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Menopause is not the end of feeling good in your body. It's a hormonal transition that requires a new strategy from you and by you. Now, you might need some help, and that's okay. That's what we're here for.
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Welcome to the Thyroid and Hormone Fixer podcast. If you've been told everything is fine, but you're gaining weight despite doing all the right things, struggling with brain fog, mood swings, low libido, or feeling like a stranger in your own body, you're
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in the right place.
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I'm Dr. Amy the Thyroid Fixer. And I want you to know right
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now, I see you, I believe you,
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and you don't have to figure this out alone anymore. We're going to do this together. But I'm also not here to play nice with bad medicine or empty promises. This show is meant to disrupt the entire health space. We're going to challenge the status quo, connect all the dots other providers miss, and give you real, practical, science backed
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tools you can use. Today, you're not going to get any
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more recycled biohacking advice, just truth, strategy and hope. Let's get you back to feeling like the badass human you're meant to be. Do you want to burn fat while just sitting around?
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Do you have extra weight to lose? Do you want less inflammation? Do you want to reduce your oxidative stress?
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Do you want to improve your lipid panel, maybe become more insulin sensitive and once again burn fat while you're sitting
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there at rest at your desk or
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on your couch watching Netflix? Well, now you can with the power of T2 that is in Thyroid Fixer. Now, Thyroid Fixer is not just for
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those with a thyroid problem.
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It's for anyone looking to lose body fat to improve their metabolism to have better energy. Thyroid Fixer actually works at your mitochondrial level, so it is stimulating your metabolism.
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It's also activating ATP which gives you
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more energy, nice and steady through the day. Here's the other really cool thing that Thyroid Fixer does. It turns on a gene that prevents fat from accumulating all over your body. So that means, yeah, if you slip up and you have the Oreo cookie
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or the sweet potato fries, which are
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my two favorite, they're my downfalls. That is not going to put extra fat on your butt, your hips, your thighs and your abs. Oh, and your arms, you don't want those jiggly arms. So why don't you just improve your fat burning potential and actually turn on a gene that prevents fat from accumulating on your body with the power of thyroid fixer. So as a listener of the Thyroid Fixer podcast, your first time purchase, you can use the code listen 20L I s t n 2 0. We'll put that down in the show notes.
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And if you've already purchased it, but
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you just want to save a little
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something, something extra, then use the code
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listen 10L, I s t e n 10 and grab some thyroid fixer.
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Stock up today because it will help
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you burn extra body fat. And who doesn't want that? If you are exhausted, gaining weight, you have brain fog, you just feel off and you're tired of doctor hopping and wasting money. Listen closely. So many women bounce from provider to provider, trying supplements, protocols, and then functional approaches that never truly address the thyroid. Months turn into years and you're still stuck feeling like garbage, wasting your precious life. So this is why we offer a thyroid and hormone solution call. It's not a lab review. It's not treatment. It's clarity and strategy to determine whether you're a good fit for working with our clinic. We, we specialize in thyroid optimization and hormone optimization together because they go hand in hand. You can't do one without the other. You have to do them both. We prescribe in all 50 states, and if you become a patient, we take care of you from start to finish. Testing, treatment, optimization, and ongoing support. You don't have months or years to waste feeling this way. And you shouldn't have to keep throwing money at people who don't truly understand the thyroid and hormones. So if you're ready for real help, go to doctorami.com that's D R A M I E dot com and click book a call in the top right corner to schedule your thyroid and hormone solution. Call and just let us help you get your life back and be that badass human that you are meant to be, that you deserve to be.
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You know, most women are told that menopause is something you just have to survive. Hot flashes, weight gain, brain fog, insomnia, mood swings. It's all just part of getting older, right? No. Here's the honest to God truth. Those symptoms are not menopause itself. They're literally signals that your hormones, your thyroid, your metabolism, and your whole nervous system are just out of balance. And please, if you have been told to just age gracefully or learn to deal with it, then today's episode is for you. Recorded from a hotel room in Miami as I am doing the thyroid fix book tour, podcast tour, media tour, all the things I wanted to record this for you because it's been something that is on my mind as I hear you ask about your hormones and ask about menopause. And we have a couple podcast episodes coming up that dive deeper, specifically into your gut during menopause and different nutrient deficiencies that we need to address during menopause. This episode is specifically just a quick fix how to fix your menopause in
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seven steps, seven pillars that can help
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you feel like you again. So, first of all, we are going to start off with what menopause actually is. Okay, so clarification for listeners. Menopause is not a long phase that you live in forever. It is a single moment in time. So you are officially considered in menopause when you've gone 12 consecutive months without a menstrual cycle. So there is no other medical cause of it. It's just you have 12 months with no cycle. Now, you can go into a surgical menopause by having a hysterectomy and taking your ovaries out specifically. I mean, then, yes, you're going to go into a surgical menopause. Now, just the removal of your uterus technically put you in a surgical menopause in that you're not going to have a cycle again, but you are still going to produce some amount of hormones. Now, in my decision last year, when I was diagnosed with the uterine cancer, to remove my ovaries with the uterus, that was simply because when you remove the uterus, you are essentially cutting off the blood flow to the ovaries. I mean, they're not really going to get a lot of love after a hysterectomy, even if you leave them there. So the reality is, yeah, they'll continue to spit out hormones for a short period of time, and then they just won't anymore. Now, in my case, I have my ovaries removed just on the slight off chance that a cancer cell had made its way into the ovaries. Since I was going to be on hormone replacement anyways, and I knew that I didn't feel like taking my ovaries out was going to be that detrimental. But for women that have a hysterectomy, even if it's just getting your uterus out and leaving the ovaries, or if you have the ovaries taken with your uterus and you don't go on hormones afterwards, that's going to be a rough time. You know, I knew I had my hormone. I mean, I was on hormones going into the surgery. I was on hormones coming out the other side. I put My hormones on the day of my surgery. But if you don't have those hormones in hand and you go through a surgical menopause, that's rough. Well, ladies, even if you go into menopause naturally and you don't have hormones on board, that's rough. So we're going to talk about that today. The average age in the United states is around 51. But we know that perimenopause starts seven to 10 years earlier. And perhaps perimenopause can be actually rougher than menopause for many women. So the perimenopause symptoms. Weight gain, insomnia, anxiety, erratic, irregular cycles. I mean, your cycles can be all over the place. They can be heavy, they can be light. You can skip a few months. You're just everywhere with your cycle. Brain fog, hot flashes can start in perimenopause, ladies. Hair thinning, loss of libido. But here's the thing. Menopause isn't something doctors misdiagnose the way that thyroid conditions are misdiagnosed. But women absolutely get medically gaslit during
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menopause, like we already talked about.
