Experience a Graceful Perimenopause, with Dr. Mariza Snyder @Drmariza

Our guest today is Dr. Marisa Snyder. She's a functional practitioner, women's hormone expert and the author of eight books. The newest book, the Essential Oils Menopause Solution focuses on solutions for women in perimenopause and menopause. And the number one best selling book, the Essential Oils Hormone Solution focuses on balancing women's hormones naturally. She's been featured on Dr. Oz, Oprah, Fox News, Health Mind, BodyGreen and many publications. Dr. Marisa is also the host of the top rated Essentially youy podcast designed to empower women to become the CEO of their own health. Welcome Marisa. We are so excited to have you here. Thank you for joining us.

Yes, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

I can't wait to talk about like, well, everything.

Like always. Yes, yes.

So you have did your new book. It launched, right?

It did almost a year ago actually.

Jesus. Ok.

When my, my son was four months old. So.

Okay, you're now in superwoman realm. It's amazing. Okay, so. So first off, how did you get into perimenopause as your thing and women's hormones? What was that like?

Such a good question. Honestly, in practice is the majority of my patient base was in perimenopause and they had a slew symptoms that doctors weren't, they weren't putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Like they were getting treated for migraines over here, they were getting treated for heavy bleeding over here, they were getting treated for digestive issues and bloating over here. And you know, it was just all over the place. Mood swings, you know, a little Xanax over here, you know, it was, and no one was kind of putting together the puzzle pieces. And at the same time, my mom was going through the worst of the worst. She was what I call the eye of the storm of perimenopause where it's crazy heavy bleeding to the point anemia. You know, one, one little story I share in my book was when she was going through so many tampons, she ended up clogging up her toilet and had to call a plumber. And the plumber comes and he comes out like within like a half hour later and he has a tampon in his hand. He's holding it, he's like, did you know what the problem was? It was 32 tampons in there and my mind to talk about wine that slits on my throat, you know what I'm saying? Like this woman's hemorrhaging practically and but the mood swings the hot flashes, the. Everything was just so much to deal with, and it was just a really yucky ride. And so I was a big part of her getting out of that yucky time, that mess. And so I just felt that so many women where it. Just the hot mess of it all, where it really felt that we got the Mack Truck moment, was happening so often in that perimenopausal phase, and that we weren't. We weren't given any information about this. Like, everyone kept telling us it was going to be menopause, Menopause, menopause. And no, it's. It was the transition into menopause that was the big issue. And for me, what I've experienced in a lot of my patients, but also in my own experience, is that perimenopause is happening earlier and earlier and earlier, depending on how you operated in your 20s and your early 30s. And so 35. For me, I remember because it was right after I got married, and I had been in the gym twice a day getting ready to get into that size zero wedding dress. And it was on the other side of that that I had severe chronic fatigue. And I remember getting to this teeny size and then just blowing up. Like, I just. I put on £15 like nobody's business. And it was right when I had turned 35, 36. And it all kind of went downhill for me for about three to four years until I could kind of rein it in myself in denial that it was early stages of perimenopause and things were shifting and. But when I looked at labs, I had literally. I had menopausal progesterone levels. I had severe estrogen dominance, and cortisol was just out of control. And so I found myself in the same predicament that a lot of women found themselves in in their early 40s and thought, like, there's something. There's something that we need to uncover here.

Yeah, it's always personal. I feel like the thing that gets you so in is it's personal. And I just want to say you alluded to that it's occurring earlier and earlier. And the. Where I sit looking at all the ways in which we're exposed to toxins and hormone disruptors, that because it's become so much just a part of our lives, like, nobody thinks twice about drinking the Kombucha from a plastic bottle or using all these beauty products that have endocrine disruptors and those play a role, too, in women's hormone balance. And it's just piled on and then you pile on the stress and maybe hypothetically over exercising and here you are like, it's messy work environment and trying.

To be super mom.

Oh yeah, no, it's messy. You think about all the, all the messy that starts in our 20s that we don't think about because we still, we still feel that level of resilience, right? Our testosterone levels are still rocking. Progesterone, probably where it needs to be. Estrogen, she's, she's handling business and she's keeping, she's getting checked over here, you know, you know, the sex hormones are humming and running, our metabolic hormones, insulin. She's still sensitive. She's all right, she's okay, you know, and then, and you can manage cortisol, you can stay up late, you can pull the all nighters, you can, you can mess up your circadian rhythms, whatever, you're 20 something, whatever. And you kind of just, and you can get your nails done every two weeks and you can dye your hair, all the fun colors, you know, and it all just starts to add up. You know, a decade or 15 years of this operating, you're going to start to see some. As your body pivots even a little bit, you're going to start to feel that shift. And depending on how you took care of yourself in those years really is going to dictate what goes down in that 30 to 40 year mark. And it's just, it's a, it's a decade that I don't think we know that we need to pay as much attention to yet.

It's invisible, actually. It's invisible, I think.

Yeah.

Well, the challenge is coming off the teenage years where you know everything where.

You know you're invincible and then 20.

