Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / How Can I Support My Menstrual Cycle Naturally to Boost Fertility? with Kirsten Karchmer, Founder of Conceivable

Transcript

How Can I Support My Menstrual Cycle Naturally to Boost Fertility? with Kirsten Karchmer, Founder of Conceivable · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

1:39
SPEAKER_02: Hello everyone.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to another week here on the Healing Her Story podcast.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: I am, as always, so excited to be here with you today for another guest episode.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: I have truly been loving these guest episodes, and today we are so lucky to have an expert joining us today discussing all things ovulation and fertility.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: And she's also got an amazing tech company that we're going to learn more about today, too.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: And it was interesting getting this interview organized and scheduled.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: I had received several emails from this woman.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I've shared before I get quite a few of these emails.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's, you know, it's a right fit, and sometimes it's not a right fit.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: And I think it just got lost in the shuffle of kind of sorting through all of you know the ones that feel like a good fit and not a right fit.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: And I completely missed Kirsten.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know why and how.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: And I'm so glad that she is um persistent because she reached out again and she came to the top of my inbox.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: And once I started exploring um her work, I was like, wow, how amazing.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: So lucky to have you on the show.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: So thanks so much for being here today, Kristen.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: I'll share a little bit about her before we dive in.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm really happy to be here.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And um, yes, persistence, you know, if you want to do something, my dad used to always say, you know, you're a river going down a mountain.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can stop you.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And if you really think about that, you know, if every time you want to, I can't do it, you're like, I'm a river going down a mountain.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be, but I'm gonna keep going.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, beautiful.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, it worked, right?
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes, so we're here.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: It got us here today.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll share just Chris Kirsten's bio really quickly.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: Over the past 20 years, Kirsten has helped more than 10,000 women, wow, struggling with their menstrual cycles and fertility challenges.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: She founded and built one of the largest and most influential fertility and women's health clinics in North America, where she pioneered an integrative approach that combines conventional reproductive medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and behavioral science to dramatically improve menstrual and reproductive health.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: As I mentioned, Kirsten is also the founder of Conceivable, a revolutionary personal fertility coach that brings her expertise, a decades of clinical insight, right into your pocket.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: I can't wait to learn more about this.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: Through data-driven personalized care, she's helping women everywhere take control of their fertility and transform their health journeys from confusion and isolation to clarity and empowerment.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: Kirsten, official welcome to the show.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: That is the best introduction I have ever heard.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Can I have a copy of that?
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I'll simple.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: That was really good.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow, who's that girl?
4:20
SPEAKER_00: That sounds really awesome.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I really like reading them to people because it gives you that like time to like really receive that reflection.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: So I'm happy to really introduce it.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: No, it worked.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: You did it.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Great.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, Kirsten, can you tell us a little bit about your story?
4:35
SPEAKER_02: And since today we're talking about fertility, maybe you would feel comfortable sharing your fertility story.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think that one thing before we even get started, I always want to say is you know, you might be listening to the beginning of this and be like, Well, I'm not really trying to get pregnant, or I'm done having kids, or I'm perimenopausal.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Please stay.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: I promise you will learn so much because anything that's related to fertility means we have anything's related to periods, we have to fix in order to optimize fertility.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: And anything that's relating to menopause, perimenopause, it's related to hormones.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And the same things will apply.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: So just keep an open mind.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: And even if you're not a female and you're listening and you know a person with a period who is trying to get pregnant, listen in because you will become the biggest smarty pants in their world.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that.
5:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's important to name this information, is is valuable to any woman, anyone really.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: And this is things we're not really taught about.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: So I'm so happy you're here to teach us today.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, so my fertility journey was actually kind of surprising.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I didn't struggle.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: I had the opposite.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, I got pregnant.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: I was diagnosed with MS when I was in my late teens.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: And I always was really worried about having kids because I thought when you have MS, you can have episodes.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And anything that stresses your body out or your mind out can make you have an episode.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: And they're kind of scary, you know?
5:54
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wow, what's gonna happen when I get pregnant?
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And then I, you know, I'm signing up for a roller coaster that's 10 months long, like, you know, it was just really scary.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: And so I had been really carefully avoiding unplanned pregnancies until my early 30s.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: And I had a long-term boyfriend and I was trying to improve my thyroid.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I was taking thyroid medication for like 10 years, but I was trying to improve my thyroid with acupuncture.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it was working.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: It was working, so well, I stopped taking my medicine, but then I just gained a little bit of weight after three or four months of going from taking medication from 10 years to just not taking it.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And that was unusual for me at the time.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, I should probably check it and see I'm not taking it, but I didn't feel any different, you know.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And the doctor came in and he goes, Um, I think you have a brain tumor.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, your TSH, which is the number that measures your thyroid function, he goes, It's like a thousand percent too high.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: It should be between one and five.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: I knew this already.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yours is 156.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: So the higher the number, the lower the function.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's kind of inverse relationship.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: And um, I started laughing.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: He goes, No, this is not funny.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: I said, No, it is funny because I just stopped taking my medicine.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: He's what?
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And I told him the whole story.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, the only good news is that it is impossible to get pregnant right now.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, because the thyroid does regulate a lot of reproductive hormones and energy production and calcium and all these things.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you know, literally over seven, you have you're infertile, you know.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: So they want to keep it closer to one.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And so he's like, you know, probably have zero chance of conceiving over the next six months, because that's probably how long it's gonna take for it to re-regulate with the new medication.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I went home, I told my boyfriend, he's like, Awesome, we're having unprotected sex tonight.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, I'm too scared, I'm too scared, you know.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, it'll be fine.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that makes sense.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: And he was also a reproductive acupuncturist.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: And right afterwards, I was like, I just got pregnant.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: I just got pregnant.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: He was like, You did not just how would you know?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, mm-mm, I can feel it.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You did not feel.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I know, and then like 10 days later, it was it was really cold, and I had made chili, and he kept calling me saying, When are you coming home?
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm at the grocery store and I'm just looking for the pickled jalapenos.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Oh shit, you are pregnant.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
8:12
SPEAKER_00: What?
8:12
SPEAKER_00: What?
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, I've known you for five years and you've never eaten a pickled jalapeno in five years.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that you're not coming home because you can't find them, you can't find them because you've never bought them before.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: And then I was pregnant, and then what was interesting is you're you're supposed to like the risk is that your child can have developmental delay, like pretty significant mental developmental delay.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: So that was really scary because you know, it's like you have to choose to either terminate or just hope for the best, you know.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how like it all aligned.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: My child had like a really high IQ, and that's not a gift, like they call that gifted.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: That's actually not a gift because that's really hard on the kid, right?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Because they're socially weird, you know, it's it's they really struggle, but he is very, very smart, and he is at law school on a full scholarship now.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: So it did all work out, but I did not have those those struggles, and I did conceive at 47 also.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Only probably because the way that we take care of people's health in the app is how I take care of myself, right?
9:17
SPEAKER_00: It's not a fertility solution, it's a way of like finding like what does optimal health look like, and how do we identify all of the subclinical issues that are keeping us from being optimally healthy?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And most of the time those are related to diet, lifestyle, behavior, stuff we can fix, right?
9:33
SPEAKER_00: We can fix.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, really feel like, and then I've been doing a live on TikTok for the last five years every day.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: And that's usually got like one to five thousand viewers.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: So that was really interesting going from that, like being in the clinic with mostly affluent customers, patients, because you know, acupuncture is expensive.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: And um, and then being on TikTok, you basically get the range of everybody.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: You do.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: And so you get to learn about basically all the women who are struggling.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And that was so I've just learned so much from all the fabulous women who are in that community, in my community there.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, they've taught me as much as I've taught them, I think.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really cool when we start working with people how that happens.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: And it's easy to kind of get into like the, you know, the guru, like I have all the answers.
10:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but like you've named, we learned so much from the people that we get to work with.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: And it sounds like they've really given you a well-rounded um, yeah, just kind of insight into some of the challenges that women have since you yourself didn't really have any, which I find that to be um so unique because sometimes I find that we wind up, you know, teaching and helping people with what we struggled with most, but that's not the case for you.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's um, yeah, just an interesting way your story kind of unfolded.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I think it's an extension, you know.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I did sort of get into it because of my MS, and then it was so effective.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And then once I was in acupuncture school, I just got so fascinated by the menstrual cycle that in Chinese medicine every single symptom tells you something.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes, right.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and combinations of symptoms tell you something different.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: And around the menstrual cycle, I was like, wow, this is like a whole cornucopia of diagnostic information that nobody is paying attention to.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: We can fix almost everything with this shit.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: We can completely democratize access to like healthcare, to women's health, to fertility, if we figure out how to harness this.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm with you.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of things that we can do on our own.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, I think it's important, which is why that's part of the intention here on the show is giving people the education so that they can become more empowered to make fully informed decisions.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: I think it's the first step to having women have full access to power.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: If we don't teach them, because they haven't been taught, it's not their fault, right?
12:08
SPEAKER_00: The education system, right, the shame that we haven't, you know, all these things.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: That's what I've really learned from my audience on TikTok is like how little a lot of women know.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And it is regardless of your education or your socio, I mean, just like when do I have sex?
12:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the very basics, yeah, right.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Can I get pregnant on this day?
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Can I get pregnant if I have this kind of sex or whatever?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, just so little information.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, of course we can be dominated in every way if we don't even understand our vehicle, you know, and we haven't learned how to harmonize with it, right?
12:42
SPEAKER_00: We've we've been taught that like your period is a curse.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: I like to call it your instrument of unfair advantage because it tells you fucking everything.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: I hope that's okay.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm so sad that I don't have a period anymore.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not sad because it's, you know, it's a hassle to have a period, but you know, I'd be like, oh, I'm feeling, you know, like in Chinese medicine, if you have insomnia and anxiety, often you'll have blood deficiency, meaning it's not iron deficiency.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: It's literally there's not enough blood.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: And that's usually from what you're eating or how you're digesting.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, before I'd be like, oh, I've been a little anxious lately.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if I'm blood deficient.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, have a period and you can see, oh, you have one day bleeding, you have blood deficiency, right?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: It's just so easy.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, so I miss that.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I I imagine I will miss it too because I've come to really enjoy that time.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: And you're right, it's it's a built-in health report and it's it's shocking and frustrating.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: And I remember when I first started doing menstrual cycle awareness work, I was very angry when I first discovered, like, what the fuck?
13:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, why has nobody taught me this?
13:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: With that in mind, what are some of the most common uh misconceptions that you hear people have about their cycles?
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that the first one is perpetuated unfortunately by our physicians.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be very clear, I have I work with a lot of physicians.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any like adverse, like aversion to Western medicine, pharmaceutical surgeries, all of them have a place.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And but too often our gynecologists are telling women, let's just put you on birth control to regulate your period.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I see your face, right?
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's just like, I don't know, that's a bold face lie.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: It's just a lie.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: It's not it, it's not possible.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't regulate.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: To me, it's just saying the doctor's saying, I don't know what to do.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: So here, let's take on birth control and get out of my hair for a little bit, and then hopefully something will happen.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: But it won't, right?
14:33
SPEAKER_00: I think that I think that the other biggest one is that when we're looking either at our periods, whether we're looking for PCOS or endometriosis or fertility issues or why we're miscarrying, there is a small set of things that are actually diagnosable as causes.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: And to diagnose PCOS, you have to have all these criteria, same for endo, you have to have a surgery.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: But but the good thing is from Chinese medicine, three or four thousand years old, we didn't have any of these diagnoses.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: So they would always say, you're not treating anything, meaning not one symptom or one disease.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: You always treat everything, you treat the system.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And and so people will often ask me on the live, like, how do I uh I have low progesterone?
15:19
SPEAKER_00: How do I fix that?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Why do I have low progesterone?
15:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, I don't know.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, it could be a lot of different things, but I don't know how to, in isolation, fix one thing.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: I can fix everything, but I don't know how to fix one thing because I have to I was like, well, if I want to know why you have low progesterone, I need to ask you a bunch of questions.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: This is why I built the app because you know, most people don't have the resources to just like have a consultation with me every day, and you can have a consultation with me in the app every day for 15 bucks a month.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: That seems a lot better.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: We have to find out can you manufacture energy?
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Can you digest food and convert it into resources?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: What's your energy like throughout the day?
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Are you super anxious?
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Are you super stressed where you're burning through your energy?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Can you fall asleep, stay asleep, wake up rested?
16:01
SPEAKER_00: How is that related to progesterone?
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Because the temperatures, I like this is my temperature thing.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: If you're if you're watching, not listening, my fingers pointing up.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Because once you get to ovulation, the temperatures need to rise.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And what I found in my clinic is it needs to get above 98.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of, you know, um, you know, various tracking strategies, they're like, well, if you just get like five tenths higher, that confirms ovulation, which is correct.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: But what I saw was a very close correlation between having your temperatures be above 98 consistently after 90 uh after ovulation, staying pregnant and having enough progesterone.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh so why does energy so important that?
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Because it takes resources to get the temperatures up above 98, and tired women will have low temperatures.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: So it's not always fatigue, it's not always the cause.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, if we have really bad PMS, if our hormones are very disruptive and we have a lot of PMS, because when the liver, you know, after ovulation, we get a lot of extra hormones, and the liver's job needs to be to use it, the hormones, and get rid of it.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: If it can't, it gets kind of bogged down, right?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: It gets irritable, right?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Because like too much work.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: I hate this, right?
17:10
SPEAKER_00: We've all felt that.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: And everything gets constricted.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: The vessels get constricted, that gives you clotting, right?
17:18
SPEAKER_00: The vessels can get constricted, making scanty bleeding or menstrual pain.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: It can cause inflammation.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: But most importantly, it can also constrict access to energy.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is the person looks tired, but and their temperatures are lower and they're really saw-toothed.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: That is your indicator.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: We need to go and look how much PMS does this person have.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And if they have a lot of PMS, we just help the liver to work better.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens is if you imagine a hose attached to, you know, a faucet, but we put a kink in it.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: So we turn the water on on one side and the water fills up and it's full, and it's all this pressure.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: That's what PMS feels like, right?
17:56
SPEAKER_00: You're like, interesting.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, if I could just get my period, I'd be all because of this.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: It's all this sawtoothing that's happening.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And then you can use Chinese herbs, like we have a formula for it.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of Chinese herbs you can use for this formulas, not individuals.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And then it just unkinks it by helping the liver to just go, oh, here, you need some support in this way and that way.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: It gets unkinked, and all of a sudden you're like, it's the feeling you have once your period comes.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: They know that feeling well.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh, so much better, right?
18:30
SPEAKER_00: And then if you unkink it, you lose the sawtoothing and the temperatures jump right up to the 98.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: So that's the easiest one to fix.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: The last one is cold, true cold, right?
18:40
SPEAKER_00: The person has cold hands and feet, frequent urination, they've got back pain, they've got weak knees, right?
18:45
SPEAKER_00: This kidney deficiency in Chinese medicine, think adrenal, if we were to translate it.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, we need resources from the kidneys to generate enough heat to have the body temperature be high enough.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: But that's the mistake that I think a lot of like younger acupuncturists make is they're like, well, if the temperatures are low, they must be cold.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: They must have young deficiency.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's really what I find clinically, about 20% of the time, more often it's either true fatigue or a combination.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: It can be a combination too.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily one.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: It could be fatigue making the liver not work well, blood deficiency making the liver not work well, all of that making all the PMS, and then you get the low temperatures.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: But my point is that that's a system's approach to better periods and fertility versus oh, we have low progesterone, let's give you progesterone, even natural progesterone, right?
