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Wondering why your hormones are all out of whack? Ever feel like you’re maintaining a delicate balancing act, but the scales just can’t stay in place? Well, if that sounds like you, then it’s time to join us as we dive into Dr. Norm Robillard’s fascinating insights—on how an unhealthy gut might be disrupting your hormones. With decades of experience under his belt and countless research studies to back him up, this is one episode on midlife hormone balance that no woman should miss!
Norm Robillard, Ph.D., is the founder of Digestive Health Institute and creator of the Fast Tract Diet. He is a strong advocate of natural and integrative solutions for functional gastrointestinal disorders, various forms of gut dysbiosis and related health issues, helping people globally through his consultation practice. The Fast Tract Diet was presented at Digestive Disease Week to give gastroenterologists a science-based treatment option for functional GI disorders and dybioses based on Dr. Norms 3 pillar approach. His award-winning Fast Tract Diet mobile app and Fast Tract Digestion book series make it easy to implement the Fast Tract Diet.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• How an unhealthy gut may affect your hormones.
• What Dr. Norm’s 3-pillar approach is and how it could help rebalance hormones.
• The importance of probiotics in maintaining healthy gut flora.
• Why food sensitivities can play a role in hormone health.
• Plus, Dr. Norm shares his top tips for keeping your digestive system functioning optimally!
So don’t miss out – join us as we explore why your dysfunctional gut might be wrecking your hormones and what to do about it with our incredible guest, Dr. Norm Robillard! Tune in now—you won’t regret it!
Midlife women - let's take back our health and nurture our bodies, together! Join us for this eye-opening episode on why your dysfunctional gut is wrecking your hormones and what you can do about it with Dr. Norm Robillard! Tune in now to learn the secrets of a healthy digestive system and balanced hormones. It's time to start feeling like yourself again!
(00:00): “The best doctor gives the least amount of medicine.” - Benjamin Franklin. If your gut is dysfunctional and running you crazy and you think you've got hormone problems, this episode is for you.
(00:13): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob-gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:06): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today for this discussion on dysfunctional gut issues. What's a dysfunctional gut? Well, think about your dysfunctional family. You know what I'm talking about, right? Holidays where people get drunk and fight start, or people are disconnected, all the dysfunctions that plague modern families. Well, your gut can be dysfunctional too, and maybe it's not something that you're aware of. What does that mean? How you evaluate it? My guest today is an expert in this and he is going to help you understand clearly how do I know if this is me, how do I get tested, what do I do about it? And really get the big picture and detailed picture on what's important. And we're gonna talk about Benjamin Franklin's quote, the best doctor gives the least medicines, not the most.
(01:57): I know some people who go to the doctor and actually get angry when they don't leave with a prescription. Is that you? I really hope not, but it's very true. A lot of people get angry when they don't get medicines, but you'll be healthier overall when you take fewer or no medicines. They don't really fix the problem, they just mask them. Your gut health and microbiome are essential for your hormonal health. I will tell you why in this episode. So you wanna stay tuned for that. We talk about assessing low stomach acid at the Heidelberg Test. If you're not aware of that, we dive into that and much more. So I'll tell you a little bit about Norm and then we'll get started. Norm Robard is a PhD. He is the founder of Digestive Health Institute and creator of the Fast Track Diet is a strong advocate of natural and integrative solutions for functional gastrointestinal disorders, various forms of gut dysbiosis and related health issues, helping people globally through his consultation practice. The fast track diet was presented at Digestive Disease Week to give gastroenterologists a science-based treatment option for functional GI disorders and dysbiosis based on Dr. Norm's three pillar approach, his award-winning fast track diet, mobile app, and fast track digestion book series make it easy to implement the fast track diet. Welcome Norm Robillard to the
(03:24): Show. Thank you Kyrin. Nice to be here.
(03:26): All the way from Boston, Massachusetts with a distinctive accent. I did live there one summer when I worked at the Harvard School of Pub Public Health doing research and it's such a unique accent that I would pick out anywhere I went in the world. So thank you for representing the Northeast
(03:45): , right? In fact, I've lived in California for 10 years and I came back and I still have the accent ,
(03:52): Right? So let's dive into this very important topic. We can't talk about digestive health enough when it comes to hormonal health. And if you're listening and you're still scratching your head going, Kyrin, I don't know why you talk about poop all the time. This is supposed to be about hormones, . You gotta get the memo that your poop is all about your hormones and your hormones are all about your poop. So there's this interconnection. So what really was your path to becoming so passionate about functional gut disorders? Well, let me back up. Let's start with what are functional gut disorders? I don't even think people are familiar with that term.
(04:32): Yeah, well they should get rid of that term as quickly as possible. It's been around a long time and it doesn't have much meaning now because when that term came up, it was, they couldn't find anything organically wrong with you. But yet you had these i b s type symptoms, bloating, altered bowel habits, gas belching, and so they would think, okay, well everything's working, but you have these symptoms. So it's a functional disorder. But we now know that in many of these cases, really the planes hit the mountain. It's not functional and we know a lot more about what's going on. You know, with the more common use of breath testing. We know that there's often an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine and there should be very few microbes in the small intestine. That's where our own critical digestion takes place. So we now know there's overgrowths and there there's been some studies on which exactly which types of bacteria those are.
(05:34): And basically it's our own microbes overgrowing in the small intestine. And newest studies are starting to focus on some of these what they call proteobacteria like e coli and Klebsiella species. But others have been identified as well, also with various functional, what they used to call functional GI issues. They now know that there's alterations in or intestinal bacteria as a whole. So we have these FILA of bacteria and other organisms such as BDIs firm, acutes, actinobacteria and so on. And we know that there's some significant imbalances there in in people that have these conditions. So in other words, we're find as we find out more about them, they're not functional, they're dysfunctional gut health issues. So it, you know, takes 10 years for things to catch up with what's actually happening in terms of nomenclature and the dogma and the literature. Right.
(06:33): I agree. We should call it dysfunctional gut disorders, just like we have. Some of us have dysfunctional families, dysfunctional gut disorders. Exactly. So you mentioned symptoms of ibs. So how would someone self-identify? I could have a dis or now I'm saying I could have a dysfunctional gut disorder or I could have a functional gut disorder. How would they consider that that might be them?
(06:56): Yeah, well I think that the symptoms of the, kind of the first sign, right? I mean we talked about gas and bloating. You might have a lot of belching or even flatulence, kind of some lower GI gas you might have cramping, reflux is one of those. In fact, acid reflux and I B s are very closely linked. Half the people with IBS have reflux symptoms and half the people with reflux have IBS symptoms. So there's a similar etiology there, but there's other ones, nausea, dehydration, fatigue. Some people don't gain weight or they lose weight. So there's a nutritional component there, which makes sense, right? If you have all of these microbes in your small intestine where, where your vili and the micro viop kind of the, the fibers on top of fiber fibers in all of the surface area in the small intestine, these vili are pretty kind of delicate.
(07:51): And if you have a lot of bacteria in that area and bacteria produce toxins and protease enzymes that can damage the vili and the little enzymes, the brush border enzymes that that radiate out from these microvilli. And so if you don't have those, you won't break down disaccharides, you won't complete the final breakdown of starches. You may not digest and absorb fats well. So the SIBO can cause this mal-absorption that ends up overfeeding these microbes. And when you overfeed these microbes, many of them produce significant amounts of gases. Hydrogen methane, hydrogen sulfide. In fact there was one microbiology study done on these gut bacteria. And if they feed these bacteria essentially one ounce of carbohydrates, right? So some, many of the carbohydrates we absorb into our bloodstream, but many we don't. We take just 30 grams of unabsorbed carbohydrates feed them to, to microbes these gut bacteria.
(08:56): They can produce 10 liters of hydrogen gas. So imagine, whoa, 10 liters of gas in your intestines from one ounce of of unabsorbed carbs. And of course there's a molecular food chain. Some microbes take the hydrogen that one type of bacteria produces and they turn it into methane. In the case of these akea organisms or sulfate reducing bacteria can take the hydrogen and turn it into hydrogen sulfide. So the bottom line is when you're not digesting and absorbing your food efficiently, you're overfeeding these microbes. They produce a lot of these gases and you can end up with a lot of these symptoms. So I think the symptoms to answer your question is the first sign that something's going on. And then you have to really begin to look deeper into what's happening.
(09:43): Right? So just to recap, cuz that was very rich, what you just shared is if you're wondering could I have a functional gut disorder? Basically if you have any of the symptoms that Dr. Norm is talking about, right? The excess belching, indigestion, heartburn, reflux, gassy if you poop less than every time you eat, right? So if you have any degree of constipation, if you have loose stool, hard rabbit pellet stool, you know any symptoms associated with a gastrointestinal tract that wouldn't be diagnosed typically by your regular H M O doctor cuz they're looking for a structural problem or maybe they would diagnose you with reflux, but they're basically gonna give you a drug for it. Can you talk about the pitfalls? Because some people listening are gonna think, oh yeah, I've got reflux, it's no problem. My doctor gave me this proton pump inhibitor and so I'm fine now. I don't have a problem anymore. Dr. Norm. Yeah, what what do you say
(10:45): To that? Yeah, my 18 years of consulting in this field as a consulting microbiologist, I really focus on holistic and dietary and behavioral solutions and perhaps some dietary supplements mostly aimed at improving digestion. Because I recognize that these proton pump inhibitors, for instance, and to a lesser extent H two antagonists, these types of medicines, they basically knock out the ability of your stomach to produce acid. And so when you do reflux and material comes from your stomach and gets up into your esophagus, it might not burn as much. And about half of the people with reflux get symptomatic relief from those types of medicines. Half don't. But the real issue is why are you refluxing? That's what you need to address. Because it's not just acid, it's stomach enzymes, pepin, it can be pancreatic enzymes when they look they find bile, right? Bile is something, it's a caustic molecule.
(11:50): Your liver produces these bile acids stored in your gallbladder, released into your small intestine to help digest fats. And all of these other functions are antimicrobial. But when they reflux back into your stomach and then into your esophagus, they're caustic as well. And the proton pump inhibitors won't do anything about those. And then on top of it, this long-term health consequences of removing your stomach acid. Mm-Hmm. , you may very well have not absorb vitamins like vitamin D, certain B vitamins, B12 because your stomach makes intrinsic factor that that is needed for B12 absorption. You might not absorb iron as well. Magnesium in particular, in fact on proton pump inhibitors, there have been cases with this hypomagnesemia low blood mag magnesium, which is a dangerous condition, cardiovascular metabolic health and even supplementing with magnesium doesn't always correct the issue. So there are long-term consequences of these drugs. And when I work with people, there may be a reason they need to be on a PPI to begin with. Say they have gastritis or an ulcer. Well that is one instance where those can be helpful, but the goal should be really healing that and then giving reflux under control and then getting off of these acid reducing medicines. I've worked with people that have been on them for 20 years. It's a problem at that point.
(13:19): Yeah, it's, I think they're really only approved for short-term use, but doctors put people sometimes on these who are taking them for years and it just decimate the rest of your digestive tract, which affects your hormones. Ladies
(13:35): . Yeah. And your microbiome. There's a number of studies saying that, that reducing the stomach acid on these drugs drives changes in your microbiome. So natural is always the best whenever possible. , that's my motto.
(13:50): So we can't talk about the microbiome enough. We've talked about, you know, how would I know if I had a functional gut disorder? Well actually let's go into this next. What type of evaluation should people be expecting to have if someone really is doing a root cause resolution approach and looking at why they have a dysfunctional gut issue, what kind of testing is available and should they look for an ask for?
(14:13): What I routinely use in, in my consultation practice is comprehensive stool analyses. Now those results won't necessarily tell you whether you have sibo. All right. Small, an overgrowth of bacteria in your small intestine. It's really looking at the composition of your stool. However, first of all, there are many types of dysbiosis. SIBO is one of them. There's also cifo, small intestinal fungal overgrowth. There's libo, what I loosely call libo for an overgrowth in urological biological intestinal overgrowth. And it's based on a couple of studies that are very convincing that you can't have an overgrowth in the early part of your secum and large bowel as well. Mm-Hmm , you can have these methanogens overgrowing that's called imo, forint intestinal methane overgrowth, people that are making too much methane. But you can also have significant imbalances in the composition of the gut microbes in your lo intestine.
(15:11): Right. And when you have that, what are the ramifications of that? So in these stool tests, first of all, you're going to look at a lot of other digestive markers. You're going to look at elastase, which is an enzyme produced from the pancreas. That is an important test. A lot of doctors use just that test itself to determine whether the pancreas is functioning and release, releasing other important digestive enzymes like amylase, lipase and protease. Elastase is just the test they use to assess the pancreas. You're looking at S I G A, secreted immunoglobulin A. In other words, how's your gut immune system doing? I G A is important for gut barrier integrity, for balancing the good and bad microbes. You're going to look at a whole variety of pathogens that may be your problem, right? You can roll in certain other testing, helico, pyuria, bacteria, infect stomach, clostridia, difficile, especially if somebody has chronic diarrhea.
(16:14): But then you also look at all of your, what I call commensal populations, right? The bacti, the firm acutes the proteobacteria on and on, right? A number actinobacteria bifidobacteria. And then you wanna know what do your populations look like in each of those high level and detailed species level breakdown compared to kind of the healthy consensus population. And so it takes a trained eye to really go through these tests, but there's a lot of actionable information in there when you do that. So for instance, what I like to see right off the top, I like to look at the firmicutes and the bact ADIs because those two Fila rep like and Utes are like bacillus and strap. And some of those species, lactobacillus, those are all Utes, bact, ADIs, that's bact, fragiles, bact theta, ITO micron and so forth. They're highly diverse, these two Fila.
(17:16):And they represent 90% of the microbes in your gut, just these two Fila. And so the ratio of those is really important. If you have a lot of these firmicutes over the BDIs that's commonly seen in I B s, it's commonly seen in epilepsy, it's commonly seen in obesity. And it's also common on a plant-based diet. If you eat a lot of plants and your digestion is working well, you may have too many of these firmicutes on an animal-based diet. There's more of the BDIs. And also that's more indicative when somebody is addresses i b s or addresses obesity or addresses the epilepsy. You see that shift. So there's just so much to look at in these comprehensive stool analyses, but there's some of the highlights. Yeah, it's very false.
(18:06): Yes. And I'm wondering if you can speak to the utility of, I'm not sure if you look at this cuz you come from it, gut health from a microbiology standpoint, but food sensitivity testing. And then if you could comment on, are these types of tests that your regular H M O doctors going to order and know how to read?
(18:26): Mm-Hmm. Yeah, that's a good question. Not all of them. Although if you go to certain websites of some of the companies that do this test, like Genova, they have a GI FX test, very good test. I use it often. If you drill into their website, they will point you in the direction in your state to doctors that routinely have accounts with them. You know, for instance, our Digestive health Institute has an account with direct labs, so we can get the test that way, but they'll point you in the direction of doctors that can order these tests. And you brought up an important point. You mentioned food sensitivities and while we're at it how about just kind of inflammatory conditions? Mm-Hmm. . And there are markers in this same test that look at that. For instance, calprotectin. Calprotectin is a protein released from activated white blood cells at the site of inflammation.
(19:17): And so if you have high levels of calprotectin, you're in an inflammatory state. Now it might be just a couple of hundred and okay, that's still high and you need to address it. But somebody with inflammatory bowel disease for instance, they might, might have levels. And I think the units are micrograms per gram of 2000. So it can tell you a lot. Now in terms of food sensitivity, there's EO eosinophil, protein X mm-hmm . And that's considered a marker of kind of food sensitivity. So that's another one you can look at. You can look at lactoferrin, you can look at if there's microscopic signs of blood in your stool because that's another sign potentially of inflammatory bowel disease or even colorectal cancer. So there's a lot in these tests and it's a really good thing to do if you have a lot of gut issues and, and you need to try to understand why and what to do about
(20:14): It. Yes. So I love these tests. I usually use the GI map, that's my favorite. It gives a lot of those markers that's, and you know, I was thinking earlier when you were running through the different species, the bacteria, some people will get tripped up thinking they have to know all these different names. I mean it's helpful if you do, but it's kind of like your friends at church that maybe you know their face but and you wave high, but you might not remember all of their first and last names. You don't need to. So don't feel like it's something that you have to memorize if that trips you up. But you can just learn the ones that are most important. Just like in your communities where you have friends who you know their first and last name, you know where they live, you know their phone numbers.
(20:56): So it's a similar type of community. So consider if you are a candidate for functional gut testing, having some of these tests, food sensitivity is something that I, I really recommend. I don't think there's a perfect food sensitivity test, but I think they all have their pros and cons. So you kind of have to, whoever you decide to work with, I do think having a guide with these types of things is very helpful. Pick which one could work. So tests, don't guess get an evaluation. What are some of the common things that we can do though maybe we can't afford testing. This testing is not inexpensive. I know. Mm-Hmm. , you know, the GI effects with Genova and the GI map or $500 or more. So not everyone can afford that. So what are some steps that people who are having functional issues with their gut might mm-hmm. just start to take from a general basis that could impact how their gut is functioning.
(21:57): Yes. In fact, you can do a lot. In fact, I'll usually start, if there is some testing, especially GI testing or say a SIBO breath test, I will like people to get those samples done before they start kind of some interventions. But oftentimes we'll just work by just taking a complete history of somebody, you know, how long has this been going on? Exactly what are your symptoms, what is your diet like? Is really an area that I dig deep into because I work with people that have very varied dietary preferences. I work with vegetarians, pescatarians, mostly omnivores, but a good number of vegetarians and pescatarians and once in a great while of vegan as well. But it matters because we had talked about this molecular food chain, right? When you consume food, right, it consists of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, right? Those are the three food groups.
(22:54): And while the microbes in our gut can utilize some of the amino acids from proteins for energy, there are some bacteria, these sulfate reducing bacteria for instance, that no tricks how to get energy from fats. It's not a high energy deal, but they can do it. But the microbes in our gut get most of their energy from carbohydrates. So if you're on a plant-based diet, you are consuming a lot more carbohydrates. And the five that I really focus on, and I look for when I, when people tell me what they're eating is fructose and lactose. Two sugars that tend to be difficult to digest, to absorb. And in the case of lactose digest with lactose intolerant people, but also resistant starch fibers and there's a huge variety of fibers and sugar alcohols. There's many sugar alcohols difficult to digest, but yet all of these are fermentable by microbes.
(23:51): And by the way, there is one kind of gut-friendly sugar alcohol called erythritol that won't drive these overgrowths and all this gas that we've talked about, but the other species can, if you're not digesting and absorbing these foods, well in fact we don't digest fiber by definition that you can overfeed these microbes. And there's a common belief these days that we're actually starving our microbes, that we need to eat more fiber and more fermentable material. More of these five types that I mentioned. I reject that if somebody's perfectly healthy and they're not having any of these GI issues, okay, I won't, I won't chime in, but for people that are having a lot of gas, altered bowel habits, bloating, all of these symptoms, I will really look closely at their diet and then focus in on their digestion and say, what, what's wrong here? Why are these microbes being essentially overfed in your case?
(24:47): And so it gets to kind of the mechanistic part of it. And so if you had to break down the fast track diet, that's a diet I created. I've written a couple books on it or my consulting practice, I always focus on these three important areas, diet and digestion, right? What are you eating and is that diet matched with your ability to digest and absorb those nutrients efficiently or is there a, a mismatch? So diet and digestion is big. And then the next part is root cause analysis, right? What are these potential underlying or contributing causes? As many of these, you know, probably a hundred if you consider the rare ones, but 25 or 30 or 35 are relatively common and they won't be common to everybody. So we have to, in most cases rule most of them out to really focus in on what is the most likely underlying cause or causes in that particular case.
(25:45): Cuz it's somebody that has hypochlorhydria, low stomach acid and there's all these risk factors and reasons for that. Is it somebody that has pancreatic insufficiency, right? We talked about the elastase test to measure that. But even if you don't it say you can't afford the stool test, you can just try a digestive enzyme that contains pancreatic enzymes. And the same goes with these brush border enzymes, these disaccharides, lactase, sucres, maltase, iso, maltase tris, it's many of them. They can be damaged on the brush border. It's not easy to get that test done. They usually use that test for kids with genetic deficiencies in these enzymes because it's a very dangerous condition. But we now know in adults with these functional GI issues, I, I'm using the term too dysfunctional GI conditions, right? , they, it's very common for them to have these brush border deficiencies. We now know very recent work up to 70% or more have these deficiencies.
(26:44): Testing requires endoscopy, taking biopsies, send it to highly specialized labs, probably expensive. But instead there are also digestive enzymes you can get that have brush border enzymes. So these are kind of workarounds. You can say, well this testing is too much, it's too involved. Instead I want you to try this particular dietary supplement that has either the pancreatic or the brush border enzymes and let and of course modulate your diet. I almost always recommend people to significantly reduce their overall levels of carbohydrates. Any more proteins and fats for the reasons I stated that those are less invasive or less li likely to drive overgrowths and dysbiosis. So reduce the carbs and then reduce in particular these five types of carbs I mentioned. And if you have a brush border deficiency, even the easier to digest starches may be a problem. In the fast track digestion books, I I break down starches into two groups, resistant starch starches that have more of a starch called amlo.
(27:53): It's harder to digest or le or less resistant star, which has more amylopectin, an easy to digest species of scotch. So jasmine rice and sushi rice, it's an easier to digest scotch, uncle Bens and wild rice and bosma rice, more of the resistant scotch. So I'll say, well if you're going to have starches stick with jasmine or sushi rice, I'll, I'll add some particular name brands that I like and cook it properly in a rice cooker if possible with plenty of moisture. And then limit your serving size, right? When you cut your serving size from a cup down to a half a cup, you cut these fp points that it's a calculation I created in the book to measure how much of these fermentable carbs you're consuming on whole. When you cut your portions in half, you cut these points in half and you cut your symptom potential in half. So I'll say eat less, follow these particular behaviors and practices or just avoid starches for the next month until we really get to the bottom of this.
(28:55): Yeah, I, you know, and when from a hormonal perspective, when you're saying sushi rice or jasmine rice, those are white rices, I'm thinking immediately, oh that's gonna mess up your insulin. Don't do that. Just don't eat it . No, but I hear very good point. I hear what you're saying looking at, yeah, right. So we've always gotta consider, you know, gut health with hormones and then hormones, he hormone health with gut health. And I think when we neglect one, we neglect to think about the other when we're, we're addressing one part that we can cause more problems. But yeah, so diet is super important. Sometimes you just can do empiric treatment if you can't afford testing, you can try a brush border enzyme or try adding retain and Pepsis. And I remember when I worked at the, the clinic in Atlanta, you know, getting at what is your stomach acid level? Do you have hypochlorhydria is really hard. Although most people over 30, and especially with each advancing decade, we increasingly have it till when we're in our seventh decade almost all of us have hypochlorhydria, meaning not enough stomach acid. So we actually had a Heidelberg machine
(30:05): , huh, wow, good for you to
(30:08): Test, right? Like who has
(30:10): That's
(30:10): Impressive Heidelberg machine.
(30:11): Yeah.
(30:12): Right. So some people are listening, you're going, what is a Heidelberg machine? So like I said, getting at a measurement of your exact stomach acid level is very difficult. But with the Heidelberg machine, you swallow a capsule and then it radio transmits the pH level to a de sensor outside and you get a computer readout of how your stomach acid changes over time in response to certain things. And it's this beautiful test. But like I said, you don't really need that test. If you're over 30, you probably have some degree of hypochlorhydria. You have gerd, you definitely do. If you've been on a P P I, you definitely do. So sometimes you can just treat empirically as that kind of, what is your approach to stomach acid disorders? Mm-Hmm. .
(30:56): Yeah, no, that's very good. And I, I wanna get into that, the Heidelberg and also risk factors for low stomach, but just wanted to comment on something you said earlier. Yeah, you bring up a very good point about, okay, the, the rices I mentioned that are less problematic for your digestion also going to raise your blood sugar more, right? They're higher glycemic index, right Rices, right. The bosma and Uncle Bens is a lower gi, lower glycemic index and higher FP and the jasmine rice and sushi rice, a higher glycemic index, higher gi, but lower fp. So they're easier on your digestive tract. If you have, you do need the brush border enzymes though, which complete the breakdown of starches. Amylase doesn't do all of it. You need the brush border enzymes as well. But let's assume they're working. And so Jasmine rice is a good fit for you in terms of your digestive wellbeing, but it, it is going to raise your blood sugar.
(31:47): And that's a point I do bring that up in my book. And that's one of the reasons we also recommend smaller servings of high GI, low FP foods because they will raise your blood sugar and the last thing you want to do is get into a situation with metabolic disorders or pre-diabetes or even diabetes, you know, insulin related illnesses. So we're very cognizant of that. So we know there is that trade off and so I'm glad you brought that up. Regarding stomach acid, this is really fascinating and I, I agree with you. Some people will just kind of say, well you're on a P P I when you get off the P P I, we're gonna make a lot of changes in dietary and behavioral changes get you off the PPIs and hopefully your stomach acid will pump back. Might be that simple. But for a lot of people they could have significant issues.
(32:33): They may have pernicious anemia. It's an autoimmune condition where your own antibodies are attacking these parietal cells that produce the stomach acid, right? And you wanna know about that if you have it. And of course you may also have low B12 levels because intrinsic factor is needed for absorption of b12, a Heidelberg test. And it's just fantastic that you once had one. I too bad. You can still have it. You can. I just received one of those test results this morning from one of my clients and was going through it. It's an amazing test. But before I recommend that to somebody, I really do look at the risk factors for hypochlorhydria and there and there's some risk risk factors for hyperchlorhydria too. Too much stomach acid. Mm-Hmm . But I look at whether they have had an endoscopy before. If they have gastritis, that's a big risk factor.
(33:22): And often gastritis is caused from a chronic infection with this bacteri helico back to Pylori. And so I wanna make sure they've been tested for helico back to Pylori. You can get it in a stool test, there's a breath test for it and so forth. I wouldn't recommend the blood test because that will just tell you whether you've ever had it. You wanna know whether you have it. So gastritis, whether you're h pylori positive or negative. If you abuse NSAIDs, non-steroid anti-inflammatories like aspirin and ibuprofen, that's very irritating on the stomach. Can lead, can lead to gastritis if you had Hashimotos, right? Hypothyroidism, autoimmune hypothyroidism, you're at greater risk for pernicious anemia. And so there's more of these. So working through these risk factors, I can usually reach a point where I can say, you know what, you're at very low risk for hypochlorhydria, let's move on.
(34:11): But if the answer comes back and says you're at a moderate to high risk for it, we might either take some action steps or let's look for a place near you, a practice near you that has the Heidelberg. So it's just, it's great you brought that up. And when you go to the Heidelberg website, I forget what the name of the website is, but if you just google Heidelberg acid test, you'll see the website. They do have by state places that still do the tests so you can find them. I'm really frustrated that every teaching hospital in every state doesn't have the ability to do this because for people that that aren't familiar with the test, you are not just measuring whether somebody has acid or not in their stomach, as you mentioned. You take this capsule, you swallow it, but it dangles on a string and they, and by the pH right, it radios up to a laptop and by the pH being really low you can see, okay, you're in the stomach and that's, they might put a piece of tape there and you know it's sting in the stomach.
(35:08): But the secret to that test is you can now tell what your stomach acid is and that capsule isn't going anywhere and they give you these drinks of sodium bicarbonate. Mm-Hmm That will raise the stomach acid back closer to neutrality six or six and a half, seven. And then they see how long it takes for your parietal cells to produce enough stomach acid to lower the acid back down to between pH one and two very acidic. And if it takes a real long time, then you may be diagnosed with hypochlorhydria. Now if it does it in 10 or 15 minutes, okay that's okay. But then they'll give you another drink and then once the stomach acid regains itself, they'll give you another drink, three or four of these. And so you can see if your stomach can reas acidify each of these times. If you end up with a space of about 40 or 50 minutes or an hour, then that might indicate that you have hypochlorhydria, your stomach just isn't able to keep up Reac acidifying itself.
(36:06): Yeah. And you know, after I was so excited to get to work with this machine, but I have to say after, you know, hundreds reading hundreds of these tests, I've never seen one in a human over 40 who wasn't having health problem, who was having health problems that wasn't abnormal. So I do think it's
(36:25): A great test. Well I seen, I've seen both and I've, I had one client that we suspect that he had low stomach acid. He was actually a hypers secret
(36:32): Secret, very interesting.
(36:33): Five minutes every time just making right stomach acid. So, and that can happen if you have dysregulation of gastro producing cells in the lower part of the stomach, which when those are expressed to stimulate stomach acid, they stimulate histamine release and that binds to the bridal cells and drive stomach acid. So there are a lot of possibilities that you pyloric sphincter in how healthy that's working can allow reflux from the small intestine back into the stomach that can throw off stomach acid results. So there's a lot of things to consider. It can be a little bit complicated, but I still think it's a great test right to look at in some cases.
(37:14): I do too. I wanna tie everything we're kind of talking about together with hormones for everyone because I know some people are still wondering K Kiran, why are you always talking about poop , we're supposed to talk about hormones so I just wanna tie it in as succinctly as I can. But your gastrointestinal tract is actually your biggest interface with the external environment. I know it's on the inside of your body, but you're taking the external environment and you are putting it inside of you. The surface area of your gut is as big as two doubles tennis courts, which is way bigger than the surface area of your skin. So everything you take into your mouth is contacting you. So it being the biggest contact with your external environment, it is the highest concentration of your immune system designed to protect you. It's your body's military all along your gastrointestinal tract.
(38:09): And that is directly related to your cortisol. Stress hormone is directly related to your immune system function is directly related to your gut function. So if your gut isn't right, your immune system's not gonna be right and your cortisol's not gonna be right. And your cortisol, I call her queen cortisol, is going to wreck havoc with your sex hormones. So you might have PMs heavy painful periods and you think all you've got is a period problem. No, you could have a gut problem or it's gonna wreck havoc with your thyroid hormone and you think you've got a thyroid problem cuz then you're overweight and tired and you don't have a primary thyroid problem, you actually have a gut problem. So if you listen to me long enough, you know what I'm talking about. If you're still scratching your head going, what in the world is she talking about?
(38:55): Keep listening, come meet me on social media, join one of my challenges, we will get you up to speed on why your PU poop is good. Poop is essential to hormone health. Thank you Norm for furthering the understanding for everyone today in a very deep and meaningful way about functional or dysfunctional gut disorders. Before we wrap up, I wanna just ask you a couple things. The first is you shared a couple quotes with me before we started that I absolutely love and you said from Benjamin Franklin, whom I love the best doctor gives the least medicines. Mm-Hmm , can you talk a little bit about that and then we'll go ahead and wrap up?
(39:38): Yeah, well in my fast track digestion books, I use a different quote at the beginning of every chapter. So I kind of like you, I love those. And the back one is your health depends on the bacteria in your gut. So I think that sums up a lot of what we were talking about. But in terms of the best doctor gives the least medicine, I mean I've really come to believe that and I've, I've been on both sides of the fence. I spent the first 20 years of my career after graduating from school in the Fama biotech industry developing new drugs. And I like the idea of working on these difficult diseases with unmet medical needs and coming up with, with a drug or a solution that that works for these serious conditions. You know, for, and I spent 10 years just on antibiotics and they're lifesaving medicines.
(40:27): I worked on the development and approval of ciprofloxin. They're lifesavers but they're also really rough on the gut. And so when I see more and more of these kind of strong medicines being used for people with these digestive health issues that I think could better be addressed by holistic means, especially antibiotics, because those are, those really disrupt the, the microbiome. It drives me crazy, but I think it's both the manufacturers that make money on the drugs, on the doctors, it's easy to prescribe something, but also patience. Well, I can just take this pill and keep eating what I want to eat. That sounds like a
(41:07): Good deal . But
(41:09): So when I work with people, it does take, you have to be willing to make some changes and to really look at things in a way that, you know, you may have to change your diet and change your behaviors and try some more holistic supplements. We talked about digestive en enzymes as many, many others and get away from these harsher drugs. So that's what that means. So first chapter of that fast track digestion, i b s book is all about the drugs for i b s and the conclusion at the end of it is it's a big fail. They, they're terrible and so we need to find a different way.
(41:42): Right. Awesome. Well everybody, norm is giving you a free copy of his hashtag Diet 1 0 1 ebook. We will have the link in the show notes, so definitely encourage you if you have dysfunctional gut issues to download that and read that. Tell everybody where else they can find out more about you and the work that, that you do.
(42:02): Sure. Every aspect of our work and also our consultation services, blogs, information about the fast track digestion books is one on i b s and Hot Burn. The Fast Track Diet mobile app I haven't really talked about. But this mobile app is, is just the greatest way to implement the diet. It uses this FP calculation and so there's, it's got a database of over 1200 foods and their FP values and a calculator to calculate this fp value for foods that might not be on the list. So those resources can also be found in the same place. Everything can be [email protected]
(42:40): Awesome. Well, I invite everybody who is interested to go and check that out and get that valuable resource. Thank you so much, norm for this deep conversation, deep dive into functional gut issues and what to do about them.
(42:54): Well, thank you Karen. Good questions,
(42:56): And thank you all for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Hopefully you've heard something here today that will be impactful for your health and your life so that you can make changes to move you towards the brilliant health that you deserve to be experiencing if you are not there yet. Stay tuned. Next week I will have another wonderful guest and episode helping you better understand your health and your body from a functional approach and how to improve it. And I'll see you again next week. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.
(43:30): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Free Fast Track Diet 101 ebook from Dr. Norm Robillard - CLICK HERE
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Have you been feeling stuck and unable to move forward in your health journey? You are not alone! Midlife can be a tricky time, and it’s natural to feel overwhelmed. In this solo episode of Dr. Kyrin Dunston in The Hormone Prescription Podcast, she shares the third essential step for healing your hormones: recognizing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
You'll learn about:
- How to identify and unlock the limits you’ve internalized;
- How to recognize the gap between where you are now and where you want to be;
- What hero's journey are you on, and what hero's journey do you need to take?
Dr. Dunston provides insights into how midlife women can take their power back by reclaiming their unique identity and taking ownership of their health. It’s time for us all to break out of our comfort zones and transform into our true selves. So tune in now for an inspiring episode that will empower you toward your health goals!
It’s never too late to make a change for the better – so join Dr. Dunston to unlock the hero inside you, and take a stand for your brilliant health.
You can find this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other podcasting platforms. Follow along with Dr. Dunston's journey as she guides midlife women through hormone balancing to reclaim their vibrant health!
Listen now, and start transforming into the best version of yourself today!
You’ve got this – it’s time to become your own health hero.
(00:00): What hero's journey are you on? And what hero's journey do you need to take to balance your hormones and create the brilliant health that you deserve? Find out next.
(00:13): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones in our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an O B G Y N, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:06): Hey, it's Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me again for this part three of three series on the essential foundational steps that you must take in order to balance your hormones and create the brilliant health that you deserve. Hopefully you watched or listened to video one or podcast one and two, cuz they set the foundation for this third one. So if you didn't check 'em out, go listen to those first before you listen to this one. So today we're gonna talk about the third essential step. I'm here in Tulum, Mexico, you might have been here, maybe you've been to Cancun. I've been to Cancun, very commercial and built up beautiful, right? Love the culture, love the people, and I decided to come here for some r and r and it's way less developed and natural here. So that's more my speed. I'm more of a nature girl than a big city girl, even though I grew up in New York City.
(02:07): So anyway, they have something very unique here that I kind of love and I bet you would love it too because it's a little bit of serendipity. So what is it that they have? The first day I was here, the internet was down in my condo and I had to do a live class online. So I found a workspace around the corner, which I walked to, and I saw this street sign that said, you are your own limit. It was a legit street sign, just like a speed sign or a stop sign or a sign saying, you know, exit 2 49 for this city. It was on the road and it said, you are your own limit. I had never seen a street sign like that, right? I've only seen traffic instructional signs or street name signs. I had never seen an inspirational street sign. And I saw it and I laughed because it was such serendipity.
(03:10): You know how something you don't expect to see, right? I thought it was gonna be a speed limit or instruction and it's like you are your own limit. So I laughed, I chuckled because I loved it because it's so true that we really are unlimited beings, our capacity, right? I think studies say that we only use about 10% of our brain power, and we have so much more. And I think we're kind of going into an age now where we're starting to learn about our gifts as a collective, as and as individuals and how unique we each are and celebrating the unique gifts that we have, right? One person might be in Einstein with a very high IQ and they solve complex math problems that may not be someone else's unique genius, but we're starting to honor the unique genius in each of us. But if we all think we're supposed to be like Einstein intellectuals with high IQ who can solve math problems, which kind of has been the paradigm for a long time in society, and we've all measured ourselves against that yardstick, how smart are we?
(04:20): How well are, do we do it math, right? Or can we write? Then we miss the uniqueness of ourselves. And so I, this sign spoke to me of you are your own limit that we're, we have these internal limits that we internalize the expectations that society places on us and then we stop ourselves from expressing who we uniquely are. Can you relate to that? I know I can relate to that and I know some of you I've talked to have done that too. So I'm not alone in this, but we're starting to express our own uniqueness. So what does this have to do with the third essential step to hormone balance and healing? Well, the third essential step is that you've got to recognize the gap from where you are that you looked at in step one, where you got brutally honest with yourself about what are all the health symptoms I'm having and what are the false beliefs I'm having about my health situation, right?
(05:30): So you got a really painful look up close, look in-depth, look at how bad it is and the pain that you're experiencing. You might also wanna write about how it's affecting your life, right? And the cost of being in that place. What does it cost you financially? What does it cost you in terms of time? What does it cost you in terms of unlived relationships and careers, right? So there are monetary costs, there are time costs, and there are intangible costs to all of the problems that we outline in step one. So you got really clear on that. And then in step two, I told you, get in touch with the vision for your life because those are your imaginable cell blueprint from your soul to where you are meant to go. And I invited you to write about it and do a vision board and get really clear on where you're going.
(06:25): So you have the pain and then you've got the pleasure. But next, you've got to look at the gap between these two extremes. Now, for some of you, it's not that big a gap, right? Maybe you've just got a few problems, you haven't been dealing with them for that long, hasn't affected your life and your relationships and your money and your time that much. And maybe your vision isn't that grand, right? We all have different size, different types of visions, so maybe it doesn't feel so uncomfortable. Although if you're lost and you don't know how to get there and you've tried a lot of different things, that gap can be very painful even though it's small cuz you have no idea how to get there. And for some of you that gap is huge. You're like, like I was when I was in my forties, a hundred pounds overweight, depression and anxiety so bad that it makes it hard for you to function on a daily basis.
(07:24): Your relationships are being affected by it, your work is being affected by it. You're on several psychoactive medications, you have irritable bowel, you don't know if you're gonna poop or not for days or weeks or poop 10 times in one day. You don't know what's going on with your stomach. You have no sex drive. Your relationship's failing because of it or whatever problems you have. That's what I had. My health was terrible. And as a board certified ob, g n, who was supposed to know more about women's health than anyone else, I was clueless how to get out of this. So my pain was severe and I even thought about suicide at times. It was that bad. I was that hopeless and desperate. And where I wanted to go was this beautiful dream that I had since I was a young person of helping women with their health.
(08:20): And I clearly was not in a position to do that. So my gap seemed as big as the Grand Canyon, and maybe yours does too. I couldn't see how I was possibly gonna get from that to where I am now, but I'm living proof that it can happen, right? And I'm also living proof that it starts with getting honest, honoring your dream. I knew that's this is what I was meant to be doing. I just didn't know how to get there. So getting honest about the gap, really going back to that step one and being honest and writing out like Scrooge in the movie, he looks at the ghosts of Christmas pass, come visit him, ghosts of Christmas present and the ghost of Christmas future. And he gets a real good look at where he was, where he is now, and how dismal his life is gonna be if he continues on this trajectory.
(09:18): I invite you to do that for yourself because otherwise I've seen women delude themselves for decades until it's too late. And I don't want that to be you. So until you get a clear picture of the trajectory that you've been on and where your health is headed and where you are gonna end up in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, if you continue on the same trajectory, you really can't get honest with yourself. And until you get really honest with yourself about the dreams that you have. Now, some people, I do an exercise where I have you close your eyes and I'll give you a mini version of it. And then I have you pretend there's a book in your lap and you open the book to the current day and all the pages on the left of the book have been written on because you've lived all the days of your life up until today.
(10:16): And then in the page that's open is today, and you get to decide what happens that you write today. And then all the pages and the rest of the book to the right are blank. And you get to decide what's written on those pages. And we're always creating every single day. We're creating our health, we're creating our life. Most of us create by default. We just live the same thing that we've been living because we have habits and we just do the same thing. We don't know what else to do or we feel hopeless or we're otherwise stuck. So we're creating by default, but what if we could create on purpose? And it's that vision in step two, that's the imaginable cells of your soul calling you to the butterfly that you are. That is what you need to honor in writing those pages on the right, you get to decide.
(11:10): So you get in touch with the pain, in touch with what you want, and then you're faced with the chasm. And a lot of you, that's where you're gonna falter and stumble and not get up. And you're gonna go, oh, it's too much. I can't do it. I can't get from there to here. And if you've taken steps one and you've taken steps two, you absolutely can get from there to where you wanna be. What does it require? If you've really done a thorough job with steps one and two, it requires getting someone who knows the path who can help you bridge the chasm, right? In every movie you've ever seen Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, one of my favorites, hopefully you like it too. Does she get the golden slippers and go home by herself? She's in a strange land drop with munchkins , right?
(12:08): On a house, right? And she falls from the sky and she's in munchkin land. She's in a very strange land with talking tin men and lions and straw men that sing and dance. And all she wants to do is go home, right? So what's her pain? She's not home. She's not with her family. She wants to get home. That's her vision. Does she get there by herself? No. She has guides. She has the Tin Man, the lion and the scarecrow, and she has the good witch and they help and guide her on her way. She also has her dog toto and they help her on the path. Star Wars, another wonderful movie. Does Luke Skywalker know how to defeat Darth Vader by himself? Only he can do it. He has to do it. That's the pain he is experiencing. He can't do it by himself.
(13:12): He has to train and then he can accomplish the task. The Karate Kids has a big dilemma. His pain is he can't do karate well, and he needs to be able to do that so he can win. So what does he get? A guide wax on, wax off, who teaches him how to paint and do karate? So this brings me to the Hero's Journey. Maybe you've heard of that, maybe you haven't. So it's something that Joseph Campbell outlined many years ago about the mythic archetypes that we all play and take turns playing in life for women. A lot of us at some point play the Maiden. We play Theron. A lot of people, not just women, may not literally play the prostitute, but some of us in life will pay the play the prostitute in other ways. Meaning that we do something for somebody else that we don't really wanna do in order to get money.
(14:15): So if you're in a job that you hate, it's somewhat of a prostitute archetype. He also outlined the Hero's Journey. It's a journey that we all take usually multiple times in our lives in different areas. And it has 12 classic parts. You're welcome to look it up on the internet. I'm not gonna go through all of them, but all movies, all great movies follow this storyline where there's a protagonist who encounters a seemingly insurmountable problem early on, right? And the Wizard of Oz, she's in a strange land, wants to get home. Luke Skywalker and Star Wars has to defeat Darth Vader. Ralph Machio played the karate kid. He needed to defeat others in karate and didn't know how to do karate, right? So they're faced with this huge dilemma and they can't figure out, it's usually a matter of life or death or some, they're big stakes and they have to figure out how to accomplish the goal.
(15:23): And there's always a guide that's involved in helping them achieve the goal. So you are on your own hero's journey with your health problems. I know you don't wanna be , right? We're all the reluctant heroes usually on our journey, but you are. And the sooner you recognize it, the better off you'll be. And when you've seen clearly where you are and gotten honest, and you've seen clearly what your soul is calling you to do, which starts with healing, and you see the gap of where you are and where you must be, you are on the hero's journey whether you want to be or not. So accepting it allows you to lean into it and get better results because you know you need a guide and you can't figure this out yourself, right? So Dorothy didn't go online and Google, I'm in az. How the heck do I get the go the Ruby slippers and get home, right?
(16:18): Even if they had the internet nowadays, she wouldn't have been able to get the answer. Luke Skywalker didn't and couldn't, wouldn't Google. How do I defeat Darth Vader and Ralph Machi as a karate kid? Wouldn't Google be able to learn how to perform award-winning karate where he could actually defeat someone? Why? Because these are skills that need to be taught by other humans who know the path to through the difficulty. It requires coaches who have been there and done that and have the expertise to coach you real time into doing the thing. So you can't learn it from a blog article, how to Get Out Of Oz and Go home. You can't learn how to defeat Darth Vader from a podcast, right? It's just not gonna happen. It requires guides to surround you and love you, and nurture you and boost you and tell you the steps you need to do so that you can do the thing we talked about in the first lesson, how you've gotta be discerning about who you get to help you, who actually can help you.
(17:30): And then the biggest thing about the Her hero's journey that you'll learn is that they're actually two hero's journey to every hero's journey. And you'll see that if you look it up. So what do I mean by that? There's the journey that you obviously go on, right? So Dorothy wanted to get home from Oz, that was her goal, but there's a second journey that she went on that if we're paying attention usually gives the most meaning to these great films and stories. And that is who she became in the process of going on this journey. And if you watch the movie again, , I know a bunch, you gonna go watch it, you will see that she's a different person when she goes back home to Kansas than when she left. And Luke Skywalker has a new confidence and sense of self after he defeats Darth Vader.
(18:29): And Ralph Macio is a different person also. So yes, the goal of the journey is to bridge the gap and get where you wanna be. But it's also to become that person who could, who can and did do the thing. So my hero's journey was I was ob gyn in my forties with horrible health and I wanted to get here where I am now and helping other women. But more than that was I wanted to become the doctor who had all the tools who could help the women bridge their own gap. And so that's who I've become. And only you know who it is that your soul is calling you to become. And that first step looks like the health gap, bridging the health gap, but it's who you're gonna become because when you become competent in that, you get a certain self-assurance and confidence in doing so many other things in your life that your soul is calling you to do.
(19:35): So another set of street signs that I've seen here while I've been in Tulum, there's another one that's kind of iconic. You may have seen me or will see me on my Instagram channel by this sign that says Follow your dreams. Another just benign street sign that says Follow your dreams. And people say You haven't been to Lo to Tulum if you haven't gotten your picture in front of that sign. So I had to go get a picture so you can see it on Instagram. And then I saw another one that just delighted me to know. And so I use a bike here as my transportation traffic's terrible. So they tell you, get a bike. So I got a bike and I ride it everywhere to the supermarket to eat to the beach. And so I'm riding my bike down to the beach and I see these three triangular signs all in a row.
(20:24): 1, 2, 3, right? They're yellow with the black kind of outline. So they look like maybe they should be speed signs. But the first one says, if not, and I'm writing, writing, writing, the next one says, now writing, writing, writing. When question mark, I thought it was so cute, I had to circle back and take pictures of them. And maybe I'll post those on social media too, cuz they're super cute. If not now when? And if you're coming the other direction, it says it in Spanish so you can see it in Spanish coming one way and English and going the other. If not now when I don't know who pays for these street signs here in Tulum, I don't know if it's an interested, inspirational private party that just likes inspiring people. I don't know if the government actually funds these cuz they're actually, I can't see how an independent citizen could put a sign on the side of the road like that.
(21:27): So I don't know. I'm gonna have to research it. But in any case, I love it, I love it. I love little inspiration. I love inspirational bumper stickers or signs. And so that one spoke to me too, and I started thinking, what am I procrastinating on that I need to get moving on? If not now, when? Right? We have a begin date to our life and an end date, right? Everybody's tombstone has a begin date, a dash and an end date, and we're living the dash and it's our health that gives us that dash. When we run outta health, our dash ends and we get an end date, an expiration date, right? Whether we like it or not, it's a sad truth that most of us try to ignore, but it's a fact and it's honestly what keeps me honest. It keeps me moving forward.
(22:18): What do I need to be doing for women and for their health? How can I do it better? How can I do it more? What do I need to be saying? Where do I need to be showing up, right? So you call this fourth from me, that's why I'm here. And I want you to know, get honest. Step one about all the pain points you're dealing with. Get honest that the channels you're looking for answers in aren't gonna work. Get honest that it's not one thing. Get honest about all the time, money, and effort and tears that you have wasted in the wrong answers. Step two, I want you to honor your dreams. It is your soul calling forth what you came here to express. And that starts with great health. I want you to write it out what it's gonna be like when you accomplish the health you want and all the things you want in your life.
(23:11): And then three, I want you to honor that gap. And I want you to get clear on how you're gonna follow your dreams. How you're gonna not be your own limit. Like that sign said, you are your own limit. Most of us, before we even can get the help outside, we've stopped ourself. I can't afford it, it's gonna be too expensive, it's gonna be too hard. I won't be able to follow it, right? It's not gonna work. I don't trust myself, I don't trust them, right? We have all these stuck thoughts in our head. It's not possible for me. I don't deserve it. You identify all the stuck thoughts that you have that are keeping you stuck in that gap, right? And then you get eye to eye with yourself in the mirror and you examine, do I really want to believe this? And is it true?
(24:05): And would I say this to my friend? What do you say to your friend? It's not possible for you. You can't have that. You can't do it. You're not trustworthy, you're not worthy of the time, you're not worthy of the money, right? We say things to ourselves internally that we would never say to someone we love. So self-love is about speaking to yourself internally. Like you speak to your loved ones externally with the same encouragement, tenderness, understanding, and nurturing. So get honest with yourself about that and then honor the Tulum signed. If not now, when there's so many people who, I'll say some people who say, oh yeah, I know I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna take care of that when I retire in three years. I'm gonna take care of that when I get off. Nice shift. I'm gonna take care of that when, when, when, when.
(25:09): Right? So meanwhile, health problems are accruing all the ones that you know about are getting worse. And the problem is that there are a lot of them that you don't know about that your hormone imbalances are affecting. So I hope you've enjoyed this series. I thought it was super important cuz I see people all over the internet talking about, here's the one thing you need to do. Take this one supplement for your hormone problems. Here's the one diet you need to follow. And I'm a much deeper person who takes a deeper approach and who recognizes that my journey to health and healing actually started years before I discovered a root cause approach. And when I saw that, yes, some people picked up the tools, I taught them and their health and life were forever changed. But some people did the tools for a while and did get results, but then they stopped and some people could never pick up the tools.
(26:05): I went back scratching my head and going, what am I missing? I realized that my journey didn't start when I thought it started with the learning the tools of a root cause resolution approach. It actually started several years before when I got thrown off a horse and broke my foot. And that's a story for another time. So you'll have to come back so you can hear that story. But this is your story and that's what this is about. Your story, your unique, beautiful personal soul's story of your journey in this life. So I wanna make sure that you get the foundation of your house that's gonna stand for you valid for the rest of your life through storms and hurricanes and wind and earthquakes. We gotta go down in the ground and dig the foundation. And these three steps that I've taught you about are gonna give you a solid foundation that's gonna last you the rest of your life. So I hope you enjoyed this. If you have any comments, please jump on Instagram or Facebook at kyrindunston MD and tell me about it. Tell me your thoughts. Tell me what you're thinking. Tell me about your dreams. Tell me about your pain. Tell me about the gap and how you're gonna navigate it. I really want to hear about it. Thank you so much for joining me. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, peace, love,
(27:36): And hormones y'all. Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Hormone Balance Bliss Challenge by Dr. Kyrin Dunston
Are you struggling to find the right solution to get your hormones and metabolism back in balance?
If you're feeling like nothing is working, it's time to try something else! Our Hormone Balance Bliss Challenge was designed specifically for those who are looking for a long-term way out of their hormone and energy struggles. We’ll help you understand what doctors aren’t telling about how hormones affect weight gain, energy levels, and overall wellbeing.
With our easy-to-follow 7 day plan, no more will you feel confused by your condition or overwhelmed about how to fight against it - we'll give you all the tools needed so that within just 7 days from now YOU can start experiencing true health bliss again!
Join us today on this journey into hormone balance bliss - CLICK HERE to sign up now and get started on reclaiming your mojo!
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Missing episodes?
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Do you know what is holding you back from feeling like your best self? Many women reach midlife and realize that their dreams have been put on the back burner. You can regain control over your health by learning to honor the desires that come from deep within.
It starts with understanding that honoring your dreams is a key factor in balancing hormones, as it helps connect you to the energy blueprint of your physical body. This connection allows you to gain clarity and focus on healing your health.
It's time to begin listening more closely to yourself, believing in yourself and taking action toward making positive changes in life. Allow yourself to move forward with confidence, following your intuition with trust. Take one step at a time! With each step, you will feel empowered to live a life that is truly in alignment with who you are.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why honoring your dreams is an essential step in balancing hormones
- How to identify the desires that come from within
- How to trust and take action on your desires
- Tips on how to move forward with confidence, following your intuition
Tune in for more inspiring insights and steps towards healing your hormones! Join Dr. Kyrin Dunston as she guides you through the journey of honoring your dreams. Ready to reclaim control over your health? Let's get started!
Listen to this episode and start living the life you were meant to live. Honor your dreams today!
(00:00): Do you honor your dreams or do you suppress them? Why is honoring your dreams an important step in balancing your hormones? Find out next.
(00:11): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40 in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:04): Hey, it's Dr. Kyrin. Welcome back to another episode where I'm gonna give you the second essential step out of three to balancing your hormones and creating the brilliant health that you deserve. So in the first step, we talked about how you've got to stop lying to yourself. You just gotta stop, right? You've gotta get honest, get out of delusion and denial and get honest. If you didn't listen to that one, go back and listen to that episode today. I'm gonna talk about the second essential step, and it's gonna surprise you cuz I know you're waiting for me to say, get tested, take a supplement, do this right? And we're still building the foundation under the house that's gonna hold that house for years. So the second step you need to take is you need to honor the value of your dreams for your life. That's right.
(02:02): Honor the value of your dreams for your life. So I know you're scratching your head and going, what are you talking about? What does that have to do with my health? So I wanna start by telling you about butterflies. , right? Butterflies. Everybody's fascinated with them. They're beautiful. They're just like little tissue toilet paper that fly around in the air, and they're absolutely beautiful. I'm fascinated with their lifecycle. I remember going to the Calloway Gardens outside Atlanta in Georgia a few years back, and they had the blue morph butterflies, and you could see them in all different stages of their growth and development going from basically a worm or caterpillar into their chrysalis and being birthed as a butterfly, and then they had a whole atrium full of butterflies flying around. It was wonderful. Well, butterflies have something called imaginal cells. So what are imaginable cells when that caterpillar is crawling around and then it wants to transform into a butterfly, or it gets the internal evolutionary signal that it's time for it to become a butterfly is more correctly stated.
(03:16): It starts attaching to a leaf and then it starts spinning this chrysalis around it like a little cocoon, right? There is something inside the caterpillar and the cocoon called imaginable cell that actually hold the blueprint for the caterpillar to become a blood butterfly. And in some respects, it is these imaginable cells that set the evolutionary signal for the caterpillar. It's time to go make your chrysalis and get still because transformation is coming, and then it sets the blueprint for all the other cells to organize in the structure of a butterfly in the beautiful colors of a butterfly with the gracefulness of a butterfly, the agility of a butterfly and all the butterfly attributes that we love. It's the imaginable cells that set this. So what does this have to do with you? You have imaginal cells too. Yours are energetic, but when you want to heal your health, maybe there are other things that you want to heal in your life.
(04:37): Maybe your health is stopping you from having the career that you want, the finances that you want, the relationships that you want, the fun, free time and adventure that you want, right? Because health is the prerequisite for all of these things and you get that call. It's coming from inside you, right? The symptoms that you have with your health are actually not a call that you need a drug or surgery to stop the symptom, even though that's what we're taught from corporate medicine, right? We've been taught that, oh, when we have a pain or an illness, it's a sign we need to go to the doctor to get a drug or a surgery to fix the symptom, and when the symptom's gone, we claim victory. It's actually not what symptoms means. Symptoms in your body is your body trying to talk to you about what it needs and wants in order to come into balance because your body naturally wants to heal and it will heal when everything that's preventing it from healing and everything that will support it in healing is present, right?
(05:42): The preventing things are gone and the supportive things are present. So if you cut your hand and it bleeds, if there's no dirt and debris that could prevent it from healing, your body will send healing nutrients and cells to the area to create a scab which protects it and allows it to heal. But if there's a heap of dust and dust and dirt and debris in it, that will prevent it from healing. Or if your body doesn't have the fibrin and white blood cells descend to the area, it won't heal. So your body has that system for everything, right? If you're getting migraine headaches, if you have a weight problem, if you're tired, if you have GERD or reflux or you have irritable bowel, your body wants to heal. So when you have chronic symptoms, what it means is you have issues present that are preventing your body from healing, and you don't have the supportive forces there to nurture your body to healing.
(06:43): So your body wants to heal, it wants to come back and balance. So when you get that call, I wanna heal this problem. These problems, like in video one I talked about for the woman over 40 who's focused on our migraines, but she also has a weight and fatigue problem, rash and also reflux and irritable bowel. You gotta get honest first, but that desire to heal your health actually comes from inside and it's the first step. It's the first evolutionary step in you living the life that you are meant to live on this planet. We each have a unique thumbprint fingerprint, right? We each have a unique iris. We don't have an iris like any of the, any of the seven or 8 billion people on this planet. We are each precious and unique in our own right, and we each have our own song to sing, our own story, to write our own, whatever it is we came here to create.
(07:52): Our energy signature will never be recreated in all of the millennia of this galaxy. So you have an evolutionary drive that comes inside from your soul to fulfill your potential in this lifetime. And your soul knows that without physical health in this human body, you won't fulfill your potential in this lifetime, whatever that looks like for you. So your soul provides this energy blueprint that is the framework of your physical body, and it calls you to health and healing and wholeness and expression. Those are your imaginal cells. So you've got to honor the dream that you have. It's been said that if you bring forth what is within you, it will save you. If you don't bring forth what is within you, it will kill you. And I do believe this to be true. If you live with unfulfilled dreams, it causes an erosion of your morality and your dignity and your soul.
(09:07): I believe we all have a moral obligation to bring forth what is within us because I also believe that our souls don't evolve alone. They involve with concert, with all the other souls on the planet, and that our desire to give something to others means that they are actually calling for that thing from me. They are calling for it from you because some people are only going to hear the song that you're gonna sing from you. They're only gonna read the book that you would write from you. They're only gonna hear it from your voice, from your perspective. So these are our imaginable cells, right? I know that most of us think that our dreams come from us, that we make them up in our minds because that's what we've been taught. But something that I believe, and I'll be talking about this in more podcasts and videos, because it's based on my experience and also my research on the nature of science and spirituality, where they really have bridged is that your dreams were implanted in you and came with you from the soul that inhabits your body and that you have this constant evolutionary drive to bring those dreams to fruition because humanity is calling forth from you.
(10:35): Those are your imaginable cells. So in order to heal your hormones, you not only have to step one, get honest and get outta dishonesty and delusion, but you gotta step two, honor your dreams. Because if you don't honor the evolutionary impulse of your soul to heal your body and bring forth what is within you in this lifetime and fulfill your potential, you actually will never do it If you just say, oh, those are just dreams and fantasies. I don't deserve it. I can't have it. You start shutting down the life force that your soul is trying to bring forth, and part of your hormonal balance comes from that life force. So you've got to write your dreams down in a vision, and I teach you how to do that when I work with you. And you could start today just by writing it or doing a vision board, and you've got to honor it that this is my potential in this lifetime.
(11:43): This is what I'm called to do with my unique BRI blueprint and getting my health straight is the first step on that journey. It is the vision that will pull you through doing all the things like I like to say that are necessary to get your hormones and your health in order because it's not one thing y'all, hopefully I dispelled that myth in in the first lesson. It is not one supplement, it is not one diet, it is not one thing. It's all the things, and it is the vision of what you know you are becoming and creating in your life that will sustain you through the steps that you need to take that come after the first foundational death. Michael Beckwith is quoted as saying, pain will push you until your vision pulls you. And I remember the first time I heard that, I didn't really understand what he was saying, but then one day I did, I kept hearing him say it.
(12:44): What is he talking about? What is he talking about? All that pain that I was in when I weighed 243 pounds and I had chronic fatigue and depression anxiety, and my hair was falling out and I had no sex drive, and you guys have heard this story, right? No answers. Board certified ob gyn couldn't fix it, and I was a hot mess. Pain was pushing me, pain was pushing me to despair and hopelessness. Pain was pushing me to go to many doctors and keep testing myself and say, something's gotta be wrong. But I didn't know how to get honest at that time. So I kept going to myself $30 h m o copay doctor at the time, and my doctor at $30 h m o copay doctor and doing the things only in my small myopic sphere of knowledge and vision. And it wasn't until a patient actually taught me about a root cause resolution approach and that I started getting trained in it that I could actually get the big toolbox that I have now.
(13:44): Then when I started doing the foundation like I'm teaching you about and working with my hormones, which is the foundation of a woman's health, then I started feeling better. I started losing weight, I started having a little more energy. Then my vision started pulling me. I was like, if I can achieve this just with these few steps, I want the whole thing. And so my vision started pulling me. And the same is true for you. Some of you right now I know are sitting there going, oh my gosh, it's another doctor. What is she pedaling some drug that I'm supposed to take or something like that, right? And I get it. You're disillusioned and disgusted with the gaslighting that you've gotten from mainstream medicine. I was there with you, so I totally get it, and you feel hopeless and you feel helpless and you've tried some different things and they haven't worked, or you got a little success and then you backslid and you're like, who can get me where I need to be?
(14:41): And you don't trust anyone to help you, and you don't even trust yourself anymore. You think, I can't even do this. I know because I've been there, so, so what I want you to know is honor your dreams is the second step. Number one, get honest. If you didn't watch that video or listen to that podcast, go back and watch it and get honest. Get out of deceit with yourself. And then number two is honor your dreams. They are the breadcrumb trail leading you to the end of the rainbow where the pot of gold is your personal pot of gold, which is fulfilling your purpose in this life, and that requires that you have the excellent health that you need in order to do the thing. Whatever the thing is, whatever it looks like. You wanna go back to school, you wanna a relationship, you wanna have kids, you wanna be with your kids, you know, be around and healthy and participate in their lives.
(15:42): You wanna be present for your grandkids, whatever it is, right? You wanna travel, you wanna write a novel, you wanna sing whatever it is, right? We have an evolutionary impulse, just like the imaginable cells in the butterflies. So will you honor? Yours is my question. That is the second step that you need to take. So I want you to go and write your vision down for your life in all areas for your health, what it looks like when you've achieved the health that you want, how you feel, what it sounds like, what it looks like, what it smells like, what people are saying, what you're hearing. I want you to write it down for all areas, your relationships, how they improve, because I know your relationships are suffering, your health is suffering. What your finances look like, your career, your creativity, your creative expression, your fun, your free time.
(16:32): Write it all down. Do a vision board and honor it and know that this is not some pie in the sky dream. This is your soul telling you what you came here to do and then get about the business of doing it. I'm gonna tell you in podcast and video three, the third of the three essential foundational steps to getting your hormones balanced and getting your health in order at midlife. So I hope you'll join me for that. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, peace, love, and hormones
(17:13): Y'all. Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Hormone Balance Bliss Challenge by Dr. Kyrin Dunston
Are you struggling to find the right solution to get your hormones and metabolism back in balance?
If you're feeling like nothing is working, it's time to try something else! Our Hormone Balance Bliss Challenge was designed specifically for those who are looking for a long-term way out of their hormone and energy struggles. We’ll help you understand what doctors aren’t telling about how hormones affect weight gain, energy levels, and overall wellbeing.
With our easy-to-follow 7 day plan, no more will you feel confused by your condition or overwhelmed about how to fight against it - we'll give you all the tools needed so that within just 7 days from now YOU can start experiencing true health bliss again!Join us today on this journey into hormone balance bliss - CLICK HERE to sign up now and get started on reclaiming your mojo!
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Have you been telling yourself lies about why your hormones can’t be balanced? Or do you think that balancing hormones is impossible?
Dr. Kyrin Dunston wants to prove to you that it's possible! In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, she will explain the three essential steps needed for successful hormone balance, and why those steps must be taken for you to experience hormonal prosperity.
This episode will tell you about:
How dishonesty is sabotaging your hormonal healthThe first essential step to achieving successful hormone balanceWhy it's important to take these steps to experience hormonal prosperityHow to find the root cause of your hormonal imbalanceAnd much more!
Don't miss out on this powerful episode as Dr. Kyrin Dunston reveals the key to unlocking hormone balance and prosperity today! Tune in now and take your first step toward restoring your hormonal health. Join Dr. Kyrin Dunston for this inspiring episode of Essential Step 1 of 3 To Healing Your Hormones: Stop Your Dishonesty!
(00:00): How are you being dishonest with yourself and how is that preventing you from having balanced hormones? Stay tuned to find out.
(00:08): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us, keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:01): Hey, it's Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of the Hormone Prescription Podcast and my YouTube channel. Today I wanna talk to you about the first of three steps that you need to take in order to balance your hormones. And it's not what you think. So you wanna stay tuned, so you wanna listen up. Most people think that the first step in balancing their hormones is what diet do I need to follow? What supplement do I need to take? What exercise do I need to do? What tests do I need? But they've got it all wrong. They're actually three essential steps that everybody must take in order to successfully, and the keyword is successfully balancing their hormones. Without these steps, you don't have a solid foundation on your hormone balance and your hormonal prosperity. So even if you have some initial success, you're eventually bound to fail.
(02:04): Just like building a house on no foundation will never build a stable house, right? If you don't dig into the ground and put some type of cement and rebar and pilings or something deep into the ground to be a solid foundation for that house, you won't have a safe structure above ground. You've gotta dig into the ground first. The same is true when you're trying to repair your health and your hormones. So that house, if you think the first thing you need to do to build a house is go buy some lumber, and then you just start cutting lumber and nailing it together above ground, what's gonna happen when the first wind comes, that house is gonna fly away or fall down, right? So it's the same with your hormones. You need to dig down into the ground and put a solid foundation for your health and your hormones so that you do it the right way and you go about it the right way in a methodical way, just like in following a recipe, right?
(03:12): You don't look at the ingredient list and then read the instructions and then just decide, oh, I'm just gonna put these ingredients together cause I want to, right? Pick, pick two out of 'em, right? And say, oh, I'm gonna mix those together and not follow the directions, right? Everything has a sequence, particularly for things like baking or dishes that require several steps, right? If you're going to make a great taco, you don't just take raw chicken and raw corn and raw onions and raw avocado and throw 'em all together, right? There's a sequence of steps. You gotta season the chicken, you gotta cook the chicken, you've gotta crush, crush the corn, you've gotta make the taco, right? That has its own process. You've gotta slice the onion, you have to prepare the avocado. And then when you put them all together, yummy, yummy, yummy. I think you get the point, , there's an order to these steps and you need to follow the process.
(04:18): And a lot of people would have you believe that, oh, you need this test first. Oh, or you need this supplement, right? That's gonna fix it. Or you just need a prescription for hormones, right? And what I wanna tell you is that's all wrong. There is preparatory work that you need to do first. So I'm gonna talk to you about that in these next three episodes. So number one of three is you need to get a reality check and get honest about what's really going on for you. You may not realize it, but if you think about the biggest problem that's bothering you that you think is related to your hormones, let's say that you're in your forties and you are getting terrible migraine headaches before your period, and that is driving you crazy. Your doctor has you on some medications for that that you're having to take every month and all you wanna do is just solve your migraine problem cuz you think that's the only hormonal problem you have.
(05:26): And so you want the supplement, the diet, the food, you know, exercise, whatever it is. But I want you to back up and you've gotta get honest in this step because our dishonesty is what is keeping us from finding the answers that will actually get us where we want to be. So what do I mean by that? If you're honest with yourself, your migraines are not the only problem that you're having with your health, right? Let's be real. Most women over 40 suffer with several health related symptoms. So what am I talking about? Most of us over 40 have weight issues. In fact, 60% of us have weight issues where we're overweight or obese or morbidly obese. Majority of us suffer with energy issues and fatigue. We may not notice it cuz we're medicating it with caffeine in the morning. And then we're using downers like alcohol to wind down in the evening.
(06:29): So right there, majority of us are overweight and tired. So you're lying to yourself if you say that my only hormonal problem is that I have migraines, you might write off your weight problem and energy problems that you don't eat a perfect diet or you're just getting older. And what I wanna tell you is that all of the symptoms that you have in your body related to your health have some connection to hormonal balance. I wanna repeat that. So you hear me clearly cuz you're not gonna hear this at your regular doctor's office. Every single midlife, metabolic mayhem symptom that you have, the 60 or so symptoms that women over 40 and sometimes in their thirties can start experiencing somehow is related to hormones. Also, when you get a disease diagnosis, whether it's hypertension, diabetes, autoimmune disease, you name it, there is some connection to your hormone balance.
(07:32): Hormones form the foundation of a woman's health. So you've got to get out of your dishonesty. And for a lot of you, it's your naive K because nobody told you this, it's not your fault, right? We weren't educated on this. I wish we would have this in our grade school and high school education at age appropriate levels, but we don't. So you're left to your own devices cuz you're not gonna learn this in the doctor's office. Well that's what I'm here for, to help you understand everything that's plaguing you with your health has some toe in the hormone imbalance syndrome, right? So if you're having migraines and you've gotta a weight problem and you're tired, let's list some others. Your skin is having a problem. You get this crazy rash, you only get it at certain times of the year in certain areas on your body, but you've been to the dermatologist and it plagues you and you can't figure out what's wrong.
(08:31): Probably nobody looked at your hormones or talked to you about that. That could be hormonally related. Oh, and by the way, there's certain things that when I eat them, I don't know what happens, but I get this kind of indigestion and I might belch a lot, right? And I'm pretty regular maybe with my bowel habits, but every now and then something will throw me off and I don't know what it is and I, I get bloated and gassy, right? And you've been to the gastroenterologist, you've been to your interns or family practitioner or gynecologist and they've run tests or maybe they haven't and they told you, oh you just have a little irritable bowel or you just have a little reflux, right? And what do they do? Give you some medicine. So here you are in your forties and only thing you're online looking for answers to is your migraines.
