 Dr. Becky Campbell, Dr. Crystal Hone, I said it right. Yeah, you did. Health Babes. So thanks for coming on the show. Becky, you and I go back a while. Years. Years, you help us out all the time with stuff with the kids. I know right now you have us working with Aurelius with a low histamine diet and stuff like that. So I really appreciate that. And you guys podcast is phenomenal. But I wanted to have you guys on to talk about a few different things. And I want to start with hormone imbalances. I know you have a book coming out, right? It's out now. And it's Health Babes. Guide to balancing your hormones. I want to start there because hormone imbalances seem to be a big thing. Is it getting worse? Is this like a, like how common are hormone imbalances and are they getting worse? And if they are, what's the deal? What's the cause? They're extremely common. And I think it's, you know, with all the chemicals, they're really disrupting our hormones. So you hear people say like, this is an endocrine disruptor. What that basically means is this product or this chemical that's in this thing, you're using what, whether it's lotion or makeup or, you know, plastic bottles, it's actually changing your hormone levels over time. So it is, you know, I think it's getting worse because we have so many things coming out that are making us have more and more exposure to chemicals, right? Yeah. And with endocrine disruptors, your body doesn't know the difference, right? So for example, like Xenoestrogens, which are fake estrogens in a lot of these chemicals, your body is going to take that in and it looks at it like it's estrogen that your body makes. So your body has to process that. And if you could be choosing these more dangerous pathways and you're not clearing estrogen properly, this is where we start to see a lot of issues. How does that work? So is it that Xenoestrogens have like an affinity for the, I guess, for the estrogen receptor? So, okay. And does that cause then a feedback loop with your body's own hormones? So because I know when you supplement with hormones, your body recognizes it and then produces less of that particular hormone or changes its profile. So that's basically what's happening. Yeah, and they're binding to our estrogen receptors basically, so which is actually making our estrogen higher in general, which is estrogen dominance is something that's driving a lot of issues, even with histamine, which we'll get into in a little bit. It's one of the main drivers right now. Do they test for Xenoestrogen and endocrine disruptors? You can. You can, yeah. There's a lot of different tests. Great Plains Labs has, I don't remember the panel, but you can look into kind of stuff like that, but we really look at estrogen. I mean, and we know that some of the estrogen showing up on some of the testing, it can be this estrogen dominance. And I was listening to you guys earlier talking about the decrease in testosterone. Yeah, that's like over the last like what, five or six decades it's been going down in men. And it's because of the rise in estrogen. So this is, and these are, in what products are you finding these? Is it plastics and? Plastics, gosh, air fresheners, like VOCs. So everything, the like carpet, paint, all that stuff. And then any kind of products, so lotion, because you know, your skin is our biggest organ. So make up so many different things that you use, you put on your body. If there's chemicals in it, it's going to create that Xenoestrogen and then that's going to disrupt your hormones. Are there regulations on this? Because it's, if they're everywhere, I feel like nobody's like, I guess you could put these chemicals in and they don't test for this in that sense. They don't test to see if it, is that the deal? Okay, so when I'm using one thing that has a potential Xenoestrogen, I have maybe a weak effect, but it seems like this is cumulative then. Yeah, because there's so much, right? There's so many things that can do this. So we use a lot of these things. And so we see a lot of men in our practice who are, their testosterone's tanked and then their estrogen is high and they have no idea why. And it's because of the products, the things even you're cleaning our house with can do it. What are the symptoms in women with some of this stuff? Like if someone's listening right now and they're like, okay, well, what symptoms do I look for to know if this is me? Waking, mood swings, fatigue. Especially with excess estrogen, you can have acne, heavy periods, long cycles. This is even waking. Endometriosis, fibroid cysts. Estrogen dominance affects men and women. So when you're trying to work with helping the body clear estrogen, you really have to take a backward approach. Meaning you have to really support the liver, right? And you really have to dive into gut health because a lot of our estrogen is metabolized through our urine and through our stool. So if you're, it's like a compiling effect, right? If you're getting in all these Zenoestrogens, you're dealing with tons of stress, you're dealing with tons of infections in the gut or you're not metabolizing properly through that liver. It's just an accumulation and your body's reabsorbing a lot of this because we need to get rid of that hormone when we make it. So if you don't get rid of it, then it stays in the system and it continues to recirculate. Yeah, if you're not pooping, forget it. So is constipation, does that increase? Big one. Really? Oh yeah. Okay, so if a woman has symptoms like you mentioned earlier, acne, like PMS is really bad, like weird weight gain, also constipated, that's one of the first places that you'll end up looking. Now, when somebody's in this situation, walk me through, what are some of the things, do you look at the products they're using and say, okay, stop using these products? Is that the first thing you do? It's definitely a big part of it. So you gotta definitely eliminate inflammatory foods, right? That's first and foremost. So you wanna assess your diet, staying away from a lot of the sugar, a lot of process dairy, gluten is a big one, industrial seed oils are big, so really eliminate a lot of the inflammation there. Then you wanna look at your products, right? Look at the products like the Xenoestrogen, so staying away from fragrance, parabens, phthalates, things like that, BPA. So, you know, store your food and not plastic, right? It more sort of glass containers. And then you wanna really support your detox pathways because this is a big one because, you know, these pathways, they work so hard for us but they get overburdened. So if you think about it, our lymph system, our liver, our bowel movement, sweating, all of these things happen without us even having to think about it but they get overburdened from stress and these chemicals and all the crap that we're exposed to that a little bit is out of our control, right? The air, all the things, right? So we really wanna take a supporting approach in that way and then to really support hormones, you gotta dive into gut, gotta dive into gut and support liver. So do you think, because alongside with, you mentioned earlier, Becky, the declining testosterone levels, they're also, along those lines, we've been seeing declining fertility rates in women. Do you think those are connected? And what's interesting too is now that I'm thinking about it, I think they've noticed the lowering testosterone over, I wanna say the last five decades, that seems to be when a lot of these products started to be kind of permeate the market. You know, when you start to see more plastics, more waxes and you know, like non-stick coatings and stuff like that started to permeate the market. So do you guys think there's connected that the drop in fertility is connected to all of this stuff? We see a lot of people within fertility and it's crazy because once we go through their products and we start working on supporting the liver so that they can metabolize their hormones properly and then start working on their gut health. And sometimes we will order all this testing, right? So we order the gut testing, the hormone testing, all this stuff. But first we start them on a low inflammatory diet and liver support. And we have them really support their detox pathways. And before we can get to their testing, they're pregnant. Wow. And this is people who've done IVF, they've gone through it, right? And we get these portal messages and they're like pregnant and we see it all the time. And we're like, wow, all we did was support your detox pathways and change your diet. What does a low inflammation diet look like? So you wanna take things out like gluten and some grains can be inflammatory for people. The industrial seed oils, gluten, sugar. I mean, sugar is probably the worst thing. It's really, really inflammatory. And just really process packaged foods that they have all these fillers in it to keep them shelf stable, right? So we want people to eat stuff that's gonna go bad if you don't eat in a couple of days or you have to freeze it. So basically lean or, you know, not even lean, I guess, but organic proteins, we're very into animal protein. Shot me outside of the grocery store, right? Exactly, stay away from those aisles. Farmers markets, get to know your farmers, right? Co-ops, there's so many amazing resources out there to eat healthy. What's up, everybody? Today's workout program, we're gonna give away the RGB bundle, maps in a bulk, maps performance, maps aesthetic. Here's how you can win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it here on YouTube. That helps us with the algorithm. Also subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you do all of those things and you win, we'll let you know in the comment section. We're also running a workout program bundle sale. We put together a new bundle called the Time Crunch bundle. This includes maps 15 minutes, maps anywhere, maps prime, and the e-book eat for performance. This would all normally cost you over $300, but right now in this bundle for the special offer, it's only $99.99. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, here comes the show. Does just cutting cal, because I, so I see this in my space, right? In fitness that we noticed that just by cutting calories, we see improvements in the traditional blood markers, blood lipids, triglycerides, that kind of stuff. Heavily processed foods, which is a lot of what you guys are talking about, encourage overeating. I mean, they've done studies where they show it's like, I think on average, I'll eat 600 more calories a day, even if the macros are controlled for just because these foods are engineered to make you overeat. Does just reducing calories lower inflammation as well? Not always, because if it's a calorie, it's not a calorie. So if you're reducing calories, but you're eating those 100 calorie snack packs, no, of course not. That's gonna increase your inflammation. So it's more about getting nutrient dense foods, like adding organ meats, just making sure your food is clean. And we really don't do calorie counting with patients for the most part. Sometimes we will, someone's really having an issue with weight, but we don't really have to. We just kind of give you like, this is the best foods to eat. And those foods tend to be, they make you feel more satisfied, right? Because you're not eating all that sugar and processed food, which makes you more hungry. So you're eating more healthy fats and protein, you're full, like you feel good. I just saw a statistic today, Adam pulled it up earlier, that the 100 years ago, the average American consumed a half a pound of sugar a year. Today, the average American consumes 157 pounds of sugar a year. So essentially a half a pound of sugar a day. So we went from half a pound a year to half a pound a day. So it's a massive difference in the amount of sugar that we consume, which has got to play a role in some of the stuff. You were talking about gut health, let's get into that. So I've had gut issues for a long time. We all have. Yeah, well, you know, you're right. It's such a super, super common. Where's some of the first places you look when somebody comes to you and says, you know, I have constipation bloating. Yeah, we do a stool test. So we look to see in the large intestine, do you have an imbalance of good bacteria to bad bacteria, which is called dysbiosis? We look to see, do you have yeast overgrowth? Do you have parasites? Do you have H. pylori, which is a certain type of bacteria, which is actually pretty common. We see it a lot. Do you have leaky gut, which is extremely inflammatory. So we look at all those things. And what happens when you have those things is that, you know, certain types of bacteria create inflammation in the body. So inflammation in the body causes you to get, inflammation is at the root of everything. So it causes you to gain weight. It causes your hormones to go off balance. It causes your pituitary gland, which is kind of like the control center to like telling all the other glands what to do. It causes that not to function properly. So, you know, you really have to make sure that it's like adding fuel to a fire, right? So if you have bacteria that's creating more histamine, let's just say for an example, which histamine is an inflammatory chemical. So we need histamine, but we don't need excessive amounts of histamine. So if you have too much bacteria, which is making you produce more histamine, then you're going to have these issues. And the same thing with Candida, which is a yeast overgrowth. And the same thing with parasites, they're all making you very inflamed. And 70% of your immune system is in your gut. So it's going to affect you in so many different ways. And then there's like the gut brain connection and the gut skin connection. It's also related to the gut. Yeah, when my gut's off, my mood is different. Oh yeah. And definitely more irritable. I feel like slightly depressed, I would say. It definitely makes that. So I want to back up for a second. In my experience, when I've met functional medicine practitioners, the vast majority of them came to functional medicine because of their own struggles with trying to figure out their own health issues. Like they went through the traditional route, couldn't figure it out, had to do their own reading, had to do our research, had to meet with different people, eventually figured it out after years. And that took them down that path. Did both of you, is that really? I mean, I was sick. I mean, there was a time when I was living in mold, I could not drive my kids to school. I couldn't walk to the bathroom by myself. It was, I thought, I honestly didn't care if I was alive anymore. And the only reason I did is because of my kids. It was that bad. So. And you didn't know you couldn't figure out what it was for a long time or? Well, I have such a nose for mold. So I thought for sure I would know if I was living in mold. And I had, this was like, after I'd already been doing functional medicine. So I had gone into functional medicine because I had a thyroid issue that nobody could diagnose. And then I figured that out with another functional medicine practitioner. I got a lot of help, a lot better. Then I started, you know, knowing there was some symptoms left and that was mass cell activation syndrome and causing histamine intolerance. Okay, then I learned that whole picture and I felt great. And then all of a sudden I, there was a couple of things. One was a very stressful environment I was living in which was really making me very sick. And then was the mold picture. So mold happened right around the same time. And those two things together, I mean, I literally thought I was dying. So I did start helping people before this, but that made me get really, like really serious about this and start talking about, you know, other things. And that's why we talk a lot about mold because we know how terrible it is. And we see a lot of patients who have, it's ruining their lives. How did you end up figuring it out? Did you have to have someone come in? Well, I actually had my breast implants removed because I thought I had breast implant illness. I thought I did all the testing on my gut, my hormones, everything was fine. And I'm like, what is going on with me? I felt like I was drunk every day when I woke up and I had the worst brain fog. I mean, I literally felt like I was walking around in a constant dream. She couldn't see patients. I couldn't see patients anymore. I couldn't drive. How long ago was this? This was five years ago, maybe, yeah. So, and then, so I got my breast implants out and I ended up moving into a different room of the house and the mold was in the room I was sleeping in. It was coming, there was a crack in the concrete, water had gotten in and it was forming this perfect like nest of mold because there was a picture underneath the bed and the mold was coming, the water was coming up through the floor and creating this just perfect environment. So I couldn't smell it. So I was sleeping in this bed every night. So anyway, after I had my breast implants taken out, I moved into another room for recovery because the bed was like reclining, you know, whatever. And I was like, wow, this surgery, this is so, this is it, you know, like this was what it was. Oh my God, so totally can't confirm what you thought. Yes. No. No, yeah. It was, I thought it was the breast implants. That's what I mean. You confirmed that, but that was wrong. But it wasn't it. Yeah, so then I, so then we went to move the bed to get a different bed. We picked the bed up and the smell was insane. And I was like, oh my gosh. And we lifted the picture and just black mold all over. So I had to move out, remediate. I mean, all that. And then I was great. Wow. So do you find people who have mold issues? I mean a lot, a lot of people. And the symptoms of that are like what you said, brain fog and. It can be for some people like congestion, trouble with breathing. They get like that kind of stuff going on. But other people, it's really bad brain fog, really bad fatigue, body aches. You just feel kind of sick. And like you have to. Can you test someone for mold? Oh yeah. You have to go to the house and test it. Oh, okay. Nope. We test the body first because it's cheaper. I mean, it really is. But then, you know, you want