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So this is where you hear all the things, all the things you don't need. Hormones, right? That Women's Health Initiative study, the worst study ever done, that ripped hormones out of women's hands everywhere, leading millions of women to suffer unnecessarily because of one study that got into the brains of many a doctor, that hormones will cause cancer. And that is a shame, because now we know hormones protect against cancer. I mean, in reality, hormone support can absolutely start during perimenopause. It should start during perimenopause. If you are listening to the sound of my voice and you are a woman, please. Everything that we talk about today, the seven pillars that we're going to talk about today, they really need to be started in perimenopause, because that's when your hormones start to decline. That's when we need to do something about it. You get those hormones on board, implement all of the seven pillars that we're talking about today, and maybe menopause won't be that bad. Okay, so why does menopause feel so hard? Menopause involves, technically the decline of your three major hormones. Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. But these hormonal shifts don't happen in isolation. They actually affect your thyroid function, your insulin sensitivity, inflammation in your body, your brain chemistry. So when estrogen begins to decline, thyroid signaling and metabolic efficiency start to change. That's why so many women so many women say that they're doing the exact same things that they've always done, but they're suddenly gaining weight. And this is what I call thyropause. This is when thyroid changes and hormonal shifts collide. It's when your hormones start to decline in perimenopause. So this is essentially what happens. All three hormones decline, but progesterone goes first, followed very closely by testosterone. And then your estrogen goes on a wild roller coaster ride before it falls off a cliff. Now, what this is going to do, these wild hormonal fluctuations, they're going to take a switch, like a light switch called Hashimoto's that rests in the off position. It's going to flip it to the on position. Now flip it on. That will then equal thyropause. So this is when the symptoms of hypothyroidism, like weight gain and fatigue and hair loss and brain fog and mood changes, start to overlap with the symptoms of perimenopause, which is weight gain, hormonal changes or mood changes, low energy, I mean, all the same, you can see they're overlapping. We could give the same list. We could give the same exact list for both. So what that does is it compounds the symptoms. It makes them that much worse, because now you have two things that are related, but both are affecting your body in a different way. So perimenopause is happening, your hormones are declining. The hormones in and of themselves decline, declining or producing symptoms because of the close tie. I mean, let's just take progesterone. Progesterone declines, we start to get insomnia because progesterone is the calming hormone to our brain, converts in our liver to allopregnanolone, and then helps our brain calm down, helps with anxiety, helps with sleep. Well, when progesterone declines, we get the brain fog and the anxiety and the insomnia. When thyroid hormone declines, we get brain fog, low energy, insomnia, anxiety for no reason, depression for no reason. So you can see how both can cause a symptom or a cluster of symptoms, and it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other. You don't have to sit there and say, is this perimenopause or thyropause? It can be both, because it's the hormonal decline that turned on the thyropause switch that turned on the thyroid decline. So we can see how close they are together. So fixing menopause is not just about one magic pill, one magic set of hormones. One magic diet, one magic gut reset. It's about addressing the systems in your body that changes during this transition time. Okay, here we go. Write these down. Pillar number one, thyroid optimization.
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Oh, you knew I was going to
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say that, didn't you? But it's true. Thyroid dysfunction becomes more visible during menopause because of estrogen's role. So estrogen and I talk about this in the thyroid fix book. If you haven't gotten yours yet, for goodness sake, why, why? Why? I want you to just pause this, go to Amazon, type in the thyroid fix. You're gonna see the book cover come up. It's got pink and orange. It really stands out. Make sure it says, Bye, Dr. Amy Hornman. And now click buy now because you are going to want this book in your arsenal. First of all, it's huge support of
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me, so thank you.
