The Truth About Women’s Hormones & Health with Dr. Laura DeCesaris

She asked us this question the first day, and she's like, you know, thinking about your business, what would it take to double your income and double your happiness? And the second part of that question, like, messed me up for a couple days. Am I really happy, or am I in a place of just autopiloting, doing all of these things all the time? And for me, that was a big turning point in just how I work with women now, because if you met me at that point in time, you'd be like, this girl is fit, she's healthy, she's got a successful business. And externally, I was all those things. But internally, I really wasn't more deeply in touch with myself and the things I truly wanted in life. And so that question was such a pivotal moment, and it's a question now I actually ask to all my health clients.

Welcome to The Biohack Method. I am Lindsey Burwell. I break down the science, cut the fluff, and give you real tools to optimize your body with peptides, transdermal patches, and root cause biohacking that actually works. Welcome back to The Biohack Method podcast. Today I am so excited because I have an incredible friend, Dr. Laura, here who is so knowledgeable about women's health, hormones. She works with elite practitioners on supporting their clients through root cause inflammation, hormones, all of it. And we were actually just talking because she's working on training for a 100-mile bike race, which is like huge wow for me, like so incredible. And then I started thinking, I don't think I know, Laura, like how you even got into this work. Like where did it start? Where did the interest and passion start? So I'd love to kind of dive in there. Like when did you get— when did you know you wanted to start doing work with women and health?

That's a great question. I think like a lot of people who are in the integrative health space, it really started with just my own health experience. Like everyone you talk to.

Yeah. That's why.

So, you know, when I was in college, I went to college thinking I wanted to go into cancer research. Actually, my mom, her twin, and my older sister all got diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was in high school.

Wow.

Like, I'm a huge nerd. So I was like, oh, genetics. Like, that's really interesting. And also I feel like maybe I should know that for myself. That seems like that would be a good thing to understand. So I went to Cornell University, got a job in a research lab, and very quickly realized that was not the life for me. Just a lot of heavy late nights alone in the lab. So I knew I wanted to work more with people. And around that same time, even though I was technically doing all of the right things, I was doing my cardio on the treadmill every day and eating my salads in the dining hall. And when you think about being like 20, 21, Kind of think you should be like the peak of your life. You should feel so good. I felt terrible. I was like tired all the time, no matter how much I slept. Couldn't stop gaining weight. I tried like going vegetarian, like doing anything you could imagine. Like my hair was falling out. It was not good. Obviously, there was a lot of school stress and stuff in there too. But my mom actually took me to a chiropractor when I was home on a college break before my senior year. And I was like, I don't know. What's this all about? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Of course, so stubborn about it. And this woman spent 3 hours with me and just by looking at me and she'd be touching points on my arm and asking these questions and I was hooked. And she knew things about me and just what my day-to-day was like without me even sharing it. And she shared with me like, oh, I don't just do chiropractic. I do functional integrative medicine. This is what I did. And Literally the next day I was like, going to chiro school, switching gears, that's where we're going. So that's really where it started. And obviously chiropractic school wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, but it was a great avenue to introduce me to this field of functional integrative medicine. And I was really lucky to have a mentor while I was in grad school who kind of pointed me in the right direction of, okay, well, if you want to work with people in nutrition and hormones and longevity, like here's the educational path to Take here's the conferences to go to, the trainings to do, and you know one step just leads to another. And again, I'm sure this is something you can relate to. You put yourself in the right places, in the right rooms, and you have the right conversations, and doors open that you didn't even know existed.

And that's so amazing. Okay, talk to me about chiropractic because my I am a big fan. So I actually have mild scoliosis in the bottom of my back, and there was a period of my life that I was like infertile. I was not having periods. And, um, looking back, it was a lot of energy work for sure. And like mental blocks and some diet lifestyle things too. But, um, a part of my kind of healing, if you will, and diving deep into like my body was the points in my scoliosis are related to reproductive health. And so learning about the connection between like our spine and our nervous system and our nerves to like every part of our body made me so sold on like the power of chiropractic work. But my husband is such a skeptic. He's like, I don't know if someone should be popping your back. So I want to hear from you, like, what is your POV on like the power of literally our spine, our nerves, and why it's important to, you know, know about chiropractic work?

