Ep. 78 How to Find Hidden Imbalances (Your Doctor Missed) Using Optimal Functional Ranges

How to Find Hidden Imbalances (Your Doctor Missed) Using Optimal Functional Ranges

Have you ever been told your labs are “normal,” but you still feel exhausted, anxious, gaining weight, or struggling with sleep?

In this episode, we explore the critical difference between normal lab ranges and optimal functional ranges — and why that gap is often where hidden hormone imbalances live.

“Normal” simply means common.
Optimal means your body is functioning at its best.

In This Episode:

We cover commonly missed imbalances, including:

• Thyroid dysfunction hiding behind a “normal” TSH
• Blood sugar instability before pre-diabetes
• Low progesterone despite labs being “within range”
• Low ferritin impacting energy and hair health
• Cortisol dysregulation not caught on standard testing

Quick Wins to Start Now:

✅ Ask for copies of your full lab results — not just “you’re fine.”
✅ Track your symptoms alongside your numbers.
✅ Eat 25–35g of protein per meal and stop drinking coffee on an empty stomach.
✅ Prioritize sleep before 11pm to support progesterone and cortisol balance.
✅ Shift your mindset from “normal” to “optimal.”

Key Takeaway

Hormone imbalances develop gradually — often years before disease appears.
When you understand optimal ranges, you can intervene early and support your body before breakdown happens.

You deserve more than normal.
You deserve balanced.

If this episode resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it — and don’t forget to subscribe to The Balanced Hormone Solution Podcast.

Transcript

Speaker 6 0:09

Welcome to the Balance Hormone Solution podcast. If you're a woman 35 plus, feeling exhausted, struggling to lose weight, and wondering where your libido went, this is for you. I am Tracy Aaron, a functional medicine practitioner who helps women balance their hormones naturally without prescriptions, guesswork, or trendy nonsense.'Cause here's the truth: your symptoms aren't random. They're signals, and if you know how to listen, you can fix the root cause and start feeling like yourself again. If you're ready for real solutions, let's get to it.

