257-SYNCPodcastREPLAY_KateMorton

[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today we’re doing something different, something we haven’t done before on the show. We’re actually going to be doing a series of throwback episodes. We are well over 200 episodes into this podcast and every day I get a message from someone asking a question about progesterone or asking a question about proper testing or asking a question about what it means to embrace a functional wellness journey and I always find myself referring them back to one of the old but good podcast episodes here on the show.

[00:01:26] Jenny Swisher: So we’re going to take some of our favorite for the next few weeks and we’re going to throw them back. We’re going to do an episode replay so that you can hear these amazing interviews with experts in their field. I’m so excited to introduce you to each one of them here in the next three weeks, but without further ado, let’s dive in.

[00:01:40] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today I’m joined by Kate Morton. She is the founder of Thunkit, TEDx speaker. She also has a master’s degree in film. Human clinical nutrition, and she too teaches about hormone health and nutrition. I’m obsessed with fun, get seeds. We’re going to be talking about all that today.

[00:01:57] Jenny Swisher: We’re going to be talking about the menstrual cycle. Why seed cycling is so important for you as a cycling female and all the things. So without further ado, Kate, welcome to the show. I would love for you to just introduce yourself to my listeners and tell us a little bit about you.

[00:02:10] Kate Morton: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:11] Kate Morton: My name’s Kate. Like you mentioned, I’m a registered dietitian. I have a master’s degree in human clinical nutrition. I’ve given a TED talk, which was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, but really cool. Um, and I have a company called Funkit. And if you’re listening to this, I’m guessing you have experienced some kind of hormonal woes or didn’t get enough education about your hormones growing up.

[00:02:32] Kate Morton: And so we’re in the exact same boat because that’s how I got here. I got off birth control. Had a horrible experience and I couldn’t find anything to fix it. So I figured I just might as well figured out myself. I paid all that money for that degree, so might as well put it to work.

[00:02:47] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. So I have a similar story and that birth control totally screwed me up too.

[00:02:51] Jenny Swisher: So when I came off of it, I went into chronic migraine issues and wound up in the doctor’s offices of a million different specialists before I finally Told myself, I am my own best advocate. And I really needed to dig deeper into my own, what I call hormone literacy, understanding my endocrine system, understanding what was going on so that I could treat it with lifestyle as opposed to pharmaceutical.

[00:03:12] Jenny Swisher: So, okay. So Funkit is a seed company, seed cycling company. And this is so fascinating. I have so many women who ask me about seed cycling, like, is this really a thing? You know, and I always like to say, what if it really was that simple, but nature gave us everything we needed. So it really boosts our hormones naturally.

[00:03:28] Jenny Swisher: So let’s dive into seed cycling. I also want to make sure we talk about your story, because you have a really unique story with Hashimoto’s and that kind of stuff. But before we get to that, I’d love to dive deep into seed cycling. So tell us. For people who’ve never heard of this concept, what is it?

[00:03:42] Kate Morton: Yeah.

[00:03:43] Kate Morton: So first off, I was in the same boat when I was working on my hormonal acne coming off birth control, cramps, cycle regulation, my degree. And what I know, I feel like I had overcomplicated health a lot and I thought the same thing. I’m like, there’s no way it could just be this simple. And so what seat cycling is, is it looks at your menstrual cycle and it breaks it up.

[00:04:03] Kate Morton: From the first day of your period to when you ovulate and that’s going to be where we’re focused on supporting estrogen till after you ovulate till your next period where we’re supporting progesterone. It’s one tablespoon of flax seeds, one tablespoon of pumpkin seeds in that follicular phase. After ovulation.

[00:04:20] Kate Morton: So I tell people like the day after your temp spikes, you’re going to go to the one tablespoon of sesame, one tablespoon of sunflower seeds. And what that does is it really makes cycle syncing your nutrition. Just simple. I think of it as a daily vitamin booster or topper. We’re also getting fiber. So in that first half, we’re really looking at omega 3s, phytoestrogens, zinc.

[00:04:43] Kate Morton: All of these things that are supporting ovulation and estrogen. And then when we switch over to sesame and sunflower, we’re looking at vitamin E, vitamin B6, again, with zinc and magnesium, um, and a little bit of selenium and that’s supporting progesterone. And what’s really interesting when it comes to seed cycling is we actually have a lot of data on these nutrients from food being able to support your menstrual cycle, but it’s not necessarily talked about because.

[00:05:12] Kate Morton: I’ll be real with you guys. There’s not a ton of money to be made in food. And that’s just my opinion on it. And I was really mind blown on how well it worked after three months. If you’re watching the video, you can see I’ve got really great skin now. Five years ago, I had the worst hormonal acne where like my family members were like, are you okay?

[00:05:31] Kate Morton: It looks like your face is in a lot of pain. Like I couldn’t even sleep on a pillow. So I get it.

[00:05:37] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t it just so crazy to think that I feel the same way as far as There’s not as much money to be made on things that you can grow yourself or things that exist in nature, but there’s a lot of money in things like pharmaceuticals.

[00:05:50] Jenny Swisher: Right. So yeah, this is so interesting because I know so many women who they may not realize that what they’re dealing with is connected to a hormone imbalance, right. They may not realize that like. I’m having acne because of high estrogen, for example, right, or they might not realize that they’re having painful periods because of low progesterone or something else.

