The Livy Method Podcast - Hormones and Weight Loss - Part 2 with Dr. Olinca Trejo - Fall 2025

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

In this part 2 of 2, Gina sits down once again with hormone expert Dr. Olinca Trejo for a powerful conversation connecting the dots between stress, thyroid, cortisol, and insulin—and why consistency is the magic ingredient your body’s been waiting for. From understanding how stress keeps the body in survival mode (think fight, flight, or freeze), to why the scale might move slower than expected, Gina and Dr. Olinca break down the science behind how the body prioritizes, protects, and finally, lets go. If you’ve ever felt like your body’s resisting change, this one’s for you. Grab a pen because you’re going to want to take notes.Dr. Olinca is a licensed, board-certified Naturopathic Doctor in the province of Ontario. She also holds an honours degree in Kinesiology and has achieved her certification and internship in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).You can contact Dr. Olinca at [e-mail] find her on Instagram: @dr.olincaYou can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2025To learn more about The Livy Method, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy, and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams for my 91-day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews, and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on ACAST, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music.

We're focusing on sustainable habits, not quick-fixing. Is it an opportunity to get curious? We're here, help people get to their health goals. One piece it's a time. You build and build and build. Can you tell me love this? I love you, but can you tell me love this conversation? It's in like, it just keeps getting better.

I feel like part two is always like the cliffhanger, you know? And we're like, now we talk about stress. It's the best conversation. I mean, I'm biased, obviously. But I think this conversation is so important. And the way that you facilitated is brilliant all the time. Yeah. It's a game changer because forever weight loss is just,

less exercise more and it's so much more than that and it really is understanding what's going on with your hormones people are are already doing so much by following the program at this point but there was a comment yesterday from a woman and I didn't write it down but she said you know I went back and listened to other podcasts with Dr. Alenka and she's like I don't think people know that the hormone conversation is not like sex hormones and menopause. And it got me thinking, like, was that our takeaway that every time we brought up the word hormones, we were talking about sex hormones? Because really, I mean, insulin resistance, even when I was talking about it five years ago, people were like, that's pseudoscience. Now we know it's like it's absolutely science.

Now there's leptin resistance. People are talking about cortisol. When I started helping people lose weight 30 years ago, no one was that, it didn't exist. is. So do you think, like, do you think it's like, obviously it's a new conversation, but what are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I mean, you know, I think that because naturopathic medicine takes a very holistic approach and it takes an approach of trying to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, right? And we try to truly look at physiology and how everything interacts. And I think that that's a problem in medicine. And I say that with a hand in my heart, you know, I'm married to a medical

a doctor. But a lot of the time in medicine, like, if you, you can't, if you go to an endocrinologist who specializes in hormones and you're like, but what about menopause? You're like, no, don't know anything about that. Like, you have to go to your Opskyny. And then if you go to obsceny, you're like, you know, I feel like I'm not losing where because you're just like, I don't, I don't really know. Like, unless you have cushings, like, I don't really know anything about that. Like, you have to go to your endo. And so I think that in medicine, the conversation has kind of been lost because the reality is that there's a lot of gray, right? And for example, when it comes to cortisol, the conversation in medicine has been always, if you have a tumor and

you have, you have cushions and it's producing way too much cortisol or you are not producing cortisol, we have a fix for you. But if you're in between and you're like living your life and you don't have either of those things and you're really stressed out and you're still exhibiting signs and symptoms that you have too much cortisol, but you don't have a tumor, I don't know how to help you, Ken. Like, it's probably not stress. Or maybe it's stress, but like, just like, do something about it. And I think this is where a lot of this stuff got lost, honestly.

Well, and it's so nuanced. When I was at the last Canadian obesity conference, there was a new doctor on stage and they were doing a panel and he was talking about cortisol. And they were like, oh, yeah. And they started talking about Cushings and this. He's like, no, no, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about chronic levels of cortisol and basically how the inability for people to

calm down from their stress and decrease those cortisol levels is leading to not just weight gain, but the inability for people to be able to, their bodies, be able to focus on fat loss. And I was like a little bit shocked because I was like, oh my gosh, they, they're actually talking about this, which I thought was, I mean, I thought was great. I thought it was great. Yeah. I think it's amazing. Honestly, even the conversation that is happening now around menopause is so great.

