[Bonus Episode] Balancing Your Hormones: How to Stop Being Hangry with Sarah Fragoso & Dr. Brooke Kalanick

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I think the other challenge we have is that society really celebrates overworking and super moms and super. And I finally looked at my family and go, I am not. I did not sign up to be supermom. I am not super mom. And I'm going to go take some time out over there. Hey, it's jj and welcome to Ask the Health Expert. But this isn't just any old Ask the Health Expert session. This, this is your bonus session. Yes, it's the weekend. And because it's the weekend, we are gonna take some time with an amazing expert. So be on the lookout for these Saturday Ask the Health Expert bonus sessions where we're gonna go deep into an amazing subject with an incredible expert to give you actionable items that you can put into your life. All right, hangry, what's it mean to you? I know the minute I said it, you got it right. Like, that's the, that's the word that doesn't even need to be in the urban dictionary. The reason, the minute it came out, people like, oh, I know what that is. So we are going to be talking about hangry today, what you can do about being hangry. And we've got a really different kind of cool approach here. Now, you know how much I love the idea of us all being our own personal health detectives and really having ways that we can self identify what's going on and make those tweaks and adjustments in the moment. So I am in love with Sarah Fragoso's and Dr. Brooke Kalanick's latest book. Their first book together Balance youe Hormones and Rediscover your Joy in Five Simple Steps. It is amazing because they've created a hormone hierarchy. In fact, you're gonna get the infograph of this. So cool. @jjvirgin.com Hangry. But they've also given ways all throughout the book to figure out what's going on with you. What should you tweak? What should you focus on? How do you know if something's working for you or not. Which is so awesome. It's going to help you reset your hormones, your heads and your habits so you can finally feel at home in your body. I love how that's written. So let me tell you a little bit about Sarah and Dr. Brooke and Sarah. You've probably seen her around. She has written six books. She co owns a gym in Chico, California with her hubby, but she's the founder of the Everyday Paleo franchise and that's probably where you've heard of her or maybe on her podcast Better every Day with her buddy Dr. Brooke. They're a lot of fun. I've been on their podcast and they're a lot of fun in this interview too. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Brooke Kalanick. She went to Bastyr. I'm so jealous. That's where I'm going to go in my next life. She's a naturopath doctor and a functional medicine doctor and then she went on to do her postdoctoral training in women's health and functional endocrinology because she had her own battle. I always find this makes people so much more empathetic. She had her own battle with PCOS and that let her really get into and deep dive into women's health and take this on. So they got together a couple years ago, started working together, did the podcast together and now they've jumped into write this book together and so we all get to win with that. I'm super excited to have them on the show today and give you their big takeaways. Before we dive into that, I just want to do a shout out to says H. Coach gave me a five star review in Apple podcasts and she says beat PCOS to get pregnant. JJ and Teams podcasts have helped me get my miracle. After having suffered from irregular periods all my life and having irregular hormones on my labs, I was told by a doctor in the US that I couldn't have PCOS because I didn't fit the regular profile of a PCOS candidate because I wasn't overweight and did not have acne or facial hair. It took a conversation with a family friend doctor in my home country that I was informally diagnosed with pcos. I tried to get pregnant for almost four years when I discovered JJ and each of her podcasts related to fertility or not and have inspired me to take charge of my physical and mental well being and be able to get pregnant naturally. I'm so thankful. Please keep bringing the awesome content. Oh that makes me so ridiculously excited. It's a perfect review for today's show, too. And I just want to remind you that we love these reviews. All of the reviews, by the way, like, I've been reading all of the reviews, and some of them are three stars, some of them are four stars. So wherever you are with this, we. We love to get the reviews, the feedback, what you would like to have or not have so that we can make this your best. And I say we because I'm just one part of the podcast equation. If I could pull back the curtain here, I've got my whole podcast studio set up. I think I've got the easiest part of the job. What I do is find super awesome guests. I'm lucky to know a lot of people through the Mindshare Summit community and work up the interviews. And then I have the magical team who does all of the producing of this. And that is what really takes the village. I think I've got the easy part over here. You know, it's like, I think you don't realize when you listen to a podcast, all what takes. It takes. I should do a video of it to get these things going. And I mean, just my studio alone, all the stuff. We have to do this. Oh, my gosh. Anyway, so thank you so much for that, H Coach. And thank you all who've less us reviews if you haven't yet. Boy, we would so appreciate it because it means a lot. And then we know exactly if. If we're on point with the show. Alrighty. Now, before we dive into the show, I have something else I love to share with you.

