How to Lose Stubborn Body Fat with Hormone Imbalance and Weight Loss Expert, Karen Martel

How to Lose Stubborn Body Fat with Hormone Imbalance and Weight Loss Expert, Karen Martel

Have you tried every diet under the sun yet still have trouble losing stubborn body fat? Even when you fit in regular exercise? Meet Karen Martel, a Transformational Nutrition Coach and Hormone Imbalance and Weight Loss expert from Canada. Despite following mainstream dietary strategies, including plenty of exercise, Karen wasn’t able to lose weight after her pregnancy. She soon figured out the connection to hormone health and quickly rebounded to lose the stubborn weight.

Using strategic testing methods and tracking, Karen Martel now helps her clients to achieve weight loss and lose stubborn body fat when all other methods and diets have failed. With a focus on hormone imbalance, she includes not only the sex hormones — estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone — but also cortisol, as a major indicator of stress intolerance and why the body won’t release excess weight. 

If you’re struggling with losing stubborn body fat and need some help or inspiration, listen to this cutting-edge interview with Karen Martel. Learn the most common reasons you might have hormone imbalances and what you can do about it. Become empowered to learn just how to take back your hormone health and get the answers and body you desire!

You can find Karen Martel at www.karenmartel.com where you can book a complimentary 15-minute call, book a session, enroll in group coaching, live coaching, online courses – hormone healthy keto, or order a hormone kit and receive a complimentary 20-minute session with Karen. Be sure to check out her free hormone quiz on her website too!

Listen in iTunes!

This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!

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In this podcast you’ll learn:

  • How to tell if you have a hormone imbalance is happening to you. If you eat well, exercise, and do all the right things but the stubborn body fat won’t budge you likely have a hormone imbalance [8:45]
  • If you’re doing keto, low carb, low calorie, and/or fasting and you’re already experiencing some hormonal imbalance, you’re adding fuel to the fire by going too low carb for too long. It’s too much of a stressor when cortisol is already dysregulated to restrict food intake [9:10]
  • About Dave’s experience with taking a step back from the day-to-day stress, giving his body time to heal so he could come back and train to regain his strength [10:00]
  • Why while running her own business as a single mom, Karen Martel, had to quit Bootcamp and do yoga to allow her body time to heal [11:45]
  • Go to www.karenmartel.com to take the screening quiz to see if hormone testing would be warranted for you [13:00]
  • How doctors only test blood hormones which only reveal bound hormones that are not what is available for the body to be used. Unbound hormones can only be tested through saliva or urine for metabolite testing. If you can test all three, that would be optimal [14:50]
  • If you can only pick one form of testing, choose this one [16:00]
  • More about cortisol regulation and testing [16:30]
  • Why disrupted cortisol rhythm can lead to insomnia and add to weight gain through dysregulation of ghrelin and other hormones [17:45]
  • About the ZRT saliva testing – the Female Comprehensive 3 panel tests estradiol, estrogen, progesterone, the ratio of estrogen and progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, and 4-point cortisol test [19:00]
  • How suspected thyroid hormone imbalances can be tested at home with a blood spot kit [21:35]
  • Even if you can’t afford to do the specialized tests, go to your doctor and have them run these blood tests for screening [23:00]
  • Most common reasons you might have a hormone imbalance and what you can do about it. (Environmental exposures and dietary sources of hormonal imbalance contributors.) [23:45]
    • Diet – check this first
    • Check estrogens – look for xenoestrogens, in our food, pesticides, plastics, grains, etc.
    • Remove scented products from laundry detergent to aftershave and shampoo
    • Check water sources
    • Opt for at least hormone-free meats
    • Remove as many processed foods as possible
  • How you can clean your home with natural products very inexpensively [27:45]
  • About the quarterly cleanse that Karen Martel runs with her women to support the liver and gallbladder and other detox organs [28:50]
  • How fat cells produce estrogen, so the more extra stubborn body fat you carry on your body, the more estrogen you will produce [30:00]
  • Why lifting heavy things (strength training) can help you become more healthy and strong, create healthy bones and lower blood sugar [30:45]
  • Reasons why regularly doing Crossfit and marathon running can be more stressful on your body. Also, how yoga and lifting weights can be much more beneficial to your hormonal health and weight balance [32:05]
  • As women age, we need to work on balancing the body’s stress and bringing our system down like yoga, meditation, tai chi, massage, etc. rather than adding stimulation [33:40]
  • As we age, the ovaries begin to shut down production of estrogen and the adrenals take over that task. However, if the adrenals are having to make lots of cortisol, it will favor that task over other hormones. Perimenopausal symptoms will become worse [34:40]
  • Hormones go in a 3-month cycle – it’s not a quick fix. Recheck hormones every 3-6 months at least with yourself and your symptoms if you’re unable to do testing [35:10]
  • How tracking with Heads Up while working with bioidentical hormones or lifestyle changes can help you keep track of how things are working [36:05]
  • HRV and sleep metric tracking can be one of the best metrics to monitor for stress markers – Biostrap, Oura ring, FitBit, etc [36:40]
  • How tracking fasting blood sugar is an affordable way to help you lose stubborn body fat. High cortisol will raise blood sugar, especially when it’s high in the morning and comes down later in the day. Even when you’re eating well. This can be an indicator of too much stress on the body [38:00]
  • How to use an affordable Gera Thermometer to determine where your metabolism is at. And also to find out if you have indicators for hypothyroidism. Take your temperature for 10 minutes before you get out of bed in the morning (98.6 in AM) and again in the afternoon (98 or 97.9 in the PM). [39:10]
  • Track your basal body temperature as mentioned above with the Gera thermometer in Heads Up. An indicator of thyroid issues, as well as adrenal issues depending on the pattern, this can be revealed through tracking [40:32]
  • How it’s possible to eat like a normal person again. Once you have in check your blood sugar, hormone imbalances and exercise levels you can enjoy life with occasional indulgences [30:50]

