399 | Optimizing Nutrition for Women's Health and Hormones with Lauren Papanos

[00:00:05] Welcome to the Optimal Body Podcast. I'm Dr. Jen. And I'm Dr. Dom. And we are doctors of physical therapy, bringing you the body tips and physical therapy pearls of wisdom to help you begin to understand your body, relieve your pains and restrictions, and answer your questions. Along with expert guests, our goal of the Optimal Body Podcast is really to help you discover what optimal means within your own body. Let's dive in.

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[00:02:09] Now, this is such a broad topic because so many people deal, so many women in particular, are dealing with things within their body, symptoms that sometimes go ignored from their doctor. So I'm so excited to have Lauren Papanos on our podcast. She is a nationally licensed and registered dietitian nutritionist. She holds her bachelor's and master's degrees in nutrition sciences, board certification in sports nutrition, as well as advanced specialty and functional endocrinology.

[00:02:37] She is the owner of the private practice Functional Fueling Nutrition, where they specialize in endocrine conditions like PCOS, Hashimoto's, hypothyroidism, and hypothalamic amneria in active individuals. Lauren is the host of a podcast called Strength and Hormones, and you can learn more about Lauren and her practice at www.functionalfueling.com. Lauren, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us.

[00:03:02] This, you know, nutrition is always such a highly debated topic, I would say, on social media, but also something that we get asked about a ton because it's outside our scope of practice. So we're so grateful to have you here and spending some time with us. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for our conversation. So I just kind of want to start getting an idea of what made you so interested in nutrition, hormone health. Like where did that initial passion come from that drove you into this field?

[00:03:31] Yeah, I feel like I always just had an interest in it growing up as a young kid. My mom always had a garden and I was always just very curious about ingredients and how different foods interacted with our body. And I love her science from a really young age. Like I thought I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a little kid. So I think it just naturally made sense to combine the two. And then once I was exposed to my first college class, I just knew that was the route I wanted to go.

[00:03:58] I wanted to be somewhere in medical field slash science, but wanted to didn't want to use medicine as the treatment approach. And so becoming a registered dietitian kind of was the perfect solution to that. And then during that time was when I was also dealing with my own hormone issues and seeing every specialist under the sun and no one could really figure out what was going on with me. All of my labs were coming back normal. Tests were normal.

[00:04:22] And so I really felt like I had to take matters into my own hands to figure out why I was having so many different hormone problems and why the conventional advice and information out there wasn't working for me. And that's really what began my journey. And then my first job was working in college athletics. And when I was doing that, I actually was working on a research study and we were actually looking at energy deficiency in sport.

[00:04:47] And through that really opened my eyes to the prevalence of hormone disorders and active individuals, both men and women from a very young age and the prevalence of just how much it impacts everything from injury risks to healing to brain function to just everyday livelihood. Right. And I just knew that between my story and what I was seeing through counseling so many athletes, I had to really share it with more people.

[00:05:17] Taking a quick pause from the interview, being that this is an episode about nutrition, I would be remiss if I didn't mention hydration and what Jen and I do every single day to make sure that we stay hydrated. Not just by drinking water, but by making sure we're replacing the electrolytes that we lose on a daily basis without even knowing it. We're starting to get closer to the hotter months here in California. It's already hitting into those 80s and I am a sweater.

[00:05:43] So I know that I'm losing sodium, potassium and magnesium in my sweat every day, even without knowing it. And that's why we drink element electrolyte mixes in our water because it replaces those essential electrolytes that we need to operate on a cellular level. It helps with so many things from brain fog, fatigue. It can help regulate and normalize your sleep patterns, bowel movements and so much more. Go check out the link in the show notes.

[00:06:10] It's drinkelement.com backslash optimal. That's drinkelement spelled out L-M-N-T dot com backslash optimal. You get a free sample pack with every single order so you can try all their flavors and inevitably know which one you want when you come back to get more. Let's get back into the interview. And what were kind of the hormonal issues that you were experiencing yourself? Yeah.

