Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1125: Dr. Jolene Brighten- What You Need to Know About the Menstrual Cycle

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin speak with Dr. Jolene Brighten about what constitutes a normal and healthy menstrual cycle. If you are a woman or know one, this is a must-listen episode. How coffee can heal the brain. She shares the time she got knocked out! (4:35) Does she get into it with any other doctors because of her extensive knowledge? (7:35) How does the menstrual cycle work? The 4 phases explained in detail. (12:03) What should you feel during that pre-menstrual period? (19:40) Why women must strive to keep their environment safe: How stress/diet affects the 4 phases of your cycle. (25:11) The significance of balancing your circadian rhythm for overall women's health and fertility. (32:09) Why food is information. (36:45) The truth surrounding cholesterol and how it affects the menstrual cycle. (43:17) Is acne a common symptom before your period?? (47:40) How exercise can affect your hormones: The importance of tracking and mapping your cycle. (53:35) The fears surrounding birth control. The importance of a team approach when it comes to medicine. (57:20) Why there is no one size fits all approach when it comes to your body. (1:05:30) If you don’t move your body, then you don’t move your intestines. Why you must move on a daily basis. (1:07:21) What are the most important nutrients women should pay attention to? (1:11:57) Her take on the rise of the veganism movement. (1:15:30) Dr. Brighten, the farmer. (1:22:54) Should choline be considered an essential nutrient? (1:28:22) Featured Guest/People Mentioned  Dr. Jolene Brighten (@drjolenebrighten)  Instagram Website Jolene Brighten - Amazon Dr. Carrie Jones, ND, MPH (@dr.carriejones)  Instagram Sarah Ballantyne, PhD (@thepaleomom)  Instagram Kevin Gianni (@kevin.gianni)  Instagram Sarah E. Hill (@sarahehillphd)  Twitter Related Links/Products Mentioned September Promotion: MAPS Starter ½ off!! **Code “STARTER50” at checkout** Biohacking Hormones on Bulletproof Radio Mind Pump 1045: Dr. Jolene Brighten – Beyond the Pill Sex at Dawn - Book by Cacilda Jethá and Christopher Ryan Kale and Coffee: A Renegade's Guide to Health, Happiness, and Longevity - Book by Kevin Gianni USWNT used innovative period tracking to help player performance at World Cup Scientists Start Building a Parts List for the Brain This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences – Book by Dr. Sarah Hill

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Back by popular demand. Our first interview with Dr. Jolene Brighton was so popular, so many people were sharing it. A lot of people telling us they had a lot of great information and value from it. That we decided to have Dr. Brighton again. And we go all over the place in this episode, in this interview.

We talk about pre-menstrual syndrome. We talk about the cycle and what that looks like and what is normal and what is not normal. There are symptoms that are common, but there aren't necessarily good. So just because they're common, that doesn't mean that they're good. We talk about nutrients that can benefit women and health. I think you're really gonna enjoy this episode.

Now you can find Dr. Jolene Brighton on Instagram at Dr. Jolene Brighton and Brighton is spelled B-R-I-G-H-T-E-N. On YouTube, she's Dr. Jolene Brighton. Her website is drbrighton.com, so it's Drbrighton.com. And then the book that people have just been raving about that she wrote is called Beyond the Pill. This talks about the potential side effects of birth control, what it's like going off birth control, and how to kind of mitigate some of the symptoms that happen when you go from hormonal birth control

to all natural. Now, before the episode starts, I want to remind everybody that maps starter is 50% off. Now, map starter is our resistance training program, designed for people who want to start with resistance training. People who want to just get started and reap all the benefits that you can get from working with resistance, everything from building muscle, burning body fat, sculpting the body, getting stronger and speeding up your metabolism.

So if you're a beginner or somebody who's taken a long break and you want to get back into resistance training, this is the perfect program for you. Now for those of you who are advanced, it's a wonderful gift for your friends and family members who want to get started with working out and doing it properly. That's what this program is all about, proper resistance training. Here's the best part. You don't need a gym. All you need is a physio ball and dumbbells and you can do the whole program.

So here's how you sign up. Go to mapsstarter.com. That's MAPS-S-T-A-R-T-E-R.com and use the code starter50. That's S-T-A-R-T-E-R-5-0, no space for the discount. I was telling my friends, after they did this interview and I was like, I always do this weird thing as soon as there's a nice mic setup, I started talking like this and they're like,

oh my God, you sound just like Gamora. From an alt and I'll take it. Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy, she's a bad-ass. Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right, you can break me down, toss me from a ship, I will just come back.

Yeah, when we used to get on camera in the early days, Adam and I did this weird, he had this weird, like, he talked out of a side of his mouth and he was like, what's up with him? That was more like on camera. Yeah, that's what I mean. I have friends that are like, oh, I did voice training for my podcast

and they're like, if you launch a podcast, you should consider it. I'm like, you get what you get. Like, I'm not like it. I am not gonna go spend the time to trade my voice and then you could ruin your voice. You could ruin your voice. I'm like, but it's like, if 10 years of But you could ruin your voice. You could ruin my voice, I'll let it take.

But it's like, give 10 years of screaming at people as a group fitness instructor didn't ruin it. And you're all good. I'm like, I've been talking for a very long time. I still haven't got comfortable. And I don't know if it's our generation or what, but I'm just the talking to the camera as if I'm talking to a massive audience.

I just, I have no problem. I don't get stage fright or anything in front of massive groups, but I get weird looking at them. It reminds me of that smurf that held the mirror like this and he was always looking at it so all the time. Yeah, vanity smurf. Is that what you, oh my God, I can't remember the name of that.

That's the truth, right? I get like super embarrassed when I'm in public where I'll be like talking to my phone and someone walks by and I'm like, yeah. That's why I feel weird. And then I'll leave it on Instagram where it's like, mmm, and and someone walks by and I'm like, yeah, that's why I feel weird. And then I'll leave it on Instagram where it's like, mmm, and then I come back and I'm like, I just got really embarrassed you guys,

like whatever, put it out there. The girl at Starbucks today are not Starbucks. We were talking about that earlier at a stumptown. I like walk up and I order my coffee and she's like, and she's like, wait, your surname. And she's like, oh my god, you're that doctor on Instagram from the book, on. I was like, yep, and this is why I never lie about my coffee.

We have it, like, here I am. You're gonna get found out. It's dumbed out. How many coffees you have a day normally? You're a fast metabolizer, you're said. Yeah, yeah. So like anywhere from two to four, just depending. That's not too bad, yeah.

Not too bad, that's not normal. Yeah, that's not normal. That's not true. When I had Not too bad, yeah. Not too sad. Normal. Yeah, that's not what I mean. When I had a head injury, I actually started the day with four cups of black coffee after fasting. And it's a great way to raise ketones and like kill the brain. Really?

Yeah. Really? So does a caffeine amplify ketone production? Apparently. Oh, interesting. Oh, it's like coffee's full of antioxidants if you get the good stuff. But yeah, like when I was in Paris and they were like,

Hey, do you want a espresso? It's 10 o'clock. Everybody's dinner like 9 o'clock. I'm like, what is? I'm like, fire sex. What's going on here? Then they like offer coffee and I drink it and go right to bed. And my husband's like, I'm just staying up looking at your coffee. Yeah. He's a very slow metabolist.

Yeah, so my head injury, what happened? I got knocked out. Like literally? Like literally. Really? I took my son to a safe sledding park, which was, I always, you guys have watched Friday, right? Yeah, I can see you now.

I knew exactly what you were doing. Yeah, that's how I feel. I'm just like smoky, where are you? So I took my son to a safe sledding park, and you know, it goes, it's always that last run of the day and I was like, let's go on the steep hill. Now, it's a safe sledding park because they let teenagers moderate who goes down teenagers, like that's the keyword here. So I went down on this inner tube and I stand up.

End of the day, son had been on the hill. Now it's 4 p.m. No son, now it's just straight ice. I see. And I just hear my husband screaming, I look over and next thing I wake up like 10 minutes later. Was it a kid barreling down? Oh wow. Somebody barreled down in an inner tube, I'm vertically challenged, so that means it comes up to the back of my knees

and I flew up and over and I landed on my right oxyput first and then my husband's just like, I saw your head go kook, and then your body just rolled down. And then I woke up 10 minutes later and couldn't see. And. Oh, that's scary. Yeah, well, I was like, I hit my oxiput. That's where my visual center is.

Somebody's stabilized, see, fine. That's, that's like coaching people. That's me in an emergency. That's me giving birth. I'm like, okay, this is how we do this. Yeah, but yeah, it was something where the really crazy thing is I didn't lose any of the medicine, but by the time I got to the hospital,

which you have to leave the ski resort and go all the way down the hill, I couldn't tell you like my maiden name. I couldn't tell you my data birth. I couldn't, I was like, I have no idea. And then they were like, we're gonna x-ray your chest. And I'm like, no, you haven't tell you my date of birth. I just like I have no idea. And then they were like, we're gonna x-ray your chest. And I'm like, no, you haven't even tested my clavicle. I did not fall without stress arms. There's not a clavicle. There's no fracture in my clavicle. I need an x-ray of my spine. I need a CT. And they're like, but what's your full name? I'm like, I don't know.

I'm a doctor. Yeah, like it's so so bizarre so bizarre when I'm like, I feel like my brain got hit and was like, compartmentalized everything we need to survive medicine, like have it put there. Do you ever get into it with other doctors and physicians because of your extensive knowledge and you're somewhere and they're diagnosing you or talking to you and you're like, no. No, not like, when I go to the doctor, I'm very, a lot of the times I go to the doctor and they're like, you're a doctor, so I'm just going to assume you know everything. And I'm like, I want you to treat me like a patient. I want you to take me through that whole thing because if you and I are making assumptions

about knowledge, like there could be a gap there. And like, if I'm going to a doctor, you know, I mean, if I'm going to my guy, you know, who does my paps is a student who is under me in school that she was my secondary for two years. It's a little weird. I know. I trained her. So I know how good she is.

