It’s Not Perimenopause, It’s Stress - The Missing Link You Don’t Have A Plan For

Hormone Prosperity Podcast with Dr. Kyrin Dunston

In this enlightening episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we're joined by Dr. Tricia Pingel, a naturopathic physician and expert on adrenal fatigue. Dr. Pingel shares her invaluable insights on stress and its impact on midlife women, particularly relating to the symptoms that many assume to be perimenopause.
Throughout the episode, Dr. Pingel demonstrates her vast expertise and experience as a source of hope, knowledge, and motivation for people who are looking for ways to address the root cause of their symptoms. From identifying the underlying causes of stress to correcting nutrition depleted by stressful conditions, Dr. Pingel's practical and multidimensional approach shows listeners how to repel incoming stressors and return to their happy, vibrant, and energetic selves.
In addition to discussing her experience and approach to helping patients restore their health, Dr. Pingel shares her personal journey of overcoming health struggles and personal loss. Through creating a community of positivity and gratitude, Dr. Pingel inspires her listeners to live every day to the fullest, embracing a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
In this empowering episode, you'll learn about:

- The importance of addressing stress as the root cause of symptoms
- The challenges with temporary 'quick fixes,' and why they often don't provide long-term solutions
- How to recognize and address the underlying causes of stress in your life
- The crucial role nutrition plays in restoring health and well-being
- Dr. Pingel's personal journey of overcoming obstacles and creating a community of positivity
Don't miss this inspiring and informative episode that sheds light on the impact of stress on midlife women and offers practical guidance for a healthier, more balanced life. Tune in to The Hormone Prescription Podcast to take the first step toward transformation and healing.

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Everything living has a rhythm. Do you feel your music? Michael Jackson, join me as Dr. Tricia Pingel. The hip hop energy doc shares with you her secrets to creating vitality at midlife and beyond.

Speaker 2 (00:17):

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 G Y N 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 (01:10):

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. My guest today is super high energy and super positive, and you are gonna be inspired to do something audacious with your health and your life after. After listening to her. I make a promise to do something towards the end of the show that you'll wanna hear about and that you're gonna see on Instagram in the near future. So that should be super exciting and she has a great story like most of the docs who do the kind of work that I do, because most of us come to this work from Pain Paying Pitch pushes us to our purpose. So we're here for a reason to share with you so that you, you can get out of pain. I'll tell you a little bit about Dr.

Speaker 1 (01:58):

Tricia and then we'll get started. She is a naturopathic physician and yes, that's a real medical doctor. I like to say that instead of going to regular MD or do school naturopathic doctors smart enough to get it right the first time and go the natural route. So they have lots of wonderful wisdom and training and she's an expert on adrenal fatigue and the physical impact of stress on the body. She's super passionate about it. She's impacted many family members in her life and you're gonna wanna hear about that too. She's the founder of Pingle Progressive Medicine where her team takes a multidimensional and integrative approach to healthcare and treats a wide range of medical conditions. She's a source of hope, knowledge, and motivation for others who are, have experienced temporary quick fixes for their symptoms, but seek to find the root cause and heal their bodies.

Speaker 1 (02:53):

She has helped thousands of people restore their health by showing them how to identify the stress, causing their symptoms, restoring their nutrition depleted by stress and assisting in changing their mindset to repel incoming stressors so that they can return to their happy, vibrant and energetic selves. She's appeared on many, many podcasts, shows, summits, and she is known as the hip hop energy doc. She's found dancing all over her social media media, cheering on her two boys at football and creating healthy vegan recipes in her kitchen, snuggling her three dogs and cat at home where she lives in Arizona. She did have her own health struggles, as did her family members and personal loss. She strives in creating a community of positivity, gratitude, and living every day to its fullest potential. Please help me welcome Dr. Tricia Pingle to the show.

Speaker 3 (03:47):

Thank you. It is so nice to be here. Thank you for having me. I can't wait to dive in and have an amazing chat today.