References

https://karenmartel.com/
https://www.zrtlab.com/
www.ewg.org
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/
https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
Geratherm Thermometer

About Heads Up 

Heads Up is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!

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How an Innovative Cryotherapy Center Uses Data to Personalize Client Recovery Programs

How an Innovative Cryotherapy Center Uses Data to Personalize Client Recovery Programs

Huemn is an innovative health and wellness cryotherapy center focused on providing clients with a non-invasive, drug-free, natural way of recovering from athletics, injuries, pain and inflammation. Using a variety of non-toxic, natural interventions that trigger the human body’s innate healing systems, such as cryotherapy, photobiomodulation, oxygen therapy, neurotherapy, and lymphatic drainage, the company’s value is in bringing advanced, all-natural remedies to clients at an affordable price.

The Challenge

Although the popularity of natural healing therapies is on the rise as many people seek alternatives to surgery and medication, it’s not uncommon for such health trends to come and go quickly. The Huemn team knew that in order to build a successful, long-term business, however, they needed an easy and predictable way to monitor the positive impact that their therapies were providing their clients. Such a solution would not only demonstrate the value of the client’s investment, but it would also allow them to cross-reference the benefits of their healing modalities with other health metrics such as sleep quality, inflammation levels and heart rate variability (HRV).

The Solution

Huemn found Heads Up, a personal health platform that makes it super easy to track and analyze health data for actionable insights on therapies and lifestyle changes that most positively impact one’s health. The goal of the project was to design a customized solution for Huemn that made it possible to track and validate their cutting-edge proprietary programs and protocols at the aggregate group and individual levels. The solution comprised of two components: a backend system  that enabled the Huemn team to customize their protocols and track client sessions; and a frontend interface for their clients to be able to easily add their favorite health apps and devices, view their health data in one single dashboard and track their improvements over time using Huemn’s healing programs.

Data-driven Programs & Protocols

One of the core principles of Huemn’s approach to recovery is supporting the body’s natural systems wholistically and synergistically. To achieve this, Huemn provides personalized programs for clients based on regular sessions of cryotherapy, oxygen therapy, neurotherapy and photobiomodulation, to name a few.

To validate the effectiveness of these four cutting-edge protocols, Heads Up built custom modules that made it easy to input data for each client session and track the progress they made toward achieving their recovery goals. With this data in hand, Huemn’s team of wellness experts are able to analyze the data for key patterns and trends on the particular lifestyle interventions that are having the most positive impact on a client’s ability to become fully recovered and rejuvenated.

Click on the images below to view customized recovery modules in detail.

 

With Huemn’s core protocols and input modules in place, it became much easier for practitioners to store client session data and track their progress over time on each protocol. For more advanced analysis, Heads Up team developed an analytics tool that made it super easy to analyze the impact each of Huemn’s protocols were having on their client’s physiology and recovery status.

Client Engagement Tools For Better Outcomes

With practitioner tools in place, the Heads Up team designed a beautifully simple end-to-end experience. The goal was to leverage user data to drive client retention and accountability for better health outomes. This comprised of personalized dashboards that displayed Huemn’s core recovery protocols, and weekly progress reports to drive client engagement and intrinsic motivation.

 

Client dashboards were meticuosly designed to visually present a user’s health data in the most easy to understand way possible. It included singular scores as well as trends across historical timelines. In conjuction with the dashboards, a personalized weekly progress report automatically gets send out regualarly. These reports help keep clients motivated and engaged knowing that they are making progress toward their health goals.

The entire user journey from sign in to sign out was custom designed according to Huemn’s modern brand aesthetics. 

Click on the images below to view how we customized Huemn’s onboarding process for a highly pesonalized user experience.

Moverover, the platform was architechted so that both practitioners and clients would have a seamless experience across desktop, mobile and tablet.

Click on the images below to view Huemn’s custom designed light and dark themes.

Stay tuned as we dive deeper into Huemn’s story. In part 2, we will provide a comprehensive analysis of the metrics Huemn used to quantify their cutting-edge protocols and the outcomes they were able to achieve with clients that completed their recovery programs.

About Heads Up

Heads Up is a web and mobile platform for next-gen healthcare professionals who want to take a personalized and preventive approach to optimizing the health and wellness of their clients using science and data. Get a complete picture of your client’s health story by combing lifestyle data with clinical outcomes. Instantly centralize all client medical records, connect popular devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use data to optimize your client’s health.

To learn more about how Heads Up can help you grow your health and wellness business or to schedule a call with a success agent, visit https://headsuphealth.com/contact.

Hacking Your Health with Heads Up: How Alcohol Impacts HRV and Oura Sleep Scores

Hacking Your Health with Heads Up: How Alcohol Impacts HRV and Oura Sleep Scores

Many people often forget that their everyday lifestyle choices can impact their overall health. Daily choices we make in life about food, alcohol, exercise and stress management  — they all add up to inform our health in one way or another.

Of course, you don’t need to be 100% perfect. (Who is?)

But with Heads Up, you can quantify just how your lifestyle choices are affecting you. You can then begin to take action on your lifestyle data, make adjustments as needed to steer your ship back on-course so you can optimize your health. 

For example, when TJ Anderson, health hacker and author of The Art of Health Hacking, attended this past weekend’s Metabolic Health Conference in Long Beach, CA, he used Heads Up’s Analyzer graphing feature to see how alcohol impacted his HRV, Oura sleep and readiness scores. 

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

It’s easy to see from TJ’s graph that alcohol consumption had an inverse relationship to his HRV and readiness score. Once his drinks went down to zero, his HRV and Oura scores shot back up again.⠀

Try the Analyzer yourself with the numbers you care about. Whether it’s your HRV, readiness and sleep scores synced automatically via the Oura ring or how many glasses of wine or beer imbibed (entered manually), you can make actionable insights to hack your health. 

How to Use the Analyzer to Track What Matters to You:

  1. Choose Analyzer to bring up the graphing feature within your Heads Up web app
  2. Search the markers you want to trend (e.g., HRV and AM Readiness via Oura, Alcohol Intake), up to six markers if you want!
  3. Choose a time horizon you want to track (e.g., “Last 7 Days”, “This month”, “This year”, or custom dates of your own choosing).

Note: Click the ‘Connect Data’ button to connect to Devices and Apps such as Oura, Keto-Mojo, Biostrap, MyFitnessPal and/or medical records.

Wanna Try It for Yourself?

Are You a Health Professional?

Bill Hanks on Fighting Inflammation with Cryotherapy

Bill Hanks on Fighting Inflammation with Cryotherapy

Bill Hanks is a former engineer who left his career three years ago to open Cryo Recovery in Houston, TX. After suffering from a workout injury that refused to heal, Bill turned to cryotherapy and immediately felt the benefits. Before cryotherapy, the options presented to him were limited to surgery, injections or long-term anti-inflammatory medications. Within just a couple of cryotherapy sessions, he realized the possibilities. His own personal experience motivated him to provide those in his own community access to drug-free healing opportunities.

Bill Hanks and his wife now own and operate their clinic, which offers more than just cryotherapy. They’re both passionate about helping others recover and improve their well-being, whether it’s working with athletes or with individuals who have chronic illnesses that can benefit from mitochondrial support. 

Listen in to learn more about what cryotherapy is, how it’s used and who is using it. Hint: It’s not just athletes. And it’s becoming more affordable. Heads Up will soon be releasing a tracking feature for cryotherapy so you can see how your cryotherapy sessions affect your HRV, inflammation markers like Hs-CRP, deep sleep and more. 

Check out Cryo Recovery when you’re in the Houston area, and make sure to follow Bill Hanks on social media: @billhanks and @cryorecovery on Instagram, Cryo Recovery on Facebook. 

Listen in iTunes!

This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!

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In this podcast you’ll learn:

  • Bill Hank’s story with tendonitis from Crossfit not being helped with traditional therapies. After deciding against surgery and cortisone shots, he began to research alternative therapies [2:00]
  • About cryotherapy as an alternative to anti-inflammatories [6:35]
  • How repetition and consistency with cryotherapy is where you see the real benefits, and what that means [7:45]
  • How tracking health while using cryotherapy can help with recovery. Why tracking can help quantify just how much it’s supporting your health [9:00]
  • What is cryotherapy, and how it’s different from a cold bath [11:45]
  • The Hunting [response] effect and how it’s replicated in cryotherapy, boosting norepinephrine which helps with focus, clarity, and mood and prevents TNF alpha which can be measured in a C-Reactive Protein test [12:55]
  • Bill Hanks had a client whose RA marker disappeared on testing after a couple of months of cryotherapy [16:30]
  • How cryotherapy is good for reducing inflammation and reduces the effects of aging [17:10]
  • Cryotherapy upregulates the PGC-1 alpha gene, which creates mitochondria biogenesis, which activates more energy – useful for high-performance athletes [17:20]
  • Why high-performance athletes get double the benefits by upregulating energy and also improving their recovery from cryotherapy [17:55]
  • How overtraining and injury prevention is supported by keeping inflammation low and recovering well with cryotherapy [18:10]
  • What metrics could be tracked with cryotherapy 
    • Hs-CRP
    • HRV
    • Inflammatory markers
  • How cryotherapy can be useful for chronic health issues as well as high-performance training [20:50]
  • About the air temperature in the cryotherapy tank and the differences in the types of chambers. And how they can have different therapeutic effects as well as why monitoring skin temperature is most important [21:04]
  • Why Cryo Recovery uses electric instead of nitrogen-cooled tanks and why you should ask about the method used at your center of choice [23:25]
  • Why a skin temp to drop about 30 degrees is important and why where you measure skin temperature matters [24:15]
  • The differences between men and women’s body temperature variances [25:15]
  • Some of the best practices for anyone looking to start adding this practice to their health or training protocol [26:15]
  • Some top questions for individuals to ask before shelling out money on this treatment (e.g., Is there privacy? What’s the long term plan? What kind of cost savings are available? What is the environment?) [28:25]
  • What biohacking health-tracking can be correlated to recovery with cryotherapy? [32:45]
    • Increase in deep sleep
    • Increase HRV the day after
    • Lowered heart rate over time
    • Balancing of the nervous system creating more resilience
  • Heads Up will be rolling out a tracking metric for cryotherapy [38:20]
  • Weighing the cost of cryotherapy now vs. long term inflammation and the costs associated with that vs. cold plunges [38:40]
  • If you have a less than optimal experience, try another center as they are all run independently and have their own styles of operation [39:50]

References

www.everlywell.com

Cryotherapy study of athletes and sleep and hormone balance

Cryo Recovery

About Heads Up 

Heads Up is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!

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Keto for Cancer – Resource Page

Keto for Cancer – Resource Page

Welcome to our ‘Keto for Cancer’ resource page!

This page is a compilation of resources related to keto for cancer. We hope this is helpful to you as you search for information about this topic. Please keep in mind that this page is a work in-progress and we will be constantly adding new resources as we discover them. If you would like to submit content to the resource page, please e-mail us the details and we will add it. Disclaimer: the resources below are intended as educational information only, not meant to replace a consultation with a medical professional. Please discuss any changes in your diet or other concerns with your medical doctor.

 

Website/Blogs

(When in doubt, start here)

 

Books

 

Online communities

 

Practitioners

 

Podcast episodes

 

Videos

 

Published research

 

Articles

 

People who have used keto for cancer

Conferences