Introduction to Diet and Hormones

Hello, ladies. Welcome back to Mastering the Menopause Transition 3.0 and your host, Dr. Sharon Stills bringing you conversation after conversation about the things you need to know to have a healthy, happy, sexy, sacred second act.

And today we're going to be talking about diet. And as a naturopathic medical doctor, that's a question I get asked all day long that distills what should I be eating?

So I have brought a dear friend and colleague, and I'll just tell you behind the scenes, like the bloopers it took us like 20 minutes, our zoom, we're not working.

And so we have to keep trying and keep trying and rebooting and rebooting. And so the lesson here is, you know, if it doesn't work, keep trying because you will get it right, because we can now hear each other and we're be able to have this very important conversation.

For all of you talking about what is the paleo diet, what is the vegan diet? What is the best diet for your hormones? So my guest today is Monica Hershaft You may know her as the fixer of all mystery illness.

She is a nutritional consultant, a holistic health practitioner. She has advanced clinical training, certification and a technique called NRT, which enables her to drill down and get to the root causes often when they can't be found.

So welcome, Monica. so great to have you here on this summit. After all our fumbling around with the sound system, our technical difficulties. So it's such a pleasure.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat with you. You're so welcome. So, you know, a great topic like, should I be vegan? Should I be paleo? How do I get my hormones to work?

What's important about what I'm eating? What's all this about protein? And I just want to start with your your story, because your story is very fascinating.

I have a similar story with veganism as well, my own health, but, I think it will shed a lot of light on why we're going to have the conversation we're having.

So take it away, tell us who you are and how you got to be doing what you're doing with us. Well, a lot of how I ended up where I am today is due to the way that I was born and raised with diet.

Monica's Vegan Upbringing and Health Crisis

And, so both of my parents are actually Holocaust survivors. And my father, was a scientist assessing conditions for factory farms, which are slaughterhouses.

And when he went to do that and saw the conditions and all of the body parts and the way the animals were being treated, he, immediately connected to his experiences in the Holocaust as a child.

And he knew he had to do something to make a difference, because back in the 1970s, a lot of people, well, really, nobody knew about factory farming and about what was going on and and how bad that animal protein was for you, because we were being given images of happy cows running around on the grass, you know, and that's not what was happening, let me tell you.

So, I was actually born and raised vegan because my father went to a plant based diet around the time I was born. just because, of ethical reasons. Not really for health reasons.

So you've heard of junk food? Vegans? I mean, that's, you know, you eat a lot of processed food, a lot of sugar, because it was really for the animals and not about the health.

But they also were touting the health benefits. As a side note, but not in the way we think of health today. So as a result, my body developed on a diet that was very high in soy.

We did a lot of those white blocks of tofu and, you know, no protein really at all. no eggs, no fish, no chicken, no beef, nothing. And so as a result, you know, some deficiencies developed as my body was growing and developing and my organs were growing and developing, that could not be compensated for without animal protein.

And that's essentially how and why I got sick with a mystery illness for ten years that nobody could figure out. Well, okay, so, let's dive a little deeper.

So let's talk about because we know at least we hear around here at the summit, you know, that protein is important and so can we get the same protein.

What is the difference between animal protein. Can we get it from a vegan diet. And I you know I'm nodding my head because I too it was later was in the 90s.

John John Robbins of Baskin Robbins, which I used. We had a Baskin Robbins right down the street from us. I love pink bubblegum. I grew up, you know, eating all sorts of junk, which is why I was always so sick.

But he wrote that book, diet for a New America. And I read the book and I was like, oh my God, same thing. Like it was more for just the animals sake.

And then started eating all these, you know, what were they called? The, the Boca Burgers and all this process hydrolyzed soy farms. Tofurkey. Yeah, yeah.

And I was so sick. I that was like some of the worst, worst decade of my life. So, and, you know, if anyone is listening, is a vegan. We're not we're not trying to, like, you know, be mean or anything.

