Are your eating habits messing with your hormones? Meghan Donnelly, lead dietitian for the 60 Day Reset, shares the science behind why so many women struggle to lose weight despite “eating healthy.” 

Many of us are unknowingly sabotaging thyroid function and metabolism by eating too little, not too much. The results include blood sugar crashes, hormone imbalances, brain fog, brittle nails, hair loss, sleep problems, fatigue, and mood swings.  

Disordered eating patterns, Meghan says, aren’t always as stark as anorexia and bulimia. They show up in subtle everyday behaviors we consider normal, but are damaging our bodies. 

Meghan gives us strategies to boost metabolism and weight loss, and the best foods for hormones. She explains why gut health and protein are critical for hormone health and lays out the reasons we should be snacking every day.  

We discuss the importance of personalized nutrition solutions, then weigh the side effects of Ozempic and other GLP-1 injections, covering how these medications can seriously decrease muscle mass and bone density.   

Tune in for some vital nutrition information that may surprise you. 

TESS’S TAKEAWAYS: 

• Eating balanced meals frequently promotes weight loss and hormone balance. 
• Undernourishment slows down metabolism, digestion, circulation, and brain function. 
• Disordered eating includes many behaviors normalized today. 
• Quality snacks support thyroid health to ward off and combat autoimmune disease.  
• Better gut health is crucial for better hormone and blood sugar regulation.  
• Meeting your protein needs is a game-changer for better hormone function. 
• Working with a dietitian isn’t about restriction, but about strategies to expand choices.  
• Ditch generic diets. Personalized nutrition is the path to sustainable lifestyle change. 

ABOUT MEGHAN 

Meghan Donnelly, MS, RDN, CDN, is a registered dietitian specializing in gastrointestinal nutrition, and is Director Of Health Communications at the Celiac Disease Foundation.  

Her experience spans clinical practice, nutrition counseling, medical nonprofits, and the food industry. 

In her private practice at Nutmeg Nutrition, Meghan helps her clients establish a balanced and joyful relationship with food, particularly when managing digestive disorders (IBS and SIBO), food intolerances, gluten-related conditions (celiac disease), and disordered eating.   

She also provides nutrition counseling for heart health, kidney disease, weight management, and food intolerances. Monash University certified, she guides clients on Low-FODMAP diets.   

As lead dietitian for Skinny60®, Meghan provides nutrition education and support for participants in the 60-Day Reset.  

CONNECT WITH MEGHAN 

Nutmeg Nutrition: https://www.nutmegnutrition.org/ 

60-Day Reset: https://www.skinny60.com/60-day-reset/ 

MEET TESS MASTERS:   

Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of the Skinny60® health programs.       

Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.    

Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.    

CONNECT WITH TESS:  

Website:  https://tessmasters.com/     

Podcast:  https://ithastobeme.com/      

Health Programs: https://www.skinny60.com/  

Delicious Recipes: https://www.theblendergirl.com/  

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/     

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/     

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl    

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/ 

Thanks for listening!  

If you enjoyed this conversation and think others would benefit from listening, share this episode. And, please post your comments or questions below. I’d love to hear what you think.  

Subscribe to the podcast.   

Get automatic updates so you never miss an episode. Subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.   

Leave a review on Apple podcasts.  

Ratings and reviews from listeners help our podcast rank higher so it can reach more people. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Megan, whenever we get ready to do one of these

podcast interviews, it just feels like an extension of one

of our calls in the 60 day reason because we speak every

Monday night. So talking about hormone health, let's just start

from what are hormones, so that we're all starting from the same

knowledge base? Yeah, they're

they're actually, you can think of them

like chemical messengers. They're created by various

endocrine glands throughout the body, and they're created all

over the body, and they all have different functions depending on

kind of where they're created. Their main function really is to

send signals throughout the body and help coordinate more complex

systems like growth and metabolism and fertility and a

number of other things, but those are some of the main ones.

Yeah, they just control how we feel, and it's so

complex, and everybody's system is affected differently. So what

are some of the things that just mess with our hormones in can

get in the way of this messaging system sending the right

messages around our body.

Yeah, it's actually a lot of things, and

probably it's the combination of a lot of them that really gets

people so things like Western diet think that is high in

highly processed foods, having a sedentary lifestyle, age,

chronic stress, environmental toxins, nutrient deficiencies

and even not eating enough can affect your hormone regulation.

Yeah, I want to dive into some of this, because

there's so many things that affect and disrupt the balance

in our bodies, and we just don't talk about disordered eating

enough. And I love the education that you give the members of our

community about disordered eating, because we typically

only think of eating disorders as anorexia, bulimia, obesity.

So how do you think of disordered eating? What's a

what's a way to frame it so that we can all understand that we

may, in fact, be engaging in behaviors that are sending our

body out of balance?

