Sex With Emily - How Food, Hormones & Shame Are Destroying Your Sex Life l Ft. Will Cole
Episode Date: July 29, 2025Join the SmartSX Membership : https://sexwithemily.com/smartsx Access exclusive sex coaching, live expert sessions, community building, and tools to enhance your pleasure and relationships with Dr. E...mily Morse. List & Other Sex With Emily Guides: https://sexwithemily.com/guides/ Explore pleasure, deepen connections, and enhance intimacy using these Sex With Emily downloadable guides. SHOP WITH EMILY!: https://bit.ly/3rNSNcZ (free shipping on orders over $99) Want more? Visit the Sex With Emily Website: https://sexwithemily.com/ In this illuminating episode of Sex with Emily, Dr. Emily Morse sits down with Dr. Will Cole, a leader in functional medicine and author of Gut Feelings, to explore how emotional and physical health are deeply connected, and how addressing both is essential for a thriving sex life, better relationships, and holistic well-being. Dr. Cole explains the "shameflammation connection"; how repressed emotions like shame, guilt, and stress can cause chronic inflammation, impacting libido, energy, and connection. He breaks down this mind-body cycle where emotional stress manifests as physical illness and offers somatic tools for healing, emphasizing that nervous system regulation is crucial to breaking this loop through breathwork, stillness, and rituals that bring people back into their bodies. We dive deep into the gut-brain connection and its major role in mood, hormone balance, and sexual health. Dr. Cole reveals how processed foods, sugar, and unresolved trauma can hijack desire and performance, while discussing silent inflammation and hormone imbalances that often show up as low libido, fatigue, or anxiety. He uses advanced lab testing to find hidden causes when patients say "I don't feel like myself." The conversation addresses shame around pleasure and sexual identity, highlighting how culture often teaches us to suppress pleasure or disconnect from desire. Both Emily and Dr. Cole agree that reclaiming sensuality starts with removing shame and practicing compassionate self-awareness. Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 2:57 - What is Functional Medicine? 8:24 - The Science Behind "Gut Feelings" 13:37 - How Emotions Become Physical Symptoms 22:27 - Foods That Don't Love You Back 32:07 - Testosterone, Estrogen & Sexual Health 39:04 - Where to Find Functional Medicine Support 46:25 - The Missing Conversation 52:18 - Self-Respect Over Obsession 54:29 - Quickfire Round
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Throughout human history, our ancestors knew somehow, inexplicably, ineffably, that our
gut was the seed of the soul somehow, that our gut and brain were somehow connected.
They didn't have randomized controlled trials. They didn't have all the science that we have,
but they knew from experience and experiencing people observation that there was some connection
there. You're listening to Sex with Emily.
I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation
around sex.
Today's episode is all about connection, the deep, often invisible link between your body,
your emotions, and your sex life.
I'm joined by functional medicine expert Dr. Will Cole and we're diving into a topic that's
been quietly affecting so many of us.
Shameflammation. If you've ever felt burned out, anxious, inflamed, or just off and you can't quite
figure out why, this conversation is for you. We're breaking down the fascinating science of how
emotional stress, unresolved shame, and even trauma can manifest as physical symptoms in your
body, including your hormones, gut health, and sexual vitality. Dr. Cole and I talk about how libido isn't just about sex, it's a reflection of
your whole body health. We explore why so many people feel exhausted, disconnected,
or dysregulated, and how lifestyle shifts, mindset tools, and nervous system support
can help you come back into alignment. We'll also tackle the medical system's
blind spots around sexuality, the guilt so many
of us carry about pleasure, and why self-compassion isn't just nice, it's a healing tool.
My intention is to help you see your body as an ally, not enemy, to understand how your
emotional and physical wellness are deeply intertwined, and to support you in reclaiming
pleasure, energy, and intimacy from the inside out.
Alright everybody, enjoy this episode.
Dr. Will Cole is an author, functional medicine expert,
and podcast host, most known for his popular podcast,
The Art of Being Well.
He founded one of the first telehealth centers in the world
and has provided insight into the root of physiological,
biochemical
and hormonal causes of disease and chronic pain.
He previously co-hosted the GoopFellas podcast and his insights are frequently featured on
goop.com.
His latest book, Gut Feelings, is out now.
Well, I just want to say I'm so excited that you're here and to introduce you to my audience
because I'm such a fan of your work and your books
and how you've been so innovative
in the field of functional medicine,
normalizing it for people.
And in some cases really introducing it to people,
what it actually is.
And I spend a lot of time on my show
talking about how people's Western medicine doctors,
though they did the work and they work very hard,
don't often have the answers for them that they need today
regarding their health around hormones
and around so many things.
So I think it'd be so helpful to start out for my audience,
just to explain what you do as a functional medicine doctor.
Yeah, sure.
So we started one of the first functional medicine
telehealth centers 13 plus years ago.
So this is all that I've done for the past 13 plus years.
It's from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. I'm here.
We have a brick and mortar telehealth clinic,
but all our patients are remote.
What we do differently in functional medicine,
and first of all, I think defining it in the sense of
it doesn't have to be either or, right?
I think the best of both worlds,
a both and not either or approach
when it comes to healthcare is the best. And I think this tribalism within healthcare really
doesn't serve anybody. Or we're like throwing pejoratives of like quacks or like whatever,
corrupt money, whatever. It's more of, well, what's the most effective tools that causes them the least
amount of side effects? Can't we just operate from that? Like really be data driven, but
also be in favor of the patient and their health and not just disease management. And
that's why functional medicine is not anti-Western medicine. It really is a part of it. And that's
why leaders in conventional medicine, like the Clevelandveland clinic has a million multi million dollar functional medicine center hospitals like cleveland clinic are not spending millions of dollars on world renowned
functional medicine clinics off of who are quackery the doing it because the data speaks for itself, and we have to have a both and, not either or approach to
healthcare. So I think just bringing people up to date on that, because if
you're really still throwing slurs at functional medicine, you're on the wrong
side of history. The first thing is we interpret labs using a thinner reference
range. The labs largely, if you're looking at the conventional data and the
basic biomarkers, the reference ranges are largely based
on a statistical bell curve average
of people who go to labs.
People that go to labs
aren't the healthiest bunch of people.
