[Reclaiming Hormonal Harmony: Decoding Gut Health, Cravings, and the Mind-Body Connection]-[How to Overcome Cravings & Reduce Inflammation | Spotlight Convo]

Good Life Project · B2 · 2024-07-18

📋 Summary

Reclaiming Hormonal Harmony: A Roadmap to Vitality

In this insightful discussion, Jonathan Fields explores the complexities of women's health with Dr. Aviva Romm and Dr. Amy Shah. The conversation moves beyond conventional "pill-based" solutions, advocating for a holistic understanding of the body as a system where gut health, hormones, and environmental factors are deeply interconnected.

The Root Causes of Hormonal Imbalance

Dr. Aviva Romm emphasizes that women are "not just small men," criticizing the historical lack of medical research focused on female physiology. She introduces the concept of the "Exposome," which encompasses the total environmental impact on our health, including stress, lack of sleep, and exposure to "new-to-nature chemicals."

Dr. Romm identifies inflammation as the "mother of root causes." When inflammation moves "out of the fireplace," it transitions from a protective response to a systemic issue, potentially driving conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, and chronic metabolic diseases. She argues that the menstrual cycle should be viewed as a "sixth vital sign," serving as a monthly "hormonal scorecard" that allows women to identify imbalances early and pivot toward healing.

The Gut-Brain Connection and Cravings

Dr. Amy Shah shifts the focus to the biology of hunger, introducing the fascinating world of "psychobiotics." She explains that our gut bacteria do not just digest food; they actively communicate with the brain to influence our mood, cravings, and mental health.

The Science of Cravings

Dr. Shah highlights that gut microbes can produce dopamine and serotonin. Through a "magical communication system" involving the vagus nerve and secondary hormones, these chemicals signal the brain, often driving intense cravings. She warns against "intermittent reward scheduling," a phenomenon similar to gambling where the brain becomes addicted to unpredictable, high-dopamine triggers—often found in ultra-processed foods.

A Roadmap to Food Freedom

To break the cycle of cravings and hormonal chaos, the experts propose a multifaceted approach:

Replenish with the "Super Six": Dr. Shah advocates for focusing on what to add to your diet rather than just what to restrict. This includes glucosinolates (like broccoli and cauliflower) and dopamine-boosting foods that support a healthy gut microbiome.
Circadian Alignment: Both doctors stress the importance of natural rhythms. Getting morning sunlight exposure helps release melanocyte-stimulating hormones, which naturally improve satiety. Dr. Shah suggests "circadian intermittent fasting," recommending that we align our eating windows with daylight hours to allow the digestive system to rest.
Rewiring and Self-Compassion: Addressing the psychological aspect, Dr. Shah suggests using the "3-2-1 technique" to bring consciousness to our eating habits, while Dr. Romm insists on a "no-fault, no-blame" approach. She notes that wellness is not about achieving "perfect glowing health" through rigid routines, but about reclaiming connection and self-advocacy.

Conclusion: The Power to Save Yourself

Ultimately, the conversation concludes that true vitality comes from understanding the body's internal intelligence. By managing inflammation, nurturing the gut microbiome, and honoring our natural circadian rhythms, we can move from a state of "hormone chaos" to one of "food freedom." As Dr. Romm wisely puts it, healing is about "restoring a life in balance," acknowledging that our bodies serve as a powerful mirror of the world around us.

🎯Key Sentences

I'm a bit of a geek I like to understand the why

there have been a lot of layers of challenge to peel back.

I'm not saying those things aren't incredibly valuable

But let's go as upstream as possible.

it is expanded and gotten so much more nuanced and granular

Expand All

📝Key Phrases

peel back the layers

crack the code

come full circle

get lost in the weeds

set in motion

Expand All

📖 Transcript

We have the power to save ourselves because I think that if you understand your mind body connection, then you can be the one to save yourself rather than waiting for some Dr.

Pill device solution to come around.

So have you ever felt frustrated or powerless against that constant tug of imbalances and satiable hunger relentless cravings?

Kind of like your body is waging a war against your health goals.

Today we're going to decode the driving forces behind this struggle and uncover a roadmap to food freedom and radiant will be.

So my guest today are two brilliant pioneers in integrative women's health.

We break down things and eliminate them differently and we do that not just differently at one time in our life we do it differently when we're in our puberty years to our men of pausal years we do it differently in pregnancy so there's just been this real real birth of study that there are people who are taking action about that I mean there are people who are being activists for more medical research to happen in really important women's health areas and in pharmaceuticals so that there have been a lot of layers of challenge to peel back.

I'm a bit of a geek I like to understand the why and the causes and really peel back and unpack what's what's really going on what's underlying this phenomenon so we do know that women's health concerns have escalated in recent decades and one might say well why is it that that's happening well if we look back at the last let's say 70 years the entire food system has completely changed in the last 70 years.

