All Things Hormones with Karen Martel

Well, hello, ladies and gents Roberts. Thanks kiddo, Savage.com. And today I have special, guest Karin, Martel on the line, and we dive into all things hormones, more so female hormones. We also touched on some male hormones that are we talked about testosterone, estrogen free testosterone, progesterone. Estradiol, we talked about phytoestrogen, xenoestrogens,

all kinds of hormones. So this would be an incredibly insightful podcast for anybody that is going through perimenopause, anybody, you know, premenopause anybody that It's not consuming adequate calories, all kinds of information here. If you have an irregular cycle this would be insightful as well. Learn to ton thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I've got no doubt that you will as well. So without further Ado, sit back, take some notes and dive into the podcast with Karen. Here.

And we are laughs. How are you? I'm doing great Rob. How about you? I'm doing. Wonderful myself. You are known as the hormone, a guru. Do you ever get tired of talking about hormones?

I don't think it's crazy. I'm super, super passionate about it. I'm a junkie, like, I listen to as much hormone stuff and read about it as much as I possibly can get my hands on because it's actually you can't for the person a person like me that's not, you know, an endocrinologist that went to University or a doctor and if you if you didn't go down that road you really it's very hard to find the proper training in it and even the endocrinologist

to be honest aren't trained. The way I've tried, I've been trained like I have a different approach completely and I get very frustrating than record. Just how they treat hormone

stuff in both male and female. So I've just yeah I'm like don't get tired of it. It's interesting about like the the train you know, specific Ultra Niche, especially doctors that go to school for this and there's like obviously a lot of efficacy in going to school for getting the the formal education around it but in this day and age, knowledge is so free

flowing. So if someone really is truly passionate about any given topic, They can save themselves a ton of money and dive into it at nauseam and learn everything they want to know. However, they're not going to have the acronyms in the back, their name to back it up but I mean knowledge itself is so free-flowing. I feel like that's, that's a good thing. Yeah, in the beginning of my career with this, I had this limiting belief that well, who's going to come to me for hormone

stuff? I'm not a doctor. I can't prescribe, but, you know, life took me here. And I cannot believe how crazy busy I got. And the more I talked about hormones, the busier. I got because women specifically, specially women that are aging going through perimenopause and this has happened very early in our 30s early 40s.

There's no information out there about it that they can get their hands on and they think that they'll go to their doctor and get the information and the doctor hasn't been trained in it. So has no Tia and puts them on the antidepressant, the sleeping medication, the cholesterol medication in the list, goes on. So it's amazing how much I how much I get for clientele and just how it's just telling me that they are not getting this information and I'm just so

happy that I get to bring it to them. Yeah. I feel like when you don't have a formal education to like a medical sense so to speak it all stems. On to you know what what is your track record? Like if you have people, then are continually seeing progress in working with you and they bring a word of mouth, you know, that's positive towards you. It's like that. That's kind of how you can have a litmus test. So, to speak to those that have

the formal education background. In those that do not actually know what they're talking about. I feel like that carries so much more weight in my opinion, than any acronym on the back, your name, like what can you do for the individual? And is that thing positive, that's what it all boils down to Two. Yeah, I agree. Completely. So let's dive into hormones. So let's just start with female hormones because you can speak to that better than I can for sure.

So I'd love to kind of just pull the curtain back and really dive into that because that I feel like the the keto low carb space. If you were to dissect the demographic, it's probably majority middle-aged women that are going through perimenopause having some hormonal dysregulation and they're looking towards their diet and lifestyle to improve upon that from a Woman standpoint, just overall well-being standpoint. So what are some things that

you're noticing there? Yes, and so I'll just quickly to just say, you know, just my own story because I think there's so many women that can relate to this, which was that when I was in my early 30s like 33 I suddenly started gaining a lot of weight for no reason and I was having all of these crazy symptoms. Like severe insomnia, really bad PMS, depression, food, sensitivities, lots of bloating

and I was I was a wreck. I was having terrible menstrual migraines, it would last for 10 days and this was all developed within months. And then I just started packing weight on and I was in, you know, what every woman does and I went and searched for the right diet and eventually, I came across my naturopath who I said to him because I wasn't losing the weight, no matter how hard I was working out or what diet I tried and I said can you test my hormones?

Because no, No doctor would have told me yet 33, it's your hormones and I go in, I got my saliva test done and sure enough. I had a ton of hormone dysfunction, and that was the root cause, and he said, when I was leaving his office that day, I said, well, what diet do I do? And he said, actually, this is so this is, you know?

Well, I'm 45 now. So, more than 10 years ago and no one had heard of Quito then, and he said, you know, I was just at this anti-aging conference and the big thing was

Diet called a ketogenic diet. And so I went from there to the pharmacy, lots of Quito strips and because he told me to do and then went home and started Googling it and I actually started with Mark systems Primal blueprint, which is Paleo, but I went into that and it kind of played around with keto, but it was interesting because I felt like that was my diet. And it really did so many wonderful things for my system. I didn't lose a pound. And Robert not one pound even

though I felt so much better. And I knew that, okay, this is my diet for life and so as the years went on, I worked on my hormones and eventually the weight started to come off and I realized, you know what, there's got to be more women like me who are doing everything right there, following the clean, eating diet, whatever it is vegan, keto, paleo, and they're exercising, and yet, they're not losing any weight and I was like, I have to I've into this because nobody else is and, you

know, then I spent the next however, many years researching, it becoming a hormone specialist and now, this is where I'm at and couple years back. So go back, maybe four years ago, I totally jumped on that keto train and it was getting super big out there. So I was putting every woman. I came across on the ketogenic diet and they would all do really well at first. And then there was this large portion of them that the results stop. Opt, or they never got the weight loss results.

