Suzanne Proksa:
Welcome to the Suzanne show with me, Suzanne Proksa, HR and business strategist, former featured Etsy seller, plant addict, concert lover, gardener, landscaper in training, and human straight up obsessed with helping others and cheering on women. Here, we talk a little business, personal development, women's health, and a whole lot about things that matter, help people, and give them joy. Grab your coffee or your wine, Break out one of your hundreds of notebooks. Light that soy candle, and let's dive in. Hello, my beloved listeners. I have a very impactful podcast for you today. We are talking about something that I have been talking about for years. You all know I'm a certified wellness coach too.
Suzanne Proksa:
And that is, is it really your hormones, the gut hormone connection? And so today with me, I have Chelsea Ward. Chelsea has been a student of the human mind and body for over 20 years. She has a background in applied behavioral analysis is a registered nurse, FDN practitioner and spiritual healer. She works with independent. Fun, loving women who are tired of hiding from life, trying to figure out digestive and hormone imbalances on their own and supports them with a personalized plan so they can love themselves and feel good in their own skin. She is also the author of healed his way, where she shares natural healing techniques that have been used by many others so they can experience health the way it was intended. Welcome, Chelsea. I am so glad that you are here today.
Suzanne Proksa:
Is there anything else that you would like the audience to know about yourself before we dive into questions?
Chelsie Ward:
Hey, Suzanne. Thank you so much for having me. It is a honor to be here, and I'm super excited about this topic because I know exactly what it feels like to struggle in your hormones for many years and realize that your hormones really aren't the problem. It's more about everything else that is leading to those hormone imbalances, like nutrition, stress, and even poor digestive health.
Suzanne Proksa:
So Chelsea, I know from my own experience and from being a coach for several years, that there's usually a story, behind why people are doing the different things that that they're doing and helping people with different things. So do you have a personal story when it comes to hormone and digestive related issues, or what drove your interest in this particular topic?
Chelsie Ward:
I'll never forget the time when I was about 10 years old, my grandmother looked at me and she was, like, child, you get everything that runs down this family line. By then, I had blood sugar issues, I was not able to pay attention in class, diagnosed with ADD, ADHD. I had gas, bloating, constipation, nausea after meals, and I was really sick as far as, like, digestive issues from the time I was born. I was born colic. My doctors gave me a few diagnoses, right, the common ones we receive when we have these digestive issues or blood sugar imbalances. So I got medications for IBS, and with my hypoglycemia diagnosis, I was just told to take a little orange tablet or drink some orange juice every time I got sick. The older I got, the more diagnoses I received, and I ended up on birth control by the time I was 12 years old for debilitating menstrual cycle issues. No one ever connected the fact that I was constipated my whole life and probably not getting rid of excess estrogen with the hormone imbalances.
Chelsie Ward:
I I was actually just put on birth control, and the older I got, the more diagnoses I received. It was anxiety, depression, and then hypothyroidism. By the time I was 27 years old, I was diagnosed with perimenopause. I was off birth control, I was put on bioidentical hormones, and I still had chronic fatigue. I had severe migraines. I was losing my hair. I couldn't pay attention. I was struggling from sugar addiction, and I couldn't concentrate, metabolism issues, and the list goes on.
Chelsie Ward:
Honestly, in my twenties, like, really close to 30, I started crying out because I knew I had tried everything I knew to do, but I wasn't getting well. I was a registered nurse at the time, working with patients, and they were being told the same message I was, and that was that surgery and medication is your way out. And I just couldn't accept that answer any longer. I started thinking, you know, what if there was a better way? And so I went on a mission to really study out more about the human body than what I had learned in school, and what I realized really shocked me, and it changed my life. I started to study how food was medicine and how our bodies were actually created to heal themselves, and I knew that I needed a strategic plan to really set those things into motion for myself, and that's exactly what I did. I went on a mission to heal myself. And I think that we don't really heal a lot of times because we're not addressing the root of our issues. Sometimes that is mental and emotional.
