Diet is one of the biggest topics surrounding Hashimoto’s, so I wanted to get Dr. Stone’s take on everything from veganism to the carnivore method.  We discuss the common misconceptions people have when it comes to strength training and explain why building muscle is crucial for your thyroid health. She breaks down her training style and highlights how resistance training has improved her overall health. Dr. Stone also touches on potential treatment plans for adrenal dysfunction and explores the connection between tissue hypermobility and autoimmune disorders. 

Dr. Carolyn Stone 

Dr. Stone is a licensed naturopathic physician in the state of Arizona and owner of Stone Naturopathic. She has a passion for helping women with thyroid disorders who are looking to get their life back.  She was tired of seeing women brushed off by their health practitioners or given unnecessary treatments and thus made it her mission to serve these women in the way they deserve. Helping others return home to their true selves is her ultimate goal. 

Dr. Stone’s Diet Recommendations

Gut health is a critical piece of treating autoimmune disorders. Dr. Stone has been trying out a mostly animal-based diet recently and has seen amazing results. While some vegans and vegetarians might have to work harder to reach certain nutrient goals, it’s not impossible to adhere to a plant-based diet with Hashimoto’s. Dr. Stone provides some clarity around fiber and the gut microbiome, particularly as it relates to bloating and digestion. 

The Benefits of Strength Training 

Most people hear from their doctors that they should get more low-impact movement in, like walking, yoga, and Pilates. There’s a misconception that picking up weights or getting your heart rate up is going to hinder your healing. The reality is that having lean muscle mass improves your insulin sensitivity, helps stabilize your blood sugar levels, improves your resting metabolic rate, and reduces pain. Building muscle is also one of the best ways to naturally convert T4 into T3. 

In This Episode 

Dr. Stone shares her Hashimoto’s journey. [ 1:31 ]

Dr. Stone talks about her experience with following an animal-based diet. [ 5:50 ]

Dr. Stone unpacks the pros and cons of following a plant-based diet. [ 8:52 ]

Dr. Stone describes the benefits of strength training. [ 11:57 ]

Dr. Stone shares her advice for how to be more resilient around stress. [ 14:04 ]

Emily asks Dr. Stone, “Why is muscle important for my thyroid?” [ 20:37 ]

Dr. Stone takes listeners through her workout routine. [ 22:25 ]

Emily asks Dr. Stone, “What would you tell the maybe the more sedentary women listening?” [ 28:33]

Dr. Stone talks about how to address adrenal dysfunction. [ 34:41 ]

Quotes

If you're not well taken care of, you can't do anything for anybody else. [16:50]

I know for myself, strength training has been critical to getting my Hashimoto’s under control. Without that, I would not be where I'm at today not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. [19:56]

Just get your body moving and build muscle. I don't care how you do it, just make it happen and be consistent. [30:27]

DISCLAIMER THIS PODCAST/WEBSITE/COACHING SERVICE DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. The information, including but not limited to text, graphics, images, and other material contained, are for informational purposes only. NO material on this show/website/coaching practice/or special guests are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of YOUR physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding medical treatment. Never delay seeking medical advice because of something you read/hear/see on our show/website/or coaching practice.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Topics Covered:

• How Dr. Stone’s thoughts on nutrition have changed over the years 
• Ways to improve your response to stress, like setting and maintaining boundaries 
• Where to get started with investigating your nutrient levels 
• Dr. Stone’s thoughts on health and wellness gadgets 
• A look into Dr. Stone’s gym routine 
• Different treatment plans for women struggling with adrenal fatigue 

Resources Mentioned: 

• Vibrant nutrient profile test 
• Great Plains Laboratory organic acids test 

Guest Info:

• Instagram
• Website 

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Stress is one of the number one things that I see impact thyroid health in particular Hashimotos. And that kind of ties into adrenal health as well as hormone health. Because if you're stressed your hormones are jacked up, and when I say hormones, I'm talking about like progesterone and estrogen, all the all those hormones in that same pathway. So those would be my top three nutrition, building muscle and stress management.

What's up lovely ladies, Dr. Emily Kiberd Here with thyroid strong podcast, I am a chiropractor, a mama to Elvis and Brooklyn and I have Hashimotos what is currently in remission. On this podcast, I share simple, actionable steps. With a little bit of tough love on how to lose that stubborn weight, get your energy and your life back and finally learn how to work out without burning out living with Hashimotos. Dr. Carolyn stone, welcome to thyroid strong Podcast. I'm really excited to have you on we're going to dive about a topic that is near and dear to both our hearts.

Yes, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. This is going to be a good conversation. Anytime I get to talk about how she's and lifting heavy things. It's a good day.

So you as well as myself both have Hashimotos Can you share a little bit about your Hashi's journey into like getting diagnosed? And all the things? Oh, yeah.