Speaker 1 (03:53):

I know, me too. And let, we gotta start by talking about your hip hop dancing that you do. I too love to dance. I don't dance hip hop, but you've got the energy for it. And I know a lot of women listening, that's what they're here seeking is like, why don't I have the energy to do the things I wanna do? So maybe share a little bit about how you came to have this great energy at the stage of life that you're in.

Speaker 3 (04:20):

Yeah, I think, you know, dance is one of the things I say that saved me. 'cause When I was younger I used to dance and it was how I found joy. And my dad was a musician, grew up listening to music. Music was part of what brought me joy and happiness. And as I got older and I went through, you know, stressors, losing my dad at 24 years old, you know, going through medical school, getting married, having children, having symptoms throughout my life that were always dismissed. You know, the things like acne and heavy menstrual periods and bloating and all of that brings into a stress and kind of took me away from myself. And I talk to a lot of women in their forties particularly where they say, gosh, Dr. Pingle, I really feel like I've lost who I am. I feel like I've lost my joy.

Speaker 3 (05:04):

I feel like I'm not the same person I used to be. And I'm mean, and I'm irritable and I'm snappy and I don't sleep well. And I was going through a lot of that in my thirties and when I finally recognized it, I thought, this is it. I need to go back to what I wanna do for my soul. And I put myself into a hip hop class. I hadn't done hip hop in maybe 20 years. And I put myself in a class with a bunch of teenagers, 14, 15, 16 years old and in an advanced class. And I said, I'm just gonna do this. I'm gonna commit this to myself. And I can say without of doubt, out of all the things that I did to be well out of the diet, the stress reduction, the supplements, the best thing I ever did was put myself back in that hip hop class.

Speaker 3 (05:51):

Because as soon as I started moving and I started reconnecting my head and my body, there was a massive change that happened. I found more energy, I found more joy. I found the ability to just let loose. And so I've just been carrying that thread. I've been so, I've been dancing, gosh now regularly with these teenagers for maybe seven to eight years now. And I love it. I just absolutely love it. I couldn't be any happier than when that music is on and my body is new , it's my favorite. It's my favorite, favorite part of my life, honestly. I love it. And I, when I don't have class, if they're on a break or something, I'm miserable. It's sad. ,

Speaker 1 (06:30):

I totally identify with with that as well. Dance was a, I call it dance therapy and it's a real part of my wellbeing as well. When I got healthy and lost a hundred pounds, I started salsa dancing. Well, I used to ballroom dance first, but then it was so rigid and they always, they wanted me to compete and I'm like, I just wanna have fun. So I quit that and I started salsa dancing and now I've done zoo and Zumba and all of this. It's very social, it's athletic, it's expressive, artistic. So you really do get in your body and it's part of what brings me joy as well. And I think that's part of what keeps me healthy. I love that you do the hip hop online. I'm sure everybody really enjoys seeing that and they're like, I wonder how I can get that energy.

Speaker 1 (07:19):

But for somebody who's listening who's kind of at that midlife stage and they're thinking, oh yeah, that's a a pipe train, Dr. Tricia, I am too tired. Like I don't even have the energy. I know that you talk about stress a lot and how it affects our health, the difference between internal and external stress. You talk about people who don't even realize that stress is a factor because we women are our houses and we just power through everything. Right? Raise your hand if that's you multitask, take care of ev anything and everything all at once. So I don't know if that's a part of your story that you wanna share. How did you come to realize that stress was such a big factor? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (08:03):

It's crazy. And first of all, I love do it all women. I love that we just strive for all of this, but unfortunately our bodies are not built for that on the go lifestyle. And I think with the technology that we've brought in the iPhones, the, you know, the constant stimulation, the social media, we're actually setting ourselves and our children up for a lot of serious health issues. And we're seeing that in our society. We're seeing more sensitive diabetes, we're seeing more sensitive cancer, cardiovascular disease, higher inflammatory responses, immune problems. And I think a lot of this is coming from this everyday stuff that we try to do and all these goals that we set for ourselves. But we don't give our bodies much grace to go with the rhythm. One of my favorite quotes is from Michael Jackson and it kind of ties into the dancing.

