Ep 53: WeightLoss and Hormones with Amber Romaniuk

 Hormones play a huge role in weight loss, and it’s not just about diet and exercise. Sometimes, even with the right routine, our bodies feel like they’re working against us and that’s often due to hormonal imbalances. 

In my latest podcast episode, I welcome back Amber Romaniuk, a leading expert in emotional eating and hormone health, to dive deep into the connection between weight loss, hormones, and gut health. 🧬

We’re diving into how your body’s chemistry can affect weight, cravings, and energy and how understanding this can help you reach your health goals.

Tune in for practical tips and eye-opening insights that can make a difference! 🎧 Let me know what you think!

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Transcript

Today, we are diving into a topic that impacts so many women. Yet it's often misunderstood weight loss and hormones.

For many women losing weight isn't about just diet and exercise. Hormones play a crucial role in how our bodies manage weight.

And when they're out of balance, it can feel like you're doing everything right, but still not seeing the results from stress and cortisol to gut health and thyroid function hormones are the underlying force that can either support or sabotage weight loss efforts.

We're here to break it all down and understand how these hormonal shifts impact women at different stages of their lives and what you can do to regain control of your health and body.

I am so excited today because I have Amber Romanik one more time to join us again today.

And if you have been following the podcast, you might remember Amber from our previous episode where we dove deep into emotional eating and mindset and the feedback from that episode was incredible and I knew that we had to bring her back for a second round this time to talk about something that affects so many women, including me.

This affected me for so long, weight loss and hormones and Amber has been helping women understand the intricate connection between their gut health hormones and emotional well being.

And today we'll be digging into how hormones can either support or block your weight loss journey.

Welcome to the show again, Amber.

Thank you again for having me dimple.

I'm so excited to be here with you and I'm glad you got such good feedback from the first one.

The ladies are going to love our chat today.

So for those of you who do not know who Amber is, Amber, Romanik is a leading expert in emotional eating mindset, gut health and hormones.

And as an entrepreneur and the host of the No Sugar Coating podcast, do check that out.

Amber has helped over 1600 women overcome emotional and binge eating and she has also helped a lot of women break free from gut and hormone imbalances and clear the mental and physical blocks standing in the way of weight loss with a compassionate approach.

Amber guides women towards lasting health transformations by addressing the root causes of their struggles, not just the symptoms.

So I'm also gonna put her previous episode in the show notes and I wanna say Amber, welcome back again one more time.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm just so happy to be with you again today.

We're going to have such a great chat.

Thanks Amber.

So I as you know, I'm already excited.

You see my face, I'm lighting up already.

Last time we talked about emotional eating and mindset.

And your personal story really struck a chord with our listeners.

Can you start by sharing a bit about your journey and how it led you to focus not just on emotional eating, but also on hormones and how they impact women's health a 100%.

So I went through a very deep seated journey and struggle with emotional eating and binge eating and eating until I was so full.

I was sick and losing control of the food and I was tempted by everything under the sun.

And I really struggled with body image and I was really struggled with weight all growing up.

And it just felt really insecure in my body, really unworthy.

And, you know, as you get into your teens, in your early twenties, I definitely didn't learn any healthy ways to cope with stress.

So I started using food and then I also wanted diet and restrict and exercise to try and lose weight and, and finally feel good enough, right?

Because we're conditioned, you know, that you have to eat less and exercise more.

And so I really fell into those habits where I was either trying to restrict my diet and exercise to lose weight or I was losing control with food and gaining it all back in more and something that really, you know, when I went on my healing journey when I, you know, was binge eating for a couple of years, I gained over 80 pounds in four months.

Just felt a lot of shame and guilt and frustration.

Did not feel like myself at all and did not know why any of this was happening.

When I started to go on my healing journey as I was healing my relationship with food and the binge eating was falling away.

I started to learn about my hormones and what a big, big like journey that is in itself, let alone also healing emotional eating and binge eating and food addiction and your gut health and managing your mindset and emotions like hormones is such a complex piece.

And so what happened essentially, which I don't think I shared this in depth in the first episode.

So this will be really cool is I'd stopped binge eating and I'd started my business and I, I had lost some weight.

Like I wasn't really focusing on weight loss is like the self love and acceptance.

And I kind of intuitively thought, you know, I, I don't feel like I'm at my natural set point.

I feel like I'm up, but it's ok because I'm not binge eating and it's a huge win and like, I'm just really happy with that.

And then what had happened is that I got into my business and, and you know, wanting to like, get it going, get established, start helping women didn't really have the best boundaries.

It's kind of a people pleaser, you know, it's stressful and you don't know what you're doing.

At first, I had quite significant hormone issues that I just didn't know about prior to starting my business and they kind of got amplified after I started it because of stress.

And so I gained a lot of weight really fast again, even though I was not binge eating and I was about 27 at the time 28.

And so I actually went higher than my previous peak weight, you know, with binge eating was like 100 and 90 pounds and I was like, what the heck, why?

Like I'm not binging, why I'm eating good?

I'm exercising, right?

And so then I started to learn about hormone health and hormone function.

And long story short, essentially, my co which is my stress, our stress hormone was 2000.

