Jay 0:12
Welcome to Episode 41, of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and cravings, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for a long time now, and Mike also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. Today's episode is part two of our two part series discussing women's Hormonal Health, and in today's episode, we'll be focusing on the benefits of progesterone and how to restore Hormonal Health. If you didn't listen to part one, I highly recommend you go and check that episode out, where you'll get a bit of a foundation, as far as why this information is so important, and the mass amount of misinformation there is out there surrounding the female reproductive hormones, and how this has led to some of the some really damaging effects. As far as women's health goes, as far as medications and hormonal contraceptives, which we'll be discussing further today. So in today's episode, we will be discussing the deleterious health effects of most forms of contraception, and this does include the hormonal contraceptives that are extremely common, and also the non hormonal contraceptives like the copper IUD, which can still be problematic. We also talk about why hormonal supplements are often misused and when it makes the most sense to use these hormonal supplements. We'll be talking about the potential benefits and drawbacks of progesterone supplementation. We'll be talking about which foods help to lower estrogen. And we'll also discuss why nuts, seeds, beans and legumes are generally not very supportive of Hormonal Health, even though they are often said to be and we did also take some time in this episode to go over a pretty basic overview as far as bioenergetic nutrition is concerned, in order to balance out those hormones. So this is a really great overview if you are new to this podcast. And in today's episode, we also talked about why hormonal blood tests can be misleading and the best supplements for balancing hormones. If you are new to this podcast, then I'd highly recommend you go back after this episode and listen to episodes one through seven, where we spent some time building a foundation for bioenergetic nutrition and health. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we referenced throughout today's episode, and if you are looking for help balancing out your hormones, if you're dealing with any reproductive type issues, whether that's low libido or various issues related to your cycle, which we did discuss throughout today's episode and and last episode, including symptoms like PMS or fibroids or endometriosis, PCOS, or even more common symptoms like mood shifts or heaviness or cramps, or if you're Dealing with any other low energy symptoms, whether that's brain fog or a lack of energy, excessive cravings and constant hunger, any sort of gut issues or symptoms, if you're noticing a lot of gut inflammation or bloating, or if you're dealing with any chronic pain weight gain, or if you're having trouble sleeping, or if you're dealing with Any other chronic health conditions. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I will walk you through the main things that you want to focus on and adjust, as far as diet and lifestyle are concerned, so that you can maximize your cellular energy, which is the key to resolving these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

Jay Feldman 4:11
So you had mentioned, and we discussed a little bit about how you know a woman's menstrual cycle can be really helpful as a symptom, as an end, as an indicator, and that's part of why simply suppressing it with with hormonal or any contraceptive is, you know, is less than ideal. And you know, it really is a very good indicator of where we're at. Health wise, normally, it's one of the first things that I go over with women that I'm coaching. And as I mentioned earlier, too, one of the things that you know is a should be a good indicator as far as whether the things that are being implemented are actually working. And generally it's, you know, it shouldn't be too difficult to see improvements there and shifts there. And, you know, I do think it's important to reiterate too, that so much of what might be. Considered normal as far as like menstrual symptoms, whether it's around like, whether it's actual PMS or around ovulation, is really not normal. Abnormal might not be the most helpful terminology, but not optimal health wise. And so this includes like, water retention and bloating, cramps and kind of heaviness, like heavy periods, moodiness, migraines and headaches are pretty common as well. Breast soreness, fibroids, endometriosis, PCOS, which these are all things that are generally, you know, in talking to about working with a doctor or coach or whatever. You know, most doctors are not considering that nutrition or lifestyle have anything to do with any of those symptoms, and are, you know, typically those things aren't even questions. And the only solution that's really offered, generally is hormonal contraceptive, which, of course, is all these issues that that we've been discussing. So it's yeah, just important to note that using your cycle can be, you know, is a really good indicator of where you're at, health wise, and watching how these symptoms change over time. But along with that, too, as far as, like the as far as the contraceptives go, and hormonal contraceptives go a lot of times it, you know, having negative reactions to them isn't all that uncommon. And what will normally happen if somebody reacts poorly to one is that then they'll just try another. You know, Doctor will just keep cycling through different, uh, forms of contraceptives, and they have so many now, you know, there's the hormonal pills, and within those you've got, again, just estrogen ones, the synthetic progestin ones, the combination ones. You've also got injections now, which, you know, are scary for their own reasons. And then you also have IUDs, some of which are hormonal as well, where they really they're releasing some combination of estrogen and synthetic progesterone. And some of them, you know, people will recommend as being healthier safer. In particular would be the copper IUD, where it doesn't have any hormones that it's releasing on its own. It's just kind of like a physical blockade. But it is worth mentioning that even with that, you're still more than likely going to experience some some negative effects, just for one. I mean, having, having the IUD there is inherently kind of stressful and irritating, and is a signal that something is off. And so normally that's that alone is enough to to set off some symptoms and drive increased estrogen, which is important to consider.

