E254: Our Hot Takes On 2026 Health Trends, With Dr. Heather Rhodes

This episode just picked up where we left off last time, and it grew out of a question we’ve been sitting with lately: what’s ACTUALLY shaping women’s health right now? 

Today, Heather and I talk through the health and hormone trends we see gaining momentum as we head into 2026. Some of them are things we’ve personally seen help women and we feel good about. Others made us stop and ask more questions before moving forward. And in a lot of cases, slowing down has felt like the wiser choice for our own health.

A few moments that stood out:

• Concerns and boundaries around AI in health and hormone support
• Why peptides aren’t inherently bad, but often used without enough context or preparation
• Why hyper-focusing on one body system often misses the bigger picture

If health advice has been coming at you from all sides lately, press play and let us help you think differently about what your next step is.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Transcript

[00:00:00] Today we're talking about some of the trends we see happening in health right now, continuing into 2026, and we're talking about the red flags, the good, the bad, the ugly, and what we are doing in our practice. So let's dive in.

Leisha: [00:00:00] Hey ladies, welcome back. I have Heather here with me again and we are back for kind of a part two of our last episode. But we today are gonna talk about the trends that we're seeing coming in health and hormone health for 2026, and essentially our opinions on them, whether we like them, don't like them, if we're using them, and how and why.

Heather: yes, yes, yes. I think this is good because I feel like this year there's actually a decent amount of newer ish trends. I feel like it's one of the first years that we're seeing things.

That actually feel new. I feel like the last few years have been very much the same things kind of happening over and over and over again. And now I'm like, wait. There is a lot of movement, at least in the online space around what's happening. And I do feel like the natural holistic space has had some.

I wanna say impulse or, yeah, I was gonna say infiltrations is the [00:01:00] word I was thinking 

Leisha: mm-hmm. 

Heather: Of just like how things are shifting and what new is coming in and things that are being called natural holistic. But my ears are like, are, are they really? and I think that's actually shifting things back to a really cool direction for the people that have kind of stayed rooted and grounded in.

This work from truly a place of not necessarily having to be in a category of like natural, holistic, but really just in a place of consistently looking back at how were our bodies designed to work and what environment are our bodies designed to thrive in, and why or why not does that get results? And so that's why I think these are some fun topics to chat through.

So let's go ahead. the first one's ai, obviously. Okay. 

Leisha: really quick before we even get into ai. What's your take on, like, are we still doing New Year's resolutions? Do you see people around you doing that? Is that very like 2010 at this point? I feel like someone being like, I have New Year's [00:02:00] resolutions.

I feel that's almost like poo-pooed at this point. We have so much guilt and shame honestly around not. Fulfilling them that we don't even wanna say that anymore, but I know some people are still doing like a word of the year what do you see there? Because I know there's always still this New Year's energy and I'm kind of trying to figure, I'm like, I think I wanna make some goals for the first quarter so that it gives me a little more wiggle room, but also some structure.

But I'm not calling them New Year's resolutions. I make goals consistently throughout the year. But honestly, I don't feel like making goals for the whole year makes a lot of sense for me right now. Oh. I do things like more seasonally, but then I do wanna still think about the year so that I'm not just like in a tiny little bubble.

So that's kind of me is almost like a . Quarterly goals. 

Heather: Yeah. Everybody love, , I love a fresh page. . A new journal. I love feeling like there's a fresh start. I actually was looking at a picture of my brother's little baby earlier, and I was like, she's so empty.

There's no trauma [00:03:00] inside of her. I was like, like in a good way, fresh and Yeah. What a great slate. No, she's definitely a big old baby. She ain't empty. so I do think that the word of. The year from the Lord, I do like that trend. I feel like that's kind of replaced New Year's resolutions per se.

But it's really interesting because I think there's two pieces of that that you mentioned that actually are kind of like the detrimental pieces of New Year's resolutions, which is why they get such a bad rep. I think one of them is that a lot of times people go into it with this fully masculine energy around , setting goals and I have to achieve them.

, It's very masculine. It's a hype, it's a let me produce, let me, achieve, let me go and create something. Not even create, let me attain something, and then it fizzles out. And sometimes I think that's because we don't approach it with a seasonal approach or we don't approach it with, these are some.

