Adrenals, Thyroid, And Sex Hormones In MCAS

Introduction and Marcel Picku2019s background 0:00

Through. Hey, everybody, it's doctor Tom Moorcroft back with you for this episode of the Reversing Marcel activation and Histamine Intolerance Summit. And along with your host, Beth O'Hara, we're so happy to welcome a really great friend of mine. Marcel Pick. And Marcel is, like, og, like, women's health person. And she's so amazing to me. And, you know, we both have, roots in Maine, and she spends a lot of time in Maine, but, she co-founded the world renowned Women and Women Clinic in 1983 with the vision of not only to treat illness, but also to support her patients in proactively making healthier choices to prevent disease.

And so I kind of learned about Marcel long before we met, and just women's health genius and, you know, nurse practitioner in the ob gyn field that just, And Marcel, I just want to say thank you for being here because I'm looking at your bio here and I'm like, and it all be listed for everyone to read, but it's like, crazy what you've done. And Marcel's been on, like, all the big TV shows, has multiple bestselling books and so I just want to say thank you for being here and welcome. Thank you for having me. I love doing this.

This is my favorite thing to do. And so we're talking about, you know, a lot of people would be like, hey, why are you talking to a women's health expert when we're talking about Marcel Activation syndrome? And, so also part of this is like a little bit of it's like, it's not just like women's hormones. It's kind of like the hormones that we collectively have together. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about where you came from and how you got really interested in hormones in general. Then we can dive into how this plays a role in everyday life.

And Marcel activation. Sure. So, I grew up in Australia actually in the outback, and I for, I know it's not amazing and you know, didn't how to flush a toilet till I was 11 and, you know, all that kind of good stuff. We didn't have a cars and I had a very different life, but from a very, very young age, I was very, very aware that I wanted to do health care. And I, came to America knowing that I had a mission. I have no idea where I came from, have no idea at all. But it's been deep within my soul to make a difference, not only in, in, you know, for women's health, but in health care in general.

And I've always been motivated, as we were when we started, in 1985, it was only or the first women all women's clinic in the United States. So we had to get all kinds of legal counsel and all kinds of stuff because we had different degrees. So our goal was to teach women how to be their own midwives about their health care. And to this day, it is something that people really want, especially women want to know, I want to learn about me and I want to understand is it me or my hormones? Which is the actually the name of one of my books, because so women, so many women would come in saying, I just feel so off and I don't know what's wrong with me.

Can you help? And I then started to do a deep dive into hormones and started becoming involved with the Institute of Functional Medicine and, you know, became a faculty member wanting to learn as much as I could about how I could help women feel amazing, look amazing, feel amazing, have energy, and not have that up and down either when they're having periods or when they're in perimenopause and menopause. It's been an inspiration for me to see women change and have their lives come back. It's so wild to me because it's like, this is kind of the story I expect to hear because, like, I, I went to medical school in Biddeford, Maine.

And so women's the women is like like the big thing. It's just like right up the road and it's like, you know, you go to Maine and you're like, nothing's going on. And you guys are like at the forefront of not only women's health care, but functional medicine, you know? So I just I almost in on I mean, I know we talk all the time, but it's like it's so great to hear what's the scoop with hormones. So I mean, cause it's like, you know, everybody's a hormone expert. We've got all that. We all have hormones.

But like really like when you're teaching people to kind of be the midwives of their own health care and stuff like what, what are they looking for? And like, what's the role of things like stress and other things in our lives and our hormones?

Hormones, stress, and adrenal dysfunction 4:18

Well, you know, one of the things that I say to people all the time is that if we're looking at hormonal imbalance, which many people do experience, the thing we have to address first is the adrenals and stress. You know, adrenals trump thyroid and adrenals trump hormones. So if you have an adrenal system that's out of whack, no matter how much you try to play with the hormones, if you don't get that balanced first, then you're in trouble and a little bit of kind of biochemistry, our cholesterol levels, you know, are what they are.

But they make estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA. If we have too much stress, it will get bypassed and it will go to cortisol because we can't live without cortisol, we can live without our hormones as much as people might want to go, I can't, I can't again. Yes you can. And so it's it's imperative for us to know what our renal function is. And you know, these days, Tom, our world is so stressful. Oh my God. You know what's going on with food supplies and can't get enough people and, and the pandemic.

