Hormone Prosperity Podcast with Dr. Kyrin Dunston

The Single Most Important Factor For Body Comp and Metabolic Fitness

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 that@thepediet.com 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.

 

► The P:E Diet Book (Digital Version) by Dr. Ted Naiman

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How Loving Yourself Cultivate Ultimate Hormone Balance

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.

 

► Get FREE downloads from Dr. Sonya Jensen - Moon & Seed Cycling

CLICK HERE.

 

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Could Leptin Resistance Be Your Key To Unlocking Midlife Weight Loss?

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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Food Body Essentials To Reverse Autoimmune Disease

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 body
• The role that food plays in reversing autoimmune disease
• Which foods to eat (and avoid) to heal your gut and reduce inflammation
• How to create a personalized healing plan that works for you

 

If 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.

 

► Claim your free copy of the The First Five steps to address autoimmune disease – or any chronic and stubborn health issue you’re dealing with.

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https://www.eatnakedkitchen.com/thefirstfive/

 

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Why Whole Body Cleaning Is Essential And Here’s How

Have you ever wondered about the toxins that have been building up in your body and the effects they have on your overall health?

 

In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we interview Diane Kazer, a certified detox specialist, toxins expert, courage coach, and holistic beauty expert. She shares with us why whole body cleansing is essential and provides tips on how to get started.

 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The sobering statistics regarding toxicity in our environment and in our body
• The ABCs of detoxing: what, when, where, how, and why
• Simple tips to get started with whole body cleansing
• Boosting your mitochondria for better health
• And much more!

 

So tune in and learn how you can start feeling your best by detoxing your body!

 

(00:00): What kind of health are you woman affecting Diane Kazer?

 

(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 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.

 

(00:59): Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast my guest today. She is so creative and so passionate and has created so many programs to help women with their health. She's gonna talk to you about the ABCs of detox. She's gonna talk to you about some sobering statistics regarding toxicity in our environment and in our body, and really highlight for you the things that are currently poisoning you in your environment, but mostly tell you what to do about it. She's got actionable tips. So you wanna make sure to listen up. I'll tell you a little bit about her and then we'll get started. Diane Kazer is a pro soccer player turned functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner. She's a certified detox specialist, toxins expert, courage coach, and holistic beauty expert. Diane had many challenging health conditions and has built recovery protocols to successfully overcome them.

 

(01:58): With this experience. She's helped thousands of clients around the world as their last resort from failed attempts at everything she created, the cleanse heal like night holistic health Institute and warrior detox programs. She certifies coaches and teaching, teaches clients to activate their intuition, to self-heal, empowering them with lifelong tools to reverse autoimmune disease, breast implant illness, hormonal imbalances, chronic pain, gut infections, emotional trauma, and perfectionism through functional medicine labs, custom detox and mastering mindset. She's the author of killer breast, creator of the ex plant solution, producer of the nontoxic beauty summit and the Ionics 10 part dying to be beautiful. Docu-series her mission is to inspire you to embrace your natural beauty and God-given gifts. Shedding the S H I that releases you to live your best life with love, laughter and liberation. Diane will not let you fail. Welcome Diane to the podcast. Thank

 

(03:05): You so much for having me, Dr. Karen, great to be with you.

 

(03:08): Yes. Super excited to have you here and talk about all the things related to why a cleansing of your whole body is essential to vitality over 40. What made you become so passionate about this particular topic for women over 40?

 

(03:27): Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think one of the things that I hear so much and part of what I believed, because it's all that I knew or heard is that you aged, you get older, it's just nothing you can do about it. You're destined to the genetics that you were provided. There's nothing you can do other than take HRT or biodentical hormones. And what that looks like from there is all downhill. It's all downhill after 40, and that you need to take hormone replacement therapy. And that's all that there is. And that you're kind of destined to your sleeping nine hours at night and a little bit of weight gain that won't go away just because you're simply aging and what I've learned as a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner and working with a lot of women of all ages, of course, a lot of them over 40 at this point, I'm 44 almost is that the toxins are such a big drain to aging.

 

(04:19): They are such a big drain to the beauty blocks and beauty builders that I call like parasites also robbing us of nutrients. And these are the things that are building blocks to provide beauty, energy and immunity that we're after. And so there's not just a silver bullet. And for me, it was a lot of different toxins like breast and plants, a lot of birth control over the years, not having my period for seven, eight years. And this is a lot of women too. Who've experienced the same thing and were told that these are the only answers for you to build your beauty or to feel younger or to, uh, maintain our youth. And so after doing, doing that Botox, that one almost destroyed me. A lot of the things that I was doing were very mainstream. And then I, I came to realize that there were several women that I worked with were doing the same thing. And we started removing those blocks to their beauty, their immunity, their vitality, and they started to look better, feel better, feel better. And it, it wasn't as

 

(05:14): Expensive. Yeah. And you know, you said that peop women are offered HRT, but that since the women's health initiative study in 2002 women aren't even getting that benefit. So they're in a worse position than they were. That's one of the reasons why I do what I do, but I agree with you. It's not just about getting a prescription for hormones. I always say, there's the prescription you need a written prescription for, but there's also the life prescription, the dietary prescription, the supplement prescription, the cleanse prescription, all the things that you need to clear out of your body. So what do you think is most important for a woman to know about cleansing her body? I think it's really clear that cleansing is important. I think most women know that it's in the general public. You hear about it on social media. You hear about it on TV. You hear it about on the radio, but when an woman goes to start doing it, I don't think she knows what to do. So where does she even begin?

 

(06:15): Yeah. When it comes to cleansing

 

 (06:17): Yes. Cleansing. Right? She's like, I wanna cleanse, but then right. How do you do that? What's important. Yeah. Yeah. What does she have to know?

 

(06:26): It's a great question. And I can go so many different ways with this. And, and I want to kind of take myself even back to when I first started doing this about 12 years ago, is that it's such a big field and it could be intimidating. It could be daunting. So the first thing I want to share with everybody is that we're trained to think it needs to be perfect. We're trained to think it needs to be linear. We're trained that it needs to happen very quickly. And none of these are true when it comes to cleansing your body. Because when you go to start cleansing your body, it's kind of like, imagine a home that's, that's sat for a long time and it hasn't gotten any TLC and you go in there and you start remodeling a 1970s home and you go, you start with the, the bathroom.

 

(07:03): And then of course the next thing you know, you're, you've spent six figures under remodeling the entire house. And you start to see when you pull the walls back, oh, there's some mold there. You start to look underneath the, the floors and you see, you know, pieces of wood or fragments that you don't want there that might be hazardous to your health asbestos in the roof. So it's kind of similar to that. And it's not meant to scare you. It's meant to aware you that cleansing is a journey. It's, it's a lifelong journey. I always like to say my favorite thing to say to people is ABC always be cleansing because it's not a destiny. It's not like, okay. It's like, when you say in the psychology field, it's like, well, I'm, I'm healed. I'm awake. I'm finally done. I'm woke. And it's like, no, our whole life isn't awakening. Just like a tree. Our whole life is blossoming. And so the same thing can be true with cleansing. We are exposed to over 75,000 toxins on a regular basis. And the average person, according to the EPA has over 700 in their body. I can see a lot of head nods over there, giving yourself chiropractic, adjust, right? Doc

 

(08:05): oh my gosh. Like preach Diane preach. Yeah. There's

 

(08:10): So many. And this is also, you know, what's been hidden, hidden in plain sight. It, it, from so many of us are not made aware of these because there are a lot of MDs. Obviously not like you talking, they're not talking about this, that are saying that your liver talks, your liver cleanses toxins on their own. You don't need to do anything additional, but the average person has over 700 of these poisons inside of them at any given time. The average baby is born with over 275 of these poisons in their body before they have even taken their first breath. And this is where I obviously get really passionate because where are these coming from? They're obviously coming from mom and this is not meant to shame or blame anybody, but the onus is on, on us when it comes to these things. When I tell women, Hey, before you go spend 15,000, 20,000 on IVF therapy, because you can't get pregnant, sit with somebody who, you know, is an expert at cleansing and work with them for three, ideally six months to really clean out your beautiful nest, go to your room and clean your womb.

 

(09:18): it's like

 

(09:19): What I like. So

 

(09:20): Clean your womb before you start to create something new, because this could be a lifelong sentence to a child, a brand new baby that maybe perhaps you weren't aware of with these poisons. And it's not too late. If you have had a baby, that's not what I'm saying at all. It's just to give these babies a great chance of cleansing. And so I wanted to start with those statistics because it's that important to understand that this is not just somebody who has had silver fillings or somebody who's had breast implants or somebody who's had Botox or somebody who's been exposed to asbestos cold. You know, this is not just one in a hundred people. We are constantly surrounded with these things. So the first place I like to start is by saying, what are the things that are currently poisoning you now? Like, what are the things in your environment? And you can do that and ask that question concurrent to I'm also going to be cleansing my body. Now. Here's what I'll say. Did you wanna interject anything Dr. Kirin? Cuz I just kind of went off

 

(10:17): Pretty big camera. No, I'm like, I'm like, I'm right with you. Preach. Tell it like it is and go right where you're going. I love it.

 

(10:24): Okay, great. So, so it first starts with awareness that wow cleansing is really, truly in my perspective. And hopefully you're hearing some of this too. The number one thing that is contributing to our illness today, symptoms, sickness, suffering, stuckness. And so that aside now you're here and you're going okay, what do I do? Where do I start toxins in environment. Very key. Secondly, here's what I'd like to say. That is very unconventional and UN mainstream. That needs to be is that start with ensuring that you're ready for the toxin game. Yeah, the detox game. Right? So I played professional soccer and I can say this because I know for me, if I hadn't been practicing for the championship game for the state cup, whatever it was that I was competing in and you guys who were athletes can, can get this or also kind of maybe preparing for your first date, you get ready. You wanna feel your best. You wanna feel confident, whatever it is, you wanna feel ready, strong and confident going into something that can be a game changer, lifesaver for you. Right. So what does that look like inside of the body is some something we call mitochondria and maybe have you talked about this on your show at all before? Oh

 

(11:36): Yeah. We love mitochondria here, but you go right ahead and talk about whatever you want with mitochondria is super important.

 

(11:44): Yeah. And we can, you know, get, it can get really clinical and overwhelming and super scientific. And that's not how I like to talk. I like to talk like I'm talking to maybe an eight year old because it's, we have so much information to process these days. And the reason why so many have brain Fogg and neurological dysfunction and have a hard time conceptualizing or, or retaining information and turning it into wisdom and applying it is because we are so bogged down with toxicity, neurotoxins that end up in our brain and 65% or around there of your brain is fat. And the number one place that toxins go is into fat. Like they're in the brain.

 

(12:22): I know most people don't realize that toxins love your brain. And one of the things that people are most afraid of is getting dementia second only to cancer. And they don't realize that the toxins. And I think it's the fact that you can't see them. And these statistics, like you said, 700 traces of 700 toxic chemicals in most adult humans on this planet. But most people, you can't feel it. It's not like that mercury that's floating around. You're like, oh I have mercury. Right? You might know that you're more sluggish. You're more tired. You're waking up in the middle of the night. You can't lose the extra few pounds that you've gained. Right? So you see it as these symptoms, but it's not linked directly to because your doctor's not telling you. And so you don't have this cognitive awareness of what these toxins are doing to you.

 

(13:16): And so what Diane and I are saying is you got to pull back the veil, that's covering your eyes and know that just cuz your doctor's not talking about it. You're not hearing about on the six o'clock news. You know, red alert, toxins are killing humans, causing cancer, causing dementia, accumulating in your brain. I'm so glad you're hearing us talk about it so that you know about it so that you are aware so that you can do something about it. And you know, I'm, I'm gonna end the episode by challenging you to do something about it. So, but first let's give you some more information

(13:49): Yeah. I, and I love that. You just stated one of my favorite things to do is to, and I'm so happy that you're doing this as an MD. We need more of you. We need absolutely more of you Karen, to step up to this awareness and support patients with it. So it's more of a, a complete, comprehensive healing approach versus just here's a pill. And that's your only one thing. And that's what this six o'clock news will program, literally with the anchor anchoring into your mind, programming you with the program that talk to your doctor. Do you have this long list of symptoms, talk to your doctor, then you're gonna get diarrhea and death and dementia and disease weird. So it's the one thing, and this is singularity approach and it's not working. And it hasn't, unless there are people who are constantly watching and, and, and getting hypnotized by those.

 

(14:35): But I don't have eyes that are hypnotized. And I'm so glad that you don't and the people that you're influencing don't because you just said that very thing is getting into people's mind and going, you know what I'm thinking? You know what I fear now teach me how I can prevent this from manifesting, right? Because I say manifesting or a woman manifesting because we create a reality. We do create a disease. We are not victims of this. What we are victims of is this world that has so many chemicals and poisons that less than 2% of them have actually been tested and approved for safety. And every single year, there are several thousands more that are getting approved, that people are not aware of 2000 plus new chemicals are approved. And so this is why I say always be cleansing because it's not just about what's in your body. Now it's about what they're continuing, continuing to, to roll out and beauty products, personal care products, you know, there's a PTs and the pearls and all the things that people think are fine. And they're like, oh, dove, because it's on a beauty commercial, but yet dove is contains several toxic ingredients. However, they did a cue. He

 

(15:40): Looked so gentle on the commercial with the white dove and all the ladies look happy and you're being hypnotized. Y'all

 

(15:49): Brainwashed body washed beauty, washed all the washing, but it's really actually detoxifying. It's the opposite. It's upside down world. So whatever the TV says, do the opposite and it doesn't make your skin soft. The thing that I get frustrated by is that there is this thing called beauty wash. I called it, I call it beauty washing. I kind of coined these terms is I did not. My non-toxic beauty summit and wrote my book killer breast and my movie dying to be beautiful. And what I call it is, is beauty washing because these dove commercials, like you said, okay, skin, soft skin sat, you know, we're all smiling and happy and my teeth are super white. All of these are lies. They're all lies. And it's all, you know, they take average two hours to Photoshop. One picture in a magazine, just give us some, just thought two hours.

 

(16:35): We have all these filters on our phones. This is an unrealistic, we're going down a terrible path of what beauty isn't, it's, it's fake. It's a bunch of lies. And I don't know if you really wanna be a deceiver and a manipulator, but this is not how we, we can build beauty from the inside out of where I'm going with this. And then dove also did a study and found that 96% of women do not think they're beautiful and that yeah. And so we'll do all of these extreme things to buy our beauty. But what we're actually doing is we're cheating our temples and we're causing our body to be ugly on the inside. Bringing on a lot of these parasites that we'll get to today, detoxifying our temple. And then on the outside, our skin and hair only has toxins to build the fabric of our temple, right?

 

(17:26): So if a body cannot find a potassium, magnesium, calcium, all these minerals that comprise our beauty iron, it will use a heavy metal to build that. So then when you go on a detox, you start losing your hair and you're like, why am I losing my hair? The detox didn't work. No, it actually is. But if you're not draining well, which I'm gonna get to next. If you're not draining well, meaning you're not eliminating your toxins quickly enough, they will actually get forced through your skin and through your hair. And then you're gonna go, oh, my skin is terrible. My hair's falling out. I need to go buy some cream mm-hmm or lotions or pills. You you're gonna do extreme things like I did with like ACUTA, which is something they used and have been using for pancreatic chemo patients. How does that end up as a drug? And then it ends up as a skin, acne healer, but it's not a healer. It's a poisoner. So it's

 

(18:18): A poison. And, and I'm glad you brought that up because most people think, oh, I, I hear people say it all the time. I have acne. I have to go on the bird control pill and I might need Accutane. What am I, what most people don't realize is that your skin is an accessory detox organ. Like it didn't sign up for that. Your body didn't go. I'm gonna make skin so we can detox. No, you've got kidneys for that liver for that lungs, for that, it only kicks in with and starts trying to detox. They don't realize acne is your body trying to detox X eczema, psoriasis, all it's trying to push it out. Or like you said, losing your hair. So yes. Please talk about drainage.

 

(18:57): Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. So going back to my mitochondria, before you focus on drainage, we need to make sure that you're ready for this championship game known as detox. Detox is deeper than cleansing. So I can say you can always be cleansing, but you can do a bit more of a ritualistic routine detox and I'll get to that. Mm-hmm but mitochondria is the energy that your little cells make and you have trillions of them. They're all over your body. They're everywhere. And so a lot of people get into this reductionist at question of, well, how do I do this? And how do I do this? And they'll end up taking 20 plus pills a day, right? If you don't have mitochondrial health, you are not breaking down these high quality expensive, or maybe not expensive, but just any supplements. You're not breaking them down.

 

(19:42): And they end up just get getting backed up in your system. Especially if you don't have healthy drainage, which you won't, if you don't have healthy mitochondria production from your cells, that's what makes literally 90% of the energy that you get every day and that you need every day to do what your basic functions are. 90% comes from your mitochondria, which is ATP made in the cells. So your cells have to be healthy in order for you to be well and wealthy, cuz you can't be wealthy, whatever way you define it without being healthy. How do you have healthy cells? Well, I'll start by saying here's what not to do. Cuz I always talk about blockers and builders, blockers and builders. What are the things that are blocking sell health and what are the things that build sell health? Because everybody wants to ask a question, what do I do?

 

(20:32): What do I do? We have way too many of what do I do? We don't have enough of what do I undo? That's what detox truly is, is what do I undo? What do I stop doing in your life? That is depleting cells. And the one thing I will say about that and we can move on a drainage is that outside of your cell membrane is made of fat. The inside of your membrane is made of protein. So if you are not getting enough healthy fats and enough healthy proteins on a daily basis, you do not have healthy cells and fats, someone might say, oh, sunflower oil, SA flour oil. A lot of these things that you hear people read on a label that sound better than canola oil or better than vegetable oil or better than estrogen blocking soy oil, GMO, soy oil. These are all things that are very unhealthy oils.

 

(21:16): When people get smarter, they move onto the next green washing thing on the label. Now with sunflower oil. So you have this sunflowers yeah. Flowers and it's pretty and it's colorful. And that sounds healthy. I'm gonna tell you that that's not as healthy as things like omegas. The things that you can get from salmon and a healthy ratio of omega 360 9. That's probably beyond the show today of the topic, but just getting the idea that healthy oils, avocado oils, healthy, organic coconut oils. These are things that help build a healthy structure of the outside of the cell and then enough protein so that you can and, and ignite the inside of the cells. Why that's so important is healthy. Mitochondria. Not only give you energy, but here's how they do it. They push out the bad stuff from the cells, which a lot of them are trapped in when you don't have healthy cells.

(22:03): And then the good stuff can't get in. So all these healthy supplements, the vitamins, the hormones, the minerals, they can't get in the cells. So they end up just leaving the body. That's a very reductionist, simplistic state that is important to first, start with energy, make sure that you're ready for the championship game. Make sure that your mitochondria optimized, because those are the things that also communicate to your organs. Like your liver will take and filter the things that will be either fat soluble or water soluble. If they're fat soluble, they leave through the colon. If they're water soluble, they leave through your kidneys. So you poop them or pee them out, right? To speak to like an eight year old. And the thing that's important there is that your liver can only function as well. Is your mitochondria, AKA or cell energy. Powerhouses can communicate the liver to tell them, to let go of the toxins and to convert T4, to T3 for iodine molecules to three iodine molecules in the liver.

 

(22:58): 70% of that are so happens in the liver. So you, if you're not a liver, you're a dire. That's one of my favorite things to say to, I love that, right? And you've got to take care and love on your liver. So this, you can see here, why MI country is so important because it dictates the power and the consistency of drainage that starts in. Of course it goes through your toxins, go through your lymphatic system, go into the blood, go in the liver and then transport out through poop and pee or sweat or breath. Those are the four main elimination pathways. It could, if you're a woman, it will also come through your ovaries through your cycle. If you're still cycling, if you're over 40, you might not be. And then you also drain it through your hair too. So what I say is, if you really wanna maintain and build your beauty, also know that the better that you're taking care of your liver and your lymphatic system and your gallbladder and all of the elimination organs that are in, in this space between your thyroid down to your ovaries, the more that your body has building blocks to make healthy skin and healthy hair.

 

(24:10): So that's what drainage is. And I can talk a little bit more about how to do that if you'd like Dr. Karen, it's up to you. But I kind of just said a mouth wall on that too. So I'll let you interact.

 

 (24:18): Yeah. We only have so much time and we've you've number one. I'm gonna just reiterate for everyone was stop poisoning yourself with whatever you're poisoning yourself with. Number two is get your mitochondria online. So they're working for you. They're helping jazz up your liver. What other steps? Why don't we go through all the steps? And then if you wanna come back and give more details about each cuz I know everybody's listening going, this is more than I've heard about cleansing in a long time. Cuz I literally, I can't stand it when I go to the health food store. And I see people asking the clerk who basically has no medical training and holding up a supplement and saying, is this a good detox supplement? And so first off the concept that I need a supplement, that's the first thing I should do wrong. The second concept that there's only one supplement that I need to take that's wrong. And so I'd love for them to get an overview of the steps and then we can come back and add details.

 

(25:17): Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. So that's why I say ABC always be cleansing cuz it is a lifestyle. It isn't just a thing that you do once in a while. It's not just colon session once and you're done. It's not that you just sit in a sauna or that you go to a seven day retreat and you cleanse your body and you do it once a year. And then what are you having a

 

(25:36): Retreat? You wouldn't take a shower once a year and go, oh I did. I took a shower in 20 brushing your

 

(25:46): Teeth. I'm like, please don't think that just what, what would it be like if you just brush your teeth bill once a year?

 

(25:51): I know. So point taken, okay, go ahead.

 

(25:55): And 75% of disease begins in the mouth and we swallow the equivalent of one liter of water every day. And so whatever's going on in your mouth. It becomes part of your gut and whatever's in your gut then becomes all over, you know, every cell of your body because we can poison ourself without realizing it because it we've also been lied to you about that. You know, mercury, silver fillings, you know, get those suckers out. Those are what I call the arsonists. They're constantly starting fires in your body and they live in the body. So that would be breast and implant, silver fillings. So things that are living inside of you that are constantly just, just dripping out toxins, get those suckers out, do it with a biological dentist, do it with a trained, uh, surgeon who knows how to do an N block, total capsule ectomy.

 

(26:38): I talk about all of that book in my book, killer breast. I'll have you put all the links below so that, um, find their way there and bonuses I have for the book, everything. So the first thing to do to feed your mitochondria, um, and ensure that you have enough energy being produced, the powerhouses of your cells, the power plants is to ensure that you're not eating crap. And here's what I say. Eat fast food, eat fast food all day long every day. And what I mean by that is it stands for something. I like to make words that, that, that sound fun for you guys to remember. Yeah. Fermented foods, antioxidants, super foods and tox and binders because a lot of people will go say, oh, activated charcoal. I did a cleanse because it does have a stronger bond. It does attach to, to toxins.

 

(27:24): But if you don't have strong mitochondria and you're not draining well, then all it's gonna do is hold into the toxins and not go anywhere. So toxin binders, the most effective ones are the ones that you take in supplement form that are carbon based. Those have a carbon strong bond on them and they're also leaving a healthy residue after they talk detox. What I mean by eating a diet with toxin binders, you wanna get things like spirolina cilantro, chlorella. You wanna get those in your diet in supplement form. They're not gonna be as strong as going after a lot of the toxins that we've been thrown in the last few years. Okay? So just keep that in mind, eat a fast food diet. That is the best way to boost your mitochondria. And of course you are not going to get by on five hours of sleep.

 

(28:09): You're just not, you need a good seven to nine hours. You need your beauty sleep. There's a reason you set sleep for a very long time. And a lot of your human growth hormone is made when you're sleeping to 95% plus a thought burning happens while you sleep because 98% of human growth hormone is being produced while you sleep. But if you don't get that sleep, then you have Houston a problem. And so the reason why a lot of people today are not able to get sleep. Restful sleep is one thing and they are suckers. They're energy suckers, they're nutrient suckers. They are vitality drainers, and they eat your iron. No wonder why your hair is falling out. It's not just from aging and those are called parasites. So I don't know if you wanna spend more time in the mitochondrial space, Dr. Kyrin, but have

 

(28:57): Let's we got a few more minutes. Let's jump into parasites real briefly. And then we're gonna have to wrap up, but go ahead.

 

(29:03): Yes, parasites. So I say first to detox, your start to detox your environment. And at the same time, you can start to detox your body and then you can also start to detox the bugs. And so the reason why you have so many talkin your body, what many people don't realize about parasites is that we all have them. It's said that we're 98% bug. So we have a symbiotic relationship with parasites and it's not all bad. I want everybody to know that parasites are not all bad parasites have. In fact, on the bad side, killed more humans than anything else in human history. The average person has at least one infection inside of them. That is not healthy for us. The, the ideal ratio of healthy microbes to unhealthy microbes would be somewhere along the lines of based on the microbe, the human microbe project we've had around for now eight years, a good ratio is 80% good bug and 20% bad, but the average person has the opposite.

