Hormones and Health - How Personalized Care Drives Real Change with Dr. Stephen Cabral

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. A hard day is way easier when you have lots of energy because in both mind and body, you're just saying, okay, like you can reframe things just a lot faster and easier.

00:34Just like, that's not great. I'm not happy that that happened, but I'm going to go and do this, this, and this. But if you don't have that energy and those same obstacles present themselves, it's like you're a totally different person because you don't have the energy to then work around those obstacles or challenges. What is going on, everybody? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show. And today I am super, super stoked to be joined once again by Dr. Stephen Cabral.

01:07He is an amazing naturopathic doctor, functional medicine practitioner, and the host of the Cabral Concept Podcast. And he's also one of our favorite doctors within the Warrior Babe community. And with decades of experience and passion for uncovering the root causes of health challenges, Dr. Cabral has helped countless, tons, and tons of individuals reclaim their health through a personalized and integrative approach. Dr. Cabral, welcome to the podcast once again.

01:40It's so great to be here. Thanks for having me back. Yes. And in our last conversation, we covered a lot of amazing information, an important ground from understanding the difference between functional and conventional medicine and stress and how that can affect you. And also went over my Equal Life Stress, Mood, Metabolism test results. And also for you listeners that are listening, that is a test that we use for all of our new Warrior Babes coming into our community. So right when you join our community, you get sent a stress, mood, and metabolism test from Equal Life's team.

02:14And then we're able to deep dive into your results and personalize your program a little bit more. So today, having Dr. Cabral on the podcast, we're going to dive into – I retested. So we're going to dive into updated results from my stress, mood, and metabolism test that I took with Equal Life. And we're going to break down what those changes mean. I'm going to be an open book with you guys. I'm going to share maybe some things that have been going on that may be showing up in these results and why retesting is just so important for, like, understanding your hormones.

02:47It's just crucial for staying on top of your health and making meaningful progress as you continue to live. So, Dr. Cabral, with all that being said, when it comes to – we're going to, like, chat first and then we'll dive into the results. But when it comes to health and wellness, like, many people are tempted to follow, like, general advice, right, like, trendy programs. Like, especially with the new year coming up, like, everybody wants to dive into something quick that's going to get them some quick results.

03:18But hormones and metabolism are so influenced by so many individual factors from genetics, from lifestyle to stress levels to environmental responses. So, can you explain why one-size-fits-all or, like, quick fixes, like, that approach, like, it often fails and how unique factors, like, making and understanding the personal aspects of your own personal body and making those personalized factors, like, into your day-to-day, why it's so important and crucial to understand that?

03:52That makes sense with my question because I definitely just elongated that. The best example is The Biggest Loser – I don't know if it's still on, but the reality TV show where they brought people onto the ranch. They had them exercise for six or eight or more hours per day. Then they would add sauna on top of that, and then they would add a very low-calorie diet. So, on a daily basis, maybe they're burning 5,000, 6,000 calories because, you know, if people are 300-plus pounds, they could easily burn 800 to 1,000 calories per hour. And then they're only taking in 1,200 calories or so for women and maybe 1,600 to 1,800 calories for men.

04:28So, they're at a massive deficit. So, of course, anybody's going to lose a lot of weight when you're on that type of program. Now, is that sustainable? No, not at all. It's not sustainable for any human beyond a couple months to maybe the very best a year could maybe do that. But then eventually the body just starts to break down because the out energy is far surpassing the in energy, which is your calories. And that doesn't even take into account micronutrients, your vitamins, your minerals, all those great things. So, what they did was a follow-up study, and you may already know about this, with many of the Biggest Loser contestants.

05:01And what they found is that many years later, their metabolism never recovered. So, on average, somewhere is about 500 to 700 calories less they could eat per day. So, that means now that that individual has to eat a meal's worth less food per day because they destroyed their metabolism. So, this is why, sure, you can go on these short-term caloric deficit type diets. And again, I believe in a caloric deficit, so I'm not saying that I don't. But mass deprivation, along with high exercise output, is a recipe to crush your metabolism.

05:33And that's why Worry Babe does it differently. You're able to look at proper macros, proper exercise, customized for the individual based on what the coach says, and now adding on, what does your adrenal health look like? What do your sex hormones look like? What does your thyroid look like? What's your sleep look like? What do your vitamin D levels look like? What's your blood sugar? So, then when you have that, you can start to create a much more well-rounded, individualized approach that will allow someone to lose weight on their body's timeline as it gets healthier. And then they can keep it off for life while boosting their metabolism.

06:05So, that's exactly, you know, we partner with people like yourself that are experts in that phase. We just use the lab part of it to bring it that one level higher. Beautiful. Love that. I don't even know if the listeners actually know this, but Biggest Loser reached out to me to come on and be a trainer. And I went through the whole interview process too as well, but never made it because I was hella nervous in the interview. But I'm happy I didn't. You would have been great on the show. No doubt about it. I don't know if you would have been believing in the work that you were doing, but you would have been great on the show. Thanks.

06:35I definitely don't think I would have been believing in the work I would have been doing, especially with that explanation because I totally agree with you on that. So, with that being said, like physical attributes can be so affected by certain things and metabolic health doesn't just, it doesn't just affect our physical weight and our physical energy. It also plays such a crucial role in our mental well-being. So, when we know that the metabolism is disrupted, it can also lead to symptoms like brain fog and low mood and fatigue and like all of those symptoms a lot of people experience.

07:10So, could you shed some light on how metabolism and mental health are interconnected and why addressing one often benefits the other? Yeah. So, if we look at, if we think of thyroid as almost like the thermostat or the metabolic regulator for the body, it's very easy to see how it can be disrupted with stress. Because when the human body experiences stress from outside of the body, we call that exogenous or inside the body, we call it endogenous. So, maybe you have gut issues or you have inflammation or you have pain inside the body or outside of the body, not getting a lot of sleep or stressful relationships or whatever might be going on.