And it's just people are so overwhelmed. So I'm seeing it more now in my practice than ever before. Is that, adrenal dysfunction. And I, I oftentimes don't know what I'm going to see because I will do a test. It's like, oh, that's a surprise that actually somebody really won't to I and then we can use lifestyle management to make a difference. But here's the thing that's so interesting. And that is that any time we have that foundation of disruption, it absolutely can activate mast cell issues. And I think sometimes we don't think of that.

But stress absolutely can really kind of coerce the system to be more and more out of balance. And the thing that we see the most is when we have a hormone dysregulation is progesterone levels go down and we need that orchestra, we need an orchestra. And if we don't have that balance, but just for example, in someone with, with this having periods may cause PMS, you might cause night sweats and might cause mood swings, horrible sense of kind of disorientation to their body. And as they get to the perimenopausal time, they're feeling like somebody has taken over my body.

I don't have a sense of stability. I'm gaining weight. And I'm really feeling awful. And then I've got a rash that I didn't have before. Or I'm reacting to foods that I never did before, you know what's going on. And then we see that really significantly in menopause and estrogens, a piece to that puzzle because higher estrogen levels can activate more of that mast cell, problem. But just one can kind of calm it down. But a lot of times the things that I said is that just all levels go down first, right?

You don't have that nice orchestra that, that, that that's balanced. And so then you're also I mean, what have you seen. It does the ratio matter like let's say your absolute numbers are okay whatever that means. But lower progesterone higher estrogen. But in the normal range, I mean does that even play the role. Oh my god. Absolutely. And we call that estrogen dominance. And I really don't like that word because it isn't that the estrogen really dominates just out of proportion to progesterone.

And you know, the thing that I think a lot of people that are hormone experts are not looking at, we have to look at the whole orchestra, which is estrogen levels, progesterone levels, DHEA levels. I mean, what you'll see oftentimes when you see the most mast cell activation is when the form the adrenal fat just plummeted out and it's not working anymore. The levels are very, very low. And, you know, their hormones may be up and down, estrogen might be high, progesterone slow, and DHEA is low. And oftentimes those are the people that have very low testosterone levels.

So they're losing muscle. They're not having the stem and the energy and the vital ity and virility. Which do you choose? I get up and go is get up and gone. And, you know, that's one of the things that a lot of people, you know, will say is like, absolutely, you don't feel like yourself at all. So when I see people in my office, I'm going to be looking at all those pieces to the equation because it is something that's really ginormous as well as the gut microbiome. I mean, it's all connected. You know, the The matrix is all these pieces to the puzzle.

And we have to figure out what started first so we can help people. So how do we go about that? Because I mean I know you're saying like the the adrenals are such a key player here, but then you're like, oh, but there's the gut and there's this and there's that. I mean, is it like we should all be starting at adrenals, or is it like that's just sort of like a common variable, but you maybe it is gut predominant and somebody else or you know, it's interesting because I think that oftentimes is a combination of both those things.

When you have adrenal issues, you almost always have got issues too, because of the relationship between the gut microbiome and cortisol. I oftentimes will do an adrenal profile. I might do a quiz on somebody. But one of the things about adrenals for me is I've been wrong more often than I've been right. And I can pretty much, you know, without even perhaps doing a stool test. I can get a sense about what's going on. But the adrenals is much harder for me because sometimes it's up and down at places and I'm going to intervene in a different way.

But if I'm really wanting to work somebody up, I'll do a stool test and I'll do an adrenal profile, and then I'll kind of calm that system down and then perhaps do 100 now, because the hormone is going to be really irregular at the point within the family stress. Yeah. So you're balanced, you're making sure that the adrenals are dialed before you kind of diving down the, the sex hormone route. Are you doing, salivary hormone testing or the only one I'll ever do, brothel? Because if you do. Well, if I have a suspicion for at a Cushing's, of course I'll do, you know, blood work.

But most of the time, as you know, it's seldom that it's more often. You know, I want to know what their, cortisol levels out throughout the day. Normally, it should be high in the morning and low at night. And they have the up and down. Do they have their flatline or do they have the up all day long. And that's a difference in terms of what I'm going to intervene with and the recommendations. Cool. And as a culture, I think we say, well just decrease your stress. Well that's ridiculous. And a lot of times we have historical stress that comes from our own childhood, you know, that contributes to the way we respond in the world.