No, no, no, no. It's a little slow. Okay, there you go. But I mean, I was there, you know, when I was doing guy in exams, I was teaching her, I had her go through everything. And so, yeah, now that's when I was in like moved back to Portland, I was like, who is going to do my, I don't like that. That's the final exam right there. That's going to be, that's going to to Portland, I was like, who is gonna do my, I don't like, that's gonna be the person,

but like I can't visualize my cervix, so I have to have that level of trust, but no, I haven't, I'm gonna have any doctors where I get into it with, I mean, I know how to talk to doctors, so there's that in being respectful, but like after my head injury, I had a great neurologist,

he's very conventional. The only thing he had to offer me was like SSRIs, and when I was like, well, how do I get off of them? but like after my head injury, my head had a great neurologist. Very, he's very conventional. The only thing he had to offer me was like SSRIs. And when I was like, well, how do I get off of them? Because there is research to show that SSRIs can help with healing brain injuries. And I was like, well, what's the plan to get off of them? And he's like, you'd have to talk to your PCP.

And I was like, I don't get on any drugs that there's not a plan to get off of these drugs. Like, that's a good rule of thumb. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely caveats to these things, but I was like, you know, there's other things we can do. I lost because of severe vertigo. I lost the ability to actually walk unassisted.

So I couldn't walk. I couldn't actually form a sentence. So I couldn't speak and put the words in the right order. I was having like difficulty writing, and I mostly, I mean, I have a whole, I actually did a whole bulletproof podcast like talking about this and I have a whole protocol I went under her care. She's a doctor and not just ran a bruising. And we came up with this dosage and everything I wanted to use to heal my brain. And then like it was months later that I was like, Hey, how did you ever come up with that dosage? And she's like, you don't remember? I'm like, no, I don't remember.

She's like, you sent me this email with like four rat studies. And then you did this complex calculation on your body weight. And was like, I want to try this and all this stuff. She's like, you went through all the research and you complex calculation on your body weight and was like, I wanna try this and all this stuff. And she's like, you went through all the research and you sent me anything and everything. I was like, wow, I was so smart when I had no idea what was going on. I was like, yeah, yeah, you actually used progesterone therapy and then we also observed

that day 21 of my cycle, my brain would wake up and I would make advances even more. And so my neurologist was super cool because he was like, tell me what you're doing. I went on a ketogenic diet and it was really funny because I was sitting in his office. They had this big poster of a study they had done on ketogenic diets and Parkinson's disease

during great outcomes. And he's like, ketogenic diet, really? You think that helps with a head injury? And I'm like, we're having this conversation. I'm like, well, it helps Parkinson's and it helps like Alzheimer's and we're like, die and he's like, this is so cool. And so he was really respectful. I mean, at the end of the day, doctors want to help people.

And so, yeah. Totally. And you made a full recovery. Excellent. Excellent. Now, you were such a hit on our last episode. We got so many, many good messages. And we also had a lot of people asking more questions.

And one of the things that I wanted you to come on the show and talk about today was if we could get into detail on the female cycle from beginning to end, what's happening in the body, what hormones are going up, which ones are going down, things that are common that you'll feel but don't necessarily mean that aren't necessarily good. Like, what to expect? All these things is that I got so many questions

from women who are like, please, this is what I'm interested in. I need to know if I'm normal, or if I'm supposed to feel this way. So if we could start maybe from the beginning and then kind of walk through and then we'll ask your questions as we... So we're recording this whole time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a necklapse. You didn't know that? No, we were all... Oh, that's all the gold right there. I just like, la la la la la. People can't see the other people in the room who are not on camera laughing at me right now.

Surprise. Gotcha. So this is just good, super red now. No. Or is that? Yeah, well, okay, so to know what is normal and not normal, we should start with like, how does a menstrual cycle work? So day one is the first day you see blood.

And while we all focus on the period, it's actually not the main event. The entire menstrual cycle is about ovulation and hopefully procreation. So that's really the goal of the menstrual cycle. But it's hard to know when you ovulate andulate until you get used to your body and the sign. So we start with day one first day of your period. Because it's an obvious sign. Yeah. Okay. And what's the name of this part of the cycle? Yes. So this is the follicular phase. So day one first day we see blood kicks off the follicular phase. In medicine we have three phases of the menstrual cycle. And that's the follicular ovulatory and then the luteal phase. You will hear people talk about

the menstrual cycle being its own phase as a fourth phase. That's a fourth phase if you look only at the uterus. So that's what the uterus is doing. It's shedding the endometrial lining, but even during your menstrual cycle, or excuse me your menstruation period, you are getting the ovaries ready for another aid. So to say it's a fourth phase, true in terms of what the uterus is doing, not so much of what the ovaries are doing,

but we're not gonna overconflicate things. So everybody has listening, get ready to take notes. Okay, so day one we have our period. And even as we're bleeding, we're shedding the endometrial lining of our uterus. This is because the hormones dropped because the egg was not fertilized and we're not pregnant. Which hormones dropped on this process? Yeah, estrogen and progesterone.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I like how I'm like, I'm like getting there and you're like, no, we got to go to the room. Oh, sorry. No, I think it's super helpful because I have my way of telling this story that I talk to women and they're like, yeah, I get it. But here I am talking to men. So no, I think it's super helpful because I have my way of telling this story that I talk to women and they're like, yeah, I get it. But here I am talking to men. So no, I think it's a good thing.

I don't want to know more. We get nothing. You got all the details. You're sitting with three gorillas. So when you have your period, so hormones drop. And then even as you're bleeding, FSH begins to rise. So follicle stimulating hormone from the pituitary tells the ovaries, let's get follicles ready.

Follicles are basically an erase of which egg is going to win to be ovulated. So even while you're still menstruating, FSH is signaling the ovaries. The ovaries are now raising your estrogen. Estrogen is the main diva, is I like to call her in the follicular phase. And I say that because it's like, if you have Beyonce on stage, it's really hard to have anyone else one up that. That's a difficult thing. And so when we get in the Luteal phase,

you're gonna be like, why we don't always want Beyonce on stage. So, estrogen's not a bad thing, but too much of a good thing is just too much. So, we're in the follicular phase, follicle stimulating hormone, ovaries are secreting estrogen, estrogen is the main hormone. Around day 10-ish, and I say-ish because menstrual cycles are not 28 days.

It's an easy way for us to start and to think about things, but for women listening, you might be 24 days in regular, totally normal. You might be 34 days in regular, totally normal. You might ovulate on day 10 or day 18 or anywhere in between, totally normal. You might be 34 days in regular, totally normal. You might ovulate on day 10 or day 18 or anywhere in between, totally normal. So these things are normal, but we often always talk about the mentions of 28 days. You ovulate day 14. I just saw someone saying like, everyone ovulates day 14. And I'm like, and we wouldn't get pregnant just whoops. If that was the case, we'd all just be like, it's day 14.

Now, Dr. Brighton, you're saying that the cycles can be different, is it important that they're consistent though? So if someone's 34, it's always 34? Well, not necessarily always 34. If it's like 32, 34, like 34, 33. Yeah, I mean, you can have a day or two of, like, you know, buffer in there and it doesn't have to be exact. I mean, that's the other thing is that we're told,

like, it should always have to be exact. I mean, that's the other thing is that we're told, it should always be exactly clockwork. Early, so two times that it will almost never be clockwork is when you first get your period, because your brain and ovaries are just figuring out how to communicate. So it's not uncommon to have a regular period. Someone in totally regular from day one,

if there are, you know, you go a period of time and they continue to be irregular, that's when we work out polycystic ovarian syndrome. Now, perimenopause is the other time that we'll see irregular periods. And that's, it's abnormal in terms of like, that's an abnormal menstrual cycle, but it's normal in terms of the phase of your life.

Because the ovaries are like, we're done, we're out. We got other things to do in our life. We're not gonna make babies. So, back to the follicular phase. So day one, we're bleeding, estrogen, follicle stimulating hormone rising, day 10ish, somewhere in that range for you, as a woman, it's when your libido starts to rise,

testosterone is rising. So testosterone rises, this is when we have more energy. We will feel like we can exert more boundaries, we can lift more weights, we can lift more weights, we can sprint harder, go harder, like because we've got that testosterone feeling us, but we're also in the mood. And biology is really smart because why we get in the mood to have sex about five, six days before we ovulate is that sperm can live five days or more. So five days is like the average,

but I'm always like, just be careful with that, cause sperm be tricky. They have one goal in life. It's like, sit in a room. That's much of it. So what then happens? So we've got the testosterone rising.

Then what's going to happen is your estrogen's gonna rise and spike, pituitary is gonna send out luteinizing hormone that's LH, that will spike, and then we release an egg. We go into the ovulatory cycle, and that's about a 24-hour event. It is very rare that the egg lives longer in terms of our current understanding, and very rare that you would ovulate twice in a cycle. Although I have heard women who claim that this has happened to them and I wouldn't dismiss that because we have our like nice little box we put everything in and then there's nature.

It just takes over. So we ovulate, ovulatory phase. We want to ovulate no matter what. Like even if you want a baby or not because what's left behind in the ovary is the corpus luteum. Now that's the structure that's left behind and it's now going to secrete progesterone. Now, progesterone is the main player

as we roll into the luteal phase. If we don't ovulate, that doesn't happen. If we don't ovulate, there's no corpus luteum. So you'll have lower progesterone levels. So you'll have higher PMS, crampier periods, a lot of the stuff that's like the dreaded of being a woman so to speak. So, progesterone should be the main player. There's still estrogen around, but again, this is when we get into that ludial phase, like if we've got estrogen, which we were calling Beyoncé,

we can't just bring in somebody who's never taken the stage before. Like we need like a Reether Franklin or somebody like that's come before Beyonce Bicker. That's progesterone so that we keep that estrogen in check and so that there's a balance going on. So when we go through the loodial phase and that's typically for most women is going to be a good excuse me 14 days. If you don't get to a day 24 and let's say you're only making it to day 21 or less out of your cycle,

it's usually a loodial phase defect is what we call it. So maybe you didn't, obviously, or maybe your corpus lewdium can't kick out that protest around and so that's too short of a period and that's something you might experience at 20 something and that's telling us you're probably gonna struggle getting pregnant in the future. So let's of course correct that now. But if there's a baby and it implants, we're going to keep those hormones going on. But if there's not, they drop and the menstrual cycle

starts all over again. So does that make sense? Yes. So let's talk about what is normal to feel during these processes. You said, let's talk about before the period, we talk about PMS. What is normal and when should women kind of be like, okay, because I saw you did a post on Instagram, I thought it was great. And it was like symptoms that are common, but not necessarily normal or good. So maybe start there, like what should you feel during that pre-menstrual period and then during the whole cycle, I guess? Yeah, I have to actually shout out.