So sadly, that's why they're going to the labs.
So there's a lot of people that know intuitively
something's off here, like my anxiety, my depression,
my weight loss resistance, my digestive problem, my hormonal,
whatever we're talking about.
They want answers and they go to the doctor.
The doctor runs the basic labs
because they're trained to diagnose the disease
and match it with the medication.
So they're running the basic biomarkers,
but the basic biomarkers will come back
as like quote unquote normal many times or mostly normal.
And they're told, you know, you're just depressed, take this antidepressant, or you're just getting
older or you're just stressed, you're just a new mom, all these well-intentioned reasons.
But what they're unintentionally telling the person is that they're a lot like the other
people with health problems that they're being compared with.
Comparing yourself to people with
health issues is no way for you to find out how you can feel your best. So we're looking at optimal,
not average in functional medicine. Like where does the body function the best? That's where we
get our name. It's the functional range. Where does longevity, vibrant wellness reside, which
typically that optimal range is a thinner interval of numbers within that larger reference
range.
The second thing is we run more comprehensive labs.
It's based off of health history.
So we're looking at more advanced labs like underlying gut issues or chronic infections
or nutrient deficiencies or hormonal imbalances or advanced lipid panels, whatever is needed
from a data standpoint to get the pieces to the puzzle.
And then we realize
we're all different. And I think that's the third difference is that we really take into account
bio individuality, which there you really can't have a cookie cutter one size fits all approach
to getting healthy when it comes to these complex, nuanced health issues. And we realize that health
and health problems exist on a spectrum. By the time somebody is diagnosed with a chronic health problem, like an autoimmune problem
or a chronic cardiometabolic issue, researchers estimate it's about four to 10 years prior
to that diagnosis when things were brewing on this inflammation spectrum, this continuum
between health and health problems or function and dysfunction.
So that's really what functional medicine is.
Is it both end approach, is it evidence based, we're using food as medicine, we're using
natural medicines, herbs, botanicals, all science based to support health, medications
when needed, mind-body techniques, trauma work, therapy, lots of advanced biohacking
to really be tailored to the individual.
What is their most effective option
that causes the least amount of side effects?
So just to clarify for a minute,
because I've had this experience where we might go
to a lab and get tested.
Like if I go to Quest or one of the labs
that your doctor sends you to go get blood work.
And then I'd look at them over the last year
and each lab had a different normal range
of what my testosterone should be or what my
estrogen should be. And it was so confusing. And so most people are just like, well, you're in a
normal range, but that doesn't mean anything. There's so many other factors like what your
gender, what your health history is. You have much more specific tests. Like I know the Dutch test,
which measures like urine and then there's stool tests. And I just think that those, you're getting a lot more information about, about what you can kind of hone in on what's going on,
right? With people rather than just the standard means of tests. But also in your book, you talk
about the connection between what you eat and the way you feel. Let's talk about the connection
between what you eat and the way you feel. Anything that I write is about, it's really borne out of my work with our patients and seeing so
many stories and a lot of clinical experience, a lot of looking at labs and seeing the science
and art of wellness of how really to use data in the latest research, but then what's the heart
of all of it? What's the space in between the words and the data and, and getting somebody well
and having this translate to real life for real people.
So that's what gut feelings is about.
I mean, the name of the book, it's has many layers from like a writing author standpoint
is that we have this phrase that's in the human lexicon of like gut instinct and gut feelings
and I just feel it in my gut or butterflies in my stomach
that somehow this is part of human existence
and our vernacular, but what are the origins of it?
That throughout human history,
our ancestors knew somehow inexplicably, ineffably
that our gut was the seed of the soul somehow, that our gut and brain were somehow connected.
They didn't have randomized control trials. They didn't have all the science that we have, but they knew from experience and experiencing people
observation that there was some connection there. It's known in traditional Chinese medicine, it's known in Ayurvedic medicine, and it's known throughout all traditional medicines, this connection.
And now research is catching up with antiquity, that the majority of human health, at least
to some degree, begins in the gut.
I mean, there's layers to that.
I mean, 95% of serotonin is made in the gut.
That's our happy neurotransmitter.
50% of dopamine is made in the gut, our pleasure neurotransmitter.
These things work upon the vagus nerve.
The neurotransmitters are made in the gut.
They don't necessarily pass through the blood-brain barrier
as we understand it, but they work upon the vagus nerve,
which is the largest cranial nerve in the body.
It's responsible for the resting, digesting state.
It's, when people talk about a dysregulated nervous system,
what they're typically talking about is an overactive,
sympathetic, fight or flight stress state, and an overactive, sympathetic, fight-or-flight
stress state and an underactive, parasympathetic or poor vagal tone or weak vagal tone. So a lot
of what I work with my patients and what I'm talking about in gut feelings is a dysregulation
of the neuro-aminoendocrine axis or the connection between our nervous system, as I just mentioned,
our immune system
Chronic inflammation is a product of that and the endocrine system our hormones and the sort of cross-talk
bi-directional Communication line between those three systems. So the vagus nerve is what's innervating the gut-brain axis mainly
It's a central part to many people that are struggling with mental health issues autoimmune problems problems, metabolic issues, digestive problems, hormonal problems.
It's a major factor.
And there's a lot of gut-centric components to that.
But the book is really this conversation
around the bi-directional relationship
between mental health and physical health,
that both gut and feelings,
the physiological and the psychological,
are both interplayed.
Don't go away, because after a quick break, Dr. Will Cole is breaking down the four plus one things we should avoid to take care of our bodies.
Most of our patients are dealing with these neuro-immunoendocrine access issues. There
are physiological things that will impact the system, like underlying gut problems,
environmental toxins, like biotoxins like mold, bacteria, viruses issues, will impact
our physical health, will impact our mood, will impact where our nervous system is regulated,
will impact inflammation levels. But then conversely, the feelings side of gut feelings, the mental, emotional, spiritual factors like stress and
unresolved trauma, how those feeling things will impact our physical health and the research
around that is just wild. These things are literally stored in our body just as much
as a food that doesn't love us back. Our body is a cellular library and really talking
about thoughts, words,
emotions and experiences will influence our biochemistry just as much as a food does.
And these things that we're not just feeding our body with breakfast, lunch and dinner,
but what are we feeding our head and our heart on a daily basis, which is a lot more nonlinear.
