253-SYNCPodcast_LouiseDiaby

[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today I’m joined by my friend Louise Digby. Now Louise is actually over in the UK, so at the time of this recording it’s morning for me, it’s afternoon for her. We’ve had a chance to connect before this official recording. And I know that when we first connected we could have talked forever because

[00:01:15] Jenny Swisher: we’re both total nerds in the space of nutrition and hormone health. And I think we’re really going to be able to nerd out in this episode. So, Louise is a registered nutritional therapist, women’s weight loss expert, and founder of the nourish method to lasting fat loss. Her clients come to her after struggling to lose weight, despite eating well and working hard.

[00:01:33] Jenny Swisher: Hey, that sounds familiar. He’s transforms her client’s health and wellbeing by identifying and addressing each person’s unique needs and imbalances. So that they can lose weight, optimize their health and rediscover their sparkle without restrictive dieting or the need for superhuman willpower. I love that you can’t will your way right to hormone balance and health.

[00:01:51] Jenny Swisher: So I love the mission that she’s on. I love how she goes about this. It’s very similar to what I talk about when we talk a lot about diet culture and unlearning. The different things that society puts in front of us. So we’re going to dive deeper today into my women around the age of 40, right?

[00:02:06] Jenny Swisher: What, what’s happening to us? Um, what nutritional deficiencies should we be looking for? We also are going to talk about EDCs and toxins and things that are in our environment that can really impact our hormone health. So without further ado, Louise, welcome to the show. If you would just introduce yourself, tell my listeners who you are and what you

[00:02:24] Louise Diaby: Sure.

[00:02:24] Louise Diaby: Thank you so much for having me and really looking forward to nerding out. So yeah, as you say, I’m, I’m based in the UK and I really specialize in helping women who are struggling with stubborn weight or weight loss resistance. They were typically over the age of 40 in that perimenopausal menopausal range or with other hormones.

[00:02:46] Louise Diaby: Hormonal stuff going on. And my mission is always to get to the root cause of these problems. And, you know, your, your typical diets are very much focused on calories and portion control and these very surface level approaches. But what I find much more effective is optimizing health so that your metabolism’s working properly, your hormones are working properly, and your body is actually able to burn fat efficiently.

[00:03:21] Louise Diaby: And it doesn’t just go back on as soon as you have a break and go on holiday or something like that. So yeah, get into the root cause physiologically, but also factoring in. your mindset and relationship with food as well, because it’s all well and good knowing what it is you need to do, but you need to be able to be consistent with it.

[00:03:47] Louise Diaby: So working on those mindset challenges and our limiting beliefs is really important too.

[00:03:54] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. I’m so glad you said that because a lot of times I think women think that they just need to find the right exercise regimen, or they just need to do what their friend is doing with intermittent fasting or keto or whatever.

[00:04:04] Jenny Swisher: And it’s like, no health is individual. And so when you figure out your unique deficiencies and imbalances, then you can supplement accordingly, you can tweak and customize accordingly. And that’s where your magic is going to happen. So it’s interesting because at the time of this recording, We just launched virtual health consults here in the US, with a partner of mine, Dr.

[00:04:22] Jenny Swisher: Paige Gutile. And I’ve had so many women in my inbox this morning and the common message that I get even this morning, right? Fresh and early this morning that the messages that are there are I’m 39 or I just turned 40. I don’t know what’s going on. Things have shifted. I’ve got the belly fat. I can’t seem to lose weight.

[00:04:38] Jenny Swisher: All the things I was doing before are no longer working, right? And this is a, you’re, you’re grinning at me and nodding your head. So. So it’s something that we hear, especially for women around the age of 40, which we know perimenopause last 10 or so years, right. Leading up to menopause. And I teach about that here on the podcast, but what do you, what would you say about, you know, why does this seem to happen?

[00:04:58] Jenny Swisher: Why is, why is weight loss resistance become a thing for a lot of women around the age of 40?

[00:05:03] Louise Diaby: There’s a few things going on. One of the things is this transition of your hormones from, you know, being a, a ovulating menstruating woman to that coming to an end. And that transition in its very simple terms is a decline in your sex hormones.

[00:05:24] Louise Diaby: That decline in sex hormones shifts a lot of things in your body. It changes how your body stores fat. It’s different. changes where your body stores fat and the knock on effect of your estrogen reducing can impact your insulin levels. It can make you more inflamed. It can disrupt your gut and your appetite.

[00:05:50] Louise Diaby: So that shift in hormones itself is, is really impactful on your body. You know, one of the mechanisms that’s happening there is your ovaries are basically shutting down and reducing less of your stress hormones and your adrenals or your stress glands are taking up some of the production of your sex hormones or taking over some of the production.

[00:06:17] Louise Diaby: And what that means is that you can be a lot Less resilient to stress during this transition, um, because your adrenals are essentially having to, to pick up the slack. And that means that any stress that you might come into contact with can be much more disruptive to your hormones and make you even more inflamed.

[00:06:41] Louise Diaby: deplete your nutrients. And unfortunately that all seems to happen at a time when life can be pretty stressful anyway. You know, so often in your late thirties, forties, fifties, you are still working full time. Often there’s children around, maybe you’ve got elderly parents, , and it’s all just go, go, go.