We just want I wanted to just get to the truth, like, nutritionally, because I understand, yes, that there are factory farms and there are ways around that.

You know, I shop at the local farmers market in Monaca, and I both live in Scottsdale, and we we dine together a lot, and we look for free range and organic and what we'll get to talk about seed oils.

you know, this woman walks her talk. So. But if you could just explain to the listeners, like what the difference is and why animal protein is so important.

Yeah. And so, and and just to let you know, I mean, my, my dad knew John Robbins. He was, participating in my dad's conferences. And so this was a big thing.

I mean, my entire family's life revolved around veganism. So me deciding to eat animal protein wasn't a glib choice, and it wasn't something I chose easily.

in fact, it it was a risk that I was going to lose my dad, by making this choice. So I want you to understand, listeners, that I actually tried to get my health back after I got sick, for over five years as a vegan and could not make any progress.

So I just want to get a little bit into if it's okay with you, Sharon, to let them know that this was not like a mild illness. This was really severe.

And so it was, basically preventing me from living any kind of a normal life. And I was 34 when it happened. And I'm going to tie this in to what the vegan diet caused for my body.

But, I did a very popular detox program that was very trendy. Everybody was doing it, and, I got violently, violently sick on it because of the deficiencies.

And I'll explain that as well. But as a result of having been vegan at that point for 34 years, born and raised, that detox, wasn't able to work well on me and triggered all of these symptoms because my phase two liver function was compromised.

And I'm going to talk about how a vegan diet connects to that issue. But the symptoms as a result of that, because the detox program, since so phase one liver function is backing up the trash and phase two is throwing it out.

So if throwing it out is not working, trash goes right back in auto intoxication. So that was the beginning of the illness for me. That went on and and kept getting worse over a decade where I had heart palpitations.

I couldn't sleep for more than two hours a night, and that went on for years of severe sleep deprivation, anxiety. That was physiological. the skin around my eyes and mouth were cracked and bleeding.

skin was coming off. I couldn't eat solid food without excruciating pain. I felt like somebody was taking a cheese grater against my guts any time I ate any solid food, and, And I couldn't, I just couldn't process food, you know, I couldn't.

I like the idea of food was so terrifying because I was in pain all the time, and there was no escape. I kept thinking I was going to die, and the doctors kept running labs and telling me nothing was wrong with me.

And it was in my head. And they were trying to get me to take any depressants. And I said, I'm not depressed, I'm actually sick.

Why Animal Protein Matters

There was an event and I got sick. I'm not crazy and so not to say anti-depressants are for crazy people, but they were making me feel like a crazy person because they kept telling me it was in my head and I was having legitimate symptoms, which we now know were due to a cooling deficiency from being a vegan for so long.

So I know a lot of people don't talk about Colleen. It's not a very popular trendy thing the way peptides and other things are put. But, Colleen, one of the cool kids now. Yes.

Let's pack. Colleen. So basically, Colleen has to do with your nervous system. It's a it's one of the vitamin Bs So one of the reasons I wasn't sleeping with the choline deficiency being so severe was because of the fact that the, Colleen was so deficient that my nervous system couldn't calm down.

And part of what Colleen does is it helps calming the nervous system. And it also helps with phase two liver function and gallbladder. Gallbladder is part of phase two liver function.

So as a result, what happened is because you get Colleen from meat and eggs and I wasn't eating that ever. and then the detox program I was doing was incorporating supplements.

And this is why you have to be careful with sometimes taking synthetic supplements that aren't being recommended by a practitioner. And so, the, the niacin that they were giving me, niacin makes you more choline deficient.

So I was taking all of this niacin and I was already choline deficient. So that's what caused this to be so over the top. And as a result of that, that precipitated all of those symptoms.

And so that's why animal protein is so important because a lot of these deficiencies don't get talked about. And normal mainstream medicine, or even in normal mainstream nutrition.

