Episode 36 - Hashimoto's, Thyroid Disease and Perimenopause Artwork

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Episode 36 - Hashimoto's, Thyroid Disease and Perimenopause

June 12, 2025 • Brian & Nicole • Season 1 • Episode 36

In this episode Nicole shares her journey with Hashimoto’s Disease and Thyroid Disease. She shares how important an ultrasound of her thyroid was to getting an accurate diagnosis, in addition to bloodwork. Once diagnosed, Nicole touches on the different medications that have been prescribed to her over the years and which ones worked best for her. In addition to going over the symptoms of thyroid disease, she also covers the symptoms / signs of perimenopause, which hit her shortly after she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s and Thyroid Disease. Nicole shares the adjustments she made in her diet to bring down inflammation, which included going gluten-free and significantly cutting alcohol out of her life. Additionally, she covers specific examples of some of the meals she eats throughout the day, her exercise routine, stress management tools and supplements she takes daily. She reflects on the reasons she got a hysterectomy at the age of 49 and how hormone replacement therapy has been life changing for her. She also focuses on how the weight of stress women carry in their daily lives can significantly contribute to triggering an autoimmune disease, as well as the importance of self-care and prioritizing oneself. Nicole hopes that sharing her experience and what she learned along the way will be a helpful resource for people, especially women, who may be struggling with they symptoms of an autoimmune disease or perimenopause, or as in her case, both.

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[Music]Welcome to GenX Adulting and today we aregoing to talk aboutHashimoto's Disease, ThyroidDisease, and Perimenopause.I'm going to be sharing my personal journeyof going through allthree of those situations.And this is a very special episode for mebecause I like to get as much informationout about Hashimoto's Disease and ThyroidDisease, especially for women.Because I think from what I found throughthe years from talking to women is so manywomen suffer from either Hashimoto'sDisease or Thyroid Disease.Many go undiagnosed for much longer thanthey should have andsuffered for much longer thanthey should have and were treated for thesymptoms without getting to the root causeof what it was.So, I'm going to startwith Hashimoto's Disease.I think I had, with my third pregnancy,which was when I was, Igot pregnant at 38 andI think I had Hashimoto'sDisease probably right before that.I think I had something going on.Something was a little off but, and itwould have been rightbefore I got pregnant.But then either the stress that was goingon during the pregnancy, not the pregnancybut there was stresssurrounding the pregnancy.So, either the stress surrounding thepregnancy or right after Igave birth basically is whenthe Hashimoto's presented.So, it was triggered somewhere in there.I was at my six weekappointment with my OBGYN.She happened to, she checked my neck.So, your thyroid is likea butterfly shaped organ.I don't know if it'san organ, it's a gland.It's right at the base of your throat kindof, right in the center.So, she was checking and she had me swallowand I think she felt like a little bump andso she referred me over to anendocrinologist who I still go to this day.So, I'm very grateful to my OB during thattime because she wasthe first one to discoverand that was at my sixweek post-op checkup.I have a question.Are you normally supposed to be able tofeel it or was that abnormal?Like, was she feeling yourthroat like they normally do, right?We all think it's innocuous but then didshe feel it and waslike, you need to go get itchecked?You're not supposed to beable to touch it, are you?Well, what she felt, so when the doctornormally checks yourglands, they're checking likeyour lymph nodes up here,like under your jaw kind of.This is more down below in the center andshe felt like a nodule.But I wouldn't...Like swollen or something?Yeah, like a nodule, like a bump.But I wouldn't have been able to recognizethat's what it was, if that makes sense.So, I go to an endocrinologist, I do haveblood work done and the endocrinologist didan ultrasound and that's where she reallysaw how bad the Hashimoto's disease was andhow it had started to destroy my thyroid.What was presented on ultrasound was notreflected as strongly in the blood work.And that's one piece of advice if I cangive to all women andthyroid disease does affectmen too but it affectswomen 10 times more than men.Is if possible, if you're able to find aprovider that will do anultrasound on your thyroid,insist on that and not just blood workbecause so many symptomsof thyroid disease, you'llstart feeling so many symptoms ofHashimoto's diseasewhich causes thyroid disease.You'll start feeling that before itpresents some blood work.But if you have an ultrasound done, yourdoctor can see what'sactually going on with yourthyroid.So, a woman can suffer for a couple ofyears with symptomsfrom thyroid disease beforeit finally presents the severity of thesituation on her blood work.So I think ultrasound should be part of anannual checkup for women on her thyroid.Of course, that's not how it is.But if there's any way you can ask, even ifit's every other year,if you're feeling someof the symptoms that we're going todiscuss, insist on anultrasound because that's whereshe really saw what was going on with meand what was going on with my thyroid.I would actually go one step further andinsist upon it because toyour point, you sufferedfor a while.All these weird symptoms, you were doingblood work, your blood work seemed fine.And then it was like, I remember you kindof coming home thatday or whenever you foundout your results like, "Oh mygosh, I think I have answers."And I think you have to drive your ownhealth as a patient, right?You have to advocate on your own behalf.So if you think you have them, especiallywhen we're done, right, with this and youtalk about the various symptoms, my advicewould be push for it.Yeah.I mean, everyone has different insurance.If you have insurance, like what theirinsurance will cover, ifthey won't cover it, it's tooexpensive.Honestly, work with the doctor, makesomething up, have them work with you.Yeah, absolutely.If there's any way you can get anultrasound done, it's lifechanging because then shereally saw the severity of it.She told me of Hashimoto's disease.And what Hashimoto's disease is, it's...So what Hashimoto's disease is where yourimmune system attacks itself.So my immune system attacked my thyroidgland and caused hypothyroidism.So from the disease, from the immune systemattacking my thyroid gland, I ended up withhypothyroidism.And it basically kills the thyroid cells.And so then your thyroid stops makingthyroid hormone, which you need to survive.And the thyroid affectsevery cell in your body.And so this affects every organ in yourbody, your brain, yourheart, everything is affected.But your thyroid is like the centralnervous system or thecentral command system of yourbody.If that's off, you're off.And I can't stress that enough.That's why I think it's so important thatwomen need to be on topof their thyroid healthand again, you could be feeling symptomsbefore it's showing up in blood work.So that ultrasound is important.But so once I found out I had theHashimoto's disease, thenand then thyroid disease, thatexplained all the symptoms I was having.So the symptoms ofthyroid disease, this is fun.The symptoms of thyroid disease is thefirst thing I noticed was fatigue.And it's not like normal fatigue.It's like you've been hit bya truck and you can't get up.You are flat down.It's an exhaustion I'dnever experienced before.And it was hard to even describe to you, toanyone, my friends, family, it was just youfeel, I can't evendescribe it, you're down.And doing anything requires so much effort.Just doing your normalstuff through the day.It was exhausting.So it was a different type of exhaustionthan just, I'm tiredfrom the kids waking me upin the middle of the night or I'm tiredfrom running around or I'm tired from work.It's in your bones.Your body is beyonddepleted, depleted, you're depleted.That's the best way I can describe it.So that was my number one.Number two, your thyroidaffects the speed of your metabolism.So if your thyroid is off or dying becauseyour body's attackingit and you have thyroiddisease, you gain weight because yourmetabolism basically screeches to a halt.So I mean, I've read about women who'vesaid I could eat air andgain weight when you havethyroid disease because you literally haveno metabolism, but youdon't know, you didn'tknow, oh, that's why Igained 10 pounds in two months.And I didn't change a thing.I was exercising, eating right.And I still gained all this weight.So weight gain, bloating, a foggy brain.And this is more than just, because onceyou hit a certain age,like midlife, you walkinto a room, you forget why you're there.This could be going on.It's not like that.You end up somewhere, whether it's a roomin your house oryou're doing a task at workand you literally have blanked on what youwere doing before that.It's like somebody might as well have movedyou in time from one place to another andyou don't know how you got there.You're just standing there and you'reparalyzed because you can't remember.There's nothing jogging your memory.It's like you might as well have woken upfrom a dream and youdon't know where you'reat.And then the short termmemory, the forgetfulness.I remember I would tell you, you need toremind me of this orI'm going to forget it.Like if I needed to give the kids friends aride home, I would say, you need to remindme we're giving them a ride home.I do not want to leave without this child,but because you could be told something andit's gone.It's gone.And when you're reminded, it's like a flashof light because itwas so gone in your head.So the foggy brain, the lack of memory,sensitivity to cold, youall of a sudden feel cold.It could be super hotout and you're freezing.Key joints and likejoint pain and then dry skin.That's another one.And inflammation,inflammation, inflammation.You become so inflamed and I think it'syour body's the immune system.It's attacking your thyroid.Your body's having this visceral responseto that going on and you are just becominginflamed which adds to the weight gain,which adds to the bloating.It affects all your organs,you know, and then hair loss.That's the one I was just about to mentionif you didn't get it.Hair loss.So I would be in the shower and you know,for a lot of women, whenyou put your conditionerand you either run your fingers throughyour hair or you useone of those combs in theshower and you have some hair.We're talking clumps,clumps and clumps of hair.And you notice that, oh,for me, so I'm half Armenian.So I always had really nice eyebrows.I did.They were very thick, defined.I lost, you know, I haveanyone watching this on YouTube.I obviously use makeup on my eyebrowsbecause you can actually see them.If I didn't have makeup on, you wouldn'twith the lights thatwere under, you wouldn't beable to really see my eyebrows.You see just faint.I do still have eyebrows left, but it'slike a quarter of what I had.And I lost those first, I'd say my eyebrowsand my hair thinning went first.I noticed your hair thinning for sure.I remember being like,wow, what's going on here?Yeah.Cause I had from my Armenian roots, I hadsuper thick, superthick, super healthy hair longand it could grow long and it wouldn't getlike wispy or thin at the ends.So my, everything changed with that.Digestive issues, which goes with thebloating constipation.That's one.And then mentally you can end up withdepression, anxiety, or it exacerbates it.If you already have it, it makes it worse.Puffy face.They call it moon face.It's where you're fit.Now I have a round face anyways, not, Istill have one, but whenI was younger, like in mytwenties and thirties, it was very round.Um, genetically speaking, but when I got mythyroid disease, my face got even rounderand they call it moon face.And