# Episode 36 - Hashimoto's, Thyroid Disease and Perimenopause

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2025-06-13T01:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/17326515-episode-36-hashimoto-s-thyroid-disease-and-perimenopause.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-36
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode36.html
- People: Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host)

## Summary

In this episode, the host shares her personal journey with Hashimoto's Disease, thyroid disease, and perimenopause, emphasizing the importance of awareness and proactive health management for women. She discusses symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment options, advocating for regular thyroid ultrasounds and a holistic approach to health.

## Key takeaways

- Hashimoto's Disease is an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the thyroid gland.
- Women are ten times more likely to suffer from thyroid disease than men.
- Thyroid disease symptoms can precede abnormal blood work, making ultrasounds crucial for diagnosis.
- Common symptoms of thyroid disease include fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, and hair loss.
- Perimenopause can coincide with thyroid disease, complicating diagnosis and treatment.
- Proactive health management, including regular check-ups and lifestyle adjustments, is essential for women.

## FAQ

### What is Hashimoto's Disease?

Hashimoto's Disease is an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the thyroid gland, leading to hypothyroidism and various symptoms affecting the body.

### How can I get diagnosed with thyroid disease?

To diagnose thyroid disease, it's important to request both blood work and an ultrasound of the thyroid, as symptoms may appear before blood tests show abnormalities.

### What are the symptoms of perimenopause?

Symptoms of perimenopause can include fatigue, irregular periods, hot flashes, mood changes, and sleep disturbances, often overlapping with symptoms of thyroid disease.

### How can I manage thyroid disease symptoms?

Managing thyroid disease symptoms often involves medication, dietary changes, regular exercise, and stress management techniques, such as breath work and massage.

### What lifestyle changes can help with thyroid health?

Lifestyle changes that can support thyroid health include maintaining a balanced diet, reducing gluten and alcohol intake, exercising regularly, and ensuring adequate sleep.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7WDrwEfEc)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-36-hashimotos-thyroid-disease-and-perimenopause/id1764838823?i=1000712681936)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1dEfdWbO0fReD55cfDDCXM)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/17326515-episode-36-hashimoto-s-thyroid-disease-and-perimenopause)

