Latest / Ambitious Podcast / EP.104: Women’s Hormones in 2025: Stress, Metabolism & Fertility w/ Jessica Dupont | The Ambitious Podcast

Transcript

EP.104: Women’s Hormones in 2025: Stress, Metabolism & Fertility w/ Jessica Dupont | The Ambitious Podcast · Ambitious Podcast

0:00
People are no longer accepting being a woman as a diagnosis.
0:05
They normalize that that's just how it's supposed to feel.
0:08
Your period is just painful. Cramps are awful.
0:11
That's par for the course. Trying to deal with the egg
0:13
issue, the stress issue, the anxiety issue, the gut issues,
0:18
and then they feel like they're this ongoing project of never
0:21
feeling finished or never feeling complete.
0:24
Even just talking about it exhausts me, right?
0:26
I get their cortisol in check and all that goes away.
0:30
Don't be afraid of symptoms. It's your body trying to tell
0:34
you something and you've just been ignoring it.
0:36
Let the fear go around fertility, around aging, around
0:39
carrying menopause. Let it go.
0:41
Hello and welcome back to Ambitious.
0:43
Today. I am excited to be joined by an
0:45
incredible guest and I will say, if you are a woman, you need to
0:51
be listening to today's episode. And I don't care how old you
0:55
are, if you are a mom, if you're wanting to be a mom, maybe you
0:58
don't want to have kids. Maybe you want to better
1:00
understand menopause and perimenopause and your hormones
1:03
and your cycle and the things that you are experiencing with
1:07
your health. We've literally covered so much.
1:10
I will genuinely say from the bottom of my heart, this episode
1:13
is a complete master class on understanding yourself as a
1:17
woman. Point blank, period.
1:19
I have notes here because of just how much we covered.
1:22
First of all, I want to say I'm joined by the absolutely
1:24
incredible Jessica DuPont, who is a naturopathic Dr. and
1:28
fertility and hormone strategist who specializes in Women's
1:31
Health with a focus on functional medicine,
1:34
detoxification, and fertility. Jessica is the founder and CEO
1:38
of an online platform that also supports women through programs
1:41
like Fertility Talks, Method, Egg Beauty Regimen, and Sperm
1:44
Fitness. She's on a mission to reinvent
1:47
how women experience their bodies and dispel the myths
1:50
around Women's Health. And I will tell you.
1:53
She did. Just that because there's so
1:56
many things that even myself as a woman, I have felt at times
2:00
where I'm like, I just have to deal with this.
2:02
And this is just, you know, what it means to be a woman or this
2:04
is just the reality of what I have to deal with.
2:07
And she really did completely, completely unpack all of that.
2:12
And so I want to share with you a little bit of in listening
2:15
today what you're going to take away.
2:16
Number one, she talks about why we truly are living in a
2:19
cortisol era and why chronically high cortisol is rewiring our
2:23
brains to think that constant stress is actually normal.
2:27
And she talks about the three major shifts that are happening
2:30
in the landscape of Women's Health and what has changed over
2:33
the last 10 to 15 years. We also talk about the truth.
2:37
Of cycle thinking, which I asked about and why you don't need to
2:40
eat specific foods on certain days of your cycle, and what you
2:44
actually want to understand about living with your cycle
2:47
versus living linearly as a high achieving woman in your life and
2:51
in your business. She also discusses her
2:54
revolutionary approach of fertility 3 point O, and how it
2:57
focuses on egg competence, not just egg count.
3:01
And this part of this discussion broke my brain, especially as a
3:06
woman who's 33 currently right now and does not have any
3:09
children yet. She discusses why you can
3:11
actually improve your egg quality in as little as 90 days.
3:16
We discussed the critical difference between perimenopause
3:19
symptoms and cortisol dysfunction.
3:22
Why 9 times out of 10, women in their 30s who think they're in
3:25
perimenopause actually just need to be having their cortisol
3:29
regulated? Why being a woman is not a
3:31
diagnosis? And what's actually going on
3:34
behind those painful periods, missing cycles, and the symptoms
3:38
that your doctor is constantly brushing off as quote UN quote
3:41
normal? And we talked about the uterine
3:44
environment piece that fertility clinics are often ignoring,
3:47
including the bacteria that causes recurring miscarriages,
3:50
and why most clinics are not even testing for it.
3:54
I will tell you, I've interviewed a lot of guests on
3:57
this show, and many, many of them inspire me.
4:01
But this episode was so deeply educational, moving, inspiring,
4:08
I left feeling so deeply empowered, even in my own health
4:14
to just really realize that I have a lot more control over the
4:19
healing of my health, the reality of my health, the
4:21
experience of it, and the future of it as a result of this
4:24
information today. So I don't want to keep you any
4:27
longer. Without further ado, let's get
4:29
into today's episode. Hello, you guys and welcome back
4:40
to Ambitious Today. I am so excited for today's
4:43
conversation because we are joined by the incredible Jessica
4:46
and we're going to be talking about all things Women's Health.
4:49
So, Jessica, first of all, welcome to Ambitious.
4:52
Welcome to the show. I am so excited to be here.
4:54
This is going to be such a great conversation and I am so blessed
4:58
and honored to be in your presence and talking to your
5:01
guests and very excited. Yeah, I'm excited.
5:04
I honestly even in prepping questions I wanted to ask you,
5:07
I'm going to be honest, I had like 3 pages, OK?
5:10
Like hormones, fertility, egg quality.
5:12
Perry. I was like, I have so many
5:14
things, so this is probably going to go a million different
5:16
ways. And I just maybe to start
5:19
because with all those topics, there's so much to dive into.
5:22
For the woman that's listening, what would you say is kind of
5:27
going to be the biggest impact of that conversation for her
5:30
today? Meaning if she is going to
5:33
listen and tune into this, what's I guess the biggest
5:35
impact you've seen, maybe even just with your clients of why
5:39
education and knowledge around this is really like super
5:41
crucial for women, especially for those who are listening who
5:44
are very high achieving, fast-paced living type of women
5:48
as well. Yeah.
5:49
So I think I understand your question where you're asking
5:52
like what is going to be kind of the biggest take away that they
5:55
take away from the conversation today?
5:57
And I think the biggest thing is recognizing that our bodies are
6:02
always talking to us. I find that a lot of women, you
6:06
know, we blame our hormones. We are always looking for a
6:09
quick fix or what's wrong with us.
6:12
And instead of looking at things that way, we should look at
6:15
things from a broader perspective.
6:19
So especially for high achieving women, you know, those of us who
6:23
go, go, go all day, we work, we mother, we do all the things
6:26
we're sleep deprived and everything like that.
6:29
We need to look at instead of, you know, what's wrong with us
6:33
and what do we need to fix? We need to look at look at what
6:36
we're up against, right? Because the landscape for
6:40
Women's Health has really shifted in the last 10-15 years
6:44
and we can dive into that as well.
6:46
But what I want women to take home today is that instead of
6:49
trying to fix, instead of trying to constantly question our
6:54
bodies and blame hormones, we more so need to look at it as a
6:58
communicator, right? And that our bodies are always
7:01
trying to tell us something. And often we just ignore it.
7:04
We push through it, right? We push through the stress, we
7:07
push through the anxiety. You know, we go day hours
7:12
without eating or going to the bathroom and our bodies are
7:14
telling us it needs to. And eventually our bodies
7:17
listen, right? And then it begins to fall
7:19
apart. And those messages become louder
7:21
and louder and louder. And at some point, they're going
7:23
to become so loud that you have no choice but to listen.
7:27
So those little things that your body is trying to tell you, you
7:31
need to get quiet and really listen and reflect because
7:33
that's where the root cause lies and that's where your healing
7:36
will start instead of just throwing on Band-Aid solutions
7:39
and trying to fit and blaming everything else.
7:42
You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
7:43
Well, I think I take from that for me is like, I think as women
7:46
we're so focused on what is the symptom we're experiencing.
7:50
So like if the symptom being indigestion, the symptom being,
7:53
you know, for some people that I know that have like
7:55
endometriosis or PCOS, they have like awful painful periods.
7:59
It's just like this is the symptom I'm trying to get rid of
8:01
versus what I take from that is like really if you understand
8:04
the symptom or understand the system, sorry, you'll understand
8:08
what the symptom is kind of coming back to to your point of
8:10
root cause. So you mentioned like things
8:13
have changed a lot for women in the last several years.
8:16
And this is something that I talk about a lot because I think
8:20
in the business sense, because I think that women started working
8:25
and when they started working, there wasn't really this like re
8:29
shifting of system of like society responsibilities,
8:33
pressure. So like previous to women deeply
8:37
getting into the workplace, there was this like women were
8:40
at that time through like kind of, you know, roles within the
8:43
home, like the homemaker. And then women started working,
8:46
many of which full time and now they're working full time, but
8:50
none of those responsibilities necessarily dissipated.
8:52
It was more just something got added on, but nothing got
8:55
subtracted. And so when I think about
8:58
Women's Health, especially during that kind of I guess
9:01
area, I think about there became even less space.
9:06
There's already less space. Like when someone's just, even
9:08
if you think about just the title of homemaker as a job and
9:12
as a responsibility, that in itself is a full capacity to
9:16
hold on top of potentially being a relationship, being a partner.
9:20
And then add on top of that a full time job.
9:22
You think, OK, there was already such little space for her before
9:26
and now that space became even smaller.
9:28
So from where I look from the business lens, it from AI guess
9:33
circumstance perspective makes a lot of sense why women might
9:36
feel like they're struggling to your point earlier of trying to
9:39
manage a home, a relationship, a business, potentially a career.
9:43
But for you in what you do with women, what have you seen I
9:46
guess as like the the domino or the impact of that?
9:50
Yeah, so I feel everything you're saying right now.
9:53
And it looks like when you, when you list all the things, when
9:58
you list the, oh, you know, she's a homemaker.
10:00
She's making meals for her kids. Then she goes to work and she
10:04
pushes herself. And then she comes home and she
10:06
does it all over again. And we really don't get to rest
10:08
until, you know, it'd be 9:30 at night.
10:10
And then we're just wiped. At that point.
10:12
Even just talking about it exhausts me, right?
10:14
It's like, oh, my gosh. Like we do so much and the
10:19
change that we've seen is sort of threefold over the last 10 to
10:23
15 years. So like I said, the landscape
10:26
has really shifted. So like you said, there's a lot
10:28
more pressures on women. Now.
10:30
We are living in an environment of more linear productivity when
10:34
as women in general, our bodies are designed for more cyclical
10:38
nature monthly, you know, changes.
10:41
And we're more designed for rest and communication and community,
10:47
right, which is very opposite from that linear productive
10:50
line, which is sort of that masculine produce, produce,
10:54
produce. And so there are times during
10:57
the month where especially during our cycle around
10:59
ovulation, around those times when testosterone is high and
11:02
estrogen is high, we feel great. We feel vibrant.
11:04
We feel like we can go on podcasts and we can, you know,
11:08
and that's the best time to do that.
11:11
Then there's also times where we should be listening to our
11:13
bodies and resting and eating more warming foods and not
11:18
taking on too much and maybe just finishing up tasks, not
11:21
pushing ourselves at the gym. And so we're just so far from
11:25
that now, right? So that's one part of it.
11:28
And then the whole other piece is I what I call the cortisol
11:31
era. I really feel like we're in this
11:33
cortisol era now where we have almost rewired our brains to
11:39
have high cortisol as baseline, right?
11:42
So our bodies ideally should be able to adapt to stress very
11:46
easily. And you know, as stressful
11:49
situations come, we are able to handle it.
11:52
Our cortisol goes up, but as you know, situations subside, so
11:55
does our cortisol. But we're in this phase of
11:58
pushing, pushing, pushing. And so we're resonating at high
12:01
cortisol all the time. We're constantly in a
12:03
sympathetic state. So our body is in fight or
12:06
flight. And when our body is in fight or
12:09
flight, all that blood flow goes to the periphery, right?
12:12
So it goes to our hands and our feet to help us run away from
12:16
the attack and it goes to all of the organs that are necessary
12:20
for survival. So our hearts to pump more
12:22
blood, our brain and, and oxygen and everything like that.
12:26
It does not go to our digestive system and reproductive organs,
12:30
right? Because the last thing that your
12:32
body is thinking about when it's under attack is producing a baby
12:35
or. Something like that.
12:37
So there's this huge brain, gut and ovary connection as well.