And I'm a crazy person when it comes to we don't deal with our stories.

Hormone balance, mast cells, and gut health 10:40

Our stories will deal with us, and we have to be mindful of kind of looking at that piece and then working on the other parts of how can I have a life in which I feel a little bit more balance. So like this comes up so much in chronic illness and, and it sounds like and I mean, I know we both kind of our think this way, but to me it's like almost like the story is the stuff that allows you to live your life now and to live optimally. Or if you don't address certain parts of it, that's where we go down this other path.

So I mean, what what's what's the mechanism of engagement that you're using because it's like everybody's got a story and everybody's got positive and negative stress in their lives. So I think the first part is understanding that there is a relationship and that if you are, you know, I grew up with that with a father who's, both my parents were Holocaust survivors and, my father was a psychologist, and he was somebody that kept a lot of emotion inside. But he always literally never said anything.

And I became a perfectionist and a girl. So later in my life, that's going to play out in such a behavior, it's impossible to be perfect all the time. And it's impossible to expect yourself of that. So that in and of itself can increase cortisol levels. So I think the first step for people is to understand that we're human and that we have things that we respond to, but that response later in life may not be serving you anymore and maybe contributing to more cortisol, more inflammation, more problems in perimenopause or menopause, and more mast cell activation.

That happens to be the order in which it's manifesting itself. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because Beth and I talk like I, I've heard so many people talk about mast cells. And I was like, wow, it's so cool to get to work with Beth and to be able to do this with you, obviously, too, because she talks about like the mast cells as being like sentinels. Right. And so they're on guard. The problem is they're always on guard. And when I hear you talking about cortisol and the pattern and maybe we can dive into this a little more, it's not so much that the that cortisol is good or bad, it's that it needs to be utilized properly at the right times.

And so you can't live without cortisol. You know, we're meant to have some stress in our lives. The problem is that if we use the example of, you know, zebras don't get ulcers, the notion is a zebra is out in the field, it gets chased by, you know, a line or tiger or whatever, and it goes back to feeding in that same field. Well, we oh my God, it almost got me. And what am I going to do? Think I had the right colors on the right things. I didn't eat the right food. What's the I mean, all day. And that's what causes that increase cortisol production.

And ultimately, if there's too much of that and you're not sleeping properly, perhaps not eating properly as well. And then we've got this, you know, issue about hormonal dysfunction, perhaps we've got a little bit PMS and it gets much worse because of that constant need for cortisol. And ultimately what goes up must come down so that too much, too much, too much, too much and there's not enough reserve to carry on. But yeah, we have to have a little stress would be in our lives, would be terribly boring if we didn't have a little.

The problem with right now it's overdrive. And for women, we are not great at self-care. So we're taking care of our partners, our children, our job, our family, our parents, our girlfriends, you know, all of that. And it's like, oh, vitamins. I forgot to take them today. Oh, water. Oh, just a minute. Like the first time, you know. Right. That's the place that they also have to change because we really are wonderful multitaskers. We're not so good at doing. Wait, wait, wait a minute. I got to put me first.

And still, I think that in my experience of chronic illness and and I'm also speaking from a guy's perspective. But I will say that lack of being rolling to being able to are willing to receive for oneself and putting oneself first is, is a big thing. And I spent years saying I put myself first. What really meant was I did a whole bunch of things that look like I was focusing on me, but I was really just diverting from actually giving myself what I really needed. And it wasn't until, you know, you can physically get so much better, but you can't.

Your body can't really totally regulate until you focus, you know, on really receiving it yourself so that you can then give it to other people. Like, I can't be present for you today if 100% if I can't first be present for myself. Well, I say that to patients all the time. If you have a watering can and you're watering your plants and it's gorgeous, it's wonderful. It's like so exciting. At some point that cam needs to be filled, and we have to do that for ourselves because we can only give what we have available.

And if we don't, we get resentful when it gets difficult. And then cortisol goes up and with that inflammation we've got mast cell activation. So yeah, all of that is is really a piece to the puzzle. So and the other thing you started with a while, you know, at the beginning is you're talking about cholesterol. And to me cholesterol is got like a bad rap. And what do we need to know about cholesterol for it to feed into this whole. Because I see this cascade of hormones. You're talking about the cortisol and the progesterone and all these other things.

