Latest / Age Defiantly with Mark Young / Your Thyroid Might Be the Reason You Can't Lose Weight With Dr. Amie Hornaman

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Your Thyroid Might Be the Reason You Can't Lose Weight With Dr. Amie Hornaman · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

• 0:00
  The thyroid runs the show. I always say from head to toe, it runs the show. So when we're talking about symptoms of hypothyroidism, literally you can start at the top of your head and you go the hair loss, brain fog, motivation, anxiety, depression, concentration, your heart rate, your blood pressure, your glucose control, your weight, obviously, your digestion. The key here though is
• 0:22
  GLP-1 is something your body creates naturally. What you're taking when you're injecting or ingesting nowadays is a GLP-1 agonist, which is tricking your body into making more GLP-1. GLP-1 functions as an agonist to actually, for the most part, slow digestion and slow motility in the body naturally.
• 0:44
  creating a feeling of satiation and stopping people from eating and that the symptoms, the side effects that we're seeing from GLPs. Six doctors, six, your labs are normal. 20 pounds of weight gain, crushing fatigue, hair falling out and a medical system that just kept telling her she was fine.
• 1:12
  She wasn't fine, but she refused to accept all of the conventional wisdom. Dr. Amy Horniman is a doctor of clinical nutrition, internationally known as the thyroid fixer. She spent her career helping women understand what normal labs mean and why normal and optimal are two entirely different things, separated by a gap that is quietly making millions of women miserable.
• 1:39
  She's the founder and CEO of the Advanced Thyroid and Hormone Clinic, an international telehealth practice serving patients across 50 states and Canada. She's the host of the Thyroid Fixer podcast, over 630 episodes recorded. She created the Fixer supplement line. She has been featured in the Shield documentary on Amazon Prime, Ageless, and Hormones Health and Harmony.
• 2:09
  The Thyroid Fix just launched this month. She has been where patients are, and that's the credential that matters most. Dr. Amy, welcome to Age Defiantly. Oh, Mark, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Oh, likewise. And congratulations on this great new book launch. I've been watching you all over social media. You're haunting me. It's meant to be that way.
• 2:38
  I absolutely love it. No, I think it's fantastic that you're getting that much press and publicity out there. I think it's amazing. And then this week, of course, with all of the stuff with S.H.I.E.L.D. having happened and the Cannes Film Festival and you're just everywhere.
• 2:53
  I know. I know. Well, you know, there's a lot of people to help, so we got to be everywhere. Yeah, you're not wrong. I'll be honest and tell you, one of the things I've seen lately on social media are these before and after pictures of you. And now I've heard you speak from stage multiple occasions, and I have heard your story about frustrating weight gain and so on and so forth.
• 3:17
  But I know you as the little lady with the legs to kill. And you're muscular, you're fit, you did competition bodybuilding, and that's the only version of you that I know. And then when I saw these pictures, it's the first time I've ever seen them, I was like, oh my goodness. Like, what a transformation. And 20 pounds overweight...
• 3:41
  Like doesn't seem like that big of a deal for most people, but how tall are you? Well, I'm five two and 20, 25 pounds is when I stopped getting on the scale. I actually don't know how high the scale went. So a couple of those pictures that I literally just found them too, Mark. People have been asking me, and I'm like, I threw them all out. I threw them out. I was so embarrassed
• 4:07
  with what my body was doing back then and the weight it was gaining and I was losing hair, I threw them all out. So literally I was digging through these old photo albums, like when we actually used to keep photos and not on our phone. And I found these and I was like, oh my gosh. So I had to share them because I know just like, just like you, many people see me as I am now and go, there's no way, there's no way you were carrying an extra 25, 30, 40 pounds on your
• 4:38
  Well, and it's so funny for me because I relate to that because I was very heavy years and years ago, like back in my 20s. And it's like, I still see myself that way in a lot of ways, because I'll say that physiologically, the scale may change. But the reality is, is like psychologically, we still have I always laugh and say sometimes my fat kid comes out. Mm hmm.
• 5:00
  Because we still struggle with that dysmorphia that takes place. But I love your story. I love that you've overcome it. I think it's amazing that the two things that you really highlighted is that you were losing hair as well as weight gain because you're in perfect physical condition and have the best hair in the industry.
• 5:16
  So your two best features are the two things that you were complaining about. And I find that amazing. But Amy, I want to go back because your story, and I really want our listeners to hear this from the beginning, because you're saying six doctors, six normals. And I've been working with a company recently that I can't wait to tell you more about, but it's a company called Rooted IQ. Yeah.
• 5:42
  And it is entirely founded in understanding the way AI is able to take multiple different facets of an individual. And there's a lot of platforms out there that, you know, they take a lab report and they analyze it or they take a genetic report and they analyze it. But this one is like nothing I've ever seen before. And I'm super excited about it. But the metaphor that was being used, and I'd sent a meme to the founder, it's
• 6:08
  And the meme was actually it was a it was a picture of a guy sitting on an exam table in a doctor's office. And you're looking at it from the back and the guy's got this giant axe in his back. But the doctor is standing in front of him and the doctors and the thought bubble above the doctor's head. It says, I don't see a problem.
• 6:29
  And it's such a metaphor. I mean, that satire, because the doctor didn't see the problem, because the problem wasn't visible from the angle the doctor was looking at him, because the axe was in his back, right? I mean, again, kind of a playful way of telling the story. But there are men and women...
• 6:51
  who are out there going, this doesn't make sense. That's your story. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, 20, 30 years ago, way back in the day, in my younger days, I was a competitor. So I was doing all the things. I was competing in fitness and figure competition. So for your listeners, that's basically bodybuilding, but still feminine, you know,
• 7:13
  Your diet is strict. You're packing your food on a Sunday. You're measuring it. You're weighing it. You're counting macros. You're taking Tupperware to restaurants because you won't even eat out. You know, you have no social life whatsoever. But it's a challenge. It was a challenge for me. And I really liked, you know, as a type A driver, as you know, we like challenges. So...
