Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Energetic Advantage, the podcast where energy isn't woo, it's your edge. I'm your host, Jessica Cerato. Intuitive strategist, lifelong pattern decoder, lover of numbers, and energetic guide for visionary leaders. Around. Here we go. Energy first, strategy second. Every episode will give you a perspective, a tool, or a timeline shift that helps you lead from your power.
Because the truth is your energy is your most undervalued asset. Until you learn how to use it, get ready. You're about to have the advantage. Let's begin.
Episode Intro: Hey. Hey friends. You know, this was one of those conversations that stayed with me long after we hit stop on the recording. It's very personal for me because here is the truth, the focus on your vessel, your body, the container that your energy moves through. That's not a luxury anymore. [00:01:00] It's mandatory. Especially right now. In this episode, my guest and I talk about why leadership, visibility, and energy do not start in your mindset or your strategy. They start in your body. And why ignoring that costs you more than you think. We talk hormones, gut health, energy leaks, and yes, energetic constipation makes an appearance.
I also reveal the one thing that I am actually very good at cooking, and Chelsea brings the magic of making complex things incredibly practical. This is one of those episodes where you'll laugh, you'll feel seen and walk away with tangible actions, both energetic and physical, to start feeling more like yourself again.
And that's what I love about this conversation is that it bridges two worlds so beautifully. High level leadership and deep embodiment. [00:02:00] Chelsea doesn't just talk theory. She's lived it, corporate leadership burnout, pushing through, and now doing the real work of listening to her body and rebuilding from the inside out.
And because of the work that she's done for herself, she's now helping hundreds of women do the same thing. So this episode is for the woman who knows her energy is her number one asset and is ready to actually take care of the container that it lives in. So let me properly introduce you to today's guest.
Chelsea McLeod is an integrative health practitioner who helps busy, successful women release weight and restore energy by healing hormone and gut imbalances. She's guided over 250 women through sustainable transformation. Without fad diets, excessive cardio, or giving up their social lives. Before stepping into this work, Chelsea led strategy for global brands like Adidas and Reebok and Crocs, all while [00:03:00] navigating her own exhaustion, gut issues, and burnout.
It wasn't until she balanced her hormones and healed her gut that her energy returned, the weight dropped, and she finally felt back in control of her health. Like a partnership today, her work blends science, functional medicine, lab testing, mindset coaching, and truly deeply practical strategies that fit real life, especially for women who lead full demanding ones.
This conversation is honest, it's grounded, it's incredibly useful. So whether your body has been whispering or flat out yelling. This episode is for you. Let's get into it.
Jessica Cerato: Okay, welcome back. Today's conversation is about something that we do not talk about enough in leadership, which is the body. So this year is the year of the one, and yes, the one represents leadership [00:04:00] initiation, visibility being first, but here's the thing that most people skip. The one is physical. It lives in form.
It needs receipts. Our energy just doesn't float around magically all around us. It lives in a vessel, and that vessel, like it or not, is your body. So if your body is depleted, inflamed, dysregulated, or ignored, leadership becomes more difficult. It. Feels like it is a lot of effort. Visibility feels really heavy.
And your energy, which of course we all know is your real asset leaks. So today we are talking about what it actually looks like to lead from the body and there is no other better person to have this conversation with then Chelsea McLeod. So Chelsea, welcome.
Chelsea McLeod: Thank you so much for having me. I love being in your [00:05:00] energy.
Jessica Cerato: This is gonna be such a powerful conversation, especially right now we are in a very physical energy where it is so important to focus on our body. And so I just wanna start a little bit with how you came into this work. And I think it really speaks to where many women are right now. So you've lived both sides of this.
You've high level corporate leadership, and now you're deep into this integrative health work. So in your corporate environment, you led teams and strategy for global brands, high performance, high output, constant pressure, mind driven, performance based environments. When you look back now, when did you first realize that your body.
Was no longer keeping up with your leadership.
Chelsea McLeod: It is so interesting because. I think most women don't actually know the answer to that question because they're so used to feeling terrible all the time. And so for me, I just kind of thought that being [00:06:00] tired and not loving the way my body looked, wearing clothes, that maybe hid certain parts of my body not sleeping at night.
I thought that was normal. And so for about a decade, I was grinding it out in corporate, I was managing teams. I headed up e-commerce and digital at Adidas Crocs. Reebok, a bunch of big footwear brands. And in the process, there were late nights, there were early mornings, there were late calls with Europe and with apac.
And then when I moved to Australia, my hours were even worse. And so I think it slowly, progressively got worse year over year. And by the time I was in my early thirties. I didn't feel good at all, and I, didn't know that that wasn't normal because everyone around me had the same symptoms. And what I quickly learned was that it's common, but it's not normal.
