Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2040: Balancing Female Hormones With Dr. Becky Campbell and Dr. Krystal Hohn

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin talk to Dr. Becky Campbell and Dr. Krystal Hohn about the value of functional medicine to address and correct imbalances in the body.  How common are hormone imba...lances and are they getting worse? (3:23) Inflammation is at the root of EVERYTHING. (14:13) Their path to functional medicine through their own health issues. (16:25) What made them decide to work together? (23:49) The most common issues they see in their practice. (24:28) The symptoms of hypothyroidism. (29:06) The explosion of Functional Medicine. (33:06) Teaching people how to be their own health advocates. (36:04) How to figure out your histamine load. (39:50) Hormones drive our behavior. (44:10) Understanding and getting to know your menstrual cycle and PMS levels. (48:20) How to support your liver. (56:03) Why they are pro-high-protein diets. (1:01:50) Making your body feel as safe as possible to lose weight. (1:05:09) Heal your gut to rid yourself of food intolerances. (1:08:43) Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Promotion: The Health Babes – Courses & Bundle **Code MINDPUMP for $50 off the courses and bundle** For a limited time only, Mind Pump listeners get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump March Promotion: “Time-crunch Bundle” (MAPS 15 Minutes, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Prime + Eat for Performance eBook ALL for only $99.99!! Health Babes Podcast Health Babes Website Health Babes Private Consulting The Health Babes’ Guide to Balancing Hormones: A Detailed Plan with Recipes to Support Mood, Energy Levels, Sleep, Libido and More  The average American eats 57 pounds of sugar every year DIM — Health benefits, dosage, safety, side-effects, and more Antimicrobial vs. Antibiotic: Which Is Best for Healing? Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources Features Guest(s) Dr. Becky Campbell (@drbeckycampbell) Instagram Dr. Krystal Hohn (drkrystalhohn) Instagram The Health Babes (@thehealthbabes) Instagram

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Alright, today's episode, we had some incredible functional medicine practitioners on the podcast. Two of our favorites, Dr. Becky Campbell and Dr. Crystal Hone. Now, they're both the hosts of the health babes podcast, also friends of ours. In today's episode, we talk about a lot of things, but we did pay special attention to
Starting point is 00:00:38 women's hormones, how to balance those out, what imbalances look like. We talked about things like gut health, histamine intolerances, and more. Great episode. By the way, they have a course that you can enroll in that will teach you essentially how to become your own functional medicine practitioner. So these courses teach you how to read labs, they teach you how to look for symptoms, and then those help direct you to solve some of your own problems. One of the first courses I've ever seen like this, it's exceptional and these women again are the best in their field. What we did is we partnered with them so we could offer you a discount. If you're interested, go to healthbabezmp.com and don't forget,
Starting point is 00:01:18 use the code MindPump. Check out what they have. You could take $50 off any of their courses, but they really do specialize in helping you help yourself. So instead of hiring somebody which can be cost you thousands of dollars, you can get one of these courses and get pointed in the right direction. And again, this stuff is totally brilliant. Once again, it's health babes mp.com. Use the code Mind Pump, get $50 off any of their courses and bundles. Again, they come highly recommended from MindPump.
Starting point is 00:01:48 This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Element. This is an electrolyte powder that goes in your water, has no artificial sweeteners, no any sweetest actually just uses stevia. And it has the right amount of sodium to propel your workouts, help you with your pumps, give you better performance, makes you feel better. It's got the right amount of sodium to propel your workouts, help you with your pumps, give you better performance, makes you feel better. It's got the right amount of sodium. Most electrolyte powders are too low in sodium.
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Starting point is 00:02:31 We took those programs, put them together in a bundle and discounted them heavily. It's called the Time Crunch Bundle. This bundle includes maps, 15 minutes, maps anywhere, maps prime, and the ebook eat for performance. This would normally cost you over $300, but right now it's only $99.99, that's it.
Starting point is 00:02:49 If you're interested, go to mapsmarch.com and get yourself signed up. All right, here comes the show. All right, Dr. Becky Campbell, Dr. Crystal Hone. I said, right, health babes. So thanks for coming on the show, Becky, you and I go back a while. Years.
Starting point is 00:03:06 Years, you help us out all the time. Yes. With stuff with the kids. I know right now you have us working with the Relius with the low histamine diet and stuff like that. So I really appreciate that. And you guys podcast is phenomenal. Thanks.
Starting point is 00:03:18 But I wanted to have you guys on to talk about a few different things. And I want to start with Hormone imbalances. I know you have a book coming out, right? It's out. No. And I want to start with hormone imbalances. I know you have a book coming out, right? It's out. No. And it's health babes. Guy to balancing or hormones.
Starting point is 00:03:31 Okay. I want to start there because hormone imbalances seem to be a big thing. Is it getting worse? Is this like a, like how common are hormone imbalances and are they getting worse? And if they are, what's the deal? What's the cause?
Starting point is 00:03:46 They're extremely common. And I think it's, you know, with all the chemicals, they're really disrupting our hormones. So you hear people say, like, this is an endocurrent disruptor. What that basically means is this product or this chemical that's in this thing are using whether it's lotion or makeup or plastic bottles,
Starting point is 00:04:08 it's actually changing your hormone levels over time. So it is, I think it's getting worse because we have so many things coming out that are making us have more and more exposure to chemicals, right? Yeah, and with endocrine disruptors, your body doesn't know the difference, right? So for example, like Xenoestrogens, which are fake estrogens and a lot of these chemicals, your body is going to take that in and it looks at it like it's estrogen, but your body
Starting point is 00:04:38 makes. So your body has to process that and if you could be choosing these more dangerous pathways and you're not clearing estrogen properly, this is where we start to see a lot of issues. How does that work? Is it that Xenoestrogens have an affinity for the estrogen receptor? Does that cause then a feedback loop with your body's own hormones? Because I know when you supplement with hormones, your body recognizes it and then produces less of that particular hormone or changes its profile. So that's basically
Starting point is 00:05:09 what's happening. Yeah, and they're binding to our estrogen receptors, basically. So, which is actually making our estrogen higher in general, which is estrogen dominance. It's something that's driving a lot of issues, even with histamine, which we'll get into in a little bit. It's one of the main drivers right now. Do they test for Xenoestrogen and endocrine disruptors? You can, there's a lot of great planes labs. I don't remember the panel, but you can look into stuff like that, but we really look at estrogen.
Starting point is 00:05:42 I mean, and we know that some of the estrogen showing up on some of the testing, it can be this estrogen dominance. And I was listening to you guys earlier talking about the decrease in testosterone. Yeah, that's like what, what, five or six decades is being going on, and it's because of the rise in estrogen. So this is, and these are, and what products are you finding these, is it plastics and? Plastics, um, air fresheners. Oh, great.
Starting point is 00:06:08 VOCs, so everything, the carpet paint, all that stuff. And then any kind of product, so lotion, because you know, your skin is our biggest organ. So, makeup, so many different things that you're used. You put on your body. If there's chemicals in it, it's going to create that, you know, estrogen and then that's going to disrupt your body.
Starting point is 00:06:32 Are there regulations on this? Because if they're everywhere, I feel like nobody's, like, I guess you could put these chemicals in and they don't test for this in that sense. They don't test to see if it, is that the deal? Yeah. Okay, so when I'm using one thing that has a potential Zenoestrogen,
Starting point is 00:06:49 I have maybe a weak effect, but it seems like this is cumulative then. Yeah, because there's so much, right? There's so many things that can do this. So we use a lot of these things. And so we see a lot of men in our practice who are, their testosterone's taint and then their estrogen is high. And they have no idea why.
Starting point is 00:07:09 And it's because of the products, or things even you're cleaning our house with can do it. What are the symptoms in women with some of this stuff? Like if someone's listening right now and they're like, okay, well, what symptoms do I look for to know if this is me? Waking, mood swings, fatigue. Especially with excess estrogen.
Starting point is 00:07:27 You can have acne, heavy periods, long cycles. This is even waking. And mitriosis. And mitriosis. Immatriosis, fibroid cysts. Estrogen dominance affects men and women. So when you're trying to work with helping the body clear estrogen, you really have to take a backward approach, meaning you have to really support the liver, right?