## Transcript

[Music]
Welcome to GenX Adulting and today we are
going to talk about
Hashimoto's Disease, Thyroid
Disease, and Perimenopause.
I'm going to be sharing my personal journey
of going through all
three of those situations.
And this is a very special episode for me
because I like to get as much information
out about Hashimoto's Disease and Thyroid
Disease, especially for women.
Because I think from what I found through
the years from talking to women is so many
women suffer from either Hashimoto's
Disease or Thyroid Disease.
Many go undiagnosed for much longer than
they should have and
suffered for much longer than
they should have and were treated for the
symptoms without getting to the root cause
of what it was.
So, I'm going to start
with Hashimoto's Disease.
I think I had, with my third pregnancy,
which was when I was, I
got pregnant at 38 and
I think I had Hashimoto's
Disease probably right before that.
I think I had something going on.
Something was a little off but, and it
would have been right
before I got pregnant.
But then either the stress that was going
on during the pregnancy, not the pregnancy
but there was stress
surrounding the pregnancy.
So, either the stress surrounding the
pregnancy or right after I
gave birth basically is when
the Hashimoto's presented.
So, it was triggered somewhere in there.
I was at my six week
appointment with my OBGYN.
She happened to, she checked my neck.
So, your thyroid is like
a butterfly shaped organ.
I don't know if it's
an organ, it's a gland.
It's right at the base of your throat kind
of, right in the center.
So, she was checking and she had me swallow
and I think she felt like a little bump and
so she referred me over to an
endocrinologist who I still go to this day.
So, I'm very grateful to my OB during that
time because she was
the first one to discover
and that was at my six
week post-op checkup.
I have a question.
Are you normally supposed to be able to
feel it or was that abnormal?
Like, was she feeling your
throat like they normally do, right?
We all think it's innocuous but then did
she feel it and was
like, you need to go get it
checked?
You're not supposed to be
able to touch it, are you?
Well, what she felt, so when the doctor
normally checks your
glands, they're checking like
your lymph nodes up here,
like under your jaw kind of.
This is more down below in the center and
she felt like a nodule.
But I wouldn't...
Like swollen or something?
Yeah, like a nodule, like a bump.
But I wouldn't have been able to recognize
that's what it was, if that makes sense.
So, I go to an endocrinologist, I do have
blood work done and the endocrinologist did
an ultrasound and that's where she really
saw how bad the Hashimoto's disease was and
how it had started to destroy my thyroid.
What was presented on ultrasound was not
reflected as strongly in the blood work.
And that's one piece of advice if I can
give to all women and
thyroid disease does affect
men too but it affects
women 10 times more than men.
Is if possible, if you're able to find a
provider that will do an
ultrasound on your thyroid,
insist on that and not just blood work
because so many symptoms
of thyroid disease, you'll
start feeling so many symptoms of
Hashimoto's disease
which causes thyroid disease.
You'll start feeling that before it
presents some blood work.
But if you have an ultrasound done, your
doctor can see what's
actually going on with your
thyroid.
So, a woman can suffer for a couple of
years with symptoms
from thyroid disease before
it finally presents the severity of the
situation on her blood work.
So I think ultrasound should be part of an
annual checkup for women on her thyroid.
Of course, that's not how it is.
But if there's any way you can ask, even if
it's every other year,
if you're feeling some
of the symptoms that we're going to
discuss, insist on an
ultrasound because that's where
she really saw what was going on with me
and what was going on with my thyroid.
I would actually go one step further and
insist upon it because to
your point, you suffered
for a while.
All these weird symptoms, you were doing
blood work, your blood work seemed fine.
And then it was like, I remember you kind
of coming home that
day or whenever you found
out your results like, "Oh my
gosh, I think I have answers."
And I think you have to drive your own
health as a patient, right?
You have to advocate on your own behalf.
So if you think you have them, especially
when we're done, right, with this and you
talk about the various symptoms, my advice
would be push for it.
Yeah.
I mean, everyone has different insurance.
If you have insurance, like what their
insurance will cover, if
they won't cover it, it's too
expensive.
Honestly, work with the doctor, make
something up, have them work with you.
Yeah, absolutely.
If there's any way you can get an
ultrasound done, it's life
changing because then she
really saw the severity of it.
She told me of Hashimoto's disease.
And what Hashimoto's disease is, it's...
So what Hashimoto's disease is where your
immune system attacks itself.
So my immune system attacked my thyroid
gland and caused hypothyroidism.
So from the disease, from the immune system
attacking my thyroid gland, I ended up with
hypothyroidism.
And it basically kills the thyroid cells.
And so then your thyroid stops making
thyroid hormone, which you need to survive.
And the thyroid affects
every cell in your body.
And so this affects every organ in your
body, your brain, your
heart, everything is affected.
But your thyroid is like the central
nervous system or the
central command system of your
body.
If that's off, you're off.
And I can't stress that enough.
That's why I think it's so important that
women need to be on top
of their thyroid health
and again, you could be feeling symptoms
before it's showing up in blood work.
So that ultrasound is important.
But so once I found out I had the
Hashimoto's disease, then
and then thyroid disease, that
explained all the symptoms I was having.
So the symptoms of
thyroid disease, this is fun.
The symptoms of thyroid disease is the
first thing I noticed was fatigue.
And it's not like normal fatigue.
It's like you've been hit by
a truck and you can't get up.
You are flat down.
It's an exhaustion I'd
never experienced before.
And it was hard to even describe to you, to
anyone, my friends, family, it was just you
feel, I can't even
describe it, you're down.
And doing anything requires so much effort.
Just doing your normal
stuff through the day.
It was exhausting.
So it was a different type of exhaustion
than just, I'm tired
from the kids waking me up
in the middle of the night or I'm tired
from running around or I'm tired from work.
It's in your bones.
Your body is beyond
depleted, depleted, you're depleted.
That's the best way I can describe it.
So that was my number one.
Number two, your thyroid
affects the speed of your metabolism.
So if your thyroid is off or dying because
your body's attacking
it and you have thyroid
disease, you gain weight because your
metabolism basically screeches to a halt.
So I mean, I've read about women who've
said I could eat air and
gain weight when you have
thyroid disease because you literally have
no metabolism, but you
don't know, you didn't
know, oh, that's why I
gained 10 pounds in two months.
And I didn't change a thing.
I was exercising, eating right.
And I still gained all this weight.
So weight gain, bloating, a foggy brain.
And this is more than just, because once
you hit a certain age,
like midlife, you walk
into a room, you forget why you're there.
This could be going on.
It's not like that.
You end up somewhere, whether it's a room
in your house or
you're doing a task at work
and you literally have blanked on what you
were doing before that.
It's like somebody might as well have moved
you in time from one place to another and
you don't know how you got there.
You're just standing there and you're
paralyzed because you can't remember.
There's nothing jogging your memory.
It's like you might as well have woken up
from a dream and you
don't know where you're
at.
And then the short term
memory, the forgetfulness.
I remember I would tell you, you need to
remind me of this or
I'm going to forget it.
Like if I needed to give the kids friends a
ride home, I would say, you need to remind
me we're giving them a ride home.
I do not want to leave without this child,
but because you could be told something and
it's gone.
It's gone.
And when you're reminded, it's like a flash
of light because it
was so gone in your head.
So the foggy brain, the lack of memory,
sensitivity to cold, you
all of a sudden feel cold.
It could be super hot
out and you're freezing.
Key joints and like
joint pain and then dry skin.
That's another one.
And inflammation,
inflammation, inflammation.
You become so inflamed and I think it's
your body's the immune system.
It's attacking your thyroid.
Your body's having this visceral response
to that going on and you are just becoming
inflamed which adds to the weight gain,
which adds to the bloating.
It affects all your organs,
you know, and then hair loss.
That's the one I was just about to mention
if you didn't get it.
Hair loss.
So I would be in the shower and you know,
for a lot of women, when
you put your conditioner
and you either run your fingers through
your hair or you use
one of those combs in the
shower and you have some hair.
We're talking clumps,
clumps and clumps of hair.
And you notice that, oh,
for me, so I'm half Armenian.
So I always had really nice eyebrows.
I did.
They were very thick, defined.
I lost, you know, I have
anyone watching this on YouTube.
I obviously use makeup on my eyebrows
because you can actually see them.
If I didn't have makeup on, you wouldn't
with the lights that
were under, you wouldn't be
able to really see my eyebrows.
You see just faint.
I do still have eyebrows left, but it's
like a quarter of what I had.
And I lost those first, I'd say my eyebrows
and my hair thinning went first.
I noticed your hair thinning for sure.
I remember being like,
wow, what's going on here?
Yeah.
Cause I had from my Armenian roots, I had
super thick, super
thick, super healthy hair long
and it could grow long and it wouldn't get
like wispy or thin at the ends.
So my, everything changed with that.
Digestive issues, which goes with the
bloating constipation.
That's one.
And then mentally you can end up with
depression, anxiety, or it exacerbates it.
If you already have it, it makes it worse.
Puffy face.
They call it moon face.
It's where you're fit.
Now I have a round face anyways, not, I
still have one, but when
I was younger, like in my
twenties and thirties, it was very round.
Um, genetically speaking, but when I got my
thyroid disease, my face got even rounder
and they call it moon face.
And you can almost, I can sometimes tell by
looking at someone, I
think they have thyroid
disease because they're,
they have the moon face.
It's, and when you get, get on meds, um,
when you get on meds,
then you can tell your face,
you lose that moon face and you see the
inflammation going down.
So you think you can identify it.
Have you ever done that?
You've asked someone you're like, do you
have thyroid issues or, you know, problems?
No, but talking to friends about when
they've talked about
different things, invariably
I've always said, get your thyroid test in
because anything
they've talked about, whatever
issue they've had going on has matched up
with thyroid disease.
And for some of them, they ended up finding
out they had thyroid disease.
For others, their blood work was fine and
their doctor said, we'll just keep checking
it and they didn't get an ultrasound done.
That's the one thing I just, I'm like, oh,
try to get that ultrasound.
So you really know what's going on because
thyroid disease can make you feel crazy.
Like let me stress on the mental part, just
not just the anxiety and depression, it can
trigger, but not being
able to remember things.
You just have a sense of no control
sometimes in your brain
because the chemistry is so
off and you know something's off, but if a
doctor keeps saying your blood works fine,
your blood works fine, then
you feel nuts when you leave.
And that's why I say, have the ultrasound
done so you can truly
rule out thyroid disease.
You can't rule it out until you have an
ultrasound in your thyroid done.
That's how I feel.
If your blood work's coming back normal.
I feel like it spirals too, right?
Because it affects your interactions with
the people closest to
you who don't understand.
Admittedly here, I'm pretty good at this.
Now I get it.
I understand it, but for a
while, for years, go ahead.
Like, come on, let's go.
What do you mean you're tired?
What do you mean you can't
forget or remember things?
There's an impact there.
There is.
And I remember with our first two, after
our older son, I was back
in the gym pretty quickly
putting him in that little daycare at the
gym and got myself back
where I was post baby.
And then with our daughter, same thing.
And so I just assumed with our last one,
oh, I'll just, I was running at the time.
So I was like, I'll just start, I'll be
running once I get the
clear and I'll never forget.
I put him in one of those baby joggers and
I went to have my regular run.
And it was like my feet were in cement.
They were cement blocks and my body was not
doing what it was supposed to be doing.
This is before I was diagnosed,
I think, or it was right after.
And that's when I thought it was, oh my
gosh, is this because I
had him at 39 and I'm getting
older and maybe this is what it's like when
you're an older woman.
Because I had my other two at 26 and at 29.
So I was like, okay, so this must be if
you're older, having a
baby, not knowing, no, it
was a thyroid disease because let me also
go back to the reason I know I had it going
on when I was pregnant is with my first
two, I breastfed and had
so much milk, like crazy,
crazy amounts of milk.
The babies were fine with our third.
I did not produce nearly enough milk.
I didn't realize what was going on until I
took him to a six week appointment and he
had not gained the
weight he was supposed to.
