Tag: Women’s Health

Misty Williams  00:01

Hey, sister, this is Misty Williams, founder of healing rosie.com. And I’m so excited to welcome you to Rosie radio. Tune in to find clarity, direction and hope for your healing. New episodes drop every Tuesday. We created this show to empower you to regain control of your life and feel like yourself again. Yes, sister. It is possible. 

Misty Williams  00:20

All right, you guys, I’m here with my dear friend, Dr. Maria Snyder, my sister from another mister. Is that even a thing? I don’t even know how that works exactly. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  00:29

I think it’s from another mother.

Misty Williams  00:30

It doesn’t rhyme. I love talking to Dr. Mariza about all things health and hormones because she really gets to female experience, and what it’s like to be a woman navigating this journey. And we’re going to talk about a topic that has been getting lots of airtime in our space, not just lately. It kind of goes in waves where I feel like we talk heavily about metabolic flexibility, and then the conversation wanes and then it comes back really strong again. We’re talking about metabolic flexibility. And what does that mean? 

Misty Williams  00:56

I can tell you as someone who has really struggled metabolically because, it turns out I had mercury toxicity and mold and you know, all these other things that were undetected for a very long time. I thought of myself as someone who had a broken metabolism or my metabolism isn’t as good as other people. And I thought of that in the sense of like, fat burning and just the ability to release weight or the ability to or just the energy, there’s times that I feel really high energy. And then there’s other times that I am like, the wheels are off the bus, I am broken right now. I’m just exhausted, right? 

Misty Williams  01:29

So there’s a whole lot to this very loaded term metabolism and to this idea or concept of metabolic flexibility. And I’m excited today to have this conversation with Dr. Mariza because we’re going to take a look at this through the lens of a woman’s biology. We’re going to talk about this through the lens of maybe perimenopause and menopause, dealing with a lot of hormonal changes in our bodies as we get older. And this is going to be a really empowering conversation. One of the things that I always loved about Dr. Mariza, she can talk about these complex scientific ideas, these health topics that are really geeky, and she can also get really practical with you like, here’s the things like Let’s just cut through the chase here. 

Misty Williams  02:07

Here’s what you can do. Here’s the things that are really important to do. So we’re gonna have a little science geeky, and we’re gonna have a little bit of practical Hey, man, let’s Dear Abby, this answers some questions and, show me how it’s done. So this is going to be a fantastic conversation today. 

Misty Williams  02:21

Dr. Mariza Snyder is a functional practitioner, women’s hormone expert and the author of eight books. The newest one, The Essential Oils Menopause Solution focuses on solutions for women in perimenopause and menopause. And the number one national best selling book, The Essential Oils Hormone Solution focuses on balancing women’s hormones naturally. Other best selling books are The Smart Moms’ guide to essential oils, and The DASH diet cookbook, all of which we will link in our show notes today. And I’m super excited to hear Dr. Mariza.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  02:46

Yeah, me too. I am really excited to dive into the geeky. And then most importantly, what we can do now and in the next seven days to really start to create transformations. We’re all you know me, I’m all about the quick and easy wins. And we all deserve them.

Misty Williams  02:59

Yes. Well, Let’s talk about metabolism. Let’s just start with the fundamental piece of metabolic flexibility. What is metabolism anyway?

Dr. Mariza Snyder  03:08

Yeah, absolutely. It’s the ability for our body to take substrates, whether they are sugar substrates, carbohydrates substrates, or they are protein substrates, which is often protein all if we have too much protein that will convert over to sugar we have through gluconeogenesis. And then we have what I call the long term reserves, which is our fat substrates. And all of that happens in the mitochondria. And that is really the conversation I want to lead us to, which is mitochondrial health.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  03:33

All real metabolism, although clearly processes are happening in the cells all over the place all the time, like for ourselves to do any minor little, process go through any kind of pathway break anything down, that requires metabolic function that requires some level of energy for you. And I didn’t even just look at each other if you’re going to wink at each other that required millions and millions and millions of cells to all use metabolic function, break down substrates into energy to do that. And so when it comes down to metabolism, it really all boils down to our mitochondria. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  04:05

Their ability to shift between burning carbohydrate glucose substrates and fat substrates, right, that’s what it’s gonna come down to. And the more that we’re able to shift, when your mitochondria can pull from our fat storage, and that will pull from our sugar storage, whether it’s glycogen from the liver, or we’re pulling it from the muscles, that level of of our ability to switch back and forth just gives our body flexibility in the sense that we can have long term energy and how that shows up is we don’t crash at 11:30am or we don’t crash between three and 4pm. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  04:39

We wake up feeling refreshed and energized. I mean, who doesn’t want to wake up feeling good, and that has everything to do with how healthy our mitochondria are. Now, food is just one of the major areas for our mitochondria to be healthy. There are a lot of other ways that our mitochondria can struggle like they can go into stranger danger mode, as I like to call them. And then there’s ways that we can really At a more robust, more healthy, we can actually build out our mitochondrial reserve in every cell in the body and I have no problem getting into that as well.