you can almost, I can sometimes tell bylooking at someone, Ithink they have thyroiddisease because they're,they have the moon face.It's, and when you get, get on meds, um,when you get on meds,then you can tell your face,you lose that moon face and you see theinflammation going down.So you think you can identify it.Have you ever done that?You've asked someone you're like, do youhave thyroid issues or, you know, problems?No, but talking to friends about whenthey've talked aboutdifferent things, invariablyI've always said, get your thyroid test inbecause anythingthey've talked about, whateverissue they've had going on has matched upwith thyroid disease.And for some of them, they ended up findingout they had thyroid disease.For others, their blood work was fine andtheir doctor said, we'll just keep checkingit and they didn't get an ultrasound done.That's the one thing I just, I'm like, oh,try to get that ultrasound.So you really know what's going on becausethyroid disease can make you feel crazy.Like let me stress on the mental part, justnot just the anxiety and depression, it cantrigger, but not beingable to remember things.You just have a sense of no controlsometimes in your brainbecause the chemistry is sooff and you know something's off, but if adoctor keeps saying your blood works fine,your blood works fine, thenyou feel nuts when you leave.And that's why I say, have the ultrasounddone so you can trulyrule out thyroid disease.You can't rule it out until you have anultrasound in your thyroid done.That's how I feel.If your blood work's coming back normal.I feel like it spirals too, right?Because it affects your interactions withthe people closest toyou who don't understand.Admittedly here, I'm pretty good at this.Now I get it.I understand it, but for awhile, for years, go ahead.Like, come on, let's go.What do you mean you're tired?What do you mean you can'tforget or remember things?There's an impact there.There is.And I remember with our first two, afterour older son, I was backin the gym pretty quicklyputting him in that little daycare at thegym and got myself backwhere I was post baby.And then with our daughter, same thing.And so I just assumed with our last one,oh, I'll just, I was running at the time.So I was like, I'll just start, I'll berunning once I get theclear and I'll never forget.I put him in one of those baby joggers andI went to have my regular run.And it was like my feet were in cement.They were cement blocks and my body was notdoing what it was supposed to be doing.This is before I was diagnosed,I think, or it was right after.And that's when I thought it was, oh mygosh, is this because Ihad him at 39 and I'm gettingolder and maybe this is what it's like whenyou're an older woman.Because I had my other two at 26 and at 29.So I was like, okay, so this must be ifyou're older, having ababy, not knowing, no, itwas a thyroid disease because let me alsogo back to the reason I know I had it goingon when I was pregnant is with my firsttwo, I breastfed and hadso much milk, like crazy,crazy amounts of milk.The babies were fine with our third.I did not produce nearly enough milk.I didn't realize what was going on until Itook him to a six week appointment and hehad not gained theweight he was supposed to.Of course, this is something I strugglewith still that I have guilt over.So then she said supplement.So he would have a bottle two hours andthen he would nurse attwo hours because it wouldgive my body a chance toactually make more milk.So then I still could breastfeed him, butwe had to supplementand I know you rememberthat and then you know and then of courseyou look and you'relike, oh my gosh, my babywasn't getting enough foodand that's a whole thing for me.But I didn't understand I had thyroiddisease and so itaffects your milk production.So that's something else is to look into ifyou've had a baby before and you were finewith your breast milk and all of a suddenyou're not, there's a chance you might haveHashimoto's thyroid disease.It's something to consider.But that's what I knew with my exercising.I'm not going to losethe weight, not knowing.I'm also not going to lose all the weightbecause I have thyroiddisease and my metabolismcame to a screeching halt and yet my bodywas completely failingme so I couldn't exercise.So this is all happening like starting like3940 and I went through my 40s.So then the endocrinologist put me on.Well, let me finish with the symptoms.I have a question too onceyou hit a stopping point.Okay.Well, I was just going to say another oneis horse voice becauseespecially if you havenodules, they can get bigger andcause your voice to get hoarse.And then coarse skinand hair, muscle weakness.And I remember feelingsome muscle weakness.And then other than the aches and pains,also some muscle tenderness.So those are kind of the main ones, but Iwould say the top ones are fatigue, foggybrain, constipation and weight gain.Yeah.Yep.You know, my question is, do you rememberyou went through that period where you wentand saw someone and they tooka blood test and everything.They didn't do the MRI or the, um, theydidn't look at yourthyroid, but they tried to matchthe lab results with thebunch of their vitamins.Remember that place?I was going to talk about this.Yeah.Okay.So it was, that was related.Was that pre-diagnosis?No.No.No, that was.Let's go back to this.If you're going to talk about it, I don'twant to throw you off.Yeah.I remember that phase and itdidn't really work actually.No, no.What happened was actuallythere were two more symptoms.Your menstrual period can become heavierthan normal and you canend up with irregular,irregular periods and slower heartbeat.So now I've covered all the symptoms.I want to make sure I name them all becausethere could be women that are experiencedand there could be men too.It does happen to men.So what happened was is, um, myendocrinologist put me on Synthroid.There's a lot of peoplethat don't like Synthroid.Um, she put me on Synthroidand then, which is a T four.Um, I'm not going toget too scientific here.I'm not, I'm going to put a disclaimer.I'm not a doctor.I'm just sharing my personal experience.Um, if you hear jingles, it's one of ourdogs is in here and it's her collar.Um, and there you go.She made herself present, but, um, so thatwas a T four becauseyour, your thyroid hormones,T four, T three, right?So I didn't have that anymore.So the T four was beingreplaced by the Synthroid.And then she also eventually put me onSIDML, which is my T three.There's a whole conversion thing and allthat, which you can Google all that, but,um, it worked.It did work.Like I, um, started to feel, I think thefirst thing I noticed wasmy fatigue had significantlydecreased and that mybrain felt normal again.I felt, I was like, Oh, okay.Things leveled out.Um, I felt my foggy brain cleared.So my foggy brain cleared.Um, I wasn't as exhausted.I still struggled to lose weight.Um, but I could tell Ifelt like me again more.And then, um, I had been doing research andI knew there was other options.Synthroid is the synthetic made.There's another one called armor.And I think they use, um, stuff from apig's thyroid gland for that.It's more natural, naturally made.There's another one.The armor's more natural.Yeah.And then there's another one.It's like nature orsomething, but it's a compound.I think armor is a compound.So I started going to a, um, functionalfunctional medicine doctor and she, she wasboth natural and, um,traditional medicine, Eastern and Western.That's when I tried armor and thesupplements you're talking about.Yeah.Um, and I did that for quite awhile in the hopes that it would.Help me more than the Synthroid was.Cause I still wasn't losing weight.I still was having constipation.I still was having bloating.So the Synthroid helps, but I was stillhaving all these nothing.It wasn't, I wasn't back to myself.So I put on 20 pounds.Um, like that, like, like I blinked and Ihad like, I lost the baby weight, butthose 20 pounds I could not lose.I think I ended up putting on more likeprobably between 20 and 30 pounds overmy forties.Um,I think too, not, it was moreof a bloated weight too, right?As opposed to like just normal healthy.No, I mean, my size, my dress size went up.Like I went, you know,I went from a four, six.I think my highest at one point when I wastrying to enclose was a 12.That's a significant change in your body.As a guy, I'm not totallysure what all that means.That'd probably be going from like a 34waste to like a 38 waste.Okay.Um, I carried it allin my belly pretty much.That's where I carry my weight.So, um, and then the bloating was, wasvicious and so uncomfortable.So I stayed with her for a while and wasnot getting any relief.Um, and I finally went back to my originalendocrinologist and went back onSynthroid and I finally got relief again.And she told me something interesting.She's been on the forefront.Like she, she's one of the bestendocrinologists, if not the bestin South Florida, I can saythat she's known for that.Um, she's on the forefront of all theresearch and everything new.And she said that they did studies andfound that armor works better forpeople that are, um, like European Anglodescent, like blonde blue eyed people.She looked, she literally said that shesaid blonde blue eyed people.Whereas the Synthroidis more for darker hair.Like I've got brown hair, brown eyes.And, um, they can't, they found that out.So I don't know if that's why the armorwasn't working for me, but it didn't.But I know it works for many people.Many people are happy with it.Yeah.Um, and that's wonderful for them.So, um, I went on the Synthroid, I went onthe Saitamao, but I do want to say,again, women are 10 times more likely toget thyroid disease than men or to getHashi's, which causes the Hashi modaldisease causes thyroid disease.Cause it attacks your thyroid.And the most common age to get diagnosed isbetween the ages of 30 to 50.But I really think what girls in theirteens just start getting theirthought, their bloodwork done at the very least.And once you're in your twenties, if youcan get that ultrasound, even if it'severy other year, along with your bloodwork, because it could be hitting you.I think I, like I said, I think I hadsomething going on beforeI finally got diagnosed.No doubt.You know, for sure.And I didn't have to suffer.I think you suffered for a while with allthe symptoms you just talked aboutlooking for answers,wondering what the hell's going on.And then you finally kindof struck gold in a sense.Yeah, no.And well, and there's something abouthaving answers, especiallywhen it comes to health.Well, I was going to go there.I think there's a lot more information outnow in the internet's far moreevolved with a lot more health informationnow than it used to be.It's far more mature, right?And there's podcasts where people talkabout this now, whichis a good, good thing.But back when you were looking and Iremember Googling too, it's like, well,there's not a ton of information.There was not a lot of information.Um, there wasn't socialmedia, like there is now.Nope.Um, there wasn't TikTok university, as Ilike to call it, um, where you can putsomething in and there's somebody on theretalking about something.Yeah.And I think Instagram hasgotten to be that way too.But, um, I will say when it comes to autoimmune diseases in general, womenuh, suffer way more than men.And in addition to various factors likehormones and different things that go on,one of the biggest triggers is stress.And I know that men are under stress too,like at work and stuff.I know that they have different stresses,but the weight a woman carries in herlife, especially when she'smarried or in a relationship.And there's children and a home and all theresponsibilities that go along with that.She's 24 seven. There is no punch out. Herbrain has no punch outthe stress, the high stressthat her nervous system is undercontributes to getting autoimmune diseases.No doubt. Yeah.There's no way itdoesn't know stress is evil.And so that high stress can trigger anautoimmune disease. And I think for me,it definitely was part of me gettingHashimoto's disease and thyroid disease.I'm I know it is. There's no question. So Ithink that's just