Navigating Menopause: Exploring Life Beyond Hot Flashes

Welcome to another episode of Beyond Diagnosis. If your hormones are out of balance or you want energy and vitality in your day, then listen up, because today you've got an appointment with one of the best integrative health practitioners who will be sharing specific and actionable steps to change your life so you can take control of your health. Jessica Green is an integrative health practitioner and health coach helping women over 40 rebalance their hormones naturally. Hello and 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. Jessica Green is an integrative health practitioner and health coach helping women over 40 rebalance their hormones naturally so they can flow through perimenopause and menopause with ease. Jessica uses functional medicine lab tests in her group programs and private coaching. To help her create targeted approach for each client. She also has a background in sustainable building and environmental toxins and brings her knowledge of the environment and toxin exposure into her coaching practice. Welcome, Jessica, to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Rita.

You're— oh, it's a pleasure. It really is. It is so good to be able to speak to you about this and educate people about functional medicine. You know, because it's something that is still emerging. I feel like a lot of people still don't know that much about it. So yeah, yeah. So let's start at ground zero for our listeners who have never heard of functional medicine. So this is kind of like a 3-part question: what is it, how is it different, and why should they care?

All right. Oh, this is such a great question. So functional medicine at its core is the focus of, uh, getting to the root cause of any kind of symptom that you might be having. It also looks at the whole body as an integrated system, not in its bits and parts. So that in itself, that's the biggest difference between conventional medicine Which tends to separate out everything and not focus on root causes, but rather focus on treating symptoms versus the functional medicine approach, which is much more holistic, looking at what could be the root cause for whatever is going on with you. And then there's the understanding of how the body is all interconnected.

Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what I love about it. I love that whole person targeted approach that it's so individualized. Like you don't, compartmentalized. It's not, oh, you've got a problem with your liver, it's just the liver's problem. Or, you know, you have the whole mind-body approach. And one of the things I think I love the most is, for me, functional medicine is almost like, uh, a discovery model. It's really discovering what are the— what's the why behind those symptoms, you know? What's behind that what's behind, you know, behind it, what's behind it, what's behind it. If you don't get an answer straight away, then it's that whole discovery. Why? What's behind that? What's happening there? Is that all that sort of testing that you can't get? You can't get that sort of testing through the traditional medical. Um, they, you know, like I've said on a lot of these podcasts, you know, they do an amazing job Absolutely incredible, but not really for the chronic and long term, and not for the you know finding that root cause. So yeah, I love I love it. For me, functional medicine is a is kind of like a science-backed East meets West methodology for me.

Yes, there is a lot more information.

Yeah, integrate exactly. Actually, that's a better word integration. I love that.

Yeah.

So your main focus is women. 40 and over who are either in perimenopause or menopause. Um, can you give us a brief overview of the symptoms of perimenopause and the different— like, the difference between perimenopause and menopause? What is that time like? What is that? What does that look like for women? Sure.

Yeah, okay. So perimenopause can start in your late 30s to early 40s, and the symptoms won't be so obvious early on. It could simply be that you're experiencing a dip in progesterone. So the main symptom that you might find is if you're trying to get pregnant at that age, then it's going to be a bit more difficult. You might find that you end up going to the doctor. They'll prescribe you progesterone. In order to help boost that so that you can get pregnant and then maintain pregnancy. At the same time, if you're not planning on getting pregnant but you're still feeling like okay something is a little off, the biggest symptom that I see first off would be estrogen dominance. And there's a couple of reasons for this to happen. Estrogen is in a relationship with progesterone. So you've got two big sex hormones that you know are. Are the main sex hormones for women, and when you have one out of sync with the other, when the ratio is off, you'll get something called estrogen dominance. So estrogen dominant symptoms can cause things like sleep issues, for instance, brain fogginess. It could cause a little bit of weight gain. There there are a number of. Symptoms that go along with it, but it also affects other body symptoms as well. So it's not at all uncommon for people, women specifically at this age, to also start to see some thyroid issues as well, because there's a connection between progesterone production and thyroid hormone, the active form of it, which is T3. We could get more into that, but let's continue on with the timeline. So you start to move a little bit further along, a little bit further along. Pretty soon you're starting to see an estrogen drop as well. So over time, estrogen and progesterone drop as we start to get towards menopause. Menopause is actually one day. It's the one-year anniversary of not having a period.

So one day— I actually didn't know that. I've never— so menopause is actually one day, and yes, the rest of all the time when you're an absolute hot mess With—

it's perimenopause.

Unregulated body temperature, fatigue, mood swings, and all the rest of it.

Is—

yeah, so it's perimenopause, one day of menopause, and then is it postmenopause?

