I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners on which this episode is being recorded, the combo marry people. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Today I'm your host, Georgie Stevenson, and this is the
Rise and Conquer podcast. This is the podcast where which have mindset, self development and becoming your higher self mix soon with a lot of laughs, plus behind the scenes of my life running two businesses and being among Think of us as the perfect combo of brunch with your besties mixed with self development. No matter where you are in your journey, We're here to help you be curious,
pull yourself out, and embrace radical self awareness. If you're ready to get into the driver's seat of your own life and stop letting life past you by, then you're in the right place. Hey everybody, and welcome back to the RNC potty. Oh my god, today do we have an episode for you?
It's so good.
Me and it here are both obsessed with Doctor Libby.
So.
Doctor Libby is a nutritional biochemist. She is a thirteen time best selling author and international acclaimed speaker. We are so grateful to have her on the potty. This interview was done a little bit differently. We thought it would be a bit of fun to do a GE's hotline, but with doctor Libby. So basically we just quick fired all your health questions. We put them in the Facebook. Of course, got you guys to get involved. If you're
not in the Facebook, come and join us. And oh my god, she is a wealth of knowledge, isn't she just like amazing And I love she did speak about it in the interview, but I love how she approaches everything very holistically, which I find is tends to be more rare in the health and fitness industry.
And she says she does it from three pillars, which is psychological, emotional, and scientific, And I feel like it just makes everything so like easy to understand.
Yeah, so digestible and a big thing I noticed And what I loved and I think you guys will absolutely love, is she's a little bit woo woo, yes, so good. Like she broad in some things about you know, you guys will hear that, like, you know, I've got health and how much you know, like our concept of self like deals with that and I had never ever hurt someone who is more scientifically based, like talk in that way, and it was so beautiful and I think it's also
you guys will like listen to this episode. You'll feel her energy and also you'll be like, oh wow, I can actually see things, you know, from her point of view, but also yeah, be able to understand and digest it.
Yes, it's amazing.
So today we're chatting about We asked her a whole heap of questions, but just a couple is like how to eat for your hormones, eating around your cycle? She answers the This was like one of the most asked questions of the Facebook, and he was so surprised, but then it made a lot of sense. Yeah, I was a bit shocked. I didn't know what she was going to say, but I'm so happy with her answer. But how bad dairy actually is and just which milk is best?
It takes such a big question, eh, And then also you know how to eat for your gut and so much more. She also answered some really good questions around sugar, what it actually does to our bodies, how we can minimize it. And I didn't really understand like whyologically what like goes on and it was like so mind blowing. So yeah, that was really that was one of my favorite parts of the interview too.
Mine too. I love how she was talking about sugar and she actually launched a sugar course that I've been doing and I think you've been doing it as well as Georgy.
Let's talk about the sugar cost.
Yeah, I loved it because she I personally love sugar like I love it, my chocolate I have like I love, I love sweet things, I have a sweet tooth. But I didn't realize how dependent I was on sugar and how much it controlled me. And I wanted to take that control back. Like I don't want to cut sugar out. I'm not that person, but I do want to have control over when I eat it and I don't want
to crave it. And I think that's what drew me to the course, her course so much, because even though it is more like of a shake off sugar, that's what it's called as well, it's more about having the power to decide how much you want.
Well. I so I've been doing the course soon fuck it. It's good. It's also good because, like I know, the first video is but then the next one's like they come, they're a lot shorter, and I felt like I could like digest it really easy. Yeah, but like I think one of them was like four minutes long, Yeah, which is really great. We're tied. Yeah, But what I really liked is for me personally, when I have awareness about what something is. Because if you just tell me sugar
is bad, don't have it it? Will you know this and that, Like that's not really gonna get me. But if you give me awareness what actually is happening, and also tell me like a lot of things of did you know you know when you have sugar at this time, or you know, like the different things like that where I'm like when I'm then having three sugars in my coffee,
I'm like, hmm, this is half of what today. This is so interesting step into curiosity because we're not doing shame here and I can just be so much more conscious And then again, like you a tire, actually make the decision for myself, because if someone tells me cut out sugar, I'm like no. But if you tell me, you know, give me a lot of information, and then you're like, you do what's best for you? Yeah, what do you think I'm gonna pick Yes, Aly, she can't
mind fucking us little bit she is and I love it. Yeah. So on that note, did we end up getting a code for the course tier? Yes, we did, all right, go ahead share it away.
Because we loved it so much. We did ask doctor Libby if there was a possibility of getting a discount code for you.
All, we know you love a dissy. Yeah, and she's very kind.
She's given us a discount code so you can use Georgie ten at checkout for ten percent off the next intake of the course, which is on March twenty seventh. We'll pop the link to like the infra page for the course and all of that in show notes. But honestly, couldn't recommend it enough. I have already learned so much, and we're only at the end of the first phase of the course at the moment, and we still got two more to go, and I'm so excited.
Yeah, I'm really excited for the second phase. Weekly Wrecks U go first.
I am struggling on the recommendations front at the moment, but I would like to recommend watching We shared it on Instagram. The Oscar Winners speeches that were done, particularly by Michelle Yeo, And I apologize if I'm mispronouncing his name, but kihoy Kwon I they are the most expanding speeches
I think I've heard in such a long time. And I've gone into like, oh, I haven't gone in a deep dive, but a lot of their tiktoks have been coming up now because I've been interacting with that content and just hearing more about their stories and what they
went through. And he had his health insurance taken away from him at one point because he wasn't booking enough work, and he came he went to America's refugee and it's just like insane to think that, oh my gosh, like he's winning an Oscar now, so literally anything can happen.
So incredible.
Yeah, So I think just like I guess my recommendation is exposed yourself to some expense content this week.
