The Keto Diet Podcast Ep. #029: Hormones & Body Kindness

April 16, 2017 By Leanne Vogel December 11, 2018

Interview with Kiran Ram, chatting about hormone balancing for women.

 

For podcast transcript, scroll down.

Show Notes & Links

• Feel awesome on your keto diet with The Keto Bundle
• Get my free 7-day keto meal plan
• Subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app
• More from Kiran
• Kiran’s hormone balancing training series

Timestamps

• Signs of hormone imbalance (19:09)
• Birth control options (23:01)
• Steps to balancing hormones (36:53)

Partners of The Keto Diet Podcast

Transcript

Leanne Vogel: You’re listening to episode 29 of The Keto Diet Podcast. Today we’re chatting about listening to your body, signs of hormone imbalance, some suggestions on birth control, steps to balancing hormones and how to navigate hormone balance and really taking care of your body. So stay tuned.

Hey, I’m Leanne from healthfulpursuit.com and this is The Keto Diet Podcast, where we’re busting through the restrictive mentality of a traditional ketogenic diet to uncover the life you crave. What’s keto? Keto is low-carb, high fat diet where we’re switching from a sugar burning state to becoming fat burning machines. If you’re in need of keto recipe food prep inspiration, I’ve prepped a free seven-day keto meal plan, exclusive for podcast listeners. The plan is complete with a shopping list and everything you need to chow down on keto for seven whole days. Download your free copy at healthfulpursuit.com/ketomeal. Let’s get this party started.

Hey, guys! Happy Sunday! I have had to record a bunch of podcasts before I go out on The Keto Diet book tour, and I really love podcasting. I hope you guys are really enjoying some of the stuff we’re coming out with. Thank you so much for submitting all of your survey answers. We’re getting some really, really good ones, and so lots of things will be coming up on the podcast in the fall, so I’m really excited about it, so thank you so much for that. For the people I’ve already met on tour, oh my gosh, amazing! Thank you so much for coming out!

I’m looking into my crystal ball telling you that I’ve already had the best time and that I’m so happy about where the book is at. Because that’s where I feel I’m going to be by the 16th of April, 2017.

The show notes and full transcript for today’s episode can be found at healthfulpursuit.com/podcast/e29. The transcript is added to the post about three to five days following the initial air date of this episode. And let’s hear from one of our awesome partners.

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If you have an idea for a podcast episode or you want to submit praise over and above the review which you can leave me by going to healthfulpursuit.com/review. You can reach me at info@ketodietpodcast.com.

So today’s guest is Kiran Ram, and she’s a U.K. food-mood expert, trained in hormone-balancing for women that marries the best of cutting-edge science with the wisdom of targeted and effective natural healing solutions. She specializes in helping women over 40 across the U.K. understand the effects of hormones on their weight, bouts of extreme fatigue due to disturbed sleep and a sheer lack of energy and enthusiasm toward life.

Kiran is a certified women’s Holistic Health Coach with a specialty in hormone health. She trained in The Gottfried Protocol with Sara Gottfried, and is currently studying at Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. Kiran has been featured in media world-wide, including the Huffington Post U.K., First Class Lifestyle in the U.S., Smart Healthy Women and the I AM WOMAN project in Australia, to name a few.

Kiran has recently hosted the first Hormonal Harmony Summit, reaching thousands of women across the globe, so they can discover a solution to their nagging hormonal symptoms. When she’s not teaching women how to drop their hormone struggles once and for all, you’ll find her painting her fingers green in the garden, traveling and having fun in the kitchen.

So I have tons of questions for Kiran that we didn’t even get to, because I know how many questions you have about hormones, so we just touched the surface. What I love about Kiran’s approach is just her mind-body approach to really addressing hormone health. So if you’re looking for a more balanced approach to your health, and looking at your body from a loving perspective, you’re going to love today’s episode.

If you are looking for more of the science, know that it is coming and I am looking for a guest that can really drill down into a lot of the questions you have about hormones and ketogenic diets. So if you actually have a book that’s your favorite go-to about hormone health, and you think the author would be great for the podcast, please please please email me at info@ketodietpodcast.com and we will get someone on the show to chat more about hormones, because I know it’s something you all really really love and I love it too.

