the bossbabe podcast - 11. Adrenal Fatigue, Hormonal Acne, Imbalances & Low Energy with Dr Elena Zinkov

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

In this week’s episode, Natalie interviews her own naturopathic doctor, Dr. Elena Zinkov. Dr. Zinkov is the founder of Proactive Health, a premier natural clinic specializing in women’s health, hormones, stress and weight management using cutting edge treatments best known for her Hormone Optimization Program. Elena shares important information about endocrine health and how the natural system is suppressed daily easily causing adrenal fatigue and burn out. She explains how hormone imbalance can be caused by a stressful lifestyle and how that affects our daily lives. She provides the tools, resources and framework to combat and offset these chemical imbalances providing specifics in hormone testing, herbs, supplements and vitamins. They chat openly about hormonal acne and how nutrition and liver health are important factors to consider when treating it. Prioritizing mindfulness throughout each day, Dr. Elena presents actionable tips to building resiliency through stress management, grounding and self care. This episode is sponsored by IGA. A twelve week accelerator designed to help you grow and monetize your Instagram account. www.instagrowthaccelerator.com

Happier women who understand their bodies better are so much happier in their life and they can make the impact in the world while feeling good. What I like to tell women is that if they feel like they're not waking up and feeling refreshed, definitely incorporate some sort of adrenal support. Do what grounds you at the beginning of the day and something that brings you joy. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, your host of this week's podcast and CEO of Boss Babe. Now this week is going to be an epic episode because I am introducing you to my very own naturopathic doctor, Dr. Alina Zinkov. Dr. Alina's journey in medicine began after quitting a really

stressful career in commercial real estate to go back to school and earn a doctorate in naturopathic medicine. She's the founder of Proactive Health, a premier naturopathic clinic in Bellevue, Washington, where she helps women live an active, vibrant, and healthy life. She specializes in women's health, hormones, stress management, weight loss, and nutrition, and she uses cutting-edge treatments to optimize all aspects of your health and I've shared a lot about my own health journey with polycystic ovary syndrome and I really believe it's important to be having these conversations around birth control, hormone imbalances and the importance of being informed enough to make decisions that are right

for you because I really wish that at age 15 I knew that starting a course of birth control for regular periods and hormonal acne was not going to be the best way forward I mean fast forward 10 years on and I was starting to come off birth control and that's when I discovered the real root issue of all of these health things that were causing me so many problems for so many years you know I cut out everything you could possibly imagine. And the only thing left for me to try was coming off of the contraceptive pill. And once I did that, everything seemed to fall into place. And I definitely won't say I found all of the answers because I'm still very much going through it and learning how to deal

with PCOS and what that really means. But it's going to be a good episode for you because we're really diving into a lot of the questions that perhaps you've wanted to ask but haven't really had solid answers to. Which brings me to the quote of the week for this week, which I think you're going to find quite funny actually. The quote is, I stopped waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel and I just lit that bitch up myself. But in all seriousness, let's stop waiting for someone else to go and give us an But in all seriousness, let's stop waiting for someone else to go and give us an answer or a solution. And let's stop being proactive about our own lives and knowing what we need to know to make the best decision for our health. Because I

remember sitting in the gynecologist's office when she told me that having children might actually be difficult for me. I heard her and I decided to just reject what she said. I don't believe in being handed a future or a diagnosis like that. I hadn't even done my own research. I hadn't even tried implementing different things and I just wasn't going to let my mind believe what it was being told. So before we dive into this episode where we're going to be really talking in detail about hormone imbalances, adrenal fatigue, hormonal acne, and actually these specific supplements you should be taking as a woman. I just want to spend some time talking about this week's episode sponsor, which again,

is all about taking your own future into your own hands. So this episode is brought to you by Boss Babe's Insta Growth Accelerator, which we also call IGA. IGA is a 12-week accelerator designed to help you grow and monetize your Instagram account. So if you're ready to grow your audience, attract paying followers and become an expert in your space, this would be such a perfect fit for you. Whether you're growing a personal brand, a service or a product-based business, IGA will actually walk you step-by-step through the specific strategies you need to actually be able to see results. You'll start to see your follower count climb higher alongside your bank account. And if you know me, you know I talk about the two things needing to coexist. It's an absolute myth that you need thousands of followers to be making

thousands of dollars. What really matters is that you are growing a very targeted audience of engaged ideal followers who are actually willing to pay you for your product or service and that's exactly what we are going to help you do in IGA. Whether you find creating content really confusing or you just have no idea how to get your account sealed by your ideal clients, IGA will very, very specifically help you become a content generating queen whilst waking up to hundreds of new ideal clients following you. With IGA already, we've just seen some incredible results like clients making $50,000 within weeks of investing with us and without thousands and thousands of