It was Dr. Kerry Jones, who's somebody sent her a message and said, I don't even know what's normal. Like nobody talks about it's normal. Everybody's talking about what's abnormal. And I'm like, that's a really good point. Like I cover what's normal in my book, but in Instagram, I've been like more of like,

let's talk about all the problems we have. And like, yeah, so she sent that to me and she's like, she does her post in a certain way. She's like, I'm not breaking my series to talk about what's normal. Can you cover that? So I just want to shout her out because that's where that was born out of. And if people asking for it, so you guys, you ask, we deliver. So with that, you know, talking about what is normal. So everything I went through, that's a normal menstrual cycle.

Now, before your period, it is normal to want to slow down, to be a little bit tired, to even feel like you're not as sharp on your mental gain. Like, you grew over that, the cycle before you bleed again, you grew your end of me tree aligning, and now you're gonna shed all of that. Like that is not an insignificant thing. We kind of take these things for granted, kind of leak how society takes giving birth. You're granted and they're like,

you're just like a baby, it's been six weeks. Get up and go back to work. And you're like, you just like a lot just went down here. Like, so we kind of take for granted the things that happen all the time, but we also get told that, like, you know, this whole society is built by non-cyclical creatures, like men,

like the way the work at week, I mean, everything is really just like, it's, I mean, even in health now, like the biohacking trend is very like masculine of like, you know, these things. And I love it, and I think there's a place for it. But for women, we have to understand we are cyclical creatures. And it's not abnormal to feel like you have to pull back

before your period. It doesn't mean you're the lesser. In fact, this is a great time to really pull back, go inward and reflect, whoop, am I really where I wanna be in life? And like, what, you know, really, you know, how happy am I? And how a relationship

serving me means great opportunity there. And so I think often we think like, okay, and I do have this from patients who come in and they say, you know, a couple days before my period, I'm just so tired. And I'm like, okay, you like flat-flying fatigued, zero to 10, zero being no energy at all. And they're like, oh, I'm like a six or seven. I'm like, that's not abnormal. Like, if you feel like you can't get out of bed and you're crawling across the floor, or like, you know, someone must bring you coffee for you to even be able to get out of bed,

like then we've got a bit of a problem there. We've got to investigate what's going on, but feeling a little tired, not abnormal. Feeling a little more emotional, not abnormal. When you look at it from like a historical perspective, there's a lot of experts who think the reason why there was the red tent and women are taken away from the tribe to menstruate was never because

we were unclean. It was really more about the fact that, what some tribe said is that the veil becomes very thin. And we start communicating with like whatever the powers that be, but also that you're more sensitive. It's funny that you're it's so cool that you're saying this. I read a long time ago, I don't remember why I looked this up, but I was looking up like, what are the evolutionarily looking up like what are the evolutionary explanations for feeling that way before you get your period. And some scientists said it could be like you said a period of reflection and realizing

that the mate that you're with failed to impregnate you. So like it's almost like as a way. That's why men are like no, don't slow down.. It's a way to reflect and be like, I don't want to be with this person. And then maybe because they're failing to impregnate you, so it's like this evolutionary push to get you with someone who can. Yeah, well, I mean, and evolutionarily speaking, we weren't monogamous. I know that's going to upset some people, but like, because we were playing a game of like, can I get pregnant? That's right.

And also, there's a great book called Sex at Dawn that talks about this. For better, good book. Yeah, great book. And just talks about how it was also about if we were, basically, it had no idea who the dad was, then everybody was taking responsibility for the child. And so it was a way to ensure the health of the child.

And it wasn't until we started owning land and then errors mattered and all of that that women then became basically a commodity, be traded and that children were now owned and it just really evolved into something else. So do you think that the in terms of before you get your period and how you're feeling do you think in terms of, you know, before you get your period and how you're feeling, do you think because we have such a poor general understanding of it or maybe appreciation for it, that that may be the cause why so many women get medicated for,

feeling normal, you know, PMS, like, I've read some articles where women are getting prescribed anti-anxiety medications, SSRIs, and for what would, what should be, or, or what is normal changes in how you feel? Well, I'm interested in how sleep and nutrition and stress could affect each one of these cycles, too. Like, how much could that throw off, how someone's perceiving what's going on? So if you think about it, and I may have said this in the last podcast, but one of the best ways to optimize your

hormones and ensure fertility is to send the signal that the environment's safe. Because if the environment's unsafe, we don't eat enough food. Like your body doesn't know if you're calorie-stricken because you want to fit in a wedding dress or if you're on a desert island and you might die. Like your body is smart, but it's not that smart. And in addition to that, like if you're not sleeping, if you're stressed out, like your body doesn't know if that's a lion tiger, or if that's just because

like you are choosing a different, you're in grad school, you're, you know, in residency for a doctor. Totally. And so with that, I mean, you can shut down ovulation with like, you know, different stressors altogether. The other thing is that you might not get your progesterone levels up. Your body will always choose survival over procreation. So what used to be called the pregnant alone still, now we understand that like, your cells

are not stealing from each other, That's not what's going on. I just want to own that, like, I did use that language in the past. So if you find that somewhere where I said that, know that we got new science, I learned we moved on from that. And so what really happens is that the brain will preferentially signal like adrenal glands.

Let's get our cortisol up and let's not signal so much to that progesterone, like, we're not worried about having a baby, we're worried about surviving here. Now for the average woman, what does that feel like to her though? Because sometimes this is one of the things I have to talk to clients all the time.

Sometimes they don't, what they think is, what they don't think is stress, I know is stress in their life. Like you alluded to the busy or stressful job, it could be anything, right? So are there signals during their cycle, like they'll have a, you know, harder cramps or they'll have delay or dehydration, are there things that they they should notice in their cycle, if maybe their stress levels are really high? Yeah, and let's talk of I get

patients as well. So we're sitting here in the Bay Area of California and I had a practice here in patients and would say, no, my life is great, my job's great, I don't have any stress. I'm like, you drive in traffic. That's a stress like you guys. We are hurling ourselves down the highway. Like, well, we're in California, let's be real. 70 to 80 miles per hour. I was gonna say 55, because I'm in Oregon. I'm like, I'm in California.

And we're talking about that. Only if you're a bumper to bumper traffic or you drive that straight. Yeah, but like in a big, like a hunk of metal, like this stressful thing, even what we take it for granted, light pollution, that's a stressor to the body. Like there's these subtle things that like we've just devolved with, you know, so to speak, or we've just been around that we're like, it's not a stressor. So with that, you know, the most pronounced place in the cycle where stress is going to hit your hormones, you're going to fill it is going to be in the luteal phase.

And so in that luteal phase, that's where we see pronounced PMS. So if our progesterone doesn't get up, it doesn't stimulate GABA receptors in our brain. GABA is like, put the brakes on the freak out hormones, which is like epinephrine, norepinephrine, and other neurotransmitters. But if you're stressed out, you can be kicking out cortisol, epinephrine, noripinephrine from the adrenal glands, and then you've don't got progesterone, you do not have progesterone stimulating the gauze receptor. And so now we're feeling anxious.

We can't sleep at night. We have a sense of dread. I write this in my book, because this is legit a thing I ask my patients. Do you, you know, the weaker tube before your period, do A, wanna kill somebody, B, do you, you know, the the weaker tube before your period, do a, want to kill somebody, be run away to the woods and never be seen again or see do all of the above. They mostly answer all of the above. And nobody like, this is like,

I'm being funny about no one's gonna like actually like, no, he's going to kill anybody guys, but you're just like, was this person still talking to me? You never needed to open your mouth once in my world. You're just so irritated. And so not enough progesterone or too much estrogen or unchallenged estrogen. Again, estrogen is not bad. It just has to be kept in check. And so we'll find ourselves really irritable.

So if it, let's talk about the differences in progesterone. So if it's low progesterone, you're going to be anxious, you're not going to sleep, you're going to cry for no reason. But high progesterone. You're going to be anxious. You're not going to sleep. You're going to cry for no reason. But high progesterone can be similar. But here's, here's that you, in that you will cry for no reason. If your progesterone's too high, your breast will be sore, higher low progesterone. But if your progesterone's high, you'll sleep better, you'll wake up groggy in the morning. You might feel a little bluesy instead of anxious. And when your period comes, it'll be relatively easy. I won't be terrible. Now, it can be low progesterone and concomendant high estrogen.

And that high estrogen will make you really irritable. You might feel puffy, so your fingers, toes, feel puffy, maybe you're like a little bloated. You may also be having hot flashes. You don't have to be perimenopause menopausal to have hot flashes. It's actually not totally abnormal to have some like mild night sweats hot flashes like the day before your period is your,

like your estrogen could have been high and then dropping. And so that's not like, oh my God, I'm going into menopause necessarily unless it's happening at a higher frequency. But with that, if estrogen is too high, the other thing that will happen is when your period hits, it's cloddy, it's heavy, there's lots of cramps, and bonus. If you have diarrhea and heavy cramps, like very painful cramps, it's likely elevated prostoclandins, which are hormone-like substances.

Those are inflammatory, right are hormone-like substances. Those are inflammatory, right? Well, they can be. And they're not a bad thing. We always think like inflammation is bad. Antioxidants good. It's again, it's just this balance of things. But with prostaglandins, they're actually

made from omega-6 or omega-3 fatty acids. So I'm being a little bit reductionistic, but just so that everybody can grasp this. So if you're eating a diet that is highly processed food, lots of canola oil, your college student and you're like, I just eat wherever I eat, and your periods are really cramping and painful. You may need to focus on shifting your diet to being higher and omega-3s, as you'll still make prostaclandins, but they won't be as aggressive, so to speak.

Now prostaclandins are good because they're how we shed our uterine lining. They're also how we have babies. But whenever I have a woman that's like, I have the worst cramps, they're so painful. And I'm like, do you get period diarrhea? And they're like, yes, is that a thing? Like I never knew, is that normal? It happens.

But it's a sign because the prostaglandans will also stimulate the bowel to contract contract and so, and that's the worst. Now you have these terrible cramps, you're sweating. That's a rough day. There's lots of blood and you can't stop pooping. And then society's like, but shwomen don't talk about any of this. So you're like all alone being like, is period diarrhea normal? Like does everybody have, I can't talk about it. Can't talk about it socially, let alone on social media. I've never heard of that. Yeah, that's crazy. Welcome to Womanhood. Yeah.

How much of a factor are circadian rhythms? Oh my God, so much. So I talk about that in the on the pill. And it's so interesting. Research was coming out in the 70s saying circadian rhythm affects ovulation, fertility, the menstrual cycle. And at that time, they were like, and so much of like the UK and the US can't even see the Milky Way, like, and I'm like, oh, I was reading this.

