Kind: captions
Language: en
in today's episode of health theory with
l russ we discuss why you probably have
a thyroid problem how to fix it yourself
the foundation of the primal diet and
why you need to chill out on the
exercise
hey everybody welcome to health theory
today's guest is elle russ the author of
the paleo thyroid solution and host of
the primal blueprint podcast with mark
sisson she's also a former sketch comedy
writer and performer who got her start
with chicago's legendary second city
comedy troupe and most interestingly of
all she cured her own thyroid disease
with diet exercise and self-dosed
hormones and that's where i want to
start is with the self-dosing
i get being your own medical advocate
and not just taking people at face value
it's a whole nother thing to start
self-dosing what led you to that wow you
know uh two years of being left in the
dust by the medical community and what
do i mean by that i mean uninformed
doctors
practicing 40 year old outdated
protocols you know for what they learned
in medical school that are no longer
valid
not testing me correctly i was
undiagnosed for two years so they kept
saying you're fine just you know
my one doctor hit my gym shoes he goes
use these more i'm like i'm working out
two hours a day i'm practically an
athlete i'm eating less than 1200
calories i am gaining weight by the day
by the hour my hair is falling out
i had horrific acne i had perfect skin
my whole life
next thing you know i was getting my
period every week i mean an onslaught of
symptoms that just ruined my life for
years and at that point i thought you
know what no one's helped me i'm done
with this all these doctors are hurting
me they're not helping me
one doctor misdiagnosed me with
polycystic ovarian syndrome and had a
whole protocol he wanted to do another
doctor was like here take progesterone i
was 30 years old and so
you know finally i thought i'm taking my
health into my own hands you know
they're not going to do it for me so i
did it myself i ordered them over the
internet and i dosed myself and i used
doctors for blood work and then just
didn't listen to what they had to say so
being under-informed like i have
sympathy for the doctors in terms of it
gets overwhelming so we were talking
before we started rolling my mom has
suffered now very dramatically with
thyroid disease
and
even just trying to be mildly useful to
her it's like you run into this like
this is so big i don't understand i
don't understand the variables i should
be testing for or what the right numbers
should be or what protocols are or you
know some of the stuff that you've
talked about with iron like how walk us
through your
actual protocol even if some of it was
just fumbling around so that people can
understand when they hit that wall of
intimidating like i don't know what i'm
doing how do they begin the process to
self-educate
well my book and then there's another
book called stop the thyroid madness
which is a great book that women saved
my life and then one other author who
wrote a book called recovering with t3
those are really the three books that i
trust and i've read them all and the
best selling thyroid books are written
by patients for a reason we know what it
feels like and we understand how the
thyroid hormones feel i've been hyper
i've been hypo
the the trouble is is that
you you have to still get blood work
done and there's some states that don't
allow you to test your own blood work so
at some point you have to kind of
navigate working with a doctor but in
general you just go to a doctor you get
the right test but they often don't test
the things you need so they're not even
properly assessing you so then what do
you do you know what i mean i mean a lot
of this is self-diagnostics at home you
can test your temperature you know your
pulse there's there's things that are
relatable to this and symptoms but at
the end of the day you do need to look
at lab work um so for example even just
a couple of days ago i'm helping a
friend in hawaii and i said you have to
get your reverse t3 tested the doctor
said we don't do that i can't do that
and she said we only test that if you're
in the icu
now wait a minute that that says a lot
right there so icu's intensive care unit
means she's like you're on your way down
right so why would they test it in an
emergency situation
if it's in the worst case scenario that
you tested why wouldn't you test it here
so that you don't get to the icu so
doctors are just confused they don't
even know what the meanings of some
things are and frankly they just don't
if it's if you don't test it it's not a
problem right so i can think of no worse
environment to walk into than that where
the doctors don't know what are the key
pieces of information that somebody
needs to understand in order to take
control
learning about how the thyroid works
which i'm happy to explain yeah hit us
with a one-on-one yeah here's a here's a
thyroid 101. so basically the thyroid's
at the base of your neck under your
adam's apple for men and it's the master
gland of the human body so it's in
charge of the production and regulation
of all your sex hormones your heart rate
that's why when you're hypothyroid and
you have low t3 your brain is not
working we've got more receptors there
than anyone it's why you get fat you
have no metabolism there's no fire
on the counter side of that body
builders jam themselves with t3 six
weeks before a competition to burn fat
for a reason it's a potent fat burner
which is why hypothyroid patients get
fat and people have an overproduction
hyper are often can be skinny lots of
