#199 - Healing Hashimotos, Women's Health, and More w/ Brandi Bradley

In this episode of Talking Nutrition, Johan is joined by functional health practitioner Brandi Bradley. You'll learn about Brandi's personal journey with Autoimmune Disease (Hashimotos), Thyroid health, women's health, functional testing, and how to find the true root cause of your health issues. Johan and Brandi also discuss gut health, the role of the liver, hormonal birth control, nervous sytem regulation, and much more.

Enjoy this week's episode, and make sure to follow Brandi on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/betterwithcoachb/

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Transcript

0:34

What is up, and welcome back to talk Nutrition. Today, we're back with another guest, Brittany Bradley, what's up? Hello. How are you? Thanks for having me pretty good. Just talked to your sister a couple weeks ago. She was on the podcast as well. Yeah, it was a good podcast. I liked it a lot. Actually, I love what you guys had to say. Awesome. So what I wanted to do is bring you on to talk a little bit more about, like, the functional side of things. I think want to talk to Angelina, for example, like, and I will say for a lot of my clients, to a lot of it is going to be basic lifestyle habits, those kind of things, right? Just not dieting, building muscle, those kind of things. But I'm seeing this more and more. I do think in the US, we do see more cases when it comes to functional issues, whether that's gut, hormonal, those kind of things, but it's popping up here, over in Norway as well, and in Europe. And really it's worldwide, right? We're all in this kind of grinding culture where we just push ourselves. We're under sleep, we die too much. And then we see people struggle with gut issues, losing their menstrual cycle. And I saw a post that you posted up about fertility issues, and, you know, hormonal issues, menstrual cycle, I kind of want to explore that, because a lot of times I don't feel like people are being taken serious by their doctor, and it's just like, Well, are you trying to get pregnant? No, I just got on the pill, and then that's it, you know. But before we dive in, let's actually start with you. Like, who are you? What do you do? Tell us a bit about your own journey as well, because you just told me you had a autoimmune condition yourself as well, right? Yes, yes. So I'm Brandy. I've been a coach on the online space for the last five years. So I was initially coaching women through macro tracking weight loss and things like that. And then i i Just like you, started seeing a lot more issues within the the health industry, where there was weight loss resistance and fatigue and gut issues and so many things that were keeping women from seeing the full success that their their body was was capable of, and and so that kind of led me into the direction of functional coaching, where now I am a hormone and gut health specialist, and I work alongside my practitioners. Actually, I have an I have a team of functional doctors and practitioners and fertility specialists that help support my clients. And yeah, in 2019 I was I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, Hashimotos thyroid autoimmune disease. And at that time, I didn't have too much knowledge about functional coaching or functional medicine, so I was kind of left to my own devices, because I was one of those women who went to doctors offices and pushed back on getting lab work done, and when I did at the time, I did have some knowledge, because I was within the the health industry, in the coaching industry, so I understood that there was more pieces to the puzzle, and so I knew to dig a little bit deeper. I knew what labs to get, but it was really hard to get them, and I had to push and push and push, and finally, when I did get those labs, I was told that I had an autoimmune disorder, and the only recommended solution as my next steps were to Eat Brazil nuts, because they have selenium in them, And to get on levothyroxine. And it was honestly very frustrating, but I also knew that it wasn't the only solution, and so I went on this long journey. Unfortunately, it took me over two years to heal my body because I didn't have the support that I now give to my clients, but I truly am so grateful for the journey that I had to heal my Hashimotos because I only took medication for six months and I came off of it. Have never gone back on it. My thyroid levels have been beautiful for the last four and a half years. So I consider myself, you know, I, in my opinion, when it comes to autoimmune issues, it's an immune disorder, right? And an immune disorder can rise from environmental issues, not necessarily from genetics. My entire family does not have a thyroid issue, does not have autoimmune issues, so it doesn't necessarily run in my family. So we know, right? But Hashimoto is also extremely difficult to diagnose, and most women, over 60% of the population actually is misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed with Hashimotos, because we don't look at those specific markers on lab testing, which is a very unfortunate thing, right? But I truly believe that you shouldn't be, you know, defined by an autoimmune disease, or defined by a diagnosis, because I truly do believe that you can heal the root level to where you can live a life that is in perfect levels with no medications. Because medications are truly things that just Band Aid, fix things and suppress what's going on underneath. So even if you take a medication and you see things. That are are getting better on your lab or lab work. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're you're healing. You're basically just suppressing what's going on and allowing the root cause of those issues to linger and progress until they get worse and worse and worse. And eventually you're going to see the reflection in that, in your in your overall lab. So that's a little bit about me and my journey and what kind of led me here. So that being said, right? So with Hashimotos, it's difficult to diagnose, or at least maybe not if we look at the right things, right? So that would be the antibodies, right, TPO, but any other ones that you looked at and kind of pushed for, like when you kind of knew something was up, yeah, 100% so typically, doctors will only test for TSH. Maybe they'll test for a t4 right? Those are typical ones that you might see, but it's very rare that you'll get a t4 so you want to make sure that you get your TSH wizard, which is not even a thyroid hormone, it's a pituitary hormone, okay? So if stress is playing a role, of course, your TSH might be the first thing that goes out of balance because we're under chronic stress and inflammation, okay, but the to actually understand the functionality of your thyroid, you must get your t4 your t3 which that conversion between t4 into t3 your t3 is your most active form of thyroid hormone. It affects every single cell in your entire body. So if t3 is down regulated for any reason, every