Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1045: Dr. Jolene Brighten- Beyond the Pill

Episode Date: June 3, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin speak with Dr. Jolene Brighten, author of Beyond the Pill. Dr. Brighten is a leading expert in women's medicine and covers a number of topics in a fun and engaging way that not only affect women but the men in their lives as well. How many women are using birth control? (3:30) What symptoms are women being prescribed birth control for? (4:20) Have we been misled when it comes to the pill? (6:30) The impact of mate selection and the pill. (8:45) Is there a correlation to women on birth control and autoimmune disease? (16:15) How does birth control affect a women’s ability to gain muscle and burn body fat? (20:41) How there is a time and a place for birth control: What can women do to reduce side effects? (30:28) Diets and their impact on your body. (33:20) What happens when you have women who are on birth control and statins? (44:55) How did she get into the field of women’s health? (51:45) The differences between the shot and the pill. (1:00:37) The ‘decoder ring’ of a woman's hormonal cycle. (1:05:10) Are there some birth control pills that are better than others? (1:09:27) The 5 Fundamentals of the Brighten Protocol. (1:10:23) The ‘411’ on endometriosis. (1:16:25) How to work with the menstrual cycle to get gains. (1:20:49) Negative self-talk and its impact on your health. (1:32:12) The pros and cons of fertility awareness methods. (1:39:33) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Dr. Jolene Brighten (@drjolenebrighten)  Instagram Website YouTube Jessica Rothenberg (@thetraininghour) Instagram Dr Lara Briden (@larabriden)  Instagram Amy Schumer (@amyschumer)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned June Promotion: MAPS Strong ½ off!! **Code “STRONG50” at checkout** Beyond the Pill: A 30-Day Program to Balance Your Hormones, Reclaim Your Body, and Reverse the Dangerous Side Effects of the Birth Control Pill - Book by Jolene Brighten Women more attracted to masculine mates during ovulation The Stripper's Secret Effects of an oral contraceptive on sexual behavior of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Women on Pill three times more likely to get Crohn's disease... and the risk could be even higher with morning-after contraception Sarcopenic obesity - definition, etiology and consequences - NCBI - NIH Association of Hormonal Contraception With Depression The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence - Book by Gavin de Becker FDA allows marketing of first direct-to-consumer app for contraceptive use to prevent pregnancy

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Oh boy, this episode, I really, really enjoyed. Dr. Jolene Briteen, I've been getting tagged on our stuff for a long time on social media. People keep saying, we need to talk to this person, we need to have her on our stuff for a long time on social media. People keep saying, we need to talk to this person, we need to have her on our show. And really, what really motivated me to contact her was when my girlfriend Jessica kept talking about her, she was talking

about her information, how good it was. So I looked her up and I definitely was not let down. First off, she's a functional medicine, naturopathic doctor. She's, first off, she's a functional medicine naturopathic doctor. She's the founder of Rubis Health, which is like a women's medical clinic that specializes in women's hormones. And currently, she's recognized as a leading expert in post-birth control syndrome and the long-term side effects associated

with hormonal contraceptives. And we talk a lot about that particular subject in this episode. Nobody's talking about that, which is crazy. Yeah, I'm so glad that, yeah, you like Jessica brought her to our attention because, man, she's just a wealth of knowledge in that direction. Yeah, just all about birth control,

how it really affects your body, does it, you know, make your body wanna gain body fat, how it affects your libido, when you go off of it? What that's like, that's something that they've coined is post-birth control syndrome. She wrote a book about this called Beyond the Pill, and it's actually quite popular right now. A lot of people are reading it.

I'm getting tagged quite a bit. Now you can find her on Instagram. She has a great Instagram page at Dr. Joleen Brighton that's spelled J-O-L-E-N-E-B-R-I-G-H-T-E-N. Her website is Dr. Brighton.com. Of course, she has a YouTube Dr. Jolene Brighton, and then the book I talked about is Beyond the Pill. We think you're really going to enjoy this episode.

Again, she dives in deep, and we learned a lot. Listen up, man. This is not just for women. No, this was an awesome episode. Before we start it though, I wanna let everybody know that this month, maps strong is 50% off. Now, this is the gym workout that was inspired by strong competitor, strong men and strong women competitors.

So if you're bored with your current workout, if you like to get stronger, build muscle, also have lots of stamina and conditioning and you're bored with the traditional type of workouts. This program is amazing. It's awesome. It's half off. So here's what you got to do. Go to mapsstrong.com, M-A-P-S-S-T-R-O-N-G.com and use the code strong50 for the discount. S-T-R-O-NRONG50, no space. All right, so that's it. Here we are, let's talk into Dr. Jolene Brighton.

Dr. Brighton, this podcast happened for a couple different reasons. One, my girlfriend's a huge fan of yours. Love's reading your posts, and she pointed me in your direction. And then the second reason is constantly getting tagged on your stuff. I've had, I don't know, 30, 40 of our fans DM me at least, and this is over the last like a few months telling me, you have to get her on the show, have to get her on the show. And I've gone through your stuff and a lot of the things you talk about I think are absolutely remarkable. In particular, I want to talk about what your recent book is about, and I think

what you're kind of most known for at the moment, which is health around the birth control pill and what that does to the body and all that, and maybe we could start with that, like, how many women are using birth control, and let's start there, and then we'll take it. Mm-hmm. Well, when we look at the pill only, that's estimated to be about 100 million women worldwide. And per the surveys that have been done, we've come to understand about 98% of women have used some form of hormonal birth control

at some point in their life. And even if they've just tried it, at some point in their life. And what's sad about this is not the majority of women are now using birth control for symptom management. And why I say it's sad is because there's a lot of opportunity there to help address root cause issues, but it also means they're being dismissed. Like, they're being past hormonal birth control with no question as to why are you having

these symptoms to begin with? Can we talk about some of those symptoms that women are being prescribed birth control for? Totally. So, we see heavy periods, what we call period problems. So like heavy periods, irregular periods, painful periods, certainly acne. We see issues with headaches, migraines, really being met

with a hormonal contraceptive. And really the answer in a lot of ways is pretty disrespectful in women's health to say your reproductive system isn't necessary. It's completely negotiable. So let's just give you a medication to shut it down, rather than recognizing that the signs, the symptoms, are actually directing you towards what is going on.

So in a regular period, for instance, that may be due to hypothyroidism. So hypothyroidism is not going to get better with hormonal birth control of any kind. In fact, it can actually make things worse. And the problem is, is not going to get better with hormonal birth control of any kind. In fact, it can actually make things worse. And the problem is, is not, well, you may have those regular pill bleeds, those are not actual periods,

you know, nobody's checking in on her because those symptoms are taken care of. So we fix the problems, so to speak. But meanwhile, her tissues are allowed to degrade as she is not receiving ample thyroid hormone with polycystic ovarian syndrome, which I'm sure you guys, you know, in the fitness arena, come across PCOS women because, you know, a lot of times their doctors are like, you just need to lose weight, that's your problem.

It's very difficult to lose weight when you're inflamed and you have insulin resistance, kind of programmed in you. And we understand that these women also have changes in their gut. So there might actually be something going on in their gut health, which we're going to talk about why birth control is not a good idea for your gut health. But with that, it's a metabolic disorder. It's inflammation and insulin dysregulation and likely gut dysbiosis, driving this condition which can present with hormonal symptoms. And certainly, nobody wants hair falling out of their head or growing on their chin and chest.

So I totally feel for these women wanting, any solution to shut that down. However, if you add birth control into the mix without discussing with this woman that you're at higher risk of infertility, higher risk of heart disease and stroke and diabetes, birth control puts you at higher risk for those things as well.

You didn't do your job as a physician and making sure she had the full story to make the best decision for herself. Do you think we've been led to believe that birth control is just kind of this symptom-free, side-effect-free benign type of medication in that the only purpose for periods and the only things that we get from this is just, you either get pregnant or you don't. Do you think we've been kind of misled in that direction? Well, and I think like what you said right there

is a bit of the issue, is that we've been so focused on the bleed and the period when really the main event is ovulation. Like that is what the entire cycle, and so if we really want to start day one of the cycle and be like, day one should really be the day that you ov you Obviously like that's our prime time. That's the main event But that's tricky so when you see blood. It's a little bit easier and so we categorize that as day one of the menstrual cycle I think the other issue with it as well

I think that doctors do recognize and we do recognize their symptoms But the story that plays out is is not the risk of an unintended pregnancy Outweighs the risk that comes with hormonal birth control. And that often, so doctors are not educated about, I certainly wasn't. Many of my colleagues weren't. I have gynecologists which matter respect to them reaching out to me saying, oh my god, I never learned any of this and I've been prescribing birth control for decades. Like, thank you so much for making this information available. So they don't know. So when a woman comes to them and says, hey, I'm having these side effects,

well, they might even say side effects. They might say, I have these new symptoms. They don't really think that could be a side effect of hormonal birth control, because there's a compartmentalization in medicine, which is that you have lady part problems. You go to the gynecologist. You have tummy troubles.

You're gonna go to the gastroenterologist. Something's up with your joints. Maybe it's on autoimmune, let's get you the rheumatologist. And if it's lady hormones, gynecologists, any other hormones, endocrinologists, and at the end of the day, your body doesn't care. We can compartmentalize all day long, but everything is connected. And that's where I think in that conventional paradigm, things have kind of gone awry in women's health is that they think this reproductive system is negotiable. You can just light switch, turn it on, turn it off, and that those hormones aren't going

to impact every system in the body. And when you start to understand that every single system is impacted by hormonal birth control, it's very easy to see how women present with a array of side effects. One thing that really fascinated me a long time ago was I read this study that talked about how women's preferences for, like their mate, in other words, they did a study where they took men's faces and they masculinized them and feminized them. So same face, slightly more feminine, slightly more masculine. And when women were ovulating, they were more attracted to the masculine face.

And when they weren't, they were more attracted to the feminine face, even though the faces were the same and there were subtle differences. And then I read another study that showed that when women were on birth control and they got married, when they went off, there was a slight uptick in divorce. And this got me thinking, like, it doesn't just affect the fact that you can't get pregnant,

it kind of affects a lot of different things. Can we, let's talk about that for a second? Yeah, and you know, that's one hypothesis I have of sometimes why women come off of birth control and have difficulty in seizing is it might be a mismatch in their partner. Wow. And so I don't have substantial evidence, you know, to back this up. So if anybody's like, where's the study, please go do the study. I would love to see it.

And no, is this true, but this is how it starts. We start asking questions based on observations and then we get into the research. So with them, we select our mates. You know, there's several variables at play, but one of them is the pheromones and this is the way they smell. So ladies, if you are ever super into the guy at the gym

who's like super sweaty and you're like, I just can't get enough of him. That's it. Yeah. It's this MHC complex. Is that you all the ladies? Usually. You're like, I do a squat, the lady's come or run in. Yeah. Well, what women are actually picking up on is genetic variations through the MHC complex. Now this is a protein that presents antigens to your immune system. So basically is this good,

is this us, or is this bad should we attack it? Now that MHC is very, very important in terms of like we select that need and we're selecting someone as opposite as possible from us genetically speaking so that our baby gets you know basically the buffet of genes to choose from and is the most viable offspring. So, Momma Nature's got your back in this. However, when you introduce hormonal birth control, this is where everybody says, ooh, because we tend to select mates who are genetically a little more similar to our cousins, a little more similar to us, and then- Oh, keep it in the family. That's interesting. So there's a part of my book where it's called

The Pill in Your Bad Boyfriend, and how many women have written me and said, wow, like understanding about choosing like nates and how it impacted me. This explains so much about my first marriage, about my bad boyfriend in college, about why I was so into, I have had women, and I tell a story in my book about this girl who was really into this guy. She got on birth control, wasn't into him anymore, and it just kind of yoyled like that.

And we see that. Birth control alters our brain at the structural level. It also can impact so many things, like trip to fan pathway and free radical production and things that can lead to mood shifts, mood changes. And we've also come to understand that we don't pump the brakes when we should in risk taking behavior. We don't have the same fear response within our brain. And as we talk right now, it's 2019 and and you know what, no one's been really questioning

what happens to the woman's brain when you leave her on birth control for decades at a time. We've all been told, it's safe, don't worry about it. And say thank you when you have your pill, because you know, pharma gifted this to you. And 100%, like I did the pill for 10 years. I'm a first generation college student, super grateful.

