Realfoodology - Carb Restricting, Overworking Out + Hormonal Health | Lauren Papanos

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

EP. 207: Welcome back to another episode of the Realfoodology podcast! Today’s episode is a must-listen as I sit down with Lauren Papanos, a registered dietitian nutritionist, board-certified sports dietitian, and hormone specialist with over eight years of experience. We discuss how overworking out and under-eating can impact your hormones and overall health. Lauren also unpacks oxidative stress, its role in chronic diseases, and practical tips to manage it, including essential lab tests and dietary strategies. Tune in for a comprehensive discussion on women's health that will leave you informed and empowered! Timestamps:  05:42 - Allostatic load and strength training  11:49 - Zone two training  13:56 - Strength training vs pilates  15:47 - Effectively fueling yourself for workouts  19:24 - Pre and post workout meal tips  21:50 - Nutritional stress and undereating  30:17 - Oxidative Stress and overworking out  35:21 - Mineral depletion  40:28 - Getting a thyroid panel 42:51 - The dangers of carb restriction  47:57 - No naked carbs  50:44 - Hunger cue hormones  53:27 - Gut health and your thyroid  57:04 - Lab tests for gut health  59:02 - PCOS and insulin resistance  01:01:54 - Oxidative stress and autoimmune issues  01:05:51 - Lessening the impact of oxidative stress  01:08:05 - Regulating oxidative stress and inflammation  01:10:51 - Lauren’s health non negotiables  Sponsored By:  BIOptimizers MagBreakthrough Get your free bottle of magnesium breakthrough while supplies last at magbreakthrough.com/realfoodologyfree Qualia Go to Qualialife.com/REALFOODOLOGY for up to 50% off and use code REALFOODOLOGY at checkout for an additional 15% off. For your convenience Qualia Senolytic is also available at select GNC locations near you. Organifi Go to www.organifi.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% Off Cured Nutrition  www.curednutrition.com/realfoodology REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% off Armra Colostrum Get 15% off your first order at tryarmra.com/realfoodology Check Out Lauren: Website Group Program  Instagram Check Out Courtney:  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! @realfoodology @realfoodologypodcast www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database  Produced By: Drake Peterson

On today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast... Nutritional stress is one of the biggest players that we see in cortisol dysregulation and just the overall allostatic load or that stress response in the body. And it's such an area that we can manage to, right? And that we have so many areas, like room for improvement. I always believe that any time that there is this, you know, metabolic issue that's going on where our metabolism isn't just being thrown more food and it knows what to do with that and knows to burn it and instead it's storing it. There's something hormonally that's going on under the

surface that we can really uncover. Hello friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. I'm so grateful that you're here. I'm your host, Courtney Swan, and today's episode was a really good one. This is one of those episodes where I didn't even realize that I really needed to have this episode until we started recording. I sat down with Lauren Papanos. She is a registered dietitian nutritionist, board-certified sports dietitian, hormone specialist. She's also a podcast host and a published nutrition researcher with over

eight years of experience. This woman knows her stuff, and I'm so excited for you guys to listen to this episode. She specializes in functional endocrinology, women's hormones, integrative fertility, integrative sports nutrition, environmental toxins, and advanced blood chemistry. We talked about all things fitness. Are you overworking out? Are you underworking out? Are you overeating, undereating? How all of this affects your hormones? We talk about all things fitness. Are you overworking out? Are you underworking out? Are you overeating, undereating? How all of this affects your hormones. We talk about oxidative stress, how we're getting oxidative stress on a daily basis,

how it's pretty much unavoidable, but things that you can do to minimize the impact of that oxidative stress and also how it affects our hormones. Also the role that it plays in autoimmune diseases, thyroid disease, other hormonal conditions like PCOS. We talk about PCOS. We talk about labs that need to be run that can really help you uncover exactly what's going on in your body. I mean, this is an all comprehensive women's hormones episode, and it was really great. So I hope this episode helps you if

you're dealing with any sort of hormonal issue. And if you are, just know that you're not alone. So many women are suffering right now silently. And this is a great stepping stone to help you uncover exactly what's going on in your body. So I really hope that you guys love the episode. As always, if you want to take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it not only means so much to me, it really does help the show. And it takes about two seconds. Also, if you want to tag me on Instagram at realfoodology,

I see most of your tags. It really means a lot to me. So thank you so much for sharing the love. Also, if you guys want to follow, the podcast actually has an Instagram now. It's realfoodology podcast. So if you want to go on Instagram, go follow realfoodology podcast. We post a lot of clips there that you will not see anywhere else. So I hope that you guys will follow along and thank you so much for listening. If there is one mineral you should be worried about not getting enough of, it's magnesium. Magnesium is the body's master mineral, which is involved in over 600 critical reactions, including hormone balance, stress management, sleep quality, even digestion is influenced by the presence of magnesium. There are two big problems here. One, magnesium has been

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You can also find Qualia Scenolitic at select GNC locations near you. So there's no excuse not to give it a try. Lauren, thank you so much for coming on. I'm so excited to have you on the Real Foodology podcast. I have so many questions for you and all of this is driven around women's health. I want to talk a lot about hormones, fitness, also the thyroid connection with inflammation in the body and also PCOS because I know that's a really hot one right now. Right before we first started recording, we were actually just talking about exercise. And this is something that I personally in my own life have really gone on a journey with this, where, you know, I felt like I did, I've done every facet of workout, right? Like we were just talking about how like I tried CrossFit maybe twice and my body was like, absolutely not.

This doesn't feel good. Like I was burnt out. I was trying to do HIIT for a long time. I felt completely burnt out by that. I was doing SoulCyIT for a long time. I felt completely burnt out by that. I was doing soul cycle classes where I would do like two a day sometimes. And I finally hit this wall where I was like, okay, one, I'm not getting any results that I want. In fact, I look inflamed and really puffy. I feel so incredibly exhausted and I'm not like losing weight or even like getting muscle tone or like anything that I wanted to see. And so I decided that all I would do is walk. And then for two years, all I did was walk and my body completely changed. The inflammation went down, the bloating went down, my body completely changed. So I want to know what your thoughts are around, I guess, like how women are

working out these days and maybe the faults you see in that and what women could be doing better in order to support their health and their hormones. Yeah, well, I hear you. And I've definitely been in the same position. And what I find a lot of times too is that women will do these types of really intense, exhaustive exercises that frankly, the research on them has most likely been done in men.

That's where a lot of the research on exercise, unfortunately, has been done because it's so hard to control for women, right? And generally the first like six months or so, they're feeling great. Maybe they're seeing body composition shifts happening and then everything just kind of hits a wall. Like their cortisol becomes dysregulated, their hormones become all messed up, the thyroid periods all start to become dysregulated. And then as you mentioned, you know, inflammation, body composition starts to become negatively affected as well.

So that's a very common trend that I see happen. And I really think that it comes down to how we are managing all these different stressors. So there's this term that's called allostatic load. And essentially what it means is like the total load of physiological stressors on the body, right? So I always think of it as like a cup of water and you have all of these different liquids that are going into the cup.

