How to improve thyroid health and start thriving

Today's guest is Ashley Malik, a weight loss and thyroid health coach. What I know about Ashley is that when women with hypothyroidism want to lose weight and have energy throughout their day, she has a proven track record and a system that works. Welcome to Beyond Diagnosis, a podcast to raise your awareness, decisions, and voice for alternative practices so you can take back control of your health. I'm Rita De Michele, your host, a mindset and empowerment coach, and the founder of the Onus platform. Join me each week so you can create the health of your dreams. Welcome, Ashley.

Thanks, Rita. I'm so excited to be here.

Oh, I'm so excited to hear your, your information. I mean, hyperthyroidism, like, we all have something with our thyroid, don't we? Everyone seems to have— it's either hyper, it's hypo, we have Hashimoto's. There just seems to be this increase around thyroid problems. And that brings me to, like, as women age, especially if they have hyperthyroidism, or Hashimoto's, the old, you know, system of the calories in, calories out, you know, I have to work out harder at the gym, I've got to run more, just doesn't seem to be working for them anymore. Why is that?

Yeah, it's really— it's, it's so interesting because I think we're ingrained to think lower fat, lower calories, move your body more. And even still, a lot of Women specifically will go to their doctors, and their doctor says, I don't know, you probably just need to work out more. And I know in my experience and for the clients that I work with, it doesn't work because when you have any sort of issue going on in your body, and in this case hypothyroidism, which is where your thyroid is essentially— it's not failing, it could be, but it's not putting out enough thyroid hormone. Your body is trying to compensate, and what happens as a result is you find that you have inflammation in your body. And I like to say that inflammation is sort of this white flag that your body is waving to say, help, like something's not going well in here.

Yeah.

And that inflammation can actually be increased by a number of things that we're being told Oh, work out more or just eat fewer calories. When you work out, it actually increases inflammation in your body just by nature of what you're doing. And so if you're running hard or doing a cardio class or something like that, you are boosting the inflammation in your body. If you already have inflammation, that's not going to be helpful. You're just adding fuel to the fire.

Mm-hmm.

And the same thing goes with, you know, food and A lot of people think, well, I'll just cut my calories back, or I'll eat salads and I'll cut carbs. That actually triggers sort of a like panic response in your body, in your nervous system, which also increases inflammation. So the, the things that we've been told before, they don't work because they're just serving to increase the inflammation in our body, which then it's a, a cycle. It just makes the impacts of having less thyroid hormone even more uncomfortable in your body.

So how does someone— like, they go to the doctor or they go to a naturopath or, or, you know, anyone that deals with thyroid, a specialist, and they're for tests, and they all go, oh, your thyroid's a bit low. How does the, the— does the doctor make the connection between inflammation And the thyroid? And how can we empower our listeners to actually put that question forward, to actually ask, I want to know what my inflammation levels are?

Yeah, that's such a great question, Rita, because I think what happens commonly, and definitely in the United States, but I've talked to other practitioners across the world and it sounds very similar, currently conventional medicine, which would be just your regular general practitioner or maybe a specialist, is going to look at your thyroid labs and tell you that you're probably within range. And by advocating for yourself, Mm-hmm. you can actually get your doctors to run additional tests that will show you, yes, you have inflammation. Yes, your thyroid levels are actually so close to those outer bounds of the limit That maybe there is something going on, and I really advocate for naturopathic or functional medicine because we're looking at the body in a very different way. Whereas conventional medicine is going to look at the labs and say, "Oh, you look fine. Go on home." I mean, I know in my own experience, I experienced that for over three years where doctors would say, "I don't know. Everything looks fine, Ashley. Why don't you know come back in six months?" And then when I sort of dove into functional medicine and realized that we could look for a root cause, that's when that correlation between the inflammation and the thyroid issues started coming together, which opened my eyes. And I was able— I finally had some information to say, now I know what I'm looking for.

Yes.

Now I have some terms to use to, like, do a Google search and really educate myself. It's so important as patients that we, we put ourselves into the shoes of being a researcher and really understand what it is that we need in order to feel better. And so that advocacy, it doesn't always feel comfortable, but sometimes it's important. Sometimes you fire your doctor and you say, I need a different doctor because I'm not getting results here. And that's okay because we as the patient need to feel like we're getting results.

