← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
643. Mastering GLP-1s in Peri and Menopause: What 95% of Women Are Doing Wrong
01:14:55
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A
So start low and go very slowly. And if you are having weight loss resistance or you are not losing an average of a half pound to a pound a week, look at everything else before you increase the dose.
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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, mood swings, low libido, or feeling like 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, I see you, I believe you, 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 back. 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. So if you've been listening to me for a while, or hey, even if you're new, you will soon learn that I am just brutally honest and very, very straightforward. So here goes. Are you ready for this? If you are struggling with your doctor, if you can't get your doctor to order the labs, much less even listen to you, about the fact that you now know that your thyroid needs T3, you now know that you have to look at the master gland because the thyroid literally determines what Whether or not you're going to lose weight or lose your hair or gain weight or have energy or even be able to use your brain on a day to day basis. That's the thyroid. It's not your gut, it's not your adrenals, you don't need another detox. You need to fix the mass, your gland. And oh, by the way, those beautiful hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Yeah, they play in the same sandbox as the thyroid. So. So if you ignore those and you say, well, I'm just going to age gracefully, then you're just going to get disease sooner. When your thyroid is low and your hormones are low, the bottom line is not only are you more set up for weight gain, constipation, fatigue, hair loss, brain fog, but you're also set up for a greater risk of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's cancer and heart disease. You can Prevent all that and live an amazing life at the same time. So what are you exactly waiting for? I'm just curious. Are you waiting for next year to feel better maybe two years from now? Why don't you just do something about it right now? We prescribe to all 50 states. We do it the right way. We are specialists. Trust, true, honest to God functional medicine. Specialist in thyroid and hormones. You don't just go to a functional medicine practitioner who's a jack of all trades and masters of none and is going to sprinkle adrenal fairy dust on you. You're going to be highly disappointed and you're going to be out of money. Go to Dr. Amy.com, click the big button at the top that says become a patient and just book a free call to find out what you can actually do to get better. We can do it for you. We do it every single day. We have helped tens of thousands of people live their best life ever and oh yeah, that's right, prevent diseases that will kill them. Don't wait another day. We don't know how long we have on this planet. We better take life by the reins and live it and live it to its fullest. And we can't do that when we're sick. So it is your choice. Continue being sick and be set up for disease or make a call to literally change your life now. Stop waiting. If you've ever walked out of a doctor's office being told your labs are normal, but you're exhausted, gaining weight, foggy, frustrated, then this is for you. Being told you're normal doesn't mean you're optimal. And it definitely doesn't explain why you still feel like something is wrong and feel like garbage. That's exactly why we created the Fixer Lab Test plus Consult. It's affordable, often less than ordering labs on your own from places like LabCorp or Ulta. And it includes comprehensive thyroid and hormone testing, plus a full hour long consultation with one of my highly trained team members. We walk you through your results line by line and explain exactly what they mean for you so you can finally understand what's going on in your body and what your next step should be. So if you're done being told that you're fine and you're ready for real answers, then go to fixerpowerlab.com that's F I X E R P O-W-E-R-L-A-B.com and get some help that you need. Okay ladies, let's just put our cards on the table here. And be honest, the weight gain in perimenopause and menopause is not like that weight gain that used to come on your 20s and 30s, where you could just do like a little crash diet for a week or so and just shed right off. Right. It's more stubborn. And many of you I know have jumped the GLPs. Like I have said many times on this show, I am not anti glp. I use them. I use them the right way. The right way. And that really is key. So many of you are using it. And then we have the other subset of the population over here that are listening right now who are like, yeah, I'm never going to touch that.
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A
I'm just.
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B
I'm not going to do that. I don't want to be on something the rest of my life. And you're still struggling with that midlife fluff, that layer that you're like, what the hell is happening to my body? So I wanted to break this down for you. And of course, I brought on my dear, dear friend and colleague Karen Martel, who has been on the show before. She's a master at this. This is what she does. Her business is hormone solutions. Doesn't that just kind of say it all? So I wanted to get her brain on this because we were talking and we were talking about how women really struggle metabolically when they enter perimenopause. I mean, we hear it from our audience, we hear it from our patients all the time. So let's just put it all out there and actually give you tools of what you can do to get the fluff off. And some of it's going to be obvious, but some of them, it's. It's going to blow your mind as she unpacks this, because there's things I guarantee you that you didn't know and you didn't think of.
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A
So.
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B
Karen, hi. Thanks for coming back on the show. I love when you're on here, we can just chat and I can pick your brain about this stuff.
- [07:03]
A
I know. I always, whenever I talk to you or one of our other friends in this group, I'm like, I just want to do podcasts every single week with my friends because they're always so great and you guys are all so knowledgeable and we all see eye to eye on everything, and it's always so much fun to record. So thank you for having me.
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B
Well, what we really should be doing is having a mic on and recording all of the conversations we have, even
- [07:27]
A
just in the Uber Even just with the Uber drivers or in the. In the vehicle. Right. Like, just. Let's just record our conversations that we have when we're in the Ubers, because they are priceless. And we've always said it. If somebody would just do a podcast or a YouTube channel recording us driving around in the conversations that we always have and that are just so far out there. And the Uber. The Uber drivers must look at us women and be like, who are these menopausal women? These midlife women?
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B
Yeah, the ladies. I'm so glad I'm not old. And the men, the male Uber drivers have learned more about vaginas than any other time in their life when they're in the car with us.
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A
So, yeah, they should be paying us.
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B
That's true. They should totally be paying us. Oh, okay. So topic that came up. Yeah. And we even heard it from our friend Kim this weekend. She's like, yeah, it's not that I really need to lose a lot of weight, but I just have, like, this layer. And you're like, yeah, that's the fluff. That is that perimenopausal, menopausal fluff that just wants to hang out. So let's actually break this down. Let's break it down. Yeah.
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A
Because you know what? It's still, like, the number one thing that women get so frustrated with when you go onto menopause forums and Facebook groups. And so much of the conversation is around the weight that they've gained when they've hit midlife, and that they're doing all the things right. They're fasting, they're low carb, whatever, whatever it might be, and they still can't get this weight off. And now we have the majority, I would say, of the world going on to GLP1s.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Just the majority of midlife women. But it has to be done right, and we have to do it differently. And I want women to know this. Like, they hear from you all the time. Like, if you're going to do these, you know, do it right. But let's really break down the nitty gritty of GLP1s when using them in midlife. And then also, what other peptides could be part of this or could be used other than GLP1s and what is actually happening? So if you don't want to use a GLP1, maybe you could just get a better understanding of what pathways you want to start looking at to see if you can't get that weight off. And I will tell you, there's no one straight answer. There's no. I think we know this now. There's no miracle cure for this. And midlife weight gain, ladies, I will tell you, is by far the toughest weight to get off, that you could still do all the right things and still have a really hard time. And I will say that I said this to Kim before, and you just mentioned Kim and I, so I just said it to her and I've said it to so many other women, which is, we are also middle age. Right. Like I said, I said this to you yesterday. We were in Vegas together, Amy and I, over the weekend, and it was 42 degrees, which is 110Fahrenheit, so extremely, extremely hot.
