How to Read Your Blood Work: What Your Lab Results Really Mean

How often do you look at your blood work beyond hearing, "Everything looks normal"?

Annual blood work is one of the most valuable tools you have for understanding your health, but the real power isn't in a single test. It's in tracking your biomarkers over time, recognizing trends, and understanding what those numbers mean for you.

In this episode, Kristin walks through her own annual blood work to show you how she evaluates her health beyond standard reference ranges. She explains why it's important to establish a baseline, monitor changes from year to year, and use your lab results as a proactive tool instead of waiting for symptoms or unexpected diagnoses.

Rather than focusing on one number in isolation, Kristin explores how biomarkers work together to tell the bigger story of your metabolic health, cardiovascular health, and overall wellness. You'll also learn why "normal" doesn't always mean optimal and how understanding your own trends can help you have more informed conversations with your healthcare provider.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why annual blood work is one of the best investments you can make in your health
• How to use trends in your lab results instead of focusing on a single test
• The difference between "normal" and optimal reference ranges
• What biomarkers Kristin pays closest attention to and why
• How cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, inflammation, and other markers work together
• Why understanding your baseline can help prevent future health surprises
• Questions to ask your healthcare provider after reviewing your blood work
• How to become a more informed advocate for your long-term health

Resources Mentioned:

→ Energetically Efficient blood work list: https://energeticallyefficient.kit.com/bloodwork

→ Low Carb MD Podcast with guest Jonny Bowden: https://lowcarbmd.com/podcast/episode-153-jonny-bowden/

→ The Great Cholesterol Myth: https://amzn.to/44BLJ3e

→ Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club: https://www.GoldenGirlOliveOil.com

→ My Circadian app: https://mycircadianapp.com (Use code DANIHH for premium)

→ Join Hot and Fit AF Over 40: https://energeticallyefficient.com/hot-and-fit-af

Watch on Youtube: youtube.com/@energeticallyefficient

Connect with Kristin:

1:1 Coaching: Apply here

The Top 5 Things I Actually Do To Stay Under 20% Body Fat: kristin-rowell.mykajabi.com/5-tips

