Unlock The Mysteries of Female Fat Loss And Set Your Spirit Free

The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin Dunston

In this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, Karen Martel, a Certified Hormone Specialist & Transformational Nutrition Coach, joins us to provide insights on how to unlock the mysteries of female fat loss. In a candid conversation, Karen shares her journey of struggling with health issues and how she overcame these challenges to become a leading expert in women's hormone health and weight management.
Throughout the episode, Karen provides invaluable information on methods to balance and optimize hormones in peri and post menopause, and breakthrough weight loss resistance. Her practical tips and advice make a considerable impact on women's lives struggling with similar issues.

Karen's passion for helping women improve their hormone health stems from her own experiences, and her approach to women's health is bold and practical. She is the host of the top 100 rated women's health podcast, "The Other Side of Weight Loss", where she shares her deep knowledge and expertise on female fat loss and hormone imbalance.

Episode Highlights:
- Unlocking female fat loss secrets
- Understanding hormonal challenges in peri and post menopause
- Overcoming weight loss resistance
- Karen's personal journey and experiences
- Bold and practical approaches to women's hormonal health
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for more expert insights and breakthrough approaches in women's hormonal health!

Speaker 1 (00:00):

What if you could break through weight loss resistance with a novel bioidentical hormone, would you try it? Stay tuned to find out if I would.

Speaker 2 (00:10):

So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:03):

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today as we're going to dive into a novel tool that's a bioidentical hormone that could help you lose up to 5% of your body weight in fat. Wanna know about it? Sure you do. Right? We always wanna look for all the natural options that could help us safely and effectively be more healthy. Right? If that includes losing weight, lose weight, regain energy, right? All the things you still gotta do all the things, but maybe this is something that can give you a little boost. We're gonna dive into that in this episode. And our guest today, Karen Martel, is gonna tell us about it and you're gonna see if I'm gonna try it or not and would you try it or not. So we're gonna have some information on that.

Speaker 1 (01:51):

But we're also gonna take a little tour off the main road that we usually talk about when we talk about breaking through weight loss resistance. And that has to do with the intangibles related to losing weight. The intangibles related to going from perimenopause to menopause, all the intangibles related to every symptom or disease that you might have. What are those? Well, the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that are driving or supporting that energetic disruption. That is the symptom that you have, whether it's excess weight or you've got diabetes and your pancreas isn't functioning well, or you name the disease or symptom. There's some underlying spiritual, if you will, or energetic, cause we're gonna dive into that too. As my GE guest today, who is a weight loss resistance specialist has a lot of experience with that, as do I on my journey. It really is something that you will come to face yourself when you're healing from disease, if you're doing it right, and if you want the optimum outcomes, it really is key.

Speaker 1 (03:01):

So I'll tell you a little bit about Karen, then we'll get started. She's a certified hormone specialist and transformational nutrition coach and women's weight loss expert. She's got a top 100 rated women's health podcast. It's called The Other Side of Weight Loss, where she helps women to unlock the mysteries of female fat loss and hormone imbalance. She struggled with her own health issues, but she was determined to bring her knowledge to others with a bold new approach to women's hormone health and weight management. Her passion lies in helping women balance and optimize their hormones in per and post-menopause and breakthrough weight loss resistance. Yes. Please help me welcome Karen Martel to the hormone prescription.

Speaker 3 (03:44):

Thank you very much for having me, Dr. Kyrin. I'm very excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (03:49):

Yes, we talk about weight loss resistance. It's such a problem for women once we hit 40 and midlife and we age, and you really have some unique perspectives on some tools that are novel that can assist us with this weight loss resistance, and also how to address something that most people aren't aware of as an issue for them around weight loss at midlife. So maybe actually you can start by sharing a little bit about your journey and how you zeroed in on hormones and weight loss resistance and all things that we, women over 40 are concerned with .

Speaker 3 (04:26):

Yes, . Well, mine actually started, of course, had to start early for me in my thirties after the birth of my first child. I, you know, lost the pregnancy weight, but about a year and a half into it, I just, very suddenly, within a few months time, I rapidly started to put on weight and I had not changed anything. And I was experiencing not only weight gain, but I was having severe insomnia, really bad PMs, anxiety, depression, gut problems. And I did what every woman is told to do. I started to exercise like a mad woman . I started pretty much starving myself, trying every diet under the sun, calorie counting. I had always been a really healthy eater. So it wasn't like, it wasn't because I had changed my diet or was eating McDonald's every day and I was working out probably harder than I'd ever worked out in my life.

Speaker 3 (05:25):

And I only continued to gain weight. And I went to the doctor, I was put on an antidepressant, I was given a sleeping pill and kind of told to, you know, go on my way. And nobody at that time would've told me I was 33. Nobody would've said, Hey, maybe this is your hormones. And after a lot of struggling and a lot of different diets and exercise programs, I decided that I had to take matters into my own hands. And I started digging into research and decided, I think this has something to do with my hormones. And so I ended up going to a naturopath and having my hormones tested through saliva testing at the time. And it came out that I was, you know, super low on progesterone, high estrogen, and I had very low cortisol and D A T A, which I'm sure your listeners are familiar with, those two hormones and those are your stress hormones.