So without further ado, let’s cut over to my interview with Kiran.

Hi Kiran, how’s it going today?

Kiran Ram: Great Leanne, how are you?

Leanne Vogel: I’m doing so great. I’m very very excited to have you on the show today.

Kiran Ram: Oh it’s a pleasure to be here.

Leanne Vogel: Thank you. And for listeners that may not be familiar with your work, why don’t we start off by you telling us a little bit about yourself?

Kiran Ram: Okay. I’m in the U.K., originally from India, and I … it was my own personal journey where I came, ended up doing what I’m doing today. Working with them and supporting them to be healthier, get their hormones balanced and generally have that zest and passion for life; bring that back again.

Growing up, I was suffering from PCOS as a teenager, in India, and at that time … this was in the 80’s, and of course there was nothing to kind of … there was no Google … there was nothing that you could search and get more information, and it started with of course, with puberty, I kind of gained a little bit weight and then my cycles were irregular. Thankfully, the birth control pill in India at that time was a no-no … but it’s interesting that I started developing a rash on my face so much so that I … that condition extended … started from my earlobe and it extended to my entire face and my brother used to joke with me and say, used to kind of tease me, that “oh you kind of become an eighty-year-old woman” because my skin.

It wasn’t eczema, but it had … my skin had become really wrinkly. But of course we didn’t connect it with what’s going on with my changes in my body or if anyone looked at the diet because they didn’t know about that in India at that time. And of course, they took me to the dermatologist to … who just kind of gave me the prescription for steroids, and of course taking steroids for so long, the weight was piling up, and a traditional Indian diet is full of gluten. I remember my dad used to, and now I know when I think of it, it was like, my dad would think that “oh yes, I’m going to make sure that my family eats the best food”, bless him. And he would say that American wheat is the best to eat.

Leanne Vogel: Ohhhh … oh dad.

Kiran Ram: Honestly! And he would … it was the most expensive kind of wheat which we would have in the house, and because everything American is really good kind of a thing, and it has to be good. And not knowing, because now I know the GMO and everything yes. Unknowingly I was being fed on that and that was our staple food. Of course I was constipated so that wasn’t doing any good for my hormones, the PCOS, my blood sugar, and all that kind of escalated. I gained weight with the steroids and the diet and the hormones changing.

And then I went on a big road to lose weight, so I was … I used to go on diet after diet all the time, and again, they all used to laugh at me at home that “oh if she’s irritable, just give her some food, she’ll be happy”, but because I wasn’t at all, all day long, I was literally just having one meal a day in the evening thinking that okay that’s going to … okay I’m going to lose weight. And yes, I did lose the weight, but when I would go back to more “normal” eating, because you can’t just live on the survival mode all your life, the weight would create issues again. So yes, it was kind of going back and forth in diets and weight.

The turning point, I mean this continued for 20 years until I came into the U.K. and I was still that … I’d lost the weight, but in my head, the mirror always said I am big, and I ordered some weight loss pills and when they came it was as if Christmas had come early. I opened the parcel and I took the 2 pills and actually got up after a while. I don’t know how long it was I was lying on the floor, so I’d really passed out with those pills and that was the turning point. I thought, “what the hell am I doing to myself?” But even then, I knew that if I keep … I chucked the pills in the bin in the house in the kitchen, but I knew that I couldn’t trust myself, I would go back and rummage it out and start taking them again, so I actually went and threw them out in the trash can outside the house just to make sure that I wouldn’t go scavenging over there. It sounds sad, but yes.

So that’s when I started looking at nutrition and addressing my own issues and yes, of course now I can see, I had an eating disorder. And once I started addressing that, ditched the sugar, made the changes and started eating fearlessly, I found out that I was a lot happier, I had a lot more energy. I wasn’t that irritable. It was like that peace and calm kind of end and I was making better decisions. So it kind of all fell into place with that and from then on it just led to going deeper and deeper into learning so much that yes, the sugar addiction went away and now it’s kind of a learning addiction, which I’m all in, yes, and no regrets about that. I hope I don’t change that but yeah, that’s where I am, Leanne.