 

(30:05): And now we have more 80% bad and 20% good. So why is it, how did all of a sudden these parasites get so obese in our body? And the reason for that is because their job is to be the bottom feeders in your body. That's their job. We don't just catch bugs. We create them. That is so, so critically important because a lot of people want to say, you got me sick, or you got me sick or that, that dog or that horse. Sure. We pass parasites between animals and each other all day long. But when you have a strong immune system, you can fight them off. When you have a strong immune system, you can call them to action. So imagine when you have a party, you need a housekeeper to come and clean up this mess, right? Whatever, you cannot excrete properly because your mitochondria is off or your drainage pathways are not optimized.

 

(30:52): The parasites need to come up, but clean 'em up. So they go eat them up. They're the bottom feeders of the fish tank. And when they gobble up, they could grow to be hundreds. If not thousands of times, their size of their original body. They're like chia, pets. They get bigger. And what they clean up is the heavy metals and the environmental toxins and the mold and the Canda and the bacteria and viruses. Anything. We cannot excrete becomes property of the parasites. And then, and also they end up eating your nutrients. They end up eating your B vitamins, your magnesium, your vitamin D all these supplements that you take, that you're thinking they're going, where they need to go. They can't get in the cells, which are your cells. If they're going into these parasitic cells. So they also eat, like I said, your iron.

 

(31:35): And that's one of the primary things that, that helps us to create new hair. Right? And like, I, like I was mentioning earlier women over the age of 40, 80% of us have stagnant bile. 25% of us have some type of diagnosed or undiagnosed thyroid disease. Thyroid disease means your metabolism is sluggish mitochondria as absolutely sluggish. 80% of us have stagnant bile flow. What does that mean? Bile carries out fat sayable toxins out of the, the bowels, whatever does not get excreted. 95% of that bowel gets recirculated back up to the gallbladder. If the gallbladder then becomes the housing unit for all of these toxins, no wonder why we so many gallbladders being removed, right? It's not the gallbladder's fault. It's because toxin so drew, they are there to clean up the mess that we cannot excrete. So what we need to, to do is go, okay, again, start with mitochondrial, open up the drainage pathways.

 

(32:27): Think up to the parasites. When you go up to the parasites, you gotta start with those first two steps. When you go to the parasites, also get that when you go to kill them, they're releasing all of that toxic waste, Canda mold bacteria. So we also want to have, like I said, the toxin binder, which is the tea and fast food it's toxin binder that is very strong carbon based that attaches to that waste. And that, because now your, your elimination pathways are open, can carry that waste out and let them go. And there's all kinds of parasites. So there's a lot of people who are taking the IR. And I'm not saying the full word just in case, but they're taking a lot of things, thinking, check, I'm done. I take the IR or I take, you know, wormwood or I take clove, which is great. It goes after some of the eggs, but the, the best parasite cleanse is one that has a multidisciplinary approach, many different types of herbs to go after all the different life cycles, the parasites, every single one of us needs to go after this because it truly is the root cause of so many issues that people don't even realize today.

 

(33:25): It is so true. And we could talk about parasites for hours, days, weeks, long time. And I know everybody wants to hear more, but we do have to wrap up. So let's do that. We've got links for Diane in the show notes. She has a great event coming up that you may wanna participate in because hopefully you've gotten what we're saying. If you've been paying attention, you can't help it. And you've heard that we're swimming in the sea of toxins. They're in you. You've got to get them out. If you want any hope of having balanced hormones. You know, I, I always say the harm. The name of the podcast is the hormone prescription. I tie everything to hormones. So some of you are sitting there thinking Hurin, didn't tie this into hormones. So let me do that for you real quick, before we go.

 

(34:12): So toxicity feeds directly into your cortisol stress hormone. These are stresses, right? When you think of stress, you think, oh, you know, I gotta pay my mortgage. Oh my kids' new shoes. You think of life, psychosocial stressors, your body doesn't see it that way. It, yes, adds that, but it also takes blood sugar stress, which you've heard me talk about. And it takes toxicity stress. So it, you have toxicity, you've got a cortisol problem and that's gonna unbalance your insulin, your thyroid, your sex hormones. All right. So we did it. All right. So let's wrap up. Diane has a great event coming up for you where I think she's gonna guide you through all this. I don't know you guys right now ready? Like, okay, we get it, but we need a guide. Diane's gonna guide you through this. So tell them all about it.

 

(35:04): Yeah, absolutely. And, and what I'll say is that the full moon is the absolute, best time to go after parasites and people might be thinking, what do you mean the full moon? That sounds scary. I'm like, well, yeah, parasites in the body not being eliminated are absolutely scary. What they do, your hormones is absolutely scary. So we actually have them coming up in September. And so what, what I'm gonna say is September 27th, and then we'll probably have another one after that, just in case if you're listening to this, and if you're hearing this any other time later, then you you're gonna find out how to get ahold of me and do this on your own. Perhaps the thing with parasites around the full moon is that on the full moon, they increase your serotonin and they decrease your melatonin. So you might think, oh, serotonin, that makes me happy.

 

(35:44): No, it actually makes the parasites happy. And so that's why we are whacked out and we're not ourselves. And the melatonin drops, no wonder why you can't sleep. So that's another way it affects your hormones. And that's your firefighter to, to put out inflammation when you sleep is the melatonin. So there's a reason why many of the people I work with in this cleanse sleep better. They have more energy. Their hair starts to come back and all the things we talked about get reversed today. So that's coming up September 27th. If you guys buy one of the kits and, and what's gonna happen is I, I've never done this before in terms of a webinar and just hosting it. Like this is a compliment for, for the people who get a parasite full moon kit. So step one, like I mentioned is mitochondrial support sub two drainage.

 

(36:21): But if you are just like, just tell me what to do, Diane, there's gonna be a couple links below. I put together one kit that is the drainage kit. And then also the step two would be the parasite cleanse kit. So that is a full kit. And you actually save money by bundling them where it's a few supplements. These are supplements that work, they won't get mucked up on your body. So I would actually do that. There is one, that's just a standalone parasite kit, and you could do that. And that has four different supplements in it. Uh, the binder I mentioned in three different types of parasite herbs, but I would start with liver and it goes liver lymph and gallbladder flow. So you're gonna experience major openings, major poops, major releases, probably a lot, some weight loss, hormone optimization, because we do have one supplement in there that will actually help to support better sleep before you go into the parasite cleanse kit.

 

(37:10): So if you guys get either one or both of those kits, like I said, the duo kit has a $25 off when you bundle it together. And then we also have a special for Dr. Kirin too. If you use a special supplement, uh, or a special link below, uh, that she'll put, and then if you use the coupon code full moon, 10, you'll get an additional 10% off. And what that's going to enroll you to get is an invite to special invite for only people who are serious about this, a two hour webinar with me telling you exactly what to eat, exactly what to do exactly what not to do. That's a long list, but I'll tell you the main ones not to do so that we can ensure the greatest success for this go round. And in the future, you're gonna want your whole family to consider this. And one of you can do it. And then you can also guide people to do it later on, because this is how you become your own best doctor. Especially also having doctors like Dr. Karenna follow as well. So it's, don't worry. This is for people to start asking questions. If, if, if I have this condition or if I have this symptom of this, we all need to get rid of parasite. You guys. So this is

 

(38:09): Everybody needs to detox. Y'all, there's no question, but I have this, but I'm on this medication, but I have this medical problem. Everybody needs to detox. If you are human and you are on the face of this planet, living and breathing, you've got toxicity. You need to detox. We do have to wrap it up. Thank you so much, Diane. We will have all the links in the show notes, full disclosure that we do receive affiliate commissions or may for anything that you purchase. But as you guys have been following me for a long time, no, I will never give you anything that I don't think is amazing. Right? So thanks. Appreciate. It's not about the money. It's about you getting what you need and if we happen to make a living, so we can continue to do what we do then that's awesome. So any last words, Diane,

 

(38:59): Uh, thank you for being a, a light in the dark as an MD. That's bringing this to fruition because we truly can be our own best doctor. And it takes somebody really getting out of their ego to say, I'm not the only solution you are the solution. So I just wanted to honor you for bringing this topic forth, because it really is in my perspective and my experience and my own empathy and my own healing journey, the greatest way that we can not only get rid of the parasites in our body, but also raise our vibe so that we reduce parasitic energies that suck the life out of us. And that we wonder how we can think smarter, think more positive, attract more things that are beautiful in our life. You can only raise your vibe to the extent that you're getting the things rid of it out of, in you, out of your body so that you can start to thrive again. And it's, uh, it's a beautiful life cycle as above so below. And, uh, it's an inside out journey

 

(39:57): As within, so without, as above so below, thank you so much, Diane, everybody click the links and check it out. And it's just like living in your house. If it was a disaster, you would know it. You would clean it up if it was dirty, but it's on the inside and you can't see it and you don't know, but now, you know, so what are you gonna do about it? I really appreciate you all for joining me for another episode of the hormone prescription. And once again, don't let this just be infotainment, just more information that you take, and then you do nothing about really your health can change tremendously just by taking one step at a time. All you need to do is take the one step that's in front of you. So what are you gonna do with this information? And I would encourage you to check Diane's information and products out and her program. And you will know if it's right for you and if it is by all means, do it. And if it's not keeping, keep looking for the answers that are out there for you, because you deserve brilliant health at every age. And I'll see you again next week until then peace, love and hormones. Y'all

 

(41:03): 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.

 

► Join Diane's Parasite Cleanse Full Moon Challenge and get the Supplements for Warrior Detox at an affordable price! CLICK HERE.

 

► Get free access to Diane Kazer's Module #1 of The Warrior Cleanse Program:

CLICK HERE.

 

► Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try?

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Is Caregiver Syndrome At The Root Of Your Hormone Woes?

Do you have a case of the "caregiver syndrome?" You know, where you're so busy taking care of everyone else that you forget to take care of yourself?

 

If you answered yes, then you might be surprised to learn that this could be the root cause of your hormone woes.

 

That's right, according to world-renowned hormone expert, Dr. Venus Ramos, caregiver syndrome is one of the most common causes of hormone imbalances in women.

 

On this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, Dr. Ramos shares her insights on how caregiver syndrome can lead to hormone imbalances and what you can do to fix it.

 

You'll also learn:

 

-The three most common symptoms of caregiver syndrome

 

-How caregiver syndrome can lead to hormone imbalances

 

-The top three hormones that are most affected by caregiver syndrome

 

-The steps you can take to be free of caregiver syndrome and restore balance to your hormones

 

-Exercise regimen, and other stress-relieving techniques that can help alleviate caregiver syndrome

 

-Weight loss tips

 

-And much more!

 

So if you think you might be struggling with your hormones and caregiver syndrome , then tune in to this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast. You'll walk away with the knowledge and tools you need to start feeling like yourself again.

 

(00:00): Dr. Ramos says, stay fit, be happy and lead with love.

 

(00:06): 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.

 

(00:59): Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. My guest, Dr. Venus, many of you saw on the Stop The Menopause Madness Summit, and you loved her. So I brought her on the podcast. She is an amazing woman who is a woman of many talents. Let me just say this she's very accomplished. You would never believe that she is the age that she is. She really looks like she's in her thirties and that's cuz she practices what she preaches. She has been a victim, if you will, or subject to caregiver syndrome all while being an elite fitness athlete. And she has thrived through that. Not only survived but thrived. And she's gonna talk to you about how you can start doing that yourself. Maybe you're in that sandwich generation, you've got older parents with health problems.

 

(01:55): You've got kids also, and that really can take a toll on your hormones and your health. If you're living it, you know what I'm talking about, or maybe you have family members who have lived it, it is a real thing. So I'll tell you about a Dr. Venus and then we'll get started. She's got some solutions for you. Dr. Venus is the biohacking and she's a board-certified physician of physical medicine and rehab. She has a thriving medical practice in California, and she's competed for 20 years as a national level fitness athlete. She's also a fitness trainer, and she's had clients ranging from single moms to professional athletes and an action film star. How exciting she's been a repeat guest on the TV series, the doctors, you might have seen her there , and she's been featured on several other shows, including NBC's today and American gladiators. And she contributes frequently to multiple health outlets, including I, her.com and oxygen magazine. She has a firsthand story of living through and thriving through caregiver syndrome. And we're gonna dive into it now. Welcome Dr. Venus, Hey,

 

(03:05): How are you doing?

 

(03:06): I'm doing great. I'm really excited to have you on today. You have such vast experience in so many areas. We had to talk about what to talk about, and I know that you'll weave all of your experience, knowledge and brilliance into the conversation, but I thought it's super important to focus on caregiver syndrome because this isn't something that I haven't ever covered in the podcast. It's part of your personal experience, and you have some great tips to help people. And so I thought we would dive into that first. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what caregiver syndrome is and a bit about your story.

 

(03:51): Caregiver syndrome in general is just all of the symptoms that you experience when you have a physical, emotional and mental exhaustion from caring for somebody. Now of course, this can be caring for a loved one, or it can be caring for someone on the job for people who actually act as caregivers. A lot of times people think about caregiver syndrome being a lot of the fatigue and the overall fatigue and lethargy that you feel when you are caring for an elder. But certainly caregiver syndrome could be for new mothers who are caring for their children. So caregiver syndrome can affect pretty much anyone when they are directly involved in caring for someone else.

 

(04:38): Okay. And so who's mostly affected by caregiver syndrome. What happens? Why does it occur and how might someone know that they're having this?

 

(04:48): Well, oftentimes, especially when you're talking about caregiving for a loved one, this is something that happens because you are so intent. You are oftentimes so emotionally

 

involved in making sure that your loved one is being taken good care of. Oftentimes you start to neglect those very important things that you must do in order to care for yourself, you will perhaps not eat as well. You don't dedicate enough time to relaxing and getting enough sleep on your own. These are things that often may happen because you're very concerned, which it's important to do so about making sure that your loved one gets the care that you want them to have. You may be feeling very exhausted. You may be feeling very frustrated. You may start feeling that you're noticing that your clothes are fitting more tightly because you simply are putting on more weight. These are all the things that can happen. You may be more irritable. You might notice that you are starting to become more irritable with taking care of your loved one. And that's actually something that I started noticing in my own life when I started taking care of my father. And that's when I knew immediately at that particular moment in time that I needed to make a change.

 

(06:09): Yeah, I remember a client. I had, we were working on her health. She had all kinds of cortisol problems. Her weight was going up. She was really struggling with that. Her doctor was treating her for anxiety and depression and then she was having trouble sleeping and with her sex drive and it was just all these things. And she really was the only one taking care of her mom, even though she had siblings. And when we talked about it, she was getting so much resentment that her siblings weren't helping her at all. She was just saying that she felt so put upon and she almost had become like a martyr and used it kind of that anger and resentment. And then her mom wasn't nice to her too. So put that on top. So there was a lot of conflict there. She was struggling sticking to the things that she knew she should eat to benefit her that were nurturing versus junk food.

 

(07:05): And so that was one thing that we talked about and she hadn't really seen this as a syndrome of any type, but she was the only one. So when we had the conversation about, wow, this is really common. It affects a lot of women in the 40 to 60 year old range. And it affects on men as well. And one of the ways that it often shows up is that people start having health problems themselves. And they don't realize how much of a stress, particularly on their cortisol, the actual physical caregiving, the emotional caregiving, the mental, the spiritual what a toll it's taking on them until they really talk about it and unpack it. And I find that it's not necessarily a common topic of conversation. Did you feel like that when you were going through it and as if you weren't supported by the public in general, it's not a topic of conversation. People didn't know what you were going through.

 

(08:07): Well, I thought for myself, I felt myself slipping into this hole or falling into it and staying there of apathy where I really didn't care about myself or my help. And I just kind of stayed in this pit. And for me it was almost like there was an element of shame to it as well, because this happened to me and my family because my father had a stroke as a rehab physician. This happens to be one of my specialties caring for, for stroke patients and making sure that their families are educated in what's involved in caring for a loved one who has stroke. So this is something that I specialize in and when it happens in my own family and I find myself very protective of my father, knowing that I know how things are supposed to go. So this is how it's going to go.

 

(09:03): And I need to watch to make sure that everything is going the right way. I became very involved in making sure he had the best perfect caregiving after his stroke. And of course, I'm the only one who can give that, right? Because I'm the doctor , I should be able to do this and no one else can do this. Only you Venus only you only me and being a fitness competitor as well. I had done this actually almost 20 years. I knew about nutrition. I knew about training. I knew how to stick to any nutrition and exercise program, despite whatever kind of crazy schedule I had, cuz I'd been doing this for 20 years. So me thinking I was the authority in taking care of a stroke patient and the authority in staying fit and healthy, I should be able to handle this no problem, but very quickly I began to just forget about myself because the work of maintaining my medical practice and making sure that my father was getting the perfect care from me was just too much for me to also squeeze in all of that nutrition and exercise stuff that I knew about as well.

 

(10:15): So that's where it started to become the caregiver syndrome, where I started neglecting some of my nutrition. I started neglecting the exercise that had become such a habit in my life. It was no longer a habit because my whole life kind of got flipped upside down into adding this whole other person that I was taking care of as perfectly as possible because I'm supposed to be the expert. So there was a, a bit of shame on my part in accepting the fact that this is where I had slipped to and fall into because I had held myself to a, a certain standard. So for me there was shame involved. But the thing that turned it around was that I was so tired. I was so exhausted. I had started gaining weight. I was sitting on the couch for just a little bit of a breather.

 

(11:07): When I heard my father ring the bell that calls for help whenever he needed something. And that bell triggered such a feeling of anger and frustration in me. And as I walked up towards his door, his bedroom door to take care of whatever he might need. I realized that there was this tension in my face that there was anger in my heart. And I realized I did not wanna enter that room, looking that way, feeling that way. Cuz I knew that was something he would certainly be able to sense and I never wanted him to feel like he was a burden to me. And that's when I realized I needed to do something to take better care of myself. So I didn't have those feelings. I didn't wanna feel frustrated, irritated, angry, or looked that way either.

 

(11:56): You know, I love that. And I think that sometimes what might be part of the difficulty with caregiver syndrome is that children and their parents can be, haven't worked through any conflict that they've had throughout their lives, that this situation could escalate it. And so I always encourage people in that situation to unpack any unresolved issues to iron them out so that they can be there for their loved one from a place of love and from a place of being grateful to have the opportunity to provide care in that way. This was part of my client's story. When we talked about it, she had a whole lot of unresolved resentment towards her mom. And so that was getting heaped on top of the fact that she really did come from a good place. She wanted to be there for her mom and she had all these unresolved issues. So when you take that and then the burden of having to spend so much time and energy every day, it really did get to a place where she was resentful of her mom every day. So was that the breaking point for you where you decided I have to do something different?

 

(13:09): It absolutely was. I knew that I did not what my father himself to fall into any kind of a depression again, I was kind of, for me, the motivating factor was love for my father. I did not. I wanted him to get the very best care and I felt like by ignoring my own care, I was not able to do that for him. That was really what I felt as my motivation, but it absolutely made me want to do something to get back on track for me. I had to start with just the simplest of things and all I did the very next morning was just get on my recumbent bike and I started just pedaling away for 10 minutes in the morning. The first thing I did, that's basically all I could

 

(13:54): Do. Okay. And so you had had a pretty rigorous health routine prior to all this and you had gone away from it. So you said, okay, what's one thing I can do today. You got on your RECU bike and how did that start changing things and what did you do next?

 

(14:12): Well, I really felt like it was important for me to do something, something that was more mobile than what I had been doing. And really that was how I started. I started with just 10 minutes a day. I slowly started to increase it by five minutes, 15 minutes. And then I went to 20 minutes. I just started becoming a little bit more mobile as I became more mobile and started increasing some physical activity. I felt myself feeling better and I felt myself even more motivated to do even more, which is of course the natural thing that happens in a human body when it becomes more physically active. So that's when I decided, okay, I've got this, I'm doing full half hour in the morning. Oh my goodness. I'm starting to get back there now. So let me start focusing on nutrition. So I decided I was just gonna start with, let me just focus on having the best breakfast that I can every morning and just make a healthier choice in the morning, rather than just stopping by to grab a coffee and donut on the way into the office. So that was my next step to just make a healthier choice for my first meal of the day.

 

(15:27): Okay. So little steps. And then what started to happen? What changed first?

 

(15:33): Again, more and more. I started feeling better. I felt like I was starting my morning off better. I had more physical activity now I was adding another element of eating healthier and that just again, one step at a time I started changing what I was doing. Then I started making better changes, healthier choices at lunchtime. And again, it was very, very simple to do. And then I was able to add some of the strength training that I was used to doing. Again, I was squeezing this in, but I was making a conscious effort to start adding strength training by doing just simple body weight exercises. And this was as simple as going to the kitchen and adding squat routine in right before I decided to do the dishes cuz I was squatting to load the dishwasher anyway. So again, there was just basic things that I was doing, but it would stimulate my brain to remember, okay, this is what I'm going to do now.

 

(16:35): Cause the other thing that's important to remember is I couldn't just jump into the gym and well I could have, but I couldn't just jump into the gym and return to that really rigorous and vigorous exercise routine that I had been used to when I was competing for fitness competitions, that type of routine likely would've led me to be extremely sore immediately after. And when that happens, it's super easy just to say, oh, forget this. I'm not going to exercise anymore. And that could delay you for another couple of weeks and it's easy to, to fall back off the wagon when you overdo it in the beginning.

 

(17:12): Mm-Hmm right. That's a great point. I'm just wondering on average, how many hours a day were you spending, helping your parents? I think that the amount of time that you spend really can put a crunch on your free time. So how much time were you personally spending and then how can someone proactively navigate this journey? If they know, oh, I'm gonna have to spend two hours with my parent every day and a half hour getting there and a half hour back. So that's three hours as it's gonna cut into their time. What information can you give people to help them consciously navigate this? So they don't end up having caregiver syndrome, but maybe they could avoid it.

 

(17:52): Absolutely. I think that it's really important to calculate how much care is really involved. If I had to add it all up, I would say at least six hours in the day I actually moved in with my parents. I had a home for both my mom and dad when they moved out to join me here in California and I moved into that home so that I could help my mom take better care of my father. I did have a caregiver to assist my father at something of course that we recommend for patients once they leave the rehab hospital after a stroke. So I did have a caregiver, but again, me being very overprotective, I felt like I wanted to oversee so much of it when the caregiver first came over. So there was an element of trusting the caregiver that was involved. And again, this was a lot to do with me, just recognizing that I didn't have to be the only caregiver who was there physically to make sure things were run perfectly. And again, this is all about having the right team around you, involving my mother, involving the caregiver, making sure that I'm comfortable with their knowledge, by giving them the appropriate training on how to provide that care. So understand how much time you do have in the day, how much time you can allocate and then work with a team of some sort, whether it's a hired caregiver, whether it's your family and work together so that you really trust each other to take care of the person that you want to make sure gets that care.

 

(19:41): Yeah, because if you don't take care of it, then it can end up in burnout. I guess it goes past just caregiver syndrome to caregiver burnout. And nobody wants that. My client was really on the verge of that. So now along with your career, as a physician and helping with your father and helping families who have, because you're in the rehabs medicine sector, you help families to rehabilitate and help their loved ones to recover. You're a fitness model for many years and you help people with weight loss and you have a lot of tips. And I think that people would love to hear, how did you maintain your weight and your health? I mean, we heard about you had slacked off a little and you started back on the bike and doing squats with the dishwasher. I could visualize that , I'm thinking, could I squat and load the dishwasher? I don't know. I'm gonna have to try it. and so what are some other things that people can do? Maybe they don't have a loved one that they're caring for, but they want to lose weight. And I know that's something you help people with, or maybe they have a lot of pressures. Maybe it's not a loved one. Maybe they just have a very demanding job or a lot of social activities or obligations. What are some of the main tenants that you give people to follow to help them maintain or lose weight?

 

(21:08): Well, I think that especially coming outta the whole caregiver syndrome life that I had and trying to resume some semblance of self care, I realized how important it was to have a lot of that knowledge that I had prior to that in really optimizing my fitness level for competition and being able to squeeze that into a busy work schedule. So being able to have that knowledge was certainly really important for me in resuming any kind of training of any kind. And I think that it's important to really understand how to negotiate, that, how to fit a fit lifestyle into a busy schedule. And that's what I like to do for all of my clients and even my patients when I'm trying to encourage them to incorporate exercise and nutrition into their life, because of course doing that can help my rehab patients and my pain management patients that I see in the office as it decreases inflammation in the body.

 

(22:16): So probably the number one tip I start off with for everyone. And we've touched on this a little bit already, is to make sure that you are managing your cortisol levels, that you are managing the stress in your life because it's so very important because cortisol and all of its pathways that it acts on in your body can do so much to basically counteract anything that you're trying to do in terms of staying fit and being healthy and losing weight. If that is your goal. So start off with a very specific plan on being able to manage that. And a lot of that, I tell people as they're about approaching any kind of a health and fitness plan, they get concerned about, oh, I need to do an hour of cardio a day. I need to be prepping all my meals. I need to know exactly how many calories of this I'm doing.