to make sure that someone's out of the environment too. Cause a lot of people will go, well I lived in a wet basement, you know, when I was a kid and we don't know, is it from that? Or are you currently living in it? So we do both. Yeah. Okay. And then Crystal, how about you? What brought you into functional medicine? Did you have your own? Oh yeah. I went through so many hormonal, it was a home hormonal cascade. Remember that Beck? Yeah. So, you know, going through grad school, right? Was stress on the body. And then having kids and opening up businesses and all the things. My hormones were just crazy after I had declines. So I started doing some testing. I'm like, something has, you know, I have to do something. I was gaining weight, my face was breaking out. I was feeling like I was jumping out of my skin, like rage almost, which was not like me in the least. That's not her personality at all. So I was like, what is going on? So I started doing testing and testing and sure enough, I had estrogen dominance. I had higher testosterone and I also had gut infection. So once I really honed in the stress aspect, really worked on these drivers, a lot of these symptoms went away, right? And that's when I was like, I got to help people. I got to do this. And you were like, I'm going in this direction. Oh yeah. And how long ago was this for you? This was years ago. It was probably, what, 10 plus years ago. Did you guys know each other back then? Yeah. We went to school together. Oh, you did? But we weren't close then. She graduated earlier than me and then I graduated and then we connected after kids. And then the rest of the time, look at us now. Do you guys find, do you guys find more women seek out functional medicine practitioners initially? Okay. And the reason why I asked that, by the way, is because of moms and moms with their kids, they just, they, you know, they really pay attention. They notice changes and differences. I see this with my wife and she's very much on it. Like we got to figure out this root issue or whatever. So you guys see a lot more. We do because women are a lot more in touch with their feelings, you know? Like if they feel something, they acknowledge, okay, this is off. And I think a lot of men have been taught from a young age to get up and dust yourself off and don't cry and you're fine, right? So even when we have this metabolic assessment form that we do in everybody, and it's a zero to three zeros, the best three is the worst. And men are like zero, zero, zero, one, zero, zero. Women are like three, three, three, three, two, zero, three, three, three, like it's so funny. Like a key, like, okay. This is man, this is the man version. Or the wives will fill it out for the husbands and show up on the appointment. Oh yeah. The wives call to make the appointments a lot of the time. Unless it's a cold, if we get a cold, it's way worse. Yeah, then you're dying. Let's try to support that by the way. No, I'm just kidding. So what made you guys decide then to work together? Your podcast is great, by the way. People should check it out. It's really entertaining and also quite informative. What made you guys decide then to work together? Well, I had my practice and she had a practice and I really needed another doctor on my practice. She was like, Crystal, please. And I was like, she's so good. You know, I'm like, you're the only person I trust with my patients. Come to me. And I was like, and we talk 20 times a day, so let's just do this together. So we do. And it worked out really well. How many doctors you guys have now in the practice? Two doctors and then other practitioners. We're working on getting more in there though, because it's busy, you know? What's the most common issue that you're seeing people come see you for? Well, first off, I would imagine the average patient that you get has probably gone through all the traditional medicine, you know, Western medicine routes. And it seems like in my experience, it's like functional medicine is like the last stop. Like, okay, I tried this, I tried that. So, but what's the most common, I guess, issues that you guys see? His to me intolerance because of my books and thyroid because my first book is on thyroid. But we see everything. But we see everything. I mean, we work with everybody. It's really, the thing with functional medicine is it doesn't matter what you come to us for. We're gonna look for the root, period. And we're gonna look at your gut. We're gonna look at your hormones. And then we're gonna do a really full blood panel. And then we're gonna maybe do some other stuff too, depending on the person. Do you functional medicine practitioners have a different? Because when I go get blood panels done, I know what the lab core range says or whatever. Do you guys have a different range that you look at? Absolutely. So what are some of the differences that you're looking for? Thyroid is biggest. So the thyroid panel is notoriously known for being way too wide. So where you're looking at thyroid stimulating hormone, it might be like, what, a 0.5 to a 4.5 in conventional medicine and with us it's one to two. I mean. Really? Yeah, so we have patients where it's flagged. I'm blood working like when my doc said it's all good. Or there'll be like a four, a TSH will be a four. And they're like, they said it's fine. And I'm like, no, let's start. What are the ranges based off of that? Is it just off of averages? Is that what they're based off of? It's off of averages, but you're thinking this is averages of people who don't have thyroid issues. Right. Because that's how they do it. So that's not accurate. And then they will do only a T4 free, which doesn't really make sense because T4 has to be converted into T3 to be used in the body. And they're not checking T3, which is the most active form of thyroid hormone. So they could have like normal T4. Right. But because it's not getting converted, they have. To T3. They basically have low thyroid. Yeah. Or we're looking at the antibodies. So we're looking to see, do you have antibodies against your thyroid gland, whether it's causing you to have grave disease, which is a form of hyperthyroidism, or do you have Hashimoto's disease, which is a form of hypothyroidism, too little thyroid hormone, which we see it's a lot more common to have Hashimoto's with the low thyroid than it is to have graves. So those markers can come in years before you will see a change in the thyroid hormone levels. Because what's happening is your body's attacking itself at the thyroid gland, which is making you produce less thyroid hormone. And so if you just have the antibodies, but you haven't had it long enough to have the thyroid hormone reduced, you're not gonna catch it. Right. So we see people whose thyroid hormones look good, but their antibodies are out. And we know right away, which is by the way a gut issue, because that's where the immune system is. Oh, so back up for a second. So if you have creating thyroid antibodies, that's a form of autoimmune. Exactly. Your body's tagging the thyroid gland as it's place of attack. Okay, so it's like autoimmune is typically, your immune system attacking you, your own body. So it's attacking the thyroid. And usually the root of that, or quite commonly the root of that is the gut. So when you fix the gut, do you often see these thyroid antibodies drop? We can. And we don't chase thyroid antibodies only because with the thyroid, things go up and down a lot. Stress can impact it. So many things can impact. Hormones in general on blood, they go up and down, up and down. So we don't go, well, you feel great, but your antibodies aren't better. You're not better. You know what I mean? You just really have to manage the thyroid. So look at rerun your panels, full panels, to see where you're at. More of the hormones and stuff, yeah. Whoa. And so we're trying, if we catch someone in the phase where their thyroid hormones aren't low, but their antibodies are high, we're like, this is awesome. Let's get ahead of it. We work on the gut. We work on all the other hormones too because they all work together. And then a lot of the times it never even turns into hypothyroidism. So that's what the difference with functional medicine is. We're looking at just a little bit deeper and we're trying to catch things before they become apathology. What are some of the symptoms of these thyroid issues that someone may have that before their thyroid looks real crazy on a panel? Like what are, like just fatigue, waking? As huge hair loss, fatigue. Constipation. Constipation, because you have to think, so the thyroid is in charge of your metabolism, right? So if your thyroid gland is under functioning, everything's gonna slow down. So you're gonna slow down that motility too. So a lot of people get constipated and then their hair falls out and they start gaining weight. They're really fatigued, they're really cold because there are circulations off, like they're not. And then the opposite. Wow, wait a minute. So somebody who's like, I'm gaining weight, it's kind of weird, constipated and I'm really cold. I mean, those are all like red flags for that. Hold hands and feet. Oh, interesting. Now