Leanne Vogel: That’s a beautiful story and to kind of see your transition and the passion that you have for taking care of your body. I know. I have a disordered relationship with food, or had one in the past, and it’s a fine balance between taking care of your body and also not getting too caught up with everything you’re learning about nutrition. How have you found that process to be, knowing now that you probably had an eating disorder looking back? How were you able to care about your body while also not becoming obsessed about all the things you should or shouldn’t do?

Kiran Ram: Yes, it’s kind of addressing the root cause. Growing up, breakfast was a no-no to me and my excuse was that the skipping meals was, “I don’t have the time”, but that wasn’t doing me any favors and I know … and it’s a funny thing I noticed and now when I look back into it, you know when you’re learning, when you’re studying, when you’re reading, you kind of connect the dots and you say that “yes, this is where I was”.

I hadn’t even heard of somebody … a condition called Pyroluria, which I found out when I was reading, that it’s zinc, B vitamin deficiency. People who kind of skip breakfast, don’t eat it, they kind of tend to get this. They say “oh, I’m not a morning person” and they can do without breakfast.

For me it leads to a social anxiety disorder so I would decide, I would say that yes, I’m going out to see friends, or I’m going out to a talk or any event and just before that event it would be that I’m starting to look for excuses. I don’t want to go, I want to pull out, and that’s a classic indication of Pyroluria and having this zinc deficiency and so I kind of addressed both. It was a lot of … and now I make a conscious effort, I kind of … it’s there in the back of my head so it’s not that I don’t … that I’m completely, totally on the other side, I’m still, yeah, part … I still kind of do it between … yeah, I do go and end up going back, retracing my steps a bit, but its that yes, I’m going back and that’s when you pull the stop.

What helped me was journaling, and I tell that to all my clients. When you put down at night, just take about 10 minutes and put down things that made you happy; you saw blooming flowers and a bunch of flowers and that put a smile on your face, or what upset you at the end of the day. Don’t sleep with that, just put it down and just let it go and let it go out of your system, because we kind of bend down to comfort, we kind of then seek solace from other things. So be it alcohol, or be it sugar, and then without knowing, we kind of get dragged back to the old, to the not-so-good part that’s going to damage us, how far we’ve come. So, and that really helps. Journaling for me has really helped. It’s a kind of, it marked me conscious and aware of what’s happening and when I need to take a pause, count-

Leanne Vogel: And it sounds like it was natural, like listening to a natural thing versus forcing yourself to go without breakfast and making up those excuses, would you say?

Kiran Ram: Yeah, absolutely, yes it is. I think the more you’re aware and the more you pause and think rather than just going blindly and being thoughtless or shutting down your thoughts, even if any … even if that thought comes to your mind and you-

Leanne Vogel: Dismiss it, yeah. Cause there are rules. I can’t do this or I can’t do that. You just say “Oh, no no, it’s fine”.

Kiran Ram: Absolutely! I say that… “Oh, you’re not good enough” or “You’re not doing this right” or friends who say doing it once, and not really a friend, but a friend in your mind is, not really your friend, but “Yeah go on, do it once. It’s not going hurt you”, or whatever. So you’ve just got to let that voice come and then just say no, it’s your body and you know what’s going to work for you. You know what is right. It’s more of not being in … let control go and being in charge. When you’re trying to control, it’s that tug-o-war going on, you know, winning and losing. Who wins and who loses. So let go of that control, but just that. And that kind of keeps you in charge of what you’re doing.

Leanne Vogel: More on my interview with Kiran Ram after this message from one of our podcast partners.

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Leanne Vogel: So if somebody, you know, I know you specialize and are very passionate about hormones and balancing them and taking care of women’s health. In the same piece, listening to your body and really being kind to it and taking a moment to step back and see what’s going on. Are there certain signs one could look for when it comes to hormone imbalances, or things that people should maybe take note of if they’re noticing these things that might point to hormone imbalance?