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B
Yeah.
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A
We're out there on the pool deck. I'm in my bikini. And of course, like every woman, I'm self conscious at first and like, oh, I'm in my bikini. And oh, look at the cellulite. And you start pointing out all the things that look wrong. And. And I've just started to remind myself when I do that, which is so mean. But we're. Our biggest critics is, Karen, you're 50 years old. You look pretty damn good for 50. Like, give yourself a break. And I said that to Kim, too. I was like, kim, there's also a point where that's actually what's really natural for our age is to have, you know, we're not going to look like we did at 25 yet in our head, we're still striving for that. We're still like, oh, but if I could just get that little. That just the five pounds off, just the ten pounds, then I'll be happy. And it's just like, there comes a point where we have to go, actually, I look pretty good and I'm not willing to put in any more efforts than I already am.
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B
Right.
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A
So then we have to work on embracing it.
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B
Absolutely, Absolutely. And we have to find that middle ground. So it's like, yes, we are 50. We have to embrace a little bit of loose skin, a little bit of cellulite. But at the same time, we also commented on the amount of people around the pool, maybe even some of them in bikinis that might need to lose some weight from a non esthetic standpoint, but from a health standpoint.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
And that's the big topic around these glp, and you even brought it up, is that, listen, there are people out there that have struggled their entire life and there is absolutely nothing they can do. And they could, even our patients, they've done the thyroid, they've done the hormones, they're working out, they're counting their macros, and literally, I mean, you were there, like, there's nothing more that you can possibly do to get the last 10, 20 pounds off that is literally consuming your brain or that is excess weight that is just flat out unhealthy. And. And we can't just ignore it.
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A
Yep. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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B
So, okay, why.
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A
Let's bring out why.
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B
Why is it so freaking hard in perimenopause and menopause to lose the weight?
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A
Yeah, there are so many mechanisms of action that start to come into play. I call it the midlife metabolic storm, because that's literally what's happening on the inside and in the beginning stages. So I'm going to kind of walk you guys through from perimenopause to menopause. What starts to come into play. And in perimenopause, which typically starts around your late 30s, early 40s, the first hormone that we know that starts going is progesterone. Now, progesterone actually doesn't have a massive effect on our weight. It does have a little bit. And this is just what I've seen in general is women will gain like £5 and it'll come out of nowhere. It'll be like they haven't changed anything, they haven't changed their diet, nothing. And suddenly they've got a five pound weight gain. And this is typically late 30s, early 40s. That's usually the sign that your progesterone is starting to lower. And, and this is for multiples of reasons. One big one is that progesterone does help with thyroid function, so it can start to impact thyroid function, which then affects your metabolism, so you're not burning fat quite as well. And that can go down. So then the body starts to gain weight and becomes just that little tiny bit more insulin resistant. But one of the big contributing factors is progesterone helps us sleep. We all know this. We all take the oral progesterone because it helps knock us out. Well, at the same time, if you're not on progesterone, which many women are not, and they're not offered progesterone in those early years of perimenopause. Now suddenly you're not going to be sleeping as well, and that's what starts to go first. And that's one of the first symptoms is, oh, I'm not sleeping very well. Well, when we don't sleep well, guess what? We become more insulin resistant. And so if that's happening every cycle now where the second half of your cycle you're finding you're not sleeping well, guess what, the insulin resistance and your blood sugar is going to start to go up, which means you're not going to be burning fat as well. And you're not going to be processing that glucose as well either because you're that little bit insulin resistant. Now on top of it, it affects your GABA receptors, it helps induce sleep. It's very anti anxiety. So now women, a lot of women will report that their anxiety levels start going up. So now we're not sleeping, we've got a little, you know, low grade anxiety happening, more PMS because of the lack of progesterone. So you're cranky, irritable. Well, come on ladies, do you want to eat the healthy salad with a chicken breast? If you're not sleeping, you know, you've had a crap night's sleep or multiple crappy nights, you're a little bit insulin resistant, which is going to make you crave more and you've got some anxiety. No, guess what? We won't. We will automatically be driven to eat higher amounts of carbohydrates and usually not in their good form.
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B
Right, right, right.
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A
So this is the start. At the same time, we do see women's testosterone start dropping at this time as well. Not all women, but a large percentage of women, it seems to be getting more and more where the testosterone will also start to dip during the early perimenopausal years. And we all know testosterone helps us to build muscle and muscle is our biggest glucose processor. So that's gonna start actually contributing to that insulin resistance as well. And then the mid-40s hits, and this is when all hits the fan. This is when the metabolic storm really kicks up. And women think that estrogen makes them fat. And 100% it can make you fat if there's too much. If you're estrogen dominant and you don't have enough progesterone to counterbalance that estrogen in your early perimenopausal years, then yes, too much of that estrogen can make you inflamed, it can make you gain weight, it's not good. But dropping estrogen levels, like at your estradiol specifically, will cause more weight gain than too much estrogen. And most women don't realize that. They demonize estrogen. Estrogen's this fat causing hormone because it gives us our breasts, our hips, and so when we have too much or not in balance, then those are the areas that tend to grow, the stomach, the breasts, the hips, the butt. And so it's like, oh, estrogen? No. Well, estrogen has the biggest effect on your metabolism and all things feeding into that than any other hormone. It's crazy. And so as that estrogen starts to drop, even just a little bit, we start gaining weight. And then when it really starts dropping, that's when we see the biggest amount of weight gain happening in the shortest amount of time. And that's usually from late 40s to early 50s. In that window, I will hear from women that they have gained 10, 20, 30, 40 pounds within years. And these are healthy women that are lifting heavy, prioritizing their protein, intermittent fasting, optimizing their thyroid. And they're like, what has happened to my body?
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B
Yeah.
