Start Thriving: Hormone Hacks, Cycle Syncing, and Kicking Toxins to the Curb for Ultimate Wellness w/ Carly Hartwig

Picture yourself as a teenager, handed a box of birth control pills to 'fix' your irregular periods. You know nothing of the long-term effects and blindly trust the solution. As a grown woman, you finally realize the importance of truly understanding your menstrual cycle and the need for hormone health. That's the story of Carly Hartwig, a holistic reproductive health practitioner and soon-to-be-certified fertility awareness educator, who joins us for this enlightening conversation. We examine the long-term effects of birth control, the importance of functional medicine, and why it's crucial to consider more than just a basic blood panel for achieving optimal health.

What if there was a way to understand your body better? What if the menstrual cycle was not just a burden, but a gauge of your overall health? We delve into how menstrual health impacts hormones, why it can be seen as a fifth vital sign, and the influence of hormonal birth control on our cycles. Carly guides us through the distinct phases of our menstrual cycle, highlighting the necessity for adapting our routines to our bodies' needs. We also discuss the role of diet and lifestyle choices on hormone health, providing practical advice for healthier living. 

Are you aware of the products you use daily and how they can disrupt your health? It's time to wake up and make a transition, one product at a time. Carly shares how making these changes drastically improved her health, mood, and overall well-being. From reducing synthetic fragrances in our homes to eliminating caffeine and alcohol from our diets, we explore the benefits of safer products. We wrap up our conversation with a focus on parenting, healthcare, and healthy living, emphasizing the importance of advocating for ourselves and educating our children about food and product ingredients. Join us in this insightful conversation, as we share personal experiences and tips on leading healthier lives.

Carly Hartwig is a Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner and soon to be certified Fertility Awareness Educator with a passion for helping women understand their incredible menstrual cycles and have pain-free periods! As a former educator turned full-time mama who has been on my own personal health journey for over a decade now,  she uses her IG platform to educate on the importance of choosing low-tox products and share practical holistic health tips. Her goal is to be your trusted source for living well! 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Selfish Mom Podcast, a podcast for you so you don't get burnt out like a mother. I'm your host, allie Kay, and this is the Selfish Mom Podcast. Learn to prioritize your mental and physical health first, so we can thrive and not just survive. Let's take action, become our best selves together and redefine selfish as the most selfless thing we could do. Welcome to the Selfish Mom Podcast. I'm your host, allie Kay, and on this episode, if you are a female, this episode is for you.

Speaker 1: 0:36

I sat down with Carly Hartwig. She is a holistic reproductive health practitioner and soon-to-be-certified fertility awareness educator, and she taught me so much. We talked about hormones, our cycles, how we can sink our cycles to our daily life. We also talked about products that are in our household and our lives that might be disrupting our health as well as our children's health. This just was the episode where you can learn so much and start applying what you learned from this episode into your life and start feeling a little better.

Speaker 1: 1:15

But a little bit about Carly. She has a passion for helping women understand their incredible menstrual cycles and have pain-free periods. As a former educator turned full-time mama, who has been on her own personal health journey for over a decade now. She uses her Instagram platform to educate on the importance of choosing low-talks products and share practical holistic health tips. Her goal is to be your trusted source for living well, and this episode she shares it all. Stick around, hey, carly. Welcome to the Selfish Mom Podcast. I am so excited to have you on. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really honored. So tell me a little bit about your journey, who you are, your background, because we are going to dive in on all the things hormones, cycle-sinking I really feel like the foundation for women's health.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Yeah, things that I didn't really know about until I was 30. I'm 36 now per reference, but yeah, it's been a journey. It's definitely a great way to describe the last maybe decade or so for me. I think my journey started out similarly to a lot of women around my age or a little younger, where we went on birth control not really thinking about it, not really thinking about the future or hormone health or our nutrients or anything like that. It was just kind of a thing that you did.

Speaker 2: 3:11

I was on the pill for years. I got an IUD because my OB was like hey, iuds are great and you don't have to think about it, it's not painful at all. Which was alive. I was like excruciatingly painful to get in, but anyways, then I started in my early 20s. I started just not feeling great. I had no energy. I used to be pretty athletic and be able to work out really hard. I stopped being able to. I just felt like dead. All the time I was getting headaches. All the time I was cold. All the time I went to my PCP I think I was maybe 23 at the time. She ran some blood work, but it was kind of like oh, everything looks fine, you're like a pillar of health. I was like, well, that's weird, because I don't feel like the pillar of health. I feel pretty awful.

Speaker 2: 4:01

I decided to get a second opinion. I started working with a functional medicine practitioner and she changed my life, turns out, I had a pretty crazy hormone imbalance going on. I had hypothyroidism. I had a lot of heavy metals in my body. It was really eye-opening to me that there was another way to look at health, really holistically, looking at your whole body, talking about your hormones and things like that. That was kind of the beginning of the journey for me in terms of my own health journey. Then, a few years later, I made a lot of changes. I started looking at the products I was using in my home, because I had always thought about my diet and the food I ate. I knew that that affected my health. I didn't know that my cleaning products and my candles and my skincare affected my health. I started making little changes here and there.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Then, a few years after I first started working with my new practitioner, I decided to get my ID out. Just because I was in a very committed relationship at the time I think I was engaged to my new husband. We were not trying to get pregnant, we were planning our wedding. I wanted to see hey, I've been on birth control for the butter part of a decade and a half. At this point, is this impacting me at all my mood, my anxiety, things like that. I decided to go off as a little bit of an experiment for my health. I will never forget the day I went into my OB's office for my annual. She asked me what we were planning and doing with kids and all the things. I was like actually I'd like to get my IUD out. Today she's like oh, are you going to be trying to get pregnant? I was like nope, just want to see if it's impacting me at all. She laughed and she told me to go on a prenatal because I was definitely going to get pregnant. That was a fun moment.