[00:07:02] Louise Diaby: So, um, You’re very busy, often quite stressed, and then your body becomes a bit less resilient to stress because of this transition as well. So it’s a very much a double whammy. And then on top of that, after the age of 35, if we aren’t making a concerted effort to maintain our muscle mass, then we start losing it at a higher rate.

[00:07:28] Louise Diaby: And Your muscle is so important because it’s metabolically active. You know, it burns calories even when you’re not using your muscles. So that decline in muscle mass is something that essentially slows down our metabolism and can make it more difficult to lose weight in the long term. So there’s definitely a lot going on and, you know, The diets that perhaps would have worked when you’re in your twenties, which are very much focused on just eating less and exercising more.

[00:07:59] Louise Diaby: They don’t address these issues, you know, they don’t address the hormones, they don’t address the loss of muscle, and if anything, they can make them worse. So this is really the key reason why weight loss resistance during this phase is such a problem.

[00:08:14] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So good. I mean, I feel like, I feel like you’re my twin.

[00:08:16] Jenny Swisher: I feel like I talk about all the time. I use the analogy of, uh, your ovaries are kind of like a cruise ship departing the dock, right? So during perimenopause, they’re just sort of slowly backing out. They’re like, Hey, it’s been real. It’s been awesome, but we’re out to sea now. And those little adrenal glands have to take up all that extra work for sex hormone production.

[00:08:34] Jenny Swisher: And they’re in charge of your stress response. And now you’re, like you said, you’ve got aging parents and young children. Yeah. You’re stuck in this sandwich generation of like already living in stress. And then your body’s undergoing stress. And I see this happen so much with women where they just think they have to work harder and eat less.

[00:08:48] Jenny Swisher: And when they do that, they start to see belly fat and then they land in my inbox and they say, I can’t get rid of this belly fat. What do I do? And I know exactly what they’ve been doing. To get where they are. And so we’re going to talk about what we should be embracing at this age, but I kind of want to touch on something that you just finished with, which is muscle mass, you know, in the same, conversation, right.

[00:09:07] Jenny Swisher: In the same context, we’re talking about the importance of muscle mass, especially as we age, right. And during this perimenopausal decade, why it’s so important to build that muscle mass. For reasons other than what we look like, right? Like, I’m so much about just longevity and energy and how you feel.

[00:09:23] Jenny Swisher: Like, I know I want to be a grandma who can get up and down off the floor and not one that has to watch and say that I can’t go up and down the stairs or whatever the case is, right? And so we have to kind of shift our perspective from this diet, culture, six pack abs at some point, which seems like perimenopause is a good time to do that.

[00:09:38] Jenny Swisher: And instead say, how am I going to sustain my energy, you know, over the course of time and really build muscle. So again, I see women kind of resort to all the cardio, they hit 40, they’re, they start to put on the belly fat. And unfortunately, at least here in the U S. A lot of times doctors are saying you should just have you heard of HIT training.

[00:09:57] Jenny Swisher: You should do more HIT training and then just stop eating carbs. Whoa, no, wrong answer, right? Wrong answer. Our body needs all three macronutrients to survive. We also need micronutrients and the HIT training, I’m not saying that it’s bad because there is definitely research behind how it can help us, especially with, insulin and different things, right?

[00:10:15] Jenny Swisher: We can incorporate hit training into our regimen, but it’s the back to back, right? It’s the, at least here, it’s the orange theory classes every day or the, the hit home workouts, right? Over and over and over again. And you’re putting your body into this state of stress, which is just making everything worse.

[00:10:30] Jenny Swisher: If you’re, if you’re hearing what we’re saying, right, are you hearing what we’re putting down? Because that’s, that’s what we mean. So I think a lot of women don’t realize they get hung up on the calorie burn, right? Like they watch their heart rate monitors or whatever. And they’re like, okay, Oh, well, should I add on because I only burned a hundred or 150 calories.

[00:10:47] Jenny Swisher: It’s like, we’ve got to get out of the calorie burn mentality. And instead, I just heard a trainer say this recently. They were like, when you do a strength training workout, right. A very intentionally focused, slow, methodical, heavy lifting session with adequate recovery between sets. Your body is going to burn fat for you throughout the day.

[00:11:05] Jenny Swisher: Okay, whereas if you’re so yeah, you’re not going to get as high of a reading on that heart rate monitor after your workouts over, but over the course of the day, your body is going to be in more of a fat burning mode as opposed to burning yourself out in the high intensity cardio workout. And then you’re left.

[00:11:21] Jenny Swisher: Exhausted, right? Or kind of like we said, burning out those adrenals. Cause here’s the deal. Most women are in a state of LEA, low energy availability, because they’re not eating enough. They’re not eating enough protein. They’re not eating a healthy fat for hormones. And then they’re pushing themselves really hard.

[00:11:34] Jenny Swisher: And they’re wondering why their body is holding onto the weight. Bottom line, your body is always going to prioritize survival over reproduction. So, right. We’re going to, we’re going to start to see menstrual cycle, cycle, dysregularity. We’re going to see, oh my gosh, why is my cycle shorter and longer? And What’s going on here?