So you've got like your exercise stressor, you've got your nutritional stressors, your life stressors, psychological stressors, you name it. And when one of those liquids overflows, that cup of water overflows, right? And that's when your body really starts to break down. And exercise is one of those like really easily modifiable factors. And so when we increase the intensity too much, or you're

doing something that maybe your body can't handle in that moment, you're going to see that cup of liquid overfill. And that's when your body's going to start to negatively become impacted. But yeah, it's a very common response that women have. And I've seen it in myself as well. And, you know, it's kind of what led me to create the approach that I have now around exercise because I saw how just continuing to push and push and push, despite the amazing organic diet I was eating, like wasn't getting me anywhere. Right. And like you said, it was just making things worse.

And there has to be this push and this pull that we have to find between the two. Yeah, that's amazing. So what is your approach to exercise? Well, I've found that really when we can exercise in a way that supports our internal function, the external follows suit. And I think that's very challenging for people to do

because you might not get quite the endorphin high that you would normally get from these endorphin high that you would normally get from these exhaustive forms of exercise right um you're not maybe going to sweat as much you're not going to feel as sore and depleted but that's the point is that we're after the internal change and by internal i really mean like what's the hormonal response that we're getting from exercise so i like to incorporate strength training. I think strength training is one of the best things because we know that the more muscle mass we have, the more insulin sensitive we are. And insulin is a hormone that improves blood sugar regulation,

but also it functions to support other hormones in the body. So muscle is incredibly important for that. And strength training is one of the best ways to be able to support our muscle mass. It also helps build a support the testosterone and growth hormone response to which a lot of women need a little bit of a boost of the testosterone and growth hormone as well. So it's great in those facets. And then I also think that if you have the capacity to do more than that, or you want to do more than that, then that's where some of this more like zone two type movement can be really supportive and that could be walking um like most people an incline walk or just a walk up a hill a brisk walk is going to get you into zone two which

is really the highest point where our body is burning fat for energy before it taps into having to burn glycogen and glucose. So it's less stressful on the body. You're not going to get quite that cortisol response. It's going to be a lot easier from like a recovery standpoint, and you're not going to get the free radical formation. That's going to drive a lot of this like oxidative stress and inflammation that I'm sure we'll talk about that connection to hormones as well at some point. Um, but that is something that can be a really great in between. So it really is also about like how you're scheduling these things within your life

and your week. And so I always recommend that, you know, when we're doing strength training, we're really trying to focus on full body, like compound movements where, you know, it's something like a squat, there's multiple joints that are involved, you know, your knees involved, your ankles involved versus just something like a bicep curl. Like bicep curls are great, but those are maybe more so like an accessory movement that would be combined with more of these compound movements because the hormonal response is really going to come from more of those compound movements, like a squat, a pull up, a push up, those types of exercises. Okay. Amazing. And then this is more

speaking from my experience and what I really love to do. So when I traded my cardio and HIIT workouts for walking, I just fell in love with it so much. And my favorite thing to do now is just go for like a really good, like a brisk walk or hiking. Hiking is my absolute favorite thing to do in the world. And when I was living in LA, I was hiking literally every single day. Now, I will say I got to a point where all I was doing was hiking. And so I hit a point where I was like, okay, I feel like I've really healed my adrenals, healed my adrenal fatigue.

Now I feel like I can kind of get back into the gym. What do you think would be a good mixture for most women as far as like maybe how many days a week they should be lifting versus like how many days they could just be doing like the zone two walking? Yeah. Well, I think it does depend on like where your body is at in that healing stage. Right. So it sounds like for you, you are, your body was needing some like healing and reprieve. Right. And so maybe your body couldn't handle the stressor of resistance

training because it is a stressor and it's a good one, but sometimes it could be too much of a stressor and then that cup overfill overflows. Right. So, um, generally speaking, if someone is in like a pretty balanced nervous system state, I would say you generally could tolerate about three days of like full body resistance training with maybe a day or two break in between where you would insert more of like the zone two, whether that's a hike or an incline walk, things of that sort. So like I found that usually five to six for like myself is a really good sweet spot. I've also been like, I was a former athlete and like, I'm used to training at like a pretty high frequency. So for me, five to six days feels

like very normal. Right. But then like we have clients as well, where they find that three or four days is the sweet spot for them. If someone is going through this like healing phase, you know, like if we're working with someone who's trying to get their cycle back or like their thyroid's gone crazy, their autoimmune disease is in like this huge flare. We're probably not going to be trying to strive for like four to six days of exercise per week. We're more so going to be working on, like you said, like more of this low impact, maybe walking, just trying to get movement in because it is very helpful for the mind and body. But maybe that's even just two to four days per week, right? So the body still is really prioritizing recovery. Amazing. I love that. What are your thoughts on strength training versus Pilates? So I did a really intense Pilates

workout yesterday and I can barely walk up the stairs right now because I'm so sore. But I keep hearing that Pilates is not a good substitute for strength training. So what are your thoughts on that? And how can we maybe incorporate strength training and Pilates while also doing our zone too, while also like not overdoing the workouts? I hear you. I'm Lagree certified and which is like kind of a similar thing to Pilates and I love it as well. And like, there's a great community aspect. It's fun. Like it's really good core workout. I feel like your core is ripped whenever you're doing Pilates often. Yeah. So it's great in those areas, but yeah, you're not getting that hormonal

response like you would get from compound movement, like resistance training, because you're just not loading the muscle and the joint enough as you would be in strength training um also the amount of like time that you're under tension is really vast right in comparison to like what you would do if you were doing like a set of eight reps squat right which maybe takes you like 20 seconds versus a pilates move you might be in for like two minutes right so it's just a totally different form of movement and And I think that they both can compliment each other. But I would say that I've found that maybe like one to two days per week of some form of Pilates,

and maybe you're using that in place of the zone two. So you're not necessarily doing that in place of strength training. You're still prioritizing your strength training so you can get that hormonal response. And then you're using Pilates more as like a recovery flexibility type movement on another day that's not the same day as when you're strength training. Okay. Amazing. I love that. So you've mentioned a couple times that exercise is, you know, it is kind of a form of stress on the body, even though it is good and

healthy, but anything can be bad for us if we do too much of it. Right. So knowing that exercise is more stressful on the body, what, how can women effectively fuel themselves for their workouts to minimize that impact of the stress on the body and make it more to where it's a healthy stress and not, not a bad stress. Totally. And it's all about the environment, right? Of how you work out and what your body has available and the pre and the post time period, because with exercise, it's really not about like what you do in that 45, 60 minutes you're exercising. It's about what you're doing in the 24, 48 hours that this whole like hormonal response and recovery of the nervous system is happening, right? Like that's where all the magic occurs. So we really want to be looking at is what is

the environment that you're going into that workout in? And some people will argue that, you know, they don't feel like their stomach can digest enough food before a workout. They just feel better working on an empty stomach. I've even heard this from a lot of like my elite athletes that I work with, you know, like they like feeling hungry when they play a game or something, it makes them feel like they have more energy. I'm like, yeah, that's cortisol, you know, like you're in a low, you're in a high cortisol state in that moment. Um, but it really, the gut is trainable. So that's why like you see marathon runners who are like eating a sandwich where they're at like mile 20, because they've trained their gut to be able to handle food. So just remember that if it feels hard now, space steps, and you can get there to the point

where you can create that environment for yourself. We really want to prioritize prior to exercise, having some readily available glucose source. So some type of carbohydrate source, and then just a little bit of protein. And we're really just looking at is providing the fuel sources of what our body is going to be using. Our body uses a very, very minimal amount of fat during exercise when you're doing like higher intensity type exercises like string training and such. There's a very, very minimal amount of fat that's used.

