Episode 340: Balance Your Hormones in Under an Hour
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
Erin is teaching you how to balance your hormones using the 5 key elements of hormone health in today's re-release of a fan fave episode. Do these things and you WILL balance your hormones.
If you need more specificity, resources and support, then we invite you to join us for Your Hormone Revival™, our 3 month program that teaches you how to balance your hormones (with the option for lab testing for even more insight as to the root cause of your hormone imbalance!).
Get access to Your Hormone Revival™ within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective - our monthly health membership to start feeling like your best self again that reopens on January 7th!
In this episode:
Enhance your hormonal health with these dietary strategies [3:27]
Balance your hormones by balancing your blood sugar [5:45]
Why movement is medicine & what specific types of movement supports hormones [7:54]
Skeletal muscle & insulin - why it matters [13:07]
Supporting your hormone detoxification by decreasing your exposure to toxins [17:35]
Nervous system: balancing hormones from the brain down & why perfectionism drives hormone imbalance [29:00]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Collective (Open for enrollment January 7th!)
Your Hormone Revival™ (Only available within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)
Boundaries Course (Available for free within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)
Qualia Life (Get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)
Bon Charge (Use code FUNK to save 15%)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Learn more about Hormones
Related episodes:
242: Hormones & Your Brain Chemistry
192: Sustainable Strength Training with Nora Matthew
72: Exercising for “Adrenal Fatigue” & Cortisol Dysregulation
282: Building Muscle for Overall Health with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine.
Erin Holt [00:00:08]:
We look at how diet, our environment,
Erin Holt [00:00:10]:
Our emotions and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us, but functional medicine isn't the panacea that
Erin Holt [00:00:31]:
It's made out to be either. We've got some work to do and.
Erin Holt [00:00:34]:
That's why creating a new model is my life's work.
Erin Holt [00:00:37]:
I believe in the ripple effect, so.
Erin Holt [00:00:39]:
I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school and mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show rate, review and share because you never know whose life you might change and of course, keep coming back for more. Hello my friends, old and new. It's Erin here and today I'm going to ask you to spend 35ish minutes with me and in those 35ish minutes I'm going to teach you how to balance your hormones. This is an episode that you're probably going to want to share with your friends, especially if those friends are interested in hormone balance.
Erin Holt [00:01:29]:
I'm going to try to break it down and make it as easy and straightforward for you as possible, even though hormones aren't always easy and straightforward. This is a re release of an episode that was originally published February 2023 and it's one of our most downloaded episodes. So I wanted to pull it out to the forefront, especially as we cruise into the new year. We're going to have some new listeners join and I want some of the fan favorites to be right at the very top. So today to share with you the secret sauce, the exact recipe for how to balance your hormones, we'll get into dietary strategies, blood sugar, insulin, movement, how toxin exposure and detoxification fits into the overall picture. I have worked with women and their health for close to 15 years now, and there's just some things that I really want you to know and understand about your hormones. So that's the name of the game of today's show. If you listen and you apply these things that are outlined in today's show, you will have a much better chance of balancing your hormones.
Erin Holt [00:02:27]:
Now, if you are somebody who needs more specificity, like how to discern which.
Erin Holt [00:02:32]:
Of these things apply to you the.
Erin Holt [00:02:34]:
Most, if you need more resources, more support, I've got you. That's what Your Hormone Revival is all about. It is a three month program teaching you exactly how to balance your hormones. We have taken hundreds of women through this process.
Erin Holt [00:02:47]:
It is a process that works.
Erin Holt [00:02:49]:
And this program is only available through the Funk'tional Nutrition Collective, which is a monthly health membership. And good news, we reopen January 7th.
Erin Holt [00:02:59]:
So get yourself ready.
Erin Holt [00:03:00]:
You can even get on the waitlist to be notified when we reopen, go to thefunktionalnutritionist.com/collective so you can join the Collective. You can do Your Hormone Revival.
Erin Holt [00:03:11]:
In that program. We're tying all the pieces together for you.
