Amazing Foods Women Should Eat To Naturally Balance Hormones | Dr. William Li

Amazing Foods Women Should Eat To Naturally Balance Hormones | Dr. William Li



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In this video, Dr. William Li explains how women can naturally balance their hormones with the right foods. Hormonal balance is essential for overall well-being, affecting everything from metabolism to mood and reproductive health. In this video, we’ll dive into key hormones such as adiponectin, insulin, estrogen, and progesterone, and explore how specific foods can support these vital processes.

What Are Hormones and Why Are They Important?
Hormones are chemical messengers that regulate numerous body functions. For women, maintaining hormonal balance is crucial for health, especially during key life stages. Learn how your diet can influence hormones like adiponectin, insulin, and estrogen, and how small changes in your diet can lead to big improvements in your overall health.

Foods to Help Balance Hormones Naturally:
– White Beans – Protein and fiber to support hormonal balance.
– Coffee (No Dairy) – Boost metabolism and support vascular health.
– Tomatoes – Rich in lycopene and antioxidants for hormonal support.
– Strawberries – Packed with polyphenols to reduce inflammation and support hormonal health.
– Brassica Vegetables (Broccoli, Kale, Brussels Sprouts) – Aid in detoxifying excess hormones and balance estrogen.

Supporting Thyroid and Cortisol Health:
Find out how to support thyroid health and regulate cortisol, the stress hormone, with the right foods like iodine-rich seaweed and omega-3-rich seafood.

Foods to Limit for Hormonal Balance:
Dr. Li also discusses foods to limit, including alcohol, ultra-processed foods, and added sugars, which can disrupt hormone production and lead to imbalances.

Helpful Links:
– Check out my website to stay connected: https://drwilliamli.com/
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today I'm going to talk about the foods that every woman should know about because eating them can help naturally balance their hormones first let's talk about what is a hormone a hormone is a chemical messenger that's made in your body that tells one organ or multiple organs what to do in order to function for health now hormones can affect you physically they can affect you mentally they can affect you emotionally and hormones can even affect you socially there are social hormones that you're brain actually produces we're going to talk about some of those hormones are also key for sexual health and for function and for reproduction so if you want to have a baby your hormones have to work well both if you're a man as well as when if you're a woman now how many hormones are in the body that's a great question there's probably hormones we haven't discovered yet but as of last count there's about 50 hormones that are circulating in human body now some of the hormones that you may have heard about are like thyroid hormones or cortisol or of course insulin for blood sugar control then there's soci the social hormone oxytocin and estrogen which you probably heard about and progesterone now I'll talk about these hormones but let's start first with the foods that I recommend for hormonal balance we're just going to give you some foods first and then we're going to explain it all uh as we go along all right first you need to eat foods that are a good source of protein protein if you want to balance your hormones now why is this it's because proteins are made out of amino acids and you need to put those into your body and your body will break them down and they will reassemble hormones out of those amino acids so if you don't have enough you're not going to be making proper hormones so you need protein made of amino acids so that the body can recoup and capture those amino acids and use them to construct uh the hormones the building blocks of hormones okay so you want make sure your body's stocked up so what are some good basic sources of protein if you want to kind of make sure your body's got balance of your hormones well some common good sources of protein are eggs it's a myth that eggs aren't good for your health eggs particularly organic Freer range eggs um are actually really great sources of protein and even though they have cholesterol limits actually helps you raise your good cholesterol and all the Studies have shown that in fact eating eggs in moderation actually lowers your risk of cardio vascular disease so eggs a good source of protein another good source of protein are legumes so what are legumes lentils at aame they are great source of of a legumes all right and then of course you've got your uh meats and fish fish are a great source of protein if you're a pescatarian um always eat lower on the food chain okay I like swordfish but swordfish is high on the food chain high in the food chain means that it actually might actually contain heavy metals that you get from the sea like Mercury big fish eat smaller fish eat smaller fish eat smaller fish and what they do is they're actually accumulating all the heavy metals that are found in the sea so eating lower on the food chain is always better okay now uh what about Meats turns out chicken is a pretty good source of protein right if you want an alternative to red meat that's uh beef or even pork chicken is actually a great alternative now if if you want to get the best quality chicken try to get it um free range all right and you want your chickens to be humanely treated not only is that just good uh practice from a Humanity perspective but also chickens that are allowed to run around in their natural environment and eat natural things are going to be better sources of the bioactives their protein is actually going to be a better type of protein and they're less likely to be sick now chickens also have a gut microbiome healthy gut and the problem is that when chickens are raised in big factories where they're put in small pens and packed next to each other guess what they uh don't aren't fed the right things their gut microbiome isn't healthy and if the gut microbiome of a chicken isn't healthy the chicken's not going to be healthy and their meat isn't going to be quite as healthy as well so basic principles we talked about eggs we talked about chickens organic free range always going to be the best legumes another good source of proteins okay now here's the thing eating proteins that can influence uh uh hormones can also influence and control your appetite because one of the hormones that controls your appetite is called gin okay gin makes you hungry uh and uh hormone and and protein also helps your body create hormones like glp1 and glp1 slows your appetite down all right um there's another hormone called leptin that also slows your appetite down slowing your appetite is called satiety and when you feel full you're much less likely to eat or overeat a lot of food all right so that's actually key because you overeat you're going to uh overload your body's metabolism you're going to over accumulate fat harmful body fat and then it's going to be an