19:34
SPEAKER_00: It's just another band-aid.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: So the work you're you're doing is really about getting to the root and like you said, supporting the system because our bodies are amazing.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: They're so magical and they're so powerful and they're so wise.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: And so it sounds like through your approach, if you just kind of give the body the support that it needs, then it kind of does what it needs to do in its own right time and way.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: It will.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that the secret is being able to really identify what your unique underlying issues are with whatever it is that you're working with.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter whether it's MS or periods or fertility or any excuse me, chronic condition.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: And because most people will have between like five and 15 underlying issues.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Often, if they have 15, they're all connected to other things.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
20:26
SPEAKER_00: There's often like five things.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And what we have found if if people will spend 15 minutes a day just following your plan, like the basically that you, you know, you go into the app and you fill out a survey that that was a conversation, but people just it was too long, you know.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: So we switched it to a survey, but everything else is kind of interactive.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: You it's long, we need 50 to 70 data points to get started so that we can identify what are the potholes.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: We it generates a score.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: We have a data analyst, her name is Atlas, and she looks at it all, right?
20:57
SPEAKER_00: And then she can calculate what's your likelihood of getting pregnant based on the amount of potholes that you have and the severity.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And then we want to get that score above 60.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: So I thought that you'd have to get to 80 to kind of get into that like exponentially higher fertility, but it turns out once people get to 60, they start getting pregnant.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: So if you do use the app, you can use it for free for the first month just to check it out.
21:19
unknown: Yeah.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: If you do use it, what you might the average starting score, I think, right now is 28.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Don't be bummed.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't be looking for this if you did not have some problems, right?
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Like if your score was 80, you wouldn't be even listening to this podcast because you'd be like, My period's the bomb, and so is my fertility.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And I have as many kids as I want, and I have, you know what I mean?
21:39
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't be here.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so don't be discouraged.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: I I'm the baby of five children, and my mother used to always say, You're not special.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: And and but it, you know how she is very pragmatic.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: She grew up during the depression, and you'd be like, Mom, everybody's teasing me.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Because they think she's like, honey, you're not special.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets teased.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Just buck up and get out there and fight them, punch them in the nose.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Literally, that's what she'd say.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And um, but but there is some truth to this, like, meaning, like, these problems are common.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: We interviewed 16,000 women last year.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: The most important question that I want to know when I'm working either in person or through the app is what's your energy like on a one to ten if you had no caffeine or exercise for two whole days?
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And most people will say, I've never had a day like that in my life.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, well, I encourage you, if you haven't ever had a day like that, to just try it and see what you look like on day three.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Because if we can't make, conserve, and restore energy, everything else doesn't work.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: It tells us if you're if your energy is low, it tells us either what you're eating isn't quite right for what you need, for what your body needs.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: And we personalize everything because I don't think there's a playbook, right?
22:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Even the Mediterranean diet.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Like we have global, we have women all over the globe using our app.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm like, oh, eat the Mediterranean diet and she lives in India, it's like, where the freak am I gonna get parsley and boulder?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: And tahini, right?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's like, but the premise, like heavy plant-based, but not vegetarian or vegan, you know, plenty of protein, fiber, and fat, lots of healthy fats, um, but personalized to what that person actually needs.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: So if she says she's really tired, she has gut issues, she has low temperatures, and she only has one day of bleeding, and she has PCUS, she's gonna get low glycemic, anti inflammatory blood building, yeah, and warming, right?
23:34
SPEAKER_00: If she's cold, right, to raise and the warming foods are only going to come.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: After ovulation.
23:39
unknown: Yeah.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember where I was going with that, but yeah, no, I love it.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: I was with you every minute.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: You've already shared um so much.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: And I know we had kind of started talking about some of the myths about periods.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you had shared one thing about the temperature, which I found to be very interesting.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: So it sounds like to get pregnant and to stay pregnant, that it needs to be above 98.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Is that correct?
24:01
SPEAKER_00: That's but that is my clinical experience.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: I haven't found any data to support that.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: But that, you know, when I was first in practice, everyone was bringing me their basal body temperature charts.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And I that wasn't part of my training.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: This is like 1999.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: It's weird to even say that.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And and but because an acupuncturist is trained in pattern diagnosing, right?
24:21
SPEAKER_00: And a basal body temperature chart, it does produce a pattern.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: It does.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: And because I was seeing so many patients and looking, because they'd want me to look at their BBTs, and I was like, you know, trying to understand it and learn.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: I started seeing like all of this stuff.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, wow, all the people have PCUS, they have this kind of chart.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: And all the people have a lot of PMS have this kind of chart.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And all the people have high FSH have this kind of chart.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And all the people, and then I cross-reference that against like 500,000 uh basal body temperature charts, cross-reference against differential diagnosis, like PCUS endometriosis high.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, mind blown, I was right.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: The only thing that wasn't in there was as a predictor of progesterone.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it just at some point, I you know, it was so clear that if we fixed the things that we needed to fix to get the temperatures above 98, they stayed pregnant.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Like we never captured the data on it.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: We I wish we would have, but we'll do it in the app.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, women who are struggling to get pregnant um incre have an increased mis risk, an increased risk for miscarriage of almost 40%.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: And I think you know, when we're talking about myths, we put so much emphasis on the big fat positive, right?
25:36
SPEAKER_00: The BFP, and almost nothing on staying pregnant.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: We need resources to make humans.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: It's very easy to get a sperm to connect with the egg, right?
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But if you're struggling to get pregnant, it's probably because your resources are low, right?
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Not enough energy, not enough blood, hormones are dysregulated.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: We need all those working to make humans.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: So the three things I think if this is really important, um, the three things that I saw that have to work to stay pregnant is your energy has to be high, like eight out of ten is my preference.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'll work towards.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: It's okay if we don't get there, but as high as possible because it's a reflection of so much else.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Temperatures get to 98 and stay there after ovulation.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Give yourself three days to get there.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: It's okay if there's mild sawtoothing, but just not too much.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And then the last one is you have four days of bleeding, soak a tampon or a pad about every four hours, not more or less on either one of those, no cramping, clotting, or spotting.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: That person will stay pregnant.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Because we need the energy to fuel right the development of that follicle, right?
26:44
SPEAKER_00: They have that those embryonic cells have 10 times more mitochondria than any other cell in the body.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Why?
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Why?
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Because when the sperm and the egg come together, they have to divide and multiply, divide and multiply into a human.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: They got a big difference.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Just think about that for a second, right?
27:01
SPEAKER_00: The resource requirement to make an eight-pound human.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: It's huge.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: Right?
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And then we need good blood to make a good lining so that implantation can be successful.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And that good blood tells us like blood is so important, not only for implantation.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: You're when you get pregnant, you double your blood volume, right?
27:23
SPEAKER_00: We have to make a placenta out of your blood.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: We have to feed the baby through your blood.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: And so if the person only has one day of bleeding, it's not only that there's going to be a pretty thin lining.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: First of all, why is there only one day of bleeding?
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Is the more important question.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Like, hmm, is she overexercised?
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Because then we have to find out what needs to get corrected there so it doesn't just keep if we don't do that, we're like, oh, she has one day of bleeding.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Let's give her a bunch of iron.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: Right.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, that will help.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: It probably won't help her in pregnancy.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: And there's something underneath that because maybe she's doing CrossFit.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: CrossFit like exercise to exhaustion four or more times per week decreases your likelihood of getting pregnant by almost 70%.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Whoa, wow.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: That's a mic drop, right?
28:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean it is.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: So that's why, you know, this is this is a systems-based based approach to women's health.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Like that's why when I describe what we're building, I don't even say it's an app, it's an operating system.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: It's a bi-directional operating system that learns about her and her body teaches the AI so that the AI can become smarter based on what works and doesn't work for her and her feedback and her sharing.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I think that's pretty cool.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Wow, yeah.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: I think that's really cool.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: What an amazing way to provide women with insight to something that I'm really hearing like it's it sounds very nuanced, and maybe I wonder if it was like less nuanced before like modern day living where we have all of these external factors of stress and work and just the demands that we have um on our lives.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: Have you ever thought about that?
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, I do know if you're interested in this, there's a um gosh, what's the name of it now?