I think just like in any healthcare profession, you have different philosophies and different ideas about things, right? And you got to find your people at the end of the day. To me, You can't separate the structure, structural, the mechanical parts of the body from the internal biochemistry. Like it's foolish to think, oh, the skeletal frame and the muscles and the nerves, like none of that matters. It's just checking your blood work. The two go hand in hand. So to me, it just always made perfect sense. Well, of course, if there's areas that aren't moving well, we're not getting good blood flow. We're getting, you know, maybe not nerve signaling the way they should. Like maybe the fascia's adhered and The more we learn about fascia and what it does in terms of self-hydration, detoxification, frequency, you just had Sam on here.

Yeah.

You have all these tight areas that aren't moving well. And the reality is, for the most part, our population is not as mobile as we should be. Of course, it's not going to lend itself to optimally functioning humans, right? So that's one side of it, is that the structure and the function are closely interrelated. The other side and the part that I found when I was doing a lot of bodywork was sometimes people don't have other humans in their life where they can come take a breath, relax, experience positive human touch and the healing power of that. I can't tell you how many people, without ever adjusting them, you just hold their head in your hand and all sorts of stuff gets released because I think as humans, we've kind of moved away from The importance of that. And so whether someone's a chiropractor or physical therapist, massage therapist, bodyworker, that power of touch is really healing on a, on a deep level for the nervous system, for a sense of safety just in general. So I think that comes into play there.

Yeah, that's so powerful. What is your personal practice when it comes to chiropractic? Do you, do you find like regular maintenance, like once a month? Like what do you find Maybe even like for women listening, like where should they start if they've never even like delved into this? Yeah.

So again, there's lots of different types of practitioners out there. Some of it's going to depend like, what are you comfortable with, right? Like not everyone's a— I'm always going to offend somebody in my former profession by saying this, but like not everyone's a rack 'em crack 'em chiropractor. Yeah, there's lots of different ways in, so to speak. My own personal, my own personal way of doing it now is I— one of my best friends in the world, Dr. Taylor, she's an amazing chiropractor down in Gilbert, actually. So I get down to see her when I can because she has a really magical way of working with people that, sure, maybe there's some certain types of adjustments, but there's bodywork and there's stretching and there's breath mechanics and all those sorts of things. So I see her and then my friend, Dr. Kristin, who's an amazing doctor of physical therapy and has just such a special way of doing movement-based bodywork. So for an active person like myself, it's best for me to work with someone who is going to treat me via movement. Versus me just kind of laying down and yeah, being treated in stillness.

Yeah, I love that. And I love too the work that you're doing, working with practitioners on then creating like a community of supports while they work then with clients on, you know, hormone health, inflammation, all of that. What are you noticing like from your high-level point of view looking down shifts in women's health? What are like the biggest complaints women are having when it comes to their health? And what are you— are you noticing any big shifts on like what is helping With those big complaints?

Yeah, there's a few common patterns I'm seeing right now. Number one is actually information overload.

Yeah.

Women are not short of information. And really, it's the art of teaching women discernment, what, what actually matters to take the time to learn and understand and implement, because there's a lot of information. And it's really tempting to try and do all the things. And, you know, there's that whole saying about master of none. Right? You try to do too many things at the same time. So number one, I think for practitioners out there, at least for coaches out there, it's helping your clients, your patients get dialed in and figure out what's most important to them right now based on their goals. And I don't wanna say putting blinders on, but, but kind of.

No, putting blinders on. Absolutely.

Getting focused on the things that you need.

Especially in the world of social media. I mean, we are constantly shooting ads, you know, at our face. Like, do you struggle with this? Take this. Do you struggle with this? Take this. Right? And then you have ChatGPT at our fingertips to hamster dive into anything we want want to search. And it does, it does, um, there's a threshold of like, this is inspiring, then, um, this is like debilitating and I don't even know what to do because there's so much information here.

Absolutely. So that's, that's trend number 1, regardless of what they're struggling with, is I don't even know where to start. And they have, they have all the tools, they have all the supplements, like everything is there. It's just, what do I, what do I actually do? So, you know, people can get a little paralyzed by too many options. So helping help with the discernment side of things. It's funny you said that about ChatGPT. I'm thinking when I first started working in the clinic, people would bring Google printouts.

Oh, I'm sure.

