ATHE_Transcript_Ep 434_Kate Vazquez
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Welcome. And thanks so much for joining me. This is ask the health expert here. I put the power of health in your hands and give you access to the top. People in health and wellness. In each episode, I share safe ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut detox and lots more.
So if you want to get healthy and get off the dieting for life merry-go-round, I’ll give you strategies that will help you look and feel better. Fast,
hot flashes, mood swings, PMs, cramps, headaches, weight gain. The list goes on and on. And if you’re struggling with any of these, it could be estrogen dominance. And I have the perfect person to walk us through this so that you can figure out if this is you and start your healing [00:01:00] journey. So let me tell you a little bit about our guest today.
Her name is Kate Vazquez she’s a functional medicine physician assistant and the founder of radiant health. Plus an award-winning author of the book. Estrogen is. I guess I have to say, I was like, how do I spell out B star TCH? You got me anyway. She is all about helping high-performance women reclaim their health because as you’ll learn in this interview busy women, are the women most likely to have this situation going on?
I really actually don’t know any women who aren’t busy, so I guess it’s all women. But you know, if you’re out there pushing it, driving it, getting stuff done, then you will definitely want to be listening in here. Learn about. Radiant method and her break the cycle bootcamp. She will tell her personal story that got her into this, and then walk you through how you can identify this and then what you can do about it, because no reason telling you about something going on, if we can’t figure out fix.
Right. And she [00:02:00] has done just that. Also she’s got a quiz. That you can take to help identify estrogen dominance, and you can do that quiz at jjvirgin.com/EDquiz. The ed for estrogen dominance, not for the other ed. All right, I’ll be right back with our guest.
Welcome Kate Vasquez. Good to have you here.
Kate Vazquez: Hi JJ. It is a pleasure and honor to be here today.
JJ Virgin: Well, this is an important topic and I’m looking forward to just digging into estrogen dominance and what it is and why it matters and what you can do about it. But I always like to start with, like, what got you into this?
So how did you get into this subject?
Kate Vazquez: Yeah, absolutely great, great question. I was practicing, I’m a physician assistant and practicing as a PA in Western medical [00:03:00] world as I was in urgent care and ER cardiology. And of course I get got into it to help people, but I realized after a period of time, I really wasn’t helping people, especially with.
Things. You know they’re coming to see me all the time, a lot of the same people over and over again for the same issues. And they’re like, why am I not getting better? You know? And I didn’t have the answers for them. And I couldn’t explain why I’m just like, I’m in urgent care. I’m here to make you just feel better in the moment.
You know? And so I came across Dr. Hyman one day and he was talking about functional medicine and how it’s medicine of why, and all the systems are integrated. And I was just so excited to hear this because. Believed in, you know, eating the right foods and exercising, you know, lifestyle, nutrition to be integrated with health, but we didn’t have the opportunity to really apply that in the Western world, Western,
JJ Virgin: especially in urgent care.
I would imagine let’s talk about your lifestyle.
Kate Vazquez: We’re seeing like, [00:04:00] I mean in Florida, it’s seasonal. So like, in the summer we’re seeing like 20 people a day, which is still a lot of people. But then in high season it was like anywhere from like 80 to a hundred people a day. So yeah, you definitely didn’t have the time to do that, but I also didn’t like primary care either just like the constant follow-ups putting people on medications that wasn’t my jam either.
So, but I realized the importance of it. And with functional medicine, I realized I finally get the opportunity to do that, to really dive in deeper, to look at a person’s lifestyle. What they’re eating, how they’re sleeping. Are they adapting to stress? Cause that’s a big, big thing that a lot of people.
Are struggling with is not being especially
JJ Virgin: now. Oh my gosh. Like last two years really taught us about stress.
Kate Vazquez: It really, really has. And that’s why it’s more important than ever, like when we are in these situations that are out of. Control, like, how are we going to show up in those moments? Because the stress really negatively impacts our body.
So I at the time was also having [00:05:00] my own health issues, which I never thought were like a big deal. Cause I still functioned. And you know, I kind of brushed it to the side of, you know, also have high pain tolerance. So I just kept going, kept pushing through. But I had migraines since I was a child and I was the only one in my immediate family.
And then in puberty developed acne. So of course got put on birth control, which definitely helped. So that was a sign of hormonal. And then I started having a lot of anxiety, middle school, high school, you know, college, especially with all the peer pressure and everything. But but it was just so much more than that.
And also just like constantly getting the grades to get into college. And then in college, I started having digestive issues. So bloating, constipation, and of course in the Western medical world, we see everything as separate. But with functional medicine, I realized like, wow, all these things were happening because of a lot of the same things.
