51. The Metabolism & Hormone Reset Plan for Women 35+ with Dr. Mariza Snyder

So we've been looking at studies and diets and society and practitioners and books and podcasts listening to these protocols that were literally designed for men. The scientific studies were done on men. And here we are as women. How do you guide women to investigating that?

Everything is bio individual. So it's really knowing you. But first thing is to, if you still have a cycle, is to track your cycle. And I think that menstrual cycles are a vital sign. Really, really are the window to what's going on in the whole body. Yeah, it is life. And it's honestly, it's such a big, you know, I think about like overall metabolic health and cellular health. and then number two is to be paying attention to your cues, your symptoms, your signs, what's happening for you and tracking that alongside of your cycle to get a sense of, oh, what's normally I used to always feel amazing in this part of my cycle, but things are shifting or my PMS symptoms were only two days leading up to my period and now they kind of like, they just keep, it keeps going and going to like seven, eight, nine days.

You mentioned something that I heard called bikini medicine, right? So we're living in a world right now where there's finally, okay, we've looked.

At women's bodies all wrong. So bikini medicine medicine is that we are inherently small men, except for when it comes to our reproductive organs and our breasts.

Sometimes the feeling of going to work is like I get to go with my dearest friend. I'm so excited to have you here. Dr. Marissa Snyder, thank you for coming to Rooted Wellness.

I'm just so happy to be here.

Literally when I met you, I was like, where have you been all my life?

Yeah, it was like, you know, divine intervention. Yeah, serendipitous.

Meant to be. Yeah, meant to be. All right. To kick things off, Rooted in Wellness is all about becoming rooted in our very busy and modern world. Let's start off the show by talking about some things that help you feel really rooted in your health, in yourself, in your inner wisdom to heal. What are some practices that you have?

Right out the gate in the morning, I wake up and I do a body scan. I just check in with my body. I start from the head and go all the way down and just check in with my heart. my mind, my presence. And then I do a little meditation to kind of just get grounded with my day. There's a great quote by Louise Hayes that says, How you start your morning is how you live your day, and how you live your day is how you live your life. And so there were years where my morning was chaos, controlled chaos. But then my day was controlled chaos.

Did we normalize controlled chaos too? Like for me, that was like, oh, I'm being productive. This is good. Efficiency. Yeah. Totally.

Your slight edge. Yeah, until it's not, until it wears on your body over time. And so I just, I'm very intentional about attuning to my body. And a question that I love to ask myself every morning is, what would I love? What would I love?

Beautiful.

Other things that I love is, well, what would I love in terms of rooting is cuddles with my son, connecting with my son, that oxytocin boost, but just connection. I just think friendship, family, but particularly he's such a light being, like being with him, Just feels so rooted.

She get her boys together.

Oh, that would be so good.

Yeah, it's funny that connection is the most self-regulating thing that you can possibly do. And now, you know, the joke is that we always wait for science to validate everything, right? But now it's the eight minute hug first thing in the morning. Like, just hold for eight minutes and take a deep breath and like, just notice your physiology shift. So I love asking this question to everyone that comes on because the emphasis is to point out that we're all different. So as much as we're looking for things to help us feel rooted in the exterior world, what to help the listeners feel rooted could be different and unique. So thank you for sharing that. That's beautiful. Love the body scan. Okay. So on the opposite side, here we are. We love being busy, being on the go, being productive. What are some things that cause you to feel uprooted? And I know you as a practitioner, you can probably catch on to the things that were part of your dysregulation in the past. So talk to us about what causes you to feel uprooted.

Particularly for me, or even for what I see is the overdoing. We can overdo health. I remember when I was healing from what felt like chronic fatigue when I was in my early 30s, I felt like I was checking all the boxes. I was doing the yoga. I was eating the anti-inflammatory foods. But it was this checklist. And yet, I was so deregulated in the doing of all the things. And I feel even in a lot of the health practices that we talk about and that we recommend that particularly women who I get to serve is that, well, we overdo extended fasting. We overdo extended workouts. We overdo. And so I think, again, not attuning to our bodies and listening to what our body really needs in the moment that we lose our way in the doing of health that may not be attuned to what our bodies actually need.

I love that. I know you and I, we both talk a lot about in the overdoing, it's the belief that it has to be so complicated. But I think that when you pull back, and I'm sure you've noticed this with your patients, it's often the most simple repeated with consistency over time that bring the most results, right? It's that 20% instead of the 80% sometimes. And I love that you said that too, because when I was at my unhealthiest, I was doing all the right things. Two hours at the gym, Atkins diet, hardcore, busy working out, like everything, but... That sounds so stressful. So stressful. Yeah, and we talked about this on your podcast, your amazing podcast about this concept of dysregulation in the body. And I think that for women and men, but there's this wisdom. And if your body is constantly stuck plugged into this, like, high intensity frequency. It's like this high voltage electricity every single day. How on Earth could your body function at its best, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we can get away with it for only so long.

Exactly.

Yeah. And feels good. Yeah.

For a minute.

For a minute.

When we're younger. I want to take a quick break from today's episode to tell you the truth. Healing is so much more than just food and supplements. It's about Community, connection, and accountability. My name is Mona Sharma, celebrity nutritionist, and that's why I built the rooted community. A space where we can learn, grow, and support each other on this wellness journey. Inside, you'll get access to exclusive content, Q&As, deep dive discussions, and real connections with like-minded people. If you're tired of going at it all alone and want a space where wellness finally makes sense, join today at monasharma.com I think that it would have been very different for both of us if growing up, as much as we were taught as women that busyness, productivity was success, if we were taught how to regulate our system, in between. What a difference.

Or if we were taught that we were worthy just being who we are on this planet. I think I felt like my worthiness was predicated on how much I did, how I showed up for my family, how I was selfless in terms of, you know, taking care of everyone first before myself. But my family only ever celebrated my accolades, not just me being who I am. And that's one thing that I've been so mindful of for my son is just letting him know that he is worthy just being, just being.

Isn't that funny? I say the same things to my kids that I wish I had heard. You are enough just the way that you are. You are special. Never try to change. And do you feel like in this kind of shadow work, are you still unpacking a lot of that today?

Absolutely, absolutely. Every day. I feel like it is my, I always say it's my underlying operating system. And I get to say, well, this is my purpose and this is my mission. Yeah, I feel, I think it's going to be the work that many of us will always get to do.

I love that. And that's actually a really good segue into hormonal shifts. And something that I love that you talk about is it's kind of like the acceptance, like the awakening, moving through perimenopause and menopause, which I'm trying to learn from other people around me, is the ultimate acceptance for like no more BS. This is who you are. It's okay to like let all of your true colors shine. And something that I know is one of your goals is to help women become healers in their own home, according to who they are, in their constitution, and their blueprint, which I think is so special. So let's dive in first by talking a little bit. You mentioned something that I heard called bikini medicine.

Yeah.

Right? So we're living in a world right now where there's finally, okay, we've looked at women's bodies all wrong. We've, you know, we've studied men only, and we've assumed that women needed to go through the same protocols as men. Talk to us a little bit about.

This concept and kind of the awakening that's happening right now. Absolutely. Well, I'm sure you know, we didn't really start mandating research for women until the 1990s. It was like 1993. So, you know, this is like in our lifetime that this has happened. And I actually just had my physical exam a couple of weeks ago or about a month ago. And, you know, your primary doctor, especially for a woman who's 45 like me, they have their checklist and labs are part of that and your vitals are a part of that, but it's very bikini medicine. So I, they want me to do the mammogram, they want me to get the pap smear. right? And so, bikini medicine is that we are inherently small men, except for when it comes to our reproductive organs and our breasts. And that's the only distinction. And so, when you think about kind of the standard of care for perimenopause or even, you know, for a lot of women going into their doctor's office, it's going to be birth control pills to manage a lot of those symptoms. And that's making a very You know, unfair assumption that our hormones, these whole body hormones are only reproductive hormones, and that they just impact our reproductive organs and our breasts. And we know that this is so far from the truth. And so that's basically what Bikini Medicine is. And unfortunately, women have suffered the consequences of what I call lazy medicine.

