Episode 15: Over 35 and Having a Baby? Resetting Your Energy with Hilary Rank

Jacqueline Kincer  0:32

This is the Breastfeeding Talk Podcast.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  0:37

Welcome to the podcast, We have Hillary Rank with us today. And she’s a women’s wellness expert. And she’s the creator of the energy reset method. And she helps women gain energy, lose belly fat and feel at peace. Her purpose is really helping women get out of the frustrated and frumpy over 40 trap, which leaves them feeling confused about what diet or program they should follow, down on themselves, sluggish and hopeless. And she gets them to feel fit and fabulous. So they’ll start looking, thinking and feeling happy, healthy and confident. And I couldn’t love her mission anymore. Because I don’t know what age my listeners are of the podcast. But most of my clients that I’ve worked with in my practice are over age 35. And a lot of times we’re tackling energy issues, but at their core, they’re really hormonal issues. And Hillary is just a fantastic expert to bring on. So thanks for being here.

 

Hillary Rank  1:38

I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me, of course.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  1:41

So I would love to know about your journey and how you got to doing what you’re doing today. Because I know your background, but our listeners don’t. And like me, I didn’t always have the dream of becoming a lactation consultant. So sometimes issues in our life drive us to do something different. So tell us what your story is.

 

Hillary Rank  2:03

So around age 35, it was when my second son was a couple years old, I really had the belief that  I would be happy if I lost all the baby weight, or even more weight than the baby weight that I was still carrying. And I find a lot of women fall into that same belief, you know, it’s just kind of pervasive in our society that the thinner you are, the happier you are. So I’m a very type A person. So it’s always the more the better. So I threw myself into this a mommy makeover. And I did get breast implants. I started some of the women might be familiar, I started macros, which is a diet plan. And it’s very common in the fitness competition world. And then I started training for fitness competitions. So you know, it worked beautifully, like I lost the baby weight, and then some. But then things kind of got carried away, and it became very extreme. And the issue that I didn’t realize at the time was I was adding this on top of all my other responsibilities in life.

 

Hillary Rank  3:22

So I had two small children. I was a leader in the corporate world, so I had a pretty demanding job. And in then we have all our responsibilities at home to be a good partner, social activities. So little did I know that I was creating the perfect storm of hormonal issues. And it took me the longest time to even figure out what was going on with me. And there just isn’t a lot of answers for women over 35 I would get. So it all started after my second fitness competition, and my hair started falling out. I started becoming so sluggish, foggy, really depressed, and could barely make it out of bed. And the workouts that used to be really fun for me, I could barely get through.

 

Hillary Rank  4:16

So I would go to my doctor’s get blood work. They told me everything was fine and sent me on my way, but I knew something wasn’t right. So it really led me down, doing a lot of research on my own doing a lot of soul searching and realizing making the connection between hormones and how just the way that the lifestyle I created. And the way I thought, the really negative self talk because the hard truth was even though I lost all of the body fat, I still didn’t have the confidence that I craved. And just that way of thinking and then the extreme lifestyle caused lots of like a horrible hormone issue.

 

Hillary Rank  5:03

So I had hypothyroidism low progesterone, really, all of my sex hormones were so low, so low testosterone. And I realized that there’s just not a lot of support for women over 35. And I wanted to be that person I wanted to share with women, what I learned, so they didn’t have to go through what I went through.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  5:30

That’s amazing. And thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that because, if anyone’s listened to episode three of the podcast, where we had Beverly Simpson on, we talked about that, like pushing yourself too hard to try to get your body back thing.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  5:46

Now you’re taking this further and going into the consequences of that, which we didn’t really get into. And, like everything in life, especially breastfeeding, but, anytime you’re, you’re postpartum, or you’re pushing yourself too hard, you’re going to affect your hormones.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  6:03

AND IF listeners have been listening to me for a while or following me, I tend to talk about this a lot, where when something’s going on with breastfeeding a lot of the time, you know, for milk supply, it’s all hormones, right? And then some women, they add more stress on their life trying all the wrong things.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  6:19

And they may be a type A like you where they’re like, I’m power pumping, and I’m doing whatever like, Well, that isn’t going to be the answer, right?

