In this episode of The Thermo Diet Podcast, Jayton Miller sits down with Meg Langston. Meg is a Functional Nutrition Therapy Practioner and RWP. She specializes in helping women heal their bodies and feel like the best versions of themselves. They take a deep dive into the menstrual cycle, how it works, the importance of the menstrual cycle, and so much more. Check it out and let us know what you think!
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Full Transcript:
Jayton Miller:
Welcome back to the Thermo Diet podcast. I'm your host Jayton Miller. And today, I have on the podcast Miss Meg Langston. So today, we talk about the menstrual cycle. We talk about the different parts of the menstrual cycle, what makes a menstrual cycle difficult to deal with, how do you overcome some of those difficulties, what are some of the benefits of actually having a period, and why it may give women a hand up whenever it comes to health and telling them what's going on with their body and stuff like that.
Jayton Miller:
So I'm super excited for you all to listen to this episode. It's filled with golden nuggets. So let's get into it.
Jayton Miller:
How's it going today, guys? I am here with Meg Langston. How are you doing today, Meg?
Meg Langston:
I'm good. Thanks for having me.
Jayton Miller:
So Meg, do you mind telling the audience where you came from and what you're currently doing?
Meg Langston:
Yeah. So I'm going to try to keep this brief, but I think it's so important when you get to know me that you know my story, because a lot of what I talk about is from trial and error, and I think especially because I feel like this podcast is going to be a lot towards women, talking about the menstrual cycle. And I feel like a lot of us females have a similar story. I don't know. Maybe men do, too.
Meg Langston:
But so I grew up a pretty competitive athlete. I played soccer my whole life, and very competitively where I was in something called Olympic Development Program, I was playing in high school, I was playing in club, missed a lot of dances, and then eventually was so burnt out, didn't play in college, and I started to put weight on in college.
Meg Langston:
And I remember calling my dad one time and I was like, "Well, what are you eating?" And I'm like, "Well, Special K for breakfast," because this was when Special K was the end all, be all. Maybe it still is. But I definitely thought if it had dried strawberries in there, it was really healthy. "And then pasta for lunch and Jimmy John's dinner, turkey sandwich on white bread." And he'd be like, "Well, that's just all carbs." I'm like, "Don't I need carbs?" He was like, "You're not an athlete anymore."
Meg Langston:
So anyway, that was the first time I had ever identified food impacts your body and what are carbs. And I say this as a joke, but it is really sad. Back in 2007 when I was in college, they didn't have the ... I guess Facebook was just starting out, but it wasn't like Instagram was there and it wasn't like you were looking at information for health on Facebook, at least that I knew of.
Meg Langston:
And so I was going to magazines and I was letting magazines tell me, "This is what is healthy. This is what defines health." And it was always a picture of a woman's body that was very slender or extremely shredded. And they were always talking about the kale salads and the kale smoothies and how to, in a way, eat less and how to do more. And so I really took that on, because I'm an extreme person. I think the best way to describe my personality is I never ran a marathon in my life and I went for a full marathon and then backed off from there. And that's just completely my personality.
Meg Langston:
So I took it very extreme on, and then I dabbled at ... Like I said, I've always ... because I've always been an athlete, I've always dabbled in a bunch of sports and got into marathons, triathlons, got into body building. And all along the way, I had developed really disordered eating habits from trying to do more, eat less, and then an eating disorder because I just didn't feel good enough about my skin. I talk a lot about identity and, in this health world industry where it's very heavily focused on nutrition, we also have to be content and happy in our own lives so that this holistic world of nutrition doesn't just consume us. And it definitely was consuming me and becoming my identity, rather than just enjoying life and being who I am.
Meg Langston:
And so anyway, I got really involved in the fitness industry. I had a lot of really awesome opportunities. I was a paid athlete to do the ... have you ever heard of the Olympia?
Jayton Miller:
Oh yeah.
Meg Langston:
Yeah, the Olympia and to the Arnold. And so I was wearing little sports bras and shorts, which, if you knew me, that would never be anything I'd wear. But I was lost in my identity, getting praised for my body, and-
Jayton Miller:
That's quite a feat, too. That's a lot to accomplish, too.
Meg Langston:
Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was ... Yeah. It took a lot of extreme, extreme behavior. And not everyone does it that way, but that's how I did it. And I think a large majority of that fitness industry does do it that way. I was taking fat burners. I had tried SARMs at one time, which really messes up your testosterone and hormones. I was doing anything that I could to look shredded and maintain energy to keep that up.