I mean, it's like easier and more prescriptive for me to say, okay, these foods, these nutrients do X, Y, and Z.
It's a lot more abstract and complex
to talk about big heavy topics like stress and trauma.
How do we clear those and start serving our mind
with things that love us back and retraining that?
It's important when you're dealing with autoimmune issues
and digestive and hormonal problems,
it's important to talk about both sides of this coin. Yeah. And I love that you do that so well in your book. I heard you say like,
you can't heal a body that you hate. But I always say you can't have great sex in a body that you
hate. And you also say you can't shame your way into good health and you can't shame your way into
good sex. Cause as you know, we talked about it. Everyone should check out your wonderful podcast
that I was on as well, The Art of Being Well.
It's sort of the same thing.
People are like, Emily, give me a great sex position.
What toy should I use?
Tell me about this lube.
But how have you dealt with shame and trauma?
And I know you talk about shameflammation,
which is just brilliant.
Can you sort of explain a little bit about shameflammation,
which is sort of the more like mental,
psychological part of this health picture.
Yeah. So it's that side of how does shame and things that cause shame, how does that impact
our biochemistry? How does that influence that neuro-aminoendocrine axis? And it will influence
it just as much as food or nutrients or drink, something you drank, something physiological, psychological impacts the physiological.
So the reality is shame and the research around shame, things that cause shame, which the
big areas that I talk about in the book and that I see with telehealth patients is unresolved
trauma and chronic stress.
And someone feeling inadequate, they're eating foods that don't love them back because they're
busy and stressed.
There's a lot of shame, inflammation with that.
And then of course, with unresolved trauma,
most people can understand that.
There's a lot of shame around that.
But also the health related shame and orthorexia,
which is disorder to eating around healthy foods
and shame around people's bodies, like you said,
or shame around food and their relationship with food.
These are complex things, but all will contribute to shame inflammation. Like stressing and shaming
yourself about healthy food or health and wellness isn't good for your health. But yet this is the
complex conversations that we need to have with people even within good topics like wellness or
health and you know nutrition all this good stuff. If it's not put into
context used in a way that serves you, it can be abused. Good things can be used in
a way that's not right for you. I think that really educating people with this, not for
them to then stress about the same information, but to really be empowered to say, look, let's
create a greater awareness on what I'm feeding myself on a daily
basis with as far as my head and my heart. Like what are the things I'm taking in online or what
are my boundaries with myself? What are my boundaries with technology? What are my boundaries with health
and wellness and what's serving me? And more isn't always better. I talk about in the book, the
research around self-compassion, which self-compassion in many ways
is the ultimate antidote to shameflammation
because there's one study that I talk about in the book
of how the researchers had people do a stressful event,
the two activities, it was math and public speaking,
which apparently stresses a lot of us out.
So there could be a lot of shame,
like, oh my gosh, I'm not good enough.
I'm inadequate.
I'm overwhelmed.
I'm never gonna be successful at this.
So they measured these interleukin-6 inflammation levels, IL-6.
People at higher inflammation levels
that had stress and shame around these things,
embarrassment around these things.
But the people that practice the most self-compassion,
which it's really hard to have a lot of shame
when there's self-compassion,
it sort of buffers and mutes it and heals it
and like a salve on it.
People that practice the most self-compassion
had the lowest inflammation levels.
So these aren't just some theoretical woo-woo things.
These are measurable practices that we can integrate
in our life and retrain our neuro-immunoconaxis by practicing things like self-compassion
and gratitude and I talk about many other tools that have like very maybe esoteric connotations,
but actually have very physiological implications when we consistently practice them.
I love that you tie that into the book and show people that everything that we are thinking and
feeling and doing is living in our body, impacting our mental health, our physical health, and our
sexual health. So I love that the studies around self-compassion, it truly is the antidote to all
of this shame. It really is like, yes, you might not feel great about what you're eating or about
how you handled a certain task,
whether it was math or public speaking,
but in that moment, how do you say,
like, I did the best I could,
today I did the best that I could do for myself,
loving yourself, and that's what we're talking about here
is really the more self-compassion and self-love
we can have, easier it's gonna be to get healthy overall.
And I think too, to your point,
loving yourself where you're at now
doesn't necessarily mean you're accepting where you're at now doesn't necessarily mean
you're accepting where you're at.
Sometimes it's knowing, okay, this is where I'm at right now, being almost compelled to
want more for yourself and not beating yourself up for being inadequate, but saying, how can
I lean into things that love me back?
And a lot of this has to do with retraining the nervous system.
We have deeply ingrained things, self-sabotaging behaviors, many of us do,
from early on that we kind of learn,
and we need to unlearn that and retrain it.
But these are the things that we work on with patients,
and from a book standpoint, these are accessible.
Like most of the tools on the feeling stuff
are free or low cost for people to really,
if they're consistent with it,
they really can see amazing changes to start to shift their
biochemistry through retraining that neuroaminoendocrine
response.
Let's say people have an unhealthy relationship with food
or they keep eating things that don't make them feel good.
And they're like, why do I have to have chocolate three times
a day? I don't really understand it.
And I love that you have a great way of reframing it.
That it's like, literally these foods are not loving you back.
And it's not that you're giving up something
and it's gonna be horrible that you can't eat chocolate,
but look at what you can do
and it's sort of a brilliant reframe
if you can kind of talk about those exercises of, yeah.
It's hugely important.
That's why the subtitle of the book
is Healing the Shame-Fueled Relationship
Between What You Eat and How You Feel.
So part of that conversation that I wanted to have
in the book is this, I think, toxic tribalism
within diet culture, what people would call toxic diet culture, and then I would say,
equally toxic anti-diet culture. That it may be the phrase, the road to hell is paid with good
intentions. I think that the rebound, polar opposite response, but ends up being the different side of the same coin
is this equally toxic anti-diet culture,
which the diet culture is all about eat less,
workout more, restriction, obsession,
shaming your way into health.
As you mentioned, like the back of the book,
I've got feelings that say you can't heal a body you hate.
Sustainable wellness has to be born out of self respect and loving your body
enough to nourish it with things that love you back.
