MARTIN: Greetings everyone, this is Martin Pytela, health coach at Life Enthusiast. And today with me, I have Dr. Stacey Francis, who is going to talk to me today about how you could stop being tired.

STACEY: How you can become unstoppable.

MSRTIN: Yes, unstoppable. That's a good one. Well, Stacey, how about we start with the credentials? Why did you develop this get over fatigue idea?

STACEY: Okay, so I'm a chiropractic kinesiologist and a functional medicine practitioner. I've been practicing for over 30 years. However, I have always loved science. I always loved biology and I learned to love biochemistry. And I watched my parents struggle with diabetes and heart disease. At a time when it was a right of passage to get diabetes and heart disease, everyone got it. It was just something you get. And no one really pointed to our food supply. It was the time where, do you remember Snackwells? Remember when we took all the oil away and all the fats away and we started to eat.

MARTIN: Right, yeah, the 70s. The crazy, well, now we know that the Harvard professors who put their name on their sugar report were paid off.

STACEY: Yes.

MARTIN: They did it for the money. May they rot in hell.

STACEY: Yeah, it’s very sad. And so I was committed that, to keep my community from suffering from these very preventable diseases.

MARTIN: Right, indeed.

STACEY: And so that's my mission is to prevent heart disease and diabetes and autoimmune and inflammation and disease period.

MARTIN: So, I guess we’re going to coin this simple one: “It’s the food, stupid.”

STACEY: Exactly, right? Well, and your environment now with all the toxins we're exposed to.

MARTIN: Right. Yeah. Now you're singing from my songbook.

STACEY: For sure. Because it's all our songbooks now. If we're working with health and wellness in a functional way, then we're all on board. We're all on board to be very, very discerning of what we put in our bodies on our bodies in our mouths, on our skin in our air, right?

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. Whenever I open a conversation, it says, toxicity, malnutrition, stagnation and trauma, you must resolve all four for a healthy life.

STACEY: Yeah.

MARTIN: And so here we are on the first two buttons.

STACEY: Right.

MARTIN: Yeah. If you're toxic your body is not going to work. It's sort of like having the wrong parts.

STACEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. We talk a lot about that in my practice. And because education is really important for people to know how their bodies operate, how they function, how they specifically need different things than their next door neighbor. And how to support those systems. And so that's where,

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. I heard my neighbor lost 25 pounds on the grapefruit diet. What do you think, doctor?

STACEY: Exactly. Right.

MARTIN: Yeah. Well, so there you are. 30 years of chiropractic and,

STACEY: Functional medicine. Before it was called functional medicine. For sure.

MARTIN: So you actually solved the whole big picture, right?

STACEY: Yeah.

MARTIN: Number one question is, and what is the cause of this?

STACEY: Yes. Well, we talk about fatigue a lot in my practice. Fatigue and GI issues are my sweet spots. And when we talk about fatigue, we start with labs. We start with a great history, a very in-depth history, including what you eat when you eat and how you feel when you are sitting down to eat. Right.

MARTIN: Yeah. Right. Classic. If you're combining the foods incorrectly, you're going to be either overstimulated or under stimulated or sedated.

STACEY: Right. And you know, in some cases you're going to increase your fight or flight. In some cases, you're going to increase your rest and digest. And there’s only one pathway in order to digest and it's not fight or flight.

MARTIN: Right on. This is exactly the points in metabolic typing is where we tell people this is how you alkalize, sedate. This is how you acidify, stimulate or get anxious.

STACEY: Right. Right.

MARTIN: This is the, well, you as a chiropractor would know the way to it, right? The vagus, the vagus, how do you pronounce it?

STACEY: The vagus nerve, for sure.

MARTIN: Right.

STACEY: And as a chiropractor, we just want to make sure the nerve supply is getting to where it needs to go. So everything functions well and that communication is going back and forth appropriately.

MARTIN: Yeah. If your stomach is not getting the nerve supply that it requires, it's forever going to underperform, right?

STACEY: Exactly. Yes.

MARTIN: Yeah. This is, this is a yay for chiropractors because if, yeah, until you get your body aligned right, you will always have a problem.

STACEY: Right. And how much do we slouch and look at our phones and keep our head down for hours at a time?

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. Block something. What is that's getting blocked when you put your head down?