[00:11:50] Jenny Swisher: Why did my boots hurt all of a sudden? What, you know, why is my belly holding onto the weight? Well, because your body is literally just helping you survive. And it’s especially focused on that during this time of your life. So muscle mass and lifting heavy is so important. And I’m going to do a shameless plug.

[00:12:04] Jenny Swisher: We have a fitness program launching this week, literally in just a couple of days at the time of this launches to you, it will already be out in the universe and it’s all focused on. Building muscle. It’s about muscle being the key to longevity. It’s about really making your workouts intentional and synced with your cycle so that you’re leveraging different hormonal energies, as opposed to just throwing things out there to see what sticks.

[00:12:25] Jenny Swisher: So I want to come back to this idea of diet mentality. You know, clearly my listeners know we’ve got to ditch this mentality of, of working harder and eating less and going for the six pack abs. But what should we be doing, especially in this era of our lives? And like, what should we be doing instead, as far as fitness, nutrition goes?

[00:12:44] Louise Diaby: I think we should be looking at it from a very different angle. You know, your, your typical diets are all about looking at what should you be cutting out? What should I be avoiding? How can I burn the most calories or cut the most calories? But if we flip it and we say, actually, what does my body need?

[00:13:00] Louise Diaby: What do I need to add in? Then it’s, it’s so different in so many ways. It’s like mentally just so much more positive and enjoyable to eat that way. But also, it means that we’re getting in the quality, we’re getting in what our body actually needs to function. You know, your body has a requirement for certain nutrients, macronutrients, micronutrients.

[00:13:29] Louise Diaby: In order to actually burn fat in order to actually make hormones, um, and your hormones are so involved in the way your body burns fat is critical that we are fueling ourselves properly so that we can actually have those hormones in balance. And, you know, burn fat efficiently, detox efficiently, repair and recover.

[00:13:52] Louise Diaby: You know, if we’re not getting those nutrients in, then a lot of that isn’t going to be happening as well as it should be. And that’s going to be slowing down our progress, no matter how little we eat or how much we exercised. So if we can flip it and focus on. What do we need? What can I add in? How can I get more nutrients into my diet?

[00:14:13] Louise Diaby: Um, or how can I move in a way that is very nurturing for my body? You know, how can I build strength, build flexibility, um, and build, Just a whole range of resources, you know, uh, joint support, strengthening those ligaments and that sort of thing. Focusing on that side of things rather than restriction is so much more effective.

[00:14:39] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. I remember I had a yoga instructor years ago that would talk about how she sees really two ends of the spectrum in her yoga classes. Right? Like she’s like, I either see the person who’s like sort of the crossfitter, the super fit, the super strong, who has zero flexibility and mobility and are likely prone to injury.

[00:14:55] Jenny Swisher: Right. And then she also sees the highly flexible who are not strength training, who are also prone to injury. Right. So we want to find a good balance, like somewhere in the middle where we’re, we were obtaining that lean muscle mass, right. But we also have good range of motion. We also have good mobility and, and that’s why we need both, right?

[00:15:11] Jenny Swisher: And as women, there’s even ways for you to leverage what phases of your cycle you can focus that work in, right? We know that the first half of the cycle, you’re more, um, I’ll say predisposed. I don’t know what the right word is. You’re, you’re more, you’re more adaptable to strength training in the first half of your cycle and estrogens on the rise.

[00:15:28] Jenny Swisher: And then as we taper down toward our periods and our menstrual cycle starts over again, right? Hormones are depleting. So they’re starting to fall. Which is when we need to do that mobility work. We have significant evidence to show that female athletes tend to become injured in the days leading up to their period because of that hormone decrease.

[00:15:44] Jenny Swisher: So those are great days to focus on the yoga, to focus on the mobility work, right? So these are all things that we’re learning now. I mean, I hate to say it, but literally years upon years of research has been done on men and male bodies. And, you know, I just saw something recently. They’re now coming out with some research evidence around sleep for women.

[00:16:03] Jenny Swisher: Right. And it’s interesting because We’ve always been told as humankind that men and women need seven hours of sleep per night. Well, it turns out all that research was done on men. And now that we’re looking at women in the menstrual cycle, we’re finding that women need closer to eight to nine hours per night with an additional hour on their period.

[00:16:19] Jenny Swisher: So thank you to the pioneers in the space who were like, no, we need to look at women and we need to factor in the menstrual cycle, even if it is more complex to do, because we’re starting to see, you know, how everything we’ve been doing really truly has been following male physiology. Intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets, restrictive calories, the whole calories in calories out model, right?

[00:16:40] Jenny Swisher: These are all things that apply to men, but not women. So, alright, so we’re not even to the toxic load yet and I want to talk about that. So let’s, before we move on, let’s talk about what you see in working with clients. What do you see as far as like the most common nutrient deficiencies, especially in sort of the 30s and 40s?

