Hello hole health participants and welcome to Week Four. We are in the final week. And this week is all about hormones, which is definitely one of my most favorite subjects to talk about. First, I want to recap what you are going to be receiving this week. So there are handouts on how to avoid xeno estrogens. And I'm going to be talking in detail about that during this webinar today.

Also handouts on hormone balancing tips. So there's 10 tips in there on how to get your hormones balanced and what to do step by step, which I'm also going to be talking about in this webinar. Of course, your week four menu plan done for you grocery list and awesome recipes are included. And finally, a handout called the next steps. Now it would be great if you could wait until the very end to read that one and I'll be doing another webinar on Wednesday. To go from here what to do once this awesome four week journey together is done.

So I want to do this webinar for you. I'm going to start by sharing my screen and getting into the PowerPoint, and we can get started. So the hormone talk, like I mentioned a few seconds ago, hormones are definitely one of my most favorite subjects to talk about. I fell in love with the subject of hormones very authentically early on in my practice when I had more and more patients coming in with hormone issues. And so as a result of continued patients coming in with issues, I had to really embark upon learning more and more in detail about the different aspects of hormones and how to get things balanced. So let's jump in and start this hormone journey.

So what are hormones? The North American culture is currently experiencing alarmingly high rates of hormonal imbalances. And these imbalances are actually setting the stage for a cultural shift towards disorders of the endocrine or hormone system to become seemingly normal. So what I mean by that is that it's become so common for people to have hormone imbalances, that it's almost considered to be normal by a lot of medical practitioners. So you have all sorts of people struggling with hormone issues, and it's really getting brushed under the carpet. Because it's so common, it's kind of become the norm for our current population.

But I am here to tell you this is not normal. In fact, when I was doing my PhD in endocrine dysfunction, I learned about several other cultures that don't have hormone issues at all. All. In fact, in there's other cultures where when women go into menopause, there's no negative side effects attached to that at all. There's no symptoms. There's no words in their vocabulary for things like hot flashes, night sweats, libido issues.

In fact, there's a celebration that happens when a woman goes into menopause. And specifically, I'm talking about the Mayan Indian culture. And in this culture, when a woman goes into menopause, there's a ceremony that happens and she's basically crowned a wisdom filled elder of the village, and there's a huge party and there's nothing negative. So all that happens is she stops menstruating. And there's nothing negative associated with that. Well, in stark contrast in our society, met a menopause is almost become medicalized to the point where it's treated like a medical condition.

And I want to explain to you why menopause and lots of other hormone issues, and have become medicalized and why they're so prevalent in our society today. Let's start off by learning a little bit about what hormones do. So hormones regulate our mood, energy levels, stress, our sex drive, sleep cycles and metabolism, or our ability to lose weight. Basically, hormones are these sophisticated chemical messengers, and they form the body's communication highway, allowing different parts of the body to interconnect in what I would consider to be a symphony. And every biological process within the body relies upon the hormones that are produced within the body's hormone glands or endocrine glands. So this Symphony that happens even if one player is out of tune, it can throw off the entire world.

Orchestra. So how are hormones become out of balance? What causes someone to have issues in their hormone system? Definitely chronic stress is one of the biggest ones. And the adrenal glands, which we talked about last week, are central to help and especially when it comes to hormones, and at different points in our lives, the adrenal glands really have to step up to the plate and take over the rules of other glands that go into retirement. Specifically, I'm referring to menopause.

And so when the ovaries go into semi retirement, the adrenal glands have to step up and produce some of the estrogen and progesterone that the ovaries were previously producing. So chronic long term stress can absolutely throw our hormones out. And when I do hormone testing, I commonly see that that's one of the most common causes Have all hormone issues is I will look at someone's hormone lab results and see this trend over and over and over again. So maybe the person has PMS or fibroids or endometriosis or infertility or a thyroid issue or weight issues or menopause issues or mood disorders. very commonly, the thread through that is that there is adrenal issues, coordinate trician. So we need proper nutrients in order to form the hormones that we need to produce.

To be in balance, food sensitivities, food allergies, these can really throw the hormones off. If you are eating a food that you're allergic to, or sensitive to, then the body will go into fight or flight every time you eat that food. Last week, you learned the different impacts of what happens when you go into fight or flight and it throws off this cascade of hormone imbalance. imbalances in the good bacteria in our stomach. Specifically when there's an over growth of yeast that happens that's called Candida. And this Candida can cause all sorts of hormone issues.