Meg Langston:
And so eventually, I got into more Olympic lifting and CrossFit. Really fell in love with Olympic lifting. But it was the same thing. It was like in order to lift really heavy and be impressive, you had to weigh less. So it was manipulating weight and just back to the same cycle.
Meg Langston:
And I met my husband and was on this journey of, "How do I become healthy? How do I identify with health?" And the difference for me from the bodybuilding to the strength community was they did push for more performance, performance and less on body image. So it did give me a start of a mental shift of, "Okay. Maybe it's not just about my body image."
Meg Langston:
And this is a whole nother other topic, but all along I was really getting ... Faith was really important to me and I was really finding out who I was in my faith and just what did I believe about body image, what did I believe about this diet culture that was saying, "This is what defines health."
Meg Langston:
And eventually, it took me to a place where I was trying to get off birth control and I was about to get married, and I wanted to just ... I didn't want to be on birth control. There was no point or anything like that for me to be on it. And I started to try to figure out what my cycle was doing, because I didn't have a period anymore, which is really common post birth control syndrome. And that is really what led me to learning about, oh my gosh, your cycle has so much to say about your health, because I wasn't ... My temperatures were like 95.9. They were so low. And these books were saying, "Hey, a healthy temp is this." And I was like, "Wait a second. So what does that mean? Oh okay. That means my thyroid is not functioning well."
Meg Langston:
And then went to a holistic doctor and got all the lab work done, after being failed by conventional doctors. And here we are. Now, I serve women that are having any kind of dysfunctional conditions from infertility to hormonal imbalances, even acne to thyroid, all of the things. But it really started when ... The information really started when I was learning about my menstrual cycle, which is really cool.
Jayton Miller:
Heck yeah. That's awesome. So the menstrual cycle is something that you're very familiar with. Do you [crosstalk 00:07:51] giving us an overall of the menstrual cycle and the different parts of it and how it works?
Meg Langston:
Yeah. Yeah. No problem. So the ... I actually don't think a lot of women know this, and when you first start, as a woman, start to learn about your cycle, you're just so defeated on why and disappointed on why you were not taught this as young woman, because all of these things make so much sense once you start to learn that this is a really natural thing occurring in your body.
Meg Langston:
And if you're a male listening to this podcast, I would say just continue to listen because this is important for you to understand if you're ever coaching anybody in terms of nutrition or health or hormones or a trainer, because a woman's body is so vastly different from a male's. Our cycle changes within a month, where a male's is like 24 hours, right?
Meg Langston:
So a woman's menstrual cycle is biphasic, meaning it has two phases, from the follicular phase to the luteal phase. And what separates the two is ovulation, which is the main event. So the follicular phase is very estrogen dominant, and it is known as the pre-ovulatory phase because it's before you ovulate. And this phase is anywhere from 10 to 23 days. On average, it's about 15 days. And this is where it can vary.
Meg Langston:
So I'll talk about what a healthy cycle looks like and then where you can find abnormal cycles or where dysfunction can happen. So the cycles, on average ... The follicular phase, rather, is, on average, 15 days. And if you're taking your basal body temperature, which is basically taking your first morning temperature before you get out of bed, you would do this because, one, it's great at checking to see ... Dr. Broda Barnes talks about this, but at checking to see how your thyroid is. And then, two, it's the only way females can confirm ovulation. LH sticks don't work because you can miss it, miss the LH surge, which happens during ovulation, and then you don't want to rely just on cervical mucus because that ... If you're having an unhealthy luteal phase, which we'll talk about, that could show up.
Meg Langston:
So you always want to use the basal body temperature to confirm the ovulation has happened, and a good temp is around 97.6 in that follicular phase. So anything above that is considered really healthy and of high functioning thyroid. Anything below that is a good indication that there's some sluggish thyroid happening, maybe some hypothyroidism.
Meg Langston:
And so like I said, that this is a varied part of the cycle. So if you're somebody that has longer cycles, then you are going to have ... then you're going to ... which is above, oh gosh, I want to say ... I can't remember right now. It's 42 days, I would say, is abnormal. Let me pull up a note here. Yeah, 35 days. Forty-two would be considered too long. Sorry. So 24 to 35 days. So if it's above 35 days, your cycle's longer than 35 days, then that is a good indication that that follicular phase is too long.
