Making Her Choices

Tawana Hampton
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Biweekly

Making Her Choices is a podcast for women navigating growth, change, and new beginnings. Hosted by a nurse and wellness entrepreneur with 20+ years of real-life experience, each episode digs into personal wellness, self-preservation, and the courage to choose yourself at any stage of life. If you're seeking clarity or ready to step into a new season, this is your space. Join a growing community of women choosing themselves — one choice at a time, sis.

  1. Jul 24

    Food Is Not the Enemy: The Real Reasons Your Body Feels Stuck

    For years, many of us have been taught to fight our plates, but what if food was never the problem? In this episode, I break down why inflammation, gut health, and cortisol often play a much bigger role in how your body feels than calories, restriction, or another diet ever will. You’ll hear: Why chronic inflammation can quietly keep your body in survival mode. How gut health affects digestion, mood, cravings, energy, and weight. What cortisol does when stress never truly comes down. Why basic labs can look “normal” even when you still feel off. How to stop blaming food and start listening to your body’s signals. This episode also introduces the idea that food is information, not the enemy, and that real change starts when we move from punishment to partnership with our bodies. If you’ve been stuck in diet cycles, feeling inflamed, exhausted, or frustrated, this conversation will help you rethink what your body may actually be trying to tell you. I also mention my book, You First: The Radical Art of Self Preservation - Making Her Choices – Ever Well Journey, and the free Inflammation Inventory at Inflammation Inventory - S2E7 – Ever Well Journey, both designed to help you take the next step toward better health and self-awareness.

    Food Is Not the Enemy: The Real Reasons Your Body Feels Stuck

  2. Jul 10

    When the Protocol Fails You, You Become the Protocol

    The gym didn't fix it. The GLP-1 didn't fix it. Contrave didn't fix it. So I stopped looking for someone else's answer. In this episode, I'm laying out my entire failure timeline — three approaches, three different mechanisms, one common thread: every single one of them treated the symptom. Not one of them asked "why." This is the episode where I stop being the patient following someone else's plan and start being the nurse who builds her own. I'm breaking down what functional medicine actually means (not the buzzword version — the real one), why 20 years of nursing taught me to ask better questions for everyone except myself, and what happened when I finally gave myself permission to stop outsourcing my wellness to people who had 15 minutes and a prescription pad. This one is the turn. If Episodes 4 and 5 were about what didn't work, this is where I stop following and start leading. 🎧 New here? Start with Episode 1 of Series 2: The Body Honest. And if you haven't heard Episodes 4 and 5 (the GLP-1 constipation saga and the Contrave brain fog), go back. You need those first. 📥 Download the FREE Root Cause Reflection Worksheet — map your symptoms against what might actually be driving them, track what you've tried, and run your own health audit. https://everwelljourney.com/products/root-cause-reflection-worksheet-stop-chasing-solutions-start-asking-why-s2e6 📖 This is the body chapter of You First: The Radical Art of Self-Preservation. If this episode hit somewhere real, the book goes deeper. https://purposedlypenned.com/books/you-first-the-radical-art-of-self-preservation-tawana-hampton/B0GV25LM9Z Follow the podcast so you don't miss what comes next — because the protocol is mine now. everwelljourney.com One choice at a time, sis. 🌱

    When the Protocol Fails You, You Become the Protocol

  3. Jun 26

    Contrave, Cravings, and the Pill I Couldn't Remember to Take

    Everybody talks about the medication. Nobody talks about what happens when it doesn't fit your life. In this episode, I'm telling you about my experience with Contrave — the weight management medication that was supposed to be the next answer after the GLP-1 didn't work out. My provider recommended it. The pharmacology made sense. I filled the prescription with both my clinical brain and my personal hope at the table. And then the dreams started. Full-production, surround-sound, waking-up-at-3-AM dreams nobody warned me about. Then came the haze — this fog between me and my own life that never lifted. And as a nurse who makes clinical decisions that affect real people? That's not a side effect I can push through. I never even made it to the full dose. This is the episode about what happens when the tool doesn't fit the hand — and why that doesn't mean something is wrong with yours. 🎧 New here? Start with Episode 1 of Series 2: The Body Honest — and if you haven't heard Episode 4 (the GLP-1 and the constipation), go back. You need that one first. 📥 Download the FREE Medication Decision Worksheet — the questions to ask your provider before you start, a side-effect tracker, and an honest look at whether a medication protocol fits the life you're actually living. https://everwelljourney.com/products/making-her-choices-medication-decision-worksheet-s2e5 Follow the podcast so you don't miss Episode 6 — because two medications didn't work, and now everything has to change. I had hoped. https://everwelljourney.com/collections/making-her-choices-podcast One choice at a time, sis. 🌱

