Hormone Prosperity Podcast with Dr. Kyrin Dunston

Is BrainDRAIN Robbing Your Hormonal Sanity?

Do you have trouble focusing? Feeling forgetful? Do you feel like your brain is in a fog? You're not alone. According to Dr. Romie Mushtaq, many midlife women experience what's called "brain drain," which can be caused by hormonal imbalance.

 

In our latest episode, we're joined by Dr. Romie Mushtaq to talk about how brain drain can impact our hormonal health. She is here with a cure for your busy brain called ''brainSHIFT."

 

Dr. Romie is a triple board-certified physician, award-winning speaker, & national media expert. She mixes her unique authority in neurology, integrative medicine, and mindfulness to transform cultures and teams. 

 

Dr. Romie Mushtaq currently serves as Chief Wellness Officer at Evolution Hospitality, where she has scaled a mindfulness and wellness program for over 7000 employees. These days, her most underutilized pre-pandemic talent is running through airports in high heels.

 

In this episode, you will learn:

• How brain drain can impact our hormones
• What are some of the signs that we might be experiencing a brain drain
• How to support our hormonal health during menopause
• Action tips to shut off our busy brain
• Dr. Romie's BrainSHIFT Protocol to help support our brain health
• And more!

 

So if you're struggling with brain drain, or you just want to learn more about how to support your hormonal health during menopause, tune in now!

 

[00:00:00] Is brain drain robbing your hormonal sanity. Your brain is not a bulletin board. Your brain deserves boundaries. Join me today for Dr. Romie Mushtaq. So the big question is how do women over 40, lus,e us keep weight off, have great energy balance. Our hormones and our moods feel sexy and confident and master midlife.

 

[00:00:21] 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.

 

[00:00:40] 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.

 

[00:00:59] [00:01:00] My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston welcome to the hormone prescription podcast. Hi everybody. And welcome back to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I'm so grateful that you're choosing to spend your valuable time today here with me today and my homey, Dr. Romie, you're gonna love Dr.

 

[00:01:21] Romie. She is all about brain health and functional brain health. Did you know that your hormones. Originate in your brain and are a part of your nervous system. Yep. We're gonna talk about that too, but mostly we're going to dive into brain drain. Is it robbing your hormonal sanity? And if you're feeling like your brain has become a bulletin board, I know I have lately, then maybe you need some boundaries in your brain.

 

[00:01:48] She talks about the brain shift protocol and how to help people shift out of the states that drain their brain. They happen to be the same things that drain their hormones and how to [00:02:00] sleep well and have a great sex drive and emotional equanimity and great memory and mood and clarity and all the things that a healthy brain gives you.

 

[00:02:09] So I'll tell you a little bit about her, and then we will get started. So. Do you have a busy brain? Do you have trouble focusing on your to-do list? Are your thoughts racing through your mind when you try to fall asleep? Have the usual stress management techniques stopped working for you? Dr. Romie is here with a cure for your busy brain called brain shift.

 

[00:02:32] Dr. Romie is a triple board certified physician award-winning speaker and national media expert. She mixes her unique authority in neurology, integrated medicine and mindfulness to transform cultures and teams. Dr. Romie currently serves as chief. Wellness officer at evolution hospitality, where she has scaled a mindfulness and wellness program for over 7,000 employees.

 

[00:02:57] These days, her most underutilized [00:03:00] pre-pandemic talent is running through airports in high heels, please. Welcome Dr. Romie Mushtaq. Oh Dr. Kyrin, thank you so much for having me here with your community. We speak such a like-minded language and our work is on one continuous spectrum. So anytime I get to sit here and share your work with my audience and vice versa, it's truly a gift.

 

[00:03:23] Yes. I love speaking with you. My audience loves hearing what I call woke doctors and talk hormones and health. And so maybe before we get, get started, you could talk a little bit about your evolution as a physician who really gets it, that a root cause approach is best. Kyrin it is. And you know, if folks have watched my Ted talk from 2014, went viral, they know part of the story of physician burnout and a route to mindfulness long before burnout was a term.

 

[00:03:55] I entered neurology Kyrin at a time when less than 5% of the brain doctors [00:04:00] in the United States were women. But here's the other story that I don't get to share often enough that I think you and your listeners will appreciate is that I was just an intern and in my residency and female patients were coming to me all the time.

 

[00:04:14] Doctor, please help. My doctor, my male, doctor's not listening to me. Something is going on with my epilepsy or migraines during my periods or I'm in menopause. And that for fast forward, that led to my area of expertise in research as an academic neurologist. So I was seeing patients, I was researching the effect of women's hormones on the brain and Kyrin and I had this realize.

 

[00:04:38] That I never in my entire life had had a regular menstrual cycle and I had fought really bad acne and needed Accutane. And I kept wondering, I have so many of these symptoms of thyroid and here I am researching it. And I went to the endocrinologist here at a prestigious academic medical institution where I used to [00:05:00] work, and they blew me off because my TSH was borderline.

 

[00:05:04] And I'm sure I, you know, I don't have my medical records from back then that they didn't do the entire panels that you and I are taught in integrative and functional medicine. And I suffered not only from an irregular menstrual cycle, but from infertility. Then the stress of being a female physician, doing research, working 120 hours a day, and you fast-forward to me, ending up very sick and ending up in life, saving surgery.

 

[00:05:28] And I'm laying in the hospital going, God help me. I have no adult skills to know what I do next in my life and everything I learned in medical. School is not going to help me. I give gratitude to the surgeons who saved my life. So traditional medicine was a part of it. How do I stay healthy and listen girl long before there were podcasts, cuz I feel like an old auntie talking to you.

 

[00:05:47] YouTube wasn't really online. There were no apps on our phone. I made my way on a journey around the world, working with mindfulness and Iveta teachers. And it was when I went to go get board certified and integrative [00:06:00] medicine that someone took my full thyroid panel. And we started, we diagnosed and started to treat the Hashimoto seriously.

[00:06:09] And then I got my menstrual cycle back regularly, and I still feel really emotional about it because I know mindfulness teaches us not to look back, but I think. Wow. Had a doctor listened, how different would my life be? Would I have been able to have children? Would I have been with that partner that I was with and the fertility challenges and my menstrual cycle and health issues and burnout got in the way.

 

[00:06:31] And so I think I personally know what it feels like to suffer, and that's why I'm here. And I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to fall apart on your podcast. I'm normally so poised and speak for a living. So give me a second to pause and gather myself. It is fine. I bring that out in people like honesty to the point of tears, everybody.

 

[00:06:50] when they talk to me says, I didn't mean to cry, but it's a safe place, right? It's a safe place. Yes. What, and you said so many poignant things. [00:07:00] Everything I learned in medical school is not. Going to help me. So I want to point that out. I say the same thing. There was a point at which I realized when I weighed 243 pounds and I had chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and depression and anxiety and IBS and gastritis, and my hair was falling out in all the things I realized.

 

[00:07:20] Everything I learned in medical school is not going to help me. And what you said. You know, maybe I would've been able to have children, right?There are women out there right now who are dealing with what you dealt with. Similar situations who have a diary problem who have not had failed to be diagnosed by mainstream corporate medicine who have infertility because of a thyroid problem.

 

[00:07:45] Hormone and menstrual irregularities who are suffering, and they're thinking, well, I'm going to buy $30 copay, HMO doctor. Isn't that all I need to do. So I want to shout out to all you women who can identify with Dr. Rome's [00:08:00] sharing. And it, it is just not enough. If you're gonna go to your corporate doctor that was trained, like we originally wore you're, that's what you're gonna get.

 

[00:08:08] So I'm glad you're here, cuz it means you're waking up and thank you for sharing that story. It's just going to hit a lot of people. Yeah. I mean, here's the humbling part. I'm a doctor and deep in my heart. I knew something was wrong for years and I couldn't get help and we did. But here's the next part of that story.

 

[00:08:28] And we'll transition into my work now is I was sitting now board certified in integrative medicine. It was before I launched the brain shift Institute, I was seeing patients one to one here in Orlando where his home and our doc hormone doctors, like you, Dr. Herron had diagnosed everything correctly.

 

[00:08:44] They were on their hormone regimen, whether it was thyroid, whether it was menopause, transition, menopause, whatever it may. And yet they were still suffering from brain and mental health symptoms. And that's where I came in. Like, you can be doing everything, [00:09:00] right. Quote, unquote, eating clean, you have the hormones.

 

[00:09:03] And yet something is still off with the brain. I mean, I know when I started to treat the Hashimotos and get on the right nutrition protocols for myself, that my own busy brain calmed down, like I finally felt like the young Romie I was in childhood. You know, recognized was a joyful, happy, bubbly, talkative spirit, but you know, there's a lot more than just a thyroid.

 

[00:09:26] And, and so if your listeners are like, oh, okay, I'm gonna fast forward through this podcast episode. No stop. Because we're about to dig a lot deeper yeah. So let's start doing that. So you are a neurologist that makes sense that you would focus on the brain. You know, you shared so many wonderful quotes with me, which I love a good quote.

 

[00:09:45] And you said this, your brain is not a bulletin board, your brain deserves boundaries. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. Because I feel like my brain is a bulletin board. Can you say more about that? Yeah. You know, Kyrin, I'm gonna backtrack and say, this is. [00:10:00] Prior to the pandemic, the start of the global pandemic, I was a, uh, one of the go-to experts in corporate America for stress management.

 

[00:10:06] And at that time I used to say, do you have too many browser windows open on your computer and in your brain? Right? But now the reality has sunk in that most of your and my clients are working from home. Some at the front lines, there are now multiple screens, open and devices. And the world has just gotten more chaotic, whether it's the news cycle, whether it's personal grieving, I mean, we've all struggled.

 

[00:10:30] And what we found was the traditional stress manage advice, management advice we were giving before the pandemic. I mean, didn't nobody wanna hear their home. Dr. Romie say, oh, just eat Barry's and breathe and everything's gonna be fine. And what it really is it's it's like, it felt like it was like this barrage.

 

[00:10:47] Post-it notes at your brain of everything going on in the world, which are really important issues, the pandemic and racial justice. And then there is this thing of my personal life, and I have no life I'm [00:11:00] working all the time or I'm, I'm trying to work and the kids are home and everything going on to this, this over stimulation that made the busy brain that I had been researching the last few years, even.

 

[00:11:12] Worse and that's what it is. And so when we talk about your brain needs boundaries, you know, often can we be real Kyrin? It's like, sure. I think a lot of the women, you and I. They'll get up in the morning and brush their teeth and step on the scale to check their weight. Am I right ladies? Oh yeah. Mm-hmm yep.

 

[00:11:29] Yeah, they do it. Everybody does. How many of us say, what am I going to do for my brain today? Good question. We don't do that. And that's what I mean, your brain deserves boundaries. Your brain is the hero of your life. Yes. Everything starts there. And so that's where I come in and I've been focusing the research on the busy brain.

 

[00:11:52] And what that is is I go as a board certified neurologist and integrative medicine doctor to go this far, Kyrin and [00:12:00] say neurology and psychiatry. Got it wrong that in adults, Anxiety adult onset ADHD or D attention deficit disorder and insomnia are not three separate diseases because what have we been doing in traditional medicine?

 

[00:12:14] Largely is you get a stimulant for D. Or you get something to calm down the anxiety or you take caffeine all day and you have wine or, uh, some Boje supplement and an Instagram influencer all day to take. So your whole life is stimulate yourself all day. How do you calm down or sedate yourself at night?

 

[00:12:34] And that's actually a busy brain that it's all one root cause. Of these three disorders and that's what I get to and, you know, specifically in women. So by the time the women reach me, Dr. Kyrin, they may not likely have not worked with an expert such as yourself on their hormones, but most of them to be honest are clean eaters.

 

[00:12:55] They have an exercise regimen, they're quoted, doing everything right that society has told [00:13:00] us to do and still suffering from these symptoms. And that's where we come. Yes, thank you for explaining that. And I just wanna emphasize that you said your brain is the sheer of your life. It absolutely is. You know, most women don't get that their brain is their mainframe computer that runs everything.

 

[00:13:18] And when that runs out, Byebye it's over. And most women don't wake up to this fact until it's too late. Like they actually get a diagnosis of dementia and nobody told them at period menopause and menopause that the brain needs these sex hormones. To be optimally healthy and help prevent dementia.

 

[00:13:38] Nobody told them that their cord ISOL yeah. Stress hormone, which I know you're gonna cover needs to be balanced in order to protect the green. So I just wanna tell everybody listening, listen up. your homie. Dr. Romie is telling you what time it is. If you wanna protect your brain. Starts now it doesn't start in 10 or 20 years [00:14:00] cuz then it could be too late.

 

[00:14:01] Well, it's not even the memory loss only Dr. Kyrin, which is so important to your point because we know Alzheimer's and dementia affects women at three to five times the rate as men. But here's the thing it is Women are in a mental health crisis right now with record numbers of depression, anxiety, diagnosis of bipolar disorder and exiting the workforce.

 

[00:14:24] And you, and I often see, like to my point earlier, I'm taking the medicine and the supplements for my thyroid. Why am I not better? I'm on an intermittent fasting or ketogenic diet. Why am I not losing weight? Well, because we didn't handle stress and sleep first, we start with the brain and everything else.

 

[00:14:42] Follow. So it doesn't mean you only deal with the brain and the protocols. You know, I work with colleagues like yourself when we identified that shift protocol, S H I F T the H is hormones. So that's a crucial part for both men and women, different hormones and those gender assigned male at birth, but [00:15:00] that's where we go, that they have to work in tandem.

 

[00:15:03] You can't just be saying, I need to replace thyroid or manage adrenal fatigue or my sex hormones and not address the. Great point. Do you wanna talk a little bit more about the shift protocol? Yeah. Mm-hmm so we talked about the busy brain and we're gonna give your listeners a free test to take that I'm all about like, not wearing stress as a badge of honor.

 

[00:15:24] If you're listening to this saying girl, what woman isn't stressed right now in the global pandemic, let's get a number we assess, we don't guess just like Dr. Kyrin checks, her hormone levels. It's the same. We assign you. Are you normal? Which is brain power, mild, which is brain drain. Uh, just means a little bit of an energy leak.

 

[00:15:41] That's quick to fix, or are you brain strain and heading towards burnout? So number one, know your number, so we can start from there. Then we go into the shift protocol that when we get to the root cause of the specific pattern of inflammation, where there's hyper excitability in your brain, what does that mean?

 

[00:15:58] It means. [00:16:00] Me getting a notification on my phone of today's news headline right now, while I'm trying to focus on the interview with you is not only going to distract me. It's actually creating a higher level than normal of stress hormones in my brain that I've lost focus. And I feel like until I put my finger to the screen and get a little dopamine hit to calm it down.

 

[00:16:23] I can't move forward. Now imagine that with email inboxes and chat window and children and pets and everything going on. So that's what the busy brain is the root cause. Everyone's a little different, but here are the five key areas they fall under. S is for your sleep cycle are circadian rhythm. That's the first place I look, I look at what the hormones in your brain, the HPA hypothalamic, pituitary to thyroid adrenal access are doing.

 

[00:16:48] The second one is H your role of hormones, which is, you know, your thyroid adrenal to your sex hormones. The third is I is inflammatory markers or markers of inflammation. We look [00:17:00] at things like vitamin D three, which I know you. And I agree as like a pro hormone methylation disorders, other things like that F is how we use food to fuel ourselves and tease the role of technology.

 

[00:17:11] So that was a lot to digest. And if you're like, wait, I'm gonna robot this podcast and listen, just calm down. It's all there on social media and the website for free. This is actually Karen, an eight week wellness program. We give to our corporate clients with brain shifts or micro habits that stack upon each other to first address, sleep insanity, and then address energy and focus in the second half.

 

[00:17:33] But balancing hormones is a key part of that for both men and women. Great. Thank you for detailing that let's dive into cuz the H is hormones. You mentioned the thyroids thyroid hormones, adrenal HPA axis the interaction. Also, you mentioned sex hormones. So you mentioned a whole lot of hormones. My seven main metabolic drivers.

[00:17:55] I relate everything to hormones, all health problems particularly for women. [00:18:00] Wow. Stat on dementia and Alzheimer's being three to five times. I gotta back up and ask you as prevalent in women as men. Tell me, say more about why that happens before we dive more into hormones. Yeah, let's go back to Alzheimer's.

 

[00:18:13] So I disagree with the men who drove the literature and. Said it's because women live longer than men. That is not true. If you even go to the websites of Alzheimer's association, they write that when you carefully look at the medical literature, that is absolutely not true. There are other factors that drive dementia in women.

 

[00:18:38] The first and foremost we know is poor cardiovascular health, that women are not likely to get attention to your blood vessels, the diabetes, the. High cholesterol, the hypertension, those things that we know that risk for heart attack, or even, you know, Dr. Karen, you and I know this from our days in traditional medicine, women would arrive with atypical [00:19:00] symptoms of heart attack or stroke in the emergency room, and it often got missed until it was too severe.

 

[00:19:05] So that's the number one driver as poor. Cerebral vascular health. The second driver that we know was that it is the role of hormones, but people think it's just the estrogen and progesterone. It starts back to the thyroid that when we look at the data that it's estimated and Dr. Kyrn, please correct me.

 

[00:19:26] But as I'm researching my book, one in eight women in the United States has subclinical hypothyroid disease. It's more prevalent in women of color. Yeah. I would say it's probably higher than that, but yeah. Documented. Yeah. Documented. Right. Mm-hmm but it's not getting screened at all. Right. Or like the story I shared earlier, my doctors are like, well, yeah, you have some symptoms, and it's borderline, but we're not gonna do anything about it.

 

[00:19:52] I'm like what. Right. Translation. You're not suffering enough. Yes. You're not sick enough to require a hospital bed. So this doesn't [00:20:00] require the pills. And even the pills that sometimes traditional medicine gives is not the whole story. Right. And, and that's your area of expertise? I won't get into the nuances of thyroid, but the thyroid hormone, we know.

 

[00:20:13] That even in people that are teenagers or twenties or thirties that have low thyroid show up severely depressed and prevented your brain chemistry, all these systems that are tagged and work together in your cell structure and function. To promote, understanding comprehension and memory are tied to this entire HPA, hypothalamic, pituitary, thyroid adrenal access.

 

[00:20:39] Then on top of it, when, if you are really stressed out and you have high stress hormone levels going at a time in menopause transition menopause, we know that there's this NA alone steel phenomenon. And then you're struggling with, you know, the neuroprotective effects of estrogen and progesterone. Yes.

 

[00:20:56] You heard me say that, right? Estrogen and progesterone protect [00:21:00] your brain at all stages of the life cycle. How do I know this? Because early in my neurology residency, I would see, oh, couple days, right before your menstrual cycle and the abrupt changes in estrogen, progesterone, what would happen? Women would.

 

[00:21:13] Awful breakthrough seizures or migraines. So like it is protective of every function in your brain. So that is not only for memory, but for women who have headaches and even for mood disorders, Kyrin. So important in what you are saying. And I hope everybody is hearing this. She didn't Dr. Romie. Didn't just say estrogen for your brain.

 

[00:21:34] She said estrogen and progesterone and thyroid and cortisol. So you gotta hear it. And she said, This is probably the number two reason for the increased risk of dementia in women. And like I tell women, you know, they say, well, do I need to use hormone replacement therapy? And I say, well, what do you want 80 to look like?

 

[00:21:55] Do you even want to get to 70 or 80? And if you want to get there, do you [00:22:00] want to be able to walk and talk? To your, oh, I see what you're saying. So do you wanna live that long? If you want to, you gotta deal with it. And then what do you wanna to look back? Because I really wanna backtrack it because hormones get a bad rap for women and menopause, transition and menopause.

 

[00:22:16] And you're like, okay, these integrated functional medicine doctors are just giving these women hormones so that they look young and their weight is managed. But no, it actually protects your heart and brain from a heart attack and stroke. The number one killer of women. Yes. Like this is your homey, Dr.

 

[00:22:31] Romie brain doctor saying, protect your hormones for the sake of your heart and your brain. And of course all these other things, the, your skin, your sexuality, your weight are, are so important and critical, but like, I also want you to be healthy. I want you to have your memory. I want your heart to be working.

 

[00:22:48] And I, you know, so, so that's where we are with the hormones. But gosh, we've derailed far from busy brain. I'm gonna let you bring it back into where we need to. We need to go here because women just don't even know [00:23:00] what they're not getting at their corporate doctor's office. And they think cuz they get their pap smear in a booby check and the rectal for blood that they're getting everything they need.

 

[00:23:08] And you, if you are not getting your hormones, you're living in hormonal poverty and it is going to mess up your mood and your brain and your heart, and so many other things. So I say, keep on preaching because there aren't enough. Us out here speaking the truth people. And I wanna refocus on the brain because too often, can I be real with you?

 

[00:23:30] We talk about dementia. Mm-hmm and that's really hard for a woman to hear, because one, it may trigger. Most of us have a loved one. That's suffered from dementia Alzheimer's and we don't wanna face that. And to be honest, Karen, I can't or you. We say, this is what I hear from women. Focus on what's gonna happen 15, 20, 30 years from now.

 

[00:23:49] I don't even know if I'll get through the end of the week. Right. But the issue is when you have a busy brain, that's due to hormone imbalance, what happens often in traditional corporate [00:24:00] medicine is Ugh. You're like every other woman coming in here, you're middle age, you're tired from your kids. You're depressed.

 

[00:24:06] You kind of get this judgment that, Ugh, you were lack, work, life balance. And girl, let me just tell you something. I am on this kick that I tell every HR professional or event planner that calls me for speaking work. Life balance is a myth. It is a euphemism from the patriarchy meant to make women think you need to be perfect.

 

[00:24:25] Stop that it's not your work and life that needs to be been balanced. It's your brain that we start to balance. And then your body comes naturally. And what do I mean by brain? It's like right now, whatever your listeners are dealing with, your brain power is fueling all of it. It's fueling your mood.

 

[00:24:44] Are you depressed? Are you feeling anxious or are you feeling calm? No matter what life is handing you, are you sleeping? you know, the 10 things that they gave you at work to remember to do. You wrote it down and you still forgot it. This is all your brain. It's not [00:25:00] true. That a younger woman who just graduated from college or grad school is gonna take your job because your brain is failing because of aging, it's failing because of inflammation and hormones play a key part of that.

 

[00:25:13] Yeah. Do you wanna say more about that inflammation? And hormones and the brain. Yes. So if we can have a brain science break here and sure, Dr. Karen will help translate it. If I get too much into my geek girl mode, but by now any of your listeners know some of the basics that there's an area of our brain known as the limbic system that creates a stress response.

 

[00:25:36] So an emotional stress, a physical stress comes your stress. Hormone levels get elevated. Let's take it to the next level is that limbic system is connected like an interwoven web, like the global airspace to key areas of your brain. One of them being your hypothalamus, your hypothalamus. Is where the circadian [00:26:00] rhythm or biological clock of your entire life is stored.

 

[00:26:03] If you follow Eastern wisdom, they say your spirit is directly connected here to the hypothalamus and the Panal gland, but let's talk about it. Your cycle. There is a 24 hour cycle, Karen in your body and my body, depending on our ancestry where we're currently living. That says, during this part of your 24 hour cycle, this organ is gonna be active or this one's gonna be resting and restoring.

 

[00:26:29] Right. And the, it works in this beautiful symphony and it all starts here from the hypothalamus. And this includes the 50 hormones that govern every function of our brain. Every function of your immune system, of your gut health, your respiration, your kidneys, there is a neuro hormone for everything. So it's beyond just your thyroid estrogen, progesterone testosterone.

 

[00:26:55] We start up there and when that circadian rhythm is off due to [00:27:00] chronic stress, which for many of us in the last three years, that's the case and give yourself grace, if that's what's going on. Now that circadian rhythm is unbalanced and it's kind of like the clock is reading. It's three o'clock in the afternoon.

 

[00:27:15] You need to go pick up the kids, but it's really 6:00 AM. And the kids haven't gotten outta bed to get ready for school, right? That's what's going on with your brain and your hormonal health. So this is gonna drive your pituitary and thyroid to be stressed. So metabolic issues in my world, a busy brain.

 

[00:27:31] It's why you're feeling anxious. And you have a adult onset D D. Then it's gonna go down and affect your adrenal glands and your pregnant alone that you need for both sex hormones, for men and women. And your adrenal gland is now going to make all these stress hormones and going into adrenal fatigue, your immune system shot.

 

[00:27:48] So you're more likely to get ill or, you know, you know, we're in a pandemic, even if it's not COVID 19 succumbed to mold or fungal infections or small, uh, Sebo, small [00:28:00] intestine bacterial over. All of this is related to a disruption in that circadian rhythm of our brain. And the end result for women is. The sex hormone imbalance that starts everywhere from a delayed onset of your menstrual cycle at menarchy to irregular periods.

 

[00:28:20] Like you heard me talk about to infertility issues all the way to menopause, transition symptoms and menopause. So that is the cycle that I talk about that we address in brain shift and hormones are like a key puzzle piece in that, in that whatever is imbalanced needs to be rebalanced and. Dr. Kyrin, I'm gonna go this far and get your thoughts on it.

 

[00:28:41] One of the things I hear, you know, people are gonna listen to you and I, that are in the integrative medicine community. And they say, well, I don't need the biodentical hormones from Dr. Kyrin or Dr. Romie. We can just do this with nutrition. That's the number one pushback I get. Or just give me a supplement and they, I see them [00:29:00] misusing a lot of the I've herbs that are actually depressing cortisol during the day and making you more tired.

 

[00:29:06] Like, I, I, I see so many misuse of things, so I really would love for you to dress this because my community is gonna listen to this when I'm like, you need to go to a woman like Dr. Kyrin who specializes in getting your hormone labs and is going to give you a personalized recipe of bio identical hormone.

 

[00:29:22] To take, I it's so important. And I think that point gets missed for people that are in the know, oh my gosh, my home, Dr. Romie, I will gladly address that because I agree with you. There's a whole fragment of holistic functional integrative healthcare providers, some credentialed, some health coaches, various.

 

[00:29:44] Specialties. And they tell women that you can get all the benefits you need for your brain, for your heart, for all the beautiful parts of your body that you wanna preserve for as long as you live to have excellent quality of life [00:30:00] without. Hormone replacement. And I say rubbish, rubbish, absolute rubbish.

 

[00:30:06] All the data clearly shows yeah. That in order to have optimum bone strength and muscle mass, which equals lack of fat accumulation, right. Overweight and obesity, which 75% of us are by the time we're 60 mm-hmm mm-hmm you can't do. Without natural hormone replacement, you can't help prevent the number one killer of women over 50 heart attack, heart disease.

 

[00:30:34] You can't preserve your brain and prevent Alzheimer's and dementia. You can't do all these things with a supplement. And it's so funny because, you know, tell me what you think Romie, but there's really a value judgment when it comes to women's hormones because no woman ever. When told by her doctor, oh, you're having a little bit of bone thinning.

 

[00:30:51] I think you should take 1200 milligrams of calcium and maybe up your vitamin D and your vitamin K the woman says, oh, of course, no woman [00:31:00] ever says, no, I'm gonna do bone thinning naturally. Yes, I'm gonna go without right. I'm gonna do this naturally. But you get this value judgment with menopause and perimenopause and women are going into a state of hormonal poverty.

 

[00:31:14] And so many women say I'm gonna do menopause natural. I'm not gonna take hormones. I'm gonna take this supplement. And they're led to believe by many experts that they are getting everything they need. And I can't tell you how many women join my programs in their seventies, Uhhuh, who say, I feel like I was the generation that.

 

[00:31:34] That got the BS because we were sold a raft of nonsense and we weren't given the opportunity to know the truth about our health. And I know I'm getting on my soapbox, but preach sister preach well, because for me, it's not just the estrogen and progesterone, Karen, like, you know, in my world, that's important.

 

[00:31:53] I, by the time people come to me, if their busy brain score is really high in their end brain drain, then I know they need. [00:32:00] The estrogen, progesterone testosterone they're in menopause transition, maybe even early, I'm even hearing this for thyroid and subclinical thyroid. Yes. And, and that like bothers me because I would really like for a licensed doctor to look and see, of course there is important nutrition protocols and certain supplements that are, you know, clinically studied to.

 

[00:32:23] Benefits in Hashimotos or in graves disease or subclinical hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, but medications or hormones are still often needed. And I think that's where I wanna come in. This message from is could we be a bridge builder? That you don't go to one extreme or the other where you're all corporate medicine or you're all, I'm gonna go do a few Oana in the yoga studio.

 

[00:32:50] Take a shot, a wheat as, and take the supplement from this, you know, Instagram influencer. There's something in between. And that's hormone replacement, [00:33:00] please. It's so true. And hopefully I think everyone gets getting our point and you know, it wasn't an issue over a hundred years ago. We didn't, our lifespan wasn't as long as it is now.

 

[00:33:10] And we are the only other mamalian species that lives significant degree of our lifespan in menopause, right. Whales and humans. So we didn't have to face these questions years ago. And unfortunately, I mean, I we're getting off on a tangent, but most doctors are not taught to speak hormone and I. I still am board certified OB GYN.