• 7:35
  I had done plenty of shows and I too was a fat kid. So I would always have to work my butt off to get ready for a show. And by ready, I mean, you know, you're losing body fat. So during the off season, you know, my body would put on like an extra 10 or so pounds and you have to lose that in time for the show.
• 7:55
  And I had done this plenty of times. I knew, okay, 12 weeks of dieting, you're hitting the gym hard. Sometimes you're doing it twice a day. And it always worked. It always worked for me. So I was getting ready for this one show, checking in with my coach, sending him before pictures, you know, the progress pics, stepping on the scale every single week. And every time I had to report to him, the scale was going up.
• 8:19
  And that's what I'm saying. Like it went up five pounds and then 10. By the time it hit 20, 25 pounds, I was so depressed. I had lost, I lost everything. Like I lost my identity. You know, here was me at the gym, this fitness, you know, I'm training people. I'm helping them with their nutrition. Everybody at the gym had seen me get ready for plenty of shows, different photo shoots. Yeah.
• 8:45
  And now I'm gaining weight. And now I'm hiding my body. So, of course, the whispers start, you know, she got off her diet. She must have just succumbed to the donuts and the pizza. You know, she doesn't have the willpower.
• 9:00
  And it wasn't that at all. I was doing everything and then some. Back even before we had the term medical gaslighting, I was gaslighting myself. I was like, oh man, maybe I need to restrict more. Maybe I need to do three cardio sessions a day. Maybe if I cut my calories to like 900 calories a day, I'll finally lose weight. I was blaming myself and really falling deeper and deeper into depression.
• 9:27
  So obviously I did what we all do. I went to my doctor. You know, you start there when your body's a runaway train. So I go to my doctor and I tell him what's going on and he ran some tests or whatever.
• 9:44
  told me my labs are normal. And I love that meme because I can, I can literally picture myself in the exam room, like with an ax or a knife in my back and, and the doctor facing me being like nothing to see here. Everything was great. And that's what I was told.
• 10:00
  Now, I didn't stop there. Obviously, I went for second opinion because I didn't feel normal. This guy's telling me, I'm like, I'm not normal. So I go to the second doctor. The second doctor is a metabolic disease specialist. So I remember being really excited because it actually had the word metabolism in the title. So I'm thinking, this guy has to know what's happening with me, has to know why I'm gaining weight. And, you know, I mentioned my hair and the energy part.
• 10:28
  But at the time, like, I didn't really even care. I just wanted the damn weight off. All my clothes are getting tighter. It was ridiculous. So I go to the metabolic disease specialist. And I'll never forget, it was right around Christmas. He had a Christmas party going in the office. And he just comes into the room and he's like, you know what? 25 pounds isn't bad. Look at this BMI chart. You're fine.
• 10:52
  And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I had handed him my diet. I'm like, please look at what I'm eating. Look at what I eat. He's like, oh, that's great. You just keep doing that. Maybe eat a little bit less, exercise more, and you'll be fine. And I remember leaving that appointment and literally putting my head on the steering wheel. I cried, Mark. I cried. Like, I cried in my car. And so many women talk about that now, crying in their car. I cried in my car. And I was at the point where I prayed for, like, any diagnosis at that point because I just wanted a name for what was going on with me.
• 11:21
  So I kept going. And yes, I saw a total of six different doctors who all told me I was normal. The seventh doctor actually gave me the diagnosis. She touched my throat and said, swallow. First doctor to lay hands on me. And she says, I'm feeling some nodules on your thyroid. Based on your blood work, it looks like you have hypothyroidism. Here's a pill.
• 11:43
  So now I'm leaving her office pumped up. I'm like, yes, I have a name. I have a pill that's gonna fix me. This is absolutely incredible. What she gave me was T4, Levothyroxine Synthroid. Many of your listeners are on it right now. And that T4 medication, that T4 hormone is inactive. So it literally did nothing. I gave it five months. It did nothing in my body. Not a single pound, not a single pound lost.
• 12:13
  So I go back. I'm like, OK, keep going, Dr. Google. And, you know, we didn't have podcasts like this. We didn't have AI. We didn't have anything back then. We had Dr. Google on my gateway dial up computer.
• 12:26
  So I go back to Dr. Google and Dr. Google's telling me, wait, wait, this, this hormone that I'm taking is inactive. There's an active thyroid hormone. It's called T3. There's another one called T2. This is amazing. So I take this information back to my doctor, like we all do today, take it back and go here, look, please help me. And she goes, that's not standard of care. I don't do that.
• 12:51
  And that was the breaking point. That's what finally, I mean, listen, I was in my 20s. I was making like $300 a week and I didn't care. I found the money to go find a functional medicine practitioner who I kept hearing the name of. So I knew he was good.
• 13:06
  And I paid for that appointment. He gave me 83 more minutes than any other doctor ever gave me. He sat with me for 90 minutes. It wasn't the five to seven minute visit. He sat with me for 90 minutes, went through all my labs, ordered a boatload of labs. It looked like a book. He's going through them. He's explaining to me what's happening in my body, totally changes my thyroid medication, puts me on the right one, and I start getting better. And I literally get my life back.
• 13:33
  to where I changed careers. He became my mentor. I started working for him. I went back to school, got my master's, got my doctorate, trained in functional medicine. I mean, that experience completely shifted my life in a good way because that's why I'm here with you now. That's why I wrote the book. That's why I do what I do. First of all.
• 13:52
  Kudos to you and to that doctor who made the pivotal change, because I always look back. A lot of my background was in education, and it's like, you may have 29 out of 30 students that are terrible, but that one makes it all worthwhile. And I think that story reminds me of that, right? Like...