But then the flip side is this phenomenon on social media and within
certain areas of wellness or nutrition that there's quote unquote, no such
thing as a bad food and eat whatever you want and it's not going to impact your
health and it can create a lot of disordered eating around that too,
because it kind of removes all basic logic
when it comes to nutrition.
And you look at the majority of the human race right now,
the vast majority of people have a metabolic issue
and have things that food directly feeds.
Food feeds disease and you can't ignore that.
So I think that you have to have a both and approach
even with this is that, yes, shaming your way into health
is not sustainable,
nor is ignoring basic nutrition facts either.
I got excited because you were getting to the point
of you talk about the big four plus one,
which I've heard you talk about like that we should be pointing.
And I love the plus one, I got a lot to say about that,
but just basic information because people are like, oh, a little bit of pizza is fine, I've heard you talk about like that. We should avoid it. And I love the plus one. I got a lot to say about that. But
information because people like, Oh, a little bit of pizzas. But what are the four? What should we be? Yeah, sure.
So these are the foods that are most likely not to love people back. Right. And this is not about restriction. This is about the person being curious, just like you teach us to have sex IQ and be highly intelligent
from a sex intelligence standpoint, I want people to have that same body intelligence
for themselves. And this isn't about, oh, I can't have that. Like I say to patients
and I say it in the book, eat whatever you want, but use meals as a meditation and as
a medicine. And you may find that it's different. Like you're going to be different than somebody
else and that's okay. There's a lot of bio-individuality
and this isn't about weight loss.
Like if we all ate and worked out the same,
we'd still would all look different and that's okay.
There's a lot of bio-individuality.
But I want people to really be intuitive and mindful
about what foods love them and what foods
don't love them back.
And I think we have to have these conversations
around healthy boundaries when it comes to other people and everything is like gaslighting. But the reality
is no, we need the ultimate relationship when it comes to healthy boundaries is with ourselves
and having self-respect when it comes to things that don't love us back. And look, there is
legitimate, like when you talk about medical gaslighting around all my patients and auto,
meaning it's legitimate. But I think it's so flippant with anybody that disagrees with you,
it's automatically gaslighting.
It's not always gaslighting.
Sometimes they just don't agree with you and that's okay to have different opinions
about things.
But anyways, the foods that don't love people back, most likely, you know, I can get granular
with the exceptions and the nuance, But the inflammatory core for plus one,
because it's a drink, liquid,
would be gluten-containing grains.
That's wheat, rye, barley, spelt.
Oats can be cross-contaminated.
They are mainly wheat, but it's the hybridization.
It's the glyphosate spraying of the grains.
Humans would have consumed a different grain
for thousands of years.
So looking at gluten-containing grains as disrupting the microbiome and raising inflammation,
it doesn't love a lot of people back. It can love some people back and the least likely
to be inflammatory would be things like ancient grains that still has gluten in it but just
more ancestral and sourdough bread and sourdough grains because it ferments
the grain proteins, making it more digestible and it's going to love more people back because
it's less inflammatory. Second thing is added sugar and being mindful of the labels, even nicer
sounding euphemisms for sugar, like agave nectar, like higher fructose added sugar, an absence of
fiber can be problematic for many people
because of the amount of metabolic issues
and blood sugar issues that we face as a society,
which feeds mood issues and hormonal problems
that will wreck people's sex drives.
Like all of these things that I'm talking about
will decimate some people's sex drives.
So they think, oh, I'm broken or oh, it's just me.
And we talked about this on my pod. Like they think, oh, I'm broken, or oh, it's just me. And we talked about this
on my pod. Like they think, oh, I'm just, I just have a low sex drive, but it's not.
It's they're settling for something that is overcomeable and healable and optimizable.
And these foods will impact estrogen and progesterone and cortisol and thyroid hormones, which impacts
libido. So looking at dairy, sugar grains, dairy would be the
third one. And the better versions would be like fermented dairies, like cheeses, kefir,
yogurts, because the fermentation just like the sourdough with the bread breaks down the
casein dairy protein, making it less inflammatory. And the fourth would be industrial seed oils,
like canola oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil.
My opinion is it's more of the over consumption of it and not so much that those oils are the devil,
but that Americans don't eat enough long chain omega-3 fatty acids from whole foods,
and they eat too much packaged foods with high omega-6 industrial seed oils.
So it's more of the ratios of omega-3, 6 six and nine more than just demonizing this oil by in and of themselves.
That's the context around it. And the plus one is alcohol. So it's really, I mean, I hate to sound like a puritanical tea toddler because I'm not.
But I really want people to take a really good look at does this love them back or not.
And the research is pretty clear.
It's a neurotoxin.
It's gonna increase intestinal permeability.
We all have different bio individual thresholds
to tolerate these things,
but we should at least look at
how much does this love me back or not?
The caveat for all of this is what researchers refer to
as an evolutionary mismatch,
an epigenetic genetic mismatch,
that humans would have not consumed these things
in copious amounts.
And our genetics haven't changed in 10,000 years.
Our microbiome hasn't changed in 10,000 beyond years.
So we are eating out of alignment
with what we have evolved with
and it's triggering genetic predispositions
and triggering problems like low sex drives
and other hormonal problems,
other neuroaminoendocrine access issues
because we're eating out of alignment.
I kind of want to turn the focus into our libido
and our sex drive.
Are there foods we should avoid?
Like what do we need to know
about what we're putting in our body
and how it's impacting our libido, our sex drive?
What have you seen in your patients
when they start to avoid certain things
or add certain things?
What can we do right now
to start impacting our sex drive for good?
Yeah.
All this, the core four plus one, like get the better for you versions.
Like if you really want to keep them in and if they work for you, the better for you versions
that I mentioned, then get them.
I'm not saying it's absolute or it's all or nothing.
Again, this is about using your meals as a meditation and medicine.
Eat it mindfully. Does it love you back or not?
And avoiding those things, if it doesn't love you back,
it'll be like a bad trade off.
And that's the paradigm shift that I want people to have.
I call it food piece in the book.
And with patients, it's like,
my patients don't care about not having things
that don't love them back.
They love feeling great more than they want something
that's gonna mess up how they feel.