Yeah. I mean, as a dietitian, I'm always

thinking about the why behind the decisions that we make with

food and so really, eating behaviors play a big role in

that, behaviors like binging and purging, which people might

think of as more traditional signs of an eating disorder, but

there are many disordered eating patterns that I don't think

people realize are disordered, things like obsessively limiting

your calorie intake, being preoccupied with clean eating,

abusing laxatives, eating late at night, especially binging

Late at night, over exercising, yo yo, dieting, preoccupation

with food, regurgitation of food. There are lots of

behaviors that can become that can be considered disordered and

also that can be maladaptive. And really, what we mean by that

is that they're behaviors that you start to do in response to

something that you're trying to control, and so that's a

maladaptive eating behavior. Yeah,

we see this a lot, don't we, in our community

where, when we start talking about this, and I remember you

giving a bunch of examples of disordered eating where it's

become normalized, where you replace your breakfast with just

a cup of coffee, and then it just becomes this socially

acceptable habit, because a lot of people do it. And then you

were talking about, what about if you're working all day, and

at five o'clock you all of a sudden, look, look at your day,

and you go, I haven't eaten anything, and the whole day has

gone by. And it's not even necessarily that you consciously

set out to do that, but it just gets away from you and everybody

on the video call, you know, just you could see everybody's

faces going, Oh, I'm doing some of those things, you know. So

it's really interesting to be reframing it like this, you

know. So what happens in the body when we don't nourish our

bodies with balanced nutrition and don't eat regularly

throughout the day, just physiologically. What happens?

Yeah, it's really important to recognize

that it's not going to look the same for

everyone. I think people tend to associate thinness or a certain

look with having a lot of control around food, and there's

a lot of genetic variability there. Not everyone looks the

same, but the physical effects are damaging. Regardless of your

body size, your metabolism actually slows down and. Um,

that is kind of a adaptive response to your body trying to

keep you alive. Your body's trying to prevent you from

starving. Um, so the your meta, your metabolism is going to slow

down. Your metabolic rate will slow down so that you burn fewer

calories at rest. And it does this by slowing down your heart

rate, reducing your blood pressure, slowing down your

digestion, and even reducing your blood flow and

circulations. So you're going to feel the effects of that a lot

of times, though, the thing that people start to feel is low

energy and brain fog. Um, your brain can't function very well

when it's not nourished properly, and sometimes people

don't associate that with with under nourishing, but it is a

very common thing. A lot of people say, Oh, I don't feel

hungry. That's why I don't eat during the day. And maybe you

don't experience traditional signs of hunger, and maybe

that's because you're sort of training. You've trained your

body over the years to ignore those things, but your brain

still feels the effects, and so sometimes people don't

really make that connection. Yeah, that's always

another light bulb moment when we're on one of our calls every

week and, you know, a member will ask a question and say, oh,

you know, and when was the last time that you ate? You may

simply need to eat something, and everybody's face just goes,

Can it really be that simple? And we all laugh, don't we

together? Because yes, we need to be eating. And also, isn't

that a great thing, because food's just so yummy, right? I

love to eat throughout the day regularly. What about the

digestive component? Like, what happens to our digestion when we

don't eat regularly,

everything slows down, so your body can't

initiate the muscular contractions of the digestive

tract, which is called peristalsis. You really can't do

this very well because you don't have enough energy. So some of

the symptoms of that that people might experience are feeling

very full very quickly after a small amount of food. Some

people experience constipation, particularly if they're eating a

lot of raw vegetables and things, but not much else.

That's a form of calorie restriction. That's something we

see a lot. And then, you know, bloating and abdominal pain and

things that you know we we kind of think they're normal

symptoms, and to an extent, they can be, but it can be a sign

that you're just not digesting your food very well, and so you

might get some of those more, more functional digestive

symptoms.

And we typically think of gas and bloating as a

byproduct of eating too much. We don't think of it as eating too

little. It's so interesting what you're saying. Even though you

and I speak every week, you know, I still have my own light

bulb moments as we're talking about these things. What about

the effects to our organs, like our liver function and and

things that are so necessary for for detoxification in the body,

they all start to not function properly as well, right?

Yeah, so I mean, your body is basically

trying to reduce the functions that it deems as less necessary

to keep you alive, so all organs can be affected. Your liver will

not detox as prop as well as it should. Some people experience

blood sugar dysregulation, especially hypoglycemia, which

is low blood sugar, and on a chronic basis, that can be a

problem, especially if you're not consuming energy on a

regular basis, you're going to have more dysregulation in terms

of blood sugar. Some people experience poor wound healing or

more bruising, in extreme cases, bone density issues. And then,

of course, there's things like issues with hair, skin and

nails. Those tend to be they become affected pretty quickly.

Actually, a lot of people get very like thinning hair and very

brittle nails and skin that just doesn't have that same

plumpness, I guess that it should,

yeah, yeah. And that nail splitting, and that is

so common, we hear that a lot, don't we, and obviously the

thinning hair is, you know, also a symptom of your hormones being

out of balance. And a lot of women you know have thinning and

hair and hair loss during menopause. Specifically, I want

to go back to this blood sugar piece, because, again, it's

something that just gets ignored a lot, and it's such an

important indicator of health at any age. But as we get older, it

becomes even more important to be mindful about regulating our

blood sugar, and we often ignore the signs of low blood sugar or

high blood sugar. So what are some of those signs to look out

for, where our body is definitely giving us those signs

that we need to be eating something,

one of the most common ways I can relate to

people on this. Is describing it as feeling hangry. That is a

sign of when your brain is so affected by your lack of

nutrition that it starts to you get mood swings, right? That's

absolutely a sign, but there are a number of other things,

nausea, acid reflux, actually feeling like you have a sour

stomach when you eat a little bit of food. That could be a

sign that you waited too long before your before you ate too

long of a gap between your meals. But brain fog really is

one of the biggest ones. I see people just, you know, we say it

all the time. You know, I get, I get the slump at three o'clock

and I need another cup of coffee, and I'm like, That's

what was in your lunch. How long ago was your lunch? It's

probably means you need food. If you experience brain fog every

day at the same time, I think just your starvation puts your

body into fight or flight mode. And so all of the normal things

you would think about when your body's biting something that

that's really what's happening, and you're also releasing stress

hormones in your body.