Are there any. Because I think it's pretty well well, at least to me it is. Maybe it's not. And but like we know B12 is a common deficiency in vegans.

We know iron can be a deficiency that we now we know choline. So are there any other deficiencies that you relate or have seen? That's a good question.

and what's interesting about that is, I don't work with vegans because of the fact that I, I know that I don't believe, based on not just my personal experience and not just the fact that I tried everything to get well as a vegan.

I didn't just try a few things, I tried everything. I flew to other states. I did anything they told me to do for many years. and then I did go to a practice owner who said, I absolutely cannot help you heal as a vegan.

That was the first time someone had said that to me. And then when I got my training and certification, that was part of what we learned as well, is that there's they didn't really get into the deficiencies because they basically taught us, don't even try because it's not going to work on less.

They can take in the animal glandular and the and the animal protein. So, so we didn't do a lot of training on the specific deficiencies for that reason.

I only know about what I know about because of my personal experience. But that being said, and I know this all ties in with hormones. When you are lacking animal protein in the diet.

And, you know, obviously the way I do it and and what's paleo, which, you know, we'll get into is eating animal protein at every single meal, which is what I still do to this day, because I believe it's best for health.

But when you don't have any animal protein, what happens is it does impact your thyroid function, whether or not your labs are normal, it does throw off that balance and then that all of those endocrine organs balance each other.

So if you're looking at thyroid, adrenal, ovary and pituitary, if one is out there like dominos, the other one's going to be hyper, the other will be low.

And it may not show up in labs necessarily right away, but you may be still feeling the symptoms of that. And so that's one of the connections. And the reason for that partially is what people do eat as vegans, which is a lot of soy, which affects thyroid function, but also because the imbalance between zinc and copper throws off the metals in the body and then as a result, that impacts thyroid function because your ability to absorb minerals is your thyroid.

And so then that can contribute to anxiety and other similar symptoms like that, which also are not helpful when someone's going through their second act and you want your hormones to calm down. So we now have a bunch of questions.

So first, can you just explain? Because I'm sure, like if someone's listening who is a vegan or who is in and just comes up like, well, why can't I just eat, you know, there's protein in quinoa, there's protein in beans, there's protein in tofu, there's protein and nuts.

Why can't I just eat those to get my protein? Why does it have to be an animal? Right. So I don't have training in the specificities on that particular question.

I just know that the animal protein is not just about the protein aspects. It's about all of the nutrients and the way they're delivered. And the way the body absorbs them.

There's just no substitution. I can tell you from personal experience that I tried all of those things and that when I started eating animal protein, the difference in how fast I started to get my life and my health back, I mean, and it was bad.

I couldn't even drive a car, that I literally started to get better in a matter of days and weeks after having been violently sick for many, many, many years.

So it wasn't like, oh, I started to feel a little better. I mean, you know, and I was I was eating all of the right ways as a vegan. I was very conscious. I wasn't like my dad.

I was really, you know, doing everything right. I wasn't doing sugar, I wasn't doing wheat. you know, so it was very it was a very different experience for me.

But it's, you know, part of it is the protein and and it's not comparable. And I don't have the technical specs on that because it's not part of my work.

But it's definitely, not just the protein. It's it's all it's the whole ballgame. It's the whole enchilada when it comes to the animal protein versus getting it from other sources.

And there's actually a lot of valuable information that you can find on Western A Price's website about that because, and I have I have articles like that available, in my program as well.

I just don't get into that directly as much, because it's just all of the people I work with already eating animal protein. I'm never working with people that are vegan, so I've never needed to provide that information.

So, basically, they talk a lot about like, for example, the China study is a big thing that a lot of vegans talk about. And so they they debunk the China study, and they also talk about the very specific details about the elements in the animal protein versus the vegetable or grain based proteins or seed based proteins.

and they get into detail about that on West a price. So that's a really good resource for any vegans that are listening that want that information. Love westernized price fair value. Yeah.

