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Knowledge is power - and we can never have too much!
A native of Pennsylvania, Dr. Cathleen Brown, is a board-certified OB/GYN, trained in Hawaii. She went on to serve on Army bases across the country, and is now the medical director at Winona. Dr. Cat has dedicated her career to women’s health and improving access to care and achieving positive health outcomes.
Winona is a tele-health company that aims to empower, educate, and treat women throughout the entirety of their menopause journey. Now available in 30+ states, Winona allows women to access healthcare without having to physically visit a clinic or hospital and get access to a physician at any hour of the day. Dr. Cat works collaboratively with patients. Together, the shared decision process empowers patients.
While every woman is different, there are core things for which Dr. Cat believes women need to focus. Two of these are nutrition and physical activity. As women, we need to take care of ourselves, slow down, and not allow ourselves to be spread so thin.
The more you learn about yourself, the more you will be able to recognize changes in yourself and the more you will be able to make the changes you need to in your own life!
Notes:
👩⚕️ Being a doctor is all Dr. Cat ever wanted to be: initially, she thought about being a pediatrician. 4:06
🩺 She gravitated to OB/GYN: her mission was to change all the negative experiences women have with it. 5:44
🤰 In 2021 she moved to Pennsylvania to work at Winona where she provides knowledge to patients. 8:28
👂Winona is an asynchronous telemedicine platform that constantly communicates with patients. 11:54
🧠 Going through hormonal issues and brain fog: all things that can affect your business. 15:56
👠 The basic things every woman needs to focus on are nutrition and body movement. 21:56
🛑 In our 40s and 50s, we need to slow down our lives and optimize our sleep. 26:01
⚠️ As women, we are conditioned to help everybody else: it disconnects us from ourselves. 28:35
🏋️♀️ Adrienne shares her experience of getting stronger by working with weights. 31:01
🌸 With Winona, the more you learn, the better you'll be able to recognize changes in yourself. 35:38
Notes:
👩⚕️ Being a doctor is all Dr. Cat ever wanted to be: initially, she thought about being a pediatrician. 4:06
🩺 She gravitated to OB/GYN: her mission was to change all the negative experiences women have with it. 5:44
🤰 In 2021 she moved to Pennsylvania to work at Winona where she provides knowledge to patients. 8:28
👂Winona is an asynchronous telemedicine platform that constantly communicates with patients. 11:54
🧠 Going through hormonal issues and brain fog: all things that can affect your business. 15:56
👠 The basic things every woman needs to focus on are nutrition and body movement. 21:56
🛑 In our 40s and 50s, we need to slow down our lives and optimize our sleep. 26:01
⚠️ As women, we are conditioned to help everybody else: it disconnects us from ourselves. 28:35
🏋️♀️ Adrienne shares her experience of getting stronger by working with weights. 31:01
🌸 With Winona, the more you learn, the better you'll be able to recognize changes in yourself. 35:38
Links:
Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/drcatobgyn
Listen to podcasts for women by women on the She Leads Podcast Network: https://www.sheleadspodcasts.com
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Creators & Guests
What is The She Leads Podcast: Real Conversations with Women Entrepreneurs?
The She Leads Podcast, hosted by Adrienne Garland, is the podcast for women leaders and women entrepreneurs who are sick of sugar coating what they say and how they say it. Each week, Adrienne explores entrepreneurial stories, businesses, and challenges that women entrepreneurs face with a wide range of guests who are open to sharing their authentic stories in a refreshing and real way. For far too long, women have been sugar coating our voices, thoughts, and opinions, but that stops here and now! The She Leads Podcast, formerly Sugar Coated, is the place where women leaders can express their brilliance without sugar-coating anything. This podcast offers a platform for super-practical, actionable advice for women to overcome challenges and to make a significant impact on our families, our communities, and our world. Adrienne Garland, CEO of She Leads Media - entrepreneur, media producer, and adjunct professor rejects the notion that women must be deferential to those currently in power and pull back our opinions. Join Adrienne as she dives into raw conversations with brilliant women leaders and entrepreneurs - sans Sugar Coating!
