227. Menopause: Symptoms, Hormones, Tests & Solutions with Sage Workinger-Brecka & Gary Brecka

When you're in your 30s, you're not thinking about menopause. I kept thinking I'm not old enough to be in it. Turns out you can be in perimenopause in your 30s. The issue with menopause is that lots of things can crash at the same time. One of the things we noticed was rapid shift and mood. Zostan in the morning, brain fog, Vito left the building. And you were just not the same person. And I think it was just like a feeling of being overwhelmed constantly. And I kept thinking it was because of something else. And I think the main thing that forced us to really look at it was my frozen shoulder. My arm was stuck right here for almost nine months. And just so you know, we were doing all the things. Red light therapy, sauna, cold plunging. We have a hyperbaric chamber. She eats extremely clean. When I went to doctors, so we tried acupuncture, cupping, physical therapy. I mean, we tried so much stuff. When we did this Dutch test, getting that test was a game changer. When it came back, it explained everything. And I remember like crying with you when we got all these results back because you saw it finally. It wasn't just me saying, I don't feel good. You were holy cow. I can see it in the science. What were like big signs that you would say, okay, if you start to experience this women, this is when it's time to get your hormones checked. I think one of the main things was. Oh boy. Welcome back to the ultimate human podcast today. It's a really special one guys. I'm not sitting down with a PhD and MD researcher. I am sitting down with my life partner to talk about menopause. I'm already scared. But we have been asked to do this podcast for years. I think that menopause is one of the most underserved areas for women. We just went through it. My wife and I. We are still in it. But yes. We are still in it. We are sitting down, my wife and I, my life partner, my confidant, my best friend. We're sitting down to be very, very vulnerable about our menopause journey, including the testing. What did we do about it? What was it like going into menopause? What has it been like since we've solved the menopause issues? What hormones did Sage take? And I think every woman and every man should watch this podcast because if you're not there yet, you're going to be there soon. So welcome to the podcast, Sage Brecca. Thank you, babe. I appreciate it. That's quite the intro. It's great to have you. My audience loves you. Thank you. Love me more, but they love you too. But guys, we decided that we would be super vulnerable on this podcast because there are lots of couples going through this. Women have a really difficult time getting answers. There's so many questions about menopause. What do I test? How do I test for it? What should I be taking? Why do I feel this way? Why did libido leave the building? Why is my skin elasticity also leaving the building? Why is my mood and emotional state off? Why do I feel fits of anger for no reason at all? And it's all related to your hormones. We tie it all to the specific hormones. And the best of all, we give you the solution. So I'm really excited to run this podcast. Thank you. Now that we're kind of on the other side of it, babe. We really are. I mean, it's been 90, no, 60 days maybe. I mean, it's pretty small amount since I started hormone therapy. But there was quite some time before the hormone therapy where we were in the thick of it. We were really in the thick of it. I did a lot of apologizing. Here's my advice for menopause. If you're a man and your wife is in menopause, as soon as you wake up in the morning, Just say you're sorry. Say you're sorry. Just for waking up. Just for waking up. Because you probably did it wrong somehow. You probably did it wrong. Maybe you sniffled. Messy. Maybe you moved the bed too much when you got out of bed. Maybe your feet hit the floor so hard that it was rude and inconsiderate. And we're just rude and inconsiderate. Yes. We're like bears. And so when we wake up, we get out of bed. Or it seems like a normal thing. Giant children that are just loud and messy. Yeah. Definitely don't burp. No, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't leave dirty dishes in the sink. If you wash the laundry and fold the laundry, put it back where it belongs, not in the wrong place. So yes, you can wash the laundry, you can fold the laundry, and you can put it back where it doesn't belong. But make sure everything is wrong. Okay. So we've covered some groundwork. There's a lot of good advice in here for men. I'm going to help you get through this. I'm going to write a whole book on it, Navigating Menopause for the Average Male. You guys actually do need a book. I feel bad for guys because the problem is... You didn't feel really bad for me. No, because we didn't know what was going on with me. And you can attribute so many things to other things. So if I was really upset about something or really sad about something, maybe we go, oh, well, you're PMSing. Or because you didn't sleep well that night. Or you can always just find another excuse as to why it's happening. But it got really intense over the last year. And I think the main thing that forced us to really look at it and start reading about it was My Frozen Shoulder. So the only book that I read that linked Frozen Shoulder to Perimenopause was Dr. Mary Claire Haver's book, which I think is brilliant. And it's called The New Menopause. And I think she's coming out with a new one called The New Perimenopause. Don't quote me on that one. Anyway, New Menopause has a list of a long, long, long list of symptoms that I started reading through going, oh my God, I have that. I have that. I have that. And all these things I could check mark off and I'm like, am I in it? Because I kept thinking I'm not old enough to be in it. Turns out you can be in perimenopause in your 30s. Like this shit probably... Sorry, language, but this stuff probably started happening a long time ago. Yeah. So one of the things we noticed was rapid shift and mood. Sage is totally on her game. We built a business together. We ran a massive clinic together. We've traveled the world together. And she literally couldn't remember one thing. Not a thing, not a single thing. Not from one minute to the next. Words. And she had trouble with words. Sometimes I would walk in the bathroom and she would go, I just want you to know that I am furious with you and I have no reason to be furious with you. But I'm just going to be honest and I would go, thank you for the warning. We sat in the kitchen one night. I will be on the other side of the house. And you had not done a single thing wrong. And I just looked at you and for whatever reason, I just, my blood started to boil. You had done absolutely nothing wrong. Usually you do something wrong, but this time you had not. And I was like, I don't know why I'm mad at you, but I am, but it's kind of scaring me. So I'm going to leave the room. I'm going to walk away and I'm going to go to the bedroom and just get my book or get in the bath or whatever it was that I did that night. And I've never had that happen before. And thankfully it has not happened recently. So the issue with menopause is that lots of things can crash at the same time. So there are three types of estrogen in a woman's body, not one. Most women think they just have estrogen, but you have categories of estrogen, E1, E2, and E3. And we're going to talk all about those. We're actually going to show you the test that we did for Sage. Which is called a Dutch test. It's a 24 hour urine test. I really recommend that women that are in perimenopause or menopause do this test because it looks at hormonal ratios and it doesn't just look at a snapshot in time like a regular blood test might. In fact, lots of women are told that they're fine. There's nothing wrong with you. But you knew that you were off. And you knew that the brain fog was real. This wasn't like I get a great idea in the bedroom, I walk to the kitchen, I wonder what the heck I'm doing in the kitchen. This was like I literally wrote something down and I can't remember the best, my best friend's name. Yeah. That was bad. You're like blonde hair. Victoria, the one you've known your whole life. Yes, her. Yeah, that one. Okay, that one. Who's also suffering along with me. Yeah, too. It was awful. Who's shout out to Victoria. She's hilarious. And Josh, Josh is getting through it with her. They're also a perimenopause team. Yeah, Josh and I are going through it together. We text about it all the time, trust me. So, as the brain fog started to hit, we also noticed that when she would wake up in the morning, you were more tired waking up, even after a good night's sleep than you were the night before. Like exhausted, like a level of exhaustion. I just didn't know how to deal with. And I kept again thinking it was because of something else. And then I'm laying next to you and you bounce out of bed and you're happy and I got a 99% sleep score. And braggadocious about all that. Post it on Instagram to my 228 