 

(23:15): I need to make sure I'm, there's so much that they get worried about that. They become overwhelmed with their diet and their nutrition and you get these spikes of cortisol and then your cortisol levels remain high and there's no balance there. And then they're struggling trying to figure out why is this not working? Well, you're all stressed out. it's not gonna work out if you're not, if you're all stressed out. So definitely having a, a plan to manage that is gonna be very important right off the bat. Even if you're starting with a very simple, deep breathing exercises sometime during the day on a daily basis, that at least is a starting point. The other thing I like to talk a lot about is making exercise manageable, cuz I think these are the things that are often hard for people to do because they say, I need to spend that hour on the treadmill, but it's not necessary to do that.

 

(24:12): You can start with just breaking it up into 10 minute chunks in a day, cuz you can get health benefits from that that's been shown. But what I like to do when you're really ready to take on more and get a little bit more intense with your exercise regimen, I like to tell people about doing high intensity interval training. This is something that people have heard a lot about. They've heard about interval training hit is often what it goes by high intensity interval training. But what I do notice is a lot of people don't really know what that is or they're doing it because they heard that it's what they're supposed to be doing. And then when I see what they think is a hit routine, it's not . So I think that education about that is, is really important. And the reason why hit has become so popular is because it can be done in shorter amounts of time. You can achieve really good benefit towards weight loss by doing a hit routine. But if you're not doing it correctly, then you're not getting the benefits that you think you're getting really intense exercise in short periods of time. And that short period of time is often the appeal that you're able to get. Mm-Hmm a good workout in such a short period of time. And

 

(25:30): So when you say they're not doing it right, can you tell people, cause some people are listening and going, am I doing it right? Tell, so tell us Dr. , how do they know?

 

(25:39): Well, high intensity interval training when you're speaking of any kind of interval training you're you're talking about exercising at a very high intensity and then breaking it up, alternating it with exercising at a lower intensity so that you're exercising a lot of people. If you're talking about even doing sprints, running on a treadmill, basically running at a high level on a treadmill and then slowing it down and going to more of a moderate level on that treadmill, just breaking that up and going back and forth. That's interval training. Now, if you are doing high intensity interval training correctly, that means that you are performing as high and as maximum of your performance level as possible. When you hit that high interval and then going to your low interval, you have to do that low interval for a long enough period of time that your body is able to recover, recover enough that you can truly reach that maximum potential.

 

(26:42): Again, when you are exercising, I often see people doing intervals with a ratio of maybe let's say 30 seconds, that you're exercising at a high intensity for 30 seconds. And then you're going back down to a lower intensity for another 30 seconds. Then you go up to a higher intensity again for another 30 seconds and you're alternating back and forth. Now in general, most people are not gonna be able to get full recovery, to be able to achieve that high intensity, that maximum intensity in just 30 seconds. That's just a one-to-one ratio in order to do high intensity interval training that you would generally need to spend more on the line of a one to two or as even as long as a one to six ratio. So if you're going to be doing a high intensity for 30 seconds, most people are gonna need a full 60 seconds of a lower intensity to get enough recovery time to hit that maximum potential again on their next high intensity interval. So it's the ratio. That's gonna be very important.

 

(27:48): So if people are going to some type of gym where it's a workout, that's being given to them, how can they know if it's true hit or not just by the length of the intervals and the capacity that you're using?

(28:03): Exactly. It's for the most part, you're going to really, it's really a sense of feeling for themselves if you're going to a class and they're basically telling you what your inner world should be. This is often what most people find themselves in will go to a class. Perhaps it's even a cycling class and they wanna do some high intensity interval training. It's harder to do that in the class setting because everyone's recovery time is gonna be a little bit different. So what you are actually doing, if you're not getting full recovery, if you're not feeling that you're recovered enough and we can talk a little bit about this more, but that's gonna actually have to do with what your heart rate is at that time. And starting to know what those heart rate ranges are for you. Mm-Hmm , if you aren't fully recovered during that lower intensity interval, then if your group instructor takes you to a higher intensity again, right away, what you are actually doing is more of an aerobic workout.

 

(29:02): There's nothing wrong with doing an aerobic workout. Just know that the benefits that you're gonna get are gonna be different than a high intensity interval training. Most people wanna do that high intensity interval training because it's going to kind of keep their metabolism burning more fat for a longer period of time throughout the day when they're not exercising. That's one of the benefits that people love about high intensity interval training that the, the fat burning continues when they're not working out. You're not necessarily gonna get that if you don't get that recovery time. So if you're being led into another high intensity interval before you're fully recovered, just know that you are getting an aerobic exercise class and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Aerobic exercise is good for you too.

 

(29:49): Yeah, right. Yes. So get, I mean hit training and intermittent fasting. You can't go wrong doing both of those actually. And then what about weights? Cause I'm sure that's a part of your routine as well. And I think so many women are extremely confused about weights. I think a lot of women avoid them altogether. They go to resistance training. No, I don't do it. I see other women who use two and five pound weights, which in my humble opinion is probably not enough stress on the muscles than what's needed. And I think people are just confused. So help enlighten us

 

(30:29): Well again, this is something that's gonna be very, very individual for the person numbers are going to change depending how strong you become. As you continue to work out, you hopefully will continue to get stronger and be able to lift heavier weights. Oftentimes what I will tell people is to just start counting their reps because that's the repetitions because that's really the easiest way to start tracking how much weight you should be using when you are working two strength training and that resistance training. That's going to work on really toning your muscles. I'm not talking about bulking up your muscles because bulking is gonna require a lot of fine tuning of your nutrition. Again, that's another discussion. We can save, save that for a little bit, but just to get that really toned physique and stronger muscle structure, which is also very important for the human body.

 

(31:27): Your repetitions really should not be going any longer than about eight repetitions. When you do eight repetitions of any exercise, we'll just go with the most basic exercise I can think of right now, which is the bicep curl. You grab a weight, you start doing it up and down, up and down. You count to eight. If that last script is really difficult to do, and you might not be able to do another one without some sort of an assistance, then that amount of weight, the weight of that dumbbell is appropriate for you to do true strength training. You've done eight repetitions and you are about maxed out. You wouldn't be able to do another one unless you really had some assistance. That is the right wait for you to use in strength training. At that time, of course, as you get stronger, you might start being able to go higher.

 

(32:19): You might be able to reach 10 without, before someone would have to assist you. If you were at 10, then that means you need to grab a heavier weight and go even higher. So that's the point where you would start increasing the amount of weight you're getting. If you are going more than 10, 11, 12, again, that is rate you are still gonna gonna be getting some sort of a workout, but you're going to be achieving different things. When you're getting up to 10 to 15 repetitions while holding a weight that is going to be conditioning for your muscles, but you're not really gonna be doing the strength training that is going to help in terms of really shaping your body.

 

(33:00): Okay? And I know some people are wondering, I think one of the reasons why many women use lower weights is they're afraid they're going to bulk up, which has not been my observation. That that's a problem and loss of muscle and bone mass is those are two of the hugest contributors to deterioration of our health. As we age contributing to cognitive decline, osteoporosis, hip fracture, all kinds of things. But I know there are some women listening who are like, okay, he you're, you've done fitness modeling. You know how to get that, but really nice muscular definition. Tell us your secrets. So please share your secrets with them.

 

(33:40): Well, again, it's going to depend upon how much muscle you really wanna show. Some people really like that define the little Deloid cap on their shoulders. Some people don't, again, it's a matter of your personal preference in terms of what you want your body to feel like. And of course it also happens to matter on what your body is naturally going to develop. There's a lot of genetics involved as well. However, when you're working out, if you see that when you're doing eight pound repetitions, that your muscles are really starting to take shape, then you're doing great in terms of what your exercise is going to be able to do. If you're doing the eight repetitions and you're not really starting to see the shape that you're liking, that may be an indication that your nutrition is often your muscles. Aren't getting all of the nutrition it needs in order to appropriately shape your body.

 

(34:35): Oftentimes that involves the protein that you're taking in. So this again differs from person to person, but you can think about numbers along the lines of three quarters of a gram to one full gram of protein. When you're talking about how much protein that you want on a daily basis on your compared to your body weight. So when you're getting that much protein in, then you're talking about the body builders, I'm super heavy type of diet. That's going to get you that bulk, most women are not taking that much. So you would only need to take more along the lines of a quarter to half of a gram, if you wanted to just get more shape.

 

(35:26): So just to translate and clarify what you're saying for people, women who want to bulk up like a body builder, they would take a gram protein for pound of body weight. So if you're 150 pounds, you eat 150 grams of protein, but if you just want, have average muscle mass, it would be about half, half that or five grams. Yeah. Correct. All right. Just wanted to, so

 

(35:49): There's a lot of, again, there's a lot of fine tuning of your nutrition when it comes to bulking up. And if you're not getting that huge amount of protein, as well as carbohydrates, there's a lot of hydrates into doing that as well because your body needs fuel to build that much muscle up as well. Most women are simply not going to eat that mini grams of carbohydrates and protein in order to bulk up to that body Boulder level. So I wouldn't necessarily worry about doing that, but you may be just needing to increase your protein level more. If you see that your muscles aren't taking the shape that you would like.

 

(36:27): I had a medical assistant who worked for me a few years ago and she did bikini competitions. And I had no idea how much work went into preparing for that. It was a real lesson for me. I mean, her diet was so regimented so far out from the competition, but week by week as to the macronutrient proportions and grand, she had to eat and her work out schedule, it was really an extra part-time job. And she was a wife and a mom. I mean, she looked amazing, but I think a lot of us, when we see women in these competitions, at least I used to think, oh, she's born that way. It's her genetics. And you know, it's really not a big deal until I saw that this is an entire part-time job for her. It was very strict, very regimented. And it was emotionally challenging. Also I saw the pressure on her, but she loved it. So ,

 

(37:28): It's definitely for someone. And if you can handle that type of pressure and that type of stress, then certainly go for it. But that's, again, that's very much of an athlete's mentality yes. To, to compete at that level. And again, you don't need to do that in order to look great and be healthy. So you don't need to compare yourself to those athletes.

 

(37:52): Yes. Athletes, and that's the right word. And then they're in a different category. Cause I don't look at football players and think, wow, that's so regimented, how good do that? You know, I, but I give myself a break. I don't have to be like the bikini or fitness competition women. So as we wrap up, we've covered two very important topics. And there's one thing we topic we haven't covered on that applies to both that. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't touch on and that is sleep. Can you talk about the importance of sleep for not only weight loss and maybe you preparing for your competitions, but for preventing and treating caregiver syndrome and burnout?

 

(38:31): Oh my gosh. Sleep is so important in absolutely every single thing that you mentioned, it's important in terms of preventing caregiver syndrome, preventing that burnout simply because your body needs that recovery time. So very important. The recovery that you get during the night to actually fuel yourself during the day is so important to making sure that you are physically and mentally still able to thrive during the day. So absolutely must be able to do that. It's also important because if you are trying to do something like lose weight, there are various hormonal changes that occur specifically during your sleep that can affect your ability to do that. Of course, we talk about recovery and your body being able to refuel itself during the evening times, but there's also specific changes that happen in terms of your appetite, hormones lectin and Graylin. And oftentimes those hormones change such that you start to want to eat more, that appetite hormone that makes you want to eat more.

 

(39:48): That starts to go up when you're not getting enough sleep. So you need to get enough sleep so that you don't have these cravings of wanting to eat when you are awake. So that is another important thing. I really think that sleep in it in and of itself is important in terms of duration. But it's also important in terms of when you're getting that sleep, there are different cycles that your body goes through different cycles of sleep that your gut body goes through when you get your rest. And when you're able to sleep earlier in the day, then you're going to get more of that restorative sleep. That's really going to help you during the, the morning and the rest of the day. So if you're able to fall asleep a little bit earlier in the evening, I say, get maybe even two to three hours before midnight, you're able to do that. You're gonna end up getting more restorative sleep. As far as duration goes, there are a lot of different opinions, a lot of different research based on all of the different research that I've looked at. The minimum number that I'm looking at is around seven and a half hours of sleep. So that's my recommendation in terms of how much sleep you should be getting so that you get the benefits of the recovery time, the restorative effects for your body B and the changes in your appetite that they don't happen as well.

 

(41:15): Yeah, seven and a half hours at least earlier better. And I know some women say that they wake up early and then I say, well, what time are you going to bed? And they say 11 or 12 o'clock well, if you get bed earlier, you might stay asleep longer. But I think that's super important. What you mentioned about the leptin and grillin changing with sleep, and when you're sleep deprived, then you get cravings, food cravings, and nobody wants that. And for caregivers, you know, it is so cortisol, restorative, you detox during your sleep and with their, especially your brain detoxifies, you also consolidate memories. So sleep, I call it the nectar of life. And if you're not getting enough nectar in your life, you need to get more sleep nectar.

 

(42:02): I love that it will help

 

(42:04): it will help your way. It will help if you are in a crunch for care syndrome or burnout, but even just for all of us who have such full lives right now, I D know about U Venus, but between my phone and my iPad and my computer and the mail and all the things that are going on in the it's like, it feels a little overwhelming how you feel that way right now.

 

(42:29): Definitely. Which is why I definitely my time away from my electronics

 

(42:35):\ Yeah, just shut it all down. And I had to do that earlier today. Just go for a walk in nature, look at the dragon flies and the trees and the birds. And so anyway, this has been a great conversation. I think it we've covered a lot of important topics. You're such a role model for women everywhere. You accomplish so much, and you do it with such style and equanimity, everybody listening. I've been around Dr. Venus, and she's just the most calm, humble, loving person. You would never know that she's accomplished all the things that she's accomplished and that she helps so many people. And I think you just walking in the world, being who you are, inspires women and people everywhere to do their best and live their best lives. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your wisdom and your story, a very personal story and everything that you have to offer. Thank you so much.

 

(43:37): I do appreciate that. And thank you. You've lifted my spirits today.

 

(43:42): and we do have a free download that Dr. Venus has for you. We will have the link in the show notes and it is her. Do you wanna tell them a little bit about it? 15 minute, better body blueprint. What are they gonna find there?

 

(43:59): You're going to find some very simple steps. There are actually five hacks that you can add to your daily life that you can accomplish with just 15 minutes of your day. That will help you be healthier, hopefully happier because you are healthier and feeling really, really good. So I think that it's gonna be super helpful for you if you're really wanting to achieve that, that better body and you're crunched for time. So just gimme 15 minutes. I'm not asking for that whole, all the treadmill,

 

(44:30): Just gimme 15 minutes. okay. Now, before we go, I have to share something. I just saw on the prep sheet that I did not see before, and I cannot believe this. So one of the things Dr. Venus put on the prep sheet is that we could talk about her returning to competition at age 50. There is no way you are 51st off. Oh my gosh. So y'all you must load download her better body blueprint. Cause literally we've been at masterminds together and I thought she was 30 years old. So now I just saw this. I didn't see at age 50. So you for sure. Wanna check out her tips. Thanks so much for joining me, Dr. Venus. Thank you. And thank you all for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast with Dr. Kyrin. I'm so glad you chose to spend some time with us today. Hopefully you learned something that you can put into action in your life to start moving your health towards the optimum health that you deserve. It is your birthright. So hopefully it was entertaining, but mostly educational and inspirational. Pick one thing, take action today, and then share your results with me on social media. And until

 

(45:51): Next week

 

(45:52): I will see you. Peace, love and hormones. Y'all

 

(45:55): 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.

 

► Get FREE access to The 15-Minute Better Body Blueprint by Dr. Venus Ramos.

Simple Steps to Upgrade Your Health In Less Than 15 Minutes A Day

CLICK HERE.

 

► Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try?

It might be time to check your hormones.

 

Most people don’t even know that their hormones could be the culprit behind their problems. But at Her Hormone Club, we specialize in hormone testing and treatment. We can help you figure out what’s going on with your hormones and get you back on track.

 

We offer advanced hormone testing and treatment from Board Certified Practitioners, so you can feel confident that you're getting the best possible care. Plus, our convenient online consultation process makes it easy to get started.

 

Try Her Hormone Club for 30 days and see how it can help you feel better than before.

 

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Delay, Dont Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle

Do you want to improve your health and lose weight? Are you tired of feeling sluggish and bloated? If so, then it's time to try intermittent fasting!

 

Intermittent fasting is a powerful tool that can help you reset your metabolism, burn fat, and improve your overall health. But it can be tough to get started.

 

That's why we're excited to have Gin Stephens on the show today.

 

Gin Stephens is the author of the NY Times and USA Today bestseller Fast. Feast. Repeat., and Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle, an Amazon #1 best seller in the weight loss category, as well as Clean(ish): Eat (Mostly) Clean, Live (Mainly) Clean, and Unlock Your Body's Natural Ability to Self-Clean (2022), another Amazon #1 bestseller in several categories. Gin has lived the intermittent fasting lifestyle since 2014, losing over 80 pounds. She is the host of 2 top-ranked podcasts: Intermittent Fasting Stories and the Life Lessons podcast (w/Sheri Bullock). You can join her private community by going to ginstephens.com/community.

 

Gin will share her secrets for success with intermittent fasting, including how to overcome obstacles, what to eat (and what not to eat), and how to make fasting a sustainable lifestyle.

 

In this episode, you'll learn:

 

► The benefits of intermittent fasting

 

► How to get started with intermittent fasting

 

► How to overcome obstacles to success

 

► What to eat (and what not to eat) while intermittent fasting

 

► How to make intermittent fasting a sustainable lifestyle

 

So, if you're ready to learn how to lose weight, feel great, and take control of your health, then this episode is for you! Tune in now and start your journey to better health today.

 

(00:00): 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.

 

(00:53): Hey everybody. And welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. I have a special guest you're gonna love when I met her recently at one of our masterminds. I loved her immediately and you will too. She is a wealth of knowledge and just so warm and relatable and has such a gentle way of making what I can kind of make really complicated, pretty easy and simple to follow, which is a gift. So I'll tell you a little bit about her, and then we'll get started. Gin Stephens is the author of the New York Times and USA Today Best seller, Fast. Feast. Repeat., and Delay, Don't Deny: Living an Intermittent Fasting Lifestyle, an Amazon number one bestseller in the weight loss category, as well as Clean(ish): Eat (Mostly) Clean, Live (Mainly) Clean, and Unlock Your Body's Natural Ability to Self-Clean (2022), another Amazon. Number one best seller in several categories. Jen has lived the intermittent fasting lifestyle since 2014, losing over 80 pounds. Choose the host of two top rank podcast, Intermittent Fasting Stories and The Life Lessons podcast with Sheri Bullock. And you can join her private community by going to ginstephens.com/community. Welcome Gin.

 

(02:18): Well, so nice to see you. Good to be here with you today.

 

(02:22): Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here. And we are doing a live podcast interview with masterclass. So some of the ladies from my midlife metabolism programs are here and they're gonna get to listen and watch live and then ask questions later, which is a super fun benefit of being in my programs. So I think they'll really enjoy that. So how did you get started with intermittent fasting? It sounds like you were overweight. What was going on for you?

 

(02:54): Yeah, I was actually obese and , it's a hard word to say, right? I was 210 pounds at five five, and you know, I have a long weight loss, weight loss story, just like so many people do that involves lots of years of yo-yoing, right? Probably most women and men these days can relate to that. And I was always looking for a way to lose the weight and keep it off for good, but it never happened. You know, I, I thought about this recently and it just struck me, you know, I've been at my goal now since 2015, I've been in the same goal range, wearing the same clothes. This is the first time I'm 53. I just turned 53. This is the only time in my life from birth that I have maintained a stable weight for a period of time. Cause you know, the first, you know, whatever it is, 18 years you're growing.

 

(03:42): So I was growing and then right for the next years I was yo-yoing. I mean, there was always a time when every year I was getting bigger than I was dieting, then I was gaining and I was losing and it just kept going. And like probably so many people listening the yo-yo years get, get higher. Right. You lose some, then you gain more, then you lose a little, then you gain more. And so that's pretty much what happened to me. You know, I did all the things starting from my first diet. Really. I was counting calories during college. Like so many of us were mm-hmm and my first like real diet though, I think was the low fat era. When I graduated from college, it was the early nineties. So I started with the low, low fat loss. A lot of weight, looked awful, ate a lot of snack Wells oh my gosh.

 

(04:29):I remember those. And also, do you remember SpaghettiOs had zero grams of fat, zero grams of that 11 on spaghetti and snack Wells, which is certainly not what, what they meant with eat low fat. Right. But that's what I was doing. Probably most people too, but I just kept trying everything over the years, you know? And it got wackier and wackier from the HCG diet lost a lot of weight gained even more back. I took doctor prescribed diet pills. It was super get those. They'll give 'em to you. You lose the weight long as you keep taking 'em. Right. But that was no good, but it basically, I trashed my metabolism with all of those diets. Now I first heard about intermittent fasting, probably around 2009. You know, I was the person that would go to the Amazon weight loss category and look at all the books that were bestsellers and see what people were doing.

 

(05:21): And I would buy them. And actually I would first read the comments, right? What everybody said on Amazon, looking for that next best diet. So it's no surprise that I stumbled upon intermittent fasting and I would dabble in it here and there from oh nine to 14. But you know, we didn't know anything about it. Back then. Mm-Hmm everyone who was writing about intermittent fasting in the early days all said it works cause you're eating fewer calories. So here are some ways to eat fewer calories through intermittent fasting. And there was like a five hour window that was Dr. Burt hearing's fast five plan. There was alternate daily fasting. You could do. You were having a down day followed by an up day. You know, one day you did it one day, you didn't. And but every single plan talked about, it's just calorie restriction in an eating window or every other day.

 

(06:08): So I would dabble in it. But you know, I didn't understand so many things. I know now I didn't understand about insulin. I didn't understand about being metabolically flexible and what that means. And so I dabbled and my body never became adapted to fasting any of the times that I tried it. Cause I didn't give it long enough. Mm-Hmm I also didn't understand something. I now call the clean fast, which you can talk about a little bit later, but basically I lived in the hard part and it never got to be something that felt easy or good mm-hmm so I just kept dieting and all those years still wasn't doing well until finally in 2014, I went on a family cruise and we were in the Caribbean for seven days. It was a wonderful trip, but I looked at the pictures of me with my family and like those formal night pictures on a cruise ship.

 

(06:59): Mm-Hmm yeah. I was like, who is that in the picture? I looked like myself, but like inflated, like someone had put a pump in my mouth and my whole body just felt inflated. And I remember on that trip, we did this wonderful excursion where we were hiking up the Mayan ruins and it was really hard to carry my body, which was 80 pounds heavier than it is today. Up those Mayan ruins up those steps. I was like, I just can't do this. And so I was just miserable the whole time. So I came back home and said, this is the time I've gotta do something. Well, I turned to HCG one more time. and of course, you know, I was like, I can't do this ever again. I can't do this ever again. So I quit that. And that summer, August of 2014, I found my way back to intermittent fasting for the last time.

 

(07:43): Meaning that I stuck with it. There's the difference. I stuck with it and I never quit doing it. And so I wanted to lose 75 pounds. I lost those 75, went on to lose about five more. And I've been maintaining the loss since 2015, which is wow. Astonishing. Because like I said, I had never been the same weight season after season after season. So that's, what's, what's changed for me is maintenance has been, you know, pretty easy. My honesty pants get a little tight. I know what to do. You know, I've now been through menopause. I went through that at 51 and yeah, my body just keeps feeling great and intermittent fasting is not so secret.

 

(08:27): Well, not so secret secret, that sounds like a book. So I know everybody will dive into the details, but I know some people are thinking really Jen, you didn't exercise and work out at the gym, like crazy. Really Jen, you didn't, you know this, that or the other, none of that.

 

(08:43): No. And you know, really, I've never been someone who loved to do a lot of exercise. And interestingly enough, I had my DNA analyzed through 23. Me ran it through a couple of different third party websites. That'll tell you things about yourself. I was so not surprised when it came to exercise, my DNA report said not likely to lose weight with exercise and some people get the opposite. Some people have a genetic profile where exercise is required for them to lose weight. But for me, I mean, I, I do exercise. Don't get me wrong. I'm now doing water aerobics. We just moved. I do water aerobics every single day that I can get to it. And I'm an active person. I'm not sedentary, but exercise has never been that. Like I never once started an exercise program and bam, the weight came off. It's always had to be something else.

 

(09:30): Right. Okay, great. So let's dive into it. You talked about when intermittent fasting first came out, there were different people with different plans and you kind of bopped around and tried different ones. Mm-Hmm talk about what was the plan that you initially started with? Are you still with that? What are the details kind of, and then also maybe break down some lingo. I think hopefully most people have heard of intermittent fasting so they know what you're feeding window needs, right? You're fasting interval, things like that, but maybe they don't so feel free to fill in the basics. I'm always doing the podcast as a listener and some people are gonna be newbies and others are gonna be experts. So I try to keep them all along for the ride. So feel free to detail us.

