011 | Designing Your Badass Dream Life with Hormonal Support with Whitney Tucker

Episode Description:

Coach and trainer Whitney Tucker talks about her hormonal collapse, which lead to a self-healing journey. Learn about cycle mapping and syncing, how healing. hormones can unleash energy and ways to optimize your vitality using your hormonal cycle as a blueprint for wellness!

Find Whitney here: 

https://www.embodiedpotential.com

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Summary: 

Are you looking for ways to support your hormones and create the life of your dreams? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll be discussing tips from Whitney Tucker and Suzanne Proksa on how to design a badass dream life with hormonal support.

Whitney is a certified health coach and yoga instructor who specializes in helping women achieve their health goals through lifestyle changes. She believes that creating balance in our lives is key to achieving our goals, and that includes balancing our hormones.

Here are some of her tips for designing a badass dream life with hormonal support:

1. Get enough sleep: Sleep is essential for hormone balance and overall health. Make sure you get at least 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night to ensure your hormones are functioning properly.

2. Eat healthy foods: Eating healthy foods can help keep your hormones balanced as well as provide essential nutrients for optimal health. Focus on eating whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates like quinoa or brown rice instead of processed foods high in sugar or unhealthy fats like trans fats or saturated fats.

3. Exercise regularly: Exercise helps keep your hormones balanced by releasing endorphins which can help reduce stress levels and improve moods naturally without the need for medication or supplements. Aim for 30 minutes of exercise at least 3 times per week but make sure it’s something you enjoy doing so it doesn’t feel like a chore!

4. Reduce stress levels: Stress can have an adverse effect on hormone balance so it’s important to find ways to reduce stress in your life such as meditation, yoga, deep breathing exercises or even just taking time out for yourself each day away from work or other commitments that may be causing stress in your life.

5. Supplement wisely: Supplements can be helpful when used correctly but they should never replace real food sources of nutrition such as fruits and vegetables which are packed full of essential vitamins and minerals needed by the body for optimal health including hormone balance. Make sure any supplements you take are recommended by a qualified healthcare professional who knows what they are doing!

6. Eat organic whenever possible: Eating organic produce whenever possible helps reduce exposure to toxins which can disrupt hormone balance. Choose organic produce over conventional when shopping at the grocery store if possible!

7. Avoid processed foods : Processed foods contain artificial ingredients which can disrupt hormone balance so try avoiding them whenever possible. Stick with whole food sources instead such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, etc.

8. Get regular movement : Regular movement helps keep hormones balanced by increasing circulation throughout the body. Aim for 30 minutes per day but make sure it's something enjoyable like walking outside rather than running on a treadmill.

9. Manage stress levels: Stress has been linked to many different types of illnesses including those related to hormone imbalance. Find ways to manage stress levels such as meditation, yoga, deep breathing exercises or even just taking time out each day away from work commitments.

Remember that creating balance in our lives is key - focus on getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, reducing stress levels & supplementing wisely - all these things will help keep our hormones balanced and allow us reach our goals!

The Imperfect Transcript: 

Welcome to another episode of The Suzanne Show, where I talk a little online business, human resources, personal development, chronic illness, and whatever else I decide to chat about. I am so excited that you are here and I love to hear from my listeners. Please feel free to reach out to me on my website, suzanneproxa.com, or on all the socials where I'm also Suzanne Proxa.

And don't forget to put that K before the S. Let's move on with the episode. I can't wait for you guys to dive in. Hello everybody. I am really excited to be here today with Whitney Tucker. She is a hormonal coach and we have got some amazing content for you today if this is something that you struggle with.

We are going to talk about designing your badass dream life with hormonal support today. And so I'm just going to let Whitney go ahead and introduce herself real quick because she's going to do a much better job than I can. And then we're going to dive right in. Hi everybody. I'm so grateful to be here and talking about one of my favorite things to talk about and learn.

So I help women design and claim their badass dream lives and I do it through hormonal coaching, physical training, and productivity optimization. And what that looks like is I'm either leading a course, I lead retreats, I work with individuals when they come with a specific wellness concern. And my goal is to create a container for embodiment. What that looks like.

