LAST WEEK'S TAKEAWAY
“Optimize your hormones, and your weight, health, and mind will follow.”
In today's “PAUSE” blog, we will take a look at your hormones and see if you have fallen into The Hormone Abyss of Menopause, and if so, how far.
Recall once we gained the knowledge of how to optimize hormones from the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, we started treating menopausal women in our clinics.
I have since limited my practice to exclusively helping menopausal women and andropausal men climb out of the hormone abyss. We have helped tens of thousands of women and men look and feel awesome while in their "Pauses."
As I mentioned, I am a rope-maker. Four strands need to be intertwined to make this rope.
I call this rope The HOPE Rope. HOPE is an acronym for
Hormone Optimization,
Organic Menu,
Purification Protocols,
Enlightenment Coaching.
In this blog, I teach within The Hormone Strand.
I teach in snippets (small steps) because as I guided my wife out of the hormone abyss, she told me that small steps were much easier to take than big ones filled with way too much information. You know what they say about a happy wife.
STEP ONE
The Ovarian Hormones
Before we take the first step, you will need to have some understanding of the ovarian hormones.
There are three primary ovarian hormones.
Estradiol: The Feminine Hormone
It's the pretty hormone-making feminine features like a higher-pitched voice, pretty hair, and skin.
It's a fat-storing hormone making voluptuous features like breasts, hips, and feminine bellies.
It's the best anti-aging hormone we have. The more estradiol we have, the better we will look as we age. Look at Sophia Loren at eighty-six years old; she still has it going on. That’s estradiol.
Progesterone: The Calming Hormone
I call progesterone the Sixties hormone. It's all about peace, love, and flower power.
It is indirectly your fat-burning hormone. I say indirectly because it neutralizes estradiol's ability to store fat.
It is the sleep hormone. It puts you to sleep and keeps you asleep through the night.
Testosterone: The Masculine Hormone
Testosterone is the masculine hormone--causing hair growth where you least want hair to grow. It gives you a lower-pitched voice and masculine features.
It “IS” the fat-burning hormone that causes men and women to have six-pack abs. You can diagnose low testosterone levels by how much belly fat you have.
The more testosterone you have, the more sex drive you'll have, but also the drive to be successful and be first in line; think of men in pick-ups cutting you off to get to the next red light before you.
So...this is how the Ovarian Hormones work within a woman's cycle.
Your ovaries begin producing estradiol on the first day of your cycle, which is the first day you bleed. Your estradiol level increases and increases until about the fourteenth day, when it hits its mark, causing you to ovulate. After ovulation has occurred, estradiol production wains for the remainder of the cycle.
"Think of ovulation as a volcanic eruption. The egg is shot into your fallopian tube, and progesterone and testosterone spew out behind the egg like lava."
Progesterone prepares the uterus for conception by making the intrauterine walls thicker and sticky, preparing the uterine wall for the implantation of a fertilized egg. The sloughing off of this intrauterine wall when conception doesn’t occur causes menstruation.
Testosterone, well, God kind of set us up there because the one time a month a woman gets a shot of testosterone, which will increase her sex drive and decrease her inhibitions, kind of like tequila, is the one time a month an egg is floating around to be fertilized. We call testosterone the perpetrator of our species.
As we age, estradiol production decreases until one-day, estradiol doesn't hit its mark. When this happens, ovulation doesn't occur.
The dictionary defines menopause as not having a period for one year.
"I define menopause as not ovulating."
When a woman stops ovulating, her ovaries no longer produce progesterone and testosterone. She loses her calming and drive hormones. This causes a condition called Estrogen Dominance.
Being Estrogen Dominant may confuse you because most doctors and menopausal patients think a lack of estrogen causes the plethora of menopausal symptoms. You may even ask for prescription estrogen to relieve yourself of the hot flashes and night sweats.
“Adding estrogen to an estrogen-dominant woman will make her more Estrogen Dominant, causing even more weight gain, increase her odds of having cancer, and larger mood swings.”
But their hot flashes and night sweats will improve.
Estrogen levels do decrease with age. Scientists state that menopausal women produce approximately sixty percent of their pre-menopause level of estrogen.
But...these scientists also state that women may lose between eighty to one hundred percent of their progesterone and testosterone post-menopausal. Estradiol loses its dancing partners. Estradiol takes over.
The symptoms of Estrogen Dominance are
Weight Gain
Weight Loss Resistance
Sleeping Disorders
Hormonal Induced Anxiety
Hormonal Induced Depression
Loss of Interest in Being Intimate
Loss of Motivation to be Social
TAKEAWAY:
"The First Phase of Menopause is a condition called Estrogen Dominance. This condition is caused because estrogen levels have decreased enough not to spark ovulation. Once you stop ovulating, ovarian progesterone and testosterone production cease; therefore, you lose the hormones that govern calmness, fat-burning, sleep, and drives."
The first step you should take is to see if you have fallen into the hormone abyss of menopause and, if so, how far.
Take the menopause quiz below and count how many checks you have.
This first menopause quiz only relates to the first phase of menopause. There are two more phases.
THE MENOPAUSE QUIZ
( ) Rapid Weight Gain (Usually 30 pounds or more)
( ) Weight Loss Resistance (The inability to lose weight)
( ) The Inability To Get a Solid Night's Sleep. (4 to 5 hours a night at most)
( ) Hormonal Induced Anxiety (Worrying about everything)
( ) Hormonal Induced Depression (Occasional Emotional Moments)
( ) Loss of Interest to be Intimate (Like zero)
( ) Loss of Interest in being Social (Go to a party, yeah, right)
( ) Hot Flashes (These are easy to eliminate)
( ) Night Sweats (Go along with the flashes)
So…how many of the above symptoms do you have?
We call this your Menopause Score.
The lower your score, the better. If your score is four or more, your life’s quality is less than it can or should be.
Next week, I will explain what you should do next if your menopause score scares you.
✔️ Doc
WHO WANTS TO GET THEIR HORMONES RIGHT?
If you have too high of a menopause score, I have a few openings to talk. I will teach you how you can live a life hormonally sound and free of those menacing menopausal symptoms.
"Because when your hormones are sound, your weight, health, and mind will follow."
THIS WEEK’S SELFIE
House Boating
Lake McClure CA
This week I wrote this newsletter from a houseboat. Here is the view I have while sitting in my office as the first rays of the sun peeked over the lake.
"IT'S ALL ABOUT YOUR HORMONES!"
🎣 Doc
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