caught yourself thinking, "Maybe I just need to try harder," this is your sign that it’s time to try a different approach. Not the same one with a different name.

Every round of TRANSFORM, women walk away with results that feel mind blowing. Not just because the scale moves (though they typically love that), but because the cravings that ruled their day are gone. The constant hunger quiets down. They notice so much more energy and better sleep and moods. Their lab work shows them aging backwards. And most importantly, the results last. We’re not into circling back to square one over here!


We’re moving forward. Will you be there with us too? Click here for more info.


XO,
Tara


P.S. If it's not in the cards for you this round, that's ok! You can always join us the next round in the Fall.

It all started with one shelf

A 1:1 client of mine (we’ll call her Erin because, well that's her name LOL) came to me a few months ago feeling tired, inflamed, and totally overwhelmed. She was eating “healthy,” working out a few times a week, doing all the right things... but still felt stuck. Puffy. Off.

One day shortly into our time together, she sent me a message that just said: “I opened my pantry today and wanted to cry. I didn’t even know where to start.”

Not because it was empty. But because it was full of stuff that didn’t support her anymore. Old diet snacks from past attempts. Protein bars that had 7g of protein, 28g of carbs and 23 ingredients. Things that made her bloated. A weird granola she bought because some influencer said it was clean. Crackers for her kids that she always ended up stress-eating. A graveyard of powders, teas, and expired intentions.

Here’s what we realized: the pantry wasn’t just a mess. It was a reflection of how long she’d been trying to “fix” her body instead of fuel it.

So we started with one shelf. She tossed what was expired or didn’t feel good. Then we added back a few simple things that did — like a protein source she actually liked, electrolytes to help her feel more energized and less snacky, high-fiber carbs that didn’t spike her blood sugar so dramatically, and one treat that felt fun, not forbidden.

That one shift changed how she started her mornings. It changed her blood sugar. Her cravings. Her mindset. Because your pantry isn’t just storage. It’s a system. And your metabolism is listening to what you stock on autopilot.

If you want a place to start today: pick one shelf. Remove anything that is expired. Put a sticker on anything you'd like to replace with a different choice once it's empty. Then add one thing to the panty or your grocery list that makes your future self proud. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to support where you’re going.

And if you want a go-to combo when time and patience are running low, here's one I love: lupini bean pasta (we have this one - 20g protein, 15g fiber and 6g net carbs per serving ... taste + texture is just like Banza to me), a simple jarred tomato sauce, and a bag of frozen veggies. Throw it all together in 10 minutes with some salt or spices + herbs, and maybe a sprinkle of cheese and you’ve got a balanced, metabolism-friendly meal that saves you from another night of DoorDash regret.

Tomorrow night inside The Metabolic Edge, I’m teaching a live workshop on exactly this. We’re doing a full pantry and kitchen spring clean-out together and building a metabolism-boosting setup from the inside out.

We’ll cover what to actually keep and what to toss, the why behind ingredients that mess with energy, hormones, and cravings, what I always keep stocked and what’s not worth the hype, and how to lower food decision fatigue so your habits can run themselves.

If you’re already inside, I’ll see you there! If not and this hit, you’re always welcome to come hang out. It's $59 / month, cancel anytime. More details + apply here.



Happy Spring declutter + refresh mode!



XO,
Tara

Perimenopause and menopause is chaos -- but you’re not crazy

Don’t worry, I'm saving the April Fools jokes for Instagram and my family. I’d never prank you about peri or menopause. That stuff’s already chaotic enough.

Hormones going rogue? That’s real.
Waking up at 3am wondering if your metabolism ghosted you? Also real.
So today, no jokes ... just gold.

Let’s break down what’s actually happening in your body (and what you can do to take your power back). Perimenopause and menopause isn’t the problem. But it is revealing everything your hormones used to hide.

