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The Plant Powered Collective Podcast helps women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond live vibrantly and nourish boldly. Hosted by integrative nutrition coach Lori Willinski, each episode blends science-backed nutrition with approachable strategies for hormone balance, energy, and healthy aging. Rooted in lifestyle medicine and personalized coaching, Lori shares her story of thriving on plants since age 14 and managing autoimmune disease with nutrition. Discover how a plant powered lifestyle fuels not only your health, but also your leadership and your future self.
Welcome back to the Plant Powered Collective Podcast. I'm Lori Walensky, your host, integrative nutrition coach, and founder of the Plant Powered Collective. Today, we're talking about energy, not hustle energy, not caffeine energy, not push through it and collapse later energy. We're talking about real sustainable midlife energy and if you've ever thought I just need more discipline or if I could just get my motivation back I'd feel better. I want you to hear this clearly.
Speaker 1:Midlife energy is not a willpower problem. It is a nourishment conversation. And once we understand that everything changes. So let's dive into the podcast. I want to talk about something practical because we know that nourishment doesn't always happen on a perfectly calm day in your own kitchen with time to spare because we're all busy, you know, and sometimes nourishment has to happen inside a very full life.
Speaker 1:So this past weekend was Art Fest Fort Myers. It's a juried art festival that welcomes close to about 100,000 people to Downtown Fort Myers which is where I live in Florida And it's the first weekend of February. This is an art festival that's been around for about twenty six years. And since around 2010, I volunteered for the festival steering committee. I focus on festival merchandise.
Speaker 1:And over the weekend, I not only volunteered for about thirty hours, but I also led dozens of volunteers coordinating logistics, inventory, and long days on our feet. It's a super joyful weekend. It's physically energizing and it's also physically and mentally exhausting. The days are long, the crowds are big, the pace was nonstop and it's not a weekend where I get to sit down and thoughtfully plan meals. So this is where nourishment becomes intentional and also not perfect.
Speaker 1:Here's what I do with a little bit of planning. First and foremost, quality water. I use the swirl structured craft from Mayu, M A Y U if you want to look it up. I want to be very clear that I do not represent them and I am not sponsored by them. I'm not an affiliate of theirs.
Speaker 1:It's just simply something that I choose to use personally. Structured water refers to water that has been organized at a molecular level and that's what this watercraft does and it offers a more bioavailability to the body. In simple terms, it is water that your cells can use more efficiently. Hydration is not about how much water you drink but it's about how well that water actually gets into your cells because I knew that I wouldn't be able to sit and drink my regular amount of water because quite frankly I don't even have enough time to go to the bathroom during the weekend. So I didn't want to drink the 16 to 90 ounces of water that I usually drink a day.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to make sure that my water was quality water that would really add hydration to my cells. So when I'm walking and lifting and standing and problem solving and interacting with people all day long, Proper hydration supports circulation and cognitive clarity, muscle function, and sustained energy. This kind of hydration helps prevent that late day crash that so often feels like fatigue, but it's really just dehydration paired with mineral depletion. The second thing I brought with me were pumpkin seeds. These are small, portable, and incredibly supportive little nuggets of nutrition.
Speaker 1:Pumpkin seeds provide magnesium and zinc and iron and healthy fats and plant based protein. So here's why I chose pumpkin seeds, because magnesium supports muscle function and nervous system regulation. Zinc plays a role in immune health and stress resilience. The healthy fats help stabilize blood sugar so energy stays steady instead of spiking and crashing. This is the kind of food that quietly supports you while you're doing busy work.
Speaker 1:And the third item that I brought with me was tofu. Tofu is one of my go to foods during physically and mentally demanding days. It provides complete plant protein with all the essential amino acids, which supports muscle recovery, sustained energy, and mental focus. It is also easy to digest. It's anti inflammatory and steadying for blood sugar.
Speaker 1:That matters when meals are irregular and your body is working super hard. This is nourishment that meets my life where it was this weekend. No perfection, no restriction, just thoughtful support. And this is the bridge into what I wanna talk about next because midlife energy is not built around pushing harder on busy days. It is built on understanding what your body needs and planning just enough to support it.
Speaker 1:And that brings us back to a bigger conversation about nourishment over willpower. So let's get something straight right out of the gate. Your body is not broken. It is brilliant. I know in midlife, sometimes it can feel like our bodies don't belong to us.
Speaker 1:The things that used to work, running on adrenaline, skipping meals, all of those things used to work. Again, it doesn't mean that your body is broken. It means your body is brilliant and that it's efficient and that it's working because your body's number one job is survival, not productivity, not weight loss, not keeping up with everyone else. So when you skip meals, eat too little, or run on adrenaline, your body doesn't think she's busy. I'll give her a pass.
Speaker 1:It thinks resources are scarce. Something's wrong. And when the body senses scarcity, it adapts. It conserves energy. And here's how that shows up.
Speaker 1:Your metabolism downshifts, not because you failed, but because your body is protecting you. Cortisol rises. Skipping meals is stress. Elevated cortisol may help in the short term because that sort of adrenaline rush from elevated cortisol might push us to do more, but over time, it drains energy. It increases inflammation.
Speaker 1:It disrupts sleep, and it keeps you wired and exhausted all the time. Thyroid signaling can slow as well. Again, not broken. Adaptive. The body is saying, let's not burn through what we don't have.