[00:06:09] Jenny Swisher: Right? So this is a foreign concept because our modern medical world has sort of put this pharmaceutical approach on everything, right? Like, these are your symptoms. This is how we treat it. I’d like to say this is how we put the band aid on it. I realize this is just an opinion. I mean, I always say modern medicine saved my dad’s life.

[00:06:25] Jenny Swisher: I am not here to shame it. There’s a place for it, but I’m just telling you that when women start to listen in on this and they start to hear me talk about root cause approach, we just have this intuition like, well, that seems right. That seems. Like the thing I should be doing as opposed to finding the right skin care product that’s going to take care of the acne and treat it topically.

[00:06:43] Jenny Swisher: Like, have you ever thought maybe it’s happening internally and we need to look at the endocrine system. So I love that. I’ve been seed cycling now for a few years and I incorporate my seeds every day at lunchtime. I usually put them, depending on where I am in my cycle, I’ll put them on my big green salad with a lean protein and that just ensures that I’m getting them every day.

[00:07:01] Jenny Swisher: I’m sure there’s other ways to do it too. I know some people throw them in their shake or their smoothie, but I’d love to break this down even further. You talked about how there are seeds that support our estrogen, seeds that support our progesterone. My listeners should know this by now, but right, the first half of your cycle is when estrogen is the more dominant hormone.

[00:07:18] Jenny Swisher: So it is rising in preparation for ovulation. And then after ovulation, assuming ovulation occurs, That’s when we see progesterone rise and progesterone is your catabolic hormone is there to preserve a potential pregnancy until of course everything falls to the basement in preparation for your, your bleed.

[00:07:36] Jenny Swisher: So this happens every single month right we’re cyclical beings women are lunar beings. But let’s dive into that follicular phase and how we can support estrogen, what seeds are vital for that.

[00:07:46] Kate Morton: Yeah. And I just, one thing to circle back is I do think that’s where knowing what’s going on with your body and what imbalance you’re dealing with is really important.

[00:07:56] Kate Morton: So I’m like, just wanted to like agree with you on that, that if I hadn’t done that work and known what was going on, I wouldn’t even have known where to start. So definitely start there because we want to test, not guess. We want to know, like, What we’re doing and if it’s working. So, and that’ll come, we can talk about that in a minute when we talk about Hashimoto’s because that was a huge part of my story.

[00:08:18] Kate Morton: Test don’t guess. So when it comes to your follicular phase, I like to think of your menstrual cycle. If you’ve ever like watched a track meet or seen a relay race where they’re handing off the baton, when it’s effortless, it looks incredible. It goes smoothly. They complete, they win. That’s what we’re like looking to achieve in hormone balance that we’re effortlessly handing off to each hormone and able to go through our days.

[00:08:42] Kate Morton: So we’re not experiencing migraines, painful periods, extreme PMS, acne. And so supporting estrogen, you need to do two things. One, we have more insulin sensitivity in the first half of our menstrual cycle. So this is a great time for those amazing complex carbohydrates. Hydrates fiber, making sure we’re still getting enough protein.

[00:09:05] Kate Morton: And then we’re having flax and pumpkin seed, flax and pumpkin seed have omega threes, both of them specifically flax seed is going to have more phytoestrogens. Phytoestrogens are the coolest thing. And I think there’s a lot of misconceptions around them. They are like this magical puzzle piece where if your estrogen is really high, it can bind with the estrogen and actually help excrete it out through your stool, Super cool.

[00:09:31] Kate Morton: It’s why fiber is really important for hormone health, but also if they’re low, they can plug in and fill in and kind of like bring you up naturally. So that’s where phyto estrogens are going to be really supportive for estrogen. A lot of people I see and talk to are dealing with estrogen dominance, not everyone, but it’s just very common.

[00:09:51] Kate Morton: I would almost say like. symptoms, not the right word, but of being very stressed and living in the society that we live in. So that’s going to be great. Magnesium and zinc are also in these seeds. Zinc is really important for prepping for ovulation. And so zinc is great, not only for wound healing, which has nothing to do with ovulation, but it’s also great for cell multiplication.

[00:10:13] Kate Morton: And sometimes what we don’t think about is our egg, our ovulation is the largest cell in our body. It’s so cool. It’s the largest cell in the human body. And it takes a couple cycles to create these eggs. So that’s another thing that’s really important is like consistency. That’s why you’re going to be really supporting estrogen with flax and pumpkin seeds.

[00:10:31] Kate Morton: Those are like the call outs there’s other like trace micronutrients, but those are the big ones you’re really focusing on in that phase.

[00:10:39] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I love that you mentioned that about phytoestrogens because I like to tell people sometimes they’re like, but wait, sweet potatoes are phytoestrogens. Isn’t that going to make things worse for my estrogen dominance?

[00:10:47] Jenny Swisher: And I’m like, do you have to think of phytoestrogen as fight estrogen? So it’s actually helping you. Yeah. I love that. I, like I said, I put, I put the seeds on my salads. For me personally, you know, I am estrogen dominant. That tends to be my sort of issue. And in my twenties, my progesterone was just, it was literally just rock bottom.

[00:11:06] Jenny Swisher: I believe it was because I was on birth control for so long. I just, I think that my body just didn’t know how to produce progesterone. I came off of birth control and it was like, what, like, what are we supposed to do here? And so, you know, supplementing bioidentical progesterone cream certainly helped me, but now that I’m.