So it was kind of interesting. So I was in med school from what 2008 to 2011. I'm sure as you can imagine, that's very stressful time. And so I had developed by the end of my med school journey, I had developed adrenal issues, hormone issues. I mean, I was overweight, and I just felt like crap just did not feel well. And I'd seen several naturopathic doctors, right, because that's, that's my community. And, you know, they've caught all the adrenal things, did all the nutrition things, but still was missing that how she's piece. And I think it was sort of benign, honestly. So in my experience, people are a lot better about it now in terms of checking for antibodies, but I don't think it was as much on people's radar back then. Because that was a little bit of time ago. Like I remember it being mentioned in med school. But it wasn't like something that struck my interest at that time, I thought I was going to be a doctor focus on diabetes. That was what I was going to do. world did not, you know, it didn't turn out that way. That's not what came my way. So yeah, it actually doesn't surprise me that I got missed at that time. A lot. People are more aware of it now. But it was probably Gosh, a year or two after graduating from med school. I was just like, you know, things are kind of getting better, but some still not right. And I was like, You know what, I'm running my own labs. Let's see what's up. And sure enough, there it was, pop that positive antibody. And I was like, ah, made so much more sense. I finally understood why I felt the way that I felt. But it was still from that point. I see this with a lot of people. It was a journey. It wasn't like, oh, within 30 days, I felt like a brand new person. We're talking years and years of healing my gut, healing my adrenals healing my hormones, doing all those things. And then finally, the thyroid kind of fell into place once I had all those pieces. And so I was on thyroid medication for a period of time, I've been fortunate that I haven't had to stay on it. So I was on it for maybe a year, but I was pretty low dose. And I really had to put all the effort in to make sure that I got well and could get off medication, you know whether that's not a possibility for everybody. But I was one of the the fortunate ones. And probably because I caught it relatively early on my antibodies were fairly high, but not as high as some of the folks that come to me. Oftentimes I'm seeing folks and like the 1000s. And mine were, I think under 500 at that point. So it was like, Okay, it's positive and not too crazy. And so the earlier you catch it, the easier it is to treat. Right.

So I think it's interesting, because you talk about you did these foundational steps, right, which you talk about and like you got to do the foundational things. I think those are really important. Can you share with maybe a couple of like maybe like top three foundational things that you would take care of with Hashimotos? Heck,

yeah. So my top three would probably be well, for sure. You got to talk about nutrition because gut health is critical for any autoimmune disorder. So definitely for Hashimoto, so nutrition is going to be a big piece of that. And my thoughts on nutrition for hashes have changed over the years, quite a bit even more. So like in the past year, you know, in med school, we were always taught like, Oh, you have to have you know, half your plate, veggies, you know, X amount of protein, you got your carbs, whatever. And follow that for a while. I was like, okay, and it was fine. And I got better, you know, because it was probably better than what I was doing to begin with. And that's probably true for most people, especially if you're going from a standard American diet. So that's like, oh, like light years better. But as time went on, it's like all that little fine tuning that happens over time. And so end of last year, I actually got COVID Lucky me and I had been At that point, kind of researching carnivore and animal base, I was seeing a lot more information about it, I thought, Oh, this is kind of interesting. And so when I got COVID, it was like, Well, you know, I always kind of use illness as a fresh start. So it's like, Well, okay, everything's jacked up right now anyways, like, Let's go baseline and see what happens. And so I at that point, decided to go animal base, which, you know, I can get more details on that. But when I did that, that was a game changer for me. And I realized how much better my gut felt. And I started after I had been doing it for about 90 days. And I started trying it with some of my patients to see how they did on it. And I was seeing really, really, really good results as well. So nutrition is kind of something that's always evolving and always changing. And to me, if you feel good, awesome, keep doing what you're doing. But if something's off time to try something new. So I would say nutrition is a big one.

So animal based as in like carnivore, so not strict carnivore. So

you have like, the strict carnivore people like liver king, or

like liver King Shaun Baker, Paul Saladino. And

I've loved that. And I think that yeah, like it works for some people. But actually, Paul Saladino is more animal based because he includes fruits. Yeah, which carnivores don't. Right. He includes some carnivores, I don't think some of them do dairy and some of them don't. It's kind of like mixed results on that. So I do dairy. I do well, with that. Not everybody with hashes does, but I tolerate it. Well. I use honey, not a lot, but a little bit of honey, especially like as a boost before I work out. So there's there's some nuance there for a while. Yeah, so it's a little different. So for a while I was doing rice, but then I I felt like my guts still just wasn't quite there. And I cut it out. And I was like, man, night and day difference. And now when I have rice, I can see how my gut feels right. It's different. Yeah. So it's interesting.

