This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while.

I’m not sure why sharing numbers feels weird to me. It just does. I kept opening this draft and closing it and opening it again. But I keep feeling this call to share it anyway, because I think there are creators out there who need to be woken up a little.

So here it is. $14,377.17 from ShopMy, across nine payouts between May 1 and July 10.

May 1: $2,400 May 8: $48.48 May 15: $500 May 22: $1,400 Jun 5: $2,700 Jun 19: $28.69 Jun 26: $2,100 Jul 3: $3,900 Jul 10: $1,300

I’m leaving that list exactly as it is because I want you to see the $28.69 week sitting right next to the $2,700 week. That’s what this actually looks like. It is not a clean line going up. Some weeks you open the app and you laugh.

And I want to be clear about something else. I did not do this last month. I stopped, and it showed immediately. That’s honestly why I trust this framework enough to hand it to you, because I’ve now seen both sides of it.

I’m sharing it because anyone can be a content creator right now. Truly anyone. But you have to activate the energy of money first. If there is no motivation around money, you will not see results. I really believe that. You can post beautiful things forever and stay broke if some part of you is embarrassed about getting paid.

I’ve been doing this since 2013. Thirteen years. And even though I love what I do, there is a part of me that goes wtf, why am I not at 1 million followers already?

I’m not sure what kind of blockage that is. All I know is I’m already there. So soon I’ll be telling you I hit the 1 million followers.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on how the algorithm works and I have a strategy in place. If it works I’ll share it. But honestly I don’t think it’s the algorithm. I think I’m going to activate that 1M followers through more discipline and being fearless.

Something is holding me back and as I write this I’m getting goosebumps.

How come I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m scared of showing a more artistic, fun way? I’m not showing my potential right now. God is showing me a path and I’m slowly trying to unlock it. Some of you are going to understand exactly what I’m trying to say. This is a sign my life is about to change really soon!

Social media is full of do this, show that, act as a founder, no wait, act as a creator, be an expert in your field, this and that. It’s exhausting. Your brand balangy is hormonal wellness so just talk about that, they said.

But everything is about our hormones really! We’re all trying to balance every single day with food, fitness, nervous system, healthy boundaries, spirituality. Right?

I’m done with the noise. That’s what’s been keeping me blocked to some degree. I’m working on the fear I have about stepping into my next soul human level. I think you’ll see the shift in my Instagram when I shake off a few things.

Okay. Now let me actually help you. Keep in mind this is just part of the equation of revenue. I also have brand partnerships outside of shopmy and Amazon.

First, what ShopMy is and how you get in

ShopMy is an affiliate platform. You link products you already use and love, people buy through your link, you get a commission. That’s the whole thing.

It’s my favorite one. So clean, so easy to understand, and almost all of your favorite brands are already in there.

To apply you generally need at least 1,000 followers, and they review every application case by case. They want to see that you’re actually sharing products with your audience, that your people are engaged, and ideally that you’ve worked with brands before. Review takes about 3 to 5 business days. If you get denied you can reapply after 90 days.

Balangy is on there too, by the way. Add your affiliate links.

The pros

It’s clean and you can actually see everything. Every link, every click, every order. No guessing.

You get paid weekly. Every Friday through Stripe or PayPal, once you have at least $11 in your next payment. The part nobody warns you about: commissions sit in “pending” for 30 to 120 days depending on the retailer, because of return windows and how each brand processes. So it’s not instant. But once it starts flowing it keeps flowing, and that’s the beautiful part.

You don’t have to buy anything to start. Link the products you already have at home. That’s it. Buying comes later, if ever. Because the more consistant you are, the more gifts and opportunnities.

Brands can see you. Every mention, your views, how much you’re selling with their brand or in their category. This is the part people miss. You’re not just making commission, you’re building a case for yourself in front of brands who are actively looking. Maybe you are tagging a makeup brand you like. But another brand is a competitor and will send you gift for you to try and share.

The format is flexible. An outfit you already posted to stories, a GRWM reel, a shelf of products. It’s great for automation posts too.

One piece of content can pay you for months. I’ve had reels go viral where the brand never paid me a cent directly, and I made really good commission off them. The content paid for itself. Automations are your bestie!

The cons, because I’m not going to pretend

It can feel like you’re sharing too much. I feel it. Some days I feel like all I do is send people links. But people do ask me tp share!

Some people don’t like being sent to a link all the time. They’re probably not making money as a creator, so they don’t understand your needs and your work.

The ego gets loud. Especially when the brand isn’t paying you in full and it’s just commission. You have to keep going anyway. And if you do, opportunities from that brand or competitor start showing up inside the app, which is extra money on top of the commission. If a brand really loves you, they’ll collaborate with you outside the app entirely.

It’s slow at the beginning and you have to trust it. Between the pending window and the algorithm, you’re working now for money you’ll see in three months.

One thing that makes all of it worth it: you’re building your creator portfolio. Every brand you work with goes into your media kit. Brands right now don’t only want influencers. They want creators who are artistic, who have something to share, who are authentic and relatable, who are telling a story. And collaborating with creators who are also founders is becoming really popular too.

Now here’s the part I’ve been wanting to write for months.

Below the line: the mistake that cost me a whole income stream and the two rules I made because of it. The tier system actually explained, including how the points are weighted so you know where to put your energy. Twelve questions I want you to answer before you post anything, because the fear of being seen is what actually stops people, not the strategy. My weekly framework. And a 7 day challenge you can start today if you already have ShopMy.

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I understand why some people are against it. I mean, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is a trillionaire, right? We all know the conspiracy theories and try to not support certain businesses, but the truth is Amazon is helping millions of busy people that don’t have time to go to the store, millions of content creators make thousands of dollars a month, and many many CPG founders.

Someone messaged me the other day on Instagram: I don’t know if I can trust you since you are sharing so many products from Amazon. I answered: you don’t have to trust me. That’s it. I don’t explain myself to someone that doesn’t understand this world. Please, when I add Balangy to Amazon, share it as an Amazon content creator and also buy from Amazon.

Of course everyone knows that when you order a brand from Amazon it’s more about getting it faster. Prime 2 day? I don’t even know if that’s accurate nowadays. But if you have a cart and decide you want to order another product and hit buy, it’s more efficient than hitting that buy button and going to the other website and buying it. But when you order for example straight from a brand website, the packaging and aesthetic of what you receive is much more special and sometimes you get samples or free product. So your pick. Both are great.

But one thing I can say is, I order from Amazon a lot. I test. And if I love it and it’s legit, I share. So today I’m sharing my fav Amazon August buys that you will love.