So, there's their friend who's lost 100 pounds on keto, and they're going, why can't I what's wrong with me? And I'm doing exactly what this person's doing. And yet I haven't lost a pound but I feel better. And so I started seeing this more and more and I was like, okay, something's something's up here what's happening that? This is eventually that the results are stopping.

You know they might have Great weight loss for the first three months and then suddenly it comes to a complete stop and I was hearing over and over again. I lost all this weight in the beginning but I haven't lost a pound for six months, a year, whatever it might be and this was over and over and over again. And so I was like, this is hormonal, it's got to be and so I started digging into the research and started realizing, wow.

There's We Heart were in an epidemic of adrenal issues, thyroid issues, you know estrogen dominance from are all the chemicals in our environment and it takes something else like we need the keto for a period of time to kind of reset the system but then we have to be very careful about it and we also have to start addressing the hormones especially as we age and this goes for men and women and This is something we're not

being told which is as you age. So, when you're in your fertility, time, changing your diet, no matter, you know, as long as a healthy, eating your change your diet, you can lose the weight, the hormones will rebalance themselves and everything's great. But as you age, you can't diet your way out of missing hormones.

So women go through it faster than men, but we start to lose Use ovarian function, which means we're not producing correct hormones and those hormones have everything to do with whether or not you can lose the weight. So if you want to jump in there, oh yeah, yeah, that's great.

All right, so so that said before we dive into the hormone specific kind of one have a counter question for you here, which is that there is a massive Debate / controversy right now in the fitness realm and weight loss pertaining to, you know, like the carbohydrate insulin model of hormones causing weight gain or lack of weight loss versus calories in calories out,

energy balance approach. That's not necessarily I met that's mostly focus on the insulin a hormone, but do you have anything to kind of interject and say towards that too? Before we dive into, like the estrogen hormones, think that nature? Like whether or not like we have to reduce the insulin in order to lose the weight like if that's or do we need the insulin for hormones? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, like there's a, you know, there's one side, oftentimes within the low-carb Community that's arguing that the main reason, people have a hard time losing weight is because they are insulin resistant. Where's the other group is just saying it's mostly a question of energy balance and they're not, they're simply consuming too many calories and it's more so energy. Cited as opposed to hormonal

related. Well, that that's probably like a whole nother conversation but it's because calories in calories out is true to an extent like you do need to be in a caloric deficit in order to burn the fat off your body but we have built-in mechanisms that start to come into play where if you know you go to low carb for too long and we all know that going, keto, your appetite gets suppressed, majorly. And then what else women start doing is they're told.

To eat one to two meals, a day and fast every single day. Well, our bodies on the inside are just 100% built to procreate. That's it. You guys are meant to spread the sperm. We are meant to carry the babies. That is it. Our bodies on the inside, don't know any different. So when you're signaling to that system constantly for long periods of time, that there isn't enough food around because you're overdoing the fasting and you're Too. Low carb.

Your body starts to go. Okay we're in Winter, we're fasting here. There must not be a lot of food around, not a good time to get pregnant. So let's down regulate, certain hormones, fertility hormones, and I've come across a ton of women that have their periods. Go missing from going carnivore in Quito and fasting. And you know, they eventually they lose their hormones because

not everybody. I don't want to put everybody into the same crew group because there's some that just flourish SRI years on it, but some don't, and then the body down regulates metabolism. So, that, that, that's where the calories in calories out gets messed up because it's like, you just have to keep lowering your calories then to meet that standard. That's inside the body with your metabolism. So the bodies down regulating metabolism, you have to eat less meat, less eat less in order to

still continue to gain weight. And while you know, we can't do that forever. So there's two key. Yeah, there's two different. There's too much of a we can go on and on about that like well, the way were built. No, I thought he hates to lose weight. Like, yeah, angry. I feel like it's weird everybody wants to make it mutually exclusive. Like, it's either calories or hormones and I've always kind of, adopted more of a, it all matters, you know, approach.

Because I feel like if you get everything down, then you're just going to feel and perform better anyways, so you might as well focus on all of it. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm in the camp of Lake. Let's prepare your body for weight loss. Like let's get it to where it needs to be, hormonal e, and sometimes that means you need to do carnivore or keto because your insulin resistant because you've got PCOS and you have to

do that. But if you've got hypothyroidism in adrenal problem, then you don't want to be going super low carb fasting because it's too much of a stress on your body and it will down regulate the thyroid hormones, which is another very hot. Topic in the low-carb world. Yeah, totally. All right, so let's dive into your approach and proguard it mean to derail the the trajectory we're headed down there so dive into what, what

your methods are. Yes. And so, I have kind of, you know, I've developed a bit of a blueprint for how to hell for, how does a woman lose weight? When she's got hormonal imbalance? And if you're in that fertile time, then you can easily get away with You know, starting with changing your diet and you can you know, going Quito is always very helpful or paleo. I'm very Primal based because I see that that's what works best you know some people have to do autoimmune and whatever it is

but carnivore. You can start there. And you have to always start with diet because without the diet as the foundation, you can only get so far. If you're a fertile woman, you can then after the diet piece, then you can start taking. Certain supplements that will help to regulate your cycle. So right now, we're seeing a ton of this estrogen dominance happening in women's 30s.

So we're getting this because of not only, we've got a lot of stress happening which will down-regulate one of our hormones called progesterone, and then we become too much estrogen, compared to the progesterone in our body. And when it's like that, there's a lot that you can do. To rebalance, it supplement, wise and diet-wise lifestyle changes, you know, G stress, all, we all know that, right? I'm not even going to go down that road because you all your listeners. Know, we need to sleep.

We need to, you know, not stress out so much, all of these things, but we need to clean up our environment because that is where a major piece of the estrogen dominance is coming in to both men and women. So this isn't just for the ladies, we're seeing an epidemic of estrogen dominance in men. As Well, and you see that with, you know, belly fat breasts, you know, more breast tissue and this is because things like, beer is very estrogenic. So not only that.