So I come from a background of being a lifetime athlete and artist. I was a professional dancer for a long time living in New York City. And I consistently elevated my understanding of the human mind, body, and spirit through the study of anatomy, Pilates, yoga, strength training, boxing, martial arts. You can guess that I was pretty physical. And I then got into social justice, esoteric trainings, and birth work.

And that's how I chose to serve. I'm founder of Embodied Potential and I'm the creator of Sync to Thrive, which is an eight week detox and hormonal reset for premenopausal women. Awesome. So I actually met Whitney over on Clubhouse. So whoop whoop to Clubhouse.

And so then I don't forget, Whitney, if people want to find you over there, what is your username or handle?

Sure. It's at Whitney Tucker underscore. It's the same there. As it is on Instagram and as it is on TikTok, but those are the easiest ways to get in touch with me. Awesome. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So she was in a room that I was in and I think all of the moderators fell in love with her. She's probably got podcasts scheduled with some of the others as well.

But I am really excited about the topic today. When I was a health coach way back in 2015, one of the things that I was obsessed with was hormones and it was actually more so for my own selfish purposes because I'm sure a lot of what we're going to be talking about today is stuff that I deal with as well. And I have no issue telling the listeners that.

So my first question is, because you've done so many amazing things, is what led you to start working with women to get their hormones in check?

Sure. So I had always been a master of resilience and that sounds really egotistical because it was. My ego sort of kept me constantly being in a state of I need to produce more. I need to be excellent. It's perfect or nothing. And suddenly I found myself where none of my old tricks were working and it had followed a period where I had an emergency gynecological procedure.

I had a pregnancy termination that turned septic and I had found myself basically in a hospital and doctors were shocked that I hadn't gotten there earlier. I had a lot of shame so I was there alone. And it was one of those things where they said, if you didn't get here earlier, you're risking organ damage.

Kind of some big things, but once I got out of the hospital, I thought my old habit, the old version of me was just grateful.

Like, okay, now I can get back to work. That was just a little setback. Let's go. Like I got this. And at the time I was, yes, a health and wellness provider and I was still working with a lot of clients in New York City. And I realized that my identity was really split.

I had this side of me that was just not taking care of myself and I was negotiating exhaustion and unexplained weight fluctuations and lute swings and my anxiety was through the roof. So everything was getting a little bit more severe and frequent. And even though I knew I had accumulated years of stress and trauma, I was getting frustrated by solutions that I felt like were band-aids.

And at the time I went to see a lot of mental health professionals, gynecologists, alternative health practitioners, bodywork, physicians, acupuncturists, and all of it was helpful in its own part, but none of it sort of was helping me deal with recurrent bacterial infections, anxiety, like I said. A lot of the symptoms just kept coming back or were just dampened a little bit.

So I realized I had to go all in with and for myself. And my approach became like, it's this or nothing, I have to heal. And it was scary because I didn't know how to scale that. I didn't know what burnout was. That wasn't even a word in my lexicon. And I was scared financially. I was scared in my relationships. I was scared what would change.

So I also knew no one was going to dig me out of that place except for myself. And I'm so grateful that I had that thought because that's what kind of got me to be like no holds barred about it. But what was new for me is that I knew I was going to have to ask for help.

I was going to have to do the heavy lifting of changing my life, but I needed help. So I started to look at, I spent the last, what it is now, four years with the attitude of whatever it takes. And I started to discover tools that restored my wellbeing and it all had to do with the endocrine system.

It all had to do with my hormonal system, which had been throughout my life quite regular. I had a period at what was seemingly a normal age and I wasn't super inconvenienced by my period and they were never that painful. I was always an athlete and things now that they were super irregular. And I realized that that wasn't the case for a lot of women.

I started having conversations with friends and clients, realizing how few of us actually understand our endocrine system, how few of us actually have any education about what is or isn't a normal period, how we only are fertile a few days out of the month, but most of us are suggested or prescribed birth control. So this kind of led me back to my work as a birth worker.