There have been quite a lot of studies done from substantial universities and institutions documenting and demonstrating just basic things like the nutrients in our food now don't compare well to the nutrients in our grandmother's food so you know we think about the CDC with infectious disease now but they actually do a lot more than that they do a study called the end hains study and.

They look at a lot of different parameters on big surveys around the United States and they found in one study in recent years that in every state in the United States people were only getting 16% of their daily recommended vegetables fruits and 14% of their daily recommended vegetables and it sounds so we need to eat more fruit and vegetables but actually we really do because the nutrients in them are doing biological things in our bodies that help us maintain hormones.

That reduce inflammation that keep our gut healthy that help us break down and eliminate the estrogen and progesterone and testosterone that we're naturally producing in our bodies we also know from the world of toxicology that there are over 80,000 what are called new to nature chemicals in our environment that very few of which have ever been approved there just grandfathered in by the FDA.

And almost none of which have been reviewed in any way on their impact on women's reproductive health and we know if you think about hormones they're just tiny little nana particles we don't have their parts per million in our bloodstream so people will say oh well drinking out of plastic water bottles couldn't do anything because I mean how much could you get from that but you don't actually need that much you just need parts per million to mimic what's happening in your hormones or.

And this has been just beautifully studied here's a funny story when I was applying to residency I applied in OB guy at my alma mater for med school and the interviewing gentleman who happened to be an endocrinologist and an internationally known researcher looked at my application and he said I see that you're interested in doing specialization studies in endocrin disruptors and he looked at me and he said across this big formal desk you don't.

Hugh Taylor in the reproductive endocrinology department identifying BPA as such a significant endocrin disruptor that two states immediately bandits use in cashier receipts and in airline tickets because that thermo covered paper is actually was covered in BPA and most of the people handling it at cash registers or.

Journal you can find powerful connections between microbiome and polycystic over syndrome microbiome and endometriosis microbiome and fertility microbiome and pre term labor and on and on and on but this information is not making its way into conventional medicine in any more than maybe lip service of anything but certainly not in any clinical applicability where it's happening is in really more environmental science and toxicology so there's an entire field of medicine or science now called expose own.

Stress as a toxin lack of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption microbiome disruption and or kind disruptors and what we eat as core areas that really do contribute so can I say that changing your microbiome is definitely going to heal this this or that I can't say that I mean some studies do show really well what we can really do by changing our diet changing these different factors but what I do know is that why not try if it just means shifting your diet a little bit doing things that are gentle rather than spending 15 years on a birth control pill and I'm not saying those things aren't incredibly valuable and that I don't prescribe them sometimes.

Yeah I mean it makes so much sense and it's good to know also that there is a part of medicine now that is really focusing more rigorously on what the what the environment around us does to and for us and trying to actually measure I think oftentimes you know we try and rush to what do I do and I think the you know the step that we sometimes miss is well how do we actually really figure out how do I do that.

and how do we measure them in a way so that we can then really understand what's going into us what's coming out of us and what's the effect that it's having in a meaningful way and you know you talk about food you talk about BPA chemical center in the environment around us you talk about the microbiome most people call that the got these days although microbiome isn't just the got I guess that's one big fallacy to it involves.

Yeah and the got's not just the right right so really there's intestinal lining yeah so I remember the very first time I had exposure to like the notion of the critters in the gut you know it was like this term leaky gut that was in the early days of functional medicine and now it's it is expanded and gotten so much more nuanced and granular to really understand what's going on yes and it sounds like a lot of this is like all these different things influence the body in ways that also either inflame or don't inflame which which it sounds like a lot of a lot of what we're talking about here is to tell me if I'm totally getting the strong some am a neophyte you're the you're my brilliant guide which is why I'm always asking questions inflammation that it seems like it's just popping up everywhere you look in research in popular articles and conversations so I'm curious because it seems to underlie so many conditions and I'm curious what the relationship is between inflammation and things you're talking inflammation and hormones inflammation and your microbiome is it is it even or is that like a whole nothing conversation that will take us out yes and no yes and yes but so inflammation I have a dear friend she's a physician and an herbalist as well there are actually two of us believe it or not and she says that inflammation is like a fire in the fireplace or a fire out of the fireplace if it's in the fireplace it's keeping you warm and it's cozy and it makes you feel good right to see it if it's out of the fireplace it'll burn your house down so we all need some inflammation right if you get a splinter you want your body to be able to recognize that as a foreign object and get rid of it if you get a cold and your body mounts a response all those things that make you feel achy and kind of crappy that's all inflammation those inflammatory chemicals that are circulating that are doing their job and the collateral of them is they make us feel achy and tired and so we rest and then our body can really do its job hopefully but when it gets out of the fireplace when it starts to be consuming it can overwhelm the body's capacity to maintain it or contain it and so rather than just getting that splinter out because it's recognized that splinter as a foreign object it might be recognizing your thyroid as a foreign object it might be inflammation in your gut you mentioned leaky gut it's a real phenomenon called intestinal hyper permeability and when there's inflammation in the gut it gets almost a little spongy if you will and it allows particles that are in your intestine that should stay there or be eliminated to get across the intestinal lining into this very rich tissue called the gut associated lymphoid tissue or the galt and it sounds like a yetish term I think doesn't it the galt but that tissue then mounts a reaction and when that happens it can become systemic so a lot of the chronic illness that we see in our culture diabetes heart disease dementia there's a strong inflammatory component that we know can lead up to those perpetuate those and also can then in a vicious cycle particularly with heart disease and diabetes happen as a result of those but even things like pre-menstrual pain if it's normal to have a little bit of discomfort your uterus is full it wants to empty itself out you might have a little aching a little heaviness in your pelvis that's normal but if it's causing you to be doubled over in pain or have to take ibuprofen every month something else is going on we're not I say in my in you know I say when being a woman is not a diagnosis just because your woman doesn't mean it's okay to say yes you're supposed to live with this and that's often a reflection of increased inflammatory chemical chemicals that are actually causing irritation in the uterus for example you know I could go on with that's where we would have hours but yes inflammation I call inflammation the mother of root causes that sounds back I like mothers and but it is the it is the root of all root causes right and the result of most disruption so inflammation doesn't come out of nowhere so we know for example that exposure to endocrine disruptors causes chronic inflammation we know that when the gut microbiome starts to get populated with certain organisms that might not be our best friends that can cause inflammation we know that diets that are high and sugar and processed flower products in of themselves cause inflammation but then they can cause something called insulin resistance that causes inflammation so it's kind of always tied in there and we'll be right back after word from our sponsors.