07:49All of those things cause more stress hormones typically to be produced. And that's norepinephrine or adrenaline and cortisol. Kind of, we hear about cortisol a lot. Well, when those stress hormones rise, thyroid, if it's chronic, thyroid begins to go down over time. So, that's why typically the body does okay on like a 21-day to 28-day kind of crash course diet. But after that, we see the body then start to show slower metabolic rate. And if you run your labs, you'll start to see TSH go above a 2.

08:22T3, which is your most active thyroid hormone, starts to go lower and lower below a 2. And now we realize that this person, their body's slowing metabolic rate. So, now they're not going to burn as many calories, not only with exercise, but while at rest. So, now they need to exercise more just to maintain normal weight. And if they don't, then they're going to start to gain weight given the same amount of food. So, that's how stress really does affect the body. Now, for women, 70%, 75% of our clients are women.

08:56100% or so of your clients are women. While the HPA axis, which is the adrenals, again, stressed, stressed inside or outside, also affects not just the HPT axis, which is thyroid. It affects the HPG axis, which for women are the ovaries. So, with increased stress, we'll also see typically a decrease in progesterone production. Now, that can lead to what you just talked about before, the feeling of higher estrogen because the ratio is off.

09:27So, you feel the maybe oilier skin or more like thinning of the hair from the low thyroid as well, the drier skin, a little bit of bloating, water retention, weight gain, poor sleep, irritability, low mood. And all those things matter because not only does stress affect your metabolism, it affects overall mood and quality of life. So, really what we want to do is, sure, we want to help people lose weight if that's their goal. But ultimately, we do that by getting their body extremely healthy. So, now their metabolism is elevated and they can lose weight far more naturally.

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11:10Like, this is why we wanted to work with you guys because having all the lab results and understanding and the education behind what these lab results are showing gives us a better insight to be able to help people. Not just get the physical results, but have the right processes and alignment internally. And just what you're saying, like, this person may have all of these disruptions happening, like brain fog or fatigue and low mood. But without being able to, like, see what's firmly going on, which your lab results help us do that, then we can be able to address it and be able to fix it, which is just truly amazing.

11:47That's why I love our partnership. One last question before we dive into the results. So when you do improve hormonal health, that leads to better mood regulation, that leads to more stable energy levels. For those who struggle with mood swings or metabolic issues, making adjustments in their day-to-day, like for women, like, for example, inside of warriorbabe, when they're struggling with this and we're asking them to make some adjustments, it can feel very overwhelming to them.

12:20So what are some just like small takeaways that you could shed light on, some practical steps or lifestyle changes that you would recommend to help optimize hormones and in turn improve both mood and your metabolism? Yeah, so the biggest one is energy. I mean, it really is. If you think about it, a hard day is way easier when you have lots of energy. Because in both mind and body, you're just saying, okay, like you can reframe things just a lot faster and easier. Just like, that's not great.

12:51I'm not happy that that happened, but I'm going to go and do this, this, and this. But if you don't have that energy and those same obstacles present themselves, it's like you're a totally different person because you don't have the energy to then work around those obstacles or challenges. And that is in both mind and body. So one of the first things that we do ultimately is try to work on what are the energy drains as well as what can replenish this individual with more energy. And that's why it is challenging because if you drop your calories too low, you are not giving your body then as much just pure energy in terms of calories as you need.

13:27But you don't need more calories than your body requires on a daily basis. But those should be met or slight deficit if your sleep requirements are being met. We can talk about that. As well as your micronutrients are being met. So there's macros, which are carbs, proteins, and fats. But then there's also your micros, which are all of your B vitamins, which we need so that those are for energy. A lot of people talk about B12, but it's not just B12. It's B1 for the thyroid, B2, B3 for mitochondrial and the energy.

13:59We're talking about B6 for the nervous system. So you need all your B vitamins, right? That's really important. But also they help you metabolize carbohydrates. But we also need vitamin C and we need zinc and we need all these great things, omega-3s, which help to balance female hormones. So the goal is get in the right amount of macros, but get in 100 plus percent of all your micros that you need. So that gives you energy. And then balancing blood sugar throughout the day. Because if you're constantly on the blood sugar roller coaster, not getting enough protein, not getting enough fiber, what happens is your blood sugar might spike to 180.

14:34And then you crash down after three or four hours and you feel lightheaded, low mood, low energy. And it also causes you to then reach for the foods that are going to bring up your blood sugar. But then those cause you to crash again in another three or four hours. So ultimately, it's not one thing that solves this. But the great thing is that you don't need to be perfect in any of them. You need to, I always say you need to get like an 80%. We have something called the de-stress protocol that I wrote about my book. And it's just diet, exercise, stress reduction, toxin removal, rest, emotional-based balance, scientifically-backed supplements, and a success mindset.

15:09And so diet, exercise are right there. Those are obviously your cornerstone. But so is stress reduction, right? Because that's a drain on the body. And so what we do is we just say, I don't want you to get an A in any of them. You can if you want. That's great. But be 80% in those. And that's enough to reach your goals. So if you miss a night's sleep, be better on your nutrition the next day. If you get a great night's sleep and you're getting your exercise in, I don't know what your program entails in terms of flex meals. But like you're probably going to be able to do a flex meal once a week once you've kind of stabilized that body.

15:41And so that's how I look at things is that get energy back into the body. Everything becomes so much easier. Love that. Definitely we're in alignment in terms of that's what you would do for like the de-stressing protocol. 80% like be right. We do that with the food macros. Like it's like we don't want you to be 100% of the time because, again, like it's going to make people feel overwhelmed and they're not going to be able to do it. They're not going to be able to stick to it. So let's just focus on at least being 80%, which is like hitting your macros majority of the week or day and getting your exercise in.

16:15And yeah, flex meals, all of the things. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be perfect. I think perfect gets a lot of people overwhelmed. Yeah. For my own diet, I do 90-10. So 90% of the time, 9 out of 10 meals are exactly what they're supposed to be. Super boring. I eat basically the same thing. Same. And then twice a week, I have a flex meal of whatever I choose to eat. And my body, since, again, you're healthy, then it responds fine. There's no fluctuation. Sure. Maybe I gain a pound or two overnight. I'm holding water weight.