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A
And of course, it's all central, the mento belly, which is the worst. And so now we have visceral fat which feeds into itself. It's this horrible feedback loop of just causing more weight gain. Once you have some visceral fat, Estradiol helps us to process glucose. We have estradiol receptors in the hunger centers of our brain, which means as estrogen drops, we can actually get dysregulated eating patterns, which means you can be more hungry. So it's going to affect your ghrelin, it's going to affect your leptin, which then in turn is going to affect your insulin. And so it's not just that we become more insulin resistant, but we can actually start craving more food, eating more, not having, not getting satiated. So we're overeating, we're craving sugary foods, we're craving the chocolate at this time, like, all the time. There's so much impact of that, and then on top of that, it affects our mood. And so we've got the dropping progesterone, possibly some heightened anxiety. And now estradiol starts dropping. And estradiols needed to make hormones like neurotransmitters, like serotonin, dopamine. So women will say, I just feel a little more flat. I feel like I'm just not getting any, you know, satisfaction out of life anymore. And so they start to seek out more dopamine hits, which is the last thing we should be doing in 2026, because we have dopamine hits coming at us everywhere, and we're already dulled. Our dopamine's already dulled, and it takes so much to get them. So now we have dropping estrogen that's going to be feeding into that lowered dopamine levels plus serotonin, our happy feel good neurotransmitter starts to become depleted. Estradiol actually helps us to feel happy and energized. It helps us to be more up to being social. So now you're like feeling withdrawn. You've, you're a little depressed on top of the anxiety. Once again, do we want to eat well when we feel like this? No. Do we want to exercise? Probably not. Estradiol also helps us to build muscle. Some people are saying that it's actually more important than testosterone for building muscle. So you could also be losing now more muscle on top of what you were already losing because you were losing the testosterone. And one final piece is, is estradiol affects our circadian rhythm and the adrenal system. So estradiol can actually help keep up cortisol binding globulin, which is just like sex hormone binding globulin. Amy's talked about sex hormone binding globulin lots on this podcast. So sex hormone binding globulin is going to bind up your estradiol and your testosterone. Cortisol binding globulin is going to bind up cortisol. And then what your body uses is the free cortisol with bioavailable to the cells to utilize. And so if estradiol keeps your cortisol binding globulin typically at healthy levels and it starts dropping, some women will see that their cortisol binding globulin, not that it's tested, but that goes down and so their free cortisol levels go up. In the research, you can actually see that in perimenopausal, menopausal women, they see higher cortisol levels than in women that are in their fertile years. And women, because of how we're living right now in 2026, at the time of this recording, we already have typically taxed adrenal systems. We are doing way too much. Right? Like, you know, the average woman when she's at 45 is not only a lot of them taking care of children, you are also maybe taking care of aging parents. You are working full time. And then you will also tend to be the primary caregiver in your house as well to your husband or your partner and to your children. And so you're just give, give, give, and you're working and you're doing laundry and you're cooking and you're taking care of your elderly parents. So we already come into this time frazzled with not the best cortisol systems already. And so Dropping estrogen. Now we can get even higher cortisol levels than we did before. We know that if cortisol is dysregulated and it's too high, that affects your blood sugar. Also causes weight gain in the abdomen. And then again, you feel like your nervous system can't handle anything, which makes it really hard to eat healthy, be healthy, because we're wired to seek out comfort in. In food, to seek out the dopamine in food, to seek out the just, I just need a break. Or the wine. Women go for the wine. And they. Actually, I heard a stat that alcohol use is dropping amongst most of the age ranges, except for in midlife women. Oh, yeah. Which is really sad. And it's like, oh, but I. And I know this. And I look around at my friends and how many of them that I know have definitely increased their alcohol consumption? They don't outright say this, but I can tell by when I see them and that they're drinking a lot more than they used to. And they'll say that they'll be like, I can't live without my glass of wine.
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B
Well, you can visually see it in women. You can increase their drinking. Like, yeah, you can see them drink more when you're with them. But you can see it. It is like this layer of. It's the other layer of fluff.
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A
Yes.
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B
It's like alcohol fluff layer. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
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A
And we know that, you know, you put alcohol in this mix, and it's going to amplify everything I just talked about. Every side effect that I just talked about of dropping hormones, it's going to amplify all of it. And it's just. It works against you. There's nothing positive about that. And I get it. I sometimes wish I still drank, for heaven's sakes. Because sometimes I'm just like, I just want to numb myself. Because that's the one thing that will do is it will numb you temporarily.
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B
Sure.
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A
Right. And it feels like you're taking the stress off yourself. And it's so easy for women to reach for the glass of wine every night than it is to go, okay, I need to do an overhaul of my life, and I have to start putting into practice time for myself and figuring out all, you know, the stress factors that are coming in and working on my exercise and my meditation and my this and my this. And we already have so much coming at us that we're supposed to be doing in midlife. It's like, just give me the glass of wine.
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B
Yeah. Yes, exactly. And I just have to pause and just say for anyone listening, if you're not blown away at how this is so beautifully laid out by Karen, I mean, I am. I'm like, I'm thinking, I gotta rewind and listen to this again. Because the way that you have laid this out for my ladies, they're listening and they're resonating and they're literally tracking with every word. Because whether I'm thinking about myself or I'm thinking about a patient, I am tracking every word that you're saying, like, oh, yeah. Huh. And then that's when they reach for some kind of adrenal supplement that came across their Instagram feed, because they think if they just sprinkle adrenal fairy dust on them that their cortisol would be fine. Because everybody wants to blame cortisol, and cortisol is a reason, but now Karen's explaining why. Like, this is. This is fantastic, by the way. It's fantastic.
- [26:53]
A
Thank you. Thank you. And then there's dhea, which we always forget about dhea. It's like this, like, little side hormone. But dhea, it is the most abundant hormone in our body. It's a pre hormone, so it helps us to make testosterone and estradiol, but it's also an adrenal hormone, and it counterbalances that cortisol. So when we see, like, I've done a lot of adrenal tests, lots of Dutch tests, and when I see a woman that's got high cortisol, guaranteed the DHEA is lower, it's too low, and it starts to just suck it all out, almost, where it just becomes this terrible imbalance. Well, cortisol's catabolic. Is it, like, eats away when it's too high. It's gonna actually help with sarcopenia, which we don't want help with sarcopenia. That's muscle wasting. Well, DHEA is anabolic. It helps to build muscle, and it actually helps to modulate your blood sugar. So it builds and it helps to support the nervous system. And so DHEA naturally goes down with age, but then it's going to be. That process is going to speed up. If you've got really high cortisol, or even if you have really low cortisol, if you're at that point where your adrenals are now tapped, it's not adrenal fatigue, as we know this now, but the body will stop. Well, if cortisol runs too high for too long, your body's smart. And it says, this is too much. So then it starts to under produce cortisol and you go into the adrenal insufficiency. And DHEA still keeps following that. So whether it's too high or too low, DHEA is typically too low. And so that needs to be carefully watched as well. And then just a small dose of DHEA supplementation can really help a woman to support that frazzled feeling and the burnout feeling. It's just a little tiny, like a boost. A little boost. It's not a fix all because we have to get into the like. As you've heard from everything that I've just talked about, this is a multi system effect that's happening to our metabolism. And then to top it all off, all the stuff with thyroid that Amy talks about, right? So now we've got all of those hormones, none of them work in a silo, they all work together. And guess what? Thyroid is a massive part of that picture. We start going into thyropause. Many of us women that have never had a thyroid problem before suddenly do. And that is because all of these hormones all have a bidirectional relationship with your thyroid. And your thyroid, as you all know, is like the master of the metabolism. So it's going to be affected and lowered thyroid levels causes it feeds into insulin resistance. So now we've got how many things making us insulin resistant. And you will see this on your labs. You could be the healthiest woman alive. You don't drink, you don't eat sugar, you never eat. Terrible. You work out, you lift weights and suddenly you hit 45 and you get your labs run and you're surprised to see that you're insulin resistant or even type 2 diabetic. And you're going to what? Like it happened to me. I, when I went into menopause, I had had perfect blood sugar my whole life and suddenly I was like a point away from being type 2 diabetic. Like I went what? Like it was, I was insulin resistant a hundred percent when I was perfect forever. And I ate perfectly in a paleo based diet for 10 years and didn't drink and exercise and lift heavy. And even I went insulin resistant. But I will see it in probably like 90% of women that hit midlife. I see this could happen on labs, don't you? Yeah, oh yeah.