But what do we need to know? Because so we can set the record straight. Okay. How this plays a role in health. And then in Marcel's sad because it's gotten such a bad rap. You know if you have it over 200 oh my God you're going to be, you know, getting bad of a heart attack tomorrow. Well, we we also know if we look at the research that the initial studies that were done were actually somewhat flawed, and it's totally that inflammation was the name of the game, much more so than high cholesterol.

And cholesterol is our mother hormone. It feeds estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA. Even as we're older now, do we have as much in terms of the hormonal, you know, regulation? No, of course not. It's lower and it's perhaps meant to be that way unless you go on hormone replacement therapy. But it's gotten a really bad rap. And I think a lot of people are on, you know, medications for many different reasons. And one of them might be that they find when they're on the medication that their hormones are, or they feel just very different.

You don't feel women in particular will say to me, I just don't feel sensual anymore. I don't know what happened.

Mindset, trauma, and emotional regulation 17:20

It's just like, I'm not the same as I used to be. So it's fighting for us because we can change it with with nutrients and dietary changes most of the time. It's so interesting to me because we give people medicines to a achieve a number that has nothing to do with how we feel, but it makes other people feel better. It's like kind of like the typical modern medicine is give, give responsibility away and also give away, like your actual health. And it's like, because like, I see a lot of men in particular who you put them on the stat and the next thing you know, they have erectile dysfunction and they have no libido.

What a surprise. Right? Exactly. And I think the part that's most empowering for me when I do these kinds of summits is helping people understand that we truly, truly have the capability to be wealthy, vital, sexual, sensual and our 90s. But we let things sabotage us, you know, from the world around us to the stress to the inability to take care of ourselves, to not understanding how to have a an orchestra of hormones that are working and the food that we eat, the thoughts that we think. Because a lot of times now people's thinking is just so off.

You know, I'm getting older. Oh my gosh. It's like, wow, where did you get that from? Because we have so much now in the world of artificial intelligence that's helping us see, oh no, we can we can change that. We can really correct that. And, it's actually very interesting time to be alive. At the same time, it also very stressful, right? I think for anyone who gets to meet you in person, you're like, it's amazing. Like I have like, I could make maybe, some fictitious guess on how old you may be.

And you may have even told me one day, but it's like you are, like, the most vitally alive person I think I've ever hung out with. Right? It's like, so, like, everyone is. You're. What Marcel saying is like, she lives this way. She's a role model in this. And, you know, you said something which I think is like, really important is like, it's not, you know, it's it's about remaining active and vital and seeing the possibilities in your life. You mentioned something that I thought was super cool because I think it plays a role in a lot of stress management, but also other roles in our lives.

But but you talked about sexuality and even like being sexual, and I'm assuming sexually active well, beyond what, you know, some other people may say, like what's going on there and like, what's what's good about keeping it going and what's bad about not keeping it going. Well, I think you have to decide for yourself what you're looking for. I mean, we're sensual, sexual beings. I mean, we if you look at animal, the animal world, they just, you know, that's part of their, their world. And I think from my perspective, what I've seen in my practice is a lot of women just shut it off for many different reasons.

And, I think it's unfortunate because I think if you really are vital in who you are and taking care of yourself in the ways that we've already talked about, that you can be in a wonderful sexual relationship into your 80s. I mean, I have patients that it, you know, is now okay. I'm like, are you kidding me? Of course it's okay. What, do you get a break? I mean, I had an 80 year old come in and say, can I can I do it every day? I'm like, yeah. I mean, I'm all for it. But I think as a culture, it's kind of like, well, you know, you're getting older and you know, they have the same partner.

It's like maybe spice it up a little bit. I mean, it depends on what you're looking for and what you're wanting because there's no right or wrong. But it is possible to be in the position in which you say, oh yeah. It's it's so interesting because like, it is possible and there's certainly maybe some, different things that may happen, like after menopause, you know, and certainly as a guy, I'm probably, you know, there's probably some it may be a slightly easier, but at the same time I notice men too.

It's like, absolutely. And, you know, and it's sad. But I think what happens is that we kind of, have bought the, you know, we drank Kool-Aid like many people did, which is, you know, you're getting older and it's kind of what happens and, you know, you have that knee replacement or you've got this, you've got that. It's like, okay, I get you replaced, and then you move on and then you cool. Wasn't that the point of getting the knee replacement so you can keep going? Exactly. I think as a culture we don't talk about that.