Speaker 3 (06:24):

And there I was just doing everything wrong. According to that hormonal profile, I was doing high amounts of cardio. I'm starving myself. I later found out that I also was hypothyroid and had no idea, which also those two things would've perpetuated that. So I had to go, okay, I have to make a serious shift because I didn't even think I was a stressed out person. So I started, I quit the, the hardcore CrossFitting and starving myself. And I actually started doing yoga all the time. I started asking for help. And the biggest piece of that puzzle was I started to really look at the spiritual side of what was happening. And I realized that there was a lot of things that I had not dealt with from my past. I had always had really bad self body image. I had an eating disorder as a teenager, I had sexual abuse.

Speaker 3 (07:24):

There was a lot of things that Karen had not dealt with. And so I went on a bit of a journey and I will tell you, it was not quick. There was no quick fixing this. And it took probably a good year of like really working on these things, slowing down, like looking at the spiritual aspect of things, dealing with some of the past stuff that the weight finally started to slowly come off. Mm-Hmm. . And I came out of that experience just going, there's gotta be more women like me. There's gotta be more women that are doing everything right that are not, you know, closet eating or eating McDonald's mm-hmm. and all of these things that, that they are eating, right. That they're exercising and they're not able to lose the weight. And so it kind of, it threw me into this world of nutrition.

Speaker 3 (08:13):

And then at the age of 42, I started to go into menopause and overnight Wow. Yeah. Overnight I had my thyroid crash on me and I started missing my periods. I started having hot flashes. I was, I gained two months and was like, what the heck? Because I really didn't think, I said at that point in time, I had been, you know, 10 years nutritionist, weight loss coach, like doing everything right. I don't drink, I don't, you know, dealing with the, the mental stuff, sleeping well. Like I, I really had all the boxes checked and then behold it happens again. And so that sent me on a mission to find out, okay, what's happening with my, my hormones? Why am I going into menopause so early? I was able to reverse it and I, at 47 today, I still have my period and I'm doing well. But it was a big eye-opener. Both times that when that happened to me, and I just, I know now work with so many women that very similar things have happened to them too, where they're, they are really healthy and they're trying to do things right, but they can't get that weight off. So

Speaker 1 (09:22):

Yeah, that period is that fifth vital sign. And when it starts going wonka donk, that is your sign emergency. Something is wrong. Just like if your pulse is sky high or your respiratory rate or you have a really high fever when your period, it really should be like clockwork. Your body has a timing mechanism where your period should come every, you know, 28 days or whatever is normal for you. And when it doesn't and it stops or it's late or it's irregular, that really should be your sign to look for the cause, not to get on a synthetic hormone. Just shut up your female system. Right? Everybody's heard me say that don't get on the birth control pill

Speaker 3 (10:08):

Or

Speaker 1 (10:09):

You know, the vaginal ring or devil shots like was done to me for decades. That's not the answer ladies. It's really not the answer. You gotta find the cause. So yeah, you hit that wall wow. At 42 and that, you know, bring drive home. Another very important point I wanna point out is that a lot of times if you go to a corporate or mainstream doctor with that scenario, they're just gonna say, oh yep, you're going into menopause. Oh well it's just biology. There's nothing we can do. And they're not going to investigate it. But you know, what you just heard Karen say was that she found the underlying cause she remediated it and then she had got her periods back and it wasn't menopause. So you don't wanna go into hormonal poverty any sooner than you have to, cuz then you have to face the consequences of them.

Speaker 1 (11:01):

So let's dive into, you mentioned some of the spiritual things. Let's dive into that cuz that's something we haven't talked about on the podcast that I think is super important. And then after that we'll dive into this novel tool that really is very hot and late breaking tool that you can use to help your weight loss resistance and lots of other problems in health that a lot of people don't know about. So we'll dive into that next, but what were some of your understandings that you learned through that period that you just described about the spiritual nature of this change you were going through?

Speaker 3 (11:37):

Yeah, I mean for my, myself personally, and I think for so many women that body self-image was a huge piece that I had to really look at. And I had self-abuse myself for a very long time. I was an alcoholic, I was a drug addict. Like I said, I had been raped, I had very bad eating disorder. I was bulimic for many years and I hadn't looked at any of that. I just literally had numbed myself and just pushed it away and thought, well I know that that's not good and that I probably am a little bit messed up from it, but I recognize that that wasn't a good thing. So I must be fine , I don't need to go back and really pick it apart. But I did and I had to. And it took a long time. I mean, like I said, it wasn't easy.

Speaker 3 (12:24):

I had to, I was in therapy for seven years and it was, it wasn't traditional therapy. I did a lot of what connected with me. I had started with traditional therapy and then I moved into spiritual therapy and I started seeing an energy worker. That was life-changing for me. And that's what really connected with me. And I really highly recommend that women find somebody that's gonna connect with them. Because I think a lot of the time women don't look at these problems because they don't, they immediately think if, if I'm going to go down that road, I gotta go see a therapist and I don't wanna do that. I'm not gonna go talk to somebody about my problems doesn't work, what are like, they have some issues around that. And it doesn't have to be that. It could be something completely different. E every single one of us is different.

Speaker 3 (13:12):

I've had, I've seen people that have gotten so much help just from body work, like going or doing yoga. Like there's so many things that you can do to connect with self. Mm-Hmm. , it doesn't have to look like that. And for some people that does work. So I think it's important to look at all of these things in, if you are continually running into the same problems over and over again, that's your sign. That's your sign that you are not looking at something that you need to look at. So if you are continually looking to the next best diet, constantly failing at that diet, constantly gaining the weight back, or maybe it's something completely different where it's just like you have this repetitive pattern of somebody wronging you constantly or getting yourself into the wrong relationships with the wrong partner. These are your big warning signs that hey, you're not listening. There's something here that you're not learning from, that you're not looking at that you have to deal with. And then, and if you don't, it's gonna keep happening over and over again and likely worse.

