She thought she had Covid

One of my friends with Hashimoto is contacted me a little while ago and she said that she was so tired that she got tested for COVID. She couldn’t think of what else it could be. She’s had Hashimotos for years, she deals with normal fatigue. But all of a sudden, she felt so tired.

She’s like, I don’t know what else was going on, while her COVID test was negative, and then if she put the puzzle pieces together and figured out what it was, and I’m going to tell you what it was, and I’m gonna tell you how she got her energy back.

Exploring Whole Health

First, let me welcome you to the Health with Hashimoto’s podcast. This is the place where you come to discover true simple and sustainable things that you can do to create whole health. Not just physical health, but whole health, body, mind, spirit, diet environment, you have to put it all together because when one part of you is healthy, but the other ones aren’t, you aren’t healthy. So we talk on this podcast about whole person health, and that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Today and we’re going to talk about energy. Why was my friend feeling so much more tired than normal? In her case, it was something that she had taken out of her daily routine.

Unlocking Energy’s Secrets: Stress

I talk a lot about stress and how taking some stress out can help you improve your energy levels and it can when I’m talking to you about reducing stress, it’s not just because we need less stress in our life. It’s because I know that you are dealing with Hashimoto’s and thyroid problems, you want to feel better, you want to have more energy, you want to have more vitality, and you want your immune system to work better so that it doesn’t keep destroying your thyroid which sucks your energy. It’s a big cycle of stress plays a huge role in that. So when you can decrease your stress, you are increasing your energy.

The Cellular Connection to More Energy

I know it doesn’t feel like I gave you this lightbulb moment for energy production when we talked about reducing stress, but it does increase your energy but one of the characteristics of hypothyroid or Hashimoto’s is that energy production is down and that is from the mitochondria in the cell. And it’s related to your thyroid hormones your T3, but it is also related to how your energy gets delivered to different areas of your body.

For example, poor energy delivery to your body in general will cause fatigue for energy delivery to your body will cause your body just to run cold or you’ll feel poor energy delivery to your body and to your gut both can cause obesity can cause your metabolism to slow down.

Poor energy delivery to your brain can cause some brain fog. Some memory problems, mental health problems, dementia, it can also cause feelings of increased stress or depression and anxiety. Those can all be related to energy delivery to your brain for energy delivery to your immune system can cause increased susceptibility to infections.

It can slow your body’s ability to heal and repair. There are so many things that your body needs energy for I mean, life, every single cell in your body means energy. If it doesn’t have it, that cell dies. And then if your cells aren’t healthy, or if they’re dead, obviously they’re not working well.

You need healthy energy at a cellular level. And when you have that healthy energy at a cellular level, then your cells can work well so that you as a person can feel energized and I know that is what a lot of people want.

That is the number one complaint from women with Hashimotos is I feel tired, I am exhausted. I am fatigued. I need more energy. And some people when they say that they feel like they need more mental energy. Some people when they say that they need more physical energy, but most people they want both. They need more energy in general.

The Vital Role of Mitochondria

So what is the main form of energy in your body? Do you know it is ATP which stands for adenosine triphosphate but I’m not going to use that big one. We’re gonna talk about ATP. The body’s main form of energy is ATP.

ATP is created in your mitochondria. We’ve talked about mitochondria on the show before because, well, mitochondria are the powerhouse of your cell. It’s where the energy production happens. What is the energy or what does the mitochondria produce ATP what is ATP is energy. So you need healthy mitochondria.

Ingredients for Healthy Mitochondria

To be able to create the energy, the ATP and to have healthy mitochondria. You need a couple of specific things like the ingredients for the healthy mitochondria. Plus, you need to support your body’s ability to create more mitochondria and to maintain a healthy environment for those mitochondria.

You need to be able to protect yourself and to clean up your cells. Because when your cells are bombarded by the pollution of just cellular work, then that can slow down or harm your mitochondria. There’s a lot of different pieces and the thing about your body is everything is connected.

Oxidative Stress and Your Energy

So when we are talking about mitochondria, well your mitochondria are impacted by your thyroid. Your thyroid is impacted by your mitochondria. Your mitochondria are also impacted by that oxidative stress. That’s the pollution. When your cells are working, they put off pollution just like your car when it’s working. It puts off exhaust. Well, the exhaust from your cells that pollution is called oxidative stress, and the damage it causes has been linked to nearly every single disease in the world.