Of course, this is something I struggle
with still that I have guilt over.
So then she said supplement.
So he would have a bottle two hours and
then he would nurse at
two hours because it would
give my body a chance to
actually make more milk.
So then I still could breastfeed him, but
we had to supplement
and I know you remember
that and then you know and then of course
you look and you're
like, oh my gosh, my baby
wasn't getting enough food
and that's a whole thing for me.
But I didn't understand I had thyroid
disease and so it
affects your milk production.
So that's something else is to look into if
you've had a baby before and you were fine
with your breast milk and all of a sudden
you're not, there's a chance you might have
Hashimoto's thyroid disease.
It's something to consider.
But that's what I knew with my exercising.
I'm not going to lose
the weight, not knowing.
I'm also not going to lose all the weight
because I have thyroid
disease and my metabolism
came to a screeching halt and yet my body
was completely failing
me so I couldn't exercise.
So this is all happening like starting like
3940 and I went through my 40s.
So then the endocrinologist put me on.
Well, let me finish with the symptoms.
I have a question too once
you hit a stopping point.
Okay.
Well, I was just going to say another one
is horse voice because
especially if you have
nodules, they can get bigger and
cause your voice to get hoarse.
And then coarse skin
and hair, muscle weakness.
And I remember feeling
some muscle weakness.
And then other than the aches and pains,
also some muscle tenderness.
So those are kind of the main ones, but I
would say the top ones are fatigue, foggy
brain, constipation and weight gain.
Yeah.
Yep.
You know, my question is, do you remember
you went through that period where you went
and saw someone and they took
a blood test and everything.
They didn't do the MRI or the, um, they
didn't look at your
thyroid, but they tried to match
the lab results with the
bunch of their vitamins.
Remember that place?
I was going to talk about this.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it was, that was related.
Was that pre-diagnosis?
No.
No.
No, that was.
Let's go back to this.
If you're going to talk about it, I don't
want to throw you off.
Yeah.
I remember that phase and it
didn't really work actually.
No, no.
What happened was actually
there were two more symptoms.
Your menstrual period can become heavier
than normal and you can
end up with irregular,
irregular periods and slower heartbeat.
So now I've covered all the symptoms.
I want to make sure I name them all because
there could be women that are experienced
and there could be men too.
It does happen to men.
So what happened was is, um, my
endocrinologist put me on Synthroid.
There's a lot of people
that don't like Synthroid.
Um, she put me on Synthroid
and then, which is a T four.
Um, I'm not going to
get too scientific here.
I'm not, I'm going to put a disclaimer.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm just sharing my personal experience.
Um, if you hear jingles, it's one of our
dogs is in here and it's her collar.
Um, and there you go.
She made herself present, but, um, so that
was a T four because
your, your thyroid hormones,
T four, T three, right?
So I didn't have that anymore.
So the T four was being
replaced by the Synthroid.
And then she also eventually put me on
SIDML, which is my T three.
There's a whole conversion thing and all
that, which you can Google all that, but,
um, it worked.
It did work.
Like I, um, started to feel, I think the
first thing I noticed was
my fatigue had significantly
decreased and that my
brain felt normal again.
I felt, I was like, Oh, okay.
Things leveled out.
Um, I felt my foggy brain cleared.
So my foggy brain cleared.
Um, I wasn't as exhausted.
I still struggled to lose weight.
Um, but I could tell I
felt like me again more.
And then, um, I had been doing research and
I knew there was other options.
Synthroid is the synthetic made.
There's another one called armor.
And I think they use, um, stuff from a
pig's thyroid gland for that.
It's more natural, naturally made.
There's another one.
The armor's more natural.
Yeah.
And then there's another one.
It's like nature or
something, but it's a compound.
I think armor is a compound.
So I started going to a, um, functional
functional medicine doctor and she, she was
both natural and, um,
traditional medicine, Eastern and Western.
That's when I tried armor and the
supplements you're talking about.
Yeah.
Um, and I did that for quite a
while in the hopes that it would.
Help me more than the Synthroid was.
Cause I still wasn't losing weight.
I still was having constipation.
I still was having bloating.
So the Synthroid helps, but I was still
having all these nothing.
It wasn't, I wasn't back to myself.
So I put on 20 pounds.
Um, like that, like, like I blinked and I
had like, I lost the baby weight, but
those 20 pounds I could not lose.
I think I ended up putting on more like
probably between 20 and 30 pounds over
my forties.
Um,
I think too, not, it was more
of a bloated weight too, right?
As opposed to like just normal healthy.
No, I mean, my size, my dress size went up.
Like I went, you know,
I went from a four, six.
I think my highest at one point when I was
trying to enclose was a 12.
That's a significant change in your body.
As a guy, I'm not totally
sure what all that means.
That'd probably be going from like a 34
waste to like a 38 waste.
Okay.
Um, I carried it all
in my belly pretty much.
That's where I carry my weight.
So, um, and then the bloating was, was
vicious and so uncomfortable.
So I stayed with her for a while and was
not getting any relief.
Um, and I finally went back to my original
endocrinologist and went back on
Synthroid and I finally got relief again.
And she told me something interesting.
She's been on the forefront.
Like she, she's one of the best
endocrinologists, if not the best
in South Florida, I can say
that she's known for that.
Um, she's on the forefront of all the
research and everything new.
And she said that they did studies and
found that armor works better for
people that are, um, like European Anglo
descent, like blonde blue eyed people.
She looked, she literally said that she
said blonde blue eyed people.
Whereas the Synthroid
is more for darker hair.
Like I've got brown hair, brown eyes.
And, um, they can't, they found that out.
So I don't know if that's why the armor
wasn't working for me, but it didn't.
But I know it works for many people.
Many people are happy with it.
Yeah.
Um, and that's wonderful for them.
So, um, I went on the Synthroid, I went on
the Saitamao, but I do want to say,
again, women are 10 times more likely to
get thyroid disease than men or to get
Hashi's, which causes the Hashi modal
disease causes thyroid disease.
Cause it attacks your thyroid.
And the most common age to get diagnosed is
between the ages of 30 to 50.
But I really think what girls in their
teens just start getting their
thought, their blood
work done at the very least.
And once you're in your twenties, if you
can get that ultrasound, even if it's
every other year, along with your blood
work, because it could be hitting you.
I think I, like I said, I think I had
something going on before
I finally got diagnosed.
No doubt.
You know, for sure.
And I didn't have to suffer.
I think you suffered for a while with all
the symptoms you just talked about
looking for answers,
wondering what the hell's going on.
And then you finally kind
of struck gold in a sense.
Yeah, no.
And well, and there's something about
having answers, especially
when it comes to health.
Well, I was going to go there.
I think there's a lot more information out
now in the internet's far more
evolved with a lot more health information
now than it used to be.
It's far more mature, right?
And there's podcasts where people talk
about this now, which
is a good, good thing.
But back when you were looking and I
remember Googling too, it's like, well,
there's not a ton of information.
There was not a lot of information.
Um, there wasn't social
media, like there is now.
Nope.
Um, there wasn't TikTok university, as I
like to call it, um, where you can put
something in and there's somebody on there
talking about something.
Yeah.
And I think Instagram has
gotten to be that way too.
But, um, I will say when it comes to auto
immune diseases in general, women
uh, suffer way more than men.
And in addition to various factors like
hormones and different things that go on,
one of the biggest triggers is stress.
And I know that men are under stress too,
like at work and stuff.
I know that they have different stresses,
but the weight a woman carries in her
life, especially when she's
married or in a relationship.
And there's children and a home and all the
responsibilities that go along with that.
She's 24 seven. There is no punch out. Her
brain has no punch out
the stress, the high stress
that her nervous system is under
contributes to getting autoimmune diseases.
No doubt. Yeah.
There's no way it
doesn't know stress is evil.
And so that high stress can trigger an
autoimmune disease. And I think for me,
it definitely was part of me getting
Hashimoto's disease and thyroid disease.
I'm I know it is. There's no question. So I
think that's just another reason,
besides all the reasons we've discussed in
other episodes of that,
the domestic load needs to be
shared at home, that your partner needs to
help. There has to be as
equal as possible distribution
between childcare and the domestic load,
because it's literally
affecting the health of women.
Women are suffering health wise from the
stress of doing everything.
And whether some women may not even realize
it. And some women are
suffering undiagnosed with
things like thyroid disease and other
autoimmune diseases and
going to the doctor and getting,
let's say, oh, you're just have depression,
depression, or you just have anxiety.
So they're band dating it with medicine for
that, not getting to the root cause.
Things like thyroid disease contribute to
depression and anxiety,
or you're just gaining
weight. You just need to diet and exercise
more. Well, when you have thyroid disease,
you don't have a metabolism. That has a lot
to do with maybe why you're gaining weight,
or maybe why you're so exhausted. So I
think it needs to be
addressed. Women's mental health and
physical health is suffering under the
weight of what they carry.
I have a question on this.
I'm not disagreeing with anything that you
just said. But do you
think so the women's lifestyle
or the woman's lifestyle of all just have a
glass of wine. Alcohol is a
contributing alcohol is not
good for it, right? I'm not necessarily
saying it's a contributing
factor, but it doesn't help, right?
So alcohol causes inflammation. Yeah,
alcohol will 100% make an
autoimmune disease worse.
And so yes, the coping mechanisms that many
women may choose to deal
some of them to deal with the
stress that they're under can help
contribute to worsening or
triggering an autoimmune disease.
Yes, there's no question about that. I will
say one of the number one things I did
to help with my success in treatment
because it's a whole treatment. It's
medication. It's the food
you eat. It's your exercising. It's your
sleep. It's your
alcohol consumption. It's your
supplementation. It's your stress
management, all of it. So one
of the first things I did was cut
out gluten. I cut it out. That's right. I
cut out gluten. And that
decreased my inflammation
significantly and my digestive issues. It
helped my digestive issues a lot. And
gluten is interesting.
Gluten is not you can't have one foot in
one foot out because one
molecule of gluten can be like you
had a whole piece of pizza. You can't you
can't have a little gluten.
You're either in or out. So
I know I've talked to some people who said,
well, you know, I try to not
eat a lot of glue. It doesn't
matter. You might as well eat all the
gluten. You need to not eat
any gluten. Yeah. If you want to
have the effects of it. So cutting out
gluten was my first thing.
I did not reduce my alcohol
through my 40s. And I regret that because I
know I contributed. I
slowed down the recovery
process or the healing process of my body
because I was trying to heal
my gut, but you can't truly
heal your gut if you're drinking. Yeah,
it's just not going to
happen. Well, there are good gluten
flick gluten free vodka, wine, spirits,
etc. But gluten free
doesn't mean you're healing your
gluten free is one thing, right? Yeah, I
love when they advertise.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean,
you can't again, there's a past episode
where I talk about my
alcohol use. And through my 40s,
there was times where I would have a drink
every night, depending on
what was going on with our
lives. So that regular alcohol use, it was
pretty much stalling any,
any progress I was trying to
make cutting out the gluten helps so much
with my comfort level. And I
know it took down inflammation,
but I really wasn't going to get anywhere
until I cut down on the
alcohol. And since I did that
starting at 5051, so it's been like night
and day with my body, the
inflammation just I could tell
almost immediately everything. So the
number one thing that I did
that helped though, again,
is my gut health. So I was taking
supplements, celery juice,
eating as clean as possible,
exercising. But I will say, it wasn't until
I cut out the alcohol. Now
I will still have alcohol
on special occasions once in a while, and
we're talking a glass or two of wine.
But I don't really drink. And that goes
into our age and and
hangovers and giving up I don't feel
like giving up two days of my life to a
hangover anymore. So there's
other reasons. But cutting out
the gluten is and then I also I
significantly limit dairy and
dairy for me, I'm not as sensitive
to dairy as I am to gluten. What's
interesting is I've read that
if you put a gluten molecule
under a microscope, and you put a dairy
molecule under a
microscope, they're almost identical.
So you're if you're already gluten
intolerant, or have celiac,
it's hard for your body to