 

[00:33:31] And I practice as a basic corporate OB GYN for years. And until I realized, I didn't know how to speak hormone, and that's why I couldn't fix my own health. So that's why I had to go to school to learn how to speak hormone. And then I realized that most doctors don't really understand hormones. I did wanna add on the brain health front that, you know, that's actually how I teach my ladies.

 

[00:33:52] Dr. Romi is that the foundation of their health is about communication. And that comes from your nervous system. Mm-hmm [00:34:00] mm-hmm and that hormones actually originate. In your nervous system. And most people aren't aware of that. So it is a brain function. It is, they originate in your brain. So to me, that's, I agree with you, you said earlier, it all starts with your brain hands down.

 

[00:34:15] Yeah, I agree. And so what are you going to do for your brain today? So before, you know, you step on the scale and nutrition. Sure. Some of the nutrition things you're gonna do for your brain, but I always, I honor it in like mind. Spirit. That's gonna honor your brain like spiritually. We all have just had so much grief or suffering or lost some of us, but most of us I'm in corporate America and everyone is suffering no matter what industry in the last few years.

 

[00:34:41] So what can you do to regenerate your spirit? It can be. Reconnecting with loved ones, um, whatever that is for your spirituality being out in nature. And then there's the idea of what are you doing for your mind? And you're gonna love this one, but you don't know how many people come through. Brain shift, Dr.

 

[00:34:57] Kyrin and they are committed. They get the lab slip, [00:35:00] they go get their hormones checked. They're all over it. We're gonna do digital detox. We're gonna do the sleep protocol. Dr. Romy's giving us. Yet before they do that, they're watching the evening news or the CSI crime shows mm-hmm . And you can do that for your mind.

 

[00:35:16] Like, no, no. Yeah, because our, our spirit and our brain. Doesn't understand that that's the TV. Our spirit actually feels like I'm in the middle of the crime scene, or I'm sitting here in the middle of this news cycle, chaos, and that's what you're doing to your nervous system. And then there's the body and you and I have talked hormones, you know, we can talk movement.

 

[00:35:37] There's so many things, but I really just wanna say that if you have a busy brain, Don't allow someone to shame you that you're a woman and you don't have work life balance. It's what are you doing for the state of your brain? And with the shift protocol, S we start with your sleep cycle and circadian rhythm and age is hormones.

 

[00:35:58] And that is the [00:36:00] foundation. Yeah. I wanna just start wrapping up with this quote that you shared. Your brain is not broken. Your mind is not a mess. You are whole, and so don't internalize. This criticism that you don't have work life balance. And Dr. Romie, could you leave us with a few kind of top three take action tips to shut off our B busy brain.

 

[00:36:21] We're gonna have the link to take your busy brain quiz in the show notes so everybody can go there. It's uh, Dr. Romie, Dr. R O M I e.com/test T E S T. And we'll also have it in the show notes driving. Don't try and write that down, but if you wanna leave us just with your top take action tips, in addition to taking that quiz, no you're gonna take and assess and not guess your stress levels.

 

[00:36:48] Mm-hmm . And then the most surprising thing that I think you're going to hear me say that your busy brain needs is to schedule eating comfort food. When you look back in your childhood or your early adult [00:37:00] life, was there food that you remember a grandparent made or tied to a religious holiday or your ancestry schedule that, and remember that joy that is attached to the food.

 

[00:37:11] And the second thing with your comfort food is create connection with someone and I'll especially do this shout out to anybody that is single alone. It may be by choice. You may have been widowed. You may be divorced. Could you reach out to someone, especially that's living at home alone because their busy brain is going to calm down with the connection.

 

[00:37:32] And the fact that you're giving that connection will also honor your spirit. So I've given you two things, right? Is comfort food, not stress eating, and honor your culture, your religion, your, your path of those foods. Two is connection. And the third one is give yourself compassion. And that's what I mean when I say your brain is not broken, your mind is not a mess.

 

[00:37:53] And you are whole at any given moment when we're smart women, we understand I wanna [00:38:00] wake up and be a better woman today than I was yesterday. And my health needs today may be different than two years ago, let alone a decade ago, but don't allow the guilt and the shame and the trauma of the number on this.

 

[00:38:11] Scale or the fact that you're really anxious and you couldn't get through your work day today, traumatize you even further give yourself that compassion, your brain is not broken. Your mind is not a mess. You are whole. So when we start with that place of comfort, food and connection, and self-compassion the naturally all the next steps of the treatment protocols just fall into place.

 

[00:38:32] I love that. I absolutely love that it's nourishing food for your body. It's food for your heart food for your soul, the comfort food connection, and compassion. Thank you so much, Dr. Romie for joining us today. Thank you for the work that you do for the busy brain quiz and the brain shift protocol. Please tell everybody where they can connect with you and find out.

 

[00:38:56] It is well, Dr. Kyrin, thank you so much for having me with your [00:39:00] community. I'm at Dr. Romie, D R R O M I E on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the same website. And you know, what do me a favor if you decide to have comfort food tag, Dr. Kyrin and I on social media with your comfort food and hashtag brain shift, we wanna celebrate that connection with.

 

[00:39:19] Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us today. I want you to not just take this as entertainment or edutainment, but I want you to reflect on everything that you've heard today and make a promise to yourself about some. Actions that you are going to take. That's actually, what's going to shift your life and your experience in your body.

 

[00:39:43] So what are three things that you're gonna do differently going forward from listening to this podcast? And I look forward to hearing about that on social media too. And until next week I will see you then until then peace, love and hormones. Thank you so much for [00:40:00] listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40.

 

[00:40:03] 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.

 

[00:40:37] That begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.

 

 

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Peptide Therapy For Hormone And Health Optimization At Midlife - For Both Men and Women

Do you know what peptides are and how they can help with hormone optimization?

 

Listen in as Dr. Tracy Gapin joins The Hormone Prescription Podcast to discuss peptide therapy for hormone and health optimization at midlife - for both men and women.

 

As we age, our hormones naturally decline. This can lead to a host of issues, including fatigue, weight gain, mood swings, and more. Peptide therapy can help optimize hormone levels, resulting in improved energy levels, better sleep, and a general feeling of well-being.

 

In this episode, you will learn:

• What peptides are and how they can help optimize hormone levels
• The benefits of peptide therapy for both men and women
• The best time to start peptide therapy
• How peptide therapy can help with weight loss, energy levels, and more

If you're interested in learning more about peptide therapy and how it can help you feel your best in midlife, tune in now!

 

[1:00] My guest today is a little unusual for a guest on this podcast. Why? Because he specializes in men's health. Well, Dr. Kyrin, you're thinking, why are you having a doctor who specialize in men's health? Because for most women, we've got men in our lives who are important to us and it matters, but also in many areas, there's a lot of overlap and he's gonna be talking about peptides and how they can be used to help with hormone balance and health optimization at midlife and beyond. And maybe we'll have a little guy talk to because what woman couldn't use to know more about the men in her life and how they function and how to help them.

 

[01:58] So Dr. Gapin is a board certified urologist world renowned health and performance expert, and the founder of the Gapin Institute for high performance health and the men's telehealth startup on Novi health, kind of like the counterpart to the hormone club. I think that's super cool. He's a thought leader, a professional speaker and the author of the bestselling books, male 2.0 and codes of longevity. His passion and purpose is providing fortune 500 executives, entrepreneurs, and athletes, a personalized path to optimize health and performance. Welcome Dr. Gapin.

 

[03:15] Thanks so much appreciate being here.

 

[03:17] So super excited to get started. So you're an, a urologist by training, but you have evolved your training to provide a functional approach for men so that they can have high performance at midlife and beyond. And you've created, uh, telehealth startup too. So can you talk a little bit about your journey from mainstream corporate medicine to where you are now?

 

[03:41]  So I am a board certified urologist, a men's health expert. Um, I was in traditional, if you will, Western medicine, forgs 25 plus years, including training. And I hit a wall. I got to a point where, um, I had some health issues that really, uh, changed my life. I was incredibly fatigued. I couldn't focus, couldn't sleep. I was about 30 pounds overweight and I knew something was wrong. And I went to see a, a local internal medicine doc here in town. And, uh, he ran some tests and, uh, the results were pretty terrible. And what really changed everything for me was he told me what I need to do was simply eat more vegetables. I need to lose some weight, exercise more. And if that doesn't work, maybe I'll be put on a statin, a prescription medication. 

 

[04:29] And I left that day really confused because I knew I needed a lot more than that. And as a men's health expert, you would think that I would have the answers myself, but I didn't because I realized that at that point that we are failing, you know, traditional healthcare is all based on disease. We have disease care, crisis care, not healthcare. We are reactive simply waiting to treat illness or disease when it occurs rather than being proactive and intentional and, uh, focused on promoting health. And that's really what my book, Mel, 2.0 is all about, um, my sense for the gap Institute. That's what that's all about as well. 

 

[05:21]  And you know, it's interesting when I work with women, I come from OB GYN background, exclusively work with women when they get better than the next question is, well, where do I send my, the men in my life, my husband, my partner, my son, the men in my life. And so this is why one of the reasons why I thought it would be great to have Dr. Gin on the show is because this is where you send them. . This is who you send them to, is the person who specializes in helping men. 

 

[06:09] We would wear to a black tie dinner. And that was our reproductive capacity, our special superpower organs to make a baby in our hormones. But I learned from a functional approach that nothing could be further from the truth. And we really foundationally are very different. So I'm a fan of unique approach. Someone who specifically works with men and who knows them inside and out like Dr. Gapin and someone who knows women like I do. So that's my plug. But one of the things we're gonna focus on is peptides today. How did you become aware of the science of peptides and the power of peptides? What was that journey like?

 

[06:49] . I go see that doctor, you know, because of that experience. And so I think it's really important for the women in your audience to understand that, that you need to be advocates for your men because oftentimes men will not be proactive enough to take charge of their health and they'll simply wait for a problem. And typically that problem that will finally get them to see a doctor is issues with sex. And so don't wait for that to happen. Jump on it well before then, obviously. So that being said, um,

 

[07:49]  I did work with men at one point in the past decade, and you're I found that you're exactly right. You know, they wouldn't come cuz they're tired. They wouldn't come because they can't sleep, or they don't have their drive. But when they couldn't get an erection, that they would say, you know, something's wrong. And I, I would really, but I would find a lot of them were still hesitant to even have that conversation with doctors. So how can the women who are listed, who are in my audience, whose partners are having difficulty with erectile dysfunction, even get their partners to talk to doctors about that, how do they do that?

 

[08:33] So I'm going to give you 20 seconds of science here that I think is important to understand how an erection has increased blood flow to penis. What causes that a molecular level is increased nitric oxide secretion from the blood vessels that cause Vasodilation and increased blood flow. What affects nitric oxide production while most notably insulin resistance, insulin resistance blocks, nitric oxide production. So that's the correlation between metabolic issues in your body, your nutrition, your stress, your sleep, et cetera, which has a dramatic effect on your sex life. And so women recognize that if there's an issue with ed in your man, it could potentially be a sign of major underlying health issues that need to be checked out.

 

[09:40] Yeah. Like heart disease, heart attack. So super important. I always tell them when something's wrong below the belt, there's really something wrong above the belt and that could kill you. So you need to investigate that. All right. So now back to the peptides, when did that get on your radar? Yeah.

 

[09:57]  So when I recognize that our healthcare system is failing, that really sent me on a journey to learn, how can I really transform men's health? How can I reinvent the way we think about health and performance and longevity. And that's where I learned about functional medicine. I learned about epigenetics, which is, you know, the science of how our lifestyle and our genetics interact to affect our health, both good and bad. Um, I learned about hormone optimization and it's amazing that in medical school, in general surgery residency, in urology residency, I'm talking about 10 years of medical training before I actually went out there and hung my shingle up. 

 

[10:44] And so I promise I'm getting to your peptide question and along my way here, you're fine. You know, when I think of health, I think of it like  a high performance bicycle wheel. You have the hub and that hub can be energy, weight, sex, cognitive focus, whatever it may be. And you have spokes coming out of that wheel. And each of those spokes are vitally important aspects of your health that are directly impacting that core function. That may be things like insulin resistance. I just mentioned, which is how your body handles glucose. It may be what you're eating when you're eating.

 

[11:29] It may be how your body handles toxins. It may be your sleep. It may be your stress. It may be hormones. And I want to emphasize not just testosterone. You know, men are so focused on testosterone, which certainly is important and levels are plummeting worldwide. We could talk about but there are other hormones that are critically important in men as well. You know, we have growth hormones. We have D H E cortisol insulin melatonin, vitamin D. It goes on, tThere are probably 15 hormones that we care about. Those are all different spokes of the wheel. And so coming back to this concept of cellular medicine, it's a systems approach to health. And so how do we impact all of the, the systems in your human body to achieve that outcome? And that's where peptides come in. Peptides allow us to, to specifically address things like inflammation at the cellular level, specifically impact immune function.

 

[12:17] We use peptides for specifically musculoskeletal repair. All of these different functions are working at a cellular level to impact what we're trying to accomplish. And so that's really the, the beauty of peptide therapy is that it allows a very precision based approach to health mm-hmm and they're not drugs. They're not pharmaceuticals. You know, peptides are nothing more than chains of amino acids. They're short proteins, and they're signaling molecules that our bodies already recognize. You know, as we age our levels of certain peptides decline and what we're doing with peptide therapy is really helping our body to restore those levels. So I'll give you a great example here. 

 

[13:09] And there's a process involved there. And so we can stimulate our bodies to increased production of growth hormone, and that's gonna be amazing for helping things like sleep. One of the biggest complaints I hear with high performing men and women who I work with is trouble with sleep. It can help with weight loss. It could help with energy, with mood. It could help with metabolism, exercise capacity on and on and on growth. Hormone is a critical hormone that is often ignored. And so that's where we can really look at peptides to have a very precision based approach.

 

[13:37] So thank you for explaining that. I know some people, when they first hear about this concept of peptides that could help, and they're, they're told, oh, well they're basically amino acid that change their proteins. They say, oh, I don't need all that. I'm justgoing toa take a protein supplement or amino acid supplement or a collagen supplement. And my body's going to know what to do with it. So I don't need these fancy targeted things. What, what do you say to that?

 

[14:05] So when you're taking, you know, collagen, when you're doing protein, you know, weigh or P protein, whatever, you know, yeah. You're getting amino acids, but, uh, I want to be clear, a peptide has to be a very specific sequence taken in the exact right way for it to be effective. Mm-hmm . And so you're really talking apples and oranges that there's really no comparison. And the beauty of peptides comes down to it's non-pharmaceutical it is asuddenly sudden molecule that your body recognizes. the, the side effects are, are typically negligible and again, at a cellular level, amazing potential benefits.

 

[14:42] Mm-hmm so they're non-pharmaceutical but some of them require a prescription. Why is

 

[14:47] So there are numerous ways of getting peptides. You can get peptides over, you know, direct to consumers from these companies that are, uh, completely unregulated. It is the wild west out there. When, when you're looking at these and I, I would say that any place where a consumer, a non-physician can go purchase peptides, I would be very wary of it because the oversight of, and the, and the quality assurance at those places is truly questionable. And so when I prescribe, and I use the word carefully there to prescribe peptides for my patients, they come from compounding pharmacies, pharmacies that have oversight. They have quality assurance. They have to, um, have certificates of authenticity and, and they get tested regularly to be sure that you're actually getting what you're supposed to be getting. Um, and that's where I think a lot of people run into trouble where when you go over the counter, uh, direct to consumer you, you just don't know what the heck you're getting and you get side effects or issues, complications, or it doesn't work. And then you, you, you think that it was the pep tie when in fact it was purely just the, the source.

 

[15:48] Okay. So it, they, you need a prescription because they come from a compounding pharmacy, but it's not regulated by the FDA, but if you get one from a compounding pharmacy, you know that you're working with an organization that is regulated itself, so you should be getting a good quality. Correct?

 

[16:03] You're spot on, correct there. That it is, you know, peptides, they're not FDA approved because to clarify this for the FDA to approve something, it has to actually undergo clinical trials through the FDA. And that's what pharmaceutical companies do when they develop a drug for that drug to be sold. It has to go through that process. You'll never get that process to be done for a peptide because it's a by definition, generic product, because it is simply a chain of amino acids that any compounding pharmacy with the right equipment can produce manufacturer. And so it is therefore by definition, generic and the, the millions of dollars that are needed to produce these massive prospective, double blinded clinical trials to get a drug clear through the FDA. It's it's impossible.

 

[16:54] And so that's why my program my, my high level program is called N one performance health. And it's called N one, because everything we do is N of one medicine or N equals one medicine. And, and Kyrin, you, and I know what that means, but for the listeners, that means that everyone is uniquely different. And it's an individualized approach. Understanding, you know, at a cellular level, what things do, but that everyone's going to respond differently, and we have to really tailor individualized things. And so to that effect, a lot of the peptides we use are based on tons of science, don't get me wrong. We're not, we're not being cavalier. Mm-hmm , but they're not gonna, it's not possible for them to go through that FDA approval process.

 

[17:33] Yeah. Kind of like the bioidentical hormones

 

[17:37] Everyone loves to say, oh, they're not FDA approved. Well, estrogen is, and testosterone is, but when they compound it in this unique preparation that nobody's going to do that study. Yeah. So you mentioned, you

 

[17:50] Know, a comparison, I'm sorry to interrupt you. A co a comparison I would make is to say, well, vitamin D's not FDA approved. Well, it it's vitamin D it's generic. It's like, it's, it's, you can't approve, like, no one's going to do studies. It's just, that it's a hormone that we need. Vitamin D is in fact, a hormone, not a vitamin that we need. And so you don't need FDA approval to know that it is needed and how it works

 

[18:11] Is a great point. Yeah. Sorry, D is not FDA approved. Right. All right. So you mentioned growth hormone, which I, I think is super important. What are some of your other peptides that you might use to have various effects? What are some of the most powerful ones that you see at midlife that would be, that are important for men that are also important for women?

 

[18:33] That's actually very important as well when it comes to certain recent illnesses that we may have experienced. Right. And so I love them and alpha for improving boosting immune function, both men and women, you know, there are, are actual recent studies that came out, supporting its use for certain, um, illnesses that have been around lately. I love thy and alpha for immune function. Thy and beta is, uh, closely related. Uh, it is incredible when it comes to musculoskeletal repair, we're looking at tendons, ligaments, cartilage, bone. I just had elbow surgery and I am using thymus and beta for recovery for my elbow surgery, for example. So that's amazing. And again, boosting your body's ability to heal properly. This is not a pharmaceutical, again, it's a peptide with the, the amino acid sequences that are needed to, to achieve that specific outcome.

 

[19:52] And speaking of that recent illness that some people, a lot of us have had, I had it, you helped greatly. We were at a conference in, on the West Coast and one of our colleagues who didn't attend called us from Atlanta, and she was in a bad way, having thinking she had to go to the emergency room, and you actually talked with her and got her hooked up with certain peptides to help her. Yeah. And I mean, unfortunately she had a more severe case, but I really think she credits the peptides as really helping her. 

 

[20:27] Yeah. Yeah. I got sick, uh, way back in March 2020, when everything first started, I was one of the first ones to get super sick that second week of, of March. And I took a combination of four different peptides that I'm sure had a dramatic effect on my recovery.

 

[20:40] Do you want to mention the thymus and alpha and beta part of that?

 

[20:44] Yeah. So th ayin, um, alpha is a great again, immune function Pepi that I really recommend.

 

[20:50] Yeah. Okay. Great. All right. So boosting immune system function, what are some of the others that you would say, oh, wow, everybody needs this. Cause like for women over 40 or 50, I say, you know, we all need our estrogen progesterone testosterone.

 

[21:05] n. So someone specifically focused on reducing inflammation, um, in the gut oral BPC is fantastic. I've had several patients who initially came to see me with nothing more than serious irritable bowel symptoms. And a month later they're on BPC, and they're completely fine. And I'm like, Hey Mike, how you doing with your gut? He's like, what do you mean? I'm like your gut stuff. And he completely forgot he even had it. And it was so pretty amazing how BBC cleared that up pretty quickly. BBC subq injection is also great for musculoskeletal or joint inflammation. So when we're looking at inflammation in the joint arthritis, injury, surgical repair, that sort of thing as well. So I love B BPC for inflammation, but again, there's not a peptide that I would recommend that every single person needs to be on.

 

[22:25] So having said that some people listening are thinking, well, how do I know which ones I need? Is it by symptoms? So is it like a symptom And then you get, like you said, joint inflammation, and then I need BPC subq, or is it based on laboratory findings? How does, how does somebody know?

 

[22:45] I think the answer is you work with a professional who is experienced at assessing patients from a functional perspective, understanding what's needed and prescribing the appropriate peptides. I can't tell you how often I'll have both men and women come in the office here and Hey, I really want this. I really want D S I to sleep deep sleep inducing peptide. For example, I really need, I heard about, I read about D S I, I really want to have that one, or I really want Mo SC, which is this mitochondrial biogenesis, peptide, uh, this or that. And when I actually talk to them and dive deeper into understanding their health issues, challenges, goals, that's not all what they actually need. And so I would caution against any, you know, person out there with, without medical experience, trying to go out and buying your own peptides. Peptides are amazing, but they should be really used in the context of a much bigger, more, you know, uh, systems approach to health.

 

[23:32] I like to emphasize, you know, a foundation of, you know, emphasis on fixing and correcting issues with sleep and stress and detox and hormones and nutrition and movement and mindset and breathing, all that stuff I think is critically important. And there's a tendency to fall back into that pill for every ill approach, with disease model medicine, and try to apply that same approach with peptides. And that's not how it works. You know, this is again, part of a systems approach to health. It's understanding how all the inputs to our human system are ultimately affecting that outcome. And peptides are great, but think of them as the icing on top of the cake.

 

[24:10]  Yes. Progress is impossible without change. And those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything from George Bernard Shaw. So really that's the hard work of health. Anyone can take a supplement, anyone can really follow any diet. Yeah. But doing the hard work of changing the way you're living your life. Has that been a factor for you in, in regaining your health? Did you find there were any thought or feeling patterns that you had to transform to optimize your health?

 

[25:14] Definitely. Yeah. Great question. So, you know, when I wrote my book, Mel, 2.0, you know, M a L E is actually an acronym for mindset, aging lifestyle and environment. And it's my system's approach to health. And it starts with M for mindset because until you fix that until you get your mind, uh, properly focused, you're never going to have success with everything else. And so I, I'm a huge advocate for mindfulness practices and uh, even meditation. That sort of stuff is wonderful. I also emphasize living with intention. And so every guy I work with, the first question I ask, one of the first questions I ask is what is your, why? Why are you doing this? And he'll say, well, I wanna lose 30 pounds. No, that that's. Excuse my language. You, you, you're not here cuz you wanna lose 30 pounds. What will that get you?

 

[26:01] And so if you only focus on these superficial things like weight loss, without focusing on the real, why then we're never gonna be successful. And so focusing on what is your why to me is really paramount. And then the next step is getting rid of limiting beliefs. And so like you were just alluding to most men have these thoughts that I'm too old to change. I'm set in my ways I can't change. This is how it is or the best one. I don't have time. I don't have time nonsense. That's nonsense. You don't have time. It's all about how do you schedule your day? What is your priorities? Again, it comes back to the three words that I emphasize living with intention.

 

[26:45] Yeah. I don't have time as code word first. I don't see the value in it. Really? Yes,

 

[26:51] We all get the same 24 hours in a day. We all have the same amount of time. You know, it's interesting. We were talking the other day with this specific group of women we're talking with now, uh, about blue zones and how one of the, the characteristics of the Arians in those communities was that they all had a life purpose that they could articulate. They had a why they had a why for why they do everything and what was important. And they lived with intention. So I had have given everyone the challenge to share their life purpose, be able to articulate it, everybody listening. I'm gonna invite you to do that too. Cuz you, you heard it also from Dr. Gin, that it's important. And you mentioned that your wife is amazing. I have to ask you about that. Cuz I know there's some women who are saying, oh, I want my husband to say that about me. What makes you say that about her?

 

[27:46] You know, I had a, I had a childhood with, with no real strong father figure. And so now for, for me, it's all about how can I be present and engaged with my family and, and give them what they need. And at the same time, I couldn't do that without my wife who is incredibly supportive and nurturing and loving and um, you know, we're a team and, and that's, you know, it should be easy. You know, one of my colleagues here, he's out there in the dating world, which I, I couldn't imagine being there again, but I gave him the, the guidance that it should be easy.

 

[28:24] . There's be times where, where you disagree with things, but it should still always be easy. And you're always in alignment, always in the same page. So I love the fact that we are a team. She's my best friend. And, and actually when I was filling out your form, I, I had to give you three quotes and the first two were easy. I say 'em every day and the throw one, like I need to throw a quote and, and she's Sarah sitting next to me. My wife's amazing. Yeah she is. And so I wrote that. So ,

 

[28:49] I love that. Well, let's share the other two too. You said, I believe there's nothing more than important than the quality of your life. And that starts and ends with your health. I couldn't agree more. And you also said you don't get today back, so make it count. Do you wanna say any more about all of these?

 

[29:06] Yeah. So the, the second one there, my brother-in-law John, he was this larger than life guy who everyone loved everywhere. He went, he was everyone's best friend and uh, loved him. He died of a heart attack at the age of 49 way too young. And we found out after the fact that he, although he looked like he was healthy, he was actually in fairly poor health for a while, but we never would've known, you know, what was striking about John was almost every day I saw him. He would say to me, Tracy, you don't get today. Back, make a count. He was that kind of positive, powerful person in my life. And when he passed at a very young age, it made that, that comment that he would always say that much more powerful and it still resonates with me today. Yeah. So that's that quote you don't get today back.

 

[29:51] So make account mm-hmm and then the, the first one, you know, I feel that we have a short time on this earth and we need to live life to its fullest and reach our full potential and to experience that you have to make your health, your top priority. And so often people don't. So often people are, again, back to the mindset part, not viewing it properly and not placing the emphasis where it needs to be. And so I believe that the quality of your life is important and you should be allowed to, and you should expect to have fun and enjoy life. But if you're not healthy, if you're not, well, you could never do that. So you gotta take care of that first. So that's what that's about.

 

[30:28] I could not agree more. And everybody listening, Dr. Gin is doing a wonderful little masterclass with women in my program. So as soon as we jump off the podcast interview, they're gonna get to have a private Q and a with him and really pick his brain about the men in their life and, um, how to help them to be their healthiest, which I think is super important. Like you mentioned earlier, women are the healthcare decision makers in their family. So it's, you know, I hate to say it, but we, we have a big responsibility to make sure that the men in our lives are getting what they made fair or not fair. It just is what it is. So we're gonna have chats about that as well, as more in depth on peptides and how the, we can get the icing on our cake with our health. So we'll be diving into that. Dr. Gapin, I keep saying it incorrectly. I apologize. How can people find out more? Where can they send the men in their lives? What resources, um, do you have for everybody?

 

[31:26] Sure thing. Yeah. So, um, my website is Dr. Tracy Gapin.com and, um, I have a couple free gifts if your audience would be interested,

 

[31:34] Please, if you wanna tell 'em about it, that's great. Absolutely. We will have links in the show notes, but feel free to talk about it. Yeah,

 

[31:40] So since we're talking about peptides, um, if you'll check out, um, my website for my center, which is gap institute.com, um, there, you can get a copy of my ultimate peptide guide, which will dive a lot deeper specifically into what we talked about today, Karen, about peptides and, and all the different peptides that we use that you could check out, uh, download from the site. But I'll also share the listeners if you wanted, uh, text health to 2 6, 7, 8, 6, and I'll put that number in the chat 2, 6, 7, 8, 6, uh, text the word health. What you'll get from there is a free copy of my secrets to high performance health guide. Cool. We'll also get a complimentary digital copy of my book mail 2.0, which I published, um, bestselling book a couple years ago. And if your men would like to get a, a complimentary discovery call with my team to understand how we can help them. Um, they're welcome to do that as well with the link that will be provided.

 

[32:35] Awesome. So they would use the text link.

 

[32:37] They'll be given a link. Exactly. That's right.

 

[32:39] Oh, okay. When they go there. Okay,

 

[32:40] Great. Yeah. Yeah. The text health is 2 7, 8, 6.

 

[32:43] Thank you for those amazing resources. I hope you continue to think that your wife is amazing and that she thinks the same of you. I love that. You know, I, I think that every great relationship is founded on great health. So congratulations to both of you for doing, doing the work and thank you for sharing, um, your wisdom and your journey with us. Thank you for sharing your passion for peptides and for root cause resolution medicine and health, and any last word you'd like to leave everyone with or any take action challenges.

 

[33:16] Yeah. I'm gonna give y'all one simple thing that everyone can do starting today that will actually make a amazing impact on your life. You may not even realize it, but how you breathe has a direct effect on performance, how you breathe, affects tissue oxygenation, which affects your brain, affects your ability to lose weight, your ability to build muscle, your exercise capacity and so on. And so I want you to think about breathing through your nose. One simple single change that you can make starting today right now is close your mouth. And I mean that in the most loving way possible break

 

[33:53] So true. So yes, continue to breathe through your nose as much as possible. Thank you so much Dr. Gapin for joining us today.

