Hypothyroidism: Why You're Tired, Constipated & Struggling with Heavy Periods

Do you have hypothyroidism symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, constipation, heavy periods, hair loss, or unexplained weight gain—even though your thyroid labs are "normal"? 

 This episode explains why your thyroid affects every system in your body—from your metabolism and energy levels to your digestion, periods, fertility, and mood—and why many women continue to experience symptoms despite having "normal" labs or being on medication. 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What your thyroid actually does and why it affects every system in your body
• The most common hypothyroidism symptoms (and the ones doctors often overlook) 
•  Why "normal" thyroid labs don't always mean optimal thyroid function 
• The difference between TSH, T4 and T3
• How your gut, liver, minerals and chronic stress affect thyroid hormone production, conversion and absorption 
• The connection between hypothyroidism, constipation, SIBO, hormone imbalances and fertility
• Why thyroid medication may not resolve symptoms for everyone
• Practical, holistic strategies to support your thyroid health naturally, through nutrition, lifestyle and root-cause healing

Whether you've been diagnosed with hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's—or you're simply trying to understand why you don't feel like yourself—this episode will help you connect the dots and give you practical steps to better support your thyroid health, digestion, hormones, and overall well-being. 

Mentioned in the episode: 

Blood Sugar and Your Hormones Training

Interested in working together with functional lab testing? Check out my 1-1 program here. 

Click here to join The Period Protocol (option to add 1:1 session)

If you have questions, let's chat! You can contact me on Instagram or by email at info@thenourishedway.ca 

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is not individual or medical advice. Please consult your physician or healthcare provider regarding any medical conditions or treatment plans.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Nourish Way Podcast. Today we are diving into all things thyroid. Thyroid imbalances, especially hypothyroidism, have become increasingly common in recent years. And these imbalances disproportionately affect women. Based on what I've seen in clinical practice with hundreds of clients, I think thyroid issues affect a lot more women than we even realize, or a lot more than what the statistics show because of how difficult it can be to get a proper picture of what's going on with your thyroid through blood work. It can be really challenging to pinpoint what's going on with the standard testing procedures that most people are going through when they are going through their primary care provider to get some testing done. In this episode, we're going to talk about the many different ways that thyroid imbalances can show up in the body. And a lot of these symptoms are not things that people typically associate with their thyroid. I want you to understand these connections and also to walk away with some really actionable things that you can do to support your thyroid, whether or not you have a diagnosed condition with your thyroid. We're going to talk about what your thyroid actually does, some common symptoms of hypothyroidism beyond weight gain. These are things that your doctor likely isn't connecting to your thyroid. We'll talk about some of the more common causes of these imbalances or what tends to lead to these imbalances because hypothyroidism doesn't just happen randomly. Your thyroid doesn't just decide one day that it is not going to work the way that it's supposed to. There's always a reason why. We just have to peel back the layers to get to the root cause, which is often not even related to the thyroid. We're going to talk about how a slow thyroid can show up in really surprising ways in the body or with symptoms that really don't seem to be connected to your thyroid at all. Then we'll talk about some things that you can do to support your thyroid holistically. If you take thyroid medication, something like synthroid, everything we're going to talk about will be equally as beneficial for you. And these are things that I recommend my clients do who are on thyroid medication to really help the medication work for their body and to at the same time address the root causes of their thyroid dysfunction. Now, I'm not anti-medication. Medication can be really helpful for some people to improve their quality of life and allow them to actually build those health habits that are going to improve their thyroid function naturally and really address the root causes of their thyroid imbalances. But I have seen again and again people go on medication for their thyroid and they really don't see significant improvements. Things might improve a little bit in terms of their energy or the brain fog or their body temperature or the hair loss, but never really enough to make significant improvements in how they feel. So we'll talk about why this is and what you can do to support your body, whether you are on this medication, thinking about taking medication, or wanting to take a totally holistic approach. Okay, let's dive in. Your thyroid is a small butterfly-shaped gland that sits at the base of your neck just below your Adam's apple. It's an endocrine gland, which means it releases hormones, and those hormones set the metabolic pace for your body. So this means your thyroid regulates your metabolism and it regulates the speed of every reaction and metabolic process that happens in your body. We're