Like I had issues in my gut, which was contributing to a lot of the symptoms that I was having. My hormones weren’t balanced. So I started working on healing, my gut, I had high cortisol levels cause I’m type a personality, perfectionist, you know? And had so much [00:06:00] stress especially going through school.
That for the first time I learned how to actually adapt because no one taught me how, you know, it was like I was even put on Prozac during PA school to help manage the stress and anxiety, which obviously didn’t help. The stress was still there. But it numbed me and numbed my emotions, like I didn’t feel emotions and I did not like that.
So I got myself off of a Prozac because I didn’t want to be on it. Long-term it wasn’t, you know, obviously it was putting a bandaid which wasn’t really helping. And so I started diving into yoga and learning about deep breathing and meditation, which really helped calm my body down and help support my adrenals.
But I was still on birth control. I was on birth control for over 15 years. Yeah. So I was like, okay, I’m getting ready to come off the birth control. Cause I started learning about the long-term impacts and and also another reason too, like my husband and I, we, we wanted to make sure my body was in a good place to have kids.
We’re not still not ready to have kids yet, but seeing a lot of family, friends and coworkers coming off the pill, they were having miscarriages [00:07:00] right after, you know, they would get pregnant and miscarry. And that scared me. And I’m like, what is going on? What is happening? Why is this, you know, happening in their bodies?
And I wanted to make sure I prevented that. So I read Dr. Jolene Brighton’s book beyond the pill. And healed my gut got on the nutrients supported my adrenals. But when I came off the birth control, My body went crazy. I actually had irregular cycles for the first time in my life. I had breast tenderness, really bad menstrual cramps, and even gained a little bit of weight in my butt, hips and thighs, and like, whoa, what is going on my body?
Like this has never happened before. And I thought I was ready. I was eating the right foods and I was exercising. I had worked on my gut. And so I finally looked at my hormones for the first time. And I discovered my progesterone levels were really, really low from being suppressed for a long time. And then I needed to support the metabolism
of estrogen through my liver. Cause I had a couple of genes too, that I needed to support. So learning this information, I realized I started doing a lot of research and got myself on the right supplements to [00:08:00] really support my hormones. And it took a few months, but I finally was able to get rid of all those symptoms.
And then I started seeing the common same things happen and the common patterns and my clients that I was seeing and realized, wow, this is a big problem. Like this is more common than I realize, and it’s
JJ Virgin: never talked about, you know, I mean, you know, now that we do have some books out there on it, but for the most part.
You have to search for it.
Kate Vazquez: Yes. You really do. You have to search for it. And I realized about 80 to 90% of women have this problem. And a lot of the symptoms they’re having is brushed off as normal. Like this is just normal. This is part of like being a woman and just kind of like suck it up and deal with it.
And, oh, it’s really bad here, some medications, but I want women to realize like, there’s there’s so much more than that. There’s actually something going on that’s causing these symptoms and we can actually do something about it. So you don’t have to keep suffering every single month.
JJ Virgin: Right. And that, you know, you look at this and.
All of [00:09:00] these things are just your body’s way to communicate to you. This idea that, you know, headaches are normal or gas and bloating is normal or constipation is normal. It’s like that always drives me nuts. Cause you know, hot flashes, mood swings, carried cramps. It’s like, hello, not normal, not I had a nutrition mentor early on who was like,
it is not normal to get sick. Cause I would get like really sick every January, end of January, early February, every year. And I was like, oh, it’s just the weather or whatever. No, it was cause January when you’re a weight loss person, January is crazy. Exactly. And I went, oh no, I just, I just overstress myself and don’t sleep in January.
Then I get sick. So, you know, we got to look at these things and it’s just amazing too, I mean the birth control pill drives me crazy in the first place, but then to not. Have a process to take someone off of it and to look at what you need to look at [00:10:00] afterwards is crazy. Okay. So this is, so it’s awesome that you went through this because now you can help people with it.
So that’s fantastic. And so let’s talk through then what estrogen dominance is because, you know, I had one doctor tell me once that, you know, well, women are estrogen dominant. That it’s what means to be. I think that’s not what estrogen dominance means. It means more than what you should have.
Obviously men are testosterone dominant and women would be estrogen dominant, but not overly, so, right, right.
Kate Vazquez: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. When you hear estrogen dominant, in fact Lauren Powers, I was talking to her about this and she’s like, yeah, my doctor said I was estrogen dominant. And she’s like, I thought that was a good thing.