Adrienne (00:02.119)
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the She Leads podcast. This episode is brought to you by the She Leads podcast network. It's the podcast network for women by women. So I'm so excited today to welcome my next guest. Her name is Dr. Kathleen Brown, and she's a certified OBGYN and native of Philly. She graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Dr. Cat Brown (00:26.146)
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne (00:31.655)
2004. And after completing her residency training at Tripler Army Medical Center in beautiful Hawaii, she served on army bases across the country caring for female soldiers and female dependents of active duty soldiers. She was honorably discharged from the army after 12 years of meritorious service. In her spare time, she loves traveling, so do I, gardening, me too, and spending time with her three wonderful children.
Dr. Cat, who we are calling her Dr. Cat, and I hear a bird in the background, has dedicated her career to women's health education, which is what has led her to Winona. So in addition to Dr. Cat being on the show, we had another guest early on, back in the early days when the podcast was called Sugar Coated, we also had another doctor from Winona on the show. And I wanted to bring Dr. Cat on,
Dr. Cat Brown (01:07.787)
I'm going to go.
Adrienne (01:31.355)
because Winona is such an amazing business that is now available, I don't even know in how many states, but definitely New York, where the She Leads podcast is coming to you from. And I'm a client of Winona. So Dr. Kat, welcome to the She Leads podcast.
Dr. Cat Brown (01:52.374)
Thank you so much for having me, Adrienne.
Adrienne (01:54.987)
I'm excited for you to be here. So can you start by, let's wind back and really focus on you. So what sort of led you to the field of medicine and then in particular helping women?
Dr. Cat Brown (02:12.202)
Yeah, I think that if you go back and look in books my mom kept like when I was a kid, they always had this question of, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Doctor was always on there. And it's funny because when I was a young girl, it always said, doctor slash rock star, doctor slash ballerina. You know, even as a young kid, I felt like I could do it all, right? I wanted to do these two different careers. And I think it really came down to the fact that I really liked the pediatrician that I went to see.
and just was fascinated with what their job was. Plus they had a cool waiting room and these big pretzel sticks they'd give you when you checked out. So I know it's funny. So I never even considered another career really, like medicine was always it. And I never even considered what would happen if I didn't get into medical school or what I would do because it was just, I was so fixated on that goal.
Adrienne (02:49.924)
I love that.
Adrienne (03:07.003)
Mmm.
Dr. Cat Brown (03:08.042)
And I really thought I wanted to be a pediatrician, but then when you get to medical school, you do clinical rotations and you try on every specialty of medicine basically. You do a different specialty each month. And I realized quickly that I really did not love pediatrics because it was just challenging. And my school, PCOM, really tries to grow primary care doctors. They really want to get a network of doctors that's gonna be able to take care of everything.
but I kept gravitating toward women's health, no matter what I tried. And we all knew as medical students that OB-GYN is probably the worst lifestyle you could choose. Second, maybe general surgery is another one. But no matter what I did, it was one of those things that I just loved it. I naturally gravitated toward it. The residents I would work with when I was a student found out that I was good at it, and so they would divert all their work to me. And I...
Adrienne (03:46.192)
Hmm
Adrienne (04:04.506)
Good and bad.
Dr. Cat Brown (04:05.938)
I know, right? And I had also had a very negative experience with a gynecologist when I was a teen, very early. And I think so many of us as women have had kind of nightmarish experiences about feeling like exams are violating or we weren't listened to, really couldn't get our questions answered. And so when I resign my fact to the fact that myself that
Adrienne (04:12.901)
Ugh.
Dr. Cat Brown (04:32.754)
this is really what I meant to do. Like I, no matter what I tried, OB-GYN was really the specialty that seemed to fit the most. At that point I said, you know, this is gonna be my mission then. Well then let me change it for other people so that they don't have a negative experience. And even if it's only a handful of patients that I touch each day that I can make a difference with, then it'll be worth it. So, yeah.
Adrienne (04:40.336)
Mm.
Adrienne (04:55.875)
I love that. It's so amazing. There are people that you meet in the world that they know exactly what they want to do from a young age like you. And to me, I admire that so much because I'm definitely one of those, you know, multi-passionate, can go in any direction, don't even know what I'm doing today type of person. And, you know, I always admire the person like, oh, I always knew.
that it's such a beautiful gift. So, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people that are listening in that will resonate with. So, and then I love the fact too that it's like, you are sort of being guided, like you're on a mission and you're on a mission to help women. So you were in, and maybe you still are today in private practice, but you're also a,
doctor advisor, I guess, I don't know what the actual term is for Winona. Can you explain that a little bit?