And once I started doing that deeper level of work on my hormones, on my physical body, it changed so fast that I was astounded. And I was like, more women need to know about this because I think we're just so accustomed to. Looking and feeling less than what we want to, and that has such a big impact on like the way we show up energetically, but also our [00:07:00] leadership capacity.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah. So when we talk about this as energy, like you said, being our number one asset and energy needing a container. So from your lens, so hormones, gut health, nervous system, all the things. why is it that the body is the delivery system for leadership energy? Why can't we please tell me the answer.
Why can't we out strategize or out discipline like a dysregulated body?
Chelsea McLeod: I think people know, like people can pick up on how we behave, how we show up, how we speak, and when we're leading from a place of dysregulation and imbalance like. Our team feeds off of that. They're gonna feel more frantic. We're not gonna get stuff done as efficiently. And so I think for most women, they think leadership is just doing more, but it's more about being present and showing up in your full expression, and also having the clarity of mind to make strong decisions, which you can't do when you have brain fog.
You can't do when you're exhausted. You can't do [00:08:00] when you're sleeping four hours a night. There's just a whole nother. level that we have to get to if we're gonna lead the way that we want to.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah, I love that. And you talked a little bit right here about like brain fog, and before, about what things were happening that you said that you kind of normalized. But perhaps shouldn't. So what are some specific things that you find are most common that high achieving women normalize that they actually don't have to,
Chelsea McLeod: I always say symptoms are normal, but people think they're just part of their personality, and so they build a whole lifestyle around their symptoms. And the most common one I see are, gut issues constipation, bloating, any kind of tummy discomfort, start to finish. Dissatisfaction with weight or weight that doesn't budge as much as it should based on how much you're working out, how well you're eating, how many salads you're having, how many berries, classes you're doing, you just still carry weight, especially that little inner tube around the middle.
So I always say, if you're carrying weight in belly, hips, thighs, it's a sign that there's some [00:09:00] hormonal imbalance. I would also say sleep. So a lot of women are really tired during the day, and then they have a big shot of energy at night and think that that's normal. That's actually a dysregulated cortisol curve that I see in so many female leaders who are in big roles.
And it's because they've just been operating in fight or flight for so long that their cortisol levels are kind of flipped. So they're supposed to like pick up in the morning and drop off as, as the day goes on. But a lot of women, they're, they wake up exhausted. Their energy levels start to rise.
They probably get to their highest around I don't know, 11 o'clock midday, and then they just feel terrible again. And then the cortisol rises again at night. So they, they really have trouble sleeping, even if they're exhausted. So those are the most common ones. But then there's also clusters of symptoms I see with certain women, like hair loss, adult acne, just general anxiety as well.
So most women I work with have. A weight issue coupled with two or three other hormonal symptoms.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah. It's so interesting that I think sometimes with our body, we have the same energetic cycle with work of we [00:10:00] only remember the most recent thing. So it kind of feels like you're talking a little bit about Groundhog Day, how, especially because you feel so energized at night that you forget. How junk you felt in the morning, and then when you wake up, you start that cycle all over again.
Right. That's so fascinating. Okay, so let's talk about weight actually for a second. 'cause I think you, you brought this in, in a beautiful way talked about what weight represents hormonally a lot of times for this women. But what, what does weight often represent energetically for these women?
Have you noticed anything there?
Chelsea McLeod: Yeah. Because I work with very type A women who are moving so fast, they don't have to feel, there's oftentimes emotion that's stored in the body and we know emotions are energy, right? And so for a lot of these women, once they start doing their protocols, they start eating the right foods, eating at the right time, really nourishing their body, but they also start to rest.
They also start to feel their feelings and the weight starts to come off. [00:11:00] And so I always think of our physical metabolism and our emotional metabolism as the same thing. When we're not digesting life and we're not digesting our emotions, our body can't either. And so we can't metabolize our food.
We can't move our food, so our digestion shuts down. We're gonna hold on to weight. And so I can't tell you how many women I talked to who have that last 15 pounds to lose, and they just. They can't do it, and so we really have to look at it from a 360 degree lens of what's going on chemically, physically in your body, but also emotionally for you, so we can really allow you to release that weight.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah, and I'm laughing just how many times I've probably heard someone say I don't have time to feel. 'cause there's just so much to do. when you hear someone say that, what is something that you can share with them that. Might get them to flip that, even if it's just an opening for awareness.
Chelsea McLeod: I always say just feel faster. When you feel something bubbling up, just feel faster. Allow it to just pass through your body 90 seconds instead of pretending it's not there. [00:12:00] Just, maybe it's just taking a walk. Maybe it's just going outside, allowing it to move through your body. I was watching an interview with Layla Hormoze the other day and she was, someone was asking her like, do you ever like completely lose.