Is that perimenopause for up to like— you could have perimenopause for like 2 decades, then there's the anniversary date for menopause, and then you're postmenopausal. So at that point you say, okay, Now the ovaries have, you know, shut— they're shut down for business, right? That, that stage is in the past now, and your adrenals are taking over a large chunk of the production of your sex hormones. So that's, that's this transition that you're going through. And it's not— it's kind of like a slide. So women could start going into the perimenopause. They could even start going a little bit earlier. You know, you could be in your mid-30s and start this. Mm-hmm.

That's for different health reasons.

What—

whatever's happening in their body.

That, that's, that's a chronic stress issue. So, um, and chronic stress affects the adrenals. Chronic stress will also cause the body to prioritize, uh, sending in the master hormone, uh, to— that's pregnenolone, master hormone up here. It sends it down this track to, uh, supply cortisol. So it tells your adrenal, no, you know, we need to focus on cortisol production because you're in danger and you need to run away or fight. You need all this energy to deal with this chronic stress. It could be a big stressor, it could be small stressors, instead of prioritizing reproduction, right? So that makes sense. So women in their 20s can have low sex hormones. Women in their 30s can have low sex hormones. Hormones. Typically, if your adrenals are really good, if you're taking care of your mental health, if you're taking care of, uh, reducing stress and managing stress, then you shouldn't start to see any kind of changes until, you know, you're getting into your 40s, right? And when that happens, I, I mostly see, um, The things that are more obvious, like hot flashes, for instance, or night sweats, those will typically come a little bit later. So there's sort of this trajectory, right? I mentioned the estrogen dominance period. That's sort of the first stage. And then the second stage, your estrogen, estrogen drops as well. You might start experiencing the hot flashes, more mood swings, anger issues, brain fogginess. Like it sort of builds up. As you get closer to that, um, period of time where it's like, okay, I'm not having a period anymore. I'm, I'm coming up. I could be coming up to menopause. Uh, so that's kind of the trajectory. And when menopause happens could really vary as well. It could start for some women in their late 40s, and for some women it could be late 50s.

Mm-hmm.

So there's this range where a woman could experience You know, that 1-year anniversary of menopause.

Yes.

I don't know about you, but I am going to celebrate it. I'm going to celebrate menopause and have a great big menopause party because I feel like this is like that, that next stage, like the 3rd stage of a woman's life. And it's, it's kind of exciting because your hormones are starting to settle down. And there's not these crazy fluctuations anymore.

If I can just interrupt there, that's different. Like, almost people never think to have a menopause celebratory party. Most think, oh my God, no, you know. But when you said, oh, that's when your hormones start to settle down, I've only heard it more explained like that's when your hormones are starting to deplete. Like when they're starting to lose more hormones, and that's why when you go to the doctor, um, they start putting you on HRT. So I always thought it was a depletion, not a calming down. So that's really interesting.

Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of women will think of menopause as sort of this cliff. It's like you have the hormones and then you don't. But what happens is it is a gradual slide. Gradual, super gradual slide. And during the— and it could start— it starts around 40.

Yes.

Maybe late 30s. That's when the gradual slide starts to happen. That's when you start to see a white hair pop up. You start to see a little bit more wrinkles. Maybe your skin is changing. It's getting a little drier. Maybe you're starting to see a little less plumpness in the breast area. Maybe you're starting to see just a little bit more fat accumulation around the middle.

Mm-hmm.

That's when you're going to start to see symptoms that are very much like hypothyroid symptoms because your thyroid could be doing something a little bit different than it used to. That's when you could start to see, oh, you know what? My usual diet cheats for when I've, you know, overdone it over the weekend, you know, getting back on track and losing that couple of pounds I just gained, it doesn't work anymore because your body is starting to change how it's processing Everything, and yes, you know when when you get to that stage where you're kind of leveling out, you know you've just hit that one-year mark. You're kind of like flowing along, right? There shouldn't be too much change, and if your adrenals are happy and healthy, that change should sustain you through the rest of your.

Why?

And that would be the hope. Now, you can absolutely do, uh, HRT. It should always be bioidentical HRT, and you should always, always see a, a specialist, functional medicine type specialist that focuses on bioidentical hormones, who does the test and doesn't do a one-size-fits-all, because absolutely everyone is different. But if you do All the lifestyle things that, you know, you should be doing and you're addressing any pathogens that could cause a disruption in the way your body works, you should be able to flow through perimenopause, hit menopause, and it's like, I didn't even notice anything.

That's not many.

It should feel—

well, not many women that I've met that don't notice anything. Most that I have met have had, you know, I've sat next to friends who have been in perimenopause and it's all started and they've had these special little scarves around their neck to sort of collect the perspiration as it's coming down, you know, like because they're having such, um, hot flashes. I've been with other friends that I'm talking to them and all of a sudden, you know, they look normal And all of a sudden the whole face goes red, and then it comes down, and then a minute later the whole face goes— it's like this continuous wave of symptoms.