followers. We have got our entire framework dialed in and we have used it to help so many entrepreneurs just like you to scale their businesses. We've used it to scale our influence to nearly 1.2 million women on Instagram alone. And I know that with IGA, you could be on track to do the exact same thing. This is not rocket science. This is just about having a really solid dialed in framework and strategy. And that's what we're going to work with you on. So if you want to see if IGA would be a good fit for you, just head to instagrowthaccelerator.com. And right now you're actually going to be able to save a thousand dollars on the enrollment cost of IGA. So I would get an ASAP if I was you. We are going to be putting the

price up by $1,000. So if you are on the fence, drop us a message and let us know how we can support you to make sure we get you over the line before the price goes up. And with that, let's just dive straight into this week's interview. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here with you.

I love that before the podcast even started, we were diving into all of these different hormone things and diet and coffee and everything. So I already know this is going to be an amazing conversation. I would love to just get started with how you got into what you're doing and what you do. Yeah, that's such a great question. I grew up as a semi-professional tennis player and really didn't know what I was doing besides how to play tennis. I didn't really have access initially to great nutritionists. I wasn't quite sure what to

do with nutrition, what I should be eating, considering that I was exercising 69 hours a day. And that was really the start of my hormone imbalance when I was about 69 hours a day. And that was really the start of my hormone imbalance when I was about between 16 to 18 and quickly got burnt out, went into college, couldn't continue playing tennis and focus more on the academics. And after I graduated, I realized that my passion was really about health, wellness. And first of all, I wanted to help myself first. I really wanted to have first of all, I wanted to help myself first. I really wanted to have a healthy body. I wanted to have clear skin, good energy in my early 20s.

And so in starting to think about what I wanted to do with my career, I considered going back to school and originally wanted to go into conventional medicine. My mom, she's actually a family physician. She's a medical doctor. And I wanted to go more a natural route because when I was a teenager growing up, I actually had a naturopathic physician who helped me with B12 shots and some dietary recommendations. And I had a much better experience with a naturopathic physician. So when I decided to go back to school to kind of help with my own health issues, and then in order to help others, I decided to pursue the to school to kind of help with my own health issues. And then, you know,

in order to help others, I decided to pursue the naturopathic field. That's amazing. And in doing that, you've had a pretty interesting story in the fact that you're an absolute boss, baby. You had your son, you juggled a medical practice, wrote a book all in one year and essentially didn't sleep. That then brought on some health issues for you, right? Right. Yeah, absolutely. So last year I kind of had a health scare and, you know, I mean, with postpartum, of course, some women, they feel fatigued. They don't feel a hundred percent. You're kind of in the survival mode, but the health scare that I had was that about a little over a year into being postpartum, I developed really severe pain and stiffness in my hands and my low

back and actually in my cervical spine. And I was really worried because the medical part of my brain was saying, Oh, this is really a big sign of autoimmunity. And I was kind of in a denial phase. I was like, this cannot be happening to me. Like, generally, I'm a really healthy person, I feel like I'm really resilient. And my first reaction was just absolute denial, like this cannot be me. And when I had my son, he definitely kept me up so much. And I was juggling my medical practice and essentially writing my book while he was taking his 2030 minute naps. I was not one of those lucky moms where he would sleep for like three,

four hours at a time. It was like really these little short sleep cycles. And I really burnt myself out, I think, you know, trying to keep a healthy marriage, trying to keep my practice going and taking on this project of writing a book. And what happened, you know, we can get into the details of the hormones in a little bit, but this is what I really teach women a lot is that when you go through a fight or flight state, you produce a lot of cortisol. And that was what was happening in my situation is the reason why I was able to keep going is because my body's like, okay, she's working really hard. Let's give her more cortisol. Let's pump it out. And then what happens is that then your adrenal glands can't keep up and your cortisol levels drop. And that's

what I experienced. And when that happened, maybe I had a predisposition for autoimmune and then my own hormone imbalance then triggered autoimmune or rheumatoid arthritis, which is what I ended up getting. And so that was really a wake up call for me. And I looked at it, you know, first was denial. Then once I kind of got out of that fight or flight mode, I realized that this was an opportunity. This was an opportunity not to only improve my health once again, but also teach other women the importance of stress management, the importance of prioritizing self care and building that resiliency so that we continue being the baddest women that we are on a mission. Let's take a quick pause to talk about

my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible.

