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.
Also, Amanda wants to send you a signed copy of the book. Go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/menopocalypse for more details.
Transcript
[00:03:29.210] – Allan Amanda, welcome to Forty Plus Fitness.
[00:03:31.230] – Amanda Thank you for having me on the show. I'm happy to be here.
[00:03:34.860] – Allan You know, the interesting thing is, you know, when you see a book about menopause and your book is called Menopocalypse.
[00:03:46.950] – Amanda Think of the zombie apocalypse, this is similar to that only with menopause. Menopocalypse.
[00:03:51.610] – Allan Yes. And the subtitle on that was How I Learned to Thrive during Menopause and How You Can Too. And so, you know, the book is basically addressed to women. But I'm going to be very honest with you as a man, with a woman, with a wife or anybody around you that's aged anywhere from sometimes as early as thirty-five, all the way up to mid 50s.
[00:04:14.250] – Allan This is good stuff to know. You know, this is a playbook to understand what could be going on in their lives and your relationship and everything else. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you because even though it doesn't apply to my health, it does apply to my life because I have a wife that is going through some of these changes right now.
[00:04:33.900] – Amanda I think it's that was one of the ways I approached writing this book is obviously I'm knee deep in the fitness industry. I've been in it for decades. And this is new information for me. I couldn't find this information on our usual fitness sources. I was really quite frustrated how fitness information went from like pre postnatal pardon, you call it pre postpartum fitness and health to the over fifty health. And it was like this big chunk in the middle that was missing.
[00:05:04.590] – Amanda And it wasn't until I had my own personal experience of struggling through this time that I realized that if I could get information out there, it would be really helpful not just to women, but male trainers and husbands and partners and fathers of daughters. And my husband obviously has read the book. And as just as well, we had conversations during my time through perimenopause and menopause.
[00:05:32.760] – Amanda And he just said, I think all men should read this because it just makes us feel like we understand what's happening and we can support, you know, and help. And the male trainer has been able to support your female client is really important if you have that empathy and understanding, it goes a long way.
[00:05:52.230] – Allan It does. And because I've got I've got clients all across that spectrum and I think many of them think I'm not going to get this till I'm in my 50s. This is something that happens in the fifties, but it can start happening a lot earlier and in fact, run longer than I thought. You know, like I said, I learned a lot from the book, and I really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation with you.
[00:06:12.190] – Allan Now when we're talking about menopause, I think I just kind of thinks it's just this this day or as a guy I would relate it to say, OK, I went through puberty and it was an awkward two years, you know, where my voice was cracking and I was growing and hair started showing up where it was supposed to show up.
[00:06:32.610] – Amanda We could stop there. I know.
[00:06:36.100] – Allan Yeah. You know, and so it's just a couple of awkward years for most of us that we go through. But menopause is very, very different because you have the different stages, the perimenopause before and then the post menopause after. Can you kind of just walk us through that cycle of what's going on when it happens, why it happens and, you know, just kind of so we can lay the groundwork.
[00:06:58.920] – Amanda Absolutely. And I really like the analogy to puberty. So, you know, I sometimes hear people saying, well, isn't menopause essentially like reverse puberty? Isn't it that type of thing? I mean, it's a life transition. Every every woman, if she's lucky enough, is going to go through it and go into old age. And essentially that is what it is. But it just comes with a lot of nuances and it comes and it doesn't just feel like a life transition because it can go on for a long time.
[00:07:27.790] – Amanda It can start late thirties and I'll go through the three different stages. But essentially, once you've reached menopause, you're in menopause until you die. So it's half your life potentially that you're in this different state where you need to have an awareness about what's happening. So the three common stages that you will hear talked about through menopause is perimenopause, menopause and post menopause. Perimenopause typically lasts between eight and 10 years on average, depending on which data source you look at. Can start any time from late 30s into into your 50s.
[00:08:08.290] – Amanda It's a time when your sexual hormones will start to decline, which are estrogen and progesterone. And what happens is they don't just stop. You know, they don't you don't just stop producing them. The end result is that you don't produce any you can't produce anymore babies. Right. Like you, you cease to reproduce. But the hormones don't just want to say, OK, that's it, you're done. Time to tie up your tubes and then move on into old age. You have an eight to ten year period where these hormones decline, but not always in a linear fashion. Progesterone tends to fall in a more finite, linear fashion but estrogen just goes crazy. It jumps all over the place.