Misty Williams  05:08

So what I’m thinking about as I’m listening to you talk is the women, you know flabby, foggy and fatigued we can all describe our symptoms and what we’re feeling what we’re dealing with, especially as we start moving into perimenopause and menopause, we’re experiencing a lot of these symptoms, what’s happening at the mitochondrial level, that is setting off that sequence of events that eventually leads to us feeling flabby, foggy and fatigued.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  05:30

Absolutely. So really, what’s going on in a mitochondria level is one they are retiring out, they’re just not working properly. They’re firing on all cylinders the way that they should. And then we’re also not making more, we’re losing them and not replacing them. And so like any other part of the cell, we’d all wear down, right? We replace cells replace mitochondria, and as either toxins, whether it is perceived stress that we’re dealing with, right the multitude of our lifestyle is wearing on us, 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  06:00

I think of women, we are usually the common denominator for everything in life. And it all lands on our plate. So how we’re managing the foods that we’re consuming, particularly hydrogenated fats, and processed refined sugar is going to gunk up those mitochondria. Next is if we have minerals and vitamin deficiencies where the cofactors that mitochondria need to function just aren’t simply not there. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  06:19

It’s kind of like if you were ever baking a chocolate cake, and someone gave you all the ingredients that they left out the eggs and the cat like the chocolate itself and the baking soda, you can’t make a chocolate cake without those ingredients. Same thing with the mitochondria, we don’t have the right building blocks, we don’t have enough CoQ10, we don’t have enough magnesium, we don’t have the NAD (Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide). We don’t have the B vitamins. B vitamins are such major energizing, like they’re required as cofactors to run these reactions. We don’t have these building blocks, well, mitochondria really can’t work off what it does, that you don’t have.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  06:49

Other things that are going to have an impact on mitochondria is not getting a break. They don’t do well. If you’re constantly snacking all day long, they need a break. That’s why intermittent fasting is so beneficial for mitochondria, it’s giving them the opportunity to clean up shop and to repair. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  07:05

Other things are, types of hormesis. Like, saunas or cold showers are great for mitochondria. Being outside is great for mitochondria. So getting sunlight, walking outside is great. Also stressing those muscles, we lose muscle mass starting in our 30s. And our muscle is an organ of longevity. So if we don’t maintain that muscle mass work, our mitochondria are going to feel that. And then toxins. Like you said he talked about having a mold toxicity, you talked about having a heavy metal toxicity. Let me tell you, your mitochondria did not appreciate that at all. 

Misty Williams  07:36

Not appreciated, I can definitely tell you, that’s true.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  07:39

They’re just, Hello stranger danger like I think of I think of mitochondria as the Divas of your cell. And they operate in an ideal, they want specific things in order to function optimally. And when that isn’t happening. They’re kind of the litmus test for whether you’ve got energy or not. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  07:54

What’s really fascinating about mitochondria is that probably my favorite fact about them is that we on average, we have about two or 3000 per cell in the body on average cell, but in the brain it is up to 10,000. But where we have the majority, like the most mitochondria per cell, in both men and women is women in our ovaries, and not surprised there. Because you think about the process of getting pregnant, just running the menstrual cycle every single month is such an energetic, driven process, it requires so much energy to do it. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  08:24

Then you add the pregnancy of actually creating a human being such a massive process. And so where we need the majority of energy is going to be in our ovaries, more than any men and women, that’s where we are the majority. So it’s no wonder when we’re struggling with stress, or we’re struggling with a “broken metabolism”. When we don’t have the right nutrients, we start to notice that one of our big vital signs, our menstrual cycle, isn’t working properly, like it isn’t running the way that we would love it to run. Or maybe it’s not running the way that it used to run, and then has a lot to do with how our mitochondria are showing up there too.

Misty Williams  08:58

One of the things that’s been a recent geek out for me, and I’m probably late to the party on this one, by some standards is I recently did a hair tissue mineral analysis. And you know, I hear all the talks about how important magnesium is and potassium is, I’m taking a lot of things. Yeah, it was very confronting to actually look at my test results and be like, What do you mean my magnesium is off the charts but I’m not absorbing it. Right? What do you mean I need? How much more potassium? 

Misty Williams  09:26

So I’m a really big fan alongside this conversation. What you’re speaking about here are for women and our hormone health and for mitochondrial function to find out what’s happening in your body around minerals because it’s just so important for us to have optimal mineral levels and it’s confronting to know that you’ve been spending a lot of money on minerals and finding out oh, I need to take some B vitamins here. These aren’t being absorbed or yeah, oh, I thought I was taking enough but it’s like not even close. And yeah, 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  09:55

We can only hold on to so many reserves. And so one might think, Well, man, I’m taking so much of this, but also I’m firing on so many areas of my life, and what looks like productivity to your body. It’s like I can barely keep up. And so we have to think about the fact that if we’re going to operate at a high level, we’ve got to step up what it takes to maintain that high level.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  09:55

it’s pretty crazy. Especially with you know, we think about minerals in particular. There’s such a powerful player, we need them for the propagation of neurons the propagation of information. We need them for mitochondrial pathways. We need them for liver detoxification paths. You think about mineral, magnesium alone, what 600 That we know of processes, you know, potassium, sodium, and we burn through it, if you are operating in, I gotta get shit done mode, then most likely you are burning through what you got. 

Misty Williams  10:42

And especially for the overachieving women, I know you’re listening out there who wear all the hats, you’re a mom, you’re a wife, you’re a daughter, you’re a PTA Mom, you’re a homeroom Mom, all the students that you have careers, you’re running companies. We are used to go, go, go, go go. And as we get older, one of the things that stop, stop, stop, stop, stop is that get up and go. And that energy, and it’s really, I can tell you as someone who is wired that way when my body is not responding, and I can feel my batteries are low, I can feel that I don’t have the energy to do what is in my being to do. It’s such a frustrating, frustrating experience. 

Misty Williams  11:17

This is a really important biohack that Dr. Mariza is dropping right now because I know it makes a huge difference. Since I started really focused on mineral optimization, everything’s better. My sleep is better. I actually think I don’t quite need as much sleep. I still think we need a lot of sleep. I mean, girl I get like nine hours plus when I’m asleep. So for me to wake up at like seven half, eight hours, like I’m done?. Your body’s Okay. I’ll take care for 30 minutes, the extra hour.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  11:45

Yeah, those I mean nutrient deficiencies, managing those keeping those we often need way more than, we were more deficient than we think we are, especially if we’re running. And there’s nothing worse than that discrepancy of like you knowing on a mental level that you have capacity. But on a physical level, you can’t show up the way, and it’s the most frustrating thing to be like, but I used to be able to operate at this level. And why can’t I operate at this level now and it ties to our worth or lack of worth.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  12:11

We feel like we’re less than because we can’t operate it this way. And that just lens into that can be more of a downward spiral than we would love. But it’s really about if we know the tools, we can hone the tools to really nourish our bodies to dial into that, not those non negotiables for ourselves, we can really turn the tide in. And I think to me, it’s more, I would care more about energy, than having to lean body like I just want to be able to do the things that I love to do that I not only need to do but that move me forward. And so I think energy is always a worthy conversation.