Great. Great info. And they have a great podcast. And yeah, I mean that's been my experience too. Like you can't get complete proteins. I mean you can combine them, but it doesn't get absorbed the same way in the body.

The form of heme iron is different in the animal products. And so that was my experience too. I was, you know, one of these I had read John Robbins book.

I had like I was on board, I joined the Earth Save. I was like chapter president or whatever. I mean, my kids wear these buttons that said, we don't eat anything with a face.

They still give me a hard time and we have. We invented those buttons. Of of like, yeah, and so and I at the time, I wasn't even in medical school yet.

Paleo Eating, Organic Foods, and Seed Oils

I was in, Oriental massage school, and my teachers used to scream at me like I was my hormones were so out of whack. Obviously, I was in my 20s and I wasn't thinking about menopause yet, but I had the worst PMS, my period, it just I was a disaster and they were like, you just need to eat some meat, you need to build your blood.

And you know, I was pretty stubborn. And then the blood type diet came out by Peter De and Amo, and I just like intuitively, I was like, all right, they're yelling at me.

I bet I'm a typo. I'm going to check, you know, sure enough, I was it took me like three months of journaling that I had, you know, an organic, grass fed and finished steak in my freezer.

But it was like when I ate it, I like it was like, instantaneous. I just started to feel so much better. So I had a very similar. No foundation. Duration. Yeah, it was very fast.

And then of course, I was like, why did I waste all those years of my life that so I think, you know, for menopausal women, our protein needs are really.

And you brought up such a good point. It's like when someone wants to detox, if you don't have protein to run the pathways, you are not going to be able to detox.

So anyone who is not getting enough protein certainly shouldn't be embarking on a detox pathways. And that impacts to your body's drainage organs. And like you said, the pathways, the ability for your body to dump toxins that gets compromised.

Then the whole game of dominos goes out of whack. Yeah, yeah, I always I, you know, you got to pretax before you detox. You got to open up your a monk diaries or your drainage organs or your elementary Oregon's or however you want to.

But often when you do that I mean my patients are like do I even have to keep doing do have do more like I feel so good just doing that. I get asked that a lot.

I'm like, yeah, that's funny to go in and do more. So, so anything else about maybe you could just talk about the paleo diet and a high protein diet and the importance of organic foods, the importance of avoiding seed oils?

because when we eat out, our waiters are like, oh, gosh, here they come. Yeah. And so, and, I have all of this and the do's and don'ts in my immune repair food list that we're going to provide for everybody for free as well.

And so basically, the things that I recommend, I usually tell people to stay away from grains just because they're inflammatory. But some people who need to put weight on the grains that I do allow are.

First of all, everything's organic because we want to talk a little about the pesticides and the impact that has on the body and on the hormones. So, but we we avoid the grains, because of the inflammatory reasons and because you want to make sure you're keeping your inflammation down, especially when you're dealing with menopause and hormones, but also the GMO and non-organic and the pesticides and non-organic.

Those things will throw off your endocrine system, which then affects your hormones. And so there are, I believe, seven pesticides that have been directly linked to hormonal imbalance.

So you have to eat organic. And then we also do at least a palm sized serving of animal protein at every meal. But it has to be pasture raised, grass fed if it's red meat and it has to be, pasture raised organic eggs, not cage free, not vegetarian fed.

We have a whole egg guide as well. Pasture raised, organic. And then you want a more orange yolk for the eggs, and you want to do the white and the yolk, because together they're a complete protein.

You don't want to separate them out. And then also if you're doing chicken it would be free range organic chicken. And the reason for that is because the factory farmed animal protein A, they're being abused and they're being tortured.

So they have really high cortisol levels. It's not ethically ideal to support that. But also you're then ingesting the stress hormones. They're also injected with antibiotics.