And fat is also really slow to digest. So you don't want to be eating that right before you work out because then the blood is shunting away from your muscles to your digestive system to help digest that fat that you just consumed. So we really want these things to be a little bit easier to digest also not something that's really high in fiber because fiber will draw more water into the gut.

And that's what can cause like the sloshing and that like side pains and things that people sometimes get when they exercise. And then after exercise, again, we're really looking at working with our body's natural insulin sensitivity. So after you resistance train, for example, you have the greatest insulin sensitivity

for about an hour to two hours after that workout. So your muscle is like a sponge to taking in that carbohydrate rather than it just hanging out in the bloodstream or going to the liver, you know, it's going to get right into the muscle and store it as glycogen, which is what we want to happen. Um, so we really want to work with that natural insulin sensitivity and really prioritize more of these like complex carbohydrates, you know, whether it's like root vegetables, legumes, um, maybe a little bit of fruits, not too crazy on fruit. We really want it to be more primarily glucose because that's what prioritizes muscle glycogen. Whereas

fruit really prioritizes replenishing liver glycogen. And then we want to make sure that we have adequate protein to be able to support what's called muscle protein synthesis, which is basically like your body's ability to, you know, rebuild muscle protein after it's been broken down. And of course, if there's like a little bit of fat there, fiber there, that's totally fine because, you know, you're not going to be exercising right after. So it's okay if it slows down the digestive process a little bit, but we're just looking at the priority being the carbohydrate and protein. So what would that actually look like in the morning? So let's say like, you know, I get up around like seven, seven 30. I'm usually in a workout class or on a walk or something by about 9am. So would that be, I want to prioritize like maybe like a banana and then some scrambled eggs, something like that, or what would that actually look like eating? And then what would I be eating after my workout? Yeah. So a piece of fruit and some simple protein source like that

could work. I would just make sure that you're, you know, with eggs, they kind of are like an equal fat and protein food, right? So if you're trying to get enough protein from them, you generally are going to get quite a bit of fat from them. And if you don't have more than two hours, really before the workout, that might slow things down a little bit. So I hate to use egg whites because the yolk has so many nutrients in that, but if you're wanting to do eggs, then that could be a good substitute, or maybe you do like half and half, something like that.

There's also been some really cool research on the incorporation of collagen before exercise, because if you ingested about 60 minutes prior to exercise, one, it can actually increase like ligament repair. So if there is any ligaments that maybe are damaged or that there's like knee pain and things, it can help to be able to really send that collagen to that area. There's also some new research that came out about when women are in a higher estrogen state. So generally that's going to be like around ovulation or during pregnancy,

that that actually decreases collagen synthesis after exercise. And one of the ways that they show that you can mitigate that is by consuming about 30 grams of collagen before exercise. So that could be a really great tool, whether it's like doing bone broth or a bone in protein that naturally has collagen, like bone in chicken or something, or doing a hydrolyzed collagen peptide powder. If you mix it with a little bit of vitamin C that even enhances the absorption further. So you could do like an orange or, you know, strawberries, some type of fruit that's really high in vitamin C alongside of that collagen to get really the most bang for your buck. And now you're getting all that collagen support. Plus you're getting the carbohydrate and that protein. I mean, collagen is not a complete amino acid profile, but you know, it's pretty close to giving us

the complete protein source. Okay. That's cool. I've never heard that before. And I usually put collagen in my coffee in the morning before I work out. So that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And then coffee is an ergogenic aid. So it's going to help decrease like perceived work exertion during exercise. So it's going to make you feel like you can go harder. That's amazing. Whenever we talk about stress, I think everybody thinks of like outside stress, like my life, my work, like, you know, everything, but we kind of forget that not eating enough and nutrition and not feeling your body in a way can be a huge stressor and internal stressor that not a lot of people are talking about. How does that really affect women's bodies? And the reason I'm asking this is I feel like so many women are so scared to eat too much food, like just point blank. We're not eating enough.

We're not feeling our bodies enough. A lot of women, like you mentioned earlier, especially like a lot of your athletes will go into a workout completely with an empty stomach. I do this too. So I'm asking for myself as well, because I generally am not super hungry first thing in the morning. And I know that that just means my metabolism is not revving up first thing in the morning. One, how can we train our bodies more? And also how can we talk more just about how much of a stress that is on our body and how it's spiking our cortisol, and then it's going to affect our hormones. What are your thoughts about that? Yeah. Nutritional stress is one of the biggest players that we see in like

cortisol dysregulation and just like the overall allostatic load or that like stress response in the body. And it's such a area that we can manage to, right. And that we have so many areas like room for improvement, but yeah, so many people are afraid to make those changes. And a lot of times it might even be because you feel like you can't trust your body, right? You don't feel like if you were to eat more, even if it's good nourishing food, that your body's going to know what to do with it. And then it's not going to just store it. And maybe that's because of like, you know, previous situations that have happened that have ingrained that belief into your brain. And so it is a little bit of this push and the pull. I always believe that like any time that there is this, you know,

metabolic issue that's going on where our metabolism isn't just being thrown more food and it knows what to do with that and knows to burn it. And instead it's storing it. There's something hormonally that's going on under the surface that we can really uncover, whether that is that there's some level of insulin resistance going on there's inadequate levels of sex hormone production because like estrogen for example we want enough of it it helps to support our metabolic rate it helps improve insulin sensitivity so it could be that there's just not enough sex hormone production or that there's not good thyroid hormone production or thyroid hormone conversion so when we can really look at the hormonal environment and maybe start there

then we can get the body into a better position to where we can throw it more food and it knows what to do with it and it gets the body out of this stress response so it is a little bit of this given this pull right to figure out okay what needs to come first or both physically and psychologically how can we move the needle to be able to really create this healing environment? Because we don't, we don't want the body to be in a stress state when we're also trying to heal hormones. So there is a little bit of a fine balance there. But really trying to establish is just like, how much should you be eating for your activity level? So many people are not eating, even anywhere, even close. And it's one of the biggest issues we see with infertility. And it's such an underlooked aspect. You know, women are thinking

that like they're just infertile, but really when we dive deeper, we're like, you are eating 1200 calories per day and you're five foot 11, like you need more per week. Yeah. Like, no, of course your body doesn't feel safe to conceive, right? Like there's not enough energy left over at the end of the day. And we have to remember that the reproductive system is voluntary. And so like our brain, our lungs, our heart beating are not voluntary, but if the body's like, I don't have any extra energy, what it's going to do is it's going to shut off the reproductive system, or it's going to start is it's going to shut off the reproductive system or it's going to start to like downregulate our reproductive hormones and our thyroid hormones. So hormones are always what take a hit whenever we're not eating enough, whether it's caloric intake or it's just

micronutrient intake. That's where we're going to see that show up is within those hormone levels. So like what we know from the research is that when women really drop below 30 calories per kilogram of fat-free mass, that that's where you start to see the most like reproductive issues happen. So kilograms, if you're not familiar, you just take your body weight in pounds, divide that by 2.2, that gives you kilograms. Fat-free mass is essentially everything except for body fat. So sometimes we don't know what our body fat percentage is, but maybe you can kind of guess, you know, most women at somewhere, you know, maybe around like

the 20 to 30 range percent body fat is pretty common. You know, that can be a way to kind of calculate what that looks like. And sometimes it's helpful to just have an idea of, okay, what should my intake look like? And then what am I doing right now? And how can I, you know, meet the meet closer to where I need to be? Like, what is that gap to be able to get there? Modern living is so hard on our bodies. We get exposed to so many things on a daily basis, whether it's pollution in the air or our tap water that has pharmaceutical drugs and pesticides and fluoride, chlorine, heavy metals. There's pesticides in our food. There's BPA also in our food,