[00:16:57] Louise Diaby: Um, so things like B vitamins, I, I’d so often test for lots of nutrients and B vitamins come up time and time again. Not necessarily deficient, uh, often they can be, but, Often it can be that someone has a really high demand for B vitamins and that can really come from there being higher stress levels.

[00:17:20] Louise Diaby: You know, we really have a high demand for B vitamins when we’re stressed. Same for magnesium. So I think around, like the metabolism side of things, B vitamins, magnesium and iron. You know, there’s so essential for us to convert our food into energy and, you know, it really can impact the speed of our metabolism if we are lacking in those, another really common one we see is a lack of, uh, omega 3 and that is so key for our hormone production alongside things like vitamin D and zinc, which again, such common deficiencies.

[00:18:01] Louise Diaby: These help us to make our hormones and, you know, hormones are so involved in the regulation of our blood sugars, you know, the thyroid is so involved in the speed of your metabolism. Um, so those deficiencies can very much drive weight gain, particularly around the middle. and then.

[00:18:21] Louise Diaby: Magnesium is another really, really common one. I mentioned it briefly when we’re talking about the energy, but no, magnesium is a really interesting mineral because it is so involved in so many different functions in the body. And it’s very depleted from the food that we eat because of the way that the soil is, is intensively farmed and the artificial fertilizers that are used.

[00:18:48] Louise Diaby: So. Magnesium, not only is it lacking in the diet, even if you are supplementing or you are making an effort to eat higher magnesium foods, likely it is, is that you’re probably still not getting enough of it because when we’re stressed, if we drink a lot of coffee, if we drink alcohol, um, If we’re lacking in sleep, then we, we burn through magnesium so, so quickly.

[00:19:15] Louise Diaby: And it’s very involved in the regulation of our glucose levels. So when you were lacking magnesium, it can often drive cravings. You know, particularly for sweeter things or processed foods, um, and things like chocolate is a classic craving when you’re lacking in magnesium. And then we should go back to the muscle mass side of things as well.

[00:19:39] Louise Diaby: Your protein is a, you know, a key nutrient. Absolutely need to be eating plenty of protein. And, you know, even now, even with there being so much noise out there about protein, still not seeing enough of it in people’s diets and, you know, alongside nutrients like B12. And again, iron is so, so key for maintaining muscle mass.

[00:20:06] Louise Diaby: So yeah, those are really important nutrients and probably the most common deficiencies that I see. Yeah.

[00:20:13] Jenny Swisher: So good. Well, you just described my pill dispenser and by the way, if you’re, closing in on 40 and you don’t have a pill dispenser with natural supplements, nutritional supplements, you’re, then I guess you’re not cool because the cool kids are doing it.

[00:20:25] Jenny Swisher: So But I just want to say too that like, literally, yes, these are the most common. This is the most, these are the most common that I see too. I, in fact, I have podcast episodes on magnesium, on omega threes, on protein and amino acids. Like this is exactly the stuff I teach. But at the same point, like you guys, health is individual.

[00:20:40] Jenny Swisher: And so this is again, why working with a functional practitioner. Is is queen, right? Like being able to do the deeper dive to see what nutritional deficiencies you have. And to be able to supplement with the right stuff. Like you can’t just order stuff on Amazon and assume that it’s the right thing, right?

[00:20:54] Jenny Swisher: That’s another thing that I see often. So it’s, it’s not that simple. I think a lot of women want to DIY their health, right? Like, Oh, I heard on this podcast, I need to take this. So they just go find it. And then it’s like, well, that might not be a quality supplement or that might not be what you uniquely need.

[00:21:09] Jenny Swisher: So again, working with a functional practitioner on that root cause approach, because here’s the deal, modern medicine, at least here in the U S I can say, they’re not going to tell you anything’s wrong unless your house is burning down. My friends, like, unless you’re like, I don’t know, I really feel like a lot of it’s based on heartbeat.

[00:21:23] Jenny Swisher: Like, Oh, you have a pulse. Like you’re at labs are normal. Cause it’s like, I saw this meme recently. It was like a lady leaning over a grave. And And it says her labs were normal, you know, and I was like, this, nothing is more true than this statement. But normal is not optimal. So if you want to optimize your health, this is why we work with someone who like Louise or whomever, who is very knowledgeable in this, who can help you figure out yourself.

[00:21:44] Jenny Swisher: A couple of quick points, B vitamins. My friends, if you are someone who has taken birth control, like myself, we know like it’s, it’s literally in the pamphlet that no one reads, right. In very fine print that they know that birth control depletes B vitamins. There’s also a considerable impact on the liver.

[00:21:59] Jenny Swisher: So liver support for a lot of women and doing that deeper dive to see how you methylate and things like that can be important. I’ll make sure to link up in the show notes, the previous episodes that I’ve done on magnesium and omegas things, and I’ll also link up my favorite supplements for these so that at the very least you’re getting something quality versus, versus off of Amazon.

[00:22:18] Jenny Swisher: Not saying that Amazon is always bad, but I’m just saying that oftentimes there’s better options. But one person that I follow in the protein world is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon has a new book out, that’s called Forever Strong, she actually, her background was in, uh, working with the elderly, like the geriatric, population, and she saw firsthand the decline in muscle mass and the impact of sarcopenia, and she started digging deeper in the research on what was going on, and she’s the one who, who coined the term muscle as the key to longevity.