• 14:09
  Six doctors failed. The seventh doctor, you know, maybe did also, I suppose. But that last one made the difference. And I'll say that you're probably the patient that makes it all worthwhile for him, too, because he didn't just fix your problem. He changed the trajectory of your life. And now you're doing the same. I mean, what multiplicity is that? I love it. Like, that's amazing. I think that many women, and I'll say men included, but I think particularly women,
• 14:39
  Body image is such a big deal. And I'll say, I was at a Tony Robbins conference back in December, and I laughed because he'd said something that I hadn't heard before. And it made me laugh because he's like, I need to ask you, in this room, how many, by show of hands, how many women in this room, I forget the way he phrased it, but it was, are self-conscious about your body? Yeah.
• 15:07
  And you saw like 95% of the hands went up in the room of women. And he's like, great. And the women sit down. By show of hands, men, how many of you are self-conscious about your body? Like four hands went up in the sense of her room.
• 15:22
  And he's like, there's my point. Because women, this is an emotional issue for women entirely. Like, that's entirely. That's not fair. I mean, men still have body issues as well, but probably I would arguably say are trained to not make them public. Sure.
• 15:41
  But the reality is, is it's a very real thing for a woman because she puts so much value on the way she looks and her appearance. And obviously we see you as a beautiful woman. But the idea that your identity, you said, got stripped away, like you'd lost yourself, which I'm not trying to minimize that. But I want to make the juxtaposition that 20 to 25 pounds is.
• 16:09
  And you literally made the statement a moment ago, if I'm getting the words right, I completely lost my identity. I'm like, 20 pounds and you lost your identity. I mean, to most people, 20 pounds is Thursday. Like, you lost your identity in 20 pounds. And again, like you said, it went beyond that. That was the last time you stepped on the scale. But this idea of...
• 16:34
  Weight gain is more than just body image, though. It's so much to do with every other thing that happens in your life. Is you're self-conscious? You're eating out. You're afraid of ordering too much food in front of a group of friends who may look at you funny. Like, why didn't she just get a salad? Like, all of this stuff plays in. Like, it affects psychologically the way you interact with, you know, with men or women, respectively. Like, everything about that changes. Yeah.
• 17:03
  And just weight gain has such a pull on people's... I can't use a better word other than identity.
• 17:12
  Yeah. No, it has a trickle effect. I'm glad you brought it up because I was literally just talking about it this weekend that, you know, I'm guilty when I even talk on the podcast. I'm guilty as well of talking about thyroid symptoms. You go, you know, weight, fatigue, hair loss, constipation, brain fall, like all of those things that I guess I would classify them as more.
• 17:34
  surface level or aesthetic, but it's like, then you start to look at the tentacles. And just like you said, you don't want to get naked. You don't want to get naked and walk in front of the bathroom mirror yourself, let alone get naked in front of your partner. Like you literally become withdrawn. You start avoiding sex, avoiding intimacy, but,
• 17:55
  with your partner because you don't want to see yourself. You stop going out with friends because, yeah, there's what you're going to order. There's the fact that if you have an appetizer, you're going to be five pounds heavier tomorrow. And what the hell are you going to wear? Because everything is tight. So you just decline all social aspects of your life because you don't want to do that. It has tentacles. In fact, we've even had patients that said they got a promotion at work.
• 18:21
  after we fixed their thyroid because they weren't even functioning at a high level. They didn't have the motivation. They didn't have the drive. Their performance wasn't there. Their productivity wasn't there, but they literally got a promotion after. So you can see how it starts. It has this ripple effect into all areas of our life.
• 18:41
  Well, and again, I've been skinny, I've been fat, like, you know, probably somewhere between right now. But the reality is, is that just even for a man, just the confidence about feeling good about yourself, like you're not putting on clothes that are too tight in the morning. You're not feeling self-conscious about what you're wearing. You feel good. You look good. You exude confidence differently when you feel good about yourself.
• 19:08
  And, I mean, you carry it differently. And I don't think anybody who's never been overweight understands the psychological burden that that brings with it. And, you know, while I will say, like, I've been accused of being vain and I accept, but at the same time, like, you know, I... Right, I mean, even you're a beautiful woman, and then I'll say, like, I'll say...
• 19:34
  I'm a relatively attractive man, you know, but at the same time, I've been accused of being vain and I've been accused of, you know, good looking people tend to have life better, blah, blah, blah. Like all of the things that go along with that. I'm like, if you even knew what goes on in my head or has gone on in my head in the past. Yeah. You know, and I and I kind of I laugh about this because, you know, who Jill Wheaton is?
• 20:03
  Oh, I've heard the name. I can't picture. I've heard the name. Jill, she used to be one of the higher-up trainers for Tony Robbins, and she was Nat Nidham's coach, and she's done a lot of great stuff. I love Jill. And I know Jill somewhat adjunctly. I know her, but know her through those circles. And I was at a Fab Mancini event with her not too long ago, and she was telling me that she was working with a mutual contact of ours that you know well. Yeah.
• 20:30
  And when I was talking to her and I was like, oh, really? I said, well, what are you doing now exactly? I know you left Tony Robbins. Like, what are you doing? And Jill, she says, you know, what she's doing. And I went, oh, maybe I'll hit you up. Maybe you can be my coach for six months. And she's like, I'd enjoy that. And I kind of laughed. I was like, why do you say that? And she goes, because you confuse me.
• 20:53
  And I was like, what does that even mean? And she goes, you just got this weird fat kid in the hot man body thing going on that I've never been able to quite figure out. Oh, my God. I feel so seen right now. Right. Unexplained. Absolutely horrifying. And I don't know if it means I need to hire you or not. Right. But her entire thing, she wasn't wrong.
• 21:22
  Because that psychological scarring stays for a long time. And I think that's something that she detected, that imposter syndrome, that nonstop haunts. So, I mean, we spent a lot of time there, but I want to just make sure that we emphasize that. Because to anybody listening to this, I run my own mailing list and my own audience group called Fitter Over 50.
