Welcome to the VP Life Podcast, the show

where we bring you actionable health

advice from leading minds.

I'm your host, Rob. My guest today is

Sonia Spill.(...) Sonia, a bodybuilding

prep coach turned functional medicine

nutritionist, works with women to help

them overcome complex immune and

metabolic health concerns.

Expect to learn what hormones are and

their roles in female physiology,

why hormone replacement theory isn't the

cure all it's promised to be, and how

Sonia works as women to help them lose

weight and reclaim their lives.(...) Now,

on to the conversation with Sonia Spill.

Hey, Sonia, thanks for joining us today.

It's Saturday, I know, and you have a

growing family. So I appreciate you

taking the time out of your morning to

talk to us. It's a topic I'm passionate

about and one I know you're passionate

about too, and that being women's health,

of course.(...) Now, I'm fairly familiar

with you, having worked with you in the

past.(...) Sorry, you

had to put up for me.

However, I know some of our audience

likely will benefit from getting to know

you just a little bit better in your

story. So yeah, shoot, if you could just

fill us in with who you are.

Yeah, so my name is Sonia Spill, and I am

a functional health coach in the United

States. I work with clients all over the

world,(...) Dubai, Australia, UK, all

through the United States, South America.

We,

meaning at Vital Coaching, the company I

work for, we sort of pride ourselves in

working with some of the toughest cases.

And I was originally one of those

toughest cases, tough cases, when I came

over to Vital.(...) I spent a lot of my

years in fitness. I was competing in

women's bikini division bodybuilding. So

I did that for a couple of years, and it

really takes a toll on your body. And as

I was coming out of competing, I started

to realize how much dysfunction I had,

even the years prior to going in. I

realized that there was a lot of things

like chronic bloating, loss of period,

(...) chronic hair loss, hypothyroidism,

that at 25, 26, a woman

really shouldn't be experiencing.

And even post-competing when my food came

back up and I got body fat back on my

body, none of it really improved. I

actually had it go on full HRT, none of

that worked. I had chronic inflammation.

(...) I had what we consider overactive

immune disorder, which I'm happy to

explain a little bit, which is just

chronic immunological sort of

inflammation inside of the body. And it

doesn't always have an easy diagnosis

because you can't

visually see it on labs.

Hypothyroidism is when your thyroid is

low, you can visually see that on labs

and you can see some autoimmune

conditions, but not all on labs. And I

really struggled for about four years

until I came for vital coaching. Me being

a coach myself, I had kind of seen some

clients go through similarities, nothing

as extreme as I was going through, but it

wasn't really until I came over, I

started understanding the depth in which

my body had had dysfunction,

right? We kind of see this,

like we talk about root cause and I know

you've heard this term and I know people

listening have heard that that's the root

cause. And it's like, oh, the root cause

of this fatigue is hypothyroidism. It's

like, but what's the root cause of the

hypothyroidism gut issues? Well, it's

like, but deeper than that, where did the

gut issues come from? Immunological

dysfunction inside of the gut. And at

vital, we really go down to those levels

and I had never had somebody go to those

levels with me before. And that's where

the healing really began. And obviously

it was completely blown away. I already

being a bodybuilding coach myself really

saw a gap in the industry to combine

physique athletes and hormonal

dysfunction healing and, you

know, some sort of endocrine

jump-starting if you will,

post-competing. And I came to the Academy

that we have through vital called

Metabolic Mentor University and started

training through that program. In

addition to the nutrition training I had

already been doing with my clients.(...)

And that's when I was in, Vince and I had

kind of connected and came over and now I

work under Vince Pistic, who's the owner

of Vital Coaching. Him and I work

together to run the Priority Select

Program, which is where we deal with some

of the toughest cases

really in the world.

For anything from the stuff we're going

to be talking about today, perimenopause,

amenorrhea, fertility issues, to

Hashimoto's, Lyme disease, lupus, you

name it. We pretty much deal with it. So

that is a little bit about my journey.

Yeah, it's an amazing one. Thank you. I

think if you spend enough time on forums

like Reddit and it can start to feel a

bit overwhelming. It just seems like

nobody ever actually gets better. Of

course, that's a pretty skewed

perspective and people who are oftentimes

posting those comments are the ones who

are still sick, whereas people who have

stopped posting obviously have gotten

better, but you don't hear about people

who get better, just the ones who are

still unwell. So what I mean is obviously

that there's a sort of statistical bias

there.(...) But the point is evidently

you are able to work through your issues

and it's amazing to hear. And obviously,

Vital is something we'll talk about a

little more in a bit.

Anyway, as I mentioned today, what I

really want to pick up your brain about

is women's health.(...) There's obviously

a lot to unpack and generally what I like

to do before getting into the nitty

gritty of the conversation is to start

breaking down some of the sort of complex

physiology that sort of underpins the

rest of the conversation.

It also makes a great real

and short. So that's a win.

Anyway, I think a great place to start

would be to really sort of at a high

level, break down what hormones are. I

mean, I think there are term that get

thrown around a lot and ultimately

they're just signaling molecules. But I

think people look at them as purely these

sorts of things that are involved in

reproduction and maybe, as

you alluded to earlier, thyroid.

And that's it.

I could rant on about it myself, but I

think you do a far more eloquent job of

highlighting exactly what they are. So

could you just... You'll try.

Yeah. Sort of break down

what these molecules are.

Yeah, absolutely. So you really nailed

it. I always say it very easy to

understand level hormones or messages. If

you think about the postal system, we get

a message, we get a piece of mail in the

mailbox, we read it. It's like, oh, it's

time for a doctor's visit. It creates a

reaction for us to act on something.

Right. Oh, this bill is due. Now we have

to pay the bill. Oh, it's a letter. We

feel joy. Oh, it's a Christmas card. We

feel excited. These are messages that we

receive. Right. And inside of the body,

there are these same messages. And when

one gets sent and received, it triggers

the body in a response. It tells the body

something. And we can have dysfunction on

all sorts of levels, but really when it

comes down to it, women's health,

metabolism, mood, energy levels, they're

all really tied to hormone balance and

key hormones for women and men, but

estrogen, progesterone and testosterone,

they fluctuate cyclically throughout a

month and they really influence how women

feel, how women function and how they

even metabolize nutrients, which we've

talked about a lot just one on one about

sort of nutrient uptake being very

different depending on hormonal function.

You know, when it comes to estrogen, it's

actually estrogens. They're like three

sisters and they work

synergistically together.

But how estrogens work in the body is

they really are. Their main roles are

growth and maintenance of reproductive

tissues. They support bone density,

cardiovascular health, muscle building.

They promote healthy mood. They enhance

serotonin, dopamine activity. They boost

insulin sensitivity, meaning that your

body is able to sort

of use glucose better.

It really helps with what we call

carbohydrate metabolism, but it's

basically how easy is it for you to gain

weight from eating carbs, which is why in

perimenopause, estrogen declines. You see

that insulin insensitivity increase.

And like I said, really the influence on

mood, energy, metabolism, like when you

have low estrogen, you'll typically be

more depressed. You could be more

anxiety-ridden. It really does help

sharpen cognitive function. So when we

see a decline in estrogens, we see

cognitive function decline as well. This

can happen in men and females. You know,

estrogen plays such an important role in

men as well. I think sometimes we think,

oh, estrogen is bad in men or we hear

estrogen dominance. We just think

crushing estrogen is the way to prevent

cancer and do all these things. And it

really has one of the most vital roles

inside of the body. Single-handedly, I

think for women, estrogen is one of the

master modulators really because it

affects so much and the decline in

estrogen specifically is where you hear,

you see that big shift in perimenopause.