[00:22:49] Jenny Swisher: And, really decided that we’re not over fat, we’re under muscled. And if we can really focus on, you know, fueling properly with adequate protein to make sure that our body is getting the amino acids that it needs. And then focusing on those, the strength work and mobility work that we’ve already been talking about.

[00:23:05] Jenny Swisher: That’s going to help, right? That’s most definitely going to help. So she talks about how, like, if you’re not eating enough protein, you’re not getting enough amino acids, which is most likely why you’re craving all the things and why you’re reaching for those processed foods, because your body is not nutritionally satisfied.

[00:23:19] Jenny Swisher: So when it comes to these nutrient deficiencies, again, test, don’t guess, work with someone, and then make sure you’re checking into these things. These are great tips. So I want to make sure that we, we shift a little bit, because one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about that we, I really haven’t done super deep dives on, on the podcast yet with anyone else is this concept of toxic load.

[00:23:38] Jenny Swisher: EDCs in our environment, like the impact that these sort of endocrine disruptors have on our hormones. And so I want to just start basic for my listeners. Let’s start with just defining what is toxic load.

[00:23:51] Louise Diaby: So like you say, we are exposed to lots of toxins and these can be things like pesticides, pollution, stuff that we might find in cleaning products or fragrances or skincare products or coatings that are on furniture to make it flame retardant and, you know, you name it, there’s, there’s just a huge long list of things that we are all exposed to every day.

[00:24:16] Louise Diaby: And your liver is incredible. It’s amazing at detoxing and it makes these unsafe, um, endocrine disruptors or toxins safe to eliminate from your body. However, in today’s world, we have such a high toxic load. We’re exposed to so many of these things that, you know, Your, your liver can only detox so much, or so fast.

[00:24:46] Louise Diaby: So your toxic load can end up increasing, and the toxins can come from internal sources as well. So, you know, if your gut is imbalanced, then your, , gut bacteria. potentially be producing toxins that you’re absorbing. If you’re under a lot of stress, that can result in an increased toxic load as well.

[00:25:09] Louise Diaby: So you’ve got these internal and external sources of toxins that your your body is having to process and eliminate and When our toxic load is too high, that can be disruptive to our hormones, partly because a lot of these, toxins mimic the chemical structure of oestrogen, or are very, very similar. , And so these are known as xenoestrogens and basically there’s certain pathways in the liver through which we get rid of these toxins.

[00:25:43] Louise Diaby: But if that pathway is very clogged up with having to detox all these things, then we might not be detoxing our estrogens as well. As efficiently as we should be, so we can end up with, um, kind of more estrogen circulating around our system than there should be. So that in itself can cause disruption and therefore weight loss, resistance, but also.

[00:26:10] Louise Diaby: Your body is really clever and adaptive, so if you have a very high toxic load and your liver isn’t kind of clearing that load quick enough, one of the adaptive mechanisms we have is your body can actually upregulate fat storage to lock away those toxins out of circulation, out of your blood and lock it away somewhere safe where it’s not going to be causing damage and that place is in your fat cells.

[00:26:38] Louise Diaby: So. Sometimes when the fat isn’t budging, it could be partly that your toxic load is quite high and your body is actually not releasing those fat stores in order to keep you safe from the harm of those toxins.

[00:26:54] Jenny Swisher: Yes, yes, yes. I just recently made a post on social media about, I said, I unfortunately have seen this often and this has also been me.

[00:27:02] Jenny Swisher: So let me just also raise my hand and say, I was this person at one point. I’ve seen it so often where women are, they literally are doing all the things. They even embrace things like cycle syncing and backing off the hit training and doing the strength training and eating enough protein and they’re like.

[00:27:15] Jenny Swisher: But I still can’t seem to get rid of the weight and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve done everything you’ve said, right? And then we start to look at EDCs. We start to look at, okay, well, what are the, tell me about your lifestyle. Like, what are you doing in the morning? What does your skincare routine look like? Like, what are the things that you’re putting in on and around your body?

[00:27:31] Jenny Swisher: And oftentimes I’ll hear, well, I’m a huge Bath and Body Works fan, right? So I’m like, they’re using the body washes and the lotions, or they’re, they’re using perfumes and fragrances, which are huge, endocrine disruptors, right? So we start to break down these things that they’re around on a daily basis.

[00:27:46] Jenny Swisher: Or in some cases, it’s their work environment, right? They might work in, you know, Fabrics and they’re literally around fabrics all day long or whatever the case is. So, these things that we really don’t think about because they’re just part of our world, right? They’re just, I mean, the curtains on my, my windows right now, most likely have estrogenic compounds, right?

[00:28:02] Jenny Swisher: Like, we, everything that I’m around and surrounded by my mattress, my, the things that I’m touching my skin with, they all impact us. And I’ve, I’ve shared this story before, but I want to share it again because, you know, A lot, for a lot of women, it kind of turns the light bulb on for that. Right. So my twenties, I was struggling with hormonal migraines.