16:46I'm inflamed a little bit for maybe the next 12 hours or so. That dissipates. You don't need to weigh yourself. And you go back to your normal life. And so you'll find what works for your body. That seems to work really well for me. I love that you just said that same too as well. I'm actually going to have a little flex meal tonight. I'm going to have five guys. I don't know if it's the best one. But my body is able to bounce back. Like you just said, sure, I'm going to gain a little bit. But I know to weigh my – I don't really weigh myself anymore. But I know in like five days, it'll be back to normal. And I think that's such an important concept.

17:18I try and talk to my clients about that that still work for me after four years. And they still get stuck on this concept. And I'm like, do not – just don't step on the scale. Just put the thing away. But like if you're going to have a cheat meal, cheat meal, whatever you want to call it, flex meal, you're going to gain a little bit. But it's just – it's not that fat. It's just below. It's water retention. So don't stress. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So okay, let's dive into the stress mood metabolism. Guys, everyone listening, I had Dr. Cabral pop on for a couple minutes prior to this episode because I have the results.

17:49I'm really excited for Dr. Cabral to go through them because there's some things that we actually didn't get to talk about on the last episode. But there were some things that I needed to bring to his attention because there are – and he's going to talk about this – there are a few things that are skewed. So like last time Dr. Cabral was on, he was like, you are like the best of the best. Like your results are like – I forget what number you said, but you were like, they're up there. Like they're so good. You guys all know, listening, that I have recently gone through the egg freezing journey.

18:19This is the second time. So it called for totally different strategies. And my estrodrol was at 6,000 at the end of it, and I was so uncomfortable, Dr. Cabral. It was wild. So the sex hormones that Dr. Cabral is going to go through are a little bit skewed, and he's going to explain why. And we can dive into a little bit more if there's any questions around that. But for listeners that are listening to it that may not be familiar, can you give us just a quick view, overview of the stress-immune metabolism test? Like what does it measure?

18:50What insights can it provide? And I mean, obviously, we're going to dive into all that. But just like high level, what does it do? Yeah. So the nice thing is these are called functional medicine at-home lab tests. So just like they say, you complete them at home. They are still signed off on by a doctor. We sign off on them with our company. We ship them internationally all around the world. But the nice thing is that everything is kept private. So you may not want your numbers shared with your PCP, although, of course, you're welcome to. And you might not want them shared with your insurance and others.

19:21Like, great. So they're kept private. But also, you don't need to do a blood draw, which a lot of people appreciate and very much like. So the stress-immune metabolism, we do. It could be any test. Like some tests for gut health. You might do a urine sample. Or for heavy metals, you might do it here. But for this lab, the best way to measure your hormones are with saliva and blood. So we do a small finger prick. That's how you get your vitamin D levels, your hemoglobin A1C and insulin, and your thyroid numbers. But for your hormones, to look at free hormones, you really want to use saliva.

19:52And so this has been done now for over three decades. And so we look at, for women especially, estrogen-progesterone, the estrogen-progesterone ratio, which is what we were talking about last show, that it was perfect. And then we look at cortisol four times throughout the day that you can't run on blood work. Because you'd have to have your blood drawn four times during the day, which is impossible. And nobody does a blood draw before bed, which is why so many people miss abnormal cortisol. So we're going to talk about that today. And then, of course, thyroid. You don't want just TSH. It's great. TSH is a number.

20:22If it's above a two, okay, you know it's off. But many people might have borderline 1.8, 2.2 TSH, but they have low free T3. And so you need to measure that free T3 as well. So we measure that. And yeah, we can walk through it right now. But again, simple saliva, finger prick, just like you would take your blood sugar at home. And you mail it in the lab. You get results back in two to three weeks. And then you get a personalized plan based on that. And for what we do is we provide the plan as to this is based on your results.

20:54And then the worry babe coach integrates that into the greater program. So it's not the only thing. It's one part of your holistic plan, which is exactly how it should be done. It's great. Yes. Okay. I'm going to share. Should I share the old one first? Yeah. I think that would be great to go through. This is the one that is going to look at your estrogen, progesterone, the ratio, I forgot to say, testosterone, DHEA for both men and women, and then cortisol throughout the day. So what we're looking at, and we always ask women, so we work with women of all ages, literally,

21:28you know, literally all ages. And so this would be appropriate for teenager all the way through our oldest client, female, 105 years old. So when you run this lab, if you have a menstrual cycle, you want to run it on days 19, 20, or 21. If you have an average of about a 28 day cycle, if it is a 30 day cycle. You run it more like days 21, 22, just one of those days. Okay. Let's say that you are not in menopause and you don't get your cycle though, but you have

22:00symptoms sometimes for three, four, five days a month of lower mood, poor sleep, water retention, bloating. You're going to run it during that time because we help a lot of women to get back their cycle. And then there are many women in menopause or perimenopause, and you can run it then any time that you decide during the month. And so those values obviously will be unique to you. Now we run it if you're, if you have a normal cycle and around day 19, 20, 21, and that is because that's peak progesterone. The issue is, as I talked about earlier, the more stress a woman has, oftentimes the more

22:34those progesterone levels drop and we end up with a very low estrogen to progesterone ratio. So most women, we've run over a half a million at-home lab tests. So we are one of the largest providers of these labs. And I can tell you that most women have normal estrogen levels, but they have low progesterone, but they feel like they then have higher levels of estrogen, even though it's normal. That's because there's a ratio, ratio between the two hormones. So the lower your progesterone, the higher your estrogen is going to feel. And again, that shows up as low mood, irritability, poor sleep, water retention, bloating, especially

23:11the seven days or so before you get your period. So that's why we look at that. As we saw before, yours was a 0.9 for estrogen, which is great if you're not watching this on video. And it's somewhere, I think that says 179 for progesterone, and it's well above 100 for your ratio. So that's picture perfect. That's what we want for every client. You are in your early 30s. And so this is exactly what we want to see, right? Yep. All right. Then we move over to testosterone. So I would expect many women in Worry Babe to be between 30 and 40 for their testosterone.