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College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists identified the menstrual cycle as women's sixth vital sign so we have blood pressure heart rate respiratory rate temperature then pain is actually considered the fifth vital sign and menstrual cycles as the sixth vital sign so when our menstrual cycles are a rye you know too much pain irregular periods heavy periods light periods whatever it is that's going on and not just menstrual cycles but what we're going through gynecologically which is a reflection of what's going on hormonally but what they identified is that what's going on hormonally is a reflection of yet underlying causes that if we can pay attention to early on we may offset some of the downstream problems so if you know that you're having heavy periods every month and they're really painful we know that you there's a very good chance you have excess estrogen well where is that coming from often from these endocrine disruptors or the body's lack of nutrition or microbiome to break those down and eliminate them well so you're overwhelmed by them but we know that too much estrogen is a long term risk factor for developing uterine fibroids breast cancer and a metrial cancer so we actually have an opportunity to identify things early that may actually help us prevent some of those bigger chronic problems and it's interesting men don't actually have that like we have a monthly opportunity to kind of have almost like a scorecard that we can look at and go check check check that's going pretty well or huh this actually seems to be a little off or a lot off let me realign what I can do to bring myself back into some harmony here and and then you see it you see the improvements or you see the changes and I just want to be careful to say that because of endocrine disruptors and a lot of other factors sometimes these things are set in motion before a woman is even born before she's even hits puberty and then puberty is like the switch that sets everything off but we now know that things like polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis may actually be happening a couple of generations back so it may be that our mother was chronically exposed to something or our mother had a medical problem that caused a lot of intra uterine inflammation that nobody identified and now you're in your mother being just stated you have all your ovaries that are forming while you're still in your mom hers formed while she was in her mother so we literally have situations that can be intergenerally like the tracks are laid down but then when you hit puberty it's like the train could go this way or the train can go this way and now you I'm doing hand gestures for those you guys who can't see me because I talk with my hands so you can go left or you can go right and it's like your nature wants you to go right but all the tracks got laid down to the left and then you add to it standard American diet you know the number of antibiotic doses kids get by the time they're in their teens that alter their microbiome the fact that teens are using a gazillion cosmetics that contain these endocrine disruptors and it's almost like somebody pulls the switch and it goes down that track.

So as we're talking about healing or transforming and you know taking back our health I also feel and this is something that I feel so strongly about because I think the wellness movement and even maybe a little the functional medicine movement gives you this sense if you just do everything right you know you do the diet right you do the yoga right you sleep the right amount you do your like meditation app you get out in nature you're somehow going to have guaranteed perfect glowing health and it can lead to people feeling like what am I doing wrong.

What am I not doing enough of or am I just broken and so important for us to take a step back and say a healthy dose of self compassion and self love but also perspective that this is not anyone's fault and yes doing all these things is really healthful but it doesn't mean 100% or 80% we have no measure of like that doesn't mean you're going to need the medication or the surgery either and I really want there to be like a no fault no blame approach to healing I think that's so so important whether that's fat shaming in medicine or fat shaming in the wellness space it's got that's got to stop for us to live more comfortably in our bodies and minds.