you know bowel movements and like shaky
and losing weight so it's really like a
goldilocks situation there's a million
reasons why this can get out of whack
but essentially what happens is the
pituitary at the base of the brain is
sort of like a sensor and when your body
is low in thyroid hormones it kicks out
a signal and that signal is called the
tsh which stands for thyroid stimulating
hormone it's not a thyroid hormone it's
just a wake up call to the thyroid it
says yo wake up start producing t4 and
t3 okay now if you're a normal person
and if you have no thyroid problems then
your body is going to be great and it's
going to output about 80 percent we
don't totally know for sure but roughly
80 percent t4 and 20 t3 so t3 is so
powerful it's so powerful that you can
almost imagine the t4 like a slow
release mechanism and it's a storage
hormone so it builds up is steady and
then as you need it it converts okay now
what doesn't convert into the
biologically active hormone the only
bile you can live i lived six years
without any t4 in my body t4 is useless
unless it converts to the thing that
matters t3 is what matters which is why
a free t3 blood test what is free and
unbound and available in your system is
what corresponds to how you feel t4
converts to t3 as you need it now
whatever you don't need will be flushed
out through a system called reverse t3
reverse t3 is the inactive form what is
going on with this feedback loop why
does it do this again you've got almost
like a an atomic bomb with this t3 i
mean in a good powerful way but it's
kind of controlled by the t4 so let's
say
you
get lyme's disease you get a chronic
infection you
fall of a cliff and you know traumatic
your leg breaks in those kind of
scenarios your body's going to down
regulate it's like whoa whoa well let's
not for throw mo fire into this
metabolic mess of inflam inflammation we
have going on let's dial it back so in
an emergency situation your reverse t3
is dr forsman's almost best sort of
unspecific marker for wellness and
unwellness in the body which is why they
tested in the icu what are you looking
for in reverse t3 is it is it a
disproportionate amount of t4 versus t3
or is it i had a reverse t3 problem
which means the t4 that i was taking in
my medication was not converted into the
active t3 it was converting to the
inactive so i was still hypothyroid
while on thyroid medication until that
was discovered now what we usually do is
we calculate a ratio between the reverse
t3 result and the free t3 result 20 and
higher is usually
great if it's 18
the person doesn't need to go on t3
directly but you might give them extra
selenium and and some other things to
just kind of help that along because
there's something going on in their
system that's something conversion right
going to t3 right but t4 is going to
convert one way or the other either to
active or inactive right okay right and
so
when it keeps converting into the
inactive something's wrong heavy metals
can screw up reverse t3 lyme's disease a
bad resurgence of uh you know ebv
epstein-barr there's a lot diet
absolutely diet and that's where you
know the paleo part comes in a lot of
people think that um you know it's a
gimmick like oh you got fat because you
went hypo and now that's how you lose
the weight that's a little bit about it
but the reason a high fat low carb
moderate protein paradigm is the best
for this is first of all it's it's our
dna blueprint as humans let's say you're
a hypoglycemic sugar burner every time
you've got those dips cortisol comes to
respond that's not only antagonistic to
your testosterone but it's antagonistic
to this whole process
as you go down the road of becoming
insulin resistant so in this modern
world of a lot of metabolic issues
type 2 diabetes and thyroid issues go
hand in hand so
basically a paleo primal paradigm or any
kind of ancestral paradigm is the
ultimate in blood glucose management and
the ultimate in adrenal management and
why is that important adrenals and
thyroid work hand in hand adrenals
always suffer when you're hypothyroid
for any amount of time that's you know
if you don't catch it quickly and the
reason is because you've got no t3
you've been no energy nothing to get you
out of bed nothing to move you so
cortisol takes over your adrenals take
over they're like get her out of bed she
needs to move so then you get high
cortisone you get fat around your middle
and next thing you know your adrenals go
i've had enough and they peter out and
now you're just like depleted and you've
got nothing that's where most people are
when they come to me or they're at their
wit's end because they've gone down this
misdiagnosis so it gets back to the
thyroid if you're just testing the tsh
which is the standard endocrinologist
they've been doing this for 40 years
that's the call out
t3t4 yeah i don't know about you but you
know when i order something from amazon
or whatever i don't if i don't get it i
don't keep ordering it
right where's the package where's the
tracking that's the t3 did you get the
package the package is t3 so a lot of
endocrinologists you'll see someone
there's a success story in my book two
miscarriages sick for 10 years depressed
maybe you you need energy maybe you have
a closet eating disorder lots of
accusations from the doctor it's not
your thyroid when we looked at her 10
years of tests they only tested her tsh
and her t4 she wasn't getting the
package
so essentially this signal tells us
something but it fluctuates a lot um
marx susan and brad kearns wrote the
keto reset diet got their thyroids
tested and had two doctors tell them
that they were concerned about their
