Turn Around Thyroid Condition with Izabella Wentz.

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin.

And welcome to the JJ Virgin lifestyle show where we'll connect with some of.

The coolest people in the world.

Plus, I give you tips that you can put into fast action to up.

Level your health and your life.

Now, today's show is all about thyroid. And I get asked, gosh, nearly every.

Time I do a Facebook live, questions.

Come up about thyroid. And I'll tell you the guest I have on today.

Every single time I talk to her, I learned something new. I mean, this is something that I've.

Made a study of and she is just, she's amazing.

So she's just gone and interviewed, gosh, I think maybe 80 experts now in thyroid as well. So she's an expert and now she's the uber expert. So I'm super excited to share Dr. Isabella Wentz with you today.

She's been on the podcast before, been around the community because she's one of.

My go to experts and I just adore her. So let me tell you a little bit about her. She's even more special with this because she had it herself, which I'll have her share with you when we talk. She's a patient advocate, researcher, clinician and educator and and committed to raising awareness on how to overcome autoimmune thyroid disease. She's the author of the New York Times best selling patient guide, Hashimoto's thyroiditis lifestyle interventions for finding and treating the root cause and the protocol based book Hashimoto's protocol a 90 day plan for reversing thyroid symptoms and getting your life back.

I am super excited to share this interview with you.

You're gonna hear a couple big surprises in here when I do. Cause she said a couple things. I'm like, what? So. So I am really excited to welcome Dr. Isabella Wentz to the show.

All right, so let's do it. Isabella Wentz, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here with me today, jj.

It's such an honor to be here with you. I'm so excited.

Well, it's such a hot topic. I get asked about all the time and I mean, it's even more fantastic that you turned yourself around. And I'd love to start there because you've helped, what, like over a thousand people now with Hashimoto's. I mean, now it's. Now it's soon to be into the millions. Yeah. Oh, definitely. No question. No question on that. But let's just start first with how you got involved with this.

So I'm a pharmacist by training, but I was never interested in the thyroid gland or thyroid hormones or anything in that matter during pharmacy school and not even after I graduated. It wasn't until I was diagnosed myself with a thyroid condition in 2009, after almost a decade of some pretty strange symptoms. I had chronic fatigue, I had panic attacks, irritable bowel syndrome, hair loss, pain in both of my arms. Just a host of very strange symptoms that nobody could quite figure out until I finally decided to take charge of my own health and started seeking answers and got diagnosed in 2009. When I was first diagnosed, I was told that there was nothing I could really do other than to take thyroid hormones to help myself. And as a pharmacist, of course, I'm all about optimizing medication use and optimizing hormones. I love that stuff, don't get me wrong. But I also wanted to know what was going on and what had caused me to come up with this condition. What caused me to have my body start attacking itself? Because that's what's happening in most thyroid conditions. We have an attack against our own thyroid gland by our own body, and that leads to an inability of the gland to produce the hormones. And so I kept asking these questions, like, what happened? How did I get to this in this first place? The other thing that happened is the medications helped a little bit. So I went from sleeping for, like, 12 hours a night to like, 11, which was great. And, you know, I was a little bit sort of. Yeah, yeah. But they just really didn't move the needle that much for me. So I wanted to get my life back, and I wanted to figure out what I can do to stop the progression of the condition and even potentially reverse it. That's how I became a Hashimoto's expert slash, you know, human guinea pig.

You hacked yourself?

So what.

What are. Because how big is this problem now? I know you were telling me the numbers at some point, and I know it's something I wrestle. You know, I've. I had and have worked through, and my son had it after his brain injury. How big of a problem is it?

You know, Hashimoto's Sounds like such a rare and exotic condition, but we're looking at 28% of our population that actually has it. What it is, is basically the immune system starts attacking our thyroid gland and eventually that leads to an underactive thyroid. Now, anybody that's taking thyroid hormones like Synthroid, Levothyroxine, Levoxo, there's probably a 95% to 99% chance that you actually have Hashimoto's. You might have been told by your doctor that you have a sluggish thyroid or that you have hypothyroid or an underactive thyroid. But what is actually happening is your thyroid is not sluggish. Your thyroid is working really, really hard to try to produce thyroid hormones as it's being attacked by the immune system. And this is something that unfortunately affects women more commonly than men. So for every man diagnosed, we see five to eight women who are diagnosed with Hashimoto's. And majority of people really are not diagnosed. So somewhere like 60% of those who have thyroid disease don't even know it.

Yeah, my son would have been one of those because he started gaining weight and getting depressed. And I looked and the doctor totally missed it, by the way. Um, so that was kind of interesting too. Fortunately, like, I had lab tests run and I brought them back over to us. But what are some. Why is this so big? Like, why are so many people getting this now? Or is it just that we now know to look for it? I mean, is it, is it increasing or what?

