Episode #60: Hormones Unlocked: Navigating Health, Pregnancy, and Menopause

0:02: Welcome to the Fully Express podcast.
0:03: We are your hosts, Samantha and Karenna.
0:06: This is a show where we invite you into your fullest expressed self and life, relationships and business.
0:11: We believe that if you crave more, you are meant for more.
0:14: There is room for all of us to be fully expressed.
0:17: Along with the show, we’ve created a virtual community to connect you with fellow listeners.
0:22: Make sure to check out the fully expressed community membership.
0:25: You’ll find the link to join in the show notes and on our website.
0:28: So excited to see you there.
0:30: Enjoy this new episode today is so special because we have one of our dearest friends coming onto the podcast and we’re so excited to share her with you.
0:42: Her name is Mariza Snyder.
0:44: Marisa.
0:45: Thank you so much for being here.
0:46: Oh, my goodness, such a pleasure.
0:48: I love it.
0:49: Just so you guys get to know Mariza a little bit more.
0:51: Her name is Dr Mariza Snyder.
0:53: She is a functional doctor pre menopause and menopause expert and the author of eight books.
1:00: Her recent book was about the essential oils, menopause solution focuses on solutions for women in pre menopause and menopause and the number one essential oil to focus on optimizing women’s health.
1:14: Dr Marisa is also the host of the top rated podcast called The Energized Podcast, but if you didn’t know, has over 12 million downloads designed to really empower and claim agency over your health.
1:29: And I’m so, I feel so blessed to have you in the room with us and really sharing all of your gifts because what you’re talking about like really giving women the agency when it comes to their health is just so fucking needed.
1:48: It’s everything I’m just going to be frank.
1:50: It really gives the power back to us.
1:52: And so thank you for all that you’re doing with this world.
1:55: And thank you for being our friends.
1:57: We love you.
1:58: The long voice memo is about your reproductive health.
2:03: And so every time you voicemail on me, I’m like, thank you for teaching me more.
2:06: Thank you for teaching me something new.
2:08: Thanks for basically doing what my mom should have done and it love you and your voice notes are we’re also just send like podcast episodes versus the voice notes back.
2:17: Of course.
2:19: So I’m so excited to let people into those conversations that we get to have with you all the time and share with them a new way of looking at health hormones, pregnancy, premenopause, this entire journey that women are on and really that only women are on.
2:35: Like this is something that’s so special to women.
2:38: Not a lot of men can relate to the up and downs journey that we get to go through.
2:44: It’s so true.
2:45: Yeah.
2:46: Yeah.
2:46: So Sam, I mean, yeah, we always like to start with how we know or how we came to know.
2:52: Well, we have to, with you because you’re not only my bestie or my book, Bestie and we just, we met at a women’s circle and you were a women’s circle.
3:02: Yeah.
3:02: It was the three of us.
3:03: It was at yass women’s circle.
3:05: Oh, you were there.
3:07: Yeah.
3:07: And she spoke, you spoke, I think you actually supposed to speak.
3:15: Well, you did what?
3:17: You did share a little bit about yourself at the end, which I was.
3:21: Yes.
3:22: Exactly.
3:22: But it was such a much more expansive, you know, connecting into your body.
3:27: And I was like, these girls do not want to hear about some hormones.
3:31: And so I was like, it didn’t feel like, you know, the right.
3:35: Yeah.
3:35: Alignment.
3:35: So I told ya I’m like, I’m good if other people, do you remember that?
3:40: And I remember thinking to myself, I was like, oh, I don’t, yeah, same.
3:43: I remember her saying I was like, she started talking about hormones.
3:45: I was like, yes, yes, yes.
3:46: I’ve been on this journey of aligning my hormones getting to know my hormones and we were talking, I was like, I need to be here.
3:51: And then I think later on we got a lot closer.
3:53: But that’s true.
3:55: Yeah.
3:55: Yeah.
3:56: Insane.
3:56: And then Marisa reached out for an astrology reading.
4:00: And the second we hung out, I was like, oh, I love this woman.
4:03: We’re gonna be best friends.
4:05: And then that kind of developed into a friendship.
4:07: And then we both have a love for fantasy, romantic fantasy books.
4:12: Shout out there in a glass and that has just brought us infinitely closer and I just cherish that, that connection to, to reading.
4:23: And yeah, you have taught me so much about hormone health and you’re just so generous with your knowledge and your wisdom.
4:31: And you’re just honestly one of the greatest, most incredible friends I’ve ever had.
4:36: And I just adore you.
4:39: Can I add to that?
4:40: I think one of the loveliest thing that I think I’ve received from you since when we got connected, there was a voice note and after we hung out and you’re like, I’m the kind of woman that shows the fuck up.
4:49: And I think that just embodies your energy, literally through your business, through your relationships, through your friendships and just feel so blessed to have you.
4:59: And I’m excited to talk to you because to be able to be intimate with you now and know you on a personal level and just see the way you show up as a mom, as a woman, as a friend.
5:09: It is so inspiring and you just have so much knowledge and you’re sharing it with the world, with para menopause and menopause and hormones and pregnancy and you give it so freely and you’re so freaking skilled at sharing information in such a tangible way.
5:24: So I am so excited to dive into your, your expertise.
5:29: All right, let’s go.
5:34: So, something that Sam and I shared earlier is that we’re thinking a lot about our next era of our fullest expressed self, which is stepping into a motherhood, is stepping into wanting to become a mom.
5:44: And I think for both of us, it hasn’t been something that we’ve really been.
5:49: Our eyes haven’t been on that target hasn’t been something we’ve been really kind of focusing on growing ourselves, growing our business.
5:55: And so now that we’re in this place of ok, now that’s the next thing I want, what can I do to prepare?
6:00: And I think it’s so important that we’re looking at it through the eyes of how do we prepare our hormones is the importance of our hormones.
6:07: Because I think a lot of people around me or it’s becoming more common, for example, that people will, women specifically will try to get pregnant, they’ll get married and they’re like, all right now, I’m going to pull the goalie is what they say.
6:21: I’m going to pull the goalie no longer have birth control or use condoms or anything like that.
6:24: And we’re just going to get pregnant and it’s going to happen.
6:27: And I think a lot of people are experiencing whiplash in that where they realize, oh shit, it’s not that easy.
6:33: And so I would love to hear from you, what are your thoughts on that?
6:37: But also what do you think is contributing to that?
6:40: Yeah, absolutely.
6:41: Couple, a lot of things are contributing to that.
6:44: I will say that there’s nothing about living in this modern day world that’s conducive to happy, effective functional hormones.
6:55: And when you think about your menstrual cycle and this is not what I was brought up with.
6:59: Like I was told that it’s basically a curse that you have to deal with every single month and that you just tolerate.
7:06: I had no idea that it was a vital sign of my body like my temperature, like my blood pressure, you know, the thing something happens to you when they’re checking you out, your menstrual cycle should be one of those things.
7:22: And this has been widely now by the Medical Medical Association, by the Gynecological Association.
7:29: Most OBGYN si mean, the through line is that it is a vital sign.
7:32: So whether you’re trying to get pregnant or not your menstrual cycle and, and how it’s running the way that it’s running in your body really is an indicator of what else could be going on in the body.
7:42: And so if for some reason you are having your regular cycles or, you know, severe P MS symptoms or you’re having an ovulatory cycles, meaning that you’re not ovulating.
7:52: It’s, it would be important to look into.
7:55: Well, what’s the root cause?
7:56: And it’s, it’s rarely the hormones, it’s rarely your hormones are just doing the best they can with what they’ve got in the moment that they’re in.
8:04: That’s, you know, and so, so much love to estradiol and progesterone and cortisol and, and insulin.
8:12: They’re just, you know, some days they’re just in their way to say it.
8:15: They’re just like, what are we doing?
8:17: You know, like, and so then we had to look into, ok, well, what could be causing them to deregulate?
8:23: And there’s a lot of root causes, including what we put in our bodies.
8:27: You think about our babies when we’re building those babies growing those babies, they’re a 3d print of what we’re eating of what we’re doing, you know, the nutrients in our body.
8:35: And so nutrition is a big piece, you know, is our body safe.
8:39: Do we feel safe in our body?
8:40: Does our body feel safe?
8:42: So again, if we’re in survival mode all the time, lot of us are, I know I have been over the years.
8:49: The body is like, this is not, this isn’t a good time right now, our mitochondria, most importantly, the endocrine disruptors.
8:58: So it’s an interesting fact, I don’t know if you know this, you know, fertility doctors when they’re priming up, you know, they’re, they’re basically creating embryos.
9:05: Nobody can wear fragrances in the facility because the endocrine disruptors in that fragrance can actually stop the growth of those embryos.
9:15: Wow.
9:16: I mean, that makes sense.
9:18: But so perfume, lotions conditioner, I mean, the list deodorants it’s pretty long, which is crazy because I feel like yes, I no longer use any of those things.
