Endless Energy with Dr. Jennifer Landa

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have some fun. Hello and welcome. I'm Alexandra J. Johnson, and today we have an awesome guest, Dr. Jen Landa. Dr. Jen is a wife, a mother, a physician, a sexpert, a hormone expert, and she is the author of the Amazon bestseller, the sex drive solution for women. She's also the creator of Rewire your Desire, and she specializes in helping women restore their energy and their sex. So welcome, Dr. Jen. Thanks.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you today.

Yes, I am. So I'm so grateful for you and your wisdom and I have your book and it's so, so awesome. And I've watched all of your in Theos classes that we have and just super grateful. So I would love to start off with hearing a little bit more about your story and how you got to be where you are now and losing your spot and just give us a snapshot of who you are and how you got to be where you are.

Yeah, sure. Thanks so much for the nice things you said about my book and stuff. It really means a lot to me. It was a really personal story for me. Basically, I call it losing my spark, but that doesn't happen all at once. It was a journey that happened over years for me. It all started, at least that I can remember, when I was married only a few years. I was finishing up my training to become an OB gyn. And over, I don't know, the course of a year or so, I just lost my sex drive. I started not to care about sex at all. And sex had been a really big, important part of my relationship with my husband. And, you know, it started that I was avoiding it, and then I just couldn't be bothered, wasn't interested in it. One time on vacation, he started screaming at me, don't you love me anymore? Aren't you attracted to me anymore? You know, at one time when we were trying to become intimate and it wasn't really working, and I was thinking to myself, wow, you know, it's. No, it's like nothing to do with you. It's me. I'm broken. There's something wrong. But I think the worst part for me was that I was obgyn and I had no idea what to do or how to help myself or where to turn. So I really didn't do much at that time. We just kind of, you know, fumford along and just did what couples do. I guess. You just tried to figure out how to deal with it. And then we had. We wound up having a baby. And, you know, we stayed together and just kind of got through, and we had my amazing son, Jonathan. And having a baby, of course, everybody knows, is exhausting. Well, everybody, I don't know. I didn't know before I had a baby, but, boy, was I shocked, once I had a baby, how exhausting it was. But after months went by and he was sleeping and everything, and my energy just wasn't coming back, and I would just sleep and sleep and sleep. I would spend the weekends when I was off sleeping and just kind of leave my husband and my son to fend for themselves. And I felt so guilty. Like, I was just this terrible mom, like. And so here I am feeling like a crappy wife because I'm not wanting to have sex and a bad mom because I have no energy. And work had been the one place which was always really good for me, and I felt like I was really on top of. And even that started to suffer. Particularly one night, I really had a crisis. I was called into the hospital for an emergency C section. And that was something that I used to love, just charging in and saving the day. And this particular time, I remember driving into the hospital, like, gripping the steering wheel, so scared that, would I make it in time? And what if I didn't make it in time? Would I get sued? And if I got sued, would I lose my house? And if I lost my house, would I be homeless? I mean, it was insane. My brain was just going through a million miles a minute through all these scenarios. And, well, good news is I got there, I delivered the baby, everything was fine. But afterwards, I just laid my head down on the nurse's station where I was writing my notes and just bawled, cried, because everything was just going wrong. You know, I felt like, like I said, like I wasn't a good wife because I didn't want to have sex. I wasn't a good mom because I had no energy or patience for my kid. I was, you know, yelling at him all the time, and he was only like a little boy, little toddler, which, you know, little boy toddlers, they're hard to keep up with. And then I felt like I was losing my nerve and losing my edge at work, and it was like my life was just falling apart around me, and I didn't know what I was going to do. And it was so bad that I actually decided to give up delivering babies and sort of really embarked on this search for something else in medicine that could help me. And I was lucky enough to discover a field that goes by a zillion different names, but I think it's all kind of the same. Preventive medicine, integrative medicine, functional medicine, regenerative medicine, anti aging medicine. You know, they're all at least pretty similar in a lot of ways. And I've studied a lot of it, and that was where I really found answers in things like bioidentical hormone replacement and nutrition and exercise and really how I could change my life through my lifestyle. And. And I started to see unbelievable changes in myself, and I started to work on these things with my patients and started to see amazing changes in them. And it was so awesome because I felt like I was reborn as a doctor, really, because here I was, I had. Well, and as a wife and as a mother, because, you know, I had the energy again. And, you know, I'm really. Alexandra, you and I were sort of talking about this a little bit, that I've kind of transitioned. What I'm talking about from sex was the big, big thing, but now I'm transitioning it really to energy. Because if you don't have energy, you don't really care. You don't give a crap, really, about having sex. And that was what I realized was really at the heart of it. Even more than getting your sex drive back, it's really foundational to your whole life to get your energy back. And really, back to the point that I really have made these programs, like you mentioned, rewire your desire. And then now I've just created one called Three Weeks to Endless Energy. Because I really want to be able to share this information in a huge way more than just the patients I see. And that's why I do stuff like I did the fatigue solution on Dr. Oz, so I could really share this information with people because it's so important. It's so huge what women are going through these days. I mean, I know I'm not alone out there, ladies. Right?

Well, I love it, too. And I love that you're so honest about talking about it, because I do think it is. It's almost like a silent epidemic, you know, women, nobody wants to be the one saying they're exhausted and tired. And yet I just read a study the other day that something like 90% of women are stressed, you know, and it's just like, wow, that is. That's, like, not acceptable. So And I love that you just. I love that you're focusing on energy, and I'd love to explore more of that, of the. I think you called it the exhaustion epidemic. Can you talk about this and how do we get our energy back or start to get it back? What is going on?