you said constipation earlier could affect how you get rid of estrogen. Do you see estrogen dominance often with an issue like this then? Yep, and the more, when you have more estrogen, it makes your thyroid more present, like to your immune system. So it actually will make your immune system attack your thyroid more. So like a positive feedback loop. Wow, okay, so what's interesting about this is obviously all the hormones communicate with each other and they all influence each other. So somebody who goes and just takes thyroid or just goes and supplements with a hormone could actually be just kicking the can down the road or making things worse because... So much worse because especially if you don't know how you metabolize estrogen. So this is what we see a lot. We see people taking estrogen replacement, but their doctor never checked the way they metabolize estrogen, which is the testing that we do on the Dutch test. It looks at the different pathways that we use to metabolize estrogen. So they may not know they have an issue there and they may just see low estrogen, but we see, yeah, maybe their estrogen's low, but they're metabolizing it on the wrong pathway. And that's a problem with the liver and or the gut and they're not supporting that. So they're just giving them more estrogen and that estrogen's getting metabolized down the wrong pathway. It's not good. Yeah, so a Dutch test is really good. It's a urine test. That's the one you do all day long, right? It's a, yeah, it's one that's, yep, five times the day. So you're assessing throughout the day. I was gonna say, do you do that because of the fluctuating levels of... Absolutely, because your hormones are pulse. The brain signals your hormones to be pulsed. So there's a time and a place to check certain hormones and blood work, right? But we really love the Dutch test because it's showing an average of how you're producing your hormones throughout the day. And specifically hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA, cortisol, right? So, and then it's showing us how you're breaking them down and metabolizing them. So you can't get that in blood work. So so many times we get these certain hormones back in blood work and it's just given you a little piece of the puzzle. And if you're not testing at the correct time, that's another thing. Because they already tell you when your cycle already passed when you got blood work and it's important. You got to know where you are in your cycle. Well, that was just gonna ask that. And also, like I know with like testosterone and men it peaks in the morning and starts to drop off. I know cortisol is supposed to be highest in the morning. So you could go get a test, the traditional one. It's a snapshot. Exactly. And maybe that snapshot just so happens to be within range but you don't know that the rest of the day, like maybe cortisol, you test it and it seems low but it was at night but they don't know that or it seems high but it was in the morning. So you need to have something that's done. Is a Dutch test not what you would normally get from your doctor? You have to ask for it specifically? Yeah, functional medicine doctors or practitioners to attend. Are they moving in that direction? Or are they just not? I haven't seen it yet just because people will say, I showed this test to my doctor and she just didn't know how to read it or whatever. And I'm like, okay. And it's just, it is what it is. But yeah, I haven't seen a big shift yet that way. When I years ago, I'd say maybe, that's gotta be at least 15 years ago now. I had a wellness studio and I heard about functional medicine and I remember at one point, I looked for a functional medicine practitioner and I couldn't find one. This was 15 years ago. It was really, really hard to find one. Now it's much more common. Has your guys' space just been exploding? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I love it. It's awesome because it's really in this, I mean, I feel like functional medicine really is blowing up because people are curious. They're sick and tired of feeling like crap. And not getting answers. Yes, and not getting answers or being just gaslighted or all these different things from docs when they don't feel good, they wanna get to the root of what's going on. And that's where functional medicine is amazing. So there's so many practitioners out there. We support them. That's what we have on our podcast because we're like, everybody needs this. We want everyone to know whether you work with us or somebody else, you need this. Yeah, you said gaslighted. That's such a good term because like my experience with my gut health issues is like I went, they tested different things like, well, you're fine. Right. Like, no, I'm not. I'm fine. No, I don't feel good. They make you feel like you're going crazy. Yeah. And you can't figure out what's going on. Well, and they're trained a little bit differently, right? So of course we need them for specific things. Like I can't do a colonoscopy on somebody. I can't do an endoscopy on someone. So of course it's beautiful when we have this synergistic relationship, right? Where I, you know, when they have their primary and they work with us because there's a time in need for everything, but it's true. Like, you know, they just don't know, they don't know how to do the functional testing or how to read it. They're not trained in it and that's okay, right? But I'm hoping it's going to get better. Yeah. One thing I like about what you guys do, your space and also specifically about you guys is it's very empowering versus traditional Western medicine feels very disempowering. Whereas you guys are like, look, let's help you figure this out. Let's work together to figure out the root cause. And it feels good to go down that path to figure things out versus being like, well, this looks okay. I think it's all in your head type of deal. Or given an antidepressant, which happens more times than I'd like to hear. Symptom relief. Oh yeah. Or it's in your head. They're like, no, you're fine. Take this antidepressant, which is what I was told 15 years ago when I was figuring out, or 20 maybe at this point years ago when I was trying to figure out my issues. And I was like, take this antidepressant. I'm not depressed. I don't feel well. Like something's wrong with me. And they're like, nope, you look good on the outside. And I'm like, great. I don't feel right. Yeah. The symptom, anxiety is probably another one. Oh, huge. Energy, low energy. Try this and you'll feel better when there's really kind of a root issue of what's going on. You guys put something together. I thought this was fascinating where you're actually trying to teach people how to figure some of the stuff out on their own. What motivated you both to do that? Cause I think that's, I think this is the first time I've seen anything like that from your space. Yeah. It was, it's really, you know, we practice one on one with patients. So we are in the trenches, right? And not everybody can work with a practitioner. And that's what, it breaks our heart, you know, Sydney. So we really wanted to provide something where we can teach you how we, where we can break down testing, teach you how to support your body, provide you with the tools that you need and support your body with where you are at. So we really created a program to do that. And we're excited about it. What's the, tell me about the quiz. Becky, you were telling me a little bit about this quiz like questionnaire. What are you helping people figure out through this quiz process? So we want you to try to figure out where could this be stemming from, right? So you take a quiz and it, and the quiz is broken down into the gut, the hormones, blood sugar, thyroid, electrolytes, sex hormones. So it's broken down really a lot. And then you can go, wow, I have a lot of high points in this area. And if I can't afford to do everything, which is again, why we wanted people to be able to do it kind of at home, this is where I'm gonna focus on. Like, let's say you got a lot of stuff in the gut. Then you're like, this, I'm gonna do, you know, this is the test I'm gonna order, and I'm gonna buy this module and I'm gonna learn how to like, see what my test results mean and how to help support this. So that's kind of where the quiz comes in. And if you need to pick it up, do it in pieces, you know, that's where the quiz comes in. Is this similar to what you would ask a patient when they come in? Is you would- It's the same quiz that we work with one-on-one. We just put it in the program too. Okay, so I'd go on there and fill it out. And then based on my answers or my scoring, I would be like, oh, okay. I know I feel like crap, but based off of this quiz, this is directing me in hormone imbalance or this is directing me. So then I can go and look a little deeper. Right, and then you're gonna, and the program that the quiz comes with is gonna go through all of that as far as teaching you, but then to test it and to get a protocol, you can do one of the extra courses, which are, you know, hormones or mold or the microbiota or heavy metals. Like it's, we broke it down so that