It was like 10 times higher than it should be is like the highest rate I've still ever seen in my entire history of working with my clients, I had hypothyroid, hypothyroid.

So all my thyroid stuff was way off.

I had no, pretty much no progesterone.

I was flagging post menopausal at 27 and my estrogen was through the roof.

So I was dealing with quite a case of estrogen dominance and as I was learning about hormones personally, and then through my education, it started to blow my mind that I literally had all the hormone imbalances that easily cause excess water retention and weight gain and suppress metabolism.

And so what I started to do was go wow, like my body is really hanging on to weight because she doesn't feel safe.

Weight is a safety mechanism.

And so I really started to focus on not only balancing my hormones and learning how I could take the steps to do it naturally.

But also what do I need to feel safe?

How do I help my body feel safe?

And a big part of it actually that I realized is I still was dealing with a limiting belief around.

I have to exercise to lose weight and keep it off.

But the exercise was actually stressing my hormones out more and causing things to get worse and contributing to the weight gain, which is like such a mind like you just think no, like exercise is supposed to help, but no, it doesn't always help sometimes it can hinder us if we have certain hormone issues.

And so I courageously decided I've got to stop working out for a while.

That was a personal decision.

because my hormones are just so off and I'm so glad I decided to challenge that limiting belief because a few weeks after I quit and just focused on rest and napping and sleeping and nourishment and self care and just walks and really gentle and, and working on the self acceptance of if this is where I have to be right now, so be it, I'm not going to beat myself up anymore.

It's like it just started melting off.

My clothes started to fit looser and looser and looser and I wasn't focusing on it.

I was focusing on healing and within a good 6 to 8 months, like I had released all that weight was probably about 50 or 60 pounds.

And it was just like, I was shocked at how not that it was effortless because I'd done a lot of healing work like binge eating and stuff.

But I was like, what you don't have to exercise to lose weight and keep it off.

What you really don't have to die to lose weight and keep it off.

Like my hormones, my inflammation, like certain things I had to really deal with.

And this gave me the opportunity to really show me such a missing length that women are struggling with and most women's issues are going on, you know, unnoticed and, or the normal ranges for testing are way too big.

So, you know, someone will look at the test and be like, oh yeah, everything's fine, but those ranges are way too big.

And I really learned that through my healing as well.

I'm working on balancing my hormone.

So that was huge.

Oh my God.

I'm so grateful I had to go through that because I really helped me understand what was going on for my clients on a deeper level.

And regardless of their age, I think one of the worst things a doctor or anyone in a health field or anyone for that matter can say to anybody is, oh, yeah.

Once you're this age, you're just going to have to accept that.

Like you're going to gain weight and there's nothing you can do to release it.

Like you have no idea how many women have told me this.

And I'm like, no, do not listen, do not accept that into your mind.

That is false.

And that is really sad that that's what they're telling you.

You can release weight at any age.

I work with women up into their eighties and they release it.

Part of it is the safety, but part of it is hormonal

 and if you don't get that address properly, it may be more difficult to release the weight.

Thank you for saying that because you are totally saying this.

and, and it's totally accurate, happened to me a few months ago and this is, I know we're talking about weight loss in women and hormones, but this is also related to hormones and maybe we'll do another podcast about this.

But I got diagnosed with adenomyosis, which is supposedly something to do with hormones.

I'm like, all right, and I got diagnosed with it, like I would say six months ago.

So G Y N doctor told me clearly because you know I was putting on weight around my belly and I'm like, I walk every day.

I do yoga.

How come I'm putting weight around my belly area?

Because obviously my uterus is getting enlarged.

So part of the problem was hormones and, and what the G Y N said to me was, oh, just because you turned 40 by the way, I turned 40.

Oh, this is a progressive disorder.

You're going to gain more weight.

Now, by the time you're 50 this is very normal.

I'm like, no, it's not normal.

And I told, and then she said,, there's nothing you can do about it.

The only option is surgery.

So I told her, give me two years, I'll come back and I'll shrink my uterus.

You will see a flatter belly and she's like, oh, that's not going to happen.

I'm like, watch me and I walked out of the G Y N s office.

So she's listening to this podcast.

Hello, doctor.

You told me something and I took it as a challenge.

So I'm just saying that what you're saying is so true.

We are, we are brainwashed to listen to our G Y N s and experts and doctors and half of them are instilling fear in us.

So I also know that you have worked with 1600 women and that's awesome.

I love that number 1600 overcome binge eating and weight loss challenges, right?

So what, what made you shift your focus more deeply with hormones, especially now that you're telling us your story, you told us how you also suffer from binge eating and you were like, hm, hormones is the thing that is the culprit.

We need to fix the culprit or maybe a miracle or you know, like most women don't know what hormones are.

They're like, what is hormones?

I cannot see them.

What is it?

We've been so miseducated.

Yeah.

So was there like a specific moment of realization that led you to connect the dots between emotional eating and hormone balance?

I think it was after I finished like really getting clear on what hormone issues I had because the binge eating and emotional eating and the yo yo dieting that I put my body through is what created those significant hormone imbalances in the first place.

And so that's where with hormone stuff like it's very complex and it's not just as cut and dry of, oh you inherited this because your mom has a thyroid issue or oh, you have this because you know, just stuff comes out of thin air.