So I think that all of the changes that are making are fantastic. But you're right. I remember actually a comment that happened maybe it was a year ago. And somebody on Facebook was like, I really wish that you guys didn't talk so much about menopause. And you and I were like, oh, like we weren't actually talking about menopause. We're just talking about all of the other hormones. And I think that this is why at the beginning even of every session, you make such a, an effort to say, this conversation pertains to everybody.

So, like, listen up. Like, if you're paramedopausal or postmenopausal, like, you sit down. If you're a man, you sit down and you listen to this, right? Because you all have these hormones. Yeah. This is not just, this is not a menopause conversation, unless you're going to talk about it. I don't know what you're going to talk about today. So on Tuesday, we talked hunger hormones, leptin, grelin.

We touched on dopamine. Where do you want to go? If you haven't watched that, make sure you go back and watch that. it's also this deeper level of understanding of what's going on in your body, which Dr. Alinka brilliantly breaks down for us in a way that we can understand. It will be a game changer in your approach to what you're trying to do when it comes to reaching your goal. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. What do we talk about? Okay. So now because on Tuesday we talked about hunger or I guess, yes, food intake and food choices, I think that we should talk about more metabolism and fat burning. Okay. So metabolism, I'm just going to touch on it real quick. The two hormones that we always talk about in medicine that drive a lot of your metabolism,

which really just means like how quickly and how efficiently you burn what you're eating, right? It's going to be your thyroid and your growth hormone. If you've ever tried to lose weight for sure you've Googled thyroid and you, at some point, for sure, thought that you had a thyroid disorder. And listen, I, every time that somebody comes into any practitioner's office, we hope that it's a thyroid. We really, really do because it's a quick fix. However, the interesting thing about thyroid is that even repleting your thyroid, if it's not working well, it only tends to help you lose about like five to 10 pounds. It's actually not this like magic pill that people think that it's going to be.

And the interesting thing about that is that thyroid, I used to, when we started this conversation, I used to talk about how thyroid was like the conductor of this orchestra and I've changed my mind and I think that it's cortisome. in like you know your hormone orchestra but thyroid gets impacted by a lot of things but mainly it gets impacted by stress so a lot of the times you can go to your doctor and say I think it's my thyroid and you get your blood work back and your doctor's looking at your thyroid and you're like no honestly it's not and now I do have to say they're you know in medicine there's a bunch of different thyroid test that we do there's like a screening panel and then there's an extended panel and I don't want to spend too much time on that. But if your screening test, which is at TSAH, right, is coming back really well within the normal range, which would be, say, in Canada,

in the States, actually, the normal range for thyroid is between 0.5 or TSA, 0.5 and 4. And you come into my office with a TSAH of 2, I'm not going to waste your time and your money doing an extended panel because it's not your thyroid. It's just, it's not your thyroid. And so I do think that people latch on to this idea of like it has to be my thyroid and it's like I don't doubt that your thyroid is not working optimally but it's actually not to do with your thyroid it's got to do with everything else in your orchestra and that's what your thyroid is at a tune well you know what's interesting is that I'm just thinking back because I've been doing these online groups for a while now and thyroid used to be such a huge conversation and it

doesn't seem to be anymore and I know when it comes to menopause and the the menopause expert I've had an opportunity to speak to, they're like everyone wants to test thyroid and chances are it's not thyroid. But something you just said there, you know, whether it's thyroid medication, diabetes medication, hormone therapy, it's never the fix for weight loss. You're never going to take it and drop tons of weight because it's all usually tied into lifestyle factors. And that's where people have a lot of control.

These medications can help. It's no different than the GLP ones, for example. that we talked about yesterday, also a hormone, they can help you get a handle and get a start. But it's really the lifestyle changes you need to factor in. And you have a lot of control over that. It's just sometimes that people, when it comes to weight loss, look for that quick fix, eat less exercise, more of that. But this is more of a long game. And I don't mean like you have to do this forever. But it's it's those foundational changes that really, really help make a difference. Yeah. And even if you go back to our sleep conversation, I briefly touched on the

fact that sleep deficiency or untreated, you know, sleep disorders can actually impact the way that your body uses your thyroid hormones, right? Which is also where I'm saying sometimes your thyroid can look great on paper and you feel hypothyroid. It's me giving you thyroid medication is not going to fix it. It's actually all of the other things, right? Like your sleep and your stress. And having enough of the micronutriens like your thyroid needs. And so I do think that it's important for people to understand that thyroid can't play a role. I just don't think that it is the magic bullet that people hope that it's going to be. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be tested.