 

(10:13): All right. Well the most common intermittent fasting approach is the daily eating window approach, which is formally known as time restricted eating, which some people like a lot better because you know, the word fasting is a little scary. You know, I didn't make this up. There's a saying that that goes along with fasting and it's brilliant. And the saying goes like this diets are easy in contemplation, but hard in execution. Right. You know, we've all like thought about a new diet, oh, this is gonna be fabulous. But then we crash and burn. Cause it's really hard to keep up a restrictive diet long term. Well, fasting is completely opposite. Fasting is hard in contemplation, but it's easy in execution. It only sounds like it's gonna be hard. You know, what was really hard was all the diets that I was doing when I was eating, you know, small meals all throughout the day that was miserable.

 

(11:02): The low calorie diets I did before. But with intermittent fasting, once your body adapts and you find what really works well for you and your body is metabolically flexible. Mm-Hmm you get to figure out what your ideal eating window is, what time of day that works best for you. We're not all the same. I have an evening eating window. Some of my foundations, I mentioned earlier with Dr. Burt, hearing's fast five approach and he's 19 five. That's what he did himself. And that was one of the very earliest. I think that was the earliest book out about eating windows. He just kind of figured it out and he didn't start eating till five and he had a five hour eating window. So that's fast five. He started five. You go for five now. Of course, that's not exactly how I do it. I don't wait till five to open my window, but that's what worked for him.

 

(11:50): So his program was wait till five, then have a five hour eating window. He's like, or you can move it around. However you want. Mm-Hmm , which is really what I did. So a five hour eating window is a great eating window length for me. And I feel better when I opened my window in the afternoon today I opened three 30 and I had like a little snack. And then I had dinner with my husband before we started talking today. We usually don't eat till around seven, but I ate a little earlier today just for y'all mm-hmm and, and my window is closed. So I probably had a three hour eating window today. And that's just how it worked because by the time we're done, I'm not gonna want to eat again. And I've had enough. I'm not hungry anymore, but it's a very flexible way to live.

 

(12:31): But just this morning, you know, you mentioned, I have a podcast called intermittent fasting stories today. I interviewed, I think it was number 249 on the podcast and she has a morning eating window. She opens her eating window at seven 30 in the morning and she has a light breakfast. And then she has a really hearty lunch around one o'clock then she closes her window and that's it. And then she fast till the next morning. So she has about a six hour eating window every day. And that works really well for her, but hers is in the morning. So, you know, if you hear people telling you, here's how you must do it, here's how you must structure your day. Here's when the best time to have it is ignore all that. My mission in life is to teach people that you're very much a study of one when it comes to how long your eating window should be, how long your fast should be, what you're eating and your eating window, all of that is gonna be very individual for you. And I want people to feel empowered, to experiment and find what feels right to them. I have a chapter in my book, fast FET repeat, and it's called tweak it till it's easy. And I mean that mm-hmm, , it's your role as someone who's trying something to tweak it until it feels easy till it feels like a lifestyle, because when you find what works best for you, it really does become an easy lifestyle.

 

(13:50): Yeah. I hear that from people I've tried it and my biggest challenge, and maybe we can talk about this a little cause I'm sure I'm not the only one is with the exercise. I work out a hard first thing in the morning. And what was happening is I was trying to open my feeding window in the afternoon and I was working out like a feed in the morning and I just started having, literally I noticed my skin sagging and then someone said to me, well, you're probably losing collagen cuz you're not getting enough protein cuz you're working out like that. I was like, you know what? That's true. And so how do you navigate this with exercise?

 

(14:29): Well, again, that is you haven't found your sweet spot. You, that was obviously not your sweet spot. And also I would like to ask when you were fasting, were you fasting clean? What were you having to drink during the fast

 

(14:42): Water?

 

(14:43): Okay. Just water. Well then that's good. That's that's important. Cause a lot of people are not. So I wanted to throw that out there, but you know, it sounds to me like perhaps with the amount of working out that you were doing waiting until afternoon to open your eating window was not your sweet spot.

 

(14:59): Right?

 

(14:59): You gotta squeak. It feel it's easy.

 

(15:01): But my challenge is so I need to eat because I'm gonna go work out, but I'm really not hungry until, so it's like,

 

(15:10): Well, so the issue was the skin sagging and that was it.

 

(15:14): No, I also didn't feel good. Okay.

 

(15:16): Well if you didn't feel good then that's not a good sign. You wanna feel good? Yeah. Cause the key is you wanna feel good, but like for me, and I guess I'm doing water aerobics. That's not maybe as intense as what you're doing, but a lot of people in the fasting community are able to work out hard and then keep asking for hours. How long were, did you try it? How long did you give it?

 

(15:35): Oh gosh, I'd have to look back. But it was for a few months.

 

(15:38): Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well by then, you know, you would expect that you would be adapted by then. So it sounds like to me, perhaps your eating window, wasn't best for you to wait till the late afternoon.

 

(15:49): Yeah. So I know that's one thing I struggled with. I've heard other people talking about it too. And then the other concern I know a lot of people have, maybe you can speak to, this is getting enough protein in, in a shorter eating window.

 

(16:04): You know, that's an interesting question. We do get that a lot. And something to keep in mind is not all of our protein needs have to come from the foods that we're eating. Now that might sound crazy. So let me explain. You've heard ology before, right? Yeah. Otology is our, body's basically it's our body's recycling and upcycling system, but I was an elementary teacher for 28 years. So I like to explain things in a simple way. It's our body's upcycling program. So when you're in the fasted state, your body is looking around, well, nothing's coming in, let's see what's around. And so your body breaks down old proteins and recycles them and can use those old proteins to build new things. So when you're fasting clean, now, if you're eating all day long, like breakfast, snack, lunch snack that actually Downes Autophy and downregulated Autophy, it gets worse and worse.

 

(17:01): The older we get mm-hmm . And so, you know, living in the modern world where we are eating all the time, most people are down regulated. Autophy leads to a lot of the problems that come along with aging. But when we're fasting, especially when we're fasting clean, we have increased Autophy. So Autophy is upregulated. We're better able to recycle those old junky proteins. So I'm able to build muscle. When I, when I just started doing my water aerobics in the past month or so since we just moved to a new, a new place, new neighborhood doing the water aerobics, I am building muscle, working out in the fasted state every morning, just doing that water aerobics. And I haven't increased the amount of protein that I'm eating, but I mean maybe I have without realizing it because I also am a big believer in the protein leverage hypothesis. Have you heard that that before?

 

(17:49): No. Talk about that.

 

(17:51): All right. Well, I can't remember who came up with a protein leverage hypothesis. Was it professor Nokes? I'm not sure Tim Nokes maybe, but basically it says that we have in our bodies, like we're a lot smarter than we give ourselves credit for our bodies, let us know what they need. So if you're not getting enough protein, your body is going to crave more protein until you give it what it needs. And so, you know, if, if you were like, you're eating and you're finding that you're unsatisfied, that might be your body saying, Hey, we need more protein. It's not gonna let you not get enough protein over time. And so, you know, when you think about what I said, auto, our body is recycling the protein plus during your eating window, if you are hungry for protein, we just really might not need also as much as we've been led to believe Dr. Jason fun. I'm sure you're familiar with his work. He has a great blog post about that. I think it's called how much protein is excessive or something. Mm-Hmm . And basically that people are always worried about not getting enough protein when really it's less of an issue than we realize.

 

(18:59): Okay. So is that something that you usually recommend that people track? How many grams of protein they're getting? Yeah. So it's more of an intuitive, let your body decide what it was. Well,

 

(19:09): You know, really, like I said, our bodies are pretty smart and I haven't noticed muscle loss. Like I said, I'm 53. I don't do anything harder than water aerobics. with my little weights in the water and I've not had trouble with muscle wasting and I've been doing fasting for years now and I was going to happen. It would've happened, right?

 

(19:29): Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Definitely would've but I know that's something

 

(19:32): That I have large communities and I left Facebook in early 20, 21 and we had almost half a million group members when I left. And one other thing about fasting is when, when you're fasting clean, we have upregulated human growth hormone. So when you have upregulated human growth hormone and you have a lot of apathy going on and you're nourishing your body well during your eating window, you're absolutely going to be fine. You know, if you do notice that, oh gosh, you know, maybe I'm losing a little muscle, just add a little 13, but you don't have to count it. It doesn't have to be that hard. We've got people doing all sorts of things in our community, building muscle, like crazy, just eating intuitively with their bodies and not counting in a single macro.

 

(20:17): Yeah. Let's dive into that. Cause we're so we come from that calorie counting culture, the macro culture and this many grams of this and this many grams of that. And people oftentimes will even say to me like, well, how many grams of protein carbs fats should I be getting and what types and they want, they want the rules and I'm pretty much an intuitive eater. So , but I will tell people if they ask, so what is your take on that? Well,

 

(20:45): I mean, how did people ever survive before we had ? I mean, right. I mean, like if you go back in time, you know, people were not like dropping dead from if food was plentiful, any environment in the world where food was plentiful, people just knew what to eat and how much to eat. Right. They did not make it hard. And if you go to like the blue zones, now that mm-hmm, , you're familiar with the blue zones. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm five pockets in the world. National geographic has researched them where people live to be over a hundred. If you walked into some of those blue zones and said, let's talk about macros. They would look at you. Like you're nuts. Those people are living to be over a hundred. They're not counting a single calorie. They're not counting a single macro they're living long and healthy lives. And there's a lot of factors that go together to make that happen. But they're eating real foods like their ancestors did. Mm-Hmm and they're not counting a thing.

 

(21:41): Right. And so that's how you usually teach and work with peoples just intuitively. But there are some people who would try that and they would go for the Hogan dos and the Ben and Jerry's and you know, all the things.

 

(21:54): Here's the beautiful thing about intermittent fasting. There's something we call appetite correction. And Dr. Bur hut hearing came up with that phrase as well. But it's just a beautiful phrase. And it means that your body will direct you to what you need as far as how much food you need. And also what you know, most of us find when we're intermittent faster, as you, you know, people may start off eating the standard American diet, but over time your tastes change. Yes. Weirdest thing, you actually tune back into your hunger and satiety signals. Our bodies do not count calories. Our bodies count nutrients. So when you are intuitive and you are not just cramming every emotion down all day long with food, like I'm gonna say, I used to do when I was obese, I was eating for morning till night, because of course that was also what we were told to do.

 

(22:46): We were told to eat breakfast within 30 minutes of your feet, hitting the floor and have frequent snacks, cuz that would boost your metabolism. That's what we were all told and how come I was 210 pounds. Right? I was doing all the things. And so I could not hear any signals from my body at that point. But now that I'm an intermittent faster, like, oh the Brussels sprouts look good. And so you may start off eating the standard American diet, but over time, it's amazing how your body directs you to like the first time you eat something that used to be your favorite thing. Like I can remember the first time I had a, a Starbucks, pumpkin spice latte after I'd lost the weight and been maintaining for a while. And that had always been my favorite, you know, when it was latte season and my window was open one day I was at target, there was a Starbucks in there. I'm like, I'm gonna have a pumpkin spice latte and my window was open. It's gonna be delicious. And I tasted it and I'm like, why does this taste like bug spray? This tastes awful. And I'm like, they have changed the recipe of no, they didn't change the recipe. my taste buds changed. The more real food you eat, the more you're fasting and living that lifestyle, your body just, it really changes in a way you just couldn't expect.

 

(24:01): Yeah. You know, for me it was CBOs. When I weighed 2 43, I would eat Cinnabons

 

(24:07): And those are not even good. Are they? I had one in an airport in like maybe 2018 cuz you know, it smelled so good. I was with my sister, we were flying down. It tasted like, like poison.

 

(24:18): Yes. Like poison. It tastes like chemicals,

 

(24:21): Chemicals. Exactly.

 

(24:22): Right. So I love the intuitive and I noticed for me, if I'm not stressed, I will intuitively eat very healthy things. And it's only when the stress comes that I want sugar.

 

(24:35): They're looking for soothing. Right.

 

(24:38): They're right. All right. So we talked about that. No macros, I loved what you said. That's a quotable. Our bodies do not cap calories counts, nutrients mm-hmm . And then in terms of, you know, you hear so many things, are you also recommending a flexible kind of intuitive window that changes all the time based on how you feel or do you find that people do better when they set it and stick to it? And

 

(25:07): That depends on the person that's gonna be very individual. There are some people that need more structure just because if it's too loosey goosey, then the next minute they're not fasting anymore. Right. Right. Like it's so flexible. They forgot to do it. So in fast Fe repeat, I have something called the 28 day fast start. And that is a period of time when people are, are learning how to do it. Your body is developing the skills that it needs behind the scenes to flip that metabolic switch to fat burning. And so that you're metabolically flexible. And so it is very much more like here is how you're going to do it day to day as your body is adapting. But then after those 28 days, that's where the tweak till a dizzy part comes in, and you start to figure out what works for you.

 

(25:50): And there's a lot to be said for mixing things up from day to day, you know, like one day, if you have a one-hour eating window, cuz you were super busy and crazy that day, but that doesn't mean you need to do that tomorrow. Tomorrow. You're probably gonna need a little bit longer. So we don't want to be too rigid and overs restricting for our bodies. So it's really like for me, I would just stick to, you know, as long as I have like a five-hour eating window, pretty much from day to day, I could move it around. When I was losing weight, that really worked well for me. Other people find they might need an eight-hour eating window. Maybe five hours is too restrictive, but someone else might find they need a four-hour eating window because they tend to overeat. If they eat for five, it just really is all about learning about yourself and responding to how it's going.

 

(26:35): I love that. That's something that I talk about all the time I called your body. She, you know, talked to her what she's gonna tell you what she needs, but we are so socialized out of listening internally and we're so externally directed. So it really is this re acquaintance. And it sounds like you are really teaching that too. Like your body knows what it needs and what it doesn't need. And if

 

(27:00): It doesn't feel good, it's telling you for a reason, there's something that is not feeling good. Like what you were doing before your body told you that was not working. That was not your asking protocol for whatever reason you hadn't found it yet.

 

(27:14): No, and I haven't, I haven't

 

(27:15): Tried it person.

 

(27:16): No, see that's a thing I'm not hungry till the afternoon, but I like to work out. So I haven't figured out how to fix that. So I just stopped doing it. I'm like, this is not working. I don't feel good. I'm not doing it, but

 

(27:29): I guess it might be hard for you to work out later in the day. Yeah.

 

(27:33): Yeah. It's a morning thing. So, well, I'll figure it out. I'm wondering you have this great podcast where people talk about their stories with intermittent fasting. Could you share some of your favorite stories from people you've had on the podcast?

 

(27:48): You know, one of the most fun that I've had that I enjoyed so very much, I talked to a guest and she had been on extreme weight loss that extreme makeover, weight loss edition, Jackie arena is her name. And she's been in my community from way back when we were on Facebook. She's been in my group now she's in my off Facebook, private community. And she told her story, she lost over 200 pounds. Mm-Hmm in a year of doing extreme makeover, weight loss edition. And she talked about, and it was fascinating to talk to her because when I wrote fast Fe repeat, I talked about weight loss and all of that. Are you familiar with the Minnesota starvation experiments that they

 

(28:28): Take? No, what's

 

(28:30): That well in the Minnesota starvation experiments, basically trying to figure out, you know, how much food do people need to live? What happens if we really restrict how much that people are eating? So they had these conscientious objectors who weren't fighting in world war II and they're like, we'll use y'all. And so they put 'em on this, like I think a college campus in Minnesota and they studied them and what these were men and they put 'em on 1500 or something calories a day mm-hmm , which we probably are like, that's just what you do. You eat 1500 calories a day, but they studied them on this. What they called that a starvation diet. And so it was fascinating. I, I write about this in the introduction to fast FEAS repeat, but it talked about all the things they went through. Like they started to become obsessed with food.

 

(29:13): They started to have feelings of wanting to bend and all these things that were happening to their bodies as they were restricting, restricting, restricting. And when I talked to Jackie, I mean it was like textbooks when the, the experiences that she went through going through that extreme weight loss, cuz it was basically just eat less and less and less and less. As you continue to lose that much weight, you have to just eat less and even more, less, more restriction, less and less and more and more working out. We've all seen those shows. And so by the end of it, I mean she had tanked her hormones. She was no longer having cycles. She had textbook. I mean obviously the Minnesota starvation experiment was men, but everything that they went through, as far as like on that, that starvation regimen she was going through and it took her years to get her hormones back in a good place.

 

(30:05): And so, I mean that just lets you know how dangerous diet culture is, but she, after that, you know, she regained weight obviously, cuz your body is fighting back mm-hmm whenever you have, you know, they also did the biggest loser studies did you? Right. I saw that one. That was so interesting. Similar kind of a thing. They restricted so much that everything's, their metabolism slowed down. And then of course, as soon as they couldn't keep up that level, bam here came the way back and then their metabolisms were slower than when they had started. Right. So it was just fascinating to talk to her. And then she found intermittent fasting how that has been completely different and how she has finally been able to lose the weight through intermittent fasting and found peace around food that, that she didn't have before. And it was just so interesting to hear the, all the theory basically she's lived it all the, the bad diet theory followed watching.

 

(31:03): She's a living example. She's a living example of every single theory that I talk about in fast fees, repeat of like, here's what they found. Here's what the research says. She's lived it and all of her experiences really show it. So I loved that episode. I mean, I've talked to, like I said, 249 today and most of them are just normal people. One that I really loved was Dr. Mark Matson. Are you familiar with his work? No, I haven't heard of him. You may have heard of his work and not known it. Do you remember in the end of 2019, when there was that big new England journal of medicine article about fasting, it came out on like December 26th, 2019 and suddenly, and fasting was all over the news. Yes. People were talking about how healthy it was. Well, Dr. Mark Matson was the author of that new England journal of medicine article.

 

(31:51): And it turns out he wrote it because a lot of doctors were having patients starting to come in to their practice and saying I'm doing intermittent fasting, but the doctors didn't really know a lot about it. So they were like, we need to know more about this. And so the new England journal of medicine reached out to Dr. Mathson and asked him to write that review article. So it's a review article. So it covers all the science, all the, the best information that's out there. And it was really amazing when that came out in 2019, because I was running these Facebook groups and when people would join, we're like, why do you wanna join? And people always said, I wanna lose weight. I wanna lose weight. But all of a sudden people started saying, I wanna get healthy. I wanna live longer. I wanna prevent Alzheimer's because suddenly the conversation was shifted and people realized intermittent fasting is a very healthy way to live.

 

(32:38): And I really credit mark Mathson for that. But he came on my podcast and intermittent fasting stories and talked about his story. And you know, he worked at John's Hopkins for his whole research career mm-hmm and he actually started doing intermittent fasting in the eighties wow. As grad student or something and just how he, he naturally gravitated towards, but he studied fasting and the effects on the brain, he's a neurological researcher, and you know, the anti-Alzheimer's properties and all the things like that and how it helps our neurological health in so many ways. But it was really fascinating to talk to him. And then everything in between just, you know, normal people who are fascinating. I've talked to doctors who live a lifestyle. I've talked to the mom next door, the dad next door. And I love talking to everybody because in 249 stories, everyone has something new to bring to the table to talk about how intermittent fasting has changed their life.

 

(33:31): I love that you mentioned something earlier about this starvation experiment, which I didn't know about. That sounds horrible. What is the difference with calorie restriction, where you're eating all the time and the food obsession and the wanting to binge versus having a shortened eating and a great

 

(33:52): Question. And I love that you asked it. Okay. So let's talk about how our bodies get fueled. Most people, especially now, if you look around, most people are carrying a whole lot of energy around in their bodies, right?

 

(34:04): a lot of energy equals fat. You're

 

(34:06): Carrying a lot of calories or like, like a calorie suit, right? People are wearing a calorie suit and those calories, if you can access them, the calories you have in stored fat, they provide great fuel for your body. And the key is you wanna be able to tap into those fat stores and use that energy. Well, that's where low calorie diets, where you're eating all day long. That's where it breaks down. We're not meant to eat tiny little amounts of food all day long, like a little drip, drip of a feeding tube or something. We're not meant to do that. And it has to do with the hormone. Insulin. Insulin is our storage hormone. And when insulin is high and when insulin levels are high, like if someone has insulin resistance type two diabetes, basically you have high fasted levels of insulin. Your insulin's high all the time.

 

(34:57): Insulin is anti lipolytic, meaning it locks down your fat stores. So when you have high levels of insulin all the time, you have a really hard time accessing your stored fat and burning it for fuel. We have all experienced that when you're doing the low calorie diet and you're having your tiny little breakfast and you're drinking your diet soda, and then you're having little snack. You are keeping your insulin high all the time. And I'll talk in a minute about why diet sodas do that and why they're not part of the clean fast, because they cause an insulin response. But in the meantime, your insulin is up, up, up all the time. You cannot tap into your fat stores very well. It's like they're locked away, right? So you are not well fueled. You're having a low calorie diet, but because insulin is high that the low calorie diet isn't fueling you and you can't get to your fat stores.

 

(35:47): So now your body has to, downregulate your metabolism, it's in a panic. Well now how fasting is different. Yeah. Once your metabolically flexible and you're fasting and you're keeping your insulin levels low during the fast, suddenly your body can now see all that fat too, and your body can start using the fat for fuel. And so just as I talked about your meeting, some of your protein needs through Autophy you're meeting some of your fuel needs through the fat that your body is burning. So we actually have one study that was really interesting. They followed people over a 72 hour F. Now I'm not recommending people start bathing for 72 hours. I eat every day. But when they were studying the people over these 72 hours, they looked at what their metabolic rate was doing. And everyone had like a baseline metabolic, right when they started.

 

(36:38): And then as time went on, their metabolic rate actually went up over the course of this fast. It was a 72 hour fast, like I said, and then it reached a peak at a certain point. And then it started to trim slowly down again. And so by the time they got to the 72, the end of the 72 hours, their metabolic rate was actually higher than it had been at baseline, but trending downward. So, you know, what does that tell us that tells us that fasting, when we start tapping into those fast stores, our bodies get going and they can actually ramp up that metabolic rate, but it also tells us that we don't wanna just keep fasting forever and ever cuz if you follow that trajectory down, I mean, eventually it would've gone below baseline. So that's why extended fasting for days and days at a time that is gonna affect your metabolic rate over time. So you wanna find the balance between fasting and feasting and that's really important cuz you can over fast and that's not a good thing.

 

(37:36): Yes. That's a great explanation. Thank you for explaining that. And I think some people might not know what metabolic flexibility is. I mean, you've kind of described it, but can you talk a little bit more about that?

 

(37:48): It's really how we're we're designed to be. Our bodies are designed to be able to use whatever fuel source is available. At the time we have the ability to store fat for when we need it. Our body can take that stored fat and our livers can turn fat into keytones, which fuels our brain beautifully. And we have plenty of energy to do what we need when there's, when there's not food around. But when food is available, we can flip that switch and we're, you know, using that food for fuel. So what happens when there's no food for fuel, your body flips the switch back to using your fat stores. So we are meant to be metabolically flexible and have the ability to switch from one source to the other. And we lose that metabolic flexibility in today's modern world with the eating all the time, nobody ever has to flip that switch to fat burning. And that is why, you know, I talked about the 28 day fast start when people have to let their bodies adapt. That's why, because when you first start your body, it doesn't wanna do that. And you also may not even have those fat burning enzymes built up your body just really cannot do it yet. And you also have to get insulin down over the over time. But at first you you're gonna be hangry. You're gonna be tired. Your body's like, come on. Where's the latte that I'm used to having at 10:00 AM.

 

(39:04): where's

 

(39:05): The breakfast burrito from the drivethrough or whatever it is. And eventually though your body's like, all right, fine, fine. I'll go tap into the fat store. Then it flips that switch. And there you go.

 

(39:19): Yeah. It's kind of like, you have to be your body's parent and like, Nope, you're not getting that. Nope. You're not getting that. Exactly. You know, the kids are like, can we have a cookie? Can we have a cookie? And I'm getting to know dinners coming. And they devour the Brussels spout cuz they didn't get the cookie. So now I'm

 

(39:35): Not, your body wants the cookie. And if you don't give it the cookie, if you eat your fat,

 

(39:39): eat your fat, go eat fat. Right. Right. So there's so much to talk about with this. I definitely want to recommend that people get your books, read your books during your community. I just love the titles that you have. There's so descriptive and clear. And I think that makes it very accessible to pretty much everyone. And I love that and you're so real and it's just great. So we'll have links to the books in the show notes. We'll also put a link to your community so that people can go there and actually grab links to your podcast too. And put those in there so everybody can listen. Thank you for staying up late to meet with us.

 

(40:26): It's not really that late. I just don't usually do things that I have to be active after dinner. Cause I had dinner usually after dinner I'm in wind down mode.

 

(40:36): Got it. Got it. Well, we will get you there soon. We'll have a few questions and answers any last things that you wanna share with everyone before we wrap? No, I didn't.