Poor sleep, or shiftwork, birth control pills. Even if you were on the pill 10 years ago, it can still be disrupting your hormone all these years later. Being overweight or underweight. Really, we need the right amount of fat, not too little and not too much to keep our hormones in balance, liver toxicity. So if our major detox organ isn't functioning optimally, then our hormones can really pay the price, blood sugar imbalances, excessive alcohol, too much exercise or too little exercise, even our thought patterns. So negative thought patterns can greatly influence our hormones, as well as a history of trauma and exposure to hormone disrupting chemicals.

So these hormone disrupting cancer are called endocrine disruptors. And by the time the average North American woman has completed her morning routine, she has exposed her face body and hair to over 126 chemicals from 12 different products and these chemicals disrupt our hormones. So there you are in the morning, getting ready for work and doing your hair and makeup and putting on your deodorant and your lotion and you're getting exposed to all sorts of different chemicals. And just that alone can totally disrupt our hormones. In this webinar today you are going to learn how to replace the things that you're using how to lessen your exposure. So these endocrine disruptors are called vino estrogens, and xeno.

Estrogens are not found in nature. These are not naturally occurring. They are man made toxins that are estrogen imposters and they mimic that The effects of the real hormone, but they overstimulate ourselves so that things become quite out of control. There are 70,000 registered chemicals known as xeno, estrogen or estrogen disruptors. So there are 70,000 chemicals that are known to disrupt our hormones. And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which is a really big agency 60% of what you put on your skin enters your bloodstream and every organ within 26 seconds.

So whatever you're using, you really want to think to yourself what I eat this and if you wouldn't eat it, then you shouldn't put it on your body, because it's likely to end up in your blood and every organ within a very short amount of time from being exposed to it. The average North American contains about 100 48 synthetic toxic chemicals stored in the body. And only 11% of the almost 11,000 chemicals that are used in cosmetics have ever even been tested for safety. So there's really not a lot of regulation going on and in these different organizations. So where are these, you know, estrogens lurking Well, they're in plastics, pesticides and herbicides that are put on our foods, dry cleaning agents, feminine hygiene products, non organic meat, dairy and produce food preservatives, non organic coffee and tea. In fact, coffee is one of the highly, most highly sprayed crops.

So if you're drinking coffee on a regular basis, the best gift you can give to yourself is to switch to an organic coffee, skincare and cosmetics. sunscreens are really bad source of xenoestrogens, perfumes, deodorizer and air fresheners. Also nail polish and nail polish removers, dryer sheet fabric softeners, detergents, these put petrochemicals right onto your skin, birth control pills and hormone replacement. So the goal is to go natural. And I'm going to be going room by room in this webinar to teach you how to do that in your handout on how to avoid xeno estrogens. That's a really great thing to follow along during this webinar.

And in that handout, you will find that there are recommendations for different companies that you can use alternatives to things that I'm telling you to not use. So I'm not going to leave you empty handed and just tell you what not to do. I'm also going to tell you what to do. So some people will want to do a one by one approach where as you run out of laundry today You replace it with something better as you run out of your mascara you replace it with a better one. Some people will want to do the garbage bag approach where you just get a big black garbage bag, turf it all and start over. So go at a pace that works for you and your budget and what you're comfortable with.

So tips to reduce your exposure to xeno. Estrogen Of course we want to go more organic. The most important things are meat, dairy and the Dirty Dozen and I am going to give you a slide and you do have that information in your handouts from week one as well. So the Dirty Dozen are basically the 12 most highly sprayed fruits and vegetables and the goal with that is to make sure that you are choosing organic when it comes to those 12 fruits and vegetables. The other ones are not having sprayed or their fruits and vegetables that simply don't absorb the pesticides as much as the ones on the Dirty Dozen list. Go as natural as possible when it comes to your household cleaning products, laundry, cleaning supplies, air fresheners, etc.

We're going to get into all of this stuff, skincare products, reduce and limit your plastics as much as possible. So here we are with the Dirty Dozen and the clean 15 so you can see the places that you really want to invest your money into as far as organics go, our peaches, apples, peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots and pears. So when you're purchasing these 12 items, try and go organic as much as possible. The Clean 15 are a group of fruits and vegetables. That are considered to be safe in the non organic form. So this is really great information, just by switching to the Dirty Dozen in the organic form, you can literally reduce your pesticide exposure by up to 97%.

That's pretty big, so it's definitely worth it. So according to the Environmental Defense, what you should be trying to do is avoid these 11 toxic ingredients. So this is in your handout. This would be great to kind of maybe take a snapshot of on your phone and have this list with you at all times. So the next time you're buying laundry detergent, or makeup or lotion, that you check the ingredient list for these things. These are the most toxic ingredients.