thyroid because of their tsh their tsh
might have been 3.2 during the test but
that was just a snapshot at that point
the brain could have been like yo yo we
need more thyroid hormones and he took
the blood test and then there you go and
now they're worried about nothing had
they looked at their t4 and t3 which we
tested later totally normal
so again things can fluctuate there with
the tsh and someone could go in and have
a normal tsh but have nothing on the
other end now do you recommend like a
frequent test so for instance i wear a
continuous glucose monitor largely for
that reason right so that if i take one
reading and it says that i'm high but if
i took it five minutes later i might get
a completely different
reading
um how often do you
look for people to run this panel um is
there a time of day a fasted state like
how do people get the usually do fasting
morning between 7 30 and 9 a.m last
thing you could have like a cup of
coffee and you know water but i just
wouldn't take any supplements or eat
anything and then between 7 30 and 9 a.m
is really a good time to get tested the
earliest the lab opens
the thing is that
the tsh fluctuates that's not really
what we're looking at it's part of the
picture so for example
someone i know decided to go off thyroid
medication after many years just said
screw it i don't know why long story
short we got her test back her tsh was
150.
the top of the range is 5. it's the
highest i've ever seen it 150 which
means that her brain is screaming
if you looked at her free t3 in free t4
they were below the range she had
nothing i said how are you alive she
goes that's what my doctor said
so we got her on the right medication so
again that in that scenario yes if
something that's high that's also an
indication of your brain screaming
please help this person she's dying
because that's essentially what's
happening
but it's not the measure by which to
assess the picture it really isn't and
if you're only taking tsh free t3 and
free t4 that's not fully the picture
because you need to get the reverse t3
why because
if someone's not converting t4 whether
it's their own or medication they're
taking you don't want to give them any
more of the thing that's converting into
the thing that doesn't matter you're
hurting the patient so that's actively
worse so to have
t4 that's converting to inactive t3 is
worse than just having no t4
well i mean uh both scenarios are
terrible both scenarios are
hypothyroidism because you can have
reverse t3 hypothyroidism and
essentially you can kind of look at it
like this
when it convert over converts into
reverse t3 it's almost like you can
imagine reverse t3 is sort of standing
in front of the t3 cells and blocking it
meanwhile the t3 is pooling in your
blood so you could have a normal free t3
result and the doctor's like i don't
know what's wrong everything looks fine
but it's really not converting and until
they take the reverse t3 in the free t3
and do the ratio so every doctor should
be testing for reverse t3
to make sure
that the protocol of giving them any
kind of t4 at all is going to be okay
because if you give a patient with a
severe reverse t3 problem t4 they're
going to get worse i had doctors during
my reverse t3 problem say
we just need to give you more t4
and i said don't you understand that's
going to kill me you're you're hurting
me they just didn't get it so
reverse t3 is imperative we have more
conversion problems in this day and age
it's a stressful society the
multitasking our level of health the
toxicity so there's an increase in an
inability to convert
and another reason why
t4 only as a treatment so that's like
the end-all be-all that's like the
endocrinologists from back in the day
were like this is the only thing any
patient needs is synthroid or t4 and
it's the number one selling prescription
in america it can work for some people
but it often fails eventually and people
just do better on a combination of t4
and t3 why because as i explained when
that signal sent the thyroid outputs
it's not just outputting t4 it is giving
you some direct t3 so my mom as we were
discussing is
she struggled with this now for years
they irradiated her thyroid um which
actually made it worse for a while um
and i have a very strong feeling that a
big part of her problem is diet-related
inflammation is stopping this from
working and i heard you say something
which that was really interesting
because in
in your message it's very much like look
a lot of doctors do not know what
they're doing um
take responsibility get in there learn
it and you said you have to own
everything that you do from
what you put in your mouth to what comes
out of your anus and i thought all right
there it is nice and direct so walk us
through that why primal what for people
that don't know what primal is what is
it why is it beneficial why was that
part of your journey where does keto fit
into all this
the way i look at paleo primal is it's
i live next door to some horses i've
never seen their owner cook up a ribeye
and feed it to them
and you wouldn't do that because that's
mean because that's not the dna of that
that's the dna of a horse dictates a
different diet same with a cow right we
we as humans
are dictate like our bodies are
dictating us to eat a certain way
one of the things we know contributes to
at least hashimoto's or any autoimmune
disorders you could just type grains and
then enter whatever autoimmune disorder
is what happens is your autoimmune makes
a mistake just like type 1 diabetes and
it starts attacking the gland and it
thinks it's an enemy
well
the in gluten or corn glutens or