So we've been looking at studies and diets and society and practitioners and books and podcasts listening to these protocols that were literally designed for men, right? The scientific studies were done on men. And here we are as women, you know, we were talking about this before the show, but I'm doing all the right things. I'm doing the workouts and the cold plunge and the sauna and the reading and the rest and the red light. Why? Like, I just don't feel good in my body. And I love that you're an advocate for helping people understand or women, if you feel like a stranger in your body, then there's room to do a little bit more research. So how do you guide women to investigating that? And I can imagine there's probably patients of yours who have a bit of resistance, like, no, but I'm doing all the right things. No, but my doctor said my labs are totally fine. How do you deal with that resistance?

Yeah. And if we're talking about particularly this transition of perimenopause, which again, is a, you know, on average, eight to 10 year transition. And I saw something recently who said that that's not a transition. That is a career. That's a career. It's a big, it's a big part of our lives. It's one of the biggest hormone transitions and shifts we're going to go through. And so, what, you know, again, everything is bio individual, as you and I talked about. And so cold plunge, especially if you have a deregulated nervous system, it may not be the thing, you know, and so it's really knowing you. But there are three things that I always recommend women to really know your body. First thing is to, if you still have a cycle, is to track your cycle. And I think that menstrual cycles are a vital sign. It really, really are the window to what's going on in the whole body. Literally life force.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it is life for. And it's, honestly, it's such a big, you know, I think about like overall metabolic health and cellular health and when our metabolism is healthy and our cells are healthy, well then we are really ripe for reproductive, you know, health and reproductive health span. But as, you know, as we're winding down in perimenopause, that's what's happening, the second puberty, really paying attention to our menstrual cycle is going to give us a lot of information about our bodies. And then number two is to be paying attention to your cues, your symptoms, your signs, what's happening for you and tracking that alongside of your, your cycle. to get a sense of, oh, what's, you know, I normally I used to always feel amazing in this part of my cycle, but things are shifting or my PMS symptoms were only two days leading up to my period. And now they kind of like, they just keep it keeps going and going to like seven, eight, nine days. And so and then the other thing I think can really help to support and kind of give us some information is knowing our numbers, our biomarkers. And so again, there's something to be said about listening to our deeper intuition, but then also kind of, you know, tracking our kind of health biomarkers over time. to get a sense of what's true for us. So, you know, some lab numbers, normals may not be your normals, but if we don't have a timeline of that information, it can be hard to know. And so I always recommend women, you know, not only understanding their labs, which I get, I know it's not easy. And we, you know, we grew up in a time where the doctors knew all and we really want to, you know, kind of give them that role in our lives. But, you know, an unfortunate truth is that no one's coming to save us, especially us as women. We're talking about mamas, like, I'm saving everybody else, you know? And so I think having that information over time that I can look at daily, monthly, annually can really help set the course of how I'm feeling and how to optimize that.

We'll go back to the biomarkers shortly. Recently, my body was trying to tell me something. My glow was gone, water wasn't cutting it, and I was riding this weird energy roller coaster, sluggish in the morning, crashing by 3 p.m., and totally wired at night. Coffee obviously made things worse, and no amount of skin care was helping to bring the glow back to my skin. Then I found something that actually worked: Peak's Radiant Skin Duo, backed by experts like Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Will Cole, is designed to deeply hydrate, boost energy, and support whole-body wellness from the inside out. And with over 15,000 five-star reviews, I knew I had to try it. You know that I'm obsessed with high-quality ingredients that work, and matcha that isn't filled with harmful additives or any toxins. Peak checks all the boxes: clean, clinically backed, and tested for toxins four times over. No mold, no pesticides, no sugar, just real functional ingredients. Let's talk about this Sun Matcha Goddess. This is next level matcha. It gives me calm, focused energy without the crash. L-theanine for mental clarity, EGCG antioxidants for skin and gut health. This is the kind of energy that supports your body without draining you after. I drink it daily with warm water, sometimes some almond milk, and it seriously replaced my morning coffee ritual. then there's the BT Fountain electrolytes. This one surprised me. I drink tons of water daily, but lately, with a change in season, I'm still feeling depleted. These electrolytes actually help your cells absorb water, and they're loaded with ceramides that hydrate your skin from the inside out. Within a week, my skin looked plumper and more alive. Hydration just hit a little bit differently, and I could see and feel the results of my skin, which I am so here for. It's the kind of support that your body feels and that your skin shows. So if you're over the burnt out, bloating, or dull skin phase, and you want to try something that really nourishes you from the inside out, this is it. Peak goes above and beyond with quadruple toxin screening, meaning every ingredient is tested for heavy metals, pesticides, and mold, so it's delicious quality that you can trust. Go ahead and get 20% off with a free rechargeable frother, no battery and a glass breaker with my link peaklife.com slash Mona 20. That's p I q u e life.com slash M-O-N-A-20 seriously your skin, your cells and your taste buds will thank you. But I feel like a lot of it. So what I'm thinking, like, if I'm putting myself in as a, as your patient, right? I think that in the way that we hear about perimenopausal symptoms, it feels like it should just like oh, here it's happening. This is it, right? But often through our hormones, they're the most subtle messages and cues from our bodies that can often be cumulative. So I'll share my story. I wanna hear yours also, but finding out that I was going through perimenopause actually came through my acupuncturist who I went to see for some shoulder issues. And he's like, oh, we have frozen shoulder. And I was like, oh, no, no, that, that can't be, it's just, it's from working out. I just twisted it the wrong way. It's frozen shoulder. He's like, you know what? I can put you on Chinese herbs. You can come back for all the acupuncture in the world, but this is one area where as a practitioner, I wouldn't be serving you if I didn't tell you that you should have started estrogen a while ago because you're going through perimenopause tears. Like, what do you mean? And I'm sharing this story because I think if there's anyone out there like me, I resisted it. There's no rite of passage when women make these transitions, you know, no longer having children anymore, or like, hey, I'm not going to be pregnant again. Now I'm going through perimenopause. And what I'm seeing out there in the media is the Doom and the Gloom, and it perimenopausal symptoms sounds like, you know, when you watch a drug commercial and at the end of the commercial, the side effects, you're gonna suffer from this hair falling out, moodiness, irritability, loss of sex drive, loss of muscle, you know, just the list goes on and on. So the doom and gloom. So I think what I'm trying to say is in the subtleties of the symptoms that you might be experiencing, maybe just come to terms with the fact that they're not normal. And if you have a doctor like you who hasn't kind of helped you unpack all of that, it's time to find the doctor that will still. And like, I think it's just, it's becoming the wild west too with understanding what to do hormonally and what hormones to take. So what part of your journey kind of put you down into this path? And did you feel served by your medical community at the time also?

Well, what really started me on the journey of perimenopause was watching my mom go through perimenopause. And I always say it was kind of like a nightmare unfolding. My mom really struggled. She had the all the side effects, especially towards late perimenopause, really heavy, heavy, heavy bleeding, severe mood swings, brain fog, insomnia, hot flashes. I mean, the list went on and on. And she just really struggled. I think when as a woman, you're doing life and you're handling all of this, you have a lot of capacity. And you're used to having capacity. What I always say is you're not having to negotiate with yourself. And then in perimenopause, you kind of are having a go, you are like, whoa, like I am having a really hard time doing the things that I used to do pretty effortlessly. And it can happen very quickly. Sometimes women can feel that shift in like six months, or maybe sometimes it takes a lot longer. And so I was watching my mom go through this and I was watching, you know, initially she kind of wasn't cueing me into what she was doing and her standard of care wasn't great. And so I remember thinking two things. One, Is this going to happen to me? Number one, you know, because we wonder how much is genetics and how much is like, is this my fate? And then number two, I just broke my heart to see how she was failed at every corner in this journey. And so when I was stepping in, I was actually I went from postpartum to perimenopause. So there was really no pit stop in between. And, you know, postpartum in its own right, kind of feels a bit like Perry and menopause, because it's a low hormone state. And, you know, you're not sleeping and if any mamas who've been through postpartum, they know. And so I really didn't have much of a buffer between postpartum and peri. But I remember I was 43, about to be 44. And again, you're talking about the subtle signs. All of a sudden, I didn't have as much resilience. I noticed my stress tolerance wasn't as tolerant. I didn't have as much of it. I noticed my brain wasn't firing the way that I was used to. And I have low thyroid thyroid function. So I take thyroid medications. That was the first hormone I thought, this kind of feels like maybe my thyroid needs a little bit more support. So, you know, it ran all the labs and did all the things and was trying to optimize that, but still was struggling. And so I was like, what? So it's so funny. I was going down so many rabbit holes. I was running all the labs. I'm like, well, maybe I have a little bit of inflammation, or maybe it's this, and maybe I've been pushing myself too hard. And then I remember three months in a So, seven days prior to my period starting, I had rage. And the first month I was like, this is interesting. Second month, I was like, oh, it's back. And the third month, I was like, this is perimenopause. That's what this is. This is a hormone shift that is consistent. And that's kind of how I knew that I was in it.