going to unpack this as we go. So it's going to make a lot more sense in a few minutes. Thyroid hormones are sent throughout the bloodstream to every tissue in the body, and almost every cell in the body has receptors for thyroid hormones. So this means the thyroid affects every organ and every body system. And we're going to unpack this because if your thyroid is slow, symptoms can really show up from head to toe. One of the main functions of thyroid hormones is to extract nutrients from your food and generate energy from those nutrients. So when this process isn't working optimally or not working the way that it's supposed to, we're definitely going to see lower energy levels. We can see brain fog, we can see anxiety, hair loss. These are all really common symptoms that tend to show up when the thyroid is sluggish. Women are five to eight times more likely to be diagnosed with hypothyroidism than men. And the current stats show that one in eight women will develop an issue with her thyroid in her lifetime. I would argue that this statistic is actually much higher because it can be really difficult to get proper testing to get a full picture understanding of what is going on with your thyroid. So I really do think there's a lot of women walking around out there, probably men as well, with what we would call subclinical hypothyroidism. So hypothyroidism that isn't yet showing up on blood work. It can be really difficult to get a proper assessment of your thyroid function. And the lab ranges are extremely wide. So it's very common for women to have a lot of symptoms of hypothyroidism, but have totally normal hormone levels on their blood work. I see this with a lot of clients where they have a lot of the symptoms of a slow thyroid, but it can take until the thyroid is really struggling for it to show up on blood work and for action steps to be taken with their healthcare provider. When someone's thyroid is working optimally, the pituitary gland, which is in the brain, releases thyroid-stimulating hormone or TSH. You might recognize that from blood work panels. And TSH tells the thyroid to produce thyroid hormones. When the thyroid isn't making enough hormones, TSH will rise because your brain is telling your thyroid, hey, make more hormones. So your brain talks to your thyroid through this TSH hormone. Now there are many hormones produced by your thyroid, but we're going to cover the three main ones today that I think are most important for you to understand and to really get a good understanding of how things work with this gland. So we have TSH, this is produced by the pituitary gland, and it tells the thyroid to produce thyroid hormones. And those thyroid hormones are T4 and T3. TSH is the primary screening marker that most doctors use to assess thyroid function. The majority of doctors will test TSH only before doing any deeper investigation into the thyroid. And even then, it can be challenging to have all of your thyroid hormones tested depending on where you live and who your medical provider is. TSH is like the low balance warning in your bank account. So when your pituitary gland detects that you don't have enough thyroid hormones, it sends out a low balance warning, which then will cause an increase in TSH. Then we have T4. This is the main hormone that's made by your thyroid gland. T4 has to be converted to T3 in order to become active so that you can use it. So think of T4 like a physical paycheck, a piece of paper with your paycheck on it, right? So you have this money in your hands, but it's not in your bank account. Therefore, you can't spend it. It's not really of much use to you. This is where T3 comes in. So T3 is your active thyroid hormone. This is money in your bank account. So you had that physical paycheck, you've gone and cashed it, and now you have money to spend. T3 is the most reflective of how a person feels. Now, with testing the thyroid, reference ranges are really broad, and conventional medicine uses the average population to establish those reference ranges. So they will update those ranges based on the average population. So if we have a sicker population or a population that is not metabolically or hormonally healthy, as we do now in North America especially, we're going to see that reflected in those reference ranges. So this is one reason why thyroid issues can often go undetected, because with such wide ranges, one person can feel totally fine at a normal number, but someone else with that same number can experience a lot of symptoms, but both of them are going to be told that their levels are normal. Hypothyroidism happens when the thyroid doesn't make enough thyroid hormones. If someone is diagnosed with hypothyroidism, the standard conventional treatment is to supplement those hormones with a medication like synthroid levothyroxy, which in theory, this makes complete sense. In reality, though, it definitely falls short. I always say one of the downfalls of conventional medicine or mainstream medicine is that it tends to look at our symptoms in a vacuum. Now, mainstream medicine absolutely saves lives. If there is an accident or an emergency surgery that's needed, of course, we want to be accessing that type of emergency medical care. But when you are trying to address the root causes of a health issue or, you know, get to the bottom of your symptoms to really understand why they are happening in the first place, really support your body holistically, the mainstream medical system just isn't designed for that. So if someone has an issue with their thyroid, they are usually referred to an endocrinologist. And most of the time, that specialist is going to specifically treat