That's right. Look, I'm a huge— my whole business is based on taking self-responsibility to find other answers, to look outside of the box, to find people like yourself, and to learn how to advocate for yourself. Because if you're not, no one else will. And if someone's saying to you, your labs are normal, get more sleep or exercise more or don't have that glass of wine as the answer, well then you're right, you need to fire that person because that's the end of the line. You've got to follow the little breadcrumb trail back to why have you got the inflammation in the first place. Yeah, because yeah, inflammation, I've been reading, is really at the root cause of a lot of problems in the body.

Yes, definitely. It really— it's when I start looking at what kind of symptoms myself, my clients have, you start to recognize, wow, it's really— you— we know our body is a system, but it isn't until your parts start failing that you realize, like, Oh, it's all interconnected. And the thyroid specifically is responsible for over 80 functions in your body. So if it's not working and you have inflammation, you're going to see things like joint pain, um, brain fog. Brain fog is actually inflammation in your gut and inflammation in your brain. Um, something that I experienced was skin rashes and Extreme, extreme exhaustion. All of this is related to inflammation. And so when you take the time to say, well, I don't just need a cream for my skin rash, or I don't need more sleep because I'm exhausted. That's why I say these signs are white flags that your body is saying you got to do something. I need help here, and I'm trying to send you signals that we need to pay attention to. So we, we need to tune into our bodies a little bit more.

Absolutely. That's key. That's key. I mean, as adults, we seem to be so rushed and we forget how to just stop and relax for a minute and listen to those, because they're signals before they become symptoms. So like, listen to those little signals because it's telling you, you know, there's something wrong, you know, listen to me, I'm trying to help you. But We're just we've become almost immune to hearing, listening to ourselves. So when it comes down to inflammation, if inflammation is one of the factors in hyperthyroidism, what are we doing apart? So we've gone to the doctor. What you're saying, we've gone to the doctor. We've seen someone like yourself. We've gone to a naturopath. We've gone to a herbalist or someone, and they've gone. You know what? You've got hypothyroidism, it's the inflammation. So we've worked that out. What can they do at home? What sort of foods are best avoided that are inflammatory?

That— yeah, that's a great question because I feel like to me food is the easiest place to start because we all have to eat. Yeah, so you might as well make some different changes because there are other things we can do, but food is one of the best places to start. The good thing about doing that is that you will actually start to see changes quite quickly once you pivot with your food. And so an anti-inflammatory diet, I like to look at it in 2 ways. One is most— what most people think about, well, what are the things that I have to take out? So I really do advocate trying to see how your body does without gluten, dairy, soy, Um, alcohol and sugar. Those are to me the top 5 that you want to strip out.

Most of the audience has just fainted, right?

They're like, what? I don't want to take all of that out. They've all run. They're like, yeah, I'm done. But the benefit of trying that and actually realizing you may not need to always cut all of those things out, you may be able to reintroduce some things. But like you said, if we don't tune into ourselves and we don't get quiet for a minute and start paying attention, we won't know if our body is reacting or not. And so I really do advocate taking those 5 things out to start. But I also think part 2 of anti-inflammatory nutrition is being aware of all the things that we get to add in. I know that like berries don't feel as sexy as a popsicle. However, it's going to make our bodies feel better. And so Working to really change our relationship with food. I think a lot of cultures, many cultures, most cultures, we like food feels like it brings us together. It feels comfort. You know, we have that phrase comfort food for a reason. And if you can start to change your relationship that I am fueling and I am healing my body with the foods that I eat, that helps you to make that transition a little bit differently. And it's really important to find things. This was on my personal journey. I, when I first was diagnosed, I had to make sure that I was cooking for my family who wanted to still eat burgers and fries and, you know, barbecue and different things that I wasn't necessarily eating at the time. And so we have to find appropriate swaps so that we don't feel left out of Taco Tuesday, for example, or, you know, our favorite meal. How can we create a swap that feels good so we don't feel deprived? Because if you don't feel— if you feel deprived, you're not going to stick with it and you're not going to feel better. So we have to fix that. It's same thing, it's like root cause of the nutrition. Let's fix it at the root, and, and then it's easy to eat that way.

Absolutely. And if it feels like it's another chore, you've come home from work or you've been running around with the family, whatever your situation is, and then you have to eat Completely separate to your family, you have to make 2 meals, well then people aren't going to stick to that. That's just another thing to do, you know, another to-do list, you know, to tick. It's overwhelming for people. So can you tell me, like, there's a lot of information out there of what is considered a healthy diet, you know, a healthy, you know, meal plan, either, you know, they're keto, they're vegan, they're, you know, vegetarian, they're— oh, it's endless and it's confusing. No, but I don't— I think one of the biggest things is that people are food confused now. They don't know what is actually good for them, for their body. And I think they're not understanding that with a lot of these diets, it's, it's very general.

