[MUSIC PLAYING] Women believe, and we all have a little bit of a white coat syndrome that we could be following guilty to. But anyone with a script must be able to write me a good hormone prescription, right? And the answer is no, actually not. What constitutes the right hormone prescription is very much directly coming from what's your goal? And if your goal is simply hot flash protection, great, someone probably with a script pad can do that. But if your goal is this, you know, I don't want Alzheimer's. I don't want to have coronary artery calcium. I don't want those things. Then you really need to be picky about what type of hormones, what levels of hormones, and who's going to give them to? The Greek definition for metabolism is to transform your metabolism is designed to take food and to transform it into energy so you feel good and burn fat. We are determined to deliver the science and art of metabolism to you. We bring on the thought leaders in this space to have life-changing conversations so you could apply it and upgrade your metabolism. The topics covered here include biohacking, ketosis, carnivore, fasting strategies, mindset, and metabolic health. Your body was built to be self-healing. Our goal is to identify the interference and remove it. You are a masterpiece because you are a piece of the master. Welcome to the metabolic freedom podcast. My name is Ben Azadi. I'm the best-selling author of KetoFlex, and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. Welcome back to the metabolic freedom podcast. I'm your host, Ben Azadi. I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. Today, we have a brand new episode with two incredible human beings. These two women have a brand new book that is being released, actually in just a few days, titled The Great Menopause Myth, The Truth on Mastering Midlife Hormonal Mayhem, Beating Uncomfortable Symptoms and Aging to Thrive. I've had Maria Claps and Kristen Johnson on the show before a couple years ago, and we did a deep dive into women's hormones. If you're a man listening to this thinking, "Oh, this episode is not really for me," well, you're going to be wrong in that thought process. Allow me to explain because you have women in your life, and if you understand their hormones better, you're going to have better relationships with them. They're going to reveal the number one thing women need to do over the age of 40 to burn fat, to thrive, and to overcome this many symptoms that women deal with during menopause. We'll dive into what exactly is happening during perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause. We'll discuss some of their favorite ways to balance hormones during this time of life. The different ways to supplement, or I should say, to introduce hormones into the body, like hormone replacement therapy by identical hormones, the pros and cons, some of the myths surrounding that. We're also going to get into many myths surrounding menopause and how many women have been misled down the wrong path, and they don't really understand that they have the power to thrive during this time of life. The book is great, The Great Menopause Myth, which is going to be released September 10th. You could pre-order right now, we'll drop a link down below, but it's available pretty much everywhere. I read the book, I love that they did such a fantastic job addressing every single thing a woman needs to know during this time of their life. We're going to discuss ketosis and fasting, the pros and cons. We'll discuss the importance of protein, adrenal health, oxytocin, bone health, and a lot more. This is a complete masterclass for menopausal women. It's going to change your life forever. So listen to the conversation, watch it on youtube.com/ketocamp after and go get the book as well. Before I bring them on, I want to let you know, I have an upcoming ketosis masterclass, where I'm going to reveal the four key ways to use ketosis as a metabolic tool to balance your hormones, to burn fat, lower inflammation and restore your metabolism. There is a science to keto, and just as important, there is an art. So we'll talk about keto flexing, men versus women, how do they do keto? We'll talk a little bit about fasting, and it's a complete masterclass. It's brand new, it's available for you for free, over at ketosismasterclass.com. Click the link in the notes down below, or just type in ketosismasterclass.com in your web browser, and go watch that masterclass today. Without further ado, here's Kristen Johnson and Maria Claps. Both of you are regarded as two of the most well respected, well researched experts on menopause out there. And I want to ask you right off the bat, you have this brand new book, The Great Menopause Myth. What is it you want most women, all women to know about your work in your brand new book? - We would say that the most important thing for women to know is that menopause is and should be a time of empowerment. Empowerment comes from knowledge, and knowledge requires some critical thinking and sometimes unlearning things that we've been told. And so with this book, we tried to cover pretty much everything A to Z that we know to be in kind of women's psyche about menopause, uncover some myths, give them really important information about how to sort of understand and frame this time of life, and then really actionable items for how to thrive during it. - Beautiful, what about you, Maria? - Yeah, no, thank you. I think the most important thing I would want women to know is that you're not sailing through menopause if you're symptomless. And the whole thread, as you know, 'cause we're so impressed that you actually read the book, not all podcast hosts do. So that is such a, you know, my hat's off to you, but you'll know that there is a thread running through the book of it's not just about symptoms. There are things going on in the body, even if you don't see it or feel it. So we want women to really understand what the imperatives of menopause are. - I love it. In the book, there's a fantastic job of like you mentioned, Kristen, A to Z, right? All of the questions, all of the challenges or symptoms are just everything a woman will go through during menopause is answered in the book. And there's graphics, and we'll talk more about that. What makes it, I know what makes it different, 'cause I've read other menopause books and I've interviewed other menopause specialists experts. What would you say makes your book different than what is out there when it comes to the conventional wisdom with menopause and even the alternative functional side of menopause? - Yeah, I mean, I think Maria kind of identified the main thing as many of the books uses their currency, the pain points that women feel during menopause. And what we're trying to get women to see is that it is so much more than that. We've used it historically to look at menopause as this loss of fertility and loss of menstruation. And that is how it is defined clinically. And that's where most books start and stop, right? They say 365 days without a period, boom, your menopause postmenopausal, and they might talk about a few of the years before that, i.e. perimenopause. We are trying to get women to understand that it's so much more than the loss of fertility and menstruation, that it's the loss of true metabolic homeostasis in the body, and nobody covers this. And nobody's telling women why they should care because as Maria said, some women have a lot of symptoms, but some of them have no symptoms. And we don't want the no symptom crowd to sort of be duped into thinking, therefore, they're in the clear because we are not in the clear, whether or not you have symptoms, we have imperatives that need to be addressed with this loss of sex hormones because of their impact on about 4,000 physiologic processes in the body. So I think our book goes way deeper than anyone even attempts to go and explaining that. We go well beyond the pain points and the symptoms, but then we sort of dial it back a little bit and try and say to women, because of this changing landscape of hormones, there are things that you need to do differently. We can't just take our habits of our 30s and 40s and carry them into our 40s, 50s and 60s. Other books will focus on one thing, call it intermittent fasting, just strength training, whatever. And they kind of use that as this holy grail. Maria and I are like, no, it's a multi-piece puzzle. You need to put it all together. And then by the way, we want you to not fear your hormones because most books, if they talk about HRT, it's a glancing blow. It's a really mild, superficial, skin deep thing. And usually it's talking points that are either outdated and based on bad science, or it's talking points stolen from a major medical society that has its own interests as to what their take is on HRT. And Maria and I are like, look, HRT is not a one thing. It's not a one size fits all. It's not what's good for Maria is good for me. And so we try and give women this unbelievable, comprehensive