In this episode, I share ten (10) healing priorities for Graves’ disease and Hashimoto’s to focus on as we settle into the new year. We talk about why stress management and nervous system support remain foundational, how extreme fasting can actually slow progress, and why small, consistent adjustments tend to be more sustainable and more effective than drastic changes.  If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

I know when I dealt with Graves’, or prior to my diagnosis, I didn’t take stress more seriously. Even right after I was diagnosed, it did take some time. It wasn’t until I saw my adrenals and how bad they were before I started blocking out time on a regular basis for stress management. If I didn’t see my adrenal results, who knows what would have happened? That was definitely a big factor. 

It wasn’t just emotional stressors, but the physical stressors. Many of you who have listened to this know I was overtraining, wasn’t listening to my body. 

You definitely want to make sure that you focus on stress management because there’s only so much you can do from a stress reduction perspective. I always talk about starting out with blocking out five minutes per day every single day. It doesn’t matter what you do. I mean, it does matter. You want to do things that help shift your body into more of a parasympathetic state. 

I bring this up because of exercise. I go to the gym a few times a week, typically 3-4 times a week. That’s more of a sympathetic activity, not a parasympathetic activity. I feel like it does relieve stress. I spoke with many people over the years who say they exercise as a form of stress management. 

You really want something that helps with the rest and digest system of the body, the parasympathetic system. Whether that’s simply deep breathing, meditation, yoga, up to you. You don’t have to practice the same technique every day. You could if you wanted to. If you just want to do deep breathing every single day, that’s fine. Let’s say maybe you’re practicing yoga three days a week, and the other four days a week, you do some deep breathing or meditation. 

Either way, start with five minutes. Everybody can find five minutes a day. As I always say, if you can’t find five minutes a day, you really need those five minutes a day. Obviously, we want to eventually increase that duration, but we want to get into that routine. Five minutes a day. Eventually, you will increase to 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes a day. Maybe it’s not every day. 3-4 days a week, you have built up to 15-20 minutes a day. Other days, it’s only 5-10 minutes a day. The #1 healing tip is to take stress more seriously. 

I can’t say that all of these are in the order of importance, but I can definitely make the argument that this is the most important healing tip for those with Graves’ and Hashimoto’s. 

Healing tip #2 is work on your nervous system. This ties a little bit into the first healing tip, but in the past, I would just talk about mind/body medicine. I started talking about vagus nerve exercises, things like vigorous gargling, cold showers, cold plunges, singing out loud, coffee enemas, something Dr. Datis Kharrazian speaks about. Definitely consider incorporating vagus nerve exercises. 

I’m not saying everybody needs to do this. I’ve been learning more about nervous system retraining, brain retraining. I have been familiar with it for quite some time. One of the big reasons is because of the podcast, having people on the podcast, like Dr. Amie Apigian. 

Recently, in 2025, Dr. Evan Hirsch, who deals with chronic conditions such as long-haul COVID and Lyme, he was talking about how much of a gamechanger incorporating nervous system retraining into his practice has been. You might want to listen to his episode. I think it was spring 2025. In 2026, hopefully, I’ll have someone else maybe focusing more on the nervous system retraining, the brain retraining. 

Actually, I did recently have Dr. Louise on who spoke about that. There are different approaches. She uses more energetic healing. I can’t say that everybody utilizes that. 

Either way, work on your nervous system. The nervous system controls everything. I focus on thyroid health, so I talk about how thyroid hormones affect pretty much every cell and tissue in the body, which is true. The nervous system innervates the thyroid gland; the pituitary gland, which communicates with the thyroid gland; the immune system. 

This is something I’ve known for a very long time because as a Doctor of Chiropractic, we learn all about the nervous system. It’s amazing how long it’s taken me to talk more about nervous system retraining. They don’t speak about that. As chiropractors, we address the nervous system by adjusting the spine, so that’s what they teach in chiropractic school. They teach other things, too, but they don’t talk about nervous system retraining. I don’t know if that was even around in the 1990s when I attended chiropractic school. 

Healing tip #3: Say no to extreme fasting. I’m not against fasting. There is a time and place for intermittent fasting, or in some cases, longer fasts. You want to be cautious. Over the years, I have found that- I won’t say most people, but more people than I like to see with Graves’ and Hashimoto’s take it to extremes. It’s 16-8 fasts, which for some people are even extreme. I’m talking 18-6, 20-4 every single day. As a result, it’s putting stress on their adrenals. They are not getting enough protein or nutrients. 

A 16-8 fast, I don’t want to say it’s better, but for someone who is dealing with Graves’, it might be safer. Even so, especially for many people with Graves’, a 16-8 fast is too extreme. When I dealt with Graves’ back in 2008/2009, I wouldn’t have wanted to incorporate any extreme fasting while healing. 

I know there are resources out there, like Dr. Mindy Pelz and other practitioners who talk about how fasting can help with autoimmunity. Like I said, you need to go about it cautiously. If you’re dealing with Graves’ or any type of hyperthyroidism, losing a lot of weight, you probably don’t want to utilize fasting. If your adrenals aren’t in the best shape, which is the case with a lot of people, you also want to be cautious. 

Like I said, there is a time and place for fasting. I know fasting has benefited a lot of people. I have done fasting, even now. I do more 12-14-hour overnight fasts, which I think most people should be doing. A 12-hour fast should be the norm. Sometimes, I’ll do 16 hours, but I can’t say I do it routinely. 

Say no to extreme fasting, at least while healing. After healing, work with an experienced practitioner.

Healing tip #4: go to bed 30 minutes earlier. I realize that maybe this won’t apply to everybody. There are some people who might already be going to bed at 8pm or 9pm. That’s pretty early, especially 8pm. 

The majority of people, that’s not the case. That includes me, too. I have been making an effort to go to bed earlier. Even 15 minutes earlier is better. If you start out with 15 minutes, that’s fine. 30 minutes is pretty reasonable. 

If you’re staying up until midnight, it would be great to go to bed two hours earlier. For many, you’re not going to do it in all likelihood. If you’re up until midnight, go to bed at 11:30pm. That’s not too bad. If you go to bed at 10:30pm, which is what I do, I’m usually 10-10:30. I’m now trying to be 9:30-10. It’s difficult for me. I’m a workaholic. I’m not just working up until I go to bed, but I like to do some reading because I’m a workaholic and take time before going to bed to do some reading or some walking on the treadmill. Either way, make an effort to go to bed 30 minutes earlier. 

Healing tip #5: Reduce exposure to microplastics and glyphosate. Now, I could just say healing tip #5 should be reduce your toxic burden. That would be a really good healing tip still. I’m focusing on microplastics and glyphosate because they’re widespread. I know some other toxins and toxicants are widespread, too. These specifically are toxicants. 

You’re not going to completely eliminate microplastics. Same thing with glyphosate. You can definitely do a lot to minimize exposure, especially in your own home. Eating organic food most of the time, you still will get exposed to glyphosate, but it will be decreased. 

With microplastics, try to minimize plastic exposure. I know microplastics are elsewhere, like in the water. Use reverse osmosis, and you can add minerals back in if you’re concerned about that. Drinking out of plastic water bottles is a no-no. Try to store your food in glass and not plastic. Most people can make a better effort to do things to reduce their exposure to microplastics and glyphosate. 

I know we might have the perspective of why. We are going to be exposed anyway. The lower the toxic burden, the better. Some do a better job of detoxifying than others. For some people, smaller exposures might still be problematic. The least exposure you have to these toxicants and other toxins, the better your health will be. 

We’re halfway through the healing tips for 2026. The sixth healing tip for Graves’ and Hashimoto’s, a little bit controversial for some, is to eat broccoli, if you can tolerate it. 

Why specifically broccoli? First of all, broccoli is controversial because it’s labeled as a goitrogenic food. Goitrogenic means it can inhibit thyroid production, which might be a good thing for those with hyperthyroidism and Graves’. If someone has hypothyroidism, not a good thing. 

It’s not just my opinion, but other experts have found that goitrogenic foods, especially more debatable with soy because that’s a goitrogen. When it comes to cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, I’m not really concerned about eating those. If someone was eating five cups of raw cruciferous vegetables every day, might be a problem. Most people aren’t doing that. 

Of course, listen to your body. If you’re eating broccoli or other cruciferous vegetables, and you feel like you are experiencing some thyroid swelling because of that, or if you can’t tolerate it, like if you experience a lot of gas or bloating, you might have SIBO, or you might need to avoid those. 

Otherwise, cruciferous vegetables are really healthy. They do a great job of supporting detoxification. I do recommend eating more cruciferous vegetables, especially if you’re not eating them in the first place. If you are eating them, maybe add another serving or two.

I’ll say one other thing with goitrogenic properties. Cooking them, even lightly steaming them, will reduce goitrogenic properties. Rather than eating raw broccoli, have some steamed broccoli.

Healing tip #7: incorporate the 5R protocol. I have spoken about this elsewhere. There are five steps necessary when it comes to healing the gut. 

The first is to remove the factor(s) that are causing the leaky gut. Whether it’s food such as gluten, an infection like H-pylori or parasites, you want to remove the factor that is causing the leaky gut. 

The second R is replace things like digestive enzymes, stomach acid, bile salts. Supplementation definitely can be helpful with this. 

The third R is reinoculate. Prebiotics, probiotics. I would recommend both food and supplementation. Maybe you eat some sauerkraut or other fermented foods. Eat fiber-rich foods to get prebiotics. Perhaps you also supplement. Even on a wellness basis, I supplement with prebiotics and probiotics. 

The fourth R is repair. Repair the gut with foods such as bone broth or perhaps cabbage juice if you’re vegan/vegetarian. Take certain supplements. My supplement SMT GI Restore, my gut healing supplement that has L-glutamine, aloe vera, zinc carnosine, and a few other healing agents.

The fifth R is rebalance through mind/body medicine, vagus nerve exercises, and nervous system retraining. Those are the five Rs of the 5R protocol. 

The eighth healing tip is to optimize your Vitamin D and omega-3 index levels. Pretty much all my patients test for Vitamin D. At least I recommend doing a 25-hydroxy Vitamin D. According to the United States units, you want the levels to be at least 50; some will say 60-80. If you’re overseas, using nm/l, you want 125. A lot of people are less than optimal. That might not be truly deficient, but less than optimal. 

Vitamin D has anti-inflammatory properties. It’s important for optimal immune system health. It’s also important for calcium absorption, bone health as well. From an autoimmune standpoint, you want healthy Vitamin D levels.

Having a healthy omega-3 index, I can’t say I have everybody do a fatty acid profile. Many times, I just recommend supplementing with omega-3 fatty acids, especially if they don’t eat fish on a regular basis. If they don’t eat fish on a regular basis and are not supplementing, chances are they’re deficient. If they really want to see what the omega-3 index looks like, they can do so.

Vitamin D, you can test pretty much anywhere. Omega-3 index, there is a company called OmegaQuant. Quest Diagnostics also offers an omega-3 index. I’m sure other labs offer this as well.

Healing tip #9: always work on optimizing your immune system. With Graves’ and Hashimoto’s, they are more immune system conditions than thyroid conditions. You always want to do things to improve your immune system. 

Many of the things we spoke about here already will help improve your immune system health. Managing stress will help. Getting more sleep will help. Reducing your toxic burden will help. Having a healthy gut will help. Most of the immune system cells are located in the gut. If you incorporate that 5R protocol, that will help. Having healthy Vitamin D levels and omega-3 fatty acid levels. 

There are other things you might need to do to optimize your immune system health. If mold is an issue, you might need to address mold and mycotoxins. Even electronic pollution is something to consider. There are a lot of factors.

That’s the goal when you have Graves’ or Hashimoto’s. Whether it’s taking antithyroid medication for Graves’ or natural agents such as bugleweed or L-carnitine, or if you have Hashimoto’s, you may need thyroid hormone replacement. Ultimately, you want to do things to optimize your immune system health.

The 10th and final healing tip is to work with an experienced natural health care practitioner. Probably not a surprise that I mention this. I’m a natural health care practitioner, so I’m biased. It doesn’t mean to work with me. There are other practitioners, especially those who work with Hashimoto’s. Not as many who work with Graves’. 

I do recommend working with someone who has experience. You’ll find a lot more with Hashimoto’s. With Graves’, you need to be cautious. Someone might say they have experience, but you can easily visit their website and look at their reviews. You can even call the office and speak with the front desk person and probably get a feel. Just a website search or Google search. 

If you type in my name in Google, which I don’t love Google, but it’s the best search engine, you’ll clearly see I focus on Graves’. I say things about Hashimoto’s, too, but most of the focus will be on hyperthyroidism and Graves’. Same thing if you visit my website. You’ll see that there is hyperthyroidism and Graves’ there. Same thing with reviews and testimonials. Those are things you can look for. 

If you have Hashimoto’s. Keep in mind, a lot of practitioners have experience with Hashimoto’s, but they also focus on a lot of other conditions. I think there are enough Hashimoto’s experts where you can work with someone who solely focuses on Hashimoto’s. That’s at least one of the top two or three conditions. 

If you visit someone’s website, and they have 20 different health conditions, and Hashimoto’s or Graves’ is one of those, I’m not saying they can’t help you, but I would say try to find someone who focuses on Hashimoto’s if you have Hashimoto’s. Try and focus on someone who focuses on Graves’ if you have Graves’.

That is it. Hopefully, you found these tips to be valuable. Figured I’d start off 2026 with some things. I think most of these- Not to say do all of them at once. Maybe you focus on stress management this week. Next week, start incorporating some vagus nerve exercises. You could say no to extreme fasting right away. Maybe third week, you go to bed 30 minutes earlier, for example. Continue to do things to reduce exposure to microplastics and glyphosate. Maybe later this month or early next month, you start eating some more broccoli. 

I’m not saying to do all these things at once even though some of these are relatively quick. The next time you do a blood test, make sure you test Vitamin D. Maybe consider doing a more comprehensive fatty acid profile. Based on the results, hopefully you work with someone who can give you guidance on supplementation.

Those are my tips. Before wrapping up, I want to let you know that for those with Hashimoto’s, I know I focus a lot on hyperthyroidism and Graves’ because there aren’t a lot of resources there. 

Before I talk a little bit about a specific resource for those with Graves’, if you have Hashimoto’s, of course, I have a book, Hashimoto’s Triggers, that you can check out. I also have a Facebook group for those with Graves’ and Hashimoto’s. You might want to consider joining that. My website, NaturalEndocrineSolutions.com, has hundreds of articles on both Graves’ and Hashimoto’s. A little bit more emphasis on hyperthyroidism, but there are some articles on Hashimoto’s as well.

If you have Graves’, I have a free training called the Graves’ Disease Survival Roadmap, which you can access in my free Healing Graves’ Naturally community, which is on a platform called Skool. You can visit SaveMyThyroid.com/HealGravesDisease. 