differentiate the dairy. And you may end up
or have also an
intolerance to dairy. I know that
if I ingest lactose free, or non dairy
foods, I do significantly
better with my gut health.
Then if I don't, I pretty much avoid dairy.
Like it's rare. Yeah. But
I don't have the same issue
as if I get quote unquote, gluten, we've
been out to eat and I've told
you I got gluten. And I knew
it. I knew it because for me, you blow it
up like you're four or
five months pregnant, you have
diarrhea, and then you have constipation.
And then you also can
feel like you have the flu.
And you're down for the count. I feel that
way. If I like if I eat
ice cream, other I eat a ton
of yogurt, but I don't if I eat ice cream,
I can feel it the next day.
It's almost hangover in some
ways. I do have a question, though, just to
go back to the medication and since or
Synthroid, I don't know if you plan to talk
about it, but you've had to
dial that in. Right. I know
you've said, Oh, I'm it's too, too much or
too little. Yeah. Can you
talk about that? And for
listeners who might go through this, you
really got to dial that in
or else you're not feeling
right. Right. Yeah. So whatever doses so
yeah, you'll know if
you're not feeling a significant
improvement, you need more Synthroid. But
sometimes if you have too much, it affects
your sleep and you struggle getting to
sleep or you may get heart
palpitations. That's happened
to me and you may end up with really high
anxiety. So the medication
may cause you also to have high
anxiety. You could become kind of edgy. You
get you get like jittery
at all like kind of wired,
like too much. You're a little wired.
You're just edgy. Yeah,
you're a little wired and you're
and you feel you can stop but you feel you
have an edge to you. And
but it's a medicated edge. I
can't explain it. There's a difference
completely synthetic edge.
It's a synthetic edge. And then
the one I know is because you know what I
is because when I can't
get to sleep at all, like
when I'm like, I feel like I'm on something
and I can't get to sleep.
I will say also your dosage
can be based on your weight. So you may get
a certain dosage when
you're at one weight. And if
you lose weight, you may have to have your
dosage adjusted because
you're getting too much because
you lost weight. So it's something to also
keep in mind if you're on a
dosage, and you've lost like
10 pounds, and you start to feel weird, you
need your dosage adjusted.
Now the side amount, that
doesn't make me feel that way. That's t3.
That's a totally different
hormone. So but another thing
to talk about with thyroid disease are
flare ups. So flare ups and I
think other autoimmune diseases,
I'm assuming like MS, lupus, I assume they
have flare ups. Not high.
No, it's much more minor
hives or symptom of flare ups. Yeah. So
flare ups are when you for
me, they're stress induced.
It's either I'm under too much stress, or
I've put my body through too much stress,
lack of sleep, or I it's mainly stress in
the home. That reminds
me of a question I'll ask
it real quick before I forget. Because when
we talked about this the
other day, I was thinking
something that I've noticed you do is you
won't work out super, super
hard, because you're afraid
of it impacting you and getting into a
flare up right or creating
inflammation. Like I'm all
if we're pushing the sled, I'll be like,
okay, I'm ready to go and
I'll push, push, push. But you
you push to the to like a limit or an edge
that you know about
through your experience. But you
won't go past that. And you've mentioned
it's because you don't
want to have a flare up.
Yes. So and also I don't want to raise my
cortisol. That's what it is
your cortisol cortisol levels
also tie in all this cortisol levels tie
into women, especially midlife,
very menopause, menopause, thyroid disease,
you want to watch your cortisol.
And if you work out, you hit a point in
your life for women that
you get a lot more out of your
workouts, if you're not stressing your
body, where when you're
young, and you stress your body
can handle it better. But not anymore. So
if I push myself too far, I
release too much cortisol,
and I can end up in a flare up. In fact,
you and I did a 5k, like a
year and a half ago, I'd say.
And I ran it and I used to be a runner and
I loved running. And
then I had to stop running
because I had a back issue. But we've been
walking a lot, we were in
good shape. And we decided to
run it, we ran walk it, we run and then
walk. And I'm and I did
it. And I felt amazing. But I
remember I was in bed the next day. Oh,
really? I was because I had
a flare up. Yeah, my body was
like, okay, now you can lay down. Yeah. So
but and that was so that's a
physical that's an example of
a physical exertion causing a flare up
trigger, a trigger. But for
me, typically, it's a stress.
So if there's stuff going on in the house
or stuff going on in my
life, or if I'm just not resting
enough, like, for me, I need to stop doing
things by a certain time in
the evening. Or else I have
overexerted myself physically and mentally,
which affects my sleep,
which if I do that too many
nights, I'm going to end up with a flare
up. And I can feel when the
flare ups coming. And I know
I've said you I'm going to end up with the
flare up I have to stop.
One of the number one symptoms
for me of a flare up is dizziness. I'll
wake up and I sit up and
it's like vertigo, the room's
spinning and I'm walking sideways like on a
ship to go anywhere and I go
another early symptom or do
you know it now because it's indicative of
a flare up? It's more
dizziness. I don't think I'm having
actual vertigo. I don't think I've had
vertigo because that's
serious stuff. It's more I know,
you know, it's more dizziness and feeling
like I'm walking sideways
on a ship. But I'm not like
when you've gotten vertigo and you
literally like can't see
and stuff. It's not like that.
Migraine, I'll lose my eyesight a little
bit with spots in my eyes
and end up with a migraine.
There's been times I've had a flare up and
I feel like I have a
horrendous flu. And that old fatigue
of the truck hitting me is back. And I
don't know if you remember, but there's
been times where I've
been in bed that day and I'm like, I'm
done. There's been times
I know I've said to you,
I need to stop or we need to change this or
you're going to have to deal
with me in bed for two days.
So make your choice. If you want me here
active, active right now in this family,
things need to change or else your wife's
going to be in bed for a day or two.
I think that's an interesting topic though
is the evolution of the family impact and
it right you have to you're a communicator.
And so we've I think we've
all know what you're going
through, but there's I don't I don't know
if there was friction or
misunderstandings in the
beginning or you just don't get it. And I'm
not saying we had turmoil
here or anything like that.
It was just like, okay, what's wrong? Why?
Why? Why do you need to
sleep? Why do you know? Right?
Why are you so tired? Why? How the hell did
you not pick that kid up?
Right? Right. That kind of
stuff. Right. I don't know where I'm going
with this per se, but I
think for people who are going
through this, it probably helped that you
have to communicate to the
people closest to you and then
encourage those people to go do a little
research. Yeah. Because I'm
pretty well versed in this at
this point because I don't know how long
have you had it actually?
Well, I'm 54 and I had Dylan at 39.
And so we can say at least 15 years, but
probably secretly quietly. It
was a little longer than that.
Yeah. But we've been dealing with this
medically. And I look at my 40s
at that decade and I realized now I was
surviving, you know? So just
if I knew now what I knew then,
I could have adjusted 100% so many things
and it wouldn't have, I
wouldn't have suffered
as much. But so it's another reason I'm
talking about it right now.
Yeah. Because I don't want,
because I know there's women out there that
either undiagnosed or
diagnosed and are still trying to,
it is a very delicate balance. It's like
one year, one dosage of
medication works and eating this
way works and doing this exercise works and
then it doesn't. And then
you have to change again.
It's being so nuanced at times and it's
being so in tune to your body.
It's such a form of self-care.
It has to be addressed. Yeah. It has to be
addressed. The woman
or the person, I'm going
to focus on females. The woman has to
acknowledge it and take
responsibility for her own care,
going to the doctor, doing her own
research, saying, "No, I
need to do this for myself
right now to her family." Okay. So another
thing I do for the
stress relief is massage.
I'll go get massages. I'll do lymphatic
massage. I can't stress
lymphatic. And I know what I'm
talking about costs money. I get that. It's
not like I'm doing that
all the time. But when I can,
if I had to pick between a traditional
massage and a lymphatic
massage, I'm always going to pick the
lymphatic massage. You know, it's another
example of something where
you can tell your significant
other or partner or whatever, "Hey, don't
get me this. Get me the
lymphatic massage," that kind of
thing. Yeah. Be creative with it. I asked
for that stuff for gifts.
Yeah. I'm like, "But it's part of
my stress relief." But I will say the
lymphatic massage is a
health... It's for my health too. I
feel 100% different. My inflammation is
affected. I am healthier
because of it. It's a detox in my
system. So it is not just... It's not one
of those things where I'm
going in for this luxurious
massage and I leave. They're like, "Oh, I'm
so relaxed. I was at the
spa." I view it as a medical
procedure. I know that sounds very
privileged, but for me it is.
And another thing that's much
cheaper is dry brushing. Get yourself some
dry brushes. You need
soft ones for your face,
neck, and chest area. And then the
traditional strength
for the rest of your body.
Get some dry brushes and do dry brushing.
It's the same stuff they're
doing in the lymphatic massage.
It's just not as intense because you're not
having someone else work on you. But when I
do dry brushing, I have the same feeling in
my brain as I do when I
get a lymphatic massage.
What are dry brushes? Is this something you
get on like Amazon or something?
You can get them on Amazon. You can
research how to do it. You can go on
TikTok. People talk about
it. You can go to a place that offers
lymphatic massage and just
buy the dry brushes. And they
usually have like a pamphlet or a shirt
showing you how to brush your
leg, how to brush your foot,
how to brush your calf, how to brush your
knee. There's lymphatic
drainage spots all through your
body. And you're trying to move everything
towards the empty, right?
You move it to the lymph node
and then it can empty because after you do
lymphatic massage,
after you do dry brushing,
you need to drink a lot of liquids because
you're helping flush
everything out of your body.
But dry brushing is a lot less expensive
and convenient. I mean, I
try to dry brush as much
as possible. You know, you could brush dry
brush every day. And once
someone does it or goes and
gets a lymphatic massage, they'll
understand what I'm saying about how your
brain feels. You just
feel you're you feel it you almost I'm not
going to describe it, but
it's a feeling and you know,
so that's a form of stress relief that I
claim. You have to claim
your stress relief as a woman,
because it's just not natural that your
family is going to stop and be
like, No, no, no, you need to
sit down. Stop, stop doing what you're
doing. Your family's just not
going to do that. You have to do
it for yourself. Yeah, so I do massage I do
I do exercise. I go on
a walk almost every day.
And I've incorporated lifting weights,
which is so important to women.
Resistance training, which is so important
for women that are
peri-metapos menopause age,
so important. And then of course, with the
gut health, the celery
juice, I think I'm going to
do an episode where I go into detail about
my daily routine. Every
day of the week, what I do,
and specifically what supplements I take
specifically what food I take my hacks.
I've learned a lot in the last 15 years.
And so I think I'm going to
do an episode where I just
share, you know, the routine I do that's
gotten to me me to where I am because
I feel this is the best I felt in 15 years,
just about to say, there's
probably a lot of value in
that because you are probably healthy and
more active than you've
been in years. And it probably
is not drinking absolutely helps because it
doesn't knock you back
through two or three, four days.
The gluten free, you've done that for
years. I don't not a you
know, you swear by the lymphatic
massage. It sounds like quackery to me, but
I'll I trust you if
you say you feel better,
and it works. Yeah, but that's a little bit
out there to me. But hey,
well, I mean, I my chiropractor. Yeah, I
have a herniated disc and a
bulging disc. And I was not
walking there. I was walking bent over and
all. And my chiropractor,
you know, changed my life.
And I know you had you were you also viewed
that as quackery. But now I
know you'll tell people it
works. No, this guy's that guy. Yes, he
fixed you actually. Yes, Dr. Fanno. Dr.
Fanno, Boca Spine and
Wellness for if anyone's in South Florida,
Florida, he's worth the
trip. Oh, if you're listening,
you fixed her. Yeah. But okay, so now
here's the fun part. While I was going
through my Hashimoto's
and thyroid disease, I was in
perimenopause. But I didn't know that.
Because especially 15 years ago,
the information wasn't out there for Gen X
women of about
perimenopause like it is now. So
simultaneously, perimenopause hit me. And
now let's go over the signs,
the symptoms of perimenopause.
Fatigue. Are they all the same roughly?
Very similar, but more,
more fun. Depression, anxiety,
and irritability. Irregular periods.
Insomnia or trouble sleeping
and struggling to get to sleep.
Hot flashes, night sweats, low libido,
joint muscle pains,
vaginal dryness, brain fog,
lack of focus, hair loss, dry skin,
wrinkles that are really in
your face, you feel it and see it.