Dr. Cat Brown (06:02.666)
Yeah, so actually I work kind of in two major fields right now. So in OB-GYN, when you do private practice, you do full scope. You know, you take care of patients in the office and you do hospital medicine, you do deliveries, take care of GYN emergencies. I gave up that full scope of private practice.
in 2019 and I became an OB hospitalist, meaning that I cover in a hospital setting just for emergencies backing up other doctors. And so I do that and we work 24-hour shifts.
So I do that about seven times a month. And then actually, Dr. Green, who's our chief medical officer that you talked to before, reached out to me, told me about Winona. And basically, at that point, we were only in California and Texas. This was back in 2021. And he said, we really want to move the company into Pennsylvania. And we need a doctor in Pennsylvania. Would you be interested?
And so he and I met up and over coffee, he showed me the platform, showed me really what the goals of the company were and how it could help women. And at that point, there was so little information out there for women in midlife and there were so little resources. And it kept seeing all these things pop up everywhere, with vitamin supplements and every star was trying to push something different. And we really had no.
sound medical information for patients that was readily available. And so I decided, yes, this will be a great opportunity. Because one of the downsides of my hospital job is that I'm primarily taking care of obstetric patients and pregnant patients. And I really, really missed the relationships that I built with patients in the office, taking care of them with the GYN aspect of their health. And once we're done with our reproductive years, it seems like...
Adrienne (07:29.467)
Mm.
Adrienne (07:40.711)
Hmm.
Dr. Cat Brown (07:52.978)
so much focus is placed on reproduction and pregnancy. And then once we get done with that phase of our life, it's like, oh yeah, you're going through the change. Good luck. So to me, it was an important part of my career. And also personally, I was starting to go through it myself. And so I was also a voracious reader and just trying to get my hands on everything available out there for my own benefit.
Adrienne (08:02.456)
Yeah, you're so right.
Dr. Cat Brown (08:21.73)
And I thought, well, I need to help patients through this too. And so that's why I decided to join Winona. And so it's wonderful because now I get to provide GYN telemedicine to patients and help them through this. And then also, I just took on a role with the company as our medical director. So I'm going to be reviewing and curating some of the content that we publish on our website, some of the informational educational articles that we do.
Adrienne (08:24.828)
Oh my gosh.
Dr. Cat Brown (08:50.37)
just trying to help make sure that we're getting as much of the message out to patients and really giving them the knowledge that they need to do the best thing for themselves. Because in my mind, knowledge is power, right? And we cannot have enough of it. I think that it's so worthwhile to educate patients and educate women so that they can really take that information and do what's best for them in their personal life.
Adrienne (09:00.509)
Yeah.
Adrienne (09:16.435)
I totally agree and just love that so much. There's a lot of attention now on menopause. It's definitely in the media. It's being talked about more, which is a great thing. And yes, there is a lot of information, but it's still very, very confusing. And I feel like you don't just move from one phase into another, and then that phase
the same, it changes every day. And so before we sort of get into some of that and how it affects women, and especially women in the She Leads podcast audience that are entrepreneurs who are probably dealing with the challenges of growing a business at the same time as dealing with some of the changes and challenges that they're experiencing themselves,
Dr. Cat Brown (09:48.999)
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne (10:15.495)
Can you just talk a little bit about what Winona actually is? What is Winona?
Dr. Cat Brown (10:21.966)
Sure. So we are a asynchronous telemedicine platform, basically. So with telemedicine, there's several different ways that you can get care. And we saw telemedicine explode during COVID when access to care really started getting affected and doctors' offices were closing down. So you have the opportunity in some telemedicine platforms to have video visits and talk to physicians. But the downside to that is that you still have to schedule an appointment, wait for that appointment.
There's not a lot of flexibility and then once your video visit is done Like you really don't have a means to communicate with your provider readily So the beauty of asynchronous telemedicine is that we have a constant Means to communicate back and forth Patients could get up in the middle of the night with night sweats and you know
be concerned and want to message me, and they can hop right on their computer or on their phone, and they could text me a message. And as soon as I log on, I'm messaging them back. Like it's a constant dialogue. And so it's not like a one and done, like where you have to like spit out all your questions in one visit, and then you're kind of stuck until your next visit. So the nice thing is I think patients really enjoy the flexibility of being able to contact their physicians at Winona really whenever they want to.