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and how it's affecting our hormones, how we're feeling on a day-to-day basis. I mean, I can speak to my experience that I talked about in the very beginning. I mean, towards the end of that where I was just like running my body into the ground because I felt like I needed to exercise every single day and do these really intense exercises to the point where like I was feeling so burnt out. I was feeling so tired. I was feeling so emotionally unregulated. And so if we can educate women on how to get their bodies back in balance, whether it's like scale it back on the high intensity exercises that we've been so trained to, you know, that it's the only way that we can exercise, or if it's how we can educate how to feel our bodies better and more

efficiently and to eat more calories so that we can all feel better in our bodies. Because ultimately it's about like feeling good in our bodies. Because ultimately, it's about feeling good in our bodies. Because if your sex hormones are shutting down and you're feeling fatigued, your libido is down, it really does affect a lot of different areas of your life. And I think a lot of women are really struggling right now. And I want to dive into this next. We're seeing so many issues right now with women's hormones, PCOS, hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, really affecting women right now. And first and foremost, I want to ask you, why do you think so many women are dealing with these hormonal issues right now? I think there's a few different reasons. I mean, one of the biggest

drivers that I really focus on is oxidative stress, because we know that it's one of the determined factors that drives PCOS and that is affected when there's low thyroid hormone output and so with oxidative stress essentially what's happening is there's like this inflammatory response that's happening where the body doesn't have enough antioxidant capacity both from like its own production within the body and then also maybe like external intake to be able to kind of neutralize these free radicals that are naturally being formed when we're making thyroid hormones. Cause like when we make thyroid hormones, for example, there's a lot of free radicals that are made in the body when we

exercise, especially when we overexercise, there's a lot of free radicals that are made in the body. And so for a lot of like highly active women, oxidative stress is a huge issue that's affecting not only hormone imbalances, but also things like egg quality, which are then impacting things like reproduction, fertility, so on and so forth. So that's a big area that we really focus on. I think outside of that as well, one is just that we are, you know, undernourished. Like we're eating maybe even more calories than we need to. Some people, others like more commonly, our clients typically tend to be already kind of eating a very like real food diet and eating in a pretty like low calorie state.

But for a lot of people, like we're just not getting in enough nutrients because our food is so devoid of minerals and vitamins and antioxidants. And, you know, a lot of even the healthy food nowadays, like these healthy packaged foods, it's like, it's great. Yeah. That we have this like cassava or this like almonds alternative, but you know, it's still being heated at high temperatures. And like, we're still not getting the vitamins and minerals from it. Like you would get from eating a fruit or a vegetable that's like growing in your own garden. Right. And how many of us are actually taking the time to be able to do that nowadays. So I think that just like the void of nutrients and like actual minerals to be able to make

hormones is a huge piece. We also know that endocrine disruptors and, you know, obesogens and however you want to look at it, these different toxicities in our environment are a huge factor when it comes to hormones. And for a lot of people, they were exposed to these even maybe in womb. And so it's something that's, you know, we've been exposed to for 20, 30, 40 years. And yeah, at some point you're going to start to see hormone imbalances happen. And they've even shown that like in a lot of women that have PCOS, that a lot of the PCOS, you know, imbalances were actually already starting to happen at age six. So, you know, then it's like, okay, you go through reproduction six years later, 10 years later, and these hormone issues are only continuing to ferment,

if you will, and then women are just being put on birth control to shut off the reproductive system. None of these issues are being addressed. We're just putting a bandaid over it for another 10 years, right? And then women go to get off birth control. And then it's like, okay, we have to pick up the pieces of what was happening 10 years, right? And then women go to get off birth control. And then it's like, okay, we have to pick up the pieces of what was happening 10 years prior, because basically

everything's been sleeping within the hormone system, right? For 10 years while you've been on birth control. So there's so many factors within like the birth control and endocrine disruptor piece. That's also part of the thyroid hormone conversation, PCOS, you name it. And then I think the last thing is just our just hustle culture and just like the fact that women are doing more than they probably ever have in society. And women are expected to work and excel there and excel in school or academics and family and all these things. And the women's reproductive system is just very sensitive to stressors. It's not really how we've evolved to handle stress. And the women's body is just more sensitive to this excess of stressors. And so we see it show up in our hormones when our body

has this chronic load of excessive stress. Yeah. Wow. You brought up so many amazing points, many of which I've talked about a lot on this podcast. There was one point that you brought up because I want to dive a little bit deeper into this because I'm curious about this connection. So you were bringing up the minerals in our food. Now, I've talked about this a lot on the podcast. One of the reasons why our food is so devoid of minerals now is because of the way that we're farming, because the soil is not as healthy as it used to be. Now, how is that directly affecting our hormones? I actually really didn't make this connection until kind of recently. I have a girlfriend who had really low progesterone levels. And what she started doing first thing in the morning was taking a adrenal cocktail.

I've been seeing a lot of women doing this. And she shot up her progesterone levels, like I think it was like 20 by like 20 points, or not points, but you know, the measurement went up by like 20. And it was all because of these minerals. And I'd never thought about the connection between our hormones and minerals. How imperative are these minerals? What are the minerals?

And how can women support their hormones better with taking minerals? Yeah, you're so right. I know that when I was in grad school, I was doing research on the link between the mineral depletion and the increase in obesity and type two diabetes rates that have happened because we've seen a direct correlation

that as like our soils become more depleted, these chronic diseases have only increased, right? And because of all the tilling and things of that sort that have happened. But these minerals, things like your potassium and magnesium and chromium, selenium, iodine, they're all critical for our ability to make hormones and also convert hormones. As it relates to the thyroid, we know that mineral deficiency can actually cause hypothyroidism. So both in excess, so too much, but also a deficiency of iodine, for example, has been shown to cause hypothyroidism. So both in excess, so too much, but also a deficiency of iodine, for example,

has been shown to cause hypothyroidism. Iron deficiency can cause hypothyroidism and lack of selenium impacts our ability to convert T4 over to T3. Potassium helps sensitize our thyroid cells to thyroid hormones. So these minerals, I really think of them as like the multivitamins specific for our hormones that like literally are giving the bricks to be able to build the house of our hormones, especially within the thyroid. And then our thyroid significantly impacts progesterone production. If you don't have enough thyroid hormones, you're not going to be making enough progesterone and vice versa. But minerals also play a role in sex hormone production too. And we see so many people, I can't tell you,