Mm-hmm.

So is that because there's something else going on behind that? Like, don't our hormones, um, influence so many things? Like, they definitely influence the thyroid, but Do our hormones influence like our digestion or our heart rate? Or I'm not sure if you could speak to that for people who are having all these different symptoms and they're going, what on earth is happening with me? But they're not connecting the dots that it actually could be perimenopause or the one day of menopause.

Yes. Okay, so, um, yes. I, I want to stay focused on sort of the key areas that I would go to first because I, I kind of feel like, um, I, I often think of putting on my Sherlock cap and doing this sort of investigation with people, but also, uh, think things are kind of like, um, okay, that was weird. I saw a background, it had sparkles in it.

I saw it too.

The, uh, I don't know what that was. Um, so, uh, what I was about to say is that health is like, uh, peeling back layers.

Yes.

So the key things that I would focus in on is, uh, your liver and detox pathways. And the reason is, is because your liver processes out, uh, excess estrogen So you want to get rid of the excess estrogen. So what the liver does is it changes it so it becomes water soluble and so that you could, you know, pee it out. You're getting rid of it, right? The other thing that the liver does is it helps to convert T4 to T3. So super duper important.

Thyroid hormones, right?

Yes, thyroid hormones. So when you go to the doctor and they're only testing T4, Or TSH, that's you need to know more information. You need to see what your T3 is doing. If you're not getting a lot of T3, if your T3, the active thyroid hormone, is low, you could have normal TSH and normal T4, the inactive form of the thyroid hormone, and have hypothyroid symptoms still because it's not converting. So if you drink. a lot of alcohol, if you're not having regular bowel movements, um, if you're not staying hydrated, uh, if you're exposed to a lot of toxins, your liver is going to be sluggish and you will have symptoms. So that is really key to focus on liver detoxification.

So if I was to book into you And I said, I've got these symptoms. What is the first— like, what is the first thing? So you'll speak to me and you'll most probably do, I assume, a connection between my lifestyle, my emotional state, and how that is affecting my body. Because I— that's my understanding of what's the difference with functional medicine compared to traditional medicine. It's the whole mind-body connection. It is.

And it's important to start wherever that person is. So I'm not going to start off with the liver detox for someone who is, uh, got a highly processed diet, uh, who doesn't move their body, who isn't having bowel movements. The liver detox is not where I would start. I would start on some really basic lifestyle and dietary shifts to help them move to this next stage. I would, and I would really focus in a lot on, um, calming that nervous system. What can you do to set boundaries? What can you do to, um, you know, if you're a people pleaser, how can we shift that? Let's dig into why that might be happening because you're too busy to focus on yourself. You're pleasing everyone else around you, and that's causing a lot of stress for you. It could be, um, maybe you've got a lot of work responsibilities, and okay, how can you start to transition off some of those responsibilities? Like, how can you manage people differently, maybe? Or how can you put more boundaries at home so you're leaving work at work? And you have your home life at home. How can you start to create more space and time for yourself to do some of the basic self-care things to help calm that nervous system, help me— you make you feel more valuable to yourself, right? We need to be able to value ourselves in order to take action and make ourselves a priority. So I might just start there. The Liberty Talks, if someone is already there and it's like, okay, you're ready for that next Let's do a bit of liver detoxing, make sure you're having those bowel movements. And then, uh, if you're having any gut issues, that might be a next space— a place to go to, because the gut, your microbiome, is really important for how your body processes hormones. There's this great big connection also between the gut micro—

Sorry to interrupt you, but can you just explain microbiome?

Yes, microbiome.

Microbiome.

Okay, so microbiome, we are made up mostly of cells of other organisms. So less human cells, more microorganism cells. Those microorganisms include bacteria and fungi, and they need to be in balance. There needs to be a good variety of those to help our bodies function well. When your gut microbiome, when say it's out of balance, that would be essentially your intestinal lining. That's really kind of where your gut microbiome is, but it kind of goes all the way.

Isn't it just kind of like the bugs in your intestines, like the bacteria, not the bugs, the bacteria in your intestines? Yes, in simple terms, isn't it?