anything in grains but particularly
gluten
increases the antibodies because we know
that that is seen as an invader too by
the immune system so for example someone
with hashimoto's often hashimoto's if
caught early can be really controlled by
diet you know if you just put them on a
paleo primal diet and that includes the
elimination of beans grains legumes
dairy those are all inflammatory for
those people there's other things with
autoimmune disorders that people have
noticed
foods high in histamines cinnamon
sometimes people have noticed that red
color seeds seasonings like paprika but
at the end of the day we know that that
ignites antibodies so if you drop gluten
or you go paleoprimal your antibodies
will go down here's the thing most
doctors don't know so let's say you have
hashimoto's you're on thyroid hormone
and you're feeling great this happened
in one of my success stories in my book
she was feeling great everything's fine
but every time she goes in and get
tested her tpo antibodies are at like
300. tpo yes that's thyroid peroxidase
antibodies tpo and what would cause that
to be high
inflammation i mean antibodies equal
inflammation but again it's because it's
attacking the thyroid and we don't know
is that an antibody specifically when
the thyroid is being attacked
yes okay um and there's another one
called fibroglobulin there's two that
would indicate hashimoto's what causes
hashimoto's dave asprey got it from
living in black mold i've known three
other people who have as well
environmental factors can trigger it
something like getting a bite from a
tick and lyme disease there's a lot of
things that can trigger it but the
bottom line is is that there's a lot of
patients out there still they're feeling
good they're optimized on their thyroid
hormone but they've got these antibodies
in the background but they don't feel it
so if you have rheumatoid arthritis and
you eat a ton of you know grains you'll
feel it you won't be able to butt your
shirt the next day so you have an
indicator a hashimoto's person might not
in that scenario and what doctors don't
know is that you could do something
about it why do you want to you want to
lower the antibodies you want to get
them to undetectable levels because
antibodies equal inflammation equal
beginning higher percentage of chances
of cancers and all sorts of other things
you don't want so walk me through the
protocol i do the test i have some of
these antibodies i now do what cut out
grains
go paleoprimal get on a clean paradigm
you know even whole30
meats anything with parents no anything
with parents
um yeah any you know animals uh fish
eggs sometimes eggs are eliminated
depending on sensitivities and that
could be one that you might want to
leave out in case because that's
interesting there's people with
hashimoto's or even people myself who
don't have hashimoto's who are not
technically allergic to eggs it will
come up on a test but you notice
a negative when you reintroduce them
after elimination so that's just one i
say watch out for
essentially you would follow if you have
hashimoto's you might want to follow
what we call the aip that's the
autoimmune protocol that's just sort of
a stricter level of the food categories
and essentially you know most vegetables
and again no grains legumes dairy you
follow this diet you chill out again
part of paleo primal is not just the
people miss the triad here it's not just
the food list it's also how we move
right chronic cardio exercising way
above your mat interesting in fact walk
us through your story i think this is
this would be pretty pretty um
illustrative yeah so
um you're you're talking about there's a
hollywood body type leading ladies what
i'm going for i'm doing just a ton of
cardio what were you eating how much
cardio were you doing before this all
kicked off i was going by all the
conventional zone south beach basically
was the zone it was eat every two three
hours keep the insulin steady right and
so it's kind of like a low-fat low-carb
paradigm which doesn't really work what
would happen is i'd be driving from you
know hollywood to malibu and i hadn't
eaten and it's approaching the fourth
hour and i'm having a meltdown you know
hangry right my brain is like empty and
hurts and i have to pull over and like
go stuff my face that is stressful but
also it's stressful the body right i was
over working out as well but again when
you are a sugar burner and you're a
carbohydrate dependent you eat the carbs
you burn off the guy you know you are in
this and that's what you thought you had
to do i have to go put in time on that
elliptical so i did and i actually
achieved that i looked great and um but
i was
dying inside i was a mess and then i
started to fall apart it also kind of
begets eating disorders because you're
kind of restricting and then you're over
working out and then you're
dying for carbs and so it it kind of
created an eating disorder and at the
end of the day i used to think even
though i had this fit body and i was
starting to go out for these lead roles
i i just thought is everyone else not
talking about how they're thinking about
food all the time am i obsessed i even
looked into like overeaters anonymous i
almost never think about food now which
is where and people go oh that's not fun
because when you're a food addict the
last thing you want to be told is that
you don't even think about food because
or that oh my gosh i get away with
eating such less food now and if i
remember hearing that at first being
like i don't even want to quit because i
don't even want to know what it's like
to not want it it's a messed up