especially postpartum, how depleted women are in minerals, even that are eating, like I'm telling you, organic everything, like whole foods. I mean, maybe not perfect every meal, but like really good compared to like the standard American diet, right? So deficient in all of the minerals, just completely depleted

and everything, whether it's postpartum, we see it a lot, but also even just like women that are dealing with reproductive and thyroid issues that are going on. So they play a really big role. And if we're thinking about the biggest issue that we see with like thyroid hormone issues, which is there maybe is a normal TSH, but there's inadequate levels of free T3, which is our active form of thyroid hormone. That's what actually regulates the speed of everything in the body. So it's what regulates our metabolism, our ability to burn food when we eat it, our speed of digestion, all of these different factors. In order for you to convert T4 over to T3, you need minerals. If there's deficiency of selenium, magnesium, it's just

not going to happen. And we're not going to see enough of those active thyroid hormones. So do you think someone who has maybe just, they're starting to see on the blood work that their thyroid levels are starting to go down? Is this something that they could potentially, working with a practitioner, get themselves out of going down that pathway of hypothyroidism if they were just taking more of these minerals like selenium, iodine? Yeah, it's a really great place to start. And I've reversed hypothyroidism myself in my own body, and we do it with clients all the time. Minerals are a huge piece of the equation. It also could be that there's something else going on that's like a little bit deeper rooted so for example like 70 of your t4 gets converted over to that active form of thyroid hormone t3 in the liver

so if there is any type of issue going on that's causing the liver to not work as efficiently as you want it to whether it's like genetic polymorphisms where like your body just isn't a great detoxer and you need some extra support there or there's other issues like maybe heavy metal toxicity and like mold and things that are slowing down the ability to convert those thyroid hormones over those are areas that we can also look at we also know that like our good gut bacteria also helps with thyroid hormone conversion so sometimes in people that are eating a very low carb diet there's not enough good gut bacteria because it's those different fibers you get from these plants that are what help make those good gut bacteria, right? Those are the prebiotics for your probiotics. So we see a lot too in people that are just on like a chronically

low carb or under eating food in general, that they just don't have enough good gut bacteria. And that also can diminish the ability to convert thyroid hormones. That's a great point. And I was going to ask you about carbohydrates, but first, before we do that, I want to talk a little bit about, this is imperative for people to understand if somebody suspects that their thyroid is not functioning optimally and they go into their GP and they ask for a thyroid panel, what generally, if you're just going to an allopathic doctor, what are they missing on this thyroid panel that they should also be testing? Generally, you're just going to see TSH and maybe you're going to see like a reflex T4. But the reason that people get so mad at their doctor

of like, well, why didn't you test more of the thyroid hormone panel? And it's because they're only looking at it from a pharmaceutical standpoint, right? They're just saying, what information do I need to see if this person needs thyroid hormone replacement, which would be like thyroid medication, or do I need to adjust their dosage if they're already on it? And that's what they're looking at through TSH. But really to understand more deeper rooted, like root cause, what's going on within the thyroid, we really need to see your total and free T4, which is your inactive thyroid hormone levels. And then we need to see both of the routes that T4 could be converting down to, which is either T3. So we want to see your total and free T3, or it can convert over to reverse T3. And when reverse T3 is elevated, it's what deactivates, free T3. And so that's where having both of those

is essential. It also can be helpful to see thyroid antibodies. Maybe not every time you check your thyroid, but it is helpful because we know that about 90% of hypothyroidism cases in women are because of Hashimoto's, which is the autoimmune thyroiditis. So just ensuring that we're at least ruling that out of the equation, that the immune system isn't involved in this process is also helpful because it does change how we treat from a root cause, how we're going to improve the thyroid hormone function. Yeah, I mean, and this is so incredibly important because, I mean, I know people in my own life that have gone in and just gotten, you know, just a thyroid, just a regular thyroid test. And they have all the symptoms, right, of having like hyperthyroidism and their doctor's like, oh, no, you're fine just a thyroid, just a regular thyroid test. And they have all the symptoms, right, of having like hyperthyroidism. And their doctor's like, oh, no, you're fine. Like your numbers look great, but they're not testing for all these other numbers. And if they were

actually to do the full thyroid panel, that's probably when they're going to start catching all those other issues. So it's incredibly important if anybody listening feels like they're maybe having those symptoms, make sure that you go to a doctor that's going to do a full thyroid panel. That's going to test for all of those markers that you just mentioned. It's incredibly important. So what about, let's talk about carbohydrates for women. I think this is a really hot topic because I think a lot of women tend to eat on a lower carbohydrate diet. What are your thoughts about carbohydrates, especially for the thyroid and for for our hormones yeah so carbohydrates are this slippery slope right where like we know that if we aren't metabolizing carbohydrates efficiently it's going to drive insulin resistance and then we're going to see blood sugar issues happen

there's a bit more to the equation there what's causing insulin resistance but carbohydrates can definitely drive that piece of the equation but when we look at really thyroid hormones and sex hormone production, we need adequate levels of carbohydrates. Carbohydrate deficiency is going to decrease a neuropeptide in the brain called cispeptin. And cispeptin is what helps to be able to send the signals FSH and LH, which is our stimulating hormones, down to the ovaries. And that's the communication that starts the production of progesterone and estrogen. And there's even

been research that shown that if like we're in a carbohydrate restricted state and Kispeptin is low, but that itself can actually increase insulin levels and can increase even like food cravings and hunger hormone levels in women. So it can negatively work against you in that sense. We also know that even just five days of carbohydrate restriction can decrease thyroid hormone levels and that thyroid hormone conversion over to that free T3. And so we see that a lot in people that are on a chronically low carbohydrate diet, that there is not adequate levels of that free T3. And remember that that's like that metabolically active form of the thyroid hormones that are going to drive metabolism, drive reproduction, drive the menstrual cycle, so on and so forth. So there needs to be this sweet spot. And that's why at the beginning,

we were talking about like exercise. I really try to work with our body's own insulin sensitivity so that we can get that best kind of a happy medium, right? Where we're like, okay, we're working with our insulin response, but at the same time, we're also eating enough carbohydrate to where we are giving the thyroid hormones and our reproductive system, the adequate nutrients that they need. Carbohydrates also help bring down cortisol. So when we think about like post-exercise, you know, we mentioned exercise being a stressor, you're going to get this cortisol response during exercise. And really with cortisol, it's okay if we're having acute, you know, increases in cortisol, but when it's chronically elevated and you're like the whole day long, you're in a chronically elevated cortisol state, that's where it's really detrimental to our gut, our hormones,

so on and so forth. So if we can incorporate adequate carbohydrates in that like post-workout window, not only are we improving the insulin response because we're working with our body's own insulin sensitivity but we're also actually helping shunt that cortisol response and actually get our body back into that parasympathetic state where our body is going to heal and digest recover reduce inflammation all these things that we want you guys know i'm always on the lookout for ways to strengthen my immunity, especially more than ever right now as we're going into fall and winter. And on top of that, I've been traveling a ton. So I was really excited when I discovered Armra Colostrum. I've actually been taking

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plumper skin. Now, the cool thing is we have worked out a special offer for you guys, my audience, receive 15% off your first order, go to tryarmra.com slash realfoodology or enter realfoodology to get 15% off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A.com slash realfoodology. Yeah, that's amazing. And what I was just hearing from you essentially is that carbohydrates make our bodies feel safe, which is really important when you're talking about everything that we've just been talking about, right? Like cortisol and how it affects our hormones and how stress affects our hormones as well.