(09:19): You'll never find the answer that will fix the root cause of those migraine headaches. If you don't get honest about all the symptoms that are plaguing you with your health, what I call midlife metabolic mayhem, the 60 or so symptoms that many women over 40 and some even over 30 start experiencing as they go into hormonal poverty. That's where they don't have the hormones to support the high level of health that they may have been enjoying. And I have other videos and podcasts about that. So you have to get honest, honest with yourself and get out of your delusion and your dishonesty that this is the only problem and looking for answers to that. You gotta take an inventory of your health and write down all the things that are plaguing you. Everything even if you don't think it's significant, brings to mind a woman who recently went through one of my programs who actually happens to be a physician as well.
(10:22): We'll call her Sally, that's not her real name. And she got honest at the beginning of the program cuz that's where I start everyone. We have inventories, we're checklists where you go through symptoms related to all the hormones. And she did it as honestly as she could at the time. Fast forward a year later, she did all the work with me and she came on the zoom one day and she said, Karen, I'm growing eyelashes again. What she said, I didn't even mention it when we started the program because I didn't think I'd ever have eyelashes again. I had been to the dermatologist and basically they didn't have any answers for me and they had tried me on some of the medications for eyelash growth and it didn't really help. So I thought that that was an unanswerable, unsolvable problems. So I didn't even mention it, right?
(11:21): So she was in the delusion of corporate medicine that this problem can't be solved. And then she came on the zoom and said, I'm growing eyelashes. And she was like beside herself with joy about this because she had frankly given up. And you know that you've given up on some of your symptoms too. I know you have cuz I talk to you every day. Women just like you, you think doctors have dismissed you so many times and ignored you so often that you have come to believe that you are defective when the truth is that the solutions that most doctors are offering are defective and incomplete. And there is nothing wrong with you. And I always say if there is a health problem or symptom or disease and it hasn't been solved, it's because you haven't uncovered the right stone. You haven't asked the right question or done these foundational steps.
(12:23): One of which is getting honest. The truth is, when you go down to the roots of a tree and you fix the roots, all the leaves and branches improve. And with mainstream medicine right now, you go to the dermatologist for your hair, skin, and nails. You go to the gynecologist for your female in fertility and reproductive issues, you go to the gastroenterologist for your GI problems, et cetera, you know the drill, right? So you're all on different branches of the treat, but with a root cause approach, we go down the trunk into the roots and solve it. And when you fix the roots, ev all the leaves and branches get better. So this is why it affects your neurological problems, right? Your migraine headaches, your gynecological problems, maybe you're in your forties as described and you're also having crazy heavy crime scene periods. It will affect your dermatological problems, right?
(13:14): That rash that you keep getting, it will also help you with weight and energy, which really doesn't have a place in mainstream medicine. It's not something that's dealt with. So hopefully you're getting the picture that the first is you need to get honest with yourself, get out of delusion, get out of dishonesty, recognize that all these symptoms are related and make an inventory. If you come to my hormone bliss challenge, I give you a symptom chest checklist for each hormone so that you can see what symptoms are related to what hormone we launch these periodically. And the link will be near my bio. If you're listening to the podcast, it'll be in the show notes. And if you're watching this on YouTube, it will be below the video in the show notes as well. So come join me, get out of delusion and dishonesty. You're not going to get where you want to be without it.
(14:10): If you keep believing and saying the mantra of, oh, I just need to fix this one thing, you might fix that one thing probably with a medication to suppress the symptom, right? That's currently how migraines are treated, but you'll never fix the other hormone related problems that you have, right? So your weight, energy, rashes, irritable bowel, gastritis, all the things, right? All the things like I like to say. So first step of three for that foundation in the ground when it comes to healing your health, and that starts with hormones for women, is to get honest with yourself. Another place where we sometimes lie to ourselves, I know cuz I did it too when I was a mainstream OB, G Y N, is that there's one shot wonder answers, and I think we've covered this a little bit already, but we might get that our $30 H m o copay doctor doesn't have the answers.
(15:13): But then we're on the internet looking for alternatives and we wanna know the one supplement that we need or the one diet that we need that's gonna solve the problem. You know, you've done it. I did it too, right? There's no shame in it. It reminds me of a colleague of mine, a general surgeon who I used to actually do surgery with a lot. She was an excellent surgeon and I used to go to the health food store after I got healthy and got on my journey all the time, never saw her in there. And then one day years later, all of a sudden I saw her in there and we'll call her Katie. I said, Katie, what are you doing here? And she said, oh, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. This is a while after I had stopped going to the hospital cuz I was doing all my work with women on healing so they didn't have to go to the hospital.
(16:01): And she said, I was diagnosed with colon cancer, I had surgery, I had some chemo, and I'm here looking for supplement that will help. Don't be Katie, right? Maybe if she had addressed her health issues and known about them years before, I don't know, maybe she wouldn't have gotten colon cancer. I have no idea. But there are no one shot wonders, there is no one supplement, there is no one diet, there is no one thing you are going to do that you're gonna go like bingo. That's it. All my health problems are solved. So you've gotta get honest about yourself and you've also got gotta get honest about who can actually help you. Who's the expert? So you're online, you're looking for the one shot wonder, and you see this person who calls himself a health coach and they do have some type of certification and they're selling some supplements and they tell you, you take this one supplement, I'm gonna sell you six months at a discount and everything will change for you, right?
(16:59): Maybe they tell you a diet to follow too or some other things to do. Maybe you even pay them a lot of money to go into their one-on-one program, but you don't actually get the results that you think you should or that you were promised. Now, why do I know this is a thing? Cause I have a lot of colleagues in this field, many of whom are health coaches, nurse practitioners, et cetera. Some of them are the real deal and some of them aren't. It is very hard as a consumer from the outside for you to be able to discern who really knows what they're talking about and who doesn't and who can take me all the way and who can't. So that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about being out here, educating and teaching you, because I have not only the MD credentials, but I essentially have the ND naturopathic doctor credentials because I completed a fellowship from the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine in metabolic functional and anti-aging medicine.
(18:03): So I have a ginormous toolbox. There are some things that I don't do or can't do and I send people to those experts, but I understand what it takes from a root cause to fix all the roots so all the leaves and branches get correct. And unfortunately, there are a lot of health coaches out there who will say things, for instance, like, oh, when you're in hormonal poverty, you don't need a prescription for hormones. And that's just patently not true. And maybe they haven't had the education or training to understand the absolute necessity for all the cells in your body, inclu, including the cells in your brain, the cells in your eyes, the cells in your heart, the cells in your immune system to have adequate estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. This is the biggest place I see that people miss. So you don't wanna miss that.
(18:59): So you've gotta get honest about all of these things, right? Honest about your symptoms, all of them that are related to your health and hormones, honest about who are the experts who can take you all the way and help you honest about not going to the hardware store for milk, right? Your regular doctor isn't trained in this. It's not their fault. and honest about being discerning about the credentials of who is out there saying that they can help you honest about it's not one thing. It'll never be one thing. I know we all want the one thing. Maybe you can find the one true partner for life, but when it comes to your health, there's just no one thing. So getting honest is the first step, getting out of dishonesty and delusion. Thanks you so much for joining me. I will have step two in the next podcast and video, and I look forward to seeing you there. Until then, peace Loving hormones, y'all.
(19:55): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Do you ever feel like fear is controlling your life? We've all been there. But in this episode, Dr. Ellen Vora gives us insight into how to regain control with her expertise on the body's natural fear response and the tools we need to manage it effectively. Join us to learn more about understanding and overcoming anxiety so you can live a life that feels right for you!
Ellen Vora, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist, acupuncturist, and yoga teacher, and she is the author of the bestselling book The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear Response. She takes a functional medicine approach to mental health, considering the whole person and addressing imbalance at the root.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• What the body's fear response is and how to recognize it
• The importance of addressing anxiety holistically
• Tools for managing anxiety in the long-term
• Dr. Vora's personal story and journey with healing from anxiety
Tune in to gain greater insight into your own fear response and learn practical tips for regaining control. This episode will help you reclaim your power over fear and live a life full of joy, peace, and resilience. Let's jump right in!
Don't forget to share, subscribe and leave a review if you like what you heard! We look forward to hearing from you! Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you next time!
(00:00): Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way. Alan Watts. In this episode we talk about if you're suffering from anxiety and or on medications for anxiety, what you might be doing wrong in your approach, and how to recognize and solve the underlying problem. Stay tuned.
(00:29): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:22): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyirin. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today we are talking all about the anatomy of anxiety with a true expert who's written an amazing book and has incredible insight. She has a similar journey to mine in that she was trained as a medical doctor. She went into psychiatry and really realized that we weren't helping people with giving drugs and doing surgery, and she found a better way. And now she has dedicated her life to educating others about the anatomy of anxiety and what's really going on behind the scenes. She is an incredible person. She offered this quote to me that I love from Alan Watts, who's an amazing philosopher. And this is what it says, problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.
(02:20): So what does this mean? It means if you have a problem that hasn't been solved, you're asking the wrong question. And I once was in a coaching program with Mary Morrisey, who's amazing coach and spiritual leader, and she was talking about the importance of the right question and that if given an hour to formulate the answer to a problem, you should spend 55 minutes on formulating the right question that will give you the answer. And I have found that so much to be true. I always tell people with your health that if you, you have persistent health symptoms, diagnoses, medications, problems, whatever you wanna call it, something's not right with your health, then you haven't asked the right question. It's asking the right questions that is invaluable to fixing your health. And unfortunately, as a mainstream doctor, I didn't know the right questions to ask.
(03:20): Now I know the questions to ask, so I'm gonna help you ask the right question. And if you're dealing with anxiety, which millions of us do at some point in our life, many of us chronically, or we've got a loved one who's dealing with it, and it can be debilitating, prevent you from having relationships or working and all kinds of things. And if that's you or someone you know, you wanna listen up because you need to know about the anatomy of anxiety. And Dr. Vora is an expert at this. She's really taken a deep dive in her book. She's a beautiful way of looking at it. I'll tell you a little bit more about her and then we'll get started. So Ellen Vora is a medical doctor. She's a board certified psychiatrist, acupuncturist and yoga teacher, and she's the author of the bestselling book, the Anatomy of Anxiety, understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear Response. She takes a functional medicine approach to mental health, considering the whole person and addressing imbalance at the root. Welcome, Dr. Ellen Vora to the show.
(04:18): Thank you so much for having me.
(04:20): I am so excited to dive into this topic with you. A lot of my listeners know that anxiety was a huge part of my story. I didn't really suffer from anxiety at a young age. It wasn't a problem and it really started in my forties and it got so severe that everybody knows this for that and depression. I was on five psychoactive medications at one point and the doctor told me, you will never get off of these. I couldn't even hardly function even with those five medications, I was so anxious my body would tremble, but I had nothing to be anxious about. And I know that you talk about this , so I kind of wanna dive in there. And this is for the people who have maybe been dealing with their anxiety their whole lives. Maybe they just deal with anxiety most recently. Maybe they have a loved one who has anxiety. It's so problematic and it's so debilitating. So I don't even know where to start. So I'm gonna just say, Ellen, start . Start where you think, why is this such a problem that affects so many people?
(05:30): Yeah. So the way you and I were both taught to think about anxiety, you know, we were taught in medical school to evaluate it according to the D S M, our Bible of mental health, a diagnostic statistical manual. And we're really most of all indoctrinated with the idea that our mental health issues are the results of a genetic chemical imbalance. This is our monoamine theory of depression, where we say it's your serotonin. You were born with jeans that meant that you had low serotonin, but that's okay cuz you're alive in 2023 and we have a pill that can fix that. So here, take this pill and it will fill up your empty serotonin tank and everything will be honky dory. Again. It's a nice story. I think it came primarily from well-meaning scientists using deductive reasoning when they saw that certain tuberculosis medications that manipulated serotonin seem to raise some people's moods.
(06:23): But it turns out it's not a true story. And it, you know, that the idea there, the implication is if you take these pills, it's gonna fix your depression. I think many people listening who have had an one or another experience with psychiatric medications, even if they're net on the whole helpful, this story's not quite so clean and simple. And so I also think what's important is that when we focus on the genetic chemical imbalance, that is our least hopeful narrative when it comes to mental health. It tells us it's a fixed trait, it's our destiny. We're broken, we're stuck. And I have observed through 10 years of practice that this is patently false. This is not true of mental health. And while genes do play a role, it is only ever a predisposition in functional medicine. As you know, we say genes loads the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger.
(07:18): So when we only focus on genes, that keeps us feeling like this is our destiny. I will always be depressed, I will always be anxious when we shift our focus to the environmental influences that also have an enormous impact on our mental health. Well, there's something we can do about that. Sleep and nutrition, inflammation, hormones, gut health, and then more psycho-spiritual aspects of mental health, community nature, feeling of a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives being of service. All of this also impacts our mental health, and there's a lot more we can do about that. So I prefer to shift our focus to what we can control. And I want people to know they're not stuck even if they've felt depressed or anxious. You asked, why are so many people anxious right now? I think that there's two big reasons. When I think about anxiety, I, I divide it into two categories.
(08:09): False anxiety and true anxiety. Where false anxiety is physical anxiety, it's based in the physical body and it's avoidable, it's related to inflammation or sleep deprivation or a blood sugar crash or a hangover. And we are these days swimming through a cesspool of causes of false anxiety. We are all inundated with environmental influences that are making us more anxious than people were even 30 years ago. But then the other piece of this is our true anxiety, which is purposeful anxiety. It's not something to pathologize, it's not something to suppress. And we don't get to fix it by simply going gluten free or switching to decaf coffee. This is our inner compass. It's nudging us, asking us to slow down and pay attention to what's not not right in the world. And these days we are also inundated with quite a lot that's not right around us.
(09:01): So we come by our true anxiety, honestly. And the good news is, whether it's our false anxiety or our true anxiety, there's a lot that we can do to support ourselves. And so I think that we are all so anxious these days, but we've been trained to think about mental health incorrectly, letting us feel stuck and thinking that the menu of possibilities to support our mental health is just medication and therapy. And I want people to know, first of all, there's always reason for hope, never a reason to despair. And that there's so many other strategies we can take to support our mental health.
(09:36): I think that is so important. And I love this, the concept you have of false anxiety and true anxiety. Is that what you called it? Yeah.
(09:45): Yeah. I think that's brilliant. Because , the body can cause anxiety and most people think, oh, it's a mental process, it's a mental problem. And like I said, I didn't have any reason to be anxious. There was no mental issue. Well, I was kind of on off my path and I think that , that was the problem. , I was so off my path, but also I had so much inflammation and hormone imbalance and toxicity and my body was, I didn't realize that that vibrating tremoring shaking was my body screaming that it needed help. You know, because we were both trained the same traditional medical doctor program and what would we do? Pill for every ill surgery for every symptom. So that's what I went to a doctor like that, a psychiatrist, and he just kept prescribing and kept adding. And you know, thank God, fast forward, I am off all psychoactive medications. I don't need any, once I fixed all the underlying problems and got on my path, ,
(10:52): That's exactly it. The false and s true dichotomy. And I think, you know, not to project, but I was in the same situation where to be a medical resident, I was in so many false moods because I was inflamed, chronically sleep deprived, absolutely malnourished, you know, overfed, but undernourished and my hormones were all whack, which is a consequence of everything else. Yeah. Out of balance. And so I had a lot of false moods. But there's also that true mood that is if you went into medicine because you actually wanted to make a difference and support people, for many of us, we wake up to the the deep crisis and disenchantment of what is the system I'm a part of? I'm not convinced that I'm helping people. I'm not convinced that I'm not harming people. And so that's true Anxiety right there for you, a textbook example, and it's beautiful that you were aware of both of these things.
(11:44): It's unfortunate that our system these days is such that if you go in and you say, I'm really not feeling okay, all we know to offer people is medication. And there's a path there that is concerning to me. And it's, it's difficult to convey this without, I don't mean this as an non-pharmacologic path. I'm a psychiatrist, I prescribe medication. I've seen them benefit people. Absolutely. But what I see so often is someone says to their primary care doctor or their psychiatrist, I'm not feeling great. And they say, you know, in the 15 minutes they have with you, well, okay, like take Lexapro. And then you start Lexapro, and then you get sexual side effects, then you add Wellbutrin, and then maybe you're not really sleeping and you add Ambien and then you can't really focus during the day. You add Adderall and then you're anxious and then they add Xanax.
(12:30): And before you know it, you have a cocktail of medication. And the piece of this that's most damning is that it's delicate to talk about this without, I recognize some people really need their medication. Sometimes we need more informed consent. But I think what also happens is that the medications themselves can make us more fragile. The medications beget the need for themselves. Take Xanax for example. It's very effective in the short term, in the medium and long term. It exacerbates the very problem it's set out to treat in the first place. It makes us more anxious. And we can talk about the biochemistry of that. So once somebody's on a cocktail of medication, not only are they deeply plugged into the system, but they're very neurochemically fragile at that point. And it's hard to be well on your own. And you start to think of yourself as very sick and needing a lot of medication, needing a lot of support, you're spending a lot of time standing online at the Walgreens. And it just, it leads people down a path that I, it makes me from some days sad and other days outraged to think about how many people we've plugged into this life without first asking, how are you sleeping? Do you have community in your life? What's your diet look like? Are you pooping every day? Simple diet and lifestyle strategies that we can do to address mental health At the
(13:47): Root, I think, oh gosh, everything you're saying is just giving me chills because ev people need to hear this. So if you're listening , maybe if you need this information, yayu, please share it. It is so vital because we have a mental health crisis and it needs to be addressed and people aren't going to get this information in their doctor's office. So please share this with all the women in your life. So I wanna dive in because you said ha, if you, that we don't ask about how are you sleeping? We don't ask, do you have community? We don't ask, are you pooping every day? And there's some people listening who are going, if I have anxiety, why would someone care if I'm pooping every day? If I'm anxious? Why do people care? Why should the doctor care if I have community? So can you start to help people understand what, what's going on? Why, why is this important? Right? We've established that the gene hypothesis is not a thing, but help them understand why, how this is, what's the manifestation of how does anxiety come about through the body?
(14:49): Yes. Great question. And so fundamentally, first we just have to acknowledge that we are taught to think of mental health from the neck up to say, here's where mental health happens and only here. And that's of course a very modern and very western view of the body as discrete organ systems that aren't talking to each other. There's a line in my book, which is, your brain and your gut are talking to each other, even if you're a psychiatrist or your gastroenterologist are not. And eastern modalities have always appreciated this, right? Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, they know about the richly interconnected web of communication and interrelationships between all of our organs and our organ systems. And so it's crazy to the way, I mean, at some point we're all gonna see it. We're gonna be like, wait, that is bananas. That we think that mental health is just the brain.
(15:35): The brain is a piece of flesh. It is impacted by everything else going on in the body. If you are inflamed, if you are micronutrient deficient, if your blood sugar is crashing, you better believe that impacts your brain health. And good mental health is in many ways a reflection of two main things. It's good physical health, it's a reflection of good, healthy brain health. And it's a reflection of us getting our fundamental human psychospiritual needs met. And so when those two things are in place, we tend to feel pretty good. Trauma is its own consideration, which we can go a bit more into. So if you take the gut, for example, when someone's thinking, well, I'm anxious, why are they asking me about my pooping? That seems crazy. , that's, that's my, that's my digestive tract. Well, three main pathways for how our gut is impacting our brain health.
(16:20): I'll first just open with the fact that we are now at a point where publicly we have a conversation about the fact that our brain impacts our gut. We know now that if we're anxious, if we're chronically stressed, this will impact our digestion. Someone with IBS or irritable bowel syndrome might say, I know that stress is impacting my ibs. So we appreciate top-down communication, but where we're headed is that we also have to appreciate it is a two-way street. It is a bidirectional relationship between the gut and the brain. So just as there's top down communication, there is also bottom up communication. The health of the gut is impacting the state of our brain. And it's happening along a number of different pathways. One very simple one is that there are bacteria in our gut that are involved in the synthesis of certain neurotransmitters. We talk a lot about serotonin, but my pet favorite neurotransmitter is gaba.
(17:15): We don't talk enough about gaba. It's critical to anxiety and it's manufactured by certain B species that we're supposed to have in our gut. But if we're taking multiple courses of antibiotics and we're not consuming fermented foods and we're not around soil or animal feces, which sounds gross, but this is part of how we maintain a diverse ecosystem of beneficial bacteria in our digestive tract. If we're missing critical microbes, we might be missing critical neurotransmitters like gaba. And then there's the fact that our gut is involved with inflammation, which itself directly, directly impacts brain health and anxiety levels. But the one that I find most interesting is the communication along the vagus nerve that's basically reporting on the state of affairs of our gut up to our brain all the time. And if it's saying everything is copacetic down here, go have a great day.
(18:05): Well that's great, but if your gut is in rough shape, if you've taken antibiotics, if you've consumed pro processed foods, if you're inflamed, then it's sending a memo constantly up to the brain saying things are rough down here, feel uneasy. It's designed to motivate us to rest, to make different choices so that we can heal. But instead, I think a lot of us go through our lives in a state of chronic low-grade anxiety just because we're in a state of chronic poor health of our digestive tract, which we come by honestly, because modern life makes a broad assault against the health of our guts, from our chlorinated tap water, antibiotics, processed food, alcohol, NSAIDs, lack of exposure to fermented foods and and microbes. And so here we are, all of us with really unhealthy guts and it's directly impacting our mental health.
(18:55): So important, the information that you just shared. And I was listening to, I'm listening to Peter Levine's new book about trauma and memory, and he was talking about the ratio of the ENT nerves. So the nerves in the VA that bring information from the gut, the ratio of those to the efferent that innovate the motor is five to one. Yeah,
(19:15):
(19:16): , and I had forgotten that from med school, but wow. So your body really prioritizes what is going on in the gut, which I believe in Chinese medicine they call the second brain. And so I think most people just don't get it. And you know, we're downing, and I can be guilty of this too, sometimes eating proc over highly processed foods. Oh you know, those chips are so good and , things like that. And then, and then I might wonder the next day why, and I'm not feeling great. I mean, at this point I kind of know, so I'm not willing to pay the price. But every now and then I do. But your gut is so key. So everybody listening, this is why what your poop habits matter and pooping once a week is not okay. If you're listening, I, so many people come to me and they say, well, I only poop once a week. I've been that way my whole life. That's my normal. And I'm like, yeah, but that's not okay. All right. So this false anxiety that's coming from the gut, everybody, if you're having, so some people are listening and they're thinking, oh, okay, I identify with some of these things, Dr. Ellen I'm gonna go to my doctor and ask to be referred to a gastroenterologist. So what's gonna happen is that idea,
(20:27): This is a big problem. Broadly, this happens with mental health too. We think like we just need better access. We need better access to mental health care. Like, oh, now you just gave me a light bulb aha moment that my gut is impacting my mental health. So let me go see a gastroenterologist. We know how this story ends. If you see that psychiatrist, if you had better access to mental health, you walk out with a prescription and it leads to more prescriptions if you go to see a gastroenterologist. All due respect, I, some of my family friends, I, I love my gastroenterologist buddies and colleagues. I think they're brilliant and wonderful healers. But the training in medicine, we always have this saying garbage in, garbage out. They are not trained to do any kind of root cause resolution or to approach the chronic degenerative, chronic low-grade inflammation issues in a supportive way.
(21:14): We are taught to react in, in a quite a heroic way to problems. So we have lots of great suppressive medications that can squash your immune system, that can basically say, well you're inflamed in your gut, let's just shut down the immune system. And then inflammation is gone and you feel better symptomatically temporarily. But we've done nothing to address it at the root actually we've done something, we've exacerbated the original problem. So I think that the problem is our training and if you are having an aha moment, which is that you have unhealthy gut health and then that's impacting your mental health, you're probably better served going to see a naturopath or a functional medicine doc. I think that they actually are virtuosic at understanding how the gut gets out of balance and how to support that. That will make an enormous difference in your mental health but also in your physical health more broadly. And even just improving your gut health is a direct impact on our quality of life. Going from pooping once a week to pooping every day is, it changes everything. And how we feel. I've got, I've gone on that journey myself
(22:15): And . Yeah.
(22:17): To actually have that working every day is victorious. I never, I still don't take it for granted at this point, probably like 20 years into that. So I think that you'd wanna get your care in a more holistic setting so that you're not just suppressing functions in the body. Symptoms suppressing it turns out is it's a beautiful thing that western medicine can do when the problem is really big. If you have already had a car accident or a heart attack or you already have cancer, I think our ability to do heroics and suppress symptoms and really fundamentally change the body is a beautiful thing about Western medicine. But so much of what ails us are these subtler, chronic degenerative diseases, chronic inflammatory conditions that are as resulting from modern life. And when we go in with heroics, we actually make the original problem worse. So you wanna go into a holistic treatment where they're thinking, oh, here are the inputs that are irritating the system. Here are the inputs that you're missing. Let's give the body what it needs and then trust that the body knows what to do with that. And it can heal itself.
(23:17): Does body super intelligent like , we couldn't create a human body and it knows what to do. So sometimes you just get out of the way, get the things out of the way, blocking it, give it the things it needs and then watch it heal. And you know, I had this vision when you were talking about the pooping, cuz I went through that phase two now it's like when you make a beautiful poop in the toilet every time you eat, cuz that's how nature created you. You literally should jump up. Like you gotta field goal and be like, yay , yay me. Right? Not just for little kids anymore that yay you pooped in the potty, but yay pooped in the pot.
(23:58): A hundred percent .
(24:00): I do wanna talk about trauma. You mentioned it earlier. It ended up being a huge part of my story, which I actually didn't know. I didn't, I knew I had a crappy childhood. My mom used to have this tote bag that was of this, this cartoon woman and and it said let's put the fun back in dysfunctional. We had dysfunction in my family for sure, but I didn't know that I had trauma. And then that was part of this, the latter part of my journey. After I healed my gut and got off all the medications, well then my body was like, well now we gotta deal with this residual trauma. And so that was another part of my journey. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that and how it relates to anxiety and what do you do about that?
(24:45): Yeah, I mean trauma is such a big and heavy topic and I think that the tricky thing about it is that the brain learns that's what brains do. And when you are in an unsafe environment, a chaotic environment, a dysfunctional environment, when there is a real risk to your bodily safety or to somebody near to you, very understandably, the brain adapts and it learns to be hyper-vigilant, to be on high alert. And that's an adaptation in an unsafe setting. If you're living in a war zone, if you're in a traumatic childhood, you want to be hypervigilant in a state of hyper arousal. This keeps you safe, it helps your survival. So I think it's really important to first just give grace and compassion to the fact that this was how your brain and your body responded. The tricky thing is that if you're lucky enough to then no longer be in as unsafe of an environment, this adaptation becomes a mal adaptation because now you are stuck with the foot almost stuck on the accelerator pedal, your limbic system, your amygdala, your brain is stuck and locked into a position of hyper arousal and hypervigilance.
(25:50): And not only is that a really unpleasant and anxiety provoking state to go through life and it, you're basically perceiving threat even when there is none. It distorts your view of reality. But then also it's very hard to heal or be well in other ways because a lot of our healing hinges on a particular fulcrum in the nervous system. Whether our nervous system is in a tone of sympathetic or parasympathetic. And now with polyvagal theory it's more complex. But I think that, you know, the most simple understanding is are you in a state of stress or are you in a state of relaxation? And when you're in a state of relaxation, your gut can heal, you can sleep deeply and well and then everything else can heal while you're asleep. You can feel a sense of calm and awe and gratitude. And when you're in a state of stress, everything is, there's a triage mechanism that happens in the body.
(26:38): The body basically says, this is not the time for housekeeping, this is not the time for healing or repair work. This is the time for dealing with the threat. And so we can go our entire lives triaging out of housekeeping, triaging out of repair work in our bodies because our body is still stuck in that state of we have something to be stressed about. And so the trouble with trauma is when we get stuck. And that's where I think trauma focused therapies that work at the level of the limbic system, whether that's E M D R or somatic experiencing therapy or something like DN r s or primal trust, something that's going in and with precision really reprogramming the limbic system and where it hangs out so that it can start to understand that was then this is now. And we don't, we no longer need that now maladaptive state of hyper arousal. And I think that that can help people who have a history of trauma move forward from a place of a calmer limbic system, the ability to be in a state of relaxation.
(27:37): So some people listening, because this was me before I realized I had trauma, are thinking, oh, I don't have any, I didn't have any trauma . I'm just wondering how would somebody know that you might be talking to them that they might be a candidate for having trauma. So if you could talk a little bit about what trauma is. I mean I used to think, you know, nobody beat me when I was a kid. I didn't have trauma, right? I didn't have this extreme thing so I didn't have trauma. And then come to find out I had a lot of things I didn't remember that happened and that I did qualify. So I just want to wondering what you might say to those people who are wondering, could this apply to me? I
(28:24): Think it's a really good question and I'm not sure I have a great answer. I think that one thing I'm always on the lookout for is like a heightened startled response. Like , you know, somebody closes a door behind you and you jump at a proportion to what it is like, is your body basically perceiving threat disproportionate to, to what's happening around you? Any state of hyper arousal. But I think that I'd be so curious. I think in a way I am, I have a handicap, which is that people come to me already saying I need help. And so I think I'm less good at the phase that happens in the lead up, which is going from, I'm not sure I have a problem to realizing that we do. So I'd be so curious to hear what shifted for you and how did you start to pick up on the fact that you were holding trauma?
(29:09): Oh, , that's a long story. Let me see what the short version is. But basically, you know, there's this compulsion when you've had traumatic interpersonal relationships, particularly with your primary caregivers when you're young to have that repetition compulsion. And so it was a repetition compulsion relationship issue that sent me into having acute P T S D symptoms. And then it was, oh my gosh, what is happening then? Then that's when I discovered, oh yeah, I was traumatized. And through some of the modalities you mentioned then uncovered memories ca you did go through an alphabet soup there, kind of, which I know some people Yes. Are going what, so for those people who, you know, even have an inkling that it might, this might be who you do want and I would love it if you could talk about what is a trauma informed therapist, what credentials they might have, but also some of the modalities you mentioned.
(30:09): Yeah, so let's see if I can define those. The alphabet soup, I think the first one I said was E M D R, which I believe stands for I movement desensitization and reprocessing. Reprogramming, I mean one of those. And so this is a wonderful non-invasive modality. That's it really. It's, it uses a smart way of kind of distracting the mind as it helps you work through trauma. I think that's a big part of all of the trauma focused therapies is that in a way we need to access the amygdala, the limbic system where the brain is holding onto these memories and work through them without tripping a wire that sets off an all out stress response because then we're just a, an animal against a wall in a very defensive stress response and not a lot of fruitful work can happen in that state.
(30:55): So a lot of these therapies really figure out a way of, of kind of working around and not tripping that wire in the first place. I mentioned Somatic Experiencing Therapy, a very body-based therapy. I also mentioned D N R S, which stands for Dynamic Neural Retraining System. Hmm. And that, you know, people do rounds and there's a lot of difference in terms of how you talk to yourself and how much you focus on symptoms. And so all different ways for reprogramming. And then Primal Trust is kind of this newer version of of DN r s that I actually really like the evolution there, which is recognizing that there is a body, there's a, this is just like the true anxiety, false anxiety dichotomy that some things are related to our trauma and some things are related to inflammation and caffeine and gluten. And sometimes we need to discern which one to, where do we need to make changes and where do we need to accept and recognize that it's our nervous system creating our symptoms.
(31:52): Okay, thank you for explaining that. And if, if someone also suspects that this, they might be a candidate, how do they find someone who's actually skilled at working with trauma?
(32:04): Yeah, so if you're wanting to do therapy around trauma, it's really important to make sure that someone has, I think, self-described as a trauma-focused therapy. Because any kind of therapist, whether it's a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a licensed mental health counselor, family mari, marital therapist, basically if we're not trained and I'm not right, if you're not trained in, in trauma focused therapy, then what you do is you do talk therapy. And talk therapy is not only often ineffective for trauma but can be actively unhelpful, can be retraumatizing. And so I think it's critical to work with one of these less verbal, more limbic based modalities. And so look for those words on someone's website. And if you wanna start by doing something on your own, if you kind of have the safety and the leeway to do that, something like Primal Trust is a good place to start. This is something you can do for yourself and there are support groups you can join, there are coaches you can work with and that's a really nice system. And if you're not finding the perfect word of mouth trauma-focused therapist in your area that's affordable and taking new patients and working with your insurance, starting with something like Primal Trust is a great, is a great place to start.
(33:13): Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing those resources. We have to talk about this topic before we wrap up, so hopefully everybody listening will give us a little few more minute leeway. This idea of being off your path and what is your path and how does that create anxiety? That was a huge part of my story and exactly what you described, Ellen, where I had gone into medicine because I knew I wanted to work with women and help them with their health. And I said, well how, what will gimme the biggest toolbox in order to do that? So of course I went and got my medical doctorate and then was disillusioned when I was in practice that exactly what you said, I started saying, are we really helping anyone? We're harming people. And that was off my path, but I didn't know what to do about it and of course had my own health challenges so that discordance created this anxiety. So I'm wondering if you can talking, talk about that a little bit.
(34:09): Yeah, I mean and it's, it's interesting I think even how both of us, I've never thought about it this way before but in a meta way getting off our path was a very critical part of our path . And so go figure, you know, it's just giving people permission to slow down, get still and just tune in like how are we doing? Like not like are your parents approving of what you're doing? Do your friends, are they impressed by it? How's your bank account? But like how are you really doing? What are your values? What kind of life do you wanna live? What makes you feel fulfilled? And is that happening or are you on track towards building a life where that is happening? And if you feel like you might be way off course, we have a world that gives us a lot of junky values where it tells us like here's what you should be striving for, have this kind of skin and this kind of car and this kind of money and this kind of impressive job and this kind of attractive partner and have these perfect kids.
(35:05): And you know, it tells us, here's what Instagram is telling you what we like, you know, literally what we like, what get gathers likes and who is to say any of that is what fulfills you or what feels right or familiar for you. And so I think it's just so important to step out of the framework and the conditioning that we've all inherited and just know for yourself what is right for you. And then make sure that you're actually on the path towards building toward that if you don't already have it. And it's certainly not moving actively in the wrong, wrong direction. And so this sometimes has a lot of inconvenient truths, it can blow up our lives, right? You can feel like, you can feel like you just gave 10 years a lot of student debt, blood, sweat and tears to medical trading and you're like, holy, I'm harming people.
(35:52): What the hell did I just do . And so I think that I love my friend Brit Frank, brilliant therapist and she says, choose your hard. And there are these moments when you realize you're off your path and you're like, it would be really hard to get back on a path and it would be so much harder to live the rest of your life this far off your path. And so sometimes we really do have to choose that short-term, really hard blow up our life change to get on our path. And I will be the first to admit it is scary and difficult to do this. But it has to be a, a dance where you're constantly checking in with yourself and from a place of radical self-love and self-worth and also self-love and self-worth that helps guide us back. But also, and this one's big and sometimes harder for us to realize this is my worldview.
(36:38): It doesn't have to be everyone's but a recognition that we have a unique set of gifts and perspectives and insights and talents that we have to offer this world. It's a contribution that we only us can uniquely make. And I think I have a lot of friends right now, they're coming to me and being like, how do I change my career and do something more meaningful? And they feel like, how would I have the audacity to think I could be an artist or I could be a healer or I could be a writer, whatever it is. And I think the question is really like how could you have the audacity to think that you should suppress these gifts? Like this world assigns you a mission, we desperately need you doing that work. Who are you to block that from being manifest in this world?
(37:22): Oh my God so beautifully said. It reminds me of Maryanne Williamson's. I think it's in Return to Love where she says like, you know, it's not our darkness that scares us, it's our light. And who are we not to express our light? And that's really one of the reasons that I do what I do is because I think some people are only gonna hear it from me. Some people are only gonna hear it from you Ellen, right? So if your unique voice is missing from the choir that's singing the song of true health and healing, then there are women and men who aren't gonna hear it and they're not gonna get the memo. But you listening, you're so lucky cuz you are here and you heard it from Dr. Ellen yourself. So for me, a key part was being off the path and I didn't know, I knew I was on the wrong path, but I didn't know what the right path was.
(38:15): And through a series of synchronous events, the universe conspiring to get me on the right path, you know, I got there. Unfortunately, I did have to blow up a lot of things in my life and I'm all the better for it. So yeah, choose your heart. I love that This has been so rich and so wonderful. I am so happy to have you here. I'm so, if you're listening, you just got a huge big gift to hear this woman share her brilliance and her journey and I so encourage you to get her book. She has a free gift free, we're gonna tell you about that. The link will be in the show notes. So tell them about your free gift, your book, where to find you online.
(38:56): Sure, yeah. At one point you were asking like, you know, if you go in, if your doctor's asking you like, well, you know, you're feeling like what does white gut have to do with my mental health? I was just thinking like , the only way I can summarize that is the two 50 pages of my book that are like, here's what your gut has to do with your mental health and here's what your thyroid and your nutrition and your hormones and your caffeine consumption and alcohol and so on and so forth that a lot of that's not fun. Like the chapters on alcohol and caffeine, everybody's least favorite chapters but impactful, right? Nonetheless. So my book is called The Anatomy of Anxiety and it really details this concept of true anxiety and false anxiety and, and how we can work with both and experience less anxiety, but also to fuel, let that purposeful anxiety, fuel purposeful action. My free gift is, I think it's called Dr. Vos Four Keys to Health. And it's like, it's the one page version of my book . I said my best to make it concise if people wanna interact. I'm pretty active on Instagram. I'm at Ellen Vora, md.
(39:55): Awesome, thank you so much Ellen. Any last words you want to offer? Everybody listening before we go?
(40:04): I think in addition to everything else we've covered, if there's two things that Trump all like everything, how we support our mental health, I think on a physical level at sleep, if you could focus on only one thing, it's prioritizing better sleep, which in the postmenopausal or perimenopausal body is always its own special tricky journey. But there are things we can do That's chapter five of my book. Even though perimenopausal sleep is is tough, there's still things we can do to support it. And then I think community on the psychospiritual end of things, if you could choose only one thing that trumps everything else, it's just prioritizing, making sure we're actually connecting with the people that fill us up. And it's hard in modern life, but it's really worth fighting for.
(40:47): So important I call sleep the nectar of life. , I preach it all the time, but now I realize I forgot to ask you such an important question. So if you'll allow me one more. You know, this time of life, midlife and beyond, I think, you know, I think it's so the Dai Lamas quoted as saying that the western woman will save the world and I think it's the western menopausal woman. Mm. And I'm wondering apropo, our que our conversation about life path and blowing up your life and switching your path , and I see so many women who are stuck in these lives that they've realized they're not really in alignment with, whether it's a marriage or a job or a career and they wanna make changes. I'm just wondering if you have any insight or or words of wisdom for them about, you know, I can't remember and maybe it's in the book of Thomas, in the Bible it says, if you bring forth what is within you, it will save you. If you don't bring forth what is within you, it will kill you basically. That's my paraphrasing. Yeah. Can you speak to that?
(41:50): Oh, I love this question. I mean, I think about menopause. Let me see if I can do this in like less than an hour. . So I think about, I don't know if you were taught this, I think I was actually taught this undergraduate and not medical school, which is that menopause is this oddity evolutionarily because it's by definition post reproductive. So it's very hard for us to select four genes that make for a better menopause. It doesn't work for survival of the fittest because even if somebody did have a mutation that gave them a better menopause, then you know, it dies with them and there's no way for them to have had a more successful reproductive life for having that gene. So in a way the body reacts in a way that would be adaptive to something that happens in the reproductive life. And so in many ways that crash in hormones, if it resembles any crash in hormones in our reproductive years, it's actually the postpartum period.
(42:39): So in some sense, the way our body reacts in the menopausal years is what would be adaptive in the postpartum period. You should mobilize calcium from your bones to make breast milk. You should radiate heat to keep the baby warm. You should have very superficial sleep so that you'll wake up if you hear the baby cry. And it's like, well that's all well and good if you have a newborn. And man, is it a bummer if you're in your forties and fifties and you're just trying to live. But I think that it comes with it, this concept of it's a bit of a rebirth, but there isn't a baby. This is a rebirth of a a different and in certain ways truer version of ourselves. And I think that estrogen is the hormone that helps us keep the peace. Because in primate populations, the more interpersonally effective you are, the more reproductive successful you are.
(43:25): Estrogen makes us say yes and nod and smile and suppress our own needs in favor of other people's. And that's fun, but it's not necessarily our deeper truth. And so we have a cultural attitude, which is that menopause is unfortunate because we don't value wisdom and age and we only value youth. And this is a whole other problem. But can we reframe the whole dang thing to realize this is a rebirth when we have waning levels of estrogen and we no longer are hormonally programmed to keep the peace and suppress our own needs in favor of other people's needs. This is a rebirth where we are the baby, where we get to say, it's my turn and here's my truth and here's what I know I want and it's gonna ruffle some feathers and not everyone is gonna like this. And that no longer really matters to me.
(44:16): , I love that. Oh my gosh, that is spam. Okay, it's gonna take me like a week to unpack what you just said. That was amazing. I hope you all heard that. If you need to listen to that again, because that's just so insightful and revolutionary and I love it. Thank you again so much for being here. Thank you for sharing just your brilliance and beauty with everyone. I hope you will take action listeners from what you have heard today. You know, always I, I know I beat the drum of the sleeping, the nectar of light, but it really is. So go do that and get yourself pooping every day and give yourself a high five when you make a nice Nike Swoosh in the toilet . So this and more information on how to get your hormone today. We'll have another great rest for you next week. Thanks so much for joining me and until next week, peace,
(45:15): Love, and the
(45:16): Hormones y'all.
(45:17): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Do you feel like you’ve tried every diet and detox under the sun without much success? You may need a new approach to health and wellness.
Join Dr. Laura Belus, a licensed naturopathic doctor from the Greater Toronto area, on this special episode as she shares her insight into how to get your body back on track with powerful lifestyle changes that can make a world of difference!
Find out more about her journey to natural medicine for relief from migraines & acne and learn essential tips for weight loss, stress management, greater energy & better digestion through proper detoxification and hormone balance.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- The importance of detoxing for better health and vitality
- Keys to successful detoxification
- How to balance hormones for optimal health
- Tips for a healthy diet & lifestyle habits that promote wellness
- And more!
Don’t miss out on this life-changing information and tune in to this inspiring episode to get the essentials on detoxing and health!
(00:00): Forward in life is forward in life leap and the net will appear. Dr. Laura Bela, find out how you are doing detox wrong and most importantly, how to do it right.
(00:15): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident and master midlife. If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an O B G Y N, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40 in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:08): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kiran. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today we are talking about doing detox. At this time of year, so many people are trying to do a detox and there's a lot of confusion about what really is a detox, what's a detox versus a cleanse? How do I properly do a detox? Do I need a detox or do I need a cleanse? , what am I missing? And I find that so many people get this wrong and it's not disastrous to get it wrong, it's just that you're not gonna get the benefits that you should get from a cleanser detox if you do it incorrectly. So you wanna make sure you're getting the most bang for your time and your money and effort invested. So you wanna listen up today to Dr.
(01:57): Laura Belus cuz she specializes in this. I'll tell you a little bit about her. Well let me tell you a little story first. So I used to work with this massage therapist and we would talk about all kinds of health things. She knew what I did, she loved what I did cuz she was all about treating things at the root cause and not just medicating symptoms. You guys know, you know, cuz you're about it too. She said to me, I got this detox supplement at the health food store and I took it for a month and I feel so much better. And like I always tell you guys, I don't preach to people who don't ask for the information. So I just said, oh great. But I knew all the health problems she was dealing with and I knew that wasn't the only thing she needed.
(02:41): And I was glad that she said she felt better, but I knew how good she really could feel. So, you know, she wasn't interested in learning more. Not everybody is. We help the ones who are swimming towards us who wanna be helped and who wanna be taught. So don't let that be you. Don't let that be be you at the supplement store asking the clerk at the health food store who has a high school degree who doesn't really know about this. Come and let's talk about it with Dr. Laura Bela. She's an expert and you'll get the information you need. So at this time of year you can do your detox, right? I'll tell you a little bit about her and then we can get started. Dr. Laura Beis is a licensed naturopathic doctor practicing in the greater Toronto area. In her early adult years, her recurrent migraines and acne led her to natural medicine for relief. She now focuses her clinical practice on detoxification and hormone balances for weight loss, stress management, greater energy and better digestion. She believes in making simple yet powerful changes to diet and lifestyle habits that create lasting results. Welcome Dr. Laura Belus to the podcast. Happy
(03:50): To be here.
(03:51): Super excited to talk about detoxing and why everybody's doing it wrong and what they don't know that they should know because this is the time of year when people are doing detoxes and like we were talking before we got started, about the difference between a detox and a cleanse. Ladies listening, do you know the difference? So we're gonna dive into that, but why is detox so important? Why do we even need to do one? Let's start there.
(04:18): That's a great starting point and I think an important piece to, you know, really highlight. So detoxification is already a natural part in the body. Our body is always detoxifying and that's an important piece to know. It's a natural part of the body. It's not something we have to start doing. However, detoxification is literally like a waste removal plant in our body. Our body clears things it doesn't need, it packages them numb, it packages them up and then it sends them out of the body in various ways. But sometimes in our modern lives we are inundated with so many things, whether that's the food we're eating might not be free of pesticides, it might be the air we breathe, it might be a lot of the chemicals in our body and personal care products. The reality is our body and our liver specifically is working over time to detoxify these things from our systems. And let's be honest, there's a lot going on and sometimes the body needs a little bit of a help and that's why doing a focused detoxification plan or supporting your body's liver detoxification naturally is so vital now more than ever.
(05:33): Yes, it's super important. I always say our body is a city and every city has a sanitation department , so we've got one but it gets, it's so sluggish. And what is the difference between a cleanse and a detox?
(05:48): Yeah, so a cleanse really it gets a lot of publicity. You know, it's definitely a more of a buzzword. A cleanse traditionally is a liquid or almost liquid based diet for one three even seven days. And it's intended really to focus on resetting the digestive system. Our gut from people that have a lot of digestive issues, bloating, maybe they've been quite sick digestively and they're slowly trying to get back into things or more famously a lot of people are familiar with perhaps green juice cleanses where they're drinking a lot of fresh juices all day. It's limited, it's a low calorie, liquid-based diet. So it does give the gut a bit of a break. It doesn't make your digestive system work really hard to break down solid foods because solid foods need to be digested and it takes a lot of effort to do that. But a cleanse is really focused on gut restoration. It's almost like hitting the reset button. It doesn't do very much for liver health. It is a quick reset for some people, but I normally don't recommend cleanses for most of us. And if I do recommend a cleanse it might be a one day reset. Just to reset the, the digestive system, it doesn't really focus on liver detoxification.
(07:05): Okay, so liver, I call that the sanitation department and you gotta love your liver. So can you talk a little bit about why the liver should be the focus of your detox? What's going on in the liver that's so important when it comes to detoxification?
(07:23): Yeah, so the liver is really, I love that analogy, the sanitation department because it is, it is, it's filtering so much blood through our circulatory system from our digestive system running through and it is cleaning out and picking out all of the not so nice things that are in our circulation are in our bloodstream and it's packaging those up that takes effort. It's sort of a two-step process for those that that are interested more in the science side of it, it's a two-phase process where your liver packages up these toxins or these chemicals or these pesticides, whatever you wanna call them, and it packages them up into two phases and after the second phase it dumps it into the digestive system or back into the bloodstream where you can sweat it out, you can pee it out or you can poop it out. And that's a very important part of getting these toxins or or these chemicals out of the body. The liver is responsible for that packaging process.
(08:18): And so what kinds of things are happening to us on a daily basis? Things that we're coming in contact with maybe eating, drinking are impacting our liver. Why isn't our, so when I was in medical school , I was taught that you don't need nutritional supplements, vitamins, minerals, et cetera because you get it from the food you eat, which is totally wrong, right? And then I was also taught that you don't need to do any detox or cleanse cuz your body takes care of it itself. So I think more and more people in this day and age are aware that that's a fallacy. Why is that a fallacy? Why can't our liver just take care of what it needs to take care of in this day and age?
(09:00): And that's a key point what you just said there in this day and age, that is the key point that that I think the listeners hopefully are are tuning into because this day and age we are number one living very stressful lies when you add stress to the mix, people say, so what stress or the main stress hormone that we produce cortisol, many people have heard of that word before. That has to be broken down and processed by the liver as well. Well now if I add a huge bucket of cortisol for my body to produce or to clear out day in and day out, that's c clogging up the sanitation plant that's clogging up the pipelines. I add in maybe a few extra coffees or a couple extra glasses of wine during the week sugar. Right? A lot of us are grabbing sugar or sugary sweets for that pick-me-up in the afternoon. These are hard to process items for the liver. Yes the liver can do it, but once we start to get stacked items that are not working in the liver's favor, there is an overburden we need to, to interject, we need to add in some supports to get that assembly line cleared and that bucket empty once again.
(10:07): Yes. So clear talk. You mentioned alcohol. Can you talk a little bit about alcohol in the liver? Because I remember back when the French paradox came out by Walter Willette and everybody's, you know, they had a justification for drinking their two glasses of wine every day, but nobody talked about what it does to your liver. Can you talk a little bit about what alcohol does to your liver?
(10:30): Yeah, so the liver does, and again let me first start by saying that genetics play a role here. Some of us are faster metabolizers or we can break down alcohol more efficiently than others and there's different ethnicities that have a better time or an easier time breaking that down and and others not so much. And that's based on an enzyme that pretty much degrades or breaks down alcohol. So it can be flushed out of the system. But there again, there are two phases to this and if we start to break down alcohol and there's too much already in the system in phase one or part one of this detoxification, the body becomes quite toxic. That phase one, that first step of the liver detoxification process, that's often what leads to a hangover when we've consumed too much alcohol and many of us know what that feels like.
(11:15): But even if we add alcohol to an already overburdened liver, it might not be the amount of alcohol per se that might be an extra glass of wine or even just a single glass more regularly. It might push the body or the liver over the edge and it cannot clear things fast enough, quickly enough and on a regular enough basis so we can feel toxic, sluggish head, ay hives, you name it. A lot of odd, sometimes symptoms can come through and that can be because of this burden of alcohol not being fully broken down and metabolized.
(11:49): Yeah, I think it's something that people need to be aware of and people, people say, oh Dr. Kyrin, you're such a kill joy, you're saying none of us can drink. That's not what I said. , you have to look at your individual biochemistry and where you are and maybe there might be evidence that you need a break for a while, but doesn't mean forever. All right, so let's dive a little bit more into it. You mentioned phase one and phase two detox. I don't think in the liver most people are aware of that. So how exactly does your body use the liver to get rid of things? What is it doing to them?
(12:27): Yeah, so the two phases of lead liver detoxification are essentially there is a biochemical process going on. So we we're removing and adding various molecules. If we go back to high school chemistry class, whether it's an oxygen or a hydrogen, we're taking off and putting on different molecules to these starting items. So whether it's a, a pesticide for example, or alcohol, we'll use alcohol as an example. And phase one is making it, it's basically starting the process. Phase two, a second phase, a second process. A bunch of different enzymes have to go in and make that item more water soluble. And that requires different items, different antioxidants or different components to help phase two. And then once that, that item is now or that alcohol is now water soluble, it's more, more or less inert. So it doesn't really can, can't really create problems in the body.
(13:18): It can now be safely expelled, whether that's through the kidneys and in the urine or in the gut through the stool or sweat out or breathed out by the the lungs. I forgot to mention that earlier. So there are various processes, both of them are distinct. Phase one is in many ways making this item potentially more disruptive for a short period of time. And then phase two jumps in and adds a a molecule or adds a component to that phase one portion and says, okay, we've packaged you up, you're now safe, you're not gonna cause any more problems and now it can leave the body. We have to highlight phase two is arguably much more important than phase one when you wanna feel your best and detox effectively.
(14:03): And isn't this where a lot of people get into trouble because they're only stimulating phase one and they're pushing all these substances to become water soluble, meaning they can go more places and do more damage And they're not addressing phase two properly
(14:17): A hundred percent. I think that's really when we think about oh let's give our body all the B vitamins or all the antioxidants, those are heavy hitters for phase one. Those even some herbal ingredients milk thistle, a lot of people are familiar with that herbal ingredient. Yes, to an extent they can touch on phase two, but phase two again has a very unique component. It's not about breaking things down, it's actually about safely packaging them back up so that they can leave the body. And phase two requires a different set of nutrients and components that I don't think a lot of people, I know a lot of my patients sometimes neglect that and that needs to be looked
(14:56): At. Mm-Hmm what kinds of foods and nutrients are needed in phase two? So
(15:00): Phase two detoxification, this is where our amino acids come into play. And when I say amino acids, I mean the components of proteins. So definitely I'm thinking of glycine, I'm thinking of my sulforaphanes in terms of my broccoli family of vegetables, n acetyl cystine or N A C for short, the cystine component. These are all components that support phase two. And I wanna highlight that there are many micro processes always happening in the liver. It's not just what do I take for phase one and what do I take for phase two. There are a lot of these nutrients that play a role in both phases. But when I think about phase two, I'm really thinking about my amino acids and my sulfur or my broccoli and brassica family of vegetables. Those really have some additional support on that phase.
(15:52): Right. And I'll just add the methyl groups cuz I happen to be a poor phase two detox. Yes. Cause I have the SNPs with the methyl groups. My body has a problem with that. So that's caused me huge problems. And I find with a lot of my patients that's true too. So I think getting the genetics done. Yeah. What role does a genetic profile play in assisting you in doing a proper detox?
(16:16): And that is something I think, I think that's where medicine and health is going in the next, you know, five to 10 years. I'm starting to see a lot of, a lot more of my patients interested in genetic testing. Maybe have had a few SNPs looked at, you know, and they are interested in figuring out how their body processes and breaks various things down the liver. The, the SNPs or the genetic components really play a role in how effectively your body can break down certain chemicals or certain items. And again, this is an ever-growing field in the liver. So caffeine is a big one. Methylation, which is an important portion of phase two detox, detoxification, alcohol, certain medications, right? How well does your body break down or detoxify These components can really tell you, hey, do you have to be really strict on avoiding caffeine during your detox? Or hey, do you need a little bit more methyl support during your detox? Especially when we're focusing on phase two. So this is a, a very emerging and still very new area, but it's rapidly growing and absolutely it can customize how you take your detox to the next level.
(17:26): Hmm. Yeah, I think that's key. And what about phase three detox? Do you wanna talk a little about that? Well,
(17:32): Phase three detox is really important because I think, you know, especially when I was studying as well, I found when I, when I was talking about liver detox in the beginning of my practice and my career, it was sort of assumed that there was this elimination process. But phase two really is that final step in the body getting rid of waste and those toxins out of the body. Specifically, I, I wanna touch on estrogen for a moment. So estrogen a very vital hormone for, for us women and our body detoxifies it along with many other hormones. But once it leaves the liver, now it's, it's in circulation and, and on its way in digestion to leave the digestive tract. Your body, believe it or not, does have different enzymes in the gut to help your body either flush estrogen out and keep it moving or unpackage that estrogen that was ready to leave and recycle estrogen back into circulation, which many of us don't want. We're trying to get rid of excess estrogen. So I wanna highlight that phase three is in short, how effectively you poop out your, your toxins. But remember that's just one component. It could be kidney function with your urinary tract, it could be sweating, are we sweating during a detox? Are we eliminating things through the skin? It's that final stage of getting everything that we don't want outta the body.
(18:54): So key. Let's talk a little bit more about estrogen detox, cuz I think that is a concern particularly for women at midlife before they go through menopause. Most women are hypo hyper estrogen, so they need to be getting rid of estrogen. So do you wanna talk a little bit about the path that estrogen takes? Because we talked earlier about how all the chemicals that come in your body, your body has to detoxify. But what most people don't realize is that everything your body makes it has to get rid of somehow. Right? just like right when you do crafts inside your house, you've gotta do something with those crafts and all the scraps that you made or trash that you made when you make it. So can you talk about how the body, the full pathway gets rid of estrogen and where are some of the stumbling blocks?
(19:43): This is, you know, this is a whole can of worms in so many ways because like you just said, it is so vital that women understand what estrogen is doing in their body. There are various times in our lives where estrogen sometimes does do a bit of a rollercoaster. And I find in my practice, perimenopause is a very turbulent time for a lot of women. And if we are pre perimenopause, well then, you know, let's say in our early forties we've still got regular cycles, but we might still be dealing with heavy flow, lots of clots, long periods, painful periods. And I always encourage my patients to get an idea of what estrogen is, is going, what, what's going on with their estrogen in short. And the, one of the best ways to do that is to see what we call your estrogen metabolites, your breakdown products of that estrogen hormone as it makes its way out of your system.
(20:36): And that's often why I I personally use the Dutch urinary metabolites test, which is a hormone urinary hormone test. We can see how your body, what your, your body does with estrogen in theory. And what we see is, is it effectively leaving the body And that unfortunately can't be measured as accurately in the blood. And this is where women can really see is my body recycling estrogen, which we often refer to as making 16 oh estrogen or the 16 pathway. Is my body making inflammatory estrogen or the four oh pathway when we measure that breakdown product? Or is my body really good at getting rid of estrogen safely without causing too many symptoms? And that is the main and the protective pathway, which is the two oh pathway. And these are just sort of sciencey names for those specific breakdown products of estrogen. Mm-Hmm , there's three pathways and we all should know what our body's doing and which pathway is perhaps taking the reins in our bodies.
(21:37): Yeah, I think that's super important. And I, you know, as you're speaking, I was just wondering, do you ever recommend that women who are have reached menopause go on hormone replacement without having a urinary metabolite test for their estrogen? I mean, it's something I require, so I'm wondering what your thoughts are.
(21:55): Absolutely. It is really in a serious conversation. We have, you know, g starting hormone replacement therapy in any way, shape or form supports. We need to see what's going on. We assume, assume that estrogen is lower, we're not getting our psycho, we might have some symptoms, but that assumption really doesn't hold up for many women in terms of is their body safely and effectively clearing that estrogen out, especially if there's a family history of any estrogen sensitive cancers. We're really looking to get the full picture before we start any hormone supports. And that just gives women the power to understand and to, and to really, you know, use that information to their advantage to feel their best during hormone the supports or
(22:39): Not. Right. And I'm just wondering, is it the same in Canada as it is in here in the US because the mainstream treatment for women with menopause, well first they say hormone replacement for the least amount of time and the lowest dose possible for symptom management only. There's no testing. They just give you a standard one size fits all dose, no testing of metabolites, how you're breaking it down and there's no follow up testing to see if you're on the right dose. And I'm just wondering, is it the same in Canada?
(23:07): Well, yeah, you know, in, in many ways it is, you know, as a practicing naturopathic doctor, I focus on bioidentical hormones in my practice. But the conventional primary care practice here in in Canada is very much that way. We're giving oral hormone doses. We are not doing pre or post or during testing. We are not determining what that woman specifically needs. And there's a lot of gray area in terms of, you know, is this the most effective treatment for that woman? And just because a woman's not feeling great going up on a dose of estrogen, for example, or both hormones might actually make a woman feel worse because they can't metabolize estrogen effectively. There could be genetic reasons for that. So we wanna make sure their body is functioning well before we start adding hormones to the mix. Because if we're gonna give you hormones, we wanna make sure you can use them and actually feel better.
(23:57): Absolutely. Okay. So that's interesting. It's pretty much the same, it sounds like . So phase three detox. Yes. Pooping. We have an epidemic of people not pooping Absolut. Absolutely. And can you talk about what should be optimal in terms of pooping? Like how are we biologically programmed to poop? Cause the mainstream definition, they don't consider it constipation until certain things happen. So can you talk a little bit about that so people listening can really get a good idea? Am I coping the right amount or not?
(24:28): Yes. And and on my intake forms, you know, I'm always talking about with my patients, okay, like how often are you going to the bathroom? And I will comment on frequency first and then I'll talk a little bit of bo about other areas that we wanna consider. But frequency, the, the normal optimal, let me not say normal, optimal bowel movement frequency is one to three times a day. And generally that coincides with the number of times we eat main meals. And if we go back and think about any babies or young ones in our lives that we can recall, we probably thought, yeah, every time they ate, they pooped. And somehow when we started right, adding solids to the mix, things do slow down. Granted they slow down, but for many of us, when I tell patients one to three times a day is normal, they're shocked.
(25:13): They don't think, they've never been told that. And it might not be your normal to be three times a day, but one or two times a day is really, really optimal for majority of us. And if we're doing any kind of detoxification, if you're not going once a day and you don't feel it's a complete bowel movement, meaning you don't feel you're empty. A lot of women intuitively, we, we feel the difference of yeah, doesn't feel like I'm, I'm emptied out or, or that felt good. I'm like, reset. If you don't feel empty, that's the first place we start. We don't even think about a detoxification program until you are going every day minimum once and feeling empty, no point clearing things out and having it and have nowhere to go. We've gotta make sure that that bowel movement frequency is there right from the beginning.
(26:00): Right. It's kind of like when your toilet stopped up, you don't put more material in water in the toilet, it's coming overflow. It's the same, like you gotta have the outlet working. So that phase three has to be cleared out. What do you think most people get wrong about doing a detox?
(26:18): Ooh, hell, you know that, that's a great question because you know, we, we've touched on a few points. Not supporting phase two is perhaps new to a lot of people, but focusing on those phase two nutrients is key. Especially if you're feeling really overburdened. So people say, I don't feel well, I know I should do a detox. I, you know, I I've been on several medications, maybe I've, you know, been overindulging, caffeine, alcohol, sugar, I wanna reset the body body Well, and you've gotta focus on that phase two because it is that critical component so that you continue to feel okay during a detox mm-hmm. , if you're full of a headache, you're lethargic for seven or or 10 days during a detox, that's not normal. That means that there's either too much happening too soon or we're not focusing on phase two. So those, those nutrients, those amino acids, the methylation products and the sulfur components are so, so key.
(27:09): The second component I will say is people don't ease into a detox. So that kind of relates to the first point. They just go cold Turkey. I, when I first did my detox, oh, going back here probably 15 years, I had migraines, I had adult acne and my naturopathic doctor at the time said, Hey, you're gonna have to come off coffee, don't think about coming off your three cups a day tomorrow. And I'm still glad that she told me that because we still gotta function. Many of us are still going through stressful lives and busy to-do lists. We do not wanna go cold Turkey on a lot of these things In our daily routine, I recommend easing into a detox, reducing caffeine and alcohol over a week slowly and supporting your lifestyle. Don't give yourself a thousand things to do during a detox that hurt, that hurts the detox. Give yourself the opportunity to detox. When you've got a little bit of breathing room less to-do list, you can sleep a little bit better and you don't, you don't feel like your stress is at its highest during that time.
(28:13): Yeah. I, I'll echo what you just said is, you know, it's not just detoxing your body. I, I ha have this friend and many years ago she said to me, oh, Kirin, I got this detox supplement at the health food store and I took it for a month and now I'm detoxed and you know, I don't give my friends an unsolicited medical advice. So I said, oh, that's great. But what I was thinking to myself is she didn't do a lot of other things like change her diet and change her cough, caffeine intake and she didn't slow down her life because like you talked about at the beginning, that stress leads to cortisol and your liver has a part in clearing that. So making a detox, not only a time to clear your body biochemically, but also clear your life, I think is something that's key. So what role might other detox modalities play in doing a quote unquote official detox, what I call a 360 degree detox, so things like sauna, lymph, drain edge, anything else that people should consider adding? Oh,
(29:22): I love that. Yes. And, and as a naturopathic doctor, like we, our philosophy is like whole person, you know, like all aspects you know, of, of the body need to be looked at. I'm big on a couple of things. So full body detoxification, any physical modality, infrared, sauna even steam saunas are great, dry saunas are great. Infrared are, is my preference during a detoxification, dry skin brushing, which can, you know, small circular motions from your extremities, from your hands and feet up towards your heart before showering is a wonderful way to stimulate your lymph. Any slow movement. So Pilates, yoga, gentle walking in nature, natural ways to, to boost your circulation and improve clearance of all those toxins gently. Mm-Hmm. is, is great. I'm also big on the tech detox side of things. So detoxing the mind is really, really wonderful, but really challenging in our mo in our modern days.
(30:16): So during a detoxification supporting some tech free time, maybe giving yourself that one or two hours before bed. I mean, ideally we should be doing that most nights, but let's be honest, many of us aren't during a detox. Just take a step back from tech a little bit. It gives your body a little bit of a chance to, you know, reduce that screen time, sleep a little bit more deeply. And you know, our dopamine in our, our other neurotransmitters, our reward centers of the brain can kind of get a bit of a reset. So we're not always looking for that high from the tech side and, and social media and all of that. So it's a wonderful way to do kind of body spirit, mind physical and non-physical.
(30:51): Okay, we're gonna wrap up shortly, but what does sauna do for people? Can you help them understand? Cuz I think people think, oh, I heard I should do sauna, but they don't really understand what it's necessarily doing for them. And why is same thing for limp drainage, why is that important?
(31:10): Yeah, so sauna again, various types of sauna. They've been studied for different types of detoxification, but essentially what we're doing is we're heating up the tissue. Infrared saunas not a hot sauna if you've ever been in one, it's, it's for people listening, it's a, it's a warm room and it's relatively dry. But as the 20 minute session kind of wraps up, you can you start to feel a little bit sweaty. But what we're doing here is stimulating basically clearance of toxins within the cell. So that heat, depending on, again, the type of heat, is it a moist heat, is it a dry sauna, is it a steam shower? That will elicit different types of sweating and different types of elimination through the skin. So we're looking at skin elimination. In short, you're sweating, you are bringing toxins that are water soluble. So some metals some contaminants in our supply, in our water, in our personal care products are excreted in the sweat. So those would come out in the sweat. And that's a wonderful way to amplify a detox and I really encourage people to do it. Of course, if you have any medical conditions, you always wanna talk with your medical provider beforehand. Mm-Hmm. some people overdo the sauna if they're not drinking enough water or don't have enough minerals, they can feel lightheaded. We never want that to, we never want you to get to that point. It doesn't have the effectiveness if you're feeling drained after a sauna experience.
(32:25): Awesome. Did you have anything to add otherwise on limp?
(32:29): Oh, the lymph piece. Yes. Thank you. I wanted to say limp is an important PE for people to understand. It's not the bloodstream, it's a small highway of vessels that clear out a lot of our immune cells. A lot of our waste products go through the lymph related a lot to immunity. And gentle motion actually is what stimulates the lymph node. So the lymph supply. So if we're clearing gunk and junk and trying to amplify our immune system, gentle motions, dry brushing, gentle lymph massage, as you mentioned, these are wonderful ways to, again, clear, stagnant, stuck things that might be in our body that need a chance to eliminate during a detox. So gentle therapies work wonderful for lymph and that can be done at home.
(33:11): Yeah. This has been such a great conversation. I know people listening have gotten so much out of this and they really are starting to have a deep understanding of what a detox needs to include, what needs to be addressed. I love this quote you shared with me before we got started. Aim to be just a bit better than you were yesterday and also forward is forward and another one le and then the net will appear. They actually all go together. I think so beautifully. If you're listening and you've been inspired by what Dr. Lar has been talking about and you wanna know more, she has actually a free gift for you on her website. We'll have the link in the show notes. Do you want to tell them a little bit about what they'll find there? Yeah,
(33:58): So you know, it's my three day mini detox and it's a wonderful gentle kickstart to full detox. Three days for many of us is doable. It's not very restrictive, but it keeps out the key liver burdened items and it really inspires you to kind of kickstart your health with a three day reset. And I encourage people to try it and see how they feel even after a short three day period.
(34:24): Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for that. Where else can they find out more about you, Dr. Laura? So
(34:29): You can go onto my website, dr laura bellis.com or find me on Instagram. That's normally where I hang out at Dr. Laura Bellis. I'm always posting tips and items, whether it's about hormones or health or nutrition, all on Instagram or again on my website and blog.
(34:44): Awesome. Thank you so much for your passion for helping people become as healthy as possible and for the path that led you there and for sharing your expertise with us today.
(34:56): Thank you so much for having me.
(34:57): And thank you for listening to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Stay tuned. Next week we'll have more impactful information. I wanna challenge you to take action and do just one thing in terms of your detox today that will move you forward because forward is forward. Thanks so much for joining me and I'll see you next week. Until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.
(35:21): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Don't miss out on this exclusive episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast with Dr. Evan Hirsch, and finally get the answers you've been looking for to resolve your fatigue once and for all! Tune in today and take back control of your energy levels.
(00:00): If you wanna learn how to play the piano, you hire a piano coach. If you wanna learn how to increase your energy, you hire an energy coach. Whatever you want to do in life, hire a coach to guide you there faster and safer. Dr. Evan Hirsch this and more in this episode. How to Get rid of Your Fatigue.
(00:22): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an O B G gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40 in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:15): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kiran. I'm so glad that you decided to join me. Today we're talking about fatigue and some of you still haven't solved your fatigue problems from last year that you had because you don't know what to do. I get it. So this is why I wanted to have my gift on today because fatigue is universal. The majority of people actually will go through periods of time in their lives where they are more tired than they think they should be and they don't have their energy restored from rest. It's very common. It's actually more common among women over 40. So that's why we're gonna talk about it. It's usually an often associated with weight problems, weight and fatigue. Problems go hand in hand because of the way the body functions. And if you stick with me long enough, I will teach you about that interaction.
(02:08): And my guest today really has drilled down on fatigue and has helped so many people to fix their fatigue. You know, fatigue was such a big part of my life before I got on my healing journey over a decade ago, that there were times where all I had the energy to do was work and sleep. So even though I was a, a mom and a wife and had, you know, so many other roles in my world, I really only had energy for two things. And I was sleeping and working. So all my relationships suffered and my self-esteem suffered. My relationship with myself suffered. It was really a hard time. And maybe you can relate, maybe it's not that severe for you, maybe it's more subtle. But if you take a look at your energy level compared to when you were 20, I think that's a great gauge.
