FEEL LIKE YOURSELF AGAIN — COMING SOON
Learn to read your own labs and get your life back.
I'm Sally Dahl Sykes — functional medicine health coach, former attorney, and author of Feel Like Yourself Again (coming soon). I teach midlife women and men how to read their own bloodwork against optimal ranges, not just "normal" ones — so you can stop feeling dismissed and start feeling like yourself again.
THE BIG IDEA
"Normal" ranges are just the averages of sick people.
When my dad was dying of Alzheimer's, I went looking for answers and found a book on Alzheimer's disease that included a short list of optimal lab ranges for preventing dementia. I'd known about "normal" ranges my whole life. Optimal ranges were new to me. So I looked into it — and discovered that normal ranges are built from the averages of everyone who gets tested, most of whom are already sick! They vary by lab, by year, and even by geographic region. They were never designed to tell you how to thrive.
That list only covered the labs tied to dementia. I wanted the optimal ranges for everything that matters as we age — and what to do about each one. My old legal-research brain kicked in: surely I could just Google the master list, right? I couldn't. There wasn't one. The numbers were scattered across studies, journals, and the books of the handful of doctors doing this work. So I built the list myself, and I've spent nearly a decade adding to it. (That list became my book — more on that below.)
So if you've ever been told your labs are "normal" while you're exhausted, gaining weight, or losing your hair, and been left feeling like it's all in your head — you're not crazy. You just weren't being compared to optimal ranges. Now you can do that yourself, and be your own best advocate at the doctor's office.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME
From the courtroom to your bloodwork
I was a practicing attorney before Alzheimer's took my father and my own health started to decline in my 40s. I reversed my diabetes, found functional docs to optimize my thyroid and hormones, trained as a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, and now help people decode their labs across the six pillars of midlife health: metabolic, hormones, thyroid, cardiovascular, nutrients, and immune.
I'm not a doctor, and I'll never pretend to be. I'm the coach in your corner who translates the numbers — so you can ask your provider sharper questions and get better answers.
From my state-government days, with the late Texas Governor Ann Richards. The legal-research brain I brought to the capitol is the same one I now bring to your labs.
THE BOOK
Feel Like Yourself Again
(coming soon)
Learn to Read Your Labs and Get Your Life Back
When I went looking for one book that covered every lab that matters for aging well — each with its optimal range, how to move the number, and the latest research to back it up — I couldn't find it. So I wrote it.
Feel Like Yourself Again is your plain-English guide to the six pillars of midlife health: which labs to ask for, what the optimal ranges really are, and the low- and no-cost ways to shift them. Understanding your own labs shouldn't require a concierge doctor or a $10,000 course. So I put it all in one place — studies and all. For the price of a book, the knowledge and empowerment are yours.
Free weekly newsletter + first to know when the book launches.
Optimal, Not Normal — my weekly newsletter
THE NEWSLETTER
Each week, one information-packed email on the latest research in healthy aging. Here's what you'll get:
One lab, decoded —a single test or optimal range explained simply, plus how to actually move it
Real talkon hormones, thyroid, metabolism, and healthy aging — no fearmongering, no gatekeeping
My updated list of recommended providersfor quality thyroid, hormone, and peptide care
The research that matters, translated, so you never have to slog through the journals yourself
First to know when the book launches — plus subscriber-only extras
Why here, and not just social media? Here's the honest truth: it's getting harder to share real health information on social media. The platforms are censoring health content across the board — I've watched friends with big followings lose their accounts overnight, and I even had my own Facebook suspended over a Dry January post about how much better I felt without alcohol. (Can you imagine?! Since when is that controversial?) I'm not here to complain about it — I'm here to keep showing up for you where the good stu! won't get lost. This website and my newsletter are my home base, the place we can talk freely. It's where I go deep, answer your real questions, and share the things you ask me about most — specific provider recommendations, sources, brand names, and the studies behind everything I teach. Just good information and research you have every right to. If you want the full, unfiltered version, this is where it lives. Let's do this!