addiction but it but it happens and
people that are listening will know with
food addiction the only way to get out
of that cycle is to manage your blood
glucose in your adrenals and the best
way to do that is a paleo primal
ancestral paradigm and part of that is
chilling out
when i wanted to like torch fat my i got
fat twice the first one hypothyroidism i
fixed it with natural desiccated thyroid
which is a combination of t4 and t3 then
that backfired it wasn't converting so
the second time around when i got fat
and bloated again i was like oh my gosh
i was like all right well i'm gonna go
to hot yoga because that's gonna sizzle
it right i'll do that five days a week
i'm committed and i did and i was hungry
afterwards and i kept getting fatter
around my middle
because i was doing high intensity
every day with no recovery your body
doesn't like that it was so hard for me
to slow down because i would haul ass up
the mountain to go hiking because you
think that the harder you work the more
you sweat that's going to burn the fat
it's just ingrained in us right and it's
actually the opposite so i started
tracking my heart rate and i would make
sure that on those walks i really
wouldn't go above
do the mafitone scale 180 minus your age
whatever that number is i wouldn't
really go over except for maybe once or
twice a week in a sprint session or
something and i just chilled out and it
felt awkward at first to slowly but you
know what it was more enjoyable i wasn't
hungry afterwards because when you're
operating at that rate of cardio you're
you're in a glucose burn it's glycolytic
so now you're depleted at the end of
course you're going to want to refill it
but wouldn't you rather be burning fat
now our ancestors do you think when they
were like what's at the top of that hill
did they run up no they were like we're
gonna chill out and run up there because
if they over exhausted themselves they
would have become prey
you know and think about it me driving
to hollywood four hours haven't had a
meal i'm having a meltdown what do you
think our ancestors did they went weeks
they got kicked into ketosis during that
time they ate high fat
you know probably extremely low carb and
they were not sugar burners they were
fat burners there weren't any thyroid
problems with our ancestors we wouldn't
be here today because infertility runs
rampant when you when you have
hypothyroidism because it's absolutely
related to your sex hormones so
infertility and miscarriages so we
wouldn't even be here population
wouldn't have happened and and when it
hypothyroidism is first on the books
it's around 12 000 years ago and
interestingly enough it coincides with
wheat and barley being introduced to
their society
so
paleoprimal ancestral is really about
managing blood glucose and your adrenals
you know aside from insulin and those
three things go hand in hand you know
and so
when you are in that state you can
properly
metabolize the hormones your body is
already making now let me explain
something else so i was also starving
myself essentially right i was under
eating and over exercising and i thought
that that was the right paradigm
in that situation the body is going to
go whoa whoa this girl has no food she's
starving that could also be signaled
from your skinny and you're training for
a marathon you can have a reverse t3
happen because the body's like whoa whoa
we don't want to put any more t3 into
this chick's life because she already
has low body fat and we're not getting
enough food and nutrients so we're going
to dial it back furthermore she's not
going to get pregnant and if she does
we're giving her a miscarriage she's in
no position to have a baby now i am
personifying right your body but
essentially that is the primal
perspective and it's there to save you
and that's what i tell everyone you have
to think and understand that your body
is trying to save you at every minute
type 2 diabetes is your body saving you
type 2 diabetes you hope you get fat you
want it to get pushed into fat cells if
you're skinny diabetic and you've got it
running through your blood that's more
dangerous so your body's always trying
to save you and so is this feedback loop
now you want a good metabolism but you
also don't want to go over
hyperthyroidism is dangerous for the
heart but also high metabolism right can
mess with cortisol and glucose high
appetite
that can go in the wrong direction as
well it really is goldilocks um one
thing that i heard you talk about that i
think is pretty interesting is so
there's two notions uh you've got skinny
fat and what that means from a blood
panel perspective and then two
you put your finger on something that
for years i thought was the like
completely acceptable way to go about it
that if you want to eat something then
you simply need to exercise it off and
that there is essentially no
health difference between somebody who
has exercised their way past a couple
bowls of ice cream and somebody who just
didn't eat the ice cream but then didn't
work out
and i'd love to hear your thoughts on
that yeah you know it's so funny because
so many athletes are running into
pre-diabetes and they're like how is
this possible well they wake up in the
morning they've got 130 grams of carbs
in their shake they burn it off
carb burn it off you keep doing that you
keep knocking on the door of the
pancreas and it doesn't like it it's
going to get exhausted and it's going to
not be happy about that so at the end of
the day you're not really getting away
with it that's why i say when i you know
when you pass someone you're like i wish
i had her legs or i wish i had her body