Erin Holt [00:03:14]:
You even get access to hormone lab testing so we can help you pinpoint exactly what's going on, where you need support, where you're out of balance and how to get you back into balance. Okay, so hormones.
Erin Holt [00:03:27]:
So let's get into it. And I'm going to start with food. I mean, I'm a nutritionist, so it's kind of tend to be where I start. We have to start with the foundational building blocks. And our diet is one such thing. For hormone health, you really want to focus on mineral and nutrient rich foods. This is typically found in a whole foods diet. So we want B vitamins, we want vitamin C, magnesium, zinc, iron, iodine, selenium, sulfur, omega 3s.
Erin Holt [00:03:55]:
All of these are some of the nutrients that you need for hormonal health. Whether it is to build out the actual hormones or to clear the hormones out of your body, we need these things. Also focusing on a lower inflammatory diet, which is not really the standard American modernized western diet. Our diet tends to be high in processed foods. Processed foods tend to be high in omega 6 fatty acids, which when out of balance with other fatty acids, can lead to a more inflammatory load on the body, more inflammatory picture. And so what can happen is we have these chemicals, these compounds called prostaglandins in our body and they do elevate in response to inflammation. And a lot of prostaglandins. A heavy amount of prostaglandins.
Erin Holt [00:04:45]:
Overproduction of prostaglandins can lead to hormonal issues, things like heavy bleeding and menstrual cramps and just really severe wonky periods. We can see more diarrhea, kind of one of the clinical clues that you might have a lot of prostaglandin production is having diarrhea. One of the things prostaglandins do, because they're not bad, they're not bad. Like, pretty much nothing your body creates is bad. But it all works in balance. And so too much of a good thing can be too much. So prostaglandins help to stimulate ovulation. They make sure your uterus contracts appropriately so we can clear out the endometrium.
Erin Holt [00:05:28]:
That's kind of what we do every month. Right. But we can also see more contraction of the bowels, too, and so we can see more of a diarrhea picture with lots of prostaglandins. So we want to focus on a lower inflammatory diet for overall hormonal health. Blood sugar balance is huge. You cannot balance your hormones without balancing your blood sugar. You just can't do it. So I have a lot of resources here on the Funk'tional Nutrition podcast that teach you how to balance your blood sugar and all about it.
Erin Holt [00:05:57]:
So I'm not going to spend too much time here, but just understand that getting your blood sugar balanced is key. So not going huge long stretches without eating, making sure you're getting plenty of protein, fiber and fat along with your carbohydrates. You know, not skipping breakfast, things of that nature, not drinking coffee on an empty belly. That usually doesn't work great for female physiology. I don't care how much rasmatazzy butter and collagen you put in your coffee, it's still not a meal. Also eating consistently, eating consistent, balanced meals to maintenance needs. So making sure you're appropriately fueling your body, getting enough calories into your pie hole. Constantly being in a caloric deficit negatively impacts thyroid physiology, stress hormones, sex hormones.
Erin Holt [00:06:49]:
And so it's really hard to balance our hormones if we're consistently under eating. What is so important for female physiology is safety signals to the brain. Because think about it, like, why is your body going to try to procreate, going to try to bring another human into the world if all of the messages, all of the inputs are coming at it are not safe, not safe, not safe, not safe. Your brain's going to be like, hey, this isn't in a safe world to bring a child into. Let's shut it down. Let's shut down the hormone production and, you know, typical normal balanced hormone physiology. And we can see things like unsuccessful ovulation. That's pretty common.
Erin Holt [00:07:29]:
Low progesterone is not. Is a pretty common trend that we see with women in order to produce progesterone, We need to ovulate. In order to ovulate, your brain needs to feel safe enough to do so. In order to feel safe, your body needs appropriate fuel. You need to consistently eat balanced meals to maintenance. So those are some dietary tips you can implement effective immediately.
Erin Holt [00:07:54]:
Movement.