If you go on PubMed, which is basically like the Google of all scientific journals, especially related to medicine, if you type in oxidative stress, and then type in whatever you are concerned about, whether it’s a symptom, or whether it’s a diagnoses, you are going to come up with articles. Oxidative stress is at the root of nearly every single thing because oxidative stress, is that rusting of your cells or like a browning of a banana.

Well, you need healthy cells in order to have healthy tissues and healthy organs and a healthy you. Oxidative stress just happens as a result of living.

Now there are antioxidants which you’ve heard about, of course, fruits and vegetables have antioxidants, and those help us clean up oxidative stress. It’s all related. But our fruits and our vegetables aren’t as potent as they used. To be as far as having antioxidants. And we are exposed to more things that cause oxidative stress than we used to be.

Interconnected Health

So again, there’s the cycle and it’s causing more damage. And like I said that oxidative stress plays a role in your mitochondrial function. Well, it does that in two ways. One way is the mitochondria themselves as they’re putting out more energy. They are working more your cell is working better, which means your cell is pushing out more oxidative stress. It’s putting out more exhaust if you will, because it’s doing more work. So you have to clean up from the work that it’s doing.

But also when you have more oxidative stress, it harms the mitochondria. So you have to address oxidative stress and mitochondria at the same time. But you also have to address a thyroid because it’s the 3 is the active form of thyroid that is like the ignition to turn your mitochondria on.

A Simple Solution for More Energy

Everything is related to everything. And in this episode, I am giving you a very simple thing to do to support your energy in the form of mitochondria to support your energy levels at a cellular level.

Rejecting Temporary Solutions

We all want something super easy to do to have more energy. And I am not talking about caffeine. I’m not talking about a bandaid. We do not want to slap a bandaid. On our cry for more energy, because that is not sustainable. When you have caffeine and what your body is really craving is more actual energy. It actually depletes your energy and then you’re more tired, and it can cause more problems. So we’re not looking for Band Aid solutions.

At the end of this episode, I’m going to tell you the one simple thing that I do every single day to increase my mitochondrial health and my energy

What damages our mitochondria?We have to stay away from that too. Well, number one is aging. As you get older, your mitochondria slow down in production and just in their vitality in general oxidative stress, damages mitochondria, poor nutrition toxins like ammonia and mycotoxins like mold, infections, lack of sleep, all of these things damage your mitochondria. There are a whole lot of things.

The Stress Factor

And the number one thing other than age is stress. And that is why I talk to you so much about stress. Because when you come here to this podcast and you’re looking for better health and you’re looking for more energy, we have to address that number one thing, which is the stress in your life, you have to learn how to decrease it, how much is coming in, and also how to manage it when you already have that stress.

More energy by supporting these 3 things

Back to mitochondria and your energy: when you support three different things when you support your thyroid function, when you support your cortisol levels or your stress, that’s your stress hormone, right. And when you address and support your mitochondrial function, those three things are going to come together and you’re going to get relief from your fatigue and from your brain. Your brain fog so much faster than if you do any one of those things on its own.

More Energy Key 1: Thyroid Support

So to support your thyroid function, you can go back and you can listen to probably episodes like three through nine where I talk about what does your thyroid do? What are the labs mean? What are some natural remedies? What are some medications? I talk about stress, lowering stress and then vitamin D. I’ll give you a really good overview of how you can support your thyroid in those first 10 episodes. and then of course to address your cortisol levels, your stress. I have an abundance of episodes on cortisol and stress in general.

More Energy Key 2: Mitochondria

So what about your mitochondria? how can you support that? Well, the first thing is you have to make sure that your mitochondria have the right ingredients. or have the right building blocks to be able to be healthy, your mitochondria need healthy fats, and those can come from healthy fatty fish it can come from avocados or seeds or nuts, healthy fats you can find them. Not so stick with fatty fish and seeds. And if you are not getting enough healthy fats, omega-3s each day or if you’re getting processed foods which have omega six fats.

Omega sixes are inflammatory; they’re going to make you sick or gonna make you inflamed or the opposite. So if you’re getting omega sixes in your diet and not a ton of omega-3s, then that’s where supplementation comes in. supplementation, by definition is supplementing what you’re not getting from your diet. So if you are not getting enough omega threes in your diet, then that is where supplementation comes in.

Omega-3s and your health

And as a side note, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding you absolutely need to be addressing omega-3s. Omega-3s have been linked to postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, and I firmly stand by that common sense stance of if they are linked that strongly to postpartum anxiety and depression, then I am sure that omega-3s have a huge role in any depression and anxiety.