Instagram: instagram.com/kristin_rowell_

Transcript

Speaker: 1:00:00

Paul's cholesterol has been as high as 600 and he has zero concerns about it. Why? Because his triglycerides are good, because his HDL is good. One of the reasons you guys that I think my HDL is so high is I am obsessed with my fresh pressed olive oil. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Energetically Efficient Show. I am your host Kristin Rowell and I am super excited to bring you this episode today because I'm actually multitasking as I record this. So I'm in the middle of a photo shoot, which is why I look a little fancier than normal being on camera in terms of my hair and makeup. And so I'm getting some photographs and some b-roll and some things about sort of a day in my life, sort of the lifestyle about the behind the scenes of Energetically Efficient. But I'm also going to bring you a very substantive episode today of the Energetically Efficient podcast, where I dive all deeply into my recent blood work results. Okay, so if you haven't been following along with me for that long, you may not know that I recommend, especially men and women, once you are into your 40s, that you get blood work every single year. Now, I think there's a benefit to doing this starting about the age of 35. And for many of you, maybe you started getting blood work before that. But I do think annual blood work, certainly once you get over the age of 40, is critical, especially for my ladies who are getting into that perimenopausal and menopausal time of life. It can be so affirming to see in your blood work things that are confirming what you are experiencing in the physical. And so I want to talk to you about what my blood work results are, why I think they're so excellent, and what kind of takeaways may be helpful to you in terms of how you might improve your blood markers going forward. So I'd like to say at the outset that I have an Energetically Efficient recommended blood work list that is the most comprehensive list you can get without adding a bunch of stuff that you don't need. So I came up with this list after taking some advanced coursework on blood work after I completed my nutritional therapy certification through the Nutritional Therapy Association. And so I've taken advanced blood work courses. And the reason I mentioned that is I have really done deep dives into what metrics actually matter. And so when I talk about what metrics actually matter, they may be metrics where you go and look at some blood work that you had in the last six months or the last year, maybe in the last five years, you're gonna look at your blood work and be like, Kristen, I don't have that marker. And the reason for that is, is that unfortunately Western medicine doesn't truly as a general rule, give you everything that would really move the needle for you in terms of understanding your metabolic health. So I'll get into what those markers are, but I share about my Energetically Efficient blood work list because if you'd like a copy of that list, you can click on the link below and we will send it right to your inbox. So let's start with a few of the markers on my Energetically Efficient blood work list, which are things that you may not have had. And I'm going to talk about them and also talk about my markers as we get into it. So number one, which is a marker that you have to specifically request because it will not be part of your regular Western medicine panel. And in fact, your doctor may even argue with you about it because they don't do it as a matter of course. It is not an expensive additional marker to add, but I very much recommend that you get it. And that is your fasting insulin. Now it is very much the case that you have had fasting glucose checked probably every single time you've done your blood work. So when I talk about fasting glucose, that only gives you a tiniest part of a picture on what's going on with your metabolic health in terms of the spectrum or the gradation that I refer to with insulin sensitivity on the one side and full-blown type 2 diabetes on the other side. On the left side, we have being insulin sensitive and on the far right side, just using my hands to show you, it would be full-blown rather type 2 diabetes. So in between insulin sensitivity and full-blown type 2 diabetes is something that we refer to as insulin resistance. So insulin resistance is a spectrum, meaning when you leave insulin sensitivity and start to move towards type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance becomes more and more and more and more and more as you get all the way to full-blown type 2 diabetes. And the only way you can really know in terms of your blood work markers, if you're becoming more insulin resistant, is to look at what that fasting insulin marker is. Now, your fasting glucose will give you a little bit of information towards it, but it won't tell you truly what your fasting insulin is. So what happens to most people is they go to get their Western medicine blood work and they are told, okay, your fasting glucose is normal. And let's say your fasting glucose, I'm gonna pick a number. Let's say it's 82. That is normal. And in fact, that's a great fasting glucose. And then let's say you go back two years later for your blood work and now your fasting glucose is 87. And then you go and they say, okay, it's normal. Great. And then you go back a couple of years later and now your fasting glucose is 90. And they say, okay, it's normal. You're doing great. And then you go back and your fasting glucose is 95 the next time you get your blood work. And they say, okay, you're doing great. Your fasting glucose is normal. And then you go again and your fasting glucose is 99. And they say, okay, you're doing great. Your fasting glucose is normal. And then you go back the next time for your blood work and lo and behold, your fasting glucose is 101 or 102 or 103. And they say, uh-oh, you're in trouble. You're becoming pre-diabetic. You have a fasting glucose that puts you in that pre-diabetic, even trending towards diabetic range. And you're like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. How did this happen? Well the reality is, this has been happening since the difference between your fasting glucose that was let's call it 82, and your fasting glucose that's 85. Your glucose has been rising every one year, two year, three year, maybe it was five years apart between these blood work readings, and your doctor never said to you, wow, you know what, we really need to be careful about this trend that's happening with your fasting glucose, which is that it's getting higher over time, which, if they had been paying attention to the markers of your metabolic health, could have told you, this looks like you're trending towards insulin resistance. And by the way, in order for us to figure that out, to see whether you're actually becoming insulin resistant... We could test your fasting insulin. We could simply add one more blood