Now it's ChatGPT told me, and it's like as practitioners, you got to be able to evolve with the times and be like, great, let me teach you how to prompt that a little bit better next time to get a more clear answer on you.

Yes, that's so because that can get so dangerous. Yeah. What are you noticing with women? Coming to work with your client, working with you or with like your practitioners in supplements and like taking all of the things. Because when I started getting into the work I was, you know, doing with working one-on-one and, um, kind of root cause healing, I noticed women really were just starting with like, I'm taking a mortgage payment versus worth of supplements. And even backing, backing up with my own personal journey, I remember going to see a naturopath and feeling like the hope of these 10 supplements that I just bought was absolutely going to cure me, and I would spend whatever it took to feel better. And what I'm noticing is a huge shift of people having like pill fatigue and feeling hopeless in the recommendations because they're like, I've, I have already tried all of that. So are you noticing that too?

Absolutely. And that specific example was one of the big triggers for me to actually start my mentorship, because I saw this thing happening with functional medicine where essentially what it was was order all of these lab tests. Here's your 20-supplement protocol. I'll see you in 3 months. And yep, that's not functional medicine. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, it's the same thing with a different branding package up front.

That is so spot on because it's— I felt the same way. It started feeling like functional medicine was focused on the business and not the person anymore. Where like in 2012 when I first met like an integrative health practitioner, it was like a slice of heaven. Like I had an hour and a half with her. It was so— we focused on seed cycling, right? Hydration, not drinking Splenda Crystal Lights. Like the baby steps, the foundations. And then fast forward to now, um, I mean you're probably seeing it more than me, but it's like Yeah, spend this money and then spend $1,000 on supplements.

And the basics compound. Yeah. So like, that's where we should be spending our time. And you're right, it is a— you know, for a long time I think I was a little quiet about my industry, and something happened this last year that I'm like, yeah, we can curse on here. But I was like, fuck it, like, yeah, I need to say how I feel about it.

How has— has there been backlash with you like being raw about it, being real?

A little bit, but in a good way. I mean, like, you have to have— you have to have an opinion, you have to have a stance that you hold. And the real— the reality is when you look at a lot of these educational programs for functional practitioners, they are business programs. And so of course they're going to teach that. And like, who does that not always serve? Yeah, the patient on the other end. And so, you know, even with the practitioners in my mentorship, we can see those patterns a little bit. And like, the reality is sometimes people are on these supplement plans and all of a sudden they're like, wow, I ran this person's labs and their liver enzymes are up. And it's like way too much on the body. So let's back up and teach people Hey, what are you doing first thing in the morning? Like, you jumping on your phone right away? Are you chugging coffee? Like, can we get in some water, some breath, some sunlight, some connection? Can we teach you about slowing down and eating and look at your food as energy, not just your macro counts?

It's so unsexy, right? It's like the unsexy work. And it's annoying because we want a quick fix. Like, I want to buy $1,000 in supplements because that is actually easier than changing behavior. You know what I mean? Actually changing habits, behavior, and thoughts requires so much more work than going to the store and buying a bunch of vitamins. And I'm sure you noticed it too. Like, I was seeing women come to me and we would do, you know, blood tests, urine analysis, saliva, and they would be deficient in all of these vitamins. And they would literally come to me with the vitamins they're taking. But I'm taking these antioxidants. I'm taking this green juice. I'm taking this multivitamin. I'm taking this probiotic. I'm taking XYZ. And I remember, I mean, this was in like 2022. I remember being like, I'm stumped. Like I was, I kind of felt stumped too because I was like, wait, you're taking the vitamin but you're deficient on the vitamin. I was like, and they're like, should I take more? And I was like, I think so. And I was like, but then that's really like what got me researching. Like, how does a body absorb a vitamin, right? Like it has to first survive stomach acid. Your liver has to break it down. Your gut has to break it down. How many people have gut imbalance, microbial imbalance, parasites, mold, inflammation in the gut from the food and the stress and everything? Probably, I would argue, 99% of people, right? And so ultimately, I think we're facing like an epidemic of absorption also in food, not just supplements. But, but yeah, that was a huge learning for me to be like, wow, like you could be taking all the things. And you're not even absorbing it. And I think women are like really starting to realize that too. Like, more is not more.

