EP 24 - THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH: PART 2
This week on Get Your Shit Together…
🧡 What is actually killing you - continued from Part 1!
🧡 The heart disease culprits that you haven’t heard of, and why cardiovascular health is “downstream”.
🧡 Practical ways to start supporting your best heart health that aren’t jogging or giving up tasty food
Resources & Good Shit
Episodes
🧡 The GYST Mini Course
Through 4 video lessons we’ll walk you through how to nourish your health through food, sleep, stress management, and movement. Dive in for a taste of nutritional therapy and functional fitness, so you can start to get it together!
Connect with Adina:
Instagram: @adinarubin_
Website: www.adinarubincoaching.com
Connect with Diane
Instagram: @dianeteall
Website: www.diteawellness.com
Root Cause Reset: www.rcrprogram.com
Transcript
Transcript was auto-generated! There may be some errors, but you get the…GYST 😜
Adina: 0:29
Hello. And welcome back to another episode of get your shit together
Diane: 0:34
get it together.
Adina: 0:38
Diane was that,
Diane: 0:41
oh, get him back into the groove of things. I think I'm finally back on Eastern standard time, after a long weekend away, it was so much fun. Actually.
Adina: 0:51
tell us, tell us where you were.
Diane: 0:53
I was in Las Vegas. It had been awhile since we had been out there, but we went there for our birthday weekend. Neil, my husband and I have a birthday three days apart. He's September 17. I'm September 20th. So yeah, this happened because we're recording this, this will air a little bit later, but yeah, mid September birthdays. It's a nice time. And we went out there with another couple and then one of my best friends, uh, Topsie and her husband met us out there as well. They drove over from California. So we had a lot of fine food. That's one of my favorite things about Vegas and got to get all dressed up and glam. I had like two to three outfit changes per day. That's my vacation mood. It was so much fun
Adina: 1:39
Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I feel like the last two episodes our updates have been Diane has gotten glam and is still in her pajamas.
Diane: 1:48
today. I'm in my Costco Capsule wardrobe, which if you see me on story wearing the same thing for a few days in a row, don't say anything, mind your business. I'm still showering all of
Adina: 1:58
your business.
Diane: 2:01
yeah, my feet, I need to put them up because even with the, I say they're my comfy heels after wearing those for a few hours. Ooh, my dogs were barking.
Adina: 2:11
Yeah,
Diane: 2:12
They were about.
Adina: 2:12
joking. Oh, I think I have to sneeze. Hold on. I think it went away. Um, we were joking about this on story, but I think we're going to have to do an episode about feet because I've been getting some questions and we talk a lot about foot health and how that impacts everything else up the chain. But yeah, now that I have this awareness around it, when I wear heels, like when we go to a wedding and I'm wearing heels for a few hours, I feel it the next day. Like not just like the classic, I go my feet now, my back hurts, but I understand like what's happening to my arches and how that's impacting my hips pelvic floor, like the whole way up the chain. So we definitely need to talk about that.
Diane: 2:55
bump that episode up. I think that would be a great one. And we haven't done our strength training episode in a while, but this one, everyone can listen to whether they strength training.
Adina: 3:05
Yeah. So now that you're back from Vegas and took your feet out of those heels, make sure that when you do your workout today, you get into that movement, prep, that foot health movement prep that I always program for you.
Diane: 3:16
yes. I'm really excited for that for some loaded mobility, especially after sitting on the plane kind of cramped in those little seats, for sure. We're just out of our routine and I, I love a lot about Vegas, but it also is very overstimulating. I just think of the casino floor and all of the different lights. It reminds me of like when you can't sleep at night and just everything is just going all at one time. There are a lot of smells. There's just a lot going on, but the positives, the things I really love was seeing friends and being out and sharing meals with them and celebrating with them. As far as what we're consuming over here. Kind of getting into the groove with cooking again after being home, but some of the standout meals, if you are going to. Momofuku had been on my list for years. So by David Chang, he also has, there's like a little food court in the Cosmo hotel. And, um, it's called bang bang bar. So it's like wraps and, um, like shaved meat. We brought a wrap on the plane cause I was like, I'm not about to have like, whatever airport food, I'm going to put this in my backpack and bring it. But at Momofuku we ordered the duck for the six of us and a bunch of other small plates because all of us love to eat. So we had to try everything, but the duck was done like five different ways. They had.com fee. They fried up the legs and like made these chicharrones like duck chicharrones.
Adina: 4:34
Oh my God.
Diane: 4:35
So good. Highly recommended Momofuku. And then the other one that I definitely would say put on your list, if you want. Get all dressed up, enjoy some good live music. We booked a reservation at Mayfair supper club in the Bellagio. So on Sundays they do a live jazz and it was this married couple that sings. The guy sounded like Michael bublé so close. And his wife just had a beautiful voice and she was singing where eating. I enjoyed a delicious steak. Oh my God. So good. So Mayfair suffer club and Momofuku where the food highlights, I'd say at that trip
Adina: 5:13
oh my God, it looked incredible. And that sounds amazing.
Diane: 5:17
so bad. What are you consuming?
Adina: 5:19
well, as you know, this season is the season of Jewish holidays. So we had a little back to back to back to back action. It's pretty much all of September this year. So we had rosh hashana and then Yom Kippur, and now is the holiday of Sukkot, which. It's a week long celebration. Um, for those of you who are not familiar, we eat our meals inside like a temporary hut that we build outside our houses and
Diane: 5:45
see
Adina: 5:46
and I just, yeah, it's cute. Some of them, people go all out with the decorations. It's really cute. The kids love to get involved, but, um, because Dani and I just have like a small littleterrace. We usually spend the holiday with our families, with their suburban backyards that they put their huts in. So we were by my mom for one of the holidays. And I just wanted to talk about this, cause it is like such a traditional Jewish food around this time of year. And it's one of these things that I don't eat for the rest of the year, but it's so delicious if you've never had stuffed cabbage, it's like a little labor intensive to prepare it, which is one of those things that like, I just don't do on my time, but love eating my mom's stuffed cabbage. So basically it's like pretty much. Um, meatballs, but they're like kind of really, really soft meat mixture. Sometimes you
Diane: 6:42
is in there? Is it beef
Adina: 6:43
yeah, just a beef, like a beef with kind of like rice and it's, it's almost sweet. Some people make it sweet and sour. My mom's is pretty sweet. Um, and it's wrapped up in like a really soft cabbage leaf and it's in a red sauce and it's really good.
Diane: 7:00
I've only heard of stuck cabbage, like Irish style. I think that's what it is. And I've only warmed up to cabbage in the last few years, but beef, red sauce. Give that a go. And I was going to ask, I wonder why we don't have like these holiday foods, like I'm thinking Thanksgiving's coming up. I love a green bean casserole any
Adina: 7:17
Um, I'm not a casserole gal.
Diane: 7:20
we're here in the Midwest, but I love it's the French's onions. It's the crispy shallots on top, but yeah, why not have cabbage? Stuffed cabbage. Other times it just takes awhile. I'm hearing
Adina: 7:30
Yeah. So I've done like unstuffed cabbage as like a weeknight meal. I'll make a soup out of it. Like a nice red, rich broth with like a beef stock. Yeah. And I'll shave the cabbage in there and let it get all soft and then do meatballs or just like ground beef in there. Um, so that's like a good way to kind of like low effort, get it done, but there's nothing like eating my mom's stuffed cabbage and I got into a whole conversation with her. Cause I've never really asked her about the origins of a lot of these foods. Guy didn't really know her grandmother. And I just like learning how that food culture came about. You know, that's something Diane and I are really about, but it was funny. She actually told me my mom was a dietician. Um, in like the seventies and her first job was in a nursing home cooking on like a large scale. And there was another Jewish cook in the kitchen and she actually learned to make stuffed cabbage from him. She was like, they were preparing the holiday meals for the residents and he was like, you're helping me today. We're rolling up all this cabbage.