marker onto your test that is your fasting insulin, and that would give us a really good picture to know, are you becoming insulin resistant or not? You guys, one of my most frustrating things when I started to learn about insulin resistance versus insulin sensitivity, and how insulin resistance and getting worse and worse and worse ultimately develops into type two diabetes, is the fact that insulin resistance starts to develop like 20 years before it may show up in the body. And we could be prepared to be aware of this or more importantly, prevent that if we were given our fasting insulin as a matter of course. So number one, I want you to get your fasting insulin tested next time you get your blood work. And if your doctor says, yeah, we're just not gonna do that. We don't offer that. It's not covered by your insurance. And you say, I don't care if it's not covered by insurance. I'm willing to pay for that extra blood marker out of pocket because it's important for me to understand my metabolic health. And if your doctor still won't do the fasting insulin test, then you need to find another doctor. Because fasting insulin is an important marker for you to understand your metabolic health and to prevent a lot of different diseases in the body. So much of the calamity in the body from a metabolic health standpoint comes from the fact that we become more insulin resistant, especially as we age. I can't impress upon you enough how important it is to get fasting insulin, so I will stop talking about it in just a minute after I tell you what mine is. So I was happy to report that on my fasting insulin on my last test, it was only 2.6, which is excellent. I want your fasting insulin to be less than 5.0. So 5.0 or less is a great number for fasting insulin. I see a lot of clients who, when they first hire me, they have fasting insulin in the teens or higher. And what that tells me is they've been developing insulin resistance over the course of probably a decade or more, maybe even two decades, yet no doctor every time they've gotten their blood work has ever said, uh-oh, you need to pay attention to this insulin resistance that's developed in your body because they actually were aware of what to look for in terms of getting a fasting insulin marker. And instead, the doctor was like, glucose is normal, glucose is normal, glucose is normal, even though it was creeping out between, let's call it low 80s in the beginning or even mid 70s, all the way up to over 100. And it wasn't until over 100 that the doctor decided to ring the alarm bell and then said, oh, now we need to put you on metformin. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being prescribed metformin if you have high glucose and if you obviously have developed a lot of insulin resistance, but the sad part to me about it is all of that could have been prevented if you had been getting this fasting insulin marker, so please get the fasting insulin marker. Next, I want to go into your full lipid panel, which is really what we talk about with cholesterol. So I mean this very seriously, and I will do a full episode all about cholesterol at some point because it's going to be too much for me to get into during this episode. But as a general rule, and obviously there are certain exceptions, as a general rule, I believe that your total cholesterol with a certain kind of exceptions that I'll talk about, I believe your total cholesterol is somewhat of a nothing burger, considering, of course, that we need to look at some of the other markers to reveal to us how much we should care about your total cholesterol. And here's what I mean by that. So your cholesterol with a total cholesterol number will be flagged by your doctor as quote unquote high if it is over 200. Now, there's no magical number that we have in the scientific literature to say over 200 in terms of total cholesterol by itself impacts in any way your cardiovascular risk. And let's be honest, when people are looking at their total cholesterol and when they're afraid of high cholesterol, they're afraid of it in large part because they think it means that if they have too high of cholesterol, they have an increased chance of cardiovascular events, meaning strokes, heart attacks, other cardiac events, right? That's what we worry about or that's what we've been conditioned to worry about when it comes to total cholesterol. But the reality is, and I'm gonna do, like I said, a full podcast all about cholesterol soon, is when it comes to total cholesterol, if you're not also seeing what the triglycerides are, if you're not also looking at HDL, if you're not also looking at LDL, if you're not also looking at something called VLDL, which many of you probably don't have on your blood work, if you're not also looking at something called ApoB, if you're not also looking at hs-CRP, if you're not also looking at HbA1c, these are all markers of your blood work that I would want to be looking at in a total picture to see, is your cholesterol, let's call it over 200, does it actually matter in the grand scheme of all of your other blood work? Does your total cholesterol matter when I look at your triglycerides, when I look at your fasting insulin, when I look at your fasting glucose, when I look at your HbA1c, when I look at all these other markers? And if you were to get a DEXA scan, which I also very much recommend, especially if you're over the age of 40, getting a DEXA scan once a year so we can see what's happening with your visceral fat, which is the fat around your organs, I may not even care that your cholesterol is over 200. I always give this example because it is so eye-opening to people when they hear about this. So I'd like to give the example of a particular doctor who is very well-known in the carnivore space. His name is Dr. Paul Saladino, and he has been promoting a carnivore-based lifestyle, or really an animal-based diet, for a number of years. Now, the interesting thing about Paul Saladino is his, I think it was both his father and his uncle, died of cardiovascular events before the age of like 45. I mean, they were either in their late 30s or their early 40s when they died of cardiovascular events. You would think that someone with that genetic history, and he always talks about this, you would think someone like him would be very concerned about high cholesterol and that he is concerned about cholesterol if his gets out of whack because, heaven forbid, he doesn't want to end up like his father or his uncle. Paul's cholesterol has been as high as 600 or over 600, and he has zero concerns about it. Why? Because his triglycerides are good, because his HDL is good, because his visceral fat is extremely low to non-existent, because he has low fasting insulin. And most importantly, he went and got a calcium score, which let me be very clear, is not the calcium marker on your blood work, okay? A calcium marker on your blood work is the amount of calcium in your blood. A calcium score, or a CAC, is