How to Fix Thyroid Dysfunction, Fatigue, and Weight Gain Ancestrally & Naturally | Dr Amie Hornaman

Welcome back to Everyday Ancestral, where we challenge modern norms with ancestral truths. Feel like your body isn't responding no matter what you try? Dr. Amy Horniman is here to explain why your thyroid could be the missing piece. Known as the Thyroid Fixer, Dr. Amy is a functional medicine practitioner who's helped thousands of people, especially women, break through fatigue, weight struggles, and hormonal chaos by fixing what traditional medicine often misses. The thyroid. Amy, Dr. Amy, let's get right into it. There's a lot of misinformation out there around thyroid mistakes doctors make. So, what's one thyroid myth you wish everyone would just stop believing right now?

That TSH is the only test that you need to do. And, this is just ingrained in conventional medicine. Every single medical practitioner that goes through traditional conventional training, med school, nurse practitioner school, whatever medical training is out there right now, it's almost like there's this collective brainwashing happening and it's maddening. And what they're being taught is all you need to do is test TSH. And if TSH is flagged high, which we can get into the The ridiculousness of the actual standard lab value ranges that are on your labs. But if TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, is flagged high, then you give this person this little pill called Synthroid and you send them on their way and you wish them luck and tell them, we'll check you out in 6 months. Meanwhile, you walk out of the office going, but wait, wait, wait, the doctor didn't address why I'm gaining weight or why I can't lose weight or why I'm tired or why my hair is falling out or why I'm constipated and depressed and anxious. And can't think straight. I'm just supposed to live with this for six months until he retests me again. Really? That is the biggest misconception, misinformation, myth, whatever you want to call it, out there about the thyroid. And people are being told that every single day in their doctor's office.

So people are probably wondering why on a on a podcast about ancestral living called Everyday Ancestral we're talking about. Thyroids, which is very a modern kind of term, modern techniques of medicine, hormone replacement, all that kind of stuff. So let's just address it right here. Is there a natural way to address thyroid health?

Absolutely. Well, here's the thing. The thyroid plays beautifully into ancestral living because the role of the thyroid gland is that it runs the show. It runs your entire body. So, I always say, head to toe, it runs the show. So, from your brain function, to your hair growth, to your energy, your metabolism, your muscle movement, your joint movement, your GI motility, whether or not you poop every day is determined by your thyroid. And people don't realize that because we don't have enough of a spotlight on the master gland. It is the master gland. So, however far back we go in time, our ancestors, they depended on their thyroid gland working so that they could go out and hunt, so that they could go out and plow a field, so that they could have the energy to do, I mean, let's face it, way more than the average American does today in terms of exercise, movement, energy expenditure. They needed their thyroids working properly. So when we look back, and I mentioned this off air, but it's worth saying again, the OG thyroid medication was a dried out pig's thyroid gland. Now, this goes all the way back to the 1800s, but I would bet even earlier if we really dig into our ancestors. And when people felt sluggish, when they started gaining weight, when their faces became like a moon face and poofy and round, the tribe doc would look and go, you know, it's looking, James, like you might have a thyroid problem. We got some swelling going on. You got some water retention here. Okay, I got something for you. And they would give you desiccated thyroid. That is now known as natural desiccated thyroid medication, i.e., Armour Thyroid, NP Thyroid. Maybe you've heard those terms before. But that's really what it is. We were giving the body the thyroid hormone that was no longer being properly produced by that body. And our ancestors knew it, and they just knew a simple way to address it. We didn't need big pharma, you know, we didn't need doctors testing, not testing. We didn't need lab markers or the little H or L next to your number. The doctor would look at you and go, well, yeah, I mean, you have all the symptoms of it and it kinda looks like you got a thyroid problem, so let's try this. And people would get better. Then we move into the 1900s, and that's when big pharma moves in. That's when doctors are getting brainwashed that all you need is Synthroid, all you need is levothyroxine, all you need is this inactive thyroid hormone T4. That's all you need. You don't need that natural stuff anymore. You don't need the active thyroid hormone anymore. And and that's really where we fall short in medicine. Actually, if we went back in time. We would have a lot of people feeling better than they do today because we would be using those ancestral practices of treating the thyroid, of replacing thyroid hormone with thyroid hormone naturally, while at the same time doing all the things that just support the body, doing all the things that you talk about on this podcast, from the way that we eat to getting organ meats in to Getting natural light, sleep, all of those things that should be just a foundation while we then work on those deficiencies that come up, especially as we age.

Wow. What a powerful just answer. I mean, genuinely, I think that you really bridge that gap of that like supports like. I mean, it's something I talk about all the time. The part of the animal you eat is the part that it supports in you, and you eat the pig glandular; it's going to support the human glandular. That's fantastic. So what do you think is causing so much havoc? Like like has thyroid issue have they just been there? Have they been prevalent forever? Is this just part of being human, or have we seen an increase in thyroid issues? And are it almost sounds like you're equating like the issues. Really started to rise when the pharmaceuticals came in. But, uh, I don't know, is that, is that what you're saying?

