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Eating for Hormone Health with Cici Stephenson
286 Plays1 year ago
Cici is a hormone health nutrition and fertility optimization coach, and she’s working on her master’s degree in Functional Medicine. She specializes in PCOS and hypothyroidism. She gives us some basic dietary principles to follow to support our hormone health, she weighs in on gluten and dairy, and we talk about the one mistake that most of us are making when it comes to our diet.
To work with Cici Stephenson, visit her website nutritionnerd.com
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Transcript
Impact of Diet on PCOS
00:00:11
Speaker
While I believe that a poor diet isn't the root cause of PCOS, choosing the right foods is an important part of healing.
Introduction of Hormone Health Expert
00:00:20
Speaker
Today I'm sharing my interview with Carolyn Cece Stevenson. She's a hormone health nutrition and fertility optimization coach, and she's working on her master's degree in functional medicine.
00:00:33
Speaker
She specializes in PCOS and hypothyroidism.
Dietary Principles for Hormone Health
00:00:37
Speaker
She'll give us some basic dietary principles to follow to support our hormone health. She'll weigh in on gluten and dairy. And we'll talk about the one mistake that most of us are making when it comes to our diet. I'm Stephanie Greenwood and this is The Life Detox.
00:00:59
Speaker
I asked Cece, what are the key principles when it comes to diet for PCOS?
Strategies for PCOS Management
00:01:05
Speaker
The key strategies to managing PCOS and healing PCOS are going to be rooted in healing the gut and making sure blood sugar stays in balance. On the blood sugar arm of things, it's really about focusing on low and slow carbs. Carbs that are complex have fiber in them as well, so like a piece of fruit, for example.
00:01:28
Speaker
Carbs that are not going to cause a massive quick spike in your blood sugar, but that will digest slowly over time so that you're not getting that influx of insulin. And then I think from a gut healing standpoint, it's really about focusing on
00:01:44
Speaker
Getting enough plant foods, but also enough of a variety of plant
Importance of Quality Proteins
00:01:49
Speaker
foods. It's so interesting to me I think we've we've all gotten ingrained in our brains that we need to get you know five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day or whatever the number is that the government's advising us to do but a lot of people lose focus of
00:02:04
Speaker
The variety in the mix within that you know upwards of thirty percent of people are not getting enough of you know particular colors of the rainbow so that's so so critical as well and then the last thing that kind of spans across gut healing and blood sugar for women with PCOS is
00:02:22
Speaker
high quality protein. It's really important to make sure that those protein sources you're getting are pasture raised, are organic, are free from hormones. You are what you eat eats. And so if you're eating a chicken breast that is not pasture raised or organic,
00:02:42
Speaker
that maybe has been injected with something that contains hormones, those hormones that that chicken was giving are making their way into your body as well and creating some additional chaos.
Dairy Intake for PCOS Management
00:02:53
Speaker
So I would say those are kind of like the big pillars to a nutritional program for women with PCOS. I see a debate going on right now on social media about dairy and PCOS. What are your thoughts, dairy or no dairy?
00:03:10
Speaker
Man, I'm so glad you brought this up because you could remove dairy and insert tofu. You could remove dairy and insert any other food group. There's always some new debate, depending on what we're learning in the research and how nutrition science evolves. But on the topic of dairy, unless someone has an allergy or a proven reaction to it, what I've seen in the research and what I have seen work in success with my clients
00:03:38
Speaker
is to incorporate a full fat dairy in small amounts because it's a great added source of protein. There are nutritional benefits to it. And especially when we're trying to manage blood sugar as a compounding factor of PCOS, it's a great way to ensure you're not eating quote unquote naked carbs. You always want to have your carb
00:04:02
Speaker
accompanied by a protein or a fat or something like that. Greek yogurt is a really great example of this. A lot of people will say, I can't tolerate cheese or I can't do milk, but I can do Greek yogurt. Why is that? And when you're looking at a dairy source like that, it's because the lactose has been removed from it. That's why it's more digestively tolerable. So generally, I will guide people to experiment with those types of dairy sources.
00:04:27
Speaker
that maybe don't come with the gut dysbiosis associations or that don't have things that could trigger you or set you off, but that are high quality, again, organic sources of dairy. Now, if somebody experiments with that and they have a reaction and they're really in tune with their body and something doesn't feel right, then we may reevaluate and decide to go off. But my net takeaway on dairy is I don't think that we should be so quick to write it off.