Chelsie Ward:
Sometimes that's through nutrition. Sometimes that's through getting rid of infections and things like that that have set up in the body because of years of unintentional abuse. And I tried to partner with a lot of people on my own natural journey to health, and I realized really quickly that I just needed a different approach than what a lot of these doctors and medical professionals had to offer. So I started looking at all of the different things that I could do from a lifestyle perspective, from a nutrition perspective, and I was able to reverse my perimenopausal state. And now at age 41, I'm ovulating, I'm cycling regularly, Everything is completely balanced. I've gotten rid of digestive issues. All of the symptoms that I've listed for you today, they've completely been resolved, And that was through one thing and is realizing that when we give the body what it needs, it's going to give us what we want in return. And that's when I wrote my story in a book called healed his way.
Chelsie Ward:
And now I'm just on a mission to help other people gain an understanding of how to heal naturally, no matter how hopeless the situation may feel, there's always room for improvement.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for sharing that personal story. I think that'll be super helpful for the audience to just understand, you know, where you're coming from, why you do this, what your background is and all of that. I want to dive into a definition of sorts for the listeners to start with, and that is an overview I of what gut health really is, because I think that people have just differing perceptions of what that means. So So if you could just give an overview of what gut health is, I think that would be a fantastic start.
Chelsie Ward:
When we talk about the gut, we're referring to the overall health and well-being of your digestive system. So that's gonna include your liver, your stomach, your small and large intestine, and a healthy gut, if it's functioning properly, then you're gonna see beneficial microorganisms, you're also gonna see other types of bacteria, and the idea is that we create balance there. So the presence of beneficial microorganisms and the absence of a lot of harmful bacteria, fungus, parasites, and even yeast, and the gut is really essential for absorbing our nutrients, and we also eliminate waste through that same system, and it helps us maintain a strong immune system. So if we have poor gut, then it might lead to a lot of digestive type issues, things like diarrhea, constipation, bloating, irritable bowel, and I do deal with a lot of those conditions. But on the other hand, if we have an unhealthy gut, then it's gonna impact other areas of the body. And I believe that a lot of these conditions and from my experience, a lot of these conditions, like allergies, skin conditions, even mental health issues can really be resolved by addressing gut health first. So gut health is kind of wide as far as, like, how we address it. A lot of times, we're using nutrition and diet, stress reduction techniques, we can use different types of supplements, and really depending on what's going on, if there's more of an inflammatory response, if there's more pathogens, if the if the detox pathways are closed, then we would use different supplements to help open up and correct some of the issues if there's already a lot of damage taking place.
Chelsie Ward:
But if someone is just working to improve overall gut health, the idea would be to get the right nutrition, get the right stress management techniques, get the right amount of sleep, and the right amount of exercise that's right for your body, and those are all great things to promote overall gut health.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for that overview. That's going to be really helpful for our conversation. And so the next thing that I would love to ask about then is, can you give a just an overview of the most impactful hormones for women and what they do. I think that a lot of times women go to the doctor, and, of course, they talk about estrogen and they talk about progesterone and they maybe don't talk about some of the other hormones that are important as well. So if you could just kinda give an overview for that, I think that would be super helpful.
Chelsie Ward:
Our hormones are like little chemical messengers, and they're produced by glands in the endocrine system, and they're responsible for a lot of different things in the body. And I like to think about these in a few different categories, so I'll kinda go over those 1 by 1. And the first is insulin, so that's produced by the pancreas, and it's really responsible for regulating our blood sugar levels. Another one is our sex hormones, those are progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone, and these are produced by the ovaries, the testes in male, you know, male or female depending, and they're involved in our growth and development of our sex characteristics, but also in just regulating the systems in the body from a sexual standpoint even as we age. And then the thyroid hormone is produced by the thyroid gland. That's what regulates our metabolism, controls our body temperature. And then the 4th is our adrenaline. These are produced by the adrenal glands.