I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe so true and you often hear when people say like oh he turned gray overnight and whilst that's a bit of an exaggeration it's kind of true that if your body is in such a stressed mode you can almost turn on that gene that might have not turned on before and all of a sudden you wake up just feeling completely different yeah

absolutely so you mentioned burnout and hormone imbalance and I think probably for a lot of women listening they are stressed or they're tired or they're suffering from acne bloating some kind of host of symptom from hormone imbalance. Could you just explain a little bit what it means when people say their hormones are imbalanced or what to look out for if your hormones might be imbalanced? Yeah, absolutely. I think first of all, hormones is such an important place to start because our endocrine system, like if you think about hormones, they're chemical messengers and every cell in your body responds to these chemical messengers. So if your chemical messengers are not working properly, if there's too little of them,

too many of them, you're going to have an imbalance. And absolutely things like bloating, acne, low libido, trouble sleeping, wired but tired feelings, all of those can definitely be a sign of a hormone imbalance. And so there's a few factors that can lead to that. Definitely a stressful lifestyle. So people who don't prioritize their sleep, diet and lack of exercise can all contribute. So if somebody's eating really processed foods like processed sugar, processed fats like soybean oil, sunflower oil, canola oil. I mean, just like the organic store down the street from me, they make great salads, but they coat everything in canola oil and sunflower oil. So right there, that kind of

offsets the benefits of the salad, for example. But sedentary lifestyle where you might work out for 45 minutes during the day but then if you sit at a desk for the rest of that time can cause hormone imbalance of course women postpartum when your hormones go through a change that can create a hormone imbalance and i think a big thing for women is you know hair loss brittle nails intolerance, and also the abdominal fat increase or just general weight gain can all be signs of a hormone imbalance. Yeah. And I can relate to that. I share my journey of PCOS a lot online and obviously me and you are working together. So you know about that too. But for me, I was on birth control for 10 years and I always had lots of symptoms come up. And one of

them was acne. I just couldn't seem to get rid of it. And I'd try almost everything. And it so happened when I came off the pill after 10 years, I didn't get my period. And then I just started getting tons of side effects and symptoms. I go to the doctor and it turns out I had polycystic ovaries, but I had no idea about that because of birth control. What are your thoughts of being on birth control for such a long time? You know, it's interesting because I just actually had a client this morning who another provider had recommended that she go on birth control where she doesn't have her period. And I honestly think birth control is really messing up our endocrine system.

I'm all for finding an appropriate birth control, but something that doesn't mess with our body as much as birth control can. Because if you think about it, being for even two years on birth control, and then if you think about like you, you've been in birth control for 10 years. All you've done during that time is essentially just suppress your endocrine system, suppressing the ovarian function, suppressing your natural reproductive cycle and rhythm. And so I think, can that be reversed? Absolutely. But it's going to take time and we need to provide your body with the right tools, resources, and a framework for you to bounce back from it. But I definitely think, you know, I was lucky when I was growing up, you know, even though my mom was a conventional medical doctor, she never wanted me to go on the pill because she knew of the consequences of being on the pill. And this was about almost 20 years ago. And so she always recommended that we find alternative birth control methods

to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but not at the detriment of our endocrine system, of our endocrine health. Yeah. And I feel like it's not talked about enough because I remember when I was 16, I wasn't getting my period and I go to the doctor and they're like, we'll just put you on birth control. It will help. And at the time, I mean, people weren't on social media talking about birth control. We weren't having those conversations. So I think probably for a lot of women listening who might be on birth control and want to stop, they just have no idea about any of this because it's not talked about. What would you say when it comes to someone coming off birth control, obviously post pill syndrome is a thing. What can they expect and how could they start to get their hormones and their endocrine system

working again after so long being suppressed? Yeah, definitely. So I think it's going to be really natural for women coming off of the birth control pill to experience the symptoms that we kind of mentioned earlier of a hormone imbalance. So you might miss your period, you might have very painful periods, you may have irregular periods. And then you can also have some of those signs like fatigue, irritability, weight gain, sometimes weight loss, bloating, acne. So all of those can be signs of a hormone imbalance paired with irregular menstrual cycle. And I say, first, don't freak out because it's going to take your body some time to adjust. And normally it takes at least three to four months for the body to start kicking into gear. But we know, and you

know, right, that it sometimes can take a much longer for things to start happening. And of course, because not everybody follows a pristine and clean diet, I do have to say that we have to start with a diet first. And that means not having more than one cup of coffee a day. That means that having more than about six ounces of wine at a sitting. So really cutting back on caffeine and alcohol because that really takes the toxin burden and helps your liver function better when we take those things out, or at least minimize the intake of them. Means eating less processed sugar, fewer grains that contain gluten or wheat, really optimizing our protein intake and healthy fats, which are really important for our endocrine system to do its job, particularly the adrenal gland. And then I do recommend that women at

least start on a really good prenatal multivitamin. And I can make a recommendation for one. There's a great company actually in the Pacific Northwest called Seeking Health, and I'm not at all affiliated with them. I just personally use them. I recommend for all of my ladies to take their optimal prenatal vitamin and anybody PCOS, no PCOS, hormone imbalance, no hormone imbalance, any woman who still has a menstrual cycle or is of childbearing age should be on a really good prenatal. It provides you just the right key nutrients to help your endocrine system function properly. So Seeking Health Optimal Prenatal is a really good multivitamin for women to start taking. So besides diet, the supplements on top

