Ep. 177: 5 hacks to balance hormones fast, with Dr. Kela Smith

When it comes to balancing reproductive hormones, it’s hard to know where to start. There are so many things that impact our women’s health and wellness. I’ve invited Dr. Kela Smith, a holistic integrative fertility and hormone doctor, to share 5 effective strategies for balancing women's hormones. Dr. Kela shares her personal journey with infertility and the foundational principles she developed to help women achieve hormonal balance.. We discuss her top 5 suggestions, her unique “puzzle method” for addressing underlying health issues, and the importance of honoring the whole person (and not just their physical health). This is the perfect episode to start with when looking for realistic, manageable ways to begin prioritizing your reproductive health. 

NOTE: This episode is appropriate for all audiences.

GUEST BIO: Dr. Kela Smith is a Holistic-Integrative Fertility and Hormone Doctor and the founder of The Hormone Puzzle Society, where she helps women and couples solve their infertility puzzles and achieve healthy pregnancies through her signature Hormone P.U.Z.Z.L.E Method. Dr. Kela also hosts The Hormone Puzzle Podcast.

More to explore:
www.hormonepuzzlesociety.com 

IG: Kela_healthcoach

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Ep. 57: Why & How Gut Health Affects Fertility, with Chiara Estes, RD

Ep. 113: Inflammation's Impact on Women's Health & Fertility, with Chiara Estes, RD

Transcript

Caitlin Estes (00:00)
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. When it comes to balancing women's health hormones, it can be a really complex process. There are so many factors that come together to help us feel and function our best, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some things that we can do that will have a positive impact more quickly than So I've invited Dr. Kela to join us to chat about five ways she knows of to help women balance their hormones fast.

Dr. Kela Smith is a board certified holistic integrative fertility and hormone doctor, bestselling author, global speaker and host of the hormone puzzle podcast. Dr. Kela, welcome to the show.

Dr. Kela Smith (00:37)
Thanks, Caitlin. I'm excited to be here.

Caitlin Estes (00:40)
I'm excited to have you. Now you have your own podcast and more. I've been ⁓ honored to be a guest on that podcast in the past, but for our listeners who may not know you, would you share a little bit about how you got into your work or why it matters so much to you?

Dr. Kela Smith (00:57)
Sure, so I'm Dr. Kela Smith and I started my company out of my own personal struggle with infertility and being really frustrated with conventional medicine. I was 36 at the time and I was told my only option to get pregnant was IVF because I had unexplained infertility and that just didn't sit well with me. I said on one hand you say I'm unexplained but then you're giving me a medical procedure to do something my body should be able to do naturally.

So that was the turning point where I said, I'm going to figure this out. And that's exactly what I did. I dove into research and I figured out what my body need to work optimally, how to balance my hormones, how to do it fast. And I ended up getting pregnant not once, but twice. Now I have two healthy children who are 12 and nine. And I started my practice with a newborn and a two year old. And I help women and couples all over the world solve this issue and get pregnant as well.

So that's a little bit about me. And as you said earlier, I have a podcast, I have a bunch of books, I've been in this industry for a really long time and I've helped a lot of people with this issue.

Caitlin Estes (02:00)
Well, when we hear balancing hormones, that's such a general statement. You know, it can mean so many things to so many people. Maybe we can start by you giving a little crash course in what hormones are and what we mean by balancing them.

Dr. Kela Smith (02:16)
Sure, so hormones are just chemical messengers that tell your body what to do and how to respond to certain stimuli. And when we balance them, it basically means just everything is in homeostasis. It's working the way that it should. And how we balance them, we're going to get into that in a minute, but it's basically giving the body everything it needs as far as nutrition, the right supplements, the right lifestyle pieces.

so that it can work at an optimal level and everything is kind of humming along as it should.

Caitlin Estes (02:51)
I like the word homeostasis because sometimes I think we hear balancing hormones and we think they're supposed to be even with each other and that's really not the case but we need them to be able to play off of one another in the right time during the right

phases of the cycle. And so ⁓ I'm really interested in what you're going to say because as we were talking about recording together, you tease that you have like five hacks for balancing hormones fast. And I know our listeners would love to hear them. So what have you found to be helpful?

Dr. Kela Smith (03:25)
Sure, so the first piece is give yourself grace. This is a lifestyle, this is not a quick fix. So do what you can, but don't stress about what you can't. so that's the first piece. The second piece is look at your foundational pieces. Before you go get a bunch of tests that are gonna cost a lot of money and you take a bunch of supplements and even do some hormone replacement, let's make sure our foundations are laid first.

Caitlin Estes (03:38)
Mm.