inflammation and now your hormones are going to be out of whack so here's what you want you want to be able to eat proteins that are building the balancing mechanis is Ms okay and this is both for men and women but also women we can't forget about the whole appetite issue particularly as women get towards middle age you want to actually make sure you're paying attention to this eating protein builds a hormones that allow your appetite to be balanced gin makes you hungry That's a hormone that requires protein and uh leptin uh Makes You full and the hormone glp1 glucagon like peptide 1 uh uh is another hormone that actually makes you feel full now by the way if you think you've heard of glp1 glucagon like peptide 1 that's probably because you have glp1 is the natural hormone made by your body to be able to slow appetite down it's one of the functions of glp1 it's got other functions as well but glp1 slows your appetite down um it's kind of like a a protein a hormone that actually pushes a button that says heyy you're a little bit full stop eating all right guess what those prescription weight loss drugs like OIC wovi munaro Etc they are what we call glp1 agonists so they are kind of like glp1 but they push that button as well to make you full that's one of the reasons that these uh prescription weight loss drugs help you lose weight naturally your body's going to make these as well so if you really want to have a balanced appetite and you're not overeating uh uh if you overeat you're going to tip your metab ISM over and now you're not out of balance as well so eating protein helps build the hunger hormone and the fullness the ciety hormone that's what you call balance now the next food I want to talk about are colorful vegetables you've heard about this eat the rainbow right well colorful vegetables like I always think about sweet peppers right yellow peppers red peppers orange peppers green peppers to me that's a great example of a single food that has a different colors to it but then EV if you think about all the other types of vegetables out there you got your carrots and you've got your um Swiss CH they've got all kinds of different colors to them they not only have Prebiotic bioactives polyphenols but they also tend to have a lot of dietary fiber so let's first talk a little bit about the colors the colors from the polyphenols those Prebiotic polyphenols they feed your gut microbiome now your gut microbiome this is 39 ion bacteria that live in your gut healthy bacteria okay when I was in medical school I was taught that must kill bacteria bacteria all bad wrong most of the bacteria that we encounter in our lives actually are inside our gut and most of those bacteria are good but you want to actually keep them happy and wellfed a good gut microbiome is like a happy neighborhood of good citizens that live together and they're productive together they make sure everybody is safe and happy and when you actually feed them polyphenols some colorful vegetables you're keeping your gut microbiome happy now what's the role of the gut microbiome and hormones we are actually just now starting to do the research to figure this out but it's absolutely clear that a good healthy gut microbiome is very important to keep your hormones balanced all the hormones seem to be affected by the gut microbiome wherever we look if you want to balance your hormones you want to have good healthy gut microbiome and where you find hormones uh out of balance right so you might see this in menopause you might see this in uh hyper hypothyroidism guess what what we're fighting is that the gut microbiome is somehow involved that's that dastardly problem called disbiosis dis meaning out of whack biosis relating to the Natural Balance within the gut microbiome so when that's gut microbiome's out of balance you wind up having problems with your homo so you want actually feed that gut bacteria with colorful vegetables containing polyphenols and dietary fiber the dietary fiber is actually the core food okay if you have a pet dog okay this is your dog food the dietary fiber to keep your pet dog or in the case of your gut your your gut bacteria happy wellfed and well functioning that's key for hormonal balance now what are some of the vegetables that I um really want to emphasize are really beneficial for gut health and therefore hormonal balance in health well there's a whole group of vegetables you should know about called Brasa b r a SS I ca Brasa so what are some examples of these all right you go to the produce section and you ask the manager produce manager hey you have any Nebraska here and what he or she will do is point out broccoli broccoli Rob brussels sprouts cabbage kale and collard green and by the way you can also get um the Sprouts from these as well broccoli Sprouts kale sprouts um I actually go to the farmers market and I will often find um in the springtime and uh broccoli Sprouts or kale sprouts which are absolutely delicious okay these Brasa have a lot of Prebiotic polyphenols one of them is called isothiocyanates they are important for gut health they're good for metabolic health metabolic balance and they actually help to fight harmful body fat which lowers inflammation in your body which then helps your hormone stay inbalance as well you see this is actually like a complicated Orchestra with a lot of different instruments your hormones and your organs and your cells are all kind of playing a beautiful orchestral sound and when one instrument is out of balance it can actually affect the other instruments as well and so the whole piece actually sounds Out Of Tune and this is why you want to actually to keep those hormones balanced all right what's another source of dietary fiber that's really good because Brasa also have a lot of dietary fiber but here's another food that you should know about mushrooms I love mushrooms mushrooms even though they're soft and Wiggly when you actually um cook them they are a great source of dietary fiber a soluble fiber called beta D glucan and beta glucan there's a lot of things it activates your body's Health defense systems which I wrote about in my book Eat to beat disease disease and also good for your metabolism which I wrote about in eat to beat your diet but here's the thing the dietary fiber in mushrooms feeds your gut microbiome better gut health better hormonal balance what kind of mushrooms well I can tell you that even the lowly lowly white button mushroom is beneficial all right but there are other culinary mushrooms that you're going to counter very easily when you go to the grocery store you go to the farmers market all right and what are some of these things uh should chake mushrooms inoi mushrooms portabello mushrooms um criminy mushrooms these are really common porini is kind of a gourmet mushroom I love all caporini they're absolutely delicious and by the way you can also get mushrooms fresh but you can also get them dry because fresh mushrooms you know if you have a local mushroom grower or you can get mushrooms grown uh sort of in a dark place on on these logs that's one thing you can get farmed mushrooms but in