STACEY: So much. Because you're cutting off your lymphatic flow, your blood flow to your brain, you are reducing the normal curve of the cervical spine and it becomes a reverse curve. And then remember, your spine, with all the curves in the spine, the cervical curve, the thoracic curve that follows the rib cage, the lumbar, the sacrum, it's a spring. If it becomes a rod, then you're going to feel every step and that's going to be inflammatory to the whole system. 

MARTIN: Right. Okay, so let's get back to, you actually wrote a book, right? 

STACEY: I did. I did. I wrote a book called: "The Supercharged Method. Your transformation from Fatigue to Energized.” And it's really about empowering the person who reads it to not only resolve their own fatigue, but how to communicate with their doctors to do the more specialized labs in order to really get down to find out the cause of their fatigue. 

MARTIN: Right. Yeah, I'm just going right into the tunnel of people who have thyroid problems, get their TSH checked and nothing else. 

STACEY: Exactly. 

MARTIN: And the doctor say: “Your labs are normal.” And the gal comes back: “But I feel like crap!”

STACEY: Yes. That's my story right there. I have patients that come in and they've seen their traditional medical doctor time and time again saying: “I'm just so tired, my head is hitting the desk at 3 p.m. I just cannot bring myself to have enough energy to function throughout the day.” And they go in time and time again, they get their labs done. What they don't realize is the lab ranges are very, very wide, optimal is very, very narrow and symptoms happen between the optimal and falling off the edges. 

MARTIN: Right. 

STACEY: And until you're falling off the edges in a very bad way, they're waiting for a drug for that. So unless you fit into their paradigm, you're not going to resolve it. And you're certainly not going to resolve it in a natural and healthy way. 

MARTIN: Yeah, that's another classic from the mainstream medicine where they tell you, well, we actually don't bother checking these because we don't have a drug for it. 

STACEY: Exactly. And that's mostly that long pathway of that thyroid where we're talking about antibodies to the thyroid gland because at that point, it's not a thyroid. The problem isn't with the thyroid initially, it's with the immune system. And that starts in the gut. 

MARTIN: Yeah. Well, bless the people who have found you, right? 

STACEY: Thank you. 

MARTIN: All right. So, chronic fatigue, I talked to people who say, well, it's been 20 years. I have seen 50 doctors and I have tried 70 different medications and I'm still tired. 

STACEY: Right. So we need to look at a full thyroid panel. We need to look at a full anemia panel, including Ferritin. We need to look at a complete anemia panel, including homocysteine to see if they're converting. 40% of the population cannot take synthetic B vitamins like your folic acid in all your prenatals and convert it properly without causing inflammation. 

MARTIN: Yep. 

STACEY: We look at a full blood sugar panel and a full inflammatory panel.

MARTIN: Right. This is an important point. I'm one of the lucky 40% who is a poor methylator. 

STACEY: Yeah. 

MARTIN: You know what's interesting? My mother survived the concentration camp experience. She survived it because she's totally hypo, was, now deceased, was hypothyroid. She survived it because she did not need much food. Her metabolic system was to cover on very low requirements, right?

STACEY: Right.

MARTIN: I'm thinking in Europe, there were a good number of famines. Wars and famines. A lot of the Europeans that survived are selected for hypothyroidism.

STACEY: And that's one of the reasons why we ask, tell me, does anyone in your family history have hypothyroidism? And oftentimes it does travel in the family.

MARTIN: Well, I'm just describing why, right? The survivors of famines are usually people whose thyroid is running slow rather than. Yeah. I had one really interesting experience which was, well, why don't we try MSM, sulfur? And of course that thing alone is able to improve the oxygen availability in cells.

STACEY: Right. 

MARTIN: Right. So we have these two things. Fuel and oxygen, right? So more oxygen, we're going to get better. I remember this one lady writing to me saying, okay, 20 years of chronic fatigue, day three, three teaspoons of MSM, I have all the power I want. 

STACEY: That's wonderful. 

MARTIN: Right.

STACEY: And we can't neglect talking about Iodine.

MARTIN: Indeed. Well, that's the thyroid support, right?

STACEY: Right. Especially because thyroid hormone is made from iodine and tyrosine. 

MARTIN: Yes. 

STACEY: And iodine, if you look at the periodic table, iodine is part of the halides. Iodine, bromide, chloride, fluoride. And we have a great amount of all those other halides. We have brominated flour that we're eating, all these bread products. 

MARTIN: Yeah.

