Stephanie: Hi Amita. Welcome to the podcast

Amita: Thank you. Thank you so much. And Stephanie, I love the way you are creating this whole community of 40 something. I love the title of your podcast. I'm super excited to talk to you today.

Stephanie: Thank you. Thank you so much. And I'm excited to talk to you too, because here we are a hundred and something episodes in and honest to God, this is the first time that I've come across a really interesting perimenopause story. So, for those of you who are listening now, I just sort of gave away the ghost there, but, we've got a story here because people talk to me often and they say, you know, perimenopause and menopause are such, big things right now, would you consider shifting your podcast to focus on that?

And I've said, you know, the transition that I'm looking at. is aside from perimenopause, although they can be sort of coincident and together, it's more of an internal, philosophical, mental, emotional transition versus the physical transition. But let's start at the beginning. Tell me a little bit about who you were when you got to your mid thirties and how you became that person. What did your, what were your formative years like?

Amita: Yeah. So, you know, mid thirties, I had my own business and I always used to have strange symptoms and never paid attention, to be honest with you. so I had a lot of flexibility, my own business in, creative, home design, so to speak, before I hit the forties. I always use holistic therapies, right?

That was my one go-to toolbox to fix myself. Even in my mid thirties is so saying. And then, you know, of course, the messy 40s I'll get to next.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. But tell me a little bit about how you became the person you were in your 30s. Tell me about your childhood. What were the forces that shaped you and who were you at that point in time?

Amita: Yeah, so my childhood was actually quite different than a normal woman that you would talk to. You know, I went, I went through boarding schools, military boarding schools. Yes. So that's what I said. It's, it's very different because normally I don't see, kids going to boarding schools the United States, but this was back in India and these were sort of like, inheritance from Britishers, right? And so I spent a lot of my teen years, actually all of my teen years pretty much in boarding schools. And that shaped me quite a bit, to learn the discipline, to have some kind of a structure, a regiment or things, all those things that you can learn by going to a sports military academy. That's what it was. And you can imagine, you know, the kind of pressure and the kind of discipline and the kind of structure these kind of academies put on you. And you go in and as a different person, you come out as God knows what, right? You could be off the chart by the time you get out.

Stephanie: So it's interesting because, you're exactly right. The, military boarding school is not a common, thing we run across here in the States. But I would hazard a guess that you could come out of that experience a couple of different ways. And one would be with great confidence. But you came out the opposite, right?

Amita: Not that I was not confident, I think I was not trying to voice my opinion. I was scared to voice my opinion. Let's put it this way.

Stephanie: Okay.

Amita: It's not that I did not know what to do. It was just, I think, the way I was brought up, and that generation of women, the way they were brought up, to keep your voice, to keep your opinion to yourself, right? Now boarding school, yes, we were, you know, we could voice our opinion but as soon as you step into the family sort of like walls, you had to behave differently. That whole experience went out of the window and If you are within the commune of a family wall.

Stephanie: Right. Because in that kind of community inside the family unit, there are very clear roles and responsibilities and very, strict roles as well. Is that correct?

Amita: Yeah, absolutely. So one way you're trying to empower girls, right? When I went to the boarding school, that was the whole idea. But then when you step out in the real world, you are still expected to behave whatever the culture expects you to behave. You know how the women should behave. Right?

So, so It's a very contradictory kind of, things, right? That, that if you can imagine someone like, you know, in their early twenties going through, confused, a lot of confusion, you know, at one point you think you can conquer the world. The other part, hey, you, you, you now, no, no, no, no, no, you need to go get married.

You know, you need to go get paid, get the baby, you know, the regular, whatever the woman are sort of like been subjected to in centuries above. So I think you get a lot of conflict and confusion and you are kind of like you don't know where you belong and who you are because now you are supposed to act in a certain way.

And the same thing happened to me.

Stephanie: There's a lot of cognitive dissonance there.

