The Rise of Thyroid Disorders: Causes, Symptoms & Solutions – with Dr. Amie Hornaman

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

On this episode of The Resetter podcast, we are going to dive into thyroid health. So I have brought you a dear friend of mine who is a thyroid expert. Her name is Dr Amy Hornaman, and she’s known as the thyroid fixer. In fact, she has a podcast. It’s a top rated podcast that I highly recommend you go check out, called the thyroid fixer. And she founded a company called the better thyroid and hormone Institute, which, as you’re listening to this conversation, I want to make sure that you know that’s a resource for you, and we will leave links in the notes for this, she has a really complete approach to looking at the thyroid that I really want you to hear. So a couple years back, I brought you a thyroid expert, and it was one of the most popular episodes we’ve done here on the resetter podcast. And as you’ll hear in this conversation, thyroid health affects so many women, especially women going through the menopausal journey. And yet, the traditional, conventional healthcare system, it has a very limited view on how to address thyroid health. So if you’re one of those people who is frustrated, you’ve been told you had a thyroid problem, you were put on medication, you’re not feeling any better than absolutely this is the conversation for you. In fact, if you know anybody who has that, please send them this episode. So there is a and Dr Amy does this so well, there is a nuanced conversation that needs to be had around around the thyroid and understanding the multi factorial pieces of our lifestyle that affects our thyroid health, and knowing when to use medication and when not to use medication, and knowing what supplements may be helpful and and when you don’t need supplements, these are all the things we talk about in this conversation. I hope this is a more detailed version of thyroid health than you’ve ever been given. I hope that you find answers to your thyroid problems in this conversation, and most of all, if you have a thyroid problem, what I don’t want you to do is give up on yourself, because the traditional, conventional healthcare system has failed us when it comes to the thyroid, and Dr Amy is going to explain why and what you can do To Bring your thyroid health back. So Dr. Amy Hornaman, enjoy. This is a deep one, and I’m excited for you to listen to. Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again, if you have a passion for learning if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Okay, well, I have to start off by you, and I have had so many conversations in other places, but we haven’t had a formal conversation about your work, so I am so excited to have you on my podcast. So welcome. I’m so happy you’re here.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Dr Mindy, I love you. I’m super happy to be here.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So it’s interesting, because I was thinking this morning, as I was preparing for this that I have not done a really thorough episode on thyroid health in a really long time, and yet, what I know especially about women going through the perimenopausal journey is that 50 the last stat I saw was 50% of the women Going through perimenopause will have a thyroid problem. So I’d love to start this conversation with, why is that happening?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Well, actually, I think it’s more like 90% I was talking to one of my physicians the other day, and he’s like, can we pretty much assume that any woman entering perimenopause has a thyroid issue. I’m like, we’re pretty close. Yeah, it’s probably about 90% Yeah, wow. Because if you think about it, number one, the world that we live in is not the same world as our mothers lived in. So we are loaded down with toxins, additional stressors that they didn’t have 40 years ago, and then we have the hormonal shift. So whenever we’re talking about hypothyroidism, 95% of all hypothyroidism is Hashimoto so it’s the autoimmune form of, really, of a low thyroid. And the way I like to describe Hashimotos is you have these. Soldiers. And these soldiers are not working for you, they’re working against you. But they’re just confused. They think that your thyroid is a bad guy. They think it’s an invader, and so they go out and they attack the thyroid gland, and they beat it up and they whittle it down so it’s all jagged and funky looking. And obviously it’s not going to work the same way as it did when it wasn’t getting attacked. So it stops producing the proper amount of thyroid hormones. So when we look at autoimmune in general, we have to go by that three legged stool number one, you have that genetic predisposition. So you could have autoimmune in your family. You know, your gram had Hashimotos, maybe your sister has celiac. You have that autoimmune genetic predisposition. Then the other leg of the stool is leaky gut, which I’m pretty sure we all have these days, right? And then number three, right? I mean, we all have it. And then number three is a trigger. So whether it’s stress like a death, divorce, you move your business is crumbling, whatever it is, or a hormonal shift, because hormone shifting is a stressor on a woman’s body. Yes, pregnancy, perimenopause, menopause, huge hormonal shifts. And this is where we see that autoimmune switch turn on and autoimmune starts to express itself. So that’s where you hear women say, you know, it was after my second kid all went to hell in a handbasket, or it was after I turned 42 that the weight just started coming up? Yeah, because your hormones are moving around and shifting like crazy, and then that turns on the autoimmune switch. So

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

it’s interesting, because when I was in my early 40s and I started having that hormonal shift, I started looking into what’s happening to us through the lens of toxicity, and one of the things I discovered is things like heavy metals. So lead, being a big one, is stored in our bones, and when estrogen goes on this wild ride where she’s up, she’s down, she’s up, she’s down, what happens is that that roller coaster of hormones triggers lead to come out of the bones, and now it’s circulating in your bloodstream, and it goes up into the brain, affects your memory and creates depression, but it also goes to places like the thyroid. So mix that thought with what you just said, which is, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a hormonal trigger. I think it’s a it also there’s a toxin trigger there. And then the thing that’s so I really want people to understand is your body always does the right thing at the right time. So it is attacking itself because it has, there’s something in the thyroid it needs to attack. Am I? Am I accurate in that thinking,

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Oh, absolutely, yeah. So we have lead, we have mercury. So a lot of our generation in that perimenopause menopause state right now, we got those silver amalgam fillings when we were younger, and those are filled with mercury. So every time we bite down and chew food, we’re off gassing mercury, highly toxic to the thyroid. So yeah, you have lead, you have mercury, you we can find trace levels of arsenic in people. All of those heavy metals will absolutely attack the thyroid 100% so as those heavy metals permeate and actually move into thyroid tissue, your soldiers are kind of amped up. They’re like, holy cow, things are happening in that gland that we don’t like. And it looks like, oh, there’s bad stuff inside the gland too. Wow. Okay, we need to go get that and and attack it and get it out of the body. And, you know, those soldiers just don’t realize, like, no, let’s, let’s go a different route. We can get the heavy metals out and support the thyroid without you attacking it. And that’s where we have to come in and calm down that autoimmune attack.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So how do you know what the trigger is like? Because everybody’s Hashimotos, for example, will be triggered by something different.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yeah, that’s a great question, because I get the question of, well, what is the root cause? So, same thing, right? What is the root cause of this thyroid problem I have? And I go, the thyroid is the root cause. The thyroid is the root cause of your fatigue and your weight gain and you can’t lose weight and your constipation and your hair loss and your eyebrows thinning. That’s the root cause. Now, at the end of the day, I don’t really care if it’s you have EBV, because all of us have Epstein Barr Virus. We all have mono at some point. So you know, it could be that as a precursor, that’s a strong correlation to Hashimotos. It could be just the over. Load of toxins that we’re all exposed to. It could be the hormonal shift at the end of the day. It doesn’t really matter, because we can’t go back in time. We can, yes, we can heavy metal detox you. We can support your immune system. We can use antivirals and support it that way, but we still have to address now that thyroid that’s not working so well. So it doesn’t matter if we eradicate the EBV and we do a heavy metal detox, you still have this thyroid gland that’s all jagged and itty bitty, and it’s not producing the right thyroid hormones and it’s already beat up. So what are you going to do with that? So when you address that, then that becomes, yeah, this is the root cause to all of these symptoms that you’re listing over here.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So then, is detox a necessary tool to repair your thyroid, or is there a workaround?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