Adrienne (11:38.375)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (11:38.914)
And that's the beauty of it. And so we have an online adaptive questionnaire basically. So when a patient comes to the site and is interested, they plug in their information about what state they live in. And I think we're in over 30 states right now. So, and rapidly growing, yes. Because we started out in two, a couple of years ago it seems like.
Adrienne (11:55.013)
Wow, amazing. Yeah.
Adrienne (12:01.557)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (12:03.258)
But yeah, so they'll fill out their medical history questionnaire. It goes over a lot of questions about where they are, what symptoms they're having. We have a symptom diary that we have patients fill out. And there's a lot of space for women to free text and add extra information, which to me is so helpful because when they add, the more information they give me, the better I can help them. And then once they finish that onboarding process and they complete that whole questionnaire, their chart comes to the doctor in the state where they live.
Adrienne (12:21.735)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (12:30.914)
and we review their information. And sometimes I might need clarification and I'll write to the patient and say, I've reviewed your history, can you tell me more about this? Or if you were on HRT before, tell me about your experience, what side effects did you have or what issues? And we go back and forth. And then ultimately we come together with a plan for how we wanna go about treatment. And to me, so much of medicine now, I mean,
Adrienne (12:54.564)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (12:57.922)
The old very paternalistic ways of practicing medicine have to go to the wayside. Like it's really a shared decision-making process and like with anything, no matter what part of your health you're getting care for, it should be a model where you are a team, your provider and the patient work together and talk about options and really pick what's best for that patient. So, and that...
Adrienne (13:03.367)
Yeah.
Adrienne (13:22.115)
Yeah, I love that. And it feels so empowering. And it's not that you are not going to be going to your OBGYN for your annual visits and all of that kind of stuff. So this is something that is in addition. It's a compliment. And yeah. And what I've experienced, because I have
Dr. Cat Brown (13:35.096)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cat Brown (13:41.172)
Yes.
Adrienne (13:49.331)
signed up and filled out the questionnaire and done all the fun things and messaged back and forth with the doctor that's assigned to me. At first, when I started it, I felt like a brand new person. I felt like my just clarity of thinking and I felt like, oh my gosh, I feel a little bit more like me again.
Dr. Cat Brown (14:16.606)
Mmm, that's wonderful.
Adrienne (14:18.115)
Yeah, so I've had a really, really positive experience and I shared that with our mutual friend who works at Winona and she was so happy to hear that. And this is one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on because I do wanna share that with people because I think it's so challenging when you're sort of going through hormonal things and you are trying to grow your business.
and you don't necessarily have that clarity of thought or you don't have that type of energy, mental energy that you did when maybe you were younger and it feels, you start to really question yourself and your abilities and what it is that you even want to continue to do or not. So when I started
Dr. Cat Brown (15:11.586)
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne (15:12.015)
you know, on some of the HRT with Winona, I almost got my mojo back, right? I was like, oh, yep, this is what I wanna do. This is why I wanna do it. And I realized that I wasn't just losing it, you know, as like an older, someone who's, you know, getting older, cause I still feel physically young and I still have energy. It was my mental, you know,
my thoughts and everything that were sort of getting in the way.
Dr. Cat Brown (15:43.954)
Yes. And that, I mean, you're describing perfectly what we call like as a collective diagnosis, we call it a brain fog. And it really is. And it's insane how many women in their 40s or 50s that start to experience that and go to see a provider physician to try to get help. And suddenly they're diagnosed with ADHD, like adult onset ADHD for the first time in their life. And it really is not that. It really is that we.
Adrienne (15:52.38)
Yeah.
Adrienne (16:06.608)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (16:14.142)
our bodies benefit so much from estrogen in every tissue throughout the body. And it's amazing how much our thought quality and even the neurotransmitters in our brain are affected when estrogen starts to wean out of our system. It just has a profound effect on our clarity of thought, our organization, our ability to multitask, everything. Yeah. So.
Adrienne (16:27.602)
Yeah.
Adrienne (16:33.331)
Hmm. Yeah. It's, yeah. So I think that, you know, listen, you have, and I think this is why the Winona platform is so amazing. You know, it might not be right for everybody, but you can certainly, you know, talk to someone and have that conversation and make the decision, you know, if that's right for you. But I think that
Winona makes reaching out so accessible because you're right, you go to your OBGYN and I mean, they do tell you like too bad kind of. Like I have definitely been told like too bad and even with like gaining weight, it's like too bad. Like, unless you want to live on a 400 calorie per day diet, you're going to gain weight.