[00:11:21] Jenny Swisher: entering almost 40, my progesterone numbers are exceptional and my, I’m able to actually fight off that high estrogen number through things like seed cycling. So some people will ask me things like, can I really just use nutrition to balance my hormones? Right? Of course, everybody’s individual. That’s why we test.

[00:11:38] Jenny Swisher: Don’t guess. For me personally, I needed both. I needed the bioidentical support in addition to doing things like seed cycling and, and nutritional things. But the older I get, the less I’m reliant on those bio HRT, the more I’m able to really use my nutrition and my lifestyle factors. So, okay. So ovulation happens right now.

[00:11:56] Jenny Swisher: We need to talk about this too, because I don’t know if you know this or not, but we have a, what’s called a sync scope, which is a saliva microscope that helps women. Determine when their ovulation is occurring. So saliva pattern is just as accurate as basal body temperature, but a lot of people don’t know about it.

[00:12:12] Jenny Swisher: So this is something that we, we offer because in the beginning, I was like, how can I teach women to cycle sink? If they don’t know when to divide their cycle, like if they don’t know when their ovulation is happening. So this is cool because for me, when I spit on the scope and I see ovulation, I’m like, okay, now it’s time to transition to my progesterone seeds.

[00:12:29] Jenny Swisher: Right. So let’s talk about what happens after ovulation progesterone starts to rise. What seeds are beneficial in the second half of your cycle.

[00:12:37] Kate Morton: Yeah. And I think that’s another great call out. Like when I’m telling people, I’m like the first step to seed cycling is getting comfortable with tracking your cycle, because we want to make sure we really are syncing it with you.

[00:12:49] Kate Morton: So assuming, you know, you’re trying, you ovulated and now we’re going into this next like luteal phase of your cycle. Sesame and sunflower, something that there is a lot of evidence on when it comes to nutrients is vitamin E and vitamin B6, specifically together into being just this amazing PMS buster combination, and we need to get them from real food, you’re going to get those from sesame and sunflower sunflower has a lot of vitamin E.

[00:13:17] Kate Morton: And those two together are going to help with your more traditional PMS symptoms and support you with mood, anxiety, bloating, cramps, kind of all those things that we associate with that second half of our cycle, which are all our body talking to us and telling us something’s going on. And then additionally, we have selenium, which is going to be really great for supporting our thyroid in the second half of the cycle.

[00:13:39] Kate Morton: And you still have magnesium and zinc, and those are just going to be important for your entire cycle. But the other cool thing is you have more calcium in these seeds. Calcium has been shown, getting enough calcium in your diet from foods has been shown to really decrease period pain and help with those painful periods.

[00:13:58] Kate Morton: A lot of times we don’t realize our uterus is a muscle too, so we need to be feeding it. Thinking about like when you’re working out how you’re feeding your body, your uterus is a muscle as well. And if you want it to function properly, you have to give it all of those nutrition, nutritional elements. So that’s where calcium is going to come in and be really important.

[00:14:16] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. I recently did a solo round episode on the podcast on the benefits of magnesium and how most people are deficient in magnesium. And I’ve also talked about how magnesium can rescue hormones in so many ways, right? So it makes sense that the reason behind these seeds works, right? Like it, it makes sense to me, like why it really does help.

[00:14:37] Jenny Swisher: Women in the different phases of their cycle, because they’re getting all of these little micronutrients or, or vitamins that they maybe otherwise wouldn’t be getting what I love about what you guys do is you make this really simple for people, right? Like it’s not just, Hey, go to your local whole foods and find these seeds and start incorporating it.

[00:14:53] Jenny Swisher: So I want to make sure that our listeners understand that the quality of seed matters and they’re not going to, they’re not going to be too shocked because this is something that I talk about all the time, right? Like I’m currently drinking my coffee, which is mycotoxin. Free mold, free shade, grown organic coffee.

[00:15:09] Jenny Swisher: So I’m very bougie with my coffee. I’m also very bougie with my beef. You know, I want it to be a hundred percent grass finished. So the details matter when you’re consuming your food, like what foods you’re consuming organic versus not all that kind of stuff. So I would love for you to touch on your sourcing.

[00:15:25] Jenny Swisher: If you can, like where do you source these seeds? Like, what is the, tell us about the quality of Funkett.

[00:15:31] Kate Morton: Yeah. So that was honestly in the beginning as a dietitian, I understood the importance of sourcing and also how fragile nutrition is and how it doesn’t just have an unlimited amount of time.

[00:15:44] Kate Morton: Nutrition degrades over time in our food as it’s exposed to light and other things. So everything’s organic. All of our seeds are organic and they come from the U S or Europe, which was really important to us when it came to sourcing and supply chain. Additionally, we get them to you fast. So that is like one of the biggest things for us is we grind RC because when we were really working with people in the beginning, And I was doing it on my own trying to go to the grocery store.

[00:16:11] Kate Morton: That’s like how this all started. Then I started grinding in my kitchen for people and they’re lining up outside my door to buy them. And it was just this whole thing. I realized there was a way to scale it. We, let me back up because I’m in manufacturing all the time these days. So I might need to explain a few key things.