I know that I've taken out gluten. I feel so much better. But for a lot of people,
it seems like it's a lot of work. They're like, okay, so how do you know? Like I took out gluten,
but I left in the oils or do they have to do it all at once? Like what have you seen in the order
of events? Most people to mitigate variables as much as possible and be their own end of one experiment, it would be to do what's known as an elimination diet,
which it doesn't, like, I hate that term.
Like, it sounds so punitive.
Elimination and diet, like, both are some second terms.
But it's just, how are we mitigating variables
statistically off of things that are most likely
to disrupt the microbiome and not love most humans back.
So yeah, going off of those for a while,
it's not about calorie restriction.
It's about switching how you're fueling your body,
eating foods that love you back,
nourishing calorie rich, nutrient dense foods,
and then bring one end at a time.
Reintroduction is just as much
as taking a break off of those foods
because you want to see it.
Does it love me back or does it not love me back?
I talk about it in the book if they people want a detailed experiment for themselves read my second book
It's called the inflammation spectrum
Which is like based off of questions that I ask patients and can kind of see how we do this for three introduction
But I talk about it in gut feelings
more basic because that that book's less about
like the nitty gritty granular nutrition stuff
and more about like the relationship with food.
It's more of like the heart and soul of it
and healing your relationship with food.
But the, I mean, it's all of this stuff
is inextricably linked to our sex drive and hormones.
It really is.
And it's not just about the things you're not having.
Look at the foods that don't love you back
because the body is amazingly resilient.
And when you give it a reprieve,
it can start functioning the way it wants to function
and it's not having these things
that are dampening its function.
It's amazing what the body can do when it has a break
and it's not working so hard at just digesting things
that don't love you back.
And then it's all about like nourishing your body with delicious things that do love you
back.
Like what are things that can build strong hormones and can build proper signaling between
all of your sex hormones?
What are those foods then?
So what are the people who are like, Emily, is there an aphrodisiac?
Are there supplements?
What can I take?
What's going to make me feel the most turned on tonight?
Like what I don't know that I believe in aphrodisiacs.
I'm like, if oysters turn you on,
they are kind of sexy and look like, you know,
female genitalia in some ways and they feel good
and they're sexy to eat
because there's a few steps and watermelon too.
What's your take on like the foods
that are going to impact that?
Your libido or sex drive.
If there's anything you could say,
and I know you're like me, we can't say,
everybody go run out and buy oysters
or go out and take maca, although that might help.
Is there any kind of general rules
or thing that you notice?
Some of it is the unsexy stuff
that actually will make you feel sexy.
So, and it's starting with the most unsexy word ever.
It's in at least the top 100.
Macronutrients. It's like, oh yeah, give me the macronutrients.
But the protein, fats and carbs like really looking at arm am I
optimizing my protein, fats and carbs, because that is the raw
material you need for proper hormonal production, blood sugar
regulation and communication within your body. So optimizing
carbs, fiber rich carbs,
help with hormone detox and gut health
and where 20% of your thyroid hormone
is converted in your gut.
But also those fruits and vegetables are polyphenol rich,
which are antioxidants which is really helpful
for cellular health and hormonal communication.
And they have vitamins and minerals too.
Protein, making sure you have enough adequate
complete protein throughout the day, like around depending on your height and weight and activity
level and age, around 30 grams of complete protein per meal. Most people are not strategizing.
No.
It will help with satiety signaling. You'll feel less hangry. Your blood sugar will be more balanced, which is like, A, insulin signaling is a hormonal
balance.
But beyond that, it will help your other hormones as far as your estrogen, progesterone, cortisol
levels and thyroid hormones to be properly regulated.
It's kind of a firm foundation, glucose control for other hormones and brain function.
And healthy fats, your hormones are made from fats.
So you need fats like olives and avocados and wild cut fish and grass fed beef and these
monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, omega fats and saturated fats to have proper hypothalamic,
pituitary, ovarvarian testicular communication lines.
So yeah, that's the unsexy stuff.
And then if you want to get like granular, I mean, look, I think oysters, these like
cliched aphrodisiacs, mainly because they're mineral rich, I think is really what it is.
Like zinc and copper can help with hormonal production.
So that may be, I mean, I guess it does look like...
You have to have a lot of oysters. You have to have like a lot of oysters, maybe, to get that.
Stick around because when we're back, Dr. Will Cole and I are shedding light on the complex world
of hormones. Can we get into hormones a little bit?
Because I know we actually even asked our listeners for some questions about hormones
and a lot of them were like, can you just explain testosterone?
What foods help?
I'm just going to list what came in.
What foods can help boost estrogen?
Do hormone sprays work with one of them? Do hormonal
fluctuations affect men? Also, I just think that hormones is still so confusing for many people
and even the way you get tested for hormones. And again, I know this is a big topic, but being on a
show where we're talking about sex, we talk a lot about testosterone hormone replacement that women
also could benefit from it. So I guess my first question is maybe we could either start with like running down the hormones
and how they affect our sex drive, like testosterone, estrogen, and predestinoin. And then maybe
if there are specific foods that you do actually believe could help aid in hormone production.
Yeah. The main hormones,
when you're talking about sex drive, libido,
which I would then open that up to mood,
it's very much still mood and energy too.
So it's not just about sex, it's about zest for life
is how many people explain it to me.
I have a lack of zest for life, which includes sex drive.
The main hormones are gonna be estrogen, of course, and all
its metabolites. So estrone, estradiol, estradiol, progesterone, and all that's metabolites and
testosterone and all of its metabolites like DHT and other androgens. And then I would
add thyroid hormones to that too, because low thyroid hormone will really wreck your
libido and energy levels and mood.
So I would add that and cortisol very much a part of that as well. The point is these
are biochemical emails and you need all the emails being sent appropriately because they
are communicating within the systems of the body. So yeah, those sex hormones like estrogen,
progesterone, testosterone are the most common ones that you associate with libido, but it
really is all the other ones.
It's insulin with blood sugar regulation
and it's thyroid hormone and cortisol.
They're all inter-communicating
that are influencing each other.
So you really have to have a holistic view of this.
So go back to what I said about macronutrients
because that is foundational.
You cannot supplement your way out of a poor diet.
You have to start with that.
But then if you're looking at specific,
different like let's say herbs or science backed,
natural supportive tools to support hormone health,
I think an easy area to talk about here
would be adaptogens,
which I do talk about in gut feelings at length.