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If you're listening to this, listen, I love being on here teaching you. I love giving you advice. I love being in our Facebook group, doing Facebook lives. I'm just asking for one little bit of love to be thrown back just by the book. And that's not just loving on me. I mean, I appreciate it tremendously. You have no idea. But I promise you, I promise you, I promise you, this is the last thyroid book you will ever need. This is the thyroid bible. It has everything in it. It is teaching you exactly what you need to do. Exactly what you need to do. Okay, so there's my plug. So anyways, pillar one, thyroid optimization. So estrogen, that's what I was talking about. And I. I write about this in the book. It actually plays a role in thyroid hormone transport. So there's something called thyroid binding globulin TBG that your thyroid hormones jump on. It's like a little train. And this train delivers the thyroid hormones to where they need to go if estrogen starts to increase. Like, you go into this estrogen dominant state, which can happen in perimenopause, and then it can also happen in as you're transitioning. I know it. It's so confusing when we say in menopause. In menopause. I just got done saying you can't be in menopause because it's one moment of time. So let's just say as your hormones are fluctuating, you can be estrogen dominant even in menopause because of low progesterone. So what that does if you're taking oral estrogen, if you're estrogen dominant because of polycystic ovarian syndrome, if you're estrogen dominant because of low progesterone. If you're estrogen dominant because you're in perimenopause transition into menopause, that can increase thyroid binding globulin, which then will bind up your T4 and your T3 hormones. Estrogen also plays a role in receptor sensitivity of your T3, attaching to the receptor site on your cell, and it plays a role in conversion of T4 into T3. So when estrogen drops, that's when women will experience a slower metabolism, fatigue, hair loss, just all the fun stuff of low hormones. Oh, and let's not forget about the weight gain, because again, you can get wider in your midsection and gain weight when estrogen drops. You can gain weight when progesterone drops. You can gain weight, obviously, when your thyroid goes in the toilet. So here we are compounding the symptoms again. We're getting symptoms from estrogen dropping directly. Like, we know this, your midsection will get wider. We also get wider and fatter when our thyroid isn't working very well. So weight gain is a huge, huge part of this. Many women will assume that these symptoms are just menopause when it's the thyroid that's not optimized. And if your thyroid isn't optimized, hormone therapy, which is pillar two, won't work. So that is why pillar number one is optimize your thyroid. So get the thyroid effects book. It will teach you how to optimize your thyroid. I obviously have many podcasts on how to optimize your thyroid. And I actually have a podcast coming out on May 12, the day that the thyroid fix is released. And the podcast is called how to fix your thyroid. So I got you covered on pillar one. Now let's do pillar two. So pillar two, vhrt, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, bhrt. So common hormone supported estradiol, progesterone, testosterone. This is what we do when we bring in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. They're identical to what your body actually produces in the form of those hormones. Now, we're going to talk about the synthetic hormones in a moment because that's important to bring up. Synthetic hormones are your birth control. Now, there is a category called just HRT instead of vhrt. There actually is hrt, hrt. Those are synthetic hormones. So many doctors out there are still prescribing HRT like that in birth control. Or let's see, I'm trying to think of the name of the conjugated equine estrogen that goes by A brand name. Ah, it's escaping me at the moment, but those are the ones that you want to stay away from. The synthetic progestins instead of progesterone and the conjugated equine estrogen instead of estradiol or estrella, you want to stay away from the synthetics. Now, when we do vhrt, we can do this so that we are giving you back either a physiological dose, meaning we are pulsing your estrogen and progesterone up and down so they mimic what your natural pulse was in your 20s and 30s. And we can actually rhythmic dose it so. So that you have a cycle. Or we can do something called static dosing, which is just giving you enough of the hormones back to eliminate symptoms and give you the bone, brain, breast and heart protection that hormones give you. And, you know, improving sleep, improving metabolic function, improving libido, all of that cognitive support. But they're at a lower dose. And I would say the majority of women do prefer static dosing of hormones. It's easy. You do the same thing daily. You don't have to take more or less. And especially those women, if you're one of them, that are a little bit more sensitive to hormones, it's really good to just do the static dosing because a small increase in an estradiol dose, let's say, sends you through the roof, and then you're going to be retaining water and moody and all the side effect things of estrogen. Some women do really well on rhythmic dosing and some don't. Some do much better and even prefer the static dosing because they don't want to have a cycle every single month anymore. Okay, now we already mentioned the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study. They used synthetic hormones in that study. And it was older populations. It was really just a flawed way of doing the study. Overall, the way they broke down the data, the way they looked at the data. Oh, and they didn't pre screen anyone for already existing cancers. So no wonder they came out and said, well, yeah, hey guys, hormones cause cancer. Well, duh. I mean, you're using synthetic hormones in older people 10 years post menopause, which if you wait 10 years, and this is one of the reasons why I want to get this podcast out and I want you to listen to it as soon as possible before you age another day. Do not go 10 years without hormones because you lose a lot of the benefits. All of us ladies that have started hormones right away, really pretty much before going into menopause, we're Much more protected. Now, I'm not saying, listen, if you were a Victim of the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study or you're still with a doctor that just places the fear of God in you that hormones are going to cause cancer, well, a, you need to leave that doctor. But B, you need to understand that if you wait too long or if you're 10 years post, you're going to get the symptom relief, but you're not going to get the protection that was once there for you. And I feel bad because it's not your fault. Now it is your fault if you believe the doctors and it is your fault if you just, you