 

[34:02] And thank you all for joining us for another episode of the hormone prescription podcast with Dr. Kyrin. Hopefully you have learned something today that has inspired you, or maybe it's challenged you something that you're going to take action on. Don't let this just be information that goes in one ear and out the other, but ask yourself, how are you going to start to use this information to make changes in your life. Sometimes small steps lead to powerful impact. So I challenge you to do something different today, and I will talk to you next week when we'll have more hormone, fun and games until then peace, love and hormones. Y'all thank you so much for listening.

 

Get a copy of Dr. Gapin’s 10 Secrets to High-Performance Health, a digital copy of his book, and a free discovery call with his team.

Text Health to 26786 

You may also visit his website:

https://drtracygapin.com/

 

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Conscious Communications: How Healthy Conflict Resolution Can Improve Your Relationships and Your Health

Welcome to The Hormone Prescription Podcast!

 

In this episode, we're talking about how healthy conflict resolution can improve your relationships and your health. Our guest is Mary Shores, author of the book Conscious Communications.

 

Mary shares her insights on why it's so important to resolve conflict in a healthy way, and gives us some practical tips on how to do just that. If you're struggling with conflict in your life, whether at home or at work, this episode is for you!

 

In this episode, you will learn:

-Why healthy conflict resolution is so important

-How to resolve conflict in a healthy way

-Practical tips for resolving conflict in your own life

-And more!

 

So tune in now, and learn how healthy conflict resolution can improve your relationships and your health!

 

[00:55] You're gonna love our guest today and the topic that we are discussing. It's all about communication. How conscious is your communication? And like in the quote that I started the episode with, are you able to change your mind about things or are you seeking optimal health and hormone balance saying I wanna be exactly the same way I am now doing what I'm doing, thinking what I'm thinking. And I want my hormones to change because I hate to tell you, but mm it's not gonna happen because you do have to change your mind to change your hormones.

 

[01:54] Mary shores is an innovative communication expert and bestselling author who transforms people's words to help them fall back in love with their work and their customers. 15 years ago, Mary discovered a game changing formula to improve connections among people. It all started with a, do not say list and grew into an entire strategy that will fix your relationships, which by the way, will fix your hormones and your health. Welcome Mary. My pleasure to be here. I'm so excited. Yes. I love your book. And just so I don't forget to, to say the whole title, Mary shores, conscious communications, your step by step guide to harnessing the power of your words, to change your mind, your choices and your life published by hay house.

 

[03:04] So, you know, since this is a hormone show, I'll go ahead and say this. But when I was 19 and one time I had went to a doctor, they put me on a, an antibiotic, but didn't tell me that antibiotics cancel out birth control. So I ended up pregnant after a healthy pregnancy. I was met with sudden tragedy when my daughter had suffered lack of oxygen to the brain for over five minutes due to umbilical cord asphyxia, which basically meant the way they explained it to me was that her umbilical cord had ruptured. So my daughter Haley was born with severe and profound brain damage. This left her blind death and on life support.

 

[03:58] And the thing is though, when I got done with that ordeal, I was really lost in life. You know what I mean? I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I felt like my peers had, had moved on, had started their careers. So I decided to go into the family business, which is debt collection. And so oftentimes people don't understand like where is this connection between like debt collection, communication and connection. But for me, I think that because I had lived on the other side of Stu financial stability during that time with my daughter, I had absolutely no resources.

 

[04:45] And I definitely saw the connection between how debt collectors communicate with people and how that, that causes so much stress and trauma, you know, and I realized very quickly that the common denominator is just having a debt can be a trauma, let alone the way that people are stigmatized over it, or the way that they're treated over it.

 

[05:41] So I just started to study and I wanted, you know, my big aha moment came when one day I looked at the phone and I said out loud, I just want the next person. I speak to, to be happier at the end of the call than they were at the beginning. Now that was so many years ago. And honestly, I had no idea how I was going to make that happen. But I started with one concept, which was this do not say list. And the do not say list is exactly what it sounds like. It's a list of words we never say, which are no, not can't won't however, and unfortunately

 

[06:19] So I'm sorry for your loss. And it sounds like it forced you to go into the family business. And because you had this kind of spiritual bent already, and you were going into what probably most people think of as a non-spiritual business, you had a different perspective to bring, to kind of evolve that. And so thank goodness you said, I just want the next person I talk to, to feel better after I get off the phone with them than when they got on the phone, when I got on the phone with them. And so you have the, the do not say list, which I love. I try not to use those words as well.

 

[07:05] Even if it's reasonable, I get angry immediately because nobody likes being told, no, you can't, you can't have that or no. And tell me what you can do. Don't tell me what you can't do. So this started the do not say list. And then how did it evolve from there? Cuz really you've come to this place now where you've taken it to a whole nother level and your personal journey, evolutionary journey, I think really will speak volumes to women, many women at midlife who are wondering like, what's wrong with me? What's happened to me. I don't know. I feel like myself and my own skin anymore. How do I feel good. And so what happened next on your journey? That was your evolution.

 

[08:05] And so I turned to neuroscience and specifically neurobiology because I wanted to know like what is happening in the brain and the body and the nervous system when we're communicating and turns out that was like the most brilliant thought I had ever really had because you know, starting with a, do not say list, what I learned was when we are, and it doesn't matter if you're speaking the words or if you're hearing the words, but what's happening when we're enveloped in these negative words, you know, if we're talking to customer service and they say, you know, unfortunately our policy is yada yada, yada.

 

[08:57] You know, if you're familiar with the David Hawkins frequency scale of emotions, those words are really driving us down the frequency scale of emotions. So my goal was like, how can I move people up? This frequency scale of emotions? And in the book I call this cleanser clog. So it's really like everything. You say, everything you do, every action you take. And this is in all areas of life, not just communication, but every choice you make is either, you know, moving you down that scale, creating a disconnection from what you really want, or it's moving you up that scale. And you know, when you talk about feeling good, it's like if you rate yourself, say on a scale of one to 20 at any given time, and you say, you know, how well do I feel today? And if that answer is, you know, below a 10, then there's a problem we need to like do cleansing activities.

 

[09:48] So I started to think, how can we create a connection? And that started with validation. So really taking a deep dive into understanding that we're truly all wired for empathy, but we've sort of trained it out of ourselves. And I think that this starts it when we're young children, you know, we have expectations put upon us, we have layers and layers of what other people think we should be when we can take a moment.

 

[10:48] And so what that allows us to do is take a, a sigh of relief and just drop in and not be so frantic. So the idea here is that we wanna cancel the nervous system. We wanna cancel the fight or flight response, right? And we wanna activate the parasympathetic response by saying connecting words. You are not alone. I can understand that. That sounds really challenging. And that's the step that we're really missing in our communication journey, that it doesn't mean that we're agreeing with someone.

 

[11:45] It's just acknowledging the emotion. You also do it. If someone has just shared something, that's really amazing. You can say, you know, thank you for sharing that with me. It sounds so exciting. So that's really that first step in the process, but it's such an important step because when you provide a validation, what you're actually doing is you are increasing oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonin, and dopamine. And I don't need to tell you doctor that those are very happy, healthy bonding hormones, right?

 

[13:19]  So you definitely wanna get the book power versus force by David Hawkins. And he talks about quantifying the frequency of emotion. So I just wanted to let them know about that. And then I think it's so key what you said, the number one need that we have is to feel heard and understood everybody listening, just think like, what do you want more than anything from the people in your life. You want to feel heard, you get upset when people don't really hear you. You're like, you're not listening to me.

 

[14:05] And, you know, once our material needs are met for shelter and food and rest and things like that, we have these needs to be self-actualized self-expressed to be seen, to be heard, to be validated. And I love, I always my nervous system, you can feel it viscerally, calm down when you get on a customer service call and they immediately say, and you know, when they say this, that they've had training, wow, I'm sorry that you're dealing with that. I know that must be really frustrating. And you're just like, oh, this person it matters.

 

[14:58] Right. I've been heard and I've been validated, you know, it's interesting. I just came back from this trip in Mexico and I always ask for a cent free chemical free room, wherever I travel, cuz I don't want those VOCs in my, my body doesn't like them. And so I did request one and my room wasn't even ready when I got there. It took another two hours cuz they said you were requested a special room. And I go in my room and they have that scent, you know like most hotels put a scent cuz they think it increases your perceived value of what they're offering. You just like they'll put plastic, some hotels over the top of the drinking glasses in the bathroom. 

 

[15:47] And I also love that you brought in the neuroscience of how this relates to hormone balance, that your oxytocin, dopamine serotonin and your vasopressin, all of these are improved and your sympathetic nervous system, when you are validated and you are heard. So how do you teach people in the book to start tweaking their words and their thoughts and their communication for improved hormone balance? I know that's not, not what you say in the book is the goal, but my people they know that's the goal. 

 

[16:36] And so I'm training other collection agencies. I'm doing training for customer service, but it's really about when you're in that moment, you know, and I, I can tell you a little story with this because a lady that told me this, this story just really warms my heart. Her stepson had sent her a pretty emotionally charged text message. And he was blaming her for his difficult relationship with his father. You know, she immediately felt her walls going up. So step one is when you immediately feel, you know, this person has said something and now you feel your walls going up.

 

[17:26] So when you know ahead of time that you're going to use some sort of validation statement, you really train yourself that this is the script or the prompt, if you will, that you're going to respond with no matter what. So when she got this text message and she felt her walls going up, she knew reacting defensively would only lead to more conflict, causing more layers of disconnection in their relationship. Now she hadn't heard from him for a number of years before this text message came in. She just got it out of the blue mm-hmm . So instead she used all three steps of our communication, uh, code. And she said, you know, I can certainly understand how deeply you must be hurting.

 

[18:19] And she said, she'd be happy to pick him up and see him in person. And he didn't respond for quite a while. Instead after a while he called her. And for the first time, in a long time, they had a healthy conversation all because she was able to build a connection that really hadn't existed before. So you know, what you're doing is you're bringing stability to a situation.

 

[19:08] And then now their mind can be open to a solution. You know, if you've ever been talking to someone and you've got this like great idea for them and, and you feel like you have the right solution, but they're not hearing you, you know, and perhaps they get into story mode where they start repeating that story over and over and over again, if somebody is repeating their story on repeat, that is a sign that they do not feel heard and understood. And the moment that you can validate, not that they're date, not that their story is true. You're validating the emotion that they have associated with that story, because that is truly what helps them process the emotion move through it so that we can be emotionally receptive. You know, our brain space can get stuck on one thing, right? Mm-hmm . And when we follow these steps properly, people can be more open to what we have to say to them.

 

[20:42] And our energy is our what Dr. Marisa calls, the intangibles, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and our interactions with people. And we really underestimate the power of the emotions. I love that. You're saying you've got to, when the story's on repeat, you've got to hear the emotion and validate that it's not necessarily the story that needs to be validated, but how they are feeling, because that is the essence of what energy is running through their body. And until that's addressed, it will run everything.

 

[21:33] And so I think what you're saying, I think for some women it's, if you're disconnected from your own feelings, how can you validate another is what I'm thinking? Because I find that some, if people are disconnected and, and a lot of times that's the problem at the root of hormone, imbalance is nervous system dysregulation, disconnection from emotions. How in the world can somebody who's in that state learn to connect with their emotions is the first thing, because I'm thinking, how is she going to validate another? Does that make sense?

 

[22:38] The good news is that we're actually all wired for empathy. Every single one of us, um, is wire wired for empathy. I heard Dr. Gur ma say that in a, in a talk recently. And I was so happy. He said that because some of us don't believe that we are. So the first thing is understand that every one of us is actually wired for empathy. The second part that I wanna say is that the research shows that when you, when you provide empathy, whether you feel like you're empathetic, whether you think you can do this or not, but if you actually just force yourself to do it like a feedback cycle, it actually starts to strengthen the brain connections to make you more empathetic.

 

[23:41]  And so as you provide these validation statements and especially, you know, for my staff, because they're doing this day in and day out, we require them to do it with every single person that they're speaking to. And we actually measure it, you know, in our quality assurance calls, they are actually improving upon their own empathetic response. So the reason I'm telling you this is because if you're listening to this and you wanna try it, don't worry. If you feel that you will not be able to do it, if you can just say the words, like I said, when you feel your walls going up, just say those words, you know, that sounds really challenging.

 

[24:32] Even if you don't mean them, because it's okay, the feeling will come when you say it and you practice it, you will start to actually increase those same happy, healthy hormones in yourself. And that is certainly mm-hmm, a huge thing. You will feel better about yourself. You'll know that you made an impact on another person and it's, it can hu. I mean, I remember the first, in the first few years when people were telling me, you know, Mary, I took this training and it didn't just change my communication. It literally changed my entire life. And I still hear that now to this day.

 

[25:09] So why do you think Mary, we are hardwired for empathy, little kids, you see this, oftentimes you see, you see more kids helping each other in the playground than you do one kid clobbering, another to take their toy. So why do you think that when I look around, I see a, a lack of empathy in a lot of places. So why is this happening? Well,

 

[25:32] I'll speak to the lack of empathy first, and this is just a theory. So this is not science based. This is just like my own observation, my own opinion. But I think that we we've been living through some disconnected times for probably about three decades. You know, we have women entering the workforce when, you know, 60 years ago that wasn't really the case. So we've sort of been going through this, um, conscious evolution of sorts, you know, and it changes the way things naturally were for, for millennia before that. And I think that there is a, a challenge with how children are being raised, you know, and I think it starts with coming out with bullying.

 

[26:19] And especially as women, that's not what we were built for. You know, that is that we were built to nurture. We were built to love. We are pure love, right. But if our behaviors are sort of creating a fork in the road, we've just gotta figure out that, that new balance. And so I have found that definitely through communication. It's a way it's a starting point, just one starting point of many mm-hmm where you can begin to train yourself back into that natural way. And especially, you know, I don't know about you, but I've been diving deep into like the feminine energy concept as well. And there's just so much to that. 

 

[27:26] Yeah, I know. I mean, we were, we were we for sure, I wasn't schooled in, you know, what is this energy body that we have? What is feminine energy? What are all these things? And so now I think a lot of us weren't and we're having to relearn it at a later age, you have so much great information in here. A as you're talking, I know one of the things in the book that you talk about is, you know, the empathy for not only other people, but for ourselves, and you talk about self love and you know, there's so, so many platitudes, oh, love yourself and get a pedicure.

 

[28:21]  And it's impossible to help someone heal their hormones when they have this negative chatter, it's almost like they have this abuser in their mind. That's constantly berating them cuz their cortisol will never get out of the toilet. How do you help women to start to change their thought patterns, to have empathy for themselves first and really turn the light of love onto themselves

 

[28:56] There's no way that your girlfriend is gonna look at you and tell you how horrible you are. Right. Mm-hmm no way she's immediately gonna tell you, you know, I know you're gonna get out of this. I know you're gonna be okay. I believe in you. It's okay. You know, she's going to go into that mode because she cares about you and loves you, but it's, it's almost like you have to step out of yourself and be your own girlfriend because you know, that's one of the things I learned. And so what I did, I kind of created this, I think as a five step process, I call it five steps to break through your breakdown.

 

[29:44] And so what I did was I wrote a list of all of the current issues or perceived issues I had in my life. You know, I think, I think it was like, uh, a key employee had just resigned and I had a big tax bill to pay with my business. You know, I just had some, a list of things. So I wrote out this list and there ended up being 20 things on the list. And when I looked at the list, I immediately had empathy for myself and I, and I remember looking at that list in the moment when I realized like, wow, anyone going through this amount of chaos in their life would be feeling the same way I do. So it's that same validation.

 

[30:38] So like I would go deep into my mind because of my own past traumas and think I'm gonna turn into a bad lady someday. I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna be able to, uh, support myself. Well, what is that? That's the fight or flight, you know, that's our basic, when you talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, that's that basic survival rung that we need food and shelter just to survive.

 

[31:24] And so when we're coming from that, you know, when you're talking about like manifesting, anytime you're manifesting from a place of fear and chaos, you are only going to create more fear and chaos. So it's like you have to slow yourself down. So once you can, you know, look at your situation, perhaps conjure up some empathy for yourself. And one thing I really recommend have a cry session if you can't cry, which I couldn't cry. I mean, if you would've met me six years ago, it had probably been 20 years since I shed a tear. Wow. That is such a, you know, somebody who's disconnected from their emotions. 

 

[32:18] But if we try to take actions when we're still in the fear and the chaos of the moment, really anything we try to create is gonna turn around and it's, it's not gonna work out the way that you think, but once you raise yourself up and whether you call that frequency, vibration, you know, feeling better, whatever words you like to use, anything you manifest from a place of empowerment is going to show up in your life faster, better, stronger, and be more long lasting.

 

[33:03]  It's just like if you ate steak every single day and that's all you ate, it's not healthy, right. It's unbalanced. And that emotion, energy, and motion needs to move through your body. And so if you're not crying, there's something wrong. Just like if you're not laughing, there's something wrong. And I, as you were talking, I was thinking, I love the suggestion you gave about the movies. What are some of your favorite movies to bring on a good cry?

 

[33:41] Well, recently I watched, um, the unforgiven with Sandra Bullock. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's absolutely beautiful. I was crying the entire time. You know, another one I'm good at this now, so I can bring up the tears at, at any movie really. Right. Another one was, uh, the tender bar that is a Ben Aflex show. It's really just a heartwarming movie. You know, it doesn't even have to be a sad movie or like peanut butter, Falcon, just these heartwarming stories that can bring emotion up in your body and something you said that I, I would really want to piggyback on. We were built to experience these emotions.

 

[34:39] Which means she raised me that way, the positive psychology movement while it's good. And, and we do wanna have a positive attitude or we wanna, you know, we wanna focus on, on the positive, but we've taken it so far into our society where there's almost like a guilt and shaming. If you have a negative thought that negative thought is a message for you. If you're feeling an, a it or a pain, that is a message for you. David Hawkins has another book called letting go, where he really takes you through a process where you get in touch with where these emotions are stored in your body. Mm-hmm another tip that I would have is, um, body work, you know, getting a massage it's self care. I agree with you. It's it's not about a spa day. It's about how you take care of yourself and emotions get lodged in the body. 

 

[35:48] Yeah. Very powerful. Because emotion is stored in the tissue. When you get body work to have a release. And then all of a sudden memories might start coming up. Feelings might start coming up and to allow that, and that's loving yourself right. To, to allow that we are gonna need to wrap up. I love this book. And one thing I wanna make sure to talk about is the a hundred things. I love about me. Talk about how this exercise came about. And I want you to, to kind of give everyone a challenge to do this.

 

[36:19] It sounds simple. So I believe at the time I was working with a friend of mine, he's a dating coach. And he had given me this assignment, which was to write a hundred things that I love about myself. He's really trying to get me to see my own value. Right. But the exercise just turned into something much deeper for myself. And I started writing a list and it's like, oh, I like my long hair. And I love my long legs. And you know, you kind of go through this superficial list of things. 

 

[37:01] This is not just about writing a love list about yourself, because what happened to me after, you know, the month was over when I got to number 99, number 99 and number 100. I remember I wrote, I am radiant. What I love about myself is I am radiant. And I think that that was number 99. And then number 100 was, I am a powerful creator and I could never have come to that moment of realization.

 

[37:55] So I've had women tell me like, oh, I love that. I love the color teal. And then all of a sudden they, she was wearing a teal blouse and someone complimented her on that color. I've had all these like little strange sort of, um, synchronistic things that have happened with this list. So I really encourage you to do this because, and it will take a while. It's not, I know it sounds easy, but it's not easy, but don't give up until you get to a hundred. So you just take a piece of paper and you say 100 things. 

 

[38:39] So it's about communication, not only with others, but yourself, because the communication you have with yourself really sets the tone for your hormonal balance, which is the foundation for your physical health and wellbeing, mental and emotional health and wellbeing. And I'm gonna challenge you to do those things. Maybe pick up a copy of Mary's book, conscious communications, where can they find the book, Mary, and find out more about you?

 

[39:21] I think the easiest place to find the book is on Amazon and it's just conscious communications on Amazon. And then also my, my favorite social media is LinkedIn. I know that isn't everyone's favorite social media. So we also have Instagram and Facebook. My website is Mary shores.com. That is M a R Y S H O R E S. And you can find all of our social media links on there. So love to connect with anyone. If you've, if you're checking out the book, I always say, if you read the description or the back cover of it you'll know right away, whether this book is for you.

 

[39:57] Thank you so much, Mary, for that great resource for writing this for your journey, for your tender, loving care of women at midlife and the tools that you've offered for us. I think they're very powerful. So I'm gonna challenge everyone to, uh, take a look at conscious communications, do your a hundred things and really up level your communication. Maybe look at some of the books we've mentioned by David Hawkins, the letting go book, the power versus force. Even the one by Pema children is good. She's got some beautiful books because having great hormone balance at midlife and beyond and great health is not just about going to the gym and kicking it out with vitamin X, right? It's not just about eating the right diet. It's not just about supplements. Are those things important? Sure. They are, but they're not they're necessary, but not sufficient. So you really have to up level, like we started the episode talking about changing your mind.

 

[40:56]  So I really want you to start thinking about what am I willing to change? What am I willing to let go of with my chronic thought problem patterns? We think over 70,000 thoughts a day 99% of them are the same. So what new thoughts are you willing to bring in today? What emotions are you willing to allow? What kind of TLC nurturing are you going to allow yourself to give to yourself and to others in your life so they can have that empathy. So I think that great questions yield great opportunity for improvement and new actions in the future. Thank you so much for speaking with us today, Mary, about this and sharing your wonderful book. 

 

[41:51] Thanks so much for spending your precious time with us and, uh, look forward. If you wanna join me on Instagram at Kirin Dunston MD or Facebook at Kirin Dunston MD. Look forward to your comments about Mary's episode and her book. And I would love it. If some of you would post your a hundred things you love about yourself. Wanna ask me a question. I do a Q and a episode every month. So you can do that on my website. Just go on the podcast page and click the microphone and you can leave me a voice memo. Yep. I'll hear it. And maybe I'll respond during our next episode until next week. Peace, love and hormones. Y'all thank you so much for listening. 

 

 

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Are Your Subconscious Beliefs Hurting Your Hormone Balance?

Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast! In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Nicole Huffman to discuss how our subconscious beliefs can impact our hormone balance.

 

If you're struggling with hormonal issues, it's important to explore all potential causes - including your beliefs and mindset. As Dr. Huffman explains, our subconscious beliefs can have a powerful impact on our physical health, including our hormone balance.

 

If you're ready to dive deeper into exploring your own beliefs and how they might be impacting your health, tune in now! You'll learn valuable insights from Dr. Huffman that can help you create lasting positive change in your life.

 

In this episode, you will learn:

• How our subconscious beliefs can impact our hormone balance
• What kind of beliefs might be causing hormonal imbalances
• How to start exploring your own subconscious beliefs
• Lifestyle and diet tips for optimizing hormone health
• Methods to use for unresolved stress
• How to enhance your energy and vitality at any age
• And more!

 

So whether you're struggling with hormonal issues or just want to learn more about how our beliefs impact our health, tune in now for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Nicole Huffman.

 

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to the Hormone Prescription Podcast and leave us a review! We appreciate your support as we continue working to empower women everywhere to take control of their hormone health.

 

[01:19] My guest today. You're gonna love her. I know you love all my guests, but you're really gonna love her because she's gonna talk about a topic that's super important and just might the missing key. When it comes to your hormone balance, I find that women who don't achieve the hormone balance and health, that's possible for them over a 40 often neglect this step. So this is why it's super important. 

 

[02:12] Dr. Nicole Huffman is a naturopathic medical doctor and her passion is finding the root cause of her patients and balances and dis ease, not just solving the symptom picture. She believes the body has the ability to heal itself, given the correct personalized treatment plan. And after restoring the basic determinants of health, a certified neuro emotional technique practitioner, Nicole knows firsthand the dramatic effects that healing negative subconscious beliefs can have on health. She explores these and more topics related to root cause resolution approaches to health on her biweekly podcast called coffee with the docs. Welcome Dr. Nicole Huffman. 

 

[03:26] I'm so excited to ha,ve you and dive into the topic of, are your subconscious beliefs hurting your hormone balance? I, yes. Right? So I know some people are wondering why aren't they so excited, weirdly excited about this topic? Why tell everyone why you're excited about it?

 

[03:45] And I don't necessarily think it's because doctors like don't wanna help their patients with that. I think honestly, just a lot of practitioners aren't really taught how to help and especially the docs who are, you know, sort of in the more standard standard type of medicine who are helping with hormones. It's just not part of their repertoire to really deal with that side. But we know as practitioners in the functional world, that if you look at hormones and if your stress hormone cortisol is too high or which is gonna affect insulin, it's also gonna affect all of our sex hormones, which is gonna throw off the whole hormonal balance. And so it's just so important to look at that piece of the puzzle. 

 

[04:43] And I know the first thing that women say to me is like Dr. Kiran, how of my , how does my subconscious thought that runs my body have anything to do with my hormones? They're like, no, no, I've got a very menopause problem. I've got a menopause problem. I don't have a subconscious thought problem. 

 

[05:15] I think there's that quote that's like you can't solve the problem with the same brain that created it. I mean, it is one of those things where it is helpful to have a practitioner, somebody who does work with a subconscious mind sort of help you identify what belief systems you may have. And if you were talking even just about what you were just saying with menopause, like if you have a subconscious belief program, that's like, well, my mom started menopause early than I'm going to too. Well, your body listens to everything your mind says, right? 

 

[06:05] And so I do think there are little tricks and tools to kind of figuring out your own subconscious belief systems and really that's how come, you know, meditation can be so helpful because it's being aware, it's taking a step back and observing yourself, which is hard to do, you know, observing without judgment, but you can kind of start to see like, oh gosh, I always tend to think this one thing today, I was working with a patient where she had kind of figured out on her own that every time she experiences a lot of joy, something bad happens. 

 

[06:54] Yeah. I think that's super important to, to realize. I remember when I practiced regular gynecology, women used to come in and they'd be in their forties having crazy periods cuz that's what we do in our forties. And they would say, well, my mother had a hysterectomy when she was 45. So I think it's time for mine.

 

[07:16] And so you mentioned that working with someone who can help them to identify. So I know some people are thinking, whoa, who would I look for? What kind of person would I look for? Who helps people with their subconscious beliefs?

 

[07:37] I mean, so one of the practices, modalities I use to help my patients with their emotional, I don't even really wanna call it emotional work. I feel like the word emotional just gets such a bad reputation. But if we look at it as sort of solving unresolved stress, right? Like we know that if there is stress in the body, that's unresolved, it's gonna cause and balances. Right? So if we look at it that way, the modality I like to use is something called neuro emotional technique. So I do know that you can look for different practitioners, not everybody practices the exact same, but you know, if that's a resource and then I would say there are so many other different types of ways to access that area and kind of the subconscious brain and figure out how to create more balance. 

 

[08:39] And EFT, emotional freedom technique. That's a pretty widely used technique. Now there's a lot of different practitioners in that. One of my fellow colleagues does hypnosis work. That's another really powerful way to access the subconscious brain. So I, you know, a lot of it is dealing with somebody that you trust, right? So if you have a functional practitioner like yourself, or if you're wor somebody who's working with me and they wanna dive deeper and it's not something that I wanna do or tackle fully on my own, then I've got some people that I recommend as well. But there's just so many different ways to access it that I don't know. 

 

[09:51] Yeah. I think those are all great techniques. And I love that you mentioned meditation first because I find for a lot of people they're just so busy that they're not aware of the conversations going on in the background, in their mind. That is the content of the subconscious mind.

 

[10:44] Absolutely. I mean, what I learned back in the day was that our subconscious brain runs about 98% of the show. So that seems like a pretty decently high percentage. So we might wanna understand a little bit more about what our subconscious mind is saying then. And also we have to understand that it's not bad. This isn't like a bad or good, or we have to get those thoughts out. Our subconscious brain is constantly trying to keep us safe. 

 

[11:37] You know, as you're talking, Maslow's hierarchy of needs popped into my head. Mm-hmm because I was thinking about the fact that we are neurologically wired for safety, right? Mm-hmm reptilian brain keep us safe at all costs, but we have this need for self-actualization

 

[11:59] can go. Exactly contrary. I, I always tell the women, I work with that part of your health problems is that you're not doing what you wanna do in all areas of your life. There's usually some what I call spiritual constipation or creative constipation.

 

[12:18] That. And you've got to do the things that you came here to do in order to free up that energy. So it's, it's no longer stuck, which is along Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But like you're talking about our subconscious is programed to keep us safe. So most of us have safety beliefs running in the background. Oh, you can't quit your job because then you'll be homeless and destitute. Oh, you can't, you know, you can't this, you have to that. What are your thoughts about that?