So, hovering on that, because so many symptoms, often we take those to the doctors and they're like, oh, we'll just try this medication. Try this supplement. Try going to bed early.

Or nothing.

Right, or it's all in your head. Yeah, right.

Or go figure it out.

Doctors put me on testosterone pellet therapy.

Which I shared with you before.

Breaks my heart. And it just put my entire system into overdrive. And it was so intense that, like, I felt what it was like to be a man for a few days, 'cause the levels were just way too high. And it was a bandaid. Yeah, you can't regulate. You can't regulate. Testosterone pellets. And with a woman's body, like, we need things that are subtle and nourishing. And this was like rocket fuel into one direction. And then rage, like zero to a hundred. So let's talk about what's causing those symptoms to happen, insomnia, brain fog, weight gain, rage, what's happening in the body? Dr.

Absolutely. And so as I mentioned, it's not bikini medicine, it's a yes, and its whole body changes. But one of the, the one of the organ systems of our body that has the most profound reorganization, and you'll see this in Dr. Moscone's work, particularly in her book, the menopause brain, is that the brain is massively reorganizing progesterone is actually made in the brain known as allopregnanolone, but also estrogen is known as the master regulator of the brain. She is the CEO of a woman's brain. And so you can imagine going to this, this, you know, eight to ten year time where the brain is used to estrogen on the daily and is used to rhythmic estrogen that is not only, you know, it has estradiol Peak on day 11, has another little peak on, like, day 21. So the body's been running this cycle and rhythmic dosing of hormones for decades. And so the brain's very reliant on this. It's running glucose metabolism. It is helping in terms of being fertilizer for the brain. It's reducing inflammation. It is helping the brain to fire on all cylinders. And so as estrodiol is inconsistently binding to the critical receptor sites of the brain, all of a sudden we start to feel this massive shift. And that's when we begin to feel these brain-related symptoms. And I would say 80% of Perry's symptoms I'm actually brain related, hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, brain fog, depression, anxiety, low stress tolerance, all of this is brain. And so when we start to like lose that estradiol signal, the brain is kind of desperately clinging to when it's going to come into play. It's kind of like dating a boyfriend who's just go constantly ghosting you, you know, and you're like, call me back, you know, you're just, you're, you know, so that's what it kind of feels like that's estradiol in the brain. And then also progesterone too, is playing a big role. here in how GABA production is and how GABA is binding to receptor sites. And so we think about PMS symptoms, that's usually a decline in progesterone that's having an impact on neurotransmitters like serotonin and GABA. So we feel again more moody, more irritable, more stress, lack of stress tolerance. And so yeah, these are whole body hormones are having a profound impact not only in the brain but our metabolic health, our gut health, our stress response system, our cardiovascular health, I mean, everything, our muscular skeletal system where we see frozen shoulder and hip pain and then also inflammation too. And so I do, it's a yes and I always say that perimenopause is a window of vulnerability and a window of opportunity. So we get to be discerning about what is right for our bodies. and we get to decide that our health is deserving of being the number one priority.

Oh my gosh, when have we ever done that?

Right? Well, we are forced into it. Well, we're given a choice. In these moments, these symptoms are a calling. They're a beautiful signal to say, Hey, I really need support. I really need to be nourished and loved. And given the care and consideration that you've given everyone else, it's my turn.

Just the irony many of all that, though, too. Like, imagine as woman, if we were to really take this on as a badge of honor, because it makes no sense, right? Self-care in your mid-40s being the number one thing. No, you've got so many responsibilities in your career and your family and your loved one, your kids, your babies. It's laughable. Like how self-care usually drops down here. Yeah, but I like you, I believe if self-care goes to number one, you can show up in the world for everything else, and you can tune into the symptoms from the body to help understand what you actually need. So what you're talking about then is this neural inflammation that's happening to the brain?

Yes, part of it is.

Okay.

You know, a lot of the newest research is showing that perimenopause is a not only a neuro transition, but a neuroinflammation state. But you think about how many of us come into peri into midlife with a little bit of inflammation, a little bit of insulin resistance, a little bit of glucose deregulation. And the brain, you think about kind of the hungriest organs of the body, you know, really needing a lot. a lot of glucose to function or a lot of good metabolic health. When we see estradiol begin to dip or inconsistently binding to receptor sites of the brain, all of a sudden we see an increase in inflammation in the brain, but in other parts of the body as well. And so can this be mediated and mitigated? Absolutely. But there just needs to be an awareness. And so that's why I think there's so much, you know, it's having its moment is that it There deserves to be an awareness. It's not just aging. Aging's happening at the same time. We're running in tandem. So we have hormones that are declining and we have aging happening. But inflammation is really at the kind.

Of at the root of a lot of what's going on. Couldn't agree more with that. And here's where let's talk about where to hover then. So if you are meeting with a new patient, she comes to you and, you know, Dr. Marissa, I have gut inflammation. My bowel movements are completely different. I have way more anxiety. I have poor sleep. My hair is falling out. out my triglyceride scores. My insulin is just, like, looking completely different than ever before in my labs. And I'm doing all the right things on paper. What's going on? Where do you start?

Well, I would start with. I'd run a. I'd run a full lab panel. I would really love to understand what is going on. And I would, you know, when I think about, like, let's say reading the tea leaves, you've got a, you know, let's say it's a woman, particularly Lee. I want to look at labs just to see if there's anything I'm missing or. any gaps that I need, that I need to fill in that I don't see or don't know. Um, two, I want to really understand the symptoms and the history, but then I also want to understand what are the goals, what's the desires? And I take all of that into account. Um, and then start looking at the day to day, like what's really going on? You know, are we rushing our meals? You know, are we living a predominantly sedentary life? Like, you know, is stress really the driver of so much of what's going on? And so I really want to get into the nitty gritty of what's happening. Because if, you know, again, yes, gut is the center of a lot of our health, our healing hormones are also running the show. And so with cellular metabolic health. But I also want to know, how are you driving the day? Because again, I think about hormones in particular, as being they're doing the best they can with what they got in the moment that they're in. They're really being driven by you in a lot of ways. So that would be the first step is kind of looking at all of those pieces and then really doing a deep dive into how she's living her life or how they're living their life and going from there. But nutrition is always a big piece. Circadian rhythm, optimization is a big part of this. Self-care is huge. Supporting the gut and through nutrition and supplementation. And if a deeper gut healing protocol is necessary, then we'll go down that road. But yeah, I mean, I would be looking at thyroid for hair loss. There's just so many pieces there. that I would be looking at. But ultimately, how are you living your life is what I'm most interested in.

There's two things that I'm going to take away from that that I think are so key. So the first one, understanding your biology, it sounds like this is something that you do with all of your patients. I think this is the coolest thing about modern medicine today is like the data that we can get based on your physiology. But what I'm hearing too is no matter what your symptoms are, maybe you decide what are the two, three, four things that are really causing me the most suffering? That's probably an area for you to really own in on or like to zone in, in terms of creating a protocol for them. And you talked about, so gut, neural inflammation, vagus nerve, nervous system, and stuff like that. Isn't stress something that depletes our progesterone over time?

Stress depletes everything over time. Stress deregulates your blood sugar. Stress depletes your nutrients. Stress pokes holes in your gut. Stress, I mean, get with a list. Stress will throw your cycle off. I always say, you know, the kind of consistently our worst cycles will be January of every year because of the stress of the holidays.