People are always shocked when they're like, you know, you wrote this book and based on everything you know, would you go back and do it differently? And I'm like, I don't know because I did not want to get pregnant and that's the thing that made the most sense to me. And also like, I started at 17. Like anybody who hangs out with 17 year olds,

like how much information can you give them and them not I roll at you? I don't know. I'd like to be like, oh yeah, I'd be so smart. And I don't know about that. If anybody hangs out with 17 year olds, like how much information can you give them and them not I roll you? I don't know, I'd like to be like, oh yeah, I'd be so smart. And I don't know about that. Let's be real. But the impact on Nate's selection

goes both ways as well. So interesting studies that, so strippers who are or exotic dancers, I wanna be PC about it, but. Well, this is my impub, you can say whatever you want. Okay, because when I grew up, that's what we said. It's just like actors, actresses, and now they're all actors, and I'm like, I'm trying to get there, guys.

But with that, if you're on hormonal birth control, you're an exotic dancer, your tips are going to be a lot lower. And if you're on, yeah. No shit. Crazy, right? So now it's cutting into your bottom line. Literally. Yeah, literally.

Literally. Yeah's literally. Yeah, literally. The other interesting thing though, is that when you're ovulating, you'll actually make more tips. So then actually it will tip higher for women who are ovulating. That's again, them taking up on that scent.

There's also things that happen when we ovulate. Like leading up to ovulation, estrogen is rising. No, estrogen is not the devil, but it can be. She's a diva. So if you don't put her in check, she will take over the stage and like, it'll be over, but she plumps you up. So fine lines wrinkles start to go away, breasts are more full, hips are more full, lips are more full.

That's why I'm not currently ovulating, but that's the ideal time for women to be on camera because you're like, I just look so pretty right now. But then pick up on these things. And there have been primate studies about how injecting the females with depoprovera, which is one form of birth control, actually, you know, can... it influences the male's behavior. So if you inject these females, these might be his mates, you inject them. He doesn't want anything to do with them. He selects new mates who are not on birth control. You inject them all and he actually starts

to ride that crazy train and is abusive, is aggressive to himself, to the females. And so it has a big impact. And these are the things we're not talking about. We're told we're not supposed to talk about it. We're told that we're anti-women if we talk about it, but we have to talk about it because all of this is going on and we have to understand how this is impacting the entire human race. Because I'm about you, but I'm pretty invested in our species surviving.

I have a small human at home. I'd like to see. Like in Thrive. Yeah, for sure. Wow. So it's fascinating because I think we we, start to forget all of those, I hate to use the term instinct, but instinctual things that we have in terms of when we're, you know, selecting a mate and these things we've evolved with and they've helped us pick and select

good genetic mates. And of course, those other decisions that need to be involved, not just who you're attracted to, but that's also something that we should definitely consider. Are there different? Yeah, we're messing with the gene pool. Potentially, this is not something that we've questioned, is like, wait a minute, but if we're all selecting for potentially weaker immune system prodigy, what does this mean for autoimmune disease that's rising?

What does this mean about inflammatory conditions? And it's something that it's a hard conversation to have because I did the pill for 10 years. I spent a year prepping my body before I had my son, but it's something that like, I don't even want to think about what decisions I made in my 20s impacted the health of my son and the long run. Like nobody wants, we're not shaming anybody. We're not filling guilty about it. Okay, ladies, so like whatever happened, it happened yesterday. Today's an opportunity to move forward

and do things differently. But it's a big question, right? Wait a minute, what's actually happening to the genetic diversity? What do we know about that? Are we starting to connect things with people that have been on birth control for a long time with autoimmune issues? So there is a correlation between women developing autoimmune disease while they're on hormonal birth control. So increase rise in multiple sclerosis, sclerosis, MS, inflammatory bowel disease. In fact, a study came out of Harvard and showed that if you have a family history

of Crohn's disease, and you're on birth control for five years or more, you have a 300% increase risk of developing Crohn's disease. No joke, right? And so people were listening, they were like, oh, it's Crohn's disease, it's ulcers through the whole tube. Sometimes in your mouth is kanker source, which if you're on the pill and you're noticing you're developing new onset of kanker source, you need to go to a gastroenterologist or at least your PCP and get that looked at.

That could be a first sign of Crohn's disease. And you can get ulcers all throughout the digestive track. You become, you have malabsorption issues. It's very painful to eat. They can perforate. Then you can end up with a life threatening condition in the hospital. So it's no joke. And for women who are on birth control,

it's very small studies that have been done. But if you have Crohn's disease and you're on birth control, they estimate that for about like every, I believe is one out of every 83 women will require an additional surgery. So every year that you're on it, you're going to have an additional surgery in your gut. Well, and here's a speculation it made a long time ago. I'd love to hear your input on this. We've noticed that now for the last, I think it's five or six decades that the average males

testosterone levels have been dropping. And I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that women are selecting men with lower testosterone now as a result of birth control. And if that plays or is playing a role in the lowering of testosterone because it's less valued as an attractive partner. Totally. I mean, that could be a possibility, especially when you're talking about the study of like, you know, such a Game of Thrones fan, so like if you're ovulating,

Drago, you're gonna be like, oh, Drago, like I'll be your co-easy any day. And that's like that's that like, manly man, and that's not to say like, women that like, whoever you choose, it's all on you. You can have whatever selection you want to have, but with that, the more feminine face, lower testosterone, right? And selecting for that wall and hormonal birth control or not ovulating is a very interesting thing to raise. But you know what women do?

Like anywhere from 10 to 20 times a day, while they're taking the pill, they pee. And that goes into the water supply. They also have bowel movements and they poop. And I'm sestimated about 50% upwards of 50% of that pill can actually make it into the large intestine. So these things are making it into our water supply, compounded with the fact that Zenoestrogens are everywhere.

We've this bad habit as humans of introducing a chemical into the environment and then asking questions decades later of like, oh, what did that do? Or noticing changes and being like, oh, snap. But the person who know, this is the worst of it, though. The person who notices there's issues, this is how it generally goes. The person who's like, this is the problem. They're usually the ones that they're like, that's their quack, stop questioning it. It's fine.

This is the best thing since sliced bread. And it's a real problem because that's another issue. Is that we talk a lot about at least in my world, Zenoestrogens, endocrine disruptors, how those impact women's health overall. And yet, this is something that can also equally affect men. And it's something that I have, I mean, I've had insurance companies, lab companies,

because I will put a NYCD 10, a diagnosis code of estrogen excess in a male patient. And the insurance company or the labs, like this isn't right, this isn't a man's, like diagnosis code, we use this in women. I'm like, yeah, except he has no testosterone and his estrogen is through the roof because of a Romaltase activity,

but also that like, he's drinking out of plastic water bottles and microwaving out of plastic and using like this sunscreen and, you know, we'd think about it less with men because they use less personal care products, but still, I mean, we're all inundated with this. And, you know, to your point of like, you know, talking about evolution, the thing we forget

is that we're all animals. Like, I think it's in Kandini, people don't wanna think, we wanna think like, I'm better than a rat. Like, of course, we wanna is that we're all animals. I think it's in Kandini, people don't want to think. We want to think like I'm better than a rat. Of course we want to think that. But look what's happening to animals. I mean, as it is right now, we're looking at a million species going extinct. We are just a little bit higher up on that food chain. Yeah, 100% agree with you.

Now what about side of, these are the questions that we get all the time. How does birth control affect my ability to build muscle, burn body fat? How should I change my diet? What should I do in terms of my fitness and my aesthetic goals? Yeah, I mean, birth control can 100% sabotage your fitness goals. We can talk about a few mechanisms of that. But one big one is that women need testosterone. We've been talking about like no hormone is bad

and we've all got them, just based on the only female, we've got them in different ratios. And so with that, testosterone is really important for a lot of things. So automatically everybody's mind, I know your mind just went there, went to libido. That's the first place we've got. We're like, libido, it's everything.

It is everything. You do know me, call me out. Yeah, I know place we've got. We're like, let me know. It's everything. You do know me. Call me out. No. People on YouTube are going to be like that more than just happened. You saw it in your face. I just felt it. He was like, I heard like Marvin Gaye playing over there.

See you. Oh, so, you know, but with, okay, so like, let me say this, so libido is a sign of vitality and women who have a low libido, they usually have something going on. Maybe it's that bad boyfriend. It could be that, but it nails to be a hormone in balance because, again, we are animals and we want to pro-create and having a libido is part of that. So this is why women lose their libido on hormonal birth control. It downregulates the production of testosterone by as much as 50% and it alters your liver at the genetic level so that you express more sex hormone binding

globulin. That is a protein that gobbles up your testosterone. Now this is not because your body is dumb or betraying you or you need another pharmaceutical. This is your body protecting you because how does the pill work? It is a high enough dose. So this is where I was giggle when people are like, well, my doctor said it's low dose. Yeah, compared to the 1950s trials that killed women, yes, it comparatively speaking. However, it's still high enough dose that you take it orally. It passes through your liver, so this is what we call first pass of a medication. Your liver gets a chance at trying to break it down, but it's still high enough that it shuts down

brain ovarian communication. So it's still high enough to do its job, which is shutting down your ovulation and your ovarian function. So in that, your body knows this is way too much estrogen that I should be dealing with. So let's increase sex hormone binding globulin so that we stay safe. So that we don't procreate, we don't mate. Well, the sex hormone binding globulin grabs on to excess estrogen. So only free hormones can stimulate tissues. And so this keeps you from over

stimulation of estrogen. So again, your body's really smart. But this isn't an epigenetic variation that can cause your genes to express proteins differently. This sex hormone binding globulin goes up, while you're on birth control, then the researchers tested women after the fact. What they found and what they concluded is that it never returns to the state of a woman who never used hormone or birth control. Never?

Never. Wow. Yeah. And so I will say that they haven't done long-term studies on this. And clinically, I have been able to help women bring down their sex hormone binding globulin and get their libido back. The whole protocol is in the on the pill, because it's all about epigenetics

and how you are signaling to your liver and clearing up the whole system that puts estrogen in check. Now does the length of time that you're on it matter in terms of how you can recover and get back to that like natural state? Yeah, that's a really interesting thing is that it seems to be in all the research I've read

is that six months tends to be the sweet spot. Now I've definitely talked to women who used it for five days, had new ones had a panic attacks, it didn't go away when they stopped. And so, you know, those are a little bit of our outliers and it's what we need to, we need to start artists, like we need to start asking why is it true for one woman and not another and stop arguing

about whether or not women are telling the truth. And we'll talk more about depression. That's a big area where women get dismissed a lot even though it's on the package insert of these pharmaceuticals. So we're talking about body composition. And so if hormonal birth control drops your production of testosterone and your ability to have free testosterone stimulates your tissues. You will see a decline in muscle mass.

You can also see that you're crying all the time. You're not motivated. You lose your kick ass edge and you don't have energy throughout the day. Those are symptoms of low testosterone. We need testosterone just like we need estrogen and progesterone in our brain to keep it healthy and young and neuroplasticity goings, we can learn new things. So with that, if your testosterone drops, now you're not going to get muscle cell stimulation in the same way.

And estrogen and fat cells are besties. So your fat cells love to make estrogen and estrogen comes in and is like you're doing such a good job. Let me stimulate you a little bit more so you plump up and you get a little bit fatter. And so that can affect the adipocytes, and then we see that muscle mass starts declining. Now, my graduate research in nutrition was on sarcopenico B-city.

So this is a topic where I don't mess around with, because I'm like, and for people who don't know what that is, think about the M&M guy, the around M&M body and the little arms, and I think that's still a thing. I actually never owned a TB. So I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's a real thing. Yeah, so with that, you've seen people like that. That's sarcopenicobecity.

They're losing their muscle mass. They are deleting muscle cells, replacing it with fat, infiltrating their organs. Now we've got a big problem because that's setting you up for increased morbidity and mortality. You're going to get disease and you're going to die and nobody wants any of that business. So we've got the impact of testosterone. Yes, that can shift our body composition. We know that in general, like why is it athletes are not allowed to use testosterone?