Diane: 8:33
And then she's like, okay, this is happening for holidays now. So it isn't something that traditionally everyone is doing for Sukkot. Did I say it right?
Adina: 8:41
yeah. Yeah. People will say succos is like the Ashkenazi pronunciation. Um, but sukkot is probably how more people would recognize it. Um, but this actually, sometimes we eat it on Sukkot, but this was actually on rosh hashana that we eat it.
Diane: 8:55
Hm. Okay. Well, what are you consuming on the media front? Anything film, TV that I can add to my queue
Adina: 9:01
Nothing. Well, yeah, no, I mean, we're still in the middle of only murders in the building and I'm still really enjoying. Couple of episodes left and it's fun.
Diane: 9:10
Um, we didn't have anything really new that we were watching here. It didn't, I don't even think we turn the TV on in Vegas. I would just go back, put my feet up and go to bed. But I did find out that. I need another book. Like I needed another hole in my head. Like I've gone to book sales, I have a stack, but here I am in the airport bookstore buying this novel called Betty. It sucked me in, I was looking for people magazine because I like my trash magazines and the crosswords okay. For the flight. But this bookstore was sold out. So I bought this book called Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. It's like coming, coming of age novel, set in the Appalachians, rural, I think rural Ohio, beginning of the fifties. And the main characters have Cherokee half white and she's born in a bathtub. Mid fifties has like six different siblings and she sees a lot, but it's a book about family coming of age so far. I think I'm like a quarter in, but it's just this, the writing is so good. I, like I said, I got sucked into it. And when I'm gripped by the first couple of pages and can't put it down, that's a good sign. So if you're looking for a good read, really liking that one, still listening to the power as well, because you know, I always say. Three to five books at any given time across platforms, analog, we're listening to one. We've got one like on my Kindle app, like all kinds.
Adina: 10:31
Yeah. I, that actually reminded me. I don't think I ever talked about this show on the show, but Betty, the like show about the young skateboarding girls,
Diane: 10:39
I don't know anything about this. No
Adina: 10:41
Oh, we really enjoyed it last year. I think a season two just came out pretty recently. So maybe I'll dig back into that and then share about it a different day so I can give you a real rundown.
Diane: 10:50
I wish I that's a skill. I wish I learned a long boarding. Like a lot of my friends in college were into longboarding and didn't pick that up. Maybe rollerblading that's like the new hot ticky-tacky thing,
Adina: 11:00
Oh, on the ticky tack.
Diane: 11:03
moving on. Um, this is a little segment called into it over it. We do this sometimes, especially when Diane has something to bitch about, but do you know, what are you into? What are you over?
Adina: 11:16
Well, I'm really into the holidays. I'm really into spending time with family and eating good food being offline. But I am over the interrupted weeks. Like the way it's fallen out this year, it's just back to back holiday shabbos holiday shabbos and like between packing up the kids, cooking, being online for one day a week, trying to catch up with all my clients, making sure
Diane: 11:43
and the group chat, right?
Adina: 11:45
It's just, I'm really, really grateful that I don't have any live groups running right now, which it's making me realize that like for the future, I can never have live groups running during this Jewish holiday month because I would feel so bad while I was offline. Like. My response time would be slower. And just like, I couldn't get everyone what they needed. Uh, but it is just feeling a bit scattered. Like I hopped on stories this morning and was just like, what can I even do today to serve my community? Yeah. It's just,
Diane: 12:18
Yeah, short weeks are hard, or I think of like labor day, right. Or if a holiday is at the beginning of the end of the week, it feels like you have to cram a full week into that short one. And it's just can feel a little bit chaotic for sure.
Adina: 12:34
I know
Diane: 12:34
out how to work after two days away. I'm like, wait, where was I in my
Adina: 12:38
I know having four short weeks in one month is like making my heads.
Diane: 12:44
Yes. Well, as far as what I'm into is getting glammed, it seems like it's been a theme the last couple of weeks. I've just missed it. I had all these outfits okay. From like the past year or so that I've wanted to where finally got their, their time to shine. But what I'm over is cigarette smoke. And hygiene theater. And we talk about this a little bit on the last episode, but I fucking hate cigarette smoke. No one likes it, but it's just so much, it's a lot. Okay. And in the, the hotels, I remember, um, the casinos in Vegas, they were banning cigarette smoke or cigarettes smoking cigarettes for a while, but now it's back full force. And so a masks are required, indoors at all buildings, the casino floor. Some people will strictly enforce it, but then if you're smoking a cigarette, it's fine. You can, it just seemed like, what can we just keep the cigarette been away for now? It just makes, it makes no sense to me. It's so aggressive and strong. So the stimulation of that,
Adina: 13:48
to me.
Diane: 13:49
yeah, the lights, the cigarette smoke.
Adina: 13:53
woof. Yeah. We used to have downstairs neighbors that smoked and like, I would sit out on my terrace and they would go on their terrace to smoke and I would lose
Diane: 14:01
it's aggressive and it's nasty, especially after years wash and did your hair. Um, but yeah, they're like strict about the masks unless you're smoking a cigarette
Adina: 14:12
Hm. A puzzle,
Diane: 14:14
Yeah.
Adina: 14:15
a puzzle.
Diane: 14:16
Anyway, we covered a lot last episode.
Adina: 14:20
Oh, did we, did we
Diane: 14:22
And I'm curious if y'all can let us know. Would you rather have like a really long episode when we do episode topics like this? Or do you like when we split it up,
Adina: 14:31
yeah, those two parters will get ya. So if you missed it, go back to part one episode 23, if you have not heard that to get into a little bit of the framing for this episode, really understanding what the deal is with heart health, specially in the U S right now, what our primary modes of treating or managing, attempting to manage the situation are and where we're really missing the mark on true heart health for our population. We really break it down on that first episode. So in this next one, and part two inside of the meat that saturated fat and cholesterol filled meat. And potatoes of this episode is going to be all about understanding. We talked a little bit on last episode about what you think is killing you. And this is going to be our breakdown of what is actually killing you and contributing to that poor heart health, um, that declining heart health as we age, and then some, um, uncommon. What's the word I'm looking for?
Diane: 15:47
so lesser known culprits that you might not have heard. When it comes to heart disease. So these things that we feel need to get a little bit more attention and awareness than they have so far. And then we'll round things out with how to best support your best heart health. So some practical tips for you as we do
Adina: 16:06
Yes. So let's get into it. What is the first
Diane: 16:10
rolling up my sleeves.
Adina: 16:12
If you've been listening to this show for awhile, you can probably guess what the first thing we want to call out is, I mean, we already called out cigarette smoke. If you are not familiar with the connection between cigarette smoke and declining heart health, give that a little. A little look-see look that up on pub med real quick, because you will be alarmed to learn the connection and you'll be alarmed to learn that cigarettes are still something that you can totally buy and smoke in front of other people. And in some places, indoors,
Diane: 16:43
yup, yup. Yup. Uh, but this one, this first one. Low or poor fat diets. If you've been listening to us for awhile, you know, we harp on this all the time, but in the last episode we got real heated about it. So what we mean when we say low or poor quality fats, are those fake butter substitute sprays, the ones that are made from, uh, seeds, um, margins, all that stuff. Yeah. Don't like it call it canola oil over here. Uh, but those are
Adina: 17:14
that joke works. That joke works better. Visually when you can see the
Diane: 17:18
can know
Adina: 17:19
capital, no in the
Diane: 17:21
Yes. I grew up with crunchy country, crack crock country crock, or as I call it country crap, that brown container. Uh, so these are some to audit to remove out of your routine. Now as much as best you can, especially at home.