Amita: Yeah. Exactly. I just could not understand what was the point of me going to the boarding school military academy and getting all this, you know, being independent, right? And being able to do so many things. And now you know, forget about that. Let's go back to school. I think that was the reason for me, sort of like a lack of, I should say, not able to voice my opinion.

You can say lack of confidence. You can say lack of being sure about myself, who I am and trying to fit into the new paradigm, so to speak. And you are looked upon as rebellious. And that was not in my generation and our generation of women, that was not considered good.

Right. You know, and unfortunately, nowadays, 20 year olds, they get a good degree and that they can get a decent job. In those days, it wasn't like that. You didn't make a lot of money to support yourself. So there was this whole dependence on the family commune. And then you just shifted your mental thing into trying to do something to please others and that's what I was trying to do is to please everyone else within the family commune.

And never coming to terms with why they're not getting what I'm trying to say.

Stephanie: Yeah, wow. Okay, so that brings us into your mid 20s. And then did you follow the very clear path for women in your culture? Did you get married? Did you have a baby? Did you do all, did you check all the boxes?

Amita: Yeah, I had to, because you know, the, the jobs were not as well paying. First of all, it was not very common for women to just, okay, I'm going to go live by myself. The way young girls or women do now. They have so much independence and flexibility to do that.

So that was not considered okay. That was not considered cool. Let's put it this way. That was considered like, oh, you're going to miss the boat of getting married.

Stephanie: And it sounds like you needed to do those cultural things in order even to survive, right? If you're saying that the jobs that you could get weren't enough to sustain you, then you needed to either stay with your family or get married in order to, have a roof over your head and food on the plate and things like that.

Amita: In a way, yes, but I did come at that time to this country and I went UC Berkeley. But what happened is I did architecture in my undergraduate and so did I continue here. And then one thing led to another. The architects here in this country were also not being getting paid well. It was like a double, triple whammy, right?

So here you are thinking that OK, now I can get out of this mess of this family commune, try to make a life of my own. And I graduated from Berkeley and the best job I could get was like $15 an hour and I'm serious.

So I struggled. Then I had to struggle with that for a few years, trying to make a sense of, what is happening? So, you know, I'm barely in my mid twenties and I'm going through all this. So it was very tough. For me, twenties were very tough. Early thirties were very tough. I had to end up going back to school again, get an engineering degree because I wanted to be independent, financially independent.

I didn't want to be here working so hard and not making enough money to, you know, it was not about architecture. It was, but if that's not paying the bills, what can you do? So I ended up going back and, and then getting back into the software part of it in the technology part, learning about, about it. Had a small baby at that time, one year old.

So it was a tough twenties and thirties were very, very tough. I should say that because of, getting myself re educated, trying to raise two babies, plus putting yourself out there. Not an easy task, right? For anyone. It doesn't matter which culture you come from.

Stephanie: Right. No, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And very much, again, no matter which culture you come from, you were very much head down, nose to the grindstone, doing all the things you were supposed to be doing, checking the boxes. So now we get into your mid thirties and things start getting funky with your body. Tell me about that.

Amita: So, I suddenly, in my mid thirties, I would get strange chronic fatigue. That is the correct word now that I know what is the correct word. So I would feel tired all the time and in the mornings I would not be able to get up. It was so bad and, you know, with two young kids I thought I'm not going to last, I'm going to croak, you know.

So, I tried to get my life insurance done. They said, no, we're not going to insure you because you have your high lipid levels and you might not live beyond a certain age. I'm like, what? So you can imagine that whole thing.

And then you go to the doctors and they said, no. We can't do anything that you're just feeling fatigued. We, you know, you can take some, medications, injections, and don't want to be on that kind of a rocky road with medical injections to just sustain me. So this was, this is what went on after all these things of before. So I started very seriously looking into the holistic lifestyle at that time.

That was a turning point for me. I said, you know what? I don't want to be on medication because I always had side effects. I could never get rid of side effects, even when I was younger. So what can I do? So I started learning about Ayurveda. I started learning about natural medicine. I started learning about exercise.