deep dive into the history of HRT, the science behind HRT, what got screwed up, and then what's available in the market now. And just let a woman decide. Nobody should be telling Maria what her HRT should be, or my HRT should be. We need to make that decision as women. And not many books will even discuss it. They just either hormones are bad, or hormones are like, okay, but only a little bit, and then not too long. And Maria and I are like, no, there's so much more to it. One of the things that you made clear right off the bat in the beginning of the book is that menopause affects everyone. When I first read that, I thought, are they gonna get into men going through their version of menopause, but you made the case that either you're a woman, which you're going to go through menopause, or you have a relationship with women, that is so true. So for the guys listening and watching, this conversation is just as important for you because it'll help us understand our relationships with the women in our lives so much better. So we could have better relationships with them, whether it's just a wife, a girlfriend, or a friend that is a woman, it's important that it's gonna affect every single person. I love that you made the case there. I love for you to explain a little bit more about how this is important for both men and women to understand. - I mean, I can use the example of a relationship of, say, let's just take a husband and a wife, right? And she is going through the menopausal transition. And some of the symptoms are like desire to isolate. Low or no libido. These are common symptoms that women can experience. And unfortunately, her male partner sees that as, you don't like me and what's going on. And he, you know, kind of can take it personally, but oh my gosh, if men understood that these changes are just something that do happen, that women can get through them. I mean, there is, we do talk about something in the book called "Great Divorce." It's so incredibly sad. It's just like, you know, couples that have been married for 20 or 25, 30 years, maybe some cases, 15 years. And, you know, the divorce rate is high. And, you know, it's kind of like around the time of that menopausal transition. Doesn't that make you think? Like, of course, I'm not putting it all down to hormones. I don't want any hate mail, you know, there's, relationships are complex, but hormones absolutely factor and lack of hormones factor and in a big way. - Can you share about those metabolic adaptations that are occurring for women who are, let's say going through perimenopause and then as you share in the book, which is interesting, menopause is defined as this one day without your period, right? After 12 months without a cycle. And then every day after is postmenopause, but can you share what are those adaptations that are happening, which hormones are lowering, which organs need to be supported? I know the book covers this, but I'd love for you to highlight what's happening there. - Sure, yeah. I mean, you know, traditionally we're thinking of perimenopause and menopause as this change in the endocrine ovarian cycle, right? And so the focus is on the ovarian produced hormones. So primarily in women, typically, and this is changing unfortunately because the metabolic health profile of our country is changing, not for the better, but typically we see progesterone start to fall first and it starts to fall fast and it can sort of bottom out. And with that, we see, you know, cognition changes, mood changes, anxiety coming out of nowhere, maybe mental health changes, depression, you've never felt before, sleep disruption. So many things are going on with that. Usually it is because we have a neurological change that's happening, truly this ovarian production sort of slowing its prediction of progesterone, the brain starts to decouple because it's like, hey, you're supposed to give me more and the ovaries don't respond and so we've got this disconnect that happens. So that's why we do see a lot of neurological changes at this time of life and it's scary. I mean, Marie and I don't wanna understate kind of the real lived experiences of these women. You know, we particularly didn't have like some true anxiety and different things happen but we definitely felt, I just heard this recently, someone used the acronym, not feeling like myself, this NFLM that some doctors are starting to consider as this perimenopausal change. And I think that's a pretty good way to think about it. However, it manifests, you just don't feel like the self that you knew you were. So that's partly this progesterone fall. At the same time, we start to see this change in estrogen production. So estrogen is kind of a mother hormone or a blanket term for hormones. What Marie and I are primarily talking about throughout the book is estradiol. So this is a specific hormone, acts in a balanced fashion along the receptors. So estradiol starts to change. And in some months, because the brain is saying, "Hey, could you give me a little help here?" The estrogen will spike. And then the next month, it plummets. And maybe it stays low for a couple months and then out of the blue, boom, it spikes again. So we get this really erratic production of estrogen while it declines. So it is a progressive change, might be erratic, but it's still heading in the same direction as the progesterone. Those are principally the two things that are going to drive issues for women. As I sort of said, metabolic health these days is not so great. And so we have a adrenal production of testosterone that tends to sort of stay level despite these ovarian changes that are happening. But because we've sort of trashed our metabolic health as a country, the adrenal production of testosterone can go down as well. And so that will start to affect some things for women. But primarily the traditional issues and concerns and the manifestation across body systems, changes in menopause are from this ovarian loss of progesterone and estradiol. So those are primarily the things. And what it drives, Maria Confilin, I mean, it's literally top to bottom 4,000 different processes. We could spend the whole podcast just focusing on those. - It can drive everything from, like Kristen said, mood changes from mild to severe to the point where it affects relationships. It drives cardiovascular issues. So that's because we have estrogen receptors everywhere. I mean, it can be something as simple as dry eyes, dry vaginal tissues. And again, that's something that can affect relationships. Tau protein deposition in the brain, bones become osteoporotic. Microbiome suffers with lack of estrogen. Methylation, you know, we need to have a good methylation process to process our estrogen, but estrogen also helps us with methylation. So it's incredibly interconnected. - Yeah, even mitochondrial function, I mean, we can just kind of do a blanket, right? Mitochondrial function, people do not realize in the female body is highly dependent upon estradiols impact on SOD, superoxidus mitase. Like this enzyme is so critical in our mitochondrial function and nobody really pays attention to the fact that the presence of that enzyme is dependent upon sufficient levels of estradiol. So, you know, a lot of people want to look at this and say, "Kristin and Maria, "it's not really lots of hormones, it's just aging." And Maria and I are like, "Actually, the loss of hormones accelerates aging." And this is why you see a huge change between women and men, right around that like late 40s, early 50s into the 60s, the women, you know, you pull out a couple, let's say in their late 70s, sometimes the woman can actually look like the male's adult mother, you know. And I hate to say that 'cause it's not to shame anyone. But the reality is, is that we need estradiol in order to modulate that mitochondrial change through aging. And when we lose that estradiol, we actually make the aging process worse. - I love the discussion about the mitochondria in the book. I believe it was mitochondria, what? Yeah, and you're explaining the role between loss of estrogen, mitochondrial dysfunction. And you also explained the mitochondria, and I love this part 'cause I love the mitochondria, but you were explaining how it's more than just an energy factory. There's so many roles that mitochondria has for us. And the tissues, the cells that are most metabolically active have the highest concentration of mitochondria, the eyes, the brain, the ovaries. Can you share with the estrogen piece, what are some natural ways that a woman could raise those estrogen levels naturally to kind of help with what's going on here? - Well, are we talking women in the menopausal transition, like perimenopausal women? - Yeah, let's start with them, and then let's discuss post, see what we do if there's anything we do there. - Okay, so I wanna kind of back up. Let's talk about pre-menopausal women. And this is gonna apply to all women, but it's gonna have most effect in pre-menopausal women. They have