In this episode, I sit down with Cynthia Thurlow, a nurse practitioner, women's health expert, and host of the Everyday Wellness podcast, whose viral TEDx Talk on intermittent fasting has been viewed more than 10 million times.
Cynthia has spent her career helping women navigate weight, metabolism, and hormonal health, work that became deeply personal once she entered perimenopause herself in her forties. We talk about the connection between gut health and hormones, and how dramatically that relationship shifts once perimenopause and menopause enter the picture.
A big focus of our conversation is the estrobolome, the collection of gut bacteria responsible for metabolizing and recirculating estrogen, and what happens when that system gets out of balance. We get into how estrogen metabolism changes with age, and why protein and fiber intake become even more critical during this transition, both for supporting the gut microbiome and for maintaining the body composition that tends to shift so quickly during perimenopause. We also dig into how Cynthia thinks about intermittent fasting differently for women than the standard advice most people hear, and why a one-size-fits-all fasting protocol rarely works once hormones start changing.
Beyond that, we get into some of the most talked-about tools and interventions in women's health right now. Cynthia shares her take on GLP-1 medications and peptides, where they genuinely help and where they fall short, and how she thinks about hormone replacement therapy as part of a bigger picture rather than a standalone fix. We also talk through body composition changes during this life stage, and how she uses data from tools like Mira and Oura to actually track what's happening with hormones and cycles in real time, instead of guessing. If you've ever felt like your body stopped responding to the things that used to work, this episode is packed with practical, science-backed answers.