23:47I think that's like totally normal. Lifting weights three days a week, maybe even more. And so I think you're right around that mark of a 29. So it's perfect. But we feel anything above a 16 is also acceptable. And so your testosterone is excellent. Your DHEA, though, we want to see that at least a six. So it does show that there is a little bit of chronic stress on the body. Now, can DHEA tell you what the chronic stress is? No. If all of your other hormones are normal, is it okay to have DHEA a little bit on the lower

24:19side? Yes. Because DHEA is basically a precursor to your other hormones. So DHEA stands for dihydroepionisterone. And oftentimes people take DHEA to make more sex hormone. Because it's basically like the... I always refer to it as like at a wedding, if you have a champagne flute tower, you pour it at the top, that's DHEA. And then it funnels down to estrogen, progesterone, cortisol. It makes more... Testosterone makes more of everything else if you have more DHEA.

24:50It's a great analogy. But it's also great for the inflammation levels and immune system. So it's one that we... If I saw, which we'll talk about your new lab, if I see DHEA low over the course of a year, let's say you test this every six months, I will then give a small amount of DHEA to give the body a little boost while though working on whatever those stresses are. Ah, okay. Interesting. And then for women in menopause, I'll give a small dose on a daily basis instead of using hormone replacement therapy right out of the gates. Okay.

25:21Interesting. I'm excited to see that because I think that was... Yeah. We'll look at the new results too. And then if we look at cortisol, your AM cortisol is perfect. Your noon cortisol is perfect right in the middle. Basically, green is good on most labs. Yellow is starting to be the danger zone, low or high. And then red is out of range. So you're right in the middle for cortisol, for breakfast cortisol, basically upon waking, before lunch, before dinner. But your evening cortisol is creeping in on the high side.

25:52And evening cortisol is elevated in many people because of many reasons. One, sometimes it's hard to turn your brain off at night. That's one. You kind of think about everything you have to do or everything you did that day and everything you need to do the next day. Or you might be checking emails. You own your own businesses. There's a lot to think about. And then there's also blue light. And so if we're exposed to blue light at night, keep in mind, blue light is at its highest early or basically in the first half of the day, earlier in the morning. So if we're getting blue light from our lights overhead in our home, our body still thinks

26:24it's daytime. And so we really want to either put on blue light blocking glasses, definitely turn our phones, computers into night mode. And then ideally in a day world, switch over to amber lights to take out that blue light at night. Okay. For at least one hour before bed. I have the Phillips Hughes lights in here. So I'm doing something right there. I turn it all to warm, like right at nighttime. Quick break. If you're finding this episode helpful so far, it would mean a lot if you could hit pause for

26:55just a second, leave a quick rating or a review or share it with someone who could benefit from it. Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me. And so that was this lab. So that's last year's results. Okay. And it just shows you the graphs of the cortisol wave. And then when we flip over to this year's, I, again, you're only a year older, right? And so I would not expect to see really any great changes in hormones, sex hormones, meaning

27:31estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA. And so whenever there is a change, keep in mind, the hormones are very delicate, right? Like they just, they will be the greatest, they will be affected the most by stress, just the way that it is. And that is because the reproductive system, especially of women is very intelligent. And if you're in a very stressful environment, your body's not going to allow you to get pregnant and it won't allow you to get pregnant by basically turning off your menstrual cycle.

28:03And so if you want to give a little bit of commentary to why we see very low estrogen and very low progesterone when you had picture, picture perfect results a year before, I think that that would be helpful as to just basically stress on the body a month before, et cetera. Yeah. So what I had to share with you guys a little bit before we opened up these tests with the egg freezing process. So about in August, I took it on in July and for about a month straight, you undergo like

28:35injections on a daily basis. Sometimes even twice a day, you're doing it in the morning, you're doing it in the afternoon. Um, and you're injecting yourself with hormones. And so my hormones got up to, or the estradiol got up to around 6,000 by the end of it, because the reason why is I was trying to build more follicles inside of my ovaries. And so each follicle, I think holds on to about like 250. They were telling me, um, uh, uh, points of estrogen or something like that.

29:05So that just continues to build up as I get bigger and bigger and bigger. And I had around 25 or 28 follicles that were in. And then I Googled what it looked like. And they're like the size of dimes. And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm carrying around all these things in my ovaries. You got, I got so bloated. I was so uncomfortable. I was so irritable. Talk about feeling all your emotions. Cause you totally feel them all. And, uh, at the end of it, I, I, um, had the retrieval on August 5th and they were able

29:36to pull a free, there was like nine this round. They were able to freeze. So with that, I took this test, um, a month and like six days later after. So, and then the whole month of October, I didn't get my period because, um, and this was what I noticed when I did my first round of egg freezing is I believe it's just my body's way of trying to just rebalance out.

30:07So this, uh, test, I think Dr. Kroll is going to talk about is like, um, I didn't get my period. Like, like I, I didn't take, I didn't test almost on the right day that I was supposed to test because my period was kind of all over the place in the month of October. Yes, that, and the best way to, so for those again, not watching on video, estrogen levels are not even readable. They're below 0.5 progesterone's at a 25. So these are very low numbers.

30:37So these are numbers that we might see. Um, let's say many women in our practice would be normal to have these numbers in their, let's say mid sixties, totally normal. So these would be basically menopause based numbers we would look at, and then we would help these individuals if needed, only if there are symptoms that we would give them a little bit of a boost naturally because they're no longer producing estrogen progesterone. So why wouldn't you really be producing estrogen or progesterone? That's because think of it like a male taking testosterone, taking anabolic steroids.