But it's in every kind of chemical synthetic smell that you have in your house. So if you're, you know, shaving or, you know, with some sort of scented product with your, whether it's your face or your legs, that's going to be Giving you what's called a xenoestrogen and the xenoestrogens are chemicals in the environment that your body. This is what most people don't know this, your body will prefer the xenoestrogen over your own production of estrogen and men.

Need some estrogen to. So there's a receptor. So hormone receptors is what's I kind of say. It's like this satellite dish that's coming out of a cell. And your hormones float along and the receptor goes, oh, there's the estrogen. I'm gonna, you know, same with like insulin, right? People always hear the lock and key thing so that it comes in fits into that receptor and then the cell can use it as a supposed to.

Well, your body will preferentially ate the xenoestrogens over your own body's estrogen. So then you get these estrogen dominance symptoms even though your actual estrogen is fine, it's that At the xenoestrogens have taken over. So, the first thing I have everybody do is you have to clean up your environment. We, you can't meet, get rid of all of it, but there's so much that you can do in your own household.

And that's, you know, grass-fed meat organic, because all the pesticides and the hormones that are given to the cat, all the stuff, and all those chicken. And any animal, this conventional meat is all these fake hormones coming into your body. Water bottles. No? Really big culprit. There's so much like, have you had? There's this one guy that wrote this book called Astro generation, and she's just yeah, them on the, she had a - yeah.

He's a good friend of mine. Took him hunting this past year. Oh, really great guy. He is, I'd love that book because it just shows. Oh my gosh. We are being saturated by these Dino estrogens and they're really, really messing with our hormones. So clean up the environment, you know, taking eating lots of different herbalist elements like stuff to support your adrenal system stuff to help, clear out that estrogen. So you can take things like, Dee Endo, methane, calcium degruy.

Create those were really down regulate your estrogen and get it out of your body so that you don't you aren't so estrogen dominant. But Rob, when you start to age, like I said before it's you can't diet your way out of ovarian failure, it did. Just can't.

So when we get to this age and it's happening anywhere usually between 35 and 45 for women, where they start to feel the effects of perimenopause and they often socially in their 30s, they don't, they're not thinking I'm going through perimenopause like we associate perimenopause with being in our 50s in most cases, but we're this is when it starts. And so in your late 30s, you're going to start to see a decline

in progesterone. Own that happens first and it drops by about 75 percent in women, during their late 30s and early 40s. And this is when we see more of this estrogen dominance symptoms, where women will start to bleed heavier, they start to put some weight on. They start to get anxiety insomnia because progesterone is are calming hormone. It is needed for sleep, it reacts on What's called the Gaba receptors of the brain and helps to induce Sleep, you've all probably heard of Gaba as a

supplement. It's a neurotransmitter and Gaba and progesterone will act on that and help with calming the body down. So women will say, I've just become so anxious and I don't know what's wrong. I've never had any xiety problems. I can't sleep anymore. I just feel super wired.

This is because the progesterone starts to go down and you can take wonderful herbes, like, Tex that will help out to your own body's production of progesterone, but as you age and you've got the ovarian failure happening. It's just a matter than of replacing it and estrogen, and testosterone happened a little bit later. And to the, the estrogen is when it goes missing, which is funny because there's this, like, most people think of estrogen being

bad because of everything. Just talked about, like it's a sturgeon dominance is everywhere and we're being bombarded by, we don't want estrogen. And what women don't realize is, estrogen makes you insulin sensitive. And so in the first half of your cycle estrogens, the highest and that makes you feel sexy. It makes you want to go out there and get some kids and people women don't realize that

they think it's that to stop. Shroom it testosterone, certainly helps, because testosterones also it's the highest in the first half of the cycle but estrogen and when when you're female listeners hear me say this like really just think about when you feel best in your cycle. When you find its easiest to stick to your ketogenic diet and fast, it's at the beginning of the month because our appetite goes down because of the estrogen makes you more insulin

sensitive. And And as you go into the second half of the cycle, that's when progesterone is supposed to kick in and then that supposed to help raise the metabolism a little bit. So it kind of counteracts the fact that estrogens now lower and we're being more insulin resistant, but the metabolism goes up a smidge if you ovulate. And at that time, I say that is when you need to start eating a little bit of carbs in order to help your body through that last

two weeks of the cycle. And that's Sy women crave carbohydrates at the second half of the cycle because our serotonin drops and we can make serotonin via carbohydrates. So eating a little bit of thats that's kind of where I had say two women. Like that's where you like save

it for that. You know, if you can if you can, if you find that that it's easier to go low-carb fasting in the first half of the month and then the second half of the month, that's when you do more of your carb up days, where you will have, you know, some sweet potato fries. I always Stay within the Primal sphere, but that's when you want to listen to those Cravings because it's, they're there for a purpose and you're telling your body that hey, it's okay.

We, you know, we're still fertile and we're not, we're not starving and you give it a little bit of carbohydrates. And because the metabolism is in a bit of an uptick, it usually counter balances itself, weight loss wise. And that could be true even with, you know, just simply increasing the like, the leafy greens and getting more fibers carbohydrates from veggies in. And as well correct. Correct. Yep, exactly.