(03:00): You really should be able to have the same level of energy at 60, 70, 80 that you did at 20. There's no reason that you can't have that. But you gotta know what to do to avoid the deterioration that the majority of people succumb to cuz they don't know and they think it's quote unquote normal for them to get tired as they age. So they just accept it. They don't know what to do about it. Unfortunately, mainstream doctors aren't taught this either. So Dr. Evan and I are gonna dive into it nitty gritty, what do you need to look at? What do you need to start working on with your fatigue? I will say it's simple and straightforward, the steps you need to take. And most people do best with a guide, a learned guide to do this process because there are some intricacies. So I'll say it's simple, not necessarily easy.
(03:53): But for those of you who are like, I'm sick and tired of feeling this way, we've got the steps. So I'll tell you a little bit about Dr. Evan and then we'll get started. Evan Hirsch is an md, he's world renowned fatigue and long hauler's expert. He's the founder and c e o of the International Center for Fatigue. Through his bestselling book podcast and international online programs that can be accessed from everywhere, he has helped thousands of people around the world resolve their chronic fatigue and long hauler symptoms. Naturally she is on a mission to help 1 million more. He's been featured on television podcast summits and when he is not at the office you could find him singing musicals cause he has the energy to do that, dancing, hip pop, and playing basketball with his family. Welcome Dr. Evan Hirsch to the podcast. Thanks
(04:38): So much for having me on. Dr. Kyrin,
(04:40): Really happy to talk about fatigue again because this is something that people are really struggling with now more than ever. I think we've come out of lockdown. People might have been a little hesitant at first, but now it seems like everyone's on full tilt trying to make up for lost time. And a lot of people are hitting a wall, especially if they got covid, they're really hitting a wall. I have some colleagues and friends who are in that situation. So I think it's very timely. Why is this such a big issue for us in this new year? More than it has been before?
(05:16): Yeah, so my perspective as a functional medicine and environmental medicine physician is really one about the total body burden. And as we go through life, we accumulate things. Sometimes it's physical things like heavy metals or chemicals or molds or infections. Sometimes it's mental. Maybe we get, you know, a lot of news, a lot of negative things coming into our minds. Maybe we've had trauma. So that kind of bleeds over into the emotional, maybe it's spiritual, like we're not living our path. And when you get all of those things together, like the the instability that we've seen over the last few years, whether it's financial, whether it's physical or health wise, it all accumulates and then it makes it harder for people to manage their daily lives. And all of this going on with the difference between what happened when we were growing up where you could have a one income household now where you need two income households, right? So then there's more stress at home and there's more challenges raise raising children. And people are wondering why is it harder now? And it's just this accumulation of things over time. And so that's why it's so important to have practices and to take time for making sure that you're being as intentional as possible with your life.
(06:33): It is so important to make sure you're being intentional and taking time. Everybody knows you probably need to change your diet, you might need to take some supplements, you probably need to change what you're eating. But I would just wanna highlight what you're saying because I think that that's the piece that everybody misses. Like nobody's willing to slow down and sit their butt down and actually meditate, right? Nobody's willing to, you know, start saying, no, I can't host that pta, you know, committee no to this start saying no and really change the way they live their lives. So maybe we even start with that because I think it's the simplest thing that you listening you could start doing making changes to that today and it would start to impact your energy level. So can we talk a little bit more about that? What are some key factors in that lifestyle component?
(07:32): Absolutely. And you know, I just got so excited what I heard you say no because this is one of the really big things that I love to chat about. You know, Warren Buffet said that people who say no a lot are really successful and people who say no all the time are the most successful. And the reason why this is, is because when you're saying no to something, you're saying yes to something else, right? And so if you're saying no to that p t a meeting, you're saying yes to spending more time with your family potentially, right? And so that's one thing that we have to balance. And I was actually talking with a couple of colleagues this morning about values and figuring out what your values are. And for me, a major value that I have is fun. But guess what happens when I chart out what I'm doing during my day, I'm working from this time to this time I am doing helping out at home with this and this whatever. It's like where is the fun If, if one of my top priorities is fun and I don't have fun for like a half an hour every single day, guess what? I'm not gonna be fulfilled. Right? So it's just really important to take a look at that and say and realize that, okay, what do you wanna say yes to? And if you're saying yes to that thing, what do you have to say no to in order to make sure that you're saying yes to that thing?
(08:50): I think that's so important. Everybody listening knows that I went on this four month trip to Africa and I have to tell you it was one of the most beautiful things ever because number one, people knew I was outta the country. So they didn't ask me to do stuff . And especially at the holidays when it can be so time consuming. It was so refreshing to not have a Christmas tree, not have to do all the things around the holidays that you do in the US And I just had the most relaxing time. And I think that I've brought that back with me so that next year I have a like neurologic memory of what it feels like to do the holidays calmly and insanely and mindfully. And I'm gonna do it the same. So yes, saying no is huge. I think it's one of the hardest things for women to do.
(09:39): I know it has been hard for me, but it's hard one over the years that now. And I love, oh gosh, who was it I heard say, was it Marie Forlio who says, she says, my automatic response now is no. And then she says, but I always reserve the right to come back later and change it after I think about it. But it's so much harder to think in the moment, do I wanna do that? Do I not wanna do that? And so if you just say, no, I'm sorry I can't, if that changes, I'll get back to you. Bingo. You, you've given yourself time to think about it, right? Yeah.
(10:11): I had Cassie Bjork on my podcast a couple months ago and she used a similar phrase. It was, I'm unavailable for that right now.
(10:20): Yes, right. Which
(10:22): Is so good. It's just like I'm unavailable for that right now.
(10:26): Yes. And I'm available for my epso salt bath and you know, cuddling with my kitty cat. So I challenge everyone listening to just say no to a few things today. Just try it out and see what happens. And let's dive a little bit deeper though, cause Covid has come and I had it. I don't Did you have it? I haven't had it, yeah. Lucky you. I got it. I did think I was gonna die and then I did recover, but for a few weeks I was extremely tired. I have a very good friend who has had chronic fatigue for over a year now. Ever since she had it, her hair has fallen out and she's really struggling. So let's maybe talk to the people who have legitimate medical things. Not that the things we were talking about aren't legitimate medical cause they do affect your hormones, everybody listening, your cortisol, your progesterone, everything, thyroid, insulin. But let's get into a little bit talking about covid.
(11:26): Absolutely. So unfortunately what we're seeing right now is very high percentage of people who get covid and get five or so symptoms when they have covid, even if they're very mild, about a third of those people can potentially move on to having persistent symptoms or long covid or long haulers, whatever you want to call it. And so that's a tremendous amount. You know, if you're looking at a a billion people, which is about the number of people, people who've had covid, you know, it's, if you're looking at 10% of that, that's a hundred million. It's just, and so we're talking about like the size of the United States. 300 million is really what's projected once everybody has covid. So I don't think a billion people have had it, but that's like the projection of where it's going. So that's like the size of United States of people who would have persistent symptoms.
(12:14): Now there's over 200 different symptoms that people can end up having that will persist. So pretty much any new symptom that you have after a cold could potentially be long covid. And we actually have a long covid quiz on our website for those who are interested. But it's a big problem. And some of the reasons why people are, are not getting the help that they need is because you go to your local covid clinic and you've got a GI doctor to help you with your diarrhea and you've got a pulmonologist there to help you out with your shortness of breath and you've got a cardiac doctor there, cardiologist to help you out with your heart palpitations. But the reality is, is that it's all from a persistent infection. So the virus gets inside your body and coupled with a number of these other causes that we're gonna talk about ends up causing problems, bypassing the immune system and ends up causing inflammation. Depending on where it is in the body, it'll cause different symptoms. And so if you're looking at getting at the root cause, you have to make sure that you're actually addressing the virus that is persisting in the body.
(13:19): So for everybody listening, we talk about, oh I'm so tired, I'm so tired. But when is just fatigue? When does it become a medical issue? And same thing for covid, what are the symptoms that someone would know they're in that long covid category and what are the symptoms of someone who has a high enough level of fatigue? Is there a certain amount of time it has to persist? Is there a certain degree? Can you talk a little bit about how they can identify if they're in a category that needs to be evaluated or not?
(13:52): Yeah, so it's generally symptoms that are lasting longer than 30 days. And for some people it's loss of taste or smell. For some people they're spontaneously sweating, sweating. For some people they have awful sleep. But it's new symptoms since 2019, November, 2019 that resulted. I mean some people don't even realize that they had it right and then they, but then they get these weird symptoms. If they're lasting for longer than 30 days and it's negatively affecting your life, it's something that should be evaluated. Now, whether or not somebody is fatigued is very interesting because there is an actual criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, but fatigue, there isn't. And so this really has to do with what you're able to tolerate. And as humans, you know, we're incredibly adaptable. We just think, you know, quote unquote, we're getting older, but in reality there's something wrong that if we don't pay attention to it, it's gonna cause problems later.
(14:45): So if your energy is not where you wanna be and you're surviving on caffeine, energy, drinks, whatever it is, some sort of stimulant that's going to give you the energy that you need, and then maybe you need something to help you fall asleep at night, it's a problem, right? And so you can keep trying to adapt and trying to take things to fix it as a bandaid. But the reality is is that there's 39 different causes that we're actually looking at of fatigue. And everybody that we see who has fatigue has a combination of 20 or more of these causes. Now with long covid, that's just another one of those causes that's into the mix that we see. But everybody has a combination. So it's not like you have one problem and that if you fix that one problem that everything gets better.
(15:31): Right. And I think that's super important to highlight because we're really taught in the medical model that both you and I were trained in to look for the one thing, one problem, and the one medication to give and the one surgery to do. And now because we've had a advanced training, we know that that's a bunch of baloney. But I think the average person doesn't get it and they just wanna go to the doctor and get a diagnosis. But this will be a little bit of a fun walk down memory lane. How did you used to evaluate people who came in who said they were too tired for too long, like they had chronic fatigue? What we're gonna talk about, what's a mainstream medical model that both Dr. Evan and I used to practice?
(16:15): Yeah, no, there is a caveat here because I became board certified in holistic medicine when I was in residency.
(16:22): Oh you did? Okay.
(16:23): . So I didn't have a ton of time like that, but still, you know, it was thyroid, it was thyroid, it was anemia, you know, whether it was iron deficiency or something. That was another thing that I learned. I mean B12 and folate and you know, all these other things we really didn't talk about because of the levels that we were looking at, you know, the quote unquote normal range. But there's, how many times did we, you know, say, Hey, you know, your thyroid's fine, you're you, you're not anemic. Doesn't look like you've got hepatitis or any sort of severe cardiac or lung issue. I don't know how to help you.
(16:58): Exactly. I did know that that's what we're taught as doctors. And can you talk a little bit about that? You, you held up your hands in quotes, but they can't see you the normal range because a lot of people will come to me and they'll say, oh no, it's not my thyroid. My doctor checked my thyroid and my labs are normal and I ha have to explain. Yeah, well 80% of the time when they say it's normal it there's a problem. So can you talk a little bit about that?
(17:28): Absolutely. So the normal range that you'll see on a laboratory test, what that lab company does is they take, it's a population based range. So they take everybody who's done the test and they create a bell curve and they chop off the top and the bottom fifth percentiles and they call that normal. Now if all the, and I did the quotes again now, all those, all those, so you're taking a population of sick people, 70% of everybody in the United States is obese, right? So taking all those people and you're trying to, and you're calling that normal, what we're looking for in functional medicine is optimal. And so your ranges are always going to be generally a lot tighter and usually higher. Especially when you're looking at something like thyroid or, or whatever. You're gonna wanna make sure you're looking at an optimal range,
(18:16): Right? So that's key everybody. So just cuz they say your labs are normal doesn't mean they're optimal. There's a difference. All right, so you got persistent symptoms, you can definitely take the quiz on Dr. Evan's website. If you have had covid and you're, you think that you might have long covid or long haulers and I, I say for chronic fatigue is if you're not, if you feel tired on a regular basis, you wanna nap, you wake up unrefreshed, you're not able to keep your joy in life and keep up with your usual activities, that's a problem. And if it persists for more than a month, but definitely three to six months, you wanna get that evaluated. And the key thing that I wanna highlight that you said is, you know, some people push through and they're like, oh, I'm fine, I just have some coffee and I keep it moving. But the problem is that the reasons why you're having that chronic fatigue problem are going to be causing other problems for you in the future that you're not aware of. And that's just not something that mainstream doctors are taught and they don't know how to evaluate it. So you need a specialized evaluation to get at, how many factors did you say that you look at
(19:29): Now looking at 39 different causes? And don't be overwhelmed by that. You know, as you're listening to this, just realize that, you know, you invest the time, you know in a year from now you've moved through a process and you're gonna be a very different person for the rest of your life as opposed to going to doctors time and time again with band-aids that don't work for the next 20, 30 years.
(19:52): Right. You wanna get to the root cause so you can fix it for the long term. Right. And can you talk a little bit about what kind of things should people have done in an evaluation for fatigue?
(20:07): Absolutely. So when we look at these 39 different causes, and if you've heard me speak before, it keeps increasing as I learn more. And so you may have heard me say what wasn't it 33 before? Yes. Well now it's 39. But we look at we break up these causes into deficiencies and toxicity. So deficiencies are things that are not in the body that are supposed to be in the body. These are deficiencies in hormones and nutrients and mitochondria and lifestyle habits, neurotransmitters. And then there's toxicities. These are things that are in the body that aren't supposed to be in the body. So these are things like heavy metals and chemicals and molds and infections, whether it's parasites or viruses or bacteria or yeast or dental infections or sinus infections, allergies, negative emotional patterns or trauma electromagnetic fields, structural issues where you've, let's say you've gotten into a car accident or something like that or had some sort of injury.
(21:05): So all of those need to be looked at. And you know, one of the thing that we learned in medical school that is actually true is if you don't think about it, you're not gonna diagnose it. Right? Right. And so it's really important to make sure that you have a really broad differential, that you're looking at a lot of different causes to make sure that you leave no stone unturned. Because if, let's say you've got, you know, 20 out of 39 different causes and let's call those each a nail in the bottom of your foot, you pull out one nail and you still have 19 nails in the bottom of your foot, you know? Mm-Hmm. . So you pull out the gluten nail but you still don't feel any better. But let's say you pull out the mercury nail and the Bai nail and the parasite now and whatever, you get a mass effect where all of a sudden you get a big shift and you start to feel better. So you have to make sure that you're addressing all these things. Otherwise there's one nail that's left in the foot that really hurts. And if you haven't addressed that, then you're not gonna get all the way to the finish line.
(22:01): Yeah, it's so true. I see it even in women who go through my hormone program because a key part of having hormonal balances, you gotta fix the gut, you gotta address the mitochondrial function, you gotta, and then they say, no, I don't need any of that other stuff. And they never experience what's truly possible for them. But you know, you can lead a horse to water, you can't make or drink. And so really educating, I want everybody here listening to get that you have to take a Wyatt Castle wide net and have a comprehensive evaluation. So what kinds of things would go into treating, I mean you talked about all the items that go into that, into the evaluation and just how numerous they are, the problems that you can have, toxicities and deficiencies. Do you wanna pick some of the most common ones that you see and talk a little bit more in detail about what, like Canada, that's something that's hu rampant , right.
(23:02): Particularly in women, you know, Canada, which is yeast, is promoted by a lot of the hormonal contraceptives that we use. So a lot of women will have problems. It's promoted by our high glycemic index diet and lifestyle. And so it's opportunistic, it's waiting there. And when it's, you know, dark, warm and has sugar, it just proliferates. So can you talk a little bit about what you might see if someone had candid, how they might know they have it, what testing might be done, and then how do you start approaching and helping that person to rehab their body so that they can get rid of the fatigue?
(23:40): Yeah, so specifically with Canada, we're looking at a stool test that would potentially be positive. And you want to use a functional medicine laboratory. Your regular stool test with your doctor is not gonna do the trick, whether it's Canada or whether it's some other yeast. And then your symptoms, you know, do you have itching? That's really the biggest one. Is it itchy ears? Itchy anus, itchy skin? Do your symptoms get worse? Do you get brain fog potentially when you eat sugar? You know, are your symptoms worse when you sugar, when you go off of sugar, do you feel worse? You know, because essentially you're, you're killing off the Canada and it's it's dying in the body because you're starving it. And then in order to, and so for example, you know, what we do is we want to push it out, we want to starve it.
(24:24): So we started it with an antifungal diet, which is gonna be low sugars, you know, meat and vegetables, maybe a little bit of fruit, but maybe not depending on the person. Ideally no fruit, no additional sugars. And then we want to push it out with a probiotic. We want to kill it with an antifungal. And we're using all natural antifungal in our practice. And then you wanna, you wanna heal the gut and you wanna bind up the infections with some sort of binder. We're using some immunoglobulin in order to be able to do this. So that's just kind of an example.
(24:58): I know some people are like, oh my gosh, we, I have to do all that. That sounds like so much. But I love this quote that you shared with me before we started recording. The body loves small changes and also slow and steady wins the race. So you don't have people do all of that at one time, right? No. Okay.
(25:18): Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, and it's, you know, as humans we overestimate the amount that we can get done in a day and we underestimate the amount that we can achieve in a year. And it's just really important that every single day, and this is a mindset component that we talk about in our program every single day, you just need to take a step forward, do the next thing, right? Baby steps end up leading to success.
(25:41): It's so true. You know, when I was in Africa, my workout program was totally derailed cuz I didn't have my usual gym. And, you know, mere survival on a daily basis was sometimes challenging. And so now I'm back in the states and I went back to, I got back last week and I went to go work out this morning and of course my fitness level has dropped over four months. And I just kept telling myself, you showed up, you did your best. That's what counts. Mm-Hmm , you know, just make the investment and don't look for the outcome. The outcome will come. So you just slow and steady wins The race body loves small changes. And so everybody listening, you know, it's, it's New Year's just passed, you probably made some resolutions. And if you're listening to the podcast, you're doing something good for yourself, you're investing in your health. So Rome wasn't built in today, right? It takes time. So you need to do these things over time. And particularly if you're dealing with chronic fatigue, you do need a stepwise comprehensive approach if you want the best outcome. So what else is important to know about, you wrote the book Fixture Fatigue and what else might be involved in the evaluation or treatment that people might wanna know about?
(26:57): So I take people through a four step process where the first step is to determine the causes that they have. Now, fortunately, of those 39 different causes, 75% of those can be determined by symptoms alone. So people join our program, they go through the questionnaire and I'm gonna know 75% of their causes right out of the gate without even any having any labs. And so then we fig then the rest of the program is just applying the, the treatment for the particular cause that somebody has. And so we start off by replacing the deficiencies first. Now big picture, this process is all about removing the toxins in step four, the heavy metals, the chemicals, the molds and the infections, et cetera. Cuz those are actually causing the deficiencies but we need to replace them. So the big three is called is the adrenals, the mitochondria and the thyroid. And so opting, optimizing those first is kind of what you were talking about where it makes people feel better and then they don't want to go into step four
(27:57): , I'm good, I don't need any more help. You're like, no, you don't see the, the pothole you're getting ready to fall into. But
(28:05): Exactly. And so, and sometimes you can, you can optimize those until the cows come home and you're still gonna feel badly because your system is overwhelmed by one of these other toxins. So we replace things in step two in order to make you more resilient and deal with the stress of of step four and removing those things out of the body cuz it is gonna be stressful physically, not just psychologically. And then in step three we open up the drainage pathways. So the liver, the kidney, the lymph, the intestines. We wanna make sure that we're able to get the toxins out of the body. So I envision this kind of like a funnel where we're gonna be dumping things into this funnel. We have to make sure that those pathways are open. Otherwise as we start to dump heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, people start to feel worse. So we open those things up in step three and then in step four we're removing all of these toxins and they're very much interlaced where the heavy metals, chemicals, molds and infections are all kind of feeding off each other. They're bound to each other. So when you start to remove them, you wanna make sure that you've got something that's going to address these things as they start to be released and dealt with.
(29:13): Yeah, I know some people right now are like, what did he say? I don't know how to do this. It sounds so complicated. It's like the car mechanic when I go and I'm like, when I push the start button in my car, it won't start. And he goes, oh well the catalytic converter such and such and so, and I'm just like, glaze over. So folks, this is, it's very complicated. Just like cars are complicated, your body's even more complicated. So it does really require professional involvement to do it right? I'm all for diy, I love to DIY things myself, but at some point, you know, I want the tile in my bathroom to look good when I'm done , I'm gonna hire a professional. So you know, you can read Dr. Evans book at the end of the podcast, he's actually gonna give you a free copy. So you wanna stay tuned for that. And you'll see that he really is an expert about fixing fatigue. He knows all the ins and outs so you don't have to just like when you take your car, you don't have to know. But what are some things, maybe there's some people listening, they're not overly tired but they're listening cuz they're thinking maybe Dr. Evan can tell me a few things that I could tweak in my diet, exercise, lifestyle supplement regimen that might help me feel better. What would you say to them about that?
(30:36): Yep. So that, and that's really the first place to start. You know, most of the time when I see people, they've already done that and they've, they're eating a perfect diet. You know, they're meditating, they're working on their sleep, you know, they're doing all these things. So the goal that I have found is that, is that you want to be eating as close to a paleo diet as possible. So meat and veggies, you want low on sugars, low on carbs, you wanna make sure you know, protein fat and local glycemic carbs is kind of where it's at. You know, half of your plate should be vegetables, eat dinner for breakfast, you know, so you know, have a salad, have you know, roast some veggies, that sort of thing and make sure you're, you're having meat if you don't consume meat it's a little bit more challenging but you wanna make sure that protein fat and low carbs is what you're looking for.
(31:23): And then in terms of your sleep, the, the closer you get to sleep closer you get to nine o'clock the better. So I used to say 10 o'clock and then myself and a bunch of people in my community got oral rings and we and it said well and then actually it should be earlier than that. And I started testing it and seeing with other people and sure enough their scores went up and they felt better. And so we really want people to be going to sleep closer to nine o'clock and sleeping for at least seven hours, seven to nine hours generally. The other interesting thing too is that the later that you eat food, the more it can have effect on your heartbeat and co your heart rate and consequently the worse your sleep can be. So really trying not to eat after 6:00 PM is ideal or six 30, something like that.
(32:13): But the earlier that you can stop eating then and having a period of fasting before you go to bed, that can just be incredibly helpful because it takes a lot of work to digest food and so your heart rate will stay up and your body doesn't realize it's time to sleep. And so that can negatively affect your sleep. I mean going to bed and waking up at the same time every day is always a good idea. And then of course we've got all of our screens, we wanna make sure no horror films in the evening, no fights in the evening. We want to get into the parasympathetic as much as possible. Wearing blue light blockers, putting blue light blockers on your phone, putting it in night mode, that's oftentimes a way to do that. But that's sleep, that's food. You wanna make sure you're drinking two to three liters of water a day when you're going through a detox and you're removing some of the, the crap in the body that's there.
(33:01): We recommend people consuming, regardless of your weight to be closer to about three liters unless you're a child or a teenager. But then the last thing is movement. You know, where ideally you'd have what I call the Goldilocks dose of movement where if you move too much, it makes you feel worse. If you move too little, it makes you feel worse. So you wanna find that ideal dose, but you have to pay attention to how it feels in your body. And if you're fatigued then you may be able, you may be saying, you know, I can't move at all and that's okay. Just when you can, you know, do five jumping jacks or do some burpees, if you can do those or do walk around the block, you know, whatever you can do that's not gonna make you feel worse, go ahead and do that cuz that'll stimulate a number of things.
(33:44): You know, exercise and movement. I call it movement more than exercise cuz sometimes people have a hesitancy to, they don't like that word exercise. Sometimes it's dancing, that's really great. One or playing basketball or whatever's gonna be fun. But you know, if you look at the research movement is like a panacea, it's like a cure for everything. Yeah. It helps with detoxification and mood and, and it's so interesting to see it in my 14 year old too. It's like she's pretty sedentary and then she goes to karate and she moves around and she gets all sweaty and her mood is so much better. And so it's just really an important reminder for all of
(34:21): Us. So true. I think those are just great baseline lifestyle habits to aim for for everybody. Especially if you're feeling fatigued. I have to ask you because it's all a rage right now. Do you think if people are having chronic fatigue, that they should intermittent fast? We're not.
(34:40): I think intermittent fasting is excellent. However, it can also be stressful on the body. And so if your adrenals are compromised, which is a gland that manages stress in the body, then potentially you can't, you don't want to do anything that's gonna kind of put you over the edge. And so I tell people to test it if they want to try it, if they feel worse then it's too much and they shouldn't do it. But if they can tolerate it, then eating two meals, eating all your meals or two meals within a six hour period from like 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM can really do wonders for the body.
(35:12): Yeah, okay. I wanted to make sure to bring that up. And the other thing is, whenever people hear about a functional approach, a root cause resolution approach, and we start talking about labs, what's the first thing they say? Oh is my, can my regular doctor do it? Does my insurance cover it? So can you talk a little bit about that? I think it's super important because I think, you know, when I weighed 243 pounds and I finally found someone who looked like they knew what they were talking about, like same stuff we're talking about who might be able to help me, I was so desperate to get better because I was chronically fatigued, my hair was falling out, I had anxiety, depression, all kinds of maladies. And they said, well you need these two tests, each one costs $500. I was willing to pay it. But I sometimes see people and they say, oh I'm not gonna pay that if my insurance doesn't cover it. So can you talk a little bit about the, the cost of tests?
(36:12): Absolutely. So, you know, we're looking at 39 different causes and like I said, 75% can be determined by symptoms alone. But there are 25% that really need lab tests and those generally run around $1,500. And what I tell people in our programs, you know, aren't cheap, you know, and so it's an investment. No, you know when you go this route and you're actually looking at the root causes because you wanna get rid of 'em, cuz guess what? These root causes of fatigue and other issues are also the same root causes of heart attack, heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer's, and cancer. So you deal with it now or you deal with it later. And so the way you have to think about it is as if you're getting a master's because it's gonna take that long, it's gonna take a year or two, you're going to get all this knowledge that you're going to be able to use further and you're basically fixing your problems so that the rest of your life is amazing.
(37:05): You know, like I was hesitant about or going into residency cuz I already knew that I wanted to practice in this way and I didn't wanna do a conventional residency, but I also knew that if I did a residency, it would give me lots more options and I would learn a ton more information. And I'm so glad that I did, you know, it was really hard on me, but I learned so much that enables me to help people today. Mm-Hmm . And so you're making an investment of time, money, and energy so that you can get something at the end of it. You know, like you went to college, like you got a master's degree. This is just another way that you're making that investment in yourself so that the rest of your life can be amazing.
(37:45): I, I say amen to that. And I know there's some people listening who think, oh, Dr. Evan, this is just a factor of me getting older. Everybody gets older, gets tired as they get older and they think that they can't be helped, they think, oh, my fatigue's not that bad. I don't have any of these underlying toxicities or deficiencies he's talking about. And so is getting tired, quote unquote normal as you age.
(38:12): I have a, a client who's 68 who says he feels better now than he did when he was 30. Right? So generally it's really a mass effect. It's a total body burden. The longer , the longer you're in port, the more barnacles you get. So the longer you're on this longer you're on this earth, the more toxins you get. You know, my story was, you know, I came out of my mom's womb and she dumped all her good stuff and all her not so good stuff into me. And then I ate gluten and dairy growing up and I was constipated for the first 25 years of my life until I realized that it wasn't normal to poop once a week. And so I couldn't get rid of any toxins that I was accumulating. I ate a lot of tuna fish, which has mercury in it, and I had mercury fillings and so that was accumulating in my body. Didn't eat organic food, had pesticides, got formal, the high poisoning from gross anatomy class, lived in moldy buildings, kissed people who had Epstein bar virus in lime, grew up in New Jersey, right? And so went through residency and then boom, you know, like, so that was the story that I had where I thought that it was all of a sudden it was residency, but the reality was is that it was this accumulation. And so you're, you're just unwinding, you're peeling this onion, getting at all of these different causes along the way.
(39:31): Yeah. I thank you for sharing that because I think people can get the idea that you don't have to be doing anything wrong to have a significant toxic and deficiency load. We all have it, it's just a matter of degree. And what you see with aging is not quote unquote normal aging. What you're seeing is the accumulated effects of toxicity deficiency stress on the body. And that's why you see some 90 year olds who are, you know, running marathons and you see some people who don't even make it to 90 is because of this variation. And we blame it mostly on, you know, genetics. But that's a fallacy. Great. So thank you so much for highlighting that and we're gonna wrap it up. This has been great. I think everyone's gotten a lot of value. Dr. Evan has given you some tips of things that you can do, start doing this week, right?
(40:30): Start making some changes. You can tweak your diet, tweak your sleep schedule, tweak your movement. Some things to think about in terms of you can go take the quiz on his website to see if you've had covid, do you have long covid? And maybe it is time for an evaluation, maybe you wanna get to the root cause of it now so that the rest of your life can be amazing. Like his 68 year old patient who shared that he feels better than he had. I mean, I, I feel better now than I did when I was in my twenties for sure. And I attribute that to every, everything that we do, all the work that we do with ourselves and that we now teach others. So maybe it is time for that. Dr. Evan is giving you a free copy of his book Picture Fatigue. We will have the link in the show notes, so if you're driving, don't try to write that down when you get home. You can just click the link. Evan, you wanna tell them a little bit about the book?
(41:26): So the book was written in 2017, so it's been, it's been about five years right now, but it gives you a nice outline of the four step process. And if you do like what you're hearing and reading and you're interested in getting on a free call for your 20 minute call to see if we're a good fit to work together, those are available. You can also text us from our website, energy md method.com in the lower right hand corner, it goes directly to me so we can text back and forth, which is kind of fun. So we can see, you know, if, if we're a good fit. And I can answer any questions that you have. But the goal really is to, you know, so much of this is, is mindset, and yes, we wanna work on the physical, but you know, like we talked about initially, anything that you're saying no to, you're saying yes to something else. Anything that you say you should do, you have to be careful. Otherwise you're shooting all over yourself, right?
(42:19): . Yeah,
(42:20): , you wanna make sure that you're being intentional with your choices.
(42:24): Yes. Well, thank you so much Dr. Evan Hirsch for joining us on the Hormone Prescription Podcast today. Thank you for your path, your expertise, your wisdom, your caring, your passion for helping people fix their fatigue.
(42:40): Thanks so much for having me
(42:41): On. And thank you for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kiran. I hope that you've learned something today that is going to positively impact your health. I challenge you to implement just one thing, post about it on social media, media and share it with me and look forward to hearing about your successes, and I look forward to seeing you again next week on another episode of The Hormone Prescription. Until then, peace, love,
(43:10): And hormones y'all. Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Get Dr. Evan's FREE PDF copy of his book, "Fix Your Fatigue: The 4 Step Process to Resolving Fatigue and Achieving Amazing Energy." - CLICK HERE
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► Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try?
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Have you been wondering how to manage anxiety, especially in midlife? Dr. Loretta Breuning is here to provide us with the answers! Join us on the latest episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast and learn how the lessons from the mammalian kingdom can help us all have a happy brain. Not only will you learn about how hormones work within our bodies, but also gain insight into how simple changes in our environment can drastically change the way we feel.
Dr. Loretta Breuning, PhD, is the Founder of the Inner Mammal Institute and Professor Emerita of Management at California State University, East Bay. She is the author of many personal development books, including Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, and Endorphin Levels and Tame your anxiety-rewire your brain for happiness and others.
As a teacher and a parent, she was not convinced by prevailing theories of human motivation. Then she learned about the brain chemistry we share with earlier mammals and everything made sense. She began creating resources that have helped thousands of people make peace with their inner mammal. Dr. Breuning's work has been translated into twelve languages and is cited in major media. Before teaching, she worked for the United Nations in Africa. Loretta gives zoo tours on animal behavior, after serving as a Docent at the Oakland Zoo.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How the mammalian brain works
- The hormones that can affect your emotional state
- Simple strategies to rewire your brain for happiness and reduce anxiety
- How our environment plays a role in affecting our moods
Listen now to this powerful episode with Dr. Loretta Breuning and learn how you can have a happy brain!
(00:00): Nature is designed to habituate to the emotions that we already have. Stay tuned to find out why our happy chemicals are not designed to be on all the time.
(00:13): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us, keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:07): Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today we're gonna be talking about stress. Again, I know it's such an important topic, but we're gonna be relating it to your happy neurochemicals. We're going to be talking about dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin and endorphins and how you can optimize these neurochemicals for your hormonal and overall health and wellbeing, how you can get out of anxiety and many other things. She has a unique perspective that's comes from the animal kingdom, which we're a part of, but we're a little bit different and we're gonna talk about how we're different and how that affects our health and ways that you can manage your neurochemicals that other animals don't need to worry about. I'll tell you a little bit about her and then we'll get started.
(02:05): Dr. Loretta Bruning is a PhD and she's founder of the Inter Mammal Institute and Professor Erta of Management at California State University East Bay. She's the author of many personal development books, including Habits of a Happy Brain, retrain Your Brain to Boost your Serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and Endorphin levels. And the author of Tame Your Anxiety, rewire Your Brain for Happiness and other books. As a teacher and a parent, she was not convinced by prevailing theories of human motivation. Then she learned about the brain chemistry we share with earlier mammals and everything made sense. She began creating resources that have helped thousands of people make peace with their inner mammal. Dr. Bruni's work has been translated into 12 languages and is cited in major media before teaching. She worked for the United Nations in Africa and Loretta gives zoo tours on animals' behavior after serving as a docent at the Oakland Zoo. Welcome Dr. Loretta Bruning to the podcast.
(03:05): Hi. So nice to be here.
(03:07): I'm really glad to have you here. I think people are dealing with so much stress right now. Stress levels are at an all-time high and we can't talk about it enough. How can people get regulated out of the stress site, be happy in their lives, experience joy? I mean, after all, I think that's what we're here to do ultimately, but there are a lot of things that get in the way and I'm curious if you can share with everyone how did you get interested in brain neurochemical chemicals and how to have a happy brain? What was your path?
(03:42): Like many people, I grew up around a lot of unhappiness and I didn't have a good explanation for it. So I think I was always curious like, what is everybody so upset about? So I was always looking for that and nothing ever seemed like a good enough explanation. I studied academic psychology my whole life, so I knew all the theories, but they still didn't really explain it to me and especially becoming a parent and you think, okay, now gonna start over and we're gonna do everything right according to the book, you know? And I was like, no, that doesn't work. Kids are unhappy. My students were unhappy. So then I had to rethink what I had learned and I stumbled on a lot of animal studies monkey studies, and that triggered, you know, cuz when I was like 18 years old and started studying psychology, there were a lot of monkey studies and that's what got me into seeing that the chemicals that make us feel good are the exact same chemicals in animals and they're controlled by brain structures that animals have too. And to me, that explained everything first because a monkey is constantly making decisions. What's gonna make me happy? Oh, if I get that banana, how can I get it? And that's the job our happy chemicals do is reward us for those actions. And then that this whole animal brain is not capable of using language. So it's totally separate track from the stuff we're telling ourselves in words.
(05:20): Yes. You know, I think that we forget that we are animals and that we have the same brain structures as other animals and that our brain is really designed to keep us alive, but some of those systems can act negatively in humans and actually make us sick when we don't understand them and use them properly. And I think this is super important for women at midlife because we've kind of, most of us been using our brains and our systems unconsciously, and we don't really start paying attention to how they function until we hit midlife. And the cumulative negative effects start encroaching on our good health. And then we wanna know, oh my gosh, I don't feel well. And we discover that our brain neurochemistry is part of the reason why we don't do well. How can we work with it differently? So can you talk a little bit about the different brain structures and kind of how our neurochemistry works and then we can kind of dive into what people might be encountering in terms of maladaptations of these systems that causing them problems? Sure.
(06:36): So you've raised so many good issues and I'm gonna try to simplify. Sure. Get to the point as much as possible, but there's so much. So I always like to focus on the positive, you know, what can we do instead of just focusing on the problem? So the reality is that our happy brain chemicals are not designed to be on all the time. You hear about dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphin and you think, oh, other people must be just getting this all the time and what's wrong with me? And yet, when you know the job these chemicals do, you know that their job is only to be on for that moment to spark you into action when that action is appropriate. So for example, like a lion is looking around for something it can eat and if it runs after everything, it's not gonna get anything and it's gonna die of starvation.
(07:30): So dopamine turns on when it sees something it can get, and that's what our good feelings are like for that appropriate moment. So when we're not having that spark of joy, it's like no big deal. That's to the self-acceptance of my brain is designed to go up and down to navigate where should I use my energy? What's a good opportunity? And the other part of that is, well, how do I know what's a good opportunity and where should I use my energy? Well the amazing thing is my dopamine pathways are built from my own dopamine experience in my past. And your dopamine pathways are built from your past. So every little toddler is like trying to get that ball and get that cookie. And yet we're all building our pathways from our unique individual experience. And when I know my own pathways, that liberates me from being limited by them because you may think, oh, the only way to feel good is by repeating this behavior that triggered my good feelings in the past. But when you know that it's just a pathway, then you say, oh, there are thousands of other ways to be happy. I'm just doing this one because that's just the accident of my past experience.
(08:50): Yeah, we really are very programmed throughout our lives as to what's gonna make our dopamine reward pathway go up, what's gonna make our serotonin go up. It's gonna differ for every person. But I totally identify, and maybe you listening identify with this too, that I do wanna be happy all the time. Loretta . What's wrong with that? And you know, I think we see other people maybe on social media or friends that we have who really do seem like they're happy all the time. Why can't we be happy all the time?
(09:25): Okay, that's a great question. So first let's distinguish happy chemicals from unhappy chemicals. Okay, so I don't want to feel like I'm gonna die in every minute. So that's, yeah, like in in the animal brain, you are trying to escape from predators and starvation and the human brain is capable of imagining predators that are not actually there. That's how we stress ourselves. So we feel like we gotta run from this predator all the time, and that's horrible feelings. So absolutely, we should definitely wanna get away from that because that's the job our brain is designed to do is escape that threat. But if I want to feel joy every minute of every day, that's not realistic and I'm gonna end up disappointing. And if I tell myself that everybody else is feeling joy every minute of every day, then I'm gonna end up, you know, feeling left out. So, you know, there's this current movement of trying to feel the pleasure of small things. I think that's great, but the way the brain works is it habituates to what you already have. So if I think, let's say if I only get a date with this one person, I'll be happy forever. But then once you get the date with that person, you're not happy forever. Right,
(10:53): . So
(10:54): If you think, oh, if I only get this promotion, I'll be happy forever. But you get the promotion and you're not happy forever. So the reason is that our brain is designed to habituate to rewards we already have. So it's like saying that when my ancestors were hungry and they thought, oh, if I only found a tree full of riped fruit, I'd be so happy I'd, you know, I'd never be unhappy again. And they'd find the tree and they'd stuff their face with riped fruit. But if that made them happy forever, then they would not get any protein. They would not search for water and firewood. So our brain is designed to focus on the unmet need and to take for granted what you already have and say, okay, been there, done that. Now what else can I get? So that's the norm , which
(11:48): Yeah, I think everyone can relate to that. And I remember when I was younger, I would always think, I will be happy when, fill in the blank, you know, when I graduate high school, when I graduate college, when I graduate med school, you know, when I get married, when I have a baby. And like you would get to that and you do get that initial boost of, oh my gosh, this is so great, I'm so happy. And then it just becomes a factor of your life and it doesn't give you that dopamine kind of hit or serotonin boost. So I know everybody listening can really relate to that. And I love that you explained it, the nature's design to habituate to the emotions that we already have. And it is does confer survivability not only on the animal kingdom, but humans, which we're a part of the animal kingdom, but I think that sometimes we think we're superior because we have these huge four brains and that we should be able to surpass that. So how does someone who's maybe feeling dysthymic or even depressed really start to work in their lives to change their neurochemistry to a more positive state where they can get those boosts?
(13:03): Sure. So first is to understand that whatever triggers the happy chemical is based on not what you're telling yourself in words and philosophical abstractions, but it's a real physical pathway built from past experience. So a simple example would be, you know, if you give a child a cookie when they do a certain behavior, they're gonna repeat that behavior. So even if you're sad on some level, you got rewarded for being sad in your past. Mm-Hmm. because you felt like, well now I'm doing my share in carrying the load by being sad or something like that. So once you say, my sadness is a real physical pathway in my brain, my feelings about what it takes to turn on a reward chemical, those are real physical pathways in my brain. And I can build new pathways to have new expectations about how to turn on my happy chemicals. But it's hard to build new pathways in adulthood. It's exactly like learning language. When you're a child, you learn language easy. But if you try to study a foreign language in adulthood, it takes a lot of repetition and it feels like real work. And that's what it takes to build a new path to happy chemicals when you're older. Okay. One example.
(14:30): Sure. Yeah, that would be great.
(14:32): So, so the typical example would be negative expectations. Like if you think people don't like me, nothing I do works. Everything I, everything goes wrong in my life, you know, every, everyone can look for that o, that whatever is their own loop. And then look for, well, how did that pathway get built in my past? And then every time I feel it to say, oh, it's a real physical pathway, what other pathway could I have that would feel better? So my personal example was I always felt like people were criticizing me. Like I would jump to that conclusion all the time on no evidence at all. And then I would feel basically the terror of my childhood of being attacked and criticized. So what other pathway would I like to have will to just say other people are fine with me and I can feel good whether or not I have their approval. So I tell myself that, and the first time I do it, it sounds wrong and stupid and unbelievable, but I know that I, if I repeat it over and over and practice it, that I will build a real physical pathway in my brain and then it will just feel like my new normal.
(15:51): Okay, yeah, I love that. So we can change our neurochemistry studies have clearly documented that I know that some people listening deal with a lot of anxiety. You know, as our hormones change at midlife, when our estrogen starts going up and our progesterone starts going down, which can happen as early as 35, but definitely starts happening from 40 to 50. And by the time you hit menopause, you're really solidly in that category. You lose that ameliorative effect of the progesterone, which is the anti-anxiety hormone. So a lot of women at this stage of life deal with a lot of anxiety. What are some tools that we could start to use to help mitigate that?
(16:38): Sure. So to boil it down to one word that I use is called legacy. So legacy means my sense of what I can create that will live on after I'm gone. And the reason for this is if you think that we have this big human brain attached to this animal brain, so the animal brain is programmed to just search for survival and to fear survival threats. But my big human cortex can abstract and think about the future and it knows that I'm not gonna survive and there will be a future that will go on without me. And that is terrifying. And we can terrify ourselves all the time. Now, in the world of our past people died young, but they had children young. So if you had children like at 16, then you'd be a grandma at 32 if you lived that long. And so when you saw your grandchildren, you had a sense of legacy because you taught them how to chop vegetables and you saw them do it, and you had a sense of yourself living on after you're gone.
(17:46): So that was your legacy. And there was no, no birth control. So people were so busy taking care of children that they didn't have time to worry about dying as much, and they, they couldn't call 9 1 1, they couldn't get lab tests. So they just focused on like the next emergency of, you know, a kid's crying, how can I get food? And now like we don't really get to watch our grandchildren grow up for so many reasons. So we don't have that automatic sense of legacy. So we have to constant, consciously create a sense of legacy in one way or another.
(18:23): Yeah, that's, that's an interesting concept I hadn't thought about, but creating something for the future. And you're reminded me about the short lifespan that just a few hundred years ago we have, and I, I think it would be so interesting to see a study about people's ability to be in the present a few hundred years ago when they knew they were only gonna live, you know, 30 or 40 years. I bet that really focused them on, I gotta make the most of this time Yes. That I have. Whereas now we've got, you know, on average, I think 82 years in the US as the American lifespan for females. And I don't know about everybody else, but I feel like I waste a lot of time because it's like, oh, I won't do that thing now because I've got another, you know, few decades where I could do it. Whereas if I only had 32 years, well my life would've been over a while ago, but it really would've focused me. How do you think that has changed over time?
(19:25): Well that's, you know, to focus on the positive again. Yeah. Pause is a time when you say, geez, if I wait to be happy, I may wait too long. , you know, and so is it worth wasting another minute of my life worrying about X, Y, and Z? And you could make good arguments with your conscious verbal brain, oh, I should worry about X, Y, and Z. But then you could say, you know what? I could let it go because I'm not gonna get back the time that I waste on that. And also there's a lot of fearful images about the future, like even though I may live till X number of years that I'm gonna have a decline. And if you focus on that, then you're gonna be feeling the decline now. Mm-Hmm. . So it takes a real conscious effort to redirect yourself, you know? And like every time you see a wrinkle, for example, to instead of seeing that wrinkle as evidence of decline to say, this wrinkle gives me permission to stop worrying about X and to just start being happy. Now,
(20:34): I'm glad you brought this up. I recently came across an article in my newsfeed about the high demand for older aged female models. Recently there's been a boom and even 70 and 80 year old female models, right? Everybody is really starting to honor older women, their wisdom, which is what I think we really is the gift of menopause, is that the wisdom that we carry. We have lived long lives, we've seen a lot. I remember an attorney telling me once that when he went to jury trials and they did the voir deer where they select the jury, his favorite jurors were older women. And I asked him why. And he said, because they have been there, done that, seen everything. But they also have a lower ego and the maturity to understand the nuances of guilty, not guilty issues, which some younger people don't have. So all this to say also, I see in your bio, you've done a lot of interesting things. It says that you used to work for the United Nations in Africa, so you've lived a lot of life, you're at a certain stage outside of the work that you do with helping people to boost their neurochemistry. Just from a personal perspective, what would you share with the audience that would say, what are your biggest lessons learned at this stage of life, looking at life that that might be meaningful to them?
(22:08): Sure. So first we say, I have power over my own brain. I'm not gonna be happy from something outside myself. So if I wait for the world to make me happy, I'm gonna wait too long. . So what can I do to make myself happy? But of course we all know that that doesn't mean short-term happiness. Like you sit around and eat a pint of ice cream. So how do you balance this long-term versus short-term? So I talk about having a long-term goal, a short-term goal, and a middle-term goal. And in order to reach your goals, a lot of times, well, so a short-term goal is like I can reach it today, so I'm gonna get some hit of dopamine every day. That nice sense of accomplishment by setting a realistic goal, by breaking down what I want into small steps that I could actually do.
(23:00): And then the other part is like to achieve long run goals, I might have to do some things that are uncomfortable. So what can I do about that uncover? Well, instead of getting into like a cortisol spiral where you know I do something that feels bad and then that triggers another bad feeling and another, and another, I say to myself, okay, I'm gonna do this thing that makes me uncomfortable. I'm only gonna do it for five minutes. Or what, whatever's that reasonable chunk to tackle that obs obstacle. And then, you know, if I were gonna have a cup of coffee and a cookie anyway, I need to save it until after I've done that difficult thing. So that whenever I have it down, that I have an up that I can look forward to. And I have plenty of ups that have no calories, which in my life is comedy. But people can find their own.
(23:52): I love comedy cause laughing is so good for your neurochemistry . Yeah. Talk a little bit about laughing and what are some of your favorite things, ways to engage with comedy? Do you like standup movies? Like how do you get laughter in your life and what does it do for your neurochemistry?
(24:10): Sure. So laughter triggers endorphin, which is the body's natural opioid. And this is a widely misunderstood chemical. So an opioid is there to relieve pain and in the state of nature it's triggered by real physical pain. But because we have deep belly muscles that we don't use much, when you have a belly laugh, you get a little bit by giving those muscles a workout and you only get a little bit, but then you can laugh more and get a little bit more and it's the only healthy way to get them really, or the main healthy. And I explained this all in my books, so the way I get it. So I don't like bitter angry comedy and it's hard for me to find like truly uplifting comedy. And I know that if I look for comedy when I'm in a bad mood and like nine outta 10 of them are gonna be bitter, then I'm gonna just end up feeling worse, right? So I keep what I, I call, like when you're on a diet and you fill your pantry with healthy snacks mm-hmm. . So I fill my pantry with healthy comedy and I have a list of things that are ready for a bad day. So I know that when I'm in a bad mood, I have something uplifting that I could go to and I, I make that list on some other day rather than waiting until I'm in a bad mood.
(25:32): Yeah, I love that. And I love to laugh too. So one of my favorite go-tos I'm gonna share with everyone cuz you can use this, is I found this TV channel I, I'm sorry I don't re exactly know what it's called, but it's all videos of animals unscripted, they call it. Oh,
(25:49): I didn't write that down. .
(25:51): It's animals just doing what animals do mostly pets, right? Pet cats and dogs. They are hilarious. So it's just one video after another with no narration, no introduction of pets and Anna, there are some birds and different lizards and things doing the crazy things that animals do. So I'm gonna put a plug for that. And I'm also gonna put a plug for a re a movie I saw recently, I think it's from New Zealand that I think is hilarious. It's called The Breaker, uppers and . I literally laughed out loud so many times in that movie. So I gotta put a plug in for that. But I agree with you, laughing is huge. Another thing I wanted to touch on is that, you know, a lot of the people, women I work with, this might be you if you're listening, they're not so much concerned with their own worries, but worrying about others in their lives and what other people should be doing and trying to control them. And this one has to do this and what if they, what if my kid, you know, moves across the country to another state with my grandkids and then I won't be around them and they want to control what everyone else is doing. They're worrying about what everyone else is doing. You shared this quote with me before we started about it says, it's hard enough to manage your own brain, so stop trying to manage other people's brains. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that.
(27:18): Sure. So the feeling that I can only be happy if other people do X, Y, and Z, that my happiness depends on them. If you think that you'll never be happy . So it's just, you just gotta make a deal with yourself. I'm gonna be happy no matter what anyone does. And the simple way to do that, if I give you a visual image, if this other person does something and I think, oh no, I can't be happy because they're doing that, is I'm imagining that there's only one path to happiness and that person is blocking the path. But instead I'm gonna think there are thousands of paths to happiness and if this person blocks that path, I'll just find another P.
(28:04): Yeah. So stop focusing on everybody else . And you know, and it goes along with that same desire I used to have, well I'll be happy when this happens For me, that happens for me. And a corollary is I'll be happy when X person stops doing Y or X person starts doing why. And really I have decided at this point in my life that happiness only happens in the now when I'm happy with myself. And it really doesn't have anything to do with anything to do with what anyone else does. And I can choose that. Yes,
(28:41): I I a way of saying that. I always say my husband gets on my nerves, but it's my nerves . So, but it's fine. I, it's my job to adjust my own nerves to love him for what he is. And I don't even have to love him in any specific way. That's my job to just decide,
(29:01): Yes, to decide it's a decision. I know the name of your company's inner Mammal Institute and you take people on zoo tours to see animals behavior and I'm wondering if you can share with everyone, what does that do for the people who participate? How does it enrich their understanding? Sure.
(29:21): So I learned so much by watching nature documentaries and the simple fact of life in the interest of time, I'm just gonna say it straight, like animals are quite nasty to each other. And I learned that from watching nature videos. And yet what I learned from academic social science is that the state of nature is all peace and love and something has gone wrong with our world, but that's just not true. So we have this animal nature which is very motivated by self-interest and we really struggle to manage and navigate and control this inner mammal that is just wanting to grab the next banana. So how can I manage my inner mammal? And like I always feel like other people wanna grab my banana. That's easy to see. But what about my own impulse to get another banana and my feeling of like they took that banana at my expense.
(30:20): That's how the mammal brain works. So nobody likes to see this in themselves, everybody wants to see it in other people. So that's why we really need to be exposed to the reality of animals. Now to tell you the truth, you don't visually see that in the zoo because the pet world is not the same as the state of nature where animals are not fed. They have to get their food, they have to hide from predators. So the zoo tour is really a fun way to talk about this. But if you watch the nature videos of David Attenborough, especially his early series, then you really get get the facts. And I got them then from that like evolutionary biology books is how, and I have a reading list on my website and it's all in, in all of my books. I put this in a simplified form of why animals are nasty to each other and how we can feel it and manage it and relax with
(31:21): It. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, I just came back from four months in Africa and went on safari a few times. So I got to see those wild animals in their natural habitat habitat. And it was very instructive to see how they work both communally but also very selfishly in some ways. And I saw what good boundaries the animals had because at certain points in their existence, well for instance the wiles at one point we were driving up to, so in this Serengeti, or no, we were in the in goro goro crater in Tanzania. And most of it was extremely dry so there wasn't a lot of vegetation for a lot of the animals to eat. And then we came upon this place where there was a river and it was very green and lush and there were almost no animals there. And I said to myself and to the guide, why don't they just come over here and eat and drink water?
(32:22): And he said, because the lions know that that's where the animals are gonna go to eat and drink water. So they're afraid. And then I saw this group of will to be standing right outside this lush area and they were all huddled together facing the same direction. And one was out in front and he said, you see those will to bees, they are discerning. Is it safer, is it not? Where is the sun in the sky? What is the wind doing? What time of year is it? Is the lion gonna attack us now is it safe to go drink the water and eat or no? And so they were working communally, but then other times you would see them when there actually would be food and one would be pushing the other to try to get more of the food or more of the water. And so it was very interesting to me to observe that. Well
(33:14): I love those guides because they tell you the truth. Yes, don't get from academic psychology because academic psychology constructs this unrealistic, idealized world of peace and love, which is not what nature is about. And you get it from those tour guides and and you can get it without if you can't go there. You know, nat, a lot of some nature videos, you know, some of them are still hooked on the, the other unrealistic belief. But another simple example about the wildes that I learned from a nature video. So in order for them to get from, you know, they follow the grass year round, you probably saw how they migrate to wherever the grass is, but they have to cross a river and while they're crossing the river, they could die from a crocodile, they could die on the other side, you know, from a predator and then they could die when they jump in because another will toes could jump on top of them.
(34:15): So it's very difficult to make that decision. When am I gonna jump? They'd really rather not jump cuz the crocodile might get them, but if they don't jump, the rest of the herd piles up behind them and pulls them in and then they don't even get to jump, they just get shoved in with without balance. So they're constantly making this very difficult decision and you could see your own terror of like when you're a kid, like, do I jump or not? And so even what looks like herd behavior is a constant calculation of how much do I follow, how much do I, you know, take a step in a different direction. And our brain is making that decision every minute of every day. Am I gonna just follow the guy in front of me or am I gonna take a different step in a different direction? And you're calculating that with your best guess, which can never be perfect.
(35:09): Yeah. And I love what you said earlier about the fact that other mammals don't have the ability to imagine danger and humans do. There's a great book I wanna share with everyone called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers that clearly explains why zebras don't get ulcers, they don't have the imagination faculty and they really go through a process after they are stressed. So for instance, we, we saw this crazy wild chase of a leopard going into a herd of various types of gazelle like creatures and how they responded and, and I really got to see what's outlined in that book firsthand where these animals, when they go through a stress like being chased by a predator, they have a discharge process that they go through afterwards where they shake, and maybe you can talk a little bit about this and how it might apply to us. They go through a process to discharge that stress and reregulate their cortisol stress hormone, which I talk about all the time. This is really what's killing us. So how can we take that instructive information from a zebra's behavior and use it for our superior mammalian brains?
(36:23): Sure. You're also referring to, and and it's slipping my mind, there's a a book by another guy Levine about this shaking that goes on. So the idea is they discharge the stress and then they go back to what, what do they go back to? And this is what I talk about in my anxiety books. They go back to meeting their survival needs because if they just worry about predators all the time, they're gonna starve to death. So if they say, I'm not going out into that world unless it's a hundred percent safe, then they would to death. So hunger motivates them to deal with risk, to deal with potential danger to go out and meet their needs and only worry about danger when it's really there. Now the big human cortex says, oh no, that's stupid, I'm going to anticipate threats and avoid them. But if you spend your whole life anticipating threats and avoiding them, you're gonna just worry constantly.
(37:26): That's because our basic needs are met, that our lives are so comfortable that we could just stay home and do nothing unless we think it's a hundred percent safe. And one thing I blame this on, that's funny, I'm a bit older than you, I think I remember the years when, so cars broke down all the time and people said, oh, American cars are so bad, we should do what the Japanese did. And this is what I taught in the early years of my academic career. So the Japanese had this way of anticipating things that will go wrong in the production of a car and solving it at the source, fixing it at the source. And they said, that's what we have to do. We have to anticipate defects and fix 'em at the source. And so the whole education went on this bandwagon of anticipating threats and figuring things and preventing them so that quality would be a hundred percent and that had value, but it really made people nuts because now people think nothing can ever go wrong. We anticipate every possible threat and they literally, it's called the Toyota method that every tiny defect is a crisis because if you don't fix it now you're gonna produce a thousand more cars with the same defect. So you have to treat it as a crisis. So we were all indoctrinated to treat every tiny little problem as a crisis.
(38:51): Yeah, I think that's a great example. And you know it's done well for the car industry, but as a human species we really can't live that way. And thank you for saying that about the the worrying. Cuz there was something I was worrying about this morning and as we're talking, I'm thinking, why am I worrying about that? If it becomes a problem, I'll deal with it. I'm not gonna worry about it now
(39:16): . Yeah,
(39:17): Yeah. So can
(39:19):I give you another example of this that I think is very common? So let's say you get an email that asks you to go to some website and do this or that, and let's say it's something that you wanna do. So okay, I'm gonna do it. So you go to that website and you think, oh, this'll take five minutes and then a half hour has gone by and you still haven't done it. And like somehow I get really upset when I can't get something technical to work. It's really the problem is that I'm connecting it to every failure in my past is a real pathway in my brain. So one little failure today activates that old pathway like it's my failure pathway. You have your failure pathway. And what triggered it was really the expectation that I could do it in five minutes. So all I could do is just tell myself this is something hard, it's gonna take a while, and then all of the problem goes
(40:15): Away. Right. No, I love that. It really is how we frame the problems that we have. It's not the problems themselves that are the problem. What you think is the problem is not the problem, it's how you're thinking about the problem. So our thinking is always the problem. I know you have some great resources for everyone, but before we wrap up, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the importance of oxytocin. That's another hormone. I don't think we talk merely enough about its importance and how to nurture our oxytocin.
(40:47): Sure. So in the animal world, animals seek groups for protection from predators. And in the oxytocin is the chemical that rewards you when you feel protected by a group. But this has been idealized in an unrealistic way in the current human dialogue. So we think that we should be protected all the time. And in fact, that's true for babies and that's why, as you know in the medical profession that oxytocin is central to maternal birth and lactation. But in the adult world, you're not meant to get this protection that you got as a child. So oxytocin moments are difficult and rare. Now how do I get my oxytocin moments? Well, whatever triggered my oxytocin when I was young built real physical pathways that tell me how to get it today. But that's also quite limiting. So the famous example is if you smell the cooking that reminds you of trust and bonding moment of your youth, then you seek that you want that, you think that will make you happy.
(41:57): But what we really want is protection. And in the adult world, we're never gonna get the protection of a child. And even when you were a child that protection was not perfect. So we have to accept that I have this natural logging for protection and I'm only gonna get moments of it rather than to have this perfect protection. So a simple example of a moment of it is people go to a concert and they're in this building with like thousands and thousands of people, whether it's music or a speech or an athletic event that you feel like you're sharing something that's important to you, but they're not really protecting you. Another example is if I tell my life story to a train a stranger on a plane, they're not gonna be there for me in the future. So it's like you look for these trust moments because letting down your guard is what is the oxytocin feeling? And what was so impactful to me, I learned that reptiles only have oxytocin when they're mating, which lasts for 10 seconds and the rest of the time no oxytocin because they don't trust their fellow reptile. So oxytocin is that feeling that I can barely tolerate your presence just enough to reproduce .
(43:24): . That's hilarious. , yes, oxytocin. I mean, people may know it as being the hormone that go is what causes labor in women, but it's also involved with milk production and bonding and connection and it interacts with your other hormones as well. So I'm gonna leave you all with a mandate to do something with your oxytocin today. What could you do to get some oxytocin just on a daily basis? You know, I think the past few years where a lot of us have been so isolated, we were legally bound in some instances, to not leave our home for much really has put a toll on our oxytocin, which unbalances our entire hormonal neuroendocrine cascade. So getting back to normalcy where we have in-person human interaction is key. So I want to challenge everybody listening to do something about your oxytocin to boost it going forward. And Loretta has a lovely gift for you and we'll have a link in the show notes to it. Do you wanna tell them a little bit about your download anxiety? What turns it on, what turns it off?
(44:41): Sure. It's a free book, P d F. It's the shortened form of my larger book, which is called Tame Your Anxiety, rewiring Your Brain for Happiness and Explains something. We haven't talked much about cortisol, the chemical that gives us the survival threat feeling and to sort of accept our own cortisol. It has a natural job and then to get real about the ability to manage it rather than to just let it take over and spiral.
(45:12): Awesome. Well thank you so much for that free gift, Loretta. If you are dealing with anxiety, I invite you to click the link in the show notes and learn what you can do to start taming your anxiety. Thank you so much, Loretta, for joining us for an episode of the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(45:33): Sure. Thanks for the great
(45:34): Questions and thank you for joining us today. Hopefully you will implement some of the things that we've discussed so that you can move towards greater hormone balance and brilliant health. Thanks again and I'll see you next week for another episode of the Hormone Prescription Podcast with Dr. Kiran. Until then, peace, love, and hormones
(45:54): Y'all. Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Get a FREE copy of Dr. Loretta Breuning's Anxiety: What turns it on, What turns it off. CLICK HERE to sign up.
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Do you feel like you have lost your balance in life? Is your hormone fluctuation disrupting your overall health and well-being?
This week on The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we are delighted to have Dr. Jay T. Wiles, an international speaker, scientist, clinician, and influencer on the subject of heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback and how it can help restore balance in your life.
Dr. Wiles will discuss why HRV is so important for midlife women and how it can be used as a powerful tool to create hormonal balance through breath-work exercises and other techniques. He'll also explain the effects of stress hormones on health performance and optimization, providing practical tips on how to manage stress naturally through diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, and more.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- What is heart rate variability and why it is important for midlife women
- How to measure your HRV and optimize its impact on health performance
- Practical tips to manage stress naturally through lifestyle changes, such as diet and exercise
- The connection between the human stress response and health performance/optimization
Don't miss this opportunity to join Dr. Jay T. Wiles in unlocking the essential hormone-balancing tool that almost everybody's missing! Tune in now for an insightful conversation about HRV biofeedback on The Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(00:00): "We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." - Epitectus And this affects your health and your hormones. Stay tuned to find out how.
(00:11): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:05): Hi everybody. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of the Hormone Prescription Podcast with Dr. Kyrin. Today my guest is gonna help you get a concrete idea about what stress is doing to your body and how to know exactly what it's doing in an objective and quantified manner. He uses one of my favorite tools. Maybe you've heard me talk about H R V heart rate variability in a very unique way. So you're gonna wanna stay tuned and listen up. He really is a proponent of health and helping people optimize their health and has created some great tools that you can use. So I'll tell you a little bit about Dr. Jay Wiles and then we'll get started. He's an international speaker scientist, clinician, influencers, subject matter expert and authority on the interconnection between the human stress response and health performance optimization. Dr. Wiles is a clinical health and performance psychologist with board certification and heart rate variability biofeedback and peripheral biofeedback, and works as a leading consultant in psychophysiology to health influencers, professional athletes and teams, executives and high performers.
(02:20): He is the co-founder and chief scientific officer of Hanu Health and stay tuned to find out what HANU means. He has pioneered new and innovative means of using heart rate variability, H R V and respiratory training as both diagnostic indicators of the dynamic nature of the human stress response alongside therapeutic tools for regulating and conditioning this response for PCU performance. Dr. Wiles has an extensive history of working with top performing athletes in the PGA L P G A M mls, MLB, A T P and W T A. That's a lot. His consulting firm, thrive Wellness and Performance, has held contracts with leading biotechnology and health technology organizations where he has engaged in research development of therapeutics and development of behavioral retention programs. Dr. Wiles has operated as the co-host of the Ben Greenfield podcast since 2019 and host the Hanu Health Podcast. Welcome, Dr. Jay Wiles.
(03:22): Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
(03:24): So I'm really excited to talk about this topic in the unique way that really you pose it because I think heart rate variability is very complex and people's eyes glaze over the minute you start trying to explain it, but really you come up from it from the perspective of stress resiliency, which everybody's interested in. So let's start out by talking about stress and you know, what it is in a, from a more scientific biologic perspective and why people should be important about its effects on their body. And then we can get into this unique way that you have for people to really monitor their stress so they can manage it better.
(04:11): Yeah I think first and foremost, I always like to dispel the myth that stress is the bad guy. I think so often we, you know, read in the tabloids or we hear on the news or we listen to podcasts that stress is bad. Like it, it's just inherently this bad thing. And I would actually argue the exact opposite. I would argue that stress is inherently good. Now it's the compounding nature of stress that can be problematic to people's overall health and their wellbeing. But stress in and of itself is simply a warning sign. What stress is is a mechanism of taxation. It is just saying that your resources are being taxed. That can be physiological resources, that can be psychological resources. It's re experiencing some level of taxation and there are warning signs that we receive from that taxation that hopefully should signify and kind of ho help us to hone in that we need to either do something effectively to help ourselves out of this situation or maybe just acknowledge that what's going on isn't going to inherently harm us and therefore be okay with it.
(05:17): So more of like a mindful approach to stress, but kind of from the get-go. Stress in and of itself is not bad. It is inherently good. So we should always come in with the mindset that it is not this kind of, you know, nefarious thing around the corner. So when we think about how stress affects us from different perspectives, it affects us physiologically, it affects us psychologically. If it ever affects us psychologically, it always affects us physiologically. And then vice versa as well. It's a bidirectional two-way street. They're very much interconnected. And again, what I always come down to is that it is not just the singular experience of stress, but it's the compounding of stress experience that is the thing that can be problematic for people. Has it stacks up without dealing with it or acknowledging it or learning how to regulate it. That's where we find more problems.
(06:08): Yeah, we need stress to live actually , right? Yep. We need the stress of gravity on our bodies to make our bones strong. We need a certain degree of stress. They call it eres, right? You have a very unique perspective. I think a lot of people think about stress and they don't. It's just this nebulous concept, oh, stress, I'm stressed, I have too much stress, I need to de-stress. And you know, people tell them to meditate and there's really not a lot of objective data on am I meditating properly? So then people don't do it because they don't get immediate feedback. And you really kind of took a tool that is near and dear to my heart and positioned it in a way and educate people in a way that helps them monitor their stress. So talk about the technology that you use and how it can help people quantify and monitor and manage their stress better.
(07:06): So you're right in the fact that a lot of people are able to tap in to understanding their stress subjectively if they actually take the time to check in subjectively. But unfortunately, not a lot of people do that. And so what we see in the psychological literature is that a lot of people just simply kind of move along throughout their day, kind of compressing and compartmentalizing stress until finally they either do one of two things, they explode or externalize or they implode and internalize. And this happens to just about everybody. So one of the things that we are trying to do that has been kind of in the works for many, many decades now, is how can we help people to increase their awareness to the effects of stress and also those things that are triggering stress objectively? Well, there are are invasive ways of doing it, right?
(07:55): We can look at cortisol, we can look at neurotransmitter production, we can do those things, but it's debatable on number one, like can we give an accurate interpretation of that data for stress in terms of psychological stress? We can in some sense, but in other sense it's a little bit difficult to determine what came first, the chicken or the egg. But also too there are non-invasive ways of doing it. And the single greatest way of doing that, single greatest non-invasive way of tracking changes that are occurring in the human stress response or changes in the nervous system would be looking at something called heart rate variability. So heart rate variability isn't a new biometric, it's one that's been around for quite some time. But what we're learning is more and more how to not just use it as a mechanism for measurement, but also how do we use it to improve outcomes both acutely and then in the long run.
(08:47): So heart rate variability kind of at its most simple form is looking at what are the dynamic changes that are occurring in the nervous system at any given moment. In other words, it is a metric that we can use to determine changes in people's stress response as people experience stress, we see changes in in heart rate variability as people experience relaxation. We see people's changes in heart rate variability. When I explain heart rate variability, it's kind of like you mentioned earlier, it is something that sometimes people, it will just kind of, people will gloss over, like it kind of goes over their head. Like it's, it's a very in-depth type of metric, right? So I like to break it down in its most simple kind of form. A lot of people intuitively understand heart rate, right? So if you, like almost every watch now where people are just used to heart rate monitoring, if you see that my heart rate was beating at a rate of 60 beats per minute, well that means that in a span of 67 seconds, on average, it was beating every single second.
(09:47): So there was one min, one second in between every successive heartbeat. Well, for heart rate, that would be true. That would be an average of one second in between heartbeats, which would make 60 beats per minute. Now is that what's actually occurring? And the answer is no. That would not be what is actually occurring. The heart is pacing itself every single one Second, if it were, then if we go back to this metric that is heart rate variability, that person would have zero variants. So zero variability between the difference in time between successive heartbeats. That means that the heart is pacing itself like a metronome, which is not a good thing. It's actually what we see happen actually prior and during when people are having heart attacks is their heart rate variability reduces to basically zero because the heart is pacing itself. That's a sign of a lack of adaptability.
(10:38): The nervous system is, is unable to adapt. But what heart rate variability is, is it's looking at the changes in time that are occurring between your heartbeats, between the space of tumble. We call time in between heartbeats. One of the best ways to explain this is that a healthy nervous system, one that is able to adapt to stress is one that is going to be highly variable. And that may sound weird because a lot of people may think, shouldn't my heart be stable? Well, heart rate stability is very different than heart rate variability stability, which is a bit of a mouthful, but let me explain. When a natural healthy individual who is, who is, let's say more or less free of stress or quite relaxed, we see this natural event occurring in their breathing patterns and how it relates to heart rate. So we know that there's a natural phenomenon, a, an arrhythmia that occurs when people are breathing as they inhale, heart rate speeds up and as they exhale heart rate significantly slows down.
