S5:E2 - Wolfs Den - Womens Health With Kristine Ottobre

Welcome to the show that punches you in the face with information. Welcome to the Wolf's Den. In today's episode, we have Christine Ottobre, clinical naturopath, and of course, yes, my wife. We are discussing all things women's health, and to join us on the line, we have the Wolfpack crew. So in this podcast, we're going to be talking everything from fitness bunnies to menopause, hormones, PMS, estrogen excess, and so much more. So Let me give you a little bio about Christine. Christine Ottobre is a clinical naturopath. Christine is sought after by top fitness influencers, fitness competitors, and other high-powered women, including CEOs to some of Australia's top brands. Her medical background combined with a deep understanding of biochemical pathways enables Christine to optimize her clients' biochemistry for health and body composition changes. So with that, we've got some great questions from our Wolfpack at the end this call. So stay tuned for that. As always, folks, this podcast is brought to you by Enterprise Fitness, Melbourne's premier personal training studio. Make sure you go check that out. And also, if you are a personal trainer, check out Enterprise Fitness Academy. We have the internship program that is coming up. We're running a few of these this year, being 2021. The next one is in April. So make sure you check that out at enterprisefitnessacademy.com.au. Fitnessacademy.com. Anyway folks, hope you enjoy this podcast.

I'm good, thank you for having me.

Pleasure. I know there's a lot of questions that the Wolfpackers have, uh, and that we want to get straight into. Let's dive straight in and give us a bit of an overview. Can you tell us a little bit about how you practice? Because I know like with naturopaths, there's a lot of different types of naturopaths, like, as you know, the industry is quite broad and people practice differently. So can you just tell us about how you practice?

Yeah, sure. So I started off with a nursing degree, worked in nursing for about 7 years in a variety of different areas. So I, I still use my background medical knowledge and combined with my naturopathy I use integrative practice, so use diagnostic testing, blood tests. I have a good network of referrals that I send clients to when it's outside of my scope of practice or they need testing that I can't do. So that's very useful. And I guess the main, the main reason that we do this is to find underlying causes to why the client's experiencing their symptoms. So my goal for the client is to really get to the root cause of the issue and then fix that so they have a sustainable result.

Right, right. Would you say you practice differently to say other naturopaths in the industry?

Well, I mean, so functional medicine is definitely getting a lot more common these days and is more acceptable and people are really jumping on wanting to use the functional testing a lot more. And then you do also get your very old-school naturopaths as well, which probably prefer not to use testing and they do a lot of guesswork. So I think it's probably, yeah, I'm probably a lot more science-driven than naturopaths, but I don't want to say that no other naturopaths practice like me either.

Well, if you had kind of two spectrums, one being science and just FYI, I am muting you as I talk because there is a little bit of feedback on your end. So, so if I get it, is it like a spectrum of really clinical naturopaths, which is what you are, versus the other type which don't rely so much on testing? And you say that's the old school?

Yes, correct.

Can you elaborate on that, what you mean by old school?

Old school, so I guess they, well, just as an example, I think I mentioned something like this at the last internship. I had a client that came to me and said that she had the testing done, so she did get some functional testing done on her microbiome, came back with leaky gut, low beneficial bacteria, and the treatment from her naturopath was to go and have a bath with her husband after he finished work to get all the, the bacteria from him into her system. So, I mean, there's no research behind that. How is she going to measure the effectiveness of that? And even if it works at all. So that's kind of just an example. She might use the testing, but then as far as the treatment goes, it's not really founded or has any clinical research behind it.

So this is where I suppose in some regard these kind of practices give naturopaths probably maybe at large who practice like you, which is much more clinical, scientific-based, kind of, I'm not going to say give a bad name, but miscommunicate what a naturopath who is based in research and clinical science, what they actually do. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely, yes.

Yeah.

So what, what type of clients do you see?

I see a wide range of clients, but because I specialize in the fitness industry, I do get a lot of clients that come to me with weight loss issues. But then with the weight loss issues come all the underlying factors that is causing them to not be able to lose weight. So the main things I see is probably hormones, a lot of gut imbalances, and stress. Those would probably be my 3 main ones that I see.

So you spoke before about lab testing and you use a variety of labs. I think one of the main kind of go-tos initially when you're working with a client is blood, bloodwork. So what, what, why do you look at bloodwork? What does it tell you? Why do you look at this as kind of— and correct me if I'm wrong, but is this a first point of call? And if it is a first point of call, why?

Well, so yeah, so I always start off with a comprehensive health history for my clients. So they come in or I see them online and I go through a range of questions that may not be specific to what they're presenting with, but it gives me a very full picture of what's happening with them. So I always start with getting medical history, health history, and then covering symptoms from head to toe on mental function, emotional, how their gut is, what their cycle's like. And there's quite a lot of specificity in each of the symptoms that— so each of the body symptoms that I ask as well. So, you know, stool— so gut function could be regularity of stool, and then the scale of that on the Bristol chart. What's it like when they have their cycle? So yeah, it gets very specific, so I get a very broad picture of what's happening and specific picture as well. And then from there, I can definitely target what blood tests they'll need to have done. So I get all the basic blood tests done, so your full blood count, iron, and then there's also specific ones that they need doing that I'll suggest for them based on what their history has presented with.

So what, what, what does blood work like— it kind of sounds like that's the initial starting point of testing. What does that enable you to do? What does it tell you about the client?