million followers. Post it to everybody. And you made me feel, not on, not, this is not to be mean, but you made me feel like I was lazy piece of crap because I didn't get out of bed that way. I wasn't showing up to anything that way. I mean, I was struggling to get through the day. And then it would hit like afternoon. And then I'd finally start to come through this cloud. And I'd start to wake up. And then that's when everybody else is like head into bed. And I'm like, okay, well now I'm ready to work. Now I can go till two in the morning and get all my emails done or whatever. But I was, I'm worth it. I was worthless before noon. And a lot of that, we're going to talk about this when we go to the whiteboard and talk about the test. But a lot of that was related to the breakdown and some of the precursors. So hormones are not just manufactured. Hormones need precursors. There's raw materials in a woman's body that are used to make hormones. One of them is called pregnant alone. And we make cortisol, we make aldosterone, we make other hormones from pregnant alone. But it's this DHEA, it's this precursor in the body that acts like a construction material. And I don't care how good your contractor is. If you don't, you know, deliver materials to the job site, they're not accomplishing anything. And it's the same in a woman's hormonal system. If you don't have the precursors, the raw material, the construction product that you need to build other hormones, they become deficient. And what was shocking about this test was we discovered that she had virtually no cortisol. And so in the morning, cortisol is our waking hormone. It's responsive to light. One of the reasons why I love to get first light in the morning, you love to get first light in the morning. I generally encourage people when you wake up within 30 minutes, get outside, get natural sunlight in your eyes, is because that sunlight actually helps your cortisol rise and helps your melatonin get lower. What we realized was she had so little cortisol, when you looked at it on a chart of a normal cortisol pattern, climbing in the morning, you see that yours was flat lined. She had no waking hormone. And at the same time, you couldn't even register any more melatonin in your system. Your melatonin was off the charts. She wasn't even taking melatonin, but her melatonin was off the charts. So imagine that it's like taking an Adderall to go to bed and then taking a sleep medication to wake up. That feels exactly what life was like. Yeah, and you were a lot more energetic at night than you were during the daytime. And so what were the big signs that you would say, okay, if you start to experience this women, this is when it's time to get your hormones checked. And I also want to just dispel a myth really quickly. There was a study. It was published in the 2018, 2019 timeframe. And it was one of those studies or 2012, I apologize, that linked hormones to breast cancer and linked estrogen therapy to breast cancer. That very same study, and I'm going to put the study link below, found upon a longer, more exhaustive study that hormone therapy was actually not linked to breast cancer. In fact, it was linked in some cases to a reduction in breast cancer. So I know a lot of women are listening to this and they think estrogen breast cancer or testosterone breast cancer. And those two are not linked any longer. Just because you are taking hormone replacement therapy does not mean you have an increased risk of breast cancer. So I wanted to put that out there. I wanted to actually give you the study so you could read it yourselves because I know a lot of women are hesitant to even start hormone replacement therapy. It's easy for men. We're like a rifle shot. Just give us testosterone. We're good to go. Right. The beat will come back. Not fair. It's another thing to argue about in menopause. Like that's not fair. And that's also your fault. That's also not the creator's fault. Yep. But it's, I think that you're right, that test or that study, because I remember Ivan Ant, who they linked her hormone use to breast cancer. And because I don't think it had run anywhere in the family. So from a very early age, I also had it in my head, I would never take hormones because I could get breast cancer like my aunt. And I don't remember her whole story. I just remember that piece of it. And then when I've read in the new menopause book about this further studies, it really feels like there's been this 25 year gap or more that women have suffered unnecessarily because of one bad study. And I also think that there's a difference between whatever hormones they were doing back then and bioidentical hormones that they have now. Am I right on that? Yes, you're very right on that. You're not only right on the bioidentical hormone part, but you're also right that we just don't take rifle shots at women's hormones anymore. We used to try estrogen, then progesterone, then pregnant alone, then testosterone. And if hormone replacement therapy is called hormone replacement therapy for a reason, I often ask the question, if you have two men, for example, one has a testosterone of 200, one has a testosterone of 800. Now you wouldn't replace the testosterone at 800, but theoretically, one has a testosterone of 800, one has a testosterone of 200, and you're going to replace their testosterone. Who gets more testosterone? The guy with 200 or the guy with 800? And I ask that question for a reason because most people will say, well, definitely the guy with 200. But hormone replacement therapy is exactly that. It's hormone replacement therapy, meaning you are replacing the hormone. So when you take it exogenously from outside of the body, you drive your endogenous production, your internal production down to zero, or you drive it very low, which is why most male hormone therapy will include some kind of testicular signal so that the testicles don't stop producing hormone, things like human corionic anatotropin, chispeptin, gonadorellin, these things that actually tell the testicle not to stop producing testosterone, even though there's testosterone in the bloodstream. So we know now with women that if you're going to replace the hormones, you replace the entire suite of hormones so that they stay in the same ratio. But I think when women are thinking at whatever age, late 30s, early, mid, late 40s, which is usually when it starts, it used to be much later in the 50s, what signs told you, okay, this is not right. I know what signs told me. I mean, you were just not the same person, not the same energy, not the same zeal for life, not the same what I would call positive aggression towards working out, positive aggression towards wife. I mean, this woman loves to travel, she loves to get after it. She was working out all the time with Alexia Clark. She'd gotten herself in crazy good shape. We were traveling like crazy. We were so energetic and she was so on top of her game. Like those little lists that you did, you would just cross those things off and get so much done. You were so organized. I might even say OCD. Uh-huh. Just doing that out there. A little bit of that. Yeah, can't be a sock in the corner against the baseboard or you can't do anything else in the house. No. No. The laundry has to be done and the dishes have to be clean. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. That's a whole nother problem. Yeah, I know why you can't paint the back bedroom because there's sock against the floorboard in the kitchen. Well, only people with comp TG and break will understand that. Okay, so someone watching this says, that makes sense to me. Duh. Right? Over the last 20 years in human biology, one compound I've trusted again and again is NAD+. It's critical for energy, focus, and cellular repair. But your levels drop around age 30. I used to administer NAD via IVs in my clinics, but now I take Roe Nutrition's Liposomal NAD, the first oral formula that actually works. Their advanced delivery tech gets NAD straight into your bloodstream. I take one teaspoon daily and the results are real. Clean energy, sharper focus, and better recovery. You can try it risk-free with the ultimate 15 code at checkout for 15% off. Just put in ultimate 15 at checkout. You'll receive 15% off and your cells will thank you. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. What was it that made you say, okay, this is the switch. I need to start investigating this. I think one of the main things was the frozen shoulder. That was when I had to start doing a deep dive of research to figure out what was happening. My arm was stuck right here for almost nine months. Show them what you can do after hormone therapy. Oh, yes. And then once I started my hormones, I'm almost all the way back. I still struggle with some of it and I still struggle to put my bra on because it's hard for me to reach behind my back. I put the bra on a lot. Yes, you did. You were very helpful during those days. Thank you. So between frozen shoulder and then my period started going all over the place. So I remember a girlfriend of mine showing me her. She charts it on an app. A period tracker, yes. Yes. And she would be like, oh girl, you're in for it when we started talking about it. And she showed me hers and it would be like 22 days, 65 days, 98 days, and then back to 24 days. And it was just all over the place. Period roulette. Yes. Like basically you just, at that point, you just carry feminine products with you and your purse everywhere you go because you just never know what's going to drop. So I, there was a timeframe where it went 127 days. And you're not in full menopause till it's 365 from what I understand. But yeah, I got to 127 and then she came back like with a vengeance and it was ugly and miserable and awful. Like the first time I probably ever had it. And that's where I'm at now. It's just like bouncing all over the place and I can't figure it out. So I just carry tampons in my purse everywhere I go. So I want to head over to the whiteboard and show you guys exactly what we found out when we did this Dutch test, this 24 hour urine test. I'm going to compare that to the blood test, the lab test that we also did through 10x Health and show you that sometimes the labs don't tell the full story. I talk about this a lot with heavy metal mold toxicity, viral pathogens, bacterial infections, and other kinds of toxins that we put into our body that don't necessarily show up on the labs, but they have other manifestations, brain fog, weight gain, water retention, fatigue, sometimes crushing fatigue. You go and get your labs done and the labs are normal. The doctor tells you everything's normal. You're actually very healthy. You're liver and your kidneys are fine. You're CBC, your complete blood count is normal. Your comprehensive metabolic panel looks normal. Nothing is jumping off of this page. So we really don't have a reason for why you feel that way. Well, and that's what got so confusing is because we also did a vibrant wellness test, which was the mold, micro toxin, parasites, whatever. We did get rid of all those. But when that hit, my mold was like where a nine was high. I was a 49. I mean, I was off the charts for mold. So that was probably contributing to the brain fog too. So we didn't think so much about it being hormones because we're like, it must just be mold. But then when I started to clear that out and the symptoms weren't going away, it just was confusing. So to have the full picture and have as many, not everybody can get all the tests done, but I think the blood test says a lot. I think the urine test says something different. And I think the other mold and micro toxins has a whole other picture. If you can do all three, that's what saved me at least. And then also the gene test just helps account for a lot of it too, because so much of your genetics, your methylation is tied to hormone balance. And I think that was probably the only thing I was getting right, was that I was on my vitamins every day like clockwork. I never, ever, ever miss my supplements. And so at least I was keeping that in balance. For a lot of people that don't keep their methylation in balance, like I was in the beginning and I was estrogen dominant, 700%. And I was a crazy person then too. No, babe. And I know. Don't be so hard on yourself, please. It's okay. You still love me. I do still love you. Thank you. So, but that showed us a lot back then too. So that was five, almost six years ago now, to show me that if my homocysteine levels are raised because I'm not in balance, then that means my estrogen goes sky high too. So it would have been interesting to take this hormone test back then. You do see it in the blood labs though. We did see the homocysteine raised. We did see the estrogen dominance. I think my testosterone was normal then. Yeah. And remember, you can be estrogen dominant because you're producing too much estrogen, or you can be estrogen dominant because you're not clearing estrogen. And I wasn't clearing it. And you were not clearing it. In fact, if you look on some of these tests, you will actually see the Comp-T gene mutation, which so many OBGYNs overlook. It's called COMT. We affection called Comp-T, but it stands for catechol-O-methyl-transferase. These are catecholamines in the brain. Catecholamines are the four neurotransmitters that are involved in the fight or flight response. They're norepinephrine, epinephrine, ephedrone, and dopamine, one of those we call adrenaline as well. And so think of hormones like adrenaline, dopamine. Dopamine, the main driver of behavior. Adrenaline is what happens when we're hopped up, epinephrine, norepinephrine. These are the same cascade of neurotransmitters that are involved in a fight or flight response. So if you have this gene mutation, which ladies listen up, not the vast majority, but about 42 to 44% of you have this gene mutation, in addition to the MTHFR gene mutation. But when you have this gene mutation, you have a tendency to go to bed tired, but when you go to sleep, your mind keeps you awake. So you lay there and you ruminate on the dumbest little thoughts. You just have these most innocuous little thoughts. Did I get everything on my grocery list? Did I belt match my shoes? Did I return that email? And that's it worse if you're a type A mom like I am. So then you're worrying about everybody's problem. She has show tunes going through her head, she tells me. Yeah, show tunes. There's a lot that goes through my brain that doesn't make its way out of my mouth, which you should be grateful for. I'm sorry. So these catecholamines, when they rise, they also trigger anxiety. This is why anxiety very often doesn't have a specific trigger. I mean, you can't always point to the trigger that causes this. This is why the vast majority of people that suffer from anxiety have had it on and off throughout their entire lifetime. So they had it as a child, but didn't know how to explain it. And as an adult, they realized it was anxiety. This is also why anti-anxiety medications don't work for the vast majority of people because it makes them feel like a zombie. You're tranquilizing this response in the body rather than using methylated vitamins to help you break these neurotransmitters down. So when you look on a hormone test, you'll see that Compti, in addition to regulating these neurotransmitters that create this fight or flight response, lead to anxiety, lead to waking thoughts at night, and also lead you to consider any scenario as the worst case scenario. So if you've got trouble at work, it's the worst possible outcome. If you've got trouble at home, it's the worst possible outcome. If you've got friction with a family member, it's the total end. And that is because those are fight or flight neurotransmitters. Those are worst case scenario neurotransmitters. They're ancestrally meant to protect us. Right? They're instant on. Somebody's standing in front of you with a knife, you know, don't have a lot of time to warm up. Eyes have to dilate. Hearing has to be more acute. Heart rate has to increase. Extremities have to flood with blood. Those same reactions can happen without trigger. And so people that are listening to this that have those kinds of feelings, just know that you're not crazy. That is a rise in catecholamines. It can be mitigated with the right methylated multivitamins. And this also helps this very same gene mutation, helps to clear estrogen. It sends estrogen down what we call the E2 pathway, which is a way of eliminating it. And if you're not doing that well, you can become estrogen dominant. Now, Sage, and I'm just saying this because you're sitting here, but very fit, very muscular, very low body fat. And on the thin side, she's very lean. So, you know, when I was estrogen dominant, I had a tire around my belly. Yeah. And she started to develop this little tire. Women think they're getting fat, but they're not. They're getting water-retensive. And the estrogen band is that band right below your belly button, moving laterally around to your flanks and back behind you. Like if you put your hands in your back gene's pocket and lifted your hands up, your palms would cover this other problem. Yeah, she like loaded and off. Yeah. It wasn't a huge difference. And it was really just that I noticed it, but I know it can be a lot worse for women too. And just so you know, we were doing all the things. All the things. Red light therapy, sauna, cold plunging. We have a hyperbaric chamber. She was getting in on a regular basis. We have pulse electromagnetic field. We sleep at an EMF10. She eats extremely clean. Like Sage's diet is so clean. I am. You said today that I have one of the best diets. And I do. I think that's why I didn't suffer so much with the three-day water fast because I don't think I had all the detox symptoms that a lot of people get with the headaches and the poor sleep and all that. I actually felt pretty good and alive because I eat very healthy. I always tell people I don't eat like an asshole because I don't eat fried food, processed food, fast food. I eat very healthy whole, whole foods. So I think that that helps even when other things are going wrong. I was doing a lot of the right things, but