Avoiding Gluten for PCOS
00:04:57
Speaker
And I think that a strategy involving dairy should be incredibly customized to the woman and her dietary preferences, her lifestyle, her tolerances, and so on. I'm going to ask you the same question now, but about gluten.
00:05:15
Speaker
Because I see that debate too. Should we go gluten free? Should we not? The one thing that I've seen is like, oh yeah, I got my gluten free bread for my PCOS, but gluten free bread is so awful most of the time because it's just so starchy. It's like rice starch.
00:05:31
Speaker
And that's going to spike your blood sugar. So I see this as a potentially harmful advice that's giving out to go gluten free with PCOS. Is that what you're seeing as well? That's exactly what I yeah, I mean, I as cautious as I tend to be with dairy of let's not write it off yet. I don't feel quite the same about gluten, especially when it comes to PCOS. And especially when you think about a lot of the the manufactured gluten free alternatives like bread,
00:06:00
Speaker
They often contain hidden sugars or toxic oils or something else that is just as bad for our systems long term. When you really think about it, in the history of the American diet, gluten did not become a really prominent fixture in our diets until like the late 50s or so.
00:06:21
Speaker
when all of a sudden saturated fats were getting vilified based on one study that was misinterpreted by Ansel Keys. I could go on a rant on that one. We want to circle back to that. We certainly can. This really created a complete misperception that fats are bad, so we need to
00:06:43
Speaker
dial up our carbs to make up for the calories of not having fat in our diet. And that caused the American diet to over index on all things carbohydrate.
00:06:54
Speaker
And we started to see gluten in everything. And that's when we started to see a rise in prevalence of gluten intolerance and what I would consider to be kind of gluten exacerbated diseases like PCOS. And I have never seen a case of any of my clients who have cut out gluten
00:07:13
Speaker
and had an adverse reaction i've only seen benefits from it and then inevitably when they reintroduce it i speak from personal experience on this one as well they do have an adverse reaction so what i would say on this well let's let the evidence speak for itself unfortunately all of the evidence is pointing toward.
Emotional Relationship with Food
00:07:33
Speaker
gluten is probably not a great thing to have even in moderation in our diet. And it pains me to say that because I'm not an elimination diet kind of person, but that's one of those that would have to consider in more depth. So yeah, I don't know how you feel about gluten though. What do you think?
00:07:51
Speaker
You know, I think that most people will feel a benefit from cutting it, but I also have a hesitation because like you said, I'm not big on elimination diets and restricting because there's such an emotional component. And so if you are really stressing out about avoiding gluten or being afraid of gluten,
00:08:17
Speaker
Or if you're really like, I'm mad that I have to avoid gluten, then that's going to increase your stress level, which then is going to hurt your gut health. Yeah. And so it can be counterproductive because we have a very complex relationship with food. You know, I, you're, I think going back to the first thing you said, like it, it depends on the individual too. I mean, um,
00:08:44
Speaker
If I have a client in front of me, though, who says, I really like my gluten, I have issues with it, but I really don't want to give it up completely, then I'm never going to push them to that area. Because at the end of the day, I think you hit the nail on the head. We want to cultivate healthy relationships with food and what food does for our bodies.
00:09:07
Speaker
And we want to mitigate any stressors in our lives, acknowledging, of course, that in a lot of women, food can be a big stressor.
Gut Health without Direct Testing
00:09:17
Speaker
So that's a huge part of it. I'm glad you brought that up. How do you go about improving gut health with your clients? Do you do testing first? I am not certified to order testing. Since I'm a functional medicine student, I know enough to understand
00:09:33
Speaker
the array of testing options that are available to people. I'm actually working with a couple of clients right now where they are symptomatically exhibiting signs of either gut dysbiosis or leaky gut itself. What I've done is just at least equipped them with the vocabulary to be able to describe to their physician what they're experiencing and request some testing if they want to be empowered to
00:10:01
Speaker
get the full picture of what's going on in their gut microbiome and understand steps toward healing. In both conventional and functional medicine, they're learning more every day and expanding the body of evidence around what we know about our gut. So in some respects, it's still a really kind of like new area of study and so much to keep up on.
00:10:23
Speaker
not to mention the symptoms, can tend to be really ambiguous. So if I ever suspect anything could potentially be gut-related, or if I know that a woman is coming to me saying, you know, I have hypothyroidism or I have PCOS, and there's often gut-associated implications with those conditions, I'll often look at some potential solutions for some level of gut healing as part of the whole picture there.