 

[12:49] I completely agree. I feel like a lot of my patients too, I'll see them. They're tired. Right? Fatigue is such a complaint. And it's like, well, okay, are, are they actually tired? Cuz their body doesn't have energy maybe, but are they also tired? Because nothing is really that inspiring to them right now. Right. They they're in a job where they're like you were saying like, I love them spiritually constipated. They don't have that relationship with the diviner whatever. Or they aren't in a job that's super fulfilling. They feel like they're doing the same thing every day. They're you know? Right. I mean, you're, you're not gonna be this inspired, energetic person. Sometimes if the life stuff isn't necessarily together, now there can be somebody, another person who's doing all those same things.

 

[13:57] It's so true. It's like, how's your marriage? How are your relationships? How's your job? You know, the whole time at you're at work. Are you thinking if I have to do this one thing again, I'm gonna stick a fork in my eye. you know, your body hears that 

 

[14:12] yep, absolutely. And to the point where you should sort of be careful about certain things that you're saying, I mean, no doubt. So I just feel like the first step really is as simple as just being aware. Right. And then I think there's a million steps you can take after that.

 

[14:31] Awesome. So let's dive a little deeper into this issue of hormone balance and subconscious beliefs. So maybe everybody listening's thinking, okay, I get it. My subconscious beliefs are, are part running part of the show, but what hormones are being affected, can you help everybody understand

 

[14:50] That? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm gonna break it down from more of just like a stress component. Right. Okay. I mean we know like I was kind of saying earlier, like if your cortisol is off, right, you're having some underlying stress. And when I say underlying stress is, you know, sometimes I have patients and I'm sure you do too. Who are like, yeah, nothing really stressful is going on in my life though. So why do I have low testosterone? Why do I have low progesterone? And I'm like, all right, let's take a step back. 

 

[15:43] And when your body is stressed, it's not thinking, Hey, now's a great time to have a baby. Or now's a really great time to get my reproductive system in order, right? When the body's stressed, it's number one, objective is survival, that's it? And so our progesterone levels are low. Our testosterone levels are low that can affect our estrogen, our D H G a levels. And then we might start having like some really wonky periods might skip a period. Maybe we have really heavy bleeds because our estrogen is way outta control and we don't have the progesterone reserves to balance it either. 

 

[16:39] How, when you have higher amounts of cortisol, your oxytocin go down and when your cortisol is higher, your insulin goes higher. So we're talking about just one hormone that can really start throwing off the balance of so many different things and oxytocin for those of you just need a little refresher. I mean, that's the hormone of safety and of love and connection. And if you're not feeling that way, maybe one of your subconscious belief systems is I deserve to be alone, or I'm never gonna find a partner or whatever it might be around love. Maybe your oxytocin levels are lower than we'd like them, and that's gonna upset your sex hormones as well. Does that make sense?

 

[17:20] Absolutely. And I love how you linked it so clearly to what you said earlier, solving unresolved stress and even these low levels of stress and, and just, you know, being at work and thinking negative thoughts about your job or your coworkers or your boss or your being at home and thinking negative thoughts about your partner or current world conditions. Yes. Thinking negative thoughts about I, I went down that negative pathway. I have to admit it with certain life events recently. It took me a minute to get myself together. 

 

[18:22] So we talked about some methods that you use and recommend to help solve unresolved stress. And I know some people are listening now and they're thinking, oh, you mean my body's listening to that rampage. That goes on my, in my head when I drive in traffic every day. yes. So what are some steps that you might give people today who are now realizing? Ooh, I didn't know that this was affecting my hormones and I have unresolved stress that they could start using.

 

[19:02] Absolutely. I mean, like we sort of talked about just calming the brain, slowing down, listening to what some of those thoughts that we might be saying in our head, you know, one of the things I really like to do, I don't know if you ever looked at the book. Gosh it's so it's old called the artist's way. She talks a lot about doing morning pages. So you literally wake up and you're just writing three pages every morning, even if it's not, you know, anything really exciting. It's just that idea of kind of getting that subconscious brain, those thoughts out onto the page. 

 

[19:53] Like I mentioned before, Dr. Joe Des Benza. I just, sometimes it's nice to hear somebody else's voice guiding you into certain things, and then you feel like you have some direction instead of I feel like I hear so many people say, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing or thinking about. It's like, well, nothing supposed to be thinking about nothing and that's really hard to do. So I do find like guide meditations can be really helpful. And if you're somebody who is interested in sort of working with somebody, you know, whether it's somebody like me or another practitioner who does neuro emotional technique, I think that can be really helpful just to have somebody else help you out a little bit to see mm-hmm , you know, what some of those thoughts might be.

 

[20:43] Maybe that's your relationship. Maybe that's your career path. Maybe that's where you're living or who you're surrounding yourself by your friendships. Right? Because it's everything around that comprises your health, not just what you're eating, what supplements you're taking. And if you're curious about how it is affecting your health, I'm sure, you know, if they're working with you or if they're working with, you know, another practitioner like myself actually measuring your hormones, I think is great. Whether you're doing it with something like a Dutch test or a serum, uh, you know, maybe day 19 through 22 of your cycle, something like that.

 

[21:35] I mean, the world stuff is huge right now for people. And I've been finding that even just helping and doing some emotional work with people around what's going on in the world and, you know, getting rid of, not getting rid of, but maybe lessening that voice of I'm. I can't be happy cuz I'm not in control. Right. Because there's so much going on. That's not in our control and really there is any ways. And so how can you find joy despite of that? And at, and I think also, I mean, I noticed my own stuff, just moving to, I live in a ranch now in Colorado and it's beautiful and there's, you know, it's a lot more manual labor than I've done in quite some time in my hormones shifted significantly. And again, it was a good stress. I love where I live and I love the change, but it was such a drastic change on my body that even good stresses can throw off your hormones too. So I think a lot of it is just taking stock instead of just, okay, well I'm this age. So now my hormones do this. It's like, it doesn't have to necessarily be like that. It's more, how can we look at our life as a whole and what maybe other things that just start changing for women around their forties.

 

[22:49] Yes. I love that. You said it doesn't have to be that way. I hope everybody heard that you can take matters into your own hands. And I'm wondering not all physicians, most regular docs and, and not all naturopaths, like you are really talk about subconscious beliefs affecting hormones and health. So how did you come to know this and become more interested in this as an aspect of your patient's health that you needed to help them with?

 

[23:19] Absolutely. I would say quite reluctantly my mentor had suggested that I take a course on neuro emotional techniques. So I could also help my patients with, we call it the triad of health. So there's how are things affecting a patient chemically, structurally or emotionally? And I was like, eh, I don't think I really wanna get into the emotional side of my patients. And he's like, uh, I think, I think you should go take this course. And you know, when your mentor tells you to do something and you're like, okay, fine. so I was having horrible seasonal allergies.

 

[24:14] Right? So there's a hundred people in the class and he starts doing neuro emotional work on me. And it's very quick, right? A lot of our patients say it's like six years of therapy in 30 seconds. It's not a long drawn out thing. It's not talk therapy. And so using applied kinesiology or muscle testing, he, my allergy point turned out to be emotional allergy point is just a reflex point on the body that we used for applied kinesiology or muscle testing. And it turned out, it went back to when my parents had gotten divorced when I was 11. 

 

[25:06] So I was like, wow, this is embarrassing. And I was so exhausted from it that actually at the lunch break of the seminar, I went, took a nap in my car. And within three days my seasonal allergies were completely gone. I mean, completely gone. This was something that I had struggled with my whole life. And so that was all I needed to learn more, to dig more. I was still a medical student. I got certified in this technique while in med school. And I use it with my patients, um, almost every day. And it's not just allergies, right? 

 

[26:01] And so we start using this applied kinesiology in ways of accessing the subconscious mind and applied kinesiology or muscle testing, isn't the only way to use that. It's just how I learned this one technique. And it was such a game changer for me. And now I live in a, I mean, I live in a ranch with horses. I couldn't even touch a horse before. So for me it was so profound that I knew there had to be something more to this. And you know, some people will be like, well, don't you think it's just the placebo effect. 

 

[26:45] And I love using things like homeopathy and flower essences, and other things for people who might not wanna do a lot of the standard emotional work. There are so many different ways you can access it using these different energetic remedies. And the people don't even have to believe in it or be open to it because you'll see how their body changes. But I will have to say is that if someone isn't open to it, there's another belief system there, right? Because again, it's just the subconscious brain trying to keep them safe. So that was sort of my own, I guess, initiation into this world.

 

[27:22] A great story. I love it. Yes. Emotional component, the intangibles like Dr. Marisa calls them your thoughts, your feelings, your beliefs, super powerful for your health. It reminds me of a technique. A friend of mine performs called site K, which was developed by Bruce Lipton, where they do use the different energy work to reverse test your beliefs and your feelings and thoughts. And then to reverse the kind of energy that's run, you're running your body's running on that.

 

[28:10] You do have to be open to it. That's kinda why I love homeopathy is because I do feel like homeopathy and flowers and sometimes can access a point where if they're a little skeptical, it gets them more open to being able to look at other things. But I just find, and I'm sure you have these people too, when you're miserable enough or you're really ready to look for a change in your health. You sort of don't care how crazy something looks and yeah. And I always feel like a lot of people will say like, oh gosh, energy medicine. It's so woo, woo. And I'm like, energy medicine is the future man. So get on board . I mean, it's just, it uses quantum physics and it uses things that are way more scientific than most of us can even comprehend.

 

[29:14] Yes. And I just wanna reiterate what you're saying that it is scientifically proven. I just read a wonderful book about it called tuning the human biofield. And she goes through all the science and why all of these methods are basically validated and the, the energy body and the energy work. And, and she also talks about why mainstream medicine doesn't accept it. 

 

[29:45] So yeah. I love this quote that you shared from Nelson Mandela. I hadn't heard this one. There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. And I'm wondering if you can share what that means to you and how this infuses the work that you do with your patients.

 

[30:04] All I know is that I, when I go into something, I kind of go all in. And so if there tends to be spaces where I'm like, ah, it just feels like we need a change or we need to infuse some more joy. Like when this whole pandemic thing first started happening, I was like, all right, I gotta find an outdoor sport. That something that's brings me joy because you know, that's just me. I can't sit inside my house all day. Right. Mm-hmm and I'm, and I wasn't gonna do that anyways, besides the point. But so I sort of landed into horseback riding as a way of, and it was perfect.

 

[30:52] I mean, we went trail rides, we did all these outdoors things and now I live on a ranch. I mean, it was just, so I just find that for me personally, I think that we are all capable of so much if we sort of step outside of our comfort zones. And one of my favorite questions is like, what can I do now that will bring me more joy? Or what can I start soon that will bring more joy and creativity. And for me at the time was getting involved with horses now for somebody else that might be, you know, painting, or it might be, I just think fear, fear, which also can, you know, is a subconscious brain, prevents a lot of people from doing things that they might really love doing.

 

[31:53] I so agree. And so many women seems like when they get to menopause, perimenopause is coming and then menopause and they're like, I just wanna retire and they've given up, why do you think this is that so many of us just give up?

[32:12] I feel like part of it is what we've been taught or told about menopause, right? I mean, it's this horrible thing. And we go through and we feel terrible and we lose our sex drive and blah, blah, blah. Right. I just feel like a lot of it is the stories that we've been told or things that have been passed down. So again, changing those belief patterns and changing those thoughts. And also I'm sure there is a component of just when you're some of your hormones go down, there are some things that change. 

 

[33:04] You know, just different things like that. I think there's so many ways we can change and work with our physiology. That's changing to still lead these really bold and beautiful lives. But a lot of it, I think is just women are taught that there's nothing they can do. This is just something they have to go through. And I'm so glad that there are more doctors like you who are starting to show that this isn't some, we just don't have to do this. And it doesn't have to be horrible. There's so many ways that we can work with our bodies to make it wonderful.

 

[33:37] Yeah. As you were talking, I was thinking, I totally blame hormones, but then as you were talking longer, I was like, well, I totally blame doctors. because we're not doing a good job of telling women. You don't have to suffer this way. There is a better way and we can help you. But it really is in my opinion, hormones and doctor's fault. Absolutely.

 

[34:05] And I do think when your hormones change, I mean, there's no doubt. There's a lot that changes in our energy and our vitality, but I do also feel like there are ways to enhance that if that makes sense.

 

[34:18] Yes, absolutely. What are some of your favorite ways? I know you talked about testing. I, we, we always are about tests don't guess, but for women who are kind of, definitely in their forties, fifties, what are some lifestyle changes that you pretty universally recommend women make that you find help them?

 

[34:39] Yeah. I think part of it again, is finding some sort of passion and joy, right? A lot of these women either have kids and they haven't really done a lot for themselves lately. So finding, you know, something that brings them joy and them passion because that's gonna ignite a whole lot of things. I also think that women's bodies are just genuinely not as insulin sensitive anymore. So I do recommend a lot of dietary changes, whether that looks more like a Brianna talks about like a keto green or just a more low carb, higher fat approach to life, maybe adding in some more fasting. I think women who are in menopause do really well with fasting and they seem to feel a lot better. 

 

[35:59] Yes. I agree with all of that. And some the, just the small things that you've mentioned have, can have powerful impacts. So whether you're not, you're a woman who's resourced to get the high level tests that we mentioned earlier or not. These are things that you can start doing in your life pretty quickly and inexpensively. I love your podcast coffee with the docs, and I know I'm gonna be on a guest on there soon. And I'm wondering if you can share you've you've done a lot of episodes. What are some of your most memorable guests and topics and takeaways from interviewing all those doctors?

 

[36:40] Oh, what a fun question. Let's see. One of the favorites that just pops into my mind right away was interviewing Todd white. Who's the CEO of dry farm wines. We were chatting for almost 45 minutes before we even started talking about wine. It was so funny. He was talking so much about living a purposeful life and how you eat and fasting and meditation and how it's an integral part of his company. I just found it to be super fascinating, sort of like we were just talking about like incorporating everything, not just, oh, this supplement, oh, this biodentical progesterone. 

 

[37:41] And I just felt like that was a really, really amazing episode too. And it's one of our more recent ones that we just, so I think a lot of it though, and I have to say, we always ask every guest two questions. So I'll ask you and you are on ours, but one of them is what is your latest biohack? And it's funny, some people are like, I hate that word. And I'm like, that's fine. , what's something that makes your life easier. And you know what a lot of people said while we were recording during these last two years, a lot of people said the sun. 

 

[38:44] Yeah. I love that. As you were saying it, I'm thinking, yeah. I'll sign up for that more sun, more nature, more beach, more being outdoors.

 

[39:07] awesome. Well, I am so glad to have you on today and to talk on this topic of how our subconscious beliefs affect our hormones. I know that everybody's gotten a lot out of it and I'd love that you mentioned joy many, many times. I always take notes on some of the, the insightful things my guests say, and you said, what can I do now? That will bring me more joy. And so I want to leave everyone with that. And I want you to think when we get off the podcast, what can you do now that could bring you more joy, because if you move towards joy, you're moving towards hormone balance. 

 

[40:01] Yeah. Thank you. So I'm pretty active on Instagram. Mine is Dr. Nicole N M D like naturopathic medical doctor. Uh, my website is Dr. Nicole Huffman, H U F F M a N. And that's as I'm not on like the talks and all those things yet. So just kind of sticking with the one and then our podcast, which we have episodes that come out every two weeks. Sometimes we'll have one come out weekly and that's coffee with the docs. 

 

[40:35] Yes, definitely. Look Dr. Nicole up, check out her podcast, visit her on Instagram, check out her website. Thank you so much for being with us today, Nicole, and keep up the awesome work that you're doing.

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Happy Vagina for a Happy Life

It's time to talk about our happy places - our vaginas! On this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, host Dr. Kyrin Dunston is joined by special guest Dr. Betsy Greenleaf, an OBGYN and pelvic floor physical therapist, premier womens health expert, a best-selling author, entrepreneur, inventor, and business leader specializing in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery for over 20 years, to talk all things vagina. Dr. Greenleaf, is a trailblazer as the first female in the United States to become board certified in Urogynecology, CEO of The Pelvic Floor Store, a blog at drbetsygreenleaf.com, and she is the host of Some Of Your Parts Podcast, and host of the happy vagina rally summit.

 

She dedicated to women's wellness and the notion that you are greater than the sum of your parts. and BODY MIND SPIRIT podcast that focuses on the trinity of total health. She is the best-selling co-author of You Were Made To Be Unstoppable. 

 

In this episode you will learn:

-How your vagina changes throughout your life

-Pelvic floor physical therapy and how it can help with things like incontinence, pain during intercourse, and more

-The importance of self-care for your vagina

-And much more!

 

So whether you're dealing with the changes that come with menopause, are concerned about your pelvic health, or just want to learn more about taking care of your vagina, this episode is for you! Tune in now and let's get started on having a happy vagina for a happy life.

 

[01:15] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kirin. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today. We are gonna talk about vaginas. Yes, I know this is probably something that you don't hear talked about that much, but the truth is you have one, you take it with you everywhere, and it's a big part of what makes you a healthy woman. And my expert today knows this better than anyone. She is an expert in vagina house. She has a great event coming up. We're gonna tell you about, and she has a voice and she's not gonna be silent. And you shouldn't be silent either about what's going on for you. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about her and then we will get started. Premier women's health expert, a bestselling author, entrepreneur inventor, and business leader, specializing in female, pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery for over 20 years.

 

[02:14] Dr. Betsy Greenleaf is a trailblazer as the first female in the us to become a board certified Euro gynecologist. Yay, Betsy. She is the CEO of the pelvic floor store. She has a blog at Dr. Betsy greenleaf.com. She's the host of some of your parts podcast, and also she hosts the happy vagina rally summit. We're gonna tell you about she's dedicated to women's wellness and the notion that you are greater than the sum of your parts and body mind spirit podcast that focuses on the Trinity of total health. She's the best selling co-author of you are made to be unstoppable. Welcome Dr. Betsy Greenley. 

 

[02:55] You so much, Dr. Kirin for having me here. I'm so excited. I love talking to you. So this is gonna be great.

 

[03:00] yes. Betsy is so much fun. Not only is she brilliant, uh, when it comes to women's health and special, especially vaginal ecology and pelvic floor things, but just such a free thinker and out very outspoken. She shared the quote from Alan Albright with me before this episode, and I said this so speaks to who she is in the world. And I think who I am too, right. It took me quite a long time to develop a voice. And now that I have it, I am not going to be silent. So did you used to, to not have a voice on important matters?

 

[03:37] You know, I, unfortunately I think I've always just kind of not had a filter, just spoke my mind, but I did find very quickly that especially in traditional medicine, especially in, in, unfortunately the time that I did my training being in a male dominant field, that people did not wanna hear me. And it did get me in trouble, especially my first, my actually very first job. I came out in the early two thousands thinking, come on, it's two thousands. Like, you know, this is crazy. Like how bad can, you know, medicine be? And I'm going into a hospital where it was like stuck in the 1950s. And so they were not used to having somebody that spoke up.

 

[04:42] Later on, I spoke to some of my family colleagues and they're like, you, what is the doctor's lounge? And I was like, uh, last time I looked, I do have a degree. They're like, oh, we don't go in there. Only the men go in there. So yeah. So unfortunately I kind of learned the hard way that people don't always wanna hear what you have to say. So I do have a tendency to rock the boat, but I just, you know, as much as they've tried to squelch me over the years, I still haven't learned to shut up and I'm just gonna keep talking. 

 

[05:12] oh my gosh. You just brought back so many memories from when I first came out of residency and went to work in this hospital and the doctor's lounge. Oh my gosh. Yes. You were like an anomaly. You were like a rare bird walking into the Seren Getty and they would look at you like they were like lions you're doing here. And do you know what? I even remember that in the, so in the surgical suite, they didn't even have a female doctor's locker room. Yes. The only doctor's locker room, they said, this is the doctor's locker room was for males and females. So they would tell us, you have to go in there and change. I'm just remembering this. And of course, none of us wanted to, so we didn't. 

 

[06:05] I think it's still like that in some of the hospitals I go to, it says like doctors' locker room and then there's the nurses' locker room. And I'm like, but there's a lot of male nurses. And obviously there's a lot of female doctors. So, but you know, the, the men go into the doctors when the female go into the nurses.

 

[06:21] and God forbid, you would, you would raise your hand or say something at the, you know, the OB GYN staff meeting. They really would look at you like with these daggers, like, are you real? Like, it's enough that we gave you a seat at the table, but you're gonna open your mouth and say something really

 

[06:38] It's actually, you know, it's funny too. Cause I actually even started out in general surgery before I switched to OB G a N. And I remember walking into the operating rooms and like the doctors would look up and they'd be like, uh, you, what am I gonna talk to you about? And I would go home and study the sports page. Everybody else was study like surgery, textbooks. I was studying the sports page. So I had something I could walk in and talk to them about. 

 

[07:04] Maybe I should have done that. I didn't think of that. And I think it's important thatm in listening know kind of what the environment was like for us and still is in the hospital environment, because it will help you to understand a lot of why you're not getting what you need from medicine. Because if this is the oppressive environment that the doctors are living in, when it, it comes to women, this is what is being translated to you, without words in the care that you're receiving or not receiving, and the attention to your vagina and lady parts that you're probably not getting to the level that you need it. So that's why I think it's important to know. So let's dive into talking about, well, first you're the first certified urogynecologist female in the us. That's amazing. Yeah. What prompted you to want to go into urogynecology?

 

[08:06] You know, what's interesting. So I told you I started out in general surgery and I was the person who I wanted more of a relationship with my patients and listen, general surgeons are amazing people, but I found for me, they were too much like body mechanics, you know, get in, get the job done, get out, but I, and not have a relationship with the patients. And so I wanted a relationship with, with the patients I was going around on general surgery and I was the one who was rounding and being. 

 

[08:56] I didn't necessarily wanna deliver the babies partially. Cause I like to sleep at night babies come at all hours of the day. And so they told me that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. And it wasn't until my very last rotation as a OB GYN resident that I did Euro guide. And I'm like, this is amazing. I mean, this is what I've been telling people. I wanna do, you know, I was being told before, like, that's blasphemous, you can't just do the surgical aspect. And so, yeah. So I found that and uh, I got really lucky because I was a month from graduation and most fellowships have already accepted their fellows into the program. 

 

[09:59] Yeah. Amazing. And so you've had this really deep dive into pelvic floor disorder. I know you're very passionate about the VA biome and you're holding this event, uh, the puppy vagina rally, that's coming up soon. We will have a link in the show notes for you guys to sign up. And what are some of the most interesting things that you learned doing the interviews for this event about the vagina that you would like to share with.

 

[10:32] Everyone? You know, it's been so much fun cuz every time I interview people, I think like all of us as we talk to people, it's not just the conversation, but then it's an exchange and we're learning so much from each other. I think, you know, part of it was being traditionally trained. We didn't get a lot of training in sexuality. In fact, actually they took it out of the curriculum when I was in medical school. And I think even when it was in the curriculum, it was only like a week long. So we have a couple speakers that talk about sexuality that like from Susan Bratton to, I have a woman who is the erotic massage coach.

 

[11:31] And I'm like bringing in this woman, who's the tic massage coach, like talking to her, first of all, she is just so much fun. I'm like, wow, I never even thought about that as like an option. And when you first hear about it, she does these classes on like how to like kind of, you know, get your partner aroused. But I was like, well, that doesn't sound fun for, for me or the woman, but it is super empowering. 

 

[12:27] So it has been really enlightening along the way. And of course we have you talking about menopause on the summit too. So a lot of fun little tidbits from Dr. Karen. So it is just, it was a lot of fun making it. And I mean, I can't, I could go off on hours for all the different speakers that we had. We actually had to kind of hold it down to 30 speakers. Cause that was the other thing at first, it was turning into this week long summit. And my, I really wanted to address busy women because I don't know about you, but I don't really have a lot of time to sit there and watch a lot of videos. So I wanted, we decided to par it down, make it 30, 30 different speakers over a four day period. So in like short half hour session. So you could just kind of get in, get the information and get back on, you know, with your life.

 

[13:18] Yeah, I am super excited to hear it. Definitely wanna hear about that massage therapist you talked about. So why is the vagina so important? I know some women here get it. Any woman who's had recurrent Vitis. Oh my gosh. That's probably one of the most frustrating things for women. And if you've had that, you probably know what a big deal the vagina is. But I think that most people don't get the importance of the vagina. Just like they don't get the importance of their mouth. People are like, yeah, my mouth, what do you, what about it? I chew food. I swallow it. I go to the dentist, I brush my teeth big deal. And I'm like, no, your mouth is everything. So why is the vagina so important when it comes to women's health? 

 

[14:05] And it it's been fascinating over the years to find the connections between the gut, the brain and the vagina. And even if you're talking about the mouth, when we talk about microbiome, so microbiome are the small microorganisms that live in different areas of our body. So our microbiome of our mouth is different than that of our gut is different than the vagina, but they all interact. So, you know, starting with the mouth, we're 75% of us are chronically dehydrated. So if you're dehydrated, you're gonna actually throw off the healthy bacteria in the mouth and that's where your digestion begins. And if your digestion isn't good or the bacteria in your mouth, isn't good.

 

[14:56] That's gonna throw off your gut health and your stomach health. And we know that the gut health, 95% of our happy hormones are made in our gut. And 80% of our immune system is made in our gut. So if our gut is off, that can lead to inflammatory conditions, autoimmune conditions, probably 90% of the medical conditions out there today are either caused by or aggravated by things in the gut. And then things like anxiety and depression are aggravated by our gut. And then if the gut is off, that throws off the microbiome of the vagina, and then we're more susceptible to recurrent geese and recurrent vaginal infections.

 

[15:57] And so it will dampen sex drive and fertility. And because the brain doesn't know the difference between wanting to have a baby wanting to have fun. So now a lot of times we, you know, women, especially postmenopausal women would come in that like I have no sex drive, gimme hormones and hormones are a great tool and they are amazing and they work, but in some women, it doesn't completely fix the problem. And then we gotta go look at the, the microbiome because if the microbiome of the vagina is off, the brain is going okay, it shouldn't be reproducing right now. Let's dampen everything. 

 

[16:46] I think that's so important. So thank you for highlighting that is that, you know, with the modern age birth control, we have uncoupled sex from reproduction and we just wanna have it because we enjoy it. It improves intimacy or for whatever reason your body doesn't see it that way, it still sees it. As you get, you're rewarded with a sex drive when you are optimally healthy, cuz then it thinks you'll make a healthy baby and you'll be around to take care of it for 18 years. But how interesting that there's data that if you, your vaginal environment is off, that it's gonna feed back into your brain to be a kill switch on your sex drive. 

 

[17:50] Yeah. And then it feeds into, you know, hormones do play a part because if we're not getting estrogen well and there's other receptors in the vagina, if we're not getting hormones to the vagina, the vaginal tissue thins out and our healthy bacteria, the lactobacillus lives in like the symbiotic relationship with us. Like it lives off our, off of our dead tissues, which sounds kind of gross, but it eats something called glycogen and it survives on that. And in return, the healthy bacteria produces hydro peroxide, which keeps the vagina very acidic, which fights all the yeast and the bacteria. 

 

[18:40] Everything connects to everything else, thing else everything's related. Um, and I love how I love when women see that light bulb go off and no longer is it like, oh, I just have a recurrent vaginitis problem. And they get it that, oh my gut micro flora is off. Oh my mouth, my hormones. Right? All these things. And so we're gonna have a link to the happy vagina rally. I'm wondering, they're gonna get lots of great information there. There's so many women I find in their forties and fifties who start having problems with their pelvic floor. And I find I'm amazed by this. You're probably used to this. They don't even wanna talk about it, but to their providers, cuz they're so embarrassed, I've had women, uh, and I'll ask them, are you having a problem with, you know, something protruding from your vagina you're notch for what it is and they'll go yes. And I say, well, why don't you say something? 

 

[19:59] Sure. You know, this is, I can't tell you. I mean, being a gynecologist is what I did every single day of my life. And yet every single day I would have a woman in the office that goes, oh, I'm the only one this has ever happened to. Right. and I'm like, no, in fact, actually 50% of women will have a pelvic floor support problem. And so the way we're built, unfortunately gravity takes over everything. I mean, you know, everything starts heading south, you know, from our boobs to like ear lobes to our vaginas and some women who've had babies are a little higher risk of things, drooping and dropping though. 

 

[20:52] I mean, we're just, everything's going to gravity. And so inside our pelvis, you have your bladder, you have the vagina, you have the rectum and these things can start drooping and dropping and falling out. And part of it's from ligament damage, not, you know, you know, whether it's having a baby or being constipated and straining too much or maybe coughing or lifting something too heavy. And then the problem is we start losing muscle mass. We lose about 8% muscle mass for every decade that we live. 

 

[21:42] But what lot of times they'll say like, well, sometimes people come in, they think they have a tumor. Cause all of a sudden something's hanging between their legs. Mm-hmm and usually it's the vagina that's bulging. You're seeing the mucosa, like the skin of the vagina that's protruding. And well, sometimes we refer like the bladders falling out, the vagina is falling out. The uterus is falling out the rectum falling out. Like nothing's gonna be falling and dropping on the floor. 