I think about masculine and feminine energy is like the masculine is the boundaries and the feminine is the flow that can keep [00:04:00] the things moving within the boundaries. You know, like water, if water's great when it's in a river and it has boundaries, but when it's not, it's a flood and you have problems.

I think sometimes when it comes from a really masculine place of like, these are my three goals, I'm gonna lose 25 pounds and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, oh, okay. 

Leisha: Right. , Because then there's no flexibility to the structure. There's only . Win or lose, right?

Heather: Yeah. But then I definitely have spent a long time since. working through my own journey with eating disorders and body image stuff and my nervous system has felt the most safe and masculine energy for the majority of my life. So when I started healing that I kind of went to the flip side and was fully feminine for a very long time.

I am not setting goals and I am not doing things and I'm free and I'm flowy. And I'd say in the last . Four months, I've kind of started putting a little bit more structure around that and the pendulum has not gone all the way to the other side. And I'm actually really liking setting goals and having structure.

I [00:05:00] do think one big thing that matters to me and my family that we're putting rhythms around is first fruits. And so it does feel like the beginning of the year is a great time. To focus on first fruits and what first fruits is the Lord asking us to bring to him? What are we laying down and surrendering with the season of first fruits?

I think there's a lot of power in new, you know, the first, the new chapters, the beginnings of something. 

And I think that the pressure can also be. Silly 

Leisha: at times. Yeah. Well, and I think it's so interesting too, when you say first fruits, it's like you can do this. Honestly, at so many different times of the year, so if we're talking about the biblical calendar, there's New Year .

That is for the crops. And there's a new year, that's for the moon and there's different kind of like new year. So there's one in the fall, one in the spring around Passover, around, the fall feast. , But then we're on, the regular American Calen.

I know it's not American calendar, but , that's just what I'm gonna call it. And this is. the new year, that [00:06:00] seems the most obvious to us, which I just think is so wild because it's in the worst part of the year. You know what I mean? Where , it's cold, it's gross.

My opinion, like yeah, I think that's why New Year's resolution so much, but that's why it feels so good to be like, okay, I'm gonna start something new. I have something to look forward to. I love that we have the options of different times of the year, essentially.

I think it's like you 

Heather: spend two. Months basically with your nervous system dysregulated and you know you're out of control, dysregulated. And your response to that is like, okay, let me grasp for control and reregulate, but that actually never reregulate you. So it's really people doing it the opposite way.

But something you and I talk about, that's basically what you're saying is that we kind of follow rhythms. Monthly. , So we do first fruits and surrendering with our cycles. We do, seasons with moons and the biblical calendar around the feast. I think that that probably lessens the hype around New Year's.

Stuff. The pressure when you have these consistent rhythms of re-anchoring into [00:07:00] seasons of new and seasons of first and seasons of harvest and seasons of sewing and when you're kind of always moving on a spectrum like that, the start of the new year doesn't feel like this big huge wave of something new.

'cause you're like, no, we're used to gently flowing with waves every few months or weeks. 

Leisha: Well, and also there's just the mom calendar, right? Like for moms. Going back to school is a new year. Starting back to school again is a new year. Getting out for summer is a new year. You know what I mean? We have our own, there's so many different ones.

So I think really something to take away if you feel any pressure for New Year's and you're like, this is the time I've gotta make it happen. Absolutely lean into what you want to see. Change in a gentle way. And then also you'll have another chance. So don't give yourself too much pressure.

I do wanna get into our actual topics and I know that I just totally took a sidetrack there a minute ago, Heather, when we were gonna start talking about ai. So I'll start with AI for a minute, [00:08:00] and this is just such a huge topic because we've seen it explode this year and even a little bit last year, but.

I think that as with anything, this can be used for good and it could be used for, I wanna say evil, because that just , sounds like the opposite, but I think the evil, like confusion is evil, confusion is a tactic of the enemy. And so I think there can be a lot of confusion when it comes to AI because.

Depending on what AI you're using and how your AI is trained, you're gonna get different answers. , I think that that's like a number one concern that I have with ai. Absolutely. You can put your health symptoms into AI and get good information or you can get bad information and it really does depend on what knowledge base it's coming from and , where that .

Has been essentially trained. so I think that that's my biggest concern about AI is that we start to, a couple concerns that I have is we start to lean on it so much that we're not using our own [00:09:00] critical thinking skills. And even as a practitioner, this could be something that.