Benefits of Bubble and Be Organic Products
00:10:48
Speaker
Okay it's time for a break but when we come back we're going to talk about the one thing that you're probably not getting enough of in your diet and it could be hurting your hormones. And we'll talk some specific ideas for PCOS friendly breakfast. Stay tuned.
00:11:09
Speaker
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00:11:29
Speaker
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Role of Fiber in Health
00:11:40
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:11:50
Speaker
How important is fiber? Oh, so important. And hardly anyone gets nearly enough. It's so funny. So a personal story. I mean, I never appreciated fiber more than when I kind of went on my own gut healing journey. And I was always a quote unquote clean eater. And I love my plants and my fruits. But even as well as I was eating,
00:12:18
Speaker
personally learned that I just was not getting enough to detoxify my body and that's a that's a huge part of the equation you can put all the good stuff in but we also need to facilitate our natural healing and detoxification mechanisms in our body so that we so that we do have optimal balance and so I mean fibers obviously a
00:12:39
Speaker
a critical piece of that puzzle to facilitate that detoxification process. And the short chain fatty acids, it's a topic that not a lot of people are talking about. We talk about medium chain fatty acids and harmful oils and polyunsaturated and saturated fatty acids, but short chain fatty acids are the fatty acids that our digestive system creates
00:13:03
Speaker
when it digests fiber and these short chain fatty acids are anti-inflammatory in so many systems of our body. We don't realize that the number one thing you can do to boost your immune system is to eat fiber. We always think, okay, vitamin C, elderberries, zinc, but no one is talking about fiber. And I want to bring that discussion to the forefront because it's so, so important. Maybe it's not a sexy topic because it has certain connotations.
00:13:34
Speaker
But yeah, like you said, most of us do not get enough fiber. There's not a mental shortcut for people to be able to associate, if I need more fiber, I eat this thing. Or if I feel this way, I know I don't have enough fiber. Even seemingly healthy individuals, actually, it's so funny you bring up short chain fatty acids. This happened in my gut healing journey where I tested super low on those and started having to take
00:14:04
Speaker
digestive enzymes and other support supplements and increase my fiber intake really just to kind of help facilitate that whole process. But there's a shroud of mystery around not only the vocabulary that we need to better understand fibers role in the process, but like
00:14:22
Speaker
I think most people hear fiber and they just think fortified cereals or things like that, or the result of fiber, the number two that comes out in the toilet. You're right, it's not sexy, it's not easy, it's not top of mind, and there's no mental or behavioral shortcut to really help link how you might feel if you don't have enough fiber to what you do to course correct for that.
Misconceptions About Fiber
00:14:44
Speaker
It's also important, don't just supplement with a fiber supplement.
00:14:48
Speaker
Yes, that does have benefits, but it's so much more beneficial to get it with your fruits and vegetables and all of the nutrition and antioxidants that those provide. Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of the reasons too why I have a lot of women who come to me and
00:15:05
Speaker
love their smoothies or they love juicing. Smoothies, I think, are fine in moderation and certainly depends on the recipe. Of course, we want to make sure it's not a smoothie that's going to spike blood sugar. But when you get into juicing, a lot of times you even see, I understand, you want to get as many fruits or vegetables in one glass as possible. That's a fine idea behind the intention of it.
00:15:29
Speaker
However, when you juice, you are stripping so much of that fiber content out of those fruits and vegetables and denying yourself the benefit of it. So not to mention juicing often creates a bigger blood sugar spike as well. So just something that came to mind as we're on this fiber
PCOS-Friendly Breakfast Ideas
00:15:46
Speaker
topic.
00:15:46
Speaker
So I've been reading a lot about circadian rhythm and the brain and how our brain, the hypothalamus, is the central system that controls our hormones. And our circadian rhythms has so much to do with that.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I've been reading about how important it is to get sunlight first thing in the morning and to eat. And breakfast really, you know, you've been hearing it for years, but breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, especially if you have blood sugar issues, because it is going to set the tone for the rest of your day for your blood sugar.
00:16:26
Speaker
What kinds of breakfast do you recommend for PCOS? Let's talk about meal ideas. So for breakfast, because it sets the tone for the rest of the day, I love how you put that, it's beautiful. It's really important to create a breakfast that is blood sugar friendly and that is comprised of the following elements, a high quality protein, a low amount of a high quality fat,
00:16:53
Speaker
and vegetables. I am intentionally saying vegetables and not fruits because, again, we don't want to start our day with a big blood sugar spike. And I'm leaving carbs off, although I'll caveat those, but I'll come back to that in a moment. But the protein-fat combination has actually been proven in a number of different studies
00:17:16
Speaker
to jumpstart your metabolism without spiking your blood sugar and calling in an insulin response. And a lot of women are insulin resistant. A lot of women who have PCOS are insulin resistant.