And you know, the book by Tony Robbins, Life force, that's the whole concept of the book is are you kidding? This is he's 62. This is just the beginning for me. You know, I've got a lot more life in me. Yeah. So, I mean, like, what's the deal with, like, this middle aged thing, right? Like, I think it's this, like, 45 to 65. I mean, if you think about it, 65, if that's the middle, that means you're going to live to 130. So 62 is not really. Oh, and you know, the real reality for many of my contemporaries, I'm a ballroom dancer.

So I dance a lot is that we're very, very active. And what used to be probably 60, you know, back in the day is really what we're seeing. 60 year olds look like they're 40 and they behave like they're 40. So we've got so much life ahead of us, but also a lot of it's mindset, you know, and, you know, we talk about that you and I together, which is as you think so goes your life. If you're continually saying, I don't know how much longer I've got, you know, I've got more, more years behind me than I have ahead of me. And it's like, that's probably not the best attitude.

And we also know about gratitude and what a difference that makes with mindset. But here's the part that's so interesting is that also changes our biochemistry. We know enough now that as our thoughts change, our cortisol changes the mast cell activate and goes down and it's more quiescent. Those are very, very powerful things. Am I saying every day just think I'm going to get better I'm going to get back. No. It takes it's a little bit more complicated, but it is a reality. It is interesting because it is, you know, it is this reality that, you know, we look at like what we think about, we bring about as sort of a catch phrase.

And when I think it's so interesting, is it in the way you address these things is I look at it so many of my people want like these little they, they love the gadgets and the meters and the this and the that and the science. But heart rate variability is something that we look at so much. If it's high, we're resilient to stress. We can handle it. We tend to be happier, healthier, better immune function. And if it's low, we're aging or we're depleted. And this is in that low heart rate variability people.

We also see increased mast cell activation because they they can't turn it off. It's not not that it shouldn't be. So what's going on. Like this this whole thing bringing it together. It's like it's like not we need some but we don't need it on all the time. I mean, you know, what are you seeing between the sort of the mindset and the cortisol response and the gut health and the mast cells and. Yeah, I mean, you know, everybody has a little bit different area that is more of a problem. You know, I might see somebody with huge I mean, I see a lot of people with parasites and a lot of worms, you know, when I do still testing, it's amazing to me.

And once we get that corrected, we talk about nutrition and we talk about feeding ourselves, but feeding ourselves meets food and emotions and also having joy in your life. If you're not happy with what you're doing, then go figure it out. Go find something else out to do that you really love. And, you know, is it meditation for you?

Joy, movement, and connection 25:10

You know, is it is it something that you, you know, are missing in your life and being willing to go inside and kind of ask some questions because we really can change our mindset to be happy every day. And then that also helps cortisol, which helps the balance of the hormones as well. So it's all connected. And I think the part that makes me so sad is that the way medicine has gone now is you go in for an appointment, you get a diagnosis, you get a treatment medication, and you're not being the whole person, is it?

We're not listening to them. Years ago, I had somebody with insomnia, and I had enough kind of understanding to go deep inside of psych. So when did this start? You know, when did this start? She was only 24, and it started when she was 14. And that's when her father came into my life. And it's. So it's just asking the questions. Well, I wouldn't want to sleep either. Thank you very much. I mean, it would scare the heck out of me. No wonder she couldn't sleep. But it's asking the deeper questions because we all have those pieces, but we can heal them.

Well, that's the part that's so great is we don't have to wallow in. For me, it's more, you know, how is like doing this for me. Instead of to me. And that's a whole different perspective. Without blaming yourself, getting me to a place of saying, look, I haven't changes. Yeah. It's like so much of it, like when I, when I hear that story of that young girl, like she has a perfect protective mechanism that was perfect and protective in the moment, or maybe not perfect, but it was there for a reason at the moment.

But now, maybe ten years later or 20 years later, we don't need the same protective mechanism and we can heal from that. I mean, there's so many people doing this work online also for trauma work. There's, a woman whose name is, Amy again. There's, that go, you know, she's got a program online as well. And, then we also know, Annie Hopper in Canada, so we don't we don't have to stay with those places anymore. We've got so many different options. Emotional freedom technique, tapping meditation. You know, there's so many options that we have that really allows people to heal.

