71// Removing Toxins to Improve Your Relationship with Your Hormones with Wendie Trubow

Wendie Trubow, MD., MBA is a functional medicine gynecologist with a thriving practice at five journeys,s and is passionate about helping women optimize their health and lives through her struggles with mold, metal toxicity, celiac disease, and other health issues, Trubow has developed a deep sense of compassion and expertise for what her patients are facing. she is the co-author of Dirty Girl: ditch the toxins, looking great and feeling freaking amazing!

 

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We discuss:

• What's the connection between weight loss and hormones?

   

• What can you do to increase your energy levels?

   

• How does your mindset affect your ability lose weight and your overall health?

   

• What are some common culprits of low energy levels?

 

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SHOW NOTES AT 

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Xo,

Shannon Hansen

 

P.S. Make sure to schedule our Thyroid Breakthrough call with one of our thyroid advisors. 

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION 

(00:00):

Episode is one remove toxins to improve your relationship with hormones with Wendy trau. Wendy is an M D. She has an MBA as a functional medicine gynecologist with thriving practice journeys and is passionate about helping women optimize their health and lives through her own struggles with mold metal toxicity, celiac disease, and other health issues. Dr. Trau has developed a deep sense of compassion and expertise in her practice and for her patients with them facing their health challenges. She is a co-author of dirty girl ditch the toxins look great and feel freaking amazing. Welcome back to the thriving thyroid podcast, where we choose to become empower patients and take our health into our own hands. Hi, I'm Shannon Hanson, a Christian on a mom of three, and after dealing with my own health mysteries, I made it my mission to learn everything I could about the thyroid.

(01:11):

I soon became certified as a holistic wellness practitioner, a functional nutrition practitioner and a functional diagnostic practitioner. And so much more after that, I founded the revolutionary thyroid program, the handsome method as a health professional and a mom. I fully understand the importance of having a fun, simple, and sustainable plan for achieving a responsive thyroid. So I share actionable and practical strategies for developing a respons thyroid so that the ambitious moms and women can gain freedom from fatigue and lose the thyroid weight once. And for all each week, I will be here for you along with my guest experts, we will be sharing simple and tangible tips that work for not only your thyroid, your hormones, your family, and your mindset, so that you can get back to living the life that you envision for yourself. Welcome to the thriving thyroid podcast. All right. Welcome everybody to the thriving thyroid podcast. I have Wendy on with me. Welcome Wendy. Thank

(02:18):

You. Great to be here.

(02:20):

Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. So give us just a quick introduction as to who you are, what you do, all of the fun things.

(02:28):

Sure. So I discovered functional medicine when I became a patient of it back in 2006, because I was so sick, I could barely get outta bed. And my husband's mentor diagnosed me with celiac, which I kind peripherally knew of because my dad has it, but it wasn't really on my radar. And so when I got diagnosed, I was sick, really sick sort of head to toe issues. And I immediately went gluten free. And that was that moment where I went, oh, I should be doing this because functional medicine's looking for what's the root cause of disease. And as a physician, I always felt like I didn't have as many tools in my toolbox as I needed. And so it was the opportunity to have more tools and be able to get to the root cause and fix things for people. So I got into functional medicine in actually in 2009, it took about three years and I've never looked back.

(03:23):

So I do, I started out my career as an OB GYN delivering, which is why I was all over. Like, when are you delivering and all that but left OB in 2009 and have focused solely on women's health from a functional medicine perspective to figure out what's going on. Because I feel like as a group, all women are underserved, cuz all we do is take care of others. And so it's like my mission in life to have women feel good, be great role models for their kids. And I don't mean like a way you should do it. I mean, role modeling, taking care of yourself and being well cared for as a baseline. Yes. And, and so that's what I do. And I, and I use a lot of the functional medicine tools to get to the data of here's why you should do that. Here's how your body's responding.

(04:07):

Yeah. Oh, I love that. So coming from, let's say a conventional weight, right? As an OB and then having your own health struggles, what pushed you into let's look at a different way. And I feel like this is a story for a lot of physicians, they start out as mm-hmm , you know, whatever, some kind of specialist and then they have their own health crisis and things change. Right. Things shift. Yeah.

(04:36):

I was always a bit of a Maverick and I always didn't understand why we weren't looking at why I really wanted to. I remember asking in medical school why, why , why it was super unpopular. So I've always been kind of a Maverick. And so I didn't know about functional medicine and when the opportunity came up to do it to, and I started to learn like, oh, there's there's so let me back up for a sec. Medicine isn't bad. It's excellent for obstetrical care, emergency care, surgical care. It's that's what you want.

