What is your hormonal hierarchy and how can you modify, adjust, and strategize your nutrition and your workouts based on it? Naturopathic and functional medicine doctor, Dr. Brooke Kalanick talks all about hormonal hierarchy, PCOS and lifestyle strategies for optimizing hormonal health. You can find all the info and links about this episode at https://holisticwellness.ca/episode56. Topics Discussed in this Episode: PCOS Hormonal hierarchy Lifestyle and nutrition strategies for women with PCOS The role that histamine plays on female hormones The best workout approach that women can take for optimizing their hormonal health How kale isn’t going to be the fixer of all things Key Takeaways: For the most part, if you’re showing up with irregular periods, cysts on your ovaries, insulin resistance or elevated androgens, those are all going to be signs that can help point you towards a PCOS diagnosis. Inflammation is an underlying root cause for PCOS, so all women with PCOS should really be looking to manage all sources of inflammation. If you’ve ramped up your training too much, one way to know that you’re overdoing it is if your ACES (appetite, cravings, energy, and sleep) are out of balance. If your appetite goes up, your cravings go up, your energy goes down or your sleep changes, you’re probably exacerbating cortisol with your training and you want to back that down. Some classic signs of overtraining can be represented by the acronym RAMP, which stands for reluctance to train, achiness or excessive soreness, moodiness, and puffiness. Action Steps: Look into managing all your possible sources of inflammation. Figure out your unique carb tolerance.   Dr. Brooke said: “It’s just unfortunate that women don’t understand how their hormones are talking to them. All day long we’re getting biofeedback from our hormones, especially insulin and cortisol… so it’s really important to tune in to their signals.” “Exercise is powerful medicine and I really think we can use it for healing, but it is a very quick way to burn yourself out, to create a lot of inflammation or oxidative stress and make those delicate hormone issues worse.”   Thanks for listening!   Important Announcements: Our intensive two-hour Instagram Influence Masterclass is coming up on Wednesday, April 17 at 7 PM Eastern Time. So if you feel that you need some Instagram help, and you want to know how to use those hashtags as well as learn the secret ways to hide them, and you really want to engage with your community and build your community, then come join us!   Also, sign up for our weekly newsletter! And if you’re a health practitioner or an entrepreneur, be on the lookout for the Holistic Wellness Business Mentorship program that’s coming soon!   Connect with me over on Instagram, @holisticwellnessfoodie! And it would mean so much if you would leave us a rating or a review over on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher, or whichever platform you’re listening to us on. Take a screenshot of your review and email it over to us, and get our FREE 3-Day Hormone Balancing Meal Plan.   Links to things we talk about in the show: The Sarah and Dr. Brooke Show Hangry: 5 Simple Steps to Balance Your Hormones and Restore Your Joy by Sarah Fragoso and Dr. Brooke Kalanick Lab Guide   Where you can find Dr. Brooke Kalanick: Dr. Brooke’s Instagram (@betterbydrbrooke) Dr. Brooke's Website Dr. Brooke's Facebook Sarah & Dr. Brooke Website   Where you can find me: Samantha’s Facebook Samantha’s Instagram Samantha’s Website Samantha’s Twitter Healthy Hormones for Women Podcast Private Community on Facebook   How you can work with me: 6-Week Healthy Hormones for Women Intensive - Use the coupon code PODCAST at checkout to save 60%. Healing & Dealing with Hashi’s