[00:06:35] So I had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, but come to find out, I actually just had polycystic ovaries or what they also call like ovarian dysfunction. But the hormone disorder was actually hypothalamic amenorrhea and then also hypothyroidism. And so it was a little bit of like a mystery, I think, in that sense, because initially I was diagnosed with PCOS and so thought that was really how I needed to treat things to improve my hormone function.

[00:07:01] But that actually only made things worse because I had polycystic ovaries, but I actually had hypothyroidism like amenorrhea, which the treatment approach is almost the exact opposite. And so once I figured out that that was the hormone condition I was dealing with, and that's really when things started to improve. And I know that something that you are fairly passionate about talking about now is the connection between this chronic inflammation in the body and PCOS and Hashimoto's.

[00:07:29] Can you talk a little bit more about how those are connected? Yeah. So, I mean, chronic inflammation affects so many people, and I'm sure you guys see it in your practice as well. And it really can span far and wide and cause everything from hormone disorders to chronic diseases. We know that inflammation is at the core to so many of these different disease states in the body. But most commonly, our population that we work with is a lot of either former athletes or just really active individuals. And they're dealing with a lot of what we call oxidative stress.

[00:07:58] And a lot of it's just from like many years of overtraining, maybe just also not understanding what their body's nutritional needs are during that period of time. And this oxidative stress creates a lot of mitochondrial damage, and that can actually perpetuate both conditions, both polycystic ovary syndrome and Hashimoto's. With Hashimoto's in particular, it's an autoimmune disease. And so with autoimmunity, there's always this chronic state of inflammation.

[00:08:25] And with Hashimoto's, there's, you know, thyroid dysfunction that's happening at the same time. And so there's all this oxidative stress and inflammation that's really exacerbating how those thyroid hormones are getting destroyed. And that's why we see that there's these low levels of T4 and T3 that then perpetuate into oftentimes hypothyroidism as kind of an end result of Hashimoto's. And, you know, with PCOS, we know that oxidative stress and inflammation are kind of at the core to the ovarian dysfunction.

[00:08:55] And so when we're thinking about, okay, why is there this insulin resistance that so many women with PCOS deal with? We know 70% of women with PCOS have insulin resistance. So much of it comes back to this oxidative stress and this mitochondrial dysfunction and how that's actually really perpetuating our cellular function and how those like ovarian cells or theca cells are functioning to be able to really, you know, work in the body and to be able to gather the information we need for optimal hormone function.

[00:09:25] And why do you think so many people are dealing with, you know, this chronic inflammation and this oxidative stress? Like where is this root cause? Where is this coming from? There's so many factors. We know the environment is one huge one. And, you know, I think in the last several years, we've seen just an uptick, also greater awareness of these environmental exposures, right?

[00:09:48] So we're talking about things like endocrine disruptors and herbicides and heavy metals and all these things that we're constantly exposed to and how those can actually drive oxidative stress. There's also just a deficiency of people getting in enough of these like mitochondrial nutrients that we need to fight the oxidative stress. So in order for us to combat oxidative stress, we need a ton of antioxidants.

[00:10:13] And so many people aren't getting enough of them just because either our soil is depleted and maybe we're trying to, but we're not quite getting enough of them. Or maybe we're just relying too much on packaged foods and things that don't have a lot of these really rich antioxidants and vitamins and minerals in them that our body really needs. Right. I think there's so much of this shift away, even in really like healthier communities. Right. There's kind of a shift away from like more of these real whole foods into how can I make this as like convenient and quick as possible?

[00:10:42] And maybe that's you're doing like a meal prep service or something, which is a good replacement option. But maybe the vegetables have been sitting for five days and they don't have quite the antioxidant content that we would have normally consumed 50 years ago when we didn't have a meal prep service available to us. Right. So those can be big things, you know, in like an active community. I think exercise is a huge one. A lot of overtraining. I know that I see people's histories. I know I had a history of overtraining.