You should always be screened, especially at different times, you know, through big transitions like puberty or pregnancy or perimenopause or like big changes like that. Or if you think you have the sentence for sure, talk to your practitioner. We're not trying to gas like that. but but I do I do think that there's so much more about your metabolism that is not talked about that is not just thyroid so that we're just going to leave it at that and then we're going to move into the nitty gritty of this conversation which is going to be the fat storage hormones right which is my two favorite ones which are going to be cortisol and insulin yeah we need this

conversation because it's just blowing up out there and social media gives you bits and pieces and it's just like there's no context involved and break it down for us. Why do we need to know about this when we are trying to lose weight? Okay. So listen, you need these hormones to live. These hormones are your friends. Just remember that. And let's start with cortisol.

Cortisol is the hormone that actually helps you regulate your circadian rhythm, which means that it has this inverse relationship with melatonin, and it regulates your sleep and wake cycle, right? Which is fantastic. That's what it's supposed to do. The problem actually arises with cortisol when you have too much, too little of it, or when you're getting the wrong amount at the wrong time. That's a problem with cortisol.

And so cortisol, while it was meant to keep you awake and help you sleep, it also is your stress hormone. And we are mammals. And like any other mammal, we have this stress response that we have hardwired into us to help us survive stress, right, or an attack or something like that. And so what happens is that when you see you're like chilling with your girlfriends out in the wild, you know, and you see a lion that's about to eat you, your stress response goes into like adrenaline, cortisol, and your body goes into fight or flight mode, right?

Well, it actually goes into fight-flight freeze, but hopefully you don't freeze because then you die. And so you activate this hormone. All the cortisol kind of shoots up. And what happens is that in that process, increasing your cortisol so that you can outrun that lion means that your body will start mobilizing things like sugar that you have actually stored up to help you run away from this threat, right? Because you can't be eating a sandwich while like running away from a lion. And so you see the lion, you increase cortisol, you start breaking down a bunch of sugar. Hopefully you make it back to your village.

And then you, you know, you outrun the lion and everybody. in the village is like, what happened? You're like, oh, my God, I am a survivor. And then your cortisol levels decreased because you've made it to safety and then you go back to chilling with your problems. Like, that's what was supposed to happen. However, now we live in a world where you are being chased by the, you know, stress from driving, but then the like kids activities, but then your work, but then what are you going to make for dinner? And then, and then, and then, and then. And so we no longer have this beautiful biarrhythm, and we can't go through this stress response where you have a beginning, where you see the threat, you have the middle, where you do something with your body

to get out of that threat, and you have the end. And stress is not a bad thing, is actually getting stuck in that middle of the response that actually leads to a lot of the issues that we have, right? That's actually what causes the inflammation, disease, hormone unbalances, and weight gain. It's not actually the acute stress, is that chronic stress and you not being able to get your body into a place where it feels like I've outrun the lion, I have lived to tell my story. Yeah, well, our bodies still function on a very primitive level, even though technology has come so far. I mean, this was really evident many years ago when people talked about doing the European diet, where Europeans drank wine, they ate bread.

they had all this rich foods and yet the you know European women was typically very thin and you know this is where they didn't have they didn't grow up starting diets from a very young age they were very active they were very social they did live a different life you go to europe and there is not a gym on every corner there's not a supplement place on every corner it's a it's a different lifestyle and I don't know about you but I was at an event last night talking to the women there and just how we're all just so stressed not oh my god i'm so stressed but we are here there everywhere trying to do this even if you have a job now you have a second job of social media right and and then we have constantly our phones scrolling so i love that you