Meg Langston:
And what would cause your cycle to be long is delayed ovulation. So your body's just not feeling safe enough to ovulate. So why would your body not feel safe enough to ovulate? It could be stressors. It could be happy stressors like planning for a wedding. It could be moving. It could be alcohol. It could be just trauma. It could be gut infections. So there's lots of things that would cause delayed ovulation. But nonetheless, it's a stressor.
Meg Langston:
And fertility always matters because it's a sign of health. Your body should always want to get pregnant and your body should always be able to get pregnant. Obviously, there's things that ... Well, your body should always be trying to get pregnant, right? Or at least be healthy enough to get pregnant is a better way to say that.
Meg Langston:
And so when it's not, it's going to protect itself and say, "I'm not ready to ovulate." And that's why something, a cycle, would go longer, is because it doesn't feel safe enough. And ovulation matters because not just for pregnancy, but because in a woman, ovulation is what strengthens their bones, our bones, heart, and brain. And so every time you ovulate, you're actually baking those health benefits for later on in your life.
Meg Langston:
And this is why it's so scary to think about the birth control pill, because it actually suppresses ovulation. So not only is it suppressing the benefits of what I just said, your heart, your bone health, and your brain, you're not getting those benefits, but what comes after ovulation is something called the corpus luteum. It's a gland that your body makes, a female's body makes, and it produces progesterone.
Meg Langston:
So when you're not ovulating on the birth control pill, you are not making that hormone progesterone that is completely the female hormone, that opposes estrogen, that protects our stress response, that supports thyroid function. And that's an issue.
Meg Langston:
So does that make sense on the follicular phase?
Jayton Miller:
Definitely.
Meg Langston:
Okay. So I think I feel like it's a lot of information, but the most important things to think about is the follicular phase is from your period bleed to ovulation. It's on average about 15 days. You absolutely do not ovulate on day 14 every month, like doctor's would say. Your ovulation can vary. And you only ovulate one day, but you are fertile anywhere from two to seven days out of the month. And that's because women have something called cervical mucus, which is a discharge. But that's actually really, really healthy for a female to have. It's a type of estrogen, but it actually ... its purpose is to capture the sperm, feed the sperm, and take the sperm where it needs to go.
Meg Langston:
So it's like our bodies are so amazing, and women usually get super embarrassed about that or feel weird. And it's like, "No, that's the most healthy thing your body can do during that time frame."
Meg Langston:
So then you ovulate, and then you step into the luteal phase, which is the last half of your cycle. And so this is ... the luteal phase is not going to ever change, meaning the length will always be 10 to 16 days. It will never be more than 16 days. It can, if you're low on progesterone, be less than 10 days, which is a good sign for you. If you're getting your period really, really soon, you have short cycles, that's a good indication that you have low progesterone. And remember, that progesterone is so important for thyroid function. It's anti-stress hormone. It is incredible for calming the body back down and therapeutic for the thyroid and things like that. So anything less would be a progesterone deficiency.
Meg Langston:
But that luteal phase is anywhere from 10 to 16 days. Under 10 days is progesterone deficiency. And this is where we will see a lot of estrogen dominance type of symptoms. So this is where women would have, although very common, is absolutely not considered healthy, PMS symptoms, tender breasts, extreme cramping, mood swings. And that's a big sign of estrogen dominance, and it would be because your body's not producing enough progesterone.
Meg Langston:
If you were to take your basal body temperature here, it should be about 98.4 is a really good temp shift. So 97.6, ovulation happens, and then it spikes up to at least 98.4, would be a really healthy, flourishing thyroid and body.
Jayton Miller:
Is that related to thyroid performance or an increase in progesterone?
Meg Langston:
Increase in progesterone.
Jayton Miller:
Okay.
Meg Langston:
Yeah. Progesterone is going to raise the basal body temperature.
Jayton Miller:
Okay.
Meg Langston:
And I feel like a really common thing that will happen here too is that a lot of women will notice histamine issues here, and that's because estrogen drives histamine, and histamine drives estrogen. It's like this vicious battle. So when women complain about headaches before their menstrual or even ovulation, because ovulation, you get a surge of estrogen. If you get a headache during ovulation or notice any other kind of allergy type symptoms, it's usually driven by histamine.
Meg Langston:
And I was saying this earlier to somebody, but it's so funny because when I was working on fixing my hormones, I was doing everything that these books said to do. I was supplementing with zinc. I was taking magnesium. I was seed cycling. Do you know what seed cycling is?
