As a women’s health coach, I work with busy women, typically in the 35 plus age range. Two things I hear consistently are:
I feel like crap.
I can’t lose weight to save my life.
My typical client has talked to her doctor about her concerns and is often met with the response “This is just part of getting older.” Or, she is told that she needs to exercise more and eat less.
I don’t agree. AT ALL.
Here’s the thing gals: The way we feel is a true reflection of our food and lifestyle choices. For some reason we have the unrealistic expectation that we can skimp on sleep, eat crap food, repeatedly expose ourselves to toxins, overschedule ourselves, stay “connected” 24/7, eat on the go, live in a state of chronic stress, and still be thin, feel energized, have uneventful periods and a smooth transition into menopause and beyond.
It doesn’t make sense. It’s as absurd as thinking that you will win the gold medal at the Olympics if you train ‘occasionally.’ It doesn’t add up.
If you feel like crap, then your body is trying to tell you something, If you cannot lose weight and continue to put more pounds on each year, it is your body’s way of telling you that something in your life needs attention. Weight gain and the inability to lose or maintain a steady weight is a symptom of a bigger problem.
What might those problems be? These are the top issues I see with my clients:
1. Nutrient Deficiencies
It would be completely absurd to try and bake a cake without eggs, flour and baking powder right? Eggs, flour and baking powder are the raw ingredients needed to make the cake rise and to come out moist. Without the raw ingredients needed to make a cake, the cake will flop.
The same is true for your body. Your body requires certain raw materials to support all of your bodily functions. Magnesium alone is involved in 300 plus reactions in your body, yet 85% or more of us are deficient. Case in point: Your body needs the basic raw materials (aka nutrients) to function well.
Having a baseline micronutrient test like the Spectracell Micronutrient Test which measures the actual amount of nutrients inside of your cells will provide you with a real-time report on where your body stands and will pinpoint what your body needs more of to function optimally.
A simple blood or serum test doesn’t yield the same result. Serum testing simply looks at the number of specific nutrients circulated in the blood, but it doesn’t measure whether the nutrients are getting into the cells. And lots of people (including me) can have ample levels of nutrients in their blood that never quite make it into the cells. Translation: Your bod will be deficient in the raw materials it needs. Knowing your numbers is the best way to know which foods and supplements you need more of to function well.
2. Hypothyroidism or a Sluggish Thyroid
Where do I begin on this topic? Let’s just say that hypothyroidism is an epidemic, especially among women, although I see it more and more in men too. Your thyroid gland is essentially the thermostat of your body. Think of it as the master control of metabolism in your body, and every single cell of your body needs optimal thyroid hormones to function well. The primary symptoms I see in my clients are constipation, weight gain, fatigue and a feeling of being cold all the time, but there are a whole host of other symptoms as well. Without optimal thyroid hormones, every cell in your body will function sluggishly, and we don’t want that.
The thyroid gland is extremely vulnerable to toxins and stress, and considering that most of us are exposed to massive amounts of toxins (think crappy food, environmental toxins, skin care products, artificial colors and flavors, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, etc.) and stress living as modern day superwoman, it is no wonder that we are seeing this issue become a huge problem among women.
Testing is super important, and I would encourage every woman to get the full thyroid testing done which includes TSH, Free T3, Free T4, along with thyroid antibodies (TPO and Tg-Ab). (If your doctor offers just a TSH, kindly request the full panel. “Normal” TSH levels are not indicative of optimal thyroid function. I always ask clients to make sure they are getting thyroid antibodies drawn as well. We often see antibodies show up 5-10 years before an actual autoimmune diagnosis, so it would be ideal to know whether or not you are on the autoimmune spectrum so that you can begin to do something about it (yes, it is preventable and reversible in many cases). If your thyroid labs come back at suboptimal levels, there are medications and supplements that will help to treat the condition. Making some lifestyle changes can often help too!
3. Blood Sugar Imbalance
This should probably go to the top of the list because it is such a problem. Experts estimate that half, yes 50% of us have blood sugar imbalances, and that number is going to continue to climb because of our not-so-great food and lifestyle choices. Most people think of blood sugar imbalances as being a problem for people with diabetes, but in truth, blood sugar imbalances are at the cause of a so many of our “feel” like crap symptoms. Things like bad periods, moodiness, anxiety, inability to lose weight, brain fog, and a whole host of other issues. Experts refer to Alzheimer’s as Type 3 Diabetes because blood sugar imbalance is a huge contributor to Alzheimer’s Disease.