And remember these things enter into our body and into every organ within 26 seconds of exposure. So let's Go room by room and we're going to start in the kitchen with the pantry. So avoid canned foods that are lined with BPA. So I don't think it's practical to say never buy another canned food again. But you can definitely choose a healthier version of canned foods and that simply by choosing things that do not have, they're lining laden with BPA. And in your handout, I have given you some brands to choose from.

Avoid processed and packaged foods and choose packaged goods that are in glass or paper containers. So rather than like really think about this, when you're buying something, if it's in a bag, in a box in a bag, and there's all sorts of packaging with it, number one that's leaving a huge imprint on our world. toxic levels, so there's different areas in the world that are Basically collecting islands of plastics. So we really want to reduce the amount of plastics that we're contributing to this. So really consider what you're buying as far as packaging goes and not to mention that a lot of things that are packaged in in plastics, the plastic BPA is leaching into the food that we're actually consuming. So when you're purchasing grains, nuts, dried fruits or beans, do try and get it from the bulk section in the store and stored in glass or stainless steel containers.

And in the fridge, try to avoid as much as you can all pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Choose organic locally grown in in season foods. This is great to do in the summer and fall when in everything's in abundance, and for winter and spring and choose as best as you can. Can organic and local and heal and thoroughly wash non organic fruits and vegetables. That's another way to really reduce your exposure and really try and buy hormone free meats and dairy products to avoid all the additional hormones and pesticides. So if you're following along in your handout, you will see that in each of these sections, I've given you brands and places that you can order and choose from no matter where you are in the world listening to this webinar, cooking and plastics so please do not shoot food in plastic containers.

What happens when you do that is that the radiating rays from the microwave will Leach the chemicals from the plastic directly into your food. Now there you've gone and you've made gone to the effort of making some homemade food and then you're literally nuking it and turning it into something toxic. I'm microwaving it or heating it up in a plastic container. So only use glass containers when eating food, avoid styrofoam containers as they also contain BPA and avoid Teflon coated nonstick pens, which when they get overheated, reduce endocrine disrupting hormones. So you go and make a nice stir fry in your non coat or in your coated nonstick pan and all of the chemicals from that leach into your food. Food storage containers, so store your food in glass ceramics or stainless steel food storage containers that give you some places in your handout where you can order some of these things from some plastic wrap is made from PVC, which contains several types of xeno estrogens and other endocrine disrupters and should never actually touch the food.

So sometimes you can use plastic wrap and put it onto the top of a bowl because it's not actually touching your food which It's okay. But if you're actually wrapping something like a sandwich or a snack in that plastic wrap, and that's actually going to leach into the food and don't need plastic containers, especially you're drinking water in the sun. This is a big one. I see this all the time in my practice when I'm doing hormone testing, women and men will come back with really high levels of estrogen. And I'll ask them, like there has to be a way that they're getting exposed to all this estrogen, their body can't be producing that much on their own. So the first thing I ask them is, do they drink water from a plastic bottle and nine times out of 10?

The answer is yes. So if you're purchasing wat plastic water bottles and drinking out of those, not only is that leaving a huge imprint on the planet, but it's also leaching chemicals into your blood, which is causing your hormones to go to balance. So make sure that you buy A stainless steel or a ceramic or a safe glass bottle to refill your water bottle with and never refilled plastic water bottles and avoid freezing water in plastic bottles to drink later, a lot of people will do that in the summer they'll put their de Sani water bottle into the freezer and then take it with them as they go. They're out there biking, they're at the beach during the summer. And as the day goes, it slowly melt and then they drink it, but when it's freezing they either it's the same thing that happens when it gets heated is that the chemicals will Leach right into the water.

Household Products, so use chemical free, biodegradable laundry soap and avoid dryer sheets. Try adding a half a cup of baking soda to the rinse cycle for much softer laundry that works really well. Use chemical free household cleaning products. One of my favorite companies is norwex and in your handout, you will see a link that you can use to order norwex products from norwex is all about cleaning without chemicals. And so they have all sorts of cleaning supplies but they also have really great cleaning cloth and the cloth are actually really useful because they have silver woven through them. And the silver helps to kill off bacteria, virus and funguses.

So really, when it comes to norwex, oftentimes you can just get away with using the cloth and not having to use any cleaning products at all. But they do have a great cleaning paste which is awesome that takes any stain out of anything. That stuff never ceases to amaze me. And they have laundry soap and all sorts of things. So make sure you check out that link. Some of the proceeds from the purchase of products from those links go towards the Dr. Coby Scholarship Fund.