(05:08):

Absolutely.

(05:09):

If you have a tumor, you wanna get that tumor taken out, you don't wanna do a functional medicine approach. Right? You wanna, you wanna address it?

(05:15):

This is true, but

(05:16):

For keeping you healthy for autoimmune disease for the everyday life. Things that we deal with traditional medicine has exhausted the tools in the toolbox and is now sort of defaulting to take a medicine, which isn't fixing the problem. It's simply masking the problem. And that just never quite sat right with me. So when I learned about, oh, there's more opportunities to fix the problem that just really matched with my philosophy of, let's not put a bandaid on things, let's fix them. So that was really what it was. And then my husband opened up a functional medicine practice in 2008 and it was like, I just had to join it. You know, I was like, I gotta be there. And that we had that company till 2015 and that closed. And then we opened another company in 2016 and I've been there ever since. So that was like, when I started in 2009, I could, it just never looked back.

(06:10):

That's so cool. So both you and your husband are functional medicine? Both.

(06:15):

Okay. Yeah. We're both physicians. He's a family doctor. I'm an OB GYN and we work together. We have a practice, we do IVs. We have a nutritionist, we do supplements. We do functional medicine. We have another doc. We kinda do everything in one place.

(06:27):

So cool. And where are you located for all of our listeners or like, that sounds like it's for me.

(06:33):

So we're in Massachusetts. Okay. And right now we're able to do telemedicine with a lot of people. So that's been super helpful in COVID. So we do telemedicine, we do take insurance. It's a membership based practice. So there's a monthly fee plus insurance.

(06:46):

Amazing. Oh, that's so perfect. I was actually just talking to someone yesterday who might actually send her to you. Well, because she needs someone to help regulate her bio identical things. And she's in a small town and she's like I'm 60 minutes, 90 minutes away from all these different people. So I was like, let, let me look into this. So this might just be, you know, an answer to our prayers. So like

(07:17):

The timing. Yeah. No, it's, it's really about getting the root cause and fixing it. I, we, we do hormones all the time.

(07:22):

Yeah. Well that's, that's why we're here talking today. so that's perfect. Yeah. Perfect intro. Okay. So we will make sure to add that to the show notes as well for people who, you know, maybe want to look into working with you and your husband. Cause yeah, that's just fantastic. All right. So let's dive into this. What is the connection between weight loss and hormones and how does that interplay with each other?

(07:51):

So we only have half hour, right?

(07:53):

Yeah. Yes. So high level,

(07:55):

High level. So let's, so your endocrine has a number of organs in it and the ones that really get women go, I'm assuming this, you know, I'm talking to women here mostly, right? So for women, the ones that are huge are the adrenals, which are located right above your kidneys in your back. Those put out your fight, fight or freeze hormone. So that's your cortisol, cortisone aldosterone, which keep you from losing all your fluid. And then as women transition into menopause, the adrenals also pick up the job of putting out your testosterone and your estradiol, which will keep your head on straight. However, if you're stressed, you're gonna preferentially go down the, a fight flight or freeze, cuz that's a life or death pathway. And then maintaining your hormones. Pathway is a nice to have. It's not a must have. So that's one of the critical organs for hormone balance.

(08:51):

And then everyone thinks about, oh my ovaries, those are ovaries are more the responders, as opposed to the generators. They're they're doing what the brain and the adrenals are telling them to do. So when you ask about weight loss, so if you're stressed, your body interprets that pretty primitive. So we're super primitive, even though we've all this technology we haven't evolved the same radar technology has. And so when you get stressed or I get stressed, you set off this whole chain of reactions in your body. And the bottom line for them is your body thinks a lion's about to eat you and you have to run away. It's a physiological response. And what that means is you're gonna not digest your food because isn't an immediately important survival behavior and you are gonna direct need glucose. So you're gonna crave carbs or sugar because you need to get quick energy.

(09:45):

And then you're gonna direct that glucose to the big muscle. So you can run away from the lion. That's about to chase you and eat you. Okay? So living in the, well, I was gonna say America, but kind of living anywhere at this point is in and of itself a stressful event. So at baseline, we're all very stressed. Now you layer on, maybe you're not eating in a way that your body likes or, you know, everyone has good intentions. So it's not that you're a bad person. It's not that you're, you're intentionally doing something wrong, but maybe you're just not eating the food that your body wants you to eat. Or maybe you have some autoimmune disease that's messing with your, the rest of you. Or maybe you have some genetic issues or maybe you're not sleeping enough or maybe you're in a toxic relationship or maybe you can't move your body enough and blow up the stress. So you put those all together and that's you. And so it's super easy to tank your hormones. And when say hormones, I'm really referring to the adrenal hormones, cuz those are gonna determine whether you lose weight or not. Because if you're in a state of fight flight or freeze, you're not gonna lose a pound. You're gonna try to survive. Cuz you're now your body thinks you need to survive as opposed to thrive. Weight loss is a thriving behavior. Yes. And survival is survival. You do. You're gonna maintain it.

