Loading summary
Transcript46 lines
- [00:01]
A
If something is as easy as drinking water and you don't do it, then shame on you. Don't be bitching about your fatigue. Get the water in, get the protein in. These are things that you have power over to do.
- [00:13]
B
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,
- [00:23]
A
mood swings, low libido, or feeling like
- [00:25]
B
a stranger in your own body, you're in the right place. I'm Dr. Amy the Thyroid Fixer and I want you to know right now,
- [00:32]
A
I see you, I believe you, and
- [00:35]
B
you don't have to figure this out alone anymore. We're going to do this together.
- [00:40]
A
But I'm also not here to play nice with bad medicine or empty promises.
- [00:45]
B
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, science backed tools you can use today. You're not going to get any 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. 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.
- [02:22]
A
So if you're ready for real help,
- [02:24]
B
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. Okay, ladies, are you in your 40s or 50s like I am and possibly wondering why your energy is just fell off a cliff. Well, you're not imagining it. And it's not just thyroid and hormones. A huge part of midlife fatigue happens deeper, like at the cell level, because of your mitochondria. We talk about this all the time. Your mitochondria, those parts of your cells that make energy and it naturally declines with age. So I totally noticed this myself. Turned 52 in February. And of course my labs look good, I'm optimized, but sometimes I just don't feel like the same person, energy wise. So I started taking Mito Pure gummies. My friend told me about it. I'm like, okay, let me try it. And it's a gummy, so. So it's not another pill, which is nice. So, MIT Pure Gummies from Timeline Nutrition. These little bad boys have the clinically proven form of urolithin A, which. That's a whole big science word, right? But basically what urolithin A is, is it helps to renew your mitochondrial function. And remember your mitochondria, key driver, healthy aging, strength, stamina, and it's just simple. It's two gummies in the morning. So no more pills, no more supplement fatigue. Plus they taste good, so you're gonna want to pop the gummies in the morning. It feels like I'm supporting my body at the root instead of just chasing symptoms with more caffeine or nootropics. Think of Mito Pure urolithin A as helping your cells make energy basically the way they used to back in your 20s and 30s. So if you are experiencing midlife fatigue and it's dragging you down, this is a great place to start. Go to timeline.com T I M E L I N E just like it sounds. Timeline.com/doctor Amy D R A M I E to get up to 39. 39 off your mito pure gummies. So that is timeline.com forward/doctor Amy welcome
- [04:57]
A
to the fixing series. We are doing a series that touches on the top symptoms that you are experiencing with thyroid problems or hormone imbalance,
- [05:09]
B
weight loss, resistance, fatigue, and hair loss.
- [05:12]
A
These are the big three that I hear from you, all that I see
- [05:16]
B
in my patients that drive you crazy,
- [05:18]
A
that you think about every single day,
- [05:19]
B
that basically consumes space in your head
- [05:23]
A
and you are searching Dr. Google, trying to find answers, buying programs that don't
- [05:29]
B
work, all the things right.
- [05:31]
A
So it's important to be educated first.
- [05:34]
B
The Root cause of those symptoms, inability to lose weight, hair loss, fatigue.
- [05:41]
A
We have to find the why. And there are multiple, multiple whys.
- [05:44]
B
But when we go over them and
- [05:46]
A
then you take this information and do your own checklist, you can see, oh, yeah, maybe. Maybe it is my thyroid. You know, my doctor said that everything was normal, but now that I'm listening to this, I'm realizing it's not normal. This is not in a normal range
- [06:04]
B
or in an optimal range.
- [06:07]
A
My doctor is just looking at it as part of the standard lab value range. Oh, wait, yeah, no, I'm not eating enough protein. I had no idea that protein was so important for weight loss and for hair and for fatigue. Oh, my gosh. It spans all three. So we're going to talk about, in each of these episodes in this series, we're going to talk about what you can do to fix this, what you need to look at, what you need to test, what you need to check yourself for. Maybe it's just, am I lifting heavy? Am I eating enough protein? Am I drinking enough water? Am I doing all the things, Am I taking the supplement? Or do I need to go deeper and get proper testing and look at my individual lab values that contribute to one of many symptoms? So enjoy the fixing series. We're going to talk about fixing your
- [07:00]
B
weight loss resistance, your fatigue and your hair loss.
- [07:05]
A
Today, we're talking all about fatigue because that is a big, big complaint, symptom,
- [07:11]
B
whatever you want to label it.
