Supplements are like Curtains

I am a visual person. Always have been. When I’m coaching someone, giving a talk, or just trying to explain why my way of loading the dishwasher is objectively correct, I reach for visuals. Analogies. Metaphors. Little mental pictures that make the concept click faster than any amount of me just talking at you. Also, I find them to be way more fun because my visuals come with lots of color and, most of the time, some glittery aspect, because why not?

So when it comes to health, habits, and how to live a higher-quality life, I visualize a house, and I invite you to picture it with me, because once you see it, my hope is that you cannot unsee it. And if that’s the case, then every time you get tempted by clever marketing trying to sell you supplements, you’ll think “curtains.”

Build the house first, or in my fantasy world, build the fairytale cottage first

(see I promised you glitter and color)

The foundation is consistency. Not the motivational poster kind of consistency. Not the “new year, new me” kind. I mean the boring, unsexy, nobody’s-going-to-clap-for-you kind, where you just keep showing up even when you don’t feel like it. That’s your concrete slab. Everything else sits on top of it. Crack the foundation and it doesn’t matter how nice the rest of the house is; eventually, it all shifts.

The walls are movement and nutrition. Both walls. You need both. “I eat pretty well, but I don’t really move” is one wall. “I work out five days a week, but I eat like a college student on a dare” is the other wall. One wall is just a very expensive lean. You need them standing together, sturdy, holding each other up.

The roof is sleep. This is where people’s eyes glaze over because they’ve heard it a thousand times, but I need you to actually hear it: no roof means everything inside gets destroyed. Rain. Mold. Everything rotting because you stayed up until 1am doomscrolling and called it “me time.” Sleep is not a lifestyle bonus. It’s the roof. It is structurally essential. I know that during the menopausal transition, sleep can seem like the most elusive thing of all, but we have to try and prioritize however we can.

The windows are community. The people around you, the accountability, the belonging — that’s what lets light in. That’s what makes the house worth living in, and research has shown over and over again that people with a strong sense of community are happier and healthier. You can have a structurally perfect house and if it’s dark and isolating inside, you’re not going to want to be there. Windows matter.

These are the elements a strong house needs. Simple in theory. Brutally rare in practice. Most people have none of it, but they do have great curtains. Here's what that actually looks like:

The curtains are supplements. Lovely. Optional. Only make sense once the cottage is actually built. Yet 90% of people are buying curtains before they've laid the foundation. They're obsessing over the color. The fabric. Blackout or sheer? Linen or velvet? They've got a Pinterest board, a spreadsheet, and three tabs open comparing prices. They're arguing about it on forums. Asking strangers on Reddit. Dropping $200 on curtains they swear will change everything.

Meanwhile, their:

• Foundation is cracked: No real consistency. "Starting Monday" since January.
• Walls are crumbling: Sporadic workouts, inconsistent eating, one wall, maybe.
• Roof is leaking: 5 hrs of sleep + a "temporary fix" tarp of melatonin gummies.

If you’re ready to get mad at me, hold on! I am not saying supplements don’t work. Some of them genuinely do and are well-researched. But what I am saying is that the supplement industry is a $50+ billion industry, with a financial incentive to keep you buying, and has done an absolutely spectacular job of convincing people that the curtains are load-bearing. You know curtains are not load-bearing, and yet, the temptation to believe is strong.

The average person dropping $89 on a “metabolic optimizer” is sleeping 5 hours a night, exercises sporadically when the guilt gets loud enough, eats whatever’s fast and available, and has been meaning to “get back on track” since approximately March of last year and they are convinced that this bottle is the thing standing between them and no more belly fat.

This is not a judgment. I know that the curtains feel like action, like you’re doing something. You research them, you order them, they arrive, you take them at the right time with the right amount of water, and you feel like you have your life together. That feeling is real. The results, without the house underneath them, are not.

We will spend $150 a month on a supplement stack before we commit to a consistent bedtime. We will buy a greens powder instead of eating a vegetable. We will take a “focus blend” instead of putting down our phones before bed. It would be funny if it weren’t so deeply, universally human.

So before you click “add to cart” on whatever thing an influencer just told you will change your life, I want you to sit with these questions for a second:

• Are you sleeping 7-9 hours most nights?
• Are you moving your body consistently and with intention?
• Are you eating nutritious foods you enjoy most days?
• Do you have people in your corner who make this easier?

If the answer to any of those is “…working on it” or a long exhale followed by silence, you don’t have a supplement problem. You have a house that needs some work.

And that’s okay. That’s fixable. But no curtain is going to fix it.

Build the house or your own fairytale cottage first. Then we’ll talk about what to put on the windows.

I would love to hear what curtains you have bought while your house was still under construction. Email me at [email protected]