Mm-hmm.

As you were saying, food can be quite specific to what you have. And like you've just said, if I can circle back to it, is how do we work it so it works within a family unit? You know, so can you explain why don't these healthy meal plans work for someone with hyperthyroidism?

Yeah, there are a couple of things, because I think that if you find— if you sort of eliminate those top 5 inflammatory food groups and you find that your body feels better when you go to a healthy meal plan, you know, it might feel like Wait, I can't eat those things. It has gluten or it has dairy. Or some people with hypothyroidism are very reactive to nightshades, which would be things like tomatoes and peppers and eggplants. And you're not going to know some of these things unless you've taken that time to figure out what does my body react to and what doesn't it.

Hmm.

And the other challenge with that is that even— I think a lot of people are very familiar with Whole30, for example, as a general diet type, and it works for 30 days. I think the struggle is that if you are a mom and you are cooking for your family, or a dad, but you're cooking for your family and you need to eat that way, is your family really gonna eat zucchini noodles? Are they really gonna eat a kale salad? They're probably not. And it's okay. You don't need them to do that. And so I think when we find these meal plans, we're like, oh, this is, this is the one, right? This, this looks so good. But in reality, when it comes down to that brass tacks of making the meal and then realizing you either have to skip out or you have to just like cave to whatever your family's eating, it doesn't, it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Yeah. And I think some of those actually, what's considered, um, a healthy diet is actually can be quite damaging to the thyroid. Like, isn't it true that a low, very low fat diet is quite damaging? To the thyroid?

So anytime when you have thyroid issues, when you start taking things out that your body needs, it's that stress response again, and your body panics and it freaks out and it says, wait a minute, what's happening here? And it creates more inflammation. So when we're taking out carbohydrates— so if you eat a keto diet, if you're intermittent fasting, if you're going very low fat or low calorie, Your body will tell you.

Mm-hmm.

And we don't wanna listen because it means that we have to work differently or work harder to find a meal plan that works. But this is why a lot of those plans, they just don't cut it because we need carbohydrates for energy. We might need a different kind of carb like brown rice or potatoes or something like that, not a hamburger bun, but we need the carbs, we need the fat, we need to nourish our bodies. And actually more fat when you have thyroid issues more fat in your body, your body really loves it and it will respond surprisingly well. And you'll actually feel better because you're nourishing your body, you're fueling it.

Absolutely. Now I know that you are in this work from your personal experience that you had, um, that you developed hypothyroidism. Can, from your experience, can You tell us how you lost weight on an anti-inflammatory diet. How did that work for you? Yeah, what did you do?

Um, it didn't start easily. They never do. Never, never does. And I really— I went through a lot of these things that we've been talking about, you know, trying to figure out how to cook for my family, trying the restrictive diets, and none of that worked. And so I really, I put my researcher hat on and I just stayed very disciplined and I tried to figure out, okay, anti-inflammatory nutrition feels really good to my body. I'm not missing out on anything. Once I sort of figured out what portions I needed, because I think that's another thing, if you're trying to lose weight, you can still eat the carbs, but you really want to prioritize your protein and your veggies and your healthy fats. and then add in some carbs. So my plate started to look very different. And I just, I really tried to listen to what my body was saying as I would eat certain things. Did my body respond well? Did I have bloating or joint pain? I would make note of that. I took very extensive journals. And the other thing that I did is I stopped working out so hard. So I, years ago, a long time ago, I was training for a sprint triathlon, which is just sort of like a mini triathlon. Mm-hmm. And I would come home from training sessions and I would sleep for 4 and 5 hours. So to me, that was a sign that my body could not handle that amount of intensity. And so this combination of really looking at my nutrition and creating anti-inflammatory meals that worked for me and a version that worked for my family. And then sort of backing down on my exercise. It helped me to lose 55 pounds. And it—

Congratulations.

Thank you. People always ask, they're like, how long did it take you? It took me about a year. And it, to me, I feel like that was a very sustainable. But what's interesting is a lot of the clients that I work with today, they often find that they're losing 3, 4, 5 pounds in a week or 2 that we first start working together, it's inflammation. Their bodies are calming down. And so you may have weight to lose, but you might be surprised how much of it is inflammation and not necessarily fat weight that you are losing.