i'm like check her blood work you might
want the blood work of the guy next to
him that's average you know what i mean
you're not getting away with it on the
back end you know you're getting away
with it visually species that have
secreted the least amount of insulin
lived the longest and you know the
species with the highest metabolisms
like a hummingbird they don't live very
long you know what i mean speedy speedy
speedy you're out so
what you see is not what you get on the
inside and it's not a pillar of health i
looked like the pillar of health if you
saw me at the grocery store or in you
know like a tank top you'd be like oh
she's but dying inside you know mentally
and also um just physically because when
you're carbohydrate dependent and most
people are in the eat every two three
hours or the up and down you have a drop
in blood sugar it's four hours in you
eat the pringles and you feel better
same with a heroin addict
you're dropping down a little heroin you
get right back up doesn't mean it's a
positive thing but that's the
association i was tired and exhausted so
i ate i would love to see a reality
competition between sugar burners and
fat burners the fat burners will survive
they will have no issues whatsoever the
sugar burners like day two are going to
be passing out you know what i mean and
having a meltdown until their body kicks
into ketosis right um
on the notion of ketosis that is asking
your body to get into a metabolic state
that you can't get into when you're
hypothyroid so people often go to it
because they're like i'm fat i don't
know what to do this thyroid's not
working my doctors know what they're
talking about i'm gonna do this thing
called keto well now they're just eating
high amounts of fat that are not being
processed because there's nothing to
burn it because there's no t3 which is
why hypo patients get fat they don't
have any of the fat burning t3
everybody listening should care about
their thyroid because everyone has one
and if you don't have one it was
surgically removed and if you're the one
of the billion people that were born
without a thyroid i'd love to meet you
but they have to be administered thyroid
hormones right away or they'll die you
will die on a stranded island without a
thyroid so what do you think life's
going to be like with subpar you know
levels it's going to be a slow death
which is what it felt like for me your
skin thickens you are horrifically
depressed tom at one point i actually
had this thought i've never been
suicidal in my life and i had this
thought i thought if this doesn't get
better
i'm gonna have to start thinking about
thinking about killing myself
most people from the outside go oh i see
so she got fat and chunky hair is
falling off yeah that has to be
depressing no it actually is depressing
it makes you depressed in your brain we
have more t3 receptors here your gut is
compromised as a result of it everything
needs t3 to operate it essentially is
your
master thermostat it's your you know
it's your fire and so if you've got
nothing going putting keto into that is
like trying to light a wet log and all
you're going to get is bad lipid panels
and probably fatter that's really
interesting how would you walk through
with somebody that's never been fat
adapted how would you get them fat
adapted in the least painful way
possible
you really want to start to get insulin
sensitive you want to get off the
carbohydrate train that is ruining the
adrenals and outputting cortisol in the
wrong ways you want to try to keep
things steady for people that are
transitioning i don't suggest fasting
you know the iaf intermittent fasting is
very popular i do it i have about a four
to six hour eating window per day i
might eat a little fat in the morning oh
it's intense yeah and but i might have a
little fat before that at some point
like half an avocado or something but
not like a full meal i don't suggest
doing that because that's very painful
if you're coming from being addicted to
sugar and eating every few hours so it
starts with switch out the cereal on the
oatmeal or whatever the carb heavy fruit
orange juice breakfast is and you stitch
it with like a primal breakfast that
could be six eggs three eggs it could be
leftover bite of salmon and half an
avocado i mean there's vegetable
omelette with meat you know any of kind
of those things you just clean out the
pantry start using the good oils not the
canolas and just start to
eat from the list go look at a paleo
food list and just start there you know
what i mean and you eat when you're
hungry and you may eat more fat at first
and not understand it but that's better
than eating
a ton of fruit and chips and all this
other stuff that that's affecting you so
you start there and then you chill out
on the exercise so if you're someone
that was like me and is in that game you
have to dial it back hardest thing is
giving up grains and this is what i say
i've heard so many great objections one
was well but my my grandmother makes
this really great lasagna at christmas
and i'm like you know what that's a
cop-out eat the damn lasagna are you
eating it every other day and i always
tell everyone look this looks rough this
is not a lice this is not relegating you
to a life of never having a piece of
chicago pizza or you know doing
something fun it's get better first be
strict to get better and then test it
from there then you can have your cheats
you know get the antibodies down
then enjoy a slice of pizza every now
and then but essentially i would say
dining by the workouts and it's so
frustrating it's the question i get all
the time when can i start working out or
