27. Birth Control B.S. w/ Leah Brueggemann of Balancing Hormones Naturally

[: 00:00:00

[00:00:10] Leah: when we enter menopause, our ovaries are not going to be producing these hormones anymore. It's going to be primarily our adrenals. Now, our adrenals are also the ones producing our adrenaline, our cortisol, and if we keep pushing through, we keep eating our kids leftovers and not prioritizing nutrition, we keep trying to lose those, you know, pounds that can't seem to go, so we keep doing the HIIT we keep getting up, at 5 a.

[: 00:00:38

[00:00:46] Leah: And then we go, Hey, adrenals, would you like to make some more progesterone for me? Do you think that would be great? So I could sleep better and have a better mood and your adrenals are just like, screw you. You have been doing nothing. But hating on me, pushing through, not prioritizing our health, and your body keeps giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, until it's dry.

[: 00:01:09

[00:01:27] Meredith: Have you ever felt less than? Like you can't keep up with the demands of the day? Are your periods so painful you vomit? Or you can't even get out of bed. And now you have given up on caring about your period health because you're not trying to have a baby, then this is your episode. Join me as we discuss turning your crappy period fertility.

[: 00:01:55

[00:02:20] Meredith: Facing Your Shit and Healing Yourself is a movement. It's more than a podcast. You can support this movement with a donation or become a member for as low as 5 a month and receive exclusive art, be featured on the show, submit questions for guests, and more. So who am I and why did I decide to create this show?

[: 00:02:41

[00:03:05] Meredith: And this is where I create artwork that illustrates how I healed myself as I live by the phases of the female hormonal cycle. You can look for the Every Phase vlog episodes on the podcast as I recreate select pieces of the series in an animated mini series. The artwork shows what's happening in the brain and the body During each phase and reveals how to biohack and leverage this energy in your life.

[: 00:03:32

[00:04:04] Meredith: Today we are chatting with Functional Diagnostic Nutritional Practitioner Leah Brueggemann. Leah's health journey started about five years ago when she discovered lumps in one of her breasts. Fortunately, after getting an exam, she was informed she had benign breast tumors. She chose not to have them surgically removed because they reportedly return 90 percent of the time.

[: 00:04:25

[00:04:55] Meredith: By nourishing her body with loving foods, she was eventually able to heal herself, and tumors started to shrink, ovarian cysts disappeared, her cycles normalized, and she actually had pain free periods. She soon realized that this situation is not unique to her and there are so many women that are having hormonal issues of some sort or another.

[: 00:05:16

[00:05:29] Leah: I interviewed Dr. Kelly Roof, who is like a naturopathic doctor and she got on and she did the same thing. she's I got to reapply my chapstick. And I'm like, why? And she goes, did you know that when you get nervous, your lips get chapped?

[: 00:05:42

[00:05:48] Meredith: I can actually see that at least for myself because I am but I feel like I drink more When I get nervous, it's

[: 00:05:56

[00:06:12] Balancing Hormones Naturally Podcsat

[: 00:06:12

[00:06:41] Meredith: There's so many great topics that are just so relatable. like just quick ways to balance hormones, the answer, birth control isn't the answer to Regular periods. We're totally going to chat about that, but yeah, I just freaking love it. I had to shout you out because it's incredible the work you're doing with your podcast.

[: 00:07:02

[00:07:23] Leah: that's why if you notice, like, all my episodes seem to batch a topic. It's because I'm like, this is what everybody's going through this month. And then the next month, I'm like, this is what everybody's going through. So it's a new topic.

[: 00:07:35

[00:07:38] Meredith: Because It's what people are actually wondering, okay, what is like the day? It's very much like a day to day. This is how you live in this world with surrounded by toxins, surrounded by poison, surrounded by bullshit and how you remain balanced. And especially when everything's geared towards men, all the fad diets, like all the stats and stuff you hear out there, all the research, like most of it that's done on.

[: 00:08:06

[00:08:31] Leah: yeah.

[: 00:08:32

[00:08:57] Leah: She has the plague.and I did have really bad period cramps though. Like I would be throwing up, it would be, and I just thought, whatever, like this is normal, but I never wanted. to talk about it. Like I would just say I was sick at school and have my mom come pick me up. it would not be like, Oh, I'm on my period and I have really bad cramps.

[: 00:09:17

[00:09:37] Leah: none of my friends were like talking about, periods or, which I mean, we're in high school, so I guess it's not like super. I guess easy to say, but same thing in college. I would be sick on my period and it would just, my cycles were really irregular and knew nothing about like women's cycles and how to support them.