It really is a sweet spot though, because we do know that an excess consumption of carbohydrates can lead to insulin resistance over time if you're just constantly eating too much of it, especially if you're eating really hyper-processed, ultra-processed foods and the white starches that really don't have any fiber or anything else in there to help mitigate that sugar spike. So it is a healthy balance. And what I have found, and I'm curious what your take is on this, is this concept of no naked carbs. So what I always do is just to make sure

that when I'm eating carbohydrates, especially if I'm having like a more carbohydrate rich meal, I always make sure to pair it with a good high quality fat. So like an olive oil, a good piece of fatty salmon, avocado, and then really good fiber as well, but then also really good high quality protein to really help mitigate that spike. What are your thoughts about that? No naked carbs. Yeah, I think it's great. I think that it's a really great way to stabilize that blood sugar response and help prevent those like big insulin surges that are going to happen after meals. I will say the one thing that I sometimes see people run into is where when they're doing that, they end up creating like a very high carb and high fat meal

at the same time. And that is a little bit of an issue because they're both energy storing nutrients and they work through different mechanisms. So we're sending like mixed messages to the body metabolically when something is both really high in fat and high in carbs. And we know that like, you know, you're always going to hear all of the dogma and like the fights against is a high carb diet better as a high fat diet, better low carb, low fat. Right. And it's like, well, they both have their different benefits, right. When you look at the research, but really the biggest issue we know is that when someone's in a high fat and high carb state at the same time, that's really what's the perfect situation for fat cells to grow and for obesity to occur.

So we want there to be this like push and a pull between them, a really well balanced meal where it's not an excess of carbs, it's not an excess of fat at the same time. And then if you are going to be having like an excess carb meal every once in a while, say like, you know, I love doing a pizza every once in a while, like a gluten-free pizza or something. And I'm like, okay, I know this is like way more of a carb load, but my blood sugar is not going to look good regardless of what I do to this, right? So like, I am going to make that meal a little bit lower in fat just so that I don't have this huge surplus of insulin happening. And I have all this fat going alongside of it. So those would be the only caveats to that situation that I would say. Okay. That's amazing. I think that's great advice. Where do leptin and ghrelin come in as far as, because I know like if you eat a higher protein diet, I believe it

raises leptin levels, right? Is that right? Okay. So, and for people listening, if they don't know what these are, maybe if you want to explain, there's leptin and ghrelin, which are hunger cue hormones. And how are these affected by these different diets, like high carbohydrate, protein, if you want to go into that a little bit. Yeah. So they're both energy sensing and hunger hormones. So ghrelin, we call like our hunger hormone and it's what actually makes you feel hungry. So like I remember in school we were taught like grr, ghrelin, hungry. I was just going to say that. We learned the same thing. Like grr, like your stomach is like grumbling. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's an easy way to remember ghrelin. So ghrelin increases right before you eat a meal. And then leptin kind of works kind of regulatory to that to make our

body feel satiated. There is something that we see called leptin resistance. And this happens in a lot of situations of like obesity where the body almost thinks that it's starving, even though it's not. And that's kind of the same thing that happens like insulin resistance, right? Is that the cells just no longer responsive to that leptin response that happens. I also see in a lot of women that we work with really low leptin levels because they've been in this like chronically stressed, undernourished, low carb state for a very long period of time. And carbohydrates actually help to be able to boost leptin levels. Um, leptin actually works kind of like in conjunction with our cortisol response. So one thing we can see when we look, when we test for leptin levels,

if someone's leptin levels are really low, kind of know that they've been under eating for some time and that their body is in this like chronically fuel deprived state. And so we can look at using what we call like, and the research are called refeeds. I call them stimulus days, but they're essentially just a day that you incorporate maybe once per week, once every couple of weeks where you really prioritize an increase in carbohydrate from complex carbohydrates to be able to drive up that leptin response and drive down that cortisol response. And in turn, when that happens, you're also going to see a drop in ghrelin because now you're kind of pulling the body out of fight or flight, right? And the body's like, okay, I'm safe. I have enough carbs. I don't feel

chronically starving and it can help the body re-regulate hunger hormones, fat storage, insulin sensitivity, so on and so forth. It's a very acute thing. So you're not going to see like a chronic response from it. And that's why it's something that really should be looked at utilizing on a more frequent basis, especially if someone is, has been in a chronic caloric deficit or is in a caloric deficit to where their body has been in this energy deprived state. Amazing. I don't think leptin and ghrelin are talked about enough. And from my perspective, I think they're so incredibly important. You mentioned earlier gut health and how that can really play a role in thyroid, especially as far as eating a more complete balanced diet,

especially carbohydrates play a huge role in that. Can you talk more about that and what role gut health really plays in thyroid connection and then also with just their hormones in general? Yeah, the gut is a huge central hub for the hormones and really all central inflammation in the body. So we have to look at it when we're thinking about what's going on with the hormones. You know, hormones are just chemical messengers. So whenever we see hormone imbalances, we always need to look at what are the other organ systems that maybe aren't working as efficiently as we want them to and start there. Because if we improve those other organs, whether it's the gut, to look at what are the other organ systems that maybe aren't working as efficiently as we want them to and start there. Because if we improve those different other, those other organs,

whether it's the gut, the liver, so on and so forth, that's where we're actually going to see those hormones start to replenish themselves as they should. And that's where you're not going to need pharmaceutical intervention and things to be able to help do that. So the gut does help us to be able to convert those thyroid hormones through those good bacteria in the gut. So through our probiotics, if you will, or our commensal bacteria is what we call them. We also know that some of those commensal bacteria also help with blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity as well. People might be familiar with like Akromantia immunophilia or Fecalobacterium. These are different bacteria that we can actually test for their levels that we know are implicated with insulin resistance and with blood sugar control.

So those are two ways that just our gut, good gut bacteria can impact things. We also know that a dysbiotic environment, overgrowth of bad gut bacteria, as well as, you know, situations that are going to increase what we call like intestinal permeability or leaky gut can also drive hormone issues. And we see a big correlation in the research between leaky gut and PCOS. And we even know that some of these androgenic hormones, these like testosterone and DHEA hormones that become really elevated in PCOS that drive a lot of the cycle abnormalities and things that they have a predisposition in the gut that these gut bacteria actually capable of causing some of this androgen excess. So those are just different ways within

the gut bacteria. There's also an enzyme in our gut that's called beta glucuronidase. And I always think of beta glucuronidase as like the lid on a present. So you have all of these different toxins that go through the liver. They get packaged up into a box and it has like a little lid with a bow on it and then that goes all the way through our GI tract right and at the very end stage that's where beta glucuronidase comes in and if we have too much of beta glucuronidase it pops that lid off of that package and then all of those toxins and hormones especially estrogen that were going through the liver to go out into our poop actually can go back into recirculation and then get reabsorbed. And now we've got issues with like toxicity and estrogen excess in ways that we don't want there to be right. Those things should have

gone out of the body and that can actually be driven through just like microbial imbalance in the gut. So through just not having the right balance of that good to bad bacteria. And so if we do see that there's high beta glucuronidase and there's high estrogen, it's like, okay, we kind of know why this high estrogen situation is going on. We've really got to work on the gut to be able to improve that. And all of our endocrine system is connected. So like if estrogen is too high, that increases thyroid binding proteins, that's going to reduce your ability to have more of those active thyroid hormones. And then that impacts progesterone and that impacts insulin. And so it's like the cycle that all continues, right? And the gut can be a really big starting place to that whole cyclical relationship between your hormones. Yeah. I mean, that's incredible. And I've been looking more into beta-glucuronidase recently. And apparently if you have really high levels of beta-glucuronidase, it can actually make your chances of getting breast cancer a lot higher is what I've heard.