Right. Because it can help. It can definitely increase your edge. Now, the other thing that has been observed about birth control is that very much that narrative of like periods make you the lesser having a menstrual cycle is a burden has played out in sports hitting my mic. Sorry. Sorry. And it's played out in sports to where they thought, well, the solution is just control her with hormonal birth control. Then she never has a down day can always

always perform turns out that's not totally true. And in fact, being on hormonal birth control, some women fatigue faster. They actually sow the endurance athletes, lose their endurance edge. Like, lifting, they find that their threshold of failure is coming a lot quicker than what they expected before. And so that's just one way it can impact body composition. Now, we hear often that there is no correlation between birth control and weight gain. And what's really interesting about this is when you get into research, which you come to understand is, all they did is they took all the women in the trial,

added up their weight. So what was the change? Some lost weight, some gained up to 70 pounds. And then they just said, okay, divided by the number of women, okay, on average, it's a five to 10 pound weight gain. That's not significant. I'm like, I'm not even five five. If I put on on average, it's a five to 10 pound weight gain. That's not significant. I'm like, I'm not even five five.

If I put on 10 pounds, it's significant. Like, you're gonna know it. So it depends on that woman's body, but also, what is up with the woman who gained 60 pounds? Like, and if you had women losing weight, why was that? A lot of them get nauseous. They can't eat, like, other things are going on.

And so, with that, the question is really is really like what is true for this woman? Sometimes the weight gain is because birth controls inflammatory which will cause us to hold on to water weight Which is why if a woman comes off. She's like I lost three pounds immediately Water weight like that's water weight, but there's other women who come off and they find They struggle they struggle to build muscle mass. They struggle to lose weight They feel like you know, they're eating less. They're moving more. They struggle to build muscle mass. They struggle to lose weight. They feel like they're eating less. They're moving more. They're gaining more weight.

They're doing everything right. And I very much think this comes down to mitochondrial function because the population, I see it impacts the most or paramanopausal women. So mitochondria for people listening are the powerhouses of yourself. They generate your energy so that, like, in this way, we rest between sets. So when you lift weights, you rest, your mitochond your energy so that like, and this is why we rest between sets.

So when you lift weights, you rest, your mitochondria kind of regenerate, refuel, make that ATP. Hormonal birth control depletes key nutrients that mitochondrial need, those mitochondrial organisms need to actually do their job right, like COQ10. Now the other thing that's interesting is that an evolutionary spectrum, we have those organelles, the mitochondria, are actually bacteria. And hormonal birth controls impact on the microbiome has been compared to antibiotics in terms of how it decimates the microbiome. Can you imagine your automatic cation? We know the microbiomes everything now. In the 1950s, we did not. In the 1960s, when the post stepped on the scene, didn't totally understand that. But we do understand now that if a bacteria in your gut is killed

by an antibiotic, mitochondria, it's a toxin to mitochondria as well. So a hormonal birth control can kill bacteria in your gut. It therefore could be a toxin to mitochondrial health as well. In mitochondria, yes, they live in your muscles, but they're also concentrated in your brain and your ovaries. And this is important for protecting your eggs. So this could be part of how birth control can contribute, not cause fertility issues. After you come off, is that you are making less co-Q10 because you're getting older and you've depleted it. So you're mitochondria are not protecting eggs, the way that they should be. And this also calls into question, why are women at the highest risk of Alzheimer's in dementia? Like, why have we not questioned the role of hormonal birth control in that?

When we know that 100 million women worldwide are taking it, 66% of the Alzheimer's patients are females, it's time we start questioning this. And there are female researchers who are just starting to get into this, but I'm like, man, it is 2019. In the 1960s, women were taking this, only if you were married, could you get it. In the 1970s, it finally became accessible to all women. And yet now we're just now being like, oh, wait a minute, could it actually be doing something to these women long-term? yet now we're just now being like, oh, wait a minute. Could it actually be doing something

to these women long-term? So now that we've scared the shit out of everybody that's taking birth control. Oh god, no! I'm just up to some way wrong on that. No, no, no, no. Now I'd like to talk to you about, what are some of the steps that you,

when you get somebody who comes in and they're curious? I'm listening to the show right now, and I'm taking birth control. I obviously wouldn't, I'm pretending I'm a female right now. I'm taking birth control. And I'm concerned, what are some of the things that I can do potentially to either one mitigate some of these potential side effects or look out for them? Like, what are some of the things? What are the options out there?

Yeah, totally. Yeah, because if you don't want a baby, you're gonna do something not to have that baby. That's right, right. So here's the deal. First things first, like if you're on a hormonal birth control of any kind for whatever reason, that doesn't make you an idiot, a bad person, or any of these things, and I say that

because I'll see on social media where people are like, you're using birth control because you have painful periods. That's so dumb and like shame, shame, shame, and it's like, you don't know her. What if she has endometriosis? Like she could be vomiting half of the month and not able to leave the house. Like, there is a time and a place for birth control.

And it's not up for me or anyone else to decide. This is the decision that woman has to make with the caveat that like if there are like stroke risk factors and things like that, then we gotta shut it down. But in beyond the Pill, this is what I really aim to do. If you're on home on a birth control, I got your back. If you wanna come off of it,

I want you to know there is life beyond birth control. Like there are things you can do to transition off without being afraid. And if you have symptoms going on, there are solutions beyond birth control. I know you can always go get birth control, so let's give you alternatives as well and also give you the full story. So that if you start birth control, you know you can always go get birth control. So let's give you alternatives as well and also give you the full story so that if you start birth control, you know,

what labs to test, when to talk to your doctor, what symptoms to look out for, and how to reduce those side effects. And it's the funny thing because people who haven't read the book will make a comment of like, I bet big pharma hates you. I bet Bayer hates you. And I'm like, why would they hate me? I'm actually like helping women lower the side effect risk. And like, I'm making happier customers. So I hate this is like'm like, why would they hate me? I'm actually like helping women lower the side effect risk and like I'm making happier customers. So I hate this is like, no, there's no, and it isn't us versus them because people will be like,

you're obviously anti-pharmaceuticals. I'm like, I'm hypothyroid and I take a thyroid medication every day and I'm super grateful that pharmaceutical companies exist so that we can have those tools for the time in the place. So if you're on hormonal birth control right now, what do you need to do? Number one is replenish nutrient stores, for sure. So you need to be on a prenatal or a multivitamin of some kind, most preferably with activated B vitamins. It needs to have magnesium,

selenium, zinc, these things that hormonal birth control are depleting. You cannot out-diet hormonal birth control depletions, just like any other medication depletion. You cannot out-diet it, should you try? Absolutely. So what I mean by that, like we have to get the diet dialed in, but understand that if you're on a medication that's causing you to lose these nutrients, you need to bring in some kind of supplement form

to help replenish. Now that being said, are there diets that you are just not a fan of because of that? Like are there specific, for example, you know, right now, the biggest diet is ketogenic diet in the last year? Are there certain diets that raise a flag for you and say, you know, that's probably not something you should be doing because you're on birth control? Yeah.

So, I don't like to do diet dogma. And because I don't believe there's a one-size-fits-all for everybody for their whole life. That's a very important thing to understand is that especially as women if you get pregnant If you're breastfeeding if you're parrymanopausal menopausal like if we we have different needs at those times in our life Um the recent carnivore diet probably not the best idea for women If you're eating beef heart, you can get your coq 10 back in Um, and actually I will say that like 25% you can go the butcher, get asked them to do 25% grass fed beef heart ground with 75% grass fed beef

and make a hamburger out of it. It's like the best hamburger you'll ever have is so good. And I'll be loaded with coq 10 as well. So it's got that benefit. But with that, we need to be fueling detoxification. So we've got to support the liver. So I talked about not only at the genetic level, but also at the structural level, with the introduction of hormonal birth control, women who are on the pill have higher incidences of liver tumors, which researchers are like, they're benign.

So that's great. They're not cancerous, but they're prone to rupture and they get pretty big. And your liver is having a lot of blood flow through it. So that's no joke. And in addition, you just lost part of your structure. Like your liver does so much for you. Like love your liver every day.

And so why I'd say not the carnivore diet is because we need to be bringing in cruciferous vegetables while we are on hormonal birth control. And really women as a whole need to be eating cruciferous vegetables broccoli kale cauliflower Cabbage if you don't tolerate those so for women listening who are like I have small intestinal bacteria over growth Or I eat those I get gas bloating you want to default to sprouts so broccoli sprouts kale sprouts just sprout

For my college peeps out there People always write me they're like I'm a poor college student. I'm like, oh, I did that for 10 years, I totally feel you. And then student loans got me, so I'm still doing it. I'm in a lot of ways, so, but with that, I'm like, if you got paper towels and Amazon prime, and they can ship you organic broccoli seeds, you can actually sprout those in your windows so it's like super easy to do.

And sprouts actually win in the research in terms of supporting estrogen detoxification and supporting your liver, giving the nutrients it needs to get that estrogen out and really process all your hormones and environmental toxins as well. Dr. Brighton, is it the endol III carbonyl that's in? Yeah, that then gets converted to dim. So, would supplementing with that be okay as well? Oh yeah, so my balance formulation actually has dim in it and broccoli seed extract as well.

I keep it in a lower dose. I just had somebody recently be like, I always taking 700 milligrams a day and having headaches. I'm like, yeah, there's a little bit much on that. It's a very important point that you bring that up though because dim is super, super helpful with that estrogen metabolism and supporting liver detoxification. However, I'm telling you right now, you need to eat your broccoli sprouts, you need to eat these cruciferous vegetables.

If you don't chew it, or you don't have ample stomach acid, you won't actually convert into DIM. So you won't get it there. So what can you do? Take a shot of apple cider vinegar before you eat your meals. That can help. But if you are somebody who experiences heartburn and you're on hormonal birth control, please get it checked out. It could be in balances and gut flora. It could also be your first sign of hypothyroidism because without ample thyroid hormone, we don't make hydrochloric acid. And most of the time, if you've got heartburn, it's because

your stomach acids too low. So the apple cider vinegar, though, quick and easy trick to try to get that stomach acid up to be able to make that conversion. So we were talking about the diet. So that's why I'm somebody who always holds space for curiosity. I mean, that's really how science operates. And maybe the carnivoreal diet

will be like something where it's like, whoa, actually cycling out of that. Like we see that women often cycle in and out of keto. It's better, they do better in that way. Yeah. And we have to remember that most research is done on men. And then they just say apply it to women. And the keto diet is one of those things that it's like,

most of the research was done in children. When I first learned about keto diet, it was for controlling epilepsy and it works well, like really well for neurological health. So, you know, if I had a woman, you know, say that's coming off of birth control, she's, you know, 48, she's having brain fog, family history of Alzheimer's dementia, low bowel sounds. So, for women listening, if your doctor isn't listening to your tummy, make sure they do that because the absence of bowel sounds, that can be degeneration because the absence of ball sounds that can be Generation of your nervous system and that can be early science that you're gonna have neurological to generation Well, interesting. Yeah, I can early sign of everybody just looks at

Justins never gonna have no The microphone to it. Let's let's let's keep going this, I like going through the diets and some of the things to look out for. Let's get into another popular one like vegans. What do you see with that? Yeah, vegan is a tough one. And it is something that I've worked with lots of vegan patients and the thing that I started this,

I don't do diet dogma. So, and I was a vegetarian for 10 years and that was like my identity until I became iron deficient anemic because I had a copper IUD. My periods were too heavy. And my doctor was like, you know, recommending iron sulfate, which is terrible

and will constipate you. Ladies don't use that. I'm don't use that form, but they're like, you have to take 325 milligrams of this iron sulfate every day and I'm like, but what I'm hearing is my diet's not working. And they were like, yeah, but you're vegetarian.

We wouldn't ask you to eat meat. And I was a vegetarian, but also a nutritional biochemist. And I'm like, I have always been a food first person, and it was hard for me to swallow and to handle that, like, oh my God, my diet's not working for me. And I thought I was doing a really good healthy thing, and I introduced, and I actually started it with Buffalo, and then organ meat. Oh my God, it's not working for me. And I thought I was doing a really good healthy thing. And I introduced, and I actually started it with Buffalo and then organ me.

Oh my God, that was hard. Well, you went from vegan to organ me. No, I was vegetarian. So yeah, and I was lacto-ovol vegetarian for people who like their labels. Get specific with that. So with vegans, the thing I say to people is like, look, whatever you want to decide is your body, it's your life.