I think I love that so much. Yeah, what's yours? I'm gonna go a bit rokier and I think like I am going on a bit of a lots of journey's happening right now. But as you guys know, like I got a personal coach, like a business a business mentor so I've been going on that journey. But then also it has been bringing up a lot of you know, stuff about even just like me personally, like with my health. And then so now I've also got like a health
coach and he's been helping me a lot. And my wreck for the week is like, know that you can do things differently, so bear with me. I'm going to get to the point. So, for example, with my health coach, I've actually been working with him in a very unique way. So he's like he's a bit of a fitness bro. I love that. He would probably feel like, oh my god, don't call me that, but he's a bit of a fitness bow. And like I'm guessing with his other clients,
like they do micros and it's like that sort of shit. Yeah, and like that's just not my vibe. I don't really want to be weighing my food and doing that. It's it's just I don't want to do it. And also not to say I won't do it in the future, like I probably won't, but I'm like, I don't want to be like that person who's like really against something and if you do it, amazing, But I was just like, Oh,
so what I'm actually needing. And I had a conversation with him and I was like, so, what I'm actually needing is almost like an accountability buddy beg clues. What happens with me is I have a lot of the knowledge and also like I've done a lot of things where it's like I know generally how I should be eating a complete meal. I know, you know, the cubs and fats and proteins and different things, but when I get busy at work, I resort to going to the
easiest and fastest option. And I kind of, you know, I want to strengthen being that person who doesn't do that, but in order to do that, I needed some help. Yeah, And so I kind of said to him like I kind of want to work a bit different and I don't want to like fucking do the macros and stuff, but I literally just want to And also I don't want you to give me a meal plan because that's also not the vibe for me.
It's like I want to eat what I want when I want, yes, yeah, but.
I want some direction. So how I actually work with him? And actually I'll just give him a quick shout out shout out to j Fizzle. His name is actually Jared Wills, but we'll call him Jay Fizzle. So I'll put his little thing in the bio. Okay, is that a bio?
Show notes show notes.
I'll put his little link in the show notes Jared. So how I work with Jared is I actually just send him my meals and then he gives me feedback after the fact.
I love that.
So we have that little like fitness app, we fucking inter and it's like you know, Breakfast and chain of Russ and then he will be like, hey, like if I've sent it to him in real time, he can give me real time feedback of like you need to add protein in. And this is the huge thing that I've like noticed is like my protein lax, which is funny because like I own a protein which he throws in my face and just have a shake. You have a million usually And you know what else, I fucking
love He's so brutal with me. He's so savage, and I love it. And then you know he can tell me in real time or even because sometimes that's just not feasible because I'm so fucking busy. Yeah, and I will send it in the app like after hours and then he can give me some feedback back and after
the week. And it's not the quickest way because it is quite slow because we're like going back and forth sometimes like I've really fucking eaten the stuff in the day and it's like I should have added protein all this and that. But I'm learning and I'm also able to do things in a way that works for me
and my lifestyle. And I think sometimes we get stuck in the oh, well, I want to get a PT or I want to get a coach, but I don't want to have to weigh my meals and I don't want to have to do this, so it's automatically, automatically you cancel them out. And so a big wreck from me this week is, you know, if you do want to evolve and you do want like help along the journey, is like asked to do things differently because it can
look different for you. And it's also fine if it's slower or it's like not the quote unquote how it's supposed to be, because if it works for you, it's actually going to be sustainable and you're actually going to be able to stick to it. And I find like with how we've been working together, I'm able to I do things in my way and I feel like I'm learning a lot and i feel like I'm making really
great changes, even though like they're very incremental. Yeah, but it's like that's what I'm like, Oh, that's the vibe for me, and that's fine. Whereas for example, I might have you know, my business coach and fucking work really fast or like work in a different way. But it's like having the autonomy of like knowing you can do things in a different way. They get to look different and it might just be having that conversation with that person, so like really random outside the box.
But yeah, anyway, let's get into the episode.
Doctor Libby. Welcome to the Rights and Conquer Podcasts.
Georgie. It's a joy to join you. Thank you so much for having me.
We are so excited. I'm actually I'm a huge fan and I've got like all your books.
That's so sweet that I hope they're useful.
They're so useful, and I feel like I found you years and years ago when I was really you know, getting into my health journey and really figuring out what health meant for me and you know, getting away from diet culture and that sort of thing, and I just I found your books and your approach to everything so well rounded, and I love I was dealing with like a hormone imbalance at the time, and so I loved your information and just how you said it in such
a way that I could like digest and really you know, resonate with. So yeah, I'm really excited for this.
Oh, thank you so much. That's really that's really lovely. So first of.
All, before we get into the hotline questions. Our community was so excited, got quite a few health questions. We're all a bit of a on a healthcare right now. But before we get into that, do you want to just give us a quick intro in your own words of who you are and what you do?
Oh? Thank you? Sure. Yeah.
So I grew up in tamworin Country, New South Wales, Australia. My office right now is in burly Heads on the Gold Coast, which is obviously.
Gorgeous spot that we all love.
But I went to university for fourteen years, which I know makes me sound really thick and like I failed everything, but I very much loved learning and I still do. So I originally studied nutrition and dietetics and then did honors and then did a PhD in biochemistry. So there's lots of science in my background. But since then, I've worked with people one on one for about twenty three twenty four years, and that's where you get to see
what really makes a difference in people's lives. And I've combined my twenty plus years of clinical experience with my fourteen years at UNI to create what I call my three pillar approach. And those three pillars are the biochemical, the.
Nutritional, and the emotional. So I look at absolutely everything through those three lenses.
That's amazing, and I think that's why, you know, I found your content so easy to digest. Is you really come, you know, from every avenue. So that's epic. Well, let's get straight into it, Guys Hotline with doctor Libby. Feel so privileged, So let's get into some female questions. And look, these are kind of some really really great questions that
our community has. And so the first one is, you know, how can we start eating for hormone balancing and just to be you know, nice to our hormones because I feel like sometimes when we think of hormones, we don't think of, you know, the food we eat every single day.
So our hormones love whole, real food, and they don't love certain substances in processed food, so particularly ultra processed foods that are full of fake food ingredients and you know, jam packed with sugar or artificial sweetness.
Our hormone balance doesn't love that.