And then also too, you just mentioned the estrogen connection with the beta-glucuronidase. Well, what do we also know that drives breast cancer is really high estrogens. And so something as simple as having really high loads of pathogens in your gut can leave you susceptible to things like breast cancer. I recently just had a GI map test done. I mean, this was like a year ago and my beta glucuronidase was really high. And we found out that I had H. pylori, staph, strep, and high candida. So I've been working really hard and bringing all those down the last year. And I'm so happy to announce that my beta-glucuronidase is now a lot lower, but that really freaked me out when I saw that on the GI map test. And so just a reminder for everybody, if you have access to do that, I would highly recommend getting a GI map test just

to see where all your levels are and if you have any pathogens. Because for me, I had zero symptoms, by the way. I didn't have bloating. I didn't have anything. So when that came back, I was like, wait, what? Like that was crazy. And that's common. We see that a lot where people don't have any GI symptoms, but I'm like, but you have hormone imbalances. So we're looking at the gut, right? Exactly. And that's the hard thing is that sometimes it's hard to convince people that like this is a necessary piece of the treatment puzzle because it doesn't feel like it's necessary maybe. Yeah, exactly. Well, and I think in the common allopathic conventional model, this is completely overlooked.

You know, like if you go in to your doctor and they diagnose you with PCOS, they're not going to be like, oh, let's run a gut test to see what's going on in your gut. It's just not what they're trained for. And I'm not even trying to vilify them. They're just not trained to do that. And so it's on us really to educate ourselves. And if you are dealing with hormonal imbalances, it's incredibly important to check all of these different things that we've been talking about,

you know, like the gut connection and all of that. So let's talk a little bit about PCOS because I wanna know what the thyroid connection is. And then also's talk a little bit about PCOS because I want to know what the thyroid connection is. And then also what I learned in school with PCOS is that essentially it's insulin resistance, right? In most cases, about 70% of cases of PCOS, there is an insulin connection, but there is a huge population and increasing population of women that have what we call like lean PCOS. And that's not driven through insulin resistance. So really with- What is it driven through? Sorry to interrupt you.

Yeah. Yeah. So there can be an immune system conjunction, which is a huge piece of it. There's kind of four subtypes I see within PCOS. So we have like PCOS IR, which is PCOS insulin resistance that majority of women with PCOS have, but not all. We have PCOS adrenal. So our adrenal glands can make androgens. They can make testosterone, DHEA, so on and so forth. And so the cortisol dysregulation that could come through like excess exercise, stress, under eating, all of that, right, can be a big piece. We also see PCOS-I, which is PCOS inflammatory, and that's where there's this immune system involvement. And so we often see that with either autoimmunity.

So like if someone has co-occurring, maybe like Hashimoto's and PCOS, where there's this autoimmune correlation or other autoimmune disease, or where the immune system is just going a bit haywire for other reasons. Maybe it's like long COVID, EBV infection, molds, something else a little bit more mysterious, right, that is driving this immune system dysregulation. So you have to remember that when that's occurring, the body's in this inflamed state, and then that's going to increase oxidative stress. And then, as I mentioned earlier, that's one of the things that presupposes the increased risk for PCOS. And then PCOS post birth control is

another common. And oftentimes with that, it's just because there is some issues that were going on prior to birth control that were then just masked for like those 10 years, like I mentioned earlier, right? And then now you've come off birth control and now we're kind of having to go back to, okay, what happened at 16 when you were put on birth control? Because there probably was some PCOS already maybe going on or brewing. But instead of it being addressed, it was just suppressed. Right. And so then we have to go back to pick up the pieces of that. So those are really like the four subtypes. PCOS-I is where I'm like the most fascinated by it because it's less common, but in the women that have it, it's, they are never helped. Like it's less common but in the women that have it it's they are never helped like it's such an underserved population because they go to their doctor their doctor is like i don't know why you

have pcos like i don't know why you're not having cycles you eat a really good diet you are healthy you're lean you exercise doesn't make sense like the pieces aren't adding up right and then that's where we can do more of this investigative work to figure out what's going on with the immune system. Where could the drivers of this immune dysfunction be going on? Interesting. I mean, we're seeing a ton of auto immune disorders now too, and, and women more, but it is really wild because I feel like when I was a kid, I didn't, I didn't know of anybody that had an autoimmune disorder. And you've been talking a lot about oxidative stress. Can we explain a little bit more for the listener what exactly you mean by oxidative stress and how is it driving autoimmune, thyroid issues, PCOS?

Yeah. So oxidative stress is a natural, well, oxidation is a natural process that happens in the body and essentially when oxidative stress occurs it's because there's a imbalance to the amount of antioxidants and the amount of oxidative stress that are happening or the amount of oxidation that are occurring in the body and so our body naturally makes antioxidants our body naturally makes something called like superoxide dismutase it naturally makes glutathione to help to be able to regulate our oxidative stress load so that we're never in an oxidative stress state. But when our body doesn't have enough resources to be able to do that, maybe there is like external things that are driving this oxidative stress process,

or maybe we're not eating enough of the nutrients to be able to help our body make enough glutathione and sub peroxide dismutase, then that's when this oxidative stress load becomes elevated because we don't have enough of those antioxidants to be able to combat that process. And a lot of the natural process in the body, like even just metabolism of converting food into energy, there's a natural level of oxidative stress that occurs. Just making thyroid hormones, there's a natural amount of oxidative stress that happens because iodine, which is the mineral that is what our thyroid hormones are made off of, is an oxidant when it's in high amounts and when our body's making thyroid hormones. So that's why we always want to be making sure we're flooding the body

with ways to support our antioxidant capacity, because that's what's going to help to be able to minimize this oxidative stress load that's occurring. We also see that exhaustive exercise also causes oxidative stress. So exercise in general is really good for our antioxidant capacity. But when we over-exercise or our body, again, doesn't have enough antioxidants to combat the oxidative stress from exercise, now you get into an oxidative stress situation. And when there's oxidative stress, what happens is something called mitochondrial dysfunction. And when our mitochondria aren't working efficiently, hormones aren't working efficiently. And our mitochondria are, we always call it the powerhouse of our cells, but our mitochondria is actually

where hormones initiate. So in our mitochondria is where your body takes cholesterol from what you eat and what your liver makes. And that's how it makes pregnenolone, which is our parent hormones who making either progesterone or DHEA. And then from there we make testosterone and estrogen. So if there's mitochondrial dysfunction because of oxidative stress, that whole hormone cascade gets impacted and you can see how like testosterone can convert over to estrogens efficiently. It has been shown that mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress can impact abilities for ovulation, for implantation, for fertilization, for menstruation. So it impacts the menstrual cycle and every degree it's going to increase the rate of testosterone levels because