Misty Williams  12:44

Yeah, energy is king. Yeah, it is. Yeah, you have a nice lean body. But you don’t have to get up and go and you can’t do things. I’m sure there’s plenty of women who would make that trade. Yeah. 

Misty Williams  12:52

So all right, we’re talking about our metabolism here how it works, we’re getting down to the level of our mitochondria, talking about how important minerals are to mitochondrial function. We talked a little bit here about toxicity too, and how important it is, for all of us really to get a handle on our stressors and our toxicity. I think both of those things are killers. 

Misty Williams  13:11

What are some ways from both a clinical perspective? And you’re a woman who’s navigating all this perspective? What are some ways that you think it’s really important for women who are listening to this conversation? Like, how do you optimize all of that? How do you really get your mitochondrial functioning powerfully? And how do you kick up your metabolism when you know you’re in a slump? What are your recommendations?

Dr. Mariza Snyder  13:32

So yeah, I will give you what I consider to be the biggest needle movers. And I think that first step is just saying to yourself that I deserve, I deserve the energy. And I’m willing to focus on that I’m willing to get clear on my non negotiables because let me tell you that if you were ever me, I’m in my 20s and my 30s and I had severe mitochondrial dysfunction and severe chronic fatigue woke up unable to get out of bed, I’ll tell you what, I got really clear that what I had been doing hadn’t been working, and what I had been doing was saying no to the non negotiables I just kept saying it enough time. I don’t have time for that. I only had time for that at some point, because that’s all I could do.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  14:08

I just want to really state that if there’s something new that’s pulling at you or like, Oh, I just don’t have time for this I’m telling you, you don’t have time not to do it. Because the trajectory is not great. What it’s gonna look like in a decade from now. I want you to keep running at full speed for as long as you can do so this is to my high achievers out there right now. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  14:30

That first step I think for me it is starting in the morning I think it has everything to do with managing your blood sugar’s setting the tone for your day and and really focusing on you so I think in the morning, whether you gotta get up a little bit earlier than everybody else or you’ve got support supporting you i I’ll be honest with you, I got support supporting. I have a toddler, and I would not be able to do a lot of these things. If I didn’t have a supply of support system. I have a nanny who helps me out. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  14:55

But in the morning it starts off. I always do a 12 hour minimum circadian fast because I want to give my mitochondria a break, I want to give a whole body a break. And also, I want to make sure that I at dinner is the last time I eat. So I try to eat as early as possible, usually around 6pm. So that gives me until 10am. The next day to really reset the system also gives my brain an opportunity to clean up shop, give myself an opportunity definitely gives my mitochondria an opportunity to let do their thing. And then the next day I get up, I drink a big glass of water with lemon. And I really focus on like, How can I set the tone for my day. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  15:29

One of my favorite quotes is by Louise Hays, which she said how you start your morning it’s how you live your day, how you live your day is how you live your life, basically, wow, that translated to me it was like however your morning starts is the way that your life is going to unfold. And so for me, it was always when I was younger, it was chaos. It was right out the door. It was trying to do many things at once and I realized that I had to really set the tone and set the intention. So when the first part of my day I drink that big glass of water with lemon, I go outside, I walk for 30 minutes, I meditate for 10 Because I can do that I can meditate for 10 minutes, I got that. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  16:00

And then I come home and I have a metabolically healthy breakfast. So I do not eat dessert for breakfast. I do not eat carbs for breakfast, refined sugar for breakfast, I don’t put sugar in my coffee. It is usually leftovers from the night before. So it’s nothing sexy, but it’s always protein focused. Usually fish like salmon. It’s a big, sexy, diverse salad or like a medley of roasted vegetables. And it is olive oil or avocado some healthy fats. Because I know that if I can set the tone in my morning breakfast that I can keep my blood sugar level pretty much throughout the entire day. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  16:34

If I start my morning with sugar in my coffee, or I have a bagel with cream cheese, or I have any refined carbohydrate or refined sugar, I’ve seen it on a continuous glucose monitor, it’ll take 36 to 48 hours to recover from that meal. And every other meal after that lunch. Lunch could be the breakfast I just described. I’ll still spike lunch, breakfast or dinner, it could be the breakfast I just described, it could still spike because if I ate a sugar breakfast, it is gonna mess me up whether I eat healthy for the rest of the day for up to two days. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  17:04

I think it’s super important for people to notice that what you do in the morning is going to set the tone for the next two days of your life. And for me, I would say the majority of my 20s I spent just chasing blood sugar crashes and spikes. That’s all I was doing. Breakfast was a kind bar, a little bit of sugar in my Americano, spiked. 11:30 I was about to kill somebody because I was so hungry, I ate a little some some that have lunch. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  17:27

And then my major my nasty crash was always at two or three o’clock in the afternoon. And the only way to crawl out of that pit of exhaustion was caffeine and sugar. And then it was dinner with wine. And I started the whole thing over again over and over. I was literally on a one, I had got one ticket on the blood sugar roller coaster. And I just rode that sucker for a decade. And I wondered what was going on in my hormones the whole time. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  17:51