Speaker 0:54

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Balanced Hormone Solution Podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. I am your host, Tracy Aaron, and today we are talking about something that I see every single week in my practice, and that is these hidden imbalances that are often missed on standard lab work. If you have ever been told your labs are normal, everything looks fine, you're just getting older, or my personal favorite and one that I was told over and over and over,"Hey, it's just stress," then... But meanwhile, you're exhausted, you can't lose the weight, your cycles are off, your hair is thinning, anxiety is through the roof, you wake up at 3:00 AM every night with your brain spinning and you remember all those things that you forgot during the day. You know something is not right. And the truth is, is that there's a really big difference between normal and optimal. So today, I'm gonna show you how understanding optimal functional ranges can help you uncover hidden imbalances that your doctor may have, and most likely has and will continue to miss. So let me start at the beginning because what does that even mean when I'm talking about functional ranges? So, you know, you take a lab and you get a value back, and unless it's flagged, unless it's like red or something, it's like,"Hey, it's normal," quote unquote. Doctors don't even look at anything unless it's flagged outside of the conventional medicine range. But here's the thing. Most conventional lab ranges, they're based on statistical averages. So what does that mean? They test a very large group of people, they remove the most obvious disease states on either side, and then whatever range most people fall into, that's the normal. That's what sets the range. But here's the problem. Most people that are getting labs done, they're not thriving in their health. They're stressed, they're inflamed, they're underslept and overworked. They're metabolically struggling. So this normal that we've created, it doesn't mean that they're healthy. It just means common. S- but functional or optimal ranges are more specific. They're narrower. They reflect where the body functions best, not just where disease hasn't fully developed yet. So you can think of it like it's the difference between preventative medicine and waiting until something breaks. Okay? So let's dive in. Number one, hidden imbalance number one. Let's start with the most common that I see, and that is thyroid. Thyroid dysfunction that is, quote unquote,"normal." I want to talk about TSH, okay? This is thyroid-stimulating hormone. Most lab reference ranges for TSH go up to about 4.5 or even 5.0 I've seen. But functionally, most people are going to feel their best when their TSH is between 0.5 and 1. Let's just be conservative and say 1 and 2. Nowhere near 5.0. But if your TSH is 3.8, your doctor may say you're fine. Your thyroid is fine. And yet you are experiencing things like cold intolerance, weight gain out of nowhere, constipation, depression, hair thinning, low motivation. But guess what? That's not fine. That's a sluggish thyroid that has not crossed into disease territory yet. Okay, so it's not getting flagged on the test, but it doesn't mean that it's fine. And furthermore, if no one looks at the other things, the other hormones that go around TSH, like free T3, free T4, reverse T3, thyroid antibodies to see if your immune system is wrong, they're only seeing part of the picture. No one can say the thyroid is fine with a TSH over 2.0. Number two, hidden imbalance number two, blood sugar swings that just simply have not become diabetes yet. Okay, so your fasting glucose might be around 95. Your A1C might be like 5.5. Technically, that's normal. That's like every quote-unquote decent, healthy person walking around on the street. But guess what? Optimal fasting glucose, it's not 95. It's closer to 80, 85. Optimal A1C, it's not 5.5. It's under 5.3 if we're going to call you anything close to metabolically resilient. So things like crashing in the afternoon, waking up at night, struggling to lose belly fat, having intense carb cravings. The blood sugar instability, it's already happening for you even though you're not technically pre-diabetic. So insulin resistance develops years before it shows up clearly on standard labs. Insulin's a hormone, which means blood sugar issues are hormone issues. And frankly, in the balanced hormone solution where I work with women, this is exactly where we start. Doctors leave this for the end. This is the foundation. We can't make much progress with things like estrogen and progesterone if we're not going to deal with blood sugar and insulin right off the bat. Number three. Hidden imbalance number three, low progesterone if you are still cycling. This one is huge. Many women are told their hormones are just fine because, well, their estrogen falls within the normal range. What about progesterone though? It's often on the low end or barely within range. Or my favorite one, tested at the wrong time of the cycle. So optimal progesterone during the mid-luteal phase, this is the second phase of your cycle after ovulation. If we don't have enough progesterone during these 14-ish days, then we know that we're missing out on things like deep sleep, that calm mood we're all after, stable cycles, reduced PMS, and if we're still looking to build our family and be fertile, we're missing out if we don't have enough progesterone. Good luck getting pregnant and staying pregnant, right? So if you have short luteal phase, that second phase of your cycle is 10 days or less, if you have spotting before your period, anxiety right before your cycle, that breast tenderness where you can't roll over in bed or even wearing a bra or a T-shirt hurts, heavy periods, low progesterone could be the missing link, even if it technically sits inside the lab range that is used with conventional medicine. Number four, ferritin. Hidden imbalance number four, ferritin that's normal, but it's too low for optimal energy. Ferritin normally gets drawn on an iron panel. It gets drawn next to iron. Ferritin, uh, the reason is because ferritin is your