this uh fall and winter especially getting into the winter fresh mushrooms might be hard to come by in some places in which case guess what dried mushrooms actually have the beta de glute can just in dried form and in fact arguably if you're cooking with mushrooms the dried mushrooms even have more potent flavor right so dried porini you can make a risoto out of that I like to cook so I like to talk about uh Foods now my Taki mushrooms are also um a kind of meaty mushro mushroom it doesn't have a stem it's just kind of like this like looks like a piece of coral from a coral reef let's talk about mushroom parts for a second because I think this is actually something that might be interesting and useful for you to know about that beta dlue can that I talked about is present in all of the mushrooms now when you actually get a mushroom like a plain old white button mushroom right what do you normally do when you bring them home from the store you clean them up you want to clean them up rinse them off and what do you do you cut off the stem and you're going to cook with the top right then you slice up the top or you throw the top in and it used to be all right and me too I'd throw away the stems but what we've done now is looked at the research to figure out where is that beta glue can so the cap the mushroom cap the top it's got bitt glue can it's got a lot of it which is why we love to eat the top of the mushroom tasty too but guess what the stem of the mushroom which is called the stype of the mushroom s p e the stpe of the mushroom has twice as much beta D glue can so you're going to buy mushrooms right cook with the top eat the top but also save the stem and do something with the stem if you look at cultures in Asia or cultures in the Mediterranean or in Latin American countries you know they actually use every part of their food and mushroom stems can be used to make something really delicious in a dish if you don't know what to make with it one and doubt put it into a food processor and you can puree it and actually turn it into a mushroom soup which you can then flavor up in all kinds of different healthy ways and you'll still get the uh soluble fiber the beta de glue can okay so that's another little kind of like a pro tip when it comes to mushrooms what about another source of dietary fiber that's actually good for your gut health which is good for hormonal balance avocados who doesn't like an avocado right like avocado toast avocado just plain uh avocado in your cut up in your salad avocado is actually really really great avocado even though it's kind of mushy and green it's a great source of dietary fiber who would have thought that right so your guacamole is actually quite healthy all right uh uh and it's got healthy fats in it as well another benefit of avocado okay so just to kind of recap foods that are loaded with polyphenols colorful foods and dietary fiber are good for gut health good gut health good hormonal Health helps to keep everything in Balance now let's talk about another category of foods that can help keep hormones in balance and that is your omega-3 fatty acids sometimes are called pufas pufa that stands for polyunsaturated fatty acid okay and the name is accurate these are healthy fats now you can get these healthy fats from plant-based Foods okay you get the precursor linolic acid chia seeds have them as an example when you eat them your body has to convert the linolenic acid acid from the Chade it converts it into Omega-3s all right um and it's actually a useful thing uh if you're a vegetarian or you're vegan to know that seeds like chia seeds can actually be a good source of Omega-3s but if you actually eat fish that's where the most abundant Omega-3s like get you just like delivers it right home right target hits the bullseye every time is you eat seafood now Seafood uh with Omega-3s used to be considered uh oily fish right I mean how many Of You' have heard about eat the oily fish macel and Anchovies and sardines now I actually happen to like all of them but I know that many people don't really like seafood and many people don't like those kind of um smaller oily fish but I can tell you from research that I've done and that I've wrote about this in my book Eat to beat your diet which isn't a diet book is actually how a book that tells you how to avoid having to beat to get on a diet it turns out that some of the larger fish the white flaky fish the fish that people like cod hadock are all actually really really uh lated with Omega-3s in fact um you can e just basically a pling card deck worth of cod and you can actually get a good whopping dose of Omega-3s now salmon is obviously got Omega-3s as well and salmon even though it's a little higher in the food chain uh is a healthier meat because it doesn't actually tend to accumulate those high high levels of heavy metals from the sea but is a good substitute um H as I mentioned to you uh is also another uh White Fish very mild tasting if you don't like if you're not somebody who really likes fishy fish try Cod try hake these are really uh hbit these are very benign uh fish and actually they're quite tasty if they're cooked the right way I always tell people if you think you don't like seafood really the the problem is that you just haven't had it properly prepared in a delicious way and so give yourself a chance to enjoy Seafood now let's say you say well I like seafood but I actually like shellfish more I like shrimp I like oysters I like clams muscles guess what you are in luck because my research is shown that even shellfish like muscles and clams uh can actually and shrimp have omega-3 fatty acids so you can actually um get what you need in order to be able to get those Omega-3s that help to balance your hormones uh from shellfish uh as well by the way this also goes uh to octopus to squid to Lobster okay I know that most people don't eat lobster it's a kind of expensive food but guess what what I'm trying to get to you is that the whole spectrum of seafood actually can give you omega-3 fatty acids because Omega-3s actually come from Plankton which are you know kind of the plants of the sea uh and then small fish eat them bigger fish eat the smaller fish and then and their flesh accumulates the omega-3 fatty acids and this goes for shellfish and shrimp uh as well now if you toally don't like Seafoods of any sort or can't get it most people can get it frozen fish by the way is as good as fresh fish when it comes to Omega-3s and the quality of the meat as well but you can also um get Omega-3s from as a supplement so uh that's actually another another way to get omega-3 fatty acids all right why am I telling spending all this time talking about Omega-3s well because Omega-3s have been shown to help regulate a very important hormone in your body called cortisol cortisol is made by your adrenal glands all right and that your adrenal glands are basically um sort of like a sunny side up egg that's sitting on top of your kidneys so here's your kidney and here's the adrenal gland sitting right on top of it um another analogy would be like an owl perching on a tree stum or a