[00:16:27] Kate Morton: Oftentimes when you’re going to the grocery store, those items have 18 month to two year shelf life. The nutrients it’s in a seed on day one of its shelf life versus day you know, 624 is very different. And so for us, we source directly from farms and suppliers. We grind everything and it gets to you within four to six weeks.

[00:16:51] Kate Morton: So you are getting the freshest quality so you can actually have it ground and it be convenient. Um, that was really important to us because I know how hard it is to grind your seed yourself. I burned out two blenders, three coffee grinders, like My husband was constantly having seeds in his coffee when he was grinding it.

[00:17:08] Kate Morton: Like it was a whole thing. And I know that’s inconvenient. So we source it directly organic. We make sure it’s ground with no heat package and sent to you within four to six weeks. And we do that across all of our supply channels.

[00:17:23] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, that’s, that’s, what’s so incredible about this. I remember hearing you on another podcast, talk about that.

[00:17:27] Jenny Swisher: And I was like, this is, this is the real deal because nutrient density is what matters. Right. And so you’re making me laugh. I’m like, maybe your husband’s going to ovulate or something. If he’s going to keep consuming, he seed

[00:17:38] Kate Morton: cycles with me. He’s all in.

[00:17:40] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. It just doesn’t face him the same way. That’s funny.

[00:17:43] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. That’s so cool. And you know, it’s just like everything, right? Like people ask me all the time, like, what’s your favorite protein shake? Like, well, I don’t really do protein shake. I do a nutrient dense, super food shake that also happens to have protein. Right. Like, so it’s a, it’s a difference in thinking.

[00:17:57] Jenny Swisher: And I want my women listening to understand that this quality piece really matters. It really matters. Just like I had someone ask me yesterday. They were like, you know, my doctor wants to put me on bioidentical progesterone. That’s, that’s what I use. So she was asking me, you know, the specifics of what I use.

[00:18:12] Jenny Swisher: And I said, well, you know, for me personally, I know my doctor really emphasized the importance of how that cream gets compounded. how it’s made, right? And this is something that, of course, we don’t know to ask our doctor. We just trust that the doctor is going to know what to give us, right? So she’s like, Oh, well, my doctor just told me I could use the over the counter kind, and that’s what she wants me to start with.

[00:18:31] Jenny Swisher: And I said, I would push back on that because I know for me, you know, my doctor really explained they melt this over a stove. They use coconut oil. There’s nothing added to it. There’s nothing, there’s no allergens. Those are all really important things to know. So I’m the girl in the grocery store that like, if I’m going to buy something that has a label, I’m the one that like turns around the package.

[00:18:50] Jenny Swisher: And nine times out of 10, I’m putting the package back on the shelf. So understanding your ingredient labels, but understanding like where things are coming from is, is so important. So I want to ask about like. The research done behind seed cycling, like what research has been done on seed cycling so far?

[00:19:06] Jenny Swisher: And what do we know about it? Is it effective? You know, what, what are we seeing from that?

[00:19:11] Kate Morton: Yeah, so actually, as of 2021, they did a research study on PCOS symptoms and seed cycling, and that research is a clinical research study showed. positive impacts on PCOS symptoms. So for anyone listening, having any kind of clinical research or peer reviewed research on food as medicine approaches is a huge deal because clinical research is extremely expensive and usually it’s done to be able to make the money back.

[00:19:38] Kate Morton: And so this was a huge deal and it really in my opinion, is such an important step in the right direction of validating food as medicine so that we can give people these tools. And then additionally, what I did, because as a dietician, evidence based approach is a big part of how we look at things, but we also understand the research can take up to 10 years to catch up because it takes a long time to do it, to get it reviewed.

[00:20:06] Kate Morton: Um, but so what I did was I went back and I looked at All the different nutrients that are in these seeds, and I looked at the research on menstrual health, hormone health, and these nutrition from food, and there’s actually a ton of research on that, which is super cool, and a lot of it was done in the early 2000s, but it’s still valid for today, so while there’s only one official peer reviewed study on seed cycling, there is a lot we can learn through the peer reviewed studies on these nutrients from food and our menstrual cycles.

[00:20:38] Jenny Swisher: Yeah, I can tell you that since running my digital course in 2020, I’ve endorsed this idea of seed cycling and the women who embrace it. Seem to have to rave about how they’re feeling. Right. And I also just have to say this, right. Seeds tend to have good quality fat. And this is something that’s overlooked.

[00:20:55] Jenny Swisher: I think a lot of women avoid fat, right? Like there’s the stigma around like, Oh, I need to be on a low fat diet or whatever. And it’s like, well, your hormones come from cholesterol. So fat and proteins are exceptionally needed, right. For, for proper hormone balance. So to me, sometimes I wonder, you know, yes, of course, these micronutrients and these factors are, are totally playing a role, but at the same time, also just satiating the woman and helping her to feel fuller longer, you know, like giving that crunch on your salad or whatever, like it’s just satiation is overlooked.

[00:21:26] Jenny Swisher: I mean, I know that we, I talk about this often that blood sugar regulation tends to be one of the top two causes of hormone imbalance, but then when you talk to a woman and you look at her food diary, She’s not consuming nuts and seeds. She’s not consuming healthy fats or not very much, right? Or her protein is way under for what she should be eating.