 

Jacqueline Kincer  6:27

We have to actually do this whole reset of things and lab work as a part of it. But then like you said, you got labs done, and your doctor said, you’re fine. And that happens to my clients all the time. And I’m like, no, no, it tests for other things, or those aren’t the normal ranges for where you are in life. And then it also made me think about how there’s this sort of designation in the medical world that if you’re over age 35, you’re now considered a high risk pregnancy.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  6:53

Yeah, no one seems to ask the question, why? Well, it’s because your hormones tend to be off at that time of your life. It doesn’t mean they should be or that they have to be, but, kind of throw people into this blanket like, Oh, you’re old now we call it advanced maternal age. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on just that sort of defining around a number and then why we’re seeing such hormones in this age group.

 

Hillary Rank  7:20

Absolutely, absolutely. And you bring up such a good point, because one of my deeper purposes and becoming coach is that I want to turn the idea that aging means that we have to be kind of dried up, feeling frumpy, and just kind of our life is on the downward spiral. And we don’t have a lot to look forward to. And that’s absolutely not true. And the reason this is happening is  I am huge into women’s empowerment, I am so excited about what is happening right now in our society with the me too movement and women are gaining more power than ever before.

 

Hillary Rank  8:04

But the issue is, it’s happened over the past, 20 or so years, we still are the caregiver, we still are looked to as the people who take care of everyone but ourselves, but then we’re adding, being a boss, Mom. Being really powerful in the workplace, not showing emotion, pushing, pushing, pushing.

 

Hillary Rank  8:33

So we already are having hormonal imbalances. 35. And on because even though we’re not in menopause yet, or hormones start declining, but add in the high stress. And you have a constant dump of your stress hormone cortisol, which causes a waterfall effect on all of your other hormones. So it’s like really the doing too much. And it’s so hard for so many women to slow down. We’re in a very unique time right now with the Coronavirus and everything that’s happening. We’re absolutely forced to stay home and declareclear our schedules. Right? So this is a unique time.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  9:17

Right? And you know, speaking to that point, because yeah, that we’re recording this mid April 2020.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  9:22

So I just read an article yesterday, though, about how the division of labor between men and women is actually being heightened during this time because women still in general make less than men, More women than men hold part time jobs. So in this kind of an environment where people’s jobs and livelihoods are put on the line because of the lockdown and quarantining and all of that, more of that at home labor is falling on women or they’re losing that power that they’ve worked so hard to gain in terms of a job outside the home and right where there’s no school happening so kids are at home someone has to take care of those children.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  10:02

And it’s sort of automatically falling on women. So yes, maybe we do get to stay at home and rest more. But there is still this piece of labor that we have to acknowledge that women are kind of forced into right now. While men can sort of just continue on, as they always have instead, right, and office, they work at home.

 

Hillary Rank  10:20

So it’s not really expected. That still hasn’t changed.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  10:24

Yeah, yeah, there’s still a lot of work to do in that area. Yeah, well, I love that you even brought that up. Because, when you mentioned some of the key hormones, like cortisol, but even how you had low testosterone, and that can actually lead to depression, or maybe vice versa. No mind over matter and a lot of ways. So maybe you could spend a little time talking about the hormones that generally are affected as women age or from stress so that we can understand that a little better.

 

Hillary Rank  10:56

So one of the most common hormone imbalances is having low progesterone, and then in turn that causes estrogen dominance.

 

Hillary Rank  11:06

So the first hormone for you to to go in during times of high stress is progesterone. And that is your feel good hormone. It’s your calming hormone, it helps you deal with stress.

 

Hillary Rank  11:19

When you don’t have enough progesterone, you can see hair loss, you can see a lot of water retention, difficulty sleeping. And then when you have estrogen dominance, you tend to see weight gain around the hips and thighs.

 

Hillary Rank  11:38

A lot of what with the low progesterone, you’re gonna see irritability, too, because you’re not calm. And then estrogen dominance is causing a lot of weight gain around the hips and thighs, again, bloating, you’re going to have issues with PMS. So the key is that you want to flush out the excess estrogen and then do things.

 

Hillary Rank  12:02

There’s no foods that can boost your progesterone, it’s really lifestyle changes. And so that’s an important part of my energy reset method, which is lifestyle changes. And it’s things that you can do yourself. So you know, stress reduction, starting to meditate, cutting back and changing the types of exercise that you’re doing. And, it does come down to eating whole foods, and not the path package processed foods I see.

 

Hillary Rank  12:36

There’s, one mistake is that women think that protein shakes and protein bars are a really healthy way to do meal replacement, because they’re really busy. But a lot of times there’s additives in there that can impact your digestion, and that can really affect your energy as well.