[00:08:52.600] – Amanda And these wildly fluctuating hormones can cause a horrendous amount of symptoms for women that are often unassociated with hormones, hormones often not recognized by the medical community, and often can impede a woman's quality of life. And I don't just mean so she feels crap. I mean, so that it ruins it can ruin her life. And we'll talk about that later. And it can be managed. But not many people talk about it or are aware of how it can be managed.
[00:09:26.230] – Amanda Then we move on to menopause, which is supposedly like a line in the sand, like a timestamp of when a woman hasn't had a menstrual cycle for twelve months and she is considered to be in menopause, and then she would that day forward, she is then postmenopausal or menopausal.
[00:09:45.550] – Amanda I mean, they're words and interchangeable, but essentially you have a period of time before your periods stops and then the time after your periods stop. And that's what happens. When a woman goes into post menopause, we typically see a lot of those crazy erratic symptoms die down, but a woman can still have symptoms that impede her quality of life and will stay with all of her life after that. And then she is then also at considerable risk because of the lack of the protective hormone estrogen for major diseases that will kill her, that can kill us. And so we need to be aware of the symptomatic side of perimenopause and then the health protective side of post menopause.
[00:10:33.010] – Allan Yeah, and I think that's the thing. You know, this is this is the rest of your life. And once it's kind of starts down the perimenopause, there's a period here you've got to manage. And then after that, there's going to be a period afterwards that you then have more of a steady state. So, you know, I think one of the things that was surprising as I went through the book was how many types of symptoms there are that are associated with this, because I just thought, you know, from my wife's perspective, having the conversation is like, I'll be glad when I don't have periods anymore, you know, because she's not going to have any more children.
[00:11:06.340] – Allan So she's. It's no use for the periods in her mind, but losing your period or sporadic or erratic periods is not really the end all be all this is this is massive, the conditions that you can suffer through. Can you talk about the most common symptoms?
[00:11:24.620] – Amanda Yeah, and actually, I'm referring to my book as I talk to you, because there is so many I often can't remember to quote them all. And it's interesting because I also had the same, I might add, the same sort of viewpoint. I can't wait till this is all over. I don't need my periods. And I also assume that menopause really was just a case of you stop having your periods and you might have a few hot flashes.
[00:11:47.150] – Amanda And we know it's so much more than that. And interesting enough is that the symptoms are very individual to every woman. It's a common journey that we all share, but no one woman is going to have the same experience as another. And so these symptoms are broad scope. You may have them, you may not have them, but these are some of the more common things that women talk about during especially perimenopause.
[00:12:16.330] – Amanda So the regular periods may or may not happen. And some women lose their periods for months and months. Some have them continually. And so there's no rhyme or reason to when a woman's period can well, come on. And some continue to have regular periods right up until they reach menopause.
[00:12:35.450] – Amanda But some other things they can happen to them are things like depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue. And it's a fatigue that you just can't sleep off. It never goes away. Migrans, hot flashes, weight gain, which is like a bit of a you know, I touch on this in the book and it's not really a symptom, but it's something that seems to happen to women and when they put weight on, it definitely doesn't help with their feelings of low self-esteem and depression.
[00:13:06.230] – Amanda And sleep problems are huge. Insomnia, which is often exacerbated by night sweats, which are essentially hot flashes during the night. And women can have multiple like twenty, thirty of those a night. And losing sleep, as we know, is just terrible for our overall health and cognitive issues like short term memory loss. Even just remembering words. I mean, I've literally changed the sentence I was going to say because I can't remember a word that I was going to use.
[00:13:38.120] – Amanda And I know that that's part of aging as well. But these things are really exacerbated when our estrogen levels start to fluctuate because we have estrogen receptors all over the body. And so they're in our blood brain barrier. They're in our joints. So many women have aching, sore joints that feels like a rheumatoid arthritis. And that's essentially from the estrogen fluctuations. Sex drive is another thing. It can, it usually falls off the edge of the planet. But sometimes you can crawl the wall, but not very often.
[00:14:14.270] – Amanda But I mean, that's something that can impact relationships. And women put a lot of, you know, stress and fault on themselves. And GI issues are also another thing that women complain about. They can not get food, food, sensitivities and bloating, some irritable bowel, those type of things. And and then some of the things that, like lesser known things that women experience and I think are really relevant to the fitness crowd, are things that impact their self belief, their self-esteem and their confidence.
[00:14:46.220] – Amanda We see a real decline in that in women and that sort of lack of belief in their athletic ability. And I think that's really sad because we know women are very strong and very capable, but we see it presented to us in the gym that I can't do that. I don't think I can do that anymore. And so and that's really not a symptom, but it's definitely something that happens through menopause as well. And it's something you can work on with your clients.