And so what we do in our morning is everything, how we move our bodies, the way we supplement how we feed our bodies, it’s not only going to set the tone for what happens and paces you for the day. But it’s going to have repercussions for the next day and the day after. So I think that would be the number one thing I would always just tell women is that I say batch your food leftovers for breakfast. It’s dinner in the morning. You know whenever you break your fast and make it as savory as possible. Make it protein focus as possible, so that you are feeling so good moving into the rest of your day. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  18:24

And then move your body, journal, do whatever self care is necessary to just get you focused on what matters to you, focus on your priorities, and then rock those out. And then in the evening. My big recommendation is eat as early as you possibly can. Girl I don’t have wiggle room. I’m gonna lie Misty, I’ve looked at my CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) many times and I don’t know if it’s because I was eating sugar since I was like a year old. But I know now that I don’t have a lot of room to play. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  18:48

And I’d almost 43 years old. It could all look really great. And even if I eat a metabolically healthy at dinner, if I eat it too late, I’m still going to potentially spike my glucose. I’m going to essentially spike my blood sugar because my body’s like, Dude, we have got nowhere to put this. You’re not walking, you’re not running after dinner like we’re in like major repair time we’re in like wine downtime, are you really putting substrates in me right now when I’m trying to chill out? 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  19:17

And so we I’ve learned Alex and myself, my husband and myself that if we can eat before six around six and then take a walk after dinner. It’s a game change. We can keep our blood sugar stable, we feel great. We go to bed feeling great. And there’s no crazy blood sugar variability. And as we notice in a matter of weeks, we just feel like different people.

Misty Williams  19:38

So I want to talk a little bit about the continuous glucose monitor that you just mentioned. Let’s talk about what I have actually never done. It’s been on my mind the last two or three months, it’s time for me to do continuous glucose monitor. 

Misty Williams  19:50

This will be something that I’m sure I will dive into on future episodes and talk about my experience with it. But I’ve certainly have enough friends doing this and have heard about their revelations. that I appreciate the power of what you learn by putting one on one. So why don’t you just give us a little education here? Tell us about the continuous glucose monitor, how does it work? And maybe a couple of the other things that you learned that were surprising.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  20:13

And so I was thinking about all the years that I struggled with hormone issues and how I really blamed it on my stress response system. But then I thought to myself, What if it wasn’t just my stress response system? What if I was on a sugar roller coaster, I was on a sugar yo, yo, and like my mama and my sister. So I put the CGM on and learn very quickly that I had very little wiggle room, it didn’t take a lot to spike my blood sugar. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  20:13

So I put one on about six months postpartum, I was really curious. I have a lot of family members with type two diabetes, a lot. And some are really close to me. And family members who were showing high levels of insulin resistance via their hemoglobin A1C. And so in talking about like, my mama, or my husband’s mom, or my sister, like these we’re talking about my women in my life. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  20:13

So talk a little bit about what a CGM is, it’s a device that you put on your arm or maybe on your stomach, and it is detecting in real time, the interstitial fluid, the glucose inside of that fluid. And at any given time, you can scan it, and it will read what’s going on. Now, your blood sugar response happens about two to three hours after a meal. So you can kind of see what goes on. And over that time. Yeah, when you first did when you’re just gonna be scanning it all day long, probably like 100 times just to kind of see what happens. Areas. Yeah, you’re super curious. And you’re gonna be curious about trends. I tested a lot of theories with it, and really,

Misty Williams  21:35

really crash. If I eat this donut,

Dr. Mariza Snyder  21:37

will it really crash? If I just, just have a little bit of sugar in something? Or will it really, some of my biggest aha moments was, no surprise, but kind of a surprise for me was, anytime I loved sweet potatoes, they’re all my autoimmune protocol. They’re on my gut and liver protocols. And I thought they were super safe. Little did I know, anytime I eat sweet potatoes, I spike. And so this was a good lesson. So I realized that even foods have seemed innocuous to me that seemed pretty safe. I did not have a tolerance for those foods, and everybody’s different. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  22:11

But what I really walked away from was that I really lacked a lot of the metabolic flexibility that I thought I had. And so all of a sudden, there was a lot of foods that I had been eating for many, many years that I thought were very safe, that at the end of the day, if your blood sugar spiking, your blood sugar spiking, and what we know is that like 90 plus percent of us are spiking on a consistent basis into the diabetic levels. And that’s anything above 140 milligrams per deciliter. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  22:33

In an ideal world, when you’re wearing the CGM and you’re wearing it consistently. That sweet spot is between 110 milligrams per deciliter and 70 milligrams per deciliter. You love your fasting blood sugar every morning to be in the 70s or in the low 80s. But anytime you eat a meal that doesn’t go past 110. And you know, and so often, in a lot of people’s scenarios, we’re seeing that be the case.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  22:54

 As we get older, as women as we enter perimenopause, we have some protective hormones that keep us more sensitive, testosterone, and estrogen, growth hormone, human growth hormone, these are all protectors, but they start to precipitously drop in our 40s, and even in our late 30s. And as those drop, we really need to be more reliant on that metabolic flexibility, because we become more insulin resistant. And so for me, especially, depending on what habits you had in your teens, or in your 20s, you could be more insulin resistant than others. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  23:23

And so what I had learned was that oh my gosh, I really do have an insulin resistance period. And that, if I’ve ever tried, I remember trying like 15 different protein bars, talking about keto protein bars, almost only protein bars, I spiked every single time I had a protein bar. And so it was really fascinating to me, like how quickly I did it, and also what the other big fascination was, I would be super good, super in that realm. But then if I had dinner at seven, or anything later than seven, it didn’t matter what it was. I still spiked. And so it was really, it’s always good for each and every person. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  23:57

The most interesting thing, though, was that my husband Alex had less flexibility than I did. And so, it can especially as we get older, the less protection that we have, and the more it becomes really critical to dial it in. And so the big needle movers for me that I learned about wearing the CGM is, again, protein, fiber, healthy fats stay in that realm. That’s my sweet spot for sure. And that breakfast, always a metabolically healthy breakfast, always a savory breakfast.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  24:27