I was a labor doula, a full spectrum reproductive justice worker, abortion doula, and placenta capsulator. And I know it sounds like I've done all these things, but it's sort of my personality when something, I don't know if something or something's kind of itchy, I go find out. So fast forward to about a year ago, I wanted to develop a program and that's why I created Sync to Thrive.

And I really believe no woman should suffer alone. We don't have to. A lot of the solutions are right in front of us. And I think they're easier than we realize if we're willing to do the work. And if you want to do it and you think like you can, or you're not sure you can rather, trust me, you can. If I did it, you can. I am stubborn.

I was totally broken.

Oh my God, I'm stubborn as hell. And I was totally broken and I'm so grateful. It led me to a totally different life that I didn't think I could ever have. So that is a really amazing story. And I'm so sorry to hear about your experience in the beginning.

So I think my next question is, I think that there are a lot of people out there that don't realize they even have a problem. As somebody like myself who has chronic illness, I know how often doctors miss the mark. As a matter of fact, I had to lead them to just look at things in my lifetime. And you also talked about self-advocating.

So my question is then, who needs hormonal resetting?

What are they going to see that would say to them, hmm. This might be something that I need.

Yeah, that's a really great question. And even the phrase hormonal resetting, I will go as far as saying it upsets people. So even people in the hormonal world that I'm in, many, mostly women that are supporting other women will say, you can't reset your hormones. I believe that reset for me, the word resetting means you need to take a step back, take stock, observe, learn how to trust yourself, and be curious.

And sometimes that's a difficult balance to strike because I think that intuition, we all have intuition. And I think it's a tool that we can hone and we can honor and still know that we may not always be right. Feelings are not facts. All of those things are true.

But when you know something is physically wrong, there's nothing more frustrating than knowing something's physically wrong, not being able to find a solution, going to somebody who you feel like you should be able to trust that's telling you something that is contradictory to what you feel. And I bet you experienced that, Suzanne.

It's like a lot of these things that are syndromes, where syndrome is a grouping of symptoms, that basically you hit a certain amount of markers and then you have PCOS and then you have PMS and then you have autoimmune disease. And the truth is, I think that there's, and I think this can upset a lot of people, but I think that there is a gap between endocrinology and gynecology.

So a lot of people will not get to an endocrinologist that may be able to help them or a functional medicine practitioner, which is my care provider of choice. They won't even get to them until an issue is well down the road.

And so what I suggest is, if you have an issue that, here's the thing, right, if you have an issue that's seemingly an issue that you ignore, what happens with the endocrine system is every neurotransmitters and hormones are reliant on each other to signal, to be triggered into production.

So if there's something wrong kind of in the orchestra of your body, your body can be overproducing something, underproducing something, even what we call excess estrogen, which is the result of basically estrogen not getting escorted out of your body after ovulation and then getting turned into PMS symptoms as physiology. That often is not excess estrogen, it's just a lack of progesterone production.

And I would say for anyone who thinks they might have an issue, two things, right, is getting with a care provider that you trust. There are hormonal tests that they can run.

I am shocked at how few women who have what is undoubtedly an endocrine issue is, and this is for people that have had a pregnancy termination, a loss of pregnancy, for people that have had really irregular periods, for people who have had other endocrine issues.

And when I talk to them and I say, you know, are you working with somebody now with your endocrine system?

And they're like, no, I see my GP and my gynecologist and they haven't ordered a test. And I'm shocked. I think a lot of it is, you know, the state of the medical system in our country, people either don't have the care or the care that they have, they feel awkward about, you know, asking a test from a doctor that the doctor should, you know, know. And doctors, I love doctors.

I've got doctors in my family. I think that I believe in medicine. I'm so grateful for it. I think in the field of women's health and gynecology, it's missing the mark a lot. And I saw that personally.

I worked in a trauma for hospital in New York City, working with women who were coming from all over the country because second trimester abortions are illegal in many places and that's where they, you know, ended up coming. And I was really shocked at the care afterwards too, that oftentimes, you know, women will have what is an issue and it's normalized.

So I would say if you think you might have an issue and some of those things can show up like symptoms that people don't think are related. So hair loss, hair growth, unexplained weight loss and weight growth, like, you know, if your body can't regulate its temperature easily, sudden and this, but I will say the biggest sign and what we call the fifth vital sign is your menstrual cycle.