a calcium you have to go and get a separate scan. It's actually a scan of your body where it looks to see how much plaque has calcified in the arteries. And even though Paul's cholesterol was over 600, his calcium score, meaning how much plaque he had in his arteries, was a big fat zero. He had none. We have been, many of us, and I'm sure all of us listening to this podcast, have been raised in a society that told us that having too high of cholesterol was bad. And the cynical part of me just wants you to know that a lot of that has been programming because of desires of certain companies to prescribe you something known as statins, which are designed to lower cholesterol. They are some of the most heavily prescribed medications in the United States of America, and they're very profitable for the companies that prescribe them, and they create a lot of downstream calamity in the body if you are on them long-term. So I personally believe that many people are prescribed them when they don't need them, and lifestyle factors specifically could help to reverse any metabolic disrepair happening at that time. And again, a cholesterol number over 200 is not, in my opinion, by itself, anything to be concerned about unless you go deeper and look at your other blood markers. So I'm going to put two different resources for you all about cholesterol underneath this podcast episode. One is an excellent podcast episode that I listened to a number of years ago on the Low Carb MD podcast where they interviewed a gentleman named Jonny Bowden, who I just adore. He's a very, very fun interviewee. And he had an excellent podcast episode that I learned a lot about it. But I also then went and read his book, which he wrote with another gentleman. And that book is called The Great Cholesterol Myth. And it really helps you understand how cholesterol works in the body, how it's so important for our brains. Guys, we need cholesterol for our brains. We need cholesterol to make our sex hormones. When we artificially depress our cholesterol too much, all sorts of calamity can happen in the body, including, we now believe, that dementia and other cognitive decline can be related to being on statins long-term. The other thing that statins will do when you're on them long-term is they will raise your glucose, your fasting glucose. And once you get on a statin, and when you're on it long-term, it generally raises your HbA1c to such a level that you will ultimately eventually be prescribed, typically, not always, you'll eventually be prescribed something like metformin. So now we're on a statin to reduce cholesterol that may not have even been a problem in the first place and could have been modified by certain lifestyle practices. And now we're having to take metformin to chase the consequences of the statin, which are raising your blood glucose. Do you see how people can wake up in their 60s and 70s and be on all kinds of polypharmacy and not know how they got here? That's one of my concerns with statins. And like I said, that is for a whole other episode, but I wanted to share that with you in case that is interesting. Okay. So let's talk about what my cholesterol panel looked like. And I recently wrote a newsletter about this. And so I want to be transparent with you guys and make sure I state at the outset of this that my cholesterol is lower than I've seen in a while. And it's because I recently did a cycle. I did a one vial cycle, and I think it lasted me about 12 weeks. Let me see I did 2.5 units, 2.5 units, 5 units, 5 units, 7.5, 7.5. So I did eight weeks and then another, so I did 12 week cycle of a compound, very, very interesting peptide, which is not yet FDA approved, but I was able to get my hands on it and it is called retatrutide or people just refer to it as reta. Some people might say retatrutide, retatrutide. I say reta because it's just easier. I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce it, but I had really good results using this peptide. There were good positive aspects of it. There were negative aspects of it. I'll do a whole different podcast episode all about my experience with retatrutide, But the reason that I bring up my 12-week experiment with reta is because of the fact that it did change my cholesterol numbers pretty significantly. And so I want to share with you what those were. So my cholesterol for the first time in a really long time was under 200 by a pretty significant margin for me, especially in light of the fact that I have always had, and this is good, I've always had high HDL. I remember when I was a baby lawyer, this was back in like 2007 or 2008, I did blood work and we had something that was offered at work. This is when I was at a firm that was not the firm I ultimately, it was not the firm I started at and it was not the firm I ultimately retired from the practice of law from, but I was at a different firm for a very short period of time. And for some reason, we had some sort of health challenge going on there where we could get our blood work done and be in this contest, whatever. My HDL at the time was 98, which is excellent. Like HDL that is higher is so good. And I'm happy to report that my HDL and my most recent blood work, and I'm just looking at it here because I have my phone with me just so I could pull up my numbers to be precise. My HDL is 85. So HDL, as you guys might remember, this is, this is, stands for high density lipoprotein. And HDL is what we've always referred to in the clinical literature as the quote unquote good cholesterol. And it is. HDL is excellent for the things that I mentioned previously, which is promoting a healthy brain. So really good cognitive function, supporting your hormone function. HDL cholesterol is also excellent for lining and hydrating your cells. It produces and is really good for cell membranes specifically and having cell membranes be at their The term that I'm looking for is really at their most stable and solid consistency so that your cells can function at their highest capacity. So HDL is really good for us and mine is fantastic at 85. I always say the closer that can get to 100, the better. So when I then looked at my total cholesterol and saw that it was 168, I was like, whoa. Okay, so my LDL plummeted being on reta. Typically, my total cholesterol is a little bit over 200. So it's been 210, it's been 220, it's been 205, it's been 217. For it to have plummeted all the way down to 168 doing a 12-week cycle of reta, I was like, I actually don't want it to get lower than that. So my LDL plummeted down to 69. I don't think my LDL has ever been less than 100. I really don't think it has. No, not certainly since I became a low-carb athlete, which has been more than a decade ago. And so I just thought it was interesting to see that my LDL came down that much. For someone who wants to lower their cholesterol, this might be a peptide. Reta I should have mentioned earlier is a peptide that is a combination of three different, let's call them