to eat, they have to nourish themselves, they have to make sure they're not under eating, they have to eat healthy fat, they need to have healthy cholesterol, be vitamins, this is going to, that's right at the cascade top of the hormone cascade. So that's really super important. Now, it's not gonna have much effect in hormone creation in women that are in the menopausal transition. So we like to say that nothing, all that stuff, all the lifestyle stuff is important, and we actually take the stance at like, please don't do HRT, please don't do supplemental hormones if you don't have lifestyle practices and pieces in place, because that HRT can go sideways in an unhealthy body. But having said that, nice big disclaimer there, having said that, nothing, not matcha, not makka, not fasting, not, you know. - That's the need, not bean, not American. - That takes the place of hormones in a woman who is basically hormone depleted. So we're talking, you know, a menopausal woman, but it really does start in perimenopause. So, but Ben, I do wanna back up. If a woman has chosen, she is, I do not wanna do HRT, or I cannot do HRT, can she get some relief from some well-chosen herbals, maybe she can have a flax muffin, flax is an estrogen source. We actually don't recommend it to women who are eating, you know, a wide variety of animal foods and just eating healthy, we don't recommend it. But if you are someone who needs to maybe stimulate that estrogen receptor, then sure, you can have flax, but it will help with symptoms, highly suspect. It's not gonna help with actual imperatives of menopause. It's not gonna, like, it's not the same in the cardiovascular system, in the brain, in the bones, as. - Not gonna remodel your bones 'cause you had flower tablespin, flax, in your stomach. - Might she get some relief from hot flashes? Sure. - Sure. - Yeah. - I love it, it's the truth, right? This is what separates both of you from what's out there. So it's good to have this information. It's empowering for a lot of women out there, and for men to understand this as well. One of my favorite ways to improve my immune health and my gut health is with colostrum. Colostrum, also known as first milk, is a natural milk-like fluid produced by mammals immediately following delivery of the newborn. It is vital nutrition, providing all the nutrients and fluid a newborn needs in their early days. Product that I use is from equipped foods called core colostrum, and it's a type A1 and A2 milk. While core colostrum is a dairy product, it's really cool is that it does not contain milk or lactose. So most people with lactose intolerance usually find colostrum, very digestible, and beneficial to gut health. All you need to do is add one scoop per day. Add it to your coffee, your tea, to your yogurt, or your protein shakes, and get all the amazing benefits of colostrum. Core colostrum is grass-fed and grass-finished, antibiotic-free, hormone-free, GMO-free, and pesticide-free. And the best news, metabolic freedom podcast listeners get 20% off equipped foods products, including their core colostrum. Head over to equipfoods.com/benazade, and check out their products. The coupon code is automatically applied for 20% off your entire order, that is equipfoods.com/benazade, and I'll drop a link in the notes of the podcast for you as well. One of the best ways to know if you are in a fat-burning state or a fed state, which is a fat storage state, is to track post-prandial glucose, post-prandial meaning after eating. The higher your blood sugar rises after eating, and the longer it stays elevated, the more insulin needs to be cranked out. An insulin is an energy-sensing hormone, and it tells your body to store fat. Therefore, the higher your blood sugar levels after eating, the faster you store fat, and the longer it takes to going back to burning fat, hands down my favorite way to track post-prandial glucose and blood sugar levels, in general, is with a continuous glucose monitor. I've been using NutriSense and their amazing program for so many years, and I've been able to pinpoint specific foods that raise my blood sugar levels after eating. I've also been able to pinpoint what quality sleep and lack of quality sleep does to raise my blood sugar levels, what exercise does. It is such an incredible way to customize your approach no matter what diet you are following. And one of the cool things about NutriSense, they give you a professional in their app to monitor your progress, and the human expertise also gives nutrition advice as well. These are eye-opening insights from CGM data to help you make actionable steps. Head over to NutriSense.io/freedom and use the coupon code "Freedom" to get $50 off your first month. That is NutriSense.io/freedom. Coupon code is freedom. - Let's talk about some of the natural stuff that will help with just overall going through menopause, and then we'll get into a little bit of HRT. What should we know about it? I wanna ask you this question. Would it make sense, and I think it would, that if we could do all the lifestyle practices that you talk about in the book to lower our levels of inflammation around the cells and the receptor sites, then the hormones that we do have actually could be more effective with actually getting into the cell and doing its job because we're lowering cell inflammation. Would it make sense to do those lifestyle behaviors to lower cell inflammation, to help with whatever hormones are there? - At any age, all the time. - At any age, all the time. - Yeah, yeah. - So what are the best ways to achieve that? What are the life for menopausal women? - Well, I mean, as Maria hinted, I think too many women are under-eating, under-nourishing their body. So they need to kind of stop that catabolic physiologic stress that they're causing with the excess cardio, the under-eating, the kind of eat less, move more, mentality that we drag from our 30s and 40s into our 50s. So that would be kind of the first one. I think women are not paying attention to how much stress they're under. Whether it's perceived actual mental, social, it does not matter. We need to address the stress in our lives. Whether you're 25 or 55, whether you're making hormones or taking hormones. If your system, if your nervous system is upregulated and dysregulated, your hormones are not going to have their act, their intended effects. And that is something that a lot of women think, well, if I just, you know, optimize my hormones, however they're choosing to do it, the stress is gonna go away. Now, that's not how it works. It's actually the reverse. So, you know, eating correctly, eating enough, managing your stress, working on your sleep hygiene. And Maria and I are gonna be the first ones to admit that sleep and movement are crucial. But many women are lacking the motivation and drive to kind of optimize those things when they're low on hormones. So sometimes there's sort of this inflection point that we need to sort of double down on our habits and at the same time engage maybe with some hormones, simply because we can't overcome a flat mood and lack of sleep and force ourselves into the gym if we're not sleeping because we have no progesterone and no estrogen and, you know, et cetera. So we're gonna make that concession to women. Like we totally get it, just telling you to go and lift heavy weights, sounds great on paper, but if you're harmonally depleted, it's a big ask. And so, you know, we wanna acknowledge that. So I think, you know, those are the basic things, right? Is eat correctly, move correctly, try and get your sleep done, manage your stress. And, you know, the rest of it, unfortunately, nature is going to take care of. It's just, those hormones are going down, period dot. You know, I think you made a good point. There are so many women probably listening to your podcast within your demographic who are walking into this stage of life with a lot of good habits in place and a lot of good things going for them. They will likely be able to sort of prolong how well they feel into later years of perimenopause and maybe even early menopause, then other women who are not metabolically sound. Unfortunately, though, it's still just kicking the can down the road. At some point, your phenomenal metabolic habits and foundations aren't gonna be enough to maintain your bone mass. It's just not possible, you know, I think- - Think to us, it's 63. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And we're gonna like to say, you know, let's just take muscle, for example, right? So we know that we need optimal amino acid intake and we need optimal stress, you know, resistance training in order to maximize our muscle tissue, maximize our power, doesn't mean bulking, right? It just means maintaining and really holding on to it. Muscle's important for locomotion. It's important for our bones. It's important for inflammation control. It's important for all these things. What women don't appreciate is that in our bodies, our muscle tissue is lined with estrogen receptors. And as we lose estrogen's stimulatory effects at the receptor in our muscle tissue, we lose muscle architecture. It shifts from the, you know, type two fast twitch to the type one slow twitch, right? We lose our volume of muscle. No amount of eating and strength training can overcome ultimately that loss of estrogen. This is where unfortunately a lot of women are getting shot up with testosterone. And then they're like, look, I've got my muscles. We're like, that's great, but there's actually a problem with that being get into it later. But we just wanna make that point that we encourage everyone to be mathematically sound. We want that to be the first step. We hope it carries you as far as it possibly can, symptomatically. But at some point, you're gonna have to meet the reality that even that won't be enough for the chronic disease risk because the inflammation is going to happen, because all of these changes are going to happen. Our bodies just need estrogen. - Makes sense to me. What would you say about those who are doing keto or carnivore with fasting, different fasting schedules, you know, OMAD, and you talk about different fasting styles in the book, OMAD Warrior Diet? - What advice would you give for that person listening and watching who's doing keto, low-carb, carnivore, and intermittent fasting right now as they are in menopause, post-menopause? - I mean, I would say that I would wanna make sure that they're getting enough protein for their muscles and for their bones. I'm sure Kristen will have a bit more on this to say than me. - I would say, you know, I think intermittent fasting and what we're talking about here is not the long fast, right? Not the 24-hour, et cetera. - Sure, sure, intermittent fasting. - Yeah, whether you're doing 5-2 or you're doing OMAD or twice a day or whatever it may be, but in a typical day, if that helps you with caloric control, go for it. However, consider flipping the script a little bit and not fasting in the morning, but instead fasting at night. And the reason for that is just simple. We know we're catabolic when we wake up in the morning. We've had this overnight fast. Women need to stop that catabolism, and the best way to do it is a nice big moles of calories and protein. So if we can, you know, not fast all morning, and ladies, you gotta be strength training. We have to be resistance training. It's not about aesthetics. It's about our bones. It's about our inflammation control. It's about all these things. Most of us do that sometime before noon each day. So if we're fasting at the same time, we're in a state of physical catabolism there, and then we go and stress the body and the gym, fasted, not a great plan for women. The escalation of catabolism is so much more in women than it is men. Some men can get away with that. We cannot as we lose our hormones. So we would say intermittent fast all you want, cut yourself off at two in the afternoon, three in the afternoon, whatever it may be, and, you know, have extended fast from your nighttime, right, starting during the day. But be very careful because that muscle tissue is your currency for healthy aging. And when we lose our hormones and we don't eat at the proper times, we will end up causing ourselves to have an increased disease risk, which is really brutal for these people who are investing so much time in trying to avoid disease, right? So we just say, do whatever an event works for you. I mean, Marie and I have both done carnivore from time to time. I think it's a great therapeutic intervention for a lot of people. I think, you know, Marie and I are foodies. We get a little bit of palate fatigue. And so, you know, when we got spouses that we cook for and they're like, can we have something other than meat? Like, this is cool, but you guys have overdone it. So, you know, whatever works for people, we're not here to judge, we're not fans of veganism. That would be our kind of hard stop, simply because getting the proper profile of amino acids while maintaining good gut function and a proper carbohydrate exposure we find is impossible for women on veganism. I'm sure there'll be someone listening who will send us a hate mail, bring it on. I've got receipts to share with you. But for the most part, whatever works for you, do it. Just do it in the context of this hormonal changing landscape. Do it with a lens for maintaining your muscle tissue. Do it with a lens for maintaining, you know, a state that's not constantly catabolic. - Yeah, that's great. And I love that you addressed the stress part, right? We know fasting is a stress to the body, exercise a stress to the body. And of course, we have all these wonderful biohacks that everybody's talking about these days and cold plunging and red light and sauna. Amazing stressors, unless it's too much and your body's not adapting to it, then it's not amazing, it's hurting you. - Yeah. - And that's the principle of hermesis, right? Staying in that hermetic zone. Would you say that looking at heart rate variability is a good gauge to see if you're adapting to these stressors in a good way or if it's too much stress for your body? - I think it's a great way. I mean, what we're gonna say, Maria? - Yeah, no, no, no. - I do, if you want to track it, I did track that and sleep and steps. I still occasionally track steps, just it's sort of like me versus me. If you want to track that stuff, I mean, I have largely moved away from trackers and I've just really delved into how do I feel today? Can I do a hard workout? So yeah, I've just gotten away from my new tracking, the my new show of tracking. - Yeah. - Work though, you know, I just work now. - I think there's devices like Morpheus, right? It would be a great one for HRV because it's not looking at anything else. And the reason why I think Maria has, you know, come around to her position on trackers. I might have influenced a little bit 'cause I was always like, it's taking you out of the equation, right? There were too many times where we'd get clients who were like, God, I woke up this morning feeling so great, but then my aura ring told me I didn't get enough sleep. And I'm like, dude, stop letting the tracker override your physical experience, right? Like if you feel okay, then it's okay. Now, obviously we can gaslight ourselves and persist through states that we shouldn't, but most people, you know, can figure out that sort of mind-body connection without a tracker. HRV, however, I don't think any of us have the pulse on just, you know, internally, right? So I do think if you're gonna look at something like that, it is really, really good. I know for me, HRV, when I used to track it, partly as part of my training, that there were days where I was like, well, snap, this workout's not gonna work for me today because I'm probably gonna hit a wall at about 3 p.m. if I push through it. So I think informing yourself that way for things that we aren't able to gauge ourselves is great, but sleep, steps, all these things, come on. Like I don't have to track my steps. I know when my butt has been planted too long and my desk is fair, you know? (laughs) Yeah. - That's fair. You're right, you know, there are valuable resources for somebody who uses the right way, but you don't wanna let a ring or a watch determine how you're gonna feel the rest of the day. I agree. Personally, I love to track those things and it works really well for me. Like I have the aura ring, but I know like the other day, every Sunday I play basketball, fasted. I'm a guy. - It works for guys. - This is what I do. - Yeah. - It works, yeah. Two hours of basketball, fasted. And I recovered really well, according to the ring, but I felt super sore and fatigued on Monday, the day after. So the ring was telling me it's a good day to go push yourself. My body was telling me, it's not a good day to push yourself. So I listened to my body, right? So it's good to have both. I do like HRV, you're right. If we could get just something looking at HRV, I think that's fabulous. It's such a good gauge to see if you're adapting to these stressors and we're also different. But there's benefits and there's cons to it. There's pros and cons to it. - I enjoyed the ring for a year and I feel like I got some value out of it. But after a while, I was like, I just don't need to keep seeing this. So that's just me. - I understand, I get it and I respect it. - Yeah. - Let's talk about HRT now. The book covers pretty much everything you want to know about HRT from the history, the different types, some of the flawed studies on it, different types of HRT. So let's do a whole rundown, a little master class here on HRT. So for those watching and listening, they understand how it works and how it could benefit them. - Yeah. (laughing) - If I would say we can start with, we have a chapter called MHT, HRT and BHRT. And I think that's a really good place to start kind of this discussion, which is that HRT, it's not one thing. And different hormones can be taken in different forms and