Definitely the rates have been increasing over the last few decades. And we think that it's because there are more toxins in our environment. Really anything that causes our bodies to think that we're under stress. So whether that is a toxic situation, whether that's inflammation in the body, chronic infections, even stressful situations, mentally stressful situations, can put the body in sort of a semi, I need to hibernate and sleep this off kind of state. And what hypothyroidism does or an underactive thyroid does is it makes a person slow down. So when you think about all of the symptoms of an underactive thyroid, we're going to see a person's going to be putting on more weight, they're going to be more tired, more sluggish, more fatigued, their brain function is going to slow down. In the case of your son, he was more depressed. Other people might have brain fog, other people might not be as motivated. This is something that in a way could be the body's protective mechanism in a time of danger. So I Always talk to my clients and my readers and say, what is going on in your life that's making your body feel like it's in danger? And a lot of times it could be something because it could be because our environment is pretty toxic. When you think about all the unregulated chemicals that have been added into our lives in the last few decades, and we know that this condition affects women more commonly, and a part of. Of the reason could be because of all the personal care products that women use compared to men.

Ah, that makes total sense. And I think we don't make that connection that our skin. Someone said this once, and it just has always stuck with me. Isabella, Our skin is a sieve. It's like. It's like, if you can put. If you're putting it on your body, you better be able to eat it. And, you know, I've taken that to heart. But you look at so many of these toxic products that we put on our face. Oh, my gosh. So you listed a lot of the symptoms and why this is happening. One of the things that you're known for, which is so key here, is that you've figured out how to heal this and how to turn people around quickly. So, you know, and I know that a lot of these people, like, I've run into people who've had problems for years and years and never could get a diagnosis. But you're still able to turn them around quickly. What is the key to doing this?

You know, jj, these are the kind of things that keep me up at night because there's so many different triggers and things in our environment that can cause the condition. And I get very frustrated when I see people suffering for years like I did, because there are a few key things you can do to help turn around the symptoms very quickly. And some of those things are addressing the vulnerabilities inside of the body. The main vulnerabilities are going to be impaired by detoxification. So if your liver is not working properly, then you're going to start seeing some of that chemical buildup inside of your body, and that's going to be contributing to a lot of the symptoms. And another important thing is thyroid hormone conversion. A lot of it happens actually within our liver. So when your liver is not working properly, you're not activating even the thyroid hormones you have in your body to the active component. And then we're also looking at addressing adrenal function and gut function. And these are the other kind of broken systems within thyroid disease. What I've Found with over a thousand of my clients. Now is when we start a person on a liver support protocol. That's like a two week protocol where we go through a series of four steps. I've started seeing miraculous results where people's symptoms will disappear within a few days or within a week of having those symptoms. For years I had one woman who, for example, I love to tell her story because, well, it's a Christmas story, but she had multiple chemical sensitivities for many, many years. And she got to the point where she couldn't even walk past some of the stores at the mall because of all the scents that they spray. And within doing my liver support protocol, she said, my headaches are gone, I'm no longer as tired, my pain has resolved, and I could finally go to the mall with my kids to go shopping around Christmas time. Because her sensitivities to all the chemicals lessened. Because we helped to get rid of some of that toxic backlog that a lot of us get just living in our modern world and using the common products that we have.

Yeah, and that's such a brutal one. I actually, I suffered from that one too. And when you have chemical sensitivity, oh my gosh, anywhere you go, you get a headache, you feel crappy. It's really, really makes life difficult. So some of these things that you can do to start turning yourself around right away. And you mentioned starting to help support the liver. Like what are a couple. What's something someone listening right now could get started with?

One of the very first things I like to have people start with is doing hot lemon water in the morning. So take one organic lemon, cut it in half and squeeze half of that lemon juice into a cup of hot filtered water. You could add a little bit of sweetener like stevia or maple syrup, whatever you like to that and drink that first thing in the morning. That's going to help with your digestive process and that's going to help with your liver process and kind of set you on a day of detoxification. The other thing that I love to see is getting a fluoride filter. So fluoride is one of those toxins that's been added to our water because of public health officials wanting us to have healthier teeth. Unfortunately, it also suppresses thyroid function and has been associated with hypothyroidism. And it actually used to be used as a thyroid suppressing drug for people with an overactive thyroid. So getting a reverse osmosis fluoride filter, they now have countertop ones. You can get. Or you can get a filter in your home, or you can do in your sink, or you can buy filtered water until you're able to. To purchase one of those fluoride filters. But that can be a huge difference in how people feel right away.

Well, that's so important, too, because this is something people do every single day, right? I mean, I'm always looking at, what do we do every single day? And if you're drinking water with fluoride every single day, that's a huge problem.

Right. And if you're. I mean, this is kind of scary, but if you're a good girl and you're drinking your eight cups of water, you're effectively suppressing your thyroid based on the dosage of fluoride you're gonna get in most communities in the US So it's quite scary.