sunny side egg you know sort of like piled on some hash browns whatever okay these are the glands that are are making hormones they sit on top of your kidneys and when they produce cortisol guess what your cortisol helps to control your metabolism so if you're a woman and you want balanced hormones um I know that most people start talking about reproductive hormones but I'm talking about cortisol because cortisol needs to be balanced in order to have a balanced metabolism ISM and cortisol also helps to balance your blood pressure women actually especially as they get older are prone to having high blood pressure hypertension cortisol helps to regulate that and by the way cortisol is also important for keeping your mind sharp okay um uh cognitive function is dependent on having a good control of cortisol now you don't want too much cortisol all right if you have OverDrive of any hormone you know the the functions of your organ go to overdrive so you don't want too much cortisol or your metabolism goes on overdrive your blood pressure sores and you can actually get mentally anxious as well but if you have too little cortisol if you're short on cortisol then you're listless and your blood pressure bottoms out okay so again this is why balance is really important you want just the right amount and your body knows how to do this but Omega-3s is one of those um substances dietary factors from seafood or chia seeds and some plant-based foods that allow you to have that healthy hormonal balance now one thing that also has Omega-3s seaweed if you ever go to a sushi restaurant go to the sushi bar they might have on the menu a seaweed salad that's called wakame and that actually contains Omega-3s uh so order a seaweed salad a little bit of sesame oil and sesame seeds on it and the other thing is that is kelp kelp is sort of the big thick slippery seaweed have you ever gone to a beach and you see this big gigantic leaves sitting on dark colored leaves sitting on the uh uh on the sand they're pretty slippery that's kelp and kelp is also a good source of Omega-3s so you're like I'm not going to be eating that off the beach well actually if you go get miso soup in a Japanese restaurant okay you know the little bowl of soup they serve you usually get a little bit of tofu uh in it uh it's a broth uh it will have a little black square that is kelp all right if you go to Asian store you'll see that dried and you can actually tear a page off the sushi restaurant Playbook and you can cut it up and soak it up and cook it into a soup yourself and guess what that contributes omega-3 fatty acids to you let's now talk about your thyroid because many people actually um uh have thyroid issues and your thyroid first of all what is your thyroid it's a gland it's a gland that makes thyroid hormone right so glands are the organs in your body that make hormones so where's your thyroid located well it's actually right above your the notch of your um collar bone right between your collar bone and it kind of like a butterfly around your neck um you know when doctors are trained to do a thyroid exam we're told to actually use both hands and feel around the neck which is what the your doctor does on a good physical exam the thyroid looks like a butterfly it's got two Wings on each side and it makes thyroid hormone so what does thyroid hormone do it controls your metabolism so so you want to have good thyroid hormone in order to have good balanced metabolism thyroid hormone also controls your energy levels and thyroid hormone also controls your weight whether you gain weight lose weight or keep it absolutely steady thyroid hormone also controls your heart the rate of your heartbeat how fast and strong your bones grow and thyroid hormone also helps your body generate heat so if you feel warm or you feel cold that's all due to whether or not your thyroid hormone is actually doing its job and balance now what happens if you have too much thyroid hormone well guess what that's called hyper thyroidism and what are you going to do you're going to feel really hot and sweaty heat generation goes way up and if you're low in thyroid hormone you're going to feel cold and you're going to lack energy again I'm telling you this because this is why hormones need to be balanced all right so what foods are good for hormonal Health well answer is pretty simple you want foods with iodine iodine is an element all right in the environment and your thyroid needs the iodine in order to be able to function properly what's the source of iodine well seaweed we talked about um kelp uh and we talked about wakame any type of seaweed is actually a good source of iodine if you want to find seaweed um uh you can just go to the Asian store they usually have a section where they've got packaged dried sheets of seaweed and just go on to um YouTube and look up seaweed recipe um soup seaweed is great to actually use in soup but you can use it to cook in other ways as well by the way if you like go to a sushi restaurant and you like rolls right the Maki rolls guess what that black skin around the roll is seaweed it's pretty easy to actually make your own Moy rolls all you need is this kind of a machy roll roll maker uh which you just roll the the the sheet up with so you put a sheet of the seaweed on top of the Roll then you put some rice on top of it then you put you know whatever cucumbers for the California roll or anything else uh tuna if you would cut up the tuna or shrimp and then you roll it up it's actually fun to make tasty and a way to get your seaweed into your system that releases that has th iodine which is actually healthy for your thyroid hormone for thyroid balance for balance hormones now Seafood in general like fish also has iodine because the sea has iodine and there are kinds of salt that you can buy in a grocery store if you look on the uh on the side of the package of the salt it'll say fortified with iodine check the label see if your salt that you might get at the grocery store has iodine in it now what about some other unusual or surprising sources of iodine guess what yogurt can also contain iodine yogurt probiotic food good for gut health but but often it contains iodine you know why because the cows that produce the milk used to make yogurt are fed iodine in order to keep the thyroid glands of the cows healthy right it's you know that whole thing of you are what you eat well you are what your food actually eats as well and when cows are fed iodine to make a healthy cow to produce healthy milk and that healthy cow making healthy milk is actually made to Ed yogurt you get a little bit of iodine so that's a little bit of a surprising source of um of iodine uh Brazil nuts uh it's a tree nut also good for the thyroid uh uh it actually contains an element called selenium which is a trace metal that your thyroid uses to keep things in balance as well all right so selenium also good for the thyroid Brazil nuts a good source for that all right I know I'm going through a lot of information on a lot of hormones on a lot of foods but look we're going to be talking about a lot of complexity whenever you're