But if you're my patient, you have to be in a place where we can hold space to have the dialogue. That if your diet's not working for you, if your labs are showing me, your symptoms are not showing, we've got to be able to have that discussion. And if you decide that you don't care and you're going to stay vegan and you want to take all these supplements

and do all these things, that's fine. And it's something that, let me say this though, I think this is one of the mind blowing things that people read in my book and I don't, it's very interesting that I'm like, oh, I didn't realize people didn't know that. But of course, why would people just know this? Women and then, but women especially rely on their natural estrogen to make the conversion of the plant based omega omega's into EPA and DHA. Now we suck at this altogether, okay? We are highly inefficient as mammals in our

ability to do this, but we need our natural estrogen to make that conversion. If you are on hormonal birth control, you do not have the estrogen to make that conversion. You're going to need a fish oil or a animal-based omega-3 fatty acid. And I've had people say, well, what if I just take algae? And if you are vegan who's doing it for the planet, and you compare how many algae capsules you have to take to a fish oil capsule, by the way, I only advocate for sustainable fishing practices, screening, third-party screening of fish oil. You make sure there's no heavy metals, PCBs, any of that stuff, it's gonna be on the up and up. But however, if you are going to match that dose

of two capsules, we're talking about some people, therapeutically, they may be going to three or more bottles a day. Now, how much plastic did we just put in the environment? And so this is the thing, like these are ethical dilemmas. And what is that name when it's an ethical question? There's really no right answer. Like you've gotten like you and we've got to have discussion totally. So with the vegan diet, something that many of us clinicians who work with autoimmune

patients have come to observe is that there is a high correlation between a vegan diet and autoimmunity. It may be because they lean on grains and soy a little bit more for protein. Not everybody does that. It may be that. It may be that the things that they're eating actually lend themselves to intestinal hyperpermeability and are inflammatory. It may be because they're not getting enough nutrients coming in. I mean, it could be all of those things as well. And so this is something that like when I approach the conversation, like you're gonna do what you're gonna do, but you still need to have this information and understand that like you may need to choose differently

while you're in a healing phase. And like some people are very passionate about their veganism and I've talked about how I've had patients who are like, I'm gonna eat collagen. Like I'm gonna do this. I, you know, I still identify as vegan. I'm gonna do this temporarily. I'm healing my god.

I feel like this is gonna be the best thing for me. We support them in that and people are like, well, they're not a true vegan. And it's like, or they were in a healing phase. Just like, you know, when you're in a healing phase, you might not go out with your friends. And you might be sleeping. And that does not mean that your anti-social

and you hate people. No, it just means you're in a healing phase. You have to do things different for a period of time. But really, my favorite quote, I think I say this like done times a day is Albert Einstein, which is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes.

And so if you're someone listening to this right now and you're like, I'm eating the same diet over and over and I'm not, things aren't changing, it might be time to rethink that. And I'd also frame it that it doesn't matter what the diet is labeled. Everybody can be eating a standard American diet in terms of the lack of nutrients

and it being a bunch of processed food. And whenever I go through the frozen food section, which is usually me skipping lines and trying to get the grocery store, but I'm always blown away by the number of packaged vegan products. And so, highly processed. Highly processed, highly processed, and so that. So if you're vegan, you're vegetarian, you're keto, you're whatever.

Most of your food shouldn't be in a package. And like if you do need grab and go stuff, then it's got to be on the up and up, and you've got to really be evaluating it because you could be eating a vegan diet and you're thinking, I'm doing a really good thing because I am cutting out all these animal proteins that are for it's good for my health, but then you're eating, you know, Toferky and fake chicken and fake bacon, til the head I'm like,

why don't you just eat the real stuff if you're making your Jonesin' for it that hard? But the same is true, you know, for any other diet is out there, is true, you know, for any other diet is out there is that, you know, people will think I'm eating paleo. That's healthy. Now they're buying all the paleo package stuff. I'm eating gluten free.

I love it when my patients are like, so I went gluten free. And now I've been having like my morning muffins and I'm eating cookies and I'm like, would you've eaten that otherwise? Well, no, but it's gluten free. I'm like, oh snap, marketing got you. Okay, I should have educated you on that, but this is an opportunity for education. And that's really what it is. When we have these hiccups,

it's an opportunity for education. It's not shaming you, I'm not telling you you did something wrong. I mean, geez, we've all done dumb at some point and it's incredibly instrumental in us learning. I mean, I would, I my son is sick, so I'm like, can you please like, learn the easy way because as my,

as your mom, it hurts to watch you learn the hard way. And then he falls off something and I'm like, oh, it's like you, you just must. This is what humans do. Dr. Brighton, you brought up a couple times the depletion of coq10, which I know is a nutrient that's imperative for, among other things, heart health.

And I know that statins also deplete co-Q10. What happens when you have women who are on both birth control and statins? Oh, that's such a good question, because when you get into the reversing metabolic mayhem chapter of my book, I talk about how hyperlipidemia and birth control go hand in hand. So we see drop in HDL, rise in LDL, so bad cholesterol,

and triglycerides. Now, understand this, like, since the 90s, we've known cholesterol is not bad, and I still just eye roll when people are like, don't eat coconut, don't oil, don't eat butter, don't eat this, and that, and it's just like, whenever people are like, butter is back, I just play L, cool jam, I had, don't call it a comeback. Like, I've been here for years. Yeah, you know that, Jay. I know, Jay, I know that song. I love it. Ella, if you're listening, you're amazing.

I'm serious. And I'm just, of course, he is. Like, what else is he going to be doing? And he's like, oh, Dr. Braitton's back on. I got to get in on that. And he's going to talk about lady parts. That's all of all of it. Oh, that's hilarious.

So, with that, this goes back to the liver. We generate cholesterol in our liver. So your liver's taken a hit, your liver takes one for the team while you're on a hormonal birth control. And so we see elevations in cholesterol. Now, we've known since the 90s cholesterol is not bad. No women, in fact, this is how you build your hormones. However, cholesterol, when there's inflammation,

that's where we get into trouble. And that's where we get plaques in our heart and they can become disrupted. It's not your immune system. I'm not gonna interrupt too much, but it gobbles up that LDL and makes these little foamy plaques in your blood vessels. That's a really bad thing.

And so then your doctor comes in and says, well, you're on, you know, they don't even care that you're on birth control. They're like, you have elevated lipids. Let's give you a statin. So now we know that statins degenerate your brain. Like, well, I don't know that I can say they degenerate your brain, but they ain't doing you any favors.

And so now we've got further depletion of co-Q10, hormonal birth controls inflammatory. So if it's inflammatory and it raises the your cholesterol, that's a potential for cardiovascular risk right there. So, okay, we're leaving women risk right there. So okay, we're leaving women on it for decades, but also we're putting PCOS women on it who are already at higher risk for these things. So we have to keep that in mind of like who's the individual in front of us and who are we actually actually prescribing this to. So yes, the Staten's can be an issue,

Metformans another. So hormonal birth control can cause insulin resistance. And in fact, if you've been on hormonal birth control, so to your point of leg, when does stuff get bad? Six months or more in your entire life, when you enter into menopause, you're 35% more likely to develop diabetes. 35%? 35, right? It's crazy.

So with that, Metforman is often a drug of choice to help with this. And you know, haven't high blood sugars, not a good thing, like you like your liver, your kidney or your eyes, your kidneys, you know, your, these major organs, you keep them healthy. However, netformin depletes B12, also depleted by hormonal birth control. Now she has brain fog and like she's, you know, having like she's forgetting where she put her keys and people are like, you're just getting old.

No, that's a B12 deficiency. B12 deficiency can present like dementia. So we have to be looking at that. And what's interesting is that when I've talked with pharmacists, this was really eye opening for me, is that pharmacist who are just handing out drugs all day and yes, birth control is a drug. They're like, when we pass women that birth control pill, we know it's a matter of time until she comes back with a thyroid medication, with an antidepressant

medication, or with a proton pump inhibitor because of gastrointestinal upset. So they see this, and they've been seeing this for decades, and this kind of how it goes with medications. Once you start one, then we've got side effects, here comes the other, and here comes the other. And there's a lot of things that we can do that I go through and beyond the pill that like If you're on birth control now and here's the thing I really aim to do in my book and if I did my job right you will not feel afraid the entire time through it

You'll have moments where you're like oh my god trust me. I've been there when I'm reading the research But I go problem solution problem solution. So if I present you with a problem, we've got immediate solutions following it up. Because I hate reading 200 pages of the book of A book and having the bejesus scared out of me and then being like, and now you need to read another hundred pages. You know what to do. And I'm like, my publisher is so I designed the book. So it's like, you take a quiz in chapter one to identify your hormone and balance. And then immediately it's like, just go to this page and start this protocol now. You can read it from front to back, but it's also designed to get in and get out. And my publishers who are always looking out

for the reader experience, and of course, like their literary peeps, they want to read the whole book, and they're like, well, we want women to read the whole book and for it to be a journey, and I'm like, look, if you have estrogen dominance, you are irritable, you are inflamed, you ain't feeling right. And I tell, if you have estrogen dominance, you are irritable, you are inflamed, like you ain't feeling right. And you, I tell you, you have estrogen dominance.

Now, read 200 pages. And I'll give you some time. Let me tell you my story. And I'm like, they will rip the book in half. They will curse my name. They will probably like hire a witch to like hex me and like throw the book across the room. And so I'm very much about like, if I present you a problem, we go immediately into

solutions. So in the metabolic mayhem chapter, we talk about how to drop inflammation. Like, bringing turmeric on board, it affects the NFKAPA B pathway. It supports phase 2 liver detoxification. It's been shown to be helpful for brain health. It's great for your gut health. You can grate it straight. So like a great turn, um, straight into like, I love turmeric eggs. That's my favorite. I just grate it straight into the pan I love turmeric eggs. That's my favorite. I just grate it straight into the pan. Oh, good. Then you get fibers.

Those feed the microbiome. That's the other thing. Like eating more vegetables. You feed the microbiome, which is reinforcing the terrain. Those little gut bugs help you get your estrogen out. So you want them working optimally. If they're not, you can actually have estrogen dominant. So, you know, in that with the metabolic mayhem,

if you're listening to this now and you're like, oh my God, I'm gonna die. No, no, no, get me on the pill. Check out the lab test. Do the quizzes in there for family history. Like, are you at risk for a stroke? Are you at risk for a heart attack? I even present in there what it looks like

for a woman to have a heart attack because we die at higher rates than men do from heart attacks because we're dismissed, because we don't present the same way. from heart attacks because we're dismissed, because we don't present the same way. So often we get told things like, you're just stressed out, you need to go take a yoga class and then you go home and you die and that's lame. So I wanted women to know. To read voice. You like that? I don't know what it is. Nils the yogi right there.

So I actually worked my way through college. As a yoga instructor, a group fitness instructor, but also there's something about these mics. I call these like sexy mics, where it's just like, you sound so smooth. And they say, they want to talk that way. Slow jumps, you know, totally. I secretly always wanted to be a DJ, so this is like my opportunity right now.

I'm not so natural. Busting out, elbow, cool, Jake. Given the sexy voice talk. So Dr. Bright, what sent you down this path? Like, what made you even want to get into this field? Like, how did you get into this? Oh, yeah, you know what's crazy? Is I was gonna be a gut doc

because as a kid, I had significant gastrointestinal issues. The fact, I was diagnosed with inflammation in my stomach when I was very young and I struggled for about 10 years, and doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. And I was on PPI's before they were actually ever testing kids, like all kinds of stuff, I'm like, oh Lord. And you know, I finally got to the point

where doctors were giving up on me, and they were like, yeah, you know, you don't, we think that you're attention seeking, like you don't actually have anything going on. And it was when H. Pylori was discovered and finally the research needed into medical practices that a doctor said to me, you know, there's this new bacteria, like we should test you for it, and there it was. And so with that, once I was treated, I was like, well, should I change my diet? And he was like, no, don't worry about that.

That's how old I am, you guys. And so with that, I did end up changing my diet. That's how I got into nutrition. I was like, wait, if I don't eat a bunch of refined carbs with like drinking orange juice and having tomato sauce and all of that, I don't actually have a heartburn. So I can actually modify my diet, stop eating crap, what a novel idea, which actually is an acronym.

And that stands for things that cut heartburn. And that propelled me into nutrition. And it was once I got into, so I was actually going to go get my PhD at Davis at a full-right scholarship. I was going to be a researcher until I realized that I very much wanted to make sure that stuff was getting into people's hands real time, not like decades of us researching and then begging medical professionals to actually like look at the researcher, get it presented at a conference. So when I was in a national ballet school, I was still on the pill and I made an observation early on that most of women's health is done to them, not with them, like they're not

an active participant. It's just like, and you guys have never had this experience, but it's just, let me just tell you how fun it is to be naked from the waist down, laying on a table and someone smacks your butt and says, scoot down, scoot down while you're feeder in stirrups. And then here comes this metal speculum, it is not fun. Nobody wants anything to do with that.