Kiran Ram: Of course, yes. Energy levels, if your energy levels are suddenly, you find your energy going down at say 12 o’clock or 2 o’clock or 4 o’clock in the afternoon and you’re going for food ,or then it could be sleep… you’re tired and wired, to you wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and then you go to the bathroom, but then when you come back that sleep doesn’t come, or you just wanted, you don’t want to wake up in the morning, no you want to have a lie-in and you can kind of probably sleep and you feel you can sleep for another couple of hours. You don’t wake up feeling rested. That’s an indication there’s something wrong.

Just so many migraines, I would say moods as well, a lot of time with moods we kind of, you go to anti-depressants, you go to the doctor and they just kind of put you straight on anti-depressants without looking at … I find with so many of my clients it’s been that when they’ve kind of just worked on their diet, on their nutrition, and looked at their hormones, they don’t need that. They don’t need to be on that anti-depressant. I’ve even seen clients being prescribed anti-depressants so they could sleep. And I’m not kidding. It was like, why would they even give you without even looking at the root cause and looking deeper? Why straight away, tear out a prescription so that you could sleep? And there are so many things that you can do.

So sleep, energy, getting these cravings. You go for the pick me up at 4 o’clock, something sweet. You want a lot of them in the evening just to unwind and they would go for alcohol and then of course over a period of time the sleep gets disturbed with the alcohol. Irritable. Constant if you … if there are allergies, infections, reoccurring infections. All of these are signs that there is something kind of not right. And I would say, look deeper at that point. Look at the digestion. It kind of, you know, it’s like an analogy of a donut. It’s the way that your gut is connected to everything, so the hole in the donut, it touches the entire outer circle of the donut. You get what I mean?

So it’s connected. Look deeper and you would find the answers. Be an active partner with your doctor and just, and ask questions. Don’t just take their word for granted. Dig deeper. You need to know so that you can make informed choices and make informed decisions about your health. That’s important, but yeah, common like I said, moods, sleep, energy levels. These are the most common ones that I see when coming … who come to me with these kinds of symptoms.

Leanne Vogel: And with an informed decision, I know that when I found what birth control did to my body, I chose to stop taking it. That was just a personal choice you know, I’d been at school learning about birth control and up until that point, no doctor told me what birth control really did and how it could impact my hormones. Now, there are different forms of birth control and I understand some people need to use different forms, but can we go through what birth control pill can do to your body and maybe if there are other options that maybe won’t affect us as much?

Kiran Ram: Yes. I just finished the Summit, the Hormonal Harmony Summit, and we had a speaker, Holly Grigg-Spall, whose written the book “Sweetening the Pill” as an expert in the interview series and it’s interesting. I’m just going to go back to one of the emails that I received from a listener. She’s a 22-year-old girl and just reading her email, my heart just went out to her. My eyes welled up when I read her email. She was put on birth control pill at the age of 12 to make her cycles regular, and she now is on anti-depressants and she says she kinda of goes with her mood swings up and down, and she’s really struggling, and she wanted to find out more about birth control pills.

Yes, did you have, they are safe to take hormones, yes and we don’t realize it. We don’t know the impact of it and even now, the doctors would prescribe it to make your cycles, when a girl to teenagers to make their cycles regular rather than … it’s a big change. Let the body get used to it. Give it some time for the cycles to get regular. Then look at the underlying causes of what is wrong rather than that it’s straight away giving them a pill to make their periods easier and more regular is not the answer really.

So it impacts your moods, anxiety … a lot of women, they find that it’s increasing their anxiety levels. A lot of time women say seeing friends and clients are with a weight gain as well. They complain of weight gain. It’s basically the birth control pill. It’s interfering with nature. And usually, these birth control pills are estrogen dominant. It’s a synthetic hormone, so yeah you get weight gain, mood swings, the breast tenderness, okay. It might help the pain for periods, but then you end up paying a huge price for it with all these … with the side effects that you get: nausea, irregular bleeding or spotting. Of course pigmentation, as well. Spotty darkening of the skin which happened to some extent to me although I didn’t … I wasn’t on them for long time. I was lucky enough to be warned by a pharmacist friend whose wife had taken it for a long period of time, and then she went on anti-depressants and he kind of connected the dots. He knew. So he took her off and he warned me that just, wean yourself, come off it.