Dr. Kela Smith (03:54)
So I created something called the hormone puzzle, which is the six foundational pieces that you should focus on. And I know we don't have a lot of time here, so I'm just gonna briefly touch on this. But it's P is our proper whole food nutrition. U is understanding supplements. What am I taking? Do I need it? Do I not need it? Z is zapping stress, really looking at the pieces that cause stress in your life, or moving them or working with them. Z, the second Z is Z's or sleep.

Caitlin Estes (04:03)
Yeah.

Dr. Kela Smith (04:23)
Making sure you're optimizing and prioritizing your sleep. L is love and encouragement. E is exercise and environment. Making sure you're clearing clear of environmental toxins and your environment that you live in is safe and serene. So that's the second piece. The foundations are laid. The third piece.

Caitlin Estes (04:31)
Hmm ⁓

Dr. Kela Smith (04:43)
blood sugar. This is one I feel doesn't get a lot of attention or play, but blood sugar is one of the key pieces in balancing hormones. So how do we balance our blood sugar? We make sure that we're eating healthy fats and enough protein with every meal. We're eating enough food at every meal. I find so many women are running around like crazy and they're not eating enough and they're not eating consistently. So

and the other piece of blood sugar is hydration. So just making sure that you're balancing and causing your blood sugar to be, you know, ⁓ stable throughout the day.

Number four is have a support network. You can't have optimal health if the people you surround yourself are not supporting you. So make sure you have a good partner connection, whether that's with your husband or your partner. Make sure you have good friends and family and a good support system around you personally, but also professionally. Have a nutritionist or a dietician on board. Have a functional medicine doctor.

have these practitioners who are experts who can support you through this healing journey and as you're balancing your hormones. And the fifth piece is if you're doing all of these things and you're still having symptoms that are more than just minor annoyances, then that's when we need to look a little further.

Do we need to do some basic blood work? Do we need to look into functional lab testing? Do we need to find if there's a root cause, maybe a toxin issue or a gut issue or something that is causing your hormones to be out of balance? That foundational pieces alone are not going to be able to fix. And so those are really the five pieces that I would recommend to balance those hormones fast.

Caitlin Estes (06:27)
I love every one of those. think they're so important. And I especially appreciate the fact that you talk about those being balanced fast. And so probably when people listen or clicked on this, you know, download the episode, they're thinking, ⁓ it's going to be five supplements that I need to take or this one medication that I need to start, taking. And it's really so much easier than that. In a way, we think about

taking a supplement as being an easy solution, but it's actually, when you think about it, taking care of yourself, making sure that you have that foundation there to support yourself, to feel at peace, to feel confident, that's gonna help you right now and in the long term too. And I love that you started out with giving yourself grace. That's so important.

Dr. Kela Smith (07:18)
Definitely. And too to piggyback on that, you can't out supplement a bad diet and lifestyle. So no supplement in the world is going to fix things unless you lay those foundations.

Caitlin Estes (07:26)
Yes.

Yes, but you're going to see results from doing the five things that you just talked about. There will be improvement. If those are areas in your life that just like as she's saying them, you're like, yeah, I don't do that. yeah, I don't have that. I don't have that. Then you are going to see results from focusing on those five things. And so it is really important. I especially love to the blood sugar focus because that is something we talk about a ton.

on Woven Well, we have so many episodes, we'll try to link a couple of them but a lot of times women don't know that they have blood sugar regulation issues because they're not diabetic or pre-diabetic and that's all that their medical professional has tested for them. Would you say that's important for every woman to balance her blood sugar and be thinking about that or only those who already have a diagnosis?

Dr. Kela Smith (08:21)
Every woman, every person should be balancing their blood sugar. Yes. mean, your blood sugar, your glucose is what we pull from the food we eat and that's what gives your body energy. It gives your body the energy to do all of its processes, to make the hormones, balance the hormones. So it is a really key foundational piece that every person in the world should be doing.

Caitlin Estes (08:42)
Absolutely. Now you gave us a little bit of a sneak peek at the hormone puzzle method that you have, and I'm glad you did. I want to talk about that for just a second because I agree with you that it's important to have those basic things established first. And then if there's a need to do more beyond that, then of course you have the opportunity to do that. ⁓ I would...

probably add another letter, which would be something for cycle charting. I haven't come up with what that letter would be because I think it's so helpful to be able to see it and track the changes really. I think a lot of times when women begin charting their cycles, maybe through the Creighton model system, which is what we teach or some other things, they'll see their cycles on paper. Maybe they're surprised. Maybe it's what they're used to. But what they don't often think about is as they go through treatment or

your hormone puzzle method or whatever it is that they're going through, the goal is to start seeing actual changes on the chart. The cycles to improve, the periods to be healthier, the cervical mucus to be stronger, the length of the luteal phase to be really strong and healthy with that good progesterone. So if you found that women who go through your puzzle method

need additional treatment, more specialized treatment the majority of the time, or how often do you find that being a sufficient thing for them as they're trying to get these hormones balanced?

