Embracing Femininity Is the Ultimate Hormone Hack | Mary Ruddick

Summary

Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark: How To Embrace Your Divine Femininity | Mary Ruddick

Release Date: January 28, 2025
Host: Alex Clark
Guest: Mary Ruddick
Hosted by: Turning Point USA

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, host Alex Clark welcomes Mary Ruddick, a renowned human ecologist and medical nutritionist. Mary shares her extensive journey of overcoming severe health challenges and her global research into optimal health practices among indigenous communities. The conversation delves deep into the intersections of diet, hormonal balance, mental health, and societal structures affecting women's health.

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The Connection Between Fertility and Health

Alex Clark kicks off the discussion with a provocative question about the ease of pregnancy among women living different lifestyles:

Alex Clark [00:00]: "Why is it sometimes so easy for like some woman on meth in the street to get pregnant and not this woman who's living this non-toxic organic lifestyle?"

Mary Ruddick responds by highlighting the role of stress and feminine energy in fertility:

Mary Ruddick [00:09]: "That lady on meth is not stressed, she's actually in her feminine."

She emphasizes that fertility is a significant indicator of overall health:

Mary Ruddick [00:19]: "If that's not a sign from Mother Nature, I don't know what is."

Mary explains that modern lifestyles, filled with plastic and environmental toxins, severely impact women's reproductive health.

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Impact of Western Lifestyle on Health

The discussion shifts to how Western society’s disconnection from the natural world affects physical and mental health:

Alex Clark [02:45]: "Are we insulating ourselves from the natural world in the West? And if so, how is that affecting?"

Mary Ruddick draws parallels between the current state of America and a developing nation, citing rapid changes post-Covid and the deteriorating health infrastructure:

Mary Ruddick [03:49]: "America has always shined. It's a place of abundance. But when I come home, I don't see how people are functioning. I really don't."

She points out the increasing public stress and lack of safety, contrasting it with traditional societies where community and communal responsibilities foster better health and security.

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Living for Community vs. Isolation

Mary discusses the importance of community in maintaining health, contrasting it with the insular nature of modern American culture:

Mary Ruddick [05:44]: "We are communal beings. When I go to traditional societies, no one goes off on their own. Everyone shares responsibilities and respects each other's roles."

This communal living is presented as a remedy to the increasing social anxiety and isolation seen in Western societies.

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Mary Ruddick’s Personal Health Journey

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Mary’s personal battle with dysautonomia, a rare nervous system disorder. She recounts her experience of being bedridden for four years and her eventual recovery through a holistic approach:

Mary Ruddick [06:38]: "I was sick for 12 years, bedridden for periods. My fever went up to 106 and stayed there for six days, damaging my nervous system."

Mary explains how traditional and modern scientific insights helped her heal, emphasizing the importance of the microbiome and diet in restoring health:

Mary Ruddick [09:48]: "If you want to build a sandcastle, you need sand. Your diet is your building block. There's few things more important."

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The Microbiome and Modern Health Challenges

Mary delves into the critical role of the microbiome in health, critiquing the overuse of antibiotics and the lack of understanding of microbial health:

Mary Ruddick [13:13]: "We're putting ourselves extinct very quickly. Our microbiome is too damaged, and we're living with no rest at all."

She stresses that balance in the gut lining is essential for a robust immune system and overall well-being:

Mary Ruddick [43:43]: "It's an overall sea change that's needed. We have to go low carb because fluctuating blood sugar destabilizes our immune and hormonal systems."

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Dietary Recommendations for Optimal Health

When asked about dietary advice for those struggling with autoimmune and nervous system disorders, Mary offers nuanced guidance:

Mary Ruddick [39:44]: "There are 41 different diets I work with. For hormonal issues, you need something to bind excess hormones and support liver detoxification."

She challenges the conventional wisdom around eliminating gluten, arguing that traditional fermentation processes mitigate gluten’s impact:

Mary Ruddick [40:36]: "The idea that we can just take gluten or dairy out of the diet is pointless. Traditional bread fermentation reduces gluten to manageable levels."

Mary advocates for an integrative approach that considers the entire dietary and lifestyle context rather than blanket exclusions.

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Hormonal Balance and Feminine Energy

Addressing hormonal imbalances, Mary explains how societal pressures and masculine lifestyles disrupt women's hormonal health:

Mary Ruddick [21:20]: "With the feminist era, we lost our securities and female hormones. Living in a masculine way causes a hormonal crisis in women."

She identifies signs of excessive masculine influence, such as depression, anxiety, PMS, and skin issues, linking them to environmental and lifestyle factors that elevate cortisol levels.

Mary emphasizes the necessity of community and relational interactions to foster feminine hormones like oxytocin:

Mary Ruddick [45:43]: "Progesterone is balanced by being around girlfriends. Our hormones are influenced by posture, interactions, and social engagements."

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Practical Steps to Embrace Divine Femininity

Mary provides actionable advice for listeners seeking to restore hormonal balance and overall health:

1. Consistent Daily Routines:

   Mary Ruddick [44:35]: "Your first meal of the day should always be at the same time. Wake up at the same time every day."

2. Dietary Adjustments:

   Mary Ruddick [52:54]: "Go ketogenic, eat organ meat, get sunlight in the morning while petting a puppy, and do not wear anything that is not a natural fiber."

3. Social Connections:

   Mary Ruddick [45:34]: "Hang out with friends once a week to balance progesterone."

She underscores the importance of low-carb diets and soluble fiber intake for hormonal health and managing conditions like PCOS:

Mary Ruddick [47:26]: "For PCOS, increase soluble fiber with foods like broccoli, carrots, and asparagus."

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Healing a Sick Culture

When asked to recommend a single remedy to heal a sick culture, Mary emphasizes the foundational role of the microbiome and sugar balance:

Mary Ruddick [55:24]: "Becoming outdated with how much we're doing damage to the microbiome is essential. Go low carb to stabilize blood sugar and support hormone production."

She advocates for widespread education and knowledge-sharing to empower individuals to take control of their health, moving beyond reliance on practitioners due to the overwhelming number of sick individuals.

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Conclusion

Mary Ruddick’s insights offer a holistic perspective on health, intertwining diet, hormonal balance, community, and the microbiome. Her unique blend of ancient wisdom and modern science provides listeners with practical steps to embrace their divine femininity and restore overall well-being.

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Notable Quotes

• Mary Ruddick [02:14]: "If you want to build a sandcastle, you need sand. Your diet is your building block."
• Mary Ruddick [03:49]: "America is flooded with the hallmarks of a developing nation."
• Mary Ruddick [05:44]: "We are communal beings. When I go to traditional societies, no one goes off on their own."
• Mary Ruddick [55:24]: "Becoming outdated with how much we're doing damage to the microbiome is essential."