So a regular period is considered between 21 and 35 days. So the first day of your period is the first day of your bleed. And if you are bleeding again in 20 days, that's considered short. If you're bleeding again in 36 days, that's considered long.

If you're bleeding through, if you use period products, which I'm referring to tampons and you know, sanitary napkins and pads, which I could go into a whole thing about how many of those are actually endocrine disruptors.

Many people prefer like the Diva Cup or some kind of cup because, and if you can get one that's non-BPA plastic, like there's so many details that we don't consider where we just put our trust in the system outside of us. But if you're bleeding through more than 10 period products through the cycle of your period, that could also be considered excessive bleeding.

If the period is, I think I said this, lasting less than three days or more than seven days. Or if you're doing breakthrough bleeding where somewhere in your mid-cycle you're bleeding, that could be something to look at.

And then what did I want to say?

Oh, there's also all these indicators that are pretty cool, which the color of your period blood.

So if it's pink versus really dark, deep red or purple, right?

That could be, that indicates that there is not an imbalance, but there's more estrogen or progesterone if you have blood clots that are larger than a size of a quarter. And these are things that I didn't know. I'm in my late thirties. I work in birth work.

I have so much access to information and these are things that, this is a cycle that isn't just important for my life, but it's a sign and symptom of my health. And I really didn't know. I didn't have literacy. And the more I talked with women, I realized we were in the same boat.

So there's a super long answer to your question, Suzanne, but I would say that, and it's a long answer because I think many people don't have the information, but if somebody wonders if they have any of these issues, not to be hypochondriac, but the coolest thing is that once you start to make some adjustments right now, further down your cycle, week two, week three, week four, and not that it happens within a month, but that's when you can start to see the changes.

And that's when I ask women to be patient about the process. But if you don't have a doctor or you have, or you are unable to get the test through a lab, there are some really incredible companies. I work with the Dutch kit, which a lot of people consider the gold standard of hormonal testing. Everlywell is another one. And those are at home kits.

I would say one thing that people criticize about those tests is that you got this information back and you're not sure how to interpret it or read it, to which I would point to the numerous videos and resources that those companies offer for that. But at least it gives you some information then that you can then work with, especially if you're not getting answers that you feel good about.

Nicole So I have to say, you are absolutely right about, you mentioned when you first started talking about the gaps and that's definitely true. You had my gyno tell me it wasn't worth doing the testing on the hormones because essentially it is what it is. Then of course I'm talking about the estrogen and progesterone, et cetera.

I shudder to think how many women out there are not getting appropriate care for these things. So I'm so glad that you're shining light on it.

And my next question then is what's been the biggest surprise in working with women in hormones?

You've probably had a few. Dr. Julie Kinn Yeah, oh my gosh.

So I have, you know, periods definitely can come back. Symptoms of excess estrogen subside. Women confidently break up with their birth control and start to understand when they're ovulating. That is all incredibly, just as from the coach side. I love seeing it and it's sort of predictable.

What has been unpredictable has been seeing women really gain clarity to start new careers, gain tools to address their self-limiting beliefs because we do a whole section in addressing power leaks and how you're talking to yourself. Because if you think about it, if you're carrying around the weight of feeling crappy all day emotionally or kind of being in toxic relationships or in a job that's draining, it has a physiological impact.

You know, to start with, it's going to produce cortisol. Cortisol over production of cortisol prevents production of estrogen. So those are some things. People that have changed their lives and actually things are starting to work.

You know, their relationships change, they needed to have breakups that they can then start new relationships. And then the most surprising thing, Suzanne, has been around money.

And this has been, and which is why we have money experts come in, money mindset experts and financial advisors come into my program, is that I started to see women, you know, change their lives in all these ways, address their self-care, address their boundaries, address like, you know, maybe some of the friends that they didn't need anymore, or they, you know, were like, all right, these are actually people that are not elevating my life.

