Healthy Hormones
with Dr. Heather Rhodes
This is an unedited transcript.
Welcome back to The Momdaze podcast. I’m your host, Holly Lo. And I am thrilled to be chatting with Dr. Heather Rhodes. This is something that intrigues me because I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of a holistic pharmacist. I’ve heard of holistic everything. So I’m excited to learn more about what you do. And you know what it is that has inspired you to do what you’re doing. And I know you have a passion for women’s health, that’s why you’re here. And hormones, hormones are a big one in your in your working what you do. And that is a passion of mine as well helping moms who postpartum or are trying to conceive, figure out the mystery of what is going on with their hormones. So I’m happy to have an expert on here, you can shed some light on that mystery of those, you know, hidden hormones that we seem to know very little of that. So welcome to the time to come join.
My goodness, thanks so much, Holly. I’m so excited to be here. I love chatting about hormones, and women’s I mean all the things. And so I just feel really blessed to be able to be over here and chat with you.
Awesome. So I want to know, first and foremost, tell me because I need to know what is a holistic pharmacist.
Yeah, so essentially, it just means that I’m traditionally trained as a pharmacist. And then I’ve done additional training to be certified as a holistic health practitioner. So it’s not like a specific, it’s not like there’s like this realm of holistic pharmacists that do different things. It’s really just that as a pharmacist with traditional training, we work on counseling patients and lifestyle modifications and a lot of education. And that’s kind of a turn pharmacies taken in the last like 2030 years. Previously, it was like, Oh, we know a lot about the drugs, and we kind of stick to that. But then once it became a doctor program, we realized, like in the traditional health realm, that pharmacists can fit this role for education. So we learn about how every part of the body works, because you have to know that when you take medications that we started being utilized for more education and management of chronic disease states. And that’s what my specific training from pharmacy was, I did a residency after graduating, that focus primarily on metabolic conditions. So like, if you’ve got something long term that’s being influenced by your metabolic state or capacity, how do we help support you in that, whether it be with medications or not. And then over the course of my practice, and just being plugged in, in different doctor’s offices, I realized that like, clients, patients, the population really wants to know How do I actually get better from the root cause? So like, how do I figure out what’s truly going on, and then do something to support myself to really healing rather than just taking a medication and being okay with taking it the rest of my life. So I love to really bridge that gap and help people understand, like, when we go after that the holistic means like the root cause when we look at the whole body, everything that’s going on as a whole, there’s a lot of ways we can support you. And that can be something that can be done while you’re taking medicines, while you’re not taking medicines. If you have a specific health goal, or not, like it’s just such great information to have.
Absolutely. And I love that you said that because we are becoming much more educated as patients and as you know, the people who are being responsible for our bodies, I even my family doctor always laughs He’s like, man, I have to be so on top of it now with which is funny to hear, you know, a GP say, but I appreciate he is. But it’s the same I could understand with pharmacy even sometimes more, because I know with me when I had to in the rare occasions, I’ve had a prescription, I will tell them the pharmacist things that maybe I didn’t tell the doctor or I will you know, I will ask, I feel comfortable asking them and feel more comfortable with their information. So it kind of depends on what your situation is. I think with your caregiver, too. I’ve had mamas who are like, I’m not, I don’t love my ob and I’m not super comfortable with their advice. But then they’ll go talk to you, you know, an amazing pharmacist to really great advice. And they’re like, okay, that made me feel better. So it’s a really important role. And I appreciate that you’re, you’re taking it, you know, into that holistic approach, because there’s so much more to know than just a prescription.
Yeah, yeah. And I think a big piece of that, too, is I think I’m hoping that we are totally starting to shift as a population to a healthcare model that really involves a team to do more than just like, Oh, my doctor’s The only person I see my only resource. I really think especially now that there are more chronic conditions. If you have something that’s impacting you every single day, then having a A lot of experts, a lot of different modalities, having really curious physicians that are working on your long term care plan can be show beneficial. And I think, again, I just think that having more resources, more education, more knowledge sets you up to actually feeling better, and really saving money. And I think it’s something that we’re starting to realize, you know, because money drives everything, like we can’t really get around that. And so the healthcare industry is the way it is because of money. And how do we really optimize things as a business is really how a lot of it functions. And so when you think about it, from that standpoint, it makes sense to do more preventative education and care. and that type of thing. It really is just, how do we maneuver insurance companies and billing and reimbursements and all of that into fit that model. So I see a lot of people kind of piggy like, picking from their traditional care team for certain things. And this is what I do, I have a concierge doctor. So I use her for like my annual physical, my lab works, Pap, all of that stuff. But then I also have a chiropractor. And then I also have nutritionists that I work with. And so I really have this team that I kind of pull from, we have a fertility acupuncture, so I just love being able to say like, Hey, I’m going to be the CEO of my health of my goals and my decisions, and then even on my families, and then I’m going to choose who I bring on my team to get me closer to the goal. And I think that’s another huge piece of it is just realizing like, we’re choosing like, we aren’t our doctors our position, like everybody’s still working for us. And we give away all that power. And we just say like,
Oh my gosh, I
hate my ob they treat me so disrespectfully. They won’t let me make my own decisions. I asked a question and it made me feel stupid. And in any other realm. We wouldn’t pay those people mine, we wouldn’t hang out with them, we wouldn’t talk to their supervisor. We were treated that way. at Target, we’d be pissed and you know, like, do something about it. But we’re treated like that when it comes to our most like vulnerable situations. And we just accept it because we don’t know what else to do. And I really think that’s where the education and taking that ownership role of your health plays a huge difference. Because when you come at it from that perspective, you get results and you feel different and things change because it’s a non negotiable, you know, you don’t allow them not to.