- [07:13]
A
Struggle. The struggle is real when we're talking about low thyroid and low hormones. But we're going to go over the other causes of fatigue as well, because just like I always say with you guys, I see this in my patient population, right? We start to work on your thyroid and hormones, and then progress is never linear. Remember that. And you might have a setback and become very, very fatigued. Now, could it be that you need a change in your medication? Absolutely. We'll get to that. Could it be that you need more of something, less of something? Yes. But could it be a multitude of other things? Yes. And that's why I want to go through them all, just so you can do this checklist in your mind and in your health and you can see what really needs to be looked at or changed that you have control over as well. When we're talking about fatigue. So when we're talking about fatigue, I'm talking about that lack of energy, lack of motivation, not giving a crap about anything. It's that deep exhaustion that is just different from, you're a Little bit drowsy or you're winding down for the day, or you didn't sleep well and you're dragging ass in the morning. We're talking about that crushing fatigue that really does start to affect your mood and it starts to affect your work because you're looking at the couch at 2pm and thinking, that looks really good right now. But you can't go lay down on the couch and take a nap. So, yes, of course, when we're talking about fatigue, we have to talk about the thyroid first. And I always start there because you always have to start there. You need to get your thyroid in line and you need to make sure. What do we always talk about? That the free T3 is in the upper quadrant of the range and reverse T3 is below a12. And if you're slowly working up to that, getting to those numbers, then awesome. Then I would say just give it a little bit more time because again, progress isn't linear. You're not just gonna keep getting better and better and better just because you're on the right thyroid medication. Finally, because you're working with a knowledgeable practitioner that knows the thyroid, still, you can still have down days, you can still go up a little bit. Backtrack, go up, backtrack. And when you backtrack, you might stay there for a week or two. Because the other consideration is that you are probably a woman now. I know, guys, listen to this podcast too. But women get hit harder with thyroid. So guys, you can keep listening, hang on, keep listening. And you are going to learn from all of the other causes of fatigue as well as thyroid. Yes, if you do have Hashimoto's or hypothyroidism, you have to take this into consideration and everything I say applies to you as well. But progress isn't linear. And when you are working with someone who knows what they're doing and you're optimizing your thyroid, you still might have some bad days just because you're a female. And our hormones fluctuate all the time. So there's the next one. Hormones. If you're testosterone, you're get done. Hormones in the toilet. You're in the toilet. You absolutely need an optimal level of testosterone. Total 50 or above. That's minimal. Most women do better around a hundred or two hundred, but total should be fifty or above. And then you do want to look at your estrogen and progesterone. They're not really a direct cause of fatigue, but yet we're going to mention them. So estrogen clears out brain fog. Thyroid clears out brain fog. Testosterone gives us motivation and clears brain fog. But estrogen plays a role as well. Estrogen protects your brain. We want that estradiol above a 50 minimal in women. And we test that days 19 to 22 of your cycle, unless you are menopausal or you had an ablation, and then we just test at any point of time and go by that number. You can also look at your fsh, your follicle stimulating hormone. If that is elevated, we really like to keep that between a 20 and a 25 during menopause or lower if you're in perimenopause. Because as that starts to creep up, your estradiol will go down. As that starts to creep up, you're moving more and more towards needing estradiol replacement. And estradiol really helps our mood and our brain function, our cognition, memory, focus. Now all the hormones play together, but that is one rule of estradiol. Progesterone is calming. But remember, at the same time, we need that progesterone in the mix because you might be sitting there going, well, I'm, I'm fatigued. Why do I want to be calmer
- [11:37]
B
than I already am?