[00:21:43] Jenny Swisher: And so it makes sense to me that these, that these seeds, pumpkin seeds are high in protein. Like these seeds are higher in protein and fats. So that has to be contributing to, to just overall blood sugar regulation. So there’s so much

[00:21:53] Kate Morton: fiber. Yeah. And fiber

[00:21:55] Jenny Swisher: too. Right. Absolutely. And people are under fiber for sure.

[00:21:58] Jenny Swisher: For sure. Very cool. So, okay. I know that like before we even started recording, you started telling me about your personal story with Hashimoto’s and how you’ve been able to overcome so much nutritionally. And even though it may or may not be on the topic of seed cycling, I love to just ask people about their personal journeys with hormone imbalance.

[00:22:16] Jenny Swisher: And so I would love if you’re willing to share, you know, tell us a little bit about what you’ve gone through and what you’re doing and how you’re feeling now.

[00:22:23] Kate Morton: Yeah. I think my story definitely I’m going to tell you guys the whole thing quickly and it’ll illustrate that this is a journey, not a destination.

[00:22:31] Kate Morton: You know, I got off birth control six years ago. That’s when I first realized I had extreme estrogen dominance and really severe progesterone deficiency as well. Like mine was so low cause I was on a progesterone, like the synthetic progesterone birth control. And so I went through that journey and so much of that was healed really almost a hundred percent lifestyle.

[00:22:53] Kate Morton: diet changes, food is medicine, stress reduction. And then about a year and a half ago, I started to feel. exhausted. Like I just couldn’t get out of bed. And, and, you know, there is this imposter syndrome of, Oh, I’m teaching other people how to feel better. Like I have to feel good. I should feel good. And like almost putting this weird pressure on myself and just being like super vulnerable and sharing that with people recently that that was like a big hindrance actually in figuring out what was going on with me.

[00:23:22] Kate Morton: Cause I kept telling myself that nothing was going on. And I didn’t listen to myself. And it came to a point where I was so tired. I couldn’t get out of bed. I was like forcing myself to do these workouts. I had switched even to totally low impact exercise. I just couldn’t even do high impact. My hair had just like started not being how it’s always been not quite falling out, but really brittle.

[00:23:43] Kate Morton: My skin was super dry, just all these little things that. I didn’t put together. And so I started seeing a gut dietitian and I did my GI map and my gluten intolerance came back. Absolutely. Through the roof where she was like, okay, I am sending you to get an intestinal biopsy because I’m really concerned that you might actually have celiac.

[00:24:06] Kate Morton: And then I also, my colon was super inflamed, which I was sharing. So like I potentially was, they were looking into potential endometriosis diagnosis and then. I went to a new functional doctor here in Austin, and I just like was so sad, like just sitting in her office, like, I just, I can’t feel this way forever.

[00:24:25] Kate Morton: This can’t just be getting older. And she was like, it’s not, this is not normal. And she like validated everything I was going through. She looked at my GI map and I was like, Hey, Two people in my family have Hashimoto’s and one, my brother had thyroid cancer and had to completely have his thyroid removed.

[00:24:44] Kate Morton: And she was like, that’s it. We’re going all in. We’re testing your antibodies. We’re testing your entire panel. I’m running everything. Your cortisol, everything went. And we did that on day like 21 of my cycle. She calls me on a set. I have my labs drawn on a Thursday. She calls me on a Saturday and is like.

[00:25:01] Kate Morton: Hey, can we talk for a minute? And I was like, not used to a doctor even like caring that much. And this is all recent. And she was like. Look, your labs came back and you’re right. Your cortisol is through the roof and your, um, thyroid antibodies were so high. You’re TSH also through the roof. We need to like meet on Monday and come up with a like protocol plan to put in place because I want to get, get ahead of this.

[00:25:29] Kate Morton: And so I had a similar approach. I got put on a thyroid medication just to like, almost just like band aided and just like support my thyroid immediately. But then I worked on cutting out soy, gluten, and dairy, and I will be super transparent with everyone listening. Like I come from an eating disorder background and was in for a long time.

[00:25:50] Kate Morton: And so Being restrictive with food. It’s why I actually go see my own dietician to make sure I’m like keeping myself accountable. And it’s been interesting navigating that. But honestly, those diet changes and cutting out my high intensity exercise, I feel incredible. And it’s only been like a few months of really like going down this path.

[00:26:12] Kate Morton: And I was amazed at how for a year and a half of feeling that tired that like just sad and frustrated could be reversed. In 30 days of really just committing to this and. It’s interesting because now I don’t even want those foods because I just feel so much better and yeah, so I don’t know if you’re listening, it’s okay.

[00:26:33] Kate Morton: It’s not normal to just feel terrible all the time and I was gaslighting myself about it. And I teach other people how to advocate for themselves. So just being super real with you guys, like it even happens. You can have all the resources in the world, all the education in the world and still not listen to yourself.

[00:26:49] Kate Morton: Then. Yeah. And she told me she’s like seed cycling and everything else you’ve done. She like has been what has saved you up until this point. And she’s like, you’ve just reached a point where your body couldn’t do it anymore. And she was like, really, all your other labs are perfect. She’s like, somehow your hormones are still like perfect.

[00:27:08] Kate Morton: And, you know, so everything you do matters, but there may be a missing puzzle piece. Like I had to do the labs and the GI map and all these other things to figure out what it was.

[00:27:17] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. My listeners have heard this, but I always say, you know, the, the number one nutrient or hormone that you need is the one you need.

