Top 8 Tips for Healthy
Happy Hormones
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April 26, 2023 - Episode #115 - Top 8 Tips for Healthy Happy Hormones
Inability to lose weight, low energy, brain fog, bathroom issues, low libido, dry skin, pain, insomnia, hot flashes, depression, wanting to just isolate…..these are just a few symptoms of hormone imbalance. Not even a comprehensive list! The subject of hormone imbalance is a big one and today I’m giving you the top 8 tips to help promote happy hormones. I know you are tired of being on the struggle bus. Let’s talk healthy happy hormones today on the Healthy Harmony podcast. This is a quick podcast that gives you an overview of the the top tips that can help contribute to healthy, happy hormones. These things are absolutely foundational before you explore any next steps. I'm listing the 8 tips and additional podcast references here for your convenience. I've got your back girl!
It's a big, huge subject but I hope you see how crucial it is to have a foundation for balanced hormones. And yes, as you heard I'm continuing my education and will be a hormone specialist after completing my 6-month mentorship. As I learn, you are going to learn too! Come on this journey with me! Here's to happy, healthy hormones in harmony! SEE BELOW FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT
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TRANSCRIPT (00:08): Inability to lose weight, low energy, brain fog, bathroom issues, low libido, dry skin pain, insomnia, hot flashes, depression, just wanting to isolate. Hey, this is just a few symptoms of hormone imbalance, not even a comprehensive list. The subject of hormone imbalance is a big one. And today I'm giving you the top eight tips to promote happy hormones. I know you're tired of being on the struggle bus. Let's talk healthy, happy hormones today on the Healthy Harmony podcast. (00:46): Hey friend, welcome to the Healthy Harmony Podcast. Simple holistic wellness for women. I'm your host, Jennifer Pickett, dietitian turned functional medicine health coach. When it comes to your wellbeing, do you know what to do but have a hard time actually doing it? Have you sacrificed your own health for the sake of taking care of everyone else? Are you tired and overwhelmed? But also, are you looking for answers ready to take a small step? Holistic wellness doesn't have to be time consuming or overly complicated. In this podcast, you will discover simple tips to help you take control of your overall wellness. I want to help you make a shift from knowing what to do to actually doing it. If you are ready to feel better, make healthier decisions, address the obstacles, standing in your way and live a life of freedom and harmony, my friend, you are in the right place. (01:51): So I have a special announcement. This is really cool. As a coach, I have a private practice and I also work for a functional medicine doctor and see her clients. So I'm talking to a lot of people and I will tell you that a vast majority of my clients are women. So I hear the struggles, I hear those nightmare stories, and I hear how they've been dismissed by the traditional healthcare system. Everyone is concerned about hormone balance and that everyone includes me. I turn 49 in September of this year, and as I have dove into the research on hormones for myself and for others, I have seen that I'm just not prepared. There is so much controversy and so much conflicting info. So I'm doing something about it. I'm continuing my education. I love to learn, and yes, I need this for myself and I need it for you. (02:58): I need it for my clients. So I have just embarked on a hormone mentorship with two experts that I highly, highly respect. So at the end of six months, I'll be a hormone specialist, specifically a mastering midlife hormone specialist, and I'll be able to provide hormone testing and interpretation of the, of the testing to my clients. I have to tell you I'm blown away at what I'm learning so far, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm getting angry. I'm sitting here studying and listening to the lectures and working through the material, and I'm getting angry. I am ticked off. Do you know why? Because this information should be mainstream. I should know about this. You should know about this. Women have suffered needlessly for years and years and I'm ticked off about it. So stay tuned, my friend, as I'm learning, guess what you're gonna learn cuz I'm gonna teach you and guide you. So I'm excited to kind of continue my educational journey so that I can be a wonderful source of encouragement and education for you. (04:24): So when my clients ask me how do I balance my hormones, there is not a simple or a straightforward answer, it's just a lot more involved that than what most people realize. So because this is such a big subject, we're going to start with what is absolutely foundational. Meaning you cannot really move forward with happy hormones until you take care of these things. Now, I'm gonna be blunt with you because I'm not a good friend to you if I don't tell you this stuff. So some of this stuff, at first, you're gonna wanna just write off and be like, okay, Jennifer, you've said that before. I know that. But really, listen, really consider and consider where you're at with your health journey and what needs to change. Okay? So let's get started. The top eight tips for healthy, happy hormones. Number one, ditch the toxins. (05:25): You have got to reduce your toxic burden. You need to look at all the products you're using and I mean all of them. And start to consider, okay, how toxic is this? Is this a cleaner product or is this a dirty, toxic chemical field product? So I wanna reference you to a podcast that I