really i can't lift weights i'm like
well how's that going for you it's not
working out you often get fatter and
more bloated because what happens is you
go to the gym and they're like but i
feel better after i work out because you
just blasted the adrenals again
it's taking you two steps back and it's
seen as inflammation of the body so
again now that inflammation is going to
conflict with how those hormones
metabolize and convert so the best
anyone can do is chill out and that's
like down you know downgrading their
exercise to slow walking
light weights light yoga no crazy two
three hot yoga intense stuff what do you
think about fruit
i think people eat it more
than we probably were meant to um i
think it's it's great i mean i love
fruit however if you have candida and
often people have gut issues in candida
and or sibo or just bad bacterial
overgrowth in the gut if you're trying
to heal something like that i say get
rid of all of that kind of stuff stick
with vegetables you know for a while but
if you're a sugar addict i say listen
start with fruit and whipped cream if
you need something to kind of like get
you off of the junk have fruit and
whipped cream every night you know what
i mean cool whip no like heavy whipping
cream or or coconut milk and making that
into whipping cream i just think people
think fruits you know
one basket of blueberries can be 14
grams of carbohydrates and so if you go
to town it's like with nuts people see
nuts on a paleo food list and then
they're they're handfuls next you know
that's a thousand calories same with
bulletproof coffee or fat coffee in the
morning i ask people what's your version
and i heard someone say i put two
tablespoons of mct oil and two
tablespoons of butter
that's
that's 600 calories of fat right there
for your morning
that's also not paleo and keto to eat
all the fat you ever want you can get
fat on a low carb diet if you eat more
fat than you're burning and then what i
say is selenium
vitamin d and ferritin these things are
really related to thyroid problems and
the reason is is because about ferritin
i think that's when the people might be
like what is ferritin ferritin is iron
storage and you can have good hemoglobin
levels which what a doctor might test
you for and they'll be like your iron's
fine but they're not testing the iron
stores and that's really important and
the way i like to describe it is it's
thyroid hormones whether you're taking
them or they're being output correctly
from your body cannot get to where they
need to go without it it's key
why hypo patients often become low in
ferritin in vitamin d vitamin d is
related to hashimoto's but the reason is
this
you're sluggish you're slow
hypothyroidism is a slow state so now
you go to eat a meal you're you're
producing less hydrochloric acid it's
not breaking down the food you've got
compromised digestions and compromised
enzymatic activity all over the body and
so
then it's not absorbing and taking in
the nutrients and if you're a woman and
this is disproportionately a woman's
disease even though men have it too but
one out of eight women will get it in
their lifetime um
we're menstruating females we're going
to lose iron more than most and if you
are a menstruating female that also
exercises you might
lose more iron than most and at this
point liver and eating straight up
marrow bones isn't going to do it like
you have to take an iron supplement
ferritin usually the standard range is
10 to 150. 50 to 100 is important if
it's over 100 and you're not taking iron
that could be a sign of inflammation and
it's often the missing link it was with
me i'd started to take thyroid hormones
myself many years ago for the first time
and i was having trouble i was having
like shakiness
low ferritin is related to restless legs
i had horrific restless legs you see
these commercials for restless legs
people laugh about it and know what it's
like you're tossing and turning all
night you literally just cannot
get comfortable with your legs this is
totally related to iron storage so if
there's anyone out there that knows
someone's restless legs and tinnitus by
the way test the ferritin and again it's
like a ten dollar fix you know it's a
ten dollar bottle of iron you can take
for a month or two and get to the right
level so you have to have proper iron
storage for all of this to work and
that's why it also gets low but
hypothyroid patients classically get low
in lots of nutrients so we want to
optimize vitamin d i would take selenium
right away there's a great thyroid
support formula by gaia herbs that
people can do in natural protocol i've
seen people turn it around in six weeks
i've seen people bloated fat mess test
them hashimoto's didn't know they had it
eaten a bunch of gluten
you know ferritin wasn't optimized some
supplements and like six weeks
hair gorgeous deflated like just 10
pounds of water weight inflammation gone
there's absolutely i would try that
first so i take people through a natural
protocol in the book but then it's like
well what if that fails okay
now here's another weird philosophy i
mean some people who have been suffering
for a very long time are like i don't
want to go on medication first of all
it's not a medication it's giving your
body what it's missing it's not a
medication with a hundred side effects
like you see on tv because it's not
manipulating your body into doing
something it shouldn't do in the first
place like birth control does that's why
birth control comes with five pages of
of you know possible side effects so
that's one thing to just not be afraid
of it
if you've been in a state of disease