It's like, no, we've got, I get curious like what caused and created this imbalance in the first place.

And we have to address those roots.

And so for many of the women that I'm working with, they come to me because they want to lose weight or because they're emotionally eating.

But and then they want to learn more about their hormones, but they don't realize that these behaviors and habits are a huge part of what causes and contributes to the hormone imbalances.

So it was like the first year or so into my practice that I really was like, I want to add more focus of this in and I started like, taking courses for like hormone testing and sourcing places because half the doctors wouldn't do the tests anyway.

And that was so frustrating to be like my clients deserve to have these answers.

Why are you denying them the right to have the answers of what's going on in their own body?

And so I started working with other people who could help get me testing and, and do things like that so that we could cut out the middle man essentially and get the direct answers.

and then learning about, you know, the proper recommendations and you know, how to support someone with hormone imbalances who's also dealing with gut issues and emotional eating and high stress, who's a high achieving woman and all these different things.

And it's very empowering because most women are like, I feel like something's off, but no one is able to get me any answers or people just look at me, doctor just looks at me and says, oh, you're fine, you're too young to have that or oh yeah, with age or whatever.

And it's like, no, like we cannot settle for these the responses or these disempowering responses.

So that's what inspired me to really like bring it in and now it's, it's, well, it has been for years, but it's a staple part of my practice.

Each woman that comes to work with me.

One of the first things we do with her assessment is we get her, make sure she gets her hormones tested and we thoroughly review everything and make sure, you know, honestly, I've never had a client not have a hormone issue.

100% of them have had some kind of a hormone issue.

So that goes to show you what an epidemic, female hormone issues are and how swept under the rug they are.

Yeah.

And it's funny when you mentioned that you, when you got your cortisol tested, you mentioned the number 2000, I have never heard anyone get their cortisol tested.

Is that even such a thing?

0 100%.

So cortisol is your stress hormone and it's produced in your adrenal glands.

But unfortunately a lot of doctors don't do it.

Some of them say they don't order it.

Some say it's too expensive, whatever the reason.

But I personally think one of the reasons they don't order it is because it's a root issue that is feeling so many other hormone issues and health issues and like, let's face it.

Like they make a lot of money off of writing prescriptions, of course.

So I personally don't think it's something that was probably thoroughly taught to them in their curriculum in school on purpose.

So we know from just you speaking and I'm telling you my own story, your own story.

It's very similar.

And so many women suffer from weight loss, hormone issues, they have stress.

So what should be possibly the first step, the first step that a woman should take like sh should she actually go to her doctor and then say I wanna get my stress test done.

So I would go to your doctor and say I'm struggling to lose weight.

I'm because let's like cortisol, fatigue and cortisol go hand in hand.

If your cortisol is off, you have fatigue exhaustion, brain fog, the abdominal weight gain is cortisol.

Ok?

When your cortisol is off, you start to put on weight in the abdomen because your body is in a fight or flight stress response and your body is perceiving a threat like there's a bear getting ready to attack you.

And so your body is so intelligent.

She's like let me put on weight and retention in the abdomen in case the bear attacks, then you might survive.

So it's very important that we, I mean, if you choose, you can go to your doctor, but if you already know that you're like, there's no way they're going to do it, then I would encourage you to reach out to someone who will source the testing for you.

Now, you may have to pay out of pocket.

And this is something we need to get more used to is like spending some money on ourselves and investing in our well being because we've been conditioned that everything should be free with health, but it's a sick care system, not a health care system.

, if you can get the testing through your doctor, amazing.

However, they may just scan through it really quickly and not look at anything and go.

Yeah, everything's fine.

Even if it's flagging, sometimes they won't even tell you that they would just like out, oh, you're good.

You're healthy.

It's just in your head.

And then now you have this piece of paper and you're like, but no, like something is off so you can ask for the test.

But if they won't do them and or if they just give you the results and go, yeah, you're fine.

I highly encourage you to seek someone that takes a lot more of a holistic approach and even if they do look through it and go, oh, you have a thyroid issue.

Oh, this is going on and then they just throw in a medication.

That's not a good enough answer.

You need to know why you have the imbalance where it came from.

Is it impacting anything else in your body?

Your mental health, et cetera?

And what is truly like a thorough protocol.

So I'm just sharing this because these are all the things that my clients have gone through and this is where I've cut out the middle man.

And of course, they are welcome to go to their doctor and share the results half the time the doctor is like, why did you get this ordered?

Right.

But then there's some very supportive ones that are like awesome.

Like I have a great doctor and she'll order all the tests every year.

And I'm so grateful that she's so open, right?

And I wish everyone was, but we need to have backups in case.

But yeah, ask for your cortisol.

Ask for a thyroid panel, progesterone estrogen, which usually is estradiol on a requisition D hea your B 12.

Like there's all kinds of things that we should be getting tested.

You know, because we have to actually see numbers.

Don't just go on doctor Google Google your symptoms.

Self diagnose.

Oh I, yeah, I have these symptoms.

So I must have an adrenal issue and then go buy some adrenal support.

No, we need to see exactly where things are at because certain supplements are gonna help if the levels are high but harm.