For now, it’s free to join. The plan is for it to eventually become a paid community. While If I go through with this, it will probably be at a very low cost. It won’t be hundreds of dollars. 

I don’t want it to be as big as my Facebook groups. The Graves’ and Hashimoto’s Facebook group is not crazy large; it’s about 10,000 people, which is pretty large. I have a hyperthyroidism and Graves’ Facebook group that has over 25,000 people. I don’t want this to be nearly as big. I know it would take a while to get that large. Still, that’s why I’m considering something very low cost because that will cut down on the number of people joining.

I also want to help as many people as I can. I feel as the groups get larger, it’s more difficult to help people and to interact and engage. 

Anyway, as of recording this, there is over 700 people who have joined this community. There is a number of benefits that members have found. Obviously, you’re getting guidance from someone who has been there. I personally dealt with Graves’. I have been engaging in the group. 

With Facebook, I do so very little because there are so many people. When I post, most people aren’t seeing the posts. Here, I am making a much better effort, which you can see if you join the group. 

Of course, access to the Graves’ Survival Roadmap training. This is a step-by-step training that goes into the SAVED Thyroid Framework I created. It even has action steps at the end of each lesson, so you can implement what you learned. When people respond to the action steps, that’s when I respond to them. That’s how I’ve encouraged people to engage. So far, it’s working really well. There are eight modules and action tasks. You’ll notice a lot of people have gone through the action tasks.

One more benefit I’ll mention. There are monthly Hyperthyroid Healing Diet group Q&A calls with one of my nutritional health coaches. Once a month, one of my coaches will answer all of your questions related to diet and hyperthyroid healing. 

There are different levels to the community. When you join Skool, everyone is at level one. You need to engage and get to level two, which is very easy to do. If you go through the training action tasks, you will get to level two very quickly. Many people have done it in an hour or less, going through some of the trainings. They aren’t that long. Definitely check it out. The website is SaveMyThyroid.com/HealGravesDisease. Hope to see you in the group. 

Thanks for listening. Hope you found this first solo episode of 2026 to be valuable. Of course, I look forward to catching you in the next episode.

 

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Louise Swartswalter, and he explains how neurobiofeedback and trauma release work can influence regulation, resilience, and the body’s ability to heal. This conversation helps connect the dots between brain health, emotional patterns, and chronic symptoms, especially when standard approaches haven’t gone far enough. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am excited to chat with Dr. Louise Swartswalter. We will be talking about brain health. Let’s start out: How did you get started in this field? If you could talk about your own health journey and why you do what you currently do. 

Dr. Louise Swartswalter: 

Absolutely. In my 30s, after my kids were born, I crashed. Nobody could figure it out. It was probably hormonal back then, but I had all my mercury fillings taken out in one day because a dentist said it would help me. It was a big dental trauma. I ended up on oxygen for three years. I couldn’t breathe. I became chemically sensitive to everything in the world. I was full of heavy metals. Doctors didn’t know the diagnosis back then, if it was fibromyalgia, MS, chronic fatigue. I had these autoimmune things going on. It took me 16 years to heal. That’s how I created my system.

It was quite a journey. I became a pesticide activist in Illinois. I worked with the mayor and city of state because I lived on oxygen when they were spraying for mosquitoes. I watched all of the kids in our neighborhood have asthma. What are we doing? We have to change this scenario. 

I was like a shy special ed teacher prior to that. Here I am, going to board meetings with my oxygen tank, speaking about stop spraying our kids, stop creating all these health issues for people. I was pretty passionate about that.

Then I got really sick of being in that liquid war zone soup, if you will. I was like, I’m outta here. I’m going somewhere where the air is clean, where they don’t have mosquitoes, where there is low mold, and Mom can heal. 

We ended up in Taos, NM of all places, way up in the mountains at 7,000 feet. My kids were little. They were five and eight. We made it work, and we had a ball. We saw double rainbows every day.  It felt like I came to god’s country. It was just amazing. We hiked. We did so many hikes. We made snow forts and snow pigs and snow ferrets and snowmen. We made it work. It did take me a long time. 

Along that whole journey, what I actually figured out was all of the physical things that I was doing for my body—eating organic food, taking good quality supplements, seeing chiropractors, acupuncture. I saw about every practitioner you can imagine. I still wasn’t me. I still wasn’t well. 

What I figured out was it’s not just the physical body we have to work on. It’s emotional, it’s spiritual, and it’s the energetic field. It took me on this whole path of learning.

The very first thing I did was keep a grateful journal. Oprah Winfrey said you should do that, so I did the grateful journal. That put me on a higher vibration. I started working on that mindset piece, too. 

Then I had to figure out how to work on the emotions. I was introduced to energy work and neurobiofeedback. I have five different neuralbiofeedback programs. I have eight computers all over my house. That whole world was opened up to me.

Then I became a teacher of that work. I was a teacher and taught a lot of people that. My first clients were really my special ed students. I became a dyslexic therapist, and then a naturopath. That’s the journey. 

I have always been involved in the brain. I used to sit across the table from those kids when I was teaching them reading and go, “Why are they off balance today? They did so much better yesterday. What’s going on?” I would trace it back to the fact that they had tons of food allergies. They were all autoimmune, too. They had things going on. 

That’s what really sparked my interest in even going to naturopathic school and figuring this out, not just for myself, but for the kids that I was teaching and working with. Then it grew. 

I started at my house, and the kids would come for reading therapy. Then I would put them on biofeedback, and they would manipulate me. “I have a headache today. You have to put me on biofeedback.” “You have to work on my mom.” Mom comes in, and they’re like, “Wow, my mom is so different. Whatever you did, it really helped her. Thank you.” Then Grandma would come in. That’s how my business started. 

I started in my house, helping people. Then I ended up renting an office. I bought an office. Then I moved back home during COVID and started a whole success academy about 11 years ago, where now I am teaching people the whole system of working with the brain, the body, the emotions, the soul, and the energetic field. 

Dr. Eric: 

All right, that is an awesome story. You said it took 16 years to heal. Just curious, at any point, did you want to give up? Were you just like, “No matter what, I’m going to heal myself?” Were there any times where you were skeptical or doubtful that you would accomplish what you did? 

Dr. Louise:

Good question. When I had down days, I had detoxing days, and I wasn’t feeling good. I had to work really hard at pulling myself back up. But I would say my first why, we all have a why or a direction, right? My first why was to be a mom to my kids. When I saw their little faces, and I just wanted to play with them and be there for them, that was my inspiration to keep moving forward. 

Later, I said to myself, “Okay, I’m a little bit better.” My prayer to God was, “Now, how many more people can I help? Can you help me help others now?” That became my next why. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. If you could talk about the difference between biofeedback and neurobiofeedback? 

Dr. Louise: 

There isn’t any difference. At least in my view, it isn’t any different. The kind of biofeedback that I do is more like energy work. It could be called bio resonance. I can use it long distance. I can even get people out of the hospital during COVID. I would send them the frequency and a whole protocol to help with balancing the lungs and doing all that stuff and zapping the COVID virus. 

You can use quantum physics. It’s quantum physics really. Everything is energy. Energy medicine is more known today than 10 or 15 years ago, or more accepted, I guess you could say. There is a whole world out there. We don’t realize that we’re energy beings. Your frequency. Your DNA is a light photon. It’s about light. It’s about the spiritual body. 

What I figured out that’s unique is there is a connection between the brain and the soul. For all your thyroid people, they all have trauma somewhere. When we clear the trauma in the spaces of the brain, it now opens up the physical body to accept the frequency of the supplements, the good food, the changes they’re making. 

I see it as more multidimensional than that one thing. It came from my own learning, my own crashing. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks. It’s funny because you say that it’s more accepted now. I agree as far as energy medicine. I remember when I was in chiropractic school in the late 1990s. I graduated in 1999. Maybe it was 1997, 1998 when one of my colleagues was practicing some type of energy medicine. I thought he was kooky back then. It’s just what he was doing. 

As I learned more, of course having people on my podcast talking about it, and realizing that I had my own biases. I realized you need to go beyond- For example, I definitely do functional medicine testing, which I still recommend. Many times, you need to go beyond that. 

What you’re doing is amazing. You’re right. A lot of us have hidden traumas. Healing the gut and eating well and managing stress all play important roles, but sometimes, you need to go beyond that. Arguably, many times, you need to go beyond that. For 11 years now, you have been helping people, at least with this current program. 

Dr. Louise: 

Yeah, with my current program. My first business was Albuquerque Natural Health Center. I helped a lot of families here. I closed that in 2020. I sold my office. I was already kind of home anyway because of COVID. Why keep the office? 

I ended up moving home. I was doing two businesses at the same time for a number of years. Brain Soul Success is really my baby. I really love teaching practitioners and coaches and therapists how to work with the whole body, mind, soul, spirit and some of these techniques I learned along the way. I put it all into an academy called the Brain Soul Success Academy. It’s like an online school.

What’s really cool is a lot of my certified coaches now are doing some of the teaching. They’re awesome. I just have to pat myself on the back here out loud. I am a control freak, okay? I had to let go and allow. It’s been good. It’s been really awesome. I have an amazing community of heart-centered people who are so incredibly giving and working together. 

What I have seen about communities now is it’s more about cooperation and not personal masterminds that you may join. A lot of people in the coaching world. It’s not about the person at the top who has all the knowledge, imparting it. It’s a cooperative thing. It becomes more cooperative. I love that. We need this in our corporations. 

Dr. Eric: 

Agreed. It’s amazing that you can work remotely. Back to my friend and other people doing energy work, I think about how even if it does work, me back then, years ago, even if this energy medicine does work, how would you do it remotely? You just mentioned how you work virtually, and you send frequencies to people. It really doesn’t matter where they are, whether they’re in NM like you or across the world. You can help these people, correct? 

Dr. Louise: 

Yeah. It’s a combination thing. If you think about the bioresonance or biofeedback, that’s a computer program. A computer program has all these different vitamins in it, nutritional things, digestive things, physical body things, affirmations, flower essences, essential oils. It has a whole bunch. I added my own stuff. I added all my energy work in there. I added my own digestive tray. I added my own muscles. I added my own stuff and customized it. I had my whole brain system in there. I put all the nutritional parts of the brain, the parts of the brain, the neurotransmitters. I literally could energetically give you dopamine or serotonin. 

Dr. Eric:

Very cool.  

Dr. Louise: 

That’s the biofeedback. The energy work piece has to do with clearing the trauma that’s in the spaces of the brain. It’s actually based on Dr. Hamer’s work. Dr. Hamer was a German doctor who discovered that trauma causes illness. He was working with cancer patients, but his son was shot and died at age 17. The trauma caused him to get testicular cancer. He said, “I was healthy before. Why did I get this cancer?” He traced it back to the trauma. He said it must be him losing his son. He was a boy. It makes sense. 

I love the brain. He took spec scans of the brain, and he saw bumps where the different traumas were. He put whole charts together. You’d be fascinated with this. These charts are online. You can look it up. It’s Hamer New Medicine. He traced different kinds of illnesses and cancers—he mostly worked with cancer; he was a cancer doctor—to the different “it stinks” moments, as he called them. He would take a picture of the brain, find the lesion, be in the temple of the brain. After the treatment, it would be gone. I’m doing it energetically. It’s a combination of my brain system with the neurobiofeedback. 

I’m able to open people up. What happens is they get to be what I call 100% their soul truth and achieve their goals, whether it’s a health goal, a business goal, a relationship goal in their lives because now all those emotional blocks in that stuff has been released. 

Dr. Eric: 

That is awesome. How common is it to have traumas that are preventing someone with chronic conditions? Listeners of course have thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions. If you want to put a percentage on this, or maybe everybody. Obviously, people who see you are seeing you for this. 

Dr. Louise: 

Good question. How can we heal those autoimmune things is what we’re talking about. Thyroid issues and the fatigue that people feel or the hyperness, whatever is going on in their nervous system. I think it’s 85%, that’s just a guess, have some kind of trauma. It’s sometimes not known. It can be like childhood abuse. Not feeling safe is a big thing for a lot of people. It also can be something that they didn’t even know was there. It’s kind of buried. We have to find it and release it. 

A very simple thing that people can do right now is journal. Just free flow. Let yourself write and go back to those places. You don’t want to focus on the past always. That’s what I like about my brain system. We have to clear the old and rewire with how you want to be now. Then we have to put in the good stuff. 

Think about words for a minute. Words have energy or frequency to them. If you say, “I’m super angry,” or “I hate that,” that has a negative feeling. Very different than “Wow, that’s beautiful. I love that,” or “I love you.” Love, passion, inspiration, excitement have an energy or frequency. We have to release the old, take that trash out, and rewire with how you want to feel, what you want to be doing now in your life. 

Dr. Eric: 

When you mention that, the first thing I would think of is mindset. It’s beyond mindset. It’s not just, “I’m going to be positive and say ‘I love myself. This will be a great day.’” The mindset aspect is important. You’re talking also about the energy, changing one’s energy, and that over time can play a big role in healing. 

Dr. Louise: 

You’re right. It’s a combination of mindset and staying in that positive place. Sometimes, we’re human, too. I always say, “This is faith, and this is fear.” I’m holding up a pen up and down toward the ceiling. The bottom is fear, and the top is faith. You can’t be halfway. You’re either in faith, or you’re in fear. 

I don’t care if you’re a priest, a shaman, a monk, whatever. We think of those people as always being in faith. They’re human. They’re going to get the flu one day, or something will happen, and they will dip down to fear because it feels yucky in their body. 

What will happen for them that may be different than you and I that we have to practice is they don’t stay there long. They come back up to faith quickly. Maybe they’re praying to feel better. 

Our goal as humans is to stay in faith, not fear. Not that we shouldn’t have a little bit of fear if we have to run from the bear. That’s good fear. We know that then puts the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems out of balance, when we go to that deep fear. It’s about staying in balance with that. 

Dr. Eric: 

Getting back to the traumas. You mentioned that someone could have a trauma that they don’t even remember, maybe a hidden trauma. Let’s say 20 years ago, someone had a trauma. They don’t remember it. Back when it happened, does that mean it dysregulated the nervous system, and that maybe is what led over time to the person developing, whether it’s Graves’, Hashimoto’s, cancer, something else? When you’re clearing those traumas, combining the neurobiofeedback with clearing the traumas, trying to regulate that immune system? 

Dr. Louise: 

Absolutely. Sometimes, it’s something in the womb. It’s not something that is known. We know that everything is energy, and we know that the emotions of Mom may be in the womb. I clear a lot of womb energy. Even something as specific as it could be the third trimester. That would be an unknown trauma. It could be Mom had fatigue or wasn’t feeling good, or their mom and dad were arguing. We have to clear that energy, so that person can uplift themselves and heal. 