Regulation and cry at work. And she was like, crying is regulation. Like she one of, one of the most just successful females in business is saying that of course I cry like that. That's what I do. That's how you move through it. And so I, I always tell women like, your day will probably go by a little bit better if you just allow yourself to metabolize the feeling quickly.
Jessica Cerato: I love that, and actually, this is what I love. About you. I love, I love a lot of things about you, Chelsea, but one of the things I really admire, but I also think it's the way I operate as well, is moving quickly, right? I think a lot of people, a lot of women avoid doing the thing because. They might see others talk about the time that it takes.
And just from my , [00:13:00] perspective, when we work with energy or strategy in any of my sessions, like I don't need a long time to help you get a transformation Listen, this sounds awful, but listen, I don't wanna spend hours with you either. Let's get in, get out, change it, do what we need to do and move on.
Like it doesn't need to take a long time to be impactful and I'd love for you to share and I can also share my experience of how fast it worked for me. But I'd love for you to give some examples of real life, women in the wild or ways that you've seen women get results.
Very quickly, and actually what that does, not just for the results, but also for their energy.
Chelsea McLeod: I have one client called Marie, big marketing role. Like VP of sales at a big publicly traded company, absolutely crushing it. Two kids at home, former college [00:14:00] athlete. So she was doing all the things and she was, not one of those women who was super overweight, but she just was used to looking and feeling a certain way in her body because she was an athlete.
she always was active. She was exercising, she was going on runts on the weekend, and she just had these 15 pounds just stuck to her body. Her pants did not fit. Her suits did not fit. She was in a board room just hating the way she looked and felt. And so we got on a call and we were kind of talking about the stuff that she was already doing or not doing right, and she was like, well, I think I'm already eating fairly well.
Obviously it's not perfect. I like a wine on the weekends, but I'm not eating. Anything out of the ordinary. It's not like I'm on the couch with my hand in a bag of Cheetos every weekend, but she was doing all the things and it just wasn't working. And she's, 40 years old. So she's it must be hormones.
It must be perimenopause, it must be da da da da. I'm just getting old. My metabolism's slowing down. And we ran her functional medicine lab test. We got her on our personalized protocols start to clean up, it's little things, right? Like it's little tweaks to her protocols where it's like the timing of your breakfast.
When is caffeine going in your day to help give you the [00:15:00] most benefit and, still protect your adrenals, your cortisol levels. What does exercise look like in that first stabilization phase? 'cause for most women, they really need 30 days to just. Reset and it doesn't involve going to the gym. A lot of these women, it actually involves really peeling everything back and just keeping it very basic and very simple.
So from there, she lost seven pounds in her first. Two to three weeks. Like it was crazy. And that's a very common result because someone, people are like, oh, well that's not healthy weight loss. And I can assure you, as someone who's worked with 250 women who have lost this weight and kept it off, it is very realistic and it's very healthy when you're working with inflammation and hormonal weight because it's not always just fat, it's, you can lose a lot of weight with the right protocols very, very quickly.
And so. For her, she lost those 15 pounds, but then she lost even five more. So she was lower than her wedding weight. She was lower than her college weight. And she just didn't realize that was possible without doing oxy shred and starving herself and trying to be anorexic again, but then getting hungry the next day, and so for her [00:16:00] it was. A really big aha moment that when you just take care of yourself, the physical results fall into place and then you get so many other benefits, like you have real energy, you're in a good mood, so you're not treating your team like crap. you're sleeping through the night, so you wake up with real energy.
your skin clears up, your hair grows longer. Like she just looks like a completely different person. And so the woman that I saw at the end of that program versus. Woman I saw on day one, I mean, she's a different person. Her face has a different shape. She has a different physical, energetic capacity because of the work she did.
Jessica Cerato: It's so interesting and I think this was one of the hardest. Truths for me to accept. So this is why I'm gonna ask the question, and I think this really has to do with our body, our vessel, but also our leadership. So why does pushing harder, like not help, or in many cases, like why does pushing harder, backfire for women like both hormonally in the [00:17:00] body, but also like energetically and in leadership?
Chelsea McLeod: I think people just forget that we're human beings they think that we can just get away with. Not treating ourselves well and not resting. It's like we are human beings, like we need sleep. We need seven to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. And if we're not getting it, we're choosing to live shorter lives.
We're choosing to have a heavier weight. We're choosing cravings like we're, that's a choice. And so we make all of these choices that either support us or don't support us. But I think a lot of women just think they can get away with it until they can't. Until they hate the way their body looks, until they hate the way they feel until they're snapping at their kids.
And they bend over to play with their kids and their fat rolls that weren't there before are suddenly there and they're like, oh my gosh, I need to do something about this. And so I think sometimes the body has a way of slowing us down and being like, Hey, here's an invitation to do some internal work and to really revise the way that you're showing up in your everyday life because.
