Rooted in Wellness with Mona Sharma

Some seasons of health feel confusing because nothing looks dramatic on paper, but daily life tells a different story. You are exhausted in a way coffee cannot cover. Your weight is shifting even though your habits have not changed that much. Your hair feels thinner. Your brain feels foggy. And when you finally ask for help, the labs come back “normal,” and suddenly the conversation ends before anyone really explains why you still do not feel like yourself. 
That is where so many women get stuck. The symptoms are real, but the testing is often too narrow. The answer gets reduced to aging, menopause, stress, or needing to try harder, when the thyroid may be part of the picture that has not been properly seen yet. And for women over 40, that missing thyroid conversation can change how they understand their energy, metabolism, hormones, and body signals.
Dr. Amie Hornaman joins me to talk about the thyroid patterns that are often overlooked, including thyropause, incomplete lab testing, reverse T3, Hashimoto’s, and why TSH alone does not tell the full story. Dr. Amie is a hormone optimization specialist, founder of the Advanced Thyroid and Hormone Clinic, and a leading voice in thyroid health whose work is rooted in both clinical expertise and her own experience of being dismissed by six doctors before finally getting answers.
What’s Discussed:
(08:23) The symptoms women are told to accept with age that may point back to the thyroid.
(10:28) Why a small gland can affect energy, weight, hair, digestion, mood, and heart rhythm.
(12:19) What thyropause means and why it may be missing from the menopause conversation.
(20:09) The top signs Dr. Amie looks for when women feel like they are doing everything right.
(25:59) Why TSH is only one signal and what a fuller thyroid panel can reveal.
(38:13) Why weight loss medications may not work the same way when thyroid function is not optimized.
(54:04) When biohacking becomes one more stressor instead of true support.
Listen to this episode if you have been trying to understand why your body feels different, but the answers you have been given do not match what you feel every day. 
Thank You to Our Sponsor: 
Timeline: Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to timeline.com/MONA 
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Dr. Amie Hornaman
Website: dramie.com
Instagram: @dramiehornaman
Tiktok: @dramiehornaman

There is a frustrating moment that can happen in your thirties or forties when your body starts to feel different, but you cannot quite explain why. Your energy dips in a way that coffee does not really fix. Your recovery takes longer. Your focus feels hazier. Your body feels less responsive, even when you are eating well, moving, taking supplements, and trying to do the things that are supposed to help.
And the hardest part is how easy it is to dismiss all of it. You start wondering if this is just aging, if your hormones are the whole problem, or if you need to try harder with another protocol. But what if the shift you are feeling is happening somewhere where most conversations about energy, hormones, and longevity do not look deeply enough? In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Jennifer Scheinman to talk about why energy, recovery, focus, hormones, and body composition can start shifting in your thirties and forties, and what mitochondrial health, mitophagy, and Urolithin A may reveal about what is happening beneath the surface.  
Jennifer Scheinman is a registered dietitian with nearly three decades of experience and the Director of Scientific Communications at Timeline. Her work sits at the intersection of nutrition, cellular biology, longevity, mitochondrial health, and Urolithin A, which makes her the right person to explain why energy, recovery, focus, and resilience may have more to do with your cells than most people realize.
What’s Discussed:
(08:51) Why energy, focus, and recovery can start feeling different in your thirties and forties.
(23:36) What chronic stress may be doing beneath the surface.
(26:09) Why Urolithin A is becoming part of the cellular health conversation.
(34:45) What Mona realized after seeing her own toxic burden results.
(42:08) Why healthspan has to include how you actually feel in your body.
(45:06) The subtle signs that something may be starting to work.
(55:10) How ancient practices connect with modern mitochondrial research.
Thank You to Our Sponsor: 
Timeline: Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to timeline.com/MONA 
MitoQ: Go to mitoq.com/mona and use code MONA for 10% off
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Jennifer Scheinman (Timeline):
Website: www.timeline.com/ 
Instagram : jenscheinman_nutrition

A lot of wellness advice assumes the problem lives inside the individual. Your stress. Your habits. Your discipline. Your food choices. Your ability to regulate. But what happens when you are already doing the things that are supposed to help and your life still feels strangely disconnected? You eat well, meditate, try to regulate your nervous system, maybe even spend money on wellness, but the second you return to your commute, your neighborhood, your apartment, or another day without real connection, something in your body still feels unsettled.
That is the health problem hiding in your zip code. In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Tony Cho, a purpose-driven entrepreneur and regenerative placemaking visionary, to talk about why loneliness is not always a personal failure, why modern cities can dysregulate the nervous system, and why the future of wellness has to include the places, communities, and systems we live inside. And until you start looking at the spaces around you, you may keep trying to fix symptoms that were never meant to be carried alone.
Tony Cho is a purpose-driven entrepreneur and visionary community builder helping cities evolve into living ecosystems that support human connection, creativity, and regeneration. His work bridges personal well-being, community design, and the future of the built environment in balance with nature and culture.
What’s Discussed:
(06:07) Smart cities vs. wise cities, and what modern development is getting wrong.
(10:02) How ashram life shaped Tony’s view of community, ritual, death, and belonging.
(21:13) Why regenerative placemaking starts with listening to the land, people, and culture.
(38:09) Why loneliness may be a design flaw, not a personal failure.
(1:07:16) What wellness spaces miss when they focus on biohacking instead of place and people.
(1:12:13) Why third places matter for connection, community, and everyday belonging.
(1:22:30) How ritual can bring people back to existence without dogma or rigid rules.
Thank You to Our Sponsor: 
Timeline: Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to timeline.com/MONA 
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Tony Cho:
Website: ony-cho.com/generation-regeneration
Substack: tonycho1111.substack.com/
Instagram: @tonycho
Gaia TV Series: gaia.com/series/road-to-utopia
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chotimelive/
YouTube: @RegenerativeLivingwithTonyCho
Press: tony-cho.com/press

