I’m a big fan of The Female Health Solution Podcast with Dr. Beth Westie. Dr. Beth has authored the best selling books, The Female Fat Solution and The Female Menopause Solution. She also created the 12 Week Female Fat Solution Challenge. I always find her work fascinating and approachable so I persuaded host, Dr. Beth, to sit with me for an interview.

In this interview, Dr. Beth shares how women can:

• Listen to symptoms and get in sync with natural hormone cycles
• Be empowered in health and wellness
• Change the way you view your health

DHJ- Dr. Beth, what would you like to have happen with this interview?

BW- To get the message out there that you don’t have to feel bad or guilty if you don’t lose that 10 pounds or if you struggle. We take that so personally. It’s not you. You’ve been following a map that’s not right for your body.

You can start working with listening to your body more. Learn how your physiology works so you can eat and exercise in alignment with your physiology and with your hormones to really get and keep the right result.

The foundation of Dr. Beth’s expertise came out of a story like mine (and maybe yours!?) of stuffering with health issues from a young age. In her case, Dr. Beth’s digestive and gynecologic problems got worse and worse under the stress of school, getting her chiropractic license, having 3 kids and a miscarriage, and setting up her business.

All of this set her hormones and her overall system spinning. Dr. Beth developed periods and cysts that were so painful that once a month she would be on the floor, doubled over in pain.  During an ER visit because of debilitating pain, a doctor told her she could either go on birth control pills for the rest of her life or she could keep getting pregnant to solve the problem!

BW- I was like, “This is this is ridiculous.” After that I just started diving into the research.

• ‘Why is this happening to me?
• How did there get to be this buildup of hormones?
• Why can’t my body get healthier like it did before?
• And how can I turn this around? What is the hormonal piece?’

So awful.

DHJ -You say on your website: “When we feel like we have control of our bodies we are empowered to take control of our health.” Was the moment you are talking about the moment when you took your power back?

BW-Yes! There’re so many women who have these experiences whether it be with fibroids or with hormonal issues, hot flashes, weight gain, or other things. When we try to seek help for it, it’s like, “Oh you’re doing something wrong. There’s something wrong with you.” It never addresses the core of the problem.

When you get to be in charge and start working with your body and you align with that, you’re back in the driver’s seat and you get to decide then where you want it to go. Then, instead of fighting upstream, you turn the boat around and go downstream to get where you want to go.

DHJ- I completely agree. My whole thing with self-hypnosis and teaching people self-hypnosis is: “You get to be in the driver’s seat. You can control your perceptions. You control your choices and then the body follows that.”

Your videos and website seem to say: “Take your power back. I’ve had these issues too. Let me show you how you can get back in the driver’s seat. You don’t have to be in the passenger seat shouting directions because you know you’re going the wrong way while someone else is driving.”

BW- I just call it educating women.

When you know more you can do more. When you know better you do better.

Often we just don’t know. And sometimes when we try and find out, we’re told we’re crazy.

When a female goes into any practitioner with a pain condition they’re two-thirds more likely to walk out with an antidepressant than a pain medication. The way women are treated in women’s health in general is really not how it should be.

You can do more at home with your lifestyle, supplements, or exercise to live in the healthiest body that you can live in. And if there’s a problem beyond that it’ll be something you can identify specifically or get help with. Be more informed when you go into the doctor. We have to advocate for our own health.

Sometimes you meet somebody who’s great who might listen to you and really understand. But a lot of women have the experience that they go in and they’re not listened to. They’re shuffled through an appointment. You know maybe a lab is drawn. Maybe not. And they’re handed some type of prescription and they go out the door. It’s not really solving a problem.

DHJ- What do you recommend?

BW- Now people have so much more access to information and education. At the same time, women who have three kids or a job or who are going through cognitive fog and hot flashes because of menopause or fertility stuff are overwhelmed. It’s great to have all this access but then the downside is it can be overwhelming.

DHJ- People try to educate themselves. How do recommend that they figure out who they can trust?

BW-  There is so much information out there. One of the best things that you can do, especially because a lot of these hormonal issues come along with brain fog and just dysfunction is to start tracking.

Keep a daily journal:

• Basal body temperature,

• Energy (with a zero to 10 scale),

• How you’re feeling,

• Brain fog.

• What are you eating?

• What are you taking for supplements?

• How well are you sleeping?

• What is your exercise routine like?

The more biometric information you can have on yourself, the easier it is to start to piece things together. Then you can see: “I’m waking up at 3am with a horrific hot flash. I didn’t realize that was the same time every night. What’s that connected to?” There’s more information than just, “I’m having hot flashes.”

You then funnel into a better place where you can then find something that can help you or you’ll be able to give more information to a practitioner.

You don’t have to keep spinning about it and wondering. Even starting with a few things can help: “I’m going to note my sleep or if I wake up with the symptoms that bother me the most which are the hot flushes. I’m going to track them. OK, now I’m going to add in temperature.” Take it the same time every single day.

And, “My cognitive fog. I’m going to give it a rating system.”

When people do that they feel more in control.

DHJ-  You said before that when we feel like we have control of our bodies, we are empowered to take control of our health. One way that people can start to feel in control is to make a chart, log the data, and then decide what to do with the data.

BW- And then if they go to a practitioner who takes two seconds and glances at it and then wants to give them a pill, they can sort of say that person didn’t really look at the data. Maybe this isn’t the right practitioner. If they have someone who actually sits with that data and thinks about it then they know there’s an attunement.

One of my favorite ways to look at data is the Dutch test because I can look at a Dutch test and narrow things down.

A lot of times, I see that, with certain types of cortisol levels, if you get stressed you’ll gain five pounds in a week.

Health is cumulative. It’s important to take into account everything in your lifetime. Your genetics matter, your environment, all of that stuff.

It’s not just, “Oh my gut is not good. I’m having bloating and constipation. Oh, that’s separate from the brain fog that I’m having.” No it’s not. Everything is connected and works together.

DHJ- I think there’s a really huge connection between what you just said about the 24 hour cortisol, hormones, and the sleep cycle, insomnia and energy. What would be helpful for people to know in terms of taking more control of their insomnia, sleep and waking cycle.

BW- Sleep is so important. It’s almost half, it’s almost 50% of what you’re doing.

You can be taking all the best supplements and eating the perfect diet. If you’re not resting and repairing overnight then you’re not getting half of what your system needs. Your sleep affects your hormonal function. It affects you on all levels: your energy levels, how you repair your muscle tissue, your gut health, everything. It’s so so so important. And it’s more than just hours of sleep.

That’s another thing that’s really deceiving. Let’s say you think, “I’m getting eight hours a night.” Great. But if your cortisol levels are actually rising in the middle of the night and if you’re having a hot flash in the middle of the night, that comes along with a boost of adrenaline. That messes everything up. Then your system is like “Oh hello! I’m ready to be awake!”

Your system’s not going through the sleep cycle and that means and your nervous system isn’t resetting.

The biggest thing about sleep is that your brain and nervous system have to reset. If you’re waking up in the middle of the night consistently then it’s not able to do that. So it affects everything.

Once you regulate those hormones:

• The metabolism changes
• Cortisol changes
• Sleep changes
• Energy changes
• Brain function changes

DHJ –What would you recommend as a first step for people to tap into some of the resources that you have available?

BW- I have a free cookbook for people on my website. It’s recipes for your cycle. There’re some healthy recipes to incorporate warming and cooling foods for your hormones through your cycle. Oftentimes, women start hearing this information they realize this is why it’s so different from week to week and why it was so hard to recover postpartum. Then they can go, “I know this or that happened to my body! OK. I’m going to just shift how I eat a little bit.”

The book is a great starting place because you can get through it in a day and start incorporating some of those things. There’s also a YouTube channel that has so many resources.

You can find Dr. Beth on her website, her YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

Click here to listen to Dr. Beth’s interview with Dr. Dyan on Hypnosis & Balancing Your Hormones

Photo credits: Amy Zellmer