9:28: If anything, I get the worst headache when I’m around for years.
9:33: But honestly, for, I mean, up until probably five years ago, most of my life, I remember my mom would buy this Victoria’s secret spray bottles.
9:42: I was like so known was Gucci and De Frucci.
9:46: And I know people that love lotion and love the smell that I’m like now I’m like, oh gosh, that doesn’t feel good to me.
9:54: But at the time, I feel like that was like normal.
9:57: I didn’t really put two and two together.
9:58: How much harm that was really doing to me.
10:01: Yeah, it’s a lot.
10:01: It adds up.
10:02: You know, we think about it.
10:03: If our health is kind of a bucket, you know, you’re just adding more into that bucket or their toxic load and there’s a spillover effect.
10:11: But endocrine disruptors have a profound impact on our hormones mainly because they act, they, they’re kind of like scary secret, they bind the same receptor sites, they’ll clog up that receptor site and won’t allow our endogenous or actual estrodiol or progesterone to bind to those receptor sites to actually create the signal.
10:32: And the message that they are meant to create.
10:34: And so it really garbles that up.
10:36: I mean, it gets to the point where we have things like obes agens in our, even in our shampoo and our lotions and those mess up ghrelin and leptin and insulin.
10:45: And we end up seeing, you know, more fatty liver because of it.
10:49: We see more belly fat mainly because there’s this major disruption and interruption in how our bodies are understanding hunger cues or how we’re processing, you know, how we’re running our metabolic health.
11:01: So it just adds up.
11:02: And then the other thing kind of the elephant in the room, which, you know, I’m a yes.
11:06: And to hormonal birth control in a way like one, I’m grateful that hormonal birth control has allowed women to really step into who they want to be.
11:16: You know, more women have gone to college and to grad school and in professional careers because of, you know, Iu and you know, the mini pill or, or whatever form of birth control, you have to understand that when you take hormonal birth control, the purpose of it is to shut down the menstrual cycle.
11:34: So it’s, it’s shutting down that fifth vital sign, it’s stopping ovulation.
11:38: That’s the purpose.
11:38: So if you’ve been on a hormonal IUD, like the Mariner, you know, five years, 10 years, whatever it is, and then you decide to take it off or take it out or you stop you know, the the mini pill or whatever you may be.
11:50: On, just note that your body, your your reproductive system has to come back online.
11:57: And on average, that can take about 90 days about a quarter.
12:02: And so always extra grace to you and your body.
12:05: If you decide, you know, now it’s time to come off the pill to not rush into trying to get pregnant.
12:12: You want to give your body, it takes about 90 days for sperm to turn over and it takes almost 90 days for an for eggs, for an egg to fully develop and be ready to release.
12:24: And so that type of timing, I call it the prime is really what we want to give ourselves when it comes to prepping for conception.
12:34: I mean, I think about, I was on birth control from 15 to like 25 when I started researching more about how toxic it could be and I went off it.
12:42: I feel like it took it over a year and I did acupuncture and herbs and all these different things to try to get the hormones back in balance.
12:49: But I feel like it took a year for my cycle to be normal again.
12:52: It took a year for mine.
12:53: So I was, I only lasted a year and a half.
12:55: So 50% of women will only last almost a year who start birth control because often the side effects of birth control can be pretty disruptive.
13:04: They are endocrine disruptors.
13:06: That’s how they’re classified.
13:07: So it is an endocrine disruptor.
13:09: Just, it’s not in the same category.
13:11: I mean, maybe one would argue that it is as like sates or endocrine toxins, but it disrupting all the same.
13:19: Like, I always tell women, women say, should I run my hormones?
13:22: I’m like, oh, are you on birth control?
13:24: Yes.
13:24: I’m like, well, there’s no reason because you’re suppressing it, You’re suppressing them.
13:30: So your levels will be zero.
13:31: They’ll be, they’ll look like they’re in postmenopause.
13:33: Wow.
13:35: So turning it back on after a decade, you got it twice a minute and every woman’s body is different because at the same time, especially most women don’t go on hormonal birth control because of, you know, for birth control on it because of irregular menstrual cycles.
13:52: A lot of the doctors, your typical obgyn or your primary doctor will say that it regulates your cycle or like PC O si know it is popular to take birth control for that DD MD D and it’s, to me it’s lazy medicine.
14:09: Yeah, because you say it louder.
14:12: It’s lazy medicine because we’re not getting to the root cause of what’s going on.
14:17: Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
14:19: It’s a metabolic in a lot of ways, like 80% of women who have PC OS have a level of insulin resistance.
14:26: And you know, due to that, that really suppresses progesterone and estradiol, we see that androgen uptick and then that’s when we start to see the lot of those other symptoms of Polycystic Ovarian syndrome.
14:37: And it’s, it’s one of the main reasons why women are struggling with fertility.
14:41: But you have to know that are the mitochondria, which are the energy powerhouses.
14:46: They’re, they’re really what metabolism is.
14:49: They are most concentrated in our ovaries.
14:51: There are more mitochondria in our ovaries in than any other part of a male or female’s body.
14:59: And I mean, to me that makes sense.
15:01: If we’re going to make baking life there, you’re going to need a lot of mitochondria to get it done.
15:05: But if mitochondria are gunked up, you know, due to toxins or stress or insulin resistance, you know, they’re just not able to efficiently do their job.
15:16: It’s no, it’s no surprise that our reproductive capacity is a little bit dysfunctional.
15:22: And so giving the pill to a woman who’s got a maybe insulin resistance or a metabolic issue.
15:27: You are a bit of inflammation isn’t going to fix any of those issues.
15:31: When you say insulin resistance, do you mean like glucose spiking your glucose over time again and again.
15:37: Yeah.
15:38: So what insulin resistance is?
15:40: And for, you know, for many women around, I would say 98% of us, by the time we’re in menopause, it’s very much an inevitability.
15:48: We have some level of insulin resistance, but it’s, it’s the body’s inability to yeah, to process glucose appropriately.
15:56: So we have higher than normal levels of glucose in the bloodstream.
16:00: Insulin is that signal hormone that comes in.
16:02: It tells the the muscle cells, the liver, the adipose cells, the fat cells to take that in as immediate storage, immediate energy.
16:11: And so if the body is constantly having to deal with this increased amount of, of glucose in the bloodstream, I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the Japanese train pushers where they shove people on a train.
16:25: That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.
16:28: They literally have these, these pushing, you know, me, they push them, push people in the wild.
16:38: It is wild, they just sms people into these trains.
16:41: And that’s exactly what it’s like, you know, when we have increased amount of insulin, hyper insulin, that’s insulin resistance.
16:50: It’s because more and more insulin is trying to shove as much glucose into that cell as possible.
16:58: But the cell is like, I can’t, I can’t do it.
17:00: I can’t take anymore, I’m full, I cannot do this.
17:05: And it’s really the mitochondria that are just like we can’t do this, we can’t take the on and, and so that, you know, insulin resistance can develop in different parts of the body.
17:15: But for us, as women where we have, where we require a lot of energetic, you know, energy to run a system is the reproductive system.
17:24: It’s a very energetic process.
17:26: And so, you know, unfortunately, when we start to see a shift in blood glucose regulation and a bit of insulin resistance.
17:33: That’s kind of one of the areas we’ll see be impacted for infertility and, and then as a result, it become, we become more, we become, it’s harder for us to get pregnant because we have this, this inefficient ability to process energy to, to have a, a robust and functional reproductive system.
17:54: It’s, it gets at the level of the cell, it’s at the level of the mitochondria.
17:58: So I hear you correctly.
17:59: Right.
18:00: So we’re getting hit with like some of us are on birth control.
18:02: We’re stuffing down actual root causes of what’s going on.
18:06: But you also started to talk a lot about the stress.
18:08: Yes.
18:09: Can we talk a little bit about that?
18:10: What kind of stress?
18:11: Right.
18:11: Most of our world today, I mean, people have normalized being stressed, right?
18:16: We love being stressed, we love being go, go, go all the time.
18:20: And you know, not only do we have our day to day stress asked a little about trauma or pass stress onto the body.
18:26: How does that impact our hormones?
18:29: Greatly impacts of hormones?
18:32: So, stress does come in a couple of different flavors that mitochondrial damages stress.
18:38: So that’s telling the body I’m not safe, right?
18:41: Stress can come in chemical flavors, food, what we eat?
18:44: Birth control is a stressor on the body.
18:47: That’s a chemical stressor.
18:49: Medications in general, right?
18:50: Are a chemical stressor over the counter medications, at least if you’re dealing with headaches and migraines, they’ve taken a lot of that.
18:56: It’s a, it’s an impact on the liver.
18:59: I mean, you wanted to go to stress, physical stress.