Speaker 1: 5:58

I feel like so many women are in the same boat where going on birth control at 15, 16, it's a no-brainer. I think now the evidence is really coming to light as far as the long-term effects birth control can have over your health.

Speaker 1: 6:21

I definitely want to dive into it, but I want to take a few steps back, because I think a lot of women are also in the position that you were, where they go to the doctor, they get the basic blood panel, they test their thyroids and stuff thyroids and then everything comes back normal, but people don't realize that there's more markers to be tested.

Speaker 1: 6:43

That's where you went to the functional medicine. Can you just talk a little bit more about your experience with that, what they tested for? And just for people who don't really understand that there is an alternative?

Speaker 2: 6:57

Functional medicine. I think people have this misconception that it's all this woo-woo eastern Chinese medicine stuff. There are definitely components of more eastern medicine. However, functional medicine isn't here to be like, hey, western medicine doesn't have a place and you should never take medicine and you should never take prescriptions and you should always just look to more holistic things. There's really a nice middle place where, to me, the biggest difference with a functional approach which is also what I do with my clients is you're looking more holistically at your body. Let's say you're having really bad abdominal pains and you don't necessarily correlate it with your cycle, but it just keeps happening and you're not really sure why.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Instead of only looking at your abdominal pain as a symptom, a functional medicine practitioner is going to look at your whole body. How is everything functioning together? Those aren't super cut and dry with your body and everything is so interconnected, especially with women or hormones. They pretty much always play a role in whatever we're dealing with. A functional medicine practitioner is going to look at your body more globally. Typically, that does involve, at least in the beginning, a lot of blood work because they're looking at a lot of different nutrient levels. Typically, functional medicine providers will look at a full thyroid panel, whereas a lot of PCPs will just check your TSH. Tsh is just basically scratching the surface of your thyroid health.

Speaker 2: 8:25

We know that, honestly, hundreds of thousands of women are walking around in the US with a thyroid disorder and they don't know. Women especially up like child bearing age and pregnancy and postpartum and things like that our hormones can really impact our thyroid health. If you're not looking at the whole picture, you could see blood work that says you're fine, but you're missing out on the rest of it. That was the biggest difference for me. My PCP kept saying my thyroid was fine, but all she looked at was TSH and not the rest of the markers.

Speaker 2: 8:56

When I started seeing my functional medicine practitioner, that was one of the first things she did. Right, I was looking at my full thyroid panel and it turns out I had hypothyroidism. I have a woman in my life who's been dealing with debilitating symptoms forever with her cycles, with headaches, with fatigue. Finally, after years of searching for answers, she started seeing a functional medicine practitioner as well. Turns out she has Hashimoto's, which is a very specific thyroid disorder, actually caused by an autoimmune disease, also very common in women, especially in women of child bearing age. We have to be looking at the bigger picture, especially with women's health.

Speaker 1: 9:37

I love how you touched upon holistic medicine. There's a balance for it. There's a middle ground for it, and I truly believe in that as well. I think it's also important to understand our healthcare system in America is based upon a sick model. That's different versus the holistic perspective, where you're getting to the root cause really supporting your body's natural way of healing and functioning and all that. I love that you said that.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Let's dive into hormones.

Speaker 1: 10:08

I'm a 34 year old, mother of three, and I feel like I didn't really start paying attention to my hormones or even like psych, like sinking my cycle until a year ago. Yeah, and what a life changing thing. Why?

Speaker 2: 10:23

are we not taught?

Speaker 1: 10:24

this in high school when we get our periods.

Speaker 2: 10:26

I know, I mean, at least in my school, we were taught that we can get pregnant at any time, and that was that they gave us a few funds, I think, and we were supposed to like hide them in our sleeve, and that was about the extent of it. And you know, I think about like my mom, like we had a lot of talks about like periods and things like that, but that's it. That's where it stopped. It was about your period and I think where we are now learning is the big event is ovulation, and ovulation is so sensitive to our hormones, our hormone health, to stressors in the environment, to our stress levels, to even like alcohol consumption, caffeine consumption, right, and so we have to stop thinking about it as like just a period and just a bleed every month and start thinking about it as ovulation, which is not just important if you're trying to get pregnant.

Speaker 2: 11:13

It is truly like the crux of our health, and I think there's a lot of practitioners out there that refer to our menstrual cycle as the fifth vital sign, and I wholeheartedly believe that, because it is truly as important as our breathing, as a heart rate, right as our blood pressure. It is truly that important when it comes to our health, and what happens is a lot of us shut off our cycles with birth control, not knowing. So I can tell you personally. I did not know when I was on the pill and my IUD it was a hormonal IUD. I had no idea that my bleed every month was in a period. I thought it was.

Speaker 1: 11:50

I thought it was.

Speaker 2: 11:50

I thought it was and my OB definitely didn't make it clear that it wasn't. But when you are on combined contraceptives, so like a hormonal birth control pill certain IUDs it's shutting down ovulation and if you don't ovulate you don't have a period. And so when you're on a hormonal birth control that shuts down your cycles, you don't have that kind of report card of your health, right. Right. But once you come off which I see a lot of women and personally waiting until right before they try to conceive to come off, which is a little tricky because we know that hormonal birth control depletes your nutrients. We know that nutrient stars are really important for pregnancy. So I always recommend coming off at least three to six months before trying to conceive. But anyways, that's another whole topic we could talk about.

Speaker 2: 12:36

But basically, once a woman comes off and she starts to have a cycle again, a lot of times she starts to have these symptoms that maybe years ago she went on birth control to heal right. That's a big thing. Like we're put on birth control to heal our acne, we're put on birth control to heal our heavy periods or our painful cramps. When really think of birth control as like a bandaid right, it's going to stop the symptoms because it's going to stop ovulation, right, it's putting synthetic hormones into your body. It is not healing anything.