This was like probably 2015. And I was just like, oh my god, like, what are we doing? Like back then, we were rocking around with computers, like in our hands all day, like, and at night and reading on tablets and and you know you can mitigate that by wearing amber glasses so that's something that like you know I was just sharing with people like I have two pairs of amber glasses with me right now because I'm going to be in like airports this evening and on airplanes and like in my brain survives it so much better that way. But it's something that you can have amber glasses,

you can change lighting in your house, and then I also recommend that women try going by candlelight, by the way, for new babies too. Like, this is something that I found that, as soon as the sun went down, we went by candlelight as often as possible, baby slept better. Yes, I do that with my family,

and we use Himalayan salt slams. Yes, yes. Because they emit like a nice red glow, and it has very little or no blue light or green. Yeah, and then like when I would get up to feed my son at night, I would have my camping, my hiking headlamp, and I would put it on the red, and nice or no, but he is like melatonin's getting messed with. Melatonin's super, super important, not only for sleep, but it's an antioxidant, so it protects our brain.

It's protecting all of our tissues. It protects the ovaries. We actually use melatonin in cases of infertility, or if a woman is going through IVF, and you know, I've collaborated with a lot of reproductive endocrinologists that are like, I'm on board with that, because you know, anything that can help.

Really, what do you do, you have them take my lieutenant and I before they go to bed and it helps with the fertility? Yeah, so it's an antioxidant. So when a woman is struggling to get pregnant, we wanna protect those eggs as much as possible. So the mitochondria in the eggs, in the eggs in the ovaries are making cocutan. Well, excuse me, your ovaries are a tissue

that's making cocutan. It's fueling the mitochondria and they're keeping the eggs safe. Can you tell I've been up since 4am? I like that. I said that differently. And they're keeping the eggs safe. This is one thing when women come off of the pill and they say like the pill caused me to be infertile. We actually have no evidence that the pill or any hormonal contraceptive causes longstanding infertility, but one hypothesis that I've written about in several places that I have is that actually what's happening is not by the time you come off to have a baby, your tissue decline of co-Q10, which it declines with age, it's already declining. So protecting

those eggs and being on a medication that depletes antioxidants has kind of done a disservice there, but it's not that the pill actually caused you to be infertile. We just need to bring up more antioxidants and depending on the time she's been struggling, also bring on a reproductive endocrinologist. Do you recommend co-Q10 supplementation

for women on the pill? I'm very interesting. Yeah, I mean, the pill depletes coq10. It's that or I'm always food first, but when I say like, you gotta eat organ needs and like beef heart, I mean, where do we concentrate coq10 in the body, the heart? For anybody right now who's like,

you are so disgusting, you said beef heart, here's the trick. Go to the butcher, grass fed, make sure the farmer treated the cow well. I'm very big proponent, this is how we save the planet. Beef heart, ask them to take 25% beef heart ground up, and 75% grass fed beef. We talk about that, that's what we do.

Put it together and put it in a burger. You can't even taste it. No, it's actually the best, like I am weak sauce when it comes to Ofall, and I was like living in Paris and I'm like, I wanna eat boy grotto, I wanna do it. My kids like all the things. He like does bone marrow, like it's, like what is that the loose?

And he's like, ah, like into his mouth, bone marrow I can hang with, but with organ meats. I mean, I think that that's the best burger you're ever gonna have in your life when you put that beef in there. And then I had sent you my first book, which is where I talk about liver, just making it like pill size, like the end of your pinky and cutting it all up and putting it in your freezer and then just taking it pill form. There are people that are doing desiccated liver and I think that's a great option as well.

But I mean, there's so much we don't know about nutrition. Like, yes, we've got macros, yes, we've got micro nutrients. I think it's a very short-sighted perspective on food. And as we, you know, I've been saying for years, I think food is information, and it's relaying signals to our body that's way more complex than we have the ability to understand currently with science. And as we, there was just more research coming out showing that, you know, trees and the

forest communicate to each other. And there's like basically this fungal highway. And that like they're all interacting. And if a predator comes in, like they're telling each other. And I'm like, if plants are doing that with each other and they're communicating like to the squirrel and the bee and like, we're animals. Like, what's going on with us? And I know there's people are going to be like, that's so woo-woo. Yeah, and in 20 years you're going to be like, we discovered this thing.

That's always how it goes. I'm like, whatever. I'll put ideas out into the ether and maybe they'll be true and maybe they won't be and I'll be okay either way. Let's just find out. I'd rather be on the safer side though. Yeah. Yeah, and that's why I'm very big proponent of like, I mean, every time in my book we talk about nutrients, it starts with like, here's all the foods and then we'll go into supplements. And it's really funny because I had someone write me

and they're like, your book, all you do is just push supplements and that's all you talked about. And I was like, one curious, like, because like when I talk about B5, I'm like, she's talking mushrooms and I start talking, one curious, because when I talk about B5, I'm like, she's talking mushrooms, and I start talking to you through all that when I talk about iron, I'm talking about animals, and being more bioavailable,

and where to get omega-3s in your food supply. And she was like, well, I saw it was tables and bullet points, and I just skimmed the thing, and I was like, so you didn't go into the paragraphs, and it's like, what I'm hearing. And then she wrote me back,

and she's like, I just went into the paragraphs, and you do talk about food first every time. And I was like what I'm hearing and then she wrote me back and she's like I just went into the paragraphs and you do talk about food first Every time Yeah, it's one of those things like when you write a book you're like people are gonna get me Yeah, yeah, and then when it comes out you're like okay I know what I would have done differently now like we needed tables and charts for food because that's all anybody was looking at Is our bodies evolved assim simulating nutrients from food. And so creating vitamins and supplements and minerals

and pill form, that's us getting as close as we possibly can to what our bodies evolved to take them from, which is food. And sometimes we're good, sometimes we're not. And food seems to have the most bioavailability of all these nutrients. Like try and get your vitamin D levels up by taking a pill versus taking it like like, like, cod liver oil, for example.

Yeah. Very, very, by available. A common symptom that I've heard. By the way, that can help with period pain. Oh, really? What, what vitamin D? No, cod liver oil. Yeah, and vitamin D as well, you know, forever, I mean, it's called vitamin D, but it's

actually more like a hormone and spoiler. We don't know a whole lot about this. Like, I mean, it's amazing to see its interplay with auto-munity, to see breast cancer, also, just in terms of hormones altogether. And it elicits an effect on, I mean, through the vitamin D receptor, on so many genes. I've heard other scientists and doctors say exactly the same thing that we should probably consider a hormone just by the way it acts.

It was a game changer for my psoriasis. I've been going to a dermatologist for 10 years, taking the steroid creams and all the shit, never once did they talk to me about nutrition. Sal sends me over a study one day and I'm like, oh, I've never really paid attention. Maybe my vitamin D levels are the start of taking it. Yeah. Better than anything else. Interesting, because Maybe my vitamin D levels are all started taking it. Yeah.

Better than anything else. Because there's also, there's vitamin D therapy for psoriasis. I mean, that they actually use. We know with multiple sclerosis, for example, the further you are from the equator, so not you guys, but me, the higher the incidence of multiple sclerosis. And they believe it has something to do with the vitamin D

because we're not getting the sun exposure. Yeah, so what I was referencing was the Omega-3. So cod liver oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. If you're gonna take cod liver oil, bigger bottles is not better. And please make sure it's sustainably harvest fish because I think it's DS that there are supplement companies that just go out, catch a fish, got it, pull out a liver and throw the fish in the ocean

I'm like, what are we doing here? Like we have to like all get along on this planet And it can go rancid a lot of times people buy fish oils or cod liver oils and don't realize that it went bad So if you have the capsules poke a hole in them squeeze out the fish oil smell it and you'll know Oh, this isn't good. It's not gonna do any good And then with cod liver oil one thing you have to be cautious about and same with liver is that if you are pregnant, that type of vitamin A is a trotogen. So too much of it can actually,

trotogen basically means makes baby a monster. And so just a word of caution with that. And that's usually when women are pregnant, we focus on using like a cod liver oil where they've screened the vitamin A, we know what's in it. Some of them that are more food-based, they never screen it, same with like liver. Like if a patient's like, you know,

I'm gonna get pregnant and I'm taking this liver and I'm like, and it says on there, this is just food and we don't know how much vitamin A, I'm like, we should be cautious with this. Because you can over do it. Organ meats are so nutrient dense, you can actually eat too much Organ meats are so nutrient dense, you can actually eat too much.

Yeah. No, I have friends that are like, if I liver past 3 pm, I can't sleep that night because I'm like buzzing from it. And I'm like, that's a me. I don't have that experience with liver. No, I know it's different from person to person, but do you have a general,

like it's probably a good idea to eat organ meats once every two weeks, once a week? Do you have a general recommendation. You know, Dr. Sarah Valentine has actually to done a bit of research on this with the autoimmune protocol. And it's something where, you know, it's weekly is what is recommended.

Part of the problem that's speculated like with like neat, you know, being implicated in disease progression, is one, I mean, if you treat an animal bad, do you think you're gonna be able to eat that? I mean, this is the thing whenever people are like, needs inflammatory and all this stuff, and I'm like, well, it can be. I mean, if you put them on a grain law

and you treat them really poorly, like what would happen to you? If like, you didn't eat what you are by design supposed to eat and somebody's not so nice to you. I mean, somebody not nice to you, your inflammatory proteins will go up. But part of that is that we've gone so heavy on just muscle meat and not getting that,

like, oh, fall is what it's called as well. But it doesn't take a lot, a couple of ounces, like two to three ounces, which if you're not used to eating it, sounds like a lot, but it can be helpful to bring in on a weekly basis. And if you're like, that's too daunting, aiming for like one some month, like, and just trying to incorporate it in some way.

Now, we were talking about vitamin D, and it made me think of dietary cholesterol, because I know that when you're out in the sun, it correct me if I'm wrong, that the process by which your body produces vitamin D from sunlight is through using cholesterol in your blood. That's how we make hormones. That's how we make hormones also. Let's talk about dietary cholesterol and it's benefits or detriment. I know for a long time, I mean, I was a, you know, I'm a child of the 80s and 90s.

Yeah. And we were told to avoid dietary cholesterol at all costs. Oh, God, that country crocked up. Oh, we had that. I'm like, if I die, I believe stay bonkers. I believe it on the margins. Oh, terrible. But then I read, you know, article that I was into lifting weights and getting stronger. I read all these old, tiny, strong man and bodybuilders who consume tons and tons of high cholesterol foods and touted the strength benefits.

