[00:00:00] Welcome back. We're going to be talking about high estrogen today. I'm going to explain what estrogen is, how our body uses it, where it's made, signs and symptoms it's too high. What we can do to balance it with lifestyle changes deficiencies in our nutrition that could be making it high and even some supplements you can take to really help balance out your estrogen because I can promise you this if your estrogen is off the symptoms for high estrogen are so big and so brutal and they affect so many aspects of our life from obviously weight gain to To mood to brain fog.

So I hope you learn a ton from this episode and you understand estrogen just a little bit better. I want to give a quick shout out to Anne13001, Life Changing. Everything Andrea shares and teaches both on her own and with her awesome guests has been life changing for me. The first episode I listened to after discovering her podcast was with Dr. Morgan Cutlip as they discussed burnout [00:01:00] and mom guilt.

I've shared that single episode with so many friends and continue to listen to other episodes. I have DR among other issues. So when I say life changing, I'm not exaggerating. Want your life changed? Listen to the podcast. Thank you so much, Annalie, I see her name at the bottom for the review. I appreciate it so much.

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So you don't miss any episodes and they're automatically downloaded to your phone every single week. All right, let's get into our first topic in our hormone series, estrogen. 

 So, as you may know, I have done nutrition and workout [00:02:00] coaching for 10 years now.

I started when my twins were babies. And in all of these years of coaching, one of the number one things that I have learned as a coach is you have to treat health in a holistic way. And as I have done nutrition coaching, and as my team has grown and I've grown, we have learned that we do have to understand all of the variables that affect our weight, that affect our health, that affect our ability to feel healthy in our bodies.

And along with my nutrition coaching, we have dived myself and my team. more heavily into understanding hormones and additional hormone certifications and just being able to help our clientele a little bit better. And as I was thinking about this, I thought, you know, it would be amazing if I started sharing and kind of explaining different hormones and what we can do to try to help patients.

Balance them, keep them in check because [00:03:00] like anything, too much of a certain hormone or too little of a certain hormone can cause problems. We want that true good balance. So I decided to start this hormone series where I'm going to go over one hormone and how it affects us and what we can do about it.

And if you have a hormone that you would love me to discuss and explain, Go ahead and leave a review and leave it in the review what you want to hear about, or go to the show notes and click on topics and enter the topic you would like covered, the hormone you would like covered. There's a link where you can enter suggestions for topics for shows and also guests.

So enter it there. And over time, my goal is to be able to cover most every hormone and help equip you in so many facets because. In every stage of life, our hormones are shifting. They're changing. They're different when we are pregnant compared to postpartum compared to menopause. And I kind of want to talk about all of those things and really break them down.

no matter what we [00:04:00] do, nutrition wise, if we have a major hormone imbalance, It affects the body's ability to build muscle.

It affects the body's ability to lose fat. It matters. And I've learned that with clients and we really kind of pay attention that we talk to clients about hormones a lot. We have questions about them. So this matters. So I would just. Felt strongly that I wanted to start this series and I'm hoping so much that you love it and I would love your feedback as well. So as we discuss estrogen today, I am going to be speaking more about estrogen dominance. That's going to be my focus today. 

If you are a female, estrogen is a major key player in helping your body with your reproductive health. So estrogen is actually a sex hormone and it helps maintain your sexual and reproductive health. So, a little interesting fact, there are actually three major forms of estrogen. There is a stronae, which is known as E1, and that is a primary form of estrogen that your body makes after [00:05:00] menopause. Then there is estradiol, known as E2, and that is a primary form of estrogen your body has during your reproductive years.

And it is the most potent form of estrogen. And then you have estriol, which is also known as E3, and that is the primary form of estrogen during pregnancy. So, obviously, there are different phases and types of estrogen that we use in different amounts. Estrogen has a big job in our body during many different... Parts and aspects of our life.

Estrogen, like any hormone, is simply a chemical messenger. It tells your body when to start and when to stop certain processes that have to do with your sexual and reproductive health. So that balance between estrogen and progesterone is truly what helps run our female reproductive system. During puberty, your estrogen rises.