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About Mary Ruddick

Mary Ruddick is a human ecologist celebrated for her pioneering work with indigenous communities and her expertise in ancient wisdom combined with modern scientific insights. After overcoming a debilitating condition, dysautonomia, Mary now offers personalized care focusing on nervous system disorders, post-viral syndromes, infertility, and autoimmunity. She is an advocate for integrating traditional healing practices with contemporary health strategies to foster optimal well-being.

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Connect with Mary Ruddick

• Website: maryreddick.com
• Instagram: @MaryQueenOfHeart
• YouTube: MaryReddick777

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Support Culture Apothecary

To support the show, consider leaving a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform or making a tax-deductible donation via the links provided in the podcast description.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements and non-content segments to focus solely on the valuable discussions and insights shared by Mary Ruddick during the episode.

Transcript

[Alex Clark]

Why is it sometimes so easy for like some woman on meth in the street to get pregnant and not this woman who's living this non toxic organic lifestyle?

[Mary Ruddock]

That lady on meth is not stressed, she's actually in her feminine.

[Alex Clark]

Is fertility a sign of health and if a woman is struggling with it, does it mean she's unhealthy?

[Mary Ruddock]

If that's not a sign from Mother Nature, I don't know what is. What women are going through is actually horrific. Everyone's working out in plastic. That has far more consequences than people realize.

[Unnamed Guest]

She has traveled the world for years studying the most healthy people and how they live. Mary Ruddock is a human ecologist celebrated for her pioneering exploration around the world and work with indigenous communities. She's an expert in ancient wisdom with modern scientific insights, creating a unique synergy between traditional healing practices and contemporary health strategies. Mary offers personalized care for clients with nervous system disorders, post viral syndromes and infertility and autoimmunity. After her self being bedridden and sick for four years at one point and completely healing herself after finding out that she had dysautonomia. Mary is really unique because she talks like a 1950s movie star and is so strikingly beautiful and feminine in the way that she carries herself. She's by far one of the most interesting people I've ever interviewed and her health advice matches it. I've never heard anyone say some of the stuff that she says today. It's sure to make some eyes widen. Watch this must see episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel and culture Apothecary on Spotify. Everything we do is donor funded. To support the show financially, click the link in the description to leave a tax deductible donation or leave a five star review for free. I'm Alex Clark. Please welcome Mary Rettic to Culture Apothecary. How powerful is diet when it comes.

[Alex Clark]

To healing the human body?

[Mary Ruddock]

I'll answer that with another question. If you want to build a sand castle, you need sand, right? Your diet is your building block. You're constantly renewing cells, constantly rebuilding organs. All of them have a timescale. So every six months you have a new liver. So if you have an ongoing liver condition, that means you're feeding it. So your food is imperative. There's few things more important.

[Alex Clark]

Are we insulating ourselves from the natural world in the West? And if so, how is that affecting.

[Mary Ruddock]

Us more so than people realize here? I don't have a good analogy for the frog in water because the frog in water Isn't accurate. Frogs jump. They actually don't stay in the water. But if you have another analogy for that, I would use it because every time I come back to the States, it's a horror show. And people think it's normal because it's very slow. But especially I would say over the last four years, the change has been rapid. Really?

[Alex Clark]

Why the last four?

[Mary Ruddock]

I don't know. But something happened over Covid. Things really changed. People are much more sick. The infrastructure of the country is not good. When I come home, it's looking like a developing nation.

[Alex Clark]

Wow.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah. I've never experienced anything like it. I even wrote a whole article that I'll probably never share, but just to organize my ideas. Because there are certain hallmarks of a developing nation. And we're flooded with the hallmarks.

[Alex Clark]

America is flooded with the hallmarks of a developing nation.

[Mary Ruddock]

America, yes.

[Alex Clark]

That is so powerful to say and so disturbing.

[Mary Ruddock]

It's very disturbing because every country has its benefits and negatives and then it's just what you like. Same with culture, same with food, all these things. But America has always shined. It's a place of abundance. It's a place of ingenuity. Especially, you know, it's actually very rare to have a place where you can start a business so easily, where inventing is so applauded and where new things are applauded. Right. Most countries, tradition keeps you where you are and that keeps people healthy. But. But there's a downside. And now when I come home, I don't see how people are functioning. I really don't. Right now we have incredible stress for the public. I don't see how anyone can feel very safe. And I am someone who cultivates safety. I tell people to cultivate safety, but just the reality of if you get into an accident, the hospital bill, even if you have good insurance, it's not like any other country. The reality of incredible prices for things, the very odd things like hotels here, not having room service or fast WI fi.

[Unnamed Guest]

Yeah.

[Mary Ruddock]

What is that?

[Unnamed Guest]

It is horrible. That is a developing nation, Mary.

[Mary Ruddock]

It is why I'm going to get so judged for calling it a developing nation. But the thing is, Americans are so busy working because they have to that they don't have time to travel and they don't see what it's like in other places. And so we think everyone functions like this and they don't.

[Alex Clark]

What does it mean to live for community?

[Mary Ruddock]

Basically the opposite of what's happening now. Right. We have a very insular culture which doesn't work. We're communal beings. When I go to the traditional societies, no one goes off on their own. Not ever. It's not a thing. There's no introverts. It's not a dog on introverts. It's saying that.

[Alex Clark]

No social anxiety.

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh, gosh, no. No anything. No. Yeah. At all. And everyone has different responsibilities. And when people have different responsibilities, rather than everyone sharing the same responsibilities or everyone having their own responsibilities with nothing shared, you have so much respect for the other person doing that part of the job, that part of the load. Yeah. So totally different.

[Alex Clark]

You were bedridden for four years.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Talk to us about that.

[Mary Ruddock]

Sure. Yeah. So I was sick for 12 years and there were many periods during those 12 years where I would be bedridden for periods of time. There was a time, many years in where it really went downhill very quickly and my organs started to go down, my nerve function was down.

[Alex Clark]

And how old were you?

[Mary Ruddock]

I was 18 when I got sick and 24 when I became bedbound. I'm 42 now. Geez.

[Alex Clark]

This reminds me of Michaela Peterson's story.

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh, when she came out, it was the first time I saw someone young.

[Alex Clark]

Right.

[Mary Ruddock]

Who had been through something like I had. It was actually shocking. Yeah. I've followed her whole journey. I think she's amazing.