- [31:00]
B
And these are the keto and cholesterol ladies too. Like these are the ones like, I'm not eating carbs. I don't understand how this is happening. And this is case in point, it's not necessarily food Driven. It's what your body is doing inside. I truly believe that insulin resistance is more, more biochemically driven than, than what you eat. I mean, yeah, sure, all day long you can eat donuts and pizza and, you know, have your box of snack, well, cookies and wine. And that's going to drive your insulin. Absolutely. It's going to make you insulin resistant or type 2 diabetic. But what about the subset of ladies who really aren't consuming those foods and they are watching their macros and they're counting, they can still experience insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. I mean, I've seen full blown, full blown type 2 and the woman swears to God that she's been doing Carnivore for like the last 10 years.
- [31:52]
A
Yes. And that just proves that, you know, it's not like women hit 45 and all decide to throw in the towel on their exercise and their diet and become insulin resistant. So if that's you and you are doing all the things and yet your blood sugar is going up and you're insulin resistant, stop looking to your diet because that's what we'll do. We're so hardwired to look at. What are we eating? Do I need to change my workout routine? No, you need to fix your hormones. We have to have that base. It's like the raw tools that your body needs to stay healthy. And where we're going wrong in this whole journey is we are not replacing these hormones at the right time. And so by the time a woman is given estrogen, which is the main driver of so much of this, she's already 20 pounds overweight. And it's like, oh, now you can have estrogen now that you have none and you have no cycle. Now we'll give it to you. And that has to change because if that changes, we won't go through the metabolic storm like we do now when we're not getting it and it's that dip and no, no amount of anything is going to stop that. Like, we of course have to have all the good things in place. It's going to help, but it's not going to stop. It's not going to stop the ovaries from going, we're not producing estrogen anymore.
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B
Right.
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A
And so we have to watch it.
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B
When you see a man on Instagram and I say men because I blame them the most, but we do have a subset of women as well that are pushing this message that, oh, no, no, you don't need the hormones. Just, you know, take my masterclass do my genetic counseling and take my supplements. Do whatever, like a rain dance and spin around five times. And then you won't need hormones anymore. But they're coming from a place of selling you something and selling you their protocol because they can't give you the hormones that you need. Like, that drives me bananas. So it's like, ladies, you need hormones. Save your money on the master classes and the genetic testing and the expensive protocols and even the supplements. Karen, I have a supplement company. We're not going to tell you that our supplements are going to keep you out of perimenopause and menopause. Like, you're still going to need some hormones. And now Karen has some hormones. But. But still, in all, like, you might need more, you might need testosterone. You're still going to need thyroid. I just had to jump in there because it drives me bananas if there's ladies out there going like, well, wait a minute, I thought if I slept more and I ate a really good diet and I sun my bum, that it would be time and I would grow. I'll grow more hormones somewhere and I won't need those hormones the rest of my life. It's like, no.
- [34:40]
A
Yeah. Yes. So, ladies, if you see anybody, it doesn't matter how big of an influence they are, if they're saying that you don't need HRT and instead you need this supplement that is going to balance your hormones, run the other way. I've seen this on Dr. Berg. I got in a big. Oh, my God, huge thing on his. He was saying, basically, follow this dietary program. This is what you need to do if you're in midlife or menopause. You need to fast more, go lower carb. I can't remember all the things it was. I'm sorry, but that is all, like, to the point that that's so mean to say to women because that makes them feel like, oh, so this is my fault. And it's because I haven't dieted hard enough. And that's why I'm gaining weight. No amount of fasting or low carb is gonna bring back those hormones. And like I said, without those hormones, all of this hurricane, this metabolic hurricane starts to happen. And that's not gonna stop it. And supplements aren't gonna stop it. They can help in the early years, you know, like black cohosh or other phytoestrogens and stuff. For sure they can help in those early stages. But once your ovaries stop making those hormones, that is it estradiol and progesterone. You're gonna get a minuscule amount out of the adrenal system and it's not enough for metabolic health. And the research shows this, I have researched this for over a decade and it shows very clear that, you know, women that start hormone replacement therapy early have less weight gain, have less visceral fat. It reduces their risk of type 2 diabetes by over 30%. And so this is without changing anything else. It's just the hormones.
- [36:41]
B
Yep.
- [36:41]
A
Cardiovascular disease, over 40% reduction in cardiovascular disease from hormone replacement therapy, specifically estradiol.
- [36:52]
B
Yeah.
- [36:53]
A
So let's quit dancing around sunning our bums and just give our bodies what it actually needs to work properly. Because then when you put the efforts in and you should still be doing all those things, when you go to lift weights, when you go and eat that really healthy diet and prioritize your protein and it's actually going to work if you don't have the hormones, it's an uphill battle. It's terrible.
- [37:18]
B
Yep.
- [37:19]
A
Now, all that said, Amy. Yes, women can still go, okay, I'm going to replace the thyroid because I see that it's all, I'm going to replace my estrogen, I'm going to replace the progesterone, et cetera. I'm going to watch all these hormones. They put the hormones back in, we get them to optimal levels, and guess what? The weight for so many still doesn't come off.
- [37:43]
B
Yeah.
- [37:44]
A
And that is just a fact. And I don't want to lie to women and say that the hormones are the end all be all, they really, really help. But sometimes it's not the cure, unfortunately, to the weight that they've already gained. And that's why the timing thing is so important, because if you can get on HRT as those hormones are dropping, as estrogen's going down or is wildly fluctuating, which a of physicians will say, no, you can't have estrogen in your perimenopausal years because some months estrogen is up, some months it's down. Well, guess what? If you put in a low dose of estrogen during those years of fluctuations, it actually helps to minimize those estrogen fluctuations because your brain is getting the signal that you have some estrogen. So it's not flooding the system with fsh saying, come on body, come on ovaries, make more estrogen. So it actually helps to steady the perimenopausal estrogen roller coaster and then it'll help prevent the metabolic store. But if you're a woman who's you're Past that, you're like, yeah, well, that's all good to know. It's too late now, Karen, because my doctor didn't ever gave me that and I was told I can't have it.
- [38:57]
B
Yep.
- [38:57]
A
Now I'm in menopause and I'm still 20 pounds overweight and I'm still doing everything right and I've replaced all the hormones and I can't get it off. That's when we can utilize GLP1s, but in a way that matches what's happening metabolically to women in perimenopause and menopause. Which is different than the woman who is 25, 30, 35, who's overweight and is type 2 diabetic or insulin resistant and needs to take GLP1s as the pharmaceutical companies intended. That's different. I mean, of course we still want those people to eat healthy and exercise and all those things.
- [39:39]
B
Right.
- [39:39]
A
But when we're talking about midlife women, we're still GLP ones. Just like the supplements aren't going to bring back hormone levels.
- [39:47]
B
Right.
- [39:48]
A
So we don't have to have that metabolism.