Starting point is 00:07:52 And you really have to dive into gut health because a lot of our estrogen is metabolized through our urine and through our stool. So if you're, it's a compiling effect, right? If you're getting in all these Zenoestrogens, you're dealing with tons of stress, you're dealing with tons of infections in the gut or you're not metabolizing properly right through that liver. It's just an accumulation in your body's reabsorbing a lot of this because we need to get rid of that hormone when we make it. So if you don't get rid of it, then it stays in the system and it continues to recirculate. You can't, yeah, they're not pooping, forget it. So it's constipation. Does that increase? Oh, bigate. You can't, yeah, they're not pooping, forget it. So it's constipation.
Starting point is 00:08:25 Does that increase? Big one. Really? Oh, yeah. OK, so if a woman has symptoms, like you mentioned earlier, acne, like, PMS is really bad, like, weird weight gain, also constipated, that's one of the first places that you'll end up looking.
Starting point is 00:08:38 Now, when somebody's in this situation, walk me through what are some of the things. Do you look at the products they're using and say, okay, stop using these products, is that the first thing you do? It's definitely a big part of it. So you've got to definitely eliminate inflammatory foods, right? That's first and foremost. So you want to assess your diet,
Starting point is 00:08:55 staying away from a lot of the sugar, a lot of process dairy, gluten is a big one. Industrial seed oils are big, so really eliminate a lot of the inflammation there. Then you wanna look at your products, right? Look at the products like the Xenoastrogen, so staying away from fragrance, parabens, phalates, things like that, BPA,
Starting point is 00:09:15 so store your food and not plastic, right? More sort of glass containers. And then you wanna really support your detox pathways, because this is a big one, because these pathways, they work so hard for us, but they get over burdened. So if you think about it, our lymph system, our liver, our bowel movements, sweating, all of these things happen without us even having to think about it, but they get over burden from stress and these chemicals and all the crap that we're exposed to, that we, that a little bit is out of our control, right, the air, all the things, right?
Starting point is 00:09:49 So we really want to take a supporting approach in that way and then to really support hormone to got to dive into gut, got to dive into gut and support liver. So do you think, because alongside with you mentioned earlier Becky the declining testosterone levels They're also along those lines. We've been seeing declining fertility rates in women Do you think those are connected and what's interesting too is now that I'm thinking about it I think they've noticed the lowering testosterone over I want to say the last five decades That seems to be when a lot of these products started to be kind of permeate the market You know when you start to see more plastics more waxes and you know That seems to be when a lot of these products started to kind of permeate the market.
Starting point is 00:10:25 When you start to see more plastics, more waxes and non-stick coatings and stuff like that started to permeate the market. So do you guys think there's connected that the drop in fertility is connected to all of this stuff? We see a lot of people with infertility and it's crazy because once we go through their products and we start working on supporting the liver
Starting point is 00:10:48 so that they can metabolize their hormones properly and then start working on their gut health. And sometimes we will order all this testing, right? So we order the gut testing, the hormone testing, all this stuff. But first, we start them on a low inflammatory diet and liver support and we have them really support their detox pathways. And before we can get to their testing, they're pregnant.
Starting point is 00:11:10 Wow. And this is people who've done IVF, they've gone through it, right? And they'll, we get these portal messages and they're like, pregnant. And we see it all the time. And we're like, wow, all we do is support your detox pathways and change your diet. What is a low inflammation diet look like? So you want to take things out like gluten and some grains can be inflammatory for people, the industrial seed oils, gluten sugar. I mean, sugar is probably the worst thing.
Starting point is 00:11:44 It's really, really inflammatory. And just really processed packaged foods that they have all these fillers in it, to keep them shelf stable, right? So we want people to eat stuff that's going to go bad if you don't eat in a couple of days or you have to freeze it. So basically lean or not even lean, I guess, but organic proteins, we're very into animal protein. Yeah. Grocery store. Right. Exactly. Stay away from the medis. Farmer's markets. Get to know your farmers. Co-ops, there's so many amazing resources out there to eat healthy. You know, does just cutting cow,
Starting point is 00:12:25 because I, so I see this in my space, right, in fitness that we notice that just by cutting calories, we see improvements in the traditional blood markers, blood lipids, triglycerides, that kind of stuff, heavily processed foods, which is a lot of what you guys are talking about, encourage overeating. I mean, they've done studies where I show, it's like, I think on average,
Starting point is 00:12:44 you'll eat 600 more calories a day Even if the macros are controlled for just because these foods are engineered to make you overeat Does just Reducing calories lower inflammation as well not always because if it's a calorie is not a calorie You know, so if you're reducing calories, but you're eating those hundred calorie snack packs No, of course not. That's gonna increase your inflammation. So it's more about getting nutrient dense foods,
Starting point is 00:13:11 like adding organ meats, just making sure your food is clean. And we really don't do calorie counting with patients for the most part. Sometimes we will, someone's really having an issue with weight, but we don't really have to. We just kind of give you like, this is the best foods to eat, and those foods tend to be,
Starting point is 00:13:31 they make you feel more satisfied, right? Because you're not eating all that sugar and process food, which makes you more hungry. So you're eating more healthy fats and protein. You're full. Like, you feel good. I just saw a statistic today, Adam pulled it up earlier, that the 100 years ago, the average American consumed a half a pound of sugar a year. Today, the average American consumes 157 pounds of sugar a year. So essentially, a half a pound of sugar a day. So we went from half a pound a year to half a pound a day. So she massive difference in the amount of sugar
Starting point is 00:14:08 that we consume, which has got to play a role in some of the stuff. You were talking about gut health. Let's get into that. So I've had gut issues for a long time. We all have. Well, you know, you're right. It's just super, super common.
Starting point is 00:14:23 Where's some of the first places you look when somebody comes to you and says, you know, I have constipation bloating. Yeah, we do a stool test. So we look to see in the large intestine, do you have an imbalance of good bacteria to bad bacteria, which is called dysbiosis? We look to see, do you have yeast overgrowth? Do you have parasites?
Starting point is 00:14:42 Do you have HPYLORI, which is a certain type of bacteria, which is actually pretty common. We see it a lot. Do you have leaky gut, which is extremely inflammatory? So we look at all those things and what happens when you have those things is that, certain types of bacteria create inflammation in the body. So inflammation in the body causes you to get inflammation as a root of everything. So it causes you to gain weight. It causes your hormones to go off balance. It causes your pituitary gland, which is kind of like the control center to like telling all the other glands what to do.
Starting point is 00:15:20 It causes that not to function properly. So you really have to make sure that it's like adding fuel to a fire, right? So, if you have bacteria that's creating more histamine, let's just say for an example, which histamine is inflammatory chemical. So, we need histamine, but we don't need excessive amounts of histamine. So, if you have too much bacteria, which is making you produce more histamine, then you're going to have these issues. And the same thing with Candida, which is a yeast overgrowth, and the same thing with parasites, like they're all making you very inflamed. And you're, you know, 70% of your immune system is in your gut. Yeah. So it's going to affect you in so many different ways.
Starting point is 00:16:07 And then there's like the, the gut brain connection and the gut skin connection. It's all so related to the gut. Yeah, when my gut's off, my mood is different. Oh, yeah. And definitely I'm more irritable. I feel like slightly depressed, I would say. It definitely makes that.
Starting point is 00:16:24 So let's, I want say. It definitely makes that. So let's, I want to back up for a second. I, in my experience when I've met functional medicine practitioners, the vast majority of them came to functional medicine because of their own struggles with trying to figure out their own health issues. Like they went through the traditional route, couldn't figure it out, had to do their own reading,
Starting point is 00:16:44 had to do our research, had to, you had to meet with different people, eventually figured it out after years, and that took them down that path. Did both of you? Is that really? Oh, no. I mean, I was sick. I mean, there was a time when I was living in mold, I could not drive my kids to school. I couldn't walk to the bathroom by myself. It was, I thought, I honestly didn't care if I was alive anymore. And the only reason I did is because of my kids. It was that bad.
Starting point is 00:17:13 So. And you didn't know you couldn't figure out what it was for a long time or? Well, I have such a nose for mold. So I thought for sure I would know if I was living in mold. And I had, this was like, So I thought for sure, I would know if I was living in mold. This was after I'd already been doing functional medicine.