31:09It shuts down their own natural production. Because if a male produces, let's say up to 140, 150 units of testosterone or so per day is what we'll look at on this. Um, nanograms per milliliter. We, uh, just like women. So for men, it's going to shut down their own natural production. They don't need to produce anymore. Body already has enough. Your body doesn't need to produce as much, uh, you know, the picograms per milliliter of, um, testosterone in your case, estrogen and progesterone, because you're already taking

31:39supplemental, right? And so you didn't then get a menstrual cycle that next month. And so what happened is your body then needs to build back its own normal cycle. We see this all the time in women that have amenorrhea or missing her cycle. And what we do is put their body back in that safe, balanced position and begin to rebuild the health of their body, not just the ovaries in order to produce normal levels again. Cause you're not going to have a period when your levels are this low, very, very unlikely.

32:11And so then they come back and you'll see the body begin to rebound in healthy individuals like yourself. So to piggyback off of that for a question, cause I got my period in September, but I got it on the, like the 26th. Right. And then I didn't get anything in October. Like I didn't get on the 26th. I was eight days late, which brought me to the beginning of November to get my period. Is this something that's going to continue? Like how long typically do you see? Like, and I don't know if like egg freezing is even like a thing that maybe you've seen

32:43this in, but like how long people normally balance out afterwards. It's, it's almost, it's not exactly the same. So I'm not going to say that it is, we work with many women getting off of birth control and it can take three to four months to get their cycle normalized, but it does. It normalizes. And so, um, you add the hormones in your body so you can get a menstrual cycle. Then they're not there anymore. Body has to adapt to then building back its own natural levels, which is only, it will only do if you're healthy. And then you'll start to have that normal menstrual cycle again within three to four months.

33:15So coming into November, uh, could be normal or could still be a little off, maybe 33 days instead of 28, maybe a little bit early. And then you'll see that normalized by the new year for sure. Okay. Beautiful. I was a little, like, like I said, like, it's like told the listeners had you on five minutes before, cause I was a little stressed at seeing this. It was like, oh my goodness. Like, you know, I like everything to be optimal and there's a little bit of things off, which I'm so happy to talk about, but thank you for elaborating on that. Well, when you look at your testosterone, you probably weren't taking testosterone, right?

33:47No. So when you look at your testosterone, it's great, right? It's right in that word. Perfect where it should be. You say, well, why wasn't that affected? Because testosterone, it plays a role in a woman's menstrual cycle. It starts to peak around ovulation as well. It starts to increase a little bit, boosts libido and boosts strength, ambition, drive, energy, all those different things. But it should stay pretty level overall. But it's also not produced by the ovaries. Like, you're not getting testosterone. So what we're looking at is adrenal health as well as DHEA strength.

34:21So your DHEA is still that 1.7. Now, testosterone is great. We like to see it there. If testosterone ever starts to move to the low, we're going to actually use DHEA for probably three to four months. And then we're going to wean off of that. We only use five milligrams twice a day. So we use a really low dose. It's about 10 milligrams is about 20 percent of the typical clinical dosage that people will use. But we always look for the underlying root causes why. So we already know the underlying root cause as to why your hormones are low.

34:51So with you, I'm not going to use estrogen support or progesterone support, which are two herbal products to help boost those levels naturally. So again, we don't need to do that because we know the reason why. And so that does not require us to do anything there. But as we move down your lab and we start to look at cortisol now. One thing on the DHEA, because you mentioned in the last test that my DHEA was low, it was 1.6. This is a year later. It's 1.7. So you said that you like a year, if you see it change in a year or not like a better in a year, what would you recommend?

35:23Should I consider that? Or is it just because other things are out of whack? Well, so we don't know yet. And the reason is you just had a major stressor over the last 60 days before you took that. So egg retrieval, and I'm not saying this in a bad way, manipulating the hormones is an endogenous stressor on the body. Now you could say it's exogenous, it came into your body, but it's happening inside of your body. So that's a stressor. But beyond all that, we still haven't solved the evening cortisol. Because if you remember from last year, it was high normal.

35:56This year, it's high. So I don't want to jump in a healthy individual who has good testosterone already. Now, if you had low testosterone, yes, I'd be using it. Gotcha. But since you have good testosterone, and I think your estrogen and progesterone are going to rebalance, what I really need to tackle, and one of the major reasons for low DHEA, is the high evening cortisol. But also, your high evening cortisol is now affecting your morning energy.

36:26Or your morning cortisol. Interesting. Yeah. What we need to work on is what's called a dysfunctional diurnal rhythm. It's when people are starting to produce not enough energy in the morning for metabolic function. And not higher energy at night. They can't turn off that engine at night, mind and body. So we need to switch from the fight or flight. It doesn't mean like you're running around the house fight or flight, but we need to switch from the sympathetic nervous system.

36:56Oh, Dr. Roth, you're in my apartment. Maybe you would think so. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. So if there is something there, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. We need to switch that, right? So I always like to say you can be on for 12 hours, but you have to be off for 12 hours. And that's just difficult, different phases and seasons of life. But eventually, we need to get there. So I kind of look at it as I'm on from 7 to 7, but I'm off then from 7 to 7. And the more you can have more off hours, which is just parasympathetic, the more recovery

37:26and rejuvenation and less aging that we feel in the body. So right now, we can see that it is definitely, we got low DHEA, we have low morning cortisol, and we have high evening cortisol. And we're going to take a look at thyroid in a moment. And we can see a real stress-based pattern. So sleep is the number one thing that I would work with you on in order to resolve any energy or metabolism or whatever feelings you may have. Now, keep in mind, we also saw your results.

37:57You've lost 10 pounds over the last year. And so it's not affecting you metabolic-wise unless you've had to decrease your calories more or up your exercise more. So that's why these things can affect more than just weight. It's not always just about weight and body transformation. Yeah, totally. I'm excited. Okay, I'll let you finish. Because sleep is like, last time we talked, my sleep, I sleep like a, like, I got the aura ring. This is also very interesting to see this and then talk about this and like also track

38:31the aura because the aura is telling me like, I get two hours of REM, two, two and a half, and then a night or dipping into 145 too sometimes. But then in my deep, like I'm like an hour and a half, an hour 45, an hour and 17, an hour and a half out. Like I sleep like a, am I HR? Yeah, no, that's, and I remember I was talking about that last time now that you're bringing it up. Yeah. And I think I probably mentioned this last time. Some people though, when their head does hit the pillow, they're able to turn it off.