Because not only when it comes to our sex hormones, obviously the majority are made in our ovaries, but our adrainal glands also made a small amount. Our adrenals are also where we make our stress hormones from. But beyond the ovaries being able to make estrogen and progesterone, for example, that all needs nutrients, but the systems in the body
that actually regulate our hormones they also need nutrients. So, for example, the liver and the gut are primarily responsible for estrogen metabolism, and a lot of challenges with hormones occur when we're producing too much estrogen and our body is not able to effectively detoxify the estrogen that we make, So the liver is the organ primarily responsible for detoxification. So when we're choosing foods that I refer to as liver loaders. They're some of the biggest corruptors. And I
know it's not fun to hear. And I only say this not to say don't ever have this stuff, But we just need to get honest with ourselves about how these things affect us. So, for example, alcohol is a really big disruptor to healthy estrogen metabolism, so we need to understand that and then adjust ourselves accordingly. So some women will share with me, if they have an alcoholic drink or a few, say, seven days after they've started menstruating, they handle it a lot better than if they have
it just before they're about to bleed. They might notice they don't sleep properly, or they get really hot that it bloats them more. So you can start to pay attention if you want to to how that stuff affects you. But as far as eating for hormones go, when you eat, to look after your liver, and that's a really great step. The liver loves whole real foods. It loves it particularly
loves veggies. It loves the veggies in the brassica family, so broccoli, couliflower, kale, brussels sprouts, it really loves those. But also and I feel that your community will find this really fascinating. I know when I first learned it, it
just blew my mind. Detoxification actually has two phases that it goes through in the liver, and phase one needs all sorts of nutrients, including iron, and iron is the most peutritional deficiency amongst women of menstruation age, pregnant women, and unfortunately also children.
So we don't just.
Need iron for great energy and a clear mind, but we need it for really healthy phase one liver detox pathways to work properly.
We also need.
Iron for thyroid function, which has not talked about enough. So when we're talking about our sex hormones, the liver obviously it needs iron to be able to detox estrogen effectively. So that's a really big one, and I know I'm rambling, but just really quickly before I wrap that answer up. The way that we eat needs to foster ovulation, because it's that lovely big surge of progesterone that we get after we ovulate. That it's not just important progesterone. It's
not just important for fertility. It is it has so many extraordinary biological bio logical effects. It's a really powerful anti anxiety agent, it's an antidepressant.
It's a diuretic.
It allows us to use it, lets us get rid of excess fluid, and it's crucial for thyroid function as well. So when we choose whole real food, you give your ovaries what they need to be able to foster ovulation. So it's nutrients like iodine, selenium, zinc, vitamin D which we mostly get from sunshine. They're some of the key nutrients that will help foster ovulation.
Would you recommend like supplementing with iron and some of the ones you just enlisted then, or would you prefer we get it from whole foods.
So if someone is actually iron deficient and they know that through a blood test, food alone won't get that back up. In my clinical experience, you need to supplement. For some people very sadly that iron will be so low they'll need an infusion. Even supplements, you know, just they it's almost like they can't catch up, particularly if menstruation is really heavy, if you're losing a lot of
blood every month. What I would always do is work on the blood loss to see if we can lighten it at the same time as supplementing the iron for example.
And then what about the ones you listed before, like the selenium and that sort of thing, would you suggest supplementing or trying to get from our foods.
So selenium is a pretty easy one to get with food because we only need between two and six brazil nuts a day to get our selenium. So if you just think that, it's almost like little they're like a little selenium pill if you like.
But I love brazil brazil nuts into it.
Yeah, it's kind of really that's so awesome, really awesome. So just talthy brazil nuts into a nut mix you might be having and your selenium needs a covered.
If you don't like them, then yes, you'd need to supplement.
Zinc is a really can be a very very important nutrient to supplement for both men and women, but particularly for hormone balance. So copper and zinc compete for absorption. And over the years, when I used to see patients and I did a lot of blood testing for a lot of people, their copper was quite high and.
Their zinc was very low.
And so before your body can even start to take up zinc, you've got to get the copper down for the body to be able to take up the zinc, and again it was really difficult to do that with food alone. Supplementation of zinc I found was often incredibly beneficial and really essential for a lot of women went with hormones out of whack.
So just quickly, you know, before we move on for this, I just find it so interesting. So some foods we can incorporate, you know before we try supplements. Is the brazil nuts for the selenium. What about what foods are high in zinc?
So Zinc the fascinating nutrient because it used to be in the soil, so when we ate our fruits and our veggies, for example, we would get some zinc, whereas now most soils are deficient in zinc. And if a nutrient isn't in the soil, it can't be in the food. So our only real sources we have of zinc these days are oysters, red meat, and then there's a small amount of zinc in eggs and seeds like pumpkin seeds and some flower seeds. So you can see that it's
really easy for us to become deficient in zinc. So they're the main food sources of zinc.
Okay, amazing, I'll be supplementing I do love oysters, so and I would love to chat to you. So this is actually just a selfish question. I'm just chucking in right now, going a bit rogue. But going off that question, you did you know say how important it was for your thyroid? And I am someone who has an underactive thyroid. What you know some main things someone with a thyroid condition can be doing to like I do take you know, a medication, but just to be helping my thyroid and
just being conscious of it. What sort of things can we be doing?
So our thyroid is it's most extraordinary gland, but it doesn't act alone. So the beginning of the signaling to the thyroid, it actually comes from a region in the brain called the hypothalamus, and the hypothalamus makes a hormone and it calls out to the petuatory gland, which is also in the brain, and the petutory makes a hormone that probably a lot of people in your community will
be familiar with. The petuittary hormone that talks to the thyroid is called TSH thyroid stimulating hormone, and the TSH says to the thyroid, you need to make your hormones now and Obviously, the hormones the thyroid make a T four and T three, But for T four, which is the inactive thyroid hormone which doesn't have an effect on metabolism, for example, T three is the active one that affects
metabolism and helps to regulate temperature. For T four to be converted into T three in a successful way, there's a whole host of nutrients that are needed, so iodine, selenium, iron, and zinc. There are those nutrients again, so we need those nutrients really good thyroid function, ideally getting them from food. If we're not getting enough from food, then you're supplementing.
The other thing we need for healthy thyroid function ideally is regular ovulation, because as I said, progesterone is soporative of healthy thyroid function. The thyroid loves progesterone and it doesn't love an excessive amount of estrogen. Which is one of the most common hormonal imbalances I've seen in my working life is that low progesterone or no progesterone coupled with excess estrogen, so that can disrupt thyroid function.