did with Dr. Peter Kozlowski, Dr. Koz, that was back in December. I will link that here. Go back and listen to that. It was a two-part series just on toxins and what that's doing to the body. But let me tell you, so many of these products that we're using every single day are disrupting your hormones. They contain endocrine disruptors. So one of my favorite resources is called E W g dot org. That is that EWG stands for Environmental Working Group. And so you can use that website ewg.org to put in a product, see how clean or dirty and toxic it is or you can use the app E W G Healthy Living. (06:30): This seems to be the most reputable app out there and it is very, very insightful. So check that out. Number two, show your adrenal glands some love. Yep, your adrenal glands. You have to support your adrenal glands. This is a gland that is responsible for a lot, but what you have probably heard of is cortisol production. It's a very important gland. It is part of the H P A axis, which is a hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis, which is absolutely crucial. Most women have dysfunction in this h p A axis and it is coming through. They feel it. Okay? So we call this and we typically call this adrenal fatigue, adrenal dysfunction. And we have got to start paying attention because when you have adrenal fatigue, it doesn't just affect your hormones, it affects your entire health. So just some simple tips to show your adrenals some love, make sure you're managing stress. (07:37): Get some sleep, make sure you're getting some electrolytes and decrease your caffeine intake and your alcohol intake. So show your adrenal glands some love. Number three, fix your fork. Yep, I said it. Fix your fork by focusing on smart nutrition. Fix what's on the end of your fork. Yes, you need to be focusing on real whole foods. You've heard me say it over and over and over again, and you need protein. You're not getting enough protein. You've gotta get more protein into your diet. So protein from meats and eggs. And you get a, you get some from dairy products and you're getting it from nuts and seeds. So get some protein. You desperately need it for good, healthy, happy hormones. Number four, have a reason to use the happy poop emoji daily. Yep. Here we go again. I know you're thinking, Jennifer, why do you always talk about poop? (08:38): Well, because so many of you are struggling with it. I've struggled with it. It's a big deal. So you need a reason to use a happy poop emoji daily. You've got to make sure you're pooping. So when it comes to hormone balance, we have something in our gut. It's known as the estroblome. And this is how we metabolize and eliminate estrogens. It is very, very important. So gut health and hormone balance go hand in hand. If you are not pooping and it is sitting there, that stool is sitting there. You're reabsorbing toxins, you're reabsorbing. Those, the estrogens and it's metabolites that should be discarded. You're reabsorbing those. So again, big subject just did a podcast on poop, of course. So I will reference that here in case you missed it. (09:34): Number five, pump some iron. Yep, pump some iron. You've gotta get in strength training. As women, I think sometimes we're so focused on losing weight and we're really trying to hit the cardio and that can be a disaster for our adrenal glands, number one. Number two sometimes I think we're concerned about bulking up. You really do need strength training. So this can be resistance, exercise, body weights but also like body weight exercises, but also just pumping some iron, getting in those workouts with weights and strength training. It's just so very, very valuable and it is so important and needed to build muscle mass. You need that because there's a correlation between really good muscle mass and hormone balance. Number six, lose the booze. Oh god, this is a tough one. Okay, so it is so important that we start to look at this. (10:32): We have got to either decrease or eliminate alcohol. And it is a, it's a tough area. It is wrought with controversy. And I have seen that alcohol is such a trap and it took me being very, very mindful with myself and kind of being honest with myself and admitting, okay, I'm using alcohol to cope with my stress, to deal with my emotions. And that is not a healthy coping mechanism. Alcohol is very, very disruptive to our body's efficiency. So what happens is when we drink, our body is solely focused on how to deal with that toxicity that we just put in. So you're not gonna get good sleep and and your body is not gonna be working efficiently. So this is something as women, we've really gotta be very mindful of. So it's important that we ditch that nightly glass or two of wine because it's a trap and we are really harming our health and harming our hormones. (11:39): Number seven, face it and deal with it. You have to address your mental and emotional health. Did you know your body stores up trauma? It does. And so there might be something there might, you might be having health problems because there's something in your past that you haven't dealt with and I'm sure it was awful to go through and you're thinking, I don't know that I can face that again. But it's important to realize we're understanding a lot more about trauma and how the body stores that up. And I will tell you that it's never easy to do, but it's so important for us to address mental and emotional health, to get some help, get counseling. And we have to realize that we cannot separate our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. We cannot separate those things. It really all goes together. (12:35): So again, this is a really big, huge subject and we're gonna be tackling that subject in May. So stay tuned for that. Number