The MamasteFit Podcast Episode 118 – Balancing Hormones and Finding Food Freedom with Amber Romaniuk

Gina: Welcome to the MamasteFit Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be talking all about understanding hormonal imbalances that you may have in your body and how those may be impacting your body’s ability to function- such as your appetite when you’re craving certain types of food, in addition to how we can integrate self-care to decrease our stress levels so that we could, one, not be super stressed out and anxious throughout our day, but also to support your health long term.

Welcome to the MamasteFit Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be talking all about emotional eating, addressing hormone balances, or imbalances, that you may be having, knowing what tests you may want to consider getting, and we have Amber here who is going to be talking all about those topics ’cause she is our new expert friend in this, and I’m really excited to learn what test I should be asking my doctor for to help support me postpartum. We were just chatting about how I have a seven month old and my brain is a goldfish, goldfish brain right now.

Roxanne: How can she support her goldfish brain?

Gina: So Amber, can you introduce yourself to our listeners who may or may not be familiar with you?

Amber: Yeah, and thank you ladies for having me! My name is Amber Romaniuk. I’m an emotional eating, digestive and hormone expert, and I’ve been coaching women all over the world for 12 years to claim what I call food and body freedom. And that is all around healing your relationship with food and making peace with your body, digging deep into understanding what’s going on with your hormones, your gut, your blood sugar, and being able to step into this level of self-worth and really into the woman you’ve always dreamed of being.

So I struggled with binge eating, food addiction, emotionally eating, and the binge purge cycle for a few years in my early twenties, and it really put me through the ringer. And it was through the experience of healing it myself, ending the weight body battle, and then spending five years myself trying to balance my hormones and digestion and all the temporary damage I had caused through my self-sabotaging behaviors that really inspired me and called me into the work that I’m doing to this day.

Gina: I have personally had like thyroid issues and like my B12 levels have been all over the place. I’ve had some iron issues as well, but all of those deficiencies have really impacted my own eating habits, where, I think it’s similar for Roxanne, where I had like really low appetite. And then because I had low appetite, I wasn’t eating enough food, and then I was having these like blood sugar crashes at 2:00 PM where I was like suddenly exhausted. And that was really impacting my ability to function throughout the day. In addition, the thyroid issues that I was having, I think contributed towards recurrent miscarriages as well, so it’s impacting my fertility.

And I think it’s hard in the postpartum and while we’re navigating pregnancy to have conversations around food, because I think a lot of us associate food and eating with like our weight. And there’s a lot of pressure for us in this phase of life and even outside of this phase of life to look a certain way to fit a certain like ideal- like, “bump only” pregnancy, like bounce back, don’t look like pregnancy impacted you- that we can look at the food that we’re eating to either negatively impact that like image that we’re trying to achieve, or support that with like really restrictive or binge eating, or dieting, or being really like hateful along the process.

And so I think it’s hard to have conversations around food without acknowledging that there are things that we may feel guilty or we may have these pressures on us to look a certain way physically, but it’s important to understand that there’s a lot more to our nourishment than just how many pounds or how much mass you have on your body. We also want to be looking at what is our nutritional balance like? Most of us have nutrient deficiencies, and so it’s important to know what those are and how they could impact our health overall, not just the way that we look.

What are like certain things that you commonly find are like issues for like moms, for women that are navigating this phase of life? Like what, specific like nutrients are you noticing that? women are deficient in that they really should get checked for and how is that impacting them?

Amber: Yeah, 100 percent. So I think some of the biggest things that I see from a nutrient standpoint to then transfer into testing is, number one, women are not eating enough protein. They’re not eating enough fat. So many, 90% of the female population in fact, in North America has some form of body image issue or emotional relationship with food, and has probably been conditioned that diets are the answer. So often women just in general are not eating enough because we’ve been conditioned into the “eat less, exercise more” to lose weight and keep it off. Now, of course we know that’s archaic. It’s not healthy. It doesn’t help us actually tune into our bodies or get the proper testing done and see what we actually need. And so that’s the first biggest thing that I see is women are not getting enough proteins. So from things like beef, bison, chicken, turkey, fish, or maybe you’re more plant-based and you’re getting it from beans and rice and hemp hearts and things like that.

And being deficient in protein, of course, is going to contribute to deficiencies in iron potentially, as well as vitamin B12 and vitamin D. And this will have a significant impact on your mood and your energy. Vitamin D makes a hormone-like substance, and if we have low vitamin D, we can have more chances of anxiety, almost feeling depressed, like not feeling like ourselves. B12 is the energy vitamin, so if that is low, you are going to feel tired- and I often don’t just see a low B12. And then of course, iron really contributes to your energy levels as well.

And then, I think we have also been conditioned that fats are bad, right? I know now I think it’s starting to shift, but women are afraid of fat. “Fat has a lot of calories. If I eat too much fat, I’ll gain weight, I won’t lose weight. I won’t reach, my goals.” But good quality fats, including avocados, our nuts and seeds, your egg yolks, your fatty fish, certain oils, coconut oil, butter, beef tallow, whatever suits your fancy, are very important to help regulate blood sugar, just like protein, help us feel satiated and help ensure we have a good hormone balance because hormones are fatty-like substances.