[: 00:09:58

[00:10:17] Leah: That's going to solve all my issues with digestion. what's the one thing that's gonna make sure I'm not constipated? that was me on like Dr. Google for Ever. Because I just, I didn't think that there was anything else out there. I wasn't taught it. I wasn't taught that in school, like in anatomy, I learned about bones and muscles, like not learning about, important things.

[: 00:10:41

[00:11:07] Meredith: And just that basic knowledge I think would help so many people in just understanding what's going on because you're right, we beat ourselves up because we live in this everyday society, gotta get all the shit done by the end of the day. Everything's geared around testosterone, even the nine to five work schedule.

[: 00:11:26

[00:11:34] Leah: Yeah. No, it's true, and I, everybody markets to that. I can't tell you, The amount of, companies that are in my email inbox, like we want you to promote this supplement and it's like the supplement of hormone balance or this like new device that's going to solve all your period cramp problems.

[: 00:11:54

[00:12:07] Leah: It doesn't exist because there's so many components that go into you having a balanced life, a balanced health, balanced hormones, but we're always marketed to as if we're missing. One thing, like we're looking for the next silver bullet and that's going to fix all of our issues. And that's what I feel like we're trained to look for from a marketing angle, like what we're sold to all the time.

[: 00:12:36

[00:12:52] Leah: Well, I like just stopped doing everything that was like in my protocol. And I'm like, well, that's why your symptoms are coming back. Because a lot of these things are lifestyle. Like you can put these things into remission, but if we go back to the lifestyle, That brought them there in the first place.

[: 00:13:10

[00:13:30] Leah: they don't want to make the dietary changes. They don't want to stop scrolling on Tik TOK and go to bed at night. They don't want to like make any changes to their lifestyle, but give me a pill cause that's fine. But then they need a pill for their side effects from the first pill. And then they're taking like 25 medications,

[: 00:13:48

[00:13:48] Meredith: You're definitely right. Obviously, no one wants to change.

[: 00:13:51

[00:14:11] Meredith: So there's always going to be something, just in life that you're dealing with, and that kind of brings up the birth control conversation, which you put out. Yeah, you put out an amazing email. Birth control isn't the answer to irregular cycles. Definitely caught my attention being someone that has suffered from horrible anxiety from birth control.

[: 00:14:36

[00:14:57] Meredith: Here's birth control.it's wild. So I'd love to, I'd love to know your thoughts. Let's talk about this, how it relates to perimenopause, hormone replacement therapy. Let's talk about what birth control really does to your body.

[: 00:15:13

[00:15:55] Leah: It depends on which one you're on, for some of them, it's like really dosing the progestin, which is a synthetic form of progesterone. so that the egg implant or, some of them it's completely taking out ovulation. so you aren't getting that rise and fall of your hormones.

[: 00:16:11

[00:16:28] Leah: And So some women are like, I feel great on birth control cause it got rid of my symptoms, but then they come off of it and their symptoms are there plus some, and then there's the women who feel absolutely horrendous on birth control and they just keep swapping birth controls and then they're on more medications for the same reason.

[: 00:16:51

[00:17:05] Leah: There's no way that's all in your head. Let's give you another medication. It's just crazy to me that like we, we aren't listening to women with that. And then. It's then the one thing that just, I just, I don't understand this women with PCOS that have no cycles. They go on the combined pill. So they have a regular withdrawal bleed, but it's still suppressing ovulation.

[: 00:17:33

[00:17:52] Leah: And I'm like, well, no, you're not having a period. You're having a withdrawal bleed because you're still not ovulating. We still haven't solved the issue, but then they think that they can't get pregnant because, they don't have a regular cycle. So they go to the doctor and I kid you not. I have women that are put on birth control.

[: 00:18:10

[00:18:42] Leah: I only have a period on birth control, so that's when I'm the most balanced. I'm like, well, you aren't having a period on birth control because you aren't having an ovulation. So I just think that there's no. Education out there. It's that blows women's mind when they're like, Oh, I wasn't ovulating on birth control.

[: 00:19:00

[00:19:29] Leah: Should I come off a little bit before I want to get pregnant? And their doctor's just Oh no, just come off. You can get pregnant the next cycle. Like no big deal. What about all those necessary vitamins and minerals that are going to impact the baby and you being able to successfully carry a pregnancy and all of these things, they're just, it's ignored.