- [39:51]
B
Yeah. Have all of those pieces in place for the GLP1 to even work. Do you want to burn fat while just sitting around? Do you have extra weight to lose? Do you want less inflammation? Do you want to reduce your oxidative stress? Do you want to improve your lipid panel, maybe become more insulin sensitive? And once again burn fat while you're sitting there at rest at your desk or 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 those with a thyroid problem. 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. It's also activating ATP, which gives you 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 or the sweet potato fries, which are 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 20 L I s t e n 2 0. We'll put that down in the show notes. And if you've already purchased it, but you just want to save a little something, something extra, then use the code listen 10L I s t e n 10 and grab some thyroid fixers. Stock up today because it will help you burn extra body fat. And who doesn't want that?
- [41:56]
A
Yes, you and I, we. We do have a large subset of followers who are the women that are caring about their health, who are eating right already, prioritizing their protein and exercising and lifting heavy. And so if they want to bring in a GLP1 because they've got that really stubborn weight loss resistance happening from their hormonal shift and their hormonal loss, we want to do it differently. Number one, of course, being get your hormones optimized first. I can't tell you how many women right now are jumping on GLP1s and thinking that they don't need the HRT, like, because they just see the weight gain and they think that that's their symptom of menopause. And so they're like, well, I'm just, I just want to lose weight. I'm not having hot flashes. I just need to lose weight. And then they hop on a GLP1 and guess what happens? And I've seen this because I've had a GLP1 group for over three years now, and I can't tell you, countless times a woman says, I started my GLP1, I'm up to 7mg and I've been knowing it for two months and I've only lost 2lbs.
- [43:10]
B
Yep, I've seen it.
- [43:11]
A
And. Yeah.
- [43:12]
B
Yep.
- [43:12]
A
And the number one cause is thyroid not being optimized. And sex hormones not being optimized is the number one. And it's not just because that's what I deal with is hrt, because we will look at everything, but it's always. Those are the top two problems. Is that woman is not. Is. Maybe she's on hrt, but she's not on optimal levels of hrt. She's not having, like, a physiological replacement dose. So she's on these baby doses of biased and her 100 milligrams of oral progesterone and thinks, oh, I'm. I'm on HRT. I'm optimized.
- [43:50]
B
Right.
- [43:50]
A
I don't think you are. Right. So we Want to see what those levels are, because you might be on HRT and not have outward symptoms, but it's not enough to give to that metabolic, like to support your metabolic machinery. Right. It's not enough. It's like putting in a couple drops of gasoline into the car and thinking, oh, well, now it'll run forever. It'll be good. No, doesn't work like that. Your body needs sufficient amounts in order to have an impact on the metabolism.
- [44:20]
B
Yes.
- [44:20]
A
So if you are on hrt, make sure you're at optimal levels of HRT and that you're working with a practitioner who knows what those levels are. And that can be different for every woman. But we do have a baseline that we see where, you know, in research as well as in clinical practice, where we know, okay, this is where we start seeing the real therapeutic values of hormone levels, where it's like, okay, this is where we need to be at and above to get those benefits. And so some women, it needs to be on the high end of that, some can be on the low end of that and do really well. And we can see that all by your labs because we want you to be testing. We want you test your thyroid, your insulin, your blood sugar, your cholesterol, your lipids, all those things, so we can start to go, okay, yeah, now we're having an impact on all of these metabolic markers. Everything's coming into place, and that's where
- [45:16]
B
we want to be.
- [45:17]
A
And so GLP1S is an addition to that profile. So we want you to be optimized on all the hormones first. Then we add in a micro dose, which that word is being thrown around like crazy. And let's just be really clear, microdose is typically, let's say tirzepatide. The most popular one is less than 2mg would be considered a microdose, and some it would be less than 1.5. So anywhere from 0.25 to 1.25 is kind of a standard microdose of tirzepatide retatrutide. You're looking at about 1 milligram or less as a microdose. And a microdose can be very helpful with getting down the inflammation, reducing puffiness, the fluffiness. But for a large subset of women, it's not enough to get the fat off. And so a lot of women come into our program with the intention that they are only going to use a microdose because they don't want to get dependent. They don't want to lose muscle they like the idea of using it as a micro dose. It feels better. Better to them when they say, I'm just going to do a microdose. So now it's okay that I do a GLP one.
- [46:54]
B
Yeah.
- [46:54]
A
It's like giving themselves permission. But I've worked with so many women now. Like, we've had probably about a thousand people go through our GLP1 program over the last couple years, and I see a small percentage of them being able to actually lose body fat on the microdoses. That's just my clinical experience. You may find something different, Amy. I don't know.
- [47:19]
B
No, it's. I'm tracking with you. It's. The microdoses will work in, like, I'll just use myself as an example because I got the hormones on board before my hormones drop because my thyroid has been optimized for 25 years. Like, I am metabolically totally sound. So I can bring in a microdose and it helps keep me stable. Like, I am stable. I don't go up, I don't go down. If I do accidentally do too high of a dose, as I've shared before, that really sucks. Maybe we'll talk about that more on the show. But, you know, then, yeah, I'll drop too low and I'll go, holy, that scale's way too low. And I will, like, take a break and come back up. But for me, a microdose helps keep me at that stable weight. Yep. I would say 99% of the rest of the population, it's not going to do that, you know, unless you're like a biohacker who's just bringing it in, in which case you're not really listening to this episode because you don't have the midlife fluff.
- [48:17]
A
Exactly. Yes, exactly. And a microdose can absolutely help you to maintain the weight. So once you've lost the weight on GLP1s, doing a micro dose is typically all that's needed to keep the weight down. And that's for most women. So that's the other thing that we all have to know is if you're going to go into this GLP1 journey that you are going to be able to wean off. Some women can come completely off. Most wean down to that microdose, and that's all they need to maintain the weight so they don't typically have to stay at these high levels. And if they have all those things optimized.
- [49:01]
B
Yeah.
- [49:02]
A
If you don't, then no, you can't.
- [49:04]
B
Right.
- [49:05]
A
But most of us can get down to the micro. But while you're in the weight loss phase and you're getting off the extra weight, especially if it's more than ten pounds, you are likely going to have to do a regular dose of a GLP one. Do you have to follow the titration schedule that these doctors are giving? Heck no. That's way too aggressive for 90% of the population. And you do not increase your dose every month. That's usually the titration schedule. It's for 99% of GLP1 companies is you are doubling your dose every month until you get to the highest dose. That's their titration schedule.
- [49:50]
B
Go ahead and use tirzabatide. Like, let's use a real. Let's use a real glp. Real doses. Let's break that down. Because I would say that's the most commonly used of the GLP is the middle one, the tirzepatide. So, yep, break down those doses.
- [50:04]
A
Yeah. 99% of the GLP1 companies online have the same titration schedule, including the doctors and the telehealth company that I work with for our GLP1 prescriptions. They also use this titration dose. But on the back end in our program, we tell our members, don't follow that.
- [50:29]
B
Right.