[00:15:15.310] – Allan Yeah, you know, I think as we went through the book and I went through a lot of those, one that really hit me is that there's this relationship between estrogen and oxytocin. And those that don't know oxytocin is basically the love hormone. It's the feeling close and and connected. And so if you're if you're if you're dealing with some of the physical changes because, you know, when your estrogen goes down, you're more apt to store fat in your belly.
[00:15:45.010] – Allan So you're going to notice some changes in your body shape. As you mentioned in the book, I think people tend to put on about 10 pounds during that period of time. Men do it, too. So just so you know, it's not it's not just a woman thing, but 10 pounds. And even if you don't gain or lose weight during that period of time, you're storing it differently. And so it's going to be it's going to pick up from the places where you liked it and it's going to set down on some places that you might not like it so much. But all these changes to your body, all these changes in your emotions, you know, sometimes, you know, I'm not going to use the word, but women can get a little abrupt, a little stressed and a little crazy.
[00:16:28.240] – Amanda The abruptness is actually one of the positive aspects of menopause because we just don't want to stand for your crap anymore. So, you know, as far as weapons thats a good thing.
[00:16:35.680] – Allan And that's perfect. Yeah, that's a good thing. But during that transition, it's you're feeling like you're a different person. You're looking like a different person in many senses. But then now you also have this hormone change where you're just not feeling as close to people and that can really impact relationships.
[00:16:56.020] – Amanda You know, it's one of those really interesting things that I never even thought about. But I have a community on Facebook and we often talk about just how we are feeling and how we're doing. And women just kept saying all the time, I just don't feel like as close to my husband as I used to. I just I just don't I just want to be on my own more.
[00:17:15.850] – Amanda I really I really feel like I need to start looking after myself more. And it often happens at a time, you know, just statistically that our teenage children also may be sort of like being more independent and they don't need us as much. And it all sort of links together.
[00:17:33.700] – Amanda And so I dug deep into the research and I found the genuine connection between the lowering of our estrogen levels and the lowering of our oxytocin too and as you said, it's like our love hormone. And it's the thing that bonds us. And it's at our highest when we have children, when we're breastfeeding. It's the thing that sort of connects us to our partners and helps with orgasms. I don't know if that's OK. It's still on the show, but it does and and also helps, you know, with anxieties and our ability to thrive and sort of take chances.
[00:18:07.270] – Amanda And we see all of that sort of ultimately shift. But what happens is at the same time like menopause is happening. There's so many things that are changing Allan. Like you say, we are the ultimate shape shifter. We we can shape our fat deposits where they land change. We feel different about ourself. The change is happening and we're not really in control of it. And then we start to pull away from our partners and maybe our children and we start to feel as though, well, what about me?
[00:18:38.410] – Amanda And they often call it the like the we to me transition for women. And while that might seem like a little bit selfish, hearing me say this, I actually think it's a good thing. Because as mothers and as wives and as just women who are nurturers, we give, give, give all the time and we put ourselves on the back burner often. And one of the things that menopause made me realize is that.
[00:19:04.800] – Amanda Well, actually, I have to start taking care of myself now because I'm really important to their whole puzzle of my family, and if I'm not functioning properly, then the rest of it just goes to pot. Nothing works. And that's often the keystone of a like a relationship or a family. And so even though all of these changes are happening and relationships may feel different or strained or unusual, I think it's just a really good time for reflection and for us to sit down and say whats important to me right now? What makes me thrive? How can I make this situation work for me and my family and my partner?
[00:19:46.770] – Amanda And so, like for me, I went through something very, very similar to the analogy you've said, and I am with my husband at one point, like I didn't realize, but his mind was wander and he had no idea what I was going through. I was riddled with depression. And migraines that sent me to bed for days on end with no help from the medical community and I know we're going to touch on that. I eventually went to my annual gynecological checkup I suppose, like, you know, the tune up that you take in your car and follow.
[00:20:19.530] – Amanda Well, I went in for mine and the doctor recognized that something wasn't right. And he said, I think you're going to perimenopause. These are very typical symptoms and you don't need to suffer needlessly. I can help you. And I just felt this massive relief and I felt, oh, there's an answer to why this is happening. And I went to see my husband afterwards for dinner, for lunch, sorry. And I said to him, yes, I've got perimenopause and I've got depression and, you know, migraines and. Oh, my God. So you're not going to leave me then?
