Tag Archives for " hormones "
On episode 658 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we meet Philip Pape and discuss how we can manage our hormones through nutrition, movement, etc.
Allan [00:03:00]:
Hey, Raz. How are you?
Rachel [00:03:04]:
Good, Allan. How are you today?
Allan [00:03:06]:
I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. We launched the, the workshop this week, so that's going on. And it's gonna it's gonna I mean, I'm so excited. Right now, you know, we're recording this beforehand, and it's just really been just kinda developing it and putting it all together. I'm really, really proud of this workshop. I really am. And so that's going on.
Allan [00:03:27]:
And in that workshop, I'm making an announcement. I'm revamping my program. Okay? And so the new program that I'm launching now is pretty darn special, and there's some bonuses associated with it now that is it's pretty much guaranteed it's gonna get you the results you want. So
Rachel [00:03:48]:
Awesome.
Allan [00:03:48]:
If you've been thinking about I gotta do something, I gotta do something, and you put it off till September because, you know, school and everything else, this this is the time. This is the time to reach out and let me know that you're interested in learning more about it. But, yeah, it's the bonuses just by themselves are are are so special, making this so much more valuable that this is the time. If you're going to do it, do it now because I can't keep these bonuses. So I stopped this launch, but that's it. So reach out to me if you're interested. Coach@40plusfitness.com, And, we can talk about the program and whether it's a good whether it's a good fit for you. But That sounds awesome.
Allan [00:04:29]:
I'm really excited about it.
Rachel [00:04:31]:
Great. Glad to hear it, Allan. Excited for your clients.
Allan [00:04:34]:
Yeah. And we're also working through the the music to figure out the new music, or we're gonna do new music. There were some votes in a Facebook group. If you're not a member of the group, that's the best place to go because that's where I'm doing the voting. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group. That will take you to the group request to enter, and then I'm gonna have a a new post because I initially put 5 songs out there, and I got the initial batch of votes. And so we have we can keep the new music keep the music we have if that's what you'd like, or there's I'm narrowing it down to the top 3. So the new video that will be out there starting today is gonna be just the top 3 of the previous voting.
Allan [00:05:19]:
So there's still an opportunity for you to be involved in helping us make this a really good place to be, music you enjoy listening to on the kickoff part of this show, and then at the end, the full full version of it. So I'm interested to see what you think. So I'm I'm excited people are coming out there and and into the music and and liking them and and making comments about what they like and what they don't like. So it's pretty cool. That's kinda cool.
Rachel [00:05:44]:
Yeah. Very cool. That sounds awesome.
Allan [00:05:46]:
Alright. So what's going on in your corner of the world?
Rachel [00:05:49]:
Not too much. It's actually been quiet. Last weekend, Mike and I were camping, and at the campsite we were at, there was no cell service. Couldn't send a text, which means I couldn't receive a text, couldn't get online, couldn't check my socials. It was 100% peace and quiet. I could not have been happier.
Allan [00:06:10]:
Excellent. Excellent. That is yeah. The the digital detox is is something I think people overlook and and might actually be a little afraid of, being out of contact and out of connection. You know, I live I live in a 3rd world country. So, yeah, stuff goes down, power goes down, internet goes down. But I relish those moments. And that's when I reach over here and I grab one of these, a paper book.
Allan [00:06:35]:
They still make these. They still print these. Can you believe it? And that's yeah. I'll sit down and start reading, because I can't do it. You know, most things, you have to have the Internet for it to even work. You know? You don't have the apps on your on your computer much anymore. So Yeah. I can't get my work done.
Allan [00:06:51]:
I may as well learn something new
Rachel [00:06:53]:
and
Allan [00:06:54]:
enjoy my day. So I pick up a book, and I love it too.
Rachel [00:06:58]:
Nice. Very nice. It's wonderful.
Allan [00:07:00]:
Awesome. Are you ready to have a conversation with Philip Pape? Sure. Our guest today is the owner and head coach at Wits and Waits Nutrition Coaching. He is the host of the Wits and Weights podcast where he cuts through the noise and deconstructs health and fitness with an engineering mindset. Known as the physique engineer, he helps individuals in their thirties and forties and beyond transform their physiques by building muscle, losing fat, breaking through plateaus, and optimizing their hormones and metabolism without restrictive diets, excessive cardio, boring workouts, or sacrificing their valuable time and lifestyle. With no further ado, here's Philip Pate. Philip, welcome to 40 plus fitness.
Philip Pape [00:07:43]:
Allan, thank you so much for the opportunity. Great to be here.
Allan [00:07:46]:
So I'm doing a little bit of research on you, trying to figure out, okay, who is this guy? And I come across your page, and it it says you're the physique engineer. So let let's let's dive into that a little bit. What's that one?
Philip Pape [00:08:01]:
That that's one of those self made monikers, but, my background is actually in engineering, software engineering, project engineering, engineering management. And I talk about on my podcast all the time taking the principles of engineering and applying them to nutrition, to training, and to developing our physique. So it's evidence based, but it's like how do engineers think? How do they design? How do they break things apart and use data and feedback to, you know, ultimately get better results? So that's that's what it where it comes from.
Allan [00:08:28]:
Yeah. You know, I worked I I worked for a company. I worked for software companies, but I also worked for some physical engineering companies. One of them was in oil and gas. And it was it was always fascinating. I always enjoyed the conversations with engineers across the board. They just have it they do. They have a different way of thinking.
Allan [00:08:46]:
They're looking at a problem, and they're saying, okay. I've I've gotta solve this problem. And so it is a different way. I remember I was out on a floating platform in the middle of the South Asia Sea, and we had these there were these ropes. They were 18 inches in diameter, so really, really big thick ropes, and they were holding the 2 pieces together. And so the the deal was they were supposed to be going through this pulley system, all 8 ropes, and the pulleys weren't turning the way they were supposed to turn. And as a result, it was wearing the ropes, and one of them broke. And they go ahead, and they contact the manufacturer and say, okay, we need another one of these little ropes.
Allan [00:09:27]:
Just replace the rope that just broke. And we're like, that's that's not how rope making works. We have to make one long rope and cut it into 8 sections so they all have the same tensile strength. If you put one rope in there that wasn't made with that batch, then you won't have the same. So they're like, okay. Well, then we need to order 8 new ropes. And so but in the meantime, they're like, we can't just let this platform just sort of flop around out there because it's also responsible for drilling, so it had to be stabilized. So they decide, well, the only solution we have is to tie this thing in a knot.
Allan [00:10:04]:
Can you imagine the engineering that's required to be sitting on a floating platform and take an 18 inch rope and tie it into a knot? So again yeah. And then, of course, the engineers, when I when I worked at 3 Comm, they would as soon as an engineer would leave, the new engineer would come, and he needed more RAM. So we were looking at the RAM purchases, and we're like, okay. Something's not adding up here, and what we realized was happening was the engineers were all pilfering the the RAM out of his out of the new computer when someone left. You know? They would leave, and all the engineers would just seize on all that RAM that they had and leave the new guy coming in with not enough RAM so he wouldn't make the request for RAM. Every new guy was requesting RAM even when he was using the same machine. But
Philip Pape [00:10:46]:
Got it.
Allan [00:10:47]:
And so now we couldn't just look at serial numbers when we were doing inventory. We literally had to open up every machine to see how much RAM was supposed to be in there and whether it had more RAM than it was supposed to. So yeah. You you
Philip Pape [00:11:00]:
know, it's funny. There's so many there's so many funny engineering stories I I could say, but, like, people do not understand what goes into the things that we make and that they depend on oftentimes for their lives. Like, in an airplane, there are so many computers. Right? And the computers have to be hardened against cosmic rays because a ray from the sun could flip a bit in the computer and cause the software to fail. Right? It's like little things like that. And so when I look at the human body, I'm like, that's actually pretty easy to, like, train and eat well and, like, do the things we talk about here in comparison, so, it kinda takes the pressure off and,
Allan [00:11:35]:
you know But and it does but it does follow that because, like, I'll I'll have the conversation with someone. I'm like, okay. Food is information.
Philip Pape [00:11:42]:
Mhmm.
Allan [00:11:42]:
Your body takes what you eat, the quality of it, the quantity of it, the nutrients that are in it, and it starts making decisions based on the programming your body has. And so you're either feeding it good information that food is plentiful, there's plenty of nutrition, or you're feeding it bad information that food is scarce or the quality of our food isn't isn't what it's supposed to be. And, nowhere is this really more apparent than hormones because our hormones are the messengers that kinda carry that whole thing out. As we get older, I think it's pretty clear for women because they they get into perimenopause, which can last up to 10 years, menopause, which is gonna last for the rest of your life. So they see that change as almost an abrupt end and restart at some level. I mean, it depends on the perimenopause. It can go longer. With men, it's it's it's a little bit more of a slowly gliding in thing.
Allan [00:12:39]:
We don't even feel it. The water's boiling, and we don't even know. Let's talk about a little bit about those changes and what they actually mean for us from a health and fitness perspective.
Philip Pape [00:12:49]:
Yeah. Like you said, hormones, they're what they're one of those misunderstood things, kind of like gut health today. Right? There's a lot of misunderstanding, misinformation. Before I get into that, like, we use hormones as this doomsday scenario, especially at women that I work with where once you hit 40, right, or once you hit perimenopause everything just declines and it's a new phase of life where where nothing works, my metabolism's broken, I don't have the energy, like, it's almost a defeatist kind of thinking because we we give so much credence to the hormones. Now we're gonna talk about what actually changes. I like to flip that around, like, like, reframe it and say, this is a huge opportunity in a wake up call to actually optimize our lifestyle knowing that when we do that, the things that we probably should have been doing since we were in our twenties, but our bodies, like, didn't give us a feedback that we necessarily needed it back then. It can mitigate largely mitigate many of those changes. And so I always like to say, start there and say, women, men, doesn't matter.
Philip Pape [00:13:46]:
If you're making the choices you need to make, the hormone situation is much less of a variable unless, you know, you have a medical condition or something like that. But it is true, like, women, peri and postmenopause are seen in decline in estrogen in progesterone. They get all the symptoms that we can't relate to, like hot flashes and mood swings, weight gain. Guys who are married, you've gotta be, very empathetic to your wives, you know, oftentimes on a cyclical basis. Right? And the when you don't have things like strength training and the other stuff we're gonna talk about in place, for women especially, it leads to things like more visceral fat storage, more bone density loss, more muscle mass loss, and it's faster for them than it is for men. And that's where the, like, you know, frustration often comes from. And then they have DHEA. They have growth hormone.
Philip Pape [00:14:36]:
Both men and women have testosterone. Right? So we see all of that, Allan, from women's perspective, and the industry loves to play off of that and, like, sell products for menopausal women. Right? We know that because of that, but we'll get into what you can do instead where you probably don't have to worry about, you know, replacement therapy as early as you might think and and all of that. Men, it's testosterone. I mean, it it really does come down to that. We're actually pretty simple. It just starts to decline for some men sooner than others, as well as DHEA, and it could affect your mood. It could affect your sex drive.
Philip Pape [00:15:07]:
It could affect your muscle mass. And so if you have symptoms, I would suggest getting or even if you don't have symptoms, I would suggest getting a number early on, like, in your thirties as a baseline so that you can see where it trends over time. And if you have to deal with it later, you'll have the information. So, yeah, that's the big picture, Allan.
Allan [00:15:23]:
Yeah. And I I think that couple things that I'd like to bring out there is that, a lot of a lot of folks don't know this, but both men and women have testosterone, produce testosterone. For women, it's it's much less, obviously, but it does it does impact their capacity to lift weights and how they feel. It affects their libido and all those different triggers and things that it does in our body. You can stop producing it too. Men will slowly so so for women, it's menopause. For men, we refer to as andropause. But we're we're all going through this, this aging curve.
Allan [00:15:59]:
And if we we don't do anything, we're just we're just free riding. Wherever this thing's gonna take me, it's gonna take me. But it's always downhill. So Yeah. And we we need to do something. So I'd like to start that conversation kinda talking about nutrition because I I think that there's an underappreciation for how much nutrition actually does for us or against us. I think we know. We eat too much.
Allan [00:16:24]:
We we gain weight, but I I think that's the line where people kinda just say, okay. That's all you really need to know, but there's more.
