Episode 25: The 5 Pillars of Health with Dr. Farah Sultan

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the functional gynecologist. I'm a board certified OB, GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey and I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome. Hi friends. Today I'm interviewing Dr. Farah Sultan. She is the founder of Vitalogy Wellness center and Med Spa in Homewood, Alabama. She's going to share her story of how she came from India and found herself setting up residence in Alabama and more importantly, how she got from her conventional medical training of family practice and internal medicine into the world of functional medicine and preventative health and wellness. I think it's so important to figure out why things happen to us and why we get led down the paths that we do and what we can learn from it. So Dr. Farah has learned so much along her journey of reclaiming her own health and figuring herself out. She's very passionate about helping other women figure out their why and reclaiming their health. She's definitely over trained. She not only did medical school in India and trained in London, but she also did a residency here in the United States States and then went on to to become board certified in functional and integrative medicine. She has a special interest in women's health, preventive care, autoimmune disease, diabetes and thyroid issues. Today we're going to talk about how our immune system is affected by our lifestyle and our environment and how we can strengthen our immune system, especially in this time of COVID 19. We're going to talk about how none of our systems work in a vacuum. They all are interconnected and affect each other. One imbalance in our thyroid system can completely affect our sex hormones and our gut microbiome. All the bacteria that live in us can affect our immune system and our immune system can affect our pancreas and our adrenal glands and they're all interconnected. So we're going to have a good conversation about how functional medicine and physicians look at that as you, the individual and how it's affected your health. Once we find the root cause, we can get you on the road to healing. I am just so passionate about functional medicine and how it heals. So I hope that you enjoy her story and her knowledge as much as I enjoyed interviewing her, just a quick note before we get started. Follow Dr. Farrar on Facebook at Farah T. Sultan and Vitalogy Wellness. She also just started a podcast called the Be well and Vital Show. So go check that out. I will have the links in my show notes. So here we go. Enjoy. Well, welcome, Dr. Farah. Thanks for being on the Functional Gynecologist podcast.

Thank you, Dr. Tebtha. So happy to be here with you on your show.

Yeah, you have a awesome wellness center down in Alabama and I would love to hear how did you get to Alabama and how did you create a wellness center?

What?

You know, I would love for you to share your story with my listeners because I think how we get to a certain place in our life is just as important as why, you know, that is our why.

Sure. So I was born and raised in India in a small town called Ranchi in the Northeast. And growing up, I was exposed to a lot of antibiotics because my dad used to work for this engineering company where there was free medical care provided. So I would get sore throats and my mom would take me to the doctor and I would end up with another prescription for amoxicillin. And, you know, I generally was a happy and supposedly healthy child. But also when I grew up, I always wanted to be a doctor. And I went to medical school in southern India. And part of our rotations involved going out in the community to these villages where there was the drinking water may not have been very clean and may have been contaminated. So I remember infected with parasites and giardia and things like that. But being in med school, we didn't think anything of it. We would just take a prescription for Flagyl and get up and, you know, keep going and eating those same foods, drinking those same types of water from those water wells and containers. And I didn't realize what of an what impact it would have on my health later on. And so fast forward. So after finishing up med school, I wanted to explore the world and broaden my horizons. So I actually took my exams in Singapore for the USMLES to come to the US but at the time it was very difficult for especially women doctors from India to come to the US in the sense it was hard to get a visa. So my plan B was to go to England and I moved to London, which were some of the best and fun years of my life. I learned a lot. I trained in internal medicine. And when I worked, I saw it all, did it all. We were literally on our own, very, very busy practice I really grew as a doctor and learned a lot. And after I completed my internal medicine TR training, while I was doing that, I met my future husband there. He was visiting from Connecticut and so he came and he came again and he came again. And so finally we got engaged and then I moved to the US and initially we were up in the east coast and he was going to med school at Brown, so I started my residency there. And then he matched in UT Houston, so we moved to Houston. And while I was doing my family medicine residency was when I was pregnant with my first baby. And this was in my last year of residency. And when I went into labor, it was just a nightmare. So I was kind of contracting regularly, but I wasn't in full, you know, not dilating. So my doctor broke my waters. Then she had to add Pitocin drip. And then before I knew it, there was. My baby was going into distress. My blood pressure was bottoming out, my oxygen was bottoming out. And they had to do something called amnio infusion, which I had only read about in textbooks. And. And it was just a saga. And it was 12 hours of labor and then finally I couldn't push my baby out. His head got stuck. And we ended up going to C section. And at the time my husband was in Birmingham and I was in Houston. So he had to take a flight down while I was in labor and my mother in law was with me. And so after C section, my poor baby ended up in the neonatal intensive care unit. And that was a nightmare to see him on all these IVs and antibiotics and of course I got antibiotics with my labor. And so the strange thing was that even though we made it through all this trial, we got home and I found that there was something very different with my body. Like every single morning I would wake up with this diarrhea. And I didn't realize at the time, but I had C Diff infection.