another reason,besides all the reasons we've discussed inother episodes of that,the domestic load needs to beshared at home, that your partner needs tohelp. There has to be asequal as possible distributionbetween childcare and the domestic load,because it's literallyaffecting the health of women.Women are suffering health wise from thestress of doing everything.And whether some women may not even realizeit. And some women aresuffering undiagnosed withthings like thyroid disease and otherautoimmune diseases andgoing to the doctor and getting,let's say, oh, you're just have depression,depression, or you just have anxiety.So they're band dating it with medicine forthat, not getting to the root cause.Things like thyroid disease contribute todepression and anxiety,or you're just gainingweight. You just need to diet and exercisemore. Well, when you have thyroid disease,you don't have a metabolism. That has a lotto do with maybe why you're gaining weight,or maybe why you're so exhausted. So Ithink it needs to beaddressed. Women's mental health andphysical health is suffering under theweight of what they carry.I have a question on this.I'm not disagreeing with anything that youjust said. But do youthink so the women's lifestyleor the woman's lifestyle of all just have aglass of wine. Alcohol is acontributing alcohol is notgood for it, right? I'm not necessarilysaying it's a contributingfactor, but it doesn't help, right?So alcohol causes inflammation. Yeah,alcohol will 100% make anautoimmune disease worse.And so yes, the coping mechanisms that manywomen may choose to dealsome of them to deal with thestress that they're under can helpcontribute to worsening ortriggering an autoimmune disease.Yes, there's no question about that. I willsay one of the number one things I didto help with my success in treatmentbecause it's a whole treatment. It'smedication. It's the foodyou eat. It's your exercising. It's yoursleep. It's youralcohol consumption. It's yoursupplementation. It's your stressmanagement, all of it. So oneof the first things I did was cutout gluten. I cut it out. That's right. Icut out gluten. And thatdecreased my inflammationsignificantly and my digestive issues. Ithelped my digestive issues a lot. Andgluten is interesting.Gluten is not you can't have one foot inone foot out because onemolecule of gluten can be like youhad a whole piece of pizza. You can't youcan't have a little gluten.You're either in or out. SoI know I've talked to some people who said,well, you know, I try to noteat a lot of glue. It doesn'tmatter. You might as well eat all thegluten. You need to not eatany gluten. Yeah. If you want tohave the effects of it. So cutting outgluten was my first thing.I did not reduce my alcoholthrough my 40s. And I regret that because Iknow I contributed. Islowed down the recoveryprocess or the healing process of my bodybecause I was trying to healmy gut, but you can't trulyheal your gut if you're drinking. Yeah,it's just not going tohappen. Well, there are good glutenflick gluten free vodka, wine, spirits,etc. But gluten freedoesn't mean you're healing yourgluten free is one thing, right? Yeah, Ilove when they advertise.Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean,you can't again, there's a past episodewhere I talk about myalcohol use. And through my 40s,there was times where I would have a drinkevery night, depending onwhat was going on with ourlives. So that regular alcohol use, it waspretty much stalling any,any progress I was trying tomake cutting out the gluten helps so muchwith my comfort level. And Iknow it took down inflammation,but I really wasn't going to get anywhereuntil I cut down on thealcohol. And since I did thatstarting at 5051, so it's been like nightand day with my body, theinflammation just I could tellalmost immediately everything. So thenumber one thing that I didthat helped though, again,is my gut health. So I was takingsupplements, celery juice,eating as clean as possible,exercising. But I will say, it wasn't untilI cut out the alcohol. NowI will still have alcoholon special occasions once in a while, andwe're talking a glass or two of wine.But I don't really drink. And that goesinto our age and andhangovers and giving up I don't feellike giving up two days of my life to ahangover anymore. So there'sother reasons. But cutting outthe gluten is and then I also Isignificantly limit dairy anddairy for me, I'm not as sensitiveto dairy as I am to gluten. What'sinteresting is I've read thatif you put a gluten moleculeunder a microscope, and you put a dairymolecule under amicroscope, they're almost identical.So you're if you're already glutenintolerant, or have celiac,it's hard for your body todifferentiate the dairy. And you may end upor have also anintolerance to dairy. I know thatif I ingest lactose free, or non dairyfoods, I do significantlybetter with my gut health.Then if I don't, I pretty much avoid dairy.Like it's rare. Yeah. ButI don't have the same issueas if I get quote unquote, gluten, we'vebeen out to eat and I've toldyou I got gluten. And I knewit. I knew it because for me, you blow itup like you're four orfive months pregnant, you havediarrhea, and then you have constipation.And then you also canfeel like you have the flu.And you're down for the count. I feel thatway. If I like if I eatice cream, other I eat a tonof yogurt, but I don't if I eat ice cream,I can feel it the next day.It's almost hangover in someways. I do have a question, though, just togo back to the medication and since orSynthroid, I don't know if you plan to talkabout it, but you've had todial that in. Right. I knowyou've said, Oh, I'm it's too, too much ortoo little. Yeah. Can youtalk about that? And forlisteners who might go through this, youreally got to dial that inor else you're not feelingright. Right. Yeah. So whatever doses soyeah, you'll know ifyou're not feeling a significantimprovement, you need more Synthroid. Butsometimes if you have too much, it affectsyour sleep and you struggle getting tosleep or you may get heartpalpitations. That's happenedto me and you may end up with really highanxiety. So the medicationmay cause you also to have highanxiety. You could become kind of edgy. Youget you get like jitteryat all like kind of wired,like too much. You're a little wired.You're just edgy. Yeah,you're a little wired and you'reand you feel you can stop but you feel youhave an edge to you. Andbut it's a medicated edge. Ican't explain it. There's a differencecompletely synthetic edge.It's a synthetic edge. And thenthe one I know is because you know what Iis because when I can'tget to sleep at all, likewhen I'm like, I feel like I'm on somethingand I can't get to sleep.I will say also your dosagecan be based on your weight. So you may geta certain dosage whenyou're at one weight. And ifyou lose weight, you may have to have yourdosage adjusted becauseyou're getting too much becauseyou lost weight. So it's something to alsokeep in mind if you're on adosage, and you've lost like10 pounds, and you start to feel weird, youneed your dosage adjusted.Now the side amount, thatdoesn't make me feel that way. That's t3.That's a totally differenthormone. So but another thingto talk about with thyroid disease areflare ups. So flare ups and Ithink other autoimmune diseases,I'm assuming like MS, lupus, I assume theyhave flare ups. Not high.No, it's much more minorhives or symptom of flare ups. Yeah. Soflare ups are when you forme, they're stress induced.It's either I'm under too much stress, orI've put my body through too much stress,lack of sleep, or I it's mainly stress inthe home. That remindsme of a question I'll askit real quick before I forget. Because whenwe talked about this theother day, I was thinkingsomething that I've noticed you do is youwon't work out super, superhard, because you're afraidof it impacting you and getting into aflare up right or creatinginflammation. Like I'm allif we're pushing the sled, I'll be like,okay, I'm ready to go andI'll push, push, push. But youyou push to the to like a limit or an edgethat you know aboutthrough your experience. But youwon't go past that. And you've mentionedit's because you don'twant to have a flare up.Yes. So and also I don't want to raise mycortisol. That's what it isyour cortisol cortisol levelsalso tie in all this cortisol levels tieinto women, especially midlife,very menopause, menopause, thyroid disease,you want to watch your cortisol.And if you work out, you hit a point inyour life for women thatyou get a lot more out of yourworkouts, if you're not stressing yourbody, where when you'reyoung, and you stress your bodycan handle it better. But not anymore. Soif I push myself too far, Irelease too much cortisol,and I can end up in a flare up. In fact,you and I did a 5k, like ayear and a half ago, I'd say.And I ran it and I used to be a runner andI loved running. Andthen I had to stop runningbecause I had a back issue. But we've beenwalking a lot, we were ingood shape. And we decided torun it, we ran walk it, we run and thenwalk. And I'm and I didit. And I felt amazing. But Iremember I was in bed the next day. Oh,really? I was because I hada flare up. Yeah, my body waslike, okay, now you can lay down. Yeah. Sobut and that was so that's aphysical that's an example ofa physical exertion causing a flare uptrigger, a trigger. But forme, typically, it's a stress.So if there's stuff going on in the houseor stuff going on in mylife, or if I'm just not restingenough, like, for me, I need to stop doingthings by a certain time inthe evening. Or else I haveoverexerted myself physically and mentally,which affects my sleep,which if I do that too manynights, I'm going to end up with a flareup. And I can feel when theflare ups coming. And I knowI've said you I'm going to end up with theflare up I have to stop.One of the number one symptomsfor me of a flare up is dizziness. I'llwake up and I sit up andit's like vertigo, the room'sspinning and I'm walking sideways like on aship to go anywhere and I goanother early symptom or doyou know it now because it's indicative ofa flare up? It's moredizziness. I don't think I'm havingactual vertigo. I don't think I've hadvertigo because that'sserious stuff. It's more I know,you know, it's more dizziness and feelinglike I'm walking sidewayson a ship. But I'm not likewhen you've gotten vertigo and youliterally like can't seeand stuff. It's not like that.Migraine, I'll lose my eyesight a littlebit with spots in my eyesand end up with a migraine.There's been times I've had a flare up andI feel like I have ahorrendous flu. And that old fatigueof the truck hitting me is back. And Idon't know if you remember, but there'sbeen times where I'vebeen in bed that day and I'm like, I'mdone. There's been timesI know I've said to you,I need to stop or we need to change this oryou're going to have to dealwith me in bed for two days.So make your choice. If you want me hereactive, active right now in this family,things need to change or else your wife'sgoing to be in bed for a day or two.I think that's an interesting topic thoughis the evolution of the family impact andit right you have to you're a communicator.And so we've I think we'veall know what you're goingthrough, but there's I don't I don't knowif there was friction ormisunderstandings in thebeginning or you just don't get it. And I'mnot saying we had turmoilhere or anything like that.It was just like, okay, what's wrong? Why?Why? Why do you need tosleep? Why do you know? Right?Why are you so tired? Why? How the hell didyou not pick that kid up?Right? Right. That kind ofstuff. Right. I don't know where I'm goingwith this per se, but Ithink for people who are goingthrough this, it probably helped that youhave to communicate to thepeople closest to you and thenencourage those people to go do a littleresearch. Yeah. Because I'mpretty well versed in this atthis point because I don't know how longhave you had it actually?Well, I'm 54 and I had Dylan at 39.And so we can say at least 15 years, butprobably secretly quietly. Itwas a little longer than that.Yeah. But we've been dealing with thismedically. And I look at my 40sat that decade and I realized now I wassurviving, you know? So justif I knew now