[00:11:08] And that also perpetuating oxidative stress. We know oxidative stress is just a natural byproduct of exercise. And when you overtrain, then that's definitely going to drive this oxidative imbalance in the body. So I would say those are probably the big three core issues. And then there's also some of the smaller issues that maybe aren't as prevalent in an active population, but more for like a general population. That could be things like chronic hyperglycemia, where there's just like this chronic state of erratic blood sugar.

[00:11:37] We know that can cause oxidative stress or just not enough movement in general. Right. More of a sedentary type lifestyle. That could also be a driver of it, too. So I know that, like you mentioned, this often will happen in the high performing populations, too. And those are the people who, at first thought, like for them, they're like, why is this happening to me? I'm doing everything I should be doing. I'm focusing on, you know, what I'm eating.

[00:12:05] I'm training and exercising every day. I'm trying to, like it's the very type A person who has their whole day planned out. They make sure they do everything, if not two of everything. And then they're really confused as to like, why do I have all these symptoms? And how do you approach with somebody with that type of mindset making changes?

[00:12:29] Because, you know, some of the changes, like you just mentioned, can come with changes to their training regimen, changes to, you know, how they're approaching their nutrition and their diet. Do you find that there's a lot of pushback when people are so used to doing things a certain way? I think initially there can be. I know I experienced that firsthand. It's like, well, I'm so healthy. Like, how could I be experiencing these problems, right? I think everyone goes through that initially.

[00:12:57] But then I think at some point you realize that what you're doing isn't working. And so that's the definition of insanity, right? Is repeating what you've been currently doing that isn't working. And so at some point we have to relinquish control or we have to explore other methods that are going to get to a different end result. And so often I find by the time that someone comes to us, they're kind of gone through that process. And they're at that place where they're like, I'm open to whatever I really need to do.

[00:13:26] I'm open to unlearning, right? And I think that's a huge piece of this is sometimes, especially with nutrition, there's a lot of learning that you could do. And then maybe you find out that actually what you've been doing isn't what's healthy for you individually at this moment in your life. Or, you know, maybe it's unhealthy for you. Maybe not always, but right now. And we need to unlearn what you know and relearn what you should be doing in a different way. Yeah.

[00:13:54] And a lot of these, you know, some of the diagnoses that you've brought up can really impact fertility. And people trying to conceive and trying to get pregnant. So what is like the baseline of someone, you know, who let's just take PCOS, someone who's having PCOS symptoms. What is the baseline of what people can start to look at? Is there specific testing you recommend? Is there specific nutrition guideline you kind of recommend?

[00:14:22] So many people, and I hear this all the time from clients, is that, you know, they go to their doctor, all their testing comes back, and it's like, you're normal. And, you know, in that situation, it's like, okay, there's either two things that happened. Either, A, we're not testing enough things, so we're not finding the answers of what would be abnormal here. Or, B, we're not actually analyzing the data that we do have in the right context for that person specifically.

[00:14:47] I mean, how many even just like active individuals I know that go to their doctor and like their creatinine comes back elevated, and they're like, oh, you are dying. And it's like, no, I just did a really hard workout, and that's why my creatinine is elevated, right? Right? So it's like, we always have to be looking at this context of like how we're reading these labs. But then also, are we actually testing the right information? And I think that can happen on both sides of the spectrum. Because sometimes I see people go to a lot of functional providers, and they get so much testing done.

[00:15:15] They spend so much money, and they have too much information to where it's actually overwhelming. And you're not even actually going to be able to act on all of that right away, because there's information overload, right? So it's like finding the sweet spot between really how do we deduce the right assessment to be able to figure out the core issue at place. So if there's something that feels off, or there's something that is off, such as you're trying to conceive, it's not happening. There has to be a solution. We just have to keep diving and diving deeper to be able to figure out what that is.

[00:15:44] And I'm committed to that because I see it every day in people. Like I've never seen anyone where when we've done the right testing, like everything has come back normal. Because it's like, it's all about just what you test. So I think that's always a really key point to really understand. And a lot of times you're not going to get that in our conventional healthcare system, because our conventional healthcare system isn't set up to help you figure out the root causes. It's just set up to be able to treat the problem right in front of you, right?