Speaker 1 (14:22):

Yes. And you know, I identify with a lot of the things that you shared. I'm wondering for everyone if you could talk about what you mean by spiritual. Because some people hear that and they're like, oh, that's not religion. I'm religious, I'm ex religion, I'm not gonna hear this, I can't hear this because spirituality is anti-religion. So maybe you could address that. So what do you mean by spiritual aspects? What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (14:50):

It can mean religion. I think that spirituality, I think religion is under that umbrella. So what it's whatever feeds your spirit. So if that is religion, no matter what religion it is mm-hmm. , that could be maybe what you need to connect more with. If that's what connects with you. If that's God, if it's Buddha, whatever it is, then maybe that's the road that you need to go down. Maybe you have to go talk to your priest or go talk to go get into a Bible study group wherever it might be. But if that's what is your thing, then that's great. Spirituality for me is personally my soul. What purpose am I here on earth for? I think we're all here to love and to learn. And I think that if we don't learn these things, that we're gonna have to come back in our next life and learn them again or try to learn them again. And that's my belief. I believe that there is a God, I think there was a Jesus, I think there was a Buddha. So I have this kind of like mix of all the religions put into one. But spirituality is more than what what you see here. It's that intuitiveness, it's what's going on inside. It's your heart, it's love, it's, and it can be your religion as well. So that's personally the way I see it. I don't know about you Karen, when, how do you see spirit ?

Speaker 1 (16:06):

Oh yeah. I mean to me it's the part of us that enlivens the human form that we're in, that we get to use while we're in this, on this earth plane. And it represents all of who we've ever been and ever will be and what we're meant to express in this lifetime. What we're meant to experience, the people we're meant to come in contact with. And to me, when I talk about the spirituality of perimenopause or menopause or the spirituality of any disease, I think there is a spiritual lesson in, in every symptom and disorder that we can experience. I'm talking about looking for the deeper meaning that isn't obvious, right? If you, when I weighed 243 pounds and I looked in the mirror, well you could, I could see I was morbidly obese. Right? But what's the meaning? What's the meaning behind that? More than, oh, I had hormonal imbalances is I had toxicities, I had gut dysfunction, I had all these physical causes contributing to it.

Speaker 1 (17:08):

I had energetic causes, right? Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, all garnered from past experiences that I had had that led me to certain belief systems. So it's interesting with obesity, they found in some of the studies, I think his name is Filetti, who did some of the research on this. And he just happened to notice that 80% of the women in, in the study he was doing on obesity had been sexually abused. And that's ultimately what I think led to the ACE trials, the adverse childhood experienced trials. Cuz they were starting to see this link between adverse childhood experiences, emotional psychosocial experiences, and physical health problems. And then when he, he noticed this 80% incidence of childhood sexual abuse among these women in this study that were obese. So to me it's really looking at the deeper meaning. And so how did that show up for you? Mm-Hmm. in terms of what you were going through right Here are your 42 mm-hmm. , your body's getting ready to go into menopause, which is on average nine years early, your thyroid shut down. And so what did that look like for you? Mm-Hmm.

Speaker 3 (18:19):

The thyroids energetically signifies your voice chakra. So we have these energy centers in our body, and this isn't woowoo, this is science. We have energy centers throughout our body. And the voice chakra sits right where your thyroid is. And I think that this is, I personally think this is why so many more women have it than men have thyroid problems, is because we don't tend to speak our mind as much as men do. We tend to stuff things down. We're not, we're taught that, you know, maybe not to voice our emotions so much. And I, looking back at my history and all the times I didn't say anything when I wanted to say something, when I wanted to stop that person from abusing me, when I had so much self-hatred for myself, I did not think that I was capable of being loved even. And that I think was really tied up in my thyroid.

Speaker 3 (19:16):

And I don't think it was something that I dealt with over those first few years of therapy. I don't think I, cause the thyroid thing didn't come in until later. And then I was like, oh, I'm not surprised that I have a thyroid problem. And I didn't address it. And so I really think it was my body going, n you have to pay attention to this now. This is, you have to start speaking your mind and you have to start loving yourself. And it sounds really like, oh, so cliche, oh, love yourself. But looking back at my history, I never did. I never loved myself. I had always hated my body. I always critiqued it. I didn't trust myself. I didn't, there was so many things that needed to be unpacked. And coming into my forties, going into menopause and gaining that much weight, especially as a weight loss coach, that was super hard on my ego.

Speaker 3 (20:09):

And I knew that no matter what I did, this was interesting. No matter what I did, I would not have lost the weight then I knew it. So every time I would like go, oh, you know, the, the old patterns would start to come up and I'd say, oh, I, I better start, you know, cutting down on the calories and we better start working out harder. And then I'd be like, Nope, stop. Don't do that. Because then that's like going back into that old pattern of dieting and thinking that that was the answer. Cause for me it's, it wasn't, and I knew that, I knew that there was something emotional, like you said, like there's always something emotional to every medical problem, every chronic ailment that you've got. I really truly believe that there is going to be an emotional component to it. Whether it's the full root cause, whether it's just a third of it, who knows. But there's always something emotional or something that, that your body is trying to get you to look at in your life.