 

[22:27] Or the rectum's gonna start leaning on the vagina and push it out. And basically everything's just kind of flopping and collapsing and stage four prolapse is actually where the vagina can fall down and turn inside out and hang between the legs. So that is possible. So if you're experiencing anything that's dripping or dropping, you know, get it checked out. Uh, at the same time, I know it's kind of shocking. If so that happens, cuz it can be a gradual process or somebody could lift something heavy. And if they're not lifting properly, you gotta blow out as you're lifting. But if you hold your breath and all of a sudden pop there goes something and you're finding it between your legs, it is not a surgical emergency. 

 

[23:31] Yeah, it is shocking cuz nobody talks about it, but we're talking about it and I'm glad you're here. So now if it happens to you or your BFF send texts, you what is this photo? And you can be like, no problem. It's PE it's pop pelvic organ prolapse. Yes I got you. Right. And so like, say that did happen. I know I've heard, I knew this doctor, she trained up in the Appalachia and she's like, they would put potatoes, put a potato up there to hold it up.

 

[24:02] You know, what's so funny in ancient Egypt, they used to use like rocks or pomegranates. And then Roman times they'd use rocks or potatoes, which I don't recommend any of those things. They do make medical devices called pessaries, which are usually made out of silicone. And they're coming all kinds of crazy shapes and sizes. Some like look like very small Frisbees all the way to, they look like donuts or cubes. 

 

[24:48] Some people have heard about vaginal mesh and I see the 1-800-BAD-DRUG commercials. And I have to say vaginal mesh is not a hundred percent as bad as it was made out to be, but that's a whole nother topic. But when I first came out, I was doing surgery on everybody cuz that's what you were treating to do. And then one day I realized, wait a minute, why am I doing surgery? If it's not bothering the person or if it's not causing health conditions. And so you don't necessarily need to have surgery there's non-surgical options. Or if it's not causing recurrent urinary tract infections or it's not affecting your kidneys, it can actually just be followed and you can kind of leave it alone and manage it that way. But you do have to get it checked out to make sure it's not affecting your kidneys or your urinary tract. 

 

[25:33] Yeah. So what is a treatment? So pessaries are one option. The mesh was big fiasco and our doctors even using mesh at this point, say there's somebody listening. Who's like knows that she's got stress, urine incontinence. She's got a cystic seal, right? The bladder's falling. Maybe she has a recusal and or an entere. So the backside's coming down too. What should she look for in trying to find someone to complete a surgical repair for her? What, what things are available?

 

[26:03] You know, there's are some regular gynecologists are very well trained in this, but I, of course I'm a little partial to Euro gynecologists or someone who's gone through female pelvic reconstructive training the problem with any of the surgeries. And this is something that as a profession we've learned over time is none of them are a hundred percent permanent. It's not like you get your appendix out and like you no longer have your appendix like the process that caused you to have that in the first PA place. And the fact that we know that some people are just genetically have weaker tissue, even when you put it back surgically, it can recur. 

 

[26:50] So there are a number of surgeries. There's ones that go can go through the vagina and it's not like people always ask, well, why don't you just find the ligaments that are torn and just rehook up into those? Well, a lot of times those ligaments are so thin and non-existent, there's not anything really to rehook up into, but there are still vaginal procedures though. The vaginal mesh only refers to the mesh that's placed through the vagina and mesh has been used for surgery for hernia surgery since the eighties. So mesh is actually still used, but it's actually placed in through the abdomen and that's not considered vaginal mesh. 

 

[27:41] And people always ask like, is a robot doing my surgery? And I'm like, no, no, no, it's the doctor's running the robot. The robot has the ability to do finer movements. So mm-hmm and then basically they're reconstructing and wrapping this material. And it's usually like a thin mesh around the vagina and kind of attaching it to the tailbone to reconstruct that, that ligament. And then I have to say over the years, I've gotten a lot of, uh, questions about mesh. Like some people picture it in their mind as being like a window screen. It's not that rough. 

 

[28:29] When you were talking about like, why can't you just reattach the tendon? So I was thinking it's not like a cut shoelace. It's more like panty hose. That's been so stretched.

 

[28:39] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. If you could like run in your that's a great I and where were you when I BA Brazilians of years ago? And I could have used that. Yeah. Like if you get a run in your, your stockings, you're not gonna sit there and try to try to sew it back up cuz you're just gonna make more runs and it's just gonna keep going. And there's really not much to pull together. 

 

[29:00] And the mesh. Yeah. It's like TWI or it is like panty hose kind of like a really fine fishnet panty hose, but alright, so some great solutions there. Well tell them about what they're going. Who else is gonna be, uh, the happy vagina rally summit. I'm there? You talked about Susan. She's amazing. Any other people and we will have the link in the show notes and it airs on what days?

 

[29:28] June 9th through 12th.

 

[29:30] Ninth through 12. Yeah. So anything else you wanna share about what? Good goodness they will get there.

 

[29:35] Yeah. Even though we call it the happy vagina rally, it's not everything about vaginas is we're talking everything from perimenopause to menopause and vaginal health. So we're kind of covering it all. So we have Kevin Ellis, the bone coach talking about osteoporosis when, uh, which was actually interesting. When I interviewed with him on his podcast, we actually found studies that connected bone health with vaginal health, which I was fascinated by. I was like, what? We have people like Susan Bretton. We have we Jagger. Who's the, the erotic therapist. We have JJ Virgin talking about sugar and your diet. We have Deborah Atkinson talking about exercise and how, why we can't lose weight. As we get older. I have Dr. Aika Becca talking about hysterectomies and menopause. I have some your other urogynecologist talking about prolapse, talking about incontinence, different vulva dermatology, a vulva dermatologist on Dr. Lynette Maren. 

 

[31:21] Vagina smoothies. There's a pelvic meditation. This was actually fun. I, I, I actually created this pelvic meditation. I started looking into things beyond traditional medicine and looking into some of these alternative therapies and sound therapy and certain wavelengths that are supposed to stimulate your pelvic chakra, which is opens up creativity. And we created a pelvic meditation at a certain frequency as with something called Bial beats where it's like slightly different tones in each ear and actually has a relaxing property to the brain, which was actually fascinating to look into and create. So we have a little bit of everything going on. It it's all gonna be a lot of fun.

 

[32:33] Can, and it's funny, you mention, it's funny, you mentioned the vagina spa because that's in the works. That's in the works.

 

[32:40] Ah . Yeah. And you know, I was gonna ask you along those lines, I have to we'll end with this. So I go to this, don't tell anyone, but like one of my favorite places in Atlanta, when I go there is Jeju sauna. Do you know Jaju?

 

[32:55] No.

 

[32:56] So JJO is this, I don't know. It's like 20,000 square feet, Korean bathhouse up in Gwinnett county. Oh. And they have first off every kind of sauna you could wanna go to. Right? They've got the Jade sauna and this salt rock sauna and the gold sauna. And like all these saunas, they've got steam rooms, they've got the best foot reflexology I've ever had. Every time I go there, I get the foot reflexology. They have this Korean scrub where the women, you lay naked on this table. It's like this big room of all these, they look like surgical tables T VH, and they scrub you down. You're like totally naked. They have a towel over your head. If you didn't know what was happening, you'd think it was really weird. And they scrub down to your body with this scrub and it is, it is just, it's wonderful. 

 

[34:08] You know, it's funny you bring that up cuz I know that was made super popular, especially with Gwyneth PTRO. I know she's been kind of touted as making that super trendy and there is a lot of belief that vaginal steaming can help with fertility or the biome or menopause. I think when you come, I I'm really into body mind spirit. So I think if you believe it's gonna help, it's going to help. And I think it's maybe very relaxing, but honestly it doesn't work anywhere close to what people think it believes does. They think they're gonna sit on this pot of herbs and that this steam is gonna go up in the vagina and clean it out. But Reno is gynecologists. 

 

[35:05] So the steam is really not gonna get up there. Plus you have the lips of the VVA that are kind of protective and for most, and there's so much, I always say, vulvas are like snowflakes. There's not like there's not, they all they're all look different. But for the most part, the lips of the VVA are kind of keeping that area closed. So it would be really difficult for that team to get up in there and steam things out the way people are picturing it. But if you think it's relaxing to do so, I'm like, okay, you know, go ahead and do it though.

 

[36:05] Yeah. So if you've had one, check me out on Instagram or Betsy and let's hear your experience, I'd love to know I did it one time cuz I wanted to see and the herbs are great. You get to breathe them in. So I'm wondering if actually it has more respiratory benefit than anything else I else have

 

[36:26] I'm with you. Like the vaginas collapsed down. It's not a stove pipe and so I don't really know how much benefit there is to it. But I do think that if you have a belief around it and it could be working at an energetic level on the energy body and on that SAC chakra, that is all about creativity. So I we'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on that. So check out Betsy on her Instagram, what's your Instagram, Betsy

 

[36:52] At Dr. Dr. And then Betsy Greenleaf underscore you gotta put the underscore. This is my second account. I kind of okay. off the Instagram. Talk about not keeping my mouth shut. I off the Instagram. God's the first, the first account. So

 

[37:06] yeah. Well, let's end with this other quote you had from Anne Rand, which I love it. The question isn't who's going to let me it's who is going to stop me? Well, Instagram may try, but the vagina lives on with the happy vagina rally. Thank you so much for joining me, Dr. Betsy Greenleaf, we will see you at the happy vagina rally.

 

[37:33] And thank you for joining us for another episode up the hormone prescription with Dr. Kirin. It's been my pleasure to have you here today. I want you to take in mind some of the things that we've shared. If you learned something that could benefit another woman, please do consider sharing it. And I want you to think about developing your voice and not being silent. What is it that you need to speak up about and be truthful about?

 

[38:00] 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. 

 

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Overcoming Midlife Weight Loss Resistance

Have you been struggling to lose weight and keep it off? If you're a woman in her 40s or 50s, you're not alone. In fact, many women experience what's known as "midlife weight loss resistance."

 

But the good news is that there are steps you can take to overcome this resistance and finally achieve your weight loss goals.

 

On this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we're joined by Stu Schaefer, a 20-year award-winning celebrity weight-loss coach. He specializes in helping people put their bodies into The Thermogenic State, so they burn fat 24/7… and lose weight as they did in their 20s. He's here to share his insights on how to overcome midlife weight loss resistance.

 

You'll learn:

• The benefits of thermogenic foods
• How to eat for your hormones
• The real reason why it's so hard to lose weight as you get older
• The simple tweak to your diet that can make all the difference
• How to boost your metabolism and burn fat around the clock
• Foods  to avoid if you want to lose weight
• Type of diet that will help you lose weight
• And more!

If you're ready to finally overcome your weight loss resistance and get back on track, this episode is for you. Tune in now and start losing weight today!

 

[01:44]  So Stu Schaefer is a 20 year award-winning celebrity weight loss coach. And he specializes in helping people put their body into the thermogenic state. So they burn fat 24 7 and lose weight like they did in their twenties. Who wants that everyone stew struggled with anorexia and his teens. And when he overcame his eating disorder, he realized that he wanted to help people create their perfect body in a healthy, sustainable way. Since then St has helped thousands of people transform their body and empower themselves to create massive success in their life. Welcome Stu. So happy to be here. This is gonna be great. It's gonna be awesome. It's always fun to talk to you because you have such clarity around the issues that my people wanna know about, which is weight loss resistance at midlife. How do I get rid of this belly? How do I get my butt to shrink my thigh? All the things. Not necessarily because of a vanity issue, but because they know it's related to health problems and they know cuz they've been hearing me say that fat, excess fat is not just decoration. It's metabolically active. And it's like, you have this extra endocrine organ that's then messing with your hormone. So, so many problems with excess APAC tea. So how did you become interested and an expert in this field? Why don't we start with that too?

[03:19] That's a great question. And you mentioned something really quick that I want to touch on before I forget you just mentioned something that's gold. And you said when women have this excess body fat, it reeks havoc with their hormones and will get to this. Remind me about this because most of the women who see me think their hormones are off and that's the cause of their weight gain, but actually their hormones being off is a symptom. Okay. And so when they hit, they, every woman that I've ever talked to says, well, I hit my fifties and my hormones changed and that's why I gained weight. And that's not usually the truth. The truth is something's off that reeked havoc with your hormones and caused you to gain weight.

 

[04:07] Well, you mentioned in the intro that I was anorexic and I was in, um, my first year of high school when I was 13, between eighth and ninth grade, I ended up breaking into a house in my neighborhood with two friends. I thought they were my friends and uh, I ended up getting arrested. Now when you're 13, every little thing is the end of the world. Anyway, and this was like the end of the end of the world. And because of that, it just, I had this self hatred. You also mentioned the self love idea in the intro and I was just despised myself. And as a result, thank goodness that when I was younger suicide wasn't as gratified as it is now. There no one was committing suicide, but I possibly could have cutting. Wasn't a thing I possibly could have. What I turned to was anorexia as a way of self punishment.

 

[04:59] And so for about a year and a half, I battled with that and it was very real. And what got me out of it quite honestly, was I had a nervous breakdown. It was ninth grade. I had a full load of classwork that I wasn't used to between that and not eating and not being able to function. Everything just came to a head and I just broke down and was crying. And that was the turning point. And out of that, ironically, what got me out of that mess was I decided to do a program. Now this doesn't work for many people who have an eating disorder, but for me it was something I could focus on. And I had anxiety for 30 days straight because every day I was eating four or five times a day and every time I ate, I thought I was gonna get fat.

 

[05:44] So I was an, I had anxiety all day. Now at the end of 30 days, this was the critical moment in my life. This shaped everything because it broke off that false belief system. I could see that I hadn't gained the weight. In fact, I looked better. I felt better. I wasn't as emotional I could function. And I had this clear vision and experience of what it's like on both sides. And I said, oh my gosh, I want to be a health coach because I can see the difference that this kind of change and transformation can make in a person's life. And I understand, and very compassionate when someone is feeling overwhelmed, anxious, doesn't know what to do. There's so much information. They don't like their body. And it just, there are some days I just wanted to hide under the covers and just wish that everything would go away. And that was the defining moment for me,

 

[06:47] Grew up really fast and out of that came this passion for helping people. What do you think is the biggest misconception that people have about losing weight?

 

[06:58] This is a good question. And I'll tell you flat out is it's still perpetuated. In fact, if you were to line up a hundred experts, including doctors and you ask them, how do you lose weight? 99 out of a hundred are gonna tell you that the only way to lose weight is to go into a calorie deficit. They won't even say that that's one way. They'll say it's the only way. That's how I was trained. When I became certified health coach and trainer, you know, it works for some people, usually when you're younger, but it's only temporary. I mean, I was doing that. 

 

[07:43] The door was open and she said, Hey, I said, uh, I'm like cleaning up. I'm like, okay, well, how can I help you? And she's still sweating. She's breathing heavy. She goes, look, I wanna lose between 30 and 50 pounds. And I've tried everything and nothing works well. I'm in my twenties at this time. And I am embarrassed to admit this, but I'm kind of arrogant. And in my mind I was thinking, yeah, right. You know, you're just eating too much. You' not working out enough. Like, that's just what we're taught. It's like, oh, it's simple. So I said, I assured her that I could help her. She decided to work with me and we tried for five weeks and she did not lose a pound. Now her background. She said that typically, if she did a diet, she might lose three to five, but then she'd hit a plateau, gain it right back and then gain seven to 10 pounds over the next year.

 

[08:30] All right. Well now I'm thinking, oh my gosh, we tried everything. Well, the 200 ounces of water, grapefruits Adkins was hot at the time. She tried that south beach, the zone diet, you know, you have to remember, this was back in 2009. These were all the trending diets. And she was eating less than 1200 calories a day, borderline a thousand. She was working out two hours a day. She's sitting across the desk crying, saying, I told you, I told you, I told you, I'm thinking I blew it. 

 

[09:17] I could tell how emotional she was about it. So I went on this deep dive research quest. I was bound and determined to figure out what is going on here? Why is the normal stuff not working? And after about two weeks, I figured it out. It's something called repress metabolic syndrome or RMS. And what happens essentially is when you diet too much or you don't eat enough or you exercise too much or a combination of those things, it essentially causes your metabolism to shut down. And it puts your body in this state called the catabolic state where your body's actually storing fat and burning muscle. 

 

[10:10] And this is called putting your body into the thermogenic state and the way you do it essentially is you eat more and exercise less totally counterintuitive. So I go back to Ashley, I'm all excited. And I kind of explained to her what I just explained to you. And I said, we gotta, I need you to start eating more and exercising less. Well, you can imagine she's looking at me like, what are you nuts? She's like, there's no way I'm gonna do that. I can't even lose a pound. I'm barely eating anything. I'm exercising two hours a day. This is gonna make me gain weight. And I said, look, let's give me a week, give it a week. Let's do this. 

 

[10:52] Well, the first week she lost two pounds. I'm thin I'm sitting there going like, yes, we've got, this is working. She's not convinced. Cuz remember she had lose three to five and gain it back. So she's like, oh right. This is what my body normally does. But she was willing to give it a shot. Okay. We didn't go the opposite direction. The next week she lost two and a half pounds every single week for 12 weeks in a row, she lost between two and two and a half pounds. And she ended up losing a total of 37 pounds of body fat while simultaneously increasing her lean body mass slightly, which is very important for metabolic reasons. And she looked at me and she goes, I don't understand how this was possible. How did this work? And I was telling her, look, this is because we put your body in the thermogenic state.

 

[11:39] When you work with your body, magical things happen. You can eat more. Your body revs up, you start burning fat all the time. So Kirin I'm thinking, oh my gosh, if it worked with someone like Ashley, who was like so challenged, how would it work for all my other clients who are already losing weight, doing the normal calorie deficit. So I go to 'em and I say, tell 'em what happened? Are you willing to try this? Yeah, let's try it. Not only did they start losing weight faster, working out half the time and also eating more. But their energy went through the roof, their cravings vanished. They were never hungry. And their hormones started normalizing because they weren't restricting or cutting out any types of foods. Then I was like, oh my gosh, there's something to this. This is incredible. That's how I figured this out.

 

[12:30] Awesome. so you, you mentioned, you know, there are hormones normalized. So one thing you mentioned earlier is that women say my hormones went out of balance and I gain. So we might have to agree to disagree there because you know, we, women do have this menopausal thing that is associated with weight gain where we go through per menopause and menopause. So which came first, the chicken or the egg. How do you help women address weight, hormone balance for midlife women? 

 

[13:00] Is to lose this question, Uhhuh. Yeah. This is a good question. What happens is this? I'm not saying that the hormones changes. Aren't real. Mm-hmm I'm saying that that's not necessarily the cause of everything. Normally there's something else that causes the hormones to go outta whack to begin with mm-hmm okay. So, and this is typically how it works. When we get older, as we age everyone, you, me, everyone. We get more sensitive. Now this is obvious. If you were to compare a 20 year old woman and a 90 year old woman, you'd be obvious. Oh yeah. If the 90 year old tried to do what the 20 year old did, you know, she could probably die just your, your bodies get more sensitive, right? Where we're more resilient when we're younger. So what happens is this, maybe that I'm the only one that had this experience.

 

[13:49] But when I was in college, I would see the girls guys too. But I'm talking about girls here. I'd see the girls go on a binger Friday night and a binger Saturday night and pull an all night or Sunday night for the exam. They had Monday. And then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, they'd work out two hours a day to undo all the damage they did and get ready for the next weekend. Okay. Well they looked fantastic, but guess what? That's not good for your body. Okay. It was never good for the body, but it worked for them at the time. So what happens is people develop bad habits that ha that allow them to lose weight when they're younger. And they keep those bad habits that actually prevent them from losing weight. As they hit a certain age, it's not because the hormones change per se.

 

[14:35] It's because our bodies get so much more sensitive. And those bad habits oftentimes are the culprits that make the hormones change. This is what I'm talking about. This is that kind of dichotomy. Now when you eat correctly and when talk about that, there's four components of eating. I call it the food quadrant. There's not only what you eat and how much you eat, but there's when you eat certain foods, the timing and how you combine foods together at each meal. And that's when the magic happens. When you do that and you put your body in this thermogenic state, one of the side effects is that your hormones balance, they normalize. Now I'll tell you the order. They do it in the first thing that normalize is right away within days is your insulin and blood sugar. The second one that balances cortisol. And you know, we've talked about that.

 

[15:24] Karen on Instagram a couple times, that's like the mama hormone right there. Right? I think you call it the queen hormone or something like that. Yeah. And then the third that balances or normalizes a bit is thyroid. Now, obviously if you have an autoimmune like Hashimotos or hypothyroid, it may not balance all the way, but many of my clients, they have reduced significantly. Any thyroid medication they've been on and I have a client right now, as a matter of fact, her name is Holly. She has no thyroid. She was convinced she wouldn't be able to lose weight and she's losing weight just fine. When those big three hormones balance the insulin, the cortisol and the thyroid that opens the gates for your other sex hormones to start normalizing naturally, these are the progesterone testosterone, estrogen.

 

[16:44] Yeah. I totally agree with you about these bad habits that we pick up that affect our other hormones. Like our insulin, our cortisol, this feast or famine workout crazy. Don't work out. We develop these habits and we have Unbound hormones. And then we, women get to midlife. We blame it all on our sex hormones. And then we chase that, that train, but that train never gets to the station because you don't know about all these other things. So thank you for highlighting that.

 

[17:26] Food. You know, this is a great, uh, point because I had a, a client not too long ago and she was 52, her name's Brenda. And she said, I can't eat carbs. If I do, I blow up like a balloon. Every time I try to get carbs back into my nutrition, that's what always happens. So she was going low carb. Well, the problem with going low carb or no carb is that can cause diet induced hypothyroidism. Okay? Since the nineties, this is a medical term. Since the nineties, we've known that two things can cause diet induced, hypothyroidism, eating a diet that's too low in carbohydrates or too high in fats, even good fats. Now I happen to have seen more women in the last three years with diet induced hypothyroidism than I had in the 17 years before that combined much of the reason I believe is because of the ketogenic diet is so low carbon.

 

[18:19] So high fat, it's kind of hitting that thyroid from both sides. So this particular woman Brenda had done this. Okay? So not only was her thyroid outta whack, her sex hormones were outta whack. I, the first thing I said is, look, we're gonna have to add carbs. You have to eat carbs. Carbs are actually really good. And I'll explain why in just a second. But she was very frightened by it. In fact, she said, look, I'm not gonna weigh myself because if the scale goes up, I'm just, I'm gonna die. I said, fine. Don't weigh yourself, but I need you to take progress photos and waste measurements. So we have some form of tracking here other than the scale. And she said, okay, deal.

 

[19:09] I said, how was your weekend? It was a Monday morning. I said, how was your week? She said, oh my gosh, first time that I can remember two days in a row. I woke up to my alarm clock. I haven't slept this good in years. Now this is a good indicator that your hormones are balancing. Okay? When you start sleeping. And she said she wasn't moody anymore. This is because she was eating enough of the right foods to allow her body to get into this nice thermogenic state. 

 

[19:56] Now there's a catch to this, right? All of us have a limit just like vitamins. It's like, oh, vitamin C is good. Well, if you take too much, it's useless. The body does. It only absorbs what it can. And you pee out the rest. Well with food you only have a, a certain amount. You can absorb you don't pee out the excess. Okay. What ends up happening is you store it as fat. Now carbs have the second highest thermogenic effect. This is what nobody talks about. They have a 20% thermogenic effect. Fat has almost zero. It has between a zero and 3% thermogenic effect. So it really doesn't cause you to burn fat. 

[20:42] Now you need fats for hormone, balancing and skin and, and other things like this, right? But they make you full. So if you're eating too many fats and you get full, then you won't have an appetite to eat some of the other foods that would actually force your body to burn fat. I see this so often now, and I, you know, wasn't long ago I had a client named Mary 52. She had done keto for eight years now. She started doing it because she wanted to get rid of seizures and it can do that. And it did it for her. However, over eight years, it totally depleted her body. Put her into the repress metabolic syndrome. 

 

[21:35] Now for the fir, I'm gonna tell you how this can affect your body for the first four weeks, four and a half weeks, she only lost two pounds. And she said, I'm really discouraged. I said, Mary, I get ya. I said, but look, how's your sleep. She goes, amazing. I go, how's your energy. She goes, well, that's kind of the only reason I'm still optimistic. I haven't had this much energy in years. I go, how are your exercise sessions going? She goes, great. I'm getting stronger. I said, aha. I said, stay the course. I can see what you're doing.

 

[22:18] She lost two pounds that week, the next week, two pounds, the next week, two pounds, 10 weeks in a row. And she lost 26 pounds. And she goes, oh my gosh. She goes, I would've given up after that first four and a half weeks, I would've said, oh, this isn't working. It took four weeks for her body to undo that damage that she had done by depleting it so much. And then once we started fueling it correctly, bam, she was ready. Now the problem was she was eating tons of nuts and avocados and seeds because that's what everyone says to do. 

 

[23:10] That's not true. The truth is this. And you know, this Karen, every different food you put in your body has a different chemical reaction in your body. Period. It affects your hormones differently. Doctors will tell you this in the same breath, as they tell you that all you need to do is go into a calorie deficit. So the key is getting the right foods in the right combination to create the chemical reaction you want in your body. Most people want to create a chemical reaction that does two things causes 'em to burn fat and increases their energy. So they feel amazing. And as a side effect, they optimize their health and hormones. 

 

[24:03] Well, here's the downside. We know saturated fats are generally not that great in, in high quantities. And we know trans fats are definitely not good, but people go, well, the omegas are great. Kind of that's only half the story. There is a specific omega three fatty acid. That's really good. And that's the one that's found in fish. Okay. Salmon, macro sardines, these types of things. Cardine okay. This type, this type of omega three fatty acid. Now there's omega three fatty acids found in other foods, but not this type. This is the type that will encourage some fat burning in the body that helps with your hormones and endocrine system. And that can help fight chronic diseases. 

 

[25:13] Okay. And so again, you get half the story out there and then everyone runs with it, but they don't explain the subtle differences and these subtle differences, they make all the difference. And that's why when I clients have told, I have told me, I've tried everything. I've tried this, I've tried that. And when we make these subtle tweaks and then they finally get the results, it's like a breath of fresh air. It's like this huge weight has lifted off their shoulders. And this is the difference, right? 

 

[25:50] I love talking with you Stu because you know, it's so true that everyone is like, oh, what's the latest diet. And, and when I was coming along, it was the grapefruit diet, the cottage cheese diet, south beach, the zone, those were the things. And it's like, everyone's like, yay. The zone diet, you know, the cottage cheese diet. Oh the grapefru, it's just like, everybody's, omega3s are the answer. Omega six is, are the answer. And it's like, oh my gosh, let's just go to science. And you go to the science and you're like, y'all, this is how it works.

 

[26:27] Is P are D you just gotta go back to the basic science that hasn't changed in a long, long time. I do wanna touch on this topic because we were we're limited in time. Uh, I know we're doing finishing up with a masterclass, everybody listening to the podcast, we got a bunch of lucky women here who get to pick STUs brain. When we get off the podcast who are members of my program. And that's one of the benefits you get of being in my program. You get a front row seat masterclass with a lot of these experts. A lot of what I talk about is not only hormone balance, but how women have to detoxify that. That's part of their weight gain and mitochondrial function or dysfunction is part of their weight gain. How do you work with those things? And what do you recommend for women at midlife to help with those aspects of wake eight?

 

[27:21] This isn't actually, it's a really good question. So there are two things that I do. So one of the things is that over the last 20 years that I've done this, I happened to just always work with women over 40 and over 50, it was wherever I grew up. I, I grew up in a town where that was the predominant demographic. So since I was a young trainer, I've always worked with women who were in their forties, fifties and beyond. And I just learned, and I thought that this was normal. And I never realized that this is actually quite difficult. And it's a very special thing. 

 

[28:07] Okay. And these, then someone might have a gut issue. Okay. KDA, leaky, gut. CIBO something like this same thing. I'd work with them. And we'd find these high risk foods that a lot of times would agitate them, cause them to gain weight and same with thyroid issues. Okay. Well, what I noticed was over these things, these high risk foods were all the same. Now, these aren't just the typical high risk foods that you hear about like dairy and gluten. Okay. Those are two of the highest risk foods in peanuts and sugar, but these were other things like kale, broccoli, in some cases, sometimes bell peppers or tomatoes.

 

[29:01] So something's off, they have a undiagnosed food sensitivity that may not show up on a test, to be honest with you or a gut issue undiagnosed perhaps, or an autoimmune that they don't know about, or they do know about it, doesn't matter whether you know it about it or not. And so I'll say, look, let's pull some of these foods. And they'll say, really, I eat a, a broccoli cauliflower, you know, brussel sprout some of these healthy foods. And when we pull 'em, they start losing the weight. And then when we put 'em back in, they'll gain the weight and it goes totally against everything that you would ever hear. But some vegetables require a specifically, very balanced gut biome to be able to properly digest those. And if your gut is off, it, ain't gonna work and it's gonna cause inflammation and weight gain.

 

[29:49] And so you have to go through a period of pulling out some of these high risk culprits so that your body can actually adapt and adjust and normalize. And then you can integrate these back. In. In fact, I have a client right now. She's still working with me, her name's Kathy, she's 53. Now she lives in New York and she is a nurse she's on her feet all day. And she said for 15 years too, I've tried everything. You can imagine. She rattled off everything. You just did. Kirin Adkins, south beach zone, you name it.