Infections can as well.
So over the years, I've met lots of people and they've had things like glandular fever, and some people when they have a virus, any virus really, but I'll use glandular fever for the example, which is epstein bar virus.
Some people have that and they don't even know they've had it.
Other people have glandula free and they go to bed for three months and they'll say to someone like me, I have never felt the same since I have been fatigued.
Ever since I had that.
So a virus can actually long term effect something like thyroid function. And the reason I have a phrase my work, which is the road in is.
The road out.
So whatever created the dysfunction, I want to work out what that is because I want to treat that thing. Because like, for example, if someone's thyroid is towards the underactive end of the spectrum and it's let's say it's because of iodine deficiency. If I give that person some iodine, their thyroid function will improve. But if the thyroid isn't working properly because of low progesterone excess estrogen, then no amount of iodine will affect that will improve the thyroid.
Addressing the hormone imbalance will improve the thyroid function. So that's why I always want to know what's created the dysfunction in the first place and then address that thing. So, yes, food plays a role in thytooid function, so does immunity, and of course our hormone balance.
So interesting. So then the next question I have is eating for perimen and poresal and mental poresal women. So we have someone in our community who says she's forty six and men a pausal, and you know, she's gone from never having any weight issues to now having extra weight. She can't shift, and she feels like she has the same diet and she's just like, what is happening?
Yeah, So such a common scenario, but it doesn't need to be this way, So one of the a few changes happen, obviously, but insulin resistance is one of the biggest things that can start to present itself through this perimenopausal transition, and it's why some women describe it as belly fat being really hard to shift. So things they used to do that address that no longer work, and it's nearly always because there's some insulin resistance there, and it's the actually it's the insulin resistance.
That needs to be addressed.
So when you know that there's something gone awry biochemically, you can then address that thing. Rather than I feel like my clothes don't fit me anymore, and people will just think I need to lose weight. No, No, most people my whole working life, I've said, most people will tell you you've got to lose weight to be healthy.
I'm going to tell you it's the opposite.
You've actually got to be healthy before your body will let go of. Some people healthier with more body fat. Some people are too skinny to have good health, so they do better with a bit more body fat on them. Other people, their health is much better with less body fat. So I focus on health and then the body fat just falls into place. Literally, I've seen it with thousands
of people. So through the menopausal the perimenopause will transition are really scenario is belly fat, and it's nearly always because of insulin resistance. Because what happens at perimenopause. The first change that happens is we stop ovulating every month. And we might ovulate sometimes, but let's say it's only randomly three times a year, rather than every month like clockwork.
So when we stop ovulating every month, we lose that lovely surge of progesterone and all of the beautiful benefits, the calming effects of it, especially, we lose those benefits. The next stage in perimenopause is fluctuations in estrogen, so we can get really big surges in estrogen, and then the estrogen can plummet, and those two scenarios lead us to feel usually or they can lead us to feel
incredibly uncomfortable. So and then eventually the third stage of perimenopause, just before we become postmenopausal, is when there's no progesterone
and estrogen is very very very low. That's the last age, and then the period stop for twelve months, and then the twelve month anniversary of your last period is mentopause, and then your postmenopausem So you can hear in the way I've described that that we go from having really robust ovarian production of hormones like estrogen and progesterone to having none or very little of those hormones. But testosterone another hormone that women make. Obviously men make more of it,
but we women make it. Testosterone levels through this transition don't really change, and what occurs at this time in our life is a natural testosterone dominance.
Now the words I use are really important.
At this point, it's just a testosterone dominance, not an excess.
But when we've got insulin resistance in the background, when that's been biochemically created, because we've been able to and I put this in inverted commons, we've been able to get away with a bit of lausey eating, it can start to catch up with you at this time because that insulin resistance actually can push testosterone high, and so then you have an excessive testosterone, and that excessive testosterone actually makes insulin resistance worse.
So women will notice.
That they grow hair on their face, their head, on their hair starts to thin and fall out. They're really common scenarios. You might notice skin tags. And one of the biggest things that set us up for that, Georgie, is way too much sugar across our whole life, and we don't even realize how much we're having. We're currently told it's okay, and I question this, but we're currently told it's okay to have six tea spoons a day.
But on average down under at the moment, we have thirty seven teaspoons of sugar per day.
Just mostly from processed foods, so it's way too much.
And because of that, it leads to people to have these constant insulin responses all day, every day, year after year, decade after decade, and it does set us up for insulin resistance, which is one of the biggest challenges. For what this lady is actually describing, that's part of what needs to be addressed, which is coming back and eating whole, real foods and unfortunately shoving those shoving those process foods aside.
This is kind of going off, you know, a bit off topic, but it's really interesting. Just this morning, I have done, you know, a bit of a shift where I've just included a lot more whole foods.
I have.
I'm on a bit of a mission at the moment just for my gut health to you know, eat a variety of plants and seeds and fruit and veg. So it's made me be a bit more adventurous and including a lot more whole foods while also you know, reducing my sugar. And it's interesting because I am about thirteen months postpartum and I was just telling my husband this morning because I got my period and I like, I kind of didn't even know it was coming. I didn't really get PMS signals and you know, I didn't get
any cramps or anything. And I said to him this morning, I think, you know, my little health kick is actually working quite well, because a huge signed for me if I'm you know, hashed, you know, in that healthy range, is my period isn't you know, causing me grief. And it's really nice because you know, it's not like physically I have seen to you know, too much change or anything like that, and it's not that that health kicker
was around that. But it's really nice to like notice these other things and being like, oh, yeah, like my period actually hasn't bothered me this month, or it's not painful, and it's not you know, I haven't got cloths and all these things that I'm like, oh, you know, eating whole foods. It's so simple, but just like switching the not like less process to more whole foods. It's like so simple. But I just thought that was like a great aha moment for me this morning.
I'm so excited for you and it's doesn't it just encourage you to want to keep going and to continue to nourish your body and the body doesn't have a voice, but it gives us feedback about our choices all the time. And when it gives us, you know, things that we struggle with or that might frustrate us or make us sad, it's feedback asking us to eat or drink or move or think or breathe or believe or perceive in a new way.