the thyroid. In theory, this makes perfect sense. But the problem is our bodies are not made up of compartments and everything is so connected. So we can have symptoms show up in one area of the body that are actually caused by an imbalance in a completely different organ or seemingly unrelated system of the body. There are several reasons why someone's thyroid would slow down that actually have nothing to do with the thyroid itself. And we're going to talk about some of those root causes in a minute. Hypothyroidism can happen if the thyroid isn't making enough hormones, but it can also happen when those hormones aren't being converted into their active form or when they're not being absorbed at a cellular level. So remember, we talked about the bank account analogy. We can have a physical paycheck in our hands with millions of dollars, but that doesn't mean we have money in our bank account. You can also think of it like having a car in your driveway. If you don't have any gas in the tank or you've lost your keys, that car isn't going to get you very far. It's not going to get you anywhere at all. So we have to be able to convert those thyroid hormones into their active forms and get them into the cells where they do their work and you actually feel good every day. We're going to talk about both of these factors in a few minutes and we'll look at the role that the liver, the gut, and minerals play in how well the thyroid functions. Hashimoto's is an autoimmune condition which causes hypothyroidism. With Hashimoto's, antibodies attack the thyroid tissue, which causes it to break down. And then over time, it's not able to produce as many thyroid hormones. Hashimoto's takes an average of 10 years to be diagnosed. And interestingly, 80% of autoimmune conditions are that are diagnosed are women. We also see conditions like endometriosis taking an average of five to 10 years to be diagnosed. So not to go on a whole rant about this, but as women, we really have to do a lot of advocating for our health concerns to be taken seriously. And we can see it in the way that some of these numbers look. So thyroid hormones give your cells the energy that they need to work, like a car engine. So when it's slow, we're going to see lower energy. Since thyroid hormones affect every cell and organ in our body, we can see that slowness, that stagnation showing up in a lot of different ways. So as I said, we can have symptoms showing up from head to toe that all trace back to the thyroid. The thyroid sets the metabolic pace for your body. So that means it's setting the speed of every process that's happening in the body. This includes energy production, digestion, detoxification, elimination, your menstrual cycle, hair growth. The list goes on. But let's unpack a few of these key ones in more detail. So one of the most common areas of the body that I see impacted with a slow thyroid is the gut. A lot of my clients come to me with gut issues. And while I do a lot of functional stool testing with clients to identify imbalances in the microbiome that are causing these issues, I also put a lot of emphasis on supporting the thyroid when I'm helping someone fix their digestive issues. And I just want to point out, I do not need to see someone having low levels of thyroid hormones or hypothyroidism on their blood work to provide that support. If their body is communicating to me through symptoms, which we call biofeedback, I'm going to listen to that and I'm going to provide that support because the body is telling me, hey, this is what I need. Your thyroid sets the pace of your digestion. So when the thyroid is slow, digestion also tends to slow down, which means food sits in the GI tract for longer than it should. When this happens, motility slows down. So that means food and waste don't move through the digestive system at a good speed. Everything in the gut becomes stagnant. And this can lead to a lot of bloating, to pressure buildup, gas production, and constipation. When food sits for too long in the gut, bacteria and other microbes like candida, which is a yeast, can start to feed on it. And when they feed, they grow. So this can lead to an overgrowth of these microbes in the gut microbiome. So things like candida and SIBO can actually be traced back to the thyroid because these imbalances show up when there's a lot of stagnation and things aren't moving from north to south at a good pace. So I want you to think of a clear stream or river that's flowing versus a pond that's still. So water from a stream or a river is always in motion. It's usually pretty clear. I wouldn't recommend it, but you could probably dunk your water bottle in there and drink water from a stream or a river and be totally fine. With the pond, we often see a film on the top of it. There's going to be more bacteria in that water because there's no movement. You don't want to be dunking your water bottle into a pond with a film on the top, right? Everything is stagnant in this environment, and this is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. When there's a lot of stagnation in the gut, we're more likely to see microbial overgrowth. So bacteria, things like candida, because there's more opportunity for these microbes to feed and grow when things aren't moving. I want to circle back to the constipation piece for a moment because this affects so many women. And the thyroid is one of the first places that I target support when I'm working with clients who are constipated. So if we think about the thyroid basically putting the body into slow mode when it's not working properly, that's going to slow down movement in the digestive system. Along with that, one