We use them in telehealth patient protocols as well.
You mentioned Maka.
Maka is one that has some decent studies around it.
Other adaptogens like Ashwagandha,
holy basil or tulsi has been used.
Both of those have been used in Ayurvedic medicine
for thousands of years.
Hosei Wu, like the traditional Chinese medicine, adaptogens can be helpful.
Shishandra is another adaptogen. Even medicinal mushrooms can be beneficial here, like lion's mane
and chaga and turkey tail. Not that people need all of those things, but I am just saying these
weird words for the only reason of just people to educate themselves on it,
maybe I'm bringing something like this,
maybe adding some of this into my smoothie
or taking some capsules to have these in.
They all have their own therapeutic doses
as far as the research is concerned.
But start off low and slow, experiment with them,
but they can be great at supporting
the hypothalamic, pituitary, o ovarian or testicular axis.
So people are dealing with hormonal fluctuations.
The great thing about adaptogens in the science around them
is that they have a regulating effect.
So if hormones are high or hormones are low,
or kind of erratic,
they have a stabilizing modulating effect adaptogens do.
So it's a good starting
place.
You know, and then there are specific ones like I, we use a lot of with low progesterone,
which can impact a lot of things when it comes to mood and sex drive and fertility. We look
at things like chased berry or Vitex that can be really helpful. Other adaptogens can
be very helpful. Wild yam can be helpful for a progesterone.
Estrogen, we look at,
estrogen dominance we'll typically see.
We want to help with methylation and detox
or something like dim and these sulforaphane compounds
that can help with clearing out estrogen.
Dongkhoi is a traditional Chinese medicine herb
that can help with supporting healthy estrogen levels.
So those are some herbs and botanicals
for people to learn about and educate themselves.
Again, it's not about adding in the supplement graveyard
for you to take all of those.
It's just about maybe one or two of those
can be a supportive tool after you deal with food.
You have to start with food.
Yeah, okay.
Well, I have a supplement graveyard.
I love that term, so I literally have one and it's growing. It's massive. Well, I don't know have to start with it. Yeah. Okay. Well, I have a supplement graveyard. I love that term because I literally have one and it's growing. It's massive. Well,
I don't know what to do with it because I believe all these things. I think I need ashwagandha.
I need dim. I need E. I have them all and then I stay on them and then I go off them.
So for the last five or six years, I've started to look at like my hormones and perimenopause
and fluctuation. I've been to different doctors
and it took me a long time to kind of figure out what actually worked. I told you I went to a few
clinics and then the range was different. And I hear this all the time from my listeners. She's
like, I got my hormones checked and I was fine. Do we send them to you, Will? Do we just blow up
your lines right now? You have your telehealth clinic? Because even for me, to be honest,
I'm still figuring it out. Like, did that work? Did it not? How do I know? And I am taking HRT right now. I do take progesterone at
night when I remember. I take estrogen, testosterone, and I play with them all. And it's kind of hard
to know. And then you run out of one. And then all my friends, all we talk about, do you take the
patch? Do you insert it inside of you? Like it's pretty overwhelming.
You take the pellets, yeah, which I do do the pellets.
I like the pellets because for me,
I can just set it and forget it.
I know that that's controversial for some doctors
because you can't tweak it.
But for me, I've got just jars of creams
that if I fall asleep, don't forget to do it.
It's a problem.
And I have been in this and I'm paying out of pocket
and it's been really overwhelming. And I'm just wondering, what would you recommend?
Would it be a certain book of yours?
Would it literally be calling your clinic
and getting into or finding a functional medicine doctor?
I always say go to find a hormone specialist
or someone who specializes in this.
It might not be your gynecologist.
It might not be where you live.
So like, what do we do here?
Because I know that you have the most up-to-date
cutting edge information and I know that you share the passion. You share the same passion about
food and health and hormones that I do about like sex, sexual intelligence. So like,
I want to help the people. Like, where do we start?
Right. And I think that's why I, another word for functional medicine is integrative medicine because we deal, we refer
a lot of people to people in your space to deal with that, with the sex therapy.
We deal with the physiological things and they often will deal with like the practical
things or the mind body things and the trauma work.
We deal with a lot of trauma specialists too and integrate with those when they're needed
because all of this comes together,
right? So I mean, yeah, there are, this is our day job, 10 hours a day, people can reach out to us,
dr.wilkul.com, we have many new telehealth patient options, like group models, we have one-on-one,
we have people that just run labs, I mean, that aren't even like in a care plan, they're just
doing labs to get some insight and answers. And we can coordinate with any local doctor
that needs to be.
Amazing.
Yeah, so it's, and if they don't,
if they want someone locally
and they don't want someone telehealth like us,
go to functionalmedicine.org.
That's the Institute for Functional Medicine,
the Cleveland Clinic's Functional Medicine Center.
There are all the physicians there are trained through IFM.
That's who's trained me and my team. So you can go to a directory there and if you want someone locally in your
city, you can do functionalmedicine.org too.
Okay.
And then, yeah, I think labs, health history, for someone that's spinning their wheels,
I would say test, not guess, because I think that you can kind of shoot in the dark and
it can become kind of erratic where you're just like experimenting and guessing and you don't really know. It's like based off of just what? There's
like no concrete follow through and systematic plan. And I like organization and I like spreadsheets
and I like data. So if I can see where these hormones, for example, are at and we bring in
an intervention and then retest, also correlating that with how you're feeling,
we can narrow down granularly what is the most significant needle movers. So we, part of our job
typically is weeding and editing down that supplement graveyard or whatever that graveyard
is. So you, you aren't taking a crap ton of stuff and you know, like these are my needle movers,
like what do I need?
And it's based off of how I feel and data and there's no like second guessing about
it.
Okay, that's great. We're going to put that in the show notes because you're going to
be getting a lot of phone calls. I know I hear for example from a lot of male listeners,
you know, half of our audience are our men and they'll say like, oh, they got into a
certain age and I know I often say like testosterone can drop after the age of 40 and so your penis
stops working. That's when we get men's attention, right? They're like, what can I start doing? Would you say that
that's true? And then would you say that you see that more and more that there is a testosterone
thing? But then some guys I know have gone to maybe a regular clinic and that does like,
my testosterone's fine. Is it true that, well, number one, that some men are fine?