So I have a scholar Ship fund that is used for people that need health care but can't afford it. So that's a really great way to purchase products through and to be able to give back. So choose chlorine free products and unbleached paper products. And another great thing to do is put a chlorine filter on showerheads and filtered drinking water. So especially in some municipalities as the one that I live in, and Maple Ridge is notorious for flooding our water with chlorine, and that chlorine goes right into our body and it can actually disrupt our thyroid and cause all sorts of skin conditions. health and beauty products, so many people don't have the resources to just throw away all of their makeup.

But a great thing to do is start with the products that you use the most often and replace those first. So things like a moment dreiser or mascara, face wash deodorant, makeup, shampoo conditioner toothpaste to name a few. So here's some tips to help you get started. So avoid creams and cosmetics that have toxic chemicals and estrogenic ingredients such as parabens and chloride. minimize your exposure to nail polish and nail polish removers. And just as a side note, and nail polish can actually cause all sorts of allergic reactions.

I know for me, I discovered I was allergic to nail polish when I started developing xima around my eyes and my eyelids and it took me a long time to put the connection together. But every time I got my nails done, what would happen is my eyes would basically swell shut and then I would have really painful itchy exuma on my eyelids and underneath my eyes for months and I could not figure out what it was. Finally I figured out it was nail polish so Fortunately, there's lots of great natural nail polishes. Use naturally based fragrances such as essential oils rather than actual perfumes. Use chemical free soaps and toothpaste. Choose organic and natural feminine hygiene products.

Choose natural toothpaste and chemical free hair products. So if you go on to my website on my online store, and you click on categories and you go into skincare, we have a whole bunch of really great products. We have totally natural and organic shampoos and conditioners. We have face creams and everything you need to go completely organic. One of the companies that I use is called 100% pure and you can actually order makeup off their website as well and I can attest to the fact that makeup is wonderful and completely natural. Some of the great products that we Carry on one product line called Ella spa, which is wonderful facial products.

I cannot believe how amazing those products are. And they're totally natural, chemical free, no z, no estrogens. in them. We have another line called a TiVo that has a lot of great body care products and bath products and room sprays. So one of their rooms sprays, I actually use that as like my perfume. And it's just made up of different essential oils and smells wonderful.

So there's some great things to choose from on the online store. So there's some tools that I wanted to bring your attention to, that will help you to determine if what you're using is actually toxic to your body. So there's three different apps that you can download. The first one is from the environmental defenses, green beauty guide, so you can check out the ingredients of your products to determine if they contain any of the top 10 body care topics. And then the Environmental Working Groups skin deep database app, it actually allows you to scan and search products for their toxicity ratings and find better alternatives. Just awesome.

And then you can download the Canadian app called think dirty shop clean. And this app also scans products and ranks them according to their toxic ingredients corresponding to their dirty meter. And then it often provides a cleaner alternative as well. So this is actually kind of fun to do when you're out shopping, you can scan a product and then it will give you a reading and so three or below is safe, four to six needs replacement with a better product once it runs out. And then seven to 10. Ranking needs immediate replacement, especially if you're pregnant.

So those are some really great tools to help you clean up the exposure in your life. Now the thing is, is that You don't want to approach us in a fear based way. So I always think, okay, whatever I can do in my home is what I'm going to focus on. So in my home, I use all norwex cleaning supplies, I use all of the products from my clinic for my beauty care regime. So shampoo, conditioner, makeup, skincare products, body care products back to your products. We don't have any chemicals in our home, I follow all of this guidelines that I'm giving you.

So I know that I am I'm in this with you, I'm not telling you to do anything that I'm not already doing. But then when I step out outside of my home, I just don't worry about it. Like I don't, I'm not going to be fear based. I'm not afraid of getting exposed to things outside of my home. I'm not totally crazy about this. I just like to keep everything in my home as natural as I can.

And then whatever happens outside of my home happens because, you know, we don't want to live in a fear based world. And the more we can do in our home, the better and our body should be able to handle a little bit of exposure in uncontrolled environments. So it all comes back to our liver. So all of these toxins that I'm talking about, can get stored in your liver and end up causing liver toxicity. And you learned throughout this course I've talked about the liver quite often, that it's all about the liver. If your liver isn't functioning properly, then there's all sorts of things that can happen.

So your liver is your primary organ of detoxification. So it detoxifies drugs, excess hormones, nutrients and toxins. Anything that impairs your livers function, or ties up the detoxifying function will result in excess estrogen levels. So the liver is what's responsible for getting rid of all of that The excess estrogen. So these xeno estrogens that accumulate in your body, it's your livers responsibility to get rid of them. But if there's too much xeno estrogens or there's too many other things that the livers having to do, there's only so much that it can do and things can can start backing up into your system.