Exercise I knew because I went to the boarding school, right? So diet and exercise was huge when that, that came handy. So I went back to my roots as to what kept me going during those years of, and the diet and nutrition was so, important for us to keep functioning. I went back to that and I started slowly, slowly fixing myself. And, and sure enough, you know, after that, of course, the peri menopause story starts, but that's, that's kind of what, what's got me into the holistic part of it is my personal fatigue, which was completely like mysterious to all the doctors that I went to.

And they said, we don't know what to do with you.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Amita: You know?

Stephanie: I do know, actually, I struggle with fatigue myself and nobody knows what to do with me. So I know exactly what you're saying. It's very frustrating. So you're already not in perfect health. Things aren't going perfectly smoothly with your body. And then you start getting these symptoms that you don't know are actually symptoms. How did they start?

Amita: Yeah, so the perimenopause symptoms started, with my hot flashes sitting in meetings. By the time I had, graduated myself to work in a corporate tech, corporate world, and I was making decent money, right? So I was able to work all through. And and now this suddenly hot flashes started in meetings. And then the flow, my flow was like crazy. Some, it would be irregular, of course, but then suddenly it would be like a tap has been opened and you can't do anything. It was so bad.

And I was like, I thought it was the consequence of my fatigue, the chronic fatigue that I that's what occurred to me is because of that I'm having all these issues. And then the brain fog. Now I know what was happening. I can tell you. So at night again, I'll be sweating like, you know, night sweats, obviously. And then the morning I would be groggy because I haven't been able to sleep properly. And then I would not be able to focus at work. And, and my work, was suffering productivity. And like you said, you know, the perimenopause is not only about physical symptoms. It is like you're emotional, right? So I'm like a nervous wreck here.

My mood swings are going up and down. My work is getting impacted. I'm not able to focus. And, and so suddenly, this whole thing started and and I had no clue I was going through perimenopause. And I go go to the doctor. Well, I did not see a OBGYN. There's a nurse practitioner, you know, how they do your pap smear and stuff like that. They didn't say anything. Said, no, everything is normal. I'm still having all these things nobody uttered a single word called perimenopause or or hormone fluctuation or whatever. Or, maybe you get your hormonetested or something is going on. It was so frustrating, and that's what I was going through.

Oh my God.

Stephanie: Yeah. And the frustration too is, people are telling you that everything is normal. And you're living in this meat suit saying this isn't normal. I used to be a healthy, vibrant person and now all of a sudden, just getting out of bed is a struggle. And remembering the grocery list is a struggle. And focusing on the project at work is a struggle.

And when they tell you everything's normal, you think, well, then I must be crazy.

Amita: Yeah, because now I look at my mental condition during those years. I was not normal. I'm telling you. You start having lack of confidence, right? Your self esteem goes down. You're thinking something is wrong with you. You're not able to be coherent, when you're talking to anyone. You're not able to concentrate, all those things, right?

Now things have come so much better. Now we, you know, we are talking about this. And at that time I thought, who should I go talk to? And I, and I was like, honestly scared because I thought people might judge me if I go and talk to anyone, right? People think, oh, you can't do your work. Okay. There are 10 people standing in line who's ready to take your job. And high tech industry, yes, it is well paying, but on the other hand, it's like, it's gruesome. Right. And the very cutthroat industry, you have to be on the go, go, go all the time to survive in that, you know. Because technology is changing like every single day here, it's so crazy.

Stephanie: Yeah. In that industry, it's,I would assume that it's productivity over humanity.

Amita: It it abso it. It is, it is, it is. So, so, you know, you, you, you, what you do, you, you try to make sure you kind of somehow survive, survive, survive. But all these symptoms and all these things are just engulfing you. And, so I had to end

Stephanie: How old were you at this time, Amita?

Amita: It was forties, it was early forties.

Stephanie: Early forties? So earlier than we are generally thought to understand that this begins. We usually think this begins in the late forties. And it only lasts a couple of years.And there used to be very little discussion of it. I don't even remember the word perimenopause when I was, you know, a young person. It was like, you're normal, and then you go through menopause and then you're done, right?