Oh wow.

And my tumm would be hurting all the time. And then, you know, slowly these symptoms began appearing. Like I would be crying with the postpartum blues and my hair then started falling and, you know, my weight wouldn't come off even three months, six months after delivery. And that's when I went to my OB GYN because I was otherwise healthy and didn't find any answers. And then I moved to Birmingham because my husband had started his fellowship in residency in Birmingham. So that's how we ended up in the Magic City, as they call it. And I then was pregnant three years later with my daughter. And this time, of course, I didn't want to wait till my labor became worse. I did want to do a trial for normal delivery, and the same thing happened. Her head got stuck. So I went for a C section. And so again, I remember going back and having my labs checked, this time for fatigue and hair loss and low libido, but again, didn't find any answers. So much later, I was really seeing patients now in my internal medicine practice, but not really getting to the root, getting to the bottom. My patients would come to me with the same symptoms that I was still experiencing, like hair loss and weight gain and loss of energy and libido and IBS type of symptoms, and they couldn't figure it out. And even the tools that I had in my box, like the labs that I would check or the medications that I would recommend, were very limiting. And if I couldn't help myself, how would I even imag imagine that I could help my patients? And that's really what led me to this journey and quest that helped me discover functional medicine. And I had always. The reason why I had always wanted to be a doctor in the first place was because I wanted to really help people heal themselves, not just, you know, none of us go to med school, so we can just write a prescription.

Right?

Right. And that's exactly what I was doing. And to really spend time with my patients, to really help them understand nutrition and lifestyle and being truly healthy. And that's what I wanted, even for my own self. And I felt, if I can't figure it out, how can I help others? So let me figure it out for myself, and then I can help others. So in that journey, I found that I had Hashimoto's, which is, as you know, an autoimmune condition. And when I look back now at my labs from way back then, you know, my thyroid levels were literally on the brink. Like, my TSH was literally 4.05, and I was told it was normal. At that time, my thyroid antibodies had not even been checked. And so once I found what the cause was and once I knew what changes I had to make, because now I had the knowledge of the testing, then it really actually became so easy for me to really overcome all of these symptoms. And really, I can't believe Now I turned 49 in February this year. And when I see where I was when I was 29, felt and looked much, much worse. So that's why my book soon to be released, is called From Survive to Thrive. And so that's why I'm so passionate about women's health, about autoimmunity, about hormones, about nutrition, gut health, all of that, because the ibs, the Hashimoto's that I had, I was able to resolve. And from my knowledge, I did not know of any conventional medicine that could have helped me do that.

Yeah. Oh, I love hearing your story and I resonate with it so much. I kind of went through the same thing with my own pregnancy and delivery and developing Hashimoto's. And you know, I think so many of our US practitioners go into functional medicine because we have our own personal health journey that we're trying to heal ourselves. And then once our eyes are opened, we just have to share this knowledge with the world because it's too important, it's too life changing. And something that you hinted at was antibiotic use, getting a lot of antibiotics. And explain to my listeners how that changed your gut microbiome. Like I try to explain to my patients, you know, we have trillions of bacteria living in us and on us, and they're running the show like they are deciding what our metabolism is doing, how our brain is functioning, how we're feeling. Can you explain, like, how did all of those antibiotic exposures predispose you to developing Hashimoto's?

Yeah, that's such a great question. So when I really. And that's what we look at as functional medicine practitioners is not just what's going on now, but we go back all the way to the way you were born and the way you were raised and what foods you ate, but also what antibiotics you were prescribed, whether it was for an ear infection or a sore throat or a sinus infection. So these antibiotics that we take so easily, we don't realize what havoc they create with our good friendly microbiome, which are not wiped off along with whatever bacteria that was being targeted. And in most cases, I can tell you now, looking back, hindsight is 20 20, that really most of those infections were most likely viral, that I did not even need any antibiotic for. Did I have a test done to see if this was strep throat? In most cases? No. And so it was just based on symptoms. And this is exactly what I see now happening in so many of my patients. So we take antibiotics, they supposedly kill the bad bacteria, but then they also destroy the friendly flora that is really there to protect us, to protect our immune system, to really help every little organ, every little cell function at its best. And so it is only now that we are learning so much more information about our microbiome it is so fascinating. And even our brain health, our hormone health, our heart health, our gut health, so many aspects of our health and life are connected to these bacteria. It's so amazing.