Let’s talk about the midlife health mystery no one prepared us for:
You wake up puffy.
You feel more anxious than usual.
Your jeans fit weird.
You’re snappy for no reason.
You can’t remember why you walked into a room, but you can remember that you’ve already had it with everyone.
So you go to the doctor.
You get bloodwork.
They tell you, “Your labs are normal. Maybe try meditation or weight loss?”
Cue internal screaming.



Perimenopause / menopause (the former I have personal experience with myself!) can feel like chaos. Perimenopause is that in-between hormonal zone where your body is shifting ... but not consistently. Estrogen is erratic. Progesterone is MIA. Some days you feel great. Other days you're crying into your sleepy time tea.


Meanwhile, your mitochondria are like: “Ma’am, are we doing cardio or collapsing?”
And the medical world? It’s kind of collectively like: “Huh. That’s weird.”


What’s actually happening with your hormones? (skip if it starts feeling like biology class)


Perimenopause = hormone chaos. Estrogen and progesterone don’t just drop ... they fluctuate wildly. You can go from normal levels to postmenopausal lows and back again… in the same week. That’s why some days you feel amazing, and others you feel like a puffy rage monster in a brain fog.


Progesterone drops first. It’s your calming, balancing hormone -- and when it goes, anxiety, irritability, sleep issues, and PMS-like symptoms take the wheel. This is often the first sign of perimenopause.


Estrogen becomes unpredictable. Sometimes too low (cue hot flashes, dryness, mood swings), sometimes too high (hello bloating, heavy periods, breast tenderness). The rollercoaster makes your brain and body feel very confused.


Testosterone quietly declines. It doesn’t crash like estrogen or progesterone,  but it steadily drops, which impacts muscle mass, libido, confidence, motivation, and strength. You may not notice it right away, but over time you feel… flatter. Less drive. Less “you.”


Menopause = hormone flatline. Once you’ve gone 12 months without a period, estrogen and progesterone reach consistently low levels. Your body can function without them,  but not optimally unless you support your system.


Post-menopause, your adrenal glands and fat tissue take over. They produce small amounts of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. But if you're stressed, inflamed, or depleted? That backup system gets overwhelmed fast. (This is one reason managing stress and building resilience becomes non-negotiable.)


I love analogies -- Think of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone like a group of expert chefs running your body’s kitchen. In perimenopause, the chefs start showing up late, forgetting the recipes, and throwing cayenne into the pancake batter. In menopause, they retire ... and now the interns (your adrenals and fat cells) are trying to keep the restaurant open with half the ingredients and no supervision. It’s possible, but you’ll need better systems, smarter nutrition, and a lot more support.


Here’s the real plot twist:



Perimenopause and menopause are often blamed for too much (“It’s just your hormones. Good luck!”) AND not blamed for enough (“Your labs are fine. It’s probably stress or aging.”). But the truth is that yes, your hormones are shifting. But also… your youthful hormones were masking metabolic chaos for years:

Undereating.
Over-stressing.
Lack of muscle.
Blood sugar roller coasters.
Sleep deprivation.
Nutrient depletion.


And now? It’s all showing.


What’s actually happening to your mitochondria?


Estrogen drops → energy production drops
Estrogen helps your mitochondria function. With less of it, energy tanks and oxidative stress climbs.

Inflammation creeps in
Hormonal chaos = cellular inflammation = slow repair + slower metabolism

Insulin sensitivity tanks
Your cells stop responding well to carbs, and blood sugar management gets harder

You lose lean mass (and mitochondria with it)
Muscle = mitochondria. Muscle loss = lower metabolic capacity.

Cortisol spikes, but recovery lags
You’re more stressed, more easily depleted, and less resilient.

Sleep suffers → mitochondria suffer
Night wakings = poor recovery = higher inflammation

Your nutrient needs skyrocket
Your cells need more B vitamins, magnesium, antioxidants, protein, and co-factors ... just to function normally.