[00:16:11] So you walk in with an autoimmune disease, and it's like, okay, let's start you on this immune therapy. But it's not actually like, let's figure out why the autoimmune condition actually happened so that maybe we can actually change the course of how things are progressing. That's really where you're going to have to go outside of the insurance system and outside of more of like our conventional healthcare model.

[00:16:30] And so when it comes to testing, I know you did kind of just mention, it's going to be somewhat specific based on the symptomology you might be having, based on symptomology or conditions that you might be wanting to look into. If somebody is out there and just wants to get a better understanding of their general baseline health right now, are there certain blood tests or tests that you would recommend that you might not get in a conventional medical setting? Definitely.

[00:16:57] So I think it's always good at, you know, most people are going to go to their doctor, they're going to get a CBC, they're going to get a metabolic panel. It's going to have things like glucose, and you're going to be able to see electrolytes and things of that sort. But it's really helpful at some point to test things like fasting insulin to look at more markers within your metabolic function. I think it's also really helpful to look at inflammation markers. So sometimes people are dealing with chronic inflammation, but we don't see it show up in things like high sensitivity, say reactive protein.

[00:17:26] And sometimes CRP isn't even actually ordered on common testing. But it's a great place to start if you can get CRP. Most conventional doctors will run that. Otherwise, there are additional inflammatory markers we can look at, like oxidized LDL, that tells us a lot about oxidative stress, myeloperoxidase. These are really helpful additional inflammatory markers. And then I think having some hormone understanding too is so important because hormones truly impact every aspect of your body.

[00:17:53] That's why I'm so fascinated by them because everything in your body is influenced by your hormones. So looking at a complete hormone panel that looks at things like sex hormones and thyroid hormones, but doesn't just tell us the core hormones. You know, we think of hormones oftentimes. Sometimes maybe we think of things like estrogen or testosterone or just TSH. But we really want to look at the full scope of things together.

[00:18:17] So if we're testing sex hormones first, we want to make sure if it's for women that we're controlling for where in the menstrual cycle we're testing. Generally, either it should be like day three with day one being the first day of bleeding or somewhere around day 17 to day 19 of your cycle to really be able to then be able to read the labs properly.

[00:18:36] And then from there, we want to make sure that we don't just have things like estrogen and testosterone, but we're also looking at the stimulating hormones, things like FSH and LH and DHEA and the binding proteins that could be binding up those active hormones. We really need a full picture of our sex hormones to understand what's going on and where the issue might lie. And then with thyroid hormones, generally you're going to get if you go to your doctor, things like TSH, maybe like T4 reflex.

[00:19:02] But really, it's most helpful to have TSH, T4, T3 and their free active forms. And then at some point, probably having some thyroid antibodies so that if you do have any thyroid abnormalities going on, you can rule out that it's not because of an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto's. There's so much to like unpack because start trying to understand, okay, I'm looking at all these different things.

[00:19:27] Obviously, you'd have to do it with a professional because you just looking at labs and trying to compare on Google what is normal or what is considered within range might not be super effective. But why is it so important to look a little bit deeper? Like why is it so important to look at these sex hormones and get a deeper dive into these rather than just, oh, let me just look at, you know, estrogen and progesterone and let me just start there. Right.

[00:19:55] Why is it so important to dive a little bit deeper? Yeah. So I think, well, first off, we're just thinking about like, why do we care about hormones in general? You know, we know that even like low estrogen levels can increase risk for cardiovascular disease, can increase risk for depression and cognitive decline. So you might be thinking, oh, I have depression or I have, you know, hypertension. They're not related in any way to my hormones, but actually they totally are because you have hormone receptors in all of those places.

[00:20:21] So that's like just one thing that shows us the prevalence of why hormones matter. But as it relates to why to do all that additional testing, it really comes down to making sense of the information. So, you know, say, for example, you get your estrogen levels and your testosterone levels back and your testosterone levels are really low.

[00:20:41] Well, is it are they really low because you're not producing enough testosterone or are they really low because we are binding up all of that total testosterone and their binding proteins are really elevated? And if it's maybe OK, it's not so much that we're not making enough testosterone, but that our body is binding up all that testosterone, then now we know where the solution lies, that we don't need to work on making more testosterone.

[00:21:04] We need to work up, work on lowering those binding proteins so that we can get more of that testosterone available for your cells to be able to utilize. So it just tells us more of how to treat things, because I see so many people, they, you know, just get, say, like total testosterone tested and then they maybe even get put on bioidentical testosterone replacement. But no one's ever looking at, well, why is the testosterone low to begin with? Because we actually figured out why the testosterone was low.

[00:21:31] They probably don't ever need the bioidentical hormone replacement. And that might actually be perpetuating a lot of the symptoms and not really helping them very much. So when it comes to hormones and talking about hormone fluctuations, specifically in women, pregnancy comes to mind. And I think it's only fitting that we talk about that because I'm sitting here with my pregnant wife and our guest who is also expecting.

[00:21:58] And when this podcast comes out, you will both have your new little baby. So hormones during pregnancy, how can people expect things to change? And how can we be, you know, have an extra focus on nutrition and what we're doing, you know, on the dietary side to optimize any symptomology that might come along with those hormone fluctuations? Yeah, hormones go pretty crazy during pregnancy. That's for sure.

[00:22:25] I was just curious to see how high my estrogen levels were when I was 20 weeks pregnant and tested them. And they were 10 times over what they normally would be. It's just like I was mind blown. I'm like, holy cow, that's just crazy. You know, and I'm not even halfway there. So it's truly wild how much hormone production changes during pregnancy. You know, you're going to see an increase in estrogen levels in particular.

[00:22:52] We see an increase in stabilization in progesterone levels. You know, not really much beyond what they would be in the luteal phase, which is that time period before you start a period. But they're definitely high and their progesterone is elevated for a significant period of time. We also see an increase generally in testosterone levels, too, especially more with like having a boy who's higher levels of testosterone being made. But with that, there's also a huge increase in binding proteins, too.

[00:23:18] So we see an increase in things like sex hormone binding globulin and albumin because our body's trying to kind of regulate like how much of those hormones are actually like free and available. So kind of this situation we're talking about. So in a situation of pregnancy, it's not so much a concern if we see like elevated binding proteins, because that's just a natural phenomenon that happens. More so if you weren't pregnant, then we would wonder, OK, why is that? Why is that occurring in the body? Right. But you also see increases and changes to thyroid hormones, too.

[00:23:48] So, you know, you should see that thyroid hormones, your free thyroid hormones increase during pregnancy because your thyroid is what regulates all growth in the body. And so in order to grow a baby, we need adequate thyroid hormones. And a lot of times that can be a big root cause for why someone maybe isn't conceiving. You know, maybe they've done all the sex hormone testing, but no one's really investigated their thyroid hormone levels. And you need adequate thyroid hormones to be able to for growth to happen and also for progesterone production. So that can be a really big piece.

[00:24:17] And we expect some natural changes to happen there. TSH generally is going to drop and your thyroid hormones are going to increase during pregnancy. And then also we know the body becomes more naturally insulin resistant as you become, you know, as you go further along. That's one of the reasons why there's an increased risk for things like gestational diabetes, because the body really wants to be in a growth state and insulin helps with growth.

[00:24:41] And, you know, insulin is something that's a really key hormone that really regulates so many other hormones in the body. But it's one really important thing that we want to pay attention to, especially as you're kind of at that like halfway point in pregnancy. Generally, you become more insulin resistant around like 24 to 28 weeks. And it's just because the body is trying to force this like massive growth process happening. And so at that point, we might want to make some changes from a nutritional perspective, knowing that, OK, our body is naturally in more of an insulin resistant state.

[00:25:11] And our body is trying to make more thyroid hormones. And so what do I mean nutritionally to be able to support these shifts that are happening? So, you know, minerals are really important. We know the body like burns your minerals during pregnancy and you're so depleted of minerals for research has shown it can take two to three years for providing mineral levels to restore after pregnancy. So we really want to make sure that the body has these key minerals all throughout pregnancy, especially.

[00:25:39] And these are going to be things like magnesium, iodine, calcium, iron. All of those increase significantly the need during pregnancy, like two to three fold. So we need to eat more of them. We probably need to supplement them as well because those are going to be important, but also help with thyroid hormone production. And then with like insulin sensitivity, it might just be paying more attention to your blood sugar control at that time frame.

[00:26:05] So like I, for example, I wore a CGM for a few weeks around that time frame so that I could see like how the foods I would normally eat were impacting me and how that might differ from what they would normally be doing. And then make modifications to maybe how I'm pairing foods together or how much of certain food ingredients I'm utilizing to be able to still get a really healthy blood sugar response, you know, even with that natural change in insulin resistance that occurs. And what is the healthy blood sugar response that you're really kind of looking for?

[00:26:35] Yeah. So generally during pregnancy, you'll see that you're going to get more of a blood sugar spike after a meal. And then oftentimes there'll be more of this like rebound hypoglycemia that can occur too. So then you kind of go into this like low blood sugar state. So I would say just looking, we're really looking for like stability of blood sugar throughout the day. So we don't want to see these like huge spikes happening after we're eating. And then we also don't want to see big drops happening as well.

[00:26:58] So somewhere in the range of like maybe when you're fasted, you're around 80 to like 95 milligrams per deciliter for blood sugar. And then after a meal, we're really not getting a blood sugar spike of more than 20 to 30 points. So if you're fasting or your blood sugar before the meal was say 90, then ideally we shouldn't be coming up to like more than 120 after the meal. Those are like very healthy, normal fluctuations, especially if you like are eating some carbohydrate, because you can expect you're going to get some blood sugar response by eating any carbohydrate.

[00:27:26] I do find too that pregnant women when they're pregnant tend to go more into like a hypoglycemic state more often, especially during sleep. And it can be fine. It can be safe for that to happen because the body naturally makes ketones. And those ketones can be really helpful for the baby as well as a secondary fuel source. But we really want to try to pay attention to like these big spikes in blood sugar that could then be causing more of those low blood sugar type environments that are happening.

[00:27:54] Can you give an example of like a type of, you know, maybe morning, midday and evening meal that people can kind of strive their plate for to help mitigate some of those high spikes? Yeah, definitely. So we know protein intake increases significantly during pregnancy. Fats are so important for brain cognitive development. So that breakfast or really any of these meals, we want them to be more based from protein and these good fats anyways for that.

[00:28:23] But those also are going to be incredibly blood sugar stabilizing. So maybe it's you're doing a few eggs. That would be a great way to get some of these healthy fats and protein. You're going to get lots of choline, which is really important for baby's memory and brain development as well. And then maybe you're pairing that with some vegetables, some avocado and maybe like a side of some fruit that should in theory provide you a very stable blood sugar response. You know, the goal isn't that you're not getting any blood sugar response. We do want a blood sugar response.

[00:28:51] We don't want to like maybe remove the fruit entirely, but we want it to be a stable blood sugar response is more so what we're looking for there. So that would be in comparison to what maybe would be a more like normal breakfast for Americans, which would be like an oatmeal breakfast that doesn't have like any protein or any fats or any vegetables in it where something like oatmeal for breakfast, you're going to get a big blood sugar response. It's probably going to be followed by a dip because your body is going to overcompensate with excess insulin.

[00:29:19] And that's what's going to send us on more of this like blood sugar roller coaster. So, yeah, an egg based breakfast could be a great option for lunches. And maybe that is doing something that just like more of a like a protein and say vegetable based, but that it has more of like a fiber rich starch in it. So, like personally, I found legumes to be super stabilizing for both myself. I see it a lot for patients to just really great way to get in some of those complex carbohydrates and a little bit of protein and minerals, but not create a huge blood sugar response from it.

[00:29:48] So maybe you do a salad and it has like salmon or some type of protein and olive oil bases like the dressing, but you're also adding in black beans or chickpeas, lentils, something like that to it. So we're getting some of these good carbohydrates, but they're just creating this very healthy blood sugar response. And then for snacks, oftentimes people think of like more processed or packaged type things that oftentimes are more of these carby based snacks.

[00:30:13] And maybe that's also what is more appealing during pregnancy, too, because you might be having food aversions or whatnot. But again, we want to think of that snack as being based very similar to what a meal would be. Maybe it's just something that's a little bit more convenient or smaller in portion size. So you could do hard boiled eggs there if you wanted to. That could be a really good foundation for a snack. You could do like a chia seed pudding. You could do a like yogurt bowl type situation. I know I really enjoy doing that because I'm trying to get more calcium in.

[00:30:42] So doing like a grass fed Greek yogurt that has like berries and bee pollen and like some seeds in it can be a really great way. So you're still getting some of the fruit. You're getting a lot of these vitamins, a little bit of those good carbohydrates. But we also have plenty of protein and these good healthy fats to really stabilize that blood sugar response from consuming the fruits or carbohydrates that are present.

[00:31:01] When do you think, because I feel like you see more and more people say you should get a CGM or, you know, just to track and get an idea of what your blood sugar is doing throughout the course of a day or a week, you know, just the meals that you eat and how your body responds. Like, when do you think doing something like that is necessary? And I know that that can sometimes be cost prohibitive for some people. So like, are there other options? I know that there's different finger prick options.

[00:31:29] But I guess main question is like, when do you feel like it's necessary for somebody to actually test how their blood sugar responds? Yeah. So I think you can get really far without it if you really are open to education and learning and maybe unlearning, like I said earlier, but really learning, like how do you create a healthy blood sugar response from a meal? And so like, I'll work with clients sometimes for several months before we ever even consider a CGM.

[00:31:55] And really only at the point do we consider it is maybe because there's something happening that we just can't pinpoint why that's happening. Or maybe they are having difficulty with some of the behavior change and having that immediate feedback would help provide them with a, like a motivator, if you will, right? Because I can't be in that year 24 seven. So I think it can be really educational for some individuals.

[00:32:20] If you're having symptoms, we're noticing, like I see a lot of people dealing with waking up a lot in the middle of the night, right? And a lot of times thinking like, maybe it's because I have high cortisol and I'm really stressed or because I have to keep going to the bathroom or whatnot. But it's so often it's because people are getting hypoglycemic when they're sleeping. And maybe that's because you're hyperglycemic, you have high blood sugar before you're going to bed. And then your body's overcompensating with that insulin production to be able to get that blood sugar down. And then that's what's driving us to the hypoglycemic state.

[00:32:48] So that can be a big issue is like sleep disturbances, like low sleep quality, you know, anything really around sleep. Or we can see even issues too with like during the day, you know, people feeling like they're getting headaches or they are getting really shaky in between meals or they're not able to stay satiated. And I've even seen like more recently with a lot of people starting on like GLP-1s and things that maybe they've been started on those and they think that they have more hyperglycemic type issues.

[00:33:17] They put a CGM on and they see that they're actually constantly hypoglycemic and that the GLP-1s actually kind of perpetuating the issue at play. And then it helps to be able to show them maybe like, hey, this actually isn't really what's best for your health right now, even though that's maybe what you thought to be or maybe what was best for your health a few months ago or, you know, part of your health. Right. And so I think it can be really educational for a lot of individuals. But yeah, they can be really expensive.

[00:33:45] I always caution to with people that are very like type A perfectionist overachievers with them because it's a lot of data and it can become obsessive when you have that much data, especially when it's like constant and there's no way to shut it off. And it's influencing everything you do is influencing the data, right? Like labs. It's like, OK, it's one plot in time and we can maybe take it with a little bit of grain of salt.

[00:34:10] But with the CGM, it's just like you're constantly getting that feedback. So I do always caution people that have more perfectionist type tendencies or maybe like a history of eating disorders or eating because of that. I think it's really important to make sure that those things are stabilized and that they are aware of what to expect before they utilize the CGM. Yeah, I think that's really important because, like you said, too much data can also be a bad thing.