12:42
Let's become disrupted. The last piece of what has
12:46
changed huge in the last 1015 years, even in the last 20
12:50
years, 30 years, is toxins and chemicals in our environment and
12:55
especially in our skin care products, in plastics and
12:59
fragrances and everything else. These chemicals are mimicking
13:03
our hormones and they're causing a major disruption in the way we
13:08
metabolize insulin, the way we really our thyroid functions,
13:13
the way we produce estrogen. It could actually cause more
13:16
estrogen in the body or less, and it causes a major gut
13:19
disruption. And so these three things have
13:22
really shifted how our health is changing, right?
13:27
And so it is sort of a system, a systemic thing and you know,
13:31
political and all of that, but also very much in our
13:35
environment, the physical changes that are happening.
13:39
And so like I said before, it's less about what's wrong with us
13:44
and more about look what we're up against, right?
13:47
And when women realize what they're up against, they go,
13:49
holy cow, look what I can do, right?
13:52
The nice thing that's happening now is you're seeing more of a
13:55
shift into people talking about Women's Health, especially in
13:59
the perimenopause space. I think that that is really come
14:03
to light in the fertility space as well.
14:05
We are recognizing endometriosis and PCOS far more people are no
14:10
longer accepting being a woman as a diagnosis, right?
14:15
They are no longer accepting unexplained infertility or that,
14:20
well, you know, you're going through menopause, so this is
14:22
just what you're going to deal with.
14:23
Women are tired. They're tired of being pushed
14:26
aside. They're tired of being told that
14:29
things are normal or there's nothing wrong with them when
14:32
they can clearly feel that something has changed.
14:34
So the conversation is changing, which I think is great.
14:37
And because of that, people are now putting more research behind
14:40
these things. Like we they think they finally
14:42
did a study on women and how much women need sleep where you
14:46
know, the studies around, you know, the whole 7-8 hours of
14:49
sleep. Was all done and.
14:51
Then and then they finally did one on women.
14:54
Then they're going, oh, women actually need like 9 to 10 hours
14:57
of sleep. And I went, I'm not broken
15:00
because my entire life I've always said I don't feel rested
15:03
unless I have 10 hours and that. And I was like, what's wrong
15:06
with me? Like what?
15:08
You know, right. And now I'm like, it all makes
15:10
sense. And it's just because how much
15:13
energy we need for all of those cyclical changes happening
15:16
throughout the month. Well, I think even as you
15:18
explain like those 3 buckets, which is basically like sinking
15:21
of your life with the realities of your cycle.
15:25
And then also with that looking at the aspect of like the
15:28
external factors and those 3 buckets.
15:31
I feel like for any woman listening to that, they go, do I
15:33
even have a fighting chance of feeling great, right?
15:35
Because you just think about as to your point earlier, how much
15:38
you're up against, do you feel like you already have very
15:41
probably little capacity or energy or time to dive into your
15:45
health? Because maybe depending on you
15:48
know, where you're at in your life, some women listening are
15:50
just starting their families, growing their families, wanting
15:53
to start a family. So you think I'm already feeling
15:57
so stretched and now I have to think about environmental
15:59
factors, my timeline of like cycling my life with my cycle
16:03
and like tuning in and allow allowing my body space.
16:07
But I want to have a family. So I'm trying to push to prepare
16:09
and there's like all of this outside pressure, right?
16:12
So I think what would be great is to almost dive in to helping
16:17
the woman listening to say, OK, like what can I understand?
16:20
So that I feel empowered to be able to take action in these
16:24
areas. Because when you said for the
16:25
first bucket aligning our kind of cycles to our life, I felt to
16:30
be honest, very triggered initially.
16:32
I'm like, I don't, I live that linear life.
16:35
OK. So I am always like, I don't
16:37
have time to not be like, to your point earlier, you're
16:41
pushing in the gym, you're pushing in work.
16:44
I had this debate actually with a friend the other day because
16:46
they said, is cycle syncing real?
16:48
Like in the sense of is it just like an Instagram phenomenon or
16:51
is this something that would really be like a game changer
16:54
for women? And I that's the instant thing
16:56
that I thought of, which is that I think so many women feel maybe
17:00
frustrated by the fact that they have to, quote UN quote, slow
17:02
down and they think, OK, to your point, I'm just going to push
17:05
through. I'm just going to work through
17:06
it. I'm just going to do the work at
17:08
anyways, get on the podcast, push in business that week, but
17:13
based off what you're saying, that actually might be doing us
17:15
more harm than just pushing through.
17:19
So I see where in it, you know what?
17:21
I feel the same way because you almost feel stuck that you go,
17:24
well, what am I supposed to do? It's not like you can change
17:26
this linear landscape. The thing is we are, like I
17:30
said, we've rewired our brains to think that surviving at high
17:35
cortisol is the normal, right? And for some women, especially
17:40
high achieving women, it's not realistic to slow down like you
17:45
said. And that's OK.
17:46
You know, I think that yes, we, we are in general looking at, we
17:52
do cycle and there are times in our where our hormones are
17:55
fluctuating and that might make us feel more tired and not want
17:58
to do something, but we do it anyway and things like that,
18:00
which is OK, right? What we don't want is to get to
18:04
the point of burnout, where you and I work a lot with high
18:10
achieving women, right? And what we see a lot is very
18:13
high anxiety, very high expectations on themselves,
18:19
which is all things that we work through as well.
18:22
And understanding that it's OK to push yourself if you need to
18:25
push yourself, and it's OK to take rest when you need times of
18:28
rest. And then just making sure that
18:30
you're making time for both, that you're making time for
18:32
self, but you're also making time for business.
18:35
And you'll notice too, even, you know, as an entrepreneur
18:38
yourself, there are ebbs and flows, right?
18:40
There are times in business when you know you need to go, like
18:43
you're launching something or you're pushing out, you know,
18:46
say 12 podcasts in the next three months.
18:49
And there are times when your body will tell you or your brain
18:52
will tell you it's just time to slow down right now.
18:55
And that's when you listen. So it doesn't mean you have to
18:57
listen every week of your cycle, right?
19:01
And, and sometimes the universe will naturally provide, like I
19:03
even find in my clinic, there will be times when I'm very,
19:07
very busy. Like I have month waiting,
19:10
months waiting lists and I'm pushing, pushing, pushing.
19:12
And then there'll be other times where my week completely spaces
19:15
out. I have a lot of cancellations.
19:17
A lot of people reschedule and I go, why?
19:19
Like my inner body goes to you. Like I panic and I begin to self
19:22
judge. I'm like, wait.
19:23
But then I recognize I'm like, wow, what the universe is really
19:26
trying to tell me is that I need this time of rest.
19:29
And maybe it's not long, maybe it's just a week or something
19:32
like that, but I really started to value that time of just
19:37
recognizing when I needed it. So I think it's more about just
19:40
self-awareness. And I don't think that women
19:43
need to be focused on eating a certain way at different times
19:47
in their cycles again, because also there is stressors and
19:49
chemicals and other things involved that are going to
19:52
affect digestion aside from hormones, if that makes sense.
19:56
Even with workouts, what we want to try to avoid is if if
20:01
somebody is already sort of in that adrenal.
20:04
And I don't want to use the word adrenal fatigue because that's
20:06
not a real thing, more of a dysregulated cortisol pattern,
20:10
right? Where maybe they're waking up
20:12
feeling fatigued, they're getting an afternoon slump and
20:15
energy. They're overwhelmed very easily
20:17
by simple small things. They're waking up at night.
20:20
So you could tell the adrenal glands and cortisol are not
20:23
regulated. That's where I begin to have
20:26
conversations with my high achieving clients or, or women
20:29
in my practice where I say, something's got to give, right?
20:33
Or else your body's going to. So, so we begin to think about
20:38
looking at that person as an individual and just being like,
20:42
OK, we're not accepting perfection here, but what small
20:46
changes can we make that are not going to overwhelm you?
20:50
You know what I mean? So is it that you just need to
20:53
eat more frequently, right? And making sure you're getting
20:56
more protein in your meals to stabilize your blood sugar?
20:59
Is it that we need to focus on your sleep and just making sure
21:03
you're sleeping well so that cortisol isn't spiking at night?
21:06
Do we need to start something real herbs?
21:08
What can we do to help you cope throughout this time where
21:10
you're push, push, push, right? Which again, there's nothing
21:13
wrong with that because I mean, I get in those stages too, where
21:18
I, I want to push, I want to succeed in business.
21:21
We're high achieving women. We love that and we thrive on
21:24
that. So it's about what little small
21:27
changes could you make that's not going to overload you?
21:31
Does that make, I think I answer your question, I feel like no
21:34
totally. I'm going to Tandon.
21:35
Around that, no, 100% because I think that for me, I thought
21:39
about it like you were saying earlier, like I think people
21:41
think working with your hormones or working with your body means
21:45
like week one of the month you're going to do this week two
21:48
of the month, this is what you're doing in your workouts
21:50
during your luteal phase. This is what you're going to be
21:51
doing. And I think that sometimes for
21:55
people, they think that's just so overwhelming.
21:57
And to your point, it's not always considering life factors
22:01
or schedule factors or just like circumstance factors.
22:04
When you think, OK, luteal phase, we're just going to kind
22:07
of allow our body to rest and understand what our body needs
22:10
in that moment. And by fluke, during your luteal
22:12
phase in your business, you happen to need to launch a
22:15
product that we can. So you think, OK, these two
22:18
things don't seem to align. So I think that many women
22:21
because of that with cycle thinking to think about it as a
22:24
schedule, I think is tricky. But what I'm hearing you say is
22:28
it's less about the schedule and it's more about tuning in to the
22:32
feeling within your body and basically listening to what your
22:35
body needs and trying to mesh that with your current reality
22:39
to give it as much support as possible.
22:42
Because even what you mentioned of the cortisol, actually I had
22:46
a couple years ago, a really bad spout of burnout.
22:49
And I thought, OK, I had massive indigestion, awful acne,
22:53
couldn't sleep, awful anxiety, just like constant bloating,
22:58
Like the symptoms were just like flaring.
23:01
And I remember she said, OK, well, how do you feel at night
23:03
when you go to bed? I'm like, oh, I'm wired.
23:05
I could stay up till 4:00 in the morning.
23:07
She goes, how do you feel like when you wake up, though?
23:09
I was like, I'm exhausted because I'm exhausted all day
23:12
until night time. And then I was working till 2:00
23:15
in the morning because I would have so much energy.
23:17
And so she talks about, you know, like you were saying, the
23:20
reverse cortisol of like your cortisol kind of flow and
23:23
pattern is completely out of sync.
23:26
So basically we need to get your body back into a rhythm.
23:29
So here I am thinking, what supplement do I take?
23:32
What you know what I mean? Do I get an IV?
23:34
Like I tried to think about all these things that I could do
23:37
that are just like, again, remove the symptom versus asking
23:41
like what is the actual systemic route of what's coming up?
23:44
So for these women that obviously you know, the avatar,
23:49
just as I do very well and even for ourselves probably fall into
23:52
this bucket and in some moments in life, the aspect of cortisol,
23:57
for the person who feels like I don't understand or know
24:00
anything about cortisol, where can we start with understanding
24:03
that and really how that impacts us as women since most of us are
24:06
living in fairly stressful states probably most days.
24:09
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So cortisol is a hormone, right?
24:13
And it's secreted by our adrenal gland.
24:16
So there are these tiny glands that sit on top of the kidneys.
24:19
They're both the size of AI guess an almond and they pump
24:23
out cortisol and adrenaline under times of stress.
24:27
So cortisol is not a bad hormone.
24:29
A lot of people fear the word cortisol and, and we do talk
24:33
about it a lot in the sense that we have too much or sometimes
24:36
too little, but it is wonderful at regulating so many different
24:41
parts of our body. Cortisol helps our circadian
24:45
rhythm at night in our sleep patterns.
24:47
It helps us digest our food. It helps us metabolize and it's,
24:52
you know, helps manage weight control.
24:54
It helps manage our blood pressure in a roundabout way as
24:58
well and even our thyroid. So when we think of hormones, I
25:03
like to imagine them as a spider web, right?
25:06
So if you get all your hormones on a spider web, if you pluck
25:08
the end of the web, the whole web will shake, right?
25:12
And so even if cortisol is too high one day or too little, all
25:16
the other hormones will begin to recalibrate to figure to kind of
25:21
like help you not feel so unwell, right?