[00:20:54.440] – Amanda Because the poor guy the whole time had been thinking that I hated his guts, that I couldn't stand to be around him and all those things were true. But I don't feel like it was what I was feeling. I feel like if they were being masked by these horrendous symptoms that were just consuming me. So we are also good by the way.
[00:21:15.180] – Allan That's good to hear. You know, again, going through some of your story, going through some of the things that you've talked about in the book, I was like, OK, my main problem getting older is that hair is growing out of places I don't want it to grow out of. So I think I've got it pretty easy. I can figure out how to get along with my wife. But that said, there are ways that you can improve your chances, improve and thrive through this period of time.
[00:21:40.370] – Allan But you have to take a proactive approach. You can't just sit back because this is not going to just go away in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. And, you know, it's not like just getting through one migraine or saying, oh, I'm a little depressed, I'll take an antidepressant and we'll just we'll just move on.
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[00:23:25.590] – Allan Now, in the book, you talked about hormone replacement therapy, hormone therapy and bioidentical hormones, but there are also some natural remedies like black cohosh and natural Ashwagandha. Yeah, and so but there's some, you know, I think when we start talking about some of these things, because there was a study, of course, there was a study that tied breast cancer to estrogen. And while the study might not have been the best in the world at the way it was done, there's still lingering effect.
[00:23:57.150] – Allan People think that they can't do these hormone therapies or do these things because of the potential problems. Can you talk about what's available and how how someone can kind of evaluate what's right for them?
[00:24:09.750] – Amanda Yeah, it's a bit of a minefield out there. And I have to admit, I was one of those people, too. When my mom went through menopause, I was like, you are not going on any hormone therapy. I knew about this study. And I was like, that's not for you. And it was about that time for my own mom. When I went to the gynecologist and he sort of said, yeah, this is perimenopause. I can get you on hormone replacement therapy, it will help you.
[00:24:30.960] – Amanda And I was like, no way. No, I mean, this is nine years ago almost nine. And I said, I don't trust it, I don't feel good about it. So I actually opted to go on an antidepressant and the antidepressant helped with both my migraines and my depression. But when other symptoms started to come up, because they do they come and go, they you know, they fluctuate like your hormones. It wasn't enough. And by this time I'd spoken to lots of experts and I dug deep into the research and I felt very confident with my choice.
[00:25:04.520] – Amanda And I just thought it was so difficult to get this information and I didn't understand why. And so that's sort of why I wrote a whole chapter on this, because women and well, humans sorry. We hold on to the fear. It's just what we do. And so in 2002, the WHI, which is the Women's Health Institute, published a report and the report said that there was an increased risk of the following diseases. Cardiovascular disease, stroke and breast cancer by using estrogen therapy.
[00:25:38.840] – Amanda And so what their advice was right then in 2002, they said the risks are too grave to issue estrogen as a treatment and it should be stopped immediately. And so that's what happened. Doctors all over the world just stop prescribing estrogen. What happened, though, since that date is the WHI. Some of the researchers in that study came up and stood up and said we didn't even research their findings properly. We didn't actually have the chance to. It was as soon as there was an inkling there was a risk, it was published and we didn't actually analyze the data properly.
[00:26:19.010] – Amanda And so some of them have come out post hoc and analyzed it again and come up with completely different, a completely different viewpoint. And it's the viewpoint now that's shared by all of the medical bodies, including the North American Menopause Society and the British Menopause Society. And they have categorically stated that there is no increased risk for any of those diseases.
[00:26:42.320] – Amanda Specifically, breast cancer is the one that women talk about by taking estrogen therapy. No more so than lifestyle choices. And, you know, like if we drink or heavy drinkers, smoker, if we do carry extra weight, if we're on the up on the obesity, I don't really like talking about obesity like it is, but it's considered a risk factor that there is no significant statistically significantly different risk. And and in science, the statistical significance is something that they talk about. And it's it was minuit and it was so small it wasn't worth considering.
[00:27:22.820] – Amanda And so they now, all of the medical bodies, like I say, have agreed that estrogen therapy is safe and estrogen is not a carcinogenic substance. We know that. Right. So then but what happened in the meantime is during that period of 2002 and recently, I think probably in the last 10 years, I don't actually know when when people started using HRT more confidently.