As for … and the birth control pills deplete your body of vitamins and other … they have nutrient deficiencies like B complex vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium and zinc, because when your body metabolizes the birth control pills, our liver needs these other nutrients. It needs more of these vitamins and minerals, so if you’re not taking that, giving back what the birth control pill is taking, it leads to further nutritional deficiencies. And again, weight gain, fluid retention, mood changes, depression, and even heart disease can all arise from these nutrient deficiencies, so it really really is important if anyone is taking birth control pill as well and you say you don’t want to come off it, and the that’s your choice, but make sure you’re giving your body the nutrients that it’s losing with the birth control pill. So give your body kind of what you’re taking … what’s being taken out.

And of course, yeast infections are common as well with women with … that’s a side effect as well with the birth control pill. The alternate I would say, there are just so many apps available these days. I know that some groups in the U.S., not in the U.K. where they teach young girls how to you know, check the mucus and so on-

Leanne Vogel: Cool, yeah that’s awesome.

Kiran Ram: It’s not in the U.K. but then there is Daisy, the fertility monitor. I haven’t tried it because I’ve got my Fitbit tracker which kind of tracks my cycles, I know that, but yeah, the Daisy monitor is a good one, which Holly shared in the Summit in the interview and there are a few apps as well. But if you can, I would say yes, my advice would be to come off the birth control pill. There are safer alternates available which are reliable.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah, I use the Life app and I love it. It’s so great. It gives me alerts when I need to be mindful of things and it’s great. You can put it in your nutrition stuff, like I was craving chocolate like crazy or protein or whatever. It’s really nice and it gives me like alerts a couple of days before so I can increase my carbohydrates. So I can put all that in there so it’s really really nice. Now, for somebody who a couple of years ago, I would not have been comfortable to track my cycles because they weren’t in a place where I could even know when I was fertile or not, what do you think about the IUD or other options? Because IUD is delivered locally, not systematically. So are there other options other than tracking your cycles, that are less harmful?

Kiran Ram: Woo, I’m not kind of quite 100% as well. I would probably say, if I’m not 100% comfortable, I wouldn’t even kind of recommend it. It’s better to use apps and so on. The thing is that a lot of … the pills, okay, it’s just that there’s only … when you’re going to conceive, it’s only that one time, right? We need to really train ourselves and get that and trust our bodies and our learning to look into it. I would say yes, stay away, personally. My personal view would be I would stay away from any sort of birth control, be IUD or be it a pill. I know some people go for the mini pill and so on, I would stay away from any of those. I would probably say use an app or use another Daisy monitor, or so on.

As for the cycles not being regular, initially, yes, then let the man use the condom. Pass it on to them. There might be some risks involved with that, but work with a practitioner. Get your hormone levels tested and work on getting your cycles regular. There is no magic pill. It won’t happen straight away, it takes time, but you’re not just working on that to get your cycles known so you can track it, but it will … a whole range of other benefits. You’re going to get rid of the imbalance, you’re going to be more balanced, you’re going to be healthier. So, keep that as your aim, rather than just getting your cycles normal so you can track it.

Leanne Vogel: Totally.

Kiran Ram: That will come as a bonus, yes.

Leanne Vogel: And before we talk about cycle regulation and the how-to behind this, I know that to set the stage also with menopause, there are a lot of changes that occur during menopause. Do you have different tools and tips on how to make that transition a lot easier for women?

Kiran Ram: My advice to all women would be: look after yourself and your health, don’t leave it till you’re … that transition that’s coming. And then you come up, you end up with all these symptoms. I see in so many forums and groups and I hear from so many women, they kind of blame everything on their hormones and probably listeners may find it harsh when I say that, that yes your symptoms are not, they’re not just happening overnight, because now you’re transitioning into perimenopause, or menopause. They don’t just happen overnight. It happens over a period of time, so start younger, start working, looking after yourself.