Yeah, this is it's just so fascinating that we have

just been ingrained to believe that the only way to be skinny,

to lose weight, is to restrict to eat less, to exercise more,

and that that's the formula, and in actuality, that the most

efficient path to achieving those goals is to actually Eat

more more often. Eat smaller meals more often throughout the

day, and this is such a huge part of the education in skinny

60 that surprises a lot of women, doesn't it? You know,

when you are constantly giving people this message every day,

and we hear this, don't we, I'm losing weight and feeling better

than I have, eating more than I ever have in my life. I'm just

shocked, you know, but when you're eating really quality

foods and in appropriate quantities and in a way that is

strategic for your needs, everything just starts opening

up. So I want to ask you about this thesis that you did when

you were at NYU, about snacking and late night snacking. And

then I want to ask about snacking, because, again, there

are so many misconceptions around it. So when we're

snacking in an appropriate way that's efficient, it's so great

for the body. So what have you learned about that in your years

of being a dietitian?

Yeah, so when I was in grad school, I did a

study on night eating, and we were looking at diet quality and

body weight, the impact of eating at night, and we were

using a night eating screener that was it was validated to it

was a validated tool to diagnose night eating disorder, so it was

a disordered eating tool, but we found that eating at night was

associated with poor diet quality and unhealthy body

weight and the Poor diet quality was really it was interesting

because we found that there these, these people overall, had

lower intake of fruits and vegetables in general, and they

had much higher intake of salty and sugary foods, which the diet

quality screener we used didn't actually get into what those

foods were, but you can assume that A sweet and salty food is

probably like a snacky type of food, right? And then the body

weight piece was interesting. We found that when we just when we

said unhealthy body weight, these people tended to fall in

the underweight and the obese range of the BMI scale, which

tells me that this, this eating at night, was really wreaking

havoc on their health in a number of ways, and it's very

likely that there were other issues going on with these

people leading, you know, perhaps other forms of eating

disorders. But just I want to reiterate that, you know,

there's a lot of digestive problems that happen when you're

under nourishing but also when you're eating close to bedtime.

Your your body needs that time to rest so that it can properly

do all the functions that you need to do while you're

sleeping, all those restorative functions. And so eating close

to bedtime, especially large volumes of food, it's really bad

for your digestive system. I mean, if you think about it,

just thinking about gravity, laying horizontally does not

help food move down your digestive tract, which is really

just one long tube from your mouth to your rectum. So it's

kind of interesting when you just think about it like that,

as I'll just kind of sit. They're flat and not moving,

which you know, it's it's not helpful. So it's just, there's a

lot to the reasons why eating at night and close to bed is is not

recommended. We recommend cutting off your eating time

about three to four hours before bedtime to help with digestion,

to help with the restorative functions of sleep to help with

blood sugar control, and also thinking about that diet quality

study. So

yeah, so Conversely, when we snack on

quality foods throughout the day and we eat regularly about every

three hours or so throughout the day, then we don't actually need

to snack at night, and we can start to break that habit, and

obviously, sometimes and very often, it's not a need for

physical Association, isn't it? It's a habit we sit in front of

the TV and we eat or we have this particular thing at night.

It becomes sort of a ritual that's about emotional, you

know, aspects of this as well. But talk, talk to me about why

snacking is a great thing when you're throughout the day, when

you're snacking on quality foods,

there are so many reasons we tell people to

try to not go more than three to four hours without any food, and

the reason for That is really to give your metabolism the support

that it needs in order to function well. So snacking has a

number of benefits. I mean, it can first of all, help curb your

appetite so that you're not getting into this cycle of being

starving before a meal, eating very quickly and in a way that

is not very mindful, and getting overly full very quickly, and

getting into that it's kind of like yo yo eating right? Like,

where you're just like, so ravenous, and then you have an

overwhelming amount of food. It's also giving you the

nutrients that you need. When you allow your yourself to

snack. We talk a lot about nutrient needs and how to meet

them, and what foods can help you meet those nutrient goals

that you have, whether it be proteins, fats and carbs or

vitamins and minerals, and it's really hard to achieve those

nutrient goals when you are not consuming food often throughout

the day. It's almost impossible actually to meet your protein if

you're not eating at least four times a day. Yeah. So, so that's

part of it, and then also this blood sugar piece, maintaining

your body likes to be in sort of a steady state in terms of blood

sugar, you don't want to have large spikes followed by

crashes. So you want to kind of give your giving your body fuel

throughout the day makes you one more efficient at regulating

your blood sugar, but also prevents those blood sugar dips

because you have some carbohydrates that you're then

able to use for energy. So there are a lot of benefits of

snacking. And when we say snacking, we don't mean, you

know what I think, what people think of as traditional snacks.

We mean consuming high quality foods throughout the day. So you

know, for us, a snack is many things. It could be a few bites

of leftovers, it could be a salad, it could be a number of

whole foods that are helping you meet your nutrient goals, just

spread out.

Yeah, it's interesting again, too, isn't

it? Just reframing, what is a snack? What can a snack be? And

when you when you say, you know, to to our participants and to

your private clients, you know, it can be just a few bites of

leftover lunch or leftover dinner from last night.