Speaker 3 (08:47):

And this is that everything living has a rhythm. Do you feel your music? And I think we spend so much time just running past it and just running and pushing through and pushing through and pushing through that we don't stop to actually feel our own rhythm and feel our own music. And that's actually to our decline. When you ask about internal and external stressors, I think most of us know what external stressors are and we all deal with it every single day. Spouses, children, money, jobs, whatever comes at us, you know, the pool pump breaks, you know, things like that that happened at the last minute. But when we have that stress response in our body to those external factors, even scrolling through Instagram, we actually create an internal stress on our body. Whether that be a nutrient deficiency, it could simply be an imbalance of dopamine to serotonin.

Speaker 3 (09:36):

We have changes in our menstrual cycles in women that that give internal stresses at certain times. Menopause is quite a big stressor. And then if you have other things that are going on, let's say problems with blood sugar or you know, underlying genetic conditions, those also cause stresses on the body. So I think a lot of us spend so much time when I ask saying, are you under stress? And they're like, oh, you know, I have a great life. I have all this stuff. I have a great business, I do all these things and I get through it all. I think I'm fine. I don't think we realize how much that's actually impacting our internal environment. And in order to have energy, we have to give our body time to rest. We have to actually pull away from that instinct to do everything and allow our bodies to heal and repair.

Speaker 3 (10:18):

And by doing that, our body has the energy and the resources to create more energy, which ironically then allows us to do more. So in my own personal story, everything that I do now, I couldn't do 10 years ago, I was just exhausted and fatigued and just like these women that you're talking about, just unable to even handle anything. Just snapping at everything, feeling lost, feeling sad, not having the energy to do what I want to do. And it wasn't until I backed away and realized how much stress I was really putting on myself internally in nutritional deficiencies, in imbalances, in my hormones that were really, really causing the problem. So I think it's important for us to recognize how much our bodies actually know what to do and how much we're our minds maybe are pushing us beyond that. And we need to back off a little bit and have a little bit more grace. But

Speaker 1 (11:09):

You know, as I'm hearing you makes perfect sense. You're preaching to the choir 'cause that was me. And there's so much out there about you're doing too much, you're too much dish, you're drinking the coffee in the morning to wind up, you're drinking the wine to wind down. So you know, at some point you have to say like either you've got your head in the ground and you don't wanna hear the truth that you need to stop doing so much. Or what? What is it that women aren't getting? Because I talk to women and they say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but they actually won't stop. Like I have a woman in my midlife metabolism program right now and totally anonymous, I'm not gonna mention her name, but she, she goes at it, she's so successful in the things that she has done in her community as a wife and a mom.

Speaker 1 (12:02):

And when you talk to her, she seems so poised and so full of energy. And then you look at her salivary cortisol and you're like, how is she even standing up? And to get her to even realize that something wrong, she had to get a breast cancer diagnosis, right? Because stress then affects your cortisol and then that increases your risk of cancer. And then when people get cancer, then they pay attention and they go, oh, what am I doing wrong? But to really get her to understand that she's doing too much, this external stress you're talking about is like a herculean task. So what does it take for a woman to really change what she's doing and change her life? I think

Speaker 3 (12:42):

Having a physician working with you that shows you what it's doing. You know, I think so often you go to the doctor for it and just say, gosh doc, I'm really not sleeping that well. And they're like, oh, here's a medication, or Hi, I'm just not, I don't have the energy I need. Well here's an antidepressant. And nobody's saying, Hey, let's sit down and see could there be something going on? Is there an imbalance? And when you do a full lab workup and you look at it from a functional perspective and you look at it, what's going on and what's happening, there's so many times where I'm going through a lab review and the woman looks at me and says, oh my God, I had no idea, right? Mm-Hmm. . And then many of us have family members that have lost their lives too young, you know, and linked back to stress or something was preventable.