Starting point is 00:17:31 So I had gone into functional medicine because I had a thyroid issue that nobody could diagnose. And then I figured that out with another functional medicine practitioner, I got a lot of help to a lot better. Then I started knowing there was some symptoms left and that was mass-hell activation syndrome and causing histamine intolerance. Okay, then I learned that whole picture and I felt great. And then all of a sudden, there was a couple things. One was a very stressful environment I was living in, which was really making me very sick.
Starting point is 00:18:09 And then was the mold picture. So mold happened right around the same time. And those two things together, I mean, I literally thought I was dying. So I did start helping people before this, but that made me get really, like, really serious about this and start talking about, you know, other things, and that's why we talk a lot about mold, because we know how terrible it is when we see a lot of patients who have
Starting point is 00:18:37 the, it's ruining their lives. How did you, how did you end up figuring it out? You got to have someone come in. Well, I actually had my breasts and plans removed because I thought I had breasts and plan illness. I thought I did all the testing on my gut. My hormones, everything was fine. And I'm like, what is going on with me? I felt like I was drunk every day when I woke up.
Starting point is 00:18:56 And I had the worst brain fog. I mean, I literally felt like I was walking around in a constant dream. She couldn't see patients. I couldn't see patients anymore. I couldn't drive. I literally, this was five years ago, maybe. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:11 So, and then, and then I, and then so I got my rest and plans out. And I ended up moving into a different room of the house. And the mold was in the room. I was sleeping in it was coming. There was a crack in the concrete. Water had gotten in and it was forming this perfect nest of mold because there was a picture underneath the bed and the water was coming up through the floor
Starting point is 00:19:37 and creating this just perfect environment. So I couldn't smell it. So I was sleeping in this bed every night. So anyway, after I had my breast and plants taken out, I moved into another room for recovery because the bed was like reclining, you know, whatever. And I was like, wow, this surgery, this is so... This is it, you know, like this was...
Starting point is 00:19:57 Oh my gosh, it totally came from what you thought. Yes, no, no, it was, I thought it was the breast and plant. That's what I need, you know, from that, but that was wrong. But it wasn't no, yeah, it was I thought it was the breath. That's what I need. Yeah, but that was wrong, but it wasn't it. Yeah, so then I so then we went to move the bed to get a different bed. We picked the bed up and the smell was insane. And I was like, oh my gosh. And we left it the picture and just black mold. Oh my gosh.
Starting point is 00:20:22 Over. So I had to move out, remediate, I mean, all that. And then I was great. Wow. So do you find people who have mold issues? I mean a lot. A lot of people. And the symptoms of that are like what you said, brain fog and it can be for some people like congestion, trouble with breathing. They get like that kind of stuff going on. but other people, it's really bad brain fog, really bad fatigue, body aches. You just feel kind of sick and like you have to feel it. Can you test someone for more? You have to go to a house and test it. Okay.
Starting point is 00:20:53 Nope, we test the body first because it's cheaper. I mean, it really is. But then, you know, you want to make sure that someone's out of the environment too, because a lot of people will go, well, I lived in a wet basement, you know, when I was a kid and we don't know is it from that or you are currently living in it. So we do both.
Starting point is 00:21:13 Yeah. Okay. Well, and then, Crystal, how about you? Did you, what brought you into functional medicine? Did you have your own? Oh, yeah. I went through so many hormonal, it was a hormonal cascade. Remember that back?
Starting point is 00:21:24 Yeah. So many hormonal, it was a hormonal cascade. Remember that back? Yeah. So, you know, going through grad school, right, was stress on the body and then having kids and opening up businesses and all the things, my hormones were just crazy after I had declin. So I started doing some testing. I'm like, something has, you know, I have to do something. I was gaining weight, my face was breaking out.
Starting point is 00:21:45 I was feeling like I was jumping out of my skin, like rage almost, which was not like me. And at least not hurt my personality at all. So I was like, what is going on? So I started doing testing and testing and sure enough, I had estrogen dominance, I had higher testosterone, and I also had gut infection. So once I really honed in the stress aspect
Starting point is 00:22:08 really worked on these drivers, a lot of these symptoms went away, right? And that's when I was like, I gotta help people. I gotta do this. So, so. And you were like, I'm going in this direction. And how long ago was this for you? This was years ago.
Starting point is 00:22:20 It was probably 10 years ago. What, 10 plus years ago. Yeah, 10 years ago. Did you guys know each other back then? Yeah, yeah. We were all together. Oh, you did. But we weren't close then.
Starting point is 00:22:29 Now, she graduated earlier than me. And then I graduated. And then we connected after kids. And then the rest of us is not good enough now. Do you guys find more women seek out functional medicine practitioners? Oh, yeah. And the reason why I asked that, the way is because of moms. Yeah. Moms with their kids, they just, they, you know, they really
Starting point is 00:22:51 pay attention. They notice changes and differences. I see this with my wife. And she's very much on it. Like we got to figure out this root issue or whatever. So you guys see a lot more. We do because women are a lot more in touch with their feelings. If they feel something, they acknowledge, okay, this is off. And I think a lot of men have been taught from a young age to get up and dust yourself off and don't cry and you're fine. So even when we have this metabolic assessment form that we do in everybody, and it's a zero to three, zero is the best, three is the worst.
Starting point is 00:23:23 And men are like zero, zero zero one zero zero. Women are like three three three three two zero three three three like it's so funny. Yeah, that's like a key like okay, but like this is man or the man version. The wives will fill it out for the husband's and show up on the appointment. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:40 The wife's call to make the appointments a lot of the time. Unless it's a cold, if we get a cold, it's weird. Yeah, like a dying. And it's like, you're just like, so what made you guys decide then to work together? Your podcast is great, by the way. People should check it out.
Starting point is 00:23:54 It's really entertaining and also quite informative. What made you guys decide then to work together? Well, I had my practice and she had a practice. And I really needed another doctor on my practice. She was like, Christ, I was like, you're at least she's so good. I'm like, you're the only person I trust with my patients. Come to me. And I was like, and we talked 20 times a day,
Starting point is 00:24:15 so let's just do this together so we do. And it worked out really well. How many doctors you guys have now in the practice? Two doctors and other practitioners. Okay. We're working on getting more in there though because it's busy. What's the most common issue that you're seeing people come see you for? Well, first off, I would imagine the average patient that you get has probably gone through
Starting point is 00:24:36 all the traditional medicine, you know, Western medicine routes. It seems like, in my experience, it's like functional medicine is like the last stop. Like, okay, I tried this, I tried that. So, but what's the, what's the most calm and I guess issues that you guys see? Has to mean intolerance because of my books. And thyroid, because my first book is on thyroid. But we see everything. And we work with everybody. It's really an all the thing
Starting point is 00:25:01 with functional medicine is it doesn't matter what you come to us for. We're gonna look for the root period. And we're gonna look at your gut, we're gonna look at your hormones. Do blood problems? And then we're gonna do a really full blood panel and then we're gonna maybe do some other stuff too,
Starting point is 00:25:16 depending on the person. Do you, do you functional medicine practitioners have a different, because when I go get blood panels done, I know what the lab core range says or whatever. Do you guys have a different range that you look at? Absolutely. So what are some of the differences that you? Thyroid is biggest. So the thyroid
Starting point is 00:25:35 panel is notoriously known for being way too wide. So we're, you know, we're looking at like thyroid stimulating hormone. it might be like, what, a point five to a four point five in conventional medicine and with us, it's one to two. So if we have patients where it's flagged, I'm blood working like with my docs, that it's all good. Or there'll be like a four, a TSH will be a four, and they said it's fine. They said it's fine. No, let's start. What are the ranges based off of then?
Starting point is 00:26:07 Is it just off of averages? Is that what they're based off of? It's off of averages, but you're thinking this is average The people who don't have fiery issues, right? That's how they do it. So that's not accurate And so and then and then they will do only a T4 free, which doesn't really make sense because T4 has to be converted into T3 to be used in the body, and they're not checking T3, which is the most active form of thyroid hormone. So they could have normal T4, but because it's not getting converted, they have... T3. They basically have low thyroid.