[Alex Clark]

And so what was going on with you?

[Mary Ruddock]

I was a healthy kid. I had gone to study in the Bahamas at a field stadium patient and happened to get a cytokine based infection. Half of us kids did. There's 30 of us on the island, it's not like tourism. And 15 of us got this mycobacterium. And the healthier you are with those, sometimes the worse you get because your cytokines will go out of control. And for me, my fever went up to 106 and stayed there for six days, which utterly damaged my nervous system and my hypothalamus pituitary. And so what resulted was something that was very rare then. So rare that often doctors didn't know it. It is something you test for. It's through nerve testing. It's a condition called dysautonomia, where the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system deregulate. And so everything you think you don't think about gets deregulated. That's your sleep cycle, your immunity, your blood flow to your organs, literally everything. And so the longer you have it, if you have a severe case like I did, you can have mild. The longer you have it, with the nerve death, the circulation gets worse to the organs. And then you get real problems. And that's, that's where I was then.

[Alex Clark]

And so then you were miraculously, obviously able to heal. So what was that process?

[Mary Ruddock]

It was a long five year process, honestly. I'm sure for people who look on at people that have gotten into remission, that it seems like overnight. And I actually really enjoyed the process, especially in the last few years. But as odd as that sounds, but it's not fast and it's not intuitive and it's not guaranteed and so you don't really know. But what I knew was that I had no security and so I had to figure out how to get better because my future was too dark otherwise as it was. I was primarily in a room by myself for years, you know, and I didn't have a computer or phone. I could have, I could have asked my parents for that. But when you have nervous system disorders, lights and things like that, they're not awful, but you don't go towards them, so you didn't really want to screen. I tried over 17 different protocols and I did them for a long time, you know, often six months or a year, it just depends. And then I stumbled on Dr. Natasha McBride's work.

[Alex Clark]

And what, what does she say?

[Mary Ruddock]

She's brilliant. She was writing about the microbiome before anyone had uttered the word in America. Right. The Russians really studied the microbiome. The Russians, the Koreans, the Japanese, long before our scientist did. And what she said made a lot of sense. And so at the time, the diet wasn't for a condition like mine, at least not according to the book. But I had nothing to lose. And I thought, well, if my issue is in the brain and in the nervous system, we have over 70% of that in the gut lining. So if I just tip the scale, maybe, maybe it'll get up the food chain. And luckily enough, it did. But it was a lot of lifestyle, a lot of diet, a lot of mindset. It's the whole thing. You really have to change, you have to rebirth yourself.

[Alex Clark]

So I struggle with autoimmunity.

[Mary Ruddock]

I didn't know that.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah. So I have Hashimoto's. I was on birth control for a decade. I was living primarily off ultra processed food. So that's what I think contributed to me developing Hashimoto's. What do you think led to your issues?

[Mary Ruddock]

Initially I was like I said, really healthy. And I was born naturally, nursed all the good things, but I had become an extreme athlete. I was training for Ironman. I was working out three to four hours a day before going to 10 hours of labs, you know, to study. And I hadn't had a weekend in ages. So I was living in a very masculine way, which is stressful, wears out our immune system. And I also at the time was eating the 90s athletic diet. And I really didn't have cravings. I had a healthy microbiome. When you have a healthy microbiome, you don't have cravings. So it was easy for me to eat, you know, plain turkey and carrots and rice cakes. But the problem with that is that the food of the nervous system, the food of the immune system, the food of the hormonal system is saturated fat. So I had no protection when I got that bug into my body. A tropical bug. Right. We think now that, oh, we can just go anywhere we want in the world, but our microbiomes are made for where we are. They're not made for taking a flight. And so I went from Ohio to tropical Bahamas. I had no fat in my diet. I was over exercising, under sleeping, and then I get a cytokine based infection. And now cytokine based infections. Do you know how you control cytokines in the body?

[Alex Clark]

No, I don't even know what that is.

[Mary Ruddock]

Ah, that's long Covid.

[Unnamed Guest]

Okay.

[Mary Ruddock]

It's due to cytokines. Okay, so cytokines are part of the. They're part of the immune system. That's good. It's part of us. And usually we want them to work properly. The problem with certain infections, Ebola is one. What I had is another. Long Covid is another. They're not common infections typically, but these hijack your own immunity. It's not the infection that hurts you. Now, the fever would have. It's the cytokines. It uses your own immune system against you and it goes unchecked unless you have enough B1 in your diet. Well, where do you get B1? You would have to eat two cups of pork a day. Right. Or have very specific bacteria in your body, which if you've had antibiotics, you do not have. Because it's our bacteria that make our vitamins, it's not really us eating them.

[Alex Clark]

We're really overusing antibiotics in American culture, aren't we?

[Mary Ruddock]

I think we're putting ourselves extinct very quickly, actually. We tend to have a lot of hubris. We tend to assume that we know things and we don't. I mean, the hormonal system was only discovered a hundred years ago. The microbiome so recent. The. Until five years ago, it was believed that the womb was sterile. It's not. There's a whole microbiome there. There is a very set microbiome for your eyes, for your lungs, for your brain. It is all over your body and if any of it goes awry, you have no protection to very specific infections. So for instance, like let's say you had a history of C. Diff. I would know what birth microbes you're lacking. And our microbes are also responsible for making our feel good chemicals. Right. In America, in the UK, 30% of the population is on mood stabilizing medications. That's going to go up. No one's happy. We have this trauma culture, but a trauma is not from the incident. We have the trauma because we don't have the feel good chemicals to handle it. Right. Or the story to handle it. So. And we need those bugs to do that to make our vitamins, our nutrients, our amino acids, our fatty acids. Because we don't eat our food. We eat their food or we eat their byproduct, actually.