those testosterone aren't converting over to estrogens normally as they should be to keep like a healthy balance between our testosterone to estrogen levels. And our mitochondria are where thyroid hormones, thyroid hormones play a big role in our mitochondria because thyroid hormones are what really regulate the speed for our mitochondria. So there's so much of a connection between that, but really with oxidative stress, it goes back to is like, does the body have enough antioxidant capacity

or are we creating more oxidative stress than it can tolerate and then that's then driving the mitochondrial dysfunction which is then driving the hormone imbalances okay so i feel like with oxidative stress i mean there's no way to avoid it so how can we lessen the impact is it something as simple as consuming more antioxidants like eating more blueberries or taking a glutathione supplement or how can we really support that oxidative stress? Yeah, so there's definitely like a two-prong approach. So we want to remove the things

that are gonna drive more oxidative stress. So we know like blood sugar dysregulation, being in like a hyperglycemic state causes oxidative stress. So improving blood sugar control can be a great way to help with that. We know that endocrine disruptors and things, whether it's like, you know, chemicals you're being exposed to through glyphosate or through, you know, things you're

using in your beauty supplies or heavy metal exposure from foods that you may be eating that are really concentrated in things like cadmium and lead and mercury and such, that those can all cause oxidative stress as well. We can also really start to find a smart balance with exercise where we're not creating this like exhaustive oxidative stress response, right? And that kind of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of our conversation with like, what is that right balance and sweet spot with exercise? So we really want to look at is how can we reduce those things that are causing more oxidative stress? And then yes, how can we boost our body's antioxidant capacity? And our body's always going to preferentially use its own endogenous antioxidants. So that's

going to be like the superoxide dismutase and the glutathione. I focus a lot on the, on my energy behind glutathione because it's our body's master antioxidant. It's so involved in regulating thyroid hormone production, the liver's ability to detoxify, which ends up then impacting all the rest of our hormones. So just eating the foods that are going to help us make more glutathione. Yes, you can absolutely supplement with glutathione. Some people don't tolerate it well though. So just making sure that we're getting enough like sulfur and minerals, selenium, protein, especially things that are rich in like glycine and glutamine, like bone in proteins, bone broths, making sure that

we're getting enough vitamin E, especially like really high absorbable sources, more of these like fat soluble antioxidants can be really powerful and helping to control this oxidative stress. Okay. That's amazing. That was super helpful. What I wanna know is, is there anything that I didn't cover today that you think is really important about what we talked about today? It can be really overwhelming.

And I know all these things, it's like mitochondria, what? Like oxidative stress? Like, you know, there's like these conversations that can feel like, oh my gosh, you know, like how do I even control that? But I always wanna share this information to more so like empower people that there is so much that can still be done. And, um, I share this like for my own issues that I dealt with early on in my

life too, where like, I went to every doctor, went to every specialist and like, no one could really help me. And everyone was kind of just like, you're doing all the right things, you know, like just give it time. And it's like, no, I don't want to give it time. Like I need to see change happen. Like I know how my body is meant to feel and I want to feel that again. Right. And so I'm more so sure to give people hope that like there might be other avenues that maybe haven't been explored that could support your hormone health and just overall like your well-being. As we mentioned earlier, hormones impact every facet of your well-being. Right. But I mean, if you haven't already had labs done, I think that that's always a great place to gather more insight into what is going on and really getting labs that are

going to dive deeper than just the surface level, like the TSH and, you know, the kind of basics that you might get at your doctor. But really diving into, you know, what do you, what do you need for your individual picture? So like in our practice, we always specialize, we customize all of our testing to like your individual needs, you know, because you might have PCOS, this other person might have PCOS, but maybe theirs is more insulin resistant and it's evident. So we need more information on metabolic function, whereas maybe the other person's is more inflammatory from the immune system. So we need more information on metabolic function, whereas maybe the other person's is more inflammatory from the immune system. So we need more information on the immune system, right? And that's what can really help us

to be able to kind of uncover more of the root causes as to why there's these imbalances happening. Across the board though, if you're either not ready for that or you just feel like that's not something that's in the cards for you right now, I think that supporting our body's inflammatory response is going to be the first place to start.

Like addressing this oxidative stress, addressing this chronic inflammation, really understanding how to support your body's starting blocks to making hormones is going to be so essential. So like we have a program called Inflammation Harmony, and that's basically where we teach you to how to understand how to regulate oxidative stress and inflammation, because that really,

if you can get that down, you're going to see so many improvements happen downstream with how your body's functioning, how your hormones are functioning. And you may not even need testing. That might be enough to be able to get you to the place that you're hoping for. That's that was great advice. And I think that'll help a lot of people. And I love that you have this program that people can go check out as a resource. So before we go, I want to ask you a question that's a personal question that I ask all my

guests at the end. And I'm very curious to know what your answer is. What are your health non-negotiables? So things that no matter how crazy busy your day is that you really prioritize for your own health. Yeah. So it's something I've been grappling with the past couple of months because I'm six months pregnant. So a lot of them I've had to come on pause. Yeah. And it's honestly been so hard for me. Like I hadn't realized how much these things really made an impact on the way that I felt until I no longer could do them anymore. Right. But one of those is just like strength training. I mean, I still am strength training, but like it's just different. You know, you have to make so many modifications when you're pregnant. Um, but strength training and just movement in general, walking strength training, the combination of the two, um,

they're just so helpful for like mind and body for like feeling strong, but also seeing changes in your body, like your metabolism working better, just everything really following suit after that. So those are big, like non-negotiables for me, regardless, like if I'm on a vacation, maybe I can't strength train, okay, I'm gonna go walk a ton, right? And just try to find ways to incorporate both of those forms of exercise.

Another one I'm really big on is sauna. And that's been something I really miss right now. But generally it's something I do a couple of times per week, you know, maybe every other day. And it's just a really great way to support our body's own ability to detoxify. And, you know, you just feel so good too. And it helps improve that parasympathetic response, help improve sleep and things. So I am a huge sauna fan.

And then three is just eating a really herbal and vegetable, like, phytonutrient-rich diet. I'm a big believer in just, like, the quality of the foods that we're eating. And so I definitely eat quite a bit of quality animal products as well. And, you know, I think that those have a role, but I don't think anything makes you feel as good as, like, eating a ton of different phyto-diversity and herbs and things in the foods that you eat. So that's something I still can do right now. But, you know, trying to really cook with a lot of like, you know, fresh garlic and dill and cilantro and parsley and vegetable colors and things is something that's really important to me because it really not only improves our health outcomes, but also you just notice such a difference in how you feel from that meal and also just like the flavor profiles that that meal gives you and how real food can taste so nourishing. Yes. Oh, you're speaking my language right now. I love it. Well, please let everybody

know where they can find you, where they can find your programs and everything that you talked about today. Yeah. So my practice is Functional Fueling. Our website is functionalfueling.com. I'm over on Instagram at functional.fueling. And then I also have a podcast called Strength and Hormones that you can find on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. Amazing. Thank you so much, Lauren. This was great. Thanks, Courtney. Thank you so much for listening to The Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can

watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.