Speaker 1 (21:07):

I totally agree with that 100%. And some of the things that you said, I wanna, let's go back and talk about this. So, you know, you very are very open and very freely shared some of your struggles earlier. And then you said, I hated myself. And the average per woman, if you ask her, do you hate yourself? She's gonna say no. And if you ask her, do you love yourself? She's gonna say yes. So I'm thinking we probably, because that probably would've been me at one point also. And then there was a point where I realized, no, I actually treat myself as if I hate myself, . And so what does that mean? What does, how would a woman identify, oh my gosh, I behave as if I hate myself. And the whole cliche, like you said, of self-love, we tell, we hear that so much, but really what does that mean on a day-to-day, day basis? Maybe you even take some instances, well, oh, here's something that I dealt with and here's how I treated myself with hatred around that, and here's how I now treat myself with love. So maybe we could have a little richer, more in depth discussion on that.

Speaker 3 (22:11):

Mm-Hmm. , I think people, women can recognize it because you have to tune into how are you speaking to yourself all day long. Right? Pay attention, like most of it is subconscious, but pay attention to, and I, and we're gonna get into this, is, I just recently lost a bunch of weight and it's so interesting to me to, to realize that I still have these like nagly little self-talk bull crap inside of me. . It's like, you know, I just go lose a bunch of weight, even though I was, you know, I, I was looking good and, but I lost weight. And then I caught myself looking in the mirror, not even realizing going, I wish I, I could lose a little bit more weight right here on my, the back of my arm. And I was like, oh, Karen, how dare you say that you just lost 10 pounds off your body and you, how dare I?

Speaker 3 (23:06):

And I was so ashamed and I felt so guilt. I was like, what, what? How can I even think that? And so I had to look at it and be like, where's that coming from? And I'm like, it's coming from the fact that I've done this for the last 30 years of my life. I've looked in the mirror and I have cut myself down. I, it's al it's never like, Hey, I'm looking good. Look at how great my stomach looks. I'm looking so hot. Like, it's usually like, we don't do that. We right. We pick up the one or like many things, whatever it is. But you'll, you'll nitpick. You'll be like, what's this freckle doing here on my face? , you're just, you'll find anything. And sometimes women, it's a lot, it's not one thing. It's their whole body that they look at and they hate.

Speaker 3 (23:54):

They're going, what? Look at my stomach, look at my legs, look at my cellulite, look at my hair, look at my wrinkles, look at my chest, look at my breasts. Like it's never ending. And so ask yourself like, how, how is your day spent talking to yourself? Are you constantly worried about your weight? Are you constantly worried about the food that's going into your mouth? Are you constantly going, Ooh, I'm gonna start this tomorrow. Ooh, I'm gonna eat better today. I'm gonna eat better tomorrow. I'm gonna start the diet next week. Because I think majority of women do this, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 1 (24:28):

Yes. And you know, I love the litmus test for that because it's such a habitual way that most of us think when we look in the mirror, we're not looking for what we love. We're looking for the things we don't like that we need to fix so we can be perfect. Would you say that to a friend? Would you say your friend says, oh Karen, I lost 10 pounds. Look I lost 10 pounds. And they proudly come before you and you go, you know what? Yeah. But you've got fat on the back of that arm and you need to lose that. What would your friend say to you? She would not be your friend anymore. Right. That's how you know you're hating on yourself.

Speaker 3 (25:06):

Yeah, exactly. And, and hate's a strong word, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:10):

,

Speaker 3 (25:10):

You know, like how much are you loving on yourself? Maybe ask that. How much are you actually just going like, you are rocking it. You look so fantastic. I had a friend last year who was desperately trying to lose weight. She was eating, trying to eat right. She was exercising. And then I didn't talk to her for like a month or two. And when I saw her, she had lost weight. And so I'm thinking like, oh, all my tips are working for her. Right? And she said, you know what Karen? I wasn't losing weight no matter what I was doing. And she said, so I, I stopped thinking about it. Instead I would get myself naked and I would stand in front of my mirror and I would tell myself how great I looked. And she said, I did that consistently . And she said, and the weight started coming off. And I was like, wow, .

Speaker 1 (25:58):

It's so true. One other thing I noticed, I just wanna share cuz I know some people listening are gonna be like, oh my gosh, I do that too is so I had been traveling and not been able to keep to my eating and exercise schedule and I gained a few pounds and then I came to a city here in Argentina where I could kind of get settled and get to a good gym and eat like I like to eat. And so I just started doing, doing the things that I do for my health. And then I started seeing that weight come off, come off. And I was very pleased. But instead of just continuing to love myself and give my body what it needed, I turned it into a project and I'm like, oh my gosh, I lost five pounds. I bet I could lose another eight pounds this month if I up my gym.

Speaker 1 (26:44):

And I cut my intermittent fasting to only eating four hours a day. And before I knew it, I had made myself in my progress into nothing. And I had made myself into a project and objectified myself instead of just loving myself and giving my body what it needs. Because I know she'll go to what the weight she likes. And I know there's some people listening going like, oh my gosh, I do that too. So you're not alone. But then what is the loving thing to let go of that I don't stop, I'm not, I don't usually weigh myself. Why did I even get on this scale? Right? It's not loving. So now I don't, not

Speaker 3 (27:21):

Not on

Speaker 1 (27:21):

The scale, right? I'm still in in Buenos Aries and I just go do the exercise and give my body the food it needs. That's loving. So how does a yeah. Self love look. How would you explain that? What kind of actions would it be?