In simple terms, yeah, exactly. So, um, say if you've gone through a life filled with antibiotics, or you've been using antibacterials in your toothpaste and your hand wash and your, you know, anything that you put on your body, then what's going to happen is that your bacteria will be less than it should be. It makes room for fungal overgrowth and yeast overgrowth. So for a lot of women, that I've worked with, they tend to have a lot of Candida overgrowth. Candida is a form of yeast. It's one of the most common overgrowths that I see. So that's one area to look. When you have Candida overgrowth, you will also have food sensitivities. So say if you have bloating or any digestive issues, or you have rashes, eczema, if you feel tired, like really fatigued, if you're craving sugar, These could all be signs of that overgrowth of Candida. So gut microbiome, super duper important that you have it in balance. There should be no overgrowth and no bad forms of bacteria, only the good forms of bacteria, primarily the good forms of bacteria. So the gut microbiome, super important. Liver detoxing, super important. And that is in addition to the basic, very basic diet and lifestyle things. The, are you sleeping? Are you eating whole foods? Are you eating enough protein? Are you moving your body? Are you sweating? So it, that just builds off of that. So depending on where you're starting from or what your symptoms are, that will tell me where I should start.

Mm-hmm.

with you on this journey as your guide, right?

That's, that's really interesting. That talks to the comprehensive testing. It's all that— it's that whole comprehensive. It's not, oh, you know, I've had a test done. I've had a test done, and personally, and it said, wow, your hormones are low, and I was just given HRT. Yes, it was bioidentical But was my liver looked at, like what you were saying? Was my microbiome looked at? Was that comprehensive sort of testing done to say, or to see, well, there are all these other areas that may be influencing why estrogen is low or estrogen is high and all the other hormones? So that's fantastic. The other thing is that If we could actually just circle back a little bit, just for people who aren't really aware, what are some of the specific symptoms that we— that a woman can attribute to low estrogen, or maybe even high estrogen? Because that's the main one that women actually know about. They don't really, really know— a lot of women don't really know about all our hormones and our sex hormones. So if, if they come, if they don't realize, like I mentioned before, they're having heart palpitations but they don't attribute it to hormones, what are some of the specific symptoms that, that they can be experiencing apart from maybe the gray hair or the mood swing? Are there any others that— and then maybe the dry skin— are there any other specific ones that they can go, wow, I'm, I'm going to the heart specialist because I've got these heart palpitations and I'm really scared, you know, whereas you could be going, actually it's your hormones, and if you had comprehensive testing you would know. But what are some of them that they can identify for themselves?

Great question. So, um, some of the, the 2 biggest ones that I see are, uh, Sleep issues.

Hmm.

So it could be waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep. Another thing that I see is, um, uh, having difficulty with bowel movements, not having daily bowel movements. Sometimes that could be, um, you know, an estrogen dominance, but maybe you have low estrogen at the same time. So that could be a thing that happens. Uh, another thing that I see a lot of is fatigue, uh, especially with estrogen dominance, lots of fatigue and brain fog. And so what that could look like is just not being able to remember things very well. That can happen. Um, it could be, uh, yeah, you could definitely have mood swings, but is that because of the lack of sleep or is that, uh, the estrogen dominance? Right.

Yeah.

So it could be either. And what I've seen when I help women who— and I run a functional medicine lab test, of course, for hormones and cortisol levels and thyroid and insulin and vitamin D kind of all together. And so for women who have estrogen dominant symptoms, one of the first things that we do is we focus on the liver and we focus on helping them to get rid of the excess estradiol. And The, the thing that I see the most as a result from that is that women all of a sudden have energy to be able to work a full day and then cook a dinner for their family at night and be awake enough that they could take care of a couple of things that have been on their to-do list. And before, maybe they weren't able to do any of that. Because they were just exhausted by the middle of the day. It's like I don't even have energy to stay up and cook dinner, so we're ordering takeout. You know, it it could be that much of a dramatic shift. Another thing that I've seen too is with estrogen dominance is that when we start to take care of the liver and start to make sure that your body is just doing its job to get rid of the excess estrogen, people can become just a little bit more happy and less anxious. And this sounds like a very small shift, but when I hear clients telling me that people around them are saying, you look just so much more happy, like, I am noticing your happiness, and it's this energy that's coming off of them, right? It's like, yeah, darn right, I'm happy.

That's that vitality part you was talking about, right?

Yes, yes, exactly. So those are the biggest areas that I see with regard to the estrogen dominance. Also, what can happen is just breast tenderness can happen with estrogen dominance. You could also see more PMS symptoms. For instance, um, when I started rebalancing my hormones, um, you know, I, I just, I don't have PMS type symptoms. I don't have cramps, and there's also nutrition that goes into this too. Some mineral imbalances that should be worked on as well. So that is a really important piece of the puzzle. The other thing is headaches. People can have women can have more headaches during perimenopause, especially with estrogen dominance, and by focusing not just on the liver piece but also replacing some of the minerals and nutrients that tend to be depleted. depleted in stressed women, chronically stressed women, which is like most of us.

Most of us.