it was, it was a struggle because I wasn't fixing it and I couldn't understand why. Yeah. So being the best biohacker in the world, I said, we need to really take a deep dive here. Let's get a full picture of the hormones. Let's look at everything and not just take a snapshot. So not just take a blood test. So we did this Dutch test. She did this blood test, Dutch test. And I had to pee on a stick five different times throughout the day. Which frustrated her and made her mad at me. Because I'm such a perfectionist. Maybe that will be a good time to apologize for that. I don't think I ever got an apology for that. There's so many instructions with it. I'm going to just tell you this right out. If you're like, particularly like I am, it's, you know, I like it all laid out. I like it at the right time. You have to set alarms. Yes, I'm a perfectionist. So that was a lot. But then I also had my blood work done within like a month of each other. Um, gene tests we already knew about. And the mold test was last year. So yeah, a lot of testing to figure this out. So we, I'm trying to shortcut this for a lot of women that are on there. I know exactly. Because not everybody can afford all of these things. Yeah. But it, but getting that test was a game changer. When it came back, it explained everything. So let's head back to the whiteboard. And let's take a look at what we learned from this test. So this is Sage's Dutch test. And this is a 24 hour urine test. I think this is the gold standard for women's hormones, especially if you are perimenopause, premenopause, or postmenopausal, and you want to get an accurate picture of your hormones. The reason why is this doesn't just take a snapshot in time. It looks at the ratio of hormones and listen up women. The ratio of hormones is as important as your levels. Because at sometimes during the day, they can be at different levels. So when you just take a blood test and you just get a quick snapshot, you don't really get the true picture. And then it's hard to prescribe hormone therapy because you don't have the full profile. So before I explain what's going on here, and before we go into this test, understand that estrogen is a category of hormones. So women have something called E1 and they have something called E2. And they have something called E3. So there is estrone, E-S-T-R-O-N-E. Estradiol. Yeah, estrone, estradiol. I'm going to tell you number 300 second, but it's this estradiol that I want to focus on here for a minute. And the third one is estriol. Okay, so the importance in understanding that there's three different variants, if you will, of estrogen is that they are active at three different times, meaning some are more prevalent postmenopausal, which would be E1. It's a very weak estrogen. Some are more potent during your menstrual cycle when you're still a menstruating female. That would be E2. In fact, E2 is 10 times more potent, 10 times more potent than E1, and 100 times more potent than E3. These are still important, but estradiol, the most potent estrogenic hormone, is 100 times more potent than estriol, and 10 times more potent than estrione. The reason why that's important is like, this is the master hormone, and this is very high in premenopausal women, and then it tanks in menopause. Okay, so when this hormone tanks, let me tell you what this hormone is responsible for. This estrogen hormone is responsible for mood. It's responsible for skin elasticity. It is very linked to your emotional state. It's linked to your libido. It's also linked to your menstrual cycle. So why does your menstrual cycle stop when estradiol tanks? Because this is the main potent hormone for your menstrual cycle. Why does your mood get thrown off? Why do you have emotional outburst? You're happy one second, you want to kill somebody the next. That's because this is a very, very powerful form of estrogen. Why does your skin look like all of a sudden you started aging? And why does the elasticity of your skin change? Why does libido just leave the building? Because this is the main driver of all four of those things. Okay, so when we look at the Dutch test, let me erase this for a minute. I'm just going to walk you through this. When we look at the Dutch test, you see, this is the summary of the testing, and thankfully Sage has just been very willing to be vulnerable about this. Now the good news is we fixed all of this, but she's been very willing to be vulnerable about this, and I'm going to show you guys a follow-up test when we get one done, because she's on hormone therapy now, and almost all of these consequences have been mitigated. So you see this little arrow right here that's pointing to this little purple square. This purple square represents postmenopausal. It is pointing directly at the postmenopausal area. It's not in the green range where it would normally be if she was still having a normal menstrual cycle. The same with progesterone, which by the way, helps women sleep, can also help men sleep. So what I would suspect is that mood would be off, skin elasticity would be off, the menstrual cycle would have ended or be very, very off. I mean, massive gaps in timing, because this hormone, which is between 10 times and 100 times more powerful than the other estrogens, is floored out and in the postmenopausal range. So if you see this, you have a perfect explanation for why you're feeling the way that you do. The thing about progesterone is when progesterone floors out, you have a difficult time falling asleep and staying asleep. This is why sometimes progesterone can be a magic pill for men and women, usually in younger ages, that are having difficult time sleeping. The other thing that I want to point out here, and I'm going to explain this later in the test, is that we have a waking hormone called cortisol. And if we look at waking in the morning versus nighttime, a normal pattern for cortisol, as you may know, and this is one of the reasons why I think that you should be getting morning light, is that cortisol is rising in the morning. Cortisol is our waking hormone. It's responsive to light. That's why first light in the morning, getting sunlight in your eyes in the morning, is such a good thing. It actually starts to fall in the morning into the afternoon. This is why you feel more energy later in the morning, because you feel that energy in the morning, and you feel lack of energy throughout the day, because the cortisol is falling. This is very normal. And then as you go into your nighttime sleep pattern, it falls off to a low. This is when melatonin starts to rise. So actually look at Sage's cortisol cycle. So you see here how cortisol is barely rising? This means it's really hard to wake up in the morning. So this is one of the catastrophes that also happens in menopause. Why? Because cortisol is made from another hormone called pregnenolone. It also makes aldosterone. But it's made from pregnenolone. So when you go into postmenopause, your estrogen start to drop. The most powerful estrogen gets floored out. The mood changes. The skin elasticity changes. Libido leaves the building. And you feel like a crazy person. Right? And your menstrual cycle is all jacked up if you even have a menstrual cycle. So that explains those four things. If we don't have cortisol rising in the morning and falling later in the morning, these are, this is waking, this is morning, this is afternoon. So by mid-morning, it's peaked, and then it starts to fall off during the day. But look at this low-rising cortisol. She has no cortisol. I'm going to show you why, because her pregnenolone, the precursor to make this hormone, was also floored out. Which is why if you're going to do hormone replacement therapy, talk to your OBGYN about replacing the entire suite of hormones, including pregnenolone, testosterone, progesterone, E1, E2, and E3. The other thing is, look at what's happening in the afternoon as cortisol should be tanking. Look at the direction of her cortisol. So her stress hormone is rising when the circadian cycle should normally be tanking. And then it barely goes down and matches her normal cycle. So we're out of the hormone. We've run out of the hormone cortisol, which makes it very, very difficult to wake up in the morning. Look at the 24-hour free cortisol. Look where that's pointing. It's completely deficient. Look at her ability to clear cortisol. It's very deficient. That's a solid F, right? On a 0-100 scale, 30% is a solid F. So we're not clearing cortisol. We're not producing cortisol. It's actually rising for a prolonged period of time when it actually should, a bit about this point, start to fall off so that she's in a normal circadian cycle. So now your circadian rhythm is off. You're trying to wake up in the morning without a waking hormone. You're trying to go to bed at night without a sleeping hormone. Your mood is off. Your energy is off. Your menstrual cycle is completely out of balance. Your skin elasticity is decreasing. Libido has left the building. And this seems like a major catastrophe. All of this is linked mainly to these two hormones. Let me show you something