Everybody again, just, we all just look at each other, it's

like, Oh, yeah. And instead of narrowing your choices, it

actually opens them up. And I think that that's one of the

many things that I love about you as a dietitian, is that

you're always focused on not what we're taking away, what

we're adding, about expanding our options and never

restricting things that don't need to be restricted. In terms

of this blood sugar piece, you know, obviously the 60 day reset

is a gut is a digestive health reset. We're focused on gut

health and how the gut is connected to hormones,

metabolism and blood sugar. It's fascinating to me. It continues

to be, you know, just how the human body works, and when we

work with the what the amazing things that can happen. So can

you do an overview about the just the basic biology of the

gut brain connection and how it connects with our hormone

health?

Yes, the gut brain connection is fascinating.

We know now that your gut and your brain are physically

connected by a network of nerves, and they also kind of

work off of each other, so things that are happening in

your gut can affect your. Brain and things that are happening in

your brain can also affect your gut. I work with digestive

diseases, and we see time and time again that stress triggers

many digestive symptoms, especially some of the ones that

give people significant quality of life issues, things like

diarrhea, bloating, gas, abdominal pain, a lot a lot of

times, those are triggered by stress. On the flip side, your

gut health affects how well your body can respond to stress. And

a good example is that about 90% of your body serotonin intake is

produced in the gut. And what that means is that that

serotonin stimulates that network of nerves, specifically

the vagus nerve, to produce more serotonin in your brain. And so

having enough, having a gut that is producing these hormones,

actually can affect your mood very directly. So it's

interesting as we learn about more of these connections. And I

think where science is going is that we're really honing in on

the fact that having good gut health actually can affect your

overall well being and your mental health. Which is which is

really fascinating.

Yeah, I want to talk further about this gut

hormone connection. So it's really coming into the fore in

the mainstream with the prolific usage of ozempic and other GLP

one agonist injections. So can you just explain what GLP one is

and how that affects our hormone health and our overall health,

yeah, so GLP one is a hormone that helps with

appetite regulation, and so these GLP one mimicking

medications are basically just supplementing what your body

naturally makes of this hormone. GLP one. GLP one, though it it

does have a gut health component. When you consume when

you consume food, your gut microbiome, the microbes that

live in your gut, actually ferment, and there are

byproducts of that fermentation, your gut microbiome produces a

number of things, including vitamin K, but also short T,

short chain fatty acids. And these short chain fatty acids

have different functions. One of these short chain fatty acids

that is produced by gut microbiome fermentation is

butyrate, and butyrate helps, helps create the hormone GLP,

one which is important for hunger, maintaining hunger and

fullness cues, as I mentioned, but also your metabolism. It

affects how well you burn calories, and it can help

prevent insulin resistance. And so it's a very, very important

function, and making sure your gut microbes are getting the

foods that they need in order to create these byproducts is

something we talk about a lot, but the best information we have

is that eating a lot of high fiber foods really is the best

way to promote the stimulation of these byproducts.

So I want to connect the dots with this blood

sugar piece. So GLP, one is produced in the body, and it's a

lot of it is produced in the gut. Then GLP, one sends the

message to insulin, doesn't it? Which is another hormone in the

pancreas, about how much is released to regulate our blood

sugar. Because we need the sugar to get into our cells where it

produce, you know, it's used for energy, so when we don't have

enough, GLP, one, that's when we can't process carbohydrates

efficiently. Is that a good way to to summarize it?

It's a great way to summarize it. And also,

insulin is a hormone, and so one hormone regulates the production

and function of another.

Yeah, so when we're not our gut microbiome is

on imbalance, and we're not producing enough of GLP one.

Then it affects insulin, then it affects our blood sugar, then it

affects, you know, it affects our hunger, our leptin and

ghrelin, our hunger and satiety hormones. And then it just

starts to affect the whole system. And you talked about

serotonin, one of the neurotransmitters, and then GABA

and dopamine, are some others, and we just start to not feel

very good. So I just want to connect the dots a little bit

further with these injections and why they're causing so many

problems for people in these higher dosages. So people are

taking these really elevated dosages of the a synthetic form

of GLP one it's like having 10 cups of coffee as opposed to one

cup of coffee at a time, right? So just connect the dots further

about why this is becoming so disruptive for people,

specifically women over 40, and what we're seeing in terms of

the. Negative, the adverse reactions of taking these

peptides in huge quantities every day, every week. I should

say, you inject yourself once a week.

There are a number of concerns. I mean,

first of all, they seem to have an effect on the digestive

system in a way that slows it down, and so a lot of people

start to experience that slow motility, and one of the

telltale signs of that is getting full very quickly after

a small amount of food and feeling very nauseous. They're

starting to kind of figure that piece out. My understanding is

that they're starting to give smaller doses to people to kind

of see how they respond and try to manage that symptom, which is

great. The other thing is that you're one of the things that

happens with this medication is you end up in a in a metabol

metabolic state that is creating like a calorie deficit. It's not

literally creating a calorie deficit, but you are eating

fewer calories, typically, if you're on these medications,

because they affect your hunger and fullness cues. And so you're

going to start to burn more calories. You're going to start

to burn energy. You're going to start to burn your fat and your

muscle tissue. Unfortunately, your muscle tends to be

effective first, and so if you're not taking these

medications alongside performing some strength training exercise

that has a really bad effect on your metabolism. If you have not

a lot of lean body mass compared to fat, we know that that leads

to a slower metabolism in general over time. So while you

might see weight loss in the short term, in the long term,

not having those muscle stores is actually going to be

problematic for your metabolism. So I think, you know, there's a

there's a place for the use of these medications. I think

unfortunately, people who don't need them necessarily,

oftentimes are taking them and not being made aware of some of

these side effects and how to prevent them. And I would argue

that that gets you into this cycle of undernourishing your

body and disordered eating patterns, and these are just a

vehicle for that, and in a lot of cases, of course, not

everyone. But yeah, so it's just something to be aware of that

this isn't a benign medication, and it certainly needs to be

taken alongside it, I would argue, a dietitian that really

knows how to manage some of these things.