Um, yeah, most of us. So, uh, taking magnesium is incredibly helpful for calming the nervous system, helping with bowel movements, getting rid of aches and pains and headaches. And so many of us are depleted, and it's the stress, that stress response. When we're stressed, our body starts to excrete magnesium faster. And then it starts to excrete B vitamins faster, and you need the B vitamins for energy. So B vitamins, I use a B complex and magnesium. There's a variety of forms of magnesium. They all do a little bit different things. So I can't remember, I might have written a blog post on that. I do have quite a bit of blog posts on my website, free to share. And so those are really important in helping to rebalance some of these As well.

Yes.

Is there—

going back to what you were saying about women feeling exhausted, and you mentioned when you're exhausted it's hard to be cooking the meals. You've come home from work, you're exhausted, last thing you want to do is start cooking.

Yeah.

And you get the takeout, which has, you know, we all know that takeout is nothing like— has the excess oil, the bad oils, the sugar. We won't go there.

Yeah.

Does changing your diet to some— to a healthier diet, but are there specific foods that can increase naturally our level of hormones if we're kind of flatlined? If our hormones are flatlined, can we start increasing those hormones naturally through diet, or you have to get them to a certain level with, say, HRT and then take it from there. What are— are there any specific foods that you could recommend to start increasing our hormones naturally?

Yeah, so if you're very depleted, I wouldn't go to HRT. I would actually go towards a supplement, so multivitamins, for instance.

That's interesting.

If you're, if you're very depleted So many of us are. And if you've been eating a lot of processed foods, you're even more depleted than, say, somebody else who's cooking at home. No matter what they're cooking, you're going to be more depleted if you're eating processed foods or ultra-processed foods. So replenishing that, that's the first step. Because even if you take HRT, if you don't have the nutrients, The nutrient stores to do something with that hormone, you're not going to see a difference. It's not going to be that obvious. It's going to be kind of like I kind of see a difference, but not really. But if you actually replenish those nutrients first, then if you decided to take HRT, you could. But chances are you're going to feel better just by taking a B complex, taking magnesium. Taking a multivitamin that has selenium in it for your thyroid, for instance, has zinc in it. Zinc is important for so many bodily functions. Just being able to build that up in your body again is absolutely life-changing. So what I would say with regard to the first thing I would make sure you're eating enough of, especially as we're getting older, is protein. Women really need more protein. You need it because, and you'll need more as you age because your body is not processing, assimilating those essential amino acids as efficiently as it once did. So you go with it, right? Don't fight it. Just go with it. It's like, okay, I'm gonna eat more protein. So when I have women start to eat a protein-forward breakfast with 25, 30 grams of protein in it, Then all of a sudden their life changes. They have energy all morning long. They don't have to stop for a mid-morning snack because they're feeling charged up and ready to go. It is such a game changer for women. So I want to see women have that amount of protein for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For women who are particularly stressed, I wouldn't start off fasting, like doing a long intermittent fast. I wouldn't skip breakfast. In other words, I would rather you eat. And that's because you need to calm your nervous system, support those adrenals. And fasting, intermittent fasting can be game-changing. But if you're already starting off with low energy and stressed adrenals, fasting is not going to feel good. And you might wreck it.

It can stress your body. Content faster.

Yeah, it's a stressor. It's a stressor. It could be a good stressor, or for some it could be a bad stressor, at least until you get to that point where your body is a bit more stable. The other thing that I would highly recommend for consuming more of is just veggies. And I'm not talking about the starchy veggies. I'm talking about all the super colorful veggies. I mean, yes, carrots, but it could be purple carrots, red carrots, orange carrots, It could be bell peppers of variety of colors. It could be berries. I really love berries because they're low in sugar and high in antioxidants and polyphenols. These are really important. I really love also— I recommend this, and you could do it this way if you'd like— having half of a lemon juiced In a cup of, um, like, I like warm water or hot water with a pinch of salt. This is like natural Gatorade. And what this is going to do is it's gonna charge up those adrenals too. So have something like that. That's like natural electrolyte drink. Have that in the morning within 30 minutes of waking, and that will also boost your energy and you'll feel like you're getting sort of a cleaning out. It'll actually make you feel like, oh, I could totally have a bowel movement after drinking this. So having the natural electrolyte in the morning, eating those colorful veggies and green veggies, dark leafy greens too, and having that protein at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There you go. You're gonna get a bunch of minerals your body isn't used to getting. You're going to get more fiber than your body is used to getting. You're going to get that protein for that energy boost and to help save your muscle mass. You absolutely need protein in order to protect your muscle mass. So that's where I would start. So diet change, and then if you're particularly depleted in nutrients, do supplementation.

Right. It's, it's very much the horse and cart scenario, isn't it? You can go to a practitioner who puts the cart before the horse Or you can— is that the right way around?

Yeah, uh, horse before the cart.

The horse before the car. Anyway, you know what I'm trying to say.

Yeah.