- [11:38]
A
Right? Because let's face it, when you are anxious, that is going to wear you out. If you are anxiety prone or on edge, agitated, classic presentation of low progesterone, that's going to start taxing your adrenals, which we'll get to. That's going to start taxing your adrenals. And you know, I mean, emotional stress will wear you out faster than doing three CrossFit workouts in a day. It will kick your ass. So if you are always on edge and maybe not over anything, just internally, you're agitated, you probably need some progesterone. That progesterone will come in and calm the system down. And it will also give your adrenals what the adrenals like to steal to make more cortisol. So let's say your adrenal function is low, your cortisol output is low, your body will steal progesterone and pregnenolone to make cortisol. Cortisol we need for survival. It's non negotiable and that's why it cracks me up when everyone wants to push down their cortisol and take all of these cortisol lowering supplements. If you don't even know that you have high cortisol because you need it, you don't want to push it to nothing. So if you're anxious all the time. Progesterone will go down, your adrenal glands will steal it, it'll go down even further, and then you become really agitated. And not only that, your adrenal glands are overworking if they have to resort to stealing hormones to make anything. So we need that progesterone on board. You can see where the thyroid and hormone balance comes into play a hundred percent. Now let's go into other possible causes of fatigue. Anemia. Now I have a totally separate episode on low ferritin and what it can do that low ferritin, it is just eye opening. When you go back and listen to that episode, eye opening, low ferritin really crosses over into the hypothyroid symptoms. When ferritin is low, you're going to be fatigued, you're going to gain weight, you're going to lose your hair. It really kind of mimics low thyroid function as well. So your thyroid might be optimized. And if you're walking around with low ferritin or anemia, that will crush, crush your energy levels and you will absolutely experience fatigue. Now you can have iron deficiency without being diagnosed anemic. So your iron, your tibc, your percent sat might all be beautiful, perfect. And then you look at your ferritin, which is your iron stores, and that is low. So based on that alone, I wouldn't call that anemia, but it's definitely a ferritin deficiency iron deficiency. Now again, kind of tying back into thyroid and hormones just a little bit. Sleep disorders. Sleep disorders can be a multitude of things. You could have elevated liver enzymes. If you tend to wake up around like 2 or 3 in the morning, that's usually your liver or your blood sugar. So you might be spiking your blood sugar really high and crashing it low. And it drops low in the middle of the night. So if you spike it high before bed, let's say throw down some ice cream and pizza, you're going to get this big. Or popcorn. That's a really, that's a Netflix snack favorite amongst people that you probably shouldn't be eating right before bed. Popcorn. High glycemic spikes, your blood sugar. You drop down in the middle of the night, your body wakes you up out of that sleep because your body is saying, hey, your blood sugar is way too low here. Not cool, better get up and go eat. So those sleep disorders, obviously they're going to contribute to your next day, they're going to contribute to fatigue the next day a hundred percent. And then there's Just the insomnia that comes with having dysregulated hormones, having low progesterone, low thyroid function. Yeah, it makes you tired during the day, but sometimes you can't sleep at night. And that's one thing that I hear often from my patients that improves is their sleep quality. And then kind of any other sleep issues, like sleep apnea, that is not being addressed, where you think that you're asleep in all night, but in reality you're waking up multiple times in the night, you're not getting into that deep reparative sleep that can obviously cause fatigue the next day. If you're not sleeping, you're going to be tired the next day. Any kind of alcohol use before bed, that will mess up your sleep. Not only is it a toxin, a poison that you're putting in your body that will affect your mitochondrial function and that will create fatigue, but it's also going to mess with your sleep, which obviously is going to have an impact on your fatigue. Any kind of stimulants, like, let's say you're blowing coke and you're on narcotics, you are going to be jacked up. I mean, that's a whole other problem outside of just being a little bit tired that you need to address. But any kind of stimulant, and I say that jokingly, not jokingly, you could be taking Adderall as a prescription. You could be taking, oh, what is that one that they combine LDN and a stimulant. It's not Celexa contrave. You could be taking all of these prescribed medications for add, adhd, and they are stimulants. You can be taking phentermine because you want to lose weight, stimulant and what those do. And I, I speak from experience of hydroxy cut back in the day. I mean, the amount of hydroxy cut that I took when I was competing is obscene. Like, I should be dead, my heart should have stopped, my adrenal glands should have shut down. Because all that stimulant is going to start taxing the adrenal glands. It's also going to start messing with your blood sugar. So when you're using any kind of drug, stimulant drug, you're going to start taxing your adrenals to pump out more cortisol and eventually they will fail. And when they fail, now you're in a low cortisol state. Now you are extreme fatigued all day long. And