39:04Yeah. And so what that means then is just evening hours are eating it up. Like, so the average human's up for like 16 hours and they're in bed for eight, right? So there's still like four extra hours that we're pushing the equation too hard. Or maybe, I don't know, do exercise more at night or not? No. No. Usually typically like two. Whether it's blue light, you're basically, so these tests are very definitive. Your body's producing more cortisol than it should in the evening.

39:35Could be from blue light. Could be from mental energy being expended. So I would work right away on blue light in the 3-2-1. So three hours before bed, no food. Two hours before bed, really no liquids unless you're taking a little supplements before bed. And then one hour before bed, no laptop, no phone, no emails, no electronics. Just a calming routine. Maybe it's an Epsom salt bath. Maybe it's reading. Maybe it's journaling. Maybe it's breath work. Maybe it's, you know, talking with your partner, whatever it might be. And then that's kind of how I would calm things down.

40:07And I would be using adrenal soup at dinner. No doubt about it. Two capsules. Full spectrum magnesium. Two capsules. And you may not need the liquid melatonin. And the reason is, is that you've got great, you are getting great sleep. The Oura Ring is accurate. So like I've tested Whoop, Apple, BioStrap, Fitbit, Withings, and Aura. And the Aura is the best on sleep. Not the best on activity, but it's getting better. But not the best on activity, but it is the best on sleep. Totally agree. Okay. Let's dive into thyroid. This is something too that guys, last time we didn't get to talk about thyroid because

40:40I don't think I might. I didn't give y'all enough blood. So when we look at this, so that's why we never want to take any one measurement as the end-all be-all either. So I wouldn't be like, oh, you know, maybe, maybe there's, maybe there's something off with the lab. Maybe there's something off. No, because we've got low DHEA now. We've had that now for multiple times. Last time cortisol was starting to creep up. Now cortisol is high at night and it's low in the morning and free T3 is low. So free T4, normal.

41:12TSH, normal. Free T3, a little low. So there is a stressor on the body happening more in the evening that is then causing the body to just, think of it this, even if you're good energy-wise, because some people just are, you know, they're more pit of body type. They're more, you know, go, go, go. They're type A. They just push through it. You know, they just- Hi, nice to meet you. The majority of all of my clients, you know, myself, I always say I'm a recovering perfectionist

41:44in type A. And, um, and I just set parameters up in my own life to like save me from myself, honestly. Um, just because I will just go and go until there's no more. So that's that. So what we really need to do is just kind of set, I call it the three anchors per day. So one anchor in the morning, I ease into the day now, instead of just getting after the day, the first hour I wake up. That's just, that's just me. And then at lunch, I call it like the two halves of the day. I work hard for four or five hours.

42:15So then I have lunch and it's not a working lunch anymore. It's more relaxed. I breathe, calm down, maybe go for a walk. Then I do day two. That's the second half of the day. Then after that, I actually exercise because for me, I forget about the rest of the day after doing, you know, eight sprints. Like I'm, what happened today? I don't remember whatsoever. And so I'm good. Then I sit down with my family and I have family time and I enjoy. So that's how I've made my day so that I can improve my sleep. Because unlike you, my sleep scores, yes, now look like that, but they didn't used to. My sleep used to be terrible.

42:46Dang. Okay. We're going to improve the thyroid, but we're really going to improve the thyroid through decreasing whatever this stressor is. And if it's not mental, emotional, being an entrepreneur, then there's something else. And it could just be low levels of magnesium using certain herbs like ashwagandha, but also, you know, there's probably something there. And so we're going to work on that at the same time and just making sure everything is balanced across all levels. Okay. You saying that, and this is a little uncomfortable. Maybe that's not the thing, but hey, I'm an open book.

43:17There is something recently in the last couple of months with my gut and I'm trying to figure it out. I actually did the gut test with you guys. So I'm still waiting on the results. Could it be that? How much do I share of this? This is new. Well, if you're feeling bloating or anything like that near dinner time, then yes, because that's uncomfortable. But also let's keep in mind that, and so I want to be sensitive around this, egg retrieval is not an easy process.

43:48And so that in and of itself is probably weighing a little bit on your mind, or at least was, and that can affect these results as well. Okay. So we attack it from every parameter. We literally look at diet, exercise, stress reduction, toxin removal. And for someone like yourself, I ask, okay, are you exercising too late at night? Are you doing sauna too late at night? Are you doing cold plunge at night? Are you doing anything that would stimulate you later at night? Because I'm trying to reduce those stimulus for you. Now, some people, they can get in the sauna. I have clients that get in the sauna at eight o'clock at night.

44:20They're in there for 30, 40 minutes. They get out. Cortisol levels look fine. Sleep is fine. So it's all individualized. Okay. All right. All right. And then we move down to blood sugar. Could it be blood sugar? Could that be what's thrown off your cortisol? Because it does for many people. The answer is no. Your insulin levels are phenomenal. And your hemoglobin A1C, which is a measure, 90 days, basically, blood sugar is fantastic. So no issues there. Okay. Beautiful. I like those greens. Yeah. Could it be?

44:50And for most people out there, you know, once it starts to creep above 5.5, just because it's within range doesn't mean it's good, right? We want it below really 5.6. Now, when we look at vitamin D, you go get your blood work done at your doctor. The range is 30 to 100. That's not the ideal. The ideal is between 50 and 80. And you are a 76. So a 76 is perfect. So for you, I say, whatever sun you're getting, you want to keep getting. If you're not getting sun, you want to keep using whatever vitamin D supplement at the exact dosage you're using and not more because you're right at the upper range.