And then I saw studies that showed, oh, it makes people stronger, and some of the healthiest populations have lots of cholesterol. What's the truth around cholesterol in terms of health, and are there any benefits to women in particular? Yeah, so cholesterol is how we make our hormones. We also make cholesterol in our liver. So if you have a family history of cardiovascular disease

and you're concerned about cholesterol, you should be concerned about your liver because that's I mean, we're seeing more and more people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease where they have basically fat infiltration of their liver. So it's not functioning. Your liver does everything. So love your liver. And it's going to produce cholesterol as well.

So when it comes to dietary cholesterol, it was so interesting to me that people who are still, like, you can't eat cholesterol, like it will give you heart disease because back when I was getting my nutrition degree, which was like over 15 years ago now, God, when did I get so old? Um, so what I was getting is so interesting because of my psych, I would go to the clinical nutrition classes

and they'd be like, fat free diet, low cholesterol, like that's the way to go. Um, that's it. You'll lose a libido pretty quick practicing that, um, my good friend, Kevin Gianni. I don't know if you know Kevin Gianni from Amory skincare. He wrote a book called Coffee and Kale and he talks about being a vegan and how he, like, like all of these hormonal issues he had and how he ended up eating animal fat

and like how different that made him fill. So, and there's a lot of people who tell these stories. But back to when I was studying nutrition, clinical nutrition's like fats bad, cholesterol bad, bad, bad, bad. And then you would go to the science classes and they're like, yeah, there's no evidence that cholesterol is bad.

The reason why we get plaques in our heart is from the immune system, what the immune system does with cholesterol and inflammation and inflammation is actually what's driving heart disease. And we see that to be true still, but it's like, I don't know why as a society, we love to vilify things. I mean, that's why I think people love to misunderstand me about birth control because they're like, it must be the devil. And like, no, it's not like we don't have to vilify things. We can be like, it just is.

And this is how things work. And so with cholesterol and dietary fat, it is important. If you think about it, we have these phospholipid bilayers. That's every single cell has this fat layer to protect it. So what it wants to stay in stays in and not anything can get in.

And so dietary fat and cholesterol, I think is part of a healthy diet. Cholesterol is some a place where we can actually get a lot of nutrients. So you're gonna find, you know, in the fat under chicken skin, like if I have patients who are showing issues of vitamin A deficiency, before I'm like, oh, let's just give you a bunch of vitamin A,

I'm like, can we eat the skin of chickens? Can we look at eating egg yolks, things like that? Because these fat soluble nutrients are only delivered in fat. And I don't care if they fortified in all day, I remember when they came out with like, here's this fake butter and we fortified it with omega-3 fatty acids and like all this stuff.

And I'm just like, and I ate it. And I was a sucker for that marketing. They look back and I'm just like, you're not smarter than my body. Like, I mean, you're smarter than my brain food scientist. I'll give you that because food's been engineered to be highly palatable and that signal to your brain rewards your brain

and makes your brain think that you got something nutrient dense when you didn't. That's just smart, that's just really smart. That's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. One of the common complaints or symptoms that I've gotten from clients regarding their period is acne that they'll break out at certain times of their cycle. Is

that a normal symptom or is that highlighting something that's off that we can work with either nutrition or? Yeah, no, I mean definitely something's off if you're breaking out all the time and it's bothering you. Getting a zit or to hear before your period is like that's not really problematic. But if we're talking about people who are like, I, the acne is affecting me and acne affects our mental health in a big way.

So that's where knowing your cycle and mapping your cycle. I mean, this is the fifth vital sign. We can understand what is actually going on here. So if you have acne and it precedes ovulation, it's likely an androgen issue. So testosterone going on. So testosterone can cause. Is it too high?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's usually too high, or you're converting it into DHT, which is a very potent. It's what causes male and female pattern hair loss. And it's a really potent androgen. So that could be the issue with acne. It may, if acne is coming up just before your period, it's likely, it can sometimes be

hypergesterone because the gestorone can make the poor swell, but it's likely that it's an estrogen issue. We've got too much estrogen. But the other thing that can happen before your period is that you can, so we have period diarrhea, but before our period, we can actually become constipated. And so we become constipated. And that's because our hormones, especially progesterone can slow down

the motility of our digestive tract. So the muscles will just relax. So with that, if you are constipated, you can have higher levels of estrogen because now those gut bugs have time to make beta-glucaronidase and to reactivate the estrogen and put it back into circulation. So because you're... because so good clear... good motility is very important for normal estrogen levels. If you stay back up or whatever, what you're saying is estrogen goes up. Yeah, that and how do you get your waist out? If you're not pooping it out and you're not drinking enough water,

and you're probably, if you're constable, you're probably not drinking enough water to pee it out, it's gonna start going out through your skin. Like your body's gonna start removing. And so that's one way that we get stuff out. And so if you have acne and it's non-cyclical, so for instance, I'll have, you know, this comes up with patients where they're like,

every time I travel I have a breakout by the time I get home. I'm like, what happened when you traveled? How are you pooping? I didn't poop. Most people will have trouble pooping when they travel. Take some magnesium citrate with you so that you can have that bowel movement, but that's what can be going on.

So acne's kind of complicated because it can be hormones. It can be gut microbiome or skin microbiome disruption. It can be accompanied with food sensitivities. So if before your period, you're someone who's like, I'm bingeing on sugar and carbs and chocolate. Chocolate's a good thing for you. That was a next about chocolate.

That was the next one is like, food cravings. Like what's going on with that? Yeah, well, I mean, one thing is, is that your body's like, we're gonna make a baby. So there's one that is that part, but there's also the shift in the neurotransmitters that can make us want to crave more. And you're not about a person if you crave these things,

but like you're craving salty carbohydrates, we've probably got some adrenal stuff going on. And even like sweets can be a part of that as well, but that's the other thing is that if you're binging out, because like dopamine too will be like, sweets can be a part of that as well. But that's the other thing is that if you're binging out, because dopamine too will be like, please reward me. I get that chocolate fix and I feel so much better. And chocolate's not necessarily a bad thing. You can't overdo it.

If you're sensitive to it and you guys, everybody listening, view this all through the lens of what's true for me, because I'm saying a lot of true stuff, but it might not be true for you And you might be like IH chocolate and I get a migraine. Oh, it's not good for you. Don't do it So it's not that's not true for you But um, you know that if you're you know, bingeing on some of these foods that can you know We know that acne can be associated with food sensitivities. So that's another thing that could be going on

It may be that we don't have enough vitamin A and zinc going on to help with our immune system and to help our skin health. And so this is where getting lab testing, partnering with a clinician could really help you troubleshoot it. Acne is the last thing to heal. I talk about this in my book. And you know, even I had friends that were like, man, I can't believe you told people that acting's gonna be lost to Hill

and some of these things are gonna take longer. And I'm like, I'm just so over as a woman. I'm over these books that are like, moves 50 pounds in five days or like, fix your entire menstrual cycle in two weeks. And I'm like, mature menstrual cycle is more than two weeks. So like how it like, you can make changes and things can improve, but like let's be realistic

and let's stop setting false expectations for people. Like natural healing doesn't work like a pharmaceutical. You don't just take it and your body's like shut it down. Like it's, and there's a time and a place for that. It's something that takes time and usually acne is one of the last things to heal. It's a signal that something else is going on. So it might be that you have polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Like, that is, you know, you might have inflammation, insulin dysregulation, and then that insulin, which is a hormone produced by the pancreas to usher sugar into the cell, in women with PCOS. It stimulates the thickest cells of the ovaries to make more androgens. And then five alpha reductase comes in and converts it to DHT. Now we lose hair on our head, we grow it on our chin, and we have oily skin and acne just about everywhere. So, you know, acne can be complicated, but there is a reason why you have it, and it's an opportunity to

investigate. Just know that your body is going to heal, your gut, your brain, your heart, all the organs that are super, super important. Our skin is super important, but nobody died of acne. So it's not a situation where your body is like, this is life or death, but it's going to want to heal the more vital organs. How can exercise make this worse or better? Yeah. So overtraining, I mean, I don't even know, does it need to be said? Overtraining doesn't know what any favors.

I mean, not just for your know, does it need to be said? Over training doesn't know what any favors. I mean, not just for your hormones, I mean, you can get injuries. And so certainly if the thing is, is that, so you guys see that the US soccer team attributes like part of why they won, is that they actually charted their menstrual cycle. You talked about that on the last. Everybody who's listening, go back and listen to last episode

because I talked all about how to work out on your menstrual cycle. And I saw that come out. Like they won in the time that we've talked. And I was like, badass, that is so awesome. The women are in the coach that they brought in, he has an app. I actually downloaded it, but I'm like super skittish

about period apps these days because they're sharing all this data. Did you guys see that? No. So, yeah. I even think of that. Yeah. Absolutely. Because you're entering in all your information.

Super personal data. This is why I hate that. Like Facebook now, no, because there's no documentation relationship. But like, so Facebook knows when you have sex, like they share that data. And also, I can think about this right now. It's so weird. If you start to figure out when a woman is on her cycle, I wonder if you could start to

create targeted advertising. 100. When would you send her an ad on chocolate? Right. Right. When you're probably most likely to crave it. Totally. Yeah.

Exactly. And that's, I think, where Apple's going to come in this month, they're supposed to drop an app. And I think they're just going to be like, fools, you should not have shared data. I'm going to get it. How do you make money as an app? You got to share data.

Oh, that was a little bit of a tangent. Please don't everybody freak out. I've put my data in lots of apps. But they had this app. So they have this app where you can actually train with your menstrual cycle and put in your data and then track your training. And I have women that are like, this is so complicated.

It's actually not. All you have to do is pay attention to your body and then honor it. So instead of being like, oh, I want to keep up with so and so and crossfit and I need to push hard and I'm not filling it today but I'm just gonna do it anyways because my ego, I've totally been there so I'm not judging anybody. And that, and then you're like, wow, I feel awful

and the doms, like they came and they just stayed. Like if you are three days out of a workout and you're still super sore, you did something wrong. Like there's something wrong there. Like that wasn't right for you. Um, and then, you know, the other thing too is that if you're feeling like, oh, I feel like I was only gonna run five miles, but I feel like I could run 10 miles today. Do it.