So I often see a lot of women not getting enough protein and fat and, like you were talking about, the blood sugar crash in the afternoon, the cravings for sugar and caffeine go up and then they’re deep into the chocolate or the chips or whatever, and then beating themselves up because they gave into something and made a poor choice.

What’s below some of these deficiencies though, that I also see, is a hormone imbalance called cortisol, which is your stress hormone. And I’ve yet to have a client that has not had a high or low cortisol, so it’s predominantly the most common hormone imbalance I see that is not checked enough. And so when we have high or low cortisol, our bodies are in a constant fight or flight stress response. And if we’re constantly in a stress response, we’re going to burn through minerals more quickly, like iron, as well as things like your magnesium, your calcium, your electrolytes, and that can all make you feel more depleted and tired. And the other issue is we are going to also end up depleting our B12 because the body is burning through everything so much more quickly to try and bring you back to a state of balance using things like your minerals and B12 to bring you back to rest and digest instead of fight or flight, and so this also fuels these deficiencies.

Things like emotional eating, binge eating, negative self-talk, being really hard on yourself all the time, feeling like you have to be it, be the be all for everybody and everything, the people pleaser, the perfectionist- all these kinds of things can really burn us out, let alone now becoming a mom, postpartum, kids, a whole new lifestyle, a whole new experience. And so I think part of it is really starting to look at, no matter where you are on your journey right now, where are you on your priority list and what kind of relationship with food do you have? Because that’s really going to start to give you a lot of insight into some of the potential nutrient deficiencies, if you’re not eating enough, and as well some of these stressors that could be fueling some of the hormone imbalances.

Gina: Absolutely. I am a chronically stressed person. I like to do a lot of things, and my B12 levels are very low, so I’m not shocked. I’m not shocked. I have been trying to do more things to help lower my stress levels. Like I’ve been coloring and doing puzzles and doing like mindful activities that don’t require a lot of mental energy on my part. And I’ve, my husband has even commented that it seems like I am more relaxed. And so he prioritizes me the opportunity to do these activities, ’cause he’s like, “I know when you do them you are more relaxed ’cause it’s giving you something to just turn off and go into your rest and digest,” and he’s like, “I know it’s really beneficial for you.” Because usually when I hear self-care, I hear, go get a massage, go get your nails done- which are both things that I do- go do this, like, spa appointment for just yourself, and that’s not always accessible to do daily. Like I can’t get a massage every day. I would love to, but, one, I don’t have the time, nor the finances to afford that. That would be a life of luxury that maybe one day I will have. Probably not. And so finding like these little things to help with our stress levels, I think are like super beneficial, but I’m sure there’s a lot to our stress levels and those cortisol levels relating to the food that we are eating also. If we are not eating enough of certain types of foods, then our body’s going to be in a state of stress as well. If you’re not eating enough, you’re probably increasing your cortisol. Is that true or did I just make that up?

Amber: No, you’re so right. So if you’re not eating enough, you’re putting your body into a stress response.

The hunger signal thing you mentioned earlier where you weren’t hungry because your thyroid was off, I see this so often, and we think because we’re not hungry, we shouldn’t eat. And that will put us into a heightened stress response if we’re skipping breakfast, potentially skipping lunch, not waiting until later in the day to eat, and this will shut your hunger signal off more. And I’m happy to explain the whole thyroid hunger signal connection if you want to go into it.

Gina: Oh, go into it, cause I really struggle with breakfast eating. It’s something that I have really been trying to be better about. It’s a goal of mine.

Roxanne: I feel like when I, and it’s probably these hunger cues, when I do eat breakfast, because some days, like I, I do, I skip it. I’m going to be honest, like things get forgotten in the bustle of kids getting out the door. But the days that I do eat breakfast and I usually will try to prioritize like a protein, so I’ll like hard boil some eggs and throw in some, the, forgot what are they called? Sausage patties. And so I eat like a well-balanced breakfast, but then like 11:00 AM, lunchtime rolls around, and I’m like, starving.

Gina: You probably didn’t eat enough.

Roxanne: But, when I don’t eat breakfast, I’m not hungry till 12:30.

Gina: Yeah, so explain it. Explain it to us, ’cause we would love to learn more.

Amber: Yeah! So yeah, and cortisol is connected to this, so the first hormone imbalance I often see for women is high or low cortisol, but it’s not being tested enough, and the ranges are too big.

Roxanne: Insurances won’t cover it. Like the insurances will not pay for cortisol a lot of the time. So if it’s not financially accessible, like you have to really justify covering it, ’cause we’ve ordered it and the person is billed.

Amber: Yeah. Yeah, which is not okay, and we have every right to know what’s going on in our body and should be covered by insurance. And this is where side note, we have to start getting into the conversation around starting to normalize and being willing to potentially spend, 30, 40, 50 bucks to go get that cortisol tested. What other things are you spending money on? Like your daily Starbucks habit, your Netflix subscription, that you could save some money that month and go and get it tested? It’s so important because your cortisol is your stress hormone, your brain senses the stress, there is some communication between the pituitary and hypothalamus and the brain to your adrenal saying, “We’re stressed. Please produce cortisol to get us, protect us, through this fight or flight experience.” Even though, like you said, a lot of us are chronically stressed and there’s a lot going on, so it doesn’t calm down right away. And then what ends up happening is a lot of women, in fact, women are eight times more likely to have a thyroid issue than men, and 65% of those imbalances go undetected. Partially because we don’t know what tests to ask for, and also the thyroid ranges are way too big. And I’ll talk more about that right away if you want me to.