19:03: I mean, you know, hormesis, which is a great stress for the liver or sorry for the mitochondria, depending on where we’re at with our resilience.
19:11: You know, cold plunging isn’t great, you know, maybe really pushing your body in that workout isn’t the move.
19:18: You could be at that tipping point.
19:20: So a lot of women who are doing hit training are really, really working it and they’re burned out on the other side and that’s a stressor in its own.
19:26: Right?
19:27: And again, when you think about that chemical bucket we’re talking about, well, now we have a stress bucket over here and some of these things that even feel like they’re a good idea if you don’t have, you know, mitochondrial bandwidth for it will kind of tip you over the edge.
19:40: But then the perceived stressors, the worry, the, the, the checklist, the things that you’re handling, solving the world’s problems before you go to bed at night.
19:49: Right.
19:49: The, the mental chatter, the having to be efficient and handle things.
19:55: Like I always joke that I’m always racing to get somewhere.
19:57: Even when I don’t know why I’m trying.
20:01: There’s no, even, there’s no reason, but at least I’m there.
20:03: Yeah.
20:03: Ok.
20:04: I always joke that I’m like, if someone’s behind me in the bathroom mind, I’m like, it’s your lucky day because I’ll be out of here in two, you know, and so this need to be efficient, this urgency culture, right?
20:15: And then stress being the superpower, I think when we’re in our twenties and our thirties, we think we can pull that lever, we’re stealing from ourselves by the way.
20:24: But we kind of think we have capacity for it, especially, you know, in certain parts of our cycle, like the follicular phase, we, we do have a little bit more capacity for pushing, you know, we can really be more in a push phase.
20:35: But you get into lol, you know, right after ovulation where progesterone is doing her thing, you don’t have a lot of capacity.
20:41: And so, you know, pushing yourself against that limit in that part of your cycle, you’re going to feel that resistance, you’re going to feel up against that edge because your body is like this is a full body.
20:52: Now, right now, we’re not in this phase.
20:55: And if you think about how the cycle works, pro gestation, that’s progesterone.
21:00: The body thinks that maybe you’re pregnant and that it is not the time to calm down.
21:05: Push it.
21:06: Yeah, your body’s like who, who?
21:09: So you’ll get all these signals.
21:10: I remember, you know, when I didn’t know anything about my cycle and how it was a superpower, I used to be so angry with myself that I couldn’t work out the days leading up to my period.
21:19: I was like, why, what is wrong with you?
21:22: Why can’t you do this?
21:23: Like crazy?
21:23: How we get hard on ourselves so hard.
21:25: Yeah.
21:26: And I realized, oh, I’m like, oh, it’s not that time.
21:29: But I mean, I like, literally.
21:31: No, thank you.
21:32: And I’m just like, wait, and you still do it anyway.
21:35: Yeah.
21:35: Our mind is like, I can do it.
21:37: I’m going to push myself, I’m going to do it and then you’re decimated on the other side.
21:41: But you’re like, but I did it.
21:43: So what’s crazy for me is I’m 37 now, which still sounds weird to say.
21:47: I feel like I’m 27.
21:48: I look 27.
21:49: But thanks to you, I started cycle thinking, which is, I think it’s wild to think that it took me 37 years to actually look at my period like I thank you so much because you taught me all the things you’re saying.
22:01: I knew about toxins.
22:03: But I never thought of my period as a report card.
22:05: And you really enlightened me to that.
22:08: And I never even like growing up.
22:11: I always was like, I almost wish I didn’t have a period.
22:14: You know, we all were just, I feel like our generation.
22:17: I just know because I know you personally, like our moms were not like, here you go.
22:20: Let’s talk through this.
22:22: You’re just like, here’s a tampon.
22:23: Good luck.
22:23: Figure it out it goes in the hole, you know, you just put it in.
22:27: I just threw him in the bathroom was like good luck.
22:29: Yeah, literally.
22:31: So that cycle sinking and understanding exactly what you’re speaking to.
22:35: Knowing our energy levels, knowing what’s going on, allowed me to then look at what I’m feeling and understand like, oh I think I have high estrogen.
22:45: I think I have this and obviously lucky me, I have you to ask.
22:49: But what would be some signs for women to know that?
22:53: Because yes, like if I’m stressed out and I know I’m stressed, like I’m pushing, obviously those are higher indicators.
22:59: Like if I’m tired, if I’m, but I know that there’s smaller indicators that exist for women that they kind of ignore until it becomes a bigger problem.
23:08: So, what are some of those smaller, smaller, what’s the word I’m looking for attention to symptoms?
23:14: Thank you.
23:14: Yeah.
23:15: So maybe he would look beyond.
23:16: Oh, absolutely.
23:17: Well, you know, a lot of us have been told to normalize, kind of not feeling great.
23:21: You know, women, I just remembered my mom just saying that’s a lot in life.
23:24: We don’t feel good.
23:26: And I was like, huh?
23:27: OK, here we go.
23:31: Does it feel good?
23:33: Ok, fine.
23:34: I’ll sign up but she was just like, it’s harder for us and I was like, OK, you know, and your period is going to suck.
23:42: And I was like, ok, I remember my mom also saying like, we don’t make progesterone in our family.
23:47: And I was like, OK, it’s just just like receiving this.
23:50: I’m like, what does all of this mean?
23:53: This was her narrative that she was kind of passing on to me.
23:58: And again, I think we’ve normalized like menstrual cramps, we’ve normalized having headaches before our period.
24:04: Just these uncomfortable symptoms, being exhausted, feeling stressed, brain fog, not being able to go to sleep at night.
24:11: Like we’ve like, this is like this, this normalization of like this is how women feel because of our period, because of our cycle because of our hormones, like those hormones.
24:20: Oh and, and a lot of these things are subtle symptoms to listen to.
24:25: These are your body’s way of whispering.
24:28: Hm.
24:28: This is an alignment with me like I’m, I’m not feeling very safe right now.
24:32: I need more support in the moment.
24:35: And I think that by no means I’m saying, oh my gosh, like, you know, your cycle is off or whatnot.
24:40: But I think it’s, it’s an opportunity when we start to see these things come up of like, oh, let’s do a, let’s do a mind, let’s do a body scan and like, let’s tune in, let’s find out what’s going on.
24:50: Where am I, where am I in my cycle right now?
24:53: You know, let’s track our symptoms with our cycle to kind of get a sense of this consistently happening to me every single month.
25:01: And I think that’s, that’s really, I would say women are the ultimate, not going to say bio hackers, but bio optimizers and bio harmonizers because we’ve had to really figure this out.
25:12: There is no day in our month where we are the same person, hormones are changing every day and we have become adapted to that.
25:22: I would say that we’ve probably become more adaptable to the world because of this as well And you know how we show up, you know.
25:30: And so I think it’s important if you really want to know your body and kind of give, allow yourself extra gray is one, really know your cycle like I am in high follicular right now.
25:42: An and perry looking girl, I would tell you so grateful, I feel so good estradiol and testosterone, they are doing their thing, you know.
25:54: And so I’m, this is definitely a time where I can push it.
25:57: I can, I can push my limits a little bit again, still checking in.
26:01: But yeah, those are some of those subtle symptoms also looking out for if you’re dealing with some spotting right before your period, that could be a sign of lower levels of progesterone, which very, very, you know, unfortunately, more typical than you think.
26:15: So spotting, that means it’s progesterone isn’t holding that endometrium together.
26:20: And so you’ll start to see that spotting early, heightened P MS symptoms guarantee that’s low progesterone as well.
26:27: So that was look like more anxiety, anxiousness, sleep bloating, you know, less stress resilience right before your cycle.
26:35: If those things are really coming up for you, it would be worthwhile.
26:39: Looking, looking at your labs and I would say when it comes to testing your labs, you wanna look at seven days prior to your period, that that would give us kind of that estimate.
26:49: I’m not gonna say it’s day 21 or day 19 Because what if you’re not running a 20 a 28 day?
26:56: Yeah, everyone’s different.
26:57: And so, but yeah, paying attention to those symptoms against your cycle.
27:02: What’s happening right at ovulation or right after ovulation, you know, are you feeling good?
27:06: When do you come out of that menstrual window?
27:09: Like when do you hit that low estradiol bump?
27:13: You know, is that day five is that day six, when are you coming out of that fog?
27:16: And so listening to your body in that way, I feel like what you’re talking to is like this extra awareness and like being someone that has been doing this, paying attention to you can literally hit it every month.
27:26: You’re like, all right, my period is coming tomorrow or like, oh I’m just at my, I’m I literally toilet, I’m dropping into my lud.
27:33: That was kind of no like your body all of a sudden you’re basically synchronized with your rhythm and your body just aware.
27:40: It’s like really aware and connected to kind of bring us to.
27:43: What can women do?
27:45: I know this is so beautiful and such a gift.
27:47: But what can women do to prepare for pregnancy and even what can men do to support getting pregnant?