That’s one of the things I used to tell my my doula clients all the time over the years was you’re not a patient, you’re a client. And then on top of that, you’re the boss, you know, there’s going to be that real shifting that has to happen throughout birth and labor and things like that. But you call the shots. Yeah. That’s such good information. So I want to get into hormones. Because this is a huge topic for our followers. Oh, my gosh. And I’ve experienced this over the years, the last three years, a lot of our followers have have followed my journey of trying to get pregnant again, in my 40s, and all everything that comes with that. And it’s been a real eye opener to work with a whole team, like you’re talking about naturopath acupuncture is my doctor, you know, fertility specialists, all kinds of different modalities that have poured into me and given me such incredible wisdom. But hormones are the key. They’re the they’re like that little magic thing. And yet, I know family doctors know it here anywhere in Canada, it’s just a very rushed aside. Subject, right? And it that mysterious thing, like so many women have said to me, Well, I feel this, this and this do symptoms. And it seems to point to what I googled being my thyroid or a hormone imbalance. But that’s as far as they get, you know, it’s as much as we know. So I want to know a little bit. It’s a big topic I know. And I’ll let you kind of pick what you want to share it. But what is how would we even know first of all, if we are dealing with hormone imbalances, because I know so many people are and don’t even realize it?
Yeah, yeah, I think a big piece of that is understanding the role hormones play. So everything that happens in your body happens via hormones, it’s almost like, if our body was like a highway system, hormones are the cars so like nothing’s getting going without them in some capacity. And I think that’s a really key thing to just know and understand. And when I say that, I don’t just mean like, your estrogen and progesterone like female hormones. I mean, like, you have hormones that tell your brain that wake you up in the morning that tell your brain to be happy or sad, that tell you to cry or not to cry that, you know, decides how fast you should be breathing. Like that’s the basic things hormones are doing. And so I think that’s one piece of it. And then I think as women we have this whole other piece of understanding that our core design and function truly is to reproduce. And so if that’s something our body is doing day in and day out for, you know, 2030 plus years of our lives, there’s a way that’s not those hormones aren’t playing a role in how we feel day in and day out. And so I think there’s almost a way to say, what is it besides hormones, instead of like, well, is it hormones? Well, yeah, it has to be in some capacity. But what else is going on? And how do we know if a hormone imbalance is truly what’s at the root, because you could have something else at the root like a gut imbalance, or an issue with bacteria or chronic east or, you know, a mineral issue, minerals, and electrolytes are what, allow Mormons to do their jobs, right. And so it may look like a hormone imbalance, but really, it’s that your body’s making the right amount of hormones, it’s just you don’t have the right electrolytes to keep them in balance. And I think one of the things that trips people up the most and why hormones feel so confusing, is because they operate in what we call negative feedback loops. So this is like that sounds like a really fancy term, but just like,
stay with me.
So essentially, what happens is that your body is always making stuff, while always trying to figure out how I made enough. So what happens is, once the hormones are out there, if they hit the receptor, which is like where they do their job, AB, it sends a signal back to the makers of the hormones and says, like, hey, we’ve got enough, you’re good. And so because hormones are always they’re kind of like this, this machine where they’re always pumping out hormones, until they’re told to stop, you can have symptoms of both high and low amounts of the same hormone, because maybe your body’s making a ton of estrogen. It’s just not getting out of the receptors appropriately. Or maybe your body isn’t making too much. But what’s there is it being cleared out through your gut and your digestive system appropriately. Or maybe it’s that your body’s getting a signal from somewhere else that’s saying, hey, you don’t need to make any more of those hormones. And so we see this a lot with thyroid hormones with estrogen with progesterone. And that, I think, is why it feels so confusing to women, because we can have symptoms of high estrogen and low estrogen all at the same time. And the other piece of that is that our hormone cycle, so there are certain times within a 28 day period, you should have peak estrogen levels, and you should have low estrogen levels. And if the low times it’s high, and if the high times it’s low, you feel like okay, well, there’s got to be one thing that’s going on, and it may not be this one thing I hear a lot like I’m estrogen dominant, it may not be that your estrogen dobrej maybe that your estrogen activity is inappropriate, it’s high, certain times and low at certain times. And then we look at Well, what causes that, so then we go a little deeper. So I think that’s probably why it feels so confusing. But I can say that like the way from the amount of women I work with, and the like variety of disease dates I work with all the way from when I was in the physician’s office working with high blood pressure, and diabetes to now where I focus more on like pcls and fertility stuff, what we see is that the same basic principles support your body to operating super effectively. And so we come in, and we think it’s like other conditions where, okay, if I’m constipated, I have to do this, this, this and this to not be constipated anymore. That’s not how hormones and that system works. The way it works is that your body’s got the machinery, it’s got the equipment, we need to make sure it has the ingredients, and it will do what it needs to do. Our job is really to support that system. And that’s where I think a lot of us get tripped up is because we live in a society that