It would be really easy to be like, oh, we just have AI now and if I feed my ai, all the right information, I can just put all the labs in. I could just do all the things and I'll just do what it says. It's way easier than thinking about it. And so something that I will not do is that just like throw all my stuff in there and be like, oh, okay, that sounds good.

It kind of makes sense. I'll go with it. I always am going to start. With really assessing what I'm doing for my clients, really assessing the lab tests on my own. And then I do have a, I do have some AI that is trained with some very specific training for mineral stuff, and then I'll use that to help with the stuff that could be hard.

To come up with quickly on my own of different food ideas for specific things that my client needs. But I always want to start with a real foundation of the knowledge that I have. Praying over those labs, praying over my client's case, [00:10:00] versus just like throwing something into AI and getting information that seems really easy just because it feels easier.

I think , that can be pretty dangerous, but I will say. I know you have a lot to say on this too, but the one way that I am really excited to use AI for my clients this next year is I just created a custom GPT for food tracking for my clients. And I worked really hard to give it the information that I think is the most important for nourishment for women who are balancing their hormones and the things that are missing most of the time, and this is for my clients who already have.

Support and who already have some foundations and they can just put in like, Hey, I had this for breakfast. I'm on this day of my cycle. This is how I'm feeling. What would be a good lunch to have? Or , it gives them these kind of ideas where it's like, oh, okay, you had, , it'll essentially, it doesn't replace.

When I look at their food, but I've been using it a little bit myself, just trying it out and seeing, like, making sure that it's giving good advice and I [00:11:00] really like it. It really is helpful to put in, , breakfast and lunch and it's like, oh, okay. this is your macros.

This is what you've gotten, this, you remember. You need these additional nutrients today. This would be a couple ways that you could get them in your snack, in your dinner, or like, this is important for timing in this phase of your cycle because of your, your minerals and your insulin, , make sure that you're getting these things.

And so it kind of just helps. Especially for those, days in luteal phase where you're like, listen, I need all the help I can get and I really wanna be, eating well. And you can also just do a regular day of tracking where you just track all your meals at the end of the day and then , it just gives you ideas of what you might be missing.

Again, like anything, ai, you've got to use your own human judgment. But it is a tool that I think I'm just really excited to, to use with my clients in that very specific way. It's not diagnosing, it's not treating, it's not anything crazy, but I think that AI can do a really good job with an algorithm that says.

 these are [00:12:00] some of the goals for protein. These are some of the goals for specific foods for antioxidants. Those kind of things. And then it can help just check the boxes and be like, oh, these are the boxes you forgot. Make sure you add these in. This is how you can do it. So , that's probably like the main way that I'll be using AI with my clients this next year.

And I think that it can be really helpful again when it's within. A small enough boundary that it's not going to be able to give too much confusing or false information. , 

Heather: Yeah, I think one of the bigger things I think about with AI is how women. Our clients or potential clients or people in our community would be using ai.

 I know that I've been on practitioner calls where they've told people like, well, just put your symptoms into AI and see what ideas it gives you. And I'm like, wait, what? , Mainly because I've done that a couple times, I've put my own labs into ai. I've [00:13:00] done some stuff, even a trained one.

I even have one that, , I use one called Scholar. It very much pulls from research articles and like PubMed only instead of just websites. , Even with that, sometimes it's just dead wrong and I don't know. Why, and I don't know how to just tell people, , there's not really a simpler way to say it besides, , no, that's not right.

And I think again, that when we think about the dangers of ai, I think the biggest concerns I have around it are obviously that, , the majority of the people that created it have come out and said, Hey, we don't have. Standards around this. We don't really have rules. This is probably a problem as widespread as it's become.

So I mean, that concerns me well, even like 

Leisha: privacy concerns. That's definitely something that, 

Heather: Yeah, I mean that's obviously a, a big piece of the puzzle too. I think also from a spiritual standpoint, we're building something and giving it authority. And it has a voice, AI has a voice, [00:14:00] and I think that's a hard thing when we think about the authority and dominion and uniqueness of what the Lord's given men.

What we have , as humans, the Lord's given humans insane power and authority over the earth, over the spiritual realm. We're one of the only beings that can truly interact between the spiritual realm and the earth. And the Earth responds to humans and it doesn't respond to certain other things in the spirit.