eight, prioritize sleep. How many times have you heard me say this? You're sacrificing sleep to be productive and you're shooting yourself in the foot. So when we don't prioritize sleep, when we're not getting good sleep, first of all, it, it feels impossible to make good healthy decisions. You crave sweets you're hungrier the next day. But this is very disruptive to your blood sugar balance, which blood sugar balance is related to hormone balance. It's very disruptive to your gut microbiome and it's very disruptive. Your body is not fully detoxifying. You have got to detoxify. A toxic body is gonna be a body that is very resistant to any kind of health change working efficiently and is not gonna have good hormone balance, hormonal rhythm. (13:35): So these are the things that you have to do First, let me recap those for you. Those are eight things. Number one, we talked about ditching the toxins. Number two, show your adrenal gland some love. Number three, fix your fork. Yep, smart nutrition. Number four, have a reason to use a happy poop emoji daily. Number five, pump some iron. Number six, lu booze. Number seven, face it and deal with it, talking about mental and emotional health. And number eight, prioritize sleep. So for most of these topics right here, I've got fantastic podcasts that you can reference and go back and listen to. Or it might be one that you missed. So I will make sure to reference those in the show notes so you can go back and listen to some of those as as we take a deeper dive. My intention today, which is to kind of give you an overview of, hey, here's what you need to optimize. (14:30): If you're concerned about your hormones, if you're a woman, you should be concerned about your hormones. Okay? So this is all of you, every single one of you. So these are the things that you need to do. First, you address this first, and I know you're thinking, but I do that Jennifer. I think think I do all of those things. I'm gonna kindly ask you, do you really, have you really optimized all eight of those areas or are you just in survival mode and you're just, you just really need to get back to the basics. Get back to the basics first. Become very, very mindful and self-aware. That way you know where you need to go. As you become very mindful and self-aware, you might quickly realize oh goodness, I know I'm not pooping daily. And you know what? I've been drinking a good bit. (15:30): I need to make some changes. So again, being mindful and self-aware is always the first step. And it can be hard at first to be honest with yourself cuz there can be some, some guilt and some shame that enter in there. But show yourself some grace. You cannot go back. You can't do anything about yesterday or last week or last month. You can do things differently moving forward. So these are the basics that we've gotta cover so we can optimize our health. By the way, a quick note as you're listening to this and thinking, okay, here's what I need to do. Please understand no one has it all together. So as you look on social media, as you look at your friends, as you look at these influencers that are out there, realize no one has it all together. I promise you they don't. If they have certain areas of their life, their health that they've really nailed down, that's awesome. (16:26): But I promise you there are other areas that they need to work on. So we're all on a journey, okay? None of us have arrived. We are all struggling. And I promise you I'm hearing those stories. So just realize that nobody has it all together. Here's what you need to know. Once you have a really good foundation and you have you've really gone after these eight tips that we discussed today then you might discover, Hey, I need to seek some additional support. I need to get the proper testing with the Dutch test, the Dutch test. I need to go to the right expert so I can get the help I need. Okay? But you've gotta optimize these things first. So these things absolutely have gotta be addressed first thank you for joining me today. I appreciate it. I love hearing back from you. (17:25): So keep the feedback the reviews coming. It does mean a lot. I know you're out there, but when I hear from you I'm like, oh my goodness. So it warms my heart and it provides me really good motivation to keep going cuz this is a lot. This is a lot of work. I'm not gonna lie. So just for instance, today was a very long coaching day and then I gave myself a short break, went outside, talked to Libby and Roux my two doodles and then got right back to work on the podcast. So I wanna make sure I continue to give really good content for you to help you learn and help you grow and help you become your own best advocate. But it is a lot of work. So it does mean a lot to me when you give me some feedback when you write that written review, when you give me that five star rating, that just kind of provides that encouragement to keep going. (18:19): And two, I know that tells me what resonates with you and that's so very valuable. So anyway, just kind of wonder. That's a side note. So thank you so much for joining me. You're gonna keep hearing these hot topics from me. Speaking of, May is Mental Health Month and my next podcast is gonna be a really good one. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a tough one cuz it's a tough subject. My guest is my 18 year old daughter Madeline. And we're gonna be discussing mental and emotional health in teenagers. So Maddie is a really good communicator and we've had to really, really learn and grow from our struggles. So we're just gonna be real open and honest about that and just kinda lay it all out there. So if you have kids of any age, this will be a must listen for you. Until then, you take care of you. Bye friend. |