you can say, I wanna do all of it or you can go, I can't. So I'm gonna just focus on this one thing which seems to be the worst. You know what's interesting about this is that you may think you have an issue, and I learned this from you, Becky, working with, because you've been a friend for a while now and you're always so gracious. Anytime Jessica or I text you, you'll answer questions for us. And you may have, for example, gut issues, gut health issues or think that's the root and you'll think, okay, we'll take a probiotic or eat yogurt, but if it's like a histamine issue, then that actually makes it worse. And so it's like, it's really important to figure this out because you could actually do something think this is the right thing, but actually go in the wrong direction. Especially when it comes to histamine, it's like all the things we're taught are really good for you or high in histamine, like avocados, fermented foods, bone broth. So people do a whole 30 or whatever and they go, wow, I got really bad when I did this. And it's not that the food isn't good for you, it's that for you, it's too much histamine. You can't break it down. What's histamine used for in the body? It's used, so if we have like a pathogen or an allergen, our body, our mass cells, which are part of the immune system, released all these different inflammatory chemicals, histamine is one of them. So it will cause inflammation in the body and that way your white blood cells can come in and find the pathogen and do what it's supposed to. Then you're supposed to break down that histamine. If you are lacking the enzymes that break down histamine and there's a lot of things that cause you to lack those enzymes, like gut issues, then you can't. And so- It just sits in your body. Yeah, and then you have receptor sites all over the body. So you get all these random symptoms you can have. We have a lot of mass cells in our skin. We have mass cells in the brain. We have some people in the digestive system. So some people will have a lot of digestive distress. Some people will have hives or flushing or any dermatitis, stuff like that. Some people will have anxiety and insomnia because histamine is very excitatory to the brain. So they try to go to sleep, they're wide awake. And it's because that especially over the day your histamine's building up if you're not breaking it down. So they can't sleep. So it has a really good purpose. It's just that when we can't break it down, that's the problem. So I noticed for me when my gut health is really bad I do get like really minor, but I do get hives. Oh yeah. So that's just because I'm not breaking down the histamine. And because you're probably producing bacteria or you have bacteria in there that's making more histamine in your body than the enzyme that's made in that lining of the gut is broken down. It's not working well, which is the DAO enzyme. So you're not breaking down that histamine. And so you may be more active in your skin. Like your mast cells in your skin may be really active. So for you, your symptom is hives. So I'm just throwing this out there. What a simple way to be like, well, maybe it's a histamine issue. Let me take an anti-histamine if my symptoms get better, or is that not? No, so the reason, yeah. And also when you take an anti-histamine, number one, it tells your body you have enough histamine. I'm sorry, it tells your body you don't have enough histamine. So you produce more. Oh, that sucks. Number two, it reduces that enzyme that breaks down histamine. Oops, okay. So yeah. So the best way to test it is to eat high histamine food. So fermented foods, yogurts, alcohol. I mean, how many people flush when they drink alcohol? That's the best way to test. What about how many people's nose runs when you're eating? That is usually due to high histamine food and you're not breaking it down well. So, soured foods, strawberries. Avocado. Avocado, dried fruits, like those types of things. And I have a whole list in my books and on my website and we have it in the program too. We have different scenarios for what type of food do you need to be eating. Anyway, you test that, let's say for a week, even a couple days, because some people are like, wow, I feel terrible, right? So your current symptoms increase or you get new symptoms with those foods. Then you take them out and you feel a lot better. You have a histamine intolerance. Now, is a low histamine diet the solution or is that just the, until you figure out the solution? It helps a lot because we're reducing that histamine load. But we talked about that histamine bucket and we talked about this actually on the episode I was on with you years ago. And it's the different things like estrogen dominance because estrogen actually makes us release more histamine, stress, mold, gut infections, thyroid issues, vitamin deficiencies. Those things fill up this bucket. You try to add a high histamine food on that top of that bucket. You can't handle it. So we work, what Functional Medicine does is work to get through that bucket, check those things off the list. We cleared that, cleared that. And then you can start adding the food back and you might not add every food back but chances are you're gonna add a lot back. Do you guys see a lot of women who come to you after getting off birth control? Because I mean, obviously birth control is hormones. And I would imagine if you take them, obviously it will change your hormone profile. When women get off, do they oftentimes have a tough time getting their bodies to re-regulate? They do, they do. So oftentimes a lot of women come to us wanting to get off birth control, right? So that's when I'm like, okay, we really need to support all the areas of your body so we can make your body feel as safe as possible and to support your body so you can feel better coming off of it, right? But it takes time. It takes time because once that brain to ovary connection, you're not ovulating on birth, on most birth control. So when you're not ovulating, it's gonna take time for your cycle to really start to regulate again. And you can have a lot of surges of hormones depending on what other things you're going through. And if your gut health isn't in check, if your diet isn't in check, it just is a cascade event, right? So birth control is a big, it's a big, big thing that we see in the practice causing issues with patients. So your goal is let's get you healthy as healthy as possible while you go off so that your body can handle this change. Yeah, because there is a time and place too. You know, there's some patients who are dealing with extreme endometriosis, a lot of issues like that. And if they've exhausted all options, sometimes getting on that support can be helpful. It can just for symptoms. I am not like against all things, right? There is a time and place, but it's thrown around like candy and it's dangerous, you know, especially for young kids, young kids. This is a chemically induced menopause. Yes. So you put your 13 year old on it because she has acne and that's what you're doing with her hormones. And we do the Dutch tests and their hormones are gone. They're not showing up. How crazy is that? Like how many times we use medications off-label, you know? Birth control, prevent getting pregnant. Oh, look, it might clear up your skin. Oh, look, it might change your mood. Hey, look, you might, you know, do this other thing. Have you guys seen the studies? I brought this up a long time ago, but there's more of them now coming out. Have you seen the studies on women who meet their partners on birth control? People talking about this a lot. And then they get off birth control. And they're not attracted to them anymore. No. Yeah. It's wild. Isn't that wild? I know. Oh, that's so good. In fact, I heard this woman. They're a porn partner. Oh. So I was, there was this one article I read and this woman said that she met this guy, she was on birth control, fell in love with him, whatever, loved how much he, like what he smelled like. Went off birth control, hated. Was not attracted to him. His smell and was not attracted to him anymore. Yeah, it's wild. It's so crazy. And there's studies on women on birth control, not birth control. And they'll take pictures of men, their faces, and they'll digitally masculinize the face or feminite. So it's the same face, more feminine version, more masculine version. And when they're on birth control, they prefer the more feminine version. When they're off of it, they prefer the more masculine version. So how interesting. So it's funny, like foremost drive our behaviors. Oh, for sure. Is the point of the whole thing. So you guys, you guys must see some pretty interesting changes in people's, I guess, behaviors and personalities when they balance hormones out. That's true. Where they feel different and they're acting a little different. They tend to feel better. They go through a little period where they feel maybe worse. Sometimes when they get off and then think, you know, calm down and we work with their pathways or whatever, you know, we're doing and then they feel a lot better. You really have to take your person to person depending on what their