stored iron marker, so labs may list ferritin as normal. If you're anywhere, get this range, 15 to 150. Whoa. But many women don't feel well unless ferritin is somewhere between 50 and 70. But if your ferritin is 18, guess what? You're gonna be told you're fine. Meanwhile, you're losing hair, you're exhausted, you have shortness of breath, experiencing restless legs, feeling wired and tired. This is not optimal. This is like a illustration of depletion right before my eyes. Last one, number five. Hidden imbalance number five, cortisol dysregulation. Everybody's talking about cortisol these days, right? But h- here- here's the thing, is that most doctors aren't even gonna test cortisol unless they suspect something extreme. But chronic stress doesn't always show up as high cortisol on a single morning blood draw. Okay? You can have flattened or too low cortisol patterns, nighttime spikes, morning crashes. All these things lead to 3:00 AM wake-ups- Afternoon crashes, anxiety, weight gain around the middle, hormone resistance, and this is where functional testing, like a four-point salivary cortisol on the Dutch test, gives insight that standard labs, like one single morning spit in a tube cortisol test, is not going to look at. So why does any of this matter? When imbalances are caught early, in, like, that optimal but not a disease yet phase, you can correct them with things like nutrition and lifestyle sh- shifts. We can get really excellent supplementation, stress regulation, sleep repair, instead of lifelong prescription medications, severe hormone disruptions that's hard to recover from, or burnout that takes years to reverse. If we stay within these functional ranges, they allow us to intervene early with effective measures. So let me give you a couple actionable steps, some quick wins, some practical steps that you can take this week. Number one, just get a copy of your labs. Do you know how many women I speak to who, like, they say they had labs drawn, but they don't have copies of them? You are your own best advocate. Get all the paperwork you can and you need. Keep... Get a file folder. Label them by year. It doesn't matter. Put them in a three-ring binder. Get copies of your labs. Never accept a doctor telling you that everything is normal. Ask for your actual numbers. They're yours. You are entitled to them. I want you to look at TSH, free T3, free T4, thyroid antibodies, fasting glucose, A1C, fasting insul- insulin, ferritin, vitamin D, progesterone, only if it's timed correctly, okay?'Cause all of these numbers, they're telling a story. Number two, I want you to track your symptoms. Your body, it's your information. Your body's your data. So write down things like your energy patterns, your sleep quality, your cycle symptoms, mood shifts. When do you have cravings? When did your hair change? What does your weight fluctuation look like?'Cause labs plus these symptoms gives a practitioner like me the clarity with precision to dial in exactly your own root cause. Step three, it's time to stabilize your blood sugar immediately, like now, like yesterday,'cause this is the fastest win. So where do you start with this, okay? You're gonna eat protein within 30 to 60 minutes of waking. You're gonna aim for about 30 grams a meal. Never have your carbs alone. Like I say, never eat a naked carb. So you're looking for carbs with protein and fat. Stop drinking coffee on an empty stomach. Put a little bit of protein with it. You really will feel so much better'cause balanced blood sugar, it's gonna stabilize all these other things like cortisol, thyroid signaling, progesterone production. Here's another quick win. Here's how to support your progesterone naturally. If you're s- if you were listening before and you're like,"Yeah, those breast tenderness, yeah, heavy periods, yeah, this is me," okay, you're suspecting low progesterone, it's time to do these things naturally before you get an actual disease process. Like prioritizing sleep before 11:00 PM, 10:00 would be ideal. Reducing intense late-night workouts. Move those first thing in the morning. Increase, like, magnesium-rich foods, and guess what? Dark chocolate is one of those, my personal favorite. Eat enough. Under-eating is gonna suppress ovulation. You probably need more calories, not less. When you're not ovulating, you're not making progesterone. It's important to know, are you even ovulating? The last thing, last quick win here is, like, just question normal. If you don't feel well, don't let normal shut down the conversation'cause truthfully, you deserve optimal. You deserve energy, stable moods, restful sleep, a metabolism that works with you, hormones that feel balanced. Sometimes the difference between struggling and thriving is just understanding what... that, that this whole concept of within range, it doesn't mean well. Don't give up on yourself. Fight for your right to feel amazing every single day. If you need help with this, this is what I'm here for. This is what I do all day, every day with women exactly like you. So thank you so much for being here today. If this episode resonates with you, just share it with somebody who's been told their labs are normal, but they know something feels off. If it's not you, it's your sister, your mom, somebody close to you. It's happening like a epidemic wildfire. So remember just that balanced hormones, they're not about chasing a bunch of rules, a bunch of to-dos, chasing perfection. It's really about listening to your body, getting in tune with yourself, addressing imbalances before they become breakdowns and eventually a disease process. All right? So I'll catch you next time on the Balanced Hormone Solution Podcast.

Speaker 8 15:06

That's it for today's episode of The Balanced Hormone Solution podcast. If this resonated, don't just listen, do something about it. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you know another woman who's tired of feeling like a stranger in her own body, send her this way. For more support, check out the show notes. I've got resources to help you get started. Just remember, your body isn't broken. You just need the right tools. See you next time.