what I knew then,I could have adjusted 100% so many thingsand it wouldn't have, Iwouldn't have sufferedas much. But so it's another reason I'mtalking about it right now.Yeah. Because I don't want,because I know there's women out there thateither undiagnosed ordiagnosed and are still trying to,it is a very delicate balance. It's likeone year, one dosage ofmedication works and eating thisway works and doing this exercise works andthen it doesn't. And thenyou have to change again.It's being so nuanced at times and it'sbeing so in tune to your body.It's such a form of self-care.It has to be addressed. Yeah. It has to beaddressed. The womanor the person, I'm goingto focus on females. The woman has toacknowledge it and takeresponsibility for her own care,going to the doctor, doing her ownresearch, saying,"No, Ineed to do this for myselfright now to her family." Okay. So anotherthing I do for thestress relief is massage.I'll go get massages. I'll do lymphaticmassage. I can't stresslymphatic. And I know what I'mtalking about costs money. I get that. It'snot like I'm doing thatall the time. But when I can,if I had to pick between a traditionalmassage and a lymphaticmassage, I'm always going to pick thelymphatic massage. You know, it's anotherexample of something whereyou can tell your significantother or partner or whatever,"Hey, don'tget me this. Get me thelymphatic massage," that kind ofthing. Yeah. Be creative with it. I askedfor that stuff for gifts.Yeah. I'm like, "But it's part ofmy stress relief." But I will say thelymphatic massage is ahealth... It's for my health too. Ifeel 100% different. My inflammation isaffected. I am healthierbecause of it. It's a detox in mysystem. So it is not just... It's not oneof those things where I'mgoing in for this luxuriousmassage and I leave. They're like, "Oh, I'mso relaxed. I was at thespa." I view it as a medicalprocedure. I know that sounds veryprivileged, but for me it is.And another thing that's muchcheaper is dry brushing. Get yourself somedry brushes. You needsoft ones for your face,neck, and chest area. And then thetraditional strengthfor the rest of your body.Get some dry brushes and do dry brushing.It's the same stuff they'redoing in the lymphatic massage.It's just not as intense because you're nothaving someone else work on you. But when Ido dry brushing, I have the same feeling inmy brain as I do when Iget a lymphatic massage.What are dry brushes? Is this something youget on like Amazon or something?You can get them on Amazon. You canresearch how to do it. You can go onTikTok. People talk aboutit. You can go to a place that offerslymphatic massage and justbuy the dry brushes. And theyusually have like a pamphlet or a shirtshowing you how to brush yourleg, how to brush your foot,how to brush your calf, how to brush yourknee. There's lymphaticdrainage spots all through yourbody. And you're trying to move everythingtowards the empty, right?You move it to the lymph nodeand then it can empty because after you dolymphatic massage,after you do dry brushing,you need to drink a lot of liquids becauseyou're helping flusheverything out of your body.But dry brushing is a lot less expensiveand convenient. I mean, Itry to dry brush as muchas possible. You know, you could brush drybrush every day. And oncesomeone does it or goes andgets a lymphatic massage, they'llunderstand what I'm saying about how yourbrain feels. You justfeel you're you feel it you almost I'm notgoing to describe it, butit's a feeling and you know,so that's a form of stress relief that Iclaim. You have to claimyour stress relief as a woman,because it's just not natural that yourfamily is going to stop and belike, No, no, no, you need tosit down. Stop, stop doing what you'redoing. Your family's just notgoing to do that. You have to doit for yourself. Yeah, so I do massage I doI do exercise. I go ona walk almost every day.And I've incorporated lifting weights,which is so important to women.Resistance training, which is so importantfor women that areperi-metapos menopause age,so important. And then of course, with thegut health, the celeryjuice, I think I'm going todo an episode where I go into detail aboutmy daily routine. Everyday of the week, what I do,and specifically what supplements I takespecifically what food I take my hacks.I've learned a lot in the last 15 years.And so I think I'm going todo an episode where I justshare, you know, the routine I do that'sgotten to me me to where I am becauseI feel this is the best I felt in 15 years,just about to say, there'sprobably a lot of value inthat because you are probably healthy andmore active than you'vebeen in years. And it probablyis not drinking absolutely helps because itdoesn't knock you backthrough two or three, four days.The gluten free, you've done that foryears. I don't not a youknow, you swear by the lymphaticmassage. It sounds like quackery to me, butI'll I trust you ifyou say you feel better,and it works. Yeah, but that's a little bitout there to me. But hey,well, I mean, I my chiropractor. Yeah, Ihave a herniated disc and abulging disc. And I was notwalking there. I was walking bent over andall. And my chiropractor,you know, changed my life.And I know you had you were you also viewedthat as quackery. But now Iknow you'll tell people itworks. No, this guy's that guy. Yes, hefixed you actually. Yes, Dr. Fanno. Dr.Fanno, Boca Spine andWellness for if anyone's in South Florida,Florida, he's worth thetrip. Oh, if you're listening,you fixed her. Yeah. But okay, so nowhere's the fun part. While I was goingthrough my Hashimoto'sand thyroid disease, I was inperimenopause. But I didn't know that.Because especially 15 years ago,the information wasn't out there for Gen Xwomen of aboutperimenopause like it is now. Sosimultaneously, perimenopause hit me. Andnow let's go over the signs,the symptoms of perimenopause.Fatigue. Are they all the same roughly?Very similar, but more,more fun. Depression, anxiety,and irritability. Irregular periods.Insomnia or trouble sleepingand struggling to get to sleep.Hot flashes, night sweats, low libido,joint muscle pains,vaginal dryness, brain fog,lack of focus, hair loss, dry skin,wrinkles that are really inyour face, you feel it and see it.Urinary urgency like the feeling a need tourinate more. Panicattacks, headaches, weight gain,bloating, breast tenderness, dizziness,digestive issues,decreased muscle strength,heart palpitations, body odor, brittlenails, itchy skin, tinnitus, bleeding gums,tingling extremities, electric shocks,changes in taste, andburning mouth sensation.Those are the symptoms of perimenopause.It's quite a bit.It's quite a bit. And a woman can beexperiencing three or four of those,10 of those, and not correlated that it'sperimenopause and go toa doctor and talk to adoctor about maybe one or two of those andthen talk to a differentdoctor about a couple more.It's very easy for women to get dismissedwhen they talk about thesesymptoms. And there's veryfew doctors that are saying, you're inperimenopause. And here'ssome things we can do to help.Help me understand that. How's thatpossible? Is it women goingto male doctors or even femaledoctors? Both. Both. I think thatculturally, and I've saidthis before, perimenopause andmenopause has not been honored for women. Ithink the generationsbefore us suffered silently.And again, Gen X women are not. And I thinkthat women are now forcingthe issue when they go into talk to their doctors. But I think ifyou're suffering from panicattacks, all of a sudden at42 or 40 or 38, you may see a doctor andthey may then justprescribe you something for that,not knowing, well, there's other thingsgoing on. So like give youa Xanax, but not look at itmore holistically. Yes. Yeah. Becauseperimenopause can start in your mid 30s oras late as your early50s. So thyroid disease can hit women. Theaverage time is between 30and 50. And the average timea woman could end up in perimenopause is inher mid 30s to early 50s.You could have the perfectstorm here of Hashimoto's disease and as aresult thyroid disease andperimenopause and still haveno idea that's what's happening to you. Andthere could be many womensuffering all these differentsymptoms and they don't know that's what itis. And so they're notgetting the help they are. Theyshould be. And like me, I did finally gethelp for my thyroiddisease, but didn't know I was inperimenopause. I could have gone on hormonereplacement therapymuch earlier. And it wouldhave fixed a lot of issues I went throughin my 40s that I was tryingto cope with through alcohol.I was using alcohol to cope with a lot ofthe stuff I was goingthrough because of perimenopausebecause I had treated the thyroid diseaseand I was still having alot of these symptoms we justtalked about and a lot of it affects youmentally. And you also, Iwasn't losing the weight, right?Well, that was perimenopause. So fixing mythyroid disease, sure,I wasn't as exhausted,but I still, no matter what I did, all theright things, all theright things. When do you thinkyou went into perimenopause? I think I hitperimenopause. If I had thenumber 42 keeps popping upfor me. So I think around 42. And yeah, andif you look at pictures ofme, you'll see my early 40s.I look different than I do in my late 40s.And I can see it ravagedme. I can see it ravaged me.And I wish I could go back to that personand be like, let me help you.So again, why I'm bringing it up now onthis podcast, becausethere's so many things you can do, right?So especially with perimenopause,if you're a candidate and you have asubscriber that willsubscribe it for you, prescribe it,I should say, try hormone replacementtherapy, estrogen, becausewhen you're in perimenopause,your estrogen is going up and down, up anddown. But you can stillsupplement with some estrogento help regulate that progesterone helpssignificantly withsleep, significantly withsleep. And testosterone helps with lowlibido. It's one of the number one reasons.Doctors have different opinions on this.But one of the reasonsis to help with libido.Right? It also gives you can give you thatextra feeling like howmen with their testosterone,you can feel just like you're supposed todo it in the morning, not at night,so it can affect your sleep because it justgives you like a little oomph.Um, it's all balancing.Do you think then the progesterone has beenprescribed for sexual?No, testosterone purposes.Testosterone.Testosterone.I think I thought Ithought you mean for men.No, no, I thought the progesterone was goodfor women to increasetheir libido or get it back.No, that's testosterone.Okay.Testosterone. So for me personally, I'llshare I do an estrogenpatch. I do testosterone creamand I take a progesterone pill. There arepeople that do thepellets. There are people that getlike shots in their belly. You know,there's I've chosen the routeI've chosen for me personally,that's what I'm the most comfortable with.But every woman needsto choose what, you know,talk to her doctor, do your research,choose what's right foryou. I did try the pellets.I'm more comfortable with the route I'mtaking the the the hormonereplacement therapy has beena game changer. It doesn't mean you're notexperiencingperimenopausal, menopausal symptomscompletely. It just helps you feel likeyourself. And because onceyou get through perimenopauseand you're in menopause, your estrogen hasjust gone down andeverything. And so it helps youhealth wise, like estrogen protects yourorgans. It keeps thewoman still healthy andum, it makes your you feel still like aperson like who you are, Iguess. Is that makes sense?Is do you have to be on that now the restof your life? I knowsince right you have to writebecause it's basically your favorite. Butthe other things you just mentioned,are those lifetime prescriptions? You know,there's differentopinions on that. Like I thinktraditionally doctors think, you know, onceyou're through menopauseand your post menopause, youdon't need to be on it anymore. But there'sso many health benefits.Is that because historicallygenerations are just waiting to die? Or isthat, you know what I'msaying? This sort of, yeah, Imean, right. So there's a lot of opinionsthat women staying onestrogen, like into the theirelderly years