Well, you know, I mean, we know even animals can have thyroid issues. When we look at hypothyroidism, low and slow thyroid function, 95% of that is autoimmune. So it, it, it's termed Hashimoto's or Hashimoto's thyroiditis. So this is where your immune system gets confused. Sees the thyroid gland as a bad guy and goes out and basically attacks the thyroid gland. So if we look at other autoimmune conditions to better understand it, you've heard the term rheumatoid arthritis. That is when those soldiers, those little autoimmune antibodies, go out and they attack your joints, and then you have rheumatoid arthritis. You could have celiac, and that's where those soldiers go out and they attack the, the villi in your small intestine, and thus Celiac. So same thing with Hashimoto's. They're attacking your thyroid because they think it's a bad guy. Now, autoimmune has been around forever. I mean, it's just part of human physiology. But to answer your question, yes, of course we have seen an increase and an uptick because number one, we're just living longer. Age is a factor. There's something called thyropause, which happens mainly in women, also in men. As you move through perimenopause, menopause, andropause, as you're losing those hormones, the sex hormones like testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, that can actually trigger Hashimoto's to present itself. So a lot of times we see Hashimoto's, or, you know, all the symptoms that I mentioned, the weight gain, the hair loss, the constipation, the brain fog, show up really from 40 and beyond because that's when our hormones are kind of going on a wild rollercoaster ride. In addition, we also have the environment, of course, as you talk about on the podcast. You know, we, we are exposed to so many additional toxins now. I mean, even babies being born. You know, this study came out years ago where they looked at, I believe they looked at the umbilical cord or the placenta, or they tested something at birth. And they found that there was over 200 chemicals in the umbilical cord, the placenta, whatever. I mean, whatever it was they tested, it shouldn't be there. You know, there shouldn't be 200 chemicals that a baby developing in the womb is exposed to. So what do you think that baby's immune system is gonna be like? And then add on top of that, what if it's a C-section? Okay, now you don't get the birth canal coating of the skin with the beneficial bacteria, and that affects the baby's immune system as well. So, we're kind of, we're in a war right now, James. Like, our bodies are basically in a toxin war on a day-to-day basis, which absolutely increases the prevalence of all autoimmune conditions and specifically Hashimoto's.

And, you know, I've heard this before and I'm sure you have as well, and you kind of loosely mentioned it. I've heard that autoimmune illness disease, That, that it targets women, that at least we're seeing it more show up more in women. Why do you think that is?

Well, because you guys have more testosterone than we do, and testosterone is very protective. So that's one of the reasons why. So testosterone, even, even if we look at a man with low T, he's still going to have more testosterone than a woman.

That's right.

And a woman, you know, not taking exogenous testosterone therapy. So that testosterone is actually very, very protective. It's like a protective armor against autoimmunity. And in addition, women have more fluctuating hormones. So we have that 28-day cycle, whereas you men, you pretty much stay stable throughout the whole month. And that hormonal fluctuation Also sets us up for more autoimmunity as well.

Interesting. Do you think, because this has come up on the podcast before, particularly around the feminine and the masculine, that idea that, you know, in many ways this, I don't even know how long, I could say 100 years or more, we've been in such a patriarchal kind of very male dominant energetic world, right? I mean, to the point where women only just were able to vote in the '70s, right? I mean, and there's still so many rights women don't even have around the world, right? So clearly we are coming out of a very male-dominant society. Hopefully, that's my preference is that we come out of that and we enter more feminine. But to my point being that the structure of our society, whether it's around career, whether it's around household, that it's not really conducive towards that feminine energy, the hormonal balance of women. So, in many ways, you see women in chronic stress, like just have chronic stress. You see many women either undereating or overeating. And then, you see usually with women overexercising. How do you think that's affecting the thyroid?

Huge. It's huge because Well, let's break this all down. So let's start with the, the masculine feminine. Just, I mean, I can speak to that as an entrepreneur, right? I know that I am always more in my masculine because I'm leading, I'm running a business, I'm the CEO, CEO, I'm the leader, I'm the founder. You know, I'm in this position of authority and you have to take on that masculine energy to get stuff done. But the detriment of that is that it's hard to then just shift on back to the feminine energy and, and shift over to being that, like, in my home and with my husband and with my friends. So I think that pull that women feel, whether they're in tune with it or not, that pull is a stressor and it's a stressor on the body. So that stress, or what we know about all autoimmune conditions, is it's kind of like a 3-legged stool. And I love to give credit to, uh, what was his name? Oh my gosh. Fasano. Alessio Fasano. And he gave the perfect analogy of a 3-legged stool with autoimmunity. On the one leg, you have the genetic predisposition. So your mom, your aunt, your grandma, your sister had some kind of autoimmune. Doesn't even have to be Hashimoto's. It can be rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, MS, whatever. Then the other leg, we have leaky gut, which that's such a broad term, but let's just face it, in this day and age with the depleted soil, with the depleted nutrients, with the toxin exposure, we all have leaky gut. Guess what? You don't even have to test for it. You have leaky gut. The third leg of the stool is the stressor, the stressor that flips that switch to the on position. Now, this could be pregnancy. And women go, wait a minute, pregnancy? Like, that's a beautiful natural thing. Yes, it is. But it's a huge stressor on the body. I mean, you wanna talk about a hormonal rollercoaster ride? Oh my goodness. And then your body is expanding by 20 to 60 pounds in a short amount of time, and then you lose it again and you're, you're carrying another life. That is a stressor on the body. Sometimes we see Hashimoto's turn on after A pregnancy, or maybe even in that thyropause state, that perimenopause, menopause state where hormones are going crazy. We'll see it turn on then, or it can even turn on after a very stressful time. So it might be a death, a divorce, a move, something like that, or that shift of moving from masculine to feminine and how stressful that is for the woman to do. Then we add on top of that the different roles that a woman plays. Okay, so you're, you're the owner, you're the CEO. Are you a mother? Are you a wife? Are you a friend? Are you a daughter? Are you a sister? Are you a caretaker of your parents now? Like, there's a lot of other stressors that we don't, we don't even pay attention to because we just think it's part of life, but we don't pay attention to how those are affecting our body. Then the last point that you pointed out beautifully is the overexercising, undereating. I see this more when women are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, when they're told that everything is normal. Your labs look good. It's normal. Just eat less and exercise more. Those words will come out of a doctor's mouth. I was told that when I was in the throes of being misdiagnosed 6 different times. So you tell a woman that she's normal, everything is fine. It's called medical gaslighting. It's all in your head. Just eat less and exercise more. You're just getting older. There's nothing to worry about here. Then she goes away and she's like, wow, oh, maybe it is my fault. Maybe I am eating too much. Maybe I do need to go to the gym twice a day and like 7 days a week and do like 5 CrossFit classes. And that behavior in an attempt to normalize her body, and I get it, I get it. You will try anything when your body is literally rebelling against you. But that behavior then is another stressor put on the body, which can also affect thyroid function. So you're doing these things. To try to remedy the situation and to get back to feeling like you, but you're really only making the situation worse.