[00:27:26] Jenny Swisher: Right. It’s different for every person. And that’s why it drives me crazy when people are like, Oh yeah, you mentioned progesterone. Should I start progesterone? I’m like, well, if you test it and you’re low, you know? Yeah. So I, there’s so many things in your story that I like was making notes and putting stars.

[00:27:42] Jenny Swisher: Number one, I just want to point out, I feel like a broken record, but it’s worth saying The right doctor or practitioner is so key. And this I’m so passionate about this, that I just had a friend make a little giffy on online. That was a woman saying, find a new doctor. Like that’s how much I send it out to people.

[00:28:01] Jenny Swisher: Because every, if I had a dollar for every woman who comes to me every day and they’re like, well, but my doctor said my labs are normal or, or my doctor won’t even run the labs. Cause I don’t have anything majorly wrong. And it’s like wrong doctor need a new doctor. And once again, I’m not here to shame.

[00:28:17] Jenny Swisher: Modern medicine, but if you can get in the hands of the right practitioner, usually that that tends to be a functional approach type doctor or an integrative doctor. Someone who is willing to sit with you longer than the 15 minutes of intake to really get to know your lifestyle, to really get to know what could be going on, right.

[00:28:34] Jenny Swisher: All she did was listen enough to hear what the family history was and to say, maybe we should dig a little bit deeper. I was just on a call last night where somebody said, I have a family history of thyroid issues. What do I need to test? My TSH is normal. And I said, well, here’s the thing. Most modern doctors will test just your TSH, and if it’s within the normal range, they don’t go any further.

[00:28:55] Jenny Swisher: They don’t look at T3, T4 antibodies, any of that kind of stuff. So I said, you need a practitioner who is willing to do that extra testing. So finding a practitioner is so, so key to really getting to the root cause of what’s going on for you. That’s number one, but then being willing to, to, to ask the right questions, like to have that body awareness to say, Hey, could this be an issue for me?

[00:29:16] Jenny Swisher: Could this be something that we need to investigate further? I think it’s just so, so powerful. So that’s the first thing that you raised in your story, but also just the power of getting rid of the foods that aren’t serving you, right? Like this is, Something that for me personally, I actually was kind of in a backwards.

[00:29:31] Jenny Swisher: I have a similar story, but a little bit of a backwards approach. What I mean by that is I had actually done an elimination diet. Just, it was part of the company I was with. It was like a detox, three week detox. And when I did it, I felt amazing. I slept better. I had gotten rid of like, at that time it was, you know, animal proteins, no dairy whatsoever, no gluten.

[00:29:52] Jenny Swisher: It was basically just a very high vegetable, fruit, seed type diet. And so I knew coming off of that three weeks, I was like, something is different. Like something in that, that I was eating before was not sitting well with me. And I didn’t realize it. You don’t realize how good you’re meant to feel until you do.

[00:30:07] Jenny Swisher: Right. And then you’re like, Oh, wait, this makes total sense. So I remember like the day after we finished my, my husband, I did it together. When we finished that detox, we went out for pizza and probably like the worst idea ever. But we, we go off of pizza. And the very next day I was like, so inflamed. I was bloated.

[00:30:25] Jenny Swisher: I had a headache. It was terrible, and it was like, oh, this is the sign I needed that something feels off, right? So at first, my first reaction was, it must be neat. It must be meat because I went without meat for the three weeks. So then I thought maybe I should be like a pagan, right? Like I’m just going to eat fish and whatever.

[00:30:43] Jenny Swisher: So we tried that journey, but something was still off. So then I’m like, you know what? I think I’m going to do some food sensitivity testing. So I go to my doctor, she agrees to it. We do it. And she comes back and she’s like, you really need to avoid dairy. She’s like, like, you really, really, she’s like, it’s a very, very high sensitivity to you.

[00:30:59] Jenny Swisher: So here’s a funny story. And I share this with love because parents do their best. Right. But I remember telling my mom, this was when I was 27 years old, I remember saying, mom, my food sensitivity test came back and I’m like really sensitive to dairy and she looks at me and she goes, that’s so funny. You were as a baby, I was like, well, it turns out I don’t think it ever changed.

[00:31:19] Jenny Swisher: Like, I think I’ve always been sensitive. So getting rid of dairy was my first step. And I felt a world of difference. And then from there it turned into incorporating things like magnesium and zinc and these supplements that I was deficient in. And then you just level up a little bit more, and then you figure out the nutrient or hormone that you’re missing, or what’s out of balance for you, which for me was progesterone.

[00:31:41] Jenny Swisher: And it was like my whole world changed, right? So I love that you shared the story the way you did, because it really is a journey. Like some people think, Oh, I have this appointment with this functional doctor next week. I’m going to get answers. It’s like, Oh no, like it could be a while, right? It could be a while.

[00:31:55] Jenny Swisher: It could be a process. It could be testing. It could be just digging deeper into your lifestyle, but it’s so worth it. It’s so worth it. And I think a lot of people avoid it because of whether it’s not covered on their insurance or they don’t know what that’s going to look like or whatever. And it’s no, it’s totally worth it to feel and reach your maximum energy.

[00:32:13] Jenny Swisher: For sure.

[00:32:14] Kate Morton: Yeah, a hundred percent. And like, you know, for me, I had the same thing. I was like, Oh, my insurance isn’t that good. And, you know, I ended up actually being able to find a functional MD that was covered by my insurance. And I know not everyone, I mean, has access to that, but it really was life changing just having a practitioner listen.