doesn’t support that system at all. All the things we do day in and day out, actually disrupted that system and make it really confusing. And so it takes knowledge, it takes intentionality. It takes these shifts in our everyday choices, to allow our body to go back into balance. But that’s the best part is that when it comes to hormones, your body does all the work. And we’re actually like, getting tripped up and messing things up when we’re like, oh, why do we need to take synthetic hormones, or I just need to replace my estrogen or I just need to replace my progesterone. And then it’s like, oh my gosh, you take a you’ve taken a process and machine a factory that’s able to do exactly what it needs to do. And you’ve come in and just like pulled their power source, right? You’re like, this is what I had to do. And it’s like, No, you didn’t you just needed to like, resupply the ingredients, and then the machinery would work the way it needed to work. And so I definitely understand and I emphasize so much because I have my own journey I think we all do when we work in this space. I’m feeling that frustration of like, I know something’s wrong, but I don’t know what I’m being dismissed. No one’s helping me. No one’s teaching me like ever Everyone’s just trying to throw a mad at me and get me out of their office as quickly as possible. And yes,
especially one I think symptomatically too. And I don’t know if you’ve touched on this, but I think symptomatically when it comes to hormone issues, you know, like you said, it’s what else is going on. And that’s not always looked at, but also the symptoms of hormone imbalances, or just, you know, you know, hypo hyper or whatever it is, with your thyroid, whatever could be happening, those are symptoms are rather vague, right? Like, yeah, you’re in your 40s. If you’re perimenopausal and you’re have fatigue, and thinning hair and a bit of weight gain, and whatever it is, like I’ve heard this over and over again, it is the most common thing for the doctor just to say it’s just your age, you know, welcome to your 40s to women. And I’m thinking No, no, no, like, we are going to age and we are going to change our hormones are going to shift that’s natural, that’s part of it. But there are things we can do to optimize that process. And to, like you said, nurture what’s happening in our body and with the, you know, oxytocin and, and our stress levels that we’re running in every single day. I remember when I had my first hormone panel, we did the saliva tasting over certain days over the course of a cycle. I remember looking at that, and when I got the results back speaking to the doctor that I had done the test with, and he was a holistic doctor, and he said, So basically, you’re in fight or flight 24 seven, and I don’t know what you’re doing like this, you can’t operate like this, like it was through the roof. But he said that explains all your symptoms. The reality is he could have just given me something for just Well, you’re tired or you’re this, he goes, you have to make changes to your lifestyle. That was the that was the answer. And then, like you said, it’s not always give me a pill and leave the office. But sometimes it’s us taking responsibility for how our body’s speaking to us. And letting us know, I’m not happy with how you’re living right now or how you’re eating, or your level of rust or exercise. It’s that holistic view, right?
Yeah, yeah. And that’s something that is a very huge holistic principle in general, because there’s not a single system in your body that will operate well under chronic stress. And then we think that like chronic stress means that we like feel stressed out, like mentally, we’re stressed out. And that’s not the case at all, everybody’s body is being exposed to stress signals day in and day out, regardless. So when you aren’t being intentional about lowering stress, your body’s not operating the way it needs to be because stress is high, There’s no way I mean, I’ve never seen it any different than that. And I think that’s amazing, though, that you had a doctor that was able to do that, because I think what would normally happen for most women is they get prescribed, you know, something to help them stay away, or then they get prescribed hormone, or then they get prescribed antibiotics for their gut because their guts messed up the number. This is
another one that like,
I wish I could like a box of mine, the number of women that come to me and they’re like, I did a food sensitivity test. And I have sensitivities to all of this. And I’m like, Okay, I get that. Like, we definitely have sensitivities. And I’m like, well, when did they start? Like, you know, and sometimes it’s like, well, it’s typically the foods they eat the most often. And they’re like in their 30s. And I’m like, see, we really think that your body just now all of a sudden, can’t handle these foods. You’ve always eaten your whole life. Like when then it’s like because again, we’re not given the information we need. We’re just looking for anything to tell us what will make us feel better. And that’s a huge like, I would say this is such a like, opinionated, not factual statistic. However, I would guess that like 80% of gut problems comes from
a gut that stressed out not
stress from Oh, like something happened tragic that I’m like working through but stress from like, okay, every day I’m exposed to blue light. Every day, I have instant dopamine hits 24 seven every day, I don’t have boundaries placed on people’s access to me. So my brains always running. It’s so many things. And I’m guilty of it. I don’t say it from a place of like, Oh, these are this is what all you people are doing. Like I I live it and I see it. And every time my hormones Give me my body, give me a sign my hormones are off. It always go back goes back to me knowing that I’ve stressed it out and like, well, crap, like, here I go again. But the key is knowing how to get back on track and the different things you can do to get back on track and get in early support your body in those ways. And I think one of the first steps is exactly what you mentioned. It’s knowing how your body talks to you. And like knowing what those patterns are, what the symptoms are. Because it’s not like you just fix the stress and then it goes away.