1. Ninja air fryer 6 in 1 - Love the size of this non toxic air fryer and my food is crispy! It also has a dehydrator feature to make those veggie and fruit dehydrated snacks.

2. Adding my favorite Fishwife sardines to this list because it’s my favorite and it’s the brand I used in this recipe I made with the air fryer.

3. A slim toaster - I used to toast my bread and bagels in my last air fryer, and now this non toxic air fryer with the perfect size lets me have a toaster next to it. So I can keep both functions separate, or use them at the same time.

4. I bought these counter kitchen stools for my kitchen on Amazon and decided it was just too blah, so I got these padded sheepskin pads to make it look more chic and more comfy.

5. My re-order cleaning products. Branch Basics - They last such a long time. The smell is great, soft, and cleans so good. For years an add on. Paired with this, the best kitchen towels on Amazon.

6. With a new puppy I’m washing my hands more and more, so I just needed to buy the most non toxic hand wash out there. Eco Koala - Also got their wonderful dish soap.

7. The Seed pre and probiotics for my daughters. I give it to them with milk, mixed with the frother, and they love it.

8. Zen Basil seeds for my smoothies and puddings, Terrasoul black sesame seeds for my paste, and honey black drizzle syrup for iced coffees or matchas. Let me know if you want the recipe.

Here is the complete list, let me know which one is your favorite. What recipes do you want me to make with the air fryer?

xo, Gi 🖤

I leave the more complicated salads to the restaurants. And even there, the ones I order are very simple.

At home we really focus on simple. Four ingredients simple.

The salad we make on repeat

Romaine lettuce, purple carrots, red onion and cucumbers. All thinly sliced. That’s it.

Some days it’s even less. Just a cucumber salad. Or just lettuce with dressing. Still nourishing, still counts.

My dressing on repeat

This dressing will make any salad taste good:

• olive oil

• apple cider vinegar

• dijon mustard

• lemon juice

• sea salt

• pepper and

• oregano.

Put everything inside a container, add an ice cube, close it and shake.

The ice cube is to make the dressing cold. I love cold dressings. Get it? A cold dressing on crunchy thinly sliced vegetables. So good. You can add also the ginger lemon cube:

Don’t overcomplicate it

Please don’t think a healthy nourishing side salad must have 10 ingredients. It doesn’t.

Focus on minimal and consistency. A simple salad you actually make every day will do so much more for you than the fancy one you make once a month.

That’s it. That’s the whole post. Go make the salad!

xo, Gi 🖤

Signs you need to support more drainage pathways:

• Underarm odor

• Constipation or diarrhea

• General or chronic fatigue

• Mood problems: anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder

• Poor cognitive function

• Chronic inflammation

• Sleep disturbances: waking between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. or feeling tired upon waking

• Fluid retention or swelling

• Skin issues: rashes, itching, hives, eczema, acne, or yellowish skin

• Puffy eyes

• Suppressed immune system

• Sore or swollen breast tissue

• Sensitivities to light, sound, or electromagnetic fields

• Morning stiffness

• Swollen glands

• Cellulite or flabby skin

• Varicose or spider veins

• Breathing or lung problems

• Signs of biofilm

• Frequent headaches or migraines

• Unexplained weight gain

• Heart palpitations or irregular heartbeat

• General discomfort or feelings of inflammation

• Difficulty clearing infections despite treatment

• Joint or muscle pain

• Difficulty concentrating or brain fog

• Frequent allergies or cold-like symptoms

• Mood swings or irritability without an obvious cause

• Weakened immune system or frequent infections

• Inadequate sweating or infrequent urination

If you counted more than a few, those aren’t random. They’re signs your drainage pathways need support. Your body is always trying to eliminate what doesn’t serve it, through your colon, your liver, your lymph, all the way down to your cells. When those pathways get sluggish, everything backs up, and your body starts whispering. Then shouting.

And it truly starts with the colon. The colon sits at the bottom of the drainage funnel, so when it’s constipated, every level above it clogs too: the liver and bile ducts, the lymph, your organs and tissues, all the way up to your cells.

That’s why this is a 30 day cleanse, and it’s life changing. It cleanses you from the inside of the cell, which is where your mitochondria reside. Your mitochondria generate the energy for detoxification, support your immune defense, and aid in DNA repair. When they’re not working, detox stalls, and you feel it: fatigue, brain fog, headaches, memory issues, and a body that holds on to what it should be releasing.

That’s what this month’s challenge is about. I put everything into one guide. Here’s exactly what’s inside:

• Drainage 101: Why It’s the First Step in Detox, and the drainage funnel explained (your colon, liver and bile ducts, lymphatic system, organs and tissues, and cells)

• Signs You Need to Support More Drainage Pathways, the printable version of the checklist above

• Tips for Optimal Urination, Bowel Movements, and Sweating

• Actively Heal Your Intestine, the four steps

• Recommended Foods During Your Cleanse: what to avoid, hidden sugary foods, and exactly what to eat

• Your Drainage Protocol, step by step

• Self Healing Recommendations

• Product Recommendations

No counting calories, no extremes, nothing you don’t have time for. Just opening the pathways your body already has. First week will probably be a little challenging its like a car wash and the next 3 weeks you are just feeling so good you are enjoying the process. Yes, it requires discipline with cleanse supplements. Do the best you can.

The complete Drainage Cleanse guide is right below for my paid subscribers, everything you need to start today, and the details for our live kickoff. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading, this is the month to do it. Your body will thank you.

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Here’s the part I don’t think I’ve ever told you: she is the reason Balangy exists.

I learned about wild yam root from her. That’s it. That’s where it started. I tried it, I loved it, my body responded, and then I got obsessed and decided to make my own version of it. Which became the Balancing Hormones Body Oil, which is truly my hero product.

My heavy bleeding got lighter. My hormonal migraines haven’t come back since 2023. The mood swings softened and I felt like I wasn’t bipolar anymore. The night sweats stopped.

Starting something new here

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while: share my favorite teachings from the experts I actually love learn from. Videos, podcasts, books, the things I rewind and write down.

I’m going to do it as a Q+A. Their answers, in their words.

First one is Barbara O’Neill, obviously.

And I picked the iron conversation because you know I’ve been working on my ferritin for a long time now, and it is finally going up.

Everyone is obsessed with the iron and nobody is asking why it isn’t absorbing

This is the part that drives me a little crazy.