dosed with different regimens. And each hormone has differences among it, right? So we might not want to swallow our estrogen, but swallowing progesterone is fine. So there's little nuances like that that I think are really important for women to know. So we do try and cover those things because at the end of the day, Marie and I work with women all over the world. And in the United States, we have a plethora of options when it comes to hormone replacement therapy, not everyone in every country does. And so that's why one of the reasons we want to kind of really cover everything in depth, because everyone's toolbox and available options are gonna be different. But when it comes to what it can achieve, that's really where we kind of feel that every book has always lost its nuance. So MHT is considered menopausal hormone therapy. It's a phrase I believe predominantly coined or used by the North American Menopause Society called NAMM, now they're trying to update to the menopause society. But essentially what they're saying is when a woman hits menopause and she's got these distinct symptoms, primarily vasomotor symptoms, AK hot flashes, or osteoporosis, any bone changes, then you can give her menopausal hormone therapy. And what that means is there's parameters. You give her a low dose, you give her to a short amount of time, and you get symptom resolution, and then you take her off it. So that has started to morph a little bit. Some doctors, we use a few different forms or a little bit higher dosing than maybe NAMM says to start with, but it is somewhat self-limited because they are only fans of FDA approved, commercially available options, i.e. those provided to us by Big Pharma. Shocker that NAMM's has primarily all of its funding from Pfizer. So this is Big Pharma capture, unfortunately impacting women's menopausal health. But so what happens then is just like, if I wanted to get an 800 milligram pill for ibuprofen after any surgery, I need that prescribed to me. But on the shelf, I can get 100 and 200 milligrams. So that commercially available off the shelf stuff are these patches primarily, and they have a limit as to how much the max dose is going to be. Because of that, they have a limit as to how they can influence women's health. And that is the difference. MHT is focused on symptom suppression for a shorter duration. HRT, hormone replacement therapy, some people like to say BHRT. Marie and I like to say that in the vast majority of instances, they're the same. The B stands for bioidentical. What it means is that we're no longer using horse urine and other chemical molecules, faking as hormones, but we're using molecules, yes, synthesized in a lab. So technically synthetic, but that they molecularly match the hormones that are ovaries made. So that is what bioidentical means. You're gonna hear people say, it's a marketing term. Anytime you hear that, please know they are a shill for big pharma because what they don't like is that bioidentical means it's gonna be customized for you. And that's not commercial medicine. That's not patentable and therefore that is not profitable. So anyone saying bioidentical is a marketing term, move along, that's not the provider for you. But whether you use the word bioidentical with HRT, in most instances, it doesn't matter as much these days. I always ask what form of estrogen your doctor is using. But so HRT is really looking at, do we want to do more than just suppress the symptoms? Do we want to reduce chronic disease risk for women? And this is where some of our favorite part of the book is getting into that history because in the early 1900s through about 1950, every major medical society in the United States and actually globally looked at the menopausal transition and the loss of sex hormones as a disease risk for women. And they used HRT, in fact, advocated for HRT as preventative medicine, okay? Not addressing symptoms, preventative medicine for disease risk. So we've had this huge shift happen. We can let Maria get into that, but it has to do with some bad studies. And so we wanted to kind of point out to women, if you're hearing MHT, it's a tell. It's saying we're going to use low dose and we're only going to get you to shut up about your symptoms. If you hear BHRT, it says we're going to use bioidentical hormones that are customized to you and they have the capacity, whether or not your provider is someone who will dose them this way, they have their capacity to prevent disease in you or to mitigate disease risk. - So good. Maria, add on to that. I want to hear your thoughts there. - Well, boy, Kristen said an awful lot. You did been at the very beginning of this podcast, ask us about like, I think you went right in on menopause and HRT from like a conventional, and I think you mentioned like functional holistic. - Yes. - And so what I want to add onto that is you run the risk even of when you work with a functional or holistic practitioner. And it's really an MD, DO, NPPA and naturopath, depending on the state, can write a prescription for HRT for you. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to have your best interests in mind. And unfortunately, we just know that by hearing from so many women, I went to see a functional medicine doctor. I just got the patch. Oh, well, we actually did test, and gee, I'm no higher than 40 picograms per milliliter in the blood test, and that's not giving them disease protection. They're literally maintaining them in a postmanopausal range per the lab test. That's still like, that's still a menopausal level of estradiol. And these are postmanopausal women using HRT. And they're not getting any help and they're working with a functional practitioner. So that's one of the other important things you want women to know and why we wrote the book because we want you to understand like Kristen started by saying, you know, know what your options are and what they can do for you. - Yeah, I mean, as Maria just said, it only takes a little bit of estradiol to suppress a hot flash. And if that's a woman's pain point, that will be life-changing, and we want that for her. But that same amount that suppresses a hot flash is likely not enough to prevent tau proteins from building up in your brain. It's not enough to protect the endothelium of your arteries. It's not enough to remodel your bones. And that's the part that gets us frustrated because women believe, and we all have a little bit of a white coat syndrome that we could be, you know, fallen guilty to. But anyone with a script must be able to write me a good hormone prescription, right? And the answer is no, actually not. You know, what constitutes the right hormone prescription is very much directly coming from what's your goal. And if your goal is simply hot flash protection, great. You know, someone probably with a script pad can do that. But if your goal is this, you know, I don't want Alzheimer's. I don't want to have coronary artery calcium. I don't want those things. Then you really need to be picky about what type of hormones, what levels of hormones, and who's gonna give them to you? - Very important. What about progesterone? Could you explain the role of that hormone, especially as it relates to menopause? - So we have progesterone receptors in the brain. I believe we have them in the bones as well. And the heart, yeah. Okay. And so unfortunately, then the kind of very conventional, very, very NAMM's view, North American Menopause Society, or the Menopause Society is no uterus, no progesterone. No, no, no, you cannot have it. There are some doctors, some even NAMM doctors who are starting to make concessions that if you need it for sleep, and we would explain that progesterone can help with sleep onset, not sleep maintenance, typically. Not typically, it's estrogen that actually does that. Then they are kind of allowing women to have it. But we say even women without a uterus, they still derive benefit from progesterone. - It's so important for the brain. - So important for the brain. And we'd say even the mood piece, Maria, right? Because we know that GABA doesn't cross the blood brain barrier without particular enzymes that need to usher it across, escort it across. Well, those come as metabolites from progesterone. So when we don't have those things, we're ending up with these kind of mood issues and whatnot. And I think, Maria and I always say, like, we as women, we're tough, like not just her and me, but like women generally are tough. We persevere, right? Like whether we are taking care of children or taking care of a partner, whether we're taking care of a business and a career, whether they're taking care of aging parents, we take care of people. Like that's kind of women's primal instinct, right? Is where these caregivers and we're working for others all the time. When we hit this time of life and the world starts to kind of shake underneath our feet, we double down on taking care of everyone else and we don't seem to take care of ourselves. And it's really, really