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All right, Dr. Brooke and Sarah, welcome to the show. I am super excited to be talking about something that I hope after this, everyone will be able to avoid, and that is being hangry.

Thank you. Yes. We all know. We all know what that feels like.

It's funny. It's one of those words that when it came into the urban dictionary, no one even needed to go look at what the definition was. I was like, oh, And. But I. But I don't know if a guy would get it. I know that women everywhere were like, oh, yeah, I got. I guess the guy would get it because he's got the woman who's hangry. So, yeah, it's a universal.

It's a universal thing. I don't know, though. My 11 year old son, I think we actually, I think he's the reason why we named the book Hangry.

Oh, really?

Let's talk about that because I'd love to dive in first. Like, how. First of all, how did you two end up? You've got your show together, you've written a book together. Like, how did you two get together, start doing all this stuff and then. Why this book?

Oh, we were. We were love at first sight, Brooke and I.

Yes, we were.

Yeah, it was. It was really like this strange universal manifestation.

Well, how long ago was that? Like, you've been friends since you were five, or is this. No.

Oh, gosh. Okay. I. I figured out based on the ages of our kids because, you know, Lola was just a baby and you were pregnant with Gigi.

Yep, five years ago.

So five years ago is when we met and we met at a health conference that we were both speaking at. We had never met each other before, and we ended up being kind of teamed together to present separate from the actual big conference that we were speaking at at the local gym that the owner of this gym was helping to put on the conference and felt like he Needed to give something special to his gym members since he shut down the gym for a few days. So he's like, Sarah and Brooke, why don't you guys give a presentation back to. Back at the gym? And I was like, oh, my goodness, I don't know who this person is. What if our, you know, point of view is really different and we're. They have conflicting things that we're going to say. And I know Brooke was feeling the same way. Although I think, Brooke, you had my cookbook at that point, right?

I did, yeah. I was less nervous than you.

Right.

So I talked first and then Brooke talked and I was standing in the back of the room with my husband. I remember the whole time it was like, oh, my God, John, do you hear what she's saying? She's amazing. We need to know her. She's going to help. She's going to help me. And so after we ended up giving Brooke a ride back to the event and we just kept in touch after that and I actually ended up working with Brooke and she became my doctor and we just helped each other through a bunch of crazy life stuff. And then I was like, we got to write this book together. We have to do this. And it just, it was like giving birth. It was, you know, both of our life work really coming together in this really fluid, organic, amazing kind of, you know, we manifested this sort of way. So, yeah, it just was really meant to be. I'm really grateful that we met in Kentucky. Really grateful that we met in Kentucky.

Yeah. And yeah, we just, our philosophies really aligned and the things we thought were important to help women with, you know, not just with food, but how we talked about strength training and mindset and just really both had a, I guess a really big picture view of the things that we felt like were, you know, that women needed and, you know, realized that we not only have more fun working together, but we can help a lot more women together than we could alone.

We women are tribal. We're supposed to be hanging together and working together. That's the way it is.

Amen.

It's just rare, especially in the health world, when you can get more than one person in a room together and they agree.

So.

And there's nothing wrong with a couple disagreements, kind of. They like, help people think through things. I always think you should be critically open minded, but I think it's a good place to start because, oh my gosh, there is so much information out there. And I just was at a Mind Body green event called Revitalize and there was a bunch of different information. And, you know, I kind of, I was kind of laughing to myself back as I was walking to my hotel room that night. And I thought, this must be what people think about. They must go, oh, lectins, histamine, oxalates, you know, phytates, vegan, paleo, you know, I, I'm just gonna eat bars. That's it. So what do you do? Like, how, how do you, what do you do when there's just like all this information out there? Like, where on earth should someone start?