Like
Like I said, I mean, I do this for a living. And every month I’m assessing like how have I done Have I not done and I had these very key things that I know if I’m not doing them, my body tells me right away. And then I know like, hey, I’ve got to go back to doing those things. And that’s actually what I think living with hormone balance looks like. Because you know, right, I’m not googling it all the time, I’m not spending endless amounts of money on all this stuff. Like, I’m just going back to my foundations, I’m going back to what my body needs and how to support it, so that I can have more good days than not.
Yes, absolutely. And I think it’s something as we’re learning to listen to our body, that’s important, because we’ve learned not to, you know, in the lifestyles we live with, the pace we live at is just astonishing to me. And I did that I did that for so many years to the point of adrenal fatigue, and whatever, you know, labels, you want to give it to the point where I went, I can’t I can’t continue like that, you know, it’s just you, like you said, it’s not always that you feel it in your brain, or that you, you know, you’re obviously stressed, it’s the every day, or it’s the stuff you didn’t deal with. Right? It can be from your childhood, it can be, if you want to get real deep into it, you know, maybe there’s some therapy that’s needed to bring some peace, or whatever that is. And I just learned that the last few years on this journey of fertility, it takes a whole story of everything, and paying attention to it. Like, I never drink coffee ever in my life, until last year. And it was when we were in the US for a couple months. And I had started drinking coffee here and there. And I would have wicked hot flashes as soon as I had coffee. And I’m like, that’s like, dramatic. You know, I was having panic attacks, super high in here. And it was my sister, my older sister was like, well, caffeine is a trigger, you know, to some of those things, you might want to pay attention to that. And I switched to decaf, and from that point on, fine. Yeah, so some of that is like, I talk to all kinds of women who are like, I’m not getting a coffee, there’s no way that exhaustion is not being taken care of by your caffeine addiction. Right? Exactly. Yeah, I’d
say that’s like one of my most controversial, like, topics in general, because people will say, like, I will do anything to fix my hormones, like it’s so onto anything. But then we say, Alright, we’ve got to lower your stress. And then there’s like these non negotiables, right, because like, we can’t change the things that stress us out. If you’ve got kids, you’re gonna have stress in your life. Like, we can’t, I can’t change it. I can’t do I will trade your kids back. I mean, like, I can’t do that, right? So we say, all right, what’s going to make the biggest bang for your buck? What are the biggest shifts you can make? pick three of them no more. So now, instead of doing 15 things a day, you’re just picking three, all you have to do are three things a day. One of them tends to usually be coffee and people they like can’t do it. Like, I can’t like not happening, which I get to some extent. But I’m also like, I think and again, it just goes back to like culture, society, like all of that, like, I don’t think there’s any education on what coffee actually is like, coffee is the equivalent of you waking up. So let’s say you’re like driving on the road, and a little kid runs out in front of you, you have to slam on the brakes, and you get that like rush. That’s all coffee is. And we hold it in our hands and sip on it all day long. And then we’re like, Why do I feel like this? And I’m just like, Oh my gosh, and again, I’m guilty of it. I when I was in pharmacy school when I was working as a pharmacist when I was in the doctor’s offices like, and I wasn’t playing games, I was like the Starbucks venti Americano. Like, every single day, I loved that rush. I
love that feeling. I
was like, Wow, this is great. And then we were on a fertility journey to you. And I didn’t have a period for like, I mean, months and months and months. And I was like, I’ll do anything I’ll do but like, not not my doctor was like, Here, take some medicine to make yourself obviously, rather than saying like, well, what are you doing with caffeine or your diet or, you know, whatever. And so that’s why I say you’re so lucky because you had a doctor that was like, Hey, you got to do something differently. Whereas I had my journey was probably two years where I was working with like conventional doctors. And during that time period, I was living on coffee, I was working 10 hour shifts. I was CrossFit and marathon training at the same time. I refuse to eat over 1000 calories. That’s where my brain was mentally. Right? And then and the fact that like, that was never conversation with up to four separate obese, four separate even fertility specialists. None of them ever said anything to me. I never even know it was a problem. And I went to pharmacy school, and that’s why I do what I do now because I was like, how did I go through four physicians for six years of a graduate program, a residency I worked in doctors offices every day and never knew this. And like that was really when I was like, that’s it like I’m joining the the holistic army like I’m not letting women go do this anymore.