So many people find out they’re low in iron and go straight to iron supplements, straight to infusions. And listen, sometimes that is necessary, I’m not here to argue with anyone’s doctor. But if you never ask why your body isn’t holding onto iron, you’re going to be back in the same place next year. An infusion can help you but it doesn’t answer the why.

That’s exactly what Barbara talks about here, and it’s the thing that reframed the whole puzzle for me.

The Q+A

Q: Why do so many people stay low in iron, even when they’re eating well?

“I suffered low iron for thirteen years until I solved the puzzle. Now iron is bound up in food, and it needs acid to liberate it, to free it from food. So most people with low iron, they’re either bleeding very heavily at period time, so they need the wild yam root to stop that. And they also can be low in hydrochloric acid, because the acid liberates the iron.”

Q: Okay so why would someone be low in hydrochloric acid in the first place?

“If someone’s eating every couple of hours, that exhausts the digestive enzymes, so they’re low in hydrochloric acid. If someone drinks with their meals, it waters down their hydrochloric acid. If someone overeats, overburdens the stomach, it exhausts hydrochloric acid. If someone’s highly stressed when they’re eating, that exhausts hydrochloric acid.”

Q: So how do you actually boost hydrochloric acid?

“Only eat at meal times, only drink between meals. When you sit down to dine, no stressful things should be discussed at the meal table. Take a little bit of cayenne pepper with your meal, that’ll wake anything up. Having the juice of a lemon with a little very hot water just before the meal, that can also boost hydrochloric acid.”

Q: And what does any of this have to do with ferritin specifically?

“Ferritin is iron stores, and the body uses protein to bind with iron to store it as ferritin. So often people with low ferritin levels is because they’re not eating enough protein. And they may be eating enough protein, but if they haven’t got enough hydrochloric acid, they can’t break down the protein.”

This is the part that made me stop and rewind.

Ferritin is a protein that binds to iron and stores it. So the storage itself is made of protein. Low ferritin can mean you’re not eating enough protein. And it can also mean you are eating the protein and your body can’t break it down, because you don’t have the acid to do it.

So low protein and low stomach acid and low iron can all be the same thing showing up on different lines of your labs.

Get it? That’s what took me years to learn and see.

So here’s what I’m actually doing

1. Lemon juice in hot water before meals. Not with. Before. And I stopped drinking water during meals, I drink between them instead.

2. Protein at every meal (meat or vegan), eaten calmly. Sitting down, no stressful conversations, no doom scrolling.

3. Handling the bleeding, not just the iron. Because you cannot fill a bucket with a hole in it. Wild yam, my oil, cycle support. This is the piece almost nobody addresses.

4. Also, other ways to work on your hydrochloric acid is plain celery juice on an empty stomach, and also instead of lemon water before meals, do apple cider vinegar diluted with water. Don’t drink liquids with meals and protect your peace. Recalibrate, you know, after stressful or misaligned moments that we all have.

5. Digestive enzimes and digestive bitters.

If you know me I have always shared my body changes, health challenges, postpartum, and I feel right now the most prevalent one is to keep raising my ferritin. So many people ask me why I don’t do a transfusion and I believe it’s because I felt a lot of connection with this explanation right here.

If you want to know more, my protocol at the moment is this one:

Coming up: the Drainage Challenge starts Tuesday, August 18, and I’ll be sharing everything as I go. Paid subscribers, we have a live Q+A at 11AM on day one, and the ebook drops that same day too!

xo, Gi 🖤

You travel, you’re out of your routine for a few weeks, you’re eating different, sleeping different, moving different. And then you come home and there’s this little voice that wants to make it a whole thing. Guilt, overthinking, “I’ll start Monday,” all of it.

I want to tell you something before we get into the steps. Bouncing back is not about punishing your body for the trip. It’s discipline, yes. But it’s also understanding that this is not only a physical thing. It’s feeling good from the inside. That’s the whole point.

And before I give you my steps, let me tell you where all of this started for me. Because I’ve been working out since I was 13 or 14 years old. Literally.

It started with my mom

I grew up in Venezuela, and if you know, you know: being a member of a club there is a whole lifestyle. Tennis, the gym, classes, the restaurant, kids camp, the carnival event where we rehearsed for months and put on a costume. Everything happened at the club.

My mom had her fitness routine and I watched that growing up. She was fit, my dad was lean, and honestly there was no talk about bodies in my house. It was just movement as part of life.

So I watched my mom, and I followed.

Flamingo legs

Then one day, at 13, someone told me my legs looked like a flamingo.

I think that was the first time I ever felt insecurity with my body. Something triggered the heck out of that. Then came the comments about my nose (they called me tucan, and that’s another story for later...).

I loved tennis. I went to summer camps like Evert and Bollettieri, and going to the US Open was my dream. But something shifted in my body and my mindset around that time.

I’m telling you this because I never had an eating disorder. But it could’ve happened… My thesis was actually about eating disorders, and even today I know intuitively, energetically and physically when someone is going through it. But at one point I was taking those Brazilian pills that were so popular back then, the ones that made you not hungry. Everyone I knew was doing it, so I did it too.

What I know now

With time I’ve learned to be respectful with the words we say about other people’s bodies. The way I speak to myself. And most importantly, teaching my daughters that our body is a temple. It is perfect. And we all have different bodies.

Practicing this is what led me to intuitive eating. To listening to my body when it needs less exercise or more. To going with the flow when I travel, and bouncing back when I’m home. No drama, no guilt spiral. Just back to what makes me feel good.

I had a few trips this summer and my body is craving stability and routine right now. It’s also craving a drainage protocol to optimize my colon, liver, skin, organs, lymphatic system and cells (hello mitochondria). More on that at the end, because you’re invited.

So here they are. My steps to bounce back and feel your hot energy better self.

The 12 steps

1. Optimize your sleep. Magnesium, L-theanine, tart cherry, and lavender and Roman chamomile essential oils. Sleep is where the bounce back actually happens.

2. Organize your supplements. Pick your top 6. Hopefully liposomal vitamin C, liposomal glutathione and PC are in there.

3. Schedule a colon hydrotherapy. I do this once a year.

4. Schedule your workouts for the week. For example: Monday flow yoga and a walk. Tuesday hot pilates. Wednesday jogging and weights. Thursday just walk. Friday boxing or pilates. Written down, in the calendar. Don’t negotiate with yourself every morning. I am member of Anatomy Gym and also love the MindBody app.

5. Have workout clothes that make you feel good. That you like the fit. Whatever doesn’t make you feel good, give it away. Make space for the new and for whatever makes you feel comfy and hot.