Speaker 3 (13:21):

And I think there's so much health consciousness going on in our generation right now and in my age group in particular that we're looking at, our parents go and we're like, how can we change that? We don't wanna be that. We don't, we don't wanna leave our kids at 59 years old like my dad did. Or you know, and I think, so a lot of women are seeking answers and they're going to the physician asking for these types of tests and they're not getting clear and can answers 'em what they need to do. There's no doubt stress in the, you know, the, if you go to the doctor and they have to put in your diagnosis code, it's not like they say stress, they'll say fatigue, you know, insomnia, headaches, bloating, constipation, hair loss, perimenopause, these are all in there, but they're all the exact same symptoms of stress.

Speaker 3 (14:03):

And I think a lot of people, my mission is to get people to recognize that when you have the symptoms of all these other conditions, they are exactly the same symptoms of what you have when your body is under stress. And it takes you working with a physician and seeking a physician that can help you find these imbalances. And then once you do, it's amazing. It could be as simple as a vitamin C deficiency and you throw some vitamin C in there and you're back to yourself. You know, it could be as simple as changing your workout just slightly to do some toning exercises that benefit the calming nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system. Such small little tweaks and getting women to recognize that is just us getting out there, you and me and talking about it and talking about our experiences and talking about how we've gone through it and how we've gained energy back by doing this exact thing. All of us want the same thing. We wanna be happy, we wanna have energy, we wanna be able to do everything we wanna do. We wanna be connected with others. You know, this is kind of an innate, the innate wants of women and we can actually do it if we pay attention to how much we're beating ourselves up in the meantime.

Speaker 1 (15:09):

Yes, , we can, yeah. So paying attention. And I do think it takes people like you and me out there telling people and doing the testing and showing them, like, I never heard of salivary cortisol testing in my medical training as a board certified OB G Y N for, you know, over 14 years. It just wasn't even something I knew about. And you know, I'll never forget when I learned about it and I said, oh, I'm gonna do this test and I did it and I had no cortisol. I was like the woman I just described, thank God I didn't have a breast cancer diagnosis at the time. It was a wake up call. It was a real wake up call. And I think that a lot of women don't realize going to their, you know, neighborhood H M O $30 copay doctor, that they're not getting everything that's available that could help them to understand what's going on with their health and actually get that, that vitality back. So I think it's super important that we're out there telling people what's available.

Speaker 3 (16:11):

Absolutely. And I think women are seeking it. They know, like they know something's not right, it's just they're showing up and being told everything's fine. And then being given a therapy that we haven't even looked at those levels. I mean, you know, as much as I do that cortisol and progesterone have very much of a relationship. So a lot of doctors are just out there pumping a bunch of progesterone without even considering the cortisol impact of it. And it, it takes, our body is an amazing machine and it has the ability to adapt. We adapt to our environment. If you're in the woods and you see a bear, your entire biochemistry and physiology changes in order to save your life and that doesn't include producing testosterone to have sex, your body's not interested in that moment, in that, right? We change everything to, to running, right.

Speaker 3 (16:57):

And then we wonder why is our libido so low? You know, where we work 12 hours a day, we take care of the kids, we clean the house, we do all this stuff, and we have no interest in sex. Gee, , you know, is it a, is it a testosterone problem or is it a cortisol problem that's causing a testosterone problem? And I think when we start looking at the body as an adaptive being and really paying attention to those little things that we can do along the way, it can make such a drastic impact on our lives. And I hope that everyone out there listens to that and seeks that answer because it doesn't have to be complicated. We do have to be kind to ourselves. You know, we can't keep self-deprecating and pushing ourselves beyond belief. We can only go so far. My grandmother used to say, and this was my grandmother way back in the day, you can't burn a candle at both ends and expect it to keep burning. And that is 100% true. At some point you're gonna burn out. And at that point is unfortunately where most women, you know, start seeking the help. You know, when they get a cancer diagnosis or they or they can't move forward. And that's what happened to me and that's why I just want people to understand you can catch it actually before that happens. You can actually prevent that from happening from what you're hearing is happening to your friends, to your family, you know, to your loved ones.