Dr. Cat Brown (17:15.565)
Right.
Dr. Cat Brown (17:29.783)
Yeah.
Adrienne (17:30.391)
you know, use that as, you know, information as you will. Good luck. And it's so disheartening.
Dr. Cat Brown (17:36.102)
Yeah, it is. And that advice is just not sustainable for a well-balanced life, right? So I think that we as patients have to take the reins, and we have to take ownership of our own health. And I think it's so important, especially, like you said, for women entrepreneurs and women in corporate America, anything. Usually when we're in our 40s, early 50s, we're kind of at the pinnacle of our career.
Most of us have climbed that ladder, and we are doing the most effective work we've had in our career. And suddenly, this brain fog does not fit in with that equation. We can't. We don't have time for it. But we also have to really take a step back and really make the decision to put ourselves first. And I think that one of the things we do as women is that we are so used to taking care of everybody else. And at this point in our lives, too, it's like taking care of children, taking care of parents.
Adrienne (18:05.063)
Yeah.
Adrienne (18:14.492)
No it doesn't.
Adrienne (18:22.724)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (18:34.226)
so many different things pulling us in many different directions that often we're left holding the bag and we don't have anything left for ourselves. You know, our cup is empty. And that is another thing that I think is so, so important. And I need to remind myself this and I need to practice what I preach more. But we really need to give women the permission to be selfish, because it's not selfish, really. Like when you think about those basic things, you know, when you're on an airplane and they tell you.
Adrienne (18:41.116)
Yeah.
Adrienne (18:50.394)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (19:03.63)
put on your own oxygen mask first before you help anybody else around you. We should do that and take that tenet into every other aspect of our life. You know, because if we don't take care of ourselves and we don't take care of our own health and wellness, how could we possibly be helpful for anybody else around us? You know, when we're depleted, we can't. So.
Adrienne (19:08.046)
Yeah.
Adrienne (19:19.927)
Yeah, yeah. We need to, it's so interesting and I totally agree with you and I think everybody, everybody who's listening and everybody would agree, yes, we do need to take care of ourselves first. I think we logically and intellectually understand that and then, okay, how do you actually do that? Right? It's like you're.
Dr. Cat Brown (19:46.902)
How do you put it into practice? Right?
Adrienne (19:48.251)
How do you put it into practice? Because I think that there's, like everything, it's all connected, your mind, your body, your spirit, right? So Winona, I feel like really addresses your physical health and your hormonal health, which has such an impact, but everything else is connected, right? Our mind, our thoughts, our mindset, and our emotional wellbeing.
Dr. Cat Brown (19:59.977)
Mm-hmm.
Adrienne (20:16.407)
So is there, you know, just you as somebody who has been working with women your whole entire career, are there things that you see that women do that really do get them through this period in their lives in a thriving way? Is there sort of like a, you know, a balanced formula that has some tenants to it that you could share
me and with our podcast audience.
Dr. Cat Brown (20:50.766)
Sure, sure. I mean, I think that each woman is unique. And so we're each going to have a different formula. Not everything's going to fit for everybody. But the basic core things that I think every woman needs to focus on, especially as you're going through this transition, is number one, nutrition. I think that it's so basic. And it's a shame, but even looking back to my own medical education, I think we got maybe two hours of nutrition education in the four years of medical school.
which if we really want to have a culture of wellness, that needs to change. But I don't know, we're not going to change medical education. But I think that so much, and especially we're at a disservice in the United States because we don't have good resources for getting the knowledge out there for what foods are the best.
But I usually tell patients, and I've been telling patients for years, to stay away from the inside of a grocery store and stay on the periphery, because that's where most of the fresh things are. And we think back at our grandparents that used to have to go to the store every day to get fresh food to make for a meal that night. And with our society and how industrialized we've become, we've all got these giant refrigerators and these giant cupboards. And we keep these foods that are shelf stable for years in our homes that we eat.
Adrienne (21:46.403)
Yeah, good advice.
Dr. Cat Brown (22:09.282)
But when you really think about it, if it's shelf stable for that long, how nutritious is that food for you? So you wanna stick to things that go bad easily. You wanna eat them when they're fresh, like fresh whole foods. And honestly, sometimes you have to do a little bit of an elimination diet, I think, because if you get down to basics and you really just focus on eating only when you're hungry, not because...
Adrienne (22:14.865)
Yeah.