(11:38): We call that respiratory sinus arrhythmia or rsa. And what we know is that when someone has a huge increase in heart rate when they inhale and a huge decrease in heart rate as they exhale, that increases heart rate variability and creates more of what we call a resonance within the cardiovascular system. A process of what we call increasing the sensitivity of something called the barrow reflex mechanism, which is our body's maintenance of a blood pressure. It's a system when those two are acting in resonance with one another or in accordance with one another, the person that's going to feel that sense of relief, that sense of relaxation. But as someone experiences more stress, we see those two things go out of phase with one another. The blood pressure regulating mechanism in somebody's breathing rate and the way that they're breathing as well, which can cause heart rate to go up and heart cause heart rate variability to go down.
(12:32): So heart rate variability again is something that we can look at as a number and help us to determine like what is going on within the state of that person's nervous system. Because as that number goes up, we know that their parasympathetic or relaxation break is engaging. And as that number goes down, we know that something is causing a withdrawal within the nervous system and there's natural occurrences, the up and down that happen throughout the day. And then there are things that can trigger it and can cause more of a significant result in our decrease in heart rate variability indicating that someone is experiencing stress. So that's a long-winded way of kind of explaining what heart rate variability is, but that's the primary metric we're using in the technology that my company hanu, H A N U, what we created, which is a way to measure that at all times, which is very different than what most wearables are doing now, which are really just kind of looking at it either overnight or it's a spot check like let's say in the morning or some other time during the day. We're looking at what are those subtle changes in heart rate variability throughout the day that would indicate that person may be experiencing something that is triggering a stress response and their nervous system is having to kick in the high gear to respond. And the whole goal is to be able to catch it early so that we can intervene with different types of therapeutics to teach people how to better self-regulate that response.
(13:49): Yeah, I think H R V is such tremendous technology. I know that they've done some studies on covid infection looking at the H R V or heart rate variability profiles of those people who have a higher fatality rate, more severe disease compared to those who don't. And it's, it's really striking. So I love H R V not only for looking at stress resiliency, but looking at overall state of health. I used to have this rather expensive machine in when I had a brick and mortar office where we would get H R V profile every which way but loose That would really give us data on the overall health of a human. So I, I think it's valuable. So if, if people listening, you're concerned about covid or getting any type of illness and you really wanna know how fit is my system to handle it, H R V is is also useful for that. And the better your H R V V, the better you're fair if you do get a viral infection or any other illness. So I think it's super important. How do you counsel people that they can use H R V for more than just checking their stress resiliency
(15:03): Mm-Hmm. ? Yeah, so the one big one would be with athletes who are looking to increase performance in recovery. So what we know, again, if we're looking at heart rate variability, it's a proxy for changes that are occurring in the nervous system. And so one thing that we know is that if someone is either overreaching or over-training as an athlete or if someone within the performance space we know that we can actually use it as a mechanism to determine how well are they recovering? Is their nervous system adapting to their training or are they overdoing it? There's too much taxation on the nervous system and therefore that's represented in a decrease in heart rate variability. And when we see that, especially when we see a trend of a downward or of downward heart rate variability, we can then intervene and say, okay, we need to either kind of pump the brakes here.
(15:48): We need to pull back maybe today's a little bit of a lighter day or maybe we should kind of recenter or refocus your training because you're overtaxing the nervous system. And for an athlete that can obviously lead to things like injury, it's gonna decrease overall performance because these individuals are gonna be kind of operating on a kind of a lower playing field if you will, because their nervous system isn't able to handle the amount of load. And so that's one way that we use it a fair amount is kind of looking at recovery for athletes. The other thing is just really kind of understanding what are those internal or external things that are causing changes in the nervous system overall. These can be things like looking at like what are the effects of eating and nutrition and what you're putting in your body and how does that impact the nervous system?
(16:35): We've seen really interesting manifestations within the context of those we worked with at Hanu when people were eating highly o like overly processed highly sugar-laden foods or they're eating highly inflammatory oils, fried foods and the effects of that has on the nervous system. So we can see kind of after they eat these foods, how long do we see a suppression and heart rate variability that is indicative of somebody who has basically inflamed themselves with the type of food that they're eating. So we've actually worked in conjunction with many functional medicine practitioners who are kind of utilizing more or less like a elimination diet and reintegration mm-hmm diet and kind of determining kind of the effects of certain foods even on these individuals nervous systems. So it can be a really great proxy. And then we also use it too to determine the effects of other things that people may be integrating into their health and wellness routine.
(17:26): So one big one right now is sauna use and there are some individuals who will respond really well from a nervous system recovery perspective to sauna. And there are some people who quite frankly are just overdoing it. And we'll see a kind of just this really tax nervous system that is elongated because they're either spending way too much time in the sauna, they're doing it too frequently. And the same thing with like cold plunging. So you can really use it to kind of test the efficacy of different things, but also look to see how much of an impact is that having on your nervous system. We've done it with supplementation, we've done it with a lot of other things and especially in conjunction with other biometrics, other blood work biometrics. This is one that's readily available to a lot of people and is non-invasive, especially when we think about not having to do blood work.
(18:13): And just kind of looking at kind of these things in conjunction. One more that we we've done, which is really interesting and we're looking at publishing studies in this domain is looking at the fluctuation of blood glucose and how that affects heart rate variability and nervous system taxation. And as you might expect though, there's not a lot of published literature. There is some but not a lot. As people have more glycemic variability, they have more suppression of autonomic nervous system functioning or a heightened stress response. So the glycemic rollercoaster leads to suppressed H R V and increases someone's stress, experience and stress in and of itself can cause the glycemic variability rollercoaster. And then in is manifested in a reduction in heart rate variability,
(18:54): Right? So translation, everybody glycemic just means your blood sugar. So he's just talking about the blood sugar rollercoaster that I always talk about that you're on when you're eating the SAD diet, the standard American diet with you know, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, soda, all those things, your blood sugar's going up and down. And I'd love to tell people, everybody thinks when you first tell 'em about heart rate variability, that it's a measure of your heart function. And what I tell them is no, it's measuring your nervous system function. Mm-Hmm . So that's how you have to think about it. So what does stress effect your nervous system? It's me. H R V measures your nervous system function. And so it's really, I love it cuz it's a way to get at the really core part of what determines your overall health, your sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic.
(19:46): I think it's so important. I wanna just offer this quote that you shared with me before we started because I think it really gets to something that we're talking about related to stress. We suffer more in imagination than in reality. It's so true. Right? Right. Now how many people, you know, everybody listening, what are you worrying about right now? What's preoccupying your mind that you're obsessing about rolling over in your head 10 different ways, 10 different times? And how many of the things you've ever worried about like that have ever happened, right? Most of them don't ever happen. But what you don't realize is that what you're worrying about and suffering about in your imagination is affecting your health. So Dr. Jay, can you talk a little bit about that? Cuz I know there's somebody listening right now who's worrying and imagining negative outcomes. What is she doing to her heart rate variability and her overall health? That
(20:44): Quote is a great quote that comes from one of the stoic philosophers, Epictetus. And it's resonated because it's actually kind of one of the core foundational statements of C B T or cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a predominant therapy or psychotherapy modality. And one that I was heavily trained in kind of back in my my student days and and utilized quite frequently. And we build a lot, we're building a lot of the things into the application or platform that I teach or or am making. One of the things that I always come back to here is that we are really good about not being present. We're really good about focusing on those things that occurred to us in the past or trying to predict or forecast the things that are going to occur in the future. And what we know from hardcore research is that our predictive ability of what's gonna happen in the future is very, very poor.
(21:39): We're not very good at it. Well why is that? Well, we catastrophize, we concoct worse case scenarios. We generalize, we see things in black and white. A lot of those are the cognitive distortions that we can have in our head that cause us to have this narrative, this high level storytelling of what we believe what could happen. But it never comes to fruition or barely does. Or if the thing that we are predicting happens does happen, it's almost never as severe as what we anticipated. So in other words, we elongated our suffering. So even if we do suffer, we elongated it by worrying and causing all this immense amount of stress to build up. What does that do to the mind and body? Well it has extremely negative effects. First and foremost, we see that it causes significant disruption in hormonal functioning. I know that's a huge component obviously of this podcast, but we see huge dysregulation of what's called the H P A axis, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis.
(22:41): So huge dysregulation in our secretion of cortisol, huge secretion of adrenaline and neuro adrenaline or epinephrine and nor epinephrine. And when these things happen acutely or kind of just in real time, short term, they can be quite effective. They will save your life. But when they happen over and over and over again, or it's this constant kind of low state of stress or medium state of stress, not like the real height one that can be, or I should say is worse than kind of these just kind of acute stresses where we dump cortisol, we dump adrenaline, and then all of a sudden we clear it. The problem here is that more and more this happens, the more and more we see increased heart rate in which we know is really bad for our overall cardiovascular health. The high resting heart rate due to stress and the secretion of these hormones and neurotransmitters is not great on the body.
(23:30): Our heart only has a finite amount of times that it's gonna tick and we don't know how long that's gonna be. So any way that we can preserve those ticks of the heart the better. The other thing too is kind of the immense amount of dysregulation that can happen with things like blood pressure. We do know in fact that these things can significantly impact people who have hypertension or lead to hypertension certainly will exacerbate people who have, again, high blood pressure or hypertension. And we see this also too in just dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. And this will manifest by dysregulation and heart rate variability. So low heart rate variability because someone is stuck in their head and level of thinking. And what I always say is this is outside of anything that you're putting into your body. So outside of, you know, any caloric intake or exercise or these other things that we know are going to influence the autonomic nervous system, this is simply just the brain just being stuck in our own thoughts and catastrophizing and concocting worst case scenarios.
(24:31): So we know that our imagination can be quite helpful, but it also can be to our detriment and can lead us down a very destructive path. Which is why I say like there's so many tools and techniques and great therapies that I recommend that kind of utilize this objective data and really is more about kind of turning in and changing your physiology. But another way of changing our physiology is changing our pattern of thinking. It's identifying what are kind of those distorted ways of thinking that really lead us down and spiral down into a really bad path. And how do we kind of modify those and work through those because we know that those can spiral down into anxiety, depression, other mental health related concerns, but can actually be caught early through things like monitoring, self-monitoring. So kind of monitoring thoughts and being aware of them, but also objective monitoring and looking at kind of the impact on the nervous system by looking at data. That was probably more of a long-winded way of answering that question, but, but thoughts matter. Inherently they matter.
(25:36): They do, they're so important. You know, what you think is affecting your health. I talk about that a lot. I know some people are probably wondering right now. Okay, we know Dr. Jay, you've got a company, we're certainly gonna talk about that. But what are all the different ways, we touched on it earlier of measuring H R V cuz some people listening probably are thinking, oh, I wanna do that. I hear how valuable it is. What are the different methods that we can use and how might somebody start to integrate this into their life?
(26:08): It's a a great question. You know what I, the wearable space or wearables have become ubiquitous. So I mean you can look on me right now. I have a Garmin, I have an Aura, I have a whoop and then my hanu is is on right now . So I have so many like different types of wearables and you know, one of it is because I'm just very interested in data and I don't expect people to be nearly as interested in data as I am. But I also use them and monitor them for, for different reasons depending on kind of like my goals and what I want to get out of them. The great thing about wearables being ubiquitous is that also heart rate variability being a metric that they collect that is also readily available in a lot of these different wearables. So, so all of these Garmin, you know, got or I got whoop and then obviously hannu, they all track heart rate variability.
(26:52): They do it very differently both in how they're measuring but also when they're measuring, which is really important And there's plenty of really amazing apps out there, you know, even outside of Annu as a platform, like we're a mental health platform. But you can also look at, you know, companies like Elite HR V and H R V for training which do H R V monitoring a little bit differently, but again, readily available and accessible to a bulk majority of people. So I always tell people know kind of why you're measuring and know what you're measuring. So the why can be a, a wider array of things that we just mentioned. Nervous system recovery for athletics and and performance. It can be for stress monitoring. So just kind of know your why and there's different platforms for kind of different reasons. And then also know kind of how it's measuring and what it's measuring.
(27:37): So for instance, at Hanu we use a continuous wearable E C G that's gonna give us high quality, accurate data under just about every single condition. And that is actually looking at the electrical output of the heart. So it's looking at the direct signal of the heart as opposed to some of the other wearables are using light sensing based technology, which is an indirect way of looking at the heart. So it's not picking up the electrical pulse, it's looking at a waveform that is basically a light that's shining through the skin, picking up, kind of changes in in blood flow kind of with within the capillaries. And then it's saying that must be a pulse so therefore there's a heartbeat. What makes that really great is that it's non-invasive and it's kind of just readily like you're able to put it on and go.
(28:22): Ours you're able to put it on and go as well, but you know, it's around kind of the, the, the chest or the sternum. So therefore it's a little bit more invasive than, you know, getting it on the wrist or the finger. The reason though that the wrist and the finger can be problematic is that when you're moving that provides a lot of what we call artifacts. So a lot of noise and it's hard sometimes to pull the signal. We can approximate heart rate pretty well, but heart rate variability can be very difficult. That's why most of these devices require you to be a very still when you're taking heart rate variability or it takes your heart rate variability when you are asleep, which is something like Aura does or a whoop does. They're looking at HR V when you're asleep, not when you're awake because when you're moving it's very hard to get that signal.
(29:02): Whereas with an EC G you can get that all the time. So these platforms are great because you know, you can look at recovery of the nervous system. You can look at kind of you know, is there kind of a downward trend of heart rate variability and that's kinda the information that you're gonna get. But if you're looking at kind of a mental health perspective throughout the day, then it might be great for you to have something that is continuously looking at changes in heart rate variability so that it can tell you kind of in the moment to provide that kind of trigger to you and say I see something kind of going on right now. It might be time for you to either take a break and we can either do some meditation, some biofeedback, some breath work, you know, whatever it may be. Like that's kind of more the intention of wearing something that is continuously monitoring those metrics. So it really just kind of depends on, you know, your goal. Like are you looking more just to kind of spot check for recovery, kind of check in with the nervous system or do you want to have something that's monitoring continuously so that you can adapt and make changes throughout the day or kinda learn to become more self-aware and learn how to better self-regulate.
(30:07): So as you're talking, I'm kind of getting that because I'm familiar with all these other devices. I haven't been thrilled with the utility, clinical utility for people of certain wearables. Like the Ring, I basically have people use something that they do an intensive evaluation, you know, periodically throughout the day in the morning and evening. But you know, as you're talking it's, it's sounding kind of like continuous glucose monitoring, which when I first heard about it I said, well that's great for diabetics. But then some of my colleagues started using it for their coaching clients who are more in the wellness space. And I thought wow that's, and this is kind of my reaction to a lot of the things that I've learned over my past 12 years into becoming fellowship trained in functional medicine. At first, like when I heard about IV therapy I s VI micronutrient therapy, I said, that's so extreme and so unnecessary.
(31:00): And then when I learned about it I was like, that is so necessary and so valuable. And I find that this is the journey that a lot of lay people have to go through as well. When they first hear about these things, they first hear about all the types of testing and evaluation and treatment that I use, their first thought is, that's so radical. I don't need that. You know, it's not offered at my H M O doctor's office. I don't need to pay for that. And then when they learn more, they listen to the podcast, they learn more, they say, oh my gosh, I have to have that. So as you're talking, cuz I know when I first heard about what your company offered, I thought I don't need to know that much about my H R V, but as you're talking I'm thinking it's just like continuous glucose monitoring.
(31:45): Yeah, it's continuous H R V monitoring and how valuable that could be. Like if I'm sitting here doing work like I've been doing for a few hours, I might not cognitively or consciously realize that my body might be going distress mode. It might take me much longer and it usually does cuz I'll work like crazy and then hours later I'll go like, oh my gosh, I'm so exhausted. Mm-Hmm . So anyway, I know I'm kind of on a monologue, but I love for my audience to really be taken through my thought process journey cuz I think it helps them become more educated about how to think about their own health. Right. So what are your thoughts?
(32:24): We make the comparison to continuous glucose monitoring all the time. What we know is that the rollercoaster that people can experience in terms of blood sugar fluctuation can cause a lot of deleterious effects. So the idea would be is to instill as much stability as possible without, you know, with the knowledge that like when you eat certain foods, like you're gonna have an increase in blood glucose, but it's the ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs all day long that happen. You know, the first thing you wake up and you eat that sugary pastry or donut that kind of kicks start the day that can cause those problems. Heart rate variability is very similar. So like within our application what we do is that when you first put it on, we're monitoring to figure out what is this person's baseline range, which in Layman's peak is kind of like what's their high average, what's their low average and then what's kind of right in the middle?
(33:17): Like where do they normally hang out in terms of their heart rate variability? And over time we're able to kind of refine that window, you know, based on context, situation, a lot of other things. And what we're really looking to do is say, okay, how often is their heart rate variability significantly changing and one way or another how much are were they dropping outside of their baseline range? Which is significant, which means that their nervous system is experiencing enough taxation for us to be alerted to it. Okay, interesting. What's going on here? And then also in the other direction, when are things kind of going up above their baseline, which may mean that they're really primed, they're in a very relaxed state, maybe they're meditating, maybe they're doing biofeedback. So we're able to kind of look at that throughout the day. So for our goal, just like what you mentioned earlier, is to be able to provide a signal, a level of awareness to people when it makes sense for us to provide that and say we see something going on right now and maybe you're writing those emails or whatever it may be.
(34:16): This is a huge one for me. I always like to tell this story. And a lot of people don't realize they're doing this until they realize they're, they're doing this mm-hmm. , which is something called email apnea. It's the holding of your breath when you're typing in email. And a lot of people do it and especially if you're writing a lot of emails, like you'll see your nervous system like it really taxed like your hurry very belly will drop because I mean, it's a stress response. You're holding your breath without being consciously aware of what's going on. And so a lot of people are like, oh my goodness, I didn't realize I was doing that until I started seeing, yeah, my heart rate variability was dropping. And then now that I'm kind of pacing my breathing and getting back into more of this relaxed parasympathetic state, like now I'm regulating myself better and I'm not seeing kind of these huge drops that we know that more and more that we have of them and the more and more severe they become, the worse it is for our overall psychological and physiological health.
(35:10): So our intention is to work very similar to a blood glucose monitor continuously saying I am monitoring kind of with my, you know, microscope what's going on within your nervous system. And when we see a significant event in your nervous system occur that we feel like, yep, that's enough to alert them, the user will get an alert and they will and will say, okay, it's time to check in. Number one, we want you to say what's going on here and is it affecting you subjectively mm-hmm . Because when you look back in retrospect, we want to be able to say, oh yeah, over the last week or last month, you know, the thing that was really getting me was my commute. Like I was out riding, you know, in the middle of New York City. I have to commute in the middle of that for an hour and my nervous system was wrecked for that entire hour every single day.
(35:54): Now there's the opportunity to do something about it, you're aware of it. Now let's learn how to self-regulate within that in that moment. Identifying the triggers is always important because it leads to us becoming more self-aware. But the kicker is learning how to regulate yourself in that moment and in time because we can have all this great data and information and, and it's most basic form. It's just data, it's just information. It's what about the step that comes after it? How are we gonna condition a new behavior that's different than what you might normally do because maybe your normal commute behavior is, you know, spurting out curse words, shooting the bird, like, you know, being aggressive. Don't do that. Yeah, don't do that. Maybe the new behavior is learning how to self-regulate in the moment so that you aren't feeling all that tension, all that emotional dysregulation that may manifest itself in you yelling at your family when you get home after your commute. Or you know, writing a nasty email when you get home because you're already pint up and frustrated and you're like, now time to release the anger. All of these things are connected to one another. And while we talk a lot about the data and the science, it all comes down to learning how to better regulate yourself. Learning how to better emotionally regulate yourself mm-hmm. so that it doesn't negatively impact all of these areas of life that maybe it is impacting now.
(37:06): Right. That's a great thing. Topic to touch on before we wrap up is what are some things that people can start to do just even today if they notice that they're in the stress state, where they certainly, if you're listening, you need to start checking your H R V for sure. But what are some things that people can do?
(37:26): Yeah, the great thing about this is that the most, the most efficacious or effective tools that we have that we've seen in the literature and the research literature are ones that are readily available and easily accessible to everybody at any given time. Regardless of whether or not you have a monitor or any ti or you're, you're looking at any different biometrics, which is a phenomenal thing that we have been built and designed to be able to regulate utilizing what's readily available. So I know that sounds cryptic, so let me just explain what I mean. , what I mean is, is in
(38:01): English, in
(38:02): English, right, in English breathing, breathing is the single greatest way to send a different signal to the nervous system. If you want to relax in the moment and train your nervous system to relax in the moment, learning how to change the mechanics of your breathing change and then changing the cadence or the speed of breathing are the two greatest things that you can do. A lot of times when people are stressed, we breathe what's called thoracically or in other words from the chest. It's a shallow, inefficient way of breathing, but we do so. And if we do it fast enough, we call that hyperventilation, which happens if somebody's having a panic attack. And what we see is people who have a panic attack, heart rate flies up the roof, the heart rate variability sinks like a rock. So what we can do in the moment though, is just simply change two things.
(38:52): One is the mechanics, moving it from the chest down to the belly, engaging what's called your diaphragm, which means pushing the diaphragm towards the pelvic floor, allowing the stomach almost to balloon of the lungs to expand breathing what we call low, slow and deep, not taking in as much air as you can that can be problematic, but breathing low, slow and then deep into the lungs. That can excite our vagus nerve increase what I'd mentioned earlier, what was called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which is the speeding and the slowing of the heart and then work on exhaling slowly and then also doing it nasally from the nose. A lot of people when they get stressed, they breathe from their mouth. So breathing from the nose and changing the mechanics. And then the second component, what I mentioned was cadence. The simple way to do this is just inhale to account of four and exhale to count of six.
(39:43): If you do that, that will put you at a pace of six breaths per minute, which we know is a pretty good sweet spot for a lot of people. And you can make it also too, just an even breath, five seconds in, five seconds out. But breathing is single-handedly the best way of doing this. And again, readily available to you at any given moment in time. No one has to know you're doing it, which is the beauty of it. , you know, we just add the data component in terms of are are my company hanu? Because it helps to condition the behavior. When you can see your nervous system making significant change, you want to come back to it cuz you're like, oh, it's not just subjectively I feel better, which is good. That's the key. We want you to feel better like that is number one.
(40:21): But if you want to condition a behavior, seeing those data change, well that just reinforces that this right here is working. Like I see change in my nervous system, it's responding, it's adapting as we think it should. So breathing as key point number one. Number two thing that I, that I recommend, which is also readily available to us, would be kind of the mental battle aspect. And the biggest tool that I use is a tool in C B T called cognitive distancing. A lot of times when we're in the moment and we're feeling stressed, it is very easy to get wrapped up into the mind. I think that the first thing you should do is try to send a different signal physiologically. But the next thing is also to take a different approach psychologically or what we call cognitively. The one thing that we can so easily do is get wrapped up in that cognitive spiral that we were talking about earlier.
(41:13): However, a great tool that a lot of people have been have found to be effective is to remove yourself from your cognition with something called cognitive distancing. And what this strategy looks like is basically taking like an outsider view of what is going on that is purely objective, viewing things as neither good nor bad, almost just like you're a scientist and analyzing things just as what they are. So it's taking yourself away from kind of all of the impact and emotional thinking that happens and saying, I'm just gonna take an outside's view at what I'm thinking and just kind of look at it, be mindful of it. What that distancing does is it beautifully allows us to not be so wrapped up in all of the emotional characteristics that are involved and simply just see it for what it is. And so many people say that when they impact their physiology and when when they engage in this cognitive distancing strategy, people just feel more relaxed because they feel more in control.
(42:14): The thing that can so dysregulate people is when they feel like they are out of control or they have no impact on their emotional regulation or experience and when that occurs then we see the emotions start to ramp up and they lead to more negative behaviors. But if we can change the physiology with the body, so change the body with the body and then move to cha helping to rework our thinking, those two combinations of therapeutics have just been identified to be extremely effective in helping people to just calm down in the moment which is needed for everybody. Yes.
(42:50): Okay, great. Those are some great tips. I love breath work, talk about it all the time. And also changing your thoughts cuz that really does program your body's health. And if you haven't heard me talk about that, you need to listen to more of my podcasts cuz I talk about it all the time. Dr. Jay, this has been some great information. I love the conversation about one of my favorite tools, heart rate variability, where can people find out more about you? And I know that you have a special offer if they do wanna check out Hanu for them. So tell them about that and we'll have the information in the show note.
(43:26): Yeah, thanks for allowing me to do that. So if you just go head on over to hanu Health, h A N U and Hawaiian Hanu is Hawaiian for breath, which is our main strategy that we use for self-regulation. So hanu health.com if you use the code hbh 20, that's Hbh 20, that'll get you 20% off the platform. You know, feel free to kind of look at over, we have a lot of education and articles and videos and our own podcasts, the H new Health podcast. So we try to provide as much information out there as we can. Like, you know, the one thing that we realize is that it's dense, like heart rate variability, you know, psychophysiology, it's dense and people already probably listen to this podcast and they're like, yeah, that, that sounds like it's a in-depth thing. The great thing though is that it's utility. Once you kind of understand just the basic platform, it's utility is just so incredibly vast and wide and something that again, I mean I might sound like the fox guarding the hidden house, but something that everybody should be checking. And they will find such improvements in overall health outcomes if they understand what they're looking at and then understand kind of how to utilize that metric in these, in these training therapeutics.
(44:33): Mm-Hmm. . Yeah, and I just want everyone to know, I always try and tie things back to hormones cuz it is the Hormone Prescription podcast that improving your H R V will improve your hormone profile. Mm-Hmm. . So they are intimately an intricately related and you improve one, you improve the other vice versa. So I wanna leave you guys with another quote that Dr. Jay shared with me before we started because I think it's really sobering and hopefully will help you focus your mind for the rest of the day and get out away from all that extraneous stuff, the things you're imagining in the future that could be negative, that could impact you negatively and the things you're ruminating on from the past that you have no power over. And here's his quote, you could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do, what you say, and what you think. Dr. Jay, anything you'd like to share about that?
(45:31): Yeah, if anybody has heard the, the two quotes that I mentioned there, they'll know that these are both stoic quotes. Epictetus first and that was Marcus Aurelius. And I love that one because it hones in on the shortness of life. Not something that we should fear death, but something that we should use as a motivator is that the time here is very short. And so if we are going to spend so much of that time allowing anxiety to rule us, allowing it to kind of dictate the things that we do in life, how we act, who we associate with, then we're gonna leave life unfortunately with some regrets and nobody wants that. And so knowing that life is short, we should actually use that as a motivation to go out there and just live life and enjoy it and be happy and be healthy and just follow that path. And I think it's really great wisdom.
(46:20): Yes, go live your life, be happy, joyous free. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of the Hormone Prescription Podcast. Thank you Dr. Jay for joining us. Hopefully you've learned something today that you can put into practice. Don't just be entertained and educated, but take action. Maybe just do some deep different breathing like Dr. Jay talked about. That's something simple that you can do right now. Thanks so much for joining me and I'll see you next week on another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. Until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.
(46:57): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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How is aging affecting your metabolism? Are you looking for a way to turn back the clock and make it work like it did when you were younger? This week's episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast is all about how to stop blaming aging for a slow metabolism, featuring special guest Kate Deering.
Kate has been helping women achieve optimal health and wellness for 25 years with her holistic approach that includes diet, stress management, exercise, posture, sleep, digestion, hormones, mindset, and lifestyle. And she knows what she speaks - she holds certifications as a CHEK Exercise & Holistic Lifestyle Coach, Olympic Lifting Coach, and a Certified Nutritional Consultant. Not only that but she also has a degree in psychology and exercise physiology!
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How to recognize aging's impact on your metabolism
- Tips on how to keep your metabolism running efficiently as you age
- What dietary changes can help boost a slow metabolism
- The link between hormones and weight management
- Ways to develop an exercise plan that’s appropriate for your age and goals
- Plus, much more!
Join us this week for an informative discussion about how to stop blaming aging for your slow metabolism with special guest Kate Deering. You don't want to miss this one! Tune in now.
(00:00): You have to get healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to get healthy. Dr. Schwartz fame, stop blaming aging for your slow metabolism. In this episode, I'm gonna tell you why.
(00:14): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:07): Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season. Thanks so much for joining me today. My guest today has lots of certifications. She's been dedicated to helping women improve their metabolism, their health and fitness for over 25 years. She's really smart and goes really deep into the science. So I think you're gonna like her. She's gonna help you understand a lot of things. When people hear that I lost over a hundred pounds, they assume that I did it by cutting calories and exercising. And of course I didn't do that at all. I did what we're gonna talk about today to improve my metabolism. I could have just sat there and blamed it on my age, but I didn't. I found out the truth about what truly drove my metabolism and my weight gain, including hormone balance, which a lot of you have heard me talk about.
(02:03): So we're gonna dive deep into that topic today and really help you get some answers on why you need to stop blaming your age for your slow metabolism and what you need to do to get your metabolism boosted. And why eating more and not less is key and why eating more carbs is part of the answer. I know you're surprised to hear that we're gonna get into it. So Kate Deering is my guest today. She holds certifications as a check exercise and holistic lifestyle coach, Olympic lifting coach Z health practitioner and certified nutritional consultant. She's worked for 25 years helping women achieve optimal health and wellness, using an holistic approach, incorporating diet, stress management, exercise, posture, sleep, digestion, hormones, mindset and lifestyle. She also has a degree in psychology and exercise physiology. So she's very well-rounded and has a a lot of breadth as well as depth that she's gonna deliver to you today. And I hope you'll help me welcome Kate to the podcast.
(03:07): I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. So
(03:09): I always like to start with people talking about why they do what they do and you have some unique certifications and experience. You've been in the health and fitness industry for over 25 years and I'm wondering what drew you to get the certifications and trainings that you've acquired and what makes you so passionate about helping women at midlife boost their metabolism.
(03:35): ? Well, it's a great question and I, I think the driver for most of us is always, we have our own experience that leads us down a path that we try to look at all the, the, the information that is readily available to us. Maybe it's through the medical space or maybe it's just what nutrition is offered in the, the standard American diet. And you find that that isn't working for you. And so you start going down different paths. And so for me, yes, I've been in this space for 25 years. I've always had an interest in people. I actually have degrees in psychology and exercise physiology and how to improve either performance and your experience here on life and so forth. And I've certainly had plenty of experiences in my life where I thought I was doing the healthiest things for myself because it's kind of what I was taught, especially in down the path of, you know, let's get fit and healthy.
(04:28): So maybe go down the eat less, work out more. And did that kind of approach a good bit to my twenties and thirties and then all of a sudden that when I was about to hit 40, it's didn't seem to be working. And the the tighter and more stricter I became, the more walls I seemed to be hitting. And you know, I kind of was thinking, well that must be just what happens in your forties. That's what everyone keeps saying. You hit this wall. And then I started to learn about metabolic health on a a different spectrum and looking through health with a different lens. And until we kind of change the lens of how we're seeing things, we're gonna keep going down the path I believe. So we have to kind of take a different perspective. And the perspective I learned was based on the work of Dr.
(05:11): Broda Barnes and Dr. Ray Pete. And it's essentially you're defining health as how well your metabolic rate is working. And if we understand that metabolism is basically the sum of all chemical process in your body or, and or how well your body is taking food and producing energy. And so how can we measure that is the question. And the way I would measure it is your heat production because heat would be a product of how well your body's producing energy, your temperature. So temperature and pulse would be ways to monitor how well your metabolism is working. And then if we think about it as it's the sum of every metabolic process, well then that would be how well you are digesting. How's your cycle? Do you have PMs or do you have a lot of menopausal issues? If you're at that stage in your life, how are you sleeping?
(05:58): How's your skin and hair? We know that when you are producing energy at a good rate and you're able to use food and then make energy for yourself, you'll have plenty to run your body optimally. If something starts to interfere with that, then you're gonna start to become compromised. And then what you tend to see is the opposite. Bad digestion, a lot of PMs issues, you're cold all the time. You might have a really low pulse, you have a lot of sleep issues, brain fog, all of those things start to occur. I stop looking at each symptom independently and because again, when we, when we look at how metabolism works, it kind of is the sum of all those products. So from my perspective, if we, if I could find a way to increase the body's ability to turn fuel food into fuel and produce better energy or more energy for your system, then ultimately what happens is your body just starts to function better without addressing each symptom independently. Mm-Hmm . And so if you can basically like say what, what does that all look like? And so there are certainly a series of things that you can do to help that happen. And it's not just kind of do this or that. It's always finding where the invi the individual at is at the process and working with them within that space and then slowly trying things to again help their body produce energy better or there's more accessible for them in their body and their metabolic health so that things just start working better for themselves.
(07:24): Okay. So let's start a l with a little basic, cuz I know some people are pretty advanced to listen to the podcast. They're, they, they're all about knowing about their metabolism. But what is your metabolism and why is this an issue as people age? I love how you say stop blaming aging for your slow metabolism, but let's break it down. What is your metabolism to begin with and why is it a problem for women as they age?
(07:49): Yeah, that's a great question and you can kind of define it a few different ways. One would be, like I said, it's the sum of every metabolic process in your body. So everything your body is doing takes energy. And so metabolism is essentially how your body turns food into fuel. And it essentially goes through a process. So we can look at it down at the cell level cuz all your cells are basically producing energy in their mitochondria primarily so that, that you have energy to do what you need to do, but you also need energy to run everything in your body. In fact, most of the energy that your body produces is used to run your body. We refer that as the basal metabolic rate. So 60 to 70% of the energy you produce is just utilized to do your systems, meaning digest food to keep your muscle and your, your your, your bones and have your nervous system working and all these things require fuel.
(08:43): And if at some point you start to run at a deficit, then your body always goes through this adaptation and will actually slow down metabolic function. And we see this when people diet and if they, they diet long enough, what normally happens, well you don't sleep as well, you're not digesting as well. You might start to feel tired or fatigued or you might start to feel wired because now your body's trying to produce energy via the stress response. And then you start to get a little bit jittery or it might even feel good initially because the stress hormones can feel good initially. So we start to see these responses your body's giving you. But if you're all of a sudden like going into your forties and fifties and saying, I still wanna lose weight, but yet you have a series of symptoms occurring, right? Let's just say you have horrible periods or you have all these sleep issues and you're unable to lose weight or you can't hold muscle tissue or you're getting all these brain fog or other issues, then we've gotta work on those symptoms first.
(09:44): Because what I know is that your body isn't providing you enough energy to run your basic functions because either you're too stressed out, you're, you're using it too other ways or it's gone through too many adaptations to slow it down. Cause we always have to remember the number one thing our body is trying to do is keep us alive. It isn't trying to procreate, it isn't trying to really digest your food, it's not trying to do any of those things. It's trying to keep you alive. So it's always in this energy preservation space where if you don't give it enough, it's going to adapt to that. And if you do it long enough, you'll have symptoms and then it'll look like illness and disease and so forth and so on. And so when I look at it say look, we can say well that just happens with age.
(10:26): And I say, well usually what I see is it just happens more time on this planet to stress your system out . And so, and that will come with age, but if we actually treat our body differently and actually provide it with enough fuel, minerals, nutrients, space and time to heal, then we can actually reverse that process and allow the system to do what it needs to do. And so we don't have to use the age factor to say, well this and, and there's just succumb to this is gonna happen cuz I'm getting older. We should know that there are things you can do to kind of fix that or reverse that so that you don't have to say that, that it is a product age. It's just a product of how you're treating your body.
(11:04): Right. I love that. It's so true. It's not age and and you know, it's just coincidental that as we get older, but we're also spending more time on the planet getting our body stressed out and yeah really that is the key factor. It doesn't have anything to do with our age. And you know, if you look around, there are plenty of women who are older who don't have metabolism problems, don't have weight problems, don't have health problems. And so what's the difference is that they're probably managing the various stressors that are insulting their body as they age. You know, another, could you share this quote with me before we started from Dr. Schwartz being about you have to get healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to get healthy. And really that's how I lost over a hundred pounds. People ask me all the time, well how did you do that?
(11:51): Did you starve yourself? Did you, you exercise like crazy? No, I figured out the secrets to hormonal balance, detoxification, mitochondrial function, all the things that you and I both teach about. And then when I fixed that, the weight just came off. So how do you get people to shift their mindset? Women over 40, 50, 60 who are really, I mean we've had drilled into us from the time I was a little kid, I remember having drilled into me, it's less calories and more calories out, right? Cut your calories in, expend your calories. That's how you lose weight. And how do you help people to understand that that's, it's not a numbers game, it's not a math problem.
(12:34): That is a good question and it is a complete mind shift. And even for me it took a lot of unlearning cuz I was brought up in that space and that's, it was dug into me and I and it works until it doesn't work,
(12:46): Right
(12:47): . And that's the problem and that's, and when it does work, you know you can have it work pretty quickly, right? It's also a space, if you just grind it out and you, you know, you're like balls of the walls, you can have it happen but it's not sustainable over the long haul and then, then it's just, and so you're gonna get into trouble eventually and it doesn't work because you're, like I said, your body will go through adaptations and we now know that like exercise is actually not a great, certainly cardiovascular exercise is a great long-term approach for long-term weight loss. Because when you start putting, cuz exercise is a stress on your system, right? You're stressing your system to use fuel faster and if the fuel isn't available, then yes, it'll try to use what's on you, which is body fat. But it also will use a percentage of muscle tissue, connective tissue because those are also regulators.
(13:38): You need to regulate your blood sugar. And so when all those things happen, anytime we put a stress on our system, our body says, hey, at this point in time she has more demands than we have coming in. So okay, we're gonna use some of our other resources, however we're going to slow other things down to adapt to this stressor because again, number one thing your body wants to do is keep you alive and it doesn't want you to burn off all your muscle tissue to try to regulate blood sugar so that you can keep going. So it's always adapting to this response. And in your twenties it kind of, you do it and it can fix itself. It kind of goes okay, you know, she's lost some weight and we, we will kind of try to autoregulate a little bit, maybe a downregulated metabolic rate just a little bit.
(14:22): But then you do it again and again and again and by the time you're in your thirties and forties and you've hit that system, you know, 30 or 40 times it is now downregulated 20 30%. And now it's just so much harder for your system to push through that cycle. And usually at the same time now you have a bunch of symptoms, right? You have, you've had bad periods for 10 or 20 years or now you're having menopausal symptoms or perimenopausal symptoms and they are horrible and that's not normal, I guess it is, is normal cause a lot of people have it, but it doesn't have to be normal. You don't have to go through those if the body is in a better space. And for me I try to address it and get 'em to shift because I want 'em to look at the definition of health differently.
(15:05): Look, health is not just how thin you are and how good you look in, you know, your swimsuit health is a product of, again, it what is your temperature and pulse. If you're 96 degrees and a lot of women are, then that's a problem. You're not producing a lot of heat and that's a factor of metabolic health. So I look at, are you running around 97.8 to 98.6 degrees through the day? You know, is your pulse 40 or is it between 75 and 90 beats? And you know, believe it or not, it's better to have a pulse a little bit higher even though your doctor, you know that when you're running your marathons it's, it's down at 50. But that is an adaptation that occurs to kind of keep up with that activity. And then we wanna look at your digestion again, how your menstrual cycle, how's your libido, what are all these factors doing and what do they need to function?
(15:54): And they need energy, right? You cannot run on thin air. And so, and you also need a lot of nutrition and if you're eating crappy foods and we're not enough, we are going to see dysfunction at some point in time. It's just, it's going to happen. And if you just keep thinking, well I still need to work out more and exercise, it's just a matter of willpower, you are gonna make yourself absolutely crazy and, and then you feel horrible and then your whole life kind of starts to crumble down because you don't have the fuel to keep up with it. And so you know, the next thing you know you're going to your doctor and he is putting you on antidepressants and anxieties, sleep medications, everything. And you know, to kind of alleviate some of these symptoms when in fact look we have to address the underlying problem, which from my perspective is you have core cellular function, you're noting energy. Well wherever that is, align the system and that's what we need to improve.
(16:46): Yeah, and food plays a huge role in this. What you are feeding yourself and this whole concept of calorie restriction and a lot of diets are poor quality calories. I know you have a free guide that you're gonna offer everyone, we're gonna have the link in the show notes, but you also cover your top 13 metabolic foods in there. Could you just mention maybe three of your favorites that people might consider adding to their diet? That would be something to help with their me metabolic rate.
(17:15): Yes. And again, we, from my perspective, I come from the context of always improving cellular function. Now I always, I do have foods I suggest, but all those foods might not work for everybody depending on where they are in their healing cycle. And so, mm-hmm , I am a huge proponent of carbohydrates but the right carbohydrates because carbohydrates are your best source of energy to, for yourself, your cells prefer carbohydrates to run. Now a lot of people, especially women in their forties and fifties say, I eat carbs and I just blow up and then I don't do well with 'em so forth and so on. But if that's the case, then we have to find out, well what is going on in your system, right? Why are you not using those properly and can that be addressed and can that be fixed? Because if your body's utilizing other resources, fats or proteins as fuel, which it can, your body's awesome and it can use other resources, in my opinion, it's not the ideal source of fuel.
(18:12): Your body's actually function best utilizing carbohydrates. And so we wanna get the body to use those primarily. And the ones I like are more like fruits and roots, high nutrient rich carbohydrates that your body can help assimilate and there's tons of minerals and nutrition from 'em. And so I like actually a lot of simple carbohydrates cuz it's easier for your body to break these down. I definitely come from a space where we wanna give your body foods that are not super challenging to break down because what I see when someone's in dysfunction, 95% of those people have poor GI function. If you have poor GI function, again, it's another system of your body that requires energy to function. If that's not working and we give it really, really hard to digest foods, you're going to have problems. They're not gonna break 'em down properly, they're not gonna get what they need. Maybe they're filled with nutrition, but if your body doesn't have the fuel to break that system down or that food down, then you're just gonna poop it out. So I love fruits and roots, you know, like potatoes. Those are great sources of energy in my opinion. Just on the caveat. Okay. I never, okay,
(19:17): , hold on, I'm gonna, you're slaying a few sacred cows here so let's, I wanna dig into this a little deeper cuz some people are like, what? Eat carbs and lose weight. Wait, I, I like what she's saying but, so you're saying eat fruits and roots and fruits and roots have been fairly vilified Yep. By most people. And then you're talking about things that are easy to digest versus hard to digest. So can you break be more specific? What are you saying is hard to digest that people can't get nutrients out of? And what are you saying is easy and then also break down, why are you a proponent of fruits and roots for helping metabolic rate?
(19:55): Yeah. Oh that's a good question. Again, if we come from a place of h how, when you look at optimal metabolism, the fuel source that we are using is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates will run through the system much quicker than fats and to be utilized as energy. Yes, fats will contain more energy, but when carbs are being used, they actually go through the system in a quicker space. And so we want energy that's being used quickly. And so carbs are gonna be your most, primarily the best source of fuel. Now as you age, the body can have issues digesting carbohydrates and it's normally because that system is in a chronic stress state and they're starting to run other systems that are kind of regulating them at that time. But if we can get 'em out of the stress state and get them to utilizing carbohydrates better, then we'll bring those stress hormones down and their body will start to auto-regulate.
(20:45): I like fruits and roots because they're, they're high nutrient rich and if they're prepared properly, they don't tax your GI system as much as other foods like breads or grains or pastas or even legumes. Nuts and seeds of course. And even a lot of raw green vegetables, which I know is gonna be very controversial. But again, if you eat a raw salad which doesn't have a lot of fuel in it, it might have a lot of nutrition, but our body's gonna have a challenging time breaking that food down. And because I'm trying to give it fuel to run and I know when your body is under a lot of chronic stress, the GI system is the one of the systems that gets really affected. In fact, the GI system works best in that parasympathetic state. And if somebody's in a stressed sympathetic state all the time, the GI system just doesn't work properly.
(21:37): And so if I give it a ton of food and, and I try to push it through the GI and it's hard to digest, guess what? You're gonna see that food in your stool the next day. We're not gonna be able to break it down . And so, so true really irritating to the GI system and we need to give it foods that are not gonna be irritating. So again, I'm certainly not suggesting to everybody go out and they eat a huge bowl of potatoes or fruit by itself. Those foods are not, they shouldn't be consumed. I always balance all my, my carbohydrates with protein and some fat so that it does help go into the system a little bit slower and it can help regulate your blood sugar a little bit better. But we still don't want a tax, right? Because your GI system is the entry way for all your nutrition and energy.
(22:26): And if it's in dysfunction, if you're having bloating and, and SIBO and leaky gut and all of these things that are maybe not allowing your body to digest food properly, then even if you're eating the best of diets and the most nutritious of diets, if you can't break that food down, who cares? Doesn't matter. It's just gonna be pooped out, it's gonna irritate your gi, it's gonna make you constipated, whatever, doesn't matter. And so, but if we actually give it some stuff that's easier, then all of a sudden your body's okay, we don't have to work so hard so we can kind of operate, you know, 70% cuz you're not really taxing us so much and we'll actually give you the fuel that you need so that your body can have fuel to run. It is a mind shift, right? Because you have to know, you have to increase your body's ability to utilize energy and that means you've gotta teach it to utilize more calories.
(23:18): You've gotta teach it to actually know that calories are available to coming in. Cuz if not, it always is going to adapt to, to it. Your body does not care if you have an extra a hundred pounds on you and it's like, oh look I got a ton of extra weight on me. We'll just use that. It doesn't work that way. Your body will still adapt to a slow metabolism with extra weight on you. And so you have to increase overall basal metabolic rate so it, it starts utilizing that energy better. If not, you're gonna be eating less and less and less and feeling crappier and crappier and crappier and, and, and you can't live that that, right? As soon as something comes or happens, you just binge and eat everything so your body doesn't go into, you know, complete craziness, right? And then you go, you yo-yo yourself all the way, you know, into gaining another 20, 30 pound you're miserable.
(24:06): I remember seeing the study on the biggest loser contestants Yep. Right? Showing that how their metabolic rate slowed when they lost the weight on the show, but then it went even lower after and invariably they all gained the weight back within a couple of years. And I don't know what it's gonna take for us women to really get that out of, out of our heads about the, the calories and minus calories out myth. But I, I think you, you are really making some great points. I do wanna jump to another topic cuz you have such varied experience and certification and just the way you envision a person's health. You talk about posture in addition to wellbeing being about diet, stress, exercise, sleep, digestion, hormones, mindset, lifestyle. You also mentioned posture. Can you talk a little bit about that? Cuz that's not something that most people I think are aware affects their metabolism?
(25:03): Well I think we can just go into essential structure and again, if you're somebody that is hunched over and you can just see this from kind of today's society and everybody's looking at their phone or they're on their computer, right? So they're all just kind of hunched over and kind of in this kind of kyphotic state all day long. Well again, how does our GI system work and how does all of our systems work when we're kind of just compressing it all day long? So, you know, I always, I I get people in front of me and they, they're coming in and they're hunched over head forward. They got kind of forward head posture, shoulders are rolled, hips are starting to get tucked and I show them this posture a little bit exaggerated. I'm like, well this is your future. This is how you're going to function.
(25:46): And again, when our body starts to kind of maintain these structures and aren't ideal for it, the brain gets quite used to that and then it starts to go, well we don't actually need to stand up. So it starts to lose function and it starts to just stay. And, and I don't know if you've ever seen like people that aren't extreme, right? They're like completely leaned over and they can't like even stand up any longer and you're like, how does that even happen? Well it doesn't happen in a month or a year, it happens over decades in time without correction. But what I can say to you is if you were in the compromised position all day and you're leaned over and you're leaned over, that is absolutely gonna affect how well your GI system is functioning. And again, if we know that, that the GI is the entryway from everything from an outside world into your body and that's being compressed and compromised, then we can suspect that somewhere along the lines your body's gonna have some issues with digestion somewhere. Because in that compromise and compressed position. So obviously it's one of, I think many pieces of the puzzle to try to get somebody healthier. Certainly the food and everything else is a, a big part, but working on your backside and maintaining and learning how to sit upright and stand upright and look forward and you know, not looking to your phone all the time is certainly yeah. A big part of trying to improve your
(27:05): Health. Yeah, you know, this first came to my attention really, there was this brilliant chiropractor in Atlanta when I was working there and you know, he was talking about the structural integrity and how it puts when you don't have it, lack of structural integrity puts torque on the nerves, particularly like you say the digestive system, the autonomic nerve parasympathetic nervous system and then they stop functioning optimally and it affects digestion and hormone balance and everything else. But I just wanted to highlight that for everyone because you know, I think everything relates to hormones cause it does and posture relates to hormones, relates to metabolism along with what you're eating and your exercise. I think we're really trained to believe that it's, again, only about diet and exercise. I think most people are getting the stress piece. What are some of your top tips for women over 40 to really get a reign on how stress is affecting their health or mitigate the effects?
(28:03): Well I think a good thing to monitor is certainly your sleep. If you're finding that you are not sleeping well, then that's a sign that your system is under fueled to me. I mean, sleep is a, a high metabolic function. Like, you know, young children think about what young children know, they can sleep 10 to 12, 12 hours, they can sleep anywhere and they just fall asleep in our deep sleep . And so it's a high metabolic function and as we age, obviously sleeps becomes more challenging and we don't sleep as deep and we don't sleep as long when you wake up and so forth. So how well your sleeping is certainly a sign that if you're sleeping poorly, that things aren't going in the right direction. Some easy tips are like go out and get morning sun. Your body likes the sun, your circadian rhythm likes the sun.
(28:46): So getting sun into your eyes in the morning or at least getting out through the day and getting sun on you is a, a good way for your body to sleep better. Certainly making sure you're eating enough through the day and making sure you're eating balanced meals through the day. One of the things I like to address with people is regulating their blood sugar. If your blood sugar is all over the place, it's going to elicit stress responses all through the day because your blood sugar is what basically keeps you alive. If, if you, there's not enough fuel in there and all of a sudden there isn't any, you die. So there's a, you know, a regulatory system if you're starting, if your blood sugar gets too low, if you start to go hypoglycemic, your body's gonna send out a stress response. Your stress hormones, adrenaline, cortisol, glucagon are all gonna elevate to try and either break down tissue or release storaged sugar to regulate you.
(29:34): And if that's happening all day long because you're not eating or you are eating the wrong foods, then you're keeping yourself in the stress response all day. And so we have to get yourself and that's not gonna make you feel relaxed and it's certainly not gonna make you sleep. Well, making sure, and a great way to do that is, you know, having balanced meals throughout the day. So whether you're eating three meals a day or six meals a day, find a frequency of meals, it feels good to you. If you're eating a meal and you're like, I'm gonna eat three, but you're hungry after two or three hours and you probably need a snack in between your meals, we want you to feel satiated during the day. We, I don't want you to feel hungry, especially if you're trying to fix things. And what we have to understand is your body actually needs to heal and it needs to fix metabolic functions then that's a different space than you trying to lose weight in my opinion.
(30:27): Sometimes you have to kind of fix the foundation first to get the body like so, so the body can lose weight a little bit healthily versus just trying to stress the weight off of you, which most of us have been doing most of our lives. So it's kind of, you know, people refer to it as reverse dieting where you start to slowly eat more food so your body get used to having more fu fuel available to you. I just say it's improving metabolic function cuz we monitor your metabolic processes to see how well you're improving. There's a lot of different things. So again, I would say getting light, eating balanced meals throughout the day is important. And then of course, adding some of the foods, the, I would suggest, and again, those could be fruits and roots and maybe avoiding some of these hard to digest foods like nuts scenes, legumes and raw feed greens, , which I knew will be controversial. And again, I'm not saying these are bad foods, I'm just saying if you have some GI dysfunction and you need improve metabolic function, they might be better to limit them or even avoid them for a while while you improve those things and then you can slowly add them back in mm-hmm. into something you wanna do.
(31:32): Okay. Those are great tips. You mentioned something in there, reverse dieting, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. Could you clarify?
(31:39): Reverse dieting is a term that's being kind of utilized. It seems right now where it's dieting as we think of it's eating less and, you know, and slowly eating less to lose body fat. Reverse dieting is actually teaching your body to eat more and so that your body adapts to a space where now it's getting more comfortable eating, you know, 2000 calories versus the 1200 calories. And so it's a process that you would take someone through, whereas, you know, maybe if you're, if someone's coming to me and they're eating 12 to 1400 calories and they have a bunch of symptoms, I'm like, well, we're not gonna heal on that. It's not enough fuel. I actually, my clients eating anywhere from 1900 to 2,400 calories before we would actually start to initiate some sort of deficit to try to initiate weight loss or add some activity or something in.
(32:27): So I want their bodies to be primed. I want them to have tons. I I really wanna teach people to eat as much food as they possibly can to, to maintain good metabolic function. And yes, with some people initially that might result in some actual weight gain and either a, they might need it or their body just has to go through a a time where it's saying, Hey, you know, you've been starving me for the last three decades, , it's gonna take a little time for me to adapt to this new energy increase and it couldn't come with a little bit of weight gain, but we try to minimize that. But what I look for versus just what's on the scale, I'm gonna look for well how your, well your clothes fit. Because certainly if I can get you enough fuel, you're gonna have better anabolic function, so you'll be able to maintain muscle, you'll be able to increase muscle faster.
(33:15): And again, it's something that happens in women in their forties and fifties, sixties is they have a harder time maintaining muscle mass and muscle is incredibly important as we age, we know that women who have the most muscle mass will be most healthiest or have the least amount of bone breakdowns and so forth. So we wanna create an environment, their body that is able to produce and maintain muscle. If the body's constantly stressed because you're going down these stress pathways, it is gonna have an incredibly hard time doing that. You'll end up just losing more muscle mass. And that is not something do as you age.
(33:49): Right. Thank you for explaining that. I love that term and it, it really reminds me of Dean Ornish with his eat more, way less, you know, most of us are eating poor quality, wrong macronutrient and micronutrient not dense foods. And so really this concept that you do need to eat more, but also a better macronutrient and micronutrient profile, I think is really huge for women. And, and if you're listening, I hope you really hear what Kate is saying because it's key to boosting your metabolism. Your metabolism is not decreased direct because of your age. So just stop blaming it on your age. You've got to really take a hard close look at the stressors that are impacting your health that we've mentioned throughout this episode. Hormones being one of them. I loved how you tied in the whole cortisol stress cycle to digestion and what that's gonna do overall. So I think this has been really valuable for everyone. Thank you so much for joining us, Kate. You have this free guide, understanding Metabolism and your Top 13 me Metabolic Foods for everyone to download. We're gonna have a link in the show notes. They can also check out your book, how to Heal Your Metabolism, stop Blaming Aging For Your Slowing Metabolism. If you wanna, what would you like to tell them about these resources and where else people can find you and get more information?
(35:17): Yeah. Well, I have an Instagram account, it's Kate during fitness. I also am on Facebook at Kate during fitness. My website is kate deering.com. I'm actually working on a second book right now, which is gonna be heavy on one thing I've been asked since I've wrote the first one is a lot more recipe type things and, and kind of a more directional way that people can utilize this information to help themselves. I, you know, I I definitely come from a, a place of specificity, a spec being specific, meaning everyone is a little bit different. You kind of have to find your own path. It's what I provide is a lot of information to help people try to understand their body better so they can learn what to measure and how to keep up with things. And so they can see kind of direct their own path. And I, I think the more you learn about yourself and how well your body functions, the better off you're going to be in life. We don't teach, we don't really teach that anymore and I think it's just a, a really good way for you to kind of improve your health without lots of drugs or supplements or so forth and so on. Awesome.
(36:18): Well, thank you for those great resources. Thanks for the wonderful information and inspiration and I hope everybody listening, you'll check out Kate's website and download her free guide, check out her book and all of the offerings that she has. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription and how will you take this information and implement it in your life to make positive changes? Let me know about it on social media. I look forward to hearing about it, and I look forward to seeing you next week on another episode of The Hormone Prescription. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.
(36:55): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Get Kate Deering's FREE Guide on understanding metabolism and her top 13 metabolic foods. CLICK HERE.
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Do you want to know the secret to reducing inflammation and boosting your immunity while healing your gut?
Listen up!
Donna Mazzola, a Pharmacist with an obsession with natural healing, will be joining us on this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast - Immunity Food Fix. Donna obtained her Doctorate in Pharmacy and then was diagnosed with Hashimotos in 2015. Through her journey, she has learned the importance of the balance between nutrition and medicine that impacts disease.
Donna will be sharing with us tips on how to reduce inflammation, boost immunity, heal the gut and more.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How to make lifestyle and dietary changes to reduce inflammation
- How to construct a diet plan that works for you
- Which foods increase immunity, heal the gut and prevent disease
- How to incorporate nutrition into your health care routine
Don't miss out on this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast - Immunity Food Fix. Tune in for the tools, tips, and tricks of how Donna has been able to keep her immune system balanced and healthy.
(00:00): Do you know how the food you eat impacts your immune system function? Stay tuned and find out what foods you should be eating and not eating to impact your immune system positively.
(00:14): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40 in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:07): Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kiran. Thank you so much for joining me today. My guest is Donna Mazzola and she is Dr. Autoimmune Girl and she is super passionate about how what you eat impacts your immune system. Did you know that what you put in your mouth impacts whether you get sick or not? Or do you know whether you get the flu or not, how severe covid infection is and all these other things? Probably not. Most people aren't aware that maybe that sticky bun could be the reason why you got the flu this year and nobody else did. Not saying it's the only cause, but it's a big contributor because the food you eat really programs. What is your body? Your body is your food body. Literally you are what you eat and that means your immune system too.
(02:03): So we're gonna get into that today. And your immune system and food also interact with your hormones. So you always hear me bring everything back to your hormones and how it relates to your hormones cuz this is the foundation of how you function as a, as a female, as a woman. And we're gonna get into that in detail. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Donna and then we're gonna get into it. So Donna is a pharmacist. She's fascinated with natural healing and preventative care. She has a doctorate in pharmacy, but she realizes that although medicine has a place in healing, it's really the balance between nutrition and medicine that impacts disease. And this fascination became an in obsession for her after a personal diagnosis of Hashimotos in 2015. And her disease pushed her to embark on a journey to seek answers and identify the root cause related to the rise in autoimmune and other inflammatory related chronic conditions.
(03:07): So on her journey, she obtained a master's degree in functional medicine and human nutrition and she birthed Dr. Autoimmune Girl. And that really is her vehicle to share her passion with people, to empower them with the knowledge, to take control of their health. Her mission is to educate the world on the healing powers of food. Yes, the food you eat several times a day has the power to heal you and give meaning to the concept of food as medicine. Her blog is dr autoimmune girl.com. She shares reputable scientific information related nutrition and health there and she's the author of Immunity Food Fix Guide to a hundred Superfoods and Nutrition Hacks to Reverse Inflammation, prevent Illness, and Boost your Immunity. Welcome Donna to the podcast.
(03:59): Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
(04:00): Yeah, I'm super excited to talk with you about immunity and fixing it with what you eat because I think for a lot of people they're just not aware that what they eat has anything to do with their immune system. So can you start by maybe helping everybody understand the
(04:18): Relationship? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think my, one of my favorite things to say is, you know what you eat matters because it does and it, it matters on so many levels. And I think over the past couple years people have learned, you know, whether it was the correct information or misinformation more about their immune system than they ever have before. And so I think this book that I wrote with the Immunity Food Fix came out at the right time really with the idea to educate people and number one, what the immune system is and how it functions. And it's extremely complex, but at the root of so much of it, what I really want people to really understand is inflammation at the root of your immune system and reducing inflammation through food in order to boost your immune system and boost your health. You know, it's complicated but I feel like if we can center around inflammation as kind of that central point, there's a, people can gain a deeper understanding on what we mean to boost our immunity through, through what we eat.
(05:29): Yeah. So let's start there with inflammation, how I think people hear about that term and they kind of have a nebulous idea of what it is. So maybe if you could start by helping everybody understand what is inflammation, why is it problematic and how it relates to the immune system, that would be
(05:47): Great. Yeah. So inflammation, when we hear it, we automatically think negative. But inflammation, when you truly think about it, is a positive response that our body is, is having. So if our body is within complete homeostasis, imbalanced, there is an event that occurs, let's say you cut your finger or you catch a cold, you have a virus, your immune system upregulates at that point and says, ah, there's something going on, we need to fix it. So it ink, it boosts, it like sends out the soldiers right to fight, to fix what's going on. And those soldiers fighting are all these inflammatory cytokines that are released. Right. To that point, once that problem is fixed, those soldiers should go back to their base and mm-hmm , the inflammatory response should be decreased. Unfortunately, we don't live in this homeostasis and especially from the start of, I really feel like the industrial revolution, right?
(06:46): Where we've started to process our foods, we have convenient foods, we live in extremely stressful lifestyle, we never turn off that inflammatory response. Mm-hmm . And so we are living in what we call this chronic inflammation in that your immune system is always on, which it's not supposed to be. It's always fighting something because there's something foreign going out in our body. And whether that's, you know, linking our gut health, you know, we hear the term leaky gut where we have, you know, an inflammatory response that occurs within the bloodstream. You know these, the stress response as I talked about, you have an inflammatory response going on, lack of sleep, you know, where we don't give our body the ability to kind of regenerate itself. You have an inflammatory response. And of course, you know, linking all of this together, it goes back to a lot of it is the food and nutrition.
(07:41): Food and nutrition is at the center of all that. And it's not just about the fact that we are consuming inflammatory foods, like I mentioned, like the processed foods, processed sugars, high sugar intake, saturated fats that are causing this inflammatory response. We're also not consuming the anti-inflammatory foods that come from whole foods, anything from the earth, right? Plant-based food mm-hmm . And not to say anything wrong with, you know, animal protein or things like that, but really just thinking about the benefits and the an anti-inflammatory benefits of plant-based foods. It's like we have such a mismatch with the food, you know, and the dietary lifestyle by which we live today.
(08:27): Right. So I know some people are listening and they're thinking, well Dr. Donna's a pharmacist, why is she talking about diet? My pharmacist never talks to me about diet when I go to the pharmacy. And I think that's a a valid question. So maybe we even back up and can you tell everyone how you got involved with looking at immune system function and diet? Cuz I know you have a very personal story around that.
(08:56): Yeah, so I mean, when I was started in clinical practice probably about 20 years ago, I was doing a lot with patients with chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart failure, C O P D, and really trying to help them manage their medication as a pharmacist. But what I found in many of my consultations was that I was focusing on nutrition. I was focusing on what they could do to potentially reduce their medication, you know, and feel better. And so I realized at that time that that was my true passion. There's a time in place for medicine, but it's the balance between nutrition and medicine that's critical. That's really how I practiced. And I didn't have any formal training in nutrition, but you know, you learn a little bit about it through conventional mm-hmm. , you know, schooling. But it wasn't until my personal diagnosis with Hashimotos, which is an autoimmune thyroid disorder, that I took that leap to say, you know what, I have been helping many with chronic illness, but I've never connected the dots between an autoimmune disorder or the immune system and nutrition. And so I didn't know how to help myself mm-hmm. . And that's when I went back to school to obtain a master's in functional medicine and human nutrition. And the primary reason I did it was to help myself. I had no idea where it was gonna take me. And I didn't care because all I wanted to do was try to figure out why this happened to me and what I was doing wrong, because I thought that I lived a healthy life.
(10:34): So can you say more about that, Donna? Because I think there are a lot of people listening who also think that they lead a healthy life and they're really shocked to find when they find someone who can give them a root cause resolution approach or a functional approach that they're really not. So can you talk a little in a little more detail about what you considered was the healthy lifestyle you were living and what you
(10:57): Discovered? Yeah. So I would say I was probably over exercising, following all kinds of fad diets that really were chemically based, right? Like sugar alcohols, the fat free movement, you know, all of that. I fell into all those traps, um, and tried all kinds of things. I wasn't sleeping right. Meditation and mindfulness was not even something I considered or understood, you know, working long hours. I was young, so, you know, partying, drinking, all that stuff, you know, everything. When I look back I'm like, my gosh, I thought I was so healthy and yet everything I was doing was so inflammatory on the body and no wonder I developed this. But on top of that, like I think about the types of foods that I was eating and the type of life that I lived and what it did to my gut. And I know now looking back based on like symptoms that I've had that I ignored and things like that, that you know, the gut was central to what led to this development and autoimmune disease.
(12:06): Mm-hmm. . And so it was kind of like, I go back and I can connect the dots now, but at that time I had no idea and I was thinking I'm super healthy and nothing, you know, bulletproof, nothing can happen to me. And then it's kind of like an awakening. Gosh, there's so much we don't know. And in conventional medicine there's so much we are not taught about how to get this. So I actually am proud of the fact that I have both sides because I, like I said there, I do believe there's a place for western medicine. You know, many times it, it can save lives, but it's not for everything. And I think there are opportunities where prevention is key and for probably majority of chronic illness, it's in our hands, right? We can prevent it, we can reverse it, and we just have to understand the why behind it, the how and implement it.
(12:59): Yeah. I think you're so right. We, you know, let's not throw out mainstream medicine. We need it, we need our drugs, we need our surgery. But there's so much more that we can do. And I love that in your book you really focus on the things that need to be done, where you need to reduce your inflammation, you cover that, boost your immunity, heal your gut, and prevent disease. So when you discovered this and you got your master's, you were able to reverse your hashimo Hashimotos,
(13:26): It's been what now? Probably seven years on this journey. Mm-hmm. and I haven't completely been able to reduce my antibodies, um, my Hashimotos to zero , but I've been able to bring them down from what it was, 2,500 antibodies, which is a measure of inflammation, truly, if that's probably the simplest way of putting it down to 200. And it's a constant learning that I continue to implement. And everybody's different. You know, there's, I have some people who have implemented and yeah, within a couple years they've been able to completely reverse. And I think we all start at a different place, which is important to understand. And everybody's baseline is different. And so not everybody's story is gonna be the same and not everyone's gonna, you know, kind of reach that finish line at the same time. And sometimes it may be a much longer marathon than someone else, but it's just kind of understanding that it's progress, it's not perfection.
(14:26): Yeah. And you know, for everybody listening, you might not be aware of what the numbers mean with Hashimoto's antibodies, but that's a tremendous amazing difference. from 2,500 down to 200 is incredible and it's really unheard of in mainstream medicine. So everyone should take that very seriously as a pretty dramatic improvement. Um, that is not medication related. You know, it's lifestyle related and everybody listening, they hear me drive home that autoimmune disease when it comes to hormones has to do with a, it's a cortisol problem and it's a gut problem, right? A foot on the accelerator of gut inflammation and then cortisol is not breaking that inflammation. And so that's really at the basis of it. Why is this such an important topic for women over 40, do
(15:16): You think? Oh my gosh, I could talk about this for the next five hours. . So Hashimotos is in my mind an epidemic problem right now. And for women especially over 40. Well, so there's two main times in a woman's life that we're seeing a rise in Hashimoto's diagnoses, and that's postpartum. So after they have a child and mm-hmm post-menopause or in through the menopause phase, and when you think about hormones and you know, they're all connected and your thyroid hormone works with your sex hormones, right? And so when there's an imbalance in your hormones, there's opportunity for Hashimotos to develop. And so that imbalance between estrogen and progesterone kind of can impact the development of thyroid disorder. And so that we do see that a lot postpartum and probably the majority happened. That's what happened to me, um, after I had kids. Um, that's when I, um, developed Hashimotos.
(16:25): But then I also think that women need to be aware, especially if they're trying to conceive that your thyroid hormone is ex incredibly important in the conception as well as during pregnancy for the health of the fetus. And I think that this is not talked about enough. And I've had women who finally have their provider check A T S H and their thyroid hormone and identify that that's the reason why they're not able to conceive. And once they, you know, sometimes need treatment and they're able to conceive, it's recognizing the importance of especially someone who has Hashimotos once you're pregnant, the importance of ensuring that you are getting enough thyroid hormone for yourself and for your fetus, for that fetal development, especially early on in the pregnancy. So I think for women across the stage, right? So like if you're older, you know, you're listening to this and maybe you have a daughter or a cousin or somebody and like you can share this information with, or you know, maybe you're going through menopause and you can start recognizing there's differences in shifts. Like being in tune with our body to identify what's going on can be life changing because carrying those symptoms, it should not be our baseline. It should not be the norm. And we should be able to reverse that so that we feel our best self, especially as we age and we as we're getting older.
(17:51): I think it's so true what you're saying. I love these quotes that you shared with me. All you have is your health. Uh, when I talk to women and they are concerned about their health, I have them do this exercise. Maybe you've worked with women to do this too, where I have them kind of itemize where they spend their time, where they spend their money in their lives. And everybody will say that their health is their number one priority, but when they look at the actual numbers of where they're spending their time and their money, they spend the least money and the least time on their health. Mm-hmm. . So I always try to help them see that their health is their greatest asset. It's not an expense to be mitigated. And what does that really mean to you? All you have is your health.
(18:34): I mean, think about it, at the end of the day, you could think you're living your best life. And then I say that because of how I felt and I was, you know, seven years ago, a lot younger when I was diagnosed. And as soon as I received that diagnosis, while it wasn't something terminal, I still felt like, oh my gosh, I am losing my health. And like you take a step back and reflect and put things into perspective on what's important. And ultimately it's keeping myself healthy so I can enjoy the things in life, my family, the memories, all of it. And I think even through the pandemic, people realize that, right? It's like getting sick. You know, whe whether it be acute or chronic makes you take a step back and reflect that that's all you really have. Because once you lose your health, you, you lose it all. Really.
(19:28): I know it's so true. And , you know, when women tell me, I ask them, well, what's your, your most valuable asset? And they're like, my house, my job, my car. And I go, well, when you lose your help, that's when you're, your the dash on your tombstone ends and then you lose all that. You lose your house, you lose your car, you lose everything. So do you really think that's your priority? So I think it's important to get focused on this. There's so many women I come across and they say, oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Oh, I'll worry about what I'm eating later. And you know, sometimes it's too late is really too late. So I love that you've created this resource for women that they can start and men they can start working on this. Now, what would be some of your favorite, I know that your book has lots of like 150 citations, a hundred and you cover a hundred superfoods and nutrition hacks. What are some of your favorite ones?