Yeah, definitely. Let's talk about that. If you're listening right now, like Alexandra said, 90% of you are exhausted. So I'm sure if you're listening to me right now, you're probably tired. You're probably even exhausted. Like, I was pushing yourself to get through the day, feeling like you're just tired. No matter how much you sleep, you're tired. You're probably. Because you're so tired, you probably don't have as much patience for people around you anymore. Everybody tells me, and if you're losing your patience and you're losing your energy, then you don't have enough leftover to prepare good meals for yourself and your family. So you wind up relying on fast food, and you wind up not getting to the gym or doing exercise because, you know, you're busy taking care of everybody else but you. And, of course, sex drive is, like, way out the window, you know, now I realize that, you know, I think of women's. Women's health and women's happiness as kind of a pyramid now. And the base level is survival. The next rung up as, like, weight loss, mood, and energy. And unless you've got your weight loss, you know, your weight, you're at a weight that you're happy with, your energy is good, and your moods are fairly good, then you don't even give a crap about sex because sex is kind of at the top of the pyramid. And I realized I was going about it the wrong way. I was addressing, like, the top. And now I realize I have to come down, like, through the foundational layers and help women with. I really think energy is really the key, though. If you want to get. If you want to lose weight, if you want to feel better, you want to not be so stressed, you want to be happier. All the things that everybody wants. If you want these things, you've got to get more energy. Energy is absolutely probably the number one place that you've got to start to get those things back.

That's great. So I know you talk about. You have an acronym. It's crash. Can you talk about that and how that might be able to help us with our Losing our spark?

Yeah. So, you know, I've been looking at these problems for a bunch of years. You know, really, like, I think it's been 17 years, I think since this time I told you that I was losing my sex drive. Yes.

I'm 45 and looks amazing. Like what? 45. Gorgeous and radiant and amazing.

Oh, you're so sweet.

Thank you.

You know, um, you know, and it's. And you know, I'll just say that I. It's not for nothing, I guess, is how some people would put it. It's not. It's not for lack of trying. Um, you know, I do. To the point where I can honestly tell you, at 45, I am way better than I was at 25, which is just pretty. Pretty awesome. First of all, I want you to know, listening out there, that that can. That's a possibility for you. You know, even if you feel crappy right now, you can feel better than you. Even 20 years ago. I have a freaking six pack. Alexander.

That's awesome.

I'm telling you. So it's because of these things that I figured out, and in terms of why we're crashing, I've kind of boiled that down to five things now. Well, before I go into those five things, let me just say I think the reason most women think that they're tired and the reason you listening probably think that you're tired is because of what Alexandra said. It's because of the stress. It's because 90% of us are under extreme stress, and especially, you know, since the economic crisis. And there's tons of things that are weighing us down, putting us under stress, you know, driving our kids around from place to place or dealing with an angry boss, dealing with sick parents, all kinds of things. But what you don't realize, and this is what CRASH is really about, is that there are physical stressors that are going on, that are going on in the background that you don't even realize are happening, that are sucking your energy. So, you know, all the things that are, you know, the emotional stressors, all the things that are sucking your energy.

Mm. You have.

And that's really what CRASH is all about. So CRASH is an acronym, and it stands for C for cortisol overload and depletion, R for reactions, which are food reactions, A for adrenal toxins, S for the sugar roller coaster, and H for your hormones. And those are kind of. When I boiled it down and I really looked at the problem, those are five hidden physical stressors, energy zappers that are stealing your energy day by day by day, and you're letting it happen. And you don't even know It. That's what I really feel bad for women who don't realize that these things are so preventable. You can get over them, you can deal with them every day. And then you have so much more left over for the things that are really important in your life, like taking care of your kids, like taking care of your elderly parents if you have. Or like doing really awesome at your job and all of the things that you want to do that make you a full person, that make you happy.

So great. So can you share just a little bit? Like, just a. I don't know, a little bit on each one of them so we know how we can start making changes to stop crashing?

Yeah, absolutely. So when I say cortisol, the C in crash is for cortisol overload and depletion. And when I mentioned that. So you've heard of the hormone cortisol, probably, right? And you may have heard on TV or on the radio that cortisol causes you to gain weight. So some people know, a lot of you might know that cortisol is bad if it's too high, but cortisol is like a Goldilocks hormone. Cortisol is like, too high is bad and too low is bad. And I have so many people who talk to me, they say, oh, my cortisol's low. So that's good now, right? No, that's not good either. You want to be balanced with your cortisol, because if you make lots of cortisol, that means that you're in a state. I kind of developed a quiz, like a quiz that tells you what energy state you're in. And you can find out if you're burning up, burning low, or burning out. And these are three stages of your adrenal glands that make cortisol, basically. And if you're making lots and lots of cortisol, you're fired up all the time, but you're anxious or overwhelmed, you're irritable, you don't have patience, all of that stuff. And that's burning up. That's making life to breathe. Like, I'm so overwhelmed and. And I get sharp with people and irritable. And then I realize, oh, my gosh, I'm not living my own program. You know, gotta get back on track. And that's. That's what I do now. If I go for too long like that, like so many people do, going on overdrive all the time, you wind up kind of burning low. That's when your energy really starts to suffer pretty bad. You're pushing yourself to get throughout the day. You feel kind of depressed sometimes, and you just feel like you're getting zapped, and that's burning low. And that's when the adrenals start not to make as much cortisol, and you don't have enough cortisol to keep up with demand. And then you can go even further into what I call burning out. And when you're burning out, that means you barely have enough cortisol to keep up with stress. And that's how I was when I described my losing my spark, when I just was so stressed out I couldn't even do my job anymore, and I was so exhausted. These are people who are pretty much they're pushing themselves, but they can barely push anymore. I had this one patient who comes to mind. She told me she would force herself to get out of bed in the morning and get her kids onto the school bus, and she'd drag herself back to the house and just. Just lay on the couch all day watching tv, not cleaning her house, not doing anything. And she felt guilty as hell about it, but it was because she just didn't have the strength to do anything anymore. And she would get her kids back off the bus, and then she'd put them down on the floor to do their homework or to play or whatever, because she just couldn't muster the energy to be with you. You know, if that sounds familiar, you might be burning out.

Okay, so I'm curious on this. Is there, like, certain people like constitutions? Some people can handle stress more, some people can't. Like, how does that play into it? And I asked just because I feel like I have a super sensitive constitution. I just don't, do I? I look at some of the way some people live their lives, and I'm like, oh, my God, there's no way that I could do that, nor do I want to. But I'm just wondering, can some people handle more than others? How does that play into it?