Absolutely. And you can apply it with any, any bucket of things, right? Whether it's supplements, whether it's diet and workout. Like, how many women have we met who they're like, man, this person's workout schedule is amazing, like the macros are dialed in, and they're still not getting the results they want? And so at what point do we like stop banging our heads against the wall and be like, well, it's not less food and more intense exercise, it's what's What's deeper? Like, let's get real uncomfortable with each other. Get down to like those big conversations that of course no one wants to have because it's much easier to talk about. I'm just going to grab that one other supplement and that'll fix this, right? Yeah. And not not have the hard talk about relationships, relationship with self, with others, with people around us, with time, with all of these things.

I would like kind of low-key joke with my clients because I'd be like, I know you came to probably like learn like all the fat burning tips, but like. Let's talk about trauma really quick, because— or like cortisol or stress, or like believing in your body, like believing in your body's ability to heal. That question would just prompt massive tears for people because they, they have a moment of realization like, I don't know if I believe in my body's ability to heal, you know? And how can you transform your life or your health If you don't even believe your body can do it, it's like taking the vitamins and being like, does this even work? No, it's not gonna work. You don't know how— the belief isn't even there, right? It's, it's like, it's like working upstream.

Absolutely.

I—

it's reminding me of a conversation I have. The first mastermind I ever joined was actually with Lindsay Schwartz of Powerhouse Women. It was like shortly after I moved to Scottsdale. I didn't even know what a mastermind was.

I love that.

And she asked us this question. I was just like, sounds cool. Let's do it. She asked us this question the first day and she's like, you know, thinking about your business, what would it take to double your income and double your happiness? Yeah. It's like double my income. Like easy. Here's the clients I need. Here's this and that. And the second part of that question like messed me up for a couple of days. I was like, happiness. Am I really happy or am I in a place of just autopiloting and doing all of these things all the time? And For me, that was a big turning point in just how I work with women now. Because if you met me at that point in time, you'd be like, this girl is fit, she's healthy, she's got a successful business. And externally, I was all those things. But internally, I really wasn't more deeply in touch with myself and the things I truly wanted in life. And so that question was such a pivotal moment. And it's a question now I actually ask to all my health clients is like, yeah, I know you're telling me that you want to lose weight. You're telling me that you want to feel better or you want to sleep better.

Yeah.

What's it going to take to double your happiness level right now?

Yeah.

And it's a really hard question to answer.

It is a really hard—

I think as humans and as practitioners, those are the kind of questions we have to ask people where their health is involved. Like, we have to stop externalizing it to labs and data and bring it back home to being in their body again.

Yeah. I always say, like, we are so much more than our body. Like, if it was just about eating healthy and working out, I don't think we would have half of the health issues and diseases that are out there. I think that most of us are living on autopilot and we're so misaligned with like our purpose, our inner sense of love and knowing. And it's because we're moving a million miles per hour. We're not pausing to ask these loving questions of like, who am I and what would it take for me to be 2 times as happier, right? And I think it's because we just live in this like hustle culture society where slowing down feels like we're failing. Sitting down feels like we're going to gain 10 pounds, you know. Not doing 2 workouts a day means we're going to take 2 steps backwards. And so it's like even reprogramming like your thoughts around slowing down enough to ask those questions, most people just aren't doing.

It's a, it's a hard skill set to learn, and especially for a lot of women. And I'm sure you see this too, like hustling and being go, go, go gets us to a certain level of You're like, hey, this has worked for me up until this point. Why could I not do this? And what I would love for women to understand about slowing down is it doesn't mean you have to stop any of that. It's about creating these moments of pause where you can like pause and let things digest and not just live in this autopilot mode. That doesn't have to always take weeks and months and years. I mean, sometimes, sometimes it takes some time, but you can, you can train yourself just like anything else to be like, okay, I need to day this week. I need an afternoon. I need an hour to just stop and slow down and digest some things energetically and figure out like, where am I going next? Yeah, where's the next path?

I love that. What is like your personal practice? Like being a doctor, seeing all the things, the trends, the shifts, having access to great tools— like what is your personal practice for staying aligned, staying healthy, and like feeling, feeling the best in your body?

Got to— I got to give a shout out To my partner Ryan for this one, because my life has changed so much since meeting him in this regard. And it's just, God, he's so awesome. Um, just, yeah.