[Unnamed Guest]

Okay, let me tell you about the time I almost lost it because of my hormones. I'm talking extreme fatigue, hair falling out, brittle nails. Basically I felt like I was broken. I was stressed, frustrated and had no idea where to even start. Ever been there? Yeah. It turns out I wasn't alone. You're probably there right now because 80% of women in the US deal with hormone imbalances and I didn't even realize how much it was affecting my health until I took control about a year ago. One in four men have low testosterone. So I highly recommend Jevy if you are overwhelmed trying to navigate functional medicine in which test to get for a complete look at your overall health that you are not getting at your primary care Dr. Jevy makes it so simple to get the root of your problems and actually start feeling like yourself again. First of all, they sent a phlebotomist to my door to do at home blood work. No clinics, no waiting. This is so convenient, especially if you are a stay at home mom. And then I had a virtual consultation where we went over everything. I got this huge personalized health plan with this big team of experts right on my phone. And here's the kicker. With Jevity app, I can actually track my progress in real time. I can see my biological age. So you have your real life age. Right, so I'm 31. But then you have your biological age. So depending on what your tests are showing you and how sick you are and what you're eating and your exercise routine and all these Little things. All of these factors add up to a biological age. So I could be 31, but my thing says, you know, oh, I'm really like 49. So you want to get that under control and actually have your biological age a lot younger. This is what Jevity does. It's all in one place. It's easy, it's accessible, and it's tailored just for me. And it will be for you. So we can see how I'm improving or not and how you're improving or not. To get you on Track for just $129 a month to get comprehensive blood work, 40% off supplements and prescriptions like peptides, and access to a whole team of experts. So if you're ready to finally feel like you again, skip the wait list and get 20% off your first month with code Alex goevity.com they will test for over 90 biomarkers. That is insane. Go jevity.com code Alex for 20% off your first month. Check the link in the description. Go G E v I t I.com with code Alex Link the show notes for all their information, we all know the drill. Floss, brush, Rinse Most conventional floss though, isn't as clean as you think. In fact, many traditional dental floss brands are coated in pfas, the same chemicals linked to cancer, liver damage and hormone disruption. And guess what? If your gums are bleeding when you're flossing, all of those little PFAS are getting into your bloodstream, AKA forever chemicals. And they stay in your body for years. They're not something that you want anywhere near your mouth, especially when you're trying to take care of your health. Here's what I use Zebra for. Non toxic dental floss Unlike those other floss brands that you're used to seeing at the store, Zebras floss is free from any harmful chemicals. It's made with eco friendly materials that glide smoothly between your teeth, leaving your mouth clean without the toxins. So if you're ready to ditch the chemicals and go for a cleaner, safer flossing experience, check out Zebra's non toxic floss. They also have incredible non toxic toothpaste and deodorant for men and women. I actually just switched out my boyfriend's traditional toothpaste for this one. And I said, you know, I want your honest review, your honest opinion. Opinion. Just tell it to me straight. Do you like this toothpaste or not? He was like, okay, I don't know what this stuff is, but it's great. It works great and if you're telling me that it's better for me, then I'm gonna switch to it. So, yay, we have another converter into the cult. Your body and your smile will thank you. Head over to yay zebra.com and use code Alex for 10 off. Your first order. That's yayzeber.com and use code Alex for ten off. Today.

[Alex Clark]

You have traveled around the world researching different tribes and countries and continents and cultures, searching for people who have found optimal health. You have studied how they live and how they eat. Why was that research important to you to do?

[Mary Ruddock]

I think there's a lot of dogma. I think we're constantly thinking, like I said, that we're smarter than we are, that we know more than we are. And I think there's no greater error that we can make. And right now I don't see how with the antibiotic use, I mean, do you know anyone who has not had antibiotics?

[Alex Clark]

No.

[Mary Ruddock]

That means their children are not going to get the microbiome they need. And we're about to see third generation C section. That's actually horrific because these microbes cannot be gotten through food. Right. So when people start to realize how important they are, it's going to be too late. So one of the things I was doing, well, I did it for a multitude of reasons. One, I was just. I wanted to. It sounds like fun. I was curious. I didn't know. I really didn't know if anyone still existed that I assumed not. You know, most of the books I had read, the medical anthropology, they were from the 1800s.

[Alex Clark]

People that were, what, Truly healthy or something.

[Mary Ruddock]

Perfect health.

[Alex Clark]

Perfect health.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah, perfect health. There were several doctors, dentists, medical practitioners in the 1800s and early 1900s who really traveled the globes looking at all these little pockets of communities that had not been touched by civilization or trade. And they were in such exquisite health. And so having gone through illness, I was so curious, you know, what were they doing and do they still exist?

[Alex Clark]

How many places did you go?

[Mary Ruddock]

I've been to hundreds.

[Alex Clark]

That's all you do, like full time? Like, do you even have a house?

[Mary Ruddock]

Seven years. I technically have a house in South Africa, on the beach in Cape Town. I haven't been in two and a half years.

[Unnamed Guest]

Really are living out of a suitcase?

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes. Yeah. Okay.

[Alex Clark]

How do America's fertility problems compare to the rest of the world? Are there any women in the world struggling with fertility as much as American women?

[Mary Ruddock]

When I go to the tribes, they've never heard of such a thing. When I go to other countries. There's many countries dealing with a wave of infertility. The percentage when I worked it out in America, is about 40%. 60 years ago it was less than 10. And PCOS, endometriosis were unheard of. But there's several countries. I mean, I go often to places you'd be surprised by. I think I even saw it in Greece advertisements where the country is paying couples to do ivf. They're like, we will pay you if we can get you pregnant because we need more children for the next generation so we don't collapse.

[Alex Clark]

Are women around the world dealing with anxiety and depression at similar rates as American women?

[Mary Ruddock]

No, not even close.

[Alex Clark]

What do you think is contributing to that?

[Mary Ruddock]

For us, we unconsciously, with the feminist era, which many of those things were very needed, like the freedom to work and do all sorts of things. But with the feminist era, we lost our securities and female hormones. And folks, I'm not speaking from philosophy or a therapy standpoint. I'm standing from a biological, biochemical standpoint. Our female hormones, for them to be balanced, we cannot live in a masculine way. Most of us don't even know that we are living in a masculine way because it is just what is good. It's what was promoted. It's what everyone expects. And so it's very action oriented, goal oriented, right? Even the way women work out here, it's goal oriented. That's masculine, that produces testosterone in us and cortisol. And that cortisol is causing a hormonal crisis in our women.

[Alex Clark]

What are some signs that you could be a woman who is living too much like a man?

[Mary Ruddock]

Hurting your hormones, Teenage years, it really starts to set in once women, girls start to menstruate. You see it, right? Our sports for girls are very masculine. So from a very young age, they're producing a lot of masculine chemicals, hormones, really. And those make us depressed and anxious. All right? So when we get an overabundance of masculine hormones, we turn into the negative of the masculine. We don't get the benefit, we don't get the good. Our good comes from oxytocin. And oxytocin we get from puppies and babies and flowers and orgasms and wonderful things. And oxytocin for us, makes us relaxed and lovely and easygoing. But our society isn't structured for that. And so we don't have many women making the oxytocin. So with teenagers, acne is a huge one. Pms. PMS is not normal. We should not be having it irregular. Cycles. Weight gain, definitely. Weight struggles, for sure. And anything with the skin, because if things are coming out through the skin, whether it's psoriasis and eczema, which are autoimmune, very different, but still it's an indication that phase two and phase three in the liver, these detox channels which process the hormones and fat soluble toxins, they're too busy and often they're too busy from processing cortisol.