Wow, that is really scary. So you were gonna say one other one, and then I cut in. What was the other one you were gonna say?

The other one is, as we kind of alluded to, is go on a personal care routine holiday. And so looking at all of your personal care.

I know I loved you right up till then. Come on.

You know, I know. I know it's tough, but at the same time, a lot of these things that we're putting on our skin, all the lotions and potions and shampoos and lipsticks, especially lipsticks, they contain a ton of chemicals in there. Lead has been found in lipsticks. Arsenic has been found in lipsticks. I personally had arsenic toxicity from having having lead in my. Or having arsenic from my lip gloss. And so there are safer products you can use. I recommend going to the EWG if you wanted to do a makeover of your personal care routine. Otherwise, if you just want to go makeup free for one to two weeks, that's going to be really, really helpful for you in getting rid of some of that toxic burden. Then we're looking at making sure your foods are organic and reducing the most common food toxins like jj, you recommend gluten, dairy, and soy is where I have my people starting off. That's a really, really important step. And then including some detoxifying foods. So I really love to do, like, cilantro smoothies. Cilantro is excellent for helping to get rid of heavy metals.

Okay, wait, wait, stop.

Uh. Oh.

Cilantro smoothie. No, you just.

You.

I was like, well, first of all. So here's the challenge. I know cilantro's amazing. It's a heavy metal chelator. Oh, I hate it so much. So you said cilantro smoothie and I'm like cringing over here. So how do you make a cilantro smoothie tast what's in there?

Oh my goodness. And you know, it's interesting because some people have a genetic inability to like cilantro where other people love it. So it might be one of those things for you, but one of the good things to do is get some coconut milk. I recommend doing a cup of coconut milk with a bunch of cilantro, adding some different types of green veggies, green apples. I love doing like a pea protein, organic pea protein powder with that. And really it can be quite tasty if you mix it up for yourself and drink it a couple of times a day.

I gotta tell you, I love that. I would love to share one of those to everybody and put that on my page. I've never thought about that. That is like just sheer brilliance. When you first said it, I literally was like, ew, okay, you redeemed yourself.

Thank you, thank you.

I know.

I just was like going, come on, I've seen everything that you do and I'm in love with it. And then you roll that one out. But you redeemed yourself. So I want to throw a little speed question at you, one that you're not expecting. I know you expect to talk all about the thyroid and we could put you on your head, close your eyes, put you to sleep, and you could do it. So I'm going to throw a curve ball and say, all right, Isabella, what is the one thing you do every day that makes the biggest difference in your life?

I think one of the big things I do is I always try to get enough sleep. That's a really big part of my life, is making sure that I give myself ample opportunity to rest. Because if I go to sleep at a decent time, I can wake up feeling refreshed, bright eyed and bushy tailed. And I really focus on loving myself. So each day I think about what would I do right now if I truly love myself? And that's a question that I've asked myself and I've taught many women that I work with to do. Because sometimes as women, we tend to push ourselves beyond where we should push ourselves. And you know, really a lot of times healing starts with self care and self kindness.

Yay.

I try to practice that on a daily basis and I recommend that for women because, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence that most of us have that women have a lot of these Autoimmune conditions. Part of it is you attacking you. And so if you can start by treating yourself with self love and self kindness, you're going to see your body follow.

That's the most beautiful thing ever. And it's so true. We tend to put ourselves last. And really, that self care, you just talked about the selfless thing to do, because then you're, you know, you're better, you're better for your family. So that is key. I love that you just mentioned that. That's such a tweetable. Now you have something super cool to give everyone. And I know that you're giving everyone your nutrient depletions guide and just talk a little bit about that and why we need that, how that relates to thyroid disease.

Wow. So, you know, what I mentioned is there are vulnerabilities in people with thyroid conditions. And when you address these vulnerabilities, you could start feeling better right away. And nutrient deficiencies are some of the biggest vulnerabilities around there. So if you don't have enough nutrients in your body, it's not going to be able to do the things that it needs to do in thyroid disease. What's happening is a lot of times we have not enough nutrients to go around for our entire body. And so we end up being fatigued, we end up losing hair, we end up actually holding onto our weight because our body thinks it's deficient in calories or food. And so when you get on a proper nutrient protocol and address these common nutrient deficiencies, some of them are selenium, some of them are thiamine, vitamin D. Your body actually starts to rebalance itself more. So we start seeing the attack on the thyroid go down. We start seeing anxiety improve, people are happier, people start losing weight, and they have bundles and bundles of more energy. So the nutrient depletion guide is going to be kind of a quick start guide for you, to give you the tools that you need to just, you know, start taking some of these supplements or getting them through food that, you know, they're usually like a few dollars a month. And that starts moving the needle for my clients very, very quickly. One supplement is thiamine at like less than $10 a month. And I've had people recover from chronic fatigue within three days of using it.