Yes, higher estrogen, you know, can cause

issues and we can talk about that later

on when we dive in more. And then you

have estrogen sister progesterone and

this is kind of like our calming hormone,

right? And progesterone, the primary

roles are really to support pregnancy,

(...) really prepare the uterine lining,

balance the effects of estrogen. So we

really wanted to yin and yang very well

together. It promotes more of a calming

anti-anxiety effect. So it really works

with interacting with GABA receptors.

It's more calming, stabilizing can really

help promote better sleep quality.

It does slow metabolism and can decrease

insulin sensitivity, meaning when

progesterone is highest around ovulation

and the luteal phase, which we'll talk

about, you might be more sensitive to

carbs. Like you're not able to process

them as well. Does that mean you should

need them? No, you still need carbs and

we'll talk about all that. But it really

is interesting to see that when estrogen

is in its peak phase, you're really just

able to perform better. You're really

able to eat more carbohydrates, glucose

metabolism is at its optimal levels. And

then when progesterone is really running

the show, it's not necessarily the

complete opposite, but it definitely

slows down that process.(...) So things

to consider when we're talking about

cycle, I'll dive into this a little bit

more when we talk about the luteal phase

and the menstrual phase. But it is

interesting to see how they work so well

together, but they have such vast roles

inside of the body. And

then we have testosterone.

Testosterone for women is just as

important for men. I would say for men

testosterone is their vitality hormone.

For women, estrogen is our vitality

hormone, but testosterone still plays a

massive role in libido, muscle growth,

maintaining lead muscle mass,

just kind of like mood as well. It really

can increase motivation and energy.

And again, helps maintain higher

metabolism through muscle maintenance. So

the more muscle you have, the

higher your metabolism as well.

And you know, it's always so, I don't

know if you remember the movie Fantasia.

Do you remember the Disney movie Fantasia

and Mickey Mouse? He was like an orange

tree, right? And he was like always

controlling these things. That's sort of

what's happening. Women's hormones are

changing every five to seven days.

Really, we're having these

huge shifts and fluctuations.

You know, they all really work together.

Like I said, estrogen and progesterone,

they balance each other. Estragen is

energizing and mood lifting and

progesterone is calming and stabilizing.

And when we have an imbalance in those

levels, you see more mood swings,

anxiety, irritability. This is where

you'll hear more like

PMS symptoms happening.

And together, like I said, all three of

these hormones, testosterone,

progesterone, estrogen, they move

throughout.(...) And so if you're cool

with us just moving over, we can dive

into menstrual cycles as well.

Oh, yeah. No, all I was going to sort of,

that was great. Thank you. I'd sort of,

I'd love to sort of ask a quick question

first, though.(...) How, I mean,

obviously estrogen and progesterone are

the main two hormones in a women's cycle

that are regulated. How much does

testosterone in particular

fluctuate within that cycle?

Yeah, so we really have more, I would say

testosterone is more of the most stable

in the menstrual cycle, but it does

fluctuate around ovulation. So it's sort

of moderate in the luteal phase.(...) I

always say halftime, showtime, ovulation,

it'll come up and then it'll come back

down and it can be a little bit lower

towards the end of cycle.(...) Now,(...)

if you have endocrine disorders, PCOS,

some of these other symptoms, it might

actually be a higher fluctuation in

changing that can prevent the signaling

in the body's ability to release an egg,

which we'll talk about more with PCOS,

but it is the most stable of the women's

hormones. Like it's the one that we don't

have to worry about kind of the rising

and changing quite as much. We have a

strong increase around ovulation, which

can sometimes cause more like acne. Women

will say, oh, you know, I'm breaking out.

Sometimes that can be a steep rise in

testosterone, but for the

most part, it's the most stable.

Yeah, that was a perfect explanation.

Thank you. The only thing I would add to

that is to sort of question the notion

that these hormones are sort of gender

specific and as you alluded to yourself,

you get like people will talk about male

hormones and female hormones. And it does

drive me a bit daily because we all have

these hormones just in

varying ratios and amounts.

Obviously men, as you alluded to, are

generally speaking more

testosterone-driven and women or

estrogen-driven. And the way I like to

explain it is that fundamentally these

hormones aren't gender specific. They

just drive development of sexual

characteristics associated with those

genders. So estrogen will

drive more breast development.

Yeah, and those sorts of characteristics.

Yeah, Sonia, I'd love it if you could

sort of maybe we could transition on to

talk about the menstrual cycle.

Again, it's something I just mentioned a

lot, but I don't think,

well, most men have no clue what it is,

which is important to know, especially if

you're in a relationship. It helps you to

understand your partner just

a little bit more effectively.

But also, I think it's going to be fairly

critical to the rest of our conversation.

So could you just run us through the

basics of the menstrual cycle and the

four phases thereof?

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is really

important to understand because you said

a really great thing. Most men don't

understand it, but I would almost

challenge that thought. Most women don't

even understand that. I have an e-book

and maybe we can link it. It's a free PDF

e-book about mastering your menstrual

cycle because I talk to women all the

time. And I have to explain to them, "Oh,

this is where you're on your cycle. Can I

explain to you what that means?" And they

had no idea that that influenced that

much from digestion to mood to sex drive

to skin conditions. It really plays a

huge role. And when you understand it,

there are so many aha moments. And I

don't think, and it's kind of hard to

compare UK and US education, but in the

US, we don't really explain the menstrual

cycle. We just know it happens either

line and shed. We don't know what's going

on. And so when we break it down, like

you said, into four phases, we really

have, we have what's called the

follicular phase. And that would be

between days one and 13. The hormone

that's rising during

this time is estrogen.

So estrogen is, like we said, it's going

to, it's going to be, you're more of an

italian hormone, typically more creative

during this time,(...) less anxiety.

You're feeling stronger, better glucose

metabolism, progesterone is lower during

this time. Digestion might even be better

during this time. You're more optimistic.

You're like, I'm going to go out and I'm

going to, this is where you're like

brainstorming. You're like, why do I feel

so creative all the time? We'll check

where you're at in your cycle.

Higher, like I said, higher insulin

sensitivity, better for more intense

workouts, even if you're like hit

training. But again, you'll feel stronger

during this time as well.

Ovulation is typically depending on

female between days 12 and 15. It can

fluctuate in there, which is important to

know to prevent pregnancy, but really

estrogen peaks during this time and

testosterone surges. So that's why you

can see a strong increase in sex drive,

motivation, endurance strength during

this time as well. And then metabolism is

again at its all time highest during

ovulation. This is where you can actually

like get away with eating more even if

you're in a deficit or a dieting phase.

Have ovulation time be your refeed time

or where you're going out and having a

free meal or doing something like that

because your body's going to utilize it

so much better and you're going to be at

peak performance. So it's again really

good time for strength training. If

you're going to do hit training, this is

where you want to put it around your

cycle. And then the luteal phase is what

comes after that. This is where I'd say

all the magic really happens in the first

14 days. And it's the second 14 days that

really can be a little bit hard.(...)

When you're going into the luteal phase.

So the first thing to remember too is

after any strong increase in hormones, a

sudden drop off is always going to feel

much more abrasive if you will. And so as

you enter the luteal phase, there is a

strong drop off in the hormones and it

really kind of almost crashes down, which

can create more of like almost a stress,

depressed, maybe more melancholy feeling,

maybe a decrease in sex drive around this

time for a day or two. And then hormones

really start to rise in the second phase.

And if you sort of think about to give

listeners a visual, when we ovulate, we

are focal drops. And so we have this sort

of like outer fluffy shell and an egg is

released. This outer fluffy shell is the

Corpius lutum. It's sort of the modulator

for progesterone. And if you don't have

ovulation, you don't have the

progesterone created because you don't

have that fluffy outer shell. And

honestly, even in pregnancy, that fluffy

outer shell will stay until, you know,

middle of the first trimester. And that's

what's creating the progesterone to

really secure the pregnancy.