It's only in the last five or six years that women really picked up the mantle and started talking about this and educating and that there's been more research into how a woman's body evolves, you know, through these later decades. So, so I can imagine that you felt really quite adrift and alone during all of this.

I do have a question though. Tell me you are, you're in the. And I, again, I'm painting a picture. You're in a tech industry software, out on the West coast. For all of us, we have this vision in our heads of what that looks like, right? Cause it's such a well known industry. Tell me what it's like getting a hot flash in the middle of a boardroom meeting. Like, what does that look like? What is that experience like? What kind of reactions did you get from people? Really bring that to life for me.

Amita: My God. So, I am you're sitting in a meeting predominantly, talking to engineers who are men, right? Majority of them are men. And suddenly you are sweating. You start sweating. Your face. And if you can imagine the sweat dripping, literally dripping, I'm not exaggerating this point. And then people are looking at you and you're talking and suddenly it starts and, and you put a tissue and then again it drips, right?

Your whole meeting gets disrupted because now you cannot just sit there dripping and, and talking at the same time, whatever you're supposed to present or talk. You have to step out to calm yourself or do something, right?

So this happened multiple times with me. And one time was in an interview. A younger woman was interviewing me and suddenly I started dripping and, and she paused and she thought I could not do the work at all. And she obviously, they obviously rejected me. And I had no clue what was going on, seriously. I mean, I'm sure she was baffled the same way I was.

Stephanie: Right. Especially if she was younger than you. Yeah.

Amita: She was, she was a younger person, I could, I, I know. And, and, and, she was one of the, would have been one of my team members. So, so typically that's how the interviews go, you know, the team members also interview you. So you can work with them properly and, your manager and the other managers.

So, it was so disruptive to a point that I actually, literally, I said, I cannot function. My mind is going to go crazy if I continue like this. I ended up quitting my full time job and then I started going into consulting companies, so that I could pause after five o'clock. I am not, required or I am not expected to work.

Right. So I actually, you know, there's a lot of data that talks about women quitting and women letting go of their ladders, you know, whichever ladder we have to climb. So, I actually ended up doing that because I thought, oh, I know this work. I really enjoy it. I could, you know, go up the ladders and become whatever. You know, at that time, you know, you think, oh, you're going to become a VP of product or whatever, right?

That's a big deal. That's a big deal. So here I am quitting and going back to becoming a consultant, a contractor, actually. And then, so that, I can just take pauses, you know, in the sense between my contracts and then I can only work nine to five, eight hours. And now I'm letting go of my dream of going up what I thought I could do at that time and become an important person, so to speak. It was in a high tech organization, but it wasn't meant to be. So,

Stephanie: Yeah, and you're right. Certainly there's a lot of evidence in the conversations that I've had, the interviews that I've done on this show of people and especially women leaving their chosen career or their job at some point during this time. And often you hear that what happens is that women get to a point where they've done all the hard work and they'vechecked all the boxes and they'vebeen such a good girl and worked so hard and, you know, done all the right things. And then they get to that perch on the corporate ladder that's, medium high, towards the top and they go, what? Is this it?This blows. I don't want to be here. I did all that work and this is all I got. So there's a realization of, of it, it not being as fulfilling or as satisfying as they had thought it would be once they achieved that level. And so you're coming at it from a bit of a different angle. You're saying, you know, not because I don't have the skill or the knowledge or the expertise, but functionally I just cannot perform at that level right now.

Amita: Yeah.

Stephanie: P. S. Nor do I really want to.

Amita: Yeah. Because exactly. You're absolutely right. You know, it's not the money at that time, right? It's the fulfillment.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Amita: Because by the time, you know, your kids are grown up. In my case, that's what happened. And, and, you know, there are teenagers, but because if you have your kids in twenties, they're, they're going to become teenagers.

By the time you're in your late 40s and they're in college and going whatever, so, so the money is not the only thing at that time. It's more like making an impact of fulfillment. And when you get out of the house, you know, you want to feel wanted, you want to have your voice heard. You don't want to be, invisible so of speak, right?