[00:27:50.270] – Amanda But there was a period of time when doctors refused to prescribe estrogen therapy. And the compounding pharmacies then were like, this is our chance to like to help women out. And they did. So they were prescribing uncompounded hormones that weren't regulated. And that's just the difference, right? They were issuing women hormones that the FDA had not approved. And so there was a there was a concern about the efficacy, the safety, and also the fact that when you take an estrogen, you have to take a progesterone with it.
[00:28:27.920] – Amanda The progesterone protects your uterus. There's the compounding pharmacies were issuing a progesterone cream to women that wasn't providing enough protection to the uterus and was put women at high risk of uterine cancer. So it was an opportune moment for them. They made millions and billions and trillions probably.
[00:28:47.900] – Amanda I actually don't have never looked at the numbers, but but now we're in a situation where if a woman wants to go on a hormone therapy and she is a candidate and there's parameters that women have got to fall within, a doctor can safely prescribe FDA approved hormones for a woman to take.
[00:29:08.210] – Amanda Now, I just want to touch on bioidentical hormones because what happened, the compounding pharmacies use the word bioidentical because they said that the only hormones you could get from your doctor was synthetic and they weren't natural and they could give you natural hormones. And it's a false equivalency because it's it's just not true. The FDA have bioidentical hormones. And all that means is that the hormones are produced to match the molecular structure of the hormones in your body. And they're derived from plant sources.
[00:29:45.680] – Amanda And you can get them and have been tested for efficacy and safety and they usually covered on insurance for a couple of dollars a month, whereas the unregulated ones can cost women hundreds and hundreds every month, and it doesn't make sense to me when you're talking about cost safety against safety and lower costs. So that's where we are with bioidentical. So my advice to women and I'm not a doctor and so I'm not telling you what to do, but I've talked to experts and I've done my research is that if you want to go on hormones, you go and speak to your doctor.
[00:30:18.460] – Amanda If your doctor is not informed because many aren't asked to speak to a referral to a menopause specialist and get regulated hormones. Now, when it comes to doing things outside of medical intervention, and I have no problem with medical intervention and I just don't see why it should be a problem for people. I hear the idea that menopause is medicalized. And I'm like, yes, so what? It's a micro dose of hormones that literally gives the woman back her quality of life.
[00:30:49.570] – Amanda It can help with the symptoms. And we know it's protective against some of these major diseases that kill us in post menopause. But things, other things that a woman could do to support her journey. Like you said, the black cohosh and Ashwagandha, there have been some studies on this. But the problem is, is none of those medications are regulated. So you just don't know the quality or the efficacy of the supplements like all supplements.
[00:31:17.860] – Amanda You know that, right? So and for women with really bad symptoms, sometimes it's not enough for some women with some mild symptoms, it can be enough. But neither of those natural things will replace the estrogen that your body's lost. Neither will food. You can eat as much phytoestrogen based food as you want, which is like soy, tofu. And it will help you and it will support your body, but it will not replace the estrogen that you are losing.
[00:31:45.430] – Amanda So you can do things to add the journey and smooth the journey. And I definitely recommend that women speak to a specialist, talk about different options and see what works for them. And then also know that you may need to change it, because as your hormones change, you may not need to do everything you've been doing all along. It's like literally I don't even know how to describe it.
[00:32:10.500] – Allan Whackable
[00:32:13.630] – Amanda Something like, yeah whackable. But the upshot of it is that women do not need to needlessly suffer. There is help available for them. They should grab it and they should advocate for it and actually give women ideas on how to advocate in the medical profession, because it can be hard. We've got to we've got to be tough in there. But honestly, we deserve to be helped.
[00:32:38.120] – Allan Absolutely. Now, one of the things you got into in the book, which I thought was was really important, was one, you kind of went through some things with the healthy diet, you know, to avoid processed foods, limit your alcohol intake, those types of things that people should be just doing anyway. But you got into something I thought is critically important when it comes to food because it's not talked about enough is not just what you eat, but how to eat.
[00:33:05.650] – Allan Would you would you take us through that? Because I think this is important. We forget this. We forget this a lot. And as a result, we end up not getting the results we want or getting the health outcome we want. And I just think it's really important for people to recognize that it's not just when, it's not just how much, or what kinds of foods, but actually how we eat.
[00:33:27.710] – Amanda Psychological process around. Right. It's really important. And so like the nutrition part of my book. So the essentially the second part of the book is broke down into four areas. We have a strength training component. We have nutrition component. We have a stress management component. And we have a mind set component as well.