And then 20, everybody else is wrong. You can do whatever you want. You are invincible. And then you hit 30 and then 40 and then you start thinking and you're invisible.

The invisible, I think, you know, I think women younger and younger too. Like I see women struggling in their 20s and we see symptoms of PCOS earlier because insulin resistance is happening. You know, we see, we see irregular periods, we see mood swings, and I think we're starting to see an inkling of a little less resilience even in our 20s, but I feel like in our 30s, as we head into 40, like mid-30s and on, if you're attuned enough to your body, you're going to feel the shifts and things are happening. Testosterone is dropping precipitously. Progesterone is starting to drop precipitously. It Shows up. PMS symptoms are a little bit more. All of a sudden you wake up and you're not, not hopping out of bed the way that you used to. You need a little more primer, you know, you're drinking more coffee in the afternoon. Like those are the types of things we start to notice. But a lot of what culture tells us is, well, that's normal. Oh, no, that's normal. No, you're. That's how women operate. That's how, that's how we do life. And so that's what I find is that we kind of check that to the side for a hot minute until we can't.

I want to go back to the 20s because I think that's really important because I think what we talked about, you can do everything at 20. I think that's society telling us that you should be able to do everything at 20. You should be able to stay up all night, you should have a great sex drive, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I know in our practice that's not true. We have plenty of teenagers that have severe cramps that can't stay up all night. If they do, they have repercussions. 20 year olds too. How many? And I see men, she doesn't. But Testosterone in a 20 year old can be in the bottom and they're quote, unquote healthy. They don't have any quote, unquote problems, but it's bottomed out. So I think it's a societal myth that most of us should be able to do day 20 and do anything they want.

It's more than that, actually. I think that there's also this, I mean, even our daughter was alluding to it, that there's so much noise about being set and being perfect and already knowing who you want to be and being on the right track and looking good. So our daughter, who's about to apply to college next year, was saying that the conversations in her high school, and remember they're 18 years old, so they're almost 20, is they all know where they're going to go, they know what they're going to major in. And so there's this myth even on top of that, that's all about looking good and being perfect and then, and then trying to live up to some weird standard that nobody set but everybody's doing. And, and so I think that as women, we particularly fall into that it's.

Now set even more with social media.

It's pressure. It was a different. I mean, there was no social media when I was 18 years old. It was a different pressure for me. I was, you know, my 5.0 GPA, I had lunch with the principal every week. Like I ran the school, you know, and I got academic scholarships to all kinds of universities and then went off to college and, and just, I was, I was in the. Just like you guys. I was in the med, you know, pre med. We had class Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:30am nobody else in school had class at 7:30am and then you had labs. You guys remember your labs? Like, you know, and so I remember, I remember running, racing through my 20s and thinking that I could borrow against myself because I. Cause I thought I could and I was told that I could. And that's. I had a major crash and burn moment at 30 years old. That was my first crash and burn moment. Well before the inklings of the 35 moment. I had severe chronic fatigue at 29:30. And it's because I had been running since high school, you know, and there. And I can't even imagine the level of social media pressure that so many, so many people, boys and girls, are dealing with. It probably feels the exact same way. Like, you know, the second I could fill out college applications, I was filling out the college applications, you know, and yet all the things. And so I think, yeah, you think about just stress alone. If we were just to take away the toxins, take away all the plastic bottles, the single use, all that, and just the stress and the pressure that boys and girls are experiencing, that alone. I mean, you think about cortisol as the ultimate survival hormone. I call it a universal hormone because it can stop the presses. You know, it can, it can force your body into survival mode so fast. And if you constantly are triggered up by that, you're just, you're just in this rat race of this stress response system, cranking and cranking and cranking. At some point your cells are going to fly up the stranger danger sign, are going to downregulate mitochondria, you know, and you're not going to have enough energy. Your body's going to be like, I need to. I'm going to preserve. I'm going to. This is scary. I don't want to do this no more. You know, and that's what happened with me. You know, we, you know, at the time it was potentially adrenal fatigue. But what I know now is it was mitochondrial downregulation at 30 years old.

So how do you tie this into hormones? Because the people who are listening, can you put the bridge from cortisol and overuse and mitochondrial stress and tie it into how that impacts women's hormones and perimenopause. Because, I mean, the thing that I always say to people is, oh, God, you remember that patient? We say this. Sex or stress? You can't have both. If you're going to have stress, you're not going to have both. You can't have both. You got to choose one.

And apparently you don't want to have both, by the way. You don't even want to have both. Who wants to handle the business of family and emergencies and obligations? There's no time to wind down for that. No, no, no, no, no.

And.

And also test. There's no testosterone left anyway. So I'm.

So can you draw the bridge for people? Because, you know, you're looking at it, you see it happen early and earlier, and I mean, we see the lab values in it, too. So draw the bridge. Like, what does stress do? And what's up with perimenopause and what's menopause? All those terms people throw.