[Alex Clark]

Because you have been all around the world studying and living with all these different groups of people looking for the healthiest ones. I have to ask, you know, where were they and then what did you observe that made them so healthy?

[Mary Ruddock]

The dietary dogma that I was hearing for the last 20 years, even before that, it didn't sit well with me. My family's really healthy. No one has to diet, we eat carbs. So what is going on? Why are people having to limit so much or do this or that? And I also knew I went into remission. So I was the first case to go into remission with what I had. And right after I did, two more people did. And they did it on totally different diets. Diets that I had tried and did not work for me. And I know why now, but that led me to know very deeply that there's multiple ways to get to the summit. And so this idea of black and white and good and bad and all these things, it didn't fit. And so one of the things I wanted to do was show people that were healthy, eating different from each other, honestly, I really did and explain why. And so when I went the places, honestly, they were all perfectly, each of them is perfectly healthy.

[Alex Clark]

There's not, there's gotta be somebody that, I mean, surely gets sick sometimes.

[Mary Ruddock]

No, not until they bring in modern foods. But that modern food can be one food. It can be. Let's take some of the African tribes. If just corn is brought in, which is from the Americas, maize now has kind of taken over Africa. So people think it's an African food, but it's actually very recent. It was the Americas and in Africa, they don't put it through the five step process to neutralize and neutralize the toxins and release the niacin. And so you get pellagra and these kind of things. So these hunter gatherers or these agriculturists, if they bring in maize even for say three months of the year, then they will catch infections amongst the elderly. But it's not common. It's like there might be one person every three years that Gets a lung infection when they're elders. So it's not like what we deal with at all.

[Alex Clark]

You spent time with five different tribes in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, and they weren't exposed to modern foods, but some of them were sick, right? A couple of them.

[Mary Ruddock]

No, they were exposed to some modern foods. So, yeah, the reason why I went to the Omo Valley, I had actually planned a trip when Covid hit. So I lost that trip, and I was trying to get back to it. And with Ethiopia's civil war, it's been difficult to time it Right. With my other trips. But the. Most of those tribes had been displaced. Right. There's a lot going on politically in Ethiopia, and the president was taking water and all sorts of things. And so the tribes were getting displaced. And so, no, they had some changes to their diet, and they had exposure to definitely nonprofits and tourists because, you know, the Kenyan crocodile tribe, we crossed over the border. They had serious guns. Right. As you do on the Kenyan border. Everyone does. You have to. But they also had some, you know, donated clothes and things like that. And if I see donated clothing that I know they've been touched.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, my gosh. Do you ever fear for your safety, like, trying to blend in and hang out in these tribes? I mean, really, have you ever had any scary moments?

[Mary Ruddock]

Are you kidding? Yes. But although most of the scary moments are on the way to or leaving, it's rarely with them. There's a couple exceptions. One would be I spent an evening with a jaguar on my plank in the Amazon.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, my gosh, Mary.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

I would not be suited for your life, I don't think.

[Mary Ruddock]

Well, listen. Okay, so here's what happened. So I'm about 10 days deep into the Amazon, and I'm in this odd branch that people don't tend to go because I'm trying to get to this unique place, and I have a wonderful friend who's taking me through. He's the son of a chief and a medicine man, which is interesting, actually, because not many of them use plants because they don't really get sick. But I digress. So we get there, and I don't know if you ever saw the National Geographic where there's the bow and arrow shooting up towards the videographer.

[Alex Clark]

No.

[Mary Ruddock]

Okay. It's great. It was a cover of National Geographic. It's this untouched tribe in the Amazon. Well, I was right next to them, and they're still untouched. And you cannot touch them because they're a shoot first tribe. Now, they may be very peaceful people, and that may be how. Well, it's definitely how they've maintained their culture, I would assume.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah.

[Mary Ruddock]

So I can't blame them for that. But they typically always stay on their side of the river. And I was on the other side of the river and, of course, going down. But if you see them, you duck. You don't want to be seen. So I'm sleeping on the other side with the Machiguenguas. And they had something very unusual happen. In all my years of travel until these last two, when I went to Ethiopia and then Papua New guinea, and here, I had never seen violence or war or anything that was less than good. It was actually like utopia everywhere I went and in different ways, and in a way that people would think I was a Pollyanna, but it's actually true. Probably both. But probably both. But they had warned me that the tribe had crossed over. They had come for machetes and some supplies. They'd never done this before, not in their memory. And they had killed two tribe members the night before. So they had set up these little, like, booby traps with noise so that people would know if they were coming. Because with this tribe, their. They fish, they hunt, and then they have these little agricultural plots that are like little farms, and they each live about 30 minutes away from each other by walking. So I was in one of these. So I knew when I went to sleep that they had had these guys over. And I also knew that I was 30 minutes from any of the people that I had just met. Right. The tribes. So I knew if I heard anything, I was in trouble. Well, in this region of the Amazon, you sleep up in the trees on a plank, and that's so that the jaguars can't come in. And you climb up a log that has these cuts in it, and when you get up to the top, you turn it over, and then you immediately. I mean, I immediately go under the mosquito net. Not because of mosquitoes. The bullet ants are everywhere, everywhere. And those are the things I'm most afraid of. So I immediately get into the mosquito net. So I'm on the far end, away from where I climbed up. I was exhausted. It was late, you know, so my book bag, you know, my backpack with everything in it, I just left by the door, and I get in bed, and then I smell something.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, my gosh.

[Mary Ruddock]

And if you've ever been around big animals like bears or anything else, you can smell them. I smelled something, and I knew I was in trouble. And I looked over and right by my backpack, right by where I would need to get out there, was the shadow of a jaguar. So I realized this, and I realized that my only protection is my knife that I left in the backpack. Yes.

[Alex Clark]

What did you do?

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh, wait, it gets better. So I'm thinking, like, well, jaguars and cats, the benefit of being around one is that if they're going to kill you, they're going to kill you, and it's going to be fast. Right. They're not like other animals that will drag you around. They will go right for the neck. Right. So I knew it would be a quick death, at least. And as I'm kind of contemplating what I can do, if anything, I then hear the booby traps down below, and I hear human voices, and they're not speaking the Machiguengwa language. So it's that tribe that just murdered two people the night before.