Starting point is 00:26:43 Or we're looking at the antibodies. So we're looking to see, do you have antibodies against your thyroid gland, whether it's causing you to have graves disease, which is a form of hyperthyroidism, or do you have Hashimoto's disease, which is a form of hypothyroidism, two little thyroid hormone, which we see. It's a lot more common to have Hashimoto's with the low thyroid than it is to have graves. So they, you know, those markers can come in years before you will see a change in the thyroid hormone levels. Because what's happening is your body is attacking itself of the thyroid gland, which is making you produce less thyroid hormone. And so if you just have the antibodies,
Starting point is 00:27:28 but you haven't had it long enough to have the thyroid hormone reduced, you're not going to catch it. Right. So we see people whose thyroid hormones look good, but their antibodies are out. And we know right away, which is by the way, a gut issue, because that's where the immune system is. Oh, so back up for a second. So, so, if you have creating thyroid antibodies, that's a form of autoimmune. Exactly. So your body is tagging the thyroid gland
Starting point is 00:27:53 as its place of attack. Okay, so it's like autoimmune is typically, your immune system attacking you, your own body. So it's attacking the thyroid, and usually the root of that, or quite commonly the root of that, is the gut. So it's attacking the thyroid and usually the root of that or quite commonly the root of that is the gut. So you fix the gut, do you often see these thyroid antibodies drop?
Starting point is 00:28:11 We can. And we don't chase thyroid antibodies only because with the thyroid things go up and down. It does. It does. Stress can intact it. So many things can happen. Foremons in general on blood, they go up and down, up and down. So we don't go, well, you feel great, but your antibodies aren't better. You're not better. You really have to manage the thyroid to look at, rerun your panels, full panels to see where
Starting point is 00:28:35 your antibodies and stuff. And so we're trying, if we catch someone in the phase where their thyroid hormones aren't low, but their antibodies are high. We're like, this is awesome. We change the diet, we work on the gut, we work on all the other hormones too because they all work together. And then a lot of the times
Starting point is 00:28:54 it never even turns into hypothyroidism. So that's what the difference with functional medicine is. We're looking at just a little bit deeper and we're trying to catch things before they become a pathology. What are some of the symptoms of these thyroid issues that someone may have that before their thyroid looks real crazy on a panel? Like just fatigue, waking.
Starting point is 00:29:15 Waking is huge, hair loss, fatigue. Constipation. Constipation because you have to think so the thyroid is in charge of metabolism, right? So if your thyroid gland is under functioning, everything's gonna slow down. So you're gonna slow down that motility too. So a lot of people get constipated and then their hair falls out and they start gaining weight.
Starting point is 00:29:37 They're really fatigued. They're really cold because there's circulations off like they're not, and then the opposite. Wow, wait a minute. So somebody who's like, I'm gaining weight, it kind of weird. Yep constipated and I'm really cold Yeah, I mean those are all like red flags for the ins and feet. Yeah, oh interesting Now you said constipation earlier could affect how you get rid of estrogen Do you see estrogen dominance often with an issue like this then? Yep
Starting point is 00:30:00 And you're and the more when you have more estrogen it makes your Thyroid more present like to your immune system. So it actually will make your immune system attack your thyroid. Like a positive feedback loop. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So so what's interesting about this is is obviously all the hormones communicate with each other and they all influence each other. So somebody who goes and just takes thyroid or just goes and supplements with the hormone Somebody who goes and just takes thyroid or just goes and supplements with a hormone could actually be just kicking the can down the road or making things worse because. So many. So much worse because especially if you don't know how you metabolize estrogen.
Starting point is 00:30:37 So this is what we see a lot. We see people taking estrogen replacement, but their doctor never checked the way they metabolize estrogen, which is the testing that we do on the Dutch test. It looks at the different pathways that we use to metabolize estrogen. So they may not know they have an issue there, and they may just see low estrogen, but we see, yeah, maybe their estrogen's low,
Starting point is 00:31:01 but they're metabolizing it on the wrong pathway. And that's a problem with the liver and or the gut. And they're not supporting that. So they're just giving them more estrogen and that estrogen is getting metabolized down the wrong pathway. It's not good. So a Dutch test is really good. It's a urine test.
Starting point is 00:31:19 That's the one you do all day long, right? It's a five times a day. Yeah, five times a day. So you're assessing throughout the day. I was going to say, do you do that because of the fluctuating levels of... Absolutely. day long, right? It's a, yeah, it's five times. Five times. Yep, five times the day. So you're assessing throughout the day. I was going to say, do you do that because of the fluctuating levels of... Absolutely. Because your hormones are pulse.
Starting point is 00:31:30 The brain signals your hormones to be pulsed. So there's a time and a place to check certain hormones and blood work, right? But we really love the Dutch test because it's showing an average of how you're producing your hormones throughout the day. And specifically hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA, cortisol, right? So and then it's showing us how you're breaking them down and metabolizing them. So you can't get that in blood work. So so many times we get these certain hormones back in blood work and it's just giving you
Starting point is 00:32:02 a little piece of the puzzle. And if you're not testing at the correct time, that's another thing. Because you tell you when you're a cycle or it's passed when you get blood work. And it's important, you got to know where you are in your cycle. Well, that was just going to ask that. And also, like I know with testosterone and men, it peaks in the morning, it starts to drop off. I know cortisol is supposed to be highest in the morning.
Starting point is 00:32:20 Yeah. So you could go get a test, the traditional one. It's a snapshot. Exactly. And maybe that snapshot just so happens to be within range, but you don't know that the rest of the day, like maybe cortisol, you test it, and it seems low, but it was at night,
Starting point is 00:32:35 but they don't know that, or it seems high, but it was in the morning. Right. So you need to have something that's done. Is a Dutch test not what you would normally get from your doctor? You got to ask for it specifically? Yeah, functional medicine doctors, or practitioners. Are they moving in
Starting point is 00:32:48 that direction? Or they just not? I haven't seen it. Yeah, just because people will say, you know, I showed this test to my doctor and she just didn't know how to read it or he, you know, whatever. And I'm like, okay, yeah. And it's just, you know, it is what it is. But, yeah, I haven't seen a big shift yet that way. You know, I, when I years ago, I'd say maybe, it's gonna be at least 15 years ago now. I had a wellness studio and I heard about functional medicine and I remember at one point,
Starting point is 00:33:16 I looked for functional medicine practitioner and I couldn't find one. This was 15 years ago. It was really, really hard to find one. Now it's much more common. Has your guys' space just been exploding? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:29 I love it. It's awesome, because it's really, in this, I mean, I feel like functional medicine really is blowing up, because people are curious. They're sick and tired of feeling my crap, right? And not getting answers. Yes, and not getting answers, or being just, you know, gas-lighted, or, you know, all these
Starting point is 00:33:46 different things from docs when they don't feel good, they want to get to the root of what's going on, right? And that's where functional medicine is amazing. So there's so many practitioners out there, you know, that we support them. That's what we have on our podcast because we're like, everybody needs this, you know, we want everyone to know whether you work with us or somebody else, you need this. Yeah, you said gaslighted. That's such a good term because my experience
Starting point is 00:34:12 with my gut health issues is like I went and they tested different things like, well, you're fine. Right. No, I'm not. I don't feel good. They make you feel like you're going crazy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:21 And you can't figure out what's going on. Well, and they're trained a little bit differently, right? So of course we need them for specific things like I can't do a colonoscopy on somebody I can't do an endoscopy on someone so of course It's beautiful when we have this synergistic relationship, right? Where I you know when they have their primary and they work with us because there's a time and need for everything But it's true. They just don't know how to do the functional testing or how to read it. They're not trained in it.
Starting point is 00:34:51 And that's okay, right? But I'm hoping it's going to get better. Yeah. One thing I like about what you guys do, your space and also specifically about you guys, is it's very empowering versus traditional Western medicine feels very disempowering. Whereas you guys are like, look, let's help you figure this out. Let's work together to figure out the root cause. And it feels good to go down that path to figure things out versus being like, well, this looks okay. I think it's all in your head type of deal.
Starting point is 00:35:21 We're given an antidepressant, which happens more times than I'd like to do. Symptom relief. Oh yeah, or it's in your head type of your... We're given an antidepressant, which happens more times than I'd like to see. Simptum relief. Oh yeah, or it's in your head. They're like, no, you're fine. Take the antidepressant, which is what I was told, when 15 years ago, when I was figuring out, or 20 maybe at this point years ago,
Starting point is 00:35:37 when I was trying to figure out my issues, and I was like, take the antidepressant, I'm not depressed, I don't feel well. Like something's wrong with me. And they're like, nope, you look good on the outside and I'm like, great, I don't feel right. Yeah, the symptom, anxiety's probably another one. Oh, huge.