[00:33:47.290] – Amanda And then the nutrition component, there is no menopause specific diet. So this nutrition component is actually valid for most people. Like there's nothing in there that's rocket science, right? Like I tell you what the micronutrients do, how they respond in the body. There are some nuances when it comes to menopause for sure. And I talk about those, but essentially the whole how we, the what we eat shouldn't really change much from what we know from nutrition science.
[00:34:16.630] – Amanda But the how we eat is so important because, you know, I always think that, like menopausal women are targets. Like, you know, we are lion's share of the like the fitness world, whether with a desperate women, we have probably a bit more disposable income.
[00:34:31.900] – Amanda And so they see our vulnerability and go try this keto green diet, try this, try that supplement. And it's just, stop. Please stop doing that because it is unethical also. It's not necessary. And I think that what I've tried to do in the nutrition component is simplify everything so that a woman can just go into this with valid choices. And so I talk about like the how to eat, right?
[00:35:00.120] – Amanda So we're a nation of people that eat too quickly. We don't consider what hunger feels like. We don't know when to stop. And we eat mindlessly. We don't eat mindfully. And so don't sound like a bloody hippie, but like it really matters how you approach eating. And so I try and break that down. And so, you know, I try and explain to people that, you know, hunger won't kill you. It's OK to feel hungry. And that where we can become like robots. We can say, oh, it's noon, I better eat my lunch instead of like like sitting there and saying, I'm hungry. Am I am I ready to eat? Is it appropriate?
[00:35:43.790] – Amanda Like because sometimes we eat because it's what's expected and not what our body needs. And so the cues that I talk about help you try and understand your body signals. And these are things that can stay with you for life. And it's amazing. So some of the key things are, recognizing true hunger. Is it true hunger or is it boredom? And so I always, even just take a simple pause, even just by your tummy starts to rumble a little bit.
[00:36:13.220] – Amanda I want I ask people to sit and just think about it and say, OK, am I actually bored? Like, am I eating because I'm bored. I'm eating because I'm like, thirsty. Should I take a drink or is this true hunger and then sit for 30 minutes and just see if that hunger dies away. If it dies away, then you probably weren't hungry. If it doesn't, then eat. Right. You actually recognize what true hunger feels like.
[00:36:39.320] – Amanda And I give like a scale in the book to sort of like try and pinpoint because we boredom eaters and we will have chips on the desk and we'll eat them without even thinking and wonder why we've consumed an extra eight hundred calories a day. And so my family, no electronics at the table ever.
[00:36:59.390] – Amanda We put our electronics off, we all sit down and we converse and we actually make family meal times again where we sit down and we appreciate the food I've made because I make sure they do, that when they appreciate the food that they're eating and they enjoy food and that they appreciate like all of the cultural stuff that goes around it. Instead of just wolfing it down, watching the telly and, you know, not actually focusing on what you're doing.
[00:37:26.840] – Amanda And then specifically in menopause, the estrogen has an impact on our ghrelin and leptin hormones, which are our hunger and satiation hormones. And so if you if your body's a bit screwed up and it doesn't know if you are really hungry or if you're really full by slowing down and sort of recognizing what true hunger feels like, slowing down the eating process and stopping before you are full, you know, like stopping when you're satisfied instead of like opening the button of your jeans type full.
[00:38:03.730] – Amanda Like those are really good ways to suck you back in and recognize what real hunger and what real satisfied feeling feels like when you're eating. And I talk about that a lot in the book because it personally has worked for me and others, you know. But I truly believe in building up those type of habits.
[00:38:23.530] – Allan Now, and one of the strategies they had in the book that I thought was pretty cool was you said one of, leaving just a little bit of food on your on your plate. You know, we were taught as kids, clean your plate, clean your plate. You know, kids in India are starving, so you have to clean your plate.
[00:38:38.820] – Amanda Why did we say that?
[00:38:40.680] – Allan I don't know.
[00:38:41.620] – Amanda It's so true. It's always India.
[00:38:41.650] – Allan I don't know, but we did. And so it's just you just clean your plate. And yeah, we want to multitask so we're on the social media or we're watching the television and we're not paying attention to eating. And, you know, before you know it, you've cleaned your plate. And so kind of having those strategies in place, you know, serving yourself a good a good portion a plate, you know, knowing your portions, getting it all on your plate and sitting down at the table and and really focusing on that food.
[00:39:16.580] – Allan Putting your fork down between bites, having a conversation, you know, actual face to face conversation with your family. You know, those are those are the moments where you're taking care of your food, you're taking care of your body and you're building social connections and relationships that you know, we need.