If you’re not giving your brain the building blocks that it needs, which is omega threes, your nerve cells need those healthy fats, well, then how can you expect your brain to be healthy? So from a perspective of omega-3s, I feel like every single person who eats even a little bit of a Western diet needs to be taking omega-3s every day because if you’re not getting it from your diet, or if you’re getting the bad stuff in your diet, then you need to supplement to kind of correct that balance.

So the first thing that your mitochondria need is healthy fats, your mitochondria just like every other part of your body. It means the right vitamins and minerals. Vitamins and minerals are basically the Lego blocks to create healthy cells.

The Building Blocks of Health

Now I also talk about your cells being the Lego building blocks for a healthy you but you know your healthy cells need their own ingredients and that is vitamins and minerals.

Most people in developed nations do not get even when 100% of the RDA in the United States. The RDA is the recommended daily allowance. It was based on the bare minimum like to get a passing grade. This is what you need. And studies show us that most Americans do not even hit the RDA for most things. And that is a shame because healthy cells need the building blocks your mitochondria need the building blocks.

Vitamins and Minerals for More Energy

Some of the vitamins and minerals that are important for mitochondria specifically are gonna sound familiar because they’re important for other things too. Like B vitamins you probably know that B vitamins support energy, and there are a whole bunch of B vitamins. Some of them we call by their names, some of them we call by their numbers. But there are a lot of B vitamins and they’re all related to energy. So of course they are going to be needed by your mitochondria.

Vitamin C is another thing that your mitochondria needs. What the vitamin C does in your cells and at a mitochondrial level is the Vitamin C helps break down the fatty acids. Those are the healthy fats so that your mitochondria can turn that healthy fat into energy. Vitamin C also is an antioxidant, and so it’s going to help protect you from the oxidative stress. And then in addition to other vitamins that I’m not going to name here you need minerals.

Every single enzyme reaction in your cell so when your cells are working when they’re doing anything, they need minerals to run to that enzyme reaction. So your cells need an abundance of minerals as well. And when I say abundance, I don’t mean a ton of one specific mineral. Like you know, calcium. You don’t need a ton of that. What you need is you need all the minerals, and we’re not getting them from our foods like we used to. So again that’s where supplementation comes in. If you’re not getting enough from your diet, that’s when you can supplement the definition of supplements.

Adaptogens can help energy levels

And you can also add things like adaptogens adaptogens are basically to help your body adapt to stress and they support your mitochondria as well. You’ve probably heard of Ashwagandha.

Have you heard of Ashwagandha? It is an adaptogen. I feel like Ashwagandha is the most popular one and most people have heard of it. But again, these things are all used together to support your mitochondria which support your cells and your cellular health is supporting you.

More Energy Key 3: Cortisol

And then along with healthy mitochondria, you need healthy cortisol levels. That’s your stress and you need healthy thyroid function.

So what is the one simple thing that you can do for mitochondrial health? I’ll tell you, I take a set of they’re not supplements. They’re activators I take them every single day. And I say that they’re not supplements because they’re not supplementing something that I don’t get in my body. What they are is a combination of herbs and vitamins and minerals that activate my own body’s pathways to do what it’s supposed to do.

The Power of the “Dual Synergizer”

One of these activators is specific towards mitochondria. Now I’m going to tell you about this one, but I want to give you a caveat that says you have to take them together because the other one supports my body’s own antioxidant production, which is going to help you take care of the exhaust because again, when you’re helping your mitochondria be healthier, then they’re going to work more and they’re going to put out more oxidative stress. They’re going to create more. You have to do these together. If you just support your mitochondria, you can actually be doing damage you have to do them together you have to address the oxidative support as well as the mitochondria.

So the two things I take they are from a company called LifeVantage. And they are together called Protandim Dual Synergizer. There are two different parts. One of them is NRF2 the other one is Nrf1.

So the Nrf1 is the one that helps your mitochondria. What it does is it activates the Nrf1 protein there’s a really long name. We abbreviate Nrf1 and it kind of wakes it up to support the production of more mitochondria. It helps your body create new, larger, healthier mitochondria. But that’s not all it does.

It also means that your body functions more efficiently and promotes normal cellular repair. It increases the ATP. So again, that’s the energy of the cell. That’s what the mitochondria produce. So this Nrf1 activator or synergize er, it increases the energy available to your cells. And all your vital organs. So of course, if you are increasing the energy available, you’re going to feel like you have more energy, right. All right.