I've heard from many of you, well, no, I need to take the adderall Or I don't function. Yeah, your body is literally addicted to a stimulant to just get through your day. So you're going to be going as you wean off of the stimulant and as you work to improve your overall body function, you're going to go through some deep exhaustion, some bad fatigue times, but you have to to reset your system. So that actually takes a lot more work. I mean, yeah, it's short term gain in that you have energy for the day, your brain functions for that day, but then you need more to keep going throughout the rest of your life. And what are you gonna do? I mean, eventually it's gonna start taxing your cardiovascular system, and just like we said, your adrenals will shut down. And now you have a whole other issue going on. Now also remember that the adrenal glands and cortisol tie back to thyroid function. So if you are doing too many stimulants, you're taxing your adrenal glands, you're under stress, they stop producing proper amounts of cortisol, they start stealing progesterone and pregnenolone to make the cortisol. Those two drop down. You're still in this low cortisol pattern. And you can't take T3 because your cortisol is so low. You actually get heart palpitations and anxiety when you add in T3. So now we can't even work on your thyroid. And it comes all the way back to your behavior choices of living on stimulants. And I'm going to throw Red Bull in there too. My Red Bull monster. Addicts bang addicts. You can't be doing that every day. I mean, a couple cups of coffee is fine. Do some four sigmatic to reduce the caffeine load. But when you are on that high, high stimulant train, you will pay the price down the road. I guarantee you you will pay that price. Now, kind of still going along the lines of the adrenals, there is something called Addison's disease, very much more rare. Normally when we see low cortisol, it's from what I just talked about, people taxing their adrenals under stress for a long period of time, taking the stimulants. But Addison's is an actual disorder, a diagnosable disorder that occurs when the adrenal glands just, they don't produce enough cortisol. And it's an autoimmune condition. So that is a totally separate adrenal role. But it's adrenal cause A totally separate adrenal cause, but it's worth mentioning. And then we're gonna get into mitochondrial function. So the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and that is where you produce ATP, that's energy production. Now you've heard me talk about T2 Thyroid Fixer and how it actually works at the mitochondrial level to kick up those cells a notch, to kick up the cellular energy of ATP. That ATP is going to improve your metabolism. If you have low ATP production, you're going to have a low metabolism, you're
- [20:34]
B
going to feel low and slow.
- [20:36]
A
So when we can kick up ATP, that's going to allow us to have much more energy, much more vitality, experience life on a much better level. I mean, there's not really a way to test your ATP production. This is really where we have to go by symptoms and we just address things. So I would add in thyroid fixer and I would maybe add it in twice a day. So once in the morning, once in the afternoon to keep that really nice steady energy going and flowing. So that's one thing that you can do to improve your mitochondrial function. There are other supplements that you can add in to improve mitochondrial function. CoQ10 is a really good one. L carnitine is an excellent one. We're looking at nadh, that's what's in Yungu skincare products. But you can also take NAD plus as a, as an injectable peptide. And then there are some supplements out there. I really can't speak to the validity of them because I've heard from both sides of the coin really that you can't really absorb or make NAD from taking a supplement. So that might not be the best way to go. I would really stick with thyroid fixer and I would stick with the basics like L carnitine COQ10. But mitochondrial function dysfunction is real. It absolutely is real. And that's one of the reasons why we see this increase in fatigue. This is where conventional medicine comes in and adds in the ADD medications like Adderall. It's another band aid. It's a cover up. And hey, you might even get an antidepressant if you're fatigued. Did you know that there's another band aid? Because conventional medicine, when you come in and you say, I'm just, I'm so fatigued, I have no motivation. They think you're depressed and what do they do? They give you an antidepressant. Well, again, you might be depressed from a situation, you might be depressed from having low thyroid function. Because depression and anxiety is part of that. You might be depressed or having low testosterone. Yes, depression will drain you, just like we talked about earlier. Anxiety will drain you of energy. But we're not going to slap on an antidepressant to give you more energy. We're going to address the root cause of that depression and why is it occurring and then we address that. And yes, mood lifts, thus energy comes with it. You know, other disease states could be happening. You obviously want to check into any autoimmune conditions, any kind of rheumatoid arthritis, any kind of fibromyalgia, any kind of inflammatory conditions in your body. Because inflammation will produce fatigue. It'll stress and wear down the cells, it'll stress and wear down your body and you will experience fatigue from that systemic full body inflammation. So check an hscrp. That's a really great marker of inflammation. Elevated ferritin is a marker of inflammation. Elevated fsh, follicle stimulating hormone that we talked about earlier is a marker of inflammation.