We were just talking about the first quarter of the year.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're like, Whoo, goodness. And so I find, you know, if there was an underpinning driver, the most insidious kind of silent killer or driver of inflammation is always going to be stress. So that's why I always want to look at that. And so when women come to me, so a lot of the things I hear from women women will say, well, I want you to know that I'm not lazy. I want you to know that I have been doing everything. I want you to know, and I'm, and I, what I see in, in the labs and in the history is how, how poorly deregulated she is, you know, trying to do all the things and, and, you know, driven by beliefs, driven by a lack of worthiness. And so I'm like, okay, a part of this journey is going to be deeper. A part of this journey is the pause. You know, am I giving you a to-do list of more things isn't going to help you, you know, re-regulate your nervous system. And so it's always a part of the protocol. It's like, how do we, how do we, how can we integrate breath work? How can we integrate walks outside in nature? How can we integrate maybe, maybe therapy, maybe internal family systems, getting to the root of some of those beliefs that are driving behavior?

Part of the journey is the pause. We need to make that go viral.

It is.

Have you ever been able to take a nap to rest prior to doing this work? Were you ever that person?

No, no. I was the girl, I was the woman who timed everything. I timed everything. I timed how quickly I could pump gas. I timed how quickly I could go to the bathroom. I timed how quickly I could take a shower, and I would improve on those times. I could tell you how quickly I can get to the beach from my house, right now. And I could tell you that I have about a minute buffer, you know, so like I can get to my, from my house to the beach and back to my home in 18 minutes. And sometimes like just to get to see the ocean and the surfers out there and to get to walk to the beach and home, I'll take that 18 minutes. But there are definitely days where I deserve to luxuriate in that walk and watch the surfers for 10 minutes, you know?

And so you and I are going to be great friends because we have the same history. I would take so much pride in my schedule. Right. Then we have the external world validating, you know, flow State, use every second, be productive every second of every hour, get more done. And noticing that that was probably the biggest detriment to me feeling even more stress. Keep it on the timeline. But it was that feeling in my body. It also. It's also. It feels addictive.

It's so addictive. I used to say it was my slight.

Edge.

That's what I called it. I didn't know I was stealing from myself the whole time. I didn't know that I was up level, like, up regulating adrenaline and norepinephrine and even cortisol to, like, kick into gear to get there first. You know, I would find myself doing something leisurely, like going to the park, but I would want to rush to get there or go there. Yeah. Like, gosh forbid I don't get there, you know? And I'm like, I'm just going to relax, but I have to be there by a certain time. Like, I just felt like. I was always, you know, rushing women's syndrome.

Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, what's next?

Okay, what's next? We did this.

Yeah.

Future for women. And I was like, oh, gosh, please.

Don'T let me do this to my son. Yeah. I love that we're kind of hovering on this because it's our lifestyle factors that are really detrimental to our hormones. And you and I have a dear friend, Dr. Mindy Pelts. And something that I love that she says is that women are living at a generational mismatch for where we are within society today. We're taught to do so much in this external world, but our physiology was actually not meant to do that. We move through these Cycles. Right. And even throughout our cycle, we're designed to practice different activities in order to bring balance into our body and our.

Physiology for it to function. Yeah. I always say that everyone loves, including ourselves, day 11 us. Everybody wants day 11 us. Right. We were vivacious, energized, High estradiol Peak. Right. We are, you know, loving, nurturing, more intimacy. We're just, we're just at our highest high, our brain is firing, right? That our brain's like, yay, I'm flushed with estradiol. But then no one, you know, how many times have we beat ourselves up where we're a day 26s or day 27s and never gave ourselves permission to just go inward and to be with ourselves, not push the hard work out, you know, not push the, the inter, the big intermittent fasting, you know, whatever that looks like. And I remember I would just be so mad at myself, right, leading up to my period, because I couldn't do the heavy workout and not that I still I stopped, pushed through it, but I was like, man, you just kind of, you kind of sucked at that. Like, and I just, I had no idea. No one had taught me that this was a time to just one, listen to my body. My body's like, can we not do this? Why do we have to do this today? Like, can't we just go for a walk? Can we just slow it down? You're like, no, this is the only path, you know? And so it breaks my heart how much we've beat ourselves into submission. and just beat our bodies up trying to like, you know, meet the demands of what health is supposed to be or how we're supposed to look. And it's been so damaging to our bodies.

That just feels so good to hear you say because I think the message for women is what if we could just have radical acceptance for where we are today and the things that our body needs today, not tomorrow, not based on a timeline of things that have to get done. And if we normalize that in society, the shift that could happen for women, not only in productivity, but in happiness also and ease. So on that note, can we talk about some of the beautiful things that happen? You know, I love being around our friends who are in their 50s and 60s and Beyond, like those women who are saying, just wait, just wait. It's coming. So can you talk a little bit about the intuition, the creativity? what happens when we tune into the wisdom of our body and this obvious, this intelligence that's within us?

Absolutely. I think one, we get to be discerning, which is so nice. We get to decide what our energy, what we want to put our energy towards. I think that, and I think the sooner we can learn discernment about what we, if it's not a full body, yes, it's a full body, no. Like the earlier we get to learn that, the better boundaries. I would, you know, how often were we just boundaryless, you know, or we grew up in boundaryless families and, you know, we get to an age where we're just like, no, I have boundaries that I'm setting. I think that becomes so, just such a big superpower. And then, you know, connection, like Soul Sisterhood, you know, just really having those deep relationships, I think, become so. And then trusting ourselves in our wisdom and just knowing, like, I feel good, I feel comfortable in knowing me and knowing what I want and trusting myself in those decisions. So I think that that is the ultimate north compass is that your trust in yourself is always gonna lead the way.

So you keep putting your hand over your heart speaking. I wanna, in case people are listening instead of watching, and what you're making me think of is all of those gifts. So your intuition, setting boundaries, coming into your body. What I talk about in my world is moving from the critic brain or the judge brain into your heart, right? The emotional body. And it's almost like, well, if you were in your emotional body, then you would awaken those pathways anyways of creativity and wisdom. Because when there's no judgment, there's the freedom to just be, right? Do you have a heart practice every day? You said a body scan first thing in the morning. Is that something that you recommend to your clients? I don't know if you've done heart math. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, I love heart math and I love, well, I mean, I even track heart rate variability, but I also, I think that's the first step in my everyday morning practice is my heart. I have a heart, basically a heart meditation that I do just kind of come through. And that's why I love that question of what would I love? you know, how often are we asking ourselves, what would I love? Like, what would my love come through be? Or what would feel good, you know, versus, you know, what do I have to do? Or what do I, you know, it's so I, it's a different come through. And man, it just shifts everything to me. But also when we come from our heart, yeah, the judgment fades away. Our inner critic or even outer critic towards others tends to just melt away as well. And I think when we're able to lead with love and lead from our heart, heart. I just, everything softens our conversations, all of it.

Can you imagine going to your doctor's office and in the waiting room, you do a heart coherence meditation before you go in to see your doctor, which means that you kind of come into your power, your superpower, or wisdom, or kind of just like holding your own ground before you go in to speak to somebody who's gonna dictate at you, right? I just think that there's so much power in that. So thank you for talking about that. So when our clients do go to the doctor, yeah. I work with so many people and it's funny, I put a survey out to my community talking to them about something that they want to know more of and I kid you not, probably like dozens and dozens of answers saying, I just, I'm doing all the right things. My doctor won't check certain labs. My doctor says that this is the way that it is when I'm in my 40s or 50s and just to fix accept it. It's like women are still suffering despite the education that's out there. So let's do part one. What are the specific Labs or biomarkers that you tell your clients to look for? And I'm going to go ahead and preface this with, if your doctor will not run these Labs, you better find a doctor who's your partner in healing.

Yeah, well, the beautiful thing is today there's so many direct to Consumer lab companies, too. You still want someone to help you interpret those, but you really can go and get your cabs ran, which is so nice. So I'm so grateful. And then we also live in a time of bio-observability. You may laugh. I've got a whoop on. I've got a continuous glucose monitor on right now.

I'm putting mine on tomorrow.

And I think, okay, it's a yes and in terms of I listen to my body and I like the data. Sleep for me will make or break me. It just, it will. That's, you know, I had a couple brain injuries two summers ago and ever really ever sense. And I don't know if it was brain injuries in Perry or, or what, but, sleep is one of the greatest things that I can give my body. Like, I know that for sure. And I also just love to kind of make, I obviously check in in the morning and see how energized I feel. But then I also love to see it on the, I like the data, too. So I think there's something to be said about that. And so, again, it's one of the ways that we can be bio-observable. We talked about earlier, menstrual cycle, you know, maybe wearing a Garmin or, or a, or whoop strap, if, if that would be of assistance. And then, like, you know, maybe quarterly or annually, we put on a continuous glucose monitor just to kind of see, you know?

