Limiting beliefs, midlife reinvention, self-sabotage, and inherited fears — what if the voice telling you to stay small was never even yours to begin with?

In this episode of TRUE Wellness with Dr. Z, Dr. Z sits down with Susan Houston — TEDx speaker, podcast host of Done Pretending, and the woman who walked away from a 19-year career to finally stop living under someone else's ceiling. Susan's work focuses on one of the most invisible forms of self-sabotage women experience: the secondhand beliefs, inherited judgments, and borrowed fears absorbed from parents, partners, and authority figures — mistaken for personal truth and carried for decades.

The perfectionism that started with a B+ on a third-grade report card. The identity swallowed by years of people-pleasing and caregiving. The inner critic that says you are too old, too much, or not ready — that belief was never yours to carry.This episode is for every woman in midlife, perimenopause, or menopause who feels that quiet inner nudge saying there is more — and has not yet given herself permission to go after it.

What You'll Discover:

1. What secondhand beliefs are — and how to tell the difference between an inherited limiting belief and an actual personal truth

2. Why the most dangerous inner critic is the one that sounds exactly like your own voice — and how to trace it back to its real source

3. How women in midlife are uniquely positioned to break free from self-imposed ceilings, reclaim their identity, and stop outsourcing their self-worth

4. Susan Houston's Four Truths framework for women who are done pretending — and what each truth reveals about where you actually are in your reinvention

5. Why fear is not a stop sign — it is often the clearest signal that you are walking directly toward your real purpose

Connect with Susan Houston:

Done Pretending Podcast — available on all major platformsMasterclass

+ 60-Day Cohort: thesusanhouston.com

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness

Personalized nutrition, DNA testing, and nutrigenomics — the science that finally explains why the same diet, supplement, or caffeine habit works beautifully for one person and completely backfires for another. Dr. Z sits down with the researcher behind it all.

If you have ever followed all the right advice, eaten clean, taken the supplements, and still not gotten the results you were promised, this episode is the explanation you have been waiting for. Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy, Professor of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and Founder of Nutrigenomix Inc., breaks down the science of nutrigenomics in plain language: how genetic testing is changing the way practitioners personalize care.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• What nutrigenomics actually is — and why it finally explains the maddening inconsistency of nutrition research
• The caffeine gene: why coffee increases heart attack risk in 50% of the population and lowers it in the other 50%
• MTHFR demystified: what this overhyped gene actually means, what it does not mean, and why folate intake can completely eliminate its risk
• Why your genes are not your destiny — and how the right dietary information can abolish even significant genetic vulnerabilities
• The micronutrients most people never test for — vitamin C, D, B12, choline — and why not knowing your genetic risk for deficiency is silently affecting your long-term health

ABOUT DR. AHMED EL-SOHEMY

With over 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than 400 invited talks delivered worldwide, Dr. El-Sohemy is one of the world's leading researchers in identifying genetic markers that predict individual response to dietary factors. He has served on Health Canada's Scientific Advisory Board and multiple international expert panels, and is the recipient of awards for research excellence from the Canadian Nutrition Society, the American College of Nutrition, and the American Nutrition Association.

Check out nutrigenomix.com

You can order your Nutrigenomix genetic test here: https://go.southbaywellness.com/geneticstest

Use coupon code TRUEWELLNESS at checkout to get $50 o

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness

Burnout, executive coaching, and high-performance leadership — this conversation with former Google Director Stacey Kulongowski is for every woman who has built something impressive and still felt completely disconnected from herself.

Stacey Kulongowski spent 13 years at Google, built a team of nearly 200 people, oversaw a $2 billion revenue imprint — and ended up under her desk, crying, after a revenue call went sideways. She also went through breast cancer twice, the first time without telling a single soul at work, doing radiation every morning before going in to lead her team. What she built out of those two intensity points became the framework she now uses to help high-performing leaders and professionals find their way back to themselves.