 

(40:46): Didn't talk about the clean fast, which is super duper important. Okay. Go ahead. Have during the fast and a lot of people have tried intermittent fasting and for whatever reason, they were not successful. And when I talk to people who are like, oh yeah, I tried that. It didn't work for me. There are usually two things that come up time. And again, one, they didn't give it long enough. Mm-Hmm and two, they were not fasting clean. So let's talk about what it means to fast clean. You know, I just talked about how we wanna keep insulin down. That's so important. So we can tap into our fast stores. Well, what causes to have an insulin response? Eating? Obviously we're not eating we're fasting, but also it turns out the taste of sweetness. If our brain thinks food is coming in, right? Even if it's a diet Coke, our brain doesn't understand the cephalic phase insulin response is when you taste something like that, diet soda, your brain says, we know what sweetness means.

 

(41:38): It means that sugar is coming in because in nature, everything that is paired with sweetness is like, you know, sugary or fruit or honey or whatever. Right? And so your pancreas goes ahead and pumps out some insulin because it knows you're gonna have high blood sugar soon. But then again, you're having this diet soda because it has zero calories. No sugar comes in, but you still have high insulin. And so you wanna keep your insulin down so your body can tap into your fat stores. So avoid anything. That's sweet. See all these miracle sweeteners. You're like this one doesn't raise your insulin. This one doesn't your brain doesn't know the difference. It doesn't milk fruit. It's like, no, it just tastes sweetness. And so you wanna avoid anything sweet. Don't put anything in your coffee to add sweetness or your tea. Don't add anything like that.

 

(42:26): But, and you wanna avoid things like lemon, apple, cider vinegar, anything that might have a food like taste, avoid those things. Cinnamon, all that avoid all that. The second goal is we wanna have, we wanna be tapping into our fat stores for fuel. So you don't wanna take in sources of fat during the fast don't put the butter in your coffee, the cream in your coffee. Don't put anything in your coffee. other than the coffee, don't take exogenous. Keytones cuz if you're taking in another source of fuel, your body's gonna use that. It's not gonna tap into your fat stores. We don't just wanna have keytones. We wanna make 'em from our stored fat. Yeah. If you're putting MCT oil in your coffee, your body's gonna take that MCT oil and turn it into keytones. But you want to get your keytones from your own body, fat, not from something you're putting in your coffee cup.

 

(43:16): And so the third thing we wanna do, our third fasting goal is we wanna have that increased auto and to do that, we don't wanna take in any sources of protein because protein, halts auto. So don't have bone broth or anything like that, you know? And if you start, you know, listening to people here and there there's all sorts of really bad recommendations, like oh 50 calories, doesn't break a fast. That is not true. Like in that case you could literally just like eat a jelly bean every five minutes and like fasting and that is not fasting. And some people are like, well what about a little splash of cream? Because this fasting expert over here says it's okay to put in a little splash of cream. Well, what is cream? Well it's dairy. If dairy is nature's perfect food for growing a mammal baby at the time of their life where they're growing the most rapidly.

 

(44:06): Does that sound like fasting? No, no anti dairy. Keep it in your eating window. If, if dairy works for you, but dairy is in no way, shape or form fasting, neither is almond milk. That none of that is that's not fasting yeah. So stick to the clean fast plain water, plain sparkling water, no flavors added. Don't add anything in there for flavor. It's not supposed to be a flavor adventure. We're taking a break from that. You can have all the flavor adventure you want in your eating window. You can have black coffee, plain tea. Now why can we have the black coffee and the plain tea? Well, those have a bitter flavor profile and that is not associated with the cephalic phase insulin response.

 

(44:48): That is very important. Thank you for explaining that. And you know what I realize we didn't talk about which we gotta hit on. This is like you said, when the new England journal article came out in 2019, people shifted from it. Wasn't about weight loss. They wanted to be healthy. Right? Can you just hit on the highlights of all the diseases that intermittent fasting is recruiting to help

 

(45:12): I cannot because the list would be so long. I

 

(45:15): Know like,

 

(45:16): You know, as a medical professional yourself, anything that's connected with insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome inflammation. I mean, that's like the root of like everything, right?

 

(45:27):Everything,

 

(45:27): Insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, inflammation. Those are the things that intermittent fasting helps with. So anything that would be, if you go downstream from whatever medical condition and the downstream

 

(45:40): Problem,

 

(45:42): If you ever read B's book why we get sick?

 

(45:45): I have not. No,

 

(45:46): You gotta read that next. Get that book. Okay. If you will, if you haven't read fast, Pete, read that, but then need to read then Dr. Benjamin Bick. Men's why we get sick. And it basically makes the case. He's like the premier insulin resistant expert in the world, I think. And it basically talks about how insulin resistance, how it CA and he walks you through it, you know, how does it affect us in menopause? How does it affect, oh yeah. His health. How does it? And it's really the root of everything. So getting your insulin and can under control is just so important. It, it will, I mean, you type two diabetes. I mean, I think people say crazy things on the podcast that have been helped by, you know, I mean simple things. Yes. But people have had crazy results that you wouldn't even expect. I talked to somebody last week, she was wheelchair bound due to, she had some autoimmune type things that were going on and intermitent, festing, she's not been in a wheelchair. I mean, she's now like gained her mobility bag and I mean, it it's like you would never write all this in a book, cuz it sounds like too far fetched, but when people tell you their own story, you know that it's true.

 

(46:51): Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, I always say that insulin is that loose thread on the knotted ball of yarn of all your hormones and you gotta get it right. And I'm a big believer in, there are two prescriptions we need as women, as we age, we need the written one for natural hormones and we need this kind of life prescription. So thank you very much, Gin Stephens for coming on the podcast and sharing your wisdom with all of us.

 

(47:20): Well, I love doing it

 

(47:22): and thank you all for joining us for another episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast. Hopefully you've heard something today that has sparked your interest and maybe you're willing to take the plunge and try it start with one of Gin's books, fast beast, repeat or delay don't deny, join one of her communities. Try out her 28 day program, do something don't just listen and say, oh yeah, that's great. I'll think about it later. I want you to take action. So I wanna hear about it on social media. Yeah. Jump on Instagram, Facebook and let me know what you're trying and how it's working for you. And I will see you next week. Thanks so much for spending this time with us until then peace, love and hormones. Y'all

 

(48:09): 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.

 

► Clean (ish) Supplemental Materials

Download the free companion pdf that contains all of the reflect and take action pages from Clean(ish), as well as the activities from part 3 of the book. CLICK HERE.

 

► Gin Stephens Membership Community:

The Delay, Don't Deny Community. CLICK HERE to join.

 

► Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try?

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Understanding The Key Of Your Oral Microbiome For Better Health

We all know that our gut health is important for our overall health, but did you know that our oral microbiome is just as important? In fact, research has shown that there is a strong link between our oral health and our overall health.

 

For example, studies have shown that people with gum disease are more likely to develop heart disease, stroke, and other chronic illnesses. Therefore, it's important to take care of your oral health in order to maintain your overall health.

 

David Lin is a leading expert on the oral microbiome and he's going to be joining us on the show today to talk about how we can maintain our oral health and why it's so important for our overall health.

 

About David Lin:

David Lin PhD is Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Bristle. David received his PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, his MS in Biology from California State University, Fullerton, and his BS in Biotechnology from University of California, Davis. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Genentech before becoming a Scientist at Twist Bioscience. He has over 10 years of molecular biology, microbiology, genomics, and synthetic biology, and infectious disease experience across academia, public health, and industry.

 

In this episode, you'll learn:

 

• What the oral microbiome is and why it's so important for our health
• How to maintain a healthy oral microbiome
• The link between our oral health and overall health
• How poor oral health can lead to chronic illnesses
• And much more!

 

So tune in now to learn how you can maintain a healthy oral microbiome and improve your overall health!

 

(00:00): "Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere." - David Lin.

 

(00:08): 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.

 

(01:04): 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, David Lin PhD is a co-founder and chief scientific officer at Bristol. You might think of Bristol as bristles on your toothbrush. This is a different kind of bristle. Maybe you've heard about the connection between your oral microbiome and your overall systemic health like heart and brain and more. Maybe you haven't, but whether you have, or haven't, you need to know about this. And if you know a little bit about it, you need to know more. So David is gonna share that with you today so that you don't just sit there worrying like a rocking chair about your health and what can you do, but you really get some actionable information, some steps that you can take to improve your health and taking care of your oral microbiome is one of those things that you're not gonna hear about at your dentist that you could be doing to move your health to the next level.

 

(02:09): So I'll tell you a little bit about David and then we'll get started. David received his PhD in microbiology and immunology from the university of Michigan and armor and his MS in biology from California state university Fullerton, and his bachelor's in biotechnology from university of California Davis. That's a lot of science. He is a science nerd. Let's just say . And he loves talking about the oral microbiome. He was a post-doctoral researcher at Gentech before becoming a scientist at twist bioscience and has over 10 years of molecular biology, microbiology, genomics, and synthetic biology and infectious disease experience across academia, public health and industry. This is just the guy you want informing you about how to understand the key of your oral microbiome for better, better health. Welcome David.

 

(03:08): Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.

 

(03:10): Yes. I think that most people are not aware of how this small little real estate on their face, their mouth affects the entire rest of their body to such a high degree. So I really wanted to have you on to highlight that for them and they can get some tools and start taking action to improve their oral health so they can improve their overall health. What introduced you to the big impact that oral health has on systemic health?

 

(03:44): That's a good question. Well, I'm a scientist by training and through many years of school, I've learned to a lot about microbiology, a lot about bacteria and basically the way that they do things and how they interact with your body. And recently, at least in the past decade or two, there's been a lot of research that has shown that the gut microbiome is really important for your overall health. It helps with digestion. It controls a lot of your mood and it does a lot of things, but what's been largely ignored is that there's actually another microbiome. That's the second largest and most diverse microbiome in your body. And it's your mouth. You swallow a hundred billion bacteria every day. You are what you eat and those bacteria are in your mouth. And they do so much for us that we really don't. We don't acknowledge. Did you know that oral bacteria, they actually control some of your blood pressure the way they do this is by reducing nitrate. So there's this circular connection in your mouth where they can reduce nitrate. And that increases the nitrate level, nitric oxide levels in your blood. That's just one of many ways that they help you do things. 

 

(04:49): You know, that's interesting. I know some people, women are listening and saying, oh, maybe when I go for my blood pressure check at my doctor's office, I should ask them to check my oral microbiome. I think the average doctor would just look at you, like, what are you talking about? It would . They probably wouldn't know what you're talking about in terms of clinical utility. I know you're affiliated with a company that does testing of the oral microbiome. What percentage of doctors would you say are savvy about this interaction and actually know to order tests like this recommend tests like this work with tests like this?

 

(05:25): Very, very few. So I think one of the things about medicine is that it's relatively slow moving. There's a lot of tradition that's been built into not only systemic medicine, so, you know, your physician, but also dentistry. Dentistry is a really old practice and they haven't introduced almost any new technologies for like a hundred years. We still operate in the same way we've been doing for a long time. And that is we treat the symptoms as we see them, which is really unfortunate. There's very little preventive measures that we use to really tackle some of the biggest problems we have. I mean, cavities and gum disease, everybody still gets them. It's like, I think 70% of individual over 65 will have periodontal disease and it's entirely preventable. It's just a bacterial infection. That's a very long term bacterial infection. And if you catch it early enough, you don't have to get it.

 

(06:13): Same with cavities. Cavities are very specific bacteria. They colonize your teeth, they create acid. And unfortunately practitioners nowadays, they, most of them really don't use any of these kinds of tools to screen their patients. I think some of that may have to do with medicine itself, just the way that that we practice. And the other part of it is really that research moves very slowly. So academia to translate a research, finding into something that's really useful for people takes a very long time of development. And hopefully, you know, my company bristle, we're trying to address that at least for oral health.

 

(06:47): Yes, it's so true. It can take decades. I think that the average is something like three decades and sometimes it's way longer than that, for instance the use of fluoride and toothpaste and water, how does that affect the oral biome?

 

(07:05): Yeah. So there haven't actually been any very compelling trials regarding the use of at least every day fluoride, which is a very low concentration in your toothpaste, but generally it's not a very powerful antimicrobial. It really doesn't do that much in killing bacteria. But what it really does is to help you remineralize your teeth because fluoride actually helps to reserve calcium onto your tooth surface. So it helps protect your teeth that way. But I think what's more exciting is not just things like fluoride, but there have been newer compounds that have been out where people have shown kind of that they don't have systemic effects like fluoride does, but they can still help re minimalize teeth. So something like nano hydroxy, appetite, even things like arginine. So arginine is, is just an amino acid, but it helps prevent cavities. And, and the way it does it is by actually modulating the oral microbiome. It's a very interesting connection.

 

(08:05): And is that when swallowed orally Swed orally and how is it administered that it's shown to decrease cavities by altering the microbiome? Yeah,

 

(08:16): So arginine it just, if you chew it and if it sticks around on your teeth, I'm not actually sure if there have been any tests for ingestion, but if you chew it or if you apply it as a toothpaste, it acts as a prebiotic and it activates this pathway called the arginine D M a pathway, which increases the pH of the mouth and the, the way it modulates the oral microbiome is that there's some bacteria that can metabolize the Aine very well and turn it into ammonia, which increases the pH. And that actually prevents the acid generating bacteria from colonizing the tooth because acid generating bacteria actually really like acidic environments and ammonia is the opposite. So it, it prevents them from growing.

 

(08:56): Okay. And so what are some everyday habits that people might have that might hurt their oral microbiome and what are some habits they might have that might improve?

 

(09:07): The first one is using alcohol based mouthwash. That's really bad for you actually. So alcohol is an antiseptic that we use, you know, on our hands. We use it to disinfect things, but it turns out that the microbiome of the mouth, there are very important, good bacteria in there that are important for preventing the bad ones from growing and those good ones. We can kill them by using alcohol based mouthwash. So there was a study recently that had shown that routine use of over the counter mouthwash was actually associated with hypertension. And the reason for that was because these nitrate, reducing bacteria were actually completely going away and they didn't come back because these people were using mouthwash twice a day. And so you never give a chance for good bacteria to populate. And you ended up with dysbiosis of the mouth. That's

 

(09:54): Fascinating that the regular use of the alcohol containing mouthwash increased hypertension, fascinating. What are some other habits that we have that hurt our oral microbiome?

 

(10:05): Definitely our diet. This probably isn't unique to just the oral microbiome, but the amount of sugar and processed food that we eat is just off the charts now, compared to where we were even just 20 years ago, even 30 years ago. And so the rates of cavities have gone sky high. And so that's like the main thing that I tell most people it's well, can I fix right now without having to buy anything or actually like change my habits besides diets gotta be diets. Like the diet is the only thing that is entirely controllable and will fix of most of the problem. Stop eating sugar. just the simple sugars are a huge problem.

 

(10:44): just stop. Just say no,

 

(10:46): Just

 

(10:47): Say no. Okay. And how about flossing and brushing? Just gotta say it cuz some people still didn't get the memo.

 

(10:54): Oh my gosh. It's really surprising. Right. And I think we always recommend people brush twice a day floss once a day, we actually published a little bit of research of our own, of what flossing does to the microbiome. We actually saw that flossing frequency correlates with improvements in oral health and the oral microbiome. So when we measure the microbiome, what we're talking about is there's very specific bacteria in your mouth that we call them periodontal pathogens. And they're the ones that cause gum disease. And we measure these in your saliva at Bristol. And we measure them against the bacteria that prevent them from growing. And we found that people who floss once a day had very low levels of these bacteria, of the bad bacteria in their mouth compared to the good ones, but the people who didn't floss at all, it was an inverse correlation.

 

(11:40): They had very low levels of the good ones and a lot of the bad ones, why this happens. We think it's because most of these pathogens they're called a robes, which means that they can't grow in the presence of oxygen. They really like your gum line. And they like growing into the pockets of your teeth because there's no oxygen there. And so by flossing you can introduce oxygen. You can also mechanically remove some of the dental plaque that's down there that protects from the environment. And really you want those pockets to be exposed to saliva. You want them to be exposed to anything you don't want them to just be rooted in bacteria in pathogenic bacteria.

 

(12:15): Can we give some of them names? Cause I know it would be easier they could hear. So what are some of the good bacteria that we want to foster that we wanna make friends with?

 

(12:25): Yeah. So there's a few bacteria such as amorous pair of influenza. Your, the names are not that important, but most of them are aerobic. So they're strep. ATOC minus. I think if you go to a website, you'll, you'll find a list with a way to spell them out. But generally these are they're in your mouth. And the way that they protect you is actually really interesting. They make a set of compounds called bacteriocins well, not all of them, but some of them do. And this, these bacteria sins are really good at killing other bacteria, specifically killing anaerobic bacteria. It's really interesting. They cause oxidative stress in those bacteria. And that's a, a mechanism where oxygen can kind of is extremely detrimental to their growth. And some of these bacteria sins act as stress inducers.

 

(13:15): So the AOBs wanna hide little cavities and cause problems. Mm-Hmm as acidosis, which is then gonna start eroding teeth. What about mouth breathing and the health of your microbiome, right? There's been recent data about the number of people that are mouth breathers and how it can adversely affect your microbiome and mouth taping has become a thing. Can you talk a little bit about that?

 

(13:42): Absolutely. So mouth breathing is a really interesting phenomenon and it doesn't really directly affect the oral microbiome in that it's the mouth breathing itself, but the active mouth breathing actually reduces the amount of saliva in your mouth. And saliva's really important because it has antimicrobial peptides. It has antibodies in it, it has minerals and most importantly, it just helps to keep your mouth clean. So you're constantly shedding saliva from, I think it's like hundreds of salivary glands in your mouth and they really helped to just shed things. It helps to coat your teeth, coat your gums and make it so that the bacteria in your mouth are kept at low levels. Because once you get outgrowth, that's when problems really happen. And by mouth breathing, you're drying up the salivary glands. You're reducing the amount of saliva on your teeth and your gums and dry mouth is the main cause of oral microbiome dysbiosis, which

 

(14:38): Is cause is that for most people?

 

(14:39): Yeah. A lot of people have dry mouth and they're not actually aware dry mouth causes, gum disease, cavities, bad breath, extremely common, but people think they wake up in the middle of the night. They've been mouth breathing that it's totally normal. And they're like, eh, I'll just drink a glass of water. But you know, this constant act of mouth breathing and having a dry mouth every day leads to dysbiosis.

 

(15:00): And for everybody listening, before you go seal your mouth up with a piece of tape, read about how to do mouth taping please. Cuz I know, I remember when I first heard about it and I thought mouth taping, I thought it meant a piece of tape, a crushable mouth. So don't do it until you read about it and learn about it. So my people are mostly women 40 to 60 and over and they're wanting to know what they can do to improve their health. And how does they've learned about the microbiome and the gut? And now they're wondering, how is this David? How is this oral microbiome affecting the rest of my health? Yeah, what's it doing?

 

(15:40): Oh my goodness. Where to start? So we briefly discussed how the oral microbiome helps control blood pressure. Right? We talked about nitrate, but there's so many other ways. So one really big study that came out a few years ago showed that there's certain bacteria in your mouth that have actually been implicated in the progression of Alzheimer's disease. So this bacteria is called Pomona gingivalis. And since then there's been a lot of studies and looking at whether or not they can actually prevent Alzheimer's disease just by either killing these bacteria, removing them or blocking their activity. And companies have come up from this, just looking at Talis. So that's one way these bacteria, they end up in your brain somehow and then

 

(16:24): Any early data from any of those studies you can share or nothing yet. 

 

(16:29): I think it's a little early, there was one clinical trial that had very early data that looked promising where they had. So Ponas, gingivalis creates this protein that cuts other proteins and this drug targets that protein, that cuts stuff. And they saw that. I think there was a mild decrease or a mild improvement in cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer's disease by using a drug like this. But it was probably a very small study. And I think they're expanding that now.

 

(16:56): Okay, great. And then I cut you off cuz you were getting ready to talk about something else systemically.

 

(17:00): Yeah. The oral microbiome's been implicated in so many different things. So another big one is cancer, both in oral cancer and surprisingly colorectal cancer, which I guess is surprising to most people. But when you think about, you know, a hundred billion bacteria being swallowed every day, it becomes pretty obvious that there's this one bacteria called fuser bacterium nucle. And for some reason, this little bug is really, really good at causing inflammation. And what it does is it happens to be in very high abundance in people with tumors. It really likes the tumor environment. Why we don't really know why, but people have shown that people who have fus nucle in their tumors, those tumors grow a lot more aggressively. And the prognosis for those people is much worse than the people who don't have, have SLE.

 

(17:51): Okay. What about heart disease? You know, that's the number one killer of women over 50. Most women don't worry about it. Believe it or not. They're more worried about breast cancer, but they should be concerned about their hearts. How does the oral microbiome interact with the heart?

 

(18:07): Yeah. Park sees the number one killer in the United States. And there's actually a lot of interactions between the oral microbiome and the heart. Somehow bacteria in the mouth actually end up in the bloodstream. We don't really know how this happens, like a lot of things, but for instance, atherosclerotic plaque, the plaque that's high cholesterol and it builds up inside your arteries and, and can cause a blockage. People have found oral bacteria in there. They found Fusor bacteria, NLE, Pomona tr Tova a lot of these gum disease pathogens just happen to make it into the bloodstream. We think that the people who have gum disease, they're more susceptible to this happening because the gum disease actually causes damage to the gum tissue and allows them to invade and, and get into your bloodstream. But the mechanism for how this happens is still very unclear. There's also other bacteria in the mouth that can cause infecti endocarditis. It's a pretty rare condition, but somehow again, the bacteria in the mouth, they end up in the heart and they cause an infection.

 

(19:05): Interesting. So I'm curious, has anybody done any studies on longevity as it relates to the makeup of the oral microbiome?

 

(19:14): Nope. Not yet. Not

 

(19:16): Yet.

 

(19:17): Very good question. I wish we did. so I will say that people have looked at oral health in longevity, but not really the oral microbiome longevity, right? Like there's a very strong correlation between good oral health and longevity. Mm-Hmm because the people who can eat longer, eat solid foods or good foods for longer and to do better. And so it wouldn't be surprising if you found that the people that live longer have very healthy oral microbiomes because in order to have healthy teeth who need a healthy oral microbiome, but so far no study definitively.

 

(19:52): Okay. Interesting. I was just curious, and I know that at Bristol, you guys offer tests for the oral microbiome. Can you talk a little bit about what people could do to be proactive about assessing their oral biome and promoting a healthy oral biome?

 

(20:13): Yeah. First thing I always say is take a test because that's really the only way you can get data around it. So it's kind of like for instance, for diabetes, a lot of people don't know their status for diabetes. And the only way they know is by going get a blood test, and it's the same for oral health. You really don't know there's no lab tests or have there hadn't been any lab tests for oral health until bristle came along. And so you really need to get the data around it, to know what your starting point is to know what you need to improve because there's very specific recommendations we can make based on the makeup of your oral microbiome. So, I mean the first thing about being proactive is fix your diet brush twice a day, floss once a day, reduce your mouth breathing, try and eat more nitrate foods with nitrate in them. So there's leafy greens and let's see eat more arginine. If you can. Other than that, the recommendations we make could be for specific probiotics to help you improve your oral health. But we don't know which ones, unless you take a test.

 

(21:12): Okay. So on the test, what kind of information do you get?

 

(21:15): So we give a variety of scores that are based on your oral microbiome. Really. We look at all the bacteria in your mouth. Eventually we'll also report on the different viruses and fungi because we know that they're also really important for oral disease. But right now, if we're talking about just bacteria, you get scores for your cavities. So we tell you what kind of bacteria in your mouth can contribute to cavities. What kind of bacteria in your mouth can contribute to gum disease, which ones in the mouth that are also implicated in gut inflammation and bad breath. And we're adding, we're adding new features all the time. So,

 

(21:50): Okay. So it's not one where you're gonna get specific bacterial names. You're basically going to get some type of score. I'm looking at the sample report where you'll get a beneficial bacteria score. And then it will say how you stack up next to healthy people. You get a tooth case score and you'll be told how you stack up compared to people who are healthy people with tooth decay and you'll get a gum inflammation score. And you'll be told compared to people with inflammation, healthy people and you, and then also halitosis bad breath, you'll get a score. And then based on the results you'll get, excuse me, diet and hygiene tips. Is that right?

 

(22:31): More than that too. Okay. You'll get specific recommendations for probiotics, if possible, and different kinds of supplements that could help you and included in each of the scores. We also do give the bacteria names. We give your abundance of each of the bacteria and how you relate to other people for those different bacteria. And a lot of times it's really hard to interpret that kind of information. Like I can tell you that you have, you know, Pomona gingivalis, but what does that really mean for you? So we try to contextualize it into these scores.

 

(23:01): I see that I just have a basic, and then there is a breakout where it does show you your bacteria related to these different items and you get custom recommendations based on this. So I didn't see that before.