Yeah, it's incredible.

And autoimmunity, how does that occur? So as you know, you have to have three prerequisites for anybody to develop autoimmunity. So number one is genetics. So yes, genes can predispose us to certain autoimmune conditions. However, even if we have those genes, none of those genes need express themselves unless the other two conditions are met, which is triggers. And we'll talk about those triggers. And the third one is a leaky gut. So when we lose the friendly flora in the gut lining, it's like burning down a rainforest after thunder or lightning struck it and raised it to the ground. Then you know, it's going to take so much time to regrow that rainforest. And so when these, when the terrain, the ground is denuded of all its flora and fauna, it leads to the growth of these bugs and critters and inflammation which then makes our immune system overreact and attack. Things like our thyroid in Hashimoto's and the gut in IBS and a host of other organs too.

Yeah, I would say I probably see Hashimoto's two or three times a day in my office. You know, it is way too common and it shouldn't be that way. It just, it wasn't even non existent, you know, half a century ago. So I, our, we are just destroying our gut lining and our immune system is responding, trying to support us and protect us, but, but you know, over time it just overreacts and starts attacking ourselves and it's not pretty. What would you say are the other big factors that you see in your patients when you look at their history besides antibiotic exposure? You know what predisposes them to autoimmune disease?

Certainly that's again such an important question because we really have to look at the history. And so other than antibiotics, I see a lot of steroids usage which can predispose them. Birth control pills which I was on, as well as surgeries, like many women will say a history like mine, that they felt great until a certain point when especially they had a C section or a hysterectomy or even a knee scope. It could be what may be considered just a minor surgery and then their whole life kind of unravels. And also stress, stress is such a huge trigger. So when they go through a very stressful divorce, I see that Very commonly, of course, any death in the family, especially the death of a child, is so hard, I can't even imagine. And those stressors can be a huge trigger for autoimmunity and even ultimately cancer. And some of the other things are a car accident, a really bad motor vehicle accident, head injury. I see a lot where most people tend to ignore that part of their history. And of course, lifestyle, which is diet and lack of movement and exercise and lack of mindfulness. So it's really a combination of all of these factors. And then the other biggest one is drugs. So people on antacids and PPIs for acid reflux is huge, and on statins, which affect their liver enzymes as well and cause severe pain and other issues. And so people don't realize that how bad these drugs can be.

Yeah, I mean, they're taking it to suppress their symptoms. And we're thinking we're helping them as physicians. Oh, we're making you feel better. We're getting rid of that symptom. But the symptom is a message from your body, like, hey, something's wrong. Please listen. Please investigate and figure out. And I love that functional medicine understands that and really tries to get to the root cause, like, why are you having the symptom of heartburn? You're obviously eating the wrong foods, or you're not making digestive enzymes, or something is triggering this. And so let's stop trying to cover it up and let's figure it out. You know, I have a lot of women who are on PPIs, unfortunately, and they'll come to me three or four years after being on them, and they can't figure out why they can't lose weight and can't sleep at night. And so often it's because of the bacteria that are living or not living inside of your system. Right. So there's a lot of investigating to do with that. Do you commonly see women with hormone imbalances in your vitalogy office?

Certainly. That's one of the main reasons that I see people in really all ages and women. So I do see teenagers with PMS issues, heavy cycles, irregular cycles, moodiness, and anxiety is a big one. And then I see a lot of women in their 30s and 40s who have severe fatigue, heavy cycles, can't sleep at night. And then of course, in menopause, where not only are they having the hot flashes and the vaginal dryness and those types of symptoms which are commonly alluded to menopause, but also the GI symptoms are the brain symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, Poor brain fog and things like that. And fatigue is probably. Fatigue and weight gain are probably the two most common symptoms that I see.

Yeah, definitely. That brings them in the door for sure. Is there something that you always tackle first when you are trying to help these women heal?

Yes, I do believe in foundational gut repair. So I tell my patients, patients that one of the foundations that I'm going to help you with is to really help your gut to function well, even if you don't have gut symptoms, really to fix the roof of the house, which is your brain. And then the rest of the pillars that hold your house together are your hormones. And so I have developed these five pillars of health approach, which is the gut detox, the nutrition, the hormones, the stress management, which comes with the mind, body balance, and then of course, movement and exercise.

