Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Visit melissavogelfitness.com/course for the free email course.

Did you know your gut health can impact your brain and anxiety? How can regulating your hormones create positive changes in your body? What are natural ways for you to boost and maintain a healthy hormonal balance?

In this podcast episode, Melissa Vogel speaks about hormones, happiness, and healing with Kim Schaper.

Meet Kim Schaper

Kim Schaper is a speaker, holistic wellness coach, certified personal trainer, and women’s hormone expert. With clients ranging from professional triathletes to busy lawyers and mompreneurs, she speaks to the successful woman who has built an incredible life for herself, yet suffers from stress, health, and hormone issues.

When Kim’s doctors told her to, “Just drink more coffee,” to overcome her fatigue, Kim knew that there had to be another way, and didn’t rest until she found it. As a result of Kim’s expertise and customized coaching style, hundreds of women have brought their hormones back into balance, lost incredible amounts of weight, reclaimed the gift of a good night’s sleep, and traded in their chronic stress for a regular state of relaxation.

Kim resides with her husband in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a proud dog mom.

Visit Kim’s website. Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.

In This Podcast

Summary

• Red flag symptoms of a hormonal imbalance
• Gut health goes hand-in-hand with hormones
• Probiotic versus prebiotic
• How gut health affects the brain

Red flag symptoms of a hormonal imbalance

• Night sweats
• Insomnia
• Waking up between 1 am and 3 am consistently
• Brain fog and forgetfulness
• Weight gain around the mid-section
• High cortisol
• Hair loss
• Cold intolerance
• Constipation

Gut health goes hand-in-hand with hormones

What people need to be conscious of is you can do all these things like ‘oh lemme just take all these supplements’ or ‘lemme just get hormone replacement therapy’ or use some cream of whatever. But here is what becomes problematic is if your gut is not absorbing, you’ll be flushing hundreds of dollars of supplements down the drain.

Almost 80% of your hormones reside in your gut, as well as important neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, the happy hormones. If your gut is off, your brain and hormones could be off too. For gut health, Kim’s top tips are:

• Get to the basics, a good probiotic with 50 billion IUs or more, also with 10 different bacterial strands.
• Fermented foods such as pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, and Kim recommends Bubbies as a delicious probiotic snack. Note of caution with fermented foods: if you struggle with a yeast infection, go easy on the fermented foods because they can exacerbate the Candida overgrowth.
• Use prebiotics that you can find in foods such as psyllium husk, artichokes, arugula, and general vegetables.

Prebiotic versus probiotic

• Prebiotic is essentially fiber and vegetables, it is like a warm-up to a workout and setting you up for success.
• Probiotic is like a pro-athlete, a supplement with a plethora of healthy bacteria.

Kim recommends going with seeking pre- and probiotics in food first to test the waters before trying out supplements.

Do I think people should take probiotics? Sure, I think you can get a lot of it from food, but if you notice probiotics are making things worse, then that’s something to pay attention to.

How gut health affects the brain

Your vagus nerve sits at the back of your neck and connects down your spine directly to your digestive system.

Studies have shown over and over again, when there’s inflammation in the gut, there’s going to be inflammation in the brain, and that is a huge source of depression.

Kim recommends you take Omega 3 fatty acids, ideally from foods such as salmon, walnuts, flax seeds, chia seeds, and flaxseed oil because your body cannot produce Omega 3, and it is vital for good brain function and cognition. Also a D3K2 supplement for mood support.

Kim’s digestion tip: If you suffer from digestive issues, try humming or singing 30 seconds before you eat to aid digestion because it stimulates your vagus nerve.

Useful Links:

• Processing Your Feelings and Emotions with Mindset Coach Mary Hyatt | BM 34
• G2G Bars – use code ‘Melissa’ at checkout and get 20% off
• BTBFM FREE EMAIL COURSE
• Sign up for Busy to Bomb Fit Mom
• Connect with Melissa on Facebook and Instagram
• Email Melissa: info@melissavogelfitness.com

Meet Melissa Vogel

Melissa Vogel is an energetic keynote speaker, business owner, certified personal trainer, certified group fitness instructor, 1st degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, a mother of three, and a podcaster.

Melissa has been voted as the Best Personal Trainer for 2020 by Inland Empire Magazine, and Built the Busy to Bomb Fit Mom exercise system.

She is quickly becoming recognized for her expertise and influence in her field!

Melissa has contributed to numerous publications and has been featured in the Trail Blazer Magazine, and published in the April 2020 edition of Health Magazine. Her approach incorporates personal experience, energy, humor, and charisma.

Thanks for listening!

Did you enjoy this podcast? Feel free to share this podcast on social media! You can also leave a review of the Bomb Mom Podcast on Apple Podcasts (previously iTunes) and subscribe!

Bomb Mom is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a family of podcasts that change the world. To hear other podcasts like Empowered & Unapologetic, Imperfect Thriving, Faith in Practice, Grow a Group Practice or Beta Male Revolution, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.