But love him. Love Ryan.

We love him. We love my boyfriend.

Yeah, I do love him. He's great.

But I definitely used to be one of those people that had like longer morning routines and I was like, we gotta get up, set the alarm at this time, do these things. And it was cuz I knew that was the only time I had that day. Yeah. But it got to a point where I was like, you know what? I'm so stuck in doing that. I don't even know if this is what I need today. And so like now what the morning looks like is, again, it's, that's the pause. It's okay. First, let's like get outside and like take a beat with each other without our phones and be like, what are we doing today? How are we feeling in our bodies? Like mentally, physically.

That's so good.

What do we actually need today? Because some days if we're feeling good, it's like hopping on the bike trainer for an hour or two. Like, here we go. But some days if I'm like, things hurt today, I think I need to go like, I don't know, breathe for a little bit or get on the PEMF mat or take 20 minutes in the sauna and slow down before I start the busyness of the day. Because you got to show up for the things you got to show up for, but you can also give your body the things that it needs. And yeah, data and wearables can be helpful for that, but your connection to your body is not going to lie. So if you're able to really drop out of your head into your body and be like, what do I What do I need today? And can I be brave enough to ask for the things I need if I can't give them to myself?

Yeah.

And so that's the morning routine now. And what's nice about that is it travels everywhere with you. It doesn't take a long time and it lets you figure out where am I going to spend my most valuable asset today, which is my time? Where am I going to put that to actually get the ROI that I want at the end of the day? And he's been so good with that. He's been such a good role model to just Men are so good at chilling. So good at that.

Oh, my husband is the same way, by the way. We might need to do a double date. It's like, my husband is— he, he feels so good relaxing, and he's like a high-functioning, high-performing individual, like very dynamic, very incredible. But like, he's like, I feel so good about myself because I just watched movies today. And I'm like, I just am inspired by that thought. Like that— how does one do that? With those thoughts. Because if I were to lay down all day and watch movies, I wouldn't. It'd be an effort and an exercise to have that thought.

Right. And again, it's so good to have people, whether they're men or women, to model that to us, especially when you're really not wired that way. But I do meet a lot of men that way, and it's such a powerful reminder to me of what conditioning has been like as women. And totally a really cool thing that I love about our generation. I think millennials get a lot of crap. The thing that I love about it is like there is a shift happening, and what we model to our kids, they are going to have such a different experience.

Oh my gosh, my kids are going to be so woo. They're going to be so woo.

They're like saying how they feel.

Yeah, say how they feel. Like, like what? Like my daughter will like hit my, my other daughter, and I'm like, hurt people hurt people. Where are you hurting? I'm like, I already know my mom is listening in on this, and she is Well, it's so funny. Oh, Dr. Laura, thank you so much for being here. Okay, if somebody is so inspired by this conversation, the work that you do, like where can they find you to learn more? To either work with you or learn from you?

Yeah, Instagram is my favorite place to be. You can find me at Dr. Dr. Laura Decessorist. Always me in my DMs. Similar to you, I keep the typos in just so people know it's me.

You gotta have typos.

I do it. Yep. But I love just having conversations with people, and I'm really trying to turn that page into. something that people can come and get valuable information and just, just talk about things, because I just think people need more spaces like that.

And I want to shout out too, if you are a practitioner or a health coach and you're wanting a community to learn from each other, bounce ideas, get really great insights at that practitioner level, please reach out to Laura, because what she's creating, what she has, is actually such a huge resource. And like, we need each other, we need community. It's hard— you leave so much on the table when you operate in silos and on your own. So Yeah, you're amazing.

Thank you so much. I might be biased, but best practitioner community on the planet. They're the best. I'm so obsessed with them.

They're so great. Awesome. And that's a wrap for the Biohack Method podcast. If you love conversations like this, don't forget to subscribe because we drop episodes every week, whether it be about mindset transformation, diet, health, all of it, different biohacking tools. And we'll see you on the next one. That's it for today's episode of the Biohack Method. If this lit something up in you, do me a favor favor, share it, tag me @LindseyBurwellWellness, and drop a review. Ready to dive deeper? Head to the show notes for peptides, patches, and programs that are changing the game for high-performing women like you.