know, say in your mind, well, I, I'm only going to go to somebody that takes my insurance and if they don't give me hormones, then so be it. Well, then you're literally playing Russian roulette with your life and the rest of your life. So if you want to do that just so you stay in the insurance based system, then it is your fault. But for those of us who actually, you know, do want to get better and we're not going to age gracefully. We're going to age with a fight. We're going down fighting and we're going down while protecting our bone, brain, breast and our heart and living our best life. So that's how we're going down. The 2002 Women's Health Initiative study, you can see that I went on a tangent there. Again, use synthetic hormones. And this is important to differentiate. So you want to make sure that you are working with someone that uses bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, not just HRT, but B, H, R, T. And you know, you ask before you start working with someone, you ask. And for both pillar one and pillar two, I say this quite often on this show, so if you're an avid listener, you're going to nod. Yeah, she always says that. What we want to do is do them both at the same time. We want to do thyroid optimization and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy at the same time. You cannot do one without the other. You cannot. Do not go to a pop up clinic that does hormones and doesn't do thyroid. Do not go to a thyroid clinic that doesn't do hormones. You have to do them both together in conjunction together. Okay. Pillar three, nutrition and insulin resistance. So menopause actually dramatically increases the risk of insulin resistance. We're already starting off with 93 of all Americans have some degree of metabolic dysfunction or insulin resistance. I mean, that is crazy. That is a crazy stat. And now with the stat of a hundred percent of living women will go through menopause. Here's the thing, ladies, if you live to the age of 6, 60, you are guaranteed to experience perimenopause and menopause. And the reason I picked 60 is cuz you're going to have that random 55 year old that's like, I'm still cycling. Okay, good for you. You're the outlier. Most of us that are 52 have already been through menopause, 55 already been through menopause. So it's something that you can't really avoid, is it? Now estrogen normally helps to regulate glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity and fat distribution. So please remember that estrogen dictates where your fat is going on your body. When estrogen declines, your insulin sensitivity decreases. So we say there's this term insulin resistance, meaning your cells are resistant to the signal of insulin. That insulin, it's not working properly to push the glucose and nutrients into your cell. It's not working properly to lower your glucose level. Insulin sensitivity is the opposite of that. It means your cells are sensitive to that insulin signaling. It's like, yes, okay, I hear you properly. Good. When estrogen declines, insulin sensitivity decreases, which means insulin resistance increases, visceral fat increases. I'm down here in Miami. I just recorded with Benazotti, amazing human being. If you don't have his book Metabolic Freedom, you need to go get that. That's where I got the stat of 93% of Americans have insulin resistance. We were just talking about it today and Ben and I were talking about visceral fat. And he's one of the first podcast hosts to actually ask me this question, which I loved. And we talked about the thyroid's rule in visceral fat distribution. Visceral fat is that fat that is wrapped around your organs and it's the fat that you don't really see. You're not grabbing visceral fat and saying, oh my God, I hate these love handles on me. You're not seeing visceral fat, but it's there and it's doing damage. It is there underneath the surface and it is doing damage. I guarantee you I need to talk
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to every woman who's been told your
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labs are normal while your body is
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screaming at you and rebelling against you.
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Fatigue, brain fog, the weight that will not come off, mood swings, hair loss, feeling dismissed, frustrated and confused. I get it. And that is exactly why I wrote
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my new book, the Thyroid Fix the no nonsense Guide. To fix fatigue, fogginess and fat that won't budge.
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That just says it all.
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And it is now available for pre sale. So I need your help to spread the message. I am giving you an ask as my listener and a promise at the same time, if you pre order the thyroid fix, my promise to you is to continue delivering all kinds of free advice, information, content, education, empowerment.
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Because that's what I love to do.
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Whether it's here in the just fix your thyroid Facebook group or I'm on live.
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I will give you everything I possibly
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can if you do me one favor,
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which will be a favor for yourself as well and pre order the thyroid fix. Now, this book is not another list
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of supplements, vague advice.
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It's not a diet plan.
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It's not filled with recipes.
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It's not. It is a clear, honest guide. It is the Thyroid Bible. It is the last thyroid book that
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you will ever need because it teaches you how to read your own labs.
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No other book has done that.
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It teaches you what medication and dose you need. No other book has ever done that. It will help you to understand why you are being misdiagnosed, why you're being undertreated, and why you can't talk about hormones, weight loss or menopause without talking about the thyroid.
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I called it Thyroid Bible because like I said, this is going to be
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the thyroid book of the next few decades. When you pre order, you're not just supporting me, you're telling the publisher. This message matters and it needs to
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get out to the world and it
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needs to get into the hands of women who have been ignored for far too long.