25:24
And cortisol will do the same thing.
25:26
So when you're under times of stress, so say you get stuck in
25:28
traffic, cortisol will go up naturally to help you cope with
25:31
that stress so you're not so overwhelmed.
25:34
And then naturally as traffic clears, this cortisol will come
25:37
down. And so cortisol has this natural
25:40
curve that that it follows. So it's supposed to be lowest at
25:43
night, which helps us fall asleep and stay asleep.
25:46
And then it's supposed to spike in the morning, which helps us
25:48
be alert and wake and have energy.
25:51
And then it will fluctuate throughout the day.
25:53
Now, when your adrenal glands are healthy, you're not feeling
25:57
major impacts by those acute stresses.
25:59
Your body is able to handle those stresses very easily.
26:02
When we move into times of more chronic stress.
26:05
So even if it's a two week window of time, we sort of move
26:09
into what I call the CEO type pattern where it's a go, go, go
26:13
all day long. We're drinking coffee to keep us
26:15
functioning and then we crack at night, which is kind of exactly
26:20
the opposite of what you were experiencing at the burnout
26:22
phase. So we're going to get to that in
26:23
a minute. But before burnout, we're
26:26
driving cortisol go, go, go. We're in a sympathetic state and
26:29
we're pumping out all this cortisol to keep us functioning
26:32
because by the time you feel maybe that stress is coming
26:36
down, it's like, oh, there's more stress.
26:38
Oh, there's more stress. You know, we get a text from
26:40
somebody that triggers something in US and then there's something
26:43
at work is not going well and then the kids are screaming.
26:46
And so we're just in this constant state of high cortisol.
26:50
And then what happens eventually is the cortisol curve, like you
26:53
said, shifts, right? So now what happens is we have
26:57
cortisol spiking at night when it should be lowest, which now
27:01
we're wired. So we call it the wired and
27:03
tired type. And then we also have it spiking
27:06
in the middle of the night, normally around, I would say 3
27:09
in the morning. You'll see.
27:10
I have went people all the time came and be like, well, I'm
27:12
waking at night and I go, oh, does it happen to be around 3:00
27:15
AM? And they go, yes, how do you
27:16
know that? And that's just because it's the
27:19
time of the liver. It's the, it's the stress piece.
27:21
So cortisol is spiking and waking you at night or keeping
27:25
you not if I'm not going into a nice deep sleep and then
27:29
cortisol is low in the morning. So now instead of waking up and
27:32
having energy, you're waking feeling fatigued and then it
27:34
slumps in the afternoon as well. So normally around two or three
27:37
in the afternoon, you're either needing a nap or reaching for a
27:40
cup of coffee. And then over time, what happens
27:43
is if we don't take care of that right away.
27:46
So if we're not putting the right boundaries in place, we're
27:49
not saying no, right? So I'm, that's something I'm
27:53
learning is I'm a big people pleaser.
27:55
So I guess to everybody and I give out so much energy and
28:00
we're, I'm not taking enough in. And you know, as women, we need
28:02
to remember that we're semi permeable membranes, as much
28:05
energy as we're giving out, we need to take in that same amount
28:09
or we're going to reach something called burnout, which
28:12
we use that term loosely. It's not a medical term, right?
28:16
So it's not like it's a medical diagnosis.
28:18
However, chronically over time, what happens is the adrenal
28:21
glands begin to slow down. We're not pumping out as much
28:25
cortisol as we need. So it's almost like you're a
28:29
high functioning women and you've been in this state for a
28:31
long period of time. Your body is used to pumping out
28:35
high cortisol, right? So now the adrenal glands are
28:38
going, I need to find ways to make more cortisol to keep her.
28:43
So it starts picking up your hormones to do that.
28:46
OK, it picks testosterone to start driving up more cortisol.
28:50
So now we start to see shifts in our menstrual cycle where we
28:53
have a more painful cycle that month or the period goes missing
28:56
altogether and we're like, where did my period go?
28:58
Or why is it a week late? Why is it more heavy?
29:01
Why is it more painful? This is weird.
29:03
And that's normally aligns at the time of of chronic stress.
29:07
So other hormones begin to shift.
29:09
We might start to see the thyroid become under functioning
29:13
as well. And so metabolism changes.
29:15
Women start gaining weight or you know, they're not getting
29:18
the gains at the gym that they were getting before.
29:21
Sleep patterns have completely dysregulated.
29:23
They're used to being up all night.
29:25
Anxiety is through the roof. We even start seeing depression
29:29
in these women and an extreme fatigue to the point of almost
29:32
like nothing will pull them out of it.
29:35
You know, even if you were to start adrenal herbs, you're
29:37
like, this is just not working at this point.
29:39
And this is where you start to see cellular energy begin to
29:42
decline. So the mitochondria become
29:44
damaged, right? So we can get into that as well.
29:47
But so this is the problem. This is what we're trying to
29:50
avoid is getting to that point where women are so overwhelmed
29:55
that even something slight happens and they're, you know,
29:58
pulling their hair going, I can't handle this, right?
30:01
And I've been there. I've definitely been there to
30:04
the point where I was experiencing rage, like I did
30:06
not feel like myself. It was always happening after,
30:09
you know, the luteal phase or the in the luteal phase of my
30:11
cycle when hormones were already starting to shift and my my
30:16
progesterone was way too low. I was breastfeeding, my cortisol
30:20
was really high. And so I remember I would get to
30:23
that point in my cycle and tell my husband just proposed, dear.
30:28
Clear. And it was, it felt out of my
30:30
control. Do you know what you mean?
30:32
It was not be irritable and it just felt you just weren't
30:36
yourself and it was something you couldn't control.
30:39
And so this is what we're trying to avoid and this is what we're
30:41
trying to pull women out of now. Because I literally feel like
30:44
90% of my female patients are coming in with those same
30:47
symptoms. So these same patterns, right?
30:51
I think that's so empowering though, because I just even as
30:55
you're talking about that, I'm like, oh, it's so good.
30:57
Because I think like when I had anxiety, they were like, OK,
31:01
let's deal with the anxiety. Or when I had like to your .1 of
31:05
the ways that it showed up for me, it was weight gain, but it
31:07
was also the inability to lose weight.
31:09
No matter how much I tracked food, how many steps I got, it
31:13
was like my body was just holding on to literally
31:16
everything. And I remember thinking, OK,
31:19
like maybe I have like candida, like maybe there's like a, a gut
31:22
thing going on. And then there was a separate
31:24
anxiety conversation happening, thinking, oh, well, you know,
31:28
maybe you just need an anti anxiety.
31:30
You're just, you need more meditation techniques or
31:33
mindfulness techniques. There was never really to your
31:36
point, which I know is kind of the heart of, of what you talk
31:39
about, what you help people with this assessing of the system to
31:43
understand. Is there possibly a route that
31:47
is literally interconnected to your point of the web that is
31:51
partially responsible for all of this happening?
31:54
And it was interesting because as soon as I started to, at that
31:58
time, work a lot on getting blood work to understand where
32:02
my hormones were, looking at overall my cortisol and trying
32:05
to shift that, I'm like really being intentional about those
32:08
pieces. That was the only time that the
32:10
acne then started to go away. But at the time, I thought, OK,
32:13
do I need a different moisturizer?
32:14
Is that the cleanser I'm using? It was always so segmented.
32:18
And so I remember at the time when I thought, you know, I felt
32:22
really, to your point, not myself, I felt very sick in just
32:25
all these buckets. I thought, OK, I have anxiety,
32:28
I've gained weight, I have this acne.
32:30
I'm constantly bloated. I can't go to the washroom to
32:33
save my life. I was in like, constant pain.
32:35
So I was OK. This just does not feel like
32:37
something's obviously happening. Nobody ever said to me, hey,
32:42
like tell me about your schedule.
32:45
Like nobody ever asked that question of the systemic piece.
32:48
It was always segmented. So it was only actually once I
32:51
went to a naturopath who I actually think, you know, Terra
32:55
in Toronto. Yeah, recommended by Jeremy.
32:58
So I went to, I went to her. And it was only once I started
33:01
working with her that I actually started to uncover some of these
33:04
pieces. So you mentioned the web analogy
33:07
I think is so good because this one piece gets pulled and it
33:11
kind of rocks the entire web. Now for the person listening,
33:14
they might think, OK, well, you know, I have always had issues
33:19
with my periods. I've always had potentially
33:21
maybe they have PCOS or they have endometriosis when there's
33:24
so much of this information. Because I think to your point,
33:26
us as women, we're very critical of our bodies and just like of
33:29
our symptoms of what we're experiencing.
33:31
How do you start to, I guess, triage if someone is feeling
33:35
things are just not quite right or even for yours, for yourself
33:38
in that example? And you're like, OK, something's
33:40
off here. I'm feeling like I am more
33:42
irritable, more so than usual. How do you kind of triage?
33:47
Where to start? Because I would imagine for
33:49
someone who's feeling not themselves, whether it is in
33:51
digestion, it could be skin, it could be stress, it could be
33:55
hormones, their cycle, it can feel overwhelming.
33:59
And so I'm curious as to like how does someone kind of triage
34:02
where to start with their with themselves or maybe with their
34:05
body or with someone like yourself?
34:07
To. Start to dive into this to say
34:09
OK I want to take back care of my health.
34:11
This is where I need to kind of look first.
34:13
Yes, great question. So the first question I always
34:17
ask everyone is when did this all start and what started
34:22
first, right? Because it seems like, like you
34:25
said, oh, there's the digestion piece and then the mental health
34:28
piece. And I can't sleep and I have
34:31
headaches and I have all these different things happening, all
34:34
these different symptoms happening, but we have to kind
34:36
of pull it all together and be like, where did this all begin?
34:40
And then what sort of was impacted because of that
34:43
trigger? So when we go back to when I ask
34:47
that question, usually they say, oh, you know, five years ago,
34:50
they usually use like a timeline, right?
34:52
And then I say, OK, what was happening in your life around
34:55
that time? So often people will say, well,
34:59
I had a baby or I we had, we had a lot of stress in our life.
35:03
We were beginning our business or we were moving.
35:05
There was always some kind of stressor.
35:08
For others, it could be a physical stress where it was,
35:11
oh, I got in an accident or I had a concussion.
35:15
I had a really bad bout of parasites or I had a viral
35:20
infection. Viruses, we know, trigger a lot
35:22
of different reproductive disorders, even thyroid.
35:26
Or it could be something like in childhood that they don't
35:30
remember, right. So it might be.
35:32
Yeah, I had Constipation starting from when I was a kid,
35:36
and I don't even remember what that was from.
35:39
So it could even have been like a past trauma, which is hard to
35:42
get to if they don't remember. But as children, I asked
35:45
questions around, well, you know, what did your dad do?
35:48
What did your mom do? Did they work in automotive
35:50
industry? Were you around lead paint,
35:54
mercury thermometers? Were you, did you grow up on a
35:56
farm? So I start to dive into
35:58
potential mold exposure or chemical exposure, heavy metals
36:03
and how that all could have triggered things as well.
36:06
And then from there, we look into, you know, how things have
36:10
progressed. So what symptoms have came next?
36:13
And then also family history, Right.
36:15
So you're telling me you have painful periods?
36:17
Do you have sisters that also have painful periods?
36:20
Did your mom experience any fertility issues?
36:23
You know, and then they go, oh, yeah.
36:24
You know, my mom had a miscarriage before she had me
36:27
and or she had her uterus removed, but I don't remember
36:29
why. Right.
36:30
And we're going, OK, so potential endometriosis or
36:33
fibroids or uterine cancer or things like that.
36:36
So estrogen dominance becomes a trigger in my brain.
36:40
And so it really just becomes about the history.
36:42
And sometimes that's difficult if you're not working with
36:45
somebody that's asking you the right questions.
36:48
So like you said, you didn't know until you met with a
36:50
naturopath and then she started asking you questions and you go,
36:53
oh, I never even thought of that.
36:56
Or I have women coming in, maybe they're taught they're having
36:59
issues with their cycles and they don't even think that
37:03
digestion is an issue or sleep is an issue until I start asking
37:07
them questions about it and they go, oh, yeah, you know, I only
37:10
do have bowel movements once every two days.
37:12
Or, oh, yeah, you know, I do feel anxious at that last half
37:15
of my cycle. Or, you know, they don't even
37:16
realize it until you ask the questions.
37:19
Yes. Yeah.
37:20
But again, anything hormonal is a symptom.