Yeah. Even if you don't wear it every day, right? I think every woman should just wear it to test. And heart rate variability too.

Is that something that- yeah. I mean, so I love more of the things I look at more than anything is my sleep, my stress, because it looks at stress in real time on the Whoop, which is very, very enlightening for any of us. But I look at HRV and resting heart rate assistant, every day. That's really the markers I'm looking at the most of like, how can I have autonomic nervous system control so that I am calming my nervous system? If I know that I have complex PTSD and there's a lot of trauma that I'm still healing, how do I how am I intentional about regulating myself? Mainly because I want to feel peace in my body, but I also want to be able to be a very peaceful mama for my beautiful boy who's So we need to be careful for who needs mama to co regulate him. And so I want to show up for him, not only me, but also him. So funny how our children are our greatest teachers in the sense of like, oh, yes, it's look at how, you know, look at their need for regulation. Why wouldn't we have a need for regulation? Yeah. So bio-observability and then labs. So let's get into labs. Again, kind of the standard ones complete blood panel with differential, right? Let's take a look at your, your white blood cells, your red blood cells, your platelets, all that. Next is lipids. There's going to be some lipids that are standard here and then not, so triglycerides, LDL, total cholesterol, HDL, but also I'd love to see a lipoprotein little A and I'd love to see an ApoB. Now, if you can't get the lipoprotein little A or the ApoB, fire your doctor. No, I'm kidding. No, I would look.

Fire your doctor.

That's disease prevention. It is disease prevention for the future. Especially once we're in, if we're talking about women, even after the age of 35, mostly mainly up to the age of 40. Like we need to know this information. If heart disease is the number one killer of women more than men, why aren't we looking at cardiovascular markers? Like the ones that really move the needle. Now if you can't seem to get those two kind of specialized markers, I always love to divide triglycerides over your HDL and get a ratio. And that'll really one of the best ratios for cardiovascular health or or risk is that. And I always want it basically under a 1.5, ideally under one. When it starts creeping past two or more, then I start to, I mean, obviously I'm looking at everything else, but that is a great marker not only for insulin resistance, but for cardiovascular health. And those will always be included in any lipid panel, triglycerides and HDL.

Divide your triglycerides over your HDL.

And you'll get that ratio. Okay, so that's your lipid panel. And then your inflammation panel. So vitamin D, uric acid, if we're looking at cardiovascular inflammation, homocysteine, sed rate and fibrinogen, also highly sensitive CRP. So those are your inflammation markers. Blood glucose markers are going to be fasting. Obviously, fasting glucose is always going to be in the metabolic Labs. Fasting insulin. So we know that fasting insulin can dictate insulin resistance and other metabolic issues. a decade prior to when it will ever show up on your fasting blood glucose. And then get a hemoglobin A1C because I'll do it anyway. And then what I would be looking for, I want a full iron panel. So iron ferritin, just looking at all the saturation. So many women, you know, due to deficiencies or maybe even, you know, heavy bleeding or dealing with anemia. So I want to see that, especially if low energy is a situation. A full thyroid panel. So not TSH and T4, free T4, I want free T4, free T3, reverse T3, I want your thyroid antibodies, I want to look at everything. If I can get magnesium and B9, folate and B12, I'll take it. I will always take it. And then see what else would I love. And then hormones, I mean, if I would, let's do it. So ideally we're testing hormones seven days after ovulation or before your menstrual cycle. That way we can capture progesterone, but run all of them, the full testosterone panel, progesterone, estrogen, let's look at early morning cortisol. And that's the other thing about labs. Try to run them as early as you can. So we really get a sense of what fasted labs are. But I would say those are, I'm trying to think if I've missed anything. Those would be my base, that's my basic panel. I love it.

Okay, so there's so many things I want to go back to. First of all, insulin and glucose, right? So you're wearing your glucose monitor. I'm putting one back on because that's one of the markers that I've seen shift despite having a really beautiful diet that's high in fiber and protein and good fat. Something is shifting with it within me. There's also a genetic precursor for me. There you go. And as well as my estrogen, which has gone away.

Yeah, I have a lot of my family has diabetes and pre-diabetes the Mexican side of my family. And so when I ran my genetics, that is the ultimate precursor is keeping my eye on that. And so I, I do believe that blood glucose and insulin, which we don't have a way of measuring insulin in real time. Our blood glucose, wearing a continuous glucose monitor will be the best indicator of kind of how insulin is shifting as a response to our daily life. But I think it's the ultimate biomarker of our longevity. And so I love wearing, I put them on, I used to put one on every quarter, but now it's every, probably twice a year, give or take. I want to just make sure I'm keeping within optimal range. And it's so amazing how much we can shift our, our fasting insulin and our blood glucose into optimal range. So we have good metabolic health. And I can go over the five big metabolic markers. We went over a couple of those. But there's so much that we can learn about wearing a continuous glucose monitor in terms of our sleep, our stress, our movement, what obviously what we're eating every single day. All of that is playing a role in energy metabolism.

It's the one thing that really like people, the first question for me is Mona, what do I eat? What's the perfect diet? Your perfect diet is as unique as you. So I put a glucose monitor on them with new clients probably every quarter to really help me identify which foods are great for their metabolic health and which ones are not serving them. And like nine times out of 10, unless there's deeper stuff going on, they'll notice an improvement in their sleep, an improvement in their energy throughout the day, an improvement in their mental focus. I also do some like food allergy testing and stuff like that. Maybe they'll look at gut microbiome. am stuff, but, yeah. And do you use levels?

I love levels. I love Casey. I love levels.

Yeah.

I, I, that's one of the first things I do as well. I think if I can optimize metabolic Health, cellular energy, we are winning the game because everything is driven by cellular energy and mitochondrial energy production. So if I can get that under control and manage the stress piece, we are winning. And then, and then we can talk about the optimizers, the hormones and all of that. Right. And so. But, yeah, for women, I, I, you know, if, if even, I mean, we think about polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is often at its core insulin resistance as well. And so if we see younger women struggling with a bit of insulin resistance or just glucose deregulation, you can imagine as our hormones are not rhythmically running the way that they're normally running, we start to lose that estradiol capacity. It's declining. We start to see an upshoot in insulin resistance and then belly fat and body composition changes. You know, no woman wants that. You know, we can handle the mood swings and a lot of the things when we start to see the weight gain come on because we start to lose our metabolic res a little bit of our metabolic resilience due to loss of muscle, insulin resistance, declining hormones. We're like, okay, hard stop. What do I do to get this back under control? And to me, optimizing metabolic health is always one of the best keys to doing that.

Hard stop and maybe let's unlearn that that's the opportunity to go hard core because women are just like, oh, I'm going to work out more. I'm going to diet more. I'm going to not sleep as much. I'm going to go more hardcore. No more hardcore. Just listen to your body. All right. For our women who maybe are not having a regular cycle, if you're looking.

At their hormones through blood, do you use Dutch tests? You could use a Dutch test. Absolutely. You know, and I, I'm a big fan of both serum hormones and Dutch tests. The reason why I love the Dutch test is that I get to look at the pathways, and I get a really put together the pieces. So it gives me a lot more information, but I'm always really mindful with my, with the audience that it's expensive, you know? And so I'm, I'm so can, can you mostly go to your, you bring your list of labs you want to your general practitioner and see what you can get, especially if you are in your 40s. Majority of what I asked for, I suggested they will run. They'll, you know, and if you have a, if you can make a case, like I, you know, especially with your symptoms, that that could, that could dictate those labs running. But yes, if I've, as a functional doctor and you're working with me personally and we've got some financial wherewithal, like I'm running the Dutch test.

Yeah. And I'll say to the Dutch test, which I love, it's like reading, it's uncovering, you know, the secret to four knocks. It's impossible to read as a practitioner. Not all doctors know how to read them or decipher them or make a protocol based on it. So you need to find the right doctor. There's a company called Endo Access. have you heard of them? I'm going to send you details. So they basically created a system on the back end where your entire Dutch test just goes through and it creates a protocol to help you understand all of your unique Pathways and your deficiencies so that you know what to do after that. So. Yeah, I love that.

I love that. So much.