I remember one day I had, there’s this really wonderful cafe here. And they made an all organic gluten free cacao they whip their coconut. I mean, it’s like all the fancy things. You can imagine all the beautiful berries, and like honey as a little sweetener. I remember eating this waffles thinking that you know, it’s like this protein, cacao waffle. It’s all these things. And I watched my blood sugar go all the way up to 150 and then it took me two days eating super clean the rest of the day, two days to recover from that super what was sold to me as a really healthy waffle experience. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  25:00

It didn’t matter my blood, my body and my blood sugar was like, Ah, no, that doesn’t work. And so that was my big takeaway was that having a metabolically healthy savory breakfast set the tone for the rest of my day, and always as much as I could, eating as early as possible for dinner and walking after dinner, walking after dinner has been the game change for for myself and anyone I’ve been I’ve been coaching through wearing a CGM.

Misty Williams  25:24

So I actually have heard from quite a few people that they were surprised at what actually spiked their blood sugar. I remember talking to one of our mutual friends who had the same experience with sweet potatoes. They were sweet potato only person. They actually tested that sweet potato spike your blood sugar, regular potatoes did not, which was really surprising. 

Misty Williams  25:25

I think Robb Wolf has a book Wired to Eat that goes into different ways to test what carbs you’re sensitive to what your body actually will metabolize well, and what really gives you the big spikes that I would think would be kind of a nice companion to Yeah, Oh, totally. Yeah.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  26:00

And I will say any sweet, any dessert. I don’t care what kind of healthy dessert it was. It didn’t matter girl, it always spike to me. There was no getting around it. If I always ate dessert after a robust meal. And then walked afterwards, I could keep and maintain my blood sugar. But like it was you had to really pile on the hacks to make sure that your blood sugar didn’t spike.

Misty Williams  26:19

Yeah, so interesting. All right, well, let’s keep going here. So that was great continuous glucose monitor. Definitely put that on your axe to try. Go ahead.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  26:29

All right. Other hacks that as I mentioned earlier, it’s walking, walking after a meal. And I mean, walking is so many incredible benefits. I feel like it’s the most underrated you know, self care, health hack that we can do. I always believe that like, no pain, no gain. So walking was like, I was just like, No, not walking and gonna get the job done. Like, let’s get a hit training in. Let’s hit it hard. But I have come to really appreciate walking, I walk 30 minutes a day non negotiable. I try to walk after dinner every single night. Because that’s the biggest bang for my buck. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  26:59

And then some other hacks that I really love for helping to dial in your metabolism or just maintain your blood sugar levels is apple cider vinegar, one of my favorites, it doesn’t taste great. If you don’t, I mean, it’s not like the best tasting thing in the world. But especially taking it in the morning or before a big meal, a meal that you think may spike you if you decided that tonight, it’s pizza night, no matter what, what’s going down. You know, having a little like a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and four ounces of water, use a straw to not mess up the enamel of your teeth, it can reduce that spike by 30%. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  27:29

Another supplement that I really love is Berberine Berberine, has been shown in multiple studies that it is just as beneficial as Metformin for helping to take up glucose to help insulin sensitivity, especially post meal, it also can reduce a glucose spike by over 30%. So those are just some hacks that you can leverage as well. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  27:48

And then the other hack that I really, really love is intermittent fasting. That one is a game changer. And I always recommend a good starting place is 12 hours, I talked about that for the mitochondria, but also specifically for helping to stabilize your blood sugar, for helping to really give your brain a reset. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  28:04

I think a 12 hour fast is very doable. And you know, if a 12 hour fast is all you can do then great. But if you can get up to a 16 to 18 hour fast, even better, because then you kick off cellular autophagy, which is really phenomenal for your mitochondria as well. So even though I’m breastfeeding, I do at least a minimum of a 12 hour fast every single day. And usually it’s between 12 and 14 hours. For me. I’m a little careful. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  28:27

The research on intermittent fasting and breastfeeding is if we still haven’t, like a lot of other women’s studies, we’ve got some work to do there. So I always say play it safe, especially if you’re breastfeeding mama, especially if you’re pregnant. Like you always said, I did not even do intermittent fasting until I was nine months out. I just ate when I was feeding 24/7 at that time. And so again, I just wanted to share my own personal experience in it. But I do believe that after at least six to nine months if you’re still breastfeeding a 12 hour fast can totally work.

Misty Williams  28:58

Yeah. Yeah, I’ve gotten pretty good results with doing a 12 hour fast too. There is there’s a lot of contrast, not controversy. There’s a variety of experiences that women have while intermittent fasting. Yes. And so this is something that I think people should get really educated on and not approach it like because it worked really well for someone else to do a, five hour eating window, then that’s what I should be doing. The overachiever and me always wants to do just like you, like I’m gonna go, go hard, go big, what we needed for this fasted window? All right, let’s do it. but that isn’t always the best thing for our bodies, especially when we’re still cycling. So

Dr. Mariza Snyder  29:34

especially when we’re still cycling, especially if we’ve got a lot of other stressors on our plate. Hands down. At any one point in our life. We’re going to have hormone imbalances, hormones, there’s too much at play. There’s too much responsible for them to work properly. They’re too responsible and running reactions in the body for things to not get gunked up to things are not getting messed up and in this world that we live in. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  29:54

We just can’t live in a glass bottle or glass bubble. You know what I’m saying? Like, everything’s going to come out as life agendas, emails, toxins, we’re gonna get exposed to things that inadvertently on accident is going to happen. And so it’s about knowing your body misty and we’re always experimenting.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  30:12

I think if you’re open to that idea of always experimenting, then you’re not just stuck in like, Okay, I gotta go the hardest, I gotta do the hardest workout. I gotta do the hardest fast, especially when it comes to our endocrine system. It’s so delicate and it and things have got to just be really like that sweet Goldilocks place for things to work well, that extremes do not do well by us.