That is different in so many women. And

the more stressed you are,

the less of a response you might have an

ovulation or if you're under eating

chronically. And if that ovulation

doesn't happen and that Corpius luteum

isn't created, you won't have a rapid

increase in progesterone. And you will

have a rapid increase in anxiety during

the second phase. And that's really a

drop off in GABA. Exactly. Yes. 100%. And

our neurotransmitters are, look, we could

dive into that in a whole other podcast.

They are who we are. They influence who

we are from how we react to situations,

how we feel about the world. And this is

where you might even feel like more,(...)

do I want to be in this relationship? Do

I like my job? Like you start to question

things and you don't know why suddenly

you're questioning them. Look where

you're at in your cycle. You're like, how

I just ovulated. My hormones are coming

down. That's what's going on.

Yeah, it's got to let you finish the

world on a tangent. So let me. Yeah.

So both hormones kind of come crashing

down and then we start to have this rise

from in progesterone. And the

progesterone rising is in the body is

thinking, okay, if I am, if I am, if

there was sperm and we are impregnated,

the progesterone is going to rise to hold

that pregnancy. It figures out by day 28

that you're not pregnant and it comes

crashing down and there's no there's no

need to keep creating it. And that

triggers the response

of the menstruation.

But during the luteal phase again,

initially calm or stable than maybe a

little bit more anxious moody irritable

again. This is where you'll start to see

in the later luteal phase when hormones

come down again for the decline, which

triggers the menstruation more anxiety,

trouble sleeping, reduced insulin

sensitivity. This is typically where you

will see also a slowdown in digestion.

I'll hear clients say, oh, I don't know

what it is. It's something I'm eating,

but sometimes it's fine. And then

sometimes I'm backed up or I'm more

gassy. And I would almost challenge

people to say, well, note that where that

gassiness is happening around your

menstrual cycle, because in the luteal

phase, it's very common to feel slowed

down in digestion because the increase in

progesterone slows down motility. And

then you have a decrease in insulin

sensitivity. You could be holding more

water as well. This is where you're like,

why did I love myself 10 days ago? And I

look in the mirror and I just have the

worst things to say about myself, which

women do or like, wait, I just wore this

dress 10 days ago and I loved it and now

I put it on and I literally can't even

look at myself in the mirror. Like these

feelings that you're feeling, women

listening, they're normal. Like they are

happening for a reason. You're not crazy.

Your hormones are changing your body

ever. So I mean, if you really think

about hormones changing this month, this

much in just one month, it's a lot. And

so understanding what's going on, you can

have a little bit less of a reactive

response to a lot of situations and you

can have more response looking at

yourself. Is this something that I'm

feeling internally and not an external

situation that's making me feel this way?

And sometimes when we can stop and go,

oh, I just ovulated. I don't hate my job.

I don't not like this person. I'm fine.

I'm just going to sit in these feelings

for a minute. It'll pass and you won't be

so reactive to life.(...) So there really

are so many benefits in

understanding your cycle.

Like I said, luteal phase, better time

for a little bit higher fat, diet, more

like yoga, long walks, going for a hike,

still strength training, but not

necessarily hit training during this

time.(...) Really nurturing your

recovery, nurturing self-care during this

time. And then we go into the

menstruation phase, which is some people

say it's the end of the cycle. It's

actually the beginning of the cycle.

And that is really days one through like

five through one through six, depending

on who you are and what your cycle is

like. This is where all hormones are low,

low estrogen, low progesterone. And then

it's kind of the end as your estrogen

goes up, your cycle will decrease in

blood flow and it will normally get a

little bit darker. And that's where your

energy will start to come back. This is

typically where your low energy because

hormones are so low, potentially more

fatigued, kind of wanting to sleep, not

wanting to leave the house.

Lower energy can mean also lower appetite

as well. Sometimes people will get very

hungry at the end of their luteal phase

and then they start their menstruation

and they're almost like, I don't want to

eat anything completely normal. Your

metabolism is slowing down due to the

little hormones. It's kind of like a

little bit of like a taste of

perimenopause and your body is just

reacting that. This is where like yoga,

walking, going to get a pedicure, a

massage, spending times with friends is

really sort of the most optimal during

that time. So understanding how they

fluctuate throughout the menstrual cycle

can really, like I said, empower women to

understand what's going on, how to

optimize their nutrition, how to change

their training around and really how they

can look at themselves first before

reacting to life situations.

I have so many questions. We're not just

throughout the script.

So I'll talk with,

there's been a lot of this, there's some

data to show that women who

are under the contraceptive pill,

as you've just alluded to, hormones have

this incredibly powerful bi-directional

relationship with neurotransmitters,(...)

which as you said, fundamentally shape

who we are as an individual.

And when you start messing around with

hormones, quote, unquote, you alter your

perspective and your

sort of view on reality.

I mean, you're not stoned, but you

understand what I mean. And there is some

data to suggest that women who are

chronically on the pill for maybe

controlling hormones in their respective,

yeah, helping skin breakouts and things

like that, then will potentially choose a

life partner or mate, husband, et cetera,

that they wouldn't normally do when they

are, when they would be off the pill or

when they meet this person, then they

decide to have children. They transition

off this medication, obviously, so that

they can become pregnant. And then all of

a sudden, their values don't change, but

their perspective around

that individual changes.

Can you speak to that at all? It's

something I've sort of, I'm not that

well-written to that. I

do find quite fascinating.

Yeah, I'd love for there to be, there's,

you know this from working in the

industry, but women's, women's research

is just lacking, like for so many

reasons, you know, and there's a lot more

perimenopause, postmenopausal research,

and there's a lot of research when it

comes to estrogen-based cancers. But as a

whole, women's hormones is just an

under-researched area. But I have heard

this perspective from Dr. Kerry Jones

talks about it a lot, that the decrease

in progesterone specifically really does

influence your mate and your attractive,

like how attractive you are to your

partner. And that's why I always tell

people, like in your luteal phase, if

you're thinking like, do I even like this

person? The sound of them chewing is

driving me crazy. And all of a sudden

you're like looking at someone else, like

don't ever react in those moments because

it's a temporary decrease in your

progesterone crashing. It's not how

you're actually viewing the world. It's

the sharp change in

things like neurotransmitters.

There, I'd also like to add in too, like

there is a massive increase for both

suicide and anxiety in women who are on

birth control. And that has been

published multiple times again over in

the American psychiatric medicine

journals. And it is kind of ignored. I

feel like people are like, oh, the blood

clots. And it's like, let's talk about

the raising rates of anxiety and women

who are on the pill and how much that

influences people. It's a moneymaker kind

of because if you're on the pill, now

you're on anti-anxiety medication. It's a

cycle, right? And so why stop the money

train? But it really is so important to

understand this because sometimes we are

looking at depression and anxiety as

something that I need a medication for.

And there are times and places, but

nutrient deficiencies, birth control,

robs, not going to tangent, birth

control, robs, a lot of vital nutrients

from the body, a lot of B vitamins and

folate, which can cause mood disorders.

And then on top of that, progesterone,

like we said, is calming. It's the one

that helps to sleep. It reduces anxiety.

And when you suddenly have a change where

you're not having that hormone and you're

not having that response in your body of

calming, you see the world through a lens

that you have never seen it and you don't

understand. And your only solution is

medication. And so I challenge people to

look at their hormones before they look

at their next prescription medication for

mood disorders. I mean, bipolar, there

are so many exceptions. But when it comes

to anxiety and depression because

hormones and women and men play such a

huge role, that's always

the route I would go first.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more,

especially with regards to your comments

about there not being that much research

done into women's health, especially sort

of prior to periem and menicals.

Obviously, I think the biggest body of

evidence or not evidence, but research

done there is probably a women's health

initiative, which retrospectively is

probably almost useless now because all

it suggests was that if you take

hormones, you're going to die.