Yeah. So you mentioned when we're thinking about these deficiencies within our body, another one that. Another one that women experience moving into perimenopause is estrogen. dominance. I want to take a quick break from today's episode to ask if you know that stress doesn't just feel different for everyone. It affects your body in unique ways based on your hormones, your genetics, and your nervous system. Some people burn out quickly, while others store stress as inflammation, weight gain, or anxiety. My name is Mona Sharma, celebrity nutritionist, and that's why I created the Stress Personality Quiz, a quick, science-backed tool to help you understand your stress and learn how to manage it effectively. Ready to take control of your stress? Find your stress type now@monasharma.com/quiz and how that takes over also through menopause as well. Can you talk to us about what is estrogen dominance? What does it feel like within the body? What are some symptoms to look out for?

Absolutely. So estrogen dominance is when, and we can call it unopposed estrogen. I love it. And often it happens more in the luteal phase where we've got progesterone, she's the queen bee, right? We have significantly more progesterone ideally, especially if we have ovulatory cycles, if we're having anovulatory cycles, so skipped ovulation, ovulation is the precursor to progesterone. We can't have progesterone without ovulation. This is why I feel like a patriarchal medical system or healthcare system where we made the periods, the main event ovulation was always the main event, you know? And so I just want to take a moment and just celebrate our ovulatory cycles. And most women, like, there's no clue.

Around when they're ovulating, what the symptoms would be, how to celebrate it. Like, there's none of that. Really, I would say it wasn't until I was trying to get pregnant and I was trying to track when I was ovulating or when I did a Dutch test and I was trying to track when I was ovulating again, instead of, like, the internal wisdom of such a disservice.

Yeah, such a disservice.

We're changing that.

I think about our ovulatory cycle. It's not even called an ovulatory cycle, but it is truly a superpower. So ovulation is the precursor. So that corpus luteum is a temporary endocrine structure that releases progesterone in the luteal phase and progestation, right? So if you do get pregnant, that hormone is going to help you maintain that pregnancy. And so it's no surprise that it's the first hormone to lose. to leave in our, it's some for some of us in our mid to late 30s. It's every woman is a little bit different. How we would even know that progesterone is beginning to decline before estradiol is, you know, kind of a way we would know. Let's say natural menopause happens anywhere between 45 and 55 years old. And so we just reverse engineer that. But also I always tell women, ask your mom. Hopefully she didn't have a full hysterectomy and perimenopause because that is still the second most common surgery in women today. But it definitely was in our moms era. So I talked to so many women who's like, well, my mom had a hysterectomy when she was 45 due to fibroids, due to estrogen dominance. So it's usually due to fibroids and obviously other reasons why we hysterectomies are performed. But if your mom went through menopause at 52, you're probably going to go into menopause around 52 years old. And then if perimenopause is a, let's say 10 years, you may start to notice the symptoms at like 42. But for some of us, it's earlier. I know women who go into menopause at 48, 49, 47. And so that kind of information can be so helpful. But progesterone is the first hormone to start to drop. And so estradiol, she may still be hanging on. Also, we live in a very toxic world, not conducive for happy, optimized hormones. And one of those is estrogen. estrogens, in fragrance, BPA, cleaners, nail polish, flip-flops, plastics, you know. Yes, yoga clothes. We'll not call all the names out of the yoga clothes, but the clothes that I see every single day in my Pilates class, in my yoga class, and then even receipts and things that you don't even think that are so innocuous, nail polish, makeup. I mean, the list goes on and on. lotions. And so there's an, so we're adding to that estradiol burden a little bit. So as progesterone, as she's dropping and the liver, it's usually a yes and, is getting a bit overburdened due to life, we start to see the kind of this increase in estradiol, is estrogen metabolites. And with estrogen in particular, as phenomenal as she is, we need to use it and lose it. It's gotta, we're circulating and detoxifying estrogen 24/7. But if the liver is having a a hard time, the liver and the gut is having a hard time moving and safely excreting estrogen out of the system. We will start to see symptoms of estrogen dominance or unopposed estrogen in our body.

Again, it's another symptom of a lack of efficiency within the body because the resilience is off. Yeah.

Right? Yes.

Yeah. God, I think, and I'm pointing that out because so often we're looking, oh.

Oh, it's estrogen dominance. Okay, I've got a label. I've got something to fix. Yeah. To fix. Right. It's not a call up. Yeah. So much more than that. I wish I could, I wish we could say that these hormones operated in a silo. They do not. They do not operate in a silo. But if you're wondering, well, what does that even feel like? It's heavy periods, painful heavy periods, maybe cramping. It's weight distribution, really thick weight distribution, hips and thighs. It's your boobs get a size bigger or maybe they feel ropey and heavy right before your period, maybe even the entire luteal phase, depending on what's going on, it's fibroids, which again, maybe hopefully you don't notice, but 88% of us will have fibroids before we get to menopause. And it's usually in this kind of wonky, early, even early perimenopause phase where we see that this like ratio of progesterone to estrogen is just off. And then if the gut and the liver are not able to clear fast enough, and again, the exposure of those toxins, it kind of just burdens the system.

Are gynecologists looking for thyroids actively? Is this part of the common dialogue when you're going for your yearly PAP?

Are they looking? No, no, it's symptom driven.

Exactly. Yeah, it's symptom driven. Yeah. So again, I think it's like the ownership of the takeaway is to ask questions. Like, you really do ask questions when you go in. Because for me, especially if I come back with, oh, my ovaries are normal.

It'S normal, everything's normal. They won't do the investigation. They don't feel what's alive.

It's pathology.

Also they won't, if you wonder why your doctor won't run a lab, it's because they don't want the liability of.

Having to review it.

They're like, I don't run that, they just don't know. They don't want the responsibility of not.

Knowing what to do with it. Whatever any of the takeaways from today's episode are, write them down, pen to paper, and take all of your concerns to your doctor and get an answer.

That you feel really comfortable and satisfied with. And if you don't love it, that time where I was, I was kind of perimenopause was happening. But I had hit that the whole time that I was going through that, I had two major concussions. And so that kind of just that, you know, none of it's in a silo, inflammation was high. And I remember running labs many times in those six months. It was around a six month period that I was just really in it. Probably one of the sickest six months that I can remember was right before I turned 44. my son was two and a half years old, you know, and I remember going back to my, because we have really great insurance. And I'm like, if I can run my labs, you know, in the insurance system, rather me paying for them out of pocket, I will, you know, if you can, if not, I took it out of pocket as well. And I can order my own labs, but again, might as well insurance do what it does. I remember going in and asking for a number of labs again for inflammation, and I wanted to see my iron profile, my thyroid. I was just staying really on top of it. And she looked at me dead in the face and she said, you know, you've been dealing with this a lot of this year and you don't still know what it is. She's like, you know, basically she was putting the blame on me for not figuring, I'm like, that is why I'm here. I don't need you to look at my labs. I don't need you to interpret my labs. I don't need you to just run them. I'm asking you to run these. And I'm not trying to get anything from you. And I just couldn't, I was just sitting there just so dumbstruck. I didn't expect anything from her. I knew she couldn't figure this out. I knew that for sure. I knew that I needed more information to figure it out for myself. But I just, I was like, this is so many women's experiences. We are blaming the same thing. It's your fault.

Yeah, it's your fault. Oh, you just told it. You're going through perimenopause. Yeah. Deal with it. Yeah. Same thing. I already hear that.

No, I know it was just, I mean, I am my demographic, you know, and I always want, I want to be in the lived experience of what so many women are dealing with as well. And so when I was in that lived experience, I was like, Hmm, here it is. This is it. She is blaming me, you know?

So in that understanding, when did you go to your doctor looking at those labs? Maybe do consider doing something like a mycotoxin test. I don't know. often with a lot of my clients, it's a urine test to really understand what toxins could be lingering within your body. To your point, when my symptoms were at their worst, I was dealing with major mold. And so, like, what am I going to address first, my hormones or the mold and the toxins within my body? First, I need to support my liver so my liver can actually do its job. Right. So doing further investigation, and I want to go back to, like, doing an audit. So if myself and Dr. Marissa were in your house with you. Let's do an audit together. Let's go through your kitchen. Anything that you wouldn't want us to see, throw it in the trash. Your body, if it doesn't know what an ingredient is, neither with your, well, your body, go through your personal cleaners. We were talking about that. We were talking about your personal care products. When my health was at its worst, I was working at Christian Dior's lathering my body in perfume every single day, breathing in the toxins every day, full face of with toxins and chemicals and colors and dyes and perfumes. It's no wonder that I stopped getting my periods during that time. So do an audit. There's so many cool brands out there and products that are safer, cleaner, pure, safer us to be using on our bodies. And if it's not everything, just get the 80%.