going on on the next page. I won't bore you with all of this. These are the different phases. You're welcome to look at those. So look here. This is what I meant about a precursor. Okay. So remember, these purple blocks are postmenopausal. So when you see these things pointing to these purple blocks, that is the postmenopausal block. This is the postmenopausal range. Right? So you see that all of these hormones are in this postmenopausal range. Look at this. See this postmenopausal range here? The important point that I want to make now is that there is a hormone called pregnantalone. Pregnanalone is this precursor. Look at this. D-H-E-A, also low in her. Progesterone. What kind of sleep can you expect to have when your progesterone is like this? So it's like, it's literally like an evil wizard. I mean, it takes your libido away, makes your skin less elastic, throws your menstrual cycle off, throws your mood and emotional state off, and throws your sleep into the toilet. Because the progesterone is also off. Now, progesterone is going to become two other hormones. It's not important. I don't want to get too deep into the hormone therapy here, but you see if this is in the postmenopausal range, so are its substituents. Then we look at what D-H-E-A becomes. Well, D-H-E-A becomes over it and helps to make the android hormones that are precursors for testosterone. This has not yet fallen. It also makes testosterone, which becomes free testosterone. So if we look at this cascade of events, her E1, which is a relatively weak estrogen, is floored out. The most powerful estrogen in the body has become postmenopausal. This actually increases in postmenopausal. Her most powerful estrogen hormone is floored out, and even her E3 is off. So all of these hormones are floored out. It is no wonder you feel the way you do. This is why I love this test, because it gives your doctor a chance to actually replace all of these hormones. Look at the metabolized cortisol. Look at this guy. There's no way. And then guess what happens? All of this happening at one time throws women into fight or flight. You're stressed out because libido's gone. You're looking in the mirror and you're like, wait, all of a sudden I'm aging faster. I can't wake up in the morning. I feel like a lead balloon. I have no motivation. My mood is completely off. You get something called flat affect or mood numbness, where the peaks and valleys of mood disappear, so you don't get really, really, really happy. You don't get really, really, really pissed off. You're just kind of, eh, very melancholy. There's no positive aggression towards life. There's no positive aggression towards working out. And stress causes the brain to release ACTH, which stimulates the adrenal glands to make hormones, including DHEA and cortisol. So stress aggravates this even more. And mainly the stress hits during the day when your cortisol should be low. So you see that even though she doesn't have a lot of cortisol, the stress is actually causing it to rise when it should be falling. So this is why it can wreck your metabolism. This is why women feel so off and they feel like a crazy person. And they have brain fog. Like they literally can't complete a coherent thought. This is not them breaking down. This is their hormones going in the tank. And we don't have to suffer like this. Women, you do not have to suffer with the consequences of menopause. We know how to treat this now. And this is the gold standard test. So DHEA production, thankfully, is still in the normal range. It's postmenopausal, but it hasn't completely flattened itself out. Look at this. Waking in the morning. So what do we want more of? Cortisol, what do we want less of? Melatonin. So melatonin upon waking, we want melatonin in the cycle from here to here. The lower the melatonin, the easier it is to wake up. Cortisol rises in the morning, melatonin falls. Look at her melatonin off the charts. So no cortisol, no waking hormone. Plethora, in excess of melatonin. So it's no wonder she feels like a lead balloon or she used to feel like a lead balloon getting out of bed in the morning. This is not them being lazy. This is not them not being motivated. They literally do not have the hormones to accomplish a normal day. They wake up more exhausted than they went to bed. And it is hard to even get out of bed and find motivation because the motivation is gone, because the mood and emotion is off. And the ability to actually just get up and conduct your day is even harder because you are literally being drugged by your own body. Your melatonin is through the roof. I mean, this is off the charts. This actually cannot register any more waking melatonin. So it's like taking your sleep medication in the morning and taking your Adderall right before bed. So take an amphetamine, try to sleep. And then by the time you fall asleep, you wake up in the morning, take sleep medication. That's kind of how it feels. Your body is drugging you because the hormonal cycle is so off. The DHEA production is also in the post-menopausal range. So this is what you'll see on this touch test. This is why I love this test. This is why I think every woman who's going through menopause should do a test like this. Hopefully you have an OBGYN that can read this test. And then what you do is you do the prescription based on these levels because you have a 24-hour urine test. So the next thing we're going to do is talk about exactly what hormone she's on because Sage not only had the mood, the emotional, the poor waking cycle just absolutely felt like she couldn't get out of first gear. And some nights she was getting good sleep, but not getting good rest. And this is because the hormonal cycle is so off. So in addition to that, when you go in and you replace these hormones, you don't just replace the hormones, you replace the precursors like pregnant alone. It's better to do your testosterone in the morning and do your estrogen in the evening. That's more in tune with your circadian cycle. So usually you will split your hormone doses into two types, and I'm going to show you exactly the doses that she's on. To add insult to injury, there is a correlation between frozen shoulder, what's called adhesive capsulitis, and menopause. So as she plummeted into menopause, she actually got frozen shoulder. She got adhesive capsulitis, and she couldn't raise her arm about right here. A few weeks after she was on hormone therapy, she could raise her hand all the way above her shoulder and point straight at the ceiling. Her mood improved, her emotional state improved, her sleep improved, her brain fog went away. All of these things are perfectly normal. Don't think you're crazy. I also want to point out the fact, I think I talked about it on the podcast, but I also want to point out the fact that the very same study that linked estrogen supplementation and estrogen hormone therapy to breast cancer was debunked in the same study by furthering the study over a prolonged period of time. Happy to link that study below, so women do not be afraid of hormone therapy because you think it's going to increase the risk of breast cancer. In fact, in some areas of the study, breast cancer went down. The breast cancer risk was reduced by being on hormone therapy. So years ago, we used to take rifle shots at these hormones. We used to just give estrogen, or we would just give testosterone, or we'd just get pregnant alone, or we would just give progesterone, and that is not a way to treat women. If you're going to replace the levels, you have to replace them all, and that way they feel normal again. you're not just getting my insights. When I have incredible guests on the podcast, VIP members get to submit questions for a private podcast segment. So that world-renowned expert we just interviewed, you get exclusive access to their knowledge, tailored to your specific situation. This section is under the private podcast section in the Ultimate Human Community. And speaking of exclusive, you're getting my personal protocols. The exact tools I use for water fasting, gut optimization, and morning routines that have taken me decades to perfect. This isn't theory. This is what works in the real world. The community launches challenges throughout the year where you get direct access to me and my network of experts. It's like having a personal health advisory board for less than $100 a month. Your health is your wealth, and this investment pays dividends for life. Join the VIP community at theultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP and step into your ultimate potential. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. This is why a standard blood test doesn't tell the whole story. We pulled standard blood on Sage at the same time. She's been very willing to show this too. This is another byproduct of menopause as you become less sensitive to insulin. So the hemoglobin A1C, the three-month average of your blood sugar, starts to rise. She would have been prediabetic at 5.7. She was at 5.6. I can assure you, my wife eats very, very well, and she exercises every day. She is the cleanest diet in our house. There is no reason for her to be almost prediabetic. The rest of her levels look amazing. Kidney function, her blood urea nitrogen, her creatinine. When you look at her iron levels, they're all within the range. She had done an IV at close to this test, so it had B12 in it, what's called a Meyers cocktail, so we can discount this level. Her vitamin D3 is in a great range, between 60 and 80 nanograms per deciliter. So when you're walking through labs, I mean, look at her. She's not on cholesterol medication. Cholesterol is amazing. Her triglycerides are fantastic because she doesn't eat a lot of sugar. Let me actually blow these up. So her LDL cholesterol, she's not on a statin. Total cholesterol, her triglycerides are in a great part of the range. They're nowhere near 150, which is about the high end of the range, 149. Healthy levels of HDL cholesterol because she eats fish oil, olive oils, a lot of good, healthy saturated fats, black seed oil. So everything is looking good. Even her thyroid is relatively in the normal range. It's a little low on thyroid hormone T3, but her homocysteine is fantastic. You know, she takes trimethylglycine for that, TMG. So these labs tell a totally different story. There's the stress, right? There's the stress coming from cortisol right there, which is no reason, I mean, no wonder why she was actually floored out. Her testosterone would still tell you that, you know, you should have some libido. Your testosterone's still in a good range. You know, the high end of the range is 50, but the low end is four, almost six times that level. You have a free testosterone, you know, it's not zeroed out. Your cycle appears to be in the same phase. So there's no reason for your cycle to be off. The test did pick up the fact that her DHEA was on the low side. It's not flag low, but look at this. You could increase her DHEA by 100 points and she would still be in the normal range. This will eventually have an impact on testosterone and other hormones because it's a precursor for those things. But what I'm telling you is this lab doesn't tell the right story, okay? Everything is within range, her hematocrit or blood viscosity, her total red blood cell count, her immune system's not lit up like a Christmas tree. So it just doesn't tell the right story. And sadly, what happens is people just do a simple blood test and it says, hey, you're healthy. Everything's within normal range or it's slightly out of the range. That's why the Dutch test is so powerful, especially for women. Okay. Was that it? We're back. Oh, we're back. Yeah. Because I'm like, I got other symptoms to talk about. I'm back from the whiteboard, so let's go through the symptoms. Okay, so I see a lot of women that talk about feeling itchy. And I did have that, not to a point where I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin or anything, but they talk about itchiness, itchy ears, ringing in the ears, trying to think of some of the other list of symptoms that women have come to be. This is Lachlan in the morning, brain fog. Labito left the building. Also my fault. Yeah. Honestly, if you just, this is where, a lot of my parents do hear this, but. You know, your mom and dad are watching this podcast for sure. So are our nieces. Sorry, Coral. Jump me. I mean, I'll say hi, but you know, I'm not going to initiate because I'm just not there. I'm like, I'd rather watch a show or read my book. And so the world became about just very mundane things. It's again, super not sage. And that's what really made us. I don't want to be in big crowds. I don't want to be around a lot of people anymore. I don't know. Just weird stuff has very different than I was before. And I think it was just like a feeling of being overwhelmed constantly. And so I just retreat and try to keep it in my, you know, all these struggling thoughts in my head. That's why I laugh and say that 95% of what's spinning around up here doesn't make its way out of my mouth and everybody should be grateful for that. Right. Because I don't want to end up in a mental institution. Think you never got that. Honestly, like put me in a white padded room. I feel like I'd feel safer. But it's better now though. I don't wake up with those feelings anymore. I don't wake up. You're a lot more energetic and super back on your game. Yeah. And your frozen shoulder is gone. Yeah. That is a game changer. That was brutal. Yeah. Frozen shoulder. I'd, but when I went to doctors, so we tried acupuncture, cupping, physical therapy. I mean, we tried so much stuff. And then I went to a doctor that said, well, we'll just push you under anesthesia or a light, twilight, whatever, and we'll just rip it out. Rip it. It's called manipulation under anesthesia. Out. Don't do that. You see a video of manipulation under anesthesia. It is. Yeah. I saw a video and I was like, I'm not doing that. That's insane. It looks like they're breaking your shoulder. It looks like they're breaking your arm. Yeah. So the fact that I got on hormones and three weeks later, I already was able to move up without pain is wild. Here's the wild thing. The night that we started the hormone therapy, she was like, okay, we're in a log cabin at 10,500 feet without another soul around, except me, of course, to receive the brunt of it if it didn't work. There I was. Just call me the catcher's mitt. And so I'm like, let's do it. And she took the hormones, passed out. I mean, passed out cold. Like it's seven o'clock or something crazy. Yeah, seven o'clock at night and slept all through the night. And I was like, hallelujah, we got it. We're on something. And truthfully, it was all uphill from there. I mean, in a good way. It was all positive from there. As they started to regulate, as pregnant alone started to provide the raw material for cortisol, her sleep cycle started to normalize. As her melatonin started rising at night and falling in the morning, she was less exhausted in the morning. I noticed that almost right away. She was more on her game. We have a huge project going on in Colorado and she was managing all the contractors. That took a nosedive for a little while. And she was just, I think even the GC was like, who's this chick showing up today with the long laundry list of things to check up on. And she was just all of a sudden back on her game. And then the greatest thing was over the next three weeks, the frozen shoulder thawed. Yeah. So there's a freezing frozen thawing stage is what I've learned about that. It can take a year and a half for frozen shoulder to thaw. Some women up to three years if they just don't see anything change with it. In my head, I was like, oh my God, I can't do three years of this. It's already been nine months. So ladies, it's okay to do hormone therapy. Yeah, I agree. And I think- Don't make yourself suffer unnecessarily. Oh, hot flashes, of course. That's just something that all women, I think, go through. But that was the only thing that was ever really pinpointed. It was like, meta-boss hot flashes. But that's the only symptom anybody would ever talk about. So growing up, I just thought that you just get hot flashes. And I always thought, well, I'm always very chilly, so maybe I'll enjoy that. I don't enjoy it. You may all enjoy it. Okay, dinner. She would pull her thing out and go, oh my God. We're the middle of the night. And she would blow down her chest at a restaurant. At a restaurant. Which is not normal. Not appropriate. No, not appropriate at all. I was like, I get me a cup of ice. Like, I got to take this down a notch. I'm not saying it's perfect yet. It's been a couple of weeks since I've been on them. So I'm still having certain things every once in a while. But honestly, I think that it went wonky because we were traveling internationally. So it was in too many time zones. And it's just like birth control. If you don't take it at the same time, it's not as effective. So I think I screwed up my time zones too much. And it fell off. And that's why I had that episode the other night. So we actually put our hormones right here. And I'm going to put these into the show notes. So this is another important thing is the timing of the hormones. Yes. There's an AM and there's a PM. And now I realize how very important it is to take it at around the same time every single day, the AM and the PM. So the pregnant alone, the DHEA and the testosterone are mourning. You know, you want to get the benefits of testosterone because testosterone raises libido. It improves your energy level. It actually improves your bone marrow's production of red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen. And what we perceive as energy is nothing more than oxygen in our blood. So if you said, Gary, I had a lot of energy today, physiologically, what you're saying is, I had a lot of oxygen in my blood today. So if oxygen equals energy, which it does, then if we want to raise your energy level, we've got to put more oxygen into the blood and the vehicles that carry oxygen or red blood cells inside of a fluid called hemoglobin. It's another reason why when you go to a basic blood test and you look