So, so that gives me a baseline for them. So it tells me what they initially need to start working on. And then I can also reassess them based on their progress from doing the blood work. So a comprehensive bloodwork panel will give me information on, so how are they, if they have a B6, B12 deficiency, are they absorbing their foods, do they have a gut microbiome imbalance, how is their immune system functioning, hormones, thyroid, and then how it all plays into each other as well. So our body functions holistically. Each system affects each other, so, and you can see how that happens with your bloods as well.

So it seems like you take an initial history and then from the initial history you get the blood work. The blood work kind of tells you a lot about a lot of things. It's kind of an overview. I know that once you said to me that I was eating too much protein based off my bloods. I imagine there's a few things like, can you elaborate on those kind of nuanced things that you see on blood work?

Yeah, absolutely. So, so you can see if someone's having too much protein and they're not actually absorbing it, so it might not be that needful for them. If they've got inflammation going on, if they've got allergies based off what their white blood cells are telling us, maybe they're taking B vitamins but they don't really need them or they're not absorbing them. So different markers will be elevated when that occurs. Maybe someone's taking testosterone and their liver function's up, so they need a little bit of support. So it can definitely tell me what else needs supporting in the body as well.

You can tell if someone's a vegan just by reading their blood, right?

Uh, well, if they're not supplementing appropriately or their diet is, is, um, causing deficiencies, then yes.

Yeah, there's patterns that you recognize. So then tell me, a lot of people, one of the things that I suppose I run into and we run into a bit, um, is that, you know, people go out and get their blood work and they, you know, the doctor says there's nothing wrong with you, you know, there's nothing diagnosed, that it's all fine. But the way you look at bloods versus— can you talk about the way you look at bloods versus the way, you know, someone just getting a blood from their GP looks at bloods?

Yeah, so, so I look at them in optimal reference ranges. So I have a lot broader reference range that I use. So an acceptable thyroid these days would be 0.5 to 5, whereas for me it's 1 to 2. And that's your TSH. And I definitely want to see the free T4, free T3, plus the antibodies. I got a really great blood test result back the other day which very clearly showed to me why I like all those panels done. So this client came to me, she just couldn't lose any weight, desperately trying absolutely everything. She had a really good period where she lost 20 kilos initially, and then all of a sudden her weight started to rebound, and no matter what she tried, nothing was working. So she has a medical background, and she really fought me on getting all those panels done, 'cause she had to pay out of pocket, because Medicare doesn't cover them. But then once I got the results, her TSH, free T4, and free T3 were perfect, but then her antibodies were absolutely skyrocketed, so she had full-blown Hashimoto's, and unless, I did all those panels, I wouldn't have been able to see that at all. So there's all this misdiagnosis that is going on out in the community and people, you know, probably have chronic disease going on and they're going to their GP feeling horrible, but the GPs keep telling them nothing's coming back, but it's just because they're not getting all their panels tested. So it's a pretty sad story, I think.

So it's always a bit like, you know, we've got a car and we wanted to see if the car is filled with, you know, enough petrol, except, you know, we're kind of checking the radiator fluid to see if it's got enough petrol. Is that kind of akin to what's going on with these tests?

Um, I guess so. I'm not really a car person, but yeah, checking the wrong measures. We're checking the wrong things to see, uh, Yeah, not, not, not, not being willing to do enough of the diagnostic panels that need assessment. And I'm still trying to figure out why that is, because especially with COVID there's been so much more pushback than ever before. But I think it's a lack of resources. From, from Medicare, from the government that are telling the GPs not to do this testing. That's, that's all I can kind of take it back to.

Right, so if I kind of summarize, you start with the initial health questionnaire, which is kind of very comprehensive, then you go into looking at bloods. From the bloods, that kind of gives you a very big picture, but also the way you look at bloods is in functional testing norms, not diagnostic norms, which is what your GPs— and you gave the example there of the thyroid her thyroid, her TSH was fine. It was in that range of 0.5 to 5, which is extremely broad. Your range is 1 to 2. But even then you asked for the other panels. All the other panels came back fine, but she had the antibody panel super elevated, which then indicated a full-blown Hashimoto's. And this is kind of looking underneath the hood, so to speak, and really doing your due diligence. So I know there's other tests that you use, which I'm quite interested in, from genetic testing, food sensitivity testing. Organic acid testing. Can you talk about— I know each one of those tests that I've just mentioned are probably full podcasts in and of themselves, but for the guys on the call, for the podcast listeners at Enterprise, can you give kind of an overview as to when you're going to use, just kind of a brief summary of maybe the most common tests that you would use in practice?