- [23:31]
B
I need to talk to every woman who's been told your labs are normal while your body is screaming at you and rebelling against you. 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 my new book, the Thyroid fix. The no nonsense guide to fix fatigue, fogginess and fat that won't budge. That just says it all. 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. Because that's what I love to do. Whether it's here in the just fix your thyroid Facebook group or I'm on live. I will give you everything I possibly can if you do me one favor which will be a favor for yourself as well. And pre order the Thyroid fix. Now. This book is not another list of supplements, vague advice.
- [24:55]
A
It's not a diet plan. It's not filled with recipes.
- [24:58]
B
It is a clear, honest guide. It is the thyroid Bible. It is the last thyroid book that you will ever need because it teaches you how to read your own labs. No other book has done that. 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 under treated and why you can't talk about hormones, weight loss, or menopause without talking about the thyroid. I called it thyroid Bible because like I said, this is going to be 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 get out to the world and it needs to get into the hands of women who have been ignored for far too long. So will you go to thyroid fixbook.com and pre order a copy of yours today? It'll be shipped to you on May 12, 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 fixbook.com pre order yours today.
- [26:21]
A
So you want to check all those inflammatory conditions that could be going on in your body. You also want to check for underlying viruses. So let's say you have ebv, which you probably do. I literally have never seen a person not have Epstein Barr virus. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the one person that gets tested. We're literally. They've never been exposed to mano. They don't have that EBV marker in them. So far, I'm at like 100% of everybody that I've tested has EBV. That EBV lays dormant. So Epstein Barr virus comes. You had mono at some point in time in your life, you might not even remember it. I don't. I tested myself. I have ebv. It's dormant, it's not active. This means that I had mono. I was exposed to mono. It doesn't tell me when, just tells me that it happened. I don't remember it. Maybe just a bad cold. But that tells us that you had it at least a mark. Now, at any point of time, that can kick back up into an active state. So there are four different tests that we do for ebv. One to two of them. There's actually kind of five that we can look at. Two of them at least show if it's in its active state, like right now, or if you, hey, you had EBV in the last, like, month. And sometimes that explains a lot. When you say that the patient's like, oh, my God, that totally explains why I'm so tired. The other markers show that it's in a dormant state so you can be walking around with it the rest of your life and it does nothing. That's the same thing with any underlying infection that's the same thing with Lyme disease. That's the same thing with any tick borne illness. It can literally do nothing. You can walk around the rest of your life and never, ever, ever be affected. Or it can kick up. Now what kicks it up? Sometimes exposure to another virus will kick it up. Sometimes just exposure to abnormal amounts of stress. That's enough to turn that into the on position. And there comes ebv. And you think that you're all tired because of the stress. Well, you are. Stress will wear you out. But now you have an active Epstein bar infection. What do we do for that? Support the immune system. Take extra vitamin D. Take things like monolorin, lauric acid, extra zinc. I would definitely add in Hashimoto's fixer, black cumin seed oil to reduce inflammation. You just want to really, really support the immune system so that that can go back down into a dormant state. And then you have to check your stress and how you're dealing with stress. So you might have to do some massive lifestyle changes as well. All right, let's talk about food, because this is a big one and this is one that you may have heard me mention before, but I just love this story. I had a patient reach out. Her thyroid or hormones were great. They were all optimized. They were looking fantastic. And she reaches out. She's like, I just been really, really fatigued the last couple of weeks, really tired. And I go, okay, well I don't really think that you need a change in your thyroid med, but you know, let's, let's talk through all the factors and let's look at your labs and all that. So I said, you know, do you think, have you not been eating enough protein or even drinking enough water? She goes, you know what, I haven't been, it's been crazy busy. I just haven't been able to. Da, da, da. So she consciously drank up to a gallon of water a day, like got really darn close gallon water a day, and bumped up her protein to where it needed to be. One gram per pound of lean body mass. Her fatigue was gone in two weeks. So she wrote me back. She's like, it's all good. That's exactly what it was. So you can see how we want to go toward what pill can I take, what med can I increase? And maybe you do need that. Maybe you do. But we also have to check off the basics. Let's not forget about the basics. So food, if you're not eating enough protein, Protein is so amazing when it comes to energy. And strength. If you don't get in enough protein, you will drag. It's important for recovery, it's important for repair, muscle repair. It's important for protecting against sarcopenia or loss of muscle. It's important for your metabolism. Protein is at the top. Obviously water is kind of right there with it. If you don't drink enough water, this is where