That’s amazing. Well, you know what that you know, Mama’s can take this away and feel good because in a sense that removes I talked to so many mums again and myself included, where you walk with this guilt of, Oh, I should have known. You know what there are doctors, expert services, no idea, the whole idea of behind fertility, your reproductive health and all of that, it’s so big, and you can’t specialize in everything. You know, it’s not something you can do. But as a client, you have to take that into your hands and find that team. And that’s what I had to do. I really, I had, like I said, I had a, I did a fertility program in the US with Dr. Cleopatra, she’s phenomenal. And with a very holistic approach, but still a research specialist, I did my natural path here, you’re doing all the Dutch testing and all the monthly cycle testing and all those things I put in the effort. But it also had, you know, food information it had, you know, I run a fertility cleanse program, because I learned so much out of that. Just getting your gut set up, you know, well, because like you said, like our gut control, so much production that’s going on your body as well. So I think I love what you’re saying and what you’re doing because it’s taking our traditional information, making it a whole other level, like another step further. And when it comes to something called hip topics per second, because and I think we’ll have to have conversations about this, because there’s so many things we could talk about. But something like so pts I suffered from it, after my second baby, just for short amount of time, actually, which was painful. But I have a little taste of it, you know what that’s like? So when you’re dealing with something like that, is there hope that you can balance your body again?
Oh, for sure. Like, not even a doubt. Because, like I said, Your body’s always like, our bodies as women is. So this is why I love working with fertility patients, because like, your body is doing the work like you literally have. It’s like, again, you’re coming. It’s like you’re buying a business that’s already operating, right? Already got employees, it’s already knows, like systems operations, everything’s in place, your job is just to come in and help it make money, right. And so that’s what we’re doing when we come in and look at fertility, because your body’s doing the work. It’s always trying to go back to balance, it’s always trying to, you know, get you that result that you’re looking for. It’s just how do we partner with it? How do we use the systems that it already has? How do we work with the way it’s designed? How do we understand what signals it’s getting, how it’s interpreting signals, what that causes, it’s really just an auditing process. And then we figure out, Okay, these are the things that we need to start switching up. And the key there is, then you have to stay consistent, and then you have to trust, right, so we don’t get results. If we’re not if there’s not some layer of trust in anything. Again, business bodies help. It always takes action, trust results. And so sometimes that means you trust you know, your body for eight months, and then we reassess, and audit again, sometimes that means you trust your body for four or five years. And then we re I mean, always reassessing, always keeping tabs on it. But also always knowing that, like, your body can do it. And if it can’t, it’s telling you why. It’s just how deep do we dig. And one thing that I really love doing for women, because what I found in my journey was kind of that you either go to traditional medicine, and they don’t, you kind of don’t really get the the health care, quote unquote, looking for most of the time, sometimes you can, but a lot of times you don’t. And then you go to like naturopathic medicine, and it almost feels like the total opposite where it’s just like this full on overwhelm, and you’re testing everything. And everything in your body isn’t working, right. And you’re like, Oh my gosh, what do I do? Yeah, so what I love to help women do is stand in the middle of Alright, listen, we want to look at the basics. Your body’s telling us this almost every time this is how we do it. This is how we make sure your body has what it needs to make hormones. This is how it has what it needs to get rid of them. When we talk about gut health. This is how it has what it means to really increase the signals from your brain to your ovaries to strengthen those processes. And then if after that, we’re still in a spot where you’re not seeing results or your maybe like your bvds or cervical mucus isn’t telling us that you are a fertility freakin machine, then go deeper, right? That way you’re not just like going from one extreme to the other and floating somewhere in the middle without the information without being able to be the CEO. It’s almost like with like naturopathic stuff, it’s almost like you went from not owning a business to being like in the middle of a Forbes 500 company. Yeah. Like, yeah, and so I’m like, No, no, no, let’s go to like startup school first, right? Like,
let’s give you the basics.
And make sure that you feel so equipped with those that now you can enter into these further testing things like dodge testing, like still testing, like food sensitivity testing, and see, okay, with this information, what’s actually going to change? What’s going to actually direct what we’re doing? And how do you and this is another piece of it and why I think, because a lot of us would feel like, I don’t care to know all of that, I’m going to talk to the experts. And what they tell me to do, I’m going to do and that’s cool, if you want to take that approach, but I think you miss something really, really special when you do that. Yeah. Because again, as women, we’re creators, and we have an intuition for a reason, mother’s intuition, right, like, and if you think about it, we probably wouldn’t let someone do that when it comes to our kids. If, when you ask mom’s like, do you just blindly trust your pediatrician with everything? They say, with your kids? They’re like, no. But we’ve had like, well, if you would you just pay this practitioner this, whoever it may be to give you a meal plan and tell you exactly what to do. And then you’ll follow it. They’re like, Yeah, for sure. And so I’m like, No, like, you’re missing that you have that intuition, you have this special power, essentially, if you want to call it that, that allows you to be a deciding force to impact those decisions you make, and that’s going to get you closer to results. Then you just going in and someone saying like, well, these are the 30 things that are wrong. I think we should tackle these five. And then you’re like, Okay, sure, we’ll tackle those five. But when you go in and you know, like, Okay, cool. Well, I know this is okay, I know that I don’t have the capacity to do this right now. I mean, this is what I’m going to focus on for this amount of time, and then we’ll go to the next one, like you’re coming in, and you’re really able to bring that extra knowing that expertise on you and on your body and able to direct the care path. And that is huge.