of the prenatal that I would recommend include primrose oil, which is a nice vegan source of omega-3 fatty acids, something that you want to make sure that you optimize your intake of. Because once you come off of the birth control pill, we really need to focus on eating an anti-inflammatory diet and taking things out that could possibly be causing inflammation. So things like a lot of the saturated fats that are found in meat products can make even PCOS or any endocrine imbalance issues even worse. So that's why I like to emphasize the omega-3 fatty acids. And then definitely considering adding more, I would say, of natural hormone support. And my favorite herbs include shatavari, ashwagandha, maca, vitex.

And a lot of times the herbs that women pick up over the counter, the herbs don't really have the therapeutic dose listed on the label. So even with things like shatavari and with vitex, you can take, you know, 200 to 400 milligrams, you know, two or three times per day to get the actual therapeutic dose. Right. And, you know, I just had a client earlier and her multivitamin had Vitex, but it only had four milligrams. That's not going to do anything for you. So sometimes people are like, Oh, I've taken Vitex and it hasn't done anything for me. And I always ask, well, what dose did you take it? And so one of my ladies was only taking it four milligrams a day, and that's really not enough to make any change. And initially when you're starting out, so let's say you come off the pill,

it's really important that you be diligent with this routine because what happens is sometimes women look at vitamins as just pills, and it's really easy to forget about them. But I see herbs in particular, and even my prenatal vitamin as nutrition. So this is just like drinking water. This is just like breathing clean air. This is just like going to the gym. This needs to become part of your everyday routine.

This needs to become your must. Because I think what happens is that sometimes women don't know how important it is to be consistent. And it's really easy to fall off the bandwagon with these supplements. But consistency is really key. And when you understand that it can take three to four months for the hormones just to kick into gear, and maybe six months to really start seeing the difference, you got to be consistent with it. And since I was talking about herbs, you know, with ashwagandha, you know, between 750 to 1200 milligrams per day to help with an endocrine imbalance, that can also be really helpful. But I should mention that things like ashwagandha, like if somebody has a lot of maybe testosterone dominance, so like PCOS, some women are more

estrogen or some women are more testosterone dominant. And an herb like ashwagandha, which is just an excellent tonifying herb for women, it can exacerbate the problem. Because if we don't know what our current estrogen or testosterone levels are, which is why it's so important to test first before we put you on supplements, it can upregulate this androgen or sex hormone production, and it can sometimes make symptoms worse. But for somebody who's coming off the pill, make sure that you optimize your diet, that you optimize your supplement intake by having like the optimal prenatal omega-3 fatty acids,

herbs that are really good for women like the shatavari, maca, ashwagandha. But really give yourself a few months to your hormones to naturally balance before testing them and then test your hormones to see which ones are low, which ones are high. And then, you know, even in my practice, I sometimes use glandular products. So like an actual animal gland, so it could be an animal adrenal gland or thyroid gland to help support natural hormone production. And of course, for my vegan or vegetarian clients, I'll sometimes do like a compounded hormone cream, which is different than the hormones that are in birth control. I love that you mentioned getting testing too. We've just done ours and we can talk a little

bit about the end, how people can do that for themselves. But it's so important because I feel like there's so much advice out there, but if you don't really understand what's going on in your body, that might be why you're not getting results. Those herbs and supplements that you recommended, are those things you'd recommend all women should have in their medicine cabinet or is there other things as well? Absolutely. So those are definitely some of the supplements that I would call the foundational and the basic things that all women can have in their medicine cabinets. So I did mention primrose oil. I sometimes like to alternate between primers oil and fish oil, just a different source of omega-3 fatty acids. Something that I did want to mention that

if you are doing fish oil, you definitely want to aim for at least 1500 milligrams of both EPA and DHA because sometimes what supplement companies will do is they'll say, oh, like 1,500 total of omega-3 fatty acids, but they don't specify, is it EPA, DHA, or is it other omega-3 fatty acids? So what I recommend is that women take a look. If they are taking a fish oil, make sure that they're getting at least 1,500 of the anti-inflammatory EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids. The other thing that I would recommend is definitely

magnesium glycinate for women. Magnesium is just such an important nutrient. It's really good for musculoskeletal health, for gut function, for a nice healthy menstrual cycle. Some women have really painful menstrual cycle. And so sometimes adding 400 to 600 milligrams of magnesium before bed can be really helpful as well. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing all the specifics there. I feel like everyone listening has just got their notepad out. They're taking all the notes. We should have warned them beforehand. Just take a notepad or iPhone and start taking notes. Good thing they can listen again. Yeah, exactly. We're just going specific. Okay. So we've talked kind of post-pill syndrome and supplements. What I would love to touch on as well is stress and adrenal fatigue