You know or low glycemic fruits is, you know, I always recommend that like that's when you would eat some more blueberries and maybe not going to such a caloric deficit during that time of the month. And so that you just make sure that you're eating more to satisfy those that increase of hunger that happens in women at that time. So, when we start to lose the estrogen, this is why women. This is the main reason. Why women gain weight in

perimenopause? And they don't, they don't know this, they think estrogens bad, estrogen is needed to be insulin sensitive. So we see a really big increase in type 2 diabetes. When women go into menopause. And this is because, well, one of the reasons is because we lose the estrogen and estrogen is, I mean, we got, we need the progesterone for the Metabolism to go up, but we need the estrogen to be more insulin sensitive and also to be more

lectin sensitive. So, we also see an increase in leptin resistance as women, go through menopause. And so, your body is smart. It it needs estrogen, it knows how important it is. So when you start, when the ovary start shutting down, the body kicks in. And says, we need to get estrogen from somewhere and so, where does it get it from? Besides the ovaries, your fat cells, so your body will actually put on fat so that it can get estrogen. And, unfortunately, it's not the

good estrogen. It's the more toxic estrogen called Esther own and a strong when it goes up, you will gain more weight. So it's this vicious cycle that the more weight you gain, but then your body is trying to put this weight on because it needs the estrogen and it It's this vicious cycle so women will gain anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds when they hit perimenopause and it's traumatic for them. These are I mean I talked to him that we're £105 their entire

life and then boom. They put 20 pounds on in a year and they're going, what just happened? And they try and diet their way out, they try and go lower carb. They try and, you know, just eat less, you go down to one meal a day and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do that. You have to work with those hormones.

So, I'm a big proponent of replacing the hormones, because all the research done on bioidentical hormone replacement shows that we are safer to have our hormones replaced even for one year in menopause, then not replacing them. And this is what bioidentical. So, there's a big difference between synthetic hormone replacement and bioidentical. And I don't know if you want me to get into that raw, but Can't ya. Definitely dive into this.

This is an interesting topic because I compete in natural bodybuilding. So it's pretty that it's super strict but there's no HRT of any form or fashion for male or female, so it's crazy rigid in the, the world of natural bodybuilding. But from just a sheer lifestyle standpoint. I feel like there's definitely people out there that could absolutely benefit from, you know, proper hormone balance. So yet by all means dive into

that little bit. Mmm. And do you still think, even though it's natural bodybuilding, that people really do not use steroids. I mean, there's definitely people that, you know, line break the rules. But, you know, it's all about your integrity and being honest. I mean, I've never, I've never deviated from with the guideline show so hopefully the people I'm up on stage with are also honest. Yes, yes, I agree. So back in to like around 2002

there was a the biggest study. Was ever done on hormone replacement therapy estrogen in and of itself. As a hormone replacement was the number one prescribed medication in North America, prior to this study and that the prescription was for something called Premarin and Premarin comes from pregnant, horses urine, and it was taken via oral. So you'd have to take this pill and it will help with all these menopausal symptoms. And Women loved it.

And it was like I said that most prescribed medication the, they decided they were going to run this in massive study and they had like nine hundred thousand people women and they put them all in on different methods. So one of one group was on Premarin only because they didn't have a uterus, then they had a group with none and then they had a group that took fake progesterone which is called progestin with the Premarin.

So they called Provera. Well, within a couple of years, they had an uptick of breast cancer, uterine cancer, and strokes the breast cancer. Increased actually like compared to the placebo group by eight people. It had an increase of eight more people than the placebo group

that had breast cancer. So, not much, but it was there, and it freaked everybody out and they actually stopped the study early because Cuz they're like, oh no, this is not good man, are dying and so they pulled the study on that group sent the message out to the world. And to the doctors hormone replacement is bad. Take your women off of it. It causes breast cancer, they never specified that.

It was that group. That was having the bad effects, the Premarin group had a reduction of breast cancer by B %. So that was the oral estrogen reduced breast cancer. And I mean, you even, I don't know. Yeah. If you've got a lot of female clients or not Robert. If you even say the word estrogen, replace it with mean, like, grab their boobs are like, well, does that give you breast

cancer? It's in, and we've just have this, massive fear, that hormone replacement is going to cause breast cancer and the reality is, if you have cancer cells in your breast tissue, estrogen can go there and it is a growth hormone and it can make those cells grow. But we see breast cancer mostly in women that are in menopause that no longer have estrogen. We don't see it much in women that are in their 20s when they're has sturgeons the

highest. No, this is like it would just from that day forward, it hasn't had such a bad rap and that was all oral. You know horses urine and synthetic progestin and nothing was done in that study, with bioidentical hormone. So bioidentical hormones, come from vegetables, usually yams and soy, and things like that, and they make it so that it's exactly the same as our bodies. These hormones. So there's no difference. So if you look at the makeup of Premarin versus our makeup of

estradiol, it's different. It doesn't look the same but bioidentical does. So your body doesn't know that it's anything different than what you are producing. So women were we were meant to, you know, once you had your babies and you were no longer for tile, back in the day, we die. I mean our average lifespan was We were in our forties. Now, we're living longer, and we're seeing that women are going through this phase of their life for anywhere, between five to ten years.

And the symptoms of it aren't just weight gain. Women are losing their mind. Literally, I had a woman, tell me the other day, she was committed suicide because she had a full hysterectomy and was sent into menopause. It's like within 24 hours, almost killed herself. I just listen to another podcast with a doctor who said she almost committed. She tried to commit suicide because she was going into menopause and was so depressed.

So a sturgeon has a massive impact on your brain and it actually shows that it can help prevent Alzheimer's and Dementia. So it also testosterone and estrogen can also help prevent Heart attack and stroke. And especially when you're taking transdermal bioidentical hormones, not world. Even though the primary showed

to help with breast cancer. When you take a hormone orally like estrogen, it does increase your risk of heart attack and stroke but if you take it through the skin, there is no increased risk of heart attack and stroke and it the research shows that if you are even like I said, for one year, On hormone replacement in menopause, it will actually lessen Your Chance by 33 percent of all cause mortality.

That's pretty big. Like, we're all about biohacking and, you know, living longer and looking better. And well, I'll tell you what, hormones are the Fountain of Youth and if you don't have them you will age very quickly. So, you know, speaking to your doctor or finding somebody that understands by Oh, I'd safe, bioidentical hormone replacement and finding what's going to work for you.