 

Hillary Rank  12:54

And then a really common hormone imbalance is PCOS. So that’s when you have high testosterone. And it usually is paired with estrogen dominance as well. And that can cause some androgen like effects. So you’re going to gain weight, you might have excess hair growing in parts that you do not want, really a lot of difficulty gain because he’s losing weight.

 

Hillary Rank  13:22

And a lot of research has paired this with high stress as well. So, women are not smaller versions of men and I have found so much that a lot of the mainstream Doc’s, mainstream diets and workouts are designed for men and women who are in their hormonal prime it works really great for men, like, for example, the keto diet, because they have only one hormone testosterone in dominance they have smaller amounts, but it works really well for them. But it’s not necessarily great. I know some women have seen really great results with it. But having such low carbs really impacts your hormones as well.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  14:12

Oh you just said so many good things. And I don’t even know if you realize this, but what you just talked about has so much to do with breastfeeding too, because women with PCOS often struggle with infertility and you may go see the fertility doctor you finally get pregnant you have that baby, but the fertility doctor once you get pregnant, they sort of drop care and they don’t ever seem to inform their patients of the risks to breastfeeding not just with IVF and how much it messes with your hormones just that by itself, but whatever hormonal condition you had before that can affect breastfeeding and PCOS is also insulin resistance. And yes, that’s huge.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  14:53

And if you have that going on plus the messed up hormones, it’s one of the biggest contributors to low milk supply and so I’ll have a lot of moms say, Well, you know, I hear this, you know, 3% of women don’t make enough milk, but I think it’s higher. Well, yeah, it is higher, and it’s higher because of hormones. And what you mentioned about stress, when you have hormonal dysfunction, and maybe you don’t understand it in the way that you’re explaining, or you don’t have the right, no coaches, doctors, whatever to help you through this. And you tend to feel more stress on top of that going, what’s wrong with me?

 

Jacqueline Kincer  15:29

Let’s say, you already had a struggle with your fertility journey. Now, let’s say you have these hormones that are out of whack. Breastfeeding doesn’t go well. And you’re like, oh, man, I even more of a failure. Now I’m fat right now. I’m this now, I’m that. And it’s just all this negative self talk, like you’re saying. So I mean, this all for those of you listening her like what’s happening with breastfeeding, like a ton, it has a ton to do with breastfeeding, because right stuff we’re talking about, and more women than ever are giving birth later in life, because they wanted to focus on their careers for a while they wanted to be in a more stable place. But then that probably created a lot of stress up front for them. Right.

 

Hillary Rank  16:09

Another hormone imbalance I did not mention, and I think this probably is something that you touched upon is hypothyroidism, and it’s very common for women after they give birth, to have Hashimotos show up. And that’s an autoimmune hypothyroidism condition.

 

Hillary Rank  16:30

So with women, having babies later in life, having all that stress, even having a baby. And then, having that show up kind of seemingly out of the blue. And also, I found it really hard to get a diagnosis for hypothyroidism because I did not look like the type of the typical hypothyroidism person. And Hashimotos is so under diagnosed as well. I don’t have Hashimotos. But I do have another autoimmune condition.

 

Hillary Rank  17:05

So it’s just kind of the difficulty women have in getting diagnosed, because a lot of doctors go on traditional lab ranges. And that can be misleading. Because even if you fall within the normal range of laboratory tests, it might not be normal for you, and you might be feeling those effects. So that’s another really common hormone imbalance. And I’m sure you probably have experienced with Hashimotos. And clients as well.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  17:41

You know, absolutely. And more often than not, it is hypothyroidism, or it could be Hashimotos.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  17:47

And thyroid is going to be a huge implication in terms of your ability to lactate. And I do think there is a connection even there with tongue ties and things, which is a huge issue as well. And I don’t know, I have talked about that. But yeah, lab values thing. I mean, the lab values for a woman who’s lactating are different than a woman of that age or that stage of life. And like you said, they’ll say, oh, within normal limits, well, no, it’s not for someone who’s lactating.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  18:18

And so, I have a hard time, you probably have this as well, as someone who’s doing health and fitness coaching, where you’re not a physician. So when you try to tell someone tell your client like, Hey, this is what you should tell your physician, these are the normal ranges. But the physicians like, I’m the physician, I order the labs, I interpret them and they don’t order a labs the client needs or don’t see an issue.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  18:42

And I will say to what I’ve learned is that by the time you get to the place of thyroid dysfunction in your life, that’s kind of a late stage hormonal dysfunction, you had a lot more stuff going right years before that. So your adrenals are off first. And then your progesterone and then your blood sugar and like all these things piled on, but we’re sort of going unnoticed all these years.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  19:07

And once people get these diagnoses, or once they’re maybe listening to this going, oh, yeah, that sounds a lot like me, or like you said, you had a super fit body. But underneath the surface, all these things were going on. So you didn’t look like a normal person. So I’ve had clients go, Well, I don’t think I have a thyroid problem because they work out all the time or whatever. But, you know, it doesn’t really, we can’t just go off a physical appearance.