When you really start diving into spiritual laws, and I know that's not . The point of this conversation. But I do think there's a piece of it that's like, man, God's given us these bodies to steward, and are we just like handing over the authority of doing it to something that's not him?

That's not even through the vessels he's given us through each other and the earth is even a vessel to help us steward and see health in our bodies because it's what provides us with the food and the minerals and everything our bodies are made out of. So there's actually this really beautiful, [00:15:00] inner working of how our bodies are designed and.

I just sometimes think there's caution there, but the biggest thing that I am thinking about when I think about AI and my business and how we're supporting clients, I think I could be like, I'm gonna make some things and we're just gonna support clients with it because it does make things so much easier.

I have an AI that's comes in our Zoom room sometimes so that I can get client notes sent to them and little summaries and things like that. It saves so much time, but I almost feel like I'm someone that's going the opposite direction and kind of wants to rebel a little bit and be like, no.

I'm gonna sit outside in the dirt and let the sun touch my skin more than listen to what AI says. So something I'm actually doing is, rather than using AI to help me, go wide with a lot more clients, we've actually put our efforts in in 2026 to go deeper in longer support packages.

With clients. So [00:16:00] we have two new package setups and I'm capping those and they're limited and it's because I really want to like grab hands with our clients and I wanna stay a little bit more ancestral and stay a little bit more in , this is how your body's designed to work and let's take this whole body approach.

We're gonna talk more about that in a few minutes with some other trends. I think I'm almost going the opposite of like wanting more in person, wanting more interaction, wanting more human to human connection. And I just, I almost wanna say human to earth, which isn't the word, but just really getting back to the rhythms of how the lord's designed our bodies to function.

But that's kind of more like my. My spirit is to rebel. I'm like, wait, I don't like what that is. Then I'm just gonna throw it out and never use it. And you know, it's not, I'm sure at some point we'll be adapting it in some ways 'cause it, that's just the nature of the game.

We'll have to, kind of like the internet. A lot of people chose to do what I did with the internet and then they were like, no, we'll never use it and look at us now. 

Leisha: And [00:17:00] I absolutely agree. I mean, I didn't even. Use anything with AI until what, two months ago? Three. Like barely?

Yeah, like nothing. And I just, I really feel , a caution in my spirit against overusing it by any means. And also . There's just, it's easy to overuse. There's so much of the time that it's just wrong. Okay? . Even if you train it, even if, whatever, and that's why I was so specific about like, I think it's really good for meal tracking.

That's the one thing that I'm like, I see this working well because you give it these specific guidelines and boundaries and , it's just a little computer, but , when you're like, help me, , diagnose this or be my, what's it called? Not counselor, but my therapist. , Help me, diagnose what's going on in my body.

That's, that's too much. We are giving it human capacity at that point. And , that is absolutely, , I draw a line there. 

Heather: I did use it because one of my kids was acting a fool and I was like. This is what's happening. I love to talk into mine. I was like, this is what's happening.

I draw the line there. 

Leisha: I will not talk to it. I feel like I, I can't do that. 

Heather: I just use a little mic. Well, no, you [00:18:00] don't talk. You use the microphone and then the microphone types it out and then you type it. But I guess you are talking to it. 

Leisha: I've definitely been like, what do I do? I'm not saying that's like the right boundary to have.

I'm just saying for whatever reason , I will not talk to it. 

Heather: How about the people that say like, please remember me when you take over the world , and they say thank you to it and stuff. I mean, I don't know. I heard that that's bad 

Leisha: for the environment. You say more words?

Yeah. 

Heather: Oh, well that's another thing, which I think the whole thing, 

Leisha: it is really bad for the environment. 

Heather: Oh, a huge concern. My brothers actually lives near a place where they're getting ready to build an AI like data storage center. And what's happen again? what does that do to the actual earth, the soil, the minerals, , think about the lithium, the things that are being utilized to create these is, you're absolutely right there.

And I'm not even a big, I wanna say like environmentalist, but. 

Leisha: But I believe that we need to do our best. It's definitely take care of the earth. Oh, for sure. I mean, I guess do our best, everyone's perception of that is different. But, anyway, yeah, I think there's so many concerns with it.