And sometimes it's a number of those areas.
But when you simply make a shift, and I know it doesn't feel simple for a lot of people, and obviously that's part of what I do, is try to help it be a lot simpler for people to focus on eating more whole, real food. You get all these benefits, because that's the most amazing barometer, isn't it for you? Just with those changes you've made.
Yeah, it's so interesting. And even like this morning, like when I got my well it's actually yesterday. When I got it, I went, ah, that's so interesting, like the whole previous week. I'm usually so bloated and tender, and I hold a lot of water. I'm someone who like water. Retention is like it happens to me every month, and I just noticed oneing and I was like, oh, I didn't have water retention. I wasn't really blow like that's so interesting, so and then I like clocked it. I
was like, hmm, that's really cool. So yeah, I'm glad. And now you're saying this, I'm like, it makes sense.
Doesn't it.
And again, if you stop and think about it, it really wasn't that long ago in human history where that was all we had available. And then obviously processed food became available, but you know, it was what you ate at birthday parties, not you know, not that long ago, whereas for a lot of people, ultra process foods have just become part.
Of every day, every day, and it's.
Yeah, and it's what we do every day that impacts on our health, it's not what we do occasionally.
And when people will say to me, oh, you know, what do you.
Think about, they'll ask me about a particular food, and you know, it'll often be a process food, and I'll say, well, for me, there's just no such thing as junk food. There's just junk and there's food, and as a human species, all we've ever eaten up until the recent past is food.
Yeah, so it just kind of makes sense.
It needs to be mostly, not always, but mostly what we in.
Well, let's get into some food questions. What is your thoughts and feelings on food intolerances.
So I think they're fairly common, and I think too, it's important to distinguish between a true food allergy and a food intolerance. So a true food allergy is an immune mediated response. If you want to get really geeky, the immune system makes a little substance called iminoglobulin E
or it's abbreviated to IgE. So if someone has anaphylaxis to something like peanuts, that's an IgE mediated immune response, and that's a true allergy, whereas food intolerance is The mechanisms that create them are really varied, but it doesn't involve that IgE mechanism that I just mentioned. So people might get skin responses like rashes, they might get gut symptoms.
That's really and whenever someone is experiencing a food intolerance, I always would work like a detective until the symptoms to the best of my ability, I would work until the symptoms were completely resolved. If we'd gone down lots of different food roads trying to get someone an outcome. I also would sometimes start to bring up stress and what stress really is for someone because when we're producing adrenaline, it diverts the blood supply that's normally really fantastic in
support of our digestive system. When we make adrenaline, it diverts the blood supply away from digestion to our periphery, to our arms and our legs, because adrenaline says our lives in danger, and we need a good blood supply and our arms and legs to powers to get out of danger. So with that shift in the focus of
the blood supply, digestion can be compromised. So I find that some people and they've got a food intolerance, they might get a bit of an improvement, but if it's not a complete improvement, I'll start, as I said, to talk to them about stress and what actually leads them as an individual to make stress hormones. Because I think we've got to a point in society where we understand that stress is part of our life, but because we think that it's just how life is, you feel quite
powerless to do anything about it. So back in twenty nineteen I wrote a book actually called The Invisible Load to try to change the conversation about stress so that people could actually work out what was stressful for them as an individual, Like, let's get really clear about this and let's see what we can do about it. And obviously there's very real and genuine stress in the world right now, and there's very real and genuine stress in people's lives, but there's also a huge amount of stress
we create for ourselves because of how we think. Because if you think about adrenaline, now, we're so fortunate, we're relatively safe. You know, we might make adrenaline when a car drives out in front of us and we have to slam on our brakes, but otherwise, the things that lead us to produce adrenaline block your ears.
You won't like this is caffeine.
Very sadly, adrenalinefine leads the body to make adrenaline, sorry to everyone listening, And I'm not saying don't drink it, but we can very easily over consume it anyway.
So the caffeine leads us to make adrenaline.
Our perceptions of pressure and urgency lead us to make adrenaline. And I put the word perception in there for a reason, and that's because, yeah, we forget that we can choose how we see things. Now, I'm not saying for a second that there aren't things that aren't urgent.
Of course there are.
If you get a phone call from school that your child's been injured, that's urgent.
You want to get there quickly.
But what a lot of us do is we make what we get to do each day full of stress and pressure and urgency, which sort of feeds into the third and final reason. I think we make adrenaline in modern times, and it's because we either conscious or unconsciously worry about what other people think of us. We seek approval and we have, but we often don't realize that's what we're doing. And we have traits as in tr A I T S. I feel like I don't say
that word. Probably we have traits behavioral traits that we we don't even know we want this, but we need other people to see us in a certain way. So on exercise that I get women to do at my women's health weekends, I'll say, how do you need other people to see you? And I get people to write
it down. And really common responses I've had over the years are things like I need people to see me as kind, thoughtful, selfless, or for other women, it's I need people to see me as competent, hard working, efficient, reliable, And it doesn't it doesn't matter what the words are. You just need to know what your words are. So then the next time you're stressed, pause and consider, am I perceiving someone is seeing me in the opposite way
to how I've identified I need to be seen? And I have found over the years, because most of the time the answer will be yes, you'll be silently worried that someone is thinking that you are fill in the blank. And I have found over the years that quite often when we have challenges with our digestive system, and we definitely have food intolerances, like it's very clear from the symptoms that you know, food X, Y, and Z is
a real problem for the gut. Sometimes when that doesn't feel like it's completely solved the problem, sometimes there might be another food. But I feel like what I've just said about stress is not examined enough because it's hard work, it's confronting work, but it's absolutely breathtakingly mind blowingly spectacular when you get some insights to drop in yourself about what's kind of been driving you to operate in a certain way and the gut here I have seen from
that inner work is like goosebumps. I've tears in my eyes right now. It's Yeah, it's been one of the best privileges of my life as a nutritional biochemistry.
I remember years ago when I was a law grad and you know, I was doing all the stuff on the side and doing my side hustle, and I was doing my plot, and I was going to gym every day, and I was catching the bus and I was seeing the snatch path because I was having mad gut issues. And we did a food intolerance test and I remember it came up that I was intolerant to every single food that I had eaten and like the last couple of weeks. So you know what she tested me for.
