Chicken or the egg - Gut and hormone issues

The Simplicity Sessions

Welcome back for another bite of Simplicity. My name is Jenn Pike, your host, registered holistic nutritionist, medical exercise specialist, the best-selling author of the Simplicity Project, and the creator of the women's revolutionary health program, The Hormone Project.

In this simplicity bite, we will be discussing an important topic that came up during a Hormone Project team meeting a few weeks ago. One of our program advisors who speaks to women on a daily basis with a primary aim of determining how best we can support them came to the realization that close to every discussion included the relationship between hormone issues and digestion, the gut.

This posed the question of the chicken or the egg, which comes first, hormonal issues or gut issues. Irrespective of which came first, with decades of experience working with women struggling with their hormones, I can attest that digestion is always impacted.

I know this is sometimes so overwhelming because you were never taught this. You were literally never taught anything about your health, other than follow the food guide and get seven to nine hours of sleep and drink some water. But that’s why you’ve joined our conversation today, that is why I’m here, to dive deeper with you so that you may gain a deeper level of understanding for yourself.

So today, I’m going to talk you through four different hormones that can be specifically impacted, or areas of hormones in your body, by the gut. This is because your gut microbiota, your microbiome, influences nearly every single hormone in your body including the ones I'm going to focus on today in bite-size form.

These are your thyroid hormones, your estrogen, melatonin, and main stress hormone, cortisol.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode will be shared in the Online Work with Jenn section of these show notes.

Here are the main topics of this simplicity bite:

• Chicken and the egg
• Hormones specifically impacted by your gut
• Impact of low microbiota on thyroid health
• Your microbiome, a key regulator of estrogen
• Melatonin - it helps you fall asleep and stay asleep
• Our relationship to light
• Cortisol and evaluating your relationship with sugar and starch
• Dirty Dozen
• Test, don’t guess.

Hoping this episode supports you on the path of knowing, accepting, and loving who you truly are. Wishing more simplicity and ease in all that you do!

Please do not hesitate to book in a call with one of our team via https://jennpike.com/thehormoneproject

To book a discovery call via email or send us a question you have, send it to [e-mail], and myself or a member of my wonderful team will reach out to you.

You can connect to this episode on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher by searching The Simplicity Sessions, or visiting www.jennpike.com/podcast.

Join our Free Facebook Group called The Simplicity Sessions Community

Online work with Jenn:

Register for my signature program The Hormone Project and work with me 1:1 to support your health, hormones, and more via the following link www.jennpike.com/thehormoneproject.

Sign up for The Synced Program to learn how to tune your body to the lunar cycle and acquire a multidisciplinary approach to balance your body in less than 30 minutes a day!

Interested in registering for the upcoming Audacious Women program? Send us a message via our website at https://jennpike.com/contact/

Learn more about Jenn’s work:

Jenn Pike

Ignite your Life with Jenn Pike

The Hormone Project

The Simplicity Project Shop for books, DVDs, programs, and much more!

http://www.jennpike.com/

Simplicity TV on Youtube

Quotes:

• “Today, I’m going to talk you through four different hormones that can be specifically impacted or areas of hormones in your body, by the gut, because your gut microbiota, your microbiome, influences nearly every single hormone in your body including the ones I'm going to focus on today in bite-size form. They are your thyroid hormones, your estrogen, melatonin, and main stress hormone, cortisol.”
• “If you have an imbalanced gut microbiome, your thyroid is definitely going to be impacted by this. And some of the things that you might feel symptom-wise will be things like weight, gain, sensitivity to temperature. Your skin gets drier, your hair gets dryer. Your memory gets impacted, your cognition - that sharpness, that clarity, and that focus in your brain, that really starts to diminish, brain fog and constipation.
• “ I'm going to say this at the end of every point that I give you today, you want to make your gut health a top priority.”
• “ If your health is not in its optimal state, then we want to be looking at what are some of those possible triggers of inflammation... like gluten and dairy ...and remove them. It doesn't necessarily mean that as for life, it is for a period of time.”
• “Your microbiome, it's a key regulator in the levels of circulating estrogen in your body, your microbes in your gut, they actually produce an enzyme that's called beta-glucuronidase and that converts estrogen into its active forms.”
• “Estrogen is a potent promoter of tissue growth throughout your body.”
• “Melatonin helps you fall asleep and stay asleep. That melatonin, in order for your body to actually produce a sufficient amount, needs plenty of serotonin. This is the hormone that helps to regulate your mood. And over 90% of your serotonin is actually produced by your bacteria that lives in your gut, not between your ears, not in your brain, which we were taught.”
• “Our relationship to light is very important to help to regulate all of the various systems and the organs and the hormones in our body.”
• “Melatonin is one of our primary antioxidants. So it's really important to also help with our immune system.”
• “In relation to cortisol, you have got to evaluate your relationship with sugar and starches”
• “Purchase organic wherever possible - if you're on a budget and you need to start somewhere, download the app from the environmental working group, look up the dirty dozen.”

Additional Information About Jenn:

Jenn studied and graduated with honors in Human Anatomy and Physiology with such a passion that it propelled her to continue her education over many years. Jenn is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Medical Exercise Specialist, Registered Yoga Instructor and Faculty of the Toronto Yoga Conference, Pre & Post Natal Yoga Expert, STOTT Pilates trained instructor, Twist Sport Conditioning Coach, Spin Instructor Crossfit Level 1 Coaching, among other certifications she got along the way. She is also a guest Holistic Expert for Breakfast Television, Global, CHCH, Rogers Tv, and writes columns for STRONG Fitness Magazine, iRun magazine, Savvy Mom and contributes to Inside Fitness Magazine, The Toronto Star, and Sun. She is also a proud educator and ambassador to Genuine Health, Nature’s Emporium, and Juice Plus.

Jenn is a proud mama to two beautiful souls and her best teachers of life. She resides on Lake Simcoe in Keswick with her husband and two children.