cell, cells function down regulates with it. Okay? So we already know that systemically. Now we're having issues in every area of the body, not just the thyroid. This is why we can't treat thyroid in isolation. You have to treat the body as a whole, right? So that conversion happens in the gut and it happens in the liver. So just goes to show that you can't just focus on on the thyroid. You have to also focus on the liver and the gut, because they're they're all connected, right? So I would say TSH, t3, t4, reverse, t3, and then I would also get a TPO in TGA B, so that will test for Hashimotos. And then it will also test for graves, which are both thyroid autoimmune issues as well. I've seen it so many times where it's already pulling teeth here in Norway to get labs. I mean, we have a different healthcare system, you know. So I will say this, right, if we are a little lucky with a doctor and they're helpful, they'll just pull it. But basically how it works, like we'll go, we'll pay a flat fee, basically, which is really not that much, and we can request labs if we want to, but then it's like the doctor almost they just generally want to have a good reason to test for it. You know what I mean, which is fair. I do understand that as well, and you know, they're working with resources from the government. But even for me, I was like, Hey, I'm just interested. I'm not worried about anything. I'm just trying to optimize my health, and I want to learn more. Learn more, you know. So I was like, could we check, you know, this, this and this, you know, lipids, those kind of things, and my testosterone, and they didn't want to check it. And I was like, Okay, well, it's kind of interesting, because it is the most important hormone that makes a man to man, right? Yes, and like, he just didn't want to test it. And I pushed again. And the next time again, these are his exact words. I still fucking i So again, I'm back. You know, I asked, Hey, can we check it this time? You know, I'm just really curious, and I don't really understand why we wouldn't check because it's an important hormone. And I kind of made some things up, right? Because I told him, like, Yo, I have low energy and no sex drive. And I was like, maybe then, you know? And he's like, No, we don't really test it unless you have, what was this word, unless you've used anabolic steroids or you have bitch tits, wow. So I just laughed. I was like, Well, never mind, you know, like, I've been able to get your testosterone tested. Yeah, I changed my doctor, and they pulled it perfect, but it was fine, you know, it was high. It was fine. But that just goes to show, like it's already pulling teeth, um, vitamin D, right? Didn't want to test for it. I live in a place where we don't get any sunlight for two months straight, and even now, it's already kind of like, you know, bad weather, those kind of things. So it's like, it's important. They didn't want to test. I'm like, Okay, why not? Well, it's pretty important for us, right? Yeah, but are you supplementing? I was like, Yeah, generally, yeah. I think should be good. Okay, well, should be right. But kind of going back to thyroid, because I've seen this so many times, they might get a TSH, maybe a t4 if we're lucky, but we still don't know. I even had a client who had his thyroid gland removed, just in case, because his and this was really sad, because his brother had thyroid cancer, and they thought maybe he did as well. Ended up just not being the case. Then he was put on, I think only t4 but then, from a lifestyle standpoint, I knew there was a lot to fix. Also, right? I could tell right lifestyle was definitely a mess, but I'm like, Look dude, like, I get it, but we still don't know what's happening with t3 we still don't know what's happening with reverse t3 we don't know if you have antibodies, right? And these are important things to test, because why are you on medication that's supposed to lead to a certain result, but we're not tracking the results, right? Which is, it's just wild. It's, it's tricky. Luckily, now I see some more, you know, private lab options, those kind of things, you know, which it will say, you guys, it's a lot easier in the US, for my clients to get labs pulled, because we just go to a lab core, you know, much better. Yeah, well, there's a lot of online options now that can actually get testing sent to your home, like the testing that we do for metabolic work is is sent to my client's home, and they get to just do a simple blood prick on the finger, and they get to ship it back, so they don't even have to go to labs and get their actual blood drawn and things like that, which is really cool. So there's a lot of there's a lot more opportunity when you know what's available. But that's the problem, right? Is that our clients don't know what's available to them. They don't have access, like, actual easy access, to these types of testing. And even when they do there, there can be sites where it's like, 300 different types of tests, and they're like, What do I even need? And some people actually over test at the beginning, and they get way too many answers where they're like, Okay, now you get metabolic now you get thyroid, and now you're also getting sex hormones, and all of it is just too much, too soon, because if we bombard the body as a whole, right out, right out the gate, then we're not going to have the success that we need to because if systems in the Body, like liver are under regulated and underperforming. Well, then if we're just supporting that while we're supporting five other systems, well we're at, we're not going to see that success. So sometimes even over, testing is too much, absolutely so obviously, there's a root cause to it, right? So when we're talking in your your case, Hashimotos, okay? So we're looking at the root cause and trying to figure that out. Do you know what was the main issue for you that kind of might have led to then, yes, 100% so there was actually a couple of of issues when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto. So there's never one root cause, and that is incredibly hard to accept as a woman or a man going through systemic issues or just being diagnosed and not feeling like yourself right? Because you're searching. You're searching. You think that if you get this one answer and you just know what's happening, that you'll have this sense of fulfillment, but you never will, until you just focus on the first steps of healing and going through a phase approach to healing the body from the inside out, right? But when you when you look at root causes, there's there's always more than one. Sometimes there's four, sometimes there's five. You know what I mean? And for me, when I was in a specific state of health. I was body building. I just had a daughter, so I was about a year postpartum, maybe a little bit longer postpartum, but in that year, I was pushing towards body composition results. I hired a bodybuilding coach that really didn't take care of me. She just, it was like an email check in, and she was