Cause I was a high-performing female, you know, and I was like, no, then she realized she’s like, yeah, I realized that wasn’t so good. And just because yeah, the terms says estrogen dominance, yes. Women obviously have more estrogen than men. What it really, really means is that [00:11:00] there’s an imbalance in the ratio of estrogen and progesterone in our body.
Because if we really look at our menstrual cycle and really understand what’s happening, our hormones are fluctuating throughout the cycle. And I’m going to just use this example, like an average 28 day cycle, which not a lot of women actually have a 28 day cycle. Most are like 26 days or 30 days. And that’s normal too.
So if women are having like a regular period, every single month, their hormones are going to be really, really low when they have their period, which starts the menstrual cycle. That’s also the follicular phase. Then as after the menstrual cycle ends, the. In the late follicular phase, estrogen starts increasing, and then we also have an increase in testosterone.
And then once we hit ovulation, those hormones decline, and then during the luteal phase, we get a bump in progesterone, but we also get a little bump of estrogen during that time as well. So when there’s that imbalance, I’m talking specifically during the luteal phase, when we should have a normal increase of progesterone and a nice little [00:12:00] balance of estrogen.
Because we need progesterone to balance out estrogen since we always have estrogen in the body. But the problem is, is when there’s a lot more estrogen or there’s not enough progesterone. And I discovered that there was three different patterns of estrogen dominance. And so that’s really what that means.
It’s just this imbalance. Estrogen and progesterone where yes estrogen ends up becoming the dominating hormone. Not just because we’re women. there are
JJ Virgin: three different types. Huh? I did. Yes. What are the three
Kate Vazquez: different types? Yes. So the first type is normal progesterone levels. So, so for example, when you’re getting blood work with your doctor and they check progesterone during the luteal phase, I always recommend to check during a specific time so we can get progesterone at its peak.
It should be anywhere from 15 to 25. So. With your, within that range, progesterone’s normal. But then estrogen is on the high side and there’s not really like an optimal range of estrogen, but when I would see estrogen at like 200, 300 during the luteal phase, I’m like, that’s a lot of estrogen. [00:13:00] It should be about 100, 150.
Like there shouldn’t be a lot of estrogen during that time. So that was the first pattern I would see. The second pattern was low progesterone levels. So if for example, progesterone was 10 or eight and normal levels of progesterone or normal levels of estrogen. So the estrogen was in the hundred, but progesterone was eight or 10.
That was the second sign. And then the third type is low progesterone with high estrogen. And so those were the three different types that I would see. The first type was like the less common, the most common was the third type, the low progesterone and a lot of estrogen that I would commonly see. And based on that, I knew how I could best support women because not all women need progesterone because you know, if you have symptoms of estrogen, dominance, hormone imbalance, sometimes women are put on progesterone cream without getting their progesterone tested.
And I’m like, well, do you really need the progesterone? Maybe not.
JJ Virgin: I got to tell you a very funny story about this early on. This was. About 24 years ago. And when I was living in Palm desert, we had a [00:14:00] pharmacist there and a doctor there, and the doctor who’s not around anymore. I mean, got put out of business, was putting everyone, men and women who came in on progesterone.
And thyroid his goal was to get your thyroid TSH as close to zero as possible. And you put on everyone on steady state progesterone, everyone. And and so did the pharmacist, they thought progesterone was this miracle thing. And I’m one of those people when I got pregnant, like my weight shoots up in a minute and I sit and I cry.
Like I I’ve cried maybe five times in my life. They were all when I was pregnant, I’ll watch like a TV, commercial and cry and want chocolate chip cookies. Like it just so, so I kind of went, oh, okay. Well, I’ll try this. I gained 12 pounds in a month. I am crying at the drop of a hat. Like I just, you know, felt absolutely horrible.
You know, it was like, oh, this will clear your skin up. I’m like my skin’s breaking [00:15:00] out. I’m craving cookies, I’m crying. And so I just say that as a cautionary tale, because I see progesterone over the. Oh, yeah. And sold on these creams until, and like, oh, go ahead and use it. And it’s like, well, the only time where we’ve got like high progesterone levels is when you’re pregnant.
So, you know, so this is, this is one of those things where. You want to work with someone? If your hormones are out of balance, obviously you can do some of the diet and lifestyle stuff, but you know, for the fine tuning, you know, it really helps to have someone who knows what they’re doing on, on the team with you, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Kate Vazquez: Yeah. And it’s so crazy. I see women in their thirties get put on progesterone and I’m like, wait, why don’t we look at, why is progesterone low in the first place? Do you have the nutrients to produce it? Are you under a lot of stress? Cause when our bodies are under stress, we’re taking away from the production of our sex hormones.