Speaker 3 (27:37):

I think both with my, both times there when I was in my thirties and when I was in my forties, when I remember getting to a point even in my late thirties where I realized that I was still trying to lose weight even though I was at 128 pounds, that was my weight set point. It would never move from that. It would be like I would try something extreme, I'd lose some weight and it would just go right back to 1 28. And I just kept doing this for years. And I was constantly like, I wanna get down, I wanna get down. I shouldn't be this weight. I should be 1 25, I should be one 20, whatever it might be. And then I remember this one day, it just dawned on me, I'm like, this is where my body wants to be . It's not a super skinny little person.

Speaker 3 (28:20):

And I never will be. I never have been, I never will be. So quit trying to get down to this unrealistic weight. And I'm like, what, Karen, are you really willing to do what it would take to be 120 pounds? Like I would have to starve myself. I would have to, I I, even if I did, I still don't think I would've gotten down to that. And I let it go cuz I was like, I can sit here and spend the rest of my life trying to get down to this fricking number on the scale because I feel like that's how I should look. Or I can accept where I'm at right now and work on just accepting that. And so I did and I did great. And for many years I was, I was very pleased with where I was at till I hit my forties and I, and I gained the 15 pounds and then I immediately started to hate on myself.

Speaker 3 (29:11):

But I did the same thing where I, I knew if no matter what I was gonna do at that time, I wouldn't have been able to lose the weight. And so I worked on loving myself and I worked on sharing that message. And I think that that really helped because menopausal women, perimenopausal women and menopausal women, I really believe that it's very normal for us to soften a little bit. It just is men do. So why can't women? And it's not realistic to think we're gonna look like we did when we were 20, when we're 50. It's just not, and it's okay to soften a little bit and we need to start accepting that and having that be the normal where we can look at women that are in this midlife go and go, they look beautiful because I do, I look at women my age and I think they're beautiful when they're healthy.

Speaker 3 (30:10):

And so I just kept telling myself that is, I'm gonna be healthy. I'm gonna still eat right, I'm gonna still exercise, I'm gonna still do yoga and I'm gonna be healthy. And I had super clear skin and I, and I looked good. And yes, I was more overweight than I wanted to be. And I knew that that would come off eventually. And it did take a couple of years and it was slowly started to come off. And I still was though accepting. Cause I still wasn't down to 1 28. I still accepted that I needed to, that it was okay for me to soften a little bit mm-hmm. because I was getting older and that's okay. I wasn't overweight. Mm-Hmm. . I, but I had softened.

Speaker 1 (30:52):

I mean, I think if you do want to be the same as at 60 as you were at 20, you can do it. It's just, do you want to do it? I will say, I wanna ask you this cuz I, I don't know how old you are now. I'm in my fifties 47.

Speaker 1 (31:07):

Okay. So my generation, I guess that's your generation. I don't know if we're, I'm a baby boomer. I think we had some pretty unrealistic expectations of what weight we were supposed to be at any age. Yeah. Literally we had, you know, those little Barbie dolls where you could wrap your little pinky finger around their waist. And for my whole life, I thought because my thighs touched and I didn't have a gap thigh gap, there was something wrong with me. But now the, there were earlier, more recent generations, they really accept themselves. And I love some of these kind of TV and internet stars where they're big and beautiful and bold and they love themselves and nobody judges them and they're just accepted for who they are and their beauty. And I, you know, I don't know how you overcome the conditioning we went through, but any thoughts on that you'd like to share?

Speaker 3 (31:56):

Yeah, you could look like you did when you were 20, but what is it gonna take to get there? Like, how much suffering are you going to to have to go through and, and, and it's just not realistic. And I always tell women like whatever their numbers that they're trying to get down to, I asked them, when was the last time you were at that number and how long were you there for? Because usually it's like, oh, well I did this really extreme diet when I was 25 and I got down to 115 pounds, so I think that's what I'd like to be at because I love the way I looked. I'm like, yeah, I bet you did. But is that realistic? No, that's not your set point. So I just think be realistic about it. Be okay with softening a little bit. I'm not saying you have to accept being, you know, 300 pounds or two.

Speaker 3 (32:40):

Like I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that there is a place where you have to begin to accept where you're at because it likely will not change. Like you can only get down to that set point. Maybe that a healthy set point that is still maybe in your eyes overweight, even though it's only like five to 10 pounds or 15 pounds overweight maybe for you. But could you just work on accepting that and loving yourself for that? And just focusing on being healthy and feeling really good. And that's, I think, a really hard thing to ask women really, really hard.

Speaker 1 (33:18):

And what about the cultural norms that we grew up with, with very skinny barbies and a very skinny twiggy kinda expectation of what the definition of beauty was and what we should look like? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:30):

Well I, I ask you then, all of you, how many women do you know that look like that? Especially in their forties, even in their thirties, how many women did you know that were stick thin and had a perfect model figure? I can count like two friends out of all my friends that looked like that. Most didn't. So it's more normal to have curves than not to have curves. And we just see it in the magazines as these, this 1% of society of women that ha that were literally born genetically superior and that have those shredded bo like, they just come out looking fantastic and never have to worry about their weight. So it's more normal to be curvaceous and we have to tell ourselves this, that, that, that is what's normal. It's not normal. And, and look at men, geez, the discre, like between men and women.