If the levels

 are low.

If you have multiple hormone imbalances, there are certain supplements or foods or things you might try that could hurt another hormone, certain ways of eating that are not beneficial if you have adrenal fatigue versus a thyroid issue, like we need all the information so we can provide you the specific proper recommendations and then monitor you and your symptoms and your progress and then do you know, do more testing and compare it and see that it's changing and that's just hormones.

Now you throw in their gut stuff, liver stuff, binge, eating, emotional eating blood sugar stuff, cravings sleep.

Right.

People using perfection like it's not as cut and dry as just doing a test and taking a supplement.

But that's a great place to start.

I agree.

And I also want to point this out that in Canada, I'm supposing healthcare is free from, from what I'm hearing for these kinds of things.

Yeah, but it doesn't mean it's any better.

Ok.

And in the United States it's not.

So it's like people pay out of pocket, even for healthcare, then they pay out of pocket for these tests.

I'm like interesting.

You have insurance, you still got to pay out of your pocket.

So, ok, so that's a great point.

Start there.

So talking about gut health, which you mentioned is another area, right?

Where we know hormones play a major role.

Can you explain the connection between gut health and hormone balance and how healing the gut can really unlock weight loss?

Yeah.

Honestly, I think the priority should be hormones first before like we can support both at the same time.

But the reason behind it is because if you have high cortisol, you're gonna have really sensitive digestion and you're gonna find like even some of the most nourishing things that you eat, you can start to become sensitive to because the system is more inflamed and more stressed.

So I think that like working on both is really important because yes, we can do some stuff to help the gut to help with weight loss.

But like to me, the dominating factor is the hormones.

but to me things we need to look at with the gut are do you have low stomach acid?

Because if you have low stomach acid, you're not going to break your food down properly in the stomach and then it's gonna be too large of particles in the small intestine, which will inhibit your nutrient absorption, which is gonna potentially impact your hormones, right?

And their function and it's gonna cause your intestinal lining to get more swollen and inflamed because, you know, I always say scratch the inside of your wrist and envision that that's your intestinal lining.

Like if you have all these foods particles, scratching and hitting that are too large or, or that are very harsh fibers, you're gonna flare up this intestinal lining and cause inflammation and that causes bloating and retention and things like that.

If we have to take a lot of antibiotics and medications, it's really hard on the liver and yes, everything has its place.

Sometimes we need antibiotics, sometimes the medication is required.

My goal is always let's try and like help you get to the point of balance where you don't need the medication or the lowest dose, right?

But what happens with antibiotics is it kills all our good and bad gut flora, especially the flora in the large intestine.

But we have flora everywhere.

Our skin has flora.

We have a microbiome in our mouth, our vaginal, our lungs, like every nook and cranny and tissue in your body.

There is different kinds of flora but we have a very complex microbiome in our large intestine, which is like it is over like what eight pounds of bacteria and like there's hundreds.

Now there are thousands.

I'm pretty sure it's probably like millions of different kinds of bacteria.

and antibiotics kill all the good and bad bacteria and then the bad takes over unless we know the kind of protocol to do to rebounce our gut flora.

And so what happens as all this inflammation accumulates, which it shows up in the forms of puffiness and swelling.

So that retention water retention, your rings fit tight on your fingers, your clothes fit tighter, your lower abdomen is sticking out things like that pain.

So if you have more chronic pain redness which is like eczema rosacea skin issues and and heat if you feel really warm, like for women who are having a lot of hot flashes, night sweats, things like that.

I know it's normalizing like, oh yeah, you must be like menopausal or perimenopause.

And it's like even if you are, you shouldn't have all these symptoms just like they normalize P MS.

It's not normal.

It means there's a series of imbalances going on within that we have got to investigate, should be able to get through your cycle years.

, your perimenopause and menopause and post menopausal without these crazy symptoms.

And that is a sign of heavy inflammation in the body that we have to deal with.

So, and if the liver is overburden, which everyone's livers overburdened because there's so many chemicals and toxins in our water in our food, in our air.

Hello, go to the like cosmetic perfume department in a mall in like a department store.

It is all toxic and full of things that are going to disrupt your hormones and create more toxicity in the body.

So we're constantly putting that stuff all over us and we're sleeping in sheets and blankets and, you know, wearing clothes that are laden with downy and all these very chemically laden laundry detergents, like you're absorbing, your skin absorbs within 25 seconds and then your liver has to filter through all that and that really significantly impacts their hormones.

So that's a huge piece that a lot of women are still unfamiliar with.

That is having a significant negative impact on their hormones.

More of that's coming out now and it's shocking, but it's important that people know the truth because it's a very important part of hormone balance.

So, I think that we do need to work on supporting the gut to help get it into balance, to help reduce the inflammation and the toxic load to help release weight, which I really feel like a lot of that weight is retention, water retention.

We can retain up to 25 pounds of water and that needs to a lot of that needs to go first.

If there's any actual like weight loss, I hate, I don't like the word fat, but if any actual fat loss will come after the retention and the inflammation are settled down.

But to me, you know, we've, we've gotta work on like what's going on hormonally, what specific hormones are off while like supporting a good, you know, gut flora protocol, you know, improving your stomach, acid, your liver function, things like that blood sugar is another one that's often missed.

That's a huge part of like hormone dysregulation, not eating enough and then eating too much.

And that's often missed as well.

Interesting.

So you also mentioned about per menopause and menopause, which can make weight loss feel even more challenging.

So what advice do you have for women in this stage of life who feel like their meta metabolism is working totally against them, especially like you mentioned, you were 27 when they told you that, hey, you have, you know, like what pre menopausal post menopausal post menopausal symptoms?

I balance things like that flag went away.

But you can flag post menopausal in your twenties, in your thirties if your hormones are really off.

Right.

So, what advice would you give to those kind of women who know that they have these symptoms already?

And it's not even that age yet.

, so a lot of women actually don't realize perimenopause starts between 35 and 37 and goes up until about 5150.

I, it's usually like you don't have a period for at least a year and that's how, you know, you're going into menopause.

That's one of the ways.

But I think it's so important if you're having symptoms, like excess fatigue, afternoon energy loss loss, extremely dry skin, eyebrow thinning irregular cycles.

You know, a lot of P MS before your period, really bad cramps, heavy flow, irregular.

It's not showing up, you're struggling to get pregnant, you're having hot flashes, night sweats, you're gaining weight easily.

These are just some, your mood goes way off before your period like anxiety.

These are some of the many reasons to work with somebody.

Get your hormones tested along with working on healing your relationship with food in your body, your sleep, your water, your nutrition, your gut health, your blood sugar, like work with someone who can really help you with the full meal deal.

Or maybe you have to work with a couple of people depending on who you see.

But you've got to get the testing done because your metabolism seems like it starts to tank for some of you when you're going into your like mid thirties into your forties because we start to have decline in things like progesterone, which is one of your sex hormones.

And if your progesterone gets low, too low, it's harder for the body to process and eliminate the inflammation.

So you get inflamed and puffy more easily.

Your thyroid function also starts to change your cortisol starts to go up a little bit more.

And something I definitely want to make sure we talk about today is the key signs of the different imbalances and how they're all connected and the domino of like what usually goes off first because I think that will really help women and I'm happy to like summarize it, but women are more prone to hypothyroid, which is sluggish underactive thyroid.

your blood sugar starts to change.

So there's all these different things that start to kind of like, start to move, maybe not in the right direction.

However, if you've had some of these hormone issues through your twenties and thirties and you've never had things tested or never looked into any of it.

The biggest issue and why women experience all of a sudden fast weight loss and it's frustrating is because it's never been addressed in the first place.

And these imbalances have probably been lingering for ye at least 25,

 10 plus years and now they're really getting magnified because you're going into another like life shift, which is perimenopause is menopause where there are big hormone shifts, but their shift with your gut microbiome, there shifts in the gut.

Like I said, blood sugar, a lot of things are changing.

However, we can prevent these declines because it's not supposed to be this big decline in this miserable experience for you.

We can prevent all of that by, by doing testing, being proactive, working on getting you into the most amazing optimal health that you've ever been in your life physically, emotionally and energetically.

And then it gets to be a lot easier.

So tell us about what you were mentioning that you really want to talk about these key and what was it again?

The key hormone imbalances and how they're all connected.

Yes.

Tell us about the key hormonal imbalances and you know what, like whatever you want to tell us for someone that's listening because when someone has a weight loss issue, I don't feel that they only have a weight loss issue because I see so many clients.

And initially when I started up as a fitness instructor, these women would come to me and they're like, oh, I have weight loss issues.

OK, fine.

I, I really want to lose weight but then I would do the assessment and I would find out, oh, their periods are irregular.

Oh, I have anxiety.

Oh I have headaches.

So we are so everything is interconnected right in our body.

So please tell us what are the key imbalances.

Yes.

So people always say what usually comes first.

Well, usually for most women, it's a cortisol imbalance.

So your adrenal glands sit on top of your kid kidneys and they're two walnut shaped glands and they produce cortisol, your stress hormone as well as D hea which is more of a steroid hormone.

But cortisol is the biggie.

So your body, your, the stress, your body starts to sense it in the brain first.

Your brain starts to pick it up.

And your pituitary and hypothalamus are communicating to your adrenals going.

Hey, there's stress, there's been enough stress for a while.

Now, adrenals, we need you to pump that cortisol through the body and then you're going to end up with symptoms like fatigue, exhaustion.

Even if you sleep 8 to 10 hours a night, you wake and you feel so tired and that fatigue goes through the whole day.

Afternoon.

Energy laws, increased appetite levels, abdominal weight gain, hair loss, ok?

Increased cravings for refined sugar and refined salt, which hello, emotional eating triggers you get anxiety more easily.

You're more irritable troubles falling asleep.

And if you're restricting, you may have a wake period between like 1 to 4 a.m. and not be able to fall back to six because you're not eating enough and blood sugar as well and your blood sugar is a lot more sensitive.

Unfortunately, you know, I kind of term it adrenal fatigue when the cortisol is too high.

Adrenal fatigue's best friend is hypoglycemia, low blood sugar.

And so what happens is you start to, if you wait too long to eat, you get dizzy, faint, lightheaded, shaky, your face gets really pale, you start to sweat, you get more cravings, you kind of panic.

You're like, oh my God, where's the first thing I can find to eat?

And, and the symptoms are resolved by eating your, your mood drops, your energy drops, you get brain fog, you can't focus.

This is a lot more sensitive when we have high or low cortisol.

Also our hemoglobin A one C which is one of our prediabetic markers.

Our blood sugar markers, it's easier for that to go up if we have a cortisol issue and obviously elevated inflammation in the body.

So this is also why for anyone who's flagged higher or is already prediabetic or diabetic, we need to get that number down and we need to look at your cortisol because it's playing a role.

I can guarantee you that we do have a period in, in the morning where it's supposed to be high at the highest.

Help get us going and get our day going.

But there's a difference between a normal high and a really high.

And then we can do like I do testing with my clients.

Some of them will do four point testing, which is the test four times through the day to see the curve and see where they're at.

But those are some of the most common signs of a cortisol imbalance and the abdominal weight gain, you retain a lot of water, your face looks and feels really puffy.

And like I said earlier, your digestion can feel a lot more sensitive, you feel more bloated, more easily.

And so from here, what I find usually starts to end up happening is then it can really start to impact the thyroid.

So then we have, what I find ends up happening is the more the off the cortisol is which it can go from too high and drop too long, we can end up in more of a burnout state where we have to build the cortisol and the adrenals back up.

But I find most of the symptoms are the same.

But then yeah, the thyroid starts to be impacted.

So the more stress the body, the more overstimulated, the pituitary, which is in the brain and produces thyroid stimulating hormone.

And if we have too much T S H, we start to go into a hypothyroid.

So the thyroid gets sluggish.

we have hair loss, muscle weakness, eyebrow thinning.

We have very easy to gain weight if your T S H gets too high.

And this, this is what always just frustrates me because thyroid stimulating hormone.

The the normal range is actually very small and many women have hypothyroid in the normal range.

And then the doctor is like, no, it's not your T S H that's not why you can't lose weight.

The range is I'm guaranteeing you small, smaller than what your doctor is looking at.

, and willing to like entertain we have no hunger signal.

Your metabolism slows down because your thyroid and metabolism are so connected constipation.

If you're not pooping regularly, you were going to gain weight more, easily, retain more water, reabsorb more toxins, your body is going to be more toxic, right?

We have the cold hands and feet.

You feel really cold, it's hard to warm up.

That's all tied to hypothyroid as well.

Very dry skin, very dry, flaky skin.

I said hair loss already.

Those are some of the most common symptoms.

And so what I find is just the backwards approach with thyroid is, of course, women have been conditioned.

If you're not hungry, don't eat right.

Or if I wanna lose weight, I should eat less.

I'm gonna like emphasize this next thing I'm going to say, ok, like this is huge.

When I learned this years ago, I was like, oh my gosh, no wonder every time I dieted and lost weight, I gained it all back and more.

So when we diet and cut calories, too low in as little as the first four days, we start to suppress our metabolism and our thyroid function this is why I do not like H C G and the 500 calories, the 1200 the like, oh my gosh, you were literally temporarily damaging your metabolism and you're doing a number on your hormones and you don't even realize it because I know you just want to lose the weight, but you're doing more harm than good.

What about I know you're mentioning that.

What about intermittent fasting?

That's like the fad, I don't suggest intermittent fasting for any woman who has any kind of hormone imbalances because it's going to stress your blood sugar out, stress your hormones out more for women who don't really have hormone issues.

They have a healthy relationship with food and they're doing it for like the benefits of giving the gut a bit of a break or whatever.

Like it's not a quick fix approach.

Why they're using it maybe about 5 to 10% of the female population can actually do that, but 90% is dealing with the body image, the body image issues, the insecurities, the binge eating and trying to use it as a quick fix.

It's just going to make all that worse.

Keto is going to make most of your hormone issues worse.

Most of these really extreme diets, like there's a time in place if you have something really extreme going on with the health issue and you temporarily need to do it, but low carb is gonna totally mess up your blood sugar and your cortisol, you need to eat enough good quality carbs, which is your fruits and veggies, right?

Some women can tolerate grains.

Some can't like we need these things.

, and so that's the issues.

A lot of women go on diets trying to lose weight, but they don't realize it's making their hormones worse.

It's suppressing their metabolism and then maybe they lose the boat of weight, but then they gain a bunch back and they're even more frustrated.

And this is because you've innocently by accident stressed your body out more and you didn't know because you weren't taught, it's not your fault.

Don't be hard on yourself, but be willing to actually like learn and do the deeper work and address the roots.

So with the thyroid, the more we diet and restrict, well, just like with any hormone, we end up suppressing our metabolism more and then we gain more weight, more weight, more weight.

So if you find you're eating less, but you're gaining more weight, you might be inhibiting your thyroid function and suppressing your metabolism.

And that's just the T S H.

Then we have T three and T four, which the thyroid itself produces.

So, thyroid produces T four, which is an inactive thyroid hormone means, meaning it doesn't really go out and like help the body do a bunch of specific functions.

It's converted into T three, which is your golden nugget thyroid hormone.

Ladies, you want really good

 T three because it is responsible for the health, thick hair, the great eyebrows, the nice moisturized skin, it is needed for the metabolism to function properly, for you to get a hunger signal to have those good bowel movements every day.

Good mental function mood being well, good energy in the morning.

If you have a thyroid issue, you often have really low energy in the morning that gets better later in the day.

, and then the other issue I find with thyroid is because women don't feel hungry, they don't eat and then they wait until like 1112, 3 in the afternoon.

And then all of a sudden they get so hungry that they overeat and they almost binge or lose control of food.

You have to be eating regularly through the day, including breakfast to help your metabolism and your hormones improve skipping the meals.

And if you're like resistant to that and that really triggers you.

There's mindset and emotional work to do there and you don't trust your body.

So we want to help you, trust your body.

We want to work on the body image stuff.

We need to teach you, we need to unprogramming like all of these things because I get it.

You think, well, if I eat less, I'll lose weight.

No, no, not sustainable.

Right.

Exactly.

So, I see hypothyroid with so many women.

It's very rare.

I see hyper, which is where the thyroid gets overactive where you literally feel like you've drank like 10 cups of coffee.

You feel really warm and sweaty, you lose weight too fast.

It's unhealthy.

You do not.

That's not the way you're awake for like two hours in the night.

3 to 4 a.m. is a thyroid waking time if you have hypothyroid or a thyroid issue.

And then what I also find is missed is hashimoto thyroiditis, which is the autoimmune condition.

There's also graves, but I have yet to see any woman with that.

It's usually hashimoto, which is where your thyroid essentially is attacking itself.

And you're producing your thyroid is producing all these, what they're called thyroid proxy antibodies.

But the test is often missed, like half my clients are like, yeah, my doctor did my thyroid thing and it's like just T S H and I'm like, what, where's T three?

Where's T four?

Where is your thyroid proxy antibodies?

Like we want to rule out that you don't have an autoimmune condition, right?

And so I've even just this year alone, I've helped four of my clients identify that they had Hashimotos because we tested their antibodies.

They didn't know that they had thyroid has like hashimoto for like probably a good 10 years.

No wonder they're gaining weight like crazy and they feel like crap because it's gone unnoticed.

Obviously, I'm not diagnosing them because I can't.

But I'm like, hey, your antibodies are really high.

They're in the hundreds.

Like please go see your doctor.

We can do so much to get these down to a more of a normal range and get this manageable and intermission.

Anything I'm talking about, by the way, right now, you can balance it and get it into a manageable state or remissive state.

If it's something like Hashimotos, you're not stuck with this forever, your body is always trying to heal.

It's just we're getting in the way or we don't have the information, right?

So, the thyroid thing is huge.

The last thing I'll say about thyroid for women, 60% of thyroid issues go undiagnosed and unnoticed.

And we are eight times more likely to have a thyroid issue than men.

Ok.

Oh, my goodness.

Isn't that crazy?

I had hypothyroid and my numbers were all in the normal range.

But I'm like, no.

And as I dug and I learn more of the holistic approach and chatted with some incredible doctors who had a holistic background as well.

They're like amber.

The normal ranges are way too big and they keep making them bigger.

That's the problem is they're double what they were a few years ago.

I'm like, no, this is not helpful for anybody.

Right.

So, thyroid is so huge and half the time, half this stuff isn't tested or you're told it's normal anyway, or you're just thrown on Synthroid, which medication has its time in place.

But there's so many things we can do naturally to improve your thyroid function.

Not just make the numbers look pretty right.

We want you to feel better.

So then I often see, do you want me to keep going?

There's a couple more one last question.

OK.

So thank you Amber.

You're telling us like, so much information, I'm like, damn, I need to make this into a two hour podcast for sure.

This is great.

This is like, no, no, no, this is great.

I'm not telling you that this is not what we're going to hear.

This is something that we want to hear.

This is something that we absolutely need to fix, right?

So Amber, you mentioned a lot of things, right?

Which is thyroid, hypothyroid, Hashimotos.

And now we have the weight loss, we have the weight loss and then we have toxins and then we have a lot of sleep issues and a lot of symptoms we talked about.

So maybe just because we, it's time for me to wrap up.

But if someone is feeling like their hormones are out of balance and especially the symptoms you mentioned, you also mentioned to start, we have to do the cortisol test all the testing.

So what's the first thing you recommend for them to begin their healing journey or maybe give us a checklist of things that they absolutely need to do and, and, and I'm gonna tell you this, I think we need to bring her back for something else because I just got this crazy idea right now that in the last one week I've had, I spoke to almost 25 women.

Most of them are trauma survivors, assault survivors, domestic violence survivors.

I'm like, hm, and all of them had one thing in common.

All of them were overweight and I'm like, damn, I need to bring these, I need to bring Amber to this group and be like, hello, ladies, let's fix you, you know, through Amber.

So we'll definitely, I mean, after this podcast, I will tell you what I'm thinking.

But if you can tell our listeners and our audience on, what are some of the things that we absolutely need to do?

Just a checklist of things?

Yeah.

And by the way, I didn't even talk about progesterone or estrogen or any of the other ones.

So we'll definitely have to do another one.

I told you encyclopedia hormones so much.

There's so much.

Yeah.

So I think the first thing is reassuring yourself.

I'm going to reassure you right now.

You're not broken.

There's nothing wrong with you and trust your intuition.

If you feel like something is off, take the action steps, doesn't matter how many people you have to see, do not take no for an answer when you go to get your hormones tested, keep going until you find someone that is like going to advocate for you and champion for you and get you the answers so you can take that list of tests to your doctor first.

If you feel called to morning cortisol T S H T three T four thyroid antibodies, progesterone estrogen, testosterone D hea daily to start.

There's other things too, but take that list with you, ask for a requisition express, you're having the symptoms and issues that you are emphasize them extra if you have to, if you get shut down, this is where I would invite you to reach out to someone who can help you with it and you, you're going to have to pay out of pocket.

What things are you mindlessly spending money on, like, bless my client's heart.

She's like, I'm buying all these courses I don't need.

And I'm like, think of if you save that money, she's like, it'd be five grand.

I'm like, think of how you could invest in your health on a different level or something else.

You really want to save the money.

So, what are you mindlessly spending money on your Starbucks habit?

Whatever it is that you could save that money and put it toward hormone testing.

There's always a way, right?

So then you need someone who can go through it with you.

So I would encourage you, of course, follow up with your doctor.

But if you're not feeling like you're getting the answers, get a second opinion, I would get a second opinion anyway, from a more holistic based person.

I want to say this.

The second opinion is Amber.

You need to reach out to her, which I'm going to put out on the show notes.

Where can you contact her directly if you need someone to look at what's wrong?

Ok.

So that's that, I appreciate you saying that.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm welcome for you to reach out.

and if you can't source testing and you want help with that, I'm happy to help with that too.

So then from there, you're gonna get a lot of information likely.

So you're gonna wanna breathe and just take the information in process it and you're gonna start taking small steps.

But even before you get your testing, as you're listening to this podcast, here's your checklist.

Am I doing these things consistently already?

Are you drinking at least 2 L of water a day, which is for 68 ounces.

Are you getting to bed before 11 p.m. Are you disconnecting from your technology?

15 to 30 minutes before bed?

Because that will stress your hormones out.

Are you skipping breakfast or meals through the day or are you eating regularly through the day?

Hey, start eating breakfast.

Trust me.

It's going to change your world.

Write down your symptoms.

What are they start writing them down?

Just because you're gonna start to notice habits and patterns and connections and it's gonna help you start to build awareness and that's gonna help you be able to give more information to whome

ver you work with and that's gonna help them, help you connect the dots.

I also think the last thing we can start to work on is regulating our nervous system, which helps balance your cortisol and your hormones.

And so it's things like self care starting to prioritize your needs, even if it's 5 to 10 minutes a day to start with.

But getting out for a walk, getting some sunshine, meditation, deep breathing, journaling, yoga, gentle stretching, you know, hanging out with a friend that makes you feel really good reading a book that you love.

But we've got to start prioritizing ourselves and self care is a great way to process emotion.

So these are all things you can start for free right now.

But if your ego is like, which is your negative voice in your mind is like, I don't have time blah, blah, blah, get support because this is a worthiness thing.

And if you don't make yourself a priority, if you can take all the supplements in the world, your hormones are not gonna balance.

It's just the honest truth.

You just end up with really expensive pee.

So and heal your relationship with food because again, you can take all the supplements and all the beautiful hormone balancing protocols.

But if you're binge emotionally eating, you're just gonna end up with really expensive pee so expensive pee Yeah, because all the supplements, you're just peeing them out, you're not absorbing anything Oh, wow.

Yeah, I get it.

I'm like, wow, expensive P that is so cool.

I've never heard that.

So you don't want to make sure you don't want to drain your money out of the toilet ladies?

So, Amber, this was a great conversation about hormones and weight loss and thyroid and hyperthyroid.

Where can our listeners reach out to you directly?

Thank you again for having me.

So you can check out the website.

It's Amber dot C A.

If you're wondering if you're struggling with emotional eating and have a free quiz, you can take in a couple of free master classes on weight loss and emotional eating.

If you want to connect to talk more about your hormone function, book a 30 minute complimentary consultation, we'll connect on Zoom.

It doesn't matter where you live in the world.

I have clients all over and we can get you testing to your door, get you that requisition to go to the lab.

We can talk about what's going on for you, what's not working your symptoms, the weight, all that kind of stuff, relationship with food and see about how we can work together to help you get the answers.

And if you have any testing already, amazing, we can, you know, factor that in when we get your new results back.

So, that's the website and then the podcast is the Nosher Coding podcast on all apps.

And then I'm on social and It's my name Amber Romanik, Instagram, youtube.

And we're going to add her information on our show notes and thank you so much, Amber for coming once more.

And you're just, you know, how should I say this?

You were magical with your words, your encyclopedia of hormones and it was a great composition.

Thank you.

Once again, my pleasure.

Thank you for having me and for all of our listeners, always remember metamorphosis, not medication Namaste for all of our listeners.

If you have any question and you really want the answers for it, then feel free to book a 20 minute free consultation with me.

And if you love this episode, then please give us a review on itunes.

Thank you so much and see you on another episode.