 

Hillary Rank  19:34

Because I look the best I did in my entire life. But I was the unhealthiest for sure. I do think this is a good time to segue into my breastfeeding story because you made a really good point. Hypothyroidism is kind of a late stage hormonal imbalance and you know, now knowing what I know about it, I realized that I had issues in my 20s, and I was not aware of it.

 

Hillary Rank  20:04

And that contributed to some difficulty getting pregnant. I was on the birth control pill for years, like most women, had some difficulty. I mean, I didn’t go to a fertility doctor. But it took about a year for us to conceive. And, I had a very normal pregnancy up until week 34.

 

Hillary Rank  20:29

And all of a sudden, I was at work and was told by my doctor’s office that I need to get into triage immediately. Because I think my labs didn’t look good, long story short, I had preeclampsia. So, they said, I was not leaving the hospital pregnant, I had not gone to a breastfeeding class. I didn’t have my baby shower, I just felt very ill prepared for the whole thing.

 

Hillary Rank  21:02

I gave birth to my first son about six weeks early. He was extremely small. He was well to me. I mean, they’re smaller babies, but he was four pounds, six ounces. And that terrified me. And I always intended on breastfeeding. He was in the NICU for eight days. And I had to establish my supply by pumping because I couldn’t be with him. And, you know, the NICU nurses they helped me a little bit.

 

Hillary Rank  21:37

I remember them telling me that having a baby so young, they’d have difficulty breastfeeding. He did actually take to breastfeeding pretty well. I mean, I certainly did not find it as natural and easy as they make it seem. Because I established my supply with the pump. I had an oversupply, it was crazy. And you know, now, knowing you, I just wish I would have known you back then. Because this was 12, almost 13 years ago.

 

Hillary Rank  22:10

I now know that that was a hormonal imbalance or something. And I believe that he has tongue tie as well, because you told me that I have tongue tie. So, he just had so much trouble he was colicky. I mean, he would like Scream. And I was so heartbroken. I was told that he had acid reflux. So I had mentioned to you that I was giving him acid reflux medication that did not work at all. Then I was thinking, food allergies, but back then, I wasn’t the nutrition guru that I am and I had a lot of difficulty letting go of foods that I’d eaten my entire life. Like coffee creamer and cheese and things like that. So I had a lot of guilt around that. And I eventually weaned him. I think at 11 weeks, I was heartbroken and I had all this extra milk. I just really felt lacking as a mom. But also what I was really struggling with is I want a reason why I had preeclampsia. All the doctors told me that it just happens. And I didn’t accept that because I really believe at a root cause for everything. And so I had a lot of guilt about that. So much. I mean, my birth with him was very traumatic. And I even questioned about having another child. But I did have another, my second son. Two and a half years later, I didn’t develop preeclampsia, and I do credit that to seeing a naturopathic doctor and helping me with homeopathy and things like that. We don’t need to get into that. But the birth thankfully I did a VBAC. It was vaginal after having a C section with Ian. But he was four weeks early, I had started going into preterm labor at the exact same, almost like the same day as I did with Ian and then I was put on bed rest. And Evan was born four weeks early, normal size, so I’m thinking breastfeeding is going to be a breeze. But then he wasn’t gaining weight.

 

Hillary Rank  24:35

And I did see a lactation consultant at the time, who wasn’t as good as you!  And she told me that his suck reflux hadn’t developed. Then I was needing to pump and breastfeed him and I had a toddler at home and I mean, I’m sure women can relate. It was the most difficult thing ever. I used to call my best friend I’m crying! I was like, I don’t think I can continue this. This is just so overwhelming. I did make it to six months with Evan, which I was happy about, but it never was that happy, joyous thing that I felt like came easily to me. And you probably have some input about what happened. And then I’ll kind of tie that into my overall health story about when I finally found answers about why I was having complications in my pregnancy.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  25:30