27:54: Absolutely.
27:55: Yeah.
27:55: I mean, sperm quality is equally as important.
27:58: It’s a 5050 job, the conception piece and it’s not talked about, like, you know, most people don’t think about men doing anything.
28:07: They’re like, show up, give your sperm instead of looking at, yeah, the toxicity levels or anything that they could be consuming to contribute.
28:14: Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, I mean, you know, there’s, there’s, and I get that babies come a lot of different ways.
28:21: Sometimes it’s accidental, like sometimes it’s even, you know, adopting.
28:25: And so I just want to hold space for that, but I know a lot of people are trying to do it naturally and, you know, they’ve got their partner and so first and foremost, test, don’t guess if you’re heading into this journey, I would recommend running labs on both potential dad and mom.
28:40: So, looking at those metabolic labs and, and those are most of the labs that you’re going to get to run for your GP.
28:46: But you want to look at lipid panels, blood glucose, fasting insulin inflammatory markers, just to see if there’s anything that needs to be shored up.
28:53: B vitamins B nine magnesium, just kind of looking across, you know, and again, a basic panel will get it done just as soon as anything that needs to be flagged and addressed out the gate.
29:04: Again.
29:04: Again, conception really is a metabolic process.
29:07: And so having shoring up your, your metabolism, making sure that your cellular energy is looking good.
29:13: I think that’s a great.
29:15: Next again, I talked about 3D printing those babies.
29:18: So it’s really about nutrition.
29:20: I mean, that’s probably the biggest lever you can pull besides doing your best to remove as many toxins as possible.
29:26: Like getting rid of, I remember I stopped, I stopped getting my nails done.
29:30: I loved to get my nails done, but I knew I knew better.
29:32: I stopped getting my nails done nine months before I even was thinking about conceiving my son Kingston.
29:39: So though I just was like, you know what, I got rid of the, the one thing I was having a hard time getting rid of.
29:44: I used to use secret deodorant because it was the only thing that would work very well.
29:48: Oh my gosh.
29:49: So a year before I was getting ready to get pregnant, I was like, OK, it was like the last thing I had to get rid of and I was like, it’s gone.
29:58: You know, I’m like, because when it comes, you think about who do I want to become?
30:02: Who do I need to be for this light beam?
30:04: I was like, I need to clear as many toxins.
30:07: I want a super baby, you know, I want, I want to dial in my epigenetics.
30:11: And so I usually tell people like, let’s clean up gut.
30:14: So, you know, in terms of so more fiber, more fermented and probiotic, rich foods, a good probiotic, good digestive enzyme.
30:23: So those are just easy basics to do.
30:26: I typically also recommend like a 30 day kind of elimination protocol.
30:31: So just because we don’t, a lot of us just don’t know, would be going on.
30:34: Yeah, we just like if, if kind of feeling,, a little bit run down is par for the course, there could be something going on with the I would say that’s the the easiest low hanging fruit is just to do a reset.
30:47: So I usually, I usually recommend pulling coffee sugar, any added sugars, ultra processed foods, maybe even moving dairy out for a hot second to see if anything’s going on gluten and you know, again anything refined, you said 30 days before exception, I would say 30 days.
31:04: Yeah, I would say 30.
31:05: I did, I’m not going to lie.
31:06: I did it for 90.
31:07: So we were on a protocol for 90 days heading in priming up and then making sure that you have a really good prenat because you believe, well, not believe but because the sperm and the ovaries or the egg quality switches every 90 days.
31:21: So you got to be looking at those are 90 days, the 90 days sperm, right?
31:26: And so you get the best of the best.
31:28: So I call it a, so do you think about the quarter prior now, if you’re coming off of birth control, you may even need more time.
31:34: I was on, I was on the depo Vero when I was in my 2020 years old lasted like nine months on it.
31:40: Like I just, I was like, I did that hanging off the and finally I was like, I can’t take this anymore.
31:45: I didn’t get my period back for a year.
31:48: So you may not even have a period for a minute.
31:51: That’s just a really great time to shore up a good again, a good prenatal.
31:56: I love the company.
31:57: We Natal, I also love the company seed, but we natal is, they are just so dialed in with the the right amount of nutrients that you’re gonna need.
32:07: So making sure it’s methyl folate, it’s methylated activated B vitamins, enough coon to get the job done.
32:13: Omegas.
32:14: There’s a pretty extensive list of what you’re going to need.
32:17: And ideally, I recommend being on a prenatal six months prior to conception, like making sure that you are getting those nutrients, making a baby, the amount of neurons they make per second is insane.
32:29: And so you want to make sure you have a lot of those nutrients dialed months in advance, which is so crazy because I don’t think people get on a prenatal until they’re pregnant is that true?
32:38: Like most, like, like, so, yeah, I don’t know what it looks like but, you know, from, you know, I’m pretty sure most of the friends that I’ve had in my life that have gone pregnant, they’re like, oh, now I need to go find a prenatal, like they’re pregnant and then they get a prenatal.
32:50: You’re talking about the proactiveness of taking the prenatal and all these supplements and taking care of your body before you get pregnant.
32:57: You want to shore up your trauma, you want to shore up your stress, you want to shore up your nutrient deficiencies.
33:02: You want to, you want to, you think again, we are making a human and there’s a lot about this world that we live in that isn’t really setting our bodies up to 3D print these beautiful little babies in a way that is creating, you know, these ultimate strong healthy babies.
33:22: Yeah.
33:22: And so it’s again, like how many months we take to plan weddings or how much time it takes for us to get into college.
33:31: You know, if you think about this is our legacy, definitely our genetic legacy, but honestly our legacy and I don’t know, people are just like, oh, you just get pregnant.
33:41: Yeah.
33:41: Yeah.
33:41: It’s almost like we’ve made it so simple, like buy something at the store.
33:46: It’s like, oh, I’m just going to go to Jimbo’s today and just go pick up a baby.
33:50: It’s not like that this is being you’re creating life.
33:56: It’s also an old story because at one point it was that easy.
34:01: But because of the lifestyle we live in and the toxins we’re dealing with, it’s not easy anymore.
34:06: And I think people are still telling that old story of like, well, ok, it’s time like let’s have it and it’s going to be amazing and healthy and we forget about what’s going on with the stress, the toxins, the trauma and all the things.
34:17: So I feel like, yeah, I mean, people like beautiful Marisa here are telling a new story.
34:23: We need a new story to realize like right now in our world, we can’t just, it’s not as easy to just go and have a baby.
34:29: And even if you do, it can lead to complications if you haven’t sorted out all the things that are going on in the system, think about how our Children are still being educated about reproduction and it’s still very much abstinence and that girls can get a lot of people believe I thought I could get pregnant at any time.
34:49: I didn’t realize there was a fine night window that I only had three days, one day.
34:54: Yeah.
34:54: Well, I mean, you got five days or so.
34:57: Yeah.
34:57: Well, we are 24 24 hours.
35:01: She’s, she’s going to beckon sperm can live up to five days.
35:05: That’s the reason.
35:07: And so that’s, you know, that’s why they say a fertile window is because sperm can technically live a little bit longer before you get to that before that window opens and then the egg is beckoning them like they don’t find their way.
35:21: Ladies, we choose, we choose and we help you get there.
35:25: Sounds familiar.
35:28: I mean, it’s truly majestic like it is so incredible.
35:31: We have a portal inside of us and to exactly not want to take the greatest care to, to nourish that and make it the best place inhabitant place to be is wild to me that, yeah, we just like, without a second thought or like, ok, I guess today we’ll try totally.
35:47: Well, it’s two things.
35:47: It’s e it’s firm quality, it’s three things.
35:49: It’s sperm quality, it’s egg quality and it’s the garden.
35:53: You know, it’s, it’s one thing, you know, to, for those two to meet.
35:56: But then again, it’s, it’s in the womb that, that baby is gonna develop.
36:00: So all of those pieces really need to be in place and, and to think that, you know, that we just get on in there and just get it done.
36:07: Like it’s, it’s just not, it’s not that way anymore.
36:11: And I don’t, I really don’t know if it was really ever that way.
36:15: You know, I think we could have been a lot more intentional.
36:17: We just didn’t know, you know, and so if I, if I had to, whenever any time I’m working with someone about, you know, helping to get them pregnant.
36:25: I, you know, I, I really advise giving them 90 days, 90 full days to clean up their diet.
36:32: To really come from a place of eating life giving foods, removing as many toxins as possible, getting the right nutrients into the body.
36:39: Again, a prenatal.
36:40: Some, some doctors will say a year, a year in advance taking a prenatal.
36:46: It makes sense because you’re building, it’s like if you are vitamin D, deficient, like I’ve been and I know you are too, you don’t just take it for a month and all of a sudden your levels are better.
36:55: It takes months and months and months for that.
36:57: Like stacking to happen to get back up to a solid place.