Along with hormones made in the brain, FSH and LH and progesterone, estrogen plays a major role [00:06:00] in your menstrual cycle. Your estrogen peaks in the days before ovulation because that's when you're most fertile and then it drops after you begin your period. And then as you age, estrogen falls during menopause.

So it is very involved in our lives. It is a huge piece all the way from puberty up until menopause and thereafter. This is a major hormone that we're going to be dealing with the rest of our lives. Something I think that's important for us to realize about estrogen is where it is made because that affects if sometimes if it's high or if it's low. Majority of the time, our ovaries are what make the estrogen. That is where it is made in our reproductive year.

So basically before menopause and after puberty, majority of our estrogen is coming from our ovaries. But besides your ovaries, your adrenal glands and your adipose tissue, which is your fat tissue in your body, also secrete estrogen.

The placenta, while you are obviously pregnant, is also secreting estrogen. That is the biggest [00:07:00] source of estrogen when we are pregnant. So there are different ways that we get it. Our ovaries, our adrenal glands, fat tissue, and then obviously when pregnant from the placenta.

during menopause though, obviously our ovaries are no longer secreting the same amount of estrogen because we aren't dropping that egg to be fertile. So our estrogen drops and majority of our estrogen at that point comes mainly from our fat tissues and from our cell specific E2 synthesis.

And remember that E2 stands for estradiol.

Okay, so now I've laid out what estrogen is, how it drops, and how it rises. Let's talk about some functions of it for a non reproductive role because I think it's really important for us to understand with any hormone what it does for us, what its job is, how it's created, and then what happens when it's off.

So this is kind of the road map we're going with where I can explain all this and then we can talk about what happens when it's off and what we can do about it. Something else you may not know about estrogen is it actually is involved and helps regulate a ton of different [00:08:00] processes, including in your skeleton, your cardiovascular and your central nervous system. So it also helps cholesterol levels. It helps blood sugar levels. It helps with bone and muscle mass.

This is really important because, as I've mentioned in previous episodes, in menopause, our bone mass decreases, and part of that is partly because of the estrogen decrease, which is why we become more fragile, and also why it's so important to keep muscle on our bodies. Estrogen also helps with circulation and blood flow, collagen reproduction, moisture in the skin.

brain function and your ability to focus. The really cool thing about estrogen and the brain function is it not only helps protect, obviously, the brain function, but it helps protect against inflammation and disease, with helping our memory and our fine motor skills.

Estrogen also helps protect your heart by keeping cardiovascular tissue healthy, and it boosts your mood.

I do want to quickly point out though how it helps boost your mood because I like to know the [00:09:00] why. So when you have a healthy level of estrogen, it helps keep your serotonin levels regular. That's like your feel good hormone. That is what makes you feel good and it helps make your endorphins, you know, more effective.

So that's how it helps boost your mood because when it's in level, it helps regulate that. Estrogen also helps improve sex. Obviously there are a lot of hormones that affect sex and our experience with sex. For example, low progesterone can make low libido, but also low estrogen can also cause low libido and an access of Estrogen can affect testosterone and testosterone, especially in men.

If you're having too much estrogen in men and your testosterone is affected, it will affect the libido for them and for females. So just being aware of that, that when you have a nice, healthy balance of estrogen, the amount that's correct for women, which is obviously different from men, it's going to improve.

sex as well.

All right. You know what estrogen is. You [00:10:00] know how it works for your body. You know, its job, you know, its function and where it's made. Let's talk about signs of high estrogen levels because obviously when it's working right, you know, the list of all the benefits. I just named them all and there are tons.

So what happens when it is not working right? That is what I want to get into now. Here are some symptoms of high estrogen and as I mentioned, we're going to talk more about high estrogen today and I can get into more low estrogen on another episode, but there's so much information. So I really wanted to focus in on just this.

If your estrogen is high, some symptoms might be you have a more aggravated PMS situation where your symptoms are worse. You might have tender breasts. You are more likely to retain water or have bloating. Migraines or headaches, brain fog, mood swings, low self esteem and depression, crying and hypersensitivity.

Overall weight gain. Now the weight gain is a tricky thing because it's one of those things like which came first, the chicken or the egg. As I've [00:11:00] mentioned that our fat tissue does secrete. Estrogen. So oftentimes, sometimes people will gain weight because there's too much estrogen. And sometimes it could be because there's too much weight there.