Symptoms are kind of just reminders that we're not treating ourselves well.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah. It's so funny because [00:18:00] I'm kind of laughing at this example, but you know me, I'm gonna share it. I think a lot of times we have so many inputs. Coming into our body and we don't give them number one time to metabolize, but even more importantly, where we don't give them an outlet, we become constipated, like both physically, but also energetically.
And it was just so funny. This just happened to me the other day. Luckily, one of my problems that you helped me with was not constipation. I did not have physical constipation, but energetically, there was. I was working on this project with this startup team, and I kept on pushing for the answer.
I could feel myself doing it. Let me just go into one more meditation. Let me just ask one more question. We were really working hard, like even hyper fixating on this issue. And last Friday I went for, wasn't even thinking about it. I went for lymphatic drainage massage, and then [00:19:00] afterwards I sit in the infrared sauna for 15 minutes.
At minute seven, the entire strategy that has been evading us in the past three weeks, like drops in, I jump out of the sauna and Aretha, God bless her, was like, Hey, do you wanna take a shower before you go? I'm like, no. I'm literally like mopping sweat off my body, trying to get dressed as quickly as I can so I can write this down and record it.
Because like in that moment. Anything that was stagnating in my body because I had given myself the capacity to not only rest, but then invite energy to flow through. Like it came out literally so fast that I could not contain it. And that just creates, I think, capacity for more. It's what happens when you don't hold anything?
That doesn't mean that you don't have anything. It just actually means more. Is able to come through you. So I'm curious about this when we really work to honor and expand and like our [00:20:00] capacity and our vessel, besides some of the physical results, which I'd love for you to share, but even like beyond the physical, like what happens?
As an outcome or a result that is maybe correlated but not like linearly to when we do focus on our body when it comes to our work in our life.
Chelsea McLeod: For a lot of women. Preparing and expanding their physical vessel is what allows them to quantum leap, right? Like they're just preparing for a new life, a new timeline, a new relationship, a new job. So most women who come and do this work and they really show up and, and stay through the moments that are hard, right?
Because it's not always easy. It's not like you just join a health coaching program or work with a personal trainer and every day is just a breeze. There's, there's moments that are uncomfortable because anytime we change, we're gonna have those uncomfortable moments. But the womens who really stick through that.
Are the ones who are getting promotions, they're quitting their jobs and starting businesses. They are deciding, oh wait, I wanna be a mother. I'm ready to start trying to [00:21:00] conceive because they've worked through some of stickiness, the physical issues, the emotional issues with wanting to be a mother.
I have a lot of clients who make more money as a result of really healing themselves getting promoted into a bigger leadership role because they're just operating at a totally different frequency. And when they start drawing boundaries you know I work with a lot of people pleasers.
And women who, don't have boundaries around work, but somehow when they start establishing boundaries around work, they're more well respected and so, and so suddenly they get promoted after not being promoted for three years. And so it's just learning, taking care of yourself as a form of self-respect.
And when you start respecting yourself, the world responds to you, whether it's kids, women who are, they're not snapping at their kids, their kids are being more respectful, their kids are suddenly not just. Eating Dino nuggets, the kids are suddenly eating vegetables because mom is, and so they're becoming better mothers.
They're becoming better parents, better partners, their libido is coming back online, so suddenly they're having sex with their husband again. It's like your entire life changes when you do.[00:22:00]
Jessica Cerato: Yeah, and I love this. It's reminding me of two things of the energy that's happening right now of this concept of, I am doing this, not in spite of this, but because of this. And I think that first sentiment. A lot of women get stuck there of look I can do all this in spite of the fact that I'm not feeling the best physically.
And it's wow. Imagine if you were feeling well physically, just like you said, possibilities come that you could never even have imagined because literally, like you would not have had the capacity to hold it or to say yes to it. If it had been presented to you. Right. I also think our body, I love how you say like hormones are messengers and in a broader sense, I totally believe that our body is a messenger.
And so if our body is a messenger and we're in communication with it, you can't lie. Like you, your brain can't tell your body no [00:23:00] problem. You can handle this. And because of that, like energetically others feel that. And because others care about you, they're not gonna present you with opportunities that they know will push you over the edge or will lead you to something that you're not ready for.
so I also love this because what I also got from your question, which I love, is you know what will happen if I commit to taking care of my body? And the really cool answer for me is well, I'm not sure like anything. And that's just feels really amazing and full of possibility.
It's so fun.