of the main reasons that we can see thyroid function slow down is chronic undereating, chronic long-term dieting, long-term caloric restriction, food restriction. And this is also very connected to constipation. Okay, next let's talk about the cycle, our periods. Thyroid hormones play a really key role in regulating ovulation, which is a really important part of the menstrual cycle. It's actually the most important part of your menstrual cycle. When thyroid hormone levels are low, the signaling that tells the ovaries to ovulate to release an egg can be impacted. So this can result in delayed ovulation or in menstrual cycles that are inovulatory, which means ovulation didn't happen at all. If you are trying to conceive, you definitely want to make sure your thyroid is very supported. This should be standard care in fertility treatment, but it's not something that's usually looked at or addressed to the level that it should be. If you are not trying to conceive, this is still super important because a healthy body ovulates most cycles. Ovulation is the only way that our bodies make progesterone. So progesterone is one of our reproductive hormones. It has a very calming effect on the nervous system. It helps us get good sleep. It reduces anxiety. It's anti-inflammatory. It also supports healthy thyroid hormone levels and it keeps estrogen in balance. Estrogen detoxification can also be affected if the thyroid is slow. So we can end up with this estrogen-dominant situation where we're not actually clearing or detoxifying estrogen and also not making enough progesterone, all tying back to the thyroid. And this combination where we end up with estrogen dominance sets us up, sets us up for PMS, for bloating, a miserable week before your period. So, you know, that kind of week to 10 days before your period in your luteal phase where you're just irritable and exhausted and bloated and don't feel like yourself. Also very connected to symptoms actually on our period, like heavy bleeding and cramps. So this is a really good example of how connected our bodies are, because our reproductive organs are pretty far away in our bodies from our thyroid. And typically, someone would be referred to an endocrinologist for their thyroid issue and then a gynecologist for their cycle or period issue. Yet these are our cycles are so affected by how our thyroid is functioning. Okay, let's talk about some of the more common symptoms that tend to show up when the thyroid isn't working optimally. So, number one is going to be chronic fatigue. So that fatigue that just doesn't improve no matter how much rest you get. Dragging yourself out of bed in the morning, you're getting eight, nine hours of sleep and you are still exhausted. You are crashing in the afternoons, you're just kind of running on fumes. Always being cold. We all have that friend who carries a sweater everywhere they go in the summer. So we're not generating enough body heat when the thyroid is slow, having popsicles for hands and feet, so really cold extremities, constipation, brain fog, weight gain, elevated cholesterol, very closely tied to the thyroid because if the thyroid is slow, it is not clearing cholesterol from the body fast enough. Heavy periods, irregular cycles, thinning hair, and anxiety and depression. This is one that most people are usually pretty surprised about. Thyroid hormones help to regulate neurotransmitter activity. So there's actually a very strong thyroid mental health connection that I find gets missed most of the time. There are many factors that contribute to the development of hypothyroidism, and usually it's a combination of factors, but we're going to talk about four that I think really encapsulate it all. With each of these contributing factors, we're going to see chronic inflammation and a stressed-out body, which are at the root of all dysfunction in our body. So, number one is going to be chronic stress. The adrenal glands are going to conserve energy or save energy for us to fight or flight when we are under that chronic, relentless, never-ending stress. This usually leads to higher cortisol levels, and cortisol can really put the brakes on all hormone production, including thyroid hormones. If you remember, I talked about the disproportionate number of women who have hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's compared to men. And I'm sure when you know I'm going through this list now, you're going to be able to see why. Women tend to be more prone to chronic stress. We are set up by our societal norms for chronic stress. Ironically, women hold so much responsibility within our patriarchal society. We are running companies, running businesses, households, schools, hospitals. We are the main caregivers. We are holding space for everyone around us. We are the ones who need boundaries more than anyone else because there is usually so much being asked of us, but we often struggle to create them because so many of us find ourselves being pulled in so many different directions. The majority of my Clients really identify with this. I identify with this because we are hustling on the go all the time. Most of my clients have really full schedules. They are busy women. They are doing so much for everyone around them. And they often have very little left at the end of the day for themselves. So they are just quite literally running on fumes. I really think there is no supplement for your thyroid that is going to replace slowing down to a reasonable level, you know, whatever is going to work for you and setting boundaries with your time, with people, with your phone, wherever they need to be set for you. Number two is chronic underfueling