[00:39:35.610] – Amanda And you know, they're valid ways and they're proven ways to show how to stop overeating. I mean, clearly, it matters what you put in your mouth, but I think the two things go hand in hand. You can eat the best food in the world and have all of these plans in place on what to eat. But if it feels like restriction and it feels like it's a job or it feels like this is limiting you in some way, then you're just going to fall straight back to where you were.
[00:40:02.240] – Amanda But if you approach this with a mindset that this is doing you good and that you're actually supporting your body and understanding what the body needs, then when you eat the food that you've chosen because of your knowledge that, you know will support your body, it just makes it such a smoother ride. And the chances of you stick and adhering to this long term are increased.
[00:40:25.520] – Allan Amanda, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
[00:40:34.540] – Amanda You know, I think the hardest question, you know, I know I had this coming and, I was like, oh, God, you make it sound so easy. And I was like, how can I give you three when I have like, a hundred?
[00:40:44.500] – Amanda And so but I think if we're talking about menopause, the first thing I would do, the first thing I would say is that you should control the things that you can control. Because it's the time of a lot of change and things are out of your control and so the certain parameters within your life that you actually can take a handle on. And I encourage women to do that. So whether that's like actively moving every day or choosing the food that they eat or the company that surrounds them, I would suggest that that's the first thing. So take control of those things that you can control.
[00:41:20.360] – Amanda The second thing is for a menopausal woman is build a community and that community can be just your sister or your aunt or a group of friends. It's a bit more difficult in a pandemic. But like I have an online community where women exchange stories, where talk about their problems and lessen the burden.
[00:41:42.190] – Amanda When you know that you have something that's eating away at you and literally you can't get out of this hole that you're in when you share that story with someone and get somebody else's opinion, even if they just say, hey, I hear you and I'm listening, that can just make you feel so much happier.
[00:42:00.220] – Amanda And then the last thing is do exercise that brings you joy. I'm a big believer in moving every day. And sometimes in perimenopause and menopause, you're exhausted and you don't feel like you can move. But even if it's just a patrol around the kitchen, consider that to be active movement. And so while I'm a big pusher of strength training for women and as we age, it's so important if you want to do them three times a week because it just makes you laugh and brings you joy, then do it. Like do some type of movement that makes you smile and makes you feel better about yourself when you're finished.
[00:42:39.680] – Allan Well, if someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about the book Menopocalypse, where would you like…
[00:42:48.860] – Amanda It will fall off the tongue soon, don't worry.
[00:42:50.810] – Allan Soon enough, where would you like for me to send them?
[00:42:54.710] – Amanda Yeah, you know, everything is off if you go to my website everything there are links to my social media page, links to purchase in the book. The book came out yesterday, October 18th, which was, well, menopause day. But everything is on www.fitnchips.com. You can find everything there.
[00:43:20.400] – Allan OK, you can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/456 and I'll be sure to have the links there. Amanda, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
[00:43:31.160] – Amanda I'm so happy to have been on the show and thanks for having me.
[00:43:39.300] – Allan Where Ras. Pretty good episode, you know, women's health is the highlight of October, you know, breast breast cancer awareness and things like that. And, you know, I like getting on some guests where we can talk about a single issue. But again, I hope men, you're still listening because if your significant other is going through this, you're going to have some experiences, too.
[00:44:02.960] – Ras Thanks for doing this episode on menopause. I know. I appreciate it. And it's pretty timely for a lot of women. And in October, this is perfect, perfect timing for this topic.
[00:44:15.330] – Allan You know, I think a lot of people are concerned. You know, when you start talking about hormone replacement and some of the science that was out there before talking about how it could cause cancer. And, you know, obviously that's been refuted. So if you're not on an estrogen because you're afraid of cancer, go back and do your research again, because I think you're going to find what's written out there is very different than even maybe what your doctor knows.
[00:44:39.950] – Ras That's a really good point. And menopause itself is really a scary topic for a lot of women. It kind of seems like a homeless or hopeless part of our lives that we just have to suffer through. And then when you add hormone replacement therapy to that, that's another huge red flag for us, because we've always heard that estrogen replacement is a danger. And personally, I actually have a higher propensity for breast cancer, it runs in my family. So that's always been a huge red flag for me as well. So it was really refreshing to hear from Amanda that that may not be what I had always thought it was.
[00:45:16.850] – Allan Yeah. And if you if you resonated with this episode, I just want to let you know, I try to do a menopause episode about once a year. So I've actually had a few other episodes about menopause. And if you'll go to the show notes for this episode, I believe this is episode 456. So if you go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/456, I'll be sure to have links to all of the other episodes where we've discussed menopause, because there's a lot of, a lot of new information out there and a lot of authors, you know, they don't write about this very often.