Absolutely. And I can. I can break all that down. So, so, so you can imagine. So stress is. Is a cascade system that happens in the hypothalamus, Right? That happens with the. With our amygdala. Stranger danger. Part of. Sends a message to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus says, adrenals, crank the corticosteroids, please. And so norepinephrine, epinephrine, go. And then cortisol follows in suit. And then a slew of things have to happen in the body, right? Our muscles are releasing glycogen, or leveraging glucose. The liver is releasing glycogen, the digestive system shuts down. Your thyroid gets cranked up because we need more metabolic energy. And basically, when we're in that state of stress, the one thing that. That doesn't need to go down is reproduction.

So we.

Can we shunt that off as well? That has a profound impact on our cycle. Specifically, it has a profound impact on progesterone levels.

Marisa, let me just jump in here, because one thing that you're saying, I really want to highlight for the listeners that people say to me all the time, well, I'm not experiencing stress. I'm like, yeah, you are. Because our bodies haven't kept up with the technology. So even though we're like, oh, it's just social media, or it's just my boss, or it's just traffic, our bodies think, oh, a lion's going to eat us. Or a boulder is about to fall on us and we're not going to have food. So it's. Even though it's not life or death, the body thinks it's life or death, and that's why it's going down, this whole thing. And by the way, long term unopposed cortisol is going to make you insulin resistant and have pcos. So it all ties in. Just tie bow on that one.

Yeah. And I tell women all the time, you know, why can't you, you, you, you're you're literally. How can you be an insulin resistance and. Or your blood sugar level rises up when you didn't even eat anything. You didn't even eat a cupcake. How. Well, how ridiculous should have eaten a cupcake. Is this like, at least let me have a cupcake if my blood sugar levels are going to skyrocket and I'm going to head into this sugar roller coaster, right? Because again, the body is in this state of like, this is survival. We need to leverage this liver, dump it. Let's dump all that glycogen in case there is an emergency. The body doesn't know the difference between you being late to a meeting or you having a fight with your partner or you running out the door to do five different things on your checklist. It doesn't know the difference. And initially, what it will feel like is it'll feel like a boost, it'll feel like your slight edge. You know, people, we kick into this extra gear, we think that this extra gear is like some, you know, sexy energy reserve that we just bought, you know, and it's not. You're borrowed. You're literally borrowing against yourself. And over time, it feels good initially. That's why I always say you can become addicted to it. You can become a stressaholic and you can just leverage it just a little bit. But over time, you're just wearing and wearing and wearing on the system. System. So you're not only are you wearing on a cellular level, you're wearing on a metabolic level where not only are you causing holes in the gut, not only are you causing insulin resistance, because you are. Because the body really thinks it needs to leverage that excess glucose that you need to get the muscles running to get the, to get your heart beating, to get your respiratory system running. And over time, you can imagine you keep whipping the horse, it's going to fall down, you know, and that's ultimately what's going down for so many of us. And again, your menstrual cycle gets put to the wayside, we cannot run that. A very energy driven part of our system. Do you think about how much energy it requires to run our menstrual cycle every single month to ovulate? Every single month. Right. The main event. It is such an energy producing process that if we have to siphon energy from somewhere, that's going to be one of the places that we siphon energy from.

Yeah. I want to add, because you're talking about whipping the course and I think a lot of people, what you said is absolutely real boss, relationships, all that stuff. But people don't get coffee, energy drinks, all those things are doing exactly the same thing.

Diet sodas.

Diet sodas, anything that's really sugar pushing. And it kills me when teenagers start doing coffee at that, if they need it at that age. What happens when they're older?

I never did coffee.

But they think that's normal at some age, right?

Exactly.

Absolutely tragic. In my world, I remember after high school I would have a Diet Pepsi and a York Peppermint Patty because I would run from high school to a job or run from high school to whatever activities. I was basically in School from 6:30 to either 8, 8pm, 6:30am to 8pm or I was at times I was working too. And so I remember just having this schedule. Like I just assumed that's how you, it's how you success in the world. Right. And so. But I would, I would always. Two o', clock, three o'.

Clock.

I needed that extra little booster and that has been that, that followed me into my 20s, into 30 when I realized, you know, I was, I needed something to get me through that next second part of the day. And yeah, again, you can only do this for so long. For me, it just happened earlier because I started earlier.

You're an overachiever. I just.

Yeah, exactly. You know, it's. And you know, you think about what the root cause of all of this is like because I, when I started to clean all this up at 30 years old, I was doing the yoga, I was drinking the green smoothies, I was taking the supplements, I was, you know, I'm, I'm high achiever in that direction too, but yet I kept falling on the floor like flat on my face. And I'm like, why? Why? I'm doing all the things, you know, and, and then I realized I was like, oh, I'm just, I'm literally doing all the things how I do everything. And I was like, well, what is underneath all of this? What's the driver? And it was a Lack of worthiness. Obviously, I was chasing success. What I was chasing success so that I would feel worthy enough, you know, in my. In my life. I wanted to show my family, show my parents, show everybody, you know, that. That I was worthy and how I proved that, you know, I become a doctor. I. I write books, I be a biochemist. You know, I do all the things and check all the boxes, and I look good, and I got my shiny metals. Everyone's so proud of me. And, you know, and. But then, you know, what's the result of that is a very sad, sick person. A very sick individual. So much so. I mean, a. Diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis at 37 years old eventually led to an autoimmune condition.