Misty Williams  30:36

Let’s talk a little bit about the woman who is really struggling metabolically, maybe she has weight that she can’t lose. She’s trying all the tricks, all the diet, nothing’s working. Maybe she’s trying all the tricks for energy crashes, and, whatever else you’re doing, the lifestyle modifications that we’re talking about here, and maybe you’re seeing some progress, but it’s not getting you the results you really want. What are some? What are some deeper hacks that are really important? Like, where would that woman look next?

Dr. Mariza Snyder  31:04

That’s such a great question. I think, you know, what a lot of us don’t realize is that many of us have bigger insulin resistance than we know of, that we even have even looked at. And that could be a major stopping point, given that how critical that particular hormone is. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  31:12

We think we have, like I said, I think we think we have a lot more wiggle room than we do. We think we can get away with that glass of wine every now and again. But maybe we can’t. And we think that we can get away with that dessert every now and again. But maybe, maybe we just don’t have that level of wiggle room. And so I always think it’s worth looking at seeing where your hemoglobin A1C is and seeing what’s going on with your labs, there’s anywhere to identify, are there major nutrient deficiencies, that we’re just missing the boat on and getting clear. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  31:19

The one thing I think, a lot of us get shoved to keto, or we get pushed in these more like extreme diets. And I think we don’t realize that, again, hormones are at play at all times. For us, we’re just not small men, we’re not. And we have to take into account that yeah, maybe we’ve got some level of insulin resistance, but we still have to be mindful of these hormones that are over here, and trying to do the best they can to. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  32:05

So I think extreme keto, for some of us, it’s just not a go. I think really where we should focus is that and not an easy path, but that every meal should be a metabolically healthy meal that’s supporting the gut and the liver. I think a big part of the missing component for many of us as women is that our liver is just feeling super sluggish. And then if we don’t have some somewhat of a detox component to what we’re doing, if we just go heavy keto, it’s not alkaline, it’s not high fiber, we’re just high protein, high fats that can, we just don’t really have the bandwidth for that necessarily, we still need those important carbs, we still need that fiber, we need to be loving up on the gut and liver. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  32:43

So I would always say that if something isn’t working, like you’re trying all these high level keto diets that were really designed for men, more than us as women, that it’s worth looking at the liver and the gut that is low, how can we nourish those organs so that our liver is properly building up those hormones and properly breaking them down and metabolizing those hormones. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  33:01

So that’s a component I don’t think a lot of us talk about when it comes to getting on a Keto plan or restricting carb consumption is that we’re not looking at the other big pieces, we’re not looking at adding fermented foods to our diet, we’re not looking at really bumping our fiber to 50 grams per day, we’re not looking at what’s gonna feed the liver, what’s going to help support our liver detoxification pathways, so that we’re clearing out these excess hormones and these excess toxins. So that would be the second step. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  33:27

And then also filling in those nutrient gaps. A nutrient and an herb that I’m really obsessed with, that can make a massive turnaround and in 10 days is Rhodiola. Rhodiola is one of those powerful herbs, it’s a adaptogenic herb, it’s not like ashwagandha, often people do not have intolerance to Rhodiola. Rhodiola, if you’re feeling like, it’s foggy, you’ve got no word recall, you’ve got no energy in the tank, nothing is working. And you’re not sure where to start, I would just dosing with 500 milligrams of Rhodiola every single day. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  33:56

It has a way of shifting your mood as a way of boosting serotonin levels, it has a way of turning the brain back on so it doesn’t feel like you’re just shooting blinks. When you’re talking to people are wondering where you put your phone or wondering where that next sentence went. When you’re writing something, and it’s going to boost your energy, it’s going to turn on some of the most important vital energy centers. So if there was like a supplement or a magical herb, I would start every woman on it would be Rhodiola.

Misty Williams  34:19

Yeah. So one of the things that’s coming up as I’m listening to you talk about all of this is watching my own labs last year is when it kind of peaked and we I went to my practitioner and was like, listen, we got to figure out why I can’t lose this weight and what is going on my insulin was high, leptin was high, everything was high. We looked up a couple of other markers to inflammatory markers that were showing major inflammation and she’s like, we’ve got to uncover what this is. And so that’s when we found the mold in the fungus. 

Misty Williams  34:45

And fortunately, eight months later, I’ve been able to like release the weight that I’ve gained and all those frustrations, but I just want to mention this in light of the conversation we’re having, which I think is so powerful and this is a topic that affects so many women, like what’s happening even with our metabolism, I have been the woman that got really obsessive about everything that I put in my mouth. I see women in my family who are like this, I see women in our community who are like this. 

Misty Williams  35:08

We’re trying to control our metabolism with food alone. And I just want to put on everyone’s radar that there are other really big pieces, you just talked about how important the liver was, but you have big stressors in your life in your body, mold and metals, you’ve really got to get these things out of your body so that your body is going to actually function better. And, I don’t want to have this conversation without really emphasizing that, because I know there’s so many women who are trying so hard with the food, right? and trying so hard with life, what is the magic formula of what I need to do so that I can release and let go or so that I can have more energy. 