it comes back and affects your mitochondria, it affects your cells because we, our cells live in a water based environment. Or if you are preventing yourself from drinking water or you just don't think about it, or you don't like it, and all the excuses that I hear all the time, too bad, so sad. Add something to it to flavor it and get your water intake up or suck up and be fatigued the rest of your life. Listen, that's your choice. If something is as easy as drinking water and you don't do it, then shame on you. Don't be bitching about your fatigue. Get the water in, get the protein in. These are things that you have power over to do. You also have the power to not eat garbage. So when you are eating high carb, high sugar foods, it's going back to what we said in the beginning. You're going to spike your blood sugar. You're going to spike your blood sugar and you're going to increase your insulin. Insulin is very inflammatory. So not only are you creating inflammation in your body, if you're eating gluten, you're kicking up an autoimmune attack too that can absolutely fatigue you for a short period of time. But you're also just, you're creating this blood sugar glucose roller coaster where you go high and low and there's that fatigue again. When you're high and your blood sugar is spiking, that's where you're, you know, like the kid on candy, kid on sugar running around. Everything's hyper. And then you crash. Because where there's a high, there's an equal and opposite low. So if you spike yourself really nice and high with garbage food, you're gonna come down the other side and crash low. And that's where you're gonna be hangry. That's where you're gonna be fatigued. That's where your body's gonna be screaming at you to reach for the vending machine, the carbs, the sugar to quickly get your blood sugar back up. And that's also where it affects you at night, like we talked about with that low blood sugar crash in the middle of the night, waking you up and disturbing your sleep. And that high sugar intake is going to affect your cells and inflame the cells. Now we have to talk about fat because fat is very important. Some of you overdo it, some of you underdo it. So the typical ketogenic diet is high fat, high fat, eat all the fat that you want. Now there's a problem with that. You can't just eat all the fat that you want and A, think that you're going to lose weight and B, think that it's even good for you. A high fat diet, especially one that is high in PUFAs, which we'll get to that. A high fat diet has been shown that it will alter sleep parameters, so you're gonna have more daytime sleepiness and poor nocturnal sleep quality and an increase in sleep apnea. Obviously that's going to absolutely a hundred percent tie back to fatigue. But what kind of fats are you actually taking in? That's the important thing to look at. So if you're taking in PUFAs, the polyunsaturated fatty acids, those are very, very inflammatory. We like to stay far, far away from PUFAs because they do a lot of damage at the cell level, back to the mitochondria.
- [33:06]
B
Discussion.
- [33:07]
A
Eating PUFAs will interfere with the production of ATP at the cell level. When you're faced with eating a PUFA or sugar. And I mentioned this in just a recent episode when I asked Benazotti about PUFAs versus sugar because he's. He's got keto camp. He preaches low carb. He said, I'd rather have sugar. PUFAs do more damage in the body. They cause insulin resistance even though they're a fat. So you want to really stay away from the PUFAs because that can drag you down and that can absolutely make you fatigued at a cell level. But then you have to increase to a proper amount, not to a keto amount. You don't have to be shoving in fat every hour into your face. You do not need 150 grams of fat a day. Telling you you can do low carb with an emphasis on protein, increasing your protein and getting in really good fats. So I don't care if you hit 80 grams of really amazing, awesome fats because they're needed for so many biological processes in the body. Number one, fats are needed at the cell level because every cell has a lipid layer, lipid, I. E. Fat. So your cells are surrounded by fat and cholesterol that conventional medicine so badly wants to Push down into nothingness. Cholesterol is a building block for all steroid hormones. So you wonder why guys are walking around with low T. I mean, in addition to all the environmental toxins that are pushing up their estrogen, half of them are taking the statins that their doctor threw at them and that's pushing down their own testosterone production. You're literally crushing the building block of hormones by taking away that beautiful fat, that beautiful cholesterol. Now, good fats actually help you absorb vitamins. So if you are vitamin D deficient, it could actually be that you are not eating enough fat. Vitamin D is fat soluble. So I always tell people take vitamin D fixer with dinner because that chances are you're gonna have some fat, you're gonna do some stir fried veggies, you're gonna have a big steak, you're gonna have some fat in your diet, which you should be having all day long. But take vitamin D with dinner or with some kind of fat source because it is vitamin D soluble, it's gonna help absorb it and get that vitamin D level up to support your immune system, to help EVV from not becoming active. So you can see how all this ties in. It all ties in really good fats. And we'll go over what those are. Support cell growth. So we said, you know, the outer membrane of every cell is a lipid layer. So if we want to improve ATP
- [35:35]
B
production, if we want to improve cell
- [35:37]
A