• 21:46
  And the number, I'd say the number top three things that people reply back. And it's always this, you know, I send out an automatic response. You know, if you've got any questions, let me know. And it's always, Dr. Mark, these are my top three things. Literally.
• 22:03
  Weight gain, sleep, and brain fog. One, two, three. Right in order. I can predict it nearly every single time. So this topic, particularly to our audience, is huge, particularly in the 50-plus crowd. And I would arguably say particularly for perimenopausal menopausal women, which doesn't matter what they do, they feel like weight gain is taking over. But I want you to start...
• 22:30
  Talk to me real quick. I want to go in a different direction than you probably expected. But T3, T4 conversion, thyroid dysfunction, explain all of this to our audience because then I've got another round for you. Go ahead. Yeah.
• 22:45
  Absolutely. So let's start with the fact that the thyroid runs the show. I always say from head to toe, it runs the show. So when we're talking about symptoms of hypothyroidism, literally you can start at the top of your head and, you know, you go the hair loss, brain fog, motivation, anxiety, depression, concentration, your heart rate, your blood pressure, your glucose control, your weight, obviously your digestion. So literally it runs your entire body.
• 23:13
  The key here, though, is, you know, when I was telling my story, I talked about how the doctor gave me T4, and that's the inactive thyroid hormone. So I'm taking this medication, this inactive thyroid hormone, and it's doing nothing in my body. There's another thyroid hormone called T3. That is the active thyroid hormone. So if we think of every cell in our body from our head to our feet,
• 23:35
  Every single cell has this little receptor site on it. Think of it like a lock and key mechanism. It's got a little receptor site on it, ready to accept that T3 hormone. So T3 is the key. Your receptor holds the lock. The key goes in the lock perfectly, turns it, and basically turns that system on, whether it's your brain, your metabolism, whatever.
• 23:57
  So you really need that T3 thyroid hormone to do anything in your body. So when we take T4 or when our thyroid glands make T4, that inactive thyroid hormone, it has to go through a conversion process.
• 24:13
  And that conversion process is really hard for your body to do. Now, conventional medicine will tell you, oh, yeah, just take the T4. Your body will convert it. No problem. Because that's what doctors are taught. They are taught in med school that you test one marker for thyroid.
• 24:30
  If that marker is off, you give them T4 and literally like wish them good luck and tell them you'll test them again in six months, regardless of how they feel. But that T4 to T3 conversion is hard and a lot of different things get in the way of it.
• 24:45
  You can be insulin resistant, estrogen dominant. You can have genetic SNPs that interfere with T4 to T3 conversion, stress, low progesterone. I mean, there's so many things that interfere. So if that T4 hormone doesn't properly convert into T3, it's going to do something else. Yeah.
• 25:04
  it's gonna convert into something called reverse T3. So it's almost like T4 sits at a pathway and it's got two paths to choose. And we really hope that it chooses that T3 path because we really want that active thyroid hormone. But if it chooses that other path, which it so often does, then it becomes reverse T3. Now reverse T3 is like your brakes. So if T3 is the gas, reverse T3, brakes, stops everything.
• 25:32
  stops fat burning, it stops your energy, it literally shuts down your body. And there's a reason for that. It's built into our bodies, because a lot of people are like, well, why the heck do we even have this reverse T3 mechanism in our body? Well, because if you're ever in a car accident or you're fighting for your life, you're in the ICU, you're in the ER, you know, our bodies were so brilliantly made
• 25:58
  That if we're in that situation, our body knows that you don't have to burn fat. You don't have to think you have to poop every day. You just have to lie there and survive. Like, let's shuttle our energy to healing and survival and keeping the brain going and the heart beating. That's when reverse T3 will go up. And thank God it does. Thank God it does.
• 26:21
  But if reverse T3 is elevated, if our bodies think that we're fighting for our life lying in a hospital bed and we're not and we're walking around trying to live life, that becomes a problem. So that is why that T4 to T3 conversion is so imperative. That's why testing is imperative. That's why the proper treatment of your thyroid is imperative.
• 26:51
  because it doesn't. It doesn't work in anyone because of that conversion process that has to happen. How closely linked? I'm curious because this is a bit of a segue I've not heard much about. So I'm asking you to unpack it. So I spend a lot of time talking about autonomic nervous system function, right? This sympathetic parasympathetic downregulation and much of what you're describing between T3 versus reverse T3 function from a T4 conversion is...
• 27:19
  very similar to someone being stuck in a sympathetic nervous system, right? So it's that fight or flight mentality. How much does the nervous system play in the thyroid's dysfunction? Huge. It's huge. So when we're in that sympathetic state all the time, when our cortisol is high, when we don't have that stress regulation that we once did, and a lot of people, when I say that, like,
• 27:45
  They resonate. It's like, I'll hear that from patients. I used to be able to handle these little things that they're not major stressors, or I used to be able to handle big stressors and handle it well. And now every single thing just jolts me and throws me off and activates my nervous system and I become anxious and, and just, you know, off center.
• 28:05
  So even that high cortisol, that reaction to stress, even if it's a little stressor, it's how our body perceives it, right? How our body reacts to it, how our nervous system reacts to it. That is a huge driver of elevator reverse T3. And I would arguably say it's funny because you just made the comment about even the smallest thing. I actually find when I'm working with people or even in my own life, it's the small stressors that are actually the bigger problems that,
• 28:32
  than the cataclysmic things, because we're programmed in such a way that the life-threatening stuff, yeah, sure, I expect that to trigger a sympathetic nervous system. If a lion is chasing me and suddenly the lion is out of sight, my sympathetic nervous system can downregulate, right? Like, I can go into a parasympathetic state. I'm safe now. I've got my recovery mode. But I say it's death by a thousand paper cuts in our modern world.