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll try and find it and I'll send it to you.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: If you if you look it up on Amazon, probably look up like Chinese show from the Qing dynasty about about like the emperor and reproductive acupuncture or fertility acupuncture, because basically the show it's it is it's a drama, like a Chinese drama.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And there is a lot of like high-pitched Chinese singing and chanting, you know.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Um but the but the storyline is is you have this emperor, it's Qing Dynasty, and then it follows this young woman who's she's kind of think like Elizabeth, like Lizzie from Pride and Prejudice, like you know, she's kind of the smart girl, the cool girl, you know.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: And the emperor decides he wants to meet her, he hears about her, and and every season or whatever, they basically have like a showing-off party where the girls come and parade in front of the emperor and then he picks some new wives.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Hell no, I don't want to do that.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna get picked, you know, like I don't want to be his like consort and all this stuff.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: She gets picked, of course, and then they make her.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: But what happens is you you see the lives of all the wives of the emperors.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: That's what this show is about.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And what I thought was so interesting is each of the wives had what was called an imperial doctor, uh-huh, a reproductive acupuncturist.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: So that doctor would come because right, her job, right?
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Her job, not our job, but her job was to produce basically sons.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And so they wanted to optimize her every single day to give her having as many sons as possible.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And so they're like, we're gonna give her a personal doctor.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: We want this girl producing.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing about the story is there's all this backstory of like the other wives kind of competing, and so then they're using Chinese medicine to like poison each other.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: They're like, Oh, I made you this amber, I made you this amber skin cream.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be really brightening for your skin, but like amber will cause miscarriage.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh and so, wow, anyways, I thought it was really interesting.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, my little chihuahua came up to she's co-hosting today.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested in that, I just thought that was so interesting because I was like, at that time, the imperial doctor that was one of the most revered positions in the country.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay, wow.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Because basically they were, you know, determining and making sure that the emperor would have as many offsprings as they wanted or needed.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: So even centuries ago, it was a priority.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Thousands, thousands, like three thousand years ago.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, then it was it was a priority clearly for them to be able to optimize this very powerful system that is the female body.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and that actually that show really inspired me because I was like, could I build software that like mimicked what this guy does?
31:47
SPEAKER_00: He comes, is because all men, right?
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And he would come in the morning and check her pulse, he would tell the chef what she would eat today, he would tell her what kind of exercise would be good for her today.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: She would, he would help her if she wasn't sleeping, you know, all these things.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: And so essentially what happened recently in the last six months, what we're working on right now is we're instead of like before, conceivable has just been like like I'm your virtual fertility coach through the app.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: But then I had another idea, which I have like every five seconds.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: What if we built a virtual care team?
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: So you get a chef, a nutritionist, and um a therapist, a data analyst, a formulator for your supplements, a tongue analyzer, because even you can stick out your pick, your tongue, take a picture, and it analyzes your tongue for you.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: And um, and then it's all working in concert.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: So every day she's working with you, she's talking with you, she's doing therapy with you, she's helping you problem solve.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: When when you when you look at like a fertility monitor and you're like, oh, my E2 is 27 and my my progesterone is 19.7 on cycle day 29.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: What does that even mean?
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
32:53
unknown: Right.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: That's what they I mean.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: I get hundreds of those screenshots sent to me.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean?
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And what do I do?
32:59
SPEAKER_00: And like download the conceivable app, put all that in there, and then ask Atlas, that's the data scientist, and she'll say, Whoa, okay, looks like your temperatures are still below 98.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Let me try to figure out why.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we talked about sleep last month.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: I still see you're sleeping, only getting six hours of sleep.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Help me understand what's going on there so I can help you.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Is it that you can't fall asleep or stay asleep?
33:19
SPEAKER_00: And she might say, I can't fall asleep.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me ask you some more questions now.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: What about your caffeine intake?
33:25
SPEAKER_00: Do you drink much caffeine?
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm really tired.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so I do.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: I have like four cups of coffee a day.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll work with that.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: When do you drink it?
33:34
SPEAKER_00: I have two in the morning and two at four o'clock in the afternoon.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Then she's like, I know what's going on.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: I think the the so the treatment right for the low temperatures isn't supplemental progesterone.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: The treatment for her is to teach, find a strategy, whether replacing it with like a mushroom coffee or figuring out how to help her slowly.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Like I usually recommend like the first two weeks, just go 25 decaf, 75 calf, just to be gentle to your body.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: And then after two weeks, go 50-50.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: And then after two weeks, go 25-75, meaning 25 calf, 75 decaf.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And then the last week you're you're straight to decaf.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: And then and then we see, okay, if you only have decaf in the afternoon, can you still fall asleep?
34:17
SPEAKER_00: If not, you got to go back, and then we keep trying and back and forth.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's the kind of care I wish every woman on the planet had.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, you can just run around in circles chasing your tail, right?
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Trust me, yes.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: And it's all it's all connected, as you've kind of already clearly articulated here.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's never just one thing.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: As you've said, we kind of need to treat the whole system.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's always funny too, like it always comes back to the basics, maybe not always, but it often does, right?
34:48
SPEAKER_02: Always sleep and water and like managing stress.
34:52
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I think sometimes we can make it more complicated than it needs to be.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I think you're really right.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think the more that I just talk to women and work with them in this new way, I think they're really overcommitted.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Like when we, you know, I started by saying like we interviewed 16,000 women last year and that asked that question, what's your energy like on a one to ten, no caffeine or exercise for two days?
35:19
SPEAKER_00: 8% had energy that was eight or above.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Whoa.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: 50%, 50% had energy five or below.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: No, I mean women are exhausted.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And I I I hear you on the overcommitment because I even see this a lot in my practice.
35:35
SPEAKER_02: I'll have women come and um, you know, sometimes they'll be going to, you know, IFS and they're seeing me, and they're doing AA meetings, and they're doing acupuncture, and they're getting enemas, and they're just like, I'm like, whoa, you're doing a lot.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, those are the ones also who'll say, I'm doing everything and it's still not working.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's because none of those things will do anything for what's wrong with you.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, like if that girl has one day of bleeding, an enema, right, isn't gonna make it, you know, it's like most of it's be what I have found is that most of this is behavioral, but it's not easy to figure out on your own.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Like people say, I'm just so tired, I don't know what to do, what can I take?
36:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is not a supplement comp thing.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like fatigue is not solved with supplements.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: I own a supplement company.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: I would love to sell you a supplement, but that's not, it won't solve it.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: It'll it'll make you feel more energy if you just gotta bust through one time occasionally.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like the morning after pill.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to use it as a as a form of birth control, but if something bad happens, sure glad to have it, you know.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I think that even less than just doing all the things that they're doing for their fertility, you know, I ask them, like, tell me about your day.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: And they'll say, Well, I get up at four o'clock in the morning and I go to the gym, and then I come home and I make breakfast for my family, and I make my kids lunches, and then I take my kids to school, and then I go to work, and then I do something over my lunch hour, or I work through lunch, and then at seven, six o'clock, I get to leave, and then I go to the grocery store, and then I come home and I cook dinner, and then I make dinner, and then I do the glitches, and I put my kids to bed, and then I do the laundry, and then it's 10 o'clock.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I hear that story a lot every day.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was like, ladies, we need to have a change, right?
37:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like when we have two parents working in the house, like we have to have more of a partnership, right?
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Because what I hear is she's doing everything, yeah.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, how about if dad just puts the kids to bed?
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, if you have kids, sometimes the putting to bed is very tiring because they don't want to go to bed, you know, daughter.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, and she's like, No, they'll only have me.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, maybe it's time for a boundary and say, Too bad, so sad.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: It's dad or nothing, like, because it's hurting you.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: And your mod, this is the listening point, I think.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And this is what helps a lot for women is I'll say, Listen, when if you have a daughter, do you want her to have the same life that you have?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: Get up at four o'clock in the morning and just grind until 10 o'clock, and then and then your husband's like, Hey, you want to have sex?
38:13
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Hell no, I don't want to have sex.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm so tired.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: You've been like scratching your balls all day, and I've been like doing everything.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: And and so I was like, Would you be really happy if like when your daughter grows up, if she has the same life that you have?
38:26
SPEAKER_00: And that she's like, No way.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, But you're teaching her that life, you're actually teaching her that's what a good mom does.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's not what a good mom does, right?