[00:32:31] Kate Morton: And, and it was, it’s really shifted my relationship with what I eat. And, you know, it’s interesting because that’s always been a priority for me, but I feel like when you do feel really bad, it kind of happens slowly over time. You don’t just like wake up feeling bad. It’s like you slowly feel worse. So then to feel good again is like, Oh my gosh, I forgot.

[00:32:51] Kate Morton: This is how this feels.

[00:32:53] Jenny Swisher: Yeah.

[00:32:53] Kate Morton: Yeah.

[00:32:54] Jenny Swisher: I like to say the phrase normal is not optimal. And so, you know, for my listeners, if you’re, if you’re going in and you’re having that TSH test and it’s in the normal range, please know and understand that that normal range is determined by the wide pool of people who are having that test done.

[00:33:09] Jenny Swisher: Men and women of your age, right? That’s healthy and unhealthy. It’s a very wide range. That’s why a lot of times when you look at the normal range, it’s like five to 500, right? It’s a very broad spectrum. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be in the optimal range. I’d like to know, well, what should I be between?

[00:33:25] Jenny Swisher: You know, that’s where I want to be. Unfortunately, I wish, I think someday our modern medicine world will catch up to that. Because right now it’s like, well, you don’t have a problem until you have a problem. Right. And I have a friend of mine, Dr. Laura Brown. She says, you don’t have a problem until your house is on fire.

[00:33:40] Jenny Swisher: Right. Like, so they don’t, modern medicine oftentimes doesn’t see that. the match, right? They don’t see the match. They see the flaming fire and that’s when they start to use things to treat it. Whereas a functional approach is just that like coming. Yeah.

[00:33:53] Kate Morton: Because technically my lab, my TSH. So the range is huge.

[00:33:58] Kate Morton: It’s like 0. 9 to 4. 1. My TSH was at a four and my doctor was like, really, you should be like 1. 8, like 0. 9 to 1. 8. And so she was like, yes, you’re in the normal range, but you’re literally. Point one away from being out of range, and that’s really high for you. And so that was like a cool, like having a doctor that understands those optimal ranges is life changing.

[00:34:25] Jenny Swisher: It is life changing. And if, if you, I always say, people will say, how do you know if it’s the right doctor? I’m like, if you go into your doctor, you say you feel off. If they’re not willing to do, to do the testing, find a new doctor if they are willing to do it, but they don’t mention time of your cycle and they don’t understand that wrong doctor.

[00:34:40] Jenny Swisher: Find a new doctor. Those are the first two tips, right? The third tip being, will they sit down and take the time with you? Is it a 15 minute appointment or is it an hour long appointment? And I always advocate, there’s nothing, for me, I’m not going to go into a practitioner’s office and spend hundreds of dollars and two hours of my time if we don’t align.

[00:35:00] Jenny Swisher: So I have no problem calling that office in advance and asking a series of questions. What do you believe about proper testing and timing for women’s hormones? Do you have your own lab or are we going to do something like a Dutch test? Like I ask those questions in advance because I don’t want to waste my time, right?

[00:35:16] Jenny Swisher: So I teach all of that in my SYNC digital course for anybody interested in that, but I just think it’s so important to know that you being your own best advocate and having a certain level of, Your own, like knowledge of your own body. I call it hormone literacy is just levels up your experience and helps you get through that journey quicker.

[00:35:32] Jenny Swisher: You know, like I spent days upon days in doctor’s offices looking for my magical doctor that was going to be like. Oh, you know, the paint that you used in the bedroom. That’s the cause of the migraines, you know, or whatever. You don’t find that person. You have to become that person. You have to be the person who’s like, Hey, could this be it?

[00:35:50] Jenny Swisher: Right? Like, could this be it? Could this be it? And ask, ask those questions. So I love that. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Final tips for my listeners, as far as when it comes to seed cycling, hormone balance, all the things that you’ve talked about just based on your own journey. What things for you have stood out as being the most impactful for your hormone health and share us all the details.

[00:36:11] Kate Morton: Yeah. So number one, listen to your body. Like if you feel off, even if you think like you’re quote unquote being dramatic, you’re not. Go test, go figure out what’s going on. Number one, test don’t guess because I could have guessed all day long on any of these issues and that’s what I was doing and I was just ending up getting sicker and sicker.

[00:36:33] Kate Morton: Two, sleep and stress are the foundations of hormone health because we have to address, like have good stress coping mechanisms, whatever that looks like for you and good sleep because that’s when we’re able to optimally even be able to refresh our hormones in our bodies. Three, sleep. Again, with nutrition, it is customized to you.

[00:36:59] Kate Morton: It is all about you and there is no one size fits all, but there are a few things you can look at like blood sugar balance, like we talked about getting enough protein, fat, and fiber in your diet, really important staying hydrated. All of those basic things are not sexy, but they’re real and they work.

[00:37:18] Kate Morton: And then from there. Really look into cycle thinking, food and exercise. I think that for me, it’s the last, it was the last step for me because I needed to get all of that other stuff under control. And then I could think about those other things you might intuitively be doing it. So maybe if you just listen, like.