Yeah, it's really interesting to see the results

that practitioners are getting by micro dosing, taking much

smaller doses, as you were just saying before, where it's it's

actually effective. It's not as disruptive to hormones and

balance in the body. And you can be doing other things in

conjunction with it, so that you are supporting the formation of

better habits without having these nasty side effects. Watch

this space, as we always say, right? Because we're just

learning more and more about these things. But also, there's

such a huge percentage of people where they try to titrate off of

the injection, and then they gain the weight back, and then

some. And so it's, what is it? They're saying over a third of

people, or two thirds of people. I mean, it's just unbelievable.

You know what's going on? So if you are on one of those

injections, you know it's interesting to watch what people

are doing by taking much lower dosages. But we have a lot of

participants come into the program, don't we, who have been

very disappointed with their journey with these injections

long term, and it's causing all kinds of disruptions with their

hormones. And for women going through menopause, specifically,

it doesn't do a lot to affect, you know, hot flashes and sweats

and brain fog and all of these other symptoms that really

affect your quality of life. So we're not just focused on

weight. I just want to go back to what you were saying about

muscle, where they're estimating that about half of the weight

loss is muscle, or a large percentage of the weight loss is

muscle. Can you just reiterate again why the lean muscle mass

is so important for metabolism, but also for bone health.

Yes, lean muscle tissue is more

metabolically active than fat, so having more muscle is going

to have lead to a higher metabolic rate, and that's

generally considered a good thing, but it's also holding

your bones in place. You can think of it like scaffolding for

your bones, and so if you don't have enough muscle on top of

your bones, you're going to be at risk for other issues like

fractures and injuries and things like that, also under

nourishing in addition. You and not having a lot of muscle

stores is probably going to lead to bone density issues in over

time, because you you just aren't going to be able to meet

your nutrient needs and to protect those bones.

Yeah, that's another thing that I think we're

going to see in the coming years and decades, is people that have

been on a long term usage of these drugs and what it's doing

to their bone health long term. So we all know, as women past

the age of 40, 5060, we're really looking at our bone

health, and that can be problematic with, you know,

osteoporosis and so forth. So again, just something to

consider when you're thinking about using these medications.

Let's talk about what we can do to support better hormone health

and better hormone function. So let's talk about what we can do

to support better gut health. We've been talking about how

important it is with regards to overall health, but how it

connects to our hormones. What can we be doing to improve our

gut microbiome.

Eating a lot of high fiber foods

is your favorite subject fiber. It

is for a number of reasons, but eating a lot of

plants, plants have micronutrients, phytonutrients,

important anti inflammatory nutrients for your overall

health, but they also have fiber, which is the food for

your gut microbiome. So that's number one. There was one study

I always like to talk about when we have our weekly calls, is

that there was a study where they looked at people who ate 30

plants per week and showed that they had healthier gut

microbiomes than people who didn't have or who had less than

30 plants per week. And I don't think like the 30 number is

extremely important. I just think it's important in the

sense that if you're eating 30 plants per week, you're getting

a variety of plants, right? It's quality fruits and vegetables

and nuts and seeds and a lot of them at every meal and snack,

probably that is what I would tell people to take away from

that is that variety is important. Then hydration, your

digestive system does not work without water and you need

and we get dehydrated as we get older,

absolutely, we

do, and so making sure you're hydrated,

especially if you're consuming a diet that is high in fiber, if

you are not hydrating, well, you're going to experience

blockage and constipation. It's very unpleasant thing that

people sometimes when they're trying to change their habits,

all of a sudden they get very bloated and constipated.

Sometimes that is because they're not hydrating enough. So

those are, those are the biggest things. And then we also talk a

lot about probiotic containing foods. People always ask about

probiotics and

and your response surprises everybody.

I like to turn people towards fermented foods

which naturally contain live probiotics, or most shouldn't

say all fermented foods contain live probiotics, but certain

fermented foods contain live probiotics that are plentiful

and diverse in the species that they contain. And so I like to

steer people towards fermented foods if they can tolerate them,

things like sauerkraut and fermented pickles, kimchi, like

there are a lot of good options out there now, and they're going

to be the ones that you find in the refrigerator section of the

grocery store. Those can those can be wonderful. And then you

don't need to go out and buy a probiotic supplement, which

might have bacteria that are no longer alive or unknown in terms

of the quantities and the diversity of the species.

I like, yeah, one of the many things that

everybody loves about you in our community is that you don't

recommend supplements unless they're absolutely necessary.

It's just this very much food forward, go to your regular

grocery store, do these things. It's very simple, and going and

spending $60 on these expensive probiotics may just not be what

is required. And also, it's so fascinating, isn't it? This,

this studies that are coming out now about the bio individuality

of everybody's microbiome, that it's like a fingerprint, and

everybody is different, and that actually the probiotic that you

may be using may actually not be appropriate for you, and it may

not be the strains that your body actually needs. So it's

just going to be so interesting how our knowledge expands with

regards to that moving forward, it's fantastic. Let's talk about

protein, because this is also a really big focus of our program,

educating people about protein and why it's so important. So.