For me personally, I found ditching caffeine really really helped because it balanced my cortisol levels, and as a result, it was kind of a ripple effect in my hormones. I’m calmer, my hormones are getting balanced and so on. Cutting out the 1 or 2 toxins, eating … nourishing your body, eating the right nourishing foods for your body, getting rid of the processed junk. Movement, meditation, all these things help. They’ve helped me, they’ve helped a lot of my clients and yes they do work. They do work. And they are a natural, safer way and you’ll find it harder, but yes, it does work.

Again, there isn’t a magic pill and these things don’t happen overnight. Don’t think of menopause as age as a disease that’s being inflicted upon you, but it’s a … I think it’s a time for women to think of it the other way. That’s the time when they can really enjoy life, do the things that they like to do. The kids have grown up. So look at things you wanted to do when you were younger. Hobbies that you wanted to take up, and so on, and channel your energies and interests that way rather than just feeling that oh yes, you’re stuck, your life has no meaning. No life has meaning and there’s so much you can do to make sure that you live a vibrant life full of energy, doing the things that you love, enjoying your relationships, your time with friends, family, and so on.

But start early, don’t leave it till all these symptoms are coming up and then your thinking everything is connected to the hormones, the crazy hormones, the dreaded hormones, but no they’re not. Hormones are your alliance and they control … it’s not just the sex hormones. Hormones control so many other functions of your body, so work with them, they’re not there to work against you. Work with them and give them the support and nourishment they need to so their work that they’re doing in your body. And doing a function, all the organ functions, and everything that’s happening around the hormones, you have to support them to do that.

Leanne Vogel: Yeah it’s really good advice. Not related to hormones, but really tells you how to listen to your body. I have had shoulder pain for the last year and just been like slight, you know, I do certain things and my shoulder hurts and I do certain things and my shoulder hurts and it got like worse and worse and worse and I was thinking it was how I was sitting and I was kind of paying attention to it but not really and then one morning, I woke up and I couldn’t get out of bed because my entire back was completely seized up. It’s like, had I paid attention for the last year and like gone to a massage, and like went to the chiro, and just picked away at it, it would’ve been fine, but now I’m laying in bed and I can’t move, and my book tour starts in 2 weeks and there was just all this stress around it and I think it’s the same thing with anything.

It’s like, if you get to menopause and you’ve been completely ignoring your body up until this point, yeah of course stuff, as you’re changing, things are gonna change and shift and all these things are going to be popping up, so I think that’s really good advice. Wherever you’re at right now, it’s nothing you did right or wrong up until this point, but what is your body telling you and how can we address this?

More on my interview with Kiran Ram after this message from one of our podcast partners.

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Leanne Vogel: Looking at taking care of yourself, and you mentioned some really good strategies, if somebody is, say, in their mid-30’s and they’re trying to regulate their cycle and kind of get into that zone of taking care of their hormones and their overall health, what are some tips that you have for someone that is in that space?

Kiran Ram: For 30’s I would say well, stress is the biggest killer I would say. It really is the key piece which is often ignored, commonly ignored, when it comes to hormone balancing and especially when you’re in the 30’s you think yes, you can kind of take on the world and you do … there’s no stopping you. You’re working long hours and it’s … raising, some of them in their 30’s are raising families and so on. And we often, we do ignore ourselves and we push ourselves to do so much. There’s so much that we take on our plates, but yes. After a certain time, you kind of think, our body says no, take it easy. Slow down. I can’t.

What we don’t realize is yes, the hormones are made from cholesterol and then there was the stress hormones, so our stress hormones are made. Cortisol, the sex hormones, they’re made from cholesterol, and from then on, there’s the cortisol, the progesterone, estrogen, testosterone. Our body is, it’s really smart in a way that survival comes first.

So when you’re going around, and it’s like you’re running away from the tiger, in olden times it was fine, fleeing from a tiger wouldn’t happen that often, but now we’re in a constant kind of this fight-flight response. We are late for a meeting or we missed our flight, we get stressed, we get stuck in the traffic, we get stressed. We’ve had a row with our husband, we get stressed. Kids are … we are late to pick up the kids from school. That adds the stress. It’s kind of constant. The button is just pressed all day long and then our body has to take from somewhere so, of course, as survival is important for body, it will give preference to survival, so where does it get that? It’s going to steal from somewhere. It’s going to steal it from the other hormones. The sex hormones, that’s not that important, so it’s going to shunt more to our stress response, to the cortisol.