Speaker 1:Your mitochondria, your cellular power plants need fuel to make energy. Carbohydrates, amino acids, micronutrients, and antioxidants. And guess what? The only way that we can get those things is when we fuel our bodies. When we under fuel, they simply don't have what they need to do their job.
Speaker 1:When your nervous system shifts into conservation mode, less motivation happens, Less creativity happens. Less spontaneous movement happens. That's not laziness. It's not something that is wrong with you. It's just biology.
Speaker 1:So if eating less made us feel more tired, that wasn't weakness. That was our body's communicating. Now let's talk about what actually works because midlife energy is built on foundational nourishment, not restriction. At this stage of life, our bodies thrive on consistency. Let me give you a real example.
Speaker 1:Picture a warm meal with quinoa or brown rice, lentils or tofu, roasted sweet potatoes, sauteed greens, and olive oil or tahini on top, that meal does a lot of heavy lifting. The carbohydrates refill glycogen so your brain and muscles can actually function. The protein supports muscle and blood sugar stability and hormone signaling. The fiber feeds your gut microbiome which plays a direct role in estrogen metabolism. The fats slow digestion and prevent crashes and because it's warm and cooked digestion is easier and absorption of all the nutrients improves.
Speaker 1:Energy is not created by eating less. Energy is created by eating enough consistently and in a way that your body can use. So I want to talk to you woman to women for a moment because I've been here. For years in midlife, I did what so many women do. I tried fad diets.
Speaker 1:I skipped meals. I told myself that if I hustled hard enough, stayed busy enough, and pushed through, I could outrun menopause symptoms. I mean, I'm from New England. I'm from Boston. You know, pushing ourselves, pushing through builds character.
Speaker 1:It puts hair on your chest as my grandmother used to say. But that's not necessarily true. Hot flashes, brain fog, inflammation, crushing fatigue. I thought discipline was the answer. I thought pushing through was the answer.
Speaker 1:I thought not paying attention to those symptoms and to what my body was feeling was the answer. And I would have died on that sword, But then my life cracked open. When I found out about my now ex husband's infidelity and his other family, something shifted inside of me. I made a commitment not to fixing my body, but to choosing myself. One of the very first things I did was eat consistent meals, not perfectly, not restrictively, but intentionally.
Speaker 1:I did what all of my education in nutrition taught me Even though, to be honest with you, I didn't follow it myself until I had that shift in my life. And I knew that I needed to be around for my daughters. I needed to be around for myself. And I needed to start living. I needed to stop pushing through and pretend that things weren't there.
Speaker 1:That I needed to be intentional about how I wanted to live life for the rest of my life. I stopped asking what I needed to cut out nutritionally and from food, and I started asking what I needed to add. I added complex carbohydrates like sweet potatoes and quinoa and oats to stabilize blood sugar and calm cortisol. Really necessary when you find out that your husband had another family for twenty years of your thirty three year marriage. I added plant based proteins, which I had always done, but I added more, like tofu and lentils and beans to support muscle and reduce inflammation.
Speaker 1:I added leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables like kale and broccoli to support estrogen metabolism through my gut and liver. I added healthy fats like olive oil, avocado, nuts, and seeds to support hormones, and I added warm meals like soups and stews and nourishing bowls. And guess what? My energy came back. My inflammation decreased.
Speaker 1:My thinking cleared, and my body felt supported instead of punished. Life was definitely not easier, but I was stronger. And that changed everything. And it made me what I am today. It gave me the strength to leave my full time job with a regular paycheck and say, you know what?
Speaker 1:I am going to take all of my education. I am going to take my passion for nutrition and my renewed compassion for life and create Plant Powered Collective. Because when I was nourished, I became resilient. And I know you, when you are nourished, you will become resilient as well in the ways that you need resilience. When I was under fueled, I was exhausted.
Speaker 1:And I know that when you become fueled like I became fueled, you will no longer be exhausted. You will no longer feel all of the midlife symptoms that we feel. We might still have them to a degree, like I do, but I also know that through nourishment that I can be resilient in those symptoms. So let me give you something tangible. This is one of my go to meals when I want energy that lasts.
Speaker 1:So I start with quinoa or brown rice. I add baked or pan seared tofu, roasted sweet potatoes, sauteed kale or spinach, avocado, and pumpkin or hemp seeds. Then I drizzle it with the tahini ginger sauce. The way that I make this is tahini and fresh ginger or I buy, an organic ginger paste at Whole Foods, and I use that. Lemon juice, warm water, and sea salt.
Speaker 1:This bowl is grounding. It's warm. It's satisfying, and it tells my body you're safe, you're nourished, and that it doesn't need to conserve anymore. And what that did for me is I started losing weight. Not that that was super important to me.
Speaker 1:What was super important is that I had less inflammation, that I could think more clearly. And what that did, again, is it gave me the strength, the empowerment to be able to make changes in my life so that I could truly live the life that I wanted and that I want. And, you know, I know that this can happen for you too. I hope that you enjoy today's episode. So midlife is not a decline, it's a recalibration.
Speaker 1:And when you stop trying to willpower your way through and start nourishing yourself with intention, energy returns in a way that is steady, powerful, and sustainable. If this episode resonated, subscribe and share it with someone who needs to hear this. And please leave a review. And if you're ready to personalize your nourishment approach, you can book a complimentary session with me at plantpoweredcollective.com. And remember this your body is not asking for more effort it's asking for more care.
Speaker 1:So nourish boldly, live vibrantly, and thank you for listening to this podcast.