But anyways, so our brain is overstimulated. Our pituitary gland in the brain is responsible for producing a thyroid stimulating hormone. And so if the pituitary is overstimulated because you’re in too much of a stress response and the cortisol isn’t being dealt with, your TSH thyroid stimulating hormone goes up. And if we have too much of that in the bloodstream, it starts to have a significant impact on her metabolism, and that’s one of the things that starts to suppress our hunger signal. And then if we skip the meals and don’t eat- and I get it, sometimes it’s like life is happening- what happens is we further suppress that metabolism, that hunger signal. So when our TSH goes up and the thyroid starts to get a little bit more sluggish, it’s hard for the stomach and the brain to properly communicate, to produce what’s called ghrelin, which is your hunger hormone that makes you hungry, it’s produced to give you the stomach growl and that signal it’s time to eat. And then sometimes we can struggle to also produce enough leptin, which is the hunger hormone that makes us full, and/or for some women, they can’t produce enough of it and they feel like they could just eat and eat and never feel satiated.

So part of it is that TSH gets too high. Now the ranges are like 0.5 to 6, in the States I think is 0.5 to 5. The problem with this is most women are hypothyroid, which is a sluggish, underactive thyroid, above 1.75. So as an example, I have hypothyroid, it’s very well managed; however, if I go above 1.75 with my TSH, ’cause my cortisol gets too high, I’m instantly constipated, my hunger signal disappears, I don’t even have to be a 3 or a 4 or a 5. So most women are being overlooked with these issues ’cause whomever they’re seeing is going, “Oh yeah, your TSH is fine, you’re in the normal range,” when it’s way too big.

The second set of imbalances with thyroid is the hormones your thyroid produces. So you produce T4 first, which is inactive, which means it doesn’t necessarily contribute directly to any functions in the body, it is shuttled to your liver and actually transmuted into T3. So T3 is your active thyroid hormones, like the golden negative thyroid hormones. And so it is responsible for strong appetite, good metabolism, sleep, mood, healthy hair, healthy skin, good bowel function- if you’re constipated, we gotta look at your thyroid. What I often find is women either have both low T3 and T4 as well, or they have low T3. And so if you have even just one of these three, high TSH or low T3 or T4, or both, you are going to notice your hunger signal start to fall away. And so innocently we think we just shouldn’t eat, but then that further suppresses our metabolism, AKA our thyroid, they’re very connected. And when we wait a really long time to eat and you throw the high cortisol in on top of that- cortisol is naturally highest in the morning- skipping the meals is going to further skyrocket your cortisol because when we eat, it actually naturally starts to bring the cortisol levels down in the morning. It doesn’t mean you have to eat anything really big if you currently don’t have a hunger signal, but unless you’re taking some kind of a medication where you have to wait an hour to eat after you get up, I do suggest starting to have something small within 30 minutes of waking up.

So when you mentioned, Roxanne, that when you have breakfast, you’re really hungry by lunch, that’s a good thing. That means you’re waking up your hunger signals and they’re really accurate. We want to get this strong hunger signal, but unfortunately with the high cortisol and then the thyroid getting overstimulated with the TSH and then this potential lack of thyroid hormones being produced, a lot of women are not feeling hungry and they’re just being told, “Oh yeah, how convenient, just don’t eat!” when there’s so much more below that, that is not being talked about and taught.

Gina: Absolutely. So I get my thyroid tested every month or every two months with my provider. During pregnancy I got it tested more frequently.

Amber: That’s good.

Gina: And my provider was telling me that the science for measuring like the thyroid hormones is much more precise than it was when the reference levels first came out. And so because it’s so much more precise, the ranges should be much smaller than they currently are. And so when he looks at like my thyroid labs, like the little paper says like normal, but he’s like, “It’s not, because it’s outside of what should actually be the reference range, like this range is way too big.” The science is much more precise now. And so I really appreciate that he knows that this is not normal, we need to, and so I take medication to help manage my thyroid to keep it functioning really well, ’cause when my thyroid level is a little bit off, I usually find like I’m not as hungry, I like will go almost the whole day before I’m like, “Oh my God, I didn’t eat anything.” And, again, ’cause my hunger cue has been turned off, ’cause I didn’t eat breakfast. So it’s been a big thing of mine, I’ve been trying to eat a higher in protein breakfast. But it is probably the lowest priority for me when I wake up. And if I’ve got somewhere to be, it’s going to be to the kids ready, get myself ready, get everyone in the car, get them fed, “Oh, I’ll just, I’ll eat later.”

Roxanne: Yeah.

Gina: “I’ll eat later.”

Roxanne: I try to find like a breakfast option that is like easy, though. So it’s like high in protein, but doesn’t require a lot of work. So like hard boiling eggs, and thankfully I love hard boiled eggs. But like eggs are expensive now.

Gina: I know. I’ve actually…

Roxanne: Why so expensive?

Gina: I’ve eating tins of mussel and fish.

Roxanne: Yeah. But I’m not eating, I’m not eating a tin of fish, personally. So like I’ve been doing like the oats, overnight oats, like that are like high in protein. That’s like easy ’cause I can just literally grab it from my fridge and then drink it while I’m dropping my kids off. But that takes effort, because I have to remember to do it the night before, which is what I am currently forgetting to do, is put it in the fridge the night before. It also requires me to have milk, and my kids are like little milk bottles where they are endlessly drinking all of the milk that I buy. So I still struggle, but I know the importance and it’s good, ’cause I think I was commenting on it at clinicals that I was like, “I’m so hungry right now, but I ate breakfast. Like, why am I so hungry? And lunch isn’t for another hour!” So then I have to eat like a little, like beef stick to cover myself until lunch actually is, but it’s good to know it’s good.

Gina: Are there like symptoms that someone could take a peek at their body to know that their cortisol levels are maybe off, or maybe they should seek out some additional testing from their provider. What are some things that would let someone know that something’s off? Because normally when I go to the doctor, they’re like, “You’re super healthy. Like you workout and you eat food at some point in your life.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m super healthy!” And then they do my lab work and they’re like, “Your thyroid is doing crazy stuff.” And I’m like, “Am I super healthy? Do I have issues that I need to address?” So what are some signs that people could be looking for to know that their eating habits may be negatively impacting their health?

Amber: Yeah, 100 percent. Brain fog, fatigue, or exhaustion. Either you’re not hungry or you’re ravenous and no matter what you eat, you’re not satiated or satisfied, anxiety, weight gain, especially around the abdomen that you can’t lose at any point. Troubles falling asleep or waking in the night, afternoon energy lulls, blood sugar crashes, increased cravings for refined sugar and refined salt. I find often with cortisol you do end up more hungry because you have an increased appetite level because your blood sugar’s all over the place and you’re also more tired. And when we’re more fatigued, unless we have a thyroid thing going on, we tend to actually overproduce ghrelin, which is that hunger hormone that makes you hungry and less leptin that makes you full so you just don’t feel satiated. So a lot of women just describe to me, “It feel like I have a hollow leg and I could just keep eating!”

Also, with cortisol, it has a significant impact on our sex hormones, progesterone and estrogen, and so I often find women will have more PMS symptoms, potentially more PMDD, more moodiness, cravings, increased appetite before their cycle that’s more than just a slight increase- ’cause your metabolism increases in your luteal phase. And then they’re either not getting their period regularly, their cycle is like one to three days, which is a sign of low progesterone or low progesterone and estrogen. Because if our cortisol is high, we actually produce some of it in the adrenals, but that material that needs to be taken to produce progesterone gets converted into cortisol if you’re in a stress state, and then if you’re cortisol is high, you’re often more puffy, more inflamed, retaining more water, whether it’s the face, the body, and that inflammation can impact your egg quality and your ovulation. And if you have poor egg quality and/or you’re not ovulating, then you’re not going to be producing enough progesterone and estrogen. So those are some of the common symptoms I see with cortisol. But it really doesn’t matter how much you sleep and/or, even if you’re taking certain supplements, you feel tired, and you just, your body feels sluggish and puffy, and even if you’re trying to lose weight, it can feel next to impossible.

Gina: Let’s take a break from this episode to talk about our podcast sponsor, Needed. Needed is a nutrition company that specialize in optimizing nourishment for the perinatal timeframe, and they just released a study that demonstrated how high quality their prenatal vitamin is in comparison to other ones.

Women that were taking needed prenatal vitamin had higher levels of vitamin B6 and 12, selenium, vitamin D, vitamin K2, riboflavin- so a really big deal on the things that they were able to have higher levels of, ’cause over 93% of us are nutrient deficient as we move into pregnancy. And so it’s really important that we take a high quality vitamin, and Needed’s prenatal vitamin was what Roxanne and I personally took throughout our pregnancies. I’m currently taking out in the postpartum as well, ’cause your nutritional needs postpartum are also still very elevated.

And what’s really great about the study that they are doing is they are specifically studying women’s health, which is something that is not highly prioritized within research. And it’s really a disservice to women that we don’t have more information on what we need during pregnancy and what we need postpartum and what supplements and products are going to help to support us the best.

Some of the current recommendations for prenatal nutrition are actually based on studies that only had men within them, and so the fact that Needed is taking the time to do this quality study to really look at how these supplements are supporting us is a huge thing for me and something that I’m a huge fan of.

So if you want to check out Needed, head to thisisneeded.com, check out their prenatal vitamin, it’s one of my favorite products, one that I currently use now. Roxanne uses it, our mom is actually using it ’cause it can be really beneficial for menopause as well. And you can use our code MAMASTEPOD to get 20% off your order.

Do you find that postpartum moms, so, as you’re listing off all these symptoms, I’m like, “I just feel tired all the time ’cause I got a baby that wakes me up,” what would the difference for you be that this is probably just like a lifestyle, a temporary lifestyle thing for you, versus like, you need to seek help? Or, is like postpartum, just the higher level of stress because of all the additional demands of a new baby, where you’re not sleeping as much, you may not be prioritizing yourself as much. So I don’t know if you notice that there’s a correlation between the two. Are they like two separate things where there’s a certain level of fatigue that’s normal versus not?

Amber: Yeah. With such a big change, you’re going to have fatigue because of the changes with sleep, the changes with your body. Now you have a newborn to tend to. I think you know, where we want to be mindful is, is the exhaustion something that keeps getting worse, and worse, worse? Are you ending up in postpartum depression, which is largely a sign of the thyroid has gone way off, right? Are you having anxiety? Like, is there anything you were maybe feeling before you gave birth that is now extremely heightened, to the point where it’s significantly impacting your mood and your day? Past, “You know what? I’ve been up more,” obviously.

So I think part of that is trusting your gut and trusting your body and I think women are so intelligent and that they will tune into that and go, something feels off. I think I need to take further steps. I also think it’s extremely important for women, once they have their babies within six to eight weeks to go and get their thyroid tested, go get your cortisol tested. Like I said, we’ve gotta normalize starting to prioritize investing a little bit in ourselves because the medical system is not properly supporting women to get these answers. So I think even though there’s a big lifestyle change, it’s important to see what’s going on with these hormones. And if your thyroid has gone drastically off, or your, maybe your blood sugar markers have gone drastically off and you need to do some certain things to help bring that around. Or even to support your cortisol, there’s things that you can take, even if you’re breastfeeding, that are going to help take some of the edge off of this maybe newer fight or flight, or stress or fatigue that you’re feeling.

So I think if it’s really extreme, it’s extremely important to go and get testing done and have further investigation done. But I would just say we need to normalize making sure that you’re doing this, let’s say two months, unless you have a thyroid issue, maybe it’s a bit sooner, and getting these tests done on the regular for a little while once you have Baby.

Gina: For me, during my pregnancy, I was having some like serious anxiety where it was causing a lot of like insomnia, like I couldn’t sleep. I was just like having trouble breathing where I was like just so panicked. And I ended up getting my iron levels tested when I was like 28 weeks or something, and they were like super low. And I was like, “Oh gosh!” And then I was like Googling, like I was like on a Reddit forum and folks were saying like, “Yeah, when your iron levels are super low, it impacts like your feelgood hormones and your body’s ability to produce those. And you can be super anxious because of your levels.” Like it was like, like impending doom type feeling of anxiety.

And so for me, I was like, “This is different than my normal level of worry that I have. This is… This is a lot.” And so it was interesting that it correlated with like super low iron levels for me, but it wasn’t something that I felt like had ever been voiced to me before of, “Oh, you’re feeling super anxious? We should test your iron levels,” or, “we should do some testing to see is there something going on that is impacting your mood.” That it’s not always a mental health disorder, like maybe it’s a deficiency where it’s impacting my body’s ability to process certain things.

Have you noticed a trend with that as well? I think based on the conversation so far, yes. Where someone’s underlying like nutrition issues are maybe contributing towards, or presenting as like a mental health issue?

Amber: Yeah. So part of it’s nutrient deficiency for sure, and then the other thing though that I see is, the habits and behaviors that women are in where they were potentially already really depleted before they got pregnant or they already had anxiety, or they were already exhausted, and this constant pushing people pleasing, perfection, binging and restricting, fighting with the body and the weight. It’s going to put you into a depleted state, regardless of how well or not you’re eating.

And then on top of that, if you’re hopping from one diet to the next, or, like I said earlier, you’re not getting enough protein, you’re not getting enough fat, or your gut isn’t working properly, your digestion is a mess, you’re bloated all the time, you’re constipated, loose stools, you’re not going to absorb your nutrients properly anyway.

So I think it’s extremely important that we look at the nutrition, that we test the hormones, of course, we look at gut absorption- but we have to look at the habits and behaviors that are really the roots of these deficiencies. Because if your body is constantly stressed, you’re going to burn through your iron and your B12 more quickly, you’re going to be more likely to have higher or lower cortisol and potentially hypothyroid, low progesterone, things like that. So, while nutrition is very important, I’m just such a advocate for habits and behaviors.

Even if it’s small changes, like you said earlier, like doing the puzzles, the coloring, yeah, go splurge on the nails in the massage when you can, but self-care at home gets to look like some breath, a journal, sitting outside in the sunshine, getting yourself some flowers, meditation, like obviously it’s going to look different for each woman. But I just think that we have to start looking at why are you feeling guilty, prioritizing yourself or taking a few minutes for yourself. And yeah, you’re a mom, you’ve got kids, all the stuff, but it’s like, can you talk to your spouse and explain that you’re depleted and that it would be great if you could have a little bit of time for yourself? Because, our bodies are not robots, and we do need some time to get back into that rest and digest mode. And if we never do and we never ask for it, we never set the boundaries, right, we’re going to stay in a fight or flight, and we’re going to stay in a sense of depletion. So what are you willing to do pertaining to your schedule, even if it’s like starts with five minutes, to help open that up?

Gina: So we’ve talked a lot about like the issues that we may have with like our nutritional deficiencies and we’ve touched on like different tests that folks should be looking for. What are the like solutions, I guess? Obviously like we can’t, like no one’s going to listen to this podcast and have all of their problems solved.

Roxanne: We’re individuals.

Gina: But what are like the main things that someone could begin to implement? Let’s say they do find out, they do the testing and they find out that they need more iron, or they need X, Y, and Z, and I think we’ve talked about some of the solutions, but if someone’s listening to this, what would you tell them that they should probably start doing to help support their health long term?

And why does that matter? Can I just continue to live in a stressed out state for forever?

Roxanne: And I mean, I could.

Amber: Not without it having a negative impact at some point, to where your blood sugars go up, you end up potentially, not you, but potentially ending up with high blood pressure, your thyroid continues to decline, you can potentially go into harsher levels of perimenopause or menopause sooner. There’s a lot of things that we can avoid or minimize the intake of if we start to take our power back with our health and realize it’s up to us to advocate for ourselves.

So I think that some of those first things, even before you get those test results back, it’s to ask yourself, where am I on my priority list? If I’m last, why? Do I feel guilty thinking about making myself a prior priority? Am I afraid to ask for help? Am I that, “I gotta do it all myself?” Why? Why? You’re not the only one on this planet, I encourage you to start asking for some help and support where you can get it.

Tech hygiene. Unplugging from technology 15 to 30 minutes before bed will help to get you out of that fight or flight, spending a little less time on your phone. I always say if you’ve got time to scroll and be on tech, you’ve probably got some time to get into that self-care that’s going to help to get you back into rest and digest.

For you, if you, your thing is I’m binge eating, I’m emotionally eating, I’m struggling with my relationship with food, it is imperative that you work on healing that because that is one of the biggest things that’s going to keep fueling all the nutrient deficiencies, poor gut health, poor hormone health. Most importantly, the relationship you have with yourself is going to continue to really have its ups and downs, and it’s going to be hard for you to be present, enjoying this new, beautiful family that you’ve created, and potentially also passing the habits onto them. So healing your relationship with food and learning how to build self-love and self-worth is really the biggest piece because then you start to not feel guilty saying yes to yourself. You set healthy boundaries. You ask for help. You say, “I am worthy of making myself a priority.” So there’s a lot of habitual and mindset work that I think goes for a lot of women.

And what’s cool about it is women that I’ve started working with that start this healing end up getting pregnant after they couldn’t for years because their body’s now in a calm enough state to reproduce and carry full term. Our last two priorities when we’re in a constant fight or flight are reproduction and weight loss. So, we’ve gotta start looking at why we’re so stressed and why our bodies don’t feel safe.

I think for you, if your biggest thing is you don’t have time to eat, are you able sometime on the weekend to like prep those overnight oats and do a whole batch on the weekend? Or like once your kids are old enough, maybe they can start to help you. Or, I love the hard boiled eggs, just having these things that you can grab and go, to help make sure that you’re not missing meals very often and that you’re getting your nourishment to help with your hormones. And when you can, if you can sit and eat your food and chew it thoroughly, you’re going to digest a lot better and you’re going to know what full feels like and be able to stop.

So there’s all potential kinds of things. It just depends on what is one of your biggest struggles, and where do you want to start? I think the other thing is every woman should be getting their hormones tested. Age doesn’t matter to me, once you hit 20, 21 I’ve seen women from there to their 80’s with hormone imbalances. So, go and ask your doctor, “Hey, I want these things done,” and if they’re not willing to do it, find somebody else. We’ve gotta advocate more for ourselves if we’re not getting the answers and then we’ve gotta stop taking “no” for an excusable reason why we shouldn’t have the right to know what’s going on in our bodies.

Gina: Absolutely. I think the other aspect of getting things tested is to also have a provider or practitioner that is helping you to understand the results.

Amber: Yes.

Gina: And to help you figure out a path forward, ’cause you can get all the lab work done, but if your provider is not helping you understand it, it doesn’t really matter at that point, because “I don’t know what these numbers mean, like they all say normal, it must be fine.” And then when I sit down with my provider, he’s like, “Actually they’re not normal, like these are things that we’re going to do. This is our plan of action to help correct it.”

Something that I have been like hyper fixated on since I became a mother is understanding my mortality and wanting to make decisions now that are going to impact my health span. Not just how long I live, but how long I’m going to live with a high quality of life. And one of the things that I know is going to be really impactful long-term is managing my stress levels. And so eating breakfast, going to bed and sleeping like a normal person. I have also been trying to limit my like scroll time or my time on my phone, my husband and I are going to start to implement a day where we’re just not really on our phones at all. We have them nearby in case anybody like, needs to call us or anything. But I used to live like an on-call schedule where I always had to have my phone nearby, and then a lot of our business is online, so it’s like really easy to get sucked in to my device constantly, but I don’t want to be like completely attached to my phone all the time. And so I’ve also been trying to do a little bit of tech hygiene where I am being more mindful of how much I’m on my phone and limiting the scroll. And I think overall that’s more beneficial for my stress levels. So those are like some things that I’ve been implementing, because I know how important it is to manage my stress levels now because I think like my high levels of stress have impacted my thyroid health, which has impacted the function of so many other things within my system as well. So are you doing anything to help with your high stress?

Roxanne: I do. So I also do puzzles and coloring ’cause I like to copy Gina, for everything that she does. But I’ve also started to implement meditation. So I used to be really into yoga, like I would go to yoga like every day pre-kids, 60 to 90 minute classes like every day. And since kids, I just stopped going pretty much all together, like I went from every day to…

Gina: Never.

Roxanne: Once a month, maybe, if that. So I’ve started to try either just to go to yoga, so it’s like I leave the house and go to yoga, or I’ve been doing some of our YouTube classes with Casey online just to do some sort of movement. And it’s like a little bit, obviously the aspect of physical exercise, obviously like yoga is physically strenuous, but the most important aspect of it is the like meditation aspect of doing the movements like mindfully, and like forgetting about the fact that I have to go grocery shopping, or that I need to plan my almost six year old’s birthday party, or that I need to finish my assignments or… It’s literally like I’m just in the present, and that has been really helpful for me the past… i’ve only done it for two weeks now, so it’s nothing like life changing yet, but it’s been helpful for the past two weeks to do that. And that’s like obviously not something that Gina like prefers, but it’s something that I’ve been liking with coloring and puzzling. But coloring and puzzling is a little bit more harder for me with my kids ’cause they love to use the markers and then leave the caps everywhere, and then they dry out. Or they lose the puzzle pieces and the stress of finishing a puzzle with one missing piece, it’s no longer a stress free activity ’cause then I’m just mad.

Gina: Yeah. Something else for me that has been really helpful, and maybe you can implement this in your life…

Roxanne: Because I copy everything you do.

Gina: …Is saying “no” to things. So even for me with like my own business and managing like my kids, like we do a lot of solo parenting, I’m homeschooling, like, my oldest is, I have to say no to things, and I have to prioritize my schedule and understand that I can’t be everything for everyone. And that is really hard to do. And I also have to be the one that says no to myself, which is also really hard to do. And, then rely on other people to ask for help when I need support.

And so those are like other things that I’ve been really working on for myself is when I can’t do certain projects because I just don’t have time to do it, ’cause I am my own business owner, I am all that holds me back, it’s really hard for me to feel comfortable and not have anxiety about that. And then also feeling like I’m letting our clients down or I’m letting other people down because I can’t reply to their message right away, or I don’t respond to this email, or I don’t create this content that they’re asking for, is really challenging. And then asking for help of being like, “Okay, I need more support in these areas of my life in order to be able to accomplish the things that I want,” I feel like can also be fairly challenging too.

Amber: Oh, for sure. Yeah. And especially when it comes to you wanting to meet the needs of everybody. But it’s like celebrating the fact that you’re doing it and then it’s one step at a time. And I think that’s the biggest thing I can’t bring home enough for women is, baby steps, one step at a time, you’re going to build these muscles of asking for help and letting go and, yeah, you can’t do and be everything you want in your business, but it’s like trusting that it’s enough, right?

I can relate in different ways and it’s just like you know what? No. I trust the timing, I trust it’s enough, this is enough for my clients, my customers, my Instagram feed. And it’s, you’re right, like when we have to consider our longevity and our quality of life there are going to be those nos sometimes even to ourselves or our businesses and, it’s just honoring that because it’s going to have a positive impact on those hormones and on your immunity and your nervous system and all of these things. And, it starts though, with implementing the habit of the yoga and meditation. Two weeks is amazing, that’s a huge win!

You should celebrate yourself and whatever it evolves into, ’cause we just have to start somewhere.

And I think that’s the biggest thing for female health overall, regardless of what your goals are, what you’re trying to focus on is, where do I even start? There’s so many different things that I could do. And then we just get overwhelmed and just shut down and nothing happens, right?

Roxanne: Oh yeah.

Amber: So just pick one thing. It’s like you struggle to drink enough water. Start with that, right? Or the tech thing, or like getting into the bit of meditation. It’s just pick one thing and start to build the habit and then add a little more, rather than trying to go extreme and do a million things at once and then get overwhelmed and then nothing is working and you throw it all out the window.

Roxanne: It’s hard not to just be a perfectionist and do it all, though, which then obviously increases your cortisol and then it’s a downward spiral.

Gina: Something else that has been helpful with like our self-care hobbies is we have a group of friends that I have influenced to all get into them as well. And so we have a group chat where we send pictures of like puzzles we’ve done or colorings that we’ve done, which has also been very motivating and. Then we share like different supplies and stuff we find, but then it gets overwhelming ’cause then I buy watercoloring stuff and then I also buy some embroidery things, and some crocheting kits.

Roxanne: So our personalities, we go hard when we take on things, we go hard.

Gina: We go hard with hobbies.

Roxanne: When you say take on a hobby, we went to the hobbies.

Gina: I dedicated a whole space in my house.

Roxanne: We dove into the 40 foot deep hobby end, instead of just slowly entering the shallow end.

Gina: No. I started slow, and then I was like, off the deep end.

Roxanne: Then you just dove right it.

Gina: So do you have any last advice for our listeners on how they can make these little changes to support their relationship with food, their relationship with themselves, with their long-term health. Obviously this is a big ask, give us your advice for our listeners.

Amber: Yeah! Okay, I’m going to, I’m going to give a little snippet of advice for each thing, like emotional eating, weight, hormones, et cetera, just ’cause it’ll help.

So if you are the emotional eater, a binge eater, the first, most important piece of advice to start with that I can give to you is, before you just reach to the food, start asking yourself, “Am I actually hungry or is this emotional hunger?” And if you’re like, “I have no idea,” get your thyroid tested. but starting to ask yourself that question is going to blow your mind at how often we can be called to food for mindless reasons, versus actual fuel and hunger.

If it’s for you, it’s weight and body image, I think the most important thing is for you to pull out a journal or to start asking yourself the question, “Why is my body hanging on and why does she not feel safe?” Because weight is a protective mechanism and the body’s going to pad you with protection, retention, weight, because there’s internal things going on physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically, that are contributing to her hanging on hormonally as well. So start asking yourself the question, start exploring that. Women have several weight loss blocks, just like they have several emotional eating triggers and they’re teachers and they’re trying to guide you and show you where there’s healing to do so you can overcome these things and step more into optimal.

If for you, it’s, “I feel so guilty trying to prioritize my self, or do a little bit of self-care, or a bit of a hobby,” I think it’s important to understand that the reason that you’re feeling the guilt is because it’s uncomfortable right now. It’s foreign, and the brain recognizes discomfort, specifically, it’s called the amygdala, as a threat to our survival. So if you can understand that your brain is literally just trying to keep you alive, and that pull will shift as you go, “You know what? It’s safe for me to prioritize myself. I deserve this time. Oh, I feel that guilt, that’s okay. I’m going to acknowledge the guilt. But the guilt will resolve as I start to build this new habit in my brain.” Understanding that I think is just so powerful, regardless of what you’re doing.

If you’re the people pleaser, start practicing asking for help. Even the littlest things! Start with your spouse, start with a friend or a colleague, just start practicing with the smallest thing that you’re not intimidated to ask for help for, because it will help with the bigger things. Same with the no, start with something small.

As you’re hearing, it’s one question, one exploration, one step to start building a new muscle and a new habit. As you do this, you build confidence, you start to trust yourself and believe in yourself more, and then you set these foundations that are going to be with you for the rest of your life. And if you’re like, “I feel like I’m having all the symptoms, I want to figure out what’s going on with my hormones,” go and get your hormones tested or find a practitioner or somebody who is going to do it with you. And like you said, Gina, thoroughly reviewing the results, explaining how your symptoms are correlated to the numbers, what they mean, where they should be, and how it’s impacting the way that you’re feeling. Those things are all really important.

Gina: Absolutely. thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing. All of your knowledge about hor imbalances and how impactful those can be on our health, not only for today, but also long-term. So thank you again. Where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more from you?

Amber: Thank you for having me! The website is amberapproved.ca. If you’re wondering if you’re struggling with emotional eating I have a free quiz you can take. As well, if you’re wanting to connect, talk about hormone testing, and or any level of support, I do offer a 30 minute complimentary consult so we can connect on Zoom and see what you need. And then the podcast is called the No Sugarcoating Podcast, which I’m so excited to have you be on, Gina, and it is available on all apps. And then I’m on Instagram and YouTube, and it’s my name, @AmberRomaniuk. R-O-M-A-N-I-U-K.

Gina: And we’ll have all of that link down in the show notes below. So for our listeners, definitely check out Amber’s resources. I learned a ton in this episode, I think Roxanne did too. We’re going to go and just go ham with a lot of our hobbies now.

Amber: Yeah!

Gina: Do the opposite of the advice that we were given. But thank you again for coming on the podcast and sharing your wisdom with our listeners.

Amber: Thank you so much.

Thanks, Gina and Roxanne!

Gina: Thank you so much for listening to this episode, all about understanding your hormonal imbalances, in addition to Roxanne and my favorite ways to implement self-care. If you want to copy them, I have an Amazon link with all my coloring supplies. My favorite puzzles are from ebu, they’re really high quality.

Roxanne: And all of our yoga classes are also down below.

Gina: Join our hobby club and do all of the hobbies immediately. Dive super deep into it. But we do find it really important to have some sort of activity that you can do each day or most days of the week, ’cause kids do get a say in your hobbies that you get to do, but just something small that you can do that’s just for you, that is mindful but doesn’t require a whole ton of mental energy.

For me personally, I find coloring to be really helpful. My kids join me in it and I just watch them like a hawk to make sure they put the caps back on, particularly my 2-year-old. With the puzzle, a little bit harder with the kids ’cause I also just pieces randomly disappear. I don’t know if maybe the puzzle company is not sending me all of the pieces or if it’s a child.

Roxanne: Let’s blame it on the puzzle company. It’s definitely not our children.

Gina: So integrating a self-care activity each day can be super beneficial. And again, I’ll link all my favorite coloring supplies down below in case you want me to influence you to join all my favorite hobbies. But if you want more support throughout your pregnancy and your postpartum, outside of what hobbies you should be doing, check out our online prenatal fitness programs and our online childbirth education course, in addition to our postpartum fitness programs. Our prenatal and postpartum fitness programs help you move confidently throughout this phase of life with intentional moments that we have designed from conception all the way through like the first year postpartum, so that you can feel good in your body as you navigate this phase. And how we move our body during pregnancy and the postpartum can also impact us long term as well. So if you’re having pelvic issues now that we’re not addressing, we’re probably still going to have pelvic floor issues when we’re old ladies as well. And having pelvic floor issues when you’re old ladies can also really impact other things within your life to include your quality of life, it increases your fall risk. And so exercising now is incredibly important. And managing your pelvic floor during this timeframe is incredibly important as well- not just for now. But for the long term as well. You can share out all of our online courses on our website at mamastefit.com and use code STORY10 to get 10% off any of our online offerings, and you can bundle a lot of them together to save an additional 15% off.

Roxanne: And this podcast is sponsored by needed. Needed is a nutrition company focused on the perinatal timeframe that we both utilized, our mom uses it, like every friend that I know, I try to get on the Needed train. And if you want to try them out too, you can head to thisisneeded.com and use code MAMASTEPOD to get 20% off your first order.