How do you know if your livers toxic? Well, a couple of webinars ago, you did the detoxification questionnaire to determine your status of toxins. But some of the symptoms of liver toxicity include low energy, digestive symptoms, foggy thinking, weight gain, stiff aching, weak muscles, slow wound healing, elevated cortisol, blood sugar imbalances, sleep disturbances, easy bruising, fluid retention and skin condition. So acne exists psoriasis, these are all linked to liver toxicity. So if you're struggling with any of these things, you might have too many toxins in your body that your liver just isn't taking care of. So if that's the case, then I want to teach you how to detoxify your liver.

So there's some things that you can do on a regular basis that help which I think is one of the best things to do. If we're constantly detoxifying. That's the best way to approach things. You can also do what's called a liver cleanse a couple of times a year, but it's important to always be doing daily detoxification. And you can do that simply by choosing some specific foods in your diet on a regular basis. So start your day with half of a lemon squeezed into hot water, that will really stimulate your liver, and all of your digestive organs to really kind of have a jump Start on the day.

Your goal is to consume half your body weight in ounces of filtered water each day. We talked about water a couple of webinars ago, and hopefully by now in week four, you've reached your daily goal of water drinking, consuming liver cleansing foods on a daily basis. So what you want to do is choose fruit foods from this list every single day. So that would include things like beets, bitter greens. Bitter greens are basically what my uncle refers to as parking lot wheat, which I think is really funny. But when you go to the store, you can buy those bins of organic wild greens.

And in there there's a mixture of different greens and those are called bitter greens. And those specific greens help to stimulate your digestive system and stimulate your liver to work better. Apple lemons, flax seeds. flax seeds should always be consumed in the ground form garlic, cabbage and cruciferous vegetables. So the cruciferous vegetables include things like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, so the dark leafy greens are all cruciferous vegetables. And there's even some herbs that you can take on a regular basis to really help your liver to detox things per bullet properly.

Things like dandelion, artichoke, milk thistle, tumeric and burdock root. One of my favorite products is called bio live x, and it's a great liver detoxifier. I love it because you can take one a day to just gently daily cleanse your liver or you can take it for a shorter amount of time at a dose of three times a day to really do targeted liver cleansing. For the liver, you really want to support your digestion with probiotics and digestive enzymes. So if you're identifying with a lot of those liver symptoms, and you scored high on the detox questionnaire, then really making sure that your digestive system is working properly because the liver is part of that system. So the more you can do to support all the organs of digestion, the more the help the liver gets a great cleanse to do a couple of times a year.

It's called the Maui cleanse. This is one of my cleanses. I love this cleanse so much. It's so easy. It's 10 days long, and people absolutely love this cleanse. Sometimes when you do a cleanse, it kind of puts you into the kitchen so you end up cooking more and more food and it's kind of a lot of work.

Well the Maui cleanse is the opposite. Basically, you're drinking a detox smoothie. A couple times a day, consuming one easy to prepare meal, and then one to two snacks from the snack list. And you're taking the bio live x at a dose of three times a day and some extra fiber. So really easy to do. It's a great way to prepare for a trip somewhere if you want to shed some pounds before you're going and also on the flip side to do when you get back from a trip.

And this is one of the reasons that it's called the Maui cleanse because I developed it when I was going to Maui a few years ago and I thought oh, I want to like do a cleanse before I go so that I can have lots of energy and feel really great once I get there. And it worked so well for me that I put it into a proper cleanse form and started giving it to my patients and the reviews that we get on it are absolutely fantastic. And it's something that you can do Once you've done it once, then you can hop back onto it whenever you feel the need to do it. estrogen dominance is basically I'd say the top underlying cause to hormone imbalances. So as our hormones go out of balance, it's often estrogen that is dominating and accumulating and you can see why with all of these xeno estrogens in our body.

But estrogen dominance occurs when the estrogen levels in the body are not equally balanced by progesterone. Between the ages of 35 and 50. There's a 75% reduction in progesterone and only a 35% reduction in estrogen. And 50% of women over the age of 35 are estrogen dominant, so half of us are estrogen dominant. So what causes estrogen dominance? Well, we don't always all be late.

Every single month between the ages of 35 and 52. And even if you don't, obviously, you're still going to get your period. So you may not know that you didn't oscillate. And when you don't oscillate, your total production of progesterone starts slowly going down. So that can cause the estrogen to slowly start accumulating, of course, exposure to xeno estrogens as they accumulate in your body, hormone replacement therapy or birth control pills can cause estrogen dominance, ovarian cysts can cause that stress, obesity, so we have estrogen receptors in our fat cells, and our fat actually produces estrogen. And so the more fat we carry, the more we're producing liver toxicity so if your liver isn't properly getting rid of the excess estrogen is going to accumulate in your body and deficiencies of basics and maintenance.