What actually helps (and what I teach + guide you through in The Metabolic Edge):

• Short, metabolism-supportive strength training

• Blood sugar balance with protein-forward, satisfying meals

• Nervous system regulation (real tools that work in mom-life and other life chaos)

• Strategic supplements that support mitochondrial + hormonal health

• Smarter recovery (because rest is now mandatory, not optional)

• Real-life strategies that work in 2025, not 1998

Cat's out of the bag. Coming soon: The Metabolic Edge



This is exactly why I created The Metabolic Edge -- my brand-new signature membership where we rebuild your metabolism, energy, and resilience from the root up.


It’s for women in. their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond navigating perimenopause, menopause, body composition and / or health struggles who want real strength, better brain power, more joy, and less dreaming of naps


Doors open VERY SOON. Keep an eye out.
Because you’re not broken. You’re just out of cellular alignment ... and we can fix that.


Stay tuned. This is going to change everything.

XO,
Tara

Period Tawk / Cycle Synching

Let's talk about menstrual things ...

And if you are post-menopausal or someone who doesn't have a menstrual cycle, I'm getting to you guys too.



I've been chatting a lot on instagram lately about menstrual cycles and cycle synching because I decided to add a last-minute resource to TRANSFORM: Body + Mind all about it and since I'm trying to stay hip and share BTS (what the cool kids say for behind-the-scenes), I've been discussing it in my stories.



I also shared that I practice cycle synching related to fitness, nutrition, and some other lifestyle things too. That resource ended up being SIX PAGES because we women really are complicated, beautiful creatures! But I wanted to share a recap here with you in case you find it helpful.



HERE IS A QUICK RUN-DOWN of the 4 phases of our menstrual cycle. It's a bit more nuanced than that, actually. Technically speaking, we have 2 phases: follicular and luteal with our period and ovulation occurring within and overlapping with those 2 main phases. But it's much easier to think about it as 4 distinct phases when it comes to cycle synching, so that's how I'll be referring to it here.



During our period, it's often most natural to reduce workout intensity in the first few days but dial it back up towards the tail end as hormones and energy levels start to climb. Think about using slightly lower resistance but adding a few more reps to strength training workouts, reducing cardio pace, and incorporating longer rest intervals in a HIIT sesh. 


In the follicular phase, we are usually feeling stronger and can push the weights and pace a bit more. We tend to have more manageable hunger levels and can tolerate carbs and caffeine a bit more (more insulin sensitive).


During ovulation and the few days surrounding it, while we may notice PMS-like symptoms (such as mood changes and water retention), the surge in testosterone means we're usually at peak strength. This is a great time to lift heavier and maybe even go for a PR (personal record) if you're into that sorta thing. 


In the luteal phase, you'll likely notice a gradual drop off in energy and desire to be social. The same amount of tasks that you handled like a pro during your follicular phase might now seem extra overwhelming. As your energy dips, you can slightly decrease resistance and / or pace and / or increase rest time between sets as needed. We are slightly more insulin resistant in this phase and caffeine can trigger worsening PMS symptoms, so consider being extra intentional about eating enough carbs but NOT too much and cutting back on coffee or weaning to decaf during this phase. Metabolic rate is slightly elevated, so go ahead and nourish yourself well with PFF (protein, fat, and fiber) at every meal and carbs at 2ish meals per day. Most people need an afternoon snack as well.



What if you are post-menopausal or a man? Well, you have some more wiggle room! You can use some of these same strategies to cycle around just regular life. Feeling like pushing yourself more today? Go for it! Having a little less energy? Show up and be proud of just doing what you can and listening to your body.



That's it for now! Hope it helps you stay consistent but flexible as you act like a best friend to your body rather than a mean girl.


XO,
Tara


P.S. If you could use a meal plan that's already balanced with adequate amounts of protein, fat, and fiber in each meal plus carbs at 2 meals (a moderate carb approach), GRAB IT HERE. You'll get two, actually: a plant-based version and an omnivore version. Use the one you want or both if you'd like! Hope you enjoy.