38:38
SPEAKER_00: We think it is because we we're trained that the more we take care of our kids, then that makes us better moms, but kids do well with boundaries.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: They do.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Kids do it's very good for kids to have chores.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: So we're not talking like turn them into like indentured servants, but yeah, definitely lots of responsibilities around the house.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: All of those things are really, really good.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: Having dad do chores in front of the kids teaches your son what kind of man to be and teaches your daughter what kind of husband to marry.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so good.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I talk about this a lot.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: I work with kids too.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, it's it's really important what we're modeling to children.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: They learn through observation.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: And if we're doing the very things that we wouldn't want for our children, then we do have to take a step back and really be honest with ourselves and like you said, start placing some boundaries or to start making some changes.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just like I was like, you're not getting pregnant because you're so blown out.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: There isn't a drop of resource in there.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Do you want that for your next baby?
39:41
SPEAKER_00: You want to make a baby out of nothing?
39:43
SPEAKER_00: It's like when you go to the grocery store during the pandemic, right?
39:45
SPEAKER_00: And all you can get is Cheerios.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Right?
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Dinner's not going to be that cool.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: That's what's getting pregnant is when you're blown out, right?
39:50
SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh, I got to, I'm gonna make you a Lego baby because I don't have enough blood hormones and resources to make you.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, so much to to consider for our listeners if any of this is resonating for you.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: And that's a lot of the the work that we do here on the show is is slowing down and and doing less, and also tending to the parts of ourselves inside that that make it hard to slow down because there are very real things that happen in our history and never mind the culture that we're all steeped in, at least here in Western culture.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's it's hard to slow down when everything around you and everything sometimes inside of you makes you believe that somehow, you know, we need to be doing more, we need to be pushing harder, we need to keep performing.
40:39
SPEAKER_02: I need more stuff.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
40:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, the consumerism too, as well.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's all connected.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really interesting.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: I was visiting my friends in Kauai last month, and um, you know, it's a it's an island, it's the farthest landmass from any other landmass on the planet, and it's very small, and it's very expensive, everything is very expensive, like even macadamia nuts were cheaper in Austin than in Kauai, right?
41:09
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, coconuts are everything's very expensive, and so because of that, it's so expensive, but people do want to live there, they live with a lot less stuff.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Also, because you know, if you you know, it's expensive to bring it, so people don't come with much stuff, and people live even rich people live very simply and they share a lot, they share responsibilities, even I mean, this is not like you know, across economic systems.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, my friends they live on a street and they had every kind of economic, you know, background that you could possibly have, but like they had all these tangerine trees in their yard.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: And so every day we'd go pick some tangerines and put them in a box and then just put them by the mailbox.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: And people walk up and down, and it just says, have you know, help yourself free, right?
41:58
SPEAKER_00: Not charging, just we have more, we have so much abundance.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: And then you go to the next house and somebody's got pineapples out there, and somebody's got a hundred avocados, right?
42:09
SPEAKER_00: It feels like such you're like, there's all this free food everywhere, it's and great food, you know.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I I think that that's a real learning opportunity is like living with less actually makes you feel so much happier.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, less clothes, less, you know.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: I look and my daughter is 20, she lives with me, and she has so she has every face like skin product that you can possibly imagine.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, and she's like, try this.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: I said, baby, I wash my skin with a bar of soap.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm almost 60 years old, I still look pretty good.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: You look great.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I need to do anything different, right?
42:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is what I I've just been lazy, you know what I mean?
42:46
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very excellent point there as well.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm I'm curious for our listeners.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I've talked to some of my girlfriends before, and you know, I'm like, oh, I'm you know, I'm I'm getting ready to ovulate or I'm kind of around that time.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: And I'm always so surprised um to my friends who are not as menstrual uh aware aware of their menstrual cycle.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: Um they're not sure like what to look out for.
43:13
SPEAKER_02: And I was talking to one of my girlfriends about um the sticky cervical mucus, and she was like, Oh yeah, like I've seen that before, and I thought that there was something wrong.
43:22
SPEAKER_02: I was like, no, no, no, no, you want that sticky cervical mucus.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: So can you maybe uh help listeners to understand what are some other signs um that we are ovulating, things to look out for?
43:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just reverse engineer your question.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: Um so instead of looking out for ovulation, it's very easy because I think that all the signs are actually very confusing for people.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: And it just anything that's confusing then becomes stressful.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: So, right, when you don't know, you're like, this is really important, and I'm not that's why they're sending me all the this is why I hate fertility monitors because it it doesn't change the outcome, it just stresses you out by going, eh, right?
44:03
SPEAKER_00: What we want to do is we want to stop having like you want to first pay attention, is your cycle 28 to 32 days?
44:13
SPEAKER_00: That's so much more than knowing when you ovulate.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Once so we'll call it the 30-day cycle.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: If you have a 30-day cycle, you're ovulating on cycle day 15 or 16, like about 90% of you.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: But that's okay because it doesn't matter.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: So the research shows that having intercourse three days before ovulate.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: So when you use a fertility monitor, they try to get you to have sex like at your peak, right?
44:37
SPEAKER_00: Which is the day before the day of ovulation.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: But the data show have sex three days before and one day before, and one day after, and three days after.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: So here is my strategy for no stress sex and ovulation.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Take your temperature each morning.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: If we have a ring that does it for you, that's like half as half a price of an aura and it manages, monitors blood sugar.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: So you can either use our halo ring or you can just use a thermometer in your mouth.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna confirm ovulation.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: So we want to see before ovulation, there'll be low.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Then if you ovulate, there'll be a little drop in the middle.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you'll have some of that cervical discharge.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: It's okay for now if you don't have it.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Let's focus on one thing at a time.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And then if it gets five or six tenths higher, you ovulate it.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: If it gets to the 98s, you're golden.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: Now, so we want to just confirm, we want to look back to make sure that you're ovulating.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: If you get to the 98s, you did ovulate because it's I don't know if I've ever, unless you stay at the 98s the whole time.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: But if you're like, oh, take it first few days and you're like 972 ish, and then some Time cycle day 22, 23, or up in the 98s, you ovulated.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: But we don't want to try to capture ovulation, we want to cover ovulation.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: And so what you're going to do is you have a 30-day cycle, you count back 14 days.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: So that's cycle day 16.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: So that's approximately when you're going to ovulate for most people, but we wouldn't want to take any chances.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to count back three days.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: So if we think you're ovulating on cycle day 16, you're going to count back to cycle day 13.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: And then you're going to start on cycle day 13 and have sex every other day four times.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: So one calculation, just that one time.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: And it's okay if it's a little bit varied, because what's going to happen is if you do that, you're going to spread sperm over 10 straight days.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: And there'll be many overlapping deposits, if you know what I'm saying.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: What you want is enough sperm waiting at the egg.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Instead of waiting for ovulation and the sperm have to catch it, get front-loaded.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: No pun intended, right?
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Then you're not like, I don't know, did I miss it?
46:37
SPEAKER_00: And if your husband has to travel or you have to travel one day, fuck it, it's okay because the sperm can live four days.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: Every other day is just extra precaution.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: So even if you went every third day, that'd be okay too.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: But if you're just trying to, you know, if you only have to have sex four times a month, then those are your times you want to do it.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: And you can't miss it then.
46:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: It's not possible.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a 28 to 32 day cycle, download the conceivable app or work with Reva to get that.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: And then you don't have to worry about it anymore.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, amazing.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:09
SPEAKER_02: I love what you've said about covering ovulation instead of like trying to pinpoint the exact moment that it happens.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: It's just kind of this general pocket of time.
47:19
SPEAKER_02: And if you front load it at the end and just continue with intercourse every other day, then you're in a good spot.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: Think of it as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right?
47:28
SPEAKER_00: It's just like like there's no, those little sperm have no chance of escaping you.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
47:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm curious for people who are maybe outside of that 28 to 30 day period, um, what does that tell you if like the cycle, for example, is past 30 days?
47:48
SPEAKER_02: What does that tell you as a practitioner what's going on with ovulation specifically?
47:52
SPEAKER_00: So late is actually worse than early for a few reasons.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the first thing is if it's late, we want to confirm ovulation, right?
47:59
SPEAKER_00: And in again, you don't need a monitor, just take your temperatures.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: And if you're getting a flat line, then you're not ovulating.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: So then we just have another, it's okay.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: Like we want to uncover, I call those opportunities.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: Because right now, if you're trying to improve your period or trying to get pregnant and you don't know that having a long that you're not ovulating, and you're like, well, we're just doing it every month.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: And you know what I mean?