So let's just connect the dots about the protein hormone

connection as well, and why it's so incredibly important to be

getting the appropriate amount of protein, particularly over

40.

Yeah, there are a number of hormones that are

dependent upon the proteins you consume. So these hormones can

regulate a number of things, especially growth, metabolism,

even appetite and stress. But I mean, most of the hormones in

your body are dependent on the energy that you take in. It's

it's just a matter of, you know which ones are stimulated by

which food group, but it's kind of that's why I always tell

people there's no magic like combination of macronutrients.

You shouldn't demonize any specific macronutrient, because

they all affect your hormones in different ways. And so yeah,

protein is very important, and I would say, in order to build up

your lean body mass, which is your muscle stores, as we were

talking about before you've got to make sure you're getting

enough protein. And those processes are also dependent

upon peptide hormones.

And so in terms of protein, this is another thing

that really surprises people when we were talking every week

and about nutrition education, that with protein, more is just

more. So it's about what's appropriate. If you eat too

little, your body doesn't function properly, your low

energy and so forth. If you eat too much, then it irritates,

disrupts and overwhelms the body. So how do we figure out

how much protein we need. Like, what are the factors that

determine what our protein needs might might be? It's

dependent on a number of things, your body

size, so your weight, also your age, your health status and your

activity level. Those are the main ones there are. There are

some other ones. Like, if you're in the hospital, we might put

someone on a super high protein diet if they have a wound that

won't heal, for example. But for the most part, it's the things I

mentioned before. And yeah, I mean, there are a number of

calculations out there to calculate protein needs, and

these are evidence based methods. And yeah, we find that

people who overdo it don't necessarily, they don't have

better health outcomes because they're having such large

amounts of protein. Actually, your body tends to treat any

macronutrient in excess like an excess nutrient that it's going

to convert to a storage form of fat, right? So having too much

protein isn't going to make make it so that you can't produce fat

in any any energy storage. Um, any nutrient in excess is going

to be stored as energy in the form of fat in the body, pretty

much. Um,

yeah, so this is another piece of the education.

You know that our bodies can only absorb so much protein per

meal or snack, so a lot of people are loading up at night

but not eating protein throughout the day. And so this,

this, when you say this to people, I always ask you to

repeat it, don't I, because it's just so important, if you eat

more protein than your body can assimilate, it gets stored as

fat, and so it actually works against your weight loss goals,

for example, and it can really disrupt your hormones and so

forth. So it's just a really interesting piece of this. I

just want to specifically for women over 40 in perimenopause,

menopause and post menopause. Just connect the dots with skin,

bone health, muscles, you know, and collagen production with

regards to protein. And everyone's taking collagen

supplements, but we can just be eating quality protein foods,

right?

Yeah, you really a lot of times you don't

need those supplements. Yeah, protein stimulates collagen

production, actually, which affects your skin, your bone

health and your muscles. So yes, there are people who are taking

it in supplemental form, but if you're meeting your protein

needs and getting a variety of protein sources in your diet,

very likely that supplements not going to do much for you.

Yeah, yeah. I want to go back to this macronutrient

conversation, part of the conversation with protein, fats

and carbs. Oh, we love to talk about healthy fats, don't we,

and thankfully, when we're in an era where the word is out that

fats are not only good for us, they're essential. But I want to

connect the dots with hormone health. Why are healthy fats so

critical for better hormone health?

They are the building blocks of many

hormones, and so often, what I see is that people are not

feeling satiated after meals, which we know is hormone. It's a

hormone. Response satiation, and also they're just not feeling

very energized in between meals. They're not able to meet that

three to four hour window that we recommend before your next

meal, and a lot of times that's because of their fat intake.

More often than not, actually, we're telling people, you've

gotta have more fat with that. Yeah, yeah.

And they're yummy. Fats are delicious. They make us

feel full, and they give us that yummy feeling when we eat

things, you know? And so it's, it's always kind of a bit of

another cause for celebration, isn't it? When people are

looking at, you know, the meal plans or the recipes or what

you're talking about, and going, Wait a second, I can maintain a

healthy weight and lose weight eating this much fat, and we go,

Yep, and then they all of a sudden start losing weight,

going, Ah, this is so great, you know. So in terms of healthy

fats, what? What do you recommend other foods that we

gravitate towards for better health and better hormone

health? Specifically?