talking about balancing the hormones remember there's more than 50 hormones in the body and I'm not going to go through all 50 don't worry but I'm going to talk about the ones that you're most likely have heard of and ones that are most likely the ones that you want to prioritize when it comes to food as medicine to have be balanced in your body I can't talk about hormones without mentioning insulin and I know a lot has been made out of glucose spikes and Insulin etc etc um and I'm not going to go into glucose spikes but let me just tell you insulin is a hormone that is made to uh to help regulate your metabolism how much energy you actually have in your body and we all want to have energy so where is insulin made insulin is made by an organ in your belly called the pancreas and the pancreas has made of different kinds of cells there's a special kind of cell in the pancreas called the beta eyet cell beta eyelet cell all right and when those beta adid cells are working well they make insulin whenever you're actually eating or thinking about eating and when food enters your body okay especially glucose your insulin is released and it is just ready to help your muscles and your atopos sites these are fat cells absorb the blood sugar so that it's regulating how much sugar is floating around your bloodstream and guess what that sugar is fuel and that fuel actually gives you energy so that's how our body stores energy as we're eating is that insulin the hor hormone that needs to be balanced by the way has got to actually is critical for in order to make sure that we're have getting good energy balance what happens if you have two little insulin well guess what your sugar doesn't get absorbed and it builds up in the blood okay twoo little insulin not enough pull the sugar into your muscles and into your body fat and now the blood sugar is just building up up up up and the more you eat the higher the sugar levels go all right and when sugar builds up in your blood you have high blood glucose it's not a Spike it's just kind of like a like a bathtub that the water is overflowing there up up up and it's now it's going to fill over the spill over the sides and this is actually called type one diabetes or insulin dependent diabetes all right that's when you don't have enough insulin now too uh much insulin is also bad for you now when do you have too much insulin well this can actually happen in type two diabetes type two or adult onset diabetes well this is actually what happens when your your body make an insulin but your B but your uh but your muscles aren't actually responding to the insulin so it's out there but it but the machine that actually absorbs the energy the fuel isn't working properly it's like if you were at The Filling Station trying to fill uh pump gas into your car and there's a blockage in uh your fuel tank right the nozzle can't quite spray the gas and and now um your pancreas will is saying oh we're not getting enough blood sugar into our muscles into our body let's go ahead and make more insulin maybe that's the problem and so then in type 2 diabetes not only you not absorbing the blood sugar but you're also making more insulin and when you pump out more insulin levels go up up up up and too much insulin is also bad you know why because uh in order to make more and more and more insulin your body has to really ratchet up uh a growth hormone called ins insulin like growth factor igf1 insulin growth factor listen this is actually the growth factor that helps your body make insulin when you need to make more you need insulin you need more igf-1 and here's the problem uh you need a little igf1 to be healthy but too much igf-1 meaning your body says I'm not getting a blood cluent I'm make more some more insulin that's type two diabetes more insulin still not getting enough sugar more insulin now to keep on making more and more and more insulin your body is cranking out the igf-1 and too much igf1 is associated with more mortality from all kinds of causes and igf-1 is even linked to cancer development in the lab if you expose a tumor cell a cancer cell igf-1 it just goes wild it loves the igf1 it goes crazy and so that's why we actually really want to be able to control igf-1 and that's why having Runaway type 2 diabetes is not healthy at all okay so how do you actually get balance of your insulin well you want to actually make sure that you're not overeating and that you're also eating the right amounts of food so um so not overeating I always talk about harachi banm that is harachi banm is a confusion saying that says stop eating when you're about 80% full if you eat slowly and a good way to eat slowly is to eat with uh a company hopefully somebody you like having conversation uh uh you're eating more slowly your body will signal to you as your stomach is filling up it'll your stomach will release hormones that tell your brain that you know Hey listen slow down you're actually getting full now and so um uh uh you want to actually uh eat slowly uh stop when you're 80% full and whatever you're eating make sure that actually it's mostly plant-based right you're not eating added sugars like sodas you're not eating too many cakes and candies and cookies all that stuff is just like pure sugar like entering your body look that's going to put a strain on your body as well so you want to eat moderately okay 80% full you don't want to overeat uh you want to eat healthy things and you want to cut down or cut out some of the ultra processed foods that have been associated with type two diabetes you know Ultra process things in a box or bag made from a factory that your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food more importantly if you take a look at the telltale signs of an ultra processed food that might uh not be good for your insulin regulation your balance insulin all right is if you take a look at the ingredient label and you see all these ingredients like 20 some ingredients most of which you can't pronounce and you have no idea what they're actually doing in the food uh it's not something you would put if you're cooking in the kitchen uh those artificial chemicals artificial flavoring artificial coloring artificial preservatives you get the drift here those are actually um uh bad uh for your metabolism and they also damage your gut microbiome so gut health also helps your body absorb that glucose so you want to actually eat plant-based foods that are have got polyphenols as we talked about and dietary fiber that will actually be helpful to gut health which then ultimately help help balance your metabolism and help balance your insulin as well now uh I want to talk about uh your brain your brain makes a hormone called oxytocin what's oxytocin it's uh a social hormone what's a social hormone well social hormone is what your brain produces when you are in Social company and you want to feel good right so you know what it feels like if you're waiting for uh at the airport uh in the arrivals for somebody you haven't seen in a long time friend relative lover what have you and you see them and all of a sudden you run up to them you give a