Speaker 3 (34:24):

I just, it drives me nuts that men, all of my guy friends right now, they're in their forties and fifties. They've got the bellies. They're not getting Botox, they're not doing plastic surgery, they're not concerned . Like, they're just riding along, you know, and we look at them and oh, they're handsome with their gray hair. But yeah, women, we start to age and we're looked at like, Ooh, no, no, you better get your Botox. You better. Not that I'm saying anything wrong with Botox, I do get myself, but you know, like the pressure on us is far more right. And you have to remind yourself, like, I remind myself all the time, like, my husband's not doing all of these things. So take it easy on yourself. Don't feel like you have to too. Mm-Hmm. , this is the time in our life, like talking about spirituality.

Speaker 3 (35:11):

This is a time in our life where we, it's all about us finally. You know, like we in our twenties and thirties, it's all about our career, having children, getting married, and a lot of the time, right? We, we've, at this point, we've figured out if we're keeping the man or we're getting rid of 'em or, or, or your wife, whatever it is. And as we go into these years, our hormones start to shift. And I really think that this is is a calling to start paying attention to yourself, to start paying attention to your health mm-hmm. and let it be about you. You know, your kids are growing up, they're getting older. If you have children, you know, your ki your ki you figured out your job at this point. So let these years be about you because these can be the best years of your life. You know, we talk a lot about the bad, about the weight gain, about the hot flashes, the, the low sex drop, all the things that come with losing our hormones. But there's so much good that can come out of these years. These can be the best years of your life if you can start to take care of yourself and treat yourself with love. Like, it, it is, it's the time to do this and to work on these things. I really, really believe that.

Speaker 1 (36:21):

So one of the things that you shared with me before we started, I said, oh, we have to talk about that, that you can do to love yourself and really help yourself be your best as you age is peptide therapy, particularly if you're experiencing weight loss resistance. And I thought that is something that we should cover and talk about in this episode. So tell me how you became introduced with peptide therapy to help weight loss resistance. Yes.

Speaker 3 (36:49):

So we have actually a, a peptide weight loss program now because it started last year when I had a client who had Hashimotos. She was one of those women that was doing everything right, eating right, exercising, could not lose the weight no matter what she did. She had optimized her hormone, she optimized the thyroid, could not get the weight off. And we have, we, I hadn't seen her for a couple months, we have this session together and she just lost 17 pounds, . I said, how the heck did you do that? She said, Ozempic. And I'm like, what's Ozempic ? I hadn't even heard of it. So she tells me what it is and it's a weight loss peptide. And so then I went on the search of what the heck is this? And I started googling it and finding out for myself and thought, wow, this is amazing.

Speaker 3 (37:38):

I'm gonna give this a go. So I try it for myself and it was a complete disaster, to be honest, . I actually ended up getting severe migraines from it. I felt super sick, didn't lose any weight the first couple weeks. So I was like, well of course this isn't gonna work for Karen. Lo lo and behold, like, not shocking at all. Right? So I then started to recommend it to other client, other perimenopausal, menopausal women that I knew that had tried everything. You know, like they had done all the work and every single one of them were got results. And it was, it's, it was like, wow, this is amazing. So then fast forward to now, we've created our own, we like weight loss peptide program because it, I, it really truly just blows my mind how well these peptides work. So I have now gone to the other one, which is known as Manjaro.

Speaker 3 (38:34):

So I do it just the the peptide. I don't do the name brand Manjaro. So that's called Tze Peptide. So there's Semaglutide and there's Tpat. Tpat is the newest Semaglutide, which is also known as ozempic has been around for 10 years. So we've got a lot of research now on that originally developed for type two diabetics and they realized that, oh my goodness, people are losing a ton of weight, but they're on average in a year's time, or 72 weeks I think it was, they were losing 15 to 20% of their weight. Which just so everybody knows bef prior to this drug, if a drug could help a person lose 5% of their weight, that was considered amazing. Cuz that's all we had seen. That was how good it got. Mm-Hmm. , these were 15 to 20%. And it wasn't just that people were reversing all of these metabolic diseases.

Speaker 3 (39:29):

You know, cholesterol was getting better, their fatty liver was disappearing. It was helping there, there's research now showing that it helps to prevent Alzheimer's disease, plaque formation on the brain. All of these little metabolic markers were getting substantially better. People were getting off blood pressure mega medications and so many things were getting better mm-hmm. and plus they were effortlessly losing weight. These, these medications not only help to suppress appetite, but they work on your brain and they help it so that you don't crave sugary foods anymore. You just kind of just disappears . So you don't care to you, you're not struggling that whole time. Right? The whole, any other diet, you're struggling. We all know that. You're, you're like, I can't, I shouldn't eat that, but I really want to, you know, that's like why most diets fail is because our willpower runs out and we end up eating the highly palatable foods that are all around us.

Speaker 3 (40:31):

Well, this drug eliminates that need. So weight loss becomes easier than it's ever been before in your entire life. It's nuts how it works. So I went on Tze peptide, I was at 138 pounds and no side effects. In six weeks I lost 10 pounds and it was mm-hmm. . And it's been easy, fantastic. Like, I have no problem with it. This is though something that you have to typically stay on. So that's the downfall is you come off of it and a some people will, will keep the weight off, but because most people will blow past their set point, then you will likely, if you come off of it, you may go back to that normal set point, right? So for a menopausal woman, if you've gained, let's say you were always 130 pounds, but in menopause you've gained 15 pounds and you cannot get it off.