But yeah, we'll bypass that one.

And yeah, again, I couldn't agree more. I

think as a society, we tend to sort of go

down this very sort of reductionist, sort

of take this very reductionist approach

whereby we just sort of look at things at

the sort of the visually the lowest

common denominator. So person is

depressed. Well, okay. Why?

Because serotonin is low. Okay, well,

then let's just increase the serotonin

and just bypass the fact that the

person's inflamed. They have tank

hormones. They have immune dysfunction at

all levels. And yeah.

Yeah, in a minute, I'd sort of like to

sort of jump into a few more specific

questions. But just going back to the

menstrual cycle quickly, you did talk

about how women should potentially train

around their menstrual cycle.

Obviously,

in the context of say something like,

yes.

No, let me rephrase that. How would a

woman who's potentially a professional

athlete sort of utilize that approach? Or

would that then go out the window when

you're sort of taking competition into

account? Obviously, women's cycles don't

all match up at the same time. So how

would you generally work with someone who

has got athletic goals?

Yeah, it's a really great question. And

sometimes we have to give up to go up,

right? What are we willing to sacrifice

when it comes to women's

competitive sports, gymnastics,

cheer, bodybuilding? There is a lot of

amenorrhea, which is lack of the

menstrual cycle. And that happens the

lower the body weight and the higher the

training, the higher the stress load.

(...) Some things you can do to prevent.

So I do have clients that I work with who

are training for something, but they also

have a goal of maybe, let's say,

fertility. And it might be not a

short-term goal, a long-term goal in the

next year or two. They want to get

pregnant. And so one of the things that

you can do that's a low-hanging fruit is

your workout nutrition increases around

different parts of your cycle. So we call

it cycle sinking. It's sort of like the

term that we use in the industry. And I

do talk about this in the e-book as well,

that when we have that surge in estrogen,

we can push harder. So maybe let's say

you're training for a marathon. When

you're training for a marathon, you can

do both endurance training and interval

training. And the interval training will

actually help with your endurance

training long-term, and it can help get

your minute mile time. So maybe during

your follicular into ovulation, you're

doing more interval, longer runs. And

then in your luteal phase, you're doing

more a strong increase in fats. You're

keeping calories high enough. You're

really making sure that you're obviously

taking care of nutrition, but maybe

you're going into a little bit more

endurance runs with longer recovery.

Yeah.

With food,(...) like I said,(...)

whatever you do, protect your ovulation.

Don't fast over ovulation. I have a lot

of clients who fast. I'm like, we're not,

unless we're working through like a

severe autoimmune case, like we are not

fasting over ovulation. It's so important

to be eating during that time. I've

watched women do it and it'll create

dysfunction in their cycle. So eating

enough and really nurturing your body

during that time, you can push hard. Like

your hormones are optimal for pushing,

but you have to eat enough to support

that as well. So really making sure

that's in there. Some additional things

that I really like to add in a product

from Medigenics called Caprix, which is a

scurm, which is basically a product that

sort of modulates in the body different

responses and we use them for insulin and

inflammation and so

many different things.

Caprix is specifically for inflammation.

So decreasing inflammation in the body,

cold plunges, products like EPA, DHA,

Omegas, anti-inflammatory diets. So

important because if you're going to be

training really hard, the little things,

I always say that the little fucks don't

matter as much if you're not pushing

yourself, but they matter a whole lot

more when you're going to be optimal in

your performance. And you still have

hormonal goals, which is to maintain

cycle or maybe it's fertility long-term.

And that would be micronutrients,

minerals, hydration, all those little key

nutrients that believe it or not make a

huge difference in your body's ability to

respond to stress as well. So stress

recovery, nutrient intake, and then

training, timing all

come into consideration.

Thank you for that. That was a perfect

answer and we'll definitely link your

ebook in the show notes.

I think that would definitely help

because we've covered a

lot of information there.

Sonia, I sort of, yeah, I won't go off on

a tangent. I was going to ask about pro

resolving mediators, but

we'll do that another time.

Anyway, okay. So talking about women's

health, obviously you deal with a lot of

conditions such as

PCOS and endometriosis,

which strangely share a lot of, share in

etiology in the sense that,(...)

especially if you look at it from this

immune-centric approach. I think first

though, before we sort of maybe dive into

some of those specific health issues, it

would be, it would be, it would be

pretty, it would be a good idea to sort

of understand why these issues are

starting to become more and more

prevalent. Yeah, obviously things like

endocrine disruptors are an issue and we

live in this sort of toxic milieu,

which obviously doesn't help.(...) And of

course, genetics are

a huge factor as well.

And then as I learned when, when working

with you guys, blood sugar and the, and

the dysregulation of blood glucose has a

huge impact. But sort of beyond those,

those particular issues, as it were, can

you elaborate as to why you think just

generally speaking, women are facing more

and more of these issues?

Yeah. So I'm so glad we're bringing this

up because there is an increase, right?

And conditions like PCOS, which is

polycystic ovarian syndrome and

endometriosis, which is where you

basically have lesions and growth,

estrogen-based increase, estrogen

increases in these people as well. We've

really seen significant increases in

recent decades and, and decreases in

fertility. And there's also an increase

in weight loss resistance and a lot of

women as well struggling to maintain, you

know, healthy weight despite their

dieting and exercise efforts.

There are a lot of different reasons. And

so I think you really nailed it. So

environmental and one better diagnosis.

(...) This would be awesome. You know,

endometriosis, I still have clients

coming down from Canada to go to New York

to pay out a pocket to see a doctor just to get a diagnosis.

PCOS is a little bit different. I feel

like anytime you have a syndrome.(...) So

a syndrome is really a cluster of

symptoms. And so like irritable bowel

disease is a disease. Irritable bowel

syndrome is what they tell you when they

don't really know what's going on. And

they just want to slap a sticker on it,

you know. And so PCOS can be like that.

It has very, very textbook diagnosis, but

you'll see people with the regular cycles

just get slapped with PCOS. And put on

birth control without like really doing

ultrasounds on the ovaries,

the right kind of testing.

So between the two, sometimes you can see

a difference. It's kind of hard to get an

endo diagnosis. It's very easy to do the

PCOS diagnosis, which is, it should

really be the opposite.

And so better awareness and better, that

would be one thing, right? More awareness

in the medical field. I

can't even get started there.

Environmental lifestyle issues. So you

nailed it. Endocrine disrupting

chemicals. So these are,(...) when we

think about like a very easy way to

explain this to people is imagine, you

know, those kids games and they're like a

square, a circle and a rectangle. And you

put the square in the square pick and the

rectangle, the rectangle pick, they all

fit.(...) That is messenger. We talk

about hormones, right?

Those are the messages.

Every receptor has a certain, you know,

shape. And like

estrogen fits in the estrogen.

And then you put the receptor on the

cell. These endocrine disrupting

chemicals can go into the receptor. They

like kind of set their set themselves.

These chemicals are look enough like that

they fit into the receptor, but they're

not. This is where you'll see people who

are like estrogen, estrogen's increasing,

increasing, increasing, because some of

these chemicals are sitting in the

receptor telling the

body to increase estrogen.

We put these on our body, on our face, in

our hair, on our scalp, we shampoo.(...)

They're on my desk. They're like

everywhere. And I watch this because

obviously I'm very aware of this and I

have a 10 year old daughter. And she

loves to go to Bath and Body Works and

like all these places and I'm like, Oh my

gosh, this is like we can't even smell

these smells right now. They're so bad.

It's really hard to get a

young girl to understand.

Exactly what you mean.

Yeah. Like how this affects our

long-term, but I cannot stress enough how

much this greatly influences fertility,

weight gain, and hormonal function as a

whole. It is extremely

unregulated. Go ahead.

And these are called

xenoestrogens. Is that right?