And that's what a lightbulb moment happened. And I'm like, I don't think it's the food. I think it's what's happening, you know, internally, And one hundred percent it had to do with the stressful life that I was leading and like everything, you know, I was trying to do it once. So I love that you answer that question like that.
Oh, I'm so glad. I've just seen it make a difference for people. Yeah, sometimes the food needs twaking, but we've got to look at Yeah that's true.
Well let's go, because I really I love like some of your work. That kind of first got me interested with you was when you were talking about rushing women syndrome, because I'm pretty sure I read a whole book on that. Is that correct?
Yeah?
I wrote, yeah, okay, good.
I was like, wait, is this the right book?
And this was literally at that period where I was like quite stressed, and my hormones were out a whack, my gestion was off, and all the things were happening, And I think this whole it's so interesting because I feel like, especially these days, like you know most you know, most women, and like my community who's listening, they're doing all the things me personally, I have a one year old.
I'm also I also work five days a week. I have all the things, I wear, all the hats, and we're like, no, we're here, We're going to do it all. But I do wonder sometimes you know, at what you know, at what consideration of our health is this all you know, putting pressure on I guess. So I would love for you to explain to my community what is rushing when women's syndrome and how we can really prioritize and manage
our health. Why we are trying to do it all because you know, the solution for me is not to do less, but to manage. So I love your insight on that.
Yeah. Gorgeous.
Yeah, So rushing women syndrome, it's important to acknowledge it's not a medical condition.
It was just literally the name I gave my book.
So and I've got it.
I've had lots of women say to me over the years, Oliba. I bought that book six years ago and it's still beside my bed. I haven't had time to read it. A lot of women have said that to me anyway. So I wrote it based on my clinical experience, based on observations with women's health and the challenges they were facing, with stress at the heart of it. And obviously since twenty eleven when I wrote the book, everything's only become more intense. Things have become easier, people feel like there
are even more demands on their time. So I wrote that book to help people understand what I refer to as sympathetic nervous system dominance, where we go into the fight or flight response and it's as if we get stuck there and we can't get out of it.
So the fight or.
Flight response, so it's the sympathetic nervous system that gets activated, and the opposite arm of that is called the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the calm rest, digest reproduce, calming arm of the nervous system.
So I call that one the green zone.
And the challenge for rushing women is that they get stuck in the red zone in the fight or flight response and they find it really difficult to get into the green zone. And when we always look at red zone with that stress response switched on, obviously you know it disrupts not just digestion like we've just talked about, but it can disrupt things like ovulation because the body links ovulation to potentially conception.
And if you're if you're so.
The hypothalamus, the region in the brain I talked about earlier about the thyroid. One of its jobs is to ask the question twenty four seven am I safe? And so it does that by looking out into your environment, checking for the availability of food, water, what's the temperature, all of that, But it also looks into your blood and when it sees high circulating levels of adrenaline, the only thing that means is our life's in danger. So then the hypothalamus says to the petuitry, Hey, our life's
in danger. You better tell the adrenal glands. So the petuitary then says to the adrenals, life's in danger. So the adrenals then start to churn out adrenaline and cortisol.
So when the.
Hypothalamus sees all of the threats to our life because of the high circulating stress hormones, just because we've got six hundred unopened emails and we're running late for fifty meetings today, it doesn't understand that that's what's happening. It literally thinks our lives in danger, and it doesn't want you to bring a baby into a world where it thinks you're not safe. Now, if you only go into that stressed out state, I don't know how many times,
but you know, occasionally, no problem. But the challenge for rushing women is that they were living in that place all the time. So then not only does fertility become a challenge or can doesn't have to, but it can become a challenge when this is going on. You can see that if ovulation is disrupted. We talked about it earlier. You then are way more at risk for loads of anxious feelings, allows a depressed mood, retention of fluid, thyroid problem,
and then all of the consequences of that. You know, your clothes get tight, your bowels become irregular, you can have a tendency to constipation, dry skin, dry hair, brittle nails, you know, on and on it goes, not to mention obviously lowsy energy.
So rushing woman syndrome describe.
The effects of always being in a hurry through that drive from all of those stress hormones. So what are all the systems that that disrupts? And then of course what can we do about it? And it was a big part of why. And I love that you said doing less wasn't your solution because that's not who you are, and it's important for us to be who we are. But it's recognizing that what is actually and it's what I touched on again earlier, it's recognizing what leads us there.
So are we rushing around because it's fulfilling to us? Or are we rushing around so that our mother or our father thinks that we're really like a really hard worker, or so that our husband thinks that or our partner thinks that. You know, we've got to look at what's driving us, because when we do things from a genuine place of caring or inspiration, it's really energizing. But when
we do things out of duty, it's really depleting. So I get women is a part where it's really coming from, and so that they can live more in alignment with who they really are, that on its own can make a massive difference.
You've kind of just described my whole journey. You know, it's really been my journey of figuring out, Yeah, what is the actual driver and basis for this side of me who just wants to be busy all the time, and then you know, then it having such detrimental things for my health and really trying to find that beautiful balance where I'm doing things I love and you know, things that feel very authentic and they're me and they're true to me, but also prioritizing my health and making
sure I am having a balanced approach because I feel like, yeah, very much, all the symptoms that you have, you know, my thyroid, you know, weight gain or weight loss and hefeli out and all those things like I have gone through and it's when I kind of come back to myself, I'm like, hang on, I need to get back to the basics. I need to figure out what's actually going
on here. Just has been yeah, very very important. So it's it's funny how you know much of what we're even talking about this whole episode is everything correlates together, and when something is disrupted, it's like it affects everything else. So yeah, I love that we're kind of doing a full circle.
Do you know the other thing that I would love to add to that is it's live. We have a you know, a lot you hear a lot of people talk and they'll say, oh, that happened to me, and then that happened to me. But I like to pose the question to people, and I feel that your evidence of this.
Georgie, through the work that you're doing well.
I like to pose the question to people and say, what if it was all for you? So what if all the challenges, what if the thought, you know, all the things you've just described, what if it was all happening for you? Because and I've got goosebumps right now saying that you probably wouldn't be sitting here with this extraordinary podcast if and this extraordinary community.