(20:23): Honestly, my favorite foods, I think I'll start with one that's super personal to me. Cause when I talked about earlier, reducing my antibodies, reducing inflammation in the body, I really attribute that to the daily intake of turmeric. And that is really the king of anti-inflammatory foods. You know, it blocks a particular pathway that works similar to the pathway that we use Motrin or ibuprofen, you know, in order to reduce inflammation. And so the intake of that daily has really changed my life. So I think that's a top favorite for me. Another one, I mean I love the root vegetables and obviously turmeric is a ru vegetable of itself, but carrots are another big one. And as we consider hormone health, carrots have a special ability to help detox estrogen from the body. And so obviously, you know, keeping that balance within our hormones is critical.
(21:25): And you know, when there's an excess amount, you feel it, that's when those symptoms arise. And so I found that, you know, consuming raw carrots, especially kind of like a week before my cycle helps to reduce all symptoms and kind of detox that estrogen out. So I love carrots. Once I learned that and try to, I was like, ah, this really works. Uh, food is magical. So those are big. And then, you know, really thinking about seeds as well, just because there's such, there's just such a super food when you think about a seed of a plant grows the entire plant. So it's like this powerhouse. So when you think about when you consume the seeds, all the HealthPRO promoting benefits that you get from it. So you just think about it that way. You know, anything from chia seeds, flax seeds, sunflower, hemp, pumpkin, all of it.
(22:20): And we talk about all of it in the book. They all have different benefits, but you know, it's that balance of the, the good fats that reduce inflammation that kind of help rebalance that inflammatory fats that's in our body. Mm-hmm. kind of balancing out the omega three and six considering seeds, there's also benefits for seeds on your hormones as well. And so I think if I were, I would pick that entire chapter and you know, turmeric and carrots have been super important, but it's so hard to pick just any, and as you go through the book, it's all put together by color. And so you can, what I will take give you is like kind of how we categorize 'em by color in that your red foods are your anti-inflammatory, your orange are more hormone regulating. Yellow foods focus on digestion. The green are for detox, and purple foods are more that antioxidant benefit. So based on that you can probably plug in your favorite foods and identify if you're kind of hitting all five of those pillars.
(23:23): So I love that, that you divided it up by color. That makes such sense. And it sounds like it hits all of the categories. And we're gonna have a link to your website. People can purchase your book there and then they can get some bonuses too. Do you wanna tell them a little bit about that?
(23:42): Yeah, absolutely. So you could, could purchase the book and then there's directions on how to obtain a micronutrient guide and its impact on the immune system. So the micronutrients are like your vitamins and minerals that are found in foods and how those impact your immune system. So we didn't get into all the details, but you know, the macronutrients in whole based foods, which are carbs, fats, and proteins have an impact on your immune system. And then that balance of the various micronutrients, whether it be vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, the composition of all of those, you know, and how you're consuming them through Whole Foods helps support your immune system. And so there is a guide on the various micronutrients that help support your immune system.
(24:29): Okay, awesome. And the instructions on how to get those bonuses is on the website and we will have the link in the show notes, so you can go there and look at it. What would you say would be a take action plan for anyone listening who's like, okay, I get it, Dr. Donna, I need to work on my immune system. I need to work on reducing inflammation, healing my gut. Where should they start?
(24:53): I mean, I think you kind of have to go with the la the low hanging fruit, and to expect anybody to kind of reverse their entire lifestyle and shift over anight is unrealistic. I think what's important is to remember that, you know, living your best health as a marathon and not a sprint. You know, I talked about my own personal journey, it's been seven years and I'm not perfect either. Like it, you know, it takes one day, one month, one year at a time to live your best life. So for some food is the place to start. You know, as I mentioned, the various kind of points of focus. Maybe it's sleep, maybe it's making sure you get eight to nine hours of sleep every night. You know, turning off that Netflix and getting to bed earlier. Maybe it's identifying how to mitigate stress, recognizing when it's happening, incorporating meditation before bed just for 10 minutes while you sleep.
(25:47): Seeing what that does to your sleep. You know, going, going through a meditation for 10 minutes and seeing how deep you fall into a sleep that night and wake up restored. Maybe that's life changing for you. If it's removing some inflammatory foods, maybe you can't tackle and hit every single anti-inflammatory food that we talk about, but maybe you're gonna remove some inflammatory foods like processed sugar, removing saturated fats, not eating, carry out, you know, reducing that to maybe one day a week. But if you do wanna go after it and go beg, you know, and really change your lifestyle and your diet, not only focus on removing those inflammatory foods, but the goal to consume nine to 12 servings of whole plant-based foods a day. And that's kinda what we talk about in the book. And that's not just fruits and vegetables, you know, plant-based foods include, as we talked about, the seeds, the oils, the nuts, the herbs that you cook with. All of that is plant-based food. So really tracking that and ensuring you're consuming that much in order to support that anti-inflammatory response in the body. So I gave a lot there. Mm-hmm. , but I think everybody's different. And that's okay. But you have to start somewhere. And so, you know, whatever works. But I always say if you start somewhere, you recognize how you feel and once you start to feel better, you don't wanna go back to where you were.
(27:10): Yeah. You know, I hear you so loud and clear and I, a woman is coming to mind who I've been working with, and she says, well, I guess I'm not feeling bad enough to do all the things that I need to do. So I think there's some people listening who are thinking, that sounds like a whole lot, Donna, you want me to sleep? You want me to eat seeds? You want me to change my diet? You want me to restrict the sugar? Like, that's so much. And they, they'll say to themselves, well, I don't have a Hashimoto's autoimmune diagnosis, I don't have this, I don't have that. And so it seems like a lot. So what do you say to someone who's this, these thoughts are running through her mind.
(27:51): I say just start with one, start with one and grow from there. Right? Like, that's what we mean by it's a marathon. If it were a sprint, you would implement all those things that I just said at one time, but it's not a sprint. Mm-hmm. , you know, and it's a marathon. And so start with one, you know, maybe for the next 30 days you're gonna prioritize your sleep and you're gonna see how that changes your energy and changes how you feel. Then the next 30 days after that, you are gonna incorporate daily movement and it's just gonna be something you like. And you're gonna see how that, right. So now you're building on it. Maybe it's another three, four months before you start to really wanting to prioritize your diet and looking at what you're doing. You know, maybe you wanna master sleeping, right? And you know, maybe having, even if it's 15 minutes of movement in the mornings, fine, right?
(28:37): And so everyone's different. As I said, some people maybe they just focus on sleep for a whole year before they take it to the next step. That's fine. But recognizing that you're making progress in the right direction and kind of making those changes as you see fit and as you will be consistent with them. Because I tell you what you have to do, it's doesn't work. It's has to come from the person from within and recognizing what they can handle. Because consistency is key. And if you can't handle it, then that's where inconsistency comes up.
(29:11): I think that is so important, what you just said, , you've gotta make it work for you. If it doesn't work for you, you're not gonna do it. And that equals failure. So you've gotta make it work for you and start with one thing. And if you just pick one thing, like Dr. Donna is saying, the the sleep, get that straight and then notice the benefits that you experience. I find that sometimes we become accustomed to a new norm and we don't even realize how bad it is until we get rid of that symptom, right? And then we go, wow, I didn't even realize how the lack of sleep was affecting me. Mm-hmm. . So I'm gonna encourage everybody listening to just pick one thing you can start working on. Definitely go to Dr. Donna's website, download her, get her book, get the bonuses, start working with the a hundred Super foods.
(30:02): Maybe that'll be your one thing. Or maybe you're gonna start working with sleep. You could even pick, make it fun and pick the color that you wanna start with, with the foods like she described. What resonates most with you. I really think we all have an innate knowledge of, of what's best. So maybe you need to work on your detox or maybe you need to work on your antioxidation. So pick that. We'll have the link in the show notes. And thank you so much Dr. Donna for joining us today and for this wonderful resource that you've created. Thank you. It's been my pleasure. And thank you all for listening to another episode of The Hormone and Prescription with Dr. Kiran. Hopefully you have learned something today that will help you change your health and change your life for the better. I look forward to hearing about it on social media. Join me on Facebook or Instagram at kirin dunston md and tell me all about it. Wanna hear about your wins and your discoveries. Thanks for joining me, and I'll see you next week for another episode. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.
(30:58): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Are you struggling with self-care, feeling blocked from progress, and in need of a powerful reset?
Midlife is often when we tend to take our own needs for granted. But there's no better time than now to invest in yourself - and Deanna Hansen can help you do just that!
In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, Deanna reveals her secrets on how to unlock your body's full potential through Fluid Isometrics and Block Therapy - a revolutionary practice that combines therapy, exercise, and meditation into one. Hear Deanna explain the importance of the fascia system, and learn how to melt away adhesions, scar tissue, and more so you can get back on track to unlocking your fullest potential!
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How Fluid Isometrics and Block Therapy works
- The importance of the fascia system
- How to melt away adhesions and scar tissue
- Ways to awaken cells blocked from blood and oxygen
- Tips on how to reset your body for maximum success
Don't miss out on this opportunity – tune in now as Deanna Hansen shows you the missing link in your self-care journey. Let's get you feeling your best, and take back control of your health!
(00:00): Ralph Waldo Emerson said, don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams. In this episode, we're gonna cover a topic that relates exactly to this. If you are being pushed by your problems, listen up. But also, if you're being led by your dreams for health, that allows you to go there and do that. Stay tuned.
(00:23): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:16): Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. I think you're really gonna love my guest today. I know I say that, but I just do have the best guess on my podcast. I have to say they're super passionate, articulate, and they care so much about people and they've just leaned into the problems of women's health over 40 and found some extraordinary answers. And my guest today is no different. So I hope that you will help me welcome, Deanna. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about her and then we will get started. I first wanna start by saying, you know, I try to tie everything into hormones and this episode's no different. We're gonna tie what we're gonna talk about, which is fascia into hormones. And I know some of you're scratching your heads and going, how is that possible?
(02:11): And this isn't something I learned in my fellowship training even. It's something that I've learned by working with various practitioners over the years. But if your musculoskeletal system is wonky and almost all of us have wonky musculoskeletal systems, which includes fracture because of something, we deal with 24 7, 365, which is, I know you're thinking stress. It's not gravity, y'all, it's gravity. So gravity is constantly pulling on our tissues. And if we have maladaptive of moving and posturing in the world, which a lot of us do that are habitual, it can cause problems with your hormones and everything else. So we're going to jump into that. She also has a very spiritual Ben, which I love and that's important for hormones too. So we're gonna talk about this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson and just all things fascia and healing. So I'll tell you a little bit about Deanna, then we'll get started.
(03:09): So Deanna Hansen is the founder of Fluid Isometrics and Block Therapy, which is a body work practice that is therapy, exercise, and meditation all in one. She is the author of two books. One is Fascia Decompression, the Missing Link in Self Care. And this totally is the missing link in almost everyone's self care cuz no one's addressing it. And another book called Unblock Your Body, how Fascia Decompression is the Missing Link in Healing. So she's a retired athletic therapist after 25 years. It's kind of like a physiotherapist or physical therapist in the state. She's from Canada and she worked with the general population and just started seeing the same problems, right? Chronic pain, acute injuries, back pain, migraines, all the things when you think of when you think of physical therapy or physiotherapist. And she really leaned into the questions and it comes down to fascia, which a lot of people aren't talking about.
(04:12): So fascia is not just kind of something that hangs your muscles on your bones, it really surrounds every cell. We're gonna talk about that. But what you don't know about fascia could really cause misery for you. And we don't want that. We want you to have hormonal prosperity, physical prosperity, life prosperity. So that is everything about Deanna and welcome Deanna to the podcast. Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here sharing with your, with your people. So I'm excited to talk about this topic. I first learned about the issue of the musculoskeletal system being involved with metabolic functional disturbances, actually from a chiropractor in Atlanta who was pretty astute. This was not covered in my fellowship training in antiaging, metabolic, and functional medicine. And really he said, well, you know, if there's skeletal misalignment, muscular fascial, it can distort the blood vessels, the nerves, everything.
(05:16): And then nothing functions well including your hormones. So this is a part of having great hormone function and great everything function in the body. So I'm excited to talk to you because I don't think that the majority of people are aware of this and they pretty much totally neglect it. So how did you come to be an expert in this field? I know you had 25 years as an athletic trainer and healer, so can you talk about your journey to developing the programs and tools that you've developed for people to address these fascial musculoskeletal issues? Absolutely.
(05:56): So I'm 53 years old now and when I was 30 years old, I had already been five years into my athletic therapy practice and I always focused on deep tissue work. So using my hands, diving into people's bodies. And by now I've spent well over 60,000 hours working on other people's fascia or my own to really understand this incredible unique system. And what it really comes down to is the understanding of how to put the space back into the body through fascia decompression. So this started for me at the age of 30 when I had made some pretty significant changes in my life and started having severe anxiety attacks around this. At the time I was 50 pounds overweight, I was struggling with anxiety, depression, chronic pain. And even though I had a successful practice, my own personal life was in absolute chaos. So it made some big changes.
(06:50): And as a result of those changes, I started having really severe anxiety attacks. And this one anxiety attack in particular was the seat of everything to come because in that moment I thought I was gonna die. I was literally frozen in fear and I couldn't find my breath. I intuitively dove my hand into my abdomen, let out a gasp, which connected me to the moment. But I also connected to pain, which I didn't even recognize I had deep within because I hated this part of my body. I had a lot of shame there. That was where I carried the majority of my weight. So as I'm intuitively moving my hand around that tissue, I also recognized it was full of scar tissue even though I didn't have any injury or surgery in that space. So this gave me a number of aha understandings as to why when I'm coming home from a five mile run dripping wet with sweat, my belly would still feel cold.
(07:41): So after that first night of about 30, 45 minutes of of working on myself, I felt really calm. Woke up the next day, still felt really calm, which was very unusual for me that night, after working on patients all day, I came back, I did a similar thing to see what was happening. And after another session of me doing that, when I stood up, I felt taller and I went and I looked at myself in the mirror and I literally began to cry. My belly was flatter than it had looked in years. And I did the work I was doing at times 400 sit ups a day, aerobics, tibo, dieting. All of the things that I was trained as an athletic therapist to do to get a fit looking body actually took me in the opposite direction. So to have within two days of just doing this literally at my fingertips, it became what I started to do every day when I came home from work.
(08:28): So after two weeks, my chronic low back pain was going away and I started having all of these other changes happening to me. So I started working on my patients in a similar way and I was having incredible results with them. Shortly after that I started attracting therapists to learn my technique, which I actually call fluid isometrics. The technique I teach therapists to do on patients. But it was my real passion, sorry. Yeah, it was my real passion to teach people self care. So I did try initially teaching people how to use their hands on their own body, but there's a lot of limiting factors to that. So about 12 years ago, that was when block therapy came to be.
(09:05): Okay, great. So what kinds of things were you seeing people for? What kinds of maladies were they having that you were gathering this information about the procedures that you've now created, the processes, what kinds of problems were they having? And if you wanna share some stories about patients, that would be.
(09:27): Great. Initially it was the typical things that people would be seeing me for, like chronic low back pain, neck pain, migraines, those kinds of things, athletic injuries as well. And because I switched how I started approaching things with people, they were sharing with me these additional benefits they were receiving. So for example, if I was working for somebody with, with back pain and I was working in their abdomen, then they were sharing with me that they were having digestive issue improvements or absolutely anything there, their blood pressure was going down. It became this holistic approach and understanding as a result of the work that I was doing. In fact, there was a gentleman that shared that he had erectile dysfunction and as a result of working in that space, his sexual function was improving. So it, it started out as me basically treating for the typical things that I was treating and then patient sharing along the way.
(10:21): All of these other things that were happening as a result of that. And it's grown from there over the last 22 years. For me personally, I've completely changed my entire cellular structure. All the issues that I've ever had are are what? What's actually interesting is all the issues that I used to have are so far in the past that now I'm starting to experience 22 years later continuing positive changes that I continue to share with my community. So we have a gentleman in our community that has Parkinson's and he shared that this is the most impactful thing that he's ever done to help manage his neurological symptoms. We have people with fibromyalgia, with MS. People are here to control their size and shape. Right now I'm currently going through a 90 day trauma program. I had a two day trauma summit where I had 12 speakers and I've now put this into a process to teach people how to pull trauma up and out of the body. And we're having absolutely phenomenal results with this. So it's really anything and everything from anti-aging to chronic pain control, acute injury management disease, it cleans and heal and feeds, feeds the cells in the body.
(11:30): Okay, so let's back up a little bit because I think most people know what fascia is, but I know there's some people who don't and I always like to include everybody. So can you talk about what is fascia? What are the components of the musculoskeletal system? What does it do and why, what you experience might work? How does it function?
(11:52): I think I have a bit of a unique understanding of the fascia system. I did go to the world's first fascia conference that was held in har at Harvard in 2007. And I recognized at the time I was coming at the body from a different perspective. So the way that I see the fascia, it's the cell membrane of each and every cell interconnected through this fascist system. So I, I've heard anywhere from, we have 30 to a hundred trillion cells in the body. So each cell is literally connected through this system and the fascia is here to create stability but also mobility in the body. And it's the communication system between every single cell. So whether we're talking about bone nerves, blood vessels, muscles, fascia, IVAs, every single cell in the body and it's totally interconnected and really I see the issue is fascia decompression.
(12:40): So over our lifetime, under the force of gravity, it's constantly compressing us, pulling us down and we're dominant on one side. So we don't just compress linearly, we wind down over time and as the fascia is here to protect us and keep us upright, as we start tipping off balance, the fascia will grip and adhere to surrounding tissues and then all the way to the bone with a force up to 2000 pounds per square inch to create this stability within the body. However, that stability is also what creates the adhesions that block blood and oxygen flow to and from cells and create the aging process that we today experience as as normal. Even though in my view it isn't something that has to happen, it really is all about keeping the cells in their correct position and cells will migrate away from proper alignment under those negative forces over time. And again, that's what creates pain, aging and disease. And it really comes down to one of our foundational pieces which is proper diaphragmatic breathing. Do you want me to dive into this a little bit? Cuz this is a pretty fascinating part.
(13:45): Well hold on, we'll get to that cuz that is fascinating. But you know, as you're talking about the fascia, you know, connecting all the cells. So I remember back to medical school when we did anatomy lab and we had to dissect a cadaver. And I do think that most people have this concept of fascia, if they have any concept of at all, is that the musculoskeletal system is bones and then muscles that hang on these bones. And if we have any concept of fascia, it's like a canvas bag that envelopes each organ and maybe each muscle and attaches. But really what I learned when we did the anatomy cadaver dissection, you can really see this fine tissue that surrounds, like you said, every single cell in the body and maybe at the cellular level it's much more fine. But then as those cells group together in organs it becomes thicker.
(14:43): But it really is this kind of network that connects everything. So I love how you described that gravity is happening and that's what this chiropractor said. He's like we're all twisted , we're all twisted in some way if we lived any number of years on this planet, but then factor in their repetitive trauma like sitting at a keyboard and typing all day or what are more rep, you know, if you're a baseball player and you're constantly hitting on that one side or lifting heavy things repetitively or like I had to do surgery so I'm bending over constantly, you add all those insult and injury to the fascist story and then you really have a problem. But one thing I wanna dive into before the diaphragmatic breathing, which will be fascinating is you mentioned trauma and that's something I'm very interested in and you know, Bessel VanDerKolk and a lot of the Steven Levine and they all talk about trauma is stored in the tissues and the tissues they say is the fascia. And you talked about how this can help to release it. Can you talk a little bit more about this trauma connection?
(15:51): And, and that ties directly in with the breath. So pain, fear and stress cause us to reactively hold the breath. I just wanna bring my computer screen down here for a moment. So the diaphragm existing hair is a plate of muscle that moves up and down. When we inhale, it moves down. When we exhale it moves up. And if this, if we're properly aligned and this muscle is working as it should be, essentially we are feeding all cells in the body and we're able to remove the toxins away. However, that's not the reality for most people. The majority of people have fallen in, they've collapsed because they aren't diaphragmatic breathers. So this plate of muscle here to support the ribcage and everything above becomes weak, especially for me, like when I was young I was, I was trained to hold in your belly. So if we're not breathing from this space, we end up breathing through here and then this muscle becomes weak and it actually creates this collapse in through here.
(16:44): So now this plate of muscle that is designed to move up and down ends up becoming twisted and locked away. So it's like we have a frozen shoulder, so the body of course is designed to survive. So we're gonna be breathing, but breathing through the muscles of the upper chest is extremely different than breathing through the diaphragm. So pain, fear, and stress cause us to reactively hold the breath. If you look at an animal who survives an attack, they shake because they're getting rid of that energy. Where we as humans, we tend to go into freeze mode. So if 30 years ago I witnessed something awful or something happened to me and I go into that freeze mode and then I lock away, now the body is only feeding the amount of oxygen to the number of cells that the diaphragm is capable of feeding.
(17:31): And I, I read in Steven Cope and yoga and the quest for the true self that we see the body six times the oxygen when breathing die dramatically. And if you think about if we're deprived of oxygen for five minutes, we die. And all of our cells are like little mini versions of us in the big picture. So if, if we're breathing through this space, what are we only feeding maybe 10 to 20% of the cells in our body. So we're literally surviving as opposed to thriving. And then each cell, when it's fully inflated is like a balloon blown up. It almost def divides gravity, it's round, it glows take half of the arrow to balloon, it becomes wrinkled, it becomes dense and heavy. So that's what's happening to our cells over time when we're not consciously and fully breathing with this correct muscle, we're becoming depleted in this light oxygen and we become heavy and we start falling into that internal space. So we literally are losing space within our body as we twist and wind away from proper alignment. So to get back to that correct diaphragmatic breath is one of the pillars that we teach and it's in my view the most important thing that we should really be focusing on for health.
(18:40): It's so true and you know, I love Stephen Cope. I've actually met him, he's like one of my heroes. For anybody who doesn't know Stephen Cope, he's from Kapalo Yoga Center in Massachusetts. He's written many wonderful books that are about physical, emotional, mental, spiritual healing. And I think he's brilliant. So I highly recommend, I did wanna add just something to what you said. I loved everything you said, you know, for the longest time I had heard this theory about, you know, the issues are in the tissues, the trauma is stored in the fascia, but to my brain I I would say like how is that? I don't understand that, but I heard this great explanation and I can't think right in this moment who gave it, I'll have to look it up and get back to everyone. But you know, emotions are waves, they are chemical, biochemical waves.
19:29): And so like you said, we go into a freeze when we don't know how to handle overwhelming emotions and the waves aren't completed and that stored energy, energy is neither created nor destroyed, gets stored in the tissues because the emotional wave didn't get completed. Cuz we go into freeze and because we don't know how to process 'em like the animals do after the, you know, the gazelle is chased by the lion, it shakes and it discharges all that emotion. And so it is stuck there and I love how you tied that into the diaphragm and the breathing. So you said that's something that we address. What kinds of things can people do to improve their breathing? Cuz I know some people are thinking, yeah, if you, they pay attention, they're only breathing in their chest, you know, they're not breathing in their belly.
(20:18): So when we begin our, our block therapy journey, and we're gonna be sharing something at the end that people can use to start this process right away to give fascia decompression a try. So this is the tool first of all, this is, this is the block buddy and the reason it looks like this and is made of this material, this is made of bamboo. And we also use wood because this material and bone are similar in density. And because the root of the fascia is on the bone, it's a magnetic seal on the bone holding, holding us out of alignment with that, that 2000 pound per square inch force, which is just phenomenal to consider, there's that much internal pressure existing in the body. So again, when we are compressed, when we've fallen into this space, even the ribcage is literally holding with that magnetic seal.
(21:03): So we always start our block therapy process working in the ribcage. We start in the belly position to teach people where the breath should come from because if people have been breathing through the muscles of the upper chest for years, decades, which the majority have to even understand where this belly breath should come from, can really seem quite foreign. So when we lie on the block, we're teaching people, we're giving you that prop and then the instruction of inhaling into the blocks so you can really start to understand where to breathe from as well as pressure over time creates a heating of the tissue. So it's really all about melting the adhesions that develop between the layers of fascia that occur when we start tipping off balance. And, and that's the fascia's way of protecting us to keep us upright. So it's these adhesions that we're going after and through the process of melting, that's how we do this.
(21:59): So when we start breathing diaphragmatically, it's like we're turning on the body's internal furnace compared to using a space heater, which would be like breathing through the muscles of the upper chest. When we're breathing this way, we're really not keeping the body heated and the systems flowing optimally to all cells. So the combination of the pressure over time with the diaphragmatic breath heats from the internal and external perspective. And then we very effectively can release those adhesions. So we always start working core and ribcage because we wanna turn you the person into an efficient healer within yourself. And then from there we work through the entire body. So this is a full body practice. And what's really important to understand is there's cause sites to the pain. If you have frozen shoulder working on the shoulder is not gonna get rid of the frozen shoulder because first of all, the rib cage is the foundation for the shoulder joint.
(22:49): So as we fall out of alignment, that alignment is gonna pull the shoulder out of alignment and create issues. Here we need to address the foundations and what is the most important foundation are the calves in the feet. They're the furthest from the heat source, the engine. So the way the fascia rolls around the shins and manipulates the alignment of the ankles and the feet is really in my view, what is most important to look at when looking at the entire body. Because you can focus up through here for years, you start walking, you're gonna get pulled right back into the fascia pattern that is at the base of your body. So block therapy is a holistic approach where we create space through the process of lying on the tool for a minimum of three minutes. We inflate that space through teaching proper diaphragmatic breathing, and then we maintain that space through teaching proper postural foundations.
(23:41): And even the tongue is something we spend a lot of time teaching because it's here to help support the weight of the head, but people don't recognize it for that purpose. And most people's tongue is out of alignment, which creates asymmetry in the jaw, a forward head pull blocks, float of the brain to everything up the chain as well as blocking your major lymphatic drainage site. So it's really looking at the entire system, seeing what's pulling things out of alignment, what is causing those cells to migrate away, releasing that grip and shifting the body so the cells can migrate back. And then the goal is that every cell has optimal space and when it does absorbing the proper nutrients and releasing the toxins in this way is a system that works fluidly and with ease as opposed to struggling to try to feed the cells and to keep the tissue clean when we have these adhesions that are actually blocking the flow.
(24:34): Okay, wow, that's a great explanation. Yes. This concept of our jaw and our tongue. Oh my gosh. You know, if you really start looking at people and you start wa looking at their posture and how they walk and their mannerisms and how they talk, what shapes their mouth takes a lot of us are really crooked. You'll start to notice. And then the next question for me always is why I love to observe human nature, human health, human psychology. And just even when I started doing videos to post online, I would be horrified when I would watch them because my face, I was seeing opposite to what I see when I look in the mirror. So I didn't look like myself, but I really saw my own face for the first time and I saw how crooked I was. My jaw was, my mouth was crooked, and how I speak one side is very much higher than the other, the tongue positioning like you're saying. And so that's what really keyed me into this. And and there's a woman named Jana Danielson who's a, she's one of my instructors.
(25:44): She's one a, my stuff.
(25:46): Yeah. And she's brilliant. And you know, she was talking about how the jaw is your second pelvis, you know, it's your second cauldron. And at first I was like, what are you talking about? And then I thought about it and I thought, oh my gosh, she's so right. It they really are these two cauldrons in your body, one on the bottom, one on the top that frame these bookends to your most precious diaphragm. Like you're talking about your chest cavity and your abdominal cavity with your precious cargo of your, your organs in there. So all this to say, I just wanna highlight for everyone the extreme importance about what Deanna's talking about. I know you're not hearing this in a lot of places at all. In fact, you're not hearing it at your $30 HMO copay doctor, I know you're not. And this is why gone are the days when you can depend on them for everything.
(26:41): Because if you really wanna be optimally healthy, you've got to go outside and you've got to listen to podcasts like this and hear people like Diana talk who have really, she's put her life's work and brilliance into leaning into the problems that people have. The chronic pain, chronic back pain, which is the majority of us. In fact, I think it's estimated that 80% of us at some point in our lifetime will have back pain for a significant period of time. So chronic back pain or migraines or other musculoskeletal pain or even acute injuries, I've had my share of those. And if they're not rehabilitated properly, then it can cause long-term consequences. So this is really the missing piece to your self care plan. Yeah, you've gotta address your hormones. And I would say this is a foundational issue for the hormones. I always like to tie everything into hormones and I'd say none of your hormones are gonna work properly if your fascia isn't working properly because your cells can't communicate and hormones are the communicators in your body, so it's going to cause problems. Talk to them a little bit about you have this great gift for them that they can get started working on this. Now we're gonna have the link in the show notes, but you wanna tell them a little bit about it.
(27:58): So it's our block therapy sound clerk program. So there's nine videos through this program and the very first class, and we teach you using a rolled up towel so you can access it immediately. The rolled up towel is actually quite fabulous for fascia decompression because it's dense as well. And it really is all about that density. The very first class we work on the belly as well as the lower ribs, right where the diaphragm gets locked and held away. So in that very first class, you're going to experience the release of the fasc, the lift and the power of proper diaphragmatic breathing and how that changes how you feel inside your body. Then there's eight other classes where we teach you how to use the towel throughout your whole body as well as provide also instruction on that alignment piece so that you can really get a, a deep sense of what this work is all about.
(28:49): And then from there, if you choose to go to the next step, then that's our starter program where you actually get the tools, the block, and then we just take you and we, we dive in on a whole different level within the body, but it's all about fascia decompression. It's about taking those adhesions out of the body and undoing the seams of time which were created from gravity and from our unconscious postures and habits. So it really is about teaching you how to use your body the way that it was designed to be driven. And when I look at bodies when I'm assessing people and I'm looking at the foundation, I always see one, one side is like a flat tire. So if that right foot is pronounced more, oftentimes there's a bigger bunion on the one side, it's pulled further away from midline, it draws everything in the body into that system.
(29:35): And then what the body naturally does as a response to that is the opposite side goes into anchor mode. So we end up with this immense internal tension. So if you think about chronic back pain, as you were mentioning in the low back, whether it's a herniated disc or or whatever is going on when the entire structure is being pulled away, this is what's happening to the vertebrae as well. So we get the compression in through the front of the body, the disc shoots out the back, puts pressure on the nerves, and if we go and we just simply work that area, we're not addressing what's causing it in the first place. So that's the key with really understanding the cause sites and the pain sites in the body as well.
(30:12): Okay. Now I know there's some people listening who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Deanna, I'm just gonna go to the chiropractor, they'll fix it. , what do you say to...
(30:20): That? I'm a huge advocate of chiropractics. I I love doing it as well. However, if, if we're not going to be addressing what is pulling the spine out of alignment, in my view, those adjustments aren't going to help deal a ton with people with scoliosis. And I've really learned that scoliosis is a function of what the limbs are doing. The spine is simply the response to those external forces of your limbs pulling your spine basically in four different directions. So again, chiropractics are amazing, but without addressing the fascist system with that, then it's, it's not gonna hold in the same way because those forces, again, those 2000 pound per square inch forces, that's what we're, that's what we're dealing with. And I think it's different today than say 50 years ago. I was on a podcast where it was mentioned that 144,000 toxins are in the world today compared to in the fifties.
(31:10): So we're dirtier or like our whole fish net, we're so dirty, we, we are so dirty, so we're stickier. The fascia, like if you had a fish net in fast flowing clean water for a month and you pull it out, you might have a few leaves, a little gunk stuck on it, but you put it in a bog for a month and you pull it out, it's covered in yuck, it's sticky, it's gluey. And that's how I feel our fascist system is today. So we need something a little more, I don't ever like to use the word forceful because I'm not about forcing the body, but persuasive in order to free up what's happening in the body so that energy can flow through properly. So in past I think things like acupuncture, reflexology would've been far more effective than they are today because of the dirty, sticky nature of our, of our
(31:53): Systems. Mm-Hmm. , you know, the other having been, I've gone to plenty of chiropractors in my life and, and I think it's so true that the bones become aligned. The, the root cause is not the bones being misaligned, right? The root cause of misaligned bones is not misaligned bones, it's misaligned fascia and misaligned muscle muscles that are pulling the bones out of alignment. So if you don't address the root cause, just like if you don't address the root cause of your hormone problems, you're probably not gonna get the results that you could get. I mean, you can go to the chiropractor and they can adjust your spine and your legs and every joint and bone in your body, but it's probably just gonna get pulled back out because those muscles and fascia are pulling them in habitual misaligned waves. So I think it's really key to get at the root.
(32:43): Yes. And we did a discussion with Gil Headley, an anatomist. I first watched his fuzz speech back, I think it was probably around 2007, where through cadavers he really learned about the adhesions that develop between the layers of fascia. And then it was about eight months ago that we did a discussion with him. So he of course along his journey has dove much deeper into the fascia system and he started talking about the par fascia, which is what we actually address in block therapy. And he really did see it as being the connection between each and every cell within the entire body. So it was just fascinating to be able to put an actual term to what we address in fashion because a lot of people do think it's the casing and it's, it's so much like it, it innovates absolutely everything.
(33:29): You know, I, it's kind of like to me, if you've ever eaten the pomegranate Yes. Right. And you know how the seeds each have their own little compartment and the structure of the pomegranate wraps around the whole thing. It's kind of like that. And I had to real quick pull up Gill Headley buzz speech. I'm gonna have to watch this on YouTube, but that's a great descriptor for this tissue. I mean, if you really pay attention, if you, if you're cooking animal protein and you really dissect it, you can see the fuzz. So it's there for sure. So you had shared a few quotes with me before we started that I absolutely love that. I wanna talk about, because I think that there are a lot of people listening who are feeling pretty hopeless about their health right now. And I really want to give them hope because like you described where you were in your thirties with your health and your life, it was kind of a mess, right? .
(34:25): And I was there in my forties, a big old disaster show. And now look at you now you guys can't see her, but she's absolutely vibrant and glowing and I'm certainly not the same person I was back in my forties. So this quote from Ralph Waldo Amerson, don't be pushed by your problems, be led by your dreams, I think really speaks to that. I know I was pushed by my problems, I'm sure you were too, but at some point when I heard some truth, I could be led by my dreams. Did that happen for you?
(34:59): Absolutely. This, this whole journey began as something that happened to me. It wasn't something I thought up. So along the way, as I was really recognizing how profound this was in helping people heal themselves, I had a lot of my own personal, like, why, why am I supposed to figure this out? And how am I supposed to get this out into the world and, and develop a business around this? And I always trusted the fact that I had been given something beyond Deanna and I had absolute faith in my dreams that I would get this out and I would find the path as I just kept moving forward with that. And that's what's happened. And it is 22 years in. So it certainly was not an overnight success by any stretch. But I never lost faith because I always trusted what I was given to share with people. And I always knew that as long as I stay true to my intention of helping people, then I'll find that path and the right people will come into my life when those moments are necessary. And now I have a team of 17 people helping to bring this out into the world and 240 teachers globally. So we're, we're still, I feel very much at the starting point of things, but it really was through the dream of this book becoming a reality that has led me to that reality. Mm-Hmm
(36:19): . Yeah. And the other quote from what William Shakespeare, the meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. And I really believe that we each have a gift that only we can bring to the world. And that if we don't feel our best, we're just sitting on our. We can't make it into an asset that we can bring to the world. So hopefully you've heard something here today that you will put into action. You know, I love trying to be educational and, and, and a little bit entertaining, but truly if you don't put these tools into action, they can't do anything for you. So I'm gonna challenge everyone to click the link in the show note and get Deanna's free gift. I'm for sure gonna get it. Cause I haven't done work quite like this. And so I'm gonna do it. And let's see where we can get, how we can improve our fascia and our fuzz and thereby improve the oxygenation and blood flow to our tissues, alignment of our musculoskeletal system, which is gonna improve our hormone balance. And that's what this podcast is all about. So thank you Deanna, so much for sharing your brilliance and your passion with us. Anything else you'd like to share with everyone before we wrap up?
(37:41): I just wanna say thank you so much again for this opportunity to share. And if there's one thing that I love to say to people, especially us women, first and foremost, be kind to yourselves and be kind to yourself because we beat ourselves up to help everybody else, family, workers, whatever that is. And I truly believe if we can give ourselves a little bit of time and attention and love, then it's exponential in how we can actually impact the world and share our creative gifts.
(38:10): So true. And thank you all for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. Take action. Tell me about it on social media. I can't wait to hear the changes that you noticed just from the simple tweaks that you learned today. Thanks so much and I'll see you next week. Until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.
(38:30): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Block Therapy Sampler Program by Deanna Hansen -Start experiencing the life-changing benefits of fascia decompression. CLICK HERE.
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Have you ever been struggling to fall asleep at night and just can't seem to shut your mind off?
For midlife women, a good night's sleep is paramount for health and wellbeing. In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we have Devin Burke joining us to talk about techniques to Fall Asleep Fast, Stay Asleep, and Wake Up Refreshed!
Devin Burke is an international and TEDx speaker, the bestselling author of The Sleep Advantage, the founder of Sleep Science Academy, and one of the top health and sleep coaches in the world. His books, keynotes, programs and videos have inspired thousands of people to improve their sleep, energy, and life.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to Get the Most Out of Your Sleep EnvironmentSimple Techniques for Relaxation and Better SleepHow to Wake Up Feeling Refreshed and RejuvenatedAnd More!Don't miss out on this episode, as it's sure to give you the tools and tips needed to get a good night sleep, every single time. Thanks for listening and sweet dreams. :)
(00:00): You can't master what you don't measure. Devin Burke, we're talking all about sleep. Are you measuring it? Stay tuned.
(00:09): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an O B gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:02): Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Hormone Prescription Podcast with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today, we are talking about one of my favorite topics, what I call the nectar of life sleep. Are you getting enough? Everybody's worrying about do they have enough money? Do they have enough time? All you really need to worry about is, are you getting enough sleep? And then everything else will fall into place because it really is something you, you can't eat your way into good health without good sleep. You can't take a supplement exercise won't replace it. There's nothing that replaces sleep, but so many of us aren't getting enough. We have an epidemic of insomnia, particularly among women over 40. Why? Because of hormone imbalances. So my guest today, Devin Burke, is gonna come and shed some light on this topic. He's kind of a sleep maro, if you will, and he talks about you can't master what you don't measure.
(02:02): So we're gonna talk about how that applies to sleep. He's gonna teach you about what a bed buffer is and the 3 21 sleep protocol and a whole bunch of other things. You're really gonna enjoy this. He is lovely to speak with and listen to. And really I want you to start with thinking about this thought that he offered. How well you sleep dictates your entire next day. How will you sleep is dictated by how you start your day. So it's how you start anything. It's how you finish and sleep is at the beginning and end of every day. It's the bookend and it will make your life wonderful and your health prosperous and nourishing, or it will make you miserable as some of you can attest to. I know I personally went through all kinds of sleep phases during my unwellness phase. I went through the insomnia phase.
(03:01): Some nights I couldn't sleep at all, and then I went through the sleep 16 hours a day phase. So whatever phase you're in, we've got some answers for you. So I'll tell you a little bit about Devon and then we will get started. So, Devon is an international and TEDx speaker. He's the best selling author of the Sleep Advantage, the founder of Sleep Science Academy, and one of the top health and sleep coaches in the world. His book's, keynotes, programs and videos have inspired thousands of people to improve their sleep, energy and life. Welcome Devon. Thanks.
(03:35): For having me. So,
(03:36): So I am super excited to talk about one of my favorite topics sleep because I call it the nectar of life. And if you don't have good sleep, you're just not gonna be healthy or happy and you're not , you're not gonna really live your life to the fullest. So I think it's super important. I think we underestimate it. I think that most women over 40 are not getting enough sleep. I know some women tell me, I'll sleep when I die. I don't need to sleep now. And so it's this whole process of re-education. So let's start, you're, you're a sleep expert and let's start with the most important thing. Why is sleep so important?
(04:15): Well, you started to really nail it. It affects every aspect of our life. There's not an aspect of our life that doesn't get negatively or positively affected from sleep. And so we could talk about your physical health, we could talk about your mental health, we could talk about your, you know, emotional health. Every single aspect of your life is affected by sleep. And so when people really get connected to that and they start to prioritize and protect it and, and start to optimize it, it becomes your experience. But it's, it's foundational for health. It's literally the foundation that extraordinary health is built on. And so we could go down any, any rabbit hole on any one of those things, but it's, yeah, it's, there's not an area that's not affected by sleep. Well,
(05:01): Let's talk about those areas and let's, let's dive into why it's so foundational. I have found in 30 years of working with women that if they don't understand, if people don't understand the importance of what you're asking them to do, and if you're asking someone to take seven to nine hours of their day every day of their life to spend sleeping, which is in America, is considered nonproductive, they've gotta have a really good reason to do that. And if you don't give people a good reason, they're just not gonna do it. So I think it's important to, let's dive into what are all the systems that are affected? What's happening when you sleep? Why is this crucial?
(05:41): Yeah, so first and foremost, when we don't sleep, you know, it's, it affects our, our longevity. So we get, we, let's start there. You know, there's so many studies now that show that sleep and longevity are connected. Meaning when we don't get enough sleep, we don't get in those deeper stages of sleep, the lymphatic system isn't activated. That's the lymph system in the brain and that's what clears out the beta amyloid, the, the towel, the plaque that builds up that creates Alzheimer's and dementia. So, you know, it's linked to when we're not getting the right amount of sleep. Heart disease, it's linked to diabetes, it's linked to obesity, it's linked literally to all of the big killers. Sleep is linked to. So when we're talking about if you wanna live a long, vibrant, healthy life, you need to sleep. Cuz it's literally, it is the, the very thing that when people sacrifice, that's when their health starts to fall apart. That's when you know, you start to go for the, the food that's full of sugar, the full, the food that's full of fat. People don't really understand how important sleep is until they're not getting enough of it.
(06:49): Right. And that's true. And I know some people are gonna hear this, okay Devin, it's not clearing the beta amyloid or plaque in my brain. I could get dementia and they, they're thinking, I don't have dementia. My doctor says I'm fine. It could lead to heart disease. I don't have heart disease. My doctor says I'm fine, it could lead to diabetes. They're thinking, I don't have obesity, my doctor says I'm fine, could lead to diabetes. Right. So I, you know, I know women, we, I've worked with them for years and we really discount because we're thinking I got 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, 365 days in a year and I've got to be a wife and a mom and a daughter and a sister and all the things at work at my job or profession. And so I do find even smokers, the data says that they discount the consequences cuz they think, I don't have emphysema, I don't have lung cancer. So I like that you hit on increased cravings of fat and sugar. I think you mentioned that will speak to some of you. So some of you having cravings for fatty comfort foods, sugar, latent carbohydrates, lack of sleep could be part of the problem, right, Devin?
(07:58): A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent. Girl in and leptin that, you know, those, the two, those two hormones that signal, you know, when we're hungry and when we're full they get totally outta whack. Insulin gets outta whack and you know, we get into the hormones there that kind of affect those cravings and the storage of fat around the midsection where most people don't want that fat and have, you know, I've seen people work out like crazy. I've seen them eat all of the, the, the right things and they still can't lose weight. And because, and then you ask them about their sleep and they're like, actually you know, I sleep 5, 4, 5 hours a night. And then when you kind of focus on optimizing that sleep, okay, let's see if we get you a little bit more deep rem sleep, let's see if we get you a little more delta to sleep, let's, let's get more hours in. And they start prioritizing and protecting sleep, all of a sudden the weight can start to come off because those hormones start to balance out. Cortisol goes, goes down, right? So for people that are looking to lose weight or to step, step into their best body, that sleep, sleep can help you do that. Yeah.
(08:58): So now you've got some people's attention,
(09:01): ,
(09:02): They're listening because these things, often the distance they're just discounting. But right now a lot of people listening are having exactly what you're talking about. They can't lose weight. Right? That's the plague of midlife and beyond for women. Women over 40 in particular. But all women struggle with this. So talking about growlin and leptin, we recently had a doctor on talking about those specifically as it relates to weight loss. So we won't go more into detail with that, but I hope you hear that Devin is saying that slave is related to you Growlin and if you didn't hear that episode, go back and listen to it. So I know one question that some people are probably having is, I think that I'm getting enough sleep, but how can I be sure? You mentioned getting enough REM sleep, there are different cycles of sleep. How can people know if they're getting enough, total enough of the different brainwave states, all the things about sleep, how can they know
(09:58): You can't master what you don't measure. And so we do have now awesome devices that help us get an idea of how much sleep we're getting, what stages of sleep we're in. Devices like the Aura ring or even the Apple Watch or a whoop strap. And none of these devices are a hundred percent accurate, but they're getting more accurate as the tech and the algorithms and the data. They get more data from their users. But it's so important I think for people to, if you're looking to improve something, you gotta measure it. You know, you can't just guess keeping a sleep journal or sleep diary, that's not accurate. I mean it's, it also can create anxiety around sleep. But measuring it, if you wanna improve your something, you need to measure it, you need to track it. And we use, at Sleep Science Academy, we use the Aura ring just we found that it's, it's the most accurate sleep tracking device that's out right now. And that can show you, hey you, you decided not to have that extra glass of wine. And you notice that okay, I was able to get away with one glass of wine but when I go to two or three it really affects my sleep quality or eating too late at night. You could kind of start to draw these conclusions of these behavioral changes that you're making during the day and how that affects your sleep at night. So measuring it is, is definitely a key if you wanna improve it. Yeah,
(11:14): I love that. I think it's called the Peterson principle where anything that's measured, even if you don't make any changes to it, will improve over time just by the fact of measuring it at periodic intervals. And that's even true for sleep. So just the act of measuring and tracking your sleep will help to improve it. So you like the aura ring, are there other devices, cuz I know the Aura ring is sometimes pricey for people, so are there other more economical options that you like?
(11:49): Yeah, I mean the Apple watch surprisingly, you know, know a lot of people have the Apple watch, it's gotten a lot better. The tech and also their sleep algorithm has gotten a lot better. So, you know, but honestly to be honest, you could have any type of tracker and it's over time, you're never looking at one night or one week of sleep. You're looking at your sleep over several weeks or several months or even several years. So even if you just got one of these cheap track trackers online, no it's not gonna be as accurate as an aura ring or going to a sleep study or a sleep lab. Mm-Hmm . But just tracking it over time will help you draw some of those conclusions as far as, hey, what affects my sleep? How am I doing in this specific area? And so there's a ton of 'em out there. There's things that you can put on your bed where on your head there's mattresses that now track your sleep. So it's really depending on your, your, you know, how much you care and, and also how much you're looking to invest. There's, there's like so many devices out there now and there's more and more every month that come out because people are realizing how important sleep is and they're looking to, you know, really understand it and, and prove it.
(12:57): Yes, I, I think it's super important to track things, but I like to caution people that the tracking in and of itself isn't the end goal. The end goal is to educate yourself about how your body responds to its relationship with its environment. Like you mentioned about the wine, the goal is to learn, oh I can have great sleep cycles with one glass of wine, but when I go to two I kind of wreck my REM or whatever happens and then take that information and implement it in your life. It's not to use the tracking device forever. I know some people get really wedded to, for instance, I like using continuous glucose monitors and people then end up want to use it forever. And I say no, it's just a tool to reeducate yourself because I think that we are innately born with an understanding of how much sleep we need when we're tired, when to go to bed, when to wake up. We naturally have these bio rhythms and understanding, but I think that it's very much socialized out of us also what to eat. We take on society's views of what to eat instead of listening from to that internal voice. So what are your thoughts on that? Do you find sleep tracking should be something that people should use forever and ever? Or is it just a tool for a period of time?
(14:26): A hundred percent. It's a tool for a period of time. I love that you're talking about the bodies innate wisdom and you know, we're so disconnected from that because of technology, because we live, you know, 90% of our lives indoors because the artificial light, because of the stress. Technology's the big, is a huge stressor for so many people in this way. You know, using technology temporarily, like you said, to make better decisions. That's how it's supposed to be used. Getting obsessed with it or you know, thinking that you need to track it forever. That's just adding complexity to your life and that's not what we're talking about. It's really about getting that positive feedback or negative feedback based off of the decisions, the behavioral changes that you're making so that you can either stay motivated or just know like, hey, this is how this affects my sleep.
(15:17): And, you know, make the decision on whether or not you wanna take part in that, whatever that is. So I'm a big believer in, you know, how do, how do we get reconnected to nature? How do we simplify our lives? How do we simplify our routines, use technology to improve our health and not detract from it. And that it's, it's challenge. I mean, because we live in a world that's moving super fast and you know, it's really, really hard for people to, to draw ba you know, boundaries and find balance within their life to really prioritize and protect their self care and their health. And there's so much to it. I mean it's, it's, there's a lot there. But I think keeping it simple and, and really staying connected to nature allows our bodies to do what they know how to do and our bodies know how to sleep. There's nothing you need to do in order to sleep. Really, really.
(16:08): Yeah. If you're not a over 40 woman, and some women are listening now going, what is he talking about? I, I would give anything to get a good night's sleep. I know cuz I went through that. But I'll tell you how important sleep has gotten for me. So I'm, my tribe kind of knows that I'm over in Africa and Tanzania right now. They say Tanzania and I literally changed my whole schedule so that I did not have to be up at two in the morning. It's seven hour time difference to eastern standard time so that I can shut it down at 9:00 PM my local time and get, I allow myself nine hours to sleep and then my body wakes up when it wants to. So that's why I want everyone listening to hear because there are a lot of, I think teachers out there who don't necessarily set a good example and they're gonna tell you, I sleep five hours a night. Don't listen to those people. Listen to the people who are walking the walk and doing the thing. What would you say about that, Devin?
(17:10): Yeah, I would say that you can get away with it for a little bit. You can get away with sacrificing your sleep. You can get away with hustling and grinding and, and really, you know, not doing the things that are supportive to your health for a little bit. And then you're, and then you crash and then your body's gonna start talking to you. Something is gonna, you know, you're either gonna get sick or you're just gonna be miserable. And so you can get away with it for a little bit or you can just say, you know what, this is important. This is important enough to actually draw the boundaries that I need to draw to create the space that I need to create to allow my body to do what it knows how to do. And that's what I would say is the smart thing to do. And especially as you, as we get older in age, it becomes even more important. So because oftentimes as we go through life, life gets more complicated. There's more stressors and you know, you need sleep, you need sleep, there's, you need sweet, you know, be able to have the energy to live your life and make those
(18:11): Decisions. Yeah. And so women, ladies, you are gonna nod your head yes this number one, we gotta give you a good reason to do the thing. And you already heard him say, you're gonna die sooner if you don't sleep enough. Okay? So you get less time on this planet and you're gonna be craving foods that are not in your best interest. So women have to have a reason, but also number two, you have to show 'em how. So I have one client in my coaching program who we will call DaVita and she says, you know, I got team kids and they come home from practice and library and all this and I want to be, make sure that their needs are taken care of and they don't get to bed until 10 and 11 o'clock because of all their after school activities and their homework. And she says, tell me how I'm supposed to get in bed at nine o'clock. Cause I was explaining to her about how great the sleep is more restorative between 10 and 12. So we gotta show them how to make this work in their life. And so what strategies do you have to help people actually implement an earlier bedtime that's consistent in their life?
(19:23): Yeah. And so like this specific person that came with this challenge, like that there are times in your life where sleep is, is probably gonna be sacrificed. Maybe that's, this is just what, what, what's going on for this particular person? Another op another time is you have kids like babies, right? The babies are waking up, they're crying, you're not sleeping, you know, you're breastfeeding throughout the night so the body's resilient and it'll bounce back. But also it's, I think it's so important to draw strong boundaries. So many people at least literally worked with hundreds of people that have really bad chronic sleep issues. They just are not good at drawing boundaries with and communicating those boundaries to other people. So if something's important, you're gonna, you're gonna draw a boundary and if you draw that boundary and you, and you hold it, whether it's like, hey, I'm going to start my bedtime routine at X amount of time and it becomes a habit. And then you start to, you know, you communicate that to the people that you care about and you can get everyone on the same team. And that's where I feel like a lot of people, just from like a psychological behavioral standpoint, they, they're just not aware that that's going on for them. And so I would say, you know, there definitely needs to be a time between the, you know, your day and your night. There needs to be a transition. Most people take their days and they just bring 'em right into their nights.
(20:45): so true, right?
(20:48): So we call this a bed buffer. So this is, and we teach this thing called 3, 2, 1 sleep. So three hours before bed, ideally no food crosses your, your lips, you know, you don't wanna go to bed on a full stomach cuz that's the first stage of sleep is the deepest stage the first quarter of the night. When you get into the deepest stages of sleep, you don't wanna interrupt that process two hours before you want to be asleep. No work. Cuz our brains, you know, need time to sort of simmer down to cool off. And if you're working up right up until the time that you, you know, you're, you're going to sleep, you just, you don't have that time and your body might feel exhausted, but your mind is just continuing to race, trying to pro, you know, solve problems and troubleshoot things and think about how you did at work or you know, the, whatever the conversation was that triggered you at lunch, you know, all these things. There needs to be a space and then one hour before, but that's when you would start some type of ritual, like reading a book, having a nice cup of camomile tea, stretching, making love to your partner, which is a great way to you know, relax the body. So 3, 2, 1, sleep. That starts with having a clear boundary. And I think again, sometimes people just don't realize that they don't have boundaries with the people that they care about. And it's like, well that's where it starts.
(22:09): You know, you absolutely have hit the nail in the head universally. I find that the women that really struggle are the ones that don't have boundaries. So my question to this person was, are you doing, is this codependent behavior? And of, and she became a little defensive and she, no, no, my kids, I need to check on them. And I said, well, you're doing something for basically people who could take care of it themselves, right? Can they get themselves situated for bed and finish their homework and get themselves organized? Yes, yes, yes, yes. And you are taking on this attitude that you have to check on them. And so boundaries for women, oh my gosh, I can't say it enough. Women who have poor boundaries have the most health problems and it's really hard for them to take a look at that and to see where they're basically not loving themselves first and they're giving everything to everybody else and depleting the tank. And then they wanna know why is the tank not full And they want say, Kyrin, fill me up so I can continue giving to everyone else. And it's like, no honey, you have to stop what you're doing and love yourself and give to yourself. How do you help people through this boundary conundrum? Because it's, it's really a challenge for women.
(23:31): I love that you, that you support people in that way. Well it gets at first just, you gotta get clear that there's, there needs to be a boundary and get honest. And I think a lot of times people just are not honest with themselves and they, they can't see it. So having a coach, having somebody that can, you know, a psychologist or a counselor that can help you see those, those areas that you can't see is so, so, so important. Because a lot of times we, you know, you can't see the picture when you're in the frame, right? So it's, you need to, yeah, you need somebody to support you to see, you know, to help you see what you're not seeing because we all, you know, we all are subjective most all the time. It's very hard to be objective.
(24:13): It is. So I do think, yeah, you need support. You need, I always say knowledge, tools and support three prong. You need to understand what boundaries there are. There's a great book, call it Boundaries exactly that it has two authors, I can't think of them right this second. So getting the knowledge and getting support around it. And I think professional help is invaluable because if you've been living this way your whole life, it's, it can be challenging to change. But like that quote you shared with me before we started, Devin, every moment of the present contains the seeds of opportunity for change. Your life is an adventure. And so hearing this information, don't reject it, but reflect on it and take it in and, and start to think, Ooh, I wonder if there's any seed of truth in this for me. And in fact, if you're getting bristle, if you're bristling at what we're saying and thinking, well I have to check on my teenage kids before they go to bed at 10 o'clock at night, you might wanna look at it. Cause whatever really upsets you often has a grain of truth in it. So what else is important to know about falling asleep fast? Staying asleep and waking up refreshed
(25:25): What you do. Like I always tell people, your entire day dictates how well you're, well, you're gonna sleep, how well you sleep dictates, you know, your entire next day. So starting the day off in a place of calm versus most people get up and we lose a lit of water through sweat and respiration every single night. And what do most people do? They start their day with caffeine in the form of usually a coffee, which you know, does the opposite it's making, so it's increasing the cortisol, right? It's diuretic. So you're, so number one, when you wake up, drink a huge glass of water, I drink like a liter of water. As soon as I wake up to hydrate, wait a little bit like an hour or two, then have your coffee. That way your, your, you know, your cortisol can start to come down a little bit and you're hydrating your body.
(26:22): So literally like start your day like that will actually help you sleep, believe it or not, because now the whole rest of the day is gonna be a little bit less stressful because you're not dumping, you know, gasoline on that already lit fire where you're just running around frantic, dehydrated. So that's little easy thing that everybody could do starting literally today is wake up, drink water instead of coffee, wait to have the coffee and then if you have coffee, don't have it past 1:00 PM because it's in the halflife of caffeine. It, it's, you know, depending on how you metabolize caffeine is it's in your body for, you know, sometimes six to eight hours. So, or or even longer. That's a half life. So limit your caffeine would go, would make a huge difference. Alcohol is another, you know, most people are on their uppers and their downers, right? So alcohol too close to bedtime, destroy sleep. And most people use alcohol as, as you know, it's a relaxed to relax them. So something you could do, think of something that you'd be willing to try or something you'd be willing to do that would relax you, that wouldn't involve alcohol is caffeine and alcohol. Those are the, the sleep destroyers.
(27:36): They are, thank you for saying it. So I'm so glad we're having this conversation. I have a friend who used to Dan go to salsa conventions for the, the weekend together and she would end her day every night. I, I hate to say it and I won't her name, by taking a sleeping medication and drinking several glasses of wine. That's how she went to sleep. And I, I don't preach to my friends. If they ask my opinion, I may share it. She didn't. That was what she thought she had to do to get a good night's sleep. There are millions of women out there like this. I know some of you are listening to me right now. So what is the data on alcohol show about how it affects quality of sleep?
(28:20): It's disturbs the REM cycle. And so alcohol really is a poison. So it also creates, it heats up the body. So your body heats up in the middle of the night after having a couple glasses of wine. Your body's, you know, and the two things that control sleep are, you know, light and temperature. So you don't want your body heating up in the middle of the night. You know, that's not ideal for a high quality sleep. So you can get away with having high quality alcohol earlier on in the, in the night, as long as you're drinking enough water to kind of flush out the liver. But again, but it disrupts pre sleep. And that's when short term memories getting shut up to long term storage, that's when, you know, we're, we're dreaming, we're working out the emotional trauma, the end up emotional trauma that happened throughout the day.
(29:10): So that's a really important stage of sleep that's like brain recovery stage. And so, yeah, so I mean everyone's a little bit different. Some people metabolize alcohol faster, slower just like caffeine. So you have to, that's, that's where tracking comes in to kind of really say, Hey, well I love my wine. Okay cool, let's see what type of wine and how much wine you can drink to and, and really get away with it, right? Mm-Hmm . But it's all, at the end of the day, it's all about balance. It's all about balance. If you're doing it every night, then you probably have an issue. If you're doing it, you know, once or twice a week, you know, you can get away with it. But yeah, so that's, that's kind of, is that helpful?
(29:51): Yes, absolutely. I think knowledge is self knowledge, you know, to thone self be true. Well, you can only be true to yourself if you know and understand yourself better than you know and understand anybody. And so I always say I'm not the kind of coach or doctor who tells you do this cuz I, I say it's best. I'm the kind who's gonna say, oh okay, you use this continuous glucose monitor and see what it teaches you about how your body reacts to certain foods, how it reacts to stress and how your blood sugar and insulin are managed in your body. And learn how these different states feel. So equally, I'm not gonna say, oh don't drink alcohol cause I said, so I'm gonna say exactly what you said down. I'm gonna say use a sleep chapter, actually use a CGM also cuz that's gonna teach you a lot about how your body is, is handling its hormones in response to alcohol.
(30:45): Cuz alcohol doesn't only affect your sleep, it affects your hormone balance, it affects your gut health, it affects so many things, but you have to learn this for yourself or it's not valuable information. Once you know it and you see it for yourself, then it becomes unforgettable and you'll remember it for the rest of your life. And that's what I'm about is long lasting change. I do wanna touch on hormones cause the podcast is the hormone prescription and I've talked a little bit in different episodes about sleep and hormones, but some people probably haven't heard it. So can you help everyone understand what sleep has to do with hormones and what hormones have to do with sleep?
(31:33): Yeah, so essentially storing sleep that your body is releasing all of the important hormones, you know, the estrogen, the testosterone in different stages of sleep, different hormones get released. So if you're not getting those deep into those deeper stages of sleep, your body's not gonna be producing or releasing those hormones. And I, I'm sure, I mean, you're, you're the expert in hormones. I'm not, but you can tell if even after one night of poor sleep, if somebody, let's say somebody stayed up the entire night and we tested their hormones, it's gonna look different than the night before that they got seven to eight hours of sleep and even one night can throw off your entire hormonal system because it's during the night when those hormones, you know, your body is releasing those hormones. And it's really important that people understand that. They've done studies on insulin, they show that after one night of not sleeping the insulin level, it looks like you're pre-diabetic. Whereas, you know, the night before when somebody got the sleep that they needed, they weren't anywhere, anywhere near pre-diabetic. So it has that much of effect on our hormones. But you, I would say that you're more the expert on the hormones than I am . So was that helpful?
(32:48): Yes, absolutely true. And I, I think that's very impactful what you just said. Just one night of no sleep affects your insulin to the point where you may look insulin resistant, pre-diabetic, diabetic. It's that important ladies, and equally important is how, excuse me, it impacts your cortisol. But so what's so important for everyone to understand is that hormones dictate how well you sleep and how well you sleep dictate hormonal balance. So it's this bidirectional interface, this conversation that your body is having, just like your body's having a conversation between what you eat impacts your hormones, your hormones impact what you eat, how you sleep impacts your hormones and vice versa. The stress you have in your life impacts your hormones and your hormones impact the stress that you have in your life. So there's no secret conversations, ladies going on in your life. There's nothing hidden.
(33:47): You may think you're fooling your body, right? Oh, I'm just gonna drink some coffee and get it going in the morning. I'm gonna have some alcohol to wind it down at night. And you think that you're gaming the system, but the only thing you're doing is just really gonna run your hormones and your health into the ground. You're not gonna have great sleep, you're just sweeping it under the rug. So that's why I really thought it was super important to have Devin come on and talk to you about sleep. You've offered so much valuable information and I know you have an amazing gift for everybody. Now we're gonna have a link to in the show notes, it's the Guide to Falling Asleep Faster, staying Asleep, and Waking Up Refresh. It's 100% free. How many of you want that? Yes, me please. So I'll have a link in the show notes, anything else you'd like to say about it or any places that they can find and connect with you on the web?
(34:43): Yeah, sleep science academy.com in Devin Burke, wellness on the social channels. But yeah, so it's just you can find me there.
(34:51): Awesome. So find him on the social channels, download that guide if you're really struggling. And remember, every moment of the present contains the seeds of opportunity for change. Your life is the adventure. I love this other one you share with me. Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever. What does that mean to you,
(35:15): ? Well, I mean it means a lot because we often think that we're gonna live a long life and we're not guaranteed. You know, we're not guaranteed that. And life is all about learning and every day is an opportunity to learn and you know, so when you have that lens, you're constantly learning. And when you're constantly learning, you're constantly growing and that makes you feel alive. At least that's how it makes me feel.
(35:38): Yeah. Well I think the listeners would agree that's why they tune in to learn as if they were gonna live forever because they plan on it and intend it. And so if you're here, I applaud you for showing up. Thank you so much for joining me today, Devin.
(35:54): Oh my pleasure. Thanks for having me on
(35:55): The show. And thanks to all the listeners. Hopefully you have learned something that you're gonna put into action today. Sure. We try to be a little bit entertaining, mostly educational and inspirational, giving you the tools that you can use to transform your hormones, your health and your life. But that means you've gotta take action. So maybe you're gonna download Devon's free guide. Maybe you're gonna check out that boundary book cuz you're like, oh, Kyrin, you saw me, I got a boundary problem. Or maybe you're gonna start tracking your sleep so you can learn what there is to learn about what your body wants to share with you that you haven't been hearing. Whatever it is, I welcome hearing about it on my social media, on Instagram, on Facebook at Kyrin Dunston md and until next week, peace, love, and
(36:47): Hormones y'all. Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Do you ever wonder why you can't seem to find the motivation or energy to do what it takes to stay fit and healthy? Do you ever feel like something is wrong with your genes and hormones?
Our guest Kashif Khan is an expert in functional genomics and has been helping midlife women understand the science behind their hormones and genes. He shares with us how understanding the function of your genes can help you engineer your hormonal system, leading to better health, more energy and improved fitness!
About Kashif Khan:
Kashif Khan is Chief Executive Officer and Founder of The DNA Company, where personalized medicine is being pioneered through unique insights into the human genome. He is also the host of the Unpilled podcast.
Growing up in Vancouver, Canada in an immigrant household, Kashif developed an industrious entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. Prior to his tenure at the DNA Company, Kashif advised a number of high-growth start-ups in a variety of industries.
As Kashif dove into the field of functional genomics as the CEO of The DNA Company, it was revealed that his neural wiring was actually genetically designed to be entrepreneurial. However, his genes also revealed a particular sensitivity to pollutants.
Now seeing his health from a new lens Kashif dove further and started to see the genetic pathways that led to his own families challenges, and the opportunities to reverse chronic disease. His measure of success is not in dollars earned, but in lives improved.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• How understanding your genes can help you engineer your hormones
• What functional genomics is and how it can benefit you
• How to use genetics to optimize health and fitness
• Ways to reverse chronic diseases through genetic insights
• Tips for finding the motivation and energy to stay fit and healthy.
Don't miss out on this powerful episode with our guest Kashif Khan, Chief Executive Officer of The DNA Company and host of the Unpilled podcast. Tune in to discover how understanding your genes can help you engineer your hormones and stay fit and healthy!
(00:00): Healthcare is studying the habits of those with the genes who didn't get the disease. And teaching that to the people who don't know.
(00:11): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us, keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an O B gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:05): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. My guest today is gonna shed some light on why genetics are so important when it comes to women's health, particularly over 40. We haven't focused in this way on genetics and epigenetics in the podcast. So I thought it's super important to have KIF on the podcast to really shed some light. And I wanted to start with that quote because you know, we take for granted that what we have is healthcare in America and most developed countries, and we call it that healthcare, but really it's just disease management. It's actually not the creation of health. So I love when K, she K, she says this, healthcare is studying the habits of those with the genes who didn't get the disease. And teaching that to the people who don't know.
(02:01): We used to think that there was genetic determinism after DNA sequencing was discovered several decades ago, and the Nobel Prize was awarded to Watson and Crick. And then we had this genetic determinism where all diseases determined by genes, it's predestined. It's out of our control. We don't have to worry about it. And in fact, when I practiced regular ob gyn, I would've women all the time come to me and say, oh, my mother had a hysterectomy at 45. It's time for mine as if that were genetically predetermined. It's not. In fact, genes only dictate about 10, maybe at most 20% of your health. But it's what genes get turned on that matters and what genes get turned off. And this is something called epigenetics epi, meaning above your genes. It turns them on and turns them off. So what creates health is your life habits that either turn certain genes on that you want or turn genes on that you don't want or turn bad genes off or turn good genes off.
(03:08): So it's all about epigenetics. So we're gonna dive into that in great detail. He's gonna dive into the topic of breast cancer, how it's not estrogen that causes breast cancer. Hopefully you don't believe that because all men and all women on the face of the planet have estrogen. And so if estrogen caused breast cancer, 100% of all men and all women would have it. And we don't. So it's something else. And one of the things that it is, is what your body does with that estrogen. So we're gonna dive into that and that's genetically determined. And you do have the power, you have the control to turn those genes on or turn 'em off. So which will you choose? I will tell you a little bit about Kashif and then we will get started. So Kashif is the chief executive officer and founder of the DNA company.
(03:58): We're personalized Medicine is being pioneered through unique insights into the human genome. He is also the host of the Unfilled podcast. I love that name. He grew up in Vancouver, Canada in an immigrant household. And he has an industrious entrepreneurial spirit that he's had since he was a little kid before he started the DNA company. He advised a number of high growth startups in a variety of industries, but he's really, he dove into the field of functional genomics as the CEO of the DNA company. And I really love his unique perspective on this. Sometimes we insiders can't see things the way that outsiders do and he actually not only sees it, but can articulate their certain concepts importance in a way that I think is very impactful and unique. So please welcome Kashif to the podcast. Welcome Kashif to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(05:00): Pleasure, honor to be with you.
(05:02): So excited to have you. I love talking about DNA and epigenetics and what people can do to turn certain genes on or off. And I don't think this really is a part of mainstream medicine yet. So women wanna hear about this. They wanna know what's out there and available for me to really make my health the best it can be at midlife and beyond. But first I gotta ask, how did you become so passionate about working with human genetics?
(05:33): Well, we, we were a research company, but bringing it to the public, actually it was a female hormone issue that got me there and it was actually with my niece. So I've had my kids, three kids and my niece genetically tested who are all close to me to understand, you know, personalized diet, fitness, even academically, how is their brain wired hormonally, how is their body developing? What sports should they play? So I've learned a lot about how to personalize the parenting for them. And what happened is my niece actually had a anxiety crisis where she just collapsed and she actually hurt herself. I had to take her to the hospital. And I realized they're just like any concern parent uncle, like I was just reacting to the problem. Oh, she has anxiety. Oh, she has pain. And I was borderline almost about to accept that pill prescription.
(06:21): And then I realized, hold on, what am I doing? I have her dna, I have a deeper understanding of her biology. And so I realized that the three times that it happened was they were about a month apart. So I asked my sister or her mom, does this have anything? Like what's the timing of the menstrual cycle? And she said, you know what? You're right. It was right before it started. Every time, right before the menstrual cycle started, this is when she had these anxiety attack and crashes where she literally fell over, couldn't breathe. So I looked at her genetics and we've mapped out the hormone cascade to a T where we understand how you produce certain hormones. To what degree, how well do you clear them? How toxic, how they are clean, are they, she was void of estrogen. She was highly androgen dominant, didn't produce enough estrogen.