Starting point is 00:35:57 Energy, a little energy here, try this and you'll feel better when there's really kind of a root. Yeah. Issue of what's going on. You guys put something together, I thought this was fascinating, where you're actually trying to teach people how to figure some of the stuff out on their own. What motivated you both to do that? Because I think this is the first time I've seen anything like that from your space.
Starting point is 00:36:20 Yeah, it was, it's really, you know, we practice one on one with patients. So we are in the trenches, right? And not everybody can work with a practitioner. And that's what it breaks our heart, you know, so we really wanted to provide something where we can teach you how, we, we, we can break down testing, teach you how to support your body, provide you with the tools that you need and Support your body with where you are at. So we really created a program to do that and we're excited about it What's the tell me about the quiz Becky were telling a little bit about this quiz like questionnaire What are you helping people figure out through this quiz process?
Starting point is 00:37:02 So we want you to try to figure out where could this be stemming from, right? So you take a quiz and the quiz is broken down into the guide, the hormone, blood sugar, thyroid, electrolyte, sex hormone. So it's broken down really a lot. And then you can go, wow, I have a lot of high points in this area. And if I can't afford to do everything, which is again, why we wanted people to be able
Starting point is 00:37:34 to do it kind of at home, this is where I'm going to focus on. Like let's say you got a lot of stuff in the gut. Then you're like, this, I'm going to do, you know, the test I'm going to order, and I'm going to buy this module, and I'm going to learn how to, like, see what my test results mean and how to help support this. So that's kind of where the quiz comes in. And if you need to pick it up, do it in pieces, you know, that's where the quiz comes in. Is this similar to what you would ask a patient when they come in?
Starting point is 00:38:03 Is it the same quiz that we work with one on one. We just put it in the program too. Okay, so I'd go on there, I'd fill it out, and then based on my answers or my scoring, I would be like, oh, okay, I know I feel like crap, but based off of this quiz, this is directing me in hormone imbalance, or just directing me in.
Starting point is 00:38:22 So then I can go and look a little deeper. Right, and then you're gonna, and the program that the quiz comes with is gonna go through all of that as far as teaching you, but then to test it and to get a protocol, you can do one of the extra courses, which are, you know, hormones or mold or the microbiota or heavy metals, like it's we broke it down so that you can say,
Starting point is 00:38:45 I wanna do all of it or you can go, I can't. So I'm gonna just focus on this one thing which seems to be the worst. You know what's interesting about this is that you may think you have an issue. I learned this from you back here working with, because you've been a friend for a while now and you're always so gracious anytime,
Starting point is 00:39:02 Jess got on it or I text you, you'll look, answer questions for us. And you know, you may have, for example, gut issues, gut health issues or think that's the root and you'll think, okay, we'll take a probiotic or eat yogurt, but if it's like a histamine issue, then that actually makes it worse. And so it's like, it's really important to figure this out because you could actually do something, think this is the right thing, but actually go in the wrong direction. I wonder especially when it comes to histamine, it's like all the things we're taught are really
Starting point is 00:39:33 good for you are high in histamine like avocados, fermented foods, bone broth. So people do a whole 30 or whatever and they go, well, I got really bad when I did this. And it's not that the food isn't good for you, it's too much histamine. You can't break it down. What's histamine used for in the body? It's used. So if we have like a pathogen or an allergen, our body, our mass cells, which are part of the immune system, released all these different inflammatory chemicals, histamine is one of them. So it will cause inflammation in the body
Starting point is 00:40:07 and that way your white blood cells can come in and find the pathogen and do what it's supposed to. Then you're supposed to break down that histamine. If you are lacking the enzymes to break down histamine or you, and there's a lot of things that cause you to lack those enzymes, like gut issues, and then you can't. And so- Just sits in your body?
Starting point is 00:40:28 Yeah, and then you have receptor sites all over the body. So you get all these random symptoms. You can have, we have a lot of mast cells in our skin. We have mast cells in the brain. We have, you know, some people, some in the digestive system. So some people will have a lot of digestive distress. Some people will have hives or flushing or, you know, any dermatitis, stuff like that. Some people will have anxiety and somnia because histamine is very excitatory to the brain. So they try to go to sleep, they're wide awake. And it's because that, especially over the day, your histamine's building up if you're not breaking it down, so they can't sleep. So it has a really good purpose.
Starting point is 00:41:11 It's just that when we can't break it down, that's the problem. So I notice for me when my gut health is really bad, I do get like really minor, but I do get hives. Oh yeah. So that's just because I'm not breaking down the histamine. And because you're probably producing bacteria, or you have bacteria there that's making more histamine
Starting point is 00:41:31 in your body, then the enzyme that's made in that lining of the gut is broken, it's not working well, which is the DAO enzyme. So you're not breaking down that histamine. And so you may be more active in your skin. like your mastlesinarous skin may be really active. So for you, your symptom is high. So I'm just throwing this out there.
Starting point is 00:41:52 Would it a simple way to be like, well, maybe it's a histamine issue. Let me take an antihistamine if my symptoms get better, or is that not? No, it's a good thing. It's a good thing. Yeah. And also, when you take an antihistamine number one, it tells your body you have enough histamine. I'm sorry, it tells your body you don't have enough histamine. So you produce more.
Starting point is 00:42:10 So you produce more. Oh, well that's so. Number two, it breaks down. It reduces that enzyme that breaks down histamine. Oops, okay. So, yeah. So the best way to test it is to eat high histamine foods. So fermented foods, yogurt, alcohol, I mean, how many
Starting point is 00:42:26 people flush when they drink alcohol? How best it is? That's the best way to test. What about how many people's nose runs when you're eating? That is usually due to high-histamine food and you're not breaking it down well. So, sourd foods, strawberries, avocado, dried fruits, like those types of things. And I have a whole list in my books and on my website and we have it in the program too. We have different scenarios for what type of food
Starting point is 00:42:52 you're being eating. Anyway, you test that, let's say for a week, even a couple days, because some people are like, wow, I feel terrible, right? So your current symptoms increase, or you get new symptoms with those foods. Then you take them out and you feel a lot better. You have a histamine intolerance. Well, now, do you, is a low histamine diet the solution or is that just the, the, until you figure out the solution? Yeah, it helps a lot because we were reducing that histamine load.
Starting point is 00:43:25 But we talked about that histamine bucket and we talked about this actually on the episode I was on with you years ago. And it's the different things like estrogen dominance because estrogen actually makes us release more histamine, stress, mold, gut infections, thyroid issues, vitamin deficiencies. Those things fill up this bucket. You try to add a high histamine food on that top of that bucket. You can't handle it. So we work what Functional Medicine does is work to get through that bucket.
Starting point is 00:43:57 Check those things off the list. We cleared that, cleared that. And then you can start adding the food back. And you might not add every food back, but chances are you're going to add a lot back. Do you guys see a lot of women who come to you after getting off birth control? Because I obviously birth control hormones, and I would imagine if you take them, obviously we'll change your hormone profile. When women get off, do they oftentimes have a tough time getting their bodies to
Starting point is 00:44:26 re-regulate? They do. So, oftentimes a lot of women come to us wanting to get off birth control, right? So, that's when I'm like, okay, we really need to support all the areas of your body so we can make your body feel as safe as possible, and to support your body so you can feel better coming off of it, right? But it takes time. It takes time because once that brain to ovary connection, you're not ovulating on
Starting point is 00:44:52 birth, you know, on most birth control. So when you're not ovulating, it's going to take time for your cycle to really start to regulate again. And you can have a lot of surges of hormones depending on what other things you're going through. And if your gut health isn't in check, if your diet isn't in check, it just is a cascade event, right?
Starting point is 00:45:12 So birth control is a big, it's a big, big thing that we see in the practice causing issues with patients. So your goal is let's get you healthy, as healthy as possible, why you go off because you might even handle this change. Yeah, because there is a time and place to, you know, there's some patients who are dealing with extreme endometriosis. A lot of
Starting point is 00:45:32 issues like that. And if they've exhausted all options, sometimes getting on that support can be helpful. It can just for symptoms. I am not like against all things, right? There is a time and place, but it's thrown around like candy and it's dangerous, you know, especially for young kids. The young kids are exemplically induced menopause. Yes. So you're 13 year old on it because she has acne and that's what you're doing with her hormones and we do the Dutch task and their hormones are gone. They're not showing up. How crazy is that? How many times we use medications off label? Birth control, prevent getting pregnant.