Going back to the animal base. I personally like that was also my journey, because my functional medicine doctor was Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who is like protein, protein, protein. And I find the research confusing, right? And I know nothing. Not one way is for everyone, but like talking about cyber and helping with like the gut microbiome, like the more fiber you have the more diversity or gut and every time I would have more fiber. Even if it was like cooked. I'd be like seven months bloated. And then I was like, Tim, what's going on? Can you speak to that? Or maybe help bring some clarity, especially for the Hashi ladies who feel like we walked around like seven months pregnant all the time, sometimes.

Well, yeah. Well, and what are we told, right? That if you have constipation, which is really common for people with cashews and hypothyroidism, they'll eat more fiber, right, you have two more fiber to poop. And I would find that for myself. And for other people, the fiber would help for a period of time, and then all of a sudden, it was like, nope, everything was stopped up. And it was like worse than when they first started. So it was kind of like my first like, okay, maybe this whole fiber thing is not what we think it is. Right? Because really, I mean, depends on what type of fiber you're talking about. But fiber is actually a gut mucosal irritant. I was actually just reading about this the other day. And that's how it actually gets things moving through is because it irritates the mucosal lining, and that's how it gets stuff to move through. So it's actually aggravating things, but it helps us prove, you know, so it's like, there's kind of this catch 22 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cuz I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. News, because, you know, again, going back to gut health, super important for people with hashes and hypothyroidism. So do we really want to be irritating the gut lining? Right? Yeah.

Have you treated because you see a ton of patients? Have you seen a patient or patients do well on a plant based with Hashimotos? Because I have some people in my program that I was strong, that do not go like, I'm either vegetarian or vegan. This is how I am. And I like, oh, Kay. But I sometimes withhold myself from saying something, because maybe there is a certain population that does well in a plant based diet.

That's a great question. And that's kind of the approach that I always take that just because it works for me or works for the majority of people doesn't mean it's going to work for everyone. So I always give people the opportunity. Listen, if you want to be vegan or vegetarian, like let's make sure that you're meeting all those nutritional markers, you know, as much as possible and make sure you're getting an upbeat 12 enough iron and of zinc, some of the things that we commonly see be deficient in that population. And if they can make it work, awesome, but in my experience, there's always something that's missing on a vegan and vegetarian diet like either it's a nutrient deficiency, that we're not seeing gut issues. A lot of gut issues, especially with vegan diets, vegetarian gives us a little bit more wiggle room. So I'm like okay, eat some eat some eggs, at least right? And we get like a little bit of something in there. But I do find that often what I see from a lab perspective is that their T three is never in an optimal range. I often find that they do not convert well from T four and T three like 34 might be good, but that T three is always a little bit sluggish and their TSH tends to run a little bit higher. And it doesn't seem to make much difference when we adjust them. medication or we adjust our medication and they feel like almost a hyperthyroid state even though they're not. So there's always like this little nuance there, but I'm all for supporting what my patients want. Like, it's not for me to tell them what to do. All I can say is give them information, and then they make a good decision for themselves. But I do find that oftentimes, there's something missing there. Yeah.

Do you find that on that maybe vegan or vegetarian diet to get that protein they need for muscle recovery for muscle protein synthesis. If it's from a plant based source, they have to eat so much more, which means so much more calories, which means difficulty losing weight is like the biggest struggle with Hashimotos and fatigue. It's like, okay, well, now you're eating more calories, but like the goal was to lose weight. It's like this. Yeah, butting of heads of the goal versus like, maybe ethically what is in their heart.

Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, part of it is understanding why they're vegetarian or vegan, like, is it this ethical reason, and then let's break that down. Is it actually more ethical to be vegan or vegetarian, especially when it's putting your health at risk, there are ethical ways, I believe, to eat animals and raise animals and all of those things, but I get it, I get it. Some people that is just not their jam, I've got patients who they're trying to eat me, and they just don't like the texture, right. So sometimes it's something as simple as that. And that's a hard thing to get past. Like, even Tina will tell you, she used to be a vegan, for at least vegetarian. And so when she first started eating me, which she, she's animal based, who are kind of mostly carnivore, she'll tell you how hard that was, at first. And she kind of had to adapt to that. So I do find that people do much better with animal base, because it's so much easier to meet those protein markers. Because let's say you're using beans as your primary source of protein, you can only have so much of that before you're impacting your insulin and your blood sugar, and your gut, all of those things. So it's, it's tricky to get enough protein.

What would be two other foundational things? Yeah. Strength training?

Of course, it has to be on there. Yeah. And, you know, I think for women, especially when they think about strength training, they're like, oh, it has to happen in a gym. And it has to be like these, you know, heavy lifting, doesn't have to look like that at all. Like, I think kettlebells are frickin amazing, especially for women. And you know, it's something easy that you can have at home, so there's no excuse, right? So when I think about strength training, I'm really talking about like resistance training, and that can look different. So find something that you enjoy that builds muscle, at the end of the day, that's really all I care about. So that would be my number two. And then I was saying, number three is stress management. Stress is one of the number one things that I see impact thyroid health in particular Hashimotos. And that kind of ties into adrenal health, as well as hormone health. Because if you're stressed, your hormones are jacked up. And when I say hormones, I'm talking about like progesterone and estrogen, all the all those hormones in that same pathway. So those would be my top three, nutrition, building muscle and stress management.