See what happens. Like, here's the thing. You make a mistake and you can come back from it. Like, if you, and you'll know if it's too much, but if you feel really good, just you can go for it. We get these really rigid ideas, and then we're like, oh, I have to do, like I have to do Pilates in my loodial phase because my hormones are dropping,

and that's what I need, but maybe you do feel really good to do some hot yoga instead, because you're sweating. Just listen to, get in tune and honor your body and track what happens. And like just be your own little scientist there. I mean, there's so many things about how to eat with your menstrual cycle, how to move

with your menstrual cycle that I have seen time and again with patients that like once they start tracking everything and they start paying attention and they honor where they're at, they intuitively move into all of this. Like they don't have to like have an app or have like any of these things. Although I think it is a good way to start learning your body. It can be one avenue to get there. But I do ever want people to feel like the only way I am going to know my body is if I buy Dr. Brayton's book or if I buy this app or if I do it like you live in it, you can get

to know it. Now, do you think that because women have been in modern societies on birth control when they're 17, and then they were on for 10 years, and then they went off, that they missed crucial time to learn their bodies, to kind of understand what feels normal for them or not, because they were on birth control that whole time. Yeah, I mean, possibly,

but they also didn't miss out on learning about pregnancy. So there's that. Right, right, right. I mean, it's possible, there's a researcher, Dr mean, possibly, but they also didn't miss out on learning about pregnancy. So there's that. Right. I mean, it's possible. There's a researcher, Dr. Jalen, prior to who actually is very, I mean, and her research is looking at ovulation and looking at, it's a really a ten-year maturation from the day you get your period and then about ten years later for brain ovarian communication. So she's calling to question what happens when we disrupt that and come in with the pill.

I mean, when you consider there's a hundred million women worldwide on hormonal birth control and how little research we have on brain health just for example, there was Dr. Kisling, his her name was in scientific American this year and she made a statement which is 100% true that Long-term suppression of the menstrual cycle via birth control is in women This is the longest uncontrolled experiment. We've ever done and we actually haven't been following up on the research And it's a very interesting. I just love observing the things. And to observe how many OB guys and medical doctors are like, shut it down. Don't talk about the side effects.

Don't talk about any of this. You'll just scare women from taking it. And this is just fear mongering. And then to see all the PhD researchers that are like, we gotta talk about this. We need to research this. Like what's going on in doctors are like, no, it's absolute.

And this is how everything responds. And my friend, you know, Dr. Sarah Hill, who wrote an excellent book that's coming out about birth control and just looking at neurological health, she made a very interesting statement to me. And it was so on the head in that she said, clinicians, these doctors, expect that everybody should have the exact same response to a medication.

And she's like, and the problem is, is that science just doesn't show that to be true? And we have had these dialogues about things that they say are evidence-based, and then when you actually look into the evidence, you're like, well, not so much. And so this is not to say that anyone's bad, but I think that this comes out of fear. Like this fear that will lose birth control or this fear that it'll scare a woman who needs it because like if you have endometriosis or really like you need a blood transfusion because your periods are so heavy, like you need birth control to like get out of that. Do you need it for life?

Maybe, maybe not, but like that's a good tool. But you know, they feel this real fear, and the fear that will lose access, the fear that a woman won't take it. And a lot of that is, I feel like it's kind of, treats women like they're dumb. I think that we can advocate for access and education so the woman has that informed consent.

And I want every woman working with a doctor, not going it alone. But like this whole conversation is, we don't know what's normal and when's time to go to the doctor. And the same is when we start birth control, is that women don't always know that like that's a side effect of birth control, talk to your doctor, because there's lots of formulations of the pill.

Like you could switch to a different one, or maybe an IUD would be better, or maybe you would do better, you know, with a newvary. Like, there is no one size fits all in this, and we just need to be able to have that conversation. And the thing I'm advocating for daily is having that humility and curiosity and medicine to say, like, okay, I just owned that I used to say the pregnant alone still, and that is so wrong, is not because, like, oh, I'm a stupid person, I should feel ashamed.

And like, I think sometimes like doctors have this pressure and they feel it. No, it's because that's what we knew. But now we know better. Now we change our language. And I have no problem saying, yep, I was wrong above that. We were wrong above that. And like, this is actually what's going on.

Now we understand that. And in some ways, it's like there's this fear of like I can't be wrong. And I've watched a lot on social media where like women are just sharing their personal story. And then a doctor comes in and I get tagged in these things because they're like, Dr. Brian, what is this doctor is telling me?

This is irresponsible for you to share your story because you know this is, you know, got a harm women, you're hurting women. And it's, I'm like, women need to be able to talk freely about what happens in their body and to share their story. And I don't think that sharing your story, I just don't think anybody should be silencing women anymore. But it's almost like, I'm the doctor, I know best,

only have this conversation in my office. And in sometimes it's like, I'm the doctor, I know best, only have this conversation in my office. And in sometimes it's like, I tell you what to do and you just accept it and don't question me. Not all doctors are like that. My friends, who are medical doctors are not like that. But you know, when you hear these stories from women, it becomes very apparent why they are now so distrusting of their doctor. And that's something that like, I spend a great amount of energy trying to help women

like revive that trust, where I'm like, every single profession has people like this because they have people. You know what I mean? I can't it's like that. That like, they're everywhere. And just, it's just so intimate when it's your doctor. But maybe that's just not the right doctor for you.

But I don't want anyone listening this to think medical doctors are bad and conventional medicine is like out to get us. Like there are people who very much believe this and I'm like, yeah, you know, and that time I got bit by a dog and that medical doctor was there for me. Like I've had my life saving experiences where I'm like,

no, I love me some MDs, but we have to stop thinking that they're the holy grail of everything and start looking at a team approach in terms of medicine. So, and personal responsibility as well. That's the big one. Yeah, that's the big one is taking responsibility and ownership of your health, which some people don't want the responsibility, because it's a big responsibility. Yeah, there really is. I know this body. Yeah, yeah, I have to inform myself. I have to take care of myself. I can just do what someone tells me. Yeah. Well, the skills confusing these days too, because there's people out. I have to inform myself, I have to take care of myself, I can't just do what someone tells me. Well, the Phil's confusing these days too,

because there's people out, I mean, that is why, like, I say all the time, like, is this true for you? Like, view it through that lens, because people will be like, I'm so confused. So-and-so said cholesterol is the devil, and so-and-so said cholesterol is the best thing ever, and I don't know, and it's like, change your diet, do your labs, like, what's happening for you? Like, just test what the best thing ever, and I don't know, and it's like, change your diet, do your labs,

like what's happening for you. Like, just test what is true for you, and respect your ability to know your body. I think that's the other thing, is that we've been disempowered, and it's been, I mean, a lot in women's medicine, where it's just kind of like, oh, you silly women, your body's too complicated,

you can't understand it, and like, and so we feel like, oh, and we don't have scientifically Accurate sex education in school. So like where are we gonna get this information? And we're seeing people I mean people have taken to The internet to find this information, but there's also a lot of misinformation out there I mean, it's why I do what I do because I mean I saw this post the other day that It's post. I don't even know how you come up with it, but they were like,

teriads are unnatural and the only reason you have a period is because you're toxic and the blood is cleansing from your body and I was like, well, that's not exactly how, and I wanted to write like, and be like, who originally did this post and what state do they live in and what is it that states sex education and like,

how do we go upstream and prevent this from happening because then women on that thread were like, oh my god, I'm so unhealthy I have a period or I saw this in the paleo space. I think probably like six, seven years ago where women were like, it's really abnormal for women to menstruate as much as they do now because in paleolithic times like we were pregnant all the time or nursing and it's just like, yeah, and you died at like 30 with like 13 kids. Like I have patients who have had eight or more children and it's very, I have, I had one patient with 26 children

and it's very, very depleting on the body. Like, very depleting. No, right? She's like, in all sorts of my grandma had 18 and I'm like, that's amazing. I have one 30. Do you have a protocol as far as like, for example, someone's listening and they are somebody who is taking their labs. Yeah. And then they're making some adjustments in their diet or their routine. Do you recommend only maybe manipulating one or two variables be consistent with that for X amount of time, retest again, and then play?

Do you have a protocol? Well, it depends. And that's the thing of what makes it so difficult to have the science on a lot of natural therapies is because in nature, do you ever just get vitamin A on its own? Like no, vitamin A comes together with like a whole lot of the things. And so it's like science wants to be like the one variable and what is it effect?

I love that. I love to know these things, but when it comes to like working with the body, we need like if you're not sleeping, good luck, eat all the vegetables you want. If you're sleeping, but you're just, you're not eating any vegetables like that it's like going to be a problem. So we have to look at the lifestyle and nutrition factors together. If we're using

you know, uh, you know, certain like, uh, protocols diets, uh, therapeutic diets, um, you know, for like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and things like that, those are temporary diets and then yes, we're going to go back and and test and see how did the treatment do. And so it really just depends on what we're talking about. And that's very much what we're seeing the movement is to get away from that. Like one size fits all cookie cutter approach for everyone. And it's harder in medicine to not just be like, oh, here you're in the algorithm. I do this. And most people don't follow the algorithm. I remember when I first got into practice, and I was like, dang it, nobody's like,

why is nobody just fitting the person you get one person who fits the perfect algorithm? And you're like, yes, I know what to do. I know this. And back to your point, we covered the overtrain. We didn't talk about not exercising as well. I mean, that's something too that like, if you have someone that's, and I have seen,

I've had the patients come to me, I mean, from all different kinds of doctors who are like, I don't exercise, I don't drink enough water, I'm constipated and I have SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, I'm being treated for that over and over and over. And I'm like, but if you don't move your body,

then you don't move your intestines. And like, if you don't move your body, like if you don't move your body You actually so movement helps us convert inactive T4 thyroid hormone to active T3 And so that helps with our motility as well And so you know not exercising also means muscle atrophy Over time and everybody is always like let's do a pro, so since the disease like grandma's get, you know when it started, it actually started when you were like a teenager. Bless us all who did not.