and stress management. I feel like I see all the time on Instagram, people saying, um, oh, my adrenals are fried. I'm so burned out. I'm doing this, this, and this. And it's a pretty common thing. And to me, that's scary. It is scary to think that someone is someone's adrenals are completely fried out very frequently. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about stress management and how you can manage your hormones in a way that's not going to lead to adrenal burnout and what that looks like if it does? Absolutely. And you know, stress and adrenal burnout, it's like the 21st century disease, because we're just not able to keep up with the demands of our life sometimes. So I really like to focus on building up the resiliency. And you know, many women are burnt out for a

variety of reasons. And a lot of my clients are high-level executives. Some are single moms and others run their own businesses. And most of them notice a direct correlation between stress and some of the symptoms of the hormone imbalance. So what happens is that when you're stressed, you produce cortisol. And that is the primary focus of the adrenal gland is to produce cortisol. And that is the primary focus of the adrenal gland is to produce cortisol. But your adrenal gland also produces sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. And so if your adrenal gland is predominantly focused on producing cortisol, it's not going to produce the sex hormones or the production is going to decrease predominantly even in

progesterone, which is a really good hormone for women. And so I always use this analogy that you want to be able to run away from the saber tooth tiger first before you reproduce. It's just a primal reflex, right? You want to be saved before you reproduce, but it is super common. And cortisol, like our production, it varies throughout the day. So it's supposed to be really high in the morning. And then afternoon, mid afternoon, and evening, it's supposed to slowly decline. And when I test cortisol levels, I like to see the cortisol curve. Because what can happen is that prolonged stress can have you flatlining on your cortisol curve. So you imagine that in the morning, you're supposed to have this peak and a lot of women who get burnt out, they end up having almost like this flat line where there isn't an up and a down in

their cortisol curve. And then other women will complain that they're wired but tired at night. And so that's usually a sign of overproduction of cortisol in the evening. So it ends up being like a flipped cortisol curve where you're having a peak at like 10 o'clock at night. And I'm sure some women are going, yes, oh my gosh, how do I fix that? Yeah, like almost like you get tired around dinnertime, but then all of a sudden get this extra wave of energy. Absolutely. You got it. That's like spot on. And so the thing to remember is that we've got three really important glands in the body that are affected by stress. It's your pituitary gland, your thyroid gland, and your adrenal gland. So this is the holy HPA axis. You probably heard

about this. There's like HPA support that's sold over the counter or that some people have heard about. And the thing with the HPA is your hypothalamus, your pituitary, and your adrenal gland. And so your hypothalamus tells your pituitary gland to secrete more hormones to stimulate your thyroid gland than to stimulate your adrenal gland. The problem is that when people get burnt out, let's say their adrenal is burnt out, there's sometimes an underlying thyroid issue that we're dealing with as well. Because thyroid and adrenal gland, they have a really important relationship. So when one gland tanks, the other one needs to take over. When the other one tanks, the other one needs to take over. And so it's really important that if somebody feels like they're getting burnt out, that they

not only address the adrenal gland, but they're also help their thyroid gland as well. So what I like to tell women is that if they feel like they're not waking up and feeling refreshed, definitely incorporate some sort of adrenal support in the first part of the day. If they feel like they are crashing in the afternoon, definitely take a second dose of the adrenal support in early afternoon to help you get through that slump. If that does not move the needle and how they feel, consider an underlying thyroid issue. And I'm going to throw some numbers at you, but this is really important. Generally, I like for the TSH or the thyroid stimulating hormone

to be around 1.1, 1.2. And I know some endocrinologists who might be listening to this like she's crazy. No, I'm not. This is really a nice sweet spot for the thyroid. And a lot of doctors, they don't test thyroid as thoroughly as they should be. So I usually like for the free T4, which then gets converted to the free T3. So free T4 to be around 1.2, and for the free T3, which is the active form of the thyroid hormone, to be around 3.3. So if a woman comes in and her free T3 is at like a 2.2, 2.4, even 2.8, there's room for improvement in that. And if you're having signs of a low thyroid function, like low energy, cold intolerance, weight issues, technically, that's not an official hypothyroid, but that's subclinical hypothyroid, you know, and doctors

are aware of this. But it's all to say that if you feel like just an adrenal support is not cutting it, if you feel like doing some lifestyle changes and prioritizing your sleep are not working for you, then consider that there's possibly something happening with a thyroid because it gets just as affected by stress as the adrenal gland. But besides, of course, adrenal support and thyroid support or thyroid medication, if you need it, I kind of want to talk about some of the basic things. And this kind of goes along with prioritizing your health during the day. I always recommend that women start their day with a mindfulness practice. And this is something that you can even do throughout the day. It just depends on your stress levels. But do what grounds you at the beginning of the day and something that