Chelsie Ward:
It's also known as epinephrine, and it's involved in those fight or flight responses, which can cause an increase in heart rate, increase in blood pressure, but it's also good because it increases our energy level. So it's not necessarily always bad. These things are great, but as with anything, all hormones have to be in balance. So the last one is cortisol, and cortisol is also produced by the adrenal glands, and it's really involved in our response to stress, it helps regulate our metabolism, and it also plays a role in blood sugar metabolism as well as immune function. So all of these hormones, they're all crucial, but they play different roles in the body depending on what's needed in our areas of growth and development, metabolism, reproduction, or if we're responding to stress. And if we have imbalances in any of these hormones, that's when we get health problems related to those. So it can range from diabetes, if your pancreas is impacted, or it could be hypothyroidism, if your thyroid is impacted, infertility with the sex hormones, and even mood disorders.
Suzanne Proksa:
Great information. Thank you so much for bringing that clarity to the conversation. So let's dive into what are some of the signs your hormone imbalances are caused by poor gut health.
Chelsie Ward:
There are 2 areas I really find to be culprits when it comes to hormone imbalances and things that just kinda seem to come out of the blue, and that is stress and poor digestive health. So when we're looking at digestive health, I love to evaluate the liver because the liver has over 200 different jobs inside the body, and hormone metabolism is one of those. So if those drainage pathways are blocked or your body is not getting rid of excess estrogen in the body way of the liver, then you're gonna have kind of a backup of estrogen in the body. So you're gonna be getting symptoms of estrogen dominance. Maybe you have fibroids, tumors, growths, or you have a lot of irritability, a lot of PMS symptoms, bloating, fatigue, tender breasts, all those are signs that your liver is really involved in this process and you're not getting rid of excess estrogen. Digestive issues in combination with hormonal type issues can also be a problem. You may have things like bloating, your serotonin being disrupted, which is kind of depression, low your serotonin being disrupted, which is kind of depression, low dopamine, meaning that you just don't really feel very motivated, or if your cortisol is off balance, sometimes that means that you don't have a lot of energy, or you're just not really handling your stress as well as you could be. All of those different things, those emotional impacts on the body, things that lead to depression, anxiety, irritability, all that can actually be related to your gut.
Chelsie Ward:
There can be an imbalance of bacteria there as well that's leading to some of those symptoms, and just creating a little bit more balance in your digestive system can help with those mood disorders. Also, weight gain can be a sign of both, you know, a bacterial imbalance, but also hormone imbalances. And one of the big keys here that I want your listeners to take away is that the liver, again, is very involved in this process. Something as simple as doing a liver detox can really help get that excess estrogen off the body and help release a lot of this estrogen related weight gain. So a lot of times we'll also gain weight, particularly in the midsection, and this is because the gut is responsible for regulating our metabolism, our appetite. These are through 2 different hormones called leptin and ghrelin, and they're getting a lot of attention right now, so you've probably heard of those. And another thing I see that's related to gut and hormone connection is skin problems. So we can have inflammation in the gut, and I like to think of the gut as or the skin as the gut turned inside out.
Chelsie Ward:
So if we're thinking about the inflammation in the gut, the lining of the gut being inflamed, then a lot of times, we're gonna see that same expression on the skin in the form of acne, eczema, and even psoriasis. Autoimmune conditions are another big thing here that tells me that, hey, the gut is probably involved. One of the most common is Hashimoto's thyroiditis. It is actually the most common autoimmune condition, and it's not the only way you can get it through a condition called leaky gut or intestinal permeability, where our proteins spill from the gut where they should be housed into circulation. That happens through leaky gut. And when those proteins enter into circulation, then the body will begin to attack those proteins. So the gluten protein actually looks very similar to the thyroid protein as does the dairy protein, and when the body starts to attack some of these proteins that it's kind of like, wait a minute, this doesn't belong in the system, then it will start to attack our organs as well. So, and then once that organ is under attack, that will lead to a condition called hypothyroidism, and Hashimoto's is actually a driver behind hypothyroidism a lot of the time.