(07:05): And we know that at the beginning of that hormone cycle is when you have the least estrogens, right? Then you start to make them. And if you have less to begin with, then that delta value for is even lower. Like she has this very deep belly she goes into with no hormones, no hormones, right? And so that was one thing that, why did it happen then? Well, this was two years ago in the Toronto winter during covid lockdown. And she hadn't been outside in like four months, right? This was like 2020 winter. Pure lockdown never left. So she got zero vitamin D of the 30,000 genes that make up your body, 10% of them require vitamin D to function. It's actually another hormone if you really look at it correctly. Right? And so she already had this hormone issue, which we could look at genetically.
(07:56): She wasn't getting enough vitamin D, which triggered a 10% biochemistry, chaos. And then when you look at the genetics of her brain, she doesn't bind dopamine properly. So it's very easy for her to experience depression, anxiety, negative stimulus. Mm-hmm. and this cocktail of all these problems, plus not having gone outside for four months equaled anxiety crash. She would have been on an anxiety pill if I didn't know all this. But all we did was I gave her altheine to booster dopamine levels and I gave her 10,000 IU vitamin D in the very first week of her cycle, then 5,020 500. And we did that every month. It's been two years. She has not had this problem. Right. So when I went through that very long answer to your question mm-hmm. is that, that's the thing that made me go from, we are not a research company. Every woman needs this. Every woman, how many young women like her are struggling with anxiety issues? How many women are struggling, infertility issues, crazy menopause, all this stuff that's treated so gray, which is actually black and white if you understand it genetically.
(09:03): Yeah, I love that story. It's very illustrative of the power of knowing your genetics. But yes, she would've ended up in a mainstream doctor's office on an anti-anxiety medication and probably a birth control pill. Usually any symptoms that are cyclic, we gynecologists wanna put every woman on a birth control pill, which basically just shuts the whole female hormone system down. But what most women don't realize is the, the complications they're gonna have from the hormonal balances that it cause causes. So it's not the way I go now as a functional doc . All right. So that certainly got you passionate about it. I love that story. And then what has, I mean, you're obviously an entrepreneur at heart. You, you've worked with startups in variety of industries, but it sounds like you had a personal story that really grabbed you here. And what are some other stories that you might share of how you've seen this impact women's health?
(10:07): Well, so first of all, you're right on what they said is anxiety pill plus birth control.
(10:13): Yeah.
(10:13): That was the prescription, right? And I said, no way. We're not doing that. And that's what triggered me to dive into our genome. So I can't tell you how many women, so let's look at breast cancer for example. When you think about genetics, that's probably the biggest area where women think about the genes as you know, brca the BRCA gene. And that's scary. Four letter word. And if you ask a woman, do you want bracker? No, no, no. I don't. I don't want brca. If you ask a doctor, what do you think about? Oh, scary, scary, scary. But if you ask them what does it do? They don't know, right? , they don't even know what it means. You, you need brca. BRCA is a tumor suppressing gene. If you have, god forbid, cancer, it goes and fights it for you. That's what it does. The challenge is if you have the bad version of a variant end, it doesn't do a good job of repair.
(11:00): So either or, even if you have the worst version, it doesn't cause cancer. What it does is, does you lack the ability to fight. So we still need to ask the question, why did you get breast cancer in the first place, which is a female hormone issue that we don't understand or look at. Uh, in fact, you go to most cancer research websites and all these and they, they tell you, we actually don't know why. We're more more focused on how to treat it. So let's look at that example. Bad brer, why did you get it to begin with? This is one of many examples. So some women are, unlike my niece, the opposite. They're more estrogen dominant. So this is step one of three in that hormone cascade. You go from progesterone to testosterone to estrogen. That's what you do. There's some nuances in there.
(11:43): Other things you can do. But that's the general lame, right? Some women just convert into a heavy bucket of estrogen. That's what they do. Step two of three, you then need to create a metabolite, either two, four or 16. Hydroxy, estrogen. That's what you make it into. Two is great, nice clean stuff, four and 16, highly toxic, you don't want them, right? Then step three of three, now that you know you may be estrogen dominant and estrogen toxic, what are the detox systems that are supposed to kick in and clear that stuff and help me get rid of it, which is glutathione and ox antioxidation. Those are the two key areas. Step four, there's another step four we can look at, which is methylation, which is your antiinflammatory response. If you're not doing those things well. So if that's you estrogen dominant, estrogen toxic, I don't detoxify, you now get put in this bucket of high risk.
(12:35): But still not every woman gets sick. What happens? 85% of North American women, I can speak to North American data cuz that's where I am. Mm-hmm , 85% of North American women will be on a birth control pill for 10 years, right? For fielding that estrogen fire. Every woman as she reaches sort of midlife is told to get on hormone replacement therapy. Now without understanding which one and why, which is what you're so good at, right? And just, yeah, take it. Just go ahead. You're supposed to do it fueling that estrogen fire. Women have no clue for the most part, maybe not your audience, but for the most part the hormone des disruptors that they're dealing with every day, the cord and frying pan, the chemicals, the pesticides and the lawn. Everything that they're breathing and eating and coming through their skin that their body just treats as more hormones and fuels.
(13:24): That toxic fire. That's the woman for whom you have the genetic profile. And you've also made the wrong epigenetic choices unknowingly that now you feel that fire so much that it causes inflammation. So why then is menopause the time when this happens? Why is that where you find most breast cancer? Cause now all of a sudden you don't have a menstrual cycle to get rid of that monthly dose of estrogen toxicity. And your body wants to protect you. It doesn't want it free flowing in the blood, causing inflammation to your organs and your, your endothelium, your vasculature, your veins. So it goes and stores it in fat. And where do you have fat in your breasts and what's in your breasts that was never designed to deal with that level of toxic insult is all these glands to deliver milk that get inflamed, get damaged, become cancerous.
(14:13): And that's the point when BRCA is supposed to start working right now, all of a sudden the tumor supporting gene is supposed to come in and fix the damage you did. Mm-hmm. . But even then, why have cancer to begin with? If you understand this is what's happening with your hormones. If you understand these are the choices you need to make and you understand that there's a right and wrong way to do hormones for you as an individual, right? You shouldn't have ever had it in the first place. And this is all we're saying is that if you are ill, we can help or anybody can help by using functional genomics. Why? As opposed to what, then go ahead and treat, treat it. You need to do that. But let's find out also why if you're not yet Ill, let's make sure it never happens. Let's prevent all this nonsense from ever happening. Cuz you, you can be armed with the right choices.
(15:00): Boy, you brought up so many great points in there cuz sheep, let's just go back cuz that was so powerful. I hope everybody listening really heard what he's saying. So number one, you said they're only concerned with how to treat breast cancer, not why you get it. And I hope everyone heard that because it's true the pharmaceutical industry and most researchers are not overly concerned with why you got breast cancer cuz they're not interested in preventing it. They're interested in treating it because unfortunately in our capitalist society, that's where the profit is. And also you mentioned the detox pathways, the 2 4 16 hydroxy, um, estrogens. And what most women don't realize is that their regular doctor is not gonna ever check those on them. But if you heard, because she said he was saying that this is vital to know as part of why did you get breast cancer. Cuz if you're detoxifying your estrogen down negative pathways, you're more prone to making toxic metabolites that will go on to create cancer. And that includes the 24 16 issue. There are enzymes involved with that, but also the, the glutathione and the methylation. And there were so many other things important in there that you said how women are afraid of brca and I can't even remember, I took some notes on what you said to, to comment on it. Anything else you wanna add to that? Cause I think it's super important what you said.
(16:32): No, I think you're right on that the toolkit, right? When you go to the doctor, doctor doesn't have bad intentions, right? They're just limited by the tools provided to them and what they're trained on. And what they're trained on is how to treat. So even if you get into their, if you ask an oncologist or doctor that you don't tell me why, they'll say, yeah, we do. We look, is it her, her two positive? And like what kind of a But all of those things only ever lead to which treatment do you need,
(17:00): Right?
(17:01): Right. The the, the only why you'll get is what directs a drug or a treatment, not here's why you don't need to be in the hospital. That's really the answer you want. Right? Healthcare should be, how do I stay healthy , how do I get rid of this illness? I was born healthy. Yeah. I wasn't born with breast cancer. Why did it happen? Now why does most chronic disease happen to somebody? Well, the North American average, by the way this is the American dream, is by the time you're 55 you have a chronic disease. That's the average. By the time you're 65, you have two and you spend the last 15 years of your life in treatment. That's the expectation of things that you're not born with and you don't innately have. Right? And it's so much worse for women because of the cofactor of estrogen dominance and, sorry, I should say more precisely estrogen toxicity. 66% of women will die on their first cardiovascular event with zero symptoms, zero previous warning signs. They don't even know that their cardiovascularly ill, they'll have some kind of heart attack, blockage, whatever, and they will die because there's so much more inflamed than the men. The men. It's a tiny fraction. So women have to pay so much more attention, not only to the hormone issues themselves, but all the other chronic diseases for which you're fueling a much more aggressive version of it.
(18:27): Right? That is a, a powerful point. And you're so right. And we take for granted what healthcare is because we're socialized into it from the time we're born. But if doctors really were concerned with the prevention of disease, they would be talking to you about diet, lifestyle, sleep, all these things. And it's not what we do. We've got a prescription pad. We do drugs and surgery. Drugs and surgery. And that's what we do. So the average woman is not having a BRCA test. She's not having her phase one and phase two liver enzyme detox pathways. Yeah. Uh, genetics mod profile. Done. What do you think are the most important tests for women to have when it comes to functional genomics?
(19:14): So this is self-serving, but we've built it, right? And why? The reason why we built it is cuz just like when my niece went through it, genetic tests don't serve hormones properly because you can't look at, so first of all, what does genetics? This gene means this, this gene means this, this gene means this. That's genetics, right? You got a report that tells you what version of what gene you have. And now somebody that has some knowledge will go interpret that somehow. But that's not the way the body works, especially when it comes to hormones. There's a, there's a cascade. It's not this gene does this. One step won't direct you. You need to know the full system flow. I make progesterone converted into testosterone. How quickly, how much testosterone do I make? Do I then convert that into dht? Do I clear it? Do I convert it into estrogen?
(20:00): And then what version of estrogen do I then make? So if you haven't mapped all of that out, you can't really make a call. And this is why genetics 1 0 1, which is what most genetic researchers do, hasn't really addressed hormones. Functional genomics, just like medicine is, what disease do you have? Let me give you a pill. Mm-hmm. , that's what genetics is. Also functional medicine is let's figure out why you got sick to begin with and change your habits. Mm-hmm. , that's what functional genomics is. Let's map the pathway in the context of the body actually works. And then we know exactly where to intervene. We can predict, we can then predict how you do all of these jobs in your body. What is, what is dna? DNA is an instruction telling yourselves what to do. If you know what version of what gene you have, you know, one job. But if you don't understand the entire assembly line and what, what everybody else is doing, can you really make a call? Functional genomics is, let's look at the full system, the pathway in the context of human biology. Like here's what the body actually does. Now let's reverse engineer the genes that instruct each step, that baton pass along the way of that process, right? So now you can take this very gray area of female hormones, which you ask any woman what her experience is medically. And it sucks, right? , it's just like
(21:17): Universal.
(21:18): Yeah, universal. Like the answer is you're supposed to have problems. It's your hormones, right? Like it's a, you're a woman, you're supposed to have problems. That's the belief.
(21:29): That is the belief.
(21:30): And why? Because it has been mapped the way that I just described earlier. This gene means this, this, she means this, this hormone means this, this pathway means this. The entire cascade has been looked at openly as this map. Where would you then read then you can determine exactly what's going. And you make this, like I said earlier, this very gray thing, very black and white, very certain. It is that certain. And now you know exactly what risks, what problems, how to prevent and how to have a wonderful menopause, how to have wonderful fertility, how to have a great menstrual cycle, right? It can be that way. And it is now more challenging and more problematic than ever because the load of hormone disruptors and chemicals we're dealing with is more than ever before. And this is also partly why the sort of medical practice has in advance because grandma's generation didn't have the problems that this generation has because they weren't exposed to this level of chemicals and horrible food and lack of sleep and all the other things that are co-factor to these hormone problems. So it's even more important ever than than ever before today to look at it deeply.
(22:38): Yes. So I know a lot of people get very excited about tests like 23 and me, I had it done a while back when it first came out and really wasn't impressed with the action actionable information in there. I mean, I don't really need to know that I have the gene that I can smell the asparagus in my urine after I eat it. ,
(23:02): You probably know already.
(23:04): I knew that already. I don't find that very useful. And it seems like most of these tests that, that are available online, or let me just say a lot of 'em are not actionable information. How can the average woman discern among genetic tests? What's worth my time, energy, and money that's actually going to give me actionable information that's going to impact my health? How does she know that
(23:33): It has to be a functional genomics test, right? What does that mean? Genetics is what does this gene mean? And unless a gene has one singular purpose, you can't really say anything about it. Functional genomics is of the 30,000 genes in your body, there's only a hundred that matter for most chronic conditions, hormones, brain detox, diet, nutrition, and a few other things, right? So what we've done is we've created a hormone panel and in that all that, you know, so the genetics of this gene does this and your, your piece smells because of asparagus. Great. How do I make hormones? How do you map that? How do you make it actionable? The reason why we're able to do that is the research itself. So most genetic companies, there's a researcher, our lab who receives your sample in the mail who then puts it through an algorithm and you get a report.
(24:25): And that researcher is studying the DNA in a Petri dish somewhere, right? We said that's exactly the problem. They never met any of their patients and talked to them. They don't actually meet them and say, how do you feel? How did this supplement work? What happened you when you ate this food? So that's what we did. We spent three years, uh, studying 7,000 people in, the majority of them are women. So we actually partnered with a number of clinics that dealt with breast cancer and infertility and hormone issues and all these different things. And we said, we'll work on the testing in our research and we actually wanna meet these women. And we sat down with them for hours, sometimes months, depending what the problem to document what, how are they eating, how are they exercising, what were the, what was their chemical exposure? And now those things are in the report and actionable.
(25:11): So when you log in, it's called the DNA 360. So when you log into the DNA 360 portal, yes you're finding out about your dna, but you're also being told, here's for this problem, anxiety keto diet, separated by the problem for anxiety. Here's your rank and here's the supplements that you need to take. Not that everybody needs to take take, but that you need to take. Here's the food that you need to eat, here's the habits you need to adopt. We hired Dr. BJ Fog, he runs the Stanford University Behavior Change lab. So he's a guru when it comes to behavior change. He wrote the book Tiny Habits book, right? We hired him. Yeah, it's amazing. So it's like how do you actually change your identity? So we spent a year with him taking all of what I described and then he put the behavior change insights into it.
(25:58): So it's easy. So it's like here's how you actually, here's what's wrong, here's how you fix it and here's how you actually implement it. The easiest way to implement it. So all of a sudden that's what action is, right? Action is not tell me what's wrong and then say good luck . It's telling me what's wrong. Yeah. Like you got an 80% chance of Alzheimer's, see you later. Right? That's genetics, right? No, it's, you got an 80% chance of Alzheimer's. But by the way, the 20% that didn't get it with your genomic profile, here's what they did, right? Mm-hmm. , that's healthcare. Healthcare is studying the healthy and teaching those habits of the people that don't yet know, right? That's maintaining health, uh, masking illness. So that's what we did. We studied the healthy, we learned all those right things, things we can now teach them to the people that have the 80% risk of whatever and how do you implement it? Here's the behaviors you need to adopt to make it easy. So that's all built into the report. Cause if it isn't easy, it isn't actionable. Right? Part of it being actionable is it has to be easy to understand and use. You shouldn't need a PhD to decipher it for you who then may have an opinion on what they actually think it means. Right?
(27:07): Right. Yeah. That's super important. I love what you said. I wanna reiterate that you basically said healthcare is studying the habits of those with the genes who didn't get the disease and teaching that to the people who don't know. And I, I think for everyone listening, you need to realize that you're at risk for some diseases and you have no idea about what you're at risk for because you haven't done a genetic profile that's actionable that tells you what you're at risk for. So you're just blindly going down the road. And then one day you might get a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or dementia or cancer or something and then people say, oh, it came out of the blue. And what I say is, it didn't come out of the blue, it came out of the oblivious because you didn't know. Because it's not the standard of care for physicians to be checking their patients, most of them, their genetics.
(28:11): And just imagine the power that you can have that you can get if you take action now, get this information and see, oh, I'm at risk for A, B and C. Let me learn what the people who were also at risk for a, b and C did who didn't get that disease. And then you can start doing it 5, 10, 20, however many years prior and maybe avoid that problem. And I know there's some people who are gonna reach out to me and say, Dr. Kyrin, well why, why doesn't my doctor do this? Why doesn't my HMO pay for this? Why all these things? And but a lot of you have heard me talking about this for so long. You know the answer. Right? And that's, we've talked about it today. That's not what healthcare is about. It's not what medicine is about.
(29:02): Yeah. And that's, that's part of, I mean, trap is the best word to call it. Part of the trap is, oh, it's not covered by my insurance. I don't, you've been, you've been taught in that there's an entitlement around healthcare, right? That whatever's covered is good for me and what's covered is not acceptable. So that's the challenge. 60% of American personal bankruptcies are from healthcare costs. Literally. Can you imagine two thirds of per us personal bankruptcies are from people that's worked their entire lives to give it all up to st try and stay alive. And then even that doesn't work. They have to go bankrupt cuz of how expensive it is to treat illness. So isn't it a lot more effective to instead of saying, oh, this few hundred dollars is not covered by my insurance, instead to know exactly how to not have to spend half a million dollars on treating cancer when you're 60. Right? And, and the, and the challenge with health is because of the way we've been taught, it's our belief is I can do whatever I want and when I break something, it's a doctor's job to fix me. Right? That's the challenge. And we believe that.
(30:13): We believe that.
(30:15): Then guess what? Then you're on the path to breaking something and going to the doctor to fix you. You've already made that choice. Or health can be, I'm gonna learn everything I could possibly do to never get sick. Right? And when you look at the people that are, that are uber wealthy, that are selling you all this stuff, they're not in a hospital at the last 15 years of their life. The queen didn't die in a hospital bed a month ago. Right? She was walking and being the queen. Right. . Why? Because she had all the right people around her maintaining her health, not masking illness. That's the ultimate luxury. But you're, I mean that, but we're not sold that. So you have to take control and do it yourself.
(30:59): Yeah, it's so true. And it was when you were saying that statistic about cancer and the cost to treat it at this point, one in two of us will get cancer. And if you're in a partnered or married relationship, that means one of you is gonna get it and it's gonna be a bill of about a quarter of a million dollars. And the yes, the statistics on bankruptcy and healthcare costs is, it's staggering. So let's get onto too . I know, I think we made our point, but um, it can't be stated enough because despite, as much as I've talked about it for years, I still have people reaching out to me and complaining and saying, well my insurance should pay for this. And on and on and on. I think, you know, in a utopian society we would learn these things starting when we were growing up in grade school, we would learn how our body functions. We would learn how to eat, we would learn about the importance. But that's for another day. All right, so you've gotta have functional genomics in these last few minutes. I definitely wanna give people actionable information. We certainly will have links to the DNA company, which is your company in the show note. So people can go there and I think you've got a free download for them, right?
(32:16): Yeah. And I'll make sure to set up, uh, a promo code. I want to honor everybody for listening and you know, taking the time to learn how to be better. So we'll set up, I'll just keep it simple, you know, Kyrin Dunston, I'll make it like KD 50, you get $50 off the test. So I'll make sure that's set up. Awesome. And then that, yeah,
(32:34): And we'll put that in the show notes too. We'll have the link and the code. So don't, if you're driving, don't try to write it down
(32:40): . So you know, this field of new genomic testing companies is expanding very rapidly. So there are a lot of options out there. And I have to say that one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the podcast is this differentiation of the actionable genomic information that people are gonna get. The functional information, just like you're describing, you really map out the, the whole hormonal cascade for women. And I will say that all genetic tests are not created equal there to the 23 of the knees that I think are pure novelty. And then there are some other companies that provide services, but I, I haven't found the information is so overwhelming cuz it's so much and it's like, oh, you know, do these 15 things because of these, these genetics. But what kind of actionable information can women expect to get from a report from the DNA company?
(33:42): We, when we studied those 7,000 people, we learned that there were six key areas. If, if we focus on those resolve most issues give you optimal performance and slow down aging. Right? So those are the six that we focus on. And if any anyone needs anything more beyond that, we recommend they speak to one of either their own clinician or one of our clinicians to dive deeper. If it actually is breast cancer or prostate health, we, a clinician should work on that. But the six areas are cardiovascular health. So everything around maintaining, cause that's, it's the number one killer and it's so easy to prevent. So diabetes, cholesterolemia, you know, hypertension, all that stuff. Then mood, behavior, everything about the brain. How do you think, how do you perceive, why do you not get along with that person? Why are you wired to be an accountant?
(34:31): You know everything about the way your brain works, truly personality mapping to a T so that you understand why you thrive in certain things and there's friction on certain things. Why do you have anxiety, depression, addiction, tendencies, which you don't need to have, right? The third one is hormones, which speaks to hormone dominance and toxicity, the thing we're talking about. But it also speaks to things like cell cellulite, hair, skin, uh, fat retention. Why do you hit plateaus of not being able to lose weight When for women, when do you work out, you know, what time of the month, when do you lift weights, when do you do yoga? Cause it, it makes a difference depending what's happening in your hormone cycle, right? To get the best result and not get injuries. Then we look at innate cellular health. So immunity and detox. What is your body doing to prevent inflammation, which is a root cause of disease in general.
(35:24): Mm-hmm , detox patient, you know, anti-inflammation, antioxidation, all that stuff. How healthy are the cells? We look at diet, nutrition. So at a macro level, should you be on avego vegan diet? Should you be keto? Should you be, you know, paleo? Like what is right for you based on how you metabolize starches and fats and your insulin responses. And then the micronutrients like vitamin D and C and zinc and all the other things that help you healthy. And the last one is sleep. So the genetics of, I can't fall asleep, I can't stay asleep, I sleep through the night, but I wake up feeling like I didn't get any rest. Those are three very different things. Genetic genetically, we understand why they happen and that's probably the fastest thing that gets fixed because it's almost instantaneously if you start doing the right thing, you start sleeping better right away and that supports everything else.
(36:13): So sleep is when you detox, it's when your brain and your glymphatic system detoxifies. It's when you make your hormone, it's when you make your mental hor uh, neurochemicals. Like, so if you're sleeping well, you're already solving a lot of problems, right? So, and then that's why we focus on that as an outlying thing. So those are the six areas we focus on. And if you do these six things right, you're superhuman. Yeah. You just, you just extended your life by 15 years just by doing these things because this is where disease comes from. And if you don't have chronic disease, then you should live healthy with energy and vitality.
(36:47): Yeah, and I love that you shared uh, mark Hyman, mark hs quote with me before we started. Your genes load, the gun, your environment, nutrition and lifestyle hold the trigger. It's so true. But I think that most people just aren't aware that what is the gun loaded with? That's what could I be facing? And I think it's so important to have information like a functional genomic profile that can help you make informed choices about nutrition and lifestyle. I know there are women all over looking for what, what diet should I eat? And we choose with our minds, but the truth is a lot of times our genetics have something to say about that, right?
(37:30): Yeah, for sure. You're first of all the way you're even perceiving and the choice that you just made mm-hmm , five different people make five different choices cuz they're seeing the situation differently. Your ability to deal with trauma and pain and either use it or a tool or ignore it, is determined by one or two genes really. Some people literally imprint and binding trauma and they hold onto the feeling. Some people can't, they ignore it. You know, your ability to see details and be be able to prioritize all the stimulus around you, whether it's sound or noise or information that's all linked in serotonin. And so you, you even step one even understanding how you see the world, you know? And when, when we're coaching people clinically we, we usually start there. It's let's understand your brain because once we do that, we know how to help you comply and actually do the things you're supposed to do.
(38:21): We know how to speak to you. Like if I come with all the bad news, are you never gonna talk to me again? Right? Are you or are you like myself who's highly reward seeking because I can't bind dopamine, so it's very hard for me to experience pleasure and reward. So I'm overly yeah, I'm I'm overly uh, I'll do it too much and I'll burn out. Right? So we start and then, and then if you also know that about yourself, you start to understand that's why in this scenario this doesn't work. That's why I behave like this. So anyways, just about getting into choices, it starts with even understanding how you perceive.
(38:57): Got it. Yes. You're so right. And our perception is partly determined by our genetics. I think the point is well taken and I'm wondering if you can, you shared with me a quote from Seth Godin, the cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing. So as it pertains to the topic, we're discussing women at midlife, hormonal health and balance what I call hormonal poverty. What, how does this apply?
(39:25): Very simple. Most of us don't do anything about prevention cuz we don't think we can. Now that you know you can and if you still don't, something is coming. We just don't know what yet. The reality is that when we think of our ancestors, we think of grandma and grandpa, your DNA is 200,000 years old. So we are like people of 200,000 years ago. What does that mean? That the reality that we now live in of a highly industrialized chemical society is what, 70, 80, maybe a hundred years old versus 200,000 years of what we are designed for. So the short answer is you're gonna be sick, we just don't know with what yet. So the risk of just doing nothing means you've consciously made a decision to accept that you're gonna be sick with something. The risk of doing something is that maybe you just did the wrong thing and you didn't need to trial an error and figure out what's right.
(40:27): So start, start today. The earlier you start, I believe the sort of trifecta, and you hinted to this earlier, is you start with your genetic code because now you know what you're wired for, what choices to make. Then you go into epigenetics, which is environment, nutrition, light. Let's start bringing in the right habits. Then you get into tracking, which is let's, let's do blood work and let's do Dutch testing and let's figure out where is it not working out. This choice that I thought was right for me isn't actually moving the needle. So I need to know how to change it. So that's what you should do for healthcare. Initial mapping, genetic testing, here's who I am and here's my risk. Start to implement habits, here's the right choices for me and now I'm making changes slowly. You don't have to do everything at once as you can handle it. Start to make changes and then measure things. Work with somebody like yourself and keep measuring, work with Dr. Dunston and say, I wanna do this test, I wanna do this test. And then you'll start to see, oh, I move the needle. See reactive protein, way better. My inflammation is gone. But guess what? Estrogen toxicity is still there. Let me work on that. That's healthcare. That's you taking charge and making that conscious choice. Conscious choice and preventing,
(41:42): Yes. So important. K Chief, thank you so much for sharing all this wonderful information. I love your passion for this topic. It, it really shows and I think that everybody listening really has a good idea for how impactful a functional genomic test can be. I hope you will all check it out. We'll have all the information in the show notes with all the links so you can go get a test. It's a place to start. Just start. Take action. , I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about the unfilled podcast. So tell everyone about your podcast and where they can connect with you on social media and on the internet.
(42:26): So unfilled was really built for our customers just to learn. So we got so many questions that we get regularly. We thought if we just give that answer to everybody as opposed to one individual. So the Unfill podcast, rev, you listen Apple, Spotify, just look up the Unfill podcast, you'll find us. And it's essentially us speaking to healthcare issues from the genetic perspective. That was season one, season two just launched, which is us interviewing a whole bunch of healthcare experts about various topics and they were awesome interviews. The the most recent one that just went live is with JJ Virgin about nutrition. And then we sprinkle our new uh, sort of genetic insights as she's talking and it's awesome. You'll also get a lot of information from Instagram. You know, me personally, I try and put stuff out there as I see problems. So cash con official, k a s h k h A n, official, find me Instagram and you'll learn as we go. Keep on going along. Every time you find something new, we talk about it until you'll keep learning.
(43:23): Awesome. Thank you so much for that and for this information, thank you for your passion about women's health and helping them to be healthier. Any last words of wisdom that you'd like to leave everyone with?
(43:36): Uh, well, you know, I did say earlier start, right? Mm-hmm . And if you do one thing well, two things. If you do two things today, just to make that commitment, to start and actually do it, sleep properly tonight, sleep on time, have proper sleep hygiene, which means no tv, no laptop, no phone, right temperature, no distractions, good uh, blockage of light. Do that and start making that because that's free and easy. You don't need a doctor's oversight, everything's in your control. Do that now. Start today. Second thing is think about your environmental health as women. Think about how important what you're breathing, what you're eating, and what's coming in through your skin. What chemicals are you using at home? What did you just clean your countertop with? What did you just spray in your lung? Start thinking about that today. If you don't do anything else, do those two things.
(44:30): Yes, I think that's wonderful advice and I look forward to hearing from you all listening, which ones or hopefully both that you've done and what changes you're starting to notice. Cuz sometimes it doesn't take much, just small changes. One little step can be so powerful Kashif Khan, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure. Thank you. And thank you all for listening to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I'm so glad that you chose to join us today, and I know that you've learned some new information that you can put into action in your life to start making changes. Like has she shared with us that Seth Godin said, the cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing. So do something and then reach out on social media and let me know what you chose to do. Thank you so much for joining me, and I will see you next week. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.
(45:34): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Do you ever feel like your hormones are out of control? You're not alone. In fact, many women in their 40s and 50s struggle with hormonal imbalances. But what if I told you that there's a way to help balance your hormones naturally?
Spinal fitness has a lot to do with hormone balance. When your spine is out of alignment, it can put pressure on your nerves and cause hormonal imbalances. But when your spine is in alignment, it helps your nervous system function properly, which can help balance your hormones.
Joining us in this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast is Eileen Durfee, an inventor, businesswoman, and practitioner of spinal fitness. She has developed a unique system of exercises that helps people achieve proper alignment and balance in their bodies.
Eileen is here to share with us how spinal fitness can help balance our hormones.
Her journey to overcome her health issues led her to become an inventor and businesswoman, with six (6) utility patents and three (3) design patents, and more in process. She founded her own health company, Creatrix Solutions LLC, to create and distribute natural healing products worldwide. She offers various health solutions through online web stores, including spinal fitness equipment, near-infrared saunas, air purifiers, ozone generators, and healing food salts.
In this episode, Eileen shares:
The connection between your spine and your hormones
How spinal fitness can help balance your hormones
What you can do to improve your spinal fitness
And much more!
If you're struggling with hormonal imbalances, this episode is for you. Tune in now to learn how spinal fitness can help you balance your hormones naturally.
(00:00): Joseph Murphy said, “Whatever you give attention to will grow, magnify and multiply in your experience.” And my guest today, Eileen Durfee, says that this was key in her recovery from her myriad health conditions. And I'm gonna tell you about that evolution and what's important for you to know regarding your hormones and spinal fitness. Stay tuned.
(00:23): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob-gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:17): Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am really grateful to have my guest today and excited to just share her with you because this is very impactful information that you're not gonna hear about in a lot of places. But it's super important. And if you miss this step, you'll probably never get your hormones quite right, so you don't wanna miss it. But it's kind of one of these little known hormone facts that you need to know, like what does your spinal fitness have to do with your hormones? If you listened to me long enough, you know that I've talked about this before, but not all the time, and you almost never hear anyone else talk about spinal integrity and hormones. So we're going to get into that. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Eileen and then we'll get started.
(02:10): She has a very extensive resume, so I'm gonna give you the highlights. But she's basically an inventor and practitioner. She has a engineering background in her brain is built, really built differently from a lot of peoples in that she's always thinking mechanics, how things work and how to improve things. So when she had her married health problems, which she will share with you in the episode, this engineering background really served her in coming up with solutions and particularly solutions around what is called spinal fitness. Not sure what that is. Stay tuned cause we're gonna tell you. And she even has some tips on figuring out your spinal fitness and if it's not great ways to help you improve it. So without further ado, welcome. I lead to the podcast.
(03:03): Well, thank you for having me.
(03:05): I'm excited for you to talk about your journey. A lot of the women listening are really struggling with their health. They're struggling to find answers and that's a part of your story. And it was through your struggle with your health problems that you overcame them and you really have developed a lot of programs and products to help other people. So I think it's very instructive. If you could share a little bit about your story briefly so that people know everything you've had to overcome and kind of some of the things we're gonna talk about today.
(03:42): Oh, I, I've been in pain my whole life from the time I was born to growing nine inches in three months in height and being ran over by a car. Then after I got a silver filling, becoming allergic to everything, having problems with candida, my hormones, Hashimotos, just hair falling out, psoriasis not being able to sleep. Just a ton of issues. And I just had this underlying feeling that, you know, my body wasn't made to have just necessarily medications that I tried diets and detoxification protocols and all these things and I started putting the pieces to the puzzle together so that my body could, you know, function, you know, without having so much medications and to, you know, have a more energetic life. Cuz really everything is about energy. We wanna be able to sleep well, wake up, have energy to li you know, live our life.
(04:48): And before it's like I didn't have any of that. And so I've tried a lot of gizmos. I mean a lot of the listeners probably have a lot of stuff that they bought that's just on the shelf in the garage. They're not using, you know, cuz it's like you have to develop this lifestyle and have things that are easy to use that you can feel a difference cuz there's no silver bullet to health. So I really looked at environmental toxins. You know, what you're breathing, what you're drinking, what you're putting on your skin. And then even if we lived in a bubble so to speak, we'd still have toxins, especially with a lot of genetic mutations that we have that we're not able to eliminate these things. So I developed gizmos to like help us do that. But a overlooked aspect really is how much energy does your body waste in holding your body? Erecting gravity, how many people have back pain, how many people have tight muscles? If we can just kind of improve that and open up our nerves to all of our organs, everything's gonna work better. And so I look at a whole body approach.
(05:57): Okay, thank you for sharing that. And you know, you've been through so much with your health, you listed so many problems. I think there are a lot of women listening who can identify with that. And Eileen shared her age with me before we started. She doesn't look her age at all and you could see her on the video. So she's doing something right. You mentioned something. So the, the podcast is the hormone prescription and I try to try and tie everything into hormones. We are going to be focusing on a spinal fitness and structure, but we're gonna tie in a lot of other health concerns into this episode. So you definitely wanna stay tuned. But I wanna start off by sharing something that you're probably not gonna hear in a lot of places. And this was taught to me when I worked in Atlanta by a very astute, intelligent chiropractor.
(06:51): As functional doctors, we go the next step as a mainstream doctor, when I, I just had a small toolbox of pill for every ill surgery, for every symptom. But then when I became fellowship trained in anti-aging, metabolic and functional medicine, I got a bigger toolbox and I started looking at the physiologic, biochemical and hormonal function of the body. And we worked with the body systems, but I didn't realize there was something else missing. And that was structural integrity. So Eileen mentioned as she was sharing her story about this kind of alignment that needs to happen to open up your nerve plexes, it also helped your blood vessels to flow more freely the blood through your body. And that means you're hormones, which is part of your nervous system if you've been listening to the podcast long enough, you know, that's the fact. And so it was this concept of when you are not aligning your musculoskeletal system properly, it puts these very small kinks in your nerves, your blood vessels, your subtle energy bodies, and it stops everything from working properly, including your hormones.
(08:02): So I wanna start the whole discussion from that perspective. I want everyone to get that how important this is. It's not, oh I slept funny and my neck's outta balance and I just need to go to the chiropractor to get it popped back because I don't want my neck to hurt. It's the fact that your body, and most of us, he showed me my posture was he imitated me and I have this hilarious picture of him kind of twisting and he is like, so all your nerves and vessels are twisted that way. So it's about your hormones functioning that crick in your neck, the fact that your feet are half a centimeter off, right? You have hip misalignment, which most of us have. Your hormones aren't functioning properly because of that. So I know I've said a lot, but I really wanna draw everybody's attention to the importance of this. So how did you zero in on spinal fitness through this huge health journey that you had? Eileen, let's talk about how you zeroed in on that and really how did that become a big part of your
(09:05): Recovery? Well, after being ran over by a car, I mean I'd been to neurologist, everything else they said I'd never be able to lift my hands. My arms up, shoulders up. It was like daggers being, you know, stabbed into my chest every time I took a breath. And I went to a chiropractor who did a lot of adjustments. But he taught exercises and not just exercises to strengthen certain muscles, but exercises that would get you an S-shaped spine. Now that's what's not known is the benefits of an S-shaped spine and why you want it, how to get it. Mm-Hmm. . So with an S-shaped spine, you know your head is more balanced over your pelvis and the bones aren't so stacked on top of each other. Before you're 18, your body is busy increasing the size and developing the spinal disc tissue specifically. And then it'll stop increasing and growing those after you're 18.
(10:18): So you no longer have this pumping action to get nutrients in your disc or the waste products out. But if you do have that S shaped spine, it acts like a shock absorber where there's a pumping action where it pumps nutrients in, takes waste products out, keeps the spinal discs hydrated. So whenever you lose or don't have the S-shaped spine, then it's more compression and you go into disc degeneration and then you have tight muscles because people are really into stretching, which is great. Mm-Hmm. , however tight muscles exist because of gravity. You can't change the muscle attachments to bones. Okay. So when you have tight muscles, you really have to start thinking, do I have that S shape, spinal curvature, for instance, if all the listeners were to stand up and then fill their hamstrings, how many of them would have tight hamstrings? Almost every single person,
(11:21): I wanna just interrupt you for a second cause a lot of people know what you're talking about, S shape, other people don't. So can you explain to them what should they be looking for to to know if they have an S shaped spine? What is that curvature?
(11:35): Okay, the curvature, when we're born, we're a C shape. And when grandpa's old, he's like a C shape, you know, holding onto a cane, right? So in between, you know, we're born with that C shape and what our body does is it develops these lordotic curves where we get a low back curve and a neck curve. Okay. So our spine is in an S shape or should be. Okay. And so the benefits to that are is in gravity. Like your hamstrings for instance, are only designed for running, jumping or like if you're gonna launch an object, they're involved in the thrust. Mm-Hmm . But otherwise the hamstrings should have no effort on 'em, period. None. And the reason why they're tight is your short pastoral muscles, they're not very strong, they can't exert that tension that you need for very long. So the hamstrings begin to help those short postal muscles.
(12:38): So then like if you're gonna have a stride link, say you're a runner, if the hamstrings are tight because you don't have that a shape in your, you know, leaning forward. So you have all this extra pounds coming down as compression on your neck, you know, and all these things then that fast twitch muscle recruitment of the hamstrings are dedicated to keep you from falling flat, you know, because of gravity. And it will take it away. It won't let you have it for, you know, athletic performance. Mm-Hmm. or whatever. So you can tell right away if you have the s shape curve by, if you have high tight hamstrings, you don't have it. You know, how far can you bend over when you hinge at your hips? You know, if you can't put your palms flat on the floor, you don't have an S-shaped curve then mm-hmm.
(13:27): , if you jump up and you land forward or backward instead of in the same spot, when you try to jump as high as you can, that's indicative of poor posture. Mm-Hmm. , if you raise your hands straight up and they're not along your ears, most people they're pointing, you know, maybe even 15 degrees forward, 20, 30 degrees. That's indication of, you know, the neck not having the right curvature. So it's limiting, you know, your shoulders from moving your arms up rotating your head, looking with your eyes and turning a lot of people with really bad neck posture won't lead with the eyes, they'll lead with their chin. And then even sitting down, just taking a deep breath in and putting your, you know, hands claps behind your head, you know? Mm-Hmm. . So is your low back curve, does it have a low back curve in it or is it more flat?
(14:25): Those are, that's like the evaluation. And I have a free PDF guide that you can download on how to perform this evaluation and what it tells you about the posture. And that is okay, how Dr. Sugar helped the New England Patriots pick players for years, they didn't spend much money on players cuz they were using his techniques to evaluate, you know, athletic ability because it's like a car with a bent crank shaft, you know, your motor's gonna seize, it's gonna, you know, and your spine is a mechanical device like a, a crank shaft in a motor. And so if it's out of tolerance, you're gonna be grinding up bone edges, deteriorating discs and you're not gonna have athletic ability. And so it's really kind of easy to tell if you have enough shaped spine or not and you'll feel it with tight muscles and limited mobility or maybe even pain.
(15:21): But I mean, I've been traveling a lot and I will sit in an airport when I'm waiting watching how many s shaped spines can identify. I mean, I was there for hours and I saw two people with an S-shaped spine. It is epidemic, it's a hundred billion a year problem for low back pain alone in America. So just think of all the energy you're spending fighting gravity. And we have a system where you can get the S-shaped curve, you know, before now, I mean even physical therapists, they didn't know how to give it to people or to train for people to have it mm-hmm. , but they're, and so why are we losing our S shape? Most people never get it. And that's, especially with the electronic devices, cuz we're forward head posture a lot. We're, you know, we're looking down. So it's the repetitive motions that we're, you know, sustaining without, It's kind of like eating candy before bed and not flushing, flossing and brushing your teeth.
(16:25): You know, you, you've gotta do stuff to reverse the effects of gravity. Besides the fact that there are exercises that are being taught to increase muscle that actually reduce the curves. They're detrimental. We're teaching the children wrong, we're not helping them develop an S shaped spine. So all this like what exercises? Like a regular, a regular sit up, for instance, you know, you, you bend and so you're creating posterior shear because the, there's these bones upper and lower on each vertebrae that have facet bones mm-hmm. . And when those separate then you know, the, the vertebrae can twist or whatever. But it's not encouraging a low back curve when you're doing a regular sit up. So what we, what Dr. Sugar did is he created like a fulcrum. You think of a teeter-totter, if it's balanced with the fulcrum in the middle, it's really pretty easy.
(17:29): But like if you wanna move a boulder for instance, you have a long bar, but you put the fulcrum really close down there so you can use a hundred pounds to move 500. All right. So what we do with these exercises, we put the fulcrum underneath the body, so we eliminate posture, your shear, and then we put a load on the body. So it's like where the fulcrum is not in the center. So when you put the weight on top of the body, it's creating where you have to have 500 pounds to move 100. So you're putting absolute tension on these certain muscles that with that curve, that fcr underneath you, it induces the curvature. So there's a sit up exercise, there's a, that works external obliques and that because of the groove in the cushion helps to pick segmental posture. So if somebody has a slight scoliosis or vertebrae sublux out to the left or the right, it's like a train on a train track, it lets a spin float catches the transverse process and it'll actually adjust your back as you arch over it.
(18:39): And then again, because of that absolute tension and that, you know, kind of like a half of a ball that you're, you're laying over, it's going to induce the low back curvature. Then we do a pelvic tilt, which he initially started having us do a standing pelvic tilt. You know where that is really good for the hips. You talked about people having legs unequal cuz you know, they'll have, you know, half their trip hip rotated forward like you know, our gas pedals on the right and if we're right handed, most right-hand people, their hip is twisted forward. Yeah. And that, and then that shortens that leg. And so what we can do to strengthen the hips is doing a pelvic tilt. But he had it where you lay over this cushion where you can put your L five, L four, L three in this groove and then you get your upper body taught where your recs muscles tight, you're putting absolute tension on that recs.
(19:39): Then you put weight on top of the body on your iliac hips. And when you do that pelvic tilt because of the direction of muscle pull and the leverage you've created it actually shes the L five vertebrae back on the L four. So if you have like a, her created disc like Luke Rockhold UFC fighter that, that Joe Rugged wanted to have, have spinal surgery, I went over there, taught him this exercise on the power cushion and within two weeks he got rid of his herniated disc without surgery. And so it's just using leverage physics, you know, compression and sheer forces in a good way. The problem without having a neck shaped spine is, you know, we talked about the facet bones. If you have bone on bone, there's no muscle to have to weaken. It's so strong, it's like a vice. And when you have that S-shaped curve, the sheer forces push bone on bone.
(20:39): As soon as you don't have the S-shaped curve, gravity reverses. So then it puts the strain on your ligaments and your muscles and your inner spins muscles. And people sometimes don't think about it, but the disc in your spine is actually a ligament too. So they don't stretch like a rubber band. When you have enough, you know, you got all those tight muscles, you got that back pain, that means you're putting, you know, some undue stress and tearing on your spinal disc, which then can herniate and, and people are, you know, getting back surgeries, infusions all because they don't have the S-shaped curve because the doctors don't know how to give it to people. But this was proven Dr. Sugar did like a 15 year study with Jennifer Stone and Bob beaten from the US Olympic team and Ron O'Neill, who was the trainer at the New England Patriots for 26 years.
(21:37): And then Smitty from York Barbell who was the Olympic heavy weightlifting coach. They all did this study. And for the first time since Leon Neuro DaVinci and Belli in 1680, they only did partial spinal biomechanics. But they did every single vertebrae in the spine in position calculating the mechanical advantage of the S shaped spine versus, you know, forward head posture, loss of curb or the straight military spine and determined all the compression forces and sheer forces at every vertebrae. And it was proven that there's a 15 to one mechanical advantage to have an S-shaped spine. And it they every much Huh? For
(22:29): Everyone. For everyone. Not just athletes,
(22:31): Right? Yeah. Every, everyone. And then they found out that with these four exercises that you do and you start with only five 10 reps, it, it's nothing like a huge dedicated program. They found out there's lung as your spine wasn't naturally or surgically fused, you could get the S-shaped curve in 12 weeks doing these exercises three to five times a week. Awesome. And I just came back from Las Vegas at the physical therapy in orthopedic conference and I had the equipment there, and I asked people to do 10 reps of four exercises, but I would have them bend over first and turn their head, you know, do the evaluation. The worst improvement I got of everyone that was there was two inches of reach bending over and one inch turning their head either way. The best I got was nine inches. Bending over their hamstrings were so tight, but in 10 reps of four exercises they got nine inches of reach and three inches in turning their head.
(23:39): Either way I had one gal, cuz these are people that are inflection, they're bent over working on people that are injured doing physical therapy exercises using their arms. This one gal did all the exercises. Day one, she came back at the end of day two and said, I always have pain under my scapula. I always have pain when I'm lifting my arms and I always have low tight back muscles. She said, I wanna tell you, I sat in classes for two days, had no tight, low back, had no pain in my scapula and I could raise my arms without pain. And that was at the end of day two, these exercises. That's the thing is is I'm 60 years old and I know the women that are listening, life keeps life and we've got a lot of stuff and commitments that we have to do and it's hard for us to make a routine to change our life, you know, And it really helps when we can do something once and have such a significant improvement that it sells itself.
(24:44): It's like, man, I really feel a lot better when I do these things. You know? And that's what's fantastic about spinal fitness is, is that you can beat gravity, you can get rid of that pain, those tight muscles. But best of all is again, like you mentioned earlier, is like when your nerves are pinched, you know, from our brain, all of the signals to our organs go through that. And you know everyone when when you got tight muscles and pain, you've got pinched nerves. So it's not getting, its optimal communication to form its function. And so you really do have to think that the structure is one of the most important things because it's also very an anti-aging. See a lot of people will do all kinds of stuff for anti-aging and there's just a lot of technology out there and I use a lot about myself.
(25:47): It's fantastic. But if you don't get the S shaped spine, you know, and your muscles are fatigued and everything else, your body's so smart, it's gonna help you. It's gonna start adding calcification on the front of these vertebraes to help it stand you, you know, to help you with gravity. Mm-Hmm . Cause your muscles don't have to be tight. So then you're gonna get stiff and old and you're gonna start developing that C shape curve and you're gonna have permanent reduced nerve capacity, you know, to your organs and you're just gonna age, you are gonna premature the age unless you get that shaped spine.
(26:28): Wow. So I hope everybody is hearing this. So maybe you're someone who's the majority of women that 40 to 60 and older have had episodes of back pain, if not chronic back pain. And so maybe that's you or maybe you don't have back pain and you wanna make sure that you don't get it or have any disc problems in the future. So at the end Eileen does have a download, like she said, where you can kind of do these tests for your s curvature and also some exercises. But one of the things I really notice in reading your bio and talking to you just before the podcast and also during the podcast, you have been through so much and you have this incredible engineering technical mind that has helped you to think about these health challenges that you've encountered in a really unique and technical kind of solution focused strategy way.
(27:26): And you shared some quotes with me that you love, I I wanna share this one by Joseph Murphy. And then I want to ask if you could talk a little bit about how you've had the mental toughness to go through the things you've been through and not only survive through them, but thrive and become so passionate that you've created innovative tools for other people. And the quote from Joseph Murphy, Mur Murphy who I love, is whatever you give attention to will grow, magnify and multiply in your experience. So could you talk a little bit about what that means to you and how this has served you and what other mindset tools you use to thrive through everything you've been through?
(28:09): You know, I've naturally been one of those people that no matter what's wrong or what challenges that are before me is a glass that's always half full and, and that there's always a solution. I, I don't know, I think it's, you know, because of my family environment, maybe how my father was so into perfectionism and you know, I sought his approval where my sister went the opposite direction. But I've just always had this drive that, you know, the answers never know there's always a solution. And then over the years I've, you know, done a lot of reading because it's like I, every single day I, I don't know, I have this hunger to learn, you know, and nothing ever stays the same and you just can't keep on doing the same thing over and over. So I'm always reading, always learning. And when I came across Dr.
(29:08): Joseph Murphy, I realized that the reason why I was able to get out of that bad situation and then to create solutions is because of my focus and the hope that I had. You know, which naturally came to me. But now I utilize that, those tools even more. Mm-Hmm , there's a lot of, you know, things that, you know, thought life is huge. And for women, I didn't have any brothers so I was more of a tomboy with my dad. I mean, I ran machines, drove the backhoe. You don't know how to frame. And you know, just, I like all guy stuff, you know, I, I I'm real mechanical and you know, a lot of women, you know, they have these challenges and I just realized that what you think about in your thoughts, you know, a lot of women, it's like there was this funny movie with Mel Gibson in where he could hear the thoughts of women and they were just all racing, Did I leave the coffee pump?
(30:16): Did I do this? Did I do that? You know? And so it's like when you really realize it, like my own daughter, she has all the this thought life and you know, and I just realized that, that I didn't have a lot of that. My thought life is about visualizing mechanically maybe how to build something to solve a solution. And it's like I do a lot of work in my mind that way instead of thinking about the worst thing or the fear or this or that. But I know that women in general, I'm more left brained, you know, they're more right brained and so they might really think a lot about things. And so I've really tried to, you know, help people realize, you know, just observe your thoughts. I think a really good tip would be to just kind of like observe your thoughts for a while.
(31:08): What are you, what are you really thinking about? What are you spending your time thinking about? And then maybe take steps to change or replace some of those thoughts. I mean, you know, you can get audiobooks of Joseph Murphy that you know that he's really fantastic. There's a lot of other people out there too. But our thought life can really even impact our hormones, our mood and emotions. Cuz everything is energy. So if we can transform our thought life, we're gonna transform our body, we're gonna transform our hormones, we're gonna transform so many things. And I think that was my strong point kind of naturally being wired towards that way of thinking. Mm-Hmm . But then I just didn't want that to be accidental. I wanted to like improve. So, you know, I'm constantly learning. So I think that's a really good thing is to, you know, be curious and know that nothing here stays the same and that little tiny hinges move giant doors. So sometimes the simplest little tiny things that we change can like dramatically improve our life.
(32:23): I love that quote. Little tiny hinges move giant doors. That's so true. You know, sometimes it can be so simple and you've offered so much important information for everybody here today, Eileen. I really appreciate it. It, I really, this is a pet peeve of mine because I think even a lot of us functional docs don't stress the importance of structural integrity of the mu low skeletal system. And we really do a disservice to people when we don't. So I appreciate you coming and sharing light on this. You've got a great gift. We'll have the link in the show notes, so if you're driving, don't try to write it down. We'll have it in the show notes and tell everybody what they'll get there. There are a few different downloads for free that they're gonna get, right?
(33:11): Yes. There's I think five or six documents and these were rewritten based on Dr. Sugar's work and it goes into exercises to avoid that can actually put strain and stress on your back and reduce your curves. And then ones that we encourage or how to do a modified instead of a standing curl with weight, sit down and do a preacher's curl with weight. So you take the stress off the low back, just tips like that. So there's document just about the exercises that to avoid and what we recommend. Then there's one on just how to do the Netflix flexion cuz you know, we're forward head posture where we're sitting at our desks. So there's just a simple exercise that you can do even with your fingertips or with the neck shaper device to help bring your head back, reverse the gravitational effects. And so there's a collection document, then there's a sit up document.
(34:19): Even without a power cushion you can actually take a sleeping bag with duct tape and create yourself that fulcrum to exercise over. Mm-Hmm. . And it talks about the reasons why you don't wanna do a regular sit up and how to do the sit up correctly and what muscles it strengthens. Those kinds of things. The same way with a, a pelvic tilt, you know, it explains all of that. And then a really important thing, one of the first things Dr. Sugar had me do after I was ran over by the car was take ordinary bath towels and roll them a special way and then do a back twist. Cuz you know, I talked about your body's not giving the nourishment to the discs anymore cause you're supposed to have that shaped spine. So your, your discs are like a dried out kitchen sponge. So we can do this twist to cause 'em to go to a gel state.
(35:18): Then we can lay over these rolls. So we take gravity out of the picture cuz gravity is why you have tight muscles. So as your muscles loosen, it encourages increasing proper curvature. And we have special roll now that act like a brace where you're laying there, you actually hear your bone snap just laying the relaxing because when the muscles let go mm-hmm. , it's like a groove on it. And so that it teaches you how to do that. So all these free guides, you don't have to buy anything. You can, I show you how to makeshift what you got at home to do these things, to start getting back pain relief.
(35:57): Awesome. Thank you so much for those wonderful gifts, Eileen, Thank you for your journey and all that you've created to help people and for this incredible information. Thanks so much for joining us today.
(36:09): Well thank you for having me
(36:11): And thank you all for joining us for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. I hope that you'll put into action something that you've learned here today. Frankly, I think each and every one of you needs to download the guides and see if you have the s curvature in your spine. And if you don't, you need to get about the business of working to get the S curvature back if you had it before, or to get it for the first time. Because not only will that help to eliminate back pain potentially, but you're going to help your entire biochemistry and physiology to function better, including your hormones. So if nothing else, I hope that you take action. Thanks so much for joining me. I'll see you again next week. Until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.
(37:02): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormones and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Is chronic pain normal as we age? No way! It's time to take control and feel better with today's episode.
On today's episode, we'll be talking with Jane Hogan, a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, Certified Yoga Teacher, and wellness educator who specializes in helping people heal chronic pain with breathwork and mindfulness. She'll be sharing her story of overcoming chronic pain and giving us some tips on how we can do the same.
About Jane Hogan:
Jane Hogan, "The Wellness Engineer," blends science and spirituality to help people release chronic pain using the mind, body, and breath so they can become empowered creators of their health.
Her personal experience of reversing crippling rheumatoid arthritis using natural solutions inspired her to leave a 30-year engineering career and become a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach, Certified Yoga Teacher, and wellness educator.
Combining ancient wisdom with leading-edge science, Janes Wellness by Design Blueprint has helped hundreds of people release chronic pain naturally. She is the host of the Wellness by Design podcast and her empowering message has been featured on numerous podcasts and summits.
In this episode, you'll learn:
-Mind-body techniques to release chronic pain
-How to use your breath to heal your body
-Lifestyle changes that can help alleviate chronic pain
-And more!
If you're ready to start feeling better and take control of your chronic pain, this episode is for you. Tune in now!
(00:00): "Every day is a mini version of our life. How you start your day is important." Jane Hogan.
(00:06): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an o B gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:00): Hi, and welcome back to the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. You're gonna enjoy the episode today because we're talking about two very important things, breath and brain and how you can harness the power of these two, heal yourself of chronic pain and many health conditions. The science is very clear that your breath and your brain function are super important foundational manifestors of the physical health that you're experiencing. So why not take advantage of every tool that you can use or, I'm gonna dive deep today with my guest Jane Hogan, and she's going to teach you all about that. She's very passionate about it. She's done a lot of work in education in this area. Jane is the wellness engineer. She blends science and spirituality to help people release chronic pain using the mind, body and breath, so they can become empowered creators of their own health.
(02:01): Her personal experience of reversing crippling rheumatoid arthritis using natural solutions inspired her to leave a 30-year engineering career and become a functional medicine certified health coach, certified yoga teacher and wellness educator. Combining ancient wisdom with leading edge science, Jane's Wellness by Design Blueprint, has helped hundreds of people release chronic pain naturally. She's the host of the Wellness by Design podcast and her empowering message has been featured on numerous podcasts and summits. Welcome Jane to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really thrilled to be on your podcast. Glad to have you. Anytime we get to talk about quantum physics, energy medicine and all the woo things that most people think aren't things and I know are really the missing key to their overall health regimen and what's stopping them from healing. A lot of times I am in, and I know that that's something you love talking about. You're very passionate about it. It, and I've helped a lot of people with it. So can you tell everyone how did you become so passionate about the power of the mind and how it can heal the body and impact pain?
(03:10): Mm, really through my own health journey, I was an engineer, civil engineer, structural design. My little joke is I was a structural design engineer until my own structure started to fail. I turned 50 and I was like, 50 is fabulous. But then within about three weeks after that I developed severe joint pain. I had just come through this really stressful year, emotionally stressful. My mother had died suddenly, and I had a lot to deal with. I had to deal with the home and their collections and siblings, and it had been very stressful. I hadn't been sleeping very well, and so I was sort of on the tail end of that getting the house ready for sale and I just, my joints just got really my shoulders first it started, but it was so bad, had to go in a sling and then the next day it was the other shoulder and it kind of went around.
(04:03): It was my knees, my feet, I got orthotics. I thought, okay, I'm just at that age and my jaw, my hands started to hurt. I thought, okay, I just need the house sold and then everything's gonna be fine. I'll take it a little vacation, I'll be fine. But I got worse to the point where I could hardly walk, I could hardly like turn door handles. I was getting stuck in rooms cuz I couldn't turn the door handle. I, I couldn't squeeze shampoo outta the bottle. I was like almost getting to the point where I couldn't look after myself and really didn't know what it was. Nothing was really showing up in my blood work. Luckily I had my family doctor was kind of unusual because she suggested that food might help and that there were some foods that caused inflammation. So she mentioned gluten, dairy and sugar were really common.
(04:52): So I just cut them out of cold Turkey and I had like a significant reduction pain in just five days, which you know, if you know anything and I know you do about the gut microbiome and how quickly it heals, then that makes total sense. And so I kind of went on this whole journey. I learned about functional medicine. Eventually I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, but I saw a rheumatologist and I said, I'm kind of trying these other things and so I don't really wanna take the meds right now. I was a little scared of the side effects. So I continued on and I started looking at lifestyle and I thought, okay, it's food and lifestyle, then I'm gonna be fine. And so I kept on trying all these things and graphing them and charting them and seeing how I was doing. And I would get a little bit better and then I would plateau and then I would try something else, get a little bit better and then plateau.
(05:40): And I was like at least a year into the journey when I started actually I, I trained, I decided I wanted to learn more about functional medicine. So I signed up to be a, a health coach training for, to become a health coach. Not that I knew if I was gonna be a health coach, but I just wanted to learn more about it, and I could do it online. And I learned so much in that about the power of the mind and every month we had a mind body medicine component and then I realized that's what I was missing. And then I dived in further into the mind and then also looking at childhood trauma. I had to treat trauma like most people do. And anyway, the mind in addressing the mind and really understanding all of that and how it affects us energetically really took my healing then to the next level so that, that's not a short story but there you go. .
(06:34): Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I know there are a lot of people listening who are are gonna identify because it seems like whether you're 40, 50, 60 for women, a lot of times it just happens pretty quickly, and we hit this wall. But I'm sad that this happened to you, but I love how you described how you couldn't even get out of a room cuz you couldn't turn the doorknob and there might be somebody listening who's dealing with that right now. And Jane shared a few quotes with me before we started recording that I love and I think that they really speak to this situation that you've just described Jane, and probably will speak to some of you out there. Everything is happening for you, not to you. And I love that because a lot of times when it comes to our health, when we get these negative symptoms, you know, we're midlife, we're gaining weight, our hairs falling out, we can't digest our food, we can't sleep, you name it, you guys know what I'm talking about and we think it's happening to us and it's something that's harming us. But really it's, I call the body her. She's trying to tell you what's wrong and she's, these are signposts to where the problems are so that you can fix them. And so you came in contact with this information that the mind has the power to heal the body. So what did that look like for you and your, your healing journey from rheumatoid arthritis? How did you utilize mine techniques to help you,
(08:00): First of all re that reframing that quote that you said there? Everything is happening for me, not to me. I think it's Byron Katie, I'm gonna give her credit for that anyway. Yeah, that it's just such a reframe that this was not, because in the beginning I felt like why is this happening to me? My life is outta control. This shouldn't be happening. I've been a good eater all my life. I've been athletic. Why is this happening? It's not fair. You know, all those kinds of thoughts and really afraid for my future. But to reframe it as this is happening for me, there's something for me to learn because what I kind of always knew and believe was that our bodies really are self-healing. They are, if we're having this breakdown or dis-ease or whatever's happening, these negative symptoms, then it's really our body calling for our help. And so it then, it really is happening for us because it's calling our attention to become a version of ourselves that's different than the version who created this illness or dis disease in the body. So it's waking us up, it's waking us up. So now, I mean I see this whole beautiful path that I've had to get me right here to be talking to you right now and I wouldn't have changed it. I know it was all happening for
(09:17): Me. To me, what you're saying makes perfect sense cuz I've been down the same path. But to a lot of people they're like, they have no idea what you're talking about Jane. So you say it's calling us to become a version of us that's greater, I'm paraphrasing than the woman who got rheumatoid arthritis or something like that. Some people are sitting there scratching their heads saying, I have no idea what she means. Mm. Can you explain that?
(09:43): Okay, so I'm gonna go down a little lesson in quantum science. I'll keep it really simple cuz I'm not an expert in quantum science. But I'll tell you a little bit about what I learned and then you'll understand why I said what I said. So quantum science tells us first of all that everything's energy including us, right? We are actually electromagnetic energy systems that are expressing through a physical human nervous system and a physical human body. So that might be like a lot for people to take in , just that statement. But that's what quantum science tells us. Quantum science also says that we are constantly creating the reality. So basically, and this epigenetics tells us this too, that the environment that we're creating is the environment that our cells are all reproducing in. So if we've got a, an environment of stress and stress can be thoughts, right?
(10:39): Stress is it it, I'm, I'm calling it negative energy. So it can be thoughts, it can be toxins, it can be foods that aren't healthy for us and so on. So we create this in, we are the ones creating that environment that's manifested in these cells reproducing this disease in the body. So going back to that, then if we've created it with the thoughts that we've had with the foods that we've been eating with the toxins we've been exposed to, then we can be the ones that can change that. So the version of ourselves that created the disease, I mean we didn't do it consciously. Obviously none of us have really been taught this, which is why I'm so passionate about speaking about it. So the version of us that it created, if we continue the same way, then we're gonna create more of that. So if we wanna change it, we gotta become a different person. You know, we've gotta create different energy so that we now create a a physical body that manifesting of the energy in a physical body that's going to be different. One that's gonna be creating health and wellness, not creating disease.
(11:50): Okay. So that's well said cuz I tell people that all the time, like the you that you are, you know, whatever it is that you're wanting to heal from, you know, irritable bowel depression, you know, hot flashes and can't sleep, perimenopausal sin, whatever they are, is not the same woman who can exist in this world and not have those symptoms. Like you have to be someone different.
(12:14): Yes.
(12:14): And when I say this to people, they look at me like I have three heads. They don't understand what I'm saying. And I didn't get it cuz people said this to me too back at the beginning of my journey and I didn't get it either. But now I get that the pain was calling me through the path to healing, to the purpose and to becoming who I needed to be so I could, you know, get off the five psychoactive medications and not need them, so I could regrow my hair and have a sex drive and do all the things. But I didn't understand that at the time. And, and in fact it scared me because I thought, well what are you saying? Like I can't be married. I was married at the time, married to the man I married to, I can't be a mom, I can't deliver babies, I can't do the things. So what do you say to those people who are thinking, what do you mean I have to change Jane,
(13:01): When we do get this disease in our body, and we're, you know, we're faced with this, it feels very powerless, right? You feel like a victim. And that's exactly how I felt. And we're also kind of taught in this culture that we aren't powerful. Like we have to go find, know the medications or whatever to take care of this. But really we are powerful when you think we're, we've like, the fact that we've created the pain or disease or whatever it is, shows us how powerful we are because we created it, right? So really I feel like this puts us in an empowered position and maybe that is a little scary for some people. In fact, there's a quote by Maryanne Williamson that I don't have totally, and it wasn't one of the quotes I mentioned to you earlier, but it's something like our biggest fear is not that we aren't powerful, it's that we're powerful beyond measure.
(13:51): And really that is where we are. But we, we also have to be careful with those thoughts too. Ki ki and that is that we can't sort of go into blame, say, wow, like why did I do this to myself? It's not that because those are negative thoughts that are creating negative energy, which are, you know, again, ourselves are gonna be bathed in it. So we wanna make sure that we're having the thoughts of empowerment that are so that we are going to manifest this, this healthier version of ourselves in this physical body. I hope that helps your audience understand that really it's coming from a position of power and it's putting you in a more powerful place.
(14:31): Yeah. So when, this was all a part of my journey too, and I didn't get it at first, but as I said, I, I leaned into the question and then that's when the answers and the understanding came and I realized that I couldn't be the person who said that I didn't, you know, have a sugar problem and continue to eat sugar, right? I couldn't be the person who just basically didn't love and nurture and care for myself the way that I deserved to and heal. And so those are a lot of things that I've changed. So let's talk about though, particularly when it comes to pain, do you think there's a special relationship between your mind, your thoughts that you think and pain in particular? Or is it any health problem?
(15:17): I probably say any health problem really. But sort of talking about pain in particular, I just hosted this some as I interviewed like 50 experts in who help people get outta pain naturally. And it was really co that there's kind of two broad categories of what causes pain and actually chronic conditions of any kind is what a lot of them said. And that is stress is one bucket and toxins are another bucket. And you could even kind of put them all in one bucket because toxins create stress in the body. But let's just talk about the stress for a moment. So the stress can come from our thoughts, can come from even thoughts that we're not aware of. In fact, a lot of it can come from thoughts that we're not aware of. I interviewed Dr. Bruce Lipton and he talked about subconscious thoughts and how that can lead to, you know, fit manifestation of physical problems in the body.
(16:12): And so many other experts too talking about like childhood trauma that we may not even have realized we were carrying these subconscious thoughts all the time. And how do you know that you're carrying you, it's kind of because we create these adaptive behaviors to make up for these things that hap may have happened to us or things that we interpreted as being fearful when we were little. I mean we don't even remember it, we don't have to remember it, but you'll see evidence because you'll have behaviors like perfectionism, people pleasing, always having to do, do, do go, go, go. So those kinds, feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, being critical of other people are critical of yourself or not being able to take criticism, you know, being ultrasensitive. So these are all just really behavioral adaptations that we created to manage the fear situations we were in when we were really little.
(17:09): But the problem is that that creates, you know, like an environment of fear in our body. So our cells are kind of bathed in this, you know, underlying things aren't safe and when things aren't safe, when the body thinks that things aren't safe, as you know, we're not going to be in that rest digest, parasympathetic state. We're gonna be more in the sympathetic state, which is when things don't run really well. And it's kind of like a, if you think about like an automobile is not, if it's not getting proper maintenance and you know, you don't put the right kind of gas in it and all that kind of stuff, it's going to start to break down obviously. And it's kind of like our, our bodies are the same way. So we got, could have this underlying stress that's keeping our, our system in that state where we're not optimally functioning and then that has a downward cascade effect of coming out as physical things in the body, you know, so that's what we're seeing. It might come out of pain, it might come out as hair loss. You mentioned it could come out as eczema, it could be anxiety, you know, all these different things.
(18:16): Yeah, yeah, a lot of the things you mentioned increase inflammatory markers in the body, increase inflammation, which then is, you know, negative feedback with cortisol plus the unconscious thoughts spikes the sympathetic nervous system. Everybody listening will remember. Keesha, yours has been on the podcast as well as on the summit talking about little T trauma and I love Bruce Lipton. I'll put a plug in for his book, The Biology of Belief. Yeah,
(18:41): And
(18:41): This is, this is one of my favorite topics because it is the emerging science. You're not gonna hear this at all at a regular doctor's office and it absolutely will stop you from achieving the health that you deserve from achieving the Pain-FREE state that you deserve from achieving the peaceful mind that you deserve. What would you say to those people who say, cuz I know what we'll get into, let's start with this. What are some of the steps that people can take to really start working with, I know you talk about mind or brain, breath and body. So what are the components of starting to work with these, the, the mind to help to heal your pain? I'll come back to my question
(19:30): Later. I think one thing that really works in the beginning is maybe because people are listening to a podcast like this is having hope. So having hope and belief that things can change because you know, if I just searched rheumatoid arthritis basically on the, I'm just gonna find a lot of bad stuff and nasty little pictures of gnl hands and things like that, right? So it's finding these different stories, seeking out these other stories of people that have gotten lost. So having hope is really important because that's, you know, that's kind of starting with our beliefs. I also, well I love talking about breath work too, because we need to calm ourselves down. We're going, most of us are going around in a constant state of stress and you mentioned we're creating the hormones of stress in our body, which then every single cell Bruce Lipton talked about, you know, are the antenna basically on the surface of every cell that's picking up on that environment, sending the information to the DNA to, you know, how to replicate what's going on out here?
(20:31): Well, it's a little bit dangerous, so like, let's make sure we're, we're setting up and, and putting up defense physiology, not not health physiology. And so yeah, so doing everything you can to create calm. So I love breath work because it's free, it's totally portable and it's the fastest way to get the body and mind and body into that parasympathetic state, right? To just kind of calm that nervous system right away. As soon as we start talking about breath work, a lot of times I find people just automatically, you know, they'll breathe through their nose and slow it down and notice, and right in that moment you're not ruminating over the past or worrying about the future if you can just like listen to the sound of your breath or feel your belly moving in and out and hopefully it's the belly and not the chest because the chest, again, if we breathe into our chest, which a lot of people are doing, that's, that's activating the sympathetic state. Whereas when we breathe into the belly area, so the belly is kind of moving in and out because the diaphragm is coming up, up and down, then we're activating the vagus nerve, which is the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system. So breath is a great place to start.