body is going through. You know, if they're under a lot of stress and they have a lot going on, I mean, if you take them off birth, if they want to come off birth control, that's their choice, right, for their body. You have to be careful with that. I mean, as you could just send them into a cascade. So I'm wanting to make their body feel safe as possible, right, supporting and figuring, okay, like what is going on within your body right now? How can we support and get you, you know, optimally functioning the best as you can. And then we can do that. So when it comes to hormones with people and you're looking at how they drive people's behaviors, you guys talked about, you mentioned PMS a couple of times. What is normal PMS and what is not normal PMS? My goodness. Because I feel like obviously that, you know, you know, watch TV shows and movies and, you know, you see the caricatures and the, you know, stereotypes or whatever. And then I hear, well, you're not supposed to have symptoms like that. It's like, what's normal? Yeah, it's, so it's very normal to have, to know. First off, I always recommend women especially to track their menstrual cycle, get to know your menstrual cycle, right? And the different phases and what are the different phases to feel during them. Because you can utilize, you know, your workouts depending on the phases that you're in, you can, you're gonna feel more confident in different phases. You're gonna, and you can really map your cycle and know, okay, this is a normal feeling that I'm experiencing, right? So when you talk about PMS, a little bit of cramping, a little bit of moodiness before your period is completely normal. But if this is a very life-changing event for you, like- It's like de-apilitating. I gotta stay home from work at school. Yeah, there is something underlying going on. So I definitely recommend anybody listening here, talk to your doctors, definitely get to the bottom of that. But work with a functional doc that really knows hormones. Really knows hormones, knows what to look for, how to support your cycle, and how to work with hormones in general, functionally, right, with the testing. What are common issues with PMS where you're like, okay, this is something we need to look at? Heavy periods. So heavy periods, clots, really long cycles, really short cycles. Really bad pain. Oh yeah, pain is a big one, especially when I see a lot of pain or pain during sex, you know, you gotta really think, okay, what else could be going on here? Am I dealing with any cysts, fibroids, endometriosis type things? So anything extreme, right? But the pain is a big one. How often is it, because we've talked about gut health and I keep hearing, every time I talk to a functional medicine practitioner, they talk about how that's quite often the root cause is coming from the gut and you guys have talked about how it can cause estrogen dominance. We're talking about PMS issues. How often would you say, no, this is on an individual basis, but generally speaking, how often are those symptoms coming from gut issues? Because the gut, really. Yeah, that in supporting the liver, you know, really supporting, especially with estrogen and cycles, really looking at your progesterone estrogen ratio, right? Especially, you know, for women. And yeah, you gotta support the gut. You gotta make sure you're babying and taking care of that liver, supporting that phase one, phase two, which the Dutch test looks at. So if anybody's interested in wanting to really do a deep dive, that is the test for you because it's, you're gonna know, okay, what do I need to be supporting, you know, as far as nutritionally? What do I need to be supporting as far as co-factors, right? For helping a lot of that detoxification. How do I, you know, am I clearing properly, right? Am I, do I have a healthy phase one? Am I blocked somewhere? So you, it's very specific to the person and there's so much you can do to help as, you know, to metabolize your estrogen. But if you don't know, you know, you can just go out and take a bunch of supplements you hear from someone on Instagram and you can make the problem worse. Like dim, like dim is a big supplement we see overused for the wrong people. And that helps. So DIM is that reduce it or changes the conversion of estrogen to a less. What it does is so in, it's a form of, it's in the cruciferous veggies, right? But it's a larger compound when you supplement with it, you get a lot larger doses of it. Yeah, you have to eat a lot of broccoli. Don't go eat a bunch of broccoli, you're gonna feel like crap. So what it does is it really, in phase one estrogen metabolism, we have three different phases. We have a two OH, a four OH and a 16 OH. And what happens is, is we want to favor mostly that two OH protective pathway in that phase one estrogen metabolism. Four OH and 16 OH is more proliferative and inflammatory. So what DIM does, yes, it's, yeah. So it pushes you more so out of that, those pathways, favoring more of that two OH pathway, right? And then we gotta go on to phase two. Once we get you favoring the healthier pathway, then we gotta get you clearing that estrogen. So what does your phase two look like? What does your gut look like, right? So yeah, you wanna be careful. I was just gonna say, when would DIM be a bad idea? Because if you, first of all, it can really move the needle on estrogen numbers. So if estrogen is high, you might consider DIM. But if estrogen is not high, but your pathways are off, it doesn't mean that you need to take DIM. It means that you just may need some sulforaphane. So sulforaphane is really good at helping with the pathways but not lowering the needle on estrogen. And we have a gene that helps us metabolize estrogen. If that enzyme is slow and you take DIM, you're gonna feel bad. So you're gonna start to feel, we have people who come to us on it and they feel worse. And that's because it's the Comte gene. So if that enzyme is slow and they take DIM, they won't feel well. So they'd be a better person to take sulforaphane instead. So that's what we try to teach. Like we get that detailed in our program. Like teaching people, don't take this. It's not right for you, but this would be better for you. Well, yeah, it's like if you have, you could have certain symptoms and it'd be too much of a nutrient, but it may look similar to having too little of that nutrient. Then you supplement with that nutrient. I had an aunt this actually happened to where she was having peripheral neuropathy. So she was having like tingling in her extremities and she had read online that it could be a deficiency of B vitamins. So she was supplementing a tremendous amount of B vitamins and it kept getting worse, well, eventually she went and saw functional medicine practitioner. It was too much B vitamins. That's what was causing the issue. So she's like, oh, it's these pills that I'm taking with all these B vitamins. These six will really give you a lot of numbness and tingling if you take too much. Long-term high doses, yeah. Is DIM ever recommended to the men then? Also with hydrogen? Yeah, we look at the same thing. We look at the pathways. We look at their comp-T gene to see how that's functioning. And we should- They're gut health and check. Yeah, they're gut health because the stool test will tell you about phase three of estrogen metabolism. So if you're pooping it out, so there's calcium to glucrate if you need help there, but the other pathways are okay. So again, it's pretty complicated. I mean, it's not an easy thing to understand but this is why we're like, we don't want people just to start taking this stuff. We wanna teach them about it. What I like about functional medicine is, I mean, if you break, if you get into it, it is very complicated. But the solutions are not so complicated. The sense that, okay, your gut's off it may be off in this direction or this direction, but the solutions are very similar in the sense that where we can work with. In other words, I could have issues with my physical health and exercise can build muscle. It could burn body fat. It could burn more calories. But regardless of what my goals are, exercise will help all of them. It's kind of the direction I'm going. You've talked about supporting the liver. What does that look like? Is this based off of liver enzymes being off or not? That's a sign that this is a real problem. This is a big issue. Okay, so when liver enzymes are off, we've gone too far. Yeah, okay. So we do this regardless. And we see people just in general who have issues with detoxing. I do personally, and I've talked to you and Jess about this with Aurelius because sometimes you have gene mutations that make you not detox very well. So there's different scenarios in which you don't use your detox pathways properly. So you want to talk about the different ways we support it. Yeah, so we always like to start gentle with patients. So first and foremost, the liver is constantly working for us without us even having to think about it. Okay, so it's always detoxing, always working. But again, going back to we get overburdened by all the crap that we're exposed to. So whenever I'm trying to work with