So, olive oil, avocado oil, oils that come from

high quality plant sources. Also nuts and seeds are a big one. We

use them a lot and so, yeah, plant fats is what is what we

prioritize. Animal fats do have a role. They should have less of

a of a, I guess, percentage of your diet than plant fats. But

yeah, for the most part, we're able to have people consuming

both sources. It is kind of interesting with fats. I think

people are afraid of fats because they have more calories

than proteins and carbs, they're actually nine calories per gram,

whereas proteins and carbs are four calories per gram. And so

sometimes people get afraid, like it's just a little bit, but

it's so many more calories. But we know now that it's really

about the quality of the calories that people are

consuming, and that having these fats to kind of finish a meal

make a big difference in terms of people's overall health. And

we see time and time again that a lot of these, these hormonal

things, start to regulate when people are consuming all of the

macronutrients often,

yeah, I want to ask you about some of these

quality animal fats that deliver omega threes, for example, like,

you know, fatty fish and things like that. So what, what are the

the sources of seafood that you recommend for people that eat

animal protein,

wild caught fish, primarily, and the fatty

fish, because they do have these omega three fatty acids that are

important for our brain and our hearts. So wild caught salmon is

a great example. There are some white fishes like cod and

halibut, when they're wild caught that can be very high

quality. So just looking for something that is that contains

these healthy fats, but then it ideally is wild caught, because

wild caught fish contains a lot more nutrients than farmed fish,

and has also has a lot less toxins than farmed fish,

yeah, and you can get wild caught sardines too,

with the bones for for bone health, and they can be really

great, and you're not anti canned fish in in small

quantities either, right? As long as it's high quality wild

caught,

yeah. There are a lot of reasons to consume

canned fish. Part of it is that it lasts longer, and you can get

it from anywhere. You can buy wild caught Alaskan salmon,

wherever you are, right? So, yeah, canned fish definitely has

a place. I think it makes a lot of sense. It's an easy protein.

You put it on a salad really easily. Like, yes, there's

nothing wrong with canned fish. And, you know,

yeah, I think that's another surprise for

people. You know, we're just taught that that anything in a

can that's shelf stable is terrible, and it not necessarily

so. So just getting in a variety of things, I want to just touch

on something you said before about We're talking a lot about

plant foods, and that everybody should be eating a lot of

plants, but plant based has become synonymous with veganism,

and they're not the same thing. So we have a lot of different

people in our community, and people from, you know, with all

dietary stripes. So there's people that are vegan,

vegetarian, pescetarian, omnivore, eat all kinds of

animal protein, but we all need to be plant based, so our diet

is based in plants, and then we supplement with other quality

foods of our choice. And so that's another part of of the

education that surprises people. You know, that there isn't just

one diet or one way of eating that works for every person, but

we're working within these general nutrition parameters,

which is, eat a lot of plants. You know, I want to go back to

what you were saying about eating regularly throughout the

day, and just connect the dots a little bit further with thyroid

health, because there's so many women over 40 that present with

Hashimotos graves and other thyroid conditions. And this

relationship between thyroid health, hormone health and gut

health, and what you were saying about eating regularly

throughout the day. So can you just explain to us about why our

thyroid and our blood sugar and gut health, how it's all

connected, and why we need to be paying attention to our thyroid

function?

Yes, your thyroid is very affected by your

nutrition status. So if you are under nourishing your body, one

of the effects is that you're not going to be giving your

thyroid the support that it needs to perform all of the

complex functions that it needs to, including production of

hormones. So what I think, and I think what a lot of dietitians

are starting to understand, is that, especially in women,

history of yo yo dieting and significantly reducing calorie

intake has a very big impact on the health of the thyroid as we

age, and is very likely a strong contributing factor to things

like autoimmune thyroid disease. So yeah, I one of my goals is

always to expand people's diets but, but I'm always working on

eating often and making sure you're getting enough in terms

of protein and calories and fat and carbs as well, like all of

the macronutrients, because your thyroid really depends on that

nutrition, and it can't perform all of the functions that it

needs to without it. And remember, your thyroid regulates

your metabolism, so this is really important that it's

working. Well,

yeah, I mean, there's so many things that make

you so effective in our community, but just meeting each

person where they're at and helping them make the program

work for their personality and lifestyle and the what's going

to work for one person is not the same thing as another

person. With that in mind, what are some of the general foods

that you recommend prioritizing to support better hormone

health?

Omega threes, which we've talked about, is a

big one. So including foods that, actually, I think, in

American style diets are not very common in our diet, um,

things like fatty fish and walnuts and flax seeds and chia

seeds and hemp seeds, these foods are rich in omega three

fatty acids. And it's, I would argue it's important to consume

them daily for brain and heart health and and hormone health.

And so Absolutely, I'm pushing omega threes. I'm telling people

to put a tablespoon of flax seeds at least every day, or

something

like and that's good for constipation too.

That's one of your big ones, isn't it?

Oh, yes, I think flax and chia and hemp are

like super food. But you know, I mean, I was speaking with

someone the other day who said to me, you want me to eat more

often. I'm not feeling very hungry. I want to get more omega

threes in my diet. And so we came up with, okay, one snack a

day is just a quarter cup of walnuts. We're killing two birds

with one stone, complicated intervention, right? So things

like little things like that, can go a long way. I also talk

about cruciferous veggies a lot. Cruciferous veggies are amazing.

They have so much fiber, but they also have other properties

that make them really beneficial, especially from an

anti inflammatory perspective. So they have what we call

glucosinolates, which are associated with decreased

inflammation and can actually help regulate estrogen levels by

when you have excess levels of estrogen. These glucosinolates

are thought to help convert it to a weaker form. Now, you would

have to be consuming very large amounts in order to actually see

that direct effect, but I think what we can take away from that

is that cruciferous values are positive for your hormone

health, and so we're talking about them all the time, things

like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, we we

recommend those as daily things.

Yeah, cabbages. I mean, there's so many, right?

And and for those of you that are listening going, Oh, I don't

like any of those foods, well, it's just about figuring out

really delicious ways to prepare them, because the way that you

prepare them, what you serve them with, really makes a

dramatic difference. So we've turned many a Crucifer hater

into a lover, haven't we, Megan, it's, it's all about figuring

out what works for you, which is why, again, you're so effective

as a dietitian, because you're not extreme. It's just about,

okay, all right. So let's, let's look at what you do. Like, let's

look at what you can do. What's your family going to eat? What's

possible for you. It doesn't have to just look one particular

way. So I think therein lies the limitation with just Googling a

bunch of foods and going, Oh, okay, well, I got to eat these

foods, right? But it's about figuring out how it actually you

can integrate these principles into your life, which is, again,

why our program happens live so that you can help each person do

that individually. You were talking about exercise before. I

want to just connect the dots again between exercise and

hormone health and how physical activity increases hormone

receptiveness.