brings you joy. Because I feel like we're just constantly running around, doing something for others, and we forget to just take care of ourselves first thing in the morning. For me personally, I ground myself through movement. So walking, running, a quick weight session, just something to get the blood flowing. It was enough to ground me. And I encourage women to find really what works for them and to voice that. So if somebody is married or lives with a partner, they really need to make it a priority so that within their families, other people know that this is what's important to them. And I always say that it's important to end your day with a similar practice or throw in something in the middle of the day as well to help you get grounded because that will help your adrenal gland

know that it's safe. It will help your adrenal gland not overproduce cortisol, which can then lead to a burnout. What would your ideal kind of activities be? You've mentioned morning for like afternoon and evening for someone to be doing to get grounded. Yeah. So play around with possibly doing like a short yoga sequence or a walk around the block, 10 to 15 minutes, finding a flight of stairs, preferably outside. So you're not inside the building. Something that will take you out of your, I would say, mainstream environment. So something away from your work desk, away from your office, just to like a change of scenery and a change of

pace. So going from sedentary to movements and it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be much. I love that. And I also, I really like that you've brought this up because I know for myself, when I stopped looking at my phone in the morning, I started to change significantly because you might not realize it, but you pick your phone up and you start reading your emails and all of a sudden internally, you're just panicking and thinking about work and already you've put your day off to this really stressful start. So I love that. I also love that you went into specifics about what people should be looking for with a thyroid test. I do feel like sometimes they might get the all clear from a doctor. No, there's nothing wrong with your thyroid,

but sometimes people don't even know what they're looking for. They don't know what numbers to go in and double check and make sure they've been given the right advice. I really like that you said that. When you mentioned adrenal support, you said if someone is feeling this way, they could take adrenal support in the first part of the day and maybe a second dose in the early afternoon. What kind of adrenal support would that look like? Yeah, definitely. So there's a few different adrenal supports out there. And I recommend that people try a few different ones to see which one resonates with their body. Most of the over-the-counter adrenal support, it's relatively safe. It's really hard with herbs, especially for the adrenal support. It's hard to overdose on them.

You have to go relatively high to get any negative side effects. But something that contains, I would say, the following herbs, eleuthero, licorice, ashwagandha, maca, and another one that I would say is holy basil. Those are the ones that I consider to be really good. And I would actually mention probably two more, which is rhodiola and schisandra. So it can be hard to find like an adrenal support that has all of them, but women can experiment with one, two, or three of those different herbs, like get even single tinctures or capsule dry herb capsules and put them together, basically pair them together. Yeah, totally. And you can throw things like maca and ashwagandha into your

smoothie, right? Yeah, exactly. The one thing that you just want to make sure is that you have the right dose for those things. And generally it's not like you have to, like with a maca powder, of course, like one to three teaspoons a day with ashwagandha, like 750 milligrams, once or twice a day is fine. And some of the other tinctures, just reading what the amount is per like drop or full or 40 to 60 drops, and then finding the right dose. So if you're taking something, let's say for two weeks, and you notice a slight difference, I would say keep added because it can start to resonate with your body and then you'll start to feel better and better. It's kind of like an exponential curve. But then if you feel like

it's not really moving the needle for you, then go ahead and like up by like 40, 60 drops or add an extra capsule of the herb or tincture that you're taking. The really basic adrenal support is like Gaia. Gaia is a really great company for natural herbal products. One of my other favorite companies is Wise Woman Herbals. I absolutely love their products. They make a lot of great tinctures and encapsulated products for all sorts of things. And I actually do like their adrenal tonic, which includes some of the herbs that I mentioned. Okay, great. And all those tonics and the adrenal things you mentioned, okay to take if you don't have adrenal fatigue, but you're just in a very kind of high stress lifestyle? Absolutely, exactly. So anything, because we want to prevent burnout,

right? So even if like you're feeling good, but you know that you could either be doing better or you just want to prevent adrenal burnout, all of these things are really useful for supporting proper adrenal health. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's so helpful. Of course. When it comes to another side effect that I know tons of women suffer with, a hormonal acne, that kind of acne that comes around your jawline and your cheeks and is so stubborn. What do you say to anyone that's suffering with that? Like what kind of steps can they take to start working on that and balancing their hormones so they're not getting so much acne? Of course. So of course,