And this goes for men and women, Men start to look, not every man, but many men will start to lose their testosterone as they age and they can also take transdermal bioidentical testosterone and if you'd actually get a good doctor they'll match you and your partner hormone replacement. And this is really cool because man when they start Use it. Let's say your estrogen or testosterone goes down. Rob will say suddenly you drop you got no sex drive anymore.

You're like, give me the to give me the testosterone back and what will happen is, you could go to your doctor, they give you this prescription for it. Well, they usually do shots. So they give you this big shot of testosterone and men will feel amazing. They just are like okay I got my groove back. I feel on top of the world, like almost too good and it lasts for about A month.

And then, guess what happens? The receptors for testosterone start to go Kev. This is too much and they become saturated, and actually start to down regulate so you don't get the effects that you did in the beginning. So with both men and women, you can actually cycle these bioidentical hormones to match each other. So if you're a g, if you're in your 50s and so is your wife, you can get a doctor to match it.

The cream. So that you have, you know, small amounts in the beginning of the month, and then you'll have an increase and then I'll go back down and then go back up. So you're actually doing it, like, on a wave. So that there's some days that you'll take less, and there's some days that you'll take more, and you'll match it with your partner, so that you both have a peak of both testosterone at the same time and for women estrogen. We both need a little estrogen

and testosterone for sex drive. So we'll both need those to come on. And of course, Damn it, it's way more than just sex but, you know, I'm good. It does tend to be a kind of primary focus, who we don't just toss tirone his libido, right? So, but there's so many more things, I mean, you know, rob, you need it to make Muscle same with women. We need it to maintain bone health, heart, health, brain health. There's we need it, it is so, so important.

In both of us, testosterone makes us want to go out there and get the sacks estrogen for both of us, makes us I want to actually go through with the act of so it's needed for so many different things. Can you just can't? There's no supplements to take that? Is going to do that for you? Yeah, yeah. So with this like what would be like a some signs for someone that needs to start moving in that direction?

Like just the sudden rapid weight gain and the loss of libido and energy is that kind of like telltale signs that people need to find a doctor that is well-versed in this and start talking about it? Yeah, that's definitely the top things that I hear is insomnia, weight, gain and lack of libido. And then we hear anxiety depression. The loss of estrogen will make women more depressed loss of progesterone will make them more anxiety. Men will feel very flat without their testosterone.

Their libido will go down. They'll start gaining weight in their belly become more insulin resistant. So, and then same with women, they'll become more insulin resistant as well. They can't sleep. They can, they can get to the point that they're suicidal women. This is a really big one and that's not talked about enough is without estrogen a woman's vagina starts to atrophy now and it dries up some women feel say that it feels like when they're having sex.

It feels like it's glass going in, not pleasant. But it'll Bleed. It Hurts. It's and it makes it so that they don't ever want to have sex. And I have clients, tell me. Oh, I just Had a woman yesterday. She's like, I really like my husband. I would like to keep him but I cannot have sex right now, and it's like, okay, well let's get on this now.

So age-wise you can, you know, go okay on, you know, I'm in my late 30s, I'm suddenly gaining weight for no, excuse no reason, I'm not feeling as well, bleeding heavier, these are all signs that. It's starting and I'm a big believer, you should test because so many of these Mon overlap each other as far as symptoms, go when they're

deficient or too high, too low. And you don't want to be messing with bioidentical hormones, if you know, because I talk to people all the time, they're like, oh yeah, I just start taking DHEA because it's supposed to be so good for weight loss. And I'm like, how much are you taking oath? Taking 50 milligrams. I'm like, oh my God, like this terrible. You should not be taking 50 milligrams of THC. A is a woman nor is a man. So it's like you Want to know

what your hormones are doing. So get them properly tested. If you suspect that this is happening to you both men and women, it's really, really important to test and not guess. Yeah. Feel like vent. I feel like so many know what it's like for females, but for the guys, I mean like the hormone replacement therapy that I was like clinics popping up everywhere. Now, it seems and they're really heavily advertised towards guys.

And the next thing, you know, guys are going in there, it seems very easy to fill a script there and it It just feels good.

I mean, they see all the games in the gym, everything's like, you know, running on cloud nine and before you know, it, they're they're taking super physiological levels of animals will be taken care of steroids because they basically are and it seems like there's no thought towards, you know, cycling off of that testing regularly and actually you know, doing doing all of this with longevity in mind. So that's that's an unfortunate reality that I've seen.

I'm assuming it's probably same for a lot of females as well, 100%. Don't, you know, and testosterone like my husband was like, should I be taking testosterone, so so amazing? I'm like, okay. Well, let's test your testosterone. Let's see where it's at. He had great loves will testosterone and he's like, should I still take some? I'm like, no, I'm like you started taking it. It's going to down regulate your own production and so then

you're on it, probably forever. And that's what you and you don't want that if you don't have to have that, right? So you have to be very, very careful with that. There's certain hormones. You can take and they don't down-regulate your own production DHEA, won't progesterone. Won't estrogen kind of I've seen mixed review, mixed stuff about estrogen. But for so, for some, they can just need this little bit that they just top up their own production and it's great.

But then if it's testosterone, if it's thyroid, if it's cortisol, you actually eventually need to almost completely replace your own production because once you start taking it it will down-regulate Your own so you have to replace it in physiologic amounts. Yeah. Yeah, it's unfortunate, maybe look a lot of the elite Level Pro bodybuilders that took a bunch of testosterone to be competitive at the, you know, world-class level there on that stuff for life.

Like there is no cycling off of it at this point. No, no, exactly. There's some hormone doctors is the one down in the states. That I think it's just doing some fascinating work around testosterone replacement in men and he actually, HCG with it, which I'm sure you've heard of HCG in the bodybuilding world to a lot of body builders when they come off of their steroids, they take HCG to help build up their own production of testosterone again.

So this guy's using a combination of both testosterone therapy and HCG and is getting like really incredible results with it for guys that have low testosterone. It's so crazy the different factors that can really, really acutely down-regulate testosterone specifically. I mean, in in competition, preps, for instance, just chronically under eating your calories.

I mean, it's not uncommon to see males, literally cut their, their testosterone numbers in half towards the end of a competition prep by simply being a caloric deficit. I see a lot of females do the same thing with their estrogen and progesterone levels, and I feel like a lot of people live in this chronically, underfed state. And I would argue that, I mean, that more.

So I mean, people can notice an acute regulating, you know, Phenomenon with introducing some carbohydrates in their cycle, but I feel like honestly, it's more often than not a result of just simply undereating. I mean, I've had female clients that will be chronically, underfed and then they'll simply increase their calories, and everything returns to normal, I feel like, once you do that, that should be the first and foremost Baseline for anybody be able to fuel the body properly.

So that everything has the opportunity to regulate nikolai's. I 100% agree. Yeah, I think a lot of women can get away with staying in that low carb world as long as they are making sure that throughout the week. They aren't getting that uptick of calories, where it's a normal caloric intake, and it's just hard, because I find, it's really hard for women to eat enough calories to signal to the system that everything's okay.

When While sticking to a carnivore or ketogenic diet because it's like your body just goes, okay? I've had enough protein, I can't possibly eat more what you know, so they can find that hard. Yeah, so I mean, women at feel, I feel bad because women are, you know, just constantly fed The Narrative of you got to be super skinny. Like that's how like that's what the media portrays. And so to go into it with like this, you know, building phase mentality of hey I need to put on some weight.

I need to build Add some muscle, I need to eat more food. Like that is not typically in most females minds, but also just as it is very beneficial for males through that. It's also incredibly beneficial for females to do that from a hormonal and metabolic standpoint. It's just not talked about enough.

Unfortunately exactly. Yeah. So I actually ended up I've got a big membership group with women that I'm helping with perimenopause and menopause and I Supply them with a meal plan every week and the meal plan is a calorie 3 carb cycling plan, so it's not just carb cycle.

It's calorie cycle. So there's days where the calories really dropping your maybe eating two meals a day, maybe one meal a day, but then the next day, you're eating sufficient amounts of calories, whether it's still in the keto, you know, staying in ketosis, and then there's the day that, you know, I'll put in the fruits and the tubers and things like that to bring up. The carb is a little bit, you know, never over 100. But that just, I was like, I

have to To find something that's going to work for the masses for women and that seemed to be easiest for them to stick to because it was gave them some variation it gave them that like okay on the weekends I am going to eat a little bit more and you know maybe go out and treat myself and then they get back to it in the weight loss has been incredible doing it that way and I don't see them stall as much when they're doing the cycle.

And that's really what we have to do because your body smart it Want to lose weight. So you have to constantly be tricky that it seemed with working out. They always say don't do the same workout every day because your body adjust to it right? You got to shock the system. I don't is there truth to that? Yeah, I mean you got to be able to have ample time for that that body part that you train to recover and then ideally, next time you train it Implement some

form of progressive overload. So that you're stimulating it in an additional manner than what you did previously. So, yeah, there's definitely two that. Yeah, so I do that. With my food plans. So the all even have like weight loss weeks where we go into a severe caloric deficit for a week and then we bring some calories back in and we don't go into a caloric deficit the next week but we eat just a normal amount of calories.

We're not saying like go out and binge on the cakes and the fast-food I still you know, 80% your diet should be very clean and in that Primal regime because that is what works fast. Yeah. I feel like No sustainability is first and foremost key. I mean, people have to figure out that's going to be different for every like not everyone's going to be Quito corner of or like, some people going to have more of a mixed diet if that's more sustainable for them.

But I think anybody is going to benefit from having, you know, more of their time spent at a healthy maintenance or Surplus from a hormonal and metabolic standpoint. Then more of their time, spent in a extreme caloric deficit for sure. What do you do? So, I always advocate for, you know, going cycling through phases, basically. So I'll have a building phase in which, my priority is building, more lean tissue and then I'll

do them. It takes a long time to build muscles, so I'll be in a building phase at a maintenance and a slight Surplus for, you know, two or three years at a time before I transition back into a deficit and then I'll do a very well, you know, planned out competition prep in which I'll be in a deficit for about six months. And get down to an incredibly lean body fat in a very slow controlled manner so that I hold onto as much lean mass as

possible. And then I'll bring calories back up, gradually to return to a maintenance and then select Surplus that. I can go back into a building phase. Wow. Yeah, so couple years though you're in your building phase that's I didn't know would not have thought that, so that's cool. Yeah, it's just different, you know, for everybody. But because muscle takes so long to build naturally, especially, you know, if you're spending The majority of the year in a deficit, you're not going to be

primed for building that muscle. So spending more time in that building phase than in the cutting phases is important for me as a bodybuilder to look improved. Every time I step onstage. Yeah, I when you're lifting, so heavy all the time to, you have to, you have to be eating enough calories, you have to be eating enough protein to do that, right? Yeah. And when so each each one of you listeners that you all going to have to have something different, right?

As far as what you're going to need, Depending on where your

hormones are right. If you're a woman and you you know, you've got kids, you're working every day 925 and you're working out on top of that and you test your hormones and you've got some low cortisol problems, you know, going into that fasting, you know, one meal a day type thing, low carb, you probably won't feel good and it's not going to work for weight loss at that point and you'd be better off actually eating more of a Paleo based diet.

Diet while the adrenals heal and you work on your lifestyle. So there's so many different, you know, caveats, when it comes to this, but it's super important. I think just for everybody to know that we're not all going to need the same thing and it's so good, not to be dogmatic about. Okay, well, I'm gonna but I have to be like, I had talked to a girl yesterday who tested her thyroid. She's 33 years old and her T3 levels were shot.