benefit them stillsignificantly health wise,like it helps with their hearthealth, it helps with their brain health,it helps with theirorgans. So I think I wouldn't besurprised if we see it's more normal forwomen for doctors to keepwomen on it if they want.There's our dog again. But and I have noplans. I have going off of itanytime soon. The progesterone,especially because it helps with sleep. Theaverage age to hitperimenopause is 47, right?And it can last four to 10 years. And thatcan vary. But then youroll right into menopause,so then once you hit menopause, you're somenopause means youhaven't had a period for 12consecutive months, then you're inmenopause, your estrogen is pretty much.I will say for me,something I should disclose isfour years ago, five years ago, sorry, Ihad a hysterectomy. Ikept my ovaries, but I hadmy uterus and my tubes taken out. Thereason for that is becauseI had horrendous fibroids.And it got to the point where I wasbleeding all the time, tothe point where I was anemic.And that also affected so that I was 49,right? I was 49. So thatwas towards the end of my 40s.But I had been suffering from the fibroidsfor gosh, I would say at least three years,four years, I was suffering from thebleeding, the intense bleeding.I'm laughing. I don't want to get shot athere, but I'm laughingbecause men could never handlethis. Everything you just described, I'mlike, Oh God, it's good to be a guy.Men could never, no, they couldn't. But no,so because of thefibroids, I was having such heavybleeding that I was anemic, it wasaffecting. There was times Iwas in bed and I couldn't get outbecause I had such horrible cramps. So whenI was a kid and I had myperiod, I would get suchhorrible cramps. I would have to leaveschool sometimes. I wouldhave to have muscle relaxers.I think that was hormone related. This waslike that. It was so bad.And I would be weak. I wouldn'tbe able to participate in as many things.It was affecting my life. Icould have done an ablation,but that's where they burn the inside ofyour uterus basically. Andyou stop bleeding. The riskthere is if it stops working after a coupleof years, you stillhave to get a hysterectomy.I just went for the hysterectomy. But Iwanted, I said, keep myovaries. If there's nothing wrongwith them, keep my ovaries. I don't want togo into menopause yet.Not knowing I was alreadyin perimenopause. Because even then Istill, five years ago, Ididn't know what I know now.Yeah. But I still wanted to hold on tonatural hormones as longas possible. So for me,I won't have any proof of not having aperiod for 12 consecutivemonths. That's my point. For me,I will know I'm in menopause when I don'treally have any estrogenanymore through lab work.And I believe my last lab work showed I'min menopause. I'm inmenopause. And I'm 54. So I'min menopause now. How long does that last?So then post menopause islike a whole other thingwith your hormones. I need to research thatmore. But at some point,something happens with yourhormones and then you're consideredpostmenopausal. But I can't tell you whatthat is. What does thatmean to be postmenopausal? Then you're justlike, you're just done likeyou're done. I don't thinkthere's any more hormonal fluctuations. Andyou're just now like,in your elderly years.That's not true. But I've not totallylooked into this, but testosteronereplacement therapy, right?TRT. HRT, hormone replacement therapy. Oh,you're talking about, sorry, sorry, sorry.Yeah. One of the things is like, once youdo it, you got to alwaysdo it. Like you have toalways be on it or else, you know, you'llit's not good. It soundslike everything you justdescribed means you're on this stuff forthe foreseeable future forever, maybe.Yeah. I mean, I'm going to stay on as longas I possibly can.Because it's been so beneficialfor my life. And by treating my thyroiddisease, and by getting onHRT, and by cutting out alcohol,and by changing my diet and supplementing,that has all allowed me tohave the energy to exerciseregularly. Yeah. So it's all connected. Andthen when I exerciseregularly, I sleep better.The sleep's a big one. Yeah. Especiallyonce you hit midlife, atleast for women. You can't cutcorners anymore, like when you were raisingyoung children andbecause women are used to goingwithout sleep, women are used to gettinglike three or four hourssleep and going to work allday. It's just they've been used, they'vebeen in the fight or flightgrinding through. When youhit midlife, you have to care for yoursleep, because it's alsorelated to brain health.They say like when you sleep, your braincleans itself in a way youhave to give your brain thatchance. So read something about that theother day that when yousleep, there's some type ofcleansing or draining rejuvenation withinyour brain, andprobably your lymphatic system,that it only happens when you sleep. Right.I don't remember what itwas. Yeah, no, it's huge.Another thing I do for this, it justreminded me when I was thinking of sleep,because I do this sometimes before I go tosleep, is for my stressrelief is breath work.I can't stress that one enough. Breathwork, look up breath work. You know,sometimes it's just doing10 to 15 deep breaths, take a deep breath,take six seconds to do it,breathe in through your nose,hold that for a few seconds, take sixseconds to release it.There's something that happens whenyou breathe through your nose. It's like achemical or something. I wishI would have looked that up.But when you breathe in through your nose,there's a chemicalreaction that benefits yourbrain and your body. So they say to breathein through your nose,but breath work is huge.You should read this book I have on themoff. He's the kind of thegodfather of the cold plunge.He's, he's really, you know, the one whokind of got it going andeverything. He has a wholechapter or two on just breathing. Yeah, howbeneficial it is. Imean, it's common sense,maybe it's not, but he's got a whole thing.I'll let you read it.It's pretty cool. Yeah, no,breath work is huge. And I use that now ifI'm starting to feelstress, like in my car,wherever, I'll just take some real deepbreaths. It's cleansing. It soundsmeditation. I'm not agood meditator. I try to meditate. Istruggle quieting my brain.So I'd like to figure thatout in the future and incorporate that Ihave not mastered thatin any way, shape or form.But Pilates, yoga, walking, liftingweights. These are theexercises that really complementwhere women are midlife. And that alongwith cutting out or reducingalcohol, cutting out gluten,if you have reaction to dairy, limitingdairy, eating clean asyou as clean as you can. Andyou have to watch your caloric intake. Youjust do. And it's very easyto overeat without realizingbut really paying attention to if you wantto lose weight, get one ofthose apps like MyFitnessPalor LoseIt. Put in your goal weight. Put inhow much you want to loseeach week. It'll tell youhow many calories you can eat each day. Youinput what you eat and ithelps you track where you'reat. That's and if you exercise, you gaincalories back. That's myfavorite is I'll go on a walk andI just earned another 140 calories now Ican eat. So that's a gamechanger. It helps you stay ontrack. Another big one. Stay consistentthrough the whole week. Theweekend is not where you shouldfall off and let it all go. Your bodydoesn't know it's Friday,Saturday, Sunday. Your body needsto be healing seven days a week. You haveto care for it seven days aweek. Now, I'm not good onthe sleep schedule as much on the weekends.I get enough sleep butsometimes I sleep in pastour regular time but I'm okay with that.But Friday, you know, goingout and having a bunch of drinksit's just going to derail so many things.I'm not saying never dothat. There's always time and aplace for that. But treating the weekend astreat indulging on theweekend is not a reward. Thereward is not indulging. I have a questionon your diet. I'm anintermittent faster but I don't evencall it that. It's just how I eat, right? Ibasically eat in six toeight hour window every day.You don't do that and you don't do itbecause I think you'remanaging your blood sugar and thingslike that but I think it's related to yourthyroid. Can you talk alittle bit about that? Because I'mmore of a, like I say, I'm in a window ofsix to eight hours. I'mdone. But you and I can eat a bigmeal whereas you'll want to go moremeasured. So what I found works for me.Yeah, because especiallyfor a lot of women, if you let your sugarsgo too low, it raises yourcortisol. It's creating stress.Is that related to the Hashimoto's for youor is that you think itbecause you're not diabetic,you're not pre-diabetic, you're nothinglike that. Is itHashimoto's related? I don't know.I don't know if it's Hashimoto's or it'sjust menopause ormenopause or midlife but or it'sjust being a woman. But I know I've readthis that when yoursugars drop, it creates stresson your body and then naturally yourcortisol goes up. So it's good to try tokeep things even keel.So now when I take my thyroid meds in themorning, I don't eat for likean hour. But the first thingI have after that is celery juice. And thenI'll go in and to have myquote unquote breakfast,whatever I'm choosing in my coffee. I onlyhave one cup of or I onlyhave a cup of caffeinatedcoffee once a day. So when I hear you wakeup and hit your pillbottle bottle. Yeah, that'swhat is that? Is that the sin, Freud andthe what is it? Cidermilla.Cidermilla. That's the firsttwo things you take. Then you wait an hourbefore you ingest anything. Well, yeah,typically what happens is you and I go onour walk. And then when we getback, I have my celery juice,which we have the juicer links, if anyone'scurious about what juicer we use.Yeah, we've had it now for six years, sevenyears, and I use it everyevery day. And it wasn'texpensive. Would you believe this, you canstill buy that same modelon Amazon? Really? Yeah. Andit's I don't think it's that expensive. Idon't know. It wasn'texpensive when we bought it. But Idon't think it's very reasonable. And it'sgoing on because we starteddoing it before COVID. Right?I think so. Yeah. So we're going on, Ithink six years, almostevery morning. So I do that. Andthen I wait like 30 minutes, 1530 minutes,and I have my my coffee.And I add the organ collagenpeptides. scoop of that to help with hair,nails, it has probioticsthat help with gut health, andit has 20 grams of protein. I add a littlebit of cinnamon. And I addusually two tablespoons ofnut pod, French vanilla, or some Caliphiacoconut roasted coconutmilk. And then I mix that up. Wehave an amazing mixer. It's it's so cool.You put it in and it mixeseverything up. It's like afrother but not. We should link thatbecause that thing is cool. Yeah, we'lllink that. And I havethat. And then I have a chopstick, which is10 grams of protein. Andthen my treat every day isa gluten free Bobo's PB and J across thebowl. They're 230 caloriesand the chopstick is like80 maybe. Either way, that's my breakfast.I have it every day with mycoffee. And it's having thatBobo's PB and J gluten free across bowls,probably one of the bestparts of my day. And but I logthat into my, my app, calorie app, youknow, and then my I eat mybiggest meal around three, threeor four, all the salad. So I'll have likethree cups of romaine, aquarter cup of shea parm,grilled chicken, and a tablespoon of oliveoil. And then one hack Ihave is smoked bacon sea salt.You put that on anything and you feel likeyou're eating bacon. Youcan put that on anything. Youcan put that on cottage cheese. You couldput it on hard boiled eggs.You could put that on pasta,anything smoked bacon, sea salt, you feellike you're eating bacon.And, you know, sometimes alot of broccoli or beets. That's my bigmeal. And then I do likecertain protein bars. And I knowthat sounds like nothing to people arelike, Oh, her salads are bigmeal. But I will have otherthings to eat throughout the day. Soprobably every couple hours,I'm having something to everytwo to three hours. So I like the builtbars. Those are likeeating marshmallow. And thefulfill bars are like eating 100 grandcandy bar. Those are reallygood. They're low in calories.Um, I always keep those on hand. And thenthere's a protein drinkthat I found that does