Urinary urgency like the feeling a need to
urinate more. Panic
attacks, headaches, weight gain,
bloating, breast tenderness, dizziness,
digestive issues,
decreased muscle strength,
heart palpitations, body odor, brittle
nails, itchy skin, tinnitus, bleeding gums,
tingling extremities, electric shocks,
changes in taste, and
burning mouth sensation.
Those are the symptoms of perimenopause.
It's quite a bit.
It's quite a bit. And a woman can be
experiencing three or four of those,
10 of those, and not correlated that it's
perimenopause and go to
a doctor and talk to a
doctor about maybe one or two of those and
then talk to a different
doctor about a couple more.
It's very easy for women to get dismissed
when they talk about these
symptoms. And there's very
few doctors that are saying, you're in
perimenopause. And here's
some things we can do to help.
Help me understand that. How's that
possible? Is it women going
to male doctors or even female
doctors? Both. Both. I think that
culturally, and I've said
this before, perimenopause and
menopause has not been honored for women. I
think the generations
before us suffered silently.
And again, Gen X women are not. And I think
that women are now forcing
the issue when they go in
to talk to their doctors. But I think if
you're suffering from panic
attacks, all of a sudden at
42 or 40 or 38, you may see a doctor and
they may then just
prescribe you something for that,
not knowing, well, there's other things
going on. So like give you
a Xanax, but not look at it
more holistically. Yes. Yeah. Because
perimenopause can start in your mid 30s or
as late as your early
50s. So thyroid disease can hit women. The
average time is between 30
and 50. And the average time
a woman could end up in perimenopause is in
her mid 30s to early 50s.
You could have the perfect
storm here of Hashimoto's disease and as a
result thyroid disease and
perimenopause and still have
no idea that's what's happening to you. And
there could be many women
suffering all these different
symptoms and they don't know that's what it
is. And so they're not
getting the help they are. They
should be. And like me, I did finally get
help for my thyroid
disease, but didn't know I was in
perimenopause. I could have gone on hormone
replacement therapy
much earlier. And it would
have fixed a lot of issues I went through
in my 40s that I was trying
to cope with through alcohol.
I was using alcohol to cope with a lot of
the stuff I was going
through because of perimenopause
because I had treated the thyroid disease
and I was still having a
lot of these symptoms we just
talked about and a lot of it affects you
mentally. And you also, I
wasn't losing the weight, right?
Well, that was perimenopause. So fixing my
thyroid disease, sure,
I wasn't as exhausted,
but I still, no matter what I did, all the
right things, all the
right things. When do you think
you went into perimenopause? I think I hit
perimenopause. If I had the
number 42 keeps popping up
for me. So I think around 42. And yeah, and
if you look at pictures of
me, you'll see my early 40s.
I look different than I do in my late 40s.
And I can see it ravaged
me. I can see it ravaged me.
And I wish I could go back to that person
and be like, let me help you.
So again, why I'm bringing it up now on
this podcast, because
there's so many things you can do, right?
So especially with perimenopause,
if you're a candidate and you have a
subscriber that will
subscribe it for you, prescribe it,
I should say, try hormone replacement
therapy, estrogen, because
when you're in perimenopause,
your estrogen is going up and down, up and
down. But you can still
supplement with some estrogen
to help regulate that progesterone helps
significantly with
sleep, significantly with
sleep. And testosterone helps with low
libido. It's one of the number one reasons.
Doctors have different opinions on this.
But one of the reasons
is to help with libido.
Right? It also gives you can give you that
extra feeling like how
men with their testosterone,
you can feel just like you're supposed to
do it in the morning, not at night,
so it can affect your sleep because it just
gives you like a little oomph.
Um, it's all balancing.
Do you think then the progesterone has been
prescribed for sexual?
No, testosterone purposes.
Testosterone.
Testosterone.
I think I thought I
thought you mean for men.
No, no, I thought the progesterone was good
for women to increase
their libido or get it back.
No, that's testosterone.
Okay.
Testosterone. So for me personally, I'll
share I do an estrogen
patch. I do testosterone cream
and I take a progesterone pill. There are
people that do the
pellets. There are people that get
like shots in their belly. You know,
there's I've chosen the route
I've chosen for me personally,
that's what I'm the most comfortable with.
But every woman needs
to choose what, you know,
talk to her doctor, do your research,
choose what's right for
you. I did try the pellets.
I'm more comfortable with the route I'm
taking the the the hormone
replacement therapy has been
a game changer. It doesn't mean you're not
experiencing
perimenopausal, menopausal symptoms
completely. It just helps you feel like
yourself. And because once
you get through perimenopause
and you're in menopause, your estrogen has
just gone down and
everything. And so it helps you
health wise, like estrogen protects your
organs. It keeps the
woman still healthy and
um, it makes your you feel still like a
person like who you are, I
guess. Is that makes sense?
Is do you have to be on that now the rest
of your life? I know
since right you have to write
because it's basically your favorite. But
the other things you just mentioned,
are those lifetime prescriptions? You know,
there's different
opinions on that. Like I think
traditionally doctors think, you know, once
you're through menopause
and your post menopause, you
don't need to be on it anymore. But there's
so many health benefits.
Is that because historically
generations are just waiting to die? Or is
that, you know what I'm
saying? This sort of, yeah, I
mean, right. So there's a lot of opinions
that women staying on
estrogen, like into the their
elderly years benefit them still
significantly health wise,
like it helps with their heart
health, it helps with their brain health,
it helps with their
organs. So I think I wouldn't be
surprised if we see it's more normal for
women for doctors to keep
women on it if they want.
There's our dog again. But and I have no
plans. I have going off of it
anytime soon. The progesterone,
especially because it helps with sleep. The
average age to hit
perimenopause is 47, right?
And it can last four to 10 years. And that
can vary. But then you
roll right into menopause,
so then once you hit menopause, you're so
menopause means you
haven't had a period for 12
consecutive months, then you're in
menopause, your estrogen is pretty much.
I will say for me,
something I should disclose is
four years ago, five years ago, sorry, I
had a hysterectomy. I
kept my ovaries, but I had
my uterus and my tubes taken out. The
reason for that is because
I had horrendous fibroids.
And it got to the point where I was
bleeding all the time, to
the point where I was anemic.
And that also affected so that I was 49,
right? I was 49. So that
was towards the end of my 40s.
But I had been suffering from the fibroids
for gosh, I would say at least three years,
four years, I was suffering from the
bleeding, the intense bleeding.
I'm laughing. I don't want to get shot at
here, but I'm laughing
because men could never handle
this. Everything you just described, I'm
like, Oh God, it's good to be a guy.
Men could never, no, they couldn't. But no,
so because of the
fibroids, I was having such heavy
bleeding that I was anemic, it was
affecting. There was times I
was in bed and I couldn't get out
because I had such horrible cramps. So when
I was a kid and I had my
period, I would get such
horrible cramps. I would have to leave
school sometimes. I would
have to have muscle relaxers.
I think that was hormone related. This was
like that. It was so bad.
And I would be weak. I wouldn't
be able to participate in as many things.
It was affecting my life. I
could have done an ablation,
but that's where they burn the inside of
your uterus basically. And
you stop bleeding. The risk
there is if it stops working after a couple
of years, you still
have to get a hysterectomy.
I just went for the hysterectomy. But I
wanted, I said, keep my
ovaries. If there's nothing wrong
with them, keep my ovaries. I don't want to
go into menopause yet.
Not knowing I was already
in perimenopause. Because even then I
still, five years ago, I
didn't know what I know now.
Yeah. But I still wanted to hold on to
natural hormones as long
as possible. So for me,
I won't have any proof of not having a
period for 12 consecutive
months. That's my point. For me,
I will know I'm in menopause when I don't
really have any estrogen
anymore through lab work.
And I believe my last lab work showed I'm
in menopause. I'm in
menopause. And I'm 54. So I'm
in menopause now. How long does that last?
So then post menopause is
like a whole other thing
with your hormones. I need to research that
more. But at some point,
something happens with your
hormones and then you're considered
postmenopausal. But I can't tell you what
that is. What does that
mean to be postmenopausal? Then you're just
like, you're just done like
you're done. I don't think
there's any more hormonal fluctuations. And
you're just now like,
in your elderly years.
That's not true. But I've not totally
looked into this, but testosterone
replacement therapy, right?
TRT. HRT, hormone replacement therapy. Oh,
you're talking about, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Yeah. One of the things is like, once you
do it, you got to always
do it. Like you have to
always be on it or else, you know, you'll
it's not good. It sounds
like everything you just
described means you're on this stuff for
the foreseeable future forever, maybe.
Yeah. I mean, I'm going to stay on as long
as I possibly can.
Because it's been so beneficial
for my life. And by treating my thyroid
disease, and by getting on
HRT, and by cutting out alcohol,
and by changing my diet and supplementing,
that has all allowed me to
have the energy to exercise
regularly. Yeah. So it's all connected. And
then when I exercise
regularly, I sleep better.
The sleep's a big one. Yeah. Especially
once you hit midlife, at
least for women. You can't cut
corners anymore, like when you were raising
young children and
because women are used to going
without sleep, women are used to getting
like three or four hours
sleep and going to work all
day. It's just they've been used, they've
been in the fight or flight
grinding through. When you
hit midlife, you have to care for your
sleep, because it's also
related to brain health.
They say like when you sleep, your brain
cleans itself in a way you
have to give your brain that
chance. So read something about that the
other day that when you
sleep, there's some type of
cleansing or draining rejuvenation within
your brain, and
probably your lymphatic system,
that it only happens when you sleep. Right.
I don't remember what it
was. Yeah, no, it's huge.
Another thing I do for this, it just
reminded me when I was thinking of sleep,
because I do this sometimes before I go to
sleep, is for my stress
relief is breath work.
I can't stress that one enough. Breath
work, look up breath work. You know,
sometimes it's just doing
10 to 15 deep breaths, take a deep breath,
take six seconds to do it,
breathe in through your nose,
hold that for a few seconds, take six
seconds to release it.
There's something that happens when
you breathe through your nose. It's like a
chemical or something. I wish
I would have looked that up.
But when you breathe in through your nose,
there's a chemical
reaction that benefits your
brain and your body. So they say to breathe
in through your nose,
but breath work is huge.
You should read this book I have on them
off. He's the kind of the
godfather of the cold plunge.
He's, he's really, you know, the one who
kind of got it going and
everything. He has a whole
chapter or two on just breathing. Yeah, how
beneficial it is. I
mean, it's common sense,
maybe it's not, but he's got a whole thing.
I'll let you read it.
It's pretty cool. Yeah, no,
breath work is huge. And I use that now if
I'm starting to feel
stress, like in my car,
wherever, I'll just take some real deep
breaths. It's cleansing. It sounds
meditation. I'm not a
good meditator. I try to meditate. I
struggle quieting my brain.
So I'd like to figure that
out in the future and incorporate that I
have not mastered that
in any way, shape or form.
But Pilates, yoga, walking, lifting
weights. These are the
exercises that really complement
where women are midlife. And that along
with cutting out or reducing
alcohol, cutting out gluten,
if you have reaction to dairy, limiting
dairy, eating clean as
you as clean as you can. And
you have to watch your caloric intake. You
just do. And it's very easy
to overeat without realizing
but really paying attention to if you want
to lose weight, get one of
those apps like MyFitnessPal
or LoseIt. Put in your goal weight. Put in
how much you want to lose
each week. It'll tell you
how many calories you can eat each day. You
input what you eat and it
helps you track where you're
at. That's and if you exercise, you gain
calories back. That's my
favorite is I'll go on a walk and
I just earned another 140 calories now I
can eat. So that's a game
changer. It helps you stay on
track. Another big one. Stay consistent
through the whole week. The
weekend is not where you should
fall off and let it all go. Your body
doesn't know it's Friday,
Saturday, Sunday. Your body needs
to be healing seven days a week. You have
to care for it seven days a
week. Now, I'm not good on
the sleep schedule as much on the weekends.
I get enough sleep but
sometimes I sleep in past
our regular time but I'm okay with that.
But Friday, you know, going
out and having a bunch of drinks
it's just going to derail so many things.
I'm not saying never do