Chelsea McLeod: for some women, that's scary
Jessica Cerato: Yes. This is the conundrum, right? So, okay. When you Talk to that woman who is uncertain or scared, who, of course, even when we know something, it's familiar. And so we tend to stay there because like we don't know what's possible. How because obviously I've been in your world, [00:24:00] you don't just teach about grams of protein and. I don't even know. Like you, it's so not that. Yes, it is. That yes, there is so much knowledge and guidance there, but what you really do is help people navigate like the mindset and the energetic shifts that it's going to take along with the physical shifts. So how do you, or what could you say to someone right now who is feeling that really this form of self-sabotage who is not saying yes. Like, here's the thing. Oh, sorry, I'm like going on a tangent, but I just feel this is coming in so strongly. I bet you women in your world. Don't say no to you. 'cause they think it's, they don't think it's gonna work. Like they say, no, I'm not ready to do this yet, because they know it's gonna work. And subconsciously they know that once they start feeling better, there's going to be some real shifts in their life.
And they're afraid [00:25:00] of that. They're like actually afraid of the success or like what is possible there.
Chelsea McLeod: It is so true. I mean, a lot of women are scared of what's on the other side of that because it's all they know and they're used to operating at 50% capacity. It's all they know since, for a lot of 'em, since they were teenagers, they've been operating like this, and so they. Are scared of what if I lose this weight and hate my husband and leave him?
Or what if I lose this weight and have all this energy and then realize that I made the wrong career choice? I have one client who just quit her job in law. She was doing it for 18 years and she was, you know, in, in getting to know herself and really heal herself and like actually show up for herself.
She had the clarity of thinking where she's like. I hate this. So she quit her job. Her husband is, picking up the slack and she is going to be a stay at home mom. And she is thrilled. And so it's just, I think anytime a woman is moving so fast, she doesn't have to feel, she's very disconnected from her true desires.
And this [00:26:00] process requires you to connect with yourself. And some women don't wanna do that because they're afraid of what they're gonna see on the other side because it's gonna involve big changes. Because you can't really avoid the truth once you can see it. Right. And so there is a lot of fear for those kind of women, which is why I choose to work with women who are ready for that.
They want that, they want change. They want to show up differently. They wanna love what they see in the mirror, but they also want to make some big changes and truly take their life to the next level.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah, so that woman, the woman who wants to make these changes the woman out there who is doing all the things, leading the teams, the family, the vision but keeps putting her body last. What? Where do you usually have women start? Like where, where is a good place for them to start? Right now?
Chelsea McLeod: I always say the first change we have to make is what we're putting on our plate. And I think a lot of people just don't understand the skill of eating, and that's not helped by the fact that anyone who was born between let's say actually 1970 and [00:27:00] 1995, just has a totally messed up relationship with food.
parents were commenting about our bodies. Our moms hated, their bodies we're on diets. It was true diet, culture, wafer, thin culture, model culture. And so we just have this really messed up relationship with food in our bodies. So first of all, we have to learn the skill of eating because so many women are either eating a special K diet or they have their hand in the cookie jar.
It's like it's one or the other. And so we, we ride these extremes, or we're all in. Or we're all out. And so for a lot of women, it's giving yourself permission to be consistently imperfect. And saying, I'm going to choose to really viewing as fuel and not always just as fun. It's like this, this food is designed to de deliver a specific result for me and to help nourish me.
And here's, here's the scale of doing that, like protein, fat and car, every single meal, nailing our meal times, like making sure that we are watered fed and walked like that. We're treating ourselves as well as we're treating our dogs every day. You know what I mean? Because if you're not, it's kind of messed up that you're doing that.
So just. [00:28:00] Returning to very simple basic habits is where I start with every single woman. And then obviously we refine from there because everyone has different symptoms, they have different situations, and so there's different focus areas, different supplements, different lab tests, different exercise that you do depending on where you're at.
But we always have to start with the fundamentals of human health, which is what are we put putting on our plate? Have we learned the skill of navigating a food system that's stacked against us and built for for profit? In Canada, in Australia, where I am in Canada, where you are. The food supply is much better, but in the US I mean, you're just.
It's a struggle, man. Like every time I go back to the US, 'cause I live in Sydney, every time I go back there, it's hard. I have to hack it. Like I really have to be thoughtful about where I'm eating dinner, what restaurants I'm going to, how I'm cooking at home, where am I buying my groceries. It's, I've.
I teach my clients to be label Turners, right? So going to the store and not just looking at the caloric value that's not even relevant anymore. It's like what is actually in that food? Do you recognize the ingredients? Are there just random [00:29:00] chemicals in there that you don't recognize?
Like really being good discerners of food because we are human organisms and if we are putting poison into ourself, we're obviously setting ourselves up for disease sickness and holding onto weight that we don't want to. And so I think that's always where I start with clients.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah. And I just wanna reiterate something that you said is this does not demand perfection. As someone who has gone through your program, I will tell everybody I was not perfect like by any means. In fact, like during the time I went to Disneyland with my family, like right. There's just so many things.