As you're sharing that I had this brief flashbacked a number of years ago I was at a conference a really big event and I was just sitting in the audience next to someone and the person from the states said okay we're going to take five minutes now and turn to the person next to you and you're like you like share a bit about yourself and I like turn to the person next to me and shared like you know a typical three minute completely non-volverable you know like line of stuff and it was her turn and her eyes start to well and I don't know her at all but there's like for some reason that she felt safe enough so that in that moment you know I start to want you just as me.

But you know which just you take a situation and then if you start spinning that storyline then you had shame and stress to hear your current psychological physiology will stay was just as to the spiral and decreases likelihood of good outcomes yeah I can't even imagine really the layers that go on top of the fundamental happenings within your body.

And she was in her early 40s three children very very vulnerable on so many levels for her and same thing said I have been a vegetarian since I was 15 since I was 18 I am a yoga instructor I live a clean life I meditate yeah I'm type A but I mean it's not like I'm stressed at all the time you know we've got resources everything and she said I just don't know what I'm doing wrong and I said you know this could be and we were in New York.

City at the time and I knew that she lived out on the island long island and I said you know it could have been that your grandmother was a little girl and chased those DDT foggers that they used to use on Jones Beach to clear the beach of weeds this was a really big thing that was done in the 50s and then your mother was through pregnancy exposed and then you got exposed and she her jaw dropped she said I don't know how you knew that but my grandmother used to tell us these stories about how they would chase this fogger on Jones Beach when they were kids and it was just one of those lights going on I still get chills when I say it was just random I just randomly pulled on that but maybe it's not maybe these things aren't random but yes there is so much going and it can also feel so doom and gloom like oh my god there's 80,000 chemicals and our microbiomes are screwed and like that and what do we do it's so overwhelming and I do think that asking the why is really interesting especially if that's something that you love like you and I were information seekers so we like the why but when you unpack the things to actually do they are pretty simple we know that you can restore a healthy microbiome in just a couple of weeks of eating a healthy diet study show this we know that you can reduce your exposure to certain things that you're using for body products and drinking out of plastic water bottles and just that can reduce your blood that late levels so the answers to me seem simplistic in a way when I say them but getting better sleep stressing less eating healthier diets learning what that really means and that's where I think for me when you ask how I think about medicine sometimes I think conventional medicine is like a pill for every ill and so much over testing but sometimes I think functional medicine I jokingly say is a supplement for every symptom and also a lot of testing and the answers when you get down to it are still the same change your diet do this do this do this and when I really love about this new medicine if you will is it's not new at all if we go to every indigenous traditional culture around the world they already know it's all connected right it's just all connected so we can't tease out what we put in our bodies from how we feel but we also can't tease out how we're treating the environment from how we feel and I feel like as women our bodies are not to sound biologically reductive or romantic I really do believe that our bodies are such a powerful mirror of what is happening to the planet and in a sense we're a little bit like the canaries in the coal mine all of these symptoms that are showing up now in women's bodies are just telling us that there is a life out of balance and how can we restore hormonal balance if you will without restoring a life in balance and that's really really more I find what I'm working with women around even if they are going to use a pharmaceutical to feel better or have the surgery it's still about how do we reclaim this knowing that everything is connected that our relationships affect how our hormones show up our beliefs about our bodies affect how our hormones show up they also affect how we advocate for ourselves when the doctor isn't listening for example so I love that part of this new way of thinking it's so interesting to hear you describe it that way and just share that you know I spent time with your most recent become intelligence which and I'm going through it's 400 pages of just chock full of I stop taking notes because it's just like there's so much detail and so much information so much nuance and like and a lot of detail and and it's highly prescriptive and you know you can look up very specific things you can understand all of these things you can understand all the different systems in the body laid out in the way that's powerful and compelling and yet at the same time it was interesting because there's there's this broader sense that everything that you're talking about is woven together into this bigger context this bigger system which is feels organic and intrinsic and natural and it's a really interesting experience of being able to dive into something and like you said we're both geeks were both scientists we like to kind of deconstruct and then but then also have this sense of what this there's there's an elegance and a naturalness to everything that you're talking about ensure you can get lost in the weeds or you can get very specific wisdom if you want but at the same time it's always tether to this understanding that there's a bigger thing there's a bigger intelligence and there's a certain simplicity which grounds all of this and it's always going to be that way.