Let's talk about stress, because I feel like stress is inevitable, right? This idea of like having chronic stress, and it's like low grade stress is to our detriment. But how can we show up more resilient to stress, right? Like we can show up in so many ways you can do like a fight or flight or freeze, we can tend to be friends, like the tribal women that talk her out, yeah, sit around in a circle and bitch about their partners. Or we could show up with courage and building resilience. And I think, at least in my experience, and I'd love to hear your experience when interacting with women who have Hashimotos. There's two mindsets. One is I am my diagnosis, and it is just a downward spiral. And then really, the more growth mindset, women that I meet are, I have a diagnosis. But I'm also me what tools can I do to build resilience? But I think it's interesting, because a lot of people talk about de stress, stress, less have less stress in your life, but I feel like it's inevitable. And it's an everyday thing. So I would love your take on that last foundational piece.

Yeah, yeah. So you're absolutely right. Stress is a part of life, we actually need stress, stress is beneficial in a lot of ways. Exercising is stress, right? But we know that ultimately, there's a lot of benefit to that. So it's really about, like you said, becoming more resilient to stress, bouncing back quicker, being able to handle that stuff. Now, of course, things going on today are, I'm not gonna say unprecedented in any way. But it's certainly new for our generation, right? We haven't really been through a pandemic like this in our generation. So that's kind of interesting. But when I think about managing stress or becoming more resilient to stress, the first thing to think about are all those foundations, right? We know when you work out like throwing some heavier around always makes me feel better, right, moving that energy through the body because I think about stress is just energy that's in the body. So we got to move that energy out in some way. So exercises are Great way to do that making sure you've got the right nutrients. Because if your brain doesn't have enough healthy fats doesn't have enough B vitamins doesn't have enough of those micronutrients, and you're not gonna be able to tolerate stress as well. So that's a big piece. And I think about meditation man getting people to meditate. I don't know why people are so resistant to it kind of cracks me up. I was like, Oh, I can't do it. I'm like, Cool. That's why we practice, right? You couldn't ride a bike at some point in your life. Now you can. So you just do it right? And you learn. I'm always like, pretty much every treatment plan has 10 minutes of meditation every day for my people to deal with that. But I think a lot of it too, has to do with community. And that could be your kind of close community with your family. That could be how you interact with the bigger community. Because I find, especially for women, that they often don't have great boundaries. They let people walk over them, they put everybody else ahead of themselves. They don't say no, it's always yes, I'll get it done. Like, I will take care of everything. Like I take care of the house, I take care of, you know, all of those things, especially if they've got kiddos, it's very common to see them give it all away, and they leave their tank completely empty. So learning how to set boundaries can be huge for people who are trying to better manage their stress and learning just how to say no, and not have to explain yourself. That's a beautiful thing for a lot of folks.

I think also letting go being a mom myself, letting go of the guilt. And like the internal shame and blame that happens when you do say no is like, also a whole nother step.

It's one of those things, the more you do it, the easier it gets. But yeah, and being okay with some dishes in the sink and being okay, if your laundry is not, you know, done, like all those little things like at the end of the day that they really matter. No, like, take care of yourself first. Because if you're not well taken care of you can't do anything for anybody else

going back to nutrients. How do you test for that? So if you're like, Okay, I want like an optimal nutrient profile, how would someone go about with how she might go about investigating that piece.

So some of that you can do like you would your standard labs, like B 12, by blood is easy to run, but you have to know your optimal reference ranges. Because B toll, for example, goes from like 230, up to like 1200. But I want people above 600. So, you know, there's some nuance there. Vitamin D, you can run by blood, seeing if you can run by blood, iodine is better as a urine test. I've run it by blood before, it's just not super accurate. So a lot of it you can do by blood, they have some companies, I want to say it's vibrant, that does like nutrient profiles. There's some nuance there, you know, in terms of accuracy. So you know, I always kind of keep that in mind. But I think by and large, those types of nutrient profiles at least give you a baseline of some areas that you might need to work on. You know, I'm not a fan of like, oh, every nutrient deficiency requires a supplement. I want to know why are you deficient in the first place? Is it because you're not eating enough of that nutrient, or you're not absorbing it? That's big for people with hashes, they might not be breaking their food down appropriately to actually absorb those nutrients. So for me, it's more of, you know, how is your gut functioning? What do some of those lab levels look like? What's the underlying issue for why you're not getting those nutrients?