We never have to stay in that place in this. Don't. No matter what the trauma, no matter what the problem, we can get up. No matter how much stress you have, we can understand it in a different way and get happy. Right? It's like, and there's so many. It's great that you mention some of those folks because like Amy and then I should Gupta and some other folks are, are part of this summit. And part of the reason guys is like, it's not just everything about address, the address. The Marcel's part of the Marcel thing is they're supposed to work and they're supposed to be on at certain times.

But what's interesting is that, like Marcel is talking about is turning it off or regulating it. It's really Marcel. Dysregulation is one of our big issues. And we also have emotional dysregulation. It's not that the emotion is bad, but it maybe it's the duration or the story that you assign to it. So there's a lot of options which is great. And Marcel, one of the things I really want to point out is it kind of like you bring up the question of like, what brings you joy? And the thing that I, when you're talking about dancers, I know so many people, they're like 78 and I go, yeah, I go to dancing three times a week, and I do all that and I'm like, I got 20 year olds who can't do this shit.

But I mean, is it really that they just it's not just the physical activity. It's like it seems like it's the joy of it. Oh. But it's it's everything. And they've been so many studies done on dancers. It's about connection. You know, I say it's a four minute conversation with this person, you know, and then. Yeah. And then I, also cannot be thinking about anything, because if I think about anything else, I have to be totally focused because I'll trip, I'll treat my partner and you're listening to the music, so you're listening to the rhythm of that and the beat of that. So it's multiple things.

I mean, in November, they always have something called Stardust, and I will be literally dancing from Thursday night till Sunday morning and, you know, might sleep 3 or 4 hours a night and that's, that's on credit and that's usually about 5 or 600 people. They're and you know, this is the and they have cruises and they have all kinds of things. Now with doing ballroom Latin as well as, you know, it's the West Coast swing. So and tango. So you know, that's my gig. Other people have theirs. But I think, Tom, it's finding that place for yourself.

Your heart, you know, and, that is sometimes takes a little time. And any of the stuff we have from our childhood, we can heal all of it. I don't care how bad it is. We can heal it if we pay attention and start to ask the questions ourselves so that we can get better on the other side. I mean, that's the whole the whole purpose of mom. I love that so much. I mean, so well said. And, you know, it's interesting. I've like, I when I think of, friends of mine ask me like, why I do this certain sport or it's, I do like the telemark skiing and the mountain biking and stuff and I say, well, one, it's my exercise, but it's also like my, my joy.

Right. And so one of the things I find though is as your describing dancing this, I'm feeling the same thing. Like I hear what I hear in your voice and I kind of get energetically it's the same thing is for me in my own spots, my biking and my skiing is I'm getting in the moment. I'm paying full attention to what's happening in my life, and I'm going with the flow. And I'm I'm dancing. So like for me, like, it's like dancing with the trail or the snow. And I love the feedback of the planet. And so I would just encourage everyone to really take to heart what you just said.

Marcel is find that joy in the thing that speaks to your heart and then dance with it, right? Whether you're truly dancing, you're doing other dance. It's it's dance. Interact with it and love it. And I think we've lost a lot of that because of the confusion around the pandemic recently and all this just going on in the world, we can still find moments of joy and excitement in the here and now, in this moment right now. And I think we've we've all lost that. And also make sure that you're outside putting planting your feet on the soil.

I live in Maine, so, you know, it's easy for me. And I have 11 acres of land, so I'm there all the time. But it's finding a place to kind of connect with nature. Still, even if you're in a park, you know, and you're outside kind of looking at the trees and they're starting to turn or they're beautiful or whatever. But it's also remembering that connection as well. And, and good fresh air and water filters on your, you know, I mean, it can go on and on, but those are all things that can make a difference, because that also does affect the hormones.

And for women, the skincare products that they use, because that also can contribute to high cortisol levels. The average newborn has 247 chemicals, and it's cord blood. Oh my goodness. So newborn great 150 of the more chemicals in breast milk I mean we're we're knowing that we've got some issues. So all right fine. So we take care of some of those things and do some detox for ourselves or, you know, detox our emotions. Because that's the other part to the puzzle, to. Well, and what I, what I hear like the whole thread too is like, you have a choice.