[Alex Clark]

So you're like, if this jaguar doesn't kill me, the tribe will.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes. And I have no protection, and they have machetes because they stole them. So all I was thinking was, well, I'm in my underwear under a mosquito net. I have zero protection against a jaguar or a human with a machete. So it's either going to happen or it's not. And I went to sleep. I actually slept really well. When I woke up in the morning, the jaguar was going down the log, and the chief of the tribe saw the jaguar, and he came over, and then he collected the whole tribe. And then they gave me something very sacred, which is a jaguar necklace. So that night, I was very afraid.

[Alex Clark]

So what does that mean, they gave you the jaguar necklace? Like, congrats, you survived it.

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh, well, yes, actually, because jaguar is very sacred to them, they believe they become jaguars. So jaguar. It's a jaguar tooth. I usually wear it. And the jaguar tooth is very rare because they don't kill them. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Tell us about blue zones.

[Mary Ruddock]

They're really silly.

[Alex Clark]

I have not had anyone talk about this. No, it's like, not even a real thing.

[Mary Ruddock]

No.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, I thought this was a real thing. I thought this was what the people of perfect health were.

[Mary Ruddock]

No, it's just that they're everywhere. There's these zones everywhere. And they're not as they're promoted at all. They're very different from how they're promoted. And really, anytime, even if you just find, like, a very tiny village somewhere in Europe, they're probably going to be that kind of healthy. Really. It's just when people start living the way we do, then we start to get all the problems.

[Unnamed Guest]

And when you say the way we.

[Alex Clark]

Do, you're talking about what, like the Western a price way?

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh, yeah. Well, yes. Yeah, really, just living as humans did for thousands of years worked really well. Okay?

[Alex Clark]

Ancestral living diet.

[Mary Ruddock]

Literally, what tradition is, is something that works.

[Unnamed Guest]

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[Alex Clark]

Since we are living these modern lives, okay, we're online, we're working nine to five. We are not getting as much sunlight as we should in America. What can we possibly do to get that sort of health that you saw in those tribes that had basically perfect health?

[Mary Ruddock]

We have to do quite a bit. And it's so. I don't know, I think it's so funny how we have to biohack our way to something that was so natural not too long ago. But we really do. We have to be pretty disciplined. We don't have to be rigid, but we have to be disciplined. We have to be organized. And unfortunately, we have to be incredibly self educated. And who has time for that? Everyone's so busy. So the first thing, especially for women, I would say, but for all people, I would get yourself out of debt so that you have grace.

[Alex Clark]

Wow. That was. That was not at all what I was expecting you to say. Get out of debt so you can offer grace.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes. As long as you're in debt, you're stressed. As long as you're in debt, you have to work more. As long as you're in debt, you can't buy things that you need for your health. You can't buy time in particular. Time is really what's needed. Time. Relationships, we don't. We get very sick when we're alone. We need eye contact, we need socials. You And I, right now, us talking. We're balancing our progesterone. I wouldn't do that if I was.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, thank God. Because my progesterone and my estrogen are at zero. I'm gonna ask you about that.

[Mary Ruddock]

No. Okay.

[Alex Clark]

Well, I'm devastated.

[Unnamed Guest]

I'm like, it's horrible.

[Alex Clark]

I messed up, Mary.

[Mary Ruddock]

No.

[Unnamed Guest]

So that's good. Let's keep talking.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes, exactly.

[Unnamed Guest]

Okay. Wait, this is. That's probably one of my most favorite.

[Alex Clark]

Quotes I think anybody has shared on the show. What you just said, that is so profound and so different than the advice that we're typically given in the health and wellness space. I think.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah. It's an honor. Oh, thank you. And I'm so glad I'm honored, actually. Thank you. It's a funny thing how we live in debt. If you live in debt, you're buying from your future. And you don't have freedom. You have no freedom right now.

[Alex Clark]

So most of your belongings, you can just fit in a backpack.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah. Well, I've done a little shopping as of late. Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

What do you do?

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

You just carry it around with you everywhere?

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, my gosh.

[Mary Ruddock]

I ship things to my friends. Okay. Okay.

[Alex Clark]

That makes sense.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

You are an ancestral and medical nutritionist.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes.

[Alex Clark]

Who specializes in metabolic, immune, and nervous system disorders. If someone struggles with one of those things, what should they be eating and why?

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh, well, it can be different. We have options. There's things that everyone can do. But as our environment is getting more charged with plastics and we're getting higher cortisol levels and our microbiome is getting more destabilized, we're needing some things that we wouldn't have needed before. So, before, say, the Carnivore diet. I work with about 41 different diets, but take the Carnivore diet. I would have said 20 years ago, everyone can do it. And you're going to benefit now. Many people will. But for a lot of hormonal issues, you need something to bind to those excess hormones to pull them out through phase two, phase three, liver. For many people, not everyone, it really depends on what's going on in your body.

[Alex Clark]

Is it true that people who are diagnosed with autoimmune issues should avoid gluten forever?

[Mary Ruddock]

I think that's pointless, honestly. And I'll tell you why.

[Alex Clark]

I'm so relieved to hear this.

[Mary Ruddock]

This idea that we can just take gluten or dairy out of the diet, and then we have to tell every waitress and we have to tell every friend. You can actually tell how Healthy a country is by their restaurant menus.

[Alex Clark]

That says a lot then about America.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes, we have so many allergies, but the issue with gluten is not gluten. In traditional bread it would be fermented for 72 hours and there's almost no gluten left. It goes from 72,000 particles to 12. A human body can handle 12. Gluten is one of many lectins and the top lectins, the top allergens in the country. Anaphylactic as well found in food. It's primarily lectins, soy, dairy. Not all dairy is a lectin. But we you have to hunt out a two again self education. They're equally bad. And I would say the potato is far worse. So when someone cuts out gluten they then go and eat potato flour which is far worse. That's a, that has all these fat soluble toxins that stay in your body for a long time, 30 to 90 days.

[Alex Clark]

So even if I do oven roasted potato, you would say don't stop eating that.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh really?

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes.

[Alex Clark]

I do not feel bad. I don't have any flare ups or any problems whenever I eat gluten.

[Mary Ruddock]

You won't.

[Alex Clark]

It's other stuff that I've noticed I think are food allergies or irritants for me but I don't think it's like, and I'm only eating like sourdough bread. But I have no problem if I have a sourdough croissant or sourdough loaf.