- [50:29]
A
Take it, because you're going to get good prices on the peptides on the DLP1s because you're going to get a concentrated little vial. But you don't have to follow that and you shouldn't follow it if you are losing weight. And so typically it starts at 2.1 for your first month of tirzepatide. Then it goes to 4.2 in month two and then it goes to 8.4 in month three and so on and so forth until 15 milligrams is the highest dose of Tirzepatide. And so we have women that come in and be like, okay, so I'm supposed to up my dose. Now it's month two and my vial is for a stronger dose. But I'm still losing weight at 2.1. And I'm like, then do not increase your dose. You want to always take the smallest amount possible to get the weight off. And we typically also don't see very many women having to go above 6 to 7 milligrams. Very few women have I seen even have to go to seven. And so if I see a woman, let's say she's been on it for three months, she's only lost a couple pounds and she's already now at 7.5, even 6 at that point, 6.5 somewhere in there. And she's going to increase again. I'll actually say, no, I wouldn't. And I will recommend to that woman that there's something else at play, because the majority of people who are still working out and eating well, if you're having weight loss resistance or that slow weight loss on a GLP1, it's not a dosing issue. There's something else happening. And once again, number one is thyroid, number two is sex hormones. Then you have want to look at that past that, we've had some people with food sensitivities that didn't know that that's was an issue for them. And we were able to, you know, ask her enough questions. Like, I remember this one woman, she just was stalling out, stalling out. And she was kept raising the dose, raising the dose. She'd lose a pound or two, then she'd plateau again, then she'd raise. Finally, I was like, okay, stop. You shouldn't have to go to 7 milligrams in three months. That just should not happen. And so we dug. She had all her hormones optimized, Thyroid was optimized. And then she said something that just struck me. I was like, oh. She goes, sometimes it's really quick. Like overnight I gained four pounds. And I thought, that's inflammation, that's water retention. So I said, it's something you're eating. And so she eliminated dairy. Because she was telling me how much dairy she ate. I said, take the dairy out for one week and see what happens. Her weight dropped and stabilized.
- [53:30]
B
Yeah, right.
- [53:31]
A
So there could be that. It could be an infection, it could be mold, it could be stress, it could be the adrenal system that's driving it. And your body starts to hold on to that fat, and it's like, no, it ain't going nowhere. And so you have to dig farther and work with a functional practitioner who's really going to understand, okay, what else should we be looking at here? So that's a sign for UGLP1 users that if you're just, you know, you're getting used to it that fast and you're plateauing that fast, and you're just keeping, you know, increase, increase, increase, stop. Start looking at something other than the GLP1. It's not a GLP1 problem, and it's not a dosing problem.
- [54:12]
B
Yeah, I love that. Super helpful. Okay, so you'll take women up to seven. I love that. That's a Nice sweet spot in there. Because if you look at the dosing for, let's say, the. The prescriptions, the manjaros, you know, direct from Lily and Novo, they're gonna go in 2.5, 5, 10, 15. So I love that in your program, you can kind of find those in betweens in the sevens and the eights. And you can adjust it because when you're dealing with a pen from Eli Lilly, it's preset. So you're taking that full dose. You have no other choice. And, yeah, I'm with you. I've seen people go up to the 10 and the 15 with massive side effects. And this is really what I think separates the bad GLP talk out there. You know, it's going to cause blindness and gastroparesis, and you're never going to poop again the rest of your life. Those are the people that are using these super high doses. They maybe haven't even heard Karen talk about why you shouldn't be on. Like, look a little bit deeper. You shouldn't be needing these high doses if your hormones and your thyroid are in check and all of this. But that's where you get in trouble.
- [55:22]
A
It's a.
- [55:23]
B
It's almost like a different medication completely when you're talking about the lower doses and the effect that it has on the body.
- [55:32]
A
That's exactly it. And for myself, I'll just talk. I did 2.5. I started at 2.5. Tirzepatide was losing a pound a week. And then about six, seven weeks in, I plateaued. So I went up to 5 milligrams and I was able to get off the rest of the weight without going past 5 milligrams. And I can't tell you how many women I've seen in our group not have to go past five. So even seven, that's like high end. And even that I don't like to see. And we want to use these as a tool in the toolbox, not as the only thing that's going to get the weight off, because then you're just going to go higher, higher, higher. Your receptors get completely saturated. That whole mechanism, everything is. Just shuts it down. It's terrible. I've heard from women that are like, I can't bear to eat any fat, but that's the only way they're losing weight. And so they're on this 10 milligram dose of tirzepatide. They can't fathom eating. So they're not even eating barely anything. They're so Tired from the tirzepatide. At that high dose, they feel flat, they feel depressed, but they're just so wanting to get the weight off that they continue with that. And it's like, no, you want to just use enough to just help with those cravings, but you don't want to squash your appetite. You want to be able to eat because that's a slippery slope and you will very quickly become nutrient deficient and you're going to be just messing and screwing up your body if you do it like that, where you're using it to suppress appetite and that's it. And you think that that's the only mechanism of action that these GLP1s are doing? No, that's like just a small piece of how a GLP1 will help you to lose weight. And so keep the dose on the lower side. Always try with a low dose. Microdosing wasn't really being talked about when I started these, so I didn't know to start lower than 2.5. But a lot of women will say start at 1.25 and see because we have some women that stay at 1.25, they lose all the weight they want to lose and they never have to go beyond that.
- [57:58]
B
Yeah, that's beautiful. That's amazing.
- [58:00]
A
And if that can be you, you want to know. So start low and go very slowly. And if you are having weight loss resistance or you are not losing an average of a half pound to a pound a week, look at everything else before you increase the dose.
- [58:20]
B
That's perfect. Yeah, I love that plan. I absolutely love that plan and that message that you're given too. Because I think women need to hear it over and over and over again. Because like you said, the general message out there is like we go ahead and increase, just increase. And that's where it literally does become a different conversation in terms of okay, now we are seeing the 40% lean muscle loss because you went too high and not only are you not eating your protein, you're not lifting and you're on such a high dose of a GLP that it's, it is affecting your lean muscle mass and your body composition. So there's there. This is the perfect scenario of what's that saying, the, the cure versus the poison is in the dose. It literally is. It can be this life changing cure molecule thing versus kick your ass over here and lose all your muscle and not poop for a week. Like it really is in the dose.
- [59:18]
A
And I will tell you, and this is not me promoting my program. I don't care where somebody go, oh, I do care. Very much so. But 99% of the online clinics don't give a crap about what you're doing.
- [59:31]
B
No, they want your mind.
- [59:32]
A
So they're not going to tell you how to eat, how to monitor, how to microdose, nothing. It's just, here's your GLP1, see you later. And we're just going to keep titrating for you. If you ask for it, that's it. That's all they care about.
- [59:44]
B
Yeah.
- [59:44]
A
Like, we have to be doing this differently if we want to do it safely and optimally so that it actually helps with our health and not destroy it, because it will destroy your health. Sure, you might be skinny, but that's it. Everything else will go to. Yeah, and we don't want that. And there are other peptides. I mean, peptides are all the rage and GLP1's being top of that hill, but that peptide top, mountain top. It's GLP ones at the top. They're the kings and queens of this whole peptide conversation. But there's so many other peptides that could be considered that the FDA is approving. Well, we think they're going to be approved. I think they will be. So that you can actually get prescribed other peptides that can help you as an individual with your very specific, very unique metabolic profile. Right. So if you're somebody that is having a lot of adrenal stress, you know, and you know, this, you've tested, there's things like MOT C that can really help with somebody that's got that Simax Salank. These are peptides that help with anxiety. So it could help with the neurotransmitters in your brain so that you're driven to eat better foods. And you're not going to be driven to eat high sugary foods to try and get that payoff in the reward system of the brain. There's ones that will help you to maintain your muscle, the growth hormone secretagogues. Those can be really great for midlife women and midlife metabolism. And there's other components that aren't classified as peptides, but they are found on peptide research sites. You've had Jay Campbell come on. His website is fantastic. He's got things like Tessa Fensing. Nobody talks about Tessa fencing, which I'm like, hello. It was gonna be amazing.