I think it’s all it’s the both. And so number one, if we’re addressing your thyroid, and let’s say, Okay, we start you on thyroid hormone replacement, because we see the numbers are low, and this is going to address your symptoms, and it’s all okay, but over here you have a boatload of heavy metals, and you’re super toxic, and you’re living a piss poor lifestyle. It’s not going to work, so we have to do both at the same time. But then I can also flip that and say, well, over here, you can, you can do the lifestyle changes, and that’s awesome. You can heal your gut. That’s awesome. You can do a heavy metal detox, amazing, but you still might have to come to this side and do some thyroid hormone replacement, because all of that awesome for your body. But it’s not going to magically regenerate your thyroid gland, so it’s just about doing it all you have to do.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

You know, what’s really interesting is that as the conversation of HRT and BHRT, bioidenticals, like as hormone replacement, is coming into vogue. What I think hopefully podcasts like this will really help people see and I hear this like I brought I just we released the episode with Dr Mary Claire haver on here, and she’s a big fan of bringing hormone replacement back into the menopause conversation. And she also is saying the same thing you’re saying you can’t take you can’t replace a hormone without looking at the lifestyle that caused that hormone to go off. So that’s what I just heard in what you’re saying. And I feel like this is a common theme that we’re hearing in all hormones right now, if you choose to go on a medication that doesn’t give you a free pass from lifestyle, am I hearing that right from you? What through the lens of thyroid, 1,000,000%

Dr. Amie Hornaman 

1,000,000% because I’ve even found myself so on my podcast, obviously, I’m talking a lot about thyroid and, you know, this medication versus that medication and what to do to support it. Blah, blah, blah. And even my patients, you know, they’ve almost been trained to a point to think that, okay, we replace thyroid, replace hormones. It’s all okay. So now I’ve shifted over the last year or so. Yeah, and I’m really pounding the point home, driving the point home that. But you also have to do all this lifestyle stuff, because if you’re not sleeping and you’re eating like garbage, and you’re drinking alcohol three, four times a week, because you just need your glass of wine at the end of the day, it’s not going to work. I don’t care. I can I can throw on more hormones, more thyroid medication. It’s not going to work. And ultimately, you’re still going to say, Hey, I still have all of these symptoms. Well, yeah, duh, because over here, your lifestyle is a disaster. So it doesn’t matter, the hormones aren’t going to work. They’re not going to work unless you change. So I’m so happy you said that, because I’ve really been working hard at driving that point home to my audience as well and my patients that listen, there are tools that we can we can use Absolutely. Hormone replacement is a beautiful tool, but you still have to change your life over here. Yeah, I

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

can’t tell you when I had a I can’t tell you enough, like when I had a clinic, I had so many women coming in with thyroid problems and and the chronic statement they would give me is my TSH was low and or my th TSH was really high. So my doctor put me on a medication, and I don’t feel any better, and I went back to the doctor, and he or she said, Well, your numbers are normal, so can you, can you right? Can you talk a little bit about that scenario and how lab work and why TSH is not the only thing we should be looking at when we’re measuring the thyroid?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yes. Yes, yes. Oh, this is so it’s so classic. You just

Mindy Pelz  

need so classic.

Dr. Amie Hornaman 

I know crazy. Yeah. Woman walks into her PCP and says, Doc, you know, I’m gaining weight. I can’t lose weight. I’m so damn tired throughout the day. I’m dragging myself through the day, losing some hair. Or, you know, my skin’s really super dry and I can’t poop every day. And he goes, Okay, well, here’s a pill. That’s Synthroid, that’s going to be t4 so you’re going to get Levo, or you’re going to get Synthroid, and that is t4 only. And then, just like you said, ultimately, they’ll be like, why am I even on this medication? It’s not doing anything. I’m not feeling better. I haven’t lost any weight. I’m just gonna go off of it. Okay. Well, it’s not that you don’t need thyroid support or thyroid hormone replacement. You need the right kind for you, yeah, and the right combination in the right dose. So, and here’s the other problem, yes, just like you said, your average run of the mill, conventional doctor will only test TSH, that’s thyroid stimulating hormone. Why?

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Why that is like, it’s archaic.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yeah, it really is. So, interestingly enough, I gave a talk to a group of integrative wellness physicians couple years ago, and the talk was all centered around, here’s what we need to test beyond TSH. And why are you guys in the Synthroid box, meaning you only prescribe te four, right? And I gave the example even of if somebody comes in and you give them an antidepressant, an antidepressant doesn’t work, you’ll give them another one, and if that one doesn’t work, you’ll give them another one. If that one doesn’t work, you’ll stack a benzo on it and give him a sleeping pill, but you won’t do more than one thyroid medication. Doc, Razor can goes, that’s all we’ve learned. I was just