STACEY: We have fluoride in the water and our toothpaste. We have chloride when we wash with chloride wipes, we have it in our water, we have it in if you swim, it's in the pools, all those halides compete for the same receptors that iodine competes for.

And there's not a lot of iodine, especially if you live around me. I'm in Michigan where the midwest is very deficient. And so without that, you can't make thyroid. 

MARTIN: Yes. Indeed. Well, I mean, in my discipline, we talk about endocrine dominances, thyroid, adrenal, pituitary and ovarian. And if you're the thyroid dominant, you need about 10 times what the adrenal requires. 

STACEY: Yes. Right. They're all connected. They're all related. 

MARTIN: Right. But what I'm trying to get out is that the RDA of 150 micrograms a day is probably about 15 to 20 times too little for what a person actually needs.

STACEY: Right. Yes. We are very familiar, but the RDA is not a very good template of how to be healthy.

MARTIN: Yeah. It's how to survive a war. Maybe. 

STACEY: Maybe. Right. And then there's selenium. Selenium is important for the thyroid. 

MARTIN: Right. And if I remember right, this supports the T4 to T3 conversion most, right? 

STACEY: Correct. Correct. Because let's tell the audience that your thyroid, when we're talking about thyroid hormone, we make a lot of T4. And that T4 is not active. It doesn't actually do anything for us. It doesn't increase our metabolism at all. But it has to convert to T3, which is active in order to do that. 

MARTIN: Right. 

STACEY: And so that conversion is very important. And you need things like a mineral called Selenium. And you can get it by eating three Brazil nuts a day will give you a good amount of Selenium. We don't need more than that. But three a day will give you a good amount of Selenium to help support your thyroid.

MARTIN: I just go buy Selenium Methionine and can go with that. 

STACEY: Yeah, but this is one less pill you have to take.

MARTIN: All right. That's rather interesting. Who are T4 to T3 converters? Again, back to the test, right? If you test for TSH, you will never know. You'll never know. You want to look for TSH, T4, free T4, T3. Remember, T3 is active. Free T3, which is actually available to bind, right? Reverse T3 because when you can convert, you're going to have an increase in reverse T3. TPO and TG, which are both antibodies to the thyroid that give you indicators that your immune system is now attacking your thyroid, usually in the presence of gluten and sometimes dairy and gluten. And that may include oats too. 

MARTIN: Right. Yeah. So if you're tired, stop eating pizza because that's dairy and gluten all in one hit.

STACEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. But to find out, I have a quiz on my website that actually you can take a quiz to see if you're more dominant to be thyroid, fatigue from thyroid or anemia or,

MARTIN: Actually that's really interesting to me, this anemia business. So the thyroid business, I think we've covered that somewhat here. 

STACEY: Yeah.

MARTIN: So number one, if you're tired, is your iodine sufficient? If not, raise it. 

STACEY: Right. 

MARTIN: That might be good enough. If you're, well, maybe selenium would kick it off. I don't know.

STACEY: Iodine, Selenium. Make sure you get the right labs done. 

MARTIN: Yes.

STACEY: Entire thyroid profile.

MARTIN: You know, the right labs, you cannot get them in an MD's office. They will just fight you on it. You need to go to an alternative practitioner for this. 

STACEY: Yes. A functional medicine practitioner. An integrative medicine practitioner, or a medical doctor that you have a great relationship with that is open to learning new things and to expanding their and sometimes these are not covered by insurance. 

MARTIN: That is the point here.

STACEY: And so that is often why your favorite doctor won't prescribe it because they're worried about your pocket book, but you worry about your pocket book. You get the right labs done to really evaluate your body. That's the whole point of doing labs. Doesn't help when they do a very small amount of labs and they all come back normal and you still feel ill.

MARTIN: Right. So who do you trust? The piece of paper or your feeling, right? 

STACEY: Right. 

MARTIN: Yet this is how people start thinking, am I the crazy one? 

STACEY: Right. 

MARTIN: Yeah. You tell me that I'm fine. I'm not fine. 

STACEY: Exactly. And that is, that is key because my patients who have been to their doctor time and time again, getting these lab work, the lab work come back normal because it's not the right labs. It's very short in labs and the ranges are so wide. They're the ones that eventually their doctor will suggest or offer an anti-depressant that they don't want and they don't need. 

MARTIN: Do you go into that detail in your book? 

STACEY: I do.