That.

That is under control right now. But. But. And I want to be not only a sage, but I also would love to be a cautionary tale.

Right? Don't do as I did.

Don't do. Don't do what I did.

Let my problems be your guide.

The resume looks good, but, you know, my. I was just 30, and there was. I remember that defining moment where I was like, oh, my God. Like, I was so scared. I remember being so scared because I was like, oh, my God, is this reversible? Is this even reversible? What I've done? I've got. I still think I'm so young. There's so many more years left in me. Like, 50, 60 years left. And this is where I'm. I can't even get up in the morning. Like, it was a very scary moment for me where I was like, what have I done?

No.

Yeah. And I think we need to, like, the. The issue with this, Marisa, is that a lot of us don't even recognize that we're on that rat wheel until we get to the point where you hit. Which is the wall. You. You hit the wall. And it's really hard before that, because that conversation of not good enough or trying to be worthy, I mean, we all have it. And so that's such a powerful conversation. It drives the bus. And so even when you say, if someone said to you, marisa, you're enough, you're amazing, you can't even hear that. And it wouldn't be true. You'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. Look, I have not accomplished my goals in life. So I think we all have these conversations, and then it's really hard to get out of it until you hit the wall. That's the hard part. So, yeah, I mean, let us be cautionary. Tales.

Because, well, I mean, the other piece of that is people need. Like I'm. What is gonna be enough? Like, what is it gonna be? Is it gonna be Hashimoto's? Is it gonna be something else that's gonna stop people from doing, from doing the thing because everybody knows they shouldn't eat McDonald's and soft drinks and all that stuff. And sugar. Most people know that it's not good for them, but at some point. But they. Nobody wants to change their habits until they hit something bad enough and what.

I call bad enough.

Right.

Yeah. Not even prediabetes, y', all. Is not bad enough for people, you know?

Well, in our practice it is.

I mean, hemoglobin. Yeah. It's such a big part of what I educate on. I am mind blown. Of the what, 80 to 100 million people with prediabetes, half don't even know.

Yeah. And don't know. Don't care. Don't want to.

No.

No.

Don't care. Not until they're, you know, now we need insulin.

No. You know what, let's back up a step. I think it's not so much don't care.

It's.

Don't actually recognize the impact and how they might feel and look if they altered that. It's just a completely. They don't know. They don't know even.

Well, it's just like we were talking about the 20 year olds.

They don't know. They don't know.

No, you don't know until. Yeah. What is, what does it look like to not eat processed food for a week? What does it look like to put sugar to the wayside for seven days? What, what would my body even feel like if I were to put those things to the wayside? What would it look like for me to meditate for seven days? You know, floss the brain, you know, not be so triggered. You know, like these are. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's being, it's. It's the reset. It's sometimes a hard reset.

Most of us are in our pattern.

Yeah.

Do what we do, we wake up, eat this, this, this, this, this. And it's. And our society encourages that. We're really good. We all went to school to, to get. Go into this pattern. And I mean, and then we go on vacation. That's like go to some cool place which we come back doing the same thing, being the same person.

No, no, wait. We go on vacation and abuse ourselves actually. Because we earned it.

Right. Oh, yeah, Margaritas. Just let's do it.

Let's. They're included.

Absolutely. At the, you know, day drinking, you know, and you just, you feel terrible. Absolutely. Yeah. It's the, it's finally time. I mean, it's, we're talking about disassociating.

Yeah. So you, you alluded to that you had started perimenopause earlier and clearly you're pulling yourself sort of up by your bootstraps. What's your journey through perimenopause been like? And when did you realize, like, like, oh, this is, this really is perimenopause, not just adrenals.

Absolutely.

What was that like?

I think that kind of the, the real, the second Mack truck for me was the diagnosis for Hashimoto's thyroiditis. You know, I, I had, I was holding on extra weight, my eyebrows, you know, and I had symptoms. There was a little bit of. Because I, it was, it was under the surface. Right. My, my thyroid levels looked great. You know, it was, you know, it was when I ran the TPO antibodies that I was like, there they are. That's what's going on. And I remember it was, I was 30 years old. So we were thinking about getting pregnant. We just come back from a month long trip from Italy because we deserved it. Lots of wine and Prosecco. And so we had come back and I was like, okay, we got the trip, I got to do my wine. I'm ready to do this, the whole pregnancy thing. And it was that month where I just, I just knew I needed to look deeper into what was going on. And sure enough is Hashimoto's thyroiditis. And so I took a full year off of thinking about pregnancy to just, I needed to get myself into remission. So we went on an autoimmune protocol for six months. I did. And my husband is always usually on the train. And we just cleaned every, everything up. And I spent that year really priming my body to get ready to get pregnant at 39 years old. And so I think that's when ran all the labs, looked at, you know, looked at the Dutch labs, look at everything. Progesterone wasn't where I needed it to be, anywhere where I needed it to be if I wanted to get pregnant and maintain a pregnancy. And so I wanted to just spend that year of really, really cleaning a lot of it up. But as we were running labs and looking at everything, it was quite obvious to me that, you know, in terms of numbers, that was perimenopause. And, and so that's kind of, that was defining moment for me, just the hill to climb to get ready to be healthy enough. What I would consider healthy enough to have a really healthy pregnancy, to set my fetus up, baby up for success or even just to get pregnant. I didn't even know if I could get pregnant although I did all the work that I felt was necessary. So I would say it was 38, 39 was when I was really deep in that work of okay, this is real, we got to do something here. Lo and behold, I did get pregnant and had a miscarriage and then got pregnant again about two months later and maintained that protocol, that anti inflammatory protocol basically the entire time I was prepping to be pregnant. All the way throughout my pregnancy up until probably around six months postpartum, things slipped a little bit. You know, around seven months postpartum it's.