Do you have any thoughts on Great Plains labs organic acid test?

I haven't used Great Plains labs for a while I was doing organic acid test through someone else. Gosh, darn it, I can't remember who who it was. I haven't run too many of those lately. It's kind of like I always take everything with a grain of salt. Even like standard labs. I'm like, okay, it kind of gives me an idea. But at the end of the day, I got a treat the person sitting in front of me and not their labs. To me, it's more of like a guide than it is a definitive thing.

So let's talk about both of our favorite topic, which is like strength training exercise. So I saw Yeah, I found that conventional medicine but also a lot of functional medicine. Doc's the common recommendation for exercise for the Hashimotos woman is walking, which is great. I mean, walking up, pick intercepts, low impact exercise, Pilates and yoga, even from some functional medicine doctor friends, naturopathic endocrinologist kind of focused, and I was like, wow, this is fascinating. Why is this and I felt like it was because, you know, like, you don't want to push yourself into a Hashimotos flare up or get joint pain, brain fog or aggravate the autoimmune condition or aggravate adrenal glands that are already taxed. What are your thoughts?

I honestly because I see that all the time. I'm like, do they just think we're a bunch of soft women who can't do shit? Like we can do hard things? Like that's really what I thought about I was like, Yo, like, we can do hard things get out of here, like women can have babies and they can do like, you know, we deal with colds way better than men. We already know that. That's scientifically proven. So I don't know. That's kind of my thought when I hear that. I know for myself, strength training has been key critical to getting my Hashimotos under control. And without that, I would not be where I'm at not only just physically but mentally emotionally as well, like we know all those mental emotional benefits for working out, you know, stress, and getting your mood lifted, building confidence, all of those things you can get some of that certainly from and I think there's a time and a place for yoga and walking and doing all those things. But you got to build muscle, you have to build muscle, if you want to help the thyroid, there's zero way around it, you have to build muscle. So I think if you ignore that piece of it, you are not going to get your thyroid under control as well as it could be.

So for the hotshoe listeners that are like, Well, why is muscle important for my thyroid?

Oh, so many reasons. Okay. thyroid glands seem like two separate things. No, it all works together. Because we know if you are resistance training, we know that you have better glucose control hands down, and people with Hashimotos and hypothyroidism have shown to have a higher risk for impaired glucose metabolism. So making sure that you have stable blood sugars is really important. And resistance training is one of the things that does that resistance training stimulates the muscles to produce more insulin receptors, right, which means a greater ability to bring that sugar into the muscle cells so that they can use it up right use up that energy. And muscle is particularly sensitive to insulin. So again, having less efficient lean muscle mass improves your insulin sensitivity, and then what else it improves your resting metabolic rate. We know with Hashimotos and hypothyroidism, everything is slowed down, right, your bowel time has slowed down your energy slowed down metabolism is slow death. So that's where resistance training can increase that right it increases the resting metabolic rate huge. What else it reduces pain. We know a lot of people with Hashimotos deal with chronic pain, joint pain, muscle pain, muscle weakness, so and also kind of speaking to that same point is just even as a normal part of aging, we start to lose muscle around 35 years old, that's sarcopenia. Right? And that increases as we age. So you're gonna be losing muscle, you better start now, because you're gonna lose it at some point. So you want to fight against that. Lots of good reasons. And muscle is one of the place where we convert T four and a T three. So if you don't have adequate muscle mass, then that conversion is not going to happen as well. What does

your we were like, okay, little fly on the wall. Carolyn stone, what does she do for her workout? What does it look like?

Oh, yeah, so for me, I mean, I like to be in the gym, I don't know that I could work out at home and I did for a little bit. But I'm just much better like getting out of my space, I'm usually strength training three to four days a week, at least do a little bit of cardio. And there. Sometimes it's just lifting weights faster. Sometimes I actually do sprints and do the row machine. Now that we're moving into so it kind of changes by season sometimes, too. So now that we're moving towards like hiking season and Arizona, I'm gonna start building up more of my stamina for hiking. So like getting more, you know, longer walks in, I love to run by my knees don't love it. So I don't do as much running. But yeah, so I would say three to four days of strength training, and then the other days are just active days. And that can look different depending on the week. Sometimes I'm hiking, sometimes I'm biking, sometimes I'm walking just depends

when you're at the gym, do you focus on certain kind of moves? Is it more like a bodybuilding style? Or is it more like compound functional movements? And can you share like what your rep set scheme looks like? Because I think a lot of women assume okay, if I go to the gym, I have to do like three sets of 15 That's I think we have some cultural dialogue in our head sometimes.

Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, I really focus, you know, I don't do a fancy workout, and it doesn't change, you know, I really like to focus on those baseline movements, those compound movements, and get really good at those and build on those. And then every once in a while, I'll hire a trainer and he can put together some new moves for me just because I'm getting bored. That's not really that often. And so for me, I like to do things in super sets, because it just, I don't know what works for me. So by supersets, I mean, doing like two or three exercises paired together and rotating between those right, so you do a superset another superset. So I'm usually doing like, free super sets during a workout and my rep. So look like usually I start with like eight reps. And then I'll put the weight up a little bit, six reps, right weighed up a little bit more, as many as I can get until my body gives out which is usually around four. So I usually increase in weight during those sets, but I'm decreasing the number of reps that I'm doing. So I don't do a lot of high rep stuff unless I'm maybe just kind of on a break week where I'm taking things a little bit slower. Not focus on building muscles so much more just kind of, you know, an active rest week where I'm doing lower weights,

do you find that doing heavier weight lower reps is better on your joints? Because I think a lot of women who've never picked up a weight assume who heavyweight might injure me, that's scary. I'd rather use a lighter weight and do 100 reps over five pound weight

or something. No, I've actually found that it's much better For my joints, so like I mentioned, I've got some old knee injuries from playing soccer. And they've actually been a lot better since I started lifting heavy. When I was doing lighter weights, it was like everything always felt kind of tweaked. But I think it also when people worry about getting injured, that's where a coach comes in handy. Or having a program is somebody that can walk you through those basic movements so that you're not hurting yourself. But heavy weights, you're not really gonna hurt yourself. Unless you're the only time I see people hurt themselves. It's mostly guys and they're like it trying to train for some competition. Like this is my brother, right? He my older brother, he was training for something injured himself. And then he was out for like a year. I'm like, was it worth it? Was it worth it to go that high? You know, there's a balance there always.

Do you find the timing of your workout, like in terms of the time of your day, because sometimes I recommend women workout earlier in the morning, if they can write if they have a little bit of like cortisol disruption, and or if they're, like, tired but wired at night, like try to keep their workout before 2pm. So they work out too late. They might feel like you at night?

26:04

Yeah, it's very individualized. Like, I don't think there's one way that works for everybody. To me, I'd rather you get it in, then, you know, worry too much about timing, unless it's causing an issue, right? Like you said, if somebody's working out nine is too stimulating, okay, fine. Like I worked out after work. Because what works better for me, I use my brain a lot in the morning. So I really focus on like, brain stuff in the morning. And then at the end of the day, it's like, okay, now I can let all that energy go all the things that I dealt with throughout the day, it helps me For me, it's even though it's stimulating, it's actually calming at the end of the workout, because I'm getting rid of all that energy. And I usually end with like sauna and a cold shower. So that kind of helps regulate my cortisol a little bit better. But honestly, I'd rather just people get it in and not worry so much about the little nuances. We can, you know, we change it up depending on what they need.

Did you always used to lift weights? Or was this like a newer endeavor?

I was always an athlete in high school, and, you know, was always active in college. But go figure it was when I was in med school that like my activity went down dramatically. Because you know, just like fate. I'm like, of all the times like that's when I should have been my healthy. Like, I knew more than I ever knew about health. But that's when I was my unhealthiest. So I've always thought that was kind of interesting. So during med school, I just was not as active as I should have been, I wasn't lifting weights or doing anything like that I did all that for sure growing up. But it wasn't until Oh, it's like close to when the pandemic kind of started. So that would have been what 2020 ish, like, end of 2019, early 2020 was when I really started focusing on the strength training piece I kind of had when I was first diagnosed with how she's like kind of took it slow, because I knew I needed to preserve my adrenals. So I started with gentle stuff like yoga, basic yoga, like yoga nidra, where you're essentially just taking a nap. Right? So I started with that. And then I started doing some more like power yoga, building more muscle, I was like, okay, I can do more things. And then I was doing more like HIIT workouts for a little while. And I was getting good results. But it just wasn't what I needed. And that's when I moved into strength training. So it's kind of been a journey over the past few years. For the women

who are listening in who might be on the more sedentary side are deconditioned like right there. They may get a little bit of a walk, what would you recommend for them? If they were like, Okay, I want to start working out. I know if I overdo it, I get brain fog and my joints her like what do you typically do? Because right? I feel like there's a spectrum of how she ladies it's like very sedentary or it's like type A and they actually need to like dial it back. Like what would you tell the maybe the more sedentary women listening then yeah, that's