tragic. And so if some women had a little bit of progesterone, they might find that sort of self love to be like, ah, I need something here now. But when the going gets tough, we're kind of like, you, Kristen, be quiet, I'm gonna go take care of everyone else here. I can make this work kind of thing. So yeah. - And the no uterus, no progesterone for you is sadly very typical, very indicative of very siloed Western medicine. It's like one body part, one thing. You need a specialist for this and a specialist for that. No one's looking at how these things affect us as a whole. - Yeah. And it goes back to the whole, it's more than just menstruation and fertility. It's way more than that, you know? And if not having a uterus meant you didn't need progesterone, that would be simple if it were just about menstruation and fertility, but it's not. - Yeah, it doesn't make sense because progesterone is one of the more safe for hormones to take as well. Let me know if you could relate to this health insurance. Oh my gosh. What a pain in the butt it is to deal with health insurance. It is a broken system that is penalizing people who are truly trying to get healthier, like you listening to this podcast. These healthcare costs are rising dramatically due to a broken insurance system that incentivizes higher costs and interventions instead of prevention. So what's the solution? I'm a big fan of crowd health. It's a better alternative to health insurance. It's not a health share, it's a decentralized community supporting each other directly for large health expenses. Crowd health is a revolutionary healthcare platform that empowers consumers by offering an alternative to traditional health insurance. It operates on a subscription model. This fee grants them access to a comprehensive suite of healthcare tools, resources, and personalized support through personal care advocates, as well as access to the crowd where they can submit any healthcare expenses over $500 for funding by the crowd. Crowd health is not an insurance company. 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The code is vitamin G. Let's face it, in the health and biohacking space, there's a lot of supplements. And I have used a lot of them. My cabinet looks like the vitamin shop, but there's one supplement that I take more often than others. This supplement is called Man of Vitality. I actually have this on auto-ship to get it each month. And I love it so much, and I'll explain why, but I love it so much that I even have my mother on auto-ship for her to get it every single month as well. Man of Vitality contains a high concentration of Sheila Jip, which is this super concentrated mineral sourced from the Himalayan mountains and ormus from the Dead Sea. There's so much I love about Man of Vitality and the company, 10 years of expertise. Their decade-long journey in sourcing from sacred sites and sharing the purity and potency of our ingredients makes it a favorite of mine. They have vigorous lab testing processes that guarantee the absence of a contaminant, including heavy metals, providing peace of mind, knowing that it is clean when you consume it. Simply take one sachet per day. You could have it straight up, makes it with water or do what I do, I put it in my coffee, and you're going to notice the difference on that first day. I have been feeling incredible. Every time I take Man of Vitality, I take it with me when I travel. I actually put two packets in my coffee when I travel to make sure I feel great while I'm on the road, and I think you're going to love it as well. Metabolic Freedom Podcast listeners get a nice discount off Man of Vitality products. If you head over to manavitality.com/ketocamp, you could see their products and use the coupon code KetoCamp at checkout, which is a nice discount. Man of Vitality.com/ketocamp. - I looked into the research. I want to know if you found anything on this. I haven't found any research showing a progesterone has a negative feedback loop like other hormones, meaning when you take, this is different than a menopausal woman, obviously, since I'm not producing it, but for somebody who is producing progesterone, have you seen anything in the literature that shows when you take progesterone, your body starts producing less of it? Is there a negative feedback loop? I haven't seen that to be the case. There's a little bit of clinical evidence of that to be honest. And so what, okay, so it's a little bit more complicated. So part of the ovarian cycle over 28 days is a rise in estrogen, followed by a drop, followed by the production, a robust production of progesterone. We always have a little bit from the adrenals, but those who are say, we have progesterone all month, not from the ovaries, we don't folks. So the ovaries then ramp up around day 14 and it hits its peak. Well, our ability to respond to and do well with progesterone that's given to us exogenously is dependent upon us having progesterone receptors, okay? Progesterone receptors sort of come and go over the course of the month and they're dependent upon estradiol levels. And so what we see is that when women in perimenopause or early, early kind of change of life do this progesterone only HRT, and yes, it's safe, but Marie and I would always say estradiol is actually safe as well. And as long as your progesterone is biodontical, that's great, it's not a progesterone. We just want to make that, there's an umbrella term called progestogens. Under that, there are progestines with their synthetic. Those are endocrine disruptors. They're very dangerous and cancer-causing and other things, then we have progesterone, okay? So progesterone and they all, if we say them too fast, they all start to sound alike. So we want to make sure women are paying attention, but progesterone is perfectly fine. It can help with some of the PMDD stuff and some other things, but if a woman is just taking it at the phase of life where her estrogen is on the decline, her receptors for progesterone are not going to be as abundant. Her progesterone experience therefore can start to go south and we see this all the time. Suddenly, they're more anxious all of a sudden. Suddenly, they have water weight. Suddenly, the cravings are out of control. The mood starts being dysregulated again. And for a lot of doctors, because there's this fear around estrogen or they think, well, she's too young, she couldn't possibly need estrogen, they just give her more progesterone. Well, just pouring more crap into the tank that doesn't have any receptors for it doesn't turn out so well. And as for the negative feedback loop, there is some evidence that as we start to come in and tinker with the system, we start to disrupt the system. And so ultimately, it's, are we augmenting her slowing production of hormones or do we want to take over the system and control it? Marie and I just, from clinical work, are coming more and more around to the, it's better to sort of go in and control the system. That makes sense. I want to, I would love to see that research because I looked hard and I even asked some of the people who endorsed your book, by the way, and they said, no, they told me the opposite. So I want to see what you saw. And maybe they thought I was asking about men versus women. I don't know if there's a difference there. Do you know if there's a difference there with that negative feedback loop in men and women? Yeah, men do much better. I mean, it's shocking how men can benefit from progesterone. I've used it personally, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and even, you know, I'm a military mom and I'm a gold star sister and I worry about our vets quite a bit and we have so much PTSD and different EDIs and whatnot. I mean, these guys in particular could really be benefiting from progesterone. So yeah, that's not going to disrupt a men's, you know, adrenal production of any progesterone. I mean, men do have a little bit kind of thing. That can be helpful. You know, those who say that it doesn't have an impact, then ostensibly the woman going through perimenopause shouldn't need a change in her dose. She shouldn't have a change in her symptoms, but they do. And they do because this estrogen's on the decline, which means our receptors are on the decline, which means that progesterone's not going to have anything to stimulate. Makes sense. It's good. So I did 30 days of progesterone when I was doing my nine and eight carnivore experiment and I was going through a lot of stress because we were moving from a moldy home and doing a mold detox, doing carnivore. And of course, I put all these stressors. So I just did a 30-day cycle of progesterone. Actually helped to help my sleep and recovery. I felt really good personally using it as a male. So I was looking, that's what I was at during that time. I was trying to find out if I take this, is it going to stop my body's production of it? It's good to hear that that was not the case. Yeah, I mean, women, though, also remember who are taking it. That production is slowing. Now, if you're talking, let's say about a 23-year-old who just graduated from college, she's got incredible amounts of stress, maybe a little bit of metabolic derangement from dining hall food and drinking at Friday football games or something, can we put a little bit in the system and sort of rekindle things, sort of restart things? Absolutely. But she's got ovarian capacity, right? The women in perimenopause do not have the same ovarian capacity. That makes sense. Can we talk about oxytocin and what oxytocin can do to combat high levels of cortisol and stress? Oh. (both laugh) Freya. (both laugh) She gave you the go. Yeah, I mean, oxytocin is a beautiful calming hormone. Fun fact is actually super helpful for women who have something called progesterone intolerance, which is for better or for worse, becoming more known. I don't know if it's becoming more common, but it's becoming at least more discussed. There are women for whom progesterone can actually disrupt sleep and it can actually make them more anxious, even in an environment in which they have adequate receptors, they have adequate estrogen, et cetera. So oxytocin is just, it's a beautiful calming hormone. One of the ways I see some of our providers using is actually a nasal spray. Yeah, I use that personally. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, if we know that, just going back to premenopause, right? We know that if a woman is super stressed out for whatever reasons and from whatever sources and whatever forms of stress, the body says, "Oh, this is not a good time to procreate," right? I am not going to get pregnant right now. And so it will slow, shut down, reduce whatever ovarian hormone production. It makes sure that there's no risk of this sort of conception that could happen during this very stressful time of life. So if we started to rekindle things by adding oxytocin and things like that, boom, our hormone production can happen again, right? We can really re-stimulate and revive our ovarian production. Well, in women with HRT, when we don't have that ovarian production, it's actually no different. If you're super stressed out, the receptors are going to be like, you know, not today. Not today, I'm not going to respond to these hormones. And this is where oxytocin can help these women. And this is why Marie and I say all the time, we need to manage our stress. Because whether you're taking hormones or making hormones, stress is going to impede the action of those hormones. You know, does everyone need to go out and get oxytocin nasal spray? Probably not, because they're not really doing the work or the basics. But if we're really dealing with stuff in which that cortisol dysregulation is happening and we're struggling, absolutely lean into it and take it. And if you're a woman who cannot tolerate progesterone, talk to your provider about trying oxytocin and you may be able to reestablish your progesterone tolerance. - That's great. - Are you experimented with oxytocin at all? - Like 10 years ago, nothing to report actually. I don't know, it was nasal and I don't know if it was efficacious, honestly. - Well, but we could say, Marie, when we nursed our children, we experienced oxytocin and it was pretty freaking amazing. - That's true, that's true. And, you know, when I hug my dog, I'm getting that oxytocin, laughing from TV shows or whatever, oxytocin, it's such a wonderful hormone. You just, I feel like both of you exude oxytocin all the time, at least when you're with me. I'll receive it and give it back to you. Let's kind of land a plane here on menopause with a few more questions. I'm writing a new book, it's called Metabolic Freedom and it's all about this concept of metabolic flexibility. It's a spin on that. It'll be out next year with Hayhouse and the book addresses what you two address as well, which is this metabolic dysfunction we see out there with 93% or so of American adults being metabolically unhealthy. So I wanna ask you, maybe you could do like one, Kristen, Maria, and then Kristen, what are your top three favorite ways to achieve this metabolic freedom for humanity? - Oh gosh, I would start probably with eating enough protein. We can balance our blood sugar. We can really start to achieve satiety. We can sort of reignite or rekindle or reacquaint ourselves with leptin and ghrelin. I think if we can get into our blood sugar dysregulation, we can start to really address a lot of metabolic dysfunction. And one of the easiest ways for women, particularly in this time of life to achieve that is just increasing their protein. It's amazing what we hear from women who are like, they'll go with the kind of standard 30 grams of protein at a meal, right? Okay, that's perfectly fine starting advice, but at the end of the day, we have something called anabolic resistance as we age. It actually even gets worse when we lose estrogen, meaning not 30 grams that we used to benefit from might require us to eat about 40 to 45 grams to get the same effect. And so when women will suddenly increase, just a little bit more and we're not talking, you don't have to eat a steak for breakfast, right? You could have cottage cheese and your scrambled eggs and some chicken sausage and boom, you've got 45 grams. Greek yogurt and a scoop away protein, perfect, right? It's not hard, it doesn't have to look always like carnivore, which again, we're not dissing carnivores, just I think women think protein, they think carnivore sadly. That basic thing, women will come to us and go, I was doing 30 grams and I finally said fine, I'll try 40 grams. And they're like, it was like my brain ignited, I was happier, I got through my day better, et cetera. Well, you know that if that can achieve that, their cortisol is lower, their sleep is going to be better. Like all of the factors that go into metabolic dysfunction can literally benefit and be launched from that simple change in balancing their blood sugar, getting adequate society. And Marie and I think the easiest lever for that is high protein. - Yeah, I love it, high animal protein, it's beautiful. Well said, yes. - Yes, animal protein, yes. I would add, I fully agree with what Kristen said, but to that, and I know she's gonna have a pushback and I know I'm gonna have a pushback for her pushback. To that, I would add healthy dietary fat with that protein. Now, I know what Kristen's pushback is gonna be, well, your fat comes packaged in your protein. - Not always. - If it's a sweet boy, I know, yeah. - No, no, true, true. So that's actually why I'm saying it. And I do like, I like Kristen cover your ears, I do like lean beef, I do. But, and I hate chicken, I will eat it sometimes, but fat with the protein. So whether that is gonna be your fatty salmon or some avocado with that chicken, that joyless chicken breast that you eat. But so I'm bringing it out, Ben, because like there's such an incredible sort of like community out there, social media has magnified it of like body recomp people. And if you like look at all these body recomp calculators and you're in a cut, you're gonna just cut protein, you're not gonna cut protein, you're gonna cut fat. Why? Because fat has more calories than neither carbs or protein. And it's like, for me, I'll just share my experience. And I think Kristen has had the same experience. It's just like, you're just not satisfied, you're not satiated, you are kind of, continue to have like food seeking behavior 'cause you don't absorb your wonderful vitamin D if you don't have enough dietary fat. So protein plus the dietary fat. - Yeah. And I'll add to it because we do know there's science and we've got to study, I think even quoted in the book that our ability to uptake and mobilize amino acids into muscle protein synthesis is actually dependent upon also mobilizing bile acids. Bile acids need fat, right? That is the signal for our body to trigger that bile. So that's why we do say and make sure you're having some fat. If you wanna have your chicken, please have some avocado with it or something. And I think, you know, like I love shrimp, okay? I'm a huge shrimp fan. But if you make something as basic as like shrimp and maybe a little olive oil or something and some garlic and some lemon or whatever, it's like, I'm hungry later on, right? And yet I got plenty of calories and I got a ton of protein. Well, I'm hungry because A, I don't have the fat. And B, protein's not a great energy source at the end of the day. Like our energy sources are carbs and fat. So if we are gonna, you know, get this metabolic flexibility, we need to be satiated and have that blood sugar balance have the fat. So I don't disagree with you, Maria at all. I know, I know. So protein and fat, I love it. Both animal-based is ideal. Give me one more tip for metabolic freedom. Yeah, I mean, metabolic freedom, I would say is eating also enough and eating diverse. You know, this was something that too many women are kind of, well, can go to the tracker's discussion too, but they're kind of