You know, that's such a great question, Alexandra, because it's so true. Yeah, they're definitely constitutional abilities. So I think people are born with a different amount of adrenal reserve is what we kind of call it. I kind of think about the adrenals and cortisol as a bank account. And some people are born richer than others. And so some people, you're people who are like, this is how I am. And most of my family is actually. We're adrenaline junkies, right? We love to ski, and we love to snowboard, and we love roller Coasters and all of that kind of stuff. But you know what? That totally went away during this time when I was losing my spark. I couldn't get on a roller coaster if you paid me because I just didn't have any stress, resilience or tolerance left. And that's what can happen when you start burning out. So there are some people who like to live their lives. They thrive that way and they do really well that way. And so they have really good adrenal reserve. So it takes a lot for those people to burn low and burn out. And then there are people who are really not that way at all. And it's really funny because my mom and my daughter, they're both much lower stress tolerance. Like, my daughter doesn't like roller coasters if they're too scary. And she gets overwhelmed more easily with stress more than the rest of the people in my family. And so it's so interesting. We're all in the same family, but I see it, and I see it in my patients all the time. And people tell me stories about, especially if they had really tough childhoods, you know, they have some, like, post traumatic stress because their childhood was tough. You know, they were abused as kids or something like that happened to them. And especially if they were born with, you know, poor adrenal reserve, it really. It really can put them in a really bad state from their. From the adrenal perspective. And, you know, low and low adrenal function can cause all kinds of problems from, you know, of course, your energy, but way more than that. I mean, it can go into the realm of disease and, you know, increase likelihood for immune problems and immune system to be not strong. So you can, you know, anything from getting sick more easily to getting autoimmune diseases. I mean, it's all tied in there.

Fascinating. Very interesting. So if you. So does this go back to, you know, knowing. Learning about yourself and knowing where you are and where your kind of adrenal reserves are and then working with it, not trying to force yourself, like, if you're not an adrenaline junkie or, you know, like, that doesn't do it for you, not trying to force yourself into that? Because I've found that a lot of women feel depleted and they're like, you know, the world is just going so fast, and I don't want to keep up with it, and I can't keep up with it. So, like, am I making sense?

Yeah. Yeah, that totally makes sense. So what you're saying is you want to know yourself and then kind of Design your lifestyle. Really? I love the idea of designing your lifestyle. Tim Farris talks about it, and one of my friends, Jefferson Santos, is coming out with a book about lifestyle design. And so you really want to design your lifestyle around your constitution, I think, is really what you're saying. And I think that makes a ton of sense. So really know thyself, right? So you need to know what your stress tolerance is. And you also really. But you also should realize that this can change over time, right? Because I told you, you know, mine used to be really great adrenaline junkie. I went to the kind of person who I couldn't even tolerate, you know, zooming into the hospital anymore. And that was, like, one of my favorite things. And I'm back to being able to ride roller coasters again and snowboard and ski. But at the same time, I would say, well, and who knows if some of it's because I'm older and more cautious and I'm a mom and all of that, you know, But I would say I don't think my stress tolerance has ever gotten back up to the level where, you know, it was. But looking at my son, he's an extreme sports athlete, and he does flips on his bike and on his wakeboard and, I mean, like, insane stuff that moms never want to watch. Yeah, I know.

I'm like, oh, my gosh, as a mom, I'm like, exactly, exactly.

And then, you know, but my daughter is completely the opposite. So, yeah, you have to. You have to listen to your body, I think is probably the most important thing that you're saying. Listen to the wisdom of your body and don't fight it, you know, and don't just try to be. Don't try to be tough and try to be, you know, we don't all. Like you said, even in the very beginning, you said, you know, we're. We're exhausted, but we don't want to admit it, you know, because we. I guess we feel like it makes us weak. Right. I feel that way sometimes. Telling the story about how my life was falling apart, that's hard to share because, you know, we all want to look great for, like, on Facebook. Right? Everybody tells all the great things they're doing. They don't say, you know, I felt freaking exhausted today and I dragged myself through the entire day, and here I am.

Yeah, totally. And I think not acknowledging it and not saying that we're having those challenges leads us to not actually go and see someone like you or, you know, a functional doctor to figure out how we could actually do something about it. Women just are, you know, forcing themselves to do, you know, to kind of just get through the day.

Yeah, it's true. And, you know, that's a big part of the reason I wanted to reach out with online programs to people, because, you know, first of all, not everybody can make it to my office even if they really wanted to. But second of all, you know, this you can do in the privacy of your own home. And you don't have to admit to anybody how tired you are.

You can get your spark back in no time. That's right. Very cool. Awesome. So then, moving to the reactions. So the food.

So food reactions are a big part of. We're hearing more and more about them these days. So when I talk about reactions, I'm talking about your reaction to a food, not an allergy. So some people say, oh, Dr. Jen, I don't have any allergies, so this doesn't apply to me. Because an allergy's like, your lips blow up when you eat strawberries, or your tongue swells when you have shellfish or something. Those are allergies. But food reactions are totally different. And food reactions, the really tricky, obnoxious part about them are that you're gonna eat a food, and then you're not gonna have a reaction to it for three days. So how are you ever gonna know, especially if you tend to eat just like most people tend to eat the same foods all the time? I. How are you gonna know if you're having a reaction? And how are you gonna know if you're crappy energy is because you're having a chronic reaction. Other things that we get that are reactions, you might have a stuffy. Chronic stuffy nose. And allergies can be from a food sensitivity, not necessarily an allergy. And even if you've been allergy tested, you may have food sensitivities that are not included in that allergy. Pricking when the doctor pricks your back or whatever, it's not included in that testing. It's a totally different type of testing. And these food reactions can really suck away your energy. Not to mention, like I said, clog your sinuses, cause zits on your face, all kinds of things that food reactions can cause. And the foods that I'm finding that are really most common to cause this are gluten. So you're hearing a lot about gluten these days, and a lot of people are wondering what's true, what's hype. I truly believe that there is a huge problem with Gluten out there these days, it's hard to even know what the numbers are. It's probably around 50% of people would probably do best to stay off gluten or to stay very low gluten. And the one that's close behind runner up is dairy. Anything from cow's milk is really. I'm finding a huge issue with people. Anything from. Of course, gastrointestinal issues might be one of the things that people might get from gluten or dairy. But just because you don't have a gastrointestinal issue does not mean that you don't have a food sensitivity. So that's what the R in Crash is all about.

I'm curious, on the dairy, is it anything like butter, ghee, any dairy, or mostly, like, the milk and the yogurt and things like that?