That's wonderful. Yeah, that sounds exactly like how I approach things. Is there a certain diet that you find more women do better with than others per se?

I love to start people on just a simple elimination phase and they do great with that. And also I do, I do do food sensitivity testing because then we're not guessing. And we know sometimes, I mean, I'm so surprised that they're reacting to things like blueberries and. Yeah. Healthy. And almonds. And I myself get headaches when I eat almonds. So even though they would be considered to be healthy foods. And so that really helps them to see it rather than someone just telling them, you should eat this, you shouldn't eat. But I believe that when they see that data and then when they implement it and see such a dramatic difference that I don't have to help them stay motivated. It's self motivating.

Yeah, exactly. Once you feel better and you realize, wow, I didn't even know if I could feel this good, that's a great motivator for sure. And I love that you can individualize the medicine. You can figure out exactly what, what diet this person needs and what foods they should stay away from and exactly what they need to repair their gut. I think that's so important. Do you also do hormone testing?

We do, and we do a pretty comprehensive hormone panel. And so again, we're not just looking at say your estrogen, but we want to know how you break down your estrogen, because that, that's key. When Shotabhar, you see this in your patients too, that a lot of women that I see have estrogen dominance because of inflammation, because of stress. And once we know how they metabolize their hormones based on their genes, then we can really help them balance it. Their thyroid panel has to be a. A real thorough, detailed panel. And so when you do those numbers, it's not just a question of let's guess and let's just try this and let's just throw this at your body. And the other thing which I find is a lot of women, especially women who've undergone hysterectomy and even whether it's partial or total, and they are told that they don't need progesterone.

Oh, my goodness, yes. As a traditionally trained gynecologist, I'll tell you, you that that's how I was trained. You know, if you don't have a uterus, you don't need progesterone because that's only to protect the uterus from the estrogen. And what a disservice we are doing women telling them that. I feel bad looking back to all the years that I only gave women estrogen. Like, I wish I could take all that back because I know they weren't feeling as good as they should. We need that progesterone. That's our happy, calming balancing hormone. And you can't sleep without it. I mean, it's just. Oh, it breaks my heart to think back to how I used to practice. But once you know better, you do better, right? So, yes, thank you for bringing that up. Women out there need to know that estrogen needs to be balanced with progesterone and testosterone. And can you talk about how our sex hormones are kind of downstream to our major players of our pancreas and our thyroid and our adrenal glands, how that all kind of is interconnected? Because I think so many women want, want the quick fix. Oh, it's just my hormones are imbalanced. I just need estrogen. No, honey, like, your cortisol is through the roof and your thyroid is barely hanging on and your, you know, your sugar is out of control, your insulin is spiking. I want my listeners to understand that it's a super interconnected relationship and they all affect each other.

Absolutely. So, yes. So the way our body is created, it's actually such a beautiful thing. Everything works in such harmony. And that's why nothing ever that happens within our body is disconnected with something else that's going on. So if you think of just the term HPAG axis, this is our hypothalamus, which is in our brain, which is the emotional center, which senses all our stressors, our emotions. And then the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the brain that controls all these other organs that produce our hormones. And then, of course, you have your thyroid in your neck, which is so, so sensitive to every little change in your environment. And so you cannot simply treat the thyro without addressing these other players, which are equally influential in modulating the thyroid. And as Tabitha said, you have to look at your insulin. So fibroids and heavy cycles and endometriosis, you couldn't even imagine that they would be linked to insulin resistance and weight gain and abnormal cycles, but they are directly correlated. And so no wonder women say, oh, but I don't even eat any sugar. And you can have a totally normal sugar level, but you can have really high insulin resistance because of stress, because of inflammation. And so imagine someone drinking Diet Coke with all those artificial aspartame and sweeteners. And then they wonder why they can't lose weight, weight, why they have depression and brain fog. And so really, that influences our hormones. Our environmental toxins have endocrine disruptors that can also influence our sex hormones. And then, of course, the biggest player is the king, is the cortisol, the stress hormones. So even if we take all these beautiful hormones like thyroid and sex hormones, if the cortisol and the insulin are out of whack, nothing else is going to be balanced. So that's why we really do not attribute physical illness and do not give stress hormone as much credit as it should be in terms of how much of an influence it has on our health.