 

[30:34] And no one would ever notice. Okay? So we cut out some of these high risk foods. And in the first three weeks she lost nine pounds. And she said, holy smokes. I feel amazing. She had no energy after work. Now, after work, she had so much energy. She could do her full workout. We found out it was, there were two foods. Now we've since found there, there are a few more. And recently she said, gosh, I need to go to my rheumatologist. I said, what are you talking about? She goes, my joints feel like they're swelling. I go, well, you've added in all these foods without talking to me, pull 'em out really quick.

 

[31:18] The more you eat a food, they'll higher. The likelihood that she'll develop antibodies to it. So sure enough, she cut it out. She was able to lose. If I remember correctly, 24 pounds, she's since been able to keep it off. She's jet, set it over to Switzerland and Paris and all these different vacations and is able to splurge and eat normally and not worry about dieting. And she's fine. She's able to maintain. But again, we're now kind of looking at what are these foods she's not eating any unhealthy foods, nothing that would be obvious like gluten or dairy, which one of these veggies is your body rejecting.

 

[32:11] That's actually causing an antibody inflammatory response. That's causing your knuckles to feel swollen. This is what happens now. Only someone who's I'm sorry, but only someone who's worked this out on the street. Who's failed miserably. Many times is gonna know and understand what to look for because this isn't in any of the textbooks. It's not, it's not okay. And this is the key. So what happens is I've met more women and remember there was a kale craze. We've got some women here. I bet all of you remember the kale craze, everyone was putting kale in their shakes, making CAEs.

 

[32:48] And that caused more women to gain weight and develop weird issues than anything I had seen in my career. And this was just awesome. Okay. Someone's asking. Right. Well how, how do you test it? Well, I don't test because I just know what the foods are, cuz I've done this for 20 years, but if you were gonna try to test it on your own, where would you start? I mean, it's hard and I don't recommend doing this with any of my clients, but you could do a basic elimination diet, which is very difficult and it's not realistic to maintain, but essentially you'd have to wipe out all foods except for maybe like fiber or so, and then start systematically adding them back in this takes a long time and it's can be hard and arduous. I honestly don't have a test. 

 

[33:49] I would just wanna add that this is definitely a part of my story too. You know, I was reacting to cauliflower, supposed to be healthy. Right? Mm-hmm almonds, peaches, blueberries who knew mm-hmm so definitely a part of my story

 

[34:03] Tell, you know, and I had a client named Locklin who was actually on my podcast and she was doing great with her weight loss. And we went from two hours a day, no joke, two hours a day to 30 minutes, a day of exercise and increased her caloric intake by 50%. And she lost 18 pounds. But then she hit a plateau and I said, Locklin, what have you changed? She goes nothing. I said, okay, I'm I'm gonna study. I'm gonna go through a fine tooth comb with what you've been eating. She added one thing at night almonds because she was hungry and she wanted a healthy fat, but she said, oh my gosh, I got these weird hormonal symptoms. 

 

[34:50] You asked about the gut health stuff. That's number one. I said there were two things. Number two is I always take a very specific type of silver. This is not colloidal silver. It's a special ized, structured silver where they bond it to a water molecule, which is an antimicrobial it's only strong enough to kill the bad bacteria in your body. It is not strong enough to kill the good bacteria and it also kills fungus and mold and yeast. So this will wipe out candida it'll help with leaky gut it'll wipe out CIBO. This is my magic bullet that I use. And it's easy to take no risk of uh, no side effects and no risk of overdosing in any way, shape or form.

 

[35:36] Awesome. Thank you for addressing those things. I know we still haven't talked about self love and weight loss, which we've got to talk about. So I'm almost wondering if we need to cut it into two episodes, but let's go there and we'll figure out how to do the logistics later. But you do have an amazing training that you're gonna share with everyone. We're gonna give you the link in the show notes when Stu is done, but we've gotta talk about this issue because so many of us, particularly women, gosh, we have a lot of self hate around our bodies and lack of self acceptance. Some people say I don't hate myself, but if you don't wanna stand there naked in front of a mirror and you can't love all parts of your body, that's a lack of self-acceptance mm-hmm , which is kind of like hate. 

 

[36:39] So I'm not gonna hold anything back here because people here listening are in the right place to hear this message at the right time. Our mind, not our brain, our mind has a profound, physiological impact that not many people are aware of. Okay. In fact, if you go to again, if you took a thousand coaches, health coaches, weight loss coaches, maybe one, two or three out of a thousand would understand how to incorporate mindset in a way that would actually cause physiological changes in your body. 

 

[37:34] Let's say you have a man with two personalities. We'll call him Frank and Joe. Okay. I talk to all my clients about this, cuz it's amazing. The researchers or doctors or nurses or whoever will be observing this person and he'll say, hi, I'm Frank. Oh, Hey Frank. Well, we're gonna do a physical on you. Okay, great. And they'll do a physical, the blood work, the hearing the vision, the whole deal. And Frank has perfect health. 10 minutes later, he goes, Hey, I'm Joe. Oh, Hey Joe, we're gonna do a physical. And Joe has diabetes and requires glasses. Okay. Same body, same physical vessel, two different personalities, 10 minutes apart, completely different physiological characteristics. Now in the eighties they went, okay, something's wrong with our instrumentation something. This can't be. But over the last 40 years, they are like seeing this not uncommon by the way.

 

[38:27] And they're realizing how much our mind impacts our body. Now I'll give everyone here. A simple example that I always talk to my clients about to iterate this point. Most of us have had this experience. We're asleep in our own bed, in our own room. It's quiet, it's comfortable. It's warm, it's peaceful. And all of a sudden we wake up. Our heart's pounding. Our adrenaline is up. Our cortisol is up. Our blood pressure is up. Our respiratory rate is up and we're sweating and nothing happened there. Wasn't a bang. The bed didn't shake. We had a nightmare. Okay. Well a nightmare is nothing more than an unconscious visualization. That is it.

 

[39:30] This is why some people will go through the right actions and still not get results because their mindset is so off. And I'll give you a practical example in just a second. Their mindset is so off that they are causing their body to be in a state of. And I always get these backwards, the parasympathetic or sympathetic, you know, when your cortisol's up, they're causing their body to be all in this weird, stressed out state that they can't lose weight. They can't get the results. 

 

[40:21] One week she did her way away in and checked everything. And she weighed 147.8 pounds. At the end of the week, she did her next checkin. We wanted to see how everything was working and she weighed 147.0 pounds and she said, oh, that's familiar. And she says, oh my gosh, do something's wrong? I didn't lose any weight. And I go, what are you talking about? You almost, you lost a pound. She goes, no, look, I'm still 1 47. I go, you went from 1 47 0.8 to 1 47. I go, it, everything is right on track, calm down. 

 

[41:17] They have a lot of evidence from their past and they have a lot of doubt and fear and anxiety about losing weight and food. And, and, oh, I go, I'm probably gonna have to cut carbs and I can't eat this. And they have all these, these negative experiences is locked up in their, uh, proof and, and, and in their subconscious conditioning. And so all these things rear their head and these are real things that have a real physiological impact. You have to, how do you know, how do you know if you're, if you're using your mindset against you, I'll tell you the easiest way.

 

[42:16] Takes a couple minutes, twice a day. That's it? It's no different than working out. You do the reps period, but most people don't understand this. They don't grasp it. And even when they set goals, they set a goal that anytime they think of the goal, it makes 'em feel nervous and upset and anxious and doubtful. And they're using their own goals against them too. And so it backfires. And then they wonder why they're not getting the results. And it's because they're putting themselves in this chronic state of negative mindset versus positive. Ultimately the best attitude you could possibly be in. And the one we call self love is when you truly and totally accept yourself for how you are right now, 100%. 

 

[43:24] That was so worth it. That was, we had to, you had to go there. So thank you for going in deep on that. I really appreciate it. I love this. This is my favorite quote that you said , if you have any negative emotion, you are using your mindset against your body. I think that's a big hunk of truth that everybody needs to really take in. Thank you so much, Stu. I love talking to you. You explain things so clearly and concretely that I think people really understand. You really are always with weight loss resistance. 

 

[44:22] So I wanna really give everyone, I always just want to add value and, and give people clarity so they can really have some direction okay. And say, oh my gosh, I know what's been going on. So there's a masterclass. You can watch that I've recorded. That goes over this material in more depth, there's a fat loss blueprint and then a thermogenic quiz where you can take it and kind of see how well or how close you are to be putting your body in that thermogenic state.

 

[44:50] Awesome. Thank you so much for those amazing resources. We'll put them with both part, one of the podcasts and part two. I don't know how, or maybe we'll just have one really long one cause we just might have to do that. And we'll have a link in the show notes where you can check that out. You definitely wanna hear what Stu has to say. If you've, if you're a woman at midlife and you've got a weight problem because he knows the answers. So I definitely recommend that. Thank you so much, Stu for joining us today, we're gonna jump into the masterclass and thank you all for joining us for another episode of the hormone prescription podcast with Dr. Kirin.

 

The 4 Biggest Mistakes Preventing You From Losing Weight...

And The 3 Simple Shifts That Will Turn Your Body Into A Fat Burning Furnace!

Register now for Stu Schaefer’s FREE training and learn the exact process his clients are using to lose weight fast, gain confidence, and create their dream body.

You will also get the following bonus:

Bonus 1: The Metabolism Quiz

Are You Causing Your Body To Store Fat And Burn Muscle? You'll Find Out Once You Take The Quiz!

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Discover The Proven System That I Use... And All My Clients Use... Because It Flat Out Works!

You'll Learn How Easy It Can Be To Lose 5 Pounds In The Next 14 Days!

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Fixing the Roots of Fibromyalgia

Are you a woman in your midlife years struggling with the debilitating effects of fibromyalgia? If so, you are not alone. In fact, an estimated 8% of the adult population worldwide suffers from this condition.

 

Fortunately, there is hope. In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we talk to Dr. Rodger Murphree, an expert on hormones and fibromyalgia, about some of the latest research on this topic.

 

During the show, Dr. Murphree reveals:

• Clinically proven protocols for correcting the multiple symptoms of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
• Why conventional treatments for fibromyalgia often fail
• The symptoms of fibromyalgia and how they can be warning signs for other underlying health conditions
• The diet and lifestyle changes that can help to address the root causes of fibromyalgia
• And more!

 

If you are ready to start feeling better and want to learn more about fixing the root causes of fibromyalgia, then this episode is for you. Tune in now and let’s get started on your journey to recovery!

 

[00:00] Life is short. If you're not careful, you'll miss it. Dr. Roger Murphy is my guest today, and we're gonna talk about fibromyalgia and what it has to do with your hormones. If you're suffering with this, you've likely had a long road and you're missing a lot of your life and it just shouldn't be. So we're gonna tell you how to get out of the predicament you're in, in this episode. 

 

[03:12] Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I, you know, last time we got together just enjoyed our conversation so much. And I learned some things that, that I didn't know, and I was really delighted to be able to learn something new and uh, yeah. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

 

[03:27] Yeah. Super excited to talk about fibromyalgia. It's actually a part of my story. I don't focus on it too much, but those who know me and listen to my podcast probably have heard me talk about that. I had that. I just had horrible unrelenting pain in many places on my body on a consistent basis. And before I got on my journey, in addition to weighing 243 pounds and being super tired and it's really something that's hard for the general public to understand even those people who have it because they go from doctor to doctor not being diagnosed. And there's so few doctors who really understand what fibromyalgia is all about. So can we just start by talking about what it is and how might someone suspect that they have this?

 

[04:20] So there's writings about fiber Maia in the, the 18 hundreds. Uh, and um, over the years there have been more and more writings about it, but it didn't, you know, it didn't happen to really hit the, the map, you know, be put on the map until 1990 when the American college of rheumatology came out with the criteria for the diagnosis. So it's been around, you know, it's been around for 30 something years is, uh, something that people know about. But unfortunately we still have a lot of misconception about fibromyalgia. We have doctors who still don't acknowledge that, that it's a real entity. Those that do acknowledge that we do have a thing called fibromyalgia. Don't really know how to treat it. They've largely given up on it.

 

[05:12] Uh, but fibromyalgia is a syndrome like Aero bowel syndrome or metabolic syndrome. It's a group of symptoms that people have in common. And we give it a name to describe those symptoms, but fibromyalgia, which affects about 8% of the adult population worldwide. This is what the estimates are anywhere from four to 8%, primarily women between the ages of 35 and 60. It is an illness characterized by diffuse achy, sometimes disabling pain, fatigue, brain fog, irrit bowel, resto syndrome, low moods anxiety. So it's a very long list of symptoms that come underneath this title called fibromyalgia.

 

[05:59] Yes. And there are specific criteria to be diagnosed with it, but like Dr. Roger said, it's really hard to get a diagnosis. There aren't that many doctors that are that familiar with it. And what is a mainstream treatment typically of fibromyalgia?

 

[06:16] . It's just so frustrating that, you know, it makes me laugh because it's so really so sad, but in conventional medicine, as you know, so well, it's all about treating symptoms. Oftentimes that's really what the focus is. And you know, there's a time and a place for that. Thank goodness. You know, we, we, we have the wherewithal and we have the prescription medications and the surgeries and things that we need to be able to treat some of these things. But in fibromyalgia, the conventional medicine protocols, relying on drug therapy alone have been a dead end. The surveys show this, that even the American college rheumatology on their own website, now they've taken this down, but they used to say that they don't recommend that patients take anti-inflammatories pain, medications, sleep aids are anti-seizure medications because they're not effective long term.

 

[07:12] And they have potential side effects. And where we're at right now in conventional medicine is that most conventional doctors will tell their patients that you just have to learn to live with it. And they, they don't believe you can overcome fibromyalgia because what they've seen day in and day out is that there are patients that they've recommended these different medications, Neurontin, and Ella, and AlTiN these other things they don't improve. And their take on it is, well, we've given you the drugs that are approved for fibromyalgia, and you're really no better, you know, four or five years later, it's really your it's your fault. And you're just gonna have to learn to live with it. So that's where we're at right now in conventional medicine. 

 

[08:24] Yeah, it's unfortunate. And I would say that's definitely a mainstream model cuz when I see people in my story too, includes this when you really get to the underlying root cause I find that it's extremely treatable. So talk about your approach. You've held a fibromyalgia summit. You've been specializing in this for years. You've written a book about it. You really are one of the gurus about fibromyalgia. 

 

[08:54] Hope. Well, so I have to go back a little bit. So 20 years ago when I had my first patient referred to me for fibromyalgia, I had no idea what I was getting into and you know, from your own journey and then from seeing patients, you, you kind of hear their symptoms and you think there's no way you can have this many things wrong with you. You mean you look normal. And then of course you look at their blood work and most of the time everything's normal. Their said rate CRP, their inflammatory markers normally are okay, but there's a tendency to look at this individual as a hypo contract and I'll be candid. That was my first reaction to my patient, Sheila Sheila Jones, who came to see me 20 years ago. But I started just working with her using just good sound nutrition and some functional medicine testing to find out that she had things wrong with.

 

[09:43] She had candid to overgrowth and some food allergies and leaky gut. I started treating her and within three months, this illness that I didn't really know much about and her doctor said, we don't really know what it is, but here you hear some muscle relaxers and some pain pills come back in six months and we'll see how you do well. She got well, Karen in three months just doing some basic stuff that I would do on really kind of anybody is a functional medicine practitioner. 

 

[10:32] And I started just kind of bringing those different therapies together and then eventually realized that there's some really key things that if you get these key things right for the fibromyalgia patient, he or she usually is, she is going to have the best opportunity to overcome their fibromyalgia symptoms. And really the only way for someone fibromyalgia to be able to feel good again, long term is they gotta get healthy. And that sounds so simplistic. I realize that, but it's about finding and fixing the underlying causes of these symptoms. And then, so there's four key things that make up what I call the Murry method and the mur jumpstart protocols, which if you do these four things, you focus on these four things as a fibromyalgia patient, your odds of, of dramatic improvement are really good.

 

[11:59] So fibromyalgia is just a name. That's all it is. So it doesn't cause the pain. It doesn't cause the low energy, it doesn't cause the insomnia or the poor sleep. It's just a name. And so what you wanna look at is, okay, what could be some of the triggers for chronic pain, low energy, brain fog, low moods and irritable bowel, resto sex syndrome. What's the common denominator? Well, the first common denominator is poor sleep. So we know with studies, it doesn't matter really to me, whatever your condition is. If you've got a chronic health condition, the place to start is making sure that you're able to get consistent deep restorative sleep. Cuz when you get that deep restorative sleep, that's when the body's repairing itself.

 

[12:48] And what we see with fibromyalgia is a struggle to fall asleep and they struggle to stay asleep. So they all have sleep issues. They never feel refresh. They're not going into that deep Delta wave restorative sleep. And we know that if you're not getting consistent, good sleep, you're gonna have all the symptoms that I've mentioned in fibromyalgia. You're you're obviously gonna be tired, right? Lethargic. You're gonna have brain fog. We know that you increase your inflammatory chemicals by 40%, you create all sorts of stress in the body. Oxidative stress. 

 

[13:48] So it made sense to me, let's just get 'em sleeping through the night, right? And that's where I focus is the first thing is to make sure that they're able to consistently get that deeper store to sleep. And a big part of that for me, was realizing early on that everyone with fibromyalgia is low in this brain, chemical called serotonin. And that's, you know, we've had two drugs that have been approved for fibromyalgia, Illa and Alta, which are selective serotonin and no uptake inhibitors. But serotonin is the key for these people.

 

[14:54] So they were not able to produce the serotonin that they needed. And when you're low in serotonin, your pain threshold goes down. And those with fibromyalgia have a condition called ALA Donia, which is low pain threshold. So their pain is magnified. And what I found is as I raised that serotonin by using five ay triptan and then high doses, but safe doses of vitamins and minerals and amino acids, I was able to get their serotonin levels up, which raised their pain threshold, lowered their pain, helped with their mental clarity. Their moods, uh, helped with irritable bowel cuz you have more serotonin receptors in your intestinal tract than you do in your brain. So by getting their serotonin levels up, I was able to help them with many of the symptoms associated with fibromyalgia, but probably the biggest one. 

 

[16:39] So many of us, you know, women at midlife have trouble with that. And particularly like you're describing with fibromyalgia this low serotonin that may be innate as well as the disruption in sleep causes all kinds of inflammatory cascades to be set off. And so that started really helping your patients to improve.

 

[17:00] Well, so what I saw is that once I got them sleeping and, and five HTP was how I started that. So I'd have them take five HTP, 30 minutes for bed with a little bit of grape juice to release the, the glucose would trigger insulin response, which would help that five HTP get past the blood brain barrier and work quicker. So once they started taking the five HTP and started sleeping through the night, then the next thing that I had to work on was that these individuals have depleted their stress coping glands, the, the, uh, the adrenal glands. So stress becomes magnified. They they're deficient in cortisol, D H E a. 

 

[17:52] And so they would overdo it. They would, they would do things that they couldn't normally do. You know, if fibromyalgia robs you of so many things robs you of your health, that robs you of your social life, a lot of times, your intimacy, your career, you know, all these things are taken from you because you find with fibro, you really can't do a lot. If you try to do more than normal, you have these things called fibro flares where your symptoms are accentuated. 

 

[18:35] They could have more stamina and resistance to it. So it didn't really wipe 'em out when they encountered it. And that's when I started, when I had the, for a number of years, I had a medical practice where I had five medical doctors working with me and we use Corte. So we use cortisol, you know, prescription medication, very, as you know, it's a very safe dose. It's it's um, about a fourth or a fifth, the strength of prednisone, but we use Corte and we saw that patients now they could handle stress better. 

 

[19:25] Although I recommend that you get a particular type of adrenal glandular, it needs to be just cortex, whole glandular, adrenal supplements have not only the cortex, which is mainly cortisol DHA, but also have the me doula part of the adrenal, which is very stimulating, cuz it has adrenaline. And the worst thing you can do for these individuals is to hype them up. They can't tolerate that. They're their autonomic nervous system is already on overload. It's already hypersensitive. So for those you listening, make sure you're gonna get adrenal supplements. 

 

[20:30] Now the RDA that recommended dietary allowance is some 60 years outta date. And it's really just enough to keep you from getting scurvy or Berry Berry. You know, it's not, you know, it really ain't gonna do anything. That's why people take a multivitamin, a central or whatever. They never feel any different. They never look any different. You've gotta use high doses. What I call optimal daily allowance, which is sometimes 5,000 times stronger than the RDA recommended disease allowance

 

[21:34] But we were using that protocol before every people really knew what it was. And we were seeing when we gave them these high doses of vitamins and minerals, that they slept better. They had less pain, they felt better mentally and physically, but UN you know, it wasn't feasible for people to come get an IV every week, travel 2, 3, 4 or five hours away. Like some people did between the cost and the inconvenience. It just, you know, it wasn't compatible. So years ago I developed a formula, a fibro formula, which has high doses of vitamins and minerals, all the B vitamins in the methylated form, malic acid, high doses of magnesium, which is a natural muscle relaxer, all the amino acids, which are the building blocks of the hormones that I know you talk so much about. 

 

[22:39] That is my new favorite wording for RDA is yeah. Recommended disease allowance.

 

[22:48] why, I mean, you think about that. I know like the multivitamin I'm sure that you have you recommend right. Is, is, you know, probably got, I don't know, was 50 to a hundred milligrams of B2 in it. And which is what I think that's what 500 times stronger or a thousand times stronger than what the RDA is. And if you don't use these higher doses, people are just not gonna improve.

 

[23:08] Right. I always talk to people about that. So listen up, you know, the one a day, Centrum, silver, it sounds great. They're cheap, but you don't want it. It's a waste of your time and your money. So I love that recommended disease allowance. I just had to say that. And you know, the other thing I wanted to share is that you mentioned Myers cocktails. They actually used to give the nutrients rectally like a Myers cocktail. They called it a Murphy drip on the battlefield in wars, going back a hundred years ago. So it's not new. 

 

[24:03] No, please. And you know, I think the thing is, I, I know you encounter this too. You're interacting with a patient and you're sharing with them the importance of vitamins and minerals. And they're giving you this look like how are vitamins and minerals gonna help me when I've been on Neurontin and I've been on oxycodone or whatever it is. I mean, they they've been on heavy duty pharmaceutical therapies. And you're, you're saying, you know, the only way really to do it is to get healthy and to get healthy. You know, you've gotta take these vitamins and minerals, but you need to do it in a dosage. That's gonna make a difference. 

 

[25:04] Know, even I saw my hairdresser selling vitamins and all these little gummies that you take, they're supposed to help your hair. And I'm just like, what? But it's so true. It's that simple. Y'all, it's the basics, you know, like Dr. Rogers talking about and nutrient support at high doses, optimal doses, not the recommended disease. Allowance is a key part of that. Yeah. It's a key part of healing. Anything really?

 

[25:30] I think so. I think so, you know, people ask me, what's the number one supplement you'd recommend. And I would say, get the best multivitamin that you can, one that you like, you know, you're, if you like a li you know, if you can't take a pill, find a liquid, whatever it is, but get the best multivitamin that, that you can tolerate. That's where you put your money and then you build around that. Otherwise you're gonna be like the patients set Dr. Karen. And I see where they've got this big Santa Claus bag of supplements that they, you know, usually it's the spouse, you know, in my practice, it's, they're mostly female. 

 

[26:18] Seriously. I, that, I mean, you know, that makes me so sad because it's really, it's just diagnostic of our current medical system that, that isn't doesn't have the answers, but also Dr. Google. And so people are looking for information all over. And so what's lacking in the information, age is wisdom. So if you're listening to this, no matter what you've got to heal, vitamins and nutrients are a part of it, but you've gotta have be strategic about it. 

 

[26:52] So number four, but before I go there, you triggered this. I just wanna mention this yeah. That the, um, Janet trave, which she was a very prominent physician back in, well, she's the physician to Kennedy and Johnson mm-hmm and she wrote the trigger point manual. So bifacial manual. And in that book, there's, uh, I think there's two or three chapters. And all it is in those chapters is about vitamins and minerals and the role they play in reducing pain. And, you know, so this is not, this is not something that we don't know about. It's just something that's been ignored. You know? So this was being written about 50 years ago, 60 years ago.

 

[28:00] So definitely your diet is super important. No doubt about it, but it's just as important. What you're able to absorb as it is what you eat. So what I have found is the fibromyalgia community is notorious notoriously deficient in these nutrients because of number one, poor diet, oftentimes, but even the individuals and you get these who are what I, what I call health nuts in a, in a very nice way who eat even healthier than I do, which I eat really, really healthy. And I know you do, but they eat. What I would think is even healthier than I do. And they're still just miserable.

 

[29:03] They had these things that were preventing them from absorbing the nutrients in their foods. And also even, even being able to use the supplements, the nutrients that they were taking in a pill form, they couldn't even digest those because so many of them would have a problem where they would eat. They'd take their supplements and then have a dumping syndrome. They'd have to run to the bathroom. 70% of the people with fibromyalgia have irritable valve. And, and so I realized that we're gonna have to make sure that we clean up the diet that's important. So a low sugar, low carb diet is most effective for, for these individuals usually, but they also need be on digestive enzymes. That was the simplest quickest way to make sure that they were absorbing their nutrients and getting the most out of them is by getting them on a good digestive enzyme. 

 

[30:31] And you know, it's funny when I practiced mainstream medicine, I am guilty of that too. That fibromyalgia was this enigma and it was untreatable and nobody knew what to do with it. And even with myself, I didn't know what to do and my physician didn't know what to do. And now I look at it from a functional perspective and I go, it's so super simple. You treat the cause. Yeah. And these are the causes and when you treat the cause the symptoms go away. So , how has your practice evolved since you, I mean, you came from more of a chiropractic background, right?

 

[31:22] Yeah. It's it's, I mean, I never would've chosen fibromyalgia, who would be crazy enough to do that. and I love 'em. I mean, you know, so I, I think they're the most wonderful people in so many ways. They're very challenging, no doubt about it, but just like your complicated patients, once you figure out some of the common denominators, it becomes a much easier, but yeah, I started off as, just as a chiropractor and I had a very busy practice.

 

[32:12] And then that started growing into my realizing that that was more fun than doing the hands on work. I really enjoyed the biochemistry mm-hmm and really started doing the training in functional medicine. And then I got kind of a reputation here in Birmingham, Alabama being a, a doctor who was really good with medical misfits. The people who'd been everywhere, tried everything or just wanted something different than conventional medicine. And, and I started getting referrals from the medical community and one of those was a patient with fibromyalgia. And when Sheila came to see me, I mean, again, my first thought was she's a hypochondriac, but the more I heard her story, I realized she's 35, she's a career.

 

[33:29] . And so you've held a summit that people can still access on fibromyalgia and you've held several others. Tell everybody about all the resources that you have available.

 

[33:39] Well, depending on when this airs, the fibromyalgia summit is being launched in may of this year 2022. And you can learn more about that@yourfibrodoctor.com. You can, but it's a free online summit. It's free. You can, there's 30 different specialists. We cover everything from insomnia and poor sleep to balancing neurotransmitters, to brain chemicals for anxiety and depression. We have presentations on IRO, bowel, leaky, gut food allergies, thyroid, which we hadn't really mentioned. I know that's a big one for you, hormone replacement therapy. So there's all sorts of, you know, various dynamics that go into rebuilding this individualized fibro. It's kinda like, um, peeling the layers of an onion. You know, you have to peel these layers away till finally you peel 'em all away. And there's this person who radiates health again. 

 

[35:02] Yes. And then don't you have, you have other books and you've got, tell everybody about all the, the goodies that you have for them. .

 

[35:11] So in uh, October I'll be doing a super healthy lung summit and that's all gonna be about respiratory health, including long haul protocols. Mm protocols for asthma food allergies, seasonal allergies, Mo talk, all allergies, mold toxicity, mass cell histamine dominance. So that'll, that'll be out in October, 2022 and I've written five books. So three on fibromyalgia and then two, one book on, uh, heart disease, which your doctor won't tell you. And then one on anxiety and depression using orthomolecular medicine, which is vitamins minerals, amino acids, and essential fatty acids to treat mood disorders.

 

[35:52] Boy, could we have a whole conversation about heart disease? What your doctor won't tell you

 

[35:56] oh, so many medical myths out there, right? About, about cholesterol and, and all the, all the stuff that's out there that when you really look behind the, the smoke and the mirrors, you see that it's much you do about nothing, right?

 

[36:10] Yes. So we'll have to do that on another episode, but this has been wonderful. You really have laid out a path for people to follow who are suffering with fibromyalgia or maybe for people who suspect that they have it, but they're not sure. Or they've gone from doctor to doctor and they're not getting a diagnosis. So thank you so much for that. If we are able to air this before the, your fiber summit airs will definitely have a link in the show notes, we'll try and get it out before then. But if not, you're, if it's after you can still access it and we'll have that link in the show notes for you, Dr. Rogers shared this quote with us before that we recorded the episode that life is short. If you're not careful, you'll miss it. And I love that. It's so true. 