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

gonna say they don’t know. And so I just want to make a point on that that is such a good story, because what I’m learning from just interviewing so many women, specifically, that were entrenched in the medical system and now are looking at it, our health through a more functional lens is they say that exact thing, they have only been trained one way, and they haven’t been trained on lifestyle. They don’t know lifestyle so But yet, we live in a culture that has our medical doctor on a pedestal, and so anything they say we believe as gospel, and they’ve been trained to not say, I don’t know. So with with that in mind, is there a way to talk on this one topic of thyroid and TSH, is there a way to talk to our doctor and say, Could you look at other things? Could you refer me to somebody that would know? Like, is there any way to help change that broken model?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yes and no. So number one, I tell people, you have to go in to your doctor with a bulleted list of your symptoms. Don’t write a book. Don’t write a story. They don’t have time to read five paragraphs bullet list your symptoms. And then over here, I want you to put the test that you want to have done now the a full thyroid panel is TSH, 3t. Four, free t3 so we want to look at the the free means the unbound forms of that particular thyroid hormone. T3 is active, t4 is inactive. So we want to look at both of those. We want to look at reverse t3 that’s your anti thyroid hormone. And then we want to look for the two antibodies for Hashimotos, TPO, thyroperoxidase and thyroglobulin, TG. And if you go in with that list, and you hand that to your doctor, and you say, I would really like to thoroughly test my thyroid, because here are all my symptoms, and they look pretty much like like thyroid related to me, if your doctor says no to testing, it’s time to get a new doctor. So you start there. You start with asking for a test. If your doc says, No, we don’t test that, or we only test that in the clinical setting, then your doctor doesn’t even want to know your full health picture. They don’t even care, and they don’t know what to do about it if they do test, right? So just move on. Yeah, they don’t. And

Speaker 1  

I just want to say, and they’re trained to not say, I don’t know that would be like that. That would be like a massive, or, I, you know, a massive breakdown of their status as your medical doctor.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yeah, yeah. They really are trained to not test anything that they don’t know what to do with. So essentially, is there a pill for reverse t3 No, it’s lifestyle. You have to lower your insulin, you have to control estrogen dominance, you have to support yourself with nutrisense. They don’t know that. They only know reverse t3 if you’re laying in the ER or the ICU, fighting for your life because you were in some traumatic accident, then, yeah, reverse t3 is going to go up because it’s built into our bodies as a survival mechanism. Why I want to test it when you’re not laying in the ICU or the ER, fighting for your life is because I want to. If your body is in survival mode as you’re walking around, trying to get stuff done throughout the day, trying to be a woman, multitasking as we do, do you really want to get through your day? Or can you even get through your day if you’re sludging through, if your body thinks you’re dying, if it’s like fighting for survival? No, so we want to know that, and that’s the problem, is the doctors will give those answers just to kind of skirt the testing. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

and reverse t3 is interesting as I’m as I’m listening to one of my new like thoughts around hormones in general, is we always have to remember whether it’s your sex hormones or it’s your thyroid hormone. Is that it living in a female body means your body is constantly scanning the your environment to make a decision whether you’re safe or not, and the minute you’re not safe, it shuts down all that production and and things like reverse t3 come in as a way of protecting the body. So I just want, I want to be really clear on that, because we have to, like you said, the modern world changed. We’re living in the most toxic time in human history. So of course, hormones are adapting to that, and there’s ways of reading blood work, like you said, with reverse t3 really, really important. My other question, and I’d love for you to educate people, is, if I have a thyroid problem, t4 is not the bio available form of that thyroid hormone, so giving me t4 doesn’t mean that I’m going to be able to activate a thyroid. What the thyroid supposed to do inside the cell. Can you talk a little bit about what t4 needs to convert into in order to be bio available?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yep, absolutely. So that’s that’s a really important point that I want everyone to remember, especially when you’re looking at your own testing or advocating for yourself. T4 is an inactive thyroid hormone. So when I actually quick story, I was misdiagnosed six times by six different doctors, and the seventh doctor gave me t4 so back in the day, right? I was in my 20s, I was all excited, like, okay, now I have an answer for this 30 pound weight gain that just occurred, and I tried t4 only for a while, and it did nothing. Then I started diving into research, and I’m like, Wait, there’s an active thyroid hormone. It’s called t3 and it turns out that t4 actually has to convert over and become t3 to get to the cell. So every single one of your cells has a receptor site on it for thyroid hormone, but it’s for t3 it’s not for t4 so what we’re doing is we’re in conventional medicine. They’re giving you t4 only and basically just crossing their fingers and wishing on a rainbow that it converts, not looking at all the factors that impair conversion. Number one, toxic world. You just said it. Number two, stressors that we have, cortisol is out of whack with everybody, especially perimenopause and menopausal women. So now that elevated cortisol or a low cortisol will affect that conversion of t4 to t3, low iodine, low magnesium, low selenium, low vitamin D, low I mean just any low nutrient or low mineral, low B, 12, elevated homocysteine, all of these things come in and impair conversion. So when you look at that, we look at our basic lifestyle, how can we expect anyone to properly convert t4 to t3 Yes, anybody? It just doesn’t work. Now, I did hear a stat. I heard this at a forum, and it stuck with me, and I agree with it, only 2% of those with Hashimotos or hypothyroidism on medication do well on t4 only, and I’ll use do well on an air quotes. I’ll come back to that do well on t4 only. 98% need a combination of t4 and t3 or t3 only. Now even that 2% that say they do well on what’s doing well, you know, are we polling these people that just really don’t care how they feel, or it’s the way they feel has become their new norm, and they actually think that that’s okay, like, oh yeah, I feel okay. Do you Do you because you’re 25 pounds overweight, you have type two diabetes, you’re taking antidepressants and sleeping pills to mask your symptoms, are you okay, right? Or can there be

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

blood pressure, blood pressure, medication and cholesterol and statins. So I had always learned also, I love the way you explained it. Of all, the little nuance that needs to happen to get t4 to convert to t3 I’ve also heard that. The liver and the gut are what’s going to break those, those down and convert that well, when we look at the gut, here’s the rub that I’ve thought of for women, is women have been on the birth control pill, most many women for years and years and years, which is a massive destroyer of the gut microbiome. And then then then we start to see a breakdown of thyroid, and we get our given t4 and that poor gut microbiome isn’t able, you know, to break down that, that and can do the conversion that’s needed is that. So, can you talk you? You talked about how the second leg of the stool was, was leaky gut. Where does gut health come into this conversion?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yeah, no, it’s huge. So conversion happens, like you said, in the liver, in the gut, in the thyroid gland itself, and peripheral tissues. So if we, if we basically wipe out one of those conversion locations, ie, the gut. Well, now you’re down to three. Well, wait, what if? What if you have a fatty liver, which a lot of us have, if you have insulin resistance that actually could be caused by low thyroid function now that high insulin is contributing to fatty liver. Oh, wait, and you also have leaky gut. So what are you Oh, wait, and did you have a thyroidectomy too? Did we take out one of the glands that actually helps you convert so, yeah. I mean, it just makes sense that we have to address gut issues at the same time as we’re addressing thyroid issues, because you need the gut working properly. We need it de inflamed in order for it to help with that conversion process. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