[00:45:52.070] – Allan So, you know, get a book about once a year. I do try to get them on because I think it's a really important topic. But even men, you know, I again, we are going to start talking about men's health over the course of the next couple episodes. But, you know, for you to recognize that you're struggling with andropause, you know, you're watching your testosterone and growth hormone and all those, those men feel good things going on. Your wife's going through complete chaos.
[00:46:21.470] – Allan And, you know, the link between estrogen and oxytocin is just scary because, you know, that's the empathy that's that's that's her giving a crap about what you're going through. And she might be struggling with that. So just recognizing that that hormones not only impact what our body physically does but impact what's going on in our brain. And that can actually change our mood and behavior and make someone seem like an entirely different person. So I think that's just worth paying attention to. If you value your relationship, just recognize that as a symptom. That is an issue and something that can be addressed if you take the time to do it.
[00:47:06.260] – Ras That's a really good point. That was actually a kind of a light bulb moment for me in your interview with her. The connection between estrogen and the ocytocin. Is Yeah. And and how that changes our emotions and how we cope or react to certain situations, I'm 49, so I'm right in the middle of this whole perimenopause program. And as she was checking off all these symptoms, I'm like, yeah, I felt that. Yeah, I've noticed that as well. But that that estrogen oxytocin, that's a huge light bulb moment for me. And I think this is a perfect storm situation. Allan, you mentioned that men's hormones are fluctuating as well, right along with ours.
[00:47:54.550] – Ras And then in my family, I've got another situation where my kids are in college. So my role as a mother has changed greatly. And so there's kind of like a perfect storm of situations that happen. And and how to get through all of these challenging moments is just difficult.
[00:48:14.280] – Allan Well, that's why you run.
[00:48:15.890] – Ras Yes, it is no doubt about it. it's why I run. And that's a good point, because for me, getting through all of these kinds of perimenopausal symptoms that I experience, running actually does make a huge difference.
[00:48:30.330] – Ras And I notice on the days where I have too many rest days in a row or just can't get out to run because life gets busy, I can feel it. I can feel the change happening with my emotions. And I get tired and irritable for sure.
[00:48:45.210] – Allan And so that's why you need to experiment with a lot of different things. Exercise, nutrition, in some cases, even hormone replacement might be something that's a fit for you. You've got to you've got to study this. You've got to do that N equals 1 experiment, and you've got to make some decisions. Your health care provider is a provider. They're not there to to make you do something. You have to be a part of that team. And so recognizing that if you're not exercising and you're not eating right and you're not feeling well, there might be a correlation there.
[00:49:17.430] – Allan And you've got to solve those two problems. And even when I talk about men's health with guys are like, you know, yeah, you could you could do all this stuff. You could take all these hormone replacements. But they're not going to fix you if you're not doing the other things or other things have to come first. So if you get joy out of running, run. If you get joy out of lifting heavy things, lift heavy things, you should probably do a little bit of both, to be honest with yourself.
[00:49:45.480] – Ras Yeah.
[00:49:46.050] – Allan You're given your body, all of it needs. But, you know, just find the things that give you joy, find the things that make you feel good. And particularly during this period of time, if you know is do them together. If you can, you know, you and Mike run together. We do. Which, you know, that again is beautiful, you know, because that's that's where relationships are kept. That's where you have that in common.
[00:50:06.630] – Allan And much like we talked about running clubs and how close you get to people, even when you're not running close to people these days, you know, it's just something, a bond that you have between you that that just keeps going. And so.
[00:50:20.220] – Ras So true. AManda mentioned having a support group and that that community tie, whether it's with a run club or your spouse, it can be really helpful. And the tougher days, those days when your hormones are really out of control or you're just feeling emotional, it's good to have somebody to talk to or run with or whatever it might be.
[00:50:38.990] – Allan Or lift with.
[00:50:39.960] – Ras Yeah. Yeah.
[00:50:42.090] – Allan All right, Ras, well it's good to see you again. And we'll talk next week.
[00:50:45.240] – Ras You bet, take care.
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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.
Hormone balance starts with digestive health
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):
Gluten
Dairy
Eggs
Soy
Corn
Nightshades
Peanuts
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.
Blood sugar levels
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.
Liver Health
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.
It's about the Food
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.
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:
Music used for the podcast Intro and Outro: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music
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