45:27And so you're good to go. So that's why we really can get precision based with nutrition and lifestyle based on just one lab like this. And that's why it's really great. So when we look at your lab, we say nothing to do with vitamin D. You're great. Nothing to do with glucose levels, blood sugar. That looks great. I'm not going to overdo estrogen and progesterone because I know the reason why they're low. Testosterone is great. DHEA is low, but I believe it's low because cortisol in the morning is now low. So we can use adrenal energy support if you're feeling low energy in the morning.

45:57And adrenal soothe, which calms the adrenals and cortisol put at night along with full spectrum magnesium. If we need to use liquid melatonin to get to sleep faster, we will and turn off cortisol because they're the inverse ratio, right? So if you give someone zinc, it pushes down copper levels. If you give someone copper, it pushes down zinc. If you give someone calcium, it pushes down magnesium. If you give someone magnesium, it pushes down copper. Everything in nature has an opposite. So if you want to push down cortisol levels, you can use liquid melatonin.

46:27And so it doesn't make you groggy in the morning, just knocks it down. So that's one of the things that I've used to this day. I don't use a mega dosage. I use a very small dosage. But for me, I have a more challenging time turning down cortisol at night. I use a small amount, two and a half milligrams of melatonin. I'm out within 10 minutes. If you would have told the 20-year-old, 27-year-old, 30-year-old me I could fall asleep within 10 minutes, I would have laughed at you. It would take hours for me to fall asleep. So again, everyone needs their own individual plan. That's basically all there is to it.

46:57That's why I love this test so much because it is so individualized. And the fact, thank you for, first of all, I mean, I just appreciate your time so much. I love learning from you and for you coming back on the podcast and then being able to do these results with me. Honestly, I'm selfish in a way. It's like this is so soothing to know what's going on and how I can fix it. And I want that for other people. I want you guys to feel inspired of what Dr. Cabral just read. This is at your fingertips to be able to go and access if you're feeling things are off.

47:29It could be something internally that needs to be addressed. And this test will do it for you. One thing I want you to talk about, though, before we wrap up is I retested. All of these things can change over time, like our hormones, our cortisol. I mean, we just saw it. We saw literally like my DHEA stayed the same and then my cortisol was creeping up like it was fine in the morning, afternoon, but it was creeping up at night last test. And this one now I'm seeing you as you shared and reading it, it's affected now.

48:03So all these things can change. And I want you to can you just like elaborate why retesting? Because I know there's our community of worry babies, too, that have one test. But like it's so important to keep retesting. It's so crucial for to adapt to these changes and to understand them, to maintain balanced health. So can you just elaborate why it's so important to retest? Absolutely. And the biggest reason is that our bodies are not static. We don't go through static stresses in life. You're you know, you're not going to do an egg retrieval process next month or the month after the month.

48:37So it's like, OK, you move through that season of your life, which you wanted to, because in the end, it's absolutely worth it. Right. So it's like, OK, I get to go through some stress sometimes to get what you want. Great. So now we did that. We're going to work on a plan for 12 weeks to 16 weeks maximum. That's all that the body needs. So then after that, we can retest. But we're going to stay on everything that we are doing. So like the no blue light at night, the relaxation, Epsom salt bath, whatever you want to do, whatever is relaxing for that later half of the day, meaning after 5, 6 p.m.

49:08as the sun's starting to set. And we're going to use some nutritional supplements. But again, it's the whole de-stress protocol. Right. So we're going to do all of the things, not one thing to be perfect, just to kind of bring it full circle. And then you're going to say, yeah, actually, I can feel some results. Then we're going to retest. OK, so let's say now we retest. And let's just say you notice like, you know what? I've been gaining a few pounds and I don't know why. And I'm doing the right things. OK, now we look, DHEA is still low. Cortisol is now good, but thyroid is still low.

49:40Now, remember, I didn't mention daily thyroid support. Yeah, we're going to move to daily thyroid support because we fixed the stress, but the thyroid is still low. So that may mean now the thyroid does not have the nutrients it needs in order to function well, which is anything from zinc, copper, vitamin A, selenium, iodine, B6. So if we don't have the thyroid doesn't have those nutrients, it literally cannot make active thyroid. So now we say, OK, we fix this.

50:11Now we're going to work on thyroid. It's exactly what your body needs. We use that for about 12 to 16 weeks. You retest. Everything is perfect. Great. We wean off the daily thyroid support to at breakfast, to at dinner. Now we're one at breakfast, one at dinner. Weight's still holding well, still feel good. No bloating, no brain fog. Some of the symptoms of low thyroid. No, things are good. Then we come off that last one on one capsule and the body's balanced. So that's in an ideal world how to use functional medicine, integrative health. It's not like you're never going to use a nutritional supplement again, but you're just

50:43using a good like daily activated multi omegas, like whatever the body would typically use for aging. But you don't need the specialty ones unless the lab results call for that. That's what I love about your approach so much. One to unpack a couple of things there. One was recognizing the cortisol was the thing that was changing. And like that's probably how many patients do you deal that have high cortisol at night? Like that. Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah. And that you will go in and try and fix that first before you try and fix other things,

51:16because that's probably going to fix other things, right? It's kind of like the, I mean, indifferent analogy from the flute that you talked about. But if you fix one thing, maybe other things will be fixed. But the second thing is the domino effect. I mean, that's, that's probably the easiest analogy. Yeah. Is that we can make more happen with less if we know which domino to press first. I love that. I think you said that too, because Dr. Cabral comes into our community and talks to our coaching team. I think you said that then too, as well, or maybe I'm on the community calls with the babes. I freaking love that.

51:46I only have so many analogies. So yeah. I love it. But yeah, to that point though, you mentioned that you'll take this and you'll wean off. Like supplements aren't necessarily meant to, like it's for nutrition, diet, exercise, like stress management, and then the nutritional supplement that we both align like so much on. It's like, you don't have to take these supplements for the rest of your life. It's just something that can be a tool in your toolbox to help alleviate some of the symptoms that you are feeling.