[: 00:19:49

[00:20:12] Leah: as fertility, when it just compromises so many of those things that we need for successful fertility journey. But on top of that, like fertility is a sign of your health. It is like it's your fifth vital sign there. So if we aren't having regular ovulations, we're not having those good quality fertility signs.

[: 00:20:31

[00:20:46] Leah: It, I don't care that my period sucks, but, all of those symptoms, or all of those like hormones impact your hair. They impact your ability to lose weight. They impact your mood. They impact your energy. They impact your sleep. They impact your digestion. And so I think sometimes we get caught up in like hormones are for babies.

[: 00:21:09

[00:21:21] Meredith: Yeah, that is exactly what, when I educated myself on the cycle, that is what struck me more than anything that it's not, it is so much.

[: 00:21:33

[00:21:53] Meredith: really bad, period cramps, but also just how birth control cuts off. You cut off, when you cut off your infradian rhythm, you're cutting off all communication with those hormones, with your brain,

[: 00:22:08

[00:22:08] Perimenopause MUSTS

[: 00:22:08

[00:22:15] Meredith: you, like you were saying with mood and with, Just everything energy levels, it affects your entire body. So when you cut off all communication with your brain and those other organs in your body, aren't getting those hormones that they need because the cycle is essentially synthetic.

[: 00:22:34

[00:23:11] Meredith: To help balance their hormones. Naturally.

[: 00:23:17

[00:23:39] Leah: If it's completely not working for you and just sit for a second. Like I always, one of the questions I always ask is when my clients are like, my cycles are all over the place, or did I ovulate her? I didn't, I ovulate her. What's going on with this cycle? And why was this period so weird? I'm like, well, what do you think is going on?

[: 00:24:00

[00:24:30] Leah: That's why I think sometimes you need to sit with yourself a little bit, which I think can probably be uncomfortable. But the reason why I say that is, I had someone ask in the Facebook group, they're like, I'm just so annoyed with seed cycling because I'm allergic to flax seeds and I am perimenopause and my cycles are all over the place.

[: 00:24:52

[00:25:11] Leah: That's not going to cause you so much stress. That's going to better your health in that area, That's why I think you should sit with yourself, but then, on the other end of the spectrum, the same day, someone was like, I just hate eating raw carrots. they're disgusting.

[: 00:25:26

[00:25:43] Leah: This is causing so much stress versus a person who's just I don't like eating a raw carrot. And I'm like, I'll suck it up buttercup. I know nobody wants to always hear that, but that's why you truly need to sit with yourself for a second and be like, okay, is this something that really just doesn't work?

[: 00:25:59

[00:26:18] Leah: Yeah. And that is causing more to your overwhelm. Like, where do I start? This seems so expensive. There seems so many options. So just sit. Like, where do you feel like you need to start? Let's just start there. But then secondly, In perimenopause, I sometimes think that we try to treat this transitional phase, like we're heading into a, we're literally heading into a second puberty, just like a backwards puberty,

[: 00:26:51

[00:27:16] Leah: So we have this rise and fall of our hormones as we go throughout our cycle. And when we enter menopause, our ovaries are not going to be producing these hormones anymore. It's going to be primarily our adrenals. Now, our adrenals are also the ones producing our adrenaline, our cortisol, and If we keep pushing through, we keep eating our kids leftovers and not prioritizing nutrition, we keep trying to lose those, you know, pounds that can't seem to go, so we keep doing the HIIT we keep getting up, at 5 a.

[: 00:27:52

[00:28:18] Leah: And then we go, Hey, adrenals, would you like to make some more progesterone for me? Do you think that would be great? So I could sleep better and have a better mood and your adrenals are just like, screw you. You have been doing nothing. But hating on me, pushing through, not prioritizing our health, and your body keeps giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, until it's dry.

[: 00:28:42

[00:29:02] Leah: And that's when I think about perimenopause is it's all those things start to catch up to you. Like all those little things that we just push over, when your body's reserve is so big, like we have this big tank that we can pull from when we're younger, but then we get into that perimenopause stage and that tank isn't as full anymore, but we keep pulling from it as if we have that reserve, even though we have not been putting any deposits in.

[: 00:29:33

[00:29:53] Leah: That's so weird. It's like, well, yeah, you didn't put any money in. And that's, if we want a smoother perimenopause, we have to put in more deposits than withdrawals, which means that we have to rework some of the things that maybe we've been very resistant to because it wasn't a big issue before. Right?