6. Prioritize water optimization and sweating. Both directions. In and out.

7. Make a schedule of what you’ll eat that week. Simple, nourishing and easy. You can check the 7 Day Sardine Challenge and add your other favorite nourishing meals.

8. Protein smoothie post workout. A must. I also take mine with amino acid caps.

9. Prioritize pooping every day. If that’s not happening... more fiber, and get yourself Oxy Powder caps (check on blocked emotions too. what needs to be digested there?)

10. Optimize your lymphatic system. Vibration plate, rebounder, jumping rope, massage. And can you schedule a drainage massage? This is everything. My ideal combo: hydro colon cleanse one day, drainage massage the next.

11. Warm lemon ginger water first thing in the morning. And sunlight. Sunlight is codes activation. So many people are scared of the sun, and even though I know too much sun is too much, protect with a mineral sunscreen but not for the sunrise or sunset. Let that light touch you and activate you.

12. Listen to Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer on YouTube. I find their voices so comforting. Like a sweet grandma and grandpa with so much wisdom speaking to me.

I can keep going, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. This is easy for me because I’ve been doing it a long time. Be at your own pace and take whatever resonates with you.

Want to do a drainage protocol with me?

I’m starting a 30 day drainage protocol at the end of the month, and if you want to join, you are more than welcome. We start Tuesday, August 18th, and the Parasite Cleanse starts September 23rd (full moon is September 26).

Im a cellcore practitioner. Here’s what’s in your cart for drainage:

Step 1: Jumpstart Kit + Bowel Mover

Create your account here: cellcore.com/pages/register-customer?code=taESDvNL

Important: use patient code taESDvNL when creating your account so I can manually apply a 15% discount to all your orders. Order ASAP so everything arrives before the 18th.

And I’m going to let you know now: I’m doing the full 4 month cleanse (the foundational protocol). I did it 2 years ago and felt incredible. You start with Step 1 and then decide if you want to do the next steps, or just the 7 day parasite cleanse (the full moon ParaKit).

For my paid subscribers: we’ll have a live the day we start, August 18th, for all your questions. And everyone, ask me anything in the comments or just say hi!

Next week: your drainage prep, what to expect week by week. Ask questions in the comments. Happy to answer all!

xo, Gi 🖤

Nobody prepares you for that one. You’re learning a whole new body, you’re barely sleeping, and then one day you catch your own scent and you’re like... wait. Is this me??

My lymph nodes were so inflamed I was pressing warm water compresses into my underarms just to get some relief. But that’s actually how I learned, the hard way, that the armpit is not just skin.

And it wasn’t just postpartum. Somewhere in my mid thirties it happened again. My body started to smell different, especially the week before my period. I’d shower, put on my deodorant, and by the afternoon it was back.

But here’s the thing about me. I didn’t stay in that “is something wrong with me” place for long. You know me, I’m a wellness junkie. Curious by nature. So instead of buying deodorant number five and hoping, I went digging.

And what I found, is that this is rarely just one thing. Yes, it can be heavy metals. Yes, it can be hormonal. And yes, it can most definitely be blocked lymph nodes. For me it was layered: hormones shifting and a lymphatic system asking for help, at the exact moments my body was working its hardest.

But when I started talking about this with the women around me? Almost every one had noticed the same change. After a baby. Before her period. Into her forties. And almost every one was quietly blaming herself and just buying something stronger. That smelled good!

So today I’m walking you through what I found, wellness junkie to wellness junkie. And then I’m taking you behind the scenes of what I did about it, because honestly, this is the story of how Balangy was born.

It’s hormones, not hygiene.

Your scent changes with your cycle. Not a rumor. Chemistry. It’s happening to your daughter too, as early as 9 years old.

When estrogen and progesterone move, your sweat chemistry moves with them. Postpartum, when everything is recalibrating at once. The week before your period, every single month. And then through your mid thirties or 40’s into perimenopause, when those hormones start their longer goodbye. Your energy changes, your skin changes, and yes, your scent changes too.

You were never given anything made for how your body actually works. You were given products designed to shut it up. I’m tired of brands trying to mask things and not going to the root cause!

Your armpit is not just skin. It’s a drain.

Your underarm holds one of the densest clusters of lymph nodes in your whole body. Your lymphatic system is your drainage network. It carries waste and fluid away, and yes, that includes the heavy metals we pick up from everyday life. And here’s the thing: unlike your heart, it has no pump of its own. It depends on movement. On massage. On you. Thats why we also included the body tool.

Now think about what regular deodorant does. Aluminum’s entire job is to plug your sweat glands shut. Right on top of your body’s drainage system.

and fragance? don’t get me started.

Blocking is not cleaning.

So when drainage slows down at the exact moment your hormones are shifting, that odor has nowhere to go. It just moves right through whatever you layered on top. That’s why “stronger” never worked. We were solving the wrong problem the whole time!

So I went looking.

I was so tired of being told my body was a problem. Every product on the shelf had the same answer: block it, mask it, hide it.

I wanted the opposite. Something clean, aluminum free, no baking soda, no synthetic fragrance, that actually supported my body through the change instead of fighting it. Something made for the hormonal reality nobody talks about.

I could not find it anywhere. Anywhere!

Balancing Deodorant is what came out of that search. And before I ever put the Balangy name on it, I wore it on my own body for over a year. Every phase of my cycle. Including the luteal week that used to make me dread my own scent. Hot pilates and yoga around that time was like “please dont smell.”

And here’s the part people don’t believe me on: I haven’t worn deodorant during the day in over a year. I put it on at night. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

The night ritual.

This is my favorite part because it flips everything we were taught about deodorant.

1. Before bed, on clean dry underarms.

2. Two passes, massaged in gently. The massage is not extra, it’s part of it. That light pressure supports your lymphatic flow.

3. Every night. The first few nights are a reset. By the end of the first week, most women just... stop thinking about odor. (by the way, men too - but our brand avatar is women, so I speak to women)

It lives on my bathroom or nightstand, not in my gym bag. Night is when your body does its deepest work, and this works with that window instead of plugging everything shut in the morning.

And because “it worked for me” wasn’t enough, I put it on the hardest testers I could find. Hot yoga instructors. Pilates instructors. A boxing gym trainers (including men.) Women deep in perimenopause and menopause. My logic was simple: if it holds for the women who sweat for a living and the women whose hormones are shifting the most, it holds for everyone in between. Eleven women sent me testimonials and not one of them was paid. My favorite: “i stopped dreading that part of my cycle.”

It’s even clean enough that my almost ten year old daughter uses it few nights a week. That’s my bar now.

This is what balanced-ish has always been about.