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So will you go to thyroid fixbook.com and pre order a copy of yours today? It'll be shipped to you on May 12th and you will get free entry to our all day live event where I will be there answering your questions live, teaching live, and bringing in amazing guests for you to also connect with and ask your questions too. So thyroid textbook.com pre order yours. Today visceral fat increases our risk of cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease, pancreatitis, and obviously, anytime we have a lowered insulin sensitivity and an increase in visceral fat, blood sugar is going to become harder to regulate. And those three things can increase your risk of cancer because we know that cancer feeds on sugar. When we are insulin resistant, we are at a much, much, much greater risk of cancer. So that's a whole other issue. But I wanted to mention it in the context of insulin sensitivity and visceral fat. Now, research shows that women gain an average of 10 to 15 pounds during menopause, that's just an average. Some more, some less. But it's the abdominal fat that is increasing significantly and the insulin resistance risk rises by 30 to 50%. So wait, wait, wait, wait. Where are we Starting off with? 93% of Americans have some degree of metabolic dysfunction or insulin resistance. We know that insulin resistance drives weight gain, produces fatigue, produces a boatload of inflammation, and significantly increases our cardiovascular risk. So now we add on menopause on top of that, making insulin resistance worse, causing women to gain more weight. So let's just say menopause is responsible for £15. Thyropause is responsible for another £20. And just your insulin resistance from your menopause and your thyroid both tanking your insulin sensitivity gives you another 10 pounds. That's going to be, oh, 30, 40, what, like between 40 and 50 pounds extra that you're going to be carrying around. Just because you're aging and your hormones are declining, you're not doing anything about it. Now we're shifting the blame to you a little bit. Are you going to do something about it? Are you just going to listen to this podcast and nod your head at the stats? Come on, this is meant to wake you up a little bit too. Okay, so if we're looking at nutrition as our pillar, as our third pillar, what do we need to do? Number one, prioritize. Protein. Protein first. Protein first. So if you're looking at your meal and you have a steak and a sweet potato with butter, cinnamon and sugar and a side of whatever, broccoli, broccolini, what are you going to eat first? You're going to need the steak first. In fact, you're not even going to take a bite of that really good looking sweet potato with butter, cinnamon and sugar because that's going to spike your glucose. That's going to fill you up. It's going to kick in your sweet tooth. I want you to finish that steak first, protein first, and then whatever you have room for after. Then you can do the veggies and the starches, but protein first. You need to get in 1 gram per pound of lean body mass to protect your muscle as you age. Because the other component of menopause and just aging in general, andropause for guys, menopause for ladies, as you're losing your testosterone, your testosterone is very protective of your muscle, which is your organ of longevity. Your muscle is the most important thing to hold on to as you age. And unless you eat enough protein, you're not going to, because your body is very, very smart. And your body needs amino acids and it will take those amino acids from your muscles. Oh, and your hair, by the way, it'll, it'll strip your hair down so fast you won't even have time to count the hairs that come out of your head in the shower. Prioritize protein, stabilize blood sugar. You know, you heard me pause right before I said it, right? The reason why I pause is I thought to myself, okay, everybody knows this, but I'm still just gonna say it. You know, some of these things that we say nutrition advice wise are just so cliche and they're so baseline. Like, have you ever watched like, you know, the Today show, Good Morning America, your local news will have like a little nutrition segment and you as one of my listeners, you, you're more advanced. So you're probably looking at those going, duh, like, gee, you know, thanks Katie Couric or whoever's on the Today show anymore, Hoda or whatever the hell her name is, thanks for pointing out the obvious. But in reality, we do need to stabilize our blood sugar. Listen, I get into the habit too of eating higher carb and sometimes sugary foods. I mean, I just had sushi tonight which included rice and I had a really good looking frozen yogurt that I ate half of because it wasn't that great, but it's still frozen yogurt. So I'm not perfect. I'm by no means perfect, but I try my best to stabilize my blood sugar. I will use berberine every single day. I take it at least once a day, especially for cancer prevention. That's my blood sugar fixer. I take blood sugar fixer at least once a day to stabilize my blood sugar. I want to keep a nice even level. I don't want highs or lows because when you spike high, you're going to be in your fat storage mode. When you drop down low, you're going to be hangry down here. So berberine comes in, blood sugar fixer comes in and just a nice wave, like pattern, nice wave like pattern, stabilize your blood sugar. Now you do stabilize your blood sugar by eating protein, by the way. Just saying, that's going to help as well. Reduce ultra processed carbohydrates. That's going to help stabilize your blood sugar too. But ultra processed carbs like the box and you know, the stuff that's in the bags and the boxes and you know what processed foods are. Your chips, your crackers, your cookies, processed. Even protein bars, processed. You want to focus on whole Foods. So the goal is just metabolic stability, not starving yourself or chasing the latest diet trend or, you know, doing a Beyonce detox. You just want metabolic stability, metabolic stability, just even, nice, even, keel. Tying into that metabolic stability is pillar four, which is sleep. Now, this is just opening a can of worms, isn't it? Sleep is one of the most powerful hormone regulators. But I'm also going to acknowledge the fact that if your thyroid's in the toilet and you're not replacing your hormones, pillar one, pillar two, and your nutrition is off and you are insulin resistant, pillar three, you're not gonna be able to sleep. You're not gonna be able to sleep. That's why this is pillar four. It's not pillar one. I don't expect you to sleep with a thyroid that's in the shitter and hormones that are all over the place as you're eating and treating your body like a circus. Like, no, you're not going to sleep. But when you do pillar one, pillar two, and pillar three, now