MARTIN: Ta-da. Get the book. Save yourself a lot of trouble.

STACEY: Exactly. Exactly. 

MARTIN: By the way, what is your website now?

STACEY: It's specificwellness.com

MARTIN: Beautiful words. Indeed. Wellness depends on really getting it down to the details, in the detail. 

STACEY: Being specific for you as an individual. What do you specifically need?

MARTIN: Very clever words. Great. So let's talk a bit about this anemia business. There are so many people running around saying my iron is low or stuff like that.

STACEY: Or they're tired. And their iron is just fine, but their ferritin is bottomed out at seven. 

MARTIN: Okay.

STACEY: That is a crime because ferritin is stored iron. It's what we really utilize. We don't want to just see the iron rolling around in the bloodstream. We want to know that you have stores of iron that you're utilizing for oxygen transport to your brain so you can function. Now, there was a study that was done that showed that children that got diagnosed with ADD and ADHD were deficient in ferritin, but it's never checked. In fact, do they ever do blood work on children before they offer Ritalin or Adderall? No. And that's the first thing they should do. So before you put your kids on medication that they're going to be on the rest of their lives, get that ferritin checked. So, the study also shows that when you give ferritin to these particular children that are deficient in it, when you give iron, because it's stored iron, when you give iron to these ferritin deficient children, it actually works as well if not better than the stimulants. Because you are patching a hole. 

MARTIN: Right. So how do you supplement ferritin? 

STACEY: So ferritin is not what you supplement, you supplement iron because it's stored iron.

MARTIN: How do you supplement Iron?

STACEY: Ferritin is just the marker in the blood. So you give iron. And a lot of kids in third-world countries, a lot of people in third-world countries do not get enough iron. And so they're... 

MARTIN: I remember the story of the fish in the Thai.    

STACEY:  That’s the lucky fish. Yes.

MARTIN: That's the one?     

STACEY: Yeah, I don’t remember who it is but there is someone who realized that when they gave bottles of pills of iron to these third-world world-country tribes, they would either trade them or they'd keep them or they wouldn't know how to use them. And so instead, they created a little fish made out of iron that you put into the family meal pot of stew or soup or whatever. And it allowed for the iron to get into everyone who was deficient for it. And it really did help. And they even sell it at food stores here in the Midwest. I saw it recently. It's the Lucky Iron Fish.

MARTIN: So, I should put an iron fish into my rice pot because my rice pot is stainless steel?

STACEY: Right. You're not getting iron. So, a cast iron skillet is another way to get iron, but there is... I'm going to give this to qualify it. If you are not deficient in iron, we do not want you to supplement with iron. Because iron can cause other problems if it's in high amounts. So it's like the Goldilocks of minerals. We want it just right, which is why we do the lab tests and why we supplement if necessary, but not if not necessary.

MARTIN: Okay, so you said too low was about seven on the ferritin test?

STACEY: Oh, so ferritin for women, we like it around 100, 80-120 is a really good sweet spot where people really feel really good and have the energy they need. Some people more, some people less depending on them. So we look at symptoms, we look how do you feel? Do you have all the energy you need? And iron really makes a difference. Especially for women who are bleeding every month, they're losing all that iron as they're trying to make up. And if your mom was iron deficient, if your mom had an anemia, your baby, that baby of that mom is going to have anemia. So you're starting out of the gate, anemic.

MARTIN: Okay, so I don't have to eat lots of liver?

STACEY: Liver’s a great superfood, so I highly recommend it, but you may or may not need it for the iron.

MARTIN: All right, sure. some people do better on organ meats than others.

STACEY: Correct.

MARTIN: Indeed.

STACEY: That's a great way. I'd much prefer people eat a grass-fed liver source than have to take another pill.

MARTIN: Yes, you're putting yourself out of business with your wisdom.

STACEY: That's okay, I don't mind.

MARTIN: Yeah. It's great. So you started by saying that your ancestors were heading straight into diabetes, probably because of their American diet, right?

STACEY: That is correct.

MARTIN: The American diet was not the same thing as their ancestors ate.

STACEY:  That is correct.

STACEY: So, all this processed food, really toxic, really inflammatory, causes a lot of problems, especially when we moved away from, when we made fat evil and instead we used carbohydrates to increase that gap that the fat was providing, right? So now we have so much more refined carbohydrates. And here's where we get into that MTHFR, because if you're eating a lot of refined flours, they've taken all the natural B Vitamins out, put all these synthetic B vitamins in, and 40% of the population cannot convert it properly and it causes inflammation.