And the tricky part about the gut from a from a conventional medicine standpoint, is they don’t the gut really is healed by lifestyle. There’s no like medication per se that’s going to heal the gut. Is that still the same? Do we still have that same belief system around microbiome repair? Oh,

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

yeah. And I think the problem is, is that, you know, with all these Activia commercials, people are just throwing down some probiotics and thinking that’s all they need to do to help their gut, and they’re not changing their diet, and they’re not changing their lifestyle, and they’re still popping Advil with every for every ache and pain. So it’s it? Yeah, it we really need an educational revamping in conventional medicine. I mean, we’re doing it. You’re doing it on this podcast, but we need everybody to listen. We need doctors to listen. We need conventional medicine to listen so that they can start, you know, planting these seeds in in women to say, like, Listen. We can help you, but you need to be a participant in this. You need to help yourself. You need to change what goes into your mouth, what goes onto your body, what’s in your home, and then we can all work together. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

yeah, yeah. And I that I think they’re a rebrand of our healthcare system would be really helpful. One of the things I love about what Mary Claire is up to is she’s trying to take her more elevated, and I’m going to call it enlightened view of menopause, and then turn around and teach the OBS that are up and coming how to look at this differently. And I feel like we should probably do the same for the endocrinologist, and really look at how do we get moved beyond this testing TSH and then giving t4 and then saying, your blood works fine, you’re gonna be okay. I feel like you’re you’re a rebrand of that whole system is due, especially as women are becoming so empowered, and they’re like, wait a second, you’re not addressing and hearing me. So, so I really love that. Where, where does, where does trauma fit in? You know, Sarah Godfrey is a good friend of mine. She is really on a mission right now to talk about how trauma is destroying female bodies. Can it? Can emotional traumas that from like childhood? Can those show up in our thyroid health?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Definitely, definitely. So I think we’re, we’re in an age now where we are almost focusing in a good way on trauma, and we’re actually seeing how it affects the body. And I always, you know, I always say, if you would have asked me, you know, 20 years ago. Well, can our thoughts and emotions actually affect our health? I’d be like, That’s too woo for me. That’s yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I would I would have too I would have too go ahead. I’ve changed my opinion as well. Same,

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

same, because now we know, like, I need a little bit of science behind things. So now we know that even unresolved trauma from childhood has an effect on our endocrine system, has an effect on our adrenals and our cortisol because essentially what is PTSD, it’s bringing that emotional response to an incident that happened in the past, but you are literally re experienced. Experiencing it with the full body response to that stressor that you had when that original event occurred. So as we deal with trauma, as we don’t deal with trauma, because trauma will deal with us anyways, whether we want to or not, those emotions absolutely come back and affect our body. We know that stress affects our body. We know that hands down, we can see it immediately. We can see it immediately in the skin. Someone can break out in hives, right? That’s your response to stress. We can see it in disease. I mean, we can see cancer pop up moments after a stressful situation. My dad was diagnosed with cancer two weeks after my mom took a decline with her Alzheimer’s coincidence? I don’t think so. So we can see disease pop up really close to stress. So how can we be so naive to think that traumas that we went through 2030, years ago aren’t affecting us now they are. They absolutely are. So it’s going to be cortisol, it’s going to be thyroid hormone regulation, blood sugar regulation, insulin secretion. So a lot of insulin resistance with unresolved trauma. We see it pretty much across the board in the endocrine system. Yeah, and

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I have a theory that I actually bounced off Mary Claire when I interviewed her, which is when we look at the meta perimenopausal journey, you’re not just losing estrogen and progesterone. When you look at those two hormones, they actually stimulate about six different neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine. Like the list is long, so you’re it’s like a neurochemical armor that protected you from your stressors. So the you might have been able to get away with not dealing with that trauma that happened to you in your 20s or your childhood, you know, when you were younger. But once you hit that perimenopause year, years, that neurochemical armor is coming down, and all of a sudden those traumas that you maybe could ignore, you can’t ignore anymore because you don’t have a neurochemical buffer to be able to handle that, which I think is one of the reasons we’re seeing 90% of women going through metabolomix, you know, this menopausal experience, have all of a sudden these thyroid problems, because all this unresolved anger, all this unresolved trauma, has just been under the surface of all these neurochemicals that hit it from you, and now all of a sudden, it’s there. So through a thyroid lens, what do you think of that hypothesis?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Oh my gosh, you nailed it. Well, first of all, I have to comment, yeah, I heard you at at hos in London, and what you said literally rocked my world. And I never thought about this way. So I think this came from your interview with Lisa Moscone, but that that neurochemical shift in perimenopause and menopause, on the one hand, puts women into, I don’t really give a crap about much. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s me now, things that used to bother me in the past don’t bother me now. Yeah, however, to your point, with that neurochemical armor kind of going down, yeah, you might not be affected by Little things like your friends mad at you, huh? Okay, whatever, but you know you can brush that off, yeah? But then you know another stressor might happen, and you might be like, Why am I crying today? Yeah, why am I so bothered by this today? Why am I, like, feeling this anxiety where I’m not usually an anxious person? Why is that happening? And again, that hormonal shift, even the lowering of progesterone alone, which is our calming hormone, is is affecting us mentally. So on the one hand, we don’t give a crap about the things that we used to but on the other hand, stressors are all of a sudden hitting us differently, yes and yes that’s going to affect the thyroid. Any kind of stress is going to affect the thyroid, and it cracks me up when a patient will will reach out and be like, oh, you know what, I think I need a change in my thyroid medication. Because, you know, all of a sudden I’m really tired and I gained five pounds. I go, Okay, well, let’s test you, but before we do that, are you under any stress? You know, Have you changed your eating? Are you not sleeping? What’s going on? Oh, well, yeah, you know what? Actually, we just moved my mom into our house, and you know, my husband, I are battling every single day, and he’s fighting for his job. And I’m like, do you think that you need more thyroid medication? Or should we maybe dive deep and deal with this as much as we possibly can? You know? I mean, it does it affect, it affects you, and it will bring on that stress will bring on symptoms of low thyroid function. Yeah, maybe, yes. Maybe you need a thyroid med change. Maybe we need to retest you. Maybe we need to adjust your dose of hormones. Maybe, maybe, or maybe we just need to deal with this over here. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