Speaker 2: 13:06

When mentioned before like root cause right, there is always a root cause to a woman's pain and it's just wild to me that in the society we have literally normalized pain. Right, like women go to their doctors and complain about headaches or bad cramps and we just normalize them, we tell them to take ibuprofen or go on the pill, and it's just, it's insane to me. So my biggest takeaway hopefully to people is that pain is not normal and you should not be in pain every month with your cycle. Right, that is a clear sign of a hormone imbalance and unfortunately, a lot of us are walking around with hormone imbalances and we have no idea.

Speaker 1: 13:43

So what are some of the things? Because I have a lot of friends, you know, who are coming off birth control and you know, one week they're having heavy periods, the next week they're like spotting you know, their body is just really going crazy. Yeah, what can they do to kind of be supportive of this? I know you mentioned, you know we're depleted of nutrients, so you know, what are just some of the ways that we can support our bodies as we recover, and what can we expect for, like the months to come?

Speaker 2: 14:11

And how do?

Speaker 1: 14:11

we know when it's leveled out.

Speaker 2: 14:13

Yeah, so it's probably going to take a while. I mean, there are some variabilities. Your health before you went on birth control is a big one your reproductive health, your menstrual cycles and also your diet, your lifestyle. I hate to be like the bearer of bad news because we live in such a pro-alcoholic society but, like alcohol is not doing any favors for our hormone health. So there are definitely a lot of factors. You could come off the pill and you could ovulate two weeks and get your period two weeks later. You could also come off the pill and not get a period for a year. So I think women need to know that going into it, because I think if you don't get your period right away, it might scare you a little bit like what's going on, but truly you've suppressed your body's natural hormones and it's going to take a little while for them to come back to like homeostasis. So some things that can help really like low hanging fruit eating enough.

Speaker 2: 15:06

We have far too many women in this country under eating, right, because we live, unfortunately, in a society that really values thinness over health and so we have women under eating, and where I see a lot of women under eating particularly is fats. It's like we can't escape, like the 90s fear of fats. You know all the low fat and macwells and all those things. So please eat enough. Protein and fats are definitely the most important. Our hormones are dependent on fat. They're fat soluble. So if we don't have enough fat in our diet, our hormones will not be as robust as they should be.

Speaker 2: 15:38

So I think really focusing in on that diet blood sugar balance is hugely related to hormone health. So just thinking, like, what are some easy things I can do to try to keep my blood sugar in a good place? Because a lot of us are dealing with, like insulin resistance or borderline insulin resistance, and it's usually because we eat a lot of like. We call them naked carbs, right. So our sugary starbucks drinks or our bagel for breakfast, right, think about how can I like bolster up my carbs so it's not naked? So adding protein and fat to every meal is a really easy way to support your overall health and also your hormone health.

Speaker 2: 16:19

And then a big one that impacts especially our estrogen, and we need a good balance of estrogen to progesterone. First half of our cycle, estrogen is the dominant hormone. So that's like pre-ovulation. That's what leads to our bodies producing cervical mucus. It allows us to be fertile, it helps our egg get released and then, after ovulation, estrogen drops and progesterone increases, and that should be our dominant hormone for the second half. So there needs to be a really delicate balance between the two hormones. And there are these things called endocrine disrupting chemicals, and they are found everywhere.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Yeah, everything, literally everywhere. They're in our skincare, they're in our makeup, they're in our cleaning products, in our air fresheners, like you name it. Like they are there and so that can, I know, feel a little overwhelming to hear. But the good news is, I would say now, compared to when I first started my journey back in my early 20s, there are a lot of really great, clean, less toxic options out there without those endocrine disrupting chemicals. And what those endocrine disrupting chemicals do? They can wreak havoc a lot of ways, but they can mimic hormones in our bodies. So then our bodies are like, oh, we have enough estrogen, we don't need to produce any more. They can actually tell our bodies to turn off the production of hormones. They can tell our bodies to increase the production of hormones. Like they can do crazy things to our bodies and, like I said, they can pretty much be found in anything.

Speaker 2: 17:48

So, trying to reduce your exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, there are some easy things you can do. It sounds crazy, but thermal receipt paper, so like if you're grocery shopping, you're at the mall I know you take a receipt, right, if you can avoid that, that's like one of our number one sources of this phenol exposure like BPA. A lot of people probably heard about that it's kind of a buzz term but there are other Bispinols that are just as harmful. So not just BPA, but literally just saying no to receipt or trying to touch it really fast, throw it in your purse, not using hand sanitizer or lotion before you touch a receipt. It sounds so woo, but I promise you there are studies to show that thermal receipt paper is a huge source of exposure of Bispinols and if we have our hands a little bit wet before, like with hand sanitizer or lotion, that'll expedite the process of them like getting into our blood system. That's crazy, but that's an easy one, right?

Speaker 1: 18:40

I never knew that I actually I think I saw a TikTok on this and then I'd like didn't dive deeper into it, but I never take a receipt. So now, yeah, we're saving, we're saving the trees and we're not getting the endocrine disruptors?

Speaker 1: 18:55

I want to back up just a little bit. So let's say we come off our birth control, our bodies have leveled. I want to talk just about cycle syncing and the most kindergarten way as far as like understanding what's going on for 28 days in our cycle, because I have been trying to educate my husband and tell him I am not the same person. Every single day I wake up a different person and ever since I started syncing, you know my period and just becoming aware of it, like I know a week before my period, I am not scheduling any work meetings or any like big things and I could see just the up and down throughout the entire month once you become aware of it, so I just want to dive deep into this, just to get a better understanding.

Speaker 2: 19:45

Yeah, I love that and I love that you're working to educate your husband, because they should know too and I talk a lot about. I have a daughter and I feel very honored and privileged that I get to raise her to know her body, to understand her body, to know what her hormones mean, what her cervical muses mean. But I think young boys need to learn all this stuff too. So it would really be like we have to do better for this generation. But anyways, so we are not meant to live in our current society. Our society is built around men who have a 24 hour circadian rhythm right. So we do not only have a 24 hour rhythm, we have something called an infradient rhythm, and that's our menstrual cycle rhythm. So, as you mentioned, a lot of women you know think about like 28 days as a cycle. That's obviously like a, maybe a midpoint, but it can also be normal to have a little bit shorter, a little bit longer. So I just want to let women know if it's too long or too short. That tends to be a sign that something's wrong with your hormones, but there is some variability there. But either way, we have four really distinct phases in our cycle. Cycle day one is always day one of your period and the true day one. So if you spot a little bit, which some spotting right before your period isn't a huge red flag. If there's a lot of spotting or they're spotting mid-cycle again, that's just kind of a red flag to me and that would be something I would want to dig a little bit deeper with someone on. But day one of your period is day one of your cycle. Typically, women bleed for an average like three to seven days. Four to five is pretty normal In a healthy cycle. You would expect it to start more heavy, moderate bleeding and then taper down to a lighter bleeding at the end. So that would be our menstrual phase, right, our menstrual cycle, our actual bleed, our menstruation, and then after that we enter our pre-agulatory phase, which is our follicule phase, and during this phase, again, estrogen is dominant. We typically have a little bit more energy. We typically just feel like more ourselves. This is the time to get things done right. Work on that to-do list, crush those intense workouts if you feel up to it. So this would be the time in your cycle. I would recommend things like cardio workouts, dance workouts, even a little bit of HIIT, but nothing too crazy and I personally recommend keeping really intense workouts for 30 minutes, even if you're in really good health, because that's just pretty depleting on your hormones.

Speaker 2: 22:06

But follicular phase is typically like we think of it, as spring right, like everything's blossoming. We feel really good. Typically, our libidos are higher, right, because naturally our bodies do want to conceive, and this is the phase that leads into our ovulation or ovulatory phase. Ovulatory phase, again, is where we have a pretty distinct change in our hormones. We have estrogen peaking and then dropping really, really fast and we have progesterone rising. So right before ovulation, during ovulation, again, we'll typically see even more energy. So these are times that a lot of cycle-sinking experts will talk about eating more raw foods, making sure you're getting a lot of protein and things like that, because you're gonna have more energy to burn.

Speaker 2: 22:53

And then after ovulation is what we call our luteal phase and the first half of your cycle. So menstruation through ovulation that can be variable. So, as I mentioned before, ovulation is very sensitive to stressors, to being sick, even to traveling. I know we change clocks in a couple of weeks that can impact ovulation. Ovulation is very, very sensitive, so there can be variability there, right.

Speaker 2: 23:16

But our luteal phase. The second half of our cycle should be very, very constant and it should be about 12 to 14 days long, and during this time progesterone is higher, which means our body's metabolism is higher, which means you need to eat more. So a lot of women that makes sense. Yeah, it's crazy and I think a lot of women, if they start to pay attention to it, they realize intuitively they do feel more hungry. Or like that week before your period you'll be craving things at night and it's like well, maybe that's just because you need to eat a little bit more. Your body truly is burning more calories, so typically women need about two to four or two to 500 more calories during that luteal phase.

Speaker 1: 23:58

I know, okay, this is mind-blowing.

Speaker 2: 23:59

I never knew your metabolism speeds up.

Speaker 1: 24:02

You need to burn more okay.

Speaker 2: 24:04

This is like why this is basic common knowledge of how our body it's like clockwork, but yet we don't understand it.

Speaker 1: 24:13

Okay, keep going. I just mind this blown.

Speaker 2: 24:15

Yeah, and I think, like I used to be a cycle instructor, my top spin, and I remember like there were times after birth control when I actually was cycling. I remember there would be times I would teach at night and I would come home and just tell my husband like I am so dead. I don't feel energized from that workout. I feel pretty awful, you know, like super fatigued, and other times I would come home feeling like, you know, I just ran a marathon, a marathon, I had all those endorphins right, all the adrenaline. And then it's like now I look back and I think, oh, I must have been in my luteal phase and I was trying to do a 60 minute super intense spin ride, right. And so I think, like exercise is definitely, in my opinion, the easiest way to cycle, sync, right, because I think people really like rules, and so those are pretty clear rules to follow, right.

Speaker 2: 24:58

So that second half of our cycle, our luteal phase, post-ovulation, our progesterone is dominant, our estrogen is very low, which typically correlates with a little bit lower energy. We don't want to deplete our progesterone too much. So this is the time for slower paced workouts. So strength training is really great Yoga, pilates, walking the week before your period especially, a lot of women feel really low energy. So it's just about like listening to your body and tuning in and like tapping into that really powerful intuition. It's there. It's just been dampened in a society.

Speaker 2: 25:33

That's all about that rat race, right, the 24 hours we're trying to go, go, go, like we can sure we can do that, but we're gonna deplete ourselves and we're not gonna feel good, right? So that second half of your cycle a lot of warming foods is really great, especially leading up to your period where we know we're gonna lose some blood, we're gonna lose some iron. If you're a meat eater, this is definitely a great time for, like slow cook meats and stews and bone broths and things like that. So this is also the time where you wanna look at your calendar and you don't wanna book anything crazy, like if you have to take an exam or you're gonna be recording a podcast and you're nervous about it, like this is not the time to do it, right? Your gluteal phase. And then, obviously, during your menstrual phase, our hormones are our lowest and so typically women feel their best doing really low intensity exercise, making sure they're eating again, getting in that like really iron-rich food to help with the blood loss, things like that.

Speaker 2: 26:25

So it's like once you start really paying attention to your cycle parameters, it all just makes sense Like you won't have to think like, oh, this is the time to get stuff done because you just feel it naturally right Versus like later in your cycle. But yeah, cycle thinking is incredible and it's definitely a great way to support your hormone health.

Speaker 1: 26:46

Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like always the first of the month and this is before I knew anything the first of the month I would establish my goals, what I'm working for, towards for the whole month and I would be like really consistent on my grind. I'd be feel so good and then it was always the third week out of the month, which is when I was essentially PMSing that.

Speaker 1: 27:10

I was so hungry I would want all the things. It would throw me off. And then I'd feel so low. And then a week, two weeks later, I'm back on top and it was the first of the month and it was just like and always evaluating. I'm like, wow, how can I do things differently? But that was my cycle, that was my body. So it's interesting, once you learn that and how you can start applying it to your everyday life.

Speaker 1: 27:34

I know you mentioned fats before. Can you just give some examples of some great fats that we can incorporate into our lives? Because it's like you said, as women we always stray away from these fats and I don't think enough of us are aware of like what are our options?

Speaker 2: 27:51

Yeah Well, first of all, please don't ever buy fat-free salad dressing.

Speaker 2: 27:55

I think so many women eat their salad and they put fat-free salad dressing on. But vegetables the nutrients in vegetables are fat-soluble. So if you don't have a fat with your salad, your body's not even going to be able to really process all of those really great nutrients. So put some olive oil on your salad first of all, and whatever else you want to taste good. I like eggs have great sources of fat avocados, nuts, nut butter not fearing the nut butters because they're higher in calories. They're going to be more satiating too, and that's the thing. When you start adding more fat to your diet, you'll naturally typically stop wanting to snack and maybe even eat a little less, because it's keeping you fuller longer. So protein and fat are definitely the biggest priorities. But then I think again this is all because of the 90s and we just can't escape it. But a lot of women still fear saturated fat and we have enough science to show that that is not the problem. So don't be afraid of, like I said, cooking with butter Instead of.

Speaker 2: 28:51

If you just want to always cook with oil, you can cook with butter. Sometimes A really good grass-fed butter is a great source. Coconut oil is another great source. So your cooking fats are great. So don't spray your cookware with like Pam, like use real olive oil. We're adults now, we can use real cooking fats, so that's a really easy way, is just even like your cooking. And then, of course, there's some great higher-fat meat options that, again, I would incorporate like a slow-cooked beef stew in my luteal phase, and there are some healthy fats in that too.

Speaker 1: 29:25

So I want to go back to the endocrine disruptors, because I feel like I'm definitely entering my crunchy. Mom, error. I like to say it's crunchy, because there's so much that we can't control. It's everywhere.

Speaker 1: 29:37

So I feel, like I just kind of grab what is manageable, what I can reduce and what's manageable and I know it can be so overwhelming for women because there's so much out there so what would you say are the top five products or things to stay away from? I know one thing that you just said was not taking the receipts.

Speaker 2: 29:59

What are some others?

Speaker 1: 30:01

that you could just start doing today, where it's a little less overwhelming.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Yeah, so the receipts is a great one. Another easy way to reduce your exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals is to ditch fragrance, so synthetic fragrance. So it can feel like a hard one, but I actually think this is easier because you read your labels. If you see the term fragrance, whatever it is, if it's your laundry, if it's your dish soap, when you get to the end of that bottle, just find one that discloses all ingredients, because there's something called the fragrance loophole which basically allows companies in the US to hide any combination of thousands of chemicals in their products and they can call it fragrance because it's proprietary, so they don't want other companies stealing their scent. But the problem is we have research to show that on average, one fragrance fund is 14 additional ingredients. So if you're reading a label, you've got to add 14 ingredients to that and there is at least a 75% chance that one of those ingredients is something called phthalates. Phthalates are a class of known endocrine disrupting chemicals and they're particularly risky when it comes to fertility, and this is even with men's fertility. We know that phthalates are impacting, like sperm health and sperm counts. I know we are focusing on women, but just to keep that in the back of your head. Yeah, if you see fragrance on a ingredient label, next time you go to the store and you're out, choose a product that lists all ingredients. So there are some great companies that list all ingredients and they don't care if it's not proprietary. So that's a really, really easy one.

Speaker 2: 31:35

I would also say reducing your consumption of canned food. So even if an aluminum can label says BPA free, again, BPA is kind of a buzzword right now and companies take advantage of that. They know that people are starting to pay attention a little bit more to their labels and so they'll boast BPA free. But again the problem is there are additional bismunals that are harmful.

Speaker 2: 31:57

So I know that canned food is more accessible when it comes to price. I just encourage families to not eat canned food every day. So if you're gonna have a big chili on Sunday and you're gonna have your canned tomatoes which we know that the acid in tomatoes can actually expedite the leaching process out of canned so if you can find a box tomato instead, that's great and you're gonna have a ton of beans and all the things Maybe you don't eat canned food again for a few more days, or maybe you soak dry beans. That's actually cheaper anyways, and it's really easy if you have an instant thought. So just like things like that, so trying to rotate your food so you're not eating canned food every day, ditching air fresheners.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Yes, my husband is so guilty of this, like the trees in his car. Oh God, yeah, oh gosh like the breeze.

Speaker 2: 32:45

Yeah, just thinking about it. So what do you think about the purpose of an air freshener? Right, it's to have a scent that lingers. It's the same thing with like dryer sheets, right? Dryer sheets are another great one to switch. There's wool dryer balls you can buy. They work fine and they don't have a scent, and it's great and they're completely clean and safe. But anyways, the goal of things like air fresheners or dryer sheets, it's to have a scent linger and typically when a scent lingers, it's because of those phthalates. Phthalates are what keep a scent to stick. So, ditching the candles. There are some cleaner options. I will say there's some great beeswax candles out there. Beeswax is really good for indoor air, purifies it. Most of them are made with high quality essential oils. That's definitely a better option. You can also just ditch them all together. I think people are like oh, it's so expensive to live a low-tops life though, and it's like, well, it doesn't have to be. You don't have to buy the really wonderful beeswax candles. You can just not burn candles in your home.

Speaker 1: 33:43

But even stop buying the $20 candles from Target. I'm telling you they add up.

Speaker 2: 33:48

Yeah, they do. And even I think about all the Bath Body Works products I use. That's a really easy one. If there's anyone out there still going to Bath Body Works, just stop and your hormones will be in a better place. But I think about all the Bath Body Works candles I bought and burned. Even if they're just sitting in your house not being lit, they're releasing this thing called volatile organic compounds into the air You're breathing them in. We know there's phthalates in there, so just herb them. And we're coming up to the holidays and for some reason I think the holidays a lot of people gift candles. Don't gift candles right.

Speaker 1: 34:21

So dishing those air fresheners and again.

Speaker 2: 34:23

There are some clean, non-toxic air fresheners out there. Right, there are some great brands. What's the really good one? I'm going to blank on it. I think, oh, grow fragrance. Grow fragrance makes really clean air fresheners, but for me, I've gotten so used to just not having my house smell like something. I don't necessarily need them, but if someone lives or breathes by for breeze, I would much rather have them use grow fragrance spray than for breeze. Right, when it comes to their hormone health, their respiratory health. So that's another easy one to do. And then the last one I would say would be your personal care product, so your skincare and your makeup.

Speaker 2: 34:58

A lot of skincare and makeup brands use endocrine disrupting chemicals. So just trying to choose a less toxic brand and again, it's becoming easier and easier. There are great actions at Target, so we're getting there. We're getting there. Hopefully. The goal is one day you can walk into a store and not have to be a detective and read ingredient labels. We've had some updated legislation passed in recent years and I'm feeling hopeful about the future, but right now, unfortunately, you still kind of have to be a little sleuthing when you're shopping and read those labels.

Speaker 1: 35:29

Yeah, it's interesting. You just have to be an advocate for yourself and your children and, like I said, I feel like I just started this journey of just waking up and becoming aware a year ago and I want everyone who's listening we're not saying go into your house and throw out all these products. It's definitely a progression and a reduction of how you can incorporate less into your life and it definitely builds as you go.

Speaker 1: 35:55

You get more interested and I think the overall thing is you just start feeling good. Ok, so I was talking about the reduction.

Speaker 2: 36:03

It doesn't have to just go overnight, so I like to tell people this because I think it gives them some hope and some confidence. I have been on my journey now for over 12 years and, first of all, I am still making swaps right Because new and better brands are coming out. When I first started, I was cleaning my kitchen with white vinegar right Distilled white vinegar and it smelled awful Even if I put some lemon in it. And now there are really great cleaning brands that work just as better as the conventional products they use. But what I will say is the way that I've done my journey is one product at a time, because when I started out I was in my 20s, I had a lot of suit loans. I couldn't just throw away everything in my house to start over. So literally it's as easy as you run out and just show your finest safer option. And if people want some resources to do that Environmental Working Group and Clearia C-L-E-A-R-Y-A they have some amazing websites and apps that will help you find safer products. Clearia is great because you can actually like scan products at Target, at Sephora, like they work with a lot of different companies.

Speaker 2: 37:08

But anyways, I've literally done it one at a time.

Speaker 2: 37:09

So I would run out of dish soap, I would find a safer option done, and maybe I loved that brand, or maybe I would run out of that brand and then I would try to find a different one. I ran out of foundation. I would find a cleaner option. So it really doesn't have to be all or nothing, it doesn't have to be overwhelming, you don't have to destroy your checkbook to do this, but I encourage people to just start, because we have some really promising data to show that, in just three days of using products free from certain endocrine disrupting chemicals, including phthalates and parabens, the concentration of these chemicals in people's bodies specifically, we have a study on young girls, which we know young girls are especially susceptible to the effects of these chemicals as their bodies are starting to go through puberty. They decreased in just three days by like some of them, 43%, some of them more than 60% in just a few days of using safer products. So if you're waiting for a sign, let it be that this is your sign.

Speaker 1: 38:09

And I think it does make a difference. It does and I think it's so important because a lot of people and I learned this with just like eliminating alcohol in my life is you don't truly understand what it feels like to feel good. You know how you're currently feeling is your normal. And then when you know, let's say, you just slowly reduce these products or you get off the birth controller, whatever it is you make that small change.

Speaker 1: 38:34

You start becoming aware like, wow, I can feel a little better and then you want more of it and that kind of becomes your new baseline, your new normal and I think that's overall that intrinsic motivation to start replacing these products, which I love. That advice just do it one product at a time.

Speaker 2: 38:51

Yeah, and it really is. I had no idea how certain products were impacting like my asthma until I eliminated them for my life and now I am so wildly sensitive to synthetic fragrance. Like sometimes it's hard to live in our world. Right, I was just on a trip and we went into an Airbnb and I instantly had an asthma attack because the cleaners must have sprayed like the breeze on all of the couches and the beds. We had to cancel our reservation. They were nice enough and gave us a refund and get a hotel. Like it was that extreme because I don't use synthetic fragrance in my house anymore and so, like I truly have gotten that sensitive to it, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.

Speaker 2: 39:32

And then I think about, like my birth control journey. I didn't know how much my birth control was impacting my mood, my anxiety, my mood swings, my libido. I had no idea until I went off of it. So I just encouraged people like think about your health as an experiment. Right, we call it like an end of one experiment. Right In the psych world it's just you and try things and see how you feel. Like for some women, caffeine, excess caffeine, especially excess caffeine before food in the morning. That can really really impact their hormone health and their moods. Right. And caffeine we know excess caffeine can impact your anxiety not for all women, but for some, and so why not just cut it out for a month and see how you feel? Or alcohol I would love all women to cut alcohol out for a salad month. See how you feel, see your sleep.

Speaker 1: 40:19

Yeah, yes, so I had never done the reduction of caffeine before, ever in my entire life. Even with my first born son, I had to cup of coffee in the morning. I have never been able to cut caffeine out and I just did it for over a month, and I'm talking. I never thought I would be able to go without caffeine and what I found is I experienced more energy and what was wild is I feel like my body leveled out, like my circadian rhythm.

Speaker 1: 40:49

I was able to wake. Usually I had us set probably like 10 alarm clocks. I'm talking, I snooze every 15 minutes and at 6 am I would naturally just open my eyes and wake up. But at 7, 8 pm when the sun went down, I was tired and usually I would stay up and scroll past midnight because I had that 3 pm coffee.

Speaker 1: 41:11

So it's amazing, now that I've experienced that, I understand my circadian rhythm too. So I suggest like, just try, even if you're not going to permanently eliminate it, just get that baseline of understanding.

Speaker 2: 41:25

And your circadian rhythm is so interconnected with your hormones. Because when you think about, like our circadian rhythm and our cortisol levels, right, like when you wake up in the morning, your cortisol is naturally highest, and a lot of women will wake up and like, get an IV of caffeine basically straight away, because they're drinking multiple cups of coffee without anything else in their stomach. So caffeine increases cortisol, right? So your cortisol is already highest in the morning. You wake up, then you're adding caffeine, then it's even higher.

Speaker 2: 41:55

And then you think about, like your stress response and your anxiety, while we know that excess cortisol leads to lower progesterone and we know that when you have a lower progesterone, right, not only will that impact, like your period and how long your luteal phases, which is really important, especially for women that are trying to conceive but it can also like impact your overall reproductive health and like it's just it's kind of this domino effect.

Speaker 2: 42:19

So I've learned so much about how much our circadian rhythm impacts our hormones and that has led me to make sure I'm delaying my one cup of coffee for a couple of hours after I sleep or after I wake up in the morning, so making sure I get a good breakfast in first. I've also started doing and this is a free thing you can do just getting outside first thing in the morning and getting that daylight on your face, even if there's not sun, that does huge things for your circadian rhythm, which will trickle down and have a really positive impact on your hormones too, and trying to get a little bit of evening light is important too, right before bed. So I think people, like everyone's on melatonin to help their circadian rhythm and I'm like get off the melatonin and get outside.

Speaker 1: 43:00

Yeah, you can get that natural hit of melatonin in the evening For sleep. It's amazing because I truly believe all what we need is nature, and it's free.

Speaker 2: 43:08

Oh my gosh, yes, get outside.

Speaker 1: 43:11

Yes, get outside. The sun is your friend. Yes, I agree. Okay, so I wanna talk about the whole mom perspective of things like the crunchy mom. So I'm learning. You just posted a post about fluoride and, oh man, I do not allow fluoride in my house.

Speaker 1: 43:31

And there's now evidence but when you go to the dentist or you go to the pediatrician and you wanna do things a little differently, like I remember growing up, my mom would never allow us to have the X-rays from the dentist every year because of that exposure to the radiation and it was a big deal. They were mean to her. She had to sign a waiver they almost bullied her.

Speaker 1: 43:56

How do you handle being that mom where you could tell your story about going to the dentist and stuff? How do you manage that as a mom and advocate for your kid and stand up for what you wanna do as the mother?

Speaker 2: 44:10

I think it comes down to for me like reflecting on my own, like personal journey with the healthcare industry and how hard I had to advocate for myself. Doctors are amazing. We have incredible doctors in this country who are selfless and they work so hard and they work so long and they have a lot of degrees. I don't think any of them know your body better than you do. And I think we've gotten to a place where we sometimes kind of put doctors on this pedestal right and just kind of blindly trust them. And what we do when we blindly trust anybody, I don't care how much of an expert they are. We stop listening to our own intuition. And so I think about that journey a lot and how hard I had to fight to figure out what was going on with me back in my early 20s. And I don't want that for my daughter, and so my job as her mother is to advocate for what's best for her, and I believe with like every ounce of my being that I know what's best for her period. End of story. So for me it came down to finding supportive practitioners. So, like when we were interviewing pediatricians, I had a lot of questions and a big one was kind of what they thought about like my autonomy as a parent and my husband's autonomy as a parent and our choices and our freedoms and things like that. And it was the same thing with the dentist.

Speaker 2: 45:30

So when we went to the dentist my daughter is 18 months now and she was maybe 15 months when we went and they looked at her teeth, we talked about brushing, and then she said, okay, we'll do the fluoride now. And it was literally as simple as me saying, oh no, we're not gonna do fluoride today. And she kind of looked at me and she was like, oh, okay, and now, granted, I know I have a friend who got a lot more pressure than that. But that's where you just have to stand strong and remember that you are your baby's mama and you know what's best.

Speaker 2: 46:02

And like there can be a lot of coercion in the medical industry, especially towards women, and you just have to go in with confidence. Even if you don't feel confident, you gotta fake it Right. And so, like my friends kind of had to push back on them and they were like, well, why not? And she was like, just because we're not gonna do fluoride today. So I think you can be prepared for that. But also don't be too scared because I know for me it was really easy. She literally just said okay, and then we moved on and that was it, and nothing happened, and my daughter's doing just fine and her teeth are great.

Speaker 1: 46:31

All right, I liked how you said also you have the power you're hiring them, so I like how you interviewed you know your pediatrician. You had the questions and you know there are doctors that are aligned out there and, like I said, there's great doctors, but we are the advocates. We know our body's the best and I love how you took the stand site.

Speaker 2: 46:53

You know what?

Speaker 1: 46:54

is best for your children. For me, I have older kids. My oldest is almost 10. So I think one thing that I'm doing with him, because you go to school and they're rewarded with Skittles for good behavior or birthdays and they have the red 40, die and probably you know, unfortunately, it's like all the kid products happen to be the worst out there, and one thing that I'm trying to do and we kind of talked about this with the hormones in the cycle is educating them you know, and have some type of understanding, because I think I'm getting pushed back with my nine year old.

Speaker 1: 47:30

You know he can't have soda and he's like why, you know, and you're just restricting where I want him to understand you know, these are ingredients that are harmful. This is your body. So what do you see yourself? How do you see yourself guiding your daughter as she gets older with all these products and all these things?

Speaker 2: 47:47

So my goal is going to be to help her understand how these things make her feel right. So if she wants to binge eat, you know, a bucket of candy on Halloween, which I can rant about our approach to Halloween in this country, but I won't Also did you see that?

Speaker 1: 48:05

Okay, I'm here for it.

Speaker 2: 48:06

Did you see the skittles? Skittles are now going to be banned in California because of the new legislation that went through Right.

Speaker 1: 48:12

Okay, I am not a fan of the state of California, but that is one thing that I can get behind. I mean, what a progressive thing, especially you know in. Europe. We know all these chemicals are banned.

Speaker 2: 48:24

I think they banned four total, but it's going to have a trickle effect. So that's the nice thing. People are like well, it only affects people in California. No, like manufacturers are not going to make a different product for California than they do for, you know, west Virginia. So, yeah, so that's interesting because I think people still think you're crazy. If you're like food guys impact kids' behavior. Yes, yeah. But people still think you're a little crazy and I'm like, okay, cut it out for a month, just like we talked about. Cut it out for a month of your kid's diet and see if they act differently. I'd be surprised if they didn't.

Speaker 2: 48:54

But anyways, I am also on my own personal recovery from multiple eating disorders, and one of them was orthorexia. I don't know if you're familiar with that term. It's basically like an obsession with healthy eating that often leads to anorexia Nervosa, because you're under eating, because you're so anxious about eating foods that you don't deem healthy. And so for me, I don't want to project that onto my daughter. I don't want her to fear food. I don't want her to fear candy or sweets or things like that. I will say she's only 18 months, so right now I fully control her diet. We've not introduced, you know, added sugar yet and people think that's crazy. We haven't introduced food diets yet, but it's because I know that she's 18 months and her little gut microbiome is developing and I have full control. I'm going to take advantage of that.

Speaker 2: 49:42

And I know one day she's like you said she's going to be at a birthday party and she's going to want a cupcake, and while I might not restrict her from eating that cupcake at the birthday party, I'm hoping that I can have a conversation with her later about, like, how did that make her body feel Right? Or when we eat a breakfast that has eggs in it in the morning, versus eating a breakfast of cereal, which is unfortunately what most smart kids eat At least like my school, that's what we fed our students Two boxes of like what's the really fruity fruit loops right With some skim milk. So they're getting no fats and they're getting all sugar and all food diets and all carbs, jacking up their blood sugar first thing in the morning.

Speaker 1: 50:18

But anyways, you know she decides what they want to know, why they can't sit down or why they're having ADHD behaviors.

Speaker 2: 50:24

I know it's just I'm like how am I not connecting the dots? But anyways, you know, I think then you have that conversation Like how did that make her body feel? Cause I can tell you, as an adult, there are times that I go on a sugar vendor and I feel like crap and I know it impacts me and I know I get a headache, or even like drinking, you know, so we can give them the tools right To make the best decisions. But I also know that, like eating one cupcake at a birthday party is not gonna derail my daughter's health. So I think there's a balance.

Speaker 2: 50:52

I'd really struggle with Halloween because I just I think it's just a weird holiday in general. Like you're going to strangers, houses and taking candy. It's just very strange, but it is like such an excess amount of candy and so, like I love that. There's like little things that parents do, like the switch which, or they have their kids trading candy for a toy or a new video game that they want or something. I think there's creative ways to do it while still allowing them to celebrate a holiday that you want them to, you know. So I think it's a balance.

Speaker 2: 51:19

But you know, I also know that I can control what I can control in my house. So in our house I never cook with canola oil. I don't cook with vegetable oils, right, they're very inflammatory and so I know that if we go out to eat we're going to be exposed to inflammatory cook oils. My daughter will be okay, you know. But I can control in my house I don't buy air fresheners in my house. I can't control if she, you know, goes to a friend's house, what she's exposed to. So it's just kind of I think we have to treat our home like a little bubble and we can control everything we can there food and smells and products and then I think we just trust that they'll be okay when they leave our bubble.

Speaker 1: 51:58

Yes, they will be okay and I love I mean, it's so important. I think the theme with kids, with anything, is just continuing to talk with them and have them get some type of understanding why the answer is no or why we do these things or choose this you know over, and I think talking and just discussing will go a long, long way, but I love where you're coming from. It's all about balance.

Speaker 1: 52:22

You know, and becoming aware, I think just once you become aware and how you can slowly reduce these things, and it just makes such a difference. So Carly thank you so much for coming on. I feel like you are going to be one of the guests that you will probably make many appearances on this show if you are open to it.

Speaker 2: 52:44

I love it. I love everything you're doing. That's great.

Speaker 1: 52:46

Thank you, Carly. Tell them where we can find you on social media.

Speaker 2: 52:51

So my main source of social media is over on Instagram. It's cleanlivingwithcarly, and then I also have a website, cleanlivingwithcarlycom. So I offer consults, mostly to women, either about their hormones I offer like cycle charting instruction, one-on-one and then I also offer consults around low-tox living, because I know it can be overwhelming. I just met with a mom yesterday, a mom to be. She's pregnant with twins and she wanted to put my brain on diapers and different things and clothes and brands and all the stuff. So we did a little consult which was a lot of fun. So yeah, and I do a lot with my Instagram. I try to make it educational and sometimes a little fun, but it's a really great community over there, really happy to have it.

Speaker 1: 53:36

Yes, you add so much value. I know you're one of my favorite pages that I love scrolling.

Speaker 2: 53:40

Thank you. Thank you for coming on the show.

Speaker 1: 53:43

Thank you for having me. This has been another episode of the Selfish Mom Podcast. I will catch you next week, no matter where you're going to have a booming studio update. You'll practice for yourselves. Yes, no-transcript.