The Nrf2 Synergizer reduces oxidative stress. In fact, studies have shown that it reduces it by 40% in 30 days, it also supports your cellular repair. It supports, you know, the rejuvenation of your cells, and it protects your cells from free radical damage.

So the two of these things are what I take every single day. And the two of these things together. They’re called the dual synergizer.

A Holistic Approach to More Energy

The Dual Synergizer is what my friend was taking every single day. So she came to me and she knew that she had high Hashimotos. She had dealt with that for years and years and she started taking the dual synergize the Nrf1 and the Nrf2 she contacted me I don’t know maybe two or three months later, and she commented that she felt like her levothyroxine was too much. She felt like her body was starting to do what it was supposed to do. And even though her levothyroxine dose had not changed, she felt like she was getting too much.

So you know, I encouraged her to go back to her doctor and get her labs drawn because maybe her body was working better so she was basically getting too much medication now because her body was doing what it was supposed to.

And then she messaged me saying that she was so tired that she thought maybe she had COVID. Her husband also was so tired. And her husband, as far as I know, does not have thyroid problems. So they were both exhausted just dragging through the day they couldn’t figure out what was going on. They went and got COVID tests and the COVID tests were negative.

And then she realized that her she had messed up her subscription or auto order. And she was out of the dual synergize or both of them. They were taking this dual synergizer and so they had both run out and not been taking it for several days. And she’s like “oh my goodness. This is what it was. This is why I don’t have energy is because my body is not creating the energy that it has been.”

Then she commented she said, “I cannot believe that I used to feel this way every single day. I cannot believe that this was my normal. I will never go without the dual synergizer again.”

And the dual synergizer is activating your own body’s pathways. It’s not a supplement. It’s telling your body to do the things that your body was designed to do is telling your body to do the things that it used to do when you were younger and when you didn’t have as much oxidative stress and problems at a cellular level.

Your Energy Matters to Those You Love

And when I say that she said that she’s never going to go without it again. That brings to mind a couple people who I have worked with and they flat-out said Esther, “I don’t want to start something where I’m going to notice that it’s gone. I don’t want to start something that I’m going to have to take forever.” And I get it.

Usually, when people tell me this, they are coming at it from a financial perspective and committing to taking something every day for you know six months plus for the rest of your life. It’s a commitment. I totally understand. I have five or six people in my family and we all take something every single day because our health is so valuable to us. We have built it into the budget and sometimes our budget does not have any wiggle room like none. And that’s really hard. But we prioritize our health and our energy. Because we have realized that we have to do that for one of my sons if he’s not taking his activators his mental health. For his privacy. I will just say that it impacts our entire family and we all for everybody’s mental health and for our family environment together. We all want him to be functioning well.

And it’s the same for you. Who depends on you? Obviously, you do but you have a circle of influence the people who love you and who work with you and who support you and you support them. They want you to feel good. They want you to feel energized. They want you to feel like you again. So have a chat with the people in your family. If you have to talk with somebody else about the budget and see if this is something that you can start. Let’s see if it’s going to support your energy like it has for so many people.

You Are Worth It

Because it’s not about hype. It’s not about bandaid solution. It’s about giving your body what it needs to do the job it was designed to do.

And you my friend are not designed to be fatigued. You are not here on earth to be so tired and exhausted that you can’t get through the day. You are not here to feel like a shell of yourself. I want you to have more energy.

And this is something super simple. It takes less than a minute to put my supplements my activators into my hand and pop them in my mouth and swallow them and I do take supplements as well as activators I take the healthy fats I take omega threes. I take vitamins and minerals and adaptogens because I want to support my body and give it all the building blocks that I need. But if you can only do one thing, where do I start?

I always start with the activators. In fact, I have a flow sheet. If you’re interested, send me a message and I can get it to you. I don’t have a clickable link for this right now. But I always start with the activators after the activators I always move to healthy fats after that. Then it’s vitamins, minerals and adaptogens. But in that order. First activate your body with the things with the tools that God gave you originally.

Having More Energy Feels Fantastic

I love having more energy and knowing that my body is doing what it is designed to do. And I want that for you too.

I will see you on the next episode of health with Hashimoto’s.

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Please be sure to discuss any concerns and plans with your trusted healthcare professionals.

This transcript is auto-generated by OtterAI and may have slight errors.

Images used in this post include those by J Lee and Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash