The Truth About Estrogen: Why Stress (Not Your Diet) Might Be Your Biggest Hormone Disruptor

Are you constantly searching for that 'one thing' to fix your hormonal imbalances? In this eye-opening episode, I dive deep into the complex world of estrogen and reveal why your stress levels might be the missing piece of your hormonal puzzle. As a nutritionist and hormonal health coach, I break down the science of different types of estrogen, explain why ovulation is crucial for your overall wellbeing, and share practical tips for supporting your hormonal health beyond just changing your diet.

You'll discover:
• The three main types of estrogen and their unique roles in your body
• Why ovulation is your superpower (and the surprising brain benefits of estradiol)
• How your adrenal glands and stress response affect your hormone production
• Practical, implementable strategies to reduce stress and support your hormonal health
• Why your morning routine might be more important than your supplement routine

Whether you're cycling, post-menopausal, or somewhere in between, this episode will transform how you think about hormonal health and give you actionable steps to start feeling better today.

Perfect for women who are ready to move beyond quick fixes and embrace a more holistic approach to hormonal wellness.

Ready to take the next step and learn more: DIY Balance is my signature self-paced program: See more 

Or fill out the application form here to work with me 1:1: apply now

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to I Am Well Podcast. I'm your host Jemma, a nutritionist and a hormonal fasting coach. Passionate about self-development through a holistic lens, but my biggest mission is to help empower women and get them to reconnect and trust their bodies again. So if you are a woman who just wants to better herself and live her best life.

You are listening to the right podcast, so let's get to it.

Hello and welcome back to I Am World Podcast. I. I'm your host, Gemma, a women's nutritionist and a hormonal health coach, and today we're gonna go through estrogen because I see this everywhere. Everyone's trying to build up their estrogen to have a baby or to balance their hormones, and they keep blaming estrogen and thinking estrogen's.

The problem, and I just [00:01:00] wanna reiterate, hormones are complex. Women hormones are complex and stop trying to search for one thing to fix it all. I did this for so long and it doesn't work. When you search in desperation to fix something too, it just makes things worse. It's always the case when you are searching for money, right?

And all you think about is getting more money. What are you, and you want it because you feel like you're lacking it, like you need it. You're chasing this money. What happens is you push away the money, right? It's the same thing with your hormones and your health. When you keep focusing on just fixing one thing and just thinking that is then going to fix everything in my body.

 You are left with disappointment and. Shame. Really, you shame yourself. And I know this because I [00:02:00] did the same thing. Us women, like a, we are very hard on ourselves, right? We wanna achieve it all. We wanna do it all, but we always put ourselves last. So what do we need? We need that one thing that'll just fix it all.

And. That so we can keep on going. What your body's crying out for is for you to rest you, to stop you to look after you. So I'm gonna go into a bit of the science behind estrogen and how the different types of estrogen we have and why it's so important to take care of yourself. But first, I just want to make that.

Make that a bold statement for you. Make that highlighted, make that underlined in Italia, handwriting. I want you to understand this, that if anything is out of the ordinary for you, you track your symptoms, you're having irregular [00:03:00] cycles, you're feeling off at times, you're getting headaches before your period.

These are imbalances that cannot be fixed with just one thing, and then I know there's gonna be listeners that are saying That's not true. I fixed it by just doing this. I fixed it by cutting out dairy. I fixed it by cutting out gluten. I fixed it because I stopped having carbs. I want you to remember. At the end of the day, you haven't fixed it.

You've just made it better and the symptoms are better, but whatever's happening in your body, there's a root cause there. There's something going on. You don't just randomly start having irregular cycles, and it all comes down to just gluten. Gluten. Definitely cutting out gluten is going to help. But it's not going to be the reason [00:04:00] why.

And that's all you see on social media is that everyone's got this one reason why. And all you have to do is add this shake in. All you have to do is take these supplements. All you have to do is this, and then it's all fixed. And I want to make that known to you so that you can wake up and realize, hang on a sec.

It's my body also telling me that I need to look at all avenues in my life, not just my diet. The body is more complex than that. Did you know that when you are feeling emotions that your body is releasing different sorts of chemicals in throughout? Why do you think now with cancer patients, they're focusing more and more on their mentality, on their happiness because they're realizing that those hormones that are produced from that, the happiness hormones, the [00:05:00] oxytocin, the serotonin, the dopamine, all of that is actually creating healing benefits in the body.

There's so much about the body. We still don't know to this day so much so that when a client comes to me, I don't. Just go, okay, let's focus on what you are eating. Oh, you are eating dairy. Okay, we're gonna go no dairy and we are gonna do that. And I believe in all of that. I'm not putting down nutritionists that do that, but I would be doing you a disservice if that is all I focused on.

It matters about your environment, it matters about the people that you are hanging around. It matters about the thoughts that you are having day in and day out. It matters about the amount of work you are doing. Are you constantly working to reach a goal and your feeling so exhausted, but you keep pushing through because you know this is what [00:06:00] it takes to make it.

I'm here to tell you, I just spent a whole weekend, three days, actually, a whole three days, and they were big, long days with amazing entrepreneurs and business owners that are doing incredible things and are making big money, and they are not working their ass off. They, I, I'm not going to discredit them.

When they work, they do work hard, but they're not working all day and all night. We need to get that mentality out of our head. If you want a successful business or you want something in life, you are dedicated to getting it. It doesn't mean that you have to go from morning till night nonstop and then burn your body out.

If you look after your body, you look after your health. Everything else will fall into place. [00:07:00] It's just the way it works. How many times have you seen someone you know, you've seen their before and after they're overweight, they run down, they're not feeling good. They work on their bodies. They work on themselves, and you see their after, and you're like, oh my gosh, this person's got something.

They've got something that, how did they do that? I want some of that. And you've just become drawn to that person. That's what happens. Things just then get attracted to them and that's where they get more confidence and where their success starts to come in. Okay, so let's go back to what's going on in our bodies for all the women listeners out there.

And this is going to be directed to cycling women, but we're also gonna talk about. Non cycling women too, and non cycling women can mean many different things. It's not just men postmenopausal. [00:08:00] It's also women that have had hysterectomies that have taken out their ovaries. Then you are also classified as a postmenopausal women, so it doesn't just matter about, it's not age related.

Being, having non-existent cycles can happen to so many of us for different things, not even just surgery. If it's happening to you right now and it's not due to surgery, there's still hope. You can get your cycle back, and I want you to believe that you can and trust that you can because it's needed.

And I'm gonna talk about why. So let's get stuck into it. Estrogen. Right. We have three main types that I'm gonna talk about. So we've got estradiol. When you are ovulating, estradiol gets produced from the ovaries. Estradiol is an amazing hormone. This stimulates so many neurotransmitters in your brain.

It's incredible. [00:09:00] There's it. It stimulates serotonin. It stimulates gaba, which is that relaxed chemical. It's the same one that progesterone actually stimulates, so it helps you chill. During ovulation, but then it's also producing dopamine. So it also boosts you and gives you motivation. And the serotonin gives you happiness.

It stimulates oxytocin. It makes you feel loving, it makes you feel happy, joyful. It stimulates acetylcholine, which is great for memory. So you're really switched on if you wanna learn anything. Ovulation is the time to learn something, because you take in. You take in information so well then you are really good at speaking.

You are, you're a better communicator. So that's why people say, this is the time to be more social because you get that little oomph. You feel better in yourself, you feel more confident. And that's [00:10:00] not to say I don't want this to be barriers for you. That's not to say once you get to your luteal phase that you are not confident you can be.

I wanna change the game here and stop. 'cause I've done this in the past where I've been like, you are this way in luteal, you are this way in follicular phase, this way, an ovulation phase. But these are all just, I'm just telling you what's happening chemically and hormone in your body. But you get to decide how you show up.

Okay. I also want you to lean in to the power of those hormones. Lean in to, during your ovulatory phase, lean into the power of that. Okay. It's really good at withholding information. It's really good with memory. This is the time that I'm going to learn something new that's going to help my business.

This is the time that I'm gonna learn something new that's going to help my personal development, my growth. And then when you get to your luteal phase, this is the [00:11:00] time where progesterone really stimulates just gaba, like it's really bringing on gaba. So that's the chill hormone. So this is the time that I am going to lean into more restful things.

I'm gonna go for long walks. I'm gonna be out in nature. I'm gonna do most of my meditating here. Because this is the time that you can really go inwards and lean into yourself and really connect with your intuition. Stop. The more that you can do that there in the luteal phase, the better because there is gonna be your analytical brain that will come in sometimes wanting to take over.

So let's go back to estrogen. So estradiol that, as I said, produced from your ovaries during ovulatory phase, estradiol is only produced. In that phase of your cycle, which is why it is so important that you are ovulating and a lot of women, a [00:12:00] lot of young women, I should say. I was the same.

 I was on the pill for so long in my, from my mid-teens to my mid th mid twenties. I was on the pill for so long and I was skipping periods and I just didn't care and I was missing out on all these amazing things that are happening during this time. No wonder I felt so lost at times there. No wonder I felt so depressed at times there.

Women, it's interesting how women go on the pill and then they want to change. They want to, they'll say, oh, it gives me brain fog. Or it makes me depressed. It makes me anxious, so I'm gonna try a different pill. Sometimes I think, this is not scientific, I'm not a doctor, but sometimes I truly believe that there is a placebo effect in that.

I actually think because you're not ovulating, if you're [00:13:00] skipping, you're not ovulating, and I think that you think by changing the type of pill, then you'll feel better. And you changed the pill and maybe there was a day that you were happier and I think you've then convinced yourself that this other pill makes you better.

That is a personal opinion. You can disagree with me on that, but I just truly believe women just are forgetting to lock in on how they're actually feeling during this time. Without ovulating. So this is for my non cyclers, my postmenopausal women as well. If you are no longer ovulating, what happens is your adrenal glands will take over and they'll start producing, estro and Estriol.

Now, these two, they're not as [00:14:00] powerful. But they'll do the job. They're gonna make you feel more lively, more vibrant, more energetic, and they, as I said, they still can have amazing benefits. It's just not as powerful of as estradiol, because really what estradiol let's technically go back to why it's only produced in ovulatory phase.

It's obviously mating season in the cycle. You know what I mean? It's to attract the perfect partner. You're producing all these neurotransmitters, and then all of these hormones are being secreted from you that people will be able to feel that ma males will be able to feel that, and without them knowing they're gonna be more attracted to you in that ovulatory phase.

It's just like, that's just basic hormone science, you know? That's technically why it's happening. So if we don't have that, we get the estrogen produced from the adrenal glands. That's [00:15:00] fine. You are still gonna be thriving. You're still gonna be feeling amazing. I have met so many amazing women talk about post menopause and how if you do the right things, especially right now, if you are in your thirties, even in your late twenties, if you start working on this, you are actually going to be benefiting your future self that goes through menopause.

There is always doom and gloom about menopause that once you hit it, it's all downhill from there. That is just not the case. That is just not the case. If you do the right things, if you focus on your health, if you focus on your mind, if you focus on your hormones, you environment, you focus on all the things that I teach.

You are gonna hit post, you are gonna hit menopause, perimenopause, and post menopause. And you are going to feel incredible and you are gonna be looking around going, why are all these women complaining about this phase in life? This is fucking incredible. [00:16:00] Okay? That's how passionate you will be. Believe me, I've seen it.

 I'm gonna forget the name. Look up. Look up the menopausal brain. By, oh, Dr. Lisa Mosconi. Okay. Look up her book, look up her research, go to her Instagram. She is doing amazing things and she's seeing that, yeah, the brain transforms when you hit menopause. But if we really look after ourselves, we're gonna be okay.

Now let's go back to estrogen and the fact that it comes from the adrenal glands. So what else comes from the adrenal glands? Cortisol. Cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol is not bad. We like cortisol, we just don't like too much of it. Coming to the party, right, too much. It's overwhelming. It's gonna stress us out.

And nowadays women are not even realizing that they're stressed. Women aren't realizing anymore. [00:17:00] It has become the norm to be busy. It's become the norm to be a working mom. Even if you are a stay home mom. I 100% believe that you are probably just as stressed. If not more. Okay. We are stressed and we don't even realize, and one way that I want you to do your own homework and see how stressed you really are is to get a smartwatch or if you have a smartwatch, get the app stress watch and check your HRV levels.

You will be shocked because most of the time we're living in a stressed state and we are not even realizing it. And that is affecting your hormonal health and your health overall. So much more than your diet. I'm a nutritionist and I love focusing on your diet and what it can bring and how it can give you energy and all that.

But I'm here to say I actually think cortisol is more the issue here, [00:18:00] because we have so many stimulants now that it's hard to get away from cortisol. It's hard. I mean it not get away. We like cortisol, but it's hard to not. Have the overproduction of it. You know, we've got phones now. We've got TVs in every room.

We, you walk outside and they'll, you know, there could be busyness going on in the streets. You've got cars. Whether you believe it or not, this is making you stressed. Unless you're getting out into like nature and feeling grounded and not overthinking about things, which I know majority of the time most people aren't doing because they say they don't have time for it.

They say they could be doing better things. They say, I've got, I can't put myself first. I've gotta look after my kids first. I'm [00:19:00] literally. Describing me in the past to a T. That was me, still me to this day. I still lean in and out of that, but I have to catch myself, and that's the thing that I also teach my clients is it's okay.

Don't shame yourself. Don't shame yourself for falling back into the burnout, for falling back into the overworking, for falling back into not looking after yourself first. Don't shame yourself for that. Just be aware and fix what you can. You can be reactive in the moment and get annoyed about it, but don't stay in there too long.

Pull yourself out. So if we're producing cortisol from the adrenal glands, what happens is the adrenal glands, they prioritize c cortisol over the estrogen production. And if you are not ovulating and getting estradiol. Then you are not pretty much getting estrogen altogether. This is where the imbalance occurs, and then people think that they have an [00:20:00] overproduction of progesterone.

 And then they can go into hormonal inflammatory issues, but like PCOS and things like that. But at the end of the day, it's actually. It's not progesterone that's the problem. It's just progesterone looks higher, but progesterone might be at a normal range. It's just that your estrogen is low. So we actually need to, work on bringing up that estrogen.

You. This doesn't mean that you have excess progesterone, it just means that you have a decreased amount of estrogen and. It's gonna be due to the adrenal glands because that is where the estrogen is produced from. So my non cycling women, all women altogether need to hear this. But my non cycling women and the menopausal women, I want you to focus on to de-stressing your life, whatever that means for [00:21:00] you.

Maybe you need to come up with a night routine. Maybe you need to set boundaries in place where you stop being on your phone from 5:00 PM I. If that horrifies you, if that terrifies you, you know you've got a problem. Okay? If you cannot be off your phone from five, then you know there's an addiction to it.

And I don't want all the bullshit excuses 'cause there will be so many excuses where it'll be like, but I need my phone 'cause of work. Because what if someone needs me at that time? I turn off my phone from 5:00 PM and I thought that before, no one ever needs me. No one ever messages. There is nothing at that time that is important that it could just wait till the morning.

It could just wait till the next day. So set your nighttime routine and make sure that you're focusing on. Your nervous [00:22:00] system breathing before you go to bed. We all forget to breathe nowadays. Finding where your diaphragm is and making sure you're breathing into it and you're holding that breath, and then you're breathing out.

Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Do that six times to regulate that nervous system. It's going to help with you think clear, clearer, and it's gonna help you. Get through those boundaries that you are putting in place for yourself that's unusual to you. Scary. Set a nice morning routine.

When you wake up in the morning, don't check your phone for the first time. My alarm goes off on my diffuser. I have a diffuser next to my bed and my alarm goes off and it is, it's actually I, some people might not be able to wake up to something like this, but my alarm is birds chirping. And it's so funny that I don't know if it's a woman thing or a mum thing or just a me thing, but I feel like I can wake up to stuff like that.

I don't think my [00:23:00] husband couldn't wake up to birds chirping, but I can definitely like, it's like when we're sleeping at night, also, I can hear my kids call out for me even if they're like really quiet. Whereas my husband, he never hears, I'm just. I've always got that listening ear, I think. But yes, so that is my alarms in the morning, waking up to that instead of my phone.

And it's the best thing. It's the best thing I do because if I used to have my alarm on my phone and it's just, it was frustrating because I knew not to go on my phone, but I just turned off my alarm. I saw the time and then I thought. Oh, I might as well check. You know what's there. But if you put it out of sight, out of mind, charge it on the other side of the room.

That forces you to get up outta bed if you really want it, which is a good thing. But also it forces you to just go, oh yeah, that's right. I remember I'm not getting [00:24:00] on my phone in the morning. When you wake up in the morning, step outside, go look at the sun. You look out the sun, you're getting that sunlight in your eyes.

You've got serotonin stimulators in your eyes. So. They're gonna make you feel better, happier. That is such a good way to start in the morning. Who doesn't wanna start like that? What I'm trying, I guess you know what I'm trying to say most here is. Focus on you and focus on cutting out the stuff in your life that is stressing you out.

And maybe that is where you need to have the biggest talk with yourself. Instead of trying to find one thing in life to fix your health, look at what's actually burning you out. That could be the key in what's really going on with your body. There's so many times I'm getting all these clients that are coming to me and they're having hormonal issues and I, [00:25:00] at the start we think, oh, it might be this, but they've tried cutting so many things out.

They've tried different diets, they've tried this, and we still do implement some of those things with their diet to help symptoms. But the real game changer is when I get to the nitty gritty of it and go, okay. What's your environment like? And they're like, oh, it's fine. My environment's fine. I'm happy.

I've got everything I want. I've got a beautiful family. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. What's really going on? What is going on with your life? What is it that stresses you out? Because you could not sit here and tell me you've got hormonal imbalances and tell me there is nothing that stresses you out in life.

'cause I will call you out on that. There will be something. This is the point that I'm trying to make. You don't know you're stressed anymore because you are in a living in a constant state of stress. You don't even realize what stress is anymore. You don't even realize what it feels. 'cause your body is so used to it and it craves it.

It craves that stress now because that is what it used to. That's what it calls home and that's what it wants.[00:26:00] 

So let's look into feeling our bodies again, breathing again, understanding what we want in life. Again, being grateful for what we have, but understanding that you are human in this world. Who knows what's out there in space. Live your life right now. Live. Live it up. Live. Be happy. Be. Breathe into this life.

It is amazing that you are living right now. Own that and focus on you. Focus on de-stressing your life, and then I promise you estrogen will build. And if it doesn't, I'll make sure it does with the foods that you eat. Okay? That's when we'll go into the foods.

A great way to check your cortisol is with glucose monitors. If you're a one-to-one client of [00:27:00] mine, you do get this sent to you. I'm doing it. I'm about to do it now with my, one of my clients. We're going through the process tomorrow in her coaching call, and I'm so excited for her to see the foods that she's currently eating and what it does for her, because sometimes.

It can be really eye-opening. You think that something that's really healthy for you is actually the thing that is the reason why you're having those afternoon crashes and slumps in the day. If you would like to reach out and work with me one-to-one, and you're like called to do that, look at the show notes below.

I've left the link for a free coaching call. Otherwise, just DM me on Instagram. I'm always on Instagram. I'm on Facebook too. DM me on Facebook. I will. I will answer. If you liked this episode, please [00:28:00] don't forget to leave me a rating or review. It really helps the show grow so much more and I honestly almost cry every time I see one.

So please leave a rating or review if you like this or if it was meaningful for you. And I'm here to tell you today to start looking after yourself. You deserve it. And what's the point of living a life in burnout and stress? There is no point to that. There is no fun in that. Thank you for listening and I hope you have a lovely day and a lovely stress-free week.

Let's do it. Okay, bye guys.