or undernourishing, dieting, caloric restriction, whatever label we want to put on it. The thyroid is going to slow down when the body believes it needs to conserve energy and when it doesn't have enough raw materials or the building blocks, which comes from our food, that it needs to produce adequate hormones. Women are the main targets of dieting campaigns. We always have been. I am working really hard to change the conversations around this, but the reality is most women have dabbled in dieting. Many have been dieting their whole life on and off. And this long-term calorie restriction is a big stressor on the body. I always tell clients your thyroid doesn't run on caffeine and thin air. It requires a lot of nutrients. It requires enough food coming in consistently every single day, just like your car requires gas or electricity to run properly. And with chronic dieting, we're also going to see nutrient deficiencies because the body isn't getting what it needs when there is caloric restriction. It can be challenging enough to meet our body's demands for nutrients, just given our processed food system and the depleted state of our soils. Never mind the fact that most of us grew up on the standard American diet and then moved into, you know, whatever, get skinny quick fad was trending at the time. And I said that in air quotes, for a lot of women, they can end up spending literally decades in cycles of food restriction. Now, with nutrients, this is not an exhaustive list, but a few of the key nutrients that your thyroid really needs to function are iron, zinc, selenium, B vitamins, potassium, and amino acids from proteins. When I'm working with clients, I'm really focusing on food sources of these nutrients. I highly recommend not going out and buying a supplement for each of those. We're going to absorb nutrients a lot better when they come from whole foods. Now, this doesn't mean there's not a place for supplements. There absolutely is. I take supplements, I recommend supplements in my client protocols, but everyone's specific nutrient needs in terms of supplements is going to be different. And my approach is to support the body's foundations first. So eating enough food, balancing blood sugar, lots of nutrients from those foods, sleep, sunlight, movement, minerals. And then we assess what supplements would really benefit their body at that point. Women are also the primary targets for the beauty industry. And with that, it means we are exposed to a lot more chemicals than men. And a lot of these chemicals really impact our hormones. This is something I feel doesn't get enough attention. And sometimes it can come off as fear-mongering on social media, which is never ever my intention. I think we deserve to understand how things in our environment impact our health, especially when these are things that we do have control over. So things like fragrances, especially perfume that's sprayed right onto the thyroid, right? We spray perfume on our neck. This can really impact our thyroid gland. Synthetic fragrances in perfumes, in scented lotions, shampoos, etc., often include thousands of ingredients that companies don't have to disclose on the label. It just says fragrance or perfume, and these ingredients not only affect our thyroid and thyroid hormones, but they also can really affect our reproductive hormones. Then we have things like microplastics, parabens, forever chemicals. These can all impact hormone production and signal. I share this because once you understand where these toxins are found, which is in a lot of our everyday products, things like laundry soap, uh cleaning products, dish soap, shampoo, etc., you can make intentional changes to reduce your exposure. Now, fluoride is a very controversial one. Fluoride was once used to treat hyperthyroidism, which means it has the ability to slow down the thyroid. There are really strong opinions on both sides of the thyroid argument. Dental professionals will die on the hill that fluoride prevents cavities, and a lot of holistic practitioners will die on the hill that it is very toxic. There are there's information on both sides of this argument, and perhaps my mind will be changed in the future. I always keep it open, um, you know, depending on new information that I get. But as of right now, I do filter my water for fluoride. I use fluoride-free toothpaste, and I don't get fluoride treatments at the dentist because of the impacts on the thyroid, and because I just don't believe that it's a healthy substance to put into my body. Now, everyone's body is different. I can tell you, I have never had a cavity in my life, and I have not had a fluoride treatment since I was a kid. This is just what has worked for me, and this is the decision that I have made for my body based on the research that I have done and what I know at the present time. As I said earlier, we can't just look at the thyroid in a vacuum because it is greatly influenced by other parts of the body. Good thyroid function greatly depends on good liver and gut health. So the pituitary gland in the brain tells the thyroid through TSH to increase or decrease hormone production. Those hormones are transported through the bloodstream and they get delivered to the gut and the liver for conversion. So converting into that active form of T3. About 70% of that hormone conversion happens in the liver and 20% in the gut. So hypothyroidism is often related to poor hormone conversion. It is a very nutrient-demanding process. We need robust amounts of nutrients like zinc, selenium, and magnesium for that conversion to happen. If we have a lot of chronic inflammation in the body, which is very common, this is