As well as drinking too much coffee. So how do you know if you have estrogen dominance? These are some of the symptoms or conditions that are linked to estrogen dominance, severe PMS, and it doesn't even have to be severe it can be moderate as well. But any form of increasing PMS is usually linked to estrogen dominance, depression, anxiety, hot flashes or night sweats in menopause, cycle changes infertility, osteoporosis, sleep disturbances, thyroid issues, weight gain, migraines, dry skin, fluid retention, decreased libido, fibromyalgia and even breast cancer. So how do we balance estrogen? Well, we learned earlier about going organic as much as possible and that is definitely true for getting rid of excess estrogen Consuming cruciferous vegetables on a regular basis will also help you just learned about that in the liver and the same tip is true for getting rid of excess estrogen.

You really want to increase your fiber intake. So consuming something like meta fiber, which is a great fiber supplements available on my online store. This really targets estrogen and it helps to pull it out of your body, limiting your caffeine consumption. If you're consuming more than one cup of coffee a day, then you might be getting exposed to too much caffeine which can cause estrogen accumulation. And you can take estrogen detoxifiers two of the most popular ones are called dim and estro Vantage. And these are great because they really help to detoxify specifically harmful estrogens from our body.

So if you have fibrocystic breast or PMS Any of those symptoms or conditions, then demin estro Vantage are really going to help to pull those out of your system. But it's really important that you don't just take a supplement and don't do any lifestyle changes. The nutrition and lifestyle changes are very important. The supplement will help to speed the process. So PMS, there's actually four types of PMS. So if you are experiencing PMS or you have a sister or a daughter or a friend that struggles with this, then listen up and trying to discern what kind of PMS you or your loved one has.

So PMS, A stands for anxiety and it affects 65 to 75% of women. It's the most common type of PMS. The symptoms associated with this our anxiety, irritability, severe mood swings, anger, insomnia, feeling overwhelmed and sensitive to rejection. PMS C stands for cravings, and this affects 35% of women. And the symptoms include cravings, increased appetite, headaches, fatigue, dizziness and even heart palpitations. PMS h stands for hydration, and this affects half of us 50% of women.

Symptoms include water retention, breast tenderness, abdominal bloating and weight gain. Women can gain up to 10 pounds of fluid during their menstrual cycle, which is common but not normal. So we don't want to accept that as this is how it is for me. That's a sign of an imbalance. All of these symptoms are signs of imbalances that can be rectified and PMS D is depression. which affects 25 to 35% of women.

Symptoms include depression, forgetfulness, confusion, lethargy, sluggishness, tiring, easy withdrawal, disinterest in usual activities and insomnia. So hormone balancing tip to end PMS, definitely one of the biggest things that you can do is eliminating sugar. Just doing that can often completely take care of PMS symptoms. That's a really powerful tip to do. And I've been talking about sugar throughout this whole process, and you can see how it affects all the different systems in our body. Reducing salt, really important so that you don't retain all of that water increasing your fiber.

Exercising for 30 minutes three to five times per week has shown to be very beneficial. For PMS, magnesium, supplementing with magnesium 250 milligrams to 500 milligrams every day throughout the whole cycle very helpful for PMS as well as vitamin D six, and a dose of 50 milligrams to 100 milligrams. An evening primrose oil is great if you're experiencing breast tenderness. This is very, very effective. And you want to take 3000 milligrams for a month, and then you can do a maintenance dose of 1000 milligrams. One of my favorite products is called Luna and we have two Luna products.

We have Luna green and Luna orange on my online store. And the una green is taken on a regular basis and it helps to prevent PMS. It regulates the cycle. It's very, very effective. Maybe one of our most popular products, their slogan is 60 days to better hormonal health. So after two Taking it for a couple of months, you will notice much better periods that una orange is used just during your period if you're having heavy flow and cramping, so you can take it for a few days of the month, and it will really help with those issues.

Five HTP is really helpful if you are struggling with the pm s type D which is depression. So taking 50 to 300 milligrams per day the dose is very individual. So you can start with 50 and slowly increase and you can take it throughout the month or you can take it the week before your period starts and see how you do with that very helpful for depression. Men a pause. So menopause can occur between the ages of 45 to 55. But the average age is 52.