And what makes that experience so bad is that you're just like, it's just like your body is in the way. Like they're just trying to get at things instead of explaining things to you and working with you. And there's a lot of really great doctors out there who are the ones who showed me that like there's a different way. It was so different from my experience of going to the gynecologist and how is being

taught. So that propelled me into women's health. And my first year of school is the very first time. This is like why the book has a whole chapter on the low down on your hormones, how your menstrual cycle works, all of this is because it wasn't until my first year of medical school, I actually understood how my menstrual cycle worked and that I could only get pregnant one day out of the month. Like you shouldn't have to go to medical school to know how your body works. Like that was something. And then I was pissed because I was like, I've been popping this pill

every single day, and yet I'm only fertile one day out of the month, which is to your point of like what are alternatives, fertility awareness method, can be one alternative. And I was actually blown away when I got into the research, because I was taught, and then I perpetuated this myth that like, fam was just not gonna work. Like it didn't work, and it's like, aha, you're gonna get pregnant in the bad jokes that go gonna work. Like it didn't work and it's like,

Ha ha, you're gonna get pregnant in the bad jokes that go with that. When you get into research, you're like, oh snap. It's like 99% effective when done perfectly, which is the same as birth control pills. And the pill is actually only 91% effective with typical use, which is how women tend to use it. These were big ahas for me, but with this, when I kicked the pill, when I finally decided to ditch it, I just stopped. And for the first time in for me, but with this, when I kicked the pill, when I finally decided

to ditch it, I just stopped, and for the first time in my life, I lost my period altogether, which was a shock for me. I had doomsday periods that I counted down on the calendar, because they were so heavy and so painful that I was like, my life's gonna be ruined one day out of the month. So I knew that they came regularly, and I had about three years of consistent periods, started the pill, ten years later come off, lose my period altogether. And I got cystic acne and I had not had acne issues before and I had like a beard of cystic acne and acne on my, like, the post-pill acne is not just on your face, it's like Chesney, Bacni, Neckne, Buttney, like, is everywhere.

And when I went to my doctor, he was like, hmm, this is just you, I've never seen this before. And I was like, I think it's because I stopped birth control. He's like, no, it's because you've had PCOS all along. You'll read about post-pil PCOS in my book. So that, you know, I had a nutritional biochemistry background and concurrently studied clinical nutrition. So we are taught how to use food as medicine. And like, okay, if you have this going on like here's what you can eat and here's and and then you know natural medical school, they're like here's what to eat at this time of your menstrual cycle and here's like what you really need to like you know fuel like to bring down prostaglandins which by the way ladies prostaglandins hormone like substances that help contract the uterus so that you shed the endometrial lining that is your period and what, a lot of us start birth control like knee because of it, and it can be easily corrected

with omega-3 fatty acids and magnesium. And so it's usually a sign that something else is going on. So I mean, I was really grateful to have the pill and shut all that business down. However, when I came off of it, having all these issues, I thought I was a freak, and then I didn't wanna talk about it. And I wanna talk about it with anyone.

And then when I finally got my period back and you'll read about this in my book, I lead, I blood through my chair in medical school and you think that wouldn't suck, because you're like, I'm in a room with future doctors and I was like, I feel like I'm 14 in Mr. Atkins class, Mr. Atkins, if you're listening, that's why I didn't get up that day.

And leave class because it happened and I was like, somebody give me a sweatshirt. Now thank God it was the 90s. I'm wearing a sweatshirt around your waist was like a cool thing to do. I at least had my period then. Yay. So yeah, with that, I got my period back.

I cleared my cystic acne. And then when I got into clinical practice, I came to understand that I wasn't the only one. The majority of women do struggle in some way to come off a formal and a birth control, and why wouldn't you? This shuts down an entire system of your body. It impacts your gut and your brain and your liver and your skin and your vagina and like all of these things.

So why wouldn't you struggle? So that, you know, that really was like my origin story in that And yet, really what it was is my patients. And give it up for them because they trusted me. The protocols that are in beyond the pill, those were developed one-on-one in my practice with my patients who charted their data and brought it back to me. Again, I'm a scientist first, so I'm like, this is my hypothesis, let's test it, let's measure it, is it true, is it true for you? So working one on one with patients. And I got the reputation of being the doctor who believed women's birth control stories,

which was crazy to me. Crazy it doesn't market for that. This is like the first time I was on the phone and they're like, okay, so I heard you're the doctor who believes birth control stories. And if that's true, when it comes to you. And I'm like, what is hot? Of course, I believe you're stored like what? And you know, this was a woman who had an IUD placed and she after having a baby and she developed and it was sometime later after having a baby

and she developed panic attacks. She didn't feel like herself. I hear this a lot with the IUD. Women, they're like, I got it taken out and oh my god, like a week later, I'm like myself. And like the heavens parted and everything is so clear and I didn't feel like so disconnected. Yeah, well because we vilified estrogen for a long time. I believe that synthetic estrogen is the trouble maker. But as we've come to understand the research that synthetic progestes in which by the way ladies, you make progesterone. It is the good stuff. Only mom and nature and you make it humans in the lab make progestin.

And, well, progesterone helps with neuroplasticity. It stimulates gabbas, receptors in the brain to make you feel chilled on and calm. It helps you have easier periods. You like people a whole lot more when your progesterone's right. Progestin doesn't have those benefits. And, in fact, progesterone will help you lose water,

leading up to your period. So, if you get puffy hands and feet, that might be because you have too much estrogen relative to your progesterone. If you're on birth control, it's because you don't have a new progesterone, you have this progestin. And it's not a diuretic. It's not the same thing.

So that's that water weight game that we talked about. Now, the other thing is that the progestin alters how immune cells function in the brain. So they make more free radicals. Well, at the same time, for a controlled depletes, your antioxidants to protect against free radicals. So it's a lot of stuff going on there. And what's so fascinating to me is how many women came to my office telling the same stories.

They didn't know each other. They weren't on forums together, sharing stories, same story, over and over and over. And yet, there are doctors like, no, there's no research to support what you're saying. And it's like, well, who wants to fund that? Who wants to fund research? And it's like, oh, yo, those side effects are way worse

than we ever thought. Like, what are some of those stories from, like, so you mentioned IUD, but also like the shot in the pill. Like are there differences between those? So, you know, those all have, have progressed in in them. What's interesting is that the research that's been coming out of Denmark has shown us that, yes, the synthetic estrogen can be bad for the brain, but progestin seems to be a whole lot worse with the mood correlation.

We're not at a point with the research to be able to say causation, but we've got big enough studies now, and we've got enough women. I mean, it's in the package insert. We've been complaining about it since the introduction of hormonal birth control and we know what was really cool is that, well, what wasn't cool is that the Danish study came out in 2016 and the number of male doctors and scientists who lined up to say that's not real did be like, now, that doesn't happen. Oh, that's just correlation.

Like, these women have something else going on. Like, I wondered if even for a minute, if they ever thought they would say that to their sister or their mother or another woman in their life, because that is a painful thing to have someone in a position of authority dismiss the research that's finally validated, which you knew to be true all along. Like that is painful. It's terrible. Yeah. But with that, that study showed us that the progestin only, so we see that with like the depot shot, the IUDs, the mini pill that they don't fare any better. And actually it can be a lot worse in terms of the mood effects. So you're at a higher risk of being prescribed anti-depressant when you're on hormonal birth

control. And then in addition to that, you know, I've seen women who get the depot shot and they end up finding that like, they're binge drinking. Like they've never been a drinker. Now they're binge drinking. It's not for the GABA effects of the alcohol. So there is alterations in like dopamine happening in the brain, but this comes down to the risk taking behavior

that we don't pump the brakes on as much. We also don't pick up on subtle social cues as well, which is really funny because the study just recently came out and it was like, oh, okay, so there are like women, so we're animals, okay? We've acknowledged that. And how do animals survive? Like based on instinct, like there's that that sixth sense kind of thing going on. And really it's that, you know, maybe it is just

into the shin and something we count name and science doesn't have the tools to study yet. But it's also likely that stuff's running in your subconscious that you don't, you're four, your four brains, I don't even need to know about that. Like just handle it. Like breathing happens, the heartbeat happens.

You don't have to think about it. And it may very well be that avoiding, like when a woman's walking down the street, and she sees a guy, and she decides across the street, she doesn't know why, but something told her. It's time to cross the street. There's subtle cues that we don't even, we're not even aware of.

Super subtle cues. And so without the researchers are like, it's not that significant, because if it was, we would have noticed it by now. And I'm like, you're so cocky. I can't believe you wrote that like you said that. Like, and the thing is, is that it's very different to be a woman in this world in terms of the threat of harm that can come to us.

Like we, I, in particular, I just think we were talking about Game of Thrones. If you are a brand of tar, then it's no big deal for you. But like we're usually tinier. We're smaller. Um, and we, you know, we we're usually tiny or we're smaller. And we, you know, we can be at higher threat in our environment. So all of these things keep us safe. And there's a, so I actually did a book signing in New York.

I have to say shout out to Ricky Lake and Abby Epstein who hosted this for me. They're awesome. And thank you. But the thing ended with me talking about the study and going into this book about the gift of fear and how women's instincts like keep them from getting raped and how we actually you know we We pick up on these little things that we then have societies influence telling us Don't be a bitch. You should smile. You should always be nice ignore that. You just being unkind. Women shouldn't be unkind and all of that.

And it's like, nope, that's actually keeping you safe. If some guy walks up to you in the grocery store parking lot at night and no one else is around, and he's like, let me unload the groceries, and your answer is no. And he's like, oh, what, you think you're too good? And you say no again, because there was something they're saving you.

But I ended the whole thing on this rape story that happens there. Every woman should read the gift of fear. I read it when I was, I think I was like 15 or something. That'll scare you. That's scary than my book. But it also really taught me that like these subtle cues are so important. So that was the first thing that came to my mind when the study came up. But that is a horrible way to end a book signing at like 10 o'clock at night in New York. I just want to say that. That's why I brought that up.

If you were there, I vote it. Dr. Brighton, another thing that I think that we've, you know, the stereotypical symptoms of things like PMAS, right? Like feeling a particular way, maybe irritability, cravings or whatever, are those all subtle instincts that benefit us? In other words, we tend to try to get rid of them by taking the pill. Are there benefits to having those feelings? And is there a reason for them? Yeah, totally.

So in the book I talk about, so in chapter four, my book, which is like the decoder ring out of the cracker jack box, just dating myself over and over and over and over. I'm getting involved, don't worry. Okay, good, good. But basically, like when you get your period,

you should get chapter four of this book. So that you understand, if you have this sign in symptom, here's the labs you should test. This is what it might mean. So you can go talk to your doctor about it, and here's what to do right now. So you feel better. And so these symptoms are your bodies we have communicating to you that something is going on.

The irregular period, for example, it might be that hypothyroidism, it might be polycystic ovarian syndrome, it might be a prolactinoma, which is a benign brain tumor in your brain, like, well, how many times can I say brain in one sense? But, you know, that could be what's going on. So we have to investigate your symptoms are an opportunity and an invitation to heal. And we have to understand that, you know, the way disease develops is that it's like, it always starts with the subtle stuff you'll just deal with. That you're like, I can put up with this. I can put up with this until you can't put up with it. And like, these things progress,

and you, as a woman, you know your body so well. This is why in my book, I teach you how to track your data because the reality is, is you will know something's wrong before your lab shows something's wrong. Like, it takes a while for those labs to show gross variations, and especially if we're using the conventional reference ranges, which are generally based on sick populations. So it's not a marker of healthy people. In fact, I advocate that every person when they are feeling awesome should get their lab testing done and get their baseline tests. So when they don't feel awesome, they know they're normal. They can compare and they can go back and that can actually help you get attention from your doctor

a whole lot faster. So, you know, I make this analogy in the book about like, you know, when you post-birth control syndrome, the collection of signs and symptoms that come on after women's stop hormone. Did you come up with that term, by the way? I came up with it. It's, you know, other people have been saying it as well. And so it's something like, I don't know, I have people who are like, no, obviously their first person has said it. And I'm always like, you but I feel like everybody was observing it. They just, we didn't have language around it at the same time because whenever we bring it up with clinicians who pay attention and listen to women's stories, they're like, oh my God, that's what I've been seeing. That's what it is.

and stories, they're like, oh my God, that's what I've been seeing, that's what it is. So with that coming up, I say, what post-birth control symptoms kind of like is that your body was bound and gagged and thrown in the back of a trunk. And it had something to say for a long time, but it was held hostage. And because birth control numb down and shut down, I have a good friend, Dr. Lara Brighton, who calls it chemical castration, which is essentially what it is. It's a temporary one, and it sounds harsh, but that's the real talk. And so, when you pop that trunk

and you rip the duct tape off your body's mouth, your body's gonna start yelling at you. I'm the like, I need you to pay attention right now. It's not because this narrative we've got is that being a woman's inherently awful, your body's always betraying, hormones are the worst. Now, hormones give you superpowers, and that's why your brain works a little bit better than the male brain in some regards, not because you're better, just because you're different.