(21:45): Yes, I love that. I have a friend who says, if your mind is in the future with anxiety or the past with regret, you are on the present. And I love that. Yeah,
(21:54): I look on their present. Like, why would
(21:56): We do that ? But so many of us are not in the present. And if you start to pay attention to that, you really start to notice that you're not, you know, you might be eating a piece of toast, but are you really tasting the toast? Are you really being present with the people that you're with? Or are you worrying about what's gonna happen to or rehashing something that happened last week? And the nervous system really can only heal in that parasympathetic state that is in the present. A lot of people say to me, Well how does breathing help your nervous system? Can you help them understand
(22:32): That there's so much science behind this? And so we know this to be true, that when we slow down the breath, especially the exhale on pain, for sure it helps lower it. So when we slow down the breath, and there's plenty of studies on like mindfulness and how it helps with, with stress, anxiety, with pain. So even people with like fibromyalgia, people with cancer, it helps create that com. So it, when we do that, the body can like start to heal. And so when we're healing then our immune system for example, is gonna come back online, our digestive system is going to come back online, our endocrine system, our musculoskeletal system, our circulatory system, everything's gonna start working more optimally. And of course in that environment we're going to start to feel better. But even in the moment, just in that moment, we can just very, very quickly get ourselves into that parasympathetic state.
(23:34): And the faster you do that, the better. Keesha, yours told me this actually, that when we create cortisol, it takes 12 hours to dissipate it out of the body. The longer we keep ourselves in a stress state, the longer that's going to take. So it's just so important to try to stop it as soon as you can. Breath is a great way to do it. There's other ways, but you've always got the breath with you when you do that, you can just kind of create that calm state. So that's, that's why I love the breath so much. But there's other things people can do, whatever, whatever makes you feel good and gets you at the moment. So it takes a little bit of awareness too. So we want to be able to catch ourselves when we are having negative thoughts. So we are so lucky as human beings that we have this ability to be aware that we are thinking we can be aware of our thoughts. Now, if you're not used to it, it does take a little bit of practice, but that is something you can practice and that can help. What am I thinking of right now? And if you notice that you're ruminating over the pa or you're on your, your present, then you can go reset, reset. Bring myself back to, okay, just focus on the breath in this, this one I love is in this moment, I'm safe in this moment. Everything's okay. And that can just calm you right down immediately.
(24:56): Yeah, we're the only species that has metacognition. We can think about what we're thinking about and how we think, but a lot of us don't. We think the same, you know, 70,000 thoughts a day today that we thought yesterday. And so a really empowered use of your mind is to think about what you're thinking about, think about the things that you think about repetitively, the patterns and habits. And I really think this whole childhood trauma really unpacking that because I think it's estimated gab or Monte estimates that 97% of us have had trauma in our lives and that just means overwhelming feelings that we couldn't handle that's programmed our nervous system and our cortisol hpa access to be on overdrive, right? So let's dive into a few solutions. I know you've got a podcast we're definitely gonna share with everyone. Wellness by design that has a lot of resources. But let's dive into so some simple deep belly breasts. It's all about increasing your vaal tone, calming your sympathetic, increasing your parasympathetic, which is that heel and repair part of your nervous system. What are some other things that people could do, activities they could start doing today to start calming their mind and healing their body?
(26:12): A lot of people think that right away, I, I've gotta change what I'm eating and not that food isn't important because obviously we gotta give our our body the building blocks, right? For good health and hopefully not be bombarding it with toxins which take a lot of energy to deal with and can build up in the tissues. But even starting with feeling calm while you're eating. So when you're preparing food, like feeling good about it, being grateful with the food that you have, the ability to do this, sitting down with people that you love, having good conversations or if you're by yourself, just even just loving on yourself and feeling good while you're eating. Taking the time to eat slowly. So I love to say start with how you eat rather than what you eat. It's a great starting point because then you'll even, you'll be able to digest your food better and when you digest your food better, well then it can help calm the nervous system or the immune system down.
(27:14): So then you stop having this inflammatory response. So it's kind of two things, right? It's the, it's the mind i digestion kind of begins in the mind. So starting with feeling calm while you're eating and appreciating and feeling gratitude, just feeling good about what you're eating. In fact, there's I've heard that, you know, the Mediterranean diet has always been touted as being such a healthy diet. The people there, you know, eat, they eat all this food and they have longevity. But one thing they do a lot over there is they really linger over their meals, their family times. People are talking and laughing. And so I think that plays a a big part in it as well. So that's a great place to start. Start with how you're eating .
(28:00): I love that. You know, just like sex doesn't begin in the bedroom, foreplay begins outside. I call that food foreplay. And like you said, digestion begins in the mind. So you've got to have food foreplay to get your digestion going. So start with how you eat, not what you eat. I love that, Jane, what else can we do?
(28:19): How you start your day is huge, right? Every day is like a little mini version of our life and we really don't know how many days we have. So how you start your day sets you up for the rest of the day. So I'm really big believer in starting the day, like even before getting outta bed, just tuning in with your body, noticing what you're feeling, if you feel anything that's kind of a little bit off and kind of sending it some love as if it's a small child. Imagine that you're breathing into it and like hugging it . And also like what are you excited about that's coming up during the day? Just what do you envision for the day? What do you envision for even, you know, beyond the day for three months, five years, 10 years ahead? Just really setting your mind up for the day and getting in a really good place.
(29:07): And so that's the mindset part. I love doing some of that. Having some movement in the morning is really good, especially if you can do it outside, cuz our eyes will get exposed to sunlight. So then it sets you up for sleeping better that night. And also just having that time where you're doing some mindfulness. So whether you are just sitting there doing some breathing or whether you do a guided meditation or a silent meditation, whatever it is, but you just take some time where you are getting your mind in that present moment and not thinking about other things. Now our thoughts will wander in of course, but you, you just kinda like, isn't that cute? Let them float away again like clouds and not judge yourself for it. So that probably leads to the next thing is just like being kind to yourself. We're, we're far too hard on ourselves.
(29:58): And so that's really important. So yeah, the morning I think is important. How you eat is important. Being aware of your thoughts, what are you thinking about all the time? Maybe you might wanna journal on that even like, you know, kind of sit down what's on your mind right now. Just write it all down just so that you're getting an idea of what you're thinking about all the time. And then is that kind like, are you speaking to you like yourself? Like you would speak to someone that you love, like a best friend? And chances are we may not be, so, might wanna turn that around a little bit. And Louise Hay was a real proponent of doing mirror work and that might seem a little weird to people to look in the mirror and say, you know, I really love you, however you are.
(30:41): I love you. There's a book by Mel Robbins called The High Five Habit, and she talks about the power of high-fiving yourself in the mirror in the morning because we have this association with a high five that's, it's always like, good. And it's like, who is celebrating And you know, you know you're doing awesome. So instead of looking in the mirror and feeling negative about yourself, you're high-fiving. It's kind of a pattern interrupt in the brain. She backs us up with a lot of science in the book as well. So even making that a little habit in the morning, like high-fiving yourself in the mirror instead of looking in the mirror and thinking the critical thoughts that so often we do, especially, you know, us women as we get older, we're probably looking in the mirror going, Who is that? And like, where do these wrinkles come from and all that. But instead, high five yourself, Look at me, I'm awesome . Or even if you don't feel like that, like you can tone it down a little and say, I'm, I'm doing so much better. I'm doing the best I can today. I'm the best version of myself today.
(31:43): Yes. You know, I love that. And I'm wondering if you can think of a client that maybe you've worked with who really didn't think that she had a problem with negative self-talk or self-love and maybe she worked with some of these tools and how that helped to transform her health and her life. If you could share that.
(32:04): Oh, you know, this is pretty much every client,
(32:07): . ,
(32:08): Yeah. Because most people, by the time they come to me, they're already in pain. And so I know that there's always this emotional component to pain, a lot of time connected with these emotions. Louise Hay wrote a great book called You Can Heal Your Life. Emotions Connected with the Pain, Different issues, I guess Dise in the Body, Plus I know I, I'm a yoga instructor now, know a lot about the chakras and the emotions and things and, and how it's connected to different endocrine systems in the body. So I know that there's this connection. So pretty much every client, you know, we work on this and, and I see them change, it's so beautiful that to see them realize that they've been so hard on themselves and they don't have to do that, really teaching themselves love. And then when you have that, you can make better decisions for yourself because you love yourself, right?
(33:01): You're going to make better decisions. You're going to not mind taking the time to cook a meal that's going to be nourishing. You're not going to mind taking the time to do this little morning routine that's going to help help you or going out for a walk or whatever it is. So it starts with, with that like really loving yourself, taking the time to do the breath work. As I said, even with breath work, there's a lot of science behind this and especially breath work that's creates heart resonance, that the cognitive brain we think better and when we think better, we make better decisions. So it all starts to kind of tumble along and feel good. So I mean, one, one story that I just love is this woman that came to me and a lot of self-esteem issues and pain overweight. And after working with me for a while, I remember she said, I can finally bend over and tie my own shoes. And that like, I didn't even realize that that was going to be a thing for her that meant so much and it just kind of kept on going from there. But that you can just imagine how the feeling that that when she could finally tie her own shoes and how how liberating that felt for her instead of having to get someone else to do it.
(34:18): Yes, that's true freedom and you don't even realize that you don't have or appreciate the fact that you can bend over and tie your shoes until it's gone.
(34:28): Yeah. Or turn the door handle
(34:30): or turn the door handle, right? These things we take for granted and then sometimes we literally wake up and our health is deteriorating. But there is a way out, you, you all listening know that hormones is key for me for sure. I think Jane would agree, right? Mm-Hmm
(34:46): .
(34:47): Yeah. And also you've got to tackle the toxicity. I loved how you shared Yeah. Its toxins in the body, which includes stress and includes the thoughts that you're thinking. And I think you've given a lot of people a place to start. Some simple things they can start doing to start turning the tide. You know, it's funny because back when I started on my healing journey, people would say things to me like, You're really hard on yourself, aren't you? And I would think, Are you crazy? No I'm not. And , they would say things like that. And now I look back and I think, wow, it was so true. And, and so many of us successful, intelligent type a women are so hard on ourselves. Like I would say, I don't have time to, you know, take care of myself basically. I don't have time, I don't have time for this, this I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. But underneath that, basically what are you saying to your body? I don't care enough to make the time.
(35:45): Exactly.
(35:46): And that's, that's really being hard on yourself. So everybody listening, hold the mirror up to yourself, look in the mirror. And if you really have a hard time looking in your own eyes and saying You're awesome, I love you, and giving yourself a high five in the mirror, you might be being too hard on yourself too . So I definitely wanna share where everybody can find you, Jane, tell them about your Wellness By Design podcast and all the places they can find you online.
(36:15): Well, my Wellness By Design podcast is all about intentional living. And I created it because I wanted people to be who are finding themselves with disease or pain or inflammation in their body or lack of energy. I wanted them to understand that through intentional living, they can create health in their body again. So the guests that I have on talk about different ways of doing that, I talk about different ways of doing that. So that's what that podcast is about. I really love it. It's a little passion project for me and, and I'm really getting a lot of great feedback. I'm, I'm quite happy about that. And then my website is the wellness engineer.com and that's who I am. I was an engineer, now I'm the one, the wellness engineer and I've got a great little audio bundle if anyone wants to download it, it's, it's right on the main page or they can go to the wellness engineer.com/audio bundle.
(37:11): And I've got three file, three audios they can download. One is 108 affirmations for he health and Wellness because we can, we can reprogram our subconscious mind with affirmations if we repeat them over and over again. And especially if we feel them as well cuz how we feel is more important than just the words. I've also got a guided meditation for health and healing and then I've also got a heart resonance breath work that I guide people through. So it really creates that beautiful heart harmony and there's lots of science. A heart math institute has done plenty of science around how when we get ourselves in that state, how we think better, we feel better, we heal people get along better. There's so many great things with that. So that's three little gifts for them.
(37:59): Awesome. We will have that link in the show notes, so if you're driving, don't try to write it down. We will have it in the show notes when you get to your destination, you can click it and go there and sign up. And thank you so much for joining us today, Jane, and shedding some light on how we can help to heal our chronic pain and health problems by using our breath, our mind, and our body positively and really making that connection for everyone and giving them some tools to get started with. Thank you so much for joining us.
(38:34): Oh, Kyrin, thank you so much for having
(38:37): Me. And thank you all for listening to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I hope that you've learned something today that you can put into practice to start changing the trajectory of your health and your life today. It really, a journey of a thousand steps begins with the first one. So you just gotta do one thing. So what's the one thing you're gonna do today? I wanna see you give a high five to yourself in the mirror. Say, I love you, you're awesome. I would love to see a picture of that and post it on social and tag us and we will look forward to seeing you. The next episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all,
(39:18): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormones and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Get Jane Hogan's Relief with Peace Audio Bundle for free. CLICK HERE to download.
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Are you feeling frustrated with your weight, metabolism, or energy levels? Do you feel like you've tried everything and nothing seems to work?
If so, you're not alone. Midlife can be a challenging time for many women. Our bodies change, our hormones fluctuate, and it can be difficult to stay on top of our game.
But there is hope! In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we speak with Dr. Ted Naiman about the P:E diet. This way of eating has helped countless women achieve their ideal body composition and metabolic fitness.
In this episode, you'll learn:
-What the PE diet is and how it can help you lose fat and improve your metabolic fitness
-The single most important factor for body composition and metabolic fitness
-How to create a personalized PE diet plan that works for you
-And more!
If you're ready to achieve your ideal body composition and metabolic fitness, this episode is for you! Tune in now and learn the secrets of the PE diet.
(00:00): Everything in life is on a U-shaped curve. Dr. Ted Naman.
(00:06): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an O B gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:00): Hi, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. My guest today is Dr. Ted Naiman and whatever diet you use, whatever is your diet religion, you definitely wanna listen to this episode because pretty much every diet gets this one thing wrong and it wrecks havoc with your body composition as you age. And your metabolic fitness bottom line is it's part of the reason that you don't feel 100% as you age. So you definitely wanna listen up. He's got some great science for you on macronutrients and what you need to be doing to maximize this informational input into your body because yes, the food you eat is actually information that informs your body. So it is calories, but it's also nutritional information in the form macronutrients, micronutrients. And then it also has this subtle energy tea or prana, whatever you choose to call it, flowing through it as well.
(02:03): So you want high quality food, but if you're not picking the right one, then you want to listen up to Dr. Ted Naiman on the PE diet. He's gonna tell you what PE means. He's also going to tell you why everything in life is on a U shape curve. And this is super important. So many of us are living at one point of the U or the other point of the U and he's gonna tell you why everything exists on a U-shape curve, how this affects your health, and mostly how to optimize your U-shaped curve. So I'll tell you a little bit about Dr. Ted Naiman and then we'll get started. So Dr. Ted Naiman is a board certified family medicine physician in the department of Primary care at a leading major medical center in Seattle. His personal research and medical practice are focused on the practical implementation of diet and exercise for health optimization.
(02:55): And he's the author of the PE Diet. Basically when he got into practice and he saw the high rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, et cetera, he was extremely frustrated because in our medical training we don't get education on nutrition at all, just like we don't get education on hormone. And so he really started diving deep into the research to see what he could do to help his patients. And he came up with a PE diet and it's pretty revolutionary and brilliant. And like I said, whatever your diet religion, this will apply and it will help you. So please welcome Dr. Ted NaIman to the podcast.
(03:34): Oh wow. Thank you Dr. Dunston for having me. I appreciate it. So
(03:38): Let's start with how you became so enthralled or what helped you to understand, because you're traditionally trained, like I am in your medical schooling, and we didn't get training in nutrition. We didn't get information on what's important, how, why protein's important, macronutrients, micronutrients, really we didn't get that. So what led you to really dive more deeply into this topic and expand your knowledge about it?
(04:12): Oh yeah, I, well, thank you. And I've been interested in diet pretty much my whole life. I had kind of a unique background in that I was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist, which is this crazy religion where they are mostly vegetarian. And I ended up going to a Adventist medical school at Lo Linda in California, which is one of these famous plant-based meccas and everyone's vegetarian or vegan. And so I kind of grew up and was indoctrinated with all of this sort of like, you know, plant based is the best sort of thing. And so I was kind of interested in, in diet from the beginning, but I also realized that, you know, most of the people around me on a plant based but diet were not really healthier than anybody else. And I wasn't really healthier than anybody else. And then I went to my residency and I ended up meeting all these patients with like horrible diabetes and just horrible obesity and all these huge complications.
(05:09): I got introduced to a patient who went on a low-carb diet and had this massive weight loss and reversed diabetes through all his pills away. And, and he had done this with basically just eating a bunch of meat, and I'm like, Oh wow, this is, you know, maybe this pure plant based thing is not the entire story. Maybe there's more to it than that. So I've that was about 20 years ago and ever since I've just been researching the heck out of diet and exercise and health and body composition. And I've kind of come to the realization that there are all these levers that drive, you know, how much or how little people eat. And it's really transcends this plant versus animal thing, which is where I started out from. And it also kind of transcends low-carb versus low fat, which is something I was stuck in the middle of this eternal low-carb versus low fat war for a long time. Mm-Hmm. . So that's kind of how I got to where I am writing the book, the PE diet and just sort of rising above the plant versus animal and low-carb versus low fat debates.
(06:08): Well, you know, it's interesting you say plant versus animal because I think that a lot of people become very reductive and think that that's what determines whether you're eating a healthy diet or not. Are you vegan, vegetarian, lacto pescatarian, right? Do you eat animal animal protein or not? Do you eat animal protein or not? But the truth is, you can be a vegetarian or a vegan and have a very unhealthy diet. You can be a carnivore and eat plant-based and have a very unhealthy diet, and you can do both of those and have a healthy diet, wouldn't you say?
(06:45): Absolutely. So there's, there's just so many examples out there of really bad plant-based diets or really good ones. And the same thing for low carb fat and the same thing for carnivores and every single diet you can do it wrong, paleo and you name it. And there are plenty of examples of how that could be helpful in certain circumstances and unhelpful in others. And each of these diets has something that's kind of driving the success that a lot of people see with them, but then other ways that you could do it wrong, which basically makes that particular diet religion not the entire answer in and of itself. And you really have to kind of rise above all the diet tribes and religions and look at what's driving success in all of these. And then you've got some rules that you can go by and be successful on any diet pattern really.
(07:37): I love how you call it diet, religion, people. I've read data that says that people find it harder to change their diet than their religion .
(07:49): Yeah. I mean they're pretty much the same thing, honestly, why do
(07:51): You say
(07:52): That? Usually when we don't really understand how something works, we have to give it this sort of mystical religious flavor, right? And I think nutrition's been in the dark ages forever and nobody really quite has understood it in the past. And so we have to mystify it and we have to make it sort of magical and religious like, you know, paleo. All I know is that if you make sure it's paleo, you're going to lose weight to be healthy. It just has to follow these little rules. I don't really know why, but that's just how it works, you know? So we have these like almost religious level beliefs about diet when, when we don't really understand it. But much like religion, nobody really knows what religion is. So we have to make stuff up and be very mystical and mysterious about it. And so dye is the same way and it's really kind of out of ignorance cuz we don't actually know, you know, we're just guessing.
(08:42): I love that. I love that analogy. I've never heard that. That's great. All right, so let's back up. You mentioned the PE diet book that you wrote. So tell everybody what that is. What does it stand for? What does it mean? What led you to write this book?
(08:56): So the PE diet, this stands for protein versus non protein energy. And it's really just based on the work of professors Robin Heimer and Simpson, these two researchers in Australia who stumbled across the protein leverage phenomenon and published this about a decade ago. And protein leverage is this extremely powerful phenomenon where most animals on earth will eat until they get enough protein and only then will they stop eating and it supplies from like insects and fish and birds and mammals and all the way up to humans, definitely humans. So it turns out that humans have this super powerful protein leverage phenomenon and you basically eat until you get enough protein, and it's really unique among the macronutrients. So if you look it up the entire planet, there are people who eat tons of carbs and hardly any fat, and people eat tons of fat and hardly any carbs, but protein is just extremely conserved throughout all groups on the planet.
(09:54): Everyone's dialed in at, you know, like 15% protein and they're all eating very exact amounts of protein. And it turns out that if you give animals a protein dilute food, they basically have to over consume calories to get enough protein. Maybe if you give animals a higher protein concentration food, they just automatically eat less protein energy. So protein percentage is probably the single largest factor when it comes to how many calories you're eating on an adlib diet when you're just basically just eating mm-hmm. . And the reason that it's important is because over the past 60 years of the obesity epidemic, the protein percentage of the food supply has significantly gone down, which is protein dilution. So everyone basically just has to eat more calories to get enough protein to not be hungry. You know, it's like, let's say you need a hundred grams of protein a day to not be hungry, but you're eating, you know, french fries, which are, you know, potatoes and oil and 6% protein, and you have to eat an extra 800 calories to get enough protein to not be hungry later on. And that's just a huge driver of the obesity epidemic. And I think a lot of people are unaware that this is even happening.
(11:03): I think that they are, and I, I, I don't know, but you working with women over 40, I really think that most women believe they are getting enough protein. I think that they underestimate how much protein they actually need. And I know a lot of women who they, they'll eat one egg, you know, a hard bold egg for breakfast and they, they'll say that's enough. Or they'll have a few little pieces of chicken on their salad, and they think that's enough. So how come we're so confused about how much protein we need? But first off, would you agree? And it sounds like you do, but Yeah, Yeah,
(11:39): Well absolutely. And, and so everybody's eating enough protein to be alive by definition. Mm-Hmm. . And then the question is, you know, how many calories did you have to eat to get that protein? So the RDA for protein's pretty low. It's, you know, 60 grams, you know, most women in this country, average woman is eating 60, 70 grams of protein a day and they're definitely eating enough to be alive. But the problem is, you know, how many calories did you have to get that eat to get that protein? And if you had a higher protein percentage food and got those grams of protein faster, would you be able to eat less and have better body composition? And the answer is definitely yes. There's also a difference between protein adequacy and optimal protein. So if you're really, really interested in body composition, you want the highest lean mass you can get at the lowest fat mass, and that's where you look the best.
(12:33): And that's where you have the highest insulin sensitivity and the best metabolic health. So pretty much every woman who comes to see me has the same goal. They want more muscle and less fat. They might not realize this, but that's what they want, both for metabolic health and reversing diabetes and anything related to insulin resistance and also just to feel good and look good naked and all these things, right? It's all about body composition, more muscle as fat. And what happens when you look at the protein versus energy ratio of your diet? Protein is supporting your lean mass and carbs of fats are supporting your fat mass. And so when you eat a higher pro-protein percentage of your diet, you just automatically get more protein and less carve in fats and you're improving body composition automatically. And what's driving that is basically protein leverage.
(13:22): And that you can take any animal, any omnivore mammal and just increase the protein percentage of its diet, and it will automatically eat less calories. That's extremely powerful. It's almost linear from like 10% to 30% of calories from protein. You have this extremely linear reduction in how many calories people eat with a very powerful gear ratio. It's like 10 to one for every calorie of protein you eat. You eat 10 fewer calories of carbs and fats between this 10% to 30% protein range in human diet. And just extremely powerful mm-hmm. . And I think, like you said, when women actually like track how much protein they, they're eating sometimes it's quite abysmal. You know, like you're like, Oh, I ate an egg for breakfast. Yeah, that's six grams of protein, and you know, you might need 120 grams to not be hungry. So, you know, you're mm-hmm.
(14:15): got a long way to go. So I, I think there's this protein awareness that people don't have. They, they, they're like, Oh yeah, I eat protein, I eat egg every single morning. That's protein. Yeah, that's six grams of protein. So, you know, if you look at any of your bikini models or bodybuilders or aesthetic people, they're just, you know, eating five times that much or more, you know mm-hmm. . And I think a lot of people just aren't aware of how powerful that is and how important that is and, and what a really good lever that is for improving body composition.
(14:45): So let's talk about something that's very popular right now cuz it popped in my mind cuz it's all their age. Everyone's doing intermittent fasting and they're so people are very proud of how small their eating window is. And one of my biggest concerns is, well, one is the stress on the cortisol when you fast that long, but also protein, can you get enough protein when you're intermittent fasting? Can you speak to that, those
(15:12): Issues? So intermittent fasting is definitely, it's on a u-shaped curve where like a, I like a light amount of intermittent fasting. I pretty much never recommend over a 16 eight where you have an eight hour eating window and a 16 hour fast. And I think doing a little bit of that might help people get more in touch with hunger and fullness and at least feel slightly more comfortable operating in a lower glycogen state where they're, you know, living off a stored body fat. But you really don't wanna push that too far because a bunch of stuff happens. First of all, as you get hungrier and hungrier when you do go to refeed your food choices are not as good. It's, you're not necessarily reaching for the skinless chicken breast and the salad you're eating like a whole jar of peanut butter.
(15:58): If you, if you shove your eating window down into one hour, you get so hungry that your food choices are not quite as good. The other thing is, if you're trying to build muscle at the same time as losing fat, which is recomposition, which is what everybody should constantly be trying to do forever, it's really hard to have optimal muscle protein synthesis when you don't have amino acids available. So if you're eating really small windows and you're trying to work out and build muscle, you might not get as far as you could if you had a wider eating window and more amino acid availability. If you're eating more protein more often, you get more protein synthesis basically. There's also muscle protein breakdown where the longer you go without eating, the more muscle protein breakdown you get. Cuz your body needs amino acids from somewhere.
(16:45): And if you're not eating carbohydrate, you have to manufacture it out of amino acids, which means breaking down some muscle at some point. So anyone who's had any kind of starvation event, their, you know, half of their weight that they're losing is skeletal muscle and half is fat. So as you go longer and longer without eating, the more of the weight that you lose is lean mass that you don't want to lose. So extended fasting is not that great. You're gonna lose half of it as lean mass. You're gonna get super hungry and refe on basically peanut butter. You're going to have no muscle protein synthesis during that period of time. So you, you really wanna be careful with intermittent fasting and I like just a little bit of it, just enough to kind of know what it's like to be actually hungry, if you know what I'm saying. And but I'm not a big fan OFin fast. I don't recommend it. You're absolutely right. There are big problems with protein adequacy and what you're really trying to do is maximize muscle and minimize fat at the same time, which means you do need to eat and you do need to eat protein. You're just trying to improve the ratio of protein and non-protein energy.
(17:51): Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks for addressing that. And I'm wondering if we can jump back to, we talked about how people don't have protein awareness, they think that I ate an egg, I'm good, but it only has six grams of protein and if you need 120 grams in a day and you've really got a lot of eating to do, so everybody listening is probably wondering, well, how do I know if I'm getting enough protein? So what would you tell them, Ted? How to know how much protein they need? And then next would be how to know how much to eat. Because I think that a lot of people don't like using calculators or measuring things and they wanna be able to eyeball the toe. What are some rules of thumb to make sure they get enough, but starting with how do I know how much I need?
(18:38): Well, first of all, you know, the goal is eventually for everyone to just eat without having to track anything. Like, you know, you eventually don't wanna have to track, you just want to eat and not have to worry about macros or anything. But I think everybody should track their macros at least for a week or two. Just to re just have the awareness of, oh wow, I thought this was a high protein food. It's really just mostly fat, you know what I'm saying? You eat the hot dog and you're like, Oh, that's protein. Oh it's actually like, you know, 15 grams of fat and five grams of protein. And a lot of people, what they think is protein is really mostly fat or very little protein. So tracking, learning how to track for a week or two is, is critical and I recommend that to all of my patients.
(19:21): And you, you do that so that eventually you won't have to track basically. But when it comes to protein, if your goal is to really get the, if you're exercising, if you're doing resistance training, you know, let's say you're lifting weights twice a week and you're trying to add some muscle and lose fat at the same time and every single person on earth should be doing exactly that. You probably want, if you want optimal muscle building and you want optimal protein satiety for fat loss, you basically want to eat one gram per pound of protein one gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. Now that's not what you weigh now, that's not what you wanna weigh. That's, that's what you should weigh if you had perfect body composition at your height. So you go by your height, it's like, how much should I weigh if I was a model, if I was in perfect shape, You know what I mean? So like I'm five 10 and ideal body weight for a five 10 male is 160 pounds. And so I would aim for 160 grams protein day, one gram per pound of ideal body weight, not actual weight, but what you should weigh if you were flawless, basically,
(20:27): And I just wanna, I'm gonna intro interject in there for women, if you're a hundred pound, I'm sorry, if you're five feet, you should weigh average body, ideal body weight, it would be a hundred pounds. And for every inch you are over five feet, add five pounds. Now that's just an average, but I know some of you're wondering, well, how do I know what my ideal body weight is? So I wanted to give you a little quick measure that you can use. Go ahead.
(20:53): Absolutely. Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you very much. I have that in the book and that's a brilliant point. Women should weigh a hundred pounds of five feet and then five pounds for every inch. So if you're five five, you should weigh 125 pounds. That would be ideal. Perfect. weight. And that's a really good rule of thumb for how much, how many grams of protein. So five, five women would want 125 grams of protein for men, you get an extra 10 pounds. So men should weigh 110 at five feet and also the same as women, five pounds for every additional inch. Another, we care about men on this five in particular, but that yeah, that's just basically a really good rule of thumb is a hundred pounds, five feet and five pounds for every inch. And I think that not only is this amount of per protein gonna allow you to build the most muscle optimal muscle growth, but it's mostly gonna get you the highest satiety per calorie.
(21:44): So you're just automatically eating less. And our thin, And so a lot of people are like, Oh, I can't eat, you know, I'm eating 60 grams of protein now. I can't eat 120 grams of protein. And the secret is basically leaner proteins. If you eat most people, the proteins they're eating now have a, has a lot of fat in it. And so they're like, Oh, I could never eat twice that much. It could never eat twice as many eggs or twice as much red meat. Oh, well those foods have, you know, equal grams of protein in fat. If you get something that's higher in protein and lower in fat like a non-fat Greek yogurt or a skinless chicken breast or a piece of fish or some shrimp or something, that's a super lean protein egg whites, you know, way powder, it's a very easy to eat them much protein and you're just way less hungrier downstream of that.
(22:30): Okay, awesome. So now they know based on their ideal body weight, how much protein they should be getting. Let's talk about how they can, So I, I like what you say, everyone should check it for about two weeks. I think there's no better thing to study than yourself. What is it Shakespeare say to the unknown self to be true? Well, how can you be true to yourself if you don't even know yourself? And you've got to know what you're actually eating. And I think studies have shown that we are notoriously incorrect when it comes to estimating the number of calories that we eat, the different types of macronutrients, the distribution that we eat. We think we're doing so much better than we are . So a good reality check is to track it. But can you give people an idea? I've heard kind of the palm hypothesis that if you eat a piece of protein that's the size of your palm, that that should give you a certain number of grams of protein. How do you tell people to eyeball this and do it intuitive?
(23:30): Most of your meat is going to be 25 grams of protein for every a hundred grams of meat. You know what I mean? So if you ate a pound of average meat of any kind, you're gonna get 25 grams of, I'm sorry, a hundred grams of protein. So like a pound is 450 grams and about 25% of that would be protein. So like a pound of meat is a hundred grams of protein or, you know, four ounces of chicken or fish or something is gonna be, you can basically take 25% of the weight and that's your protein amount. So like four ounces is a hundred grams ish and that gives you 25 grams of protein. So like you said, like you're serving the size of your hand, it's gonna be, you know, 20, 25 grams of protein. That way you don't have to really weigh or measure anything.
(24:17): It's, I think it's fine when you're tracking to just kind of estimate because at least you're gonna get in the ballpark. None of this macro tracking is super, super accurate. So even if you're just kind of roughly estimating, you'll have a much better idea of which foods are getting you closer to your protein goal faster and which ones kind of aren't. You know what I'm saying? The, those are some good rules of thumb. Like just, you know, estimating, you know, four ounces is gonna be 20, 25 grams of most meat, but then any sort of packaged food, who knows, You have to look at the label. You people need to learn how to read labels because you, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna eat some yogurt yogurt's healthy. You just walk in the yogurt aisle, you grab your yo play and this crap has like six grams of protein and then 33 grams of carbs, 25 which are sugar, and then like 10 grams of fat.
(25:09): And it's like, what it really is is like more sugar and fat than a candy bar and the same amount of protein like Snickers bar versus yo play yogurt, very similar. Like it's just hideous. But next to it, you know one I, you know, there's a hundred yogurts and yogurt aisle, then you've got your like boy coast triple zero, which is, you know, 15 grams of protein for like no fat at all, and like six grams of carbs or something really, really good. Or there's your foer zero, which is just like pure protein. And so you really have to look at the labels and, and I talk about that in the book a lot. You're basically looking at the ratio of protein grams to carb in fat grams and you, you pretty much want, you know, the higher you can get on the protein and lower you can get on the carbon fat. And that was super important to start looking at labels, have label awareness, look at the grams of protein compared to the grams of carbs and fats. And you'll realize some of these foods are really just carbs and fats. There's almost no per in them. And I think this is a, another super important skill that everybody has to learn is just labeling Are
(26:14): There certain ratios that you like to see or certain kind of cutoff absolute numbers ratios that you tell people to look for?
(26:24): Absolutely. Right. So if you can, well, first, if you can get protein to 30% of your calories, you're pretty much gonna reverse every pre-diabetic or type two diabetic on the planet. You just basically can't overeat when your protein gets this high. If you can get your protein to 40% of your calories, you're basically guaranteed fat loss when you're eating this food. So the, this 40% protein is an amazing goal. And the way you can tell, you can just look at a label and tell if it's 40% protein or higher, you take the grams of protein, and you multiply it by 10, you just put a zero on the end and then you look at the calories and if 10 times the protein is equal to or greater than the calories in in the food, it's at least 40% protein or higher.
(27:10): So like you pick up your triple zero yogurt, right? And it's got 15 grams of protein and 150 calories and 15 times 10 is one 50. So now you've got a food that's exactly 40% protein, right? 50 grams of protein and 150 calories, that's a 40% protein food. You're, you can pretty much just eat that food and steadily lose weight all the way down to your ideal body weight. You are going, this is going to be a fat loss food for anyone. And that's a really good rule of thumb when you're looking at packaged foods and just, you want the, you know, ratio of protein to calories to be as high as possible. And when you start doing that with different packaged foods, you quickly realize that 99% of them are abject garbage and are mostly just non protein energy, just refine carbs, refined fats dumped in the food supply, creating protein and nutrition delusion. So it's just empty calorie, everybody's ever eating it and we got an obesity epidemic. So yeah, it's, it's but that's a really good rule of thumb that people should
(28:14): Check it out. I love that. Thank you so much for that. Everybody listening, we will put this in the show notes, so don't try to write it down while you're driving your car , but that's, this is super valuable information and I love some of these quotes you shared with us before we started Dr. Ted. Be 1% better every day and consistency is everything. You don't have to go home and take, throw out everything in your kitchen and start from scratch. Just start making little changes when you go to the grocery store, when you go out to eat, when you're deciding what to eat at home and try to be consistent with it. And did you personally have a health challenge or was it really all the patients that you were meeting in your practice and at the hospital who had these problems that incited you to, to dive deep into this?
(29:07): It was personal as well. I mean, like I was, I used to have just hor horrible body composition. If you look at my before and afters, you know, I've really come a long way. So it, it's , yeah, half of this research is research where I've definitely been trying to optimize my own body composition, so, which which you know, just gives me more reason to research and, and it's probably helped me get to where I'm at. But yeah, no, it definitely applies to me the same as it applies to anyone else for sure.
(29:36): Yeah, I love that. Me search and n of one is what starts mo a lot of us. And what I think is super valuable and super important to point out is that you are a physician. You had the same training I had, we didn't get this in our training, it's just not covered. And so everybody listening who's suffering with weight problems, energy problems, fatigue, moodiness, all the things you know, that women over 40 suffer with and you know, there's so much frustration because they're not getting answers at their doctors. But what Dr. Ted is talking about is super important. If you can fix your body composition, you actually help to balance your hormones, you help to balance your cortisol stress hormone, you actually help to balance your sex hormones, believe it or not, also, your insulin, which is one of the primary drivers of your hormone balance and you help your thyroid.
(30:28): So if you've been struggling with any of those hormonal imbalances or maybe the symptoms of them where you're waking up in the middle of the night or you're tired in the afternoon or your hair's falling out, or you have no sex drive, you, you guys know these symptoms cause we talk about them all the time. Body composition speaks directly to your hormone. So I wanna encourage all of you to start working with your protein and get your protein to adequate levels. Before we wrap up Dr. Ted, I'm wondering if you can explain what you meant by this quote that you shared with me before we started. That everything in life is on a u-shaped curve. What does that mean?
(31:08): I think the intermittent fasting I was talking about before is a really good example where if you, you know, intermittent fasting is, is for sure on a U-shaped curve where, you know, on one end of the U you've got like constant eating all day, you know, nonstop. And on the other end you've got eating, you know, one meal a week or something extreme, you know, and you're, you're, you're really gonna get, have problems on either side of that. And the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle where you're just optimizing the return on investment. It's like cardio, right? Like if you do no cardio ever, you're literally 12 times higher risk of Alzheimer's dementia and your all cause mortality goes through the roof and you're basically just gonna die, right? So that's one end of the U-shape group. But then if you're an ultra-marathon or, and you're doing Ironmans and you're doing, you know, more than several hours, more than two hours of high intensity cardio every day, your risk for cardiac arrhythmia goes way up.
(32:07): All cause mortality goes, you're literally gonna die a little bit younger and there's this sweet spot where you do like, you know, 15 to 45 minutes of cardio a day and you're just giving the maximum return on investment and it's right in the center. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like this curve where really bad stuff on either end and then somewhere in the middle is a really good sweet spot zone where you get the very best return on on your investment protein percents the same way. If you're way too low, you're just gonna massively over calories. But if you're too high, if you try to eat 50% protein, 60%, you're just starving out of your mind. You're constantly hungry. You can get so thin, you basically die of rabbit starvation they call it, which is what explorers got when they had nothing but like rabbits and deer and super lean, meaty you basically can't live on that.
(32:56): And so there's this, there's this really sweet spot, you know, maybe about 30% of calories from protein where your body competition's perfect and every, you feel good and everything's working great. And so all of these factors are on a u-shaped curve, like, like carbohydrate intake. If you eat absolutely no carbs ever, you have this kind of weird carbohydrate hunger where you end up overeating calories from fat. And so it's not optimal for body composition. You're also having to create all your glucose out of protein, which is not very protein sparing, and you might be not optimally building muscle because you don't have the same amount of protein. Then also if you're eating, you know, tons of carbs, you're basically not very fat adapted, so you're just having to eat a lot more often and your blood sugar is going up, down, up, down.
(33:43): But there's this kind of sweet spot, you know, where you're, you know, eating a hundred grams of carb a day, a hundred or maybe one gram per pound, and you're, you get enough carbohydrate to run all the processes in your body and spare protein for muscle building, but you're not like, so higher, so low that bad things happen. Same thing happens with fat. You know, if you, your fat's way too low, you basically, your hair falls out, you have no sex hormones and you're, you know, you feel horrible and you're basically gonna die if you don't have enough central fatty acids, but the fat percentage of your diet is too high. You just basically don't get enough satiety and you're always hungry for like a little bit of carbohydrate. So there's like, everything, all this stuff is, is on this curve and you're trying to find the middle part where you're optimal.
(34:29): And the answer is never like zero anything or a hundred percent anything. And that's why I don't like people to say, Oh, if low carb good, then zero carbs the best and super high fat is the best. And that's how we get to like these really fringy, you know, zero carb, keto carnivore, whatever things all, and we've all done it. Like, I was like, you know, I've tried, I've done all this stuff. I was zero carb, I was keto, I was carnivore, I was plant ba, I was vegan, I've done it all. And we, we tended drift to the extremes on the ends. And that's never really the answer. It's always somewhere in the middle. And you have to find that kind of sweet spot where you get the, the maximum benefit for the minimum effort and where you kind of all the dials line up. And I, I think you, I've heard you talk about like, you know, the 12 o'clock in the center, right? The range is where you wanna be and everything's like that. You don't want to be super high or super low.
(35:25): Yes. Okay. I think that is an excellent summary. You want moderation, and I think you can only achieve that for yourself if you study yourself and you know yourself. So I'm a big fan of using tools to understand what your personal body likes and what it doesn't like. Using a continuous glucose monitor, tracking your food for a while, trying different exercise activities, you know, maybe hit weight training, Pilates, yoga, whatever, swimming and seeing what works best for your body. But I love what you're saying. It's, it's in the middle. Don't be extreme and you're so right. I think whatever it is that we, whatever our exercise religion is, whatever our diet religion is, we do tend to be excessive and extreme about it. So let's all come back to the middle. Let's eat more protein and let's get more balance. Thank you so much Dr. Ted for coming on the show today and sharing this super important information with everyone. Tell everyone where they can find out more, where they can get your book and all, all the things
(36:32): Go. Thanks. Well, I'm my primary care doctor here in Seattle and my, my practice is full, my practice is closed. I don't really work with anyone directly, but I've written all this stuff down in a book called the PE Diet, and you can find [email protected] or ted naman.com or just anywhere online where books are sold, like Amazon or what Kindle or any of those places. I'm also on the socials at Ted Naman on Twitter and Instagram and stuff like
(36:58): That. All right. We will have all these links also for you in the show notes, so you don't need to try to write them down. And we'll have a link to his website and to the book. Thank you so much for joining us today to thanks for having me, and thank you all for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. I want to ask you to take action on the information you've heard today. Just be 1% better and strive for consistency and that moderation Dr. Ted's talking about. Pick one of the things that we've mentioned and just start doing it. How could you get more protein in your diet? Start reading labels, start doing the calculation that Dr. Ted shared with you. It is super simple. It will literally take you seconds and the more protein you have, the fewer calories you're going to eat, the better body composition you're gonna have, the better hormone balance you're gonna have, and the better you're going to feel and function, jump on social media and tell me what you've decided to do and the results that you're getting. I can't wait to hear it. I will see you next week. Until then, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.
(38:07): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Have you ever wondered how to get your hormones in balance? If you're a woman in her midlife, you're probably already feeling the effects of hormone changes. But don't despair! Dr. Sonya Jensen is here to tell us all about how we can use self-love to achieve ultimate hormone balance.
In this episode, Dr. Jensen shares her insights on how the way we feel about ourselves affects our hormones. She also provides practical tips on how we can start loving ourselves more, in order to achieve better hormone balance. If you're struggling with hormonal issues, this is the episode for you!
About Dr. Sonya Jensen:
Dr. Sonya Jensen is a Naturopathic Physician with a mission to change the way women understand their bodies and themselves. She believes that women are the center of their families and communities, and by supporting them, we are creating a ripple effect that will support the whole.
Dr. Jensen is a mother of two boys, an author, yoga teacher, podcaster, workshop and retreat leader, as well as the co-founder of Divine Elements Health Center, The Longevity Lab, and The Health Ignited Academy, alongside with her husband, Dr. Nicholas Jensen. Her background in cell biology and lived experience with Ayurvedic Medicine in her home has given her insight into the human body that helps her serve the women and families she works with from multiple different lenses.
Dr. Jensen believe it is everyone’s birthright to live a happy, healthy, joyful, and abundant life, and she's honoured to help her community move from a state of simply surviving to genuinely thrive.
In this episode, you'll learn:
-How our feelings about ourselves affect our hormones
-Why self-love is essential for hormone balance
-Practical tips for how to start loving yourself more
-How hormones are related to the nervous system
So tune in, and learn how to get your hormones in balance with self-love!
If you liked this episode, please subscribe to the Hormone Prescription Podcast and leave us a review! We appreciate your support!
(00:00): The relationship you have with yourself is the most important one in your life. Your hormones tell your story, the imprints, the traumas, and the victories.
(00:10): So the big question is how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself again. As an o g Yn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:04): Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. Thank you so much for joining me today. You are gonna love my guest today. As much as I love her after you listen to our interview. She is a soulful physician who is passionate about helping women with their health and their hormones and to live more empowered and embodied lives. Sound familiar? I believe in all the same things. And we have a lot of similar interests in training. So I'll tell you a little bit about her, and then we'll get started, and we'll talk in the interview about the quotes that I shared with you at the beginning from her about your relationship with yourself being the most important one in your life and how your hormones tell your story. If you're not sure about what that means, stay tuned and we'll dive into it.
(01:53): So Dr. Sonia Jensen is a naturopathic position in Canada and she's on a mission to change the way women understand their bodies and themselves. She believes that women are the center of their families and communities, and by supporting them we're creating a ripple effect that will support the whole. She is the mom of two boys. She's an author, yoga teacher, podcaster workshop and retreat leader, and she's the co-founder of Divine Elements Health Center, the Longevity Lab, and the Health Ignited Academy with her husband, Dr. Nicholas Johnson. She has a background in cell biology and her lived experience with Irv medicine in her home has given her insight into the human body that helps her to serve the women and families she works with from multiple different lenses. She believes it's everyone's birthright to live a happy, healthy, joyful, and abundant life. I believe the same, and she's honored to help our community move from a state of simply surviving to genuinely thriving. Welcome Dr. Sonya Jensen.
(02:54): Thank you so much for having me. Such an honor and I'm very excited about our conversation.
(02:59): Me too. We have so many joys and loves in common and you really approach women's health from such a deep spiritual place, which I do too. I wanna dive into that, but I wanna start with how you came to have this perspective because not all physicians who work with women and work with women in their hormones work with women in their health. Really it's very, a very mechanical approach in the mainstream. And so how did you come to have this deeper appreciation for what's going on with women's health?
(03:38): Yeah, thank you. It's a great question and I think for me, just from the beginning, I've just had a very curious mind about humans in general and how we operate and why we make the choices we make. And just observing, you know, myself and my culture and understanding the stresses and traumas that I went through growing up and how that impacted my health really didn't become clear to me until I was actually in naturopathic school and in training. And the beauty of naturopathic school is they do really teach us to look at health from a different lens, like very holistic, but it still doesn't hit that spiritual, that emotional piece that's actually impacting our health and our everyday relationships to others, to ourselves and our hormones. So as I started working with women and started to see their stories unfold in front of me initially, you know, you have your training so you're doing all your differential in your mind and trying to figure out, okay, what's the best next step?
(04:37): I'm already like 10 steps ahead even as they're telling me their story. And it really wasn't until I feel like I became pregnant with my first son and I really paused and started to recognize changes in my body and started to be just so present in myself that that forced me to be present with the women that were in front of me. And what that did, it actually created a trajectory of healing for me. And I went down this healing path of becoming a yoga teacher, understanding how my trauma started impacting me and my hormones in my youth from having cervical dysplasia to P C O S, to all these things and thinking, oh, there were just physical manifestations. But realizing that physical manifestation came from something deeper. And as I started to pause and listen to women's stories and connecting the dots for them, I started to really understand like, this is such important work that we're not uncovering enough as physicians or even as women. We're not even aware that we can ask these questions and understand that how intimately connected all of this is. So really, I have to say it was, it's my patience that have given me this opportunity to learn more.
(05:48): Yes. I love, you know, how the journey becomes the teaching and the lesson, the patience teach us. And it's, that's part of my story too, but it took me a month a lot longer than it sounds like it took you, you know, I've heard it say that you can learn through pain or you can learn through pleasure and unfortunately in the past I've gone the pain route and after I as a mainstream physician, my health was tanked. Many people listening know that story so I won't repeat it. And then I really had a more mechanistic approach. Well I gotta do salivary cortisol and the Dutch test to look at my hormones and balance and do all the things. And then I achieved a great deal more health and vitality. But then came the next lesson, which really gets to the things you're talking about. And I love this quote that you shared with me before we started, the relationship you have with yourself is the most important one in your life. And I don't think I got that, that that was a real relationship and important to address in terms of my health. And I think that most of the women I work with, when I say that, they kind of look at me like I'm a little crazy. What are you talking about ? Can you explain what that means?
(07:05): Yeah, I think our relationship, or I feel that our relationship dictates everything cuz that self-talk that we women especially have, as soon as we wake up, we look at ourselves in the mirror, and instantly we have criticism instantly we have a to-do list instantly. We're already thinking about what others might think or what we need to do to meet others' expectations, whether it's our partner or our children and even ourselves from the conditioning that we've received through observing the women when we were growing up, or the conditioning that was just passed down from generation to generation. And so all of that sets us up to have these sets of beliefs about who we are and how we're supposed to present ourselves. And in that I think we lose this ability to understand who we actually are, who we were meant to be in this lifetime, in this body.
(07:57): And instead we're just playing these roles that we're given and wearing these masks that we have to put on in order to just navigate our days. And it really, I feel, isn't until we understand that we're doing that, that we have these roles that we're playing, these masks that we're wearing, that we can start unleashing some of those. And then through that we start to understand, okay, what's actually important to me? How do I define success? What does health actually look like? What do I want to dream into my life? What's my self worth? All of those things will dictate our actions and will dictate how we even are relating to our partners or to ourselves. And I think that in itself will then imprint itself into ourselves and our bodies. And then the body starts to speak, right? Like the more women deal with autoimmune disorders and cancers than men do. And so when you start to unravel some of those stories of like, why is our self fighting ourself? Why are these cancer cells producing themselves and creating these whole new communities? Like what about us is so disconnected that we've forgotten our true essence cuz we've learned to really shun that voice or not listen to it cuz there's so much noise in our environment. Mm-hmm
(09:10): . So I hear some people thinking right now that Sonya, what does, what I think and the roles I play and the mask I wear have to do with my physical health. Like what does it have to do with autoimmune disease and cancer? They don't get that connection. Can you help them understand that?
(09:30): Yeah. If we can just go to the simplicity of how our nervous system works, right? We have a sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic branch and the sympathetic is our fight or flight, it's our, you know, the one that we rely on for protection to run away from that dangerous situation that we might be in and in our perceived mind when we're triggered by something, this could be a smell, this could be a conversation, this could be a look that a partner gives us. And all of a sudden we're taken back to a moment when we're young and maybe we were scolded for doing something or maybe we had a big T trauma, these micro things that may have happened. Wake up your brain, this amygdala, your emotional center, and then tell the brain, Okay, I need, I need, I need to understand what's happening here.
(10:14): And then the hippocampus comes in, which is your memory center. They start talking to one another. They fuel your hypothalamus, which then tells your pituitary gland to give the reaction that your physiology needs in order for you to survive this moment. And when we're doing that on a repeated basis, again, this could be making lunches for our kids, taking, dropping them off to school and then to soccer and then to this. And we're in this race, but the body's like, wow, she's in danger all the time. So I have to give her this cortisol, I have to give her this adrenaline in order for her to make it through her day. And so we create this pattern in our physiology, which then tells our sex hormones like progesterone and estrogen and testosterone to take a backseat. Cuz it's not about creating life or healing or resting, it's about surviving right now.
(11:01): So well said. And I, I think that, I was talking with a group of women yesterday. I met at a yoga retreat and I met this group of women and of course the topic with women always comes back to hormones. Cuz if you, yes, you can't meet a woman who doesn't have a hormone problem, it, it just doesn't exist. And I was explaining to them, you know, that the hormones originate in your central nervous system, they're part of your nervous system and most people don't get that. And you also shared this quote with me that I love hormones tell a woman's story, the imprints, the traumas and the victories. So can you talk about how hormones are related to the nervous system, that whole system you just talked about? I think you touched on it, but I really wanna make sure everybody listening gets it. Mm-hmm a clear picture and how their biography has become their biology. Like Carolyn mes.
(11:55): Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No that's beautiful. And you know, if we understand our hormones are responding to our environment. So that's our internal environment, that's our external environment, that's our emotional environment, chemical, physical, all of it. They're basically messengers that are communicating a message that they're receiving and then relaying it to another cell. So if we think about it in terms of stress, everybody understands stress. When we're under stress, immediately the brain's thinking, okay, what can I do to support her? And the thing that it can do to support us, the hypothesis will tell the pituitary gland to then talk to our adrenals to secrete cortisol. And cortisol, Again, it's a necessary component of our system, it's part of our circadian rhythm, it's necessary for energy, it's necessary as an anti-inflammatory at some points. But when we're overusing it, when we're overutilizing it, our progesterone, which is one of our sex hormones that actually regulates our cycle, it's anti-anxiety.
(12:52): It's, it's the one if you feel like you know you need a warm hug, progesterone gives you that warm hug , but pro turn, right? But progesterone turns into cortisol. So if we're continuously turning our progesterone into cortisol, so you know that's going to change the relationship between progesterone and one of our other main hormones called estrogen. And estrogen I feel like is kind of the, it's the warrior hormone. It's what gives us energy. It's, it's good for our skin, it's good for our mucus me, it's good for so many things. And it changes their relationship, which then creates, you know, this dominance that happens with this estrogen over progesterone. So now what does that look like for an everyday woman that might look like heavy periods that might look like PMs or mood changes the week before your period. That might look like hot flashes and night sweats during your transition to perimenopause and menopause. So these everyday things that we're feeling, even anxiety and depression can be a result of this action that stress has on our nervous system. So it's our job to define what is stress, what is causing these triggers. Emotional, mental, chemical and physical.
(14:05): Yes. So well said. And I know some women are thinking, well I hear about stress management is important for my hormone balance. I know I'm supposed to meditate, I can't shut my mind off. So they don't, I'm not really gonna do it. I hear people talk, they hear me talking about probably you talking about , you need to live your life differently. Take the mask off, really develop this internal relationship with yourself and they have no concept. Yeah. About how do I do this? They go to their regular doctor who basically doesn't speak that language. How do you help people bridge the chasm that is, that exists between mainstream medicine right now and people like you and me?
(14:50): Yeah, I think helping women bridge that gap in a sense that just what we're doing, just this conversation, right? Teaching, teaching women that this is science based, right? It's our nervous system, it's our physiology, it's all of that. But it's so impacted by our life and our choices and all the things that are going on in our every day. And so in my book I created a quiz and it speaks to the triangle of disconnect because I feel like every disease process, everything that we suffer from is because of disconnection. And so what it did is defined three archetypes. So once the diva, the other ones the duchess, and then the other one is the damsel. So when you do this test or quiz, you kind of understand, okay, how do I actually operate cuz we don't even know sometimes because it's so autopilot, we don't know which archetype we are operating in in that moment.
(15:45): So the Duchess, just to describe it a little bit, she's like the CEO of our family or even of our business. Like she's got her schedule, she's getting up at 5:00 AM am doing her workout, getting the kids ready, like she's super organized. She's really got everything covered on the outside because she's in that race all the time and not really able to sit in her feminine energy at all or have any softness towards herself. She's usually suffering with like insomnia or digestive issues or of course hormone issues which stem from that. And then you have the damsel, which is like the community builder. I mean she's the one that everybody goes to. She's the one that brings people together. She will put herself last and everybody else ahead of her and she's usually the one that's not using her voice to communicate what's going on.
(16:32): So now we see thyroid issues because she's not communicating and there's usually some sort of cyst growing within her. Or these women usually have some sort of cancer because they just haven't been able to express what they need. The diva is the tricky one cuz she's the one that's been playing the roles and wearing the mask even tighter than the others. Cuz she may look like everything is okay on the outside. But her inner world is very chaotic. She probably went through a trauma that didn't, that created this inability for her to feel safe in her body. So when we start to understand, but she has gifts too. I mean she's the life of the party, right? She's the one that glows and is radiant. And so I find when we can identify where we sit and we might be all of them in some moments, we can use the gifts of these roles in mass and we can then understand if I play into this cuz it's not my essence, I may create this cascade of hormone changes because my nervous system is going to be impact and my brain's going to think I'm in danger.
(17:37): I'm not relaxed in my body, so my hormones can't do their job well, therefore I have symptoms. So I think teaching women that it's not normal to have horrible PMs and migraines before your period. It's not normal to have really dry vaginal area and really bad hot flashes when you're transitioning. We've normalized all of this. And so I think when we understand that it's not, we can then reverse engineer like, okay, where did this stem from? And you know, the western medicine can't deny that because it's science based. It's, it's your physiology.
(18:15): Yes. I love that. The diva, the damsel and the duchess. So everybody think about what roles you are playing and which, which do you identify with. And I love that you highlighted the, things which aren't normal. I recently did a TED talk and I had this refrain, Could menopause be the cause? Because I see so many women, and maybe you do too. I'd love for you to share your experience. They, like I said, you get a group of women and they're all talking about, Oh I get migraine headaches. Oh I never had an orgasm. I don't care if I ever have sex again. Oh my hair is falling out. Oh I have dry eye. Oh I've got irritable belt. Like all these things. And sometimes they recognize that they, these problems are hormonally based, but more often they're running from doctor to doctor specialist to specialist neurologists for their migraines, gastroenterologists for their irritable bowel. Never realizing that hormones play a role. So I really want everybody listening to hear what we're saying. And I love that you highlighted like, PMs is not normal, disman or a pain on your period is not normal. But we have normalized it, it's common in our culture, but it's not normal. So how do you speak to women about ho the, the vast array of problems that hormones can cause.
(19:38): Yes. So before we even get into, there's something that you said there was really important just like a group of women together and what we're talking about, right? And this might be like a cultural thing. I think there's a like a bigger thing going on here where we, we tend to want to talk about our problems to connect and what can happen sometimes in a healing journey for a woman. She gets so identified with her symptoms because it gives her reason to take care of herself. It gives her reason to connect with her neighbor or her girlfriends that without it sometimes it's hard to move through life because now it's become part of our identity. So I think the first thing for us women to do is like, okay, what are the things that we're actually celebrating with each other? Or does misery like companies so much that we want to talk about our problems?
(20:26): And I think there should be a safe place for us to be able to communicate all that's going on. And I think we also have to question like how much of of that am I keeping in my life? Because that is what gets me connection or that is what gives me permission to tell my husband or my partner that hey, I need to go get a massage today. I need to go do this because I have this thing going on. So I think reframing what self-care and self-worth and all those things are. So a part of that, I just wanted to touch on that before stepping into the the hormone piece. Cause I think it's, it's just a reframe that I think all of us women kind of need for ourselves.
(21:01): Absolutely. Thank you for doing that.
(21:03): Yeah. And then when it comes to, so how do we like educate women that everything is connected to hormones? Well, when we think about, I'm just gonna bring up stress again cuz that's just so common. Like I'm under stress, I've got a deadline, I've got insomnia, I've got all these things going on. These hormones are the ones that are taking the message from your brain that your brain has received this message from the outside world and your internal world and now has to tell your organs to secrete these hormones. To bring that message to the next piece in order for the body to function the way it needs to go without hormones. So for example, when you're eating food hormones are at play, your glucose and your insulin. Insulin is a hormone. And we don't realize that, you know, as we're aging and stepping into menopause and all of a sudden we have some weight in around our belly, and we're eating the same that we did maybe 10 years ago and not being able to digest like we did before.
(21:56): Cuz insulin is shifting. If insulin is high, your testosterone is low. And for women we need testosterone. It's for our motivation, it's for libido, it's for lean muscle mass. So now the everyday things that we do all connect back to hormones, what we eat, the pesticides that are sprayed on our fruits and vegetables look like estrogen, which is a hormone. The products that we're using on our skins have hormone disruptors which change our hormones. Everything in our environment, in our thoughts and beliefs in our physiology is impacted by hormones or, or is impacting the hormones.
(22:36): It's so true. And I talk with women every day, they say, but kirin, I don't know how to do it differently. My life is my life. I've got two kids. Um, I've got a partner, I have certain responsibilities at home. I have a job, you know, I've got an an ill elderly parent, I have to care for, I have my commute. That's not gonna change. I have all these things in my life. My life is set up this way. How in the world do I even start to tease it all apart and do it differently? Yeah. So where do you start? Where do you tell them to start? Yeah.
(23:13): Yeah. One moment at a time. I mean the first thing is recognizing stress is always going to be there. Life is the, this is life. But how we respond to it can be a choice. So bringing in daily habits, habit stacking I find is helpful. So everyone's brushing their teeth in the morning. So while you're brushing your teeth, maybe you have a mantra written on your mirror that you're repeating in your mind when you're brushing your teeth. So there now you've just given yourself some me time to connect with something a little bit bigger than you. Maybe you have a non-negotiable every day. So I actually get women to make a joy list. So you have your joy list. What are the things that give me joy? And it can be something so simple for me it's a cup of tea. So then I make sure every day I'm having a little bit of time to myself with that cup of tea.
(24:00): So now that's bringing calm into your nervous system. So it's retraining that pattern that is go, go, go. But instead it's reteaching the mind that hey, no, she is pausing, she is stopping. So now maybe in between the trigger and the response, there'll be some space and time for her to not react with that anxiety and that rush that shows up in her world. So starting with these simple things, maybe it's not taking something away from your diet, maybe it's adding something good, maybe it's adding like a greens powder, maybe it's adding some more healthy fats. Maybe it's adding something so that you feel like you've done something that day for yourself and that in itself feels like a victory. So then you desire it more. So you start with one thing, then the next thing and the next thing. Even with detoxifying our environment that impacts our hormones, I always say start with one room.
(24:52): Maybe we start with the bathroom and we look at the products for using. But you do it in stages, so it doesn't feel overwhelming, and it feels like this lifestyle shift that you can do. I've got two boys, two businesses, you know there are so many things that we all do. And I think the moment we realize we are worth it because we have this one vehicle and this lifetime to have the experiences that we want to dream the life that we want. So our job, it is our duty to take care of this vehicle.
(25:21): Yeah. I love this other quote you shared with me. By creating a morning routine, you are not only priming your body and mind for the day, but giving your soul a gift of nourishment and love. Mm-hmm , I love that. And I find if I start my morning right with the right routine, the rest of the day becomes so much easier. But if you're some reason I get thrown off of that routine then the rest of the day can be quite challenging. Mm-hmm , you mentioned something else in there. You said that you could get some space between trigger and response and I know what you're talking about, but I don't know that everybody does. So can you explain that?
(26:06): Yes. So when we have a conversation with somebody, we're watching something and all of a sudden we start to feel this like inner emotion coming up. Maybe it's rage, maybe it's anxiety, maybe it's something else kind of fueling our brain to react. Maybe the reaction is sadness, maybe the reaction is irritation in that moment in between there, in between that input we have like a millisecond to decide are we going to react to this or are we going to observe our own reaction and then respond to it. So there's a famous quote by Dr. Victor Frankel. He um, wrote the book, Man Search for Meaning. And there's another book called The Choice by Dr. Edith Edgar. And they're both Holocaust survivors. So he speaks to freedom and how freedom actually lies in that space between a stimulus and our response to that. Cause we've all been through it, someone says something and we react and we realize after like, oh you know, that's not how I wanted to show up but because I felt the way I did, I showed up that way.
(27:13): Maybe we, you know, maybe it's with our kids, we get irritated because it's a week before our period or you know, the, we haven't slept well and we're reacting to life instead of actually responding. So I find when you give ourselves space in the morning or whenever it is for you, it practices that we get to practice that so that in our everyday moments when there's a trigger that shows up instead of reacting right away, we can take a breath and we can pause and then we can choose how we're going to react. Cuz I do feel like that's true freedom cuz we're not now, we're not reacting because something else is taking over. It's not controlling us, but instead we're in the driver's seat of our life when we do that.
(27:54): Right. Thank you for explaining that. And that was certainly something I had to learn on my healing journey cuz when you're triggered, that's your sympathetic nervous system. Mm-hmm going into overdrive. And so really learning how to put a pause in there and do it differently. And a lot of us who had big T traumas or little T traumas are nervous systems are primed to go into that sympathetic drive like very quickly. So learning to just get into that observer mind and not have that knee-jerk reaction I know has been key for me. Is it, is it something that you help women to develop a practice around and how, how do you help them do that?
(28:38): Mm-hmm . Yeah. And I think what you said something before that was really important. You know, women try to meditate and all of a sudden they're like, I can't meditate too many things on my mind. I think there's a myth that meditation, you're supposed to feel complete bliss, but really, as you probably know, meditation helps you unravel the story. So it's not always bliss. And I think that looks differently for everyone. So that joyless is the first thing that I get women to make. Cuz maybe your meditation is going for a walk in nature or maybe it's dancing or maybe it is putting on a good show on Netflix because it's bringing you laughter and joy just for that moment. Mm-hmm . So I think finding what brings you joy first helps to create just space for you to do something for yourself. And then me bring in this element of like, okay, I'm gonna give you a three minute, one to three minute breath that you can just practice.
(29:28): So you're just placing your hands on your body and you're just breathing and that's easy, we can all breathe. Right? So once we start that and then they kind of get to the next level like, oh yeah, that was easy. I could do them. Okay, now that you've done one to three minutes, why don't we try five minutes or 10 minutes or why don't we break it up, do it in the morning and do it in the evening. So we start creating these little habits and then educating the women on, you know, all the choices we're making throughout the day are going to fuel those hormones. So when you choose something, when you're about to choose a food or what you're going to watch or conversation that you're gonna have, ask yourself a question, Is this going to nourish me? And if the answer is no, maybe we make a different choice. If the answer is no and we still do it, then maybe no later without any shame or judgment we ask ourselves, Huh, I wonder what that was about. So I find the more we question, the easier it becomes to remove judgment, to remove shame, but to really just observe who we are. And I find that's key to falling in love with yourself again, cuz that morning is that time to fall in love with yourself, which is so important.
(30:34): So I love that you just said that because it's really tossed around love yourself. You have to love yourself first. All this, but talk about what does that mean, self love? I think that people could use more clarity on that.
(30:49): Yes. Yeah. It's triggering. It's like, well how do you do that? What does that even mean? And for me, and I'll speak to just from my experience and the women that I've worked with, it's when I'm making choices that fuel me instead of deplete me. So when I'm making a choice to eat food that I know are going to energize myself, I'm loving myself. If I choose to go somewhere out of obligation, I mean I come from a really big Indian family, we have weddings every week and there's all this stuff going on all the time. And if I'm going because I have to, I'm not loving myself At that moment, it's an obligation. But if I'm going out of joy and wanting to connect with my family, then I'm loving myself. So I think it's in our daily choices and that shows us that we are worthy, that it's our birthright to be in joy and we can fall in love with ourselves and love ourselves and it's through those choices.
(31:43): Yeah. I always say that self-love is a verb, it's not a feeling. Mm-hmm . And it's the act, it's the love that you give yourself when you set boundaries internally with yourself, when you set boundaries externally and when you take those actions, exactly like you said, that move you towards health. And that gets to another quote that you shared with me before we started. True health is the result of choosing habits that help you enhance your life rather than help you escape it. Yes. And so many of us, this was true of me too. My life was just crazy chaos. And so in order to escape it, I was basically medicating with food and wine and coffee and TV and all the things that we all use to escape it. I didn't realize that's what I was doing. And so how do you help women kind of wake up to really pay attention to what they're doing and make different choices?
(32:44): Yeah, so that, I actually observed when I was sitting in Spain one day. Yeah. And I was just watching people and I was watching these elders and they're like, you know, arm in arm dressed up on a Sunday afternoon making out on the bench, you know, just like in their like true bliss. And then you see them going and having their taps and their, and their wine and things. And I'm like, hey, this culture that eats at like 10:00 PM or midnight drinks all day, . And why are they living longer? What is the secret here? And again, it I, I went back to 'em like it's connection. We're all searching to go back home. We're all searching for that connection. So when we're escaping, like what, why don't we feel safe in the moment that we're in? So I will always seed these questions for women and then if we look at the habits that we have, okay, are we choosing coffee to wind up wind to wind down and feeling like we deserve that wine at the end of the day?
(33:39): Cuz we've made it through the day, right? And we all have our things questioning, Okay, what if I didn't have that wine? Would I still feel deserving of rest? Would I feel deserve of a walk around the block? What is that giving me? And often women by themselves, I don't even have to say anything they know, they already know, right? No, it's not serving me. It actually gives me insomnia. I can't sleep well then my digestion's off the next day and now I have no energy. And it's this vicious cycle. So once we start changing that relationship with that thing that we think is helping us, then all of a sudden we can shift that relationship. And then later on maybe we bring it in once in a while and it's more about a having it for joy rather than depending on it to escape.
(34:20): Yeah, I know that's true in my life. I used to have the wine to wind down and then when I got on this path, I said, Well that's not healthy. It's hurting my gut. It's unbalancing my blood sugar. It's causing all kinds of problems. So I started doing yin yoga in the evenings to wind down and I, I couldn't believe that, you know, an hour of yin yoga would restore me to feel better than a glass of wine. So that replaced. And then the coffee in the morning, I stopped that and I started going for real vigorous hit training in the morning. And that got me the energy that I needed and just replacing habits one by one and really making conscious choices. So instead of trying to escape my life, and I also wanna give a little hope to any woman out there who is, as I described earlier, but ki I've got, you know, all these responsibilities, this is my life, I can't do it any differently.
(35:16): I used to think the same thing and people would say to me, Well you should just stop delivering babies, right? Just do gynecology. No I can't. Women depend on me. You know? And I couldn't see how I could do it differently. And I worked with this one life coach back then, and she had me, she said, Just, I want you to write every day my life is and how it feels. Peaceful, joyful, free, all. And I thought she was crazy. But I just kept writing it. I kept writing it. And you know, fast forward a decade, my life looks completely different. And it is all those things that I wrote about. And so I think if you really focus on your intention and what is the feeling you want to cultivate in your life organically, these things start to change and you start making more empowered choices. Yeah. What do you think?
(36:07): Yeah, yeah. I mean it's like that example, all of a sudden you think about buying a red car and then you're seeing red cars everywhere. Whereas before you thought there's no red cars around, of course I'm gonna get a red car. And it's the same thing with this like self care and manifesting the kind of life that you want. And it's, as soon as you focus on it, it's like what Tony Robbins says, What you focus on grows. So as soon as you start focusing on all of a sudden these opportunities show up, conversations, podcasts that you're listening to, things start to come into your life that give you the signal or this like nudge towards that direction that you're trying to move towards. But are we listening to them is the other question. So we can we pause enough to kind of see what they're trying to speak to us and are we listening to that inner voice too that's trying to tell us the same thing?