It's mostly, I would say, the milk and the yogurt and things like that that people don't tolerate. Ghee tends to be even better tolerated than butter. But some people who don't tolerate dairy well, like, personally, I don't tolerate dairy well at. And I even get the gastrointestinal stuff. So I know right off the bat that I don't tolerate it. So it makes it easier to stay off it. Of course. And one of the other things I find is I gain weight extraordinarily easily. But butter, you have usually in such small amounts that, you know, if I have a little butter, I don't really notice anything usually. So I'm not like, die hard against butter necessarily. But the. I find it's more the. The foods that we rely on every day, like milk and yogurt and cheese, a lot of that is really problematic.

I love this. I'm fascinated. So how do you know if you're having a reaction? Because you just said that they could take three days. So is there, like, do you have something. Some test or something that we can look at, or how do we know if we have a reaction?

You know what the very best way is? Is to prove it to yourself. And the only way to prove it to yourself is to go off of these foods for at least three to four weeks. And this is one of the things that I dedicated my endless energy program. One of the steps is dropping gluten and dairy because it sounds horrendously daunting. It's like, oh, my God, are you freaking kidding me? You want me to give up gluten and dairy? Because they're everywhere. They're in everything. How am I possibly gonna do that? I know that's what you're sitting there thinking to yourself right now. And you know what? I was in the same position as you. I gave up. You know, despite the fact that I said I had a reaction to dairy, I would still eat it all the time. But you know what? About a year and a half ago, my friend jj Virgin, who's amazing, she's a celebrity nutrition and fitness expert, she, she has a diet where you have to give up multiple foods and test your sensitivities out and everything. And she encouraged me, well, why don't you just do it? Why don't you just do it? And so that's when I gave up gluten and dairy. And when I did, I was able to find so many different foods. Like I made all these different kinds of swaps and different recipes and stuff. And I discovered all these different ways to not even miss gluten and dairy, not one little bit. It's amazing how many things are out there. And I'm not talking about going, by the way. I'm not talking about going to Whole Foods and buying all kinds of expensive gluten free food package. So eat food that was always gluten free. Like eat food like your great grandmother would have eaten. You know, like eat from the periphery of the supermarket. You know, meats, vegetables, grains, seeds, nuts, beans, things like that that are. But when I say grains, I mean gluten free grains. So I'm not saying don't eat any gluten free packaged foods. Like quinoa I think is a great substitute for like if you're used to having pasta or something and you want something with that kind of. And so it's a lot healthier for you and it's gluten free. So that would be an example of a gluten free packaged food that I'm okay with. But I mean, there's whole aisles of the supermarket now dedicated to gluten free and they have gluten free crackers and gluten free cookies and this and that. And you know what? They're still crackers and they're still cookies and they're still going to make you fat because when they lose the gluten, they add other things like sugar and fat and all kinds of things that are not healthy for you. It's amazing. People, it's so sad because people think because a food is gluten free, it's going to be healthy for me. So they think that the way to get rid of gluten is just by substituting Gluten free packaged foods, but it'll actually cause you to gain weight. I just had a patient just the other day, she went gluten free a year ago, and she's like, I put on £10. What's going on? And we talked about what she was eating, and sure enough, gluten free cookies. Gluten free crackers, on and on.

That is funny. Yeah. I mean, I've been gluten free for, like, eight years, I think, now. Wow. And it's like, just. It's easy, though. I mean, I had, like, a slight sensitivity when I tested it. Eight years, and I was like, okay, no more. So I just don't. I just don't do it. And it made such a huge difference. And it's.

Yeah, you know what? I never answered your question. So you go off it for three weeks, both foods, and then you add them back, and you add them back one at a time, and you add them back aggressively. So you don't eat gluten for three weeks. And then you eat it like two or three times a day for two to three days. And then you watch your body for symptoms. So it could be weight, it could be energy, it could be acne, it could be sinus problems, and it could be, of course, gastrointestinal problems. Could be joint pain. Joint pain's a huge one, I see with gluten. So you've gotta really just tune into your body, like Alexandra and I were saying before, to figure out what's going on. And then you do the same thing for dairy.

And then if you have a question on any other food, you can obviously do that same thing.

Test with it, of course. Because there are lots of other foods that people are sensitive to. Another one I see really frequently is eggs.

Totally. Yeah. My husband, every time he has one, his eye gets funny. It's like, no eggs. Even if it's like just a little egg in something, he just does not like. Okay, good to know. Isn't that amazing?

Right? Like, who would think that an egg would affect your eye? But there you go.

Yep. And he had, like, you know, the typical story of allergies and ear infections, and he was totally allergic to eggs and to milk, and he had, like, tubes in his ears when he was younger. And it's just like, oh, my gosh, we're missing. We're missing key components to this.

It's insane. And, you know, people. So, you know, if you're listening, you might be saying to yourself, well, you know, people always eat eggs and gluten. And dairy. And why are you saying that that's bad now? It doesn't even make sense because you said eat like my grandmother aid or my great grandmother. But the problem is that the industrialization of food is essentially what has happened since World War II. So for about 70 some odd years, food has completely changed from the food that we knew to the food that we now have. And what's happening is they're adding gluten to everything and they're adding dairy products to everything and egg to everything. So every packaged food out there will probably have some gluten, some dairy, and some egg. And so the problem is we're being exposed to these foods so much more frequently. And then some of the foods, they make them in a way that makes them have a much bigger impact on your sensitivities. So, like gluten, for example, the way they make the gluten now, it's so much more likely to provoke a sensitivity than it ever was before. So in other words, our bread is not our great grandmother's bread, unfortunately.

Mm. Totally fascinating. Okay, so then moving into the A of crash. Adrenal toxins. What is this?