It is it is and the thing, I think what’s key too, is that a lot that will everything in there is connected, right? So to say that I’m just gonna deal with this, this or this, or like you said, it’s, you know, it’s a crap storm of everything. Like I don’t even know where to begin. When you’re talking about the basics, if you can line those up and kind of walk through those basics first, you’re definitely going to be in a better place then to decide what’s actually connected next. Right. Like, is it hormone, you know, fluctuating at that time of the month that’s causing issue? And is my luteal phase off is whatever that looks like. And then you have a roadmap, right? Yes.
Yeah. And I think that’s huge. Because again, like, if you’ve spent your time working on the foundations, then when you do actually test, everything doesn’t look like a storm, it should really be a very, it should really be a much clearer picture of what’s going on. Because again, if you’ve got stress levels that are off the charts, if you’ve got, you know, your guts messed up, you know, you’ve got all the signs of estrogen dominance and low progesterone, then let’s tackle that first. So that way, by the time we actually do the testing, it’s really going to give us that clear picture of what is still kind of lingering, what is still causing the issue, what is the next step to really tackle because if you do it before you go through those first phases, everything’s gonna look off, and it’s gonna be like, well, it’s gonna be the same treatment regardless, that’s one thing I talked to so many practitioners, this is really like a, I don’t want to call it an industry secret. But I talked with people that do what I do that are like, you know, a lot of steps ahead of me. And I asked them like, Okay, well, you know, because I don’t do a lot of testing at all. I
like I said, I
do basics, and I’m like, I think I need to get the certification, I’m going to start doing testing and I have had countless amounts of them tell me, you can, but why they like they say they’re like, it’s not going to change what you the patients that are coming to you, you’re going to do the same thing for regardless, and I appreciate that so much. But I’m also like, well, day, like, All right, then. And, and again, there’s some people that and this isn’t a bad thing at all at all at all. But there are some people that really need to see the the the results, they need to see it on a test. And I was probably this person before, like, No, I’m fine. But if you were to show me like labs, I’d be like, Oh, Okay, I get it now. So there’s definitely a need for the testing in some regards. But I also think that like, if you know, if your intuition is telling you like, if it’s just really coming down to where do I start, I don’t think you need to start with all the tests and the full workup and 1000s of dollars worth of supplements like none of that’s going to actually get you in like a really great it’s almost like I don’t know if you’ve seen that meme of. It’s like a ladder and there’s all these like small steps on one side and then on the other side. It’s just two huge steps. And so they’re getting to the same spot, but the guy can’t even reach the. And I’m like, man, if that’s not a great picture of what’s happening, because if you can’t reach the first year, you’re both gonna get to that step eventually, it’s just how easily can you get there? And then how, what results are you seeing? What progress Are you seeing if you can even grab and grasp a sustainable approach to tackling that first step?
Well, if you’re if your goal is stress reduction, or you know any of those things, if you’re in this process, like, I’ve been down very stressful processes in this journey, and then I’ve been done very simple, like, wow, that was easy. You know, like, simple adjustments, like, you didn’t have caffeine with all your other babies. So maybe just take that back out, you know, like, little things that you go, what did I do differently? Or what the different now? Yes, I am, you know, I’m in my 40s. Now. So, you know, for me having a hormone panel done was important, because then I could look at it, everything is still the same, right? Like, it doesn’t do that, for my age, do that peace of mind that you go, you know, what age is a number right now with fertility? Oh, this doesn’t matter. For me. I am okay. Everything looks like it did when I was 35. You know, so, you know, it’s totally personal, totally individual. But knowing that you can start with just like you said, Those little steps. And I don’t know if you agree, but I like I think across the board, finding a routine, a daily routine of you know, finding peace and meditation, whatever it is, finding some calm in your day is so easy, every woman, and then just making sure that health is on par, you know, like, little those are a little sloppy. But I always say even in business, right? It’s the easy to do easy or not to do. It’s those daily steps or those daily choices that are easy to do. They’re not hard, right? It’s not like having to go see a specialist in another country and have testing done. And you know, that’s, that’s a big, big step. Those little daily choices were making not hard choices. But it’s easier not to do them. I think for many of us, and I’m guilty of that, right? Like, there were so many Oh, crap, like, this was not good stress day, like I really pile on to two meetings this week, or this month. You know, it was interesting, just taking a year off traveling. For me, taking a year off speaking engagements other than online things, made a massive difference. And I loved doing those things. Right. So it’s not the idea that it’s a tragedy, or it’s a super hard, stressful moment in life. It could be things you really, you know, you’ve thrived on. But your body? Yeah, yeah. And it’s all about seasons too. And, you know, I