I always recommend that my clients know their blood sugar status by checking their fasting glucose, fasting insulin (we usually see this number rise before our fasting glucose rises) and a Hemoglobin A1c (HgA1c) via a serum blood test. This will provide a pretty good picture of where things stand. You can also purchase a glucometer and check your blood sugar at home. Ideally, your morning blood sugar would be between 78-88 mg/dL; before meals, it would be 78-88 mg/dL; 40 minutes after a meal it would be less than 135 mg/dL, and two hours after your meal it would drop back down to 78-88 mg/dL. I own a glucometer, and I spot check my blood sugar from time to time.
If your blood sugar is on the higher end of the spectrum, eating a diet full of whole, real food whole eliminating sugar, flour, and junk food can help to bring those numbers down. There are some targeted supplements that can help too!
4. Painful Periods or Bad PMS
Oh my ladies, painful periods and bad PMS are not normal. In fact, our periods should be uneventful (no, I am not kidding). If you experience painful periods or bad PMS, that’s a red flag for hormone imbalances (likely estrogen dominance), and you need to have those hormones checked. My functional health colleagues and I consider your period to be your body’s report card: Your period tells the story of what is happening behind the scenes in your bod, and if your periods are wonky, it’s time to take action. By taking action, I am not referring to taking the birth control pill. The pill simply masks the problem rather than getting to the cause of the problem. And once you come off the pill, your periods will likely be as bad, if not worse than when you went on the pill.
Instead, get your hormones tested. My favorite hormone test is the DUTCH test, which measures hormones and hormone metabolites (called conjugates) in a dried urine sample, and is performed from the comfort of your home. Dr. Mercola wrote a great article on the test that you can read here. I went through a deep dive training on DUTCH testing from the lovely Maria Clapps, a women’s health hormone expert, and I have been using this test with clients more and more because it is the most comprehensive test out there and provides information to help my clients take very specific actions right away to achieve hormone balance. It can take awhile to get your hormones balanced, but considering that your period lasts one week each month, and PMS can last an additional week, it makes sense to get a clear understanding of your hormones.
Remedies for hormone balance will vary person to person, and it is important to know your numbers so that you know which food, supplements and lifestyle changes can be most beneficial.
5. Chronic Stress
Chronic stress is nothing to joke about, yet most of us talk about stress as though we have no control over it.
Here’s the thing: Our bodies were biologically designed to handle short bouts of acute stress. For example, if you are walking across the street and a car came barreling toward you, your stress response would kick in. Your adrenals would release adrenaline and cortisol (your stress hormones), and as a result, your pupils would dilate, your blood pressure would rise, your heart would start racing, all of the blood in your body would be diverted away from digestion and reproduction (you don’t need to digest food or get pregnant when you are running for your life) toward your muscles and vital organs so that you could get out of danger.
It’s a good thing, right? We need our bodies to handle stressful situations.
But when you are under chronic stress all day because of your job, a busy schedule, 24/7 accessibility, lack of sleep, over exercising (yes exercising too much causes stress in your body), your stress hormones are “on” all day long. To boot, internal stress inside the body causes stress hormones to rise….things like exposure to toxins, hormone imbalances, blood sugar imbalances, infections, inflammation, etc. These things cause the same stress response as if you were running out of the way of a moving car. There is one single stress response my friends, and your body doesn’t differentiate between running for your life or the stress of a mortgage payment or work meeting.
Reducing stressful things in your life is the first step to lightening the load, but if you aren’t able to let go of certain things (you cannot obviously quit your job and walk away from your home responsibilities) there are many techniques to help manage stress and to dial down those stress hormones.
Deep diaphragmatic breathing is one of the best ways to instantly tell your stress hormones to back down, as is slow flow exercise and mindful meditation. You can measure your body’s stress hormones with the DUTCH panel (mentioned above) to get a snapshot of whether chronic stress has taken a toll on your adrenal glands (the glands responsible for secreting stress hormones) and when these glands are tapped out, all of your body’s systems will suffer. Adaptogenic herbs like Ashwagandha, Holy Basil and Rhodiola, are very nourishing and can be helpful to optimize cortisol function.