(36:51): And I think when you do something repeatedly, I mean yoga get training, they teach this too. Like when you're doing a meditation for 40 days, 66 days, 90 days, like there's an actual change that's happening in the patterning of your nervous system. So we're changing that relationship you were speaking to, you know, doing that hit work out in the morning, that's giving you that real dopamine rise for a longer period. So you're feeling that joy in your brain instead of this like a quick dopamine that we get from, you know, put into cart and then go on on Amazon or somewhere else that we might be escaping life from. And so I think, yeah, what you said is key that we really, we are all busy, we have these full lives and that won't change, but how we respond to it, we can change.
(37:42): Yes. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today, Dr. Soya. I'd love for you to tell everyone about your book, your podcast. We won't have a link in the show notes to Dr. Sonia's website. Dr You Jensen, j e n s e n.com. She has a free download there she's gonna tell you about. So tell everybody about all the places they can find you and all the wonderful things you've created for them.
(38:10): Thank you. So you can find me on Instagram as well, Dr. Sonya Jensen there and the website and my book, Woman Unleashed, it's Revive or Release Your Story, Revive Your Hormones, Reclaim Your Freedom. And it was, it's a lot of me that's in there, my story and also my patient stories and how we just linked everything in this conversation too. So it's, it's kind of a self-discovery book that you can utilize and every chapter has a pause moment that allows you moments to reflect or to understand yourself better. And if you go to the website, put your email in, you will get the first three chapters, which has the quiz in those first three chapters. So you can figure out if you're a diva, a duchess, or a dance. Yeah,
(38:53): . I am gonna go take that. I wanna know which one I am. I have suspicion, but . Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing this wonderful wisdom with everyone. I so appreciate it. And for everybody listening, thank you for tuning in and spending this time with us today. We're really grateful that you've taken time to nurture yourself by getting some information and inspiration. And I'd love for you to take action and share with us on social media what you did. Don't just let this be information and inspiration, but actually take action. That's how change happens, right, Sonya?
(39:32): Absolutely. Thank you so much and thank you for all the work that you're doing and for this platform too. You're changing so many lives and it's, I just love seeing women empowering other women. Thank you.
(39:43): Thank you. And thank you all for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. Look forward to seeing you next week. And until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.
(39:56): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormones and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and some subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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Do you find yourself struggling to lose weight, despite diet and exercise?
It might be time to look into leptin resistance.
On this episode of The Hormone Prescription, Dr. Bindiya Gandhi joins us to discuss this little-known hormone and how it could be the key to unlocking midlife weight loss. Dr. Gandhi shares her expert insights on leptin resistance, how it develops, and what you can do to overcome it. If you're looking for answers to your weight loss struggles, this is the episode for you!
Dr. Bindiya Gandhi is double board certified physician in Family Medicine and Integrative and Holistic Medicine. She is Atlanta’s Weight Loss doctor and by helping you uncover and tame leptin resistance can turn even the most unsuccessful dieter into a success. She is a media expert and has been featured in The Daily Mail, MindbodyGreen, PopSugar, Clean Plated, Well + Good and more.
She completed her family medicine training from Georgia Regents University/Medical College of Georgia June 2014. She completed her undergraduate training at the University of Georgia with Bachelors of Science in Biology and Psychology in 2004 and her Doctor of Medicine at American University of Antigua College of Medicine in 2010. She completed an Integrative medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona with Dr. Andrew Weil in 2016. She also completed Functional Medicine Training with the Institute of Functional Medicine in 2017.
Her interests include integrative, holistic and functional medicine, women's health, preventative medicine, international medicine and health care reform. Shes also a certified yoga instructor and reiki master. She used to practice emergency medicine as well. Dr. Bindiya is a media expert and contributor to numerous sites including The Daily Mail, MindbodyGreen, PopSugar, Clean Plated, Well + Good and more! When she's not working or writing you can find her in the kitchen cooking, doing yoga or enjoying time with her family & 3 girls
In this episode, you'll learn:
-What leptin resistance is and how it affects weight loss
-How to tell if you're leptin resistant
-Tips for overcoming leptin resistance
-And more!
So tune in and learn how you can finally start losing weight, even if you've been struggling for years.
(00:00): Dr. Bindiya says, If you never try, you will never know and don't underestimate your worth. What does this mean when it comes to your health at midlife? Stay tuned and find out.
(00:14):So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones in our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates our rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to The Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:07): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today, we're gonna have fun talking about an aspect of weight loss resistance that you might not have heard of and that has to do with leptin. Don't worry if you don't know what it is. We're gonna dive into it, me and Dr. Binda and let you know so you'll have a full understanding and you'll get some ideas and knowledge and support and inspiration. And after all, that's what we're here for. So she will give you a big dose of that. I'll tell you a little bit about her and we will get started. You're gonna love her because she's not only knowledgeable, she is board certified in family medicine as well as integrative and holistic medicine. She studied with Andrew while who is amazing if you know anything about him.
(02:01): And she completed functional medicine training with the Institute of Functional Medicine in 2017. She's also a media expert and she's been featured in the Daily Mail, Mind Body, green Pop, Sugar, Clean Plated, Well and good and many others. Mostly she's Atlanta's a weight loss doctor, but she works with people remotely all over the country and by she can help you uncover and team and resistance and she can turn even the most unsuccessful dietary into a successful one. And she's here to tell you how and how the missing ingredient is leptin. Welcome, Dr. Binda Gandhi, thank you so much for having me today. Super excited to talk to you about leptin resistance. It's something that we really haven't talked, I don't think at all about on the podcast, and it's super important for women at midlife who are trying to lose weight. So I'm excited to dive into this topic. You know, for me, everything's about hormones and this is one that I have neglected to discuss. So I know a lot of people who are regular listeners are like, Yay, Dr. Karen, finally time, you're talking about leptin resistance. So let's get into it. But I wanna start by having you share with everyone how you honed in on leptin as being the biggest block for women at midlife to lose weight.
(03:21): Oh, you know, such a great question. You know, first of all, leptin is a hormone that is fairly a newer hormone, right? Not many people talk about it. You know, you can go to your endocrinologist and they're not even gonna wanna test this hormone. So just a little background about leptin, you know, it's a hormone that is actually produced by your fat cells and it's important because it communicates with your brain. It's basically our satiety hormone. And this hormone basically tells us if we're full or not. And this hormone is actually impacted by so many other hormones that you probably talk about already, like your thyroid, your estrogen, your progesterone, your insulin. So it's very important to kind of understand what's going on with this homo hormone individually, but how it's also being impacted by the other hormones. So this is why I love talking about it, and I really got into this because when I first started helping patients, a lot of people would come to me because they were struggling to get pregnant and they were having fertility issues. And I started noticing a link between leptin and fertility and then started doing some research and realized, hold up. There's more to the leptin story than just how it impacts fertility. It's also impacting not just our weight, it's impacting so many different aspects of our bodies. And this is why I'm so glad we're talking about this today cuz it's such an important hormone and people need to know about it.
(04:46): It is, and thank you for backing up because some people are like, Le left, what? We've never heard of it. And so we really should start with what is leptin? So thank you for explaining that. It's your satiety hormone and how does it interact with other hormones. So I talk all the time, we talk on the podcast, the Hormone Prescription podcast about what I call the six main metabolic driving hormones, which include your three sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, your thyroid, your cortisol, your insulin, your D H E A. And then there's leftin. And we probably should touch on Grillin too. Yes. Because some people we do touch on melatonin sometimes, but not as being one of the key drivers. But lein is the satiety hormone. Thank you for explaining that. And where does it come from in the body where, how does your body make it? How is it used? How does it work?
(05:41): Mm-Hmm. . Great, great question. So it's produced by our fat cells, right? Essentially. And it communicates with our brain and it basically tells us if we're full or not, right after a meal, we should be getting a message from our brain saying, You've eaten enough, you're full, you don't need to eat anymore. That's essentially what's happening with leptin, right? So it tells us when we're full, where it's sister hormone, I'm gonna bring up grillin is the hunger hormone. This is what stimulates your appetite. And it kind of lets you know if you are hungry, right? So leptin on the other hand, tells you if you're full, grin tells you if you're hungry. Now they work in opposite directions and they work together, but also differently at the same time. Right? When we're hungry, grin is high and we're not satisfied. So lectin is low and the opposite happens when we're full and we're we're satisfied.
(06:35): Grin actually ends up being low and leptin is high. So they work, you know, kind of against each other. Not in a bad way, but like with each other, but like their opposites. So it's really important because Gorlin is actually produced by the stomach of the GI tract, and leptin is produced in the hypothalamus, which is part of the brain. So that's just kind of a little bit about the two hormones and how they work. But it's essential to kind of understand background of it because then you can understand how it works with the other hormones. Kind of like the ones you mentioned, thyroid stress hormones, your cortisol hormones, insulin. So it really does impact so many other things. Leptin is actually metabolized in the liver, right? That's, we know this is where our sex hormones are, are metabolized, right? This is where insulin is metabolized. So this is where our t3, three T3 is metabolized, right? So it's really kind of important how it works with the other hormones and where
(07:34): Great point. So let's dive into that. I know there's some people who are thinking, well, let me see. She said when you're full, your, your leptin goes up. So can I just take some leptin and feel like I'm full all the time? But I gotta ask you that first, cuz I know I'm calling it out. I know my people and I know some people are thinking that right now. So if you can address that, and then let's dive into after that, what are all the things that leap an impact?
(08:01): Yeah, so let's talk, I mean, there are some tips and tricks we can do to kind of keep your body feeling full, right? Like we can definitely talk about, which I'm sure people have mentioned before, have heard before, like for example, drinking water before you eat your dinner or your lunch kind of like starts keeping you full and feeling a little bit more satiated. Eating a lot more fiber, keeps you a lot more satiated, right? So your body feels full there. So there's things that will do that. There is no medication on the market that will keep you full. There are medications on the market that decrease your appetite and there are medications on the market that can improve your leptin and we can talk about that a little bit later. However, there is no prescription FDA anything approved on the market that will directly impact your leptin to make you full earlier, if that makes sense.
(08:50): ? Yeah. Okay. All right. So now that we've got that out of the way, you mentioned about leftin being metabolized in the liver and some of the other hormones that are handled by the liver, a lot of them mm-hmm. . So how does Leftin interact with these other hormones in your body in general?
(09:07): Yeah, so we'll start off with thyroid, cuz I feel like so many women at all ages of life have a thyroid issue, right? Whether it's Hashimotos, just hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, whether it's overactive, underactive, unfortunately it is, it is a common problem. So when I look at the thyroid and when I'm, what I'm specifically looking at is I'm actually looking at t3, reverse t3, free t3, total t3, because that gives me a different picture. All right? So I'm gonna get a little technical. So guys, bear with me. Okay? When we talk about our thyroid metabolism, and I'm talking about, I'm looking at your t3 s your T3 free T3 s are impacted by many things. One is stress, okay? Chronic stress, like the pandemic or whatever chronic life changes are happening, right? So chronic stress. And the other thing that is impacting your T3 metabolism is a lot of times if we've been on restrictive diets, okay?
(10:09): So the link between leptin and our T3 metabolism happens When we've been on these restrictive diets for long term, most people, Dr. Karen, have been dieting, especially females have been dieting since their teens, whether they realize it or not. And unfortunately, our culture is all about yo-yo dieting, right? Many of us have tried, including myself, we've all been guilty of different diets to see what works for us, right? So we've been, we've tried slim fast, we've tried the special K diet, and I'm speaking for myself. I've, I'm pretty sure we've tried everything in the book. Right now it's keto, paleo, this, that, like, I don't even know the names of what's been out there, Low fat phase, whatever, right? So because about yoyo dieting, that has messed up our thyroid metabolism. And that's also one of the reasons why we have become leptin resistant, okay?
(11:01): Because of the dysregulation in our metabolism and the dysregulation of our body. So when our body thinks we are starving, when our body thinks that when we have cut calories, essentially, you know, we're trying to do that because the old adage was you have to, you have to starve yourself and you have to over exercise, and that's the only way you're going to lose weight. Well, now we know that's inaccurate, right? Because when we were doing all of those diets and those things, what we were essentially doing is messing up our communication with our brain and our bodies and our, and our fat cells. And this is why we would lose weight initially in the first week. And then we would hit a weight loss stall because the leptin communication started getting dysregulated and disrupting. And that's why we, we couldn't lose weight anymore. That's why diets work short term and then we're like starving and we're like, Oh my God, I need to eat everything in the book. Right? That's a little bit of what's happening right now, The what's happening. Okay,
(12:00): Got
(12:00): It. Because of all the long term havoc on our metabolism, and because we've been kind of, and this diet craze for many, many years, our thyroid metabolism has also changed. And this is why thyroid impacts lectin.
(12:14): Okay? Yeah. Very close relationship there. And I'm wondering, you mentioned leptin resistance. Can you tell everybody what that is? And then the next question they're gonna wanna know is, how do I know if I have that? So let's talk about what is leptin resistance?
(12:28): Yeah, love, love, love this question. So leptin resistance is basically when there's that miscommunication happening between your fat cells and your brain, this is probably the reason why your body is not getting the memo or your brain is not getting the memo that you're full. So maybe you're overeating, right? Or maybe eating a larger portions, like you just can't control your appetite kind of thing, right? The other thing that's happening is when you're eating, you don't feel full and an hour later you're wanting to eat again. You're like, Oh, I'm hungry. I need to, I need something else to eat. Or you're constantly snacking. There's definitely some telltale signs, and this is why, guys, I have you take my free, you know, 11 question quiz. It's at dr binda md.com/quiz. You just answer these questions and it'll kind of, it'll kind of help you identify, are you potentially left in resistance?
(13:19): Are you left in sensitive or left and clear, right? Because it's kind of important to understand, do you have some of these symptoms? Majority of us probably have some of these symptoms. We're craving the sugars and the carbs all the time. We have high triglycerides, we have maybe elevated blood pressure or whatever it is. And some of that stuff is all correlated and connected to leptin resistance. So go ahead, take the quiz, let me know. But that's the first thing. The other thing I would say is working closely with ideally a functional medicine provider, like I mentioned, your primary care doctor unfortunately, is not going to know what to do with this information or even be able to help you with this. A functional medicine practitioner is probably able to kind of guide you and say, Yes, I'm happy to check this number and I'm, I know how I can help you with this.
(14:01): Even an endocrinologist, like I mentioned earlier, who manages hormones, they don't, number one, check this lectin level. And number two, if they check it, they're not gonna really help you or give you the right protocol either. And I, I wish they would, but again, this just, this is a newer hormone and, and not much known is known about it. So if like when I, with my patients, I automatically do a blood test and I'm testing their leptin number. If your leptin blood level is above 11, then I can definitively say, You know what? Your definitely in resistance. If it's below three, you're lept in, you're on the other end of the spectrum. So, and if you're between the perfect number is actually between seven and 10. That's ideally where we'd like every patient to be. Now not everybody's going to reach those perfect numbers, and that's okay. It's, it's everybody's fine. But what I like to do is track this number. So a lot of patients will come to me and they've got leptin numbers in their fifties. I've got patients that have leptin numbers in their hundreds. So our job is to kind of bring that number down to as close as possible to 11. And that's how we do things.
(15:09): Okay? So blood test for leptin, and thank you for giving some idea about ranges so people can know. And then definitely check out the quiz. We'll have the link in the show notes. So if you're driving, please don't try to write that down. Just wait till you get parked and you can click the link in the show notes. All right. So I do wanna touch back on other things that leptin interacts bit and interacts with. But while we're on the topic, say somebody does have a lectin of 50 and they come to you, what is your general approach to start improving their lectin sensitivity?
(15:47): As you know, as a functional medicine practitioner, my job is to kind of understand and to get to the root cause, right? So we can start identifying what is going on. I can, I can look at it and say, Yep, leftin is off, but the next question is, what else is off? You know, I'm also looking at all the other hormones and I'm trying to see how they're interacting with wettin. I'm also analyzing what their hemoglobin a1c, their fasting insulin is to kind of see do they have some insulin resistance as well? Do they have some inflammation? Because once I can identify some of these things, then I can hone in on a specific protocol to bring this number significantly down. So it is a very, it is a very holistic 360, you know, lifestyle, diet supplement approach. I mean, it's, it's, it's very comprehensive to, to what we're doing, right?
(16:35): Sometimes we're, I, I would definitely wanna bring this up and, and sorry if I'm going all over the place, but sometimes people think that, you know, they need to be intermittent fasting and they, they think they need to be starving themselves and that actually can make their left and number worse, right? I often, I often see this when people are like, Oh, I decided to intermittent fast and then I see their leftin number go from like 20 to 26. So there's different things that, that start happening, but we definitely want to pay attention to their other hormones and then putting them on a program and protocol that's specific to them. And so sometimes that means, I'm telling you, you're actually going to eat more food. And people are like, What? What will you have to do? What? And I'm like, Yeah, you know, all this time that you've been intermittent fasting, it's actually slowed down your metabolism and has been one of the reasons why there's a miscommunication with your body because your body thinks you're starving. So it's holding onto extra weight and calories that you give it, right? So we, we start kind of like refeeding a little bit.
(17:31): Yes, I love that we have to eat more, not less to lose weight and to boost our metabolism. And I love that you mentioned intermittent fasting and leptin, because intermittent fasting is all the rage right now. And I see so many women who are intermittent fasting and initially they, they do lose weight, but then they hit a plateau, like you described, like with most diet and , intermittent fasting is a great tool to use for specific purposes at specific times for specific people. It is a tool. Hammer is not always the right tool all the time for everyone. And I think that everyone thinks that intermittent fasting is the greatest activity for everyone. So I want everyone to hear what Dr. Bindi is saying, cuz you've heard me say this. It's not just me, but she's saying that it can affect lectin resistance. So what are some reasons why, and how does intermittent fasting impact lectin? And what are some other negative impacts that intermittent fasting can have?
(18:35): Oh yeah. Okay. I'm so glad you brought this out because it really is something that I, I think we need to again, educate a little bit more about. So again, like you said, there are some people that do really, really well with intermittent fasting, different phases of your life. You know, intermittent fasting unfortunately can impact your hormones. So in a good way, in a bad way, right? And yes, there's so many great benefits of it, but for example, if you're cycling, if you're a woman who's currently cycling and you are trying to have a baby or that kind of thing, intermittent fasting can actually be one of the reasons why you are having trouble getting pregnant, right? The reason is, when it comes to intermittent fasting, there's different, first of all, there's different types of intermittent fasting, right? There's the fasting mimicking diet and there's all these different protocols, right?
(19:21): 24 hour fast, 36 hour fast. Like, and these things can be very extreme for the body. When we're intermittent fasting. Short term, you'll definitely see results. But when it starts being long term and now you're doing 16, eight fast every single day and you are not taking breaks, you're, you don't have the metabolic flexibility that's going on, what ends up happening is your body thinks you're starving, right? When your body thinks you're starving is not sure when it's gonna get fed again, it's like, whoa, what's happening? When am I gonna get food again? Oh, not until tomorrow at 2:00 PM okay, I'm going to hold onto every single calorie. I'm gonna hold onto everything. So the thing that the tool that was working for you before, the hammer that was now helping you, you know, put that nail in place is not, what ends up happening is the body starts holding onto the fat and holding onto every calorie.
(20:11): So now you become even sensitive to every time you eat and you feel like, Oh, I feel like I'm gaining weight or I feel like I'm doing the same thing, but I I weigh the same, Like I should be lose continuing to lose weight. No, cuz you're, you're, you've essentially just changed your metabolism and I've actually slowed it down. And that's what that, that's essentially what's happening here. The other thing that that really helps with that's happening with intermittent fasting is you're causing yourself to have not only a slow down metabolism, you're causing yourself to have other hormonal imbalances and your body's just getting confused, right? Your T3 and your free T3 start getting affected and your thyroid starts kind of slowing down. So, so many different things are happening at the same time and not always a good thing.
(20:56): Yeah. And it affects your cortisol stress hormone. Most people don't realize that,
(21:00): Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Yes. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And this is why I always say, you know, it is a hormetic stressor, but more importantly to Dr. Karen is when you're in a stressful situation, like if you are taking care of elderly parents or you're taking care of young kids, or you just started a new business, or you just got fired from your job, whatever it is, whatever life stresses you're going through divorce, that's not the right time to start intermittent fasting because your body's already in a stressed state. Now, add on intermittent fasting, you're asking for cortisol and adrenal disruption.
(21:33): All right? So we had to get that out of the way. And what other interactions do you think it's important for people to know about when it comes to leptin in their body? What other organ systems, hormones does it interact with?
(21:49): So we kind of touched upon it already. Mm-Hmm. , thyroid for short adrenals are the other ones, right? So it impacts your adrenal hormones. And again when you're in a very stressed state, the body thinks that, you know, exercise, let's talk about exercise. Exercise can, can be considered or etic state, but it can also be a very stressful state if you're doing high intensity exercise all the time, right? So if you're doing some of those things all the time, this is gonna impact your adrenal hormones and then impacts, which then impacts your leptin levels, right? So that's, that's another hormone that it impacts. And the other thing is that we need to pay attention to is, is just making sure that we've got really good stress management skills under our belt. You know, I tell people all this all the time. We live in a very stressful state.
(22:36): You know, we can't live in a bubble. I wish we could all somehow be Buddhist monks and just be like zend out all the time. It just doesn't happen with our lifestyles, right? Especially as females, because we take care of so many people and often we forget to take care of ourselves, right? And all that stress really impacts all our, our hormones, our adrenals, our cortisols, everything. And so understanding some of these basic things and having the right tools in place can really start not only helping those numbers and those levels get better, but in comprehension it, it'll also start decreasing your leptin resistance as well.
(23:14): Yes. This is so important. You mentioned self care in there. So I have to say I'm at a yoga retreat in Massachusetts this month and working and attending the retreat and there's so much support for your self care here and just classes and education and experiential experiences and you know, I think that I know about self-care and then I come to a place like this and they take it to a whole other level. And it really is just highlighting for me, India, how much we lack self care, even in my daily life where I think I'm doing a good job and I come to a place like this. And I notice that in some of the yoga classes that are restorative or again, slower gentle yoga classes, I'm so impatient. My brain is constantly going, Oh my gosh, they're going so slow, I'm going to lose my mind. , . And it really is highlighting for me that even though I think I'm slowing down and taking time and doing the thing, really I'm just doing it at home. So I could check it off the list and I wanna share this. Yes. Because I know there are people listening who are doing this and they think they're doing self care and like me, they're probably not really doing self care. .
(24:39): No, you're absolutely right. And a lot of it is you nailed it is, you know, we have dual checklists and we're like, Oh, the doctor told me to do self-care, so I'm going to get a massage and oh, I check that off. That doesn't count guys. , it doesn't count. It doesn't count,
(24:58): Right? And so I think foundationally every episode of the podcast, I'm just gonna be harping on everyone or just giving an invitation to really explore what is self care? What is adequate self care for you? So I want to invite everybody listening to really start leaning into that question. And you will get answers when you lean into the questions. Dr. Binda shared a few quotes that she loved with me before we started the episode, and I wanna weave some of them through this episode because they're wonderful. The first is don't underestimate your worth, which you are worthy of having the best that love and life have to offer. And that starts with your self care. And another quote is, if you never try, you will never know. And so I wanna ask everybody to close your eyes if you're not driving or operating heavy machinery, and just take a few deep breaths in and out and ask yourself about something that you've considered or are considering embarking on and you're nervous about, Should I, shouldn't I?
(26:12): Or you hear me talking about leaning into this question about self care and you're thinking, Oh Karen, I don't have time for that, But you're worth it, number one. And if you tried to lean into this question, what benefits could you reap? I mean, I've really regained a connection with myself that I, I hadn't even realized I was missing by being at this retreat. So I don't wanna proselytize too much. I just wanna give an invitation. What if you, you tried and you found out that something could be the real needle mover. What if you hear Dr. Bindi talking about lectin resistance and you're like, Oh, I think I'll reach out and take her quiz and get tested and find out if that's my problem. And I'm wondering if you could share Bindi, because you just have a newborn who's 16 weeks old, you already have two other children, you have a full time medical practice. What are key components of your self care practices that really help you stay healthy?
(27:14): You know what, I started this routine actually when I was in medical school and I, you know, I tried to be as consistent as I can with it. Obviously sometimes having kids, you can't do all the things you used to be able to do. But every morning, Dr. Karen, I start off by meditating. And so at this point I've been doing it for almost, I don't know, 15, almost close to 20 years. And it is what gets me going in the morning. It's how I start my day and it is very, very important for me. So I started off doing five minutes a day and I started off like with not really knowing what I was doing. And I would listen to YouTube videos at the time. And now I, I've progressed, I personally like guided meditations cuz it helps me keep focused sometimes, kind of like you, I I have the monkey mind and so if I try to meditate by myself, my brain will kind of get into, Oh, these are the things you need to do today.
(28:09): You know what I mean? And if I have some sort of audio in the background, it helps me stay focused. So that is one thing that I think is, that's my thing. That's what I do. That's what that, when I do that in the morning, I am grounded and I feel like I can handle it. And especially since I have two toddlers, my mornings can quickly go in any, any direction. So I need to be able to keep my cool and stay grounded. And I will tell you the days I do not meditate, like because I wake up late or because because my baby, you know, I, I don't get enough sleep and I'm like rushing or whatever. My temper is definitely shortened the days I don't meditate.
(28:48): Yes, I notice when I don't meditate, my day is more challenging, I will say. Yeah. Yep. And I invite anybody who hasn't tried it, who's just been suspect. There's so much research backing how meditation improves your health. You're including your hormones starting with your yes. So I encourage it. And I'm wondering before we wrap up, if you could share a story of a patient who might come to mind. I know of all the thousands of patients I've treated over the years, there's some that really stand out as being the poster children for certain hormonal imbalances. And I'm wondering if you have someone who really had been struggling, maybe searching for answers and she came to you and wow, it all ended up being about lectin that you could share with everyone.
(29:36): I treat both males and females in our practice and one patient really sticks out to me. She actually was 64 female, 64 years old and was actually diabetic at the time. Came to see me, it was I think last November, October, November, and just struggling. She had been to the con through the conventional route, struggling with her weight, struggling with everything. She was kind of frustrated by the system, had tried diets on herself in the past, nothing worked. Or if it worked kind of like many, many people, they wouldn't stick. She'd lose 15 pounds, then only gained 20 pounds back, right? So it was that yoyo effect. So I started working with her about November of last year and I put her on a very extensive protocol, you know, adjusting her diet and things started moving in the right direction. We started decreasing inflammation. We started seeing, now she's no longer on, she was actually on Metformin and Genuvia at the time, which her diabetic medications now she's not even on any diabetic medications at all.
(30:39): So her A1C went from a 6.8 to now 5.7. So she's still kind of in that pre-diabetic phase, but she's not requiring medication, which is much like, that's an improvement. So, you know, we definitely adjusted a lot of things with her. Her biggest thing that I wanna kinda shed light upon that really made a big difference. Dr. Karen was actually helping her with stress management. So she was 64 years old and was having issues with about being about to retire, having a little stress without with that. And then her daughter ended up having a baby. So she was kind of like feeling a little overwhelmed because she was helping her daughter with the newborn. So there's all these different stressors in her life going on at the same time. But once we were able to hone in and kind of help her with her mindset and help her kind of find the right type of lifestyle modifications and diet that was perfect for her. The weight started coming off, inflammation started decreasing. Insulin resistance obviously has improved significantly and she's feeling much better. The other thing I will add that we did do for her, which I think really helps balance her a lot too, is we did start her on some hormone replacement therapy. And again, that was something that she was kind of afraid to do before and that also kind of helped stabilize her.
(31:59): Awesome. Well it sounds like she embraced this other quote that you shared with me today can always be the first step to something great by reaching out to you and doing something different and really digging deep to find the root causes. So I'm super glad she did because everybody listening may or may not know how severe a hemoglobin A1C of 6.8 is. I mean, that's pretty drastic. And getting it down to 5.7 doesn't happen in most diabetics. They just are put on medications and told, you're gonna be on this forever and you're gonna be at risk for kidney failure, liver failure, heart attack, dementia. Exactly. Amputation, all these things. And I had a professor when I went through my fellowship who used to say that, that that was basically the mainstream prescription. You know, congratulations, you have diabetes, you get a team jersey, you'll have it forever.
(32:52): You'll be on these medications and here's what you'll have to look forward to. And that's not the case. Mm-Hmm. . So whether you're diabetic or not, today can always be the first step to something. Great. And thank you Dr. Bindi, for sharing this wonderful information. Focusing on left in, we're gonna have the, the link to the quiz, which you've told everyone about in the show notes, while also have a link to your free download fives to improve your weight loss resistance. Yes. And any last word you wanna share with everybody about lectin and weight loss and metabolism.
(33:27): You know, one thing I will say is, guys, an anybody listening today, one thing that I really wanna encourage is many of you have probably listening and you're like, You know what, I'm gonna try doing this on my own. I think I have this, I'm gonna do this on my own. And I promise work closely with a good integrative and functional medicine provider, doctor, because I promise when you work with someone who is able to learn about you and can personalize it, you're gonna get the best result. And so stop trying to do things on your own. .
(33:57): I mean, you know, I love that you said that. It's so true cuz people will hear this and be like, searching on the internet, Where can I get a leptin blood test checked? And I mean, people, I see people do this all the time and then they get the information and then now what? Now what? I never get the results that they could have. Yeah. And you know, I, I have this one coach and he always tells me he's a business coach. He says, Kirin, do you know the difference between wealthy people and not wealthy people? And I say, No, what? And he says, Wealthy people understand that time is their most valuable asset, not money. And so they are willing to invest to gain more time and get the fast route. Yeah. And get the best help. And not wealthy people think they can do everything themselves, but yes, who has that time kind of time, right?
(34:45): Yeah. So important guys, if you're listening today and you're suspecting that you have a leptin issue, by all means reach out to me, you know, have a virtual practice. I'm happy to help out. But even if it's not me, you know, just work with someone because essentially you cannot do these things on your own. A lot of you guys have tried for so long and there's a reason why you've unfortunately failed. So just trust and find the right practitioner, and I promise you will get the best results of your life.
(35:12): Those are very wise words. Thank you so much for joining me today, Dr. Bindiya.
(35:18): Thank you so much, Dr. Karen. This was a pleasure and
(35:21): Thank you all for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Hopefully you have learned something today that you can put into action to improve your health. I want this to be informative, hopefully a little bit entertaining. But if you don't take action, nothing changes. And today really can always be the first step to something great like Dr. Bindi said. So what steps will you take? Please reach out to me on social media, on Facebook and Instagram and let me know and let me know about the results that you are getting. Thanks so much for joining me. I will see you next week for our next episode of the Hormone Prescription. Until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.
(36:05): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
► Are you a leptin-resistant? Find out in Dr. Bindiya's Quiz. CLICK HERE.
► 5 Ways To Improve Your Weight Loss Resistance Free Download - CLICK HERE.
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Have you been feeling run down, exhausted, and just plain sick and tired? If so, you're not alone. Millions of women struggle with autoimmune diseases, and the numbers are only rising. But there is hope!
In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, Dr. Kyrin Dunston welcomes Margaret Floyd Barry to share her journey with autoimmune disease and how she was able to reverse it using the power of food and nutrition. She also provides listeners with practical tips and strategies that they can use to start feeling better right away.
Margaret Floyd Barry is a writer and real food advocate whos been in the pursuit of the most nutritious and delicious way of eating for the better part of her adult life.
Having seen family members suffer the devastating effects of chronic illness from a young age, Margaret has long had the desire to help others find a better way back to optimal health and well-being. Through years of experience working with the most complex client cases, including reversing her own autoimmune condition, Margaret has established a powerful system for restoring health by addressing the root cause of illness.
Today, Margaret teaches fellow practitioners the same proven system she uses to get her clients life-changing results through Restorative Wellness Solutions - a two-year comprehensive functional nutrition certification program for qualified health professionals. With hundreds of alumni around the world, Margaret and the Restorative Wellness Solutions team are actively working to change the way health is delivered. Margaret also runs Eat Naked Kitchen, a thriving private practice that supports clients throughout North America and Europe, and is the author of Eat Naked: Unprocessed, Unpolluted and Undressed Eating for a Healthier, Sexier You and The Naked Foods Cookbook.
In this episode, you'll learn:
What autoimmune disease is and how it affects the bodyThe role that food plays in reversing autoimmune diseaseWhich foods to eat (and avoid) to heal your gut and reduce inflammationHow to create a personalized healing plan that works for youIf you're ready to start feeling your best, tune in now!
(00:00): It was Maya Angelou who said, Do the best you can until you know better then when you know better, do better. And Oprah famously quoted her as saying, When you know better, do better. You're gonna know some things after this podcast and then you can do better. Stay tuned to learn more.
(00:19): So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones in our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(01:12): Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. We have a lovely guest you're gonna love. I know I say that about all my guests because I love them all. Literally they're just amazing people who are passionate and brilliant, and Margaret is no exception and she does so much work to help women. She has a powerful story as to why she's so passionate about autoimmune disease and the nutritional component and reversing it. So you'll definitely wanna hear that she is going to give you a perspective that you probably haven't had yet and we, we really get into some detailed things. So I definitely encourage you to be in a place where you can take notes cuz you're gonna wanna do that. She we're, she's gonna share with you why we are essentially complicated donuts.
(02:11): I know right now you're going what? But she's gonna talk to you about that if you've been wondering, well, do I really have to be gluten free and do I need to do it 100%. She's gonna uncover that for you and unpack that. So she's gonna answer a lot of questions that you've got about your health. She's brilliant. She also trains practitioners. She's gonna talk to you about that. She's got some super fun gifts for you. So let me tell you a little bit about her and then we'll get started. Margaret Floyd Barry is a writer and real food advocate who's been on the pursuit of the most nutritious and delicious way of eating for the better part of her adult life. Having seen family members suffer the devastating effects of chronic illness from a young age, Margaret has long had the desire to help others find a better way back to optimal health and wellbeing.
(03:03): Through years of experience working with the most complex quiet cases, including reversing her own autoimmune condition, How would you like to do that? Margaret has established a powerful system for restoring health by addressing the root cause of illness. Today Margaret teaches fellow practitioners the same proven system she uses to get her clients life changing results through restorative wellness solutions. Two year comprehensive functional nutrition certification program for qualified health professionals with hundreds of alumni around the world. Margaret and the Restorative Wellness Solutions team are actively working to change the way health is delivered. Margaret also runs Eat Naked Kitchen, a thriving private practice that supports clients throughout North America and Europe. And she's the author of Eat Naked Unprocessed Ed, and Unjust Eating For a Healthier Sexier You and The Naked Foods Cookbook. Welcome Margaret to the show.
(04:02): Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
(04:05): I'm really excited to have you. For everybody listening, Margaret did an amazing masterclass for some of my women in my virtual program in our nutrition module because she's a nutritional genius and a, a genius in the kitchen. That was fabulous and I wanted to share her with all of you. So she agreed to come onto the podcast and talk about something that she's really passionate about and that is how nutrition and gut health intersect with autoimmune disease. So we're gonna dive into that. But first can you tell everyone, Margaret, as a functional nutritionist, why are you so passionate about autoimmune disease?
(04:52): I had a front row seat, unfortunately to what really doesn't work when it comes to supporting people with autoimmune disease. My mom had very severe both rheumatoid arthritis and lupus that she was diagnosed with when I was in my teens. And she went the full on Western medical model. And in some ways she was a medical miracle. You know, like she, you know, the things that they were able to do to manipulate her immune system were profound. And yet the quality of life that she lived was, it was brutal. I mean, it was one step forward, five steps back, two steps forward, three steps back. I mean, just this slow, excruciating process of degradation. And the side effects from the drugs that were keeping her immune system under control were devastating. I mean, I remember one time she got a hangout and that hangout turned into a a three month hospital stay because it turned into an infection that, you know, her immune system was so suppressed by these drugs.
(06:05): That infection went all the way up her arm and then they couldn't get it under control with antibiotics. And I mean, it was just this huge thing. And that's just one example, but I think a profound one that, you know, something as simple as a hangout was so devastating to her. So that was the, the way that she had to live where, you know, things that none of us even think twice about could be devastating and throw her into the hospital for months. And ultimately she ended up losing her life to side effects from the drugs that were at the same time trying to keep her alive. So it was, you know, at the time I wasn't, I started studying nutrition part way through her journey and very much inspired by her journey. And then I, I just knew there had to be a better way and was really determined that, you know, not on my watch.
(06:55): Like I I, I myself actually was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when I was pregnant with my second daughter. I was, I was diagnosed with Hashimotos and there is no way that I'm gonna let my two girls watch me slowly degrade and slowly die, essentially the way I watch my mom. And so there's, it's a very personal mission for me, not only for my own health and my own family, but for my clients and equipping other health practitioners with the tools to reverse that autoimmune process. Because here's the thing, there is so much we can do to turn around the autoimmune process through fairly simple tools and you know, we're talking about diet and we're talking about digestion and this, that might not be the whole story, but it's a huge part of the story. So I have been very, very passionate about this and made this a personal mission for years.
(07:51): Wow. That's an incredible story. And I know some people listening can relate, maybe they've have an autoimmune disease or they've had family members and watch them go through it. The immune suppressant drugs that people are put on for autoimmune disease. Cause that's essentially what is done really can wreck havoc when you get something like a hang meal and get an infection. And I love that this became a passion for you to really help people understand. I mean, it's not common in mainstream medicine that you see people heal from or resolve autoimmune diseases or go into complete remission, but in my world, in your world, we see it every day.
(08:37): Exactly.
(08:38): And so I love that you're teaching about this. What made you hone in on diet and nutrition and gut health.
(08:47): If we think back, and I just, I wanna take a little step back to just, I know that you've talked at length about autoimmune process on your podcast before, but I just wanna make sure that we're all on the same page at just the fundamentals of what's happening. Yes. Cause it really sets the stage for why the diet and why digestion are so important. So if we think about our immune system, it is this incredibly powerful system that has basically two jobs. It's jobs are to protect us from foreign invaders like viruses and parasites and bacterial infections. And the other job is internal housekeeping. And as part of these two jobs, it has an incredibly important mechanism of differentiation. So it's able to differentiate between self and other. And then it's also able to differentiate between friend and foe. And in an autoimmune situation, what has happened is that mechanism of differentiation has gone awry.
(09:46): And there's a lot of different reasons why it does that. But the, but what's happened is now the immune system is confusing enemy other for friendly self that it should be protecting and it's attacking self. And as we know, the definition of the disease is based on either the system, the body system, or the tissue that the immune system is attacking. The question is, well let's say from a medical model, it's okay, the immune system is attacking self, Let's slow down the attack, let's shut down the immune system and let's reduce the inflammation. And these are things to help get the individual feeling better. And I'm not gonna say there's not a role for those things. There's, there's certainly a time and a place for both of those things, but that's not actually addressing the most important question, which is why is the immune system making such a bad judgment call basically?
(10:38): And at its core, and this isn't oversimplification, but I think it's a really helpful analogy. If you think about any of us, when we get overtired and we're just taxed all day long, not getting enough sleep, just not never getting an opportunity to rest and recover, we start to make bad decisions, right? , I don't know about you. I will say I make bad decisions and I see that around me. You know, and so the immune system is very similar in that if it's constantly being taxed, it's constantly being engaged, it starts to make bad decisions. And again, there's different mechanisms for this, but fundamentally this is what's going on. So the question is, what is taxing and engaging that immune system such that it is not allowed to rest and cover such making these poor decisions? And this the you know, there, there are lots of different answers to that question, but a huge piece of this puzzle is both the diet and the digestive process because the vast majority of our immune system lives in and around the gut, right?
(11:46): Let's say it's approximately 80% of the immune system meal who has, some people say, 75 I've heard has high 85, let's just agree on, you know, roughly 80%, the vast majority of the immune system lives in and around the gut. What that means is that if we are eating foods that are triggering inflammation, then that is impacting the immune system directly. If there is any dysfunction in the digestion that is impacting immune system directly. And here's what I will tell you is that even if you don't have overtly sort of expressive immune or digestive, excuse me, symptoms, so you're not symptomatic from a digestive perspective, that doesn't mean that your digestion is working properly. You know, I do a lot of testing with my clients and I've had clients with very severe forms of autoimmune where they're very symptomatic and lots of other things. But you know, I remember one client saying to me, Oh, I could, I could digest pebbles, like I could eat rocks. My digestion is so robust. And I thought, okay, well we'll see. And we did some testing and found some pretty significant imbalances that when we addressed those imbalances, they were silent from a symptom perspective, but it was addressing those imbalances that allowed her immune system to recover and the autoimmune to go into remission. So it's a huge and really, really critical piece of the
(13:14): Puzzle. Wow. So much good to what you said, you know, a tired immune system can't differentiate itself from other and makes bad decisions. , I think we can all relate to that, right? With, you know, just all the, we're inundated with information and tasks to do in our daily life and who among us doesn't have decision fatigue and who among us doesn't start becoming overreactive to their environment and not differentiating . Well, really what are the big problems in the small problem? So I, I think that what you're describing with autoimmunity and the gut and immune system, really everybody listening can relate to because it's what we're dealing with in everyday life. And I did wanna highlight what you said about the immune system, 80% around the gut. And I, I don't think most people get that. So I always like to say, right, most people think that their biggest interface with the external environment is their skin, but it's not, it's really your gut. And that's why you're, what I call military is centered around your gut because you're taking environment and putting it inside you
(14:26): . Yes. I mean, this is such a profound moment that we don't recognize as such and we just sort of eat mindlessly and don't think about the actual miracle that is happening. I mean, when we eat, what is happening is the outside world is literally becoming us. We are in essence walking food, right? And people don't realize that. And the interface, you know Yes, exactly. The gut is still the outside of the body. We think of it because it lives on the inside that that, but that, that's the external world. I mean, we we're basically a very complicated donut, right? And the donut hold being our digestive process, you know, and it's this big long tube things go in and then, you know, waste matter comes out. But, and in the process, of course there's all sorts of chemical processes to break down the food into its, you know, nutrient components essentially.
(15:18): And then, you know, in our small intestine we are harvesting those nutrients. They're, they're crossing that incredibly thin lining. I mean, the lining of the small intestine is one cell thick that is so tiny and it's, you know, it's got this, you know, we talk about them as the, the dis the tight junction. So these cells are lined up. I love your analogy of, of the, you know, the soldiers and the, and you know, I describe that as, as your gut soldiers and gut army all the time. You know, think about the lining of the gut made up of these cells that are standing together are sort of side by side really, really tightly and very selectively. These cells will sort of open up those tight junctions and allow nutrients to pass through directly into the bloodstream. That is the moment where the outside world is becoming us.
(16:03): And you know, along those tight junctions, there's all sorts of, let's describe them as soldiers, you know, regulating what goes into the body actually gets, goes directly into the blood and what gets pooped out essentially. So anything interrupting that process is gonna have really significant impact because if the, the lining of the, I mean the entire digestive tract, yes, but let's talk about that moment where the outside world becomes us, which largely happens in the small intestines. Then if there's anything compromising that, and we have irritation, a little bit of a tear, we have what's called leaky gut where those, those tight junctions open up or there's abrasion and inflammation that's getting, that's allowing all sorts of things to get directly into the bloodstream that shouldn't be there. It could be, you could have eaten like the most beautifully digested or grown, organically grown, locally grown , perfectly prepared piece of broccoli for lunch.
(17:00): If that piece of broccoli is not broken down properly and gets into the bloodstream and an improper phase of digestion, your bot your immune system, which is, which is basically patrolling the blood and and patrolling that lining of the intestine to see what's going in, what's coming out there. It doesn't recognize it as broccoli or as the key nutrients that you would get from broccoli. It recognizes it as as garbage or an invader that needs to be addressed mm-hmm. and needs to be gotten rid of. So you're increasing a burden on that housekeeping system and on the inflammatory process which, and it's also of course letting in toxins, letting in pathogens, letting in all sorts of things that were bound. I mean this, some of this stuff is destined for the toilet bowl and now it's getting directly into your bloodstream. That is a huge stress on the immune system.
(17:47): Right. All right, let's, I just wanna step back for a second and then we're gonna dive into more dietary culprits where you're talking about even that great organic, you know, locally farmed broccoli can be a problem. Well first off I wanna say I want a t-shirt that says I am a complicated donut . But then back to being serious, I'm at a yoga retreat and I've been here several times over the past 30 plus years, but I heard something differently this time I've been here. And that is that they actually call your physical body your food body. Oh wow. I've never heard
(18:31): That before. Your food body, body,
(18:33): Your food body. So they don't say physical body in and you know, there's so many ancient yoga, yoga traditions. I also took a course on history of yoga and it is super complicated. So it's no wonder your snippets from one, snippets from another and everybody's confused, but they call it your food body. So move your food body onto the mat .
(18:57): Wow, I've never heard that before. I love it.
(19:00): Right. And so I, that really highlighted for me, we always hear you are what you eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've heard that since we were kids. But calling it your food body, I challenge everyone listening, start calling your body, your food body. You'll make different food choices because you, it literally is everything. When you look in the mirror, what you are seeing is broccoli, the gluten free mac and cheese I had for lunch. The basal tomato pizza not pizza soup that I had. Right? So that's what you're seeing. But let's dive into dietary culprits cuz that's really one of the first steps. People are like, should I eat gluten? Should I not eat gluten? Should I eat dairy? Should I eat? So what's up with the food we're eating and autoimmunity?
(19:46): I wanna start with gluten cuz you started it, you opened the door and that's,
(19:49): I started
(19:50): . That's an important one. And if you do nothing else, if you, if you're wanting to prevent autoimmune from developing, if you have already received an autoimmune diagnosis, if you have not made any dietary changes yet and you are willing to do only one thing, the one thing really needs to be to the removal of gluten from your diet. And here's why. I mean we could, we could spend hours just talking about gluten in all the different ways that it's triggering inflammation and causing digestive distress and you know, engaging that immune system. I'm gonna focus on one piece of the puzzle here, which is part of just the body's natural process that happens when you digest and break down the gluten protein, which is that it releases a compound in the gut called zen. And we talked about those tight junctions, that line that are part of the lining of the small intestine.
(20:43): Zonulin is one of the gatekeepers and zen, when you have elevated levels of lin, it opens up those tight junctions. Let's say you lived in a big old house on a super busy street in like downtown Manhattan somewhere. And normally you keep your doors and your windows closed and maybe you even have, you know, a bellman or somebody who is that gatekeeper at that front door just letting in only the people that you want into your house eating gluten. So that, that's the analogy of what it should be happening in your small intestines. These tight junctions are closed and only opening very selectively to let just what we want into our bloodstream. What happens when you eat gluten is that it releases the lin, which in basically acts like opening up all the doors in the windows of that house, right? And now anybody who's just walking down the street has easy access and so you might still have your bellman and for the front door trying madly running around and trying to only allow in the things that should be getting in.
(21:48): But that, that process gets overwhelmed pretty quickly. And so it's the same thing that happens in your gut. Basically those tight junctions just open up and now all manner of stuff can get in there. The undigested broccoli, the the toxins, the things that are destined for the, the toilet bowl, the pathogens, like all of this things that are, should not be getting into the bloodstream are getting into the bloodstream. And so gluten is in many ways the gateway food sensitivity. , you often, you know, one of the ways that food sensitivities are developed is that maldigested pieces of that food are getting into the bloodstream. The immune system recognizes it not as a nutrient but as the, an invader and tags it as such. That's one of the key mechanisms for developing food sensitivities. And so if you have a food like gluten that is just opening up all those tight junctions and letting all sorts of other foods get in at the same time, that is a recipe for really both overwhelming the immune system and priming it to attack these foods regularly down the road as the enemy. And when you do that, if you think about that, if you're eating foods that are engaging the immune system like this multiple times a day every day, well that's a pretty major stressor on the immune system and that is not letting that little immune system rest and recover. And that can be one of the biggest pieces in terms of leading to an autoimmune situation. So right gluten so
(23:26): Beautifully
(23:26): I just said, so gluten is gone.
(23:29): That is gone. Bye bye gluten. But what a beautiful analogy. So gluten is like your friend who runs up and like in college you had that friend on Friday night who went and opened everybody's door and is like, we're having a party in the hall now. Yes. Right. , that's gluten your gateway food, your gateway drug, your gateway party maker. All right, so gluten for sure. Bye bye. Let me ask you this question cuz I know people are thinking this because you and I work with people like this every day. They're like, okay, I get it and I'm 90% compliant Margaret and Kyrin. I don't eat gluten 90% of the time, but I have to have that thing, the toast, the this, the that, the other. And they always wanna ask me, so I'm gonna ask you, Yeah. Is that good enough?
(24:21): Nope. And I'm not hardlined about a lot of things, but I'm hardlined about this. You cannot be mostly gluten free. It just doesn't work that way. You really need to have it outta the system completely. Now gluten, it sticks around antibodies to gluten stick around for a long time. I did Dr. Tom O'Brien's gluten and practitioner training program years ago where we sat through hundreds and hundreds of papers learning all the different ways that gluten is challenging to the body. But one of the key pieces is how long it hangs out in the system so it can take up to six months to completely clear it from one ingestion. So you really, you, you can't be mostly gluten free and yeah, I mean there's gonna be times where you get exposed without your awareness. That's just, it's almost impossible to avoid that. And you know, you ask anyone who's celiac where there's an autoimmune response in response to the consumption of gluten and they will tell you how insanely hard it is to be a hundred percent.
(25:25): But you really need to strive for that. If you, if you do the, oh, I'm gonna have my co salt on Saturdays, but I'm not gonna do anything other than that. Or like, oh, once a year. It really, it's actually, here's the thing, it's easier to just say I don't eat that. As soon as you open the door to a little bit, that is a very, very slippery slope. And so it's actually not only better for your health, it is way easier to implement just a full on gluten free lifestyle than it is to make exceptions. Because once you have made an exception, it's like so much easier to make the next exception and the next exception and where's the line and you know, well you did it for this birthday party, so why not that birthday party? And it just, it's a slippery slope.
(26:14): I have not seen it work and I, I know that there's different personality types. I know some people can do moderation and other people can, you know, I, I get that and yet I have not seen it successfully work for somebody to be mostly gluten free. And if there is autoimmune it's just a hard no. Like you just have to be off, be off of. And and it might be, you know, I've also had clients, I'm sure you've had the same situation where someone goes off of gluten and they might feel a little bit better, but it's not like suddenly rainbows and unicorns are falling from the sky, right? It's like, but this didn't fix everything. You're right. It's not a magic pill, it's often much more involved than that but it is a necessary minimum.
(26:55): Yeah. You know, it's like I tell people, well how would it work for you in your marriage if you are mostly, mostly only slept with your partner and go,
(27:07): That is a great analogy. There are just certain things that are a hard line.
(27:11): Right? So I agree with you on the gluten, but I wanted everyone to hear it from someone else, another expert besides me. Cuz they're like, hearing you're such a killjoy. All right, so gluten's gotta go. What else though? Because people hear soy, Should I eat soy? Should I not? Cows milk, dairy? Should I have that? Should I not? Mm-Hmm. , what other foods are culprits and what might be some unique foods that people don't even know to eliminate
(27:36): If you're just doing this as a starting point and you're wanting to pull out the big sort of the quote unquote usual suspects, gluten, dairy, soy, sugar and industrial seed oils is a really, really good start. So if you're able to take those pieces out, and honestly, I mean each one of these wipes out categories of foods, right? Like if you take out industrially processed seed oils mm-hmm. , you're essentially taking out the vast majority of processed foods.
(28:12): Yeah.
(28:13): Same thing with sugar. You pull out sugar, it's, it's amazing when you start to read ingredients lists and ingredient labels, food labels, it's amazing where sugar hides, I do a program called the Real Food reboot and it's, we pull all forms of sugar out of the diet for 21 days. And people who go through that are constantly amazed at things like salad dressing, right at their, you know, at maybe like at hummus. Like there's these places where we don't think there's any reason for any kind of sweetener and yet, not in all, but in many of them they're gonna find added sweeteners. And you're also gonna find really poor quality oil. So when I say industrially processed seed oils, I'm talking about corn oil, soy oil, cotton seed oil, sunflower oil, sunflower oil. Those are the, the big heavy hitters. These are highly, highly processed rand and just devastating for your body.
(29:09): They're also very proinflammatory and inflammation is is one of the immune processes. Like I said, that's something that's mediated and and sort of managed by your immune system. So anything that is causing inflammation is something that's engaging in fatiguing the immune system. So those industrial seed oils, ugh, they are, they're just, and it makes me a little crazy because even a lot of quote unquote healthy food alternatives, maybe they're gluten free, maybe they're even grain free and you know, but then you, you read that ingredient list and it's like sunflower oil and you're like, ah, you're so close. So let's talk about two of those heavy hitters, which is dairy and soy, because in some cases they're really good to pull out at the beginning, but there are certain forms of them in small quantities that are tolerable for some people. Okay, so that sounds like I'm qualifying all over the place and I am.
(30:05): But let's talk about dairy first. And dairy is complicated because there are so many different ways for one to have a reaction to dairy. So some people have straight up food allergies to dairy. So it's a, an IgE that's a immunoglobulin e mediated response, It's a formal food allergy. Others will have food sensitivities. Some of these are mediated by antibodies, I G G I G M. Some of them just happen at a cellular level and they're, they're what we call a type four hypersensitivity, no antibody involvement at all. But they're still triggering an inflammation process. Then you can have people who react to, from a digestive perspective. So there's the lactose issues, that's the milk sugar, the lactose is the milk sugar. Maybe they don't make the lactase enzyme as adults. So they're not breaking this milk sugars down properly and they have severe digestive complaints as a result.
(31:02): And then you get into the issue of the fact that the sort of ultra processing of a lot of dairy, that becomes highly problematic. So what I would say is at the beginning, without formal testing and if you are experiencing an autoimmune flare, you wanna pull out just the whole category of dairy. It's just, that's the easiest thing to do. Once you are in remission, things are under control. If you have done testing, that's very helpful. So of course if there's a true food allergy, you wanna stay away from it. If you have a history of food sensitivities, in some cases you can bring that back in, in very, very minimal quantities depending on what kind of healing work that you've done. But you wanna go, you wanna tread easily there and it's a really good idea to retest, to make sure cuz food sensitivities will shift, they can be healed.
(31:52): So if you have retested and it does not appear that the sensitivity is active anymore, then you can reintroduce. But I would do, I would be very specific about multiple things. Number one, the most well tolerated forms of dairy will be the higher fat pieces. So, so butter from Pasteur raised, you know, exclusively Pasteur raised cows or ge, which is clarified butter. So that's just the butter oil, again, organic and from Pasteur raised cows that's well tolerated by most people. Next, if you know, another consideration is actually the cow . So one of the things that we do consume in our house is we get, I, you know, I have heavy cream in my coffee in the morning and, but I get, get the heavy cream from an A two cow. There's an A one, an A two cows and it's got to do with the, the breeds.
(32:47): And, and this is where I'm sort of pushing up against my, my knowledge of, you know, dairy cows. But I know that the A two one is more of a heritage breed and it has the actual milk that products that come from that animal are much better tolerated by humans than a one cows. A two cows are more prevalent in Europe, but you can find them in the states. But if it, if your dairy is not labeled a two from a two cows, then it's not. If it is, it's typically more expensive and the, you know, the company will, will brag about that on its label. So you can, you can know that by the labeling fermented dairy, you know, a whole milk organic yogurt for example, unflavored would be a much better choice than just like, you know, milk itself. So there's, there's different degrees of this.
(33:40): In fact in my first book Eat Naked, I did a whole chapter on dairy and kind of went through what's best, what's better, what's, and then what you absolutely want to avoid. So it gets a little bit complicated, but the key rules are that it, you really want to focus on what the cows ate. So pasture raised is really important. Ideally a two cows in terms of their breed and the fattier it is, the fewer, you know, if you don't have as much of the milk sugars and the milk proteins, so butter and ge, that's gonna be less problematic. And then fermentation also helps the digestibility. So something like a yogurt or a C. So that's kind of a deep dive into, into dairy. But if you haven't done testing and certainly if you're flaring, I would just pull it
(34:30): Out. Awesome. No, that was great. I, that was everything that people needed to hear. Can we talk a little bit about testing? Cuz you've mentioned it and I know I get a lot of questions about it. You probably do too. Should I get tested what test is best? People are all the time saying, I found this group on for this $79 mm-hmm hair food sensitivity test. Is that good? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. I certainly have my own opinion and there are as many food sensitivity tests as there are types of yogurt in the grocery store,
(35:04): Right? ,
(35:05): Which is a lot, Every time I go in the grocery, I think the yogurt section takes up an additional two feet. And I'm like, wow, people really love their yogurt.
(35:14): I know. And most of it has more sugar than ice cream, but that's a whole aside, right?
(35:18): And they're like, oh it's healthy. And I'm like, No, just go get the ice cream y'all. You'll better with that. So can you, we talk about testing a little,
(35:29): You bet. I'm a big believer in testing because what testing allows us to do is really dial in the specifics for the individual. You know, there's, there's certain diets that are broadly removing whole categories of foods beyond, far beyond what we just talked about here. You know, like the autoimmune paleo or autoimmune protocol diet, that's a very extensive elimination diet and people have great success with it. So I'm not trying to dis this diet at all, but you know, they're pulling out all grains, all legumes, all seeds, all nuts, all nightshades, eggs. I mean really it's really hard. This particular diet, you know, you're eating vegetables, you're eating certain proteins, you're eating certain fats and even your spice drawer gets affected, right? There's a lot of things that you can't do. You're using more like herbs and like garlic and onions as opposed to paprika or you know, even something like mustard because it comes from a seed is it is excluded.
(36:29): So it gets very complicated and very, very challenging. And in those kinds of scenarios I find that what happens is often people are avoiding foods that are not harmful in their body and then at the same time they're still consuming other foods that are triggering an inflammatory process. And that's really what's one of the key things that this comes down to is what foods are either hard to digest. So they're creating extra pressure on the digestive system. And we now know that so much of the immune system lives in and around the digestive system. So we don't wanna add extra pressure to it. And the other way that a food can tax the immune system is by being inflammatory in the pro in the body. So it's triggering that inflammation process. So I'm a big believer in testing because that is going to allow us to really fine tune for the individual what their diet needs to be.
(37:22): Especially in the healing phase. It doesn't mean that you're doing this food sensitivity test and you never eat these foods ever again in your life. That is not, that's a common misconception. I know when I very first did food sensitivity testing long ago, long before I became a nutrition professional, the individual is working with, I don't know if she didn't tell me or I didn't hear it and it didn't register, but I did not understand that this wasn't a forever thing. And I will tell you, when I got those test results, I went home and I shed a lot of tears thinking this was the rest of my life. It's not the rest of your life. It's a temporary thing while you do the healing. So I am a big believer in food sensitivity tests. I do not like probably 99% of the tests that are on the market and I don't think that food sensitivity testing should ever be done in isolation.
(38:10): And here's what I mean by that. Let's start with that piece. If you do a food sensitivity test, no matter how brilliant the test, you could use a great test or you know, if you're not using a good test, then that's problematic in and of itself. But let's say you're using it a really good test that's very comprehensive and it's going to and very accurate and you remove the foods that it tells you are inflammatory in your body. Well here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna feel better for a a while for sure, cuz you've just significantly reduced your inflammatory burden. But over time you're gonna develop new food sensitivities because you're not addressing and healing the mechanism through which your body creates those food sensitivities to begin with. So what ends up happening is you have somebody who feels better, but then they start to slowly have symptoms recur and the sort of he, you know, this, the healing quote unquote, if it was actually healing or the improvement let's say doesn't last.
(39:06): And so then they do another food sensitivity test and they find out a whole new set of foods that they are now sensitive to and they pull those out. And what happens is they get this ever shrinking list of foods that they tolerate, but while their, their symptoms just start to progressively come back worse and worse. So I really believe in food sensitivity testing, but I only do it when it is done in conjunction with well informed gut healing. And what I mean by well informed gut healing is gut healing that is informed through its own testing. So I'm a big believer in stool testing to understand what's going on in that digestive tract so that we can get in there and heal that rebalance the microbiome if it needs to support digestive function, if it's not working optimally, get rid of any opportunist in, you know, organisms that are in there or pathogens, you know, sometimes we can have these low lying parasites for example, not enough to be identified on, you know, a parasite test that you get from your GI doctor, but present and chronic and contr, you know, tiring out is sort of that, it's kind of like Chinese water torture, right?
(40:22): It's a steady drip on the immune system. Those things that are just taxing it and engaging it just a little bit at a time every single day. That's the stuff that can be the biggest culprits when it comes to fatiguing the immune system and leading to on an autoimmune presentation. So addressing and healing the gut, but doing it in a way that is well informed because it is very, very difficult to properly heal the digestive tract based on symptoms alone. Because symptoms can be driven by any number of the things that I just mentioned in microbiome imbalance. It can be driven by food sensitivities, it can be driven by a leaky gut, it can be driven by digestive dysfunction, it can be driven by imbalance in the microbiome, it can be driven by pathogen presence. So, and it's normally some unique combination of a collection of those things. And so if you can understand what's happening in the gut, you can be healing the gut and we remove the foods that are triggering inflammation while we heal the gut. That is the magic combination right there. Yeah.
(41:28): Yeah. And that, so that was great. Thank you for going so in depth and detailed so people really hear it. Hear it. And what I love that you said is a well, so food sensitivity testing should be done in conjunction with a, well inform yes. Gut healing regimen that includes testing even if you have no symptoms. And I want everyone to hear that if you hear nothing else. Yes. Because there's nothing sadder than I meet someone who's been listening to my podcast for several years and they're like, Well Kyrin, I saw this hair food sensitivity on coupon and I did it and I remove all the foods, but I still have Hashimotos. And I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm thinking to myself, she's lost two years. And I know there's some of you listening who are thinking, how can I do this myself? And I'm offered DIY at when you can. But when it comes to healing your core, which is your gut mm-hmm. , you can't,
(42:26): No, you
(42:27): Can unfortunately
(42:28): No, you can start the process. Have
(42:31): You Yeah. Believe that you could just take some supplements off the internet and do a hair food sensitivity test and you're good to go, but you won't. It's not, it's just not the case. Is it Margaret?
(42:41): No, I wish it was . Yeah. I mean our lives would be a lot simpler, but it just does not work that way. It doesn't. I wish it did, but it doesn't. And and what I see, and I'm sure you see this all the time, as people who've just spent thousands of dollars on DIY tests and supplements off the internet. And here's the thing, both the labs that sell direct to consumer and supplement companies that sell direct to consumer have very sophisticated marketing. So it is really compelling. Even as a practitioner every once and I know better, like I know better and every once in a while I will see some ad I'm like, Ooh, I hadn't heard of that probiotic before. You know? And, and you start to think, well maybe this is the missing piece. Right? And it's just not that simple.
(43:28): Even the probiotics that I work in with in clinic that have fantastic success rates, even those, sometimes they work for an individual and sometimes they don't. Like it's so bio-individual. We have to remember that we are unique people. Every one of us comes with this very unique constellation of health history, physiological strengths, constitutional weaknesses, where we live, what we ate as a child, what kind of stresses are on us, what we eat now, what's our lifestyle? How much sleep do we get, What climate do we live in, what season is it? What grows locally to us? And all of these things come together to create this you sort of unique health blueprint that we have. And it is just not possible that there is like a couple of magic pills out there. It's compelling. We want it, we want it, It just doesn't exist.
(44:26): It doesn't exist. Okay. So we're gonna have to wrap up. But before we do, I know people are probably maybe feeling a little hopeless. Okay, I can't have gluten, I can't have dairy, can't have seed oils, I can't have this, da da, I gotta have a gut test and all this. Where am I gonna find the money for that? Okay, let's give a little hope here. Mm-Hmm. , what should I eat? I've just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and we are gonna offer, Margaret has generously giving you a copy of her first five steps to address autoimmune diseases. We're gonna put the link in the show notes so you can go download that. And so maybe this is you or a friend, you can download it and get started. So you, you'll have all five first step five steps cuz we don't have time to go over all of them, but let's leave everyone with, okay, so what should I eat? What would be a good breakfast, Margaret? What would be a good lunch? What would be a good dinner
(45:24): Focus First on actually really clean healthy proteins. Those are going to be part of, that's part of what builds your immune system. It's what supports repair in your body. It also is what keeps you full and satiated and can help blood sugar balance, et cetera. So I want you to think first about the protein. And I am a big believer in animal protein. A challenge with the plant-based proteins is that they're so hard on the digestion. So when we're talking about autoimmune and gut health, if you're leaning on soy and legumes, those can be quite devastating to the gut. So really good clean animal protein. So I'm talking about things like Pasteur raised beef eggs from Pasteur raised chicken pa, the chicken itself, wild fish and seafood, the lamb, bison wild bore, these kinds of things. They're actually pretty wildly available at this point.
(46:16): You know, even more conventional grocery stores are starting to catch wind of this trend. Let's call it, I don't know, this movement towards cleaner animal protein. So you can definitely find it and you wanna make you want, this is where you wanna invest your food dollars is in proteins and fats because that's actually where toxins accumulate and hormones and all this kind of stuff. So you really wanna invest your food dollars there. You wanna eat lots of veggies. We could get into the nuances based on what's going on with your digestion. Some people tolerate more, some people tolerate fewer. If you do find that veggies are challenging on your gut, make sure you're cooking them. You know, they, we have this sort of ideal that you should be eating tons of salad. Salad doesn't work for a lot of people. Raw vegetables can be very, very hard to digest.
(46:59): So just lightly cooking them, maybe you saute them, maybe you steam them and add some yummy sauces. But that would be, you know, so clean, clean proteins, good veggies, healthy fats that are used appropriately. And I know in that, in that handout, the first five we talk go the length, that's a whole topic in and of itself is how, what fats to use when. But you don't wanna be afraid of fats. They're vitally important; you just wanna make sure they're the right ones. And then healing foods, things like bone broths and fermented foods can be really, really healing to the gut. They probably won't take you the full distance, but it's a really good thing to incorporate into the diet on a regular basis because it's really helping to initiate that healing process. And then, you know, you know, if you're gonna do grains, make sure that they're gluten free grains trying to stay away from those processed foods that are gonna have the, you know, industrial seed oils that we talked about and whatnot.
(47:51): But let me tell you, I eat this way and, and we have this idea that eating healthfully means, you know, this sort of dry piece of chicken breast and steamed broccoli without any flavor on it. It does not have to be that way at all. And in fact it will give the links to my practice website, eat naked kitchen.com. But if you go in there, there's an opt-in at the bottom right hand corner and we give you our full kitchen stock. We call it kitchen essentials. It's basically what you should have in your pantry and your fridge. And then the next day we send you a a week long meal plan with recipes that we use in our household with both my husband and myself and the kids. This is all family-friendly stuff. This is stuff that we eat on a regular basis. Both my husband and myself are two young children.
(48:36): We have a a six year old and a 10 year old, both of whom are quite picky. You know, I think it's a great tool for you to get started in eating this way. And basically everything that I've just explained in terms of how you want to eat and foods to eliminate all of that's built in. So you don't even have to think about it. You can just use this meal plan as a starting point, use the grocery lists and these are meals that are on high rotation in our household and that the kids love and are delicious and nutritious, and it's not chicken breast and steamed broccoli. Yeah.
(49:08): You know it's funny when I have to go to a regular restaurant like just with an American sad diet. Mm-Hmm , everything tastes the same. Yeah, it's fat and it's sugar, but you don't realize that when you eat it because you're looking for the fat and sugar flavor and that's what tells you it's good also salt. But when you eat the whole foods way, like you're describing and I encourage everyone to go download what Margaret's offering. Cause your husband's an amazing chef. Mm-Hmm and I know he has his hands in all of that. But when you really start to eat from a, a whole Foods perspective and you really taste the flavors of the food, it is a reeducation of your palette. But I make things like, well I should share this recipe with everyone and I di I'm digressing, I know, but I make this cilantro and parsley and garlic sauce that you can put on chicken or fish anyway, it's amazing.
(50:04): So you can learn to cook this way. And Margaret is a great resource for that cuz she's an expert in it. And like I said, her husband is a fantastic chef. Thank you Margaret for sharing this wonderful information. You are a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. I know that everyone has gotten so much out of this. We will have the link to Margaret's first five download in the show notes. So definitely wanna go there. She's got naked in her book and the Naked Foods cookbook. You definitely wanna check those out. Where else can they find out more about you and interact with you Margaret?
(50:40): My main website is eat naked kitchen.com and there are just, there's tons of resources, like 450 different articles and recipes and just lots of stuff for you to dig into there. And then if, I don't know if there are any practitioners in your audience, but if you're somebody who is intrigued by this work and wants to learn how to support others on their journey to health through diet and these more advanced nutrition and testing strategies, I am also the executive director of a company called Restorative Wellness Solutions and we train health professionals in how to work very strategically with diet, supplements and lifestyle to do things like reverse autoimmune.
(51:25): Awesome. Yes. I encourage everybody to check that out. Your work with practitioners is great and yes, we have lots of practitioners in our audience. So if you are interested in thinking wow, I might like to work with people, helping them in this area of their life, definitely check out Margaret's offerings. There was so much great content. I didn't get to share some of these wonderful quotes that you shared with me before the episode, but I gotta get 'em in cuz this is one of my favorites from Maya Angelou. Do the best you can until you know better then when you know better, do better. And I know that everybody listening has heard something here today that was new, new to you, inspiring, maybe intriguing. And I wanna ask you to lean into that and ask yourself, what can I do better based on this information, inspiration that I've learned today? And go do that thing. Thank you Margaret for joining us today.
(52:31): Thank you so much for having me. It's been so much fun. And
(52:35): Thank you all for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. It's been my absolute pleasure to spend this time with you, and I look forward to seeing you again next week when we will dive into another topic related to your hormone balance. Until then, peace, love, and hormones y'all.
(52:57): Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.
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