Well, I didn't even well. I was like fast food check, crumb donuts for lunch check. Yeah, I'm just like, don't be doctor-right. But you know, in that, making sure that we are getting movement every day, it's important for muscle mass, bone health, it's important for, and when we build muscle mass,

we sensitize to insulin. Our fat cells, they are endocrine organs, so fat will release hormones as well muscle. And so, um, and again, it's them, you know, we want to vilify fat. Uh, no, we need fat, fat healthy. It's important to vilify fat. No, we need fat, fat's healthy. It's important to have body fat. You get too low on body fat. You will stop menstruating. That's a phenomenon that does happen. But, you know, in that, we want to be moving every day

because it's also going to get our endorphins up. It's going to drop stress hormones. And it's always funny. I probably said this on the last podcast of like, how often like Medicine feels like it needs a study to tell people to be human and to be an animal like they are like Oh, we have a study now that says you should sleep so now I'll recommend sleep We know a study that says you should drink water and so now I'll recommend water and it's like

Okay, so go look at what your dog does go Go look at, go look at what monkeys do. Like go look at like, like they move around. Dogs do you sleep a lot? This is something that I'm like, why don't they live longer? Keep asking myself this. I now have, I don't think I had a chihuahua last time. Did I?

No, do you have a chihuahua? Yeah, so I have had two pit bulls in my life. I'm like a pit person. Well, that's a transition. I know, like 80 pound dogs, but like we needed, so with my son's condition that he developed, and he just, he was having a bad day. I was like, let's go to the Humane Society.

We check out the, he sees the Chihuahua, the Chihuahua sees him. It's totally like running across a filled moment. And I was like, oh, texted my husband, like I'm bringing a dog home, like they're in love, like they're in love. And this Chihuahua is, I was like, oh, text to my husband, like I'm bringing a dog home, like they're in love, like they're in love, and this chihuahua is, I'm not, people, anyone have little dogs in here? Yeah, dog has one.

Yeah. Have you had a big dog before? Because everybody, yeah, dogs like no. So everybody's like, I'm like, how do I take care of this dog? Everyone's like, it's the same. It's not the same. It's like, it's totally different.

It's this, he's a deer head chihuahua. He has this long body. He's super cute, but he's like somewhere between a dog and a cat crossed with a ferret kind of action going on. But he totally, you know, he helps my kid with stress, anxiety, like the kid's anxiety, just like went away with the dog and the cuddling. Cuddling dogs, it's good for your oxytocin levels as well. So that's part of why I bring up the dog.

But also that I'm like, that dog sleeps more than my big dog did. And I'm like, what is up with dog? I went that life. But yeah, cuddling dogs, great for oxytocin, which is- Interesting fact. Rest feeding, this hormone when you have a baby as well, but I don't recommend that. It's the bonding hormone, right? Bonding hormone, love hormone, chill out hormone.

So it'll actually oppose cortisol. Too much cortisol is a bad thing. Cortisol is not bad. It modulates inflammation. It does a whole lot in our body. But you know, for instance, there's been studies to show excess cortisol in the brain, kills brain cells.

Good news is brain cells come back. It's not, so kids of the 80s, right? This is your brain on drugs and like here's this frying egg and you're like, and you that's when we were told like once your brain's damaged, just damaged forever. Ha ha, not true. Yes. All that alcohol you guys drank in college. You're okay.

You can come back from it. I wasn't saying you guys, but just you guys are listening. You're looking right. I didn't go to college. I didn't guys are listening. I didn't go to college. I didn't go to college. Lots of cake stands. Lots of cake stands. Funnels, luces, luves.

What are those called? Luch, luces. I had it right. I had it right. What is the most important nutrients that women should pay attention to? What are common nutrient deficiencies that we're finding with women in particular. Well, iron is one of the biggest ones

if you're menstruating a female because you lose it in your blood. So you menstruate and you're losing iron. What are the symptoms of having low iron? Yeah, so when we want to test iron, we want to look at a CBC, a complete blood count, which will show our hemoglobin and hematocrit. And if your iron is low, your red blood cells get very small

and you don't transport oxygen. So now you're fatigued. But before that happens, I also run a ferritin in my patients and that's the storage form of iron. So I say, that's the savings account. Your red blood cells, the CBC, that's the checking account. So they're spending your iron and ferritin's your savings account.

We know that if ferared and gets below 50, women can start to lose hair, feel anxious, restless leg syndrome is associated with this. And weird thing, beat your ear. Have you ever eaten beets and you see red urine? Yes. That can actually be an issue with not having enough iron. It's interesting.

Not in every case, but it's, iron's involved in the enzyme that actually helps break, uh, that pigment down. And iron in addition, it's also necessary for the liver to do its job. Um, so in that iron is one of the big ones that we see iron deficiency and he is actually more common. Um, then you might think so if you're ladies, if you haven't had that tested, definitely get that tested. Um, you know, all of the nutrients are super important for our health.

We don't hear about folate until we want to have a baby, but folate in D12 do a whole lot more than just making sure that your egg divides correctly. They're involved in, really, they're involved in your DNA, so it's your cellular division, but they're also involved in red blood cell maturation. So this is the tricky thing. You can have iron deficiency, but at the same time have B12 deficiency, B12 makes your red blood cells look larger, and iron makes them look smaller. And so sometimes it looks like a wash.

Like a normal, but it's together a little bit. Yeah, and you're like, I'm fatigued, and with B12, if it goes chronically low, you can have dementia-like symptoms, which we used to say, you know, like 15, 20 years ago, B12 causes irreversible neurological damage. Now we, and so people can present as if they have dementia. We always test this in like a 60 plus year old who's presenting with dementia-like symptoms, but now we know it's not irreversible.

Like the brain has a lot more capacity to heal than what we've given credit for. So that's why it's important to do the CBC, the Fairytin B12 fully, I think is great to test, but also look at your home assisting because home assisting will actually show you like how are you utilizing that fully and how are you utilizing that folate? And how are you utilizing that B12 as well? Zinc is another important one. I mean, zinc deficiency, selenium deficiency, iodine deficiency, these can result in hypothyroidism. It's very rare to actually see that

as the cause of hypothyroidism. United States is primarily autoimmune. But with that, you know, when zinc, it's low testosterone gets squirrely, immune system, not so great, gut doesn't, he repair itself so well. Selenium is an antioxidant, so really great for sperm health, but also very good for egg health as well. And, you know, really, I mean, I'm just scratching the surface, but like all of your nutrients

are super, super, super important. It's something he's named a bunch of that are found in meat. Is that where that's mostly found everything? There's a ton found in me. I know you guys are like always like vote for me over here. Number one. I feel like there's, I mean,

and what do you think about that? I feel like we're seeing the rise in veganism right now. Yeah. Like more than we've ever seen in the last two decades. And this is something that concerns us because I hear things like that. I'm like, well, you're listing off all these things and the thing I'm going to tell you, it's like a big juicy steak.

You just listen. Yeah. I mean, B12, and that's the thing, you know, B12 is going to be found primarily in animal products or fortified foods. Like, though, fortified tempeh, and we'll have nutritional yeast with it, but it's a really, really important nutrient, and it's very, very hard to absorb. And so with that, it is an interesting thing that you observe that because we've actually,

so we've had a big nanny struggle trying to find a nanny. And one thing that we've run into is vegan nannies who refuse to cook meat or handle meat or touch it at all. And I'm like my son with his condition and my help, like we need substantial protein. This is the diet that works for us. And I'm like, I'm not gonna judge your diet, but like yeah, when they're like,

I mean, it's something where it's a screening question, I would never, I've actually have hired, and that vegans come work in my house before and they've been fine handling neat. But it's something where I'm like, if you can't prepare my sun food and it's, we did do a trial with one and she was like given a peanut butter and jelly

and I was like, I never, my kids do it underneath that. Like we don't do, like that is like, do you want like basically chucky running around the house? Like that is like a blood sugar nightmare. Oh, with my kid has going on. This is the diet he needs to eat. Whenever I have had patients come into my practice, and sometimes so people, vegans and meditarians usually ask first, are you going to ask me to change my diet? And the thing I always say is, I am going to do your lab work, hear your story, go through everything,

and I'm going to present you with like what needs to happen And I need you to be open to the possibility your diet's not serving you. It may or may not be like I have patients who are Vegetarians and they thrive my mother-in-law's actually never had me in her life and she's I think No, she's in her 60s. I don't know if she cares if I gave her away her age But like on no medications super healthy like so I mean, she's in her 60s. I don't know if she cares if I gave her where I age. But on no medications, super healthy. So I mean, it's possible. But the thing that I always have with patients

is that if you're not okay with me questioning and speaking to you about your diet, and whether it's serving you, I probably won't be a good fit because in my job to educate you, you can do whatever you want. I can tell you, your ironed deficient, your B12 deficient, you need selenium,

and you get that best from seafood, and yes, you can get some from brazilinants, but we really need to get these levels up. And you're like, I don't wanna do that, I just wanna supplement, that's 100% your choice. You can do that. I personally was a vegetarian for 10 years. I had a cup of AOD, became iron deficient,

and my doctors were like, okay, you need an iron supplement. And I remember, I think I was probably like 27-28. And I was like, what, how come you're not talking about my diet? And they're like, well, you're a vegetarian. So, like, we don't want to talk to you about your diet, because like, eating me, like, that's off the table. I'm like, well, you never asked me, and also, what I'm hearing is my diet's not working for me. My fairytale, which should be like 70 to 90, was it three? I mean, single digit, that's scary. So my savings account was depleted. And my checking account was depleted as well. And so, you know, I went back to eating meat and I went out and I

ordered a buffalo burger. And I was like, oh, and then we all tell us our story. There's this story of like when you go back to eating meat, you're not gonna be able to digest it, you're gonna feel awful. It wasn't true, I actually felt better. I had more energy, but I remember like, I was like having this moment where I was like, the identity is a vegetarian, but this tastes so good

in my body and I was dreaming about it. Like I was dreaming about me. And so, you know, I changed my diet because I've always been a food first person, but that really always stayed with me. That like, my diet wasn't serving me, and my doctors weren't willing to have that conversation because they didn't wanna offend me.

And it's not about offending me. It's that, you know, your doctor, your scientist, you need to put it out there, and you need to educate the person, and you need to respect their decision. If they want to be a vegan and they want to use supplements, that's their decision. And I think part of the rise in veganism is this idea of this is how I'm going to save the planet. And the thing I get really concerned about, so as we were talking, I think we were talking about me being an urban farmer, is just how depleting

about me being an urban farmer, is just how depleting monoculture crops are to the earth and how they disrupt the microbiome of the earth and how, I mean, soy and wheat farming is not a sustainable practice, but really what, there's gonna be a documentary that I'm privy to, but I can't talk about coming out about how sustainable farming practices that actually integrate the goats and the chickens and the ducks and the cows and all of those things

and then grow produce. That's actually how we heal the planet and that's actually how we reestablish the microbiome. We take care of the local ecology in those areas. Currently in Portland, I'm watching that they're ripping down these craftsmen houses. It's breaking my heart, because then they just rip it down and they decimate the entire yard and they just build out, it's like the Bay Area.