Speaker 3 (41:30):

Well, you could go on this drug and it's gonna gonna get you down to that 130 pounds. But if you wish that you could go actually down even farther. So if you came off of it, you would likely, as long as you were eating right and still exercising, you could go back. You may gain back, let's say right back up to maybe the hundred and 30, because that's your normal set point when most women I find have to stay on a maintenance dose. So they have to have seen everything from once every couple weeks to every six weeks. They have to do an injection, their once a week injection. So they, you start to spread them apart and then you can maintain that weight loss as long as you continue doing a shot every four to six weeks. Sometimes did everybody's individual. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:17):

So can you talk a little bit about how semaglutide works? So everybody knows like, is this an appetite suppressant? Is this uppers? What is it?

Speaker 3 (42:27):

No, definitely not. Uppers. So both semaglutide and tze peptide are hormones actually. And they're gut hormones. We produce them in our gut and then they tell your brain when you're full. So when you're eating these, because we're increasing, so they're 90, you can think of them as, I think of 'em as like a bioidentical hormone. They're 94% bioidentical to something you already make in your body. So it's gonna create more of this hormone that's gonna be telling you that you're full a heck of a lot faster. So there's no stimulation to it. It slows gastric emptying as well. It does affect the dopamine centers of the brain and the pleasure centers. So you don't get the same payoff from food, drugs, alcohol. Mm-Hmm. . So anything that is addictive to you that you are getting a dopamine hit from, it will bring that down. So there were mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (43:29):

, there's actually some PubMed research showing like how it helps with co for cocaine addicts. So, interesting enough, I was just looking at that last night. So it works on different, a couple different mechanisms. There's two different, so Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide is what it's called. And then the tze peptide is a dual agonist, not that anybody needs to know this, it's a G I P. So glucose dependent, insulinotropic probably not saying that, right? Polypeptide. So these are peptides that we've already got in our body that are mimicking these peptides when we're taking them. So mm-hmm. , it's the best way to explain it. .

Speaker 1 (44:11):

And then everybody's gonna wanna know, oh my gosh, I want this, what does it cost? ? Yeah, that's the next question.

Speaker 3 (44:18):

Unfortunately, if you're not diabetic, you cannot get it covered through, if you've got insurance, you will not get it covered if you're not diabetic. Ozempic has now been approved for weight loss for obesity, but you have to be, I think it is over 30% or 35% bmi. So if you were to just go and get yourself a prescription, manjaro is gonna cost you about $1,500 a month. Semaglutide is about 1200 a month, but there's now compounding pharmacies that are making it. So compounding pharmacies can make semaglutide. And you're looking at about 200, 2 50 a month for that through a compounding pharmacy. Mm-Hmm. . And then with Tpat, it's a little bit of more gray area that they're not allowing compounding pharmacies to do it. There's still some that are, and I think eventually we'll start to see it more mm-hmm. . But right now, the company that made it is coming down on compounding pharmacies if they're trying to compound it.

Speaker 3 (45:23):

So then you can get it through peptide sites. So I, I don't know how much you've talked about peptides on here, but you know, there's growth hormone peptides, b BPC 1 57, all of these very familiar peptides that people are using now, and they're ordering them online from reputable peptide sites. Mm-Hmm. . And there you can get, we've got Tze peptide that starts at 170 a month, and the semaglutide is like 75 a month to start mm-hmm. . And then you increase your dose as you go along. So then it starts to, then the price goes up the farther along you go. So that's not too bad considering what, what us women will do to lose weight in the money that we spend on it. ,

Speaker 1 (46:05):

I mean, I'm still a proponent of addressing the underlying root cause, but if something is natural and can be an aid to assist you, hey, why not? In fact, as you're talking about it, I've never, I always have to try everything first. You know, that's how I developed same everything that I I do with women is what I learned from losing a hundred pounds and getting off all prescription medications and healing from all the chronic medical conditions I had. I said I was gonna see if it worked, and then if it worked, I was gonna spend the rest of my life teaching other women about it. So that's what I do. And when I hear about something that could help us, that isn't gonna harm us, and you know, with it being a peptide, that's just a protein and it is fairly bioidentical. I'll tell everyone right now, I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna try it and I'll give you my feedback. But it sounds like you've had a, some good results with this. Do you wanna share any patient stories that come to mind? Oh,

Speaker 3 (47:01):

I've got so many patient stories. It's, it's so gratifying. It's just, we've been, we've been brain, we've been, not brain, we've been, it has been very, very hard. Our whole lives to lose weight. Like weight loss is really hard. And we all know this. And I have spent my life helping women to lose weight. Like, it's something I'm very passionate about. And I feel the same way as you do Dr. Kiran, that you have to look at all of these other factors. You know, it's, you gotta look at your hormones for all of you perimenopausal, menopausal women. You've gotta address the hormone loss, right? Well, you're gonna be, if you go take these peptides, you have to building, you're building a house on sand. That's what I'm saying. It's like you're building a house on sand, you gotta have a foundation. And so this is why we've created a program to go with it, because you could go out, buy these peptides on your own, go for it.

Speaker 3 (47:52):

But you know, if you're not, if you're still not eating right and you're not exercising, you're not replacing those hormones and working on your spiritual self like we've talked about here today. Then I just feel like, why, why? Like, why don't do that to your health? Don't use it as a, well, I'm gonna go eat my donut and I'm not gonna lose any weight. That's not good for your health then. Mm-Hmm. . So I really think you need to prioritize and you have to have those foundational pieces be part of it and take the time because this, this drug works so well take the time to change your eating habits, then if it's always been a struggle for you to eat, well then use this as a tool to work while to take, while you work on your eating habits, because it does make it so much easier.