And I also wanna say is 'cause I'm feeling a little bit of energy around. But Chelsea, this just sounds like something else to do, and I just wanted dispel that myth because for those of who know me well, this will not be a surprise. But I am not a good cook. I don't like to cook. And to tell you the [00:30:00] depths at what this is, is I'll never forget when Justine went to kindergarten, she's my oldest and their teacher had them write down what their.
The most favorite meal that their mom made for them. So they wrote it down and they had it was like a for a big bulletin board, and it all got put on a bulletin board and they had like a open house, like parent teacher conferences. So imagine all the parents are there and we go to this big wall and I'm like, oh my gosh.
Like Malia's mom, like beef stroganoff, someone else's is like lasagna, quinoa, salad. I get to Justine's. Guess what it said? Cereal. Cereal All. Okay, so this just, I wanna set the example of this is my depth and breath of cooking. Now I have a little bit better. No, since that time. Right? But, and this is it.
[00:31:00] Another thing to do. It does become so integrated in your life, which I think is also the point of leadership I wanna bring in. Like you're not just a leader when you're trying to be on and you're in a leadership role and you're trying to be perfect, like leadership is not a position or a role that you play.
It's like an identity. And so I really feel that caring for your body, caring for your vessel, is not something that you have to do or perform to really be sustainable. It becomes part of your identity. Like instead of trying to say, I am, going to do this, it's no, I'm gonna be the person. Who does this?
And I can say I laugh in such a short time. I look back at some of my habits and I can't imagine going back because of this, because I think when we focus less on the habits and behaviors, we have to shift those first, right? Of course. But it's not about the behaviors or [00:32:00] habits, because we know that behaviors and habits.
Change and we fall back to them. But when we literally change our identity, when we embody our leadership, when we embody our commitment to our bodies, we change our identity. And so I'm laughing at some of the habits I even had a few months ago where I don't have to think about not doing those things because I literally can't because I'm no longer the person who did those things.
It's like fascinating how your identity changes when the vessel in which your energetic, whatever you wanna call that, like your essence stays in. if you look ahead to this next year and you kind of. Feel into your work and the impact that you have on women, where do you see this becoming really important?
I guess what I'm trying to ask [00:33:00] is like why, why now? Like why does this, because I feel, I mean, I told you like right now is the time for you to do this if you haven't yet already. And I don't know if I have the answer to that question, except that I just feel it's necessary for this like future iteration, but I wonder if you have any sense of like why now?
Like why is this gonna be really important now?
Chelsea McLeod: If I just zoom out and look at a generation of women who are sick, who are suffering, I mean, I have. More women that I can count in my dms on Instagram telling me that they are exhausted, that they're burnt out, that they hate the way they look, their libido is gone, their hor hormones are bottomed out.
They think they're in perimenopause. It's the demands of modern living, the demands of being a working woman who's also a primary caregiver, who's trying to hold everything together at home, like the demands on women have never been bigger. We have never been sicker. We, we just have a generation of women who are [00:34:00] not at their fullest potential, and that, that's why I do this work.
I, I was making good money in corporate. I didn't even need to quit my job. I actually loved my job. Like I loved it. So for me, I had to look at this and go, okay, well, number one, obviously, can I make enough money to sustain My life, but also number two do I actually like doing this and why am I doing this?
And so for me, it's giving women the same transformation I had, which changed my life. And so I couldn't call in a partner. I couldn't get the promotion, I couldn't even envision myself being a mom until I did this level of work on my physical body. And so , for me, just as I look at it's just never been more important.
It's women have never been sicker than they are in this very moment. , The number of women who have just. Unknown. Infertility, miscarriages, it's like cancer rates like , it has never been higher. And so learning the skill of self-care has , never been more critical. And I always tell women like You can wait. But the hole gets steeper and. Suffering is not required. It's optional. You get, you can choose that. So I just want women to know that there is another option, that feeling real energy and loving the way [00:35:00] you look and, not having brain fogs and or not having brain fog and migraines multiple times a week is all totally optional.
Those are hormonal imbalance symptoms that can be solved. And so just letting women know who have maybe gone to a doctor and been told. This is, sorry, eat less, exercise more. Get on this medication. If you're not satisfied with that answer, I just want women to know that there are options for you and they work.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah, and I love this. I heard you say, I don't know someplace. You know me. I never remember. But I heard you say, and it's so fascinating because it's so true, is it really sometimes becomes a full-time job to accommodate our like unhealthy lifestyle. And I want like everyone, I'm kind of paraphrasing, but I want everyone just to feel into what are you having to adjust?