[00:28:18] Jenny Swisher: That’s sort of my story. Um, and my functional medicine doctor that I finally met with put me on a bioidentical progesterone cream. And I was so nervous to try it. Like here, I had been five years into neck surgeries and Botox and all the things for migraine and nothing had worked. And I was afraid to try this yam root cream.

[00:28:37] Jenny Swisher: I remember asking her like, well, what’s in it? You know and like I don’t I don’t know if I want to do hormones Like I remember being really like sort of against it And within a month of using it, once again, not saying this is for everyone. This was just my unique situation with my migraines.

[00:28:50] Jenny Swisher: When I started using it, my quality of life improved drastically because I didn’t know at the time how estrogen dominant I was and how much estrogen I had circulating. I’ve recently been doing like GI maps and different tests to see. And certainly my estrogen is sort of repopulating itself in my body.

[00:29:07] Jenny Swisher: So estrogen is not my friend. Um, but at the same time, like what’s interesting is I was using, you guys, less than a dime size amount of cream. So if you picture just a fingertip of a cream, right, a hormone cream, and I was putting it on my inner wrist every single night, it was preventing migraines from happening and improving my quality of life drastically.

[00:29:26] Jenny Swisher: So if you think about, I remember thinking this myself, like, what is All of the other lotions and, and body washes and things that I’m putting on my skin doing to me, if I know that this little bitty amount is absorbing into my skin, it’s changing my lab work, right? It’s improving my progesterone levels.

[00:29:44] Jenny Swisher: It’s changing the way I feel. What is all the other stuff that I’m putting ample amounts of on my skin? What’s that doing? Right? And so we don’t think about these things. It’s not just the things that we’re touching. It’s the things that we’re breathing in. You know, household cleaners, skin care, like I said, fragrances.

[00:29:57] Jenny Swisher: I just saw something yesterday about even the water coming out of our showers, right? Has, has high loads of toxicity. So. These are all, I don’t mean to scare you, right? But at the same point, like if you are doing all the things, if you’re exercising, you’re following sync, you know, you’re like, I’m meeting, I’m doing the things that Jenny’s telling me to do.

[00:30:15] Jenny Swisher: And you’re not being, you’re not able to ditch the weight. We’ve got to look at endocrine disruptors. We’ve got to look at the things that you’re keeping in your bathroom, vanity and under your sinks and in your house that you can control and try to eliminate that. So that’s what we’re going to talk about.

[00:30:28] Jenny Swisher: So I’d love to hear, you know, what are your thoughts? I hear this often from women like, Oh, I’m just going to do a detox, right? I’m just going to take these different supplements and detox my body. What are your beliefs on detoxing?

[00:30:40] Louise Diaby: So I think that taking a gentle approach to a detox can be a good thing.

[00:30:48] Louise Diaby: And my idea of a detox is kind of like giving your body a break rather than the more extreme detoxes where you’re like taking loads of pills and only drinking smoothies or juices and that sort of thing. I think it should be less about, you know, eating a really low calorie diet and more about giving yourself a break from, um, you know, whether it’s toxins or technology or whatever it might be.

[00:31:12] Louise Diaby: So I think it has its benefits, but more benefit comes from detox. Making changes that you’re going to stick with in the long term. And you know, when we’re, when we’re working on supporting our detoxification, I think there’s kind of a couple of angles that we can come at it. There’s reducing the overall load that we’re exposed to.

[00:31:35] Louise Diaby: And you know, you’re never going to be able to. Get rid of all of that completely that we are exposed to all these things constantly, but we can start to reduce some of the exposure to these toxins. You know, like we’ve said, avoiding, um, skincare that contains things like phthalates and parabens and sulfates, and same for cleaning products, you know, making sure we’re going for natural cleaning products.

[00:32:03] Louise Diaby: Products like vinegar and baking soda and essential oils can work really, really well. Looking at improving your air quality, which might mean using air purifiers, maybe indoor houseplants that help to purify the air. It could be avoiding plastics, avoiding using plastic food containers and water bottles, avoiding heating stuff up in plastic and where possible using stainless steel or glass.

[00:32:30] Louise Diaby: You know, the plastics are a real estrogen disruptor, and very problematic. So that’s, you know, quite a straightforward one to reduce your exposure to. So you’ve got that side of things where we’re reducing our exposure. And then there are things that we can do to support detoxification. And you know, there’s loads of supplements out there that are branded up as like detox supplements or things to help you detox.

[00:32:56] Louise Diaby: I would be cautious about those things, unless you’re working with someone closely, because you know, You know, detoxification is a complicated process that happens in several phases and you can actually cause more harm than good if you kind of speed up one phase, but not another. Um, so be cautious around supplements.

[00:33:15] Louise Diaby: But there’s simple things that you can do to help your body detox without even needing to think about supplements, things like encouraging sweating. So that could be in the form of exercise or a sauna. Things like dry brushing to support lymphatic drainage. We can eat foods that are really liver supportive, which are things like cruciferous vegetables, like your broccolis and your Brussels sprouts and cabbage, um, things like garlic, really great for the liver, beetroot, great for liver.