Dr. Kela Smith (10:12)
Yeah, I mean it really just depends on where they start. Some people come in and they're already doing a lot of those things and they're still, you know, having symptoms of hormone imbalance or they're still not getting pregnant. So for those people, I would say you don't want to stop doing the foundations, but you might need a little bit more just based on where you've come in at.

On the other side of that, sometimes people come to me and they're not doing hardly any of those things. You know, maybe they're eating a standard American diet. They're not drinking enough water. They're working and, you know, kind of burning the candle at both ends. And so for those people, sometimes just putting those foundations in is enough to move that needle into the positive to where they are like, oh my gosh, my period's gotten better. My my, you know, we're getting pregnant. We're

Caitlin Estes (10:38)
Yeah.

Dr. Kela Smith (10:57)
minimizing all these hormone symptoms and so sometimes that's enough but it really depends on where they start as far as how much protocol or support they need.

Caitlin Estes (11:07)
Yeah, that's great. starting with nutrition is such a great place for everyone because we think about things like inflammation and not getting enough protein. You mentioned an example of someone who needs to eat more actually more calories, more nutrition. I had a client just very recently who her registered dietitian who is somebody who's been on our podcast before and I respect deeply almost doubled.

amount of calories that she should be eating a day and her chart just like came alive. Her cervical mucus is amazing like her period is really healthy less brown bleeding like so many things changed and she's a very healthy person. She prioritizes her health, her exercise, what she eats, what she drinks but it just goes to show that

You really need tailored individualized guidance. It's not just what you find online or Instagram or things like that, but something that's specific to you. Have you found that to be true?

Dr. Kela Smith (12:08)
I have definitely and I find so many times too people think they're eating healthy and they're eating enough but we're so inundated with things to remove. You should go low carb. You should go low fat. You should cut this food group or that food group and before you know it you're not eating enough and food is a building block for hormones especially our cholesterol and our fats. So if we're not eating enough we don't have the building blocks to make these hormones and then that's when

Caitlin Estes (12:26)
Yes.

Dr. Kela Smith (12:35)
things can go awry. So definitely I see this a lot within my practice and it was my personal story too. I had HA that was undiagnosed and I didn't realize it and one of the pieces was I wasn't eating enough and I was over training. And so I think this happens a lot and it's a big, a big issue I see.

Caitlin Estes (12:52)
Yes, and you feel like you're being healthy. You know, you're probably exercising, working out, trying to stay healthy, but we really need to care for our bodies. We need to nourish ourselves as a part of this whole process, which is why one of the things in your puzzle program was the connecting emotionally with your spouse or your partner, like having that kind of deep support and relationship there. And I love the perspective that we are.

Dr. Kela Smith (12:55)
Thank you. ⁓

Caitlin Estes (13:19)
whole people, know, I would say designed by God as whole people, physical, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And so we want to honor those different aspects of our creation and care for each one. So this is not just a medical situation. This is not just a physical situation, but it is emotional. It is mental. It is spiritual as well.

Dr. Kela Smith (13:41)
Yeah, all of it. I think that's such an important piece and that's why I included it into the puzzle method because I do, feel like the people you surround yourself, you need to have love and encouragement and support. But also another piece we haven't touched on is that's including yourself. You need to love yourself and encourage yourself and really support yourself internally as well as externally.

Caitlin Estes (14:04)
Yeah, and that was the first of your hacks was to give yourself grace as you start through this process. And I think that that starts from acknowledging your own dignity, you know, that you've got that dignity just because you're a human being. so acknowledging that honoring that and, you know, sharing that love with yourself is really important too

All right, well maybe go through the five hacks one more time, just very quickly summarizing those for us. And then we'll kind of close out for today.

Dr. Kela Smith (14:37)
Sure, so one, give yourself grace. Two, focus on the foundations, the puzzle method, if you need an easy acronym to remember the foundations. Three, balance your blood sugar every day. Four, have a good support network around you within your community and with your spouse. And five, if you've done all of these things and you still need additional support, look at doing further testing.

get a functional medicine doctor and do some foundational labs.

Caitlin Estes (15:08)
Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm definitely going to make sure to have a link to your website and the puzzle method, as well as our other episode together that was on your podcast. I'll put all that in the show notes.

Dr. Kela Smith (15:22)
Perfect. I love it. Well, thank you, Caitlin.

Caitlin Estes (15:26)
Listeners, what do you think of Dr. Kela's hacks? Are these things that you've tried before or have you heard something new or maybe just changed your perspective a little bit about how you think of these things? They're not optional, but they're foundational and that perspective shift can often make a big difference. So we would love to hear if they work for you. Feel free to send us a message through our website at wovenfertility.com.

As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.