I [00:19:00] also just feel like you can't just always throw the baby out with the bath water. , This is essentially what we're talking about today, is like the pendulum swing. We're like, okay, we swung this way and we take 400 supplements and we swung back this way and we take no supplements. , We swing this way and we're like, oh, I'm gonna try ai.

And then we're like, nevermind. Go outside. I'm on the nevermind, go outside page for the most part. And it's like, are there a couple ways that we can , use this without trying to make it a human, without trying to . Make it think for us where it can just help us check some little boxes.

 for example, my poor little plant on the back porch, I had to take a picture of it and be like, will this ever come back to life? 'cause it froze, 

Heather: know was dead. It was like, 

Leisha: it was like, see if they're still green in the stem and these kind of things. Or like, how do I make enough brownies?

How do I make the brownies on a really big pan? 'cause we were selling the big, you know what I'll say, like recipes. Those kind of things I think are reasonable. But when we're like, fix my health, fix my emotions. Using it as a person or things we should bring to the Lord. [00:20:00] That is when I really see it as an issue.

And since , we're on this trail, I am getting a home phone because I just wanna throw my phone away and , never ever have it, And I called. I called to get it set up and it was so funny 'cause the girl was like, oh my gosh, I'm doing this too. , Have you gotten a brick for your phone?

And all these things. So I feel like a really big trend that I love for 2026 is all of us, millennial moms who are like, take me back to the nineties. . As fast as possible. , Let's get a home phone. Let's not use AI extra, let's just go back to letting our kids play outside and .

Being outside ourselves and not being so overstimulated and entertained all the time. And so I love that trend. Yeah. Which is like the opposite of ai. 

Heather: Yeah. No, that's a I'm here for going back to, I don't think we realized we had it good back then. No, you never do. I know. , That's really interesting.

I didn't even know they still had landlines, but [00:21:00] the opportunity to have one. But let's go to the next one. So, big thing that is infiltrating everything right now is peptides.

And I was someone who at first was very, very against utilizing peptides, mainly because the first ones that were out were like the ozempic ones. It's crazy story. I was working for the drug companies writing clinical trials before I decided to pendulum swing and be like done with you guys.

Because once my eyes were opened to what was happening with drug companies in the world of pharmacy and the goal and profits, and I kind of felt it was this whole deconstruction of everything I learned in pharmacy school of like, wait a second. The goal isn't actually to get people better.

And one of the last things I did in the pharmacy world was I was working for a drug company writing clinical trials. And one of the ones, one of the meds we were writing for was Ozempic. It was before it was Ozempic. I was writing a trial for it, specifically for [00:22:00] diabetes, but at the same time I was writing a trial on weight loss drugs and what is the three, six and nine month outcomes of utilizing weight loss drugs.

And the data was just really interesting. And then the whole process of how they want you to write the clinical trials is interesting as well, but. I say all that because I started very much kind of against utilizing peptides and then I got a little bit more like, wait a second, when would peptides be helpful?

Why would peptides work? What scenarios would peptides work? I really found interest in the microdosing perspective of them. I think that's been fairly new. It kind of started peptides, and let me just help people understand peptides are signaling molecules very similar to hormones. That your body makes.

And usually when you think of peptides, you think of ozempic, which is, so you have like ozempic and then you have wegovy and I don't even know some of the other brand names, but when you microdosing them, you usually, they're microdosing them [00:23:00] by their trade name, which is like, I'm gonna say it wrong.

Hold on, Leisha Do you know how to say it? Tre, Tre Tirzepatide? no. Yeah. Okay. I know what you're talking about, but would be something like Tirzepatide, or semaglutide. So those are some of the names that you might, would see these when they're. Compounded to be given as microdosing, which is where you take the standard dose and you just give a percentage of that.

So you would give like a fourth of the standard dose just to help the body along a little bit. So that's how most people understand it. But then people are also using a lot of other peptides. You have one like thymosin. Which is the peptide that interacts with inflammation and your immune cascade.

they have some called like B 1 57, which helps to rebuild the gut. So there are all these signaling molecules that have always existed in the body, that the body produces itself. But when the body starts to function less than ideal, and there's inflammation and there's stagnation, and the body runs out of [00:24:00] ingredients, it needs to make these signaling molecules the way it should be.