Or are they maybe not getting the right kind of tests if they
are having some symptoms of low testosterone?
Yeah.
What would you think of that?
Yeah.
So they're having low sex drive, low libido, erectile dysfunction, any other sexual or
mood energy, weight loss resistance.
I mean, all this stuff's tied into it.
And this is the caveat for a lot of hormonal problems.
No matter who you are,
just because something's common doesn't necessarily make it normal. Like chronic health problems,
hormonal dysfunction, certainly ubiquitous, but we've settled for it. Like this is all
a sign of accelerated aging. Like there's nothing wrong with aging, but accelerated
aging and guys in their forties and f 50s settling for things that used to be their 70s and 80s and 90s.
That's the problem. Yes, testosterone decreases over time, but people are having tank testosterone way too soon.
And even beyond the number of their free or total testosterone, what's the signaling of those hormones? Because many people, it's not a production issue.
It's a, is my body even utilizing it?
And look, we have the vast majority of guys
and just people in general having insulin resistance,
which is just one problem, but it's a big problem
of things that will impart over-aromatized testosterone
into estrogen.
So you'll see higher estrogen levels in biological males
and they feel like crap and they think,
oh, it's just cause I'm getting older.
No, it's because you're insulin resistant
and it's completely reversible or largely optimizable,
let's just say that, to be conservative.
Many people settle for it because they think
that's the thing and they hear these commercials
and they think, I just have to take a testosterone cream
or whatever.
And that's more of a bandaid when you say like,
if you're calling 1-800-LOT, you might just, right?
I know really like then you're getting a testosterone
and for women, we can talk about this too.
I've learned so much about how progesterone
and your estrogen are also impacting each other
and the testosterone, like they're all playing together in a dance. It's all freaking related.
It's all related.
It's hard to balance. What would you tell women then about testosterone and estrogen and
progesterone? Do we need them? Do we all need them all?
Yeah.
We all need, yeah. Men, women, no matter who you are, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone
are all needed in different amounts. So for women, testosterone is very much needed
for sex drive and energy and muscle building
and fat burning.
So it is absolutely important.
It's gonna have a different optimal zone than men,
but it is certainly important.
And it's one thing that we have to optimize
if we're dealing with these fatigue,
weight loss resistance, low sex drive,
if we're putting that
under an umbrella.
So we have to optimize that.
That's why data is so important,
because you can see these numbers improve.
And there's a place for hormone replacement therapy,
you know, but we should start with asking the question,
why do we have this problem in the first place,
and get our body to produce it on its own.
And when you reverse insulin resistance or support insulin sensitivity and decrease inflammation and support these hormonal pathways, it's amazing.
What, when you do that, you hormones can actually be produced endogenously
naturally and get your body to do it.
Now, look, once you do that, here's a great example.
Someone's way better when they've done these important
things that we do with patients,
but then their hormones are better,
but not exactly optimal.
So at that point, you could talk about precursors
like prognetolone or DHEA,
or herbs that can help with supporting hormonal synthesis
and production and signaling,
or sometimes hormone replenishment is appropriate,
like low doses of estradiol or progesterone or testosterone.
There is a time and place for it,
but it should be based on data,
and it should be a later option
once you've done the foundational work.
Because even if you need hormone replacement therapy,
when you get the proper signaling
and the body working appropriately,
you're gonna typically need less
of that hormone replacement therapy
because the body's gonna be better utilizing
what you're giving versus the people
that are like just overdosing on these,
you know what I mean?
They're just taking hobbyious amounts of exogenous hormones
when they don't necessarily need all that stuff
because that can actually be problematic
and cause hormonal resistance patterns
because you're just flooding yourselves
with all of this extra hormones, not based on labs,
just based off of whatever a doctor telling you to do it.
I did see a functional medicine doctor
probably five years ago and it was very overwhelming.
Like I left with like a million supplements.
There was so many problems.
He wasn't that into the hormone replacement therapy
at that time, but I think what he was trying to say
is you need to build things up.
But then over time, I got busy, the pandemic,
I started taking hormones.
So now I'm wondering if like what you're saying
is that maybe I need to scale back
and there's some more things I could do
with my
Nutrition and supplements because I'm hearing that maybe I'm leaning on it too much or many people do
No, it's not my first line of defense and it should be based on labs
Look, I think you should be judicious about all of those things right start with food be judicious with supplements and be judicious with supplements, and be judicious with HRT. And I think that starting off low and slow, building up,
allows you to not get that supplement graveyard
or these things that you're like,
ah, you're not even sure.
So many people will be like, I don't know what's working.
I think I'm a little bit better maybe,
but taking the edge off,
but I don't really know what is the needle mover.
And we wanna do the best job we can to see, you know,
okay, these handful of things are helpful for you.
Normally HRT happens after the other stuff
to see what the body can do on its own.
And then after you've gotten to a better place,
but maybe you needed some like a little bit of a boost,
then the HRT can be that boost for some people.
Now I think I have to call your clinic, will we hang up?
The reason why I'm having you on Dr. Willcoll is you really have been an innovator in this
space.
The fact that you've had this telehealth clinic for 13 years and you've written all these
bestselling books, I feel like you really are somebody who can help people understand
their bodies in a way that they might not be able to where they're living now or they
can't find the doctors.
I really appreciate the work that you do. I love what I do and thanks for giving me the
opportunity to talk about it. I'm going to ask you like the quickie questions
that we ask all of our guests. There are just five quick questions, but is
there anything else here let me just think that we really wanted to get to?
Because I think you just, you really helped us a lot here and even myself
because I think that looking at the foods we're eating,
understanding that, seeing what we can do, make sure we're moving our body,
we're dealing with unhealed trauma, we're in therapy, we're understanding all the factors
that are contributing to it is just important. One thing I was going to say that I forgot to say
earlier, our nutrient deficiencies, just real fast about sex drive and energy that I wanted to
just mention real fast and then we'll get to the cookie questions is that I'd
be beating myself up if I didn't mention this and I'm like, oh man, I didn't tell
the people. But iron is another major one. When you're talking about low libido, looking
at iron, iron saturation and ferritin, which is stored iron, when you're talking about
fatigue, brain fog, low libido, low hormone issues, I see that a lot.