These are xenoestrogens, particularly

this would be like BPAs, but also

parabens can also affect the same thing.

They go in and disrupt. The whole

endocrine system gets dysregulated. And

so when we talk about how much hormones

really play a role in even the release of

an egg menstruation, when we start to

have dysfunction in this,(...) our body

doesn't, our body wasn't

meant to take in these chemicals.

The amount of chemicals in

the US is obviously we're no,

extremely disreunge.

We're not far behind.

Yes, exactly. And so we start to see

things like parabens, things like

fragrance that really

are known to protect.

Felates, yeah.

Yeah, felates, yeah. To not only affect

fertility, but to also be somewhat

carcinogenic as well.

We do have a site that anyone can go on

and it's for all products around the

world and it's called the EWG. And you

can go and it's also an app and you can

scan your products. It'll tell you what

they have in them. And I wouldn't say go

out and get rid of everything, but you do

really need to be understanding that this

is a big deal. This isn't like I'm, I

have a lot of tin hat things, you know,

this is not a tin hat thing. This is very

real. The research is there.(...) We know

this to be true. This isn't an assumption

like glutathione and cancer treatment.

Like this has research. We know these

disrupt hormones. We know this for a

fact. And so when you're in taking these

things as a young kid all the way

through, you know, the creation of your

hormones, it's very easy. You know, you

think you're nine, 10, 11, 12, you get

your cycle. You already have three years

of exposure to these chemicals. When your

cycle does come, now it's dysregulated.

You have painful periods. Now you've

stopped birth control on it. The hormones

are still being dysregulated underneath

that birth control. It can create a lot

of issues from a young age and you'll

start to see an increase in these issues

from a young age when you look through

time, which is why birth control is so

common. Even in young females, 12, 13, 14

is because their cycles are so painful

and their hormonal issues are so severe

that the only thing the doctors can

really do rather than obviously detox or

educate, which would be the obvious ones,

is to put them on birth control

completely stressful period. Now we have

an influx in anxiety,

depression, all these things.

PCOS is really an androgen dominance

issue. An estrogen or an endometriosis is

really an estrogen dominance issue.(...)

Both can be missed on labs. How estrogen

is created in the body and how it's detox

in the body aren't always tracked in

serum levels. Estrogen can go through

three detox phases. One is very nurturing

and protecting and healing for the body.

And then methylation kind of occurs to

kind of carry it out. We have

glucuronidation, which is where it would

kind of be broken down inside of the gut

and flushed out through feces. And when

we have dysfunction in sulfation pathway,

right? And we have dysfunctions in these

areas, which these

chemicals in general can throw off.

Estrogen can recycle.(...) So instead of

flushing out, it actually comes in and it

kind of goes to detox and then recycles

in the body. Kind of go to detox and then

recycles. And genetically, this is where

genetics plays such a big factor.

And you have

things like your CYP pathways and those

really influence. Is estrogen growth

promoting for you? If it's not, great. If

it is, and you have an increase in

estrogen and estrogen growth promoting,

you are looking at an increased risk of

endometriosis, fibroids, breast cancer,

ovarian cancer. And that's just the heck.

Does it mean if you have this, that you

need to have your breasts removed or

you're going to get cancer or you have to

suppress your hormones? Not at all. It's

just important to be aware of that

because you can support detox very

easily. It's very inexpensive.

Supporting detox is one of the easiest

things you can do. It's a lot easier than

getting endometriosis surgery. But you

don't know that until you

really look at your genes. Yeah.

Yeah, no, you brought up a good point

there, disregarding the HRT, which I want

to come back to later. But it does drive

me nuts that so many doctors will just

take what are those patches called? We've

got them over here in the UK. Evangeline,

or something like that. And they just

give it to menopausal, a pre and post

menopausal woman who are struggling with

their hormones without any further

consideration of how a woman is actually

supposed to handle estrogen. They don't

look at any of these sort of genetic

potential SNPs that they may have that

sort of indicate whether a woman can

actually handle a large amount of

estrogen.(...) And I think it does.

It does drive, it is a cause of concern

because then all of a sudden, as you

mentioned earlier, if a woman has a

particular disposition for the

development of something like breast

cancer in later life, and you just slap

her with a large amount of estrogen in a

cookie cutter HRT model, then all of a

sudden you are creating a problem. And

it's just not thought out. There's no

reason why it shouldn't be.(...) Anyway,

we'll come back to that later.

I'd sort of also, I'm loving if you could

sort of really sort of talk to the stress

point as well. I think when we talk about

the reasons for these conditions becoming

more and more prevalent, picking on

things like, yeah, like these chemicals

in the environment is easy, like the food

is easy. But I don't think people

understand the role that stress plays and

especially psychological stress. And

ultimately, the body doesn't understand

stress as anything more stress. So yeah,

when you're stressed, cortisol goes up

more, you end up with the liver pumping

up more glucose, glycogen, and then you

end up with that aspect of it. And yeah,

again, our body should. So would you be

able to speak to that as well?

Yeah, so great point too, when cortisol

goes up, as the body's response to fight

or flight to get the body moving from a

stressful or harmful situation, glucose

is dumped into the system. When we have

that time and time over again, we can

have high blood sugars, high blood sugars

create more inflammation, high blood

sugars and insulin sensitivity or insulin

resistance go hand in hand for PCOS. The

higher the insulin, the more

dysregulation and signaling into the

ovaries that can raise an increase in

what's called the luteinizing hormone LH,

which will signal more testosterone,

which will create an angiotid dominance

area, which creates the inability for the

female to actually ovulate.

And rather than dropping a follicle, it's

sort of like it's ready to drop a

follicle and it turns into a cyst, gets

ready to drop a follicle and turns into a

cyst. And so polycystic, many cystic

ovaries is where we have that cycle that

you sort of, we just kicked off being

stressed as one of them, where because of

blood sugar dysregulation, LH is

signaling higher testosterone increases,

we can't ovulate, we have this buildup of

cysts on the ovaries. And it creates more

and more dysfunction, inflammation, and

it kind of goes down the whole gamut.

(...) Stress itself, high cortisol

releases progester, decreases

progesterone. Now this is for a good

reason. When we're in a stressful

situation, we don't want to be conceding,

right? This is like, oh, this is, this is

perfect. But if you want to conceive,

this doesn't work. If you want to have a

balanced hormone, the hormonal cycle,

this also doesn't work because when we

have a decrease in progesterone and an

increase in, estrogen,(...) we have

estrogen dominance. We have more anxiety,

more PMDD, more PMS, higher estrogen

means more risk of not detoxing it

correctly. Genetic factors

come into play here as well.

Cortisol,(...) you know,

stress as a whole.(...) This is always

kind of a hard topic because I see a lot

of Dutch testing where we can see

cortisol in along with hormones. People

don't even realize how stressed they are

until you show them like a four point

cortisol reading with the weighted

average. Like this isn't lying to us.

This isn't because you were scared to get

your blood drawn.

This is kind of a truth.

Stress is so many things. Stress is my

kids jumping out of the bathroom and

scaring me. That's a stress. It's fun. I

love it. We laugh. If my body doesn't

always like think, oh, this is so much

fun. I can feel the cortisol. That's like

when you get scared and it's scary movie.

That's that response. It's a hard

conversation.(...) It's losing a loved

one. It's loss of a job. It's divorce,

but it's also not having that

conversation in your relationship that

you really need to be having. It's not

setting boundaries with your friends.

It's not setting boundaries at work. It's

sitting in traffic. It's so, it's your

workout. It's your training that you're

so addicted to. That's a stressor.

Fasting.

Yes. Fasting can be a stressor. Under

eating, chronic dieting. These are all

big stressors on the body. And

unfortunately now more than ever, in so

many beautiful ways women are working

more than ever. But this isn't like a

political viewpoint, but our bodies

weren't meant to endure. The same sort of

stresses men's bodies are meant to

endure. Men really

manifest stress cardiovascularly.

And in hair loss, like

that's where men will show it.

Women really, their stress really affects

their hormones. And because as we

discussed in the beginning, it's an

orchestra and everyone's relying on the

other hormones to make a change in a

fluctuation to make the next response.

Right? Because their messages getting

sent that create a response inside of the

body.(...) When that's dysfunctional, it

triggers, it's like a domino falling,

right? We have more immunological

situations than ever because of hormonal

dysfunction. Blood sugar regulation due

to high cortisol, the immune system

function goes up when insulin and blood

sugar goes up as well. And we have

immunometabolism. So we have an increase

in the immune system up taking, which

creates more autoimmune conditions, which

I would argue, arguably say endometriosis

and PCOS are immunological conditions.

They're endocrine and immunological

conditions. And we have so many others as

well. We do see even postmenopausal women

almost manifesting as autoimmune diseases

because of the decrease in sudden drop

off in their hormones combined with high

stress during that time.(...) Unresolved

trauma is a chronic stress, a low grade

chronic stress. Unresolved infections. So

this is a huge one. I'll see too is maybe

you have a cavitation, not a cavity. Hear

me out. Cavitation, which is deeper than

that. It's in the root in between the

tooth and the actual jaw. You can get

little infections and their low grade.

Maybe you'll have one or two. Your immune

system can down regulate. It can cause

higher blood sugars because your body's

constantly fighting. And again, create

this cascade of a hormonal effect. So

there really are so many reasons, which

is why it's important to work with

somebody who understands and can help you

navigate because in the world of, I mean,

just all the things we talked about. I

mean, somebody could be listening right

now and be like, I'm all of those things

and none of those things. You know,

they're like, I relate to

everything that you're saying.

And I think with hormone dysfunction and

women and hormones, each individual

person has their own sort of like code,

whether it's their combination of stress,

genetics and blood sugar. But it's all

very unique to how their blood sugar is

raising, what kind of stress they're

experiencing, what their dieting history

is, what their hormonal history is. And

so navigating sort of those four pieces

of each women is so important in creating

a plan to help them find sort of that

peak optimal performance.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I

mean, literally, I couldn't have. That

was amazing. Thank you. And we'll have to

have a podcast, I think, on

immunomatabolism at some point.

Sonia, I'd sort of definitely like to

maybe go into how you start resolving

this in a little while, but first I'd

sort of like to maybe have a discussion

around the fertility side of things. I

have a feeling there's going to be a lot

of overlap here specifically because a

lot of the issues that you've already

mentioned, things like PCOS and

endometriosis do

directly affect fertility.

But just in your practice and in your

view, what are the, and you probably will

have exactly the same answers again, I'd

imagine, but what are you in your view

are the main drivers of infertility with the women that you do see?

Obviously,

there's two sides to that conversation

because there is also the male component

there. But from the female side, what are

the main issues that you see nowadays

just regarding

fertility? Yeah, fertility.

This is such a great question that really

a topic I'm so passionate about,

especially being diagnosed with

infertility for so long and I'm currently

expecting, so we're five

months along right now.

Congratulations.

Thank you. And I was diagnosed with

premature ovarian failure 10 years ago

and then even more recently went through

some more testing and they were still

like, you will have to do IVF. That is a

guarantee. And we had an accident, not an

accident, we're so grateful, but I mean,

it can happen. And so that really comes

through healing the immune system as

well. I would say outside of the things

we already discussed, PCOS,

endometriosis, very basic hormone

dysfunction, which you can see and

doctors will catch and a fertility clinic

will catch. Some of the most common

missed things and we do work at Vital

with a lot of fertility cases and a lot

of sort of failed IVF cases is the immune

system.(...) You know, we talked about

the immune system in women. It's so much

easier for the immune system to be

overactive. We can see that. The immune

rates in women are 70% higher than not

immune rates in men. Now, they're

increasing in men because of all the

things we talked about, but there really

is such a bigger immunological response.

This is also the difference between a man

flu and a woman flu. We always, oh, he

has the man flu.(...) Well, poor thing.

The men don't have the same immune

systems we have. So they are actually

that sick. Even though they have the same

bug, you're just fighting it differently.

Women's immune systems are chromosomes.

They're better adaptive. They're better

responsive and they have a better memory

as well. And so it's a beautiful thing.

(...) The issue is in pregnancy, it can

become overactive and over responsive at

times. And the body doesn't always want

to have, you know, a fetus. It doesn't

always want to have sperm in it and it

can attack sperm. It can attack the egg.

It can attack the fetus, which is why

you'll see failed IVF is an immunological

upregulation. We use a lot of things like

rapamycin to sort of slow down. If you

have on and off switches for the immune

system to slow down without

immunosuppressing, we use a lot of low

dose naltroxen, which can help the body

really prevent miscarriage by preventing

an immunological sort of uproar when the

body does get pregnant. And then we also

work on really re-toggling the switches.

So if you think about the immune system

as a series of on and off switches, this

is a very easy way. On and off for

inflammation, on and off for

responsiveness, on and off for turning

off. We have all these switches and

they're a part of our genes. And through

epigenetics, which is lifestyle stress,

endocrine, disrupting chemicals, toxins,

mold, these genes can become more, more

impactful. Expressed or? Yeah, yeah.

More, I always say, kind of more

impactful in your life than maybe if

those weren't expressing themselves. And

so when it comes to fertility, the immune

system really needs to be back into a

place of like calm. When I'm in a place

of needing to respond, I'll respond

versus I'm always turned on and I'm

always fighting. And we do that through

some fasting, through a lot of deep

immunological work, through

immuno-metabolism, we have, we can talk a

little bit about vital to like, we work

through some systems and we're addressing

mainly immune system and hormonal

dysfunction at the same time.

Yeah, I fundamentally, I think that's

that's that's ultimately, if I was to

sort of boil it down to just one or two

things, I would say it was, it was, it

was high levels of stress and then just a

rubbish environment. I think those

potentially are the two catalysts that

then drive this endocrine and

immunologic, not logical dysfunction.

Just at every level and it speaks to sort

of, and I think it's a conversation again

for another day, but it's where this idea

of sort of adverse childhood events can

also come into play. And that triggering

the sort of this baseline immunological

state that then sort of carries through

through the rest of life, which then puts

an individual at risk for the, for these,

for these immunological

and inflammatory issues.

I also think it's probably worth noting

just from a fertility point of view that

it's obviously all of these endocrine

disrupting chemicals are causing a lot of

precocious puberty in young girls. And as

you, if you're going to enter puberty

earlier you're going to drive a run

through your very reserve foster.(...)

And that's obviously a component thereof

too. I mean, if you, yeah, if you don't

necessarily have the eggs available when

you're trying to fall pregnant, then that

too is something to sort of be aware of.

(...) So yeah, it is just so multifaceted

in this. It's why I sort of think why I'm

such a fan of what you guys at Vital are

doing because I can't think of anyone who

takes such a, such a personalized and

sort of multifaceted approach to dealing

with these sorts of issues, which is a

perfect segue. And I don't get that right

often. So I'm quite proud of that one.

And two, what you guys do at Vital and

how you start to deal with these problems

specifically. I mean, again, I will get

back to you guys at some point, but

specifically how you start to approach

women's health issues, should we say,

hence this being the topic

of today's conversation. Yeah.

And how you, yeah, you

approach those, these issues. Yeah.

Great question.