 

(23:14): Okay. And each test with the recommendations, we also provide a coach. So we have a dental hygienist on staff who is educated in the oral microbiome and what you can do to improve it. And we provide one coaching call to everyone who, who takes the test so that you can better understand how you can improve oral health, because we know that everybody is different. And so the recommendations we make may not entirely be applicable to you because you have a very specific need. And so we try to build around personalized medicine because we don't think there's a one size fits all approach for anybody really.

 

(23:46): Right. That's so true. And I love that you give a coaching appointment, they can go through that. I really think that in this day and age, where if you're trying to be proactive about your health and be as healthy as you can now and going forward in the future, this needs to be a part of your plan, right? Not just visiting the dentist twice a year and getting your teeth clean, not just brushing and flossing, but really assessing your oral microbiome as well as your colorectal microbiome and doing all the tests that I talk about. I say all the things, I really think this needs to be a part of it. How did you become interested in this topic? I always wanna know why people do what they've been.

 

(24:28): So I was trained as a scientist. I did my master's studying antibiotic resistance, so I studied bacteria. And then afterwards I wanted to do something different. I went to study a virus dengue virus during my PhD. And I decided, well, at the time I went to university of Michigan where there's a very big consortia of people studying the gut microbiome. And so the neighboring lab actually studies the interaction between the mouth and the gut. They use a lot of tools to look at how bacteria get from the mouth to the gut and whether or not they can cause disease. And so they published a few studies and that was kind of the start of my foray into it because I used to, we do a thing called journal club. It's basically research sharing between the different labs and, and that's where I first got interested. And so when I came back to California, where I grew up, I decided I wanted to study something with the microbiome. And what I decided to, to embark on was this very complicated interaction between the microbiome, the immune system and neurons. So neurons can interact with the immune system in the gut. And it's really important for actually maintaining homeostasis and keeping a healthy gut. But the way it happens is extremely complicated. 

 

(25:45): Podcast level, like very,

 

(25:47): I'm not even sure I could explain it very well. Basically the summary at the time of me studying this was that neurons actually create proteins that help recruit immune cells. So there's different types of cells and the immune system that live within your tissue. So normally we refer to immune cells as in your blood and they help to monitor the, the health of your body. But some of them actually live inside of tissues and there's very specific. They're called macrophages. They can sample the environment, they eat stuff, and then they tell your body what's there. And it turns out that neurons, if you get rid of the neurons, then these macrophages also go away. And so these macrophages are in the gut and they're held there by neurons and they help to sample the environment of the gut to tell you, do you need to have diarrhea because there's something bad in here or are you okay because neurons also happen to control the motor function of the gut. So it's a very interesting interaction.

 

(26:45): Yes. So much science behind all of this. I think it's fascinating. I think what's important for everybody today to get the message. Is that the, or the bacteria in your mouth matter for your, the rest of your system matter for your brain health and do you get dementia or not matter for your heart and do you get heart disease or not matter for many aspects of your health and that to be proactive, you need to test not guess that's something I always say. And treat, I'm just wondering, it sounds like they've found association for instance, with certain of these pathogenic bacteria and hypertension, but have they proved causation and done any interventional studies to say that if you change these bacteria, then your blood pressure will improve. Yeah. Yes.

 

(27:33): , that's a really good question. That's so what people have done is they've introduced nitrate as a supplement in the mouth. And what they look at is two measurements. The first is salivary nitric oxide. So how much nitrate is being reduced in your saliva and how much nitrate is being reduced into your blood? And so a few studies have very small studies have gone into adding these supplements and it modulates the microbiome in a way that shifts towards more nitrate, reducing bacteria. And that in turn increases your nitric oxide in the blood. So not only have they done a depletion study, where they looked at the people who took mouthwash and it killed all the bacteria, mm-hmm, , they've also boosted them and saw a boost in the blood. Very

 

(28:15): Interesting. I love that. That is and Pally. We're just, this field is in its Macy and we're gonna have all kinds of designer, probiotics and treatments, hopefully for the mouth in the near future. I will look forward to that and we'll have in the show notes, a link to your blog, and then you do have a discount code for anybody who wants to order a test. So we'll have a code Kyrin, one 50, we'll have the link you can use in the show notes. If you're driving, please don't try to do it. Look it up now , we'll have the link in the show notes. We'll have the code Kyrin one 50 for 15% discount. And you can also look at a sample oral health test report. Like the one I was looking at we'll have the link for that. And I asked David before we started to share a couple quotes on life that he liked to with me. And, you know, I love a good quote. So they're all great, but I'm gonna share this one. Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.

 

(29:23): So are you not a worrier? you not worry at all? I

 

(29:27): Try not to be. I really try not to be. I really like this quote, cuz worrying is the same as doing nothing. Right? It's kind of like your test don't guess by worrying, you're really just sitting there and guessing you don't really know what's gonna happen. Why don't you go do something about it? Just go test, go find out.

 

(29:43): I love that. It is yeah. Test don't guess do something. It's just, it's rehearsing possibilities. And, but we can do it. I wonder if abnormal microbiome in your mouth is associated with increase in worrying. That would be an interesting study. David, you might wanna do that one.

(29:58): There were a few that had suggested some mental health issues were associated with oral microbiome changes. So there was depression, schizophrenia. Alzheimer's like we just talked about a number of things. Yeah.

 

(30:10): That is fascinating. I think there's gonna be way more data coming out on this association. I mean, we've got the vagi biome. We have our ocular biome. We've got them all over.

 

(30:22): We didn't even talk about the vaginal microbiome, the oral microbiome, the same bacteria that cause bacterial VA happen to be the ones that are in the mouth that cause gum disease.

 

(30:31): How fascinating, who knew? Do you guys offer any testing for that?

 

(30:37): So the, we do have a report on the bacteria. We don't call them out explicitly, but I think one of the, one of the scores we'll probably add in the future will be something like that will be a vaginal dysbiosis score because there's been a few studies that have shown the same strains of bacteria in the mouth. They actually end up colonizing the gut and then in turn, they end up in the vagina. Right. And so if you have dysbiosis either in your gut or in your mouth, that could definitely translate down to the vagina too.

 

(31:07): Fascinating. So fascinating. David Lin, thank you so much for coming on the hormone prescription podcast and sharing this information with us. I very much appreciate it.

 

(31:19): Absolutely likewise, me too.

 

(31:22): And thank you all for listening to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Hopefully you've heard something today that you'll take and put into action to improve your health. It's great to have education atta, but ultimately what's gonna make an impact on your health and your life are the actions that you take. So go check out David's blog, maybe order a test kit, do the test, get the information, take action. And remember if you wanna mouth tape, read about how to do it properly first and I will see you next week. Thanks so much for joining me until then peace, love and hormones.

 

(32:02): 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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How To Upgrade Your Brain At Midlife To Thrive

Do you feel like your brain has been on a downhill spiral since you turned 40? You're not alone. The mid-life crisis is real, and it's affecting more women than ever before.

 

But there's hope! In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we chat with Dr. Louann Brizendine about how to upgrade your brain at midlife and thrive.

 

Dr. Brizendine is a leading expert on the female brain, and she shares her insights on what's going on inside our heads during this time of transition. She also gives us practical tips on how to improve our cognitive function and protect our mental health as we age.

 

Louann Brizendine, M.D. completed her degree in Neurobiology at UC Berkeley, graduated from Yale School of Medicine, and did her internship and residency at Harvard Medical School. She has also served on both the faculties of Harvard University and University of California at San Francisco. She founded the Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic at UCSF. Her New York Times bestseller, The Female Brain, and its follow-up, The Male Brain, continue to be read around the world. Her eagerly anticipated book, THE UPGRADE: How the Female Brain Gets Stronger and Better in Midlife and Beyond, is out in April 2022. Now, as the Lynne and Marc Benioff endowed professor of clinical psychiatry at UCSF, Dr. Brizendine continues to speak, write, research, and consult.

 

In this episode, you'll learn:

 

• What's going on inside our brains during the mid-life transition

 

• How to improve your cognitive function as you age

 

• Tips for protecting your mental health in midlife and beyond

 

• The latest research on the female brain and how it changes in midlife

 

• And more!

 

If you're ready to learn how to upgrade your brain in midlife and thrive, this episode is for you!

 

(00:00): In this episode, find out why the upgrade previously known as the transition is the gateway to the best years of your life.

 

(00:09): 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.

 

(01:03): Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you for joining me today. You're gonna love my guest today. Dr. Louann Brizendine, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about her and then we'll get started. But first let me say, she's talking about the upgrade. What is the upgrade for women? Well, it used to be called the transition, which meant all kinds of bad things, bad outcomes, things you don't want for women, but she is reframing this time of life as being the upgrade. And I love that because it's really true. You are getting an upgrade, not a downgrade, despite what you might have been told or you've been led to believe. And she's gonna tell you how to maximize that so that this can be the best time of your life. Dr. Louann has some amazing credentials. She completed her degree in neurobiology at UC Berkeley.

 

(01:57): She graduated from Yale school of medicine and she did her internship in residency at Harvard medical school. You can't get much better credentials than that. She served on the faculty at Harvard and university, the E of California at San Francisco. She founded the women's mood and hormone clinic at USCF. Her New York times bestseller the female brain and its follow up. The male brain continued to be read around the world. Her eagerly anticipated book, the upgrade, how the female brain gets stronger and better and midlife and beyond is now out and available. She is the Lynn and mark Benioff and do professor of clinical psychiatry at UC S F. She continues to speak right research and consult. Please help me to welcome the brilliant I'm Dr. Louann Brizendine. Welcome Dr. Louann to the podcast.

 

(02:50): Thank you, Dr. Kyrin, nice to meet you and see you. And I'm just delighted to be here with your audience because you know, your people are my people

 

(02:59): Yes, our people are the same. we

 

(03:05): Treat the, we treat the same group of patients. I do my medical center. They say Louann treats above the neck and we treat below the waist.

 

(03:12): Yes. I love that. But most people think that they're such a dichotomy there. Well, above the neck and below the waist, there's no relationship, but that's exactly what you talk about in your books is how connected our female hormones are to our brain function.

 

(03:32): Absolutely. I don't think people know that. I think, you know, once you hear it and you understand you go like the light bulb on your head goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course the brain, the pituitary control all the other hormones in the entire body.

 

(03:46): It's so true. And the hormones in the brain and just all the intermixing, which I'm sure we'll get into how vital sex hormones are for cognitive function for brain function. But I wanna start just talking about your book, the upgrade, because I think this is really radical and I'm hoping you can explain to everybody, we always talk about the menopause transition. I actually talk about the menopause spectrum and how it's not a point in time, and you go through this spectrum of change, but talk about what the upgrade is and how it differs from the transition.

 

(04:24): You know, you and I speak the same language actually, because that's why I, with all my patients, I hated those words. Like the perimenopause menopause is cuz it's like, it's, those are medical diagnoses in a way. And they're just a little slice of what actually is happening. It's not the whole woman, this transition that we're going through from like about age, you know, 38 to 48 that we kind of call in the big brackets kind of AKA the perimenopause. Yeah. That's something that's happening just to kind of the, the ovaries and the follicles are, you know, starting to not be as healthy and they're starting to like die off and we lose them, but that's just, that's the medical diagnosis of that transition. So, but I called it the transition because it's, there's so much more that's going on for us women. There's all kinds of relationship, things, emotional things, things in terms of our work life things in terms of our children, that's like, there's all kinds of layers of stuff that's going on in our brain.

 

(05:14): So the transition, and then once you hit finish the transition, you go into what I call the upgrade and the upgrade, AKA menopause it's as you. And I know the definition of menopause actually lasts for one day, right? It's the day, 12 months after your last period is called menopause. It lasts for one day and then the next day you're in post-menopause. So, you know, it doesn't really, these words don't really kind of work for what we experience as women. And so certainly not what our women patients are experiencing. And it's so cool. I mean, once you hit the upgrade, they, after the rock and roll of the hormonal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle, the perimenopause, all of your fertility years, your brain circuits are and your body you're free of that, those waves that crash over you every month. And people don't realize that the hormones are changing, not just stuff in your ovary and your uterus, but they're changing all kinds of stuff in your brain circuits for your memory.

 

(06:12): Remember like three or four days before ovulation, it's a huge estrogen Sur just making you be, you wanna be kind of, you sway your hips a little more. You put a little makeup, it a little sexier. You know what you're doing is mother NA under the hood mother, nature's got you all wired hormonally to go out there looking for the best sperm. You know, those couple of days before ovulation, our sex drive goes up. We're all, you know, we're ready to rock and roll. I've got UA, our hips, actually our voice goes higher, all that stuff. We talk faster, et cetera. And then of course the PMs time comes, you're crashing. You know, you're having all of those irritability and those spurts of anger and tearfulness and my clinic, we call it the crying over dog food commercials sign, you know, we can Boohoo over anything.

 

(06:55): So the cool thing is, is that once you hit the upgrade, baby, that's gone and you've got all of this circuitry in there. That's working really well to just your dance card is open to add new things. You're not gonna have to struggle with your hormones being jerked around. You're not gonna be dealing with fertility hormones. You're not gonna be dealing with being pushed out there, looking for the best firm, whatever it is. You know, you've got all of this incredible space and brain power that comes and is able to like take on new project, new purpose women, lots of women, you know, in America, the biggest number of new businesses are started by women over 50.

 

(07:33): Yes. I always tell women that I work with that. I'm kind of sneaky. Cuz do I wanna help you with your health? Yes, but I'm really sneaky cuz I know you're sitting on gifts that you aren't using and you aren't delivering to the world cause you don't feel good. So if I can help you feel better, then you will get off your assets and give your gifts. And so I think it really aligns with what you're talking about. The upgrade so many women see this as downgrade TBA, oh,

 

(08:08): That's wrong, wrong, wrong. That's no, that is so wrong. And this that's because society is still looking at it that way too. And where as these things start inside us, as soon as we start looking at ourselves as an upgrade, then society starts to follow along behind us. We have to take that for ourselves. We have to claim that territory, claim that for ourselves mm-hmm and it is an upgrade. And once women realize that and start seeing it as like, yes, your fertility years are over, but 50 women that are 50. Now many, a chunk of us will live to be a hundred plus you know, those women that are just starting in the early Perry, you know, a lot of those women will live to be, you know, 110, you know, there's, you've got more than half your life there. So you gotta, wow, you got this whole new chapter. I, I have a chapter in the book book that's called finding new purpose as well. I go through all the rock and roll of the, for women that are younger. I've had women in their thirties, they read this book and they go, oh God, Dr. Luann, thank you. I feel so much better. I thought it was all over when I was 40, you know, there's feeling so hopeful that there is more to it than just like things being, being over when you're 40 or 50.

 

(09:17): Yeah. And so what are the gifts? Why do you call it an upgrade? I get it. But I think there are a lot of women and men out there who aren't gonna get it. So what is new, better, special about this time.

 

 

(09:32): Okay. So let's go back to that jagged up and down of your hormones all during your fertility cycle, remember your brain circuits. So part of your brain circus was one of the little areas called the hippocampus, not the hippopotamus, but the hippocampus. You know, it's a really important area in your brain. If you stuck your fingers right in above your ears, by about an inch into your brain on both sides, that's where they live a little guys, the size of your, you know, your fingertips. But they're really important cuz it's the way you form all your memories. You attach your memories and it's a big memory cognition center in your brain. And every month the estrogen goes up and it sprouts like 25% different connections in that area. And then it gets all born down during the last two weeks when a progesterone comes and pours like weed, killer her on all those connections.

 

(10:17): So it's like building up, taking down, building up, taking down. So that's just one little area of the brain it's happening in other areas too. We don't know that we don't teach that or talk about it yet because the new technology is just being able to show that. So women need to know that that buildup tear down, build up, tear down. It's not letting you stand firmly on the shore. You stand more firmly and see further when you're able to just count on a more stable brain power every day of the month. You're not being jerked around by your hormones anymore.

 

(10:47): Yes . And so you talk about all the benefits that occur. Like we're more relaxed. Our brain is more even chilled. Our moods are more even keeled. Now I know a lot of my people who listen to this podcast are wondering, well, Louann under Louann, are you talking about this is with hormone therapy or without cause they know me. They're listening to me all the time. And I always talk about why doing menopause naturally is a bad idea, the increased risk for disease and what I call midlife metabolic mayhem. And so help them understand, is this something that I'm gonna experience just naturally? Or is this something that I need hormone therapy to help me experience? How do I experience the upgrade?

 

(11:42): Okay. So I wrote this book and I had to stop tiptoeing through the tulips on this issue, right? Cause I was part of the generation where when women's health initiative came out in 2002 women's health initiative, you know, to stopped the hormones for all the women in the country. And I know you and I are seeing all these women now that have had these women that unfortunately went through this transition before we were back to being able to give women their hormones back, we see all kinds of problems. You know, they're getting osteoporosis and the Alzheimer's situation in terms of the actual evidence based medicine on that is being looked at right now. So we don't know some of that piece about the dementia, but a lot of the evidence is pointing to the fact that the brain needs estrogen too on going remember men, men don't fall off a cliff.

 

(12:26): Like we do hormones at that stage. They go on in a 60 year old man and a 60 year old woman. If she's not taking hormone replacement, guess what? Dr. K they have four times more estrogen in their brain than we do at age six. And, and that's why they have increases for prostate cancer. Yes, exactly. And that's what osteoporosis as much as women too, right? I mean, it's just basic biology. And once, you know, listen, biology is destiny, unless you know what it's doing to you. Yes. And once know, once you know what it's doing to you, then you can take appropriate action for yourself. So I tell women, they go, oh, why don't I get breast cancer? If I take hormones, blah, blah, blah, whatever the answer is, no women, the evidence shows that women in the five to 10 year of taking hormone replacement therapy after the change don't have any increased risk of breast cancer, unless you have the breast cancer gene.

 

(13:21): So I basically just test my patients, all their genes. I just test them to see if they have any of the breast cancer genes. And then you're in a different category. But if you're not in that category, then yes, you may safely take hormones after that period of time, that will help you get through that. Now, if you've had a hysterectomy, you're in the, you're in the lucky group, right? You're in the lucky group because you only have to take estrogen. You don't have to take progesterone because you don't have a uterus anymore. So those women in my practice are the happiest actually that they don't have any have to take any progesterones. So the mixing and I talk about that in chapter three and four of the book, kind of the mixing and matching of the estrogen and the progesterone and different aspects of that.

 

(14:00): So yes, I really feel that that women should have the opportunity and doctors should not hesitate to, you know, women that are having difficulty sleeping. Remember the three pillars, right? The three pillars of your brain function, the three pillars of that little stool, three cord stool stool is only stable with three little legs. So one of the big legs is sleep for your brain, cuz remember, and that's why I bring this up in the context of pour my replacement there. Because if you're not sleeping, cuz you're sweating all night, you're up all night long and you're just like, your brain is erect. Now remember what happens in your brain? It's sleep is that all the little cells you've been talking to each other and your brain all day long, chat, chat, chat, chat, they're making all this garbage Gar they're called garbage proteins. They're just like, there's spewing trash around all over your brain.

 

(14:43): At night, those little neurons, they shrink down. They shrink back and they leave these little channels in between the cells where the whole body gets to flush out. They just come out with the hose and it flushes out all the garbage at night when you're sleeping. But if you're not sleeping those cells don't shrink back and you're not flushing out the garbage outta your brain every night. So that's one of the big deals about making sure you're getting good sleep during this transition. And lots of times, as you know, and I know it's like, gosh, a patient who's not sleeping. You put them on estrogen sometimes within a week, they're sleeping well again and their brain is clearing up from that brain fog that the other two little parts of the stool are of course having that Mediterranean type diet. So you keep your inflammation down.

 

(15:26): You keep your nutritional level up while your vitamins up and that extra corner of the stool. And of course the other one is muscles. Remember muscles, the big study on women at age 80, those 80 year old women who had the best cognition had the best muscle function, strongest leg strength, the strongest leg strength, and basically that leg strength and the muscles communicate with the brain. I tell women cuz one of the biggest muscles in our body is the butt muscle, your glute muscle. So I say one of the things I gave this little tip on TikTok and Instagram, that one of the best things for your brain is to do, but squeezes. So ladies, when you're sitting down at your computer, when you're standing, brushing your teeth or in the grocery line or driving somewhere, do your butt squeezes. If you aim for a thousand a day, that's good. I figure if I can do, if you can do a hundred a day, that's good. Keep the muscles going. Cuz the muscles release things into your bloodstream called Mykines that stimulate the brain as well as the whole nervous system that stimulates the brain. So that talk back and forth study just came out last week in the new England general showing people's muscle strength is really a big prevention of dimension. So those are the three, three little stool. Just the little legs on the stool is the sleep, the diet and the muscles.

 

(16:37): Okay. Super important. And that's one of the reasons why I think testosterone is so important to maintain that muscle mass, because like you said, it's related directly to brain health

 

(16:47): Cuz I think that's come up a lot with women and you know, of course all of us, it's not FDA approved in the United States, but the European women have had it for 20 years. European women have a, a compound that just comes in a little like little pump that you pump out one pumpy you run it on your wrists and that's your testosterone supply for the day, but we don't have it here.

 

(17:04): Well we have bioidentical compounded hormones and I'm a big believer in test don't guess. So test the levels and optimize to optimal physiologic levels using a custom compound prescription.

 

(17:19): Absolutely.

 

(17:21): Yeah, but we talk a lot about with men that they lose muscle mass, their dopamine goes down, they feel like they've lost their edge when they go through cuz their testosterones going down. But the same things happen for women too. And really in America we only talk about testosterone as it relates to women's sex drive, but it's about so much more it's about brain health and neurotransmitter balance and muscle mass. So it's, I think it's super important.

 

(17:49): Yeah. I think that it has to be individually tailored made to each woman because I have, I've had a lot of women that you know, that the downside is that you get a little bit, you get more irritable, it's easier to have it's even for women to have road rage road rage on testosterone.

 

(18:04): I think, yeah. If it's too high, you can definitely have that. But if you get that sweet spot, I mean we, women have testosterone throughout our lives and most of us don't have a problem with it. So if we can get it at that sweet spot that's right for each woman, then I think she doesn't have an overabundance of aggressive tendencies or anything like

 

(18:24): That. The DHA can sometimes be okay for some women as long as they don't get acne from it, you know?

 

(18:30): Yes. Okay. So those three pillars I know in the book, boy, you go through so many things. I don't know which to ask you about first let's talk about dementia. So I recently did a, a Ted talk and I, I talked about my mom who has all advanced Alzheimer's and really the only risk factor she had was she had been menopausal without hormone therapy for three decades. And so that's probably her biggest risk. And so hormones are a part of that, but what are other ways that people can fend off dementia, increase longevity and wellbeing.

 

(19:07): So those studies are really being done. And I think that the estrogen replacement, one of the things we look at that why women have more than men is first of all, of course, women live longer, but you know, not that much longer, like, you know, we're at three or four years longer and that's about it. So, but women, for some reason do have more dementia. I have some of my colleagues who are specialists in Alzheimer's and they really think that that women at the transition should definitely be taking estrogen replacement during this transition to help keep their brain active and functioning. So there's just so many receptors in the brain that for estrogen estrogen receptors, like if you just looked at your, you took a picture of my brain right now with like a special filter that just showed you the estrogen receptors all over men, it would look like the United States with a massive COVID outbreak.

 

(19:55): You know, they'd be like if they little dots everywhere, you know, cause estrogen receptors throughout our brain and obviously our body too. So that is one thing I suggest for women, the dementia also inflammation. So we think of that inflammation. I talk about this in the book I talk about in the, I have a chapter that's called, you know, the neuroscience of self care and that chapter chapter six and also chapter 14 specifically talks about keeping your brain healthy and avoiding dementia. And besides the estrogen replacement, there's all kinds of things about inflammation and inflammation does not just mean an infection. We always kind of think of it as meaning an infection, but there's a lot that we're learning about. What's called it's a really little technical turn it's called sterile inflammation. It basically means inflammation without an infection. And that happens in our body all day long all the time.

 

(20:43): And we need to clear out that inflammation all the time. So things like the Mediterranean diet and things like just basically trying to keep all of your vitamin levels at the right level is really very helpful to keeping inflammation down. So anything that you can do, keeping your microbiome and your gut healthy, which is basically comes from eating really healthy fibers. I mean, you do not need to take a handful of probiotics every day. I mean, some people like to take those, but sometimes, sometimes those cause a lot of trouble for people who have small intestine problems and larger intestine problems taking too many probiotics can be a disaster, but some people it can be okay for others. But keeping your microbiome healthy basically comes from eating healthy fibers in your diet, you know, both the soluble and the insoluble fibers. So really paying attention to feeding the wonderful, healthy bacteria down in your colon, cuz they then release compounds that go into your bloodstream right through your gut. So you can help decrease inflammation by feeding your microbiome, the healthy bacteria. I think it kind of like my special little garden down there in my colon that I'm, you know, I just wanna make sure it has the right fertilizer and I right water every day. Just think about it as something you're trying to take good care of and grow to be its most beautiful.