Yeah, so adrenal toxins. So I mentioned that cortisol is made by these small glands called adrenal glands. They sit on top of your kidneys and they make cortisol, basically. And cortisol has to be made. Not only did I say, like Goldilocks, right, Like, you have to have just the right amount, but you have to have just the right amount at the right time throughout the day. So cortisol should be higher in the morning because it's like our get up and go hormone. It's also the hormone that helps us deal with stress. So that's why a lot of people notice that they're better, more focused and whatever in the morning because their cortisol is stronger in the morning. And then as they go throughout the day, cortisol may dip to a level that's too low for them, and that's why they get more exhausted. But so what happens? So that's. And that's all controlled by your adrenal glands. So you've got to stay away from adrenal toxins. Things that hurt your adrenals, what are those? You might be asking yourself. So you're going to. You're not going to be happy with me when you hear this first one, people. But I'm sorry, Caffeine. Caffeine is a huge adrenal toxin. So it's just a crazy thing that's going on out there these days, Alexandra? You know, we're exhausted, right? We're more tired than we've ever been. And what do we use to try to get over that is caffeine. Right? We drink caffeine in the morning, and we've got more caffeine choices than ever before. Now we've got all kinds of caffeinated sport drinks and caffeinated monster and on and on and on. Right? Not to mention, of course, coffee. Now, I know you might be saying to yourself, well, Dr. Oz's coffee is good now. Yes, coffee has health benefits because it has something called polyphenols. So the coffee bean is actually very healthy. The problem is, if you're tired, the caffeine is not good for your adrenals. Okay? So that's. And, you know, I could go into a whole bunch of stuff about decaf, too, that can be detrimental. But the bottom line is caffeine is an adrenal toxin. Caffeine, you know, you become. You know what I'm talking about. If you drink caffeine, you build up a tolerance to it, right? You need more and more to have the same effect. And that's because you're beating the heck out of your poor adrenal glands. You punch the adrenal glands with some caffeine and it causes them to have a reaction. But I hate to say it, but it's like beating a dead horse. No, I don't hate to say it. You need to know you're beating your poor adrenal glands up. And then the cycle. I see more often than not, and you might identify with this, and I've certainly been there, you drink a little bit more alcohol at night because you're so wound up you feel like you need it to get to sleep. But then one glass of wine turns into two glasses of wine and you get to sleep. But then you don't sleep well. You wake up in the middle of the night, and then you're exhausted when you wake up in the morning. So you've got to have what, your coffee, caffeine. You wind up in this sick cycle. It's happened to me more times than I care to admit, especially when a fun weekend with the girls or something. Except for when it's with J.J. virgin. She keeps us in line, but, man, but you go out and you have too many drinks one night, and what are you going to do? And the next day, to try to be alert, you're going to drink some coffee. That's happened to me. And it Just drives me into that burning up state. And if I do it for long enough, I get into that burning low state. And it really is just one of those things I see in women over and over and over that's really crushing them. So you've got to get that because the alcohol is an adrenal toxin. So it may put you to sleep for a short amount of time, but it's hurting your adrenal's ability to make energy in the long run is the bottom line. And the final one is sugar. Sugar is a huge adrenal toxin. And that actually leads to the next step. The Essen crashes the sugar roller coaster. So the problem is that sugar and cortisol are very intimately tied to one another because cortisol helps your body make sugar. Okay? So it's what happens when you, when you eat sugar. And by the way, I'm not only talking about sugar, I'm also talking about carbs. Because carbs break down really quickly to sugar in your body, especially those white carbs, right? Like white rice, pasta, potatoes, things like that, they break down very quickly to sugar. And by the way, fruit is not immune here. If you eat a lot of fruit at one time, that'll jack your blood sugar. So the bottom line is, what happens is blood sugar goes way up. Then what happens to blood sugar? Once blood sugar goes up, it has nowhere to go but to crash down. So it's like a roller coaster. It goes up, up, up, up, up, and then it crashes down. And what needs to happen then? That's when you get shaky and hungry and your body is looking for something. Well, number one, you're either going to feed it more sugar, you're going to get sugar cravings, and you're going to feed it more sugar. But number two, your adrenal glands are going to put out cortisol. So either you're going to. If your cortisol is too high already, you're going to make more cortisol, which you don't need because it's going to make things worse. Or if you don't make enough cortisol, what's going to happen is your body's going to demand cortisol and that's going to go to raise your blood sugar up, but it's going to deplete your energy even further. It's basically like you're wasting the cortisol that you have for energy on fighting low blood sugar. When that's something you can totally master, you can totally control it. And I was a big victim of this. You know, my. My breakfast every morning when I would go into the hospital was a big. I lived in New York, so it was a big New York bagel with cinnamon raisin, you know, cinnamon raisin bagel and a Diet Coke. So the bagel was jacking my blood sugar up like crazy. The Diet Coke was the caffeine. And I was doing absolutely the wrong things to have good energy. And so that's what the S in sugar roller coaster is about. And the adrenal toxins, I love that.

Caffeine, alcohol, and sugar.

Yep.

So I'm curious on the caffeine component. Does this all. I mean, is it all caffeine? Is it like green tea? Is it chocolate, cacao? Like, you recommend all of those out? Like, where do those fit in?

Good question. I think it depends on where your adrenals are and what your sensitivity is. And it depends on other things, too. I mean, there's all kinds of nuances of this that I go into in my program, in my three weeks to Endless energy program. Some people metabolize caffeine differently from others. So there are fast metabolizers and slow metabolizers, so some of it can even depend on that. But if you're totally, totally exhausted, if you're really burning out, then I would really recommend all caffeine. Like you were just asking me, like, get rid of even green tea and cacao and everything. But if your energy, if you're burning up and that means your adrenals aren't too, too bad and may not take as much work to work on, then maybe a little caffeine would be okay. Or remember I said you can always change your state. Right? So as your energy is getting better and better, you can add back a little bit of caffeine. So, you know, I'm one of those. For instance, I don't drink coffee or energy drinks or anything like that, but I do drink green tea. I do drink caffeinated green tea in addition to herbal teas and stuff. And I love cacao. Dark chocolate is one of my absolute favorites. So, by the way, just because I said no sugar doesn't mean you can't have treats. And dark chocolate is absolutely one of my favorite treats.

Okay, so dark chocolate with sugar, I'll say. Okay, so it has sugar in it.

I use 85%, which has a little sugar. You know what? I think it's almost impossible to avoid sugar, 100%. But I ask people to try to keep it to 6 grams or less in a serving of food. So the Sugar. The chocolate that I use has 5 grams of sugar in a serving. But actually, I don't even need a whole serving to satisfy me. So I have maybe a quarter of what they recommend, like four squares or whatever. I just have one square. And so I'm only getting, what, one and a half grams of sugar or something like that. And so that's the way that I handle that. And then I use an awesome artificial. Well, it's not an artificial sweetener. Let me backtrack and say artificial sweeteners are out too, because they're so much sweeter than sugar. But my favorite sweetener is not an artificial sweetener, but a natural sweetener called Lohan Guo.