What happens is estrogen production declines by as much as 65% while progesterone can declined by as much as 99%. So you can see even in menopause, you can end up with estrogen dominance. The symptoms of menopause are vast. And we know based on what I said at the beginning of this webinar, that there shouldn't actually be any symptoms other than stopping your period. So all of these symptoms have become so common that we accept them as normal, but you do not have to suffer through menopause. There are many things that you can do to go through menopause without having any issues whatsoever.

Some of the most common issues and struggles that women suffer with include hot flashes and night sweats, mood swings, anxiety and depression. Insomnia is a big one. So many women with menopause can fall asleep but they wake up maybe an hour later and continue to wait the entire night. Or maybe they can even go back to sleep by gentle dryness, painful intercourse that goes along with that vaginal dryness, crashing fatigue, difficulty concentrating, mental confusion and poor memory. Ringing in the ears, breast tenderness. Of course, there's changes in your period as you approach menopause, loss of libido weight gain, women will say I get I woke up and I feel like I gained 20 pounds overweight, an increase or a decrease in headaches, tingling in the extremities, hair loss or thinning increase in facial hair and aching joints.

It's like a menopausal arthritis that can come on. So the main things that you want to do if you're struggling with menopause is optimize your nutrition. So you really won't get very far with any of the others. Other recommendations unless your nutrition has been optimized. So hopefully now that we're in week four, you've been eating really well for three weeks and, and that's definitely a checkmark on your list. Supporting the adrenals is very important for menopause, I mentioned that the adrenals have to step up to the plate and produce some of the estrogen and progesterone that the ovaries are no longer producing.

So go back and watch last week's webinar again and go through the steps to really make sure that your adrenals are functioning properly and use not natural remedies to support your hormones. If you are experiencing hot flashes or night sweats, please try estro Berra. So Esther Rivera is on our online store. It is a rhubarb extract. It doesn't contain any hormones. It's completely safe.

It works in I'd say 90% of women. It's absolutely amazing for hot flashes and night sweats. sem guard is great. It's like an it's like a menopausal multivitamin. So it has all the different herbs in there to really help to support you going through that process. If you're struggling with energy and libido, then maca is a really good product to use.

And if you just need some overall balance, then progesterone men and Astro men really helped to bring balance to the system. Oftentimes in my practice, I will use something called bio identical hormones to help replace deficiencies. This is done through testing and once we determine what the levels are, then we will use plant based bioidentical hormones to really get things back into balance quite quickly. The difference between bioidentical hormones and hormone replacement is that the five identical hormones are number one natural and plant based. And number two, they're the exact same model You'll that's already in your body. So there's no safety concerns when they're used properly.

Andrew pause. So this is for the men and the men in our lives. So Android pause is basically male menopause. And it is a thing. It basically starts around the age of 50. But by the age of 30, testosterone slowly starts to decline.

So from the age of 30, on men will lose 1% of their total testosterone each year. So by the time people men reach the age of 50, total testosterone can be 50% less than they were at age 25. And estrogen dominance can occur in men too, which impairs the action of testosterone. So all of these things we've been talking about apply to men as well. They just like US accumulate harmful Dino estrogens in their body, and then all of these, you know, estrogens impair the action of their testosterone. So the symptoms of andropause, I think of the male menopause patient as the grumpy man syndrome.

So he's sitting on the couch, he's become quite lazy. He's probably gained 20 or 30 pounds, especially around the midsection. He's not super motivated anymore. Like he knows he should mow the lawn but he'll get there eventually, maybe he's become somewhat of a procrastinator. He has less of a wick, so he's a little bit more moody and irritable than he was before, a little more forgetful. And there's definitely a fatigue going on, or a loss of a sense of well being.

There's changes in hair growth and skin quality. Definitely a diminished libido. He might be achy and stiff. There's even night sweats that can occur, his sleep is no longer as good as it used to be premature aging and decrease in muscle mass. So again, we take all these symptoms as well, I'm just getting older, this is normal. But what's happened is the hormones are out of balance.

So they need to come back into balance so that the symptoms can go away. So these are tips to boost testosterone. So exercise and weight loss will promote testosterone by helping to lower estrogen. So we learned that our fat produces estrogen as well as receive estrogen so the less fat there is, the less estrogen there is. Eliminate sugar sugar will spike insulin, which will have an effect on testosterone, reduce and manage stress Otherwise known as supporting the adrenals. So the adrenal glands also produce testosterone.