And I'm like, what about the little ecosystem that was going on there? Why are we not? Like, I want to see vegans like actually picketing that. Like, what about, I mean in Portland, there's a whole like the Audubon society, like awards people actually picketing that. Like, what about, I mean in Portland, there's a whole, like the Audubon Society, like, awards people for keeping yards that are like, okay, you have like, you have enough diversity going on

that like, birds have a place to be, and squirrels have a place to be. And so, it's something that like, yes, food is one piece, but like, the answer is never extreme. And like, I honor what they're trying to do, but we also have to look at, now if you switch to eating processed food, that's not a better alternative for your health,

that's not a better alternative for the planet. If you're eating food that's being shipped across the continent or coming across trucks, that's also, there's other things that we can do for the planet. And that's what I'm saying, is if you're meat eater, you don't have to feel guilty about it. Support your local farmers. Farmers are the unsung heroes of health care, and they don't get enough respect.

So support your local farmers. Shop local is often as possible. You guys have a new seasons down here. My lift driver actually started one of the first new seasons. So we're having a whole conversation on the way over here Because new seasons is in Portland and they try to source everything as local as possible Yeah, it's a big chain in Portland and they keep everything, you know as close as possible But it's things like that that like if a truck didn't have to drive across the country or you know

It didn't have to come across above like what a great point yeah I mean we can we can cut down in so many ways I almost never drive and I walk like just just about everywhere I can or like I'll even do like a lift carpool kind of style thing or you know we try to group things all together at once so you know when it comes to like saving the planet I applaud everybody who's doing what they can. Because it's like, it's scary times right now. It's a complicated problem. It's a very complicated problem. Can you talk about your setup? Because we were talking about that a little bit with the chickens and then your plans in terms of like the garden on top and, you know, how you're going to have that all set up, like a sustainable

little ecosystem back there. Yeah, so what we only have chickens right now, my husband really wants to get quail. If end of day does happen on the planet, quail will probably be the best thing to go with. They turnover really fast. I just act to him, I'm like, this is just gonna be a pain

in like these little tiny words, like how much work is that gonna take? I don't know. But they do turnover really, really quick. And you can eat their eggs and you can sell their eggs for quite a bit actually. And they're delicious little eggs. Yeah, I've heard them before. They're tiny though.

Yeah, so we have the chicken coop. And then on top of the chicken coop, we built it. I didn't build it. My husband built it. So the roof we can grow. And so it's the thing that I'm considering, I'm going to grow some plants through the winter, and then I'm probably going to give up that space to pollinators next year.

So a lot of my raised beds that I have, I actually gave up a lot to the bees this year of like planting board. I eat the flowers. So I'd let them pollinate them, then they drop, then I would put, oh my God, board flowers, like on salads and a stershum, and like, and talk about like a way to show your microbiome

some diversity is like, eat the weird things that you don't see in the supermarket. We had like breakfast salads like all summer with flowers on them, and I was like, I just feel so fancy. I feel like a little fairier or something. Yeah, but you know, that's part of like me. So my son, um, he actually gets, he's not an

afflactivity swells terribly with beastings. Um, I do as well, but last time his hand swelled so bad he blistered and his skin split. So I can't keep these. I really want to keep these, but instead we, I gave up a lot for pollinators and so making sure that they had lots of flowers and things to eat in my yard. Don't cut down your dandelions and we actually have a rule in my house of like if we don't

see dandelions growing, we don't go in that grass to play because odds are it is sprayed with glyphosate. Oh, interesting. because odds are it is sprayed with glyphosate. And we now have evidence that like, you know, and all these herbicides, now we have evidence of what we've always suspected to be true, which pisses me off because it's one of those things where like the burden of proof was on the shoulders of the consumer, and that's just never right.

So my yard hasn't had any chemical spray in it in 10 years. I have an apple tree, which was why I bought it. I planted a cherry tree and I planted a pear tree, an Asian pear tree. I'm a big proponent if you're going to grow anything, grow the most expensive stuff in the grocery store. So, Asian pear is expensive, grow that. I want to have figs, but they're so messy. I'm like, I really want a fig tree, but we'll see what happens with that.

And so yeah, and then I've got how many raised beds do I have five raised beds now, which I'll grow, you know, just a variety of things. And then I barter, if you follow my Instagram, and you saw anybody, you saw my son taking a basket of apples over to the neighbors and trading them tomatoes. Because I tomatoes just did not take off like my neighbors did this year, but I had tons of apples over to the neighbors and trading them tomatoes. Because I tomatoes just did not take off like my neighbors did this year,

but I had tons of apples to trade. And so trading squash, I didn't want to, I don't like squash that much. And so I didn't want to grow squash this year. I was like, I'm over, I don't even like it. And my son went and traded pairs and apples to get some squash. And so doing things like that where, and then we have so many friends and then other families we contact to come and take the additional produce I grow. And they grow a lot of my own herbs.

So there's a whole bush of red raspberries, which is delicious, but the red raspberry leaf is a great tea. It's a uterine tonic. So if you're someone who sees brown discharge with your period, that's slow, slow, oxidized blood. If it starts out that way, maybe blood left over from your previous period, taking in red raspberry leaf, I'm not saying that's gonna fix your problems, I'm gonna make it claims here, but it is an herbal tonic to help with blood perfusion and the strength of the uterus. That's why it's given.

What did you just take the leaves and you boil them? I sometimes I'll do fresh raspberry tea, but I usually just dehydrate everything. So I have this, I was laughing, with Jordan and telling him about last time on the podcast we were making fart and poop jokes. And I made this tea with my son and it's fennel and peppermint leaf and we called it the stop farting poop jokes. And I made this tea with my son and it's a fennel and peppermint leaf

and we called it the stop farting so much. And we just dried it and we have a whole jar of it. And so same with our hops, we used to home brew. Then we figured out we were gluten intolerant and that sucked. Had a cagorator in my kitchen. And we would home brew like chocolate, coconut, stout beer, and then I'd be like,

ah, and then my husband's like, beer's why I have migraines, and I'm like, here's why I can't move my joints. Like, want one? It's a sad thing. I know, and so like anybody who's listening who's like, I don't wanna go gluten free. Oh my God, when I went gluten free,

there was like one gluten free beer on the market. It wasn't good. And gluten free bread was like a brick, like you could smash windows with it. It was awful. It's come a long way. I'm like, you posh spoiled babies now that don't wanna go gluten-free.

I didn't wanna go gluten-free. I was like, I'm not gonna be that person. And then I was like, ah. And then you became a nice person. I was like, oh, no. Do you think, I've been meaning the ass you this. Do you think coalene should be considered an essential nutrient? I've heard some debate. Yeah, yeah ass you this, do you think coalene should be considered an essential nutrient?

I've heard some debate. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we certainly need coalene. That's why we put it in prenatals. It's really important nutrient to have as part of that as well. And that's the other thing to keep in mind for everyone listening is like, prenatals are great. I definitely think if you're on birth control or you're in reproductive years and you don't

have iron access considering a prenatal, because you never know when nature will find a way. But in addition, you know, there's nutrients like, you know, phytonutrients and biopterian, you're only going to get those from leafy greens. So this is why, you know, I say you can't out supplement a poor diet or lifestyle. Like, if you don't eat vegetables, you can't just like take all the supplements. Yes, they'll help. They're meant to supplement what you're doing, not to like take over a crumb donut addiction.

I own that. That's the second time you brought the crumb donut. I know, I'm just calling myself out. And like, you know, so like nobody feels ashamed or like, because people, you know, they hear new information. And we had this tendency to be like, well, I must be bad because I did that before.

I'm like, well, you didn't know. And just to know that I'm not perfect, I was laughing with you guys that I went into the stump town in the airport today. And the barista, when I told her my name, she was like, you're the doctor from Instagram and you're on the book. And I was like, and this is why I don't lie

about my coffee habit. Because I just hate that. I hate when you're like, are like that person so cool on Instagram, and then you like need him in real life, and you're just like, you spoke cigarettes, and like, you're wet. Like I've had this cognitive dissonance moment,

and it's just like, wow, that's a trip. And I also just actually set it today on Instagram. Like social media isn't for creating the life you want. That's what real life is about. So stop putting the highlight reel on there. It's okay to be flawed, to make mistakes. And that's something that it's good to remind ourselves that we were never perfect.

And like, just the things that I did, where I'm like, I know that whenever women are like, where were you when I was 16? I'm like, where was I when I was 16? And I was like, not sleeping? Like, they're doing terrible things. I'm like, that's the reality. When you have kids though, you're like,

oh my God, if I could tell my teenage self to sleep, that is like, what I'd be saying right now. Oh, I regret all the naps that I fought when I was a kid. Oh god. Yeah, no, my son stopped napping at like 18 months and I'm like, you're gonna regret this one day. You're gonna, I'm regretting it now, but yeah, no, I think about how I thought I was so cool

because I like, I can sleep four hours and like keep going. Oh, we talk about that all the time. Yeah, and now I'm like, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Yeah, oh god, right. You think that was my mantra. Well, just, your front of the lobe

hasn't formed into like 25. So you just, you say dumb things, they come out of your mouth. I just think back to things where I think about one before I had a kid and I would like tell new moms as my patients, like, you just need to sleep more. And just, like, someone go back and just slap me. Just slap me silly for that because that was just like,

who was I condescending, Brayton? Like, what is that? You got condescending, Wonka. And that's just like, hmm, no. Well, we appreciate everything that you do. Your Instagram is very authentic. You're a very authentic person, very, very real. I don't want anyone to meet me in real life

and be like, this match, this match. Very, very real. I don't want anyone to meet me in real life and be like, this match, this match. No, you're totally like you. You present yourself the way you are. And we think you're doing a phenomenal job. We always get a great reaction for our audience. You're awesome. Yeah. We're going to do that. Thanks for coming on.

Mine pump loves you. Yeah. Well, I love you guys as well. I know. I love doing this podcast. It's so much fun. I'm like, why don't we just, well, and I don't even know we're recording. You are always welcome to come down. We gotta do more for sure.

For real though, that's like the first time I said the F word and like, I had a recording and I was so scared. Yes, yes. We're all together. We're all together. Like, I just did that woman thing. Look at, like, I'm even contracted my body. I'm like, I'm starting to squeeze my legs in,

my arms in, I make my voice super small. I'm like, oh, my God, that's so nervous about that. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin

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