Dr. Eric: 

When someone talks about rewiring the brain, how does that tie into this? Is it possible? I assume the answer is yes. Assuming that is the case, what is meant by that? 

Dr. Louise: 

The way that I rewire the brain is I use energy work, and I use NLP questions. I would ask you, “What do you want to have change or be different?” If you had a thyroid issue. How would you answer that? Think back to when you weren’t feeling well, or some of your patients that you work with. What would you want to have change or be different? Give me a sentence about that. 

Dr. Eric: 

When I was dealing with my thyroid, what would I have wanted to be different? 

Dr. Louise: 

Yeah, when you were dealing with Graves’, what would you want to have instead of that? What would you want to feel? 

Dr. Eric: 

I definitely had an elevated heart rate and palpitations, so I would have loved not to experience those specific symptoms. A lot of people have anxiety, so that’s very common with Graves’. Maybe it was, but not to the extent that other people have. They don’t want to feel anxious. The cardiovascular symptoms, like I said, are pretty common with Graves’. There are other symptoms. Let’s go with the anxiety. Let’s say someone is dealing with a lot of anxiety, and they don’t want to experience that anxiety anymore. 

Dr. Louise: 

What’s the opposite of anxiety? 

Dr. Eric: 

Relaxed. 

Dr. Louise: 

You would want to feel relaxed. What would you want your heart to do? 

Dr. Eric: 

Not beat over 100 beats per minute. To also be relaxed. Normal heart rate. 

Dr. Louise: 

I had a normal heart rate. If you were relaxed and had a normal heart rate, what would you tell yourself that you’re not telling yourself now? 

Dr. Eric: 

If I already had the normal heart rate? 

Dr. Louise: 

You’re feeling more relaxed, and your heart rate was normal. What would you say to yourself? 

Dr. Eric: 

I would say, “This is a pretty happy state. I’m feeling pretty good.” 

Dr. Louise: 

Awesome. “This is a pretty happy state. I’m feeling pretty good.” Yay. I’m writing this down. If you’re telling yourself, “Hey, this is a pretty happy state, and I’m feeling pretty good,” and you’re feeling relaxed with a normal heart rate, what would change or be different in your life because of those things? 

Dr. Eric: 

Getting to the fear, that’s a big factor. When dealing with those symptoms, it’s scary. The anxiety, too, but especially if someone has an elevated resting heart rate and heart palpitations, it’s scary because we don’t want anything bad to happen. We don’t want anything happening to our heart: arrythmia, atrial fibrillation. That’s what I’m thinking. 

I could say other people are also concerned. It’s maybe different with anxiety. They don’t want to feel anxious. They don’t like that feeling. With the heart rate, it’s more of that fear. When you have an elevated heart rate in the 90s or triple digits, you don’t want to end up in the ER. It’s bad enough having Graves’ and hyperthyroidism and dealing with symptoms. Having something bad happen to your heart. There’s something called thyroid storm.

Dr. Louise: 

What you’re saying is the thing you would change is you would release the fear. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah. 

Dr. Louise: 

If you easily release the fear, how would you feel? 

Dr. Eric: 

If I released the fear, I would feel liberated. 

Dr. Louise: 

And another feeling word. If you’re feeling liberated, how else will you feel? You don’t have heart palpitations anymore. You’re feeling pretty good. You’re more relaxed. Your heart’s normal. 

Dr. Eric: 

Healthy? 

Dr. Louise: 

I feel liberated and healthy. That’s awesome.

What we just did, I didn’t know we were going to do this, but it’s fun. We did what I call walking down the goal or intention. 

Your question was how to rewire the brain. First, I get the person’s intentions, goals. Then we release the trauma around that. Then we rewire using energy work that uses codes. It’s codes in the field; it’s numbers. Numbers is the universal language. It actually speaks to your energy field. 

The codes are done with spin points. Just like acupressure or acupuncture points on different points of the body, they’re done in the field with a spin. They’d be four or five inches out from that point on the body. It’s not acupuncture or acupressure. It’s more energy work, but it’s really cool. 

We do before and after pictures because people change so much. Once they’ve had what we call an integration, which is these goals or intentions that we just wrote, and then we do the energy work to put that in their field to rewire their brain.

Here’s the difference between what I do with brain work and what other people do. No one is really doing the energy field part of the brain. You have rings around your brain in the energy field. Almost like an atom. Here’s the nucleus of the atom. You picture those rings around the atom. When those rings are off balance, you’ll be off balance. When we put those back in balance, it now allows the physical body to heal. This is the energetic piece. 

That is kind of the best way I can describe it because, just like you and I know, 10-20 years ago, this looked woo-woo. It looked out there. Today, I do boot camps online with hundreds of people, twirling my hand on Zoom, and they’re all changing in the field. It’s the coolest thing. We know that energy work works long distance, too. 

Would you like to experience a little mini integration on your goals here? 

Dr. Eric: 

Sure. 

Dr. Louise: 

Let’s do it. I think everyone in the field will feel this, too. I’m going to have you say, “I feel relaxed.” 

Dr. Eric:

I feel relaxed. 

Dr. Louise: 

I have a normal heart rate.

Dr. Eric: 

And have a normal heart rate.

Dr. Louise: 

Awesome. I tell myself, “I’m feeling pretty good.” 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m feeling pretty good. 

Dr. Louise: 

I easily release the fear. 

Dr. Eric: 

I easily release the fear. 

Dr. Louise: 

And I feel liberated and healthy. 

Dr. Eric: 

And I feel liberated and healthy.

Dr. Louise: 

Let me see if there’s anything we can clear. Yes. 0-5, 5-10, five, six, seven. Something at age seven. Age seven for you, age seven for someone in the field. I don’t think this is for you. This is for the audience. Age six or seven. We are going to clear age six or seven really quick. Let me find my words. We will rewire the brain with these. 

Age six or seven. What happened? Anything happen for you at age six or seven that you remember? 

Dr. Eric: 

Hmm. I don’t think this was too traumatic. The only thing I can think of is I got lost in the Bronx Zoo. 

Dr. Louise: 

Okay. 

Dr. Eric: 

In the monkey house. I was with my dad, and I got lost for a few minutes. When I was outside the monkey house, my dad wasn’t there. I was just walking around the Bronx Zoo for a little bit by myself, thinking I would be there for the rest of my life. 

Dr. Louise: 

Thank you for sharing that. That’s a good point in. I’m so glad we’re doing this. That feeling of loss. 

Here’s how we clear the energy. It’s pretty simple. It was lost. You’re feeling unprotected. I name the words or the truth about the situation. I have word lists I look at just to give me some ideas. “Fear” right? “Unprotected.” “Trapped.” You’re a little kid who doesn’t know what will happen here. Fear, unprotected, trapped. Is there another word I need to name? One, two, three. “Panic.” For a moment. 

We always have to clear the panic and the shock moments to heal. Here’s the negative words. Then we will reclaim the positive and rewire your brain. Unprotected, trapped, fear, panic, shock. That’s a thief. We ask, “Is it a liar, thief, or fraud? Did it kill, steal, or destroy?” They cleared the soul level of the trauma. It was taught to me by one of my teachers. Then I expanded it. 

All that energy from that time you were lost and feeling unsafe and unprotected is a thief. It stole your peace. It stole your peace, freedom, energy, comfort to have, the vision of what you thought would be, trust, security, protection, and safety. It’s like we reclaimed it.

I say a statement to clear up more energy. Good and bad, right and wrong, pot on pot, go online shorts, boys and beyonds. You might be feeling just a slight bit less tense. Do you notice anything different just from me saying that? 

Dr. Eric: 

Mmm? In all honesty, no, I can’t say I feel any different. 

Dr. Louise: 

That’s okay. Other people listening might. Oftentimes, when I do this, even if it’s age eight or nine or something that you remember that’s similar. If you’re listening to this, that happened with you. If those places where you had shock, panic, or fear, or were feeling unprotected or unsafe, hopefully, we cleared some of that for you on a very subtle level. Like peeling the layers of an onion. This could be one little piece.

I had you say your intentions. Those intentions of feeling relaxed and having a normal heart rate and saying to yourself, “Wow, I feel pretty good.” Easily releasing the fear and feeling liberated and healthy. Then we integrate those. 

This is the rewiring of the brain rings. Often, I have people do something. It’s my freebie. It’s called Mind Gems. There are 12 little handheld positions that actually balance those rings around the brain. The one that we’re going to do right now that’s real simple is balancing polarity.

I will have you take your right hand over your left shoulder and your left hand on your right shoulder. We hold that for 12 seconds. This balances right and left brain, yin and yang, masculine and feminine. Then we will switch and put the other hand on top. I love when this happens because I never know what’s going to happen when we do this work. Yay. Good for you. Okay. 

Then we can relax. Then I will do these circles around your body. I am doing spin points. I am actually going down your left leg. I am saying 23, love. 53, forgiveness. 65, choice. 92, freedom. 42, greater love. We will come down your front. 42. Dr. Eric, I’ll have you say, “I have positive self-worth.” 

Dr. Eric: 

I have positive self-worth. 

Dr. Louise: 

Good. 22. Say, “I choose to succeed.” 

Dr. Eric: 

I choose to succeed. 

Dr. Louise: 

44. “I choose to live in joy.” 

Dr. Eric: 

I choose to live in joy. 

Dr. Louise: 

62. “I choose to live by the higher laws.” 

Dr. Eric:

I choose to live by the higher laws. 

Dr. Louise: 

Excellent. I will do some extra ones. 147 is on your backside. It’s balancing the ring this way around the brain. Then I have you look at my X. 45 is the code. It’s the alignment ring. It’s balancing this ring around the brain. 

96 is the consciousness ring, over the top of your head. It’s the cranial ring. 

86, over the ear is the hearing ring. 

68 is on the knees, the seeing ring. 

3-9, 26 complete cycles, 5,859 times. 

2-8, 23 complete cycles, 2,623 times. That resets your emotions. 

375; 377; 45; 86; 469; 467, releasing trauma. 

10/578; 28775; and the shot, one, two, three. Place with peace, 52. 5-11, 37 complete cycles, 87,357 times. 2-8, 24, 32 times. 4222; 44; 62. 

Awesome. Did you feel the wind? 

Dr. Eric: 

That was pretty cool. You do this in group settings, too? Not just one on one. 

Dr. Louise: 

Yeah, I do it in big group settings. It’s amazing. We want to lock it in though. I will have you say that last one again. Say, “I feel liberated and healthy.” 

Dr. Eric: 

I feel liberated and healthy. 

Dr. Louise: 

That represents all those goals, those intentions that you had. Then we lock it in. The way we lock it in is we clasp our hands together above our head. If I was there, I would try to pull them down, and you would just stay strong. 

I will have you comb your fingers on your right hand and make a circle in front of your heart. Say “22.” 

Dr. Eric: 

Dr. Louise: 

I choose to succeed. 

Dr. Eric: 

I choose to succeed.

Dr. Louise: 

Then tap your belly button eight times. That locks in that process that we just did. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. 

Dr. Louise: 

How do you feel? 

Dr. Eric: 

I feel good. For those listening or watching, this was not pre-planned. I did not expect to- 

Dr. Louise: 

I didn’t either. It just flowed. I’m glad we got to do that. 

Dr. Eric: 

My question is, again, the Bronx Zoo experience. To me, it’s such a small trauma. Can a trauma like that really impact one’s health? Can it lead over the years to a chronic health condition? 

Dr. Louise: 

Yes. Here’s why. Here’s what happens. If that happened when you were seven or eight, if you were lost or panicking, we always have to clear shock, those places in our lives where we had shock, for us to heal. This first shock could have been your birth. All of a sudden, you’re not in Mom’s womb anymore. That’s a shock.

If there is a shock when we’re younger, what happens is that shock and that panic begin to call in other shock and panic moments throughout life. You could have had another shock thing when you were 16. A little car accident or a girlfriend who broke up with you. If you look at your life. That was a precedent or the core issue that began that. 

I usually ask when I’m doing these. When I’m clearing energy like that, oftentimes there are five, six, eight strings, meaning there are eight people or situations affecting one goal or intention. You literally can clear energy on anything. I have cleared energy after the fact. 

Years ago, I remember when I was learning this, I lived off a side street off a busy street, and it’s a bike path. I had a white van at the time. I was turning right onto the busy street. All of a sudden, this bike, not a motorcycle, but a biker, hit my front. I hit him, he hit me, I don’t even know, the front of my van. We both were in shock a little bit. It was an accident. Pulled over to the side. 

He was fine. He was not hurt, but his bike tire was bent. I was like, “Wow. Are you okay?” I gave him a ride home. I had a van, put his bike in the van, because he couldn’t ride it. He was mad. He was kind of angry about the whole situation. He said, “You need to buy me a new bike. It’s a $4,000 bike.” We exchanged insurance cards. I drove him home.

The next day, I called my insurance company and then called him. He was really angry. He said, “I don’t want to talk to you. Let the insurance company handle it,” and he hung up on me. 

I used my process, Dr. Eric. That was not very nice. I decided to clear the energy. I was just learning this. Cleared the energy. He dropped it. Never called me again. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wow. 

Dr. Louise: 

There’s no such thing as time. Or God was on my side, too. That wasn’t nice, the way he handled himself. I was trying to be a good steward there. Compassionate about what had happened. I don’t know. 

I do that all the time. We can do that. Once you learn the tools, you don’t have to feel sick. You can be awesome. You have Dr. Eric here helping you with all of your physical stuff, everything you need, helping you be 100% healthy and vibrant and living your best life. Work on the emotion stuff, too. Realize that you’re a soul body.

Dr. Eric: 

That is awesome. I’m sure there are people listening, watching who are like, “How can I get this done to me? How can I work with you one-on-one or in a group program?” Where can they experience what I just experienced? 

Dr. Louise: 

You do look lighter. I’m really excited we did this. My website is LouiseSwartswalter.com. There is a Brain Soul Assessment, which is four or five questions. Once you fill that out, my team schedules a call. I’d love to meet with you if this is resonating with you. I love helping people. I love my people. 

Also, Mind Gems is on there, too. That’s a really good place to start. I do them every morning. They take five minutes to do. This is present time. You switch your hands. This is clearing fear and switching on the brain. Then you switch. Most of them are done switching, so they’re helping balance the whole right-left brain. We did polarity balance today. We’ll give you those, too.

Another great thing to hook into is we’re doing workshops. The first Wednesday of the month at 5pm MT, so that’s 7pm ET. It’s different themes. The theme this week coming up, because it’s Christmas, is how to stay calm during the holiday season. I get your comments, so we have that happening. Hook into those, too. Those are free workshops. I’d be happy to meet you. 