[00:37:37] Kate Morton: I love avocados in the first half of my cycle. I really don’t like them at all in the second half. And then I come to find out that that’s normal or like, that’s what, when you’re supposed to be eating them. I don’t want to go run a half marathon the week before my period. I want to do yoga and Pilates.

[00:37:51] Kate Morton: Turns out that’s That’s exactly what I should be doing. So listening and then honestly, seed cycling really is incredible. And I did it first before I even had a seed cycling company. I just fell so in love with it and it’s so easy and it’s relatively affordable and it’s something you can implement now without having to really overhaul everything.

[00:38:11] Kate Morton: I do think it’s really worth the time and the three months it takes for it to work to see if it will work for you.

[00:38:19] Jenny Swisher: Yes. So good. So good. I wanted to, that reminded me of something I wanted to say earlier when you were talking about exercising and all that kind of stuff. This is something that I see often.

[00:38:28] Jenny Swisher: I think that women get so accustomed to our unfortunate societal norms of, I know for me, I’m in the world of home fitness, right? So I’m in the world of women who follow a calendar, right? Like here’s a program 60 days, 90 days, like check all the boxes, do all the things. We get so acclimated to what I call a man’s calendar.

[00:38:48] Jenny Swisher: And we don’t pay attention to our own. So what I’m finding in leading women through cycle syncing and teaching them about their hormones and their menstrual cycles, I’m finding that most women already have that intuition, exactly like what you just said. They know that they don’t really feel like doing a HIIT or Tabata workout on their period, right?

[00:39:04] Jenny Swisher: Like they don’t really feel like They want to, you know, go balls to the wall like in the first two days of their cycle, right? But then they do start feeling stronger in their follicular phase and they do want to lift heavier stuff. So we do have intuition that sometimes gets ignored. We live, I like to say, we are infradian beings.

[00:39:23] Jenny Swisher: That live in a circadian world. And sometimes we, we acclimate too much to, like I said, a man’s calendar or the nine to five, as opposed to saying, well, what is my body telling me? Right. Every time I get a message from a woman that says, Hey, so the calendar says, I’m supposed to do this today, but I’m really feeling this.

[00:39:43] Jenny Swisher: You know, my goal for her is to say, do you realize what you just asked me? Like you’re asking me your intuition. You’re saying, you’re telling me that your intuition is off about what you’re supposed to do today. I’m telling you to listen to your body. More women need permission to rest. If you’re listening to this, I’m just telling you right now, you, if you’re my crowd, you’re probably a lot like me, right?

[00:40:03] Jenny Swisher: So you need permission to rest. Your body is trying to tell you something. So please listen to it. Please stay away from all the Zone 3 cardio training. You know, the magic is in the Zone 2. The magic is in the walking and the yoga and just the active nature of being. As opposed, and yes, we do need to lift heavy weights.

[00:40:22] Jenny Swisher: Yes, we do need to work on our mobility and our range of motion, like absolutely. But I find that too many women are on the elliptical every day or they’re doing the HIIT and Tabata classes four to five times a week and then they’re wondering why their hormones are out of balance. They’re wondering why their energy is off, right?

[00:40:37] Jenny Swisher: It could be that it’s, it’s to your own detriment, right? You’re not listening to the whispers of your body. Once again, Dr. Brown, my friend, she always says, if we can get quiet enough, We’ll hear what our body has to say. So I’ve loved this interview. I want you to tell people how they can find Funkit, how they can get their seeds sent to them, uh, as frequently as needed, tell us all the things.

[00:40:57] Jenny Swisher: I know you’re going to hook me up with a discount code, so I’ll make sure to link that up in the show notes for people. So please tell us where to find Funkit and you and all that stuff.

[00:41:05] Kate Morton: Yeah. So funk it, funk it, wellness. com. We’re funky at wellness on Pinterest. So all the things we’re going to get you guys a great discount code so that you can get, you know, a little extra off, which is always fun.

[00:41:18] Kate Morton: And then if you want to connect with me, my Instagram is called carbs, like a piece of bread and Kate. Um, I talk a lot about hormones on there and I’ve got a podcast called the period chats podcast. We don’t post quite as frequently. We’re taking a break right now, but we’ll be back in two weeks. And. You know, come find us there, ask us questions.

[00:41:37] Kate Morton: And we’re always happy to talk. Um, our whole team, you know, manages our DM. So we’re always happy to talk and chat and we just want everyone to have a great period and happy hormones. And I want everyone to feel their best. No one deserves to feel bad just because you have a menstrual cycle. Like we should all feel good.

[00:41:53] Kate Morton: So that’s my goal. And I’m happy to help you guys with that.

[00:41:56] Jenny Swisher: We align in so many ways. I say that my goal is to help women reach maximum energy and that’s what it’s all about. So much Kate for being on here. I’m so glad our paths have crossed. Um, I’ll make sure to link everything up in the show notes for everyone.

[00:42:08] Jenny Swisher: So you can simply swipe up and click all the links, but thank you so much. I’m so glad we met and we’ll talk again soon. Thank you. Hi guys.

[00:42:25] Jenny Swisher: Thanks for listening to this episode of the sync your life podcast. I hope you found value from today’s episode. If you did, please share it out to your friends or leave a review. Remember, your cycles are your superpower, and by aligning with them, you can live your life with all the energy you need to be a mom, wife, daughter, and friend to those you love.

[00:42:42] Jenny Swisher: Until next time!