Jayton Miller:
No.
Meg Langston:
Okay. So seed cycling is just basically you take different seeds. It's like pumpkin seed and sesame seed and flaxseed, and you grind them up depending on where your cycle is. And this is problematic because seeds are a polyunsaturated fat or a PUFA. And so they're causing excess estrogen to happen. So their purpose is to help detox estrogen, yet the very nature of the seed is actually promoting estrogen.
Meg Langston:
So these books are talking about taking zinc, and zinc actually depletes our bioavailable copper. And bioavailable copper is important for thyroid function. It's also important for breaking down histamine along with magnesium.
Meg Langston:
So it's interesting because I was doing all these things and I could never ever get better. And now, looking back, I'm like, "Oh my gosh. It's because I was doing everything that depleted my bioavailable copper and put stress on my body so it depletes magnesium and then was increasing estrogen," because I was eating so many PUFAs and all those things.
Meg Langston:
So yeah, there's so much more to say about that. Do you have any questions on that?
Jayton Miller:
No, I think it makes pretty good sense. So as you see the rhythm of estrogen go up, your body temperature usually goes down.
Meg Langston:
Correct.
Jayton Miller:
And then as estrogen goes down and progesterone goes up, your body temperature will rise naturally with that as well?
Meg Langston:
Yes.
Jayton Miller:
Okay. Sounds good. So what are the main things that you would do to help with harsh periods?
Meg Langston:
Harsh periods, like painful periods or cramping? So we look at that and we say, "That's a lot of excess estrogen." So there's ... You want to look at a woman's body and support the detoxification of estrogen. So the liver, which has over 500 jobs, also one of its main jobs is to get rid of excess estrogen in the body. And so you want to support the liver, which helps get rid of excess estrogen.
Meg Langston:
So that looks like dandelion root. That can look like eating beets, which actually helps thin the bile. The bile is what will help release the toxins and excess hormones. So anything that will help support the liver, castor oil packs, will help decrease estrogen.
Meg Langston:
One of my favorite things, which is so simple to do, is eating a raw carrot salad. Do you do this?
Jayton Miller:
Oh yeah.
Meg Langston:
Oh yeah. So Ray Peat's raw carrot salad, it is the cheapest, most effective thing that I can ... If you can't sit still for 45 minutes to an hour for a castor oil pack, no big deal. At least get in a raw carrot salad, because they're so beneficial at uniquely binding to excess estrogen and helping it be removed from the body and endotoxins. And any time you have endotoxins, it's feeding bacteria, and bacteria's promoting estrogen.
Meg Langston:
So I would say supporting the liver, and again, that looks like supporting bile flow, which is beets, dandelion root tea, castor oil packs, eating raw carrots every single day. And then really supporting the thyroid, so eating ... Something that's not always talked about with the thyroid, and I love that Morley Robbins talks about this so much, is getting enough vitamin A in, because it helps with the conversions or helps with thyroid hormone.
Meg Langston:
And so vitamin A would be eating high quality saturated fats from animal meats like beef, bison, things like that. So that's really important to get in.
Jayton Miller:
A good amount of liver.
Meg Langston:
Good amount of liver. Yes. Yeah. Are you eating liver? Do you eat it or supplement?
Jayton Miller:
I eat it.
Meg Langston:
You're so good.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah.
Meg Langston:
I want to. If I ... My mom makes the best liver pate, and I wish that I could duplicate the recipe, because I actually love the liver pate, but I cannot make it myself. So I'm still supplementing. But if you can eat liver, that is one of the most beneficial nutrients in all things thyroid, all things hormones, all things.
Jayton Miller:
There's two things that I found that make it more tolerable. Number one, mixing it with ground beef. So if you toss it up and just toss it in with the ground beef, you can't hardly taste it at all. Second is freezing it and then tossing it in my smoothie in the mornings. And you can't taste it past the berries.
Meg Langston:
Really?
Jayton Miller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-.
Meg Langston:
Okay. So what else do you put in your smoothie?
Jayton Miller:
So it's a weird smoothie. I do pineapple, I do a berry mix that has cherries, blueberries, and some blackberries, and then I'll do cottage cheese because it makes it a little more creamy, and then I'll do some nonfat milk. And it's gold. And then sometimes, I'll toss some collagen in there as well.