So I’m like can we like support it naturally first. And then if it still doesn’t come up [00:16:00] after everything we do then resort to the cream. And obviously as women go through menopause, the first hormone to decline is progesterone. So yes, when women start going through menopause, they might actually need the progesterone, but women that are earlier still cycling, I’m like, oh no, let’s, let’s see if we can figure this out for support it naturally and use it as a last resort.
JJ Virgin: Well, what are some of the signs that, you know, you’ve talked about the different types of estrogen dominance, but what are some of the things that people would be feeling that could lead them to go? This might be the issue.
Kate Vazquez: Oh yeah. There’s five common symptoms that I typically see with estrogen dominance.
And the first one is irregular periods, which is what happened to me when I came off the birth control. So like I mentioned, like normal, regular. Cycles should be every month. So anywhere from like 24 to 32 days, and it can vary a day or two, but if the cycle is very like more than five, seven days, and they’re very irregular or happening, like every two months, you know, so say one cycle is like 30 days, the next one’s 36 days, the next one’s like 26.
And you know, it’s [00:17:00] just all over the place. That’s definitely not normal. And that’s because a lot of times we have that estrogen in our body, but we’re not having progesterone peaking during the luteal phase. So that can really throw off when we start our period and ovulation as well. Sometimes it can delay ovulation.
So that’s what causes that irregular cycle. The second symptom is heavy periods because estrogen really thickens the endometrial lining, which is that inner lining of our uterus. And when we have a lot of estrogen in our system, it causes a really, really thick endometrial lining. So when we have our period, we have really, really.
Bleed. So on average, most women should be changing about six to eight, like tampons or pads, or if you’re using a cup maybe once or twice during the day, you know, but if women are soaking through their pads, their tampons, changing the cup multiple times through in the day, especially the first few days, that’s not.
Normal, like really heavy periods are not normal. Like it’s normal to experience a heavier flow the first couple of days and then tapers off, but you shouldn’t be soaking through your [00:18:00] tampons, your pads. So that is the second sign of estrogen dominance, and also clots too. If you notice clots, that’s also not.
The third symptom is those PMs symptoms like you were explaining can happen with low or high progesterone, but also, you know, the, the mood swings, the insomnia, the headaches, usually from low progesterone levels. And then also the really bad menstrual cramps because when we. Are about to have our period.
Our body will release these chemicals called prostoglandins, which increase inflammation, but it’s important to help the uterus contract so we can get rid of that endometrial lining and have our period. And what happens is these estrogens like a lot in the system. Cause an increase of more prostoglandins.
So that’s why a lot of the women will experience these really severe debilitating menstrual cramps to the point where they’re curled up. They can’t even get out of bed. They can’t get out and do things. They have to cancel work. Because it’s, it’s that bad. So that is the third symptom. The fourth one is the breast tenderness, which I also experienced too, because estrogen, it will cause the breast tissue to [00:19:00] swell.
So there’s a lot in the system. It’s not being balanced out with the progesterone. It will cause the breast tissue to swell. And so, so tender to the touch, like you can’t even wear a bra and that’s not normal either. So the breast tenderness and then the fifth symptom is weight gain, especially in the butt hips and thighs, because estrogen, when we go through puberty helps give us.
But when women are starting to gain more weight and its particularly going into the butt hips and thighs, that’s probably like the most telltale sign of estrogen dominance. And it’s so interesting. Cause when you learn about the different weight distributions, we can kind of figure out and pinpoint like if it’s in the abdomen, it’s like insulin was resistance or high cortisol, the butt hips and thighs is estrogen dominance.
If it’s all over, I feel like it’s like a combination of all the three. So so yeah, so those are the top five telltale signs of estrogen dominance. I usually say if you have two or three of those symptoms, there’s definitely a likely chance that you have it. But it can also come in different different symptoms as well.
Like fatigue, brain fog, low libido, acne [00:20:00] infertility, even like dark spots on the skin called melasma. Those are also some other signs of estrogen dominance.
JJ Virgin: Now you mentioned insulin cortisol, thyroid. Well, you mentioned insulin and cortisol when we’re talking weight gain and yeah, I remember I remember the old apple and pear that no one talks about anymore.
It’s like, it was like that in the little commercial that was like, can you pinch an inch? And I’m like, you know, none of this stuff is rounding more, but it was that, you know, women were supposed to be pear shaped and men were supposed to be apple-shaped except now that’s completely blown out the window.