(10:58):

Yeah. Yeah. I, I was just sitting here thinking when my health was going really, really terrible and tired, wired, stressed out overworked and, and you guys, I didn't work. I was not like I wasn't working outside the home. I was just raising babies.

(11:18):

Hold on Shannon. that's a full-time job itself. So you didn't have two jobs. You had one more than full-time job.

(11:27):

Yes. Yes. Totally. Thank you for the clarity because I always tell people, being a mom is it's a lot of work. It is a full time job, you know? And you're on call you 24 hours a day. And I mm-hmm I joke with my husband, I'm like, you get to leave and go to work and you get like 30 minutes in the car driving to work

(11:48):

Alone each way,

(11:50):

Each way. Yeah. And so I joke now because it, you know, I'm like, nobody think about me, nobody smell me. Nobody look at me, nobody, you know, like mom just needs a couple minutes to myself and anyway,

(12:07):

No I say to my kids, unless you're bleeding or dying right this minute, I'm not available. So are you bleeding or dying? No. Okay. Great. Go to your father. Yeah. To cure it.

(12:15):

Yes. Figure it out. but my kids always laugh. They're like we can't think about you. No, don't even have thoughts about me. cause I feel that no but I had burnt out. Yeah. My adrenals. Right. Because I thought I was supposed to do all of these amazing things and I think we underestimate, I, I don't know the output that we put and how that can just wear on the body and how it destroys hormones.

(12:50):

I'll call it the power of should.

(12:52):

Ah,

(12:53):

Yes. The power of should is super negative and it will destroy, especially for new moms who are thinking, oh, I should do that. And that's how look at all these Instagram pictures and Facebook and everyone's posting all their perfect stuff and I should do that. Okay. I'm gonna be cookies every day and all the shoulds. Yes. And those there's really will destroy no question and let circle back one word to weight loss because almost every woman who comes into my office says, I know my thyroid is off. And I'm like, how do you know? And they say, cause you can't lose weight. I'm like, well you might have a, you might genuinely have a thyroid issue, but it's more likely that you have an adrenals issue because the adrenals are more powerful than the, than the thyroid. And if your adrenals are stressed, it's gonna pull your thyroid outta whack. So even if you have a thyroid issue, we still need to address your adrenals. So let's look upstream. So you're totally right. Cause you changed your adrenals.

(13:46):

Yeah. I, I, to, I did. So I tested my adrenals. My endocrinologist told me they were normal, but I was at 0.02

(13:59):

Oops.

(13:59):

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're totally normal. And I was like, okay. So then I went to the gym, I hired a personal trainer. I did all these things. Added more stress to my body, went and saw a different functional doctor. And he was like, you need to stop at exercising and stop doing all of the things that you're doing. You're not allowed to do more than walking. mm-hmm you know, and I really had to go back and reset those cortisol

(14:28):

yeah. Levels untangle, like really untangle everything.

(14:32):

Yeah. And it took me several months, but I started and maybe this is a good question for you. I started feeling the difference within 30 days. But when you're working with women on their adrenals, what kinda, I was gonna say life expectancy. that's not the right word. Health, health expectancy. Yes. What, how can they set realistic goals for themselves in, in working on repairing those adrenals?

(14:58):

That's such a great question because we're so conditioned to think. Okay. I mean, even myself, if I work out heavier for a week and I don't look more tone, I'm. I'm like, wait a minute. I've been working out for a week. Why don't, why don't I have all that definition I was hoping for. So we're so conditioned to think of dose response, meaning you do something and you see a response immediately, but the adrenals are a lot less quick to respond, I should say. So it, and it depends. I'd say it depends how bad you were when you started. So if you were really tanked, then I see to people it's gonna take 12 to 24 months to really fix your adrenals. And that presumes let's back up. I always see to people when you, when you demolish a building that wrecking ball will come through and demolish it in one day, think of, think of whatever happened as the wrecking ball.

(15:51):

And then when you do a construction project, it takes two years to build something perfect and beautiful. You know, when you're, when you're doing construction. So think of yourself like a construction project and there's gonna be delays and there's gonna be setbacks and it's gonna take longer than you think. We're exactly like a construction project of humans. We're constructing the ideal human. And if you were doing nothing, you lived on an island, you had no stress. You had all the money in the world, you had people catering to you. You had all your hearts desired. Then I would say, okay, plan on six to 12 months. But if you're someone who works in and possibly outside the home, if you have one or two jobs, if you have of stressors layered on, if you have any financial concerns, any relationship concerns, any other health issues, it takes longer. So you can start to feel better, but you don't develop that elasticity or plasticity that the, the ability to sort of roll with the punches and, and deal with them. That takes a while.

(16:52):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love your analogy of, excuse me, the wrecking ball. I'd never thought of that before, but I, I mean, for me, I felt I started to feel different in those 30 days, but it did take me. I would probably say a year, year and a half to really be like, oh, I feel like myself again.

(17:11):

Yes. You can feel really changes depending on where you were and where you started and what you do. Right. If you change your diet, take supplements that support the adrenals, get enough rest, don't drink alcohol. Don't worry about stuff. You can change a lot faster, but that's a lot of changes to make at once for one person . So usually say like pick one big thing and master it, have a win and then do another one.

(17:35):

Yeah. For me, I, I focused on sleep because yeah, I was sleeping maybe four hours a night. I know. That's really embarrassing to admit

(17:45):

well on purpose or cause you had little people disrupting you.

(17:49):

Kind of a combination of both. I have little people disrupting me. I was trying to do all of the things and have the perfect house and have, you know, all of the laundry always caught up on and the dishes always done. And you know, I was trying to live in this fantasy world more or less like

(18:05):

The should world,

(18:06):

The should world. Yeah, exactly. And it just, my body things would take me longer, you know, holding laundry instead of it taking me 15, 20 minutes would take me 45 minutes because my body was just slow.

(18:20):

Yeah. You were fatigued.

(18:21):

I was beyond fatigued.

(18:24):

yeah. So four hours. Definitely not enough, especially I'm assuming it wasn't in a row either. It was broken.

(18:31):

Depend. Yeah. Depending on the night.

(18:33):

Yeah.

(18:34):

Yeah. So how, what can we do to increase those levels? I feel like this would be a great segue to go into increasing energy levels and being able to do more

(18:47):

yes. So, you know, as the recently Shannon, everyone talks about, oh women, you can't have it all. And I totally reject that notion. I think you can have it all. You just can't do it all yourself. So when you said do more, I was like, I don't know if I wanna do more. I'm kind of happy. I, I have my babysitter who does my laundry, cuz I legit hate folding laundry. Hate it more than anything in the world. So it was like a stressful of every time I walked into my laundry room and I was like, oh I have four kids. Look at all this laundry it drove me to like stress just there. So the things people can do, one really important is to train your brain, not to be a stress ball. And what I mean by that is if you're asking the wrong questions, you're gonna get bad answers and they're gonna make you feel stress.

(19:31):

So questions that start with what if are never, ever, ever questions that are gonna get you somewhere empowered? Because what if doesn't give you much access to action and choice? What if gets you I'm gonna be a victim? What if my house burns down? I can't really do anything about that. Those aren't the right questions. What if someone said to me, what, what if my sons burn the house down while I'm away? I said, that's not the right question. Right? She was leaving her two autistic sons home. And she said, what if they burn the house down? I said, you're asking the wrong question. So the first thing to do is train your brain to ask the right questions, eliminate what if questions and replace them with, what would I do if or how do I prevent and what, or fill in the blank. That is what would I do if my sons burned the house down?

(20:16):

Okay, well first I wanna make sure they're safe. And then I wanna make sure they understand that this is more about what would I do if, how do I prevent them from how do I avert? You have to give your brain questions. It can actually answer. And it can't answer. What if, what if makes it freeze? What would I do if or how do I prevent give your brain access to power? So train your brain to replace. What if with something else that's one. And the reason it matters is when you start to be anxious and start to fret, it impacts your sleep. It impacts your adrenals, your adrenals think Alliance chasing you, even though you're just perseverating in your brain and worrying about all that stuff. Yeah. So train your brain to give you access to action as opposed to being a victim. That's

(21:00):

I love that just real quickly. When you said, what if I would, that was one of the things that I started to change for myself is I would play out the, what if scenario? Yeah. To the worst, right? Yep. Well, what if my kids were burnt down? Well, you know, we'll call 9 1 1. We'll get the fire department there. You know, everything. It would, some things would be really hard to replace pictures, things like that. But my house can be replaced. My sofa can be replaced. You know, a lot of these things can be replaced. And when you kind of play out those scenarios, it's like, oh, it's not that bad. You know, I can deal

(21:36):

With the worst is where you wanna get to. Yes. But usually the question of what if sends us into a tailspin where we don't really get down to the very bottom, we just get stuck in the, oh my God, what if that happens?

(21:49):

Yeah.

(21:50):

And it's a stop and it's not an open door to figure something out. So that's really one important thing is to train your brain one, get down to the very worst of what would happen if that happened, but then also train your brain. So you have other behaviors you could substitute.

(22:04):

Yeah, no, I appreciate the, the reframe of the, what if, cuz it is kind of anxiety provoking. Yes. You know, versus if that did happen, then

(22:16):

How would I react?

(22:17):

How would I react? What would I do? Yeah. Yeah.

(22:19):

Perfect. So that's one huge thing for managing like stress levels and all of this impacts weight ultimately for women cuz you won't lose a pound. If your adrenals thing that you're gonna be eaten by lion. Yeah. So the next thing that I always recommend to fix your adrenal health and this is the non-popular one. So I'll just acknowledge that. Especially as we're sort of in between, we're talking about this in between Thanksgiving and Christmas,

(22:43):

We love these

(22:44):

so it's, don't drink alcohol and don't eat processed carbs or sugar, which is super unpopular. And I don't blame you if at this moment you're like, okay, I hate her. She stinks

(22:59):

I, in situations like this, I always tell people it's easier said than done. I don't drink. You know? And I think that that really contributed to the acceleration of how I was able to, you know, restore that adrenal function. And it's really hard when that is part of your lifestyle and yeah.

(23:20):

so it's all about making a better choice. But first let's say why. So alcohol means that the liver has to work harder to detox. It also stresses the adrenals and soda sugar and processed carbs. So it makes it harder for the adrenals to do its job. But you know, you always wanna go, okay, what's a better choice. I have patients who they have to drink wine while they're cooking for dinner. Okay. So you can have your wine, but instead of maybe having a glass or two of wine, would they be willing to do a wine spritzer and not 90% wine, 10% soda water but like 10% wine and spritz it up in a wine glass make you feel like you're getting what you need because it's the ritual sometimes long with, with the alcohol. So to find ways that make it easier on the body.

(24:10):

So you still feel included instead of getting a sugary mixed drink, get a shot of vodka on the rocks and sip it as opposed to pounding it. So make sort of changes, make a better choice as opposed to whole hog a eliminating it. Cause that might not work for everybody or look at like, it's funny. I never, I hate baking. I really stink at following directions, but I've learned that about myself, but sometimes I'll bake just because I don't know my daughter's in this baking class, I have to help her. But the, the recipe always calls for like one to two cups of sugar, which to me is obscene. So I routinely cut the sugar by, into a quarter and I'll put a quarter in and before we put the eggs in, we'll taste it and go, does it taste good? And sometimes we need to go to a third of a cup, but essentially decreasing the amount of sugar in the food that you have control over or decreasing the number of times a day or the amount that you're eating in any particular time. Perfection isn't real. Yes. It's not real. It's more about let's make better choices. And when we don't make choices that are the best for us, don't make it mean that you're a bad person. You didn't cheat. You're not bad. Just did something that didn't work for you. Now go get back on your program.

(25:21):

So good. We actually do that in our home as well. I make this to time of year mm-hmm we make a cranberry salsa and the recipe was like, like you said a cup. I am now down to like an eighth of a cup. Cause I was kinda worried. I'm like, what if it doesn't taste good? You know? But holy like I've actually started subbing it out for like a coconut sugar. Mm-Hmm you know, something a little bit more natural.

(25:51):

like make better. It's basically about making better choices leveling up. There's no perfection. It's just about leveling up. That's all. Yeah. So that's a second way to help the adrenals. And then a third, you already hit on it. Shannon is get enough rest. Don't ski on sleep because it's so critical for. So I'm a huge detox person. I'm all about detox. And when you sleep, you detox the space in your brain, the cells in your brain sort of shrink down and the space in between your brain gets bigger so that the brain can essentially drain itself of toxins as you sleep. But if you don't sleep enough, that doesn't happen. So getting enough sleep that restores the adrenals that helps you detox, it resets your body, you rejuvenate while you sleep. So getting enough sleep is the third critical thing I would say

(26:44):

So good sleep mm-hmm this time I

(26:48):

Have a baby, you can have a baby. So I'm like, I dunno.

(26:51):

Well everybody's like, how are you doing this pregnancy? And I'm like, you know what? I'm actually sleeping way better than I did with all of my other pregnancies. I'm only waking up one time a night to go to the bathroom versus three and four times with my other kids. So I'm like, I'm actually doing pretty good. good. Cause I will now just say, I'm gonna sit down for 15 minutes. Yeah. You guys can make dinner or you can, I'll do a puzzle with you or read a book to you or something, but mommy's sitting down mm-hmm whereas before I, it was go, go, go, keep pushing, keep doing more. And I find that , as I'm relaxing a little bit, I'm actually being able to be more productive because my body is able to just take those minutes that

(27:39):

It needs. Yeah. Yeah. You really need to listen to your body and you so underscored that. Yeah. Which is great.

(27:45):

All right. So what are some of the common culprits for low energy? I think we kind of started talking about this, but mm-hmm, , we'll lay it out a little bit more so

(27:55):

Common culprits any autoimmune disease can cause your energy to be low and that's, I mean, that's just a huge topic and that stems from eating food. That's not working for you too much stress, not sleeping enough, working too much, not moving your body, having a gut that's out of balance and not, not pooping regularly eating things. So artificial colors and flavors are really difficult for your body to deal with and are pretty inflammatory eating anything that your body doesn't like. Cause there's a lot of stuff you can eat without recognizing it and with good intentions again. So what else would make you fatigue? Alcohol exercising too much can make you fatigue, not exercising enough, toxic relationships. Huge, really huge. Especially you, you feel stuck or if you have a financial challenge and can't get out, that will absolutely SAP your energy faster than anything because you're, you know, you're stuck. And so then the question is how do we, how do we help you move you along to have you be healthy and safe?

(28:59):

Let's pause at those toxic relationships for just a second. So I work a lot with women with Hashimotos is kind of the big one. And when we kind of peel back some of these layers, we find that they have a toxic relationship, mother, father, husband, boss, whatever. So I think it would be really great to hear your thoughts on how to deal those relationships.

(29:28):

Yeah, it's really, it's really critical. So I think, you know, it's interesting. I, I, I legit think that every human being has someone in their life who's toxic. And so then the question is how do you mitigate that? Do you know, like how do you, how do you minimize your exposure to them or their impact on you? So I, I would say you and, and you have to, so the closer it is to you, the more important it is to mitigate it. So if it's your significant other, I'm a huge proponent of marriage. And, and simultaneously, if you've done everything you can to be healthy and safe in your marriage, if you can't be, then I'm a huge proponent of get out as fast as you can, if you're not safe and healthy. Yep. You know, if there's really no way to make it safe and healthy, it's time to get out.

(30:21):

So being able to distinguish that you've done everything you can and now it's time is the hardest part. So, so if it's that close, it's really hard to get healthy until you address that. Mm-Hmm that, that is like hands down. I've had a couple patients over the years whom I've, you know, I can't really help you until you either get outta your marriage or quit that job. Those, those are the two biggies. Right? So if the toxic and it could be a job that's toxic for you too, when we talk about relationships. So if it's a job or a relationship that's super close to home, you either need to fix it or get out. Those are the only two options you can can't live with it cause it's gonna make you sick. Yeah. And then, and then it gets to like, how far away are they?

(31:10):

Is it a parent whom you see regularly? Okay, can you limit how often you see them for how long you see them or the settings in which you see them. Right. Cause different territories have people behave differently way mm-hmm . And if you need, if, if you have issues with any part of that and you get really hooked into your old patterns of childhood, then I'd say maybe bring a buddy along whenever you see that parent or sibling, whoever that fill in the blank person is for you. Who's toxic. Bring someone along who is not challenged or triggered by that. Who can lighten it up, make a joke, divert. I always believe in divert, deflect, distract. Ooh. So when your parent starts in or your sibling starts in on whatever, that is, the goal is not to get hooked into the argument. The goal is to divert, deflect, distract, or leave.

(32:03):

Right. You know, we say, you know, I think I forgot to turn off my oven. something, you know, something or set it up ahead of time. I only have like 15 minutes, but I really wanted to see you. But 15 minutes is just long enough, right? Yes. So I ju so you set it up ahead of time. I don't have a lot of time, but I really wanted to make sure we connect, cuz I love you so much. And I really wanted to make sure we other and however, I do have to leave in like 15, 20 minutes. So set yourself up for success. And I love that really, really look at not, not engaging. Right. And the other thing is sometimes people are jerks and they don't realize that they're being jerks. Cause they're just, that's just how they were treated. And they didn't realize that it's kind of hurtful when they say that. So getting really authentic and, and grounded with someone saying, I feel really sad when you say that to me or that hurts my feelings. When you talk to me like that, or I don't really wanna be around you when you speak to me like that,

(33:01):

Mm-Hmm,

(33:02):

Tells people that they're being inappropriate without saying you're such a jerk, right? The goal isn't to engage with accusations, the goal is to wake them up. So maybe they don't talk that way. Right? So like, Hey, I feel really sad when you say those things to me and it doesn't make me feel very close to you. And I feel sad cuz like you're my mother, father, sister, or brother, whatever. And I really wanna be close to you. Yeah. But when you say that I kinda wanna run away.

(33:31):

This is so good. And I had all these thoughts running through my head, but I , I love the deflect and distract. That was, I feel like it that's a really good one setting parameters or boundaries. Right? Mm-hmm on, I can do this, but I can't do this. Or I, you know, I can spend 15 minutes with you or 30 minutes with you or whatever it is. But I can't, you know, but after that, then I'm done. But I just had this conversation with my kids. I'm an to get emotional, but cause it's always, it's hard being a parent is hard. And I told my kids, well actually I'm gonna back up. I had a situation. My daughter was like my oldest. She's like, you're always picking on me. You're always criticizing me. You're always telling me I'm doing. And I was like, whoa, whoa, wait a second here.

(34:21):

I said, you were just helping me in the kitchen. And I told you how good you were at doing X, Y, Z, all of these things. And I said, you remember that? Right? She said, yeah. And I said, I corrected you. just a little bit ago with your sisters and reminded you to say, please, because in our home as a mom, it's my job to make sure that everybody feels safe. Mm-Hmm right. Not just you, but your sisters too. So if your tone of voice is negative or degrading or carrying someone down that other child doesn't feel safe, mm-hmm . And sometimes as a mom, I have to have the courage to say, Hey, you need to, to say please, or you need to try saying that again. Or you know, whatever. And I have to watch my tone of voice. So , you know, in those situations as well, but we have this whole long conversation about how it takes courage to tell someone, Hey, this isn't appropriate. This doesn't feel for me. I don't like the way you're speaking to me. And I think that that is something as a kid, we're not necessarily taught because your child you're little, you're insignificant. You are, you know, to, depending on the generation and when you were brought up, you were supposed to be seen and not heard

(35:43):

(35:43):

Yep. You know? So we have to, as, as adults learn to say inappropriate ways, I'm not comfortable with this or this isn't okay. Or I don't like the way you're we think each other like that.

(35:54):

Yeah.

(35:55):

(35:55):

I see that a lot in my, we don't speak to each other like that.

(35:58):

Mm-Hmm

(35:59):

So there are, there are it's also, there are ways to fight that are clean. And then there are ways to fight that are dirty. So we teach the kids a lot about how do you fight cleanly? You talk about behaviors and not labeling someone as something. Yes. So it's not you, you're not a lazy person. If you didn't put your clothes away, you didn't put your clothes away. And the impact that has in our house is that the house is messy. But that doesn't mean that you're a mess. And it doesn't mean you're lazy. Doesn't mean any of that, we're not labeling you. We're simply talking about behaviors. Yeah. So to focus, go a level up and focus on behaviors. So when you're talking about people, when you talked about boundaries, I really wanted to say it's so important to set boundaries. And if someone's just a jerk to you, it's okay to say, you know what? We don't talk to each other like that. And if, if it's not something that you can abide by, I'm gonna have to leave and then leave. Don't just stick around to be abused. Yes.

(36:57):

This is, I, I have to say this because some people are gonna be like, how did they go from like hormones and stress to now toxic relationship? This is a beautiful thing about functional medicine. Functional nutrition is we have to bring in these emotional components because they can drain us, right? It's not this isolated physi physiological. This is what's happening with your body. There's also this mental, emotional, spiritual connection between everything. Yeah.

(37:28):

Well, everything, every thought you have will either empower you or disempower you. And if it disempowers you, it setting up a cascade of hormonal changes that SAPs your energy, then messes with your liver, then messes with your gut and then ultimately makes you not able to lose weight, which is all women care about, right? How do I lose weight? How do I get my skin to be better? And how do I get my hair to grow back? That's all we care about. So those disempowering thoughts actually have a legitimate physiological basis for why you don't feel good in your skin. And that's why it's so important. They're, they're more power. I would say to people like how you live is more important than the supplements you take. Mm. My supplements are awesome. They're they're medical grade. They're amazing. They're powerful. But if you're a stress ball, you're gonna undo all the good job, a good work of the supplements. So stop, train your brain. It matters. Get outta that relationship. That's toxic. It matters.

(38:20):

Yeah. Supplements are supplemental to yes. Your lifestyle

(38:25):

Yes. Supplemental. Exactly. That's such a great way to put it. Yep. Supplemental.

(38:30):

All right. Perfect. Well, Wendy, let's kind of wrap this up. Mm-Hmm do you have any last thoughts for the listeners? And then we'll go into how they can follow you, connect with you. All of those wonderful things.

(38:41):

I would say it can feel a little bit overwhelming when you're looking at, how do you make lifestyle change? And so I always recommend pick something that you can win at. Mm-Hmm some, it doesn't have to be big, have a win and feel good about yourself. Right? Feel like, oh, I did that go me and then pick something a little more challenging and keep doing that until six months later, you look back and go, Ooh, look at all those changes I made. I've really done a good job and be proud of it. Right. Like celebrate your successes.

(39:11):

Okay. Yeah. Perfect. So

(39:12):

That, that would be my, my biggest thing is start slowly. Pick what?

(39:16):

Yeah. I love that. And I think that's so important to start with where you're at and not try to take everything on and live in that should world. Like you said earlier,

(39:26):

No.

(39:27):

And get outta. That is terrible. Yes. It's it sounds like a bad word. When I say that. Well it

(39:35):

A make wrong word. You're bad. You should do that. You're so bad that you didn't. I'm like, oh, there's no shoulds in my house. Shoulds not welcome here. So, and then you asked how people can reach me.

(39:45):

Yeah. How can they

(39:47):

Our website is five journeys.com and the five is F I V E spelled out journeys. J O U R N E Y s.com. My personal Instagram is Wendy Truo and I'm assuming you'll have my name and put it in the show notes. And then our company, Instagram is five journeys health. We have a Facebook page, five journeys. And then Shannon, I didn't tell you, we were gonna offer a gift to your listeners. I forgot

(40:11):

To. Oh, wonderful. Yes. Please tell us all about that. So

(40:15):

We have a new book, the it's all about detoxing from toxins and it's called dirty girl. It was based on my whole journey with figuring it out. And as a companion, we put together a lifestyle guide for how do you clean up your life and get rid of all the toxins in your life. So it's not about toxic relationships. It's more about toxins, like your furniture, your makeup, your, your water, all that stuff. And we spent a lot of hours compiling that. So it's a whole guide to cleaning up your life. And we have that on offer for your listeners at five journeys.com/promo. And that will get them they just have to put in their email and they'll get the, the guide email to them so they can start to level up. Perfect.

(40:56):

Yes. I love that toxins are, that was one of the last places I wanted to go. mm-hmm, ,

(41:03):

It's huge though,

(41:04):

But yeah, it is. It really is. And I feel like when I finally was like, okay, I've been wearing this, what it like drugstore makeup. Mm-Hmm , you know, all my life. And then I finally started investing in high, your quality makeup, my skin improved. I mean, now I'm pregnant. And I, this is the first pregnancy. I haven't had a bunch of breakouts. I've noticed, oh, good. A little more uneven skin tone coming through. But it made a world of difference in how I felt physically. And so it is one of those things that I'm like, it's, I know it's hard. It's difficult to give up some of these things that you just feel

(41:44):

Lifelong. Yeah.

(41:45):

Attached to, but it makes a big difference. So

(41:48):

The one at a time, that same thing about toxin clean up is go pick one thing. And as it run out, then you level up, you don't, you don't do a queen swipe of your entire makeup in and level up everything. A it's expensive B it's overwhelming . So nobody has the time brain space or money for that. Just go, oh, my mascara is running out. I'm gonna level up now. Oh, I, my pencil is running out. I'm gonna level up. Now I'm out of, out of eyeshadow trying to level up. So it's just one at a time.

(42:16):

Perfect. Well, I'm excited for everybody to check out that guide and get started with that. It was a pleasure having you on today, Wendy, and thank you. We will get everything linked up for all of our listeners so they can connect with you guys. And we'll see you guys on the next.

(42:34):

Yes. Ma'am nice to talk to you, Shannon.

(42:36):

Yeah.

(42:38):

Wait, wait, before you go, please subscribe. If you found value in today's episode, leave us a review and share on Instagram and please tag us. We love yours,

(42:51):

Please.