like, just tell me what your weight is, what your measurements are, and that was it. And I was like, okay, so this is all about, like, physical and physique results. It has nothing to do with my health, great, but I didn't know that at the time that it wasn't great. So for six months, I dieted, and I was in a constant calorie deficit, constant pulling calories down, up until I got to about 1300 calories. Okay, so I was severely depleted for long periods of time. Wasn't really guided around nutrition and nourishing myself and fiber intake and whatnot. So it was a lot of If It Fits Your Macros right. And that's kind of where my mind was at, especially when you're in a deficit, you're like, Well, I don't want to be restricted. I want to eat good food. And when you do that, then it becomes a If It Fits Your Macros, type of situation that depletes you from a lot of different nutrients that that your body needs, alongside that I did recently switch birth controls. So I did go back on birth control post my my first pregnancy, and I was on the NuvaRing. And once I switched that, I mean, everything just fell apart in my health, everything I dealt with severe. Digestive issues to the point where I was keeling over in pain almost every single night. I probably was kept up until one two in the morning every night, just because I felt so full and my my stomach was in so much pain that I would just walk around in circles in my house for hours. I'm not kidding. I'm not even exaggerating, for hours to try to digest my food, I would wake up in the middle of the night with this heartburn that felt like a heart attack. I thought I was I thought I was dying. I went to multiple doctors, even for those GI issues, and at the time, like I don't anymore, but at the time, I was dabbling in THC, so I used it often, and my doctor told me that it was because I smoked marijuana. And I was like, bullshit. Like, this is not because I smoked marijuana? Like, no way. So I was like, okay, not going back to the doctor anymore. I'm just gonna figure this out on my own. Found multiple mentors and things like that, but birth control was a major, major trigger for my body. It was such a huge stressor that was placed that kind of just tipped me over the edge to feeling like absolute trash, and developed all those digestive issues. And I would say fatigue is is another big one that I experienced. By digestive issues, acute infections in my digestive tract, and then birth control and the severe stress of long term dieting is, is where I truly believe that a lot of my root causes stemmed from, and so it caused, you know, if we're looking at root causes of what actually caused all these things that would be it. But if we're talking about the root causes of internal imbalances, it would stem from my digestion. It would stem from my digestion and my liver function and the massive amount of inflammation that I endured in my body. And those three things were probably the biggest ones that made a difference once I started to focus on those and just how I felt and in the way that I was able to reduce my symptoms. Because, as you say now, like you're kind of, you kind of see it as you don't have it anymore, right? So that means you're not seeing those antibodies show up anymore. Have you had a time where maybe, like, let's imagine, like a high stress period where it might have been up. I mean, could potentially I didn't ever get tested, but I know the signs of what I used to feel when my TPO antibodies were high, and I never got to that point. And I am. I'm a business owner, right? I have two young children, six and two, so my Life is stressful. It's not, it's not easy going every single day. I'm staring at a computer eight hours a day too. So there's a lot that I endure as far as stress. So I think a lot of women also have the the question of, you know, how do you how do you maintain this? How do you maintain not having a flare up, or, how do you maintain not having Hashimotos or having high TPO antibodies again, and it has a lot to do with the nervous system. Has a significant amount to do with the nervous system, and you can still endure your daily stress and still have the healthiest body as long as you are very self aware of what you are feeling. And so anytime I had high amounts of stress, I would have to reel it back in and be like, Okay, what does my body need right now? I need to give it more of that. Because you're never gonna have periods of time where you're always consistent 100% in every area of your health. There's gonna be times where business is a priority and you're grinding and grinding and grinding and grinding, right which can cause, you know, symptoms to start popping up, fatigue, energy crashes in the mid afternoon, things like that. And you have to then, you know, get real with yourself. And in certain times of the year and your your life to say, Okay, well, I just pushed really hard in this season of my life. Am I in a good place to now take care of myself a little bit more and make those things a priority. And it's, you know, it's an on and off battle, of course, but you just have to be very self aware of your own body and what it's experiencing. So when I do start to experience fatigue or brain fog, which is tends to be the very first thing that I do experience, I don't usually experience issues with my cycle or anything else. It's usually the energy. It's usually the brain fog. And when I start to experience that, I'm like, Hmm, okay, we have to reel it back in, and I need to focus on these things, one specifically nervous system regulation, because that's usually what kind of, you know, gets pulled back is the first thing when we're under stress. So, so that's, that's my, my opinion there. Yeah, I've seen a lot of overlap as I've gotten more into functional health, between my thyroid tissues, menstrual cycle and go. Fat and liver and similar approaches too, in terms of healing the body, right? Because, let's say, because I'm thinking a lot here as well, like, because, as you're explaining this, I like this sounds very much like a client of mine who hasn't had her cycle for a year. I'm trying to figure that out. Oh, so it could lead to, let's say autoimmune. It could show up menstrual cycle wise, right? But a lot of times it's very much stress related. But what's like? The main like, let's say order like, let's say someone comes in and they do not have a menstrual cycle for a full year. We know the background is low calorie diets. Lot of you know, running, being very active, which I do believe is the main thing for her, maybe nutrient deficiencies, right? Let's say we know that. How would you kind of go about that? Because I know this is something you help your clients with, right? Yeah. So I think it comes down to asking the right questions first, right? Because if your client is say, very high stress, well, of course, that's going to play a role in it. But if we're constantly doing nervous system regulation every day to combat that stress, and things are still not moving, well, then you