going to put the brakes on conversion. So we really want to calm that inflammation that's going on to support that conversion process. Sluggish liver function or imbalances in the gut microbiome impact that hormone conversion. With sluggish liver function, this does not have to be something that you see on a blood work. I think most people, if not everyone, can use some liver support because our livers are exposed to a lot more chemicals, a lot more toxins than they used to be. And realistically, it's more than what our livers can actually keep up with. I talked about these toxins that impact our hormones. Those all impact the liver because the liver has to detoxify them and get rid of them. So if you think of your liver as your busiest employee, you own a company, you have this employee, they are a rock star, they have the most jobs on their plate. The more jobs that get placed on them, the more they're going to start to slack and balls are going to get dropped because they have a reach their capacity. They can't get everything done in a day. So a really common scenario is an overworked liver because it is, it's trying to do 500 functions that it has to do for your body every day. And then it has to convert has to get rid of all of these toxins and chemicals that we are exposed to on a regular basis. So what can happen is the liver will prioritize that, getting rid of some of those things that we're exposed to. And then it doesn't have the capacity left to do its regular jobs. And one of those jobs is converting thyroid hormones. Hormones also need to get into the cells. So stress, chronic stress, can block that absorption as well as mineral deficiencies, play a really big role here. So I run a lot of HTMAs in my practice, hair tissue mineral analysis. I see a lot of potassium deficiencies on HTMA. And this can play a really big role in how well those thyroid hormones actually get into the cells. I've worked with a lot of women who've been taking thyroid medication, but really often they just don't see enough improvements. They might, they might feel ever so slightly better, but it doesn't really move the needle for them. Thyroid medications are giving the body T4. That is the paper paycheck. This is the inactive form of thyroid hormone. So this is really only addressing one piece of the puzzle, which would be if someone isn't making enough of this hormone, right? But if their problem is actually poor conversion, so if we need to be supporting the liver, we need to be supporting the gut, we need to be working on inflammation, we need to be getting those nutrients up, or if they're not absorbing those hormones at a cellular level, we need to work on the minerals, they're not going to see much improvement in how they feel every day with the medication. They're still going to be tired, still going to struggle with their weight, still going to have brain fog, hair loss, etc. Okay, let's talk about some things that you can do to support your thyroid so that you can have consistent energy, you have mental clarity, daily bowel movements, no constipation, and you can, you know, feel like your metabolism is actually working for you. It's not running on slow mode all the time. The number one thing that you can do for your thyroid, which is the hardest thing, is going to be to slow down. Get your sleep, get sunlight every day outside, five, 10 minutes minimum of sunlight. You know, be out in nature regularly. Have phone-free mornings, right? Have phone-free evenings, have a proper morning and wind-down routine at night, less input from technology, less notifications, less doom scrolling. This one is, of course, so individualized, but we really do have to take a good audit of our lifestyle and see, you know, where is the wiggle room for us to slow down a little bit. So a little exercise I always give clients, and this is something I use for myself. It's called the speed dial exercise. So I ask them to give me a number of from one to 10 of how fast they are moving throughout the their day. Now, normally the answer is eight, nine, 10. And I could say that for myself as well sometimes. And then I tell them to picture just turning that dial down ever so slightly to a number that feels actually reasonable. So if I catch myself, you know, maybe wiping down the table after dinner and I'm, you know, I'm just going so fast, I'm going at an eight out of 10. I'll just quickly picture that speed dial and go down to a six. And I just slow myself down so that I'm not living my day-to-day life like everything is an emergency. So if this kind of resonates with you, try out the speed dial exercise. I've found it to be very helpful. Okay, next is going to be eating enough calories and balancing your blood sugar when we're not eating enough, when our blood sugar is swinging up and down every single day, which is the case for most people. It is the case for almost all of the clients that come to me. We're going to see our thyroid function slow down. I will link an episode in the show notes all about blood sugar. So you can go and watch that. And there's lots of good little tidbits in there that you can implement to support your blood sugar balance. This is something I absolutely start with when I'm working on someone's thyroid health, is we have to have balanced blood sugar every day. Then we have some nutrition things that we can do. So really focusing on anti-inflammatory fats. So this would be things like olives, extra virgin olive oil, avocado, butter, wild fish, coconut oil, and trying to limit fats that are coming from seed oils as much as possible. So if this is a new term for you, seed oils, I would recommend Googling a list of those and