Meg Langston:
Yeah. That sounds good. It sounds weird, actually. I'll be honest. It sounds weird. But I would try it. And I'm glad actually you brought that up, because dairy is such a hot topic for hormones and removing dairy. And I think you and I are definitely on the same page about this, but dairy is one of the most abundant nutrients that you can actually consume.
Meg Langston:
And so if your body's unable to digest dairy, you really want to look at why your body's unable to digest dairy. So any time you address the gut, you can't just address the gut. You have to support metabolic function. And when I say that, I mean metabolism, because the metabolism impacts the digestive system. And when we're talking about the digestive system, we're talking about being able to properly break down your protein, carbs, and fat.
Meg Langston:
And when people have a sluggish thyroid, they are going to have a hard time breaking down protein, carbs, and fat. A sluggish thyroid is going to slow down the digestive system and it's going to allow for undigested foods to ferment and putrefy in the gut, which can feed bacteria and cause a whole number of issues. And this can make it really hard to digest dairy.
Meg Langston:
So I always say if there's ... Of course, there's allergies out there. But if there is, it's usually having to address the gut a little bit and reestablishing the metabolism to run optimally before just completely eliminating it, because it is so pro-thyroid. And anything that is so pro-thyroid is so pro-hormone and getting rid of excess estrogen.
Meg Langston:
I do the GI map stool analysis in my practice, which some people love, some people hate. I actually love it, as long as you're working with the metabolism alongside of it so that you're not just addressing the gut and then leaving the person with the slow thyroid and slow metabolism, because then of course it's going to just happen again in a few months.
Meg Langston:
But I usually do something that ... a quick oregano supplement or something to help get rid of the dysbiotic bacteria to make it easier to digest dairy. But for those that are like, "Okay, I'll give it a shot. I'll see how it helps me," I would start out really, really slow. Did you ever eliminate from your diet?
Jayton Miller:
Dairy?
Meg Langston:
Yeah.
Jayton Miller:
I did at one point, because basically, I had trouble digesting it for quite a while, whenever I was severely hypothyroid. And so it's due to the lack of the ability to produce the enzymes that are necessary to break down the proteins, because you have less stomach acid whenever you're hypothyroid, less enzymes when you're hypothyroid, and then you have a dysbiosis within the microbiome.
Jayton Miller:
And so it took me quite a while before I was able to do it, and I introduced it very slowly. And I took Kate During's approach where she starts with higher fat derivatives of milk, and then she also starts with cheeses. So she'll do Parmigiano Reggiano, and she'll start with those first because they're typically a little bit easier to digest.
Jayton Miller:
But before that, I actually started with goat dairy. So-
Meg Langston:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jayton Miller:
Those molecules are a little bit easier on the digestive system. So I started with that, then moved over to regular dairy, the higher fat derivatives, and then moved down to the lower fat derivatives whenever I was prepared.
Meg Langston:
Yeah. That's exactly what I tell my clients to do and exactly what I did, because I stayed away from it for so long when I was trying to ... And I didn't say this, but through all of the madness, I caused myself subclinical hypothyroidism. Most of us have it, right?
Meg Langston:
So because I couldn't digest dairy well because my thyroid was so low, when I finally started to introduce it, it took me about a full month to totally do it, which is interesting. I just recently saw a study that said it takes about 21 days to get the enzyme lactase back to be able to break it down.
Meg Langston:
But I did the same thing. I started out with Parmesan cheese and then goat's milk, and then eventually felt confident enough to go to a local farmer and get raw milk. In Georgia, it's not legal for humans, but it is for pet consumption. So we go to our local farmer. They very well know that we're drinking it, but on the cap it says, "For pet consumption only."
Meg Langston:
And if you're able, raw dairy is so beneficial. I don't know. Is Colorado ... Are you able to get raw dairy?
Jayton Miller:
You have to buy a share in the cow.
Meg Langston:
Okay.
Jayton Miller:
So you're getting ... Technically, you're getting the milk from your cow whenever you do that.
Meg Langston:
Oh, that's good. That's really cool. Yeah, it's so interesting to me that alcohol and everything else is so legal, but it's God forbid you eat anything that's healthy. But that's because it works, right/
Jayton Miller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-.
Meg Langston:
That's a whole other topic.
Jayton Miller:
Definitely. So what do you see whenever women have difficult periods? What are some of the most common mistakes that you see them doing whenever they're trying to handle that?