In order to accommodate this feeling of whatever it is, and I'm laughing, like for me and this is exactly, if I look back I was waking up feeling so [00:36:00] tired and so I spent so much time trying to go to bed earlier. And that never helped. Right? Like I was finding, this was like the big ego kicker.
I could no longer beat my 8-year-old in a race. Okay dude, like we know this needed to stop, right? And so it's just so interesting how we think it's gonna take more energy to change. Actually if we just pause and see how much energy we are actually feeding into this old lifestyle in order to like cobble it together and make it work for us, like I feel that is probably more than it.
Well, I know for sure 'cause I did it. That was more than what it would take to actually shift and change it. It's so
Chelsea McLeod: 100%. It's so crazy. I think people are like, but I don't have time to spend in the kitchen. And I'm like, dude, you're taking five smoke breaks a day. Like you're leaving your kids for 20 minutes to go outside and, and smoke like you are [00:37:00] dragging through the day. You have to take a nap. You spend all day exhausted after having McDonald's, whatever it is.
It's like. When you build a lifestyle around symptoms, you just leak energy in all these areas. And so clients always tell me, are the first two weeks the easiest thing ever? No. But anyone who's ever done any meaningful change made a lifestyle change, moved to a different city. Like you know that the first two weeks are the hardest and then you just cruise.
And so you have to install these systems into your life to just. Take the decision fatigue out and help you really make things operationalized and structured so that your life is so much easier. And once you have that energetic capacity, you just, you don't have time not to get
Jessica Cerato: Not to do it. Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. Okay. I wanna make this really tangible for people so. I'm laughing, but I have such a fun thing for the end, which is this rapid fire. But before we get there, you have created this free resource, it's called The Busy Girl's Guide to Hormonal Weight Loss. And I love it 'cause it speaks just like you're saying, directly to high capacity women who don't have time [00:38:00] for nonsense.
So can you share like who this guide is for, how they can get it? And we'll also put it in the show notes, but this is a must download. If you're sitting here being like, I don't know where to start. I'm telling you, start here. So Chelsea, what is it and why? What will it help them do?
Like right away practically?
Chelsea McLeod: So for most women who download this, they're gonna be busy women who are in big roles, oftentimes they're moms. Not always, but a lot of them are, who just want those tangible steps to release the first five pounds and start to heal their hormones, which means that. Energy comes up, cravings go down, hair loss starts to stall.
All of these things are interrelated, right? And so it's gonna teach you, Hey, here's a, here's a rough structure for what to eat. Here's some starter recipes. Here are things to install throughout your day so that you're keeping your blood sugar balance so that you're able to burn more fat. Here are just like, I always talk about boulders versus pebbles.
It's like we go on Instagram and we're scroll, scroll scrolling, and we see all these different devices, these little hacks, these little tips and tricks, and it's [00:39:00] okay. We got a bunch of pebbles over here, but what are the actual things that matter that are gonna deliver results? Because I'm very interested in results.
I'm very type A, I don't wanna mess around and waste people's time. I wanna give them something that's actually gonna work. So for any woman who actually wants to take those first steps to release the first five pounds, this is, this is the guide.
Jessica Cerato: And I know for someone who after they download it, wants something a bit more personalized, you have this 15 minute. Kind of hormone reset strategy session where you kind of can get a bit more personal. And so what kind of clarity do women usually walk away with, like after just 15 minutes with you?
Chelsea McLeod: So I will assess your symptoms and let you know what I think is going on under the hood, because if you go to a doctor and you've been told your labs are normal, but you still look and feel terrible, which I just did a podcast on because this is a really important one, women are hiring the wrong man for the job.
It's I can sit with you and tell you what's going on with your hormones, and I'll give you a mini protocol to start to fix it.
Jessica Cerato: Okay, amazing. And I'm laughing. If anyone needs a poster child for the program, da da da. I'll volunteer [00:40:00] for the role. But please message me, ask me all the nitty questions. I mean, this just sounds so cheesy, but literally if I can do, if I can do it. Anyone can, and I'm telling you, I feel like I, it's not just that my body wouldn't be in the place it is right now.
Like my business wouldn't, my family wouldn't. I mean, I look at just when you think like months ago, I could not imagine having more on my calendar and now I do and it actually feels better. And. I'm actually beating Charlie now in a race and now in softball. They all want me on their team, and so this is like just if, if anything comes through, it's like this is my biggest win, is I am now back on the first pick for any, for any sports team for my kids.
Okay. Let's play a little bit of rapid fire. I wanna end with this first thing that comes through. [00:41:00] No overthinking. I'm super curious. What, what comes through? Okay, so burnout is actually a sign of what,
Chelsea McLeod: Doing too much and not understanding your needs.
Jessica Cerato: okay. Hormonal imbalance often shows up first as.