And it became really clear. And then they would start, we would start to have conversations around finances. And when I thought about it, you know, a lot of, I had to do a lot of work on money mindset and what I believed I could earn, what I was worth, all of that, but didn't connect it to this hormone work and my nervous system.

So that's been a really surprising result that, and I do think, you know, I have, I'm very passionate about getting, you know, all of us women elevating us and having collaboration over competition and getting us to a place where we're reaching down, we're reaching across, we're helping each other because I needed it. I wasn't raised at all.

I, you know, didn't grow up at all with an empowered mindset around money. So that would be the most surprising aspect, I would say. So that is really interesting, that financial piece. That's definitely something that I never thought of. So you talked again about your program, Sync to Thrive, and this sounds absolutely amazing and probably something that so many people out there need.

Can you talk a little bit about what results you're seeing created by the women who complete your program?

Sure.

You know, the program, I'll talk about that maybe through the three pillars of health that we address because I do not think it's a one size fits all approach.

And I, you know, this coaching program, this program and course has a lot of contact time with me as a coach, as well as over 15 experts. So I bring in people, I bring in doctors, physicians, nutritionists, because I am not an expert in all these things at all. And I needed a lot of expert support.

So I think depending on each woman, one of the three pillars usually addresses where she needs support. So the first thing we address is detoxification and stabilization. And we learn how to use food to heal, regulate our mood and energy. And we learn, you know, what endocrine disruptors exist within our home, our cosmetics, which is one of the least regulated industries in terms of endocrine disruption in the U.S. at least.

We address power leaks, like I said, of time, money, relationships and self care. And that's what we do as a baseline of the program. And for a lot of women that are coming in who maybe never taken care of themselves, they've never invested this kind of time and gotten the support, that the results that I would see, and I see this a lot, it's not sexy.

Like the results might be the end picture, but because you're setting up, you're setting up support that is changing maybe how you've lived your life forever. Some of the changes are not that sexy, you know.

If you, like for example, we work with sugar, stress and sleep, right?

So most people when you talk to them and you're like, all right, what are the big issues?

They'll come in and, you know, I asked them about their blood sugar stabilization. And that's not a conversation around eating candy and donuts or your favorite dessert of choice. Mine is ice cream personally. But it's more about like avoiding getting on a glute coaster.

So you know, making sure you're getting breakfast, making sure you're eating every two to four hours, not a full meal, but something that has good fat, a protein and fiber. And there's a reason hormonally for all of those.

So for a lot of folks that come in the program, I would say that's where a lot of the changes happen and they'll say, oh wow, I just need to like make sure I keep nuts in my bag. I need to make sure I'm drinking water.

You know, we had one woman in the program who has five children and we observed with her that she of course always makes sure her kids are fed, are getting from this activity to that activity. She ended up homeschooling during the pandemic. She was super busy. So if anyone thinks they don't have time for this, I always think about her because you do. She made it work.

And she, you know, she noticed she didn't drink, she doesn't drink water and dehydration is a big, you know, it can really affect, first of all, your hunger signals. It can really, I mean, we know like everyone's like drink more water. Like I said, it's not a sexy solution. So then you start looking at accountability measures.

Is it just that you, so what she did is, you know, every time she got her kids a snack, she drank a cup of water and then lo and behold, her water content was, you know, her water amount was better. Some people need a little bit more support. They need a reminder from a friend. They need an alarm on their phone. They need an app to track the water.

They need a coach to call them, you know?

And so that was kind of, those are some of the results is people just making changes to those three areas, sugar, stress, and sleep. And then the next pillar that we address is we, and this is something that anyone can do. We learn how to track our cycle non-hormonally.

So for, you know, women that are not on birth control, if you are on hormonal birth control, you're actually not having a period. You're having a foreshadowing of your uterine lining. And then there's a different way to kind of use this information. If you were on birth control and you're waiting for your period to come back, there's ways to accelerate the process and the alignment with your body.

But we are learning how to track your cycle through three methods. So and I have a webinar on this as well, and I'm developing online courses for this, two mini courses, because I think some people just need one part of this information. So basal body temperature tracking, it's tracking your temperature every morning. There's apps that can help make it really easy or you can do it online or sorry, on paper.