Erin Holt [00:07:54]:
Movement is a big one. I definitely consider movement as medicine, but for female hormones, like real specific emphasis on muscle and strength training. The more research that comes out, the more I think we should really be focusing on building muscle. I've heard I recently I heard it said like there's three main reasons for why you would want to exercise. Performance, aesthetics and feel. So performance can be like athletic performance, like I want to run a faster mile or it could just be like how you navigate your day to day life. And I have a friend who just because she's had consistent neck injuries and back injuries, she has a hard time lifting weight. And so she has a very challenging time bringing her pellets for her pellet stove from her garage into her house.
Erin Holt [00:08:40]:
And so she's really putting in a lot of effort at the gym to increase her weight bearing activity. So she can do the functional activity in her life of like, like moving heat around her house, right? Kind of a big deal, kind of important. So again, performance can be athletic performance or it can just be like, can I perform better in my life? Aesthetics is pretty obvious, right? That's changing your body composition so you look differently and then feel. How do I feel in my body? And I will tell you, I've been very transparent about this on the show over the past couple of years. One of my goals has been to put on muscle mass. And I've heard somebody talk about it as training for perimenopause. Perimenopause can be a shit show. It can be a shit show.
Erin Holt [00:09:24]:
So whatever I can do to buffer myself against that. I'm going to be 39 in a few weeks here, so I'm putting in the work now so I can have an easier transition. Perimenopause to menopause, that is my goal for myself. That's a gift that I'm giving to myself. But it starts now. Muscle can be like a metabolic buffer. Muscle is very insulin sensitive. It's one of the primary sites of insulin resistance.
Erin Holt [00:09:51]:
And I've talked about on the show that as we navigate perimenopause into menopause, there are shifts that happen with our insulin signaling, with our blood glucose control in the body. So this is something that I am aware of. And so I'm doing everything in my power to do to make that transition easier.
Erin Holt [00:12:29]:
So feel is like I've been putting on muscle. I like feel better. I feel a lot more resilient. Yes, I feel stronger, like no duh. But I also feel like my immune system is the best that it's been in years. I'm going to talk about some of the specifics of why. So feels just like, how do I feel inside my body? Exercise has become so conflated with weight loss, but you don't need to have weight loss goals to adopt and benefit from a movement practice. So whether or not you have weight loss goals is irrelevant in terms of for this conversation.
Erin Holt [00:13:07]:
Like, I'm still going to encourage you to move your body. Our bodies are designed to move, not to be sedentary. And so we got to move our bodies to feel good and to balance our hormones. What's also fascinating is that skeletal muscle is really now considered more of an endocrine organ. When you contract a muscle, Tickets to the gun show right here. If you can't see me on video, just know that I am contracting my muscle. When you contract your muscle, when you exercise right. Your muscle releases something called myokines.
Erin Holt [00:13:42]:
These are proteins and they go throughout the whole body. And there is really cool, fascinating stuff. Gabrielle Lyons talks about this a lot. I pretty sure she's going to be on the podcast soon, so hopefully she can do a deeper dive with us here. So I don't butcher this too much, but there is a specific myokine called muscle derived interleukin 6, which is anti inflammatory and it helps to regulate your immune response. So basically when you move your body, when you flex your muscles, the muscles are releasing things into your body. It's this internal pharmacy that I'm so obsessed with. Like how do I access more of my internal pharmacy? My body has the ability to release all of these different chemicals that help me feel good, that help me navigate life better, that help me perform better, that help me feel better.
Erin Holt [00:14:33]:
Right. How do I access those in movement is one of the ways to do so. This interleukin 6 produced during exercise inhibits TNF alpha induced insulin resistance in peripheral tissues. So again, there's that insulin resistance, it increases bdnf, that's brain derived neurotropic factor. I'm like crazy obsessed with brain health right now, so I'll be talking a lot more about that in the future. It promotes neuronal survival, so the survival of neurons and neuroplasticity through different signaling pathways. So it just like has a pretty system wide approach. So huge strong advocate for building muscle. strength training,
Erin Holt [00:15:17]:
Contracting your muscles. Walking and me are like besties. Walking has wonderful modulatory effects on cortisol. I think walking outside is medicine. There, I said it. Getting sunlight into your eyes first thing in the morning can have a profound impact on your cortisol and other hormones as well. Walking outside in green spaces or forest bathing has been shown to regulate your endocrine activity, your hormone activity regulates neurochemicals, it regulates immune function, it increases serotonin, it enhances natural killer cells. These are cells of the immune system.