Chelsea McLeod: Anxiety
Jessica Cerato: Yeah. Okay. Most women don't need more discipline. They need more.
Chelsea McLeod: systems. Okay.
Jessica Cerato: thought you were gonna say the other S word, which I was like maybe, but that's okay.
Chelsea McLeod: Also that
Jessica Cerato: Uh, also that Okay. Weight loss becomes sustainable when
Chelsea McLeod: you change the way you operate.
Jessica Cerato: Energy returns when
Chelsea McLeod: get your inputs right.
Jessica Cerato: Love it. Last one, the body's job in leadership is two.
Chelsea McLeod: Steer you so you can steer the ship.
Jessica Cerato: Boom. That was fun. Go quick [00:42:00] fire. I actually love that. Maybe I'll make it a thing. So, okay. if leadership in this season, which it is, is embodied. Right then tending to the body is not a luxury. It is foundational. And your work really makes this practical, grounded, doable. So if you're listening and you feel like your body is.
Quietly or loudly asking for support, please go download that free weight loss guide. You can also book a strategy session where she'll, like Chelsea said, she'll look at your specific needs and personalize it a bit. And the body isn't something to override on the way to success. It really is the place where success begins.
So. Kind of as we close it out, is there anything else you wanna share? Any last words of wisdom that are wanting to come through you?
Chelsea McLeod: Suffering is optional and, and life doesn't need to feel the way it does now. It can change really, really fast when you're brave [00:43:00] enough to make a decision. And I think, people probably look at you, Jess, and they're like, oh, but Jess, you've always had so much energy and we would've never even known that you were struggling with exhaustion.
But I think we all do such a good job of hiding it, but we don't have to. Like we can, we can really get the tools to make changes quickly and resource our ourselves properly so that we can really excel in our businesses. And I always say, because I do work with a lot of women who run businesses who are, heads of businesses in corporate, but they also own their own businesses.
And I always say your body is your business. Like your business will only ever be as successful as your body is healthy.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah. And. I'm laughing 'cause that was supposed to be the end, but I just brought in something that I think, especially for moms in business, a lot of times we don't do something because we feel it perhaps will influence or negatively impact, our kids, maybe especially our daughters in the way they view their bodies.
And it's the same way a lot of times, leaders. Don't wanna do something because they know of their [00:44:00] teams and they know how much their teams look up to them. And we know how much our kids look up to us. Well, we think we do. And I just wanna share is that, I've had the complete opposite reality from this, and I wanna tell everybody that Chelsea told me so.
But I didn't believe her. Right. So I think we all have these stories about why it will, it might be different or, or why we can't. But I think not just with our body, but with our energy and our leadership, it's really important to examine these stories and ask is this true? And how do I know it to be true?
And just like you said, I mean, we never ate horribly, but I thought that my girls would have a huge I don't know, uh, a disruption if I really started to focus on this. And I just need to tell you something. They did not give a blank. Like they, they just were excited that I [00:45:00] had energy. They were excited, that I could play with them.
so I think whatever the story is, I think that's why Chelsea, you're just such a great person to work with on this because you understand that it's not just the physical. Right. You understand that it is a whole level of mind and spirit and energetics that have to come into this. And that's why I think you're just the best.
So
Chelsea McLeod: Thanks, Jess. I thought you, you just did so well in the program and I think I just wanna work with more women like you because you came in, you did the thing, you understood that like perfection is not the vibe, right? Like it's just not gonna get you what you want. And so when we can squash the perfection, all or nothing mindset and just take action, our businesses benefit, our kids benefit, our husband benefits.
Like everything just changes.
Jessica Cerato: Yeah, just gonna say to, to leave it at that, if that is not the perfect example for areas in all parts of our life. I don't know what is, like perfection is an [00:46:00] illusion. You don't need to be perfect. And in fact, like being perfect is keeping you small and Ditch it. This is the year to ditch the perfectionism.
And if you need help with that, with body or energetics, well you got two people right here who are motivated to change the world in that. So thank you all for listening. Please reach out to Chelsea. Grab that download, follow her on Instagram. Not only is she full of amazing insight, she is also incredibly funny, which you all know, laughter is sometimes the best medicine.
So follow her, connect with her and Chelsea. We're just so grateful, uh, that you came. I personally am grateful that you came into my life when you did. It was Divinely timed and I'm just so grateful for you. So everyone should know you and I hope that you being a guest on this podcast will help that in some way.
So thank you so much.
Chelsea McLeod: Thanks Jess. I appreciate you.
Outro: Thanks for being here inside The Energetic Advantage. If today's episode open [00:47:00] something for you, share it, tag it, or send to the person who popped into your mind. And remember, energy first strategy second. Your advantage has always been in you. Now it's time to lead with it. See you next time.