pillar four becomes a little bit easier, but we're still going to get into it. So during menopause, if you're wondering why in the hell I can't sleep as well anymore, sleep disturbances increase pictures because progesterone declines. We said that already. Progesterone promotes calmness and sleep cortisol patterns become dysregulated during menopause. So your stress response, you are going to be more wigged out, more stressed out, more wigged out. Things that normally wouldn't bother you are going to bother you. And then temperature regulation changes. Hello, hot flashes and night sweats. How is a woman supposed to sleep when she's waking up drenched in sweat? The stat. 60% of menopausal women experience chronic sleep disturbances. That's chronic. That means they are really on the struggle bus. Now, I would argue that these are the women that aren't taking hormones. Listen, you get some nice progesterone on board that helps sleep so much. You do pillar three and balance your blood sugar work on that insulin resistance part, which the insulin resistance part needs. Pillar one and pillar two, because you have to regulate your. You have to optimize your thyroid and regulate your hormones in order to have insulin sensitivity, you could eat the best diet in the world and you could still be insulin resistant. If your thyroid's in the toilet and you aren't taking hormones because progesterone and estrogen plays such a strong, powerful role in insulin resistance, and when you're insulin resistant, you're going to wake up at 2 to 4am because of your blood sugar, or you're going to wake up in the middle of the night because your cortisol is spiking or your temperature is spiking and you're sweating, you're having hot flashes, and it all comes back to hormones. Can you see yet how all of these pillars are interconnected? Like, you can't just pick one. You can't be like, you know what? I'm just going to do the hormone or I'm just going to do the. Yeah, well, you could say, I'm just going to do the hormone piece. I would say no. What do we already talk about? You need to do hormones and thyroid together, and you can't do hormones and thyroid on a dumpster fire. So you need to do pillar three and clean up your diet. And then you can't do hormones on thyroid with a clean diet. If you're a night owl and you're getting four hours of sleep. So we're going to have to do something to promote your sleep. So what can you do to help with. To help with sleep? Number one, progesterone. So fix your thyroid. Oftentimes, as we are optimizing someone's thyroid, their sleep balances out tremendously. Fix your thyroid. Then we're going to come over and fix your hormones. So what is my saying? Fix your thyroid, fix your hormones, fix your life. Say it with me. Fix your thyroid, fix your hormones, fix your life. So we're going to add in some progesterone, calm down that brain. If your estradiol is low, we're going to bring that in as well. Balance out the temperature and the cortisol and help with insulin resistance. Ooh. So good. Help with inflammation. If you're low in estradiol, your FSH is going to increase. When FSH goes above 25, you are inflamed. That's follicle stimulating hormone. Okay, so pillar one, pillar two, pillar three, pillar four, all interconnected for sleep. You can also add in magnesium, which is a nutrient that is beneficial for the thyroid as well. It's one of my no da supplements, meaning, duh. Of course you're going to take this every day, so let's bring in some magnesium. That helps tremendously in menopause. And we're going to talk about specific nutrients next. But magnesium will help with sleep as well. Now, my sleep fixer in my line, let me tell you about that, because I was a chronic insomniac since the age of 25. Since the age of 25. I have relied on some form of a sleep aid. Like I started with Tylenol PM and eventually made my way to Ambien or a Benzo. So, yeah, I was taking Xanax for years just to sleep. I never had to go up in the dose, but I took it to sleep because if I didn't take it, I wouldn't sleep. And yes, I saw a sleep specialist and she said, no, don't take it. You just, just sit up. Like, don't even go to bed. Just sit upright until you are ready to fall asleep and then you go into bed. Great. That was three days. That wasn't fun. I won't sleep without help until, until I start playing around with different ingredients and concocting my own stuff and thus the birth of sleep fixer. So what I did there with melatonin, I'm keeping it very minuscule. It mimics the amount of melatonin your brain produces and then the other ingredients in it. Like 5 HTP Passion Flower Valerian root. That's been the combination that has helped me sleep. Now will I still have to take like a Delta 8 Gummy, which is THC knocked down a bit to basically Delta 8 makes you sleep. Delta 9 makes you high. Delta 8 makes you sleep. I'll still throw in a Delta 8 Gummy if I need, but I don't have to. I could just take my sleep fixer and sleep for the first time since I was 25. So it works. So you can add that as well. Now, I did not put my quad mag has four different magnesiums in it. I did not want to put all four mags in sleep fixer. I wanted to keep the magnesium separately, separate so that you could take it even during the day. Because some people don't have an issue with sleep. They just need the Magnesium support for T4 to T3 convert, for muscle relaxation, for gut motility. So I didn't put all the mags in a sleep fixer. They're two separate formulas. So I will take magnesium and I will take my sleep fixer for sleep pillar 5 specific nutrients. Several nutrients become especially important during menopause. Okay, you ready? Creatine, not just for athletes. So we do have a creatine fixer. And I love it. It's creatine monohydrate. I take it every single day. I put it in my. Well, actually I put it in my water bottle when I'm working out and I'll stick some amino acids in there and a scoop of my creatine. So research Shows that creatine supports muscle preservation, definitely helps you keep your muscle brain energy metabolism. So now we're seeing much more research in brain and cognition cognitive performance. With creatine, we're seeing it support mitochondrial function which declines with age anyways. Studies show that creatine can improve your strength at the gym, fatigue resistance. So if you are not yet doing pillar one with your thyroid, you're going to be tired, so you're going to want some creatine. But this is pillar five, so you got to do pillar one, two, three and four first before you get to pillar five. B vitamins are fantastic. Mitochondrial energy production, neurotransmitter synthesis. B vitamins are vital for your brain function, for your neurotransmitters, for stress resilience. So if you are like man, I just can't handle stress the way that I used to add in. B Fixer. Low B12 in particular