Then the sex, it’s not surprising, our hormones get imbalanced and we then, yes, we see the symptoms. We can’t sleep at night, we … our energy levels collapse, our cortisol levels go up, then our insulin, when the cortisol is elevated, that imbalances the blood sugar. So it’s … then we … for energy pick me ups, we go for the sugar and carbs and so it’s a vicious cycle. You’re in that rollercoaster going along all day long. So I would say, yeah, pause. Learn to say no. It really doesn’t matter if you have to say no to some certain things, to your boss or whatever. There’s … you can’t just … take on, take what you can do. And yes, go for massages. Look after yourself. That’s the key that I would say. Managing your kind of stress. Keeping your cortisol balanced at that sweet spot. It would be the first step for balancing hormones I would say.

Then the second I would say, how are you supporting your body? Our hormones get metabolized in the liver, so I would say women again, they don’t look at the estrogen dominance. They would say oh … and especially menopausal women that I work with, they would say to me that you’re talking about estrogen dominance, but my estrogen levels are low. How can I be estrogen dominant? But it’s the relationship to progesterone. It’s a ratio, so it doesn’t matter what your estrogen levels are, but if it’s not related to progesterone then yes you are going to be estrogen dominant. Support your liver and this key is again a lot of women … I ask all of my clients are you constipated? How are bowels? Are they moving? That kind of a thing. Because yes that’s that toxic overload, that toxic burden that you carry and that’s not doing you any good, That’s not helping your hormones at all. You end up feeling bloated. You feel fat. You feel tired. And good health is so so important for hormone balance, balancing.

So look after your gut, balance your cortisol and look after your gut. Those are the first 2 things I would say. Ditch the caffeine. Alcohol I already mentioned should go. Exercise, movement, so many don’t exercise. So find something that you really enjoy, otherwise it seems like a chore. Movement is important, but again if you’re exercising, you need to kind of be sure that it’s not raising your cortisol levels even further. So you need to find that small, that balance, and listen to your body. Your body will tell you.

I’m currently working with a client who just has to exercise, and they have to do intense exercise every day and came to me, this particular woman came to me with migraine problems and it was interesting that when I just said to her, cut down on her exercise or if just for week and see, or just do gentle work. And it was interesting, she came back to me to say that since she’s cut it down, her headaches are gone because it was raising her cortisol levels even further and that was a stressor and that was giving her the migraines. And now she’s cut it down, she’s doing the gentle exercises like yoga and Pilates and so on and that’s really helping her and to kind of … she’s getting that movement and exercise and it’s not elevating her cortisol levels and it’s not then raising her blood sugar and it’s not giving her the headaches.

You really need to … everybody’s unique, you really need to find out what is right for you, rather than blindly following what is being said and what is … there’s no one shoe size that fits everybody. You’re all unique, you’re all different, so find out what works best for you, for your body, and so that.

Leanne Vogel: I love, I’ve never thought of it as shoe sizes. That is perfect. Totally. That’s so perfect. I love that and two, you know, I think a lot of us get really impatient, so I know when I was first getting going with, “Okay, let’s figure out this whole hormone thing cause I’ve had amenorrhea for like 6 years and I should probably figure out what’s going here.” I know that I got really impatient after eating keto for a week. I didn’t get my period back and I’m like okay, well clearly this doesn’t work. Is it fair to say that the longer you’ve been down this path of, you were mentioning high stress and not listening to your body, maybe working out too much. Of course, you’ll see small improvements, but I would imagine, well I’m kind of setting you up for this question because I definitely know that it take years. It takes years upon years to kind of get in that place where even you said now you’re not perfect. There’s still things you’re picking away at, but what’s you’re message to those that are frustrated with you know, I’ve been doing this a couple of months, it’s … I’m seeing little things, but not much, like what’s your message for them?