So, so all these feelings,

Stephanie: Yes. And your role too, and I didn't have children, but your role as a mom is also changing, right? Because if they're teenagers while you're in your forties, they need so much less from you. And they're so much less dependent on you. And what they do need is very different. So, so there's that identity piece too, that starts shifting of, I'm no longer the mom of, of little babies who need me all the time. Right? So, so yeah, there's just so much shifting in the landscape here that it, it, it really does do a number on us during this period in time. And just going back to the work thing, it's, I'm thinking of, the tech, the West Coast, high tech industry.

It's such a boys club. And I'm guessing for you, it was like who wants to play by their rules anymore? Who wants to work 16 hours a day for some dude that doesn't even care? You know, like you said, there's 12 people behind you ready to sit in your seat. It's just so demoralizing and dehumanizing.

Okay. So you quit your job and you started to do consulting and, and then I think COVID hits. Is that right?

I came back and I said, I'll join you after I come back. And the COVID hits literally two weeks after I come back, right? And when everything was shut down in March, I still remember that. And these guys are saying, Oh no, no, no. Let's just put things on hold because we don't know what the heck. Like we don't want to bring a new person on board, work remote.

That was not the fashion, right?

Stephanie: Yeah, not at the beginning.

Amita: It was, it was, no, we want you in, in the office

Stephanie: meeting with the team and all that kind of stuff. So I said, okay, fine. And then it was on hold, like, for a long time, because nobody knew what the heck was happening. So that's the time when I said, Oh, what am I supposed to do? I can't keep waiting for this gig to come. And nobody was hiring at that time, if you remember.

I do.

Stephanie: Yes.

Amita: Sometimes I do this. Sometimes I do this. And somehow I'll get fixed.

Stephanie: Right.

Amita: So then I started talking to holistic experts exploring into this field, so to speak, around the world. And I said, let me start gathering evidence. And I started asking them, do you have any case studies? Like positive case studies that people have had positive outcomes using what you're doing, whether it's a naturopathy, whether it's acupuncture, Ayurveda, whatever, right?

And then, I talked to 3, 000 different experts and I told them I need your case studies, right? Show me your proof that whatever you're doing has actually made a positive impact or an outcome has been, has been positive. So we started with that. This Nudgestalk is collecting case studies, believe it or not, from all the experts all over the world and it was not necessarily, menopause only.

It was just holistic therapies. Do they work or not? My first question was, does it work? Do they work? Does it have evidence? Does it have any research? So we started collecting case studies and collecting research, evidence, basically.

Stephanie: Okay. And at this point, your goal was what? Did you have a goal in mind or were you just kind of following your gut and just collecting to see what you were gonna find?

Amita: I did not know. It was just going through the gut. Because this thing had worked for me, I said, let me try to put it in a structure if there is anything in it, which I have no idea if there is or not. And then my goal was to really see if it takes me somewhere or I should I go back to my consulting after things settle down.

Stephanie: Yep. Yep. So this was sort of a passion project that you had the capacity to do because the world was kind of shut down. And I'm guessing that you were getting positive feedback from all these providers cause their worlds were also shut down. So why the heck not answer this question, right?

Amita: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was so easy for me to talk to anyone I wanted because everybody was sitting home and you know, you tell them, okay, I, I need to interview you or I need to talk to you and I need this. So I like such an amazing feedback and collected everything that I could think of.

And then my whole world opened up. This whole world of Integrative medicine, so to speak, alternative medicine. I, I went to a lot of conference, a lot of local meetups here with functional medicine doctors. They would have it every month. So I became sort of like every month I'll go all around the Bay Area and, and, and start interacting with them and learning, right?

First job was to learn what is it they're talking about. And then when I heard some of the MDs talk about the dysfunctional conventional medicines system that we have in this country. I was shocked.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Amita: I was completely shocked because I come from a family of doctors and they, you know, how they never talked about this site of medicine. And here I am in Bay Area. All they're talking about is, Oh my God, conventional medicine is so, lame. And functional medicine and integrative medicine, all these words, buzzwords were coming out. so, so, so there was a lot of learning for me because I had to learn for me to say, yes, this is what I can do.