can cause fatigue, can also cause brain fog and nervous nerve symptoms. Now optimal B12 levels are above a 700. Above a 700. I don't care if they're 1200. I don't care if you're 2000. That means that you're taking it. That's good. You just want it above a 700. If you're below a 700, you're screwed. You go out and you get B fexor. Right now it's liquid and it tastes good. It's not another pill. You won't get pill fatigue. That's why I love my B fixer. Because it's liquid. It's one less pill. Anything that we can make in a liquid, we did collagen and connective tissue. So in the thyroid fix, I talk about how hypothyroidism actually can cause frozen shoulder and a variety of different connective tissue diseases because of the breakdown of connective tissue and the loss of nutrients because of low circulation. But after menopause, it's a whole other bag of that we have to deal with. So collagen production drop drops significantly after menopause. Why? Because of your reduction in estrogen. Pillar number two, pillar number two. Skin elasticity declines, joint stiffness increases. Which compounds with pillar number one, your thyroid tendon injuries increase. Which compound with pillar number one and pillar number two because your testosterone is declining and you need pillar number two to replace the testosterone. And as your thyroid is declining, pillar number 1:1, your tendon injuries can increase as well. Research shows that women lose up to 30% of your skin collagen in the first five years after menopause. And this is because you're not doing pillar number two, which is replacing your hormones. If you replace your hormones in the first five years after menopause, you might lose 2%, 5%. You add in some collagen as well, you might lose zero percent. You know, it'll break down as we age, but my goodness, if we can get the hormones on board, get our thyroid optimized so our skin isn't dry as the desert and cracking in half and wrinkling. Get the hormones on board, get the right nutrients on board, enough amino acids. That's pillar three. Get some sleep going. Now we're going into pillar five, adding in some collagen. And specifically, you know, yeah, of course I'm going to plug my collagen. Here's the reason why, because there's not another collagen on the market like it, which I absolutely love. So this is years ago, my friend comes to me and she shows me these bioactive collagen peptides that she finds, and she says, can you make a collagen that has all of these? And I was like, gee, Tara, I don't know. Let me look. I'm like, yeah, I can and I will, just for you. So my Collagen Protein Fixer 2.0, which is our upgraded collagen. Thank you, Tara. Was made for my friend Tara because she looked at studies on the bioactive collagen peptide Barasol and found that it actually reduces cellulite and plumps the skin, reduces wrinkles significantly. It's one of the only collagens. There's a lot of collagen out there. A lot of. I mean, every Joe Schmo supplement company has a collagen. Buyer beware, though. Consumer beware. You actually have to look at the types of collagen and you have to make sure that they are in line with what you're looking for. I mean, I would say all of us are looking for skin support and less wrinkles. I don't know any woman out there that is like, yeah, please let me age five years in the next 10 minutes. That'd be awesome. So let's build up your collagen Vera Saw, which is one of our bioactive collagen peptides and Collagen Protein Fixer 2.0, proven to increase collagen synthesis in your skin, reduce wrinkles. Body balance is the other bioactive collagen peptide that we have in collagen protein fixture 2.0. Body balance promotes lean muscle mass, so it actually helps stimulate muscle gain. Or muscle atrophy. Well, atrophy is breaking down, but then we build, we have to break down the build muscles. So it's stimulating muscle protein synthesis, it's decreasing fat mass, so it's improving lean body mass, lean body composition. And then finally, for the gel for your joints, another bioactive collagen peptide specifically for joint pain. So skin, joints, ligament, hair, nails, boom. All require collagen that you lose in menopause. Pillar number six, muscle and strength training. So muscle mass declines faster during menopause. Isn't that fun too? So we get a 30% decline in our collagen. 60% of menopausal women are experiencing chronic sleep disturbances. Our insulin resistance risk increases by 30 to 50%. We're going to gain an average of 10 to 15 pounds just during menopause. And now we are going to lose 8% of our muscle per decade and the rate accelerates after menopause. Good freaking times aging, isn't it? Please do all of the pillars, because if you do, aging is going to be easy. I'm 52 years old. I mean, yeah, I mean, I've definitely had work done on my face, but overall I think I'm doing pretty well. I mean, I still, I still got muscle, I still work out, I got my brain, I have energy, I live in optimization land. I mean, do the pillars. I promise you, you're going to thank me. Pillar number six, muscle and strength training. Okay, so we already said 8% of muscle loss per decade, strength training. See, this is where it's all connected. Strength training improves our insulin sensitivity, which 93% of us are insulin resistant. And it gets worse in menopause. So let's improve our insulin sensitivity, bone density. We know that the beautiful hormones that we can replace, as in pillar two, those beautiful, beautiful hormones do so many things, so many things. Specifically, progesterone actually helps us with bone remodeling and bone health. So does estradiol, so does thyroid too. Anytime I have ever interviewed a bone expert like Kevin Ellis, he talks about the importance of balancing your estradiol, your progesterone, your testosterone and your thyroid for proper bone turnover. For your bone health, it's vital. We also know that strength training or lifting heavy shit is going to improve your metabolic rate. Muscle is one of the most powerful anti aging tools that we, we have. You protect it with everything you possibly can. And that is going to take protein, it's going to take estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, it's going to take thyroid hormone balance, it's Going to take cleaning up your diet. It's going to take some key nutrients like creatine and amino acids and some collagen. But it's worth. Is so worth it. We take our muscle for granted. And I mean, just go to the mall, go to Walmart, go to the airport, just look around. I mean, people are just walking bags of mush these days. I mean, there's hardly muscle mass on anybody. Why, why have we gotten away from taking care of ourselves? Have we really become that lazy? I don't know. But I think it's also that people are just not listening to this podcast and they're not doing all of these pillars, but you