Yeah, just get the and just upgrade over time. You know, what it looked like 10 years ago for me is very different what it looks like today. But yeah, just upgrade once your clean products are out, upgrade the cleaning products. You know, take your shoes off before you walk in the house. Those, you know, vacuum and dust regularly, have plants in the house as well. And then if, you know, in terms of upgrading, if you can afford air purifiers and ultimately water purifiers. And the other thing that I, and move everything to glass. Move everything. the glass. No plastics. No plastics at all. So those are the things that I think about kind of those first easy steps to move. And then yes, absolutely. I mean one of our rules, I think 98% is that we make everything at home from scratch. And I have a very full life, you know, as a mom and as a career woman. And I know that food is probably the biggest lever that I can pull for my family. And if that means more time in the kitchen, well, that's what it means. It's just more time in the kitchen. And I'm okay with that.

They're new rituals. Once you adapt to them and it becomes a ritual with your family at home and your schedule, then it happens with a lot of ease. Yeah. I don't think most people understand how easily we absorb our environment through our skin until you've done something like a dermal medicine or a patch, which leads me to bioidentical hormones. Which are like they've been not a game changer, a life changer. I feel like bioidentical hormones have given me a part of myself back that I haven't seen since before I had my kids. So let's talk about this. I started with an estrogen patch. Now I'm using a cream with progesterone. and I'm sleeping better, my energy is better, my mood is better, my brain fog has decreased. I'm putting less effort at the gym and I'm feeling more gains within my body. Tell us about that and I hope you go into the fear also that exists around them. Let's face it, the impact of stress is the worst. I have been trying to keep up with everything from work and businesses, family time, kids schedules, gatherings, and let's be real, I am not on a consistent wellness routine at all times. So if you're feeling it too, then listen up. Symbiotica is one of my rituals that I can always count on to consistently take care of my health, no matter what life brings. And I'll be honest, since getting all of the insight from their incredible co-founder, Shervin, and the intention behind the brand to nurture and build resilience in our body, I'm hooked. Okay, so right now I'm obsessed with starting my day with Symbiotica's molecular hydrogen. It's my morning ritual. So I head outside, I soak up the morning sun, and I fuel my body with this antioxidant that neutralizes free radicals. It reduces oxidative stress with one of the most powerful antioxidants out there. So hydrogen is the smallest and most powerful antioxidant that exists. It directly targets stomach inflammation, which is a leading cause of so many imbalances. It also improves cellular nourishment. It supports healthy aging. All you have to do is add it to water, let it dissolve, and let it work within your body. Plus, I am loving their vitamin C with liposomal delivery for healthy aging, collagen boosting, and for immune support. Check this out. Their liposomal vitamin C contains the same amount of vitamin C as 10 oranges. It's packed with antioxidants, and this formula really plays a key role in the immune system and how it functions. It also promotes collagen production in your skin, giving it a bright, dewy glow. It contains one of the world's most beautifying vitamins, biotin, to give you that glow. It's an anti-aging miracle. It tastes delicious. Citrus vanilla, arguably their best flavored product. Most people prefer to take this one straight, as I do, right out of the pack, instead of mixing it into a drink. The quality is unbeatable. The ingredients are clean. There's thoughtful packaging, and every product is designed to give you results that you can actually feel. And honestly, I'd never recommend anything I don't absolutely love and use myself. You guys have to get your hands on these products. Feel more energized, alert, and balanced with high quality supplements that really work. Just head over to symbiotica.com slash Mona Sharma for 20 off your first order. That's symbiotica c y m b I o t I k a dot com. monasharma.com for 20 off. You are going to love them.

Absolutely. I mean, our body, that's what we're running on. We are running on estradiol and progesterone. We're also running on thyroid hormone and cortisol, and there's a lot of hormones at play. But as I talked about from the beginning of this interview with you is their whole body hormones. And oh, my goodness, what a light bulb moment when you bring them in. Now, I will say that ester dial isn't going to walk you outside. Ester dial isn't going to, you know, you know, support, you know, give you a anti-inflammatory nutrient dense diet. Like, there's still a lot of lifestyle that is at play.

It's no perfect red pill.

It's like, I know it is. It is sold as, like, the magic bullet. And in so many so many ways, bringing those hormones back online for us or maintaining them so that they never go offline, I think is a game changer. I think we all deserve them. I believe that we deserve every tool in the toolbox.

I should have prefaced that in conjunction.

In conjunction.

With great sleeve focus.

Yes and yes, please. And so I'm, it's so interesting. I'm on progesterone. I have brought estradiol in a couple times, but I've then become a bit estrogen dominant, a little unopposed estrogen. And so I am actually at a holding pattern where we're waiting to bring estrogen back in. And especially when you're bringing in estradiol patches or creams or whatever that may be, still you gotta support your liver and your gut. You always make sure whether you're putting a patch on or you're still making it yourself, you always want to be supporting. And so I took a pause with estradiol personally until I really, it's so funny when you think you're supporting your detox pathways and your and you're like, oh, this is interesting. I maybe I need to support them a little bit better, you know? And so it's with Perry in particular, it's a little bit, and that's why there's no standard of care for this, like when it comes to it's birth control. That's what we're doing instead, which are synthetic hormones at higher doses that turn off your cycle. And, and the obviously there's a time and place and you get to decide, but I think it's important that we have informed to consent. But with bioidentical hormones like estrogen and progesterone, we're really just filling in the gap of what we're slowly losing over time, which I think is beautiful. And so I think it's, everyone is a little bit different in terms of it's, for a lot of us, it's going to be symptom driven. And then, um, and then Labs will help to dictate that as well. Um, but just know that symptoms are really going to be dictating when is the good time for you to start for some of us, it's going to 42, some of us can be 45, some of us could be all the way to 49, 48. And so working with a practitioner who really understands hormones, it's going to be mission critical here, but that also is really open to being on the journey with you the whole time. You know, it's not a set it and forget it solution. Like it's going to need to be titrated and kind of optimized for your body. And life circumstances happen where it may need to be titrated again. So again, listening to your body, that's why I said track your cycle, track your symptoms, look at those labs. And then based on that, the protocol will be created to kind of really help you just ease this transition with grace.

This is really where I'm excited in, you know, now there's all of this awareness around women's hormones and the research that's also coming out around bioidenticals and longevity in cancer prevention or Cardiovascular prevention.

Dementia prevention, bone loss prevention, general urinary syndrome prevention. I mean, the list is long. Insulin resistance prevention, potentially. I mean, again, you can't drink Frappuccinos all day and then put on a estradiol patch and it fixes everything. It's a yes and. But yeah, and so I say once you get on them as soon as it's viable or it's for you, um, and again, that can really range in the perimenopause journey and then ride them till the wheels fall off. Yeah.

And I'm hearing, you know, this really needs to come with a disclaimer that every woman is different. There's no cookie cutter hormone. You start at this age and this is what you take, and that's the formula for you because it should be different. So finding a doctor again is really going to help you in the journey, I think, is so important. And I hope we find so many more of them. I, I love that women are just having a voice in this. this area right now. All right. We covered food, we covered toxins, we talked about sleep, we talked about metabolic Health. You and I love moving our bodies. It's part of our prescriptive Health. And I. I get this lift heavy, but I also think that it's about honoring your constitution and different types of movement. So are you prescriptive in this area for women?

No, I am not. I mean, I think resistance training is. Is helpful in terms of muscle and bone. protection. But I kind of where I'm landing right now is move as much as possible whenever possible. But any kind of movement, honestly, whether it's walking or it's Pilates or it's dancing, but particularly around metabolic aliveness, what I have found optimizes your metabolic labs more than anything is movement. And movement that's punctuated throughout the day. I grew up with the myth that as long as you did the workout, you were done.

Remember the 20 minute workouts?

Yeah, yeah. I love 20 minute workouts too, but I think, you know, doing squats, doing 10 squats every 45 minutes is more beneficial than that 30, only 30 minute walk in the morning. And so I'm just a big proponent of being physically active, just moving your body as much as possible. Movement is life. And the more that we can be moving, especially outside in nature or just outside in general, I think is the ultimate biohack. And if you can do it with a matcha and your bestie, even better still. Yeah, I say it's just like your.