I start by saying we have our 4F process,

which is kind of like what we're known

for, which is flush, feed, function and

fast.(...) But I would say that it's not,

it's not like a course where like you do

this step and that step and that step and

that step. We always start pretty much

with some form of flush, whether that's a

low histamine, bacterial,(...)

immunological. We're working in the first

phase of really opening up thyroid. We're

stimulating adrenals. We're stimulating

thyroid, stimulating adrenals, open up

lymphatic system, opening up the kidneys,

opening up the liver. We're really

working on increasing food during this

phase as well. And we actually utilize a

lot of juices during this phase, a lot of

micronutrients during this phase. We eat

a lot of food. People are always like,

oh, it's a juice. Carbs.(...) Yeah,

carbs. It is not a juice fast. I promise

you, you're going to be eating a lot of

food. And we're really just pushing sort

of a spike in insulin to drive down

glucose and really have better glucose

metabolism during this phase. Then we

really go into the function phase and the

function phase we're addressing

underlying gut issues, leaky gut, gut

dysfunction, SIBO or just dysbiosis,

which is just an imbalance, which could

just be low bacteria as well. We're

really utilizing also what I like called

metabolic flexibility. This is where

we're really adjusting.

The biggest thing for women is they get

stuck being sugar burners. So what I mean

is normally when you eat an apple, your

blood sugar will go up. Two hours after

your blood sugar goes down, this is

called your postprandial blood sugar. And

then it should start going down and your

body should turn on a mild amount of

ketones, which is where it starts burning

fat. And then it will burn fat as energy

until you eat again next time. And it's

the body's natural system that occurs.

We're born with this. This is why kids

and young women can eat a lot more and

maintain and not see issues because their

body is going into a fat burning zone

every two and a half hours. They're

starting to burn fat again. And so that

is how the metabolism works and how the

body is regulated, sort of like

homeostasis through time, inflammation,

stress, and you name it. All the things

we've talked about, your body sort of

gets stuck. And through high stress, you

eat an apple, blood sugar goes up. When

it starts to go down because your body is

so stressed, it doesn't want to die, it

doesn't want to burn fat. So many

reasons. Immune system is turned on. It

needs to keep blood sugar side to keep

running. Immune system runs off glucose.

(...) It will dump glucose in the system

to read regularly and

blood sugars will stay high.

And so you never get into fat burning.

And so when you're staying in places of

high blood sugars, you also don't get

into deep levels of cellular healing or

autophagy. Even when you're sleeping or

times of resting. And when we're not

getting through cellular cleaning, we

really have an increase in what's called

senescent cells. And senescent cells are

just sort of like dysfunctional zombie

cells, if you will, that really need to

be cleaned up, but the body doesn't have

the system set up to clean up those

cells. And they release what's called

cytokines, which create inflammation.

(...) So in this process of the function

phase, we work on metabolic flexibility,

making you a sugar and a fat burner. And

we also work on this phase of some

cellular cleanup as well.

We really start to introduce fasting

around this time. We'll go through

cyclical, maybe around cycle. Maybe we're

doing once a week, 24 hour fast, just to

get deep cellular cleanup. But we can't

do that.(...) Hear me out. You cannot be

fasting if you're not metabolically

flexible, because what will happen is

your fast will be a stress. Your blood

sugars won't drop. Your ketones won't

turn on. And you're just degrading muscle

and you're creating a lot more havoc.

You're wreaking havoc on your body during

this time. So it's important to kind of

work the system. And we have ways to

track this. You've worked with us before.

We're tracking glucose. We have systems

in place to make sure we're actually

getting the benefits before we put

somebody into a fast.(...) From there, we

really start. Okay. Now, now that we've

addressed the real underlying issue,

because the underlying issue isn't

hormone dysfunction. It's why the hormone

dysfunction happened. So now that we've

addressed that, hormones by this time are

already 10 times better. But now we can

start really saying, okay, do we need to

support detox better? Do we need to

support, maybe we're going in with some

HRT or bovines or products that stimulate

a specific hormone to create more

progesterone, to create more estrogen, to

support more estrogen detox. This is our

function phase. And so this is always

really important. I would say this is the

cherry on top. This is where we're

starting to work on physique. This is

sort of like your heel that we're locking

you back into the real world, if you

will. And so we work in these phases

specifically because one needs to occur

for the next to occur. If the body is

toxic and toxic and loaded, it will not

get met. It will not decrease

inflammation, which will not drop blood

sugars, which will not create metabolic

flexibility. So it's this system that

we've really niche down. Are there other

things that work? Sure. Dr. Pompa, Living

Well, there are so many great systems out

there. This is the system we find, tried

and true. We work with a lot of women on

a very high level. We've got 15 coaches

and our coaches see anywhere from 80 to

60 clients. And we have guaranteed

outcomes too in our program. We have an

85% success rate with our women in severe

autoimmune cases, which is massive.

We were talking about actual healing from

people who were told they would never be,

these are lifelong, lifelong diagnoses.

And they're completely recovered and

they're living in full remission and

they're feeling good. We don't heal. We

don't care that these people find healing

throughout themselves, lifestyle, stress.

We're working a lot of mindset. We have

our group coaching calls, which is such

an important piece to work the

psychological side of things alongside

healing the body so that you can find a

new level of living. Then you can sort of

step out of the sick girl or guy era into

like your strong guy or girl era or your

fertile guy or girl era. And you can

really sort of recover or find your

mission from those

situations you were dealing with.

Yeah, no, it's a great system. And I'd

say, and obviously I'm not getting paid

to say this, but I think the fact that

you deal with it at an immunological

level is almost completely unique. I

think most people just work upstream of

that at a best case scenario.(...) And

they'll just focus on sort of, as we

alluded to at the very beginning of this

conversation, a lot of people, well,

practitioners, will start to look at the

root causes being just fixing the thyroid

or maybe just fixing the gut, but not

looking upstream of that, not looking

upstream, maybe not looking at the

nervous system, not looking at the immune

system, which is fundamentally, as we

talked about earlier, where all these

sort of issues sort of really start to

come into fruition, where they start to

develop and when they

start to become problematic.

So I know we're starting to run up on

time, but I think I would be remiss if we

didn't have a quick

conversation about HRT.

I know that it's, again, something we've

discussed previously, and it's definitely

a bit controversial,(...) especially when

you start to sort of have the whole

menopause

pre-menopause conversation there.

Whether a woman should sort of naturally

go through menopause without HRT, or she

should have it. And I think the same

thing applies to men going

through andropause as well.

I'm personally, I'm of the opinion that

anyone who is struggling should really

consider HRT of any sort, whether that's

thyroid, sex hormones, or, yeah, because

fundamentally we need these hormones, as

we have now established, to function as

human beings. And it's not just about

aesthetics,(...) and sort of libido and

sexuality. It's about mental health, it's

about neurological health, it's about

cardiovascular health.

When you're working with a client,

obviously a woman in this case, when do

you start to have that conversation? I

know you generally, you're obviously not

a medical doctor, but at Vidal do have

medical doctors on staff

who can prescribe hormones.

But what are your thoughts on this, and

when do you get to the point where you

would advise a woman who is struggling

with her hormones to maybe consider HRT?

And then beyond that, I'd love to have a

quick discussion on the Dutch test

because, as I was talking about earlier,

I think it's a tool that just allows you

to fine tune an HRT protocol,

and especially from a sort of estrogen

clearance standpoint.

So yeah, I'll stop nattering now and let

you answer, but how do you go about this

with your female clients?

Great question. So I think you said it

really well too. There's no need to walk

through life suffering. There's no badge

that says I did this without HRT or I did

this with HRT. You don't get an award

for, it's kind of like natural

childbirth, you know, that's a bad,

you're like, whoa, that lady gave birth

naturally. No other girl, that's crazy.

No one is like, oh, they made it through

perimenopause without progesterone. Wow,

they're so incredible. No, you think

their poor husband or like their poor

stress or their poor

body went through so much.