Yeah! I thank you for sharing, because there’s gotta be people listening who are like, oh, yeah, and it helps! I’m kind of in my bubble of like, all the knowledge I have. And so it helps me remember what people don’t know, and sometimes aren’t told, and preeclampsia is preventable, it has a cause. Obviously, you know, that now, and, you know, preterm babies, even born a few weeks early are going to struggle with their suck reflexes. It’s not based on weight, it’s based on, just gestational development.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  26:05

I don’t feel like women are warned, oftentimes. They’re sent home with this baby, and that baby might latch and look like they’re feeding and two weeks later, going, they didn’t gain weight, what’s happening? Then you go to the pediatrician, and they give you some formula, and they don’t really explain anything.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  26:23

And this is also why when I work with clients, like what you’re saying, it’s so difficult for me to just do like a one off appointment with someone because I can’t fully help them. If I’m not coaching them past that time, like, you said, you had to call your friends, and you were struggling so much.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  26:45

And your friend was probably a great source of support for you. But it’s always so great when what if you could call your lactation consultant or text is what I set up with my clients, right? They’ve got a baby in one hand and a phone in the other. But, you’ve got to know is this normal? Is today going better than the day before? Or is it worse? You’re going to have all these little questions, and you’re going to doubt yourself, and that is gonna lead to breastfeeding failure if we let that go on, and we can’t let that go on. So I’d love to hear more about what you discovered through that, because, you know, at least a silver lining for you. Right?

 

Hillary Rank  27:20

Absolutely. I mean, you know, I just now, you know, us having conversations and about what resources you want to offer new moms and what resources you do have, it just was not available. It just was not, you know, this was my youngest son is 10. It’s not that long ago, but I mean, this was before, I mean, smartphones, were just starting, I mean, I did this was all over the phone, it was very hard to find out,

 

Jacqueline Kincer  27:50

We sound so old. My oldest is seven. And I feel like I didn’t have that stuff, either.

 

Hillary Rank  27:57

Technology has really just come so far. And this is the age of digital entrepreneurs and digital courses, which, when I was a working mom, that really was a great resource. But if there was another, like a membership or something, a forum that I could have gone to with other moms who are going through the same thing, and having a lactation consultant, like you who can troubleshoot, it would have made all the difference.

 

Hillary Rank  28:31

So that’s like, a big part of my core values are what I believe in is finding the root causes of, of issues. And that’s something I really work with women during when I work with them with my clients. So I really didn’t accept that the preeclampsia just happened, or it was genetic,, no other women in my family had had it. And,, I had had some health issues, even in my 20s, not really realizing that it was connected.

 

Hillary Rank  29:09

So, and this kind of ties into mentioning that I did have my breast implants removed about nine months ago. So what I discovered is that I have the MTHFR gene mutation, and that means that I lack the genes to properly methylate or my methylation is impaired and methylation is really important. It happens in your liver, and it’s really tied to gut health.

 

Hillary Rank  29:44

You have to Methley everything so hormones, vitamins, and minerals, toxins that are coming in, anything that you’re ingesting or coming into your body, and my methylation was impaired And a lot of times, this happens based on lifestyle factors.

 

Hillary Rank  30:04

So just because you have the MTHFR gene does not mean you’re going to have problems. But the standard American diet and way of doing things really does cause the perfect storm.

 

Hillary Rank  30:15

So I was on birth control, off and on for 10 years. So to a woman who does not lack the genes to methylate, that birth control is a toxin and it’s impairing your methylation. I was, even though, I mean, back, then, let’s be honest, I was not eating that great. But, the methylation is impairing me, having the proper vitamins and minerals, so I was lacking, I was not able to methylated.

 

Hillary Rank  30:51

If you just take like a standard b 12, your body’s not going to be able to absorb it, you need methylated b 12, did not know that. You need methyl folate. So I was taking a prenatal vitamin that didn’t have the proper vitamins and minerals that I needed. And so this all impacted my pregnancy. And it impacted my health.

 

Hillary Rank  31:22

I believe that that caused a waterfall effect with all the other things I talked about at the beginning of our podcast episode of causing all these hormone imbalances. It just went on and on for years, without me knowing and caused this perfect storm. So I feel like I’m…rein me back in or if you have questions about that, because I feel like I could talk about it forever.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  31:47

Yeah, I mean, we could talk about a lot of different things. Absolutely. And I think what you said is so important is that, MTHFR effects somewhere around 40% of the population, most people don’t know, it can be a huge reason why you struggle to get pregnant, it could be a huge cause of other things. There is a linkage there with tongue tie, along with other genetic mutations. So it isn’t just about one particular thing.