But with that, that can be what's going on, but we're told, those symptoms are bad, and we have to suppress it. And that's what pharmaceuticals do, and there's a time and a place for it, but they strong arm your body into submission. Whereas working with your body naturally, that's going to take a lot more time, and it's more of a dance than you have to orchestrate that. And so understand that, like, if you suppress anything, and that can be part of post-birth control syndrome, is it nasty?

Something that was going on and allowed it to fester and progress. And then you come off of birth control, and your body finally has the opportunity to present it to, which is usually when doctors are like, do you want to have a baby? Yes or no? You say no? Great. Go back on birth control. And we'll discuss it when you want to have a baby.

Whether or not you want to pro-create doesn't mean that you should, you know, get the, like, that's a choice that's in the side of your health. Like, you should get the best care possible regardless of whether you want to make a baby or not. Are there some birth control pills that are better than others? Like a women right now? Like I want to I need to take the pill anyway. Which one? Are there some that are better? So, you know, in general, I wouldn't say like, oh, there's definitely ones that are better, but what I would say is that if you already are at risk for stroke or heart attack, staying away from the family of progestines called drasparinum, the Yaz,

Yazmin, Ocella, when those guys stepped on the scene is where we saw the heart attack and stroke risk really climb and it's because they're potassium sparing. So this is also an issue if you are popping ibuprofen because spoiler alert, it doesn't always take away period pain to start the pill. And so if you're taking that and you're taking ibuprofen because spoiler alert, it doesn't always take away period pain to start the pill. And so if you're taking that and you're taking ibuprofen, say you have endometriosis,

now you're on two potassium sparing drugs. Get a Continental Ballad panel or at the very least, get your electrolytes drawn and you can see where your potassium's at and understand what your risk is for that. Interesting. What are some of the strategies, let's say someone gets off the pill, they're noticing some of these symptoms. What are some of the strategies, let's say someone gets off the pill, they're noticing some of these symptoms. What are some of the strategies that you

employ to help women get back into just regular health better health? Yeah, so I have a ton of recipes in the book and we have, I'm always a food first person. So we have a whole 30-day protocol and the first thing is we jump right into liver detox support. This is not a lot of people they see out there like, oh, you have to detox those hormones out. Otherwise, your body can't get them out. No, your body can do that. But you're it's kind of like we tied a hand behind your back like and and asked you to like, you know, go play a baseball gamer or something. And that's what's going on with like liver detox and gut detox and what we call the amunkteries, your ways to get waste out. And so we jump right into how can we support liver detoxification and gut moving things

out, so pooping every day. And we do that in the first 14 days. That's the thing I see will move the needle really fast in terms of like not having acne like you're a teenager because is there anything worse when you're 40 and you look like you're 14? That's not cool. And you just like, you got wrinkles and you got acne, that is not fair. Like you can go to trade that.

They like, I'll take the acne and just make the wrinkles go away. It's lame. So we go right into that. We talked about liver detox and we've talked about nutrient depletions that happen and how many replenish nutrient stores. So the dietary protocol in there is designed to do that and designed to help you rebuild your hormones. So you start making your own hormones.

And chapter one of the book has a hormone quiz. You've got to understand your hormone imbalance because it may be rooted in adrenal health. It might be what's going on with your thyroid. It might be insulin, progesterone, testosterone, like it could be any one of those is the key troublemaker. And it's going to look a little different in terms of diet, lifestyle, and supplement protocols. And so I guide you in that, and I give you a whole sample day of like,

how do you actually do this? Because it's a lot to switch. If you're like, I don't even eat vegetables, and now she wants me to eat 69 servings a day. By the way, if that's you, just start with one serving a day for a week, and then increase over time. Go slow, slow and study always wins the race

on behavioral change. Now, we've also got to reverse that metabolic mayhem. So, we've got to drop inflammation and I really encourage women get a hemoglobin A1C. It's an average of what your blood sugar looked like in the last three months. And it's a lot more sensitive in picking things up than just a glucose alone, a fasting glucose. Sometimes, I see patients who have elevated fasting glucose and I'm like, how do you do with blood draws? And they're like, I fasting glucose. Sometimes they see patients who have elevated fasting glucose and I'm like, how do you do with blood draws?

And they're like, I hated it. And I sat there for an hour and it was super stressed out to get it done. And I'm like, yeah. And you spiked cortisol and cortisol hit your liver and your liver gave up the glycogen into glucose and now your glucose went up. So this is a one snapshot in time of somebody having an appropriate stress response. That's what your body should do. But we should also get a fasting insulin and a C-reactive protein.

Now, fasting insulin because if your insulin is going up like above six, that's just trouble coming down the pipeline. And then the CRP, the C-reactive protein, it's a marker of inflammation. It's been shown in study is that they measure women's blood, they put them on birth control, and some women have three times the increase, like increase of C-RP. That's inflammation. That's inflammation. That's affecting your brain, your cardiovascular system, your entire body.

It's not a good thing. We know. You want to get a chronic disease, get inflamed. So like, that's the way that you get there. So with that, we have to look at those pieces and we have to look on how can we eat to lower inflammation, what things can we bring on to help sensitize ourselves? If we've got insulin resistance, then we're gonna see thyroid resistance,

cortisol resistance, like if your cells are inflamed, you can't do a cormon, so you can't use them. This is why women will say, my thyroid panel is normal. Everything is normal, and you look at it and it is, but they're like, I still feel hypo thyroid. Well, we don't have a great way to test cellular resistance. I'm slightly what's going on, because we look at where your inflammatory protein is.

In other words, you're just not using it. Exactly. You can't use it. It's that hormones be so tricky. Okay. So, yeah, so with all of that, now the other thing and what I've just gone through is like the five fundamentals of the Brighton Protocol and the last one is your gut. And we, and it's so funny to me how many people will be like, I'm really surprised that like I got this book and then you like went into liver health

and got health link and all of that. And I'm like, yes, because if those aren't right, your hormones are never going to be right. So your gut, which houses all these wonderful critters who do so much for you, they also hope with processing estrogen. But if you've got the wrong guys growing there, they'll make beta-glucaronidase with reactivates estrogen, puts it back in a circulation. Now your liver's like WTF mate, like I just got all that out,

and now I gotta do it again. Oh, wow. And so that can be one way to develop estrogen dominance. Same if you're not moving your bowels every day. Yes, you need to poop every day. It is the only way to really get that estrogen out. It's one of the main ways that we get a lot of waste out. And so with that, we've got to not only replenish

the microbiome, so we've killed some of them being on birth control. So that's why if you're on it, please take a probiotic and eat prebiotic foods and probiotic rich foods. So getting things like your sour crowd coming in, key for Kim Chi, making sure you're eating artichokes and everything I really go through in Beyond the Pell is gonna help you get so excited. She does know that's really well.

Oh my god so this week I have to share that I was laughing about something and my husband's like I wonder how many people would ever guess that you have the humor of like a 14 year old boy? And I'm like, I know. It's like, it's why I birthed a man. Like, that's what happened there. Because he's like, makes a fart joke or he comes over. And like, yeah, this shouldn't happen.

And he farts on me. There's like something he's really into. And I have to run out of the room because I laugh so hard. Because does he's sneak attack and I'm also like good on you I'm kind of for out of you like how you're so sneaky like I didn't even see it coming. Yeah or he'll make a joke and my husband's like that's so inappropriate you have to stop laughing I'm like on tears on the ground and he's like my husband's like you talked about Indo-Mometriosis. Yeah.

My sister has endo. Mm-hmm. And maybe you can school me a little bit on that, because I've only known, I didn't even know about it until my sister, I was, yeah. Not, in fact, I feel like a lot of people don't know a lot about endo. And with your nutritional background

and your food first attitude, what are some things that I should know or she should know about that? Totally. So, first thing, one in 10 women have endometriosis and it's one of the biggest underfunded areas of nutrition or nutrition of women's health and it's really, it's sad. And there's so much we don't know about endometriosis just from a lack of asking. It just, it so breaks my heart. So with endometriosis, we understand that it's likely looking more like an autoimmune condition. So in the on the pill, you'll get into the gut-check chapter. There's an autoimmune protocol because, as I said,

birth control comes with autoimmune disease, who gets autoimmune disease at the highest rate. Women do. So that's one thing we start to look at with women with endometriosis. It's got health, uh, do you have leaky gut, um, what's growing in your gut because we know that certain organisms can be inflammatory, but can also trigger auto-immunity. Now, the other thing with endometriosis is that it's implantation. So people who are listening, this is like the worst period of your life. It's not like, I have a bad period. It is like somebody, I mean, for some women have explained it of like, it's like someone exploded shrapnel inside me.

Like, it hurts so bad. They are vomiting. It impacts their activities of daily living, which in medicine is a really big deal. Anything that impacts your ADLs, that is like slow the roll. We've got to do something about that because that impacts your quality of life.

And if you're a woman with chronic disease, you're a woman with chronic pain specifically, you're at a much higher rate of being dismissed and receiving inadequate care. This is in the research. This was her for a long time. Yeah. Like, oh, you're just having painful periods. Welcome to womanhood. This is just the way it is.

Understand that it's common to have period problems, PMS, and all of this, but it's not normal. And why does your doctor think it's normal? Because who goes to the doctor? Sick people who need help. So it's all they see all day every day, and they're like, oh, this is normal. This is the way it is. It's not normal. And we need to be asking what's going on. So with that, these women get to endometrial implants. The endometrium is the lining of your uterus. And these implants can end up anywhere in the bowels. So now let's pain when you poop on the bladder, pain when you pee.

It can end up in your actual abdominal cavity. And so it's not exactly like the endometrial tissue. So we used to think like, oh, it's just these endometrial implants. Yes, but it's a little more fibrous. There's a little more cysts in it, so something's different about it as well. And that's where we need to investigate a little bit more,

but these tissues can be stimulated by estrogen. And estrogen will cause those tissues to proliferate. Then when your period's gonna come, your hormones drop, it triggers a bleed. You could be having bleeding into different places of your body, which is going to be, it's gonna get your immune system hot and bothered, and that's gonna be painful as well.

So we're gonna have that inflammation component. So this is where environmental toxins, probably playing a big role in this, estrogen dominance, we've gotta get estrogen and check as we do with all autoimmune disease, because estrogen is a big player in your immune system. And it doesn't mean get rid of all the estrogen because without that, we can't actually get our hormones

up into our immune system balanced in the right way. Now, the other thing that I talk about in my book, which is like, I just say I did this virtual book club where we went through every chapter of the book. And when we got to the getting your libido back chapter, there were so many women who are like, my husband is right now looking over my shoulder. It was like waiting for this chapter,

just like waiting for this. And when I went through the top 10 health benefits of orgasms and how having regular sexual activity defined as weekly sexual activity actually modulates the immune system, can help with lowering pain, lowering inflammation, and regulating your menstrual cycle as well. All the men were like, oh my God, see?

Those are great fun facts. It's so late, but it's also something like, yeah, but you gotta do your work. And it can't be like what you see on the movies, where it's like, we kissed, and then she just had an orgasm. Women aren't wired that way, don't work that way. And like, that, it should make it more fun.

Speak for yourself. You're like, I just look at her across the room. It's done. Oh, but. Dr. Brighton, you know, I'm by no means an expert in hormones or hormone balance, but I did train a lot of clients. And when I would get female clients, you would get off birth control

and talk about some of the stuff that you talk about now. I had no idea what to do other than apply my expertise, which was exercise. And the way that I would train them, I was very careful with intensity. I would not have them do lots of circuits and high-intensity cardio workouts and beat themselves up. We would do traditional resistance training. Once, twice a week, get stronger, I would have them do mobility work and recuperative work. And that seemed to work very, very well. And that's become my protocol now, whenever I get people in that situation.