equated to you know running from a lion but there's there's a lot of things that are happening in our i think your point is in our current day that cause our body to react the same so i just want to say our body is trying to protect us and keep us alive and help us survive and thrive. And it does that based on the resources that we're giving it and doing the best it can. So if you think of diets, every time you starve and deprive yourself, it's like, oh my goodness, we don't want that to happen again. So let's start all this way back plus more. And then all your hormones are signaling, oh yeah, we need this fat. We need this fat. Okay. And I think that that's a very important point because, you know, as a response to stress,

and you said that even on Tuesday. Like, if you've ever been really, really stressed out, you know that even if you're sleeping well, but most of us were not, right? But even if you're sleeping well, you're not reaching for the salad. Like legitimately, your almost like instinct is to be like, I want carbs. I want the donut. I want this. because your body physiologically is like give me sugar quickly, give me everything, give me fast

things so that I can run away from this threat, right? And so this is where I think the whole thing about, oh, it's just well power. And like, you know, you should, you should know better than to reach for that donut. It's like, no, I get that. But physiologically, your body is hardwired to be like, I don't want salad because salad doesn't allow me to run away from the bear or the lion. I want quick, heavy hitters that give me that sugar to allow me to get there. So we actually know that as a respond to stress, especially in this chronic stress that you're talking about. Not only do you have increased sugar levels because your body's constantly trying to mobilize

the sugar, but you're actually increasing other hormones that actually feed a lot of this cycle. You're increasing a lot of those appetite hormones that we talked about on Tuesday. and you're down regulating or decrease in a lot of those satiety hormones, right? Even dopamine on its own, like legitimately, it's almost like your brain needs more dopamine, which is actually why you crave a lot of things that you, that are the heavy hitters that are going to give you this like fleeting sense of pleasure because your body is just trying to survive and get you to eat quick, fast things and store that fat so that when the bear comes, if it's not here right now you have that fat to keep on running it doesn't help of all the processed foods

that we have so readily available for us i before we move on i want to uh just address this comment someone was saying they're listening to the podcast and the doctor mentioned if you're stressed and your cortisol is high that intense exercise at the time helps your body increase cortisol so it'd not help you lose weight yeah that is not a thing so stress and cortisol from exercise yes it's it's not the increase of cortisol, it's the ability to calm down. So when you exert energy through exercise, it actually helps your body. It helps you calm down from stress. So don't listen to anyone who says that. That's been debunked. Now, what you want to do, make sure you are giving your body adequate rest. Like, if you are doing heavy weights and you are sore the next day and you are

tired, don't force your body into an intense workout. But there is nothing bad about exercise at all. It's only how you. I'm sure you'll agree. I see you shaking your head. Yeah. The way that I always explain exercise, especially when you're in the state of chronic elevated cortisol, it legitimately, that what it feels like for your body is that it feels like it's like, I know there's a bear coming. I know this bear coming. It's not here right now, but like I know it's coming. Right. It's almost like this hypervigilant state, which is actually where a lot of us just like feel on edge all the time. Yes. Exercise legitimately. How I want you to think about it is that exercise allows your body to be like, The bear's here. I'm going to run. And it's almost like you, you actually go through that cycle of stress and you move through that. I'm running away from a bear and then you make it to safety.

And so exercise is one of the most effective strategies actually to get you out of that stress response. And just like you said, I. Where'd she go? She just dropped from the call. I'm sure she'll be back. Um, what I do? What I do? want to get to talk into her about is how do we manage stress and this sort of goes back to the conversation that we had a few weeks ago with a doctor beverly david uh alanna mcgin and dr lanka herself so when we talk about cortisol and what we can do about it i want to just remind you to go back to those podcasts or those conversations we also have posts in the group that talk about and share tips on how to better manage your stress as well right so i just want to get into the more the why behind this. Now, this could be a conversation that we could be having literally in the

first week of the program. But I think the reason why we have this conversation now is to post earlier is you're kind of calming down, like your body is calming down, your mind is calming down from making the changes that you've made. A lot of people really get into, I need to do this and they need to do that. And sometimes we're not in a place to take in the information. I was just saying because I was going to say, I don't know where you went. It was like disappearing at. but we want to know what we can do about our stress, but that's a conversation that we have already had and we do share the tips.