detox pathways, you've got to eliminate the crap, the crap out of the diet. That's first and foremost, sugar, industrial seed oils, inflammatory foods, like a lot, like a lot of excess processed grains, even inflammatory dairy for some patients. Some patients tend to handle it good once they've worked on other underlying drivers if it's good sources, right? So really nourishing the body with nutrient-dense foods is really supportive for the liver. Get in lots of color, right? Lots of good color fiber. And then gentle castor oil packs are great. They're really helpful at stimulating the lymphatic system. How do those work? Did you just put them on? Oh yeah, you put them right over the liver. So I had just water. I know. So how does that work? Is it like absorbed through the skin? It does. And it works with the bile docs. Like it really helps. It's helpful for motility, for bowel movements. Because I know you can take castor oil, but that's totally different. Yeah. I'm gonna challenge you to take a castor oil pack and put it over your gut. What's it gonna do to me? And you tell me if you poop the next time. Yes! You're going to. It's not a laxative effect. It's very, very gentle. Very, very gentle. But it does work. It does. And we do them over the liver usually, but I just like to people who don't believe, I'm like, put it over your gut and see what happens and you will poop. Well, look, I've learned now like at this point where I don't, you know, if I'm talking to people that I trust and I see fields where people, where things are being used on a regular basis consistently because there's, because people see value, that there's some value there. So I used to be that guy where I'd be like, oh, that's, you know, that doesn't work or whatever. Like I remember people rubbing like, you know, bengue on their knee and I'd be like, that's so dumb. It doesn't, you know, work that way. It doesn't absorb to the knee. But then I learned later on, well, all the cooling feeling confuses the pain signaling and you feel like you have less pain. So it does work, you know? So, yeah, so I know better now. It doesn't penetrate to the liver necessarily, but it's what it's doing like with the lymphatic system and helping move things out. It's awesome. It's very, very gentle. And then of course there's lots of nutrients, right? I love NAC, right? That's really, really good. Your B vitamins, magnesium is really important for liver health. What do you guys think of SAM-E? SAM-E, really? Yeah, some people don't do well with this. Some people don't. It depends how their methylation is and their gene mutations and all that. So I take SAM-E and I feel great on SAM-E. And it's almost like a mild antidepressant for me, which I know how... So you could have the anti-HFR gene mutation. And I'm gonna see that because you did your test. I did. I did the test that you asked us to do. Did you do a Dutch test? No, he did the genetic testing. I'd be interested to see your Comaching, like your phase two, if you feel really good on SAM-E. Okay, all right. It makes me give me a little bit of energy. So I can... Yeah? We'll dissect it. Run it. We'll dissect it. Great. I mean, look, I love this stuff because just as a trainer, and I don't deal with nearly as complicated, I never dealt with nearly as complicated as deep as the stuff that you guys work with, but just through exercise. I know. And just through basic diet. Like I understood diet from calories, macronutrients, and then how at one point I got somewhat educated because I did work with a functional medicine practitioner who was a friend of mine. I could identify things like food intolerances. And then I understood SIBO and all that stuff later on, but I never tested. I never understood how to do that stuff. But I could see such a huge individual variance from person to person, which is exercise, which is very basic in comparison. So what you guys are dealing with, I mean, the individual variance could be so wide. So when people fill out this quiz at home, that's gonna help direct them to figure out their own individual needs. So they could figure it out for themselves. Yeah, where to look. Where to look for themselves. That's really cool. Yes. We're excited. Like the basics for everybody. We teach you how to all the ways to gently detox. We go through all of it, like really detailed. We tell you exactly what to eat based on your situation. We talk about stress, we talk about trauma, like all the things you can possibly do. And then if you're doing all these things and you still need more, we walk you through the testing. How do you guys feel about popular supplements in my space, like creatine? I mean, when I first got started, creatine was like this, oh, it's a great muscle builder. Now there's all these great studies on improving cognitive health and heart health. Making a big comeback. Yeah, so is there any, like anybody who shouldn't be supplementing with it, or do you guys? Just monitor your kidney health. That's my biggest thing. I don't see a lot of issues with it, but if I know someone, especially a lot of athletes and stuff that I take care of, if I know someone's supplementing with it, I'm just keeping an eye on things. You just gotta. Now, what about protein intake? You guys both talked about animal, good sources of animal protein. And I know gram-program in the athletic performance studies. So these are studies based off of muscle and athletic performance, okay? That's all they're looking at. That animal sources of protein on a gram-program basis are just more effective. In other words, you have to eat a lot more plant protein to get the same benefits I should say in athletic performance as animal protein. Are you guys pro-high protein diet for the most part? Absolutely, 100%. Now, why is that? What do you guys see from that? Just overall, the amino acids for mental health alone, supportive for perimenopause, going into menopause. I mean, cause we're more insulin resistant, so that's so important. And it's just for blood sugar, I mean, so many things, your hormones. Protein is so essential for the body. And I will tell you, when we start with patients who are not eating protein and then they switch, it is a night and day difference in their symptoms and how they feel. Yeah, I see that. I mean, I saw that with working with clients all the time. Now, would you guys, so we in our space advocate for pretty high, like 0.6 to one gram per pound of body weight. Are you guys doing the same thing? Oh, wow, that's phenomenal. We find, do you find it's hard with people who you talk to too hard for them to reach that? Oh, it's difficult. Oh yeah, look, I'll tell you what, if I want someone to lose weight and I used to tell people count your calories, count your macros, the whole thing, then I realized, just hit your protein targets, eat your protein first, avoid heavily processed foods, everybody lost weight. I know, yeah. Just those things right there. I know, and you feel so much better. So I would love to ask you guys what you guys think about this because for a long time, what kind has been implied is that, humans are these eating machines. We evolved during times of scarcity. So if you just put food in front of us, we're just going to eat until we're super obese and then we kill ourselves. But what seems to be more true is that our bodies naturally regulate themselves to not be underweight and to also not be overweight. But what's important is that we eat foods that we evolve with, because if we eat heavily processed foods, then the obesity becomes that kind of is the default. Because when I have people eat whole natural foods, high protein, which is what we probably ate for most of human history, and I tell them, eat as much as you want, they end up with a good, normal body weight. Do you guys- And the calories stay within the range because they're satiated, you know what I mean? So it's not this constantly trying to feel satisfied with all this garbage. It's a totally different story. When you eat whole foods, you feel full within a good-sized portion. You don't need to overeat to feel something. How much does that affect just the microbiome itself? Because I know the microbiome changes with what you eat. How much is just eating whole natural foods affect the microbiome? Oh, it's so important at feeding bacteria, helping it replicate and grow. I mean, for insulin, for blood sugar, so many things. I mean- And inflammation. Yeah, absolutely. What are some reasons that people, cause I know what I do when someone can't lose weight and they're tired and I know what to look at, but I've had, it isn't super common, but I've had times where it was like almost unexplained, like this isn't, almost kind of doesn't make sense. What places do you look when that, is it hormones? Is that the first place you look? No, it's everything we've talked about. Gut is huge. Hormones are definitely big, thyroid is big. But then even mold, because it's so inflammatory. So when we see people who are like, I've done everything and I can't lose weight and we'll check them for mold, they have it. So the way I explained it, I had this happen to me once with a client where we did everything, couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. Her calories were so low. I'm like, I don't wanna go any lower. We're trying to speed up her metabolism through my traditional methods. This was at least, I wanna say, this must have been at least 15 years ago. And then she worked with the functional medicine practitioner that I at the time was friends with and they worked with and helped heal her gut. And then the weight came off. And the way that it was explained to me was when the body is under a lot of stress, one of its protective mechanisms is to store body fat. Because for most of human history, one of the number one stressors was not finding enough food. So your body's like, hold on to body fat and don't build muscle because that burns too many calories. Is that accurate? Would you say it's accurate? 100%. And that's what I go back to is when someone comes to me and they're like, I'm doing everything right. Like I'm eating clean, I'm exercising, I'm not losing weight. I'm like, okay, we need to make your body feel as safe as possible because that's what's happening. Especially with, we see it all the time with perimenopause, shifting into menopause where we have all these hormonal dysregulations going on because your body's fluctuating and transitioning. So when I see that weight loss resistance, you have to make the body feel as safe as possible because it is, it's gonna say, there's no way I'm gonna let you lose any weight right now. I'm gonna hold on to anything to make me feel safe and keep me safe. So it's something that I see often. It must be a pleasant surprise for you guys to see patients who come in for fatigue, skin issues, my hair's falling out, all these health issues. Then they work with you and they're like, oh, I lost weight. I know. Is that like common? It's very common. It can take time for some patients, especially hormones take time. So if it's hormone related, you just give it time, stay the course, do all the things. Stress is a big one. I mean, we gotta get a hold of stress and I know that we get the big eye roll with that because it's hard. It's so hard. We're stressed, everybody's stressed. So you really do have to put the proper tools in place to help your body because if not, it's just, it's a big thing that we see drive a lot of things in the practice. So this at home, functional medicine at home course that you guys created, this is out now, right? We're gonna drop this episode, it'll be out. Has it been out? Or is it gonna be out with this episode? It's coming out with the episode. It's coming out with the episode. And the goal is, and again, this is why I was excited to have you on, because I think this is the first, I've ever heard of anything like this, is you get this and it helps you direct yourself to where to look. And then from there, if they wanna go deeper, they can go deeper, there's more modules they can purchase. And then those extra modules, Becky, you were telling me, you can help people read, do labs and then help them kind of read their own labs. You can order the lab yourself. You order the lab from us basically and then we teach you how to interpret that lab. And then what do you do based on that interpretation? Wow. So you guys must be amazing moms with your kids then when they're sick and stuff. You kind of know where to look. I can do my best. You know how kids are. You guys were cracking us up on the other episode talking about your kids. We go through the same thing. My son's like, if I hear gut mom, one more time, you know? When you take your kids to the doctor and for like, well, first off, I was gonna say, you probably don't unless it's like absolutely necessary. Right, exactly. How often have your kids had to be on antibiotics? They've never been. What? No. Never? Well, no, Jake, my oldest was once for pneumonia. In that case, it's in him. He was in the hospital with a 106 degree fever. Time and place. Which I diagnosed because they couldn't at the AR, so. Oh my gosh. How old are your kids? Jake is 13. Levi is 10 and Liam is eight. One time antibiotics. Wow, and you never? Never. And yours 12 and? 12 and nine. Wow. Antibiotics are super over. I mean, it's better now, but you know when I was a kid? Yeah, they're super old. I mean, when we were kids. I got them all the time for ear infections. Left and right. I'm like, gee, I wonder why I had gut issues. I know, that's what I'm saying. Exactly. Hammer me. And a lot of times this is really good for anyone listening. If you're having issues with your kids, right? And your kid was given antibiotics at birth, which happens all the time. Or the mother was given antibiotics because sometimes they give them to you towards the end, it depends on what's going on. Or what is that bacteria that they'll find when they do, they'll do like a vandal culture and they'll say, oh, you gotta put you on these antibiotics. Streppy? Yeah, so that, exactly. So, and your kids having reactions to foods like food sensitivities, it's the gut. It's those food sensitivities are almost always caused by gut issues. So we won't run a food sensitivity test until we've treated the gut. Because if we run it first, they're gonna show all these foods that are supposedly sensitive to. That'll change after they fix the gut. It changes the time. You fix the gut. And then a lot of the time it wasn't really just that food, it was just they had leaky gut usually and then that's just causing an inflammatory response to most things. So that happened to me. So when my gut was really bad, I know I've told you guys, I know I've told you this story. When my gut was really bad and I eventually had to figure it out, I was sensitive to peanuts, egg whites, all dairy in any form, even dairy fat. Gluten, I was so hypersensitive that if I had two breadcrumbs on something, that was it. Broccoli, I think that was it. And eventually after healing my gut, I could have everything except for dairy proteins. Dairy proteins still bother me, but I could do dairy fat, I could do butter all day long. So it totally changed my food sensitivities. I'll run it if we feel like we need to move the needle a little bit more. If I'm still seeing issues with digestion, even after really diving in the gut, there's a time and place for it, right? It's usually after working on the gut. And then nowadays with like SIBO, which is a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, if you're positive for that, the treatment used to have to be antibiotics, but now you can do herbal antimicrobials. And there was this like landmark study that came out, I don't wanna say four years ago maybe, that compared the antimicrobials, the natural ones to the antibiotics, they were just as effective. Yeah, sometimes the antibiotics are less and you have to do rifaxmen, enneomycin, and you have to do multiple rounds and insurance usually doesn't cover it. So it's thousands of dollars and it's crazy. And if you can just do it antimicrobial supplement format and that will usually get rid of it. When someone takes antibiotics, should they take probiotics at the same time? Yeah, just not within like an hour or two. Okay, and that helps offset some of the negative effects. And then once they finish, of course, keep going. Yeah, and even up it maybe a little bit. And check your gut. Well, this has been awesome. Yes. Thank you so much for coming to the studio and coming on the show. Look, everybody should listen to your podcast. It's very informative, but it's also got an entertainment component. That's one thing that I enjoy about your show is it's fun to listen to, it's not just information. So check out Health Babes. And then in the intro, I'll put where people can get this at home functional medicine kit test and where people can help themselves. So thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Great episode. By the way, they have a course that you can enroll in that'll teach you essentially how to become your own functional medicine practitioner. So these courses teach you how to read labs. They teach you how to look for symptoms. And then those help direct you to solve some of your own problems. One of the first courses I've ever seen like this, it's exceptional. And these women again are the best in their field. And what we did is we partnered with them so we could offer you a discount. So if you're interested, go to healthbabesmp.com and don't forget, use the code MINDPUMP. Check out what they have. You could take $50 off any of their courses, but they really do specialize in helping you help yourself. So instead of hiring somebody, which can be cost you thousands of dollars, you can get one of these courses and get pointed in the right direction. And again, this stuff is totally brilliant. Once again, it's healthbabesmp.com. They come highly recommended from MINDPUMP. Today, we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong, well-developed chest. When I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time, chest was up there with the work. Yeah, it was for me. It was for me for sure. I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body. I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because of the form and technique.