Made For Living Well Alexa Schirm

Today, I interviewed Dr. Jolene Brighten, asking her all of your hormonal questions, including if you should take hormone replacement therapy, how to prepare for menopause, how to tell when you're in perimenopause, what blood sugar has to do with your hormones, and so much more. Listen to the podcast and check out Dr. Brighten's latest book, Is This Normal: Judgement-Free Straight Talk About Your Body.

Hormone replacement therapy is becoming increasingly common. The conversations are so familiar it feels like if you're not on hormone replacement therapy, you might be doing something wrong.

It's the same for all other hormones. Everywhere you look, someone else is telling you they're a problem, making you assume you have a problem, even if you don't. 

I'd even argue that hormones are one of the most wrongfully villainized body processes today. But that's a story for another day. The reality is that we encounter a lot of chatter about hormones. Nearly all of it is negative, making you believe that you probably have some hormonal problem, even if you don't. 

I know all too well it's easy to fall into this predicament. Not long ago, I found myself questioning if my hormones were the problem and perhaps I needed some form of external therapy to fix it. 

Listen to today's episode to learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/331.
 
Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school
 
Don't forget to track where your energy level using:
This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output.
This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate.

Take things to the next level:

Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here.

Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple.

Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

Hormones are the conversation everywhere right now. Honestly, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing you probably have a hormonal problem just because it sounds like everyone does. But the common causes of hormone imbalance are not what you think.
Just the other day, I was on Instagram, and ten posts in a row made me think my hormones were out of whack. How must someone who doesn’t study nutrition feel if I’m overwhelmed by the fear-inducing information?
When it comes to hormones, there are many thoughts, ideas, and modes of healing. But I want to show you that most hormonal issues are actually a deeper issue that stems from your nervous system response.
Hormonal problems are very real and need attention. It’s good to get them measured once in a while. But I think we need to look harder at how we heal them because it rarely has to do with our hormones.
On this podcast, I've continually made clear that hormones are messenger molecules. They don’t write the message your actions take but only ship it. This proves that the problem is rarely with your hormones, but what message is your body sending that requires a different flow of hormones, and why?
In this podcast, you will learn how your hormones function and the control that powers them. I also share the three most common root causes of hormone imbalance—you might be surprised to hear what they are. 
Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/330.
 
Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school
 
Don't forget to track where your energy level using:
This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output.
This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate.

Take things to the next level:

Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here.

Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple.

Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

I was sitting in an old lecture hall, daydreaming about health. As my professor scribbled on the whiteboard different caloric equations, I couldn’t help but question if there was something more my education had failed to teach me. 
I couldn’t understand the idea that health, or at least weight, could be summed up into basic equations. There had to be more. I just couldn’t put a finger on what it was. 
As I sat through those lectures, my questions ran deeper, but my understanding was slim. I had come here to find the answers to why so many people all over the world, especially those I loved, still struggled with their health no matter how many times they attempted the ‘perfect equation.’
I can’t say I ever found it in my college education, but I am grateful for the path that led me to look deeper. The path led me to understand, not only for myself but for a world of people, that health is not about what you do. It’s about what you perceive about what you eat. 
 
Learn more: https://thelivingwell.com/329.
 
Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school
 
Don't forget to track where your energy level using:
This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output.
This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate.

Take things to the next level:

Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here.

Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple.

Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

I know a thing or two about stress. No matter how much I hate it, or at least hate to admit it, I find a lot of comfort in being stressed. Somewhere along the path, I attached the idea that stress is a measurement of productivity keeping me stuck in the stress response.

If I wasn't stressed, was I being lazy?

Learn more about this and how to get out of this response in today's podcast.
 
Learn More: https://thelivingwell.com/328
Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school
 
Don't forget to track where your energy level using:
This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output.
This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate.

Take things to the next level:

Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here.

Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple.

Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

There's a lot of chatter in the health space about seed oils, which has opened up all kinds of room for confusion. But today, I want to clarify the answer to the question: Are seed oils bad for you?
Not to throw shade at another food. We all know we can't possibly risk losing one more staple in our diet and feel okay about it. We've shamed sugar, potatoes, carbs, and even fats. Fats were the first food on the chopping block as the health industry began exploding in the early 80s.
It was the same then and the same now. Researchers were trying to identify the cause of our rising health problems, which seem to grow exponentially every year. The study responsible for the correlation made between fat consumption and rising disease has since been debunked.
But that study opened the door to a fear of food we've repeated over the following decades. The food industry willingly and quickly picked up on this fear, leaving you turning to their "healthier" options like factory-made butter known as margarine.
Ironically, the same fats we once thought were the vain of our existence we now understand as critical to survival.
But the part that leaves me most upset and you most confused is that we've misunderstood how our body responds to fats. We've neglected to understand the role of certain fats inside the body, which is the only way to identify what is good or bad for you.
While this is a personal question, like all concepts in the health space, in this podcast, I provide an overarching framework on if and how to consume seed oils.
Learn More: https://thelivingwell.com/327
Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school
 
Don't forget to track where your energy level using:
This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output.
This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate.

Take things to the next level:

Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here.

Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple.

Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.

The rain was pounding on my window to the same degree that tears were streaming down my face. I had just left a counseling session talking through my sense of self-identity.

I was desperate to uncover who God made me.

The problem was I had spent most of my life trying to be something others would respect. I wanted to be something that others would need. You could say it's part of being an , but more likely, it's birthed out of the broken places in me. I had picked up the desire to be needed.

The issue was that I had spent most of my life striving to earn others' respect. I aimed to become someone others would rely on. You could attribute it to being an enneagram two, but it's more likely rooted in my own brokenness. I adopted the longing to be needed.

Out of this, my identity became a conglomeration of many different things that masked who I was more than it helped me live true to who God made me. From there, I created my own form of identity crisis.

I struggled to understand myself and my purpose, creating this gaping wound that seemed to fester in all areas of my life. In many cases, leaving me feeling worthless while also falling victim to anything promising to help me 'become.'

There is a lot of chatter in the world about self-identity. It's the theme of the self-help industry that has taken over bookshelves worldwide.

I don't disagree; we need to understand ourselves (to have a solid self-identity) to live our best selves. But it's not so much about understanding who you are but whose you are.

It could be the word 'self' in self-identity that throws us for a loop, leaving us chasing what it was never intended to be. But your self-identity is less about amplifying yourself and more about your connection to something greater. It's recognizing your place not as an independent being but interconnected with God.

Your self-identity is your sense of self, not your created self but your God-created being. Understanding this changes things because when you change your self-identity, you change how your body responds to all of your life. That includes the food that you eat.


Learn More: https://thelivingwell.com/326
Listen To The Rest Of The Health School Episodes: https://thelivingwell.com/health-school
 
Don't forget to track where your energy level using:
This FREE energy quiz to determine your metabolic output.
This FREE download to track your body temperature and pulse rate.

Take things to the next level:

Get health advice that works delivered straight to your inbox. The only place guaranteed to make you healthier and happier. Join The Weekly Fill here.

Ready to go deeper and take back your health? Learn how to nourish yourself in a way that is personal to you while also helping you to fully embrace all of you. Take back your hormones, get more energy, and learn how to thrive inside Health Made Simple.

Follow my day-to-day life plus mini tidbits of health encouragement on Instagram.