Ooh.

Yeah. The other name for it is Monk Fruit. So I have to tell you, there genes for craving sugar, and you can. You can get these genes checked. And if you're a sugar craver, which I totally am, by the way, if anybody's like, saying to themselves, yeah, well, this is easy for her. Dr. Jen, I want to just tell you. Both of my parents have struggled being overweight their whole lives, high blood pressure and diabetes, both sides. So I have crappy genes, and I crave sugar like crazy. Thanks, mom and dad. So that's why I have to have my little dark chocolate fix. So I get it. If you're a sugar craver and you've tried to give up sugar and it's hard. I totally get it. And also because it's an addiction as bad as heroin. That's what. That's what's out there in the science. It's insane. But anyway, this Monk Fruit Lohan Guo sweetener.

Wait, spell it. I've never even heard of that.

And it's really, really sweet. I want you to get. And you can drop it in tea if you want, or you can make. I make desserts with dark chocolate and coconut oil and a few drops of this Luo Honguo and some blueberries, and it's just awesome. Oh, my God.

Okay, can you spell it? I can't believe I've never heard of this.

L. Oh, really? Oh, that's so funny. Because you know What? I introduced Dr. Oz to it too, and he tried it on the show, and he loved it. It was awesome.

I mean, I am, like, really into nutrition. I mean, I've been like 20 years. I've never even heard of so this. So I'm like, no way.

So it's an Asian. It's been used in Asia for hundreds of years. And you want to know the coolest thing about it. They use it to treat diabetes. So it's a sweetener that can treat diabetes. And it comes from a fruit. It's awesome. And it tastes better than stevia.

Yeah, I'm a big stevia chick.

So this is the reason for Luo Hang Guo over stevia. It's taste. Stevia has that, like, nasty aftertaste. And Luo Hong Kuo, you know, as compared to stevia, to me, it's hands down the best. So it's lo L o h a n g U o. It's three separate words. Lo Han Guo. And my favorite brand is called Nu n u Naturals, New Naturals. And it comes in like, a little dropper bottle, like an amber dropper bottle. And you can order it online or you can get it in your health food store. It's a little expensive, but it lasts forever because you just need a couple of drops.

This is so exciting. I mean, I don't if anybody who's watching this, who knows me, they know I've been a big stevia chick. So this is her stevia. So I'm like, this is revolutionary. I'm going to buy it right away. Thank you.

Oh, you got to try. You got to let me know how you like it. I love this stuff.

That is awesome. Very cool. Thank you for that.

Welcome.

I am curious that you said 6 grams of sugar or less. Is that for every meal you recommend six? Because that's low sugar.

Yeah, it is low sugar, and that's what I'm recommending at a meal. Or if you're still eating packaged foods and you want to decide if something's going to be good or bad for your blood sugar, that's what I would determine it by. When I look for, say, if I'm looking at a bar or something, you know, a nutrition bar, which it's really hard to find. Nutrition bars that are really good. Super, super difficult. So much so, in fact, that I think I want to create one. And, you know, there are tons out there these days, but they're, you know, somehow they fall short, whether it's. Whether it's too much sugar or, you know, so many of them that are like whole food and raw food and everything, you think they're so good for you, but then they're super high in sugar because they have dates and raisins and so I'm talking natural sugar as well. You know, I don't care if it's Whole foods sugar or not, whether it's from honey or agave. It's all sugar.

Yeah, totally.

And yeah, so that's what I'm talking about. So six grams, you know. But when you, I mean, it's not that hard when you think about it. You know, if you eat a meal of like chicken with broccoli with some lentils or something, there's no sugar in that.

I'm just thinking about fruit. Like pretty much if you have any fruit, the fruit is. I don't eat that much fruit anymore, but it's more, which has been really cool and just to share on that is I love the lower sugar. I used to be kind of really into the raw vegan and my face was always breaking out and I cut back on my sugar like majorly and it stopped breaking out. Yeah, sugar and acne is a huge.

One, you know, besides of course the fact that you'll lose weight and you'll decrease your risk of diabetes. But yeah, you can get rid of acne by getting rid of your sugar. And not only that, you know what people within a week of giving up sugar feel so amazing. They tell me all the time, Dr. Jen, I did what you said. I gave up sugar. And oh my God, I can't even believe my energy is so much better. I'm not craving things. It's amazing. It really can do amazing things. So it's, it is totally worthwhile. And I know the first three days, four days or so, they suck. It's terrible. It's hard, I know. But that's why I give people swaps things that they can do when they're craving something because it would drive me crazy. I couldn't do it if I couldn't have something with this Luo Hanguo and whatever and yeah, with fruit. Back to what you said about fruit. So yeah, people are always surprised that I'm saying to them, especially I live in Florida, right? Sunshine State oranges. And people are like, what, you don't want me to eat an orange and an orange juice? So juice, by the way, is a total non starter. No juice. No, no, no, no. I don't care if you're squeezing yourself, you are concentrating that sugar like crazy.

What about vegetable juice?

So vegetable juice on the other hand is awesome. If you want to juice kale and spinach and that's all great, that's all awesome. But the problem is so many people want to make it into a sweet juice. So they add banana, they add apple, they add this and that. My tip on that is go with a spicy, savory sort of thing, you know, more like V8 style. So like maybe put A little pepper in, or we even do like a dash of cayenne pepper, some ginger, some lemon, so that you're not going toward the sweet. But, you know, if you want to make it taste like something, you go toward the spicy, even zesty, if you don't like spicy, you know, kind of thing. So the fruit thing. So I give people in my program kind of the exact, you know, how much of a fruit you can have. And sometimes it's only like half a fruit or whatever. But, like, berries are the lowest sugar fruit there is. So anything that ends in berry, raspberry, blueberry, boysenberry, whatever, you can really, you know, you can almost have unlimited amounts of those, but, you know, nobody's going to eat really more than a half a cup or a cup. Right. You know, and that would get you up to about that 6 grams sugar ceiling, you know, so. So. So it's not like you can't have fruit anymore, and it's not like you can't have, you know, half a fruit here or a small slice of watermelon there or whatever, you know, a couple of grapes. But you really have to be cognizant of the fact of how much sugar there is in these things because most people don't realize, and they'll sit there with a, you know, a whole thing of grapes, you know, a whole bowl of grapes, popping them in while they're watching tv, thinking they're doing themselves a favor as opposed to eating some junk food, candy, whatever, and they don't realize that they're consuming even more, maybe sugar than a candy are.