that. There's always time and a
place for that. But treating the weekend as
treat indulging on the
weekend is not a reward. The
reward is not indulging. I have a question
on your diet. I'm an
intermittent faster but I don't even
call it that. It's just how I eat, right? I
basically eat in six to
eight hour window every day.
You don't do that and you don't do it
because I think you're
managing your blood sugar and things
like that but I think it's related to your
thyroid. Can you talk a
little bit about that? Because I'm
more of a, like I say, I'm in a window of
six to eight hours. I'm
done. But you and I can eat a big
meal whereas you'll want to go more
measured. So what I found works for me.
Yeah, because especially
for a lot of women, if you let your sugars
go too low, it raises your
cortisol. It's creating stress.
Is that related to the Hashimoto's for you
or is that you think it
because you're not diabetic,
you're not pre-diabetic, you're nothing
like that. Is it
Hashimoto's related? I don't know.
I don't know if it's Hashimoto's or it's
just menopause or
menopause or midlife but or it's
just being a woman. But I know I've read
this that when your
sugars drop, it creates stress
on your body and then naturally your
cortisol goes up. So it's good to try to
keep things even keel.
So now when I take my thyroid meds in the
morning, I don't eat for like
an hour. But the first thing
I have after that is celery juice. And then
I'll go in and to have my
quote unquote breakfast,
whatever I'm choosing in my coffee. I only
have one cup of or I only
have a cup of caffeinated
coffee once a day. So when I hear you wake
up and hit your pill
bottle bottle. Yeah, that's
what is that? Is that the sin, Freud and
the what is it? Cidermilla.
Cidermilla. That's the first
two things you take. Then you wait an hour
before you ingest anything. Well, yeah,
typically what happens is you and I go on
our walk. And then when we get
back, I have my celery juice,
which we have the juicer links, if anyone's
curious about what juicer we use.
Yeah, we've had it now for six years, seven
years, and I use it every
every day. And it wasn't
expensive. Would you believe this, you can
still buy that same model
on Amazon? Really? Yeah. And
it's I don't think it's that expensive. I
don't know. It wasn't
expensive when we bought it. But I
don't think it's very reasonable. And it's
going on because we started
doing it before COVID. Right?
I think so. Yeah. So we're going on, I
think six years, almost
every morning. So I do that. And
then I wait like 30 minutes, 1530 minutes,
and I have my my coffee.
And I add the organ collagen
peptides. scoop of that to help with hair,
nails, it has probiotics
that help with gut health, and
it has 20 grams of protein. I add a little
bit of cinnamon. And I add
usually two tablespoons of
nut pod, French vanilla, or some Caliphia
coconut roasted coconut
milk. And then I mix that up. We
have an amazing mixer. It's it's so cool.
You put it in and it mixes
everything up. It's like a
frother but not. We should link that
because that thing is cool. Yeah, we'll
link that. And I have
that. And then I have a chopstick, which is
10 grams of protein. And
then my treat every day is
a gluten free Bobo's PB and J across the
bowl. They're 230 calories
and the chopstick is like
80 maybe. Either way, that's my breakfast.
I have it every day with my
coffee. And it's having that
Bobo's PB and J gluten free across bowls,
probably one of the best
parts of my day. And but I log
that into my, my app, calorie app, you
know, and then my I eat my
biggest meal around three, three
or four, all the salad. So I'll have like
three cups of romaine, a
quarter cup of shea parm,
grilled chicken, and a tablespoon of olive
oil. And then one hack I
have is smoked bacon sea salt.
You put that on anything and you feel like
you're eating bacon. You
can put that on anything. You
can put that on cottage cheese. You could
put it on hard boiled eggs.
You could put that on pasta,
anything smoked bacon, sea salt, you feel
like you're eating bacon.
And, you know, sometimes a
lot of broccoli or beets. That's my big
meal. And then I do like
certain protein bars. And I know
that sounds like nothing to people are
like, Oh, her salads are big
meal. But I will have other
things to eat throughout the day. So
probably every couple hours,
I'm having something to every
two to three hours. So I like the built
bars. Those are like
eating marshmallow. And the
fulfill bars are like eating 100 grand
candy bar. Those are really
good. They're low in calories.
Um, I always keep those on hand. And then
there's a protein drink
that I found that does not have
protein drinks a lot of times upset my
stomach. This one does not
upset my stomach. And I will
link that I can't remember. But sometimes
I'll have that. After we
lift weights. What's the
protein we use that protein? I'm not gonna,
I'm not gonna say it
because it's given them free
advertising. Oh, that's not nice. It's
transparent labs. Yeah. Way
protein. Yeah, yeah. And that's
that protein powders upset my stomach. See,
my stomach's very
sensitive. That's very good. And
that does not upset my stomach. And I had
creatine, a teaspoon of
creatine. We I get frozen blueberries,
frozen strawberries, frozen cherries at
Costco. And we use that you
eat those every day with your
yogurt. And I use those in our smoothie.
And I use lactose free
whole milk in my smoothie.
Cinnamon. So and then sometimes I'll have
like a couple slices of
cheddar cheese, and some
gluten free almond flour crackers, and some
fruit as like maybe I'll
have that around like five or
six. But I try to not eat heavy after six.
That is my body does better. She were
talking about timing.
Yeah, my body does better. And my sleep
does better. I sleep
better if I don't eat anything
heavy after six. So if you what if you
don't eat after six,
usually, everything you just talked
about probably getting up at six or before.
So your first five by seven,
eight o'clock, maybe in the
morning. Yeah, my first meal is like, if
we're getting up during the
school time, we're getting
up, you know, by six. So yeah, I'm
definitely having celery juice
by 738. But summer is a little
later. So let's say I've had it by 830.
Yeah, nine is my breakfast.
And so yeah, I probably I know
you're trying to figure out the timeframe.
So I'm probably eating
anywhere from 730 to six, eight to
six. I don't know what timeframe that is.
Well, it's semi
intermittent fast. And it's almost a
1212 type of thing. Yeah, but I will say I
will make my decaf
coffee. And then I will do the
ancient nutrition. I think it's called bone
broth protein to
chocolate. I'll do a scoop of that.
That's 20 grams and it's bone broth. It's
good for gut health. I'll add
a little cinnamon to that and
a little bit of my cream, the nut pod cream
or the Caliphia. I will
have that after six. I swear
that's like a frequent dessert. It is
because for me, I do I
don't do decaf, but it's coffee,
that bone broth with a little bit of
cinnamon on top in that
little whisking things we have.
Yeah, it comes out and it's frothy. It's
like it's straight up
dessert. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is. And
healthy. Yeah. And the frother makes a huge
difference with all
this stuff. But I will have
that after six. And it's filling. Yeah. And
if I'm really hungry, like
let's say seven or eight hits
and I'm hungry, I'll have one of my protein
bars or I'll have maybe an
apple and some cheese. Like
I'm not I don't starve myself at all. And
maybe my main meal at four
or five is our traditional
meal. Like the other day I made chicken, we
had chicken peel off
broccoli. I'll make a plate of
that. So it's not always a salad, which I
don't want to make it sound
like that. If I'm cooking,
I'll have whatever I made, but I have it
earlier. Let's put it that way. If I
haven't cooked a meal,
then I'll have my quote unquote Caesar
salad with chicken. And
then later on the night, but
I do and I do prefer going to bed with my
stomach feeling a little empty. Yeah,
yeah, you want to be part mostly digested
or yes, further past 50%
or something. Yes, yes. And
there's these things called hoplark. They
taste kind of like beer,
but they're teas. And there's
a chamomile one I get it at Whole Foods.
And those help they're
relaxing. Or I'll sometimes
make hot chamomile tea, or I'll drink good
night tea or stress relief
tea. I do a scoop of the calm
magnesium and water every night and I drink
that before bed. And not
before bed, I'll drink that in
the evening. And then I also take fiber
pills at night. That helps with
constipation. So and that's
not even going over my supplements, but I
do take the fiber pills at
night. And my progesterone.
As far as my go to supplements, for sure,
D3 with K2, I can't stress
that enough, you have to have
K2 with your D3, D3 with K2, you can get
them together in one pill.
I do turmeric, I do an eye
supplement. And like I get that at Costco.
And I do B12 drops. And I
do a selenium. I wish I would
have done selenium my whole life. I don't
do that. What's the good what's the
line? It is good for thyroid health. Not
that I have much of a
thyroid to save anymore. But I will
say this if for anyone who is healthy and
doesn't have thyroid issues,
take selenium, because it's a
preventative. Is it a restorative at all?
If you're if you can't, I
think it can be restorative. Yeah.
So selenium is huge. And then there's other
ones I will add in if I'm
feeling it. But those are my
grabbing them and taking those. So in
addition to the magnesium at
night and the fiber pills at
night. So and then I changed my
progesterone pads twice a week. And I do my
testosterone cream in
the morning. It's a whole thing. You're
like a walking lab hero.
You know, the whole thing.
But it's working. And I also want to be
clear. I don't want to make it
sound like I don't eat a lot.
I am eating through the day. I just don't
eat. I don't like to
overeat where I feel stuffed
because I get bloated and my digestive
tract reacts. I like to eat
where I'm full and satisfied.
But I'm not bloated. And I've given my body
a time to digest everything.
So I am eating. I'm just not
overeating. Are you doing the ghee in your
coffee regularly? I stopped
doing that because I'm not
fasting. I think that's more if you're
fasting. I don't know. I
stopped doing the ghee. Okay. I mean,
I might add it in. But and then I try to
stick with that on the
weekends. There's this tick tocker.
Her name's Brooke. I don't know her handle,
but she always she's just
broke. She's just broke. Okay,
she's great. She talks about companion
drinks. So if you she's like,
you know, if you think you're
hungry, or you want a snack, always have a
companion drink like she'll get like a
green tea with orange
in the morning, or she'll make like, put
stuff in her water or
she'll get like a start a locale
Starbucks drink, she'll get different
drinks throughout the day.
And so you have your companion drink. And
sometimes I'll think am I
hungry and then I'll make like,
like the hop lark tea, or I'll make a green
tea, or I'll add coconut
water and some pomegranate
juice to my, my big Stanley. And I just
I'll have something to spin drift,
whatever. And I like,
no, that satisfied me or I'll make that or
I'll make that coffee that
decaf coffee with the bone
broth chocolate protein. Yeah. And that's
like a dessert, like you
said, and then I'm completely
satisfied. It's a dessert. It's like 60 or
80 calories. Yeah. But
getting back to this companion
drink. Is that because if you fill yourself
up with liquids, like a
low calorie, even water,
white water, they say drink a lot of water.
That'll help you feel full.
Is that kind of what? Yeah,
it's so you don't overeat. It's so you
manage your calories through
the day. So maybe you want to
grab food, but really might just be
thirsty. Hydration,
hydration, you know, and she also
also always says, if you're hungry, if
you're really hungry,
I'll eat an apple or carrot,
not saying instead of food, but really make
sure what you're hungry.
Yeah. Listen, my main focus
is protein. Protein is my main focus. And
fiber, fruits and
vegetables. Those are my main focuses
is the protein trying to get as close to I
try to get 130 grams a day if I can.
That's what I'm shooting for. If I get more
than that, that's awesome.
And then the fiber. But no,
it's I have it down to a science to the
point where when we've
traveled, we usually dry most
places, I'll make the celery juice ahead of
time and bring it with us.
And I put it in the fridge,
because that helps significantly with
constipation too. It helps with gut health.
It helps with hydration and it helps the
constipation. And I think a lot of people
are constipated and don't realize it. And a
lot of bloat is because you're constipated.
And then you realize you were constipated
once you're not
anymore. And you're like, Oh,
because sometimes you feel thin everywhere
except your belly and
you're like, what's going on?
Can you eat Chia at all? Or is it? Oh, Chia
pudding is another thing I'll make,
but I have to soak it overnight. Yeah.
Everyone should be soaking
their chia seeds. Do not take
raw chia seeds. It's just going to cause
havoc on your stomach, but I
make it and I eat it the next
day and I'm fine. So what I do is I maybe
do like half a cup of
whatever liquid of my choice and a
teaspoon, a tablespoon of Chia seeds. And
then I'll add a little bit of
cinnamon and maybe a few drops
of vanilla. And then I have that the next
day. And that's something
I might have at like seven
o'clock at night if I'm hungry, but that
helps with constipation. So
that works its way through
my body. I love Chia. Yeah. I'll just soak
it in water. I'll do you
like it with water. Yeah.
Yeah. No, it's so good. Yeah. So, but I
mean, even both of us are
very particular now. It's just,
it's what's helped us feel vibrant. I feel,
I feel vibrant. Like an old man.
I know. But as a result, I feel my best.
And so, and I can tell
if I deviate off of that,
Oh yeah, I can feel it. But there's things
like, I don't eat the
same thing every day. Like
yesterday, I came home from Costco with
these, I wish I remember