• 29:01
  It's that there is no one life threatening thing. It's everything from the phone won't stop chiming to the traffic on the way to work to the kids screaming to the, you know, opening the mail to I mean, it's all of these little things which in and of themselves, none of them are life threatening.
• 29:19
  And yet they trigger us in this micro dose of stress that our body just thinks, I laughingly say my aura ring never ranks me as being stressed. And I laughingly say that I think it's because the ring just thinks I'm normal.
• 29:37
  I don't know how my wing doesn't see that I'm stressed, but maybe it just thinks that my level of normal stress is just my baseline at this point. Right. But we do. It's this death by a thousand paper cuts kind of life that we live in so much so that we've dysregulated darn near every function in our body, because I don't think most people even know what normal feels like anymore.
• 30:02
  Yeah, no, that's so true. And I talk about this too. It's like we have to get people to realize that their body was made to be healthy, made to be vibrant, made to feel good, not gain weight looking sideways at a brownie. I call it optimization land. It's a beautiful place to be. I invite everyone to join me. And it is a place where you have weight control and you
• 30:28
  yeah, you can eat your favorite food every once in a while. It's not all about being strict 100% of the time. You have abundant energy through the day. You're not waking up counting the hours until you can go back to bed. You're not staring at the couch at 2 p.m., hoping and praying for a nap. You're not counting the hairs that come out of your head. Like people think that it's normal. I actually have a quick story for you. It's one that I put in the book. I was sitting next to a woman on the plane.
• 30:56
  And, you know, you do the small talk on the plane. Hi, hi, whatever. And she goes, oh, you're a thyroid expert. I have hypothyroidism too. I'm like, okay, what are you taking? Like, how are you doing? What are you taking? She goes, oh, I'm on Synthroid. And my doctor says I'm fine. I'm normal. Everything is great.
• 31:11
  And I look at her and Mark, listen, she no judgment, but I could see her scalp. A. So she was losing like half of her head. Her hair was so thin. And this woman's in her 40s. Her hair was so thin. I could see her scalp. And she was easily 50 to 75 pounds overweight. Like, I'm sorry. There's the body positivity movement. And then there's unhealthy.
• 31:34
  And she was just unhealthy. But she didn't even realize that that that's not normal. That's not where you have to be. She doesn't even realize what she could be. No, and you're not wrong. I mean, I think that's part of the issue there. I want to ask you, there's a couple directions I want to go here, but one of them is actually going to be we've got a GLP-1 crazed world.
• 31:58
  12% of the U S population is living on a GLP good, bad or indifferent. Um, and one of the things that I get asked a lot about GLPs and I've done episodes on GLPs and so on and, and speak on the topic quite often, I find myself funny enough and it's not because I'm trying, but it's the question people always want to ask. Um,
• 32:22
  I want to know your thoughts on a GLP world because I'm a fan of GLPs. And for people who don't understand this, I know we've talked about it before, GLP-1 is something your body creates naturally. What you're taking when you're injecting or ingesting nowadays is a GLP-1 agonist, which is tricking your body into making more GLP-1.
• 32:50
  But I'm curious your thoughts on this because GLP-1 functions as an agonist to actually, for the most part, slow digestion and slow motility in the body, creating a feeling of satiation or satiety, I suppose is the correct word there.
• 33:09
  And stopping people from eating and that the symptoms, the side effects that we're seeing from GLPs are hair loss, nausea, bloatedness, constipation. All of these things are following. And yet most of the side effects that I'm seeing from GLPs, I'm going, no, those are all malnutrition.
• 33:31
  Like that's not a GLP issue. These are malnutrition issues because you've quit eating. When you do eat, it's, you know, it's dessert because you just want something that tastes good because you haven't eaten in 48 hours. Right. How is this? I'm curious, first of all, your thoughts on GLP-1s. But if you can segue into if a person is actually having a T3 conversion issue.
• 33:55
  that they're not getting enough T3 or their T4 is not converting into T3 the way that it should, so they're ending up with a stagnant version of hormone. GLP-1s aren't fixing that. So it's masking a problem through starvation, but it's not actually fixing the core of the problem, which is the core of functional medicine. Talk to us about that.
• 34:21
  I'm so happy you brought this up because I did. I wrote about this in the book too. And I've been, I've been talking about this ad nauseum. It's like,
• 34:28
  GLPs, I feel they are the first medication in our lifetime or in history that are a true Jekyll and Hyde med. And what I mean by that is on the one hand, just like you said, when used properly, this is a lifesaver. I want to interrupt you real quick to say in full confession, I'm currently taking Retta.
• 34:52
  Yeah. So. Oh, I'm 100% a fan. Yeah, absolutely. But you're taking it in the right amount because your appetite isn't destroyed. You're not not eating. You're not not nourishing yourself, just like you said. So it's all about the dose and the utilization.
• 35:10
  And unfortunately, you know, we've seen this in Hollywood, really, but you see it as you're walking down the street. People are using GLPs inappropriately at too high of a dose. They're becoming malnourished. They're damaging their digestive tract. And they're literally losing facial fat to where they look 20 years older. And they're losing muscle, our organ of longevity. They're literally losing their muscle tissue. Yeah.
• 35:36
  Muscle is one of the locations where T4 to T3 conversion takes place. Your gut is another location of T4 to T3 conversion. So if you slow down your gut and destroy that and you're losing muscle, now you've lost two points of conversion.
• 35:52
  In addition, GLP-1s actually do produce more insulin. So they're causing your pancreas to secrete more insulin. So when we're testing people on a GLP-1 and we test their fasting insulin, we can actually see it go up. Now, if we're using it and we're monitoring that patient and they're using it correctly, like we don't care. We go, okay, that's just going to float up and then it's going to come back down.
• 36:14
  But elevated insulin is another driver of reverse T3. Starving yourself. Your body senses that as a stress. If you don't get in enough calories, you know, that old starvation model that we grew up with in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s is real. We don't talk about that anymore. But that was a big, hot topic. My gosh, you would see full articles in muscle and fitness.