 

(21:56): I remember this book, maybe you do two called my secret garden. Do you remember that book? That's learned about sex? It was at my friend's house and I found this book, my secret God, but now to me, my secret garden is my gut garden.

(22:12): Yes. True. I know, I know. I think of my little babies down there that I'm just trying to like keep healthy and keep feeding them the right stuff and et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, you're absolutely right. That's one of the important things about this secret and microbiome. So that's something else that really can help keep the inflammation in your body down. And we do know that things like alcohol, alcohol really amps up your inflammation in your body and your brain. And it does all kinds of things to basically well increases your risk of breast cancer. It increases your risk of dementia. It's really, I know that's such a part of our culture, but you know, women, we do everything. We women do everything just to try to look healthy and stay healthy at this stage. That's one of the things not in eating like handful of, you know, sweets, like, you know, you don't go through a whole, a box of bond bonds anymore. Do we?

 

(23:01): no, we don't. And I love that you talk about in the book, really the dangers of alcohol, I think a lot of practitioners skirt over it because they don't wanna be the bad guy, but I was just talking with a client this morning and she's like, really? I can't have any alcohol. I said, no, you can do what you want. I'm just gonna educate you about the consequences of the choices you're making. And then actually one of my health coaches who works with me in my program said, everybody's asking me about switching out their alcohol for cannabis. Is that better? I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.

 

(23:37): I think that the cannabis question is really interesting and I mean just in terms of, in terms of its harmfulness to you versus alcohol, I do agree with that first one. I agree that it's probably less, much less harmful than alcohol to your health and your brain actually. However, there's all kinds of things with it that we don't entirely understand right now. I mean, for one thing, it can give you the munch she's really bad. It can make you put on weight, you know? So all of our efforts are trying to keep that the belly fat down, it doesn't help with that cuz it just makes you wanna eat carbs. So, you know, it's like everything in moderation. I mean the best healthiest thing is to switch alcohol to water.

 

(24:17): Yeah. But I used to think I would get the same effects like I could drinking 12 years ago and I would do a yin yoga class after work. And I would feel like I had a glass of wine and you really invoke that parasympathetic nervous system. So I think there are a lot of ways to get around the wine o'clock routine.

 

(24:37): I think once people become meditators are doing yoga or doing, you know, things that are, that are much more stimulating your bagel nerve and your parasympathetic nervous system. When I talk about in the book, the alternate nostril, the nine round NOST thing and also the nurturing moment meditations that I talk about in the book too. There's there are ways that just really calm your nervous system and increase your bagel, nervous system, your parasympathetic nervous system. And actually in Atlanta at Emory university, they have a whole division that basically is researching and teaching the compassionate meditation practices.

 

(25:11): Oh, I love that. And you have so many resources in the book, so I can't everybody listening or highly recommend it and some great stories. You're gonna see yourself in these stories. And I'm wondering if you can share a little bit Dr. Elaine, about what inspired you to write this book?

 

(25:30): I wrote the book, the female brain, and it came out, you know, in 2006. And it was really about from the moment of conception up until the transition until the upgrade, you know, it was at that stage. And the last chapter in that book is called the mature female brain in chapter seven. So it's basically that book sort of stopped about the time to take off on all the things about the upgrade. And I wrote that at a time when I hadn't experienced those parts of life into the upgrade yet. And so when I started going through those years and things myself, I realized, oh my gosh, there's so much more to tell that I hadn't told that so important that has to do with our brains and our hormones and just our entire life and the stories of our life as they basically, you know, chapter eight is also on mothering adult children, you know, mothering adult, you know, teens and adult children and a whole nother thing.

 

(26:21): You know? So the, you know, the female brain book, I have a chapter, chapter five is on, it's called the mommy brain, but that was from pregnancy. You know, it was a whole different look and I hadn't experienced what it's like to try to mother an adult son. You know, I was like, are you kidding? You have to, there's all kinds of landmines you have to learn to avoid. So, so that's the reason I decided to write is there's just so much more that I felt needed to be said. And also the end of the book also goes through what we go through in terms of decisions that we make either with our parents as they're aging. And I'm sure you've had to do a lot of that, which is really painful and very difficult, but it's stuff that we need to talk about. We need to be aware of that stage of our lives.

 

(27:03): It is it's so important and you know, we are the sandwich generation. So I know a lot of women who are between children who maybe haven't left the nest quite yet, and parents who need their time and attention and care. And you talk about the importance of community connection, the epidemic of loneliness, how that's affecting us, what advice do you have for a woman who's navigating the sandwich, ears, getting her upgrade. And you talk about the wisdom phase and she's thinking Dr. Luanne, how do I bring my wisdom? Like I'm just overrun with all these responsibilities. How can you help her navigate this

 

(27:45): Again? You're juggling as fast as you can. When you like with, when you used to have really young children and infants saying you're having a job and trying to juggle, I know what that's like. That's like a little it's really you look back at and like, God, I've got PTSD from doing that

 

(28:01): Too. Oh, my

 

(28:03): Being a doctor being in the early part of your career where you're basically, I was at a university, I was in the shark tank and I was really in the shark tank cuz I was one of the only women. There are all these guy professors and they don't, they don't even know what to do with you. They just think that you're weird. But anyway, , and now you're in a different stage where you've got, like you say some probably mid-teens or teens at home. And then you're also trying to sandwich generation trying to care for. So, and then you're having all this experience of finally being released from all the hormonal pushes and pulls. And you may have some more brain power and some more, you know, you may have some more slots on your dance card that you get to fill, but all they may be being filled up with the needs and care taking of others. And I think there's a time that I have three words to say to women it's called self care, self care, self care, because you can only take care of others really, truly on an ongoing basis from your overflow of being filled up yourself with what you need. So you gotta put your own oxygen mask on first, before you can help others.

 

(29:06): I know it's so true. And I, we say it, but I still see women struggling with that. But I think we can both give you all, if you're listening permission, permission to love yourself first, right? You have a prescription.

 

(29:22): Not the reason it's not selfish is because you've gotta keep your gas tank filled up in order to help others and to help yourself. So you gotta track whatever practice you find. That's good. That's working for you. If you're doing compassionate meditation, you're learning that you nurturing moment meditation that I talk about or you're joining other women. I mean, I think that's women. We get a lot of love and care from our women friends. You know, we end from our, from some of our social engagements and we need to keep the channels open with our girlfriends. Actually, there's the study that, that I talk about in the book about where if you go out twice a week with at least three to four of your girlfriends, you live 15 years longer.

 

(30:02): Oh, I love that

 

(30:04): Shocking number, a shocking number. So it don't feel like it's a selfish thing. If you're, you know, we women, we feel like we need to keep ourselves alive and healthy cuz we feel that we're helping these other people with their lives. And we can't just bail on our life. Cuz we have other people that we love that we wanna care for. And yet we have to learn that it's not selfish at all on the contrary to take really good care of yourself and fill up your own gas tank so that you can put your own oxygen mask on and be able to help others. You must help yourself first and only be able to give to others from your overflow. The only thing you've got to give us on a constant basis is from your over. So ladies fill up your gas tank first.

 

(30:46): Yeah. And you share in the book, I wasn't aware of this, that there's the greatest increase in suicides among women over 60 and it's not being studied or really discussed. I wasn't aware of that

 

(30:57): Really shocking. Nobody's talking, you know, we are all talking about teen suicide, right? I mean, that's the thing that gets everybody's mind cuz it's like it happens at schools and et cetera, et cetera. But, and the alcoholism alcoholism level in women over 60 is skyrocketing. Especially since COVID, it's really, I mean it's a real listen, those women, women 60 plus are in a health crisis right now.

 

(31:20): It is so true. And I think w H I, the women's health and issue study has a lot to do with that. Cuz there's so many women, I think what is the statistic? Less than 5% of women are using hormone therapy and all the consequences that that brings. Right?

 

(31:37): Remember it went from 40% almost being on it to, and when that came out within the next two years, it struck to eight to 5%. And you know, a lot of the women that were seeing that are 60 plus they didn't. And a lot of my girlfriends didn't get it. I mean I did cause I'm a doctor. I had a hysterectomy when I was 53, my girlfriend was my surgeon. She put the patch on me in the recovery room and she says, Laurie, you're gonna do this patch and you're gonna keep it. So, you know, I had the advantage of like having medical care at that time, even though we think about it 2005 was only three years after the w H I or two years after the w H I came out.

 

(32:11): Right.

 

(32:11): And so osteoporosis, I mean, I have so many girlfriends whose bones are just falling to bits. There are osteoporotic, you know? So I just feel like at any rate, it's a crisis and we doctors, you know, you and I we're in this. And I mean, we feel it for our patients, you know, doesn't it make you mad sometimes. I mean, just makes me really mad that this was allowed to go on for so long. This was allowed to go on for 20 years and it's still going on. I have so many patients come to me. I'm sure you do too. That they can't find anybody to give them hormones.

 

(32:42): Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons I created her hormone club, a telemedicine membership nationwide. So women could access, testing and treatment with natural hormones because there are so many doctors still who won't prescribe it and advise against

 

(33:00): It. Why it's not because they don't care for their patients. It's cuz they're scared. And remember for 20 years, the OB GYN profession has not been teaching in residencies. Some of them come out of there with less than one lecture in their whole residency on hormone therapy. They don't even know they they're, they're basically uneducated

 

(33:22): So true. And when I was researching for my Ted talk, I came across articles. You know, it wasn't just us, me saying it, new England journal of medicine, journal of women's health and Mayo clinic proceedings all had articles on the fact that doctors are not trained in the management of women's hormones at midlife and beyond and are unprepared to treat women at this stage of life. I said, it's not me saying it it's documented incredible journals. So I think, you know, in any woman listening, you're probably not gonna get the whole story at your regular doctors. It's not their fault. They're good people. It's just that they're not taught that

 

(34:00): They're not. And so we did have some mega you and I have a megaphone out there and I feel, I don't know about you, but you, we both, you and I can tell, we feel as part of our mission to let women that's. Part of the reason I wrote this book is part of my mission to let give women permission, to do many, many things with their life at this transition, but also give them permission to seek out and get the hormones. They need to protect their bones, protect their brain, to protect their sleep, et cetera, et cetera, and not have brain fog and be going down the rabbit hole of depression and anxiety. I'm sure you see the depression and anxiety that this stage of life causes. And it's like, of course, estrogen replacement doesn't treat a, a full on full blown clinical depression, but it can stop a lot of women from a slippery slope of sliding down there. I'm sure you've seen that in your practice all the time.

 

(34:48): Oh my gosh. If I didn't have my hormones, when this started for me, the spectrum in my forties, I wanted to die. So , I know when women tell me that they're miserable and they're in their forties or beyond usually sex hormones are a part of that, you know, but they're going to their doctors and getting SSRIs or antidepressants, which isn't the whole story. And I've never found a woman who came in from an SSRI and said, oh my gosh, I feel amazing.

 

(35:17): Hi, absolutely not. As a matter of fact, they feel they can't have an orgasm cuz SSRI block their orgasms. And a lot of women don't even know that and they're not actually told that that much. And then, and then they also, they, they put on the drug Paxil, the one that's called peroxetine it's also called BI. You know, it's given for hot flashes too. It is the number. One of all the SSRI that causes on average 18 pounds of weight gain per year.

 

(35:40): Yeah. I'm not signing up for that.

 

(35:42): no, I know. I just that's that's you know, it's just not a, so the reality is, is that SSRI are really fabulous to help people over a, a, a glitch difficult spot. They can be very helpful. Then what happens though, is people get stuck on them because the withdrawal syndrome of trying to get off of them makes women feel temporarily while they're trying to taper off slowly. That's why take people down on really tiny, tiny taper to, I take them off from over two months. Most, some doctors will take them off over two weeks and then they crash and burn, but you get rebound depression from it unless you do it slowly. And so they think that underneath it all, they're really still that depressed. They need those meds for the rest of their life. And they're told by some doctors, they need them for the rest of their life.

 

(36:27): Well, they don't. I mean, so anyway that you gotta get me, that's one of my hobby heart. I swear. I mean, I've used those drugs for my entire career, cuz they're very helpful. And of course I treat a lot more, you know, anxiety and depression than you do. Cause that's, you know, that's where a lot of people come to me for, but they're women that are on glitches of their hormones. I don't wanna see them go down that rabbit hole. I wanna see them have their hormones balanced correctly before they go down that rabbit hole.

 

(36:51): Yes. Oh my gosh. So much to talk about. I'm gonna encourage everyone to get the book and read it. It is, there's a plethora of information, inspiration, wisdom. I'm wondering if you can share, we will have a, a link in the show notes where you can go download the first chapter of the book for free Dr. Louann's website. So we'll have that link in the show notes, but what are you planning to do with the rest of your upgrade and this wisdom phase in life?

 

(37:20): Well, you know, I'm, by now I'm doing the book tour and I'm doing lots of podcasts. I'm wanting to, you know, speak to as many women as I possibly can over this next year. And there's so much more than I'm starting to work on a PBS series on this topic. So stay tuned. I think that may come out next to March, but if it happens, I'll, I'll keep you posted fingers crossed the, all the editors and the producers wanna do this. Cause I think women really need like women. You see women all the time. Women are desperate and there's really, I feel that there's a failure on the medical professions part to help women at this stage of life. They just bail on them. They don't help them. So I'm so glad that you're out there doing this and we need to multiply you times a hundred thousand.

 

(38:01): Oh, I mean, we need you in every city, whatever I know, thank God for the thank out for the internet, cuz you can do it all over now. But you see that all the time. Don't you feel the same. It's just like, I feel that women are they're suffering needlessly. I want, I know listen. Life is full of suffering. Life is the truth of the matter is look, life is full of suffering. We're only human. All of us have suffering in our life, but there's a level at which you don't have to have suffering because of your hormones. Like leaving your body during the state of life. You know, we have a fix for that. Now it can help you. So I just want women to feel, don't

 

(38:34): Feel, feel guilty or bad about it just because your doctor doesn't know about it. Go find another doctor. Yeah, stop going to the hardware store for milk. They don't have it. They won't have it. Not gonna have it. So just go to the milk store and you know, so the hormones, thank you so much for joining me, Dr. Louann, this has been wonderful. Everybody go get the book. I can't recommend it highly enough. We will look for your PBS special, super excited about that. We will have the link in the show notes to go, go to Dr. Louann's website and download the first chapter four free on her website. And thank you so much for joining us today. Oh, it's my deep deep honor and pleasure to get to speak with your audience and to get to meet you as well. So anyway, best of wishes to all of you and your audience. Thank you for having me and thank you all for joining me for another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kirin. I want you to take action with the information you have heard. Dr. Louann has a wealth of information. She cite all the studies. She's got the data in her book. You wanna get this book for sure. And then I want you to take action and follow me on social. And let's talk about what you're doing. I will see you again next week until then peace, love and hormones. Y'all

 

(39:51): 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 or 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. Louann Brizendine's first chapter of her book "The Upgrade" - How a woman’s brain gets “upgraded” in midlife, inspiring and guiding women to unlock their full potential.

 

CLICK HERE to download for free.

 

► Feeling tired? Can't seem to lose weight, no matter how hard you try?

 

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The Secrets To Pelvic Floor Success

Are you ashamed to talk about your pelvic floor? You're not alone. Millions of women suffer from incontinence and other pelvic floor disorders, but they're often too embarrassed to seek help.

 

In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we're joined by Jana Danielson, a pelvic floor specialist who's here to dish the secrets to pelvic floor success. From how to keep things tight down there to how to manage incontinence, Jana's got the lowdown on everything you need to know about keeping your pelvic floor healthy and happy.

 

Jana Danielson helps women have better pelvic floor function by using the Cooch Ball, the world’s first patented pelvic floor fitness tool for women. She is an Amazon Best Selling Author, the Founder of Lead Pilates and Lead Integrated Health Therapies, and the Metta District, an online wellness community. Jana has coached and consulted with tens of thousands of women from all over the world to help improve their quality of life, their confidence, and their impact in this world.  

 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The symptoms of a weak pelvic floor and how to know if you have one
• How the pelvic floor is connected to the whole body and why it's important to keep it strong
• The secrets to pelvic floor success
• How to keep things tight down there
• How to manage incontinence
• The importance of pelvic floor health

 

So, whether you're suffering in silence or just want to learn more about how to take care of your lady parts, this is the episode for you! Tune in now and get started on your journey to pelvic floor success.

 

(00:00): Joseph Pilates said, breath is the first and last act of life. And somewhere in the middle, we forget how to do it. What does this have to do with the secrets to pelvic floor success, stay tuned and you'll find out.

 

(00:15): 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.

 

(01:09): Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thanks so much for joining me today. We're talking about pelvic floor disorders and how to be successful in helping and healing them today with Jana Danielson, you're gonna love her. It really struck me how incredibly revolutionary what she has created is after I interviewed her and looked more into the product that she's developed and the educational platform that she's developed for women suffering with pelvic floor disorders, which is, mm, a lot of us as we age, frankly, and she's gonna go through, how do you identify if you have a pelvic floor disorder, it's not really common Parlin that we say, Hey, do you have a pelvic floor disorder? And so she's gonna talk about the symptoms that you would be having that could alert you, that you have some type of pelvic floor dysfunction going on.

 

(02:12): And more than that, she's got solutions, amazing solutions. And I really love how, when we lean into the problems that we're so hard, lean into those questions that we can come up with some revolutionary answers and solutions. And Jana did just that. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about her and then we'll get started. So Jana Danielson helps women have better pelvic floor function by using the cooch ball. The world's first patented pelvic floor fitness tool for women. She's an Amazon bestselling author, the founder of lead Pilates and lead integrated health therapies and the meta district, an online wellness community, Jana has coached and consulted with tens of thousands of women from all over the world world to help improve their quality of life, their confidence, and their impact in this world. Welcome Jana.

 

(03:06): Thank you, Dr. Dunston. It's great to be here.

 

(03:09): I'm so excited to have you join me today. We haven't really talked about pelvic floor health on the podcast, how that's happened. I don't even know cuz it's a super important topic and you've created an amazing product for women to use before we talk about that. Can you talk a little bit about how you became so interested in and became an expert in pelvic floor health for women?

 

(03:33): Yeah, absolutely. So I am the mom of three boys. They're now 17, 19 and 21. So I, it's not like I'm a new mom, but in my career I had a career shift about 16 or 17 years ago from the world of corporate into wellness, entrepreneurship and Pilates actually for me became a vehicle that I used for my own healing. A lot of undiagnosed pain, a lot of protecting a lot of holding, a lot of tension in my body, which created a lot of dysfunction and a lot of disconnection from my body. And so through Pilates, I started to understand the way our body worked as systems. You know, we're not pieces. We think sometimes were arms and legs and organs and skin and hair. And, but we're much more than that. We're a skeletal system and lymphatic system and a reproductive system and a digestive system.

 

(04:26): And what I started learning through my training and my own healing was that these systems when compromised are not just standalone compromised systems, they're gonna impact other systems in the body. And when that happens, using the hyphenated word, DISE dis-ease is one of the outcomes that can be present in the body. And that's what was happening with me. I became a very, I was, I looked seemingly healthy on the outside, but on the inside I was slowly, I felt like I was slowly dying. I was losing my voice. I became a very, not so confident. Young woman didn't know if I'd ever be able to be a mom. Didn't know why I would marry my high school sweetheart, who just proposed to me because my body was not working for me. And when I found Pilates, it completely changed my life. And as part of that, I guess, experience 16 weeks into starting my Pilates journey. I was off all 11 medications that I had been prescribed to manage different symptoms that I had been experiencing for two years prior to that. And it really intrigued me.

 

(05:36): Could you talk a little bit about what was going on for you in detail? Like you said, your body just wasn't working for you, you're on all these medications. I know everybody's wondering like what in the world was happening.

 

(05:47): So for me it was manifesting or presenting itself as digestive pain. And this had started when I think back to it, like back in high school, I am the first born child. I am a pretty driven individual and I would get this pain. And I always in my mind just thought, well that's because I am vying for that high mark on that test. Or I wanna make that team or I want it right. And I just chalked it up to nerves. My little small town doctor also chalked it up to nerves and I just started taking tongues. Cause I just thought it was, you know, a little bit of acid in my gut. And it turned out to be much more than that. The pain, it was like a, a baseball size pain just back from my belly button. And it would overcome me. I would be doubled over.

 

(06:37): It was hard to breathe. I would find myself sitting at my desk at work, kind of pressing the angle of the desk into just above my belly button and I would breathe and that would kind of calm it down for me. It hurt when I moved, it hurt when I didn't move. It hurt when I was sexual with my then fiance, it hurt when I was going for groceries it, so I actually named my pain. I named my pain, the edge and it personified that part of me that I had zero control over and it helped me to, to cope. Right. And so the medications started to get added on as I went through a process of specialist specialist specialist, this test, that test to the point where I sat with members of my medical team. And they told me that they believed that the pain was in my head and that I was seeking attention and that there was nothing more that they could do for me.

 

(07:31): And so that's when Pilates, it was a dark time for me. I was in a very, not so great space in my mind. Back then, I wouldn't have said that I was depressed, but as I look back, yeah, I was. And what I decided one day when I saw Madonna on the cover of a fitness magazine in the grocery store and it had the word Pilates splashed across it, I decided that I would buy that magazine and read that article because I was a big Madonna fan. And what I read was words that talked about alignment of the spine and breathing with this muscle called the diaphragm and balance with the front of the body and the back of the body. And there was words like eccentric, like length and muscles. And I thought, oh, this is kind of like yoga. I should do this.

 

(08:18): You know, I had a yoga practice and I went to my first Pilates class and it actually was one of the most disturbing lack of confidence, 50 minutes of my life. And if I wasn't such darn keener, and if I hadn't taken my new Pilates mat to the front row of that class, I would've rolled it up and I would've made a B line, but I, I went right to the front right by the instructor. And when she started speaking to me that day, she should have been speaking a foreign language because she was saying things like inhale through your nose to expand the space in your torso, exhale out of your mouth, make this H a ha sound. As you let the air exit and you let your ribs melt into, like, she was saying these things. And I was like, what is she actually saying?

 

(09:08): Cause my down body would not do any of it. And I didn't know, should I laugh or should I cry? And, and after the class I rolled up my mat and my instructor walked up to me and she, well, she said to me, just hang, hang out for a few minutes. So she said goodbye to everybody else. She walked up to me, and she wrapped her arms around me. And I melted, I burst into tears because for the first time in my life, I actually did not know what was wrong with me because I couldn't do the simple act of breathing. The first thing we do when we

 

(09:48): On

 

(09:48): His body, right, is we take that first big gasp of air and we breathe. I couldn't even do that. And it was very humbling for me. And all my instructors said to me that day was come back on Thursday. That's all she said. And she opened up her arms and I walked out and my husband was waiting for me or my fiance at that point was waiting for me outside. And I walked out and it looked like I was chopping onions. My eyes were like red and puffy from crying. And he is like, what the hell just happened in that class? Like why, why, why are you on your knees crying? And I was like, I just have to come back on Thursday. That's all I kept saying, I have to come back on Thursday. And that was one of those defining moments for me in my life, where I was, where I realized maybe I was looking in the wrong place for my healing. Maybe I actually had the empowerment to see within me if I could heal here first. And that's what I did. And over the next 16 weeks, I went twice a week to that class and I practiced and I practiced and I practiced. And by Christmas of that year, I had weaned myself off of all 11 of my medications. And I was just ripe for wanting to know more about the body. And that's really how my journey started.

 

(11:08): Okay. Yeah. You know, we who do yoga, we think we know Pilates, and then you go to a Pilates class and you're like, I don't know Jack about this and the breathing I'm with you. You go. And it's like, have I ever breathed the breath in my life? You think where you go to Pilates? Like you're doing it all wrong. OK. So that started your journey. And then you eventually became a master teacher, and you've got companies that teach Pilates. Yeah. And so what led to the pelvic floor revelation?

 

(11:39): Yeah. So for me through my Pilates training and going to different conferences and meeting different people, I was always intrigued. So before Pilates, I used to teach other forms of fitness. And I never had heard before that the pelvic floor was a part of the core. I always thought your erectus abs and your O Bleaks and your transverse abs, that was your core. And as I started to learn that the core, the way I was taught is a cylindrical-shaped system. You have on the very outer layer at the front of your body, your six pack, right? Those reus, a dominance, and then deeper to that, you have the sling system of the internal and external or external O Bleaks that twist you and, you know, pick up your purse off the floor. Then you've got those deep transverse abs that start in your low back, wrapped to your front, like a corset to give you shape and posture security for your POS or for your organs.