pathways, that it works on. So one actually is a GLP pathway, which is a glucagon-like peptide. The second pathway is a triple agonist peptide. So it's a GLP, it does have a small GLP, although because of the two other pathways that I'll talk about in a moment, it doesn't necessarily have the appetite suppression effects that some other GLPs do. In fact, it can make you hungrier because of the fact that it's also working on a GIP pathway and it's stimulating the body's production of glucagon, which is a fat burning, it's our fat burning hormone. I always say to clients when they start working with me, I always say, I want you to think of insulin and glucagon as hormones that oppose each other, where your pancreas, which is under your, behind your left rib cage here, your pancreas releases insulin in times of carbohydrate excess, in times of caloric excess, in times of needing to store fat and carbs largely when we eat those together. They have to be stored somewhere in the body. So they either get stored in the liver or they get stored in the skeletal muscle or they get stored in our fat tissue. And this is how people get fat. It's truly just a very simple way to think about it is your body's producing too much insulin because of the way you're eating. And so you're in fat storage mode instead of fat burning mode. So when our body, instead of producing insulin, which again is a hormone that tells your body to store fat. When your pancreas instead releases a hormone called glucagon, which is the hormone that tells our body to burn fat, this is what reta is doing with this third pathway. This is one of the reasons I wanted to try it because I thought, am I going to recommend this to clients? Am I going to find practitioners who are able to compound peptides for clients and have them coordinate with those practitioners once that the reta compound is FDA approved. And like I said, I'll do a whole other episode of my full experience with reta, but obviously it had a dramatic impact on my cholesterol in terms of lowering my LDL. And I think it's because of that triple agonist pathway, which again is GLP, GIP, and glucagon. So let's talk about some other things on my blood work. So my hs-CRP. Your hs-CRP is your high sensitivity C-reactive protein. We want that to be less than 1.0. So look at your hs-CRP on your blood work. We want it less than 1.0. Mine is always about this, it's 0.2. And I'm always whining about the fact that why isn't it just zero, but that's kind of silly. So mine is typically about 0.2 or less. Mine right now says less than 0.2, which means I have very low inflammation in the body. And the cool thing about reta is it can help our body reduce inflammation. And so clearly, even though I keep a lifestyle where I have low inflammation in the body, I do think reta also impacted it by making it as low as possible. So let's go to the next marker after hs-CRP. And this is my homocysteine, which is 8.0. We want that to be less than 11. So that's also excellent. I also want to highlight for you guys, going back to kind of what we were saying about cholesterol, rather than total cholesterol, and again, I'll do another podcast episode about this, but this marker called ApoB, so it's apolipoprotein, let me see how I say it, apolipoprotein B. Mine is only 67, which is awesome. But the reason I like people to get their ApoB measured is because if you are truly wanting to assess your cardiovascular risk, rather than look at your total cholesterol, I would rather look at your visceral fat number from your DEXA scan, your triglycerides number from your blood work, your fasting insulin number for your blood work, and then your ApoB number along with your ApoA to figure out your true cardiovascular risk because we can do this ratio involving your ApoB that gives us a much better picture of what the degree of your risk is for heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular events. So ApoB is another marker. Mine is excellent. Now, my glucose, my fasting glucose is typically always in the low 80s. Reta really, really brought it down lower and my fasting glucose is 74. I almost think that's too low. I mean, let me be clear. Normal is 70 to 99. So that's obviously a huge range. 74 is pretty low. It tells me that I've been in a lot of fat burning mode and I do feel like reta helped me to lean out by a few pounds just by taking it for 12 weeks. And again, a lot of my markers improved. So I think that's fine. I have stopped taking it. So I'm not on it anymore. And it'll be interesting to see what my blood work does again in six months after not being on it for a period of time. Okay. And then I don't want to go into tons of details. I will say one thing that I thought was a negative, and I'm trying to figure out if this is a consequence of the reta or something else, which is that my liver markers, so they're called AST and ALT. Okay, I typically tell clients I want these less than 30. Ideally, they'd be in a single-digit number, at least the low teens. Mine typically are. Mine typically are like 13, 14. I've had them in the single digits before. My ALT and AST actually increased, which I was not happy about. So I'm looking at this here. My AST is 33, so it's just over 30. And then my ALT is 39, which is high. I don't want it high. I don't want my liver enzymes higher. It tells me something's going on with my liver where it's either maybe working too hard. One of my working theories is, because I already don't have a lot of body fat to begin with, that maybe the glucagon trying to create more body fat burning was putting too much stress on my liver since There isn't a ton of body fat to lose. I mean, obviously, I have some. Everyone has some. But I think that might have made a difference in my liver markers. The other working theory that I have is while I was doing the 12-week reta experiment, I did occasionally have a little bit of alcohol. So I would have a glass of wine here and there on a weekend. And really when you're taking reta, because it's stimulating the production of glucagon, you should not drink alcohol. And the reason I say that is, what does alcohol do? Alcohol tells your body to stop producing glucagon. Your liver literally gets so focused on getting the alcohol out because your liver recognizes alcohol as a toxin immediately that it looks at the pancreas and says, no, no, no, no, we're not producing glucagon right now. We're not producing it. But now you've ingested a compound or injected a compound rather that's saying, glucagon, come out of the pancreas. So I don't know if there's some sort of conflict happening because I did have a little bit of alcohol while I was on that cycle, which I do not recommend. So if I was ever to do a cycle again in the future, or if I was to recommend a cycle to clients once it's FDA approved, then I would tell them, I don't do what I do and make sure you don't even have any like sips or glasses of wine or drinks of alcohol here and there. So I do think that