totally the two spectrums that I see too. So it's funny that you see that? Yeah, so for the sedentary folks, if they're not doing anything at all, I just have them start with the daily walk, walk around the block, it's gonna be further than what you're doing now. So start simple, because really, in the beginning, it's more about, oh, no, heck no like to start somewhere, I'd rather you do something small and actually achieve it and build that momentum than to worry about meeting some mark that it's totally unattainable for you. So in the beginning, when someone's getting started, it's more about building the habit than anything, building the routine. Because getting that consistency is what's going to carry you through long term. So I want to build that consistency first, we can always build later. So start with just doing something consistently, whether that's walking, or maybe you've got a yoga video that you do on YouTube, whatever it is, start simple. One of my favorite ways to get people started with building muscle is using resistance bands, because they're so easy, and they're cheap. And there's lots of resources online for that. So I have them start with resistance bands. I tell them like watch your watch your show whatever TV show you like right at night and then do your resistance bands while you're sitting there and start small. You could do a 10 minute workout twice a day, if you wanted. It doesn't always happen have to happen in one fell swoop because I think that's the other thing that people you know get caught up in is like okay, I don't have an hour that I can spend in the gym. Cool. You don't have to that's the cool thing, right? So T Showing them that you can split it up and you can do little things and build the habit first.

Yeah, I talked about micro dosing your workout, like if you can't do it all in one swoop, like do five minutes, then do the next five minutes, then do 10 minutes. And like that adds up to 20 minutes in your day. Totally. And the benefits are the same. Yeah. And I think people don't know that. They're like, Oh, if it wasn't that like, hot, sweaty mess, you know, afterwards, then it wasn't it wasn't a workout.

Yeah, yeah, that's totally not true. Just get your body moving build muscle. I don't care how you do it, just make it happen and be consistent.

Are there other tools that you recommend for the Hashie crowd outside of the foundational tools, like stings that people could fly? Sauna cold, you know, because there's so many like stands out there, right? There's like, cold exposure right now is like a big thing. Oh, it's

a big day. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, because I think all this stuff is super cool. And you know, I have a sauna blanket, and I've got a red light. But like, honestly, I didn't even have any of that stuff until like the past year. It was more just like, Oh, that's cool. Like, let me add that in and see if it makes a difference. I was trying to start with things that are cheap, or free, because then everybody has access to them. So getting sunlight easy. Get out and get some sunshine, get some morning sunshine to help regulate your circadian rhythm, get some afternoon sunshine to build your vitamin D, how easy is that? Cold showers also free. So I do actually really love cold showers, especially if like they've got nodules, running cold water over over the thyroid can help reduce that inflammation. So I love incorporating that. But I also feel like sometimes with things like sauna and red light and all of that, that people feel like, Oh, I can't do that thing. So I can't control my hotkeys. Those are just icing on the cake. Like they're not the main things that are going to get people where they need to be. They're helpful. I don't like when people get caught up in thinking that they have to have all these fancy things to get well focus on the basics, you know, getting electrolytes, something as simple as that having regular electrolytes like that can be a game changer for people with Hashimotos. There's fancy tools out there, but I don't focus on those too much.

Yeah, you're talking about the foundational stuff, which I love, because I think it often gets overlooked like the tool like I had someone texted me, should I get the iWatch or the aura ring for tracking my steps in my sleep. And I was like, like, neither will probably make a huge dent in your Hashimotos diagnosis.

Exactly. Exactly. Like they're cool things. And it's cool to like have an AR ring and track that stuff. But at the end of the day, is it going to be vital for you to manage your hashes? I don't think so. Yeah.

So I've noticed doormat to strength training, clinically working with clients in real life as a chiropractor that I haven't heard people talk about, but I wanted to know your take on it. So I noticed she a lot of autoimmune population. And I would check what's moving too much, what's not moving enough. And I would find that a lot of the autoimmune women would have an element of tissue laxity or hypermobility. And I would check you know, in the physical therapy world, it's called a beatin score, where you're like checking the elbows and the knees and the thumbs. And it wasn't everyone, but it was a large population of like the autoimmune women coming in with this kind of tissue hypermobility. And I was wondering, you know, from your clinical knowledge, if there was any connection in any certain way to that, I mean, I know, certain yelping hyperthyroid targeted to maintain muscle mass mycotoxin exposure can lead to, you know, lower muscle mass, but I yeah, I don't know. I was wondering, curious your thoughts on that.

Yeah. So for you when you say autoimmune, is it like mostly hashes? Or is it a variety of autoimmune folks that you see that way? Yeah. I

mean, it was mainly Ha, she's women with rheumatoid arthritis and some lupus patients.

I mean, I would say it's interesting that you noticed that I'll have to kind of pay more attention to that in my clinic. My thought is that I think you nailed it is that's probably has to do with muscle mass. They just don't have enough muscle mass to hold the pieces together, so to speak. And so there might be a little bit more laxity, which is kind of funny, because a lot of those conditions come with joint stiffness, right? But you can have that joint stiffness, but also have laxity. So that's kind of an interesting perspective. But my guess is that it has to do with the the muscles.

I wanted to talk a little bit about adrenal insufficiency. I feel like Adrenal Fatigue is like a dirty word these days. For some reason, oh,

I know, it's like you want to say because everyone recognizes it, but it's not the right term. Yeah,

like adrenal stuff. So oftentimes, thyroid stuff will go hand in hand with adrenal stuff. And when you are working with your hashey. Ladies, which one do you address first? Or do you address them at the same time in terms of like treatment plan?