I think a lot of it because of what’s going on. With cortisol and insulin. So how do insulin and cortisol and thyroid hormones play a role in all of this? Oh yeah,
Kate Vazquez: absolutely. Great, great, great question. So I talked about briefly, especially, I want to start with the cortisol. When our bodies are in constant stress, we are activating our sympathetic nervous system, which is that fight or flight mode.
And if you think about like many, many years ago, our ancestors. Chronic sympathetic state. They’re [00:21:00] primarily in the parasympathetic state, which is our rest and digest. But they only went into that sympathetic state when they were in danger. In our modern world, everything is perceived as danger as a threat because of all of our demands and constantly on the go.
And yeah, when I think about the time when I came off birth control, I was working at the urgent care under a lot of stress while starting my practice at the same time, it was also in a very negative environment because it became corporate. And even though I loved the people I was working with, it was impacting them a lot of negativity.
And so when you’re in that negative toxic environment, under a lot of stress. It creates a lot of stress in your body. So cortisol goes up and cortisol and our sex hormones are all made from cholesterol. So when our body is under stress, it’s thinking survival and is producing more cortisol. It’s not thinking.
Reproduction, which is what happens when our bodies are relaxed. And so of course, it’s going to take away from that progesterone, which is what we need to produce in order to get pregnant which is happening every single month, whether we [00:22:00] want it or not. And so that is the main factor, how this contributes to estrogen dominance.
Because again, as I mentioned, those two different types, when we have lower progesterone levels and either normal or high estrogen is going to create that estrogen dominance effect. And then as far as the insulin. A lot of there’s a lot of studies out there showing that when estrogen declines, it increases insulin resistance.
But I also think there’s a link between estrogen dominance and insulin resistance, which there’s not a lot of studies out there, but I hope like the research is going to dive into this. Cause if you think about it; our fat cells produce estrogen. So when women start gaining weight especially when they have hormonal disorders, like PCOS, PCOS is actually the best example because it’s a hormonal metabolic disorder.
So they have. Symptoms of insulin resistance with the weight gain and, you know assists on their ovaries. They’re developing the hair on their chin, but they also not only have high androgens and insulin resistance, but they also have high estrogen levels. So when [00:23:00] women are gaining weight that’s going to produce more estrogen.
They’re going to become more insulin resistant and that’s going to affect our glucose and our hormones. So that’s the role with insulin and estrogen dominance. And then as far as the thyroid. The. When it comes to the thyroid, if there’s a lot of estrogen in the system, what happens is it stimulates a protein called thyroid thyroid globulin, binding protein, TBG.
And the significance of this is this protein actually binds up our free thyroid hormones, T4. Three. It actually loves T4 over T3, but when that happens, we actually have less thyroid hormone that’s available and a lot of women can have hypothyroid symptoms. So, you know, I’ve had some clients coming to me with thyroid issues.
And of course my goal is first to figure out what’s going on. Let’s look at the gut. Let’s look at stress. Also. Let’s look at our hormones and see what’s going on there because there’s a lot of. Women with Hashimoto’s that are put on thyroid medication, but they’ve never had their hormones checked. And, and a lot of the time their estrogen is imbalanced.
[00:24:00] We need to support the metabolism. There’s too much in their body. And it’s producing this protein, which is binding up their thyroid hormone. So there is the link there, and of course, obviously hypothyroidism low thyroid hormones is going to contribute to the weight gain.
JJ Virgin: Well, I think the important thing there is like, you don’t just pull a hormone out in a vacuum and, and fix that because it’s not, it’s not operating by itself.
So I want to get into, you know, how you treat it. What are some of the different things you can do to, to rebalance, but we’re going to take a quick break. So hang with me.
So looking at all of this, the first thing that I think of in all of this is, you know, I always look at women and I go, all right, we have. So many jobs, like when you think about it, I remember gosh, years ago I was dating this guy and you know, here I’m, I’m a single mom. I’m the sole financial support for my.[00:25:00]
They are young. So I’m working in between like taking them places, doing all my work, you know, doing all the stuff you do as a mom. So getting up in the morning, packing their lunches, right. Getting them to school, going and working in between something comes up with them running over to school. You finally get home, you make dinner, you get their homework done.
And then you’ve got to set the things up for the next day in walks boyfriend. And he comes in and he goes, wow, I’m tired. Gosh, are you tired? I’m so tired and flops on the couch. Turns on the TV. Meanwhile, I’m unloading the dishwasher. He goes, I help you, but I don’t know where anything goes. So, and I just remember thinking.