37:23
It's not root cause. It's just a communicator or
37:27
hormones are communicating to us or hormones are trying to
37:29
actually fix us. You know what makes sense?
37:34
The new cause is usually always rooted into either some trauma
37:38
experience. So whether that's emotional or
37:41
physical. And it's about trying to figure
37:43
out which one it is. So is it, is it an emotion now
37:46
manifesting itself into something physical, right?
37:49
Or was there a virus or heavy metal exposure or genetic
37:55
component here that you've been up against and just haven't
37:58
known it? And so then we go into, I kind
38:02
of work intuitively as well. Like as we, I start to talk to,
38:06
to patients, I feel things in my body and it's almost like an
38:10
intuitive thing where I go, I think this is the root.
38:12
And nine times out of 10, I am right in terms of usually it's
38:16
around the liver and the liver being bogged down and cortisol,
38:20
right? But other people, it's different
38:22
things and. I wonder, do you think that we
38:26
as women, like when you were saying with the cycle, I think
38:30
that there's also this cultural piece that we kind of normalize
38:36
this like coffee in the morning. Like you think about, OK, the
38:38
classic thought of like how a mom wakes up and it's like
38:42
coffee. Like it's like the first thing
38:44
they drink is coffee on an empty stomach, right?
38:45
Or on the contrast, there's the kind of this like, you know,
38:48
running joke of like, oh, I'm in my luteal phase, like don't,
38:51
don't kind of thing don't start because I'm irritable.
38:54
And I also wonder if for you, you see that people, I guess,
38:58
normalize some of the quote UN quote symptoms or normalize the
39:03
situations they're experiencing because they believe, whether
39:06
it's from society or just like modern culture or, you know,
39:10
potentially their surroundings of people they're surrounded
39:12
with that they normalize that that's just how it's supposed to
39:16
feel. Your, your period is just
39:18
painful. Cramps are awful.
39:19
That's par for the course. Or, you know, your luteal phase,
39:23
that's where you're irritable. So like, if you're irritable
39:24
during that week, that's how it's supposed to be.
39:26
It's not cause for concern like I, I wonder if there's almost a
39:30
piece of this to where women are minimizing the symptoms strictly
39:34
based off the fact that like culture or society has kind of
39:37
indirectly unintentionally told them that this is how it's
39:41
supposed to be. So as a result, they live that
39:44
way for a very long time under the assumption that's just how
39:47
it is. And I had a a girlfriend of mine
39:50
who just discovered she's 27 and she has had like debilitating
39:56
taking time off work awful awful awful cycles and thought OK,
40:01
this is just how it is. Like cramps suck, period suck.
40:05
And I said you really need to go get it checked out.
40:07
Goes to get it checked out. Come to realize she has
40:09
endometriosis. So she was like the amount of
40:12
years that I struggle with this, just thinking people around me
40:16
saying I was being dramatic, just take a might all like, you
40:19
know, those types of situations. Come to find out there's this
40:22
deeper thing going on. I also wonder maybe do women
40:26
come to you sometimes later than they should because they
40:29
normalize that this is just, oh, this is how it's supposed to be.
40:31
This is being a woman type thing.
40:33
Yes. Oh, I love that you're bringing
40:36
this up because it's also, it's triggering too, because I feel
40:41
real for these women. I was one of those women, right?
40:44
And you know, especially when I see teenagers come in and
40:48
they're on birth control pills for acne, right?
40:51
And I'm going, but do you even know what the root cause your
40:53
acne is, right? And look, why are we giving your
40:56
body hormones for that? And or, you know, their doctors
40:59
are putting them on birth control pills for painful
41:02
periods and they're here and they're asking me questions,
41:05
which is so wonderful. And I go, listen, I understand
41:09
birth control has its place, but what if there's something
41:13
underlying going on here with your cycle?
41:15
You're telling me you've had painful periods your whole life,
41:17
lots of clotting, heavy periods that's very difficult to
41:20
normalize now that you're on the pill, number one.
41:23
But now what happens if you're on the pill for 10 years, You
41:25
come off, you try to get pregnant and now you can't, not
41:28
because the pill made you not able to conceive, but because
41:31
there was an underlying condition that was masked,
41:34
right? And now getting worse over time,
41:37
especially with PCOS women who they have irregular cycles and
41:41
so doctors put them on birth control to regulate the cycle.
41:45
They think they're having a period every month and things
41:47
are going great. And then they come up the pill
41:49
and they go, where's my period? I'm not ovulating.
41:51
What do you mean I'm not ovulating?
41:53
So and that's just just a piece of it.
41:56
Yeah. But a lot of women do think that
41:57
what the experience is normal because they're told it's
41:59
normal. And it's funny you say being a
42:01
woman is not a diagnosis because that is literally the first
42:04
quote I have on my homepage of my website.
42:07
Being a woman is not a diagnosis.
42:09
We are just told these things because AI don't think they know
42:13
how to deal with it. Really.
42:14
I don't it's it's under investigated.
42:17
The research is not there. And I have even met physicians
42:22
that they won't test patients hormones because I always wonder
42:25
why aren't they testing your hormones And they, or they're
42:28
testing them on the completely wrong day of their cycle.
42:31
So I'm like, you have to go back and test it again.
42:34
But, and then they go, well, I'm not testing it because I don't
42:36
know how to interpret the results.
42:38
And, and I appreciate when they're very honest with me
42:41
about that. And I go, I love that you say
42:43
that and I love that you tell your patients that because many
42:46
times when you say I'm not testing your hormones, they feel
42:49
like they're not heard or understood and they feel like
42:52
they're being brushed off. But if you're honest and you
42:54
say, well, I don't really know much about hormones, why don't I
42:58
refer you to somebody who does? That's a better, you know,
43:01
physician patient interaction, right?
43:03
That creates more of a trust and an understanding between a
43:06
patient and their physician versus just being brushed off.
43:10
The conversation is changing. You will see a lot less
43:14
teenagers and less women going on birth control.
43:16
You will see women coming off birth control to just understand
43:20
what their hormones and their cycles actually look like.
43:23
But it is interesting, you know, we see, I ask women all the
43:27
time, well, how is stress? And I could tell just by the way
43:30
they're talking. They're talking very quickly,
43:32
they're moving in their seats, you know, very tight
43:35
personalities, very high functioning women.
43:39
And they go, well, stress is there, but I'm fine.
43:41
I know how to deal with it. I'm good and I go OK, And then
43:44
we start asking questions about she's like.
43:47
I'm going to dig to. You let me dig a little with you
43:49
over here and then I go, you know what?
43:51
Why don't we just try some adrenal support, try these
43:54
little changes in your, in your, you know, schedule or with your
43:57
sleep. And then they come back to me,
44:00
you know, a month later and they go, Oh my God, I was just living
44:05
under stress for so long. I thought this was my normal.
44:08
And now I feel like I'm more relaxed and they can just deal
44:12
with life better and I'm not so agitated.
44:15
And I didn't realize that this was normal.
44:18
And I can relate to that, right? Like, I, I what I would call
44:21
thrive on stress, right? Until you don't though, until
44:26
you don't. Like I got to that point of rage
44:28
and I went, no, this is not working anymore, right?
44:31
And. I think you don't know until you
44:34
experience the alternative. Like I didn't even realize how I
44:38
don't even, I couldn't function that way now if I tried because
44:40
I feel like now it tasted the other side and I physically my
44:42
body won't let me go back. But I remember like the pattern
44:48
of starting to actually get into rhythm and having a nighttime
44:51
routine and being conscious of the foods that I was eating and
44:54
like capping my caffeine. I used to have 4 coffees a day,
44:57
now I have one a day and that's it.
44:59
And so like trying to be conscious of those things now,
45:01
knowing how my body feels versus how it felt before I thought,
45:05
how was I even functioning? Like I wasn't even drinking
45:07
water. I didn't, I was literally a
45:10
desert. I don't know how I was
45:11
functioning. And so I think to your aspect of
45:15
of cycles, and this is something that I really would love to dive
45:18
into because there's a couple pieces for the woman that's
45:21
listening. She's either thinking about
45:23
starting her family. She's either currently trying to
45:26
start a family and or growing her family.
45:29
And I think one of the things that I know is kind of the core
45:32
of what you do with women as well as talking about egg
45:34
quality and also talking about fertility.
45:36
And I'm thinking about the person who's go, go, go, who is
45:40
going 1,000,000 miles an hour and yet also potentially is
45:44
frustrated by her fertility because for just in my current
45:48
circle. And I'm curious to see what you
45:50
have seen just in the women's space.
45:53
It seems to me, and I'm not sure if it's just more talked about
45:56
or if it's actually more prevalent today.
45:59
It seems that there's more women having trouble with starting
46:02
their families or with just conceiving in general.
46:05
So like I talked to someone yesterday and I had taken them
46:07
seven years. They ultimately did conceive
46:10
naturally, which was amazing. But it was after a lot of
46:13
intentional hormone work and stress work and all of that and
46:16
basically came to this place of their cycle and their health on
46:22
a deep level, on that system level.
46:23
They're like, I never paid attention to any of that.
46:25
I thought, OK, just keep trying. It's just about tracking when we
46:29
when we try and, you know, having the date specific and all
46:32
of these things without realizing to your point, like
46:35
the stress impact that was happening, how sleep was
46:37
impacting. And there was never a
46:39
conversation they shared yesterday with egg quality.
46:42
Like there was never, it was just, OK, I'm going to start my
46:46
family later. Because she had been focusing on
46:48
her career. And then there was this
46:51
frustration of if I had known it was going to be this hard, I
46:53
would have started a lot earlier.
46:55
So there's just, I think a lot within that, especially for
46:58
women who are focusing on their career.
47:01
Even for myself, I definitely, I wouldn't say I worry, but I
47:06
definitely in seeing so many of my peers and friends who have
47:10
struggled in this bucket, I worry, OK, like if I'm 33 right
47:13
now and I put this off, if I was to struggle, for example, for
47:18
like 2-3 years, what would that mean?
47:21
Like, yes, you could still, hopefully God willing still be
47:24
able to conceive. But I think for people like
47:26
myself, there's also this aspect of how can I use this time to
47:31
take really intentional care of my body to make sure I'm doing
47:35
everything that I possibly can to support for like that era.
47:39
So all of that to say, I would be curious as to what is it that
47:43
you want women to know about their cycles and how does that
47:48
impact, you know, egg quality, fertility, all of those pieces?
47:52
Because it's shocking to me. There's also a lot of women who
47:54
don't even know what the phases of my cycle are in their 30s.
47:58
So I was like, this is also not talked about a lot I feel like
48:00
as well. Yes, 100%, You've touched on so
48:03
many, so many good things. But you are right in the sense
48:07
it's actually both that, you know, we're seeing more
48:10
fertility struggles because a, it is higher now because of, you
48:15
know, our lifestyle, the cortisol era, women are trying
48:20
later as well because of careers and there's more chemicals in
48:25
the environment as well. So there's a lot of causes that
48:28
are driving up the infertility rates even, especially even in
48:33
men, right? We forget to talk about men, but
48:35
it's 5050. And then there is also this
48:38
piece of that. We are talking about it more,
48:42
which is great. But again, it is one of those
48:44
things that we're told, well, infertility is like normal now,
48:49
right? But it's not normal.
48:51
It's common, right? Like, let's be careful with our
48:54
language. And also that miscarriage is
48:57
normal, which I hate hearing that.
48:59
And often, you know, doctors will tell people that will
49:03
infertility clinics won't even look at you until you've had
49:05
three consecutive miscarriages or three miscarriages in your
49:07
lifetime. And that, I feel, is also wrong,
49:10
right? And I'm like, no, if you've had
49:12
one, then we're figuring out why before you even start trying
49:15
again. So going back to us not even
49:20
knowing about our cycles, it wasn't talked about.
49:24
Like even when I was a child, my mother never had a conversation
49:27
with me about my period. You know, we looked at periods
49:31
as something we didn't want, right?
49:33
It was, oh, it was dirty. It was gross.
49:35
It happened once a month and that was it.
49:38
Then we never had to worry about our hormones and our cycles,
49:41
right? Just that that week of bleeding
49:42
and that's it. And then we're done.
49:44
We were also meant to believe that we can get pregnant at any
49:47
time, right? So every day you can get
49:51
pregnant, which is also very false.