Adina: 17:38
Yeah. And the reason that we focus on this in a major way is because first of all, it's an epidemic, the availability and the ubiquity of these oils. It's an absolutely everything. I think that's one of the most shocking things for a lot of our clients. When we first start working with them and teaching them to audit this is I always get this message. Like, I can't believe it's in everything I can't put. Yeah.
Diane: 18:05
breads, like even places that you wouldn't think that it would be
Adina: 18:09
Yeah. These, these crappy oils are in everything in not milks in oat milk, turn over your oat milk because
Diane: 18:16
Because it's thin Oatley. That's the biggest one that people love. Like, oh, I'm trying to be healthier. I'm so I'm going to add oat milk. And it's like, the second ingredient is rapeseed, which has canola oil. So don't love that it is cheap to make, to manufacturer, but it is expensive in terms of the costs that it puts on.
Adina: 18:35
Yeah. So the reason that we're so big on this one, number one, it's in everything. So making the shift can have a really big impact on your health. Number two, the presence of it is creating a lot of irritation, inflammation, hormone, disruption. It's confusing a lot of things in our body that lead to that inflammatory process that leads to poor health, poor heart health outcomes,
Diane: 19:03
yes, high in omega six fats, which are inflammatory. And we need that in our body's natural and flammatory process. Right. But not to the degree that we see that with these oils, just so high.
Adina: 19:15
Yes. And third is the presence of those indicate the absence of a lot, a lot of the quality fats that we actually need for our heart to function properly, which we'll talk about later on in our tips for supporting your best heart health, but get rid of that garbage oil it's in everything, and it is not serving your best health and it's being marketed to serve your best health. Like we talked about this on our first episode, all about how it's being promoted by the followers of ancil keys and the CDC as this heart healthy oil, there is nothing heart healthy about it.
Diane: 19:56
Yeah, that is just garbage. We, we went back a few again, haven't heard 23 episode 23. We talk about the CDCs healthy and unhealthy diet recommendations. Very interesting. Uh, that it doesn't is not consistent with what we see in data and research to actually. It gives you a heart healthy diet. So next up, this one comes as no surprise. I'm sure, but chronic mental and emotional stress contributes to heart disease. So under a state of chronic stress, we are dumping minerals, especially our magnesium. We are burning through that. And magnesium is an amazing mineral that helps us regulate production of so many things, but especially the conversion of cholesterol. Also in our last episode, Adina mentioned a study out of Israel that is worth checking out all about magnesium deficiency and its correlation to, um, heart disease,
Adina: 20:51
Yes. So on that note, we talked about how, like, everyone kind of mentions this as a contributing factor to heart disease. They're like, oh yeah, stress contributes to heart disease, but we're not talking about the big picture of like really helping people to understand. What that means. I know for myself, like this is something I focus on a lot in my programs. I make sure that inside of my modules, I explain the physiology of exactly how stress impacts every system of the body. Because I was a person who for so long was like sure sure sure sure sure stress my health. I get it. Yeah. Yeah, we get it. We get it. Stress impacts your health. But until you really understand the mechanisms at play, we don't really take action and we don't adjust our lifestyle. And in a way that supports our best health and it can be hard to do that. It can be hard to step away from hustle culture. It can be hard to say switch jobs. If your job is eating away at your health to leave relationships, if you recognize that your relationship is not serving you and is creating this source of giant stress in your life, like these things are really, really hard decisions to make and
Diane: 22:04
And some, you might not be able to, I mean, that's, that is a real reality for so many people who don't have the privilege to change their job right now, but what else can we do to mitigate that stress? So we'll talk about how to manage that a little further, but I love what you said about breaking down, that why we are passionate about this in our programs. We talk a lot about the why here, but in our programs we want for our clients to understand that root cause and how to support it instead of like, here's the, how just do this, don't do that because that doesn't really teach you anything about your body, your health, yourself.
Adina: 22:33
and it's not going to stick, and it's also not going to serve you once. We're not there to answer your questions all the time. We want you to be able to leave our programs and be able to be in your doctor's office and use the knowledge that we've given you to hear something and say, Hmm, given the information I know, does this make sense? Does this make sense? In the context of everything I know about my body, this comes up for so many of our clients around the pill and
Diane: 23:00
the pill y'all know what we're talking about.
Adina: 23:03
With hormonal birth control and really understanding how to make informed decisions for yourself inside of your own body. Um, yeah, I know it, this is our hill to die on. So we're going to keep talking about it, but if a provider prescribed something for you, without asking you any of these questions
Diane: 23:22
especially about your stress, your lifestyle, your routine.
Adina: 23:25
without bringing you into the conversation, those medications are not magic pills. They are can be supplemental to other modalities, but oftentimes they are robbing you of your best health.
Diane: 23:40
Yes totes.
Adina: 23:41
And another thing too, about chronic mental, emotional stress, which we'll get into a little bit later on of these culprits of heart disease that you haven't heard. We want to talk a little bit about thyroid later on and the connection between thyroid and cholesterol, but something that's really important to frame that conversation in the context of stress is that we talked about this before cortisol your stress or survival hormone has an inverse relationship with your thyroid hormone. So
Diane: 24:13
That's not talked about very often.
Adina: 24:15
not nearly enough, everyone is getting prescribed thyroid medications without any conversation around this, everyone is getting told that they have thyroid issues or people suspect thyroid issues, but we're not paying a lot attention to what are the things contributing to this rise in cortisol that is suppressing that thyroid function, but really important to consider here that under chronic mental, emotional stress or environmental stress or stressors inside the body, various stressors are going to contribute to that rise in cortisol and are going to downregulate that thyroid hormone production, which is going to have a really big impact on your cholesterol, on your heart health. Um, which again, we will get
Diane: 24:59
it's a cascade of dysfunction.
Adina: 25:01
Yeah. Which I just think that like isolated prescription of medications, isolated, even in the holistic health world, the prescription of isolated minerals, nutrients like
Diane: 25:18
I mean, I can't tell you how many times, whether it's just, even in the functional nutrition space, uh, thyroid supplements or, okay. Let's just throw a progesterone cream on everything. Oh, you have problems with your cycles. Just throw a dresser on
Adina: 25:32
Yeah. Like we need to talk about the cascade. We need to talk about the underlying root causes. And again, not to say that some of the things can't be helpful additions, but whenever we're prescribing something, whenever we're recommending something, we always need to consider. What else is going on around that thing. And what else will this thing impact? It's not innocuous to just take medication, to take even natural supplementation. It's going to have an impact inside the body. So we always need to consider what is that impact and is that an outcome we're looking for or is it driving us further towards the problem instead of away from it?
Diane: 26:10
Yes. Yep. There's always nuance there for sure.
Adina: 26:14
And then another thing that I want to talk about, because you know, we're going to get controversial on here. We always like to look at the conventional recommendations and why are these not serving people? But if you have seen a heart health expert, or if you have seen your general practitioner in regards to your heart health, the recommendation is going to be,
Diane: 26:34
run.
Adina: 26:35
do that. Cardio, that heart healthy cardio drink your heart healthy oils and do that. Heart-healthy cardio and, or, you know, a lot of people get this recommendation to lose. Right. You come in with heart concerns or a family of heart disease, um, in your, you know, heart disease runs in your
Diane: 26:53
Sign up for a marathon?
Adina: 26:55
Yeah. Like have you seen that meme, heart disease. It's heart disease. Doesn't run in your family. Nobody runs in your family and, uh,
Diane: 27:06
don't need to sign up for a half marathon. So here's your
Adina: 27:08
cute play on words,
Diane: 27:10
about it.