Your body is not broken. It’s speaking. Odor before your period isn’t a flaw to fix, it’s information. Once I understood what mine was saying, I stopped fighting it and built something that listens. My life is always about recalibrating.

And I’ll be honest with you: this is still a practice for me. Those postpartum warm compresses were the beginning, not the end. To this day I focus on my underarm rituals. Drainage. Massage. Bodycare. This area of our body asks for ongoing attention, not a one time fix. The deodorant is my nightly anchor, not the whole story.

Actually, my armpits were my gateway into the entire world of drainage. Which is exactly where we’re going next: the August Drainage Challenge is coming for my paid subscribers, and after this post you already understand why the drainage funnels comes first in everything.

xo, Giselle 🖤

P.S. Next up: the August Drainage Challenge. If your armpits taught you something today, wait until we open the rest of the exit doors.

We’re closing the week with the ceviche sardines, and with the belief release that matters most: the fear that feeling good never lasts. It does last, when you build it the way we did, one simple day at a time. Repetition rewires your brain, and you just gave yourself seven days of it.

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Because this is the heart of everything I do here, and you know I mean the name: balanced-ish is enough. Consistency beats perfection, every time.

On the plate today: the coziest recipe of the week. Herby, bright, on sourdough, and it comes together in minutes. Listen to the Podcast on Healthy Boundaries. The full day are below.

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Today’s recipe tastes like summer. Crispy, fresh, antother Latin fusion twist, and the kind of thing you’ll make again long after this challenge ends. And today’s belief release was made for this exact day of the week, the one about always starting and never following through. Five days in, you already have the receipts against it.

The full recipe, and today’s reframe are all below.

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Today we’re getting our hands in some dough. The recipe is warm, grounding, and Latin-inspired, and I’ll walk you through the whole thing, including three ways to cook it depending on what’s in your kitchen. Then we release the belief I hear most from women who tell me they can’t do a challenge like this: “I don’t have time to care for myself.”

You do. You’ve been proving it all week. thank you for showing up!

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Back when nobody was watching

When I first started on social media, I didn’t show my face for a whole year. I wasn’t searching for approval or validation. That was back in 2013, and honestly, I wasn’t searching for validation from friends either, not even until a few years ago. It just wasn’t something I was thinking about. Whoever followed me got to see my posts, and that was it.

Then the algorithm changed. So many things started shifting in the social media world, but let me focus on Instagram. Suddenly they were pushing your videos to people who weren’t even following you, and it got really strange. But again, we adapted. We moved on. So many new creators entered the space, and honestly, I am so happy about that. There is room for everyone and I am cheering for you.

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Here is where it got toxic for me

I started seeing videos of creators saying that if your friends aren’t supporting you, liking, commenting, then they aren’t really your friends. And I programmed myself with that too. I felt it to the core. I would think, how crazy is it that my friends don’t support my posts. All of these toxic thoughts. More so because building Balangy has been the hardest and most fullfillling things I have ever done.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are people who are pro surveillance. They watch every single step on your story and never leave a word or a like. That is a different story. And then there is the muting. I know you muted me. It’s so obvious. And you probably know I muted you too.

The honest truth about how I use this app

Sometimes I unfollow very fast. Their is just no way that button is not hit. Sometimes I mute someone because there is a chance I’m just not connecting with their content at the moment, and I will check on them from time to time, and maybe unmute later. The whole process of unfollowing and following back can feel a little cringe, that “heyy” energy.

So let me get back to what I really want to share.

The algorithm will sometimes show me a friend’s post from five days ago, or it won’t show it to me at all. Do you get this? It would be impossible for me to like and comment on every single friend’s post. I value the connections I have made.

I had to release it, because it was making me depressed

I have a small circle of friends and a lot of connections that I absolutely adore and love. I am a single mama of two daughters, running two businesses and taking care of myself. I do not have the time to see every post my friends put up. When I see it, I support it. But there can be weeks where I’m so focused on my own content, scrolling the bare minimum, that I will miss tons of my friends’ posts. And then there will be a week where, organically, I see them and I like them.

Reframe what social media actually is

Social media is an amazing tool, and it’s really not just for friends. Most entrepreneurs use it as a source for marketing and for building community, and all of my friends are entrepreneurs. Within that scope, we can consciously collaborate and support each other in the ways we can.

When I really want a friend to receive and support a post, I send it to them directly. And they are there, inside the comments. They know that if I send it, it’s important to me, and that they probably would have missed it otherwise. So I make sure to send it straight to their DM.

What happens if you do that and the friend does nothing, not a single thing? In that case, scan that friendship, because that is weird. But thinking that every friend and every person you know is seeing and viewing all of your reels? That is the crazy part.

And one more thing. If you do see a friend’s post and it’s a partnership with a brand, support it. Like it, comment on it, help the algorithm reach more people. So many times, when Instagram knows it’s a paid post, the reach drops way down. So don’t be that friend. When you see a branded post, show up for it.

Remember your power

Focus on the energy of the content for yourself and for the community you are building. Keep working on dissolving the need for external validation from likes and comments. Don’t force yourself to like and comment on everything. That’s not it. Entrepreneurs understand that it is impossible to keep up with all of it.

Be yourself. Scan the thoughts that are not making you feel good. Scan your environment. And most of all, remember your power. Your voice matters. Someone out there is really waiting for you to share your journey.

This is what Balanced-ish is for. Not just hormones and recipes, but the unfiltered conversations about how we actually live, work, and take care of our minds in the middle of it all…

And yes, I see the irony of writing all of this and then asking you to like, comment and restack. Hahaha. But if this moved you, share it. Someone in your circle needs to release this too. And that support? Give it because you felt something, not because you had to.

Cheering for you, always.

xo, Gi 🖤

Today’s recipe is the fastest one of the whole week. This is how it all started for me. This recipe! Five minutes, no cooking, and your gut will thank you for it. And today’s belief release goes deep: it’s the one about seeing your body as a project to fix instead of a home to live in. If you’ve ever looked in the mirror and only seen the to-do list, today is for you.

Keep your rituals going: lemon-ginger water in the morning, body oil and gua sha through the day, golden latte in the afternoon. Watch LIVE recorded video and short sardine video below:

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Today’s recipe is light, mineral-rich, and honestly fun to eat. Think sushi, hand roll energy, no cooking skills required. And today’s belief to release is one so many of us have carried since childhood: the idea that healthy food is boring, or a punishment. We’re done with that one.