Is anything you want to add about cortisol or the things that you feel are important? Yeah, so what I was, sorry, guys, I think I got so intense on my computer was like, oh, calm it down, girlfriend. But we, but when I was saying about the exercise, the most important thing about exercise is that you have to feel yourself properly.

And I think that that people don't understand. It's the feeling, that like fueling you know uh sometimes before exercise because like a lot of people like exercise fast it and that works for them great but for most of us like it doesn't work and then exercising and then not fueling yourself after that's what's stressful then that sends your body into like oh shit we ran away from the bear and then like you never fed us and that actually is what holds on to that weight with that exercise you guys oh yes because when people are having these A lot of people don't know that the living method exists, right?

And so they just assume that when are these having these conversations, they are assuming that you are just starving and depriving, counting, weighing and measuring, not taking in to account making sure you're getting enough protein, not fueling your body properly. So yeah, so that's something that you got to keep in mind when you're listening to people talk about weight especially, is that they're assuming you just do all the crappy, shitty die they would never even dream that you are doing the kinds of things that you are doing well following the living method that's true yeah right okay all right um okay insulin i know you guys i'm gonna like not be as intense with this one because obviously my computer

doesn't like it but listen insulin okay this is like the main one that you're going to hear a lot about in this space and so insulin is a hormone that's actually released by an organ that's called your pancreas that actually promotes almost like the absorption and the storage of sugar that you eat. So anything that you eat is actually broken down into little pieces, right? But the main thing that it's actually broken down to is something that's called glucose, which is a sugar. And it doesn't matter what you eat. Like, you know, it will break it down into that. And insulin is actually what decides like this is, this sugar is going to go into your muscle, is going to go into your liver or is going to go into your fat for later use. And so the tricky thing is that,

you know, the average North American is actually very sedentary. And that's actually part of like the whole thing about like the European lifestyle and things that we're talking about earlier. If you think about like how they live their lives, it's actually very different, right? They have a lot more, maybe not exercise on its own, but they have a lot more movement. And so in North America, as we're very, very sedentary,

what it means that we often don't need that much sugar to fuel the muscle cells that we have. And so the second problem that we run into is that our diets are mostly super processed, really full of carbs and sugar, mostly because it's actually, again, tapping into that dopamine, right, that we talked about on Tuesday. And that actually puts a lot of stress on your body to try to almost like level the, or keep your blood sugar stable because your body doesn't actually like super highs and super lows. It actually likes everything to be in this, like, state of balance, right? And so what happens is that when you're eating a lot of sugar, you're eating things that are like really, really processed, your body is legitimately being like,

okay, guys, like, I need, I need, I need more. I need more from you. I need you to like take up this glucose because like, you know, our body doesn't really like these high levels. And what happens is that your muscle cells are like, yo, like she hasn't like walked, she hasn't moved. Like we have an exercise, like we're good. And then your liver's like, you know, I don't really have any other space and then your pancreas keeps on like releasing more and more and more insulin to be like, you guys, you have to listen to me. Like, I just have to get rid of the sugar. And so eventually what your body does is that it's like, well, it's got to go somewhere. So it actually starts storing it viscerably, right? It starts packing on the pounds right around here. And so the tricky thing

with that is that eventually the rest of your cells, because there's this insulin that's elevated all the time all day long. Your cells just like don't listen to the signal anymore. It literally is like, they're being screamed that all the time. And eventually it just like, yeah, bro, like, I just don't know what you want me to do. Like, I just, I can't help you with this. And so it's actually where the problem starts because that's when your body becomes resistant to the message of insulin, which is actually what we call insulin resistant.

And so that looks like your sugar is really elevated. you're not really using it properly. You're storing a lot of that actually as like resources that you're probably not going to use. And then you end up in this like chronic cycle with insulin and cortisol because often insulin and cortisol go hand in hand, right? You're stressed out. You are trying to mobilize the sugar, but then your insulin is telling your body like, no, no, no, no, no. You need to like lock up the sugar.