you know, it’s interesting. Here’s a new theory that I’m working on right now for the next book that I. Writing and it’s and it’s really about the menopausal brain experience. I’m calling it after talking to Lisa, I’m like, I’m calling it a brain remodel project. If we just look at what happens to us in the perimenopausal years, you’re literally your brain is shifting into this beautiful brain. Well, in the research on that, I found a feminist philosopher, and this ties into thyroid hair, who wrote a book called in a different voice, and she has a belief that at 12 and 13 is when girls start to disassociate and move away from their authentic selves, and because they have to adapt to a patriarchal world that says you need to operate like this. This is what success looks like. This is what a woman looks like. Now, of course, that’s different for the younger generation, right, that’s growing up compared to what we we grew up in, but society at 12 and 13 starts to change women, and we start to lose our voice, and we start to adapt our voice to be accepted by the culture. And there. It wasn’t lost on me when I was reading this, this book, it’s literally called in a different voice, it wasn’t lost on me that 12 and 13 is when hormones come in. And so then I started thinking, Well, during our menopausal years, hormones start to go away, and is it possible that we are actually coming back to our authentic selves, and we’re actually coming back to using our own voice for the first time in our life? And it’s not lost on me that there has to be a connection between the thyroid and our voice and being able to use our voice, and in a culture that hasn’t allowed women to use their voice to their authentic selves, is there a piece of thyroid health. That is, I didn’t get to fucking say what I wanted to say in about 1000 different experiences in my life. And now this neurochemicals armor is coming down, and I really want to tell you what I have to say. Like, do we have I know this is getting really, woo, woo, but I think it’s part of the thyroid conversation that’s not being talked about do is Hashimotos, because we want to use our voice. We want to be authentic. Is there a piece of what women really the cry that women want to say in today’s world that we’re not able to say because the world is very patriarchal?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Oh, what do you think? Man, I love that. Okay, so it’s not too Woo. If you look at Chinese medicine, which predates anything that conventional medicine has ever done, you will see that, yes, that when you have issues in this area, in the throat area. So a lot of women will say, you know, I clear my throat a lot, or I feel like there’s something stuck right there all the time. And then, to your point, the the overall voice, like I haven’t spoken my true self. I haven’t spoken my thoughts. I feel constricted. I feel confined, like I can’t speak up. I’m in a man’s world. I’m in a I’m in a man’s working world where I need to be the woman and I need to be quiet and docile. Can that absolutely bring on thyroid issues? I believe so. I mean, Chinese Medicine says absolutely yes, and I’ll hang my hat on that all day long. So I think it’s that combination. You know, maybe that is part of the not genetic predisposition, but that could be kind of one of those legs of the stool that maybe it’s the trigger the stressor, maybe it’s a contributor, kind of tied into the genetics, but it plays a role. It plays Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

which is why we can’t throw a pill at it.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, the thyroid medication is a beautiful tool, and I put that in the category of hormone replacement. So you know, when I have a woman that that comes in her thyroids in the tank, and it’s like, Well, okay, we need to replace those thyroid hormones that are no longer being properly made by your thyroid, because, hey, we ultrasounded it, and your thyroid is itty bitty, and it’s been beaten up, and you have Hashimoto. Hashimotos, and you probably had it for 20 years, just no one told you. And she says, You know, I just really don’t want to go on a medication. I go, Okay, wait, yeah, if you or your child had type one diabetes, and the doctor said, You know what, your child needs to go on insulin. Insulin is a hormone. They need to go on insulin because their pancreas no longer produces adequate amounts of insulin. You wouldn’t be like, Yeah, you know what? I really don’t want my kid to go on a medication, no, because your child would die without insulin. Now, you’re not going to die with low thyroid hormones, but you’re not going to live a great life. I think that the pill or the medication or the hormone. Replacement comes in handy there. But what I say about the band aid pills that women get instead, yeah, don’t take that antidepressant. You probably don’t need it. I mean, it’s a very small percentage of women that they really do need an antidepressant, maybe short term, for something they’re going through, or maybe it really is a brain chemistry imbalance. But I would say that 80 to 90% of all antidepressants given are given for Band Aid reasons that maybe you’re not addressing, or the sleeping pill or the statin or the blood pressure medication, those are the pills that I would want to avoid, but we can avoid those pills, maybe by taking this pill, which is thyroid hormone. So it’s just, and, you know, it just comes down to the person it’s so thyroid treatment is so nuanced and so personalized to each individual. This is not a one size fits all treatment. That’s what conventional medicine does. Here’s a pill. Here’s a pill, t4, t4, t4 Oh, you’re not feeling good. Let’s raise your t4 I’ll give you 125, micrograms instead of 88 micrograms. But it’s not going to do the trick. We have to, we have to, nuance, treat each person, each individual as their their biochemistry shows us as their lifestyle shows us. We have to treat that, that full person. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

so I love that. And if I do go on to a medication, I love looking at it like a tool. I feel the same about hormone replacement. It’s a tool. It’s right there. And I change my lifestyle. I address all the things we’re talking about. Can I get off the medication