Adina: 27:12
but Nope, that's a note for us. Uh, yeah. So go back to our episode, all about running. We talked about marathon and sitting your metabolism. We talked a little bit about this on last episode, when we discussed how marathon runners, mysteriously dropped dead from heart attacks, and it's just a complete mystery and nobody has the answer. But what we need to understand is that in the context of cardio, we are putting a demand on the body and the question needs to be. Do we have the energy in the bank to meet that demand, right? Our body requires a lot of energy just to function. Human beings require a lot of energy in the form of food, in the form of rest and recovery to function. And then add to that cycling women. We need a lot of energy to have a healthy menstrual cycle. We need a lot of energy. If you want to carry a baby, if you want to breastfeed a baby, the there is an insane energy demand. And so if you want to do cardio, excessive, cardio, especially endurance events.
Diane: 28:23
we define excessive cardio quickly for us? I know we have a whole episode about this, but what would that look like? I guess that could vary from person to person depending on where they're at in their situation, but maybe generally speaking.
Adina: 28:34
Right. Cardio is a major withdrawal from the bank. And if you are not making those deposits, if you do not have some things in your savings, the amount of cardio that you can do is largely dependent on that. So we're always going to push you towards strength training. First of all, because we want you to build that muscle and have a stronger metabolism, a better body for overall healthy function. But the actual act of building that muscle is likely going to be a much lower demand on the body. Obviously, granted you're in a good program. Um, you know, building muscles expensive too, but what we see so often in our space is just
Diane: 29:18
daily running.
Adina: 29:19
Yeah, just so much emphasis on endurance activities, which are just paring your body down and not doing you a service, especially if you're training for a marathon. If you're training for a half marathon, even if you're just training for a 5k, if you
Diane: 29:35
you're doing CrossFit, which
Adina: 29:37
Oops.
Diane: 29:38
have to do a whole episode on that one,
Adina: 29:40
Yeah. We're going to do a CrossFit episode coming up, but
Diane: 29:42
they say it strength training, but it's like, how, how fast can you do these things? Okay. It's cardio, messy
Adina: 29:49
a lot of a difference. And we'll get into this in our recommendations for how to have healthy heart. It's not to say zero cardio. Cardio is the devil never, ever do. Cardio. Cardio is terrible for you. We just need to consider what is the prescription? What is the dosing? Are we recovering? Do we have the money in the bank to prepare for that event to recover from that event? And do we have the available muscle to sustain that strong metabolism again? The heart is a muscle there's big energy demands on that heart. And if you are doing these extreme endurance events, these tough Mudders, jogging, spin on a very regular basis. We need to talk about, can our heart tolerate that? We mentioned this in our last episode, too, but about those low pulse rates, if you're doing so much endurance activity that your pulse suppresses and you have a pulse in the forties, let's talk about what that means. That means that your heart is slowing down its function to be more efficient for your marathon running. That's not something we're looking for when we're talking about strong heart health.
Diane: 31:02
Yeah. And I think too often people see a thin body or someone who does these types of events. And then they think automatically that means that they must be this picture of health, but that is not necessarily the case. I couldn't tell you how many new clients I meet with, whether that's their kickoff call for root cause reset or a one-on-one. And I'm reviewing their, their intake forms that they have done daily, cardio, whether it's jogging or a bootcamp type class. And then they have either a diagnosis from a doctor or they suspect low thyroid and then they are also exhausted alongside of that, which comes with the thyroid. Right? But their energy is low. Their sleep is poor. Their cycle maybe also is suffering if they are in a cycling season of their lives. So that is another reason why I can just cannot. We won't stop talking about strength training as our preferred approach.
Adina: 31:57
And again, asking those questions, like, why does it take till they get to you to make the connection between the excessive cardio that they're doing and that suppressed thyroid?
Diane: 32:07
Because our PCP is going to say, oh, you need to lose weight. You better run, or you want to be healthy. You gotta run. And that's the only thing. And remember that you are, yes, we are not doctors here, but also know that your doctors most likely are not very familiar with exercise, with workouts and what it means to support your body through exercise in a way that doesn't take your cycle, take your hormones.
Adina: 32:30
Yeah. Doctors are not fitness professionals and unfortunately some fitness professionals aren't fitness professionals either, but what, what really needs to happen for this system to make more sense is that doctors need to recognize that and they need to refer out. They need to say, I am recognizing that your physical and inactivity is contributing to whatever you are coming to see me. But I don't know what's going to be the best recommendation for you. So I'm going to send you to this person who is a fitness professional, who specializes in XYZ and they will guide you. That needs to happen.
Diane: 33:11
and instead of this dismissive hand way of a run,
Adina: 33:14
Yeah. Go do your cardio.
Diane: 33:16
We'll link in the show notes, some relevant episodes that go deeper into these topics. So one about running and I was talking about checking your pulse and that was, uh, something that we go more in depth into in our hot girl, literally hot girl, summer out.
Adina: 33:30
Yeah.
Diane: 33:31
some other culprits behind heart disease that you may not have heard of, that we feel need much more attention than they're given. We talked a little bit about thyroid health, but we want to talk about low thyroid and cholesterol. So we've talked about this again on previous episodes, but your thyroid conducts every metabolic process in your body. If that is low and slow, then other things are going to be so, so we're not going to get too much in the nitty gritty here, but T3 your thyroid, one of your thyroid hormones and vitamin a, we need those to convert your cholesterol into your, your steroidal hormones or sex hormones. Right? And if your metabolism is slow, then you're not making enough T3. And then T4, another thyroid hormone is not going to be converted into that T3 in the liver and your other organs. So then what happens is we see a rise in cholesterol and a lack of hormone regulation. So we talked a little bit on the last episode. Cholesterol is misunderstood. And so we need to know how these things are all interconnected instead of just chasing down. Oh my gosh, my cholesterol is high. So this is kind of how some of that might happen.
Adina: 34:42
Yeah. I think when we hear a lot of these like hormones, T4, T3, but like, it can get confusing if you're not really like understanding the big picture, but what you need to understand is that. First of all, when you go to your doctor and they run a thyroid test, most likely they're testing TSH, which we've talked about on previous episodes is a brain hormone. That is your brain telling your thyroid to do something. It's not like your active thyroid hormones, but then your thyroid makes T4 make some T3, but mostly it makes T4. And then your organs convert that T4 into usable T3, our active thyroid hormone that gets in and gets those metabolic processes done. So if we're not making the hormone in the first place, but then making those conversions into the usable hormone, that hormone one of its functions is to convert that cholesterol again, in the presence of vitamin a, which we'll get to a little bit later on that hormone needs. To be in the presence of vitamin a and then convert cholesterol. If that conversion is not happening because your metabolism and your thyroid are suppressed and not doing what they need to be doing, then that cholesterol is going to be reading very high and your hormones will not be showing up that cholesterol gets converted into our hormones. So we're going to see dysfunction in so many different places it's going to impact our cycle. It might impact our fertility, but we're also going to be reading that high cholesterol. And then someone's going to tell you, oh, hop on this statin to lower that cholesterol when the
Diane: 36:25
get on this birth control to, to manage your cycle because your thyroid, your thyroid health and your, that your sex hormones are so intimately connected to
Adina: 36:35
Yeah. So like, we need to be looking further. Up the chain. What happened? Where did that domino fall originally? Not just a high cholesterol, better, better bump out the statins.
Diane: 36:49
it's just chasing down that symptom or that lab marker. Right. And you may have seen on my Instagram story or on my feed, when I share a client assessments, the NAQ and a cue, it's one of their intake forms that shows their body's top healing priorities right now. So it's a line graph and there are different sections along the X axis is the bottom. So it starts with like digestion and the different parts of digestion. And it goes into like fatty acids, blood sugar, adrenals, and then to the right side of that graph, you'll see thyroid health pituitary and sex hormones, and then cardiovascular health and immune health at the very right. So in nutritional therapy, we work top to bottom, top to bottom or a mouth to tail. Those things, heart health, thyroid health, um, those are downstream. So we don't chase those down because when we work on the basics, many of which we talk about here, then things downstream work themselves out. We're all about that root cause support. And it gives us just a better outcome. We find with our clients then to chase down, improving their heart health, or to chase down, throwing, uh, exogenous hormones on a cycling issue.