I have to repeat myself, right? Because nutrition, nutrition, nutrition, that's like the foundation of it all. But I do work with a lot of women who, especially in the Pacific Northwest bubble, where nutrition is just like, it's the cleanest and the purest form, and they still have this hormonal acne. In that case, I really like to work on the liver health. And that really means focusing on liver foods. And this includes things like dandelion, your favorite. Yeah. So if anyone's wondering what that means, I come off coffee and I got recommended a dandelion tea and I was not about it. I'm just making a joke about that. Yeah. So we can take dandelion leafy greens,

which are a little bit bitter, but your liver really likes bitter foods. So in fact, coffee in small amounts can actually be really good for your liver because coffee is bitter. It's just when we get into that excess, like more than one cup a day where it can be a little bit overwhelming and your adrenal glands can overproduce cortisol. But when it comes to the hormonal acne, dandelion greens, leafy greens like chard or beet greens are really great. Arugula is really excellent. I love beets and burdock root. Burdock root you can make soups with. You can make a tea out of it. I think it tastes a little bit more mild than dandelion tea. So that one might be a little bit nicer. It has

a little earthy taste to it. But then also with hormonal acne, you want to consider the person is either estrogen dominant or testosterone dominant. And one of my favorite supplements that women can try is called DIM, D-I-M. And this is a constituent that is found in cruciferous vegetables like kale, broccoli, and cauliflower. But you can't eat enough broccoli or those cruciferous vegetables to produce enough or to get enough DIM for your liver. Because your liver, it's a detox organ. So anything you take in, it needs to process. And what happens with the hormonal acne is that you're not processing those hormones quick enough. So you have a bunch of metabolites floating around causing chaos in your system. And one of them is resulting in acne. And so DIM is a really nice supplement

to try for women to help improve liver function and to get rid of excess estrogen. If somebody's suffering like let's say PCOS, that's also related to high testosterone levels. There's two things that you can try. One is spermentine. And sperment in herbal medicine is known to just balance androgen levels and particularly lower testosterone levels in women. And traditionally, we've used saw palmetto with men for high testosterone levels. But in women, we recommend it in conditions like PCOS or hormonal acne. And so you said the DIM can be used whether you're estrogen or testosterone dominant? Yes. Got it. And I think that's quite a common thing for women, right?

This testosterone dominance. And I remember hearing someone talking about PCOS is rising so much and this testosterone dominance is rising so much because we are pushing ourselves so hard and really leaning into our masculine. What do you think about that? I have two things to say about that. One is I see so many women with low testosterone because of burnout, kind of going back to where you overproduce cortisol, which means that you can't produce enough of the other sex hormones like the estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. So I'm seeing this flip side where, yes, I think initially you may be producing too many hormones, but then the other side is you can only overproduce for so long until everything

crashes and then you underproduce everything. But I think it has to do mostly with the overproduction of testosterone. I agree. I think medicine aside, I think it has to do mostly with the overproduction of testosterone. I agree. I think medicine aside, I think women are really just pushing themselves sometimes above and beyond and not giving themselves the right support that they need. Because you can be anything and you can do anything, but you got to give your body a chance to catch up, right? And I think it's a really fine balance between the feminine and the masculine. And it's so important to nurture both of those sides in

order to be healthy. So I think even from an energetic perspective, it's really important to consider. But more often than not, you know, and PCOS is an exception. I see a lot of women just struggling to get their testosterone levels up. That's so good to know. That's definitely something I get asked a lot. So that's really good to see your perspective on that. I would love to dive in and talk through your four-step hormone optimization program, because I know you've mentioned lots of different things here, but probably people are sitting listening thinking, god there's so many things I don't even know where to start and I know I'm working with you on this and the way that we've worked together and done the testing it's just been so easy and I would love you to

talk through that program with everyone yeah so my program has four key steps and I've briefly mentioned these steps in our conversation because it is something that I have found to work very well in my practice. And the result is just happier women who understand their bodies better are so much happier in their life. And they can make the impact in the world while feeling good. So this is something that I definitely have. It's something that I've tried and it's a proven method. But the key four steps, it's really nutrition, lifestyle, supplement recommendations, and I can help you. And then we go on into nutrition evaluation paired with the comprehensive hormone testing so that we can create an individual plan based on your symptoms, based on your goals, and then what the testing shows. And this is where I was saying earlier,

how it's so important to know what your hormone levels are because then I can recommend the right adrenal support. Should we do glandulars, herbs, just herbs, just glandulars, or do I want you to go to your doctor and maybe have them prescribe a little bit of bioidentical hormone treatment for you? So those are really the four key elements, and it's more of an individual approach where once we do the testing, the thorough evaluation that combines the lab tests and the nutrition, you get the individual guidance by me so we can get the better results. Yeah, I love that. And also I want to mention the hormone testing. It's the first time that I ever had my hormones tested by peeing as opposed to getting my blood taken, which was very, very nice. You know, that's actually a really great thing that

you mentioned that because I should talk about hormone testing, right? Because there's three different ways that women can get their hormones tested. One is saliva, second is blood, and third is urine. The problem with saliva is that it's not very accurate unless you're already doing hormone treatment. The problem with blood is that most providers just do a random blood test. They don't worry about where you are in your cycle. They're like, just do it tomorrow. But it's really important, unless you don't have a cycle, then you can do it at any time. But when you do have a cycle, it's really important to do it on day 19, 20, or 21 of your cycle. So this is what I educate women about when we work one-on-one. But the problem with the blood test is it's only a one

collection. It's a one time, but your hormones, they fluctuate throughout the day. So how do you know you could have done the read when your hormones were high and that's going to be a false positive. And then the urine test, like you experienced, right? You collect it throughout the day and then you send these little strips to the lab and we wait for the lab results. Yeah, it was the easiest. And I'm glad you mentioned about doing it throughout the day because when I first found out I had PCOS, and I think probably a lot of women can relate to this, it was just not a nice process from start to finish. I was in a new city, it was a new gynecologist and you know, the fertility

news was delivered to me and not the best way. And then she started testing and I said, can we test my cortisol as well? Because I just want everything tested. And she said, yes. But then I realized it just got taken there. It didn't get taken four times. And so I got results back. And even I knew at the time, and I didn't know a ton about hormones as much as I do now even I knew at the time wait you can't do that that doesn't work it doesn't give you the right results and so what I love about having conversations like this is just letting women take control of their health because when I had that conversation with my gynecologist she said to me okay so the best thing we can do is put you back on the birth control pill because it kind of keeps your symptoms at bay. And I know if I had that conversation two years prior, I would have said, yes, absolutely. Let's do it. But because I was more educated on these different things,

I said to her, that's not the route for me. I'm going to go and find my own path. And so I'm really glad I did that. And so these conversations I think are so important because women need to be taking control of their own health as opposed to just taking that. So thank you so much. And I would love for you to share some information about how women listening to this podcast could set up a call with you or a consultation or chat through with you. I fully recommend working with you. The reason I brought you on here, but I would love for you to tell everyone how that could work. Well, first of all, thank you so much. It really means the world to me. And, you know, one of the things that I work on so greatly is really empowering women to take their health back and to be in control of their health and to ask their providers for more,

to question their provider's judgment, because there's always a solution. There's always a way. And there's always somebody there waiting for you to provide you with that solution. And so I'm so glad that women like you are in tune with our bodies and just know that there is a better path to perfect health. And women can get in touch with me, my website, proactivehealthnd.com. They can find more information there on my hormone optimization program. If they want to go through the four-step program, they can just contact me through my website and we can get that all taken care of and scheduled. And it's really easy with the test kits is that we can ship them directly to the clients. So it's regardless where they are in the country, we can just ship the kits to them

directly. So it makes it really nice that we can work with them regardless of where they are. I love that. So that's proactivehealthnd.com. You got it. Okay, amazing. And then where can they find you on Instagram if they want to follow you and kind of keep up with everything you're doing? Oh, yes. I love being on Instagram because that's where I share all of my health tips and really strive to provide up to date information and keep it fun at the same time. So on Instagram, it's really easy. I'm just Dr. Elena Zinkoff. Love it. Okay, so for everyone listening listening I know you've probably got notebooks filled with

takeaways what I would love for you to do is take a screenshot right now of wherever you are listening to this podcast and tag me Natalie and Boss Babe and Dr. Alina on Instagram and let us know what your biggest takeaway was maybe it's something you've realized about yourself maybe it's something you're going to go and do or why you just enjoyed it so much. I think that would be super helpful for us both to see where you're at. That would be amazing. So thank you so, so much for being on here. I feel like I've just learned so much and I massively recommend if anyone's hormones are imbalanced or you're experiencing any of this, definitely get on the website and book a call because it has been amazing for me.

So I just want to say thank you so much for that as well. Oh, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure and I absolutely love what I do and being able to share this with other women. If you loved this episode, please subscribe and be sure to leave us a review. We want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were, and also really want to know who you want to see on the show. And speaking of reviews, I've also got a little something on my sleeve for you. So I want to send you a copy of the Boss Babe 25. This is a brand new resource that we've created and trust me, you are going to love it. So the Boss Babe 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth. Seriously, this little resource is like a little Boss Babe holy grail. You are going to love it. It covers everything

from must-have products, our favorite books, rituals that we do daily, and little hacks to help you grow. So if you want a copy, it's really easy. Just leave us a review, screenshot that review, and email it to podcast at bossbabe.com. That is podcast at bossbabe.com and we'll send you a free copy over within 24 hours. Just a reminder that this podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. Myself, Natalie and our guests disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects and the use of information contained in. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.