Hard being a mama.

Yeah.

Little dark chocolate here and there slipped in. But yeah, what's really, I mean I have felt my best since 39 on because I have really really worked very hard, especially the food piece. I can't promise that the sleep piece has been pretty at all or just the constantness of being a brand new mama, but the food and the supplementation piece and as much self care as I can get in been so now I'm 42 and a half years old, still breastfeeding, still eating really, really healthy, doing the best I can. Because that for me besides the maintain managing the stress, having those pieces in place, the nutritional piece has been probably the biggest game change for me in this whole journey.

I always say to people like you are what you eat and the foundation of your health is your food, your gut health, your adrenals, your stress, your sleep, your relationships. That's the foundation. So if you're not attending to the foundation, it's really hard for the rest of the system to work. What were some of the other things you noticed? You alluded to the progesterone being lower than ideal. Were there other lab values that you noticed when you tested yourself that you were like oh oops.

I mean I'll be straight up. I have never recovered cortisol, meaning it's.

Too high or too low.

It is just whacked out like it is too high at night is too low in the morning. You know, I have worked really hard at getting that back into a super ideal place and have fallen short.

No, no, no.

Well not. I'm a work in progress.

It's just not that you're not perfect yet, but.

You're kidding. Exactly. Yes.

We don't Let our kids say, I can't do that. We always say to them, I can't.

Do that yet because it tells the brain. I've been monitoring my cortisol levels probably almost a decade now. And you know, we're just, we just have a lot of grace around those, those levels all the time. Thyroid looks great, TPOs look great. But those were, you know, that I worked really hard that year. Estrogen in relation to progesterone was, actually, was low, but still I was experiencing estrogen dominance for a little moment there. A lot of women in perimenopause will see that even with low estrogen levels. That relationship for estrogen to progesterone is really the critical piece. And there's a lot more to.

I think we should talk about estrogen dominance because I don't think women recognize how evil and deadly estrogen dominance is and how much of a risk factor it is for breast cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, because it's, it's essentially stimulation.

Men recognize with women.

Cardiovascular disease. Yeah, too poor Ed.

I'm just, I'm just speaking bystander to be here. Innocent bystander. Okay, so can you talk about estrogen dominance and then I have to talk about beta glucuronidase? Because it's like my thing.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's such a major connection to this, this, to this piece, you know, with just naturally, whether we like it or not, predipitously, we're going to lose progesterone. She's. And it's, you know, it's the hormone we took for granted. She's the hormone we took for granted. We didn't know, we didn't know how important she was for chilling out, for relaxation, you know, for just really supporting us on our, in our stress response system. But, you know, depending on every single woman, it's just, she just starts to drop. And so naturally, naturally it's going to occur that we're going to have unopposed estrogen. You've got an angry liver, you've got an angry gut. It's going to lend to more of that unopposed estrogen due to our phase one, phase two, phase three detoxification pathways are just not running like a fine tuned machine. And so I think the big message, if anything, besides that foundation of nutrition I really want to emphasize is, is feed the gut, protect the liver. Feed the gut, protect the liver. Especially as we move into, I mean, our whole life, ideally when you are pregnant, ideally, you know, but definitely as we head into our 30s and our 40s, because that unopposed estrogen is going to lend to a lot of issues and it is just going to happen naturally. But for some women, it is more exacerbated. And the recommendation that you are going to get from your GP is going to be the pill. We see so many women going back on the pill to lessen the period. Fibroids to control estrogen. And when we think about it, 89% of us will have fibroids well before we get to menopause because fibroids are being driven by this excess estrogen. Symptoms of excess estrogen as early as our mid-30s, sometimes for some women, earlier. Migraines, lumpy fibrous breasts, bloating, more severe PMS symptoms, definitely bloating around the midsection, hips and thighs. That's where the distribution is going to happen at first. As we get older, more that belly fat is going to happen as well. And then we're also going to see cravings, we're going to experience migraines. You know, if I didn't say it already, those are kind of the symptoms that we start to see. Heavy, heavy bleeding and, you know, just it. That's, again, a lot of that looks like perimenopause as we move into our 40s. And that, that's, you know, a number of reasons. Either estrogen is not getting cleared, estrogen to progesterone ratio is equal, or depending on the different types of estrogen, whether it's estrone or estradiol, there's an imbalance of those as well. As we move into perimenopause, into menopause, the menopause, clearly the roller coaster heading into menopause. Menopause is that defining moment. And the roller coaster is, mind you, progesterone and testosterone are way down here already. You look at labs so often, you're going to see that it's the estrogen roller coaster that is a lot of that perimenopausal kind of hot mess moment of, you know, hot flashes, night sweats, you know, inconsistent periods, heavy bleeding, no bleeding, sleep issues, mood swings, brain fog. All that's happening because as estrogen tanks, we become more insulin resistance, estrogen rises, we see the estrogen dominance. You just can't seem to win in this moment unless we're, we're pivoting along with, as our body's pivoting too. You get to menopause, all the sex hormones have dropped, except for relatively very, very low what we call menopausal levels. And the crazy storm, the rollercoaster storm of estrogen surging and dropping and surging and dropping is now it's dropped. And so you can feel physiologically we're most like men at this point because those sex hormones and our cycle has been put, you know, put to the wayside. And so there's some things that we can do in menopause that would have been hard for us to do in childbearing years or perimenopause because we always had a cycle to, to consider.