49:53
And we're also meant to believe that we can get pregnant like
49:56
this right at an instant. So then when women come off
50:01
birth control, or maybe they weren't on birth control, but
50:03
they start trying for family and they're not getting pregnant
50:05
like this, they go, what is going on?
50:08
Why, what's wrong? Then now the panic sets in and
50:10
now the cortisol goes up. And now that's only like making
50:13
things worse. And what else does help?
50:16
Like. Your grandma and your mom were
50:19
like, oh, I I started trying and we we got, we had kids
50:22
instantly. I remember saying to somebody, I
50:23
was worried because I was in my 30s.
50:25
Yeah. And they're like, we started
50:26
trying in two weeks. It was like, OK, like, that's
50:29
not the reality. Probably 20 years old right when
50:33
my mom was treating things when she had her first child.
50:36
So again, very different lifestyle and different
50:39
environment and landscape that they're dealing with.
50:41
But now we know and we recognize that women don't cycle just once
50:46
a month. It's a, it's a, you know, let's
50:48
save 28 days, give or take a few days.
50:51
It's a monthly cycle where every week our cycle is changing and
50:55
every week our cycle is adapting to different changes in hormone
50:59
levels. So that first week when we're on
51:02
our menstrual cycle, our hormones are at their lowest.
51:05
So we're not going to feel ideal.
51:07
Our estrogen is low, our testosterone is low, our
51:09
progesterone is low. And a lot of women are very
51:11
sensitive to that dip right before their period comes, which
51:14
is where that PMS piece comes in.
51:17
And again, PMS common, not normal, right?
51:21
Very different terminology, but it's during this time you are
51:26
going to feel more tired and you're not going to want to, you
51:29
know, do a bunch of stuff that's normal.
51:31
You're going to want to recluse on the couch and watch movies
51:34
and that's OK, right. If if you're crawling on the
51:37
floor and not able to move and maybe then there's a you're
51:41
bleeding too much, there is maybe low iron or you're in a
51:45
ton of pain. Like obviously those are things
51:47
you need to to check on. But again, a little bit of mild
51:51
cramping can be very normal. It tells you that you're your
51:54
uterus is shedding, right? There's a very big physical
51:57
change happening during your body during that time.
51:59
You're not going to feel amazing, but over the course of,
52:02
you know, a week or so, those hormones begin to climb.
52:05
Estrogen will go up. Other hormones like luteinizing
52:08
hormone, follicle stimulating hormone.
52:11
These are the hormones that are allowing your follicles to
52:14
mature, right? So every month I think of it as
52:19
swimmers, right? Like a a swim meet, all those
52:21
swimmers line up at the beginning of the pool to race,
52:25
right? So think about every month we
52:28
have say 14 to 20 eggs that line up and begin a race, OK?
52:33
So during the follicle phase or follicular phase, those first
52:36
two weeks of your cycle, as hormones are rising, all those
52:39
follicles are swimming towards the finish line and they're
52:42
getting larger and larger and larger as they do so, or they're
52:45
maturing, OK, only one of them will reach the end, and that's
52:51
the follicle that's the largest and that's the one that will
52:53
eventually ovulate, sometimes 2, right?
52:56
And if you get 2 and then they fertilize, you can end up with
52:58
twins. But at the end of this, so as
53:01
you approach ovulation, ovulation is that end game,
53:05
right? That when they get to the end,
53:07
so that one follicle will then erupt and release an egg, right?
53:11
And then presented to a potential sperm, if it's there
53:14
and you can get pregnant during that window of time, you can get
53:17
pregnant, you know, three to four days leading up to that
53:21
fertile or that ovulation day, right?
53:25
Because sperm can survive for up to five days.
53:29
And then if it's presented with an egg during that window of
53:31
time, you can get pregnant after though, after the egg has been
53:35
released and gone through fallopian tubes or has
53:38
disintegrated and gone, then no chance of pregnancy.
53:43
So, or I say no chance, but there's always a chance, you
53:46
know, in general. So during this window of time,
53:50
your hormones are rising. So you begin to have more
53:52
energy, right? Testosterone goes up, estrogen
53:55
goes up. You'll notice your skin become
53:57
more clear, your hair look more luscious.
53:59
You're like, wow, I look amazing.
54:01
And they designed it this way because this is your most
54:04
fertile time. This is the time when men are
54:06
most attracted to women. You also feel very like sexy and
54:11
flowy during this window of time in the flow if you're in
54:14
balance, right? Other women are like, don't feel
54:17
terrible during this time. And I'm like, OK, let's look at
54:19
this then. And then after that,
54:22
progesterone gets a spike. Progesterone is our nice hormone
54:25
that helps us feel relaxed. It helps us sleep.
54:29
And then estrogen is high during this window of time as well.
54:32
So estrogen and progesterone are both high during that luteal
54:35
phase. During this these last two
54:37
weeks, there is this ratio of estrogen and progesterone that
54:42
is ideal. And if it's off, so say estrogen
54:46
is too high or progesterone is too low, which is very common.
54:49
It seems like you have more cycling estrogen in the body,
54:52
then you start getting more estrogen dominant symptoms.
54:55
So this is where we see more PMS, more breast tenderness,
54:59
cravings during that window of time, irritability, puffiness,
55:03
bloating because of that imbalance and estrogen and
55:06
progesterone during that time. Does that make sense?
55:09
So again, once when I teach girls this, especially young
55:14
women, and they begin to understand that their phases of
55:17
their cycle are different every week, then they go, oh, and they
55:23
realize, oh, I'm not broken. You know, I now I understand why
55:26
I'm more tired at this time in my cycle and, or why I feel
55:31
different energetically at a different time.
55:33
And it's very normal to feel those different changes in
55:35
energy, as long as they're not massive drastic changes that are
55:38
affecting your life in a detrimental way, right?
55:42
So like a little bit of bloating is OK.
55:44
A little cravings are also normal.
55:46
Changes in your sleep patterns can be normal as well.
55:49
It's when they become so disruptive that you go, OK,
55:52
maybe the balance is too much, imbalance is too much, and we
55:55
need to just maybe ship things a little.
55:57
Well, and I think it also means that the same thing you do in
55:59
one week is not going to feel the same the next week.
56:01
Like for me, I would go to, to even get steps in in a day or go
56:05
do a workout in one week. I'm thinking, OK, great.
56:07
Like, let's go. I want to go heavier.
56:09
And like, you're really like, you're so ready to go and you
56:12
could run through a wall energetically.
56:14
Yeah. And the next week you, like,
56:16
there's also this spiral where you go, Oh my God, I'm not
56:19
consistent. I'm not motivated, I'm not
56:20
pushing, I'm not. And there's all these narratives
56:22
and you're like, your body is physically going through it
56:24
right now. So I think for me, the
56:27
empowering part when I learned it was understanding that like
56:31
sometimes now when I'm having a week where I'm just like, OK,
56:34
I'm not motivated or I'm feeling like I really want to sleep more
56:36
or whatever it might be. I remember literally checking an
56:38
app being like oh OK never mind. It makes sense because you start
56:42
to just feel like you understand the correlation between your
56:45
experience and just what's happening with your body.
56:47
To your point. Yeah, and there's even times
56:49
where you go to the gym and you're just like you lay there
56:51
and you're not doing anything right.
56:53
You're just like, no, I'm just going to say power and maybe
56:56
you'll get in like 5 reps and be like I'm good.
57:01
Anyway, to go back to sort of the fertility piece and egg
57:03
quality piece, because this is very important is the way I look
57:08
at fertility. Age is a factor for sure, but
57:13
it's not the end game and fertility is not fixed.
57:16
And this is what I want women to remember is that yes, as we age
57:20
and I, you know, after the age of 35, we do see that the number
57:24
of eggs that women have begins to decline, right?
57:28
Like more drastically than before.
57:30
And we do see that eggs begin to age.
57:32
What I like to talk to my patients about and what I what I
57:35
kind of coined is like this fertility 3 point O OK, where
57:39
instead of looking at egg count, because a lot of people do that,
57:43
we look at egg competence. OK, so the ability of that egg
57:49
to grow, mature, ovulate and implant and become a healthy
57:56
pregnancy. So what is the ability of your
57:59
eggs to getting to that end game goal?
58:01
And so you can be 42 and have not a lot of eggs at all, but
58:07
have very healthy eggs, right? And then you get pregnant, maybe
58:11
it takes a little bit longer because you have less eggs, but
58:15
you get pregnant and you have a healthy pregnancy.
58:17
Then I can have a 25 year old where hormones are in the
58:21
toilet, she has a lot of eggs, but the quality of them are not
58:26
where they need to be, but the quality we can change.
58:29
And a lot of people don't understand that is they think
58:32
that well, my fertility is what it is.
58:34
So now I guess IVF is the only option or I have to do an egg
58:38
donor or something like that. Great options for some people,
58:41
right? But why would you even go into a
58:45
transfer for IVF or IUI or do any of that if you don't know
58:50
about your own egg quality and work on that or about your
58:54
uterine environment? Because that's the second piece
58:57
of it. So egg quality is one piece,
58:59
right? And we see that the competence
59:01
of eggs or egg quality declined drastically because of the
59:04
mitochondria within egg cells. So our bodies have hundreds of
59:10
mitochondria in their cells. Do you remember mitochondria
59:14
from science class? It's like that.
59:15
Energy powerhouse bringing me back to high school?
59:17
Yeah. Well, you were energy, right?
59:20
So it's the energy powerhouse. But what science has discovered
59:23
is that we have hundreds of thousands of mitochondria in egg
59:25
cells and they began to question why?
59:28
And that's because our cell, our egg cells require so much energy
59:32
to mature and ovulate and have menses and all these things that
59:36
require so much energy. And then what they've noticed
59:39
with fertility is that mitochondria and the health of
59:41
that mitochondria was declining more drastically than say women
59:45
be over here that has very healthy fertility and healthy
59:49
mitochondria. So where the research is now
59:52
focusing is into more cellular energy of the egg and boosting
59:55
antioxidant support, getting mitochondria energy up.
59:58
And that's going to help the quality of the egg, right?
1:00:02
So the egg quality is one part of it.
1:00:04
Sperm quality is obviously another part of that as well,
1:00:07
because both partners need to make sure that the quality of
1:00:11
both pieces are optimal. But then the uterine
1:00:14
environment, which so many people forget about, is the
1:00:18
second piece. You can have a beautiful egg and
1:00:23
a beautiful sperm that come together, they fertilize and
1:00:27
then implantation just doesn't happen or implantation happens
1:00:31
and God forbid there's a pregnancy loss and we begin to
1:00:35
question why that is. Other fertility clinics might
1:00:38
just drive you right into the next round of IUI or next round
1:00:42
of IVF. And I'm going, well, why though,
1:00:45
right? Or if you know you have
1:00:46
endometriosis, right, you're working on egg quality, but why
1:00:50
aren't you working on your uterine environment?
1:00:52
Because the when it comes to endometriosis, we know that the
1:00:55
immune system piece and implantation piece is huge.
1:01:00
And so we have to look at the lining of the uterus.
1:01:02
Is there a low grade inflammation in the uterus?
1:01:04
Is there a bacteria there that is stopping pregnancy from
1:01:08
happening? We know that urea, plasma and
1:01:11
mycoplasma 2 very common bacteria within the uterus
1:01:14
causes frequent miscarriages. I can count on my hand how many
1:01:19
fertility clinics have actually tested it in patients before
1:01:23
coming to see me. Do you know what I mean?
1:01:25
And then, and that's such a quick fix, like if you find out
1:01:28
that bacteria is there, you treat the bacteria, boom, you
1:01:30
carry the baby to term. Meanwhile, there's women going
1:01:33
through repetitive loss after loss after loss, and they're
1:01:36
told we don't know why, right? And that's because the amount of
1:01:39
testing that these women are going through is so minimal.
1:01:42
They do the same testing on everybody and they do the same
1:01:45
plan on everybody and then they're diagnosed with
1:01:48
unexplained infertility. And I go, well, they didn't even
1:01:50
give you a full thyroid panel. Like you know what I mean?
1:01:53
They didn't even look at your testosterone or your DHEA
1:01:55
levels. Like I'm very confused here of
1:01:57
how you can be diagnosed with unexplained when we looked at.
1:02:02
It's something I hear a lot, like I someone would say to me,
1:02:05
oh, like they're saying I'm having fertility issues.
1:02:06
I said, what do they do to? They're like, we don't know.