    Contrave, Cravings, and the Pill I Couldn't Remember to Take

  4. Jun 12

    I Tried the Trendy Fix — My Honest GLP-1 Experience (Yes, Including the Constipation)

    Everybody's whispering about the shot. Your coworker won't say how she lost the weight. Your cousin posted a transformation pic with nothing but a prayer hands emoji. Your group chat has opinions. But nobody — and I mean nobody — is talking about what happened in the bathroom. Well. I'm going to talk about it. In this episode, I'm sharing my real experience with semaglutide — what I expected, what actually happened, and the side effect that had me in my shower with medical gloves on questioning every choice I've ever made. As a registered nurse with 20+ years of clinical experience, I break down how GLP-1 medications actually work in your body, why the results aren't the same for everyone, and what your favorite wellness influencer will never tell you. This one is raw. This one is funny. And this one might be the episode you send to your group chat with no context. 🎧 New here? Start with Episode 1 of Series 2: The Body Honest — where I read my lab results out loud to the internet like a woman with no sense of self-preservation. 📥 Download the FREE GLP-1 Reality Guide — plain-language breakdown, side-effect tracker, and the questions to ask your provider before you start. https://everwelljourney.com/products/making-her-choices-glp-1-guide-s2e4 Follow the podcast so you don't miss Episode 5 — because I tried something else after this, and that one has its own story to tell. https://open.spotify.com/show/5LagcwJJF0gyoJsDQ9zl8Y?si=6c30452e6549430e https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-her-choices/id1880465802 One choice at a time, sis. 🌱

    I Tried the Trendy Fix — My Honest GLP-1 Experience (Yes, Including the Constipation)

  5. May 29

    The Day My Hair Started Telling on Me — My CCCA Story

    You can lie to your mirror. You can lie to your doctor. But your hair will tell on you every single time. One morning in September 2025, Tawana touched her crown and something was different. Not dramatic. Just thinner. Softer where it used to be dense. Like somebody had been erasing something while she wasn't looking. Her first thought wasn't "I need to see a doctor." It was "What did I do wrong?" In Episode 3 of The Body Honest, Tawana shares her CCCA diagnosis — Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia — a scarring, autoimmune condition that destroys the hair follicle permanently. It overwhelmingly affects Black women, and most who have it don't know it. They think it's stress. They think it's aging. They think it's the products. They think they did something wrong. She takes you into the first dermatologist visit — the one that didn't feel right, where the provider checked the boxes but didn't see her hair, her texture, or her story. And the search that followed — for a trichologist, a dermatologist of color, someone who could actually look at her scalp with context. Then she tells you about the moment her mama — a woman fighting her own vascular dementia diagnosis — looked up at her and asked three words that cracked everything open: "Are you going bald?" The woman who won't face her own diagnosis saw right through her daughter's armor. And the parallel hit like a freight train: same woman, different diagnosis, same denial. This episode holds both the clinical truth and the emotional weight — what CCCA is, who it hits, why it's connected to the same chronic stress and inflammation from Episodes 1 and 2, and why your crown might be telling the truth your body has been whispering for years. ⬇️ Download the FREE CCCA Awareness Guide — what it is, symptoms, questions for your dermatologist, and treatment overview: CCCA Awareness Guide - S2E3 – Ever Well Journey 🎧 Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts And if this episode moves something in you — send it to her. You know who. Three words: Listen to this. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice

    The Day My Hair Started Telling on Me — My CCCA Story

  6. May 15

    Two Days a Week and Still Losing — When the Gym Isn't the Whole Answer

    She's been in the gym since October 2024. Twice a week. Every week. Cardio. Strength. Different machines, different routines. She showed up when she was tired, when her body said no, when nobody was watching and nobody was clapping. And the scale didn't move. The pants didn't fit. And the belly? The belly waved at her in the mirror like an uninvited relative who decided to stay. In Episode 2 of The Body Honest, Tawana breaks down what happens when consistency isn't enough — and why the "eat less, move more" formula was never built for a woman over 40 with shifting hormones, chronic stress, disrupted sleep, and years of emotional labor that never made it onto a fitness tracker. She gets into the metabolic slowdown nobody warned you about, why her FSH of 78.6 means the gym playbook she was following was written for a body she doesn't have anymore, and the cortisol trap — the loop where pushing harder actually makes things worse. Then she names the four hidden factors the fitness industry doesn't put on the poster: sleep, chronic inflammation, gut health, and the stress you've been wearing like a badge of honor. Because your cortisol doesn't call it stress. Your cortisol calls it Tuesday. If you've been doing all the things and the results still won't come — you're not broken. The formula is broken. And it's not your fault nobody updated it. ⬇️ Download the FREE Movement Reality Check — match your current routine to what your body actually needs right now: Making Her Choices - Movement Reality Check - S2E2 – Ever Well Journey🎧 Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts 📍 everwelljourney.com | @making.her.choices This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.