you have to ask yourself deeper questions. Okay, where is her gut health? Where is her liver? Where is her blood sugar, right? Do we have insulin resistance? Insulin resistance is one of the biggest issues with sex hormone dysfunction, and it's actually one of the leading infertility imbalances that women experience. So the majority of of women who deal with infertility, which is also anovulation, right? That can happen with infertility is, is that we're having irregular cycles or anovulation, and that leading cause is due to blood sugar dysregulation or severe insulin resistance. And when we look at insulin resistance, well, in insulin resistance causes high amounts of inflammation, and inflammation causes insulin resistance. So they're there, they go hand in hand. So there's a couple of things that you want to look at right out the gate. I mean, tell me first. Like, does your client have digestive issues? Does she deal with constipation, diarrhea, or any type of digestive symptoms? Yeah, constipation, for sure. Like, and I just agree. Full transparent, I'm also not bringing you on to, like, work through my client's case, but, like, I just, I just thought of this person. I'm like, this is exactly like. It ties in with the topic, you know. But now we're seeing a lot of constipation, for sure, multiple days of not going feeling a little bloated, but not really gassy necessarily. The constipation is one of the main issues right now. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. And so when you when you see those types of things come up, we have to the way that I look at at clients dysfunction and what their main issue is. So like with your client dealing with a loss of cycle for over a year, we have to look at the hierarchy of the body. And what I mean by that is how the body actually functions. So we have sex hormones which is regulated by what right, which is regulated by what, which is regulated by what. And you just keep digging down until you find the root systems that that you know go upstream and and cause functionality or or promote functionality in your sex hormones, and so that is how I look at every single case, no matter what the actual issue is, whether it's, you know, weight loss, resistance or loss of a cycle, or, you know, infertility, whatever it is, you always start at the very, very, very, very root, which typically tends to be inflammation, insulin resistance or blood sugar, as well as liver dysfunction, because even if you take gut well that that's a big issue, she might be having a difficult time absorbing nutrients, which can very well be part of the case, right? But even when you look at gut, a lot of a lot of people think that you know gut health is the root of everything, right? Because your immune system lies in your gut. Well, what? Yes, that, that has a lot to do with that. But if your liver and your blood sugar isn't regulated, then you're going to have a very hard time healing your gut, right? There's a lot of times in my past where I've taken women just straight into a GI map and done a GI protocol, because that was their main source of dysfunction, and their their protocols never worked. And I was like running it and pushing them for 10 weeks and and nothing would shift, and it was because there were deeper root issues at hand. And it wasn't just all about the gut. It has so much to do with how regulated your nervous system is. And I would say that's the that's the number one step. So many women are extremely dysregulated, and they don't even know it. So if you're, if, like, I'm sure you've seen this in your clients, you know. And I don't know if you you bring in, like, meditation or breath work with them, which I'm pretty sure you do. But if you do, if. I mean, have you noticed that some women have a very hard time doing those things? Or maybe women are like, Oh, this isn't for me. I just, I can't meditate. I just, it doesn't it's boring, or whatever, they'll start to make those comments around it. But that's even more of a reason why you should do it, because if you cannot sit with yourself, if you cannot get your body to calm down, so if you're sitting there trying to do meditation and you're thinking about all the to do things that you need to do on your list, that is a clear sign that your nervous system is so dysregulated, and it's the very thing that's keeping your body from wanting to heal, because it does not feel safe. Your body can only heal if it feels safe. So even though it might feel uncomfortable, it is the very thing that you need to start with, and you need to do it uncomfortably until it feels comfortable. I'm just laughing because of two reasons. One, that was exactly me when I got into meditation. Yes, I was because, you know, like as I started coaching, I get into self development, and I have mentors, and they got me into journaling and meditation and exploring those things. I'll tell you, it is like I was not someone who was very open to those things? But like, meditation, especially in the beginning, I got this app headspace. I heard a lot of good things about it, which I love. Like, now I think it's a great app. I recommend it to all my clients. But I would sit down, I would get frustrated just from, like, sitting still, you know, like, or I would fall asleep. Like it was either or, but like, I'd mostly get frustrated and impatient and kind of like waiting and then opening my eyes, checking the timer. Like, want to say shit done, you know. But then over time, like, I gave it an honest shot, and it actually started working. They were journaling. You know, in the beginning, I'm like, why the fuck am I writing these things? Why? Why would I write down three things I'm grateful for everything, you know? Well, yeah, but then it starts to work. Gratitude, you're just like, I am grateful for my house. I am grateful for my kids. Like and it's very generic at first, but gratitude doesn't just come from, you know, being aware of what you're grateful for. It's actually sitting with it, feeling it, and actually seeing how it affects your life, right? If you're grateful for your kids, start thinking about why you're grateful for your kids, what do they do for you your life? What do they bring to your happiness? You know what I mean? That's where gratitude really takes. The effect is when you give yourself that that space to actually feel it. It takes time to build a habit, and it takes time for you to really start noticing, like, hey, actually, because that's, that's when it hit me. I'm like, I catch myself now, just at random moments, feeling great for, for something just normal kind of, like, in, like, a normal kind of day, you know, walking outside, it's a good weather, whatever, like, that was a few months in, and then I was like, oh shit. This guy working. I feel like, you know, but it's exactly that. But I've seen this with clients too, right? People have a hard time slowing down. We're currently doing a challenge where one of the tasks is just, I call it 10 minutes of stillness, right? Where for 10 minutes, because