Where they start at the end. Let's, let's put it this way, they start at the end, not at the beginning. Like, the end is you've got all these symptoms, you've got all these menopausal symptoms, you've got low hormones, etc. So let's give you HRT. But if you went all the way back, like what you're saying is have a look at your mindset, because sometimes, you know, you think you've got anxiety, but really it's the stress in your life that's depleting your hormones that's making you feel anxious. So do you really have anxiety, or is it that chain reaction? So it's like, look at everything, look what you're eating, look at your lifestyle. Then like you're saying is what I'm understanding is look at supplementation through maybe that you've— would you have done the test for that supplementation, or do you just recommend they do, you know, depending on what they're feeling, just do that, you know, magnesium, the basic magnesium and a B complex?

That's a really good question. So I do run tests to check certain nutrient levels. That first test that I mentioned, the hormone test, does have vitamin D. Vitamin D acts like a hormone in the body. So if you're low in vitamin D, not only are you going to have problems with hormones, but you're also going to have problems with bone health and repair.

Mm-hmm.

So you want your vitamin D levels to be at a certain level. Now, vitamin D is important to test before you dose it because you don't want to overdo vitamin D. So because it's— you're not just going to pee it out. Um, it's a fat-soluble hormone or Vitamin, so you want to dose it appropriately. Now, vitamin D levels should be at least at 50 or above. Conventional medicine will say, no, you could be fine at 20, but trust me, you won't feel good at 20. You will feel good at 50 to 75. So that's the range that you should be, especially if you want to improve your bone health. So that one I would test. The B vitamins, if you've had this prolonged history of chronic stress and you're feeling low energy, I will absolutely add a B complex, knowing that if your body really doesn't want to use it all, it will pee out any excess. Like, it's really hard to overdose on that. Um, the multivitamin— I always recommend a multivitamin in general, even with a B complex, because that includes a lot of little minerals that you are probably not getting in your diet. And you're not getting it in your diet because of soil depletion. A lot of minerals are depleted from our soils. So plants that are grown today are not the same plants that were grown 50 years ago, for instance.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Right. So we're, we're not getting all the same nutrients. Also, people are moving more towards a plant-based diet away from animal proteins. Sorry to say, but, you know, animal proteins, especially like liver, for instance, I love liver pâté, like a chicken liver pâté.

I'm I'm with you. I love it. Yeah, love it.

Super, super duper packed ounce for ounce. It's like way more nutrient dense than just anything that you can eat, right? So getting that kind of food in the diet, a lot of us have gone away from some of that. So, you know, you might be a little bit more nutrient deficient than others. So if you're a vegetarian or vegan, supplementation becomes even more important, especially with the B vitamins, because you're not going to get that much, uh, with a lot of plant-based, uh, foods. Now, the other thing that I would say as well is that omega-3s are really important, and there's just so much research out there. You could Google it. So much research out on, um, omega-3s and their importance with overall health. Now, you know, you think about people are being prescribed statins Well, omega-3s can, can solve that, right? You, you could already be depleted in omega-3s, which is why you're having issues. And, uh, but your doctor sees something that they could prescribe a statin for, they're gonna prescribe you a statin. But statins have side effects and your body is not depleted in statins. Statin is something else. Well, you know, but your body—

You're never depleted in a pharmaceutical, are you? You know, it never says, oh, I need more, I really need a statin. Yeah, it's not—

it's—

That's the whole discovery. That's the discovery, isn't it? Like, let's discover why is that happening instead of— I've kind of coined this, this phrase called symptom stroking. Instead of just stroking the symptom with pharmaceuticals or something like that, which takes away the feeling, which also takes away— oh, it doesn't take away the feeling, I'm sorry, it takes away the symptom. But that means it also takes away your intuition, it takes away your knowing of your body. And that's—

Yeah.

Yes, that's kind of what I was going to say next, that if you give your body what it needs It can heal itself. But most people don't stop to think of the type of food that they're putting into their body, that they're ingesting, or that the stress that they're living. They don't stop to think, oh my God, look at my stress level. Like, you could just look around sometimes and go— I have, when at times when I've been super stressed, I've turned around and going, wow, they're, they're nothing like me. How come I'm so stressed? Or, you know, you have to actually have reflection. And it's also, if you are stressed, you tend to eat— like we mentioned before, circling back to the food— you tend to eat a lot more processed or takeaway food. The pollution in the air that we breathe, all of these things, like you were saying, have an impact. So there's something I'd like to ask, which is, can toxins influence the severity of the perimenopausal symptoms that you're experiencing, is there any correlation between toxins? You know, have they— have you been able to connect the two?