Adrienne (22:19.281)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (22:35.378)
it's meal time or not because it looks good or it tastes good and we want the comfort from it. But really eating when you're hungry and really paying attention to how foods make your body feel. It's profound and the difference that it makes, you know, that if you have a more conscious way of what you put in your mouth and you truly are what you eat. And, you know, maybe when we were in our 20s, we could do whatever we wanted and we could bounce back and it was easier.
Adrienne (22:55.857)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (23:02.078)
Now in our 40s, if we focus on nutrition, I think that alone really makes a huge difference in daily wellbeing for women. So much more fruits and vegetables and whole grains and things that are fresh. The other thing is just moving your body. So, you know, I think that many of us have the belief that it's like all or none thinking, right? If we can't get to the gym five days a week and do the perfect workout and do everything,
Adrienne (23:08.241)
Mmm.
Adrienne (23:18.159)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (23:29.366)
we feel like, well, what's the point? Because we're not gonna do it right. Just getting out and walking each day, just deciding to park your car a little further from where you're going to have more steps, to use the stairs rather than take the elevator. It's these little tiny changes that we can do throughout the course of the day that really can contribute to our wellness and help us move our body more and help with the strength. Because the other thing we have to really focus on is keeping our bodies strong as our bodies are changing. And
Adrienne (23:54.439)
Yes.
Dr. Cat Brown (23:57.782)
You know, we've all seen the little old ladies that are getting the little hump on their back and bending over and we maybe have had relatives that have fallen and had a fracture and then they really watch them that they never really bounced back from that, you know, in your 60s, 70s, 80s. So it's so important now to get it into be like a regular habit that you move your body, that you do some weight training or resistance training, doing something to keep your body strong so that you can keep the body you're in.
Adrienne (24:11.495)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (24:27.426)
functioning as well as it can for as long as you need it. And then, I mean, it's so basic. And these are things that, it's not like earth shattering information. We know it's out there. It's just a matter of taking the time to really focus on it. Another thing that I think is so, so important, and I think it's many of us that are in successful careers, we don't think about this. And sometimes if someone tells us this,
Adrienne (24:30.837)
Hmm. This is such great advice. Yeah. Oh, continue. Yes. Yeah, it is.
Dr. Cat Brown (24:56.106)
We kind of write them off and we don't have time for that. But I really think we all need to just slow down. You know, we have this glorification of being busy and really multitasking. And the problem is that when we are spread so thin into so many different directions, we can't really do anything to the best of our ability because we're just, our mind is in so many places. And so sometimes that means looking at a pile of things you need to do.
Adrienne (25:01.819)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (25:23.886)
feeling tired and listening to your body and saying, no, sleep's more important right now. And then you wake up refreshed and you're so much more able to tackle things when you've had good sleep. And so it's just slowing down our lives, optimizing our sleep, you know, really, I used to brag probably about being able to work 36 hour shifts and then be able to function all day the next day. And now in my forties, that is just not possible.
Adrienne (25:28.133)
Yeah.
Adrienne (25:34.543)
Yes.
Adrienne (25:50.007)
Yeah, no. Oh my gosh, yes.
Dr. Cat Brown (25:53.374)
You know, and even it's just sleep is so precious now and sacred that, you know, I think that we all need to make sure that we really do what we can to have a good practice of sleep hygiene and really make sure we're getting restorative sleep along with the exercise and moving our body, along with the nutrition. Like that's the perfect formula is really focusing on these core basic things on how to take care of ourselves as human beings.
Adrienne (25:59.449)
Yeah.
Adrienne (26:07.879)
Hmm
Adrienne (26:16.615)
Yeah.
Adrienne (26:22.234)
Hmm
Dr. Cat Brown (26:22.698)
And then we can be our best selves in every other aspect of our life, I think. And then of course, for some women, hormone therapy is an integral part of that too. And it's not for everybody. We can have two identical women, same age, going through the same transitions in their hormone levels, but have a completely separate experience. And if you have symptoms that are significantly distressing your life, and they're...
Adrienne (26:27.567)
such great advice. It really is.
Dr. Cat Brown (26:51.622)
bothersome every day, then hormone therapy can definitely help with that. But I've had women that say, you know, I don't even remember when menopause happened. I'm like, you know, those are the women that also probably don't feel pain and labor and never felt a contraction. But, you know, unicorn women.
Adrienne (27:02.233)
They're the lucky ones.