turnover, we need that fat. It supports brain and eye health. You've heard about Omega 3s and they're tie into your brain function, lowering inflammation, your central nervous system and your eyes. Wound healing key. You got to have after surgery, I pump protein and fat because it speeds up wound healing. Absolutely. Hormone production. We talked about testosterone, estrogen also you need dietary fat to make the sex hormones and it is a source of energy. We can't forget that all the macronutrients are utilized by our body for energy. Some are just used differently. So when we are on a low carb diet with the emphasis of protein and fat, our bodies are going to be making ketones for energy. Some people very much run excellently on ketones. Many do not run very well on glucose. Now, glucose is, that's from carbohydrates. So if your diet is heavier in carbohydrates, your glycogen stores will be full and your body will pull from those glycogen stores and will utilize the glucose that you're eating to make energy. But we don't need glucose for energy or for life. We can run off of ketones and some people run better off of ketones. But we need those good, good fats in the diet for energy. Now what type of fats? Okay, you guys have all heard of trans fats, right? That's the partially hydrogenated oils, least healthy type of fat, right along with pufa. So trans fats are used, they're hydrogenated oils. They're used to quote, unquote, improve the taste and shelf life of processed foods. But why are you eating processed foods anyways? So the trans fat, this was really big, you know, back in the 80s and 90s with low fat everything. Remember that where we used margarine instead of real butter and we bought fat free snack, well crackers and fat free cakes and cookies and fat free donuts and fat free popcorn and we were just pumping our body full of trans fats. I mean, my God, no wonder half of us are insulin resistant and diabetic. Outside of having a thyroid problem, it's all that crap we put in our body back in the 90s before we knew better. Now your saturated fats are good. I mean, you don't want to ever go overboard on saturated fats. But these are the ones that you're found in animal products, meat, eggs, dairy. You know, don't go crazy with the dairy, but when you're focusing on protein, focus on that meat, focus on the eggs. Throw in some lean sources of protein too, but throw in some fatty sources of protein. It's okay to eat red meat. Have a steak once or twice a week. I do. The monounsaturated fats, these are the ones that can help reduce ldl. Although I don't want to reduce your LDL too much. But these are eh, they're kind of borderline. Like I'm totally fine with throwing in some nut butters. Eat avocados, awesome. Have some coconut oil, have some olive oil. But in that same mono and saturated category, we have canola oil and safflower oil and peanut butter, which contains a lot of mold. So there are certain monounsaturated fats that you want, certain ones that you really don't want. Now your polyunsaturated fats, these are the good ones. These are omega threes, that's your fatty fish, your salmon, flaxseed, walnuts, sardines. Those are fantastic. So you want to definitely add those in and you just want to choose properly when you are taking in fats because you want just enough to support, gosh, everything. Your energy, your hair, your recovery Your muscles, your teeth, your eyes, my God, everything. Your hormone balance. But you, we don't want you pumping in so much fat that you're not losing weight if that's your goal, that you're creating inflammation or that you're literally giving yourself insulin resistance because of the types of fat that you're eating. So it all has to be a balance. All has to be a balance. And when we get to the all about hair loss episode, we will also talk about fat more. Because a lot of people, well, it's both ways. If you're eating too much fat and you create inflammation that can affect the hair follicle. If you eat too little, you don't have the building blocks to give to your hair for texture and quality. Those are the prostaglandins that promote hair growth. We'll get to that eventually. I will be doing an all about hair episode. We're sticking with fatigue right now. So you can see why sometimes you have to really step back and look at what you're putting in your body. And then you have to look at the grams like protein. And then let's just give a quick shout out before we go to calories because many of you aren't eating enough. And I know you're in that state. God. Especially if you're on T4 only especially if you're working with a conventional doctor and endocrinologist. God forbid you're not being treated properly and you're on that same train that I once was where you're literally ready to shoot someone because the scale keeps going up. So what do you do? You eat less and exercise more and your calories drop. Or God forbid you went on the HCG diet or you're on one of the Beverly Hills soccer mom drug of choice for weight loss drugs like Dr. Zepatide or Semaglutide and you're not eating enough because you're not hungry. Now, I told you in a past episode, if you're on one of those injectables, you eat protein like it's your job or you will come out the other side with a loss of lean muscle mass. You eat protein like it's your job. If you're on one of those, make sure that you're getting your calories. Track it, for God's sake. Because it will be eye opening to you that you're probably not taking in enough. So too little caloric intake or too much caloric intake will absolutely affect your energy levels. Oftentimes I see the too little caloric intake in the people that are just coming on board, nothing they've done has worked. So they've resorted to reeling back their food, pretty much eating nothing and going into starvation mode. That's going to tank your energy. Now if you're eating too much. And I've seen this too. This is why I say to track her food.