Cervical mucus tracking, so actually tracking the changes because right before ovulation your cervical mucus gets, there it becomes more abundant. It becomes more slippery.

It becomes there's basic more clear kind of like egg whites, right?

So before you whip them, it's like the kind of that kind of slippery and that's because it's a great conductor for sperm to live and swim. The third one is cervical positioning. So I teach women first off, like how to actually locate and find their cervix. You'd be surprised how many women have never contacted their cervix or don't do it regularly.

And so those three methods will start to be able to track where your cycle is in terms of ovulating and ovulation, not as a desire to get pregnant or avoid it, but just as a sign of health. And then we talk about how to amplify for all the four phases of the month.

And it sounds, Suzanne, this sounds like a lot and yes, the program is comprehensive, but these are great practices just to get back to yourself, to know yourself.

I mean, I'm shocked and I have been one of those people where, you know, if I had problems, you know, instead of actually a self inquiry, I would go to a doctor, I would go to somebody else, even a coach.

And I would say that, you know, a lot of the work at the end of the day, hopefully is going to stay with these women when, you know, I've always, I'm going to have a relationship with them, but when that relationship is done, and sometimes I'll hear from people six to eight months later and they've had a huge transformation, a huge aha moment because what we're doing in this eight weeks or work like this is really setting up the conditions for wellness.

Yeah. Awesome.

So is this a one-to-one program then?

Oh, this program is, they have sessions with me, but there's also, there's a closed online group and portal of information. There's a workbook. There is a fitness classes. I also teach, you know, I come from a background of athletics and professional dance.

And one of the things, one of the movement components is that for women that are doing more than 20 to 25 minutes of high intensity exercise three times a week, more than that can actually be disruptive for the endocrine system. So the classes I teach twice weekly, that's included in the program. There's a lot of deliverables. I'm trying to remember them off the top of my head.

And they keep growing because the more I see that, you know, people need a weekly check-in and people just learn differently.

You know, we all learn differently. So people are going to hear things in a different way. So there is a one-on-one component for sure, which I am shocked how many coaching programs don't have that. I need the support. I need the touch time.

So yes, I totally agree with you.

Also, I am so glad that you mentioned the glue coaster because I need to go eat my second breakfast.

So, so glad you brought that up.

Now how do people go about getting into your program then?

How can they, where can they go check that out?

For sure.

So, and I actually, when you asked first about the clubhouse address, it is not Whitney Tucker underscore. It's just Whitney Tucker. Whitney Tucker underscore is my Instagram. And if you go to the link in my bio, it'll have a landing page for this program. But the best way, if you're interested and if this spoke to you, I bet it's worth having a conversation. Just DM me. It's really easy.

I try to get back to everybody within 24 hours. I'm pretty receptive on that point. So just DM me. I'm glad to have a conversation, even if it means it's just more information for you and you're not sure you want to do the program. You're just curious. I literally love talking about this.

And the more that I get this message out, the more people will talk to their sisters, their cousins, their daughters, because I do not want anyone to go through what I went through and what I hear every day that women are going through.

A lot of it is avoidable and a lot of it has to do with us kind of coming back to ourselves and trusting ourselves, building that intuition, staying curious and getting the support. I totally agree. And I'm so excited to hear that you're putting this out there and helping people with it because it really is a big deal and has such a huge impact.

So if people want to reach out to you or check out any of your things, you're seeing Instagram is the way to go. Instagram is great. And if they want to look at embodiedpotential.com, just look at any of the offerings and it'll also lead there. If you're a more visual person that way, Instagram I give, I try to give a lot of tips.

So I try to give a lot of this information in bite-sized pieces so that it's creating value for people but not overwhelming them. If any piece of this you have questions about, just let me know. I'm really glad to have a conversation. Awesome. Yeah.

Thank you, Suzanne. Thank you for hanging out with me today, Whitney. And I'm sure we'll see each other again on Clubhouse, Ness.

And yeah, keep us informed and maybe we'll have you back in a few months so we can talk a little more. For sure. So thank you to the audience and we will see you on the next episode. Thank you so much, Suzanne. Take care. You too.