[: 00:30:18

[00:30:40] Leah: Like maybe they just were born with a bigger vitality than you were. And that's where genetics do come into play a little bit, right? And genetics set you up, but really lifestyle is what determines it. if your genetics are set up,really amazingly well, you probably can get away with a lot of things until it comes to eat you in the butt.

[: 00:31:05

[00:31:28] Blood Sugar Balance

[: 00:31:28

[00:31:55] Leah: You can't balance sleep without a good sleep. Balanced blood sugar and balanced blood sugar doesn't have to be that you, you never eat desserts or you never do whatever. It's just you are looking for rolling Hills across your day. And especially with the holidays I can promise you, there's going to be a couple meals in my future where I'm probably not going to have a perfectly rolling Hill, but it's going to be a couple meals Not every day, not every meal, not even every week, and that's what I think we need to look at when it comes to our overall lifestyle is, what is the trend?

[: 00:32:37

[00:33:03] Leah: whether you're diabetic or not a diabetic, we're just looking to get rid of those peaks and valleys, right?

[: 00:33:09

[00:33:11] Leah: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really a simple concept. If you just look at your plate, do half your plate, non starchy veggies, quarter protein, quarter fat and carb.

[: 00:33:21

[00:33:39] Leah: You just need to make sure it's balanced with everything else. And one of the biggest complaints I'll always hear is I can't eat that much protein. I'm too full. And I'm like, okay, well, what are you eating first on your plate? Because if you're looking at your plate, prioritize that fiber and protein first and then move on to the other food groups because,typically when they say this thing, it will be like, I had a dish of pasta and it was amazing, but then I couldn't finish my salad and my chicken.

[: 00:34:11

[00:34:35] Leah: In blood sugar because you're not having any like reactive hypoglycemia. so you're staying more stable. So your cravings are better and then your energy is better. And then you make better food choices. As you go throughout your day, you're making food choices based on what you really need versus low hangry blood sugar that just wants sugar to get your blood sugar back up.

[: 00:34:56

[00:35:15] Leah: all different functions. I'm not saying get rid of the glucose, I'm just saying I don't want it to go straight up and down. I want it to be a gentle rise and come back down. And by making sure you have your fiber and your protein, you can do that and you'll feel so, so much better. So that's one of the biggest, I think, hands down, the most effective thing.

[: 00:35:39

[00:35:54] Meredith: Yeah.

[: 00:35:54

[00:36:00] Leah: Your quality sleep and saying no to things, because if we, The more balanced our blood sugar is, the better we're going to sleep. And then the better our sleep is, the better our cravings will be. And the easier it is to maintain blood sugar balance. So they feed into each other, but we need to just focus on the sleep and say, no, because if you keep saying yes to things that are draining to you and things you don't want to do, and even Things that you put on yourself that you say that you think you need to do, really sit with like, do I actually, do I actually need to do this?

[: 00:36:36

[00:36:39] Leah: just knowing yourself, like I, I like people, but I'm not going to be in big crowds of people every day. I find that extremely draining or even like once a week I'm like, no, thank you. I like people on small doses.

[: 00:36:51

[00:37:27] Leah: So it it just all starts stacking up together. So minerals are probably the. They're not free, so I would say it's not necessarily the first thing I would start with. I would start with blood sugar balance. That's free. Saying no is free. Saying no might even save you money. focusing on sleep is free, minerals.

[: 00:37:46

[00:37:54] Mushrooms for hormone balance

[: 00:37:54

[00:38:10] Meredith: Those statements and that research is based on not saying it's not true, but it's not based on women in their menstruating years. It's just not, it's based on women post menopause and men, because they have similar. They've obviously, they have similar circadian rhythms, which everyone shares in, which we all, the sun rises in the morning.

[: 00:38:33

[00:39:00] Meredith: I recently had on, Oscar Sierra, amazing mycologist. he does some amazing work treating cancer actually with mushrooms. And I love your. All your podcast episodes and all of your thoughts on using mushrooms for hormone balancing. So let's talk about that because there are a lot of products out there and I know there's a lot of crap out there.

[: 00:39:27

[00:39:41] Leah: well, it depends on what symptom probably is like your biggest symptom across the board.

[: 00:39:48

[00:39:54] Meredith: Let's start there because it seems like that is more people are having children later. More of this crap is stacked up in our bodies by the time we get to perimenopause, so it's oh shit. So we're kind of like treating. So you really want to, add mushrooms now. But that. because I think that's what we're going to see a lot of.