In this conversation with Dr. Z, Stacey breaks down what it really means to Bring Your Big Energy — and why it has nothing to do with being the loudest person in the room.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• What intensity points are — and why burnout, disruption, cancer, and career pivots all qualify as the same kind of wake-up call
• Why high-performing women are the last to hear the whispers their body and life are sending them — and what happens when those whispers become screams
• The SPARK Process: Stacey's five-step framework for rebuilding after burnout, career transition, or any major life inflection point
• What Stacey learned going through breast cancer twice — and why she treated them completely differently, with radically different outcomes

ABOUT STACEY KULONGOWSKI

Stacey Kulongowski is a PCC-certified executive coach, former Director at Google, and author of Bring Your Big Energy. After 13 years at Google — where she built a team of nearly 200 people and a $2 billion revenue imprint — Stacey took a six-month health leave after burnout and two rounds of breast cancer. Out of that journey, she built the SPARK Process: a framework for helping high-performing leaders and professionals navigate burnout, career transitions, and major life inflection points.

Find her at bringyourbigenergy.com and on Instagram @bringyourbigenergy.

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness

Celiac disease, dietary change, and the grief nobody tells you about — this conversation with Rebecca Stanevich is for anyone who has ever felt like a diagnosis or a dietary shift just blew up their entire life.

Because here's what the wellness world almost never addresses: when you have to change the way you eat — whether from a chronic diagnosis, a sensitivity, or a health decision — you don't just change your diet. You grieve. You go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and eventually acceptance. And the order is never what you expect.

Dr. Z sits down with Rebecca Stanevich — nutrition student, former veterinary professional, and celiac disease warrior — for one of the most honest conversations about food, identity, and body trust that this podcast has ever had. Rebecca's journey started with an unexpected observation at work: the dogs with chronic skin conditions were reacting to their food. That one realization changed the questions she started asking about her own body. What followed was years of dismissed symptoms, a celiac diagnosis at 23, nine polyps removed, and a complete rebuilding of her relationship with food — and with herself.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• How working in veterinary dermatology led Rebecca to question everything she thought she knew about food, allergies, and her own chronic symptoms
• The five stages of grief as they actually show up in dietary change — and why you rarely move through them in order
• What celiac disease really costs the body when it goes undiagnosed for years: fatigue, inflammation, polyps, and a small intestine fighting for its life
• The social pressure of dietary change — why the people closest to you can be the hardest part — and how to hold your ground from a place of empowerment, not victimhood
• Why education is the most powerful way to move through grief, build commitment, and stop relapsing on the foods that are harming you

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness

GLP-1 weight loss pills, menopause weight gain, and midlife hormone chaos — the conversation just got louder. FDA-approved Fondeo is here. And Dr. Z is not here to tell you it's evil. She's here to make sure you think before you decide.

Because the real question is never just: will this make me lose weight? The real question is: what is your body actually asking for? In this solo episode, Dr. Z cuts through the social media noise around the newest oral weight loss medications and gives every woman in perimenopause and menopause a body-led framework for making one of the most personal decisions of her health journey — with clarity, not panic.

What you'll discover in this episode:

1. Why the shift from GLP-1 injections to an oral pill is making millions of women reconsider a decision they weren't considering before — and why exhaustion and convenience are not a framework

2. What these medications can genuinely do, what they cannot do, and why a quieter appetite is not the same thing as a healed system — especially when sleep, stress, hormones, blood sugar, and nervous system dysregulation are still unaddressed

3. The truth about midlife weight gain: why it is almost never just about weight, and why reducing a whole-body conversation to one question — will this make me lose weight? — is the most expensive mistake a woman can make

4. Dr. Z's 5 body-led questions every woman must sit with before making any decision about a weight loss medication — including what to pair with it if you do choose it, so you don't lose yourself in the process

5. Why the midlife body is not just changing hormonally — it is refusing to be treated like an afterthought any longer, and what that shift means for the kind of healing that is actually possible now

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness

Fatigue, bloating, hormone chaos, and weight that won't budge — even when you're eating clean, taking supplements, and doing all the right things. Dr. Z is naming what nobody else will say out loud.

In this solo episode, Dr. Z dismantles one of the most damaging patterns she sees in high-performing women: the override pattern. The cycle where more discipline, more restriction, more pressure is the answer to a body that's already exhausted from being overridden. Because there is a massive difference between supporting your body and forcing it to comply. And if you've been doing the latter — even with the best intentions — this episode is going to change the way you think about your health entirely.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• Why doing everything 'right' can still leave you exhausted, inflamed, and stuck — and what that's actually telling you

• The override pattern: how high performers unknowingly turn health into another performance metric

• Why your body isn't broken — it's burdened, and that distinction changes everything

• How the nervous system's survival mode sabotages even the best protocols — and why pressure-based health always backfires

• The truth about intermittent fasting, intense workouts, and clean eating during perimenopause and menopause

• How to shift from reactive health to interpretive health — and why that's where real trust begins

• What body-led nutrition actually looks like (hint: it's a conversation, not a control strategy)

The body is not a machine to be bullied into wellness. It is a living system that responds to conditions.