52:16And it makes it happen faster. That's the truth. Because when you have digestive issues, you're not absorbing these things, or it's low for stress. You can just, I mean, you can pretend like you don't have a deficiency or you can just really simply just replace it and then work on the lifestyle things at the same time. Because kind of in the beginning, we talked about energy, right? Well, if you can take something natural, replenish your micronutrients, have more energy, what does it allow you to do? Oh, you can get those 10,000 steps a day now. You can stick to your nutrition plan more often because you're not crashing in energy.

52:48And then what do you do? Well, you can absorb more food and then you need less nutritional supplements, right? So it's like, there's no one best thing. That's why the de-stress is eight things. And supplements is one. Sometimes we get caught up around the one, but really it's like, well, supplements don't matter that much if you're not following your nutrition plan and you're sedentary, you don't move your body. Like it can be helpful just to fill in the gaps, but it's not going to save you in terms of aging and weight and all that. And so it's like, you want to know what lever to press harder for what individual.

53:18And that's what we hope to provide. You would sleep. Like, I'm not going to improve your two plus hours of REM and one and a half hour of deep, but I can improve the three, four hours before you do go to bed. And that's what I'm trying to say. Totally, totally, totally, totally. Okay. So before we, though, we hop, I have one last question, but I also want to make sure that I know what I need to do now moving forward. So you mentioned adenial soothe, full spectrum magnesium, the three hours before bed. Am I missing anything?

53:49Yeah. So I would say, do you have low energy in the morning or do you feel okay? I would say I have low energy. I also recently have been taking slower mornings. So meditating, waking up, not really, not looking at my phone within the first hour. I say low energy. Yeah. But it won't show as low cortisol. It would just show as normal. So if you feel like you're lower energy, you can use adrenal energy support, which is the opposite of adrenal soothe. And you might just need two at breakfast, not two at lunch.

54:20Like if you feel good by lunchtime, then you don't need two more at lunch. You can just use them at breakfast. Okay. We would use daily omega-3 support to support inflammation, sleep, metabolism, and female hormones, if I didn't already mention that. When we give clients a plan, I give like the optional. The optional would be the daily probiotic support, but I would love to first figure out if you have any overgrowth because then I'm not going to use that. Yeah. And for right now, I might just recommend daily digestive enzymes so that you absorb more of

54:55the good nutrients from your food that you're already eating. So basically, if you feel like you've eaten after you ate, meaning like bloated or full, then you're either eating too much, which most people aren't doing, or you're just not properly breaking down that food well enough. So daily digestive enzymes, one or two with a meal are great. And then we're going to hold off on DHEA. We're holding off on daily thyroid support. I'm assuming you're already using vitamin D. Yep. Vitamin D and K2. How many IUs are you using or micrograms?

55:25Oof. You don't have to know. The average person needs about 2,000 to 5,000 IUs per day, which is 50 to 125 micrograms. And then that usually keeps them within the 50 to 80 for that. You'll just, I'm just saying, you just maintain whatever you're doing right now because it's obviously great. So you don't have to know. Sounds good. And maybe we'll have you back on the podcast when we read, review my gut. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

55:56There might be something going on there. Well, anyway, Dr. Cabral. All the thing I want to say is that all of these things are fixable. Yeah. So don't really feel like, oh, you know, you're embarrassed or whatever it is. No. Everybody has something going on. You were brave enough to share your story. I've shared my story over and over. Yeah. And that everything is fixable. Like that's the nice thing. There's nothing that we haven't seen that can't be corrected. Totally. That includes digestion, hormones, energy. So it can. Totally. Thank you. Appreciate that reminder.

56:27As we wrap up though, what's a key takeaway or message that you'd like to leave the listeners listening to this podcast about the importance of like understanding and nurturing their health over the longterm? What's that key message you want them to take away? Yeah. The first is that there's never a perfect time to start, right? So we have to get rid of that. There's always something going on. And the second is that you're never going to get it all right. You're never going to be perfect. So once you understand there's no right time to start and that you'll never be perfect, you can allow yourself just to move through the journey of life because there will be ebbs and

56:59flows, times of great periods of eating and exercising, times where you don't feel like you're low energy and you miss it. But at the end of the day, what I really look at is if I'm opening and I always use a big calendar, if I have a 365 day calendar, I want to see more days than not that 80% that I'm moving towards my goal. And so for everybody out there, if you do that, literally just a check mark on the calendar, I did my 10,000 steps today. I ate well, maybe it's two checks, right? And you just do day by day and accumulate enough of those checks or shade it in,

57:34huge wins. Because what we're talking about is sure, we can correct things in the moment, but you've got another 50, 60 years ahead of you. I hopefully have another 50 plus years ahead of me. People in your community, 30, 40, 50, 60 plus years. We have to understand is like, we need to figure out something that we can do for life that we're not going to be perfect on, but it keeps us reaching our goals. And that's really the big takeaway is like, do things in the moment to balance your body. And then what can you do for the rest of your life?

58:05Understanding that it's not going to always be the same. Mic drop. Dr. Cabral, thank you. So, so, so much for coming back on the podcast and sharing your expertise. Like I've said a couple of times here today, I just enjoy listening to you and learning from you on all of the things about hormonal health, metabolism, the tests that we went through today, your insights on retesting and adapting to the changes in our bodies. It's incredibly valuable to have your insights and to understand what's going on

58:36and that we can take away and be able to make some change. And as you said, everything's fixable, which I love that. So, and if anybody's, you know, listening to this and they're inspired to take this test, I would highly recommend that you guys do just for your own good to know what's going on internally. The links are going to be below in the description for you guys to go check out the test. But either way, highly recommend that you guys do that or check out Dr. Cabral and his resources and tuning into his podcast. Dr. Cabral, thank you for being on here again. Appreciate you.

59:06My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me back. Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all of the difference, helping more women discover the tools they need to transform the fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.

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