Chelsie Ward:
So when you're maintaining good gut balance, then you're also going to, in turn, maintain good hormone balance. That can come through eating a healthy diet, again, managing stress, avoiding antibiotics and medications, things like that because they will disrupt the microbiome, but they also lead to healthy hormone balance.
Suzanne Proksa:
And that's very fascinating. And I think that a lot of people don't know about that connection. So that's super helpful information. What are some things that people can do on their own to address these gut issues so they can improve hormone health naturally.
Chelsie Ward:
The first step is really to remove a lot of the things that are causing the issue in the first place. So that could be eating high amounts of sugar or other inflammatory foods. I find things like gluten and dairy can be foods that people are pretty sensitive to. So removing those foods for a period of time just to see if you have some sort of food sensitivity to those. And those gluten, dairy, and sugar are some of the top inflammatory foods as well as foods that cause bacterial imbalances or fungal overgrowth in the body. So removing those, also removing toxic skin care, toxic cleaning products, those types of things can decrease the toxic load and really help support the liver. Because if we're putting things on our skin and it's toxic, all of that toxicity has to be processed through the liver. So if the liver is working to detox other things and not and it doesn't have open drainage pathways to really work to support the body from a hormonal standpoint, then we're gonna start to see these imbalances, and we'll see those continue even if we're eating the right diet and doing other things really well.
Chelsie Ward:
The next piece is really adding in the things that are going to improve hormone health, and one of those is fiber. So fiber is necessary for that phase 2 detox to take place in the body. Some of the most fiber rich foods that'll also help your body with a little bit of estrogen detox are things like broccoli, brussels sprouts, asparagus, kale. Those are some of my favorites, as well as others in that flowering family or cruciferous family. And you can also include naturally detox fine foods for your liver. I love things like lemon, grapefruit, beets, dandelion greens, or any other bitter greens, those can really be helpful for helping you get rid of a little bit of the liver toxicity, can get rid of bloating, Even using things like dandelion tea can be beneficial if you're experiencing bloating along with these
Suzanne Proksa:
imbalances. Alright. That is awesome information. Now you and I both know that when people look at making any kind of change or improvements to their health, you know, they often wanna know, like, how long is this gonna take? How hard is this to do? Can you, and, and I know what you're going to say already, but can you, for the audience, talk that through with them so that they un just understand what they're looking at if they want to make some changes? I like to
Chelsie Ward:
think of health as a lifelong journey, but realistically, someone can expect to see a difference in their overall health by changing lifestyle habits. And as quick as just a couple or a few weeks, maybe over a couple of months, really, depending on how complex their health issues are. So for example, if someone is eating a pretty inflammatory diet, a lot of gluten, dairy, sugar, removing those foods can be a very quick change process for someone. So if someone is pretty much eating pretty healthy, they're eating good healthy fats in their diet, they've removed a lot of their toxic skincare, they're drinking plenty of water, they're getting movement in on a regular basis, and still not getting results, this is the type of person I'm typically working with. Right? Because you've tried everything, you don't really know what to change in your diet, you don't really know why you're not getting results, but something is not budging. When I'm working with those women, I can typically see results very fast because all the troubleshooting has been done already, and I can help them speed their path up to success because there is a full understanding of what liver detox truly means, and I can guide someone through that process. And if they're still not making moves within, say, 10 days to a month by doing some of those natural processes using more of a food as medicine approach and a few supplements, then we know it's time to dive in a little bit deeper. And if you're in this place, then that is when I would typically recommend partnering with someone who can really help you move the needle.
Chelsie Ward:
A lot of times in women, I see SIBO, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. I see parasites. I see long term fungal infections. They're standing in the way. I see liver toxicity or just a stagnant liver, and so you're unable to drain a lot of those hormones off. You're unable to process your foods and your toxins and everything like that as you're supposed to. Sometimes I see that it is more of a stress issue. We're eating at we're eating in a stressed out state or we're just not able to manage our stress.