1:02:08
And I'm like, OK, so. It's under investigate it,
1:02:14
right, Yeah. And I think.
1:02:15
Even to your point earlier, I'm sure that there's probably part
1:02:17
of it which for sure is that they're not seeking to
1:02:20
understand these other factors. But there's also this other part
1:02:23
which I think is like there's not.
1:02:25
I would imagine especially maybe in Canada, I'm saying this, but
1:02:28
like a lot of funding around it or there's not a lot of, you
1:02:30
know, people that are, it might not be the money making area
1:02:33
potentially within the medical system.
1:02:36
So as a result of that, it's like, OK, well, these are the
1:02:38
things that we know we're going to put underneath, like the IVF,
1:02:41
for example, umbrella. And then I've seen a lot of
1:02:44
women who have needed like to your point, they're like, I'm
1:02:47
taking this into my own hands. And so they end up in your
1:02:50
office and are like, hey, I need to get a full work up done
1:02:54
because I have no answers on this other side.
1:02:56
So I do think it happens more than we think, where women just
1:02:59
are told they're struggling with fertility, but there's not
1:03:02
really A cause. And I know even for me, I
1:03:06
remember I had an appointment with someone and they said,
1:03:08
well, you know, like, are you thinking about having kids?
1:03:09
And I was like, yeah, like, kind of need a partner to do that.
1:03:13
I was like, yeah, they said, well, you know, you just have to
1:03:16
remember, like, you are going to be a geriatric pregnancy.
1:03:19
Oh my God, a geriatric pregnancy?
1:03:22
I said, excuse me, I was like, this is not making me excited to
1:03:26
have a child. So I remember, you know,
1:03:29
truthfully, when that got shared, like you're getting
1:03:32
older, you're getting older. I thought, OK, there's one thing
1:03:37
to say. Like to your point, there's the
1:03:38
natural like stats and the data that to your point, the science
1:03:43
is the science. There's nothing you can do once
1:03:44
you hit 35. That's just a reality that
1:03:46
you're going to be navigating. But I think you mentioned
1:03:49
something which I just like, I love everything you're sharing
1:03:51
because it's so empowering, the aspect of the fact that you can
1:03:54
take control of your egg quality, which I don't think
1:03:59
basically anybody talks about, to be honest.
1:04:01
Because most conversations that I've had have always talked
1:04:04
about what we can see how many eggs you have left, we can see
1:04:07
how many eggs you have left. It's all about quantity.
1:04:09
There's not really been a huge conversation around quality or
1:04:14
preparing yourself for trying to conceive, whether you are
1:04:18
someone maybe who like I know some people who do have a child
1:04:21
right now, but they had a really hard time conceiving.
1:04:25
So like they're thinking, OK, to try to have another one, what
1:04:28
can I be doing in the interim? Or potentially someone who says
1:04:31
I don't have any, but I want to use this time intentionally for
1:04:35
that, like high achieving go go go woman.
1:04:37
What there are some things that maybe she needs to be thinking
1:04:41
about or considering in this moment to kind of have her best
1:04:44
chances of having the highest egg quality that she might be
1:04:47
able to do. Yeah, OK.
1:04:49
I love that you asked this. And I do have a lot of women who
1:04:51
come into practice with that and they're like, we're thinking
1:04:53
about conceiving within the next maybe 2-3 years.
1:04:56
You know, what could I be doing now?
1:04:57
So it's great because a lot of women are starting to think
1:04:59
about it now earlier right? Where before it was more of a
1:05:02
reactive response, like, well, now I'm pregnant.
1:05:04
So I guess now I'm going to start eating well and now I'm
1:05:07
going to take the chemicals out of my environment.
1:05:08
And So what we could do now is what I always say as women
1:05:12
approach their 30s, if they're thinking that they do want kids
1:05:15
in the future, but they're not thinking like even next year,
1:05:18
right? They're thinking well, or some
1:05:19
don't even have a partner yet, right?
1:05:21
And they're like, well, I don't even have a partner yet.
1:05:23
So by the time I find a partner and then this and that, it could
1:05:25
be like 3536, who knows? So I always say, let's get a
1:05:30
baseline, right? So in terms of blood work, all
1:05:33
of that, let's get a baseline of what your hormones are doing.
1:05:36
Let's look at what your cycles look like.
1:05:38
Let's look at your thyroid, your insulin, your iron levels, like
1:05:42
all your micronutrients, right? See if there's any imbalances
1:05:46
that we can correct now, right, instead of later.
1:05:49
And because there are things that can impact fertility down
1:05:51
the line, like thyroid conditions, right?
1:05:54
Big, big time. We talk about cycles.
1:05:57
Are you having a monthly period? How long are you bleeding for?
1:06:00
Do you recognize signs of ovulation?
1:06:02
You know, we, we look for that as well.
1:06:04
And if this cycle is irregular, then we work on normalizing the
1:06:07
cycle. Now are you on birth control?
1:06:09
Do we need to go off birth control to sort of see what your
1:06:12
hormones are doing and get your, yourself like cycling on your
1:06:15
own? So we do a baseline kind of work
1:06:18
up and some women, I do say, why don't you do an anti malaria and
1:06:22
hormone test, which will tell you about your egg count because
1:06:25
that also gives us an indication of no, it doesn't tell me about
1:06:28
the quality of your eggs, but it tells me about timeline a little
1:06:34
bit. So if you had a really low egg
1:06:37
count, then we would have a conversation of OK, either
1:06:43
because we could work on the quality of those eggs for sure.
1:06:45
But we also know that every year that number is going to keep
1:06:48
declining naturally, right? So if you're only 30 or 31 now
1:06:52
and we're already seeing a lower egg count, do we think about egg
1:06:56
freezing, right? You know, what are your thoughts
1:07:00
around that? And you know, especially if it's
1:07:02
really low, like we have conversations about that.
1:07:05
Or if you are with a partner, maybe consider, let's consider
1:07:09
maybe having a baby within the next year or two before this
1:07:12
number really, really drops, right?
1:07:14
Or we just keep an eye on it. Or you could come back with a
1:07:17
really high egg count. Again, doesn't tell us about egg
1:07:19
quality, but it tells us, OK, we've got like years ahead of us
1:07:24
here, you know? So like I tested last year, I'm
1:07:28
not looking to have another baby.
1:07:29
But I did test my antimalarial hormone because I also think
1:07:32
it's a sign of longevity in women.
1:07:35
I really do think of fertility as like this 5th vital sign.
1:07:39
And so I was just kind of curious and my level still came
1:07:41
back in a really good range high.
1:07:43
And I was like, oh, great. Like I'm really fertile.
1:07:45
Phil and I have a lot of years ahead of me.
1:07:47
But if it came back low, then I would know, OK, I mean, I'm not
1:07:51
planning on another baby, but I would say, OK, maybe I'm going
1:07:54
to go into menopause a little bit earlier than someone else or
1:07:57
I might start to feel perimenopause experiences
1:08:00
sooner, right? So this can give me an
1:08:02
indication into like other pieces of health, not just
1:08:06
fertility, if that makes sense. So we get a baseline and that
1:08:10
can kind of drive the further conversation.
1:08:12
But if you're say, not getting testing, even if you are, I
1:08:16
always say clean up your diet, right?
1:08:18
So yes, it's so it's like the 8020 rule, right?
1:08:21
80% of the time, you're eating well for your body, meaning an
1:08:25
individualized approach because not one diet fits all, right?
1:08:29
So recognizing what foods are driving inflammation in you and
1:08:33
remove those and you probably already know what they are like.
1:08:36
If you eat pasta and you're bloated or you have dairy and
1:08:38
you're running to the washroom, dairy, yeah, sugar and you're
1:08:41
getting acne, you know, you know what foods are already driving
1:08:44
inflammation. What we don't want is for your
1:08:46
body to be in an inflammatory state when you're trying to
1:08:49
conceive, right? So, and it's not to say that you
1:08:53
need to take out gluten 100% or you need to like do all that,
1:08:56
but 80% of the time you're eating really clean, you're
1:08:59
getting in good healthy protein, lots of fruits and vegetables.
1:09:03
You know, 50% of your plate should be fruits and vegetables
1:09:06
you get in your healthy grains. I'm not about this carb free
1:09:09
nonsense. Glucose for our menstrual
1:09:13
health, right? So lots of healthy fats for our
1:09:17
reproductive system as well is really, really critical.
1:09:20
Nuts and seeds, avocado, olive oil, very important.
1:09:23
And then staying away from, you know, processed foods, lots of
1:09:27
sugar, alcohol, a lot of caffeine.
1:09:30
It's OK to have a little bit, you know, just not too much
1:09:33
that's going to like deplete your adrenals or something.
1:09:36
Yeah, yeah. And so in from a dietary piece,
1:09:39
getting that on track is very important.
1:09:41
And then 20% of the time you can go out and have have drinks with
1:09:45
your friends or go out and have your pizza or your things, you
1:09:48
know, but at home you're pretty dialed, right?
1:09:51
And that's a lifestyle shift. And it becomes easier once
1:09:53
you've done it for a few weeks, right?
1:09:56
Like taking out like but. Well, when someone tries to live
1:10:00
within those guidelines, how long does it take typically or
1:10:05
how long would you want someone ideally to have runway wise to
1:10:09
start to see or improve their egg quality?
1:10:12
Because I'm thinking if someone thinks to their, OK, I'm
1:10:14
listening to this, feel like maybe I'm not living that way.
1:10:17
Decent alcohol, decent of caffeine, lots of sugar.
1:10:21
Say some ones maybe like, OK, I definitely have this as a goal
1:10:24
of mine, but maybe I'm not living that way right now.
1:10:27
What would be a realistic timeline that you would kind of
1:10:30
say to them, like these changes are not, you know, in the next
1:10:33
90 days, they're more from a systemic issue of or sorry,
1:10:38
systemic impact. You're going to start to see
1:10:40
this show up or impact your egg quality in the next year, in the
1:10:44
next two years. Because I know that the natural
1:10:48
thing for everyone who listens is like, how fast can I do this
1:10:50
and how quick can I see results, right?
1:10:52
So I do wonder, I guess to to like truly properly set
1:10:55
expectations. This is not like I would assume
1:10:58
like a quick fix, this is something that's more of an
1:11:00
overall holistic approach. So it is an overall holistic
1:11:04
approach because you know, and it all depends on how much you
1:11:08
do, like diet is just a piece of it, but you also need to reduce
1:11:12
your stress in your life. However that's going to look
1:11:15
because trust me, once you fall pregnant, you're not going to be
1:11:18
able to keep up with the same schedule.
1:11:19
Or once you have your baby, you're not going to keep up with
1:11:21
the same schedule, but reducing stressors in your life that are
1:11:25
no longer needed or that no longer serve you detoxification.
1:11:29
Huge, right? Not only for just egg quality,
1:11:33
but for the future of your child, right?
1:11:36
We know that toxins and heavy metals pass from eggs and sperm
1:11:40
into a fetus, and they are linked to diabetes, childhood
1:11:45
leukemias, obesity, ADHD. So if we can pull those out
1:11:50
ahead of time, that is ideal, right?
1:11:53
So when we, and that's just like 3 things I talked about.
1:11:56
Obviously there's other pieces. The other factor here is
1:11:59
recognizing that some people may not have any reproductive
1:12:03
condition at all. They're cycling very normally,
1:12:05
they're very, they work out, they're generally very healthy.
1:12:08
Your egg quality turn around is going to be a lot quicker than
1:12:11
somebody who's maybe dealing with endometriosis, PCOS, has
1:12:15
diabetes or has a higher BMI, things like that.
1:12:19
So maybe for some people it's like, OK, we need to get you
1:12:22
into will lower BMI and that might take a few more months to
1:12:26
get you to that level to really see a change in your egg
1:12:28
quality. However, what I can say is
1:12:31
minimum three months. So it's not as long as you think
1:12:34
minimum three months because the cycle of your egg is about 90
1:12:37
days, right? So the cycle for that eggs to
1:12:40
grow and mature and ovulate and everything like that is about 90
1:12:44
days. So if you were to get pregnant
1:12:45
today, you're getting pregnant with an egg that is as healthy
1:12:48
as you were about three months ago, if that makes sense.
1:12:51
So three months ago you were smoking, you were drinking and
1:12:54
binging with your friends on the weekend and all of that.
1:12:57
Then obviously you know your, your eggs are going to represent
1:13:00
that. But in three months time, you
1:13:03
can actually create quite a shift.