There are so many things to consider. I

say one of the most important things is

remember that the lab is a lab, how you

feel is going to chunk that. I have

plenty of women who have very low

progesterone who are postmenopausal and

their perimenopause, you know, they're

cycling every four months and they feel

great. They don't have stress. They don't

have anxiety. They're responding to basic

weight loss protocols. They're doing

fine. And in the case like that, I

wouldn't say you have to have. I'd say if

their sleep is good and their stress is

good and their body is functioning fine,

that's great. A lot of how a person

transitions through perimenopause and

postmenopause is really based on their

life circumstances, how much they didn't

set boundaries, their trauma, how much

they didn't do for themselves, like the

stress they've had in their lives, the

stress they currently have. I would

argue, arguably say that, you know,

someone who's transitioning through

perimenopause who's a nurse and work

night shift their whole life versus

somebody who is a stay at home mom and

teaches yoga. Like those are going to be

very different outcomes

about their transitioning.

And we have to really understand that. So

I think that sometimes we can get caught

in labs and not how a person's feeling.

And I really like to go off

of how a person's feeling.

I love HRT. I just think it's such a gift

to the world for so many reasons. When it

comes to fertility, I always like to go

the natural route to bring it up. But I

really do use progesterone in a lot of my

infertile cases because some of these

women,(...) what we don't always

understand is getting pregnant can be

healing to the body. You're eating more,

hormones are higher when you haven't had

them for so long and they can re-regulate

in the nine months that you've had them

again, they're re-regulating and your

body is responding really well to them.

So I do use progesterone in some of these

cases and I really like to use it to

prevent miscarriage in women who don't

have strong ovulations

because we want the corpus callum.

So it's like the volume is very low and

it's not going to create a lot of

progesterone and it's not sure what to

do. And when we support progesterone and

fertility, it can really prevent

miscarriage on a high level.(...) I've

seen some fertility clinics, not ours, go

up to even 400 milligrams of

progesterone, which is a huge dose.

I'd say it's arguably about four times

what you normally want to use in a woman

than a woman. And so I think it's

beneficial there. I think when it comes

to HRT in general, if I'm going to have a

client who's progesterone, a basic serum,

meaning blood test, will do.

I normally like to do two or three

throughout a month versus just one

because if they're having irregular

cycles, you don't really know what their

surge is looking like, but you can get a

baseline from two or three very easily.

Like this person is not showing any signs

of increased progesterone. If a person is

showing increased signs of progesterone

and their LH and FSH, which are hormones

we look at, and sort of looking at the

use of their, like, are they

transitioning or not? Are they

post-menopausal or pre-menopausal?(...)

If everything is low, I think more

chronic stress. And I think, let me

address stress first. If those things

look normal and progesterone is still

low, I'll go into prescriptive

progesterone, maybe 50 milligrams again.

We don't prescribe. Our clinics do. So I

really just let our clinics, our world

class, take care of that. And so that's

probably around what they would use for a

female who's still cycling when it comes

to estrogen, though.(...) I personally

never like to introduce estrogen without

a Dutch chest for the very

reasons you spoke of earlier.

How estrogen is in the body is really how

it's being recycled. If it's being

recycled, I want the faucet to be on or

off, right? And if we think about the

faucet is on most of our life, in

post-peri-menopausal, it starts to turn

down, and then in post-menopausal, the

faucet turns off. Well, that's only the

faucet. What about the drain? Because if

we turn the faucet back on and the drain

is clogged, or a person is not

methylating, or a person is recycling

estrogen, or their growth promoting,

we really do create more of a risk of

long-term issues or severe reactions,

heavy period, inflammation, a lot of

dysfunction. And so understanding if the

drain is open and the recycling of that

estrogen is cleared, it's really key. You

know, estrogen is one of those ones where

you really need to be...

I don't want to say you really need to be

careful because you don't need to be

scared of estrogen and estrogyle. They're

so beautiful. Like I said, they're your

serotonin. They're your vitality. They're

your muscle. They're your metabolism.

They're your cardiovascular health.(...)

But introducing a bioidentical hormone

into the body when you don't know how

it's going to react is something you

really want to be cautious of. So again,

working with the provider, getting a

Dutch test. All over the world, you can

get a Dutch test. They ship

internationally.(...) And you can have a

provider go through it, even if your

provider doesn't. Dutch will recommend a

provider that can give a reading on it at

vital. We work with people all over the

world. They do a Dutch. We just provide

feedback on their Dutch.

So there's a lot of different avenues

that you can go for that.(...) When it

comes to

testosterone, again, how you feel.

If a person has a history of PCOS or some

sort of cycle dysfunction, the Dutch test

will also show us if they favor more of

an alpha, meaning a strong response to

androgens, or a beta, meaning a weaker

response to androgens. But it's not

necessarily needed, right? Because if a

woman is most optimal between 30 and 40

testosterone and they're at 11, naturally

you can get them to a 20 or even a 22.

That's doubling their

testosterone. It's still only a 22.

So you might, in that case, want to

supplement. I would say women who are,

some women burn through hormones a lot

more and some women are just wanting to

perform better at the gym. They train

hard.(...) They're 55 and they love

lifting weights and they love being

active and like, great, higher

testosterone levels are

going to help you maintain that.

Yeah, it's really so

dependent on a person.

I always like to go through pros and cons

with my clients because, again, it's very

different with women and hormones than

men in the sense of, for women, if you

start testosterone and then you stop,

you're just going to go back to where you were.

But the man, if you start testosterone,

then you stop, you're going to be lower

than where you were. So you need to

buffer that a little bit more.

But at the end of the day, hormones are

so protective in our body that having

bioidentical, and I stress the

bioidentical side, having bioidentical

hormones in the body to support it.

Yeah,

brain, heart, metabolism, muscle mass are

important. Are they required? No. But if

you were like, I want

to live the longest,

vitality is important to me, cognitive

function is important to me, preventing

osteoporosis is important to me. I have

great grandkids I want to be around for.

Like then HRT, even in a low dose, would

probably be a route

you want to look into.

You brought up a number of great points

there, starting with the fact that I

think that everybody should always first

look to optimize their natural production

by sort of getting to the root cause or

whatever is behind the dysfunction of the

hormones to begin with. And I think this

is where functional medicine normally

tends to fall short, is that you will go

to your standard functional medicine

provider and they'll just look at labs

and say, well, your hormones are low.

We're getting the root cause of it by

giving you hormones. And I think what,

unfortunately,(...) most clinicians,

coaches in this field fail to realize is

that that's A, not sort of getting the

root cause the problem. And B, if you are

trying to sort of deal with three calls

of the problem, hormones are nine times

out of 10, the last thing that's going to

respond, especially if there's a lot of

inflammation, a

dysregulated immune system,

a number of infections. Hormones are

adaptive. It's adaptive physiology. It's

not broken physiology. Your physiology is

responding to that state. So if you're in

a state where there's a lot of

inflammation in the

body for whatever reason,

your hormones are going to downregulate

as a response to that. As I've said,

they're going to adapt.(...) And I think

people are just put onto these protocols

far too quickly, and then they don't

actually find any relief from their

symptoms because the hormones aren't

necessarily the issue.

Well, they are, but the bigger issue is

potentially the mitochondrial dysfunction

being driven by the streaming mold

infection, for example. So I think that's

definitely something for the audience to

consider as well, is that hormones should

definitely be looked at, but you should

only do it when you sort of cover all

your other bases. And I think what's also

maybe pertinent for the audience to know,

the listeners to know, and you can speak

to this more than I can, but whenever

I've sort of, quote unquote, counseled a

woman in this regard, and she's still

sort of ovulating and she hasn't sort of

got to the point where she's going

through perimenopausal menopause yet, I

always try and get her, I always suggest,

I should say, that she does start to do

some regular blood work to see where her

hormone levels are at. Because when you

sort of, if a woman does go into

menopause, I've just sort of found that