the name, but they're like
Parmesan crisps that they're not their
pepperoni pizza crisps. And
for 15 of them, it's 13 grams
of protein. I ate those and I felt like I
had a slice of pepperoni
pizza. Like if you're craving
pizza, my craving was completely gone.
That's one of my hacks.
There's lots of hacks you can do
where you're like, you're really just
craving something, but it
doesn't mean you have to eat
that thing. You can find something that's
going to kind of replicate
that. And then even if I'm
really craving ice cream, I'll have some
non-dairy ice cream. I can't
tell you how I don't feel like
crap after non-dairy ice cream versus dairy
ice cream. Yeah. You know,
it's those little decisions.
You're really trying to keep your gut in
order. Yeah. If you can
keep your gut in order,
then your body kind of stays level and the
gut and the brain are
connected. I never really
connected. That's not the, I never put as
much emphasis in the gut
until recently, probably like
the last six months. I'm so dialed in now
that I eat basically the
same thing every day, except
dinner. That varies a little bit. But to
your point, if I eat too
much, I feel like I just can feel
it for a few days. Yeah. It's well, they
say your gut and brain are
literally connected. Yeah.
They're connected. So if your gut is off,
your brain is off. There's a lot of like
anxiety and stuff that can be related to
what you're eating and
ingesting and depression. Like
there's a whole, there's a whole studies on
that. But, um, if you keep
that gut in line, you're,
you're feeling pretty good. You really are.
It really sucks though,
because there's so many
good tasting foods out there that just
aren't beneficial. Like,
you know, me, I could wreck a
pint of Ben and Jerry's. I love it. But now
I feel it for a few days.
Yeah. Pizza pizza's another.
I love pizza. It's just not really not that
good for you. Well, there's
the whole thing about, um,
the more carbs you eat, the more carbs you
want. Oh, no doubt. It triggers, you know,
you have pizza and then the next day you
wake up, you want to have
more. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not
saying for a few days, that's the problem.
Like if you have some ice
cream, it's like three days
later, you're still craving it, which is
really crazy, which makes
you question what's being put
into our food. Yeah. That gets us hooked
like that. Right. Yeah. And
if the more processed you go,
the, the further away from, um, healthy
eating you're getting.
Yeah. It's true. It's true. And
again, I'm not saying we're restrictive
eaters because I don't
want to trigger anyone here,
but not in an eating disorder way. No, no,
no. This is not
disordered eating healthy eating.
It's healthy, clean eating. We are getting
enough calories. We are
getting our nutrients. Um,
it's just that we're intentionally eating
every time we eat, every time
we eat, it's with intention.
Now I'm not saying we don't go out when we
do go out, we enjoy, but
what I might do is eat half of
that meal and bring the other half home. I
consciously, sure. I could eat the whole
unless like I haven't eaten hardly anything
all day and I'm
starving. I mean, in the meal,
but I'm eating half, you know, we are a
big, we're one of those
families that orders drinks,
appetizers, and dessert. When we go out, we
order the whole thing. We
aren't doing that as much.
And let's go to the kids with us. Um, we're
just ordering our meal.
And so there's like little
tweaks, little changes. Now I know this
annoys you, but, um, I, I
like diet Coke and I'll have
it as a treat. Sometimes I know it's not
good for me. I know it's
chemicals. I, but here that's an
area where I consciously and intentionally
making that decision.
I enjoy having no. So,
but I don't drink a ton of them, but
sometimes if I'm craving a
diet Coke, that is one of my
companion drinks. And if it helps me get
over the craving of maybe I
want to drink wine that night,
but it's not an appropriate night to drink
wine. I'd rather save my
wine drinking maybe for the
4th of July. So that might be my next time
I'm having wine. You know,
I had some on Memorial Day.
This is how I drink. It's a special, quote
unquote special times, but
I still don't overindulge.
So, and this may be more details. I was
going to go into this
in a different episode,
but we just started talking about food, but
that is kind of how we
eat. And even when we go out
or on vacation, one thing we do on vacation
is we try to always get
in some form of movement.
So whether we're walking everywhere or
whether we go down to the
hotel gym and just get a workout
in. And again, it's to get those calories,
those extra calories,
because we know we're going to
relax and enjoy. So we go on a walk or go
on a hike. Then if you go
out to dinner and enjoy,
you don't feel it. It's not, it's not
feeling guilty. It's that I
don't want to feel it physically.
I don't want to wake up the second day of
my vacation and feel bloated.
Yeah.
Cause you, you, you feel great the first
day you get there and everyone's like,
woo hoo. This is so much fun. And then
sometimes you may overindulge
and then you wake up the next
day and you need to wear a bikini or a
bathing suit or a dress
that you wanted to wear pants
and you're bloated and you're like, I'm on
the second day of my
vacation. I feel like crap.
So it's, it's doing those little things. So
you feel vibrant every day.
If you're going to splurge, you kind of do
what we did in St.
Augustine. We were great.
And then we had a big dinner, a couple of
cocktails and, you know,
last day. Yeah. The last day we did that
our last vacation. We didn't drink at all
until the last day then because we don't
drink that much and we
mistakenly drink how we used to.
We got very drunk. I haven't drank since
too drunk. We had two martinis in a very
short amount of time.
That was, I don't know what we were
thinking. And then we went
to another bar and for some
reason order more drinks. I don't even know
at that point. It's funny
how when you don't drink
and then you drink again, you can't drink
how you used to. You
become like Frank the Tank.
Yeah. You just, yeah, it was not good.
Thankfully we were walking everywhere
and we also hadn't eaten very much. So, but
I still will have
sometimes gluten-free pizza.
Like I still have stuff. All if we order
nachos, I'll have some of the chips,
something I'm not going to eat, but it's
all of that balancing.
And especially with thyroid
disease, especially with perimenopause,
menopause, it all matters.
Every decision, when you sleep,
what you eat, how you exercise, how often
you exercise, what supplements you take,
what medications you take, it all is like
putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.
And it requires all those pieces. So you
still feel like you're living your full,
vibrant, authentic life. Because I'm not
willing to give up
anything. I want to keep going as
strong as I was. I'm going stronger now
than I was 15 years ago. And
it's because of this conscious
effort, but I want to still, I want to go
strong into these, the
rest of my fifties and into my
sixties and into my seventies. And I think
a lot of Gen Xers
especially feel that way. I think a
lot of them are viewing this next part of
our life as just a
continuation, not in any way, an end to
anything, but our, we have to pay attention
to our health. And for
women, especially it's being
conscious of keeping on top of your thyroid
health. Well, before you go
into that, I have a question
because I put just a circle back to the
period of menopause, menopause, the
Hashimoto's, the thyroid.
And you mentioned how you wish you kind of,
I don't know if you use this
terms, but you wish you knew,
if you knew back then what you know now,
you would have done things differently.
So what would that be? What would your
advice be? Because I don't
think doctors are saying, okay,
now that you're 30 woman, we're going to
check you for your
thyroid. We're going to check you
for the perimenopause, but there's no, I
don't know what the
checkup is probably like a paps
or something. Right. So what would you tell
people to other women,
maybe younger, I guess, right?
Coming up, what would you tell them to do?
What checks would you have
them go out, ask the doctor
to do? I would ask for an ultrasound of my
thyroid every year. And if
they won't do it every other
year, I wish I would have started that at
25. And I would say if, if
you need to say something for
them to do it, say you think you feel a
nodule or say you feel
something when you swallow or say
you are feeling fatigued and brain fog and
you've all of a sudden
gained weight, like just say what
you need to say to get that ultrasound. And
then also no, no question
have your thyroid lab work
done. And not just your T3 and T4, but do
your T3 free there. If you
read, if you Google it, there's
like four or five different things that you
can get tested, not just
your T3 and your T4. Your iron
levels should be tested and your T3 free.
And there's another
one. So Google that and ask
specifically say, I want all of these
things. I have a question.
Yeah. The type of doctor,
because I don't think I remember your gyno
didn't do these things and
was not necessarily in line
with it being thyroid. Right. So did you,
it feels like you had more of a
breakthrough when you went
to the endo. And if you can get, I mean, it
depends on your
insurance. If you can get to an
endocrinologist, if you're, if it's
thyroid, your doctor, your
primary is going to refer you over
to an endocrinologist, start a relationship
even just to get a
baseline. That's where I was going
to go. Get a baseline, see them once a
year, just to get a baseline,
because that way, if and when
something happens, you already have your
doctor set up and they know your history.
So an endocrinologist,
I think every woman should have one. A lot
of people think it's
just for diabetics. Now it's
for thyroid health. And so be on top of
your thyroid health,
research the symptoms of Hashimoto's
and thyroid disease. Research that,
research the symptoms of perimenopause,
because perimenopause
can hit you at 35. And we just had a
listener comment, it hit her
like a train. And that's the
best way to describe it. It hits you like a
train. And so research
thyroid disease, research
perimenopause, prepare yourself, be
proactive, write down all the
symptoms. And so if and when
things start happening, then you can get to
the root cause of it. And
you're not going to doctors
and having them band dating the symptoms of
either thyroid disease or
perimenopause. And keep in mind,
thyroid disease and perimenopause can hit
simultaneously, as it
did me. And you can feel
like you're losing your mind, you're losing
your body, you're losing
your life, you don't know
what's going on. And so my advice to
younger women is be
proactive, do your research on thyroid
disease and perimenopause. So if and when
these things hit you,
perimenopause is going to hit you.
But if thyroid disease does, you're ready.
Arm yourself. Because I
went into it blindly. And I
think I most Gen X women went into it
blindly. So just research, research,
research and talk to your
doctors. And if you're not happy with your
doctor, and if they're
dismissing you, find a new doctor.
That's another piece of advice. I'm telling
you, you just need to
eat right and exercise. No,
that's not it. You need a doctor that's
really hearing you and
preferably a doctor that has
extensive knowledge in thyroid disease. And
also another doctor that
would be your OB for perimenopause
and menopause. There's also hormone
specialists. The OB. The OB
GYN. I think I called it the
GYN, right? People call it that. Yeah. So
that would be my advice.
If I could go back, I would
have researched the hell out of these two
things. And then been
ready. It's like arming yourself,
like, okay, I'm ready for whatever's gonna
hit me. I think that's
true for anything though,
you're dealing with the medical community
on you've got to go in
arm. Thankfully, you know,
with between AI, Google, others. Yeah,
there's at least information
out there. Yes, you can go in
and be dangerous. But then they know you've
come shown up prepared. And
they will at least address
your concern. Yes. Yeah, you be your own
advocate. But for women,
women need to know you have a much
higher chance of getting an autoimmune
disease, not just because of
hormones, not just because of
genetics, but because of the stress you're
under. And be and you need to
also do the things we talked
about, start making self care and stress
relief practices, a
regular part of your life now.
And that could help prevent possibly
getting an autoimmune
disease. But you are at a higher
chance of getting it. And so educate
yourself on autoimmune
disease. And the symptoms. I have one
last question, actually. Were you ever
misdiagnosed with something besides
Hashimoto's? Or like,
I get the whole rest more exercise more
that thing. But did you
ever I don't remember you ever
getting a diagnosis before you've had
you've got a thyroid issue.
Is there ever a misdiagnosis,
I guess would be the question. No, I mean,
not that I know of, you
know, I don't recall either,
you know, I think personally, I think, you
know, my hormones
fluctuate a lot through my life.
I had very bad PMS. I think now it's
called, it's like pre mental disorder or
something like I think
I had that the bad one. It wasn't called
that then. That's a hormone
related fluctuation thing.
So I think that there would have been ways
to naturally regulate my hormones. There's
there's supplements you can take. Yeah.
There's creams you can put
on your body natural. Yeah.
At 1617 18, you can do that. Yeah. If I
would have known about
how to regulate my hormones
naturally, even through my teens and
through my 20s and 30s. I would have
definitely done that,
you know, and, and that would have been
proactive too. So and I
think that should be talked about
more. Yeah. Women's health in general
should be talked about more,
you know, and there's things
where if men if something helps men, it's
funny how it gets it gets
attention, attention, funding,