 

[37:22] Well, just for more information about the jumpstart protocols, you can go to your fibro store.com and there's four free videos that are about 10 minutes, 10 minutes each, but it goes over in a little more detail than I could today about how and why these things work. And these are things you can buy anywhere over the counter. So, but the videos really go into a little bit more detail to explain how it all comes together. 

 

[37:46] Right. Thank you so much for these incredible resources. And thank you for listening to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kirin. I'll see you next week until then peace, love and hormones. Y'all thank you so much for listening.

 

Learn more about Fibromyalgia by joining Dr. Rodger Murphree's The Fibro Summit:

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Psychedelic Help For Hormones And Health

Are you struggling with hormonal imbalances and health issues? Are you ready to feel better but not sure where to turn?

 

If so, this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast is for you!

 

In this episode, host Dr. Kyrin Dunston welcomes Dr. Carolyn Messere, a former colon and rectal surgeon who had a drastic awakening about the truth of her role as a physician that transformed her health, her life, and career. Her journey speaks volumes about essential tasks in life that women must overcome to heal and achieve the brilliant health that is their birthright. She supports busy professionals to help them have energy, and better moods at a healthy body. In addition, in 2015, she became aware of the healing power of indigenous plant and animal medicines and psychedelics and became the medical director for a plant medicine group in Peru.

 

In this episode, you will learn about:

-What could indigenous plant and animal medicines and psychedelics do for you and your health in midlife?

-How can psychedelics help heal hormonal imbalances?

-What are the risks and benefits of using psychedelics?

-Where to find more info about psychedelics

 

If you are struggling with hormonal imbalances or other health issues and are interested in exploring psychedelics as a treatment option, this episode is for you!

 

So grab a cup of tea and join us for this enlightening conversation with Dr. Carolyn Messere.

 

[01:05] Back to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I'm so grateful that you are choosing to spend this time with me. I have something very interesting for you today. Some of you have reached out on social media with questions about plant and animal medicines, indigenous ones, and psychedelics. You've heard about all the research that's being done and the new indications for plant and animal medicines and some psychedelics. And you're wanting to know my opinion and experience, and I'm wanting to share that with you today. So that's exactly what we're gonna dive into my guest today is a, a colleague and friend who has a lot of experience in this realm. She actually was the medical director, a plant medicine group in Peru, where they had healing retreats for people with autoimmune and other diseases, and she saw some miraculous things happen. And so it's become a part of the practice that she personally uses and uses with her patients.

 

[02:07] I'll tell you a little bit about her and then will get started. Dr. Carolyn Messere is a former colon and rectal surgeon who had a drastic awakening about the truth of her role as a physician that transformed her health, her life and career. Her journey speaks volumes about essential tasks in life that women must overcome to heal and achieve the brilliant health that is their birthright. She supports busy professionals to help them have energy, better moods at a healthy body. In addition, in 2015, she became aware of the healing power of indigenous plant and animal medicines and psychedelics and became the medical director for a plant medicine group in Peru. There, she organized healing retreats for people with autoimmune diseases, Crohn's disease, autoimmune thyroiditis, and chronic fatigue, and working with a group of Chappo Eros who specialized in plant medicines from the jungles. She witnessed people with miraculous changes and some got better in just six weeks. Welcome Dr. Carolyn Messere.

 

[03:07] Thank you very excited to be here. It's not often I get the opportunity to talk about this. You know, almost every time we have any kind of get together with the, the mastermind. We always try to, I always try to talk about this kind of stuff, because it is the cutting edge right now with medicine. When you really look at it, and we've been looking at jungle medicine for a really long time, you know, we've tried to find cancer, cures, and all sorts of things like that with jungle medicine. But what we haven't really looked at is the fact that in virtually every advanced society that has ever existed in the world, going all the way back to the beginning, there has been a role for psychedelics. And we are the only ones that don't do it. Americans, you know, really when it comes down to it, the Europeans knew about it.

 

[03:55] For sure. The Celts knew about it. Certainly the south Americans know about it. The central Americans know about it. The Russians were have, you know, the, the word shaman comes from Russian. So there's been a psychedelic factor in pretty much every religion and every society that has existed. And we are the only ones that have been missing it. And it's not a big surprise that we're depressed. We're anxious, we're sick, we're not healthy. We have autoimmune diseases. You know, all of these things are going on in our, in our society. And it's not that surprising because we're really missing out on that opportunity to have a true spiritual connection.

 

[04:33] It's amazing. I don't think most people realize that a lot of the medicines that are now commercially available and made by big pharma actually come from plant and animals like anesthesia comes from toad venom. , that's where they developed anesthesia from. So every day it's used globally to put people to sleep and it comes from frogs and antibiotics originally came from molds and so big farmers. Yeah.

 

[05:03] And a lot of medicines came from herbs too, like aspirin.

 

[05:05] Right. And so big farmers always looking to exploit if you will. Nature's remedies. My question kind of is why don't we just use the natural substances and now they're really, they're looking at combo, which comes from toads or frogs. They're looking at, at its elements to boost the immune system. Mm-hmm so why don't I let you tell your story though, of kind of your evolution with medicine. I think it's a natural evolution, don't you? Yeah. You're a basic regular corporate doctor. Mm-hmm you realize we're not really helping anyone. We're doing pill for every ill surgery for every symptom medicine, and then you go searching for something better, either cuz you have health problems or your family members and you just get the sense, we're not helping people. And then you discover a root cause resolution approach. Right. But then at some point don't you think if you're really a seeker of ultimate health and healing that you get to psychedelics?

 

[06:03] I do. I mean, I think what it really comes down to is that there's really no healing without spiritual healing, you know, when it really comes down to it. And I wanna make sure that people understand that psychedelics aren't only spiritual. I mean there's definite medicinal qualities to them, but the whole point of, of having a relationship with psychedelics is to have a spiritual awakening when it really comes down to it.

 

[06:30] CA talk a little bit about that because you know, historically, and there really was a, a definite separation of church and state and science and religion several hundred years ago. And how does that affect us? Why, you know, most people who are listening probably haven't don't hear about spirituality and medicine at all ever.

 

[06:50] Right, right.

 

[06:51] And it's taboo for some people. So can you help them understand why this is and why you think it's essential?

 

[06:58] Because I feel like when you look at getting to the root cause of something, there's definitely physical, you know, that's a big part of things and lots of people get exposed to things like toxins. And a lot of these psychedelics can help you to clear toxins out of the system. There's no question that, you know, Iowa does that combo does that. And I began several of them really do help to clear the, to clear that out. So there's no question, I have a physical remedy in these things. However, what we don't have for most of us is we don't really have a true spiritual connection. 

 

[07:49] And if we don't have a connection with some higher power and everybody gets to define to me, personally, everybody gets to define their higher power. I spend some time in 12 step programs. And I would say that one of the things that makes, makes or breaks you in this 12 step program is having a belief in something that is higher than you because let's face it. We're very imperfect as human beings, we're, we're imperfect. And we struggle and get frustrated with our imperfection and having that higher power allows us to see that there's a quote by the Buddha that basically says you can search the entire world over and not find somebody more worthy of love than you yourself. 

 

[08:56] Yeah. That's a beautiful quote. And you know, I think some people hear this and they think, oh, well, you know, I'm this religion, I have a, a connection to something greater than myself. Can you just explain what's the difference between religion and spirituality and right. Yeah.

 

[09:13] Yeah. I'm not here to convince somebody that not be, you know, not to follow their religion. Absolutely not. I'm here. I think more for the people who are seekers, you know, and many of us are seekers when it really comes down to it. I spent much of my life seeking. I started out Catholic and went through almost every other religion. , you know, I dabbled in Catholicism, Episcopalianism Baptist, non-denominational Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism. I've looked at all of it. So I consider myself a seek. And the truth is that I all came back down to the fact that I believed in God and that God was an important part of my life. And how I choose to relate to God is, is maybe what's different. But the God that I had in all of those places was the same.

 

[10:08] Okay. And so back to the psychedelic medicines, mm-hmm what are they doing? Cause I think a lot of people have an idea when they hear psychedelics, they think of the sixties at Woodstock, people rising and acting crazy and getting high. And so what does that mean? What does psychedelic mean? What's what are they doing?

 

[10:29] Well, psychedelic basically disconnects you from your brain in some way or another, so that your brain kind of is allowed to imagine greater than what we normally will allow it to do. Cause we, again, we, we're very imperfect and we have a lot of emotions and we have a lot of places in ourselves that we have developed a certain way that we do things right. And we mm-hmm most of those things came from our parents, our grandparents, our teachers, our, our friends, you know, we, by the time we're 30 or 40, we've developed a certain way to be. And we're not even really sure where we got it from. Right. And one of the things about psychedelics is it allows you to kind of disconnect from that and your brain to just kind of do its own thing. And so do you think it's and your body may or may not have a reaction to that? You know, it depends some of the medicines have far more body reaction than others.

 

[11:28] Do you think it's fair to say that it's basically telling your conscious mind your ego to go sit in a chair and be quiet and letting your subconscious, that really runs the show. Yep. Reveal itself. Do you think that's fair?

 

[11:42] Well, I think that's a fair thing to say. And you know, I, I think, you know, that's definitely a topic to get into is, is what runs the show. Exactly. And a lot of people spend time trying to figure out how to get rid of your ego. Mm-hmm don't bother you need it. It has to do something right. It's it's not there for nothing. So, you know, I hear a lot of people, especially, you know, I think particularly when I was studying Buddhism, a lot of people there, they strive to get rid of their ego. 

 

[12:28] So it's a little bit, it's maybe sometimes a little over rational or over worried about things. But if you learn to have a relationship with your ego, that allows it to be there when it needs to be there and you don't pay attention to it all the time, that's gonna be a happier life. Mm-hmm so, yeah, mm-hmm so I think, you know, when you're in, when you're in psychedelics, is it even the subconscious? I don't really even know I have a feeling. 

 

[13:21] And also it depends on what those other people are doing. For the most part. I would say that I think there's something that's even deeper. That's like this, I don't know what you would call it. Maybe it's the spiritual mind. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm, , it's the part of you that knows that you have always been loved. It's the part of you that knows that you don't have to deserve to be loved. It's the part of you that knows that no matter what you do, no matter who you are, no matter where you came from, you're loved, you're taken care of you're connected to everyone else and to everyone else mm-hmm and something larger than you. Yeah, exactly. We don't have that experience without, I mean, I know people can do it with breathwork. I've seen it. I've done it. I think you can do it with breathwork.

 

[14:09] I don't think you have to take AUC agenda, have an experience mm-hmm but I find that, you know, certain hallucinogens just really give you that connection. But of course the other thing to look at is for all of us, I think there's always the possibility to have what we call. I don't know. I don't wanna call it a bad trip because I don't think there are any bad trips, but there are, I certainly have had experiences in medicine where I was frightened, where something came up for me, that was very scary for me. But the reality was that I needed to connect to that thing. In order to see that even in that situation, I was loved. It may not happen in the journey.

 

[15:10] Why do you think that plant medicines and psychedelics could be particularly used for, for women at midlife?

 

[15:18] I think that's a big change in our lives because we go from being fertile and moms and you know, there's a certain expectation of us in our fertile years. That changes when we get into more of that, that menopausal postmenopausal hair, menopausal stage in life. One of the things that happens too, is that, you know, we've spent most of our lives for good or ill being victims to our ho hormones as women, people make jokes about it, right? Oh, she's on her period. Don't go near her, you know? Oh, she's got PMs. Yeah. We'll just, we'll deal with her next week. You know? And men definitely make fun of us for it, you know? Oh, oh, oh, oh, I saw the tampons in the bathroom. I'm just gonna like go somewhere else for a week. And then we get to this place where we're no longer doing that.

 

[16:09] Mm-hmm, where there's our rhythm changes in our lives. We no longer have that cycle that goes up and down with our hormones. And we start to get a little bit less worried about things, a little bit less involved in things a little bit less run by our hormones. And then we lose our hormones and we, and we can get pretty moody because we don't have a good balance. So I think that's a great time to really develop redevelop our confidence in ourselves or if we never had it to develop that confidence in ourselves. Right. I think I personally think menopause has been the best thing that ever happened in my life.

 

[16:51] Because like I said, I was no longer like in that position of having to worry about, did I get my period this month? Is it late? Is it early? Am I having symptoms? Is it, should I worry about that? It's longer than usual or shorter than usual? Or is there some possibility I got pregnant and didn't plan it? You know, like all of that stuff went away and in the beginning it was unpleasant. You know, I'm not gonna say it wasn't unpleasant when, before I figured out how to balance my hormones out and get my, you know, my progesterone levels at an, at a place where I could actually like, not feel too angry all the time. cause I think progesterone what's nice about progesterone is it's kind of a feel good hormone if you do it right. I

 

[17:39]  Yeah. The other thing about menopause and midlife is that I don't know, I kind of got to this place. Oprah calls it the it fifties. It's like, you just don't care what people think you're say anymore. And you're like, I'm gonna be myself. I'm gonna do what I wanna do. I'm gonna be who I came here to be. Cuz you know, you don't have forever.

 

[17:59] Right. And it is kind of a liberating time. But the other thing that I came up against was, well, what is it that you wanna accomplish in this life and why aren't you doing it? What's stopping you. And so that's kind of the other appeal to me of plant medicines. And one of the reasons I decided to start talking about it publicly is because if you go online, I think that there are lots of people interested in these types of technologies, including women at midlife. But if you go online, you think it's all like tech guys in Silicon valley and young people doing it. And all the podcasts that talk about it is like it's guys and young guys and techy guys, and you don't see women at midlife talking about this, but there are lots of us out there using these technologies. 

 

[18:59] Oh absolutely. Yeah. I'm not sure where I would be right now if I hadn't, you know, one of the opportunities that I had when I was in Peru was I got to sit in ceremony every night with a shaman and I didn't drink every night. I didn't take iowaska every night, but I probably did. I probably sat in 20 ceremonies where I drank. And so, and when you do it day after day after day after day, it's a different experience than just coming into it and going, you know, like the first time I did it, it's kind of funny that you say that the first time I did it, I did it with a bunch of Silicon valley guys. 

 

[19:38] It was me and one other woman who wasn't techy from Silicon valley and then the rest of them were guys and they had all done, you know, LSD. And they were like microdosing, which I had never heard of. I didn't even know what microdosing was and you know, so I did, that was my first experience was to spend 10 days in Peru with a bunch of, of Silicon valley guys. And, and it was an interesting experience, but I was definitely the oldest woman there. I was the only person, you know, who was postmenopausal. It was a different experience than I kind of thought it would be.

 

[20:36] San Pedro. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think is important? Maybe you could name some of the, talk a little bit about the research that's being done and some of the things the FDA's

 

[20:46] Getting ready to approve and a little bit about that. So one of the first things is that we now have approval to do research with SIC Ibin, which is the main ingredient in mushrooms. So that's one of the biggest things. If you go back, it's interesting. If you go back to the sixties, they did a lot of research with LSD, LSD, just, you know, it is a psychedelic, but it's not a natural, it was made in a lab. So it's a little bit different than using something that's naturally grown. So, but there was lots and lots and lots of research done.

 

[21:38] The federal government decided to make psychedelic research illegal. So we went many, many, many, many years before we were allowed to really do anything. And then one of the first ones that was available for research was MDMA. It's also, I think it's XTA C or it's it's at least one of the components in ectasy. So that was one that was allowed to be used in the research laboratories, but only in very distinct places with very, you know, a lot of pre-planning and a lot of approval from the government and all of that kind of stuff. And then now we've got a lot of places that are doing suicide and research.

 

[22:37] It's not legal. One thing that's also happened is that the, a lot of people have made it a religious requirement for them to be able to do mushrooms or to be able to do peyote mm-hmm . So a lot of people have made it a religious requirement. And so the government's had a hard time with that because technically there, these people aren't wrong about that, that it's been used. I mean, really like I started off at the very beginning of our talk psyche have been used as a spiritual experience in every society from the very beginning except Americans except well, except, well the native Americans, the native Americans did. Right, right, right. There's some really good books out there about how, you know, the impact that psychedelics have had on religion.

 

[23:44] Lots intertwining and references that are veiled and not direct in a lot of religious texts about these medicines.

 

[23:52] There's a guy, I can't remember the name of the book. I'll, I'll send it to you. There's a guy wrote a whole book about how the Catholic church initially did use psychedelics and then they scrubbed the whole thing clean. They took every reference to it and put it in a vault. And that was the end of it. But the vault is still there and he got access to it cuz it's in the Vatican.

 

[24:13] Interesting.

 

[24:14] So pretty interesting.

 

[24:15] Definitely share that book. All right. And so the average person, you know, we've got our wonderful midlife women listen to this podcast. They wanna know about balancing their hormone. So I definitely wanna touch on, do these psychedelic medicines relate to hormone balance at all? Is there any benefit to be had regarding hormone balance with psychedelics?

 

[24:37] I think the answer to that is still to be determined if you look at when, when we were in Peru, it's not just the psychedelics, but there's a lot of other medications and there also there's in Peru. It's interesting. There's way more psychedelics than just iowaska. But very few of them get talked about because iowaska kind of, I think it, it, it got picked up by the, the Silicon valley guys and they made a big thing about it.

 

[25:265] Any in particular that relate to hormones that you wanna mention. I'm just curious,

 

[25:30] Not that I really am familiar with. I haven't really seen it. I mean, I do think, I think, again, any of these things that are gonna support your emotional balance and your spiritual balance are gonna support your hormone balance because ultimately the biggest thing that happens to us that can cause real problems with hormone balance is stress and overproduction of cortisol. So anything that's gonna lower your stress make you less worried every day. My sister finds it amusing. Cuz I joke about the fact that many of my patients are what you call the worried well, right? But they are the worried, well, you know, it's a little bit maybe dismissive because their worry is what's contributing to their medical problems. And so when we teach people, you are connected. There is a power higher than you. You are loved, you are taken care of. There is hope for you. There's yeah. Then I think that's the biggest thing is if you get that cortisol level balanced and you start to understand that you don't have to worry about everything, you really don't have to worry about anything. Right. It'd be, if I remember that every single day and I don't right, we don't

 

[26:46] Right. I think you're so right about the cortisol. And that's what I was thinking. That's how these relate and also giving you this experience of being connected to everyone and everything and something greater than yourself. Mm-hmm because I know I was a terrible worrier and you know, there's this saying, uh, in 12 step that if you don't have a God, then you have to be one. When you think you have to be, God, you try to control everyone and everything all the time. And it's an impossible task and you exhaust yourself and you make yourself crazy and you also don't accept yourself and love yourself. Exactly. And so for me, the, the plant medicines give me, have I had never had that experience. 

 

[28:05] And what I think is interesting about that is that we think that the thing that happens to us at midlife is we lose our, our estrogen.

 

[28:14] For most of us, we had way too much estrogen to begin with so maybe a little less estrogen is good, but the hard thing is we lose progesterone and we lose testosterone.

 

[28:26] So, and testosterone is like, you're like, go, go, go. I'm the hero. Like I can do this. You know, we can't live without it. And it doesn't occur to us as women. That testosterone is that important to us. But you know, I remember you sitting down and saying to me, I, you know, to me, I just can't even imagine not giving somebody testosterone. If they, you know, if, if their levels are low, just doesn't make sense. 

 

[29:30] Right. I'm just thinking, what do women listening wanna know? Probably some people never even are unaware of the changes that are happening with research and approval and medical indications for these medications. And now that maybe their interest is a little peak. Well, I wonder if any of these could help me or would I get that Dr. Carolyn, how do I find out more? Where would you direct them to find out and get more information on this?

 

[29:56] So the people who have been doing this kind of stuff for the longest was probably maps and you can look them up pretty easily on the internet and they are training more and more and more people in, in how to work with psychedelics. They started out with MDMA, like I said, that was, you know, kind of the big, that was one of the things that you were allowed to do. And now they're shifting so that they're starting to do some psilocybin, which is like I said, the active ingredient and mushrooms, because what psilocybin has been shown is to help people with depression and anxiety. 

 

[30:45] Yeah. And then also for addiction, some incredible IGA IO, cocaine, and methamphetamine one trip, and they're healed

 

[30:59] And you know, I do wanna caution people though that it doesn't always happen that way. Mm-hmm . And the other thing is that even if you do get significant change with the first journey, we all have a backslide ability. So it's good to have an option to be able to participate again, because we, the one thing it's really funny, I think from the moment we're born, the thing we forget almost every day is our connection. 

 

[31:44] such a good reminder. And just for everyone map stands for multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies, it's M a PS O R G mm-hmm . And thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Carolyn, where can they find out more about the work that you're doing?

 

[32:05] I still don't have a website. I'm gonna get that set up really soon. So the best way to find me, I think a lot of times I'm on Facebook, I can be found there. And the other place that you can find me is I'll send you a link from the page for my, um, practice better page, and they can get more information about it there.

 

[32:30] All right, there you go. Thank you, Dr. Carolyn. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. All right, everybody. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the hormone prescription podcast with Dr. Kirin. I hope you found this information important and interesting, and maybe your interest is Pete. I would definitely check out maps.org for the latest information on these medications, the trials that are underway and, and really the state of the yard of the data on the plant and some animal medicines. And I look forward to seeing you next week and until then peace, love and hormones.

 

[33:09] 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.

 

You can follow Dr. Carolyn Messere on her Facebook account for updates and learn more about alternative and holistic health.

 

Q & A Episode each month

Submit your questions here (leave me a voicemail):

https://bit.ly/AskDrKyrin

 

Join The Hormone Bliss Challenge 

FEEL ENERGIZED, SEXY & CONFIDENT IN YOUR BODY AGAIN... IN JUST 5 DAYS.

Discover How To Balance Your Hormones & Jumpstart Your Metabolism So That You Can Lose Weight & Regain Energy!

CLICK HERE:

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How To Beat Automimmune Naturally And Win

Are you looking for a natural way to beat autoimmune diseases? If so, then listen in to this exciting new episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, where we're joined by Palmer Kippola - an expert on beating autoimmune conditions naturally.

Palmer is a certified Functional Medicine Health Coach and the author of the best-selling book, Beat Autoimmune. She has helped countless women overcome their autoimmune diseases and regain control over their health. In this episode, she shares her best tips and secrets for naturally healing from these chronic conditions and getting your life back on track. Palmer also reveals her story of how she became so passionate and such an expert at helping people reverse autoimmune disease.

 

In this episode, you will learn about:

• The key signs and symptoms of autoimmune diseases and how to recognize them.
• How does autoimmune relate to food toxins, gut health, and hormone balance 
• The importance of paying attention to your body's signals, and the techniques you can use to listen better.
• How a healthy diet, exercise, stress management, and other lifestyle habits play an important role in healing from these conditions.
• Palmer's holistic framework for complete autoimmune recovery called F.I.G.H.T.S.™

If you're struggling with an autoimmune disease, or know someone who is, then this episode is a must-listen! Tune in now and start your journey to wellness today.

 

[00:57]  Some of you may remember her from the stop, the menopause Manness summit. She was very popular, cuz she's talking about a popular women's health topic, autoimmune disease, and her name is Palmer Kippola. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about her, but she healed herself from multiple sclerosis, which is really unheard of in corporate medicine. If you ask corporate medical doctors, can you heal yourself from multiple sclerosis or autoimmune disease? They will flat out tell you that you're gonna have that for your, the rest of your life. And what I'm gonna tell you is I know far too many people who actually have reversed these diseases and are incomplete remission.

 

[01:53] Palmer is a certified functional medicine health coach and the author of the bestselling book beat autoimmune Palmer has helped thousands of people reverse autoimmune conditions after struggling to heal herself from multiple sclerosis and succeeding Palmer will share her holy framework for a complete autoimmune recovery called fights. The fights protocol offers transformational health recovery. For those with autoimmune conditions seeking to avoid the harms of immunosuppressant medications and optimize their health. Welcome Palmer. 

 

[02:43] Am delighted to be thank you so much for having me, Dr. Kyrin.

 

[02:46] Yes. I loved having you on the stop. The menopause madness summit, everyone loved your segments. And I thought we need to bring you out from the summit from behind the summit curtain and into the light of day so that you can share your information expertise, inspiration around autoimmune disease, huge problem for women at midlife and beyond which we'll get into. But first I want was wondering if you could share your story of how you became so passionate and such an expert at helping people reverse autoimmune disease.

 

[03:27] I would be delighted to, uh, I have to take you back in time a little bit to the pre-internet days because I was 19 years old and up until I turned 19 is a happy, healthy well-adjusted young woman. And this particular moment I was home from my freshman year of college and just work in a summer job. And one morning I woke up and the souls of my feet were all tingling. That feeling like you've slept on a limb all night and it just won't wake up. So I thought, oh, it'll just go away, but it didn't just go away. So I got to work by noon. It, the symptoms had really, really crept up my, my legs, like a vine. I called my mom and dad and who called the family doctor who said get her over to the neurologist at UCLA today. So that's what we did.

 

[04:19] I had a very quick exam. As in five minutes, she had me walk across the floor, do the heel toe heel toe, touch my fingers to my nose. And she pronounced I'm 99% certain that you have Ms. Multiple sclerosis. And if I'm right, there's nothing you can do except take medication. And later I actually learned that she had pulled my parents aside and told them to prepare for my life in a wheelchair because that's where I was heading. So we had never heard of Ms. This is now in the mid eighties. This was no one had heard of autoimmune conditions. 50 years ago. It was so rare to, you know, no of one that had anything like this. So we left, terrified, went home by nightfall. The tingling had crept under my neck. And by the time I went to sleep, I had gone completely numb neck down and I would stay completely numb for a full six weeks.

 

[05:17] So it was an absolutely terrifying and we had no hope we had no information on what you could do. There was no Dr. Google. And so all I could do was lay on the couch. And so that's what I did to wait. And I'm very fortunate that I had loving parents who were there. 

 

[06:04] So I pondered and puzzled and reflected. Why did I get the Ms. I wonder, I wonder. And it came to me as a flash of insight. And I need to just go back a little bit farther in time because I had been adopted as a baby by very loving parents, but my dad had been a fighter pilot whose way was the right way. And we butted heads quite a lot. And Dr. Kara, I have to tell you that my earliest childhood memory is actually of me somewhere between the ages of three and five. 

 

[06:58] I was hypervigilant. I was always on, and I don't have any idea how I knew at the time. And I just envisioned my immune system as PAC men that were going around and gobbling up the bad guys. Right. I, I didn't know anything further than that, but I had this insight that I had become hypervigilant and therefore my immune system was in overdrive. It too had become hypervigilant. And I learned years later, of course, that that is the autoimmune attack. It's an over vigilant immune system that starts attacking your body's own self tissues. 

 

[07:58] And again, there's nothing you can do except take medication. You're gonna go downhill. You'll be in a wheelchair, possibly have a shortened life. I never gave up searching for answers. And I finally found functional medicine in the year 2010. And that's when I found out that I had non celiac, gluten sensitivity, I removed the gluten, did a whole host of other things, but that was my biggest baddest root cause of all. And now we know that gluten creates a leaky gut in anyone who eats it and that's research from 2015. So that is my story.

 

[08:33] Yeah. It's such a powerful story. You know, I've known people, who've had Ms. I one friend who actually died from it at a very early age, it's a highly debilitating disease and certainly can shorten your lifespan. And there are lots of other autoimmune diseases that similarly cause disability and premature death. So it's a very serious problem. And the incidence is higher among women and particularly women at midlife and beyond. So I think it's a very serious topic and you're a Testament to the fact of what can happen. 

 

[09:37] And just telling it shut up and stop talking to me is never the answer you really wanna ask. I love that that woman asked you, why do you think you have this? And it took a long time, sounds like decades to unravel, but ultimately that became your life purpose. And so I'm gonna end invite everyone to lean into the symptoms you're having and ask, why do you have it instead of taking a drug to shut that symptom up? So Palmer, then you've got a protocol called F I G H T S that you use, it's a holistic framework for complete autoimmune. 

 

[10:35] Oh, I love it. It's a such a powerful invitation. And I wanna say to start with that auto immunity is now affecting children. This is not just women in midlife anymore. So there's a real opportunity to, to address this proactively as early as we can there, it's now, uh, juvenile, rheumatoid arthritis is a thing, right? So we must to get on this immediately. And so after I healed, I decided to study this full time auto immunity, why we develop auto immunity and what we can do to reverse it. And I quit my day job to study this full time. And I just lived on PubMed and anybody who has any curiosity about how to do this can find the same information it's all there. So I was just wanting to share the truth and what I found. And I also, at the same time decided to become a functional medicine, health coach.

 

[11:29] And so I studied auto immunity. I became a functional medicine, certified health coach, and I that time and time again, as we helped our clients heal, they got better as they addressed these factors. So I sat down after I was, it was suggested to me by a leading immunologist, Dr. Ariso VO Donny, that I consider writing a book about this because too many people are being affected by auto immunity. And not enough doctors are trained in actually how to treat people. I mean, to your point, it's all about immune suppression instead of addressing the root causes. 

 

[12:22] It stands for food infections, gut health, hormone, balance, toxins, and stress. And I lamented that it did not spell peace, but in fact, , it was more metaphorically appropriate. I have to go back to my dad because while he was, you know, one could say the villain of the piece, right? The person that was perpetrating the conflict in our home, you know, nothing is ever that simple. 