Stephanie: And I think you said me before that,you learned, this is not going to be a surprise to anybody who's listening that, there's very little attention spent, very little research done on women's health after their reproductive years. But you, if I remember, you said that you found that many or some chronic conditions were a result of lack of care in those post reproductive years. Did I get that right?

Amita: Yes. Yes. Like I said, I spent a lot of time on research and talking. All kind of medical experts you can think of. So as I was talking to all these experts, at that time I did not know I'm going to get into menopause, perimenopause, but I still remember I interviewed an expert here.

She was in Texas and she talked about all these numbers that how so many millions of American women are going to live longer and how more than two third of their life now is going to be spent in menopausal, perimenopausal, right? And I was shocked by the stats. And then, and then she brought out the fact that not much is known about it. Nobody talks about it. So that was my turning point. Also, I did not know the word perimenopause believe it or not.

Stephanie: Okay. So where did you come across the word perimenopause? Cause at this point I'm thinking you'vespent two years of very significant research into these, natural therapies and integrative and functional medicine, all of which I'm very familiar with. So where did you come across perimenopause, and when did it, lift the veil and realize that's what you had been going through, years earlier when you were in that job?

Amita: Yeah, so I thought I'm gonna take the holistic therapies and focus on the chronic condition. That's what that was the initial idea. So first two years that's all we were doing, right? Collecting the data and the case studies and for diabetes and all kinds of things you can think of. During one of the interviews that I was talking to my medical expert, and the topic was women's wellness. She said, Oh, I want to talk about menopause. I said, okay, go ahead. I knew about menopause. And then she started talking about, how different stages of menopause and what happens in perimenopause and then how the female sex hormones, the first hormone goes down. I was like, Oh my God. When she was talking, I'm interviewing her.

I said, this is exactly what was happening to me. And I said, how come nobody knows the word perimenopause? She says, well, we don't talk about it. We are not taught in medical school. She said that. I'm like, okay. You're going to be kidding me. She said, Nope. We are not taught about perimenopause in medical schools. And only eight hours are devoted to the topic of menopause.

How, how the hell? Yeah.

Stephanie: We represent 50 percent of the population and anybody who lives to that age is going to go through this. A hundred percent of us are going to go through this. And right, they spend eight hours. Oh my God. It

Amita: Can you believe that? So I was shocked. She said, you know what, what you do, what you're doing every single day, I see you, you're interviewing, you're doing all these things, you know, you're doing an amazing job. And what are you focusing on? I said, you know, I think I'm trying to focus on chronic conditions.

Stephanie: So she, I have to be thankful to that expert. She said, you know what? More women 80 percent of us, after 55, we're going to have chronic condition. More women have diabetes, osteoporosis, dementia, heart condition, and breast cancer, than men. And, and, and he says nobody's done the research, but if you put two and two together, this whole journey, which nobody knows about it, all these lack of care is directly responsible for your postmenopausal years of chronic condition. And now you're trying to spend trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars, Trillions.

It's unbelievable. It's not just your menstrual health switching off. It's like all these things that we are not really talking about it. We don't have enough research. We haven't put it together the way it should be looked at. It's not just physical. It's emotional. All those things.

So last two years, all perimenopause, menopause. I said, we're going to go into this and work on this problem because this problem needs to be worked on and needs to be spoken about, needs to have a voice.

Stephanie: Yeah, it really does. And I'm, glad that there is that, that there is a blooming of conversation and discussion around this topic, because to your point, this can start in your early thirties and you don't, most women don't have any sense that the exhaustion they're feeling or the putting the keys in the freezer or, the things that they might associate with, Oh, I had that when I was pregnant or, whatever. They don't, we don't associate them and the complaints, many of them, are so vague.

Amita: Yes,

Stephanie: And are so, difficult to pin down or pinpoint or treat or solve, that, I agree this is one of my major, complaints with the medical system is that, you know, you go to a doctor and they look at the thing that they're trained to look at,and they don't look holistically, they don't look systemically.