Chelsie Ward:
We don't have anything that brings us joy. So a lot of those things are standing in the way. And I like to think of this as, again, like I said, a lifelong journey where you are starting with what I like to call low hanging fruit, work on your sleep, work on your nutrition, work on your relationships, do something that brings you joy, and add little things each week until you've created your own health plan that you love. And if you reach that point and you need some additional support, that's when I would encourage you to reach out and do that because sometimes we just need a guide to help us speed up that process to success.
Suzanne Proksa:
Okay, Chelsea. My understanding is that you have a program that you offer to help people with these things. And this is kind of the point of the show where I usually ask my guests, how do people reach out to you? What do you have available? Would you like to talk about that and then tell people where they can find you and how they go about checking out the program?
Chelsie Ward:
Thank you so much, Suzanne. My program is at chelseaward.com. That's chelsieward.com. And under the coaching tab, you'll get to learn a little bit more about the method that I created called go with your gut, and it's a holistic approach to digestive issues, immune issues, and hormone imbalances where we use nutrition and lifestyle as medicine so you can transform your health long term.
Suzanne Proksa:
Awesome. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And so now people know how to get ahold of you. My next question is always give 2 to 3 actionable things that you want people to take away from the podcast today? What do you want them scribbling in that notebook and making sure that they don't forget?
Chelsie Ward:
Number 1, nutrition is medicine, and if we use food as medicine, then a lot of times we're not gonna need a lot of the other things we think we need because our body will start to come into balance, and if we remove inflammatory foods, the ones that I listed today, like gluten, dairy, and sugar, then we'll be leaving a lot more room for a lot more nutrient dense foods that are actually gonna feed ourselves. So ask number 1, your action item is remove gluten, dairy, and sugar for a period of time, maybe even just 30 days, and watch how it impacts your life. If you're not really sure how to eat to fuel your metabolism, I actually created a guide. It's called the metabolic guide, and you can access that on my website as well, or you can go to chelseaward.comforward/metabolic guide. It's a little bit easier to just go to my website and grab it from the top. The other thing is love your liver. Your liver is not only involved in your digestive issues, it's involved in your hormone issues, and as I mentioned, over 200 different processes in the body. So when our liver is functioning optimally, then we are going to feel so much better.
Chelsie Ward:
We're gonna get rid of toxins a lot easier, and we're gonna be so much more energized. So some of those top liver loving foods were beets, grapefruit, dandelion, greens, and all of your other bitter foods are great for loving your liver. So add some of those to your diet while you're removing some of the inflammatory foods. And then the third thing I want you to take away today is not something that I really address too much, but back to that cortisol. If you are under a state of stress chronically, then your body cannot heal. So I want to share with you one small thing that is gonna help you heal and that is sleep. So make sure that you're getting in bed by about 10 PM at night and allow for your body and your cortisol levels and your melatonin levels to really come back into balance, operating around the sun, utilizing your circadian rhythm, and if you'll sleep during that that time and allow yourself a good 7 to 8 hours to sleep, then you are going to feel amazing and your body is really gonna start to show a lot of improvement at a faster rate because you're giving it an opportunity to heal.
Suzanne Proksa:
Thank you so much for being on the show, Chelsea. Again, as a certified wellness coach, I am very much aware how important gut health is and all of the negative impacts that can happen if you aren't paying attention to it. It's just crazy. So I am so glad that you shared this information. I know I don't even have to ask. I know that it was super helpful for the audience. And so, again, thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to talking to you soon.
Chelsie Ward:
Thank you so much, Suzanne. It's been a pleasure.
Suzanne Proksa:
I hope that you loved this episode. If you did, give me those shout outs, show me some love on iTunes, give me a rating, and hey, if you wanna know where to find me, you can find me on pretty much all social media at suzanneproksa. That's suzanneproksa, and, that's suzanneproksa, and, that's suzanneproksa. Proksa. And you can also head over to my website Suzanne probsa.com. Until then, we'll see you in the next episode and here is the party music for you.