Philip Pape [00:16:31]:
For sure. I be I think of nutrition as a few different things. You mentioned gaining and losing weight. So there is the energy balance piece, and oftentimes, that has a greater impact on our hormones than necessarily what we eat. You You know, people like to go straight to hormone supporting foods, and I like to start from are you even eating enough and supplying the energy you need, especially if you're lifting weights and you're training. Right? So energy balance is important, calories are important. Then we have our micronutrients and that is where yes, healthy fats, you know, having enough fat, especially for women is important. Having enough carbs is important.
Philip Pape [00:17:07]:
See a lot of people are on low carb diets and will find that maybe a moderate to high carb diet might support their hormones better and in the older age age group, which again is a big source of misinformation in the industry. And then we have our micronutrients micronutrients and fiber to kinda round it out having that diverse diet that supports your gut. Our gut health becomes more and more critical as we age, and guess what? The gut is very closely attuned to our hormones, both the direct hormones in our intestinal system that affect things like hunger and cravings. You you hear of GLP 1. Right? That's it's one of those the peptides affects that hormone, but also are linked to our pituitary gland, our adrenal system, all the other hormones, cortisol, stress, everything else. So nutrition has a much bigger impact than we think, but I think if you are supporting your goals and listening to the feedback as we talked about earlier, like an engineer, if you're gathering the data on how does my stomach feel? Do I have bloating? Do I have gas? How's my hunger? How's my performance in the gym? We can tie that back to the food choices you make without having to cut carbs, cut this, cut that. So that's where I would start.
Allan [00:18:09]:
Okay. Let let's talk a little bit about protein because I do think that, you know, there's concern about eating too much protein. There's concern about not eating enough protein. Where do you stand on that?
Philip Pape [00:18:23]:
Most people aren't eating enough. I think I think you stand there too. Right? Like, the evidence doesn't show that you could really eat too much protein, to be honest. And if you did eat that much protein, I'd love to see your diet because I don't I don't think it'd be super sustainable. You'd be basically just eating pure chicken breast all day. Yeah. So I don't think you can have too much. I think most people are under consuming, probably half, and I'm sure you've talked about the guidelines.
Philip Pape [00:18:45]:
You know, the RDA guidelines tend to be willfully inadequate compared to what especially aging individuals, especially women need to support muscle protein synthesis and at least preserve muscle if not build new muscle tissue. And so it's in that, like, 0.7 to 1 gram per pound is usually the number we throw out.
Allan [00:19:03]:
Yeah. It's it's kind of the funny thing is is these standards will be out there, and you'll see it on the on the sheet, you know, on the back on the back of the label, and you'll say, okay. Well, this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and this is where I'm supposed to be, and this is what the government says. No. That's what the government says you need just to stay alive. Yeah. That's not an optimal way to live your life, is by government standards because it obviously not gonna serve you in the long run. I think one of the other things that's that's key with this because, again, I think one of the reasons people struggle so much with protein is the other information that's out there that they're now they gotta try to avoid.
Allan [00:19:40]:
Like, you know, I I don't I don't want the cholesterol. I don't want the saturated fat. And if I eat the saturated fat, then my cholesterol is gonna go up and and all that good. So tell us a little bit about that area, what your thoughts are there.
Philip Pape [00:19:53]:
I so there's a a whole bucket of things like that. Seed oils, saturated fat, you name it. I think if you have a diverse diet that's, like, 80% of whole foods, you're probably far beyond what most people are in terms of having the right balance of things in there. I will say there are you can have too much of things like saturated fat. You can definitely go a little bit overboard if you have a very high meat based diet. And if that's the case, you probably look at data and if your lipids are are higher than they should be, maybe that's an opportunity. But I don't like to fear monger with any of this stuff. Definitely seed oils, artificial sweeteners, like, they can be in your diet, you know? Again, you have to listen to your feedback, your biofeedback, and you have to see what it's doing for you.
Philip Pape [00:20:38]:
But, man, if you're lifting weights, if you're eating lots of protein, if you're if you're getting the energy, those things become much less of a concern, in my opinion.
Allan [00:20:45]:
Yeah. I I think 80 20 is is a good place to be for a general maintenance. But I say if you're trying to make some substantial change in your life, you're gonna need to go a little harder than that, at least for a period of time. Get your body clean. Get your body moving. Right? Because and you mentioned it earlier. It's like if we're eating the wrong foods or things that our body really actually doesn't know as food, if it's messing with our microbiome because of the things that we're eating, we're not getting enough fiber, we're not getting enough protein, we're gonna put ourselves in a state of inflammation, in many cases chronic inflammation. And that's got that's that's a cytokine storm.
Allan [00:21:25]:
You know? That's that's the cortisol going up. And cortisol is catabolic, so it's gonna make it very hard for you to put on muscle. And it's gonna be very likely that you're actually putting on fat in the one place where we don't want to put fat, which is our belly. And for women that are in menopause, that's some of the change. Is that stress and everything that's going on your body, that's where that fat's gonna end up now that you're wired slightly differently than you were before you went into menopause.
Philip Pape [00:21:52]:
Let let's let's talk about this a little more because I like that you challenged me a bit, and I can communicate a little bit better where I'm coming from here. So most people are consuming 60 to 70% processed foods in this country. Right?
Allan [00:22:04]:
Yeah. If I
Philip Pape [00:22:04]:
can get you to consume 80%, that's gonna that gets you from your 20 to 80%, you know, efficacy, let's say, minimum effective dose. But you're right in saying that we eat a lot of things that just don't work for us as individuals, and the only way you can do you can tell what those are is something like an elimination diet. It doesn't have to be extreme. But, you know, kind of backing off on certain things that you may find are trigger foods or think are trigger foods. And believe it or not, that could include something like broccoli. Even though we think of that as a perfectly healthy food, some individuals have a negative reaction to it. So I agree, Allan. There there's, like, a spectrum.
Philip Pape [00:22:40]:
It depends on who your client is and who we're talking to as a population. What I find is people will go right to the 1% solution first, and they'll just start cutting everything out, but they don't get enough protein, and they're not lifting weights, and they're not sleeping at least 7 you know what I mean? And and that's where we get into the kind of my approach is more let's let's let's do the big rock then the medium rock then the small rock, but I don't disagree that there are inflammatory foods and you don't want to eat more ultra processed foods and more triggering foods in than you should.
Allan [00:23:11]:
Yeah. Because sometimes it works like this. You sit there and you you it's, you know, girl scout season, and you you eat a whole sleeve of Thin Mints. Yes. It's happened.
Philip Pape [00:23:23]:
What's what's the what's the chocolate and coconut ones? Yeah.
Allan [00:23:26]:
Yeah. It's happened. And and but what happens then is because your body started tasting the sugar, it started thinking something sweet was gonna come with all the minerals and vitamins that would normally come with something like that. And you get through, and your your body's like, well, I didn't get the nutrition I I really thought I was gonna get. I want more. Now we're interpreting it more cookies, but that's not what our body was actually telling us. It's like, okay. There's there's supposed to be some vitamins and minerals in this stuff you're eating.
Allan [00:23:58]:
So where is it? You know? So I do think that we just we we do have to recognize that, you know, what 80 20 really is is not Girl Scout cookies. You know? Okay. So my calories for the week, you know, 20% of it was Girl Scout cookies. It's still generally trying to make sure you're giving your body the nutrition it needs.
Philip Pape [00:24:19]:
You know, it's interesting in that case, so I'm I'm gonna reverse engineer it.
Allan [00:24:23]:
Uh-huh. There you go.
Philip Pape [00:24:24]:
And if if somebody were to be eating that way, let's say it was a client of mine and they were tracking they'd be tracking things like hunger, they're also tracking the amount of fiber they get. Something's probably gonna be off in in that equation, like, they're they're not gonna feel great with their digestion or they're gonna have more hunger because they're eating this ultra processed food that doesn't fill them up. And so if you kind of account for the whole picture, the satiety, the fiber, you know, some micronutrients you're tracking, it it tend I find it tends to work for a lot of people that way as opposed to trying to force it necessarily. Yeah. It it's the same it's the same end result, Allan, is is what I'm getting at and I I totally agree we have to have the micronutrient diversity. Right? We have to have the fiber, the satiety. I want you to feel satisfied but not emotionally, you know, not not through emotional craving satisfaction, but through, hey. I'm full.
Philip Pape [00:25:13]:
My digestion's good. I can wake up in the morning after a restful night of sleep, and I can hit the gym and get all the reps. If anything's missing from that equation, then then then maybe there's a a problem there.
Allan [00:25:23]:
Alright. So let's move to the gym. We're gonna be working out. We wanna we want to lose most most folks would be in the state of saying, I wanna lose weight, and I'm adding more bat to my my belly. I know my muscle mass is going down, so I know the £20 I gained in the last 2 years. I know that's not muscle. I'm not gonna argue, and I'm gonna lie to myself that it's muscle. I know it's fat.
Allan [00:25:48]:
And I know if I'm losing muscle and I'm gaining fat and I'm getting heavier, that's that's not a really good route that you wanna take towards old age. What types of movement and how much should we be considering as a plan or at least a starting plan to get going?
Philip Pape [00:26:07]:
Number 1 for me is always gonna be building muscle, strength training, resistance training of some kind. I don't care who you are, how old you are, what limitations you have. You know, I I knew a guy, Kevin McShann, who is in wheelchair. He lifts weights. Like, you pretty much don't have an excuse. But more importantly from the positive perspective, lifting weights is so health centered more than people give it credit for. Hormones, yes. Right? Lifting weights can increase growth hormone and testosterone.
Philip Pape [00:26:35]:
We also know it improves your metabolic health. We also know it counteracts, frailty and loss of bone density and all of that. So oh, and it increases insulin sensitivity. Like, again, another thing people aren't all always aware of that it muscles are soup sync for glucose. So you can have a little bit more variety in your your diet, you can have the carbs, and you're supporting your activity. So that's the activity I'm gonna start with number 1. Number 2 would be just general movement. I think people need to be off their butt for a decent part of the day.
Philip Pape [00:27:06]:
Whether that's walking I'm not too specific about it other than getting enough activity because you know cardio is not gonna kill your gains you can walk as much as you want Just get up because being sedentary in sitting is its own risk factor, its own factor for mortality and disease. So lifting weights, moving, and not being sedentary are a good place to start.
Allan [00:27:28]:
Yeah. Now one of the things that I think a lot of people lose in this whole math is is they go with the concept that more is better. And when we're talking about hormones, that's not always the case.
Philip Pape [00:27:41]:
Okay. Is that a question? Sorry.
Allan [00:27:43]:
I sort of a question. I didn't ask it like a question, but I just
Philip Pape [00:27:45]:
I was I was giving you the space. Yeah. You could edit up
Allan [00:27:48]:
the the
Philip Pape [00:27:48]:
whole thing.
Allan [00:27:48]:
But but you kinda get the idea. So so tell tell me your thoughts on that, you know, the volume.
Philip Pape [00:27:54]:
So more in terms of training for Yeah. Hormones. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No. For sure. No.
Philip Pape [00:27:58]:
I'm a huge fan of, like, time efficiency and and efficiency of movement here. That's why I love compound lifts. Right? That's why I love big, full functional natural movements like the squatting, pressing, lift, you know, picking things up with your deadlift, hinging, you know, overhead, etcetera. But not just because they use the most muscle mass and let you lift heavy weights, but they're super time efficient. You know, you could do a couple of those or 3 of those in a session that last 45 minutes and do that 3 times a week. And for most people that gets you into the range of, you know, the 5 to sense 5 to 10 sets per muscle group per week that's like the minimum for for busy people. Beyond that, you know, 3 or 4 days having a little bit of extra in there is great but a lot of people overdo it with the cardio. Right? They're doing 3, 4 days, an hour plus on whatever elliptical running stair stepper and then they might lift 2 days or they might not be lifting at all.
Philip Pape [00:28:55]:
And that could definitely backfire in terms of cortisol when we talk about hormones. Yeah. Too much stress, not recovering enough, having too much muscle tearing when you're doing, like, loaded cardio, like we see in CrossFit, boot camps, things like that. I could go on, but, like, it is a good balance of mostly lifting, some walking, a little bit of cardio, and getting plenty of sleep and rest.