Yes. And I think that's, that's a key, isn't it? I don't think many people know or would understand Calling it inflammation weight.

Yeah.

What does inflammation weight look like? Is it puffiness? Is it water retention? What is inflammation weight? So someone can go, "Wait a minute, I've got really big, you know, swollen ankles," or "I'm always bloated," or "I feel really my clothes feel tighter today." You know something like that. Is is that inflammation weight?

Yeah, you're definitely gonna see it if your rings start fitting tighter. And a thing that I used to do is I would go out walking at lunchtime, and it's natural for us to just have a little bit of swelling. But before I had sort of healed internally, I couldn't get my rings off no matter what I tried.

Mhmm.

And so you really need to look for definitely this, like, overall feeling of Puffy and just kind of uncomfortable. Definitely bloating is a huge sign of inflammation, and you just you kind of keep an eye on that. And once you change and and transition your diet, you'll find that things maybe used to eat a salad that had lots of like croutons or you know bread bits to it, and then cheese and different things. And once you change. You might actually find that you're not bloated after lunch, or you feel a little bit better. So yeah, but it comes off— some of it comes off quite quickly, and it's really surprising to people.

So that's one part. There's 2 parts to this. So we've talked about the food. We're circling back to the food, what to take out to see if you're sensitive to it, and Now I'd like to touch on exercise.

Yeah.

We always think, push harder, go harder. I haven't exercised enough, I need to do another few reps or whatever. But that just doesn't work. Even if you don't have hypothyroidism, it doesn't work for women over 40 generally, right? And then you add hypothyroidism into the mix. It's not about doing harder and more. Can you explain What you did and what you feel are the best type of exercises for women, especially with hypothyroidism.

Yeah, definitely. So I quit doing cardio, and I love telling people that because how do you lose 55 pounds when you're not doing any cardio? Again, it's because I listen to my body, and when we exercise really hard, we— it increases the cortisol levels in our body, and that cortisol Just by nature of like giving you energy and keeping you going through a workout. I mean, cortisol as humans is designed to help us survive. And so if we need to run from a threatening situation, our cortisol is going to spike. But the problem with that is all that's doing is increasing the inflammation. And so there are ways to feel really great with your exercise as long as you're keeping it low impact. So low impact, most people know that that means 1 or 2 feet on the floor at all times. It can also mean 1 or 2 hands if you're doing something, you know, like modified burpees or something like that. But really, one of the best ways, and especially because you mentioned it, women over 40 can benefit greatly from strength training and weightlifting.

Mm-hmm.

And it doesn't make you bulky or big. I think a lot of women think, I don't want to be a bodybuilder. And that's not— you would have— it's just almost not possible for women generally working out at their local gym to make themselves look like a bodybuilder. But what that does is it replaces some of the fat that you have in your body with muscle. And the more muscle we have, it just helps. The way we create that muscle doesn't create as much inflammation as would a cardio session, which— Our body kind of feels like a cardio session is the same as running from a bear or running from a tiger. It increases the cortisol and the inflammation in the same way. So by lifting weights, you can still change your physique. You can lose the pounds, but you're not really damaging your body in the same way. And then adding to that, walking. Walking is really, you know, the, the fitness watch companies really had it right that if you can try and put in, you know, your 10,000 steps a day, really just making sure that you're having not a leisurely walk, you can still walk briskly, but really getting some gentle movement in. It's really going to treat your body well. Your body's going to love it. And again, it's going to respond really well.

Very wise, very wise. Because you can see sometimes women who are of the more mature age and they're just thumping it out there, and it doesn't look— they don't look happy.

No.

They don't look like they're enjoying it. It looks torturous. So Maya, what I'm— the message I'm getting here is go, go slow and go low. Low, slow. Don't, you know, be totally out there. It's not necessary at our age. It's all about You know, like you're saying, retaining that muscle and for our bone strength and just have walking is enough. Like, walk is enough.

So walking is good and adding the, adding the muscle is going to help. As we, you know, we were, you and I were talking before we got started today. I, I'm into menopause and I, I look at what's coming in the next 15, 20 years and I want to be able to get off and on the toilet by myself and I want to be able to like be safe in my home and All of the muscle building that we do now in our 30s and 40s and 50s is only going to help us, especially when menopause comes in. You start to lose lean muscle mass, and so we as women of an older age, we really have to work hard to build more so that our bodies are secure and safe. So it's really there's no downfalls to it. You're not going to get bulky. You will get strong. You can carry in your groceries. You can carry your grandkids around. You can you can live a really full and complete life. by adding the muscle and then just walking. That's all.

