26:00

don't connect the dots to physical health,

26:02

to the weight loss resistance, to the

26:04

autoimmune disease, to the the

26:08

dysregulation with their hormones, as we've talked

26:10

about. So I

26:12

think it's important that we look more broadly,

26:14

especially with physical health. I

26:16

think you're also saying, and

26:19

tell me if this is right, that we have

26:21

to personalize it. That part. Yeah, I

26:23

think that's that's such a part of this

26:25

conversation. Because, you know, what works for me

26:27

in terms of working

26:29

in a positive way with my adverse childhood

26:32

experiences may not work for you. You

26:35

know, not everyone wants to sit and meditate for

26:37

30 minutes, that just doesn't work. They'd rather dance

26:39

or they'd rather have sex and orgasm, you know,

26:41

there's so many different ways that you can work

26:43

with your stress response. And

26:47

I think it

26:49

starts with an awareness of

26:52

how toxic stress might be lodged in

26:54

your system. So this

26:56

awareness of your own adverse childhood experience,

26:58

and I hope maybe we can have

27:01

folks Google the ACE questionnaire so that they

27:03

can assess that, or we can link to

27:05

it. So knowing your

27:08

own ACE is so important. And

27:10

then to understand that it's not

27:12

just, you know, your

27:15

ACE score is bad. Good

27:17

luck with that. It's that we've got all of

27:19

these ways that we can work with it. And

27:22

then to personalize it so that you can, you

27:25

know, not let that trauma

27:27

continue to live on in your

27:29

body and continue to maybe harm

27:31

your relationships and affect your

27:34

connection to meaning and purpose and the

27:37

way you work out of the gym, the way you take care

27:39

of yourself. All right, that

27:41

was our first expert in this powerful compilation,

27:43

we've got two more powerful segments

27:46

to go. And putting

27:48

this together reminded me of a conversation

27:50

that I have with my really good

27:52

friend, neuroscientist, and

27:55

NYU professor, Dr. Wendy

27:57

Suzuki, and she's Even

38:00

people who say that they don't like to

38:02

exercise, what people typically report is, I feel

38:05

better, I feel more optimistic, I

38:08

feel like I can take on the world, I have

38:10

more energy, not less energy. And so

38:12

this is a gap we have where we think

38:15

exercise is going to be so hard

38:17

and so uncomfortable and so awful that

38:19

we might think we'd rather have an

38:21

implant in our brains that would be

38:24

easier. But the actual experience people have

38:26

is so much the opposite. So I'm

38:28

interested in all psychology, all neuroscience, and

38:30

this is, I think, the most interesting

38:33

finding of the last decade in all

38:35

of science. And this is

38:37

the insight that your muscles are basically

38:39

an endocrine organ that secrete hormones into

38:42

your bloodstream that affect every system of

38:44

your body. And from a health point

38:46

of view, your

38:49

muscles will secrete hormones and other proteins that

38:51

are good, that fight cancer cells, and that

38:53

are good for your heart health, those are

38:55

the things that we know typical why exercise

38:57

is good for your health. But

39:01

your muscles, they secrete chemicals and proteins

39:03

when you exercise that are also really

39:05

good for your brain health. And

39:07

one of the first papers, almost 10 years ago, that

39:11

was published explaining that when you

39:13

contract your muscles, they literally secrete

39:15

these proteins into your bloodstream that

39:17

make you resilient to stress and can protect you

39:20

from depression. The scientists called

39:22

them hope molecules, this

39:24

idea that literally your muscles

39:26

are manufacturing like antidepressant

39:28

molecules, and the only way to get

39:31

them into your bloodstream where they can

39:33

then travel to your brain is you

39:35

have to contract your muscles, like that's

39:37

it. But your muscles are, it's like

39:40

a pharmacy in your muscles, and anything

39:42

you do that contracts them, walking, hiking,

39:44

running, dancing, weightlifting, like swimming, anything, you

39:47

are going to be dumping hope molecules

39:49

into your bloodstream that when they get

39:51

to your brain, they work as an

39:53

antidepressant, and they also help people recover

39:56

from trauma. Like that, that's

39:58

like a miracle. I mean,

40:00

you know, because of course it's wonderful when when

40:03

medications work for you, but for so many people

40:05

medications don't work or they don't do the full

40:07

job in terms of helping

40:09

with mental health and the idea

40:11

that your your muscles could provide

40:13

you with the equivalent of something

40:15

like an antidepressant medication like that

40:17

is just I think it's phenomenal.