    Two Days a Week and Still Losing — When the Gym Isn't the Whole Answer

  7. May 1

    The Number That Changed Everything: When Your A1c Starts Talking

    She’s a registered nurse with 20+ years in nephrology. She’s read thousands of lab reports for thousands of patients. And then one Tuesday afternoon, she opened her own patient portal — and everything changed.In the premiere episode of Series 2: The Body Honest, Tawana reads her actual lab results out loud — all of them. The comprehensive metabolic panel that came back clean. The kidney function she’s spent her career monitoring in others (perfectly fine, ironically). The thyroid that’s not the villain. The fasting glucose of 81 that said “normal.”And the hemoglobin A1c of 6.2 that told a completely different story.This episode unpacks what happens when the snapshot says “fine” but the full picture says “we need to talk.” Tawana breaks down why a normal fasting glucose can hide prediabetes, what an FSH of 78.6 and an LH of 47.8 actually mean for a woman’s metabolism, and why the “eat less, move more” model was never built for her body.If you’ve been going to the gym, eating the salads, doing all the things — and the scale still won’t move and the numbers still won’t budge — this episode is for you. You’re not broken. The model is broken. And nobody told you that until now. ⬇️ Download the FREE Lab Request Checklist — the exact labs Tawana ordered, what each one measures, reference ranges, and space for your own results: https://everwelljourney.com/products/free-lab-request-checklist-series-2-body-honest-episode-1 Mentioned in this episode:• You First: The Radical Art of Self-Preservation — available at everwelljourney.com and purposedlypenned.com• Lab Results Decoder Guide — available at everwelljourney.com• Provider Conversation Script Bundle — available at everwelljourney.com This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. #MakingHerChoices #TheBodyHonest #A1cWakeUpCall #KnowYourNumbers #PrediabetesAwareness #WellnessOverPerfection #HealthJourneyPodcast #BlackWomenHealth #NurseWhoKnows #LetsGo

    The Number That Changed Everything: When Your A1c Starts Talking

  8. Apr 17

    The Long Game: Your Body Has Been Listening Even When You Weren’t

    Sometimes the wake-up call doesn't come gently. In this Series 1 finale of Making Her Choices, I get honest about an area of my life that's still a work in progress — my body, my health, and the patterns I ignored while rebuilding everything else. From the subtle warning signs to the moments I couldn't laugh off anymore, I realized something important: your body keeps track, even when you're not paying attention. This episode isn't about perfection. It's about awareness. I share the reality behind the numbers, the attempts that didn't work, the decisions I made, and the moment I knew I couldn't keep putting it off. It's also about what comes next. This finale introduces the next chapter — a deeper, more intentional approach to health, accountability, and long-term change. Not quick fixes. Not shortcuts. Just real decisions, real data, and real commitment. If you've been ignoring your own signals, putting your health on hold, or telling yourself "later," this conversation is your reminder: Your body is always communicating with you. The question is — are you listening? Let's go. _________________________________________________________ 📖 Grab your copy of You First: The Radical Art of Self-Preservation — available now:🔗 purposedlypenned.com🔗 everwelljourney.com 🛒 Explore companion resources, wellness tools, and more at the Ever Well Journey shop:🔗 everwelljourney.com 🎙️ Follow Making Her Choices:Spotify | Apple Podcasts #MakingHerChoices #MidlifeWellness #WomenOver40 #HealthAwakening #SelfPreservation #BodyAwareness #WellnessJourney #WomenAndHealth #MidlifeReinvention #YouFirstBook

    The Long Game: Your Body Has Been Listening Even When You Weren’t
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About

Making Her Choices is a podcast for women navigating growth, change, and new beginnings. Hosted by a nurse and wellness entrepreneur with 20+ years of real-life experience, each episode digs into personal wellness, self-preservation, and the courage to choose yourself at any stage of life. If you're seeking clarity or ready to step into a new season, this is your space. Join a growing community of women choosing themselves — one choice at a time, sis.

Information

  • Creator
    Tawana Hampton
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Tawana Hampton
  • Show Website
    Making Her Choices