They're injected with synthetic hormones to make them bigger. And then you're eating the hormones which are affecting your hormones. And then on top of that they've got the pesticides in their feed.

So it's all in all, there's nothing good about eating factory farmed traditional animal protein at all. There's no bonuses. It also causes problems with cholesterol, and it raises your blood pressure.

Whereas if you're doing paleo centric, animal protein, grass fed, free range, pasture raised organic, it will heal your body. It will lower your cholesterol.

It will fix your blood pressure. It literally does the opposite to your body and it heals your body. And then we basically allow veggies and we try to keep fruit and all sugars down, maybe doing some berries that are a lower glycemic.

But we want to eliminate sugar, dairy, wheat and soy. And I like to eliminate all the grains because, you know, maybe quinoa, you know, because some people consider that a seed.

And if people do it, I say get organic sprouted quinoa and do it in moderation, you know? And, so, like, if you're doing a meat sauce, you could put it on quinoa, you know, but yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it.

And then we have a lot of do's and don'ts on the food list, which we can get into later as well. But, you know, avoiding things like she was talking about with the canola oil which comes from the rapeseed, which is toxic, it's actually poisonous.

And so just, what those seed oils do to your body compared to using healthy oils, like unrefined organic unfiltered oils, like olive oils, coconut oil and avocado oil.

are there any other oils or just the coconut, the olive, the. I'm not sure. The best ones. there are varying opinions on some of the other oils. I don't mind grapeseed, some people do mind grapeseed.

and, I, you know, canola is just a, non-negotiable. You just cannot do canola oil. It doesn't matter if it's organic. I don't care. I don't care if they grew it out of, you know, bunnies, but it's it should not be ingested on any level.

It's just there's there's nothing good about it, even if it's organic. So you just want to avoid canola oil for sure. And you want to look at the ingredients.

So many times they package things in a way where it looks like it's going to be healthy, like they're I'm going to not name names here, but there's a brand that's very known for being healthy that has an olive oil mayo.

And when you read the ingredients, olive oils like the fourth ingredient and the first ingredients, canola oil. But you know, my point is read the ingredients.

You'd be surprised how many times sugar is the first or second ingredient, how many times canola oil is in almost every salad dressing. So these are the questions to ask.

And the more of us asking these questions, then we can get restaurants to start making changes. And I'm seeing it happen all the time. I mean, true food now has a big sign at all their tables.

No seed oils, you know, now they're using healthier animal protein. They're naming the ranches in the farms that they're doing force of nature. They're doing Neiman's ranch, you know, and it's everyone gets on the bandwagon when we are loud and noisy and we demand it, then we start getting it.

And that's how we get the change to happen. Yes, we have to. Exactly. I mean, it's bring I was asking about the oils because those are the oils. I use avocado, I use olive, I use coconut, I use ghee, I use butter.

I'm just wondering yeah. And butter. Any fast. If it's not pasteurized, you know, if you can get raw butter that's the most ideal full fat, real organic, grass fed raw butter.

And grass fed and finished.

Water Quality and Filtration

Because that's a marketing yes listening ploy where they'll say it's grass fed, but. Grains finish. With green. So it's like, you know, you just got to really. Yeah.

You got to be a total sleuth and find. Yeah. You gotta ask. You gotta be noisy. You gotta ask. Another nice tip is going to farmers markets because a lot of times, even if they're not certified organic, because they charge an arm and a leg for that, they if you talk to the farmers, they'll tell you, you know, we do it organic.

We just don't have the money to get certified. And that's okay too. If you're dealing with small farmers, you know, and you can communicate in a relationship with them and go buy your stuff from them and support them.

Absolutely. We have the best organic farmers market in in Arizona that we go to on Saturday mornings, and we get our veggies there and our meats there, and our fish is there and our eggs there.

And, you know, that way you're supporting local and you do you have a relationship. So we know what we're getting. If you wanted to, you could go visit the farms.

And they do. A lot of them can't say organic, but they're they're better than organic. Yeah. Well another thing. Yeah. And another thing to keep in mind is that there's there's more and more interest now in providing these things for people.

So when you start getting familiar with where to go and you get the places that are your favorites and you can get a system in place, you know, it's only feels overwhelming in the beginning.

But when you start getting your systems in place and then I know for sure you know where I'm going to go get my groceries. I mean, now because we've all been speaking of so much, you go to conventional grocery store and you can find grass fed, organic, pasture raised beef.

I mean, it's there. I've even seen bison at the regular grocery stores. I've seen them at sprouts. I've seen them at like normal, like Kroger's, Albertsons, Vons.

I've seen all of these things. Free range organic chicken. So you can even go to a regular grocery store and get a lot of good stuff. Now you just have to know what to look for and read the labels.

That's such a good reminder because I don't go to a lot of regular grocery stores, but I either. But see, you're in a pinch. And yeah, and actually you can find your, you know, organic and and it's a lot cheaper than Whole Foods.

And so good reminder to, you know, scout it out and see what's going on. So so like you're top to get started on like a healthy diet would be getting an animal protein adding grains.

You said but quinoa how. To do organic. You got to stay away from pesticides. And we would be remiss if we did not discuss water. Okay okay. Water is important.

Not just how much you're hydrating. I'm like, where's mine? not just how much you're hydrating. I recommend at least 96oz a day. 60 for very minimum, but 96 would be ideal.

But there's so many crazy waters out there. Stop getting all the fancy waters. I'd stay away from alkaline water. I have a whole water guide. So alkaline water.

What happens with that? Is it, takes away your body's ability to regulate it. So if you're doing alkaline water on the regular every day, all day, your body gets used to it and stop self-regulating.

And so it also parts of your body don't want to be a high. So if you're doing this high water and then the parts of your body that don't want to be a high page start to suffer and it starts to cause symptoms, so you don't want to do alkaline water, that was a big trend, sort of the way tofu was in the 80s.

And and then also smart water is they keep adding to lights. Here's water. You know you need that. Just eat right and then drink spring water filtered water.

so it's really important that you're not doing all these fancy waters with all these added extra things that your body actually doesn't need. Your body's built perfectly to self balance, so you want to keep it hydrated and give it the right fuel.

But if you keep giving you stuff with all these extra vitamins in it and electrolytes and, and, gold dust and diamonds, you know, and there is diamond water, by the way.

That's the thing. you don't need it. and so let's talk about filters. yeah. Because I was going to say, what about tap water? Because I think that is so.

I was just about to talk about that. So I'm glad you brought that up, because filters are very important. Because the the cheap filters, you think, Britain's so cheap source of the name.

but anyway, they're not a good quality filter. They don't filter very much. And so even when you buy the more expensive ones, Berkey hasn't been available because they're in the middle of a situation.

But when I was using Berkey filters, which is a gravity filter where you pour it in and it drains down, that was a really good quality filter. And it was people said, oh, it's expensive, but when you actually measure the cost per gallon, it cost less per gallon than Brita.

Sometimes if you're paying more upfront, but you don't have to change the filter for a long time, you don't realize you're actually paying more per gallon with the cheaper filters.

So, some good filters are also aqua Sana. and, depends if you're going to get a whole house filter or not. Halligan makes some good filters as well. And there are newer companies coming out all the time.

I have a whole house filter now that I got from a company called pure again, but I think they're only available in, Nevada, Arizona and California. And then, but when you look for a whole house filter, stay away from water softeners because they're not good for you.

They use these terrible salts that are very bad for your system. And, you want to get, a carbon filter, you know, that works the best. But you also want to make sure it's filtering out fluoride pathogens.

You know, a lot of pathogens can sneak through cheap filters into the water, like the protozoa, the amoeba. And we don't want those in our water, either.

And they have found pharmaceutical drugs in the tap water. They have found any depressants in the tap water. They found birth control pills in the tap water.

Caffeine, Coffee, and Hormone Balance

So there's hormones in the tap water, and there are pesticides and in the tap water, all which affect your hormones. There's no like not just drinking the tap water, but there's no cooking with the tap water.

There's no making iced tea, coffee, lemonade with the tap water. There's no don't shower in it. Don't just filter everything. Yeah. That's so it's I just let a woman's retreat back in February at, the hot springs in Santa Fe.

it's all spring water, and they pipe it in, and I must have asked, like, 75 times. They're like, lady, it's so. Because it was so weird to me to, like, drink like to turn on the water and drink out of the tap, but with all your spring water.

But I kept. Are you sure it's okay? You sure you put. Yeah. That was. That is like a hard no. I'd rather be thirsty than drink. Yeah. I mean, it's too bad I wasn't with you.

I could have muscle tested it. it was delicious. The water, it was good. Yeah, it was fine. Yeah. It's really important. And that we have shower filters or bath filters and that we do.

Right? It's not just. I'm glad you brought up right. It's not just what we're drinking. It's what we're cooking in or making a with or we is, spraying it aqua, which is the filter that we use, which I love because it's.

I'm not familiar with them, but there's so many great ones out there now. Yeah. Spring aqua is structured water, so it's actually coherent. It also has hydrogen option in it.

And what I like about it is they put the unit in your house and where you are, whether you're in this country or another country, they come out and they give you the pre-filter specific to your area because we all have different, different kind of areas.

So they, you know, it's like individualized medicine. It's like individualized filtering so that, yeah, it's it's very cool. So moving on from water, I want to talk about caffeine. Yes.

You had mentioned that. Yeah. And and people are going to start throwing spears now. Right. So I now well here's the thing. We use caffeine to function because we're tired, because our hormones are, and, you know, in life.

Right. And so basically, what a lot of people don't talk about, first of all, what coffee and tea are the highest and pesticide. So if you are going to do coffee or tea, you want to make sure you're getting certified mold and micro toxin free coffee.

And, and I would even stay away from herbal teas unless you know what you're doing, because that's medicinal. So if you're doing herbal teas and you don't know how it could be impacting your body, you could be doing an herbal tea just thinking it tastes good and it's no caffeine, but then you're like causing symptoms because it's medicinal.

So be aware of that as well. depending on your personal body. but basically, caffeine, whether it's in healthy form or not, throws off the endocrine because, you know, everyone knows adrenals get impacted by caffeine.

Like, what goes up must come down, right? Well, adrenals, thyroid, pituitary and ovaries or prostate. If you're a guy. But I think this is all women. so unless they're in menopause, but yeah.

So basically, those all balance each other. So if caffeine is jacking you up with the adrenals and that's going to impact the other endocrine organs, it actually does throughout your hormone balance.

And I've found with the people that I've worked with individually over the years, whenever they're on caffeine, I had to have them on endocrine glandular, bovine glandular to support what the caffeine was doing to their endocrine system.

So, you don't have to get off a cold turkey, but if you start eating the right way and improving what's going on inside, then you can wean off of it. And you can still do organic decaf if you like the ritual of it and the flavor, because I like that.

But you know, you don't have to do the jacking up part, you know, and then you feel more even keeled. Yeah I am I was a late bloomer with caffeine. I didn't start drinking caffeine until I was 53.

My goodness. Yeah I know and I was before I did it like 14. I don't even three years I know. So like I, I used always I had to apologize to a lot of patients because I've been like, no caffeine.

It's horrible for your adrenals. They're like, it brings me so much joy, doctor stills. And I was like, there's other ways to get joy. But now being a caffeine indulgence, you know, I'm like, I understand the joy.

I understand the ritual. It's like liquid sunshine in a cup. I get it, it can bring you a lot of pleasure. So everything in moderation. But yeah, you know, like, I like purity or gave aspirins, coffees.

Or is really good. Yeah. You just want to make sure because like. Boost in. Life. Boost because it's like the highest from what I understand, it's like if it's not me, it's definitely one of them.

And I make decaf versions of a lot of these too. And, flavor wise, because I am a coffee snob when it comes to flavor, because I was married to an Italian and we did a lot of our coffees in Europe, and so I'm very picky and purity, it was impressive when their flavor profile chef why I yeah.

And if you're doing decaf, you want to do the Swiss water process because they can use a lot of chemicals. Yes. There's another process. It's also good and I can't remember the name of it that I found out about not that long ago, but yes, Swiss water process.

Same thing. And you're right. And these companies do do it the right way for the decaf. and they have single serve options that are cute in the little bag thing.

but anyway, the yeah, I agree with you on that. And you want to be careful about that. And if you're getting the right coffee, you don't have to worry about it because they are doing the right decaf nation process.

But the decafenation process, done in traditional methods and with normal copies, is very high in toxic chemicals. And so that's a very good point. So as we wind up, I think that yeah, the message is.

My food list. You have to investigate. You have to really you know, you have to look because I read the ingredients. Right. Because they're like trying to, you know, you think, oh, I'm doing decaf.

I'm doing better for myself. Yeah. They're using harmful. So you really got to become very conscious of what toxins are being slid in that are affecting your hormones.

Don't just go off the front label. Yep. So any last words of wisdom before we wrap up and then let us know where, the listeners can find out more about you.

well.

Where to Learn More and Closing Remarks

as, you know, and we've talked about recently, I do have a wonderful membership program that is like Netflix for The Body, where you can get the owner's manual to your body at treat the source.com, so you can find out more there and check it out and, get a lot of nice free downloads and you can get the food list for free.

Also, Monica, her chef.com/food. And I'm think you're going to be providing that link for everybody as well. And you know, just send them to your website.

it gets too confusing when when we say we don't do that anymore because it gets too confusing and people no problem. It's not on my website, but that's fine.

So where could where can they get the food list? Like, can they get it at the at the membership? well, it's, yeah. It's not on the treat the source website because, that's just the membership.

And so it's on the links page in the Instagram. So it's like MonicaHershaft.com/links. But you're. Yeah, it's it's not a big deal. I mean it's Where you can provide it as a PDF and we'll give it as a free gift, but we just don't want you sending like if you want to give it as one of the downloads, but don't tell them they're getting a free gift.

It creates all kinds of chaos. Yeah. No worries. I didn't know about that. Sorry. That's normally what people have me deals. Yeah. All right. Sorry about. That.

And it doctor talks. So anyway apologies on that. No worries I just got. It out and hit me out. All right. So let me ask real quick. So where can the ladies learn more about you.

I don't know. What to say. Yeah. Blue bird. Okay. Go ahead. I'm ready. I mean, where can the ladies learn more about. You can go to MonicaHershaft.com, or treatthesource.com.

Awesome. And you're also on Instagram. That is @treatthesource Okay. Yeah @treatthesource. Yeah. And so my last words are treat the source, not a symptom.

Anybody who's experiencing symptoms can reverse it through nutrition and eliminating toxins. And all of the other wonderful advice you're going to be getting throughout this summit.

If you make these changes and you're consistent and you stick to it, you will feel a difference, I promise. Us, and we'll thank you for your you're living proof that, what you talk about works.

And you said the no symptoms. Thank you for all your wisdom and for your friendship and for everything. So go check her out. She's a prolific poster. Check out her membership.

Because who doesn't want Netflix for The body? I love it, and perhaps you'll even see me in there in the membership, so be sure. Know for sure. That's a definite. Yeah.

All right. Thanks everyone for being here and sending our love. And we will be back with another conversation. Thank you.

Monica Hershaft, NC, HHP

Balance Hormones And Detoxify Naturally