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

sometimes, sometimes it just depends. It depends on each person. So for me, my thyroid gland was so shot by the time that I actually went to functional medicine. My functional medicine provider changed my life and changed my career. It was so shot I’m at the point or I was at the point I am at the point now where you would have to pry my thyroid medication out of my dead, cold hands, because I am. I’m living my best life right now. I’m good, like I’m optimized, I’m good. So if it means that I have to take a little pill every day, that’s fine. But for some people, if we’re catching it early enough where that destruction hasn’t occurred for 20 years, and maybe there’s just, like, a little bit here and a little bit there that we need to address. And yeah, you have some symptoms over here at that in that case, we might be able to lower the antibodies, put the Hashimotos into remission, stop the soldiers from attacking, support the thyroid gland itself to start producing adequate amounts of thyroid hormone support it with nutrient support, nutrisense, nutrient deficiencies. Change the lifestyle, address, stress, address, sleep. Then maybe, yes, maybe you can get off your thyroid medication. And you know, I mean, these days we can use things like bio regulators, peptides, all of these things that actually improve the thyroid gland in and of itself, that you only have to use short term. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah. I mean, there’s so many other solutions and and I also think medication needs a rebrand, because, you know, there’s a little bit of this idea you go on a medication and then you just stay on it for the rest of your life. And I like thinking of it like a toolbox, like you go on work with your lifestyle to solve the problem, and then see if you can get off or not get off. So I think that is, I love your approach to that. And some people are like, this is great. I’m gonna stay on this forever and and that’s fine, as long as you’re like, cleaning up the lifestyle. So I think that’ll be a really interesting over as we start, I feel like the world is waking up to lifestyle, perhaps for the first time. It sounds so silly, but a lot of people are talking about the power of lifestyle. And then it’ll be interesting to see where the cultural conversation goes in trying to look at medication as you like, almost like a supplement. You come in, you use it, you get off of it, like, you know, that’s not a profitable model for Big Pharma. So they will do everything to make sure that we don’t do that. But as you and I know, I think there’s a really interesting place for the I mean, the the conversation around lifestyle has been lost, and it’s coming back, which is really great. So okay, I have to ask you a really interesting question that I I can’t believe all the times I’ve been with you, I haven’t asked you this question. So one, one of the biggest criticisms on fasting is that it destroys the thyroid. So I did, I did a lot of research on this, and there’s a couple things that I found, calorie counting over time destroys the thyroid, and one and again, correct me if I’m wrong. So I’ll just tell you my theories of what I see, and then I really honor your opinion on this. So. So what I’ve seen is, if you are under 1200 calories consistently over time, yes, that will absolutely affect your thyroid. Now on the other hand, I’ve looked at a lot of studies that say when you go into a fasted state, your t3 goes down. But then when you bring food back into the equation, your t3 actually doubles and goes up. So we have all the many health influencers right now that are like, it destroys your thyroid. I’m looking at this study. This study says t3 goes down, and I’m over here saying, Yeah, but bring a good meal back in, bring food back in. Make sure you’re getting at least 1200 calories a day, and you’re actually gonna see your thyroid improve. So what do you think of that hypothesis?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Okay, I love this. I love this. So I get this question a lot as well. Number one, any kind of caloric restriction below, like they push you into a starvation mode. Let’s face it, under 1200 calories, your body is in starvation mode. And we can bring back that conversation from the 80s and 90s of starvation mode, because it’s real, your body will shut down your metabolism, which is t3 production, thermogenesis, all of that. I mean, the thyroid gland is a huge, if not the master, regulator of whether or not you burn fat. So yes, everything will shut down if you’re in starvation mode. So if you’re fasting and you’re not getting in your calories 100% you’re going to tank your own thyroid. And if you’re over exercising on top of that, you’re going to tank your own thyroid. But if you do fasting the right way, and to your point, yes, it will draw t3 will drop temporarily. So if we, if we test someone in that, let’s say a, you know, at the 12 to 14 hour mark of their fast, t3 will probably be a little bit lower than it would be if we tested them, you know, on a day where they ate for 16 hours or whatever, right? But like you said, as soon as you eat and what you eat matters, as soon as you eat, then it’s going to kind of spring back to life again. So as long as you’re doing fasting, the way that you teach it, then you’ll be fine. And you know, the only other issue I have with women over fasting. So when somebody comes in, they’re like, Yeah, I eat two meals a day. I’m like, how are you getting in your protein? Right? Because if you’re only getting in two meals a day, are you, are you, are you taking in 60 grams of protein in each meal? I don’t think so. So that’s the other factor too. That just, I mean, that’s not even just correlated to thyroid, that’s overall health. That’s your your muscle mass, which is our organ of longevity. Everything is correlated to to protein intake. So if you’re fasting, you’re not getting in your protein that’s a whole other body health thyroid problem. But no, I’m a huge believer in fasting the right way. You have to fast the right way. Yeah, yeah,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

thank you. And I it’s a part of the I see it on socials a lot, especially coming from men that like to say, you know, don’t fast because it damages your thyroid. And one of the challenges I think we have when we look at science and isolation is exactly that you’re just seeing one side of the equation. And fasting isn’t just about not eating. It’s also about what do you do in the eating window? So I think so. Thank you for confirming that if you were to create a checklist of like, like, let’s say you and I are like, you know, on a train together. I just meet you. You’re like, Hey, I’m a thyroid expert. If I said to you, oh, God, I don’t know what to do with my thyroid. Is there a checklist, a lifestyle checklist, that you could give people?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Oh, that’s a good question. Okay, so first we want to test. I want to I want to see. Okay, what are your What are your numbers? So we can really make decisions from there, like, do you have Hashimotos? Let’s add in some black coupon seed oil. Do you have elevated reverse t3 let’s add in some iodine and magnesium and selenium and vitamin D. That’ll help with that. That’ll help with conversion. So it, I would say test, don’t guess, support with nutrients. So I have my list. I call them the No duh supplements. Like, Duh, of course, you take these every day. So that is the vitamin D, the magnesium, the iodine. I don’t take selenium every day. I tell people, like, eat a brazil nut every day. Like, yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

I like Brazil. Yeah, agreed, yeah. I

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

mean, I loaded with Selenium. Just do that. You know, get out in the sun, reset your circadian rhythm, definitely. I mean, if you’re not sleeping, nothing’s happened. Nothing is happening. So you better do whatever you need to do for sleep. And that’s a whole other episode, right? The blue light blocking gas. Glasses, turning off your computer, getting off your phones, you know, read a little bit before bed, whatever, but you got to be sleeping. And then I would say, let’s go over here, and yes, make sure you’re moving. Movement is imperative for I don’t care whether we’re talking about thyroid or type two diabetes or heart disease, right, movement is key. We all have to move. We have to control our insulin. We need to improve our circulation. We need to move. And then there’s the diet aspect over here. So over here we go. Okay, so we know that gluten containing foods act like a molecular mimicker to the thyroid gland. So what I mean by that is, you know, we talked about your little soldiers. You got these little soldiers, and they’re, they’re just wanting to go out and beat up the thyroid. Now in comes gluten. Of gluten, we have Gliadin, which is the protein of gluten looks like the thyroid gland and chemical structure. So your soldiers see it coming in. They go, Oh, there’s an invader. We need to go launch an attack. This is an all out war here. So those soldiers go out and they start beating up your thyroid gland again. And I get this question a lot, do I really have to avoid gluten? Oh, it’s so cliche. Everybody’s gluten free these days. It’s a fad. No, it’s not because we have science backing the fact that a molecular mimicry happens with gluten and you launch an autoimmune attack. Now, can that be translated to, let’s say celiac, Crohn’s lupus? Yeah. I mean, we’re tying gluten into all autoimmune conditions, especially the gluten over here. You know, if I have, if I’ve heard it 10 times, I’ve heard it 10 times. I’ve heard it 100 times. The people that go to Italy are not affected, right? So it’s the, it’s the it’s the wheat and the gluten and the processed foods here that we really, really have to avoid, and we have to avoid it at 100% and that would be the lifestyle that would be the main lifestyle check box that I would tell you to check and address. Because once you do that, and you change that up, and I know it’s hard for a lot of people, I said, Listen, go ahead and use the gluten free versions as a crutch before you move into just eating real food. But you have to do that. If you don’t do that, then it doesn’t matter whether you’re low carb or vegan or whatever you are. Just doesn’t matter. You have to be gluten free. Yeah, it’s