37:00: So, yeah, and if you’re running in overdrive and you’re burned out and you, or you have past traumas, you’re burning through a lot of nutrients, you’re burning through a lot.
37:07: Vitamin D, you’re bringing through magnesium, you’re bringing through b vitamins like nobody’s business.
37:11: You’re burning through your iron.
37:13: I mean, you’re just, we are you your body like making a cake, you can’t make it if you don’t have eggs and gluten free flour, like, like, you know, you, you have to have all the right.
37:25: And so if you’re going to try to build this cake or bake this cake and you’re missing some really important ingredients, it’s not gonna be a cake.
37:33: I don’t know what it’s going to be Bush, it’s the same thing.
37:38: And so your cells can only operate with what, you know, with all they’ve got with what they have.
37:44: And if you don’t have the right nutrients in place, you can see that’s where we start to see these issues.
37:49: Like menstrual cycle irregularities and having a hard time getting pregnant, we don’t have the building blocks.
37:55: And so that’s what I’m talking about is how do we build the building blocks?
37:58: And then also how do we tell the body, how do we let the body know?
38:02: And our mitochondria know that we are safe, we’re safe to be mamas.
38:07: So that’s always a big part of the journey too, being safe to be a mama.
38:12: That feels so nice.
38:12: Thank you for summarizing that.
38:14: I think the other thing that we wanted to make sure we talked about with you too was around.
38:18: I mean, also women are getting pregnant later, right?
38:21: We’re kind of, I’m 31 going to be 32 sam.
38:24: You said you’re 37.
38:25: A lot of people are now starting to get pregnant later.
38:28: Like they’re actually thinking about pregnancy, maybe their life starts a little later.
38:31: So one thing that also comes with us getting pregnant later in a part of our hormone cycle is also premenopause, which I know you are such an expert in as well.
38:41: Can you tell us a little bit more about that journey or that breakdown between like what does it look like to be premenopause versus menopause because I know there’s a difference and I don’t think we talk about that enough.
38:52: Yeah.
38:52: No, I would say a majority of doctors don’t know the difference.
38:56: Yeah.
38:56: And so why would we, why would we just a little bit of background on me?
39:02: I had my son at 41.
39:05: I was in Perimenopause when I had my son and so I primed up y’all listen, I think everyone needs to hear that.
39:13: You know, there are some people that they’re like, oh my gosh, I’m going to hit 40.
39:15: I’m never going to have a baby and they’re scared and you’re a testament to something different.
39:20: Yeah, natural.
39:21: Had them natural and I was pregnant at 40 I had him at 41 but I spent 39.
39:28: I spent the entire year before I got pregnant, prepping for that pregnancy because I knew I was 39.
39:34: I also had some other health concerns that I was contending with.
39:38: I had hai moto thyroiditis who had an autoimmune condition I had had, you know, in the past I had had menstrual irregularity that like all, you know, everybody I know.
39:46: Right.
39:47: I didn’t even understand and my levels of progesterone were pretty low.
39:50: And so I was, you know, I was really priming up for my and then I also my husband, I, he was on a full on protocol.
39:57: He did a whole year as well.
39:59: So, he did about 4 to 5 months, you know.
40:02: Yeah.
40:02: So I gave, because I knew, you know, and it definitely the three months leading in because, like, diet minerals, vitamins.
40:09: Yeah, all of these and I was on top of, you know, a lot of us will be on the, you know, helping them with the supplement protocol and some nutrition fees.
40:17: So, yeah, I mean, he was all systems go.
40:19: Which was really nice.
40:20: Yeah.
40:21: You know, so getting buy in from your partner, I think is important that it’s equally as important that they’re doing, doing the thing.
40:27: You know.
40:28: So perimenopause.
40:29: So menopause, let’s just define what menopause is.
40:32: It is.
40:33: You have not had a period in 12 consecutive months and voila, you’re in menopause, there’s a lot more that’s going on, but that’s how we define it.
40:41: And then the next day you’re in post menopause, you’re only in menopause for a day.
40:46: This is kind of how we define it.
40:48: It’s up to you, how you want to own it.
40:50: You could just be in menopause.
40:53: And then, so you can imagine puberty is the ascension into childbearing years and woo the roller coaster ride ascension, right?
41:01: 12 years old in sixth grade was rough for you.
41:04: Oh, my gosh.
41:04: So, yeah, and it takes years for that, that reproductive system to come fully online.
41:11: So it’s usually not until you’re like 20 where it’s all firing.
41:15: So, puberty is actually an extended amount of time.
41:18: And so second puberty, which is menopause is the dissension.
41:23: So it’s the decline of your ovarian function and your hormones.
41:28: And really, it’s your ovarian germ cell supply.
41:32: So when you are in your mama’s womb, you were gifted with the amount of egg that you were going to have.
41:39: Can you imagine?
41:40: Isn’t that crazy?
41:41: Yes.
41:42: And then obviously by the time we’re in puberty, we only have a certain amount left.
41:48: I think it’s like about 40% or give or take.
41:51: And then we start cycling right consistently and releasing an egg pretty much every single month.
41:55: And then there’s a wind down.
41:57: So natural menopause can happen anywhere between 45 years old, which is where I’m at right now.
42:02: Ok.
42:03: And, and 55.
42:05: So, and then perimenopause the, the, the down swing, the, the dissension into menopause is anywhere between four and 10 plus years.
42:16: So for some women, they, that’s why I think we call it geriatric pregnancy after the age of 35 is because for some of us, depending on when your mama went through menopause, we start to see a bit of that wind down.
42:30: And the first part of that wind down, the first hormone that starts to decline due to the ovaries, just kind of inherently knowing that they’re, they’re slowing down, their production is going to be progesterone to the pro gestation hormone that’s in the luteal phase.
42:46: And so these subtle symptoms of perimenopausal early, early.
42:49: And I would say that that’s really most women.
42:52: It’s between 4039 and 43 subtle symptoms again, feels like the daily pain points of everyday life.
42:59: You’re just a little bit more tired.
43:00: You’re a little bit more run down, you’re a little bit more irritated, like, especially instead of three days prior to your period, maybe it’s seven days prior to your period.
43:09: You just, we can really shrug it off, you know, we’re just like, oh, I just didn’t sleep enough.
43:14: It’s been a very full season.
43:15: I mean, think about midlife or heading into midlife how full of a season it is already.
43:20: This ain’t high school and junior high anymore, right?
43:22: This is a high stakes game.
43:24: We are in the peak of our careers, family relationships obligations.
43:29: And so it’s easy to kind of shrug it off as I don’t know what this is like and you definitely don’t want to own it yet, you know.
43:36: And so initially it’s kind of those subtle symptoms, but then who it ratchets up real quick if you real.
43:47: And so as you head into your early to mid forties, you’ll start to notice maybe cycle changes.
43:52: What was a 28 day cycle is now a 26 day cycle.
43:56: You are skipping ovulatory cycles.
43:58: So you’re not always ovulating and those are months where there is no progesterone happening.
44:03: And so there’s no definitive test for perimenopause.
44:06: It’s really age symptoms, menstrual cycle changes and, and pretty much if you’re really having these, what the f moments and you’re like the fuck, what is happening to me right now?
44:17: And you’re 43 years old.
44:19: It’s perimenopause.
44:20: I’m curious.
44:22: So does, is it, is it kind of like, is it more a, or is it kind of based on when you run out of eggs?
44:27: It’s, it’s, it, that’s a silly question.
44:30: No, it’s mainly based on when you’re going to run out of eggs.
44:33: So, is there an average number that we have of eggs?
44:38: It does vary woman to woman.
44:40: But for the most part, we know that, you know, by the time you’re in your forties, you’re down to about 3 to 5%.
44:48: So, and that’s why it is a little bit more.
44:50: I, is it, is it absolutely possible to get pregnant in your forties?
44:53: Yes, I can, I can attest to that.
44:55: I’m one of the I am end of one, you know, in that, in that realm.
44:59: But it also you, you are working with a smaller egg supply at that point.
45:04: You know, it’s a whole lot easier to get pregnant at 20 than it is to get pregnant at 40.
45:07: You know, unless you’re contending with something like Polycystic Ovarian syndrome.
45:11: So it just depends on the situation.
45:13: So, yeah.
45:13: So in your, so just note that how you do know is most likely your mama’s mental causal age.
45:19: Ok.
45:19: So, unfortunately, a lot of our mamas or at least, you know, luckily my mom did not get a hysterectomy or an oophorectomy.
45:26: So she did know.
45:28: I ask women all the time.
45:29: I’m like, when was your mom?
45:30: When did your mom go into menopause?
45:31: And she’s like, it was early menopause or premature menopause due to surgery or medical or chemical.
45:38: So a lot of girl women don’t know.
45:40: And then the standard of care for a lot of women in the allopathic system, the healthcare system, the second you start to experience or exhibit perimenopausal symptoms.