 

Hillary Rank  32:14

There’s a lot of stuff going on!

 

Jacqueline Kincer  32:16

There’s a lot going on. And we have 23andme now, but you have to take that data and go get it interpreted through another third party to really get the whole picture. And, so it’s a lot. And a lot of people kind of don’t know where to start. So a lot of people are like, Okay, I hear what Hillary’s saying, that sounds just so overwhelming, what am I suppose to do now?

 

Jacqueline Kincer  32:38

And I know, you’ve got something really cool that I want to share with my audience, because it’s coming up really soon. And I’d love for you to chat about that in our remaining time.

 

Hillary Rank  32:48

Okay. So yeah, a lot of the stuff that you can do to help with the MTHFR gene mutation, and to help just feel better and gain more energy, and get your body in a place where you can balance your hormones it goes down to diet and lifestyle.

 

Hillary Rank  33:10

So I have a 14 day energy reset mini program that’s coming up. Next week, I’m releasing it to all my followers and to women. And I’d really like a small group, we’re going to you, we have a course it takes you step by step by the things that you can do to feel better and take control of your health. And I also will have a Facebook group where I’m answering questions, doing some live coaching, so I’m truly going to be with you every step of the way. Because as I said before, I feel like this is the best time, when we have had this, we’re being forced to take a break and kind of focus on different things, what better thing to focus on, then, taking control of your health and feeling better, because things will open up. And then you’ll have those habits that you need to continue it on.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  34:09

I love that.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  34:10

And if anyone’s been following the podcast for a while, I don’t generally bring people on to like promote stuff. And I brought Hillary on so she could share all this amazing knowledge with you. But I actually asked her if she could share this and promote this at the end of the episode because I feel like it’s so important. And like you just said, this time that we have to be at home right now to create new healthy habits for ourselves.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  34:34

There’s a lot of hilarious memes out there on the internet right now about like homeschooling kids or being homeschooled by moms who drink wine all day. That was not funny at first, but now, I mean, I’m four weeks into being at home. So like, that’s just sad. And like if we can’t create new habits if 14 days, two weeks of like total commitment on someone’s part with guidance, where you’re not feeling like oh my I got to Google and I got to research this and I got to Google, and research that and what vitamins, what, like, Hillary actually does want to help you guys with this stuff. And she’s been on our own journey. And she’s super passionate. So I would say, this is one of the most amazing things that someone could take advantage of right now. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful offering. So we’ll link it up in the show notes. For everyone.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  35:20

What I did want to ask you, just as a final question is for breastfeeding moms who are out there who might be like you, you know, a type A personality, regardless of what’s going on economically right now, maybe they’re going to return to work really quick. Maybe they lead a really fast paced life, or they feel like, they have to do it all, what kind of message would you have for them?

 

Hillary Rank  35:48

I have to make it succeed, doing it all is going to lead to burnout, for sure. It just, I mean, it’s science, your body can’t handle  the low that doing it all. And having a to do list a mile long, I mean, it’s going to give out eventually. So it really takes a lot of introspection, and really deciding and committing that you are going to do it differently. And take a look at how perfectionism is causing a lot of the pain and suffering in your life. And making a conscious choice to slow down and realizing that it’s not selfish to take care of yourself. In fact, taking care of yourself is going to better benefit everybody in your family, and in your career and ultimate happiness.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  36:46

Oh, that was so well stated. I love this. I think, honestly, this is just one of my top favorite interviews I’ve done and you’ve shared so much amazingness.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  36:56

And I also just feel like it’s just barely scratching the surface. So I like that there’s a place for people to continue on learning from you. Because without that, I think people would go well, the episodes over like, what the heck might have to bring you back for another one. But thank you so much for everything literally. Yeah, and your vulnerability is appreciated. I think that it’s really important that we talk about what’s really going on under the surface and share our journeys and what we learned from them. Because I never want someone to be stuck in feeling like stuck in failure or feeling like there aren’t answers. There’s always answers.

 

Hillary Rank  37:33

Right? That is like the parting message I would really like to share because, you know, that’s something that one of my friends said to me, she’s like, I just admire that you’re always looking for solutions or looking for the next thing because there is always an answer there really is you just have to calm down and know where to look for it and ask for help.

 

Jacqueline Kincer  37:58

Oh, Amen. Thank you so much.

 

Hillary Rank  38:03

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.