Starting point is 00:46:09 Oh, look at my clear upper skin. Oh, look at my changer mood. Hey, look, you know, do this other thing. Have you guys seen the studies? I brought this up a long time ago, but there's more of them now coming out. Have you seen the studies on women who meet their partners on birth control? People talking about this
Starting point is 00:46:26 and then they get off birth control. And they're not attracted to them. No. Yeah. It's wild. It's wild. Isn't that wild? I know. Oh, it's so good. I, in fact, I heard this woman. There was this one article I read and this woman said that she met this guy. She was on birth control. fell in love with him, whatever loved how much he's like, what he smelled like. One off birth control hated. Was not attracted to his smell and was not attracted to. Yeah, it's wild.
Starting point is 00:46:53 It's so crazy. And there's studies on women on birth control, not birth control. And they'll take pictures of men, their faces, and they'll digitally masculineize the face or feminize. So it's the same face, more feminine version, more masculine version. And when they're on birth control, they prefer the more feminine version. When they're off of it, they prefer the more masculine version. So how interesting.
Starting point is 00:47:16 So it's funny, you know, like foremost drive our behaviors. Oh, it does. For sure. Is the point of the whole thing. Yes. So you guys, you guys must see some pretty interesting changes in people's, I guess, behaviors and personalities when they balance hormones out.
Starting point is 00:47:31 That's true. Would they feel different in their acting a little different? They tend to feel better. Better. They go through a little period where they feel maybe worse than they get off. And then think, you know, calm down and we work with their pathways or whatever,
Starting point is 00:47:45 you know, we're doing and then they feel a lot better. You really have to take a person to person depending on what their body is going through. You know, they're under a lot of stress and they have a lot going on. I mean, if you take them off birth, if they want to come off birth control, that's their choice, right, for their body. You have to be careful with that. I mean, as you could just send them into a cast kid. So I'm wanting to make their body feel safe as possible, right? Supporting and figuring, okay, like what is going on within your body right now? How can we support and get you, you know, optimally functioning
Starting point is 00:48:15 the best as you can? And then we can do that. So, uh, so with, when it comes to hormones with people and you're looking at how they drive people's behaviors, you guys talked about, you mentioned PMS a couple times. What is normal PMS and what is not normal PMS? Oh my goodness. Because I feel like obviously, you know, watch TV shows and movies and you see the caricatures and the stereotypes or whatever. And then I hear, well, you're not supposed to have symptoms like that. It's like, what's normal? Yeah. So it's very normal to have, to know, first off,
Starting point is 00:48:50 I always recommend women, especially, to track their menstrual cycle, get to know your menstrual cycle of different phases of white. The different phases. To feel. Yes. Because you can utilize, you know, your workouts, depending on the phases that you're in.
Starting point is 00:49:06 You're going to feel more confident in different phases. And you can really map your cycle and know, okay, this is a normal feeling that I'm experiencing, right? So when you talk about PMS, a little bit of cramping, a little bit of moodiness before your period is completely normal. But if this is a very life changing event for you, like it- Like de-apilitating, I'm not gonna say home for work for school. Yeah, there is something underlying going on. So I definitely recommend anybody listening here,
Starting point is 00:49:36 talk to your doctors, definitely get to the bottom of that, but work with a functional doc that really knows hormones. Really knows hormones, knows what to look for, how to support your cycle, and how to work with hormones in general, functionally, right, with the testing. What are common issues with PMS where you're like, okay, this is something we need to look at.
Starting point is 00:49:56 Heavy periods. So heavy periods, clots, really long cycles, really short cycles, really bad pain. Oh yeah, pain is a big one. Especially when I see a lot of pain or pain during sex, you know, you got to really think, okay, what else could be going on here? Am I dealing with any cysts, fibroids,
Starting point is 00:50:14 endometriosis type things? So anything extreme, right? But the pain is a big one. How often is it, because we've talked about gut health and I keep hearing, every time I talk to a functional medicine practitioner, I talk about how that's quite often the root cause is coming from the gut, and you guys have talked about how it can cause estrogen
Starting point is 00:50:33 dominance, we're talking about PMS issues. How often would you say, no, this is on an individual basis, but generally speaking, how often are those symptoms coming from gut issues? Because the gut, really? Yeah, that and supporting the liver, really supporting, especially with estrogen and cycles. You really looking at your progesterone estrogen ratio,
Starting point is 00:50:55 especially for women. And yeah, you got to support the gut. You got to make sure you're babying and taking care of that liver, supporting that phase one phase two, which the Dutch test looks at. So if anybody's interested in wanting to really do a deep dive, that is the test for you because it's, you're going to know, okay, what do I need to be supporting, you know, as far as nutritionally, what do I need to be supporting as far as co factors, right, for helping a lot of that detoxification? factors for helping a lot of that detoxification. How do I, you know, am I clearing properly, right? Am I, do I have a healthy phase one? Am I blocked somewhere?
Starting point is 00:51:32 So you, it's very specific to the person and there's so much you can do to help, you know, to metabolize your estrogen. But if you don't know, you know, you can just go out and take a bunch of supplements you hear from someone on Instagram and you can make the problem worse. Like DIM is a big supplement we see overused for the wrong people. And that helps. So DIM is that reduce it or a form up it's in the cruciferous veggies right but it's a larger compound when you supplement with you get a larger doses. Yeah you have to eat a lot of broccoli.
Starting point is 00:52:13 Right. You don't go eat a bunch of broccoli like that you're going to feel like crap. So what it does is it really in phase one estrogen metabolism we have three different phases. We have a 208, a 408, and a 16OH. What happens is we want to favor mostly that 208 protective pathway, and that phase one estrogen metabolism, 408 and 16OH is more proliferative and inflammatory. What DIM does? It pushes you more so out of that, those pathways, favoring more of that two-oh-age pathway, right? And then we got to go on to phase two. But, you know, once we get you favoring the healthier pathway, then we got to get you
Starting point is 00:52:56 clearing that estrogen. So what does your phase two look like? What does your gut look like, right? So, yeah, you want to be careful. I was just going to say, when would DAM be a bad idea then? Because if you, first of all, it can really move the needle on estrogen numbers. So if estrogen is high, you might consider dim. But if estrogen is not high, but your pathways are off, it doesn't mean that you need to take dim. It means that you just may need some sulforophain. So, sulphur fain is really good at helping with the pathways, but not lowering
Starting point is 00:53:31 the needle on estrogen. And we have a gene that helps us metabolize estrogen. If that gene is, that enzyme is slow, and you take them, you're going to feel bad. So, you're going to start to feel, we have, you know, people who come to us on it're gonna feel bad. So you're gonna start to feel, we have people who come to us on it and they feel worse. And that's because that's the comp teaching. So if that enzyme is slow and they take them, they won't feel well.
Starting point is 00:53:55 So they'd be a better person to take cell for a pain instead. So that's what we try to teach. Like we get that detailed in our program. Like teaching people don't take this. This is not right for you, but this would be better for you. Well, yeah, it's like if you have, you know, you could have certain symptoms
Starting point is 00:54:12 and it'd be too much of a nutrient, but it may look similar to having too little of that nutrient. Then you supplement with that nutrient. I had an aunt that's actually happened to where she was having peripheral neuropathy. So she was having like tingling in her extremities and she had read online that it could be a deficiency of B vitamins.
Starting point is 00:54:31 So she was supplementing a tremendous amount of B vitamins and it kept getting worse, kept getting worse. Well eventually she went and saw a functional medicine practitioner. It was too much of a B vitamins. Oh yeah, she was so sick. That's what was causing the issue.
Starting point is 00:54:43 So she's like, oh, it's these pills that I'm taking with all these. Oh, these are really give you a lot of numbness and tingling if you take too much. Yeah. Is DIM ever recommended to men then also? Yeah. Okay. We look at the same thing. We look at the pathways.
Starting point is 00:55:01 We look at their comp-tee gene to see how that's functioning. And we just... They're gut health and ja- They're gut health because the stool tests will tell you about phase three of estrogen metabolism. So if you're pooping it out. So there's calcium to glucrate if you're, if you need help there, but the other pathways are okay. So again, it's, it's pretty complicated. I mean, it's not an easy thing to understand, but this is why we're like, we don't want people just to start taking this stuff. We want to teach them about that.