And I said, Happened here you know I said what you know she's like wow yeah just started like a year ago I started to feel really cold and tired all the time and I wasn't feeling good. And so I'm going through all these different thyroid things with her. Like, oh, maybe it's because you're stressed out or you have this for you that and then she finds she ends up saying to me. I've been keto for three years and I said, oh, that's like, that's why your T3 is low.

And she She could not hear me say that she was like, oh oh no I gotta sit like I really like just keto made me feel so good I said but how is it making you feel now? I said really think about that. How is it making you feel now? Shes, what you do you think this is innocent? I don't know 100% but there's a good chance because there's a lot of research that shows it will down and regulate your T3.

I said, just start with a little bit of carbohydrate intake and see if you start Feel warmer and she said I did try that and I did feel warmer. So very, very you go. But she was so holding onto it. And I'm just like, we all have to myself included just because something worked for a while, doesn't mean that it's going to continue to work. Our bodies are always changing were aging, you know, stressful events happen, chemical exposure toxins.

Like there's so many stuff coming out At us that we just have to be willing to go. Okay, this isn't working for me now. Let's change it and let's see how it works. And oftentimes when you do shift things and you shock the system in some way, shape or form, just like when you start an exercise different exercise program, same with the different eating style, it can really kick up the weight loss or how you're feeling. Yeah, totally agree, there.

I mean so many people are just associate Quito with a weight loss that they go into that. Caloric deficit without having it period at the reading more. I mean, I don't know what her macros and calories were like during that three-year period but I wouldn't be surprised if she was just under eating the majority of that time and that definitely could have done regulated things. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah that's most women are under eating.

I'd love to pick your brain with the last little bit of time. We have here on a phytoestrogen specifically flax because flax is always in, you know, it's a controversial topic. People assume that That it's it's a receptor blocking agent or that it helps upregulate estrogen. So what's your take on Flax? Yes I just did a blog post about

this. Yeah so I used to because I talked I interviewed Anthony on my podcast years ago and so after that because he told me flaxseed is the number one, phytoestrogen food, so it's got the most estrogenic components to it out of any food second to that as soy. So after that I was like no more flax. You forget it. Well the truth of the matter is

it's real. It does help you it helps with estrogen dominance because it does act in a mild estrogenic way on the receptor and so it can help with the estrogen dominant symptoms. It works on what's called that the betta pathway. So there's Alpha like estradiol Alpha. And there's even a betta. So there's there's Alpha and beta. Alpha is the more stronger estrogen and the bet is the softer one that we really want. Lots of that one. We need both but we really like the bad.

A phytoestrogens flax, which particular works on the better estrogen receptors. So I it's great. I think it's so great as well. It's extreme its fiber. And so what It's doing in your gut is amazing. I make bread with it muffins, like just with eggs and flax, that's it, and it's delicious. And I just, you know, smear some butter on. It, low carb, high fiber phytoestrogen and we need the fiber to help our gut to break down and get rid of toxic estrogens as well.

So you've got this two-fold effect. It's not only working on the better receptors, the estrogen receptors it's Also going to help with your gut bacteria is going to help with breaking down the estrogen and getting rid of it. Once your body has used it and that's really key because we all have these terrible guts these days and we need a healthy gut in order to process and get rid of the estrogen so we don't recirculate it and become estrogen dominant. So I say yay to the flax.

So just to make sure I'm following you. If you are estrogen dominant and you have too much estrogen, eating the flax, which has a Source of phytoestrogen. Basically binds to that receptor site and blocks, any additional estrogen from coming in and creating more of a estrogen dominant State. Correct. Exactly, yes. And then if you're also in menopause and you, you're maybe not ready or perimenopause then you're not ready to go for the estrogen replacement yet.

You could use that to supplement your own levels of estrogen. So because it will act in a week way on the in receptor. So if you don't have a lot of estrogen, you'll still get the benefits of it. So it goes both ways. It's both good for high. Estrogen and low estrogen. Are there any other dietary, you know, protocols or hack.

So to speak where people that are low in estrogen, could consume more of like a know, like broccoli, for instance, cruciferous vegetables, tend to be, you know, Town it is helping to increase estrogen levels. They don't help increase it. They actually help to break it down. They have so far so far of Fame in it and so that will help with the clearance of how sturgeon. So your body uses it. If you have, you're eating a lot of cruciferous vegetables.

It will actually help to take the used estrogens out of the system. And in, quite high amounts, you have to eat them in order to get that effect but they're still super goofy once again high in fiber grade for the gut. So it's going to help the hormones, no matter what, but it's not going to completely. Drain your body of estrogen and it's not going to increase your estrogen. They don't work as a strong phytoestrogen.

Soy is the next best phytoestrogen, but Soy is also highly GMO, and it's one of the highest food sensitivities. So it's if you can handle it, then you want to be going like organic tofu or tempeh, you're not doing the fake meat stuff, your tofu care, whatever, that is the hotdogs and stuff is so nasty soy. What is the worst thing ever? So, do not drink soy milk. So it's highly highly processed. So we're talking, like fermented good quality soy products, that

would be good. Sunflower seeds is another great phytoestrogen. So some women will start doing what's called seed cycling. So they take eat certain seeds in the first half of the month to help promote estrogen, which is the flax in the sunflower, and then, or sorry, Sesame, Sesame seeds. And then the second half, you do sunflower seeds and pumpkin. Seeds to help with progesterone progesterone production and it really works especially for the

more fertile woman. It's still has a regular cycle seed cycling can be amazing and you can just Google it and I'll tell you how to do it. You just do to take a tablespoon. I think of each first half of the cycle in the second half of the cycle. The other ones I've seen a lot of women supplement with dim is there any efficacy in that? It's amazing. So I seen damn work very quickly and Saudi and no mess.