But this the read that you talk about you know one of the things I've been thinking about is like when women are called hormonal or when we call ourselves hormonal there's almost like this not almost we're kind of being told that we're irrational and unpredictable and unstable but one of the things that really came through for me as I was crafting this book is that it's it's actually exactly the opposite there's this biological blueprint that has existed hormonally in women since the time immemorial it hasn't changed so why is it that suddenly it's it's entirely predictable you know certain things happen when you get into puberty certain things happen when you've been in puberty for about three or five years certain things happen when you get pregnant certain things happen when you go into the menopause it's the same it shows up a little differently for each of us depending on our you know our history our medical stuff and all of that but it's the most predictable human biological thread so the idea that we're unpredictable is really fascinating to me it's I think I'm trying to reframe that for ourselves as women like actually no I'm pretty predictable here yeah I know it's actually there's a certain sense making element to it now we can go a lot of different rabbit holes here but I think this is actually a really nice place for us to come full circle I have asked you this question in the past but it was a number of years ago now so I'm going to ask you again because we are evolving human being so sitting here in this container of good life project if I offer up the phrase to live a good life what comes up you know I remember when you asked me this the first time and I remember saying presence that being present was really so powerful and so important and in some ways Jonathan I don't I know I mean I've evolved and changed so much but I I really feel like if I would add to that presence meaning that I am so here right now in this moment giving that time and experiencing that time and connection from you I would say that if I would shift anything I might just say authentic connection because I think when I was talking about presence many years ago it was really about making time for that authentic connection I think time and space for authentic connection in life to me is living a good life.

Thank you thank you so appreciate a Viva's take I love how she empowers you to look beyond the conventional labels and quick fixes to uncover the real roots of hormone and balances her holistic vision for just connecting all the dots gut health environmental impacts beliefs provides a profound new lens for true vitality and we'll be right back after word from our sponsors.

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for free shipping and 365 day returns this season of the talking transitions podcast focuses on the energy sector brought to you by EY and four-site climate and energy we look at the main considerations and hurdles the shift to a sustainable society is facing including financing infrastructure empowering consumers and security of supply we also delve into exciting new aspects of the energy transition like the budding hydrogen economy and the use of AI listen to talking transitions wherever you get your podcasts and that brings us to doctor Amy Shaw so if you ever felt powerless against just food cravings and insatiable hunger like your body and brain are conspiring to sabotage your health goals Amy Shaw is a medical doctor and nutrition expert who is pretty much cracked the code on why we crave what we crave in her book I'm so effing hungry why we crave what we crave and what to do about it with innovative approaches drawn from Harvard Cornell and Columbia she reveals eye opening connections between gut health hormones and the biology driving our temptations and cravings her unique mind body methods provide a road map to regaining control and in this discussion you'll discover really surprising links between your mental state gut bacteria and appetite imagine having the power to fire your worst cravings for good by aligning with your bodies in her wisdom here's Amy our gut bacteria are probably one of the biggest if not the biggest contributor to cravings that we don't really even understand so psychobiotics this whole world that is exploding science that says that your gut bacteria can help shape your mental health and it came from a series of studies that were done on both depressed schizophrenic Alzheimer's patients so they took schizophrenic patients the microbiome of schizophrenic patients and then up non schizophrenic people and they transplanted it into germ free mice that did not have their own microbiome and they mixed them up and the researchers were able to tell with 100% accuracy which animals had received the schizophrenic microbiome just from the behavior of the animals without changing anything about their brain without doing anything else and so this world of psychobiotic started to stem and they did it with depressed animals safe thing autism dementia, Alzheimer's, I mean you name it and these mental health diseases get transplanted just by changing that gut bacterial colons and I mean it's just mind blowing right the whole world of psychiatry is like blown up because this whole concept of treating the brain now is no longer valid because if you don't treat the gut you're not going to achieve the changes that you're looking for so that psychobiotic world is something I think is so interesting and not because I want to create the billion dollar drug and you know that's where the real interest is in the research world is like what is this combination of you know bacteria that can reverse you know each one of these diseases the potential is that we actually can already change some of this through ingesting bacteria through being around people with healthy bacteria through fecal transplants which would be the most aggressive way to transplant bacteria but I think that's this is like the most interesting part of this whole thing is that our cravings our mood our you know mental capacity even athleticism can be transplanted through these gut bacteria yeah I mean it's it's really such a wild concept to think that the bacteria that exists in our gut can affect so much of our psychological expression and also so many other things around well being like we already know that being around healthy people sharing food with healthy people being in nature populates a gut in a way that is beneficial we know that exercise for example is like I mean your microbiome those microbes love when we exercise they produce these really beautiful anti inflammatory compounds what we exercise that that give us some of that anti long term health benefit of exercise so there's a lot of potential to apply what we know about how to grow good bacteria to this world of psychobiotics let's talk a bit about where we go from here you offer sort of these five ideas or a five step path effectively let's move through the five different steps here you start by talking about you call it replenish and you reference something that you call this super six here take me into this so we always are talking about what to take out right I'll take out the ultra processed food take out the negative dopamine triggers and all this up but I don't think we get enough clarity because of all the diet wars about what things actually are good for you despite you know what category of vegan paleo carnivore they fit into and so I tried to look at the literature and say okay now that we know we're trying to grow a good gut microbiome because it's communicating with the brain it's going to help us with cravings and hunger and long term help what are the things that actually grow a good gut microbiome and I came down to these six things and some of these things are familiar to people some of these things aren't you know local synolytes for example you might know it as like broccoli or cauliflower but I think that putting it in that category together what the reason for me to do that is that that glucose Cinellate cop out is the one that helps that bacteria grow and so you can pick any one of the things in that category so if you you know are allergic to you know broccoli then you have a different option and there's all these kale heaters online and so I said there was a lot of glucose in the least you can choose and so that's one of them and one of the other ones I actually talk about in there that I think you would really love is the dopamine boosting foods because we know that gut bacteria makes dopamine and can help us with those cravings for negative things by replacing it with foods that actually produce it with positive things so I kind of name some of the you know the foods that you would want to include that kind of help boost up that baseline dopamine level so we're not always just trying to dive into the bag of chips or cookies I think that is really really important and then there's the you know fermented foods there's basically what to be clued without all the noise of you know what's the calories in this what you know is this vegan is this pale I just said sure you could be anything you can pick your food within that category and you can find something that works for you.