• 36:36
  Starvation diets will cause weight gain. Well, yeah, they do, because your body senses this lower caloric intake and it basically down regulates and down shifts your metabolism. So your thyroid literally stops producing its own.
• 36:52
  T3. So we will see thyroid conditions come from starvation alone. I mean, eating disorder is a huge driver of hypothyroidism. So we'll see that. And then we'll also see that conversion to reverse T3. It all comes down to the dose and the person using it correctly and getting in the protein and doing the resistance training and getting in their micronutrients and not taking such a high dose
• 37:23
  So how does a person, how would you recommend a person? So a person who's taking a GLP, let's just talk about your lady on the airplane. Yep. You know, she's 50 to 70 pounds overweight, her hair's thinning. She's on, you know, T4 supplements already or medications already. Yep. She starts taking a GLP because she's not losing weight. The truth of the matter is, let's say she loses 30 pounds on the GLP because she probably will. Yep.
• 37:52
  And the big thing that I hear a lot of is, oh, well, I heard once you get off of it, you gain all your weight back. And I mean, my answer is, well, yeah, if you haven't changed your diet, like if you haven't changed your habits, you're going to go back to the same habits that got you in the place that you were to begin with. Like the idea behind the GLP-1 is I call it the pause button.
• 38:10
  Like it's literally just giving you a day off. Yeah. So you can fix everything without the, the, the stress of having to make those types of changes. Right. Like it's, it's that hormetic stress of too many changes all at the same time. Like, great. Like, let's take a break, like turn the appetite off, which gives you an opportunity to fix it without the pain.
• 38:32
  But when we continue with a regularly scheduled program, it can't be ice cream and pizza every day either. Like we need to go back to something healthy. And most people never change their habits while they're on the GLP, right? It's a free day. I've got a friend of mine who's lost tons of weight on a GLP-1, continues to eat garbage, just less garbage.
• 38:56
  But you're not fixing the problem. You're losing the weight, but you're not fixing the problem. How does she, how does Lady on the airplane, she's taking her T4, she's taking her GLP, she's lost 30 of the pounds. How does she ever find out that her thyroid isn't functioning? Like...
• 39:18
  Her doctors told her that everything's fine. She's on a GLP. She lost the weight. That was the goal of the T4 medication. She starts attributing causation rather than correlation. What should somebody be looking for? Well, first of all, she's not going to lose the weight on the GLP-1 if her thyroid's in the toilet and it's not optimized.
• 39:38
  So we've seen this over and over again. A lot of people saying, I'm taking this GLP-1, but it's not working. Or I only lost like two pounds or only lost like five pounds. We had a patient that came in. She was a full-blown type 2 diabetic. So she was on a prescription GLP-1. She needed it. Her A1C was at 11.9. She's 150 pounds overweight. She was on this GLP-1 prescribed to her at a max dose for a year and a half, and it didn't work.
• 40:07
  She didn't lose a pound. Her A1C didn't budge. It was because she was on T4 only. Her body was converting that to reverse T3, and no one was paying attention to her thyroid. So when we actually adjusted her thyroid treatment, brought down that reverse, brought up her free T3 active thyroid hormone,
• 40:28
  Then the GLP one started working. So her A1C literally came down to a 5.4. She reversed her diabetes. She lost 150 pounds. But that GLP one, thank God it was covered by insurance and she wasn't paying out of pocket because it wasn't working for a year and a half. So lady on the plane, I wouldn't even start her on a GLP. I'd be like, we need to get your thyroid fixed first.
• 40:48
  let's test your hormones let's test your thyroid let's look at that then we can add in a glp one and you're not going to be wasting your money it's going to work in conjunction with balancing your entire body so that's what i would say now if a random person is like you said
• 41:04
  They're taking that GLP. They've crushed their appetite. They're starving themselves. And the food that they do eat is dessert, right? Because that's all they can get in every single day. Or they never change their habits. And then they go off the GLP, but they never address their thyroid. All day long, it's coming back. That weed is absolutely coming back, 100%. Yeah. That's what I've noticed by most people I know that go on the GLP is it's a cheat code. Yep. The problem is you never learned how to actually play the game. Yeah.
• 41:34
  Yeah, it is the cheat code. And the problem is when the cheat code goes away, you actually need the skills and they've never learned the skills or developed the gym habit or learn to eat correctly or in this case learned the proper necessity out of that T3. Amy, I want to ask you. Yeah.
• 41:54
  This is particularly, we've said it multiple times, this is really a big deal for women. And particularly that 45-55 window when menopause starts becoming a conversation. How does that thyroid function change during perimenopause and menopause?
• 42:12
  Oh, I love this question too. So I read about this. It's like you're tuned into my brain. I know. So I talk about this in the book. It's called thyropause. And my definition of thyropause is when your thyroid gland crafts to bed after the age of 40 due to fluctuating hormones. So essentially what happens, and this happens to women and men because men go through andropause and then can enter thyropause.
• 42:37
  So for a woman, her progesterone levels start to decline in 30s, easily by the 40s, progesterone's fallen off of a cliff. Then testosterone starts to decline. And then her estrogen will kind of go on this wild up and down roller coaster ride for a while in perimenopause before it finally declines and falls off a cliff in menopause.
• 43:00
  Those fluctuating hormones, and for men, it's much more simple. You guys are just going to lose testosterone after the age of 40. It's just going to decline. And then that adds another layer of stressor. It reduces your protection against autoimmune. So those hormonal fluctuations that men and women experience after 40 and definitely after 50, that can trigger Hashimoto's. So when we're looking at thyroid conditions as a whole, hypothyroidism, low and slow thyroid function, hormones,
• 43:30
  We know that 95% of all hypothyroid cases are actually autoimmune, something called Hashimoto's. And we can test for that. There's blood work that we can test for that so that we know whether or not your immune system is literally destroying your thyroid. Well, what we know about all autoimmunity is that a stressor will flip that switch on. It can rest in the off position for years, for decades.