00:17:29
Speaker
So the carb thing, though, I mean, we've become a society that just inherently craves carbs in the morning, a donut, a muffin, a super sugary latte, things of that nature. And this is one of the worst things that women with PCOS can do is to have anything like that in the morning. But I mentioned naked carbs before, and I'll bring that back in as well. Again, I'm not into super restrictive diets or elimination diets.
00:17:59
Speaker
If a woman with PCOS is really used to having a carb in the morning and really wants to integrate that into her routine, something like an avocado toast with a fried egg on top is not a bad thing to have. As long as that toast is like a sourdough or rye bread or sprouted grain bread, you've got that gorgeous healthy fat in the avocado and then a pasture-raised egg on top.
00:18:22
Speaker
is sort of the perfect combination. So that carb, that piece of bread is not naked. It's got the healthy fat and the protein to kind of escort it into your bloodstream and shuttle that into your cells for quick energy rather than kind of creating chaos in your bloodstream. So my favorite go-tos for a PCOS breakfast that I've seen and ones that women I work with love the most are what I just mentioned with the avocado toast, steak and eggs.
Weight Loss Myths in PCOS
00:18:51
Speaker
And it sounds like such a decadent, wonderful breakfast with a side of sauteed spinach, and it really is. So then it feels like you're not being deprived. You feel like you're treating yourself with something like that. A simple yogurt parfait with Greek yogurt and like a homemade coconut granola or something of that nature.
00:19:11
Speaker
If you are going to have fruit and you have PCOS, berries are the best thing to have because of the low sugar content. And again, there's fiber in that. So the fiber plus the sugar delivery is not going to send you into a massive spike.
00:19:25
Speaker
So those are those are kind of like my go tos for a PCOS friendly breakfast. You have to feel like you are treating yourself that you are nourishing your body and not depriving yourself because that deprivation has psychological effects, which then stress you out more. And that has an adverse effect on your hormones. Yeah, it sure does.
00:19:49
Speaker
One thing that's been on my mind this morning, in fact I've been thinking about it all this morning, is about PCOS and weight loss because a lot of the time a woman will go into the doctor and they're diagnosed with PCOS and most of the time the doctors will give the advice of well you need to lose weight.
00:20:11
Speaker
And weight loss will change some of your metabolic readings. It will help with inflammation. But I see any excess adipose tissue as a symptom and not the cause. And so when I think about diet for PCOS, I think about forget weight loss.
00:20:31
Speaker
Don't do it with the intention of weight loss because there's so much punishment in that mindset. And I think diet for PCOS means, okay, I'm giving myself antioxidants. I'm going to improve my insulin sensitivity. I'm going to control my blood sugar. Let's do this for these reasons and don't do it for weight loss reasons.
00:20:54
Speaker
I love everything that you just said, and I'll take it one step further and say, anytime a physician's immediate response is, well, you just need to lose weight, that means that they are not getting to the root cause. And I realize I'm generalizing here, but weight gain and weight loss are often ancillary or tangential to the underlying issue.
00:21:20
Speaker
And this is especially true when it comes to PCOS. And I will also say it just exacerbates a stereotype that women with PCOS are of a certain weight, look a certain way. And in fact, there is mounting clinical evidence to support the fact that there is what
00:21:38
Speaker
physicians are calling lean type PCOS. That PCOS can present, even if you are not obese or technically overweight, maybe you do have excess adipose tissue in a certain spot on your body. So in that area, you are overweight for yourself. But again, that is a manifestation of an underlying condition.
00:21:59
Speaker
Some of the strategies that I help women work through are focused on some of the things that we've discussed, resetting circadian rhythm, restoring the natural cortisol cycle as a result of that, making sure that we are putting self-care and stress management techniques in place
00:22:17
Speaker
so that the adrenals are not constantly pumping out cortisol and adrenaline and creating that heightened stress response that leads to things like headaches, low energy, stunted metabolism, weight gain, etc.
00:22:35
Speaker
And of course, just managing blood sugar is really at the heart of all of this when it comes to PCOS. So there are so many other places I would go first rather than to say, you need to lose weight. I have seen women with PCOS lose weight, but the issues remain, the condition remains, and they continue to struggle.
Exercise Recommendations for PCOS
00:22:56
Speaker
with some of those same things. And so it's really a shame that, you know, unfortunately that's a conversation that happens and I look forward to the day when we have officially changed
00:23:09
Speaker
those stereotypes in PCOS, and it's a different conversation, but I'll keep advocating for that as long as I can. It sounds like you're of the same mindset, so it's great to hear. Well, and if you are insulin resistant, you can be undernourished in calorie deficit, yet continue to gain weight and continue to be exhausted and tired.
00:23:34
Speaker
And you might be following your doctor's instructions. Well, you told me to lose weight and you told me calories in and calories out. But if you're not addressing this specific, you're getting enough fiber, getting enough vegetables. It's not about how many calories. It's about the type of calories, the type of macros and how you're nourishing. And you very well may need to actually eat more.
00:24:01
Speaker
I would say 90% of the women that I work with, we have to increase their daily caloric intake.
00:24:09
Speaker
And then we also need to play with kind of the breakdown of what their macro intake looks like. They're usually over indexing on carbs, getting upwards of 200 grams of carbohydrates a day. Our bodies don't need that. In fact, our bodies cannot process and break down that much because carbohydrates break down as sugar in our bloodstream. And that's the last thing that a woman with PCOS needs.
00:24:33
Speaker
The other thing that came to mind is that when a woman with PCOS is trying to lose weight as the primary solution, Big Air quotes on that one, they're also over focusing on the wrong type of exercise. They're probably overdoing it. They're probably literally spinning their wheels on a treadmill or doing an immense amount of high-intensity cardio.
00:25:03
Speaker
That has been proven to elevate your cortisol response, which has downstream implications for insulin, for blood sugar, for body fat, for stress, for continuing to throw off your circadian rhythm, and it's all connected. When they're in a mindset that I need to lose weight,
00:25:26
Speaker
They do the things that they think are going to burn the most calories, which tends to be over-exercising rather than engaging in enjoyable, moderate movement that will be easier on their body, will better benefit their overall health, may lead to weight loss.
00:25:44
Speaker
and will actually leave them feeling less stressed and more happy because it's an activity they're enjoying and they're doing it because it's good for them not to lose weight in the end game. So that's certainly a big piece of the puzzle as well. Absolutely.
Connecting with Cece for Guidance
00:25:58
Speaker
I love that you brought that up. What are some exercises that you recommend for PCOS or hormone balance?
00:26:06
Speaker
yoga, Pilates, taking a brisk walk. Studies have shown too that if you take even a 10-minute walk after a meal, that can lower your blood sugar impact by up to 20%. So walking is a favorite one of mine to recommend to clients. Gentle strength training. In fact, strength training, even if it's just body weight training, can be really beneficial for women with PCOS.
00:26:32
Speaker
to gently build up their muscles without creating a stress response because the heart rate is going up so high.
00:26:41
Speaker
And honestly, at the end of the day, I just tell women, move your body in a way that feels enjoyable for you. Even if it's turning on some music for a few minutes and kind of bopping around the house, just move your body. Move your body and do it in a way that feels intuitive, that feels good, and that elevates your mood in addition to all the physiological benefits as well.
00:27:04
Speaker
Does carrying around a 20 pound toddler count? Todler wrestling? Is that an exercise? Changing the diaper, please hold still.
00:27:22
Speaker
If you want to work with Carolyn C.C. Stevenson, just visit her website nutritionnerd.com.
Holistic Health and Podcast Closure
00:27:29
Speaker
She has meal plans, one-on-one consultations, a great hormone healing program, meditations, and free downloads like a skin clearing protocol and a free recipe bank.
00:27:41
Speaker
You can find her on Instagram. Her handle is gethormonehealthy and I'll link to both of these in the show notes. And as always, a reminder eating a great diet is an important part for healing your body. But if you are being abused or if you have unhealed trauma, your body will not absorb nutrients efficiently and you'll continue to be in an inflammatory state and have hormone imbalances.
00:28:09
Speaker
So if you are eating perfectly and still not seeing results, you might need a life detox.
00:28:26
Speaker
The Life Detox is produced by me, Stephanie Greenwood, and brought to you by Bubble and Be Organic. The views and opinions expressed are the speakers' own and do not necessarily represent those of myself or my company. Material and information presented here is for general information purposes only and is not medical advice. Being a guest on this show does not imply endorsement of Greenplay LLC or any of its projects. Stay well, friends.