Exactly. And it does become— once you feel your body becoming stronger, you feel more empowered in your body, and it becomes a little bit addictive in the sense that you feel so empowered as opposed to feeling, uh, a bit manic around exercise. You know, I have to do this, I have— you know, that panic, you know, I have to, I can't put on a kilo, you know, or whatever. That Just doesn't work anymore. And with this podcast, we do share a lot of information, but I would like it to be that people actually take action, that actually take action on what they're hearing. So what could you say to the around their mindset? There can be a lot of blocks and a lot of mindset blocks about doing something different, about cutting out foods. Like we said before, as soon as you say, "I'll cut out coffee and alcohol." What kind of— what did you do to shift your mindset, and what can you recommend people do to shift their mindset into a more empowered state that they're not doing this just to lose weight, they're doing it to be healthy into their older age?

Yeah, yeah. I think for me and really the clients that I work with, mindset is above and beyond the nutrition and the fitness. Because if you don't have the right mindset, you're not going to keep going with that diet. You're not going to keep going with the workouts. And so if it is a thing where you need to remind your brain, hey brain, I am doing this to lose weight, if that's the thing that keeps you going For a little while, lean into the thing that helps to get you up every day to do the walk, to lift some weights, to make the right food choices. But at the end of the day, what the challenge is that our brain has a lot of data and like a lot of this historical data that reminds us, oh, you know, but we've tried that workout before and it didn't work, or we tried eating a salad before and it was gross and I don't want to have to do that again. We have to slowly start shifting our brain to understanding, you know what, maybe I could be the kind of person that gets up and walks 3 mornings a week. What would happen if I did that? Start questioning the stories that your brain gives to you that it's too hard or it's too restrictive. And instead say, what kind of person would I have to be To eat healthy 5 days a week? I don't know. Once you start questioning your brain, your mind actually gets a different kind of awareness of, oh, I think my brain's just trying to save me or protect me from something that feels hard or feels different.

Yeah.

And it's such a shift in the way that we think. But if you can start every day just having a little bit more awareness that brain might not be right in saying it's too hard or it's too difficult or it's too disgusting. The food is gross. If you can challenge your brain a little bit, you slowly start to change your mindset. And then you can build a mountain of evidence that says, wow, I actually am the kind of person who gets up 7 days a week and takes a nice walk. And I feel really good. Like, you used the word empowered. I feel empowered from that.

Mm-hmm.

We can start to create different stories for our brain to use that allow us to continue on a journey that actually makes us feel better.

Absolutely. I love that. It's so true. And what I love about what you said is it's that little bit every day. A lot of people get up one day, you know, they're— they've been doing their pattern for years, and then the very next day they go, I'm not doing any of that anymore. It doesn't work that way. You have to do it step by step. Just a little thing. Change one little thing a day if you can, or per week.

Yeah.

And maybe sit down and, and really evaluate, what are my values? What are my values? Because change requires— and I'm sure you already know this— change requires us to give up something And what are we gonna replace it with? You can't just give up and leave a void. You have to replace it with something, otherwise that's where the deprivation comes in. So just tap into our— to your values. What do you value? And what's one thing you can— All right, I may get a— give up sitting on the sofa watching TV, and I'm gonna replace it with 10-minute walk. Start with 10 minutes or half that. Don't put yourself under so much pressure because wouldn't you agree that's when people give up?

They give up because our, our brains are smart. Again, the brain really likes something for a minute or an hour or a week or something like very short term, but then the novelty wears off. And that's because in our brain the dopamine goes away and we think, oh, well, this is boring. I don't like this. And in the case of weight loss or nutrition, People look at it and they say, well, I haven't lost any weight, or I've only lost a pound, or I've only lost 2 pounds. And so then they decide to abandon ship because it doesn't feel interesting anymore. It doesn't feel good. And it does. It feels like I'm deprived. It's too hard. And so people throw in the towel way too early. But you are so spot on that it's— I— this is why I advocate starting with food, because we're eating anyway. So we can make one small change for a week.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe instead of toast in the morning or a bagel, you opt to have a gluten-free English muffin or, you know, maybe some brown rice, something different.