Speaker 1 (18:09):

Right. And then what does that do to your nutrient status? Because you're eating food? You know, it's funny, when I weighed 243 pounds, I used to think I had the best nutrition 'cause I was weighed so much more and I had eaten so much more food, which now I look back and I think that's insane. But I don't think that most people are aware of the effects of stress on their nutrient status.

Speaker 3 (18:36):

Yeah, I mean you could be doing everything right. You could be eating this amazing diet and still being impacted by the stress and you're not getting utilization. So let me talk about how stress impacts that and it does that in a couple different ways. So number one, just us running from that bear and adapting to that stressor depletes our B vitamins, particularly B five, B six, B 12, which are highly involved in the way that we break down our food, you know, to create energy. I mean they're essential for the creation of a T p. It also impacts our mineral status. So we'll start to deplete things like magnesium, potassium, we start to get imbalances in our electrolytes, which have impacts on our thyroid, has impacts on muscle contraction, cramps, sleep, those types of things. We also have a pretty big depletion in antioxidants, particularly vitamin C.

Speaker 3 (19:26):

So when you start to have that direct impact in the nutrients, it impacts everything else in the body. It impacts our production of serotonin. It impacts the way that we manufacture and utilize hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. It changes the way that we utilize thyroid that we create. It changes the way that we absorb the nutrients from our food. And this is where stress impacts us. The second thing is when you're running from a bear, you're not gonna digest your food. We were kind of set up with these two different nervous systems and many people have heard them as fight or flight or rest and digest. And when you're in a fight or flight, you're not resting and digesting. So when you're running from something and keeping up with that schedule and going and going and going, your body down regulates its digestion, which means you could be eating the most amazing diet and not get a lick of that nutrition because your body has slowed the digestion changed the absorbability due to it dealing with the threat.

Speaker 3 (20:22):

So it actually comes at you at a double whammy. And then the third whammy is once those are imbalanced, that's another internal stress, which then has more impact on cortisol, which causes more nutritional deficiencies, more downregulation, more symptoms. So by just simply saying, okay, I'm a busy woman and I'm out there running all day long, what's my B vitamin status? What's my vitamin C status? What's my mineral status? Do I have trouble digesting things? Do I, am I noticing bloating? Do I get heartburn? You know, just being aware of some of the things that are being impacted really can make a huge difference in preventing future problems. So I always recommend in general that these are the supplements that most busy women need to take. They need to be on a B vitamin, they need to be on vitamin C and antioxidants. They need to be on a mineral and they need to be on a probiotic. Because all of those are definitely being impacted simply by the lifestyle alone.

Speaker 1 (21:17):

Yes, absolutely. Amen to that. And then what's the consequence if you have these nutrient depletions and you don't know about it?

Speaker 3 (21:25):

Yeah, the consequences

Speaker 1 (21:26):

Happen.

Speaker 3 (21:27):

Yeah. Lots of symptoms. So commonly I see impacts in sleep almost immediately. Not sleeping soundly, trouble falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night, lots of changes in mood because serotonin is highly regulated in the gut. It's also made with B vitamins and vitamin C and magnesium and all these things that that I've just mentioned. So I see a lot of anxiety and underlying just baseline irritability, very commonly as it progresses, I start to see more of thyroid issue, primarily in the conversion of thyroid. And I don't wanna get too technical, but you know, you could have an outright low thyroid function or you could have a subclinical state where you're making the thyroid but you're not utilizing it well. So the body starts to store, it starts to store thyroid, it starts to store estrogen. And that's when you start to see these symptoms that look like perimenopause, heavy periods, irregular cycles, headaches, hair loss, wrinkles, you know, poor muscle tone, all these things that we attribute to hot flashes, all these things that we attribute to menopause or perimenopause.

