Functional Health: Why Generic Health Plans Fail Women

Functional health podcast episode featuring Erin Trier on hormone testing, toxic load reduction, and personalized health strategies for women

Functional Health: Why One-Size-Fits-All Health Strategies Don’t Work for Women

Introduction

If you’ve ever felt like your health advice came from a cookie-cutter playbook that wasn’t designed for you, you’re not alone. Millions of women are waking up to a profound truth: the “eat less, work out harder” mentality that worked in their twenties simply doesn’t cut it anymore. This realization brought functional health coach and wellness expert Erin Trier to a major turning point in her own life—and it’s transforming how women everywhere approach their health.

In a recent episode of the Living Simpler Podcast, host Amy Mewborn and Erin Trier dive deep into the concept of bioindividuality, the limitations of conventional medicine, and practical strategies for reducing your toxic load without overwhelming yourself. Their conversation reveals why functional health is becoming increasingly essential for women navigating midlife transitions, perimenopause, and the endless pressure to “do it all.”

If you’ve been struggling with unexplained fatigue, hormonal imbalances, or symptoms that your doctor dismisses as “normal for your age,” this episode—and this post—might just be the wake-up call you need.

What Is Bioindividuality, and Why Does It Matter?

Bioindividuality is the understanding that every person’s body is fundamentally unique. Your genetics, lifestyle factors, stress levels, environmental exposures, and physiological makeup are distinctly yours. Yet conventional healthcare treats health like a one-size-fits-all proposition.

“When we’re thinking about health, I like to look at the whole picture,” Erin explains. “It’s not just fitness, it’s not just nutrition—it’s all of these other buckets. How are things relationally in your life? How are things spiritually? How are things in your environment from the stress you’re managing to the products you use?”

This whole-body, systems-based approach is the foundation of functional health. Rather than masking symptoms with pills, functional practitioners ask: What’s the root cause? What are the interconnected systems that are out of balance?

Amy compares the human body to a “spider web” where every organ and system is intricately connected. When one area is out of balance, it affects everything else. Traditional medicine, by contrast, often treats symptoms in isolation—a siloed approach that Erin and Amy both critique as ineffective for lasting health.

The Lab Testing Gap: Normal vs. Optimal

One of the most eye-opening revelations in the episode is the difference between “normal” lab results from conventional doctors and the “optimal” lab ranges that functional practitioners use.

When you get blood work from a traditional doctor, your results are compared against a “normal range” that’s based on sick people who also visited the doctor. As Amy points out, this is fundamentally flawed: “You are being measured in the normal range against other sick people, not against what’s optimal and where you actually feel good.”

Functional health practitioners look for:

Comprehensive thyroid panels (not just TSH)
Sex hormone testing (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone)
Cortisol levels and waking patterns
Inflammatory markers
Iron and ferritin levels
Deeper metabolic assessments

This more comprehensive approach reveals nutrient deficiencies and hormonal imbalances years before they develop into serious diseases. Early intervention becomes possible—preventing conditions like type 2 diabetes or autoimmune disease before they become full-blown crises.

Why Women’s Hormone Health Is Chronically Overlooked

Amy shares a striking personal story: She visited a cardiologist for 18 months with mysteriously elevated blood pressure. She was prescribed medication after medication—never once did they test her hormones. When she finally discovered that estrogen depletion was causing vasodilation issues and blood pressure spikes, everything clicked.

“Our sex hormones are crucial for so many different functionalities in the body—from how we manage stress to how our metabolic health functions overall to blood sugar stability and so much more,” Erin emphasizes.

This oversight is tragically common. Women entering perimenopause—which can begin as early as the mid-30s—aren’t educated about the cascading hormonal shifts that affect metabolism, mood, sleep, and physical symptoms like frozen shoulder, hair loss, and brain fog.

The episode references Dr. Sarah Gottfried’s experience where perimenopause symptoms were dismissively labeled as “WW” (whiny woman) in medical training. This cultural bias within conventional medicine has left women underserved for decades.

Breaking Free from the “Grind Harder” Narrative

Perhaps the most liberating message from this episode is the challenge to old narratives around health.

Erin describes seeing women stuck in the mindset of “do more, try harder, press through, and grind forever.” This chronic stress state—combined with underfueling on nutrition and sleep—creates a perfect storm. Your body enters survival mode, holding onto weight and manifesting symptoms as it desperately tries to communicate that something is wrong.

“There’s a major imbalance of how much we’re giving and how much we’re giving back to ourselves,” Erin says. “We’re inundated with managing all the things between kids, jobs, marriages, everything. And we aren’t slowing down to be intentional enough with really filling our cups.”

The solution? Understanding your parasympathetic nervous system. When you activate rest-and-digest mode through stress management, quality sleep, and adequate nutrition, your body can finally heal. Inflammation drops. Energy returns. Hormones rebalance.

Five Low-Tox Swaps to Start Today

Erin offers practical, non-overwhelming advice for reducing your toxic load—the concept Amy focuses on through her Living Simpler brand.

Start small. Pick one category at a time:

Laundry Detergent – Switch to a cleaner option that won’t cause skin reactions
Personal Care Products – Skincare, makeup, and hair care with fewer endocrine-disrupting chemicals
Home Cleaning Products – Conventional cleaners are surprisingly toxic; swap as you run out
Air Quality – Ditch heavily scented candles and synthetic fragrances
Water Quality – Consider what you’re drinking and bathing in daily

The key insight: Don’t try to overhaul everything at once. As Erin advises, “Pick a room and pick a drawer in the room and go little by little and chip away as you run out of things.”

This approach feels sustainable because it is sustainable. You’re not spending hundreds of dollars overhauling your life overnight. Instead, you’re making intentional swaps over time.

The Ripple Effect: Health for the Next Generation

As a mother of four, Erin is passionate about how these choices ripple forward. Teaching daughters about clean products and hormone health now means they’ll avoid the struggles their mothers faced.

“There are products in our environment that have endocrine disrupting chemicals,” Erin notes. “And when we are pouring that all over our body, all over our hair, we’re inhaling it—it really does change how our sinuses feel and so much more.”

By choosing cleaner products today, you’re not just healing yourself—you’re modeling health literacy for the next generation.

Key Takeaway: Your Health Protocol Must Fit Your Life

Perhaps the most important principle from this episode: A perfect plan you can’t sustain is worse than an imperfect plan you actually follow.

Health protocols should be personalized to your current life circumstances, stress level, budget, and capacity. Erin works with women to build plans that feel manageable and sustainable, not perfect and overwhelming.

Conclusion

The conversation between Amy and Erin is a rallying cry for women ready to reclaim agency over their health. You don’t have to accept vague diagnoses, dismissive doctors, or the narrative that declining health is just “normal” as you age.

Bioindividuality means your health journey is uniquely yours. It means investigating root causes through comprehensive functional lab work. It means questioning whether your old health strategies still serve you. And it means taking small, sustainable steps toward a cleaner, more nourishing life.

Ready to dive deeper? Follow Erin Trier on Instagram and visit aaroncrier.com to explore her coaching programs and functional health resources. And don’t miss more empowering conversations on the Living Simpler Podcast.

Your body is waiting for you to listen.