Yes, it's so true. And, you know, I was thinking about the whole coronavirus thing and our immune system and how when our cortisol level is high, our immune system is suppressed. And that's why we're more apt to get sick after major stressful situations. And a great example of that is when you have an overactive immune system, say you have hives all over your body. What does your doctor do? They give you prednisone, which is, you know, just like cortisol. And so for people to understand that that cortisol is suppressing your immune system, it's making you more prone to an autoimmune disease and to hormone imbalance. I just think it's super important for women to understand, especially right now with corona, because we want to strengthen our immune system. System. Right. So part of that is managing our stressors and getting that cortisol level down, getting out of that sympathetic. Fight or flight. Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go State. And the other thing I would love for you to touch on is I've been thinking about this quote, new normal, how we're all gonna, you know, protect ourselves and never get any bacteria or virus ever again. And you know, you touched on this earlier. We need healthy bacteria and microbiome on our system to protect us and keep our immune system strong. So I would love for you to talk about how important it is not to live in a sterile environment. So we need to find some kind of balance. Right. We cannot be losing our minds over this coronavirus and putting ourselves in a bubble and never touching each other again. Right. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah. So I love that book, Eat dirt. So really, even our kids, like we just live in this super sanitized atmosphere. And especially right now with this pandemic going on, we have taken it to the other extreme and forgetting the basics, which is to improve our immune system. And how do you improve your immune system? You start with the things that your immune system needs to strengthen it, which is food. Food is medicine. So the things that you eat can support your friendly bacteria. And when you go to the grocery store today, what do you see? The only thing in stock is the healthy foods. The rest is flying off the shelves. We are stress eating and we're eating the very things that we shouldn't be eating to support our immune system. And the best fighting chance we have right now against this virus and next fall it could be some other virus. And how can a virus just shut us down like this? Have we taken a step back to really look at why is our American healthcare system in the state it is in now, being the best, best of the best, why have we found ourselves in this situation? So we really have to look at the why and see how are we living our lifestyle, how are we eating, how are we cleaning our environment? Yes, you don't have to. It doesn't mean you have to be dirty. But everything we put on our skin is directly absorbed into our system. And the more time toxic our environment, it is directly going to influence our gut, the lining of our gut, which is the immune system, the bacteria that line our gut and ultimately our ability to fend off and fight infections.

Yes. So we need to focus on building strong immune systems and getting back to being healthy. I think that will protect us against the next Covid more than anything. You know, I really hope that's the way it goes. I hope it's not all about vaccinations. I hope it is about building our natural immunity and getting back to being healthy. And you hit on something so important with the food, our food is so important to Our health, it can make or break us. And we need to be eating real, clean whole foods that God created, you know, out of the ground from mother Nature. We don't need to be eating these science projects, you know, from boxes and bags that man created. Not helping us at all.

That's exactly what's happening. In fact, the people who have overcome this are the people. And it doesn't really matter what age they are at. Even though they said that people 60 and older are at higher risk, even some young people can succumb to it. Why? Because what's the underlying theme? It is how robust their immune system was. So why not focus on that, like you said, rather than just artificially putting some other toxin into your body?

Yeah, exactly. Are you doing IV therapy in your office or any kind of immune boosting biohacker at this time?

I do. I totally believe in IV therapy, especially when you don't have a gut that's working very well. So I use HI C, which I love, for people with cancer. And for autoimmunity, we've used glutathione and Meyer's cocktail. We do chelation for not only heavy metals, but for heart disease. And also I have ozone with UV light because I do see mold and lime and Candida and these chronic inflammatory conditions that they've done the antibiotics for the Lyme, and now their gut needs to be fixed because they're in a ramshackle. And so those therapies have proven to be so beneficial in helping to boost the immune system.

That's wonderful. Your community is so lucky to have you there. How long have you been there in this practice?

For six years.

Okay, that's awesome. And what would you say, you know, people are worried about at this point? Is it mostly their immune system?

Yes. I mean, one, certainly that you know, the immune system and how to keep themselves from getting sick. And of course, the second thing is the stress and anxiety, because nowhere in our history have we gone through a period like this where we are socially isolated. And that's why I hate the term social distancing. I prefer to say physical distancing. Right. You can still be connected even if you're physically apart. And that's led to tremendous anxiety. I do see people calling me and saying, what should I do? I am very anxious. I'm almost panicking. I can't sleep at night. My routine is disrupted. I don't know if I'll have my job because financially it's such a strain. The kids are being homeschooled, and so that's why I feel gratitude and mindfulness and stress relief and good sleep play such a huge role even in really boosting our immune system. But really just to help with the day to day.