[: 00:40:15

[00:40:16] Leah: Yeah. So I would probably start with, Reishi cordyceps and maitake. The reason being is that Reishi works on that HPA access. So that, hypothalamus pituitary adrenal access. So it's really going to help with how your body responds to stress. Reishi is also one of those things that's really good at helping, when you have androgens being, methylated, you can have an alpha pathway and a beta pathway and it helps move them down the beta pathway, which is what we want.

[: 00:40:51

[00:41:19] Leah: anything, advisatory on Reishi for like pregnant and nursing moms, which is really interesting to me. even though like mushrooms are a food, so it's just weird that we're like, we talk about them as this supplement, which, when you get them higher dosed, you can definitely think about it like that, but it is primarily a food.

[: 00:41:38

[00:42:03] Leah: And it's really great at Helping egg quality. So whether you're dealing with infertility or you're in perimenopause Some things that you're probably dealing with are low energy and low libido And so cordyceps comes in and is very good for all of those things across the board And thmaitakekie It's really good for blood sugar.

[: 00:42:26

[00:42:43] Leah: Fertility. Obviously, you want to support that. So those would be the three off the bat. that I would start with. when I talk about mushrooms, though, there are some things I think are really important because mushrooms have taken their moment. and everybody is adding them. To everything.

[: 00:43:03

[00:43:19] Leah: That's not why I buy it. I buy it because it just makes my coffee taste good.But it's, there's mushrooms everywhere, mushrooms and chocolate, mushrooms in your skin products, mushrooms in this, and it makes them be able to charge more, right? Because it's a marketing thing. So even if there's a microscopic amount, we're going to charge you a boatload more money because we said it has mushrooms in it.

[: 00:43:41

[00:44:12] Leah: except for HCC, I recommend You need to get fruiting body only that's the one that the studies are done on And also mycelium is grown on grains So if you're getting anything with like mycelium, unless it's grown a specific way, like it's grown on grains and when they harvest it, they're not separating it.

[: 00:44:34

[00:44:59] Leah: It can, and how it's grown, it can depend like how much of those benefits are in your supplement. And if I'm paying good money, I want to know how much of those benefits I'm getting. And that needs to be in the testing. Like I want to see the purity, but I also want to see that the triterpenoids, the beta glucans and all of those things that I'm looking for in mushrooms are at the dosage that I want.

[: 00:45:24

[00:45:50] Leah: Because in the studies, like for example, lion's mane. To see the benefits of Lion's Mane, you have to take 4, 000 milligrams a day. That is a lot. If you're looking at a supplement that is 250 or 500 milligrams, I'm like, okay, let me just, let's do the math. If it's 500 milligrams, you have to take one, two, three, four, five, six, eight of eight pills, eight pills.

[: 00:46:18

[00:46:45] Leah: Versus a supplement where you'll see is oh, it's 29 for two months and then you realize Oh, I actually need to take eight of those pills, which means i'm going to go through this bottle in one week It's unbelievable actually a lot more expensive. So I think it's really important when you're looking at mushrooms, make sure you're getting the best bang for your buck to do the research on the company, look for all the things, and then you have to give, cordyceps.

[: 00:47:10

[00:47:33] Leah: So I know the significant amount of time, which is why you need to do your research and make sure that you're putting your money towards something that you know will do what the research says versus putting your money towards something for 12 weeks and then realizing that you were taking something with grains and only had 250 milligrams of whatever you thought it was.

[: 00:47:54

[00:47:54] Meredith: God, yeah, and that goes for so many things, thank you for saying that, even just making lifestyle adjustments, you need to give it, I think it's 60 to 90 days, really, for a cycle, because you're always eating for the next cycle, even 90 days from now, 60 days from now, and you know, like, obviously things vary, but that bag of Doritos, or that, those Cheetos, or whatever, like, you're not, maybe not gonna see it now, but In 12 weeks. Yeah, it's there's yeah, you can't escape that.

[: 00:48:27

[00:48:48] Leah: But I also too, like in stress wise, like you don't have to be 100 percent perfect. You know, it's it's not that like everything is perfect. every decision needs to be the best decision. It's no, it needs to be the best decision for that moment, but you, your goods need to outweigh the bads.

[: 00:49:08

[00:49:30] Leah: I took these supplements today. This is what I ate today. that's how I track. And the reason why I do that is it's really easy to get goofed up in our mind of what we think we did because we're so confused. And it's just easy to just forget that, Oh yeah, something happened that day and I actually didn't get my water and I didn't get my walk in.