Weight loss can feel exhausting when every plan gives you another reason to push harder. Eat less. Cut more. Fast longer. Ignore hunger. Be more disciplined. But for so many people, that only leads to the same cycle: trying harder, feeling stuck, blaming yourself, and wondering why your body still feels bloated, inflamed, tired, or out of rhythm.
In this solo episode of Rooted in Wellness, I’m looking at weight loss through an Ayurvedic lens, where the conversation is not only about calories, restriction, or willpower. It is also about the state your body is in while you are trying to change it.
Because if your digestion feels off, your cravings feel louder, your stress feels constant, or your body feels like it is holding on no matter what you do, the answer may not be another extreme reset. It may be learning how to support your body in a way that feels more grounded, nourishing, and sustainable.
What’s Discussed:
(02:47) Why the usual “eat less, move more” weight loss advice may not be the full story.
(05:53) How Ayurveda looks at digestion, Agni, and the body’s ability to process what it takes in.
(08:37) Why pushing through hunger can become part of the same cycle people are trying to escape.
(13:41) The role daily rhythm plays in cravings, energy, digestion, and feeling regulated.
(22:00) Why meal timing matters, especially when dinner becomes the biggest meal of the day.
(27:49) How warm meals, cooked foods, and digestive spices can change the way your body receives nourishment.
(42:43) Why stress, inflammation, and feeling overloaded can make the body feel stuck.
Listen to this episode if weight loss has started to feel like a fight with your body, and you want a more compassionate way to understand what your body may be asking for. 🎧
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Thank You to Our Sponsor:
Timeline: Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to timeline.com/MONA

There is a frustrating point a lot of people hit with cardio. You know it matters. You know heart health, stamina, and energy are important, especially as you think about aging well. But the version of cardio most of us were taught feels hard to keep up with: long workouts, more sweat, more time, and another thing on your schedule that can leave you feeling drained before the day has even started.
That is also why the “I do not have time” problem is not always as simple as it sounds. For many people, cardio feels like something that only counts if it takes a big chunk of time or proves itself through exhaustion. But what if the body does not need another hour-long workout to start adapting? What if the real question is whether the workout is giving your body the right signal in the first place?
In this episode of Rooted in Wellness, I sit down with Ulrich Dempfle to talk about why the way we think about cardio, VO2 max, and longevity may need a serious update. Ulrich is the CEO and co-founder of CAROL, and he used his background in mechanical engineering to help develop the world’s only Reduced Exertion HIIT, or REHIT, bike alongside leading exercise researchers. He breaks down why short, precise effort can create a powerful cardiovascular response, and why improving your fitness may not require overhauling your entire life.
Shop at http://carolbike.com/mona for a special discount!
What’s Discussed:
(06:37) Why sweating is not the only sign that a workout counted.
(08:29) The outdated “no pain, no gain” advice that keeps people chasing longer, harder workouts.
(14:40) Why the minimum effective dose may matter more than spending an hour on cardio.
(19:32) How breathwork helps your body recover after short, intense effort.
(37:04) Why more sprints or longer intervals do not always create better results.
(45:08) Why VO2 max matters for longevity, oxygen delivery, mitochondria, and energy for life.
(58:15) How Ulrich builds short cardio, strength training, and joyful movement into his own routine.
Listen to this episode if cardio has always felt like something you need to make more time for, push harder through, or recover from afterward. This conversation will help you understand why improving cardiovascular fitness may have less to do with doing more, and more to do with giving your body a signal it can actually use. 🎧
Thank You to Our Sponsor: 
BIOptimizers: Visit bioptimizers.com/mona and use MONA at checkout to get the best deal on Masszymes and all BIOptimizers products. 
Learn more about Mona Sharma:
Download Your FREE Guide - 12 Wellness Tips to Unlock Your Best Health Now: Ready to reclaim your vitality? Download Mona’s 12 Wellness Tips and take actionable steps to transform your health, energy, and mindset. Get started now at monasharma.com/12tips 
Visit Mona's website: monasharma.com – Unlock powerful tools and wisdom rooted in wellness to elevate your health, energy, and clarity. Mona blends ancient healing practices with modern science to help you achieve lasting transformation.
Follow Mona on Instagram: Stay connected with Mona for daily inspiration, holistic health tips, and personal growth. Join the conversation on Instagram at @monasharma
Learn more about Ulrich Dempfle and CAROL Bike:
Ulrich Dempfle: carolbike.com/global/community/ulrich-dempfle-rider-story/
CAROL Bike: http://carolbike.com/mona