45:50: You regulate your cycle by putting you on an IUD or birth control.
45:55: So that, that ain’t it.
45:57: Yeah.
45:58: So we have like I call it the perimenopause starter pack that you’ll get from your doctor, which is Ssris.
46:05: So dealing with the mood and the depression and the anxiety.
46:08: Yes, birth control can want to shut that system.
46:11: I’m going to shut this all down.
46:13: That’s crazy.
46:14: I think we’re just trying to turn the off like I could just off and then they’re like, until you’re about 51 or 52 years old girl and then we can take you off all that stuff or of some of it and then you just, then you’re just in menopause.
46:27: And here’s the thing is that per menopause sets off an acceleration of events that isn’t going somewhere good, you know.
46:34: So it is not.
46:36: And if we’re in default mode about it or we just shut it off and ignore it.
46:40: Well, what’s happening with your metabolic life, what’s happening with your inflammation?
46:44: So, menopause is a default inflammatory state if we’re not managing it.
46:49: Right.
46:49: And it’s default hormone chaos.
46:51: And so that roller coaster ride, we can pivot and make changes.
46:56: Like it’s such a beautiful time to really Reprioritize and take, take stock in what’s going on with us.
47:03: But if we just put, push the off button, it’s, it’s unfortunately, we missed that opportunity to really dial into what’s going on with our bodies to really listen to what’s going on with our bodies.
47:14: And again, menopause, once we’re there, a lot of things have shifted because we’ve lost those protective hormones.
47:20: And so by turning it off, you know, again, yes, it does.
47:23: It mitigate some of these symptoms.
47:24: Sure.
47:25: But it really doesn’t allow us the opportunity to fully understand what’s going on with our bodies in that transition.
47:31: But there’s other ways to mitigate besides birth control.
47:35: So in that way, let’s talk about that because we talked a little bit about the activeness to, to getting pregnant and what that looks like.
47:40: So that this whole conversation is fluid around how we could be proactive, how we can be advantaged.
47:45: How can we do that when we get to premenopause or how can we prepare ourselves?
47:47: I know, for example, you and I have talked a lot about adding hormones.
47:51: Do doing hormones, keeping them alive.
47:54: What you’ve told me about, like, why are we going to wait until our hormones are no longer there to start giving us hormones?
47:59: So little talk a little bit about that.
48:00: Yeah.
48:01: Absolutely.
48:01: So, I think just like puberty, although I don’t think any of us were praying for puberty either, but supposedly we’re priming girls now and when I do believe that we are, you know, at least, at least, you know, with we’re breaking.
48:17: So they’ll be ready and even pregnancy.
48:20: She just helped me in 30 seven.
48:22: I’m like, where has this been?
48:24: Because I had high estrogen symptoms and I know you’re going to talk about progesterone, which is a God given miracle that and I was like, holy shit.
48:32: We’re all on.
48:34: Yeah.
48:34: Oh yeah.
48:34: That’s right.
48:36: Welcome to the progesterone club.
48:37: Literally, I can’t shut up about it now.
48:39: I’m like, you must have a progesterone problem.
48:42: Many of them do progesterone is so contingent.
48:45: Again, the only way we make progesterone is when you’re ovulating and it better be robust.
48:49: Yeah.
48:49: So we have that temporary endocrine organ called the corpus lum.
48:53: And if she, if she doesn’t show up that month, there’s no, there, there’s a very lackluster amount of progesterone.
49:00: So it spikes during ovulation and then it tapers down as you head towards like through luteal to your follicular.
49:05: Yeah.
49:06: Well, it releases after ovulation.
49:08: So, ovulation happens, the egg pops out and then that corpus luteum releases progesterone and that’s when your temperature goes up by a degree, your basal temperature goes up and then it peaks at day 20 well, for a 28 day cycle, it peaks at day 21 and then it’s the wind down.
49:24: All the hormones are winding down from 21 to 20 let’s say 21 to 28.
49:28: That’s why that late luteal phase is a motherfucker.
49:32: You feel it?
49:33: It’s like you have a little roller coaster.
49:34: I’m like, I feel so good.
49:36: L was great.
49:36: I can conquer anything to like, no, you can’t.
49:39: I have literally old her.
49:40: We cannot film this podcast near the end of our L be my favorite break next week is going to be wild for me.
49:47: I’m like, OK, where’s my capacity?
49:48: Where’s my brain?
49:50: Where did she go?
49:53: And I mean, again, we even in regular normal cycling, you know, normal reproductive years like that’s, that is the deal for all of us.
50:01: We hit that late luteal hormones are dropping, they’re declining and you’re like, you’re like, this is a taste of what’s to come like, this is just preparing you.
50:11: You want to prepare for perry menopause, pay attention to that late lud phase and how you tend to your body during that late luteal phase.
50:18: And so it’s going to be a really big indicator for what’s to come and it’s so deeply personal for every single one of us.
50:24: Yes.
50:24: Please let the ladies know it’s going to happen.
50:27: Don’t let us just walk into it.
50:30: I get run into a wall of peri menopause.
50:32: I think most women don’t know.
50:33: They’re in it until they are so in it, which is why you’re so passionate about it.
50:38: Like I need to get this information to women.
50:40: I mean, when it happened, you’re fired.
50:44: Like how are you not telling people this?
50:46: It’s kind of what you spoke to earlier at the beginning of the conversation, which is we robbed Peter to pay Paul when we’re 20 years old.
50:52: 30.
50:54: Yeah.
50:54: And nobody talks about that.
50:56: We’re like, let me push myself and stay up till three am studying for college exams.
51:00: Let me let me go out on a party and drink all night and then get up the next day and go for a run like all the and even if you don’t party or any of those things, all these things that we don’t even think about when we’re in our early twenties is still like stealing our mitochondria energy, all those things.
51:13: So by the time we get to like mid thirties, it’s like holy shit.
51:17: Holy moly batman.
51:18: I mean, and, and, and I know that women in our, in their twenties, shout out to all the girls, my young ladies who were like taking agency and are just like, I’m listening to my body now.
51:29: I’m like, I’m not going to push it.
51:30: I’m going to listen to it and we do see more of that.
51:32: It is happening.
51:33: I think it’s even the older generation women, even like myself stepping in a perry who we had no idea.
51:38: You know, we just blundered our way or just, just fired through twenties and thirties.
51:43: Maybe we stumbled a little bit in our thirties and we were like, let me just dust myself off tablets.
51:52: But then your forties, like you don’t get to run anymore.
51:56: Yeah.
51:56: It’s a reckoning.
51:57: It is a, you need to face yourself kind of moment.
52:00: And you really, if you didn’t take stock before you have to take stock at that point and you just know that by the time you’re 45 by the time you’re my age, I’m at the halfway point I am.
52:13: 50 isn’t the halfway point for most of us.
52:16: 45 maybe even like 40 3, 44 is the halfway point for some of us.
52:21: And so you have to ask yourself, I mean, there’s a lot of people probably not living 200 these days.
52:27: Yeah, exactly.
52:28: I mean, this generation, my son’s generation is the generation that’s not meant to live longer than us because a third of our teenagers are already pre diabetic.
52:39: I mean, one in five Children, by the time they get to adulthood will have a chronic, this did not exist.
52:48: I was a child.
52:49: This wasn’t happening.
52:51: And so you didn’t even see obesity at the rate when we were young, it would be at over 70% in the next, you know, couple next decade or so in terms of overweight and obesity, i insulin resistance too.
53:05: But then also for women in menopause and per menopause, I think it’s one point, almost 1.3 billion women will be in menopause by 2030 we’re almost to a billion.
53:16: Now.
53:16: It’s like a third of women in the world.
53:19: So this is, I mean, it is a moment of just recognizing, how do we show up for women?
53:25: How do we, how do we really set them up to win and for success and again, losing these hormones isn’t going anywhere good.
53:32: Remember, we talked about this being a vital sign.
53:35: It’s a vital sign to the end and losing that vital sign.
53:39: There’s no, there’s no time, natural menopause, call it whatever you want.
53:42: Losing these hormones can for many of us is a detriment.
53:47: And so yes, when we’re talking about things that we can do proactively.
53:50: Well, one, what, what do I really have capacity for?
53:53: What do I really have energy for?
53:55: Like you gotta, we gotta stop our bodies, want to finally feel safe in it.
54:00: You know, if you’ve not, you’ve not created a safe environment.
54:02: The time is now like in your body demands it, how we eat that wind down, you know, drinking, you know, just a lot of these things.
54:11: Yeah, a lot of this you’re going to find in midlife even as early as your late thirties.
54:17: And it’s not so much restriction, it’s checking in with your body and saying, man, how do I feel the next day?
54:24: Am I able to really show up for my people or am I just completely just run down hungover even with a glass of wine, you know, how much caffeine can I actually tolerate anymore?