not haveprotein drinks a lot of times upset mystomach. This one does notupset my stomach. And I willlink that I can't remember. But sometimesI'll have that. After welift weights. What's theprotein we use that protein? I'm not gonna,I'm not gonna say itbecause it's given them freeadvertising. Oh, that's not nice. It'stransparent labs. Yeah. Wayprotein. Yeah, yeah. And that'sthat protein powders upset my stomach. See,my stomach's verysensitive. That's very good. Andthat does not upset my stomach. And I hadcreatine, a teaspoon ofcreatine. We I get frozen blueberries,frozen strawberries, frozen cherries atCostco. And we use that youeat those every day with youryogurt. And I use those in our smoothie.And I use lactose freewhole milk in my smoothie.Cinnamon. So and then sometimes I'll havelike a couple slices ofcheddar cheese, and somegluten free almond flour crackers, and somefruit as like maybe I'llhave that around like five orsix. But I try to not eat heavy after six.That is my body does better. She weretalking about timing.Yeah, my body does better. And my sleepdoes better. I sleepbetter if I don't eat anythingheavy after six. So if you what if youdon't eat after six,usually, everything you just talkedabout probably getting up at six or before.So your first five by seven,eight o'clock, maybe in themorning. Yeah, my first meal is like, ifwe're getting up during theschool time, we're gettingup, you know, by six. So yeah, I'mdefinitely having celery juiceby 738. But summer is a littlelater. So let's say I've had it by 830.Yeah, nine is my breakfast.And so yeah, I probably I knowyou're trying to figure out the timeframe.So I'm probably eatinganywhere from 730 to six, eight tosix. I don't know what timeframe that is.Well, it's semiintermittent fast. And it's almost a1212 type of thing. Yeah, but I will say Iwill make my decafcoffee. And then I will do theancient nutrition. I think it's called bonebroth protein tochocolate. I'll do a scoop of that.That's 20 grams and it's bone broth. It'sgood for gut health. I'll adda little cinnamon to that anda little bit of my cream, the nut pod creamor the Caliphia. I willhave that after six. I swearthat's like a frequent dessert. It isbecause for me, I do Idon't do decaf, but it's coffee,that bone broth with a little bit ofcinnamon on top in thatlittle whisking things we have.Yeah, it comes out and it's frothy. It'slike it's straight updessert. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is. Andhealthy. Yeah. And the frother makes a hugedifference with allthis stuff. But I will havethat after six. And it's filling. Yeah. Andif I'm really hungry, likelet's say seven or eight hitsand I'm hungry, I'll have one of my proteinbars or I'll have maybe anapple and some cheese. LikeI'm not I don't starve myself at all. Andmaybe my main meal at fouror five is our traditionalmeal. Like the other day I made chicken, wehad chicken peel offbroccoli. I'll make a plate ofthat. So it's not always a salad, which Idon't want to make it soundlike that. If I'm cooking,I'll have whatever I made, but I have itearlier. Let's put it that way. If Ihaven't cooked a meal,then I'll have my quote unquote Caesarsalad with chicken. Andthen later on the night, butI do and I do prefer going to bed with mystomach feeling a little empty. Yeah,yeah, you want to be part mostly digestedor yes, further past 50%or something. Yes, yes. Andthere's these things called hoplark. Theytaste kind of like beer,but they're teas. And there'sa chamomile one I get it at Whole Foods.And those help they'rerelaxing. Or I'll sometimesmake hot chamomile tea, or I'll drink goodnight tea or stress relieftea. I do a scoop of the calmmagnesium and water every night and I drinkthat before bed. And notbefore bed, I'll drink that inthe evening. And then I also take fiberpills at night. That helps withconstipation. So and that'snot even going over my supplements, but Ido take the fiber pills atnight. And my progesterone.As far as my go to supplements, for sure,D3 with K2, I can't stressthat enough, you have to haveK2 with your D3, D3 with K2, you can getthem together in one pill.I do turmeric, I do an eyesupplement. And like I get that at Costco.And I do B12 drops. And Ido a selenium. I wish I wouldhave done selenium my whole life. I don'tdo that. What's the good what's theline? It is good for thyroid health. Notthat I have much of athyroid to save anymore. But I willsay this if for anyone who is healthy anddoesn't have thyroid issues,take selenium, because it's apreventative. Is it a restorative at all?If you're if you can't, Ithink it can be restorative. Yeah.So selenium is huge. And then there's otherones I will add in if I'mfeeling it. But those are mygrabbing them and taking those. So inaddition to the magnesium atnight and the fiber pills atnight. So and then I changed myprogesterone pads twice a week. And I do mytestosterone cream inthe morning. It's a whole thing. You'relike a walking lab hero.You know, the whole thing.But it's working. And I also want to beclear. I don't want to make itsound like I don't eat a lot.I am eating through the day. I just don'teat. I don't like toovereat where I feel stuffedbecause I get bloated and my digestivetract reacts. I like to eatwhere I'm full and satisfied.But I'm not bloated. And I've given my bodya time to digest everything.So I am eating. I'm just notovereating. Are you doing the ghee in yourcoffee regularly? I stoppeddoing that because I'm notfasting. I think that's more if you'refasting. I don't know. Istopped doing the ghee. Okay. I mean,I might add it in. But and then I try tostick with that on theweekends. There's this tick tocker.Her name's Brooke. I don't know her handle,but she always she's justbroke. She's just broke. Okay,she's great. She talks about companiondrinks. So if you she's like,you know, if you think you'rehungry, or you want a snack, always have acompanion drink like she'll get like agreen tea with orangein the morning, or she'll make like, putstuff in her water orshe'll get like a start a localeStarbucks drink, she'll get differentdrinks throughout the day.And so you have your companion drink. Andsometimes I'll think am Ihungry and then I'll make like,like the hop lark tea, or I'll make a greentea, or I'll add coconutwater and some pomegranatejuice to my, my big Stanley. And I justI'll have something to spin drift,whatever. And I like,no, that satisfied me or I'll make that orI'll make that coffee thatdecaf coffee with the bonebroth chocolate protein. Yeah. And that'slike a dessert, like yousaid, and then I'm completelysatisfied. It's a dessert. It's like 60 or80 calories. Yeah. Butgetting back to this companiondrink. Is that because if you fill yourselfup with liquids, like alow calorie, even water,white water, they say drink a lot of water.That'll help you feel full.Is that kind of what? Yeah,it's so you don't overeat. It's so youmanage your calories throughthe day. So maybe you want tograb food, but really might just bethirsty. Hydration,hydration, you know, and she alsoalso always says, if you're hungry, ifyou're really hungry,I'll eat an apple or carrot,not saying instead of food, but really makesure what you're hungry.Yeah. Listen, my main focusis protein. Protein is my main focus. Andfiber, fruits andvegetables. Those are my main focusesis the protein trying to get as close to Itry to get 130 grams a day if I can.That's what I'm shooting for. If I get morethan that, that's awesome.And then the fiber. But no,it's I have it down to a science to thepoint where when we'vetraveled, we usually dry mostplaces, I'll make the celery juice ahead oftime and bring it with us.And I put it in the fridge,because that helps significantly withconstipation too. It helps with gut health.It helps with hydration and it helps theconstipation. And I think a lot of peopleare constipated and don't realize it. And alot of bloat is because you're constipated.And then you realize you were constipatedonce you're notanymore. And you're like, Oh,because sometimes you feel thin everywhereexcept your belly andyou're like, what's going on?Can you eat Chia at all? Or is it? Oh, Chiapudding is another thing I'll make,but I have to soak it overnight. Yeah.Everyone should be soakingtheir chia seeds. Do not takeraw chia seeds. It's just going to causehavoc on your stomach, but Imake it and I eat it the nextday and I'm fine. So what I do is I maybedo like half a cup ofwhatever liquid of my choice and ateaspoon, a tablespoon of Chia seeds. Andthen I'll add a little bit ofcinnamon and maybe a few dropsof vanilla. And then I have that the nextday. And that's somethingI might have at like seveno'clock at night if I'm hungry, but thathelps with constipation. Sothat works its way throughmy body. I love Chia. Yeah. I'll just soakit in water. I'll do youlike it with water. Yeah.Yeah. No, it's so good. Yeah. So, but Imean, even both of us arevery particular now. It's just,it's what's helped us feel vibrant. I feel,I feel vibrant. Like an old man.I know. But as a result, I feel my best.And so, and I can tellif I deviate off of that,Oh yeah, I can feel it. But there's thingslike, I don't eat thesame thing every day. Likeyesterday, I came home from Costco withthese, I wish I rememberthe name, but they're likeParmesan crisps that they're not theirpepperoni pizza crisps. Andfor 15 of them, it's 13 gramsof protein. I ate those and I felt like Ihad a slice of pepperonipizza. Like if you're cravingpizza, my craving was completely gone.That's one of my hacks.There's lots of hacks you can dowhere you're like, you're really justcraving something, but itdoesn't mean you have to eatthat thing. You can find something that'sgoing to kind of replicatethat. And then even if I'mreally craving ice cream, I'll have somenon-dairy ice cream. I can'ttell you how I don't feel likecrap after non-dairy ice cream versus dairyice cream. Yeah. You know,it's those little decisions.You're really trying to keep your gut inorder. Yeah. If you cankeep your gut in order,then your body kind of stays level and thegut and the brain areconnected. I never reallyconnected. That's not the, I never put asmuch emphasis in the gutuntil recently, probably likethe last six months. I'm so dialed in nowthat I eat basically thesame thing every day, exceptdinner. That varies a little bit. But toyour point, if I eat toomuch, I feel like I just can feelit for a few days. Yeah. It's well, theysay your gut and brain areliterally connected. Yeah.They're connected. So if your gut is off,your brain is off. There's a lot of likeanxiety and stuff that can be related towhat you're eating andingesting and depression. Likethere's a whole, there's a whole studies onthat. But, um, if you keepthat gut in line, you're,you're feeling pretty good. You really are.It really sucks though,because there's so manygood tasting foods out there that justaren't beneficial. Like,you know, me, I could wreck apint of Ben and Jerry's. I love it. But nowI feel it for a few days.Yeah. Pizza pizza's another.I love pizza. It's just not really not thatgood for you. Well, there'sthe whole thing about, um,the more carbs you eat, the more carbs youwant. Oh, no doubt. It triggers, you know,you have pizza and then the next day youwake up, you want to havemore. Yeah, exactly. And I'm notsaying for a few days, that's the problem.Like if you have some icecream, it's like three dayslater, you're still craving it, which isreally crazy, which makesyou question what's being putinto our food. Yeah. That gets us hookedlike that. Right. Yeah. Andif the more processed you go,the, the further away from, um, healthyeating you're getting.Yeah. It's true. It's true. Andagain, I'm not saying we're restrictiveeaters because I don'twant to trigger anyone here,but not in an eating disorder way. No, no,no. This is notdisordered eating healthy eating.It's healthy, clean eating. We are gettingenough calories. We aregetting our nutrients. Um,it's just that we're intentionally eatingevery time we eat, every timewe eat, it's with intention.Now I'm not saying we don't go out when wedo go out, we enjoy, butwhat I might do is eat half ofthat meal and bring the other half home. Iconsciously, sure. I could eat the wholeunless like