Yeah, sure. So there's so much testing available to us now, which is absolutely great. So again, it really depends on what has come back with the client's history and the assessment that I do. So for instance, the main ones that I see is gut. That's what I do a lot of gut testing with because it's very important to get their treatment right with what they present back with. So if someone comes to me with bloating, unable to lose weight, and irritable bowel, so the easiest way to find out what's going on with them is to do a a microbiome test, so that's a stool test, and it measures digestive functions. So it will tell me if they've got— the pancreas are working to stimulate digestive enzymes to break down their foods, if they've got enough gastric acid to be able to absorb things like B12, B6, magnesium, zinc. It will tell me what the mucous membrane, what the integrity of the mucous membrane is. So that has a lot of antibodies on it, and that helps us to have a good defense around toxins and parasites. So if that's compromised, then they're more susceptible to getting bacteria. And test them against all the parasites, pathogenic bacteria, as well as viruses, as well as Candida and Helicobacter. So it's very comprehensive. So it will tell me if there's anything that we need to eliminate. And then if there is leaky gut there and if we have to do a repair, and also if we need to replenish with beneficial bacteria as well. So I guess with someone having a compromised gut, they always tend to have food intolerances of foods that are just not agreeing with them, probably due to an increase in histamine response because they have that inflammation overload. So it depends really on what the client is willing to spend, whether we do food testing as well. Or whether we do more of a food elimination diet too. Because all these functional tests, because they're not covered by Medicare, they can be very costly. So I always try to work with the client on what is, yeah, with what works for them as well. So affordability and sustainability too. So, and trying to get them the best specific answers as possible. So if they are willing to do a food sensitivity test, then we go ahead and do that, and that will come back depending on what grade of test it is, depends on how many foods that are tested. So I usually don't go for less than 90 foods just to give them a wide variety of, you know, what they can have in their diet, and that can test for coffee, different types of dairy, proteins, so beef, chicken, eggs, and then vegetables, legumes, so a lot of the different food groups. Yeah, and that, that gives us a lot of answers as well. So they'll have to abstain for those while we do their— and then usually we start to do a slow inclusion after we after we finish getting rid of the bacteria, start on the gut healing process, and then we can do a slow inclusion of those foods again. Because just because they're intolerant to them doesn't mean that they'll be allergic to them forever. It's not an allergy, it's an intolerance. So that histamine response should calm down once we start healing the gut.

So what you're talking on there is specifically food sensitivity tests combined with the stool test. That's how you kind of ascertain someone's gut function. Is that correct?

Correct, yeah.

And would you say that's your most common test? Did I miss that? That's kind of the next point of call after bloods?

Yeah, I'd say so, yes, for as far as gut goes, yeah.

Yeah, and we'll just talk about two others that I suppose are quite interesting. I think that's the organic acid test and genetic testing. I mean, genetic testing is kind of one of those things that it gets talked about a lot. I know those two are two separate tests, but you know, I would just kind of touch on, you don't have to go super in-depth with those two, but when would you use organic acid test? Do you use a genetic test in your practice and where do you see that?

Yeah, so I'll use you as an example. So Mark was having very poor recovery with his training. He'd come back home from training sometimes just have to sit on the floor and just didn't feel very well even though he had a post-workout meal. And sometimes even the carbohydrates he was having, they just didn't really seem to be utilized or they weren't helping him in recovery. Is that correct? You just felt pretty tired?

Yeah, there was a phase there where—

All the time? Post-training?

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's kind of typically what I use an organic acid test for is for energy systems for sports and athletes. So poor recovery, constant fatigue, and it also measures neurotransmitters as well. So if someone has an underlying medical history of ADHD or depression, you can see what's going on with the serotonin and with their adrenaline. As well, if they have poor sleep, and it also gives you metabolites of if they have dysbiosis there as well. So that's a good way of assessing energy systems and if they have a dysbiosis and also environmental toxicity. It has a panel whether they're having troubles eliminating pollutants in their body. So that's the organic acid test. And the genetic test, yes, so the genetic test is good because it helps you get very specific with supplementation in what your genetic makeup is actually lacking. For someone, usually the genetic tests clients want to do them that are already feeling really good, but they just want to know what their body needs to supplement with. And also if they have maybe a family history of things like heart disease or dementia, so it's in their genome that they already have these genetic deficiencies, they want to know what supplements they can do to change their genetic makeup. So that's very much more in line with increase in optimal health. So if they don't really have any specific health symptoms, but they want to know how they can support their, their health further.

Awesome. Before we move on into some of the female-specific questions, what we'll do is our obligatory— we always do a photo midway through these conversations. Everyone chuck their webcam on. We're We're live at Wolfpack consulting call. We've got students, we've got Francois in Canada, we've got George in Sydney, Hwas in Melbourne, Raquel's in Melbourne, Millie in Sydney, Gordon Melbourne, Nikki down in Melbourne as well. Guys, give us a flex. Let's get that photo. Let's get it on the gram. 3, 2, 1. Is Nikki joining us? And flex. Boom. Alrighty, folks, make sure you check out our Instagram, Enterprise Fitness AU, and also check out my Instagram, Mark Ottobre. We've Christina Tovrea. Yes, that is my lovely wife on the call today talking all things naturopath, female health. We're going to get straight back into specific female questions and then we're going to open up the lines to our Wolfpackers so they can ask their questions, which are always super, super smart and on point. So the next question is, what's the biggest problem with female health? Slash— I know this is a broad question— what do you most commonly see when females come into the clinic and presenting?

Most commonly seen is probably females stressing about their weight, can't get lean enough, even though they're trying to do everything right. That is probably most commonly what I see.

What, what, what would you attribute that to? So that's what you've said. It's interesting. It's an interesting answer because on one hand it's like, is this more of a problem of, is it actually a health problem or is it a perspective problem on their own health?

Hmm. Yeah, that's very good. And again, it all comes back to what do they want and what their personal goals are as well as their lifestyle, because to one, it can seem that they look absolutely perfect, but they're still— to the client that's come to me, they're still not reaching what they want for themselves. And that's not really up to me to decide. It's up to the client. So underlying factors for that, again, depends on if they're a fitness model, a comp prep client, of course they're always going to have very high-end goals, and I definitely always state to them the healthy way, or if you go a little bit more to the, you know, a little bit more higher end, then you could be compromising your health as well. So it is my duty of care to tell them that too, and I think it's very important. But I always try to make sure that we're covering all aspects of their health, so especially fitness model clients, making sure their hormones are supported as well as their stress response is very important and their gut health as well because a lot of times with them not having much diversity in their foods or placing their bodies under a lot of stress, that definitely targets the microbiome to be more susceptible for picking up bacteria or compromising their gut integrity.