But so my favorite part about everything you talked about is the excretion of estrogen. That's literally like my favorite. I remember learning that from one of our reps about beta. I said I'd have to talk about beta gluconid. So. So let's back up for some of the listeners.

Absolutely.

Hormones can be a topic toxin, which is why they're so important for us. Because as your body's trying to get rid of them, you take it from what it is. Phase one makes it more toxic, a toxic intermediate. And then in phase two, you bind it to, in the case of hormones, you bind it to a methyl group which makes it water soluble, and you put it into your gut to poop it out. That is the ideal thing that happens now in dysfunction. It can happen anywhere. So you can have dysfunction that happens at phase one, although most people are really good at phase one. Then you can have dysfunction because phase two is slow. So your body's smart. You don't want to have these toxic intermediates hanging around. So where do women put them? Don't answer that. Women put them in their fat.

Yes, they do. You got to put them somewhere fat.

So we put it in our fat. And then the women's like, I'm gaining fat. Like, I know, because you got a hormone issue. So in an ideal world, you bind that to a methyl group. But people like me with two MTHFR copies aren't the best methylators. So. So I'm a crappy methylator. So here, now you have all these toxic metabolites of estrogen sitting in the fat. Now say you got the estrogen to go down phase one, phase two, you bound it, you stuck it in your gut, and now you're constipated and you have beta glucuronidase, which is produced by inappropriate bacteria in your gut hanging around. And their job is to separate that estrogen from the methyl group.

Yes, they are.

Separates the binder. Right. And then it's no longer water soluble. It goes back in your bloodstream and your Body's like, dude, I already dealt with you. You're going into timeout again. Back to the fat.

So this.

Just this cycle of unopposed estrogen and inappropriate levels and this imbalance in estrogen leads to fibroids. And I have to tell you, do you remember that I had a 4 centimeter fibroid with our first kid? And then by our second kid it was a little bit smaller and by our third kid it was like a centimeter. And by the fourth kid they were like, you don't have fibroid. I was like, I have a 4 centimeter fibroid. It's gone. So it, this stuff's reversible, but it takes time. It does take time and it takes so. I mean, it was so much work.

Well, yeah, and that's actually what I wanted to talk about also is when we burn out, we want to. We, we think, oh, yeah, okay, so 20 years of burnout, couple weeks of let's do, let's do an earth carb, maybe let's do it for a month and I'll change my diet a little bit and I'll be perfect. Right. I can go back doing the same things. And people really don't get how you need to change your. If you keep doing what you're doing, it's not going to make any difference.

You're going to get the same result every time.

And then you actually have to really. That's good. The mind changes. The massive part. You can give, you can toss people all the herbs and everything else if they're going to continue doing the same thing. Not going to make any difference.

And it may make some difference, like a teeny difference, you know, better than nothing. Yeah. But it's. Is it going to really move the needle? No. No. And, you know, we, I have a program that's a gut and liver reset program. And it's women who do it, obviously. And husband, Husbands are convinced, but it's always women signing up for it. And the question comes up at the end of this 14 days because, you know, it's not even enough time. I am, I. It's the 14 days. It's. To me, it's just enough to convince you that you need to operate like this moving forward. That's, that's. They don't know that yet. I haven't told them yet. But it starts to come on into the group. We have a Facebook group where they're like, well, how long? When can I go back to chicken? When can I. I was like, so, yeah, Starbucks.

Starbucks.