Ha ha
Adrienne (27:10.767)
Yeah, yeah. And we shouldn't strive for that because we all are different, but if you are one of those women, like good for you, that's amazing. You know, as you were talking about so many of these incredible pieces of advice, and they are, they're basic, they're core, they are often difficult to implement.
Dr. Cat Brown (27:17.442)
No.
Adrienne (27:38.959)
because I think that, you know, as women, we are so conditioned, and you touched on this before, to like help everybody else. And we actually get disconnected from ourselves. So it's like, eat when you're hungry. We don't even know what hungry feels like.
Dr. Cat Brown (27:51.615)
Yes.
Dr. Cat Brown (28:03.666)
Exactly. Yeah.
Adrienne (28:04.959)
Yeah, so maybe I would even add to all of the great pieces of advice, maybe also taking the time for some mindfulness, right? So that we can recognize these things about ourselves. Often we don't, you know, feel it until it hurts. And that's when, you know, that is when we go seeking help. And
Dr. Cat Brown (28:17.311)
Yes.
Adrienne (28:34.383)
we could avoid that if we were a little bit more in tune and in touch with ourselves. And I think that the sooner that we can start tapping into, like, who are we? Am I hungry? Am I tired? Like, asking, you know, those simple questions. Am I doing too much? Should I really be asking someone for help? I don't need to be doing this all myself. It's like all of these questions. And I think that
There's also this pressure on women to do it all, to grind it out, to be these like uber successful entrepreneurs that are working nonstop around the clock. And all of that is disruptive to our humanity. Period. Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (29:24.818)
Exactly. It really is. Yeah. And, you know, it's, it's one of those things. It's like we expect ourselves to be super human, or almost robotic, and in a way, and, and we really need to return to humanity. And then the mindfulness is so very important. You know, just being able to sit with your own thoughts, and even recognize how you're feeling, I think that so many of us don't even take the time to do that. Because we're constantly
Adrienne (29:33.712)
Ugh. Yeah.
Adrienne (29:41.66)
Yeah.
Adrienne (29:51.091)
We don't.
Dr. Cat Brown (29:53.154)
We're constantly going or constantly doing and we don't have the time to just be, you know, just be.
Adrienne (29:59.939)
Yeah. I also wanted to add one of the things that you talked about, which has also dramatically helped me. For Christmas, my husband got me some personal training sessions at the gym that I belonged to. And the trainer that I got paired with is a young man. He's 30. And I was like, oh, I don't want to, you know,
I don't want to work out with this dude who just doesn't understand women, especially women my age. And, you know, the first couple, I was like, are you kidding me? And it really has turned into him listening to me, but pushing me in a way that I would never push myself when it comes to lifting weights and lifting heavier weights. And I have to tell you that.
my posture is better. I feel like a million bucks for how strong I feel because I also felt, and it was probably because of COVID and everything, I used to feel strong. I'm sort of like an athletic type of a person and I used to feel strong and like I could do anything. And over COVID and all of it, I gained a bunch of weight and I still have a weight to lose.
but I was starting to feel weak and that scared me. So now that I've been lifting weights and we do the resistance bands training and the heavier weights and the amount of weight that I can lift is almost unbelievable. Like week after week, your muscles progress really quickly but beyond all of it, I don't even care. Not that I don't care about losing weight, but.
Dr. Cat Brown (31:29.603)
Mmm. Yeah.
Adrienne (31:50.819)
I've almost stopped caring about losing weight and all I keep thinking about is how can I keep getting stronger because my goodness, the difference in just how I am carrying myself and how I feel about myself is light years ahead. So it's like Winona, you know, lifting weights. I still go to yoga. My life is improving.
Dr. Cat Brown (32:15.01)
That's wonderful. I mean, yeah, and it just really helps to explode your confidence too. Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful.
Adrienne (32:19.555)
Oh my gosh, yeah, it's a good thing. And we think sometimes as women that, oh, you shouldn't be lifting such heavy weights, but it's actually good for you. And you're not gonna blow up and look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's just not possible.
Dr. Cat Brown (32:36.134)
No, no. I mean, I think that's why notoriously women have kind of gravitated away from weight training rather than going for it. I think that so many women out there spend a lot of their time when they do exercise just working on cardio, which is great for your cardiovascular health. It is. But if we want to prevent osteoporosis, if we want to be the best strong version of ourselves that we can be as we age.