at your red blood cell count being in the lowest 10 percentile, but it's normal. And you look at your hemoglobin being very, very low, but it's normal. And you'll see things like mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration. These numbers start to rise because there are fewer red blood cells. So the bone marrow is trying to fill them with more fluid. And so the oxygen level, so you're mildly hypoxic, which leads to brain fog. It leads to low energy and it also interrupts the sleep. You know, I very often get asked the question, why do people that are the most exhausted sleep the worst? And the reason for that is that you're exhausted because if you've known somebody or you've ever had the misfortune of being anemic, when you have anemia, you're exhausted all the time. You have no stamina, no energy. You don't have that positive aggression towards working out. You're walking up a flight of steps. You feel exhausted. So that's a nemic state that does show up on labs. But when you're hypoxic, when you're just low on blood oxygen, low on red blood cells, low on hemoglobin, which happens when you're testosterone tanks, then you're tired. But what happens when you go to sleep? Your respiratory rate starts to drop. As your respiratory rate starts to drop, your breathing is more shallow. As your breathing is more shallow, you're taking in less oxygen. Think about every time you expire air from the tip of your lips, all the way down to the lobes of your lungs, that's all expired air. That's carbon dioxide. So if you're breathing very shallow, a lot of what you're breathing is just that carbon dioxide. So your brain ends up waking you up at night. And the way it wakes you up is it pulses cortisol. And so when you're exhausted during the day, you also don't sleep well. And you would think, well, if I'm really exhausted, the thing I would probably do the best is sleep. So you would go to bed exhausted and wake up more exhausted than you went to bed. And so that was largely fixed by adding testosterone. And then in the evenings, she takes something called, this is not the compound of one, this is the one, she takes something called E3 and E2. These are different types of estrogen, which I'm going to explain on the whiteboard or have explained on the whiteboard. And pregnant alone. And pregnant alone is that precursor for things like cortisol and aldosterone. So it's really important to not just replace the hormones, but to replace a lot of these precursors for other hormones. And so Dr. Sardar, who's a board certified OBGYN with 10xLT, she was our clinic director for years and years. She's an amazing woman. She read the Dutch test. She prescribed the hormones for Sage and I'm telling you, game changer. Yeah. She really nailed it between the blood test and the Dutch test. I think she really nailed it with finding the right combination. The cool thing, there's a couple of different ways that you can take hormones too. So I have friends that are taking pellets. They do the pellets for like six months. There's the creams. You can rub on estrogen. You can rub on testosterone, estradiol, all the things. Or rapid dissolve tablets. So I chose to do the rapid dissolve tablets because I felt like I could adjust them. I could break them in half or do a quarter or three quarters. And I could adjust it depending on my mood. We just happened to hit it just right. And it's exactly what I needed. I feel better. I don't feel nasty anymore. I don't feel really sad. Thank you. But I also don't feel sad. I would just have these. And women will understand what I'm talking about when you like, all of a sudden you're crying your eyes out for no reason. And then you look at your, if you track your periods or whatever you look at it, you go, oh, that's cause I'm getting my period in a day or two. So that's sort of how it was, but it just, none of it made any sense. It was on, you know, it was sad for no reason, just multiple times throughout the month. So again, I just kept blaming on other things. One thing I also wondered, so my DHEA was actually kind of normal on the blood test and the urine test, but everything else was tanked. Is that why if I had too high a DHEA? Is that why I had adult acne? Cause I never had teenage acne. Yeah. And, but I have struggled in my chin, which they say is hormone related for years. And I, it doesn't matter what lotion I use, what washer cleanser, what toner, what makeup, I tried everything. And I just was constantly battling these stupid zits on my chin. And is that why? Cause it never made sense to me. Estrogen is especially impactful to sebaceous glands, you know, the oil lines. And that's what it is. It's a big head like. Yeah. And they start underneath the skin. Painful ones. Yeah. Yeah. Start underneath the skin. And you know, teenagers are infamous for getting this, but you also start to get it later in life, adult acne and women get it especially when they're estrogens out of ratio, which is why it's so important to look at the ratio of hormones, not just the levels. Because remember, if you're menstruating, it's perfectly normal for your estrogen to be in the 400s. It's perfectly normal for your estrogen to be in the teens. So who's, depending on where you are in your cycle, luteal, uh, uh, follicular ovulation. So who's to say that 179 or 82 or 64 is high or low? Well, you don't know. You have to know where you are in the cycle. You have to know where the other hormones are in their cycle. It's called monophasic when they're in the same cycle. It's called aphasic when they're out of cycle, because when hormones cycle together, women are fine. When hormones cycle in the opposite ratio, crazy pants. Which we've been there before. Yeah. Multiple times now. Multiple times now. I've got a PhD in crazy, just happens to be. I have a PhD in ADHD. It makes you feel better. Does make me feel better. It's my super power. It is your super power. It's, it's insane. I have the age in a big way because I always have energy. The hyperactivity in this one, isn't that? She gets so mad at me because she, you know, I'm like, I take glutathione and she's like, how do you feel? I feel amazing. But you're great. And then everything's so great. I can like slam you up against the head with a baseball bat. You'd be like, that feels great. Most things have a positive effect in my body. No, that's true. Like I eat steak. I'm like, I feel great. I'm like, are you yogurt? I'm like, I feel great. I actually really feel pretty much good all the time. I am obnoxiously happy. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with happiness. Like I think I could be the first person that could die of spontaneous happiness because I feel like I get so happy that- You always say your head feels like it's going to blow off the shoulders. Yeah, it feels like my head's going to blow off my shoulders. I'm like, I need some bad news just to take the edge off. You know? Take the edge off. I didn't remember the last time I was upset for longer than like a minute. I could bring up a few things. Hey guys, let me tell you about one of my favorite new hydration drinks. Now this is for distance athletes, hits cardio exercises, people that sweat a lot or exercise intensely. An A game is a hydration drink. It has eight essential vitamins. It has all of the electrolytes, the entire suite of B vitamins. Before you freak out and read that it has 21 grams of sugar, which it does, the sugar is coming from natural cane sugar and honey. My preferred mechanisms for getting glucose into the blood during intense exercise. It also has natural flavors, but these natural flavors don't come from bacterial fermentation. They actually come from real citrus fruits and the color is from vegetable juice, not artificial dyes. So next time you're looking for a great hydration drink and you're exercising intensely, A game is your choice. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Anyway, anyway, so, you know, we really wanted to do this podcast so that we could be vulnerable and transparent, have some fun with this. You know, I hope that you guys got a lot out of the whiteboard talk, the explanation. You know, we will put sages hormones right in the show notes. I'm not saying it's exactly what you should take. No, we'll put the, but I think saying the amounts, because I do get that question, like how much, you know, E2, I don't even know. I don't have it memorized, but we'll put it out there. It does not mean that that's good. Yes, we'll take this and then just go to the doctor to subscribe that. Yeah, exactly. You want to have data. The doctors will not be stoked about that. Yeah. They already hate the, hey, here's my Google Warriors. Yeah. Yeah. I've already watched the podcast. Chat, GPT, all my stuff. But I do think that there, it helps you learn about this stuff. This stuff is complicated. I can't say all those words and I don't really understand it, but when it was just so helpful, and I remember like crying with you when we got all these results back, because you looked at it and you go. And you saw it. Yeah, and you go, oh my God, I actually, you felt bad for me, because you saw it finally. It wasn't just me saying, I don't feel good. I don't feel right. You were like, holy cow, I can see it in the science. Yeah. I was surprised she could even get out of bed. Yes. Because I said, babe, you on paper look like a lead balloon, you know, the, with cortisol floored out in the morning and melatonin as off the charts as it can go. I don't know how you got out of bed. I don't either. Just pure will and stamina and being married to you that you're just like, we got to go. Here we go. Okay. Here we go again. First smile on my face, fake it till you make it. Yeah. I was happy. And that also, I'm sorry for, see a lot of apologizing. See how easy it is. It's so much easier. No, you don't have to do it that much anymore. No, I haven't apologized in weeks since you started hormones. No, it's so much better. So now I make sure that her hormones are refilled every time. But also, you know, don't just jump straight to hormones. Don't just, I think that it is important to get your methylation in balance, figure out what raw materials, simple raw materials might be missing. What kind of B12 is good for you? What kind of, you know, do you need five-month of full eight? Those are such important pieces to the methylation balance that leads to the hormones getting out of control, but also recognize like if, when you're in your 30s and you're like, probably a baby making phase, you're not thinking about menopause. Menopause is like years away. That's like, that's like grandma stage, except I'm 47 and I don't feel like I'm grandma. No, definitely not grandma. But back when I was in my 30s. You were smoking out grandma. Thank you. Thank you. Back in my 30s, 50 felt so far away. Now it's three years away. But I think this stuff started back when I was probably 37. When we met, I think it was starting to hit, which is wild to think that. But things were different in my late 30s. So women just don't need to suffer unnecessarily. Husbands don't need to suffer unnecessarily. No, learn about it together. I send you a lot of memes. Oh my gosh, actually I have a funny one on here. I send you a lot of things from Instagram is shockingly helpful. I'm not a tick tocker, but I sent sometimes just to make him laugh. We do have a group chat with Josh and Victoria and it's just so that Josh and Gary can, you know, suffer together and know that. We formed a male support group. It's a support group. Yes. But I do believe that men need to educate themselves as well and then just help your person through it. Lots of hugs, lots of back rubs. A lot of hugs. A lot of hugs. I mean, honestly, anything, you can get through anything with a good hug. You can. Yeah, it's true. What is it, 20 seconds of hugging? Yeah, oxytocin. Raises your oxytocin. That's what they say is in Cupid's arrow. Yes. That's the psychosomatic response. Oxytocin, dogs have a hundred times the oxytocin that human beings do. That's why they're so loyal. We can learn a lot from our dogs. That's a fact, by the way. So, as I wind down every podcast, first of all, where can my audience that is now hopefully not newly exposed to you, but maybe they are, what do they find you? I'm only on Instagram. I am nowhere else because I can't handle social media. But at Sage Workinger Brecca. We're working on dropping the working. We don't have to drop the working. We just have to shrink it to Sage W Brecca. That sounds good. SWJ Swoog. So, I wind down all of my podcasts. I can't wait to hear the answer to this question. This is going to be a good one. People, you know this question is coming. You've seen hundreds of my podcasts. What makes you an ultimate human? What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? Oh, I am an ultimate human because I'm married to you. Because I kept up all these years. We do move into fast-paced. We just did 14 cities in 18 days. It's still unbelievable. And we've been home for five and we're about to leave for another month. Yeah, Saudi Arabia, Romania, Dubai, New York, Abu Dhabi. We're definitely getting a lot of stamps in the passport, which is super cool. We just got a place in Dubai, which is kind of cool. Yeah, so I'm excited about that. Still love Colorado over everything. So, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I mean, I do laugh that we've done this together and we've learned so much together. We have been a team. There have been moments where we haven't been a team, but we find that we are better together when we're a team. And that makes us the ultimate human. I really do believe. But yeah, as a female, go get information. Do not let someone tell you you're fine. Don't let someone tell you nothing's wrong with you. Or it's all in your head. Or it's all in your head. Or you need these prescriptions that anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, sleep medications, heavy, heavy, heavy stuff because it might be just simple things that you can get back in balance. And I think by getting all of those things in balance and replacing the raw materials and the hormones that you really do need, you can become the ultimate human. That was a great answer. Okay, good. So, I hope that you guys enjoyed this podcast. Let us know what you thought about it. Make comments down below. I will put the results of her test and all of her hormones right down to the dosages down there because we want to be open and transparent and authentic about this podcast. I really enjoyed this. Yeah, and ask any questions. There's a VIP community that Gary has that if you're watching this and you want to know more, you can submit questions into the VIP community and we'll answer them. What's really cool is we created an AI that answers questions only the way that I would answer questions. We don't let it crawl the web. And so, it's got years and years of information in there. Every stage, talk, podcast, lecture, interview, white paper, the book that we've written, haven't published yet. All of that, this AI, this private AI has read. It's also read every question I've ever responded to. So, if you're interested in becoming an Ultimate Human VIP, just go over to the ultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP. I pour myself into this community. We do lives. I just did nine hours of lives this week, three hours for my water fasting challenge. Another six hours with the VIPs just taking questions from you guys. And that's my favorite thing to do. I just said, I don't care how successful we become, I will never get out of that one-to-one communication with the audience. It's a cool community because people become friends and you find like-minded people in there and at the end of the day, you realize everybody's struggling with the same stuff. So, instead of you working one-on-one with someone, it's so awesome that you can share all this information because I hear you say the same thing to everybody that you're talking to. Because ultimately, it's the same answer. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of people have the same challenges. We've had people that came in with Hashimoto's that don't have Hashimoto's anymore. We've had people with all kinds of autoimmune conditions that have put those into their remissive past. We've handled waking, water retention, thyroid issues. We talk about cancer. We talk about all kinds of things in this community. And then there are guides in there that are specific to mold detox, heavy metal detox, whole food dieting, right down to the grocery list. But the AI is amazing. And then we also did a 10-month course on becoming the ultimate human. And every module is in there, morning routine, sleep routine, travel hacks, whole food dieting. It's all in there. And I was going to sell this as an independent course and I said, you know what? I'm just going to give this to the VIP community. So, it really is a lot of value in there. So, if you're interested. It gives people a good guidebook too, to then educate themselves so that when they do go to their doctor's appointment, they know what questions to ask. They understand the answers better because they're like, they've prepped themselves. Because going to the doctor is overwhelming because you don't get a whole lot of time. And it's hard to, when somebody might be talking over your head, they don't mean to. But, you know, it happens to me all the time if I go into a doctor's office. So, I think that this gives people the opportunity to go, okay, I've studied up on what questions I have and what answers I'm looking for and, you know, and then, and be a team with your doctor to figure it out together. Agreed. And we have a lot of physicians in there. MDs, PhDs, researchers, nurse practitioners, nurses in there that are functional medicine practitioners, really giving good practical advice. I do a lot of lives. So, I don't want to oversold the VIP community. Sorry, I just wanted to. Now would be a great time to join. Theultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP. Let us know what you thought about this podcast, whether or not you'd like to see Sage back on more podcasts. And as always, guys, that's just science.