just keep that in your phone for reference. But the most common ones that you're going to see on food labels are vegetable, canola, and soybean. These oils are very inflammatory to the body as a whole and they don't provide us with any nutritional value. So really trying to reduce your consumption of these oils in packaged foods is a really great area to focus on. These oils are particularly inflammatory to the gut. And remember, the gut plays a really important role in that thyroid hormone conversion. Next is replenishing minerals. So making sure you have a good quality sea salt or a caltic salt, this actually helps to get iodine into the cells. We need sodium for a good adrenal function as well. Potassium is an especially important mineral for the thyroid because it actually helps to get thyroid hormones into the cells where they can do their job. So things like coconut water, aloe vera juice, avocado, squashes, and sweet potatoes, these are all really great sources and you want to be intentional about including a few sources of potassium into your meals every day. If you are struggling with your thyroid function, I would highly recommend getting an HTMA test done. That's a hair tissue mineral analysis. We can see what your potassium levels among all of your other minerals are doing. There's also a ratio on there called the thyroid ratio. It is looking at the ratio between calcium and potassium. And this gives us so much insight into what is happening with the thyroid at a cellular level. So for my clients who've been told over and over and over again that their blood work looks normal, but they have all of the symptoms of hypothyroidism. It is so validating and informative when we run an HTMA because they can see it right there. It's in the data. The information is right there about what is going on with their thyroid. And then we can really target it and add in proper supports. Next would be supporting your liver. So reducing perfumes, synthetic fragrances, right? Taking a good audit at anything in your home that has those synthetic fragrances. So this could be your personal care products. It might be a Bath and Body Works candle or a nice candle from HomeSense. It could be cleaning products that tend to have some pretty harsh chemicals. So this doesn't have to be an all or nothing, but just taking a good audit and slowly over time, it took me quite a long time to really overhaul all of my products and switch to things that are non-toxic. But this really helps to take the burden off of your liver so that the liver is not busy detoxifying and getting rid of these things from your body, from your physical environment, and it is able to do things like convert those thyroid hormones. Castor oil packs are one of my favorite ways to support the liver. If you're not familiar with this, I would go on YouTube and look up a video just so you can get a good idea of how it works. But basically, you put castor oil on topically. So it goes on your skin, right under your right rib cage over your liver, and then you wrap a cotton pack around it. You can get those on Amazon for 20 bucks. This helps your skin to absorb that oil. And the castor oil helps your liver to detoxify. It's also really helpful for constipation. If this is something that you do struggle with, castor oil packs don't work like a laxative. It's not going, it shouldn't for most people anyway, have you running to the bathroom. But I do find for most of my clients when they are wearing their castor oil pack overnight to bed, they do find it just helps with, you know, regular, more consistent bowel movements in the morning. So, like I said, you can get a bottle of castor oil and you can get the castor oil wrap on Amazon. It's pretty an a pretty inexpensive way to support your liver. And it can also be helpful for constipation as well. I use my castor oil pack three to four times a week and I just wear it to bed. I find that works the best for me to be consistent. Okay, that wraps up today's episode. I hope you have more clarity around what's going on with your thyroid and your hormones. I hope that the recommendations I shared are helpful for you. If you are looking for deeper support with your thyroid and your hormones, if you want to do some testing like HTMA or a GI Map stool test to really uncover what's driving your specific symptoms, this is exactly what we do with clients. Our program takes a root cause approach where we are connecting the dots between your lab results and biofeedback from your body to identify why your hormones are out of balance. So biofeedback means we're using signals like your energy, your skin, your digestion, your cycle, all in combination with the data that we get from your labs and then creating a plan to correct those imbalances that are driving your symptoms. If you've been in my world for more than a minute, you know that I believe we can't achieve anything with our health if we are undernourished. So this means no restrictive protocols. I want you eating as many whole foods as possible. I want you to be eating enough food, and you will learn very quickly how to properly nourish your body. You're going to learn how to make balanced meals that are simple and easy. You'll learn how to eat an anti-inflammatory diet that you enjoy, how to maintain your results during holidays and while you travel and while you socialize. If this resonates with you and it feels aligned with the type of support that you're looking for, you can connect with me and learn more about this process through the link in the show notes or just send me an Instagram, a message on Instagram. Thanks so much for tuning in and I will see you on the next episode.