54:34: You know, and then, and then looking at hormones too, you know.
54:37: So I, as a, as someone with a thyroid issue, no doctor, me neither.
54:42: I, I work with Haji Moto’s patients all the time.
54:44: I would never wait until someone has no T four or T three to supplement her up the thyroid hormone.
54:51: Right.
54:52: So why are we doing it with estradiol and testosterone and progesterone?
54:55: I mean, most doctors won’t even recommend it.
54:58: But to me in perimenopause as we’re losing those hormones, supplementing them up makes the most sense with the lifestyle piece.
55:08: Like hormones are optimizers.
55:10: Like hormones aren’t going to fix Polycystic Ovarian syndrome.
55:14: You know, you can’t slap enough progesterone on that problem.
55:16: Hormones aren’t going to fix a deregulated stress response system.
55:21: They’re not, hormones are not going to walk back, insulin resistance, you know, and so lifestyle has to be running in tandem.
55:28: The man, I will tell you when you, when a woman’s dosed right with hormones and they have a lot of those other pieces in play they’re getting good sleep, they’re taking care of their bodies.
55:37: They’re honoring their bodies with movement and self care.
55:40: It is like a light bulb goes on.
55:42: You give someone hormones and it is a game changer.
55:45: I feel it.
55:46: I feel like I feel so I’m not even in premenopause but the way that I used to live my life before compared to changing my lifestyle in general, like, it was like a light bulb.
55:56: I was like, wait, where has all this energy been?
55:59: I didn’t even know this existed.
56:00: I, this was my normal.
56:01: Wow.
56:02: I feel so light.
56:03: I feel so focused.
56:04: I can clear.
56:04: I wake up, I feel refreshed.
56:06: There’s all these like signs that you receive.
56:09: Yeah.
56:09: Oh my goodness.
56:10: Yeah.
56:10: Winning signs.
56:11: That’s your mitochondria saying.
56:13: Thank you, baby.
56:14: Thank you.
56:15: Stop and review the you might have and I talking the other night of just how we haven’t wanted to go stay up late or, you know, like not that we’re doing drugs or anything but like drinking, doing drugs.
56:28: None of that.
56:28: We were just talking about that conversation of how it feels so good to regulate your system once you’re regulated, like you don’t want to do anything to mess that up and then to take progesterone on top of that and get on your sleep really be regulated.
56:41: It’s true.
56:42: It’s like a whole new reality.
56:44: I was because you told me to look at my cycle.
56:46: I was waking up in my lud phase all the time in the middle of the night, like right before my period and I was having high estrogen symptoms.
56:54: I would have never known that I didn’t until I started looking and tracking.
56:57: And now with the progesterone, it’s like I sleep through the night.
56:59: It feels amazing.
57:00: It’s like a whole new person.
57:02: And yeah, there’s just not enough of this conversation.
57:05: It’s becoming more popular.
57:06: But I feel like if people only knew what you actually could feel like if you are eating clean, if you’re doing all these things.
57:14: I mean, unfortunately it is like a fight against a system that pushes us the other direction and, you know, you walk into a grocery, a generic grocery store and there’s nothing in there.
57:23: Yeah, there’s nothing to eat.
57:25: Nothing edible.
57:26: I hate, I hate when you’re on the road and you have to stop at a gas station.
57:29: Like, what am I going to eat?
57:31: You look around like water, I guess I’m found in the water.
57:34: The water is that great.
57:35: But the water, this is plastic water.
57:39: It’s so bad.
57:39: It’s like Coca Cola water.
57:41: Yeah, it’s so hard.
57:42: You’re like, did I please tell me I brought enough snacks, come with me.
57:46: No, it is hard to live in this world where we food is subsidized and it’s mono cropping and everything is highly processed.
57:53: I believe the average adult, 60% of their diet is ultra processed foods and you have to just think it’s just what is your, what do your cells do with it?
58:02: I mean, they do something, I mean, how miraculous is the body is that they take them fake food and make it into some kind of, I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t say it’s optimal.
58:13: You’re not getting an optimal brain cell or an optimal eye cell from that.
58:17: But your body is like, well, it’s what we got to work with over here.
58:21: So let’s make it work.
58:23: And, and so yeah, they do so much.
58:25: I can only do it again right at the same time, you may get you to a place like you’re still lacking nutrients, you’re still depleted.
58:32: Like you might be walking and doing stuff and operating.
58:36: But are you fully operating?
58:38: Are you fighting off?
58:39: Are you fully expressed?
58:42: Yeah.
58:42: No, you’re not.
58:44: And a lot of us don’t even know what it feels like to feel good, to feel energized.
58:48: That’s why I walk women through like a 90 day protocol and on the other side, they’re like, well, can I bring any of these things back?
58:54: That’s what they’ll ask me in the beginning.
58:56: And I was like, we’ll see, there’s a good chance you’re not going to ever want to because you’re going to love how you feel so much that you never want to go back.
59:06: You’ll never look at that diet Pepsi again.
59:08: You’ll never look at that Snickers Bar, like you just say, it just isn’t worth it.
59:13: And the question I always ask myself is, is this what I’m eating right now?
59:17: Is this going to contribute to my future brain health, to my future neurons?
59:22: Is this what I want my future brain to be in a week?
59:25: And if it’s not a full body, yes, it’s a full body.
59:29: Fuck.
59:29: No, it’s just I’m so clear.
59:31: I have so many boundaries around what I nourish my body with.
59:34: Honestly, I have boundaries around everything these days because I am in peri menopause.
59:40: But it’s so true.
59:41: I mean, it’s so easy to just say, oh, it’s just this once or just, you know, I was listening to this podcast, we’ve talked about this before but someone asked, it was Doctor Casey.
59:50: I know you know her last name.
59:52: But yeah, and she wrote Good Energy and someone asked her like, what’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given as a doctor as a woman?
59:59: And she said everything in moderation because she was, she’s so adamant about how nowadays there are lots of things we should not eat out of all or consume it all even in moderation.
1:00:08: It’s, it’s a no, it’s a hell no.
1:00:11: So it’s true.
1:00:12: It’s like, and I think also when I first got off fast food, I mean, this is like when I was 18, but I was raised on fast food and Snickers and all the shitty foods.
1:00:20: You feel so good but you don’t even want that stuff.
1:00:23: It doesn’t even taste like food anymore.
1:00:24: But we’re so addicted to that stuff that we know nothing different.
1:00:28: And I’m sure a lot of your clients and patients can relate to that of like they think they want it and then it goes away and they’re like, oh, I don’t even want that.
1:00:35: Not only is it not good for me, but it doesn’t even taste good anymore.
1:00:38: Like you’re eating real food now.
1:00:40: And we live in a time where yes, there’s so much alter processed foods and we live in a time where there’s so many great swaps.
1:00:48: You can upgrade your snacks, you can upgrade your dessert.
1:00:52: You can to real food and that’s available.
1:00:56: There was a time where all the crunchy, all the crunchy people were like, what do we, what do we even eat?
1:01:01: And no, there’s so many options.
1:01:03: There’s still even the clean option.
1:01:05: Sometimes I’m a full body.
1:01:06: No, to, mainly because of blood glucose and I really want to optimize my, my metabolic health.
1:01:12: But I mean, it’s one rung at a time.
1:01:14: Right.
1:01:15: Don’t think that you have to get rid of everything.
1:01:17: You just got to start swapping out some of the, the big offenders.
1:01:21: There’s a little bit of an upgrade, like instead of the la but potatoes or chips or lays chips.
1:01:26: Maybe you go to siete, you know, like you just level up instead of the, you know, seed oils go to the thing with the avocado oil, you know, those are the kind of upgrades that you’re, you’re looking at the small things.
1:01:36: Yeah.
1:01:37: And so, and then it doesn’t feel like you’re taking everything away from yourself totally, that it’s more of what can I add in.
1:01:43: And so there’s a lot of things that we can add in to tend to our bodies that, that kind of like, you know, move out, then move out of the house.
1:01:51: So good things.
1:01:53: And then probably the other thing I would anchor to in this conversation that a lot of women, you know, we don’t realize how detrimental it is.
1:01:59: It’s sleep, you know, and, and the one thing I can tell you, yeah, it’s so good as you get older like, oh, you know, if you didn’t get good sleep or not.
1:02:09: And the, the looking at all the sleep experts out there, the piece of advice I, I give every woman listening is one, protect your sleep and your sleep routine.
1:02:18: Like it’s a million dollar meeting.
1:02:20: I, are you a, is that a million dollar question?
1:02:23: Because if it’s not shut up, like I asked, I asked people try to ask me about work before bed and I was like, are you talk to me right now?
1:02:30: Like my sleep is worth billion dollars.
1:02:33: Also, I’m reading my family now.
1:02:36: If the door is shut, you don’t come in like I am in my sleep.