So it's creating more estrogen. You're making more estrogen. So we don't know which one comes first all the time. I think it varies, but it definitely does affect weight gain and our weight. If we are having issues with obesity can affect our estrogen in return. So we do want to try to keep a healthy balance of estrogen.

By trying to maintain a healthy balance of weight, not for aesthetics, but truly because of the connection with our fat tissue and estrogen and then having high levels, a bad temper or getting easily irritated, low sex drive, interrupted sleep, cravings of sugary foods, high sensitivity to histamines, formation of cysts on the breast or fibrocystic breasts.

hypo or hyper thyroid problems, gallbladder problems, and blood sugar [00:12:00] problems. Those are a lot of symptoms. I'm sure I read those off and you may have a couple of them and think, well, that might not be me. Or you may have a lot of them. And either way, it's good to be aware of what those signs are.

And I will put this list of the signs on the podcast page, because sometimes if you're like me, I need to visually see it. So if you don't follow the podcast page, I know I don't post on there regularly. It is make. it. simple. podcast. I will add this whole list and a couple of other slides and things that we're going to talk about today to help you if you're a visual person.

So don't worry. I'll add that there.

Something else to think about is some common conditions and disorders associated with high estrogen because we know some of the symptoms as I just listed but sometimes being aware of actual disorders and diseases it affects can be helpful as well. So, endometriosis can be affected by estrogen.

Estrogen obviously doesn't cause it, but if your estrogen is very high, it can make the pain worse for endometriosis. Infertility [00:13:00] can also. It can be from low estrogen or high estrogen. So, it can be either one for that, but they disrupt the menstrual cycle. Low or high, both. And the underlying cause can be either of them, but both of them do affect your fertility.

 Obesity. Estrogen levels are often higher among people who have more body fat because the body, as I mentioned, the adipose tissue, which is body fat, does secrete estrogen. Polycystic ovarian syndrome.

So that's PCOS. Now I do want to be clear. There are a lot of reasons why people have PCOS, including genetics and so many more. But something to be aware of about PCOS is oftentimes in PCOS, the ovaries produce too many androgens, which is a hormone associated with many male characteristics. It's normally for males and we do have some, but they're making too many. Basically your androgen levels are very high. And when this happens, it prevents your ovaries from releasing eggs, which causes.

Irregular [00:14:00] menstrual cycles. Sometimes with PCOS, the estrogen levels are too high compared to the progesterone levels. So again, there's very different reasons why that happens. But estrogen being too high does affect your PCOS.

Again, I think the main factor to take away from PCOS since there are a lot of variables of just being aware that estrogen levels in a very high relationship can obviously affect your PCOS, especially compared to when it is working with progesterone.

 Okay. I'm sure right now that you may be feeling overwhelmed. Oh my gosh. I have so many of those symptoms. Maybe my estrogen is high. What do I do? I'm trapped. Maybe this is why I can't put on muscle. Maybe this is why I can't lose weight.

You know, I've noticed I have low libido or brain fog or I'm mood swings, all those things. I'm sure so many of those symptoms are spinning through your mind right now. And I'm here to tell you, you're not stuck and it's okay. This is the beauty of learning. This is the beauty of starting to connect and educate and teach.

So I'm hoping that you learn [00:15:00] something from this episode and it helps you in your journey.

So now let's talk about what we can do about it because you're never doomed. Just because your hormones are off doesn't mean they have to stay off the rest of your life. You can do stuff about it. You do have options. So first I would highly suggest getting your hormones tested regularly. I understand that some doctors are better than this than others.

So if you think that you have high estrogen, get your hormones checked. Some OBs are pretty thorough on this and some aren't. So if you want my opinion, I would look for an endocrinologist.

Their job is to literally look at hormones. They do hormone therapy and so can a primary care doctor if they specialize in hormone management. So just being aware of that matters. But I know in Arizona, when you look up hormone specialist or endocrinologist, there's a handful that pop up. I know a handful in Arizona.

If you'd love those, if you're a local. Shoot me a DM and I'll send you those names, but look in your area for a doctor of this [00:16:00] sort There's also some online. There are some amazing ones online who even work with people online So I will add some of those in the show notes as well because Maybe there is no one in your area who really works with hormones And so you might need to work with someone online, so I'll add some of those in these show notes

So first You're going to get tested. You're actually going to get some information. Second, There's things we can do. Like, we are not powerless. If there's one thing I ever want you to walk away from my podcast and understand, you have power. You can take care of yourself. You can change things. Nobody is ever stuck, no matter the situation.

So let's go through a handful of things that you can do and you can be aware of if you think your estrogen is high.

Because as we learned earlier, it affects a lot of things. And if you're really struggling in your fitness journey, that might be a factor. So we could be aware of it and what we can do. So the first thing let's talk about diet. When you have high estrogen, you do want to avoid foods that are high in estrogen and also foods that are genetically [00:17:00] modified. So you might want to steer clear of soy based foods. Wheat and other germs have a little bit higher estrogen. Processed sugar, red meat, and dairy both have a little bit more estrogen.

And all of those in high amounts can create higher levels of inflammation and even create some estrogen dominance. So maybe just being aware of those. In very, very small amounts, you can do organic fermented soy, which will be the most safe and the healthiest options, but you definitely don't want to be overdoing foods that are high in estrogen or even genetically modified.

The best diet, if you're trying to reduce your estrogen levels and bring them back in balance, is to have a variety of diets. different rainbows and vegetables in your diet, especially coniferous vegetables. So one of the amazing things about coniferous vegetables, that's like cauliflower and broccoli is they actually help detoxify your body and take out excess estrogen out of the body.

So imagine eating it and there's too much estrogen and the broccoli is like, Oh, [00:18:00] okay. We're going to take this with us out. Okay. So they're very helpful for detoxing the body. So add in a little bit more fruits and vegetables and coniferous vegetables, especially because those are like the bad boy in helping with estrogen levels.

The next thing I want you to be aware of is your alcohol consumption. Common plants that we use to create alcohol actually contain estrogen like substances. So that's number one. Number two, alcohol can raise our estrogen levels because of the effect the liver has on getting rid of the excess estrogen.

If your liver is already overwhelmed, then it's not going to be able to clear out the extra estrogen, which is part of its job. And then because it's not clearing it out, it can recirculate that estrogen and possibly reactivate that estrogen, resulting in higher levels of buildup of estrogen.

So if you are consuming a decent amount of alcohol, your body's trying to process that alcohol. Basically it's not processing and getting rid of the excess [00:19:00] estrogen and it's sitting and it's building up. So you probably need to drastically reduce your alcohol intake.

Something else to look into is your birth control pills. I'm not going to go deep into this subject. It is a very touchy subject, but just knowing that different birth control pills contain different amounts and high levels of estrogen, it's worth checking with your doctor. It's worth seeing what else is out there.

Just being aware that that is something that affects our estrogen can help you figure out how to work around it. So just awareness that birth control pills do have higher levels of estrogen.

 The next thing you can do is focus on your sleep. When a person is asleep, the body heals and recovers from the day.

When we aren't sleeping, Then the body actually can't heal. And one of the things it does in the night is the liver basically resets from all the chaos of the day in the night. It basically gets like a downtime. So if we're not sleeping, that liver isn't resetting for the [00:20:00] next day.

And we just learned in alcohol, how important the liver is in getting rid of excess estrogen. So. Having a functioning, strong liver to get rid of that excess estrogen and detox the body is super crucial. Otherwise, it's just going to recirculate as I mentioned before.

Truly, if there's one thing that I've actually learned recently, especially as I've learned to understand estrogen better, it is how important our livers are and how important the job is that it is properly functioning to really keep our levels of estrogen in check.

So get your sleep. Do not skip out on that. I know it's hard if you're a young mom. I know there's times and seasons, but do your best. I promise skip the show is going to help your hormones. It's going to help everything. Skip the show, skip the late night snack, skip all those, get in bed and go to sleep.

It's going to help your hormones. Obviously, another one is exercise.

The really cool thing about exercise is for both males and females, if [00:21:00] they are experiencing estrogen dominance, any form of exercise can be useful in helping reduce the amount of excess estrogen. Any form! Just move your body. Just move. I loved it when I researched this and read this and saw this part in a certification and I was like, yes, we just got to move.

So I want you to just move more. Now, being aware at the same time, as you know, anything, if it's too low or too high, can cause problems. So some people, if they are exercising in excess, like a crazy amount, that can actually have the opposite effect. And the reason why is because if we're exercising too much, if we're doing too much cardio, too much HIIT, too much of everything, Then typically we activate the body's stress response, which then decreases our hormone production because we're now focusing on our stress response with cortisol.

So you don't want to overly do it. And again, this is harder to overdo it, but if you're, like, exercising [00:22:00] multiple hours every day, you probably need to downgrade it. But in general, exercise does help balance out our estrogen.

The next thing to be aware of, if you're trying to... Reduce your estrogen levels and get them in a healthy range if they're too high is simply environmental toxins and chemicals because they do affect your estrogen.

Now, I'm going to kind of use a variety of words to kind of explain this process. I'm going to try to keep it as simple as possible for it to flow for you. But if this part feels weird or confusing, I do suggest just hitting, you know, 30 seconds back two or three times and listening to it more than once, because I'm going to keep it short, but I am going to use some, I want to call them scientific y, but it's not, I'm just going to use some medical terms so you understand.

When we have too many toxins or chemicals in our environment, we have more external estrogen that originates from the environment. These are called xenoestrogens or estrogens that come [00:23:00] from your diet are called phytoestrogens. And when these are all added together with the estrogen that your body actually already makes, the xenoestrogens and endocrine system disruptors. So basically chemicals or things that aren't natural. If you're having too many of those contribute to higher levels of inflammation in the body.

So imagine these external estrogen, you have xenoestrogens from the diet, they're called phytoestrogens. And then you have the Estrogen in your body and the combination of all of those can create more inflammation in the body. When we have more inflammation in the body, our body's job is to protect itself.

The body's like, Whoa, girl, there is too much going on in here. So what it does is it initiates the stress response and causes oxidative stress. that can increase the aromatase process. Aromatase is simply an enzyme that converts the androgens [00:24:00] into estrogen. So basically, it takes other enzymes and other hormones, because remember we mentioned the androgens is a different hormone, and converts them into more estrogen.

So we have the external estrogen. We have the estrogen in our body, then we have the stress response, then the oxidative stress, then the aromatase process, which then turns more into estrogen. So it is like the perfect storm. So what do we do about improving our high levels of estrogen based on our chemicals and environmental toxins? Now, I know this can be a very overwhelming subject, which is why I'm going to highly suggest you go back and listen to episode 132 with Carlin. She is the owner of Just Ingredients. She does an amazing job of giving very simple, great products that you can switch out.

That can help reduce those endocrine disruptors and can really just help your hormones in so many [00:25:00] ways. That was one of the number one reasons I wanted to have her on because I wanted to make it easy. Because I know when people hear toxins and chemicals, they feel overwhelmed. But it's just tiny steps that build and build and build.

Not only does she give a bunch of easy ideas in that episode, She does actually have her own line. I have a handful of her products, which I really love because I was trying to change out some toxins and chemicals in my own house. I have her lotion, I have her dry shampoo, and I have her mouthwash. I love all of them.

They work really, really, great. I'm very particular about my dry shampoo. I read studies, I think it was like a year ago, where they linked... Dry shampoo to a bunch of cancers and I'm thinking like, oh my gosh, does this mean I have to wash my hair regularly? Because that's not gonna happen and I was like, what do I do?

And then I stumbled upon her dry shampoo. I love it It doesn't make your hair staticky. It doesn't give it a weird texture and I know it's a clean just ingredient product I'm gonna add a link to not only her products that are helpful that are gonna help [00:26:00] reduce your toxins and chemicals, but If you use the code ANDREA10, she's amazing.

And she did give me 10 percent off everything on her website. So she, I use her protein powders. I use tons of stuff. And I will also link that episode to give you more ideas of the types of products that you can clean out and products that you can switch out such as cleaning supplies and stuff. So that's going to be a really great episode to try to really minimize those toxins and chemicals without making it stressful or dramatic or costing lots of money.

All right, so those are some simple lifestyle shifts that you can make to Improve high levels of estrogen. Let's talk quickly about some nutrient deficiencies to be aware of that can cause high estrogen and then a couple of supplements that you might want to look into to also help bring your estrogen into a normal level.

So if you think that you are estrogen dominant or you just have high levels of estrogen, some nutrient deficiencies you might be aware of or might be [00:27:00] experiencing is vitamin B6. This helps aid in the excretion of harmful estrogen metabolites. So basically if your vitamin B6 is low, you have less vitamins, less things getting rid of that harmful estrogen. Low levels of vitamin E can also negatively affect your body's ability to de doxify from estrogen. Vitamin B and zinc both assist in blocking the aromatase enzyme process.

Remember, that's the process where we're turning androgens into estrogen, so it helps block those, and then we aren't converting those into estrogen.

If your magnesium is too low or your fiber is too low in your diet, this can also prevent your liver from removing that excess estrogen. So if you think you are experiencing issues with high estrogen, check those. Vitamin B6, Vitamin E, Vitamin B12, Zinc, and Phosphorus. Magnesium.

 So lastly, let's talk about some possible [00:28:00] supplementations that you can take if you have elevated estrogen levels. Again, you don't just want to guess, you do want to get your hormones tested or you do want to speak to a doctor. We don't want to be self diagnosing everything, so do be aware of that. Be aware that I am also not a medical doctor.

I am trying to give you information and I'm hoping you will take this information and seek answers from other medical professionals. But... this can pique your interest or help answer some questions if you are having some issues of the high estrogen symptoms or experiencing some of those things. So a couple things you can do is you can take a supplement called Calcium D Glucorate.

I'm probably saying it wrong, but it's CDG. this is a naturally occurring fiber which is primarily found in the skins of dark... Berries. This CDG basically combines with the estrogen in the body and then helps the body excrete it, basically get rid of it, helps the detoxification process.

So that can be a great supplement [00:29:00] to add in.

The doses are going to vary a little bit, but typically if you have higher estrogen, the dose is going to be a little bit higher and you are always advised to titrate it up, but seek a medical professional on that to make sure you're doing your dosing correctly. The next supplementation you can take is, this is a massive word, but it's diendolomethane, But for short, they call it DMI. And this can help lower the estrogen again by promoting a healthy metabolism and the detoxification of the three different types of estrogen particles.

third supplementation you can think about is broccoli seed extract. This compound protects the body's tissue and it helps protect it from the oxidative stress, which I talked about, and also helps support in the detoxification of the liver. It also helps the body just eliminate those harmful estrogen metabolites that I talked about earlier.

As well as the first supplement I talked about, if you have too high of dose, too fast, it [00:30:00] can cause bloating, so you do want to titrate up. Typically, it's suggested that you start with 50 milligrams and if tolerated, then you can build up to 100 to 200 per day. So those are three supplements that you can look into trying. I hope you learned a ton in this episode. If you found this episode helpful, please let me know because I would love to know if this is useful information.

I would love to know. What other hormones you want explained what they are what is happening how we can lifestyle change it what? Nutrient deficiencies we can be aware of and supplements we can take to help. I want to push that for a handful of hormones So hopefully this is one that's gonna help you and make you feel more empowered to figure out what's going on with you If you feel like you have an imbalance or maybe it will help you help someone else If you have a friend or someone else who might be struggling with high estrogen or just feeling like their hormones are off, having them listen to this and see if this might be a piece.

Hormones are a bear. [00:31:00] They are a different animal. As I have taken time over the last year or so, myself and my team, and we've spent time researching these, and as I mentioned, doing different things and certification stuff, It has made me see there's so much of a bigger picture. So I hope that you learn something from this and I hope you know you are not stuck.

There are answers. We've just got to weed through what's going on, weed through the hormones, see what's off, see how we can adjust the lifestyle, see how we can adjust the other things I suggested, the diet, the alcohol, the other things that affect it, and see an improvement. I know you can do it. I know you can feel good.

All right. That's it for today. As always, you are doing so much better than you think you are. We'll chat next week.