Mike 7:38
Yeah, and I mean, there's also having anything implanted in the body can be irritating. So a lot of I've seen and I've met girls and women who've had copper IUDs and actually had to get them taken out because they were inflaming the area that they were placed in, or some of them migrated, and it just it wasn't a good, a good thing overall, for them, and then some people wind up developing some fibrosis in those areas from the constant irritation. So it's really important to, I mean, to look at all these therapies overall, do do research on each and every one. I mean, the copper IUD doesn't have hormones, but it's still, anytime you put anything in the body, whether it's a stent, whether it's a new knee, whether it's a copper IUD, whether it's staples, for whatever it is, there's always a possible negative reaction, because the body recognizes it as a foreign object, and so it tends to put scar tissue around those areas. You can develop allergies to whatever metals are present. There's like, there's a lot of things going on now where people are developing allergies to a joint replacement. Replacements. So, I mean, it, yes, it's just a piece of copper, but at the same time, it's basically, it can cause scarring within the uterus just by the presence of the the copper itself, um, which is known and there's, I mean, it's pretty stated, pretty directly, as the side effect, I'm pretty sure, on the of having the IUD. So anytime you implant anything, I mean, again, it's just looking at all the risk available. And then the idea is to do no harm first, right? So it's coming up with a therapy where you have maximal reward with minimal risk, as far as not, and then, in these cases, not becoming pregnant. But I think a lot of these are not, not necessarily ideal therapies, as far as using and this is, these are two separate conversations, because we have one conversation where it's essentially, you're using birth control to solve all these problems, supposedly, and then the other conversation is, you're using different forms of birth control as contraceptive methods to not get pregnant, to avoid becoming pregnant. So in the avoiding becoming pregnant category, the question is, is, what's the best therapy to avoid becoming pregnant with the least amount of short term and long term side effects? Is especially side effects that would impair your ability to get pregnant in the future if you so decided to so that would, those would be the questions that I would want to know and then. But as from from the health perspective, the question is, what is the actual underlying problem, and are the ways that they're treating it really addressing that underlying problem? Are we just masking the underlying problem if you have, if you're having painful periods and PMS and your cycles not regular, or PCOS or a memory, or any of these things, is the answer birth control like, are there other answers that we can that are on the table besides just taking birth control to regulate your period or or to help with PCOS, or to deal with, I don't know, whatever, whatever the aim entry, or whatever situation is going on, um, I think the question is, really, what's going on? What? What is going on underneath everything? Why? Why are you having those symptoms? So in this case, I if, if it's some type of, I don't know, extremely rare genetic or structural abnormality or something. I don't know what it is. You know, maybe some of these, these Band Aid solutions, might be helpful, but I'd say probably, for the vast majority, it's probably, it's not a good idea to just mask the symptoms and then not determine what the underlying cause is, and then also in masking the symptoms, to taking things that mask the symptoms that may cause issues down the road, like synthetic progestogens and um and estrogen in general. Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:38
And just to clarify what you're getting at is that there might be a couple very particular cases where these things make sense, but in the vast majority of cases, and in general, it doesn't seem like the best approach for resolving any of these underlying issues, especially because it doesn't resolve them. And normally, they're way worse once you stop using these contraceptives and or in this case, they're not, you know, just these hormonal interventions, because they're not even being used primarily as contraceptives. So before we dive into some of those considerations, as far as being able to rebalance progesterone and estrogen, which is one of the primary kind of issues underlying these various like female reproductive symptoms. Before we touch on that, I did want to just add in, as far as the copper IUD goes, that it, it has been, you know, it's, it was kind of touted, or has been touted as, like, the non hormonal contraceptive, and that it'll be better for people who are kind of having negative effects from the hormonal side. But again, I do want to clarify that, you know, it does show like, it has been shown to be causing, like, directly causing an immune response just from having IUD in there. And part of that probably also has to do with the copper there too, where it's not like a bioavailable copper, the same type of copper you would get in liver or something. And so both having it structurally there, and then also the copper itself, being theirs, is directly causing inflammation. And as you mentioned, that's, you know, that's what eventually leads to things like fibrosis. So it is not the like kind of safe option, necessarily, that it's that it's made out to be. And again, as we mentioned earlier, as far as contraception goes, the fertility awareness method, possibly using condoms and withdrawal either along with that, or, you know, figuring out a mix of those things that work best for your situation is probably going to be ideal. As far as on the contraceptive side, things that minimize any negative effects. But, you know, just in circling back to looking at progesterone versus estrogen, I did want to also emphasize just how, you know, we talked about estrogen having certain value and being necessary for certain processes, but excessive amounts being representative of excess stress, and it being a part of this kind of stress hormone cascade. And we didn't talk as much about the flip side being progesterone, and how progesterone tends to be one of those, one of the most kind of pro metabolic, pro health compounds, or hormones that you know our bodies are producing on their own, for sure, and and also they can interact with and it's been shown to be pretty stimulatory metabolically, but it's also been shown to be very protective in in an array of different situations. You know, one that's pretty noteworthy is, is in like neuro protection and regeneration from like, all sorts of different brain injury. So, yeah, I mean, it's pretty noteworthy, and just kind of goes to show the how I mean. And this is a whole separate topic too, but just even thinking of female or any reproductive hormone system as being separate from anything else where you. It's not at all. These hormones are, are very universal, which makes sense too, because there's, you know, our reproductive system shouldn't be separated from any other aspects of our health. You know, if we're in a really good environment, and you know, there's a lot of sunlight, there's a lot of good food, there's great you know, social interaction, when we're getting good sleep, then our reproductive health should be pretty good, and we should be, you know, biologically, in a favorable spot for reproduction. And then the opposite would, of course, occur as well when things are not as good environmentally. And so it makes sense that there should be pretty extensive interaction between all aspects of our health, and this includes reproductive health and everything else. So yeah, so looking at the effects of progesterone is a pretty good example of that. And in general, not only, and we'll talk about supplementing progesterone in a little bit, but when you, when you do supplement progesterone, you can see how wide ranging those effects are. And I've definitely seen that where it goes pretty far beyond just the directly, like reproductive related symptoms and cycle related symptoms.