People can find a lot of benefit in microdosing them, or in dosing them, not even microdosed. So some of the things that turn me off to this idea, when you look at the data's actually pretty good for most of them. However, the data's also pretty good for most prescription medications, so that's like the first piece is you can make data look almost any way you want data to look.

but things that kind of concern me, number one is that people, these peptides have taken. Over the influencer world in the last six months, their influencers selling peptides like crazy and getting kickbacks. We also know that they are, people are calling them natural. They're still synthetically made, they're still made in a lab.

They're still made compounded. you know, and my concern would actually be if they were made quote unquote natural, I'd be like, then what humans and animals are you getting them from? And then that's a concern, right? There's definitely a lot. I don't wanna go too deep into the topic 'cause I think there's a lot, number [00:25:00] one that's unknown.

There's a lot that's debated. There's a lot that can be said on both sides of it. But I think one of the bigger pieces, Leisha and I wanted to talk about around peptides is, number one, how you're using them. What I find is the biggest problem is that people are using them to fix a symptom or fix a problem.

, And they're using them in bodies that are dysfunctional rather than restoring the body's natural function with minerals. Nutrients, ancestral light support, sleep support, Nutrition support. They're like starting with all those things, all being dysregulated and then they're throwing peptides on board.

And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. And oftentimes this is whenever people have horrible responses to peptides, which is very common because ozempic, you're just shutting down the metabolism. Whenever that's happening, it's usually because they didn't restore the gut or the minerals.

Or their sleep or their iron and copper levels before throwing the [00:26:00] signaling molecules on. If the body felt like, Hey, we can't make this signaling molecule because the body can't respond to the signal, then it did that for a reason. So the role and the place that I see peptides being potentially the most beneficial is if you have restored minerals restored foundations.

Feel really good and have some labs to support things like nutrients and iron and copper, and you need a tiny little kickstart with maybe gut repair or, , you've got like some viruses that continue to reactivate or I don't even wanna jump into the conversation around them with weight loss, but I do think like insulin signaling can be helpful.

In those cases at microdosing or micro doses with very strict parameters, while you also have the knowledge. So if you're gonna use, like, let's just say you were somebody that's considering microdosing, ozempic. I'm like, perfect. Make sure your gut's right. Make sure your minerals are right, [00:27:00] do the microdosing, but also know how to fuel your body to keep your minerals and your gut.

Your nutrients and your body fully nourished while you're using it and just use it as that extra support. So that's kind of my tiny, little shortest, most like compressed version of a pep side conversation we can have in the middle of an episode 

Leisha: I think the biggest thing again, is this all or nothing mentality around it where it's like, oh, peptides, okay, I saw an influencer say.

It made her skin look amazing. It fixed her gut, it fixed her brain fog, whatever it is that you want, that the influencer said it did for her. That to be clear, she's getting paid to say. And with that being said, , there are products that I promote that I get paid to promote. I mean, get paid to promote is sounds a little that's a little much at my level.

I get a percentage of the sales. Specifically like equip protein powder. Okay. With that being said, there's three things that I promote [00:28:00] that you could walk into my house and find me using every day. That is it. Now, if I had a hundred thousand followers, a million followers, and brands were reaching out to me all the time to say, Hey, will you share this with your followers for this many thousands of dollars?

That would be a different conversation. And so I think that's always just important to remember that around whatever it is that you're buying. if someone has a big following, they're likely being paid quite a bit to promote something. Does that mean it didn't help them? No, it definitely doesn't. It could have helped them, but you're going to want to promote something more if you're getting paid for it.

So I just wanna be really clear about that. Also, I just don't believe that anything besides God. Is the fix for everything. So peptides are not the fix for everything and absolutely just wanna like ride on Heather's coattails a little bit with what she said. , When your body is already overstressed, already undernourished, your minerals are not balanced, your liver is not working appropriately, your adrenals are struggling.

peptides can actually [00:29:00] increase cortisol demand when you don't have adrenal reserve. They can increase thyroid signaling, which sounds great, except for then if you don't have the minerals to back that up, you're just hitting the gas in your car on an empty tank. They can help mobilize estrogen, which sounds like a good thing.

But if you don't have bile flow or iron and copper balance, or magnesium or adequate nutrition, you don't wanna move estrogen, it's just gonna make you feel worse. And so it can actually, over time almost be like, you're starting a fire with gasoline, but it just burns out really fast because you didn't have enough fuel there.