Starting point is 00:55:29 What I like about functional medicine is, I mean, if you break, if you get into it, it is very complicated, but the solutions are not so complicated. The sense that, okay, your gut's off, it may be off in this direction or this direction, but the solutions are very similar in the sense that, where we can work with, in other words,
Starting point is 00:55:48 I could have issues with my physical health and exercise can build muscle, it could burn body fat, it could burn more calories, but regardless of what my goals are, exercise will help all of them, this kind of direction I'm going. You've talked about supporting the liver. What does that look like? Is this based off of liver enzymes being off or not? That's a sign that this is a real
Starting point is 00:56:12 problem. Okay, so liver enzymes are off. We've gone too far. Yeah. Okay. So we do this regardless. And we see people just in general who have issues with detoxing. I do personally, and I've talked to you and just about this with Aralias because sometimes you have gene mutations that make you not detox very well. So there's different scenarios in which you don't use your detox pathways properly. So you want to talk about the different ways we support it. Yeah, so we always like to start gentle with patients. So first and foremost, the liver is constantly working for us without us even having to think about it. Okay, so it's always detoxing, always working. But again, going back to we get overburdened by all the crap that we're exposed to. So whenever I'm trying to work with detox pathways, you gotta eliminate the crap, the crap out of the diet.
Starting point is 00:57:10 That's first and foremost, sugar, industrial seed oils, inflammatory foods, like a lot, like a lot of excess process grains, you know, even inflammatory dairy for some patients. Some patients tend to handle it good once they've worked on other underlying drivers if it's good sources. So really nourishing the body with nutrient dense foods is really supportive for the liver. Get in lots of color, lots of good color, fiber, and then gentle castor oil packs are great. They're really helpful at stimulating the lymphatic system.
Starting point is 00:57:44 How do those work? Do you just put them on? Oh yeah, you put them right over the hard desk. So I had to store them. I know, so how does that work? Is it like absorbed to the skin? It does. It works with the bile ducts. It really helps help for motility, for bowel movements.
Starting point is 00:57:56 Because I know you can take castroil, but that's totally different. Yeah, I'm going to challenge you to take a castroil pack and put it over your gut. What's it going to do? And you tell me if you poop the next day. Yes, you're going. It's not a laxative effect. It's very, very gentle. Very, very gentle.
Starting point is 00:58:10 It does work. It does. And we do them over the liver usually, but I just like to people who don't believe I'm like, put it over your gut and see what happens and you will poop. Well, look, I've learned now, like at this point, where I don't, you know, if I'm talking to people
Starting point is 00:58:24 that I trust and I see fields where things are being used on a regular basis consistently because people see value, that there's some value there. So I used to be that guy where I'd be like, oh, that's, you know, that's work or whatever. Like I remember people rubbing like, you know, Ben Gay on their knee and I feel like that's so dumb. It doesn't, you know, work that way. It doesn't absorb anything.
Starting point is 00:58:44 But then I learn later on while the cooling feeling confuses the pain signaling and the move so you feel like you have less pain. So it does work, you know, so yeah. So I know better now. It doesn't tend to trade to the liver. Right. But it's what it's doing like with the lymphatic system
Starting point is 00:59:00 and helping move things out. And so that's more like that. It's very, very gentle. And then of course, there's lots of nutrients, right? I love NAC, right? That's a really, really good. Your B vitamins, magnesium is really important for liver health.
Starting point is 00:59:13 What do you guys think of SAME? SAME, really? Okay. Yes, some people don't do well with it. Some people don't. It depends how their methylation is and their gene mutations and all that. So I take SAME and I feel great.
Starting point is 00:59:25 Okay. And it's it's almost like a mild antidepressant for me, which I know how so you could have the M.H.F.R. demutations. And I'm gonna see that because you did your test and I did. I did the test that you asked us to do. Yeah. Did you do a Dutch test? No, no. I did. I'm interested to see your comp chain like your phase 2 if you feel really good on Sammy.
Starting point is 00:59:46 Okay. Yeah. It makes me give me a little bit of energy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:59:54 Well, dissect it. Run it. Well dissect it. I love this stuff because just as a trainer and I don't deal with nearly as complicated, I never dealt with nearly as complicated as deep as the stuff that you guys work with, but just through exercise. I know.
Starting point is 01:00:09 And just through basic diet. Like I understood diet from calories, macro nutrients, and then at one point I got somewhat educated because I did work with a functional medicine practitioner who's a friend of mine. I could identify things like food intolerances. And then I understood, you know, CBO and all that stuff later on, but I never tested, I never understood how like food intolerances. And then I understood, you know, CBO and all that stuff later on,
Starting point is 01:00:25 but I never tested, I never understood how to do that stuff. But I could see such a huge individual variance from person to person, which is exercise, which is very basic in comparison. So what you guys are dealing with, I mean, the individual variance could be so wide. So, and you're saying, so when people fill out this quiz at home,
Starting point is 01:00:44 that's gonna help direct them to figure out their own individual needs. They can figure it out for themselves. Yeah, we're gonna look. We're gonna look for themselves. That's really cool. Yeah, we're excited. Like the basics for everybody,
Starting point is 01:00:56 we teach you how all the ways to gently detox, we go through all of it, like really detailed. We tell you exactly what to eat, based on your situation. We talk about stress, we talk about trauma, like all the things you can possibly do. And then if you're doing all these things and you still need more, we walk you through the testing. Yeah, how do you guys feel about popular supplements in my space, like creatine? I mean, when I first got started, creatine was like, oh, it's a great muscle builder. Now there's all these great studies on improving cognitive health
Starting point is 01:01:28 and, you know, heart health. Making a big comeback. Yeah. So is there any, like, anybody who shouldn't be supplementing with it or do you guys? Just monitor your kidney health. That's the biggest thing. I don't see a lot of issues with it, but if I know someone, especially a lot of athletes and stuff that I take care of, if I know someone's supple me with them, just keep an eye on things. You just got to... Now, what about protein intake? You guys both talked about animal, good sources of animal protein, and no gram program in the athletic performance studies.
Starting point is 01:01:58 So these are studies based off of muscle and athletic performance. That's all they're looking at. That animal sources of protein on a gram program paces are just more effective. In other words, you have to eat a lot more plant protein to get the same effect, I should say, in athletic performance as animal protein. Are you guys pro-high protein diet for the most part? Absolutely. Yeah, 100%.
Starting point is 01:02:19 Now, why is that? What do you guys see from that? Just overall, like the amino acids for mental health alone, supportive for parimonopause, going into menopause, I mean, because we're more insulin resistant, so that's so important. And it's just for blood sugar, I mean, so many things, your hormones, protein is so essential for the body. And I will tell you, when we start with patients who are not eating protein and then they switch, it is a night and day difference in their symptoms and how they feel. Yeah, I see that.
Starting point is 01:02:51 I mean, I saw that with working with clients all the time. Yeah. Now, would you guys, so we, in our space, advocate for pretty high, like 0.6 to 1 gram per pound of body. Yeah, that's phenomenal. We find, do you find it's hard with people who you talk to too hard for them to reach that? Oh, it's so, it creates some, oh yeah, I'll tell you what, if I want someone to lose weight and I used to tell people, you know, your calories, your macros, the whole thing,
Starting point is 01:03:17 then I realized just here, you hit your protein targets, eat your protein first, avoid heavily processed foods, everybody lost weight. I know. Just those, just those things lost weight. I know. Just those things right there. I know. And you feel so much better. So I would love to ask you guys what you guys think about this, because for a long time, what kind of has been implied
Starting point is 01:03:37 is that, were these humans or these eating machines? We evolved during times of scarcity. So if you just put food in front of us, we're just going to eat until we're super obese and then we kill ourselves. But what seems to be more true is that our bodies naturally regulate themselves to not be underweight and to also not be overweight. But what's important is that we eat foods that we evolve with because if we eat heavily processed foods, then the obesity becomes that kind of is the default. Because when I have people eat whole natural foods,
Starting point is 01:04:07 high protein, which is what we probably ate for most of human history, and I tell them eat as much as you want. They end up with a good, normal body weight. Do you guys... I callaries stay within the range because they're satiated, you know what I mean? So it's not this constantly trying to feel satisfied
Starting point is 01:04:27 with all this garbage. It's a totally different story. When you eat whole foods, you feel full within a good-sized portion. You don't need to overeat to feel something. How much does that affect the, just the microbiome itself? Because any of the microbiome changes with what you eat.