pigeonholing them into certain macros, pigeon themselves into certain profiles of food. And they don't get a lot of diversity and they aren't realizing that you can have these diversions. It's not gonna derail your whole week. We've got 21 opportunities to get it right during the week if we're eating three times a day. You know, it's okay to some days have a few more carbs. And for women, particularly the younger ones with a robust progesterone cycle, that's gonna be a normal response is to want to seek some carbs perfectly fine. So I think achieving metabolic flexibility to me is the equivalent of metabolic freedom. If you can traffic both in fats and carbs equally and maintain your levels of performance, your levels of sleep, your levels of mood and everything else that are optimal for you, that is to me pure metabolic freedom. So, you know, we wanna focus on, okay, macros in particular, but it's not to downplay carbs and it's not to say you need zero, but just have an appropriate amount of carbs, but know when you're kind of foraging away from being able to tolerate carbs or foraging away from being able to tolerate fats and proteins. That's a danger zone as far as we're concerned. You need to be able to kind of do all of the above and metabolic flexibility is truly freedom. - Yeah, well said better than I can, I love it. Anything else you want to add to that, Maria? - I mean, to create metabolic flexibility, lift weights and for all the women, maybe for, I just wanna give sort of like a shout out of hope for the women who are like, oh, but I have frozen shoulder, oh, but you know, my knees, and these are maybe women that are around our age or a little bit younger and they're transitioning through menopause, we would not be able to lift the weights that we do if we did not have a robust physiologic level of estradiol floating through our bloodstream and being on the receptors of the tendons and the synovial fluid, you know, and all that stuff. So yeah, yeah. - No, it's a great point and then we didn't cover it, but estrogen is very relevant for your joint health. Estrogen is very relevant for your connective tissue health. And, you know, I always say to Maria, I get so mad because during my 40s, I had more sports injuries. I've had more surgeries and scars and being rebuilt so many different times. I was a competitive athlete for many, many years and I look back and think, well, wow, I had no estrogen. And I was like blowing tendons left and right and dislocating bones and whatnot. And gosh, gee, if I had had some hormones in my system, I probably wouldn't have been as vulnerable to those things. And to those who are calling BS on me, I'm telling you right now, I train as hard now at 54, almost 55, then I did back then and I am injury free. The difference is I have estrogen in my system. - Well, so to that, I'm my joints, my shoulders, my knees, my elbows, 'cause they all heard at one point are healthier at 56 than they were at 46, so. - Proof is right there, I love it. I have one final question before I ask it, the book, I'm holding it up on YouTube, but if you're not watching on YouTube, it's called The Great Menopause Myth, The Truth and Mastering Midlife Hormonal Mayhem, beating uncomfortable symptoms and aging to thrive. It's right behind Kristen as well. Where is yours, Maria? I don't see your book. (laughing) It's gonna be released September 10th, 2024, which is right around the corner of this release. Where is the best place you wanted to get the book? - I mean, Amazon is great, but really all booksellers, indiebooks.com, we're huge fans of local bookstores, so I would say try that. Barnes & Noble's gonna have it. You can go to our website, we've got a book page there that kind of gives you a bunch of different retailers. It is, we're very excited to announce that in 2025, it's gonna be translated into Spanish and in French as well. So we've got it releasing even in Europe in English-speaking bookstores coming September 12th, so it's gonna be very available to just about everyone. - That's awesome. Did you, who recorded the audible version of it? - I'm in our publisher, gave us some women's voices to pick. - Okay, so it wasn't YouTube is what I'm asking. - No. - Okay. That would've been fun. - It would've been fun, but you know Ben, there's only 24 hours in a day. (laughing) - Recording an audiobook, I did it for my last book, KetoFlex. - Wow. - It's a pain in the ass. - Yeah. - It's one of the best, the pains that I've ever, I never realized it was gonna be that tough, so you probably made a wise decision. - Yeah, our motto is just because we can, doesn't mean we should, you know? And so maybe we could've added it to in the morning, but that's not the point. (laughing) - Stress management, you made a wise decision. - That's nice, yes. - Share your website and your social, and then I'll ask you the final question. - Sure, our website is wiseandwell.me. Our main social really is just Instagram, and they can just type wise and well into the search bar, and our account should come right up. - Great, we'll put that down below. Last question is this, my favorite, and I have a chapter in my book that talks about how your thoughts influence your metabolism to create health or disease, either way, it's your choice. And in that chapter, there's a section on a vitamin, I call vitamin G. And this vitamin raises oxytocin, raises GABA, raises dopamine, helps with inflammation, helps with men and women, same type. It doesn't matter who you are, it'll help you. So I call it vitamin G's 'cause vitamin gratitude and the feelings of gratitude as an emotional experience, not an intellectual experience, feeling the gratitude. So I say all that 'cause I wanna ask, and we'll start with you, Maria, what do you have vitamin G gratitude for today? - Oh, well, that's a really nice question. And I can tell Ben that you live it. I mean, it's just amazing. I have gratitude today for that woman right there. She's just an amazing business partner and friend, and I feel incredibly blessed to be able to do this work together with her. - She's gonna make me cry, jeez. My gratitude is actually a line that I'm gonna take from Maria 'cause she's taught me this, which is it's a privilege to age, and I'm grateful for every single day that I'm getting older, right? And to do it alongside her, where we're able to kind of take our energies and couple them together and help other women to see that this is honestly the best time of life. It's not some time where we're being rolled up in mouth balls and stuck in the closet because we can't have babies any longer or we're not aesthetically fitting a mold. And honestly, for me and Maria to be able to do this work every day, we're very blessed. My husband is dying to retire. Maria's husband has recently retired, and I look at my husband and I'm like, I wanna retire, and he's like, the two of you can never retire if you have a job to do. And he's being tongue-in-cheek, but I do wanna say, Maria and I do take that seriously. We tell the women who work with us, your trust is the most important thing that you've ever given us, and we don't take that lightly. And so we're here to just serve women, honestly, educate them, empower them, and hopefully give them the opportunity to age every single day with gratitude. - Well said, y'all are doing a beautiful job at that. Everybody get the book, "The Great Menopause Myth." If you're a guy and you listen to the entire episode, I am very proud of you, good job. And gift that book to your woman in your life. They'll love you for it, for sure. So it's available September 10th, bookstores, Amazon, and also Audible, Kindle, all the good stuff. We'll put a link for it in the notes down below. Until next time, Maria and Kristen, thank you so much for coming back to the show today. - Thanks for having us. - Thank you so much. - I hope you love that interview with Maria and Kristen. Go get their book, "The Great Menopause Myth" over on Amazon or any bookstore. We'll drop a link down below. Check out the video version on youtube.com/ketocamp. Check them out on social media and their website. We'll drop all that in the notes down below. Share this with a woman in your life that could change their life forever. It was such a great conversation, and the book is so deep into understanding menopause and women's hormones. What a great resource. I hope you loved it. Leave the show rating and review if you have not done so already. Go check out my brand new ketosis masterclass over at ketosismasterclass.com. Go get your vitamin G, and I'll see you in the next episode. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast, including Benazotti, Disclaim Responsibility from any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not accept responsibility of statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representation to warranties about guests qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or non-direct interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician. You