[: 00:49:55

[00:50:06] Meredith: it's

[: 00:50:06

[00:50:24] Leah: And so every time I would go outside and walk or I would do like a workout, my, my hips would be out and I couldn't walk by the end of the day and it hurts so bad. But if I do like just a low impact Peloton bike ride, you're sitting on a seat. so my pelvis was fine, everything was happy and I could get movement in.

[: 00:50:43

[00:51:00] Leah: I had four, I've had four a week since I've gotten it, but I'm over here Oh yeah, I'm getting in five to six rides a week. And then I look back at my history, I'm like. Actually, no, you're not. you just made that up in your head and that's what I think we do. We're like, Oh yeah, like I haven't, had any, let's say you're sensitive to dairy or something.

[: 00:51:17

[00:51:39] Leah: It is. I think it's easy to just make up stories in our head, so romanticize the routine, find something fun about it, and then, if it's not a habit, you do need to track it for a while to make sure you're actually doing it, because if you need to be taking a certain supplement and you're only taking it three days out of the week because you just forget, it's really not doing anything, So I think that, You have to be honest with yourself, tracking is important, be honest, tell yourself you actually only rode the bike four times a week, not five or six, like I thought.

[: 00:52:16

[00:52:27] Meredith: Just not having your shit together and doing what you need for you right now. And that's enough. If you need to take the painkiller, take it. Because we're still, operating especially when you're going through the process of detoxing, still are like where we're at, and it's a journey. It's never like you're at this just pinnacle.

[: 00:52:50

[00:53:09] Meredith: It's so important. And that's what real healing really is. It's that capacity to hold everything inside of you. The good, bad, the ugly, all of it.

[: 00:53:19

[00:53:28] Leah: It's going to be overwhelming. this is not something you're going to do for 30 days and then go back to whatever. The lifestyle is that kind of got us here in the first place. So it's if you start with one thing, then the better it's going to get for you, and I think, when we're working on a new habit, it can be challenging if you go, Oh, I missed today.

[: 00:53:51

[00:54:08] Leah: Oh, I only missed one day this week, because you're continually working on it. You can't expect that when you start something new, it's gonna be perfect right away. You just have to. You have to start, you have to be okay with messing up because. That's going to happen, but we're going to keep working on it, and then you'll get there.

[: 00:54:28

[00:54:29] Meredith: It's totally possible. Which brings us to my favorite part of the show, the finale biohacking with art question. Are you ready, Leah?

[: 00:54:41

[00:54:45] Biohacking with Art - charcoal

[: 00:54:45

[00:55:07] Meredith: It could be any medium.

[: 00:55:10

[00:55:28] Leah: And lay it down and paint and just go with it because I think that your journey changes a lot. Along the way of what you think it's going to look like and what it ends up on looking like. So, I don't know, maybe by the end I would be using paint, but we're going to start off with pencil and paper.

[: 00:55:46

[00:56:02] Meredith: You're drawing like shadow and that creates the form and you just can add to it over time.

[: 00:56:08

[00:56:09] Meredith: 100%.

[: 00:56:11

[00:56:35] Connect with Leah

[: 00:56:35

[00:56:56] Meredith: It's really an art being able to break that down into something. Really beautiful. That is the truth. That is the truth about our cycles. Every single person came from someone with a period. It's sacred. It's sacred. Our bodies, women's bodies, women's health. It is sacred. It is how we all exist here. just thank you for having these beautiful conversations, all of your knowledge and work in that area.

[: 00:57:25

[00:57:36] Leah: Well,

[: 00:57:37

[00:57:37] Leah: you. I, so my podcast is balancing hormones naturally. I think it's the only podcast with that name.

[: 00:57:43

[00:58:08] Meredith: Totally. it's, I would say regardless of it's daily or not. There's so much juicy content, it's juicy, it's delicious. There really is, just dive in there.

[: 00:58:20

[00:58:28] Meredith: Totally. And I hope everyone is able to take away something from this book.

[: 00:58:35

[00:58:55] Meredith: If you liked this episode or you think this show would be useful for someone else, the best way you can show your support is to share it on your social media outlets with

[: 00:59:05

[00:59:16] Meredith: YouTube or on Apple Podcast and pick up a signed copy of my book about how I healed myself from endometriosis on my Instagram at Meredith w Ochoa. Thank you so much for listening and for having the bravery to face your shit and heal yourself.