1:13:05
I've had women go from having, and we know this because we were
1:13:09
doing cycle monitoring through IVF.
1:13:11
I've had people go through when they went in for retrieval, they
1:13:14
only had say six eggs come up to that.
1:13:17
So they cancelled the retrieval because it wasn't enough to
1:13:19
going and having 14 eggs three months later, right.
1:13:23
So we know that these shifts happen really quickly for some
1:13:27
people. Of course, it does take longer,
1:13:29
but we say minimum three months at that point to the toxins
1:13:33
should have been pulled out. So what we say is if you're not
1:13:36
ready to conceive in three months, say it.
1:13:39
I mean, ideally I would say a year, right?
1:13:42
A year to really make those changes even in your home,
1:13:45
right? Like get the chemicals out of
1:13:46
your home, those terrible cleaning products and like
1:13:50
change up your skin care to like really try and get like toxins
1:13:54
off with those endocrine disrupting chemicals off your
1:13:57
skin out of your home. Very important even for your
1:14:00
partner, right? So I would say about a year, but
1:14:03
minimum three months. But if you're not ready, if
1:14:06
you're like, well, I'm probably not going to try to conceive for
1:14:08
another three years, then what I would say is detox twice a year,
1:14:12
right? And then you're never going to
1:14:14
keep your diet 100%. It's unrealistic.
1:14:17
We are human, life happens. I'm not.
1:14:20
The change has to happen once. More right, like, and it's not.
1:14:23
And what it just means is like, OK, maybe you've had a summer of
1:14:26
more barbecues and all that kind of stuff, but then but then you
1:14:29
recognize it and then you get back on track, right?
1:14:31
And that's OK. Let it go.
1:14:32
You're human. It's all good, right?
1:14:35
And of course, if there's anything underlying like if you
1:14:38
know you have an autoimmune disease, if you know you have
1:14:42
endometriosis or anything, right, any pre-existing
1:14:46
condition, thyroid condition, get it all into balance before
1:14:49
trying to conceive. That's all I say about that.
1:14:52
But. Well, you said something that
1:14:54
I'm kind of like I, I had as a question selfishly coming today
1:15:00
and that was around perimenopause because when you
1:15:02
said that you tested your egg count and you're like, OK,
1:15:06
great. It's a lot higher than as high
1:15:09
as I would want it to be. That's amazing.
1:15:11
But to your point, you mentioned, that means that I
1:15:14
might be not as close to going into, for example, perimenopause
1:15:18
as I might have thought, right? I also know through just like
1:15:24
research and nerding out on this, that there's now women who
1:15:28
are in their early 30s who are going into perimenopause.
1:15:32
Are they though? And are they though?
1:15:35
I don't know, that's how I was like.
1:15:37
I just selfishly ask her because I think for like for me or for
1:15:41
anyone who's wanting to have a family later in life, they're
1:15:46
OK. So I'm like, you know, we're
1:15:48
just dealing with all the labels.
1:15:49
We got perimenopause. We got geriatric pregnancy.
1:15:51
Yeah, I have all of them here. They're.
1:15:54
So much ear mongering. But yes, even with that aside,
1:15:59
obviously there's the aspect of that which is, to your point
1:16:01
earlier, something to consider if you're thinking about having
1:16:04
a family. But there's the other side,
1:16:06
which is like, truthfully, like, just in full ignorance.
1:16:10
I didn't. I always just assumed, like,
1:16:13
when we hear anything menopause, many people think, OK, yeah,
1:16:17
like a woman in her 50s. Like, you know, that's kind of
1:16:20
the classic stereotypical experience of what we associate
1:16:24
even with the word menopause. But when I started to see that
1:16:29
there were literally articles of women who were, like, 3335 who
1:16:33
were entering perimenopause, I thought, oh, my God.
1:16:37
So I wasn't sure number one, if this is kind of always been the
1:16:39
case, again, similar to fertility as it's just maybe not
1:16:42
been talked about. And someone listening I'm sure
1:16:46
is like, I'm not even ready for this conversation.
1:16:48
But I'm curious like when is that really a reality for women?
1:16:53
Because the woman listening is either 25 to 45.
1:16:55
And so we're kind of in this, to your point, getting educated
1:17:00
about our bodies. What does the woman listening
1:17:02
need to know about perimenopause?
1:17:04
And like when is that kind of, I guess maybe in a range realistic
1:17:08
for someone to experience? Yes.
1:17:10
So it is different for everyone. Like there are individuals who
1:17:15
could be potentially 33 or 35 going through perimenopause
1:17:19
because perimenopause is sort of this window of time that happens
1:17:22
before full menopause, right? Before estrogen is low all the
1:17:26
time and we're no longer having periods.
1:17:28
That's defined as menopause, right?
1:17:31
But if so, if you were somebody, for example, who you know, your
1:17:35
mother went into menopause early or your sisters went into
1:17:37
menopause at the age of 45, then you might go into that
1:17:41
perimenopause phase earlier because perhaps you were also
1:17:44
going to be into full menopause around the age of 45.
1:17:47
It's not as common as you think though, to go into full
1:17:50
menopause around that time, right?
1:17:52
It is usually closer to 49505152.
1:17:56
So I feel most of the time when women in their 30s are coming in
1:18:01
to me saying I think I'm in perimenopause, they're not
1:18:04
right. So the beautiful thing about
1:18:06
this becoming more of a conversation now is that women
1:18:09
are are feeling more heard there.
1:18:12
There's more research going into it.
1:18:13
Doctors are recognizing it now and not brushing off women as
1:18:17
much. So the conversation is so great
1:18:20
and you know that we're talking about it more and it's becoming
1:18:23
more recognized and that women are feeling like, OK, there's a
1:18:26
reason I'm feeling this way. And not just because, right, But
1:18:32
there's a lot of fear, like you said.
1:18:33
And I, and I know that even some of my colleagues are very guilty
1:18:37
of this, of creating this fear that perimenopause is coming.
1:18:42
Prepare yourself, Oh my God, you're going to feel like
1:18:44
complete shit and you should go on each and like do all that.
1:18:48
And I'm just like, Oh my goodness.
1:18:50
OK, so #1 everybody going through perimenopause does not
1:18:53
experience the same thing, right?
1:18:56
It's also not the same amount of time.
1:18:58
Some women could do perimenopause for about 5 years.
1:19:00
Some women it is 10 years, some women it's 7, some women it's
1:19:03
two. Perimenopause is a diagnosis of
1:19:06
exclusion, meaning that you have to rule out every other thing
1:19:11
first before you call it perimenopause, OK?
1:19:15
Because the symptoms of perimenopause look very similar
1:19:17
to thyroid conditions, metabolic disorders, cortisol issues and
1:19:24
adrenal issues. And I can tell you that nine
1:19:28
times out of 10, when patients are say 3536 coming into me and
1:19:32
they're going, well, I'm tired, I'm overwhelmed, I'm irritable
1:19:37
and I have rage. And so my mood is changing like
1:19:39
crazy. And I'm even noticing like my
1:19:41
periods are more heavy now. I get their cortisol in check
1:19:45
and all that goes away. And so then I go see, you
1:19:49
weren't in perimenopause, right? But it's, it could be.
1:19:52
So we do look at hormones. However, testing hormones during
1:19:55
the perimenopause window doesn't make sense because you'll
1:19:59
fluctuate monthly. So what's happening during
1:20:01
perimenopause is progesterone is naturally declining and it's
1:20:06
gradually going to keep declining.
1:20:08
During perimenopause, estrogen declines as well, but you
1:20:12
actually get more spikes, right? So one month it could be a
1:20:14
little bit lower and then boom, it goes up and up and up.
1:20:17
And so you're actually in this high estrogen state comparative
1:20:20
to progesterone. So you get more estrogen
1:20:22
dominant symptoms. Right, but women can have
1:20:25
estrogen dominance without being in perimenopause, which is, you
1:20:29
know, in terms of like a clinical diagnosis defined by
1:20:35
your period changing ±7 days. So if you're used to a 28 day
1:20:41
cycle and now you're having a 21 day cycle consistently or a 35
1:20:44
days cycle consistently, that's what a clinical diagnosis of
1:20:48
perimenopause is. However, we're noticing changes
1:20:51
in symptoms of perimenopause well before cycle changes.
1:20:55
And what we're noticing first is that women are feeling more like
1:20:59
their mood is changing. They feel off, like a lot of
1:21:02
women describe it as. They just don't feel like
1:21:04
themselves, like they feel off, their energies really low, their
1:21:07
bodies changing. So now they're seeing a lot more
1:21:11
tummy, you know, fat or their arms are a little bit more like
1:21:15
noodles. And, you know, it's such a, a
1:21:18
bad way to say it. I, I shouldn't say it like that,
1:21:20
but this is the way patients are describing it.
1:21:23
And it's that your body's metabolism is shifting.
1:21:25
So your body, the way your body is taking the food and, and
1:21:30
metabolizing that food is now you're holding on to fat more.
1:21:33
We're creating more fat tissue, less muscle tissue, right?
1:21:37
So we will see muscle begin to decline.
1:21:40
So women start to see that where they're like, weird, I'm like
1:21:42
kind of losing the muscles in my arm.
1:21:44
I feel like I'm gaining in the middle and I'm not able to lose
1:21:47
it. Like what's going on here?
1:21:48
And I'm, you know, they haven't changed their workouts, they
1:21:50
haven't changed what they're eating.
1:21:52
And that's just because the metabolism is changing.
1:21:54
That landscape of the woman is changing.
1:21:57
Perimenopause is not to be feared.
1:22:00
You're still fertile during perimenopause, right?
1:22:03
You're still cycling every month.
1:22:05
You're likely still ovulating every month.
1:22:07
The way you just feel is different, right?
1:22:09
And the way your brain is responding to your ovary
1:22:12
changes. So it's more it's, it's not that
1:22:15
your body's broken, It's not that it's something to be fixed.
1:22:18
It's a transition. And it's a recalibration of the
1:22:22
women's neurological system. So the way again, the body, the
1:22:25
brain is responding to the ovaries.
1:22:27
So when we look at perimenopause as a recalibration, then we we
1:22:32
begin to look at it through this lens of more empowerment and
1:22:36
less fear and just being like, OK, obviously what my body needs
1:22:40
right now is not the same that it needed when I was 20, right?
1:22:44
Even in my early 30s. So maybe the foods I'm eating
1:22:47
now are not serving me and I need to find out what foods now
1:22:50
are good for me. I need to focus on maybe more
1:22:53
bodybuilding and less cardio in the gym.
1:22:56
I need to keep my protein and food timing regulated.
1:23:01
I need to make sure I'm nourishing my body.
1:23:02
I need to make sure I'm resting and that I have energy because
1:23:05
the perimenopause experience requires so much rest and
1:23:08
energy, right? But again, we need to work, we
1:23:12
need to mother, we need to do all the things and we're putting
1:23:14
through perimenopause. So you had a comment of, you
1:23:18
know, was this something we always dealt with or are we just
1:23:20
recognizing it more now or you know, what's going on?
1:23:24
We are recognizing it more now. I think it is something we've
1:23:27
always dealt with. But I think the way women are
1:23:29
experiencing perimenopause now is very different than the way
1:23:34
women used to, which because we live in the cortisol era and
1:23:38
when cortisol is high and the adrenal glands are not
1:23:41
supported, perimenopause symptoms will always be worse,
1:23:45
right? If women are have insulin that
1:23:47
is dysregulated, so more insulin resistance because maybe they're
1:23:50
not sleeping well or they're not eating for their bodies and
1:23:53
eating well then which obviously happens during times of stress,
1:23:57
right? Then PMS gets worse and
1:24:00
perimenopause experience worsens as well.
1:24:03
So when we are working with perimenopause, we're not just
1:24:05
working with hormones here, like we're really working on like
1:24:09
changing lifestyle and, and nutrition, making sure gut
1:24:13
health is supported, making sure you're sleeping.
1:24:16
We're making sure cortisol is regulated out and, and stress is
1:24:20
coming down so that that perimenopause experience isn't
1:24:23
so severe. Does that make sense?
1:24:25
And we also need to protect like our brain and our heart and our,
1:24:28
and our bones, which is a big conversation in, in
1:24:30
perimenopause as well. But I think that a lot of women
1:24:33
think they're in perimenopause because of the symptoms they're
1:24:36
experiencing. Mimic it, but you have to make
1:24:40
sure it's nothing else first before you just say Oh yeah it's
1:24:43
pre menopause because again, by just saying it's pre menopause
1:24:46
you're brushing it off if that makes sense.