So as the testicles slow down on their production of testosterone, the adrenal glands need to step up to the plate just like in menopause. So it's really important that men address their adrenal issues if their adrenals are working well and they won't be having any problems with testosterone. And there's some great testosterone promoting Herbes and nutrients. maca is one of them as well as nettle root. You'll him be puncture vine, horny goat need Yes, that really is the name of the herb, supplemental vitamin d3 really essential sick think and selenium. So to have the best hormone boosting testosterone products are testo plus and libido stem These are on our online store and our male patients really find them very, very helpful.

And when we're doing retesting, we're seeing levels of testosterone well into the normal range after taking these products for around three to six months. That's really great to see that proof. So, this is the best place to start is getting tested. Now that you've learned all about the adrenals, and you've learned about all the different hormones in the body, really the best thing to do is to uncover your individual imbalances if you're struggling in this area. So the test that I do is called a complete female or male hormone panel and includes all of the adrenal hormones. All of the thyroid hormones, which you learned about in the last webinar, there's four that are really important to test.

It also includes progesterone, estrogen and testosterone. This test is done through A combination of saliva and blood. So the blood will test all of the thyroid hormones, but the saliva will test everything else. The reason for this is that it's actually testing what's called the bioavailable hormones. These are the hormones that are in the game, the ones in action. You're also collecting your saliva at four key points over the course of one day.

That's done because your cortisol should be following a circadian rhythm. It should be really high in the morning, and then taper down as the day goes. And so we're testing at all four points in the day to make sure that you are in following that, that that rhythm properly. This test is amazing. When I get to deliver the results to people, it never fails to be a good investment for patience. It's the five page story of their industry.

Hormones, it tells them exactly what is going on and exactly what we need to do to get things back into balance. It's so great because you could be struggling with a symptom such as weight gain or anxiety. And it can be coming from several different types of scenarios. So actually understanding what your individual imbalances allows for the treatment plan to be very targeted. So this is a great test to do. We do it very often in my practice, and if you want to get that done, just send me a message and I can set that up for you.

Hormone balancing tip to optimize nutrition and lifestyle I wanted to give you a couple of key things that you could do right away to start getting your hormones back into balance. Number one is to add more fat, good fats. So fats are essential to building hormones and creating stable blood sugars. So good sources will include next Seeds, cold water, fish, grass fed pastured meats, olives, avocados and a eggs. So adding fats on a daily basis is a great way to get hormones balance, eliminating sugar. There we go again with that tip but I'm not going to stop talking about it and tell people have achieved it.

So sugar is inflammatory and causes blood sugar spikes, which can cause extreme hormone imbalances and eating more brassicas, so this is the the dark leafy greens and the cauliflower and the cabbages these are rich in dim and sulfur, which supports the processing of estrogen and feed the good gut bacteria. And this gut bacteria helps to get the estrogen out. So your goal is to aim for three cups a week for the brassicas and boost your bacteria. So probiotic foods improve hormones. skin, mood and libido by allowing for excess hormones to be removed and cutting down on stressors that create the imbalance in the first place. So adding into your diet, things like sauerkraut, Kiefer, homemade yogurt, kombucha, and kimchi.

These are all great ways to really get the probiotics built up in your gut. And exercise. Exercise has been found to be one of the best things that you can do to balance your hormones. I really challenge you to find something that you love to do and do it consistently. So whatever type of exercise that is, just make sure that you really enjoy doing it so that you can do it consistently over the long term. So we talked a lot the last couple of weeks about hormones, but I want to kind of review some of the things that we touched on.

We touched on getting tested reducing your exposure to xeno estrogens, lots of different nutrition and lifestyle tips, de stressing detoxing the liver supporting the adrenals, boosting up the thyroid, balancing estrogen, increasing your progesterone and boosting your testosterone. So going through the steps one by one will really help to get your hormones balanced. In my healthy hormones online program, we go into step by step detail over the course of four weeks to really bring things into balance. So if you're struggling with hormones, that's definitely something that you're going to want to sign up for a lot of this information is from the ultimate hormone balancing guide book that I wrote. This book is chock full of information. It goes into so much detail about all things hormones.

Every chapter has a section out At the end that gives you a list of the top tips that you can do. This is a really great book if you are interested in hormones and you have issues and you really want to solve them. My other books are included here as well. So that includes the hormone talk, that is week four webinar for the whole health online program. I hope you enjoy this information. So I want to remind you of your challenges to keep up with the menu plan during this week to keep moving your body purposely to go back and review some of those questionnaires that you did, especially the detox one.

If you've been following along, you can redo the detox questionnaire and see how your answers have changed. Just through eating healthy alone. That can resolve a lot of issues. So stay tuned. I will be giving You one more webinar on the next steps. And make sure you post any questions in the online group and I am happy to answer those.

Have a great week and I will see you soon.