Stop asking: How do I make my body comply?

Start asking: What conditions does my body need in order to respond?

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness

Health misinformation, toxic supplements, and social media wellness trends are costing women their health — and their trust in their own bodies. Dr. Z is done staying quiet about it.

In this solo episode, Dr. Z delivers one of her most important conversations yet — a frank, 20-years-in-the-making breakdown of what's really happening in the wellness industry. The algorithm rewards what stops your scroll, not what's true. And the most powerful health tool you have isn't a supplement, a protocol, or a trending morning routine. It's your body. It always has been.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• Why the wellness industry is experiencing a slow, dangerous drift away from integrity — and how to protect yourself
• The real reason health content on social media is designed to make you distrust your own body
• How to spot a fake health expert online (including the Facebook transparency trick Dr. Z uses)
• The truth about supplement quality: what magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, and fillers are doing in your bottle
• Why $200 supplements can still be garbage — and what to look for instead
• Body-Led Intelligence: Dr. Z's framework for using your nervous system as your first opinion on any health claim
• 3 questions to ask before you screenshot, share, or add to cart — ever again

DR. Z'S 3-QUESTION FRAMEWORK

Before you try any new health protocol, supplement, or claim, ask:
• Does this claim require me to distrust my own body?
• Does this promise a transformation in a timeline that doesn't match how my biology actually works?
• Who profits if I believe this?

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness

You've tried the diet. The supplements. The routine. But the exhaustion is still there — because none of it addressed what's actually running the show: the gap between who you are and how you're living.

In this conversation, Dr. Z sits down with Danielle Zilg — coach, motivator, and Marriage and Family Therapist in the making — to dismantle the idea that mental health is a mind problem. It's a whole-body problem. And the solution isn't more willpower. It's alignment.

WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER

• Why your body started sending distress signals long before your burnout became impossible to ignore

• The core values exercise that functions as your internal GPS — and how to actually use it

• Why most women have never truly defined their values (and why that single gap is costing them their health)

• The Internal Family Systems framework: how to stop treating anxiety, perfectionism, and self-doubt as personality flaws

• "I am anxious" vs "I feel anxious" — why that one-word shift is the difference between identity and experience

• Boundaries reframed: from a wall you put up to a bridge you build — together

• The self-talk loop that keeps high performers stuck — and how to interrupt it

ABOUT DANIELLE ZILG

Danielle Zilg is a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) in the Making, Motivator, and Mental Health Maven. She is a coach who believes that when self-awareness, core values, and actions align — that's when real change happens. After leaving a successful corporate marketing career that looked polished from the outside and felt hollow on the inside, Danielle went through her own profound reset — and turned that experience into a coaching practice dedicated to helping others reconnect with themselves before life forces them to. She works with clients on values-based living, anxiety management, relationships, and the kind of self-awareness that actually holds up under pressure. Find her at daniellezmft.com and on Instagram @DanielleZMFT.

Here's the SPECIAL GIFTS:

Download your FREE TRUE Wellness Checklist here: https://go.drdee.com/checklist

A Gift for You

The 21-Day Nervous System Calibration is designed to help you begin shifting out of survival mode and back into a state of regulation. https://go.southbaywellness.com/calibrationregistration

Schedule a FREE discovery call with Dr. Z and our team: https://go.southbaywellness.com/schedule-call

Thanks for listening to T.R.U.E. Wellness with Dr .Z, where we’re redefining health and empowering change. Hosted by Dr. Dee, creator of the T.R.U.E. Wellness Framework, this podcast brings you expert insights, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies to help you thrive.

Follow us on social media for more wellness inspiration.
Instagram: DrZTRUEWellness
Facebook: DrZTRUEWellness
YouTube: @DrZTRUEWellness
LinkedIn: drdeezanzarovphd
TikTok: @dr.dee.phd
Website: www.SouthBayWellness.com

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@DrZTRUEWellness