• 43:54
  And that stressor will turn it on. Well, most women don't think of, let's say, pregnancy as a stressor because it's something natural that the female body does. Come on, ladies. I haven't been pregnant, but I've seen my friends go through it. That's a huge stressor. You're putting on 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds. Your hormones are crazy and you're growing a life inside of your body. That is a stressor on the body. I don't care if it's a good stress, bad stress. It's a stressor.
• 44:21
  Same thing in perimenopause, menopause, andropause. Those fluctuating hormones are stressful to the body, and that's just enough of a stress to flip that switch. Then we have another layer that that low progesterone, progesterone helps you convert your thyroid hormone from T4 to T3. So low progesterone now pushes up reverse T3. So now you have a thyroid problem that's being undiagnosed. Your reverse T3 is putting you in survival mode,
• 44:50
  I mean, that's going to make your 40s and 50s basically suck because you also have no hormones, too. It's like you're just stacking the issues. And just like we said earlier, OK, the aesthetics. Yeah, you're going to gain more weight. You're going to lose more hair. You're going to become more fatigued. You're probably going to be put on an antidepressant or a statin or a sleeping pill or a blood pressure medication. And all of those are Band-Aids.
• 45:13
  They're all Band-Aid medications for what's actually going on, i.e. your thyroid and hormones are just declining. You just have to address those properly and you won't need the Band-Aid medications. But there's something so much deeper that I don't talk about enough as well. And that's the longevity aspect.
• 45:30
  That's the fact that, you know, a recent study just came out, or I was just alerted to in the last few weeks, that a low-functioning thyroid, so this is even y'all that are diagnosed, but you're on T4 only, a non-optimized low-functioning thyroid significantly increases your risk of Parkinson's.
• 45:47
  We know that there are T3 receptor sites on the brain, i.e. dementia and Alzheimer's, much greater risk when your thyroid isn't optimized. Your heart, like we know, I mean, and you talked about this on my show, blood pressure, lipid pressure.
• 46:02
  balance, your cholesterol balance, your heart beating at the correct rhythm. People are diagnosed with AFib and tachycardia and put on BP meds and put on statins left and right every single day when in fact what they really need is to fix their thyroid cancer.
• 46:18
  You're at a greater risk of cancer because your surveillance system is down. Your immune system surveillance system is down. It's no longer detecting those cancerous cells that we all have in our body and going out and destroying them. So it's a it's a longevity issue as much as it is a day to day enjoyment of life issue.
• 46:37
  Let me ask you something. You mentioned the idea of the stress that happens, whether that's maternity, menopause, andropause, so on and so forth. One of the things that I think most people don't pay attention to, so maybe it's a question, maybe it's a statement, is the stress of that environment, of what's going on in your body, that ecosystem, that terrain throughout your entire body,
• 47:05
  is we talk about hormetic stress, right? Like there's a certain amount of stress that your body actually thrives in. But once it tips in the other direction, I mean, the human body is fascinating to me because, you know, it's never enough until it's too much. And, you know, we want to push it as far as we can push it without flipping the off switch because, you know, it's the straw that broke the camel's back and now suddenly the whole thing collapses.
• 47:32
  That hormetic stress, particularly during that menopausal or andropausal time of life, is one thing. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's also the exact same time that we start layering in a hundred other fixes to try to overcome the problem.
• 47:51
  And then sometimes the fixes themselves cause more of a problem because had we have just left the problem to itself, our body knows how to handle it naturally. Right. And it's like, so we go through this, but then we stack six fixes on top of the problem. And now the six fixes are actually bigger problems than the problem itself.
• 48:10
  So true. Yes. Yes. And when I see women going through menopause or what, I mean, they're taking sleep supplements to try to get through the night sleeping. They're adjusting their diet. They're on calories.
• 48:25
  caloric restriction to try to not gain weight. They're miserable sexually there. I mean, there's just so many things going on in their bodies and they're making all of these adjustments, just trying to navigate this obstacle course. And it's like sometimes making all of those adjustments is just making the problem bigger. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing I see, you know, people get sucked into these, um,
• 48:53
  IG influencer protocols. Like all you need to do is just heal your gut and take my masterclass and heal your gut and you'll be fine. And I'm seeing, I mean, I've been talking about this more on social lately, you know, a lot of, a lot of practitioners out there trying to sell their protocol or sell their masterclass or sell their supplement. Like you don't need thyroid hormones. You don't need that bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Just do this, pay me and do this. And it's like, okay,
• 49:22
  Come on. Like, I get it. You know, gut healing is important. Fixing your adrenal. Yeah, all of that is great. But if your body isn't making a hormone that provides you with quality of life and longevity and basic life functions, let's replace that hormone. You can't out diet, out supplement, out exercise, out protocol, out masterclass a low functioning thyroid. You just can't.
• 49:50
  Amy, I want to give you an opportunity real quick as we're wrapping up here to obviously your new book, The Thyroid Fix, is now out and available. My copy has not shown up yet, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to reading this book and hearing more about the work that you've done in this field for many years.
• 50:10
  Um, but that aside, you also run a company called the thyroid fixer is your podcast and your company is fixer where you actually have a supplement line that actually fixes a lot of the problems we're talking about. Um, I want to give you a minute to, to plug what your supplement line is and why it's different because I happen to have familiarity with your company and I think your products are fantastic. Um,
• 50:33
  How does this help a woman or a man even in this situation where they're in this stressed T4 conversion situation? Yes, thank you so much. So, you know, way back in the day, now we can prescribe to all 50 states, like you said in the beginning.