MARTIN: Right. So this is actually a really serious issue. I would say this, If you are on the MTHFR, you cannot eat commercially made products that include what's called fortified. So, if you see the word fortified or enriched, run!

STACEY: Right. Right. It's not a healthy food for you. Yeah.

MARTIN: Yeah.

STACEY: Even if it's sourdough bread.

MARTIN: Yeah, fortified sourdough bread is still toxic.

STACEY: Exactly. And so when we talk about anemia, we also look at those B vitamins that we're trying to convert, because the most common synthetic B vitamins they put in flour is folate in the form of folic acid. That's the synthetic form. And cyanocobalamin, which is the synthetic form of B12.

MARTIN: Right.

STACEY: And so when you're looking at your labs and you're asking your doctor to do complete and thorough labs, you're asking for a B12 level, which we want over 600. And if you really want to evaluate it, there's another test called the methylmalonic acid, which is actually more specific for B12.

MARTIN: Okay. Important, really. Especially if you're tired.

STACEY: Yes.

MARTIN: I mean, B12 deficiency has all kinds of effects. Tiredness and poor thinking.

STACEY: Yes. Right. One of our local very nationally known doctors, Dr. David Brownstein in our Farmington Hills, Michigan. He wrote a book on thyroid. He wrote a book on iodine. He wrote a book on B12.

MARTIN: Yeah. Brownstein is awesome. I've got his books over here on the shelves.

STACEY: I bet you do. Absolutely.

MARTIN: Yeah.

STACEY: And then let's talk about blood sugar. So, blood sugar, when you have a blood sugar imbalance, that's probably 80% of the reasons people are fatigued when they walk through my door.

MARTIN: All right. So is it because they are eating a diet too rich in carbs and they're swinging too much?

STACEY:  And or they are spiking their insulin throughout the day, too often, right?

MARTIN: Yeah. So eat a donut, experience a euphoria followed by depression.

STACEY: Right. And especially if they skip meals because if you skip meals, then you are starving, and then when you go to eat, your brain actually gets hijacked. Your primal brain will take over your frontal thinking. The frontal thinking said, I'm going to have chicken and broccoli for lunch, but you skipped breakfast. And on your way to get that chicken and broccoli, your primal brain says, I cannot wait for that. I cannot wait for that slow trickle of fuel. I need fuel fast. And so you see that donut on the conference room table and you are head down in that donut before you even think about it, right?

MARTIN Yeah. There's this particular chemical that wheat releases that’s similar to morphine, right? I forget the name of it, but it's actually a molecule, right?

STACEY: Dopamine.

MARTIN: Well, no, that's the trigger to it. Yeah, it will definitely release the dopamine, but there is a specific chemical I can't think of the name right now, but it's very similar to morphine and it's a blissful state like it really is harder to give up bread than heroin.

STACEY: Yeah, sugar is very powerful.

MARTIN: Yeah. All right. I guess we should all be getting a continuous glucose monitor installed, right?

STACEY: Well, that would be a very insightful thing for us. In the meantime, in my book, one of the things I will give you is this particular little formula that works really well for my patients is one plus two, every three to four and twelve. So one serving of protein, two servings of above the ground vegetables, vegetables that don't spike your blood sugar every three to four hours in a twelve hour time period.

MARTIN: Yeah, you're describing the perfect diet for a thyroid dominant person.

STACEY: Thyroid, anemic, blood sugar or inflammatory.

MARTIN: Right. Yeah, what's interesting, just from the margin here, the endocrine dominance is the pituitaries love to have large breakfast and no dinner. Adrenals love to have no breakfast and a big dinner. Thyroids do best when they have three equal size meals definitely with protein each. That is the keep it level, keep it balanced. Yep, you are onto it. That's great. Well, so chronic fatigue. Do you think it besets mostly the thyroid types, the ones that will crave starchy foods and will gain weight on the starchy foods and that's probably the most common.

STACEY: So, we abuse carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are not evil, but we abuse them. We drink juice instead of eating fruit.

MARTIN: Yeah.

STACEY: And God created the poison with the antidote, right? The poison is that juice without fiber, without the pulp, and when you have that fiber of the whole fruit, it slows down that glucose spike, that insulin spike that comes with the fruit juice. And so, really, it's just redefining how to eat, so that it's serves us and that it helps us because it's what we put in our mouths are either contributing to disease or contributing to health and you get to choose.