Adina: 38:04
yeah, like take this example, we're talking about how you might be reading high cholesterol, right? You go to a doctor and they're looking at your cholesterol and their WowWee, your cholesterol is higher than it's supposed to be. And again, we talked about in our last episode, Higher than it's supposed to be. Meaning what, like against what metric have you just decided arbitrarily arbitrarily what's considered high cholesterol. Is there actually a number that indicates I will have heart issues? So there's a couple of things we need to consider there, but say, we look at this number and we say, wow, we high cholesterol. Right. And it's something as simple as you're not converting T4 into T3. So first of all, that's going to be a liver issue. We're going to have to support the liver to make that conversion happen better. Or is it as simple as you're not eating any vitamin a, you cut out all these foods that have this natural source of retinol, our vitamin a and so we just can't make that conversion. And now we've put you on these statins when it was as simple as. Eating more foods that contain vitamin a, which is again, always coming back to that food foundation that we want to build with you. Or is it as simple as maybe you're eating the vitamin a, but your digestion's a mess. So you're not digesting and absorbing that vitamin a, you're not able to use it. So maybe it's supporting fat digestion, but they just want to put you on a statin and maybe they want to also take your gallbladder out. Cause you're not digesting the fat, but they don't know why. So it's
Diane: 39:38
it's a problem. Take it out. Yup. Take
Adina: 39:41
it's this whole cascade. When we're S we're really encouraging you to look at this food foundation. Look at this digestive foundation. Let's make sure our body has the available nutrients and is converting it into the energy we need to make the things happen in the body. It's really quite simple.
Diane: 39:59
right. You have to eat anyway. So. Just change that first and also have fun while doing it. And by fun, I mean butter.
Adina: 40:08
Bye fun. We mean butter cause that's an, that's a pretty good source of vitamin
Diane: 40:11
Yes. And vitamin D, which we want to talk about too. So a culprit behind heart disease you might not have heard of is vitamin a deficiency. So we kind of hinted at that one, but also vitamin D deficiency. However, this is real hot right now is so many people are taking unopposed, vitamin D supplementation. So what that means is just taking vitamin D just taking a vitamin D supplement, which can lead to calcification where we don't want it. I think we talked about this a little bit on our last episode. Yeah. So in nature, mother nature is going to include all these amazing nutrients, all these pats soluble nutrients, like vitamins, a D E so on with their buddies or their co-factors that help them work better. So that is why we like to ideally focus on the highest quality food first, before going down the rabbit hole with supplements or taking one in isolation, which could then throw off or throw out of balance. And another key nutrient that.
Adina: 41:10
Yeah. And we talked about this on our unprotected sun episode also because food first, but also lifestyle first, like we want you out in the sunshine. And like we talked about in that episode, cholesterol is a really important piece of converting that vitamin D. So take a look at that episode, if you haven't. Cause we go much deeper in vitamin D supplementation in that episode. Okay. I mean, this isn't, this is a problem in the functional nutrition space right now, the amount of thousands of IUs of vitamin D that people are prescribing, that people are recommending, even in the conventional medicine space.
Diane: 41:53
oh, especially. So I've seen people come to me that say, oh, well, my doctor says I have to take like a hundred thousand, maybe not, but it's
Adina: 42:01
5,000, I've seen 5,000. I use that's a normal number.
Diane: 42:04
Daily, but, um, they've also sometimes done even higher dose, like short spurts and think okay. More is always better. But again, if you're just taking that in isolation without its co-factors, they're going to be probably it's a, it's a short term solution with long-term side effects.
Adina: 42:22
Yeah. And again, where are they even coming up with the fact that you have low vitamin D like maybe that's really just telling us more about your magnesium status, which we are going to get into. As well, which is a huge, huge impact on heart health. So there's a lot of pieces to this puzzle.
Diane: 42:40
Their heads might be spinning with this one because it is just so such a common recommendation across the board mainstream and in the holistic space to guzzle vitamin C vitamin D supplements separately. It's a lot.
Adina: 42:56
Yeah. And we know we got into the weeds a little bit with this part of the episode, but we really just wanted to kind of open your eyes to how the current conventional narrative around heart health just has a lot of holes in it.
Diane: 43:11
yeah. And it's misguided and outdated and needs. Hello, overhaul to say the least to put it nicely.
Adina: 43:19
Right. We need to just go back to our basic physiology and understand how our bodies work to understand that the current narrative makes no sense.
Diane: 43:29
yeah. So is that as deep as we want to go on the D we, I know we have several episodes to put in your queue if you haven't listened to them, but we'll link them in our full show notes on our website. So definitely go check that out.
Adina: 43:40
And even if you did listen to those episodes already, we break down a lot on each episode. So your first time once-over on 1.7, five speed. While you're washing the dishes or doing your laundry, it might not be enough. Like if you listened to this episode and you think, oh wait, I didn't really hear them explain about vitamin D and magnesium before this would be a good time to go back and listen to that episode, there might be some hidden gems that you did not really absorb the first time around.
Diane: 44:14
takes some time to stick and to unlearn and to relearn. And if you are listening to this and you are feeling resistant, you're feeling spicy. We just ask for you to be willing, to be open, to holding other perspectives. Especially if you feel like you need to be a keyboard warrior and like freak the fuck out. Like just don't because I'm not open for that. Um, but we go even deeper into these things, like either one-on-one or in our programs, but we go as deep as we can in the scope of this program. So we have some resources for you in show notes in the last few episodes, um, on our full show notes on our website, or you can play around in pub med because we're not your library and either
Adina: 44:59
Start you on your journey, but you can do some digging. It's pretty easy. It's pretty easy to find all of this information.
Diane: 45:06
Well, let's talk about how to support your best heart health. What do we do now? We've kind of talked about this through the course of these two episodes, but we want to break it down a little bit further. No surprise. Here. We are going to always advocate for food first. So if you're faced with, well, they're mentioning vitamin a vitamin D and this, that, and the other magnesium, all I need to go buy your supplements. We would rather you allocate your resources. If you are feeling like overwhelmed with those towards the best quality food that you can afford in your unique budget.
Adina: 45:38
And eat enough food. We say this all the time, but the amount of food that the current messaging is telling you that you need to eat diet culture on the like is way too little for
Diane: 45:51
protein, all my gear.
Adina: 45:52
Yeah. The protein recommendations are a bit small, but 1200 calories is not enough food for a grown ass woman. And you need to hear that loud and clear, and you need to not think that you're an exception because every time you try to eat more than 1200 calories, you gain weight immediately. We need to. Look at what's going on in the bigger picture. Talk about that thyroid health. Talk about the digestion. Are you actually turning that food into energy? Maybe you just need to build some muscles. So your body has somewhere to put that food. Like there's a lot of things that I would look at, but if you're hearing this and thinking, I know they say that all the time and like a grown ass woman needs to be eating upwards of 2000 calories, but I must be the exception because I just can't do that. I can't do that. You're not the exception. You just have to support the foundations, support that functional digestion support that metabolic health to get yourself to a place where that is a very easy amount of food for you to eat and turn into energy.
Diane: 46:50
talked about this before a couple of times, but it does bear repeating here because I hear this often from new clients is that, well, I'm not very hungry, right? And we need to talk about your gut function and your thyroid health, because oftentimes that low appetite can come with both of those. And if you're also running on cortisol and adrenaline, or maybe you're someone who goes right into your inbox and your coffee, first thing. So your appetite is going to be suppressed in that scenario too. So somebody kinds, they are surprised when they start eating more and they start stoking that metabolism, filling their tank, first thing, or really close to first thing in the morning that their appetite returns and like, oh my gosh, I'm actually hungry. And then they find it easier to eat things. So a food feels like it's sitting heavy. It guts, not right. You're not pooping regular on the regular. We have things to work on. So again you may have seen this visually when I've shared client assessments on Instagram, but I like to mention that because you can see things like your heart health, your thyroid health, your hormone health, or a little bit more. We know that can be scary when you think you suspect that there's a diagnosis or a problem down there, but we want to focus on the basics first and that starts with food that starts with our routine. So I know that, um, often people want to outsource and to take supplements, but I tell my clients prerequisite to going after these fancy supplements is eating enough food and eating the best food that you can buy.