• 50:50
  And we can do that at the clinic. But way back in the day, I mean, there was a time where I was sitting across from these people that were, I mean, mostly women that were, they were just struggling and we couldn't prescribe it off at these days. So I'm like, oh my gosh, they're on T4 only. I need to help them. But, you know, we need an answer. You know, I do a diet plan. We would do some supplementation exercise plan, but I couldn't give them what they needed.
• 51:14
  So I started researching and really looking into this compound called T2. And this is, I mean, goodness, this was like 15, 20 years ago. And I started looking into T2. And it is a thyroid hormone, but it's available in supplemental form. But, you know, it was only in like the bro science formulas. So, I mean, Mark, you know, even in the supplement industry, right? It literally had a gorilla on it with like claw marks down the side. So here's me telling this midlife woman.
• 51:42
  To go to, you know, some crazy like, you know, chaosandpain.com website and order this product with a gorilla on, it just wasn't going over very well. And, you know, I get calls from the husbands like, what the hell do you have my wife on, all that. And all of them think they're just going to have broad back by Friday, right? Oh, gosh, yeah. Or die, have a heart attack, all that.
• 52:01
  So I'm like, all right, it's time. So I created my own line and the flagship product that we first released was Thyroid Fixer. That contained T2, which what I found in my research increases baseline metabolic rate, your metabolism while at rest. It browns white adipose tissue, reduces inflammation, helps with fatty liver disease, helps with lipid panels, helps with T4 to T3 conversion.
• 52:29
  I was like, holy cow. And the women that were taking the bro science formula, it was working. I was using it on myself. I was using it on them and it was working. So that's what I brought into the line. That was the first product release was thyroid fixer. And then we started getting questions of like, hey, can I take this if I don't have a thyroid problem?
• 52:49
  Yes, you can. So then we created metabolism fixer, kind of like putting out there what it actually fixes your metabolism. And then, you know, I started building the line off of what I saw in practice. We do have a T3 conversion fixer as well. We have the answers to the nutrient depletion that we see and the things that will help with T4 to T3 conversion, like iodine, magnesium, vitamin D. So we have that in the line as well. But the the
• 53:16
  The shining star, we'll say, is thyroid fixer containing T2 because it can really, really help, especially if you are stuck on T4 only and you're still suffering with symptoms. Thank you. And I really want to promote this because in fixer is F-I-X-X-R and everything will be in the show notes below. But Amy, you're having a conversation that people aren't having.
• 53:39
  And in particular, in this GLP world, like I truthfully wish that what you're doing had gotten a bigger moment prior to GLPs coming along, because I have to I have to imagine that the GLP market actually hurts what you're doing, when in fact, it should be a compliment to what you're doing.
• 53:58
  because we need to fix the thyroid and lose the weight. And the GLPs are a great way to do that, but we still have to fix the underlying problem. And probably the most important thing that I think that you said today, although a lot of great information for listeners,
• 54:13
  is the idea of normal versus optimal ranges on lab tests. And I don't think most people realize that when the doctor tells you you're normal, all that means is that you're average compared to the rest of the population. Yeah.
• 54:29
  And the problem is, is people are then comparing themselves to a relatively unhealthy population. Right. So I want to be an outlier. The problem is, is when we say that people's labs are normal, I always use vitamin D as a great example. And that is anybody whose vitamin D is lower than a 30 is considered low.
• 54:51
  but that's on a scale of one to 100. And the person who has a 35 in vitamin D is having a very different life experience than a person who's at an 80. And yet both would be considered normal on a lab test. And I don't know how we've got that big of a spread between a 30 and a
• 55:14
  85, and we're calling both of them normal. And the reality is, it just means there's that broad of a standard deviation in the general public. And my encouragement to any listener here and anybody who's following Dr. Amy is,
• 55:31
  is don't accept normal. There is no part of normal that I want to be. I want to be above average. I want to be the outlier. And by the way, I'm 50 years old right now. And the reality is, is I have zero interest in being a normal 50-year-old. Exactly. Anytime that I'm even using AI or evaluating my own labs, I'm comparing myself to a 35-year-old.
• 55:54
  Yeah, absolutely. I'm not comparing myself to a 50-year-old. I don't want to be a normal 50-year-old. I want to be a normal 35-year-old. In fact, I want to be an optimal 35-year-old. So I am looking at my labs. I am looking at my own genetics and how all of my supplement panels work in there. And I encourage anybody who's doing this, particularly if you're on a weight loss journey or maybe you're just getting started,
• 56:21
  There's too many things for you to always look at in harmony. Find a person who can help you in this. But if you're on that weight loss journey specifically, I encourage you to go find Dr. Amy Horniman. She spells Amy A-M-I-E, just to be clear.
• 56:40
  So make sure you're looking up Dr. Amy Horniman. She's at Dr. Amy Horniman on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. Thyroidfixbook.com. Betterlifedoctor.com. DrAmy.com. I mean, she's definitely trying to not find you.
• 56:59
  Show notes, show notes. Exactly. All in the show notes. But I encourage anybody. Dr. Amy, thank you so much for joining us today. I love the conversation. Congratulations. Heartfelt. I'm so proud of you for the work you're doing because you really are changing lives, not just on a physiological level, but like we started this show, that people that are struggling with this problem are not just dealing with it superficially. They're dealing with it emotionally and psychologically internally.
• 57:26
  And I would arguably say that the emotional baggage that people carry is causing even more physiological problems. And that just becomes this vicious cycle. And you've been able to find the interrupt. So thank you for not slowing down with this message. Absolutely. Well, thank you for helping me spread the message. I appreciate you.
• 57:46
  Absolutely. Anything that you want to learn about Dr. Amy, we will have down in the show notes. I look forward to hearing the stories about those of you who have tried the Thyroid Fixer programs or ordered the Thyroid Fix book. Again, my friend, Dr. Amy Horniman, thank you so much for being here and we will see you next time on Age Defiantly.