Misty Williams  35:42

And while I think a morning routine is really powerful, actually, and we teach a lot about morning routines. And I think routines in general really helped us to hit the important points, you know, these are the things we make need to make sure that we’re putting in our body every single day. We also need to look deeper and and see what we can do to give our livers some support and see what we can do to uncover the toxins make some different decisions about the stress that we’re allowing to continue to propagate in our lives. Right? Because it our bodies can only take so much. Yeah, 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  36:10

You can’t eat your way out of chronic stress. Yeah, you just can’t I mean, can you hopefully give your mitochondria a little bit of what they need, so that when you hit that stress, it’s got a little bit of a buffer? Sure, but you absolutely can if you are living a life that is just full of slaying dragons 24/7. It’s, you’re going to constantly be on high alert, you’re going to constantly be driving that stress response system. And at the end of the day, your body is always going to favor survival over anything else. It always will. And if everything feels like survival, then you’re always going to be stuck.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  36:44

 Probably my greatest lesson and it’s really important to dive deep dig in. Why is it that I’m operating in survival mode? What is it about my past or my childhood? That this has become the superpower that I am choosing to wield? And really dig in? Like, is it? Where’s the unworthiness coming from? Where are you? Where’s the I’m just not feeling lovable coming from.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  37:02

 I had this epiphany moment, when every time we’re running late. There’s this surge of anxious fearful energy in me, that just that overtakes me every night, especially doctor’s appointments or things I’m like, we need to be on time. My husband, not so much. He likes to be late. I don’t like to be late. I released a lot of it. But there are specific times where, oh, I’m lit up if we’re not going to we’re running late. And, and now I’ve been working on sitting with it. Like if I’ll feel it come up, it’ll be like this, it will pit in my stomach. I’ll start rising into my brain. And I know now to just calm it down because me firing off at my husband, especially with my child in the car and going to nobody no favors because it never ends. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  37:41

But I wanted to understand why. Why is it there, I get this crazy surge of emotion that hits me like a Mack truck when we’re reading like where’s that from and, and where it’s from is my parents divorced, I was really young. And my dad would come from Baker. So my mom would come from Orange County. And they we all met in Visalia, there was like the meeting point. And a lot of the time when we were meeting, my mom would be up to three hours late. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  38:02

And my dad would tell me, my sister and I that my mom cared so little about us that most likely she was never going to show. And there were days where I thought my mom wasn’t going to show up. She wasn’t going to arrive. See, I meant so little to her that she could be that late. And he would threaten to turn around and take us back to his house. And this happens all the time. This happened. I mean, many, many weekends, this was going down. And it got to a point where there was just so much anxiety around if my mom was going to show or not. And there was so much shame around ever being late to anything, that when I finally tapped into this need to be urgently on time, everywhere, at the sacrifice at my own health at the sacrifice of my relationship. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  38:39

There was just this deep shame and fear around my not being worthy of someone showing up for me like my mom. And so as we tap into this stuff, and we start to realize, Oh, holy shoot, this is how I’m awkward. This is why I operate this way in my life. Like am I on time? Yeah. Does it look good on paper? Sure. But like, how well is it doing for my stress response system? And how is it doing in my relationships? What am I modeling for my son? 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  39:03

And so I think yeah, we got to do that deeper work to have like uncovering this is just one example of the many things that happened, that I just kind of really got clear on last couple of weeks of like, what’s the driver might Why am I pushing myself so hard? Why am I why do I feel the need to have so much going on to slay so many dragons all the time? What if life didn’t have dragons to slay? Well, that’s an interesting idea. And so yeah, there is deeper, deeper stuff, whether it’s a pathogen or it’s a chemical, or it’s just these old belief patterns that just keeps showing up for us. It’s important to untether those as well.

Misty Williams  39:38

So I want to talk to the woman I may or may not be this woman and I may or may not have a lot of friends that are this woman who is the woman that makes everything okay? So she’s the woman that when someone doesn’t handle something, well, she makes it okay when someone loses their temper, she makes it okay when when someone is late really late, she makes it okay, when someone drops the ball on a responsibility, she makes it okay, I had this pattern in my life, I could see playing out in certain relationships, and I have friends who’ve had this pattern where our identity gets wrapped up in the person that just holds it all together for everyone and makes it okay. 

Misty Williams  40:17

And at some point, we have to really start looking at what it’s costing us to make it okay for everybody else. And it just really seemed appropriate as you were sharing about your experience with your mom to also speak to the woman who, women do make a lot of things. Okay, right? We are wired with a brain and with the ability to multitask, and we do hold a lot of things together. But there comes a time that, sometimes it can be too much. And sometimes we’re tolerating so much from other people that we are, we are owning the responsibility that they should be owning. Right? And then it’s stressing us out. 

Misty Williams  40:51

So to the woman who is the one that makes it, okay, I want to give you permission to not be the one that makes everything okay, because it really takes a toll on us. It takes a toll on our health always having to be superwoman for everybody else, we need to create some space for other people to lift up our arms and carry the burden so that we’re also getting the support we need to

Dr. Mariza Snyder  41:12

Yeah, I mitochondria can only take so much of that. It’s only so much.

Misty Williams  41:15

They’re just no more.

Misty Williams  41:18

That’s right. It gets overwhelming. Yeah. And there’s this fear to that underlies that of like, if I’m not the one making it, okay, what’s gonna what’s the fallout? what happens when things start crumbling, and it’s a really, I’m not going to say that there aren’t there isn’t going to be a fallout. But I know, in my own instance, when I started realizing that I didn’t get near the support that I really needed in my life. There were some there was a hard two year period of letting go and letting a lot of things burn up and fall away. 

Misty Williams  41:45

Now I’m six years past that time, seven years passed that time. And, wow, what a difference in my life every day. And I know that a lot of that stress I was conditioned to take on. And it wasn’t serving me to hold that together. It wasn’t serving me too, in the face of I don’t want anything to fall apart. I don’t want anything to catch on fire. I don’t want anything to blow up, right. I’m basically sacrificing my body and my health. 

Misty Williams  42:11

Sometimes we just need to count the costs a little differently. Maybe the fire that’s going to happen here in the next year or two isn’t the worst thing. Maybe the worst thing is continuing to sacrifice ourselves and dealing with serious debilitating diseases to the point that we can’t help ourselves and people around us can’t either because we haven’t created a life that gives us any of the support we need.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  42:32

Yeah, it can feel very lonely.