Meg Langston:
Yeah. I think where it starts is that most women under-eat and maybe not intentionally, but I think most of the time it is intentionally, because it goes back to that identity part where, for some reason, body image is ... And I don't know if it's like this for males, but there's such a driving force of being successful, being a good mom, being a good business owner. If you can look good while doing it, you are somehow more successful.
Meg Langston:
And I feel like that's so un-talked about, but it is true. There's this driving force of everything goes back to how you look. So I say that because when somebody is trying to fix their hormones, but still obsessed with their body image, they tend to not eat enough. And any time our body ... Not eating enough causes stress in our body. Stress is stress to our body, again whether that's planning for a wedding or under-eating.
Meg Langston:
And when we under-eat, it messes with our blood sugar. It causes blood sugar dysregulation. And it causes our body to produce cortisol, and cortisol will rise estrogen. So I think the most common thing, which is the hardest thing to tell women, is that you have to eat enough. And what does enough mean? You can get with a coach that knows macros that will find something appropriate for you, or you can just try to eat until you're satisfied.
Meg Langston:
I don't always push for macro counting, just because I think a lot of women are ... It just feeds into that diet culture. I think it can be used as a tool for a short period of time. But I typically have women just go towards how they're feeling during a meal. You don't want to feel overly stuffed, but you definitely don't want to feel hungry. And you should ... I recommend waking up within the first 30 minutes of waking and eating, eating every three to four hours after that. That's going to help manage blood sugar, which is going to help reduce stress levels in the body and, therefore, excess estrogen.
Meg Langston:
So the most simple thing you can do is make sure that you're eating enough and frequently enough as a female. From there, I think that one of the most ... And same thing with overexercising. Women are working out, going to Orange Theory like five times a week. That's a high intensity interval training. That's a lot on your body. I find that most women do well with two to three times a week, which I think is another struggle to try to get people to say, "Hey, you've got to calm down on your workouts and you're going to be okay." But ultimately, it is going to help calm the body back down from that stress.
Meg Langston:
So I would say overexercising, under-eating, and then doing the things like I said before. So many of these books are talking about supplementing with zinc. And even with the virus that's going around, women are ... Not women. Women and men are supplementing with zinc to support their immune system. And the reason that is not good is because it depletes that bioavailable copper I was talking about. And bioavailable copper is incredibly therapeutic towards hormones and getting the hormones in balance and the thyroid.
Meg Langston:
So not supplementing blindly, I think, is really important, and instead, because you're like, "Okay. Well, then how do I get bioavailable copper in?," focusing on foods like liver, bee pollen, Whole Foods vitamin C, and oysters, things like that that are going to be really therapeutic for not only the thyroid, but hormones in general. Any time you're talking about thyroid, you're talking about hormones.
Meg Langston:
So I think that is really important. A mineral that is also missed is magnesium. Do you take magnesium?
Jayton Miller:
Oh yeah. Definitely.
Meg Langston:
Yeah.
Jayton Miller:
So do you usually use bicarbonate or do you use gluconate and those other forms as well?
Meg Langston:
I do bicarbonate.
Jayton Miller:
Okay.
Meg Langston:
What about you?
Jayton Miller:
I like the gluconate form, just because it has the glycine attached to it. I also know that the citrate is okay. It's not really as favorable, and then the aspartate is usually pretty good as well. But I'll do that, and then I'll also do the magnesium salt baths as well.
Meg Langston:
Oh okay. That's so great for anybody that's looking for the ... that has those headaches during their ovulation or during their period or the week before their period if they're getting headaches. Getting a magnesium bath or Epsom salt bath can be so, so quickly ... The magnesium quickly absorbs into your body and can help break up that histamine and those headaches. So I'm glad you brought that up. That's so huge.
Jayton Miller:
Yeah. The recipe that I use, just so they know, is I'll do a cup of baking soda with a cup of the magnesium salt flakes. And then every once in a while, I'll toss in some aspirin in there as well to further enhance the oxidate metabolism. And-
Meg Langston:
Are you taking aspirin on a regular basis?
Jayton Miller:
No, I don't, just because I've gotten a few hair analysis back that showed anemia. So I'm not afraid of the anemic part. It's just I don't want to further chelate the iron just because of that. So I'm focusing on my copper and zinc right now. But yeah, it's just not something that I want to further mess with in that realm.
Meg Langston:
Yeah. Super interesting. And for those, I am definitely not an expert in this at all, but I think it's worth explaining a little bit to get people to do their own research and get inspired by it. And actually, going back and taking Morley's class, you know Morley Robbins?