Right. So basically, in summary, you're looking at where does the client want to be? And because you work with, I suppose, fairly ambitious women who, who, you know, maybe already have a fairly good degree of health, because one of my next questions was, you know, how do you work with fitness models? So you're working with people who are already into their health and fitness and probably in many ways, you know, ahead health-wise, but they're still not where they want to be. So it's really about— and I hate to use this term, but I will— biohacking their biology so that they can achieve their goals and optimize rather than just kind of stay at that lukewarm level. You really help people go to that, that, you know, superhuman level.

Yes, correct.

Cool, cool. So I think a lot of women hear about I think a lot of women hear about gut health, thyroid, and hormones. It seems like these three things almost are marketed to women on the daily. You know, it's either your thyroid, it's either your gut health, or it's your hormones as the reason for, you know, your lack of results. I know, again, these three issues could be three separate podcasts, but, you know, how much truth is that to those kind of marketing claims, I suppose, or, you know, is this, is this the 3 things that really affect women? Like, what's been your experience in those areas?

Well, I actually think that a lot of, like, the umbrella of all of these things is actually your adrenal health because your hypothalamic-pituitary axis governs your thyroid, governs your hormones. And then too much stimulation of it as well affects your gut because stress increases inflammatory pathways, increases histamine. So really, I think adrenal health is like supporting your adrenal health as a baseline is definitely very important.

Right. Are you, are you unique in, I suppose, putting that hypothesis out there? Forward, or is that a generally kind of like— because it's kind of one of the first times really that this gets touched on. It's like actually the adrenal health is maybe more of a primary concern than these other things. Is this something that's not known in industry, or is this quite common?

I think, I think if you know how the body functions and what actually keeps our body in homeostasis, and regulates our feedback mechanisms. If you have a good understanding of the body, then I think you'd support that theory as well.

Right. How do you work with fitness models?

How do I work with fitness models? So again, very much the same how I work with all my clients. So I start with—

So let me rephrase the question. How, how do you— when I say how do you work with fitness models, um, how do you work with them to achieve their goals? Like, I know that a lot of people listen to this show, and a lot of the guys on the call right now, they work with high-level clients. How do you work with them to optimize, um, you know, the physique, which ultimately I think most of them are coming to you for?

Um, so I work with them on finding the missing link as to why they're not able to achieve that extra 10 or 20%. So, and that is very different for everybody. So, and sometimes they come to me with actually a lot of contributing causes. So it could be their gut health, they'll have, you know, a parasite, they'll have Candida, and they'll have a hormone imbalance, and they might have thyroid or Hashimoto's that's surfacing at the same time. And the tricky part about that is, is someone that comes to me like that, well, it is going to take a little bit of a long time to get them to where they're gonna want to go. And first of all, you always start with the gut. So when treating anyone, it comes back to gut because that's the absorption and assimilation pathway for what your body is going to be fed, and they'll be able to absorb absorb and use the treatment that you're giving them when their gut's working well too. And our gut also affects how we digest and eliminate toxins, metabolize our hormones. So it's very important to make sure that's all functioning correctly.

So just, I just want to recap on something. So previously you said it's all, you're kind of one of your biggest focuses to start someone's plan is adrenal health. But now you're saying that you actually gut, you always start at gut. Can you explain how, how like they kind of seem like Is it adrenal or is it gut that you start with?

Yeah, good question. So I do start with the gut first, but in fixing the gut, it, um, in fixing the gut, it actually helps to fix the adrenals as well at the same time. So, um, there's, so again, it, Depends on what's happening with the gut. So if there's a parasite there, there's the Chinese medicine theory that if you give them adaptogenics, so adrenal, they're adrenal herbs that help to fix your feedback mechanism for how cortisol is produced. So they say if you give them adaptogenics before you get rid of the parasite, then the parasite or whatever is living in your gut is gonna help them to adapt to your own microbiome. So you have to get rid of what is causing harm to the body first, and then that will help the stress response go down.

Right. So, so there are, I suppose, because there are some cases where from what I understand you're saying is treatment plans, if there is an underlying issue with the gut, you always start with the gut. However, from a broad perspective of how to optimize someone's health, adrenal— getting someone's adrenal function to optimize is kind of an easier path if there's— under the understanding there's nothing underlying in the gut. Is that a fair statement?

Yeah. Yes.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Well, I think it's time to open up the lines to the Wolfpackers. Folks, do not be shy. Christine is here. She's been waiting. To drop knowledge bombs on all y'all. So, I mean, I'm happy to start at the top. François, if you've got questions, just chuck them in the chat. I'm going to get you on the line. Let's go to François. François. Hey, Christine.

Hey, Mark. Got a couple of questions about PMS. Obviously not for me, so asking for somebody else about bloating during PMS and also mood swings. What what would you recommend to help with those things?