everyone has 10 minutes. That's why I wanted to, you know, set the bar low, like for 10 minutes. I don't care what you do. You can meditate. You can grab a journal, you can read, sit outside with no music, whatever like, or do whatever you want, sit, sit still for 10 minutes, like, just that, right? I love that. It's the hardest thing for people to do in the challenge, and it's also the thing they're most positive about and excited, because they're like, I've never done this, but I've never actually set with my thoughts. And now we're exploring that, you know, like, I think it's a really cool thing to do, and it's very important, because, I mean, you me, like, we run businesses, it is a stressful kind of life. You know, we have to catch ourselves too and make sure we're not pushing ourselves. I'm pretty positive. I don't want to call myself, like, burned out. Well at the moment, for sure, not, but like, I don't want to say I fully burned out. But it was two times I was really pushing it right, and I was feeling it like, you know, like, physically, I had this like, pressure, you know, all the time. And my mentor at the time was like, Dude, this week, you're just gonna slow it out. I don't care what you do. Just sit outside, build a campfire, sit on top of a mountain, whatever you want to do. Like, you're gonna chill this week, and then we're going to keep these things in because right now you're pushing yourself too hard, which even goes back to coaching and mentorship, right? You don't just want to push people, which I've seen with a lot of clients who come in, they said, hey, you know my client, my PT, put me on 1200 calories. It wasn't working, and my feedback in my check ins was, well, you must just not be following the plan, and you just try again and try harder. You know, like no sometimes, as a coach and mentor, we need to take the responsibility to slow people down and really push for that, because we're not going to get healthy or get the physique results with a fried nervous system well and. What is the number one thing that holds people back from actually seeing success? It's not being more consistent. It's not pushing themselves harder in the gym. It's it's working through your mindset and becoming stronger mentally and being more resilient to stress. And how do we do that? By building a strong nervous system. That's how you do it. So if that comes first, everything else will be so easy. I remember when I was macro coaching, and I didn't implement any of this. It was just macros and workouts, right? That's what it was. And I probably had the lowest show up rate of my clientele that I've ever had in my business, because there were so many other missing pieces that weren't addressed in doing that right because, and this is where I think a lot of clients struggle, or just, you know, clients outside of our program struggle because they are told by society that, you know, you got to Get in the get the gym. It just takes consistency, right? Like, just get in the gym. That's what I need to do. I had a conversation with a woman who I actually coached way back when, when I was in macro tracking, or a macro macro coach, and she was like, I know what I need to do. And I'm like, Okay, what's that? She goes, drink water, get get in the gym, consistently sleep. And I was like, okay, though that's a great list, right? But doesn't mean that you're gonna actually do it. Doesn't mean that you're gonna you're gonna put all these things to action, because those aren't the things that you need to be doing, because, sure, you already know that you need to be doing them. But that's not the very thing that's holding you back, right? It's your mindset, it's your nervous system. You're constantly go, go, go, and you are people pleasing by putting everybody else before you had another client who is that that was her issue. And we stopped all protocols, all testing, all, you know, all nutrition habits. I mean, we stopped everything, and all we did was have calls every other week and specifically talk about her mindset, setting boundaries and protecting her happiness. And now she's in a point where she actually feels capable, strong minded. She's happier because she set those boundaries. And now she's getting after better, better nutritional habits, and she's getting she's getting her hormones rebalanced, because now she has the capability of bringing things in that she she wasn't able to do before. And that just goes to show that was all nervous system issues. It was, it's the fear that we hold inside our bodies to to hold those boundaries or put those boundaries into place because we fear that people will get mad at us, or we'll lose friends because of it. Well, if we do so what, they weren't your friends in the first place. Yeah, it's a big, this is a big when it comes up, when it comes to, you know, alcohol, and right? I'm putting someone through a protocol soon, and I'm like, Look, there's gonna be no alcohol. Otherwise, we might as well just not do this. Like we have to pull it. We're gonna pull caffeine. We're gonna pull all things like artificial sweeteners and gluten and dairy. We have to follow this to ET. There's more than just a fat loss conversation here. Like we have to dial this in, and if cutting alcohol and caffeine for even if it's two weeks, if that's a problem, that says enough already, I think, right? Because we're either over relying on caffeine or we're too connected to that alcohol, and we're not in control. So key that sometimes, like, we make those decisions for ourselves, and we have to, and it's a difficult thing, right? For most of my life, I used to care way too much about what other people might think or say, but it's hard, I feel like, for some people to make that decision and say, You know what? I'm just gonna do me, I'm gonna choose me. I'm gonna choose to go to bed earlier. Gonna choose my health. I'm gonna choose not to drink. But then dealing with the which is mostly fucking grown ups, right? Who gave them the comments? You know? I mean, I'm talking about clients in their 50s. Who are, you know, having a hard time with this, right? That's what's holding them back, what other people might think or say, right? And getting to that point of being like, No, I'm just gonna choose me. It's a work in progress. I feel like, for a lot of people, it's not just something you decide, right? No, it is definitely not something that you decide. I think it comes from, you know, understanding even where it's coming from. So if you dig deep into, okay, I am, if you if you've come to the awareness that your people pleaser, well, why? Where did that come from? Like, always get curious about your habits. Always get curious about why something is difficult, because it's not just difficult to be difficult. It's difficult because of something that you experienced in your past, something that you were told, something that you were programmed to think about yourself, right? But isn't actually true, because it wasn't a thought pattern and or. Uh, you know, a an Outlook or perspective that you developed just today, right? It was something that was developed over time and and I do believe that that has been very helpful, not only to myself, but to a lot of my clients, and just becoming more aware of what all of these thoughts and feelings even came from childhood. Other things, your friend group, maybe right? So many things, getting curious is one of the most important things. I feel like, just, just really like, not even allowing like, let's say we have a terrible week or stress where it's sad, whatever it is, we're just not feeling great, like, not allowing those emotions to take over, but just getting curious. Hey, why do I feel like this? Okay, so yesterday I binged, instead of beating ourselves up with cardio or restricting even more the next day, let's actually just go right back to what we were doing, do what we know works, but actually sit with it for a sec and just really try to break it down. Like, hey, let's, let's actually figure it out. Like, okay, what happened? Why? How did I feel? Who was it with? Right? Those kind of things, and then trying to understand, like, that's, that's one of the most key things I feel like for personal development and making all these things work, because you said it right, mindset is a real foundation, and, of course, regulating your nervous system those kind of things. But if we don't address the mindset, you can have the best protocol in the world. It's not going to work if you can't follow it. Or, you know what I mean, do you see a lot of these cases where clients have had no menstrual cycle for like, a very long time? Let's say yeah, I have it actually, one of my clients who is still with me. She came to me, and she was on birth control. She came off of it, didn't have a period for seven months, joined coaching with me, still didn't have her cycle for another two months, got it back, but then she would get it every other month. Or her cycles were very, very long, and so she went through her entire journey as well. So there's, there's a, there's a lot of reasons why someone would lose their period, right? A lot of it comes from hormonal birth control, especially just because, you know, females are on it for decades, unfortunately, and that stops the connection between your brain and your ovaries and so re establishing that connection can be a very difficult and long process. There are definite things that you can implement to kick start that the body and to re establish those connections, of course, so you can, you can shorten that time frame of getting the period back. But there's also things like under eating, severely under eating for long periods of time, very high stress. I can't even tell you how sensitive our cycles are to stress. And if you, if you are, you know, if you ovulate on day 15 of every month, but say you're about to travel on the 11th, and your your body is is adapting to that stress. Travel is stress on your body, even though, like travel might be fun for you, it's going to push ovulation back, and now it's going to prolong your cycle, or it's going to make it longer because of that stress response that your body's having. Imagine women under chronic amounts of stress, how that that's going to impact your cycle greatly So, and of course, over training is a really big one too. So for the cardio bunnies out there and the the women who just can't stay out of weight training, you know, and are doing that six, seven days a week. Well, that could be a very big part of why, why you're losing your cycle as well. Hormonal birth control, especially, is such a big one, because, like you said, it shuts down the connection between the brain and ovaries, which is a it's a big problem, if you think about it, right? It's going back to testosterone. Like if there was medication that would absolutely tank someone's testosterone wouldn't even be a thing, right, right? Did it come out with a male birth control? But because men had the side effect of a headache, they discontinued it, even though there was far more detrimental effects to women's hormonal birth control than there was to men. It read the studies, ladies, that's, that's, that's exactly the point, you know, like it's, if it's men, then no. And in the meantime, I tell, I guess my male clients shit sometimes I'm like, dude, like, it's not like for you, like, you don't have that much shit to deal with. I'm supporting you, right, obviously, and sometimes a little bit of tough love is necessary. Look, dude, like women have way harder than us, like, you're not dealing with, like, menstrual cycles and, you know, like, so it's like, like, that's, that's actually, you know, but no, I mean, let's be honest, dudes are also going through tough times. And, you know, I don't always say this, you know, but some cases, some people need to push but no, really though, like you girls need to deal with a lot of shit, and it shows up really quickly, little bit of stress. So. Cycles off right birth control once again. Let's imagine you at some point, do you want to come off of it and maybe have kids? It might take ages for you to actually get the cycle back start ovulating. The doctor's not going to know about it. What to do, which I think, is recommending that you come off of birth control a year before you want to try so like ask yourself, why, if your doctor is telling you to come off birth control an entire year before you start having kids? Can you, like, if we just think about that for a second, you can only imagine the detrimental effects of birth control on the women's body if she needs an entire year after coming off of birth control to get her body to a place where it can actually conceive without any support. Yep, without any support, there's nutrient deficiencies. I mean, let's not even skip over the fact that, you know probably depends on which ones. But like, anxiety, depression, like these are all real symptoms from the pill, right? It's not just like I can or cannot have kids like it literally messes up your whole system, really, it messes up who you are. I mean, I just talked about this the other day. I mean, women experience such debilitating mental states of mind, right? Where they are severely depressed, anxious and on edge and quick to anger and all of these things. And then one day, they wake up and they hate themselves. They're like, who am I? Who is this person? I don't recognize them. And they go to the doctor and they just get prescribed depression medication or anxiety medication. But it has nothing to do with that, but it has everything to do with the actual internal health of your body and your stress response. I mean, we are so over medicating depression and anxiety because we're not dealing with these root issues. It's, it's probably the most frustrating thing as a as a functional coach that I see in healthcare, because all of that can be healed using our holistic strategies, nutrition and lifestyle and natural supplementation. And it blows my mind that we don't try to go in that direction first, like there is a reason you weren't depressed, and now you are look at that timeline, look at your nutrition patterns, look at your lifestyle patterns. How have things shifted over that course of time? And you will find the answers, and you will understand that medication isn't always the answer to those things. And I'm gonna say this too, like, medication needs to be there for certain things. I'm not against medication, but I would love, this is maybe unrealistic kind of dream, but like, I would love some type of collaboration between doctors and health coaches. Right now I know a lot of peers, maybe including yourself, who have medical staff on a team, and there's a little bit of teamwork there, which is amazing, right? But generally speaking, you don't get that advice. I have another client who just came to me in July, and some resistance PCOS fertility issues. They couldn't have kids, cycles all over the place, and she was put on 1000 calories by her doctor, and all the doctor said was, you need to lose weight. So then I'm like, fuck, you know? Like, why are people being recommended these crazy things? Because 1000 calories is not good for anyone. Well, there's so when you look at allopathic medicine, there's a time and a place for for that, right? Like we need doctors in our world. We need emergency medicine. We need those things. Okay, that's that's not the case here, but, but the difference between allopathic medicine and functional health coaching, or just health coaching in general, is that one focuses on medicine, the other one focuses on holistic lifestyle and nutritional strategies. They are very, very different, right? So when we look at medicine, we look at a symptom, and we figure out how to manage or heal that symptom. So now we've gone into symptom management instead of symptom healing over here, and that's the difference. So when, when we're we're being prescribed 1000 calories by your doctor. Well, his sole goal, or her sole goal, is to make sure that that weight loss, that that issue that they came into or came in with you want to solve. So the best way that you know how to do that is by telling you to restrict your calories because, in the mind, it is calories in versus calories out. It is as simple as that, but it's not as simple as that. And that's what, where the frustration comes from, is like we both have our lanes, right? Like we are not doctors and we need to stay in our health coaching lane. They are not health coaches and. Need to stay in their lane, right? But they can also develop that nutritional piece, that lifestyle piece, that greater understanding of how the body works, to then help, you know, patients in a deeper way. And that's just my opinion, and I feel very strongly about that actually, because I do believe that if we we could integrate nutrition and lifestyle and coaching into allopathic medicine. Everything would be unstoppable. People would actually heal. We wouldn't have an obesity rate of 78% because we would finally, you know, cross paths, and we would, we would, we would mend our services, and we would be able to deliver services that change lives, and that's, that's how it should yeah, no, I agree with you. Like, that's how it should be. It's like, so you come in with a problem, okay, hey, let's go through this person we know. It's from overeating or whatever it may be. Let's, let's not just say, hey, take this or right. Like, let's actually refer out when, you know, when you need to maybe get on some type of medication, right? There's absolutely a place for it many times, like, it's necessary, but, like, there has to be some type of, like, combination or referral kind of setup, you know, because it's not, it's not that people, it's not, it's not a medicine problem. It's, it's a lifestyle problem, right? It's not that they're unhealthy, yeah, it's an environment. It's like, it's environment, mindset, lifestyle habits, eating like they're not unhealthy because they're not taking certain medications, like they're unhealthy because of their lifestyle. And that needs work, right? Well, and that I believe in, I think the difference between allopathic and and and coaching is, is the ongoing accountability. We don't want to do this journey alone, nor should you ever have to do it alone. I mean, we're already isolated in our own home. So we're already isolated in our in our in our homes, working right, working from home, in front of a computer alone all day, right? We're already isolated, but yet now, now you feel like crap, and now you're being told to go on this health journey by yourself, and you trust your doctors. You go to your doctors, and then you get sent home and say, hey, I'll see you in three months. Well, in those three months, who, who is, who is educating you, who is hyping you up, who is keeping you accountable, who is guiding you, leading you and and showing you what is actually possible is also the powerful thing about coaching, right, and how that can really help bridge the gap between, you know functional and functional coaching and doctors is being able to have that guidance until your next appointment. Yep, plus going back to blood work, now we can say, Hey, okay, so we think there may be a metabolic issue or with the thyroid, let's check these markers so the client understands not to just have TSH checked, maybe t4 but actually the whole, you know, like, that's where 100% and it's the accountability, it's having someone on your team, actually someone who does have the time. Because again, defending doctors here, they don't have that much time with you, so they also just have to 15 minutes, and they have to do something in those 15 minutes which cannot be continuous, follow up and accountability and talking back and forth and education, right? That's why it's so important for people like you and myself. And you know, we also love what we do, and you know, like, put a lot of time and effort into this as well, to keep advocating for just healthy lifestyles and actually helping people with this and kind of cutting out the noise as well. You know that being said, because I do want to be respectful of your time, actually had one little question that kind of popped up a little bit earlier, which I would love to kind of dive into, because when it comes to functional health, I'm very much interested in it. I think it's, it's necessary, right? Functional health coaching. We got to look at the gut, we got to look at the liver and those kind of things. And then I see another kind of side of the fitness industry that will shout, liver you, you know, like you, you don't need to do liver protocol, because your liver works just fine, yeah, for a healthy individual, absolutely right? And it's the typical liver detox bullshit, yes, 1,000% right, the typical, like, you know, the detox teas and whatever, yeah? But, like, the liver is such a key player in this whole conversation, liver detoxification. It's connected to the guts, your hormones and those kind of things. And this is also where, like, I had a harder time in the beginning because of this, to be