And then as a result of the high insulin, sorry, the high cortisol, you're like choosing things that are probably carbure, that are sugary, that, like, you know, are a little more process, which, like, drives up more insulin. And you get into this vicious cycle of your body actually is in a stress state that's trying to store up a lot of that excess sugar because of that insulin, right? That's, like, no longer telling yourselves, like, use it and, like, abuse it. You're locking it up. And you end up with, like, almost like, giving up your muscle instead of your fat as fuel to keep you running away from the bear. And this is actually something that is really common,

but not really common, but it's actually the keystone in a condition that's called Cushings, where you have pathological amounts of cortisol, elevated cortisol, because you actually have a tumor that's like producing too much cortisol. And what we actually see in those people is that they develop diabetes because legitimately their insulin is like skyrocket high, their sugar is like really, really elevated. They end up with like really, really, really thin extremities because they chew up all

of their muscle. So they have these like really thin arms and really thin legs. And they have this like belly that's like really, we, you know, one of my patients that actually has cushings said like I just always felt like I had this Buddha belly where they have just this visceral effect and they have this round face because of the relationship that actually cortisol and insulin have with like how they use up your muscle. for fuel and lock up your fat for fuel, right? And so the hardest part about this picture

when you don't have cushings, but you're just chronically stressed out and you are in a state of like starvation and like sometimes like not choosing the right things and all the things that this is not what we're doing now, but what we've done before is that your body actually just finds it really, really hard to let go of this fat. So it's almost like you have this weight loss resistance.

not because what you're doing is not working. It's because it's a survival mechanism where your body's ability to regulate what you're eating and what you're using and how you're storing it, storing it, sorry, is completely dysfunctional from years and years of years of stress and over-diting and under-fueling and over-exercising. This is actually what happens.

That's this. That's this. And I mean, and that's where, you know, we're blaming it on menopause, but we know it's not that. It's the state of our body when we enter the stage of our lives. And that's, I met a woman last night. And she's like, I'm doing the things. I have my legs are stick thin. I'm having this.

And I went through all of those things with her, right? And I think that what is the recovery time for this? And I don't mean recovery, the timeline to actually do something about it. And I want to get back to that in a sec, but I'm sitting here thinking, let's go back to our bodies are very primitive and then look at all of our processed foods and I don't want to vilify foods. I really don't. But it's back in the day and I know it's not back in the day and we didn't live very long for obvious reasons and we're living longer than ever now. But we didn't have access to all of the processed foods and sugars and stuff that we have now. And our body still

functions on that primitive level. And so people think, well, if I'm not eating this obvious sugar all day, they're not really understanding the impact that it's having on their body, which is why when people follow the living method, they can like go from pre-diabetic into normal range. They can go, they can drop their A1C. They can get off their cholesterol meds or high blood pressure meds. It's amazing what people are able to accomplish because it's just eating whole foods. Okay. And you know what? And I think that if we talk about how your body is functioning in a very primitive level because we're animals you guys I know that way I mean we're very smart animals but we we are mammals right and so this this it's not necessarily

just about all of these hormones it's also that your body has learned to survive by burning less and it becomes very energy efficient right and so a lot of the times your low metabolic rate and how much you're burning has nothing to do with your thyroid. It actually has to do with the fact that it's just stuck in the survival mode that we've like put it into. And I remember, you know, it's interesting. I was thinking about this this morning because I remember there was a comment. I think it was in our last session where we're talking about this.

And I always talk about how what I often see in practice, because, you know, I've treated over the years a lot of patients that come through the living method, most of which are actually in the maintenance zone now. but where the first program they will lose a lot of weight and then they go to like maybe two or three programs and they're like, oh my God, I'm like not losing weight or they haven't lost any, but they feel amazing. They're like, it's great and like all of these things.

And they start panicking being like, this isn't working for me. And then like come program three or come program four without changing absolutely anything. They're like, I lost 40 pounds. I have no idea what happened. It's like my body just like clicked. And why don't I always tell people? It's like, you know, because we talked about this on Tuesday too, but it's like, this is like over dieting and over exercising and like underfueling and all the things that we've done to our body over decades. A lot of us is very traumatic, right? And I want you to think about like a puppy that you're rescuing from a shelter. Like if that puppy has had like a really tough life, you don't just like take it for a walk one day and like feed it a meal for one day. And the puppy's like, oh my God, this is amazing. Like great. Okay, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to get small? Do you?