Mike 16:08
Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to point out that progesterone has a broad ranging effects besides just, besides just being a hormone of pregnancy or of the menstrual cycle, that's what there's like, it has direct anti cortisol effects, has direct pro metabolic effects. It has immunomodulatory effects. It has, like, very broad ranging effects on physiology, particularly for women, because it is mainly a female hormone. There is progesterone in males as well, but it's mainly a female hormone, and then also people. I'm is more commonly recognized now, but estrogen is present in both males and females, and having an excessive amount of estrogen in men can can be a huge problem. The other thing people are talking about is having extremely low levels can also be a problem. And so I think another important thing to point out is that a lot of this stuff is a balance. There needs to be a balance of the different hormones, and it's about achieving that balance, not necessarily, through taking different exogenous hormones in certain amounts, all at all different times. I mean, that can be a strategy. Um, I know for some for older people with hormonal replacement therapy, there's lots of women using like combinations of progesterone and estrogen in small amounts, and finding benefit from that. So those can be used, those can be therapies, but ideally, especially in younger people, the question is, why? Why are things not functioning? Well, what's going awry? And in older people could be the question should be, you know as well what's going awry, and then trying to exhaust other options before you have to basically use the different supplementation for the different hormones depending on the individual's context. So the important to realize that the hormones have broad, ranging effects besides what they're advertised to do, and that they function in balances in the body, because they all do have different functions. And it's not about hammering estrogen to zero and raising progesterone to the past the upper limits. It's about having an adequate balance of those for depending on what your lifespan and your context is, and the same thing. All these same things apply to men as well. You know, you a lot of guys, and this is happening more so in anecdotal experience with men, there's some research starting to come out about it. But essentially that taking a bunch of aromatase inhibitors or different estrogen modulators can have pretty deleterious effects, especially when you crash the hormones all the way to zero and then you have really high amounts of androgens, that it's when you start skewing these balances in different ways. Problems can develop just from the lack of outbalance in the system. So that's why just throwing different hormones on top of the system may cause issues for people, may cause dysregulation, and also, especially, throwing in Super physiologic amounts, or amounts more than what we would normally produce, can completely throw the system off. So it's important to to understand that they do have systemic effects and balances, and that the real the real solution to start, or the the real place to start looking for a solution would be to what is causing the imbalance at in the in your lifestyle to start. You know, what's your diet looking like? What's your sleep looking like. What's your stress? What are your stress levels looking like? Are you? What are your nutrients looking like? Are you short on nutrients? Can Do you need access to more sunlight? Are you overly stressed? So addressing those areas, and then if you cannot address some of those areas, then you can start supplementing different things to help with the stress to get through the P. Years and whatnot. So it's not about not using things, but it's about exhausting other options before, and moving in a stepwise fashion before you just go from zero to 60 right away. It's like my test, and I see this a lot now with Mo, a lot with guys, because that's more of where I focus. But you see a lot of guys, they go from zero to 60, and there's just like, Oh, my testosterone is low. So okay, I need to start taking 100 milligrams a week injections, or however many milligrams a week injections, of testosterone, and all my estrogens high. And then I need to get an aromatase inhibitor. And it's just like, Well, why is your estrogen high? Why is your body converting the testosterone to estrogen? Why is your body not making the testosterone to start? Why for females, why aren't you having your period? What is your sex hormone profile look like? Is your cortisol super high and your prolactin super high, and then your your gonadal function shut down, so your estrogen and progesterone are extremely low. So those are things to look at with PCOS. Is your with this specific situation, are your cortisol and your DHEA levels high, and then converting into testosterone, and then your estrogen and progesterone are low? So basically, you have adrenal over activity. Okay, so what's causing that? Do you have some latent infection? Are you stressed in your environment? Is your diet really poor and causing issues in the gut like those are all things that you have that I think would be necessary to address before just hopping on birth control and continuing to eat whatever you're doing or having some latent infection and not solving those problems. They're not going to go away. The symptoms may be masked, but it's not going to solve the problem down the road. Yeah.

Speaker 1 21:37
I mean in in talking about solving hormonal imbalances with supplementary hormones, even hormonal contraceptives, birth control aside, you know, when we're talking about supplementing progesterone, or, you know, you mentioned some, some women supplementing estrogen, or, for men supplementing testosterone or but, you know, pregnant alone, DGA, whatever it is. And we've talked about this a little bit before, but it's there's a time and place and context for those things, and they can be really beneficial, because it's not only a matter of masking the symptoms, but these, these hormones, you know, things like progesterone, pregnenolone, DGA, testosterone, do have beneficial effects of their own that can help to kind of cycle things in a better direction, that can improve, for example, liver function so that, you know, if we're in the case of progesterone, it can improve liver function so you can detoxify estrogen better, you know. And it can end up increasing your own endogenous production of progesterone. It can end up, you know, increasing your metabolism, and then that helps increase thyroid hormone production. And same thing with all of the hormones on the male side too, or, you know, testosterone, pregnant alone, whatever. So they can be really helpful in those contexts to to really start to shift things in that better direction. However, as you're pointing out, they really, in the vast majority of cases, should not be the first thing that are used and will still not fix or make up for a really prolific environment. Yeah, yeah, poor lifestyle, which, again, you know, talking environment, just for people who are unaware. When I'm saying environment, I also mean, like, I mean diet, exercise, all of those things that are part of our human like physiological environment, and so, yeah, so often when we start talking about hormonal imbalances and how to fix them, and we'll, you know, kind of dive into some of those things in a second. There's such a, you know, everyone is so quick to use various hormones immediately. And, and I've, you know, I think both of us fell into that trap a little bit for ourselves. And I've definitely seen it with clients too, where, you know, and on the female so for us, you know, on the with pregnant alone, DHEA, those sorts of things. But for women, I have seen this where, you know, I'll have a client who has said that they use progesterone in the past, didn't really notice too much or had a negative effect, and then, as we correct a lot of other aspects of their environment, then they're able to use progesterone and have really, really beneficial effects. And part of this can also have to do with dosing and how it's being used, which will we can, you know, dive into that at least a little bit as well. But so much of it also is setting the foundation. And this goes back to, you know, we didn't mention thyroid, because it's not necessarily directly, you know, related to reproductive health. It definitely is indirectly. We will touch on it. But, you know, the same thing goes for thyroid, where, if your environment is not good and you're getting all of these signals to shut down your endogenous thyroid production because you're not getting in enough fuel. You're not able to convert that fuel to energy because you've got endotoxin or PUFA blocking it, or lack of vitamins and minerals, then adding thyroid on top generally just makes things worse and ends up driving further stress. And instead of. Having that net beneficial and generally positive effect, where it kind of improves everything it does the opposite. So, yeah, but you know, I guess it's an important disclaimer as we talk about how to balance reproductive hormones, and specifically progesterone and estrogen, making sure that we're not just starting off by even assuming if someone is estrogen dominant by supplementing progesterone.

Mike 25:24
Yeah. I mean, the question is, why they're estrogen dominant and what's inducing that? And anytime you're adding anything exogenously, particularly your hormone, they can be converted up. They can be converted downstream. Oftentimes they the different hormones can have an effect on inhibiting that conversion, if you have them in certain concentrations and whatnot. So it, you know, they they would can have some a potent beneficial effect. But again, if everything else isn't right, then the response to them may not make any sense. You know, you start taking pregnant alone just makes you feel completely terrible. If you're, you know you're coming on like a 1200 calorie diet, from caloric restriction and fasting and things like that, where you're trying to add in thyroid hormone, when you're doing stuff like that, it's going to be a nightmare. So it really That's why getting everything else right first makes the most amount of sense. And then, even guys with with testosterone replacement, it converting all into estrogen. It's what is? The question is, what is your body's physiologic state? What? What state is your body functioning at? Is it functioning? Are you like and metabolically healthy? Are you are you having? I mean, I'm assuming, if you're having low testosterone, there's something specific going on, or if you're amenorrheic, there's something specific going on that would indicate a metabolic issue, but then just adding the hormones in is just, you know, your body's not producing them for a reason. Either it can't, or it's limiting because of whatever reason. So it's, I mean, it's important to to understand that, and to not just think that you're just going to solve whatever issue it is with just a whole bunch of hormones, just I'm going to take, come on, I'm going to take a drug and some hormones, and it's going to solve the problems without figuring out what actually is causing the issue under, underneath, especially because, as we talked about the even with with the oral contraceptives that they mentioned, it uses up nutrients. So if you're already low on nutrients, and then you start adjusting the metabolism and increasing the use of those nutrients downstream that can cause issues. I mean, maybe you won't be able to, maybe eventually stop responding to the hormone a lot of people stop responding to the drugs that they use. Why? Well, there may be some tolerance, sure, but was it depleting something else that you need? So having your bases covered before you start getting into doing those things and seeing if, maybe you don't even need to go that far, maybe you just need to maybe you're not sleeping, maybe you're going to sleep too late, maybe you're just you're working yourself to death. Maybe you're doing way too many hours. Maybe you're just stressed out, maybe you're in a bad situation. Maybe you're not eating enough, and a lot of times it really does come to eating enough. A lot of people just are not eating enough.

Speaker 1 28:01
Yeah, especially especially women, and especially when they're I mean, of course, like, it starts at such an early age, like when we're talking about when somebody might first be getting, uh, prescribed something like birth control, dieting is, is? It's very prevalent. So, yeah, that's typically a pretty huge factor. Yeah, one other thing that we didn't really talk as much about, but it's actually really a really important piece of this puzzle, as far as how estrogen has been kind of labeled as the female hormone, and part of the issue with understanding hormonal imbalance and why people still blame a lack of estrogen as as causing many of their problems, and that's blood blood tests and blood labs for these hormones, where a lot of the not a lot. But one aspect of these ideas has come from the fact that they they've seen blood levels of estradiol, which is one form of estrogen or several. So they've seen that blood levels of estradiol tend to drop during like during menopause, and that they say that that's responsible for all the symptoms that come up, which is why estrogen is normally supplemented at that point. And then they, you know, and then there's also.

Mike 29:16
I was gonna say, and they supplementing at that point, and it's been found to not have good outcomes, right? Just using estrogen, or using estrogen too high in ratio to progesterone.

Speaker 1 29:26
Yeah. I mean, that's the HRT, the hormone replacement that we kind of talked about earlier, which was used for a long time, was then found to cause a ton of quote, unquote side effects, like, you know, cancer and things. And, you know, just cancer, right? And then is still prescribed now, like it's kind of made a comeback. And, you know, not for the better, if you're asking me. And yeah, so this idea that you can measure estrogen levels just in the blood is not quite that simple as just measuring estradiol. Well. And you know, in talking about it dropping during menopause, they look at this as also evidence that estrogen is the female hormone, and that was what was supporting reproductive capacity for so long. And in reality, just because estradiol is dropping in the blood does not mean that you're having lower estrogen levels systemically. And part of the potential reason for this is because estrogen in various forms, can be stored in the tissues. And so progesterone is able to remove that estrogen from the tissues and allow it to be detoxified. And when you have a drop in progesterone, like when you're going through menopause, then the estrogen is able to is basically was being kept in the blood by progesterone, and then is able to enter the tissues. And so you see a drop in estrogen in the blood, but that does not again, mean a decrease in systemic estrogen. In this case, it can be an increase. And so that's one really important thing to factor in. And there are other blood tests that you could get if you wanted to try to measure your hormones that way, that would be more helpful. One would be prolactin, and then you also have esterone and estrone sulfate, which can be all of those can be better indicators of general estrogenic activity, although, yeah, I mean, it all still, you know, it all requires some interpretation. I just and also these things are virtually never tested for. So yeah, just important to consider that just because your lab shows low estradiol does not mean that you're low on estrogen, or if it's showing high progesterone, again, all of that also fluctuates based on where you're at in your cycle, too. So a lot of the lab values that people are using to then evaluate someone's Hormonal Health are pretty off base.

Mike 31:39
If I'm not mistaken, the the serum estrogen and serum progesterone is more function of ovarian function. So it's showing what like how the ovaries are functioning to a large extent. And with menopause, you basically have a lack of ovarian function. That's literally your ovarian function is, is slowing down or eventually stopping, and then you're basically, you're just left with, you know, your your tissue expression of aromatase, which is the enzyme that converts androgens into estrogens, whether that's DHEA androstinodional testosterone, whatever it is.

Jay Feldman 32:16
Which is a major source of estrogen.

Mike 32:18
Yes, which exactly all The tissues can express or all tissues, pretty much can express aromatase. So it's important that's that's just something important to keep in mind that when you start seeing menopause, you're what you're seeing is a drop in ovarian function, rather than just a drop in estrogen, that you're losing both your product, your ovarian production of extra estradiol and progesterone and other, I think, other labs that are important to look at with that type of stuff is also what your cortisol levels are doing. Where's your cortisol, where's your where's your prolactin, and then where's estrone? Is a good, a good indicator of, I guess, like storage of estrogen, because that's any upregulation of cortisol or anything like that will upregulate aromatase expression.

Speaker 1 33:07
Yeah, yeah, considering that, it's part of that, that whole stress hormone situation, yep, stress hormone cascade, yeah. So with that in mind, and considering that for the most part, if somebody is experiencing symptoms related to, you know, reproductive health, all of these things that we've discussed as far as PMS and, you know, issues around ovulation or but you know, whether somebody is maybe not even having a cycle or not ovulating, or they're dealing with, you know, fibroids or Endometriosis, PCOS, all of these symptoms that we discussed in these situations. In the vast majority of cases, low progesterone is at play and high estrogen is at play. And so as we alluded to earlier, there are things that can be done without just supplementing progesterone, although there's a time and place that can help to rebalance these hormones. And so, you know, you would touch on it a bit, which I would say first and foremost is making sure that you're well nourished and well fueled. And so on one hand, that means simply eating enough. And this is pretty noteworthy, as far as I mean, even even like a short term, fasting can increase aromatase, increased estrogen. Of course, you said cortisol increases aromatase. So you know, basically, anytime you're not eating enough, anytime that you are on a diet where you're trying to just reduce calories, you're going to be increasing all the stress hormones, and that includes estrogen. So heating enough is incredibly important. Along with that too is making sure that you are getting enough, you know, micronutrients, meaning vitamins and minerals, and this is especially the case if you're coming from hormonal contraceptives that deplete various vitamins and minerals, selenium, zinc, B, vitamins, magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin E. So you know. There's a place for supplementing those two, but for the most part, trying to replenish these things dietary is much, generally, much better approach. And, you know, just to, I guess, lay out the basics, there's sometimes can be helpful, just as a refresher, or if you're generally new to the podcast, centering your diet around you know, high quality carbohydrates, meaning generally high quality fruits and roots, meaning root vegetables, some white rice, again, potatoes, sweet potatoes and juice.

Mike 35:35
Wolf dried fruit, any type of fruit product that you tolerate well.

Speaker 1 35:41
Yeah, and then on the fat side, favoring the saturated fats, as opposed to the polyunsaturated fats. So that would be the fats from ruminant animals, meaning, like red meat, so beef tallow, and then saturated fats that you would find in like plants, like coconut oil and chocolate and butter. So any dairy fat or eggs, it's going to be mostly saturated fats and avoiding the polyunsaturated fats, the vegetable oils and the oils and nuts and seeds, which, when it comes to Hormonal Health, nuts and seeds are recommended very often, and like the alternative health sphere to help to rebalance hormones with your healthy fast, of course, right? Part of that is because they have phytoestrogens in them, which are considered to be a good thing by people who are trying to raise estrogen, as we've discussed, that might not be the best approach. Some people say it lowers estrogen. So, right? Well, so yeah, some of the nuts and seeds are supposed to increase in some increased estrogen, some are supposed to lower it, which, you know, you could probably argue that some of the fibers are able to bind with estrogen that's excreted in bile and prevent it from being reabsorbed. But I think there's much better ways to do that than with nuts and seeds. Yeah.

Mike 36:57
There's easier fibers to use if you're going to go down that route.

Speaker 1 37:00
Yeah, yeah. Which is, you know, another side of this is, is, many people will talk about, like, the healthier fibers being really effective for helping to detoxify excess estrogen that's excreted through the bile. And so raw carrots are pretty good for that. And I would anticipate, you know, fibers and fruit to also be helpful with that.

Mike 37:22
Yep, different fruits and certain, certain cooked vegetables and things like that, some of your leafy greens and then some the other fruit and tuber fibers. Any, any of those, I guess those fibers would work. No need to go and stock up on tons of beans and tons of nuts and seeds and things like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 37:44
Go ahead, you had mentioned leafy greens. And just to clarify, that is, and you had said cooked, but I just want to clarify so cooked leafy greens, raw vegetables are another, you know, just when it comes to female Hormonal Health, like things like raw vegetables and nuts and seeds are pushed a lot. And as you said beans and legumes. So, yeah, the there's a ton of anti nutrients in the raw vegetables, some of which are estrogenic, and are called phytoestrogens. Again, I would look at that as it's not such a good thing. And so cooking, if you are eating vegetables, which to some extent, aren't, definitely not as necessary as are generally, as they're generally considered to be and shouldn't be and shouldn't be making up, you know, the bulk of our diet. But if you're using them as you know, a small part of your diet, making sure that they're cooked is important, yep.

Mike 38:28
And for some they do have new a lot of nutrition. I just don't, I mean, you can't really make them the bulkier calories. I know a lot of people try and eat just salads, and it's like, yeah, it's filling, but you still need to have them. You still need your macronutrients too.

Jay Feldman 38:43
Yeah, and it's physically filling. But most, most people who are basing their diets around salad are pretty much starving all the time. Yeah. And just to reiterate, too, as far as, like, making sure you're getting enough food, it doesn't make sense for your body to be able to support, like, healthy reproduction and support a, you know, a baby, and then breastfeeding after, if you're not, if you're not eating enough.

Mike 39:06
I mean, it makes you could, if you don't have enough nutrition on board, how are you going to be able to basically build a baby.

Speaker 1 39:13
Build another human? Yeah? So, so I do want to talk about proteins.

Mike 39:21
I mean, we already talked about the issues with nuts and seeds and beans. A lot of there's a decent amount of they call them anti nutrients, but basically just components that are difficult to digest and that are made that cause a lot of other issues too. They do when that are made to to a large extent, to not be digested, and they can cause some inflammatory responses in people, uh, particularly with nuts and seeds. A lot of nuts and seeds, there are some that that aren't, but a lot of them are, are very high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, particularly Omega six Fatty Fatty acids, which are, I mean, I'm pretty sure most alternative health groups. Even some of the well, I guess mainstream hasn't got it yet, but a lot of alternative health groups are pretty much against the Omega six. So it's kind of interesting to see the recommendations for lots of nuts and seeds, which a couple alternative health gurus have walked back on at some point just because of the high amount of mega sixes. But besides that, they do have. And then a lot of people talk about their mineral content, which could be helpful, but a lot of the minerals content of those nuts and seeds are bound up with different like digestive inhibitors. They call them anti nutrients, yeah.

Speaker 1 40:33
And not only are those minerals just bound up by the anti nutrients, the phytic acid and oxalic acid, but those anti nutrients can also prevent you from absorbing those same minerals from other foods too.

Mike 40:43
That you Yeah, that you eat with with those foods, yeah? So they can decrease. So, so it almost has a net negative effect. Then the other thing is, people mentioned nuts and seeds being a great source of vitamin E, but when you have a high amount of omega six or polyunsaturated fatty acids, in general, there's almost a negative effect on the amount of vitamin E you're taking in, because that vitamin E is essentially counteracting, to some extent, the oxidation of those fatty acids in the food. I'm pretty sure Chris master John has talked about this before, if that in, to go into more detail about anything like that, but to for a large extent, there's all these supposed beneficial factors that you find in the nuts and seeds or even in the legumes have a lot of like opposing effects that that sort of cancel them out. And so when we start talking about protein sources, a lot of people recommend beans and and also a lot of people recommend like, lean turkey or lean chicken. Um, as far as beans go, the protein in there is probably like one of the least digestible proteins, especially compared to things like fish or eggs or dairy protein, if you tolerate dairy or or red meat, ruminant meat, whether it's lamb, goat, beef, whatever ruminant, whatever four legged animal You're going to be eating, um, and then also the the beans, also, there's a lot of nutrients are bound up, just like the just like the nuts and seeds with different inhibitors, phytic acid, and they also have different components, like lectins that for people with sensitive gi tracts, for example, for someone such as myself, I cannot tolerate them very well. They really irritate me. And they also have a lot of different fibers that can cause a lot of discomfort with bloating. So a lot of people find relief sort of dropping those from the diet. And they also can tend to sap the weight, SAP the appetite a little bit from, you know, all the bloating and all the fermentation in the colon and things like that that come with eating beans and then also grains as well. Grains are sort of in a similar boat. They're known to not have complete to not be complete protein sources. So often they recommend combining grains and beans together to make a complete protein source, because the amino acids sort of balance each other out. But even so, their digestibility, as far as protein go, is minimal compared to the animal foods. So that's something that's important to keep in mind, that if you want to get the best bang for your buck with the most amount of and this is a key point, absorbable nutrients, animal proteins are hands down, the option you can whatever. I'm not making any ethical claims here. I'm not having any ethical arguments. This is purely like a research argument is purely a scientific argument. It is known that animal foods, as far as nutrient absorbability and protein quality, outweigh grains and beans. It's not like, it's not even, that's not even a question. Then the next point to keep in mind is, okay, well, then what animal foods? So we talked about the main ones, seafood, so that could be shellfish, that could be fish. And then you have your your ruminant animals, which is your red meats. Those tend to be the most nutrient dense by far. The pork can also be nutrient dense. The issue with pork is because of the feed for the pigs, they tend to be high in PUFA, so, or polyunsaturated fatty acid. And then as far as as whiter meats like turkey or chicken, you have the same issue because of the feeding and the anatomy and physiology the animal, they tend to concentrate whatever polyunsaturated fatty acids that are in their diet and their fatty tissue. And also, the white meats tend to be much lower in nutrients than something like your ruminants or your seafood. So I know a lot of bodybuilders based or diets, or fitness people based their diets around the white around white meats or light meat, and it tends to be much lower quality than red meat, as far as in terms of nutrient overall nutrient amounts, especially the very lean varieties, which I mean, I would even recommend the more lean variety over the fattier variety. But the Lean varieties tend to have even less nutrients than than the fattier cuts of of those of those animals. So the best protein sources with all things considered, would be your seafood, different types of fish. Uhm, lower the again, it would be lower fish that's lower in fat, on on in the topic of polyunsaturated fatty acids, higher fat fish has had a lot of Omega three, and while having making sure that your diet is zero omega three or zero polyunsaturated fatty acid is probably impossible. Making sure you're not loading up on like 10 grams or or six, seven grams of fish oil on the day would probably be a good idea, even if you believed, or you were in the camp that was under the impression that fish oil had beneficial effects. Most of the dosages that they had were significantly lower. They were, like, one gram a day, type of thing that two grams a day, whatever it was, so that a lot of them are are lower and that can that might as well be met with, like quality seafood, if you were in that camp, then, just then, then trying to eat tons and tons of salmon, which is a pretty high in the omega three fatty acids, like a good piece having salmon every day, or big piece of salmon would give you a decent amount. You're probably going to meet your if you believe the neomega three requirement, you would probably meet it just by eating high quality like shellfish periodically to meet different nutrients. For as far as the camp that we subscribe to. We're not really necessarily a fan of getting a lot of Omega three in the diet, so we tend to stick to lower Kufa fishes, or lower fat fish in general, which would be your cod or your soul or your flounder, so your white fish. And then there's, if you're in a tropical area, then a lot of the tropical fishes are lower in fat as well in the warmer waters. So something to point out, and then a lot of shellfish, whether that's shrimp or mussels or oysters or clams, and that's because they're very high in different trace minerals and nutrients. So those would be the best sources. You know, I usually tell people, and this may be different for you, Jay, but if you know, if they want to have salmon with their family, or something like that, because they're eating it, or, I don't know, sardines, or whatever it is, and, like, once in a while, and think it's gonna, it's gonna kill you, but I wouldn't be going out of my way to try and eat excessive amounts of cold water. Like, have a very fatty fish high in PUFAs.

Speaker 1 47:20
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the problem here is that these things are considered to be health foods, and so that's really more of the perspective that we want to switch, not absolutely never having it. I mean, if, again, as you said, if there are certain, you know, if every once in a while you're having something that's higher in PUFA, not the end of the world. But yeah. So just to clarify there, you're not saying that fat is bad. So you were talking about lean chicken, lean pork, lean fish in general, having enough fat from dairy eggs, ruminant animals, again, like beef, lamb, bison, those are chocolate coconut oil. Yep, those fats are actually going to be really supportive of Hormonal Health and help as kind of the backbones for producing hormones like progesterone and so having enough fat will actually be..

Mike 48:07
And cholesterol and cholesterol.

Jay Feldman 48:09
Yeah, which are, which is also found in all those foods, minus the coconut oil and chocolate, yeah, unless the chocolate is milk fat. But basically, yeah, you're getting the cholesterol from the animal, the good quality animal fats and those things, yeah, are all going to really help with hormone production. The fats that we wanted to avoid, which in which are, again, just to clarify, the ones that most people say are healthy, the Omega sixes and omega threes. And that's why, and those ones are really high in fatty chicken, fatty pork, fatty fish, which is why you were saying, if you're eating chicken, pork or fish, to tend towards the lean cuts. So for chicken, that'd be chicken breast. Pork would be pork chops. Fish, it would be like white fish, like cod and Flounder and Haddock and some other ones, like halibut grouper, I think is relatively lean. There's there's a few others, but basically, wanting to tend towards the lean ones. Again, you also made an argument. Why, as far as nutrient density goes, some of the like shellfish and bivalves, meaning, like muscles, oysters, clams and then the ruminant animal meats are going to be better. One other thing that you didn't mention yet was organ meats, which, as far as nutrient density goes, doesn't really get much more nutrient dense than that, especially when you're considering absorbability of nutrients. So we talked about how most of the nutrients and plant foods like beans and legumes and nuts and seeds and oncogenes greens and grains are most of those micronutrients are not going to be absorbed very well. But when we're talking about micronutrients in organ meats, it's they're going to be absorbed very well, and it's going to be really a powerhouse as far as those goes, as far as those go, especially when it comes to the fat soluble vitamins A, E and K, which all happen to be incredibly important when it comes to hormone production and also fertility, which. You know, I think is kind of a good transition as well as that. You know, when it comes to supplementing, I think the best supplement, as far as these micronutrients GO, GO would be something like liver, like these organ meats, which are extremely nutrient dense, you're also going to get a good sort of source of bioavailable copper, which is, is also integral to, I mean, mitochondrial respiration, just the process of producing energy, all sorts of other functions. So that would be like, you know, kind of the goal is, is building a diet around these types of foods, getting a lot of nutrient density from those animal foods, dairy and eggs as well, as well as the organ meats. And I think it's worth noting too that you had talked about Vitamin E a little bit, and vitamin E is actually was pretty well known as, like, the fertility vitamin for a while, which when you consider that it's extremely protective against the polyunsaturated fats, which are one of the most disrupting things when it comes to mitochondrial respiration, or energy production, which is really at the like foundation of our health, and is also extremely protective against all of the general inflammatory processes which are driven by basically the polyunsaturated fats and their their metabolites, their byproducts. So yeah, I mean, it's it's not really such a surprise that vitamin E is so helpful in that way. But, you know, I like you're going the best places to be getting vitamin E would be from those animal foods, dairy, eggs, organ meats and, you know, all...

Mike 51:35
Different fruits and certain like some of the tubers and stuff like that have decent sources of vitamin E. Some of those foods are good, and a lot of those are all the tubers and the fruits and some of the cooked vegetables, some of the specific greens and stuff like that do have a lot of nutrients, and that's why we tend towards those. But as far as, like, a lot of raw vegetables and a lot of raw nuts and seeds and then, like your cooked beans and stuff like that, especially if not prepared properly or anything like that, they're not very none of those things are very bioavailable. So while on paper, things can be high in different nutrients at the the goal is high nutrient content or density and and solid or good absorbability. You know you you can have a mixture of solidified B vitamins, but if you can't digest the B vitamins, then it doesn't really matter how much is in there. So it's, it's important to focus, to basically have the combination of those elements there. And that's why that's, that's what drives the choices the foods that that you're just that both of us, I guess, are describing, it would be the animal, these specific animal foods and and, for example, liver and oysters. There you have a ton of minerals and a ton of B vitamins, just between those two right there, at extremely high nutrient density, and fat soluble vitamins. And, yeah, and fat soluble so those would be the that's what the diet is centered around, basically having solid nutrition that's easily absorbable and also comes with minimal amount of digestive inhibitors and toxic components that irritate the gut and any anything along those lines. It's keeping toxins low, keeping digestibility high and keeping nutrient density high, those that's the that is the logical sort of progression behind our choices. It's not just because we like oysters and liver. I mean, a lot of people, I mean, I'm not necessarily 100% the biggest fan of the taste of liver, but I mean, it's the rational reasons behind that. It's is, that's basically why. So, if you wanted to look these things up, you there's research describing all these different aspects. And I just want to point out that that's the basis. I think that that's important. Because a lot of people talk about, you know, all these different diets and, well, beans and grains and nuts and seeds and all this have so much, you know, look at all the nutrients in them, and it's like, Well, are you absorbing them, and are you doing it without hurting yourself or irritating yourself, or whatever it is.