could have impacted my liver markers. Okay, I want to also mention, because I forgot to say this when we were talking about HDL. One of the reasons you guys that I think my HDL is so high and I have this sitting right here, which is what reminded me of it, is I am obsessed, you may know this, with my, here we go. I've got bottles and bottles of it with my fresh pressed olive oil. So I am in the Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club. I'm going to put a link below this video to show you fresh pressed olive oil. I'm typically having one tablespoon of this stuff a day. And even if I don't cook with it, I will literally open it. I will pour it into a tablespoon and I will just drink it. It tastes so good. It's so peppery. It's so delicious. It's so satiating. And I absolutely love the flavor of it. But olive oil is one of those compounds that can really help to raise our HDL. Which again is our good cholesterol. And I do think because I consume that along with consuming a fair amount of grass-fed butter. So I cook with fresh pressed olive oil and I cook with grass-fed butter. And I think that I consume so much of those two healthy fats in particular that my HDL is higher than most people. And so I very much recommend that you consider purchasing grass-fed butter on your own at your grocery store and signing up for the Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club. You can do the small bottles, which is what I have because it's just me, or you can do the larger bottles if you want to do it for your whole family. The other thing to think about, you guys, is if you're looking to really improve your metabolic health, which if you're listening to this podcast, undoubtedly you are, these make great gifts. So even if you receive I should tell you how the Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club works. Sorry, forgive me. I forgot to do that. You get three bottles, either of the small one or the large one. You get three bottles of these once a quarter. And they're literally just harvested from some sort of amazing organic farm somewhere around the world. So one quarter, the theme will be Italy. Another quarter, the theme will be Spain. Another quarter, the theme will be Australia. Another quarter, the theme will be Germany. Vineyards of olives from all of these cool places around the world. And then you will be sent your three bottles for that quarter. And the cool thing about that is most olive oil that's on grocery store shelves has been in those bottles and package for so long and been sitting on the shelves for so long that the polyphenols and the other nutrients from the olive oil are pretty much denigrated to nothing by the time it reaches your plate or your skillet or your meal or your salad or whatever you're using your olive oil for. So you get a much higher polyphenol content with fresh pressed olive oil than you would with any sort of supermarket olive oil. And the other reason I don't like supermarket olive oil is because it typically tends to be cut with other things like vegetable oils to make the production of it cheaper, which is so sad. It's just the reality of the world we live in, unfortunately. So I will put a link again to the fresh pressed olive oil below this video if you want to join the club that I am also in. Moving beyond the AST and ALT numbers, and again, I just got into the HDL, so now we're gonna circle back to another blood marker, which is my, let me see what I wanna talk about next. Oh, my HbA1c. So HbA1c, which is hemoglobin A1c, all this marker is, you guys, which I do think is an important marker, but I say all it is because it's simply a three-month look back at your average blood sugars. So obviously because I took this blood work as I was finishing a 12-week cycle of reta. My blood work showed that my HbA1c was 5.0. Now, I have had HbA1c's in the 4s before. I think the lowest I've seen is 4.6 or 4.7 if I'm doing really strict keto for a period of time. But this time, because everything I've read and studied about reta says you really should incorporate carbs. Reta isn't either as effective or as useful or as good when you're not consuming some carbohydrate. So I did increase my carbs a little bit during this 12-week cycle of reta. And so my average blood sugar for three months was 5.0. That was my HbA1c, which is a fantastic HbA1c. We don't want to get above 5.6 going into 5.7 because that's the pre-diabetic range. And I know of individuals who have been prescribed a statin to lower their cholesterol. And within less than a year, their HbA1c went from like the low fives up to over 7.0 because again, that's a consequence of being on a statin, which is terrible. So I'm really loud about statins should only be used in very rare circumstances for the particular individual who needs that. And I think a lot of people are prescribed statins that don't need them. Okay, moving on from HbA1c, I also want to talk about all my thyroid markers was good. I'll do a different podcast episode all about thyroid markers. But let me just say this, as you're looking for your blood work, if you're looking at your blood work, or if you're looking to get comprehensive blood work and specifically want to know what your thyroid, a really quality picture of your thyroid, we really need to get four specific markers for your thyroid, okay? Western medicine typically only gives you two, sometimes three. So what you usually will see on your blood work is TSH, which is thyroid-stimulating hormone, and then you'll see T4. And although those markers are part of your thyroid function, and it'll give you a little bit of an image into how your thyroid is working, they aren't the full picture. So we want to do TSH, we want to do T4, we want to do Free T3. And you may also have that on your blood work if you have a little more out-of-the-box doctor who gets a more comprehensive picture of your thyroid. And then last but certainly not least, probably the most important marker of your thyroid is Reverse T3. Okay, so just saying those again, TSH, T4, Free T3, and Reverse T3. Those are the four markers you want to get. And as a bonus, asking for your thyroid antibodies, this will give you a full picture of what's going on with your thyroid. A lot of Western medicine doctors are not going to want to do all of those, A, because reverse T3 is rarely covered by insurance, and a lot of times Free T3 isn't either. But more importantly, and I'm sorry to say this, they honestly, if they got those markers back, they wouldn't know how to interpret them for you. They'll just tell you that you don't need them. And the truth is, there is no way you can fully understand whether your thyroid is working properly unless you have all four markers. So if you want a full picture of your thyroid, get those markers, and I'll do a full episode on thyroid health in a later date. Now I want to talk just about a couple other things. My cortisol was good, which is great. Cortisol is way better measured in the