So that's something to just really pay attention to. I'm not saying don't try peptides, but I don't think that just jumping into them with no context is a good idea. Whether we're talking about something kind of more like quote unquote prescription like Ozempic or , we're talking about something like BPC 1 57 or, I can't remember what the other ones are.

There's a couple different ones that I've, I talked about before that it's like T something, T four for, [00:30:00] or I don't know. . Pretend there's so many, there's so many different ones that are like quote unquote natural, that are only supposed to be good for you. They can't possibly do anything bad.

Is what I was first told when I heard about peptides. Was like, oh, these can only do good. And it's like, that should be a red. No, that's always should be a red flag. That should be a red flag. So we have 

Heather: some red flags, right? anything that's for profit that's going crazy like wildfire, , that's a concern.

Anything people are saying, it's completely natural. And it's infiltrating the holistic natural space this quickly. That's a concern. Anything people are like, Hey, no side effects, that's a concern. And then anytime you see people utilizing things in extreme, that's a concern. And then anytime you see something that.

Is supposed to fix how the body's designed to work independently. That's a concern. 

Leisha: I think we've covered peptides well, and I, I mean, again, this is a snapshot. So let's just talk about our last thing, last trend that we Oh, that's what I was 

Heather: gonna say. Okay. And so, and when you [00:31:00] started talking about it, mobilizing things like estrogen and we think about like, Hey, can it reactivate things that are dormant and hiding in your body?

The first thing I was thinking was iron and copper, and I was like, you do not want your body mobilizing these things without everything in the system being ready for it to mobilize. and so that actually takes us to our final one, which is, I think it's a trend that's been a trend for a while, but I think we're gonna see it continue, which is people going very deep and specific in one area of the body rather than supporting everything as a whole.

So I actually talked about this. And one of my last episodes that was kind of like four things I saw this year that clients came to me after working with other practitioners. And these are the four biggest mistakes I saw that were being made. And so when we talk about this, this deep symptom focus, one of the first things that comes to mind for me is.

Programs or supplements that are like, Hey, we are gonna do this intensive to heal the gut. And [00:32:00] sometimes I see this like laser focus on the gut without this consideration for, wait a second, why did the gut become the environment it is. So we see kill protocols and restriction and. Just this six month regimen to fix the gut.

And then afterwards people are like, my gut's worse. I'm not eating any foods. My hormones have bottomed out. I think that in marketing, one of the biggest trends is like specific, specific, specific, which is helpful in some cases, but what needs to happen? For you as a client when you're thinking about how do I actually get better, is you actually need a practitioner, in my opinion, that is able to understand the specifics of what you're going through in the context of the entire body.

So to actually heal your entire body needs connection and it needs context. And so that connection is that connection to your intuition. To God, to your understanding of how your body works. And that [00:33:00] context is gonna be what is actually happening in your body in this specific area. So yeah, your gut might be the most pressing symptom.

And why is your gut operating the way it is in the context of your body as a whole? And even something we talked about where those hormone balancing supplements where it's like, take these part of your cycle and these, these part of your cycle and there's this hyperfocus even on hormones of like, well, my hormones have to be fixed.

But even in the way both of us work, yes our focus is if we can get these hormones turned on. For me, I'm like, if you can make more progesterone, self-healing gets turned on in the whole body. But the reason you're not making more progesterone or enough progesterone is a whole body problem. It's not just a hormone problem, it's just that the hormone is the thing that the body is using as the loudest signal.

, So it's kind of like, if my kid is freaking out over something that I gave them for dinner and they're just throwing a tantrum, I know that yes, that dinner was the thing that tilted, you know, spilled the glass. But there's actually a whole lot of other things going on beneath the surface that we wanna consider for him.

And [00:34:00] if all I ever did was like, fix the problem. For that child in that moment with their dinner, I'm actually missing this really beautiful opportunity to steward things like their beliefs and their character and the things underneath that are really what they're feeling. They're feeling disconnected, they're feeling dysregulated, they're feeling upset about something deeper.

, And so that's some of the work that we talked about. That's what we already do and that's what we're gonna continue to do in 26, is pulling in this whole body approach. And I think we both hit on some of the bigger. The ways to do that is to, yes, look at the body as a whole and to sometimes focus on the little things that get missed.