Dr. Eric: 

They can find out more about the free workshops on your website, too? 

Dr. Louise: 

Yep. LouiseSwartswalter.com. It’s all right there. We have a big event coming up in March. In the spring, I have a big boot camp where you learn some of this. If you’re wanting to learn, you can hook into that, too, and learn some of these codes and tools. 

Dr. Eric: 

This was amazing. Just like I said, wasn’t expecting this. I got more than what I paid for, which was nothing. Seriously, this was amazing. Thank you so much for that, Dr. Louise. 

Dr. Louise: 

You’re welcome. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m sure the listeners found this to be valuable as well. Looking forward to- March is that boot camp? 

Dr. Louise: 

Yep, March 20-22. Mark your calendars for that one. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’ll do that, too. I might have to check that out as well. Thank you. 

Dr. Louise: 

You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me on your show, Dr. Eric. I just love you. I love your energy. I love what you’re doing with your people. You’re doing such good work. A really unique niche you have. People really need this. They struggle. They’re looking for answers, and nobody has the expertise you do. Thank you for the work you’re doing in your world. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks for those kind words. Same with you. There are people who do energy work, but everybody is different. Can’t say I have experienced anyone who does it quite like you, which is awesome. Really looking forward to collaborating with you in the future. Looking forward to your boot camp in March.  

Dr. Louise: 

Awesome, thanks so much. Thanks again. 

Dr. Eric: 

Take care. Thanks again for this conversation.

 

Every now and then, someone will ask me, “What is a gut cleanse?” I wanted to talk about this here. Maybe you’ve heard from others that a gut cleanse can help with autoimmune conditions such as Graves’ and Hashimoto’s. Perhaps you even gave one a try, hoping it would calm your autoimmune thyroid condition, but you didn’t notice much of a difference. Does this mean that these protocols don’t work? Maybe you’re missing the real issue?  If you would prefer to listen to this episode, you can access it by Clicking Here.

I’m bringing this up because recently, a member of one of the Facebook groups posted the following: “Doing a gut cleanse today to take out toxins, mucus, parasites, and impurities. Trying to eat and drink right to defeat this Graves’ Disease. We all can’t stop until we get it right. That methimazole will try to wreak havoc on our weight.” 

First of all, what is a gut cleanse? There are really different definitions. Some people might be thinking about a parasite cleanse and feel that is synonymous with a gut cleanse. When I think about a cleanse, I’m also thinking detox. 

What is the difference between a gut cleanse and a detox? With detox, you’re also involving the liver and kidneys as well as the lymphatics. Some parasite protocols involve supporting the lymphatics first, doing things to support the detoxification pathways, opening those pathways, and focusing on microbes, things like parasites, for example. An example of a company that takes that approach is CellCore. 

I don’t typically use the term “gut cleanse” with people I work with. I recommend detox support, gut repair protocols, such as the 5R protocol, which you might have heard me talk about in the past. Gut repair protocols might include antimicrobial protocols for parasites, but it’s not just parasites. It could also include protocols if someone has H-pylori or other gut microbes. It really does depend on the person. 

The question is, “Can a gut cleanse or whatever you want to call it move the needle for Graves’?” While liver detox, a parasite cleanse, a gut cleanse might make you feel better mentally, if the gut lining is still inflamed or your immune system is still on edge, there are deeper issues that aren’t being solved. 

That’s where we need to pause. Instead of just asking, “Should I do a cleanse?” it might be helpful to ask, “What is my gut really trying to tell me?” Is it about parasites? Toxins? Is there something else going on? 

I’m not saying that an occasional gut cleanse might not help. Again, people have asked me about that with parasite cleanses. Do I just recommend routine parasite cleanses? Do I personally do parasite cleanses? I do not. I don’t recommend to people I work with just to do once or twice a year a parasite cleanse. I personally don’t do it. 

I do regular detox- I don’t want to say programs. We are always detoxifying. I am always doing things to support detoxification and can talk about that. Even differentiating here between a liver cleanse, gut cleanse, gut repair protocol. 

When someone is talking about a parasite cleanse, that almost always, to me, involves herbal antimicrobials, things like wormwood, black walnut, clove oil. When I do treat parasites, I like to recommend herbal antimicrobials, just like I recommend for treating with H-pylori. I am not against doing those. I just don’t recommend for people to routinely do those once or twice a year. 

When I say I’ll maybe do a three-week detox, or DesBio has something called the OmniCleanse, which is an eight-week purification program, that does involve taking antimicrobials. It involves taking things to support detoxification. One could argue we maybe don’t want to do that either just randomly. I agree. 

It’s good to work with a practitioner. Of course, I will be biased since I’m a practitioner. There are other things that also need to be in order as well before you just do random detoxes. I definitely want to talk about this a little bit. 

Like I said, when I think about a gut cleanse, things like probiotics, prebiotics, digestive enzymes. If you want to incorporate gut healing agents such as L-glutamine, aloe vera, zinc carnosine, I think that’s fine. When you’re incorporating herbal antimicrobials, that’s completely different. I’m thinking more about a parasite cleanse or a general antimicrobial cleanse. I’m not saying there is never a time and place for that. I want to talk more about that. 

The person who posted on Facebook also spoke about methimazole, which is of course an antithyroid medication. Methimazole would try to wreak havoc on her weight. It could do that. Methimazole lowers thyroid hormones. That’s the reason why someone takes it. They are taking it because they have hyperthyroidism and are looking to lower those thyroid hormones. That can result in weight gain. 

The research also shows that methimazole could affect the microbes in the gut. It could cause dysbiosis, which is an imbalance in the gut flora. It potentially can affect the intestinal barrier. I am not a huge fan of methimazole, but I understand there is a time and place for it. A lot of people I work with take it because you want to be safe while addressing the cause of the problem. 

When I dealt with Graves’, I took the herbs bugleweed and motherwort, which many of you know. Those herbs aren’t a good fit for everyone. Not everyone can effectively manage their hyperthyroid symptoms by taking those herbs.

Getting back to the gut cleanses, the liver detoxes. Many of these promise a reset in 7-10 days. I mentioned a three-week detox, an eight-week detox, things that I do. Like I said, I am continuously detoxing. We are always doing it regardless. You don’t have to take supplements to detox.

You’re doing a lot of it through the food you eat, especially if you eat a lot of plant-based foods. If you are eating more of a carnivore-based diet, you need protein to support detoxification. It’s not like you’re not detoxifying. Definitely the plant-based foods play a big role in detoxification. 

I also do sauna. Typically, three days a week. Another way of eliminating toxins. 

When I do a so-called liver detox, let’s say, and again, it’s not just liver. When I do the OmniCleanse from DesBio, which I try to do once a year, it’s not just focusing on liver. It’s focusing also on kidneys and supporting lymphatics and even supporting cerebral spinal fluid. When I do it, I recommend someone else to do this for eight weeks or another detox for three weeks. You need to have realistic expectations. 

When treating parasites, even 7-10 days or two weeks is a short period of time. It could take a month, a few months to eradicate parasites. Once you eradicate it, you usually want to do things to repair the gut. That’s part of the 5R protocol. 

The first R is Remove. That’s what the cleanse typically focuses on: removing. Removing toxins, removing parasites, for example. Then there are the other four Rs. 

The second R is Replace, things like digestive enzymes, stomach acid. A lot of people have gut infections because they’re low in stomach acid. Things like butane HCl can help although you want to try to address the cause of the low stomach acid. If you’re chronically stressed, that will suppress stomach acid. If you have H-pylori, then you need to get rid of that to help restore stomach acid balance. 

The third R is Reinoculate. Prebiotics, probiotics. 

The fourth R is Repair. Things like glutamine, L-glutamine, zinc carnosine, aloe vera, drinking bone broth or cabbage juice.

The fifth R is Rebalance. Through mind-body medicine, incorporating Vagus nerve exercises, nervous system retraining. You want to do more than just kill parasites or eliminate toxins. It’s important, but that’s why just doing a so-called gut cleanse itself usually isn’t the only solution.

What should you do first? If there is a detoxification component, or even if you’re just killing things through antimicrobials, should you do this? Should you do other things to support the gut? 

For example, if someone is constipated, they probably don’t want to be aggressive when it comes to detoxification. Also, they might have issues when following an antimicrobial protocol. You need to eliminate the toxins released from killing these microbes. If you’re constipated, that’s not a good thing. You could try to do it at the same time. Work on moving bowels. Really, you want to have at least one daily bowel movement before getting really aggressive when it comes to especially detoxification, but even arguably, when doing a parasite cleanse, for example. 

I wouldn’t say having a 100% healthy gut is necessary to incorporate detoxification, to follow an herbal antimicrobial protocol. In other words, it’s not like you have to spend six months on the 5R protocol before incorporating detox. The first R of the protocol is remove. It’s a bit of a catch-22 because you can’t always jump into that remove step. Maybe you have to be very gentle. 

There is nothing specifically about constipation in the protocol. If you are constipated, if you are not having regular bowel movements, you do need to have those regular bowel movements. It’s just a matter of being hydrated, maybe. Maybe it’s a matter of being more active if you’re sedentary. That won’t help. What you eat as well. If you’re eating a lot of refined foods and sugars, fast food, that’s not going to help. You definitely want to focus on diet and hydration and regular movements, but you might need to go beyond that when it comes to chronic constipation.

Getting back to parasite cleanses. Some listening to this might wonder why don’t I recommend parasite cleanses? It seems obvious that we all have parasites, and we should do a parasite cleanse at least once if not multiple times a year. Definitely a controversial topic. I have had different podcast guests here offer different perspectives. 

When it comes to treating parasites, Dr. Jason Hawrelak is a prebiotic researcher and educator. He is also a clinician and has been in practice for over 20 years. He actually was my instructor when I went through my master’s in nutrition back in 2013. 

He is definitely not an advocate of routine parasite cleanses. When I interviewed him on the podcast, he mentioned that even if someone tests positive for a parasite, treatment is not always necessary. An example he brought up is Blastocystis hominis, which is definitely controversial. If I see Blastocystis hominis on a GI Map, I will recommend a treatment for it. He said it is not always necessary to treat it. 

I didn’t specifically ask him if someone with Graves’ or Hashimoto’s has positive Blastocystis hominis, should you treat it? He was saying just in general, if he sees something like Blastocystis hominis, it doesn’t mean you always need to treat it.

On the other hand, I’ve had other practitioners on the podcast who do recommend regular parasite cleanses. Elizabeth Yarnell, I have had her on a couple times. She is a traditional naturopath. She has personally dealt with MS, and she was able to reverse it. Just like I have been in remission from Graves’ for a number of years, same is true with her and MS. She has helped many others with MS and other autoimmune conditions. She believes everyone should undergo routine parasite treatment. Maybe not routine. She does recommend working with someone like her and getting guidance, not just a regular parasite cleanse.

The point is, she recommends it across the board. She doesn’t do any stool testing, for a number of reasons. They are not perfect, which I agree with. Also, she doesn’t treat parasites in the gut but parasites elsewhere. 

I am not saying there is not a time and place to put someone on an herbal antimicrobial protocol for parasites. It’s just something that I don’t recommend routinely for people to do.

Let’s say I am suspecting parasites, but a GI Map comes back negative. Maybe we still focus on other things, and the person is still having GI symptoms. At that point, maybe I will recommend an herbal antimicrobial protocol and assume that there are parasites. 

I have done that with SIBO as well. I like testing for it in the form of a breath test, but they’re not perfect either. 

I also should mention when I dealt with Graves’ personally, I didn’t follow an antiparasitic protocol. Therefore, I can’t say that treating parasites was necessary for my recovery. Again, I’ve worked with so many people over the years. Some people I do put on an herbal antimicrobial protocol. Almost always, I am doing testing and finding something first, whether it’s H-pylori or parasites or SIBO, etc.

Where does this leave us? Hopefully, you understand that if you were to do a gut cleanse or a parasite cleanse or a detox, by itself, it probably won’t be a cure for your Graves’ or Hashimoto’s. Again, it could have some short-term benefit and long-term benefits. 

I don’t do parasite cleanses, but I do detox for a reason. I do sauna. Sauna is more consistent. I do it every week. Do I absolutely need to do a three-week detox every now and then? An eight-week detox once a year? I don’t know. Honestly, I might not with everything else I do. I figure it doesn’t hurt. 

Same thing with people I work with. I wouldn’t say everyone I work with needs to go through the OmniCleanse or a three-week detox. I almost always recommend something to support detox, whether it’s NAC, which is a precursor to glutathione, or one of my products, Hepatommune Supreme, which not only has NAC but milk thistle and schisandra and other ingredients to support detox as well as immune system health. 

Just want to let you know that the real solution isn’t just about doing a one-time cleanse or any other individual protocol. It’s really about creating an environment where your thyroid and gut both have the chance to heal. This requires a number of different things. 

I definitely recommend, if you haven’t done so already, to read my books, Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves’, third edition, as well as The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet. The latter talks about food and food triggers, not just guessing, but trying to pay attention to what inflames your body. 

Some practitioners recommend food sensitivity testing. I can’t say I’m a big fan of that. I like the elimination diet, which also isn’t perfect, but they don’t give false negatives typically, like food sensitivity testing, and sometimes false positives. Like I said, the elimination diet and reintroducing foods is the way I prefer, but it’s also not perfect. 

I do talk about food sensitivity testing in my book. The pulse test as well. You can definitely check it out if you haven’t read it already.

Of course, you want to rebuild the gut. You want to incorporate that 5R protocol. Before supporting the gut lining, removing what you need to remove. Like I said, you might also need to do other things as well. If you’re constipated, address that. Again, a lot of different things. Sleep, managing stress, regular movement, all of this is important. 

When you’re navigating Graves’ or even a different type of hyperthyroidism, it can feel isolating. You’ll have to sort through confusing options on your own. That’s why I wanted to make a space where these conversations can continue in a more personal and supportive way. 

That leads me to talk about my Healing Graves’ Naturally community, which I recently launched. This community is off of Facebook, on a platform called Skool. It’s a place to take what we talk about here and apply it to daily life, whether that’s figuring out which foods are triggering symptoms, hidden triggers, or having a safe place to ask questions.

For now, it is free to join. Eventually, it will become a paid community. It will probably be at a very low cost. I just don’t want it to get too large; that’s why I’m strongly considering making it paid in the future for a low monthly rate. At this stage, you can be part of it at no cost. 

This means you can take advantage of the support, resources, discussions while it’s still open and freely available. I’ll talk about one of the resources shortly. 

As far as what members are finding most valuable, there is hope beyond the standard three options. When you go to an endocrinologist, you are told the only choices are antithyroid medication, radioactive iodine, or thyroid surgery. Here, we talk about root cause approaches that can help you move forward and doing things to save your thyroid. 