Oh yes. Yeah, we are our own worst enemy, right? How then, how does one kind of observe themselves in this? Like maybe we start with like, how are you navigating this? You mentioned you're the CEO, you're in charge, but you're also a woman. You're a beautiful woman. You have a husband, like you're in relationship. So how are you balancing it? Or are you?

Well, you know, that's the question right there.

Well, because I want to be honest so that, you know, you and I both know there's so many of us in the health field that aren't balancing it. We're, we're helping everyone else, but we're not helping ourselves. So we have to be honest about that, that it's like, yeah, it's a struggle for all of us. So it's a genuine question, and, and it's okay if you haven't figured out, of course. It's like, but I'm just curious, How are you navigating these waters?

You know, I don't think I'm too bad at it. I might need a little bit of help, but I'm not too bad. So for me, number one, I love what I do, and I know you do too. So I think that that joy helps with the balance. I was just having this conversation with someone right before this, and I said, you know, it's funny that we We always talk about, well, you need to find balance. Don't overwork and work-life balance and take time off and this and that. And I go, but work is my joy. So would you tell me that I'm overpainting if painting was my hobby and my joy? Would you tell me that I'm overhiking if hiking in nature was my joy?

Good point. Very good point.

No, but you'll tell me I'm overworking when work is my joy. Hmm. That's funny. You know, so I, I think number one, you gotta be doing what you love to do if you can, if you have that ability. And that is part of my balance, honestly, is because half the time, 75% of the time, I don't consider it work. The other part is putting up boundaries. So I do have my, my coffee time with husband, walk the dog, and exercise in the morning. There are no meetings that come in at that point of time. And that, that is my, that's my me time. And then at the end of the day, I talk about this on my podcast all the time. I got, I got my Netflix and my Netflix snack. So that is my, that's my downtime. That's my decompression time. So having those, those things bookending the day, even if there is stress that occurs in the, in the joyful work that happens in the middle, It's like, it's okay because I have those 2 bookends.

Love it.

So that's how I balance.

I love it. But you now have opened a can of worms. So what's your Netflix snack?

My Netflix snack. So I take a— my protein powder, Protein Power Fixer. So I take— it's a, um, beef isolate protein powder, and I put 2 scoops of it. So it's gonna be 42 grams of protein, a little mug, and then I'll splash a little bit of Usually organic half and half or creamer, macadamia milk, and then just like a little bit of like almond butter or cashew butter. Stir that up, let it get thick, and I eat it like a like a fudge, like a pudding.

Love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. Little fat bomb, basically. And I'm aware that a lot of people, and I know you mentioned a few at the very top of the podcast, but I'm sure if a lot of people don't know what early signs of thyroid malfunction look like, because clearly if they're happening and we're seeing such an uptick, a lot of people are ignoring them because they don't know. what to look for. So, so what are some early signs of thyroid malfunction that we're ignoring?

So, the big ones, the top 3, and then I'll get into kind of like the, the little guys that people don't pay attention to. The top 3: weight gain or just the inability to lose weight, weight loss resistance, hair loss or hair thinning or breaking, and then fatigue. And, the fatigue usually isn't just like a Oh gee, I just can't wake up today. It is a bone-crushing fatigue where you're like, I can't even keep my eyes open. I don't know how I'm gonna get through the day. It's that type of fatigue. Then we kind of trickle into the other symptoms that are very easily blown off at or, or band-aided in the medical community with a drug. So we have insomnia. This is where docs will be like, here, have a sleeping pill. Anxiety, depression, here, have an antidepressant. Cholesterol issues here have a statin instead of looking at what's causing those cholesterol issues, what's causing the blood pressure issues, what's causing the the insulin dysregulation and the glucose dysregulation where someone looks type two diabetic and they're eating keto or carnivore. That's the thyroid. So those kind of things joint pain, muscle pain, constipation. Those are the big symptoms that. that will appear and people will be aware of them because they directly impact your quality of life. But these are the exact symptoms that when you go to your doctor, they will dismiss you. They will give you a Band-Aid medication. They will tell you it's just part of getting older. And I mean, let's face it, James, 9 times out of 10, you're gonna look at the doctor and he or she is out of weight, never works out, doesn't eat right. You know, you see, you see the counter behind with the, with the donuts and the drug rep snacks and all of that. So it's like, look at the source and listen to your body. Those symptoms that are that you are becoming aware of now that we're talking about them, those symptoms I like to call them gifts as in like presents, Christmas gifts. And you're gonna be like, oh yeah, great. You know this extra twenty pounds that that's a gift? I don't think so. No, no, it is because it's telling you that there's something going on that you need. to not ignore, that you need to listen to. Now, the gifts can start shouting a little bit if you do ignore it and you blow it off and you believe your doctor's gaslighting. But they are gifts given to you because they point you in a direction to look deeper into your health and to do something about it.

Yeah, it's interesting. The gifts, like, to me, that's kind of like Life, things are happening for us versus to us, right? Like, I think about that a lot. Okay, so what is the thyroid hormone people have never heard of?