Had you not been through that.
So there are even though I'm not denying for a second, it's not challenging, it's not frustrating. There's not times when it's confusing or devastating or.
Really really hard.
But then there's also these really beautiful benefits. So it's sort of like if we shift out of the belief that life happens to us, to life happens for us, and you can sort of start see that life happens through us, which is I feel like this little circle conversation is kind of evidence of that. And then you start showing up for life. So then it's when you wake up up in the morning instead of oh my goodness, I have this and this and this and this to do,
even though that will still happen. Sometimes there's less of that.
It's a lot more.
This just blows my mind that I get to do this, and it just blows my mind that through challenges I've faced, I'm now sharing information with people that support them, uplift them, give them ideas about roads to God. And so you see the extraordinary ripple effect. And I'm obsessed with that. So I just had to say that because I take my hat off to you for sharing your journey and you know what you've experienced and then also how you've helped yourself.
It's wonderful.
Oh my god, Libby, I literally think we're soul sisters because literally two weeks ago, I got a tattoo that says life happens for me. What Because every time I'm going through a challenge or exactly what you're talking about, I'm like, Nope, even though it looks bleak right now
and it's like I can't I can't see it. I know this is going to be something that a challenge I can share with my community that is going to then help someone else or I am So you know, that is such a core belief of mine, of life happens for me. I've literally got it tattooed on my arm.
So I love I love that you said that because that is truly like with my health journey and everything I've been on, Like it's like I very much, I'm like, no, this is all happening, and just yeah, in day to day it's such a huge thing to get me through the hard times. And you know when things aren't going how you think they should, and just going I'm not gonna let this stress me. It's a huge de stressor and letting the weight off my shoulders because I'm like,
it's fine. Life happens for me. This is obviously happening for reason, and it's so fine, and I can like wear a smile and be like it's fine.
That is so special as well. I'm very born away. That's really special.
It's so cool that you went down there. I'm like, I've got a tattoo.
All right.
Well, let's get to a couple of kind of just a quick fire questions about food. So I thought these were really really great and I'm actually just really interested to hear what you say. So do you think dairy is bad for us? Ah?
I don't think it's a lot of people's friends, and I think a lot of people are unaware of that. So obviously it's you know, it's designed to raise a baby cow, a baby calf to be an adult cow. And so the rate of growth that a baby calf undergoes to become an adult in about a year, they go from about forty kilograms to about seven hundred kilograms. So it's really fast rate of growth, and that's not
because of anything the farmers do to the milk. It's just because of the natural growth hormones present, because ma ma cow thinks that that's what her baby needs. So I think a big difference between you know, giving that to humans who we don't grow at those rates. You know, we might be three kilograms when we're born and seventy kilograms when we're an adult. It's a really slow rate of growth. So that's my biggest concern with it. I do think too that for some people with gut problems,
that's behind them. And I think a lot of people think it's lactose and in my clinical experience for a lot of people, it's the caseine in the dairy foods, so one of the proteins in it. I've seen that a lot.
Interesting. Do you think it's bad if we drink coffee first thing in the morning, Yeah, it can.
Be for some people, can really disrupt their blood gluecose levels. So I'm never going to say, I'm never going to say don't do it. And I you know, if you look at Italian the way Italians live, they do it and they don't have big levels of insulin resistance, whereas I do worry though, like down Under with the way that a lot of people eat down under that, Yeah, it can be a real disruptor to blood glucose and set you up to crave sugar later in the morning.
So yeah, in saying all of that, though, I do know some people who do it and love it, relish it, feel fabulous doing it. It's not a big disruptive for them. So it's more about noticing how it leads you to feel.
Yeah, definitely, like listening to your own body. Going back to the milk question, so you know people are moving away from cow's milk, Is there a specific vigan or like a nut milk that you prefer or go for, because I know some, like a lot of like alternative milks can be so processed, so I'd love to hear your opinion on that.
Yeah, and they are, they all of them are processed.
Rice milk is probably the least process because it's just taken rice boiled it with water strained it. They add calcium carbonate to it and not much else. So rice milk is Yes, it's processed, but it's not as processed as some of the other milks. It's also very low reactivity for people with allergies and food sensitivities, so that can be a choice that Yeah, I think a lot of people have forgotten about one of my concerns with you know, the use of a lot of the nut milks.
You know, people have kind of gone crazy for almonds, and they might eat almonds, you know, raw almonds.
They might have almond butter.
Then they have a coffee with almond milk and it's just almoned almond almond. And even though almonds themselves have got lots of nutrients in them like vitamin E, magnesium, calcium, you know, they're really nutrient dense. When you eat a handful of almonds, they do also contain some Omega six fatty acids that can promote inflammation. So don't be scared about, you know, eating a handful of them. But if you're doing almond everything in your life, it can be too much a Mega six fat.
So like, do you have any milks with your coffee or you just go black black or you don't have coffee.
No, I have coffee sometimes black coffee. Rice milk is also really yummy in coffee.
Okay, noted, that's amazing. Thank you. Yeah, because I was on the oat milk train and then someone told me how processed it was, and I was like, fuck, so I stopped the I stopped the oat milk. So I just I think it's so interesting because you're like, oh, I'm so healthy, I'm eating oat milk. But it's like, oh, wait.
Yeah, I think too.
There's yeah, and some people digest cow's milk without a problem. But I think it's yeah, it's working out what suits you, but also having you know, recognition that, yeah, that all of those milk alternatives are pretty highly processed.
Good to know. I might start doing black coffee or like a long black night shades. Watch your opinion on these, because I know a lot of people avoid them.
So with night shades, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, et cetera. So some people avoid them. They originally were became a became a thing to avoid because people had joint pain, and then others noticed they might have gut problems from them. But I always encourage people to explore how they go with them. So for some people it might just be plants and tomatoes that cause bloating and they might be fine.