Misty Williams  42:34

It can feel really lonely. I absolutely have felt really lonely in my life. Because I was doing for everyone else. Yeah, I remember having an epiphany one time of I need to see me. I had gone through this period of wishing that other people would see everything I was doing and everything I was sacrificing and feeling invisible. As you just said, and actually, I needed to see me.

Misty Williams  42:59

I needed to stop making myself invisible by not speaking up by fixing it for everybody else by handling all the things all the time. Right. So it’s a confronting area that I think as women we all most of us will need to look at. But man, there’s a lot of liberation there and a lot of healing on the other side of it.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  43:18

And a lot of self love too. We’ve been taught to put everyone first and sacrifice ourselves because that’s just the way it is. For us. That’s the one lot in life. If you’re feeling crappy, I can’t tell you the times when I was feeling crappy early on, I would ask and I every answer I got was well, that’s just the way it is. Yeah, it’s just the way it is for women. Like that’s how it’s gonna be. And I was like, this doesn’t. Okay, all right. Okay. All right. I’m just gonna, like shove down that thought of like, this doesn’t seem right. Right. 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  43:48

If that’s how it’s supposed to be all right, let’s just keep going. Until you can’t, and that happens at all different ages for us. And it’s usually the until you can’t the moment you realize you’re like, Man, I really should have been. Yeah, it should have been paying attention to that earlier. But yeah, I think hopefully, we’re learning especially as we take on more responsibilities that we just deserve it. I am a big fan of deserving like women just deserve it. deserve the winds deserve the self love, deserve the recognition deserve to put them first put you first because

Misty Williams  44:22

we deserve a nanny and the housekeeper and the whatever, taking on all this responsibility and yeah,

Dr. Mariza Snyder  44:28

yeah, absolutely. And here’s the thing, this is the whole thing. The whole kit and caboodle is that you’re never not going to keep doing for others you’re not so at least do for you to. Yeah!, it’s all gonna keep coming back around to everybody else. Don’t think that it’s not because everyone’s gonna keep asking for you. Yeah, that’s never gonna. I bet my son is asking for me right now. He’s like, where is she? There’s no milk lady where she go when she comes. I’ll hit her down the stairs. You know what I’m saying? Like, hey, gotta stop asking for stuff.

Misty Williams  44:58

That’s right. He’s not Your husband’s not Alex.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  45:02

I know he I barely kicked him out of this room before. To hurt him a little bit to do this, I’m gonna do this. And I was like, can you just get out of here so I can get focused.

Misty Williams  45:10

I know, the older I get, the more my mom asks. My siblings asked kind of went through this period in my 20s and 30s, where we all got really independent went away. And now everyone’s now we all need each other more. Yes, yeah, that’s right. Yeah, we need to put ourselves on the list.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  45:25

Yes. So yes, yes, it’s important. I mean, we make decisions about food every day. And I again, I always want to be thinking about like, well, what’s going to be my future brain, I want to know what my future my brain is going to be built off the salmon and salads, or it’s going to be built off of nachos. And an ice cream, what I’m saying? Like, I want that, what does that future brain look like? 

Dr. Mariza Snyder  45:44

At the same time, what are your non negotiables? What are the things that you have got to do for you, not for nobody else, but for you. For me, that is walking everyday by myself, do not try to join me on my own walk, I don’t need you all up in my air, you know, telling me this or that. Number two is, you know, loving up my body with foods that I love, then also meditating, like those are the three non negotiables for me, and if I don’t do those consistently, you don’t want to be around me, I’m not my best self.

Misty Williams  46:09

This has been amazing, so many good nuggets in here, I hope that everyone listening is able to take some things away that you can start thinking about apply right now. Put yourself on your list, consider getting a glucose monitor and see what’s happening inside your body and consider what you need to do to really get your health on the rails. 

Misty Williams  46:25

We’ve talked a little bit about testing and going deeper and looking for stuff, make sure that you’re working with someone who can really help you figure some of this stuff out because lifestyle was super important. Like we’re not going to heal without creating a great lifestyle, that I’ve learned the very hard way that oftentimes lifestyle is not enough. We also need the support of a really great practitioner, and we need to run the right tests and figure out what’s happening in our body. So this is good stuff. Mariza, thank you so much. 

Misty Williams  46:46

Why don’t you tell everyone if they want to find more information about you? Where can they find you online?

Dr. Mariza Snyder  46:52

Absolutely. So I have a podcast that is literally fully devoted to women and helping them become the CEO of their health because end of the day, that’s who we can rely on the most is ourselves. That is the way it is. And then I also have books are all on Amazon, all eight of them. And I have a great hormone recipe guide that are all of my favorite foods super easy to make. I love easy, and it focuses on metabolically healthy meals, loving your gut liver and balancing your blood sugar. You don’t have to think about it. You know, they’re just easy to implement. So we can add that little guide in as well if you’d like.

Misty Williams  47:23

Awesome. I love it. All right, we’re gonna have all this stuff linked in the show notes. You guys go check out Dr. Mariza and all her awesome stuff. Thank you so much for spending time with me today.

Dr. Mariza Snyder  47:31

Oh, thank you. 

Misty Williams  47:32

All right, I appreciate it. We’ll see you guys soon. Bye for now. That’s it for this week’s episode. Thank you for listening. I hope you’re feeling more empowered to overcome your flabby, foggy and fatigue and to reclaim your life. 

Misty Williams  47:43

If you haven’t subscribed yet, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button right now so you don’t miss any of our episodes. We have some awesome shows coming right up. I love reading your reviews and comments too. They inspire me and encourage other Rosie’s to hang out with us and learn all these amazing strategies for healing and living our best lives. Till next time sister. Bye bye