 

(12:35): But then there's a top and a bottom to that cylinder. The diaphragm is the main muscle of respiration like that mushroom cap sits at the top of the cylinder of the core. And the pelvic floor finishes the structure as the floor of the core. And I was like, okay, wait a minute. So this is actually true when I'm doing my abdominal work through Pilates or before I used to teach boot camps. I never ever once cued my own body or cued my clients to activate their pelvic floor as they were doing a plank or doing, you know, curling up doing a roll up in Pilates. And I was like, how did I miss this? What did I do to miss this major fact? And so I just started digging more and more and more. And through my learning, I understood that the diaphragm and the pelvic floor work in a unit as a system like BFFs in the body.

 

(13:29): So when the diaphragm is not properly functioning and as women, we carry attention in two main spots, right? Head, neck, and shoulders and through the pelvis. So we have been given this primary breathing muscle in our body, the diaphragm that's huge and very underutilized. And then of course, we've been given the secondary breathing muscles that live in our neck, they're called the scale lanes and the sternal mastoid. And they're like little strips of like beef jerky. They're meant to help when needed. They're not meant to be like the lead actress in a movie, but for so many of us, because of our forward head carriage, the tension we carry, you know, we grip our jaw. We forget to breathe during the day we use those little beef jerky muscles as the primary breathers. And so at that point, ladies, we're like a little, a beautiful little goldfish using our gills to breathe on the side of our neck, adding more and more and more tension.

 

(14:31): Cuz those muscles already have a job. They ought to hold our head up. We forget that we have this beautiful big muscle to diaphragm that when, when not used, when not functional directly impacts our pelvic floor. And I was like, it was like this light bulb moment where I was like, oh my gosh, I need to start teaching this way. I need to start teaching beyond the keel cuz it is, I call it beyond the keel because when a keel, any movement taught improperly can be detrimental from a functional perspective. Right. So I just started like gobbling up more and more information and trying different things out. And the women I was teaching, it was like, again, like me in that first Pilates class, I was speaking a different language. They're like, we're supposed to be using our pelvic floor when we breathe. And I'm like, yes, on the exhale, it's like drawing, you know, drawing that pelvic floor up like slurping up a straw, like picking up a grape with your vagina.

 

(15:30): That's the exhale. Because when we take a big breath in our lungs filled with air, our diaphragm is at rest because the diaphragm from the pelvic floor buddies, when the diaphragm rest, the pelvic floor has to rest. When we exhale the lungs empty of air, the diaphragm gets to kind of come into its full glory and work. And that's when the pelvic floor works. Right? So that's why when we're lifting up our kids or picking up weights or bags of groceries, we wanna lift and stand on that exhale phase of breath. It's gonna protect our low back our organs and our pelvic cause our pelvic floor is in action. So that's what started to intrigue me. And then I did some work with Dr. Bruce Crawford. Who's a urogynecologist from Reno, Nevada, and his research showed that 90% of women with any sort of pelvic floor dysfunction, either coughing or sneezing and peeing a bit, or you know, hyper tone where there's just a lack of tone in the muscle or frequency where I don't have to go pee now.

 

(16:28): But like in a nanosecond, if I don't get to the bathroom, I'm gonna have an accident. All of those women, if there were 10 of them in a room, nine of those women could be taught how to use those muscles connect with those nerves and release that fascia in that area in a new way to create an environment for function. Only one of those women would have to get wheeled into a surgery room to get a pelvic floor mesh pinup surgery. And I was like, hold on here. So what you're saying is that movement can heal 90% of these cases. How empowering is that? And that's really what was the impetus for me to be like, I wanna do more about this. And I knew already for my Pilates training, that things like, you know, using a foam roller or a pinky release ball on your shoulders or a foam roller on your it band, the, you know, the piece of fashion between and the hip would provide healing release of the fascia, healthy blood flow oxygen, rich nutrient, rich environment for those cells to flourish. I was like, how would I create that in the pelvic floor? And that's what I did with the Cooch ball. And, and when I started to educate about it, it was challenging for me because no one talks about their pelvic floor. Everyone pretends they're good. Like

 

(17:43): Everyone pretends, they don't have one. No, they don't have a vagina because nobody talks about, they think, think vagina is a bad word, which it's not, but let's back up a little bit, cuz this is really good. So some people know what we're talking about when we said pelvic floor dysfunction, you mentioned briefly some of the symptoms. Yeah. But just so everybody listening can identify, is this me? Or is this not me? Okay. I mean, it probably applies to most women who have had children because there's so much dysfunction that occurs when that big baby comes through and rips through everything. But can you kind of go through the symptoms that women would be identifying or noticing if they have pelvic floor dysfunction?

 

(18:29): Yeah. Okay. So think of it like a continuum, like a number line. Okay. So on one end of the spectrum, we have what is called hyper H Y P E R tonic. Okay. Hyper tone. Too much tone, too much tension too tight. Okay. So constipation is actually a very common symptom that a lot of women don't realize can be attributed to the pelvic floor pain during intercourse is another symptom of a pelvic floor that is too tight, right? Even just general pelvic floor pain can be an indicator of some dysfunction in that area. On the other side of the spectrum, there is high tone. H I P oone a lack of tone. All right, there can be, this is where yeah. You might cough or sneeze or a laugh and have a little bit of wedding, or maybe you're starting a learn to run program.

 

(19:32): Although I do have to say in hyper tone, sometimes that coughing or sneezing too can cause a little bit of an accident because you're holding, holding, holding all the time and you do that sneeze. Right. And there's a little bit of displacement of, of urine. And so those are some of the more common there is urge frequency as well. And urge is actually, it is a pathway, a neural pathway that starts to get developed when we don't wait for our bladder to actually completely fill before the brain sends the message. Like I better go to the bathroom. And so what happens over time and we've probably all done this before, even as moms like to our kids, okay, we're going on a little road trip, go to the bathroom. I don't need to go mom, just go try, but I don't have to go, just go try.

 

(20:18): Right. And we, we sit when they just don't need to, or you just don't need to then don't because what that starts to train is if you start to empty your bladder and it's only a third full, when it gets a third full, your brain's gonna be like, oh, it's a third fold and you're gonna go and you're gonna pee for like five seconds and be like, well, is that it right? And then less than an hour later, you're gonna be going again. So there's all of these little parts to pelvic floor, you know, health and wellness, wellness. Now women who have had yes, large babies, a hundred percent, there can be some pelvic floor dysfunction women going into menopause. I think we just anticipate as our hormones are changing, the tone of the pelvic floor is gonna change. And that's just become something we just expect as we age.

 

(21:05): And it doesn't necessarily always have to be that way. I have clients who have never had babies. I have had clients I have had actually moms buy my product for their 9, 10, 11 year old tween daughters who are still wetting the bed and don't wanna go to a sleepover because they, and in a lot of these cases, these young girls are like high level dancers or figure skaters or performers. And they are, they're teaching their body to hold right, to create a shape. And they're actually having pelvic floor dysfunction at those ages being shown as bedwetting. And we've had tremendous success there. Right? So one of the main messages through this education around what is a pelvic floor dysfunction symptom is it's not just for older ladies and women that have had babies. It's like, we think about, we want strong glutes so we can walk up and downstairs.

 

(22:08): We want strong arms so we can, you know, have a high level of functioning in our life activities of daily living. But yet, like you said earlier on tuck to Dunton, there's some people that don't even think we have a pelvic floor or they'll use terms like down there, like you said, they don't use vagina. They don't talk about any of that. And men too have pelvic floors, men, pelvic floor dysfunction can show itself as erectile dysfunction. It can show itself as back pain, tight hips, even in women. Right? And there's a main nerve that comes out of our brain down into that area of our body called the ental nerve. And the Al nerve is pretty special. Cause it does two main things. It's a sensory nerve. So the sensuality of that area of our body, and it's a motor nerve, it's like the main messaging system from our brain to our pelvic floor.

 

(22:58): And even things as simple as our posture, putting our phone in our back pocket. Think back to our high school days. I know maybe some of you were like me where I would lay on my bed with a coat hanger to zip up my acid wash jeans, cuz they were so tight, right? Like remember those days. And so even the clothing that we wear, the shoes that we wear, it all plays into this ability for this floor. It's a series of muscles that are kind of layered on each other, like a hammock. And over time when we don't take care of it because we live on a planet with gravity, prolapse can be an outcome of a lack of pelvic floor understanding and health because those organs can start to descend mm-hmm and we can fix in a grade one and two, but once those organs have start to displace themselves outside of the body, all the cooch ball work in the world is not gonna bring those back up inside. So we wanna avoid that,

 

(24:01): Right? Oh my God. So this is such a good conversation. So I have to give a little Latin lesson real quick. When I was in medical school and we had to learn anatomy, we had this ginormous book with all these Latin terms and we had to memorize them. I was obsessed with looking up at the origins of these words. So Pual is from Latin. It means ashamed. And it is the nerve that interviews the vulva and vagina. Is that ridiculous? Right? And that's where hysterectomy comes from. They said that that was what made a woman's womb is what made her hysterical. So hysterectomy was taking out the hysteria part of her. So I know, I hope everyone is very upset right now hearing this, but this is how the female genitalia has been named. So there's a reason why we're all ashamed to say vagina.

 

(24:52): We act like we don't have one. We call it down there. And so I wanna say free yourself, everybody pause this recording. And I want you to scream out loud right now, vagina, vagina, vagina. okay. And start calling your parts by their anatomic names. But actually vagina comes from also, I can't remember if it's Greek or Latin, which means the sheath of a man's sword. That's what vagina comes from. So you really don't wanna call it that either. So Yi is kind of the thing that we should be calling it. So I correct myself. I forgot that. So Yi. So anyway, I had to say that, but I think this is fascinating. What you're saying about girls, young girls. I had no idea about that. And then I also wanted to ask you, a lot of women suffer with Vaness, you know, where they get this spasm of those pelvic floor muscles, making intercourse painful, if not impossible, especially if there's a history of sexual trauma. Is this something that you would include in pelvic floor dysfunction that the ball that you're gonna tell us all about in a second might help.

 

(26:02): Yeah, absolutely. And you know, there is such a right now my latest anatomical obsession is the so as muscle and I'm like really diving D I, I go through these phases, right. And I am just right now, like super obsessed with the function that the, so as plays with the pelvic floor and the pelvic organs and the location of them. And so when you talk about Vaness and any sort of like spasmodic experience that, that people have when I'm using and kind of coaching on with, with my coach ball clients, sometimes we don't go right into the pelvic floor. Like we actually will work around it. So we'll get them, get them to actually start using their ball. And we'll talk more about it as a way to like a pelvic floor release laying on their tummy or sorry, a so as release, laying on their tummy, we'll do a lot of work into the sacrum, you know, into that SI area with the ball, we do a lot of release work through part of the glute, especially through the pure form.

 

(27:12): And we start to just gently pay attention to get some healthy blood flow and a little bit of like aha around the area. And then, you know, we'll come into working with the pelvic floor, cuz sometimes there's such a pattern like you, you mentioned trauma, especially with sexual trauma. There is such a deeply rooted pattern neurologically that the Physica like, you know, that woman literally has no control will just get, even get the ball close to her, sitting on it. And she's like, I'm out camped. Right? Right. So we really have to focus on and we play around with breath. We'll do some sniffing breath. We'll do some more calming breath work. And that's why it's kind of like that. I always explain it to my women. Like if you see a squirrel and you've got a handful of sunflower seeds and you really want that little squirrel to eat those sunflower seeds, you kind of have to turn your head away from the Palm of your hand. As you slowly bring it down to the ground and slide over to the squirrel. Otherwise if you come hard and fast, the squirrel's gonna dart, right? Mm-Hmm this in a lot of cases with our pelvic floor, we need to come at it in a slow, steady way so that our brain, our mind and our body can come together to start to have a bit of a healing experience.

 

(28:34): Okay. Great point. So now let's get to talking about this amazing device that you developed and I know everybody can't see because this is audio only. So you're gonna have to check out Jana's webinar on it. She'll and you can watch it. So talk about the Cooch ball.

 

(28:53): Yeah. So the Cooch ball was the outcome of me sitting night after night at my kitchen table with my complaining about why does no one talk about the pelvic floor? Why did none of my clients ask me questions? And then my inbox is full. Like I, you know, I was on my little rant and finally he said to me, Janna, do something about it or stop talking about it. And it was like I said, what do you mean do something about it? He's like, well, make something, create something, create something that you can use to help your clients connect with this part of their body. And I was like, okay. And the next day I started creating and I started just playing around as a mom of three boys. We had all different kinds of balls in our basement. I started sitting on them and it was kind of like the three bears, some were way too hard and way too small.

 

(29:43): Some were way too big and way. And I was like, I'm just gonna make my own. And that's what I did. I spent in my true entrepreneurial fashion, I got on the phone and I was calling big corporate sporting goods manufacturers like Spalding will. And I would introduce myself and I'd be I'm Janet Danielson from Saskatoon, Canada. And I'm a Pilates instructor and I wanna make this pelvic floor ball. Who would I talk to in your organization? And I would get, I got laughed at, I got hung up on and I just, I didn't quit. I didn't quit. And so I found a manufacturer offshore and I created the ball and I got a patent lawyer and he's like, yep, there's a design and utility patent here. I got, my first unit arrived in January of 2020. I was off to Tampa for a shark tank type entrepreneurial competition with the home shopping network.

 

(30:33): And I won that competition and was scheduled to go back to Tampa, to shoot my first eight minute show in April of 2020. And then the gift of COVID landed on our doorstep three weeks before. And I put, I just put up a landing page and started a webinar. And that's the humble beginnings of the coach ball. The focus of it, why it's called the cooch ball. First of all is because I wanted it to have a sassy, chic name. I wanted it to catch people's attention and I wanted to start the conversation. That was my number one. Why pick a name that might be a little edgy for some people because it opens the door to having the conversation and that's what needs to happen. It's called the ball for men. It's a three minute experience ladies. It is what happens on the ball.

 

(31:28): And I really rooted into the research that I, the Dr. Bruce Crawford, I had mentioned him before, is that any muscle in our body that is lacking oxygen rich, nutrient rich, and is restricted in its function because of this connective tissue called fascia, think of fascia as like cheese cloth, or like linen that wraps every single fiber of muscle in our body. And it not only wraps it, but it starts to restrict like AOA constrict or snake. It starts to restrict and stick to it. And it basically suffocates the muscle from the oxygen-rich nutrient-rich blood that it needs to thrive. When that happens, the muscle slowly starts to become dysfunctional and die. So when we wanna improve the function of our body, the look, the, feel, the function we need blood flow. When you sit on the ball and you work up to three minutes a day and you can sit on your couch, you can sit on the floor.

 

(32:28): If you can't get on the floor, you just sit on a chair and you breathe diaphragmatically so that the weight of your body, when it's on the ball creates this beautiful interaction where that cheese cloth type tissue, the fascia starts to melt because of the force of the ball in the area. All right, we start to feel tingly, warm blood flow. And for some women, it takes weeks and weeks and weeks to actually experience the blood flow because there's so tight or so disconnected, they don't feel it, but that's the biofeedback that our body gives us. Right? And then the diaphragmatic breathing that I walk, you know, my women through gets the diaphragm working and wakes up the pelvic floor. So that in this three minute experience, you're getting the release and you're getting the strength simultaneously. And it, it it's I, regardless of where you fall on that spectrum of hypertonic and hypotonic that we talked about 10 minutes ago, because it's a duality, the duality of the experience on the ball meets the needs of really any body. So that's how it works.

 

(33:40): Okay. So you sit on it, you do certain breathing practices, which you teach and it works by increasing blood flow. It doesn't go. Cause when I first saw it, I was like, is she gonna have put that inside our vagina? Cause how many inches is it?

 

(33:56): It's five graciously. It's a five inch diameter. So I

 

(34:02): ,

 

(34:03): No, this bad girl is just, it's an external product. Yeah. And it's great. You know what? I have women that use this. I'm a big proponent of pelvic floor physiotherapy. So it's a great compliment to pelvic floor physiotherapy. I have clients who have been fitted for pessaries that use this with their pessary. So it really does not discriminate as far as where you are in your pelvic health journey. If you are tuning into this podcast and you're like, this is the first time I'm actually learning about all of this. And I need a little bit more my product. It's not just for those advanced learners that have an understanding of their anatomy and what happens. No, it really is for everybody. Even if you think, well, I don't cough and sneeze and pee. I don't have pain during intercourse. It's preventative maintenance. Just as much as it is healing. Something that may slightly dysfunctional.

 

(34:59): Okay. So let me ask, is it like Perineum massage? Is that what you would kind of call it? Is that what it's doing to increase blood flow or

 

(35:08): Yes. I mean, it does, obviously you're sitting right on your perineum. Honest, there is gonna be that sensation, not so much like massage, but more just like maybe stretch I would say, but what's happening inside the body is the weight of the body on the ball. Like I said, is getting to those fascial restrictions in and around that muscle tissue, it's also freeing up. Like we learned earlier, the ental nerve that ashamed nerve. It is giving that nerve a little bit of room to be like, oh my gosh, I can now send messages more clearly and receive them. I can now have more sensation here because I don't have that fascia that's restricting me. I have all of this amazing blood flow that is nurturing me and I can really start doing, I can reconnect what my job actually is, what my function actually is. Mm-Hmm so, so those are some of the things that are happening, like simultaneously from a physiological perspective while you're on the ball.

 

(36:11): Okay. So now I know somebody's thinking this, so I gotta ask it. Yeah. Do people ever have orgasms while they're using it?

 

(36:18): Okay. So let me tell you this. So yes, yes. And I'm gonna give an example in my own life. So I never thought of myself as someone that was blocked, right? Like I'm a pretty open person. I, you know, anyways, my work with my roots chakra and exploring my own body is I am like light years where I was three years ago. When I started playing around with this idea of launching this ball, you guys, ladies, there is so much magic. Our pelvis is like a cauldron. We have become so disconnected from our divine feminineness and, and the power, the sheer power we hold in the pelvic bowl of our body and the roots chakra in what it can do as the base of our channeling. Our energies are just the magic that we are as women and the sensuality and orgasmic experience on the ball can be very real.

 

(37:29): Yeah. Because the erectile tissue, isn't just in the clitoris, everybody listening, if you're not familiar with your clitoris, you need to listen up. But it is a little mini penis, the, the arms and legs, hopefully you caught Susan Bratton's anatomy lesson at the stop the menopause madness summit, if you're listening. Cause she described it beautifully. They go all the way around the opening to the vagina under the pubic bone. So it seems to me, if you're sitting on the cooch ball and you're moving, that's getting stimulated. I love how you describe the pelvis as a caldron. That's really cool. But yes, so many women, oh my gosh. It makes me wanna cry. When women say I've never had a orgasm, Dr. Kyrin. And I'm just like, oh my gosh. And they didn't have anyone to talk to about it. They didn't feel comfortable talking to their doctors about it. And it really is your birthright ladies. And it's so important. It helps to balance your hormones for God's sake. So it's very important for your overall health. You have that functionality for a reason. So do you have any stories that you can share with us about women who maybe were having blocked sexuality? Maybe they never have an orgasm or maybe they were having difficulty to orgasm or maybe women who were just for having other pelvic floor dysfunction and then they used this and they had improvement.

 

(38:53): Yeah. Yeah. You know, I wanna share a story with a young client. I had, she was in her late twenties. She had spent, since she was a little girl, you guys remember like the river dance, the Highland dancing fourth. Yeah. And so she was a Highland dancer. She was an elementary school teacher, like I said, newly married. And she came to me and in, within about three minutes of us connecting in her first session, she was in tears and I'll never forget the words she said to me. She said, Janna, I've been married for six months. I've been with my new husband for almost two years. She said on Wednesdays, I wake up and I have the worst headache. And my stomach is in knots all day long because Wednesday nights are the night in her words that I let him buck and I am in such pain for that 15 minutes.

 

(39:47): And I'm manifesting all of this anxiety all day long on Wednesday, knowing that when we go into bed, I, this is gonna be my experience. And then I wake up on Thursday morning and I'm so thankful that I have another seven days before it happens again. She said, I am fearful that I will lose my husband. I am fearful that I will never be a mom. And she said, I have never in my life experienced any form of pleasure, any form of sexual pleasure, I don't believe it actually exists. And this was through her SOS. Right? And so we got her going with the ball. She probably I'm gonna say the first week or so that she was using her Cooch ball. She was maybe able to stay on it for about 30 seconds. That was it. And we would use like one of those, it was called a sit fit.

 

(40:40): So it was kind of like a spy like cushion, right? She couldn't even sit on the hard floor on it. We had to take a little bit of the ouch factor away and we would just focus on her breathing. And so 30 seconds turned into 60 seconds about a month or six weeks after that, she started telling me that there's not as much pain on Wednesday nights. And we would just, we were progressing and progressing and progressing. And I'm gonna say about four months in, she came to her weekly session and she said, Dana, I, I didn't orgasm. But she said, I actually didn't cry while my husband was making love to me, I was able to relax. And I could think of myself being on the coach ball and on the inhale relaxing. And she said, he said that being inside my vagina was a completely different experience for him.

 

(41:31): It wasn't like he was trying to, to break through a rock wall. And it was a beautiful story because about seven months after we started working together, she got pregnant with her first baby. She was, became so confident in herself, in her relationship. And that's a story for me that is really special because like you said, it is our birth right to be able to experience our body or have, you know, ourselves or have someone experience in that way to create that outcome. And there are so many women, like you said, that just either don't believe it's in the cards for them or they don't deserve it. And that's not true.

 

(42:12): Yes. That, isn't true. What a beautiful story. And I love how this ball really is. There's so much more we could talk about, I'm thinking of a million questions, but I know we've been at it for almost an hour, so we probably need to wrap up, but I'm gonna invite everyone definitely to get your free gift and a tenure webinar for sure. But that whole, that SAC chakra, the sexual chakra, the roots chakra so much trauma for women in that area related to our emotions related to our sexuality related to our power in the world. And I love how, what you created is really, it's kind of  a concrete way for women to conceptualize and begin to not only address physical problems in that area, but bring attention to those emotional, spiritual, energetic blocks, I think is what I hear you saying, is that right?

 

(43:08): Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not a one dimension physical thing. There are all these other aspects of the emotionality, the sensuality, the spirituality, and you start to uncover them in layers. That's the beautiful thing is you start to uncover them in layers and just that sense of consciousness and moving up that scale so that it is joyful. It is a joyful part of your body, not a part that you despise or pretend doesn't exist.

 

(43:38): Awesome. Well thank you for making that. I can't wait to get mine. Jana's sending me one. I'll let you all know how I do with it and how it unfolds for me. Maybe we'll have Jana back. If you love this episode, let me know. Cuz there is so much more that we can talk about. I didn't even get to share some of the amazing quotes she had from Joseph Pilates. I'll share this one, but then we gotta wrap up, breathing is the first and last act of life. And somewhere in the middle, we forget how to do it. And I love how you talked about the core really is it's a ball with a top of the diaphragm, the bottom of the pelvic floor and then the side walls. And so relearning how to breathe is something that you help women to do. And while you heal their pelvic floor, we have a link in the notes to a four part mini masterclass that has created for, for you, how to transform pain into inspiration. We will have the link in the show notes, and then you have a webinar coming up soon, the healthy pelvic floor webinar. And I know you do those regularly. So do you wanna tell people about the free gift they can download and the webinar that you're offering?

 

(44:53): Yeah, absolutely. So the free gift ladies is really my, the roadmap that got me out of my pain cycle. So I offer it's a four part little mini series, 15 minutes of a session. And it's just one strategy that you can start doing in that moment to help to change your life. And then of course the healthy pelvic floor webinar, the link like Dr Kyrin said to register will be in the show notes. We just take a different approach at different than what you've learned today on the podcast. We're gonna learn some of the secrets of the pelvic floor and it really is the perfect time. If you feel like a coach ball is in your future, I'm gonna say this as a businesswoman, don't get it today. Don't go and register using the link that Dr. Kyrin gives you to go to the webinar because there are some really great offers that you can't get on my website. So

 

(45:55): Right.

 

(45:55): Be patient be patient is only a couple weeks away. Wait for that webinar on the 1st of September. And then you will grab a bunch more value and bonuses that you otherwise would be unable to.

 

(46:08): Yeah, you definitely wanna use the link cause you'll get goodies that you won't get on the website, but thank you for that. Thank you for joining us today. Jana, it's been wonderful talking with you. Like I said, we could talk about so many things related to this topic and maybe after I've had my cooch ball experience, we will have you back, and we can talk some more

 

(46:28): Amazing

 

(46:30): Thank you for so much. And thank you all for joining us for another episode of the hormone prescription podcast. I hope you have learned something inspirational, informational that will help you move your health towards the brilliance that you deserve. I want you to take action. You know, I tell you that every week and really what I want you to do is sign up for Janna's webinar on the pelvic floor secret and listen to all her wisdom about the pelvic floor. Because as you can hear, and from listening, probably more of us women than not have pelvic floor dysfunction and who couldn't always have better sexuality and sensuality, that's really part of good hormone balance and good health. So go check it out, click link in the show notes and I will see you next week until then peace, love and hormones. 

 

(47:25): 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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