think that’s another key piece of it is that just because we’re taking, you know, four months to be super intentional to lower stress and to cut out caffeine introduced, like, that’s the season. And once your body, I teach people a lot about this idea of capacity. So if your body is like rundown and you’re having symptoms, it means that all your margin, all your capacity, it’s like a bank account, right? Like your bank accounts, it’s out of it’s in the red. So what you’ve got to do is make those deposits, build up your bank account, build up your bank account, once your bank account is built up, then you can go on a week vacation and have some coffee or eat differently than any adults see much happen. Because you’ve got that, that that capacity built up. Yeah. And so when people are, you know, saying, like, I go on vacation that I gained 10 pounds, or I do this, and this happens. It’s like, oh, that just means you gotta start changing your capacity. And I actually wrote a post about this yesterday. And I I, I’ve thought about this so much lately of really like, in every industry. It’s the unsexy work that gets the results, right. Like it’s not the big, flashy thing that you’re going to do and all of a sudden feel totally different. And we live in a culture and a society. It’s been like hounded on us that showing the flashy sexy results is success. That is, that means you’ve done enough. That means you’ve made it that means you have worked so hard, and that’s what deserves the congratulations and all the praise. And I really take such an opposite approach of like, No, that’s not it. It’s the unsexy work. It’s the showing up every day and tracking your symptoms or watching how well you’re pooping and like like, that’s really unselect us like not right? Yeah. That’s those are the people that’s the way to actually get results that last that are going to be long term that’s going to set your body up to really achieve what you want it to achieve. In the long run. I was talking specifically about weight loss because I tell people like if you can spend a year especially people that have done like chronic dieting, all of that that are just like I would do anything to lose weight. Then I say like six months to a year of literally doing nothing but support courting and healing your body. And then step into eight weeks of weight loss and watch what happens. Like it’s crazy. But But the idea of like, I can’t wait a year to lose weight. And it’s like, well, you’ve been trying to lose weight for six years. And so what is the year at this point, you know, and that had to be my story I told you part of my story involves a huge issue with body dysmorphia, and disordered eating. And that was really something I had to do was to say, like, you know, this hasn’t been working. And even if it does work, like nothing has been sustainable, something is wrong. So I need to do what I need to do to fix it before I try to tackle this again. And that was probably that year, it was probably eight months to a year for me
was the best decision I
ever made for my health, for my fertility, for my energy for my I mean, all of it. And I’m like, man, if I could convince more women to do this, like, literally, their lives will change. But I couldn’t go marketed like a, you know, faster way to fat loss beach, but like any of that stuff, because your transformations they happen. But it’s over a long period of time, and it’s not super sexy. And I you don’t have trainers showing their six packs while they’re doing it. It really is. No, you just stay consistent, you show up and it comes with a lot of mindset work that, yeah, we need to do, but we don’t like to do.
And that’s part that’s something that I’ve learned through the fulfilling journey to with my clients and myself is mindset is massive. Like, let’s talk about that the whole inner healing and normal dealing with the things that you push down and all that stuff. That’s something I’m very passionate about too, because it affects our mindset, it affects our body failing. The idea that it’s not in our control, right, that we’ve been denied access, why our body’s meant to do when all along, you’ve had choices, and you’ve you’ve had the power in your hands, like you’re saying, we just have to rein it back in, you know, and take responsibility for those little choices, those little steps every way every step along the whole process.
Yeah, I think that’s so good. And I think like, so much of it, too, can be brought back, like the way you get through the unsexy work really is by having a handle of your mindset. And so your mindset hasn’t been addressed. That’s what the one thing I see that messes up so many women. It’s not that like the women that come into my programs, or you know, that have worked with me one on one and feel like I’m just not seeing results. I’m just not seeing results. It always is because from what I can feel my perspective is like, you haven’t tackled the mindset like, like the mindset is how you get to sustaining change, sustaining unsexy things long enough to see the results. Yeah. So it’s almost like, you know, if you are someone that was like, I’m gonna go hike the Appalachian Trail, well, all of us have the ability to walk as far as the Appalachian Trail is, we all have that ability. The difference is the mindset. Is it worth it? Is it not? What are you willing to do? What are you not willing to do? What sacrifices Can you sustain, even if it doesn’t feel like you can do it. And I think that’s a huge, huge piece of it, too. And that’s why because a lot of times when we, I was known for me when I was in the spot I was in before I started doing this work. And before my own journey, I felt like my network was so silly. And I was like, my mindset is fine. Like, I’m a positive person, I believe in myself, like whatever. But it really was walking through what I needed to walk through to understand that if I didn’t see results, I can still trust and know what I was doing was building Foundation, and that that was worth it. And that is a skill that is going to be applicable in every single part of your life. That is that helps you stay consistent with disciplining your children, even when you don’t see the results of that discipline that helps you stay consistent with building your business that helps you stay consistent with a marriage, right? Like these daily videos I’m doing my husband may still be up in like a jerk, but I’m gonna keep doing them. Because I trust that in X amount of time, like it’s going to build up and it does in any industry. If you looked at the people who are massively successful, I’m like, they would all come back to that same type of principle.