Yeah I thought I mean searching you want you mentioned the dopamine supporting foods also because the notion that you can eat something that well then have the bacteria in your gut so like produced dopamine the fact that actually they produced dopamine was interesting to me also that it doesn't actually have to come from your body's own you know like chemistry said it can literally come from the critters inside of you and then move out and then the other thing I found really interesting was the notion that the dopamine that is generated in your gut can then move from your gut out into your body and satisfy the same craving the same sort of like yearning that your brand like it'll make its way up to your brain and give you what you need.

Yeah I was so confused because on one hand you hear most of the serotonin of your body I think is 90% or is producing the gut and most of the dopamine is also producing the gut and but then there was this notion of like but that dopamine serotonin can't get into the brain it's like there's a blood brain barrier right so what I learned was that there's this magical communication system between the brain and the gut that happens five different ways as of today we know five different ways one is through the biggest nerve one is through secondary hormones that travel to the brain kind of like knock on the brain and say like hey produce more dopamine there's direct and burupot cells that send the signal so there's at least four to five I think it's five different ways now that we know that this dopamine and serotonin communicates with the brain and that's also why that's where the immune system made it clear to me what's happening with the immune system so I think a lot of people hear this word inflammation and they're like okay I know that's bad but what does that even mean so if you take it in the context that this dopamine bacteria gut brain connection lens it basically means that when those gut bacteria see something that they don't like or that they don't recognize or that seems dangerous they signal to our immune system they're like walkie-talkie into the cells and they're like I need your help here I don't really know what this is I need to heal this it's usually you know a toxic substance a foreign substance a negative substance then the body sends all of its immune cells a little group of them and then they decide what to communicate with the brain they say okay hey brain there's a problem down here we are and that's literally inflammation that's happening and so what happens is your brain will say all right when it's really inflamed in your gut or somewhere else in your body your brain will shut off the functions of your brain that are unnecessary at that time so it's like when you watch your dog when they're sick they're just kind of lying around both being they're sleeping a lot because they're giving that immune system a chance to heal but then when we say wow this is happening so often with the food that we eat that we wonder why we're tired all the time or that we can't have you know the clear created thoughts a lot of that it's coming from that inflammation that's happening and the gut that's communicated to the brain yeah you talk about the second step in the pathway you call rewiring which is all about stopping the addiction of hunger pathways and use this phrase intermittent reward scheduling talk to me about this the best way to describe this is Vegas right you go to the gambling table and you keep losing keep losing keep losing but that 17th hand is a big hand and you win the big pot right that is the strongest trigger for dopamine wiring so now you want to go back for more because you got that reward and you got that thing person doing me when you went right and you want to recreate that so intermittent rewards are this drama's trigger for dopamine so gambling both have that kind of why you know that's their advantage is that they can really offer you an intermittent reward so when you want to start to rewire your brain you can also use this science so you can start to reward yourself intermittently and the key here is not to anticipate it too much so if you put on a calendar without remembering that's the best like so put it on for next week that on Monday Friday and Saturday you're going to reward yourself with a healthy treat or whatever to rewire that brain or have someone else do it for you that's intermittent unexpected and then you basically I go through kind of a 321 technique of how to best use that opportunity to rewire your brain and part of it really comes down to noticing that there's something that is positive that is giving you a good feeling that is a better choice than the one you had before so basically three days a week where you're you know intermittently rewarding yourself or you should pick you know what three days a month or whenever it is and then doing some kind of cognitive behavioral therapy mixed you know real understanding why this was a better choice this was why you're doing a better job is you really want to rewire that pathway so you have to bring some consciousness to it and that's why cognitive behavioral therapy is so great at changing behavior because you can bring your consciousness to it you learn why you're doing it why this is so great and then the one is just sit down and save for it for that one minute and it's just an exercise in kind of getting being able to save ourselves from this world that is trying to hijack our dopamine pathways and saying like all right but I'm going to do this for myself with positive things it does have to be food based it can be you know a reward on your journey to publication or you know in your relationship or whatever it is it's just a way to kind of help you start to make some better choices yeah so while replenishing was more about like your positive things to add in the rewiring part seems really like the focus is let's actually let's get sort of aware like let's do things that actually make us more aware and present in these behaviors and then just start to make subtle changes in them so that we can be more conscious in the activities and understand what we're doing you talk about the importance of these natural rhythms that we have in our life so often and probably so many people have heard this phrase or Katie and rhythm like we all have this rhythm which is natural to us it's different in each person although they're general as you can make but the relationship between circadian rhythm and our craving cycles I think is interesting circadian rhythms runs most of the of at least 75% of the processes in our brain and body so we are intimately tied to sunlight and darkness for everything we do and there are receptors in your eyes that goes straight to your brain when you see a natural light that make all these changes right away and one of the changes I think is so fascinating is the changes that happen when you're in the brain the changes that happen when you see light there's this melanocyte stimulating hormone that's released in your brain that actually has the power to make you feel more satiated and you know makes you feel more satisfied and intuitively we know this right you go on vacation you're taking a sunny walk or you're somewhere warm and like you just don't feel like craving or eating as much junk or you're just more satisfied it from life in general or whatever it is but there's actually science behind that so you can actually mimic that on a daily basis where you can get a release of alpha and s H in your brain that's going to help you on your journey to you know having a better relationship with drug alcohol chocolate whatever it may be this is interesting right because one way to do is literally just to spend more time outside or get outside as you recommend early in the morning to try and sort of like set your circadian rhythms but even if you live somewhere where it's dark a lot you know where you know if you're in the Pacific Northwest you have very different exposure to sunlight then you are if you're in L.A.