honest with you, because now I was getting more interested in liver detoxification, gut health. And then I see all these people being like, well, is this bullshit? Because you have a lot. And your right, and it works just fine. Could you briefly explain the role of the liver when it comes to sexual health, but also gut health, even thyroid, right? Just your hormones in general? Yeah. So I mean, your liver is the powerhouse organ of your entire body. If it doesn't function at its highest level, then every functionality slows down within the body. I mean, you're the biggest components of your liver. I mean, it does over 500 processes in the body. So, I mean, we don't have time to go through all of them, but the ones that will make most sense to you are the fact that one it metabolizes estrogen out of the body, or metabolizes estrogen and then gets excreted from the gut, right? If your estrogen is not getting out of the body, then it's getting recirculated into the body, causing estrogen dominance, which also then puts women at risk for ovarian cancers, breast cancers, cervical cancers, right? So, and you have three different estrogens, and they all need to go down their their own pathway, the right pathway the most, the most supportive and healthy pathway. And if your liver isn't functioning, it will not do that okay, and then it puts you at further risk of loss, of inflammation, more gut issues. And then this is where a lot of those period issues come up, come up because women are dealing with estrogen dominance. And estrogen dominance is not just a I have too much estrogen issue. It is I have an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone. And if those two are not in healthy ranges within each other, and I end in isolation, then we are going to have period issues and in infertility and so many other other things that women deal with, okay, but that's just one thing that it does for the sex hormones, but now it also creates that conversion between t4 and t3 of your thyroid hormone and that that's responsible for 20% of your metabolic function. 20% may seem like a very small amount, but it's actually huge when you're trying to lose weight. It's huge when you're when you're trying to bring it back into balance. And so if that conversion isn't isn't optimal, then everything is going to slow down. Your metabolism is going to slow down. You're going to feel sluggish, you're going to feel fatigued, you're going to you're going to feel just this overall feeling of just unwell, right? It's also responsible for metabolizing cortisol. If you, if you're metabolizing cortisol too fast or too slow, you're going to cause imbalances with that cortisol production throughout the day, which is going to cause blood sugar imbalances, energy deprivation. I mean, it's going to, it's going to make it really difficult to feel alive in your body, right? Amongst a million other things. I mean, it has a lot to do with with blood sugar and insulin, right? If your body is under high, high, high stress, but you're depleting carbohydrates, well, it's just going to keep on dumping sugar into your bloodstream, and nothing's ever going to change because you're high stress, right? So the liver plays a lot of different roles within the body, and are detox teas helpful? They can actually be like Danny laying root tea can actually be extremely helpful for detoxification. But going through like a detox, like five day cleanse kind of thing is can be unsafe, and this is where things can can work for some and not work for others. And you have to be very careful about what you implement, because one person can have severely negative effects of going through a detox phase. One can have amazing effects, right? Some can, some can get worse before they get better. And so it's really important to understand where the body is, is functioning at its baseline first before we're just like throwing these, like, aggressive detoxes and like those who do cause, you know what a coffee and enema is? Okay? Well, those are extreme, like, very extreme. So people will do that because they're like, Oh yeah, you need to do a coffee enema, and it can have severe negative effects of that. So is supporting the liver important? Yes, but you support it in a way that's right for the individual client. This is where that personalization comes into play. It's in not a one size fits all approach, either. And if it is a one size fits all approach, which I hope it's not, it better be very, very, very gentle. Yeah. So I mean, again, like long story short, like liver health is super, super key. There are particular protocols for liver detoxification and supporting that sometimes is necessary. But the traditional stuff that you would see in like an ad on Instagram or something like, stay away from it. Basically, you know, if it's a five day thing, I guess you're not going to detox anything in five days like, you know, and again, like this is people just jump on something because they think this might be it, and they do it, and they either just. They either just lose money or they're worse off, right? I will say, though, like aside from detox, is cleanses, things like that, your liver has to be supported. It is the most important. And even if, and I see this a lot in my practice, where women will get their liver enzymes tested, they will be completely normal. I will still support the liver because you have lived decades, and within those decades you have endured chemicals, toxins, inflammation, poor food quality, stress, chronic stress, trauma, all things that overburden the liver. So I don't care who you are or what your life has been like, you have some sort of inflammation that can be supported and optimized through optimizing liver function, but detox teas or detox cleanses can be way too harsh, and therefore supporting The liver means in very gentle ways through nutrition. You can support the liver in great ways through nutrition. You can also support it through nervous system regulation, and you can also support it through very gentle natural supplementation, support. And this is all stuff that you should probably do with a practitioner. You know, I think for most people, try not to follow chat GPT, or, you know, Google. Let's maybe not do that. Let's, let's work with someone who knows their stuff, like yourself, you know, like find someone who specialized in this with that actually wanted to wrap it up and just also kind of ask you if you have any announcements or anything to share, like, where people can find you. Because I think when when people are struggling with gut issues or hormonal or anything like that, you're going to be a great resource to go to, right? So where can people find you? You can find me at better with Coach B on Instagram. You can also email me at better with Coach b@gmail.com perfect. I'll link that in show notes. Awesome. And I'll talk to you soon. I'll see you in Dallas. Cool, yes, yes, you will. I'm super excited for that, and thank you for having me on I appreciate it. Of course, we'll talk soon. Bye.