Kiran Ram: I would say be patient. It isn’t a magic pill. There is no magic diet as well. If there was, then the diet, all these diet companies and programs they would go out of business if there was one diet that would work for everyone. And like I said earlier, Leanne, it takes a while for your body … for you to get to where you are now, wherever you are now in your journey. It’s taken, whether you have all these symptoms showing up or whether there are just 2 or 3 symptoms showing up. They haven’t come overnight, that you went to sleep and in the morning you ended up with those symptoms. They’ve accumulated over a period of time, years even. So, it’s not going to take, maybe 5 years, 10 years ago you didn’t have anything, you were at your healthiest, and now it’s taken 10 years later you are getting all these symptoms. So it’s taken probably, for example, 10 years to get there. It’s not going to take you, know that, it’s not going to take you 10 years to go back to feeling healthier again, but it wouldn’t be 10 days. It would take longer than that.

Again we’re all different, in some it can take months, in some it can even take a year or 2 years, so give yourself that time. Trust your body and trust yourself. You will start seeing the changes. I start seeing the changes even a tiny change. They slept well at night. And that’s a huge thing. And then they see the effect of it they slept well at night, so they are woken up feeling rested and now they have more energy in the morning, so then again you add on to that, that in the past they would have switched on their coffee machine, they would be needing 3 cups of coffee before they could even move, but now, they slept well, they woke up feeling rested, they’ve swapped their coffee with something else and they’ve left their … they’ve ditched their breakfast of having a bowl of sugary cereal or a pastry to something of a good protein breakfast. They’ve added eggs and greens to their morning breakfast, so then their energy levels are sustained, so now they don’t feel that okay they’ve gone to work and come 11 o’clock and they kind of feel low and crashing and oh I need another cup of coffee.

So it’s kind of dependent on that. You need a break, set the foundation, and then you kind of build on that, and as you see each layer and you’re working along that, and you see the changes and yeah, they do happen. You see the changes, they do work, you will get the results. So just work along, give your body the time, and support your body, and you’re kind of putting up the layers and you’re getting where you want to be. But don’t expect overnight that it’s going to work, but don’t give up as well. Just don’t give up. Be gentle with yourself and trust yourself. If you don’t do it, if you go back to your old ways, giving up and kind of, it’s not working, are you really going to achieve what you truly want to achieve? No. You’re not. You’re going to just pull yourself back again and going back again into that hole, and that’s not the way it should be. Life is beautiful. There’s so much you’ve got to live for and do, so why not give it a chance to get there?

Leanne Vogel: Yes, beautifully said, and where can people find you if they want to learn more about what you’re up to and …

Kiran Ram: Okay, they can find me on kiranram.com. I do have a 3-part, 1-year training series that’s coming up tomorrow. I can share the link with you and of course if you share it with the listeners if you want to, so I’ll email you the link, and then there is a full 90-minute webinar coming up shortly just after Easter, where it’s a free-training, so I’ll be going in-depth about balancing your hormones, going through all of the steps, so there’ll be a lot of takeaways probably, and if they’re wanting to find out more about where, how did this start, what do they do, and how do they take it to the next level as they work along so those steps would be laid out in detail in this training. So yeah! I’ll share the link with you and yes, it’s free to join.

Leanne Vogel: Perfect, awesome. Well, we’ll include that link in today’s show notes, which everyone can get at helthfulpursuit.com/podcast/e29. I’ll also include a link to your website so if you’re curious about Kiran and what she’s up to and to join in on that, all the information will be there. So, thanks so much for coming on the show. I could’ve asked you a bazillion and one more questions, so we’ll have to have you again.

Kiran Ram: Anytime, Leanne, anytime. It’s a pleasure.

Leanne Vogel: It’s good to connect with people like you that are so passionate about what they do, so thanks again for coming on the show.

Kiran Ram: Thanks, Leanne. You take care.

Leanne Vogel: And that does it for another episode of the Keto Diet podcast. Thanks for listening in. You can follow me on Instagram by searching Healthful Pursuit, where you’ll find daily keto eats and other fun things. And check out all of my keto supportive programs, bundles, guides and other cool things over at healthfulpursuit.com/shop and I’ll see you next Sunday. Bye!

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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