[00:33:50] Louise Diaby: And then some things you can get in teas like milk thistle, dandelion, artichoke, really lovely. gentle ingredients. And in some cases, not for everyone, but fasting can be something that helps to give your body a little bit of a break as well. But I would be very cautious about that if you are highly stressed or if you have a thyroid issue, very gentle fasting, I would say is something that can be helpful to support your body’s detoxification.

[00:34:22] Louise Diaby: And then I should also mention stress management, you know, Stress can really hinder your body’s ability to detox. So practicing stress reducing techniques like meditation and yoga and deep breathing exercises, mindfulness are really, really helpful too. And then that goes hand in hand with sleep, making sure you are getting plenty of sleep and good quality sleep that is going to help the body to detox and recover as well.

[00:34:53] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting that we all want to reach for the product that’s going to like help us detoxify when in fact it’s a lot of just lifestyle, right? Like, but before you grab the product, like, let’s think about like, are you sleeping enough? Right. We just talked about women eating eight plus hours of sleep for now night.

[00:35:08] Jenny Swisher: And I guarantee most are not getting that. So you’re already in a state of a little bit of stress, right? Your body’s not getting the right sleep that it needs. Um, I love the cruciferous vegetable recommendation. All these things are great. Dry brushing is something that I just recently started, but When I talk to a lot of women, I feel like the constant theme that comes up is irritable bowel syndrome or constipation or just bowel discomfort, right?

[00:35:32] Jenny Swisher: Bloating, feeling like they’re not regular in the bathroom. And here’s the deal is I don’t like to talk about poop, but I will. If, if we’re not pooping on a regular basis, our body is not detoxifying. So it’s not detoxifying those, that excess estrogen. It’s not detoxifying these toxins that we, we have, right?

[00:35:48] Jenny Swisher: So. One of my power supplements, I’ll link it up in the show notes. It’s called hydrate and detox. This is something that I’ve been taking for a few months now. It’s a great electrolyte mix that helps with hydration, but also has glutathione. It also has pre and probiotics in there to really help aid the gut.

[00:36:03] Jenny Swisher: It’s been great for me just for regularity reasons. Like that has kind of been part of my story too. And it’s funny because. Of course, you think about migraine headaches that are hormonally triggered. And of course, it would all make sense. Like if I have issues with regularity, it makes sense that I have a little bit of a toxic load buildup at times I get the migraine, right?

[00:36:21] Jenny Swisher: So, um, it, it makes sense. And I think that, you know, these suggestions are all, all great, but here’s the deal is everybody wants to reach for the product. So they want to reach for the thing. That’s like the 21 day detox or the 20, you know, or the seven day reset or whatever it is. And There might be a place for that kind of thing, but if we’re not addressing lifestyle with it, I’ve seen so many women take on a 21 day detox and the detox creators have even said things like, you know, don’t exercise at high intensities while you’re doing this, because you’re giving your body a break.

[00:36:52] Jenny Swisher: You’re giving your, Your digestive system, a little bit of a rest, right? We’re taking out animal products or we’re doing X, Y, Z over these three weeks. And then they turn around and they exercise anyway. So they’re pushing it really hard because they just can’t possibly take three weeks off, right? Like it’s just messes with their brain.

[00:37:08] Jenny Swisher: And then they’re really just, you’re like working against yourself. You’re building up lactic acid. You’re, you’re building up more toxins in your body because you’re not following it. So. I would really rather women just start with the basics of like getting enough sleep, incorporating more cruciferous vegetables and fiber in their diet, maybe a glutathione or some sort of like supplementation to help support the liver.

[00:37:27] Jenny Swisher: Another thing I’ll mention, castor oil packs. That’s been a new favorite of mine. Putting castor oil packs over my liver at nighttime. I don’t always sleep in them, but I’ll wear them for a couple hours at night. That’s can be helpful as well. So great. So let’s talk about just some strategies to reduce toxic load, obviously making some simple swaps in your skincare, household care, you know, makeup, stuff like that.

[00:37:48] Jenny Swisher: But I’d love to hear your tips for reducing toxic load.

[00:37:52] Louise Diaby: Yeah, I always feel like it’s, it’s, um, it can be a bit overwhelming, you know, like we were talking about it being a bit scary. So when you’re trying to think about how to reduce all these different things that you’re exposed to, it can feel a bit overwhelming.

[00:38:06] Louise Diaby: So I feel like it should be a gradual process and that you gradually replace things, perhaps, you know, it’s just getting hair products run out, look for new ones that say they’re phthalate free, sulfate free, um, that sort of thing. Yeah. Organic natural, again for cleaning products as they run out, start replacing them with more natural options.

[00:38:27] Louise Diaby: It’s quite a easy one is to, you know, get away, get rid of the plastic food containers, the plastic water bottles, and replace those with glass, um, and stainless steel, um, get, keep an eye out for houseplants that are air purifying. Things like spider plants and snake plants, uh, great. Aloe vera is another really good air purifying one as well.