This is so cool. And I love this, too, just to. I mean, I know for a fact when I have. And it probably is this 6 grams, now that you say it, when I have more than that, I totally am more tired. Like, I just notice I'm more tired, and then I want more chocolate and I want more sugar, and it's like, it's very interesting. So I appreciate you sharing that six grams.

Oh, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. This is, you know, this is what I'm passionate about because, you know, this is the stuff that it's taken me years to figure out. And it's really. It's really super simple when you start living this way because really, your habits, whatever habits you have right now, they've become automatic to you. And it's really just a matter of rewiring your habits and getting into a different, healthier habit, because these things are my habit now, just like you, Alexandra.

Right?

It Just, it becomes a no brainer. You don't even have to think about it just because it's, it's dialed in. It's a habit. And so it, and it doesn't take long to change your habits. It's just a few weeks.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And then it just builds on itself, you know, Like, I feel for me, I've been doing this for 15, 20ish years, kind of, you know, working in this area and just studying it for myself. But it's amazing how like I look at how dialed in our house is and we have, I mean, we're just like super organized, but it's taken like little steps, steps along the way and it's like just easy. Like I wouldn't. Yeah. Like you said, it just becomes a way of life. And it just happens.

Yeah. Yeah, it really does. Yeah. And it, and it does start slow. So if you're listening to this and you're going, oh my God, Alexandra and Dr. Jenner, crazy. They're gluten free, they're dairy free. You know, just start with one little thing. You know, we talked about so many different things that you could do during this call. Just start with one. Just start with one little thing. Don't get yourself overwhelmed with the whole thing. And like you said, it builds upon itself because every good thing that you do will lead you to another good thing because you'll feel a little better. And every time you feel a little better, it makes it easier to do the things to do, the whole program, to do everything you want to do.

I'm curious on your experience with this too, and your clients. There's the food cravings and the sugar cravings, and then there's the overeating and things like that. Have you found that if somebody just follows these principles that you have, you know, with the sugar and the alcohol and the caffeine and doing these simple things that those fall away versus like trying to force a behavioral change around your cravings and your overeating. Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, you know, I do know what you're saying, because what comes to mind is this one patient of mine, Jill and Jill. I worked with Jill with her hormones. She came to me because of hormone imbalance and she felt like her hormones were out of balance and she came to me for that. And I'd had her on hormones for a couple of years, yet she still had certain symptoms that wouldn't go away. And one of the biggest ones was weight. She couldn't lose weight. And her energy was still not where she wanted it to be. And that's the amazing thing that, you know, hormones. I love hormones. I think hormones are great. Totally separate topic for an interview. Maybe someday. But no matter how many hormones I give people, I tell them if they don't change their lifestyle, they're not gonna feel better. But she had this block against it, and it was just really tough for her. She couldn't do it. And I would kind of, you know, talk about this whole program, everything that I wanted her to do. And it wasn't until she finally got her head right around it, you know, that this was what she really wanted and she was really motivated to do it that she made one change. And the change she made was she started to. She started to look at giving up sugar. And once she started giving up sugar, she realized that, wow, I feel better. And this is pretty awesome. So Dr. Jen keeps telling me to try to give up gluten, try to give up dairy. She did it, and it was just amazing. We've been seeing each other for a long time. You know what the motivation. I kind of forgot to mention this part. So there was this one visit where I sat her down and her laboratory work looked terrible. Her cholesterol was out of control. Her blood sugar was out of control. Her inflammation around her heart is a number I look at was out of control. And I sat her down and I said, jill, I'm really scared. I'm really worried that you are heading for a heart attack or diabetes. All of the things that you want to do in your life, you're not going to be able to do because you're heading down this really bad path. And I don't know how else I can get you to do the things I've been asking you to do, other than to tell you it will fix this stuff. And I think that's the thing that finally motivated her. It was the health concerns that she had. And, you know, it's so scary to me because I see so many people at their first visit where I'm telling them about these health problems that they never knew existed because their doctor didn't even check. Like, maybe they checked their cholesterol, but maybe not their blood sugar or their inflammation. Anyway, I'm digressing a little bit, but because I'm just so passionate about it.

Yeah, no, it's awesome.

But it was finally getting concerned about her health that made her make one change. She really heard me about the blood sugar problem and heading toward diabetes. But then once she made that one change, like you said, Alexandra, things just started to fall into place, and it was kind of like dominoes, one after another after another. And the next time she came to see me, I was blown away. Well, first I see her blood work before I see her, so I'm like, wow. She really took what I said to heart. Oh, my gosh. And then she came in, and she looked amazing. She'd lost, like, 20 pounds, 25 pounds, and she looked amazing. She said, you can't even believe how I feel. My energy. I've got energy to spare now. People are like, what happened to you? And my joint pain went away. And she's like. And she was, of course, losing weight, and her blood work had completely reversed itself. She had pre diabetes that reversed itself. Her cholesterol came down. Her inflammation came down. I mean, she was just doing such an amazing thing for her body, and I was so excited and so proud of her. And the thing is, I knew any woman, you know, and Jill even said that she did a video for me to tell women that if. If she could do it, anybody can do it. And it's just following the steps and it's. And it really. It really is a change that anybody listening out there right now can make. Like I told you, At 45, I feel better than I did at 25, and I look better. It's pretty awesome. And, you know, all of these changes sound like a lot, but when you take them one at a time and they build on each other, it just becomes your lifestyle, and it becomes pretty easy, actually.

Yeah, Totally awesome. I love it. I love your enthusiasm and passion. It just is, like, radiating through. So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so I just have one more question on, and you can just share just, you know, a snippet on it. Like, you said we could do a whole call on it, but in the crash, the final one, hormones. So what? Like, maybe just tell us what hormones are, because there's so much talk about hormones.