Starting point is 01:04:46 How much is just eating whole natural foods affect the microbiome? Oh, it's so important at feeding bacteria, helping it replicate and grow. I mean, for insulin, for blood sugar, so many things. I mean, it's an inflammation. Yeah, absolutely. What are some reasons that people, because I know what I do when someone can't lose weight and they're tired and I know what to look at, but I've had, this isn't super common,
Starting point is 01:05:10 but I've had times where it was almost unexplained. This isn't, almost kinda doesn't make sense. What places do you look when, is it hormones? Is that the first place you look? It's the everything we've talked about. Got is huge. Hormones are definitely big.
Starting point is 01:05:25 They're very big. They're very big. But then even mold, because it's so inflammatory. So when we see people who are like, I've done everything and I can't lose weight and we'll check them for mold, they have it. So the way I explained it, I had this happen to me once with a client
Starting point is 01:05:40 where we did everything, couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. Her calories were so low, I'm like, I don't wanna go any lower. We're trying to speed up her metabolism through my traditional methods. This was at least, I wanna say, this must have been at least 15 years ago.
Starting point is 01:05:55 And then she worked with the functional medicine practitioner that I at the time was friends with. And they worked with and helped heal her gut. And then the weight came off. And the way that it was explained to me was when the body is under a lot of stress, one of its protective mechanisms is just for body fat. Because for most human history,
Starting point is 01:06:16 one of the number one stressors was not finding enough food. So your body's like, hold on to body fat and don't build muscle because that burns too many calories. Is that accurate? Would you say it's accurate? 100% and that's what I go back to is when someone comes to me and they're like, I'm doing everything right. I'm eating clean, I'm exercising, I'm not losing weight, I'm like, okay, we need to make your body feel as safe as possible because that's what's happening, especially with, we see it all the time with perimenopause, shifting into menopause, where we have
Starting point is 01:06:46 all these hormonal dysregulations right going on because your body's fluctuating and transitioning. So when I see that weight loss resistance, you have to make the body feel as safe as possible because it is, it's gonna say there's no way. I'm gonna let you lose any weight right now. I'm gonna hold on to anything to make me feel safe and keep me safe.
Starting point is 01:07:07 So it's something that I see often. It must be a pleasant surprise for you guys to see patients who come in for fatigue, skin issues, my hair's falling out, all these health issues. Then they work with you and they're like, oh, I lost weight. Yeah. Is that like common?
Starting point is 01:07:21 Oh, very common. Yeah. It can take time for some patients, especially hormones take time. They do. So if it's hormone-related, you just give it time, stay the course, do all the things. Stress is a big one. I mean, we got to get a hold of stress. And I know that's, we get the big eye roll with that, right?
Starting point is 01:07:40 Because it's hard. It's so hard. We're stressed. Everybody's stressed. So you really do have to put the proper tools in place to help your body because if not, it's just, it's a big thing that we see drive a lot of things in the practice.
Starting point is 01:07:52 So this at home, functional medicine at home course that you guys created, this is out now, right? As we're gonna drop this episode, it'll be out. Has it been out? Or is it gonna be out with this episode? It's coming out with that. It's coming out with the episode. And the goal is, and again, this is why I was excited to have you on, because I think this
Starting point is 01:08:09 is the first I've ever heard of anything like this, is you get this and it helps you direct yourself. Yes. It's a way to look. And then from there, if they want to go deeper, they can go deeper. There's more modules they can purchase. And then those extra modules, Becky, you were telling me, you can help people read, like, do labs and then help them kind of read their own lab. Can you order the lab?
Starting point is 01:08:30 Or yourself? You order the lab from us basically. And then we teach you how to interpret that lab. And then what do you do based on that interpretation? Wow. So you guys must be amazing moms with your kids then, when they're sick and stuff. You kind of know where to look. I do my best. on that interpretation? Wow. So you guys must be amazing moms with your kids down when they're sick and stuff. You kind of know where to look.
Starting point is 01:08:46 I do my best. You know how kids are. You guys were cracking us up on the other episode talking about your kids. We go through the same thing. My son's like, if I hear gut mom, one more time. You know? When you take your kids to the doctor and for like,
Starting point is 01:09:01 well, for stuff for fun, I was gonna say, you probably don't mess it's like, absolutely messy. Right, exactly. probably, I was gonna say, you probably don't, unless it's like, absolutely, right, exactly. How often have your kids had to be on antibiotics? Have they never been? What? No. Never?
Starting point is 01:09:11 Well, no, Jake, my oldest, was once for pneumonia. When, in that case, it's in the hospital, the hundred and six degree fever, in a minute, at least. I diagnosed because they couldn't at the AR, so. Oh my gosh. Yeah. How old are your kids? Uh, Jake is 13, uh, Levi is 10 and Liam is eight.
Starting point is 01:09:29 In one time, Antibiotics. That's it. Wow. And you never? Never. And yours 12 and. 12 and 9. Wow.
Starting point is 01:09:37 I know. Anybottics are super over. I mean, it's better now, but you know when I was a kid. Yeah, they're true. I mean, when we were kids, I got them all the time for ear infections. Left and right. Yeah. I'm like, gee, I wonder why I had gutted. I know. That's what I'm saying. Exactly. And a lot of times, this is really good for anyone listening. If you're having issues with your kids, right, and your kid was given antibiotics at birth, which happens all the time. Yes. Or the mother
Starting point is 01:10:01 was given antibiotics because, you know, sometimes they give them to you towards the end, it depends on what's going on. What is that bacteria that they'll find when they do they'll do like a vanishing culture and say, oh, you got to put you on these antibiotics. Struppies? Yeah, shrubby. Yeah, yeah. So that exactly. And your kids having reactions to foods, like food sensitivities, it's the gut. Yeah. It's those food sensitivities are almost always caused by gut issues. So we won't run a food sensitivity test until we've treated the gut. Because if we run it first, they're going to show all these foods are supposedly sensitive to-
Starting point is 01:10:37 That'll change after they've fixed it up. It changes the gut. He fixed the gut. And then a lot of the time, it wasn't really just that food. It was just they had leaky gut usually usually and then that's just causing an inflammatory response to most. So that happened to me. So when my gut was really bad, I know I've told you guys, I know I've told you this
Starting point is 01:10:52 story. When my gut was really bad and I eventually had to figure it out, I was sensitive to peanuts, egg whites, all dairy in any form, even dairy fat. Wow. A gluten, I was so hypersensitive that if I had two bread crumbs on something, that was it, broccoli, I think that was it. And eventually after healing my gut,
Starting point is 01:11:16 I could have everything except for dairy proteins. Dairy protein still bothered me, but I could do dairy fat, I could do butter all day long. There's about, so totally changed my food sensitivities. I'll run it if we feel like we need to move the needle a little bit more. If I'm still seeing issues with digestion, even after really diving in in the gut,
Starting point is 01:11:33 there's a time and place for it. Yeah, right? It's usually after working in the gut. Yeah. Yeah. And then nowadays with like SIBO, which is a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, if you're positive for that,
Starting point is 01:11:45 the treatment used to have to be antibiotics, but now you can do herbal antimicrobials. And there was this landmark study that came out, I don't wanna see four years ago maybe, that compared the antimicrobials, the natural ones to the antibiotics, they were just as effective. Yeah, sometimes the antibiotics are less,
Starting point is 01:12:02 and you have to do refaxmen, any amycin, and you have to do multiple rounds and insurance usually doesn't cover. So it's thousands of dollars. It's so, it's crazy. And if you can just do it anti-microbial supplement format, and that will usually get rid of it. When someone takes antibiotics,
Starting point is 01:12:20 should they take probiotics in the same time? Yeah, just not within like an hour or two. Okay, and that helps offset some of the negative effects. And then once they finish, of course, keep going. Yeah, and even up in maybe a little bit. Awesome. And check your gut. Well, this has been awesome. Yes.
Starting point is 01:12:37 Thank you so much for coming to the studio and coming on the show. I, like, everybody should listen to your podcast. It has, it's very informative, but it's also got entertainment component. That's one thing that I enjoy about your show is it's fun to listen to. It's not just information. So check out health babes, and then in the intro, I'll put where people can get this at-home functional medicine kit test, and where people can help themselves. So, thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.
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