Yes, actually, I am tired. I’m like, I’m beyond tired. Like I don’t even tired would be a place I’d like to be right now. Like that would be a relief if I could be tired. Cause I’m like exhausted. [00:26:00] Cause you’re like, okay, I’m running the household, I’m working, I’m running a business. I am managing my kids. I’m like, and you’re like going, you come home and your homes and other job.
And then you’re, you know, it’s like, Endless. And you look at that and go, you know, how many women have that life. And with that, You know, unless you are really focused on putting things in place to help you with managing your stress and getting as much help as you possibly can. One of the things I finally did was I looked and I go, you know what?
Like I did not sign up to be superwoman. I did not, I’m not doing it. I’m not going to do it. I was like, forget it. I’m getting help. I’m calling the ball. And I think it’s really important. Ya know, we’re going to talk now about what you can do to help rebalance estrogen. But I just think about, and I think if you were the former me back then fighting to [00:27:00] survive, basically fighting to be able to have enough to pay, you know, to, to, support my kids.
Like, you know, I mean, you can’t do this without addressing that. So. Let’s talk. So I’m guessing this is a pretty big problem because I think I’m probably not the only person that was going through that. Not at all.
Kate Vazquez: I think a lot of us and women too, we tend to be, we are, the martyrs were always. You know, taking care of everybody, but ourselves, and we’ve been, this has happened for many, many years.
And, and even now that women that have entered the workforce, we’re still doing that. All
JJ Virgin: we did was not another thing. Right. Exactly. You didn’t transfer anything. I was like, well, that, like, I’m still the one for the kids’ birthday parties and their doctor’s appointments, you know? Now I’m just doing another thing on top of that.
So two full time jobs. No,
Kate Vazquez: no. We have so many issues because we just, we never really, yeah. Like you said, ask for the help and [00:28:00] say, you know, lay the boundaries down, ask for help and learn to like adapt to the stress.
JJ Virgin: Yeah. So I’m going to make a bold request to everybody listening, like, hang up your Cape, hang up your Cape.
We don’t need to be super women and your self care. I know you hear it all the time sounds trite, but honestly you cannot take care of your family if you don’t take care of yourself. So let’s with that dig into what are some ways you can rebalance estrogen. And I know we’re going to have a quiz too. So if you’ve been listening to this going, gosh, is this me?
I’m hearing these things. I think it is. We will have a quiz that you’ll be able to. And it’s going to be at jjvirgin.com/EDquiz. And that’s for estrogen dominance. This is not for your husband ED quiz. JJvirgin.com/edquiz. So let’s get into some of the ways you can rebalance estrogen.
Kate Vazquez: Yeah. Yeah. I love love love this topic because, yeah, when I came off the birth control, it was like, now what, what do I do? But even if women aren’t coming off for [00:29:00] birth control and you’re still having these symptoms, they can still do the same thing. So the first thing I did was seed cycling. Because I truly believe food is medicine and it was so simple, but it really helped to regulate my cycles improve the symptoms that I was having.
So that was part of what I did to really help support my estrogen and progesterone. So with seed cycling, what it is is, is basically grinding up two seeds every two weeks. So. 14 days I would grind up flax and pumpkin seeds, one tablespoon each, and I grind them up fresh every day. Because if you guys buy the pre-ground seeds, they’re rancid, they have been in the storage and in the heat, they don’t have the nutrients they have.
So that’s why I recommend go get a coffee grinder grind up these seeds every day, one tablespoon, flax, and pumpkin for the first 14 days. And then day 15 through 28. You’re going to do sesame and sunflower seeds, one tablespoon of each.
JJ Virgin: So why does
Kate Vazquez: this work? Yes. What it does is the flax and pumpkin seeds really help
support the [00:30:00] production and metabolism of estrogen during your follicular phase, and then Sesame and sunflower support the production of progesterone and continue to support metabolism of estrogen during the second phase, the luteal phase of your menstrual cycle.
So that is why it is so important to add in these seeds to really get these nutrients that are in them like magnesium and zinc, selenium to help with estrogen detoxification, and then the. To help with elimination of estrogen and then vitamin E for progesterone production as well. So that’s why these seeds are really, really important.
And it’s so simple to do, you know, alternate every two weeks for like three to six months. And then the second thing that
JJ Virgin: I recommend. So you don’t have to do it. Long-term it’s just getting you back into balance.
Kate Vazquez: Yeah. Great question. Yeah. So I usually recommend the first three to six months to get you back into balance to regulate everything.