Oh, I love this one. So, you know, if you've listened to podcasts, if you've heard me talk, if you've dove down the rabbit hole of thyroid, you've definitely heard of T4. And T3, because those are the 2 medications. So I mentioned earlier that the standard of care is we test TSH. If TSH is high, we give T4. This is Synthroid, levothyroxine, but T4 is inactive, but it is still in a medication form, and our bodies are supposed to take that T4 and convert it into T3. T3 is the active thyroid hormone. That's what gets to your cells. That's what gives you a metabolism, lights your brain up, gives you energy. That is in medication form as well in the form of levothyroxine or Cytomel. But then we have this other thyroid hormone that is not a pharmaceutical drug. It's only available in supplemental form for now, fingers crossed. We don't want Big Pharma to get ahold of it. We want access. This is T2. T2 actually has over 35 years of studies behind it. I personally have been studying it for about 18 years, and it is— I term it the forgotten thyroid hormone because we don't place enough emphasis on it. And I think the reason why we don't place enough emphasis on it is because it's not a pharmaceutical.

Mm-hmm.

So T2, it is metabolically active, as in it works like T3 to give you a metabolism to stimulate that basal metabolic rate, which is the amount of fat that you're just burning just sitting here. Just just sit when I watch when I watch Netflix and have a Netflix snack, it is actually increasing my metabolism as I am doing nothing. That is your basal metabolic rate. It also improves energy. It reduces inflammation. It reduces oxidative stress. It helps your body convert that inactive T4 thyroid hormone to the active T3 thyroid hormone. And the most recent research I'm so excited about. It's crazy. It actually turns on a gene that prevents fat accumulation. So, it's basically telling the French fries, and the pizza, and your little snacks that you're having, no, no, you're not coming onto my hip, butt, thighs, and abs today, please and thank you. So, I love that, that it is actually preventing fat gain while also Increasing thermogenesis, increasing the burning of stored body fat, and really helping people with symptoms. Because that's the key is, you know, it's okay to treat the thyroid, but at the end of the day, you want your life back. You want your symptoms gone. You really don't care how pretty your numbers are if you're carrying around an extra 20, 30 pounds.

Right.

And losing half of the hair on your head, right? You want your symptoms gone, and that's where T2 is so beautiful. The other thing is that it doesn't produce a negative feedback loop. So, wait, what does this mean? Whenever you take thyroid hormone, even if you, you know, going back, the ancestors, they're dosing out the pig thyroid gland, it's still going to tell your brain to then speak to your thyroid and basically to say like, Hey, thyroid gland, you know what? You can take a break today. There's enough thyroid hormone in the body. You don't have to work too hard. Just, just go over there and rest and relax.

Mm-hmm.

So it produces that negative feedback loop. Same if, if you guys take testosterone, well, you're taking it because your body's not producing enough of it anyways. But what it's going to do is shut down your natural production. Anytime we take in a hormone, we're shutting down our natural production of that hormone. And in some instances, we don't care. Because you're not doing a good job anyways of making that hormone, so we're replacing it. But in the case of T2, it does not do that. So, you can take it and your doctor isn't gonna go, oh my gosh, James, what are you taking here? Now you're hyperthyroid, your TSH is suppressed, what's going on? It doesn't do that. It only works at the cell level, at the mitochondrial level, without having that negative feedback loop to the pituitary and the hypothalamus and the thyroid. So, really, anyone can take it. A big question that I get is, can I take this if I don't have a thyroid problem? And, the answer is yes because it's not going to create a thyroid problem. I look back at my competition days when I was doing bodybuilding fitness figure. And, I mean, let's face it, number one, the bodybuilders were the OGs of biohacking. We were trying things on ourselves before all y'all were using peptides and all that fun stuff, right?

Totally.

So, you know, back then, bodybuilders, fitness figure athletes would use T3 to lose weight for a competition because it's going to increase your metabolism and increase fat burning. The problem is, is that T3 doesn't differentiate between muscle and fat. It'll burn both. So, if you use and abuse T3 when you don't really need it, yeah, you're Going to lose fat, but you're also going to lose muscle, and you're going to come out the other side of that show with a thyroid problem. So that's where I would see these girls. They look gorgeous the day of. Oh my gosh! This beautiful body, perfect in a bikini, standing on stage and posing, and oh my gosh! They're tan. They're gorgeous. And literally two weeks later, they're like thirty pounds heavier. Their body just. Just slingshotted back to normal and then some because now they have a thyroid problem because they were abusing T3. T2 doesn't do that. And, I actually saw an interview with one of the trainers to the top professional athletes in that world. And, he said, he's like, I don't let my female athletes, because it's mainly females, I don't let my female athletes use T3. I had them use T2. Because it leaves their muscle alone, which they busted their butt to, to put on, leaves their muscle alone, only burns body fat, and it's not going to leave them with a thyroid problem after the show. They can come off of it and not regain all of that weight.

Isn't that the issue? Like, even the GLP-1s as well, it's like, yes, they target fat, but you can't control where it targets fat. So, you're seeing all these people get these really skinny necks because it's, Targeting, you know, could be targeting brain fat. It's like you don't know.

You don't know. No, people are looking like older than they are. They're looking like Skeletor when they lose it. It's like called Mounjaro face or Ozempic face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I see the care of this. Now one of the issues that I have with any hormone replacement is kind of how it messes with my this really the perspective of why I started this podcast. I I really am passionate about like. as living as naturally as possible in this modern world, right? And so this idea that I would have to take something for the rest of my life feels so unnatural to me. So how, how, how can I reconcile that? Like, or how do you recommend someone reconcile that? Because that is the truth, right? That once, once you go down the hormone replacement route, it is forever, right?

Well, yes. So let me answer that first. Let me ask you a question. Are you taking a supplement on a daily basis that you know is good for you? Like, are you taking vitamin D every day? Are you using Pluck every day? Are you taking magnesium every day?

It's a really good point. I definitely use Pluck every day. But see, it's funny, even though I know that that's supplemental, I look at that as it's a food. It's a food. So, it's no different than if I were eating, you know, blueberries or something like that. But, but I— the supplements I take are usually based off of testing. So, I don't necessarily just— I wouldn't do them otherwise. But yes, I— okay, keep going with this point because I think, I think you're on something.