Yes. Yes. So physical activity makes your

cells, what we call more insulin sensitive, meaning they are more

easily able to utilize the energy that you're giving your

body. So we talk about blood sugar, and how when you eat a

meal, that raises your blood sugar. Well, that blood sugar

has to go somewhere. It has to get into you. Into your cells,

and insulin is the shuttle to get the blood sugar into your

cells. And when cells become more insulin sensitive, that

means they are more able to accept that energy so that you

can use it efficiently. So exercise absolutely affects

hormones. We know that sedentary lifestyle is affected with like,

negative hormone Association, like negative levels of some of

the hormones, like, I would say, unhealthy levels of these

hormones. So yes, but with insulin, it's important,

yeah, I Gosh, it's there's so many things that we

could keep talking about as I'm sitting here going, oh gosh, oh

gosh. I want the listeners to know about this and this and

this. You know, this is, again, why the two of us just geek out

every week, because it's just this. This knowledge is so

important. But if knowledge was all we needed, we'd all Google

or chat GPT our way to getting all of our goals. So I just want

to talk to you about the difference working one on one

with a dietitian as opposed to googling some of this stuff.

What would you say to someone who says, Well, I can, I can

just google all that stuff for free. Why do I actually need to

work with somebody? What? What? What fascinates you about

working personally with people and helping them figure it out?

Yeah, I mean, all of this information you can

look up, I can look it up too, like that's how we learn. And

having knowledge doesn't necessarily help you understand

what's going on in your body. So I have a lot of clients that

come to me and say that they know all this information about

gut health and fiber and digestion, but they still have

all of these symptoms, and that really is because dietitians can

help you take the information that that you know and that we

know, and turn it into a food recommendation that is actually

going to work with your lifestyle. So you know what the

example I gave before, about the walnuts and how you're killing

two birds with one stone by getting more food and getting

more omega threes, like we are, the people that know what that

what that translates to in food form. I also think we are

experts at figuring out what's a sustainable change for you, just

because you know something doesn't mean you're going to

know how to change it. In your life, we find this a lot where

people get they have all this information, but they don't know

what to do with it. They don't know how to make it and it into

a sustainable lifestyle practice. And as a dietitian, I

can easily figure out, okay, this, this is your goal. These

foods help you meet that goal, and here's how you can actually

eat them. Like, I think that's that's that last step actually

makes a big difference. Like, we can tell unique cruciferous

veggies every day, but like how and and when and why, what makes

sense. So it's really the personalized piece and making

sure that the concepts are something that you can actually

integrate into your life. People are surprised sometimes when

they work with me, I might start with something very simple,

like, if someone that's what I love about you, yeah, yeah. I

mean, I will sometimes, you know, someone come in, this is

just an example, but if someone comes in and says, I I can never

eat cruciferous vegetables, usually, I'm trying to get them

to add a little bit of cauliflower rice to a soup, and

that is worst thing, like we start with very simple things,

but that exposure over time, all of a sudden they're they're

eating all these different things, and it's just about the

texture and figuring that out. Like we are experts in food. And

yes, you can know the science, but if you don't know how to

prepare the food, and you. Consume it in a way that's

enjoyable to you, then you're not going to get those benefits

at all. So I think that's one of your superpowers,

is thinking outside the box, listening to each person what

they like to do, what they don't like to do, what their

lifestyle, their habits, are like, and you thinking of all

these different solutions and just continuing to make your way

through all these suggestions until we find the secret sauce

and the magic of what's going to work for somebody. I want to ask

you about the community aspect of it. So yes, you work a lot,

one to one with clients, and then you work on these group

calls, and we have so many people that stay in our

community for that, that group aspect, that community aspect

that can't be replicated any other way, because googling on

your own at 11 o'clock at night in front of your device is quite

a lonely endeavor. You just feel really, really alone in that.

And you and I are constantly amazed at the nourishment that

people get from a group setting. So what? What is that like for

you as a dietitian, not only working one to one with people,

but also in that group setting? What have you noticed the big

benefits for people, being in in that, in, you know, learning in

that in that way,

we can learn so much from each other and

sometimes speaking to someone else about their experiencing,

about what they're experiencing, and how that relates to what

you're experiencing. Can can trigger some of those light bulb

moments I have that all the time with my clients, even in one on

one sessions, you know, we're talking about something, and

then they have an idea of something that worked for them,

and then I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to tell other people this,

and it we just that that community aspect is is so

helpful. And I do think it is comforting to be in a group

where other people are going through the same thing as you,

and maybe they're coming from different backgrounds, and they

have different life experiences and different reasons why

they're here, but you're all learning the same information

and taking those life experiences along with that, and

how and how that affects your experience with The program, I

think it's really powerful actually, like we have people

sharing all kinds of information that we wouldn't be able to come

up with

all Yeah, it's so true, isn't it? And I love it

when the members that have been in our community for a long

time, they really take ownership of it and really feel great

about sharing what has worked for them and what continues to

work for them, and that we're all taking responsibility for

teaching and learning together. As you just pointed out, it's a

it's a really lovely thing. Again. I could talk to you about

this all day long, but we'll pick it up in our call with the

community next week. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you. Bye.