And then if you want to keep doing it, you can, it doesn’t hurt because it’s food. But what I do is I periodically will seed cycle every now and [00:31:00] then, especially if say I did have like a really stressful month, like I’m in a launch or creating something. I will do the sea cycling just to really support my hormones.
So this is something you can go jump off and on, or if you want to continue doing. Some women continue to do it just because it’s really good nutrients. Anyway. So so yeah, the second thing that I recommend is also going back to food is to also support estrogen, detoxification, and elimination. And when I say this estrogen gets broken down in our liver first, there’s two different phases, phase one and phase two.
And it goes from its active form to inactive form. Once it’s inactive, then binds to something called bile, which our liver produces and then it goes to our intestines so it can get eliminated and that’s phase three. And so foods really helps support the detoxification metabolism of estrogen. So I love cruciferous vegetables, which is broccoli cauliflower, bok choy cabbage.
That’s going to really help support phase one and then leafy green. Oh, well, actually, before I go into leafy greens, the cruciferous [00:32:00] vegetables contain compounds called diindolylmethane, which is really, really powerful for that phase one metabolism. Then for phase two, the leafy greens contain B vitamins, which is also needed for estrogen metabolism.
During that second phase, and then also leafy greens and seeds, and lots of vegetables contain a lot of fiber, which is gonna help phase three of elimination through our intestines. Also I recommend fermented foods. So adding in like the kimchi and sauerkraut, coconut yogurt, anything that kombucha anything that’s fermented because it’s going to contain those healthy probiotics, get bugs to really help support our gut health.
Cause yeah, we didn’t dive into it, but gut health is so, so important for estrogen metabolism. The next thing is eliminate toxins because we have a lot of toxins in our environment. And it’s just so crazy when I was learning about all the products that I was using. The environmental working group actually said, women use on average.
Or use on average 12 products per day [00:33:00] and are exposed to 168 chemicals. I was like, whoa, that is a lot. And when I heard the statistic, I started like grabbing everything I was using and counting. I’m like, oh my goodness, I’m using over a hundred. Or I’m exposed to over a hundred ingredients. And so thankfully there’s the environmental working group.
They have the skin deep database, but my two favorite apps that I’d love to use is think dirty and Yuka, Y U K A. Because there’s a little scanner in there. So you can scan the products that you’re currently using to see how clean or dirty that product is. And then when you go to the store, scan those products in the store to find an alternative and the importance of these products.
Why you want to swap them out is because they contain chemicals called Xeno estrogens, which are basically foreign compounds that look like estrogen. So when we’re exposed, it’s going to attach to the estrogen receptor in our body. And it’s also going to cause a lot of the symptoms of estrogen dominance.
So you want to. Reduce the toxic burden that your, you know, from all the chemicals and products that you’re putting on your body and in your home. So [00:34:00] downloading those two apps were super helpful. And I also recommend swapping one out at a time. Cause it can get overwhelming once you realize like, oh my gosh, everything in my home was toxic.
Yeah.
JJ Virgin: Well just replace every time you go to a new thing, I just was interviewing our buddy Jen Stevens yesterday and she wrote cleanish. Yes. And that’s what it is. It’s about just kind of going through your house, your food, your skincare, your laundry, and just one by one, you know, just replacing things.
It’s just getting a new, finding the new thing. Yeah. So yeah, you don’t have to go insane. It’s kind of hard not
Kate Vazquez: to, but we already have enough stress. That is so, yeah, don’t add on too much stress, another layer, another stressor. And then the fourth thing, we touched upon it, but creating a self care routine that was so profound for me because.
In the past, I would wake up and then I would just start doing and knocking off things on my to-do list and run to work. Then I would come home, keep doing my to-do list and then go straight to bed. So it was just constantly go from [00:35:00] the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. But once I realized, like this was really contributing to the high cortisol in my body, the inflammation, the hormonal balance, I started creating a self care routine and.
I mean, I do it for like an hour and a half, two hours, but not everybody has that time, that luxury. Cause I don’t have kids yet, but for those that have, have kids even five to 10 minutes, you know, tell your spouse like take care of the kids. This is me time. And at least block off like 10. And you can do like yoga or meditation, deep breathing, some kind of activity.
That’s going to really help calm down your nervous system. Cause that’s going to be key. And I noticed like, even if I do just 10 minutes of self care, I show up so much different than when I don’t do it. And so that’s going to be so, so important. And if you can do it like in the middle of the day or right before you go to.