Allan [00:29:16]:
Yeah. I think the sleep and rest is is kinda one of the key components there. We, more is not necessarily gonna be better. So beyond movement and nutrition, those are the 2 core areas I think we should be focused to get rolling once we get that kinda stabilized. What are some other areas we can be working on to improve our our hormone profile and and feel better and feel younger?
Philip Pape [00:29:40]:
You mentioned belly fat before, which is a big concern of women, especially, you know, they even have a term. They just call it menopause belly. Yeah. And men have the beer gut. It's really the same phenomenon. It's either hormonally related or stress related from hormones. And in in women's cases, the estrogen has a kind of a fat storage effect. And the ways to mitigate that are stress management and sleep.
Philip Pape [00:30:05]:
Right? It's it's not gonna be rocket science. Alan probably talks about it in 600 plus episodes, probably 300 of those episodes. I'm sure you've said, like, you guys just gotta sleep. We we have seen plenty of studies that show sleep deprivation, which is typically less than 5 and a half hours or so of sleep, can lead to greater visceral fat storage. So your fat distribution changes. Also, cravings go way up. Your hunger hormones go up. Right? Leptin ghrelin change so that your body says, I need to eat because you're not giving me the sleep, so I'm gonna make up for it over here with the food.
Philip Pape [00:30:36]:
So just getting more sleep and managing stress can go a massive way toward mitigating some of the hormonal, you know, issues.
Allan [00:30:44]:
And, you know, we we we talk a little bit here about losing weight, and, you know, typically, I don't like talking about it from weight. But I've I've in 9 plus years of of doing this, what I've found is I can't just say fat loss because no one no one's gonna no one's gonna pay any attention if we're just talking fat loss. But this is what we really wanna try to do. If we're carrying excess fat, it's producing estrogen. That's one of the other things that fat does. It's not just this benign thing that's hanging on our body, making us look and feel bad. It actually does produce estrogen. So, guys, that's where those moves are coming from.
Allan [00:31:20]:
You know, it's the it's your body basically saying, you know, I got all this extra estrogen, all this extra fat, and the fat's just producing this estrogen. And you see, you not only you have less testosterone if you're not training and trying to get rid of that body fat, your body's actively trying to find new places to store it. I mean, your chest is one of those.
Philip Pape [00:31:43]:
Yeah. I mean, rather I guess rather than try to, like, address hormone issues directly, we address these lifestyle things that cascade to help in your hormones, and some of them have, like, a big bang for your buck. Right? Like stress. I mean, chronic stress is just so high these days, and the older we get, we have families, we have life obligations, women who are the you know, taking care of their household. Lifting weights can counteract that. In fact, lifting weights is the number one factor for improved sleep quality as well according to some studies. But one hack that I really like is lifting in the morning. I used to be ambivalent about it or kind of neutral, and I would say, look.
Philip Pape [00:32:19]:
Just lift weights when you can. And some people would even say that lifting later in the day is slightly be more beneficial. But what we find is whatever time of day you lift, if it's consistent, you'll adapt. But secondly, doing it in the morning has shown to be beneficial for cortisol, especially in older individuals just because it, for lack of a better phrase, kinda burns off the cortisol or it it it sets you up for proper movement early in the day like we're supposed to, and then your cortisol kinda ramps down and then gets you ready for sleep later on. So just a nice little hack there.
Allan [00:32:49]:
Yeah. Excellent. So what are some things we should avoid if we're trying to manage our hormones better?
Philip Pape [00:32:58]:
Okay. So I was I wasn't gonna go here. I don't know what you think, Allan, about just toxins in the environment and plastics and personal care products and all that. Like, I used to be one of those, like, I filed in the woo category. I'm just curious of your thoughts on that before I go down that path.
Allan [00:33:14]:
Well well, it's a it's a couple different things. Okay? Everything that goes into our body is is information. But beyond that, our liver is is maybe one of the most intelligent things in our body besides our gut and our brain. And the reason is that the liver liver has to fix everything. You know, it has to fix everything. And so if we've got these toxins in our body, the liver has to process it. Okay. When you drink alcohol, the body has to process that first.
Allan [00:33:45]:
So it shifts all resources to doing that, meaning it's not doing your body's not necessarily doing other things that it should be doing. So that's that's one break in your whole metabolic process is the toxins are messing with the systems that keep you alive and keep you healthy. The other side of it is because the the liver is such a smart organ, it knows that while you're over here putting on extra fat, that's a really cool place to shuttle that stuff off to and just say goodbye to it. You know? And and if if you have a kind of a history of gaining more than you lose each time you lose weight and gain it back, it just that's what it's gonna do. It's a a repetitive process. Let's just store it there. Let's just store it there. And so you you end up with, and I I just had this interview with a doctor not long ago, sick fat.
Allan [00:34:34]:
You end up with the body that has very large fat cells and a lot of toxic crud in them, and that does that causes dysfunction of those of those fat cells. So it is it is hard, if not impossible, to avoid all of these toxins. You know, it just it just is. But to the extent that you can know, okay, I I know that, like, weed killer, glossphate glossphate or how whatever what it's called.
Philip Pape [00:35:06]:
Like a glossphate. Yeah.
Allan [00:35:08]:
Yeah. I'm like, we know. Okay. Yes. It it it does a great job of killing weeds and us.
Philip Pape [00:35:15]:
It's an endocrine disruptor. Yeah. Exactly. It goes right to the hormones.
Allan [00:35:18]:
You know? And and so I think I think there's there is a a balance, and and this is probably where the 80 20 rule makes the most sense because, you know, if you aren't paying any attention to what's in your skin care products, your hair care products, of course, like, I just use shaving cream, but or
Philip Pape [00:35:37]:
Plastic containers, you know? Yeah. You're clean. Right?
Allan [00:35:40]:
Or where you're drinking your water from, you know, and and how that's handled. Even just our municipal water supplies and what could, you know, possibly be in those. And so there I think there's just a lot of opportunity there for us to think about, can I clean up these things a little? Because if we can reduce the amount that we're exposed to, we give our body a better shot at Yeah. Hitting it and and and keeping up with it and keeping us healthier longer.
Philip Pape [00:36:08]:
Yeah. I agree. That's why I brought it up because nor normally, again, talk about the bigger things. You mentioned alcohol. I could have gone there, like, reducing alcohols only has upside for hormones. We talked about overtraining. We talked about getting enough sleep. So I was like, where where is the other thing that people are curious about? And I was thinking of that because we've seen just in my generation alone, fertility rates skyrocket and, you know, what perimenopause coming on earlier and you're like, what's going on? And and there are some links with some of these endocrine disruptors in the environment.
Philip Pape [00:36:36]:
And it's it's not a woo thing, like, there's everything is manufactured and there's so much plastic and and chemicals used. Like you said, it's just being aware and kind of being educated, but not fear mongering. Just
Allan [00:36:49]:
Yeah.
Philip Pape [00:36:50]:
Shifting, nudging, nudging yourself to make better informed decisions.
Allan [00:36:53]:
Yeah. Because I mean, you know, like, we could sit there. If if we really listened to what they say, then we would think, okay. There's no way I'm eating fish. I'm not gonna eat fish because there's microplastics in the ocean, and I don't wanna consume the microplastics. And the reality is, yeah, there are microplastics in the ocean, but also the the core and and and mercury and everything else. But the core is there are some fish that are longer lived fish that eat other fish that are higher risk. So, you know, have some swordfish now and again, but it shouldn't be a normal staple for you all the time.
Allan [00:37:30]:
Sardines are a better choice because they're not the kind of species that's eating other fish. They're not a species that are gonna be alive long enough to get as much exposure. So there are better there are better choices from time to time. But it's, you know, you need the omega 3. So don't, you know, don't pooh pooh your health over one thing because of another thing. As scary as it might sound, you know, microplastics and, you know, mercury and Yeah. It's the dose. Have some fish.
Allan [00:38:01]:
Have some fish, cheese.
Philip Pape [00:38:03]:
It's it's the dose it's the dose and the exposure. Right? Like Yeah. Diet soda gets a bad rap, but, again, I think if you're if you're if you're drinking in moderation, it's really not gonna affect you. And then same thing with, like, dyes and things like that. People are wondering about whey protein, for example. I get questions all the time, like, what brand of whey protein? I said, just pick the brand that has as few ingredients as you're hap you're comfortable with
Allan [00:38:23]:
or Yeah.
Philip Pape [00:38:23]:
Or as many as you're comfortable with but at the fewest because, yeah, if you're eating, you know, 8 scoops of protein powder every day, and it's the kind with artificial sweetener and red dye and everything, maybe there's some cumulative effect that you're not gonna like down the road, and better safe than sorry kind of, thought on that. You know?
Allan [00:38:39]:
Yeah. And and I I you're you're completely right. It's like people will ask me. It's like, you know, what what whey protein do you do you usually use? And I'm like, I don't usually have to supplement protein because I eat.
Philip Pape [00:38:54]:
There's that too.
Allan [00:38:54]:
For sure. You know? I eat protein, and, and so I don't really have to do that very often. When I when I choose that I need to do it or I wanna do it, then, yeah, I'm gonna go with the purest I can get because and this is kind of a little known thing, is that whey whey protein is a byproduct. Okay? And and so the dairy people, they don't need it. They don't want it. They should throw it away before we decided we were gonna start using it for protein. But it's all just accumulated. It's it's not like there's a you know, this guy's making better whey than that guy.
Allan [00:39:28]:
For the most part, it's all they're all buying the same way.
Philip Pape [00:39:32]:
Mhmm.
Allan [00:39:33]:
And they're putting in their product. They're adding their own flavors and preservatives and colors and and all that type of thing so that they could sell you strawberry and chocolate and mocha, whatever. And then we can put it in bars and sell it to you that way so you're just basically eating candy to get to your protein number.
Philip Pape [00:39:54]:
It's true because when when you sell somebody did you know they actually sell pure whey? You could just get that and then kind of flavor yourself in a smoothie. Well, I don't like how that tastes. I'm like, well, okay. Now we've got a problem here. Like Yeah. You know, there's Well,
Allan [00:40:05]:
that's why I I'll buy the I'll buy the grass fed, grass finished way. And in a, you know, usually in a big bin, you know, there's a few companies I trust that they're not gonna, you know, the labels are what they say they are. And when you look on the back to the label and you turn it around, it says whey. It's the only ingredient. Exactly. Okay. And the other thing you can look at is, okay. So here's a scoop, and the scoop is 36 grams.
Allan [00:40:33]:
And how much protein do I get?
Philip Pape [00:40:36]:
Allan [00:40:41]:
You know? So there there are ways for us to reduce the exposure. There are ways for us to improve the quality and quantity of our sleep. There are ways for us to reduce our stress load through stress management and, getting negative people out of your life. And I think one of the biggest ones, and I'd like to get your take on this a little bit, is the effect that self talk has on our hormone profile.
Philip Pape [00:41:10]:
Oh, man. I mean, self talk goes directly to mood, right, and to mental health. In fact, I know we're gonna get to, like, 3 strategies to get and stay well. One of those I was gonna allude to was the positivity in your life. And and I use that kind of at a high level because I think everyone has different challenges. Right? Some people are more optimistic. Like, I have an optimism bias and so I tend to, like, think things are gonna go well and so I I I kind of embrace that future identity idea. Some people just everything the sky is falling all the time.
Philip Pape [00:41:43]:
Right? The sky is falling all the time. And so we do know that there's a direct link with the endocrine system with, you know, things like endorphins even just in the short term with it's not the self talk just in isolation, it's what the self talk then leads to. It it leads to kind of a lack of control, an external locus instead of an internal locus. Right? The lack of choice and empowerment and agency that's all associated with self determination. And, like, yes, I can go from here to there on my own volition. Maybe I need some support. That's great. That's fine.
Philip Pape [00:42:14]:
In fact, I encourage it. But, yeah, that that that's where I'd say the link occurs. And so Atomic Habits. Right? Everybody knows Atomic Habits by James Clear. I think in there, he talks about reversing how we think of what we do and and our behavior change instead of thinking, I need to do this to become this person. We think, I'm this person, so I'm gonna do this. And that's kinda like reframing the self talk into a positive identity. Yeah.