Also, you will get guidance from someone who has been there. I personally overcame Graves’. The fear and uncertainty. I created what’s called the SAVED Thyroid Method to give others a clear step-by-step path. I have been helping people with hyperthyroidism since 2009. Evidence-based natural solutions. It’s also based on what I do in practice, but I also do a lot of research. 

Access to the Graves’ Survival Roadmap training. This is in the Skool community. This step-by-step training goes into the SAVED Thyroid framework in great detail. It even has action steps at the end of each lesson, so you can implement what you learned. 

This is new also. I’m starting to do monthly Hyperthyroid Healing Diet group Q&A calls. This will be hosted by one of my nutritional health coaches. Every now and then, I will pop in. She will answer your questions related to diet and hyperthyroid healing. Trying to provide a lot of value.

Progress with Graves’ doesn’t just come from doing these seven-day gut cleanses. It comes from listening to your body, making steady adjustments, getting the right kind of support along the way. You don’t have to figure this out in isolation. Having a place to ask questions, share experiences, and learn what actually works can make the path much clearer. 

If you have been looking for a place that goes deeper than quick fixes, where you can learn, ask questions, get practical strategies, definitely come join the community. It’s currently free to join. It’s where I share resources, guidance, and direct support to help you move forward with confidence. 

You can visit SaveMyThyroid.com/HealGravesDisease. Hope to see you in the community. Right now, as of recording this, there are over 300 people in the community. That’s of course just going to grow. The reason we don’t want it free forever is because the Facebook groups are just way too big. One of them is almost 25,000 members, which is great for my ego, but to me, it’s too big. Here, I want it to be more intimate. So far, it’s been great. We have been getting a lot of engagement, which is wonderful. 

That is it for this episode. Hope you found this information I provided to be valuable. When it comes to gut cleanses and liver detoxes, parasite cleanses, whatever you want to call them, I am not saying there is not a time and place for them, but definitely not a cure-all when it comes to saving your thyroid. Thank you for listening. Look forward to catching you in the next episode. 

Recently, I interviewed Philip Pape, and we dug into the deeper reasons why so many people struggle with fat loss, muscle loss, and long-term consistency, especially when thyroid health or chronic stress is part of the picture. We talked about protein needs, the role of strength training as we age, why fasting isn’t a magic solution, and how undereating can work against your goals. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am super excited to chat with Philip Pape. We are going to be talking about building muscle mass, losing weight. Just really excited about this episode. Whether you’re a woman or man, you will benefit from this. Most of my audience consists of women. I’m a guy. I had thyroid autoimmunity, so I’m sure there are some guys listening to this, too. 

Let’s dive into Philip’s bio here: Philip Pape is a certified nutrition coach and the host of Wits and Weights, a top 25 nutrition podcast, for people who want to build muscle, lose fat, and transform their health with evidence-based strategies. Through his coaching and podcast, Philip helps busy professionals cut through confusion around food and fitness, so they can finally look, feel, and perform at their best, especially in their 40s and beyond. Welcome, Philip. 

Philip Pape: 

Thanks so much. Excited to be here, Eric. 

Dr. Eric: 

Excited to have you. This will be a conversation that applies to most people. Not everybody is looking to lose weight, but a lot of people are looking to build muscle mass, and some are looking to do both. 

Let’s start with your background. How did you start helping men and women build muscle mass, lose weight, transform their health? 

Philip: 

It actually started with the podcast back in 2021. If we just rewind a tiny bit, I was already in my 40s at that point. I had spent the previous 20 years of my life, like many people listening, trying to figure out what worked for improving how I looked, how I felt, how I performed. 

As the dad bod started to creep up, and I had kids, I tried CrossFit for eight years. That was a whole experience we could get into if we needed, but it didn’t quite get me the results I wanted either. Nor did lots and lots of diets, restricted dieting, carb cutting, all the things we could get into.

As the pandemic hit, this was just timing. It wasn’t intentional this way. I was starting to focus more on strength training. I say that that way as opposed to just going to the gym or doing exercise because I started to consume podcasts and books and videos about what the evidence said about how our bodies respond as we get older with our hormones, with body fat versus muscle, body composition. What is all this stuff? How does it work? I started opening my mind beyond just ideas of losing weight and exercising more and similar tropes we are all familiar with.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, it was a huge personal journey of experimentation, building my own home gym, lifting weights, lifting heavy for the first time, using a barbell, getting into nutrition, with this idea of flexible eating. It took me a while to get to that point. We think we know what works. We find out it’s quite the opposite sometimes. 

By the end of 2021, I was so excited, having gone through a muscle building phase as well as a fat loss phase and felt like I was finding control and I could do this. I wanted to help others do the same.

I started Wits and Weights as a Toast Masters project. Toast Masters is the public speaking organization. I started that in 2021 as a passion project. Over the next 6-8 months, it didn’t really go anywhere. You know how podcasts are. 

One of my first guests was a power lifter who I’d worked with. My background is as an engineer, where a lot of my thinking comes from. She said, “Hey, would you mind coaching me when my contract expires? I like how you explain how this works. You seem to understand the science. I think you can be helpful.” I said, “Yeah, I’ll figure it out.” I went and got a certification that year. This was 2021-2022. I started coaching her and seven other clients for free. I figured out how to build my business system while also educating myself and others. That led to more and more coaching and an expanded ecosystem. 

The podcast itself is my passion. That’s how I got into it. That’s why I help others. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned a few things. You did CrossFit. For how long? 

Philip: 

Eight years. 

Dr. Eric: 

You also mentioned the importance of food, which we’ll definitely get into. You mentioned flexible eating. The million-dollar question. So many women and men struggle to lose weight, and I guess to some extent build muscle mass. I guess both are issues. I think more are still focused on the losing weight part, not that they’re not struggling to build muscle mass. 

I work with a lot of people with hyperthyroidism and Graves’. That tends to accelerate loss of muscle mass. The people I work with are well aware of this. On average, a lot of people are not thinking enough. It is different with your clients, too. 

Why are people struggling in this day and age? With everything out there, and people doing GLP-1s, why is it such a challenge to lose weight and gain muscle mass? 

Philip: 

I think you hit on it already. You suggested that not everyone knows muscle is important, or why they do what they do. In other words, losing weight, in my opinion, is never really someone’s goal. Even if you’re listening and say, “I have 50 pounds to lose. I look at myself in the mirror. I have a muffin top and feel ashamed,” all these narratives we have for our own bodies, which is perfectly okay to think whatever you think, as long as you give yourself some respect and decide what you want to do about it. 

I think the obesity problem is not as much about body fat as about body composition, which is a combination of your muscle and fat. Once you understand that, and that’s where my podcast comes in. Maybe my clients know this. They only know it because they took the time to find sources like ours and really learn the information. Then they come to me saying, “How do I implement that for myself and personalize that?” 

A lot of people are changing the wrong levers, the wrong constraints. They either undereat, trying to lose weight, and then it backfires because it lowers their metabolism and stresses their bodies. Excessive cardio does the same thing. They’re not doing resistance training, the very thing your body needs to thrive as a human being in a physical world. 

They don’t recover. The older we get, the harder it is to recover, both because of the loss of muscle mass and also life. You know, Eric, we have kids and parents to take care of. We have stressful jobs. We have money issues. We have politics and news and all the scary stuff in the world happening. We get stressed out. 

To me, it’s like not understanding metabolism and strength and how body composition and building muscle itself makes the fat loss and the “losing weight” part follow from that. 

I think it’s a combination of energy balance and the composition of what you eat and the micronutrients in terms of how you feel, combining all that together with resistance training is where it’s at. It’s a lot to learn and personalize. I get people’s frustration. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned a few times stress. Besides of course eating well, if someone is in a chronic state of stress, it will also be very difficult to lose weight. 

Philip: 

When we say, “chronic stress,” I think of it as an allostatic load. For the listener, context, homeostasis being your body’s desire to remain stable at energy balance, where you’re not gaining or losing weight, where your hormones are adequately regulated, everything is firing average, like it should. Versus allostasis, which is away from that. 

Trying to lose weight is one stressor. Having too much chronic stress is another stressor. Not getting enough sleep is a stressor. Too much alcohol. All of these stressors. Plus, if you have thyroid dysregulation, that compounds it. That’s your metabolic regulator, if you will, to simplify it. 

When you’re dieting, we know that if you go into a 500-calorie deficit, which is a pretty reasonable deficit, your thyroid on average drops 6% in terms of production. That is in an otherwise healthy person; that is not a dysfunction. 

When you take that into account, undereating calories, undereating protein, and you’re not resistance training, what happens when you lose weight? You lose lean mass, you lose muscle mass, and your metabolism slows even further. It’s a vicious cycle. 

People on GLP-1s, we’ve heard about the muscle mass issue. It’s not because GLP-1s cause you to lose muscle mass; it’s because they cause you to diet very aggressively, and you’re not training to hold onto your muscle mass, so you lose it. 

Dr. Eric: 

Can men and women lose weight and gain muscle at the same time? Do they need to focus on one or the other? 

Philip: 

In body composition, it’s the holy grail: gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. I used to be in the bro science camp that said not really, unless you are new to training, returning from training, higher body fat. 

The more I have worked with clients, the more I think anybody can build muscle and lose fat at the same time, understanding that it’s not the fastest approach to recomposition for your body. In other words, it’s not the most efficient timewise, but it may be more efficient psychologically and practically. It might take you two years to get the body you want instead of a year and nine months, if you do cuts and bulks, but it’s absolutely possible.

The problem is people do it the wrong way. A lot of people do it from a dieting perspective, for example. In my opinion, there is a way to do it where you are fueling your body with at least what it needs. That’s at least your maintenance calories while training, but you have to be consistent. A lot of people have problems with patience and consistency. We can get into the mindset stuff. But it’s absolutely possible. 

The way it works, to build muscle, your body has to have adequate calories and protein. If you’re dieting, chances are you don’t because your body is trying to make up for the lack of resources. Of course, it won’t put those into your skeletal muscle tissue. That’s way too expensive. If you’re eating a sufficient amount and lifting weights, you will slowly build that skeletal muscle tissue over time. If you’re maintaining your scale weight, by definition, your body is probably drawing a little from your stored fat. That’s the simple answer. 

The way that I work with a lot of people is they want it all, but I have to educate them that it’s okay to go into a big surplus and build muscle and then go into a fat loss phase and build fat. You’ll see the change faster that way, but you have to have some tradeoffs. I’m okay gaining a little bit of fat when I gain muscle, and I’m okay being a little bit hungry and less than optimal when I’m losing fat. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. You mentioned a few times someone is really restricting calories. Do you see a problem these days with intermittent fasting? I have nothing against it, but I do see that some people are extreme intermittent fasters. Even some people might not be ready for a 16-8 fast, but I’m talking more like an 18-6 fast or a 20-4 fast, doing it day in, day out. 

Philip: 

My thoughts on fasting, which I think is well informed by the science, and there is a really recent analysis that looked at fasting. I think the conclusion is there are no net benefits to fasting for anything other than practicality. In other words, autophagy and cell turnover and having a clear mental state and all these things are either symptoms of fasting that have nothing to do with the physiology, or they’re actually signs that your body is trying to compensate because you’re fasting. On the net, it’s a negative.

Long story short, if you’re in a fat loss phase and down to 1,500 calories, and fasting helps you tighten the feeding window a little bit and helps keep you consistent, perfectly fine. If you can train fasted, and you’re adapted to it, and you eat protein within a couple hours and eat some carbs and have overall the calories and protein you need, that’s fine, too. 

Don’t fast because you think it provides you a net benefit unless it’s the best thing for you practically. That’s it. The long and short of it, 99% of my clients don’t even think about it. They don’t fast. They just spread their meals out throughout the day. It’s practical. Get enough calories and protein, and move on. 

Dr. Eric: 

You answered another one of my questions. I was going to ask you about whether or not it’s okay to fast before working out. For example, if I’m working out later in the morning or afternoon, I won’t fast the whole day and then work out. Even in the morning, 8-9am, I usually have something before working out. For example, this morning, I went to the gym at 5:15am. I didn’t eat before working out. I just brought my stainless-steel water bottle and went to the gym. Is that okay? 

Philip: 

Yeah, it’s okay. I wouldn’t even waste money on EAAs. A lot of people, the old lean gains community, say you have to have your essential amino acids because then you will miss out on the protein synthesis spike. Don’t overthink it. If you want to fast train regularly or just ad hoc because you have to on a given day, don’t overthink it. Have some food shortly thereafter. Hit your totals for the day, and you’ll be fine.

Someone in the space, Lauren Colenso-Semple of Mass, she’s really good lately at pushing back on the misinformation here for women. There is a lot of talk on how you should never train fasted. I was almost in that camp in the past. Now, I’m much more nuanced about it. I think nuance is where the reality lies for most people. She pointed to evidence that showed comparisons between two groups. As long as someone is adapted to it, and they get their totals, it’s fine. 

Dr. Eric:

It sounds like it’s fine. 

Philip: 

It’s okay to do it, but don’t chase it for some autophagy or some crazy claim on social media about fasting’s benefits. 

Dr. Eric: 

I heard on another podcast that women should have protein, if you’re working out in a fasted state, quicker after working out compared to men. A man might be okay for a few hours after working out, but a woman wouldn’t want to do that. 

Philip: 

That very specific mechanism, I’m highly skeptical of. Any of these differences between men and women on that level, there is usually more variance on individuals than between genders. Let’s put it that way.

Here’s my thought though: Always be experimenting. When I work with clients or have a group program, and they come to me with the question, “Should I X?” I ask them, “What do you think? Try it. Get back to me. Then we’ll know the answer to that question. I don’t know. I am not an omniscient being who knows your response.” 

I don’t say that sarcastically. I say that to empower everyone listening that if you’re wondering if fasted training is good for you, do fasted training for two weeks, and then eat a banana and whey protein for an hour before you train for two weeks, and you tell me. There are a lot of people who will find massive increases in performance when they eat before they train. I generally recommend that anyway. There are some people who maybe they’re taking thyroid medication and are told they can’t eat for at least 30 minutes but want to train at 5:30am. Fine. You can do that. It’s fine. 

Dr. Eric: 

How frequently do you incorporate resistance exercising? 

Philip: 

My training schedule? 

Dr. Eric: 

How many days a week? 

Philip: 

Right now, I’m doing a five-day. I’ve gone everywhere from 3-6. Really depends on my recovery needs, the goals, how much sleep I want to get because sometimes I need that extra day off, if it’s a lighter time in my schedule. I might play tricks with myself. Right now, I’m on a five-day program, specifically because I know I can lop off the fifth day if I need to to adjust my schedule.

Maybe the question you’re asking is what should people do? 