And so we talked about minerals, iron and copper regulation and lymphatic work and bile flow being these small little things that we see are missed a lot, that are actually making really big impacts for our clients through this whole body approach. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing that clarifies that for people, because if you're listening and you're like, wait, if there isn't a one thing, what do I do? Because you have to know the next step to take.

[00:35:00] I think the biggest thing that can clarify that is actually custom work. So having either. Labs or someone who can understand your symptoms specifically and what you've done and where your body's at, and really interpret for you how your body is speaking to you. I think that really helps to clarify, okay, this could be the next step.

So even like what you were saying with the parasites and stuff, you know, we've both talked about that a lot this year . I'm able to look at some clients and be like, yeah, you're ready for it. Do a parasite cleanse. And then I'm able to look at some clients and be like, no, your minerals need a little bit longer.

We've gotta get your bio flow a little bit better. And so let's do a parasite cleanse in two months, and really map out that plan. And that's something that actually brings us full circle where I was talking about how in response to ai I am, like, I wanna work with people longer and deeper. And I think it's kind of in response to this piece too, of.

There probably isn't like one thing that you're missing to heal, but , there is [00:36:00] probably one process of being willing to step into self-healing, to change your identity, to decide that, you don't identify as someone that is continually struggling or trying everything and not seeing results or, like for me, one of the things we're doing with clients, we just did this last week, was.

An identity based. Workshop for setting goals in 2026. we took each of their goals, which were very task oriented. Like, I want to be, nicer to my kids, or I wanna have more libido, or I wanna, you know, lose X amount of pounds, or I wanna have a healthy pregnancy. And we shifted those to what identity do they need to have in order to achieve those things.

Leisha: Absolutely. I think that that's where we can see such amazing progress is with the truly full body approach, where we are looking at someone as a whole person and looking at body systems that are working together versus, and even [00:37:00] the mind and emotions and spiritual side of things that are working together instead of just being like, okay, I have this gut symptoms, so I'm just gonna go after this one.

Like parasite cleanse or hormone supplement or something like that. Because truly, even though we focus on hormones, they are the tip of the iceberg. And if there's parasites, there's a reason for it in the gut. Like why is the environment good for that? So I just think that it's so important to realize that if you feel like you've been spinning your wheels and you feel like you've been really struggling to make progress,

it is probably just that your focus has not been big picture enough and a kind of like missing the forest for the trees kind of thing. And it's like, okay, if the parasite cleans didn't work, is it because your minerals are imbalanced? Is it because you didn't have the fuel you needed to be able to?

Stabilize your gut so that the parasites, could actually leave and heal the damage, like that kind of thing. So I absolutely agree with the full body approach. That's what both of [00:38:00] us do when we're coaching, and that is a huge value of ours that we will continue to keep going forward.

Heather: And so that pulls to, when I say whole body, Even what you mentioned of like, Hey, no, it's mind, body, and spirit, and that's the full picture. And so I think having that identity focus of shifting, of like, Hey, I'm the most fertile person I know. I am the most calm, present patient mom that I know. How do you create a plan and make decisions on what your next step is based off of that and from that place versus like.

I just need this supplement, or I just need this parasite cleanse, or I just need, you know, X, Y, Z.

Leisha: Well, and just to be clear, we're not saying this specifically because we're practitioners.

When I really need to sort through things for myself, I get some help with it because. I find that I, there's a lot of blind spots for myself too, so I just wanna say that. And then also, just to [00:39:00] speak to what Heather's saying about identity, you are speaking identity over yourself, no matter if you know it or not.

And so if you're speaking over yourself like, I'm a hot mess, I'm exhausted, I'm a bad mom. X, Y, Z, whatever you're saying, those I am statements, you are speaking identity over yourself, whether you're doing it intentionally or not. So that doesn't need to feel like woo woo or out of context or too hard, you can change that.

And I have been speaking over myself like I'm the most fun and peaceful mom I know. And you know what? When I say that, I make decisions differently. I really do. And so it can be something just as simple as that. Before we wrap up, I know this has gotten pretty long. Do you have any final thoughts, Heather?

Heather: I don't think so. I feel like we hit everything pretty spot on. 

Leisha: Okay, awesome. I hope you guys have a great week and we'll see you next time.