1:02:40: Do.
1:02:40: And this is a hard one, but I just, it is the game changer.
1:02:44: You go to bed at the exact same time every night and you get up at the exact same time every morning.
1:02:49: Yeah, she’s really good at that.
1:02:51: I’m still working on it.
1:02:52: Nick and I are really good now, we’re grandparents.
1:02:54: But, yeah, I think also the thing that’s really helped is like removing the TV.
1:02:58: For example, I stopped doing no electronics an hour before because then you really get to a place where, like, I have nothing else but to do, you know, if anything, Nick, Nick and I are connecting, but we’re not stimulated by these other things and then that kind of like, drops us into sleep and then get up at a certain time.
1:03:15: I’m staring at my parents and they’re like, you’re always up by like 6630.
1:03:19: I’m like, yeah, me too.
1:03:21: It’s just, it is.
1:03:21: Unless I stay out late the night before then.
1:03:24: Yes.
1:03:24: To your point.
1:03:25: I made that extra 30 minutes because I didn’t go to bed on time or what was really off.
1:03:30: And I feel such a difference when I’m out late compared to like, oh, yeah.
1:03:33: Oh, yes.
1:03:34: Oh, no.
1:03:34: In my, where it worries me almost my whole day is like, God, today is such a stretch.
1:03:40: Yeah, it’s so gosh, it just feels today.
1:03:42: Feels hard.
1:03:43: Not that life isn’t hard, but like, just my energy isn’t where I want it to be and we eat 15% extra calories to make up for a sun energy.
1:03:51: Your body is trying to get it from somewhere if you didn’t replenish that night.
1:03:56: So that’s why we’re eating more.
1:03:57: No, it’s a compounding.
1:04:00: Right.
1:04:03: No, it’s hormones.
1:04:04: It’s cuisines.
1:04:06: It’s blood sugar deregulation.
1:04:07: You get on that roller coaster and you have cravings.
1:04:11: I need, I need, yeah, I mean, I used to, I used to have a snack at two o’clock in the afternoon, every day because I needed energy to get through the rest of the day.
1:04:19: And I was like, I was on this roller coaster, I was, I was subtly insulin resistant when I was in my thirties and like late twenties and I had no idea because I thought it was just stress and it was stress, coel, insulin stress, coel all those everything.
1:04:33: It’s kind of scary.
1:04:34: And I was, I thought it was just stress.
1:04:36: I thought I was just chasing this stress issue.
1:04:37: But also I was equally insulin resistant.
1:04:39: At the same time, I had to start wrapping up the episode.
1:04:42: I’m crazy.
1:04:43: I’m like we were having such a great conversation and, you know, is there anything else you want to add before we transition to you?
1:04:51: I know we focus on a lot of what’s kind of bombarding our system.
1:04:54: But I, I want every woman to know that our bodies are so responsive, our hormones are so responsive.
1:05:00: Like you could walk back insulin resistance in a couple of weeks.
1:05:03: You can walk back inflammation very quickly.
1:05:06: It doesn’t take very long.
1:05:08: And I think when we, when we really are intentional about our bodies and we’re listening to our bodies, we are right for healing miracles really are.
1:05:16: Our bodies are so ready to feel really good and, and there’s so many beautiful tools out there that really allow us to get back in line with our, our body’s natural rhythm.
1:05:29: So that’s what I wanted to speak into is that you have, we do have agency.
1:05:32: There is no better time than right now and it doesn’t take a lot of levers.
1:05:36: It doesn’t have to be the hard level, just the easiest lovers.
1:05:39: And for many of us, it’s very much low hanging fruit.
1:05:42: So it’s just some tweaks and changes and pick the thing that’s going to give you the biggest win out the gate.
1:05:48: It’s going to keep you and then wanting to changes.
1:05:51: I think that’s so beautiful to end on specifically on this because when you’re listening to this kind of episode, you can be like, yeah, the pso si eat this stuff.
1:06:04: I do this stuff.
1:06:05: I love lotion.
1:06:06: I love this so I can feel very overwhelming.
1:06:08: I love my favorite lipstick.
1:06:09: Yeah.
1:06:09: All of things like our makeup, everything that’s influencing us.
1:06:12: So one for those listeners, please know that there’s also a possibility of change to what you’re saying and just making simple changes that are going to bring back to our hormones to harmony, harmonizing them.
1:06:23: Is that fair?
1:06:23: Yeah, absolutely.
1:06:24: 100%.
1:06:25: So I think our last final question, do you want to ask?
1:06:28: Yeah, we just love to ask every guest.
1:06:31: What does this next phase look like for you in terms of fully expressing yourself?
1:06:37: Where can you show up more fully expressed somewhere you’re looking forward to that.
1:06:42: The first thing I dropped in for me is you guys know how much, how intentional I am as a mama, you know, and then I know because I am the guiding light for my son and I get to hold space.
1:06:53: And so that was the first thing is I think I come in as a mom first.
1:06:57: So just like just fully expressing in front of Kingston, fully get me in my emotions processing with him, regulating with him being in the awe and joy and wonder of life like the he is so more into that.
1:07:11: But then also I’m really calling in to be fully expressed in conversations like this.
1:07:16: It’s getting to be my more authentic self for so many years.
1:07:19: I was so buttoned up trying to be the doctor that I thought people needed me to be.
1:07:24: And I’m really stepping into more authenticity of my energy, my Latina energy, I would call it whatever energy it is.
1:07:32: But yeah, stepping into more of that, you know, because I, I want to authentically be sharing this from a perspective that feels fun, doesn’t feel so clinical, you know, and, and doesn’t feel it doesn’t represent who I truly am.
1:07:45: So I feel like that’s coming through too.
1:07:48: I love both of those.
1:07:49: Wow, and so beautiful because I love that you’re also expressing yourself as a gift for your son, which sometimes we think that we have to lack, expressing ourselves to give to our son.
1:08:01: But you’re seeing your expression as a gift to you and your business and everything.
1:08:05: So, so beautiful.
1:08:07: Thank you so much for coming on Mariza.
1:08:09: You’re such a gift and so knowledgeable and the way, the way that you speak, you share it with a lot of education, but then also very supportive and tangible things that someone can take while also creating this vision and inviting people into harmonizing their hormones.
1:08:26: That’s what it’s all about.
1:08:27: So we always want to give you the opportunity to share where our audience can find you and the best place to gather more of your juicy knowledge and information.
1:08:39: Yeah, I love my podcast is one of my favorite places like your podcast.
1:08:43: I love your podcast.
1:08:44: It’s my labor of love for sure.
1:08:46: And so it’s called Energize with Dr Mariza to really embody what so many of us want.
1:08:50: So that’s a great place to go.
1:08:52: You want to dive into birth control.
1:08:54: And what is progesterone?
1:08:56: How do you even test for it?
1:08:57: I mean, all the nuance, the nitty gritty like I walk you through A to Z, like how to do all the things.
1:09:02: And then Instagram, I love Instagram, Dr Mares of Dr Ma Riz.
1:09:07: A.
1:09:07: There are a lot less consistent.
1:09:11: It, it’s a lot of perry content.
1:09:13: It’s a lot of perimenopause humor because I’m in it.
1:09:16: And then, yeah, I mean, you can find me on my website as well, which is Doctor mea.com.
1:09:20: Yeah.
1:09:20: And you also have some amazing courses, help, help people going through para men and metabolic health and all of those, all the struggles we’re all dealing with.
1:09:31: It’s true.
1:09:32: It’s true.
1:09:32: So, yeah, on my website, you’ll see a lot of that.
1:09:34: And if you guys are open to a free gift, I, I do have this incredible thriving and premenopause survival guide, but really can be helpful for women like from mid thirties into their fifties.
1:09:46: And it’s, I mean, labs are in there.
1:09:47: Everything is in there.
1:09:48: Like it is a playbook blueprint.
1:09:51: It took me months to create this.
1:09:53: I’m so so excited.
1:09:54: It’s out in the world now.
1:09:56: My team gave me the heads up that I can start sharing it.
1:09:59: Can we did I give it to all the listeners link in the show?
1:10:04: I don’t even know the link.
1:10:05: OK.
1:10:06: Well, by the time it there, yeah, by the time you’re listening to this.
1:10:09: It’s there, it’s there.
1:10:11: I love it.
1:10:12: Thank you so much.
1:10:14: We love you so much.
1:10:16: I love you.
1:10:16: Thank you.
1:10:17: I love you both so much.
1:10:20: Thank you so much for tuning in.
1:10:21: We really appreciate you being here.
1:10:24: If you enjoyed this episode, we’d be grateful if you could leave us a review and share it with a friend.
1:10:29: Also, we would love to hear from you, reach out to us on Instagram and let us know where you feel inspired to express yourself as you embrace this next era.
1:10:38: We are here to support you and encourage you, see you on the next one.