Speaker 3 (48:41):

So work on the eating habits, work on the time that you eat, work on how much you eat because it's very hard to overeat on this drug. Use this as a positive thing. And it is very exciting because you just, the weight just falls off and it's like, oh my gosh. Like I felt, I, I've gone through this like battle within myself of guilt and shame and like, oh, it's been nuts. I've just been like, oh my. And like, and I've had to turn and look at like, some of these things that have arisen because I feel like if it's not hard, then I have no right to be thin.

Speaker 1 (49:16):

Wow. That's a belief system. Do you like believing that

Speaker 3 (49:21):

? No. So I've been like, really try, I've been speaking about it on my own podcast and sharing my journey because these are things that may come up for other people where you do start to feel guilty or when people ask you like, oh, you've lost a lot, a lot of weight very quickly they think there's something wrong with you. Or they're like, oh, what she's doing a peptide or, you know, and I've just been like, no, let me educate you on this. Like this is actually the most astounding weight loss show we've ever seen to date. And if it can be easy, why not? I say, let's, let's embrace it. .

Speaker 1 (49:59):

Yes. Anne, I just wanna reiterate, you gotta address the underlying causes. Otherwise you are building a house on sand. If you don't fix your hormones and detoxify and get rid of the inflammation and fix your gut and do all the things, you still gotta do that. Well feel

Speaker 3 (50:14):

Good. You may be thin, but you're gonna feel like garbage.

Speaker 1 (50:17):

Right? And I, I will reiterate, I know we have a difference of opinion. It was pretty effortless for me to lose the hundred pounds when I address the underlying causes. And that's my experience with the women I work with. So I just wanna incorporate both of our experiences for everyone listening. It can be effortless, sometimes it's harder, sometimes it's easier. But why not take advantage of a tool that could help you? So I'm for sure gonna try it. I'll share my experience. If anybody listening decides to try it, maybe you'll decide to do Karen's program. She's got amazing programs, which she's gonna share some in, in information on right now. But you share these amazing quotes with me, Karen, before we start started, and we haven't offered any. So I will, before we wrap up, I just wanna offer two of my favorites that you shared. So one is one of the most courageous things you can do is identify yourself. Know who you are, what you believe in, and where you want to go. Sheila Marie Bethel, I don't know who she is. Can you talk a little bit about this quote and what it means to you?

Speaker 3 (51:20):

What it means to me is, is that's been my life mission as really being who I truly am. And that's all the work that I've done has led me to that. And it's, I I, I want that for everybody. I do.

Speaker 1 (51:34):

Amen. Yes. It be courageous. Identify yourself, know who you are, what you believe in and where you wanna go. And then Tony Robbins quote, the path to success is to take massive determined action. Action. You know, sometimes we women, we can just get stuck in our heads believing not true things. And you really deserve to have amazing health. You deserve to have a great sex life and great sexuality. You deserve to have great hair. Yes, you deserve to feel amazing in your skin. Look amazing in your skin if that matters to you. And do all the things that you want in life, right? Those dreams that you have we're given to you to fulfill. They're not some pipe dreams. So any last words you wanna share with everybody?

Speaker 3 (52:22):

Yeah, just off of, right off of what you just said there, like, don't settle for subpar. This is, like I said, this is the time in your life that could be the best time of your life. So go after it. Be courageous. Take massive action, but do what you, whatever it is that you have to do to be where you wanna be and look how you wanna look and that's fantastic. And embrace it and just, just don't be afraid and don't think that you have to suffer. I think poor, perimenopausal, menopausal when we have it in our head that there's gonna be some suffering or a lot of suffering. And we take this on like a badge of honor and it's like, no, we don't have to suffer and we can look fantastic and we can be fantastic and we can thrive. We don't have to suffer.

Speaker 1 (53:11):

Yes. So get about that business and you know, I think that's really part of loving yourself and maybe this is where we'll end. Mm-Hmm. self-love is honoring your dreams. That your dreams are meant to be fulfilled and taking massive action to make them come true. So where can everybody find you online? You have a free gift, a hormone quiz you can tell everyone about. We'll have all her links in the show notes. So if you're driving, please don't try to write these down, but share with everyone about the hormone quiz and all the places to find you.

Speaker 3 (53:44):

So karen martel.com. You can take my hormone quiz to find out, you know, which hormones could be stopping you from losing weight. It's just a quiz. So, but it's a great place to start and you'll get a little free meal plan from it. And besides that, you can find me on my podcast, the other side of weight loss, or we talk a ton about hormones and weight loss for women. We just hit 1 million downloads, so that's very exciting. So we've got 260 episodes on there. And then on social media, you can find me at Karen Martel hormones,

Speaker 1 (54:14):

Karen Martel hormones, and, and your podcast. Absolutely, definitely check it out. We'll have links to all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much for your journey, your wisdom and your passion for helping women. Thank you for being here, Karen.

Speaker 3 (54:29):

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (54:31):

And thank you for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kirin. So glad that you joined us today for this insightful discussion with maybe some things you hadn't thought about when it comes to your health, whether you have a weight problem or not. Looking at the deeper message of the malady or illness that you're experiencing can really help give you some insights that you can work towards healing and may just be the root cause that's keeping you stuck and you learned about a novel tool that you might want to consider using to help you. If you are struggling with weight loss, I'm gonna try it too and we'll share notes and see how it works, and I look forward to seeing you next week on another episode of The Hormone Prescription. Until then, peace, love, and Hormones. Y'all talk to you soon.

Speaker 2 (55:20):

Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.

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