Oh, yeah?

What are they? You know, it seems like everything is like, oh, my hormones are imbalanced. Like, okay, what does that even mean?

Yeah, so hormones are messengers, Basically. They're just messengers in your body that take messages from one place to another. So from your brain, let's say, to your glands. Glands would be things like thyroid, ovaries, adrenals. Those are all glands. And then the hormones are secreted by the glands, and they send the messages back to the brain. So there's a lot of communication going on. So, you know, it really kills me because hormones have gotten this Sort of reputation as, like, bad things. And like, you know, it's like hormone now is like an almost a dirty word. You know, like, ooh, don't say anything about hormones. You know, but without hormones, we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be talking to each other. We wouldn't be alive. I mean, it's impossible, really. And that's what hormones are, and that's what hormones do. Now, what happens with hormones generally? This is like, very generally. But bottom line is a lot of the good hormones that build us up are at their highest levels when we're young, when we're in our 20s. And then slowly but surely, these good, beneficial hormones will decrease over the course of our lifetime.

And.

And believe it or not, most of us hear about estrogen and most of us hear about menopause. But something that I think is really fascinating to know is that testosterone, women have it too. Yes. And it's really important to us. Takes its biggest dive between the ages of 18 and 34, which is pretty crazy. Like, most people don't think that hormones are a problem until they get older. And even most doctors, honestly, I did not learn this stuff as an obgyn, Unfortunately, I learned a lot of great things as an OB GYN and a foundation to help me really understand the rest of this. But unfortunately, even your OB GYN might not know that your testosterone has taken a nosedive between the ages of 18 and 34. And then progesterone, for instance, is another hormone that is so important for women. And it starts to go down in your late 20s, early 30s. And it's one of the reasons why women can't get pregnant as easily as they start to get older than 30 and then 35 and then into your 40s, because progesterone deficiency gets worse and worse. And progesterone is our calming hormone. Progesterone is our sleep hormone. Progesterone gives us a better memory, better moods, it helps us lose weight. Sound like something some of us need a little bit more of? Maybe. Maybe. You out there listening?

I'll take some.

Progesterone is such a key for women. And the problem, what happens is.

When.

Your body's busy making cortisol, and what you need to understand is your body will make cortisol at the expense of anything else, because cortisol is like the panic button hormone. It's the fight or flight hormone. And so it's an emergency hormone. So if your body's demanding cortisol, it's going to make cortisol and it's going to say, forget it on those other hormones like progesterone, that beautiful progesterone that I just told you about. I see women all the time who have no progesterone, but their bodies are doing what they can to make cortisol. And yet another hormone that's so important, I mentioned testosterone. Testosterone is energy, memory, mood. It's a woman's emotional shield. You know when you feel weepy for no reason and you're like, what is going on? I mean, just look at the fact that we cry so much more than men, right? And people say that that's socialization, that we're not. We're socializing our boys not to cry and that kind of stuff. You know what? I think that's bogus, because my son's 14, went through puberty a couple of years ago. And the crying, you know, his frequency of crying has just gotten so much less since he has this huge wealth of testosterone soaring through his body. And it's the same for women. We lose testosterone, just. I said the biggest dive between 18 and 34, and then we just slowly can continue to lose it as we get older. Something interesting that happens sometimes to women in menopause is some of them make more testosterone. And since it's out of balance with your other hormones, that's why women can get zits and chin hair and hot flashes all at the same time. It's kind of crazy. But these hormones, they control everything. And losing your hormones can really cause a lot of imbalance and a lot of issues, anything from mood to weight to energy, and you can get your hormones back in balance in natural ways. Now, I'm not telling you I'm opposed to hormones, because I'm not, actually. But I think there's a ton that you can do to get your hormones back in balance naturally. Because like I said, with my patient Jill, I was giving her hormones, but they were only doing some of what she needed. The rest of what she needed to do was her work that she needed to do. And the great news, that even anybody who's afraid of hormones doesn't have to. They can manipulate their hormones in a natural way.

Right? That's awesome. Very cool. That is so inspiring. Yes. I want more.

I'd love to give you more.

That is awesome.

It's so much fun to talk about this because it's just what I'm passionate about. And I think women everywhere just need to know this information, and it's just not available. It's not out there. And our Doctors certainly unfortunately don't know. And that's why I'm really passionate. I teach doctors too. I'm going to teach at a conference in a couple of weeks and I just love teaching this stuff to doctors because they need to, need to be equipped to tell this to their patients.

Yeah, totally. And it's like. And I just appreciate it too because you've done so much research, you know, and I feel like I'm so grateful for, for you who are physicians who are actually doing this, you know, because I've, I've been figuring this stuff out for myself and learning it here and there. And it just seems like this is like the missing key for so many of us. I just. Look at me in college and I was an athlete and I was taking like caffeine, you know, performance things to like boost my energy before my games because I was so flippin depleted. And then you just, it just spiraled from there. And I think there's so many women who are having this that don't know where to go. So amen for you being there so we can go to you.

Well, thank you. And you know, if all of this sounds like something that you need more of, you know, I designed three Weeks to Endless Energy at three Weeks to Endless energy. Com so you can get more information and you know, find out more about the program and there's. I'm going to do a webinar about it and all kinds of. You're going to get all kinds of free information and. Because I'd just love you to. I'd love you to get your energy back and get your spark back like I have.

Fantastic. So three Weeks to Endless Energy and then where else can people find you?

So there's a bunch of places. Drjenniferlanda.com is my blog site where you can go three weeks to endless energy. Com, that's my newest program that I'm excited about. If you're more concerned about Sex Drive, you can go to Rewiredesire.com and get three free videos from me all about the ways that I think losing your sex drive is harsh. And harsh is another acronym like the CRASH acronym. And I go through all the details about that and how to get your sex drive back by addressing those issues. And fitfantasticyou.com there's an energy boosting seminar there and there's lots of places you can find me.

Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. Super inspiring. And I know that it is going to help lots and lots of goddesses out there, so thank you. Thank you.

Well, thank you for letting me be a part of it. I'm so excited to help your goddesses rock their goddess life. I'm rocking mine and I want you to all be rock.

Fantastic. Thank you, Jen.

Thank you, Alexandra.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time, keep rocking it and have an awesome day.