big hug right and you feel great and that's because your brain is releasing oxytocin it's a bonding hormone moms also release oxytocin a lot into their breast milk when they're breastfeeding their baby this actually the baby gets some oxytocin the mom has oxytocin it bonds mom and baby it's a social hormone by the way it's also a hormone that your brain releases when you get a kiss not a peck on the lips but actually a deep French kiss and oxytocin also comes out of your brain when you're having an orgasm all right this is a very very important uh hormone so neurotransmitter made by the brain and guess what that hormone that social hormone would you want to have some of it around okay uh when you need to especially when you need to is controlled from gut bacteria there's one gut bacteria called lactobacillus routy rout is spelled re t r lactobacillus which is an important class of healthy bacteria ruteri is exactly what it is the lactobacillus is the first name Ruiz the last name honestly it's genus and species but research in the lab has found that when you have lactobacillus R right even in drinking water okay you're uh in the lab so you have rats drinking their their um their bottle drinking bottle guess what that actually helps the brain produce and release oxytocin this is a study that's been done at MIT now lactobacillus is a bacteria so you can also find it in Foods so Probiotic foods so what's an example of a probiotic food with lactobacillus ruteri that's good for brain health that actually helps your brain release social hormones guess what parmesano Reg IO cheese I'm not talking about the fake parmesan I'm talking about the real deal the OG the parmesan Oro you can actually buy from Italy or imported from Italy and you know it comes in these gigantic discs they're really hard and really heavy they're monsters like the size of a car tire all right and um the cheese sellers have to cut them in to pieces and uh I can tell you uh as somebody who loves to cook and loves to use par on orano cheese and I've also done research in Italy on this it's kind of grainy it's a little crunchy it's got this incredible amami flavor the starter bacteria for Pomano regano in Italy is lactobacillus rudite so it's a probiotic cheese now I'm not telling you to eat a lot of cheese it has a lot of salt it has a lot of f saturated fat but it is probiotic so if you want to have an excuse to get some lactus ruai to really help support your brain health with your social hormon El rudai is actually found in cheese there's another food that actually can have lactobacillus rudai sourdough bread because guess what the sour or the tanginess of sourdough bread comes from lactobacillus ruide lactobacillus lacto is bacillus is a bacteria that makes lactic acid lactic acid is what gives sourdough the Tang right most people love sourdough bread um and it's actually the healthiest bread to actually have now like anything you don't want to have too much of it but lacto basilis Rudi is the original starter used to make sourdough bread uh and in fact sourdough bread has been made by you know Generations after generation after generation after generation of Bakers and it turns out that the starter material of lacobus R has been passed down over generations of Bakers so if you're going to get shower dough bread make sure you get the real sourdough bread some factories that make sourdough bread you know how they what they do to make the their bread taste Tangy you just put a little vinegar in there that's cheating and it doesn't actually have the probiotic benefits um yogurt can also have lactobacillus rudai as well you'd have to look that up for whatever yogurt product you're actually getting to see what kind of bacteria it actually contains now there's an interesting beneficial side effect of lactobacilus ruteri beneficial side effect side effects aren't always bad sometimes side effects are actually really good in this case for lactobacillus rooi guess what lactobacillus R helps kill the bacteria in your mouth that causes cavities and causes gum disease so if you're going to get lopus rut which you can actually get um as a dietary supplement I always get the chewable version this is like a pro tip the chewable version I'll actually chew it Chew Chew Chew then you swish it around a little bit then swallow it first I've actually treated my mouth my oral health my my mouth microbiome with a cavity bacteria killing uh probiotic I mean how good is that like nobody would actually not want to have that then you swallow it goes down to your lower gut now you've actually armed your lower gut that lower gut text messages your brain to release oxytocin you get the benefit okay now I want to talk a little bit about uh uh women who are going through menopause menopause is actually this kind of change in life usually around middle age 40 45 sometimes earlier sometimes later it can last a few years but it can even last more than a decade and researchers are looking at what types of foods are are helpful to uh ameliorate to aeve relieve uh women with some of the symptoms of menopause so some of these symptoms are hot flashes anxiety discomfort pain so all kinds of things that are associated not so good things associated with menopause so I want to explain a little bit of why it's important to balance hormones um or counterbalance your hormones when you're in menopause so let's first talk about those reproductive hormones that go uh down uh when you have menopause estrogen and progesterone are reproductive hormones now estrogen is made by ovaries estrogen is made especially during puberty it's responsible for breast development ovulation ovulation is really their ovaries kicking out an egg so it can be fertilized for pregnancy and estrogen is also important for menstration all right you want to actually get ready for the next cycle estrogen is involved with that if you actually have too much estrogen out of balance you have menstrual problems you can have a lot of anxiety you can have a decreased sex drive you can have depression so too much estrogen is actually problematic now you want to have balance progesterone is another sex hormone made by not the ovaries but the adrenal glands remember we talked about the adrenal glands that's the sunny side up egg uh sitting on a mound of hash browns or I said also an owl sitting on a tree stump all right you got the owl sitting on a tree stump that's your adrenal gland all right uh so you want those to be in Balance now progesterone is also made by a little bit of the ovaries and in a men it's also made in testicles as well what progesterone does is actually it helps to prepare the womb for pregnancy sometimes called the pregnancy hormone if you have too little progesterone it's going to be hard to get pregnant in fact it often can lead to miscarriage now you got too much progesterone guess what that's been linked to breast cancer as well so you want really good balance you don't want too much you don't want too little it's so you know I used to call that the goldilock Zone uh not too hot not too cold not too hard not too soft just right estrogen