Adina: 48:13
Yeah, again, supplements have their place. Sometimes there are certain foods that are just not going to be realistic for you, and maybe that's a great place to supplement, but we don't want that to be plan a. We want this to be a food foundation where you focus on a sustainable way that you can enjoy your food, that you can eat enough calories to support function, where you can eat enough variety of foods to be getting this necessary nutrition, to carry out all of the functions in your body. Again, largely including heart health, because our heart is that organ demanding a ton of energy and pumping that blood around our entire body. So it's all connected. We can't just isolate heart health as this thing that we need to chase down. It's all connected.
Diane: 49:03
yes. And on the food note, we've talked about this several times in this episode and many of ours, but if you take nothing away on food changes, audit the oils that are using to cook with, and it get those fake fats, those fake butters out of your kitchen, out of your life, sometimes they are unavoidable, right. But what are you doing most of the time? So that is perhaps an opportunity to get it out of your kitchen. Don't like those Frank and fats.
Adina: 49:32
and again, as we've talked about recently is focus on those foods that come from the ground and have a mom.
Diane: 49:40
yes. Next up. We've talked about stress, so everything okay. Yeah. Done. It's kind of like this hand wave. I need to reduce my stress, but what does that look like? I think we've talked about this a little bit, maybe on the routine refresh episode, and it's not the last time we'll be talking about it, but managing your managing stress and self care will look different person to person, but we highly encourage you to make some nonnegotiable time for yourself to find some kind of practice that you can count on. Even when you are busy, that's when you need it. The most right. Is when you're busy. So, so my favorites personally, EFT, emotional freedom technique or tapping. I've been doing this for a few years because I personally found that I can't just sit still and meditate still something I would like to incorporate more, but involves tapping on different acupressure points. Um, top of the head brows. I mean, you can't see what I'm doing right now. I'm in a membership with gala darling, you can find her on Instagram, her high by plenty membership. I think you can always get into that one. And it's like $12 a month. I know she offers a free month and if you like her vibe, you can see what she's got going on Instagram or on her YouTube channel. And then I'm also in her yearly membership, but that's since been closed. So there are so many different topics there that kind of guide you through and help release some of that mental, emotional stress. So that's a favorite, what are some other favorites of yours? Adina
Adina: 50:58
Well, we, whenever we talk about stress, we always want to talk about like, reduce just like up and get rid of the stressors that we can manage. So like how can we mitigate and manage some of those stressors that we can't get rid of? Like you said, like if you don't have the privilege of leaving your job, like what are some things around that job that we can do to better support you and then resiliency, like making you more resilient to the stressors we can't avoid or we can't manage. So one of the ways we can make ourselves more. To those stressors is that food foundation that's gonna help a ton. Um,
Diane: 51:32
And that physical stress load
Adina: 51:34
yeah. And then swapping out those high intensity cardio days for two or three days a week of truly true strength training.
Diane: 51:45
yeah. Not splits. This is not a daily lifting and going all out and resting for 30 seconds type thing.
Adina: 51:52
this is true. Strength, training, minimum effective dose strength training. If you're looking for support on that strength training for happy hormones is opening up again soon. And I highly recommend it.
Diane: 52:03
yes. I have gone through it. I love it. We just wrapped up and it was fantastic. And they're women in there and myself who have been lifting for a while. I've also trained one-on-one with Adina highly recommend. And then there are women who are totally new to that journey. Some who are, in. Later seasons of life. And maybe I just, they've never really moved this way. And it was so cool to see how strong they got over the course of the program. Like our pushups all look so good and everyone is in different situations. So that was really cool.
Adina: 52:32
Yeah, that was super, super fun. And so yeah, swapping those out can be a great way to reduce stress. And then inside of strength, training for happy hormones, I use another one of my absolute favorite techniques, which is teaching proper diaphragmatic breathing. So this is one we've talked about this on our all about abs episode. People are just missing the mark on how to breathe and keeping themselves in that stress, stress state. And so I've heard, oh, we're clenching those pelvic floors.
Diane: 52:59
if you have tight butthole and you're constantly clenching your pelvic floor, I mean, you might notice if you walk around your day, this is even outside of your workout. Well, you need this, the breath work
Adina: 53:10
Yeah. It's everything. So I love that feedback. I get from clients sometimes where. They start to tell me that they're incorporating the breath work throughout their day, because they didn't realize just how much better it makes them feel. And so that's a great way to make yourself more resilient, to reduce and to manage some of those stressors. Um, and also just like getting out in nature is a big one for me, just making sure that I see the sun daily. I know as we creep into winter, this is going to become even more important. I got to get myself some gear so I can hike with the kids in the snow, but yeah, that's important. And then
Diane: 53:44
Yeah.
Adina: 53:45
yeah, get out there. Take walks, take breaths. It's so good for you. And don't write it off. Don't underestimate how powerful that can be in your overall health and especially in your heart health. Like that recommendation of just cardio, cardio, cardio. It's doing so many people, such a disservice, especially on the heart health front. So I know it sounds counter-intuitive cause there's cardio in cardiology, but we
Diane: 54:13
It's right there.
Adina: 54:14
To strength training. Um, and again, like, like I said, it's not, the cardio is terrible for you. Like, you'll see Diane, as we transition into the strength training for happy hormones membership. And even in the last couple of weeks of SIHH, I start to incorporate some more strength endurance work, which is my version of cardio, where we're still testing that cardio capacity, but in these much lower doses and we're still testing your aerobic capacity, we're still testing your anaerobic capacity. We are making sure your heart can do everything we need it to do, but we are not demanding of it way more than it can tolerate, which is what happens when those marathon runners just dropped dead at the end of a race. So limit that cardio in a way that your body can provide enough energy for it, but still incorporate things like that. Strength, endurance, where we can really test our cardio capacity in these smaller, more manageable doses.
Diane: 55:11
Yeah, I love that about the last few weeks. Like, because I was also just eager to learn how to do proper kettlebell swings, but who would, and depending where I was in my cycle and we were working on that, I would just like, I'd be sucking wind sometimes. And so I love that you gave us an appropriate amount of rest or you would really speak to, okay. If you're feeling good, if you're well rested and year, maybe mid cycle, like here's how you can approach this, but for the rest of you, let's adjust it this way. So I love how you're cognizant of that exercise and challenging us without really taking us out.
Adina: 55:47
Yeah, that's something we talk about a lot. I know this is a little bit of a tangent, but in the holistic health space, so often we're just babying our clients and it's like, oh, you're in a healing phase.
Diane: 55:57
Gentle movement. AKA, just lay down.
Adina: 56:00
Right. But it's all about that proper dosing. Like we can push you, we can have fun with intensity. It just doesn't need to wear you down and bury you in the ground, which is what so many of us turn to with that cardio intensity.
Diane: 56:12
Three reps instead of 8, 10, 15, 20, or more per set. It does. Yeah, it is a tangent, but it's, I think a necessary one. It drives me nuts when we'll be in webinars, like continuing education. And they're like, well, just gentle movement because some people can't handle that yet. And it's like, we're not, we need to stop thinking of us in this binary way that you either you lift or you don't, and you're either lifting a lot or you're, you're not. And that the only recommendation is to do Shavasana and gentle yoga. so it fires the fires us up. So there's some ways to mitigate that stress. Uh, I don't know if I mentioned this recently, but it's another one that I'm listening to. And really like, this is on the, uh, managing mental, emotional stress and relationships, but it's called boundaries by Terry Cole. Guess she's Ariana Grande's therapist too, but I like the audio book because her voice sounds like a hug. So if you are someone who is type a driven, you're a people, pleaser had history of people pleasing, um, and struggle with setting boundaries, both for yourself and with your relationships, friends, family, coworkers, work. So on highly recommend this one. She has different reflections and exercises throughout, but I know some of my clients have found that one helpful boundary boss by Terry Cole.