For example, with potatoes, so I try really hard to not sort of go blanket with you know, big statements
when people go low FODMAT. For example, I want to know which one of the fermentables in the food, which one of the FODMAPs is the problem for the person, or it might be a number of them over the You know, a low podmap way of eating is super super restrictive, and you're not really supposed to do it for more than four to six weeks, and ideally under the supervision of an experienced nutrition professional, because you can become deficient in a lot of nutrients when you stick
to low FODMAP. So I like to I always encourage people to do the trial reintroductions to see how they go with those foods night Shade family included, to see how you respond to the individual foods. So with low fodmap people sometimes it's literally just onion, garlic and apples, and if you avoid those, tummy's okay. Whereas you know, and that's not that restrictive compared to a true proper
low fat way of eating. So if people are choosing not to have night shades, I want to know why and if you know, and there might be a really valid reason or they might just think that all night shades affect their gut badly.
I'll usually ask them to get them to try the foods.
And talking of gut health, I know this is like you know this. I'm sure you could do a whole podcast on this, but just really quickly, because gut health is just you know, something I'm focusing on. Is there any sort of foods that you go for for gut health or any foods that you avoid for gut health.
Sugar is the biggest disruptor to gut health on the planet. So yeah, so there's actually when we eat sugar, and some massive reason I've made a course about this, When we eat refined sugar, it actually can kill a gut bacteria that helps to regulate a substance that drives or
that impacts significantly our fat absorption and utilization. And then when we go off sugar and we continue to eat fat, that little bacteria can grow back and regulate this substance that has such a massive impact on our fat metabolism and on fat absorption and fat utilization in the body. So sugar is one of the biggest disruptors to the gut microbiome. Preservatives are as well, and it makes sense when you think about it. So preservatives are only added
to process food, not for human health benefits. They're just there to make them sit on the shelf for longer and the hope someone buys them before they go off. And the way preservatives work is they stop bacterial growth. But we have between half a kilo and four kilos of bacteria living in our large intestine that do so much good stuff for us, help regulate our immune response, help.
To determine what calor is a worth. They have the biggest effect.
And the preservatives in food, we now understand they affect our gut microbiome in a really detrimental way. So just the preservatives you get, you know, just from homus or some kind of dip you buy in the supermarket, or dried fruit that's got the sulfur preservative on it. Wine, they're all really common sources of preservatives, and ideally we want to be preservative free so that we look after our gut microbiome.
Especially.
Wow, I never heard like someone talk about that, like preservatives like that. That's so interesting. Now you've got rethinking everything my fracture. I would love to talk more about your sugar Core. So tell us more about like what's in it and why you wanted to create it.
Oh thanks, Georgie, that's so kind. So it's a six week online course. It's called Shake Off Sugar, and I did it because over all the years I've worked with people, I feel that sugar is the thing they struggle to to only have in moderation or to not have it all. People can give up all sorts of other things, but sugar.
People will say they feel addicted to it. And I wanted people to understand that I do and help people to get off it because it's driving so many health problems, everything from hormone imbalances to insulin resistance, you know, the you know problems with our brain like brain fog, but also memory, you know, problems with memory. It's really significant what it's doing to us, and we're massively over consuming it. So it's a six week course. You get a daily
video from me with education. There's a beautiful supportive community forum in there as well. There's a food matrix. We can drag and drop and plan all your meals for the week if you want to. And there's three stages to it. The first stage is shake it off where we get where we get rid of it. And then the next stage is called shift, where we shift the taste buds. And I also help people to understand what's driving their emotional connection to sugar, because.
That's a big deal for a lot of them. And then the final stage, Yeah.
The final stage is substitute, where you know, what am I going to do going forward? So it's it's let's move into the future with a lot less sugar, all continuing to be sugar free.
Whatever's going to work for the person.
So I'm excited to help people literally shake it off because we need to.
Oh my god, that's incredible. I feel like I might do it. That sounds especially everything you've been saying about, you know, it being such a driver that disrupts so many things in our bodies, like I got health and our hormones, and if we can just like get the handle of that, that would then, you know, like you said, have like this beautiful ripple effect in everything in our health.
That said so beautifully, that's exactly what happens. And it blows my mind when I see that in action.
I love it so much.
That is incredible. So when does it start? How can people get a handle of it. How can I find it?
February and it's at doctor Libby dot com.
Amazing. And then are you running it after that or is it only for that six weeks?
No, it's it'll be run five times each year, so you can go to the website to doctor Libby dot com and see when the next intake is after that.
Okay, amazing. And before we go, Libby, I just want to say a big thank you for you know, chatting to us and telling us all your health insights. It's it's been such a great time and I feel like I'm just clocking everything. I would love to end this interview just with a couple of questions. We ask our guests, what is the best advice you have ever received?
Oh, that's a lovely question. To let yourself have what you already have. And what I mean by that is we spend a lot of time focused on things that are missing or things that are wrong. And when you talk to people who are dying and you ask and what they're going to miss, they say the simplest things, the night sky or their partner space or the smell of freshly cut lemon. And we have all of that
right now. So I think we need to let ourselves have what we already have because even when things are genuinely tough or challenging or painful, there is also still a huge amount of beauty that coexists with that. It's just that when things are tough, we don't focus on those things. So let yourself have what you already have, because I think that's what joy is all about, and joy gives us a irreplaceable depth of energy.
Oh, I can just see a tears face across from me, and we both want to griy. They're so sweet. That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that, and honestly and so and lastly, something that we ask all our guests too is what is one of your core beliefs that you hold close to your heart? So just for an example, if you don't know what car beliefs are, much like my tattoo of life happens for me, which I now know is one of yours too, But what's another beautiful core belief that you have?
Love is all there is?
Oh, Libby, we love you. It was so beautiful, loved.
I love this chat.
I've loved the questions and you've been incredibly generous letting me rab it on with all my answers.
But thank you so much, Georgie.
This has been so so insightful and such a joy. Thank you so much. Guys. Make sure you go check out Doctor Libby. We'll put all the links and everything out in the description. Make sure you check out that sugar course. And yeah, just thank you so much for your time. We really do appreciate it.
I loved being here with you. Thank you so much, Georgie.
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Rise and Conquer podcast. If you enjoyed it and want more, come connect with us on Instagram at Riseinconquer dot podcast and join our Facebook discussion group, a Rise and Concer podcast community. We're an independent podcast and we have a small team, so we do appreciate your time
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