Did that, was that the right approach? Yeah, and so I like that you bring up the exercise piece and it does lend itself to like the endotalk as well, because exercise can really help. Now, you can actually work with a woman's menstrual cycle to help her have even more gains. Oh, really? Yeah, there are women who, I can't even tell you,

how many times I have a patient. So I used to be in a spin instructor, oh, on that first. So I'm not judging anybody. But you know, spins designed to be a 40 minute class from start to finish. And yeah, I was in gyms, oh my God. New Year's Day, they'd always have me teach a two hour,

two hour spin class. Oh, wow. You know, one of the medible of Gameham, I killed some people's adrenals. Like, that's not okay. Like, you know, one dog about Meda-Boleg, I can't see people's adrenals. Like, I'm not okay. What do they know? I was like, I was just a college kid trying to make some money.

So with that, so that's something that's stressful, right? We have to look at if a woman is not ovulating, what would keep us from ovulating? One thing is the signal from the environment that it's not safe. So, exactly horse stress. Exactly. Your body will choose survival over procreation as it should, because it's in it to win it with you for the long run.

And also a baby, you know, if your body, your body's not evolved with like iPhones. Okay. Like we're just catching on to all of this. And so your body doesn't know that there's not a lion or tiger. And it's just like, babies are noisy. If you're pregnant, you can't move. Like we're going to have a predator on us. So we're going to just shut it down. So with that, when we look at women coming off of birth control, and they're like, oh,

I just want to lose the weight. And sometimes they go really, really intense. Two intense. Two intense. Yeah, that's something where now their body's getting the stress signal. So it's always something I have to frame to people just because something's a good thing doesn't mean more of it's a better thing. We have to really respect our body and where we're at.

Diling down the intensity can really help reestablish brain ovarian connection. The brain signals to the ovaries rather than signaling to the adrenals, make cortisol shut down the progesterone, the ovulation mechanism, which by the way, without ovulation, you don't get progesterone. That's why ovulation is so important. We thought, I think that's brilliant, to have dialed it back. The other thing is getting all TMI,

because that shouldn't even be a thing TMI. Like, we're humans. It's always when people are like, oh, I don't wanna talk about my poop, it's TMI, and I feel ashamed. I'm like, would you shame a dog that you see pooping? Like, you wouldn't do that, because you're like, that's what you do.

That was just normal, that's what happens. Everybody poops. Everybody poops, there's a book on that. Which is silly, we had to have a book on it, but that shows you like, what prudes we've been, I guess. It's amazing. Amazing. So, you know, with your menstrual cycle, here's how it works.

When our period's going to come, what happens is we drop estrogen and progesterone. That drop signals the body, there's no baby, shed the endometrium. You're shedding an entire organ, you just grew. So if you feel like you are a little bit tired leading up to that or tired on your period, you need to dial back, that's not abnormal. But we live in this like nail-driven society, and this is not man-shaming or anything, but just this idea of like you guys are like the same all of the time.

And so we think we've got to be the same. And if we're falling behind like we've got to push hard and there's no space in society to really be like, now I actually need a home day and a mental health day and I'm gonna like stay home because I'm shedding an entire organ that I grew over a month time. So with that, that's a really good time to dial back.

Maybe it's Yen Yoga, maybe you're decreasing the weights, but you're still doing weights. You might do mobility type work, mobility work, or you might be doing like lower weight, but higher amount of reps if that feels good to you. And then as you're coming off of your period, your estrogen starting to rise and then, you know, roughly around day 10ish or so testosterone is going to start spiking. These are sprint, go. You can do that. That's a great time to get your, you wanna lift heavier, go heavier.

That's a great time to do it. As you're leading into ovulation, you're gonna still feel like those, you know, those, that you are like, oh man, I have so much energy. Women might even notice this subtle thing of like, oh, I'm walking up the stairs, like, on my period, and I'm like, oh, I'm taking my time. And then, like, you're jumping up two sets of stairs. Like, well, you're like, you're ovulating, you're like, I can go, I feel amazing.

And then, after ovulation, as your progesterone rises, like, we can get stimulation to the connective tissue that we want to be a little more conscious of, like, how we are moving our body. And maybe we want to do strength training that we have a spotter or being braced with that. And with that, we may even want to do some Pilates and bring some Pilates into the mix or body weight training in that way.

And then as you creep closer to your period, again, if you feel your energy come down, respect that. If you feel like, man, I'm going anaerobic. Like every time I like go to do something, I'm just panting, I can't even have a conversation. Well, now you're burning glycogen, you're not burning, you know, the fat that you wanna be burning, as you guys know that fat burns in oxygenated fire.

So with that, though, don't get on yourself. Be like, oh, then maybe this is the opportunity to do something different, to really pull back. And what's really cool is that when we are on our period and, you know, typically about day two, or day three of our period, our brain hormones, our estrogen is starting to rise. So we are then, even while you're still bleeding,

you're focusing on getting that next egg ready. Again, my ovulation is really the focus there. But your corpus colosum, which is the center of your brain, connects your lobes so much better. So doing cross body action in this time can actually help you dissipate stress. And this is right before ovulation? This is on your period, leading up to ovulation.

Yeah, so this is where walking can actually be tremendously beneficial in decreasing your stress, but also just making you feel like you're on your game. And this is a great time to start analyzing life and looking at what do I need? What do I really want? What do I want to really get rid of? And so there's different ways throughout our cycle

that our brain works differently. And there's been brilliant psychologists and psychiatrists writing about this information with regards to our menstru works differently. And there's been brilliant psychologists and psychiatrists writing about this information with regards to our menstrual cycle. And there's a new book that's gonna be coming out later talking even more in depth about this that I can't share about because I've been privileged to read it before it actually comes out.

It is really good. And I love all of this and it fascinates me and it's a way to actually work with a woman's body. Now, why brought up the spin instructor thing is because how many patients I've had when I'm like, just I want you to do a little bit less. Like I want you to do a little bit less and we're actually gonna do exercise

to work with your menstrual cycle and they're like, oh my God, this month I've already lost. Like I was losing like two to three pounds a week. You know, if that's what they needed to use which is, you know, three pounds is kind of maxing in terms of sustainable weight loss by doing seemingly less. And how many athletes I've had that are like, oh my God, you're never going to believe like my time swimming or this or that because I actually worked with my menstrual cycle.

And it's almost like your menstrual cycle builds in the recovery phase. Totally. You focus on these other things. Totally. We notice this as trainers all the time. And if you're pushing your body when it doesn't wanna be pushed, it's going to wanna hold on to insurance, which is body fat.

So making you're trying to lose body fat during a period of time when your body's feeling stressed out. Well, we've been coined as team no sweat because we're constantly cautioning people that are listening because in my experience The people that tend to gravitate towards this type of training the high intensity the spin class are the ones that shouldn't be Yeah, they're the A type. Yes, right here A times we calm porous all junkies. Yeah, totally totally and it's and it's like it's I'm not trying to demonize spin I'm not trying to demonize spin. I'm not trying to demonize these ways of training, but in just in my experience of training

hundreds, even thousands between the three of us of people, those are the ones that gravitate towards it. Totally. And you know there's those people who thrive being marathon runners, which I'm going to share with you that in the Portland marathon, I actually worked in the medic tent. And that was the very first and last time I ever considered running a marathon. You don't wanna be the first person in.

You know what the first person to cross the line does? They run straight into the medic tent and then they get their blood pressure taken while they're also getting an IV bag put in. And I was like, when I was seeing that and people vomiting and everything and people being like, just take into the ER and I'm like, uh-uh, it's not for me, shut it down.

But there are some people who totally thrive with that kind of exercise. They probably have different genes. Like they're wired a little bit differently than us. And I also wonder, so, oh my God, like it's so game of thrones season. I'm not gonna give any spoilers because I don't wanna be that person,

but winter was, it came, okay? It came. And the only people who survived, I said this to people, I'm like, there's this thing called an MAO gene that processes your catacole amines. I actually have a mutation in this, which it's called the warrior dream, which means that if I get stressed out, I don't clear my epi nor epi, my freak out hormones from my brain. And this evolutionary speaking, why we think it existed was because it's somebody attack

the tribe. You could go, like, can't stop, won't stop until everybody's dead or they're far enough away from your tribe. So when you're watching Game of Thrones and the Night King is there, I want you to identify who likely had an M.I.O. defect because they're the only ones that lived to be able to battle that long. And so these are people who may gravitate, and this is something like, if you're this person,

you will have a propensity towards anxiety or feeling like you want to rage out. Jump squats are some of the best medicine for that because we just have to go through like, okay, so if your body's doing this, what does your body want? Well, it thinks you need to to go through like, okay, so if your body is doing this, what is your body want? Well it thinks you need to fight, you know, fight or freeze or, you know, fight somebody. And so give it what it wants, move big muscles.

And so this is something where I will tell women like take off your heels, go, close the blinds in your office or whatever, do some lunges, do some jump squats, like do something that gets your heart rate up and moves the big muscle so that your body got what it needed. And it's like, wait, I can chew through those cataclysmines. I can work on all of that. But it may very well be too, that some of these A-type people,

like what else are they able to do? They're the ones that like, I mean, I've seen these lawyers in the Bay Area where they're like, I only sleep five hours and I go to work and I sleep there and they go, go, go. And I'm like, and then people like shame them for that behavior, but I'm like, can I just like for a minute say like matter of respect

because a lot of people would die doing that. And like there's something very special about you, but like let's make sure you live long life. Like let's work on that. So you know, there may be something about that that causes us to gravitate towards that, but again, just because it's good more doesn't make it better. And so we really have to pay attention to that. So, there may be something about that that causes us to gravitate towards that, but again, just because it's good, more doesn't make it better.

And so, we really have to pay attention to that. And that is something circling back to endometriosis, than if you are overdoing it in any capacity of your life and you're signaling that stress response over and over, which can just be the way you talk to yourself, fascinating research, that if you say mean things to yourself, yes women, I'm talking to you because yes I try to participate in this and I have to slow the role in it as well. If you get in front of the mirror and you're like you're fat, you're ugly, you're dumb,

you don't do anything right, you're inflammatory proteins go up. You become inflamed. If you get in front of the mirror and you're like your rock star, you kick ass, you're doing the best you can and like you forgive your past self and you just keep doing you, you're doing the best you can, and like you forgive your past self, and you just keep doing you, your inflammatory proteins drop.

And they've compared it to meditation, and talking nice to yourself, beats meditation, and dropping, now you always should probably still meditate, but because that's how you get there to be like, oh, I'm conscious enough that I'm running these same negative thoughts, but any kind of thing that gives that stress response, that can compromise your progesterone. Now in the case of endometriosis, we've got overstimulation of estrogen. Things

are going to fill a whole lot worse. And the irony of the negative self talk is if you saw a person speaking negatively to another person, mostly, we would all be like, that's terrible. Stop doing that. But yet we do it to ourselves. And there's nobody we believe more physically than our own self. Like you could be yelling at me and saying bad things to me and I could believe you or not, but what I say is always true. And so that negative self-talk is far worse than even someone else doing it to you. Yeah, and you know, I try to tell women like, like, talk to yourself like you're three, because whatever's going on is probably something from that three to five-year-old old range that something happened and kind of got imprinted on you. My husband actually had

this brilliant idea today. My my child has a panda, which is a pediatric autoimmune disorder of the brain, that he developed. It's very recent. It's only been like a handful of months that we've been dealing with this. And it's very difficult to navigate. And right now he's being really cool. But my husband and him, they just have this like friction and I can see it, but like, then I try to frame it to my husband, he's like, I don't see it. He had this great idea. He's like, I'm gonna wear the GoPro camera

on my head today with our child and I'm gonna record his response and the things that I'm saying and then that way I can truly near it back to me and see what's going on and try to impact. I thought I was like, go you. I thought it's like, wow amazing. And I thought about that. Like, wow, I was sitting on the plane and thinking, what if I was wearing a GoPro during the day when I like go into the bathroom

or go into the gym or like any of these things, like, what would I say to like, what would I see that I'm doing that I'm not even aware of? It's just a very interesting thing to think like, if you're talking bad to yourself, maybe you need to go pro on your head. Be like, watch it back and be like, oh my God, I'm so ashamed I ever, because there are things that we will say to ourselves that we would never say out loud to another human.