Yeah, we Go back to Starbucks. I'm like, about that. Never. Absolutely never. Like, can I go? When can I? You can never go back. I'm like, honestly, you want the real deal. This is how you need to do life from moving forward. This is how you want to continue to feel this way. Like, the way you're feeling on day 13, day 12, day 14. Like, you have got to adopt as much of this as possible into your life moving forward, you know, because that's what this feels like. But they're like, no, no. Chick Fil A. I'm like, you know, no. And so, yeah, it's really fascinating, like you said of, like, you get a taste of what it could feel like. But it's so interesting that the wiring that is required to be like, this is how it needs to be moving forward.

And then society labels you earthy, crunchy, or whatever it is. And because most society still is, eat what you want, your body doesn't matter. You can work out a little bit. But, yeah, it's really. How do you change perspective? How do you change people's perspective?

Well, you got to get your. Why?

I think a lot of people are exhausted, they're unmotivated, they're tired. Because I believe the stat is 50% of Americans specifically try to lose weight every single year. 50% of us, mind you, a ton of them have diabetes and prediabetes and all kinds of metabolic dysfunction, mind you. And they try.

Is that including the teenagers?

I think that's 18 and older adults trying to live, lose. 50% of us are trying to lose weight every single year and fail. And, you know, and that's a lot of nuances in that as well. Absolutely. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's. There's. I think it is. Is where we are. We are. We are overly exhausted, we are overly done, we are stressed. We're triggered. And, you know, I know. I think about all the things that I know to be true, like, and I educate on this, and there were some hard, hard months, I think, around when Kingston turned one, which was two months ago, where I was choosing into bad decisions because I just felt like I deserved it. But I knew better, but I was so tired and so just over it, that I was like, I know, I know better, but I'm still going to, you know, and it was always something healthy. It was a healthy. But at the end of the day, it was sugar. You know what I'm saying? Like, I know I have. I know my propensity for type 2 diabetes. I know What I need to do to manage my. My metabolism and keep insulin happy. I know what a sexy hemoglobin A1C number looks like. You know what I'm saying? Like, I know all these things, and yet huge gems were making it into my mouth a couple times a week, you know? And so they was. It was a moment, a lapse for me, you know, because at the end of the day, after a couple of weeks of this, you just start to notice, you know, you're not. You don't feel so great. And so I can relate so much to being that person. Even for a minute before, I was like, okay, everybody, we are cleaning this up.

Our friend said the best thing that Bonnie said this to me years ago. She said, I didn't fall off the wagon. I dove. And I was like, oh, baby, let's get you back on dessert. Let's talk about that. I always say to patients, you know, you're going to a wedding or a birthday party, plan your excursions, but don't let your excursions be your excuse for not care of yourself. Right. Like, you're not. You don't have to be perfect. What you have to be is on the. In the game. And then you're going to plan times for when you know, you're going to have a piece of cake or some ice cream or a drink, and then the next morning, you're back on your plan. Because it doesn't mean that you're a bad person to go to a party and have a drink. It just means now it's time to get back to work. So it's. It's like, you know, perfection only exists in Hollywood. Like that perfect scene.

Yeah.

But in reality, we have times when we're tempted, we're hungry, and you really nailed it, Marisa. Because if you're stressed, you're going to crave sugar and wine and quick energy. Because remember, we're still primitive and fatigued. Yeah. If you're fatigued.

Oh, yeah. Your brain hijacks you.

Right.

Or if your training centers hijack you.

Yes.

That's why we talked about a lot of times meditation happens in the morning, not in the evening thing.

Oh, yeah. You got to knock that out. I do. I meditate in the morning and in the evening. But, like, before. Like, right before bed. But it's. It's so important to just clear out all that yuck. But the other thing when you think it's super important that I've learned is that is really honoring myself, asking myself, is this really going to serve Me tomorrow, is my body going to love this tomorrow? Is my body going to love this glass of wine tomorrow? It's a hell, no. You know, is my. Is my liver going to appreciate this in about 30 minutes? It's no. And so I think that's. That's the way, you know, we all have to have our own hacks, the way that we manage this, you know, and. And it's always asking myself, it's not a punishment that I'm not having that wine. It's not a punishment that I'm saying no to the gluten. Gluten cupcake at my friend's house. It's a. How is my thyroid going to appreciate or my gut gut? My. Is my patched up, leaky gut going to be excited about the gluten that's going to poke holes in it? You know what I'm saying? And, like, that's kind of how I talk about, like, how is this going to serve me? Is this really the best? Is this. Is this loving me? And that's kind of the way I think about it. Yeah.

I think about it like, I don't feel well when I eat that, which is pretty big, you know, because there's peer pressure. I'm 51 and a half years old. There's still peer pressure. People like, why aren't you eating that? And really kind of stops people in their tracks when I say, I don't feel good when I eat that. And then they're, you know, they're not going to say to me, well, eat it, because then they're the jerk. Right? Like, oh, we'll feel badly. So getting really clear of that doesn't work for me. Doesn't work in my body. I don't feel good is pretty clear. Not like I can't or I won't, but doesn't feel good.

It doesn't feel good.

So what are the kind of. Do you have, like, a top three to five things that people should do to feel better? I guess, get out of the rat race. What are your kind of top three to five recommendations that people can start today?