um, all of a sudden it's available real
fast. Uh, for women,
it's, I don't know. It's an
interesting thing because I don't disagree,
but we don't seem to have
near the ailments or hormonal
shifts like you guys do and all the various
plumbing internal
plumbing things that go around.
That's why it's even more ironic. You guys,
that's what I'm saying. You
guys have left problems. So
the few problems you have get addressed
right away. It's a good
thing, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, what's interesting is that I'm
the younger women and, um,
or the women younger than
me, I should say, but especially Gen Z
they're very conscious of
their phases through their cycle,
their menstrual cycle. So, um, I didn't
even know about this
when I was their age at all,
but there's, um, of course menstruation,
right? And then there's
the ludil phase that happens
between on ludil, ludil. Okay. Not lunar. L
U T E A L. Okay. That happens between
ovulation and the start of your period.
That's your ludil phase. So
that's where you maybe will
have PMS. That's where they exercise
differently. That's where
they're not supposed to exercise
hard because it helps with that ludil
phase, the hormones and what's
going on with their body. Um,
that's where they may do Pilates. They may
do yoga. They may walk.
That's an improvement in
women's health because I've never heard of
that before. But I
think this is women who've
pulled all this together. Yeah, there's an
app, there's an app and
women can chart it. So,
and then there's certain foods they can eat
during their ludil phase.
Like I think salmon's one of
them, certain, certain, certain nutrients
that help that phase.
Okay. So you have ovulation,
you have the ludil phase, then you have
menstruation. And then the period from the
start of your period to ovulation is called
the follicle, follicular
phase. I'm going to say it
right. Follicular phase. And that's a whole
different phase. And you
can, uh, I think there's
food you can eat during that phase. And so
these young women have the
app. Yeah. They'll say, um,
I'm in my ludil phase. So I'm not going to
be doing that right now.
Yeah. Our daughter has said that.
Um, or I'm, you know, I'm doing this, I'm
doing that. It's amazing.
Well, I think, you know, in,
in tune with themselves, you know, I'm a
big evolutionist type
of person. And I think as
more women have become doctors, they've
paid attention to more
women, you know, greater
health issues related to women. So it's a
wonderful thing. Oh, yeah.
It's only going to keep getting
better. Yeah. But I think it's not even
just the medical
community. I think it's in general,
it's in general, women have been proactive
and, um, and, and
technology and, and social media and
all of it has, has aided women in that
area. So maybe where the,
where the medical community has
failed women, um, women have kind of taken
things into their own hands.
Yeah. It's wonderful. But I,
so I think especially Gen Z women, they're
going to be on it. I
definitely think they will,
but I just want to make sure that they know
that women know not
just Gen Z women, not just
younger millennial women, women my age two
that may be suffering and don't know, um,
and autoimmune disease is very common for
women to get. And so
before, if you're having symptoms
bandated and they're not getting better,
the root cause could be an
autoimmune disease. Yeah.
So research the different ones. Thyroid
disease is very common, but
again, lupus, there's a lot
of other ones too. Rheumatoid arthritis is
one, um, research and, and
really look at things and
then find a physician or find someone, a
functional doctor, someone
that will listen to you because
again, through all the steps I'm doing now,
um, and it takes all the
different things I feel
like I did before all this happened to me.
I finally feel like I did
before all this happened
to me. Is there any research on like either
CBD or THC and, and
its impact on thyroid or
Hashimoto's? I don't know about on that. I
do know, of course, on
anxiety and depression,
which are some of the, um, symptoms of
thyroid disease and
perimenopause. Um, CBD obviously,
um, with calming effects when you take it
internally, the creams are good for muscle
aches and pains. Frozen shoulders are very
common thing for women
with perimenopause. I had that
for, um, probably a year and a half. It's
where you can bear it. You
can only lift your, your arms.
So, and I remember getting a massage and
she couldn't, I couldn't
move it because I was in
pain. She's like, what fix that was it? The
Cairo or the, no, that's
just time. My body's moving on
to the next thing. But I did use CBD, um,
like topically and that
helped. Um, and as far as THC,
I don't know, however, medical marijuana
helps with certain
symptoms, but I don't think there's
been any studies. Not, not directly related
to Hashimoto's or the
thyroid, but more of the maybe
anti-anxiety and things like that. Yeah.
Like some of the symptoms. So ignore our
dogs. She's crying to
get out of the room. Um, so yeah, but as
far as that, I don't know,
I CBD, I would say I did try
that for a while for relaxing. Um, and it
did, it did help before we
close. Do you have any other
advice or food hacks or anything like that
advice you'd want to, that
we haven't covered yet? Um,
I, I mean, just thinking about, I just
thought of some food hacks
actually, when you said that.
So, um, one thing is I take plain yogurt. I
do whole milk yogurt, but you could do
any 2% nonfat, whatever. And, um, I add,
you know, that PB powder,
that peanut butter powder. Yeah.
Yeah. I get it at Costco. I get a lot of,
that's another hack. I get
a lot of things at Costco,
but you can get it anywhere. Target,
Walmart, grocery store,
whatever. Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, I add two tablespoons of that PB powder
and, um, I stir it up
and then I'll dip, um,
like strawberries in it or, um, blueberries
or apples. And that's
really good because you
get the protein from the PB powder and from
the yogurt. And then you
have the fruit. And then I'll
also take yogurt, plain yogurt, and, um,
there's ranch seasoning you
can buy. So it's just a ranch
powder. You can either get the packets or
you can actually get like
a shaker and, um, I'll add
ranch seasoning to it. So you, it almost,
you mix it. So it almost
tastes like ranch dressing
and I'll dip carrot sticks, any vegetable
tomatoes, celery. Um,
and that's a way to get
that protein. And see, that's another thing
I may eat in between
breakfast and like my bigger meal.
I may have that. Um, I'm always, I'll do,
um, cottage. I'll also
put that yogurt with ranch
seasoning sometimes on my salad and it's
like a dressing and
I'll do cottage cheese, um,
on top of, right. I know some people hear
rice cakes and they're like, ah,
diet culture, eighties, but I do like rice
cakes because, um,
sometimes I'm craving bread or, um,
something like that. But I don't want to
eat as many carbs and rice
cakes satisfies that need for
me. And I'll put cottage cheese on it. And
then maybe some salami or
Turkey, some tomato, some
everything bagel seasoning. And I'll have
like two rice cakes with
cottage cheese and some meat.
And that's a lot of protein. I feel like I
had a sandwich, you know,
it's that feeling of what am
I craving right now? And how can I hack it
so that I cut down the
calories, but I raised the protein
and I cut down the carbs. I'm not an
anti-carb person. I do eat
carbs, but I, um, manage them
because I'll honestly, my gut does so much
better either with no grains or low grains.
So if I eat too many grains, I feel a
reaction in my gut. Same with popcorn. I,
I have to be careful with popcorn. I can
eat some, but if I eat
too much corn in general,
like I kind of have a reaction too. So I've
learned over the, over
the years, what I can
and cannot tolerate. And then I try to just
tweak it. So it's all those
little, those little tweaks,
I guess, but just off the top of my head, I
was thinking, um, another
one is you could take hard
boiled eggs, cut them in half, put cottage
cheese on them. It's
always trying to find ways to,
how can I put, have more protein in this
meal? How can I
incorporate protein and then if I,
possible some fruits and vegetables into
this meal, that's become my new focus. So,
and that's again, well, it helps you eat
less by default. Yeah.
You're full longer. Yeah.
You're totally full longer. The, uh, just
to be clear too, on that
PB powder, it is actually
peanut butter protein powder. Right. So
they take all a lot of the
fat out a lot of the other
things. And it's a very simple, you know,
high protein, highly dense
protein powder that tastes
like peanut butter stuff scrubbing. It's
really good. It is. It is.
So if anyone goes to Costco,
um, I highly advise, maybe someday I'll
just do my cost. You
know what? I should do a
episode of video and take Costco, just film
me shopping at Costco
and everything I get, but,
that's where I get almost everything that
we consume as Costco.
It is more economical for
us to do it that way, but you can get it at
Target, Walmart, grocery
store, Amazon, almost all.
They don't have my yogurt there though. We
have to go to Whole Foods
for Brian's yogurt. That's
the one, the one place for that. And for
the hop lark tea.
Again, if anybody likes beer,
check out hop lark tea. There's also hop
water. Like there's a lot
of hop sparkling waters that
are coming out. They're non-alcohol. It
gives you that beer taste.
And then the hop lark has a few
different ones. One of them is chamomile
and it's kind of relaxing.
So that's kind of nice. If I'm
craving like on a Saturday night and I
don't want to derail
everything or Friday or, you know,
whatever summertime you're in the pool,
you're at the beach, I bring
some hop sparkling waters and
I drink those and I am more than satisfied.
I'm really enjoying my tea. I have my green
tea with one little Citra hops. And you
made some yourself. Yeah.
So good. I want to try that.
Yeah. So, and that's a companion drink.
Again, I highly suggest
also get yourself a big water
bottle. It doesn't have to be Stanley, but
I call that my
emotional support water bottle,
but then make your companion drinks, you
know, make, if you have
to drink decaf coffee,
that's hydrating. It doesn't have caffeine
in it. I drink decaf green
tea every day. I have some of
that because green tea is also very good
for you. It's good for your
metabolism. And then I'll have,
if I'm really craving something, I'll have
some decaf coffee with
some of my creamer and
it fills me up. So it's sad as it doesn't
fill me up. It satisfies that
craving. It's the difference
between knowing when you're hungry and when
you're craving. Yeah. The
food noise, two different things.
And again, not to make this talk about diet
and food, but it's, that
is so related to healing
and continuing to heal thyroid disease and
the menopause. I also
forgot to mention, I was
borderline PCOS as well. Polycystic ovarian
syndrome where I had
cysts on my ovaries and I
would get an ultrasound of my ovaries every
year for the last five
years, because there were cysts
on them and then I'd have to go back and
the cysts would finally go away.
Thankfully, the last two
years I've been cysts free, but that also
causes bloating. That also
causes insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance is a whole nother thing.
So doing all these
things has helped with that. I
don't think I have it anymore because it
helps so much. And I have to
do this. If I deviate off of
this, then my symptoms will return. So I
have, it's almost like I
don't have a choice. Yeah.
So it's not just, I have lost weight. I
have, my inflammation has gone down,
but in order to fill, live a full authentic
life, I have to do these
things. And so I am someone who
is living with thyroid disease and living
with menopause and feel
better than I did 15 years ago.
And I'm really happy about, I feel like
that's a huge
accomplishment. And I'm actually really
proud of it because I had to put in so much
work to get here and so
much research and challenge a
lot of norms. But again, I've never felt
better. So yeah. And for
any of our listeners, please,
if you have any questions, if you're going
through this or anything at all, please,
please leave a comment. You know, we love
to hear from you, but if
there's anything I can answer
for anybody, I, I'm, I'm here because if I
can just help one woman
or one person, like I said,
men do get thyroid disease, not as common,
but if I can help one woman
with this, then, you know,
I'm happy. Yeah. So that's cool. That's my
journey with thyroid
disease and perimenopause and
now menopause. And then how I'm treating a
lot of it with all the
different things, the medications,
the food, the supplements, the exercising,
the stress relief. It's
all a recipe in order for me
to live this life the way I'm living it
now. Well, I was going to
say the, the way I think
you're living today versus where you were
10 years ago is very
different. Way more, have it way more
under control, healthier energy,
everything. It's actually amazing. I
figured it out. Yeah,
you figured it out. A lot of tribulations,
but I figured it out and
it's still the code changes.
Maybe. Yeah, exactly. Cause as you get
older, you know, things, and
again, that's paying attention
to those nuances. So now I do now I do. And
that's how I know I'm
about to go on a flare up
because I pay attention to every nuance
thing that's going on with
me. So a lot of trials and
tribulations, a lot of investigating sleep
is huge, you know, all of
that. But I feel like, okay,
I got this and it took a long time to get
here, but, and that's why I'd love to see
women younger than me not have to go
through it to figure it out.
I'd love for them to know what
they're heading into instead of going
through it and then figuring out
afterwards. So hopefully
this reaches some young women. If anyone's
looking for resources
on thyroid disease and
perimenopause menopause, hopefully they
find us and this will help in some way. So
that's, that's our, that's my message about
my journey. And again,
love to hear from you.
And we'll see you next time. Bye.