40:21

All right, we're at our final expert

40:23

in this compilation to address the truth

40:25

about stress and weight gain. And

40:28

next up, we've got New York

40:31

Times bestselling author and

40:33

expert on thyroid and adrenal health,

40:36

Dr. Isabella Wentz. Now she's going

40:38

to be covering the relationship between

40:40

your adrenals and your stress response,

40:43

the transformative power of reducing stress

40:46

by sending your body what

40:48

she calls safety signals and

40:51

creating the conditions in

40:53

our bodies to make weight loss

40:56

far easier. Let's dive

40:58

into this segment with the amazing

41:00

Isabella Wentz. So

41:03

some of the symptoms that people might

41:05

have are trouble waking up in the

41:07

morning. So they just can't get out

41:10

of bed and they might be sluggish. That's

41:12

one pattern. Another person might just jump

41:14

out of bed startled, right? And

41:17

another person, they will have irritability and

41:19

mood swings throughout the day. Sometimes that

41:21

3 p.m. crash where you either like

41:23

want to take a nap or you

41:26

or you like want to yell at

41:28

somebody, that can be a sign of

41:30

adrenal dysfunction. Then things like pain

41:32

all over in their body, libido

41:35

issues, fatigue, irritability,

41:37

anxiety, trouble

41:39

sleeping, which I know you and I

41:42

are both passionate about getting our adequate

41:44

sleep. This can be very

41:46

much connected to adrenal dysfunction. People

41:48

tend to say they feel

41:50

tired throughout the day and then they

41:53

end up being moody throughout the day. They

41:55

end up being tired

41:57

but wired at bedtime where it's time to.

42:00

Time to tune in for the night.

42:02

They start getting that second wind of

42:04

energy and they can't fall asleep other

42:07

Manifestations might be things like excess weight

42:09

gain and people just can't regulate

42:11

their healthy weight levels and some

42:13

in some people and Most

42:16

of these people don't complain as much or

42:18

maybe aren't seen as much But I think

42:20

this is very relevant as some people just

42:22

can't put on the weight So

42:24

they might be like I'm exercising, but I

42:26

can't put on muscle muscle

42:29

wasting Just just

42:31

feeling like you're wasting away. You're not thriving

42:33

I would be a way to

42:35

describe the adrenal dysfunction and just

42:37

be in a state of overwhelm at all

42:39

times Wow, so this

42:42

speaks to a lot of people's experience, which is

42:44

you know they're really trying hard to lose weight

42:46

and They're counting their

42:48

calories. They're in even a caloric deficit.

42:51

Yeah, right because that's kind of the

42:53

superficial Scientific thing, you

42:55

know when I was in my nutritional science classes

42:57

in in college It's just like, you know, expend

42:59

more calories than you take in it's simple then

43:02

you'll lose weight basic math, right?

43:04

Basic math your body's a calculator, right?

43:06

You know, but in reality Your

43:09

thyroid is deeply and this association

43:11

is connection with the adrenals deeply

43:13

influential over your

43:16

quote metabolic rate and how your

43:18

body is processing and expending

43:20

that energy and So you

43:22

can be in a place where you're cutting it and I've seen this

43:24

I've seen people come into my office and they're 900

43:27

calories a day and the scales not budging and

43:30

they're just suffering they're broken and they they're just

43:32

like I don't know What's wrong with me? right

43:35

and of course you've seen this many times but

43:37

helping people to understand what's going on internally and

43:39

Helping to heal and support these glands

43:42

is a big part of this mission Mm-hmm,

43:44

and it's it's challenging because I'll

43:46

see some women that are like

43:48

overly exercising and They're

43:51

restricting their calories and

43:53

that sends a message to the body

43:55

and that messages. Hey Girlfriend,

43:58

we're in a stressful time But

44:00

don't you worry, I'm going to hold on to your

44:02

calories, so you're not going to starve. I see that

44:04

food isn't available right now, and I see you're doing

44:07

all this running. You must

44:09

be running from some intruders,

44:11

right? Because our genes haven't

44:13

really adapted to dieting

44:16

and the stress of our day-to-day lives.

44:18

They're more, and our stress response is

44:20

more adapted to, hey, we're being chased

44:22

by a tiger right now. What

44:25

are we going to do? Or hey, we're

44:27

in a famine, can we conserve some of

44:29

our calories so we don't have to look for

44:31

food right now? And so

44:34

it's really adaptive physiology at its finest.

44:36

Our body's always trying to help us

44:38

out, trying to help us survive.

44:40

And if we're sending these messages to

44:42

the body like, hey, food is

44:45

not available, or we're under

44:47

a lot of stress, the body's going to try to help us out.

44:50

It's going to help to be like, you don't have to

44:52

look for food, honey. We're going to hold on to all

44:54

of your calories for you, right? And

44:56

so that's what happens, unfortunately, is the

44:59

metabolic rates slow down. And

45:02

I will have some women where

45:04

I will say, hey, how

45:06

about you really focus on

45:09

sending yourself safety signals and

45:11

eating nourishing foods and not exercising so much,

45:14

maybe switching up the type of exercise that

45:16

you're doing? And they're like, I'm

45:18

exercising less, and I'm eating more, but

45:21

I'm actually losing weight

45:23

because the body knows that it's safe and

45:25

it's getting the signals that food

45:27

is plentiful, that we're not being chased by

45:29

a bear. And so it's

45:31

okay to thrive and focus on

45:33

metabolism. And so what

45:36

brings about adrenal dysfunction? What is

45:38

the thing that causes that to manifest? Well,

45:42

it's stress, right? So when I ask people that

45:44

I work with, what was going on in your

45:46

life before you get sick? There's

45:48

always some sort of a stressor. And I

45:50

would say majority of people, it's something like

45:52

they were going through a divorce, maybe they

45:55

had unfortunately a death in the family, perhaps

45:57

they went through a bankruptcy or