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

funny, you know, when I was in Europe a couple weeks ago, we were in Denmark with some friends, and I, you know, I usually when I’m, like, around, you know, in on vacation mode and I’m in somebody else’s house, I was like, I’m not gonna worry too much about, you know, standing up to being gluten free. I’m just going to eat the gluten like I want to eat the cultural food. And so a week of gluten, you know what? The biggest thing, because I don’t normally eat gluten, the biggest thing I noticed is my hunger went up. I was famished all the time. And I think that Gliadin, part of gluten, stimulates your appetite. So if you are struggling to understand, Okay, I got to stay off gluten because it’s going to affect my thyroid. What if there’s more motivation? If you understood that actually, that part of the gluten that breaks down into this Gliadin component actually stimulates appetite, and the fact that you can’t get your appetite under control may actually be helped by staying off gluten. I don’t know if you’ve seen that with the people you’ve worked with.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

I haven’t that’s interesting, though, that’s very interesting. So I I would think it would be related. Were you wearing a CGM? Because I’m also thinking, Oh, just Yeah. Like the carbohydrates spike maybe in the gluten spiking your blood sugar super high, and then you crash low and get kind of hangry, and that low, maybe, yeah, yeah, I

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

don’t know. I just was like, Wow. It was like a combination of not, of not skipping breakfast. So I wasn’t fasting and I was eating gluten. And after a week of that, I was like, I am famished all day long. And so I came home, started fasting, got off the gluten, which I normally am off, and like immediately the hunger went away. So, you know, an interesting thought I hadn’t really, I hadn’t really wrapped my head around, is, what do you what do you think ozempic is doing to our thyroid? Do we have any research on that.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

So yeah, we’re actually seeing the positive, yeah, when it’s used properly, properly. So we’re seeing an inflammation reduction with these glps there when they’re used. So a lot of biohackers, myself included, are using it in micro doses, so not enough to kill that it does not kill my appetite. I’m using literally, like one one milligram, and maybe every other week, in a very low micro dose. So it’s it’s enough to reduce inflammation. We’re seeing some brain protection from Alzheimer’s, which I have in my family. So I’m all about that. I. We’re seeing slight decrease in antibodies. So you know, over here, I usually use either low dose naltrexone, correlate with black cumin seed oil, or I’ll use black cumin seed alone, if someone doesn’t do well on LDN, that reduces inflammation. But then we come over here and we use these microdoses and the glps that help with inflammation and lowering antibodies to push Hashimotos into remission. I think it can actually help, however, the caveat is I also because there’s a flip side to everything. I also call these glps, the Beverly Hills soccer mom drug of choice for weight loss, where these women are using it, they’re losing weight. They’re not changing their eating. They’re starving themselves. Now, guess what? Just like you talked about, hello, thyroid problem, because you put your body in starvation mode. You’ve been eating 900 calories a day and 50 grams of protein,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

yes, so you have to make certain health and heart Yeah. And then, you know, you actually have me thinking I might bring NAT onto this podcast, because I know she is a fan of triazo pan, which is a peptide you can take that acts like ozempic. And I’ve been experimenting a little bit with that, with some of the patients that I’ve been working with, and seeing good results. So, you know, I think there are we are rebranding the initial way that we looked at ozempic, and there could be some some other side effects, or some other positive ways to approach this GLP, one, you know, a view of the of weight loss that we now are all looking through that. The thing about lack of that but appetite is now you’re not getting the nutrisense in now you’re not getting the calories. And so losing your appetite too much has a dark side. Is what I just heard you say,

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Oh, absolutely. I mean, when, when you’re not eating properly, you’re not eating enough, you’re not getting in the nutrisense, you’re not getting in the protein. Your body is going to suffer, I mean, and absolutely, the thyroxine is, I would argue, is the first gland to be hit, because it’s so dependent on the nutrisense, it relies on you to properly fuel yourself. And again, like, just like we talked about earlier with the fasting topic, if you’re not getting in enough calories, that thermostat turns down, so your metabolism turns down. You know, I saw I was in the competitive world. I did fitness and figure competition. So I’d see the bodybuilders and figure girls, and you know, a lot of them. I remember this one girl said she was on 900 calories a day. Well, then after the show, and this happened to me too. After the show, people would balloon up and I mean, within two weeks, they’re 30 pounds heavier than they were the day of the show. I mean, a, that’s not healthy at all, and B, what happened? Well, they starved themselves getting ready for the show, and their metabolism dial turned all the way down. Thyroid gland tanked. Now they’re eating regularly, and they’re even doing the reverse dieting, and they’re still eating clean, you know, yeah, you’ll have your day of eating pizza and brownies, but then you get back into, you know, the chicken, broccoli, steak, asparagus, but the weight keeps coming on, and that’s the perfect example when we starve ourselves through whatever mechanism, through doing a show and doing a strict diet or using these glps and not eating, our metabolism gets turned down, and it absolutely affects the thyroid. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