Well, that's kind of where we really came together when we, you know, we knew we wanted a book, but we're like, again, with all the information out there, women don't need just another more information. Right. Many of them have information, but they don't know how to apply it to themselves. Or maybe it doesn't work for them or it worked for someone else. And so we wanted to really solve that problem of when a woman's feeling badly. Her hormones are not in a great place. She's tired, she's worn out, she's overwhelmed. We need to help her take all the information that's out there and kind of know, how is that going to land on my physiology? Because as we all know from working with women and being women that, you know, what worked for us Maybe in our 20s doesn't work so great anymore. And what works, you know, for our girlfriend may not work for us at all, so.

And never mind our husbands.

Yeah, like, that's a whole other thing. Right?

Yeah, I remember.

I got to tell you a little aside, I was on the Dr. Phil show for a couple of years as his nutrition expert, and. And they were like going, no, of course men and women can lose weight the same. I go, what?

No, no, no. And that just adds to women's frustration. Right. Because then they feel like there's wrong with them instead of there's maybe something not even wrong. Like the advice is wrong, but it doesn't necessarily fit for them right now. So we wanted to help women, sort of. I think the other thing for women too is that, you know, maybe they had some symptoms for a while, but we are like, I, that's not life threatening. I'm not going to deal with that now. I'll handle that when the kids graduate. I'll handle that when, you know, like, things calm down, there's more time for me, or they've been sort of dismissed. Right. And never happens. So most women actually have usually more than one hormone out of balance. So then it's really confusing because often the advice for one hormone issue is totally counter to the advice for the other issue. So we teach it in the system we call the hormone hierarchy. And helping women sort of figure out what their individual issues are. And then from there, take the advice for the more delicate hormone issues, like low cortisol and low thyroid, and handle those sort of first, honor those with nutrition and exercise strategies that kind of help those heal. And then you kind of move on down the list, and a woman can return to that hierarchy when things change, right? You go through a pregnancy or perimenopause or a big life stressor, and everything is different for you. You can always go back to that and look at, like, what are my hormone issues now? Okay, here's how that advice or this certain plan is gonna fit for me right now.

I love that so much because, I mean, the thing that's so different about women is, you know, we cycle and we have kids and we have, like, we seem to be hit way more by stress than men are. And so, you know, we. Different times of life are going to be. It's not like you can create something, do a change, like, okay, I'm done. Like, check, check my health goal off the list. I'm like, totally done forever. What do you see as in terms of the hormone hierarchy? What is at the top?

So that was the low cortisol and the low thyroid. And so we honor those first. Because usually when we really get into hot water is when we're doing something that say, keto, and there's evidence that that's great for insulin resistance, but it's not going to perhaps be as easy for a woman to get good results for that if she has low cortisol. So we always kind of go back to those more delicate ones. And we get asked a lot, like, this is a book for women about women's hormones. Why are estrogen and progesterone down at the bottom? And I think that's when women, a lot of times, we think of our hormones and we, you know, think of estrogen and progesterone, and they're at the bottom. Because if we don't deal with cortisol and insulin and thyroid and those. Those more like kind of metabolic masters, right? They have such a ripple effect across your entire hormone landscape that when we don't honor those first, we don't get very far just working on estrogen and progesterone. And Sarah and I always say, like, they're not that exciting. They're not that sexy. They're been around for a long time. You know, it's not new information, but they really are so fundamental. And then we also really talk to women as well, that they're like insulin and cortisol. It may not always feel like it that we can control how we decide to eat or how much stress we have or how we recover or how we exercise, but we have a lot of control over those hormones.

Yeah, I love that you're saying that because I do think, people tend to think, oh my gosh, you know, I'm stuck. I've got elevated insulin or elevated cortisol. And it's like, well, go do some tapping for that cortisol. Do a little fast. So what are some of the top things when you see someone with, with cortisol issues? And again, I'm. I'm guessing that's probably not when it's elevated because they're. Besides a little belly fat, they're probably feeling like they can take on the world and then all of a sudden it crashes and they probably come running to you for advice. Right. What are some of the things you recommend for this?