Even better, but even if you just start with just 10 minutes, every single morning, a self-care routine, that’s going to be very, very profound and helping support your cortisol, your adrenals [00:36:00] and your hormones. So, and
JJ Virgin: do it first thing, otherwise, you know what happens. Right? Exactly. You have to get up,
Kate Vazquez: even if you have to get up like 10 minutes earlier to do that before the kids get up it’s, it will be worth it.
I promise you that. And the fifth thing is working on the mindset too. Cause a lot of times when we have, I do believe like our thoughts affect our cells. And if we are constantly thinking negative thoughts about like our body and our health is also going to create more inflammation and dis ease, you know?
So working on my mindset was the biggest thing that I discovered the last, you know, like three, five years, and that has such a powerful, profound effect. And so. Starting with something like checking in with your thoughts, like, what are your thoughts that you have around your body and your health?
Cause if it’s like, oh, like I need to lose weight. I need to like, you know, I’m never going to feel better. Think about what that’s doing to your body instead. Like, I know I’m going to get better. I’m going to figure this out. You know, I feel [00:37:00] healthy. I feel confident, you know, making just little changes like that affirmations can be very, very powerful, but yeah, I decided.
And I realized like, because mindset is so huge and important and not a lot of practitioners actually touch upon this. I actually added mindset work into the program. So when someone’s working alongside me to be able to help them navigate through that and help them to create like a powerful identity around the health that they want to create because that’s going to be so, so important as.
JJ Virgin: So all of that stuff. Here’s the cool things about the things that you’re talking about. They help with everything. Yes,
Kate Vazquez: this is true,
JJ Virgin: right? They’re good for your heart. They’re good for your brain. Good. If you want to lose weight, you know, you’re good for more energy balancing your blood sugar. Like they’re just good.
It’s kind of one of those things that I love the difference between doing diet and lifestyle and supplements versus [00:38:00] medications, because the side effects of diet and lifestyle and supplements. Are always really good. Like you never hear well, you know, you think of those drug commercials and they, at the end, you know, may cause blurry vision, you may die, you know, it’s like, you never hear that from we’re gonna use some seeds.
Right. You know, it may give you a little bit more energy. You might be able to think straighter your joints may not
Kate Vazquez: hurt. You have less PMs. Actually. I had one client doing the seed cycling before I really like put her on a whole supplement plan and she started losing the weight. And that was just amazing.
like just, just adding in simple foods like this can make a profound difference. I’m not saying it’s going to always help everyone lose the weight or get rid of the PMs, but it can definitely really help reduce some of those symptoms and improve certain things that you’re experiencing.
JJ Virgin: Well, it just shows you like the, the line I always say is your body is not a bank account, it’s a chemistry lab.
And that is why we have to like, you know, I’ve seen it so many times for [00:39:00] now 30 years. Like you could be. Eating healthy and exercising, but if your hormones aren’t dialed in, you could be gaining weight and you’re like, what is going on? So you got to look at the whole picture and see which things are not working and then go through and fix the things that you can.
Starting with putting yourself first, right? Yes. All right. So what we’re going to do is make sure that you take the quiz and again, it’s the estrogen dominance quiz. So that’s ed quiz, JJvirgin.com/EDquiz. And thank you so much for just dropping so many value bombs here. It was just like a.
Kate Vazquez: Oh, yeah, absolutely. You are most most welcome, and there’s so, so much, but yeah, I mean, if you want to learn more, actually wrote a book about it. It’s called estrogen is a bitch. So definitely take the quiz, but if you, you know, get the result, like you’re likely estrogen dominant, that’s another step that you can take to learn more about.
You know, [00:40:00] what’s going on in the body. And I dive more into the steps as well. Different things that you can do includes meal plans. So that is also. Full of information for
JJ Virgin: you as well. Awesome. We will, we’ll put that on the quiz page as well, and I also mentioned that when I was doing my intro to you. So it’s all in there.
Make sure you grab that too, because again, all this stuff I know it was really fast. You’ll probably want to listen to it again, but you can grab the book and get walked through everything. So thank you again. I appreciate
Kate Vazquez: you. Yeah, you are most welcome. Thank you JJ.
JJ Virgin: Alright, those mood swings and cramps and all the rest of that. Those are going away, right? Not on my watch. I say so lots of great tips in this interview. And again, I’m going to recommend taking the quiz, JJvirgin.com/EDquiz and grabbing the estrogen is a bitch. So that you have all the tools right at your fingertips, [00:41:00] and I will see you next week.
Oh. And by the way, if you have not yet subscribed, make sure you do so you don’t miss a juicy moment.