MARTIN: Yeah, as you're talking about this, I'm reminded of one of the most evil inventions, the high fructose corn syrup.

STACEY: Right.

MARTIN: Where you can get the equivalent of 15 oranges in sweetness in one can of coke, right?

STACEY: It's so hard on the liver. It's so hard. It really boggs up our detoxification pathways.

MARTIN: Right. Yeah, because fructose is only processed in the liver, right?

STACEY: There you go.

MARTIN: Yeah, glucose is processed by every cell, but fructose only in the liver. Watch that. So much wisdom in what grandmother said, right?

STACEY: Exactly. Yes. Eat the whole fruit. And not a lot of it. Two fruit a day is plenty. You don't need more than that. Have a lot of vegetables. Definitely have protein. Protein is one of the most important macronutrients. One, because we don't eat enough of it. And two, because it supports our muscle system. And as we get older, we have a harder time building muscle. And so, you really need to eat protein and lift heavy things in order to maintain and or build muscle and muscle is what's going to get you above the floor when you fall.

MARTIN: Right. Yes, the buffer.

STACEY: Right.

MARTIN: Yes. Yeah. Unless you end up with a belly this big, it'll be apple-shaped.

STACEY: And we're trying to avoid that altogether.

MARTIN: Yes. All right. Well, what other wisdoms could we impart on people that you know of?

STACEY: Well, let's talk about inflammation.

MARTIN: All right. Yeah. So that's the outcome of being silly or unwise, right?

STACEY: Yes. Right. And inflammation comes from our poor habits, our poor choices, but also we have an environment that is full of toxins.

MARTIN: Yes.

STACEY: We have a lot of things called endocrine disruptors. And I think everyone should know what an endocrine disruptor is and what it does. So, your endocrine system is the system that creates more hormones and metabolites that help your body function. When these are disturbed, oftentimes the end result is hormonal cancers. Breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer. And a lot of these endocrine disruptors come from BPA, parabens, and phthalates.

MARTIN: Right on.

STACEY: Okay. Parabens, cosmetics, right.

STACEY: BPAs are plastics.

MARTIN: Yeah.

STACEY: And there’s BPA free.

MARTIN: Yeah,  they have invented BPA something S or whatever.

STACEY: Right. It doesn't mean it's safe. BPA-free does not mean it's safe.

MARTIN: Yeah. This is the stuff that has hot water or hot fuel fluid interacting with this releases it. So, you're picking a plastic bottle out of a fridge. It's cold. But on the way there, it's sat in a truck on a pallet in hot sun for three days somewhere. It's rich in BPA when you drink it.

STACEY: Exactly. It's the contraction of that hot cold, the plastic gets into it, but even if it's acidic. So, I grew up, my mom would store everything in cool whip containers. Because the lids fit so well. And so we had cool whip containers all over the place. And if you left pasta sauce or tomato sauce in a cool whip container, you could never get that red stain out. That's because the acidity of the tomato would pull the plastics out and leave a red residue. So bad. And we didn't know that, right? I'm not blaming my mom. She didn't know, right? But we know better now. Now when you store your food, you want to store it in glass or stainless steel. You want to use glass or stainless steel. Sometimes bamboo, sometimes silicone, but those are questionable. Most, glass is number one. Glass is king. And don't tell me your little kids can't handle glass because you're worried it's going to break. Ball jars are very thick glass. I even have one here. These ball jars, they're so cute. They're so versatile. Big ones, small ones. And the glass is actually really thick. Just teach kids not to throw it cross the room.

MARTIN: It's a good thing to train them to not drop things. Be more careful with the stuff that I had trusted you with.

STACEY: Right. But aside from that, there’s parabens that are in your personal products. They are in shampoos and conditioners and body lotions and soaps. So you want to avoid parabens. And then there's phthalates. And phthalates is phthalates, it's a funny looking word.

STACEY: It is a funny looking word.

MARTIN: It’s a phth.

STACEY: But what it is, it's anything that has fragrance that is not a natural fragrance. Like if you open up an orange and you smell the orange, there’s no phthalates in there. But if you go into a department store and all those fragrances, all those perfumes, those high-end perfumes, those are proprietary blends that they do not have to disclose the toxins.

MARTIN: Right.

STACEY: And those are phthalates. And all of these are endocrine disruptors. All of these put you at risk for cancer, for breast cancer, for ovarian cancer, for prostate cancer, for skin cancers, you just want to avoid them.

MARTIN: So no more makeup girls.

STACEY: I didn't say that. There are healthy, very conscious lines of makeup. And if you go to my website, there's a blog post on a bunch of non-toxic sources.

MARTIN:  But yeah, be conscious and do know your body because,

STACEY: Choose carefully.

MARTIN:  Just the other day, I read a study that said that women who are on estrogen style contraceptives are also prone to depression. So they're also prescribed SSRIs. So, I'm just thinking, what a cycle, right? Right. Yeah, you want to have fun without the consequences and you put yourself in a depression.

STACEY: Yeah, that's a whole different topic.

MARTIN: Well, we started about the hormones. Yes. All right. So yes, the endocrine disruption is a big deal.

STACEY: It is.

MARTIN: Women get it 10 to 1 over men. But in the end, the men get it to their prostate blowout in their 50s, 60s.

STACEY: Yes, but I think it's, so it's actually what the latest study it's making men infertile. So, you're not waiting till you're 50 for it to affect you. It's causing infertility now. Okay. Right. A lot of young people are having trouble conceiving these days.

MARTIN: Oh, yeah. It's big deal.

STACEY: Right.

MARTIN: Yeah. Atrazine and related fun stuff that just totally messes our ability.

STACEY: So atrazine is a chemical that they use for crops, specifically corn crops that can turn male frogs into egg-laying female frogs. That's how significant it affects the hormonal system.

MARTIN: Now, a frog, of course, is a fully permeable creature. Right. Frog's skin is essentially a permeable membrane.

STACEY: That is right.

MARTIN:  Unlike ours.

STACEY: We do have a semi permeable membrane.

MARTIN: Oh, we do.

STACEY: A lot of medications we do is via like hormones are via the skin because it absorbs so quickly.

MARTIN: Right. Now, what I was trying to get at is the frogs get it faster and sooner than we do.

STACEY: And that's how we can study them. Correct.

MARTIN: Right. However, be aware that the evidence is in, yeah. Okay. So again, the recipe is probably eat organic.

STACEY: Yeah.

MARTIN: Probably skip the grains altogether if you need to.

STACEY: Skip any fragrances.

MARTIN: Yes. Skip fragrances. Right. Unless it's natural, right? You can put some lavender on.

STACEY: That's correct. Yes. And eat one serving of protein, two servings of above the ground veggies every three to four hours in a 12 hour time period. Eat your three brazil nuts.

MARTIN: Yeah.

STACEY: Get your labs done, but make sure they're thorough and someone's reading them properly.

MARTIN: Yeah. Call Dr. Stacey Francis. She'll help you.

STACEY: I will. I'm happy to help. It's my favorite thing to do.

MARTIN: That's awesome. Yeah. It's, when you really break it down, it's not that complicated.

STACEY: It doesn't have to be. It doesn't mean it's easy though. Yeah. In our day and age, it's not easy. I mean, the holidays are coming up and everyone is going to be eating cookies and cake and crackers and all this processed and very high sugar.

MARTIN: And putting hairspray on their hair.

STACEY: And exactly, putting makeup on, Putting perfume on.

MARTIN: Oh, dear.

STACEY: Right?

MARTIN: Yeah.

STACEY: And I'm not saying you need to be a purist, but you do need to be aware and you need to know that there's a spectrum of health and illness and you want to be more towards the health side and less towards the illness side.

MARTIN: Yeah. I'd like to put a plea here. This is for, please do not use dryer sheets that are artificial fragrance.

STACEY: Exactly.

MARTIN: I was on a walk with my wife just yesterday and we go by this house and it's just, it makes me sick just walking past. Right.

STACEY: Especially when you know what it's doing. It's very sad. Yeah. Because they have great marketing.

MARTIN: Yeah. I wonder if you can explain this to me. Why is it that people who are using these products can't even tell that they are using them? They seem to be somehow immune to and not immune.

STACEY: They're immune to the scent. They don’t realize how strong the scent is because they use it so often.

MARTIN: Does it change their brain somehow?

STACEY: No, but it does coat the inner membranes of their nasal cavity. And so it does, your body actually gets accustomed to it, accommodates it.

MARTIN: Yeah. And I know that I can become nose blind to the room, right?

STACEY: Exactly.

MARTIN: I have to leave the room to smell it again.

STACEY: Right.

MARTIN: So I guess if it's on their laundry all the time, they don't even know it’s on.

STACEY: That's what I'm saying. Exactly.  

MARTIN: Yeah. Okay, people, wake up. All right. So, the words of wisdom. Well, you said it three times. So it's probably well set in. Yes. Make sure that you put your meals into a reasonable segment, 12 hours max. Make sure, especially if you're the thyroid type, then three meals, each with protein.

STACEY: Well, it could be four meals, but you want to do a meal and then you want to not eat. When you spike that insulin, you want to come down and then stay down until the next meal, you don't want to graze, because you have all these spikes along the way.

MARTIN: Yeah, I heard people being advised to be grazing. And I thought, six meals a day, I thought that was just not a good advice.

STACEY: Right. And so I'll qualify that by saying, there are people that are bodybuilders that do need to eat throughout, but they are working their bodies and utilizing their fuel so often throughout the day that they need that fuel continuously.

MARTIN: Because they have to put in 9,000 calories somehow.

STACEY: Right. And my hypothyroid, my hypoglycemic patients also, we start with eating every two and a half to three hours because sometimes they need to catch up. Their metabolism needs to catch up. Their fuel needs to be caught up and they need to keep balancing it. And that's where that specific comes in again, right? It's what works specifically for you. What's going to work for you doesn’t work for everyone, but needs to work for you. You need to know your own blueprint for your own life.

MARTIN: Right. Back when in your schooling, did you come across natural hygiene and food combining?

STACEY: Food combining, very, 28 years ago maybe?

MARTIN: Yeah, exactly that, 1980’s. But when I was dealing with my troubles, I read a lot and one of the things was food combining, which is this trick. You can eat endless amount of veggies, salad as big as you want, but only one concentrated food with it. By concentrated we mean either a piece of meat or a piece of root vegetable or something like that. So, you can have salad and rice, but no meat or salad and rice. Pardon me, salad and meat, no rice. Right. So only two things, not three.

STACEY: Yeah. I do remember hearing about that and reading about that. I don't prescribe it at this time, but if you do,

MARTIN: Well, here's the reason why I brought it up. It digests way faster. So, if you want to eat a lot, often, frequently, you will be able to eat frequently because your meal will be out of your stomach within two to three hours, rather than four and five. Because when you have a meal that's got a lot of parts to it, it takes longer to digest.

STACEY: Understood. Very good.

MARTIN: Yeah. Well, energy. So there are thousands upon thousands of people who are suffering with chronic fatigue. I have started group called: “Your Fibromyalgia Solutions and Support.”

STACEY: Nice.

MARTIN: 12 years ago. To this day, I think there are 120,000 people on it right now. And all they talk about is: “I cant get anything done. I have to choose the one thing. I'm either going to put laundry on or have a shower. I cannot do both.

STACEY: Right.

MARTIN: Like that.

STACEY: That is a broken system for sure.

MARTIN: Yeah. And whoever's listening to this now, if you know somebody like that, know that there's a way out. Doctors like Stacey Francis will be able to take a person and guide them by the hand out of that terrible situation. I promise you, you will do not find the help in the mainstream doctor's office. What else would you want to say about that?

STACEY: I think we said everything we need to say.

MARTIN: Yeah. All right. So, the website one more time is, I have it written down here somewhere www.specificwellness.com/

STACEY: Correct.

MARTIN: And the book's title is nice and long. “The Supercharged Method: Your Transformation from Fatigued to Energized.” Where would they find the book?

STACEY: Amazon.

MARTIN: All right. Go get it. Get it for your overweight cousin and for your tired grandma.

STACEY: Or your doctor. You can get it for your doctor. It’s meant for them, too.

MARTIN: Okay. That's pretty brave. The experience that I've had is most times they just say, I've learned so much at school. I don't think I need to learn more.

STACEY: Yeah. Well.

MARTIN: I don't know. Sorry. This is bad programming. All right. Buy the book, give it to your doctor. Let's hope that one of them will actually read it.

STACEY: Sounds good.

MARTIN: Doctor Stacey Francis. Thank you so much for putting the time in and caring so much about people that you do conversations like this.

STACEY:  Thank you so much for having me, Martin. Thank you