[Mary Ruddock]

The idea of exclusion that worked 30 years ago, it's not enough now the microbiome is too damaged. So what these there are lectins and plant toxins. There's oxalates, there's all these different things, solanins and traditionally these were all fermented out or cooked out or not used. Potato is very hard to remove the toxins from. It's so hard. And so those are the foods I would immediately take out because those you're not going to sit, you're not going to spend months doing that. No one is. So unless you go to Peru, you know, where the grandmas can do it full time. So I instead would think about what's going on with the immune system, why is it doing this? And for that you have to look at your gut lining. Right. Because 80% of your immune system is there. And so what's upsetting your gut, it's most likely that what you're eating now overall, in the overall picture, it's not a food allergy. It's these insidious little things that tear up the guts. Right. We have these beautiful little things called villi. It's like a coral reef. At least we should. Most people's, it looks pretty dystopian. And what happens when this happens is that a bacteria that is so good for us when it lives on the tip of the villi, like H. Pylori does amazing things there. But you lose your mucin layer. You cut into that constantly with these ill prepared foods and it starts to cut in and then the bacteria goes into the cracks and now it's a problem. Okay, your friend became a problem.

[Alex Clark]

Right.

[Mary Ruddock]

So it's an overall sea change that's needed. It's rarely one thing like mold or this or that. It's the overall picture. And you need an overall change so that the body can rebuild itself because it knows how to do that so much better than we ever will with our tinkering.

[Alex Clark]

So what would you say the first step should be for someone like me? My testosterone is normal range, but estrogen, progesterone, basically at the very end, low end. I know.

[Mary Ruddock]

What do you think I should do in the morning?

[Alex Clark]

I don't. I barely do. It's very, very hard.

[Mary Ruddock]

That's actually what a lot of women go through when they go up to perimenopause.

[Alex Clark]

That's what I'm scared about. So I'm, I'm wondering like, oh my gosh, am I gonna have to get on HRT or something? Do you ever recommend that for people?

[Mary Ruddock]

I don't, but I, I wouldn't suede someone against it. It's just not something I do. So you have your thyroid and then the low estrogen progesterone.

[Alex Clark]

Yes.

[Mary Ruddock]

Okay. First things first. We have to change the way you interact with life. I know.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Mary Ruddock]

But really, because you don't always have to change the activity. You can very often change the approach to the activity. Okay, Right. So instead of, let's say you like to run, I don't know, change to dancing. That'll get your feminine hormones going. Running gets masculine. Before you do something that may like surge your cortisol sway side to side, that'll get your parasympathetic going to balance it, making sure that you're breathing through your nose, providing some sense of safety to the body in a really kind of unique way. That is so silly that we have to teach ourselves again, but we do, all of us. This is a big part of my getting better. You need to eat and wake up at the same time. Every day.

[Alex Clark]

Okay. So I need to be on, like, a good schedule my body can rely.

[Mary Ruddock]

On specifically in the morning.

[Unnamed Guest]

And that will create that feeling of.

[Alex Clark]

Safety for the body. Okay.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah. We often think about safety as, like, in our head. We have to do it in the therapist's office. No, no. It's really very physical things.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah. So your first meal of the day should always be at the same time. You can change your bedtime. We have a modern life, you know? But morning should always be the same. Get light at the same time. And then for progesterone, you have to hang out with girls once a week. Otherwise it won't balance.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, wow.

[Alex Clark]

So if you have low progesterone, you've got to be around girlfriends.

[Mary Ruddock]

You do.

[Alex Clark]

So is that kind of like the cycle sinking and stuff that happens?

[Mary Ruddock]

There are so many activities that spur our hormones. Our hormonal system is totally different than all our other systems. Like, you can take out your ovaries, put them in a jar for a month. Please don't. But you could. That's scary. But you could. And then you could bring them back, and you could put it into your leg, and it will hook back up to your hormonal system. It is mystical. Right. You can't do that with the circulatory system. You can't do that with the nervous system, the hormonal system. You can. And here's the crazy thing. We can spark almost all the hormones just by changing our posture, where our eyes go, how we talk, how we walk, how we operate in the world, if we lift things or don't, if we are around kids or not. So who we're around, there are relational hormones. Right. And so for you, I don't know your personal life, but, cameraman, if you could carry her things.

[Unnamed Guest]

They do.

[Alex Clark]

They do do that.

[Mary Ruddock]

Good. Don't let her carry anything.

[Unnamed Guest]

Oh, that's.

[Alex Clark]

That's cute.

[Mary Ruddock]

No, really, because you'll produce your estrogen when they carry things for you, and you guys will get testosterone. Ooh. Okay.

[Alex Clark]

It's a win. Win.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Get to work, boys.

[Unnamed Guest]

What can you share about PCOS?

[Mary Ruddock]

60 years ago, it basically didn't exist.

[Alex Clark]

This is a modern phenomenon.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah. It's also not in any of the tribes that I go to. Not even close. Ten years ago, you could just go low carb. For many people, that will be enough. You can go ketogenic. If that doesn't work, then I would do soluble fiber, like broccoli. Like, six. Six cups a day.

[Alex Clark]

Six cups of broccoli for pcos yeah.

[Mary Ruddock]

Or you could add Inulin to your drinks. You could have raw carrots. If you look up soluble fiber and what foods have them, it's onions, garlic, carrots, asparagus, whatnot. You need about 20 grams a day.

[Alex Clark]

And that raw carrot salad, is that good for pcos?

[Mary Ruddock]

Amazing.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

I've heard that's like all the rage on tick tock, you know.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah. It's the soluble fiber that's doing.

[Unnamed Guest]

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[Alex Clark]

What impact do vitamin D levels have on hormones?

[Mary Ruddock]

Well, vitamin D is a hormone and you need very set bacteria to be able to make it. So it used to be that we thought, oh, you can just take it, or, oh, you can sit in the sun and eat cholesterol. And the sun hitting the cholesterol, you'll make vitamin D. We now know you actually also have to have bacteria, so stop using soap.

[Alex Clark]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Okay, now I am using. Yes, organic prebiotic body wash. But you think for. Because. So my vitamin D is estronomically low.

[Mary Ruddock]

Also that could be your thyroid. That alone could cause your thyroid condition.

[Alex Clark]

Okay.

[Mary Ruddock]

Yes.

[Alex Clark]

So I just thought there was like maybe a bare minimum amount of time I've got to commit to being outside every day or something that I'm not doing because I'm really bad about. I mean, I've been in this building, you know, filming all day. I haven't even stepped outside in two days. So it's like those are the things that I deal with. So I didn't know if you were.

[Unnamed Guest]

Going to say, like, you know, you.

[Alex Clark]

Need to commit to at least 40 minutes a day outside or something more than that.

[Mary Ruddock]

It's so do you know what your body thinks when you're inside all day, even if you're doing your favorite activity?