Jayton Miller:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-.
Meg Langston:
His class in February, practitioner class. But first of all, the birth control pill has iron in it, and iron will feed estrogen and pathogens in the body. So when a woman has just continued excess iron ... I'm sorry, excess estrogen symptoms, oftentimes they also have iron overload in the body, which won't necessarily show up on blood work. And that's because they're not eating the same ... the nutrients that we talked about before, the minerals of bioavailable copper, magnesium, things that help move iron appropriately in the body.
Meg Langston:
But I think it's worthwhile to note that, when you're not on your cycle ... I'm sorry, when you are on your birth control and you are not having a regular cycle or period, then you are also accumulating iron and estrogen in the body, because one of the benefits to having your menstrual cycle is you will help iron appropriately leave the body the way that it should.
Meg Langston:
So it's just something else to think about when you are on the birth control pill or when you're getting off and you continue to have these excess estrogen symptoms. It's also contributing to iron overload, and it goes right back to why those minerals are so important to consume in your diet, which is that bee pollen, the beef, liver, the oysters, the dairy. All of those have minerals and just nutrients in them that help iron move appropriately, so therefore will help estrogen detox the way that it should be.
Jayton Miller:
Definitely. One thing that you mentioned earlier was some of the benefits that the menstrual cycle can have. Can you go into what some of those benefits are and how they work?
Meg Langston:
Yeah. So I did a presentation in Chicago one time on the menstrual cycle, and I said ... I heard a speaker say this one time, and I was like, "This is the best thing I've ever heard." And so the title was A Woman's Unfair Advantage, because it's absolutely true. We as women have an unfair advantage to checking in and to seeing how our health is on a regular basis. And that's because our menstrual cycle is going to reflect how healthy we are.
Meg Langston:
If our temperatures are lower in the follicular phase or the luteal phase, that's a good indication that our thyroid is not working the way that it should be and it's sluggish. So that's going to throw everything off from digestion to hormones.
Meg Langston:
Our cycle will show us if we're having too much stress. So if we have delayed ovulation, that is going to show us that we've got to cut back on stress. And this is why I think fertility awareness method, which is just basically what I'm talking about, learning how to understand your cycle, is going to be so beneficial, because for women to really just be empowered to be able to say, "Oh okay. I actually ovulated way too early. So that means that I have actually excess estrogen," or, "I'm ovulating way too late. So that means that I have too much stress going on in my body. Where do I have to manipulate? I need to put up more boundaries. I need to help delegate X, Y, Z so that I can calm my body back down. I need to be making sure that I'm eating enough."
Meg Langston:
And during ovulation, women should have a sex drive. Our bodies are meant to produce then. So it's okay if, towards your period, if you're like, "Eh, I'm not really feeling it." Hormones are a little bit lower there. That's not abnormal to not completely desire sex during that part of your cycle. But you should have a sex drive. Sex drive is an indication of health, especially during that ovulation window.
Meg Langston:
So if you're tracking your cycle and you know that ovulation is occurring and you're not craving sex or thinking about it, maybe you're not in a relationship, but you're not noticing the opposite sex to be attractive and you're not, I don't know, maybe even feeling more vivacious. I don't know what it would be. But you should have somewhat of a sex drive and you would be able to tell what's appropriate with where your season is.
Meg Langston:
But if not, your cycle will ... If you're not having a sex drive during ovulation, then you know, "Okay. That's a sign of unhealthy." Maybe it's too much stress. Maybe it's excess estrogen, same thing. It's a good indication that you can rely on during your menstrual cycle to be a key to how your health is.
Meg Langston:
And that luteal phase, I talked about cervical mucus being appropriate during the ovulation phase. During the luteal phase, a woman with PCOS or low progesterone is going to show cervical mucus or discharge in that luteal phase. And if you are tracking where your cycle is and you know that you have already ovulated, you would know that would be inappropriate to have any kind of cervical mucus during that time. So you would be able to say, "Oh okay. My progesterone's too low. If my progesterone's too low, that means I need to support my thyroid. That means that I need to make sure that I'm doing all X, Y, Z, eating enough, not overexercising, getting enough varied proteins in, saturated fats in, managing stress."
Meg Langston:
So I think those are the biggest things that I can think of. But it truly is a fifth vital sign to being able to manage your stress and your health and even your nutritional deficiencies just by becoming familiar.