Oftentimes, I'm addressing them at the same time, depending on the severity, like if somebody needs thyroid medication, they need thyroid medication, right? But I'm also going to work on all those foundational things as well as the adrenals. So kind of depends on the case if it's let's say, they've got hashes, but it's not hypo thyroid yet, then maybe we're focusing mostly on the address. He knows at that point, do a little bit of thyroid work. But really, if you're treating the root cause and you think that the adrenal dysfunction or HPA Axis dysfunction, if you think that that's the issue, then you have to target that right. It's got to be a big portion of your plant. But that's, you know, when you're an Asia Pathak doctor, and I'm sure you see this in the chiropractor world as well. It's like, you don't just like hyper focus on one thing, you got to treat the whole person, you know, you kind of find, like, let's say somebody has, what I often see is adrenal dysfunction, hormone imbalance, and Hashimotos. I see those three together, the hormone imbalances is almost always because of the adrenals. So a lot of times I'm focusing on the adrenals, because I know the rest will fall into place. But I'm usually doing a little bit in every single one of those realms,

just for the women who maybe haven't seen a naturopath or seen someone who looks at them from like a functional medicine perspective. What would it mean to treat adrenal dysfunction? Like, what does that look like?

Yeah, there's different levels, kind of look at it in phases, adrenal fatigue, phase one, phase two, or phase three, phase three is the worst. And phase one's like, Okay, you're just getting started, right? So that's easier. So if it's, let's say, a phase one, a lot of times, that's just a matter of one dealing with whatever stressors they have. So putting things into place, like meditation and exercise, maybe giving them some herbal support, right, once you get into phase two, and phase three, that's often where you have to pack a little bit bigger punch. So that might mean, you know, the Type A ha, she's women, they got to dial their exercise back a little bit, they got to dial back all the different functions that they're going to or projects that they're working on. So really kind of going inward and focusing on that with those folks. You know, I might be using herbs, but I'm usually going to be using what we call adrenal glandulars, where it's kind of like thyroid glandulars, but it's just adrenal gland instead, right? So I don't know how much your audience knows about thyroid medication, but you've got the natural desiccated thyroid, like NP thyroid or nature, thyroid, those are glandulars, essentially. So you can get that same thing in adrenal form. I often find that people are phase two, phase three, they need a little bit more support. And it takes time. That's the biggest thing with adrenal dysfunction is that it takes time to heal that like phase one, okay, maybe in a few months, you're back to feeling like yourself. If we're talking late phase two, phase three, we're looking at like six months to a year to really recover completely doesn't mean you won't feel better before then. But it's it's a long road,

which I think people for me it took about nine months even to just get some energy back when I started dressing the Hashimotos I think people do like a year, you're like, yeah, a year. How long have you felt good? So you know, start feeling good. And

exactly, yeah, one of my mentors used to say, you know, you can't walk 10 miles into the woods and come out and five so when did you really start feeling like things went downhill for you? And think about the amount of time that it's going to take to not necessarily undo it but heal that

right 100% Dr. Stone thank you so much. It has been so fun chatting with you. Where can people find you and how can they work with you?

Yeah, so the easiest place to find me is on Instagram because all my things are there so it's Dr. Stone AZ or Dr s t o n e AZ there's a link in my bio there so in the link you'll see an opportunity to work with me one on one if you're in Arizona, I just started a group coaching program so this round is already kind of launched and spoken for but that'll come up again and I'm just starting to dabble with kind of online coaching so wouldn't be a patient physician relationship or more like client health coach type thing. I have a fully launched that yet but that's kind of coming your way. So if you're on Instagram, you'll find all the things you can get on my email list as well. I give them extra stuff but all that's in my my bio. They're

amazing. Thank you so much. It was so great having you on Oh, thank

you. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity any anytime we can help more people I'm down for it. So thank you

if you enjoyed this episode, or even learned just one new piece of information to help you on your Hashimotos journey. Would you do me a huge favor, rate and review thyroid strong podcast on iTunes, Spotify or whatever platform you used to listen to this podcast and share what you liked. maybe learn something new. And if you didn't like it, well shoot me a DM on Instagram Dr. Emily hybird I read and respond to every single DM I truly believe all feedback is good feedback. Even the ugly comments if you're interested in joining the thyroid strong course a home workout program using kettlebells and weights where I teach you how to work out without the burnout. Go to Dr. Emily cupboard.com forward slash T s waitlist you'll get all the most up to date information on when the course launches and goes live special deals and early access bonuses for myself and In my functional medicine doctor friends again Dr. Emily khyber.com, forward slash T s weightless. Hope to see you on the inside ladies