Yep, absolutely. consistency is key. We call it the three C’s. But consistency is one of the big ones. Cuz you can do, you can do all the right things. If you don’t do it consistently. There’s no point there really, that you’ve wasted your time. And that’s what our health that’s what our mental health that’s with our our scheduling whatever that looks like. We have to be consistent and like you said, there’s seasons. I mean, I remember when I was building my business Originally there was to two years of muscle, you know, just craziness. But it came with sacrifices that helped balance that out as much as I could. Right We gave up sports for the kids we gave up, you know, certain traveling and in different activities that we always did to balance out the craziness. But then there was a you know, two years of me repairing the craziness. Three. And that was it was something that had to happen. Now, I think a lot of us take things on a daily basis that don’t need to happen. That’s, you know, to look at right now, the yes issues with I find with moms, especially with our kids and the over programming or the over permitting. That’s a whole other topic, but just the ability, just the ability to step back and say, what’s my body’s saying to me? internally? What is what’s my reproductive system? I haven’t had a period in three months What’s going on? Right? That’s it, stress is a big one for changing our actual cycles. You know, okay, well, I don’t feel that maybe I’m over committed right now. I mean, I sleep better, just so you know, blacks, but like you said, you can take the time to get down to the basics, start there, and listen to your body and then decide, okay, who do I need on my team? someone like yourself? For sure. And how are they you know, what’s the result I’m going for? Right? Because I have women in their 40s and 50s are like, I don’t want to get pregnant, I just want my cycles back, you know, to be somewhat normal, or I’ve been on birth control for so many years. And it’s, it’s really messed my mental health up, I need to we get off of it and clean things up. That’s a I know, a big one. And that’s a great first step, right? That identifying where I’m at where I want to go? And then who do I need to pull into to help me with all of this?
Exactly. And I think like, the best thing, just for women to remember is that like, doesn’t have to be hard, right? Like when we think about getting results, because again, like society, culture, dieting, all of that, like we think it’s gonna be miserable and really hard. And that we’re gonna have to focus on all these things. And it’s just going to be overwhelming. And like, it literally isn’t like I have people tell me all the time, like I like the things we talked about are so easy, they’re so doable. And I had no idea. It could be this simple for me to feel this much
better. Right? And when you are seeing those results over time, it’s enjoyable. Like I remember saying to one of my people on my team, I was saying, Listen, this is I’m actually surprised I’ve enjoyed this as much as I have, like, for me, it’s the learning process, I eat it up. But that whole step by step, seeing my body start to respond and feeling some energy or, you know, feeling that hope, again, that month after month of negative pregnancy tests and then saying, okay, we’re on the right track, though, right, like things are changing. So it’s all good. It’s all good. And having that hope being built up again. It’s a really powerful thing. And it definitely carries you as you make the right choices. So I love it. All right, I need to know how can people work with you if they want to work with you or find you get some help with you? How does that work?
Yeah, so I am you can find my website and all the things that I do there, we have some great resources at Dr. Heather rose, calm, that’s all it is so super simple. I’m on Instagram at Dr. Heather Rhodes same thing. Um, and I just I feel like just I didn’t even feel like are we like intended to accidentally go down this pathway about stress and all that. But if that, you know, just super resonated with someone that was listening, it was like, Oh my gosh, like, I need to know those simple steps, I need to understand how my body talks to me, I need to understand really how to tackle my stress, because I know that’s bleeding into all these other pieces. I have a course specifically on that in so it walks through exactly like how your body experiences stress, how to know how to attract symptoms, all of that. And it’s called your stress strategy. It’s on my website as well and so on Earth, but yeah, we do fun things like that. I have courses and then I my favorites, my group programs. I love, love love working with women there we have a fertility one and then one for just a total reset, where we walk through, really, how do we work with those healing processes that your body’s already trying to do?
Right? Beautiful. I can’t wait. I’m going to be connecting all of that into our fertility program as well. Because I love to give tons of resources and connect people in for what’s the next step. So that’s perfect. I think I feel to carry on. Yay, I love it. Okay, well, thank you so much. I think we should definitely have some more of these conversations, we can get back on some things because I know I’m gonna get loads of questions about, you know, very specific topics on hormones and things like just reproductive health and stuff like that. So yeah,
we should definitely do one that goes deeper into that stuff.
Yeah. Well, it’s funny, I have a so my daughter is nine and she she’s just on the cusp of wanting to know, all period health and all these things. And because I’m a natural Mama, you know, I she knows that I’ve, I don’t use certain things, and I use other things. And so it’s interesting to have these conversations now, with a little girl coming into the years when I grew up in an age where we never had those conversations, right? It just wasn’t. Here’s your stuff. There you go. Yeah, I was like, get pregnant. Oh my god. I think that’s a conversation I really want to focus on to in the in the years to come that months coming with people like yourself is just how can we have healthy period conversations with our girls and how can we prepare the art you know them for their body health as they’re moving into hormone changes and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for your time. We will talk some more I’m sure of course. Thanks, Holly.