And so that's where those integrative doctors and functional medicine doctors, but you're out on the West coast. I can't believe there are meetups. Because over here, I'm about an hour North of Boston and I can't find a functional medicine doctor unless I go into Boston. I mean, it's just not that common yet, this spread of this discipline. So it's, It's challenging.

Amita: It is. It is. And, and then I think, I interviewed a lot of naturopathic doctors. They are so knowledgeable.

Stephanie: They are.

Amita: Oh my God, they're amazing, especially in Canada. I must say that because I think over there, you know, it's legal. But in this country, naturopathic doctors can only practice in 20 states, something like that. It might be clashing with the MDs who are, you know, the functional, so they don't want to create that.

So,that's the problem. The system here, not that I want to blame medical doctors, but it's the system, allows them to put only seven minutes to a patient and they're likegoing from one door to another door with the chart and humanly it's not possible for them to concentrate so much within seven minutes. What can they detect in seven minutes? So, and then they go to the other, the other, the other, the system is put them in such a high pressure environment.

Stephanie: I agree. I agree. And I do, it's interesting that you talk about naturopathic doctors because I have relied on naturopathic doctors for many years because I have a handful of chronic conditions that I'm managing. And they're the only ones that A, believe me, and B, will look systemically and try different things. But to be honest,it's a real expensive hobby.

That's where my discretionary income goes. It goes to these naturopathic doctors. It goes to some of these more natural therapies. It goes to, the supplements that, keep me up and boosted. So, yeah,it's challenging.

But tell me this, so you've done all this research into menopause and perimenopause and you've chosen this as an area of focus.I'm going to infer here that many of your personal issues you said you were feeling better. You felt better physically, emotionally, mentally. So, so where do you go with this information? What is next?

Amita: So like you said, it's an expensive hobby, right? I found that also in my journey, right? Thousands of dollars. You keep testing. You do this. You do that. So what I really want to achieveis that I want to make the credible information, super cheap, like 5, 10 bucks a month, right?

Women should have the data. Women should have the information in the pump. Credible information that they know this is what's going to happen. These are the options. These are the self care techniques that they can try, if they want to. I'm not saying everyone is the same way. These are the tests. These are the herbal supplements that are good for. So, so what we are doing is Nourish Doc is going to present this entire information, the entire education, the entire go to steps for holistic therapies, in a very affordable way, right? So that's the first step.

Stephanie: So you're hoping to become a bit of a clearinghouse, a bit of an education center for women to go and find that information.

Amita: Yeah, so first step is that because we all spend months and months. And then the second step is if you need to get to the naturopathic doctor, we are going to have a network of all the experts as well who are vetted, by us, right? I personally have spoken to each one of them. If I have not talk to them personally, they are not on our platform, right? So you have experts.

So that's really what we are trying to address. All these in a way that women feel supported. At the same time, the experts are accessible and hopefully affordable so that women can get correct information and connect to the experts and still benefit from this whole path, if they don't want to go with the conventional medicine.

Right, right. And so this is all being developed into a software platform. So some of your background in tech is kind of coming in handy here.

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is all being developed and hope we hope to launch it early next year. So that's what we are working on right now. I personally again, vetted almost 300, 400 experts who, who will be on the platform initially, to get going. And then we'll slowly, slowly start opening it up to other professionals. But initially that that's how it works.

Stephanie: Great. Great. And that platform is called NourishDoc, right?

Amita: Yes.

Stephanie: Well, Amita, I am so, I'm so happy to have met you and really been able to shine a spotlight on this very important topic today. Like I said, this is the first time really, really diving into perimenopause, but I'm sure it won't be my last since it is such a, uh, a common, experience we all go through.

This is definitely not the last. I would love to partner and collaborate with you in future. I think you're doing such an amazing work trying to bring these stories out and help other women. So I'm, I'm actually really excited when this comes out. Yes,

Amita: Oh, that's great. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.