So, so it’s not like, I think with the conversation around ozempic, what I’m hearing is we always need a long term vision of this, of like, again, making sure that lifestyle stays in the equation here, and that we don’t look for free passes. What would you say to the woman that’s listening to this podcast and is like, whoosh, I got that’s a lot of things I have to focus on to get my thyroid Well, you know what? What kind of encouragement can we give her? Because I do think that there’s a bit of it can be disheartening to go from shoot my doctor said, Just take this pill to improve my thyroid, to listening to a conversation like this and going, oh my god, I got to do all that work to get it back on track. How can we shed some light and give her some hope?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Okay, so I would tell her, it’s all going to be okay. It’s not as complicated as you might think it is, or as it sounds in this conversation. Step one, I want you to bullet point out your your symptoms. Just do it for yourself too, just to kind of see and you go, Oh, man, wow. Okay, that’s those are a lot of symptoms. And even, I mean symptoms tied to thyroid go beyond what I just said, even frozen shoulder, joint pain, muscle pain, sleep disturbances. I mean, all of that is tied to thyroid. So bullet point out your symptoms. Get the testing done, and then from there, at the same time. You’re just one step at a time, one change per day, one change per week. If that’s all you can do, don’t put that kind of stress on yourself. Just those little, tiny changes make a huge difference. And then if you have to work with somebody to use the tools that Dr mania and I talked about today, maybe you need some thyroid hormone replacement. Maybe you need some bioidentical hormone replacement, because I do that too with my ladies. Testosterone is a fantastic tool to lower thyroid antibodies and get the thyroid working again. Progesterone helps with insulin resistance, which then helps with reverse t3 so let’s use the tools that we have and and you will feel better along the way, while you’re making the lifestyle changes. So it’s just a nice step by step process, but it’s okay, even if your doctor says you’re normal, everything’s fine. It’s all in your head and medically gaslights you. There is hope and there are answers. So you don’t stop you. Don’t accept that, because you know yourself. You know when something is off. You know when something’s just not right. And I always say that those feelings that you have, they are a gift to you. They are a gift that your body is giving you. To say, you know, honey, maybe you just need to go check this out, because there’s something. There’s something off. So let’s get testing done and we’ll just address it. I

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

really like the way you talk about symptoms, because we have been learned. We have learned to villainize symptoms, and I really feel like symptoms. If your body had a language to talk to you, it would. It talks to you and symptoms, and it’s trying to tell you something. You just don’t read that language. So I love that. Before I ask you the last question, how do people find you? Like do you have resources? So if people are piqued by this conversation and maybe they want to work with you or they want to find you, how would that look?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Absolutely So on my website, Dr amyhorneman.com, we have actually free guides so that the tests that I talked about today, if you didn’t write them all down, it’s cool. We have a download that we have all the tests, and we actually have the optimal lab value ranges for those tests. So it’s one thing to get tested, and then you look over here, right at the standard lab value ranges, and you go, Okay, well, I’m within normal limits. I’m normal. I’m normal, and that’s what your doctor will say. You’re normal. Everything is fine, but we provide you with where you should be with the functional medicine optimal ranges. So we derive those ranges from looking not at sick people. We look at the bad asses, we look at the fit people. We look at those, those people are walking around, they’re 70, and they’re like, water skiing and stuff. Those are the people that we test. And we go, okay, where are they? Because that’s where we want to be, and that creates the optimal range. So you want to, you want to compare. So we have those on the site, and then we have a book, a call. You can book a free call. We can go over, you know, what you’ve done, what you’ve tried, what your symptoms are. Have Doctors told you you’re normal, okay, not a problem. We got you, and we can absolutely fit you into a program that we take care of you and give you what you need, test what you need, give you what you need.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Amazing. Okay, we’ll leave links, so I appreciate that. I mean, what a resource we really I’m listening to and going, Wow, that was, you know, when I was in clinical practice, I was like that. I needed a resource like that to send people to so amazing. Well done. Okay, my last question, and this is the one that I’ve been really geeking out on. I really feel like we are so focused on trying to be healthy, but we don’t have a good definition of health. So if you could describe your definition of health, what would it be? And do you have a measurement you use to make sure that you’re you’re living a healthy life, and your body’s in a healthy place?

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

So I love this question. So first of all, measurement of health, I always use the term shored up. I’ve been asked like, what does that mean? Well, short, like, armored up. Armored up. So as we age and that that neurological, neuro chemical armor is going down, I believe we should get our body armor up. And what I mean by that is, let’s shore up our bodies and make them strong and healthy. You’re eating enough protein. Your thyroid is balanced. Your hormones are balanced, either with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, if you choose, or significant lifestyle changes to support those hormones. You support your immune system, you deal with stress, you get into some trauma work you you know, reduce your cortisol, get that meditation and do hot yoga once a week. For goodness sake. It’s going to reduce your stress, and you’re going to detox a little bit so you’re shoring up your body, building up that body armor, so that when those things start coming at you, oops. Sick parents got them. Move, loss of job, your body isn’t going to crumble and you go into some disease state that pops up, like, oh, wait a minute. Now I have heart disease. Wait now they found a cancer. What the hell? Shore up your body so that you can deal with those stressors? Amazing. The measurement, honestly, the measurement, I think, is subjective, because just like I said, like, I’m optimized, I always joke that I live in optimization land, and I want all y’all to come join me. Beautiful place to be. It’s a beautiful place. It is. So it’s, it’s where I get up in the morning, I have a little cup of coffee. I don’t really need it. I do my Four Sigmatic so it’s only 5050, grams, or 50 milligrams, or whatever, of caffeine, and then I have energy through the day, and I get a workout in, and I work, and I’m not looking at my couch at 2pm wanting a nap, and and my brain functions most of the time. And so it really is subjective. When you’re at the place where you’re like, This is good. I thought 50 would suck, but it really doesn’t. Then that’s kind of my, my subjective measurement of health.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Yeah, you know, one time I was at the only time I ever went to a UPW with Tony Robbins. They had a day, they had a day of where they were teaching health. And I remember saying to myself, like, what can Tony Robbins teach me about health? Like, you know, I think I have a pretty good handle on health, but he started off the day and he said, there’s only one reason to focus on health, and that is because Healthy People have energy, and when you have energy, you can accomplish anything you want in your life, which is exactly what I just heard In your answer, which is, when you, when you armor up with a good lifestyle, you’re not freaked out about a pandemic, you’re not worried as much about menopause like you, you have an inner knowing that you’re doing all the right things. And I think your your explanation was beautiful. So, so thank you for that. I geeked out on it. I really think it’s so interesting to me, how people say they want to be healthy, but we can’t define it.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

Yeah, that’s true. That’s very true. Yeah, you know,

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

yeah. But every person I’ve talked to, even the health experts on this on this platform, they all have a different explanation of what health is. So how can we walk around and say we have a chronic health problem and we can’t even define it, and we can’t even agree on a definition? So anyway, I loved this conversation. I really appreciate what you’re doing in the world. Thank you for letting me geek out on some of these topics and just keep doing the amazing work you’re doing, because it’s incredible.

Dr. Amie Hornaman  

It’s my pleasure. No. Thank you so much for having me on this has been great. Great conversation.

Dr. Mindy Pelz  

Awesome, great. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode, I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it, so please leave us a review. Share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is. You

Transcribed by https://otter.ai