Yes. So endocrine disruptors are a class of environmental toxins that will absolutely affect your entire endocrine system. Endocrine system being your hormones, including your thyroid. It also includes, um, your insulin, how your pancreas puts out insulin, insulin, and how your body uses it. It also impacts how your body processes out those toxins. So, um, huge. That could be, uh, so BPAs, BPSs, that whole class of BP blanks, you know, fill in the blanks. So handling receipts, for instance, it's one of our biggest ways to get BPS. Uh, because that's a coating on them. Oftentimes we'll even like hand sanitize our hands at the grocery store. We're standing in line and then we're grabbing the receipt. That makes it even worse.

So, um, wow, I didn't know that one.

Yeah, just don't accept the receipts. And right there, you're already reducing some amount of toxins that you're coming into contact with.

And then I think that's a new one for everybody listening. That's a new one. I don't like hand sanitizer because, you know, you need good germs, you need the good bacteria and all that that is out in the world. The receipt, that, that is new. I have— I never thought that one.

And, and that's a biggie. So with regard to endocrine disruptors, the biggest exposures are basically anything plastic. Anything plastic will have the biggest exposure of endocrine disruptors. If you heat the plastic If you put the plastic in a dishwasher, if you scrape it and store food in it, if you have any acids coming into contact with plastics, that would be like tomato, for instance. I would never get canned tomato, for instance, because the can is always lined with BPA or BPS or BPF that will leach into the tomatoes. Never put tomatoes in a plastic container. You'll notice your plastic Turns red, right? And what's happening is that some of the tomato is sort of transposing with the plastic. So some plastic leaves and goes into the sauce, some of the tomato goes into the container and stays there forever. So these are the things that I would typically avoid. So going with glass containers, super important. Making sure that you're not using— if you do have anything like a blender, Or food processor. Don't put anything hot in it. Always wash it by hand. Don't let it get scratched. I don't like nonstick pans for a variety of reasons, but especially if it's like a Teflon or a similar type of pan. The moment that you scratch it, those particles get into the food, and the substrate, which is usually aluminum, starts to leach into the foods too. Aluminum is a neurotoxin. toxin, and we want to keep our brain healthy. So you don't want to come into contact with lots of aluminum, especially acidic foods touching aluminum. So there are some basic things that you could look at there. The other thing is to look at your bath and body products, things that you put on yourself. I like to, rather than go through like the whole list of different endocrine disruptors in bath and body care products, What I recommend is going to an app. Think Dirty is one app where you could go and you could check out your products on that app and see how it rates for toxicity.

Mm-hmm.

EWG has a couple of databases. One is for cleaning products and one is for bath and body products. And you could go there and look up your products there. You can even look up individual ingredients to see if those are endocrine disruptors, if they'll disrupt your— like, if, if you're pregnant, for instance, it could be a developmental toxin, it could be a neurotoxin. So they'll tell you what kind of class that is and how wary you should be of that particular item. So you could go in a little bit of a rabbit hole Doing that, or you could just look at their, um, list of like their top picks for nontoxic, whatever it is that you're looking for. I'd rather go that route because it takes a lot less research time.

Yeah, absolutely.

To do that. So you just look, oh, EWG, that's Environmental Working Group, that's based in the US. They recommend these products. Great. Wonderful. Think Dirty has a list of products that they have that they really like. Oh, great. I don't even have to think about it. Let's just go for that. Yeah. So those are ways to start to knock out some of those endocrine disruptors from your body just by removing the exposure. The second best way to help detox your body from some of these different toxins is to sweat. So that could be Sweating in an exercise, like doing exercise and sweating. You could do hot yoga if you if you like that. You can go into an infrared sauna and sweat out the toxins. So very effective. It's like the best way to start to knock out toxins, and we could go deeper and deeper into various toxins, but we won't today because I feel like you know there are some very basic things that you could do. Almost everyone. could go to some sort of a sauna, like a dry sauna is also okay, but don't do a steam sauna. Infrared saunas, a lot of spas or wellness places also have infrared saunas. You could get like a punch card.

Yeah, I've heard about that.

So good. You could get saunas for at home. Of course, there's blanket saunas, much more cost-effective than getting like a big sauna, and plus you could roll it up and put it away. Um, or just moving your body more and sweating, you know, exercise.

And you can just exercise and, and perspire, and you're at least getting some out instead of them accumulating. So if you do that, the more, the more you're aware, the more you can do that prior to moving into perimenopause, the easier maybe your symptoms will be.

Absolutely. And if you're in the thick of it right now, you still do those things. You will start to see your symptoms start to go. And everyone is a little bit different. What is that one thing that's causing that? I love this analogy, the, the rain barrel. And Dr. Cabral— I used to work for Dr. Cabral over at Equalife. He wrote a book called The Rain Barrel Effect. I highly recommend that for anyone interested in the effects of toxins on our body. Um, but he described it as— and it's not just toxins, it could be other pathogens too, like the Candida overgrowth that I talked about. So you only have so much room in your brain barrel.

