Written by Christopher Kelly
Feb. 10, 2015
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Julie: Hello and welcome to the Paleo Baby Podcast. I'm Julie Kelly. And today, I'm really excited to be joined by Stefani Ruper. Stefani is the author of the bestselling Paleo women's health manifesto book, Sexy by Nature: The Whole Food Solution to Radiant Health, Lifelong Sex Appeal and Soaring Confidence. She is also the voice behind the Paleo for Women blog, which is a great blog, which I know a lot of you already follow.
She's also the first ever body image and self love podcast and has the first ever body image and self love podcast. That's really hard to say for me, for some reason. Live, Love and Eat is her podcast. I'm really happy to have you here, Stefani. I think a lot of people are going to be excited to hear some of your thoughts.
I wanted to jump right in and you have a great story and I'd love for you to tell maybe in an expedited version. We don't have all the time in the world and it's 11:00 p.m. where you are so I don't want to keep you up too late. But how did you stumble upon the Paleo community specifically, but how did you realize or come to a point where you realize you needed to step in and take control of your own health journey, if you will?
Stefani: That's an interesting way to put it. I think I've always been that way. Well, yeah, but I just wasn't educated about or as educated. I don't know if I know anything. For certain now. Because I did things the way that they were supposed to be done or rumored or thought to be. I ate low calorie. I ate vegetarian. I ate no fat, like literally almost no fat, maybe half an avocado a week. But I was doing the things, plenty of heart healthy whole grains. I was trying to be healthy.
I wasn't making a real concerted effort because things hadn't gone seriously wrong yet but I was making an effort. And then I managed eating this way and being pretty starvation-y about it. I managed to lose a lot of weight. And it's so funny because I thought that I was like, "Oh, I needed to lose so much weight." But I have since gone back to the same size and I feel totally comfortable and sexy and all that stuff.
But then I was like, "Oh my god, I don't look like a stick. I'm terribly overweight." Anyway, I lost weight. And I developed a polycystic ovarian syndrome and pretty severe acne and I lost my libido and my mental health sort of tanked a little bit. My mother recommended Paleo to me because it had really worked for her. She had incredible knee pain that it just dissolved overnight the Paleo diet. It was really remarkable.
And I started eating Paleo foods, which was cool, but it didn't actually fix anything. I'm not unfamiliar with science. I have a degree in it. I started reading this stuff. And not just the Web MD stuff but the real deep journal stuff. And I began to suspect that there was a lot more to PCOS than I had been told. PCOS is known as a condition for people, women who are overweight and insulin resistant, diabetes, et cetera. But I was really thin. So clearly, my doctor telling me to lose weight was not the answer.
I began to suspect that the answer was, in fact, the opposite. And that I actually needed to gain weight and eat more and all of that sort of stuff. And then it ended up being true. I finally started menstruating again after I gained another 15 pounds or so. All of which is to say that I found Paleo back when my mother introduced me to it in 2009 or whatever. It's just funny because it's so much longer ago than -- I don't know, it's so funny, 2009. It's 2015 now. That's actually six years. Wow.
Julie: Time does fly. Yes, I know.
Stefani: I'm feeling pretty rocked right now. Okay. So that's when I started eating Paleo but I didn't start really eating Paleo. I didn't start really eating a way that is healthy for me. I didn't start eating a truly nourishing natural diet until I started focusing on what I could do to nourish myself instead of deprive myself. And that was when all the health benefits came.
Julie: So, 2009, were you following like a really older version of Paleo, like really low carb or no carb kind of approach?
Stefani: Yeah. We could talk about old school Paleo now.
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Like Loren Cordain, early Marxist and old school Paleo, which is it's low carb. It focuses a lot on fasting and protein and exercises. The Paleos food didn't really have hardly any women at all back then. And I was literally actually the first person to stand up and be like, "Wait a minute. Can we think for a second about what we're doing?" And whether women's health is different from men's health. And it turns out that in a lot of ways, in a lot of really important ways, it is.
Julie: What do you think are the biggest things, the biggest missteps or the biggest oversights in terms of the difference between Paleo for women versus Paleo for men? What are these things that you can think of that are really the biggest glaring things that you've discovered that women need to pay more attention to than men?
Stefani: Yeah. I mean, there are some minutia that I could remark in other ways. But most of it falls under the umbrella of things that are too stressful for the body. The male body, I don't know, male bodies can go on hunting expeditions and et cetera. And female bodies are designed to make babies. And if you think way back to when we were living in the Savannah, if there were a time of physical stress like if there were famine -- If there was a famine and you got pregnant, you would die faster than anybody else because you have a greater energy demand.
And if you're under any kind of emotional stress as well, your body also doesn't want that. And so the female body has a really sensitive way of responding to all different kinds of stress. Mostly the ones that have to do with restricting the nutrients and food that you need for your body. So at the drop of a hat, literally for some women, reproductive capacity can sort of grind to a halt. And in tandem with that comes the thyroid gland, which also just sort of leaps down the chasm. It's like, "Peace about." It's like it's over. It's like, "Bye, guys. See you later." Yeah. It's like, "I'll be back when you're ready to be an adult about this." Pretty much.
Julie: Yeah. We have a wise thyroid.
Stefani: Yeah. And so, the things that women do, the big missteps are under eating, counting calories, eating low carb. Especially the female body needs carbs. The thyroid glands need carbs or it doesn't work right. Fasting, exercising and especially exercising without eating afterwards, exercising a lot and not refueling. These are the big missteps. And, of course, psychological stress is a big player in it too. But more than anything, these are very concrete things that throw women off all the time -- fasting, calorie counting, low carb, excess exercise. I can't tell you how many tens and hundreds of thousands of women have become a part of my community because of it.
Julie: Yeah. I think it's really interesting that one of the things is -- When I work with women, one of the biggest things is, like you said, getting them to eat enough, reprogramming how they think about the amount of food that they're eating and what's appropriate. It is really difficult to get them to stop counting calories. I think one of the things that I really like about everything that you talk about is figuring out how to kind of reconcile body image and that psychological piece when you're trying to get healthy.
Because the other thing that I think a lot of women struggle with that I work with specifically, they're just not healthy yet. They've got a lot of work to do. But for them still, their main goal is weight loss even though they're unhealthy in a lot of ways. Some of them happen to have parasites or they've got PCOS or they have fertility issues. They have a laundry list of things that they need to work on. But the main thing, the only thing that they can wrap their head around or they keep obsessing with is weight loss.
So, I mean, how do you approach that? How did you do it for yourself? But then how do you approach it with other people? What are some things that you think make that shift for people and to help as oppose to just weight loss?
Stefani: That's such a good question. What I do for me and what I do for my clients and for my audience varies. Certain things do the trick for different people. Perhaps what I would most like to talk about are the things that work for me.
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There are so many things. Okay. I don't even know where to start. There are so many. Okay. I need to be healthy for my sake. The thing that I fear the -- Well, not the thing that I fear the most but one of the things I fear most is losing my mind when I get older. I really, really don't want Alzheimer's. That's really big. I need to be healthy because I don't want Alzheimer's. That's a big thing for me. People need to know that Alzheimer's is so common these days.
If you don't nourish your body right, those things are real. I'm youthful now. I have all the benefits of the illusion of immortality. But I also know that that's not true. I need to be healthy for my sake in the future. When you eat restrictively, you lose sight of those things. You don't get all the nutrients that you need and all that sort of stuff. I need to be healthy because there are other things that I now consider more important than my weight.
For example, I needed to gain weight in order to clear my skin. My skin gets bad when I get underweight because my estrogen levels decrease. I need to have some more weight on me in order to have clear skin and I need it in order to have a libido. And I went years, several years without having a libido at all. That also means like I didn't have an interest in romance at all, which was great because I got a lot of stuff done. But I was also really missing out on something that I really enjoy. Getting those things back was really important.
I really need to be healthy for the sake of my mother who I don't want to have to see me be unhealthy in any way. That's so important to me. I would do anything in the world for my mom and so that's being on the list. Think about the people in your life and what they want for you. But the biggest piece of all for me is -- Okay, wait. I'll say one more. I have two more big pieces. One, it's a point of personal pride for me that I don't do things just because other people want me to.
And especially when they're negative things. Like how terrible is that? I'm doing this thing that you really meanfully push on me. I used to let that happen and just try to be beautiful whatever the way other people wanted me to be and try to really prioritize that. And now, it's like, "Oh my goodness." It so important to me to take a stand for the sake of myself and to not apologize for who I am and for my natural body size.
We have to bear this in mind. We have to know this. My body was built differently from other women's bodies. And that's just a fact. And women's bodies naturally are not just different shapes but some of them jiggle more than others. You can be a size three and have body fat. Or you can be a size nine and not. And it's okay to have body fat. It is. The female body wants it, you look at pictures throughout history, they have different idealized boy types at different times and that doesn't mean any of them are better than the others. But what it does mean is that our body standards are arbitrary. That's really important. Natural bodies, natural means.
Julie: That's just the beauty standards that I think are arbitrary. I think even just the weight, some of the weight standards are arbitrary. When we look back in history, the size of women and what it takes to be fertile and what is attractive, especially in other cultures, I mean, I've always said this and I say it to my husband all the time. I have to imagine that this notion, this BMI notion that is being pushed on women specifically has got to be incorrect on some level.
Stefani: Just a little bit, right?
Julie: Yeah.
Stefani: Just a little bit. It's patently unnatural and so that's a huge piece of it. And I will say one morequick thing. That the absolute most important thing for me in staying this size -- Because I could lose the weight if I wanted to. But this is what's healthy for me. The reason I do it is because Ghandi. Be the change. Be the change you want to see in the world. And it's my responsibility to women, to women around me and the girls coming up in this world, it's my responsibility to lead the charge.
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None of us are going to be -- We have to do it together. And we have to help each other become women who are powerful and don't waste our time hating ourselves and instead direct our energies for wonderful, loving, helpful, great, whatever things.
Julie: I think that's huge. I mean, I think that's definitely something I always talk to women about. Because one of the things that we always promote is mindfulness or meditation or some form of stress reduction and usually it's some form of mindfulness practice. I always get that people wanting to cop out of that time. Does yoga count? It's like, okay, fine, yoga counts. But I wanted it to be a practice. I wanted it to be something that you've set this time aside for yourself and I want it to be something where you're sitting down and you are connecting with yourself and you're being kind to yourself.
Whether it's saying kind things to yourself or just doing something kind for yourself, it's never a priority and, unfortunately, you have to force it on people until it becomes a habit. So I was curious also about your experience. I mean, because you said that you've always been kind of a take charge of your health kind of person. But I'm always curious whether or not people that have gone through health struggles -- Did you struggle with the traditional Western medical route or did you know that you needed to direct your care yourself from the beginning? Did you struggle with a doctor who didn't think that you could change anything with your diet or did you just try and do diet yourself?
Stefani: Well, my doctor is pretty cool. He's just like, "Yeah, go ahead, do what you want. Get whatever test that you want, that's fine." But I've never taken anything that anybody said at their word pretty much ever. And whenever I have, it's never worked out. The one time I took a drug because I tried to fix my problems, it literally almost killed me. And I mean, like literally in the way that we use these and not in the way we use it today. It literally almost killed me.
You have to say it twice now because saying it just once actually means figuratively. I literally, literally almost died. And it stole several years of my life that I'm never going to get back. And it's terrible and depressing and I don't like thinking about it. So, no, the answer is that maybe when I was really young and first getting into this stuff, I just didn't know quite how self-directed I needed to be. But I don't trust anybody else, to be honest with you. Give me advice but I'll verify it.
Julie: I think that's important. That's an important point that we remind people of that too. Nobody is going to do this for you. Nobody is going to care about your health more than you. Nobody is going to do the work that needs to be done. Which I think is an important point because even still, I think a lot of people are looking for a silver bullet when it comes to their health. Like I said before, they've got this laundry list of things that they needed to work on and only thing they can think about is, one, weight loss or looking good naked or upping their PR in CrossFit or something like that.
I think it's really important to remember that some things matter, that it's a bigger job than just taking a pill or trying this fad diet. There isn't one silver bullet. There's a lot of things that go into managing your health. For PCOS specifically, what were some things that you do currently or you've done, you did to get well or you worked with other women that are above and beyond just the diet piece that became really important for managing PCOS?
Stefani: Well, I got to admit, I don't think there's much more there other than diet and exercise and maybe supplements, if you want. What else might there be?
Julie: Well, I just mean, a lot of times people come to us and they've done Paleo and they've realized probably maybe 75% relief of a lot of symptoms that they've had or problems that they've had but they're still feeling maybe they've got 15% to go and as long as the functional medicine practice, we run functional lab testing and we find no pathogens and parasites and adrenal dysfunction and some organic acid imbalances and stuff like that.
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So, we created a protocol that has a holistic approach that has both stress management and diet and all of those things. But it also a lot of times involves supplements. And so I feel like sometimes people don't get the clear picture that they can just change their diet and immediately get complete relief from everything. Sometimes, there's a few more things involved like stress management and/or supplements, things of that nature. And I was just wondering if PCOS is similar in that way.
Stefani: Right. Absolutely. Well, I think maybe there's a little bit of nuance between your question and what I was thinking. So there's Paleo and then there's like eating a diet that's healing for you. For example, a lot of women -- Every once in a while, a woman will come to me and she'll be like, "I'm afraid I'm going to die because I don't do bulletproof coffee and I listen to these podcasts and some guy on this podcast implied that if I didn't do bulletproof coffee I was going to die sooner. And I'm like, "No."
That might be a great step or a great supplement for certain people. But within the world of Paleo, there are so many different cures for different things. And that person's cure is definitely not yours. Yours is the opposite. You don't eat less. You eat more. And so, I think, with PCOS, it's a lot of trying to be really specifically. There are so many different things that can cause PCOS. And, therefore, so many different ways to attack it depending on your own personal situation.
Some women need to follow an autoimmune protocol because it turns out they actually have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. That's beyond normal Paleo. Some women need to add carbohydrates to their diet because they didn't have any. Some women should maybe cut them because they have too many and it's for your specific need. And so, that's sort of how I approach PCOS. I try to help women figure, with testing and all that, figure out exactly what kind of imbalance they have.
And we can usually guess based on symptoms and the like. Figure out what type. I talk about it in terms of types, in my book on PCOS, what type of PCOS do you have? And then, okay, here are the more specific things you want to consider doing to rectify it. And, of course, stress comes into play. Sleep comes into play. Stress and sleep. And I do recommend different supplements because, again, there are certain deficiencies you can develop as in any case that food can help with but supplements as well. So there is all of those things. And even people, girls that are on birth control, all that sort of stuff plays a role.
Julie: Yeah. That's huge as well. How do you think -- I mean, you said this when you're talking about the things that are really important to you in terms of reconciling with your body as it is as opposed to what you wish it could be or was or any of those things. You talked about wanting to be well for your future. And I think that's interesting because one of the things that I'm starting to realize is that -- There's a couple of things going on. There's a lot of women who are coming and they're getting well.
But their focus is still very immediate. It's still very acute. It's on the next marathon they want to run. We work with a lot of athletes and say the next marathon they want to run or the next event that they have coming up or something like that. But then we have other people that come and they're having trouble having babies or they're not fertile or they want to make sure that they're healthy enough to carry a healthy pregnancy.
I think it's becoming more, it's going to become more common especially as women wait longer to have kids, that maybe they start putting a little bit more effort and thought into health before they get pregnant and fertility. Or some of the ways like the things that you see or you recommend to women in terms of fertility, like what are some of the most important things both diet and then just kind of lifestyle wise that maybe women don't often think about that can affect their fertility.
Stefani: That's a great question. People sometimes ask me, "What are the fertility super foods?" I'm like, sorry. I'm not going to tell you that you're going to eat oysters and you're going to get pregnant. I can't.
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Julie: I hate the word super food. I just can't stand it. But anyways, go ahead.
Stefani: Yeah. There are so many things that are terrible about our jobs. Okay. I don't believe that there are silver bullet foods for anything. So, there's that. So, I won't tell you that. I hate when this happens on podcasts, what's about to happen. I'm about to perpetrate it. It's not your fault. It's my fault. Eat Paleo. I hate so much when you're on a Paleo podcast and the solution to a question is eat Paleo.
I really believe that fertility is all about 100% nourishing your female body. And what does that mean? It means erring on the side of eating more rather than less, 100% of the time. Okay. Progesterone is crucial to maintain throughout a pregnancy and if you're really stressed out or if you don't eat enough or if you exercise too much, your progesterone levels will fall. And low progesterone is associated with miscarriages.
Don't starve yourself. Point number one. I know that I may just sound like a broken record because I say that all the time. But it's just so important for women's health and it needs saying. That's really important. Nourishing foods. I think it's really important to think about diet not just in terms of what you take out, which is really huge in Paleo, but also in terms of, maybe even more importantly, in terms of what you add.
Julie: Hallelujah. Thank you for saying that.
Stefani: Yeah, you're welcome. I'm definitely not the first. That's something I really love about Sarah Ballantyne's approach, Stacy Toth and her husband. They believe that it's more important -- For example, it's more important to add -- It might be more important to add kale than it is to subtract bread. And I'm not saying that you should go on a bread frenzy. But what I'm saying is the food that you add are maybe more important than the foods that you take out.
Julie: Well, I think it's a different approach and it's an important approach because a lot of the people that we work with -- I'm sure it is the same for you -- I mean, you tell them what you want them to change to and it's like, "Oh my gosh, this is so depriving." And so I've completely changed the way I talk about it. I say, "Okay, I want to add bone broth." I want to add as much fat as I possibly can add. And I want to add as many amino acids as I can add.
And that's all without talking about the things that we're taking out. And that's where I start the conversation. And then it makes it a lot easier to talk about the things that maybe you should avoid because they have negative effects on your hormones as opposed to positive ones.
Stefani: Right. So, again, another broken record thing for me. We're all individuals. You have to do the thing that's right for you. But in general, like erring on the side of eating more, adding good stuff, vegetables, berries, fruits, organ meats are so great, and so great and so good for women's health. Eat some liver. Again, that's another Paleo thing. Just shout liver at people, "Eat liver." But it's true. That's why we say it. It's really good for you.
I don't have secrets. I know what is really nourishing for women and I really diets that are pretty balanced -- fat, carb and protein. Eat the protein you need like a pound of animal protein a day. I know that that sounds like a lot but you can go up to that much and it's like that's pretty good for you. And at least a tablespoon of fat at every meal. And one serving of a carby-carb like potato or fruit, of that at every meal. That really covers your basis.
Make sure you're getting all your macronutrients. They're important. Calorie is important. It's like you said earlier. At this point in your life, if you're trying to become fertile, health is your focus. Stop thinking about weight. Stop thinking about cosmetic things. Think about--
Julie: Stop thinking about your post baby body.
Stefani: Don't think about your post baby body. Think about your baby. Step one, think about baby. Step two, think about baby. Step three, have baby. Sorry, that's just how it is.
Julie: Even then, just don't think about your post baby body.
Stefani: Yeah. Even then, don't. Get lots of omega three but try to avoid the big fish.
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So eat sardines. Because that will prevent you from giving your baby Mercury. I don't know. That's kind of like that. What do you have?
Julie: I think that's great. I think those are all old stuff that I like. That's the thing though. Sometimes, it's frighteningly annoying how simple it is but how difficult it is to practice for some people. I get it, it's difficult coming from a world where basically everything is the opposite. I mean, it can really start to feel like it was opposite world most of the time because, I mean, the media, everybody around you that's not following the diet or isn't part of the community or has no idea what you're talking about.
It's definitely, I feel like fighting an uphill battle or something upstream, which is tiresome for some people. And I think one of the reasons why some people fail to stick with it or have a really difficult time. I get people all the time talking about wanting to be Paleo or pregnant. I just interviewed Tarah Chieffi who wrote The Everything Paleo Pregnancy Book, which is a great book. We were talking about morning sickness and all of that stuff and I got a bunch of comments on Twitter about people saying, "Oh, I wanted to be Paleo during pregnancy but I got morning sickness, and so I gave up."
I was like, "Wait. No, I had morning sickness and I didn't give up so you can't give up." Yeah. It is simple. There's not a lot to it. Just eating whole food, eating well. But you did. You mentioned progesterone and that reminded me that I wanted to talk a little bit about hormones and some of the other, maybe more specific or on the technical side, some of the things that eating a Paleo diet and also managing stress, eating enough. What are some of the, I mean, for PCOS and then otherwise just general health for women whether it be fertility or pregnancy, what are some things that women should be on the lookout for in terms of their hormones and managing them, maybe specific recommendations for levels or whatever if you've got that at the top of your head? I feel like not enough women--
Stefani: If course I do.
Julie: I feel like not enough women are familiar with those numbers and familiar with -- Even if they go to a traditional Western doctor as opposed to an acupuncturist or chiropractor or functional medicine practitioner who maybe looks at lab work a little bit differently, I feel like more women need to be in control of those numbers or in control of understanding their hormones and understanding how they work for them, can you give us a hormone in your overall synopsis?
Stefani: Yeah, I will. I will not give you specific numbers and that's mostly because I'm pretty sure I know what they are but I'm not 100% sure and I don't want to be wrong. And also, different labs use different metrics like nanograms or whatever. And so, you would have to convert them anyway and be like, "What is 100 of this to 200 of those?" sort of thing.
Julie: I struggle with that on a daily basis.
Stefani: Yeah. Right, exactly. Exactly. But I will say that lab's standards for normal ranges are generally pretty good but don't be fooled by them because a lot of women, so many women especially for thyroid -- Listen up, thyroids -- will test in the normal ranges especially for T3 which is the form of thyroid hormone you need for yourselves to function, will test normal but on the low end. And normal but in the low end is insufficient.
And that doesn't mean necessarily that you need to get on a thyroid supplement but a lot of normal on the low ends can be insufficient and normal on the high ends can be a flag. So just keep that I mind and that will be the way for you to figure out more specifically what's going on if you're not seeing a lot of big numbers, big scary numbers on your test. But it can help you be like, "Okay, well, my body is obviously a little bit more sensitive. It doesn't fluctuate as much in these ranges as doctor say that they should."
Anyway, but I will give you a rundown of all the hormones and which ones high and low mean what things. Okay. Starting at the top, first stop is testosterone. I mention this first because it's the one that is pretty -- Definitely most commonly elevated in PCOS and probably in a lot of other women too.
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Signs of high testosterone include acne, facial health growth, balding, body hair growth, low libido. These are all things that masculinize you, like the facial hair. High testosterone is associated with PCOS. It can impair fertility pretty drastically. And its most obvious and prominent cause is insulin resistance. It's really simple but insulin stimulates testosterone production in the ovaries. That's just plain, plain as day.
Inflammation can also cause testosterone in other male sex hormone levels to rise. So that's high testosterone. Low testosterone can happen in menopause along with stress. Stress on top of menopause can do that. I'll say this now, but the solution for a lot of menopause things, again, is to really focus on providing your body with the stuff it needs. Make sure you get fat because your body needs fat to make hormones.
You reduce stress a lot because progesterone plummets at the drop of a stressful hat. That's testosterone and nourishing your body in a nutshell. After that, I'll say is DHEAS. This is another male sex hormone but it's produced by your adrenal glands. So it's a stress hormone and a male sex hormone at the same time, which is bad news double whammy. The worst part about this is that your body produces hormones in like a cascade. And way at the top, it's like, "Do we make sex hormones or do we make stress hormones?"
And if you're stressed out, it chooses stress hormones like DHEAS and neglects the sex hormones which you need for things like happiness, libido and babies. So literally. So keeping stress levels is really important to keep DHEAS levels low, really important. Signs of excess DHEAS are very similar to the ones of testosterone, the acne, the male pattern symptoms. Next stop are two pituitary signaling hormones, LH, which is the luteinizing hormone, and FSH, follicle-stimulating hormone.
Those fluctuate based on the time of your cycle. And their job is to communicate between the pituitary gland and the ovaries and regulate the menstrual cycle. If you have hypothalamic amenorrhea, that's the fancy name for if you're really stressed out or you starve yourself in any kind of way, your levels of both of these hormones will go down and you'll stop menstruating. Generally, your levels of all your--
Julie: [0:37:56] [Crosstalk] extreme athletes too.
Stefani: Yeah. I mean, generally, pretty much all your hormone levels will go down if you're stressed out although your testosterone and your DHEAS can go up because of the stress as well, as was the case for me. So those are the signaling ones and they will go down under stress. And they'll also go out of balance in PCOS. They're generally in a ratio of one to two, but that will inverse itself. Or one to one. One to one or one to two, but it will inverse itself LH to FSH. It will reverse itself in PCOS. So there's that.
And then there are the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone. Progesterone decreases with stress and really the only way to increase it again is to de-stress. I know that's a terrible thing to say but I've read the literature and it's true. Make sure you eat enough fat and carbs. You got to de-stress to increase progesterone levels. And that's really important especially in menopause. Ladies, listen.
And then estrogen. Estrogen is really complicated. Estrogen levels can go up from being overweight because fat cells produce estrogen. They can go up from really super consuming processed foods and tofu or flax seeds because those foods kind of act like estrogen a little bit in the body in a particular way. And it can rise as a response to inflammation. There's a lot there. And you don't want your estrogen levels to be too high because that can give you cramps. That can cause PMS. It can give you mood disorders. It can make you really depressed.
Excess estrogen can make you really depressed and gain weight and depress thyroid activity. There's a lot there. And those are symptoms also of having excess estrogen. And if that's the case, liver detox of any kind is really important.