Erin Holt [00:15:58]:
So we need to really be moving our body to access that internal pharmacy and also balance our hormones. As always, too much of a good thing can be too much and we can push it too far. I think we're really good at that. Like, oh, some is good, more is better, not always. So there really is a balance of exercise of like some is good but too much can actually impact your hormones in a negative way. I've talked about these concepts before. Episode 72, Exercising with Adrenal Fatigue and Cortisol Dysregulation. Episode 192 Sustainable Strength Training with Nora Matthew.
Erin Holt [00:16:39]:
Those would be great episodes for you. Shout out to Nora Matthew. She designed a 12 week at home strength training plan specifically for Your Hormone Revival with female hormones in mind. So you get access to that as a bonus when you purchase YHR. I love it. I've done this strength training program a few times. It is like diy. You get to do it yourself.
Erin Holt [00:17:02]:
You know, it's tricky being an online business and having this podcast because I'm telling people, like strength train, but you really want to make sure that you have the appropriate support to do that because if you just start throwing around heavy weights, obviously you could hurt yourself. Right? You got to like want to work your way up. So this is a really great. If you don't have access to somebody local, this is a really great online resource for folks. Can't say enough about her. I love, love, love her workouts. Okay, so food, movement. Now we're going to go into detoxification.
Erin Holt [00:17:35]:
Detox, the word gets such a bad rep and it's so misunderstood. Hepatic biotransformation is like the technical term for liver detox. So I tend to throw that around a little bit. Especially when people are like, you don't need a detox. You've got a liver, you have got kidneys. You don't need to do the detox. It's like cool, maybe 150 years ago that was legit. But look around, look around.
Erin Holt [00:18:00]:
Our livers and our kidneys need more support than they have in the past. And I'm not advocating for buying a Kardashian tea that's going to make you shit your brains out. No, it's not what I mean by detox. But you absolutely need to support hepatic biotransformation and give your liver, give your kidneys, give your gut as much support as we can to clear these toxins out of our body, because they are sure out there. The very first step to supporting detoxification is to reduce your exposure. I'm really going to highlight xenoestrogens here. Xenoestrogens are man made chemicals. They disrupt the endocrine system, they kind of scramble up your hormones.
Erin Holt [00:18:41]:
They can impact our ability to get rid of estrogen with hormones. It's kind of like we want to build them, we want to use them and then we want to lose them. We want to get rid of excess hormones. And so this is especially true with estrogen and can be why we see so much estrogen dominance, why that's such a common hormone imbalance. This is where I will say this. I'm taking a pause because this is where things can get overwhelming real fast because these xenoestrogens are kind of everywhere. I'm going to really focus on the things that are within your control, the things that you can get out of your life, like super fast. Plastics is one of them.
Erin Holt [00:19:26]:
So really think about plastics in terms of your food. So food, beverages, storage containers, even like plastic lids like Starbucks coffee lids. Don't really want to remove the lid before you drink your coffee. If you're still getting like disposable cups, ideally you're just bringing your own cup and filling that up, you know. But get the plastic away from your food. Never heat food and plastic. Definitely don't buy any fat in plastic. So olive oil or peanut butter, Almond butter.
Erin Holt [00:19:56]:
Do your best to get that in glass. I don't even like buying spices in plastic. So really plastic should be away from your food so we're consuming less of it.