progesterone you want them to do their thing in their right balance okay um now during menopause all right in women when their reproductive age is done you've had all your kids or You' never had kids it's time to slow down and quit that business all right your levels of estrogen and progesterone go way down and guess what when your estrogen levels go way down it causes your bone density to decrease when bone density decreases your bones become brittle that's called osteoporosis you probably heard of that that's actually more common uh it's common it can happen for in any woman but it's even more common in uh in women like Asian women who have small bones that become really brittle like bird bones all right uh too little estrogen also causes mood disorders depression anxiety can go both ways all right uh and uh to estrogen causes hot flashes talk to any woman who has either gone through menopause or is going through menopause and ask her what she thinks about hot flashes and she'll probably tell you it is one of the most uh bothersome disturbing symptoms of undergoing menopause so a hot flash is where you'll be sitting there perfectly fine and because your hormones are out of balance suddenly you feel this huge flush uh in your body your temperature goes way up you start sweating it's very very uncomfortable for no apparent arent reason your body goes into a hot flash all right and it can last for minutes it can last for even a little bit longer and it feels like something's wrong with your body hey there I want to share another one of my resources with you and this time is my free resource on foods for Women's Health this guide isn't just about weight loss it's about energy gain and it's about how to balance your hormones for overall well-being my guide is all about helping you feel your best by taking charge of your health so check out the three foods that I Rec recomend for Women's Health available for free right now in the caption below now let's get back to the video so for a long time we didn't know what causes the hot flash B now we know it's like your hormones out of balance which is the whole purpose of this video when talk about what how you balance your hormones when your estrogen is out of balance all right uh it changes the thermostat that's in your in the brain of a woman now our brains contain a thermostat all right in hyp hypothalamus that's like a kind of a control center of your brain uh it's like the dashboard of your brain and when uh estrogen goes way low uh and your hormones are out of balance that thermostat uh doesn't know how to readjust itself in fact it normally has a pretty big good range you know you can go up and down and up and down and you're fine your body knows how to control good temperature on a hot day and a cold day but during menopause because the hormones are out of balance your thermostat goes from a comfortable range to a really really narrow range and when it's dealing with a narrow range it's really hard to adjust you know like when you're playing with the volume of something and it you know it's like too soft and you turn it and boom It Gos too loud oh too loud you turn it down now it goes suddenly too soft that's basically the equivalent in temperature of hot flash when you have a volume control switch like on a radio that you actually can't control properly so that's what we think is going on with menopause and hot flashes is that the temperature control system in your brain the thermostat of your brain goes from being wide and normal like most of a woman's life to suddenly become narrow and the body doesn't know how to operate within that narrow range it overcorrects or underc corrects and you get these hot flashes all right even at regular temperatures no apparent reason whatsoever another consequence of hormones out of- balance are sleep disturbances right women who are undergoing menopause they have a hard time sleeping now hot flashes can wake them up that's a problem as well as as you probably know we should be getting eight hours of good sleep now what happens because when you're sleeping really well for eight hours your metabolism is doing its thing it actually burns down excess body fat uh the other thing that's happening when you're sleeping is your gut microbiome uh reboots itself your immune system actually starts to uh reset and uh strengthen itself up uh your uh brain also uh clear toxins that have accumulated during the day through a special sewer system called glymphatic channels gly M PHT gimatic system it's like the sewer systems of Paras so except they're in your brain they open up only when you're sleeping in good deep sleep to drain all those toxins you don't get good sleep guess what you get brain fog you know why because you haven't drained those toxins and this is actually what happens during menopause when hormones are out of balance and you aren't able to control your temperature and you wind up having sleep disturbances it is a real problem okay so the holy grail for women who are going through menopause is finding something that can help them control their uh hormone levels so estrogen replacement therapy or hormone replacement therapy HRT is something that medical doctors actually recommend to women who have real difficulty with their symptoms right um that can drive somebody crazy right so you want to actually talk to your doctor if you're having severe menopause syndrome and HRT uh actually is about trying to help your body get a little bit better in control of balance that could be really important for your quality of life um and ultimately for things like osteoporosis as well you should always talk to your doctor uh about you know what the the pluses and minuses and what are the cautions of the of the estrogen the hormone Replacements that are being used but when it comes to food is medicine clinical studies have shown that women who are undergoing menopause the who the women who eat more fruits and vegetables more polyphenols get more dietary fiber have better gut health all right better M gut microbiome they tend to have fewer menopausal symptoms and their symptoms tend to be less severe as well so another argument for eating produce plant-based Foods eating specifically thinking about your gut microbiome which reduces inflammation which text messages your brain lowers anxiety better social hormones all kinds of good uh with that so that's what clinical research has been showing so far for women who are undergoing menopause polyphenols dietary fiber good for menopause couple of other things nutrients that might be helpful for women uh who are experiencing menopause that try to uh compensate or counter uh the imbalances in their hormones vitamin D vitamin D has been shown to be helpful through clinical studies with women who experienced menopause where do you get vitamin D in your food mushrooms yogurt Salmon's a good source of vitamin D some vitamin D and eggs eggs can have vitamin D as well now this vitamin D helps to build bones right remember I told you low estrogen your bones get weak osteoporosis vitamin D can counter that that's actually balancing things at the end