DUTCH Plus. I'm going to do a whole episode about my DUTCH Plus results at some point soon. And then my DHA is excellent. So my DHA, I should say my DHEA, not DHA. DHA is a component of fish oil. DHEA is really necessary for hormone function. Having high quality DHEA helps raise our testosterone. It really helps our hormone function overall work well. But for women, if you have low testosterone, one of the things you could consider doing is looking at your DHEA to see where that is in a range. So DHEA, we want somewhere between on the very low end is 15, which is too low. And on the high end, at least according to this reference range is 205 and mine is 166. But I tend to take at least a handful of times per week. I take 50 or 60 milligrams or micrograms, is it, of DHEA. I'd have to look back at my bottle. I can't remember what the dosage is, but it's 50 or 60 because my DHEA was so low. So that obviously has helped get my DHEA back up. Also, my FSH and my LH, and this is very interesting to me, those markers tell me that I am still very much cycling in terms of having a menstrual cycle. However, in my reality, I haven't had a cycle for a really long time. So I was thinking, oh my God, am I already in menopause and I'm not even 50 years old yet? And so that was sort of concerning to me. But what I think is happening is because I started hormone replacement therapy in the spring of 2024, I think that because I chose to do it where I take progesterone all month, instead of only two weeks of the month and going off two weeks of the month, I think it's impacted my cycle so that I haven't been getting a period. And so what I'm doing now is running an experiment where I'm going to go back to only doing progesterone two weeks of the month and not every night of the month and see if I can get my cycle to come back. Because I just thought it was interesting that my luteinizing hormone marker and my follicle-stimulating hormone marker, which are my LH and my FSH, both indicate that I'm not in menopause at all, that I still should be cycling. And because I'm not, it tells me that I might need to adjust my hormone replacement therapy. And I am taking an estrogen-testosterone mix cream and a progesterone pill at night. And so I'm going to do my next DUTCH Plus to just make sure all my markers are in order so that I can see if I can start cycling again, which some women are like, why would you want that? Like, why do you want to start getting your period again? And the reality is because I think it's a healthy thing to have a normal menstrual cycle. That's the answer. Okay, so I'm not going to get into my progesterone, estradiol, all that, because that stuff really is only important I shouldn't say only important. It's more important when you measure that stuff through urine and then cortisol through saliva. And so that's what the DUTCH Plus does. You take that test at home. And you spit into this thing to do your saliva, and you pee into a little cup where you dip this piece of paper in so that you can get dried urine, and hormones are much more accurate that way. And then last, but certainly not least, I want to talk about both my ferritin and my vitamin D. So ferritin was low, vitamin D was high. So I get a lot of vitamin D because I am very intentional about getting out in the sun, but before I get to vitamin D, which is how I wanna finish this podcast episode, I'm going talk about my ferritin, which is only 41. So ferritin, the reference range, which is kind of nutty, is 16 on the low end to 232 on the high end. Mine is only 41. So I do eat a fair amount of red meat. But if I'm really honest with you, I haven't been eating much of it in the last 12 weeks. One of the things that I noticed because I opened the Discover Strength Gym in mid-May is that I have been so busy getting ready for that opening that I found myself, and I'm not proud of this, but it's just my reality, reaching for more to-go foods, reaching for more quick protein shakes, having more protein bars, having more protein chips, having more kind of to-go foods. And yes, of course, I'm still eating real food. I mean, I had a really big steak on Friday night or Saturday night of this weekend. It was amazing. And so when I do eat real food, it does tend to be red meat or at least chicken or something with animal protein, but I'm probably eating less red meat than I normally am and it's showing up in my iron numbers. So I'm actually going to start taking an iron supplement to get my iron numbers up, and then I'll do my blood work in another six months and see if I can make a difference in my ferritin, which I know that I'll be able to because the high-quality iron supplement that I recommend tends to increase my client's iron levels pretty quickly, which is exciting because we need iron for energy for sure. And then of course, once I start cycling again and you lose blood through your menstrual cycle, women, you also lose some of your iron. So you want to make sure you're putting back in that iron as you're losing blood in your monthly cycle. Okay. Like I said, last but certainly not least, my vitamin D is high. So my vitamin D right now, I am happy to announce, is 86. I have very few clients who ever have that high of vitamin D when they start working with me. Most clients are around 30. Some are in the 20s. I do have some that are in the low 40s when they start with me. But I always say since vitamin D is such a hormone precursor, like it's so important in making sure your hormones work right, that we want to get that higher. Now, over 100 is quote unquote considered toxic, whatever that means. And I will tell you that mine has been as high as 98 before. And because mine is so high, I was taking vitamin D for a little bit. And I would notice that when I took all of my supplements after my first meal of the day, I noticed that I'd start to get a headache for at least two or three hours. And intuitively, I felt that it was my vitamin D. I was like, you know what? I feel like I don't need vitamin D because I think my vitamin D is already so high. And so I'm going to stop taking it. So then the next day I would take all my supplements without my vitamin D, no headache. So I'm certain that I was getting a headache from taking vitamin D when I already have too high, not too high, but high vitamin D. So 86 is excellent. Like I said, mine has been as high as 98 before. And the key thing I would say about vitamin D is if you could at least get into the 60s or 70s, you're going to have more energy. Your hormones are going to work better. You're just going to feel better. And truly, you guys, the best source of vitamin D is getting out in the sun. So I'm going to put a link below this video. I recommend, I'll just pop it up here. This is what the circadian app looks like that I use. It's called My Circadian App. And this is an image of it. As you can see, there's a vitamin D window. So here in Nashville. It tells me that I will get vitamin D when I'm outside between,