[Alex Clark]

What?

[Mary Ruddock]

It thinks you're hiding from war.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, my gosh.

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that's why everyone's cortisol is up so high. We can't be inside like, like this. Okay, yes.

[Unnamed Guest]

So.

[Alex Clark]

So tell me the bare minimum outside time human beings should aim for daily. The bare minimum.

[Unnamed Guest]

If we could just start there.

[Mary Ruddock]

30 minutes. Start with 30 in the morning, before 10am that's going to downregulate your histamines. That's going to regulate your microbiome more than diet. It's going to stimulate your dopamine. But vitamin D is more midday. But again, you need bacteria for that.

[Alex Clark]

Is fertility a sign of health? And if a woman is struggling with it, does it mean she's unhealthy?

[Mary Ruddock]

About 20 years ago, all the turkeys in the big farms became sterile. They had to use turkey basters to get them pregnant. If that's not a sign from Mother Nature saying, don't replicate, something's wrong. I don't know what is. We are now seeing that with our women. And it's very fixable. It's super fixable. Like as long as someone has amh Hormones, they have a eggs. It's not hard to get pregnant if you know what to do. It doesn't have to cost money, it doesn't take huge medical interventions. It is different groceries and different lifestyle things. That is it. But I think what, what women are going through is actually horrific. It's actually horrific what men are going through too. But the onslaught against our hormones to include our clothing, right, everyone's working out in plastic. That has far more consequences than people realize.

[Alex Clark]

So, Mary Ruddocks, if you could do top three tips for a woman who is struggling to get pregnant, what would they be?

[Mary Ruddock]

Oh, go ketogenic, eat organ meat, sunlight in the morning while petting a puppy and making it into five. And do not wear anything that is not a natural fiber that's really interfering.

[Alex Clark]

With our hormones usually. So really, if that is true, why is it sometimes so easy for like some woman on meth in the street to get pregnant and not this woman who's living this non toxic organic lifestyle?

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah, it's super unfair. That lady on meth is not stressed. She's having a blast. Right? She's having a blast by her. That's why she's a meth addict. She's having a blast in her life. She is relaxed. She's not showing up for work at 8am, right. She's actually in her feminine.

[Alex Clark]

So this is a fascinating point of view. You win for the most unique takes of any guest I've ever had.

[Mary Ruddock]

I'm so glad.

[Alex Clark]

So the meth head is in her divine feminine. The suburban housewife is stressed to the max, constantly ruminating on getting pregnant.

[Mary Ruddock]

Well, the housewife, let's say she doesn't work outside of the house. No time in history were housewives ever alone. They're alone in the house. We're not meant to be alone. Women are meant to all be together like hens. We really are. So it's, it's the most ideal right now if a woman can be home. But it's still not ideal for someone.

[Alex Clark]

Struggling with food addiction. How can they find freedom?

[Mary Ruddock]

Addiction is not in the mind, it's in the body. It's in the body. Balance your blood sugar. Don't take it personally. Think of yourself if you're a female listening, think of yourself like a male. Have you ever heard a male talk about binge eating? No. They sit down and they eat 5,000 calories in front of us. And they are happy about it, right? They're happy about themselves, they feel good of themselves. We need to do the same. If you're hungry. It's because either you're lacking Akkermansia, which is the bacteria that is Ozempic, by the way. You do not need ozempic. Like have Akkermansia in your microbiome. It's on.

[Alex Clark]

How do you get that? What is it, a supplement?

[Mary Ruddock]

It's on Amazon. Yeah, yeah. It's a birth microbe. But it's easy to get. It's like 20 bucks. Okay. And the. Any brand is fine. The other thing is balance your blood sugar and then really watch the lighting and the hours, because if ghrelin and leptin, those hormones aren't regulated, your hunger is going to be out of control.

[Alex Clark]

If you could only offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, and that could be physically, mentally, or spiritually, what would it be?

[Mary Ruddock]

I have to be honest. You need like a hundred. But if I have to give, and I. No exaggeration. It is actually the tiny things. It is every single moment that gets you into remission, that gets you happy in a relationship. It is not the big things. So it's really how you do everything. But if I had one big sea change, the sea change that I'm gonna recommend is honestly becoming outdated with how much we're doing damage to the microbiome and the way that we're living with no rest at all. The rest is now a luxury. But it would be to go low carb, because if you look at the primary conditions that we're dealing with, they are all destabilized. They're all exasperated and created by fluctuating blood sugar. And we also don't make our feel good chemicals when our blood sugar is swinging. We don't make our sex hormones when our blood sugar is swinging. So it's. It's like the lowest of the foundations, but it's. It's a foundation for right now. Historically, people didn't have to be low carb. It's for right now.

[Alex Clark]

If somebody wanted to work with you for their nervous system issues, autoimmune fertility, how can they do that?

[Mary Ruddock]

My website. I'm usually booked out really far, but I try to put out a lot of information. That's why I've been writing more, so that I can get the things that I teach people to the public. I really feel like this stuff should be in our households. We all need to know this to be able to take care of our spouses, our children, our parents. This stuff needs to be known. We're really past the time when we can use practitioners. There's too many sick people. Right. So we have to actually change. And for that you need knowledge. So I'm trying to put the knowledge out. It's on my website. I just started doing that. No promises. I'm pretty busy, but I'm trying. And the. I wrote over a hundred of them last month. I'm getting them edited. Oh, that's impressive. I know.

[Alex Clark]

In one month?

[Mary Ruddock]

Yeah.

[Alex Clark]

Oh, my gosh.

[Mary Ruddock]

I know. I made this discovery and I couldn't stop putting dots together. So it's to do with bacteria. But the. But, yeah. So on my website, maryreddick.com you get my schedule and YouTube and all those.

[Alex Clark]

Things you remind me of, like the Jane Goodall of health and wellness.

[Mary Ruddock]

You could not have complimented me then.

[Unnamed Guest]

That's totally what you remind me of.

[Mary Ruddock]

I love her.

[Alex Clark]

Where do people find you on social media?

[Mary Ruddock]

MaryQueenOfHeart, on Instagram and on YouTube. I think it's MaryReddick777.

[Alex Clark]

Thank you, Mary for coming on Culture Apothecary.

[Mary Ruddock]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Unnamed Guest]

What an absolutely fascinating life Mary lives. We release new episodes every Monday and Thursday at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern. Anywhere you get your podcasts or the real Alex Clark YouTube channel. Don't forget to pause right now. Leave a five star star review. This is totally free and one of the biggest ways you can help support the show. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.