Yeah, so the, um, so the bloating actually comes from an increase in prostaglandin around that time of the month, just from a fluctuation in hormones. Um, and prostaglandins increase the inflammatory pathway in the body, so that's why they get a lot of this bloating. Um, and always the best way to support that is by supporting the liver, so making sure they have regular stools, they're not constipated, Adding enough fiber to their diet, making sure they're having greens, seeds, and then to support elimination using products like calcium d-glucarate, DIM, MTHF if they need that support, B vitamins, and magnesium. So baseline magnesium would be 600 milligrams, so you can definitely increase that, um, by 25%, but as long as they're not getting diarrhea from the increase in magnesium. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, I think so. Would glycine help as well?

Yeah, yep, yep, so glycine will help the phases of the liver, so definitely help with that phase too.

So then would you recommend using those supplements, let's say, just during the PMS?

I would recommend using them until they stop having those symptoms leading up to their cycle. So you should start to see a difference in about 2 months' time. I always say probably 3 months for a treatment protocol like that, and then get them to trial going off it and see how they go.

Okay, and what about mood swings?

Mood swings, well, that should stabilize as their PMS stabilizes. As well.

Okay, so take care of the bloating, we'll take care of the mood swings eventually.

Yeah, easy.

Thank you.

Next question. You said you had a couple, Francois. Is there a couple there that you had?

Yeah, bloating and mood swings. She covered that in one answer.

Covered, covered, easy. All right, thanks, Francois, for joining us. Uh, all right. You want to go ahead, I'll unmute you.

Hi, Christine. I've got just a couple. The first one is with my clients, if they have the contraceptive rod, when they put it in and when they take it out, what do I expect from them, like energy-wise or weight? Is there anything that I should be looking out for?

That's a good question. I think, so they'll start to get a normal cycle back And when they put it out or take it out? Well, when they take it out. So usually when they put it in, they lose their cycle, except they might get a bit of breakthrough bleeding. And it affects everyone differently. So when they take it out, I guess it's probably helping— you'd need to help them start to metabolize the artificial hormones that they've had because they haven't had a normal period or producing their own natural hormones because that's been being blocked by the synthetic progesterone that they're secreting through their contraception. So probably liver support. So stabilizing hormones always comes down to liver support and supporting how your body is metabolizing your hormones and the fluctuations that the body goes through. So again, making sure they go to the toilet and then using support agents to help metabolize hormones and rebalance again. And then there is things, so if they, like if they don't get their cycle back after contraception, and you see that a lot through girls taking the oral contraceptive, so it takes them a while to get their cycle back again, you can use herbs like chaste tree, or it's also called Vitex, and that's a natural form of progesterone. And it also helps to support the hypothalamic-pituitary axis as well, which helps to secrete the progesterone production. Cool.

Okay, thank you. And the other question I had was, so another client who's vegan and has lost her period, obviously her body's quite unhealthy. She's getting back to kind of regular eating, 'cause she used to have a lot of eating disorders, but anything that I could do to help her kind of just get her period back, really?

So making sure she has enough calories in her diet. And with her, it'd probably be starting with making sure she has all the baseline nutrients, so magnesium, B vitamins. So really feeding her body with nutritious foods as well as supplements, vitamin D, and then Probably, I mean, it really depends why she's not getting her cycle. So she's not getting her cycle because she was vegan, or was she under eating, or—

Under eating, under eating, undernourished.

So that would probably be more adrenal support then, so giving her adaptogenic herbs as well as B vitamins, and then chaste tree can help bring back the cycle too.

Yeah, cool. Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, any other questions? Wow, that covers all yours.

No, I'm good, thank you.

You're good. All right, awesome. All righty, uh, Nikki, Millie, Raquel, George, if you have any questions. George looks like he's frozen on me. Uh, I'm not sure if he's frozen. Millie, have you got any questions? Yes, she's giving me a head nod, so let's get her on the line. Just go, yep, there we are. Shoot.

Hello.

Hello, Millie. Welcome to the call. What's your question?

You can hear me. Okay, Christine, I have a few, and my questions are very long-winded, so I'll try and keep them specific. The first one would be how to tell if my client's hormones are affecting their weight loss. So I have a few clients who are a bit up and down with their diet, but I've been training two girls for quite some time now and their weight has stayed, like, within a fluctuation of 1 to 2 kilos. So are there any indicators that I can look for that it's a hormone issue?

So I guess you have to ask the question then, what are their cycles like? Do they have regular 28 to 30 day cycles? Do they get any spotting between their cycles? Do they have a lot of PMS? If they have a lot of cravings that's making them not compliant to their diet, then making sure they are having enough carbohydrates so they don't get those cravings and they're not lacking in calories, and then sometimes even bumping up the carbohydrates to their cycle, so they're not eating foods that are too outside of their food plan. And then when they do get their cycle, I guess, you know, what is it like? Do they get migraines? Is it really heavy bleeding? Is there intense pain? So you'd have to really quiz them about their cycle to be able to assess their hormones.

That is awesome. Awesome. One of the clients, um, she's 34, she's had a hysterectomy already, um, because she had horrible endometriosis and she has PCOS. Um, I've recommended that she sees, um, a dietitian and she's gonna see a naturopath. Um, but she's obviously hard to figure out with hormones because she doesn't get that regular cycle.

She's on what? Sorry.

Sorry, I keep getting muted. I'm not—

I mute you guys just so the recording is nice and because there's a bit of feedback if I don't mute the, um, so it's like basically one person speaking at a time just to make sure like the audio when we play it back it's nice and crisp. So after you finish asking your question, you can just mute yourself or when you want to talk, go ahead. Go ahead and unmute yourself. But yeah, go, go. Beautiful.