But vitamin C and copper, the mineral copper,
can help with iron bioavailability and absorption.
So that's one thing.
It's a very common deficiency
that I think everybody should get their labs tested
in addition to the other ones I mentioned
when it comes to hormone health.
It's about the nutrients that make the hormones too. Now that made me think of one more thing that I actually talked about in
your podcast was what have you been seeing about birth control pills and women who have been on it
and then they go off it or maybe they're just on it because what I've heard is what I've seen in
studies over the years is that you're on a pill and that's going to impact your hormones. It could
be for life. Like it's really hard to get back to the normal range or whatever it is and it can really be a disruptor.
So how have you worked with women
who have been on the market and what's your take on it?
You know, I'm pro-choice when it comes to people
having informed consent with whatever they'd want to do
for their bodies, but I think the key term there
is informed consent.
I think many people are given these pills
without any really robust, open, full spectrum conversation
with their prescribing doctor.
They're just given to it for any number of reasons.
Maybe it's contraception,
maybe it's some hormonal problem,
maybe it's their acne,
and they're just like given these pills
and they're on them forever.
And it's just like, just take them
and there's no full conversation on this could do this,
this and this, cause this could cause this, this and this.
And then make the right decision
between you and your doctor.
The problem is it's just given out like candy in many ways.
Like it's just flip it.
Like everybody's on it, just take it.
And it just, I see people that really do have a difficulty
coming off of it and trying to conceive later on
or trying to get their hormones and just feel good.
Nobody, like if you're on hormonal oral contraceptions
for anything other than contraception,
if you're doing it for other purposes,
hormonal skin issues, you don't have that problem
because of a birth control deficiency.
So why, if you're on it for some other reason,
let's ask the question,
why do you have the problem in the first place?
So I'm not anti it, I just think that there's
a lot more effective options that causes people to lease them
out of side effects like we said at the top
of the conversation.
That it could be a tool within the toolbox
for some people who want to be on it,
but they made that decision because they knew all the facts.
And I think that there's just a lack of full facts
in these conversations.
And there's other forms of birth control.
Like many women decide to do the copper IUD
because it's non-hormonal
and it does cause some low-grade like local inflammation.
It just doesn't work for everybody
if you have a copper allergy or whatever.
But for the average person,
that's a consideration to talk to your doctor about.
Or of course condoms.
Like there are other forms of birth control
that aren't gonna impact your biochemistry as a woman that many of our patients find to be better alternative than throwing off
their hormones and being on a pill for years on end.
Thank you.
And then is there finally like one thing when we're talking about sexual health that you've
seen in your patients overall over these years that you think was like the biggest thing
that they did or they changed to help them?
I know this is a big question, to help them start to move the needle and start to feel more desire. Was it just getting tested through you and getting on the
path? Was there a certain change in their diet or exercise? Was there anything that you've seen like
this is a good place to start for many people? Yeah. I mean, look, I think the more abstract,
like non-like more abstract thing is that what how you mentioned the back of the book, you can't heal a body you hate I know that's more conceptual, but I just all of this has to be born out of self respect, not out of obsession.
So we need to check ourselves. If you're not coming from that intention, check yourself like check yourself with that. So that's more conceptual, but like practical stuff,
I think organization and basing things on data
is hugely helpful,
because you can edit down what you're doing
and you can compare and contrast it,
and you are not shooting in the dark
and like hoping something's working.
So I think that that's testing and tracking
and having someone outside
of yourself to manage these things or at least collaborate with you on these things can be hugely
helpful because then the granular nitty-gritty stuff it's going to look different for different
people. There's a lot of like science and art and evolving that will happen over the course of that
time but I think the commonality that I see for people that are successful and see it through
that put in the work and the consistency to work on this project that's them and not
in an obsessive way but just in like a nourishing respect way about themselves.
Thank you. Very helpful. Okay, so here's our big quickie questions or a little
quickie question just whatever and it can be anything like whatever first
comes to your mind. What's your biggest turn on?
Wow, we're getting personal Dr. Emily Morris.
But it can also just be like the wind blowing.
I'm just joking.
I'm just joking.
You can ask me anything.
What is it?
You know what it is?
It's being, this is so lame, but I like I'm pretty introverted person. This isn't gonna be
quickie. But I like chilling out at home. And like, I just
hanging out with my wife and like not having anything on the
schedule, which I'm so like scheduled throughout the week.
I like not having a schedule on the weekends. That's like hugely
like great for my nervous system, which is a huge turn on.
So with you, biggest turn off? Unkind people, intolerant people.
Okay. What makes good sex? I would say connection throughout the day. You know, it's just like,
even if I'm texting my wife in between patients and I'm not with her physically, but just
we can stay in touch and communicate, I think that makes the best sex.
That's great.
Something you would tell your younger self about sex and relationships.
That I think what our culture puts out there is in the form of movies or images that guys see growing up, it's not the reality.
And I think that we need to empower men specifically, because I'm coming from a man's perspective
of really how do we if we're heterosexual male, but no matter who we are, how can we
respect our partner and not see what we can get out of them, but how can we really love them to be the best, highest version of themselves? I think is the big paradigm
shift that we need to have in relationships no matter what type of relationship you're
in. Because I think we live in such a self-serving, selfish, greedy culture that it is like such, it's unsustainable and like sex is still
sex, but it's just typically really, it's not fulfilling.
I think from a, like, I don't know.
I think from a loving standpoint, unconditional loving standpoint.
That's beautiful.
What's the number one thing you wish everyone knew about sex?
I'm putting my functional medicine hat back on now here is that I would say many people
settle for a sucky sex life and they think it's just their lot in life or it's just
who they are.
But I can't tell you when you look at data and you see estrogen, progesterone, thyroid,
cortisol, all these numbers off and you're like, no wonder.
Who could have a great sex life with numbers like that?
It's like you have to optimize these things
to have the sex life that you were created for
or have this thing that's your birthright.
That's a normal human thing.
And accelerated aging isn't normal, but it's ubiquitous.
Thank you so much for being here.
We so appreciate you.
Thank you for all the information.
It's really gonna impact our listeners, I know, deeply. Thank you. Thank you for all the information. It's really gonna impact our listeners, I know, deeply.
Thank you.
["Sex with Emily"]
["Sex with Emily"]
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