Philip Pape [00:42:38]:
So I think it's huge, Allan.
Allan [00:42:40]:
Yeah. Well, that's that's the that's the be, do, have kinda mindset where what are the people who do who are like this? What do they do? Just start doing those things, and then eventually, you will you'll be that person.
Philip Pape [00:42:53]:
Yeah. It's huge. So there's a woman in my group coaching. She calls me the positivity bully. That's what she's been calling me lately with in in all, like, positivity. Right? She but she's gotten to the point where she knows if something comes out of her mouth that's like a fixed mindset statement, like, I am this, she's immediately like, wait wait wait a minute. That's not the way I meant to say it, and she'll reframe it. So I'm like, I got you trained.
Allan [00:43:17]:
Yeah. It's working. It's not in the way.
Philip Pape [00:43:19]:
But it really is that. It's like reframing everything. And going back to being an engineer, like, one of the things engineers do is they don't have failure in their vocabulary. Everything that happens is just something that teaches you what to do. So even from a day to day, like, could either have an all or nothing mentality where I'm a failure and then boom I'm off my program or this happened, what do I learn from it and what do I do differently? And if I am having trouble doing something differently, there's another opportunity there with friction or reward system or whatever it is that encourages me to to make it easier on myself.
Allan [00:43:53]:
Well, Philip, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Philip Pape [00:44:01]:
Alright. So fittest has gotta be strength training. I just have to like, everybody's gotta do that, man. I don't I don't there's no excuse, for hormone health, for, mental health, for self identity, all of that stuff we just talked about. So I would say, you know, lift weights, build that muscle, be the fittest person you can be till you're 95 and like I say, you croak doing a deadlift when you're 95. That's what I wanna do. That's fittest. Healthiest would be from a nutrition standpoint, I think starting from the big rocks like I mentioned earlier.
Philip Pape [00:44:31]:
I mean, I I love everything Allan says here getting into the all the details we need to nail down eventually. Protein and fiber, I think is a good starting place. If every meal has that, you're you you've made a step change, and then from that point, you can start to to go down the the tracking and the micronutrients and everything else. And then from happiest, I think we kind of alluded to it. It's getting positivity in your life. That's people who are positive, who support you. They may not get you. They may not totally understand you.
Philip Pape [00:45:00]:
That's fine. We know how family is. But it's kinda getting rid of the toxicity, getting rid of the negatives. And one one great way to do that is listening to podcasts like Allan's, joining groups online who who have the same goals, and, you know, consuming consuming positive content rather than say, for example, the political news these days.
Allan [00:45:21]:
Yes. There is that. Thank you.
Philip Pape [00:45:24]:
I can't help myself because it is entertaining, but, yeah, it could be too much.
Allan [00:45:28]:
It is. It it's it is too much, but alright. So, Philip, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about wits and weights, where would you like for me to send them?
Philip Pape [00:45:39]:
Send them to the podcast, wits and weights, and then they can just reach out to me at witsandweights.com. Alright.
Allan [00:45:45]:
So you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.comforward/658, and I'll be sure to have links there. Philip, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness. Allan, thank you for the opportunity. Welcome back,
Rachel [00:45:59]:
Raz. Hey, Allan. That was a really fun interview. Philip sounds like a really interesting person and an engineer, a physique engineer. I sometimes it takes, like, a different way of thinking to figure things out. I I appreciate his, ability to do that.
Allan [00:46:16]:
Yeah. You know, whenever I'm working with someone, even when I was working with my just to myself Mhmm. I needed processes in place. I needed some things to make it easier, you know, to remove friction from what I wanted to do. And I didn't have a coach at the time to help me do that. So it was like, okay. What do I do to solve this problem? Because if I wanna do this, I have to solve this problem. So it was sometimes adding friction to things that I didn't wanna do and removing friction from things that I did wanna do.
Allan [00:46:48]:
And very much you start talking to engineers, friction can be a big part of any, anything that they're doing. And so that, you know yeah. I I I totally agree that you need to have some system that that you can rely on that's working for you and developing a good system for yourself. So that can be a challenge. But, once you get it done, it's it's it's actually really, really nice.
Rachel [00:47:10]:
Oh, absolutely. And it it's our lives change over time as we age. Like you had discussed, our hormones just get out of whack. I'm going through menopause and everything is different. And so, like, everything that I used to do in the past needs to change to address the way my body is working today, and and I think everybody that's aging is gonna go through similar situations. Maybe you're prone to heart disease or diabetes, or maybe you're prone to anemia or any other thing. So then there's no one size fits all. Everybody's gotta kinda troubleshoot little problem solving on their own issues and figure out how to deal with it.
Allan [00:47:51]:
Yeah. Well, there is no one size fits all, but there are some commonalities that we all share
Philip Pape [00:47:58]:
Mhmm.
Allan [00:47:58]:
You know, things we we should do and things we shouldn't do Mhmm. If if we wanna live healthy, you know, fit lives. And so, yeah, there there are some some similarities, but there are, yes, also some differences in how each of us apply those things.
Rachel [00:48:14]:
Mhmm. And on the things that we should do, you spent some time talking about strength training and how important that is at probably every age, but most importantly over 40.
Allan [00:48:24]:
Yeah. I would say don't don't don't strength train a kid under 10, but because they're growing and there's other things going on. But for everybody else, strength training should be core to what we do.
Rachel [00:48:36]:
Oh, absolutely. And then, like I had mentioned earlier, as as we do age and all of these things in our lives change, no matter how well you eat and no matter how well you exercise, if you can't manage stress and sleep, that's gonna just upset the balance of everything. It's 2 steps forward and one step back.
Allan [00:48:56]:
Yeah. Well, you know, stress stress is something that is basically, you know, in a normal situation, stress is good. I mean, you know, if there's a bear, the stress helps you. Like, if you're if you're about to step out into a highway and there's a car coming, and all of a sudden you get this surge of energy fight and flight, and you're able to jump back and not get hit by the car, that's that's that's good. I mean, you want that. You don't want to be relaxed, sloth, watching the car hit you. You you want that capacity to jump back and do the thing, that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do otherwise. But we live in a world of chronic stress.
Allan [00:49:34]:
So there's stressors that are always there. The bear is always there. The car is always there, and we can't we can't stay there. So we we have to implement things that are going to allow us to manage our own stress. And then where sleep is concerned. Yeah. It's it's the cycle that helps us do everything. Like, everything is built on that.
Allan [00:49:53]:
So if if you're not sleeping well and you're not going through full sleep cycles, you're not getting what your brain needs. You're not giving what your hormones need to cycle through because they're all set up on an on a cycle, a a daily cycle. And so that circadian rhythm is there to tell you, okay. And and so we know if you're not asleep between 10 and 2, that's a core time that your body would be doing the things Mhmm. That it needs to do. And, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I won't go to bed until 11 or 12. It's like, okay. That might be a problem if you're not feeling it.
Allan [00:50:29]:
If you feel like you're getting older faster than you should. You've got you've gotta get better sleep.
Rachel [00:50:34]:
Better sleep for sure. And then it was always nice to hear you discuss things to avoid. I mean, certainly the toxins in the environment, that's easy. We live around too many plastics and too many chemicals like our, Roundup and stuff like that. But you also mentioned alcohol, and that's kind of a controversial topic there.
Allan [00:50:54]:
Well, it can be, but it shouldn't be. I mean, let's let's face it. Okay. Most people that are using alcohol consistently, like on a almost daily basis, it is their regimen for stress management. It's, you know, and I understand that. I've been in a similar situation. I was working really hard and I was stressed in my job. You go back to the hotel, there's the hotel bar.
Allan [00:51:17]:
And it's nice. You have a few drinks, you forget about your day, and then you crash. The problem is that that doesn't really solve the stress problem. You just increased the cortisol problem. Again, the stress was still there. You masked it. You didn't solve it. You didn't reduce it.
Allan [00:51:36]:
And then as far as sleep, if you have alcohol in your system, you're not going through proper sleep cycles. You're not getting restful sleep. So you might be unconscious for 8 hours, but you did not get 8 hours of quality sleep. And so from that perspective, it is harming you more than it's helping you in all cases. And, yeah, okay, fine. Go have a couple drinks with your friends every once in a while. That's not a problem. But if you're using it as a coping mechanism, you really have to rethink that strategy because
Philip Pape [00:52:09]:
Oh, yeah.
Allan [00:52:09]:
It's it's not doing what you think it's doing.
Rachel [00:52:12]:
No. Gosh. Even maybe 10 or 15 years ago, it was kind of normal for the wine industry. You'd have a glass of red wine at dinner because it's supposedly good for you in some way. And and nowadays, there's just no way. I could not have a glass of wine with dinner and and sleep well. I just know that I'm up for a bed and I just sleep if I do. But, yeah, it's different, especially as you age.
Allan [00:52:38]:
Yeah. And so this is what we have to look at is is as we're trying to do this, you know, we're providing this information to our body, the quality of our sleep, the stress management, the strength training, the eating properly, the avoiding chemicals. All of those things are information in your body to get better, to heal, to feel better. And the way it does that is through hormones. And so if you can do the right things for your body, no matter your age, you're optimizing your hormones for what it is for where you are at that point in time. And as a result, you're going to get better results. You're going to feel better. You're going to be healthier.
Allan [00:53:21]:
You're going to lose weight. All those things that you want to do Mhmm. Just have to dial those things in. When we're older, we have to dial them in just a little bit more than we did when we were younger. But, yeah, it it you know, doing the things that your body needs you to do and avoiding the things that you shouldn't be, that's all a part of this challenge and how we get where we need to be.
Rachel [00:53:42]:
No. That's perfect. It was really great conversation.
Allan [00:53:45]:
Alright. Well, I will talk to you next week.
Rachel [00:53:47]:
Great. Take care, Allan.
Allan [00:53:49]:
You too. Bye.
Rachel [00:53:50]:
Thank you. Bye bye.
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Perimenopause is a time when a woman's hormones are going amuck and it can literally ruin her life. Amanda Thebe's book, Menopocalypse, takes you through her journey and the journeys of 1000s of other women so you can know what to expect and thrive during menopause.
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Transcript
SPONSOR
This episode of the 40+ Fitness podcast is sponsored by Vault Health, guys, we need to discuss the elephant in the room. Most of us really struggle to manage certain health issues, especially when it affects things we don't want to talk about, like our libido and vitality. Yes, I'm talking about LowT. Did you know that 40 percent of men over 40 suffer from lowT? LowT can cause weight gain, loss of muscle mass, ED, fatigue and poor sleep, low energy and depression?
These completely dismantle any efforts you're making to be healthy and fit. If you're dealing with one or more of these. It's worth booking a free online consultation with a Vault physician at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/vaul. Vault is all about discretion. After your free consultation and you agree you want treatment, they'll send a phlebotomist to your home to do a blood drawl. You'll get a personalized doctor review treatment plan. This can be with pills, cream or injections.
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As we age, managing our hormones becomes more and more important and essential oils might just be a part of the solution. Our guest today is Dr. Mariza Snyder the author of the book, The Essential Oils Hormone Solution.
Allan (1:15): Dr. Snyder, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (1:19): Thank you so much for having me. How are you?
Allan (1:21): I’m doing very well. When your publicist Jimmy reached out to me any had the book, The Essential Oils Hormone Solution, I did a little bit of a double take. I was like, “Hmm, essential oils and hormones.” I want to have more conversations about hormones, because they are such an important aspect to overall wellness. If you don’t have your hormones in balance, you just aren’t going to be well. But I’d never really heard anybody talking about using the essential oils protocols or anything like that to affect hormones. I was really interested to dive into this book and get a better understanding of how essential oils can be used to help manage our hormones.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (2:03): Absolutely. I’m super excited to talk about that today and give some clarity around that topic.
Allan (2:09): The reason that this topic is so important to me is, as we get into our 50s and 60s, a lot of things are going on with our bodies, a lot of things are slowing down. For men, your testosterone’s going down; for women, your progesterone and estrogen start to decline. And that has some fundamental changes in the way that our bodies function. Not to mention, growth hormone, lower thyroid. Everything else seems to slowly be getting out of balance from what was making us feel young and vibrant. You use a term in the book, and I’ve heard this phraseology maybe not exactly this way, but I want to dive into this. You use the term “my body at war”.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (3:00): Absolutely.