Okay, yeah, so she's been training with me for ages, so she's had the hysterectomy. She gets a really swollen belly, um, and I can sort of see with her training pattern she still has a week where she's quite weak with her legs. So I think she's still getting affected by like the cycle, um, but her weight just like will not but so what do you think about that?

Has she had a partial hysterectomy or a full hysterectomy? Like, does she still have her uterus? Okay. So, um, so I guess doing some bloods and seeing what's going on with her hormones. Um, so her estrogen, progesterone, um, her testosterone as well. Uh, so you just have to see the underlying factors. It's a very— I'd probably say definitely yes, that her hormones are influencing her weight because usually when you have a full hysterectomy, you'd be menopausal. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Perfect, let me just have a look at my notes. Um, yeah, that was pretty much everything.

Cool, awesome. Thanks for joining the call. Great questions, Millie. Uh, Raquel, I see that you're ready to, um, shoot and fire some questions. Hello. Hello.

Hi, Raquel.

How are you going?

Good, how are you? I'm great.

I'm so good. It's so good to see you.

Let's get into the questions.

Um, so I've had a couple clients ask me about colonics and like getting the rectum with water and stuff like that. Can you please talk to me about that and your opinion on it?

Yeah, sure. So I actually had a client this morning, um, she went and got a colonic because she was feeling super uncomfortable, um, and she doesn't usually get constipated, but then for 7 days all of a sudden she got constipated, so she just had to go and do it and she was feeling a lot of relief and so much better. So great, in that case it's good, but if you have someone that's experiencing chronic constipation and the only relief that they're getting is from having a colonic, then I don't support that because you're not fixing the underlying issue. And again, once you, when you have that total clean out as well, you are getting rid of the feces, as well as the beneficial bacteria, and then they do give you probiotics and things to inoculate you again, but it's still not as good as your own microbiome. So I don't support it as something ongoing, but if someone wanted to do it every now and then, then sure, that's fine. But it's always about fixing the underlying cause. Cause, like, what's, what's causing them that, that they need to do that? Like, why do they feel they have to go to something so extreme?

That's what I was thinking, because I know one of my clients has come to see you, and I can't wait for her blood test to come through so you can help, because she's got one, and I'm worried that it's just going to keep happening. It's going to be one of those things where she keeps wanting to go back, and I'm just like, oh, I don't— in my back of my mind, I'm thinking the same as you. Like it's not healthy to always have that happening. Okay, well, hopefully that helps a little bit.

PCOS—

I had a question about PCOS. I don't know where I was going with that though. Oh yes, so sometimes I have clients who have PCOS, they don't know the type of PCOS they have. They'll know if they've got the androgen dominant one because they'll have the facial hair, but they won't know if they've got the insulin-resistant one, or what's the other one, the stress-dominant one. There's another one too, um, or like the inflammation dominant, the stress dominance, or insulin. Obviously if they're overweight, you can kind of assume that it might be insulin resistance, but if they're— the person that they're seeing, the specialist, is not— doesn't even tell them what they have, how do they get tested? Or even if they go and I ask them, can you go ask your doctor what type of of PCOS you have, they won't even tell them, they don't even know.

What do you do? Yeah, sometimes they don't know. So to get the full workup for PCOS, you need to get your hormones tested, so your FSH, LH, and then all your androgenic hormones as well, so growth hormone, androgens, testosterone, and then you go to get your ultrasound to see if you have extra follicles on your ovaries as well. So some people can have the syndrome where they have the hormone imbalance in their bloods, but then they only have a few extra follicles, or you can have someone that has all the extra follicles, but their bloods are actually okay. So these days, I think they, they only diagnose— they can put a diagnosis if they have just the follicles as well, and that is mainly caused from androgen and insulin.

Okay, androgen and insulin.

And always with PCOS, you're working on inflammation and adrenals. And then I guess things that are affected by that is always your glucose uptake, insulin. So the treatment's gonna be the same regardless.

Yeah, okay, okay. That makes me a bit more confident then. And period pain and gut issues. So I've kind of, I don't know if this is a thing, but A lot of people who have gut issues also have very crazy period pain. By healing someone's gut, do you also think that will heal their period symptoms?

By healing what?

Sorry.

By healing someone, or like, you know, reducing some of their gut issues, will that also reduce some of the period symptoms?

Yeah, because your gut, um, so your digestive system, which is your gut, the liver is involved with that as well. So all our hormones have CYP450 enzymes on them, which is metabolized by your liver, and beta-glucuronidase, which is your phase 2 pathway in the liver, that helps to excrete a lot of the estrogens. So that's why our liver is so involved with metabolizing our hormones. Because they're broken down and metabolized by liver pathways. And when we have a— so when we do get our period, about a week before that, I was talking to Frank here, Francois, sorry. He asked the same question about PMS and his client gets a lot of pain. We get this increase in prostaglandins from the increase in progesterone. And prostaglandins is a part of the inflammatory pathway. So that's why as a woman, even if you don't have an increase of estrogen, we always get that little bit of bloating and pain because we have an increase in our inflammation pathway. But definitely, and to calm that down would be by supporting the liver and making sure they're not having, like, they don't have any underlying bacteria or a compromised gut.

All right, and if the person doesn't have a gallbladder, how does that affect how the liver works for that detoxification pathway, if at all?

Yeah, so, um, usually they'll need to supplement with lipase, um, and have lower fat because the body won't be— the body won't be able to to handle a lot of fats.

Okay, that's interesting.

Cool.

Would you say that person would be supplementing with lipase long-term, forever?