Or another person, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And kids here say sometimes these things that we say to ourselves in the internalizes. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, no, like trust. So like I totally own like body image issues. I think if you spend a decade working

as a group fitness instructor, you can have some body image issues because you stand in front of a room in front of everybody and like you weren't high clothes like the whole works. But you know, I just rolled back from living in Paris and I will fully confess, the last week that back from living in Paris and I will fully confess. The last week that we were living in Paris, I sent my husband out and I was like, you

don't come back with less than 12 desserts. Like, I have been awesome like this whole time and I'm going to eat 12 desserts which I can't really do sugar. Like, I like had like one bite of every single one. I was like, I'm out. I'm out, I can't even do it. But with that, it's like, okay, so I'm holding some extra weight right now because I've been under tremendous stress with my son a book coming out. I've had very little sleep, like when he goes into, he's in a flare, like he'll sleep like four hours or less

tonight, it's interrupted. And so all of that, and like, okay, so like I wanna get in front of the mirror and be like, oh, you're so fat. Why don't you just lose weight? What's wrong with you? Like you're supposed to be this pillar of health and I have to look and be like, yeah, you have,

like if you were your patient, you'd be like, look at all this stuff that you have going on. Like, of course we're gonna have a little more belly fat because our cortisol is elevated. That's what happens. Like, you know, your butt hips and thighs, that's going to get a little more plump if like you're not getting your progesterone, progesterone

helps with arm metabolism. So without that, that can be a bit of an issue in estrogen is stimulating those areas. I have hypothyroidism. I know that if my upper arms start getting a little bit jiggly, it's time to go do a thyroid test because that can actually be a sign of hypothyroidism or even low testosterone. And so there's certain ways our hormones can show up in our body. And just to hit this argument right away, is not, I know there are, there are male doctors that I've seen out there saying, like they make these like willy wonka, like memes and like these really condescending things to women where they're like tell me more about how your hormones are causing your weight and it's not just that you're eating too much and I'm like oh find you in a dark alley I will.

Like for real and I'm like accept that the like what it what it would do as a physician when a woman comes to you and says everything is is the same. And yet I'm having unexplained weight gain. And I don't know why you test her thyroid. That's a well known like symptom of hypothyroidism. What if she's losing too much weight? And she's like, I don't know why I'm losing all of this weight. I'm sweating all the time. I can't sleep at night.

You test her thyroid. And so this idea that like, oh, your hormones don't have any impact on your metabolism or any of it. It doesn't even make sense. I'm like, what about insulin? What about that? That can also cause belly weight gain. If somebody has, if somebody's complaining about like no matter what I do, my midsection is gaining weight. I'm like, let's check your cortisol versus cortisol and let's check your insulin and make sure it's not an issue. Can it be that you're eating too much and not moving enough? Yes, it definitely can be, but like the thing about health, I'm still holding my, I'm still like trying to squeeze my belly, it's hilarious. The thing about health though is this

like almost never one thing. It's usually a collection thing and that is why I love being a root cause medicine doctor is like I'm a great problem solver. So I get to take all the puzzle pieces, put them all together and paint a picture for that person to be like, hey, this is how you got here. And here's where you're going if we don't act now. So like here's what we're gonna do to reverse this. And in a lot of ways, it's just like my job is just listening to all the data points they provide me

to troubleshoot what is going on for them. And when it comes to your health, it's like reading a book that's too close to your face. You already know everything, you have all the data, but it's so close you can't navigate it, you can't read it, it's out of focus. So you need someone who can stand back and be like, oh, okay, here's what we need to do.

It's your signs, your symptoms, how you feel living in your body, what you say is normal and not normal for you that guides us in what lab testing we need to conduct next. Well, this has been absolutely fun. I have one more question for you, but I do want to comment on the hormone thing. Yeah. You know, they talk a lot about you need excess calories to gain weight, but your hormones determine a lot of times where that weight goes.

So you could take like a male athlete, have them meet the same amount of food, give them testosterone, extra testosterone, and he'll get more muscle and less body fat. Those calories have been repartitioned from fat to muscle. And that's just one simple example that I know everybody can understand. One last question. You talked about birth control methods that were not hormonal, like testing when you're ovulating. What about the good old fashioned pull-out method, if done properly?

Is that a viable birth control method? Good old sounds been pushing this for a long time. 4% failure rate when done correctly. When done correctly. And when I read that, my jaw dropped. But you know, and ask me, you gotta do it correctly. And yeah, and that's, I like,

here's what happens to some men, not all men, someone can be on their game. But that they're like, their hormones override their brain. So like having a logical thought. Wait, wait, you're saying that men's hormones override our brain? I know. Imagine it with a novel thought. I mean, yeah, there's some men that like, you know, when people are like, they're cheaters, they're just a dog. And it's like, well, they're like, you know, maybe, maybe they are, or maybe they're a mix of luck. Can't function. And like, they get flooded with hormones. or maybe they're a mix of, can't function and like they get flooded with hormones and then they're like, can't compute, must just follow like what my little brain is telling me and do do that work.

By the way, there's no actual brain, but there is a nervous system to issue there. So the beginnings of a brain. Totally. So, you know, the deal though with the pull out method is what makes me uncomfortable is a woman can't control it. And she can't control it, and then there's also pre-adjaculate or what people know more commonly as pre-com. That does exist. There can be a ejaculate before there is actually an orgasm. And if those swimmers be strong, they will find their way to an egg.

Like, you know, if he is eating seafood and Brazil nuts and has his selenium and his glutathione's on point, then those guys are going to make it. Like they will swim and they will make it. No, I'm glad you said that, because I think the pull method. Well, what about combined with also knowing when she's ovulating and stuff,

and actually planning not to have sex for those, you know, a few days that she has a higher chance of being pregnant? That's a great comment. Yeah, so with fertility awareness method, there is a bigger window. So women can get pregnant for 24 hours. It's 24 hour event without that sperm, be tricky,

and it can live like five or six days, which makes sense. I mean, there are other mammals in nature that actually go have sex, capture sperm, hang on to it for months until they're in the right environment, and then get themselves pregnant. And so, again, we're animals.

So, with that, that sperm can live for a bit of time. And so, that's why when you're doing fertility awareness method, the fertile window is more like a week. So it's like, you know, you got three weeks green light go and, you know, one week out of the month, like shut it down. And with that, women will often say, like, well, you know, my partner doesn't want to use a barrier method. Okay, well, you mean, it's up to you

if you want to risk the pull-out method. I present the science. I, as a physician, would never be like, this is a good method. Okay, well, you mean it's up to you if you want to risk the pull-out method. I present the science. I as a physician would never be like, this is a good method for that just because that feels irresponsible. But I provide the education and you can make a decision for yourself. I just was actually shocked. I had to put it in my book because I was like, whoa, wait, what? It's like 96 percent efficacy rate. Like that's amazing. Like you need to know that. No, we're talking about netta goes girls. So that's amazing. Like, you need to know that. No, we're talking about that. And that goes, girl, so that's cool. Oh, cool. Yeah. Oh, it's cool.

I know. And people have so many names for it too. But so some people do use the pull-out method. I mean, that is a risk that you could become pregnant. Other people decide to engage in something else and spice it up in their bedroom. I've actually had women say to me, my sex life is better now that we're doing fertility awareness

method because during that week we find other things to do that we never thought of before. And I'm like more power to you, that's amazing. And then there's women who do use barrier methods. So they use a condom or a diaphragm, cervical cap, something along those lines to prevent pregnancy. And so it's just all about like what's true for you and what's works for you. And the really cool thing is that in 2018, the FDA for the first time in history approved a app to be a contraceptive device, natural cycles. And it works, so there's natural

cycles and daisy that we have in this country in terms of using the thermometer under the tongue. There's also Ava bracelet. I just got sent all the research on that. So I have to like dig into that to understand that a little bit further. But natural cycles was the first approved for contraceptive means. And what they found is that, and I want to be very, very clear women, I love, so I actually use a daisy thermometer because it just tells me green light go, red light, no, that's my little rhyme that I have. But I don't negate the signs and symptoms of my body because

we should never take a backseat to our reproductive health. And sometimes women, you know, I'll hear things or people say, like, oh, well, this many women got pregnant using fertility awareness method. And it's like, well, where they have staining from sexual intercourse during their fertile window, Like that matters. You're gonna have that self-control a little bit, so to speak. But in addition to that, what's she getting signals from the app, which is measuring her temperature,

building it into an algorithm and comparing it to other women, but she was seeing fertile cervical mucus and ignoring it. You still need to know what's going on in the nether parts, the nether regions. And if you see cervical mucus that's fertile, that's that egg white, raw egg white consistency,

which Amy Schumer, I don't know if you guys have seen her standup, where she's like, it's like someone blue-snatt in my panties. And I'm like, I'm like, yes, that's awesome. You want that? That's good. That's some good stuff right there. Protesteroma will follow. Like, this is going to be good. So with that, I know. But I have women. Pretty visual. You like that? That's good. That's some good stuff right there. A progesterone will follow. Like this is going to be good.

So with that, I know. But like I have women. Pretty visual. You like that? Yeah. But we have women in my client in their 40s who they were put on birth control. Like they had a couple periods.

They were put on birth control immediately. They're in their 40s that come off of it. Call my office in a panic. They're like, there's some weird discharge I've never seen before in my life. Like I think I have an infection. And then we get into like into what does it look like? And I'm like, congratulations.

You're ovulating. They're like, I never even know that this happens. Like, yeah, like your vaginal mucus shifts throughout your menstrual cycle. This is why also the movies do a disservice to women when they're like, he just looked at you. And there was no condom, no lubricant, nothing. Like women are going to have periods of time,

periods, it really is around your period where there's more vaginal dryness. That's not a abnormal thing and then lubrication is much easier around ovulation. This doesn't mean that you're broken. Like women will be like, oh, I have to use lubricant and it's like, yeah, that's not your body works. It's cyclical, that's okay.

Like, it just so happens that like in nature, we tend to have sex when we're going to be fertile, but as humans get to have sex whenever we want. Yay, that. We've got all of these things that we can use to make it even better. With that, I think it's really important that, in chapter 13 of my book, there's an entire table, which is pros and cons of all these methods. It's really important to evaluate what is best for you and what is true for you and where you're out in your life.

Every single form of pregnancy prevention come to the risk. Fertility awareness method, pull out method, the risk is getting pregnant. There's a risk there. And so you have to evaluate the risk that you're comfortable taking. And then, you know, if you're going to start any kind of medical intervention, whether it be hormonal birth control or like a copper IUD, which is a non-hormonal birth control, you should monitor your symptoms. Go through an entire menstrual cycle,

three is even better, get some baseline labs, then engage in that medical intervention. Because that way, once you know what's normal and true for you, it's a lot harder for your doctor to gaslight you when you go in and say, I started birth control and now X, Y, and Z is different. And they're like, no, you're misremembering this and that. Guess what?

I wrote it down. I'm not misremembering. I've got the data right here in front of me. And that helps you not second-guess yourself, but also be able to correlate those changes. Because it's not like we start the pill and then overnight we have symptoms. Some women do with depression, anxiety, but for the most part, it tends to be this slow creep, like, so many things. And then it tends to be this slow creep, like so many things and then it just creeps up on you like my child and then farts in your face.

Like, oh, sorry, I had to go there. No, you've been, this has been an absolute treat. You did not disappoint. Yeah, I was really happy you came on the show. I'm so glad. And yeah, I mean, I think on Instagram, we were, I mean, we were tagged so many times. And that's how I found you guys. And I was like, who are these muscular dudes that I think I should be on their podcast? I want to talk about periods too. I need to go work out first. What is going to happen here? No, this is all very, very

important stuff that I think. And I think the more information people have, the better the equip they are to make decisions for themselves. This is not about whether you should or shouldn't be on the pill and what you shouldn't shouldn't do. It's just, here's the information. Here's the real honest information. And unfortunately, I think, and I know you agree that we just haven't been informing women enough on the full spectrum of information in regards to.

And discussing the root cause, which you keep referring to, which I think is so important. We talk about that in fitness. I mean, every time someone asks a question to one of us, I'm sure they get tired of always hearing depends. Yeah, totally. Right. I mean, that's always our answer first as well. Depends and then trying to help them get to the root cause and not just address the symptom, right? Well, yeah, thank you very, very much for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It's been a great conversation. This went really fast, you guys.

And also, like you guys, you've got to go check this out on YouTube because I am so Lily Tomlin right now sitting in this giant chair and you don't want to miss out on that. I look like this little tiny kid. I love that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

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