Erin Holt [00:22:12]:
We are still getting exposed to plastics other places, but this is where I focus on things that are easy to fix within your control. Canned foods often have a plastic liner. Receipts so I never touch a receipt. Receipts have BPA in them and they can get right into your greasy little hands. So if you need the receipt you can grab it with a pair of gloves or just don't pick up the receipt. I always ask them to toss it if they're going to print it out. I say you can just toss the receipt but if I have the option to not print it out, definitely don't print it out. Pesticides, herbicides, insecticides.
Erin Holt [00:22:46]:
So the more organic produce we can buy the better. It just helps us to reduce our exposure to these things. Tampons and Pads do your best to buy organic tampons, organic pads instead of buying the regular because they're made with conventional cotton. Try to avoid anything plastic if you can. A cleaning products. This is a biggie biggie biggie biggie Okay. I didn't mean to go. Should I sing it? Should I sing it? I'm not gonna sing it.
Erin Holt [00:23:13]:
I didn't mean to go there. Can't you see?
Erin Holt [00:23:16]:
Okay.
Erin Holt [00:23:17]:
Branch Basics is one of my. Or it's, it's my favorite. I think it's my favorite cleaner. They just like auto ship to your house. I use it for everything. All. All purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, laundry detergent, like, like hand soap, everything. Love it, love it.
Erin Holt [00:23:32]:
Huge fan. They're not a sponsor of the show. I asked them to be. They respectfully declined. They don't, they don't do. They don't sponsor any podcast. They don't do podcast sponsorship. But I love them so much so I still talk about them.
Erin Holt [00:23:45]:
You can also do like a DIY with like vinegar or hydrogen peroxide as well. But cleaning products can be real gnarly. Synthetic fragrance. This is my hill. This is it. Synthetic fragrance, air fresheners, Glade plugins, scented laundry, Anything scented for laundry. This is like some of the gnarliest offenders. Detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets. I mean, so many of the commercials on TV are about like keeping your clothes fresh longer.
Erin Holt [00:24:15]:
And I'm like, that is like poison. Like straight up poison. Honestly, if you do one thing for your health today, let it be this. And if you choose not to just understand that you forfeit your right to ask me anything health related ever again. If you do one thing for your health today, let it be this. This. Remove synthetic fragrance. Remove it, Stop buying it.
Erin Holt [00:24:38]:
This doesn't cost any extra money. Just stop buying it. It's honestly such low hanging fruit to pluck. I genuinely don't understand why people aren't just getting rid of these things. If you have the knowledge, this is the time to act on it. Let's go. And this also unfortunately extends to perfume. I used to love perfume back in the day.
Erin Holt [00:24:58]:
I don't wear it anymore. Cosmetics and personal care products can also be a source of toxins and xenoestrogens. I personally use Beauty Counter for pretty much all of my makeup and I have for the past six years. You can check out beautycounter.com/erinholt if you want to poke around and see what's up. So the very first step to supporting detoxification is to remove some of the offenders. And if you do, if you go through that list and you do what I recommend, that you're going to, to get a lot closer to balancing your hormones. But then we also want to add in some detox supportive foods so we're back to the food thing. I can't help myself.
Erin Holt [00:25:40]:
I'm a nutritionist.
Erin Holt [00:25:41]:
I can't help myself. So we've got two phases of liver detox, and we have different nutrients that support each phase. We have phase one and we have phase two. Phase one nutrients. Because I've said it before, I'll say it again. Nutrients drive detoxification. So if we want to support detoxification, we have to eat food. B vitamins, glutathione, which is our body's main antioxidant.
Erin Holt [00:26:04]:
But we have other antioxidants like carotenoids, flavonoids, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, selenium, copper, zinc, manganese, CoQ10, bioflavonoids. I think I already said that one. Pycnogenol. So these are all things that really support phase one, and then we've got phase two amino acids. So protein is really huge here for detoxification. Sulfur compounds, N acetylcysteine, taurine. Again, glutathione, cysteine, arginine, glycine, glutamine, methionine. So eat your protein.