or Arizona or where I am in Colorado but you're not excluded because some of the the internal like the light therapy the full spectrum lighter or blue light therapy does that play a similar role yeah that's it's really easy now to go on to Amazon and get something I think they you can just search happy light and you want 10,000 locks of light at 12 inches from your face that's kind of the magic number you want to sit on under for 20 minutes but it has a great effect remember that for those people who live in the Pacific Northwest or live in a place that's kind of overcast a lot it's still natural light so when you go outside it's still brighter than it is indoors and even though it doesn't seem like that even on a very cloudy overcast day it's about 10,000 locks of light and on a sunny bright side that's about a hundred thousand locks of light and an indoor light is like a thousand so we're talking you know a fraction of what you really need to activate the circadian receptors yeah are you aware of any research that would connect light exposure to the makeup of your gut microbiome yeah absolutely really are that you're yeah need sunlight and they live in these like in the very dark vowels in our body but they absolute they have circadian rhythms and they need input but what they do is they get the input from us because they're not outside so when they they get various inputs to know when it's day time when it's nighttime and they need us to get sun they need us to be in nature and that's an absolute way to grow the good gut bacteria so all of this science is just mind blowing because how do they have no how do they know what time it is or how they like they have their personalities they have cravings for certain foods they need sleep they need sunlight they're living beings yeah it's on the one hand amazing and a little bit terrifying to save time but as long as it's a symbiotic relationship then then that's all good the one thing I want to ask you under under this category and maybe it might not be the right category here is the potential effect of time restricted feeding or intermittent fasting I know that you've spent a lot of time you spoken about that in a lot of different ways in the online space I've experimented with it it's certainly variations have been a huge buzz is there some relationship to time restricted feeding or intermittent fasting and and cravings and is resetting or the circadian rhythms the right category to even talk about that in or is it something different in my world yes because I consider circadian intermittent fasting the ideal way for someone who's trying to reset their cravings hunger pathways because we won we know the gut bacteria need circadian rhythms they need sleep and rest right so you know taking a break from food especially during the evening nighttime hours is highly beneficial for the brain for the digestive system for the gut bacteria most people in America in the late literature are doing it the opposite they're eating late into the night and then they're waking up and not eating for the first half of the day it's not more if you think about it that actually goes against circadian rhythms although they may have some benefits as we know there's some benefits maybe you know weight loss you know some other it just because it's controlled calories but I think if you really are trying to do it for these reasons to reset that mind body connection improve that brain gut health you have to incorporate it in a circadian pattern to actually help that kind of connection I mean it's interesting that you say that because so often when people talk about the thing of intermittent fasting and for anyone who hasn't heard that phrase it's generally a lot of people are talking about trying to restrict their their feeding their like everything that they do to an eight or 10 hour window during the day and most people that I've heard talk about just like the way you're described say well I'll wake up and I'm not going to eat until noon and then I'll eat between noon and eight and what you're saying is maybe we should re examine that maybe actually makes sense to have breakfast and just have a lighter meal and have it much earlier in the day and then like let that be the clothes of the day that might align much better with your natural rhythms just as you like as a human being and also with all the bacteria that helps contribute to have let them function more health like did I get that right or is there something different there is this controversial article that a headline was something like you know intermittent fasting is going to kill you or something and the study you had the headline was talking about a study that looked at people who only one meal a day when they had higher rates of all cost mortality right so makes sense because everyone who I've ever talked to you who eats one meal a day and look and this was true with the study they were unintentionally skipping meals and then they would have a huge late day meal and then eat all the way till they were going to bed or whatever which fits into a lot of people's schedules you know that's still called intermittent fasting but that it was terrible for your cardiovascular system for your hormones and for all cause mortality it so there's a huge upper or because the title and also you know these people were unintentionally intermittent fasting so there are different reasons most of the people were working very difficult jobs there's some food insecurity there so it was a different population of people and what were they eating when they broke their fast obviously all that matters so it wasn't a great study but it just implies what we already intuitively know through circadian rhythm research is that you are supposed to be eating at certain times of the day because even if we're working on night shift every time we get light and put into our eyes our brain resets today and so we're not eternal animals you cannot switch your body functions to become nocturnal no matter how much you try so you're insulin your pancreatic enzymes your digestive hormones they all kind of get to very very low baseline levels after about eight o'clock for most people and so that is a nice way to say hey curve that nighttime eating and watch do a circadian intermittent fast where you maybe stop eating at seven o'clock or and then just do 12 14 15 hours and so you're not just rolling out of bed at 6 a.m.