Allan (3:02): Can you kind of peel the layers away from that a little bit? For someone that hasn’t experienced some of this stuff, I think it’s important for them to understand this feeling so that they recognize it. I know for men it happens kind of slowly, so I wouldn’t think of it so much as a war, as just a slow, gradual melting.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (3:25): A slow, gradual decline. I’d love to talk a little bit… When I was in practice, what I saw in practice a lot and then what I had personally experienced – as you know, we are hard wired for survival. That is the number one MO of the body. It’s how our brain functions, it’s what our metabolism is driven by. We constantly think about inside of the brain. A really important aspect of the brain, probably one of the oldest parts of the brain is the limbic brain, the limbic system. Your limbic system is driven by an autonomic response and we have two different ways that we respond. If you’re looking at it cut and dry, it’s going to be parasympathetic, which is rest, digest and reproduction. That’s really where we’re at when we are eating, we’re reproducing. Except the other MO is that not only do we have to survive, we have to survive long enough to procreate. Being evolutionary success means that we have grandchildren – that’s just how it’s defined in biological terms. So, we’ve got parasympathetic and then we’ve got sympathetic. Sympathetic nervous system can be in overdrive. We call it “sympathetic dominance”. And that is when our body is at war, if that system is constantly running on overdrive, because it’s survival. When your body is constantly running in survival mode, that’s where we kind of get in trouble.
I always imagine a gazelle in Africa. You’ll see gazelles grazing inside of a pasture, just relaxing. They’re in parasympathetic mode; they’re just kicking it. Then someone spots a tiger lurking. Everyone gets the message, “fight or flight”, sympathetic nervous system mode kicks in and they start running like gazelles. And once they know that the danger’s gone, then they go back to grazing. Problem is that we are constantly perceiving so many of our environmental stressors as tigers behind us all the time. And when that happens, your brain and that neuroplasticity, which is driving a lot of the hormonal responses, becomes in a scenario of “my body at war”. We are in constant sympathetic nervous system mode and we drive important survival hormones like cortisol and epinephrine coursing through the system. Well, those have negative ramifications – digestive ramifications, reproductive ramifications, cognitive function ramifications. Things like even putting on weight in areas; that belly fat that we talk about. You can create a fatty liver because you’re constantly stressed. You can drive your thyroid into the ground. What I oftentimes see is that I don’t think we realize that when we fuel our life based on stress or the constant demands of everyone else’s priorities, when we’re all things to everybody else, we don’t realize that that fuel we’re running on is really lending towards chaos inside of the body.
Allan (6:25): Okay. I kind understood a little bit of that beforehand because I’ve gone and gotten massages, and the masseuse will occasionally use some oils or scents or something like that, have a diffuser in there. I’ve used some lavender to relax and sleep better. So I have used some essential oils. I like that your book actually has a lot of recipes, because I think that’s going to make it easy for folks to put together as a recipe to deal with various things. But before they go down that line: “I’m fatigued. I know I’m stressed. I know this is going on in my life”, it’s important for them to go get some hormones tested first to know which direction to go with this, right?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (7:12): Absolutely. I’m a big fan of knowing your numbers. I think that’s really, really important. We can make changes and make stride even without hormones if indeed it is stress-driven. We can disrupt this stress response and the resulting domino effect of that with natural solutions at your fingertips. But yes, I do recommend getting tested. If something else is going on, you want to know what’s going on in the body. Absolutely, it’s important. If you find that your hormone imbalances are being driven by a different root cause, like let’s say it is chronic stress – you could work on your hormones and your thyroid all you like, but if you’re not addressing the core root of the issue, which for some of us oftentimes can be the stress we’re dealing with on a day-to-day – our bodies go back to where they were. That was what was happening to me. I was trying to treat my stress with nutrition. I have a quote that says, “You can’t green smoothie your way out of chronic stress.” And I thought I could for many years. I thought I could exercise and green smoothie my way out of it, but it was my, I would call it the “operating system”. I was running on stress 24/7, and without changing the operating system, which I think oils can help to do, we find ourselves back in those patterns.
Allan (8:35): That’s a big driver to our move to Panama, is to kind of get into that lower gear lifestyle. I was corporate for so many years and the last few years with the layoffs and everything was really damaging to me. I knew that was the one last thing I needed to fix the puzzle. I’ve gone to doctors and the doctor will say, “We’ll do labs.” And then you get the labs and start trying to do, I guess a little bit of doctor Googling to figure out what this is actually telling you. You start doing some of that research and it’s like, “I just got this test, but this article is saying I really should have gotten a more broad panel.” Like, you got TSH, but you didn’t get T4, T3 and reverse T3. If someone’s going to go in and put together a panel for hormone testing, what would you recommend that they go get?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (9:34): Absolutely. Inside the book too, I do such a great job of really giving people all the testing that they should be asking for, because as you know, we really have to become our own advocate for our own health these days. There are a lot of different reasons why that’s the case. I would recommend if I were to go into my doctor… And your traditional doctor may even say “No” to these, and it’s really worth looking for a functional medicine doctor or a naturopath – someone who’s really willing to look at everything. Clearly the big one is a complete blood panel. I think everyone should be tested for thyroid. With the thyroid there’s so much that can go wrong there – toxic load, stress, adrenal deregulation. The thyroid tends to be one of those very delicate endocrine glands that just takes a beating. Any autoimmune or allergy issue, the immune system is like, “You know what? Let’s just go after the thyroid too. Why don’t we just knock that one out?” So, I always recommend running a thyroid panel. The thyroid stimulating hormone, free T3, free T4, reverse T3. I also want you looking at antibodies because if it’s hypo thyroid, 80% to 90% of the time it’s probably Hashimoto’s driven, meaning the immune system is causing the problem. So, TPOAb, then the antibodies as well, the antiglobins, so that is going to be the TgAb as well. Then I want you to look at the adrenals or at least look at cortisol levels, and that is throughout the day. So, morning before 9:00 AM, afternoon, evening, and before going to bed. That’s that diurnal cortisol test that I’m looking at. I also like total testosterone and DHEA levels. I think those are important. Progesterone, specifically on days 21 to 23 because that is when progesterone is at its height. That’s when we’ll really know what’s going on with progesterone. I also want to look at estrogen levels as well, see where they’re at. Fasting insulin, glucose, HDL, hemoglobin. I want to look at the growth factor of the growth hormone. And then also important – nutrients. I want to look at vitamin D, vitamin B12, folate, ferritin, iron. Those are things that I want to be looking at as well, because nutrient depletions can have a profound impact on what’s going on with those hormones. So those are the things I’m looking for in a real, comprehensive lab test. Unfortunately, right now a lot of traditional doctors are not running these levels of tests.
Allan (12:16): I actually have an agreement with a lab. I’ll put a link in the show notes for that. You can go and get your own tests and request what you need. And men, you’re not going to see progesterone, so that’s fine.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (12:29): You don’t need to test for that.
Allan (12:31): But you do need to check for estrogen because we can get too much estrogen and then you’ve got moobs and you’re not feeling really manly. So, you do need that. And women, it’s important for you to also test your testosterone, because women do have some and need some to have a good, solid libido. So, I like that list and that’s in your book. Just getting that list makes this book a pretty valuable resource. In the book, you go into the five pillars. Because I come from an accounting background, whenever I see a number, I’m immediately drawn to it, like, “Oh good, a list!”
Dr. Mariza Snyder (13:06): I love a list.
Allan (13:09): So, you have the five pillars of a foundational lifestyle. Do you mind going through each of those?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (13:14): Absolutely. I have, as you mentioned, five pillars, and this is what I’ve learned in practice that really moves the needle. I’m not going to lie, Allan, I feel like a lot of why we can get ourselves in trouble is lifestyle. We don’t realize the implications of lifestyle until we realize the implications of lifestyle. And usually we start to feel those things around 40 years old. I know very often when people were walking into my office, that was when they were like, “Something isn’t right.” Things start to chip away. So, number one, and this is going to be of no surprise to anybody, is nutrition. We know that nutrition is fuel, we know that nutrition is information, and our bodies are taking in that information. So you vote for what goes on and what happens in your body, the conversations and communication that goes on in the body, with every single fork. That is so important, so that’s number one. Number two is exercise, moving your body. The benefits of exercise are so far reaching, but even stress, getting your body out of that “my body at war”, reducing stress levels, supporting the cardiovascular system, helping to boost cognitive function, respiratory system, boosting mitochondrial function. Even having more receptor sites on every cell for your thyroid hormones is important and driven by movement. We are seeing those implications far and wide. Number three is stress management. Stress comes in a lot of forms. It’s perceived, it’s emotional, it’s chemical, it’s physical. But I’m really concerned with the unrelenting perceived stress that we’re dealing with every day and the repercussions that we talked about. Four Is reducing the toxic burden. Recently, in the last six months, I’ve had five friends of mine diagnosed with breast cancer or thyroid cancer under the age of 45.
Allan (15:13): We have a friend that’s going through chemo right now herself, and she’s not even 50.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (15:19): It’s insane. That’s the worst of the spectrum of what happens when toxicity or toxic burden is high in the body. But hormones can deregulate because of toxins; gut issues; even the thyroid. It’s usually a combination of things that are happening with the thyroid, and toxins do play a major role there. So looking at reducing your toxic burden. And then number five, which I think oftentimes is put to the wayside, is going to be self-care. How do we build in self-care every single day? How do we build in the breaks and the pauses so that we can manage the life that we’re living?
Allan (15:59): I just want to say, with something like these five pillars, this is not something where you say, “I’m going to fix the first pillar and I’m going to be good.” The reality is, you need to be working on all of them. They all need to be a part of what your lifestyle is going forward. Anything you can do to improve those, you need to be slowly chipping away at getting that done.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (16:20): And the beauty of it is it really is possible to do each and every one of these things every day. It’s the mindset in which we live. I think about how my day started today. I was using oils, I drank my big glass of lemon water, I made a green smoothie, I went outside and ran. I have a really big hill that I live in, so I even start my day running that hill a couple of times. I journaled in my book. Lunch was a big salad. We made this really beautiful veggie frittata and sauerkraut for gut support. I took all of my supplements. And I have little breaks built in into my phone for those moments to take a pause. So, we are hyper productive over here; yet, all of the decisions I’m making for my health or for my body are based on those five pillars.
Allan (17:11): Yes. I think you have to do that at some level, but they do snowball. That’s one of the cool things about this. If you’re eating higher quality food, you’re going to have more energy. And when you have more energy and you’re moving around, your lymphatic system is functioning better, you’re getting rid of toxins easier. When you get rid of the toxins, you’re sleeping better. And as you start feeling better about yourself, the self-care and the reduction of stress become easier. So, it’s a self-fulfilling, self-building kind of thing here when you are taking the time to make sure you’re focused on these.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (17:48): Absolutely. And I think when you start to feel great and you start to feel good, you really don’t want to regress back. And you’ll notice when you start to not… I know if we’ve taken on a big project or we’re working harder than normal, there are signs and we’re really mindful of those things. So, I’m quick to get right back on track, knowing what it feels like to not be on track. I think sometimes we don’t necessarily know what it feels like to feel really great all the time, or at least a good chunk of the time. But I promise once you get to that place, you’re going to want to sustain it because you’re not going to want to feel anything different than that.