Erin Holt [00:26:39]:
Have good gut health so you can break down your protein and access your protein, because all these systems work together, of course. But if that feels like an overwhelming list of nutrients, cool, I get it. Eat a whole foods diet. Join Your Hormone Revival. We'll tell you exactly what to eat. We have a whole detoxification plan to help you support clearing your hormones out. When I think of detox, I really always try to ramp up my cruciferous veggies. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, garlic.
Erin Holt [00:27:11]:
Leeks. Shallots are also great. Beets are wonderful. Whenever I tell people this, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I eat that. I eat those foods. I eat those foods. And I'm like, cool.
Erin Holt [00:27:20]:
Do you have like, like, how much? And some people are like, I have broccoli with dinner sometimes. We need like a shit ton of these foods to, like, really do the heavy lift that we need them to do. So if you follow me on Instagram, you probably see that I'm putting frozen cauliflower into my smoothies. And it's like I saw a reel about something about like, I don't have to put. I don't have an eating disorder anymore, so I don't have to put cauliflower in my smoothies. And I'm like, I get it. I totally get it. And if that's like triggering for you, don't do it.
Erin Holt [00:27:50]:
But I'm like, or or it's just like a really phenomenal way to get more detoxification supportive foods and hormone supportive foods into your diet. Because some people like can't even leave their house because their bleed is so heavy on the first day of their periods. And I'm like, you need to support your detox, you need to support your estrogen clearance. So eat a lot more cauliflower. Get it in wherever you can. Eat a lot more of those cruciferous veggies. Not every attempt at health is an eating disorder.
Erin Holt [00:28:23]:
Right? Okay. So. And I don't say that with any callousness. This is coming from somebody, in case you don't know my history of who struggled with eating disorders for 13 years, anorexia and bulimia. I think we can do things to nourish our body and to support ourselves and to support our organ systems nutritionally without it being lumped into the category of disordered eating. Okay, so we'll move on from that. So to recap, food movement detoxification. Now I'm going to talk about nervous system support, but I'm only going to talk about a little bit because last week's episode Hormones & Your Brain Chemistry got into it in a lot more depth.
Erin Holt [00:29:03]:
We have to balance hormones from the brain down. That's where the marching orders come from, is the brain. So we have to swim upstream and say, what's the brain? What directives are the brain giving the rest rest of the glands that are actually going to produce the hormones. So we want to go up to the brain because we're really trying to self regulate over replace, right? So people are like, I've got low testosterone. What can I take to raise my testosterone? I'm like, well, it doesn't really work that way. Like, let's back up and figure out why your testosterone is low in the first place. Right? So we are always trying to, to the best of our ability, self regulate our own hormone production. Sometimes we do have to replace or sometimes we do have to really give,
Erin Holt [00:29:45]:
Give a heavier support, a heavier lift for support. But if we can self regulate, that's money baby. So let's go to the brain and kind of calm things down there so we can self regulate our own hormone production. Remember, it's safety signals. This is why we added a live component every single week to Your Hormone Revival. We call them Sunday sessions. And you get access to different nervous system support classes. So an hour each week, they're always recorded so you can attend live.
Erin Holt [00:30:17]:
That's always a vibe. Or you could watch the replay or you could do both. I like to attend live and then watch the replay a couple of times. I need all the nervous system support I can get. I tend to be like, kind of a stress buddy. I'm a high stress person, so I need. That is not good for hormones. Right? So I need all the nervous system support I can get.
Erin Holt [00:30:37]:
And I say that because I'm trying to normalize that for everybody else. All right, boundaries. I'm gonna talk about them. It is my belief that boundary work is the anecdote to burnout. When we put our own needs on the back burner, when we serve others to the point of exhaustion and overwhelm, nobody wins. If we are raised and conditioned to put everybody else's needs above our own, our physical and mental health can suffer. And the truth is we can and we must care for ourselves while caring for others. We just need to learn how.
Erin Holt [00:31:15]:
It's not an either or. It's not a. Everybody else's needs don't matter. Only my needs do. It's that everybody can participate. Everybody's needs matter. I recorded the Boundaries Course for this exact reason. Because it's challenging for us.
Erin Holt [00:31:30]:
It's challenging for us to set boundaries. And it's also really, really important you get access to this as a bonus in Your Hormone Revival. Just a heads up. Turns out people really, really, really appreciate that it's so necessary. And I do believe that boundary setting is imperative for hormone balance. Boundaries are hard for people. There is, I think, I'm thinking. I'm toying around with adding a module to talk about the difference between compassion and empathy, because neurochemically, they are very different felt experiences in our body.
Erin Holt [00:32:07]:
And we actually get health benefits from compassion where not so much empathy. And so unchecked empathy can lead to deep fatigue and burnout and, yes, hormone imbalance. And so we have to have the ability. This is something that I learned recently through my training in Stanford. We have to be able to discern the difference between the two. This is something that I'm actively learning and actively practicing myself. I'm somebody who feels a lot and. And because I'm more empathic, it has required me to set firm, strong, harsh boundaries.
Erin Holt [00:32:42]:
And so what I'm toying with is if I can move from empathy into compassion, can I be less severe with my boundaries? Can I be less almost like self isolated? Pretty much. So I'll check back in. I'll teach a module about this when I've got it figured out. But I think this is fascinating stuff because I know, a lot of the women that I work with really consider themselves to be empaths, which, more often than not, it is a coping strategy, and it's not all bad, but we just need to use it with some precision, and so we're just not feeling things all of the time wherever we go. Now, perfectionism and over functioning can be a coping strategy as well. In a trauma response, where have you felt rejected or unloved or even abandoned in your life? Somewhere it happened and it hurt. And we decided somewhere along the way to protect ourselves from that hurt.
Erin Holt [00:33:40]:
And the best way to protect ourselves from that hurt is to make ourselves indispensable. And if we can be indispensable, if we can be all the things for all the people, then they can't leave, they won't leave us, they can't reject us. We will still have value, we will still have worth, we will stay lovable. Unfortunately, trying to maintain this, these impossible standards doesn't really leave much energy for ourselves. And this perpetual quest for perfection leaves us in a state of chronic stress. And we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that chronic stress leads to hormonal imbalance. So this is what the boundary course on facts, because it's such a biggie, it's so important we talk, we. This comes up a lot in Your Hormone Revival, right? Of course it does.
Erin Holt [00:34:34]:
How could it not? If you spend your life striving for an ideal that doesn't exist, you're going to eventually burn out. This is a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert, and I just feel like it's speaking to the women that I call out to for Your Hormone Revival. I'm like, this program, it's for you. I created it for you. Nearly all the women I know are stressing themselves sick over the pathological fear that they simply aren't doing enough with their lives, which is crazy. Absolutely flat out bananas. Because the women I know do a lot and they do it well. So this is what I mean when I say the perpetual quest for unattainable perfection.
Erin Holt [00:35:16]:
Because we're doing a lot and we're doing it really good. And rather than give ourselves kudos for where we're absolutely nailing it, we spend so much time and energy and effort thinking about all the things we're not doing, and then we just take on more and we take on more and we stress ourselves out, and like Liz Gilbert says, we stress ourselves sick. So if this is you, if this sounds like you, I'm calling you in. I'm calling you in Your Hormone Revival. Let's do it. Our last live round. We're doing it together. It's always a vibe.
Erin Holt [00:35:50]:
This will change your life. I'd love to have you. If you decide not to do it. What I want you to work on, what I want you to prioritize is food, movement. Get yourself outside. Get yourself outside.
Erin Holt [00:36:03]:
Support detoxification.
Erin Holt [00:36:05]:
Support your nervous system and think about setting some boundaries, saying no, saying yes to yourself as much as you say to everybody else. If you don't like the word boundary, think about it that way instead. All right, I'm looking at the time. It was almost under 30 minutes. It was so darn close, but we did it.
Erin Holt [00:36:27]:
All right.
Erin Holt [00:36:28]:
I will check you all next week.
Erin Holt [00:36:36]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend and keep coming back for more.
Erin Holt [00:36:47]:
Take care of you.