- [41:37]
B
Really eye opening.
- [41:38]
A
I had a patient recently track her food and we're looking at, we're looking at her food progress day to day. I mean, there's a boatload of fruit in there that's jacking up her carbs. Some days she got high carb and high fat going on. Calories are really high. I mean, the body is just in chaos. It's like she's doing a different dietary plan every day. I don't even know what the high carb, high fat diet plan is. Basically it's the I don't give a shit plan. But you're confusing your body to the point where it's really not good. I mean, it's just basic metabolic chaos at that point. And that is going to create inflammation. So in addition to spiking blood sugar and insulin with all of the fruit, and then, you know, the next day will be a little bit lower carb, but crazy high in fat calories through the roof. The body doesn't even know what to do do. Like it kind of freaks out. So even if she hasn't gained weight, thank God she's not going to lose in that state. Her body's going to be in a state of inflammation. So she may experience fatigue because, number one, her body's running on glucose all the time. She never had a low carb day below 50. Her body's literally running on glucose all the time. So she never really gave it a break. All that glucose is going to create inflammation, it's going to spike her insulin, and she's going to be on a roller coaster that we talked about earlier with the blood sugar, because whatever she's eating to hit. And even if it's fruit, people, I know you learned all along that fruit is good for you, but fruit is a sugar. It's an ose. Fructose is an ose. Glucose is an os. Your body is not going to give you a break and say, oh, you know, well, since Susie's eating a fruit, we won't spike her blood sugar. No, it's going to do what it wants to do with your blood sugar. It's going to do what it knows to do with an OSE structure. And in order to clear that ose out. Need to do something. Pump out the insulin, send the insulin out. We got to push all that glucose into the cells. Now you have high insulin. Now you have inflammation. So you can see why you have to look at calories. I do recommend tracking just so it's in your face and you can see it. And you can know on a personal level, you don't need a nutritionist for this. You can know on a personal level when you track what you are putting into your body. Okay, So I think throughout this whole episode, we went through things that you can do. Just some extra mentions. You can also add in, like exogenous ketones. I talk about kinetic all the time. Those are exogenous ketones that really kind of light up the brain. So if you feel like it's more of a brain fatigue, then you might want to add in nootropics or exogenous ketones to help your brain function better. Obviously, you want to address low ferritin. You want to address low vitamin D. That's a direct cause of fatigue. You want to address obviously the. The low thyroid and hormones. You can absolutely add in thyroid fixer. You can add in a protein shake to increase your overall protein intake to get that up. You can increase your water. You can add in things like CoQ10 for cellular support. You can add in. You know, there's so much more research being done on nitric oxide that increases circulation. That can absolutely contribute to fatigue. So you get the party started in your body. Increase circulation. That can help. So there are definitely things that you can do. And even exercise, we know, improves energy through the day. Even though you might wake up and go, oh, my God, I have no energy to go to the gym. I can't work out today. Go for a walk. Force yourself. Try to get through a couple days of working out, because that's going to improve mitochondrial function as well. It's going to lower insulin resistance. It's going to help improve insulin resistance. Obviously, it's going to help support your own testosterone and growth hormone production, which will help overall. And studies have shown that exercise improves mood because it allows the body to release those heavy hormones, those good endorphins. You know, like the runner is high. So you can actually improve your fatigue by exercising. Seems counterintuitive because you don't really want to go because you're too tired. Do it anyways. You will get through it, and eventually you will see an improvement over time. So those are the actionable items that you can do as well as all the things that you have to look at and check the box on to fix your fatigue.
- [45:44]
B
The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified healthc care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition treatment or before making changes to your healthcare 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 necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties. Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not been evaluated by the fda. 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
- [46:46]
A
clearly disclosed during the episode.
- [46:48]
B
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.