So, all right, let's, let's focus on vitamin D then. You know, some people can, if you're lucky enough to live in the southern hemisphere and And and you go outside on a regular basis, and you have the right genetics to actually take sunlight and produce it into vitamin D. So basically, all of those things have to be present. Then okay, you get to skip vitamin D. But I would say ninety percent of the rest of us, especially us us living in the northern half of the country, and those of us that really don't want to look like Magda from Something About Mary, we we want to use sunscreen when we're outside and protect our precious. days. We're gonna have to supplement with vitamin D. So you take vitamin D daily. And I'll tell you, that is one thing that as soon as you get irregular with it or stop it, levels go down. We know that for a really robust immune system to protect us against cancer, to protect us against colds, viruses, we want that vitamin D to be like between 80 and 100. Oh, and by the way, vitamin D is not an actual vitamin. It's a hormone. So vitamin D is a hormone that we take every day to boost our immune system, to protect us, to boost our mood, all the, all the beautiful things that vitamin D does, right? It's no different. You're just taking something to replace a hormone that's no longer being properly made. Now I have one more really powerful analogy. If your child was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and the doctor comes in the room and goes, okay, I'm sorry, your, your child does have type 1 diabetes, but that's okay. We can give you an insulin pump to replace insulin, that hormone that their pancreas is no longer properly making. You would not at that point say, doc, I'm gonna hold off here cuz I wanna do all things natural. The doc would say, well, then your child has about 2 to 3 months to live. Because you can't live without insulin. Thyroid is similar, a little bit different, but very, very similar. It's not going to be a 2 to 3 month death. It'll probably be over the course of years, maybe a decade, where now heart disease is at an increase. Now your immune system is depleted because it just can't function properly without thyroid hormone. Now you have brain fog, maybe early dementia because you don't have enough thyroid hormone. Now you gain weight and there's all those disease states associated with obesity and carrying excess fat, all because your thyroid hormone is low. So in certain instances, we do just have to replace that thyroid hormone. And yeah, you gotta take it every day, but the alternative is— is not a pretty one. Are there things that we can do to support naturally? Yes, absolutely. If we catch it in the early stages, and this is where testing and proper diagnosis is key, but this is the problem in our conventional traditional medical system, is that it's not caught early. It goes back to what we talked about in the beginning. There's a boatload of medical gaslighting going on where women are walking out of doctors' offices going like, oh, okay, well maybe it's just me. And, and with that, they go sometimes years, sometimes decades with Hashimoto's. Their thyroid gland is being destroyed slowly by their body, and they're not even aware of it. So they can't even implement the things like taking iodine, getting good sleep, getting sunlight, breathing fresh air, doing meditation, calming your nervous system, reducing stress, balancing your insulin, eating proper You know, eating non-processed foods. All of those things are important, but if they've been living with a disease for 10 years that's gone unnoticed and undiagnosed, now they're at the point where it's like it's too late. Now you need to replace that thyroid hormone because your thyroid has been destroyed for the last 10 to 20 years.

Hmm. And you really can. It's one of those scenarios where you can go too far. Like once once you you go past that tipping point. point, you are now no longer in natural healing zone, like you need that modern medical support. Is that what you would offer?

Exactly. If we could catch people earlier, and really that's the purpose of this podcast, right? And that's the purpose of even talking about the symptoms is so people can listen and go, oh, oh, maybe there is something going on with my thyroid. Okay. So maybe I do need to step it up a little bit. And with the foundational nutrients for the thyroid, we do need organ meats, we need iodine, we need magnesium, we need selenium, zinc, vitamin D, L-tyrosine as an amino acid. We need those. Those, I call those the no, that's the no-duh list. Like, of course, Adele, you're gonna take this every day. So that's the foundation list. To naturally support your thyroid, and then on top of that is obviously nutrition and lifestyle. Like nothing is going to work in a garbage dump, right? I mean, it's it's just not. So if you are treating your body the way that it should be treated and living an ancestral lifestyle, now you have a really really strong foundation for healing. And now we have a shot. We have a shot. We caught it early. You're implementing the best practices. You're supporting it nutritionally and supplementally. Now you do have a shot at actually healing the thyroid naturally. Now there's one other layer to this. There are supplements that are thyroid glandulars. However, and my company produces one, we got a cease and desist letter from the FDA last year because the FDA is definitely removing all thyroid glandulars from the market. And they are coming after the natural desiccated thyroid medications. So part of my no-duh list would be also, you know, take a thyroid glandular just like our ancestors. They were—they sprinkled a little bit of pig thyroid gland on their food and called it a day and felt better. That's part of natural healing, except it's being taken away from us by our government. Oh gosh!

Yeah, let's let us. Let's. May we all let that settle in. It's a pain point for me because I think so often we're not realizing the hypocritical nature of even the discussion of like, oh, well, I want everyone to be required to get a vaccine, but I don't want someone to have control over my body. It's like, no, medical freedom is medical freedom. And the minute you lose one, You're opening the door to losing them all. And we're seeing that play out left and right, whether it's in the foods we're allowed to eat, the supplements we're allowed to take, or, you know, the things that we get to control whether they enter our body or not. Yeah, it's really upsetting to me.

It is. And I mean, as we speak, as we're recording this podcast, This very week in time, the food pyramid got flipped. Fantastic. Absolutely amazing. However, there's still so much more to do. There's so much more to do. And just like you said, just that medical freedom piece, we can't have wins over here while an alphabet soup 3-letter governmental agency is dictating our supplements. Is taking away a medication from the 1800s or even before that because it didn't go through their testing procedure? There's something much deeper, much more fishy about that. But it's almost like, you know, when we remove that medical freedom, we lose our ability to stay well.

Hmm.

And, and we enter into sickness faster.