48:24
SPEAKER_00: And and then you're like, we've been doing it for three straight years.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: I never got pregnant.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you haven't ovulated in three years.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
48:29
unknown: Yeah.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: Right?
48:30
SPEAKER_00: And and it's so easy just to, you'll just see either be a flat line, you know, it'll be up and down a little bit, but you don't want it to be like this, where it's like low here and then high after.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: That means you're ovulated.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: But if it's like across the hole, didn't ovulate.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, it can be weight related, under or overweight.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: It can be a sign of PCUS.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: So that needs to be investigated.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: It's often related to some blood sugar instability, which is why we added the ring.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: I think like 13% of people we interviewed in that stuff that I said knew their blood sticker status.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: Is and the question just like, is your blood sugar chick typically high, low, or normal?
49:05
SPEAKER_00: No idea, was the most common answer.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's really important because the higher your blood sugar, the lower your fertility.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Because blood sugar in your blood is like gasoline.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: It just causes everything to degrade really fast.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: Ovaries, eggs, uterin lining, sperm, all of it.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: It messes up ovulation, can delay ovulation.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: So those would be the things that I the places that I would start looking.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, again, fatigue at the at the core of all of that, because often sometimes what's happening is you're you're you don't have enough resources, you're too tired.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: And we have to get enough energy to cause the LH to get high enough to trigger the release of um of the follicle.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: And so if the person's really tired, this is the same people say, like, I don't get a strong LH surge.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: That's usually fatigue.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: And what about the inverse?
49:53
SPEAKER_02: What if the cycle is shorter than 28 days?
49:55
SPEAKER_02: What does that usually tell you?
49:57
SPEAKER_00: It's less common and it can be exhaustion.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: Again, not enough energy because it can just the person's body responds in a different way.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: This is more likely to be a lean person, like a two, you know, like underweight person with scanty bleeding, or so like their estrogen is a little bit low because they're so lean, or problematically, so if the temperatures are high before ovulation, so we I like to see them about 97-2 before ovulation.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: As we age, and FSH, that's follicle stimulating where it kind of measures your reproductive age, as FSH goes up, so does temperatures in the follicular phase.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: So what we saw is that when women's FSH gets like 10 or above, their temperatures get close to 98 before ovulation.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: When we want them closer to 97, when almost a whole temperature, almost a whole degree difference.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: And um, and so and what we saw, which was really sorry, I got inch on my nose, what we saw is that the higher the temperatures get, the earlier ovulation came.
50:57
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: And the less cervical discharge.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: And when the temperatures got above 98 in IVF cycles, we saw that when they tried to inseminate the egg, they broke a lot.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh, interesting.
51:08
SPEAKER_00: So if you think about it, like the egg gets exposed to that elevated temperature and the shell gets a little bit brittle.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: And instead of being able to like puncture it, it's like it's like a broken shell.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: So you have to get in and clean, you know, have to figure out where's the heat coming from, and you know, there's there's more work to do.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes women with endometriosis will have really elevated temperatures before ovulation, but the rest of the cycle looks normal.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: So it won't necessarily be like an early cycle.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that if we ovulate early, we have another problem because now the follicle hasn't quite had enough time to mature fully.
51:43
SPEAKER_02: Right.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: So if they have like a 20-day cycle, it's a real problem.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: There's not probably very much estrogen going on.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: They're probably blood deficient, probably really tired.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: And um, and then as the estrogen declines, we get heat symptoms like hot flashes.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: Right.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: You can see the heat is then drying up the cervical discharge and the temperatures are coming up, and then that's pulling ovulation back.
52:05
SPEAKER_00: So kind of interesting.
52:07
SPEAKER_02: Wow, yeah.
52:07
SPEAKER_02: No, very interesting.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: And so much that you can um uncover by just looking at the length of the menstrual spike cycle, which speaks to again it really being like a built-in health report for women.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: It's so just so dynamic.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I always say, like, I think I'm the only person in the whole world who is this in love with the menstrual cycle and like just so obsessed with it and love talking about it.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: And I always forget, like, one guy who's man who's on our team is an older gentleman, and he's always like, you know, inappropriate.
52:40
SPEAKER_02: I think it's great for men to know too.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, because if you think about it, we all came out of a womb.
52:47
SPEAKER_02: And what we're talking about here is the very process that created every single person on this planet.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's important that we all have some idea of how it works.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: I heard something on TikTok yesterday from this guy who has this church that's like super paternalistic church, you know, and he was like, you know, it's not that hard to be a woman.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: He goes, it's just she's just a thing that a baby comes out of.
53:11
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: And this was on CNN.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: What?
53:15
SPEAKER_00: I was like, no, I can't believe you just said that out loud.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: It's one thing if you just think it.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: But to say it on national TV.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: You just said that on national TV.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get murdered, duh.
53:26
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this really speaks to um the culture, you know, the patriarchal cult culture that we all live in, and um really speaks to the importance of of being educated and informed and knowing what your body is doing and what what it's capable of.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: I think especially I think the the one of the reasons why that triggered me so much is because some women will hear that and believe it.
53:49
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: And I hate that.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I do say that women are the future of the species, which is not the same thing as you don't really have to do anything special to get it, just drop a baby out of your vagina, you know.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: But I do always say, like, it's it's like those women who were the emperor's wives, right?
54:06
SPEAKER_00: They were the most important people because they were the future of the emperor of, you know, of the imperial house.
54:12
SPEAKER_00: And women not only are the future of our species, it doesn't mean you have to have a baby or even need to want to have a baby, but you can if you want to, right?
54:19
SPEAKER_00: Most people.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: And um, but also that we're the shepherds of the children.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: And and that is an important role in our species that I think needs to be elevated.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: Like if we took care of women in a way that was in concert with the role that they play in society and for our species, they wouldn't be doing anything.
54:41
SPEAKER_00: We'd be like in Roman times, laying on our backs, somebody'd be dropping grapes into our mouth and petting us and telling us, you know, like, yeah, it'd be a completely different situation.
54:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it would be a completely different world.
54:53
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I don't know that we need to like go back to that world, but like, I'm like, how do we bring even just a little bit of that value of that appreciation into our modern culture because we've just swung so far to the other side of the spectrum.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: I think it starts with us.
55:10
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
55:11
SPEAKER_00: It starts with us stopping gossiping about each other.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: Yep, that part.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I like to gossip too.
55:18
SPEAKER_00: So I always want to be clear.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm I'm not saying that I don't ever gossip, but I've been really trying to work on it because I have this strong feeling that if women don't come together pretty darn quickly, like right now we're very divided because of politics.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: And if women can't find a way to come together on behalf of each other as women, not as politics, race, color, creed, gender, immigration status, like if we don't stand together, we're gonna have some real problems that are gonna be really hard to untangle that we might not even be able to untangle in our lifetime.
55:49
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, the first step is to just like I I've been starting to say, like, I stand with her.
55:55
SPEAKER_00: And using that hashtag, and and like I was in my parking lot the other day at my condo, and I had this cute little chihuahua, you know, and she ran out into the road and I just I went out and I just a car was coming, and it was nine o'clock at night, right?
56:07
SPEAKER_00: It's in the condo parking lot, so you're not going fast, right?
56:10
SPEAKER_00: I just ran out and I was like, Hey, hold on for a second.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: I pick her up and I was like, Thanks, and she honked at me like real jerky, like my goodness.
56:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I wanted to give her the doubles, you know.
56:23
SPEAKER_00: But then I was like, I stand with her.
56:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't agree with that ugly, ugly behavior, but we are gonna have to figure out how to stand together.
56:33
SPEAKER_00: Like we've got to support each other because just the men have other fish to fry.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: They don't really, they're not incentivized to go to bat for us in the way that somebody's gonna need to go to bat for us.
56:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:45
SPEAKER_02: Well said.
56:46
SPEAKER_02: We just talked about female friendships on our episode last week, and we were talking about these very things.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for threading that into the conversation as well.
56:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, Kirsten, I'd love to hear a little bit more about Halo as we're approaching the hour.