I haven't eaten hardly anythingall day and I'mstarving. I mean, in the meal,but I'm eating half, you know, we are abig, we're one of thosefamilies that orders drinks,appetizers, and dessert. When we go out, weorder the whole thing. Wearen't doing that as much.And let's go to the kids with us. Um, we'rejust ordering our meal.And so there's like littletweaks, little changes. Now I know thisannoys you, but, um, I, Ilike diet Coke and I'll haveit as a treat. Sometimes I know it's notgood for me. I know it'schemicals. I, but here that's anarea where I consciously and intentionallymaking that decision.I enjoy having no. So,but I don't drink a ton of them, butsometimes if I'm craving adiet Coke, that is one of mycompanion drinks. And if it helps me getover the craving of maybe Iwant to drink wine that night,but it's not an appropriate night to drinkwine. I'd rather save mywine drinking maybe for the4th of July. So that might be my next timeI'm having wine. You know,I had some on Memorial Day.This is how I drink. It's a special, quoteunquote special times, butI still don't overindulge.So, and this may be more details. I wasgoing to go into thisin a different episode,but we just started talking about food, butthat is kind of how weeat. And even when we go outor on vacation, one thing we do on vacationis we try to always getin some form of movement.So whether we're walking everywhere orwhether we go down to thehotel gym and just get a workoutin. And again, it's to get those calories,those extra calories,because we know we're going torelax and enjoy. So we go on a walk or goon a hike. Then if you goout to dinner and enjoy,you don't feel it. It's not, it's notfeeling guilty. It's that Idon't want to feel it physically.I don't want to wake up the second day ofmy vacation and feel bloated.Yeah.Cause you, you, you feel great the firstday you get there and everyone's like,woo hoo. This is so much fun. And thensometimes you may overindulgeand then you wake up the nextday and you need to wear a bikini or abathing suit or a dressthat you wanted to wear pantsand you're bloated and you're like, I'm onthe second day of myvacation. I feel like crap.So it's, it's doing those little things. Soyou feel vibrant every day.If you're going to splurge, you kind of dowhat we did in St.Augustine. We were great.And then we had a big dinner, a couple ofcocktails and, you know,last day. Yeah. The last day we did thatour last vacation. We didn't drink at alluntil the last day then because we don'tdrink that much and wemistakenly drink how we used to.We got very drunk. I haven't drank sincetoo drunk. We had two martinis in a veryshort amount of time.That was, I don't know what we werethinking. And then we wentto another bar and for somereason order more drinks. I don't even knowat that point. It's funnyhow when you don't drinkand then you drink again, you can't drinkhow you used to. Youbecome like Frank the Tank.Yeah. You just, yeah, it was not good.Thankfully we were walking everywhereand we also hadn't eaten very much. So, butI still will havesometimes gluten-free pizza.Like I still have stuff. All if we ordernachos, I'll have some of the chips,something I'm not going to eat, but it'sall of that balancing.And especially with thyroiddisease, especially with perimenopause,menopause, it all matters.Every decision, when you sleep,what you eat, how you exercise, how oftenyou exercise, what supplements you take,what medications you take, it all is likeputting Humpty Dumpty back together again.And it requires all those pieces. So youstill feel like you're living your full,vibrant, authentic life. Because I'm notwilling to give upanything. I want to keep going asstrong as I was. I'm going stronger nowthan I was 15 years ago. Andit's because of this consciouseffort, but I want to still, I want to gostrong into these, therest of my fifties and into mysixties and into my seventies. And I thinka lot of Gen Xersespecially feel that way. I think alot of them are viewing this next part ofour life as just acontinuation, not in any way, an end toanything, but our, we have to pay attentionto our health. And forwomen, especially it's beingconscious of keeping on top of your thyroidhealth. Well, before you gointo that, I have a questionbecause I put just a circle back to theperiod of menopause, menopause, theHashimoto's, the thyroid.And you mentioned how you wish you kind of,I don't know if you use thisterms, but you wish you knew,if you knew back then what you know now,you would have done things differently.So what would that be? What would youradvice be? Because I don'tthink doctors are saying, okay,now that you're 30 woman, we're going tocheck you for yourthyroid. We're going to check youfor the perimenopause, but there's no, Idon't know what thecheckup is probably like a papsor something. Right. So what would you tellpeople to other women,maybe younger, I guess, right?Coming up, what would you tell them to do?What checks would you havethem go out, ask the doctorto do? I would ask for an ultrasound of mythyroid every year. And ifthey won't do it every otheryear, I wish I would have started that at25. And I would say if, ifyou need to say something forthem to do it, say you think you feel anodule or say you feelsomething when you swallow or sayyou are feeling fatigued and brain fog andyou've all of a suddengained weight, like just say whatyou need to say to get that ultrasound. Andthen also no, no questionhave your thyroid lab workdone. And not just your T3 and T4, but doyour T3 free there. If youread, if you Google it, there'slike four or five different things that youcan get tested, not justyour T3 and your T4. Your ironlevels should be tested and your T3 free.And there's anotherone. So Google that and askspecifically say, I want all of thesethings. I have a question.Yeah. The type of doctor,because I don't think I remember your gynodidn't do these things andwas not necessarily in linewith it being thyroid. Right. So did you,it feels like you had more of abreakthrough when you wentto the endo. And if you can get, I mean, itdepends on yourinsurance. If you can get to anendocrinologist, if you're, if it'sthyroid, your doctor, yourprimary is going to refer you overto an endocrinologist, start a relationshipeven just to get abaseline. That's where I was goingto go. Get a baseline, see them once ayear, just to get a baseline,because that way, if and whensomething happens, you already have yourdoctor set up and they know your history.So an endocrinologist,I think every woman should have one. A lotof people think it'sjust for diabetics. Now it'sfor thyroid health. And so be on top ofyour thyroid health,research the symptoms of Hashimoto'sand thyroid disease. Research that,research the symptoms of perimenopause,because perimenopausecan hit you at 35. And we just had alistener comment, it hit herlike a train. And that's thebest way to describe it. It hits you like atrain. And so researchthyroid disease, researchperimenopause, prepare yourself, beproactive, write down all thesymptoms. And so if and whenthings start happening, then you can get tothe root cause of it. Andyou're not going to doctorsand having them band dating the symptoms ofeither thyroid disease orperimenopause. And keep in mind,thyroid disease and perimenopause can hitsimultaneously, as itdid me. And you can feellike you're losing your mind, you're losingyour body, you're losingyour life, you don't knowwhat's going on. And so my advice toyounger women is beproactive, do your research on thyroiddisease and perimenopause. So if and whenthese things hit you,perimenopause is going to hit you.But if thyroid disease does, you're ready.Arm yourself. Because Iwent into it blindly. And Ithink I most Gen X women went into itblindly. So just research, research,research and talk to yourdoctors. And if you're not happy with yourdoctor, and if they'redismissing you, find a new doctor.That's another piece of advice. I'm tellingyou, you just need toeat right and exercise. No,that's not it. You need a doctor that'sreally hearing you andpreferably a doctor that hasextensive knowledge in thyroid disease. Andalso another doctor thatwould be your OB for perimenopauseand menopause. There's also hormonespecialists. The OB. The OBGYN. I think I called it theGYN, right? People call it that. Yeah. Sothat would be my advice.If I could go back, I wouldhave researched the hell out of these twothings. And then beenready. It's like arming yourself,like, okay, I'm ready for whatever's gonnahit me. I think that'strue for anything though,you're dealing with the medical communityon you've got to go inarm. Thankfully, you know,with between AI, Google, others. Yeah,there's at least informationout there. Yes, you can go inand be dangerous. But then they know you'vecome shown up prepared. Andthey will at least addressyour concern. Yes. Yeah, you be your ownadvocate. But for women,women need to know you have a muchhigher chance of getting an autoimmunedisease, not just because ofhormones, not just because ofgenetics, but because of the stress you'reunder. And be and you need toalso do the things we talkedabout, start making self care and stressrelief practices, aregular part of your life now.And that could help prevent possiblygetting an autoimmunedisease. But you are at a higherchance of getting it. And so educateyourself on autoimmunedisease. And the symptoms. I have onelast question, actually. Were you evermisdiagnosed with something besidesHashimoto's? Or like,I get the whole rest more exercise morethat thing. But did youever I don't remember you evergetting a diagnosis before you've hadyou've got a thyroid issue.Is there ever a misdiagnosis,I guess would be the question. No, I mean,not that I know of, youknow, I don't recall either,you know, I think personally, I think, youknow, my hormonesfluctuate a lot through my life.I had very bad PMS. I think now it'scalled, it's like pre mental disorder orsomething like I thinkI had that the bad one. It wasn't calledthat then. That's a hormonerelated fluctuation thing.So I think that there would have been waysto naturally regulate my hormones. There'sthere's supplements you can take. Yeah.There's creams you can puton your body natural. Yeah.At 1617 18, you can do that. Yeah. If Iwould have known abouthow to regulate my hormonesnaturally, even through my teens andthrough my 20s and 30s. I would havedefinitely done that,you know, and, and that would have beenproactive too. So and Ithink that should be talked aboutmore. Yeah. Women's health in generalshould be talked about more,you know, and there's thingswhere if men if something helps men, it'sfunny how it gets it getsattention, attention, funding,um, all of a sudden it's available realfast. Uh, for women,it's, I don't know. It's aninteresting thing because I don't disagree,but we don't seem to havenear the ailments or hormonalshifts like you guys do and all the variousplumbing internalplumbing things that go around.That's why it's even more ironic. You guys,that's what I'm saying. Youguys have left problems. Sothe few problems you have get addressedright away. It's a goodthing, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah.You know, what's interesting is that I'mthe younger women and, um,or the women younger thanme, I should say, but especially Gen Zthey're very conscious oftheir phases through their cycle,their menstrual cycle. So, um, I didn'teven know about thiswhen I was their age at all,but there's, um, of course menstruation,right? And then there'sthe ludil phase that happensbetween on ludil, ludil. Okay. Not lunar. LU T E A L. Okay. That happens betweenovulation and the start of your period.That's your ludil phase. Sothat's where you maybe willhave PMS. That's where they exercisedifferently. That's wherethey're not supposed to exercisehard because it helps with that ludilphase, the hormones and what'sgoing on with their body. Um,that's where they may do Pilates. They maydo yoga. They may walk.That's an improvement inwomen's health because I've never heard ofthat before. But Ithink this is women who'vepulled all this together. Yeah, there's anapp, there's an app andwomen can chart it. So,and then there's certain foods they can eatduring