Dr. Eric: 

Should you train every day or every other day? If you’re alternating upper body or lower body, it’s okay to do back-to-back and do it 5-6 days a week? I don’t do it that frequently. I usually go four days a week. Just curious on average, how frequently should people work out? 

Philip: 

As we’re recording this, today is November 5. If you check out my podcast on that day, something called the Hypertrophy Hierarchy, where I talk through the five most important training variables. 

The first one on there is training volume, which answers your question. Everyone needs a different amount of volume, and a different volume based on what they’re doing at the time, what their life looks like, whether they are in a fat loss phase or not, because they have different recovery demands.

If I were to simplify it to principles, most people need 10-15 hard sets per muscle group per week. What that comes out to be in terms of frequency can vary. You could do three full body days. You could do a four-day upper lower split. You could do a five-day push pull leg back. Whatever. As long as you are getting 10-15 hard sets, we know from the evidence that that is the sweet spot for most people. If you have more time, you can go up to 20. If you’re very time-starved, you can do a minimalist and get down to 5-10, which would look like maybe 2-3 days a week. That’s my thought.

If I were to give a beginner a program, I would say go three days. Do a squat pattern, a deadlift pattern, a press. Go heavy. Lots of rest period. Use the rest of your week to eat, sleep, and walk. You will get massive gains and progress in the next six months. You will get a lot stronger, build muscle. It all goes together for the ride.

When you get more advanced and are into this thing, you can start doing splits, add more volume, add more accessory lifts, add more involved movements. 

Dr. Eric: 

Interesting. I didn’t know that. 10-15 hard sets per week per muscle group. 

Philip: 

Exactly. Direct and indirect. For example, a closed grip bench press hits your chest and your triceps. You can count both. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. There are a lot of women listening to this who don’t want to bulk up. How heavy should they lift? 

Philip: 

This was principle #2 in that episode, where I talked about training close to failure. The overriding principle of how your body knows to build more muscle is that you’ve challenged your muscles enough to adapt. To do that, you need to get within 1-3 reps shy of failure. We used to think it was a lot closer. You needed to train to failure or one reps. There were studies that looked as far as 4-5 reps and failure and found. You can get some benefits from there. The sweet spot is 1-3 reps shy of failure. 

Your question about heavy, it’s always tricky. It’s almost not the right question, even though I’ve asked it and answered it many times. The question is: Are you getting close to failure and using the rep range that makes sense for your goals? 

If you’re trying to build strength, you want to go heavier, which means you will have fewer reps to get close to failure. It’s an inverse relationship of reps to load. It depends on your goals. 

For new lifters listening, I prefer a bias toward strength, which would be down in say the 3-8 rep range as opposed to when you get more intermediate, and it’s a mix of that and 8-12, 12-15, even up to 20 reps. We know you can build muscle size and a huge range of reps as long as you’re getting close to failure, all the way down to 30% of your maximum, which is very light. We are talking 30 reps. 

To build strength, which is that neural muscular adaptation, the movement patterns, the connection between your brain and your body, and the recruitment of all those muscle fibers, you need to be in a lower regime, where you’re pushing at least 60% of your max, which isn’t that heavy still, if you were to do the math. That could still get up to 8-10 reps. 

I think that answers your question. I get into details sometimes. I have another episode about this, one called “Strength Versus Hypertrophy” that exactly explains the difference and talks about the rep ranges and heaviness. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. Definitely need to listen to those. Does it make a difference as far as actually using weights? If you’re trying to work out your chest and pushups versus doing bench pressing, you might have to do more of those reps. Maybe you have to do 50 pushups to get close to that failure compared to 10-12 reps. I don’t know if that makes sense. 

Philip:

Yes. It’s one of the first problems we have to solve on this journey. An ideal intake question for a coach, if you ever work with a trainer, should be, “What’s your equipment? How much weight do you have?” If you were at a home gym, is it dumbbells, is it barbells, is it bends? Then you know what your upper limit is.

I just started working with a mom and her 15-year-old, a package deal. The kid is a football player. They have 30-pound dumbbells as the heaviest. I told them he was going to outgrow those in two weeks. It is what it is. 

To your point, if you have no other recourse, and that’s all you have, you have to get creative. Go higher reps. Change angles. Get yourself in disadvantageous positions, like a deficit pushup, things like that. 

At the end of the day, get the right tool for the job if you can, which would be either access to a commercial gym, or at home, having a rack and a bar with plates and adjustable dumbbells. It gives you a lot more potential to keep growing and challenging yourself for a long time. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. I admit I rarely do pushups these days. I am mostly doing weights. It sounds like I don’t need to incorporate pushups and do weights. One or the other is fine. 

Philip:

You will find I am very flexible about this stuff. I used to be more dogmatic. I started working with more and more coaches. There is a guy I really respect. He is still my coach. Andy Baker, big name in the field. He cowrote Practical Programming, which was the sequel to Starting Strength. He also cowrote The Barbell Prescription. Great books. 

He realized later in this career, after doing all power lifting stuff, when he got into these varied movements, including things like pushups, he found they helped develop those weak spots and translated back to increasing his main lifts. There is a synergy between strength and hypertrophy. Plus work capacity and cardio, which is a different topic, that help.

In other words, I occasionally do deficit pushups. I have these rotating handles I put on the ground, so I freely move my arms. I’ll do those for 20 reps as a fourth or fifth movement finisher, just to hit some area that I am not really hitting most of the time. 

Dr. Eric: 

Let’s talk about food. A lot of people talk about focusing on protein when it comes to building muscle mass. I have listened to some of your episodes, and you also talk about the importance of healthy fats, getting sufficient carbs. You mentioned flexible eating. Can you talk a little bit about the role of food? 

Philip:

I can talk a lot about the role of food. I love food. It’s funny you mentioned carbs because I know that’s a boogeyman in the space. 

I know your listener is thyroid aware. I have learned a lot lately about the relationship between carbs and cortisol and stress. There seems to be a big helpful moderating effect of having more carbs in terms of helping with your thyroid and your hormones. I know this from working directly with clients, women and men, who have had thyroid dysfunction. Maybe they were on medication or synthetic thyroid or desiccated herbal stuff. Invariably eating more food and more carbs, not just calories, but carbs, seem to help them come out of those troughs of thyroid production naturally. 

My take on food is that first and foremost, it needs to be flexible and work for your lifestyle. Then when we get into the nuances, there is a lot of confusion about should I track calories and macros? Should I do calorie deficits? 

I like to tell people the first thing we need to understand is our patterns. We need to log our food somehow, whether that’s calorie macros or AI food apps that do it with photos or a piece of paper. It’s understanding your patterns and where to go from there. You may have certain preferences that I don’t want you to throw away because they will serve you when we start to shift in the right direction.

We have calories, we have macronutrients, and we have micronutrients. Where do we start? I used to start from calories. I used to. The bro science, the typical if it fits your macros approach is start with calories because that’s energy balance. That tells us how many calories are coming in versus how many we’re burning. That tells you if you gain or lose weight. Then you move to macronutrients, protein, fats, carbs. Then you move to micros. 

I like to flip that around now. If you start tracking your food, the first thing we go after is do you have enough fiber? Do you have enough magnesium? Do you have enough of the nutrients you need? That will make you feel a lot better. That will support your thyroid and hormones. 

I’m sure, Eric, you talk about certain nutrients that are associated with thyroid health all the time. Identifying those and not getting them all from supplements necessarily but from food, if you can. Some exceptions. Magnesium is hard to get from food. Starting there. 

For example, if I am not getting enough fiber, what does that lead you to do? It leads you to choose more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Thinking of all the natural whole foods that fill those gaps. 

Then you move up the chain and say, given I have dealt with the nutrient deficiencies that make me feel better, you can focus on the composition of foods you have for your goals. If you are trying to build muscle and improve body composition and have energy and recovery, you need a lot more protein than most people get, but it’s not an ungodly amount of protein. We are just so protein deficient in this country. We eat 5% protein; we should be eating 15%. When I tell you 15%, does that sound like a lot in terms of ratios? 

Dr. Eric: 

No. 

Philip: 

When you look at it in grams, it does seem like a lot more than most people eat. We want to target .7-1g per pound of protein, which is what evidence says is the sweet spot. For a 150-pound female, that’s going to be around 100-150g of protein. I guarantee most women in that range are eating 50g or 60g or 70g. You have to be intentional about it. 

You get your fiber and micronutrients. You need to shift your protein now. Lean meats and dairy products and eggs and oats and quinoa, whatever you like that has protein that can fit in that, which is very nutritious. Most sources of protein have a lot of nutrients. 

Given all that, you are eating things you like. It’s balanced. You’re feeling great. You’re giving yourself the best chance of building muscle and losing fat. How much should you eat? That’s an easy solution. You just have to scale what you’re eating. Your weight is drifting up over time. That’s not the direction you want to go. You’d rather maintain or lose. You scale things down. 

It flips everything on its head, from restricting and fitting in your Kit Kats and ice cream and pizza to the macros. By the way, am I getting enough fiber? You get it. It feels more natural, I’ve found, to flip it around and start down at micros and go up to calories. 

Dr. Eric:

Interesting. Putting you on the spot, as far as your diet then, it’s not like you’re eating a paleo diet 100% of the time. You do sometimes have your Kit Kats or pizza. Maybe not Kit Kats, but you do have some fun food, some healthier processed foods. 

Philip: 

100%. The rhetorical question: Could you survive on 100% whole foods or clean foods or whatever label you want to use for the rest of your life? If you do it and enjoy it, go for it. Most people are flooded with a western food environment, and we want to work within that, hence the success of GLP-1s, trying to combat overconsumption and appetite dysregulation. 

If you take the approach I just took, it’s an additive approach. You’re adding in the things that make you feel good, build muscle, look good, and give you the weight you want. Then you have room to say, “Okay, with the remaining 10-20%, whatever goes is fine.” 

Your body has one of the best detoxifiers in the world, your liver and some other organs. As long as you’re not imbibing on tons of alcohol and tons of ultra processed food, which by definition you can’t if you started with these other things. That’s the approach I take: flexible dieting or nutrition. 

It started in the macros and body building world. They said, “All right, can I eat this?” The question was, “If it fits your macros.” In reality, if you go the other direction, it’s not so much about macros as it is performance and goals and health and body composition. 

I think I answered your question. Yes, you can have fun foods. It’s not about “can” or “allow” or those terms. It’s more, “I choose to have this because I enjoy it.” I like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup occasionally. I like ice cream. I even enjoy a glass of wine. I’m not a big fan of alcohol anymore from a health perspective. Even I will have a glass of beer every now and then. It won’t hurt you if your overall context and dietary pattern is nutritious. 

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. I was going to ask you about protein powders. Based on what you’ve said so far, I’m thinking your answer would be try to do as much as you can through food, but if you have to get some protein from protein powders, as long as it’s a healthier type of protein powder, I assume that would be okay. 

Philip:

Yeah, that is okay. It’s a hot button issue. Even the word “healthy” is. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s not a whole food source, but still. If you have grass-fed bone broth protein or a good quality whey protein, compared to, I don’t want to knock soy protein. There are some unhealthier types of protein. 

Philip: 

Where I was going with that actually is even the term “healthy” versus “unhealthy,” it can be subjective. If you have someone over here who takes two scoops of protein powder a day. It’s processed that you get on Amazon. It’s cheap because that’s what they can afford. It has artificial sweeteners and other things. 

Then you have this person over here who has mostly an ultra-processed food diet. In relative terms, this person over here is doing better. They are doing better in terms of their dietary pattern. That’s the approach I take.

If you get 2,000 steps a day, I won’t ask you to get 12,000. I will ask you to do 3,000. Take those baby steps and improve. You have to judge for yourself if you’re at a place where you can sustain that, and you want to, or if you want to keep optimizing the health piece.

Protein is tricky. It depends on how much you consume. It depends on the source, how it’s filtered. Protein powders generally, most of them are decent. The more you pay generally, the fewer ingredients they’ll have, the more quality it will be. Not always though. You have the birthday cake flavors. You know they put other stuff in there. It’s the quantity, right? 

There is plant versus whey. This big study that came out recently about all the metals in protein powder. It went viral. There is a lot of misinformation about that. The first big piece of misinformation is it’s not all protein powders. It’s plant-based protein powders, not animal-based. Secondly, the amounts were slightly higher than the prop 50, whatever that is in CA, but far less than what can be detoxified in the body. It depends on your comfort level though.

For people with thyroid dysfunction, I’m sure you talk about this. There may be less tolerance for some of that stuff. Everyone is different. You might be allergic or intolerant. You might respond to something negatively. Others, like myself, are like a trash can. I could eat anything and be okay and feel okay. That’s not always great because my body doesn’t always give me the signals of I should reduce that. 

Very nuanced and flexible is my approach. Start where you’re at .

Dr. Eric: 

Very cool. Your thoughts on creatine monohydrate? 

Philip: 

It’s great. It’s the safest, most studied, ergogenic aid performance booster we know. It is one of the few things that moves the needle for a lot of people. It boosts strength, lean mass. It can potentially boost cognitive function based on some new studies. It’s simple to take. It’s dirt cheap. You take 5g a day, and it saturates in your body. You can take it forever.

I take 15-20g. I am hoping to get ahead of the curve on some of the cutting-edge studies that suggest high doses may have some other benefits. It gets excreted if it’s too much, just like Vitamin C. 

For women, for people with lower energy, lower muscle mass, you may notice a difference. It gives you that extra burst of ATP when you go to the gym. What that results in is every lift you do, you feel like you can get an extra rep or two. You feel like you have more in the tank. You feel less winded by the end of the session. That’s how it gets you extra performance. It may speed up things a little bit. 

Dr. Eric: 

Anything else you recommend taking, or you personally take? Any amino acids, supplements, anything else to help with performance? 

Philip: 

I have a very short list of minimums for most people that most people need. Multivitamins are on there. The kind where you are taking six or eight pills from a good company. Legion Athletics is one I trust. They might have ashwagandha that has been studied.

Fish oil. Most people don’t eat enough fatty fish. We know that’s a huge anti-inflammatory. 

Magnesium, I mentioned earlier. That and Vitamin D, a lot of people are deficient in. We know Vitamin D from a hormonal profile for people with thyroid issues is very beneficial, as well as magnesium. 

There is Vitamin C. I am a big fan of high dosing Vitamin C. That’s more experimental. Doesn’t work for everybody. Some people haven’t gotten sick in two years; I think it’s the high dose Vitamin C. I don’t know. It’s anecdotal. There is evidence that supports Vitamin C. 

Probiotics. I am always on the fence about them. If you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and fermented foods, your body does a good job of creating its own gut environment for prebiotics and probiotics. Doesn’t hurt to take Seed or a high-quality probiotic. 

Dr. Eric:

I agree with everything you said. I take a probiotic regularly. I take a fish oil regularly. If you could test your Omega-3 index, if you’re not eating fish regularly, which there is controversy over that. Should we be eating fish regularly with all the toxins? But the truth is, most people aren’t. It’s usually not because of the microplastics and heavy metals, but just because people don’t like it or just don’t eat it. 

If you’re not eating fish a few times a week, 2-3 times a week minimum, you are probably deficient. 

Vitamin D. Try to get as much through the sun. Most people aren’t getting enough through the sun. Some people can’t, just because of genetics or certain factors. 

Philip:

 A guy like me in New England? 

Dr. Eric: 

There you go. How long have you been taking the higher dose of creatine monohydrate? 

Philip: 

Probably a year or so. 

Dr. Eric: 

15-20g? 

Philip: 

Yeah. If you took 30g, it would probably not hurt. This is not medical advice. Your body would just get rid of it. You may notice your bloodwork, creatinine and BUN and some of the kidney markers might concern your doctors just a tad sometimes when you’re lifting weights and taking this stuff. Lifting weights puts byproducts into your blood that can appear like kidney dysfunction because of the inflammation and cytokines and all that.

One last thing, going back to the food thing, starting from micronutrients. Do you know Sarah Ballantyne? 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, she’s been on the podcast a couple times. 

Philip:

I’ve only had her on once. She is really good. She is one of the ones who inspired me to think about food from that perspective. You don’t have to go crazy with it. 

I asked my wife. She is going grocery shopping today. “We are really low on berries. I’d like to get back up to two cups a day.” I used to eat berries more. I have a misconnected tissue thing. I have an esophageal autoimmune condition I’ve had for many years. I take medication for them, but I’d like to manage things with food as well.

When we think of inflammation, it’s not that foods are inflammatory, so much as some foods are anti-inflammatory. I like to think that side of the ledger more. I think lifestyle has a bigger impact on inflammation. 

Being smart about what you’re deficient in, saying, “Do I need oysters? Brazil nuts for selenium? Berries for fiber and polyphenols?” You can get a nice variety of foods that might be perfect for you to address some of these besides just supplementation. 

Dr. Eric: 

She switched gears over the years. I am very familiar with Sarah because she had Paleo Mom, which is still up. Talking a lot about AIP. She came out with her book Nutrivore, which is more on nutrient density. 

Tracking. You mentioned there are now AI trackers, AI apps that can track your food, where you scan your food. Are there any specific apps or anything else to help people track food, their macros? 

Philip: 

I will give you a couple answers here. One is an app I use. I basically require all my clients to use it. I have something called Physique University, my group program. When they go through onboarding, get this app, MacroFactor. I am an affiliate, full disclosure. 

I use it every day. I love it. It’s the only food logger that has an algorithm to calculate your dynamic metabolism every day based on what you’re eating and what you weigh. I don’t know why MyFitnessPal and others haven’t done that yet. I suspect because it’s a little bit sophisticated to do it in a way that doesn’t overreact and come up with weird scenarios where your expenditure jumps. 

MacroFactor, the guys behind it are stronger by science. Very well respected. Dr. Eric Helms and Dr. Eric Trexler. All these names in the industry. I have been using that since launch. I recommend it for people who like tracking and data and want not just the awareness but to get targets for their goal. It will give you evidence-based targets. Very similar to what I teach. It does it for you. 

As a nutrition coach, it sounds anathema to be like, “You don’t give your macros to your client?” Why would I when a computer can do it better than me and in real time? I’d rather help you with the psychology, consistency, and personalization. That’s where coaching comes in.

I mentioned AI earlier. I am actually coming out with an app called Fitness Lab that’s AI-driven. The problem I faced was we don’t want AI to replace everything. We also don’t want to try to replicate tools that already exist, like food and workout loggers. 

The approach I took with the app was from a meal perspective, how would you help somebody? If you were linked to somebody at the hip as their coach and could look at what they were eating all day every day, how would you help them build muscle or lose fat without counting calories? 

I always do that thought experiment. Is that possible? Of course it’s possible. Lots of coaches coach that way. You have to track something. You have to have an awareness. 

Where I came to that conclusion was what is the minimal, least stressful solution? Look at one representative thing you eat every day, and make a qualitative judgment as to the things we’ve already talked about. Are there enough nutrients represented? Are the macro balances represented right? I am not going to worry about the amount. We will see, based on your body change, whether you’re eating too much or too little.

To what I was saying earlier, we just go up or down in an amount. If you’re grazing from your kid’s plate, if you have trouble at restaurants, if you overconsume, those patterns, when you understand them, that’s where the trouble spots are. You can shift more and more toward what you need and a good eating pattern. 

That’s my thought. MacroFactor is a good tool. If you don’t want to pay for an app, there are free food loggers. They just won’t give you targets. They will help you track. It’s up to you to figure out what you need to eat. There are other cutting-edge tools coming out that are pretty amazing, too. 

Dr. Eric: 

Fitness Lab, when is that coming out? That’s your app.  

Philip: 

November 18, it will be out. 

Dr. Eric: 

That’s my oldest daughter’s birthday. Cool. 

Philip: 

I think the link will be Studio.com/Philip. We’ll see. I’ll send it to you. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks. This has been great, Philip. A lot of awesome information. Before we wrap things up, I know there is a lot more that I’m sure you could talk about. Anything burning that I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Anything else you want to say? 

Philip: 

I know a lot of people listening want to lose weight, lose fat, improve their body composition. A lot of the principles we talked about today with eating enough and training and fueling yourself, especially when there is thyroid dysfunction, are really helpful. 

Usually, when I work with someone who wants to lose weight or fat, if you spend six weeks dialing in the routines that you need—strength training, sufficient sleep, managing your stress, and getting your nutrition on point—it puts you in a good position psychologically and physiologically to go into that calorie deficit for 6-12 weeks as a good range for most people, and then go after it in a very deliberate way. That’s the approach I take and recommend. 

Any other approach, that is really fast weight loss. I do have a rapid fat loss phase, but it’s more of an advanced technique. Really fast weight loss. 

Even if you are on GLP-1s, you should still take this lifestyle approach, so you could eventually potentially come off of them. If you have to be on them for life, you can still have the lifestyle dialed in. That’s the approach I would take. It’s a patient, sustainable, flexible approach, but it will pay off for the long term. 

Guess what happens? 95% of people who lose weight regain the weight. We don’t want to be in the 95%; we want to be in the 5%. That’s how you can do it. It’s something you can live with forever as your lifestyle, not just a diet. 

Dr. Eric: 

Well said. Thank you again. This was amazing. Where can folks find you? Remind them of your podcast and wherever else you want them to be directed to. 

Philip: 

Absolutely. Go check out Wits and Weights. Three episodes a week, including one guest episode a week. Eric, you’re coming on soon. Go to WitsAndWeights.com. For anything else, you can reach me on Instagram. Check out the podcast. I’ll be happy, and you’ll learn a lot. 

Dr. Eric:

Thank you so much, Philip. I learned some things that I didn’t know, and I’m sure the listeners did as well. 

Philip: 

Thanks for the questions and the opportunity, Eric. Appreciate it. 

Hyperthyroidism can feel chaotic until you understand the system behind your symptoms. Are you recognizing them?This episode walks through the five (5) parts of the SAVED Thyroid Method, a healing framework that I recommend to my patients. SAVED serves as an acronym for each step, detailing how every component can gently influence antibody activity in hyperthyroidism. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

This episode is to discuss my SAVED Thyroid Method, which is the framework I recommend to my patients with hyperthyroidism. 

SAVED is an acronym that stands for Safe symptom management; Align adrenals and blood sugar; Vanquish infections and heal the gut; Eliminate reactive foods and toxins; and Detect and remove hidden triggers. 

The goal of course is to help balance the thyroid, calm the immune system, heal the gut, just do everything that’s necessary to restore the person’s health

Let’s go ahead and start with Safe symptom management. When someone works with me, the #1 goal isn’t to manage the symptoms but address the underlying cause of the problem, to essentially restore the person’s health, so they can avoid radioactive iodine or thyroid surgery and feel great again. 

It’s important to be safe while addressing the underlying cause of hyperthyroidism. There are different ways you could safely manage symptoms. When you go to an endocrinologist, they will typically recommend antithyroid medication; an example is methimazole or PTU. There is also carbimazole for those who are outside of the United States. 

Sometimes, they will give beta blockers such as propranolol, which not only lowers your resting heart rate but can at least decrease the conversion of T4 to T3. Some will recommend methimazole and propranolol together. There are other beta blockers, like metoprolol or atenolol. Those are the ways that conventional endocrinologists will recommend. 

Of course, sometimes they recommend radioactive iodine or thyroid surgery. We are really talking about symptom management. Not that removing your thyroid isn’t managing the symptoms. 

Let’s talk about some of the natural strategies to support symptoms. Many of you know that when I dealt with Graves’, I was able to avoid antithyroid medication. There is definitely a time and place for antithyroid medication. When I work with people, some people do take antithyroid medication. 

The good thing about antithyroid medication is it almost always works. The downside is that side effects are common. Not everybody does well when taking it. Some people, like myself, choose not to try taking it although I would have been open to taking it if the natural methods didn’t work. Thankfully, they did.

I took bugleweed, which is an herb with antithyroid properties. That did a wonderful job of managing my symptoms. I took MediHerb bugleweed, which is based out of Australia. I took MediHerb motherwort. They both did a great job of managing my symptoms. I started with the bugleweed. The bugleweed alone helped, but I was still having heart palpitations, so that’s why I added motherwort. 

There are others as well. I wasn’t as familiar with lemon balm when I dealt with Graves’, so I didn’t take it as a result. I did fine without it. Lemon balm has some mild antithyroid properties. It has a calming effect. If someone is experiencing anxiety, sleep issues, just taking bugleweed, for example, may help, but in some cases, they might benefit from having lemon balm as well. 

Even drinking lemon balm tea. Keep in mind that the tea isn’t as potent as the extract. Even with bugleweed, they will try to make it in tea form. Usually, it doesn’t do a good job of managing their symptoms.

Then there is L-carnitine. L-carnitine is also something I wasn’t familiar with when I dealt with Graves’. I didn’t take L-carnitine. Not everybody needs to take L-carnitine. Even if I was familiar with L-carnitine at the time, it doesn’t mean I definitely would have taken it. 

Usually, bugleweed is what I start with. Sometimes, motherwort. Most commonly, bugleweed and motherwort. The research shows that taking between 2,000-4,000mg of L-carnitine can block the entry of thyroid hormone into the cell. Typically, you want to take L-carnitine tartrate although you could do a combination of L-carnitine tartrate with acetyl L-carnitine. 

A recent study that I did a podcast episode on is from August 2025. It discussed combining selenium with L-carnitine. Not high doses, only 500mg of L-carnitine and 83mcg of selenium helps people who are already taking antithyroid medication. The study was methimazole. Specific for those with Graves’. Those who took the selenium and L-carnitine were able to take a lower dose of methimazole. It also had a good impact on thyroid antibodies.

Those are some of the more common natural agents for symptom management. There is also lithium orotate. Lithium carbonate is a prescription medication typically used as an antidepressant. Not as commonly used for that purpose today. They realized that caused hypothyroidism in a lot of people. Lithium orotate is over the counter but not as potent. It can also help with symptom management. 

LDN modulates the immune system. It’s hit or miss, but that is an option if someone can’t tolerate medication, and the natural agents aren’t effective. 

Cholestyramine is a binding agent used by a lot of functional medicine practitioners for mycotoxins from mold. It can also bind to thyroid hormone. 

That’s the S part of the SAVED method. Let’s move on to A, which is align adrenals and blood sugar. 

When I dealt with Graves’, my adrenals were not in good shape. I didn’t realize how bad they were just because I figured I was doing a good job of managing the stress. Thankfully, I did an adrenal saliva test because otherwise, I wouldn’t have realized how bad my adrenals were. My cortisol was low, my DHEA was low, my secretory IgA was low. It did take some work to restore the health of my adrenals. 

Stress management played a big role. Getting sufficient sleep played a big role. Taking supplements to support adrenals and low cortisol was helpful. I think a big factor was not just emotional stress but overtraining, so overexercising. 

When aligning adrenals, you definitely need to address the cause of the adrenal dysfunction in the first place. Stress is common. It could be stored trauma. It doesn’t have to be recent stressors; it could be stressors from many years ago. It could be physical stressors. But you do want to address this cause and block out time for stress management on a daily basis, not just every other day. You want to get in the routine of stress handling. 

Stress causes a lot of problems. Stress is important for the conversion of T4 to T3. Also, I mentioned when I did my adrenal test, not only were cortisol and DHEA low, but something called secretory IgA was low, which lines the mucosal surfaces of the body, including the GI tract. That’s one way that chronic stress can affect the gut. Overall, it causes dysregulation of the immune system, especially when someone has high cortisol. That increases proinflammatory cytokines, which are associated with Graves’. Stress is a big factor.

Whenever I work with someone one-on-one, I have them fill out a health history. Most of the time, they are putting down stress as a factor. When they don’t, I question it. Are they like I was years ago, where they think stress isn’t a factor, where they think they’re handling stress well? Even if someone is retired and they don’t think stress is a factor, many times, it could be. Something to consider. I wouldn’t rule out stress as being a factor so quickly. 

Blood sugar imbalances. Very common as well. Some people have hypoglycemia. Insulin resistance is more common. Your body isn’t sensitive to insulin. 

Diet definitely plays a role, as do stress and sleep. Diet and lifestyle could play a big role. Usually, there is an inflammatory component when it comes to insulin resistance. You might not be able to reverse it alone with just diet and lifestyle. Definitely want to start with diet and lifestyle.

How do you know if you have insulin resistance? Fasting glucose is what is most commonly used. If someone has a fasting glucose greater than 100, here in the United States at least, they might get a hemoglobin A1C. When someone is 5.7, they are prediabetic. Even if someone is 5.5, 5.6, on the higher side. It’s not a perfect marker, hemoglobin A1C. I would say to do it as well as fasting insulin. If fasting insulin is too high, greater than 5, that could be a concern. Definitely greater than 7. Those are some markers to look at to try to determine if someone has insulin resistance. 

Like I said, diet does play a role. In this day and age, a lot of people are doing intermittent fasting, which in some cases can help with insulin resistance. You of course want to make sure that if you are doing any type of fasting, you’re getting enough nutrients or protein. 

You want to be careful about extreme fasting because that could be a stressor on your body. If someone is doing 18-20 hours of fasting and only has a 4-5-hour eating window, that’s not great. Some people aren’t even ready for a 16-8 fast. Just be careful when it comes to eating. 

I mentioned overtraining and exercising. You also want to be careful about this when talking about adrenal health. 

Let’s move on to the V, vanquish infections and heal the gut. I can’t say this is necessarily in the order I go. Safe symptom management is definitely up there. You probably want to do that first. Then address the cause of the problem. Align adrenals and blood sugar is up there. Vanquish infections and healing the gut is definitely important, but not everybody has infections. You definitely want to heal the gut. A healthy gut is important, but there could be other factors, including the next part of the SAVED method. 

Infections: viruses; parasites; bacteria, like H-pylori; overgrowths, like candida or SIBO. Infections can be a factor with autoimmune conditions. EBV, which has been shown to be a trigger of Graves’ and Hashimoto’s in the literature. During the pandemic in 2020, definitely had a lot of people who got COVID who developed Graves’. You could also develop subacute thyroiditis, which is a different type of hyperthyroid condition. That is typically caused by a virus. 

Bacteria, H-pylori could be a trigger. Parasites could be a factor. 

I wouldn’t say SIBO and candida overgrowth are triggers, but they could affect permeability of the gut, which for someone with Graves’, that could be a factor. 

There is the triad of autoimmunity: genetic predisposition, exposure to one or more environmental triggers, and the leaky gut. Could definitely set the stage for autoimmunity. 

Even if you don’t have gut infections, or other infections, as vanquishing infections is not just tied to healing the gut. When it comes to thyroid autoimmunity, other types of infections as well can play a role. When I spoke about viruses, I am not talking about viruses in the gut, even though some viruses can affect the gut. There are gut infections you want to address of course. 

There is the 5R protocol for gut healing. The first R is Remove, removing things such as gut infections. We’ll talk next about foods and toxins/toxicants. You want to remove the factor that is causing the gut dysbiosis, which is the imbalance in the gut flora. Also, the leaky gut. 

Replace is the next R. Replace things like digestive enzymes, if necessary; stomach acid, if necessary; bile salts, if necessary. 

The next R is Reinoculate with prebiotics and probiotics. There is a place for both food and supplements. 

The next R is Repair. Things like drinking bone broth, or if you are a vegan/vegetarian, cabbage juice. Then there are supplements such as L-glutamine and aloe vera and zinc carnosine and DGL licorice. 

The final R stands for Rebalance the parasympathetic system through mind/body medicine, Vagas nerve exercises, nervous system retraining. 

I kind of skipped over evaluating gut health. Certainly, there is a time and place for comprehensive stool tests, SIBO breath tests. Some people do need to see a gastroenterologist. Some people do need an endoscopy. Not a huge fan of endoscopies and colonoscopies, but there is a time and place for them.

The next component of SAVED is E, eliminate reactive foods and toxins. I wrote a book called The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend doing so. There are three types of diets I talk about. 

The one I typically recommend for Graves’ is a Level 3 diet, which is a modified AIP diet. Avoid allergens such as gluten, dairy, corn, soy, and other foods that could affect healing of the gut, such as nightshades, grains, even gluten-free grains. It’s not easy following an AIP/Level 3 diet. There is also a Level 2 diet, which is similar to a modified paleo diet, which is a little easier. Still not easy, but easier. 

Again, you definitely want to eliminate inflammatory foods. It goes without saying that you definitely want to avoid fast foods, refined foods and sugars. Even some foods like nightshades— tomatoes, eggplant, peppers—all have some good health benefits, but in some people, they can be inflammatory and prevent gut healing. That’s part of an elimination diet, to take a break from them initially. For more information, check out that book. You can find it on Amazon. 

Toxins and toxicants. Toxins are natural in our environment, like mycotoxins from mold, whereas xenoestrogens, microplastics, BPA, those are toxicants. Man-made. There are lots of toxins and toxicants. There’re mycotoxins; xenoestrogens; glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup; pesticides; heavy metals; flame retardants. 

What I would say is start in your own home. There is only so much you can do outside of your home. Eating organic food will minimize exposure to pesticides. Your cleaners and cosmetics, try to switch to as many natural cleaners and cosmetics as you can. If you find it overwhelming, start with the one or two you use most frequently, and switch to more natural options. 

The water you drink. I would not recommend drinking water out of plastic bottles on a daily basis. Stainless steel or glass are good options. 

Showering. Get a whole house filter or shower filter, so you’re bathing in cleaner water. Might not be perfect, but better than the tap water. 

Get an air purifier. There are lots of things you can do. 

You can do sauna to sweat out toxins. If you have overt hyperthyroidism, if you’re not managing your hyperthyroidism, and you have an elevated resting heart rate, sauna could further elevate your heart rate. You do want to be careful here. You might not want to go in a sauna. First, consult with a practitioner and get their advice. 

You could support detoxification through food, sweating. There is a time and place for supplementation like NAC, milk thistle. I have a supplement called Hepatommune Supreme that has NAC, milk thistle, schisandra. Also offers some immune system support.

The fifth component of the SAVED method is D, detect and remove hidden triggers. What are hidden triggers? There are a good number of them. For example, we could argue that many of the toxins and toxicants are hidden. Someone might have mold in their home. They don’t know. Maybe there is no obvious water damage, but mold is still a problem. 

Or they have some other chemical exposure. Toxins and toxicants. The products you use. I don’t know if you’d say those are hidden because you know you’re using them, but you might not be aware of the ingredients. That’s some detective work. Reading ingredients is important. 

With mold, you might have to get a really good mold inspector. You can do your own testing as well. 

There are EMFs, which definitely are hidden. You can use an EMF detector. EMFs don’t affect everybody the same way. I think they’re still overlooked, even after 5G is everywhere now. Something that could drag down our immune system. 

At the very least, unplug the WiFi at night before going to bed. Probably want to do more than that. At the very least, do that. Minimize electronics in your bedroom where you sleep. Minimize blue light exposure before going to bed. 

Poor oral health is another hidden trigger. Mercury amalgams, root canals, gum disease, like periodontitis. I am not a dentist, so go to a biological dentist. Visit the International Academy for Oral Medicine and Toxicology, IAOMT.org. You can do a search for a biological dentist, even if you’re in another country.

I mentioned stress, but stored trauma, trauma from many years ago. We don’t think that could be a factor, but that could dysregulate our nervous system. Our nervous system controls everything in the body, including the immune system and thyroid. Stored trauma could play a role. 

I mentioned infections. Many times, they are hidden. They might not feel bad. We might feel bad, and we just don’t know. You feel fatigued, and maybe you’re thinking it’s just adrenals. But maybe you have Lyme or bartonella, and you’re having some pain with that, too. 

I dealt with chronic Lyme as well as bartonella in 2018. My symptoms back then were more neurological. It was still hidden. It wasn’t like I knew right off the bat that I had Lyme. When I suspected I might have Lyme, I didn’t expect bartonella to show up on the testing.

Sometimes, it’s challenging to find these. You could have false negatives with Lyme and bartonella. Getting an EMF detector. Oral health, seeing a biological dentist. For toxins, you could do some testing, but you can’t test for every single toxin and toxicant out there.

In a nutshell, that’s the SAVED Thyroid Method. You want to start with symptom management, so you’re safe while going through the rest of the steps. Aligning adrenals and blood sugar. Then vanquishing any infections. Healing the gut, which you need a healthy gut to have a healthy thyroid. Eliminate reactive foods and toxins and toxicants. Definitely don’t ignore the hidden triggers. 

For even more information on the SAVED Thyroid Method, I have a free training called the Graves’ Disease Survival Roadmap, which you can access in my free Healing Graves’ Naturally community, which is on a platform called School. You can check it out and join by visiting SaveMyThyroid.com/HealGravesDisease. 

For now, it’s free to join. Eventually, I’m pretty sure it will become a paid community. While it will be at a very low cost probably to join in the future, at this stage, you can be part of it at no cost, which means you can take advantage of the support, resources, and discussions while it’s still open and freely available. 

Part of the reason it will eventually be paid is because I don’t want it to get as large as my Facebook groups. I have two Facebook groups, one that focuses on hyperthyroidism and Graves’ that is almost 25,000 people. I kid around and say how it’s great for my ego. I’m proud of building a community of that many people, but it’s really hard to stay engaged. It becomes a little overwhelming. For the members, that could be the case, too.

As of recording this, there is a little less than 400 people. By the time this episode comes out, it will probably exceed that. Once it reaches 1,000, I probably will make it a paid community. But we’ll see. I don’t want it to get as large as the hyperthyroidism/Graves’ Facebook groups.

When people join, one of the biggest values people are getting is hope beyond the standard three options that most endocrinologists talk about. Instead of just being told the only choices are medication, radioactive iodine, or thyroid surgery, we’ll talk about root cause approaches to help you move forward, so you could save your thyroid.

Another benefit is guidance from someone who’s been there. I personally overcame Graves’. I was diagnosed in 2008 and been in remission since 2009. Of course, I created that SAVED Thyroid Method, which you can learn a lot more about by going through that training. I gave an overview during this episode, but we’ll go into greater detail in the Graves’ Survival Roadmap training. Like I said, I have been more involved in this group. I have been more engaged with this group. 

Also, evidence-based natural solutions. Recently, I released an episode not too long ago on L-carnitine and selenium, which was based on an August 2025 study on how that could help lower the dose of methimazole for people taking the antithyroid meds and also help with antibodies. 

If you have been following me for a while, you know that even though I give some things that have worked for me and people I’m working with, I also do a lot of research to try to keep up with the latest developments related to hyperthyroidism and Graves’. 

You will get access to the Graves’ Survival Roadmap, which is a step-by-step training with eight modules that go into great detail into the SAVED thyroid framework. 

At the end of each module, there is an action step, so you can actually implement what you learned. As I said, a lot of people have gone through those action tasks. I do my best to try to engage every time someone goes through the action tasks.

Also, something I recently added was you will also get access to monthly hyperthyroid healing diet group Q&A calls with one of my nutritional health coaches. This is once a month. One of my coaches will answer your questions related to diet and lifestyle. I’ll also make an effort to appear. I can’t promise I will be on all the calls. It will be hosted by one of my nutritional health coaches. 

When you join the community, there are different levels based on engagement. Everyone starts out at level one. Everyone can access the training at level one. Once you join, you get immediate access to this. 

In order to participate in the monthly diet Q&A calls, you need level two access. Level two access is very easy to access. If you have a little bit of engagement, really, if you go through those action tasks through the training, you will get to that really quickly. Quite frankly, some people have gotten to it the same day, within an hour or two. Once they get in, they go through the training. If you happen to be joining this community, and there is a call coming up shortly, you could take advantage of it and get to level two really quickly.

The goal is to encourage engagement. That’s why I made that requirement for the monthly calls. There is some engagement with that. For the training, as soon as you join, you could access the training.

To join the community, visit SaveMyThyroid.com/HealGravesDisease. 

That’s it. I hope you enjoyed this episode, talking about the SAVED Thyroid Method. For even more information, if you want to go into this in greater detail, I highly recommend joining the community and going through the training. 

While you’re in there, you can engage with others, take advantage of the group Q&A calls. When I have challenges, they will take place in this group as well. 

Hope you enjoyed this episode. Of course, I look forward to catching you in the next episode.

***

Hopefully, you found this solo episode to be valuable. Solo episodes are challenging. I enjoy going solo, but I will say I probably enjoy speaking with people more, having conversations. Most people don’t have knowledge when it comes to hyperthyroidism/Graves’, which is fine. People that listen to this podcast don’t just have hyperthyroidism or Graves’. There are people with Hashimoto’s who listen to this. I really enjoy the conversations just because talking to yourself essentially isn’t always easy. Thanks for tuning into this episode and other solo episodes. 

Let’s talk about bugleweed versus L-carnitine. There was a recent study about L-carnitine and selenium. There really hasn’t been any updated studies with bugleweed similar to that. Even though I’ve personally had a lot of success with bugleweed and my patients over the years taking bugleweed. 

Again, can you take L-carnitine instead of bugleweed? The answer is yes. It’s up to you. Some people might do better with L-carnitine. I find most people do better with bugleweed, and that’s why I start people there. The studies are the studies. 

If you really want to start with L-carnitine or the L-carnitine and selenium combination. Most people, I will give selenium. There has not been any studies showing the combination of bugleweed and selenium. It would be interesting to see a study like that, especially comparing bugleweed and selenium to selenium and L-carnitine. 

I am not going to start recommending L-carnitine instead of bugleweed. Maybe I will recommend it more frequently along with bugleweed. We’ll see. 

I didn’t talk about nutrient deficiencies. Where do they fall in the SAVED Thyroid framework? Focusing on the gut. Obviously, trying to eat whole, healthy foods. I will talk about that next. Trying to get as much as you can through the diet. There is a time and place for supplementation. 

Why do you have nutrient deficiencies in the first place? That’s one reason. Maybe you’re not eating whole, healthy foods. You’re eating too many reactive foods, which is part of the SAVED framework. Trying to eliminate reactive foods and focus on whole, healthy foods. Healing the gut, so you don’t have those nutrient deficiencies. 

Stress and toxins could also use up more nutrients. Those were of course covered in the Method. 

What to eat when dealing with hyperthyroidism. I spoke about eliminating reactive foods, focusing on what not to eat than what to eat. That’s why I have the Hyperthyroid Healing Diet. 

Whenever I work with someone, we do talk about not just eliminating foods but obviously trying to focus on eating whole, healthy foods. If you’re following a Level 3/AIP diet, assuming you’re not a vegan or vegetarian, you’re probably eating things like beef, poultry, fish, vegetables, fruit, maybe some coconut products. It’s tough because you’re not eating eggs or nuts and seeds, which would be part of a level 2 or modified paleo diet. You’re not eating legumes, which is part of level 1. 

If you haven’t read my book The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet, I highly recommend it. It’s also on Audible in audio format. You can listen to this if you prefer. 

For that book, I think it’s a good idea to get that in print. For Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves’, my first book, you can listen to that. Ultimately, it’s up to you. It’s good to have an actual physical copy of that book. 

Electronic pollution. I don’t talk enough about this. I have had a few experts, including Lloyd Burrell, talk about electronic pollution. Definitely something that’s overlooked. I think we could all do a better job of minimizing exposure to EMFs. I am better now than I used to be. Still not perfect. I sometimes do coaching calls at night, so I’m getting exposed to blue light close to bedtime. Definitely not perfect. 

If anything, trying to bring awareness. The reason I have them under the hidden triggers category is most people aren’t thinking about it at all.

That’s all I wanted to talk about here. A little bit shorter than usual. Hopefully, you enjoyed listening to me discuss the SAVED Thyroid Method. 

As I mentioned toward the end, I do have a group, Healing Graves’ Naturally, where I have the free training, the Graves’ Survival Roadmap, where I go into even greater detail about this method. Definitely check that out. As of now, the group and training are free.

Thank you so much for listening. Look forward to catching you in the next episode.