[00:34:36] We don't want to like overwhelm ourselves and and become even more type A or obsessive because that can increase the stress alone right there, which is the opposite of what we're trying to do. And I know a lot of these, you know, it's hard because it's so specific to the individual of what they're going through, what they've been diagnosed with and what they're really working through. Are there like baseline stuff that can really help someone who feels like they have hormonal imbalance?

[00:35:04] Maybe they haven't gotten the testing because they can't afford it right now, but they feel like the energy shifts throughout the day. They feel the sleep disturbances. They feeling like their hormones are out of balance. Like where can they just start without necessarily being able to afford the testing? But what are some like baseline cues that you kind of give people?

[00:35:25] Yeah, I think one place that's like totally free to start is just with your like your frequency of when you're eating and just like more of your timing or schedule, if you will. And we don't need to be militant about it to where it's like, say, every day I set an alarm and I eat at this specific time. But our body's all on like one big clock and it really does help regulate hormone production and blood sugar and all these things when our body knows when it's going to be digesting, metabolizing food.

[00:35:51] And so if we can just start with getting onto a frequency and a rhythm of when you're eating throughout the day, that's a really great place to start. I think light exposure in the morning time is also a very low hanging fruit as well. So just really trying to get outside and get your eyes exposed onto some light in the first 30 minutes or so of when you're waking in the morning, totally free. And something that also plays a significant role in your cortisol production, which then influences so many of these other hormones that we're talking about.

[00:36:20] So those are just two really great places. And then just thinking about as well as like where you can go back to more of these like real whole food sources. I think it's very easy that when you're trying to eat healthier, oftentimes we're just trying to find like, OK, what are healthy brands that I can start to purchase? And when you start to do that, it gets really expensive. You know, like if you're buying all of these healthy cassava, almond flour type based things, it's like $10 for, you know, things are going to last you two meals.

[00:36:49] And so instead, if we can try to focus on how can I start to improve my eating habits, but focus more so on like the foundations, the basics, like more produce, more real whole meat or animals based protein sources or whatever your protein source of preference is. I mean, eggs are an incredibly cheap protein source that can be out there.

[00:37:07] Nuts and seeds, you know, these can be really great, like more economical ways that are going to get you more of these vitamins and minerals that are key pieces to hormone production and are going to go so much longer than these like healthier processed foods and going to be such a more affordable option in the long run as well. We just did another interview with somebody that you like kind of mirrored one of their points.

[00:37:30] Yeah, almost exactly like it doesn't if you're finding things to be cost prohibitive, like the things that should make the base of your pyramid up, you can actually be very economical with by buying frozen canned or, you know, jarred options that actually have a lot of or the peak amount of micronutrients in them and can be fairly inexpensive.

[00:37:51] So, I mean, honestly, we could talk through a lot more of this in depth, but I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise today. I know that you've offered a generous $50 discount on one of your courses, Inflammation Harmony at your website that people can go to get, learn a lot more from you. But where else can they go to continue to learn from you, check out your courses or work with you?

[00:38:16] Yeah, so I practice this functional feeling. Our website is functionalfeeling.com and then over on Instagram at functional.feeling. And then I also have a podcast called Strength and Hormones. Talk a lot about like the intersect between everything from like sports performance to hormones and nutrition and functional medicine and all these different topics. And so that's also a great place to learn more. Amazing. I mean, just a wealth of knowledge.

[00:38:41] And I know that you're helping so many people and even just in what you put out on social media and giving the snippets of what can really help and get people started. So it's such incredible information. Thank you so much for taking the time with us today. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Such a great conversation with Lauren. Love talking about anyone who knows way more about nutrition than Jen and I do. So please consider passing this episode along to someone who you think might need it.

[00:39:09] Also, if you haven't, consider leaving a rating and review on your favorite podcasting platform. And remember, we just started our Strong Healthy Joints program with a huge group of movers on the Jen Health platform. If you're someone who wants to start building strength and focusing on that top end strength, the Strong Healthy Joints program is for you. Jen has beautifully and masterfully crafted this program to help people get back into lifting, lifting heavy and doing it safely and confidently.

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