their ludil phase.Like I think salmon's one ofthem, certain, certain, certain nutrientsthat help that phase.Okay. So you have ovulation,you have the ludil phase, then you havemenstruation. And then the period from thestart of your period to ovulation is calledthe follicle, follicularphase. I'm going to say itright. Follicular phase. And that's a wholedifferent phase. And youcan, uh, I think there'sfood you can eat during that phase. And sothese young women have theapp. Yeah. They'll say, um,I'm in my ludil phase. So I'm not going tobe doing that right now.Yeah. Our daughter has said that.Um, or I'm, you know, I'm doing this, I'mdoing that. It's amazing.Well, I think, you know, in,in tune with themselves, you know, I'm abig evolutionist typeof person. And I think asmore women have become doctors, they'vepaid attention to morewomen, you know, greaterhealth issues related to women. So it's awonderful thing. Oh, yeah.It's only going to keep gettingbetter. Yeah. But I think it's not evenjust the medicalcommunity. I think it's in general,it's in general, women have been proactiveand, um, and, andtechnology and, and social media andall of it has, has aided women in thatarea. So maybe where the,where the medical community hasfailed women, um, women have kind of takenthings into their own hands.Yeah. It's wonderful. But I,so I think especially Gen Z women, they'regoing to be on it. Idefinitely think they will,but I just want to make sure that they knowthat women know notjust Gen Z women, not justyounger millennial women, women my age twothat may be suffering and don't know, um,and autoimmune disease is very common forwomen to get. And sobefore, if you're having symptomsbandated and they're not getting better,the root cause could be anautoimmune disease. Yeah.So research the different ones. Thyroiddisease is very common, butagain, lupus, there's a lotof other ones too. Rheumatoid arthritis isone, um, research and, andreally look at things andthen find a physician or find someone, afunctional doctor, someonethat will listen to you becauseagain, through all the steps I'm doing now,um, and it takes all thedifferent things I feellike I did before all this happened to me.I finally feel like I didbefore all this happenedto me. Is there any research on like eitherCBD or THC and, andits impact on thyroid orHashimoto's? I don't know about on that. Ido know, of course, onanxiety and depression,which are some of the, um, symptoms ofthyroid disease andperimenopause. Um, CBD obviously,um, with calming effects when you take itinternally, the creams are good for muscleaches and pains. Frozen shoulders are verycommon thing for womenwith perimenopause. I had thatfor, um, probably a year and a half. It'swhere you can bear it. Youcan only lift your, your arms.So, and I remember getting a massage andshe couldn't, I couldn'tmove it because I was inpain. She's like, what fix that was it? TheCairo or the, no, that'sjust time. My body's moving onto the next thing. But I did use CBD, um,like topically and thathelped. Um, and as far as THC,I don't know, however, medical marijuanahelps with certainsymptoms, but I don't think there'sbeen any studies. Not, not directly relatedto Hashimoto's or thethyroid, but more of the maybeanti-anxiety and things like that. Yeah.Like some of the symptoms. So ignore ourdogs. She's crying toget out of the room. Um, so yeah, but asfar as that, I don't know,I CBD, I would say I did trythat for a while for relaxing. Um, and itdid, it did help before weclose. Do you have any otheradvice or food hacks or anything like thatadvice you'd want to, thatwe haven't covered yet? Um,I, I mean, just thinking about, I justthought of some food hacksactually, when you said that.So, um, one thing is I take plain yogurt. Ido whole milk yogurt, but you could doany 2% nonfat, whatever. And, um, I add,you know, that PB powder,that peanut butter powder. Yeah.Yeah. I get it at Costco. I get a lot of,that's another hack. I geta lot of things at Costco,but you can get it anywhere. Target,Walmart, grocery store,whatever. Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.Um, I add two tablespoons of that PB powderand, um, I stir it upand then I'll dip, um,like strawberries in it or, um, blueberriesor apples. And that'sreally good because youget the protein from the PB powder and fromthe yogurt. And then youhave the fruit. And then I'llalso take yogurt, plain yogurt, and, um,there's ranch seasoning youcan buy. So it's just a ranchpowder. You can either get the packets oryou can actually get likea shaker and, um, I'll addranch seasoning to it. So you, it almost,you mix it. So it almosttastes like ranch dressingand I'll dip carrot sticks, any vegetabletomatoes, celery. Um,and that's a way to getthat protein. And see, that's another thingI may eat in betweenbreakfast and like my bigger meal.I may have that. Um, I'm always, I'll do,um, cottage. I'll alsoput that yogurt with ranchseasoning sometimes on my salad and it'slike a dressing andI'll do cottage cheese, um,on top of, right. I know some people hearrice cakes and they're like, ah,diet culture, eighties, but I do like ricecakes because, um,sometimes I'm craving bread or, um,something like that. But I don't want toeat as many carbs and ricecakes satisfies that need forme. And I'll put cottage cheese on it. Andthen maybe some salami orTurkey, some tomato, someeverything bagel seasoning. And I'll havelike two rice cakes withcottage cheese and some meat.And that's a lot of protein. I feel like Ihad a sandwich, you know,it's that feeling of what amI craving right now? And how can I hack itso that I cut down thecalories, but I raised the proteinand I cut down the carbs. I'm not ananti-carb person. I do eatcarbs, but I, um, manage thembecause I'll honestly, my gut does so muchbetter either with no grains or low grains.So if I eat too many grains, I feel areaction in my gut. Same with popcorn. I,I have to be careful with popcorn. I caneat some, but if I eattoo much corn in general,like I kind of have a reaction too. So I'velearned over the, overthe years, what I canand cannot tolerate. And then I try to justtweak it. So it's all thoselittle, those little tweaks,I guess, but just off the top of my head, Iwas thinking, um, anotherone is you could take hardboiled eggs, cut them in half, put cottagecheese on them. It'salways trying to find ways to,how can I put, have more protein in thismeal? How can Iincorporate protein and then if I,possible some fruits and vegetables intothis meal, that's become my new focus. So,and that's again, well, it helps you eatless by default. Yeah.You're full longer. Yeah.You're totally full longer. The, uh, justto be clear too, on thatPB powder, it is actuallypeanut butter protein powder. Right. Sothey take all a lot of thefat out a lot of the otherthings. And it's a very simple, you know,high protein, highly denseprotein powder that tasteslike peanut butter stuff scrubbing. It'sreally good. It is. It is.So if anyone goes to Costco,um, I highly advise, maybe someday I'lljust do my cost. Youknow what? I should do aepisode of video and take Costco, just filmme shopping at Costcoand everything I get, but,that's where I get almost everything thatwe consume as Costco.It is more economical forus to do it that way, but you can get it atTarget, Walmart, grocerystore, Amazon, almost all.They don't have my yogurt there though. Wehave to go to Whole Foodsfor Brian's yogurt. That'sthe one, the one place for that. And forthe hop lark tea.Again, if anybody likes beer,check out hop lark tea. There's also hopwater. Like there's a lotof hop sparkling waters thatare coming out. They're non-alcohol. Itgives you that beer taste.And then the hop lark has a fewdifferent ones. One of them is chamomileand it's kind of relaxing.So that's kind of nice. If I'mcraving like on a Saturday night and Idon't want to deraileverything or Friday or, you know,whatever summertime you're in the pool,you're at the beach, I bringsome hop sparkling waters andI drink those and I am more than satisfied.I'm really enjoying my tea. I have my greentea with one little Citra hops. And youmade some yourself. Yeah.So good. I want to try that.Yeah. So, and that's a companion drink.Again, I highly suggestalso get yourself a big waterbottle. It doesn't have to be Stanley, butI call that myemotional support water bottle,but then make your companion drinks, youknow, make, if you haveto drink decaf coffee,that's hydrating. It doesn't have caffeinein it. I drink decaf greentea every day. I have some ofthat because green tea is also very goodfor you. It's good for yourmetabolism. And then I'll have,if I'm really craving something, I'll havesome decaf coffee withsome of my creamer andit fills me up. So it's sad as it doesn'tfill me up. It satisfies thatcraving. It's the differencebetween knowing when you're hungry and whenyou're craving. Yeah. Thefood noise, two different things.And again, not to make this talk about dietand food, but it's, thatis so related to healingand continuing to heal thyroid disease andthe menopause. I alsoforgot to mention, I wasborderline PCOS as well. Polycystic ovariansyndrome where I hadcysts on my ovaries and Iwould get an ultrasound of my ovaries everyyear for the last fiveyears, because there were cystson them and then I'd have to go back andthe cysts would finally go away.Thankfully, the last twoyears I've been cysts free, but that alsocauses bloating. That alsocauses insulin resistance.Insulin resistance is a whole nother thing.So doing all thesethings has helped with that. Idon't think I have it anymore because ithelps so much. And I have todo this. If I deviate off ofthis, then my symptoms will return. So Ihave, it's almost like Idon't have a choice. Yeah.So it's not just, I have lost weight. Ihave, my inflammation has gone down,but in order to fill, live a full authenticlife, I have to do thesethings. And so I am someone whois living with thyroid disease and livingwith menopause and feelbetter than I did 15 years ago.And I'm really happy about, I feel likethat's a hugeaccomplishment. And I'm actually reallyproud of it because I had to put in so muchwork to get here and somuch research and challenge alot of norms. But again, I've never feltbetter. So yeah. And forany of our listeners, please,if you have any questions, if you're goingthrough this or anything at all, please,please leave a comment. You know, we loveto hear from you, but ifthere's anything I can answerfor anybody, I, I'm, I'm here because if Ican just help one womanor one person, like I said,men do get thyroid disease, not as common,but if I can help one womanwith this, then, you know,I'm happy. Yeah. So that's cool. That's myjourney with thyroiddisease and perimenopause andnow menopause. And then how I'm treating alot of it with all thedifferent things, the medications,the food, the supplements, the exercising,the stress relief. It'sall a recipe in order for meto live this life the way I'm living itnow. Well, I was going tosay the, the way I thinkyou're living today versus where you were10 years ago is verydifferent. Way more, have it way moreunder control, healthier energy,everything. It's actually amazing. Ifigured it out. Yeah,you figured it out. A lot of tribulations,but I figured it out andit's still the code changes.Maybe. Yeah, exactly. Cause as you getolder, you know, things, andagain, that's paying attentionto those nuances. So now I do now I do. Andthat's how I know I'mabout to go on a flare upbecause I pay attention to every nuancething that's going on withme. So a lot of trials andtribulations, a lot of investigating sleepis huge, you know, all ofthat. But I feel like, okay,I got this and it took a long time to gethere, but, and that's why I'd love to seewomen younger than me not have to gothrough it to figure it out.I'd love for them to know whatthey're heading into instead of goingthrough it and then figuring outafterwards. So hopefullythis reaches some young women. If anyone'slooking for resourceson thyroid disease andperimenopause menopause, hopefully theyfind us and this will help in some way. Sothat's, that's our, that's my message aboutmy journey. And again,love to hear from you.And we'll see you next time. Bye.