Jay Feldman 54:08
Yeah. And so we did dig into all of these things in a lot more detail, gut and digestion and macronutrients and optimal sources for a lot of these foods, and kind of how to structure a diet from the bioenergetic perspective in the first seven episodes of this podcast. So yeah, check out episodes one through seven. One thing that we didn't talk about here that is is important when it comes to balancing out hormones is the blood sugar side, where making sure that our blood sugar is steady throughout the day is incredibly important. Making sure that we're getting a steady supply of carbs to keep our blood sugar maintained is going to be the best way to do that, and balancing that out with some protein and fat is helpful. That means not fasting, and means getting consistent meals throughout the day. And this is really one of the the most beneficial. Things when it comes to keeping stress hormones down and rebalancing reproductive hormones. So you know. And it's worth noting too, that when you have a situation like PCOS, which is like a basically metabolic dysregulation and dysregulated blood sugar is is a major part of it. That goes to show how much of an impact regulates the regulation of blood sugar has on, you know, on these reproductive hormones. So again, we did talk in more detail about all of that in episodes one through seven. So, you know, refer you to those. But it is just definitely worth mentioning. Is just something that's an incredibly important foundation to health and nutrition. Yeah, so in talking about a couple of supplements that are unique to this situation, I just want to touch on a few. One would be vitamin E. And there, you know, again, with all of these, best place to get it would be from diet. But using vitamin E as a supplement can be helpful for rebalancing some of the these hormones. And it's worth, you know, again, reiterating that it was known as the fertility hormone or vitamin for a reason, and so it can definitely be pretty supportive and rebalancing in that regard, as far as the other fat solubles go, like vitamin A and vitamin K, I would prefer, I mean, I prefer to get all these from diet, but potentially using, like a desiccated liver is is an option for those, and maybe supplementing with some vitamin K, which vitamin K does have a lot of effects to hormonally that are worth not, are beneficial? Yeah, yeah. And vitamin E, ideally from from sunshine, would be the best. Vitamin D, yeah. Vitamin D, yeah. And outside of those vitamins, there's a few other kind of hormone related supplements I think could be helpful or worth mentioning. One is aspirin, and aspirin is pretty effective at doing what the effects of excess estrogen can support liver function and help with estrogen detoxification and just generally decreasing the production of estrogen. So that is one to consider. A couple others. One would be progesterone. Again, assuming that diet is covered, assuming that lifestyle is covered, there's not excessive stress, there's not excessive amounts of exercise, you're sleeping well, or sometimes if you're stuck on some of those things, and then progesterone can kind of help work through, help you work through those. But anyway, yeah, so supplementing progesterone can be helpful for women who are, you know, not post menopausal. Generally, you'd want to supplement just during the second two weeks of your cycle. Again, this all kind of depends, but that's just most in line with with what your kind of natural hormonal cycle would be, and then one other and I've seen, I do think it's worth noting to that I have seen pretty noteworthy benefits from using progesterone in the right circumstances that have seen it to be incredibly beneficial. And we talked earlier about how hormones can affect our personality and our the way that we view the world and see the world and experience everything, and how we just how we feel, just general sense of well being. And that's definitely something that I've seen or had. People you know, tell me clients tell me that when they've used progesterone, they like felt like themselves again, way calmer, way more relaxed, especially ones who were kind of had a lot of agitation or anxiety and just general sense of well being, just feeling very good. So which I think, more than anything, doesn't necessarily mean that we should all just, you know, all women should supplement with progesterone, but rather just how, how dis regulated these hormones can be, and how much of a difference it makes to, you know, and why it's worth putting all this effort into correct these things. It really does make a difference on how people feel, just in their core.

Mike 58:59
Yeah, yeah, pretty much I would agree with all those supplements, yeah.

Jay Feldman 59:04
And then the last one would be thyroid too, which I would put in a similar category to progesterone, you know, slightly less direct effects as far as reproductive health goes, but it definitely can support the production of hormones like progesterone, and can lead to resolution of a lot of these symptoms, hypothyroidism is definitely a you can consider it a common cause of all these various issues with women's reproductive health. All that hypothyroidism really means is inhibited energy production or lack of energy availability that leads to a basically a downward feedback loop towards our own thyroid activity. And so again, in the right context, supplementing with thyroid can be really helpful for all these same things and lead to a lot of improvement. So I think it's worth mentioning there. And another one that I've seen. You know, thyroid and progesterone are mentioned all the time, and I. Kind of the repeat community, but I have found them to be both incredibly effective when used properly. So I think they're worth talking or, you know, considering.

Mike 1:00:09
Yep, I think that thyroid is a key player in in every a lot of the stuff that goes on. I don't think it's always the main cause, but I definitely think it's usually involved with the issue. I think that whatever could be causing the hypothyroidism, and then the also, the the issues going on below the surface may also, you know, could be causing the hormonal dysregulation on a from a sex steroid point of view as well. So, like, it could be causing both and it could be going hand in hand, it could be hypothyroidism. So I think that thyroid is, like a very generally protective substance that could be helpful. And then progesterone definitely can help over not overdoing the hormones, I think is really important. But overall, I think they can be very helpful. And then obviously supplementing any sort of, any sort of nutrients that you're lacking from your diet, first with foods, and then sometimes some higher doses from actual supplements themselves can be helpful. So and then, yeah, I'd say those are the most important. And also making sure you're not eating things that are irritating you or causing any type of allergic reaction, I think is really important as well. I think a lot of people, I think a lot of people, are eating a lot of foods that they're irritating them they don't realize because they've been eating eating them for so long. Yeah, yeah.

Jay Feldman 1:01:27
And that reminded me too, not the the allergenic part, but what you had said prior, which was that as far as progesterone dosing goes, sometimes dosing, I know you mentioned not wanting to dose too highly on some of these things, which is definitely true. Sometimes dosing too little can be a problem as well, not as much with thyroid, but with progesterone, where it seems to cause basically an estrogen dump. We talked about how progesterone can lead to the excretion of estrogen from the tissues, and then that estrogen has to be detoxified. And so doing everything nutritionally will properly. Nutritionally will help with that detoxification. Aspirin and vitamin E will help, but so will progesterone itself. And so sometimes dosing too little will lead to this kind of excessive burden of estrogen and cause symptoms to crop up. And sometimes that'll happen to where the first cycle, or sometimes the first couple cycles when using progesterone can be worse as far as symptoms go, and then tends to get better following that. So those are things to consider sometimes that can mean that the progesterone dose is too low if you're experiencing symptoms. So again, it all depends, but that's something worth considering.

Mike 1:02:32
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of trial and error involved. Yeah,

Jay Feldman 1:02:37
All right, that's going to wrap up this series on women's Hormonal Health. If you did enjoy these episodes, please leave a like or comment if you're watching on YouTube, or leave a review or five star rating on iTunes. All of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies and articles and anything else that we referenced throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any of the hormone related symptoms that we discussed today, whether that is hormones related to your cycle, maybe it's chronic conditions or more intense hormonal symptoms like PCOS, endometriosis or fibroids, or maybe it's some of those more common symptoms, like changes in mood or heaviness or cramping and pain, if you're dealing with any of those symptoms, or other low energy symptoms like chronic cravings and hunger, fatigue, chronic pain, weight gain, brain fog, poor sleep, or any gut or digestive symptoms or any other chronic health conditions. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I will teach you the main things that you want to focus on, main things that you want to change, as far as diet and lifestyle are concerned, so that you can maximize your cellular energy and also explain why that's the key to resolving these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman, wellness.com/energy, and with that, I will see you in the next episode.