I want to say it's like, call it 8:13 a.m. in the morning until around 5: 1:37:43

30

at night. So let's call it 8:30 a.m. to 5: 1:37:49

30 p.m. And that window at this time of year, because I'm recording this in June, is a perfect vitamin D window to be outside and get vitamin D absorbed in your skin. In the winter, that vitamin D window is a lot shorter, you guys.

Vitamin D might not start until 10: 1:38:04

30 or maybe even later, and it might end by like four something. So I really recommend getting the My Circadian app. It is free. I've since upgraded to the paid version. I will put a code underneath below this video that my friend gave me because she has an affiliate relationship with this brand. I should probably get one. I don't have one yet. So because my friend Danny told me about it, I'll put her code below this video if you want to get the paid version. But I really recommend that you keep this app open each day and you make an effort to get outside and get vitamin D on your bare skin, on your face, on your neck, on your arms. I walk outside with shorts so that I can absorb vitamin D from the sun because it makes all my hormone function work better. I hope that you enjoyed this episode all about my recent blood work. As I mentioned to you, I'm going to do a deeper dive on cholesterol. I'm going to do a deeper dive on thyroid. I'm going to do a deeper dive on my DUTCH Plus and all my hormone function markers at a later point. But for everything that I mentioned below this video, I will make sure that I put the links below. And then we will also put a link to my upcoming course that's going to be coming later this summer. That's called Hot and Fit AF Over 40. And we have a wait list going for that right now. So I'd be super excited. And I'm going to be making an announcement very soon about another course I have coming out that has all to do with energy. And I'm going to do this in a challenge style. And I can't wait to tell you about that. So thank you for being here. I appreciate you being a part of the Energetically Efficient community. And I love your feedback. I love when you subscribe to these episodes. So if you wouldn't mind giving us a like and a subscribe, I would appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day and I will see you on the next episode. Bye.