uh sort of at the outcome level right so not treating the root cause but actually trying to counter some of the uh side effects that can happen with his hormonal ambalance look all women who are undergoing menopause are at risk so vitamin D is helpful come back to Omega-3s uh remember we told talked about this earlier Omega-3s are very very helpful to to balance your hormones well in women undergoing menopause Omega-3s seem to be pretty important they actually help to promote healthy blood vessels which I studyed and uh why do you need to actually get better blood vessels well women after menopause are at higher risk for cardiovascular heart brain and blood vessel diseases and so you want to be able to make sure you've got good healthy blood vessels right so this is again food that's a counter to some of the side effects um that come out with venopian and cod shellfish muscles clams shrimp Lobster by the way if you're a woman EXP experiencing menopause go ahead live it up you deserve it for your heart health H go ahead and have yourself some Lobster it's got Omega-3s going to be good for you okay now here's another food that's been shown to help women experience fewer and milder menopausal symptoms and that's whole grains right whole grain bread whole grain pasta whole grains you know for your cereal uh good for you that's actually another thing that you can actually add to your shopping list is Foods made with whole grains all right now here's the other thing another counter we now we're talking about countering this hormone imbalance protein we started this video talking about the benefits of protein because hormones are made with protein but guess what when your estrogen actually goes down your uh in a woman's body the maintenance of muscle isn't quite as good as before menopause so you can start to lose muscle mass lose strength and you need to eat protein in order to have those amino acids to build muscle mass so you want to actually make sure you're countering uh the loss of muscle mass during menopause by having more protein obviously you need to stay physically active and exercise as well so that's another important thing very rarely is food as medicine like a standalone like you can be a couch potato you need to do anything you don't need to sleep just eat the healthy food no it's actually the whole package you want to eat healthy you want to sleep well you want to stay physically active and you want to manage your stress but you do want to m maintain your protein intake so what are some proteins that come from plants we talked about some of these before soy lenal beans I like white beans for some reason I just like white beans white bean soup white bean stews I like them but all beans you know are are really good black beans Pinto beans kidney beans they're beneficial source of protein and they're good for women who are undergoing menopause now another uh good source of uh kind of building block uh food for your body to strengthen your muscles and your joints is collagen collagen is actually a type of protein it's beneficial and when you actually have collagen uh you know the collagen that you eat goes into your stomach your stomach acid digests it and then these little fragments of cut up collagen because the acid digested go into your bloodstream and these collagen fragments actually activate biological systems in your body they turn on your cells to be able to uh lower inflammation but also to build uh better joints um by by connective tissue in your body as well another source of collagen besides you know uh I mean you can eat meat that contains the collagen like beef tendon um but you can also have bone broth is another good source and gelatin as well you're going to eat Jello by the way we all ate Jello-O when we were kids right that bright green fluorescent stuff or the red stuff just get plain don't have anything added to it uh you don't want artificial coloring you don't want artificial flavoring uh we were fooled when we were kids like that all that stuff was artificial stuff but you can flavor gelatin yourself with fresh ripe fruit just whatever the season is you know if it's a summer time use fresh rght peaches or strawberries if it's winter time you can actually use citrus um you can actually make your own flavored gelatin and that's a good source of of protein through the collagen also good for your joints as well all right so I want to just close by talking about some of the foods that you want to limit if you're a woman undergoing menopause so you want to actually reduce your symptom how bad it can be you want to limit these things you want to limit alcohol you know why alcohol can cause cortisol to be released cortisol is a stress hormone stress hormones in excess uh strain your blood vessels uh it it affects your circulation and actually can uh up your blood pressure as well you want to cut down or cut out ultr processed foods now I know for a fact you've heard about Ultra processed foods you know it's in the news everywhere all the research shows us that eating a lot of ultra processed foods Foods in a box in a can foods made out of a factory foods with 20 ingredients you can't pronounce them you have no idea what those ingredients do you would never put them in in food in your own kitchen Ultra processed food often has artificial preservatives artificial coloring artificial flavoring okay and guess what it's been shown that those hurt your gut microbiome now one of the themes I've talked about the entire time for hormonal balance is to make sure you've got a good healthy gut microbiome your gut microbiome is one of your body's Health defense system so when you eat a lot of ultra processed foods and your woman and menopause you affect your gut microbiome guess what now all of your hormones start to go out of whack so not only are estrogen and progesterone out a whack now everything else is going on a whack so whatever you're experiencing it's going to be a lot worse so avoid cut down or cut out Ultra processed foods cut down or cut out added sugars sodas uh sugar sweetened beverages like fruit juices um that also can put a strain on metabolism and when your metabolism strained and sugar causes inflammation overwhelms your metabolism or helps build excess harmful body fat especially visceral fat a harmful fat that's in the tube of your body guess what that inflammation uh disrupts your hormones so whatever imbalances and symptoms you're feeling uh during menopause are going to get a lot worse because the whole ship is actually out of rocket whole thing is out of balance right okay so you don't want to actually uh uh do those cut down your alcohol cut down your Ultra processed foods uh uh cut down uh added sugars all right you want to be balanced it's possibly balanced using food as medicine okay hope you learned something useful uh from this and thanks for watching Dr Lee out hi there if you enjoyed watching this video I know you'll love the next one stay here and check it out and I'll see you there

#Amazing #Foods #Women #Eat #Naturally #Balance #Hormones #William

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