Speaker 3 (22:30):

But what they really are is a reaction of your body because it can't make what it needs to make. If you were manufacturing, you know, a water bottle on a conveyor belt, there's all these pieces that go into making this water bottle. And when a piece is missing, you have to figure out another way to compensate. And that's what our body does all day. When it's under stress, Hey, I need to make serotonin, I don't have vitamin C. Where can I pull that from? Where can I get that right? So it pulls from other pathways in order to prioritize different ones. And that's where we start to see symptoms. And instead of treating the symptom and suppressing the symptom, we need to ask the question, why am I having anxiety? Am I having anxiety because I have an imbalance? Because I have a nutrient deficiency because I'm pushing myself too far? And when you answer that question, the solution is actually ridiculously simple. You just replete what you're missing. You fill that gap on that conveyor belt. And that's where a lot of the nutritional therapy comes in. In my world of dealing with stress is how can I help the body, you know, get more parts for that conveyor belt while we work on mind body aspect to try to calm the body. We also need to support it. So we support it with a lot of nutrition. A ton of nutrition.

Speaker 1 (23:46):

Yes, it's super important. I think that everyone really needs micronutrient testing to see where their levels are. I'm sure you're a proponent of tests, don't guess as well. .

Speaker 3 (23:57):

Yeah, abs. Absolutely. I love micronutrient testing. And that, back to one of your earlier questions, that's one of those aha moments where, you know, my client looks at me and says, oh my God, I had no idea. And once you know you can do something about it, I mean, we're all pretty hard people if they're hardworking people, if there's a problem and we can figure out how to fix it, we will fix it. So we've gotta identify where the weak links are so that we can fix it. And then it's not so complicated. Then you're not spending hours at the doctor's office just saying, doc, I'm not getting better. I'm not getting better. It's like, hey, we tested this, we saw we were low in iron, we repleted that. Now the iron's back to normal. How are your symptoms? And then how is that impacting other areas when we bring up iron, what does that do to other nutrients at that point? We're always adapting and that's what's so, mm-hmm , gosh darn amazing about our bodies is that we can adapt to every little thing. And if we play into that adaption and work with it rather than against it, if we feel our rhythm , then it's amazing what we can do.

Speaker 1 (24:58):

Yeah, it's so true. And you know, but what do you say to people who are like, I just wanna do the testing once, I wanna know what I need, supplements I need to take, and then I wanna go on my merry way and I don't ever wanna look at that again. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (25:12):

It's a shame. I have had people like that. They usually come back about five years later and say, okay, I was wrong. Can we look at this again? , , you know, one of the things that I've come to realize just in my own health journey is you're never done getting Well, it's a spectrum where there's an area of health and there's an area of disease. And as we grow and we change and we get older, we change, our chemistry changes, our metabolism changes, things change. And we have to constantly be adapting and growing to that. I don't think anyone can just say, okay, I'm gonna do everything in two months and then I'm gonna be well for the rest of our lives. That's not realistic. , I, I mean, just like I said, just a cell phone alone. I mean, how many times do people check their phone a day?

Speaker 3 (25:51):

I think it was like upwards of 80 times a day for adults and like double that for children. And it's not even buzzing, right? It's just, we're just innately always stimulating ourselves. We live in this stimulated society and unless society's gonna change, which it's not, we're just gonna keep developing and growing technology and we need to actually address that because otherwise we're just gonna keep changing. So health is a spectrum and I really prefer to work with my clients for a very long period of time. Most of my clients have been me with, been with me for a very long period of time. And every year we're looking at, okay, what were our wins and what do we still need to grow on? What do we still need to learn? How are we gonna get into that mindset of true wellness and health? And that takes time. Mm-Hmm. , it's hard. The hardest part, I don't know if you agree, the hardest part is the mindset part. The mind body part is the hardest one to get a handle of because our brains trick us into thinking we have to deal with something else first, that everyone else comes first or other things come first instead of just breathing or being in the moment.

Speaker 1 (26:54):

Yeah, it's so true. And as you're talking, I'm thinking, it's not like we think, oh, I'm gonna brush my teeth really good right now and then I won't ever have to do it again. Or I'm gonna clean my house so well I'm never gonna have to clean it again. No. But somehow, I don't know, when it comes to natural healing or nutritional changes or the things we're talking about, I don't know where we get this mentality from that I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna get healthy and then I'm not gonna have to do it anymore. And I always say, health is a journey, not a destination. , it's not like you arrive .

Speaker 3 (27:31):

Yeah. You know, and I get, I get that all the time, you know, oh well how long do I have to do this nutrition plan for? How long do I have to abstain from alcohol for before I can put it back in? You know, it's like, well I don't know if you can put it back in. We're just gonna have to take this journey, you know, as it goes. And listen to what the body's trying to tell us and adapt to that as we go. One of the biggest obstacles that I get, or objections I guess, is they say, gosh, Dr. Penal, am I gonna have to eat plants like that for the rest of my life? ? Am I gonna have to eat like you and exercise every day like you do ? And I'm like, here's the thing to me, because I've gone through this transformation with my health, it isn't a burden to me to eat.

Speaker 3 (28:10):

Well, in fact, my body wants to eat well, it, it craves eating well. If I wanted to eat poorly, I couldn't. I physically couldn't because my body will be like, no, you are not eating that. And it's just a, I want to feel well, I have more energy and can do more than I've ever done in my entire life at 47, way more than I ever did when I was 22. It's an amazing thing. And when I see my clients transform and hit that point where I'm at, where they're like they want to be well, they want to continue to eat well because they feel so good, nothing's a better feeling and I know that I set them up. Nothing. You know, nothing is a better feeling. It's the most inspiring thing. It's why you and I show up every single day. It's to help people make that realization that they don't have to abuse their bodies to feel well.

Speaker 3 (28:54):

And I think we do that. You know, we drink alcohol, we deprioritize exercise or self-care for other people to help other people. And we think we're doing good when in reality we're focusing on everybody else and not ourselves and we're actually putting ourselves at detriment. But when you flip that, you can do so much more. You can give back to society. You can help so many more people. You have the energy to do what you want. You enjoy exercise, you enjoy food, you start dancing again. You know, you do things that truly allow you to appreciate every single moment, which unfortunately not everyone recognizes until something drastic happens. I've lost my entire family above me. So my parents, my grandparents, and I lost them all at a fair, fairly long young age. And to me that's changed my perspective on how I spend time with my kids, how I spend time with my friends and my family and the gratitude that I give forth every single day.

Speaker 3 (29:45):

Because this is a gift. I'm on lease, right? My life is on lease. It could go at any time. And I just want to be the best that I can be. And I wanna be able to give the knowledge that I've learned through this process to as many people as possible so that they can give it to other people so we can all reconnect and be healthy and well and live this life to the fullest. I, I can't think of anything more. And I think we spend so much time worrying about all those nitpicky things, right? Did we do this on time? Did so-and-so like it when we did that? Did that person ignore my text? You know, what is so-and-so doing on their vacation? You know, we worry about everybody else and we don't spend enough time really worrying about ourselves because we think it's selfish and it's not.

Speaker 1 (30:25):

It's not, is it

Speaker 3 (30:26):

? ? It's not. It allows you to give more. You can do more, so much more. And we can help raise our kids to not set them up for the same thing we set ourselves up for, which scares Olivia daylights outta me with like two year olds on cell phones scrolling through YouTube. I'm like, no. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (30:44):

. Oh no. So

Speaker 3 (30:46):

With a diet Coke in hand, right? ,

Speaker 1 (30:49):

I'm wondering if, you know, it's so funny, I'm, I'm in Dubai right now and they have McDonald's here and they have McDonald's ads and I was noticing, so they have it with Arabic letters, which I think are very artistic and beautiful, the Arabic writing and, and I had this thought, is McDonald's healthier? Because the writing about it is pretty over here still as unhealthy. And you know, hopefully McDonald's won't mind that I say that 'cause they know that some of their products have been shown to be challenging. But anyway, I just had that thought. And it's the same for the sodas and things that I see in foreign countries in a foreign language with pretty writing. It doesn't look to me as toxic as I know it is in the US or I encountered it for decades. Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 (31:37):