Adina: 57:31
All right. So another big piece of the heart health puzzle that we are missing the mark on. Is vitamin a and like we said earlier, in this episode, this isn't taken a vitamin a supplement. This isn't eating carrots because
Diane: 57:48
We love carrots, but
Adina: 57:50
love carrots. They're great. But that is beta carotene. It is not vitamin a retinol, our bioavailable usable form of vitamin a and yes, you can convert beta carotene into vitamin a, but it has a very low rate and a lot of us don't do it well.
Diane: 58:13
yeah, it's not great. Yeah. Beta carotene. I see this so often when I audit multivitamins prenatals and so on. Um, vitamin a as beta carotene, because FDA allows beta carotene to be called vitamin a, but it is a precursor. So it's not to say don't eat your veggies and your. I love carrots, but this is not the only way or the way to get your vitamin a
Adina: 58:36
Yeah. And here's something really interesting. What are the foods that we find this vitamin a N
Diane: 58:43
Hm. High quality dairy. So butter, whole milk cream, the things that are so high in saturated fat, and you have to fear them and avoid them all costs, egg yolks. Remember when we were told to not eat eggs, especially those horrible egg yolks, Cod liver oil and the big batty of them, all beef liver.
Adina: 59:05
okay. So think about this. You need vitamin a, to convert cholesterol into your hormones. Right? We talked about this. When we talked about thyroid and your cholesterol, you need that vitamin a, to carry out that function, but you are being told, don't eat any of these foods, butter, egg yolks, high quality dairy. Beef liver, you are being told not to eat these foods because they contain too much cholesterol,
Diane: 59:37
Yeah. And that there's vitamin I toxicity, which I mean can happen. But as our friend, Liz Wolf has said, they think like too much is a problem. So let's just not have any of it at all.
Adina: 59:48
And also, so often those studies on vitamin a toxicity are coming from these synthetic forums that people are megadosing like, you are not going to mega dose cream and egg yolks to the point where
Diane: 59:59
That'd be hard to do.
Adina: 1:00:01
oh my God. Um, yeah, you would not, no matter how much ice cream you make, you would not megadose to the point where you would run into an issue with vitamin a in that way you need vitamin a, to convert cholesterol, but you have been told that all these foods have cholesterol, so you shouldn't be eating them, but your body's still going to make that cholesterol. That's a necessary process in your body. So if you don't have the vitamin a to convert it, it's going to keep driving up that cholesterol. So again, Is the problem that these foods need to come out of our diet or has the problem gotten way worse? Because we took these foods out of our diet.
Diane: 1:00:37
Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I know our grandparents may be great grandparents consumed deliver, and now I don't really know anyone who does regularly, except for people like maybe in our space, maybe who are eating more nose to tail. Um, so it's like become this fear factor.
Adina: 1:00:54
Well, it's still a pretty big thing in the ancestrally Jewish space. Like my parents eat liver, it's mostly chicken livers. Um, they chopped liver and they just Shamir it on their crackers on Shabbas morning. Um, and I growing up just thought it smelled vile. Like I could not
Diane: 1:01:15
Yeah. You could soak it in milk.
Adina: 1:01:17
Yeah. Well, Jews can't cause the milk and meat
Diane: 1:01:21
know this. I always forget it, but yeah, that could
Adina: 1:01:23
it's hard to remember the roles.
Diane: 1:01:25
out.
Adina: 1:01:26
Yeah. But yeah. There's ways to make liver taste good, but yeah, I was going to say that it's still is a very big food in like the, my parents' generation in my culture. Um, but yeah, super nutrient dense. We need that vitamin a, so just consider, like, have we taken out all of these foods? Have we vilified all of these foods that are actually really, really necessary for using that cholesterol effectively?
Diane: 1:01:54
And they've been blamed historically or last several decades for the problems that highly refined oils and trans fats have created. So we talked a little bit about that in our last episode. So we've talked about vitamin a, another fat-soluble vitamin we know and love vitamin D so also followed in high quality dairy. You can get some of it from the sunlight, but want to make sure that we have enough, um, quality dietary fat, to be able to convert that in our bodies. So vitamin D another good one. You can find some of it. I think in some organic shit talking mushrooms also, but I rather get it from my butter, from a eggs. I do like my.
Adina: 1:02:34
don't get, I do love mushrooms, but I feel like, I feel like there's just all these lists of like foods that you can get this and that
Diane: 1:02:42
all these infographics. I just want to keep it simple.
Adina: 1:02:45
I try to simplify it as much as
Diane: 1:02:46
like I don't know about you and we're in this space, but I'll see sometimes like infographics of here are nutrients in foods that are like, it just gets overwhelming because that's just not the way I approach, like I want to just make them, keep them some things simple, like the highest quality ingredients that I can. I keep it simple. So I'm like, okay, now that we can do dairy over here, but I know that people listen to this, especially if you have gut issues might not be there yet. We do have, I mean, speaking of dairy, two dedicated episodes all about it. So go check that out. Our show notes are getting long, but we've got some bangers in this queue here.
Adina: 1:03:19
I know. Just get your sunshine, really. Just get that sunshine. Eat your cholesterol. Get your sunshine.
Diane: 1:03:24
Yup. Yup. Magnesium the heart of the matter. That's what I put on our outline here. Uh, but as we've talked. Course of our episode. Yeah, we haven't, we don't have enough heart puns in here doing, I don't know,
Adina: 1:03:37
Yeah. Last episode, I was all like open your hearts, but.
Diane: 1:03:42
but anyway, chronic mental, emotional stress will cause us to burn through our mag through our magnesium. Magnesium is also going to be depleted by prescription medication. So we've talked about how hormonal birth control depletes mag and past episodes, but also this is other medications as well. Um, and even the ones that are often suggested to address heart issues. So like statins, beta, blockers, diuretics. So in this way, these medications can be a physical stressor are a stress physical stressor on the liver, which is also one of our buddies that converts thyroid hormone to help regulate cholesterol. So see, it's all interconnected. You can't just throw this innocuous medication in there. It just, it just doesn't have.
Adina: 1:04:30
right. It's going to put a demand on the body and limit its ability to carry out some of these functions that actually are necessary to solve the problem inside of your own body.
Diane: 1:04:40
we have to be clear your hair too. I mean, I think we've given disclaimers and you hear one at the very top of our episode, but we are not telling you to start or stop a medication, especially with directed by your doctor. You have to be careful with that. Um, but we have also supported clients who have decided on their own that they would like to come off of that. So we always do our due diligence to recommend that they talk to their provider and then we, if they decide that they do want to stay on these medications, whether it's any of these that we just talked about, hormonal birth control or whatever, in our programs, we talk about how to replete those nutrients and how to best support them while those are a tool that they've decided to keep in their routine. So I just wanted to make sure that we call them.
Adina: 1:05:21
Yeah, absolutely. And again, like we talked about earlier in this episode is if you are faced with a decision to decide whether or not to get onto or off of a medication, we just want you to have as much information as we can provide for you. So that those are more informed decisions and you don't feel like you're being bullied or your doctor has all this information you don't have. So you obviously have to listen to whatever they're saying. Like, if you. Want a second opinion, get a second opinion. If you want to ask your doctor questions, ask your questions and don't let them dismiss you. If you have very legitimate questions about a medical decision that you are trying to make together.
Diane: 1:06:04
together that's key. They should be on your team, not just telling you what to do, because at the end of the day, you live in your one body that you have. So you deserve better access to information and to making empowered decisions. So that's always going to be part of our message.
Adina: 1:06:19
And I do want to say, I know we like shit on doctors a lot because of our experience. When people come to us, it's often because they're at the end of their rope and they've been in that revolving door of doctor's offices where they just didn't feel heard by anyone. And they felt like they were put on medications against their will. And then there were these lasting repercussions and they come to us when they are just at the end of the line. Trying for answers. There are some incredible doctors out there, but what we are trying to encourage you, because we've seen it too often, is that you are allowed to fire your doctor and you are allowed to look elsewhere for information. You are allowed to find a new doctor that jives with you. That's going to listen to your perspective. That will hear you say maybe cardio is not the best for me because of X, Y, Z, and maybe they'll have a critical eye on that and think for a second, given your situation, given your hormone history, given your thyroid health, does this recommendation make sense? Or can we revisit this together and come up with something that's going to work better inside of your body?
Diane: 1:07:22
yes. Yeah, there are good doctors out there. And I know that a lot of them, I mean, they're part of a system that's going to operate a certain way and that I'm sure that they encounter many patients who don't really care. They just, they do want to have maybe a medication or something that is easier. But if you're listening to this, I imagine that you are someone who wants to take charge of your health and you can be your. You should be your advocate in these scenarios for your health. So want to empower you to do so, give you some resources that maybe you can bring to those appointments, um, and just make you feel a bit more confident about navigating these topics, these situations. So some other things about magnesium, if we don't have enough magnesium, we can't make enough energy enough ATP, and then the heart is going to be starved. Oh, another thing too, with doctors, a lot of them are not aware about all these intricacies with minerals. They might just check, like, I think sodium potassium at night might not know all the, yeah. Even know all the ways that these are connected. So, um, they just not have, have not had the opportunity to, uh, learn about those things. They might not know as much about nutrition and fitness. So we've talked about that too, but just to be aware of that.
Adina: 1:08:32
Yeah. The only thing you might hear about minerals is actually the negative. Like if you have heart health issues in your family, or my doctor might say, oh, avoid sodium, because it's going to drive up your blood pressure and it's going to impact your heart health, but whoa, wow. We, we need sodium for so many processes in the body. So again, same like cholesterol. If your body is not using that sodium well, and it's just driving up your blood pressure, we need to look at the big picture, how all the minerals are working together, how we're metabolizing those. It's not as simple as stop eating salt and all your heart health problems will go
Diane: 1:09:07
yes, because to be clear, and we talked about this, I think towards the end of last episode, where is that sodium coming from? Is it coming from a fast food, highly processed food. That's not the same as getting a real sea salt. So go back to episode 23 by show. We talked about this earlier in this episode, but if we don't have enough magnesium, then we can't regulate cholesterol. So there is a cascade that happens here. Um, we were talking as we were outlining this episode that magnesium a day keeps the statins away. So you might hear this. Okay. Magnesium. This is the mineral that I need to get some more love. Yes. We love magnesium. It is so important for so many processes. It is just this amazing mineral. But what we don't want you to do is to hear this and to forget all of the foundations, the food foundations movement, managing your stress and sleep that we teach you here and like run to whole foods to go get a shitty supplement. That's not the move. No.
Adina: 1:10:03
know. We talked about with the food foundation that like, we need enough food to make energy, but ATP is your body's energy currency. And what a lot of people neglect to mention. Even the first time I learned about it when I was learning about it as a trainer, is that it's actually magnesium ATP. So we need magnesium to create energy inside the body, that energy currently. Is extremely important for keeping that heart pumping and magnesium is one of the main keys to this picture. But like we said, just supplementing magnesium on its own without considering everything else going on around it is not the answer. Like, yes, magnesium supplementation can be helpful, but it's not just rental whole foods. Pick up whatever magnesium you find off the shelf or buy some product that some influencer is telling you to buy because magnesium, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot more to this picture.
Diane: 1:11:05
yes.
Adina: 1:11:06
On that note, as we say all the time, we don't give specific. Supplementation recommendations on this podcast because it would be unethical. It would be disrespectful to our clients. We've said before, we don't want you blaming your diarrhea on us in the DMS, which definitely will come up if you start supplementing magnesium without a
Diane: 1:11:29
right. And by the way, there are 25 different types of magnesium. And so there's just nuance that we can just go to the supplement aisle and girls hold down magnesium,
Adina: 1:11:39
yeah. And you may have had that experience in the past because magnesium can be a diarrhetic. So maybe you picked up the wrong form or maybe you titrate it up too quickly and you're going to be blaming your diary on us in the DMS. But also
Diane: 1:11:52
You're going to shit.
Adina: 1:11:54
like when it comes to magnesium, we might learn, say from your hair tissue, mineral analysis tests that you're not ready for that magnesium because of like where your sodium and potassium is at. Like, there's just so much to this bigger mineral picture that. We want you to know magnesium is important. We're not going to sit here and tell you product and dosing and which type is right for you because we would need a little bit more information, something we work on with our clients.
Diane: 1:12:23
we don't work for free for you,
Adina: 1:12:26
we will say though, Epsom salt baths.
Diane: 1:12:30
but
Adina: 1:12:30
That's a good, good to go for everyone. I would say great place to start. Um, again, because it can help lower that stress too. Uh, and get that mineral magnesium, which is so necessary for so many functions in the body, producing that energy and getting your heart right. We got to get after that.
Diane: 1:12:51
I don't know if you can hear the siren, maybe they're coming to come get me for all this controversial stuff we're talking about here. Um, yeah. Magnesium baths are amazing. So you can get some Epsom salt, magnesium flakes. You can find those. I swear, drugstores grocery stores everywhere. Um, I also really, like, I may have mentioned this before. If this is in a city near you worth a try, uh, sensory deprivation takes our float float tanks here in grand rapids is called float P H L O T. Flott sort of, we call it fly, but it's a ton of Epsom salt. And the amount of water in this tank is like less than 12 inches. It seems like, okay, that's not enough water, but there's so much Epsom salt in there. You float float in this tank in total darkness. That may feel scary for some, but for those who are open to it, going in this. This, it feels like going into a womb because it's like 98 degrees temperature in your body, basically. And it's so quiet and soothing. You can step out and take a shower or set in this little enclosed area, or you can just float for an hour. Actually. Neil introduced me to this. He went to a two hour float when we were on our like honeymoon little trip in Venice, California. He's like, I'm going to go to this flow is for like two hours. So I just went and like shopped around, but it's so relaxing. Or you can do this in the comfort of home. Turn off the lights in your bathroom if you want. Uh, and
Adina: 1:14:18
it won't quite be the
Diane: 1:14:19
Yeah, it won't quite be the same, but
Adina: 1:14:21
those of you watching Dave, I think it's like the penultimate episode where Dave goes into that float tank for sensory deprivation. Um, that's what that is. All right. Well, we covered a lot here today
Diane: 1:14:34
yes, as we do, I'm always like, well, maybe the second part will be a shorter one here. Here we are.
Adina: 1:14:41
over an hour later. All right. Well, we broke it down for you. We busted some myths. We talked about some necessary nutrition for getting that heart, right. Again, we talked about that foundation. You need to build first managing that. Eating enough food, eating those high quality foods specifically going out of your way to eat saturated fat and cholesterol and salt and red meat and not doing cardio. So some doctors might hate us when they hear this one,
Diane: 1:15:12
no, I'm fine with it.
Adina: 1:15:15
with all of our hearts ACO.
Diane: 1:15:20
yes. And we hope that you open your heart to this episode. Okay. I'm done. I'm going to see myself
Adina: 1:15:26
I'm done. We're done. We'll see you next week. Bye.