because you're hypothyroid for years
often misdiagnosed or undiagnosed like
me
then
you're so far behind in everything your
body's falling apart
can you catch up naturally
it doesn't mean you're relegated to
thyroid hormone for life but it might
mean you know how many years has been
going on might be time to get thyroid
hormone get unhypo get your body in the
right metabolic state right get the
right primordial baseline and from there
let's figure out what caused it so the
most important thing you can do as a
patient is become educated which is what
i help people do someone just told you
you had a disease
why wouldn't you learn everything you
need to know about it
correct i have learned the hard way and
i suffered greatly and i lost about six
years of my life and we're worth every
minute to help others there's no
question about it i always joke around
because i'm from downtown chicago you
know we're pretty pretty tough uh cats
over there and i always say you know
hypothyroid is a mess with the wrong
chick
it just really did um but it's
you have to educate yourself and
understand it so you know how to
interpret your own labs and then even if
you have to do it on your own you know
what to do so again
how long have you been suffering that
might be the time to get on thyroid
hormone get on hypo and then work on
solving it i went from
full replacement thyroid hormone i was
on at one point 100 micrograms of t3
which is pretty high
started going paleoprimal went down to
50.
kept going i am now in 7.5 micrograms
that's almost not even anything you
wouldn't even feel it you don't want to
take too much t3 i've done that before
too and you become hyperthyroid that's a
state of inflammation that can make you
bloated people have this misconception
like oh t3 is the fat burner like the
bodybuilders and they're like i'm just
going to take that shiz and then i'm
going to burn all this fat
it'll backfire it'll backfire eventually
if it'll first be that way and then the
adrenals and everything gets screwed up
and now you will actually get fat and
bloated and it could go the other
direction this has been insanely
educational for me especially given what
my mom is going through and i really
can't thank you enough for that before i
ask my last question where can these
guys find you online you can go to
lrust.com i have a free thyroid guide
there i mean so you don't even have to
buy my book it tells you all the tests
you need to get when to take them how to
know if a doctor is informed or not by
calling the office what questions to ask
there's a lot there podcasts podcasts
with the doctors
so much there so you can just click on
that and download it and if you want you
get my book the paleo thyroid solution
anywhere and every monday primal
blueprint podcast where you know we
interview kind of the similar people in
the arena of health and mind body
wellness yeah nice love it it's an
amazing podcast great book i highly
recommend i love that you've come from
the
having gone through a perspective i
think that's really extraordinary and
very helpful thank you my last question
what's the one change people could make
that would have the biggest positive
impact on their health
taking control of it themselves you know
just don't put your health into someone
else's hands
entirely i mean i really think that's it
because you can do the food you can do
supplements but if you're not aware
you know of what you're taking or what
you're told to give or what that test
means you might be headed down the wrong
path that could really kind of set you
back years and i've seen that so
but like i said earlier i think the
biggest thing is if someone has
diagnosed you with something become an
expert
you become your own expert you might
know more than your doctor and you i've
actually taught doctors things that
they're now practicing with patients
great you know good because the the more
we have informed doctors out there on
this subject the better so
i love that i love that
guys i didn't set her up for that i
promise but i think that that is the
perfect answer that really encapsulates
who she is her style what you're going
to get if you go and listen to more
podcasts from her read her book dive
into the stuff on her website it's it's
really about taking ownership and
getting the tools that you're going to
need to go through and work with the
doctor for sure if you can if you find
somebody that really understands this
stuff and can help you on your journey
and aren't shaming you or making you
feel guilty or they don't want to admit
what they don't know
that can be a very powerful path but
she's going to arm you with the tools
that you need to really take that
ownership to understand what's actually
happening and that i think is the most
powerful thing that any of us can do is
really go in educate ourselves make sure
that we know more about it than they do
because you have the luxury of you have
one problem that you're going through
that's the one that you have to learn
about whereas a general practitioner
they've got to cover everything so take
advantage of that take advantage of your
ability to specialize and go deep and we
live in this extraordinary time where
people like elle are
taking the time to put all this down on
paper like she said she's taken six
years of pain and suffering and put it
down in combination with what she's
learned into a book that other people
can use so dive into her world check it
out you will be empowered for it all
right if you haven't already be sure to
subscribe and until next time my friends
be legendary take care
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