Your rituals are waiting, your recipe is below, and the Chat is already going. Watch the video below :)

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Here’s the rhythm of every day this week: one sardine recipe to nourish your body, the rituals and habits that support your hormones and your drainage, and one limiting belief to let go of, so your mind gets nourished too, not just your plate. That’s it. Simple enough to actually do.

Today we’re also meeting live at 11AM EST here on the chat - to open the challenge together, and the first recipe of the week is one of my favorites: fresh, herby, and ready in minutes.

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A beautiful, printable guide with everything inside: your rituals of the week, how to get your body ready, your supplements and exactly when to take them, your weekly movement calendar, all 7 sardine recipes with full ingredients and directions, my personal tips, a grocery shopping list you can take straight to the store, and your daily belief release, because we’re nourishing your mind too, not just your plate. Check out these recipes if you are still unsure to join.

To the hot girls ready, The e-book was designed printer friendly. Stick it on your fridge, keep it on your counter, scribble on it. By the time you finish your grocery run, you’ll be walking into Day 1 completely ready.

Below you’ll find the guide, a video where I walk you through it page by page, every link you need in one list, and exactly how the challenge works day by day, the Live, the daily Chat, all of it.

See you on the inside.

xo, Giselle

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Not because I didn’t care. Because nobody flinched. The app didn’t flag it like an emergency. I was already taking my omegas, a few things here and there for the levels I knew were low, and I told myself I was handling it. I filed it under “later.”

Here is what “later” looked like.

I got tired. Not normal tired. A confusing, foggy tired that I kept explaining away, because so much of my life was in motion. I’m building a business. I’m a mom of two. I’ve spent the last couple of years recalibrating my whole nervous system to hold the size of the life I’m growing into, financially, spiritually, all of it. Becoming truly independent with money has been one of the biggest breakthroughs of my life, especially after my divorce. So when the exhaustion came, I assumed it was that. The building. The rewiring. The weight of it.

It wasn’t only that.

My vision started going blurry. I remember standing in Pilates literally squinting, thinking what the heck, why can’t I see. I’d get up and the room would tilt and go dizzy. And my hair. My hair started falling. Not a little. Enough that I noticed it everywhere.

That was the moment I went back to my bloodwork. I downloaded the actual document and uploaded it to ChatGPT, and I asked it to look at everything I might have missed.

It did not sugarcoat it. It basically told me I was walking around like a zombie. That with ferritin that low it didn’t understand how I had energy, how I was functioning, how I was upright. That I had an angel on me. That’s when it finally landed for me. This was not a “later” thing. This was a right now thing.

Okay, so what even is ferritin

Quick decode, because this confused me too and I want you to actually understand your own labs.

Iron is the mineral. Ferritin is the storage. Think of iron as the cash in your wallet and ferritin as your savings account. Your body pulls from ferritin when it needs more iron to make hemoglobin, the thing that carries oxygen through your blood.

Anemia is when the deficiency has gone on long enough that your hemoglobin drops too. But here is the part almost nobody tells women: your ferritin can be on the floor while your hemoglobin still looks “normal.” That’s called iron deficiency without anemia. Your standard panel comes back fine, your doctor says you’re fine, and you’re at home losing your hair and seeing spots.

Below 30 is where the symptoms usually start screaming. For energy and for hair, a lot of practitioners want women closer to 50 to 100. “Not anemic” is a very low bar. I don’t want the bare minimum for my body and I don’t want it for you either.

What low ferritin was actually stealing from me

Once I understood it, the whole list of symptoms suddenly had one root. The fatigue. The dizziness when I stood up. The blurry vision. The brain fog I kept blaming on doing too much. The hair on my bathroom floor. Iron feeds your energy, your brain, your oxygen, and your scalp. When the tank is empty, your body starts making cuts. And hair is one of the first things it drops, because keeping you alive matters more than keeping you glossy.

This is the part I need you to hear, especially if you’re doing all the hair things. You can do every peptide, every scalp serum, every rosemary oil, every ritual I’ve ever shared. And your hair will still fall if you’re anemic or your ferritin is low. You cannot grow and hold a healthy head of hair on a body that doesn’t have the blood to sustain the scalp. The ritual builds the fullness. The ferritin holds it. You need both.

Why so many women think this is perimenopause

Here’s what makes this sneaky. Low ferritin and perimenopause share almost the same symptom list. Fatigue, brain fog, mood dips, hair thinning, feeling not-like-yourself. So women in their late 30s and 40s get told “it’s your hormones, it’s your age” and never get their iron stores actually checked.

And it’s a loop. As you move toward perimenopause your cycles can get heavier and closer together, which drains iron even faster. So the iron problem hides inside the hormone story. Both things can be real. But I don’t want you handing your energy and your hair over to “it’s just perimenopause” when a $0 look at your ferritin number could change everything.

You know me. The body is not broken. It’s speaking. Low ferritin is your body telling you the tank is empty, please refill it.

What actually drains your ferritin

Before you refill the tank, you have to know what’s emptying it. Because if you don’t find the leak, you’ll supplement forever and wonder why nothing holds. This is the root cause work I love.

The usual suspects for women:

1. Your period. Heavy or frequent cycles are the number one reason women run low. Every month you bleed out iron, and as you move toward perimenopause those cycles can get heavier, so the drain speeds up right when you need reserves the most.

2. Low stomach acid. Iron absorption starts in the stomach, and you need acid to actually break it down. Under-eating, stress, rushing through meals, or years on acid-reducing meds all lower it. You can eat all the steak in the world and still not absorb it.

3. A gut that’s inflamed. Gluten sensitivity, celiac, H. pylori, general gut inflammation. All of it damages the exact stretch of intestine where iron gets absorbed. The iron goes in and walks right back out.

4. Coffee and tea on top of your meals. The polyphenols bind iron and block it. If you’re an all-day-coffee girl eating iron with a latte in hand, you’re quietly cancelling it out.

5. Under-eating iron, period. Especially if you lean plant-based, workout hard, or you’re in a season of giving everything to everyone but yourself. Pregnancy and postpartum empty the tank hard too, and most of us never fully refill it.

For me it was a stack of these. So the protocol isn’t just “take iron.” It’s refill the tank and fix the leak.

The sardine thing (yes, I said it)

I have to be honest with you. Sardines were basically forced on me for my ferritin. I was like, ugh, fine, let’s do it. I really disliked the smell and the flavor at first. Truly.

And then something shifted. I learned to make them actually delicious, and now my palate loves sardines. Even straight from the can. Yes, I said it out loud. This tiny fish became one of the most powerful, cheapest things I did for my iron, my hormones, and my skin. The full sardine situation, the recipes, the why, all of it is in the protocol below.