Today? Absolutely. So I'm going to get, like, really granular because I know we know the. But the specifics. Wake up in the morning, drink a big, big, big glass of water with lemon. Wake up in the morning, drink a big glass of water with lemon. I want to get like these specific things that you're like, oh, I can do this right now. Okay. Concrete. Before you drink your coffee, before you drink. That's. You do do that and you go and you step outside for a minute and just, just help. Help your cortisol. Help your mitochondria. Help that. A cortisol awakening response to actually kick in. Get sunshine so you can prime up the mitochondria that.

Don't forget.

Probably don't have a lot of.

You have to dunk cold water on.

Yourself and get a cold plunge.

Just kidding. He does, actually.

I mean, hormesis is what's up. You want to. You want to prime those mitochondria. I'm more of a gentle prime mitochondria. I'm going to be cold plunging for the next three days. When I. At my retreat, at the retreat, I'm going to. So I will be. I will be doing my hormesis. But, but what people can do if they're just like, oh, I will not. I will not turn my shower to cold, then just get out into the sunshine. Get out into the sunshine first, first half hour. Just. I'm not telling you to go walk outside. I'm not even telling you. I just want you to be in that sun to help prime up those mitochondria. Swap. If you're drinking coffee or drinking tea, please swap sugar out for cinnamon. Just. Just do that. Swap.

Cool.

Get rid of that sugar. Out the gate. Walk. Walk after meals. And if it's going to be any meal, it's going to be walking after dinner. Walk after dinner. It's. I want to say. And I'm going to just feed the gut, protect the liver. What does that even mean? Right? And there's a lot of specifics that we can go into, but I'm not going to pretend like that stuff isn't hard. Right. I want to give easy things to do right now. So walk after dinner. Probably the most underrated thing that you can do for yourself is walking after dinner or walking after any meal, getting where you fit in. We walk multiple times a day. We just get in where we fit in. We load the baby in a stroller and we're out of there. He loves it. He loves waving to everybody. The other thing I would. I recommend is get. Get heads. Get headspace. Get a mindfulness app. Get a meditation app. I'm talking five minutes. Five minutes. Program your phone. This is so great because there are all these apps, but program your phone three times a day and when that goes off, because most times you have no idea that you're in a stress response mode. It's so under the surface, it's so insidious. The way that it just runs your life. But have three, three to four times a day where your phone goes off, shake it out, shake that energy out, shake the cortisol out, shake it out. Or do a 3 minute, 4 minute, 5 minute. Just floss your brain so that you're less triggered and you're less stressed over time. You're going to create different tracks where you become more resilient. And then the other thing is to if there's anything in terms of loving up that gut and protecting that liver, is eating as many green leafy bitter greens as you can get into your diet, whether it's a green smoothie in the morning or whenever you break your fast, whatever, whatever you go, whatever happens. But try to get as many green leafies as possible into your diet to love up on that microbiome. And the very, very last thing I'm going to share is, is eat three hours before dinner. Eat three hours before dinner because your brain needs to brainwash and literally clean up the amyloid plaque. And if you have eaten late night snacks or you're eating close to before bedtime, you just don't have. Your brain can't do it. The glial cells cannot go in and clean up shop. And over time that we know that leads to Alzheimer's.

So eat three hours before bed.

Bedtime before bedtime. Yes. Yeah, those will be my, those would be my. And I'm not even going to get into intermittent fasting. I'm not even going to get into all those other things. Just I think those are simple, easy couple. That doesn't take a lot to shift your lifestyle. Doesn't take a lot to shift the habits. But I have found those to be needle movers.

These are low hanging fruits too. You know everyone can drink water, right? You don't need any extra money, you don't need any extra technology. You just drink water.

Water.

So it's good. So did you have something to say?

Okay.

I love having you on. This has been awesome. I want to know, I know people are going to listen and be like, I love her. How do I reach her? And I think you have a gift for the listeners too. Can you share about how people can reach you and also what you have for the bonus guys guide for the listeners? Yes.

And I don't know, I have so many sexy bonus guides. So I can, I could pull, I could just say what it is and make one and I can get you guys the link, no problem. So I have a podcast as well. Essentially you. It focuses on women's hormone health website or Instagram. Dr. Marisa and then the bonus guide because we've been talking about this all day. Today is my hormone recipe guide that has got recipes that help to manage insulin, that love up on the gut and protect the liver specifically, specifically. And to give you that extra energy as well. And so these and they're also anti inflammatory but yummy. Super yummy. I know none of that sounds sexy but I promise that it's really, really yummy. So this guide, you'll get a great sense of what it looks like breakfast, lunch and dinner to really love it in your body in a really beautiful and delicious way.

Nice. Will you tell us the link?

It's going to be drmeresa.com hormonerecipe Nice.

We'll put that in the show notes too.

It's been amazing having you on board. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Awesome to see you and we'll definitely intersect again.

Yes, we will. Thank you so much.

You guys are amazing.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Five Journeys podcast live like youe Matter. Our guest today was Marisa Snyder and we were so psyched to have you on. Thanks for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

Sam.