Adrienne (32:52.282)
Yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (33:05.13)
and we want to really truly avoid that weakening and that we don't want to develop frailty as we age as women, weight training is the way to go, it really is.
Adrienne (33:13.475)
Yeah. And it helps your balance. And there's certain things that sort of hurt on me, my shoulder, my knee. And we're also working on like stability for that too. Cause like you said, take the stairs. Well, if your knee is killing you, you're not gonna take the stairs. So if you can sort of build up the muscles that support your knee, you're gonna be more likely to take the stairs, which sets up this.
Dr. Cat Brown (33:34.924)
Right.
Adrienne (33:42.767)
really great flywheel of doing more and wanting to do more and saying, oh, I can walk up the hill. I don't need to drive up the hill. I'll walk up the hill. It's good stuff. Yeah. Well, listen, this has been an incredible conversation. I am
Dr. Cat Brown (33:51.606)
Right?
Dr. Cat Brown (33:55.679)
It is. It really is.
Adrienne (34:03.647)
So excited to just share Winona with the She Leads Podcast audience, with the world, well, with the United States first, and then maybe with the world. I'm not entirely sure. But if people do want to just learn more about Winona, maybe fill out a quiz or read some really great content, where can they go?
Dr. Cat Brown (34:12.02)
Right.
Dr. Cat Brown (34:22.83)
Mm-hmm. They go to see us at our website, which is bywenona.com. So it's B-Y-W-I-N-O-N-A.com. And there is a lot of really good informational content on there, too. So even if you're not really sure you even want to go down the route of considering hormone therapy, it's still worthwhile just to get on there and learn more. I mean, because really, like I said earlier, knowledge is power. The more you learn, the better you'll be able to find your way.
Adrienne (34:46.716)
Yes.
Dr. Cat Brown (34:50.382)
recognize changes in yourself, help to, you know, make changes in your day to day lifestyle that can be helpful too. And so, you know, that's something that I encourage women to do. And it really that part of our website, that's all free. It's all just free information on there. We also have
Adrienne (35:06.054)
amazing.
Dr. Cat Brown (35:07.226)
live webinars that our patients can dial into, but really anybody can dial into. If you go to our website, there's a page that has information about the webinar where you can register for it. And we have one coming up on February 29th. But we usually have them on a monthly or every other month basis where patients can just dial in. And it's usually Dr. Green and I and Angela, our PR person, we take live questions and we just answer them live on air. So, you know,
Adrienne (35:34.033)
Amazing.
Dr. Cat Brown (35:35.23)
patients can get their questions answered in real time. And sometimes we just kind of talk off the cuff and just talk about different topics. It's just really informational. So that's really helpful too. And then I'm trying, yes, yes. And I don't think, I mean, there's a lot of other companies, we of course have competitors out there. There's other companies that provide hormone therapy, but I don't think they have the same educational platform and focus that we do. We really wanna help people.
Adrienne (35:47.591)
This is an incredible resource, yeah.
Dr. Cat Brown (36:05.062)
even if you're not our customer, we really think that this is a vital part of a woman's health. And we really need to help women through this journey. So you know, the information out there is just so useful. So
Adrienne (36:05.113)
Yeah.
Adrienne (36:13.228)
I love that.
Adrienne (36:17.067)
And that is one thing that I just absolutely love about Winona and why I decided to become a patient and why hopefully we are going to be doing some more things content wise together too because I'm just so dedicated to women and thriving in business, but also if you don't have your health, then you sure as heck don't have a business.
Dr. Cat Brown (36:32.116)
Yes.
Dr. Cat Brown (36:46.95)
Right, exactly.
Adrienne (36:47.103)
So, yeah, I highly encourage everyone to just go to Winona and check out all of the incredible resources. And Dr. Kat, thank you so much for spending your time with me here this morning. It has been very informative and I know that our podcast audience is going to take away a lot from this show. So thank you very much.
Dr. Cat Brown (37:09.986)
Thank you so much for having me. And if your listeners want to find me, I also have a new professional Instagram account too that Angela encouraged me to do. I share a lot of our Winona content on there, but also just personal thoughts too. It's at Dr. Kat, OBGYN. So that's available too, yeah.
Adrienne (37:28.275)
Amazing. We will put all of that in the show notes and I'm gonna go follow you right now. Yay, thank you.
Dr. Cat Brown (37:34.402)
Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day.
Adrienne (37:39.567)
You too.