One honest note before the protocol

This is not medical advice. I’m not your doctor. This is my own research and my own experience, and iron is one thing you genuinely should not guess at, because too much is a real problem too. Get your ferritin tested, bring your numbers to someone you trust, and use my protocol as a starting point for that conversation, not a prescription.

Because here’s the thing. My first protocol barely worked. I built one, followed it, went back for another blood test, and my ferritin had moved a whole three points. Three. I was so deflated. So I went deeper. I researched, I adjusted, I looked at what was actually working for other women who had brought their levels up and held them there.

And the second version is the one. This is the protocol that finally stabilized my ferritin, the one where I watched my hair stop falling almost immediately. When I found other women stabilizing their levels the same way, I knew. This was it.

Here it is:

• Every step

• every supplement

• the timing

• the mistakes to skip

• and the exact way I take it so it actually absorbs.

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From you guys, six weeks ago: "girlllll your skin ateeee, how long did it take to look this good?" "I love sardines now!" "I don't love sardines, but after learning the benefits I've been adding them to my weekly rotation. Thanks for this!"

My story with sardines started with a number I’d never heard of

My story with sardines started because my ferritin was really low.

If you don’t know what ferritin is, you’re not alone, I didn’t either. Ferritin is the protein that stores your iron. Think of it as your body’s iron savings account. When it drops too low, you’re running on empty. For me, that showed up as my hair falling out, my vision going blurry sometimes, and a fatigue I couldn’t explain.

So I started eating sardines to support my protocol that wil share soon.

I’ll be honest. The first time I ate sardines, I was gagging. But I didn’t give up. I started getting creative with flavors, because that’s what I love doing, creating simple dishes that actually taste good. And slowly, sardines went from something I forced down to something I genuinely reached for.

Here’s what surprised me. I started eating them for my ferritin and my hormones, but the benefits didn’t stop there. My skin got glowy. My energy changed. I felt good in my body in a way I hadn’t in a long time. It stopped being my “ferritin protocol” and became just a food that makes me feel amazing. I eat them as a snack. I eat them as a meal.

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How the challenge was born

Then I got back from Madrid craving more sugar than normal, and I knew my body was asking for a reset. So I decided to create a simple, foundational menu for one week, where at least once a day, I eat sardines. I’ll follow it later with a drainage protocol, and then a parasite cleanse.

My sugar cravings went away and also my pimples.

And I thought: I have to share this.

That’s how the Hot Girl Sardine Challenge was born. Seven days of nourishing your hormones, body, mind, and soul, starting Monday, July 20. And I want you to feel what I felt.

You’re not the only one who’s nervous about sardines

Half of you just made a face, I know. One of you literally messaged me:

“Can you tell me some ways to eat it? I want to but I’m very nervous to try it.”

I get it. But every single time I share my recipes, people go from “absolutely not” to actually excited to eat them. Why sardines? They’re a tiny superfood, loaded with the omega-3s your hormones run on, plus the iron your ferritin needs. The kind of nourishment that supports hormone balance and gives you that lit-from-within glow. Tiny fish, big payoff. Give me seven days and I’ll make you want them too.

What each day looks like

Every day is three simple things:

• A nourishing, hormone-balancing sardine recipe

• Your community, weekly rituals, sample workout exercise, smoothie, supplements, and shopping list

• One limiting belief to release, so we nourish your mind too, not just your plate. Because the first plate to clear isn’t on the table, it’s in your mind.

That’s the body, mind, and soul part. I’m a certified Health Coach and a certified ThetaHealing practitioner, and this challenge is where those two worlds meet: we feed your body real food and clear the beliefs quietly keeping you stuck.

This is not a diet

No counting calories. No weighing grams of protein. Just nutrient-dense, sugar-free food, and coming home to your intuition. Your body isn’t a math problem. It’s a home.

How to join: it’s one step

Tap subscribe. That’s it, you’re in. No separate signup, no form, nothing else to do. Everything happens right here on Substack: a new post every morning, our private Chat, and the live kickoff on Day 1.

Already a paid subscriber? You’re already IN. Nothing to buy again. Just watch this space on Monday, July 20, that’s when your first post lands.

We start Monday, July 20. Doors close Sunday, July 19.

What you get when you join

• One post a day for 7 days

• A live Zoom kickoff on Day 1 so we start together, face to face

• Our private Chat, where I show up every single day

• A beautiful printable guide with rituals, recipes, and shopping list to keep (and stick on your fridge)

• An amazing gift for 3 lucky winners who finish the challenge

• It doesn’t stop in July: a new challenge every month. Drainage cleanse in August, parasite cleanse in September.

Come do it with me

A new challenge every month, the recipes, the Live, the Chat, the guide, and me. Cancel anytime. But I don’t think you’ll want to.

We start Monday, July 20. Doors close Sunday, July 19, so we all begin together.

Subscribe below and keep reading for:

• get your body ready

• buy your supplements

• and your shopping list.

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I couldn’t even think of eating them, and now? I invite a friend over to make them with me.

If you don’t know Chelcie May, she is also a certified health coach like me, and the way she shares wellness is great. She is also the founder of Sera and Mattina, skin and gut supplements. We got in my kitchen, opened a tin, and made the sardine toast I cannot stop eating. She is pregnant, if you need pregnancy tips.

Why We Love Sardines for Hormones

• Rich in omega-3s

• Anti-inflammatory

• Support brain function

• Support hormone balance

• High in vitamin D and B12 for energy and cycle regulation

Sometimes hormone support isn’t only about supplements. It’s about learning how to prepare foods in a way your body actually enjoys.

I never thought sardines were for me. Until I learned how to make them taste really good. Now they’re one of my favorite hormone-supporting foods, and Chelcie and I proved you’re never too busy (or too skeptical) to fall in love with them.

This is my favorite brand: they educate on the quality of their fish and also the safety of their tin.

🔗 Watch the Reel here

Sardine + White Bean Toast

Ingredients

• Sardines (in olive oil)

• Olive oil

• White beans

• Curly parsley and dill

• Shaved lemon peel

• Black pepper

• Sea salt

• Shaved feta

• Garlic, minced

• Balsamic vinegar

• Sourdough bread, toasted

How we make it

1. Toast the sourdough and rub it with a little raw garlic.

2. Add the white beans with olive oil, minced garlic, sea salt, and pepper, then smash them gently onto the toast.

3. Layer on the sardines, shower with curly parsley and dill, shaved lemon peel, and shaved feta.

4. Finish with a drizzle of good olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar.

Bright, herby, briny, and so satisfying. Perfect as a light lunch, an appetizer for a friend, or the kind of thing you make on repeat once you stop being scared of the tin.