Well, you know, for both Brooke and I and our own experience with dealing with cortisol issues is for. For years, what I ignored were kind of like what we call in the book, like our secret stressors and not, not paying attention to my mindset and my emotional well being as those being a part of what was really playing into my low cortisol. Especially once I crashed, I was like, okay, well my diet is perfect and I'm exercising like a champ. But I was strung so tight. I was so wrapped up in my own head and ignoring my issues of, you know, like from an emotional standpoint, my relationship was, you know, crumbling and my, I wasn't, I'd never dealt with grieving my, my mother and you know, when I lost her and all these things had just piled up and built up. And it's not anything that we talk about like in diet culture, right. We tell women to diet harder and exercise harder if they are not feeling well or if things aren't going right or if they're not losing weight. Where in reality, when you're wiped out or if you have, you know, a thyroid issue or low cortisol issues, which so many women have, instead of honoring those and slowing down and listening and tuning in, learning how to breathe, learning how to exercise to support your hormones, really learning how to put yourself first, we talk about real self care in the book. Not being like Going to get a manicure, but really digging into being more of who you are and being more authentic. So those are all things that we don't think about when we talk about things like hormones, right? Like, wow, I'm not even behaving in a way that feels like me anymore. I've lost myself. I've been so busy mothering and wifey and, you know, being an entrepreneur and, you know, a career woman or whatever that I don't even do things that bring me joy anymore.

Well, it's also intangible. So it's like way more, way easier to say, okay, I'm going to do this many minutes of exercise or I'm going to like, you know, add this to my diet or take this out. That's so tangible versus more of an intangible. I mean, you can give specific steps. That's why I love like saying, okay, you're gonna either do this much meditation or this much tapping. But you did. You kind of threw one out there. Because I'm big on self care. And I think the other challenge we have is that society really celebrates overworking and super moms and super. And I finally looked at my family and go, I am not. I did not sign up to be supermom. I am not supermom. And I'm going to go take some time out over there. So. But the other one that I see is exercise, where I think that people have this idea that more is better. And especially when you've got adrenal issues, more is definitely not better. Can you address that?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's true. And again, it goes back to the culture of really what exercise is supposed to look like for women needs to be like this beat down in the gym. And so what we see is women are most definitely either doing way too.

Much when it comes to exercise, or.

They'Re in the camp where they're not really doing much of anything at all. And often that's based on not knowing what to do, fear of walking into the weight room, uncertainty about what their body's capable of doing, lack of direction, lack of confidence. But then the other side of that coin is like, none of these are inherently bad, but it's definitely what's popular right now. And the CrossFit craze of the 45 minute metabolic conditioning workouts, where you're literally in a puddle of sweat on the ground, unable to get up when you're done to the spin classes and, you know, on and on and on. And like I said, not that any of These are inherently wrong or bad. But if you're already wiped out and you're not handling your stress and you go put your body through an incredibly stressful scenario where we don't understand what's happening, where it's like, okay, I'm running from this tiger, but it's not killing me. And so I've got all this adrenaline coursing through my veins, which is raising my cortisol, which I don't even have any left. So now I'm just going to that adrenaline hit, which is further taxing my body. So maybe I feel better for a minute afterwards, but then I'm not recovering well, I'm inflamed, I'm achy. I only, I feel anxious on my way to the gym, butterflies in my stomach because I know that this is going to be a beat down. The only time I feel better is a few minutes after because I've got that rush of adrenaline. So, you know, we don't know how to tune in and listen and slow down a little bit because working out hard is not a bad thing. But when it's too much, our body stops responding in a way that we expect it to. And then, you know, we have women saying, I've been doing this forever and at first I got really great results and now I've either plateaued or I'm gaining weight or I'm injuring myself repeatedly, like, what the heck is going on? And that's where we have to go back to saying, you have to honor those most delicate hormonal issues first. And someone with low cortisol or low thyroid is not going to do well on a super intense exercise plan. So, you know, in the book, we teach women how to tune into those symptoms. We have them take a quiz and understand where they, where they are. And then we help them customize the entire plan, but including the exercise plan to know where to start. Whether they've been a seasoned weightlifter or they've never stepped foot into the gym, you know, where do you begin based on what your hormones are telling you to, you know, honor those in a way that is going to continue to help you build strength and, you know, get, get you to where you want to be, but without further exacerbating your already, you know, existing hormonal issues.