Yeah, definitely. We gotta get back to mindfulness and gratitude. I personally love to do, you know, at the end of the day, day, I like to really focus on my breathing and try to clear my mind or not necessary clear it, but focus it and ignore all the useless thoughts that are jumping in. Right. And try to focus on just being present, being with my body, listening to what it needs. And I think if we did that for five or ten minutes every day, it would kind of help, help clear the clutter. I think that once you're able to get control of what thoughts are coming into your mind and realize they're just thoughts, they don't, you don't have to act on them, they're not controlling you. You can let it go. I think there's a lot of power in that and I think it's really helpful at this time because we're so alone. Right?

Yeah.

Yeah. What type of meditation or mindfulness. Mindfulness do you like to practice?

And actually this has been a blessing because it has given me the time to really do it twice a day. So I do it first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. So mainly I just love to focus on my breathing and to just do about just 10 to 15 minutes of mindfulness to start my day strong and in gratitude and then end the day in gratitude and mindfulness as well. So I do it sitting up in the morning and lying down at night.

Good. Yeah. And you don't have to be frustrated when your mind starts to wander. Right. Because it's going to, the thoughts are going to come in and I always just say begin again, begin again, like refocus, go back to your breath. Because it's like a training session for getting those thoughts to just go away. It's. You can't do it wrong.

I used to be that person. I would say, oh, meditation is not for me because I'm a type A personality, I'm on the go. But then I realized what this was when I was just building my new practice and I would be up till 2 o' clock because my mind wouldn't stop. And then I realized it was so self destructive. And then now that I've gotten into meditating, if for any reason I miss even the few minutes of it, I really can tell, I miss it. Yeah, you love yoga too.

Oh, that's Great. Yeah, I know. Personally, I feel more scatterbrained. And then I realized, wow, I really haven't been doing any mindfulness. I haven't been focusing on myself. And, you know, I just did a video today saying it's never too late to restart. Like, we, we're all going to fall off the wagon. We're all human. You know, I've been eating more baked goods in the past three weeks than I have in my life because that's what we're doing. But it's okay to try again and get back to your smoothies and get back to your yoga and try again, right?

Yes. That's what I tell my folks, too. That. And don't beat yourself about it. You know, it's okay. Give yourself some grace and give yourself some room.

Yeah, I love that. Give yourself some grace. That's perfect. Will you run through your quick five pillars one more time for my audience so that they know what to work on?

So the first pillar is detoxification. And I say it's an act of kindness to yourself and then the food and nutrition, but personalized to you because there's no other you in this entire universe. So that's why your friend may do great on a diet and you may not because she's different from you. And then the third is hormones. So without balancing hormones, you cannot balance everything else and keep it that way. You can go to Weight Watchers and do a crash diet and feel maybe so so and happy that you've lost weight, but you been eating cookies and chips and just counting points. So nutrition, but not so much how much, but what quality and what's right for you. And then the hormones, of course. And then the mind body balance, which comes with stress management, which is really our emotional health, our sleep, which is so important because you know when you don't sleep well, you can't have your day go well 100%. And then of course, movement and exercise. So you don't even have to go to the gym. I know all the gyms are closed right now. There's so many simple things we can do in the house, outside the house that are great.

Yeah, I love that. So focus on those five pillars. I think that's so important. That's awesome. Well, it has been so great talking to you. I think that you are just such a blessing and your patience. Patients are so blessed to have you and thank you for sharing all your knowledge with us today. It's been wonderful.

Thank you and stay blessed and thank you for listening.

Take care.

Thank you. Bye. Bye.

Well, thanks for tuning in today, you guys. I hope you enjoyed that. I. I think you can never hear it enough that we need to get back to basics. We need to stay hydrated, eat the right foods, move our body, be mindful, stop to process stuff, and just do some self love. So I'm probably gonna say that on most of my podcast episodes, but I'm really hoping that you're getting something out of this. If you can pick out one little nugget that you can incorporate into your life, one little change that you can make, make to start reclaiming your health, then I've done my job. That would be so amazing. So try not to get overwhelmed. I know it's a lot of information, but pick one thing that you want to work on and focus on and just start doing it. It's gonna be an accumulative effect. You pick one thing each week with each podcast, and, you know, six months from now, you'll be finished feeling like a whole new woman. So don't give up. Keep giving yourself love. Keep trying to figure out how to heal yourself and make yourself the best that you can be. All right? Go out and have an amazing week. Hopefully this Covid situation is almost over for most of us. So love your neighbor and love yourself. Bye, guys. Facebook.