✨ If you found this helpful, subscribe so you don’t miss future simple recipes, wellness rituals, and hormone-supportive tools I share here.

Go say hi to Chelcie and tag us both on IG @giselle.orentas if you make it.

xo, Gi 🖤

I almost did not post that video again. But so many of you commented “hacks” the first time I shared the video, and I realized the little PDF was never going to hold everything I wanted to say. So I brought it here instead, to Balanced-ish, where I can actually tell you the truth and connect more with you in this space. I actually have 4 parts of Slow Aging at 41, but let’s start with this one.

First, let me clear something up, because I want us all on the same page.

I am not an anti-aging person. I love aging. I think getting older is a privilege and a gift, and I have no interest in turning back a clock or pretending I am 25. That is not what this is.

When I say slow aging, I mean something very specific. We are all aging, that is beautiful and it is supposed to happen. But most of us are aging way faster than we need to, because of the things quietly accelerating it. The inflammation. The chronic stress and cortisol. The toxins we never clear. The hormones we ignore until they scream. The comparison, the depletion, the running on empty. That is accelerated aging, and that is the part we actually have a say over.

So slow aging, to me, is not reversing anything. It is just refusing to speed it up. It is a body that is not inflamed, not depleted, and not being ignored. When your insides are calm, your outside follows. Every single time.

Because here is the thing. I am 41. I run 2 companies, I am raising two kids, I am a whole human with a whole life. And I am not doing any of this by chasing trends. I am doing it by listening to my body and refusing to age on autopilot.

Here are the eight things I actually live by.

1. Self-care first. Then family. Then business.

I know this sounds backwards to a lot of driven women. It used to sound backwards to me too.

But my wellness comes before everything else. Then my family. Then my business. In that order. Because if my health is not aligned, everything else falls apart anyway. A depleted woman cannot pour from an empty cup, and she definitely cannot age slowly while she is running on fumes and cortisol.

Putting myself first is not selfish. It is the whole foundation. Everything I build sits on top of it. If I feel drained and dysregulated, I pause everything. I don't care. Dysregulation will lead you to a lot of burnout and wrong decisions.

2. My business is part of my spiritual growth

This one is closer to my heart than people expect.

My work is not separate from my inner life. Every challenge teaches me something. Every win, and honestly the way I handle the losses, shows me where I have grown. Even Balangy came to me as a channeled message. That awareness makes the whole journey feel less like a grind and more like an evolution.

I am always a student. And staying a student, staying curious instead of hardened, keeps me young in a way no serum ever could.

3. Hydration and daily movement move the toxins out

This is the one nobody wants to hear but it works.

I keep my cells hydrated and I sweat every single day, whether that is exercise, outdoor walking or with infrared sauna. The logic is simple. The fewer toxins sitting in your body, the slower you age. Movement and sweat are how you take the trash out. Skip it, and everything backs up, your lymph, your skin, your energy.

Hydrated cells, daily sweat. That is the whole non-negotiable.

For my water essentials you can go here
My exercise routine looks a little like: walking, weights, floor and reformer pilates, yoga, kickboxing.

If you are bored and not enjoying your workouts, switch it up! Your body and life is asking for something different. You never know, maybe you are meant to go to another studio to meet someone.

4. I never normalize a symptom

The moment I feel something is off, I act. I do not wait, I do not push through, I do not tell myself it is normal. Actually, I'm lying, sometimes my own suffering is what pulls me to take action. Us Scorpios need that kick in the butt sometimes. It's kind of like: you try to put me down, I might fall, but I get up 10x stronger and taller.

We are taught that painful periods are normal, that migraines are normal, that mood swings are just part of being a woman. They are not. They are signals. Your body is not broken, it is speaking. And the second you start ignoring what it says, small things quietly become big things.

Neglecting a symptom never makes it disappear. It just buys it time to get louder.

5. Lymphatic activation, and my vibration plate

My vibration plate has genuinely been a game changer, and I do not say that about many tools.

Less water retention. Better blood flow. Even the cellulite on my hips softened. When your lymph is moving, your whole system drains the way it is supposed to, and drainage is one of the most underrated anti-aging things you can do. A stagnant body looks and feels older than it is. Ten minutes on the plate. Level 5. That is it. Your lymph does the rest.

I also love getting professional drainage massages. I did one the other day and oh boy, I saw some abs after.

6. I support my hormones on purpose

Here is where it gets personal, because this is the one that changed the most for me.

For years I thought painful periods, migraines, and mood swings were just my “normal.” They were not. Once I started supporting my progesterone with Balangy, all of it shifted. The pain, the migraines, the swings I had made peace with, gone.

Your hormones are not your enemy and they are not random chaos. They are intelligence. When you support them instead of overriding them, your whole body ages slower, because so much of aging is really just hormonal decline nobody bothered to address.

Ignoring the signals will debilitate you. Supporting them will give you your life back.

7. I protect my energy like the asset it is

I am an asset. You are too.

Saying yes to everything will drain you, and a drained woman ages fast. Have you heard the quote: keep pleasing people and you’ll get an autoimmune disease? Well, it’s time to take your power back and start questioning why you feel the need to say yes when you really want to say no. Stress is not just a feeling, it is cortisol, and cortisol accelerates everything. So I scan every decision now. Does this honor my vision? Are these people aligned with where I am going? If not, it is a no, and I do not lose sleep over it.

Protecting your energy is slow aging. Nobody puts that on the serum bottle, but it is true. Keep those energetic parasites far away and your boundaries strong.

8. No comparison. Ever.

Comparing yourself to other people ages you. I mean it.

The less time I spend on social media, the better I feel and honestly the better I look. Comparison is a low vibration, and you cannot glow from a low vibration. When you trust your own path, when you stay disciplined and aligned and faithful to your own life, that is real success. That is the thing that keeps your face soft and your shoulders down.

Your path is yours. Stop measuring it against other people’s chapter. Focus on YOU.

So that is it. That is what keeps me from accelerating my aging at 41. Not one expensive thing. Eight quiet, consistent choices that all come back to the same idea: a calm, supported, un-ignored body does not age faster than it has to.

If even one of these landed, save it, and come back to it. This is exactly what Balanced-ish is for. Balance as a practice, not a finish line.

If you are new here from the reel, subscribe so you do not miss what comes next. And if this helped you, like it and restack it so another woman finds it too.

Until next time!

xo, Gi 🖤