1:24:49
Well, I think it honestly all ties together so well.
1:24:52
So I like your analogy of it being like a web is just so
1:24:58
obvious now after everything you've explained, because even
1:25:01
as you said, like stress, OK, so you're cycle impacted by stress,
1:25:06
impacted by, for example, your diet impacted by stress.
1:25:11
And then women are also seeing fertility, egg quality, impacted
1:25:15
by lifestyle factors and stress. We're seeing all of these
1:25:19
different areas that all seem to have the same tie back to them.
1:25:24
But the interesting thing is that the kind of new reality for
1:25:27
women has been established. And so to your point where, OK,
1:25:31
well, we have to take care of the kids, we have to go to work,
1:25:33
like these realities still exist.
1:25:36
But if you don't have based off what I'm hearing of everything
1:25:38
today, if you don't have that information of what's going on
1:25:41
underneath the hood, if you're just looking at, OK, great, like
1:25:45
we're seeing this light go off, great, let's deal with that.
1:25:47
If you don't really understand like the full machine
1:25:50
underneath, I could see a woman, no question trying to deal with
1:25:55
the egg issue, the stress issue, the anxiety issue, the gut
1:25:59
issues. And then they feel like they're
1:26:01
this ongoing project, yes, of never feeling finished or never
1:26:05
feeling complete, right? And not to mention that's at a
1:26:09
static point that she might be dealing with today, let alone,
1:26:12
OK, great. Well then in the next 5 years,
1:26:14
your body's going to change again and you're going to have
1:26:16
new symptoms come up and you go, great, my gutted shoes are back
1:26:19
and now I have depression and now I have right?
1:26:21
And so it's this constant, I feel like flares of symptoms
1:26:25
that naturally for women without understanding that route are
1:26:29
going to constantly be trying to navigate and deal with versus
1:26:33
like everything you shared today.
1:26:35
I think to myself, if someone actually understood their
1:26:39
hormone levels, if they actually understood the history that they
1:26:42
come from and how that influences them, if they
1:26:44
actually understood their own individual response right now
1:26:48
with cortisol and how is that showing up in their life versus
1:26:51
just, oh, this is always how I am.
1:26:52
I just always have struggled to sleep and minimizing that.
1:26:55
If it's like you tie in the mental health conversation, the
1:26:59
thing that I think is so empowering from today is like
1:27:02
all the things that women are navigating and whatever symptom,
1:27:05
whether it is, you know, their gut, their cycle, mental health,
1:27:10
fertility, all of it, all the answers are there.
1:27:15
If you actually have someone to look at the whole picture versus
1:27:19
just the one puzzle piece that they're responsible for.
1:27:22
And I think that that's exciting because what it means like I
1:27:26
really believe education is so empowering, which is why I think
1:27:29
I nerd out on so many different things like get educated because
1:27:32
once you understand, I think it puts you back in the driver's
1:27:36
seat. And I think hearing today, even
1:27:37
for me, listening is like this is so empowering for someone to
1:27:40
realize that your reality as a woman is going to shift and
1:27:44
change. And that's based off lifestyle
1:27:46
factors, your hormones, your age, all of these things.
1:27:51
But if you actually have this information and know what to
1:27:53
constantly TuneIn with, you will understand what's happening with
1:27:57
you. And therefore, as a result,
1:27:58
based off what you're saying, understand how to navigate and
1:28:00
basically what to do next. Right.
1:28:02
And I think it's, it can be very overwhelming, like especially
1:28:06
with all the information out there, right?
1:28:07
Like getting educated is so great, but it could be so
1:28:09
overwhelming because you have so many people out there saying
1:28:12
different things and conflicting things and you don't know what
1:28:15
to do. And so to have that person to
1:28:18
just look at you as an individual and be like, OK,
1:28:19
well, maybe this isn't right. Like for example, fasting, I get
1:28:22
questions about that a lot. Fasting is not right for you
1:28:25
because this or it could be right for you because of this
1:28:28
reason. But I think what women need to
1:28:31
understand is that it can feel overwhelming at times because
1:28:35
you feel like there's a lot happening in your body.
1:28:38
There's a lot of symptoms going on and you almost feel like
1:28:40
you're like, wow, where do I even start?
1:28:42
But I would say where you start is listening because don't be
1:28:47
afraid of symptoms. It's your body trying to tell
1:28:51
you something and you've just been ignoring it.
1:28:53
You've been pushing it aside for a very long time.
1:28:56
So often I ask patients, well, what do you think is at the root
1:29:01
of this? And they already know you do,
1:29:05
you know, and they get kind of go, well, you know, I have this
1:29:10
going on and I know that this is a big piece of it right now.
1:29:12
Or they go, I, I eat so much sugar and like, I just don't
1:29:16
want to like break up with sugar.
1:29:17
I don't want to break up. It's like they know what to do.
1:29:21
Sometimes they just like even me, sometimes I know what to do.
1:29:23
But I have a naturopath myself and I'm like, I need you to tell
1:29:25
me what to do. But you do have this
1:29:28
intuitiveness that I feel like women have just disconnected
1:29:31
from so much. And it's so powerful because
1:29:36
like you ever have somebody tell you you something of like, well,
1:29:39
you know, I think you need to eat this way or you need to take
1:29:43
this supplement or you need to do this.
1:29:44
And then you sit with and you go, I don't know, I don't, I
1:29:47
don't, it doesn't resonate with me.
1:29:49
Like I don't feel like I should be doing that because.
1:29:51
And you need to listen to that intuitiveness.
1:29:54
And like, I'll even have patients who come to me and be
1:29:56
like, you know what? I, I started these supplements,
1:29:57
but I didn't take this and because I just felt like it was
1:30:00
too much or I didn't need it or I just felt off when I had it.
1:30:04
And I was like, OK, and I don't force them to take it.
1:30:06
I go, great, listen to that because your intuitiveness is
1:30:09
more powerful than anything. It's the same with motherhood,
1:30:13
right? So listen to your bodies.
1:30:16
And, you know, work is there. Of course life is there, but
1:30:19
there has to be time where you're connecting to your body,
1:30:23
right? And we just fail to do that so
1:30:24
much. And to your point, I think
1:30:26
starting today is like, if you don't do it on your own time, it
1:30:30
usually is something that becomes something on your To Do
1:30:34
List because it's been forced in that way.
1:30:36
Like I think my my burnout flares, my burnout flares were
1:30:39
going, my stress factors were going long before I had heavy
1:30:43
symptoms and ended up like in someone's office.
1:30:45
But that was because I physically like was like, I
1:30:48
can't, I can't function like it was at a point where my body was
1:30:51
like, OK, well, if you're not going to listen, then we're
1:30:53
going to stop you. And I think that as women, it
1:30:56
shouldn't need us to be completely halted in a certain
1:31:00
area before looking at this. And I think one of the parts of
1:31:03
health in general is that many people don't, I think, take
1:31:08
enough of a perspective of being proactive, which to your point
1:31:10
today, like there's so much you can do in a proactive nature.
1:31:14
We don't necessarily need to have to get to a place of
1:31:16
struggling with fertility before we start to ask these questions
1:31:19
or we don't need to start to, you know, get to a place of
1:31:22
being completely burnt out before we ask.
1:31:24
OK, It's so weird. I actually haven't been sleeping
1:31:26
for like 3 weeks. So I think it's also like for
1:31:29
me, my motto with health, which was kind of the core of what I,
1:31:32
I'm now. And it's just like getting
1:31:34
curious, getting curious to your body, getting curious to your
1:31:36
symptoms, getting curious about, to your point, information
1:31:40
that's out there and like, take what lands, maybe leave what
1:31:43
doesn't. But I think even just to your
1:31:45
point, like tuning and getting curious, the crazy part is to
1:31:48
your point, you know, like when I was stressed and they're like,
1:31:51
so tell me about your lifestyle. And I'm like Oh my God am I
1:31:52
gonna have to tell her about my 4 coffees today?
1:31:54
Like I don't. I don't know.
1:31:56
Nobody. Ever.
1:31:57
Wants because they're afraid that the practitioner is going
1:31:59
to tell them they can't have it right.
1:32:00
Yeah, exactly. But.
1:32:02
Yeah, to your point, it's about investigating, and I think
1:32:05
that's a beautiful thing. Don't have No Fear, right?
1:32:08
Let the fear go around fertility, around aging, around
1:32:11
perimenopause. Let it go.
1:32:13
Use it as an opportunity to get to know your body, get to know
1:32:16
as much as possible, because that is so empowering.
1:32:19
And then you're going to know what serves you and what
1:32:21
doesn't. Yeah, so good.
1:32:24
Today was a master class in Women's Health.
1:32:26
So good. I'm like, I'm gonna come back
1:32:27
and listen to this. It's just.
1:32:28
So good. I feel like we could talk
1:32:29
forever, no? Totally, totally.
1:32:32
I'm like Part 2, Part 3, and there's so much.
1:32:35
I just wanna fully just be transparent, you guys.
1:32:37
Like if you go to Jess's stuff, there's so much too that we did
1:32:41
not even get into, like we didn't even touch deeply on
1:32:43
metabolism today. Like there's so many other
1:32:46
things that you are connected to this that I know many of you are
1:32:49
interested in. So with that being said,
1:32:51
Jessica, someone who obviously wants to just learn more about
1:32:55
what it is that you do potentially even work with you
1:32:57
privately or just yeah, like learn more in extension of
1:33:00
today's conversation, where is the best place for them to reach
1:33:03
out to you for them to find? You, yeah.
1:33:04
So the best place would be through my website.
1:33:06
I mean, my website is very fertility focused.
1:33:09
Obviously I see everything from in Women's Health and even in
1:33:13
men's health and I do some longevity and detoxification and
1:33:16
digestion and all the things. So my website is very heavily
1:33:19
focused on fertility. However, you'll find out a lot
1:33:22
about me there and you know who I am, my journey, but also how
1:33:26
to connect with me. I have my online programs
1:33:29
through there as well. So I have some online fertility
1:33:32
programs that are very easy for couples to navigate and follow,
1:33:36
but very evidence based and intuitive based and has some
1:33:39
great information. If you can also connect with me
1:33:42
through Instagram, I would say it's probably not the best way
1:33:44
to book an appointment. That would definitely be, you
1:33:47
know, emailing me through my website.
1:33:49
However, you know, if you're looking for just a lot of tips
1:33:51
and information, I put a lot out on my Instagram account and I'm
1:33:55
sure you'll link that in the show notes.
1:33:57
But that's where I am probably most of the time.
1:34:00
Like, I haven't think I've updated my website and I don't
1:34:02
even know how long. Again, something else on the To
1:34:04
Do List, you know, but it's unfortunately on the back burner
1:34:08
at the moment. So yeah.
1:34:11
Amazing. Yeah, today was so, so good.
1:34:13
And I'd highly recommend even just as a side note, guys, if
1:34:15
you're you're listening to this and you're like this part of the
1:34:17
conversation really landed for me or, you know, that was an
1:34:20
insight that I really needed or that was something I'm really
1:34:22
surprised that I learned. I also just want to invite you
1:34:25
if you just want to send Jess Adm on Instagram and say, hey, I
1:34:28
was listening to the show. This landed for me.
1:34:30
This was a piece I didn't know, you know, as always, when we're
1:34:34
able to kind of like be witness in the breakthrough, I really do
1:34:36
think that it lands on such a deeper level.
1:34:38
So with that being said, today was so good.
1:34:41
Jess, thank you so much for coming on.
1:34:42
This was awesome. Thank you.
1:34:43
I'm so excited to come back and listen and obviously love every
1:34:46
part of this show, so thank you so much for having me.
1:34:49
It was on, It was awesome. It was great.
1:34:52
Thank you. I have a lot of girls that need
1:34:53
to share this with now. So please be as a last piece,
1:34:57
feel free to open and share this with anybody else in your world
1:35:00
as well, who maybe is a woman who's dealing with any of the
1:35:03
things that we navigate today. You know, we talked all things
1:35:05
Women's Health and I don't think there's probably a single woman
1:35:08
in your world that doesn't need to listen to this conversation,
1:35:11
so feel free to share that as well.
1:35:13
But with all that being said, we'll see you on next Piece
1:35:15
episode. And as always, stay officious.