Yeah, and we talked to, you know, Sarah was saying the other side of that is, you know, women, when you take a woman who uses exercise as, you know, it's who she is, it's part of her stress relief. It's something she knows on one hand is healthy for her. And we say, okay, now you're having adrenal issues or thyroid issues. All you can do is walk. You can't exercise at all anymore. That's hard for women, too. And so we, we always talk about, you know, exercise and food. But exercise is really powerful medicine, and we can use it to help heal a woman's hormones or we can very easily use it to drive them further into disarray. So, you know, we teach in the book with the strength training, you know, there's still some things, even with those most delicate hormones, there's things you can do to improve your strength and improve your lean mass and lower inflammation with strength training. You just have to do it in a really smart way. And so depending on where you're at, you, each woman individually today, those recommendations for how you strength train and how you do any other exercise beyond that, you can just customize it to kind of where you're at today with continuing to move, you know, gain strength and muscle mass and all those great things from strength training, but use it to heal your hormones instead of what so many. And Sarah and I have both done this, and we know so many women who have used exercise either as stress relief or because we know we're supposed to, or the whole, you know, hashtag, no excuses mentality and fitness, you know, that we're lazy if, if we're not doing it and just really drive ourselves further into the ground.

It makes me so happy to hear this. When I was, I was all the way up in doctoral school in exercise physiology, there was not a book yet out on exercise endocrinology. I got the first textbook on it and I was like, finally a book where we show hormones and exercise. And I kept. Because my big thing back then, it's like we look at the same, we look at diet and we know that if you do this massively calorically restricted diet for extended period of time, you damage your metabolism. It's like you do the same when you over exercise. And so it's great that it's finally coming out and that you can use exercise to balance your hormones and to help with insulin and cortisol. Now you mentioned diet, and a little bit before, you said something that made my ears perk up because you said you were talking about keto diets and who they could be good fit for and that if you had adrenal issues, that they might be challenging. Can you touch on keto diets and where they have a role and where they Don't.

Yeah. So, you know, the research on the ketogenic diet is solid, right? We know it lowers inflammation, we know it lowers insulin and it can be really effective for, you know, stubborn fat loss if in fact you're, you know, in a position where that can work. So with insulin resistance, that can be a really powerful tool. It can be really helpful for inflammation. But we see women, you know, in those like that low adrenal camp or even just that have a ton of stress. You know, one of the things I see women struggle with when they're doing a ketogenic diet is they're lowering their carbs, lowering their carbs and they can't keep, you know, they can't get into or maintain ketosis. And it doesn't have so much to do with their carbs. It has to do with their stress. You know, I know, like if they're not sleeping well, if that huge, you know, stress load in their life doesn't calm down, it's going to release cortisol and that's going to increase your glucose and that's going to subsequently increase your insulin. And so I see women struggle with this because they're not really understanding that it's not just about the carbs. It's not just about, you know, upping your fat and lowering your carbs. It's really, we've got to look at that bigger picture, especially for women. And I don't work with men, so I don't know if they struggle with it quite as much, but women most definitely do. And something else we talked about in the book for both thyroid health and estrogen health, the pops, the persistent organic pollutants, all of these endocrine disruptors that are in, you know, they're in our environment in a lot of places, but they're most definitely in animal fat. And even our, you know, grass fed, high quality meats are still going to have some exposure, just like we do in our environment. They're still going to have their own metabolism. Some of that happens, you know, in our fat cells and same for animals. So even our healthiest animals still have some of that. And those can be again, really tough for estrogen balance. And they can be really tough. Certain ones of them can be really tough for the thyroid. And so we see sometimes women doing ketogenic diet that struggle a little bit if they're not a little bit more mindful of more plant fat versus just, you know, upping the bacon and upping all the animal fat. So there's some nuances for women for. And I think when women struggle with it, it's because either sometimes the fat issue, but a lot of times we're just not really, again, honoring those hormones that are higher up on the hierarchy, like the low cortisol or the high cortisol, because again, that will definitely mess with blood sugar. And sometimes getting that bigger stress load down would help a woman do better on that nutrition plan.