I do. And you know, it's all marketing and marketing images in our heads of what's been told to us to be healthy or not healthy, right? So if it looks different, we're like, oh, that's healthy. I mean they do the same thing. Supplements. I've seen some supplements out there that are so beautiful. Their label is so beautiful and they're absolute junk. And I'm like, but they're selling like hotcakes 'cause their label is so beautiful. You know? So yeah. You know, and, and I think all of our habits are ingrained in exactly the same way. At some point we had an image in our brain that made it say, oh, we should eat that. Or This makes me feel good when I eat. What are they called? The little egg sausage McMuffins or whatever. I feel good when I eat that. So then whenever I feel depressed, I'm going to eat a sausage McMuffin.

Speaker 3 (32:16):

Right? I don't even know if that's the name. I haven't been to a McDonald's in years, but those are the things we have to use our mind to override. You know, I feel good when I eat quinoa and avocado, right? But it took me a while to overcome that, right, right. To overcome that pre I guess notion in my head. And I think that's one of the biggest challenges we have right now in our country. Particularly because we're just so inundated with information everywhere and it's so overwhelming and you don't know what to believe and you don't know what to look at and you don't know it's healthy. And I think that causes a lot of people just to be overwhelmed by the whole process and say whatever, I'll just eat whatever because this is too much work. It's not as much work as you think. You just need to have a trusted guide to help you, help you get through it and evaluate what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (32:57):

Yes. A trusted guide is essential and you are one. Dr. Tricia, thank you so much for coming and sharing your exuberance, your joy, your wisdom, your inspiration. I know people listening feel very inspired and hopeful from hearing you. I do, for sure. But you've got a wonderful total health cookbook that everybody can access for free. We will have the link in the show notes and tell everybody where else they can connect with you online.

Speaker 3 (33:29):

Absolutely. Dr pingle.com is my website and that has links to everything and you know, will always be updated with different things. But if you enjoy dancing and having fun and learning, you definitely should follow me over on Instagram at Dr. Pingel or Facebook at Dr. Tricia Pingel. I'm also on all the other social media channels. Pinterest has a lot of my recipes. Just, you know, search me up and definitely say hello. I'm here to connect with people. That's what I want. I wanna connect and inspire and grow and get us all, you know, working together so we can do everything we wanna do. So if you do follow me, pop a little note in one of my feeds and say, Hey, you know, saw you here. Nice to meet you. I would love to meet all of you. So thanks. Awesome.

Speaker 1 (34:12):

And we will have all those links in the show notes, so don't worry about writing them down. We've got 'em for you so you can just click them. Thank you so much Dr. Tricia for joining us today. It's been wonderful. You've inspired me. I realized since I got to to by two weeks ago, I haven't been dancing, so I am gonna go dancing sometime this week and have, have some joy. 'cause It's just, it's one of the most, if, if anyone listening, if you haven't danced in a while, I challenge you to go turn some music on and just dance around your living room. It, it's the most joy inspiring activity I can think of. So and involve. Thank you so much. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (34:50):

The kids are, the kids enjoy it too, and it prompts a lot of laughs and it's a connecting experience. And by the way, when you do start dancing, I want you to record it and post it so I can dance next to you on a duet or something. So pull, pull that up, do that.

Speaker 1 (35:02):

Let's do it. Okay. We'll do it. Promise. So thank you so much Dr. Trisha and thank, thank you so much for the work you do, and thanks for being here.

Speaker 3 (35:10):

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (35:11):

And thank you for listening to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Hopefully you've learned something that you will put into action today to move your health towards the brilliant health that you deserve. I look forward to hearing what changes you're making. You can reach out to me on social media, on Facebook and Kiran Instagram at Kyrin Dunston MD Ann, until next week, peace, love, and hormones

Speaker 2 (35:37):

Y'all. 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.

► The Total Health Cookbook by Dr. Tricia Pingel. Filled with nutrient dense, easy to make and impressive recipes to support adrenal health. Sign up and files will be emailed to you! CLICK HERE.

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