Allan (18:28): I completely agree. As people are getting into essential oils, you’re the second guest. Of 374 episodes, this is the second episode that we’ve had on essential oils. It was really because of the compelling nature of the hormone and essential oils, and I really want to dive into that a little bit. But before we get there, one of the things that I do know from my previous guest is that it’s very important for you to focus on the quality of your essential oils. This is not just to go find a scented candle from Walmart, light it and sit in the bathtub. There are some quality issues from some manufacturers and you really have to know your product. Can you talk a little bit about what makes an essential oil high quality?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (19:18): Absolutely. So, an essential oil once upon a time was a plant. And just like we’re concerned about the plants that we consume, like the blueberries, the kale and the carrots, it’s really important if you want to use these for therapeutic benefits, you have to be really mindful of where these plants come from. You want plants coming from their indigenous location. So for instance, frankincense should come from Somalia or Oman, cardamom should come from Guatemala or the Middle East, melaleuca, tea tree should come from Australia. The province of France and Bulgaria is where lavender should come from. It’s important that there are different parts of the world that only grow these very specific plants. Anywhere else you’re losing the chemical constituents. Let’s give an example of myrrh. A high quality myrrh oil, the sesquiterpene content on that needs to be above 60%. That’s going to be a high quality. Where are we going to get myrrh with a 60% chemical constituent content of sesquiterpenes? That’s the level of research that needs to go into these oils. Same thing with frankincense – the monoterpene content needs to be above 35%. So that’s what I’m usually looking for. If they’re disclosing where the plants come from, how are these plants treated, are these local farmers? It really matters how these plants are grown. Then on top of that, after these plants are grown and harvested in a sustainable and beautiful way and they’re distilled for their benefits, how are they being tested? We’ve got testing like gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy, chirality testing, microbial testing. As a biochemist for many, many years before I became a practitioner, this is where I was really fascinated. I always recommend that people do their due diligence and make sure that you just go and look them up. If you’re buying from a company, you want to make sure that they are disclosing where their oils come from and they’re disclosing the type of testing that they are doing on their oils.
Allan (21:18): And not just the oils. Each oil typically isn’t just the oil. Isn’t there’s typically a base oil?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (21:27): It depends. No, not normally. If there is a base oil in it, like let’s say a fractionated coconut oil – that must be disclosed as well. What we call oils that have extra stuff in them besides the pure version of it – they are adulterated. That means they’ve been tainted. I’ll give you an example. A 5ml bottle of rose oil takes about 8,000 rose petals. Those roses are grown in Bulgaria most of the time. A 5ml bottle of rose oil is about $800, give or take; $500 to $800. But there are companies that will dilute pure rose oil in fractionated coconut oil or something like that, and they have to say that. And that oil may only cost $75 or $100, but they’ve got to disclose that information. But a pure oil, unless you’re dealing with a rose or a jasmine or a neroli, where it would be hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get that bottle of oil – they should normally be just literally that essential oil, that chemical constituent.
Allan (22:35): Okay. As I was going through I wanted to figure out how this is affecting my hormones and how we are going to use essential oils to help heal ourselves. I liked that you did this kind of walk across where you talked emotion, hormones and essential oils. Particularly I like the way you told your story about the first time you used wild orange. Do you mind telling that story and explaining from that context how all this works?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (23:09): Yes. So, wild orange was one of the first oils that I met and that I fell in love with. Actually, wild orange is sitting right here next to me in this interview. We’re kind of best buds; we hang out a lot. Wild orange and most citrus oils, like grapefruit, lemon and lime – each and every one of those have different chemical constituents. For the most part, what we’re looking at is a limonene content, which is in a family of monoterpenes. Limonene in wild orange runs about 85% to 90%. That’s what we’re normally looking for. And wild orange is known as the oil of abundance, but what we can demonstrate is when you breathe in the chemical constituents of wild orange, these chemical constituents have a no holds barred directly into the limbic system. What a lot of people don’t know is that our sense of smell is hardwired to our sense of survival. So if you smell a fire, you run, or you smell gas, you run. Our sense of smell has always been tied into that wiring. So we are leveraging the power of these chemical constituents. They bind to the olfactory bulb, then they’re binding to other receptors that send messages to the limbic brain. But what we know about limonene content is that it boosts serotonin and dopamine production in a really balanced way. So it has a profound impact on our neurochemistry, specifically on those neurotransmitters. We also know that serotonin is a hormone, so it’s got two different properties. And we can actually shift the way the limbic brain and the limbic system is working by merely breathing in this oil. I always say you cannot stay angry or mad breathing in wild orange. It literally shifts the chemistry in the brain to go from an angered state to a much more… I wouldn’t say that you’re going to be happy, but you’re at least not going to be feeling super, super angry. You’re going to feel more neutral after breathing in this oil.
Allan (25:04): Okay. And as I said, I’ve had exposure to lavender oil, primarily to sleep. It’ll help you sleep kind of thing. Can you talk through how some of these oils work? You’re throwing a lot of terms out there that I know as a biochemist you love.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (25:24): I can break it down to simpler terms. Let’s give lavender a go. I think, Allan, what I want people to understand is that a lot of people are like, “Oh, it’s woo woo. If you have good intention, it’s kind of calming, but I don’t know what it is.” The cool thing about it is there’s a lot of science that backs all this up. And as you saw in my book, I have 40 pages of bibliography.
Allan (25:48): That’s the thing I was going to say at the end. The bibliography is there, so there are studies after studies. You can just go down that rabbit hole and spend a long, long time reading about how they’ve proven a lot of good qualities from these oils.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (26:04): Right. What’s so cool is that Europe’s a little bit more ahead of us than we’d like, in terms of holistic medicine, and lavender is one of the number one recommended solutions for anxiety in a lot Europe. They take it orally in a little capsule. And oftentimes naturopaths and functional practitioners here in the States will also literally in a prescription form. They are these little teeny capsules, like you would get in a prescription, and people take them for lowering anxiety levels. It’s because we know that there are properties in lavender that will calm down an overactive limbic brain when we’re having that anxiety or we’re feeling really overwhelmed. In a nutshell, lavender is all things calming. It’s designed to calm the brain, it’s designed to shut off the mental chatter. It’s even calming for a mosquito bite. It’s great for a sunburn – a really minor sunburn. Lavender is just very soothing to the body. But lavender is very deceptive. It’s a deceptive woman, a deceptive flower. She is very powerful, she’s very potent, and sometimes she knocks people on their butts. So I always tell people to be really mindful. I love the potency of oils, but every oil is going to be a little bit different for you. For some people, lavender is the bee’s knees. Other times lavender may be a little much. You may want to soften it up with Roman chamomile or cedarwood, something that lavender is very complimentary to. But yes, ultimately lavender is designed to shut down those worries and those anxiousness and that mental chatter that could be happening when you’re trying to get a good night’s sleep.
Allan (27:43): Okay. And there are lots of others. You had multiple recipes. Can you go through a few more to kind of give us some ideas, particularly those ones that are directly related to hormones and health?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (27:55): Absolutely. We’re talking about stress levels. My go-to stress blend – I call it “stress be gone blend” – it’s a combination of two oils. I’m going to keep it simple on the podcast. Some of my recipes get a little bit more complex, but I love simplicity. So, it’s just a drop of lavender, a drop of bergamot. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed, just by rubbing those two oils together, rubbing your palms together and taking some deep belly breaths, you’re going to reset that system. You’re going to disrupt the stress response. Another blend that I talk a lot about – people are concerned about brain fog and cognitive function, working memory and alertness. Rosemary has been researched over and over and over again for boosting working memory by 75% by simply breathing it in. I love a combination of wild orange, peppermint, rosemary and frankincense. You could do a drop of each or you could do it in a roller. I don’t have the exact blend in front of me. It would be, let’s say, 8 drops of each of those oils – frankincense, wild orange, peppermint and rosemary. And that is what I call the “get it done blend” or the cognitive boosting blend. So if things aren’t firing 100%, you’re not feeling like you’re on top of your game – you just breathe that blend in and it’s profoundly incredible for that. Now, for hormones, my go-to hormone oil for regulating testosterone and estrogen is going to be clary sage. Lots of research there, because it helps to bind two receptor sites in the adrenals and beta cells, it helps to get rid of xenoestrogens and false estrogens inside of the system by cleaning up receptor sites. I have a hormone blend that is a combination. It’s called “my hormone synergy” blend. I’m going to pull it up for you guys right now. And that is in a 10ml roller – 10 drops of clary sage, 8 drops of lavender, 8 drops of geranium, because also geranium is great at helping the liver detoxify excess hormone metabolites; 4 drops of bergamot and 4 drops of ylang-ylang. Ylang-ylang is the ultimate libido booster. It has profound benefits on testosterone. I really love this blend because it does tackle a lot of the hormone systems that we’re looking at in the reproductive system.
Allan (30:21): Cool. And the book even goes into how to make your own roller. This is a great resource for someone that wants to learn more about essential oils and actually get into using them. I guess we’ll go ahead and close out with my last question. I define “wellness” as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (30:44): I love it. So, the first tactic I think is a must, must, must, is you’ve got to have a morning ritual. Set the tone for your day. It can be 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, where you are on your own agenda and not somebody else’s agenda. Strategy number two – use your oils for those emergency moments. You need more energy – grab an oil. You need to win the staredown with that cupcake or that stale donut – get peppermint out. It’s a powerful craving suppressant. And then number three is, also have a wind-down routine. It is so important to rest and shut down the brain, get decent sleep. The reason why so many of us are just slogging through the day like zombies is we’re not getting enough sleep. We’re working overtime or we’re choosing that last episode on Netflix. When you set an intention for an evening routine, using calming oils or reading a book before bed, shutting off the computer at 9:00 PM – you will recharge and that missing energy will come back for you.
Allan (31:51): Cool. I like those. Dr. Snyder, if someone wanted to learn more about you and what you’re doing or the book, The Essential Oils Hormone Solution, where would you like for me to send them?
Dr. Mariza Snyder (32:06): I think you have the link for this. I have an amazing cravings, fatigue and stress cheat sheet that we’ll make sure we get the link for you. You guys can go and check out. I do have a podcast myself. It’s called The Essentially You Podcast and it’s all about helping you to become the CEO of your health. I know I spotted off a lot of recipes and I know there are a lot of recipes in the book, but sometimes just having that little cheat sheet to address those core issues that I see so often, is a step in the right direction. I can get that for the listeners so that you guys have that and start making some amazing progress.
Allan (32:45): Okay, cool. This is episode 376, so you can go to 40PlusFitnessPodcast.com/376 and I’ll be sure to have that link there. Dr. Snyder, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Dr. Mariza Snyder (32:59): Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Allan (33:07): Are you stuck with your health and fitness journey and just need a little push? Go to 40PlusFitnessPodcast.com/Consult, and that will take you to a link on my calendar where you can schedule a free 15-minute session with me. We can discuss your goals, we can talk about what you want to accomplish, how you can accomplish it, and a lot more. So if you need a little push, maybe a little bit of accountability, please go to 40PlusFitnessPodcast.com/Consult for your free consultation today.
Dr. Stephanie Gray is the author of Your Longevity Blueprint. On this episode, we talk about nutritional supplementation, hormones optimization, and how to find a doctor to help you stay healthy.
Allan (1:06): Dr. Gray, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Dr. Gray (1:10): I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Allan (1:12): Your book is Your Longevity Blueprint, and I really enjoyed the read. A lot of great information and put in a way that I think is very understandable for quite a few people. But the book in my opinion is not actually about so much longevity as, how do we maximize our health and wellness so that we actually enjoy living longer?
Dr. Gray (1:37): Well said. Yeah, I would agree. I was really trying to create some nine actionable steps for readers to optimize their health, because unfortunately many individuals don’t even know functional medicine exists. They don’t know that testing options exist to help them optimize their nutritional status or help them detoxify their body or increase their hormone levels. So I was hoping this book would really introduce the audience to functional medicine.
Allan (2:03): Yes. And I think most of us go to a doctor when we’re sick, we’re not feeling well, and the doctor asks what are you symptoms and you tell them fatigue, brain fog, several other things that are kind of going on in your life, not sleeping well, maybe some migraines. And the doctor says, “Well, here’s some Prozac”, or whatever. It’s a symptom-diagnosis. It’s like there’s a chart in the back of their office, or maybe they’ve memorized it. If they’re thinking you have this – this is how you fix it, with some form of medicine. But the reality is, medicine isn’t really designed to fix us. It’s designed to fix a symptom.
Dr. Gray (2:50): I totally agree. We need conventional medicine, especially unfortunately if you get in an accident. We have great emergency care here in the United States. In my book I reference Dr. Patrick Flynn’s analogy that conventional medicine is more of the fire department approach. So if you have a fire, conventional medicine can help you put out that fire, but really only using two tools – drugs and surgery. Unfortunately, when you have a symptom like fatigue that isn’t really an emergency, conventional medicine doesn’t necessarily help you get to the root cause of the problem. Like you mentioned, a lot of times they’ll just recommend taking an antidepressant or a stimulant medication, when that’s really not getting to the root cause. It’s not really explaining the “Why” to the fatigue. That’s what makes functional medicine different – we do explore the “Why”. We try to explore if the patient has low thyroid or low sex hormone status or maybe their nutrition is terrible, but we want to get to the root cause of the problem and not just give the patient that Band-aid approach to their health care.