That's it.

You just do one thing in one week and start very small. Those are the changes that are going to sustain over time. And then you don't feel this like ripping away of all the things that you love, all the food that you love and the downtime and everything. It, it gives you time to adjust to a new lifestyle.

Perfect. I love that.

Can you educate our—

well, can you inspire our listeners on what are your 3 favorite actionable tips that they can do today to get started?

Yeah, absolutely.

Like right today, easy. What can we do today?

So I think we said one of them already. I encourage listeners to go out and take a walk.

Yes.

Just go take a walk, whether that's to your mailbox and back or down the beach or through your neighborhood. Just get outside and take a walk and start that routine slowly. If you can do 5 minutes one day, maybe add 2 minutes the next day. Very, very slow but steady progress towards adding a 30 to 40 minute walk every single day. So getting out and walking is number one. I think probably the second thing for me would be sugar. I know that gluten and dairy have their, their place to come out of a diet, but I think looking at the amount of refined sugar that you consume in a day. Mm-hmm. From all sorts of things, like if you've looked at the back of any of your condiment bottles of ketchup or barbecue sauce or different things, you will be shocked at how much sugar is in there. And it might be three grams here or seven grams there, but when you tally that all together for an entire day, it's too much. It's just too much. So start by gaining awareness of the amount of sugar added sugar, not fruit and stuff like that. That doesn't count. But the amount of added sugar. That you're putting into your diet every day, and just gain awareness. And and I think that that's super important. Probably the third one would be taking some time to just sit with yourself for like sixty seconds a day, and just tune in. How do I feel? Do I feel strong? Do I feel healthy? Do I feel like I have brain fog? Do I feel tired? Do I feel like I'm struggling at work or struggling in relationships? All of those things are going to give you indicators that if your body is feeling anxious or sad or uptight, that's an indicator that your body is saying, you know what, I don't feel good in my own skin. So I think again, it's that awareness that we're putting, putting around how we feel. Take 60 seconds or 2 minutes to do a journal. How did I feel today? And then when you're adding in some of the other things, you're adjusting a few of your foods, you're taking some walks, 7 days later, are you starting to notice any difference? Do you feel any better?

Mm-hmm.

So it's all things— it doesn't require going to a doctor. It doesn't require any wide sweeping changes. Small things and gaining awareness of how your body feels. You can do that today for sure.

Love it, love it. Simple, actionable, and they can just do it as soon as they finish listening to this podcast. Yeah, they can put that into action.

Do it. Yep.

And obviously people with hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's are really hopeful to get back. to a, you know, maybe a slimmer body, but definitely more energy, you know, feel vibrant in their day. This is what they want. This is— you don't want to be living with something for the rest of your life if it's, you know, making your life a misery. So you did it. What message would you like to leave our audience with today?

I really think that it's important for for people with thyroid issues specifically to recognize that healing is a journey. And it's— we, we want things to happen so quickly, and we think that our bodies are like they were when they were 20, where you knock off weight within a week or two and you're like, yes, I feel great. It doesn't happen that way when you have thyroid issues. And what starts as a journey For many, many women to lose weight, actually, if they keep going, it becomes a journey of how do I heal and make myself feel better? And so there's a shift that happens there, but it will never happen if you don't just take the time to understand that you're going to have good days, you're going to have bad days, you're going to have some wins, and you're going to try some things that fail miserably. And it's okay. That's all part of the journey. If you expect perfection all the way, it— you'll just struggle. You'll struggle every step of the way. So appreciate that it's a journey and just decide to take it slow and consistently.

Beautiful. And it really is my hope that the people listening to this and, and watching who have hypothyroidism, that you take the information that Ashley has shared and realize it is so much better to be working with a health coach than it is to go alone. Hyperthyroidism isn't really something that you should be trying to heal by yourself. You should be doing it with someone who has the knowledge like Ashley. So please go to the show notes. All of Ashley's details are there. Do yourself a favor, connect with her. She's got the experience. She's also got the results. Ashley, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a pleasure having you.

Absolutely. It's been great to be here, Rita. I hope this is really helpful for your listeners.

Thank you so much. Bye. I would love to know what was the biggest insight or aha moment You got from this interview, so you can now speak up, take action, and make informed decisions for your health. And if you like this episode, get instant access to your free ebook, Alternative Wisdom: Taking Back Control of Your Health, at life-onus.com.