It's almost like the knee replacement person. And actually because it's like I'm getting a knee replacement so I can do more or I'm getting a knee replacement,

Finding triggers and where to get help 32:40

which means I'm old is crap, and I'm about to go on a pine box. Right? It's like you can choose how to look at it. When you were saying Maine, and you and I have these conversations all the time about mindset and where we live, our joy as much as we can. But the thing it's so interesting is when you said, hey, I'm in Maine. My old school brain automatically was thinking, oh, you're going to tell me how it's cold and harder in the winter. And that never came out of your mouth. No, that's because I go to Florida for dancing for a couple.

And they've got great dancing down there and taking the little heart out. But, you know, again, that's also what I've kind of changed is. Okay, I don't like January, February, March. So I've got a condo down there. I don't own it, but I'm renting it, and then I can dance. And all the other times it's amazing here for me. And and it's, it's finding out what makes you happy. That's the key to this. In addition to eating the right foods and looking at what some of the issues might be, and if there is mast cell activation, that's an issue for you, is is addressing what some of those underpinnings of it might be the gut microbiome, that neurotransmitter imbalance, the foods that you're eating, the people that you're living with, the people you have in your lives, you know, is it time to kind of do a detox of them, too?

You know, it's really looking at those things to see, you know, what brings you joy and who surrounds you when you're feeling most joyful because all of those pieces are tied together. It's it's so interesting because it is. Where is the joy who's surrounding you? And the one thing you said with the dancing that I think I really like to just like also put a big stamp on, is the connection in the community, because the other word that I would add from my personal experience to when I feel connected with others and I'm in a community, is I feel safer.

And so much of what we've talked about, is our cortisol levels can be regulated. Well, our mast cells can be regulated well, really only when we feel safe. Heart rate variability does not improve if you're not safe. And a lot of us talk about poly vagal safety, I mean, absolutely. I mean, if you don't feel safe, then that's going to create so many problems, including huge amounts of anxiety and a number of other things. So I think it's it's it's crucial for us, whatever that means for you, because it's going to mean something different for you as it is for me, and also surrounding yourself with people that make you happy.

Instead, if you go in a situation, it's like, oh, I, I know that's not so good, I love it. So as we kind of wrap all these things and bring them together for folks, I mean, are there any sort of things that, like you see, really jump out as like big players and in the hormone field or in the mass cells that we haven't touched on or things that people need to know about. I think my biggest thing to say to people is that never go down the bunny hole in which you can never going to get better. And I think a lot of people feel that way when they're reacting to every food that they can imagine or the environment or whatever.

It's working with someone that's going to help you get to the other side because it's always possible, always possible, but you need to understand what the triggers are. And it might be food, it might be emotions, it might be a combination of all those things, which is usually what I find. It's never one thing. It's usually everything together. And unfortunately, adrenals are a huge, huge player in the hormonal cascade that goes awry. Yep. Totally agree. So for I, after hearing all this stuff, I'm sure there's a I mean, totally inspiring and I'm sure people are going to want to know, you know, where to find you and learn more about what you do and potentially even reach out and get some help.

So, where can people find you? Sure. I have a website myself picked up. Com. I've got over a thousand. I'll play about 1400 articles. And I read an article, headed to a every week. And, also, I have a, a very aggressive weight loss program that, is, through the Women's Transformation center.com. You know, people 99% of the time lose 20 pounds in six weeks. And then we have a whole program that goes with that and is very effective. And, you know, 70% of my people take the weight off. So it's it's very I've spent a lot of time putting it together.

And as much of its online. Wow. You know that that that's those are some insane numbers. I know you well enough to know that those are not bullshit numbers. Those are legit people are. But it like, this is the walk. The walk and work with people who and someone who gets it. And my assumption is that the weight loss program is not just cookie cutter, because everybody's got these little pieces. We go down the path, but we put in that individual piece that's so good. What was the website for that one?

Again, that's called Women's Transform Nation center.com. And they can actually, make a appointment for a consult with me for people that are really seriously interested. Cool. Because it's so effective, so awesome. Well Marcel Pic, thanks so much for joining us. This is such a pleasure. Absolutely. It was always fun to do this with you. Yay! So everybody, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Reversing Marcel activation and Histamine Intolerance Summit. And we're just like really so thankful for you to join us today, and we're looking forward to seeing you in our next episode.