 

[13:20] Yes, I think it's such a great book. It really, it's kind of like the Bible on how to reverse autoimmune naturally. So I encourage anyone suffering with autoimmune to get it and read it. Don't have contemporary investigation. I actually get it and look at it. I love this other quote you shared with me from James Baldwin, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed that is not faced. And I think part of the problem with our current corporate medical system is that we're not really facing our health challenges.

 

[14:20] What is wrong in my body? What are you showing me? And I love that, you know, it's telling you food. So fights food. Food is a problem. It's telling you, excuse me. Infections are a problem. Gut health is a problem. Hormone bounce is a problem. Toxins are a problem. Stress is a problem. And so then you have the opportunity. Uh, knowledge is power, cuz then once you have the knowledge, you can do something about it. 

 

[14:53] Absolutely. And before I delve into that, I just wanna say how much I agree with what you're saying, the symptoms I encourage clients to thank them. They are messengers from your body, letting you know that something is outta balance. And it's kind of like, you know, the engine light on your dashboard of your car. You get outta hammer and start smashing your dashboard. No, you'd go get it checked out to see what's wrong with your engine, but we don't treat our bodies this way. Right? We just shove it under the rug and this is an opportunity to really empower yourself. 

 

{15:37] Let's go into each one. And so food is really the highest leverage category. People heal 60 to 80% of the way and sometimes a hundred percent of the way just addressing foods. I got an email last week from someone who read my book. And she, you said, I just followed your food plan, which is the autoimmune paleo program. I just call it a 30 day food vacation. It's a positive spin on the classic elimination diet, take out the inflammatory foods. And she said, my symptoms 95% better just by addressing food. So number one, and that's why start with food is the first chapter in the book. We gotta start there.

 

[16:36] And that is how the whole autoimmune cascade starts. When you start creating holes in your gut, it allows, you know, good and bad things to get into your bloodstream. And that's when your immune system just takes off, starts attacking those things. And then you get the molecular mimicry, oh, by the way that gluten particle in your bloodstream looks a lot like your thyroid tissue, which is just absolutely crazy to me, but it's a thing. So you gotta stop eating gluten full stop.

 

[17:11] If you're listening to us now and you've been listening to my podcast and you are still eating gluten, you are not paying attention. so little cold water in your face. Stop it. Yeah. If, if your health is not picture perfect, if you have any symptoms, you need to stop eating gluten. Yeah.

 

[17:32] All right. All right. Shall we move on? Because I don't do fights in the book as it's spelled, because the next step is to look at your gut health and okay, this is a really important one, too. We treat our guts like garbage disposals. We are just throwing in food, you know, of any kind of variety and much of our food. The conventionally grown food is actually genetically modified to contain a product that is Roundup resistant. And glyphosate is one of the biggest batty chemicals that we're facing in our environment today. And if you're eating conventionally grown meat in particular, you gotta pay attention. And see if you can turn that around to be eating grass fed 100% wild meat. Why? Because we're not just what, whatever we eat. We're whatever we eat ate and you wanna be eating and that eat what they're supposed to be eating, which is cows graze on grass. 

 

[18:51] For everybody listening. So they might say, so what it's farmed, can you explain why that's a problem?

 

[18:57] Well, when it's farmed, there are going to be fed things that they're not supposed to be eating. So it is not in a fish's nature to, you know, wanna feast on soy and wheat, but that's what they're actually being fed. So oftentimes farmers and fish farmers, they want the best price and they wanna sell their stuff. And you know what? Corned meat tastes good, cuz it's really fatty, but it's not good for the cows and it's not good for the fish. So, you know, sometimes getting used to grass fed meat can be a little more challenging because it's not necessarily as fatty delicious as what you've been used to eating your smoked s

 

[19:51] That's a great point. There is no middle point. It's either making you healthier or making you sicker. There is no in between. So ask yourself before you lift your fork and stick it inside your mouth as this promoting health or promoting disease. So what would we look at with gut health? 

 

[20:13] Offender. It really is because it's, it's kind of like sidestream, you're not aware that you're doing it. And this, what we're doing here is to create awareness about everything that we can be doing so that we can be in control of our health outcomes. So it's just super important that every little thing you do at the end of your fork matters. And if organic is an issue in terms of cost for people, you know, consider, I'm sure you've talked about the environmental working group, they have their clean 15 and the dirty dozen, just make sure you know, that you're following those guidelines so that you at least are taking the best care. 

 

[21:07] So that's why I talk about it here. Super important to make sure that we're treating our guts. Well, the other thing that I'll add to gut health while we're on the topic is mm-hmm, antibiotics. Mm-hmm, , it's like a nuclear bomb for your gut. And because we need our microbiomes to help protect our health and help create our hormones and a everything that you talk about, we have to be really, really vigilant about what we are putting in our gut. And one of the things that's harming us as a species is the high level use of antibiotics. And by the way, glyphosate, which we've just talked about was patent is as an antibiotic. That was its first use. 

 

[22:06] Yeah, absolutely. That should be last resort. Yep. Okay, great. So gut health and then what would come next? So we've got food and gut health.

 

[22:15] Then we wanna move on to infections because this is super, super important. If you have already cleaned up your diet, you've addressed your food sensitivities and you're doing really well. You are, are, you know, taking care of your gut and you're still not getting better. It's time to consider infections. And this is something that we see in our practice. So I collaborate with a couple of natural paths and we help people who are not getting better after doing the diet changes. And we find time and time again, a collection of infection that include yeast and parasites and chronic Lyme and on and on. But there's so many things that people can do on their own in the infections category. And I would say overall to consider this category, it's not the bug, it's the terrain. So how you are treating yourself, your gut health, your life.

 

[23:11] We have to unburden our immune systems. And that is the best way I know of to help really make us Bulletproof against infections. The current one like coronavirus and these chronic infections that are in us that we may not know about because they're stealth and they're hidden. So what can you do to unburden your immune system? Step one, you gotta remove the sugar. You gotta remove the sugar. Another thing that I am super in favor of is moving. We were built to move. So move your body, stop eating the sugar and set a bedtime.

 

[24:16] Right. You know, it's such a, a great point and everybody knows probably people were going, yeah, I know Palmer. I'm supposed to go to bed at a certain time. And I know, I know these things, but the thing is that we don't do it. and I think it's important that you hear the fact that the terrain matters and that these chronic infections, I mean, most of us have chronic infections. And when you talk about terrain, the what popped into my head was a tree in the forest, one alive and dead.

 

[25:06] So if your terrain is kind of crappy, let's say, and you stay up late, you don't really tend to your gut health, you eat sugar, which feeds most of these ball. Then your terrain is terrible and you're like that dead tree in the forest. And you're gonna be riddled with these chronic infections that are hard to diagnose, right? Palmer oh, hard, hard to treat hard to get rid of and how you really get rid of them is you fix your terrain. Would you like to add anything about that?

 

[26:07] Oh, I, that was so beautifully said, I love the metaphor of the trees. I think that's perfect. I don't need to say anything else about it. It's um, beautiful.

 

[26:20] Then we gotta get to toxins and this is considered to be the biggest driver of autoimmune conditions are toxins. And Donna Jack is Jackson. NAZA's beautiful book. The autoimmune epidemic, which came out in the early two thousands was really a spotlight on the reason for the increase in auto immunity. Today, I already shared that when I was diagnosed at age 19, no one had heard of these autoimmune conditions. And today there are 150 known autoimmune conditions. And maybe one in three, one in five people are dealing with autoimmune symptoms, whether they have a formal diagnosis or not. So why is that? There are so many more chemicals in our environment is a huge driving factor. 

 

[27:45] But there's more to it than that because we are sometimes victims of the things that are in our environment. We are seeing more and more BPA in people that we're testing. We're seeing more and more glyphosate. We're seeing more and more of these pesticides and herbicides. And there's some things that are harder to get out than others. But this is where knowledge is power. Just learning about what you're putting on your face and your body and your self care and your home care and what you're cleaning with. It all matters. And we talked about, you know, you're either building health, creating health, or you're moving against it. It's, it's really binary in that way. And every little bit it matters. 

 

[28:42] It does. And I have a pet peeve in this category. I wondering if you could speak to it, which is the artificial scented candles and the plugins.

 

[28:52] So many people don't get that. Your, your scented laundry detergent, that they've got all these commercials with people smelling and they're so happy and the dryer sheets and the fabric softeners and the, the plugins and the centered candles and the air sprays. And can you talk a little bit about that?

 

[29:12] I can, it is a shared pet peeve and I haven't been in an Uber in a really long time, but without getting in an Uber with the guy, who's got four of those I'm tree,

 

[29:28] from the, the mirror it's maddening and people just don't know they don't. So I will say that the word fragrance and perfume or parfum, which is like the French word that you think is like, oh, it must be beautiful. It's French. It must be great for me. It's actually code for PHS and plastics. You don't want it in your body and sometimes, okay, this is going to get kind of gross people out, but it's sometimes what's in those fragrances is made from fever, anal gland. Did you know that?

 

[30:10] Yeah. It's a thing. It's a gross thing. Just know that your products and what you're eating and what you're drinking and any body care product, if it says fragrance or perfume or scent or anything like that, manufacturers are allowed to put whatever they want into that product or perfume or sent a dryer sheets. So that's part of the plan to remove the toxic load, to remove anything with those words.

 

[30:43] Yeah. So just stop using the sense y'all, , it's so bad for you and you don't even realize it. I mean, I have so many friends who use these things and they just don't get it. So of course I give them articles, which they love, but you know, they're also carcinogenic. So they cause cancer. Most people don't realize that, so, okay. We've got to get rid of the toxins. I'll get off my soapbox. And then what's next. After the toxins Palmer,

 

[31:10] Stress is the elephant in the room and stress is the elephant in the room because it is so insidious pervasive. We are all more stressed than we've ever been. We are just always on. And I know you talk a lot about high cortisol and the setting, the stage for any kind of health problem in your life. Auto immunity is usually triggered by some shocking event, some major stress in life, but it can be perpetuated by ongoing stress by chronic stress. Mm-hmm, , that's a piece of it. The other part of stress that is the bigger elephant that's hidden is the chronic childhood trauma, the developmental trauma.

 

[32:18] And there is proof and studies that point to the fact that if you've experienced neglect abuse had a family member imprisoned, or your parents were divorced, or the death of a loved one as a child, that there is a greater likelihood that you will experience auto immunity and other chronic disease later in life. It is, it's both shocking and empowering. And I love talking about this because there's so much that people can do. This is your childhood does not determine who you are, but this is going back to the James Baldwin quote of not everything is face can be changed, but nothing that is not faced or, you know what I'm saying,

 

[33:04] Face. Exactly. And if you're not facing the fact that you had trauma, if you're not addressing it, if you're not releasing the emotions that happened in childhood and taking responsibility for it, you may be perpetuating health issues.

 

[33:23] Right? And I think this is super important too. And I know we're getting short on time, but I think people are really getting it, that I had overwhelming experiences as a child, and it's affecting my health. They get that. Can you just name some of the things that people can start doing to start working through that? Cuz I think that's what P people are really hungry for. Well, what do I do about it? I get it. But what do I do about.

 

[33:47] I'm actually creating a course around this first and foremost is awareness. Just being really true to yourself that something hap or something may have happened is step one that self-awareness and sometimes to access that even the act of journaling of writing things down is super powerful and freeing. Get it on the page. If you don't like to write, draw, paint, whatever you can do to get it out of you and onto the page, you don't have to share it with anybody unless you want to, but get it out for you. 

 

[34:51] And he offers some excellent ways to do that. So get it on the page. Number two, learn how to breathe properly. He talks about soft belly breathing and some of this stuff sounds so simple and how can this really help? But actually what happens when we have trauma that we're just stuck in that overdrive in that chronic fight flight, we've got to regulate our nervous systems. And the biggest regulator that we have for our nervous system is right under our nose. In fact, it is our nose. So taking big, deep belly breaths into our belly all the way and letting it out, letting it all go doing that proactively, maybe 10 soft belly breaths a day can be so soothing and helpful and just getting us out of that fight flight and into that rest and digest. So that's another access point. And another thing that I'll mention is the concept of shaking and dancing.

 

[35:48] So if you've ever watched an animal like a dog, if you take a dog to a park and it gets into a thing with another dog and they start going at it, you'll notice it afterwards, the dog shakes mm-hmm, , it's shaking off the trauma and after it shakes off, it's fine. But what do we do? We experience whatever traumatic event and we ruminate about it. It gets stuck on a loop and we play it over and over again. And it's it's, we're not safe. We gotta shut down. We tuck it deep away. And what Dr. Gordon talks about in the transformation is you can do this at any time, decades after the trauma that you've experienced to help your body clear the trauma, because it's not enough just to do the cognitive therapy. We've got to get it out of our bodies because of the concept of the stay in the tissues. So do what you can to shake, to dance, to let it go draw, take those deep belly breaths. And that would be a found a fantastic foundation for addressing trauma.

 

[36:51] Oh, those are some great pointers Palmer. Thank you for those. And before we wrap up the name of the podcast is the hormone prescription because all roads lead to hormones and hormone balance is, uh, one of your fights components. So how does autoimmune relate to hormone balance? How what's the connection there for everybody listening?

 

[37:165]  I know you talk a lot about these on your podcast, low vitamin D. Number one is something that we can can control. It's the easiest hormone imbalance to correct. So know your levels and get your vitamin D levels up. This is vitamin D three, make sure you take it with K2. Another one that's low across the board is thyroid. This is a huge factor in the autoimmune equation. In fact, hypothyroid, most women in particular have an autoimmune thyroid condition Hashimotos which you know of. So low thyroid, we also have low D H E a, and that is quite common across the board in people with auto immunity.

 

[38:11] So again, know your numbers, get tested, do what you can do to, to raise those three. Then there are three that are excessively high across the board in people with autoimmune issues. One is estrogen dominance and that's not just estrogen being high. It's estrogen high in relation to progesterone, which I know you talk about a lot and that's super important and it doesn't just affect women. This is affecting men too. Another one that is high is cortisol. This is the dark Lord or you call queen cortisol. You gotta lower your cortisol and be in control of that. And finally, we have high insulin. 

 

[39:25] Thank you so much Palmer for sharing your journey and your expertise. I love it when people's pain become their purpose. And that certainly is true for you. And this other quote you shared from RS gray, she believes she could. So she did, you did right? You believed that you could. And I wanna give a shout out for everybody who's listening. Who's struggling maybe with autoimmune or some other health problem. 

 

[40:25]I do. I do. So the biggest question I get from people is what do I eat to beat an autoimmune condition? What do I eat? I hear different things from different people, and I believe that you're in the best position to figure that out for your yourself. So this is a little ebook that goes into all of the things that you need to consider taking out of your diet for about a month. I call this the 30 day food vacation and then tell you what you can eat so that you can eat to beat auto immunity. And you can find that@palmerkipp.com slash gift.

 

[41:04] If I can do it, you can do it. This is not just my story. This is the story of every single human being who takes the, the first step and then the next towards their optimal health. And so many people have recovered from auto immunity. And that's why in the book, I didn't just share my story. I tell the story of a dozen doctors who had been medically conventionally trained medical doctors. Mm-hmm who developed auto immunity and then had to find answers like you,

 

{41:47] It's so true. So don't give up, keep looking, finding answers. Hopefully you've got gotten some here. Thank you, Palmer so much for joining us today.

 

 

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Hormones, Health, and Harmony - Natural Beauty Reset

Are you in your midlife years and feel like you've lost your youthful glow? You're not alone! Many women reach a point in their lives when they feel like their hormones are out of whack, their energy levels are low, and their skin isn't as radiant as it used to be.

 

If you're looking for ways to naturally reset your hormones and reclaim your health and beauty, this episode is for you! In the latest episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, Dr. Trevor Cates shares her expertise on how to achieve hormonal balance and beautiful skin from the inside out.

 

You'll learn about:

• The importance of hormones in overall health and beauty
• Facts about hormones and how they affect the body
• Common myths about hormones and hormone replacement therapy
• Skin - hormones connection and the aging process
• Beauty myths and secrets for ageless skin
• And much more!

So, tune in and learn how you can reset your hormones for health and harmony - and natural beauty!

 

[00:51] Welcome back to another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I'm super glad that you are joining me and my guest today. She has an amazing docu-series coming up called hormones, health and harmony, as well as a new book, the natural beauty reset. We're gonna dive into those. There's a link in the show notes to sign up for the hormones, health and harmony docu-series that's coming up.

 

[01:48] So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Dr. Trevor CAS and then we'll get started. Dr. Trevor CAS is author of the USA today, bestselling book, clean skin from within the upcoming natural beauty reset, the seven day program to harmonize hormones and restore radiance and founder of the spa doctor natural skincare line. She was the first licensed female naturopathic doctor in California, and she served at several world renowned spas in park city. Utah goal is to inspire and empower women to find the keys, to harmonize their hormones and open their eyes to their natural beauty and to be a guide to help illuminate their path. She has been featured on various TV shows, including the doctors and extra TV. Dr. Kates is host of the hormones, health, and harmony docus series, the woman's doctor podcast and the public television special younger skin from within welcome Dr. Trevor Kates.

 

[03:11] Thank you. It's so great to be here with you.

 

[03:14] I had so much fun taping your docus series, hormones, health, and harmony with your team amazing team. And I am so excited for the world to hear what 50 experts have to say about hormone's health and harmony. And I know they're excited to hear about it too, or, and I don't wanna make the whole podcast about the docus, even though I think it's amazing, but I wanna give people a little highlight about what are they gonna learn there? Why should they show up? Who is this for?

 

[03:44] So I'm so excited to share this with everyone. And really, and I know you talk a lot about hormones and women's health, so your people are used to this, but so many women out there think that symptoms like PMs and, and fertility and insomnia and unexplained weight gain, and hormonal acne are just like just regular parts of being a woman mm-hmm . But we know, and we just need to get this information out to women that these are, while these symptoms are common, they're not normal.

 

[04:42] And I really am excited for people to see you, but it's busting myths, getting real information about how we can balance our hormones. And it is a nine part documentary series. So there's a lot and it's launching May 10th and we have each episode goes live for a day for 24 hours. People can watch it for free.

 

[05:20] Combating is the substandard quality of life that we've accepted as women because our, the dogma current doesn't have answers for the problems that plague us, that have to do with our hormones and the rest of our health. And so we think there's something wrong with us or that we have to put up with it and that it's normal, cuz all our friends have it and that's just not true. So we're gonna, we debunk a lot of myths in this docuseries and really show the pathway forward. 

 

[06:24] Well, I, gosh, there was so much, and I would have to say that some of the intricacies of lab testing and so I, so one of the experts we had to is a lot of lab testing and she dove deep into that. And some of that technology is fascinating of what we can learn and all the different ways that we can test, not only our hormone levels, but the metabolites of our hormones and also the toxicity level levels.

 

[07:23] it sure is. I used to have a friend who was a physician. He said, you know what? They call the physician who treats herself. I said, no, he's like an idiot. Cause I was trying to fix my own St. And uh, he's like, no, that was surprising. And what was most inspirational in all of the data that you gathered, what really gave you hope?

 

[07:50] I can't begin to tell you how many tears we shed listening to people's stories. And these are experts that were sharing their stories. I'm sorry, I'm just getting Terry, just thinking about some of the stories. These are experts, right? But they've all been on their own journey, including you and for them to be so open and vulnerable and share what they went through and how they came out on, on the other side, better for it. And they're so, so inspiration and that when, you know, sometimes we just feel so beaten down and we feel so lost without answers. And yet hearing these stories is just reminds us of there's hope and that we can get through this.

 

[09:09] And so the words of wisdom and the stories were actually, I think my, my favorite part, and then of course, some of my favorite episodes are the two toxic episode. Four is two toxic and it talks about, we talk about toxins in the environment and how that plays a role in our health. But we don't just dwell on that. We actually talk about the solutions to getting through that. And then of course I love episode six on sex and romance and episode eight on honor, your lady parts. Those are all fun ones. So there's so much great information in there.

 

[09:47] Yes. I know. I cried a couple times doing them, the interviews, cuz I'm so passionate about the topic and I know that you are too, and I think it's so important. If you can share with everyone, why do this? It was a huge investment of your time, your passion, your money. I mean, I can't even begin to fathom the huge investment you've put into this. So why?

 

[10:14] Yeah. Well, I certainly had my struggles as well. My struggles started off more with skin issues and that's what led me to become a naturopathic doctor. And I could tell you, or for anyone who struggled with skin issues, it's one of those things it's hard to hide. You can hide other symptoms, but you can, it's hard high skin problems. So it was such so embarrassing as a child to go through that, which is what put me on the path become a naturopathic doctor. But also throughout my life personally had struggles with poor model imbalances. 

 

[11:11] So it's harder to be thin. And so putting on a little extra weight is normal at 30 years sold. And I remember leaving her office being so mad and I was already an naturopathic doctor, so I knew better, but I was, I thought, there's no way. This is true. And so of course I balanced, I got outta the off that hormonal birth control. I balanced my hormones and I got back into shape and I am certainly fitter. 

 

[11:49]But yeah, you know, I have my own personal stories. We all do. Right. We have our hormonal stories and I just, over the years, seeing patients I've been seeing patients for 22 years is the biggest thing that women talk to me about hormonal struggles. And a lot of times women don't even realize that their symptoms are related to hormonal imbalances. That's why I wanted to get this out there because like my weight gain at 30, it was, my hormones were out of balance, but most people would've just said to me, well, you just need to exercise more and eat better. 

 

[12:56] It's so true. Women say that to me all the time that I didn't even know that that problem was related to my hormones with, with the depression, with the, I can't sleep with the, you put, fill in the blank. And I say, honey, that's why the name of my podcast is the hormone prescription. It's like every pro, if you're female and you have a health problem, hormones are the foundation of your health as a woman. Part of that is a hormone problem. So I love that you're really people are gonna get that insight in this docu-series I think it's phenomenal. 

 

[13:57] Yeah, well our skin is our outer reflection of our overall health. And as you know, it's our largest organ it's right on the surface of our bodies. And I think a lot of times we forget that, of that connection. So I started focusing on skin when I was working at the Waltor spa in park city and I was doing a two week weight loss program and my patients would come in at the end of the two weeks and they'd say, Dr. Kates, I lost all this weight felt great, but what surprises me is my skin. I didn't know, my skin could look this good. 

 

[15:18] Yeah. Like what kinds of myths? just give us a couple.

 

[15:22] We look in the mirror at ourselves, we look at other people to help us feel beautiful or for a validation of that. But I think it's important for people to realize that true connection of when we feel healthy. And part of that is when our hormones are balanced, when we feel healthy, we can feel more beautiful and really that a lot of that comes from within. But when our hormones are out of balance and we're feeling when we're not sleeping well, when our mood is all over the place, we'll look in the mirror at ourselves and beat ourselves up and we'll look at other women and we'll say, oh, I wish I was young. 

 

[16:48] I love that movie with the comedian where she hits her head and then cuz she has low self-esteem and then she hits her head and then she thinks she's beautiful. Society's definition of beautiful. And she behaves that way and her whole life changes because she believes it. It doesn't have anything to do with what you actually look like, but we as women and as you were talking, I'm thinking no men look in the mirror and compare themselves to other men, oh, he's got better packs and biceps. And like men don't do this, but we really are socialized that our value has so much to do with our appearance. 

 

[17:39]  Thank you for that, that we delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. So along those lines, what, what about what we're thinking? Yeah,

 

[18:08] So absolutely the way that we think can be very toxic to our bodies and actually impact our hormonal balance as well because when we're stressed out, we're beatings ourselves up that impacts our adrenal function, which then can affect many other hormones in the body and affects our nervous system, our stress. And so it's heightened. So really we want to realize and recognize. I think the first thing is to just recognize when you have, when you're starting to beat yourself up, like, wow, that's really not a good thing for me. And that negative thought or that negative thing that I'm thinking or saying to myself is really beneficial and that's really the first step in it. And I think then there are lots of different ways that you can process through and help heal old patterns and wounds and things like that. But being able to shift that is really crucial.

 

[19:05] We don't just born beautiful. And some people might think, oh well she's just naturally beautiful or whatever, but really so much of beauty comes from life experience. And so, especially as we get older, it gives us an opportunity to be beautiful in other ways. And the experience that we have in life can make us more beautiful. I think that some of the most beautiful women I've ever known are in their seventies and eighties and nineties, I feel very blessed that I have some really great role models 

 

[20:12]  You know, you look so healthy and vital and alive and your doctors and you're so accomplished. And so they discount what's possible for them. They say, I can't do, I can't have the health that you guys have. I can't have the skin that you have. And so one thing that I've been really focusing on is pulling back and telling the hard stuff about admitting the changes that, you know, I've gone through from being a caterpillar, to being a butterfly. And I'm wondering if you would be willing to pull back the curtain a little and share some things that you've had to overcome on you, your journey.

 

[21:08] Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned, I struggle with my skin as a child and I, it was more eczema and hives and bumps and itchy rash, so appear. But I was, I did not feel like a normal kid and I had a really low self-esteem as a kid. And yet I, I was in the that's. I grew up in this family of what society really considers as beautiful people. And I thought I was the ugly duckling. I grew up this way.

 

[22:03] I will sometimes get rosacea if I don't, you know, stick with my eating plant and all of that. I understand the struggles with that, but I think that this time in my life, so I'm 49 years old and it's funny a couple years ago, I said, okay, before I turn 50, I wanna make some big, more changes in my life. It's never stopped for me. There's all else. And so one of the biggest things that's happened for me lately is that I was going from one relationship to another after my divorce 10 years ago. And so a year ago, by the time I'm 50, I'm gonna meet, meet the man of my dreams and I'm gonna be married. And so Karen, I just got married.

[23:10] What? Congratulations.

 

[23:18] so I think, and I had to dig deep and do a lot of work on myself and emotionally kind of unravel some of the things and the patterns that I had around relations ships, the way that I thought of myself, the way I was showing up. And I did a lot of that hard work. And then all of a sudden, he just showed up in my life.

 

[23:39] That's amazing. And you know, I just wanna highlight for everyone listening. Everybody has their stuff. Everybody's got struggles, physical struggles, relationship struggles, life struggles. I don't care how good you think the package looks on the outside. Right. And if you've seen some of these models that do the shots, what it looked like before, they got their makeup and hair done. And then after, you know, you'll know it's true. All these, the photoshopped end product is what you're seeing and comparing yourself to, but we've all got struggles and we are no different than you.

 

[24:47] Yeah, I think it is important to realize, especially for those of us tend to be a little bit of perfectionist or type a personalities is that failure can feel like so devastating and we can feel like we've made the biggest mistakes, but if we don't fail, that means that we're not really putting ourselves out there and it doesn't give us that opportunity to really grow.

 

[25:39] And I think that so often we're in the middle of what we consider to be a failure and we can't see the other side of it. So I just wanna tell people, if you feel like you're in that place right now, just keep going. And there is light on the other side thing. There is hope. And especially if you're listening to Dr. Dunston's podcast, which has a lot of great opportunities and information and, and resources for you, the hormone's health and harmony dokey series does as well to reach out to people and get help and get through that time.

 

[26:22] Yes. Then your pain becomes your purpose. I have another mentor. He always says, there's no such thing as failure when you're doing something you think is failing, it's working on you. It might not be working externally, but it's working on you to help you to become the person who can do the thing and be successful at it on the outside. And you have to go through that in order to be successful on the outside. 

 

[27:09] Yeah. It's free May 10th each episode, we'll start with episode one, it'll be live for 24 hours. People can watch it and then we'll switch to the next episode, the following day. So we can get through all nine episodes by the 18th. And so it's important to watch it when it goes live mm-hmm so that you can watch it free.

 

[27:30] Awesome. Thank you so much for that wonderful resource. We'll have more information on Dr. Kate's book, natural beauty reset. That's coming out in the fall when it gets a little bit closer. So state tuned for that. And what any parting words that you would like to leave everyone with?

 

[27:50] Yeah, I think that we've, you know, we've covered a lot here and I really think about the daily choices that we make are really what helps us move forward. And I think about him in, in four different areas. And I talk about them in my book and those are around food movement, mindset, and also skincare, if you wanna talk about skin. And so I think it's, if you can do things within each of those category every day, even if there's small steps, like just start choosing switch over to a and some natural skin care products.

 

[28:41] I love that simple, easy, powerful Dr. Trevor, Kate, thanks so much for joining us and thank you for this incredible resource that you are sharing with the world. Can't wait.

 

[28:52] And thank you all for joining me for another episode of the hormone prescription with Dr. Kyrin. I hope that you learned something today that can impact your life. You should, for sure. Wanna check out the docu series. So click the link in the show notes, go and sign up, and then set aside time in your calendar. Now to watch each episode, when it goes live each day, you could even do a watch party with some girlfriends and watch it together and have a discussion afterwards around what you've learned. And what's inspired you. I look forward to joining the conversation with you on my Facebook FA page or Instagram. So jump over there and we'll have a conversation about it. And I will see you next week until then peace, love and hormones. Y'all thank you so much for listening. 

 

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