Pain comes from your cruciferous, vegetables and soup but it's a highly concentrated form because like I said you'd have to eat a lot of broccoli in order to get what you get from a capsule of D and all methane. So Dee Endo methane is going to help bind to the estrogen in the body and take it out. Calcium, D glue, create is going to help your gut to break it down. So taking the combination of the two. If you You have known estrogen dominance. Every woman thinks she has it

and many don't. So be very careful because it will drain your levels. I need a lot of perimenopausal women who are lacking in estrogen who are Downing damn thinking, they're doing themselves a Justice and I'm like, oh, what are you doing? You need your estrogen. That's why you're gaining weight, stop taking the dim. So it is good for that. And then, of course, Liver Health like doing liver detoxification.

Making sure things like heavy metals aren't in your system because those will actually bind to the receptor sites as well. Estrogen receptor sites God and it can wreak havoc on everything. Then same with Liver Health, we process a lot of these hormones through the liver. So if you're drinking all the time and your bodies, having a process that first, then you can get an abundance of estrogen.

This is both men and women recirculating in the system and so Liver Health gut health lifestyle Like stress reduction, all of these things are really key. Like you can't just go slap on hormones and think it's going to be the answer to all your hormone problems, it just doesn't work. Well, when you do that you really have to have the diet in place. You've got to have the lifestyle, you going to be

sleeping. You've got to have all of these things in check in order for your body to really utilize and and in a healthy way, the bioidentical hormones because If you're not circular, if you're not pooping every day, you're going to start slapping on a bunch of estrogen. Well, now, that estrogen is supposed to be getting pooped out, is now we're going to be reabsorbed into your body and restart recirculating. And then you see, women gain weight, that goes for all the hormones.

Yeah. It's got to be a holistic approach. You can't just, there's no quick. Pic Quick, Fix pills or anything. No, there isn't is there like a like a particular blood test panel that you would recommend or what do you suggest? In that regard. So, when it comes to a cycling woman, you really unfortunately bloodwork is not the best test because blood work is going to test what's called bound hormones. So every our hormones are bound to these little Transporters.

These little proteins called sex hormone-binding globulin, that shuttle, your hormones, all over your body, to the receptor sites, and they get off the bus and they get onto the receptor. And when they get off the bus, they're free hormones. And so there's Just a small amount of free hormones, compared to these bound hormones. But your body can't use bound hormones that are on the bus. They can only use the free ones. Serum blood work through.

Your doctor is only going to test bound hormone levels except for testosterone and thyroid. Both of those, you can have done through blood work and they'll test both Total and free testosterone. So, you always want to make sure as a man and as a woman that when you go to get Tested for your testosterone that you ask for both a lot of doctors won't test the free. They'll usually just test the

total testosterone. If you are then going into, no perimenopausal stages, you can some women can get away with this serum because as they're becoming deficient in hormones, it will start to be reflected, even in the bound hormone levels. But your best bet through, you know, Amanda pause. Infertility years is to either do a saliva hormone test which will test only free hormones.

It will also test cortisol at four points throughout the day, which is really key or to do what's called a urine hormone test, which urine is going to test, what's called your metabolites. And that's going to tell you how is your body breaking down these hormones, are you pee in the moat, what's happening? And if they're elevated, it's a reflection of you. Elevated or down regulated. It is a reflection of total like The free hormone levels, not

total free hormone levels. So that's a great one. It tends to be the most expensive. So you're looking at it you know, four to five hundred dollars and the saliva is a little bit cheaper, so it just kind of what are you wanting to know? But I would definitely say that. Saliva in the urine is the gold standard for testing your hormones.

Once you're in menopause and you no longer have a cycle, you can Definitely do serum and see inside serum what's really going on because when you have no hormones, you have no hormones.

Yeah. All this, like, Probably sounds daunting for someone that's not typically like a biohacking Centric person that's wanting to test and monitor everything, but if you, you know, take a little bit of time, take a day to get these tests at different intervals, throughout the day and, you know, submit that and learn from it. I mean, that's, that's powerful. That's empowering right thing, because it can totally shift how you feel and function.

Oh, it's It is so empowering like when I see women that come to me that are this hot mess, they've gained so much weight. They're hot flashing, they're depressed anxiety-ridden insomnia, ribbon. And within three months they completely have their life back and they're just going, oh my gosh, I feel like a normal human being and I myself went through this. I went through a very early menopause, so I'm only 45 and I started to lose my hormones at 42. Of course, right?

The hormone specialist loses her own. I'm like, come on. But it's like, well, I guess that this is what I had to go through. So I could teach it to others, but I was within months was a hot mess and I was, you know, hot flashing and night sweats and was like missing my period And I have zero symptoms right now. Rob zero and that's because I have I know what to do. I've replaced the hormones, I've got a good practitioner and I know, you know, she listens to

what I want to have done. And I just You should do that. And if all you can afford a serum, it's still worth. Getting just make sure that you test on days, 19, 20 or 21 of your cycle. Doctors never tell women that and that's very important because that's then we can compare it to where they should be first off your cycle, you

don't even produce progesterone. And so if you go and get your hormones test, it is going to look like you have no progesterone if it's in the first half of the cycle. So it's really important to do it on very specific days. Could not agree more. This has been incredibly enlightening, so it's always exciting for me to bring on

someone. That is a female hormone specialist because that is a department, I know little in common experience standpoint, so it definitely adds to my repertoire for sure, so I can't thank you enough for taking the time to chat with me. Well, thanks for having me on. Absolutely where do people go to find out? More about you? My podcast is probably the biggest source of information. It's been going for like five

years now. So we've got almost 200 episodes and it's a ton about hormones and weight loss. It's called the other side of weight loss, and it was voted number one of the top 20 weight loss podcast in 2021. And then you can also find me at Karen Martel.com awesome. Well, I will certainly link out to those places Karen and keep in touch, definitely keep me. Keep me posted on what you're working on this exciting stuff. Thanks Rob. Thank you. Have a good one.