- [61:43]
B
Minute before GLPs, and then it kind of got pushed to the side because of the GLPs. But Tessa fencing also works on your appetite, too.
- [61:51]
A
Absolutely. It's being approved in Mexico, I do believe, for weight loss. It hasn't been approved yet in North America. It came around as a drug first that was being studied for Parkinson's, I do believe, or in Alzheimer's. Didn't find that. They didn't find it helped with that, but they saw that it was started to help with weight loss, but there was a very strong negative feedback loop that happened. So which means your body gets. It was getting used to the drug. So people were losing weight at first, but then after like a three month time period, they saw that that plateaued. And so it's a, it's a, it's a supplement. It's considered a supplement now. It can help in the beginning, but what you want to do is cycle it so that your body doesn't adjust. And what it does is it actually works on the dopamine centers of the brain and it's very stimulatory. It has a really long half life, like I think a seven day half life in the body. So it can affect your sleep. But what I found was with my own experimentation was using really small doses would help with my energy levels, help with my mood, help with cravings. And I was like, this is amazing. This actually really helps. Like, it helps with the midlife fatigue that we get it bumped up, you know, so if I have a hard day, I would just use a little bit. But if you're wanting to use it in conjunction with a GLP1 or just you don't want to go down the road of GLP is this can be a great little tool, but it is for research purposes only, so it's at your own free will. I'm not giving you medical advice, but look at that. It can be found at Bio Longevity Labs at Jay Campbell's site, which Amy's got a link for. All right, Amy?
- [63:38]
B
Yeah, yeah, I do. Yep, yep. Okay, we'll put that in the show. Notes.
- [63:41]
A
Yeah, the other one, nicotine. It's my new favorite. As Amy knows. I'm like the nicotine pusher now.
- [63:50]
B
Yes, you are. Yes, you are. But no, I mean, tell us about that because I think a lot of people are a little bit scared. Like, we've heard of the nicotine patches, but you're chewing the gum. I'm.
- [63:59]
A
Oh, I'm doing more than just the gum.
- [64:01]
B
Am. I'm.
- [64:02]
A
I've got like, I've got nicotine in every form minus the. In tobacco. I'm not smoking it.
- [64:08]
B
Right.
- [64:08]
A
And so nicotine in low doses can be extremely Beneficial for multiple different things, but for your metabolism is one of them. It actually helps with cravings.
- [64:22]
B
Okay.
- [64:23]
A
So I told my mom about it and she went and got some. And I think it's so funny because my mom is like anti, like the biggest anti smoker you've ever met. So I had to like really break it down. I'm like, mom, this is not to. But you're not taking tobacco. This is different. You were just taking the nicotine and you're just going to use nicotine. Because she has a really hard time with sugar cravings. And so I was like, give it a try. It also actually helps with dopamine as well. So it can help with your mood, helps your energy levels, helps with actually like reducing your risk. A little bit of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's because it acts on the acetylcholine receptors in the brain. So it can be an amazing midlife little tool is low doses. When I say low doses, I think less than 5 milligrams. But what the nicotine experts say is anything less than 10 milligrams a day is beneficial. And you're not going to get too hooked on it because it is addictive. So if you start going up above 10.
- [65:31]
B
Yeah.
- [65:31]
A
And then it gets a little bit murky and then you can get addicted to it. And when you try and come off of it, it can be a tough time. Like you can get lots of muscle tension and irritable and tired if you stop at cold turkey. So the way that you'd have to like slowly drop your dose down if you're above 10 milligrams and you're wanting to stop. So I just keep it down to usually less than 5 milligrams and not every day. So I use it during the weekday when I've got heavy workload days when we have weekends, like Amy and I just went to a conference down in Vegas. I had to, you know, be super focused. I wanted to get all this information into my brain. So I was at the 10 milligrams I had the patch on, plus I was chewing the gut. Okay. So you can do low dose patch. You can find them on Amazon. You can cut them in half. I would do like 3 to 7 milligram patches. And that just gives you a more steady release throughout the day. You don't get hit quite as hard. Nicotine gum. 2 milligram nicotine gum. There's pouches. Pouches are really hard to find low doses of. But there is a brand that has 2 milligram pouch dose. And I wouldn't go higher than that. Maybe three milligrams tops. That's like right into the brain because you put it down and you stick it down in your gums and you just let it sit there for 45 minutes and then you take it out. But that's a real big hit to the brain. I have a friend of ours, Danielle, she was like, nicotine gum doesn't do anything for me. And then she tried the pouch and she's like, oh, I know what you're talking about now, Karen. I got it. She's like, I put the pouch in and I know what you're talking about now. My brain just lit up. Helps you to focus. And so that is one of my faves. Methylene blue can be helpful not so much with weight loss, but with energy. So in a roundabout way, because it helps with your mitochondria, helps give you energy. That can be a nice little midlife addition for women. Helps with brain fog, Alzheimer's, things like that. So I love methylene blue. Troscriptions has troche. That's got caffeine, like really low dose caffeine, cbd, nicotine and methylene blue in it. And that's like. I'm like, it's like, you made this for midlife women, Dr. Scott?
- [67:57]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [67:59]
A
And then for peptides, there's thousands of peptides. But yeah, you know, whatever it is that you're like, if you have an autoimmune condition, if you've got Hashimoto's and you've got lots of inflammation, inflammation drives weight loss resistance. So that alone could be like the one thing that's stopping your body from losing weight in midlife. Like, you can have all your hormones optimized, your diet dialed in, but if you have high inflammatory markers, you have an autoimmune condition or any sort of immune dysfunction, adding in something to help support your immune system, whether that's supplementation, there's lots of good supplements that help with the immune system, but there's also lots of really good peptides that are going to be hopefully FDA approved, like TB500, BPC157, Thy and Alpha One. These are all peptides that help support the immune system and will help lower your inflammation, which absolutely in turn can help all those hormones to work properly, amplify them, but also help with weight loss and weight loss resistance.
- [69:10]
B
Yes.
- [69:11]
A
And so look at all those things. If yours is a mind thing, there's so many things that can help that are natural or there are peptides that help boost the neurochemicals in your brain. That's a really, really big piece to the weight loss puzzle is just what's driving it? What's driving your eating behavior? If you have a lot of hard times, a lot hard time with eating sugar, like, you just can't resist it. You have lots of sugar cravings, start looking to the brain chemistry and what's going on. Like, are you. Look at your genetics. Do you have a hard time with having dopamine, dopamine produced in the brain? You know, these are things that your genetics can tell you. Do you have a hard time with serotonin? Does your body break down dopamine too quickly so that you're constantly seeking it out and you're seeking it through food? Right? So getting to those root causes and like, start peeling back these layers before just going, give me more glp. There's lots to be, you know, like, picked apart here and there's, there's root causes. And so I encourage all of you that if you are struggling to look at the whole picture, not just this one, like, okay, give me the hormones and give me the GOP and let's call it a day. Yeah, There could be so much more that you should be looking at.