I would say always, yeah. Okay. Because they don't have that organ to— so the gallbladder helps us to emulsify and break down fats, creates bile acids, and probably also digestive enzymes as well for them, because the gallbladder's predominant use is to, like, it helps to break down our foods ready for the liver to either, you know, excrete, metabolize, and get rid of.

And lower fat, how low would you go?

Just tolerance, because if they're not able to, so if they have lipase and they feel okay, Like, how does the client feel when they have fats?

Ah, okay.

So kind of just gauge what the client feels like. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And, um, like deep fried foods, of course, is usually out. Um, no go.

Yeah.

Okay, excellent.

Thanks for the, uh, questions, Raquel. Um, it's great to have you on the line. Awesome. There's a lot of really good ones there. Georgie, did you have any questions? Yeah, I did. I just wanted to ask, do you have any like main tips for optimizing gut health since it is such a big factor?

Yeah, sure. So I'm looking at the client's symptoms, if they get any bloating around certain foods that they're having, in particular carbohydrates. So if they have trouble digesting their carbohydrates, then sometimes that's a good signal that they might be having some sort of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or they need to rotate their foods maybe a little bit more. Definitely making sure that they're going to the toilet every day, so that's like a staple question, and it's amazing how many clients come back with sometimes, most of the times, but they should really be going every single day. And then the regularity of stools, so you don't want them to be too constipated, and then loose stools also is an indication of, um, could be hormones or could be a parasite there. So just really assessing them on how their gut is functioning. And probiotics, always a good staple one as well, so it helps to increase the beneficial bacteria. I always rotate my probiotics to make sure they get a good diversity. And I guess, you know, if you did think that they have some bacteria there, then oregano oil is a really good one to supplement with, and it's very safe as well. Does that answer your question, George?

I was just putting George back on the line. Yeah, that does answer it. No, that's That pretty much answers the question. Yeah, I just wanted to know if there's any like foods you'd be promoting for them to go to to keep in their diet and yeah, and supplementation that really helps. You also mentioned leaky gut earlier. I was just wondering how you actually test for leaky gut and what the actual method of repairing that is.

Mm-hmm, yeah, so leaky gut, you see an enzyme called zonulin increased in the gut test and you see a compromised secretory IgA, which is the coating on your gastrointestinal membrane, and that contains a lot of antibodies that are needful to fight against pathogens. And it can actually show in your stool test if that integrity is compromised, and it will show the increase in zonulin. So with the leaky gut, your tight junctions in your gut are separated, and that allows for foods and proteins in your gut to go into your bloodstream and then vice versa. So very, it's an underlying cause for autoimmune disease, so yes, it does need to be treated. So the first point of call is to address what is actually causing the leaky gut. So is it stress? Is it food intolerances? Or do they have any pathogenic bacteria? So you first have to remove the harm and then replenish your gut with beneficial bacteria, anti-inflammatory agents. Like licorice, slippery elm, aloe vera, and zinc carnosine as well is very good too.

Go ahead, unmute yourself, George. Yeah, no, that's awesome.

Yeah, that helps a lot.

Thank you. Was there a follow-up, George, or is that all your questions for today? No, no, that's really good. I'll look into that a bit more as well. Thank you. Excellent, excellent. All right, last but not least, Nikki. Let's get you on the line. Nikki's got a question. Let's get Nikki on the line. That'll be the final question for today's show. Oh, Nikki, sorry, there you are. All right, Nikki, go ahead, shoot your question over.

Okay, so a few questions. First, iron levels. So particularly for women during their periods and if they are a vegan, or they don't— they have meat but unable to absorb the iron. So in what are they— what can they do?

So why are they not absorbing the iron, for starters? So do they have like thalassemia or an underlying genetic disorder?

Not thalassemia, what's the other one? Anemia?

Anemia, yeah. So to help you absorb your iron, it's very good to have vitamin C and B vitamins, so B12, B6, and vitamin C all help you to absorb your iron. Iron. So if you have those supplements around the time that you're consuming your highest iron foods such as red meat or even spinach, greens, that's very helpful. And then making sure that there's again no underlying bacteria for them that's going to inhibit the absorption, and then supplementing with iron that is iron is really easily absorbed too and is not painful on their gut. So a lot of times clients get constipated from taking iron because they can't break it down. So there's different sources of iron that you can use that are better digested.

What kind of iron is that?

That are better digested? It's called— let me just look it up. It's a—

One caveat I just wanted to put on this though, make sure you're not, you know, people listening to this on the call, make sure you're just not like willy-nilly taking iron. Yeah, because iron is not usually something that you need to supplement with unless you've had, you know, worked up results, say like Christine, who's advising you. So I just wanted to put that in there as a disclaimer, health disclaimer. Disclaimer, if you're listening to this, iron usually is not something that you want to be taking willy-nilly. You want to make sure you have proper bloods and you have a practitioner like Christine who's looking after that and advising. But we can put it in the show notes, Christine, just to keep this as podcast.

Okay. Yeah, sure. Yeah, okay, on the tip of my tongue because it's like glyco-something, but yeah, it's a funny word. So yeah, what's the next question, Nicky? No worries.

So just on the iron as well, so if iron levels are okay but then the hemoglobin is low, is there, like, can that be an issue or? How does that affect it?

If the iron is fine but the hemoglobin is low, it means that the iron is not being— it's not being uptaken through the red blood cells. So there'd still be a need. Yeah, okay.

And then adrenal health, so what kind of things support it?