are. So you can pillar number seven, mental health and brain health. So estrogen has a major influence on your brain chemistry. It's affecting your serotonin, your dopamine, acetylcholine. So when estrogen declines, your serotonin, that happy neurotransmitter, drops. Mood regulation, like your ability to regulate, changes. This is where you go, God, why am I being such a. Or people in your family and I always joke, I say, this is the first sign of progesterone decline. It's when your family goes, why are you being so. That's progesterone. Now, when estrogen declines, your mood's just going to be all over the place. Your sleep's going to suck, your serotonin is going to drop. Your dopamine starts to change. So dopamine affects your motivation. This is where you're like, I just don't feel like doing anything. I had no motivation. Dopamine changes affect your reward pathways. That's why we're seeing, with the GLPs, we're seeing a dopamine shift. This is why Vegas is hurting for the first time ever, because people aren't seeking out the dopamine. Dopamine driving behaviors like gambling or drugs or sex. I mean, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but that's just giving you an example of the reward pathways that are changed. So a lot of times women in menopause are just blah. They're just blah. They don't want to do anything. The motivation is gone. Now that's estrogen and testosterone. Focus changes. Now focus can change with your thyroid going in the toilet, too. So now we have again, compounding variables, compounding symptoms that definitely impact quality of life. And this is why women will report feeling anxious, being depressed, having brain fog, having memory issues. Research shows that women are twice as likely. Here's another stat for you twice as likely to experience depression during that menopausal transition. And listen, if you're a woman in perimenopause and you're having a rough time. Yeah, I feel for you. Because it. It starts to hit in Perry, that depression, that anxiety starts to hit in perimenopause. Now, these symptoms are. They're biological. They are not a personality flaw, and they're not something you just have to push through. And that really is the important message here. And that's why I gave you those seven pillars. And we're still going to talk more about the brain one, but I gave you those seven pillars because they will make a difference. I mean, that's it. If you go through these seven pillars, you'll be just fine in perimenopause and menopause, just fine. Again, for pillar one and pillar two, you're going to have to work with someone that knows what they're doing with thyroid hormones. You are absolutely welcome to come to the Advanced Thyroid Hormone Clinic, where we do it the right way. You can go to dramy.com right now. You can book a call, and we will talk through what you've done, what you haven't done, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what kind of foolish doctors you've already talked to, how many functional providers have taken your money and not helped you. We get it. We've seen it all. We've seen it all. That's why I'm out here doing this, trying to protect you as well. And in the book, the thyroid Fix, do you want to grab that right now if you didn't on the first break? I tell you exactly how to get what you want. And we talk about these functional clinics being jacks of all trade, masters of none, and certainly not masters of thyroid and hormones. So with your mental health and brain health, I'm not saying go out and get an antidepressant, but you can even add in things like phosphatidylcholine that helps with the brain function. You can add in different nootropics, functional mushrooms like that that's found in even just some of the coffees now, like four sigmatic, lion's mane, turkey tail, all of those help to light up the brain. And then, of course, hormones. Nothing beats hormones. There's no supplement out there that can trump replacing hormones. So we have to address our brain, and we have to do what we can do for our stress. Now, if you grab the thyroid fix on audible, I actually have bonuses, recorded bonuses at the end of each chapter so I go a little bit deeper. I have a chapter called Flip Stress on its Head that. Yeah, it's actually called your Thyroid Guide to not giving a How to Flip Stress on its Head. Because that's where we want you. I don't want you stressed about being stressed, so I want to take that off of your plate. But I do talk and you know me, I'm not going to be the type that goes, I want you to just take some deep breaths and meditate and stand in the grass and look at the sun five times a day. You know me. I'm not going to do that. Do you? I know you can't do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to tell you to do something I'm not going to do. But I do talk real and give logical, real advice, tips, tricks, whatever you want to call it of what you really can do and what you're going to do to decrease your stress while at the same time acknowledging the fact that we all have a lot of stress that we just can't control as well. So to conclude, menopause is not the end of feeling good in your body. It's a hormonal transition that requires a new strategy from you and by you. Now, you might need some help, and that's okay. That's what we're here for. But when you address thyroid health, hormones, metabolism, sleep, nutrition and muscle together, you won't just survive menopause. It's not about surviving. You're going to feel stronger, clearer, more energized than you ever have in decades. And this is how you fix your menopause.
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The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for profess professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, treatment or before making changes to your healthc care regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provider relationship between you and the host or between you and any other healthcare professionals featured on the show. Any medical opinions or statements made by guests are their own and do not
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necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties.
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Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not
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These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Some episodes of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast may include sponsorships or Affiliate Links the host may receive compensation for discussing or promoting certain products or services. Any such sponsorships or affiliations will be clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the hosts or guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service does not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.