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Now, what about anything else sneaking into our food or that we could be eating and unknowingly create some issues with our hormones?

Well, that's a big one. Sarah, do you have any more. We talked a lot about that one. And, you know, glyphosate and all the glyphosate.

Yeah, yeah. And I think just being mindful of that, you know, we talk. I think we've talked organic so much that we just ignore it at this point. Like, organic, Organic, organic, you know. But I really do think it's important to be aware of that. And I think even that, and more important than that, too, is being mindful of how are we reheating our food. Are we storing our food in plastic containers? Are we drinking out of plastic?

Yay. I'm so glad you mentioned that, because I was like, okay, everyone's eating organic, and then they're drinking from water bottles all day long, right?

You get in someone's car and there's 15 plastic water bottles on the ground. And I get it. It's convenient. But it's really this mindset shift of, okay, it's not just about the food that I'm actually eating, but what else environmentally am I. It Being exposed to that can create hormone havoc, right? So from our skincare to our shampoo to, you know, what we store our food in. I know with a big family, like, I rely on leftovers, and I. It took me about six months to finally get rid of all the plastic in my house, But I'm at this point now I have, you know, all glass storage containers, and it's a little bit of an investment but what's great is they don't wear out. You don't have to throw them away. They can go from the refrigerator to the microwave to the oven. So it's really actually a useful tool to start doing that. And then it's less expensive overall. Like my clean canteen water bottle that I carry around with me, it's like my baby. I'd be lost without it. The one that I had prior to the one I have now lasted me like four years. I dropped it so many times. Finally my husband was like, you got to throw that thing away. Like, this is ridiculous. You got to get a new one. But, you know, that was a $20 or a $30 purchase. And I never bought a plastic. You know, I travel with it. So it's very rare now that I find myself having to go that route. So, you know, we really need to be aware of not just organic and grass fed and all of that. But I think almost not more important, but equally important is what other exposure we're getting to those endocrine disruptors.

Yes. And speaking of endocrine disruptors, you had something that you mentioned about in the book about histamine intolerance. And I think this is going to become more and more and more well known. It's just starting to get out there. And so what would you say about histamine intolerance and how it impacts your hormones?

Yeah, so kind of like what Sarah was saying with some of these other exposures, if, especially if you're a woman who's like, I'm really doing a lot right and my hormones are still struggling, you know, then it's really important to start looking at these other issues. And just like you said, jj, that it's, it's growing in popularity, it's becoming more, we have more, you know, burdens on our enzymatic systems. We were just in a stressful, polluted modern environment. So a lot of our own biochemistry is just struggling a little bit. And so sometimes this histamine issue can be part of manifestation of a chronic infection like Epstein Barr or Sibo. And so sometimes it's that and sometimes it's issues with your methylation or. You know, me personally, when I did my 23andMe and I looked at my histamine pathways, I have a different, at least one snp, if not two variations in every enzyme that processes histamine. So this was one of those things that has snuck up on me during times of stress. And I never really understood it until recently. And so with histamine, we so often think of it as something to do with allergies, right? Stuffy nose, hay fever, maybe getting stung by a bee and the swelling and itching that comes with that. But histamine is a powerful neurotransmitter. It affects uterine contraction. It has a role in the libido and sexual arousal. It has a role in female hormone balance and, you know, painful periods, irregular periods, and any host of skin issues. So it's got its hand in a lot of different things. And it's definitely something for women to look at again, if they've, you know, kind of dialed in a lot of other things, but their hormones are still feeling like they have a lot of symptoms. And it has a bit of a unique relationship for women. Estrogen often will make histamine issues worse. So if women notice that allergies, digestion, skin headaches, anything like that are worse at ovulation or going. Becoming worse as estrogen gets kind of sporadic during perimenopause, that can be one indication that it has something to do with the histamine issues. And it just. When you look at the list of histamine symptoms, I think women are like, holy smokes. That's got, you know, there's so many symptoms, and you don't have to have all of the symptoms to have this be an underlying culprit. And obviously, there are other things that can cause things like bloating or an irregular period, but histamine can have a role in there. And it's a difficult transition to try to work with that in your diet. And it's often confusing as well, because women are like, I thought fermented foods and avocados and all these high histamine foods were really good. For me, it's just like anything, right? It is good. It just may not be working for your particular set of hormone issues and biochemistry right now. And we had in our book, you know, we talk about histamine, and we put together our histamine guide, and there is, you know, like, there's certainly recipes you can use from the book Hangry that are. That are work with that diet, but it's worth looking at for sure, especially if you've been struggling.