Adrenal health. So I guess first making sure like just the basic needs are made, so they're sleeping 8 hours a night and it's a good constant sleep, not waking through the night, and they're getting rid of all the other stressors in their lives. So start with those basics as well. And then adaptogenic herbs are probably the best way to treat adrenals. As well as B vitamins as well, because that feeds back to your energy cycle. And it's also the first thing that's depleted. So when someone's stressed, your B vitamins and magnesium are the first nutrients to go.

You can go ahead and unmute.

Yep.

Okay. Thanks.

One more question. So I've got a client who is constantly bloating, like more so recently, not just around her period. And she's— so when it's the period, sorry, the bloating's bad, she kind of like, she gets that pregnant kind of look. And I do know that she has she used to get tonsillitis a lot, so she used to be on antibiotics, like she has it probably twice a year minimum, like 2 cycles minimum per year. So does that have anything to do with it, or what could be the cause of a constant bloat?

There's a correlation between streptococcus and sore throats, so it's called a strep throat, and then you get streptococcus in your bladder and your gut as well. And the antibiotics that are supposed to treat the streptococcus, they basically wipe out all your beneficial bacteria in your gut. So that causes issues with being able to digest certain carbohydrates and certain foods, as well as leaves you more open for susceptibility to further pathogens and bacteria. And the streptococcus might be there still as well. Which would cause the bloating. So bacteria feeds off carbohydrates and sugar, so if you find that your clients are getting bad skin or bloating when they're having carbohydrates, a lot of times it's because there's actually bacteria there. Okay, thanks, that's all from me. Does that answer your question, Nikki? Yeah, yeah. Probably a lot more to it, but more than we can discuss.

Okay.

Yeah, I suppose just on that note, I just wanted to kind of put a disclaimer, I suppose, on this. A lot of the questions that you guys asked are quite specific. Well done for Christine for fielding all of them in such an excellent way. Really great insights and answers. Into all of these. But yeah, look, for a lot of the questions that you're asking, which is about specific clients, I would certainly encourage you guys to send them to Christine and get Christine to work them up, do their bloods. And because it sounds like a lot of the questions that you're asking— this isn't just for the folks on the call, but for the folks listening to this at home— it's like, you know, things, you know, context versus content. And that's what Christine's very good at, is is putting all of the elements in the right context and lining them up because, you know, Christine might say use oregano oil, but then through someone's blood, she finds another herb that she might use instead, which will give them a better result. So certainly, and this is why when we're talking at the start of the show around clinical lab work that Christine does, there are no guesses. It's She makes decisions based on informed data. So if you are having any tricky clients or you don't know why things— the best thing I would advise is seek the health, seek the advice of Christine. Go do a consult with her, send your clients to a consult. I suppose anything that you want to add on that note, Christine?

No, no, that's— yeah, like I don't— yeah. Very happy to help, but unless I have the full story, I can't ensure anything, of course.

Yeah, yeah. So there were just a couple other questions that we might get to because we just got a little bit of time left. Uh, the first question was, Millie, I used to have chronic period pain, and once I went on a low FODMAP for IBS, my period pain significantly reduced. That was not so much a question. The question was, I had blood test results saying that my lipase enzymes were are low. What do you suggest for this, digestive enzymes, and does that affect weight?

Um, it won't affect weight, it just will help you break down your foods better, and I suggest you do supplement with lipase if they were low, yes.

And the other question from Raquel was, how do you take oregano oil, the taste is so strong?

Well, you're not supposed to chew it. It should be in a capsule form, so you just swallow it. Probably no more than 1 to 2 at a time, and yeah, just swallow it with water. Sometimes it does repeat, but I think the more you take it, the better it does get.

Also, if I could add something on that, I found personally personally that if you get poor quality oregano oil, then it will repeat on you. The Designs for Health oregano oil is very, very high quality and very, very good, and I don't think I've ever had that repeat on me, and I've taken like, you know, 5 at a time kind of stuff. Um, you can put in the fridge, put in the freezer, make sure you have it with food. There's some other tips to minimize the repeat on you. Uh, so Christine, any, any final any other thoughts or things you'd like to share with the folks at Wolfpack or—

Not really, I'm happy to help if you guys want help and any questions that I didn't answer, if you wanted more information, you can definitely email me christine@enterprisefitness.com.au and yeah, thanks for having me on.

Yeah, and where should people connect with you? You're on Instagram?

I'm on Instagram. I'm trying to get better with going on Instagram. It's probably best to email me though, because my social media is lacking. If you do have a question, I always get back to emails. Otherwise, I am on Instagram, Christina Tobry, and on Facebook, Christina Tobry as well.

So, so email is the best place if If you wanna work with Christine, Christine with a K, K-R-I-S-T-I-N-E, at enterprisefitness.com.au. Christine is launching a new website very soon. It will be, oh, you wanna give the details?

Yeah, so I'm rebranding and launching a website. It's called Willixa. W-E-double-L-I-X-A. So targeted around females and female clients, so there'll be blogs, podcasts, and a place to direct your clients if you do need any further help with them as well.

Fantastic. All right, well, thank you, Christine, for your time today. If the folks want to get contact with you, they know where to go. It's been a great call. Thanks to all the Wolfpackers who have joined the line. Yeah, so that's where it's at, female health. A lot of great questions today. Hope you all guys all go get it. Thanks again to Christine for joining us. I know our listeners got a lot out of this. All right guys, until next time we meet, train hard, eat well, and supplement smart.