So, you may have already answered it, but I'm just curious if there's a deeper answer. So, what is the basic or what is the biggest opportunity modern medicine still ignores about thyroid and metabolic health?

I think it really is about treating the thyroid as the root cause. So, I get this question a lot. They're like, people are like, what's the root cause of my thyroid problem? I go, that is the root cause. So we could look at, okay, you're a woman, you don't have as much testosterone as a man. Maybe that's it. You got pregnant, you went through perimenopause or menopause, you went through andropause, you overexercised, you underate, you took birth control for 10 years. Maybe you have Epstein-Barr virus. That's one of the triggers. We can't really undo any of that. You know, we can't unhave a baby. We can't reverse Epstein-Barr virus. So it becomes now the thyroid problem that was caused by whatever is the root cause of your heart disease, your high cholesterol, your insulin resistance, your type 2 diabetes, your weight gain, your brain fog, your anxiety, your depression, your insomnia, your constipation, your heartburn. You don't need a PPI. You don't need a stool softener. You don't need an antidepressant. You don't need a statin. You don't need a blood pressure medication or a sleeping pill. You need to treat the thyroid. But if we do that, how many pharmaceuticals come off the table? Right. All that whole list that I just rattled off, how much money, how many billions of dollars is that coming out of the big pharma industry if you just treat the thyroid? It's too simple. I don't think it'll ever happen because follow the money trail.

Yeah. Well, that's the argument around cancer research and solutions as well. Yeah, really. Oh man, the deeper down the rabbit hole we go with this medical system and just the structure of our society, particularly American society, it's just, it just feels so clear that the government doesn't have our backs. And that's so upsetting on so many levels, but the biggest one is because we humans make up the government. So, why do we not have humanity? Why do we not have humanity's back? Let's bridge the ancestral wisdom with modern physiology. So, how do ancient rhythms like day-night cycles, seasonal eating, rest and activity influence thyroid health in ways most people miss?

So, I think it really comes down to The simplistic answer of inflammation, and it's almost too simple, but yet it's so powerful. So when we get out of a natural rhythm, circadian rhythm, when we get away from eating real whole foods and we start putting these Frankenstein foods into our bodies that our body just doesn't even know what to do with, never had that before. It's a manmade chemical. That creates inflammation, and any kind of inflammation is going to affect the master gland of your body. Right? Inflammation is not just oh my my my elbow hurts; it's inflamed. No, we're talking about full body systemic inflammation, and that's going to affect every area of your body. But the thyroid is a very very sensitive gland, and it it reacts and responds to the things that we do. So, even really, I mean, even just having a virus, I'll see my patients go into almost an autoimmune attack, an autoimmune flare, because they were exposed to the common cold, and that kicked up inflammation in their body to where they're like, oh my gosh, all of a sudden, I put on 5 to 10 pounds. Now, I'm tired all the time. I was feeling fine before. Now, I got the brain fog back. It's almost like I went backwards. And it's like, well, you kind of did because the inflammation in your body downregulated your thyroid production, your thyroid hormone production. And even if you're on thyroid hormone, you might need a tweak in your dose. And I teach my patients that all the time. If you go through a major sickness, if you go through a stressor, if it's the winter, sometimes we need extra thyroid support. So, Yeah. Hopefully that answered your question. I kind of went off on a tangent there, but I really think it comes down to pulling in those ancestral practices as a core basis. And if we get out of that, don't be surprised if your thyroid gland tanks. Don't be surprised if you get all of those symptoms that we talked about today. Because of inflammation at the root.

So when it comes to real transformation, like labs, medication, lifestyle, and stress adaptation, where would you start if someone is already doing, you know, in quotations, everything right, but all the things—

Struggling?

Yeah. Which is really most people, that's their mindset, right? Most people that probably come to you say, I'm doing all the right things and yet I'm still struggling.

So, yes. Yes. Where do they start? So number one, we have to look at that and see, are they right? Are they really doing all the right things? But many of them are. Many of them are doing all the things. I was, I mean, I was doing all the things and the scale kept going up and doctors kept telling me I was normal and everything was fine. So, you know, when people say that, I tend to believe them because I know that desperation that you get into. We're literally, I mean, You're over biohacking yourself because you're trying literally everything. And at that point in time, it's like, okay, slow down. Let's not over biohack because you know too much tech is too much tech as well. Like we can really have too many red lights and devices and PMF mats and you know frequency things and H bots and all of that. I mean, they're all great, but we can overdo it. And forget about nature and forget about how our bodies were made and forget about the simplistic act of, of putting, you know, turning your screens off, putting your phone away before bed, reading a book. Go figure, a lost art that I need to bring back into my life too. We forget about those natural practices now. This kind of goes back to the question that we, we talked about earlier of at what point in time do we let modern medicine come in? So when you are doing all the things and you are still suffering with symptoms, that's when it's time to say, hey, maybe I need to replace some hormones. Maybe I need to replace the hormones that are no longer being properly made by my thyroid. And you can start supplementally. I mean, you could start with T2, you can start with iodine, you can start with magnesium and zinc and selenium. And then if that doesn't move the needle enough and you're still on the struggle bus, then that's where you test thoroughly and then you open yourself up to thyroid hormone replacement. And I like to call it that too. I don't like to call it medication because medication does get a bad rap. I mean, well, as it should. I don't want people on the Band-Aid medications. I don't want them on the antidepressants and the statins. I would rather give you a thyroid hormone and treat the root cause, low thyroid function, and then watch all of those other medications that you're on fall by the wayside because you really don't need them because that is the root cause.

Love that. Yeah. So what's one thing you've changed your mind about in your practice, something that might surprise even well-informed Health seekers.

Oh dang, that's a good question. It's going to come back to the GLP-1s. So this is such a big topic, James. So you know when they first came out, I've really come full circle. When they first came out, I called them the Beverly Hills soccer mom drug of choice for weight loss because everybody was taking it, right? All the stars, all the celebrities, everybody. Was on a GLP, and they're really not even GLP-1s anymore. That's semaglutide. Now we're into two and three and four. Everyone was on a GLP, losing weight, losing facial fat, losing muscle. I myself tried it, and I am very open about it in that I lost muscle. I absolutely lost muscle, even though I was doing all the things that they tell you to do: lift heavy, add in protein. You know, it was it was the dose was too high. I lost muscle. Then, you know, I started looking into this microdosing thing and the benefits of microdosing and lowering inflammation. And there's still, there's still some benefits there. However, in that microdosing conversation, as we're talking about all the benefits of a very, very small, tiny dose of GLPs, we have people saying they're microdosing, but they're not. And now they're relying on a GLP. For everything. It's like they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They're literally relying on a GLP. They're not eating well. They're eating like garbage because they can get away with it. They're not taking supplements to support their body. And it's just, it's like we've gotten into this crazy skinny mentality where skinny is back in and it's not, and that's not healthy. And losing muscle isn't healthy. And looking 10 years older in your face because you look like Skeletor is not healthy. That is not the picture of health. So I think honestly, my, my opinion has changed so much through the years on GLP-1s or GLPs in general, that that's really what has, has transformed the most, I would say. And I'm being way more outspoken about it lately in that, and, and I've always been honest with my audience. I'm honest when I take something, I'm honest about the results. I'm honest about my opinion. And yes, my opinion will change as time moves on because now I'm seeing it become a problem.

Right. I mean, we're always looking for that magic pill, right? Everybody's always looking for it. This golden ticket. Amy, you're a— I mean, I've known you for years now, but you're a fantastic guest. Like, I love how relatable you are able to convey very complex information. I mean, really. Are you open to us going even more personal? Because I, as we both know, some stuff that's happened for you, and I'm just curious, um, you got diagnosed with cancer.

Mm-hmm.

And can you share a little bit less about the diagnosis, but more about the vulnerability that brought up for you? Because here you are, an influencer, a doctor, someone who who talks these things. And that's how I learned about it, was you being very vulnerable about like, the thing that I'm always telling people, you know, to do so they can avoid this, I got this.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, I'm completely open about it because I believe knowledge is power. And if we can share our experiences and be open about how we feel about it, it's only going to help the next person. So last April I was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and previous to that I had had a few different biopsies that showed atypical cells in my uterus, but it wasn't yet cancer. And at the time, the doctors did want me to have a hysterectomy. I wasn't ready yet to give up my female parts, my female reproductive parts. But as it morphed and as I had biopsy after biopsy, it eventually came back as the big C. And that really sent me on a journey of kind of self-discovery. I mean, just everything that you said, James, is, wait a minute, I'm, I'm doing all the things. I'm doing all the things. I am healthy. I'm doing all the things that I tell everybody else to do. How did this happen to me at such a young age? And I think everyone that, that gets that C diagnosis goes through the same thought process. Why me? What did I do? What did I not do? Did I expose myself to something? Is it because I live in Iowa now and they spray glyphosate over there on the fields? You know, and it really took me down this rabbit hole of looking for the why. And then it also sent me down a path, which I'm still on, of prevention, or i.e., making my body uninhabitable to cancer. So that I never hear that word again, and you know it doesn't matter whether you're diagnosed stage one, two, three, or four. It's still the big C diagnosis. I was lucky enough, blessed enough to be at a stage one, but I completely just empathize deeply with anyone that has heard that word because when you hear cancer, it doesn't matter what stage it is. You don't care. You just heard the big C word that you never thought you would hear in your life. You know, you thought it was everybody else. Everybody else gets this. All the people that I treat get this. Not me. Not me. So yes, it brings up a lot of vulnerability and a lot of exploration. So I'll share something with you that I have not shared yet that I will be doing a podcast on. I think I found the why. So I was meeting with a brilliant, brilliant doctor, and I really wanted to go over— because we do hormone therapy at the clinic, but I don't like to do my own. Like, I like somebody else to think for me. So I was meeting with this brilliant doctor who, who also specializes in oncology and tied to hormones, and we were kind of going through my history, and he says Did you have COVID? And I said, yeah, I did. I was at an event, mindshare event, like 25 of us got it right in the beginning and it was bad. You know, I was in bed. Oh man, I lost my sense of taste and smell, the whole thing. He's like, well, I think that's your why, because we are right now seeing cancers, turbo cancers. Yes. Tied to the vaccine. But also tied to just having COVID. Now, I did not have the vaccine, but I had COVID pretty bad. And he said, you know, if you think about it, it's a manmade virus. It's a biological weapon. It is shifting people's immune systems. We don't see uterine cancer in 50-year-olds. We see it in 70, 80-year-olds, not in 50-year-olds. He's like, I have been practicing for 20 years and I have never seen the rates of reproductive cancers like I am seeing right now. Wow. Even in people that just had COVID. And he told me the story of a woman that he did a CT scan on. He was actually treating her thyroid. Did a CT scan; everything was fine. Da da da. Six months later, she's starting to get hoarseness in her voice. He does another CT scan. She has stage four lung cancer in six months. Now she had a very, very bad case of COVID where she landed in the hospital. Basically pneumonia-like symptoms, all the things. But it's like, oh my gosh. So now, now we are all in this collective space together, whether you had the vax or didn't. If you had COVID, it's like, really? So now we have to be even more vigilant of our health because we've had an attack on our immune systems that has changed our DNA for good. So yeah, now my game has stepped up a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, and the fact that you're even declaring that it, that it's a man-made virus, which I agree with, I think some people still don't recognize, you know what I mean? So even that, some people might find that controversial. It's like, no, no, no, no. Like, you don't understand. Nature doesn't show up like the way this did. Um, this is, this is all people-made. That may be the why. The kind of more practical why. But I asked you this when we saw each other previously, and you, it's funny, I wasn't going to bring it up, but you mentioned at the top of the, uh, of the podcast, you said, you basically said the why, like helping people understand the why. But there's also, and then I kind of backed it up and I said, well, yeah, there's the life happens for us versus to us. So right now the why is a to us.

Mm-hmm.

that you just explained, have you done any internal inner work to examine, well, how is this for me?

Yes, yes. Probably not enough, but I have done some. So my belief as to why I was given this gift Is really to look at the have the ability to look at my patients from a different light, to to hear their fears and fears even around hormone therapy. You know because we just we just exited that dogma that we've been in for twenty years that hormones cause cancer. So the government just took off the black box warning what a month ago from hormones. So to really be able to meet my patients in a much deeper place and understand their fears, because before I was like, oh girlfriend, don't you know hormones don't cause cancer? Don't worry about it. Just move on. Take these. Where now it's like, yeah, I get it. That, that C word is horrible and I don't want you to ever hear it either. And I understand your fears. And we're gonna just slowly unpack them and address each one instead of just, oh, don't worry about it. It's nothing. It's, it, no, those fears around hearing a cancer diagnosis are real. And especially if you've already heard it and now you're in the, I never wanna hear it again stage like I am, you know, that brings up many more fears. I mean, James, even, I mean, gosh, even for myself over the holidays eating cookies, I was like, oh, I shouldn't be eating sugar. I shouldn't be eating sugar, but I just wanna have a bite of the Christmas cookie, but I shouldn't be eating sugar. You know, I mean, there's, there's a lot that happens internally and mentally when you get that diagnosis. And yes, of course, then you also look into cutting away anything toxic in your life. I mean, yeah, you, you, You want a fast track to getting rid of toxic relationships, toxic people, toxic employees? Get cancer because you will cut those cords faster than you ever have because you realize you don't have time anymore for a cortisol spike. You don't, you don't have any more time, effort, or energy for negative people and negative attitudes. So in a way, it's kind of a blessing.

Yeah.

And that you do get to cut away that negativity of your life because it changes you.

Wow. Yeah. There's actually someone who started an organization, a friend of mine who, it's called One Year to Live. So the idea is that you treat your life as though you have one year to live. So what changes? What do you do? What are your choices? So I think that is a powerful lesson. And You know, the word that comes up to me when I hear what you just shared is community. You know, like you were already, you're already people's doctor, but I have a feeling the big C has even grounded you more in that community like that. You are part of that community of healing and supporting people on not just a physiological level, but like an emotional holding space camaraderie. You know, like it's a piece I think is very much missing from our very digital disjointed lives of that tribalism, you know, that kind of, that we are in this together.

Yes. Oh, I so resonate with that. Especially like you said, the tech age that we're in, just communication is, is fast, it's quick, it's a text, it's, it's not deep anymore. And we need that, that deep relationship. We need that community to light us up. I mean, that's why, that's why you and I go to these health conferences, because it's not just to learn from the person on the stage. It's literally to like fill my bucket with people, like-minded people that just Being in your presence, being in their presence, it just, it fills me up. And it's almost like I get plugged in, I get re-energized. Now I'm like, okay, I'm good to go for another month or two until the next one.

Yes, wholeheartedly agree. Okay, final question, something I ask everybody. If you could wave a magic wand and bring back one ancestral practice, what would it be?

Oh, it's going to be the sleep thing. It's like, you know, let's light a fire, right? Like, get rid of these damn LED lights that are shining overhead and that are shining at me right here because I need to look good on camera. And my computer's here and my monitor's here and my phone's here. My earbuds are here. My microphone's here. Can we just throw this all out? Like, honestly, like, this is the detriment of everyone. Man, I'm sitting literally in dirty electricity right now. No, sleep is key. Sleep is key. It's so what's the word I'm looking for? It's it's it's almost overused. We we over talk about it to where people going yeah yeah yeah yeah sleep okay next what's the next topic? What are you gonna tell me next? Like no no no come back come back. Are you getting to bed by ten o'clock? Between 10 and 2 is your rest and repair time. Oh, but I'm a night owl. No, no one's a night owl. That's not, that's not how we were made. That's not how our ancestors lived. The sun went down, we lit a fire, then we went to bed cuz our brains actually produce melatonin. I think bringing that practice back, and I, I know people are trying with the different light bulbs and the blue light blocking glasses and all of that. I think it's great. But I think we also need to shut things down. You know, the lights are fine, the glasses are great, but we need to get into the practice of shutting things down. Like I said earlier, bring back book reading, book reading by the firelight. You know, I think that would improve everyone's health. Everyone.

Love it. Amy, such a joy having you as a guest. It's always great. connecting. Yeah, just, I just love you. And I, and I am excited for people to hear this. And I would love you to share with them how they can work with you or work with your team. Absolutely.

Well, thank you, James. Thanks for having me on. I love hanging out with you. And everyone, you can go to dramie.com, D-R-A-M-I-E.com. And on there, if you are interested in working together, you can click the book a call link. If you are interested in adding some T2 into your life, you can click on the store right at the top, and that's gonna take you to the Fixer Formula supplement store. And I have T2 in Thyroid Fixer and Metabolism Fixer. It's been doing miraculous things for people in my 18 years of studying it. So, and of course, the Thyroid Fixer podcast, which James is gonna be a guest on as well. You can connect with, with me there. We have almost over, almost 600 episodes at this point. And there's a lot of learning to be done in the Thyroid Fixer podcast. So, yes.

Love it. Well, thank you for joining me here on Everyday Ancestral, and thank you all for joining us on this journey. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. You can like, you can leave a message, just any kind of communication will relay to us how we're doing. But most of all, for yourselves and for your loved ones, stay curious and be kind. Be well. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.