Allan (3:50): It’s very interesting to me. Hippocrates said it a long, long time ago – “Let food be thy medicine.” And now it’s changing. It feels like it’s changing – more and more understanding that the food which we put in our mouths in volumes can do a lot more for our health than the one little pill or 12 little pills that we’re taking over the course of a day. I think a lot of that is because when we’re fueling our body and we’re building our body with better stuff, we end up being better. But a lot of folks don’t actually recognize that they have nutritional deficiencies. A lot of my clients will come to me and say, “Allan, should I be supplementing with something? Should I be taking an iron supplement, or should I be taking vitamin B or C?”, or whatever the cool thing is today. And my short answer is, “I have no clue, because I don’t have your blood test to see if there are any deficiencies. I don’t really know the quality of your food to know if you’re getting most of the vitamins you need. I don’t know if you’re getting outside to get enough sun exposure to have the vitamin D that you need.” Can you talk a bit about the nutritional deficiencies and some of the symptoms we might be seeing some of the things we can do, what to look for with supplements? Because you said it in a book, one a day actually isn’t one a day. You would need to take four of them just to get what your basic bodily needs are. But even then I’m not sure we actually get all of that from that one a day, just based on total quality and everything else. I know that’s a lot to throw out there, but could you tell us a bit about nutritional deficiencies and how we can recognize them and what we can do?
Dr. Gray (5:35): Sure. If you don’t mind, I might go off on a little tangent here. I think first we should clarify why we are so nutritionally deficient, because a lot of my patients say, “Why did my grandma never have to supplement, but I do?” Sadly, our world has really changed. The nutritional value that used to be in an apple grown in your grandma’s backyard unfortunately was better, much higher in nutritional content as compared to an apple today. Our apples might be three times the size, but they’re not packing that nutritional punch that apples used to. Unfortunately, our food sources are just not as nutritionally dense. We have very deficient soil, and even the USDA agriculture figures will show the decline in over 40 crops that they’ve been tracking for years. We know that the food that’s growing in this deficient soil is now deficient. Soil should be rich in antioxidants and vitamins and minerals, producing in foods the same, and that’s unfortunately not always the case. I even have patients who are growing their own food in their backyard and it’s organic, and the foods still, again, don’t pack that nutritional punch. That’s not our fault, but unfortunately that’s working against us.
The processing of foods also depletes nutrients. Half the time the food we’re eating has been harvested or picked days, weeks, even months before we’re eating it. And so, as you can imagine over time the nutrient content in those foods is declining. And then sometimes we even cook with really high heat, high temperature, and that’s blasting our foods, destroying some of the nutritional value. So, we’re unfortunately set up to be nutritionally deficient. And then when we add things like some lifestyle choices – if we choose to consume alcohol or caffeine, or smoke – those are all going to use up or deplete our body of nutrients. And if we take medications, many of my patients are shocked to know that the medications they’re taking are depleting them of nutrients. Many individuals are aware that drugs like statin medications for cholesterol can deplete CoQ10. And CoQ10 is a very important antioxidant in the body. It can help us with energy, and many patients who are taking a statin medication end up with myalgias or muscle pains, because their body has been robbed of that CoQ10. And that’s just one example. All sort of medications, even things like birth control, one patient might feel is just a basic medication, actually does deplete B vitamins and even magnesium.
So, very quickly, I just wanted to go over some of the reasons why we unfortunately are so low on nutrients. Then you add maybe exercise, or if you have a very stressful life, and again, what’s happening – your body is using up those nutrients. So, unfortunately we now, in our world today, need to supplement more than ever before, more than our grandma decades ago. That’s part of why we need the nutrients. But in my book, Your Longevity Blueprint, I try to describe nutrients as working in our body like putting a key in a keyhole. The nutrients are going to unlock certain processes in the body. I tell patients to think of nutrients as what you need, literally, to produce energy in that Krebs cycle, if you remember that from high school science class. You need nutrients to make hormones, hormones that make you feel good. So you just don’t want to be set up to be nutritionally deficient. The list of symptoms, I could go on and on, but fatigue is obviously one symptom. We could go nutrient by nutrient and discuss the symptoms that can exist.
Allan (9:25): For the core ones – vitamin D, C, B, the core ones. Maybe some of the minerals. I think this would be quite valuable, because I do believe that people will know if they don’t have enough iron, they may feel a little anemic and their energy will be low. Sometimes the doctor will pick that up in a blood test and say you’re low in your iron. That’s a fairly common test that a standard doctor would do, but it’s not often that a doctor will do a full blood panel to look at how deficient you might be in these various vitamins. So I think us having some basic recognition of when we might be deficient in a vitamin, so we know we at least need to start doing the diagnostic work.
Dr. Gray (10:03): Sure. So, B vitamin deficiencies are very common. B vitamins are what help our adrenals, they help us adapt to stress, they help us produce energy. One of the first supplements I’ll have a patient, especially an athlete start if they’re really tired is just a B Complex to see if that’s helping. Some patients can even have symptoms in the nervous system, so if they’re getting tingling, burning symptoms, whatnot, a lot of times they will need the B vitamins as well.
Vitamin D deficiency can also lead to fatigue. Actually I live in Iowa, so many of my patients are very low in vitamin D, just because we don’t have the sun year round. Patients who are low in vitamin D are going to be more likely to get sick, get the flu through that flu season, so that’s one of the first nutrients we try to optimize in our patients come fall time, so they can get their level high to protect them through the winter. I’ve had even patients young, in their 20s and 30s have fractures, and it’s not normal to have fractures when you’re young. One of the first things we’re then looking at in those patients if they end up with osteopenia or osteoporosis, is their vitamin D status. Sometimes, shockingly, even young patients are very low in vitamin D. Vitamin D helps greatly with bone density, so not just in the young populations, but also in the older populations we want to make sure we’re increasing vitamin D. Vitamin D greatly helps with mood, so if we think of seasonal affective disorder through the winter, that makes sense. Patients get more depressed when there’s no sunlight, they’re not getting their vitamin D through the winter. Those are some of the symptoms of low vitamin D.
And then you mentioned vitamin C. Vitamin C is great for immune support also, so that’s typically also a nutrient that I’m going to recommend through the winter, just to help support the patient for not getting sick. Many patients will bruise very easily, so one of the first nutrients we’ll recommend for them is also vitamin C. Vitamin C helps strengthen the capillaries so that they don’t bruise as easily. And then, do you want me to keep going?
Allan (12:08): A couple of the minerals I think would be valuable too, because there are some of them that are quite important and if we’re not monitoring those, there’s going to be some risk there.
Dr. Gray (12:19): So magnesium is probably the most important mineral in my opinion. It’s important for I think, over 300 different enzymatic pathways in the body. I recently wrote a blog on magnesium and all the different types, picking the best type of magnesium and whatnot. But I use magnesium in my patients because it’s a very calming, relaxing hormone. So if they’re having any symptoms of overstimulation, meaning anxiety, if they can’t sleep, if their legs feel kind of creepy crawly, if they’re having restless leg symptoms or cramping in the legs, we’ll give them magnesium to calm down the cramps or calm down the mind or calm down the heart. So magnesium can be extremely beneficial, even to calm the gut. If patients have constipation, magnesium can help relax the bowels to facilitate daily bowel movements in the morning. Magnesium also helps produce your hormones. So you don’t want to be low in magnesium if you have low hormones, which we all do. Hormones decline as we age, so supplementing with magnesium can help prevent some of that loss.
Allan (13:4): I was really happy in the book that when you got into the discussion of hormones, you didn’t go just one way or the other. I’ve seen so many books where they say, “Let’s focus on the sex hormones because that’s what people care about.” And then other people say, “I’m dealing with people that have thyroid issues, so they’re looking for a book on thyroid issues.” It’s not very common that someone will say, “Let’s just look at this whole thing together.” To me, they’re the one to punch vitality and feeling and being the best you you can be. If your sex hormones are not optimized, you don’t feel as good as you could, and obviously if you don’t have the thyroid hormones working, you’re not going to have the energy level that you need to have to do the things you want to do. So, to me they’re both just as important. I understand when someone has an issue on one side or the other, they’re going to be more focused on that, but if we’re coming at this looking at it from a “How to stay as healthy as we can” versus “How do I cure illness”, I want to look at both. And I’m glad that you did. Could you take a little bit of time to talk about hormones? How do we actually go about optimizing our hormones so that we can be the best we can be?
Dr. Gray (14:38): Sure. I think the first step is to really know your body and know, “What symptoms am I experiencing? Have I had hair loss? Have I had brain fog? Am I more cold? Have I had weight gain or more fatigue?” Those are all low thyroid symptoms. If you’re thinking you may have some low hormone symptoms, find a provider who can help you order a comprehensive hormone panel to get your levels checked to see where you’re at. And I would love it if my patients would have had levels checked in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, so we could track subtle changes, any subtle decline that’s happening each decade or half decade, whatnot. Sometimes patients’ levels are really low end, and I don’t know if that’s their baseline, I don’t know if that’s where they’ve been for years, or if their levels are barely in the reference range, is this a dramatic decline? Years ago, were they very high end of normal and now they’re low end of normal? So, it’d be really nice to be able to track those levels over the years so patients could detect if their levels are declining.
But having comprehensive thyroid hormone levels done is extremely important. I describe this in Chapter 6 of my book. TSH is thyroid-stimulating hormone, which should be checked. But I said my book it stands for “too slow to help”, because by the time TSH is high, many times T4 and T3 are very low. So you only have T3 receptors in your body. T4’s whole role in life is to convert to T3, and many doctors never check T3. They only check T4, and if T4 looks good they assume the patient’s good to go. And that’s not the case. So, a big take home is to make sure you have a free T3 checked – that’s the gas pedal on your metabolism and your energy. You want your gas on hard. You don’t want your reverse T3, which is the brake pedal on hard. You want those flipped. It’s also important to have the reverse T3 checked, and then thyroid antibodies. If thyroid antibodies are high, that indicates your body could be attacking itself. Those are some autoimmune markers. The more that your body attacks the thyroid, the more thyroid function is going to decline. Even if your thyroid function is holding steady but your antibody levels are high, that’s great information to have to know, “I need to stay ahead of this to prevent my thyroid hormone levels from further declining.” I can speak to sex hormones as well, but just from a thyroid standpoint, those are great tests to have your provider run, to give you a gauge on where you’re sitting today, to know if low thyroid is a problem for you currently.
Allan (17:18): Okay. And then on the sex hormones, how would we go about optimizing those?
Dr. Gray (17:25): Again, the first step is to get your levels tested. I think a lot of women think they don’t need testosterone, but actually they do. I have women very young who already have zero testosterone due to big stressors in their life or whatnot. Sometimes it’s difficult to maybe admit that we lose hormones as we age, but men aged 30 to 70 are going to lose 1% to 5% of their testosterone every year, and women aged 20 to 40 lose 50% of their total testosterone production. So it’s important to have testosterone levels checked in both men and women, and also estrogen levels checked in both men and women. A lot of guys think they don’t have estrogen, but many men convert their testosterone over to estrogen, and that’s what men don’t want. We need to have lower estrogen, higher testosterone in men. So, checking those hormones is important. And then in women also checking progesterone. Progesterone’s the most soothing, calming hormone, great for sleep. Many women in their 30s and 40s get put on antidepressants or anxiety medications, and really the root cause of the problem was low progesterone, but no one ever assessed it. So, asking your provider to check estrogen, progesterone, testosterone is a great start.
Allan (18:40): Cool. And then from there you can decide how you want to address some deficiencies or some low numbers through the help of your healthcare provider.
Dr. Gray (18:51): Yes. And there are natural ways to boost hormones. We could talk about optimizing, again, nutritional status. Also, many times herbs can be very effective for patients who haven’t had hysterectomies, who still have all their organs. Using herbs can help to produce hormones. But in my clinic we do specialize in natural hormone replacement therapy for both men and women, and there are lots of options for those patients.
Allan (19:16): One of the things I really do want to recap here is that your standard doctor, bless their heart – they are going to go in and try to take care of you when you go and say you’re not feeling well. You may go in for regular checkups, so they’ll do the normal stuff, but the normal blood panel is going to be looking at your cholesterol and maybe they’re looking at some organ function, particularly if they know there’s some lifestyle things going on. They may check some bits and pieces of the data that you might want to have. But when you’re really looking at this, I think it’s worth at least once a year, maybe once every two years, if you need to push it off, is to go out get a full-on panel. What are my potential nutritional deficiencies, what are my potential hormone issues?
And I say this even if you don’t feel like you have symptoms, because one of the funny things is, you might think you’re normal – you might think, “This is my normal day. I wake up, I have trouble sleeping, I feel a little groggy in the morning. I do my coffee and I’m good to go for the day, as long as I drink coffee until 3:00 in the afternoon.” And that’s the normal day. And you say that’s normal, but you get yourself tested and you realize that your testosterone is a little low, perhaps your vitamin D is a little low, and your vitamin B, particularly B12 is low. If we actually supplement for these things, now you start to realize what actual normal should feel like, because you get back up to stability and you get up to where you’re now optimized.
Sorry to interject there, but I think so many people just go in and say, “Well, my doctor…” And the generation before us I think was so much more, “My doctor said it so it’s the absolute truth.” I think we have to be engaged as a part of our health care. The normal doctor isn’t necessarily inclined to want to go that route initially because he has seven minutes with you. He has to figure out what’s wrong with you, he has to prescribe medication, and then he has to move on to the next patient. But a holistic functional doctor is really going to have more opportunity and a more holistic view of health. I need to go find that person because my current doctor in my own town might not be that person. How do I find a contractor? In your book you say “contractor”, like doing the house stuff, but how do I find the right person to treat me for optimal health?
Dr. Gray (21:54): Good question. That’s the topic of the last chapter in my book. My book is about building a healthier body using functional medicine. So just to clarify to the audience here, I’m comparing how we maintain our home – we’re mowing the lawn, we keep hair out of the drain, we make sure we’re changing our furnace filters. We do all these things for maintenance for our home, but yet we don’t always do, or we don’t always know even what maintenance is available for our body. So, the last chapter of the book I discuss finding a contractor, who I describe as being a functional medicine provider, to help them rebuild and repair their body. We need conventional docs. If you have strep throat, if you have an emergency, we need them to be available, but unfortunately they don’t have a lot of training in nutrition. So again, they may tell you all your labs are normal – your blood count, your kidney, liver function, your cholesterol, as you were referring to, but they have never looked really deep. They haven’t really explored what a functional medicine provider could explore.
In your area usually, hopefully, you could find either an anti-aging, a regenerative or a functional medicine provider. You can search by your zip code on either the A4M, which is the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine’s website, or the IFM – Institute for Functional Medicine website, and hopefully find someone. Even if they’re not real local, a lot of these providers will see patients virtually, over the phone, or you can make a day trip to go see one. In a lot of the larger states, functional medicine is growing very rapidly. So, Florida, California, Texas, are states that are going to be easier to find providers than in the Midwest, where I’m from. There are probably only five or six in my state. But they are available; you just have to be able to find them. And they have the training. I have masters in Metabolic and Nutritional Medicine. Many of my colleagues have this training where they’re more understanding, they interpret the labs differently, and they have access to functional medicine labs. My primary care provider unfortunately can’t order a nutritional analysis; it’s just not available through our local hospital systems. But I have a contract with the functional medicine lab so I can run a fancy nutritional analysis on my patients. It’s 20 pages of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antioxidants. We can literally test glutathione levels, which is amazing, and even looking at their omega-3 fatty acid levels in the blood. So, the unique thing about these functional medicine providers is that they do have some specialized testing that can really optimize your health. You just have to find the provider to work with.
Allan (24:33): Yes. I think that’s so critical because we can’t depend on the current medical system to make us well. If we’re injured, if we’re sick – yes, they’ve been doing that, they know how to do that. But if you really want to optimize health, you really want to feel well all the time and you really want to have longevity, like you say in Your Longevity Blueprint – but the reality is if you want to have a wonderful life and really enjoy it – these are some valuable tests for you to check out. Even if you’re not really having major symptoms – I do want to stress – get out there every once in a while and find out what your numbers are. I’m not going to advertise any of them here, but you can go look online. There are some sites that you can actually do full panels yourself. You just go to a local lab and they’ll draw. So a local phlebotomist will draw it and they’ll send it off to these labs, and they’ll do a full workup for you and send it to you. And it’s written in plain English to help you interpret what you see. At that point you can either have a conversation with your primary physician, or you can seek out a professional that’s going to understand what you’re going through and what you want to try to accomplish. Dr. Gray, thank you so much for being a part of the 40+ Fitness podcast. If someone wanted to reach out and get to know more about you, where would you like for me to send them?
Dr. Gray (25:55): They can check out YourLongevityBlueprint.com/40. That is a link to a page on my website where we’re offering a 10% off storewide purchases code. The code is thanks40. You can certainly check me out there. I do have a free PDF to download on three top tips to boost your hormones naturally. I talk about reducing stress, reducing your toxin exposure and fixing nutritional deficiencies. And you can certainly see my book in our book trailer video right on that website – YourLongevityBlueprint.com/40.
Allan (26:31): And as you said, there’s a lot more in the book than we could ever, ever hope to cover in a podcast. So, do check out the book. There’s a lot of valuable information in there for you to kind of understand what’s going on in your body, and some great actionable items for you to use in building your health and fitness. As I said before, Dr. Gray, thank you for being on the podcast.
Dr. Gray (26:52): Thank you. And to all the listeners – know there’s hope. If you don’t feel right, there’s an answer. Find a provider who can help you get those answers.
Allan (27:05): I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dr. Gray. I certainly did. Really, a lot of good information there. The book is well worth the purchase, so I would encourage you to go out and get Your Longevity Blueprint. It’s a really, really good book. It’ll teach you a lot about yourself and help you be a big partner and big lead – the driver in your wellness journey.
So the last week I went to Panama – actually, it was an island set called Bocas del Toro. Spend some time with my wife, just kind of unwind, enjoy ourselves, learn a little bit about the place and the culture. It really does interest me, and maybe might end up being a place that we spend a lot more time than we had originally thought. We’re looking into that; more on that later.
I wanted to also let you know before we go that this is going to be the last week that I’m going to leave open the waiting list for The Wellness GPS. If you want to be a part of the launch team, the team that goes through and does their Wellness GPSs with me walking you through step by step, you need to go to 40PlusFitnessPodcast.com/GPS. If you’re not on that list, you’re probably not going to hear about this because the list is filling up and there’s almost enough people on there now that it will fill the 20 slots. I can only work with 20 people because this is hands-on. I’m working with you daily for the seven-day challenge as we go about putting together our Wellness GPS. If you’re interested, you need to go there today and sign up – 40PlusFitnessPodcast.com/GPS. I’ll announce it there when I open it, it’s going to be open until the 20 slots are filled, so it’s probably just going to be people that are on this waiting list that are going to get the opportunity to be a part of this challenge. It’s not an open challenge. It’s going to be open only to the individuals that are on this list until I fill the 20 slots, and then we’re done. So again, 40PlusFitnessPodcast.com/GPS.
And then finally, I know I’ve been talking about it for the past few weeks, but we’re working on getting the final bit of manuscript together for The Wellness Roadmap book that I’ve been working on. And I’ve also put out a base site for the book. You can go to WellnessRoadmapBook.com to learn more about the topic matter of the book, learn a little bit about me. I am setting up a mailing list that’s going to be specific for the book. You won’t be getting other mailings from me; this is going to be my launch team. When you write a book, it’s really not an individual thing. Yes, I do spend a lot of time alone, writing and editing and typing and redlining. I’m not the most efficient writer out there, so it does take me a little while. So there’s a lot of alone time – don’t get me wrong – but launching a book is really a team sport, and I need you on my team. I need you to help me make this book a success, and the way we do that is we coordinate our work, we coordinate what we do. And the best way for me to do that with you would be through this mailing list. I will only mail you on that mailing list information about the book, the progress on the book, things like that. But I won’t be mailing you other stuff. So this is a very private, single-source, single-use email list. If you want to be a part of the launch team, please go sign up today. You can go to WellnessRoadmapBook.com, and at the bottom of that page you’ll see where you can give me your name and email and I can make you a part of the launch team. A launch like this can be a lot of fun, working together, getting things done. You’ll get some special discounts on the book, you might get some additional freebies and bonuses that I can throw in there. I’ll be looking at what I can do and what I can’t do, but this is the group that’s going to help me launch the book and make it a success, and I want to do as much for you as I possibly can. So go to WellnessRoadmapBook.com and go ahead and join the launch team today. Thank you.
On this episode, Magdelina Wszelaki and I discuss her book Cooking for Hormone Balance. This book is much more than a cookbook, it provides many different recipes using the foods that support hormone health. Beyond that, the book presents the science behind why these foods do what they do.
As a young woman, Madelina didn't eat well and as a result, she began to suffer health consequences. These got progressively worse until she said enough is enough and started working on her food to get proper hormone balance.
She recommends we work on our digestive health first. Digestive imbalance can lead to internal stress that causes cortisol and adrenal issues, These hormones are the foundation for maintaining hormone balance. Problems with digestion can cause all kinds of hormone imbalances, including estrogen dominance and gallbladder problems.
Constipation is a problem that many of us suffer from. This is a red flag that our digestive health is off. You should be having a good bowel movement each day.
Magdelina presents an elimination style diet. She recommends you eliminate (her recipes are free of all of these items):
After you've allowed your digestive system to heal, you can reintroduce these foods one at a time to see how your body deals with each. This will allow you to identify your troubled foods.
When Magdelina moved to the US ten years ago, she was shocked at the amount of sugar was in the foods. This is even the case for foods that are advertised as healthy. Excess sugar causes inflammation and can eventually cause insulin resistance. Our adrenals will step in to assist with balancing blood sugar levels. This further taxes them.
You should focus on having a savory breakfast with protein, fat, and fiber. Avoid sugar. You'll feel more grounded and clear in the head.
There are different elimination pathways in the liver. Each helps remove different things like viruses, parasites, toxin, heavy metal, or hormone. Supporting your liver, giving it the right nutrition, so it can bind with and remove hormones. Foods high in sulfur such as broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, an arugula are very important to support liver health, leading to hormone balance.
Her program is a systematic approach that uses good tasting, healthy foods to deal with your hormone issues. After you heal yourself in phase one of her program, she presents a phase two to help you maintain. She also includes specific protocols for specific issues. And then there are some really awesome recipes.
To learn more about Magdelina and her book Cooking for Homone Balance, go to CookingForHormoneBalance.com.
Today we talk to best-selling author, JJ Flizanes. She is an Amazon best-selling author of Fit 2 Love: How to get Physically, Emotionally and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life, and the author of Knack Absolute Abs: Routines for a Fit and Firm Core. JJ Flizanes is also the host of “The Fit 2 Love Podcast.” We’re happy to have her on the show as we talk about the role of hormones in fitness and as we age. .
As we go through life, our hormone levels change. As we age, we experience decreases in hormones, which have both a physical and emotional impact. Women experience menopause; men experience andropause. Adrenal fatigue is also an issue we are experiencing in today’s modern society, which can cause an early onset of either menopause or andropause.
We discuss with JJ Flizanes the process of monitoring hormone levels through a comprehensive metabolic profile test that can be completed by your doctor. Blood work testing should cover progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, Thyroid (TSH, T2, T3, T4), Adrenals (Cortisol, DEHA) and also Vitamin D and Iron.
We also discuss the importance of rest, relaxation, lifestyle, and nutrition choices. JJ emphasizes that physical exercise is very important to your hormone levels. In particular, resistance training is critical as we age for building muscle.
A change in hormones as we age is a natural, human process. For her clients and followers, JJ Flizanes designs customized coaching programs and unique, versatile approaches that harmonize the emotional, the mental and the spiritual. JJ provided a ton of knowledge for us concerning hormones and other topics, you can find additional information from her in the following locations:
Website: fit2love.tv
Full show on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fit-2-love-physical-emotional/id916562580?mt=2
Music used for the podcast Intro and Outro: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music