- [70:29]
B
Well, I think this is so beautiful because you literally spoke to the two groups of midlife women that are out there. You have the group that they're already on a GLP or they're totally open to it. They just want to know how to do it the right way, and you can absolutely help them with that. And then you have the other group over here that's like, yeah, I've just resisted this entire time. I'm resisting using a glp. I'm not going there. Maybe it's the money piece and we totally respect that. I mean, there, there is an investment in using GLPs, because, you know, you are going to have to be on them for an extended period of time, if not at least, like Karen said, at a low dose for life. You know, even if it's a once a month or twice a month dosing regimen, you know, it's probably not something that you want to cut off. So you have that subset of women over here that are like, I'm just not feeling the glp. You just gave them a boatload of other options that could absolutely target their weight, their inflammation, their mindset, their cravings, all of it outside of the use of a glp.
- [71:35]
A
So I love this.
- [71:35]
B
I mean, you literally, yeah, ladies. I mean, this whole episode is for you, no matter where you are in your midlife journey. We literally talked about all these different
- [71:44]
A
tools that you can use. Build your own toolbox. Yeah, that's why, like, build your own toolbox. And on the thing of price point, I also want to let women know that majority of the DLP1 on programs that are online, these are becoming extremely. They have like millions of people in these groups, like.
- [72:07]
B
Right.
- [72:07]
A
In these programs.
- [72:08]
B
Right.
- [72:08]
A
These GLP1s, majority of them tie in the cost of the peptide into their membership.
- [72:14]
B
Yeah.
- [72:15]
A
And so it doesn't matter if you don't raise your dose or not, you're still going to be charged as though you were raising the dose because it's a set price that covers up to 15 milligrams of tirzepatide, let's say.
- [72:30]
B
Right.
- [72:30]
A
And so at our clinic, we decided to do it differently and not charge in the membership for the GLP1. So you only purchase when you actually need the GLP1s. And so you get this aggressive titration dose from the doctor. But then majority of our members will make that prescription last six months because they're not raising the dose. They don't have to. And so they pay, let's say, $60 a month, $100. Because we're not marking up the medication price and we've got excellent prices on the GLP1s. We're working with a pharmacy that's willing to give these, like, really low cost prices for the compounded peptides, which could be disappearing. You know, compounded peptides may be on their way out, thanks to Eli Lilly, but for now we still have them at a really good price. And so, you know, look for that, too. I'm not saying you have to take my program, but that's what you're going to be looking for. Look for places that have the pharmacy charging you for the peptide. It's not inside the membership price.
- [73:39]
B
Yeah.
- [73:40]
A
And so it's separated so that you can just use what your body needs and not have to overdo it. And then that peptide will. That via is going to last you longer.
- [73:50]
B
Yeah, exactly. Oh, I love that you built this too, because you. You give such great education in it as well. So the ladies that are in your peptide program, they're able to ask you about other peptides like that you talked about on the show today, they can start incorporating in, which is beautiful.
- [74:08]
A
Yep, exactly. Yep. And it's all geared towards the midlife woman.
- [74:14]
B
Yeah.
- [74:14]
A
It's not. Our programs aren't geared towards the 25 year old.
- [74:18]
B
Right.
- [74:19]
A
That's trying to lose weight on a GLP1.
- [74:21]
B
Well, they're going to buy that from the TikTok influencer anyways, so that's okay.
- [74:25]
A
100%. 100%, yeah, yeah. These are for women that typically. Yeah, exactly. And then it's also not for the woman that has hundreds of pounds to lose either. Like, if you have a lot of weight to lose. Yes. I want you to optimize your hormones and we can certainly help with that. Amy can help with that. But you should be monitored in person by a physician if you have that much weight to lose. Yeah. I really strongly believe that is that you should. Because these online telehealth companies, you're filling out a form, you're likely not actually even seeing the doctor face to face. And so they can only do so much. So I think that if you have a lot of weight to lose and you've got a lot of metabolic issues happening, see somebody in person, go see your family doctor and have them monitor you if you want to choose to do a GLQ one and even with your hrt.
- [75:21]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we're going to put all the links and all the information down in the show notes so you can go check out Karen's peptide program. Because you heard about it today. I mean it's, it's absolutely phenomenal. And this episode, Karen, is one like, even as we're recording, I'm like, I'm gonna make my nurse practitioners all listen to it. I'm gonna assume death old patients is like required reading. It's like freaking homework. Because it's so good. Like the way that you laid it out, I learned in it as well. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, I forgot about that mechanism of how this, the. Huh. So in listening to you, I even learned. So I said this earlier. You're just so brilliant at laying out that journey that we go through in perimenopause and menopause, but yet still giving hope along the way, no matter where you are in your journey. For the ladies that haven't entered it, guess what? You're going to start hormones soon. For the ladies that have been screwed out of hormones for 10 or more years, it's okay. There's still hope. We got you. You know, there's still answers wherever you are in your walk. So that's what I just, I love about you, Karen. I just do. It's, it's. You're so, you're so good at this and you're so good with hormones. So thank you.
- [76:33]
A
As are you. As are you. So thanks for going on the show.
- [76:36]
B
And this is like talking to. So there's that.
- [76:39]
A
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And this is. Just gives options, you know, it's. I think that we need to see more of this. We need more help for the metabolic midlife storm because it's so different than any other weight loss that you're going to find out there, like weight loss programs, we have to be specific to women. And what's happening, as you heard here today, there's so much happening towards our poor little metabolism in midlife. And we're now seeing that 80% of women have weight loss struggles and weight gain in midlife. So this isn't just happening to a small subset of women. Majority of us are gaining weight in midlife. And that could be five pounds, it could be ten pounds. And I don't judge anybody for wanting to get that off. You know, if you're used to being at 125 pounds your whole life and then you go up to 135 and none of your friends think that you need to lose weight and they're. They would like lose. Look down on you for taking a GLP one. Screw them. We have our standards. We like to look a certain way. Myself included, Amy included. Like, yeah, vanity is a thing. And I, and I, I. Sorry. But I do want to look good, you know, for, For. For the rest of my life as the best I can.
- [78:00]
B
Well, except a little bit of cellulite we see at the poll. But beyond that, we're doing everything they can as I age. Yeah, yeah.
- [78:10]
A
Yes. Spot on.
- [78:12]
B
Amazing. Well, ladies, share this episode because it's a good one. Like I said, I'm making it required homework for all the patients in our program. So share this episode. Like it. Subscribe the whole deal. You know the drill. Do a review and go follow Karen as well and check out her peptide program. Thank you once again for coming on. You can come on anytime because we just riff and we have such a great time.
- [78:34]
A
Thank you for having me.
- [78:35]
B
Absolutely. Till next time, everyone. 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 healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, treatment or before making changes to your healthc care regimen, including 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 clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the host 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.