Well, I think this is where that hierarchy comes in that I just love. And this. Is this the hierarchy? Is that the infographic you're giving everybody? Hint, hint. I hope so.

Yes, we've got a great infographic that has, you know. Yeah, we've got that on there. And the, you know, with Hangry, we tried to. Our Goal was to, like, teach women how to listen to their hormones. So we have a number of little acronyms or little systems that are, you know, your little cues, they're easy to remember. It's like, okay, that's what my insulin's telling me. That's what my cortisol is telling me about overtraining.

This is so huge. Being able to do that. Self awareness is the biggest thing because you can't do lab tests in the moment. And so if you really want to get your hormones dialed, you're going to have to be able to really be aware of how it feels like, you know, when your estrogen goes down, when your cortisol goes up. You can tell once you start to become aware of it. So I love that you're teaching this because this is, like, to me, the most important part. And everyone thinks I should go to my functional medicine doctor and have the lab test. I'm like, yeah, but that's a snapshot in time.

Well, it's so empowering, too. And it's not something that we're taught. And I wish that we could teach this in high school to our daughters. And it's just so important to be able to tune in instead of reject all those symptoms as something being broken or wrong. And, you know, we start to lose trust in our bodies. And we talk about that in the book. It's like one of our mantras that we recommend is, I trust my body. Because our bodies are trying to just keep us alive, you know, and instead we look at what's going on, and we're like, I just keep gaining weight, and now I feel tired and, oh, my God. And it's just this constant negative loop of like, I'm broken. What's wrong? But when we teach women to relax and be okay with where they are right now and be really accepting of this is where I'm at. My body has really worked hard to keep me alive despite all the things that I've put myself through. Right. And without judgment, because we've all done it. I mean, I'm just as guilty as charged of the abuse I've done to my body. And the sake of trying to be healthier or look a different way or achieve something that, you know, is intangible. But. But when I started to listen, and what we coach women to do is start to listen and be empowered. We work with our hormones and our symptoms in our body versus fighting against it all the time. And that trust is such a beautiful thing because then we know how to adjust in Real time, like you said, right? Like we can't get lab work right now to know what's going on. But if we lean in and without judgment, without all that horrible self critical talk about, you know, how bad and broken we are, but with a lot of acceptance, it's so much easier to turn things around right in that moment. So it just gives women their power back to learn how to listen.

I love it. Okay, here's where you're going to be able to get this because I know people are like, and where do I get this? You're going to get this. This is a very cool infographic. And what you're doing between the hierarchy of helping teach people how to think this through and then the self assessments is just so good. So you go to jjvirgin.com hangry you'll be able to get that infographic right there. I'm also going to put all the information about the book and I know when you go to get the book, you'll also be able to get some really cool bonuses. So all that info will be there so you can grab the hangry book and then get all of the extra goodies that go along with it. And I just thank you both so much, not just for your time today, but for your time in putting this thing together. Like, you know, as we were talking offline, putting a book together and getting it out to the world is like, you know, having giving birth to a hundred, maybe a thousand babies, it's so much work. And then they're toddlers for a long time. So it's, it's a lot of work. But this is one that really needs to be out there. So I super appreciate you guys taking the time to do it and then taking the time to be with me, me today.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your encouragement and support and everything you do in the world. So we, we appreciate you as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you. There was your deep dive bonus episode of Ask the Health Expert. We will be dropping these bonus episodes as amazing experts and incredible titles come to us. You don't want to miss, miss out on this, do ya? Stay in the know. Be the first to know. Go to subscribetoj.com and I'll hook you up.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years, and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And, of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader, and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now, wherever you're listening to this podcast, and Visit our website, whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.