Oh, my gosh, that's crazy. And I get asked these questions all the time. So I'm so thrilled that you were giving this, and I want everyone just to consider this. Like you have such the unique, perfect perspective for this, coming from being a Pharmacist being trained to think in pathways. It's just brilliant. So, like, who better to get this from than you? So nutrient depletions. Also, I know you're giving everyone your Thyroid diet quick start gu and then 10 recipes, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So the diet Quick Start guide is how to do the thyroid diet without going crazy and without doing it all wrong so that you sabotage yourself, which unfortunately, I did. I started eating the wrong foods for my thyroid. And so this guide contains a roadmap on what you need to do to really tune in your diet. So it's thyroid friendly. And then I also give people 10 quick start recipes. So these are not like you have to spend 10 days in your kitchen just to cook one meal recipes. These are like, quick and easy for, for busy women with, with kids, jobs, and lives.

Awesome. That's what we all want. Okay, so you get the nutrient depletion guide. You get the Thyroid diet quick start guide, 10 recipes. Go to jjvirgin.com forward/thyroid. Thank you for giving us to all of that, too. That is just awesome. I so appreciate it. And I so appreciate you. Your work is fantastic, Isabella. You are making such a massive difference out there in the world. I just so, so appreciate it.

Thank you so much, jj. The admiration and love is mutual. I really love what you're doing in the world and I'm so excited about you spreading the message about miracles that can happen when women take charge of their health and take charge of their family's health.

There you go. So thank you. And for everyone listening, stay with me. I'm going to be answering a listener's question after the break.

Ready to lose fat fast and keep it off forever. Discover the number one resource for fast and lasting fat loss by visiting JJVirgin.com Access exclusive videos, content, rich blog posts, and lots of free resources to help you lose weight and and feel better fast and be part of a community. Get ready to transform your life one simple shift at a time by visiting www.jjvirgin.com.

Welcome back.

This is a time when I answer a listener's question. And today's question comes from Maggie in Fresno, and she writes in jj, I am just tired all of the time. I what do I do? All right, so I thought this was a great one to bring up with Dr. Isabella talking about thyroid, especially since.

I want you to look at thyroid here.

But I'm going to give you a couple different things because one of the things, when I used to work a lot with clients, one on one, I would get Asked all the time on.

How do I create more energy?

I'm so tired. What do I do? What do I do about fatigue? And here's my order, what to look for. Here is, first off, I always ask, are you sleeping well? You should be able to fall asleep within 30 minutes of going to bed, lying down. Sleep well throughout the night. Wake up without an alarm, feeling rested, not feel sleepy throughout the day. Okay. And naturally get around eight to nine hours of sleep. If that's not happening, if you're sleeping like that or you're needing more sleep, then we've got to dig deeper. If you're not getting that sleep, as I find for so many people, they just steal from sleep to do other stuff. You cannot do that. That does not work. So first thing I always ask is the sleep question. The next thing I ask, if that's not the issue, is the thyroid question or if you're waking up all throughout the night. A lot of times, thyroid can play a role there, as can cortisol, as can estrogen. But the next big question is thyroid. And that's where you'll want to definitely get Isabella's gift today. And again, that's jjvirgin.com thyroid and check that out, because we've got to see if you have an issue with your thyroid. Low thyroid function. Hashimoto's because if you do, you will be tired all the time. It's one of the classic signs of Afghanistan thyroid issue. Now, another classic sign, another key tie in here that can be an independent factor for being tired is low iron. Now, quite often that goes along with thyroid disease, but it can be separate from it. So make sure that you get a lab test next time you're in with your doctor. Make sure you get tested for your iron levels to see if this is an issue. And a sign there for both thyroid issues and iron issues is starting to lose your hair. And then the final one that you have to look at is your adrenal health. And I like to do this most through an adrenal salivary index test. But if you've burned out your adrenals, if you're in adrenal exhaustion, you've been going, going, going all of a sudden, especially if you're tired and wired, where.

At night you feel like you're just.

So physically exhausted you can't shut your brain off, a lot of times that's a sign of adrenal fatigue.

So any one of those things, and.

Quite often you get multiples of those things, can lead to exhaustion. The real deal here is you want to get to the root cause of why this thing is happening here. Everything that Dr. Isabelle is talking about is all about getting to the root cause so that you're treating it correctly. All right, if you'd like to submit a question, just head over to my Facebook page, jjvirginofficial. Look for the little blue checkmark and I have a favor to ask. I would hugely appreciate it if you could jump over to Stitcher or itunes and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch.

And while you're there, subscribe and share.

It with your friends.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that. This is JJ Virgin signing off and.

Reminding you to live courageously. Show up, step up. You are stronger than you think.

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