[00:38:56] Louise Diaby: And also what I forgot to mention before is, you know, organic food, reducing your exposure to pesticides. And that can feel like a big undertaking as well. Um, you know, because organic food can be quite expensive. Um, but there’s a really handy list called the dirty dozen, um, and the clean 15. And so, you know, You’re, if you look at the Dirty Dozen, then these are the foods that are the highest in pesticides and the ones that we either want to avoid or buy organic if we can, um, and the Clean 15 tend to be a better, um, a lower pesticide.

[00:39:36] Louise Diaby: Uh, food. So, you know, they’re ones that you can get away with eating non organic if you are on a budget, And then, you know, if you’re, if you’re eating meats and dairies, then going for organic is important to reduce your exposure to added hormones and antibiotics and pesticides. If you can’t afford organic options for those and either reducing meat intake or going for leaner cuts of meat, because it’s the fat where the toxins are stored.

[00:40:07] Louise Diaby: Yeah. You know, whilst fat isn’t necessarily the enemy in food, if we can’t afford to go for organic, then going for leaner cuts of meat can be helpful to reduce that toxin exposure as well.

[00:40:20] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I’m such a fan of saying details matter when it comes to your food, right? So, following that, I love that Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen recommendation.

[00:40:28] Jenny Swisher: By the way, that’s constantly updated. Based on testing. So you can search that or I can link it up in the show notes. The other thing is, details matter when it comes to our meats, right? So protein is important. You can obviously, you know, animal sources are going to be our highest sources of protein and full, complete proteins, but.

[00:40:45] Jenny Swisher: Um, I, you know, for me, I’d like, my mom calls me bougie when it comes to food. Cause we’re like, you know, I’m only going to do grass finished beef, like organic grass fed beef, wild caught fish, um, antibiotic hormone free chicken. Right. Like free range chicken. Like these things matter eggs, same way, right.

[00:41:02] Jenny Swisher: You went organic. So paying attention to those details, like honestly should be the first step. When I was doing a little bit of research yesterday for a presentation that I’m doing on endocrine disruption, um. I found, you know, it’s kind of alarming how much, I guess I’ll say toxicity can be found in meats and dairies.

[00:41:17] Jenny Swisher: And so if we can make those simple changes, that’s a great first place to start, right? As well as eliminating the things that are in our environment, right? The household cleaner beneath our sink. We don’t need, I know for me, when I made a swap, I went from like a bucket, like an actual literal bucket, like six different products to just one multipurpose cleaner that I could reuse that was all, you know, natural, non endocrine disrupting.

[00:41:38] Jenny Swisher: So making these swaps, I feel like in our head, it’s like so overwhelming, but then when you do it, you’re like, Oh, I just, I swapped out. You know, the, the cheaper beef for the higher quality nutrient dense beef. I swapped out the bucket of chemicals that I was cleaning my house with, with just one product.

[00:41:54] Jenny Swisher: Right. So it can really be more simple than we make it. And I love the suggestion of, of taking it step by step. This has been awesome. I’ve loved this. We’ve talked about so much stuff. We’ve talked about just weight loss resistance, and I think we’ve covered the two main. Areas of that for women in their forties, right?

[00:42:10] Jenny Swisher: Whether it’s nutritional deficiencies, diet mentality, kind of embracing the wrong thought process and mindset when it comes to losing weight. And then also just EDCs and how they’re impacting our toxic load and how that’s working against us too. So in, in the end, you know, I’m all about women understanding how to work in alignment with their physiology.

[00:42:28] Jenny Swisher: And again, we now have significant research to show how to do that. And so we have to, we need to listen, we need to listen to people like Louise, people who are stepping into this. I, multiple times during this episode, I wanted to say, did we just become best friends? Cause everything you said, I was like, I swear I’ve had, I’ve got a video or a podcast on almost every little thing you mentioned here today.

[00:42:47] Jenny Swisher: Thank you so much for doing this. I would love for you to point people in the direction of how they can find you, whether it’s through Social media or if they wanted to work with you. Um, tell us all the, all the goods.

[00:42:57] Louise Diaby: Well, if you wanna connect to me on social media, then just search at Louise Digby Nutrition.

[00:43:03] Louise Diaby: I am very active on Instagram and also on Facebook and TikTok as well. My website is louise digby nutrition.com so you can find all the good stuff there. And one of the things that you’ll find there is a Metabolism Masterclass that I run very regularly. Uh, where we dig into the steps that I go through with my clients to help them get results that are going to last and release stubborn weight.

[00:43:30] Louise Diaby: So that’s a really great way to learn a little bit more about my philosophy and how I work with my clients.

[00:43:38] Jenny Swisher: Perfect. You guys. Well, I will link up all of her information in the show notes so that you can simply swipe up. I think this might be one of our most linked up episodes. I’ve got notes written down for all the things I want to connect you guys to, but this is a really valuable resource.

[00:43:50] Jenny Swisher: I know I’ll be sending this out multiple times because I just loved everything we touched on today. We did it in a really concise way, which is shocking, but I could talk to you forever, Louise. This may not be the last time that you’re on the show. Um, but thank you so much for, for being here. Thank you for connecting to my audience and my friends.

[00:44:06] Jenny Swisher: We will talk again soon. Take care.