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Eating a lot of greens helps with liver detox, lots of greens. Eating liver itself, bone broth, other super foods. Those things are all really helpful for estrogen. And estrogen can go low, like I said, as a response to stress and menopause. And finally, there are the thyroid hormones. This can get complicated really fast. First, there's thyroid stimulating hormone, which is from the pituitary gland and it tells the thyroid hormone to work.
So, if you're TSH is low, it's because your pituitary gland isn't behaving and that's probably because you're stressed out. I know I talk about stress a lot but it's true. And then your thyroid gland makes T4. And then you have this pool of T4 in your blood and it gets converted to T3 in a need by need basis. Your T4 levels will go down if your thyroid gland isn't working. But they will also go up if your body isn't making enough T3 and it's sort of like panicking about it. And so it's trying to boost those stores, right?
So that can actually be a sign of Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Well, elevated TSH, the signaling hormone, that will go up in response to Hashimoto's thyroiditis because your thyroid gland isn't working and your body keeps trying to tell it to do more but it can't. So the TSH is really high. T4 can plummet if the thyroid gland isn't working and T3 as well. But also that conversion process can be stymied by something as simple as stress or a low carb diet. So you need to make sure you eat your carbohydrates.
And you can get a specific test for Hashimotos's done if you test your thyroid. Peroxidase antibodies, that's a TPO test. And that can tell you definitively if Hashimoto's thyroiditis, the autoimmune disease is the cause of your thyroid symptoms, which include things like cold hands and feet, difficulty losing weight, fatigue, poor sleep, sensitivity to cold. That can tell you definitively if Hashimoto's is involved in your thyroid problem or if it's something different. And if it's something different, it's most likely -- I hate to say this again -- stress.
Julie: Yeah. I mean, it can be a lot of things, I think. I mean, one of the things that we see kind of notoriously in doing this work like working with people and then testing everything, is that the thyroid is often the smoke and not the fire. It's not participating because it's tied up with the stress, it's tied up with gut infection that you've had for a million years, it's tied with your nutrient deficiencies. A lot of times, like if I'm doing an intake, people go, "Oh, aren't you going to ask me about my thyroid symptoms and all my thyroid history?"
And I was like, "Well, yeah, I mean, I care about it but I will be willing to wager that when we get done dealing with this other list of things, the thyroid kind of ends up taking care of itself." More than likely.
Stefani: Yeah, definitely. So those are all the things. I know that I said a lot really fast and also nothing at the same time.
Julie: That was definitely something.
Stefani: Okay. I hope it's not unhelpful.
Julie: No. I think it's very helpful. I think it's just important to get people to realize that there are some things and basic physiology biochemical pathways in their body that they should become familiar with because, like I said earlier, nobody is going to do it for you and I think it's not good enough to just get a panel done and have your doctor say, "Oh, yeah, everything looks normal. See you in ten years." Or, "Come back when something breaks."
If you want to have optimal health, which is really another annoying saying, if you want to have the best health possible, you need to take better care and more proactive steps to managing your health. And I think some of that comes from really getting a little bit more nitty-gritty than some people maybe want to get in understanding, even at a very basic level, which hormones you should be concerned about and paying attention to. So, thank you for that. Thank you for indulging me on that.
Stefani: Great. Yeah.
Julie: Well, I've had a lot of fun talking to you. I definitely think that everyone listening would get a lot out of checking out your books. You've got a lot of ebooks but you also have Sexy by Nature, which is wonderful and I think--
Stefani: Awesome.
Julie: It's a good one. And you cover a lot of this stuff in much more detail and specifics in all the books that you have to offer. But also, I want to recommend your PCOS program and really helping women get through that step by step. If they're struggling, you're a great resource. So I would love to have you back on because I feel like we could talk about a million other things.
Stefani: I'd be so happy.
Julie: Yeah, I think we should definitely do it. Or you could come on other equally fabulous podcast, the Nourish Balance Thrive Podcast, and talk to my British husband. You can regale him about your tours in the UK.
Stefani: Oh, yeah. I'm trying to move there so we'll see.
Julie: Awesome. Maybe you can use some tips. What neighborhoods to avoid. He's good at that. Well, thank again for being on, Stefani, and we'll talk to you again soon.
Stefani: Yeah. Thank you, Julie. Thank you.
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