want me to sleep? Do you want me to do this? Do you want to do? It takes like years, some months, maybe, but like a lot of the times like years to be like, you're safe, you're here. We love you. We have food. And so like, we're not any different, you guys. I, thank you. Thank you for that. I have such mad respect for the people that stick around, even though they're having a hard time and whatever. You see people I've done 12 programs. What else are you going to do? to do you got to give your body time but you're trying to get out of this survival mode i feel jennifer i feel like i'm permanently stuck in a survival survival mode yeah and this is where it's not the food right like yes the food is important but it's managed it's really looking hard at your

stress really pulling out the big guns to for to get that sleep it's really making those lifestyle changes consistently enough and long enough. I mean, I've, I had one woman I remember who did my program for three programs. She's like, this is not working for me. This is not working for me. To the point, my whole team was like, oh, my God, Gina. And I actually set up a time and talk to her. And I'm like, yep, you're doing all, you're doing everything right. I suggested you go to your doctor. And then it was like, after that she reached out and been like, oh, my God, something just clicked. And all of a I'm down 15 pounds and it seems so easy. And I'm like, it's time.

Sometimes it's just time that your body needs. And if we just look at, you know, what our bodies have been through and then what we're going through, it's, this is like, this is why it's so complicated. And I have such mad respect for our community because you get it. You get it. And you're sticking around for it, right? I don't want people to continue to have to worry and try to lose weight for the rest of their lives.

That's the whole reason I started this thing in the first place. but some people do need to be at it longer than others. What can we do to fast-tacket, though, Dr. Linka, like for the women that are listening and they're like, what more can I fucking do? Stuff fucking stressing about what more you can do, okay? It's going to work. That's the first thing.

Just kidding. My mom was going to call me and he like to talk to. Yeah, no, honestly, yeah, the feels are real. I listen, I know that like, you know, even in, in the interim i was like just the process but it's true trust the process it's the thing that you don't want to hear that anymore we want to hear about barboreen yeah exactly okay listen if i had to pick one thing uh said it would be sleep you know this if i had to pick one thing that i would get people to focus on all the time consistently because it's a consistency

that wins would be sleep the second one honestly would be for sure cortisol and the stress reduction i know that you're doing the diet piece and i know actually no wait when it comes to like the eating piece i want you to focus on consistency and really look hard of what you're doing because i know that dr paul has talked about this and you talked about this in a post that i love and it's like girlfriend if you're doing like a hundred percent monday to thursday and come thursday you're like oh i'm going to get my wine and i'm going to get my chips and like i don't want to give the pride and then saturday and sunday you're like yeah i want and listen we don't want to cut anything out of your diet but like you also have to be realistic with

like the effort that you're putting in because this isn't Like you, you binging on Thursday, Saturday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday is like a little bit closer to 50-50 than 100% that you think that you're doing. Yeah. Also stop eating at night and you might have to quit the wine. I went like, I like went 12 weeks without the wine and I'm very, I do have it every, that was a game changer that really got me ahead. Now obviously you can tell I'm, if you Falco back last couple years, that was a hot mess. My weight was way up. I was just stressed out. And now I'm feeling a lot better. I can have wine, but it's very selective and I have to take long breaks in between. And I know no one wants to take out their wine, but if that is where

you are storing the fat it might be a good idea that's going to help you like just give your body just a little bit more but you know what but it's the same thing with like snacking at night right we're talking about all of these hormones there's nothing worse for your insulin and your cortisol and your sleep than eating late at night eating all of the junk that we're eating at night and drinking alcohol so this is where we're talking about like oh do the basics but like fuck if you're doing all of these things. Girl, you're not doing the basics because you're actually not sleeping properly. And you're actually not helping your body reset your hormones. And so I get it. Listen, I, you know this. I got married at a winery. Like, I love alcohol more than I should. And I had

to come to terms of that too because there was a point in my life where I was like, you know, I'm a hot mess. And like, I'm surviving on like caffeine and alcohol, I feel like. And I have to take a step back and just be like, okay, like, what do I need to do to like reset my stress response? because the stress isn't bad as like how we respond to that stress. But if you're not sleeping, if you're not giving your body just like the basics that it needs, like you could be the Buddha and like you're still not going to be able to lower that cortisol because there's no amount of meditation that's going to also compensate for you sleeping three hours a night, right?

And you having six cups of coffee because you're not sleeping properly. And you're having like three glasses of wine at night to like shut down because you're because you're so wound up. And so I really do think that like taking a hard look at the things that you don't want to let go off that sometimes are the most important for you to let go of is really important. But I would say that like if I had a big one hormone for sure, it would be like cortisol. And this is a lifelong thing, right? Because the last thing that I will say about these things is not that like you do a program,

you fix these things for that program and they are like, okay, great, like see ya. And then you stop doing the things. This is a lifestyle program that I always say it's like wrapped up and sold as a weight loss program but like which is you're here for the long run because this is like a lifestyle thing and this should be your life because it's just you're just allowing your body to get back on track to what it's supposed to be doing and meant to be doing the weight is just the symptom of something else the weight is just a symptom of something else that's exactly it and I just want to say before we go it's not about doing more it's not this is not you're not doing enough

this is not about doing more this is like are you focusing on the right thing things and are you getting really real? And again, sometimes maybe you are, you're crushing it and it's just really time. And I know that is very hard and that's difficult. And that sucks. I want to stop this conversation right here, although there's so much more we can talk about. I think this is enough for us. You got to, Dr. Linka, you got to do a hormone. Like, we can only cover so much in the program. So please tell me you're going to do a hormone course or something that we can sign up for that we can invest our time in to learn more. Because I think when you, When you learn more, you know more, and then you can be more strategic about the things that you are doing.

I am. I am. Yes. We're going to do, I'm going to do a hormone, like, master class. I think that it's so important for us to have really in-depth practical conversations about these hormones. Yeah. And how, like, how to talk to your doctor about, you know, whether or not you mean testing, what you can do, like, you know, like the basics that we're already doing and like really

hone in on that and other stuff that we can do and like how they all interact with each other because you're right. Like this is, this is such a powerful and important conversation. And you and I talk about this. Like, we could do this for eight hours. So now I want to do it for eight hours. Love that. You know what I also want to do.

I did this thing at Revolution her a while back. We're doing another one in December. But in the new year, let's like. let's do like a community pop up where we have like, I don't know, we all sit in a circle and share and we'll talk and we'll do all of that. Because I, yeah, I think, you know, it was interesting. I went out last night to this event called Thrive. My friend Amber hosted at him as about longevity.

And it was great. It got to meet some people or whatnot. But I'm like, we need to do this with our community. We need to like have nights where we can share our own experience. It's so great everyone who joined us in the comments today. And I was keeping an eye on that. But for women to really connect and like talk about these things, oh, yeah, I'm, I'm storing here and I'm trying this and I'm trying that. And we're, you know, we're trying to do it all over here, you guys.

But thank you so much for this conversation on Tuesday and today and all your continued support and shares. And this is what it's about. It's about helping us figure out what is going on with us, not what's wrong with us. What's going on? Why am I not losing this weight? Why am I struggling? Why did I lose so much first program and not my second program? Or, you know, like that's, we want you to get it done sooner rather than later and give

you the information that you need. I don't want to go. I'm totally procrastinating, but we have to go. You can reach out to Dr. Alinka. Please let me know when you got this program up and running. We will do whatever we can to let our members know that you are ready to go with that. In the meantime, you can reach out to her info at Dr.alinka.com. I know don't excuse me if I'm overstepping but if they are interested in this

in a hormone course with you can they reach out to you send a email okay just send us an email we'll put you on the wait list oh great okay so info at dr linga dot com of course you can always follow her over an instagram account although she sucks at posting um just like repost mostly i did you see the i think after her asleep one and you were like you need to post more and i like reposted one thing and i was like see yeah i I know. You know, I'm a clinician. I know. I know. I will. I always promise you that at time. Maybe 2026. I think I promised you in 2025. But 2026, it will be my year, you guys. Like, buckle up. It's going to be so fun. I love it. Dr. Dottalinka, we totally broke the rules. I'm trying to stick to my half hour time limit here. I'm sorry, everyone, for overstepping on your time. I just love Dr. Link of this conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. Have a great rest of your day, everyone. Bye. Thank you.