Nutrition, but diversity is just key. Variety and diversity. Just move your body in different ways. And I remember yoga teachers saying like, you know, there's no need to lift heavy. And, you know, there's this thing with women like, I need to lift heavy. I need to lift heavy. I think it's so important. You and I have talked about our mothers and their their health. But also, I've had the most fit buff men in their 40s, 50s and 60s in some yoga poses, and they're shaking. Like, they're shaking holding these poses. So there's, there's a lot of power in the subtle movements also. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's a lot of power in. If you don't have time for a 50-minute workout or a 45-minute workout or whatever that may be, like, you just, your life is so full. I used to think that there wasn't value in a little. a little five minute here, a little three minute there, and there is way more value than we ever imagined, even better value than the big workout. If you do that big, let's say, HIIT workout or strength training workout, but then you sit for six hours, basically it's discounted in a lot of ways. And so I'm a big fan, I love exercise snacks. Yeah, yeah, I love that idea. I'll walk stairs for three minutes, I'll do jump squats with my son in the kitchen. I build in these little exercise snacks throughout the day. So if I can't, like today, I was in the car super early, for this, and I didn't do the workout early this morning. And so when I get home later tonight, I'm just gonna be punctuating movement throughout my afternoon and evening. And it's a win.

Exercise snacks. I love that term. Do you have a rebounder?

I do, yes. And that's, again, three minutes on the rebounder.

That's it.

And then get back into the meeting. Five minutes outside, walking outside for five minutes. Maybe send a voice memo to a bestie, and then back at it. I love to punctuate my day, which is with as much movement as possible. And the one big thing I've walked away with that, no pun intended, is that I feel more energized. Especially, you know, you stare at a computer too long and your brain's just, just like, it's like you can't even read the words on the screen anymore. And so your body's like, can we, can we get up? Can we do a little something, something? And so that, to me, is moving throughout the day. And if you can get outside, oh.

Even better still, there's so much Kudos to incredible things that happen when you just trust your body. Sometimes a 20 minute workout is even more impactful than being in a 60 minute hardcore class.

Yeah, 20 minutes all day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And especially with Hajjis.

Yeah.

I mean, if you've got an autoimmune condition or you're, you are, you're easy, like you, you have had a deregulated stress response system. Over training is not it. You will burn out so quick. And so I always tell women 20 to 30 minutes, you can get so much done in 20 to 30 minutes, you know, that may be your big main workout, and then just build out many movements throughout the day for the rest of the day. And most importantly, if there was ever a time to move, it is after meals. Gentle movement, walking, walking stairs, after a meal. I mean, I have seen this time and time again, looking at continuous glucose graphs. I've looked at so many graphs, and it's amazing how quickly you can get your blood sugar back arrange.

Make it a ritual with your family.

Yeah.

Before you put the dishes away, go for a walk.

Yeah.

I love it. You'll be honoring your mitochondria and your circadian rhythm at night, too.

There's so many benefits to moving. And supporting your digestive system, helping to calm your emotional well-being and just, there's so many, and getting to spend time with your family instead of in front of a TV or whatever.

I mean, that connection is invaluable. I love it. All right, I could talk to you for hours and hours. We're going to close things up with some rapid fire questions. Oh, yay.

Okay.

Okay, so what is the best thing that we can do for hot flashes?

Estrogen.

Noted. What's the best thing that we can do if we struggle with weight loss?

I would say balance your blood sugar, balance your insulin, and move, move your body.

What's the best thing that we can do for low energy?

That'S such a good question. I would also say movement as well, but gentle movement. And yeah, and I would, yeah, those would be my two things that I would recommend.

What's the best thing that we can do for mood swings?

Self-care, honoring yourself, taking walks by yourself, just time to yourself.

Yeah, maybe understanding them. Right?

Yeah.

That's the best thing that we can do. for fatigue.

The number one thing I would do for fatigue is balance blood sugar. The number two thing I would do for fatigue is optimizing circadian rhythm. So going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time, just getting on that circadian clock.

I find is so beneficial for our overall mitochondrial health.

Are you out in the sun first thing in the morning? I am. Oh, yeah. I'm up at the same time every morning. I'm outside in nature every morning after my meditation. and it's incredible. My body is just, my circadian rhythm is programmed around a 9:30 bedtime and a 6:00 wake time, and then I'm outside for about at least five to seven minutes. And then I have time to myself for probably an hour and a half before my son's awake.

I think training and understanding your circadian rhythm and really focusing on that as a zone of healing is also going to be the future of healthcare.

Agreed. Agreed. And it may be hard at first as you're kind of recalibrating, but your body so wants to be optimized in that way. And I have noticed such a major energy shift in my patients.

We didn't talk about adaptogens, but adaptogens are such a big area of opportunity from an Ayurvedic standpoint, from the ashram, using herbal teas throughout the day. So healing and therapeutic. Do you have two or three adaptogens that you love?

I do. Rhodiola is probably that's my favorite. I love, that's the golden root, right? Talk about firing on the brain and supporting the stress response system, buffering stress throughout the day. I love rhodiola. It's a little bit of an activator, so I recommend in the morning. I love holy basil. I love holy basil tea. And so that's a very, that's one of my favorite adaptogens at night before bed. A tulsi tea is so good. And then my other one that I love is ginseng. Sandra again. I love that it is a. Just a very vivacious adaptogen. It helps to kind of Center me, but also gives me a little boost. I know a lot of people love ashwagandha. That's a big one. But skandRa and rhodiola are two of.

My absolute favorites for the morning. Keep your medicine cabinet open with all of these teas, right? You can cycle these in and out. You can rotate them every six to eight weeks. They're all therapeutic in India. I would always. My aunties. just grow all these herbs on their balcony for use, right? So nature is healing, nature's medicine. Last two, what is your favorite ancient healing remedy?

My favorite ancient healing, I would say, I think it's meditation. I think it's just the calmness in the meditation just to kind of get into your body. I don't know if there's anything better than knowing your body and trusting that.

Needs to be prescribed. Last one, if you could leave our listeners with just one takeaway that you're most passionate about right now, What would it be?

Yeah, that you deserve to feel amazing in your body. You deserve healing. You deserve to feel well. I think sometimes we don't even believe that we deserve it. And then it just, you know, that belief really can be a North Star in how we tend to ourselves. And a lot of women have been told that they don't deserve to feel good. They need to take care of everybody else. But if we can anchor to that, deserving of feeling well and feeling amazing, amazing. To me, that shifts everything. That is the mindset, mindset shift that we all deserve, and we all, we all should get to embody.

Ah, I adore you. It's such a big concept of this show is like, just remembering you're, you are your healer. You are your greatest healer, but you have to believe it. You have so much inspiration. You keep us laughing through your social media. You are a mother. You Now on your eighth book?

Ninth.

Ninth. This is the ninth. Yeah.

I have overdone it in life, as you can see. I'm very passionate.

Yes. That's what comes off from you and you make things very tangible for your audience. And thank you for being, like, having the wisdom, but also shedding some lightness and humor for your audience. It just, I really do feel it. You're a source of inspiration for all of us. How do you keep in touch with your community? Where can they find you?

Instagram is a great place to come and find me. I do, I mean, I think we all, I mean, it's hard, it's hard going through life, you know, especially in transition and midlife. And so if I can bring a little bit of, you know, levity to that, I love it. But also the podcast and energize with Dr. Marissa like that is, I mean, if you are in this transition and you are looking for support and you're looking for amazing experts like yourself, like, yes, please, I want women to feel so supported, so held, and to feel like, okay, I have got the recommendations and the solutions at my fingertips. I can decide what are my non-negotiables and I know how to have a educated conversation with my doctor so that we are on the same team. That's what the show is all about.

Beautiful. I'm excited to have you back.

Yes, please.

Part of my inspiration for this podcast was to gather the female, the women that I know, the tribe of healers that are out there doing the that you do. And we should just create an area for women to go to for the section on the area that they need information or a sense of inspiration or understanding and just like, this is the future. Just honoring our Constitution and just having something to look forward to instead of the doom and gloom that's been portrayed for women for so long. So thank you for that.

Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure.