Episode 359: The Liver-Hormone Link: How to Detox Without the Gimmicks
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If you’re a high-achieving woman who's ever felt like your ambition was leading you straight into burnout, you’re not alone. In this episode, Erin dives deep into the relationship between ambition, burnout, and hormone health.
If you’ve ever felt like your hormones are off, this episode is for you. Erin is joined by functional dietitian Nicole Antes, MS, RDN, to unpack a MASSIVELY overlooked topic in hormone health: the liver.
Together, they explore how nutrient deficiencies, alcohol, synthetic fragrances, and even your cookware may be burdening your detox pathways and leading to hormonal imbalances like estrogen dominance.
Nicole shares real-world client cases and practical strategies to support your liver, gut, and overall detoxification without expensive fads or restrictive cleanses. You’ll learn why liver support goes far beyond supplements, what your poop says about your hormone health, and how simple lifestyle swaps can make a profound impact.
This is the episode that connects the dots between gut, liver, and hormones in a way that finally makes sense.
In This Episode:
Why non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is rising, even in seemingly healthy women
How daily exposure to “low dose” endocrine disruptors like fragrance can disrupt hormone function
The gut-liver-hormone triangle - and why pooping daily is essential for estrogen detox
Nicole’s favorite supplements to support methylation and reduce estrogen dominance symptoms
Smart, doable swaps for non-toxic living, from castor oil packs to cookware and water filters
Join Your Hormone Revival LIVE - We start May 6th!
Erin’s FREE Hormone Food Guide
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I'm Erin Holt and this is the Functional Nutrition Podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions and our beliefs all affect our physical health. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet, culture and the conventional healthcare model. This show is for you. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing, I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share. Because you never know whose life you might change. Hey friends, we are back. You asked for it, you got it.
More hormone conversation. Today we're going to be focusing specifically on liver health and how to support the liver. I've given it a head nod in recent episodes because it's really hard to talk about hormone health without talking about liver health. Today though, I have a guest, I have Nicole on the show with me. She is one of our full time practitioners here at tfn. She works with our one on one clients. She's a functional dietitian and graduate of fna. Welcome Nicole.
Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be back.
And you really advocated for this conversation to like hone in on liver health and detoxification. So can you share why?
Yeah, definitely. I feel like I do see this a lot in practice with my clients, but also with my own health and kind of dealing with my own hormonal struggles. I have learned that the liver has a lot to do with hormonal health, as you just mentioned, and I've definitely seen with a lot of the Dutch testing that I've done recently that people just need some liver support and it's really what moves the needle with a lot of their hormonal symptoms.
Yeah. And you know, there's this like ongoing idea. I see this a lot in more of the conventional dietetics side of things and I'm curious if you do too. But it's this idea that you don't need to detox. You don't need to support detoxification because you already have a liver. Is that something that you see, still see?
Totally. All the time.
And it's frustrating because it's like on the one hand, yeah, totally. That is true. And we're never going to advocate for going on some crazy detox or buying some expensive tea that's basically a laxative. That's not what we're saying. But our livers are struggling. So yes, we have livers and also, yes, liver health is not looking good for a lot of people. Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is the leading cause of liver disease and it affects 20 to 30% of the US population. So a third of us are struggling in the prevalence of this has definitely risen over the past few years.I remember even when I was in dietetic school, which was in like 2007 ish to 2010, maybe like we would talk about this as like a pretty rare thing. We have a client right now, she's a woman in her early 40s and she's dealing with this. So this is just happening even with like healthy people. So liver health really should be front and center for so much of what we're doing. And so kind of begs the question why, why are we seeing this huge uptick in liver stuff? Specifically with non alcoholic fatty liver disease, it can be considered the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome, meaning that what's happening on the level of our metabolism, our blood sugar regulation or dysregulation, our insulin resistance that can really influence the liver? Insulin resistance is a major factor in the development of live liver disease. It basically leads to increased fat storage and fat accumulation in the liver. And so this is something that we talk about all of the time. We're always beating the drum on metabolic health, on blood sugar, on insulin resistance.
Recently I shared what numbers you should be looking for. You should always be with any blood panel looking at fasting glucose, fasting insulin, hemoglobin, A1C. They're really inexpensive labs to run and I think we should all be doing that pretty regularly. But this can give us some clues and some insight into why your liver might might be struggling or one of the root cause drivers. I also want to talk about some other things that can be contributing to this and that's going to be really like the focus of today's show. First of all, low nutrient diets. I don't want to beat this drum too hard because we recently recorded an episode all about nutrients that we need to support hormones and liver Health, but how we're eating, our blood, sugar regulation or dysregulation, the nutrients that we're getting or not getting, all of that is going to contribute to liver function. What else, Nicole, is causing the liver to struggle.
I think there's a couple things that come to mind when I'm thinking about what could be burdening the liver in our modern lives. I feel like one of the most common things is just overexposure to toxicants, things like xenoestrogens, which are compounds that can mimic estrogen in the body. And then more commonly, what people probably are hearing about is endocrine disrupting chemicals, which are things like bpa, phthalates, pfas, pesticides, synthetic fragrance. So it's kind of a whole class of different chemicals that can be in a lot of different places in our environment.
At the end of the show, we're going to talk through where those things can show up in your day to day life and certain swaps that we can make and brands that we love. So you have actionable steps to walk away with. But there's this idea that it's like, well, it's only a little bit, you know, so it's only a little bit, so it doesn't really matter. But environmental toxins and endocrine disrupting chemicals can be a problem at very low doses because your body is used to responding to your own hormones at low doses. So it can respond to these endocrine disruptors at low doses too. And we have to think like, how little is it? Because the average American is putting up to 20 products on their bodies every single day. Between soap, toothpaste, perfume, cologne, deodorant, makeup, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, lip balm, shaving cream, body wash, eye cream, nail polish, hairspray, it adds up really quickly. And there's this huge, not the point of today's show, but definitely something.
I have a 10 year old daughter. There's this huge push for skin care for tweens and teens. So this is starting at an even younger age where girls are being exposed to way more chemicals than they ever have before. And it's important to note that phthalates, one of the words that Nicole just mentioned, there's phthalates that are in these cosmetics and in these products that we're using and they can, and they will, will accumulate in your body. The CDC has measured metabolites of phthalates in 98% of people tested. So that's a lot of people. And the way that I remember it is Any time you see fragrance listed as an ingredient, just assume that phthalates is there with it. Because phthalates are used as a fixative in fragrance products.
So pretty much anytime there's a synthetic fragrance, there's going to be a phthalate. And the reason that this is a problem is because phthalates are linked to adhd, autism, asthma, breast cancer, reproductive birth defects, early onset puberty, thyroid dysfunction, weight gain and obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, so already not good for the liver, not good for hormones, and reduced fertility in both men and women. And so I'll share this story because my daughter recently came home, she went to Sephora with her friend, and they had an adult chaperone. They weren't just going by the riding their bikes to Sephora. It's not the 90s. We totally would have done that at 10, but. But I was like, just like, you can spend some of your money on something, just no fragrance. And sure enough, she walked home, or she.
She came home with this hand sanitizer. And I guess it's like, very popular hand sanitizer. All of her friends have it. And the second ingredient listed was fragrance. So into the trash it went. And I know this is where moms really struggle and caretakers and parents really struggle because you don't want to let your kid feel left out. But it's also like, you're going to struggle when your kid is put on birth control at a very young age because their periods are so dysregulated. You're going to struggle later on when the kid has health consequences.And I know I'm very, very, very not popular to say these things, but we're in our clinic, we're seeing the downstream side effect. We're seeing the after effect of our exposure to these chemicals. So let's, as parents, remove our kiddos exposure to that. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. But that's what I have to say about all these cosmetics that little kiddos are getting exposed to. It's nuts.
It's definitely crazy. And I totally agree. I feel like I know exactly what hand sanitizer that you're talking about. Is it the touchland one? Yeah, that's it.
That's the exact.
I see everybody using it, and I refuse to use it myself, so. That's so funny.
You know it. Okay, so other things that can contribute to just the liver struggling.
Yeah. I think the other one that comes to mind as well is normalization of alcohol consumption. I feel like it's very common for us to Drink alcohol in, like, social settings, even at home, like when you're winding down for the day. But this can also negatively impact the liver. Even just two drinks per day or like four drinks per week can double our exposure to estrogen because of the effects that it's having on the liver. So that's pretty significant as well.
One thing I've heard, I don't know if this is true because I don't really know too many people in this population, but that this generation of kids aren't drinking as much. Have you seen that to be true or heard that at all?
I haven't heard that, but that's a good thing.
It is a good thing. So they're getting more exposure to cosmetics, but they're not drinking as much booze. So maybe it will weigh out when it's all said and done. But I mean, this. I'm making a joke of something that's obviously not a very funny situation. And two drinks a day, four drinks a week, a lot of people would not put that in the category of drinking a lot. Right. That's like, you know, four drinks a week, that's a bottle of wine.So if you have one bottle of wine spread out over the course of a week, that's like a typical Tuesday for some people. So I think that being more conscientious of our alcohol consumption is something that we should be doing for our health. And this is coming from somebody who does drink. And so it's something that we have to be mindful of. And if I was actively working on hormone health, particularly working on a high estrogen load, alcohol would be one of the first things to go. What about medications?
Yeah, there's quite a few medications as well that negatively impact the liver. That I feel like people commonly use things like NSAIDs, Tylenol, so for like, headache, pain relief, those things can negatively impact the liver. Prescription medications, oftentimes we're going to the doctor and just getting over prescribed medications. And then also antibiotics negatively impact the liver, but also our gut health as well.
And then there's genetic mutations that we can see, which sounds a little scary, but they're quite common. And this is something that we can get some clues to when we're running labs on people. So talk me through what you might see.
Yeah, and I know it does sound scary, but as you mentioned, a lot of people have these genetic mutations. And the reason why I really wanted to talk about these is because, as you mentioned, we do see them on testing, and they can have a pretty significant impact on our liver. The two main genetic mutations, or SNPs, that we commonly see through testing are COMT and MTHFR. And both of those play a role in phase one and phase two of estrogen detox at the level of the liver. Those first two phases happen in the liver, and we can see the COMPT enzyme on the Dutch test, and it really does determine our body's ability to be able to process estrogens, catecholamines, neurotransmitters. And when we see low compt, it gives us a clue that the body is struggling to clear things. And then we can also see mthfr. And MTHFR is probably more commonly what people have heard about, and it's basically impaired folate metabolism, which can affect our detoxification and methylation.
Methylation is a huge part of the estrogen detox pathway that also kind of plays into that compt that we were just talking about. And we can also see insight to that methylation activity on the Dutch test as well.
Is this something that you're seeing regularly?
Yeah, even through, like, my own Dutch testing, because I like to check up on my hormones as well. Like, I have low calmed activity, I have low methylation, and I see it very, very commonly in a lot of my clients as well. Lately, like, I'm working with a client right now who has endometriosis. She's dealing with very painful periods, constipation. And we decided to run a Dutch test, and it was showing that she had sluggish phase one and phase two estrogen detox at the level of the liver. So on the Dutch test, we can see different pathways that estrogen can go down. And she had two different pathways, the four OH and the two OH pathway that were elevated. And then we could also see that she was not methylating well.
And when we're not methylating well, when we have those elevated pathways of estrogen, we can see signs of estrogen dominance, like heavy periods, more painful cramping, breast tenderness, pms. So it can definitely be part of the picture with endometriosis.We have talked about this a fair amount on the show, but it's worth repeating here because a lot of people are want to test their hormones. They want to see where their hormones are at. And so there's ways to test your hormones, your sex hormones, through serum, through blood. You could do estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, dhea, like all of that you can get through blood. I like to see that in combination with a Dutch test for the exact reason Nicole just mentioned is because we're also seeing what's happening with those hormones, how we're metabolizing them, and when I say metabolizing them, how the liver is processing them. And so it gives us direct insight into how your body is handling them. And different pathways can do different things. Some are more proliferative, so they're going to.
Estrogen is a growth hormone, so it's going to cause things to grow more. You're going to see more estrogen effects depending on what pathway it's going down. And that's not always a problem, but depending on the individual and depending on what's going on with their bodies, it absolutely can be a problem and it can contribute to symptoms. So we get insight into all of that with the Dutch test, which is why we really like to use it. What was the recommendation for this particular client?
Yeah, so oftentimes when I see low methylation, especially with endometriosis, and we want to make sure that we are clearing out estrogen properly, I love to bring in a methylated B complex. This client of mine was already taking a methylated B complex. That's usually my first line of defense. So I actually swapped her out for a supplement called Same. This is an interesting supplement. It's a universal methyl donor. So it can be really helpful for moving the needle with low methylation activity if they're already taking activated or methylated B vitamins and they're experiencing estrogen dominance symptoms. And then I also love a supplement called NAC.
I feel like we've talked about that, or you probably have talked about it multiple times on this podcast before, just because it's so amazing. It's wonderful for the liver. It's also wonderful for estrogen detoxification. And with this particular client as well, on the Dutch, we can see some insights to different nutrient markers. And we saw that she had signs of glutathione deficiency, which is a master antioxidant in the body. And so NAC is also a precursor to glutathione. So it kind of covered a lot of our bases there with supporting the liver, supporting antioxidants, and supporting estrogen clearance.Yeah, NAC can be such a great one. And that, Sammy, is so interesting because like you said, it can, like, really. We've seen it a few times. Just turn the lights on for somebody. It's like the thing. And this is not the case for everybody everywhere, but in certain situations, it's the supplement that really moves the needle for people because they really need that overall methylation support?
Yeah, absolutely. And then I think too, like outside of supplements, we had also talked about just like basic detox and drainage support because yes, it's important to clean up our environment, clear out toxins from products that we're using, but it's also important to support the liver and detox and drainage as well by, you know, hydrating well, eating lots of fiber, supporting our digestion, doing other detox and drainage support habits that we might get into a little bit later as well.
Yeah, we'll definitely talk into some how TOS for listeners. What about the gut? The gut liver connection is a biggie. We recently is talked about the gut hormone connection, particularly as it related to leaky gut and endotoxemia. So endotoxemia is when LPS lipopolysaccharides gain entry into the bloodstream because there's dysbiosis and leaky gut. When that happens, it's a very inflammatory process. And that LPS induced inflammation can certainly contribute to development of liver diseases like non alcoholic fatty liver disease. So we can see issues here. If there's leaky gut and there's dysbiosis in the gut, it can be a burden on the liver and that's going to impact hormonal health.
What are the things should we be thinking about in terms of gut health?
Yeah, so dysbiosis definitely is part of the picture. We have something in our gut called our estrobolome and it's actually gut bacteria that further support our estrogen metabolism. So we just talked about phase one and phase two of estrogen detox that happen at the level of the liver. And then we also have phase three that's happening at the level of the gut where our beneficial gut bacteria can help with further breaking down and kind of packaging up estrogen to clear it out. And when we have dysbiosis with like low beneficial gut bacteria or we have overgrowths of opportunistic bacteria, this can lead to the overactivation of an enzyme called beta glucuronidase. And this is that enzyme that basically helps to package up estrogen and other toxins and then we excrete them through our stool. And so when beta glucuronidase is elevated, basically what it's doing is it's, it's unpacking estrogen and leading to it being reabsorbed back into circulation. And that can cause that estrogen dominance kind of excess symptoms that people experience, like the heavy periods, cramping, pms, those kinds of symptoms.
Yeah, Recently. Ish. Like this past year, at some point I was having. I don't have heavy bleeds, but my periods are just really rough and my boobs hurt so much, but they would hurt for like two weeks. And my mood kind of sucked and my cramps were so bad. It just. I don't typically have rough periods, but, like, all of a sudden I had rough periods and I was like, this is like, signs of estrogen, high estrogen. And I am.
I didn't have high estrogen. So I did a stool test, and sure enough, I did have some dysbiosis. Mostly for me, it was low beneficial species. I didn't really have any gnarly critters growing. I just had low good guys and my beta glucuronidase was elevated. And so I just used calcium D glucarate and worked on the beneficial species, like long term. And that made such a big improvement, like how my periods are feeling. But this is why we are such advocates for testing, because had I not run any tests, I would have assumed it was high estrogen and probably done something to bring the estrogen down, which would not have actually worked for me in this scenario.It was more of a GI issue that I needed to address. And so just a fan of running the test so we can pinpoint the exact right strategy to get you feeling better. I know that you did some GI work with that endometriosis client that you had, because usually with endometriosis, this is not a hormone condition. This is an immune system condition, and we have to address it from many different angles. So what else did you do for them?
Yeah, so we also ran a GI map. Whenever I'm working with someone that's having, like, endometriosis or hormonal symptoms, it's great to do the Dutch, as you mentioned, because we can see insights to hormones, but there's also a strong connection between what's going on in our gut. So when we pair the GI map with the Dutch, we really get the full picture of all the phases of estrogen detox. And when we ran the GI map on this client, we saw that she did have dysbiosis, a lot of low beneficial bacteria. She also had a few overgrowths. And then we saw that beta glucuronidase enzyme that was way elevated. And as you mentioned, I love calcium deglucarate in practice. I feel like it really does help move the needle with estrogen excess symptoms.
And so we definitely brought that in to help with reducing symptoms. But what I will say about calcium D glucarate is it's great for reducing symptoms, it's great for blocking that beta glucuronidase enzyme, but it's not necessarily treating the underlying cause of why that enzyme is elevated in the first place. So with that client, we bring in the calcium deglucrate, get her feeling better. But while we're doing that, we're also addressing that dysbiosis, we're supporting the gut and bringing in prebiotics, we're diversifying her diet, and then we're also doing some foundational support on digestion as well.
That's a good point. Because calcium D glucarate as a supplement is a band aid approach. If I'm bleeding, guess what? I'm going to use a band aid. So, like, I have no issues with band aids. But we don't want to use band aids long term. We want to stop the bleeding. So that's a really good point is that we can use it short term, but long term we should be working on the reason why that enzyme is elevated in the first place. Otherwise you'll just be taking calcium D glucarate for forever to mitigate your symptoms.
And that's generally not how we like to practice, is just throwing supplements at symptoms and hoping for the best. We mentioned some different lab testing. What are specific tests or clues where you might suspect that the liver needs extra support?
So I know we just talked about the Dutch test. That's definitely a place where we're getting some insight to the liver through. There's glutathione markers on there. We just talked about glutathione being the master antioxidant. There's also oxidative stress markers on the Dutch test as well. On the last page there's, there's like a mini OAT test, which is an organic acids test that's looking all of these at these nutrient markers. So that's some places where we can see that the liver needs to support. We can also see B vitamin markers on the Dutch test as well.
That can play into that methylation picture that we were just talking about.
When we're running Dutch tests on somebody, we're almost always backing it up with blood work as well because we really like to take a 360 degree, comprehensive holistic view of hormones. So we're not just looking at the hormones, but we like to look at drivers of the hormones as well. And so we're running blood panel, just a basic blood panel. We're looking at thyroid, but we're also looking at blood sugar markers like we talked about at the beginning of the show. Insulin, fasting, glucose, hemoglobin A1C, but then liver enzymes too, because if those are creeping towards high, we want to, you know, that is your liver calling out for help. And again, we're seeing those elevated more frequently than we used to. And so it is a call for help for your liver. And these are all the labs that we are running in your hormone revival, which is coming up very soon.I don't know when we're going to publish this episode, so I don't want to give the exact date, but it's going to start on May 6. I can give that exact date. So we'll link up all the information in the show notes for you to enroll, but we are super excited to be relaunching that program. It's a three month hormone rebalancing program for not just your sex hormones, but your adrenals, your thyroid and the root causes of any thyroid hormone dysfunction as well. So everything we're talking about here in today's show, we're really unpacking in a lot more detail in your hormone revival. So let's get into some things that folks can do to support liver and clearance and detoxification of hormones. Where do you like to start, Nicole?
I like to start with nutrition. I don't think that's a shock to anybody since I am a dietitian and I know you just mentioned it on the recent podcast episode episode of just how important it is for our hormonal health to have a nutrient dense diet. And there's a lot of specific nutrients that are needed to support each phase of liver detox. If you Google liver detoxification and look up all the different nutrients required, there's a lot for each different phase and there's three different phases. So I would definitely say things like B vitamin rich foods, vitamin C rich foods. I think you mentioned both of those on the last podcast app, so I would definitely send people back there. We also definitely need glutathione, magnesium, a lot of our other trace minerals as well are really important nutrients, all needed for detoxification. And then I also love to shout out bitter foods, bitter foods and bitter herbs.
These are wonderful for stimulating our liver. They also help with gallbladder and bile flow, which is a really important part of detoxification. They're also really supportive of digestion as well. So I love to recommend for those for anyone who is struggling with hormonal imbalance or just Wants to support their liver.
Yeah. The more bitter foods, the better. I'm trying to get them in, if not every meal, at the very least once a day.
Yeah, definitely. And then I also love cruciferous veggies. Some of those actually could be classified as bitter foods as well. Like your broccoli sprouts. Broccoli, cauliflower. But all of those cruciferous veggies contain a compound called sulforaphane, which really helps to support estrogen detox. Especially your broccoli sprouts. They are just like a magical food when it comes to estrogen detox.
I feel like I'm always recommending those to people.
Yeah. And they're super expensive to buy if you're getting them organic. And they are dirt cheap to grow. So if you like to do little kitchen project, you can get the seeds and then just sprout them yourself. You can get a big jar, like a mason jar, and then get a sprouting lid on Amazon and you're good to go. You'll have so many broccoli sprouts you won't know what to do with.I love that. I've never grown them myself. Maybe I should get into it.
It's so easy. It's so easy. Do you put them in smoothies?
I don't. I've never tried that. That's a good idea, though.Yes. Some people will do it. My husband does it. Some people will do it. I'm like, I don't know. I'm past the point in my life where I can, like, stomach a dirt smoothie. Do you know what I mean? Like, if it's too earthy, I'm like, I'm good. I did that for so many years.
Like, I just want it to taste good now. So you can definitely throw them in there. But I can taste them. I know that they're in there. I rather put them on, like, wraps and salads and stuff. I am a huge fan of frozen cauliflower rice. I put that in pretty much every single smoothie. Because you can't taste it.
That's why you can't taste it. If I can't taste it, I'm good. And then of course, we want to support the gut like we were talking about.
Yeah, definitely. I think supporting our gut microbiome, but also making sure that we are pooping regularly. It is so, so important for. For hormone detox because that's the last phase of estrogen detox. That's how we're finally clearing out our hormones. So if we are not going to the bathroom regularly. That's part of the picture where we can get those hormones that are reabsorbed back into circulation. You kind of mentioned it earlier where you might not be producing too much estrogen.
It could be that the body is struggling to clear it out and that's leading to it being reabsorbed and causing some of those estrogen dominant symptoms. So having regular bowel movements is huge.
Yeah. And you'd be surprised how often we, we see that. You know, everyone wants to talk about hormones, which is great, but we can't just treat hormones in a silo. And I, I recognize that this is where it can start to get like a little bit, like complex or confusing or overwhelming for people because it's like, gosh, I just want to take a supplement for my hormones. And we can do that, but you're probably just not going to see the effects that you really want to see. Long term, sustainable, feeling better. So make sure you're pooping. What about just daily habits that people can work into rotation that's supportive of overall liver health? Hormone clearance. Detox.
Yeah. I think there's some simple things that we can do for our liver and just detox support, like hydrating well, drinking enough water. I also like to recommend adding minerals into our water because minerals drive detox. So any way that we can kind of get a little bit more in there can be really supportive for our detox and drainage pathways. And then also castor oil packs. I love these. I feel like they are so underrated. They're wonderful for digestion, they're wonderful for liver health, and they're wonderful for detox and drainage.
And I feel like they're like a low ticket item. They don't require a lot of effort and time. You throw it on, you can move about your day. And such a good way to support the liver.
They're sneaky effective. You and Rachel's clients are definitely seeing favorable results using these castor oil packs.
Definitely. Yeah. Because they're great. They're supporting the liver and the gallbladder, but they're also really great for getting things moving through the digestive tract. So if somebody is struggling with constipation, I've really seen using castor oil packs as a way to move the needle with that, which if they're also experiencing hormonal symptoms, like my client had endometriosis and constipation. So we got her using the castor oil packs. She started going daily and symptoms started improving pretty quickly.Amazing. That's so Amazing. What's a little bit more heavy impact is sauna, which is another way. Right now we don't have one set up in our house. So I'm driving to the gym to do it, and it takes me 30 minutes to get to the gym. I work out, and then I want to do like a 45 minute sauna. So I'm gone from my house for like three and a half hours just to use that damn sauna. So that can be a little bit more high impact, a little bit more of an time and money investment, but hugely, hugely effective for detoxification.
Yeah, definitely. And I also love to recommend lymphatic drainage. Whether you're manually doing lymphatic drainage or whether you're just like moving your body regularly, dry brushing, bouncing on a rebounder. All of those things are great to get toxins moving through our system as well.
Yeah, we actually have a video in your hormone revival specifically for breast tissue. How to do lymphatic drainage for breast tissue. Because we should be taking care of our, of our boobs. Something that we should be doing. Okay, so as promised, I want you guys to walk away with some easy swaps. So things to think about that you're getting exposed to in your house. Because when we start to pull on the thread of environmental toxins, like the whole web comes apart and that's when we can start to panic. When I'm thinking about exposure to toxins, I'm always thinking about what's in my control and what is not in my control and the things that are not in my control, I'm not going to invest a lot of time worrying about that because the stress of worrying about that is probably worse for me anyway.
But the things in my control, you better believe I'm going to prioritize that. So stuff that's in our house, where should we start with that? Nicole?
Air quality is a huge one. We have control over airing out our home, buying air purifiers. So I always recommend, like, invest in a good quality air purifier. Regularly open the windows and kind of let fresh air into your space. That's huge for just kind of cleaning out the air, making sure that you have better air quality.Do you have a favorite air purifier you like?
I love the air doctor one. I know it's pricey, but it's just. It's so good.
They're pricey, but they last a really long time. We have a ton of them. And I think my oldest one is like, probably like 8 years old. So they, they really do hold up. They last. Whenever I clean, like, you know, like when you do a deep cleaning, you like kick up a lot of dust and stuff. I'll start to get a little headache a little like, and I'll just open a window and it works. And I'm like, why don't I do this more often? Probably because I live in New Hampshire and it's always freezing.But fresh air is, is, is a move. So if you can do it, do it. But also dusting. And I am not a clean freak, so this is not something that happens regularly. But vacuuming and dusting is a really, really, really cheap, simple, easy way to reduce your exposure to any of the toxic compounds that can be released in the air because they settle in dust. So the more you can clean, if you can't afford to get an air doctor or if you can't afford to get a air purifier, then just clean your house more. It's a pro move. And then we talked about fragrance as well.
So I am like hardcore no synthetic fragrance in my house. What do you do to navigate this in your house?
I mean, I personally just don't use any candles, but if you want to use candles, you can do like beeswax candles as opposed to some of the more traditional ones that have certain types of waxes that we don't want to be burning. And then they also have fragrances in there. And also making sure if you are burning candles that you're picking one that's made with plant derived fragrance or essential oils. I also am really intentional about products that I'm using, like perfumes, any cleaners, like laundry detergents. Those are the ones that tend to be the gnarliest when it comes to the fragrance that they have in them. So I try to use brands that use good quality ingredients. Plant dry fragrance or fragrance free or using essential oils for fragrance.
I use branch basics for like everything. You just buy a concentrate and I have it just shipped monthly or maybe every other month so I don't never have to think about it. And then it's that one concentrate that I use for all of our cleaning stuff and then also our laundry. And it's just, it works. It's so easy. It doesn't smell like anything. It's not gnarly, it's great. That is my recommendation if you're like a low maintenance Larry like myself.
And I just don't can't be bothered with like finding all the different brands. One thing I will say about candles is Fontana makes really good candles. I like to get those for teachers gifts because I don't really burn a lot of candles myself either, but I like to get them as gifts. So that's another brand that you can check out. What else should we be thinking about in our house?
I think also using a water filter, whether you have like an in home water filtration system or whether you're just using like a countertop water filter, that's another place that we're getting exposure to toxins through the water that we're drinking. So if we're trying to hydrate smart, hydrate more. We want to make sure that we're using a good quality water filter as well. So that we're drinking clean water.
Yeah. And then non toxic cookware as well. This is probably one of the top five questions that I get asked on Instagram is what I'm cooking with. But you know, if we put all this effort into eating well, we want to make sure that we're not like injecting our food with toxic chemicals from our cookware. So I'm a big fan of stainless steel. It's old, tried and true. I also really like cast iron and then enameled cast iron. So is it Le Creuset? Is that okay? So I don't have any of that because that's very expensive and I'm like, I'm like weird about how I spend money.I'm like, that's frivolous. I will not be investing in that. But I do love Lodge. Lodge in enameled cast iron is very similar and you can get pieces at Marshalls for really, really affordable. Like that is my go to place if I need something is or need lodges to just go right to Marshalls. And then I do get asked a lot about our place pans. And then what's the other? Is it caraway? Is that the other brand? Yeah, I've used both, I've purchased both. Our place was kind enough to send me their big pan and I wish I could give a really, really positive report because I want to love them so much.
They're amazing in the beginning, they're beautiful, they're very esthetically pleasing and they work really well in the beginning. And then consistently, without fail, they lose their stick within maybe a year, up to like a year and a half. And so I've tried it a lot. I've talked to a lot of different people and everyone pretty much consistently says the same. And I use them the correct way because you have to use like low medium heat and even with that, they lose their sex. So that's a huge bummer. Just because they're a lot of money and it creates a lot of waste. If you're just chucking a pan after two years and having to replace it versus a stainless steel or a cast iron that is going, that is going to last you like you'll be handing that down to your grandkids.So that's my hot take on non toxic cookware. Do you have any faves?
I definitely agree with you because the caraway and our place, those are the ceramic nonstick pans. And so I agree they just don't last as long. So they're not my favorite. I prefer stainless steel. I don't have a particular brand that I love with that. I think any brand is good for stainless steel. And then I also really love the cast iron enamel. I actually, I can't think of the name of the brand, but they have like really good quality cast iron enamel, like pots and pans that I just got at Costco and they were very affordable and they work amazing.
So I would recommend that as well.
Yeah, I mean, I didn't mean to like shit on La Cruset. Like if you do it, do it. I support you in your endeavor. Totally. I just don't want to spend my money on it. Personally. I'm like, Lodge is great. Lodge is fine.
Lodge can sponsor me. All right, well this is a great conversation. Hopefully we left people with some go to action items. And if you are looking for all of the testing that we referenced and really getting support, you can either work with Nicole one on one or you can work with us in your hormone revival. Both are options for you. Just you can choose your own adventure, the level of support that you're looking for. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Functional Nutrition Podcast. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment.
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