Mm-hmm.

And you start to layer on all these things. Okay, processed foods, ultra-processed foods, stress, lack of sleep, uh, not having bowel movements cuz I'm not drinking enough water or getting enough fiber. Um, you add on toxins on top of that, something is going to be like, oh, this is just too much. I'm sorry, but I've gotta overflow now. That overflow is a symptom coming out. So, Mm-hmm. for each and every woman out there, there could be this one thing that's like, that is just, that's one thing that I needed to stop XYZ symptom.

Mm-hmm.

And so for some it could be just I need to detox my liver, and then that's done. I need to just get to an infrared sauna. Oh, I feel so much better. Oh, I just need to move away from ultra-processed foods. Whoo! I feel loads better. I just shed some weight. You know, there are things that people can do, and not everyone will be the same. So I I definitely want people to explore and really pay attention to, like even write it down in a journal. Get a food and mood journal. You know, download an app like MyFitnessPal, um, to start tracking some of this if you want, and tracking how you feel on a regular basis after implementing one thing.

Yeah, if we can start going— tell me, what's your why for doing this work? It's so interesting, but what's your why?

For doing it, for doing this work, it's really so that women feel that they're not alone, that they don't have to suffer in silence, that there is a solution.

Yes.

And you might not know exactly what it is yet, but the solution is in you. Listening to your body will give you all the clues that you need, and I'm just a guide. Though that's my biggest why, and we talked about the change that people notice when they start to rebalance their body and the lives that it affects around them. So the client who started to detox that excess estradiol and all of a sudden had energy. to do full days of work, worth of work, and cook dinner not just for her immediate family but extended family who were visiting from out of town. So many people just benefited from that one thing. She took care of herself. She felt so amazing. All these people were impacted. The woman who I've worked with, another client who started to make these shifts And all of a sudden, it's, it's like people are saying, oh my gosh, you look so radiant. You look so happy.

Mm.

We could just feel your happiness. And then that makes them feel happy. And it's like, oh yes, I love this. That woman has impacted numerous people around her. So there is this effect when we feel good, other people around us feel good. When we feel calm and patient, other people get that benefit from us.

Absolutely.

We get to be the best version of ourselves, and there's a big ripple effect, whether it be you're trying to put out a book that could benefit tens of thousands of people, but you need to take care of yourself first. You know, this is a big ripple effect. So I want to help women to be the best version of themselves. And this is a time in their lives that is so transitional, and it could cause so many issues.

Absolutely.

And I want them to be able to flow through it, not with these big issues, but to feel like they're really in charge of their health, and they feel clear-minded and energetic so that they can accomplish all the wonderful things that they really want to do with themselves.

Fantastic. What are 3 simple things our listeners can start to do today at home to start managing their symptoms if they have symptoms?

Hmm, well, where I would absolutely start is Just taking a really good quality multivitamin. It sounds really funny, but just replenishing those nutrients, just that in itself will help to support liver function, liver detoxification function.

Yeah.

Yeah. If you don't have certain nutrients, if you're depleted, your body won't do that. Uh, your thyroid won't be as happy, your hormones won't be as happy. Uh, you'll be holding on to more toxins. So doing that Getting away from the ultra-processed foods, that would be a really big one. Um, and then the next thing is moving your body.

Hmm.

Definitely exercise is so important. And you know what, if you're not into going to the gym, it's okay. You could go for a walk in the woods, like a hike in nature. That would be really good. If you like to run or just go on lunchtime walks, That's really good. For me, when I'm making coffee in the morning, I like to do squats, lunges, and push-ups while I'm waiting for that. I stretch my body throughout the day. I love, I love moving my body in different ways. So, you know, it could be, you know, if you like dancing, if you like yoga, if you like pole fitness, if you like belly dancing.

Belly dancing.

Um, just move your body and that will make a huge difference in how you feel. So those— that would be the 3 things that I would just start with.

And it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to— people, women don't have to feel overwhelmed just to make a start. Make a start like you were saying, the simple things. Eat really well, supplement Drink more, eat fresh food. That's your basis. That's your basis. That's your starting point. And then if you still feel that, you know, I still need to move the needle on my health a little bit more, that's where functional doctors come in. That's where someone like you comes in to start having that more comprehensive understanding through testing and, and discovery.

Exactly.

Yeah, Jessica, it has been such a pleasure. Thank you so, so much for coming on and educating our listeners today. And for everybody, there is something Jessica is offering. So if you want to go to the show notes, Jessica has a free summit to learn how to flow through peri and menopause with ease. It'll be in the show notes. There'll be a link for you to be able to sign up and learn how to make— how well— how to take control of your hormones. Thank you so much, Jessica. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

You're welcome. 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.