and having your first orange juice and bar you're waiting for an hour or two and that's really that's all it takes to do overnight circadian best yeah I mean it is so interesting because that is counter to the way that so many of us live or live in especially you know you and I both lived in New York city for a long time with the notion of eating dinner you know before seven or eight at night off and like you just didn't do it like you ate dinner almost right before you went to bed and and when in hindsight you know when you live in a culture and all of your friends and like all of your colleagues follow that same pattern.

There's a social cost to opting out of that that I think sometimes we don't we don't honor like you're making a conscious decision not just to do things that may be better for your health and your well being but you know that may also have people around you raising their eyebrows and saying like why aren't you coming out to dinner with us at nine o'clock at night or doing this and those are all things that we have to navigate and figure out like how important is this to us I think and make those sometimes tough decisions yeah and it's always a balance right being social of being around people that are positive as great for your microbiome it's great for your brain it's great so you really definitely have to balance the health benefits with the social benefits and you know most people I would say can compromise and maybe do a Saturday what you know weekend nights or late dinner but then go back to their earlier dinner is on on weekdays is like a nice compromise I think yeah so flowing from the idea of like the fact that we all have rhythms you talk about sleep also the importance of sleep in the relationship between sleep and cravings and I would have to imagine that anyone who has ever slept horribly woken up the next day and ravenous lately anything that they could put in their mouths to make them feel better and again I'm raising my hand here and like we get that connection but what's actually happening there it's such a great way to describe it because I we've all been there right I had two little kids and I was stressed with medible training and I remember that all I wanted to do was snack and when you actually look at hunger or more levels they're altered in people who have been sleep deprived so your level of growing the hunger of hormone is much higher and your level of leptin which is your you know the feeling of satisfaction is much lower and same thing with CCK neuropeptide by like this is a phenomena that actually is happening is not just in your head like oh like I used to think that I was tired and I wanted sugar and caffeine to kind of wake me up which is partially the story like this is saying like no it's actually your hormones that are flowing through that are telling you your hungerier than you are and that the leptin levels are much lower than they need to be so there's there's there's kind of double amy there yeah so sleep deprivation literally altered your hormone levels in a way that makes you think that you're much hunglier than your actual needs would suggest at that moment right which just makes you think OK I need to elevate my like attention to sleep here and you have a whole bunch of suggestions as well and the last thing you talk about is this notion of retraining and this brings in movement exercise and I think so many of us have heard exercise floated increasingly as sort of you know this is the most powerful quote medicine for almost everything that else us in some meaningful way and again of course acknowledging that every individual has different levels of access to different ways of moving their body and and possibilities and limitations so we acknowledge that and at the same time the research around exercise is powerful and interesting connection between exercise hunger and cravings as well absolutely exercise is your best probiotic your best craving controller you know supplement it is your best mood booster as you know and I think it's shown through the studies about the effects of exercise on the brain are countless what we did it realize is how much the exercise actually even affects your cravings and your hunger and I think that we think of it intuitively as like exercises good for your body but we don't often realize that it's actually taming those hunger hormones or that's actually helping us in this path to understanding and controlling our cravings in a positive way and we get a double in bursts with exercise so not only are we producing more satiation and less of the hunger craving hormones but we're also creating these chemicals in our brain and our gut that are making us feel better and so when I read the research on cravings and hunger and then how it affects the gut bacteria like boost your mood and how it's just a no brain hurts the best probiotic best mood booster the best cravings and the best drug in the system is the best way to get a good appetite and then you know it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just a no brain and it's just 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