57:01
SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious to know kind of how you came up with the idea.
57:06
SPEAKER_02: How did the product come together?
57:09
SPEAKER_00: So it was very simple, actually, and then it got very complicated on my side.
57:13
SPEAKER_00: Um so again, uh, you know, we were talking at the top of the hour about talking to my audience and my followers on TikTok every single day and hearing what their frustrations were, you know, and they're like, I always forget to take my temperature and blah, blah, blah.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and then they're saying, like, I want to get an aura ring, but it's$500.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: And blah, blah.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: And so then I was like, okay, well, maybe I should try to partner with Aura.
57:35
SPEAKER_00: And then I was testing their ring, and I need the temperatures to be very accurate.
57:40
unknown: Yeah.
57:41
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, uh like a surface, a ring or any other wearable temperature will be different, but you should be able to calibrate for that disparate.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: It should be consistently the same.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: So if it's like one and your ring is 1.5, then you know there should be a 5% of 5 tenths of a point difference.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: But I could not get that with the aura ring, even though that would have been so much easier to partner with them.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:01
SPEAKER_00: But then I just started researching, you know, manufacturers and um, and I came across this one manufacturer that would allow us before the tariffs to sell it for$199, which the aura ring's$500, and still make an okay profit.
58:16
SPEAKER_00: Like we don't take a lot of profit.
58:18
SPEAKER_00: Like my goal is to make less profit and have more people so that we can keep everything affordable.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: Even$200 is cost prohibitive for a lot of people.
58:26
SPEAKER_00: So we wanted to make the app work without the ring, but for people who just wanted the convenience, we wanted to provide that.
58:32
SPEAKER_00: And this particular ring non-invasively measures glucose.
58:36
SPEAKER_00: And it was the first ring that I'd ever seen that would do that.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: And because I want to know their blood sugar, and I want to use blood sugar monitoring in pregnancy to sort of prevent adverse birth events like gestational diabetes.
58:49
SPEAKER_00: I think it's crazy that we wait six months to see if a woman has gestational diabetes.
58:53
SPEAKER_00: And then like, oh, oh no, shit, she's got gestational diabetes.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, no, no, no, no.
58:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's monitor it.
58:59
SPEAKER_00: Let's monitor it every single day.
59:01
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as there's a problem, like in the app, if they're using our app, as soon as the blood sugar starts to climb, it tells her chef, Atlas tells the chef, hey, her blood sugar's going up.
59:11
SPEAKER_00: First of all, have a conversation with her about what's going on and why this is important and what we're gonna use, how we're gonna use food to help her to get that fixed, or at least get it better under control.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: And then if it's not becoming under control with food and other things, then we start sending you notifications like, hey, I want you to talk to your doctor.
59:27
SPEAKER_00: We want to, we want to interrupt, intervene with this with your doctor earlier, not wait for six months.
59:32
SPEAKER_00: Here's the record of your blood sugar lately and what we did and it, you know, whatever.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: Wow, so cool.
59:38
SPEAKER_02: And it sounds like the um, I forget what word you use, but is it is it AI technology essentially that's creating all of the steps to take and tracking everything?
59:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what an incredible use for AI.
59:52
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
59:53
SPEAKER_00: I think so too.
59:54
SPEAKER_00: And people say, like, well, AI makes mistakes.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, it does make mistakes and it hallucinates.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is because the AI is again not working off one thing.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: And all of the interventions are things like drink more water, eat this food, eat.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the food is all like real food.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: The supplements are clearly defined in the medical literature, and we pulled all the supplements out that could hurt anybody, you know what I mean?
1:00:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, we'll only use the things that like there's you know it just doesn't have a contraindication for anything that somebody would be taking, and we check that.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_00: And um, and yeah, it's just it's funny because I have been building the algorithm to run this for about eight years now.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_00: But before OpenAI launched, like we had quotes for like$10 million,$20 million, like because the language model, right?
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, is really and the it's still the technology was you know not very robust, and now it's gotten so robust because other LLMs.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: And so actually, we're gonna build our own language model.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_00: So instead of currently we back up to a few different language models like OpenAI and things like that, but I honestly I just don't feel like it's secure as secure as I want it to be, right, given the cultural situation and the political stuff that's going on.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_00: I want that stuff locked down.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm a mom, right?
1:01:09
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm a mom of every woman I ever work with.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: Like I treat her like she's my daughter, even if she's like 10 years younger than me, you know.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want any of that data getting out to anybody.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: We will share your data with academic institutions with your permission and things like that for research, but never to marketers or anything like that.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: And so we're basically just gonna build our own language model so nobody can see.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_00: I just don't have confidence that the government is gonna stay out of they're too immeshed with all of these large companies.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_00: And I don't, I don't because women have been telling me, like, I'm afraid to get pregnant, that I might have a miscarriage and then be prosecuted.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: Really?
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: In Texas, if you get raped by your father and then your friend takes you to get an abortion across state lines, and your dad finds out about it and sues you, he can sue you for 10$10,000, and he can sue the person who took you for$10,000.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness gracious.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: It's gross, it's super gross.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: So you can see why I'm so concerned about protecting.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_00: I do not know it's really it's and that's in a lot of states, you know.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for naming that.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: I do live in California, and so um, yeah, it's not something that I I have to think about, but it's it's nice to be reminded of the stark reality for women out there in this country.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: I think that the issue around personhood is gonna be a real a real problem for women, like because you know, isn't like right now they're we're you know, they're arguing that um that embryos are children, right?
1:02:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_00: That is a whole ball of wax that I don't think that they actually really want to get into.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, so we don't have to, I mean, not gonna have a big politics talk on it, especially it's you know, only timely right now.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_00: But I think that it is driving a lot of our decisions about, you know, really safety is has actually trumped even efficacy for me now.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, safety and privacy is a higher priority because that it already works.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_00: So it will only continue to get smarter as we, you know, train her and she gets to interact with more women.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_00: But the privacy has to be really intentional and very strategic.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I appreciate that.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_02: And that kind of to me seems like a real um feminine way of leadership, of caring about how it affects other people and valuing, like you said, privacy and safety above else.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's kind of where we've gotten lost in our cultures that we don't value these qualities that are sometimes more connected to the the more feminine way of being in the world.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_02: And so I just find it so interesting how it just kind of crinkles down into like every asset of our lives, and it's so quiet and so sneaky.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_02: But once you actually start paying attention to it, you're like, wait, it's like it's everywhere.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I always say, like, you know, and I'm a very masculine girl, so it's hard for me to even to like you know, connect with it, but the reality is is that um you know, when we think about even our politicians, the women who are like ultra badasses, they're very masculine.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, historically, you know, look at Hillary Clinton, you know.
1:04:30
SPEAKER_00: But I think that that is a big disadvantage because what happens if we actually put forth candidates who led in a very feminine style?
1:04:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm very masculine in the world because I was raised to be a son by my dad.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: My dad really wanted me to be a son, you know, five daughters, and I'm the baby.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I learned from working in the world of men, like this is how you get stuff done.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_00: But it's not effective.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_00: Female leaders outperform male leaders so frequently, I think like 35%.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, and what if we really allowed female leaders to lead in a feminine way?
1:05:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes, more listening, more inferences, just you know, just everything about it being from the from the true from like their true nature, not the way that they're like some.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_00: I always, I mean, I'm a very transparent person.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any, you know, like for me, my kind of f my masculine energy for me, I think is a little bit of a pretense because underneath I'm a big softie.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_00: And so, so, you know, I'm always trying to figure out like how do I drop into my as a leading this company, especially like how do I remember to stay in my feminine?
1:05:40
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: And part of that is delegating, yes, 100%, not controlling everything, you know, finding people who are working with you to work with you who are way better and smarter than you.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_00: That takes you have to have a lot of confidence to be able to have people like, well, these people could do this whole thing without me.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_00: And my team could.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_00: They don't need they only need me for the clinical stuff.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_00: The rest of the stuff, they do everything.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it allows you.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I was just gonna say it takes you kind of like putting your your ego aside to be able to be like, you know what?
1:06:10
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I don't, this is not my area of expertise.
1:06:13
SPEAKER_02: Let me bring in someone who is the expert in this area.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that does seem like a very feminine way to lead to.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_02: Well, Kirsten, this has just been incredible.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_02: You've shared so much with us here today.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_02: And I'm wondering if you have any final words or things that you want women to know about fertility, or maybe things that you wished women would have learned in sex ed.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a whole hour of answers, actually.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: But the one thing that I do want to just mention is um our supplements.
1:06:51
unknown: Okay.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_00: So there are a place for supplements.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_00: There is a place for supplements.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, it can be really helpful, accelerant, right?
1:06:59
SPEAKER_00: But I want to be perfectly clear, there are no supplements that are good for fertility.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_00: And again, I own a supplement company.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_00: There are supplements that can be extremely beneficial for the underlying causes, your underlying causes of why you're not getting or staying pregnant.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_00: So, say you're 39 years old and you know, you haven't been like you've been really stressed, you're a partner in a law firm, you've been burning the candle for a long time, we can assume you have a lot of inflammation, plus your aging.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_00: So, in that case, of course, all the antioxidants are going to be really important and really valuable.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_00: But if you're 22 and you take general Pretty good care of yourself.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to spend all that money on those things because that's you know, we don't have any indication that you have inflammatory problems.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you don't have any bleeding, we can use B12, B6, B vitamins if it seems like that's what you need, but we can also do it with food, right?
1:07:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: Gut issues really benefit from supplements, right?
1:07:57
SPEAKER_00: I love grass-fed colostrum so much.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_00: But what we just recently launched, which I'm just really proud of because it has been a real thorn in my side, we had a whole line of clinical grade supplements, it conceivable.
1:08:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're talking like quality of thorn or metagenics, like the best, because I only want the best for my people, right?
1:08:15
SPEAKER_00: But unfortunately, they were so expensive.
1:08:18
SPEAKER_00: Even with only 25% margin, it was still like$70 a bottle.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_00: And um, and often there's four to six things that would be really helpful for you to take, right?
1:08:27
SPEAKER_00: If we can narrow it down to what you're working on.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_00: And um, and we found a new partner, a manufacturing partner, who's now able to allow us to the app can just tell you, like, hey, here's the supplements we recommend.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_00: Would you like us to pack it for you?
1:08:44
SPEAKER_00: And you can just say yes.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_00: And then they will grab all the supplements for the month and put them into individual bags for each day of the month, personalized with your name on it, shipped to you in a box so there's no plastic, there's no BPAs.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_00: And the best part about it is we were able to get the price down to but because the packs are different and different things.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_00: Some things cost like$2, you know, and some things are, I think the highest thing is like NAD, which is like$13 or$14.
1:09:10
SPEAKER_00: But um, the packs run$60 to$70 for all of it.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_00: So six to eight personalized super high quality supplements for about$70 a month.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't have a prenatal.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_00: The prenatal is also like$65.
1:09:26
SPEAKER_00: We just can't make it any cheaper, even with this manufacturer.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_00: And you do want to take a super high quality prenatal, but even if you have PCUS or Endo, you want to work on it, you can just go to our website and you don't want to use the app.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: You can just do there's a quiz you can take and it'll make you a pack.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_00: And for you guys, um, I'm giving you a uh coupon save 40, and you'll get 40% off your first pack.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is the most common feedback we have of the people who are using it, they're like, I always took like Amazon supplements, and this is the first time I felt something different.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, hey, that quality does make a difference, huh?
1:09:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, quality and precision.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, like I think a good example, since we're kind of skating between fertility and periods right now, is myoinocitol.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: So myoinocitol is really, really good for stabilizing blood sugar.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_00: In fact, research shows it's better than metformin.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_00: It um has less side effects and it's actually beneficial to the mitochondria.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_00: Whereas metformin is expensive, it causes a lot of side effects, and some research shows it may be injurious to the mitochondria.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_00: But what's more important is most people on social media are saying, oh, if you take myo, if you have PCOS, you should take a combo of 40%, I mean 40, excuse me, 40 to 1 myoinostatol with a little bit of D chyroinostatol.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have PCOS and you have high testosterone, that's 2% of the population, that is really good for you because that little bit of D chiron is job is to lower testosterone.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_00: However, if you don't have low testosterone, or you have normal, I mean if you don't have high testosterone, if you have normal testosterone, or worse, if you have low testosterone and you take that, you've actually just hurt your fertility.
1:11:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_00: Because you've made your your testosterone even lower.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_00: And we actually need a little bit of testosterone for egg quality.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like a little bit of fire inside the aid to start that metabolic activity going.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, women will just tell me, I'm taking like 30 supplements and I'm still not, I'm like, well, this is hurting you, and this is hurting you, and I'm taking geritol, that's just garbage, throw that away.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm drinking pomegranate tree, that's why you have blood sugar problems because that's you know, 137 grams of sugar in it, and so on and so on.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's the equivalent of 10 Snickers.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's wild.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just because it's fruit doesn't mean that like it's and they take all the fiber out, right?
1:11:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's just a just it's just a sugar bomb.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_00: I was like, here, this is what I would do because I like to be cheeky.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, here, make yourself a cup of matcha or good green tea, yeah, drink that, and then eat a Snickers, and you will still save 120 grams of sugar, and it'll be a lot more fun.
1:11:56
unknown: Wow.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_00: And cheaper, way cheaper too, because that stuff's expensive.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_02: It is, yeah.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_00: But I think that sorry, go ahead.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_02: No, go ahead, go ahead.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_00: I just think that a lot of you know, there's just a tremendous amount of misinformation on social media, and then that is why women are doing everything and not getting results.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_00: And what all it's producing is a lot of disappointment, a lot of expense, a lot of confusion, a lot of hopelessness and demoralization, and then great families not getting kids.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it sucks.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_02: It does suck, and it comes back to um kind of what you've said about taking this integrative, more personalized approach because we all are so different and so unique, and we can't just follow what someone on social media tells us to do that worked for them.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_02: It it may or not may or may not be what works for us, and sure, we can try things, um, but at the end of the day, again, we're all so different, and it's important that we are doing things that are actually in support of our own body and our own system.
1:12:56
SPEAKER_00: Amen, girl.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:12:58
SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks so much for your time today, Kirsten.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm sold on the Halo Ring.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm uh, you know, I'm I am not, I haven't made any attempts to conceive at this point.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_02: I've been kind of like slowly making my way there, and I've been exploring the different things out there.
1:13:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, I've looked at the mirror, um, which I don't think tracks your blood sugar.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_02: I think it's more for hormones.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_02: So the halo ring doesn't do hormones, it's just temperature, right?
1:13:23
SPEAKER_02: You don't need your hormones.
1:13:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:13:24
SPEAKER_02: And that's what would you kind of gathering from this conversation.
1:13:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_00: What would you do with your hormones?
1:13:29
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's a big, it's a big fat rip-off.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I don't, I'm not kidding the hormones.
1:13:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, what are you gonna do with it?
1:13:35
unknown: Yeah, yeah.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_02: Now what?
1:13:37
SPEAKER_02: Because I would I that's what would happen.
1:13:39
SPEAKER_02: I would get the information, I would see where my hormones were at, and and you know and then you'd go, what?
1:13:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like, oh well.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_00: Versus like, you know, you can be very tactical.
1:13:51
SPEAKER_00: What I would do is just go download the app.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's free, so it wouldn't even cost you anything, and just you'll get your score as soon as you finish this, and you can see where are you on that thing.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_00: And then it's a little bit confusing that we're you know, rebuilding the app.
1:14:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's five categories on this one page energy, stress, temperatures.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_00: And if you click on it, it tells you your subscore.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_00: And then you can see, oh, energy is my biggest problem, blood's my next biggest problem, temperature is my third, you know, whatever.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_02: Okay, wonderful.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm excited to jump in.
1:14:17
SPEAKER_02: I hope our listeners are today, too.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_02: We'll put that discount code in the show notes as well as all of the other ways to get in touch with you.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_02: Thanks again for your time today, Kirsten.
1:14:26
SPEAKER_00: It has been my for sure pleasure.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_02: Yes, of course.