I was talking with a functional nutrition doctor yesterday because I had heard him say that using suma root for women in the morning will help you sleep better. He explained that suma root will help your body normalize blood sugar levels so that you aren't waking up from a spike during the middle of the night. Suma is a large ground vine native to Central and South America; it is most notably from Brazil and often called Brazilian ginseng. My husband takes suma for weight lifting, so I sort of felt like "WFH" when he said I should take it because I do not want to bulk up. But then I saw this article on suma for women - http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/4-benefits-of-suma-root-for-womens-health/

I am wondering if suma would help some of you with those strong carb cravings. This is the liquid I was recommended to use - http://bit.ly/SumaTincture

I know that cortisol spikes blood sugar - and my cortisol spikes at night. I've started drinking a detox tea that is nettle infused at night to help with that. I was taking a cortisol manager supplement but it's like a horse pill. Even cut in half it's gigantic. Another great quality of nettles is their ability to lower SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin), which is a globulin that binds into your free testosterone molecules making them “unavailable” to be used by your body. This is important for women with PCOS.

Why you ask?

Polycystic ovaries develop when ovaries are stimulated to produce excessive amounts of male hormones, particularly testosterone. This stimulation is caused by excess LH produced by the anterior pituitary in response to increased gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) pulsatility, or through high levels of insulin caused by insulin resistance. High insulin levels also suppress hepatic production of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) leading to higher levels of free circulating androgens, further adding to the hyperandrogenaemia. Hyperinsulinaemia goes on to cause dyslipidaemia.

So you can use the Organic Detox Tea at night before bed, and again first thing in the morning, or you can use this liquid nettle root and see if helps you. http://bit.ly/LiquidNettleRoot

I keep reading all of these great reviews on this Organic teas online, how the After Dinner Tea helps avoid the bloating. UK VOGUE magazine named this Vitality tea one of the the 10 Best Herbal Teas. The Organic Vitality tea is infused with schisandra to aid in concentration, plus siberian ginseng and rhodiola for an endurance boost and function as antioxidants. For me it's a good daytime tea to help me in the afternoon to have one more support tool to keep my cortisol from spiking at night. Once my cortisol spikes it's very hard to get to sleep and stay to sleep. And we know that sleep is a very essential part of our healthy lifestyle plan.

How Your Fitness Is Defeating Your Hormones

Have you heard about the hypothalamic–pituitary–thyroid axis or the HPT Axis for short? This is the most important hormone area in my opinion for those trying to lose weight or balance hormones. A study done found that when you do long high intense workouts the Serum T and Free Testosterone will start to decrease in a number of weeks. This has an effect of that "low t" syndrome that you may have heard about. When you exercise you want to feel those great endorphins that are released by your pituitary gland when it's working well. Overexercising then starts to cause this inflammatory issue within the HPT Axis. And then add in this over abundance of hormones that you don't want raised and you start to inhibit your endorphin production.

Also they've studied and found that for both men and women this decrease, especially the lower FT level is a significant predictor for loss of muscle mass. I saw a Finish study that showed that doing a heavy lifting session of just 5 reps produced the highest testosterone response. And so for those lifting to increase testosterone you want to make sure most of your resistance training is being done with compound exercises that work many muscle groups at once. Think CVX or Total Synergy.

I know so many moms that get 3 hours of sleep, then do a long run and cannot figure out why their testosterone is so off. Let me share with you, cortisol reduces and antagonizes free testosterone levels.This cortisol dysfunction promotes abdominal fat gain and again, muscle loss. Stressing your body out by overtraining, too much stress and not enough sleep is a one way ticket to this HPT Axis crash.

Yesterday I talked a lot about estrogen, but that is because estrogen inhibits thyroid activity. That leads you down the road to low thyroid. If you have the right compliment of progesterone, testosterone and balanced cortisol levels your thyroid is a happy camper. That means you have to balance out the testosterone in order to have functional estrogen.

Dr. Willian Hrushesky believes that natural killer cell activity and interleukin 2, both powerful immune system components, are compromised by estrogen dominance and promoted by adequate progesterone. His opinions were presented in the Journal of Women’s Health.
Dr. John  Morrow, PhD and Dr. David Isenberg PhD say that estrogen has been shown to decrease the size of the thymus [depresses immune system] and to cause a reduction in the level of thymic hormone in the blood. 

So how are you going to balance out that testosterone, for you that means less heavy, and more HIIT. Something like Focus T25 is going to be better for someone dealing with PCOS and higher testosterone levels than someone that has low testosterone and needs to boost it.

So it's time to balance out those hormones