Meg Langston:
And you may not need to know every enzyme like I'm talking about for histamine and stuff, but you can say, "Oh, my temps are off. This isn't right," or, "Oh, she said that cervical mucus should only be in your ovulation phase and I've had it for 10 days straight now. Something's off." And it will at least give you language to articulate, to be able to get the help that you need.
Jayton Miller:
Definitely. That makes a lot of sense. So what would you say are some of the best tactics? You mentioned eating beets, the carrot salad, the castor oil pack. I haven't heard of that one specifically. Can you go into what that is?
Meg Langston:
Yeah. So the castor oil pack is basically ... Most women know the castor oil for inducing labor, which I actually took to induce labor. It is absolutely wild and definitely induces labor. But actually, I had a client that was 62 years old and she said that she used to get it for immune boosting. They used to take a spoonful of it in the winter. Her mom always gave it to her. So I thought that was interesting. I had not heard that before.
Meg Langston:
But castor oil is just a monosaturated fat, and you ... A castor oil pack is basically taking a wool cloth, pouring castor oil on it, and then you put it under your right rib where your liver and gallbladder sits, and then a heating pad on top of it. Sit there for like 45 minutes to an hour. And it will help the liver detox for men and women.
Meg Langston:
When my husband's feeling really off or ill, I'll actually have him do it. For females, you have to be a little careful. If you are breastfeeding, it may not be appropriate. If there's a chance that you're pregnant, you may not want to do it after ovulation. Some people don't like to do it during their periods. I think that towards the end of your period, it's totally fine.
Meg Langston:
And you can be a little bit more strategic with where, when you're approaching ovulation, if you're somebody that has an unhealthy ovulation, meaning you are very moody, PMS type symptoms, breast tenderness, headaches, that's again an unhealthy part of ovulation and would be a sign of excess estrogen. So you can actually ramp up the castor oil packs leading up to ovulation, and that can help. Similarly to your period, you can ramp up the castor oil pack, and that will help with the detox of estrogen.
Jayton Miller:
Definitely. That's awesome. Well, I think that is the entirety of my questions that I have for you. Is there anything else that you'd like the audience to know about?
Meg Langston:
No. I always say this, and I think that this is important. I guess I said no, and then I said that I do have something. I think that when we're talking about health, it's important for me to always leave this with people's minds because sometimes when we're trying to get healthy, we are so self-consumed and we are doing everything that we can to soak in and consume all of the information.
Meg Langston:
And the healthiest I ever am is when I'm looking out to serve other people, get involved, give my finances to support something that I care about. And so I just encourage people that when you are trying to recover from healing or you have someone that you love that's trying to recover from healing hormones, whatever it is, digestive issues, infertility, I encourage you to give either a part of your finances or serve somewhere else, because when you become self-consumed, it makes you sicker.
Meg Langston:
And when you're able to just take some of that stress off and really just enjoy life and enjoy the happiness of other people, it just ... it allows for this internal healing and for your body to start accepting healing a little bit.
Meg Langston:
So something that's a little bit unique, but I think that the healthiest people I see are the ones that give back the most with healthy boundaries. And when my clients, when they give in any capacity, they also improve their healing the fastest.
Meg Langston:
So food for thought.
Jayton Miller:
That's awesome. So where can people find you on social media, website, stuff like that?
Meg Langston:
Yeah. So my Instagram is Meg, M-E-G, underscore Langston, L-A-N-G-S-T-O-N. And I have a website, MegLangston.com. I have a course. So if you are looking to maybe not work with me one on one, but you want to do the course, so you want to get testing done with me, you can do that. And my course is just called The Rebalance Course, and it's basically talking about everything from hormones to thyroid and supporting the body using nutrients and things like the castor oil packs and things like that.
Meg Langston:
So that's what I offer right now. The one on one to work with me, I do have a little bit of a wait until end of January, February. But depending on when you hear this, you can reach out to me still.
Jayton Miller:
Heck yeah. Sounds good. Well, for all those who are listening, make sure to give her a follow on Instagram, check out her website. She actually has a pretty good website. I was looking at it this morning, and it was pretty nice. So [crosstalk 00:45:13].
Meg Langston:
Thank you.
Jayton Miller:
I recommend checking it out. But that's all for this one. Meg, thanks for your time. I appreciate you hopping on.
Meg Langston:
Thank you.
Jayton Miller:
Thanks for listening to the podcast. If you haven't already, make sure to hit the like button, subscribe, and a leave a comment down below if you want us to cover a different topic.
